part I

am to act in the world is such, that I am to go on in doing good, though I meet with never so many repulses, even from those I oblige." This, thought I, shows a great good nature, but little judgment in the persons upon whom he confers his favours. He immediately took notice to me, that he observed by my countenance I thought him indiscreet in his beneficence, and proceeded to tell me his quality in the following manner: "I know thee, Isaac, to be so well versed in the occult sciences, that I need not much preface, or make long preparations to gain your faith that there are airy beings, who are employed in the care and attendance of men, as nurses are to infants, till they come to an age in which they can act of themselves. These beings are usually called amongst men, guardian angels; and, Mr. Bickerstaff, I am to acquaint you, that I am to be yours for some time to come; it being our orders to vary our stations, and sometimes to have one patient under our protection, and sometimes another, with a power of assuming what shape we please, to ensnare our wards into their own good. I have of late been upon such hard duty, and know you have so much work for me, that I think fit to appear to you face to face, to desire you would give me as little occasion for vigilance as you can." "Sir," said I, "it will be a great instruction to me in my behaviour, if you please to give me some account of your late employments, and what hardships or satisfactions you have had in them, that I may govern myself accordingly." He answered: "To give you an example of the drudgery we go through, I will entertain you only with my three last stations: I was on the 1st of April last, put to mortify a great beauty, with whom I was a week; from her I went to a common swearer, and have been last with a gamester. When I first came to my lady, I found my great work was to guard well her eyes and ears; but her flatterers were so numerous, and the house, after the modern way, so full of looking-glasses, that I seldom had her safe but in her sleep. Whenever we went abroad, we were surrounded by an army of enemies: when a well-made man appeared, he was sure to have a side-glance of observation: if a disagreeable fellow, he had a full face, out of mere inclination to conquests. But at the close of the evening, on the sixth of the last month, my ward was sitting on a couch, reading Ovid's 'Epistles'; and as she came to this line of Helen to Paris,

_She half consents who silently denies;_[191]

entered Philander,[192] who is the most skilful of all men in an address to women. He is arrived at the perfection of that art which gains them, which is, to talk like a very miserable man, but look like a very happy one. I saw Dictinna blush at his entrance, which gave me the alarm; but he immediately said something so agreeable on her being at study, and the novelty of finding a lady employed in so grave a manner, that he on a sudden became very familiarly a man of no consequence; and in an instant laid all her suspicions of his skill asleep, as he almost had done mine, till I observed him very dangerously turn his discourse upon the elegance of her dress, and her judgment in the choice of that very pretty mourning. Having had women before under my care, I trembled at the apprehension of a man of sense, who could talk upon trifles, and resolved to stick to my post with all the circumspection imaginable. In short, I prepossessed her against all he could say to the advantage of her dress and person; but he turned again the discourse, where I found I had no power over her, on the abusing her friends and acquaintance. He allowed indeed, that Flora had a little beauty, and a great deal of wit; but then she was so ungainly in her behaviour, and such a laughing hoyden--Pastorella had with him the allowance of being blameless: but what was that towards being praiseworthy? To be only innocent, is not to be virtuous. He afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple's forehead, Mrs. Prim's mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice's teeth, and Mrs. Fidget's cheeks, that she grew downright in love with him: for it is always to be understood, that a lady takes all you detract from the rest of her sex to be a gift to her. In a word, things went so far, that I was dismissed, and she will remember that evening nine months, from the 6th of April, by a very remarkable token. The next, as I said, I went to was a common swearer: never was creature so puzzled as myself when I came first to view his brain; half of it was worn out, and filled up with mere expletives, that had nothing to do with any other parts of the texture; therefore, when he called for his clothes in a morning, he would cry, 'John--?' John does not answer. 'What a plague! Nobody there? What the devil, and rot me! John, for a lazy dog as you are.' I knew no way to cure him, but by writing down all he said one morning as he was dressing, and laying it before him on the toilet when he came to pick his teeth. The last recital I gave him of what he said for half an hour before, was, 'What, a pox rot me! Where is the washball? Call the chairmen: damn them, I warrant they are at the ale-house already! Zounds, and confound them.' When he came to the glass, he takes up my note--'Ha! this fellow is worse than me: what, does he swear with pen and ink?' But reading on, he found them to be his own words. The stratagem had so good an effect upon him, that he grew immediately a new man, and is learning to speak without an oath, which makes him extremely short in his phrases; for, as I observed before, a common swearer has a brain without any idea on the swearing side; therefore my ward has yet mighty little to say, and is forced to substitute some other vehicle of nonsense to supply the defect of his usual expletives. When I left him, he made use of, 'Oddsbodikins!' 'Oh me!' and, 'Never stir alive!' and so forth; which gave me hopes of his recovery. So I went to the next I told you of, the gamester. When we first take our place about a man, the receptacles of the pericranium are immediately searched. In his, I found no one ordinary trace of thinking; but strong passion, violent desires, and a continued series of different changes, had torn it to pieces. There appeared no middle condition; the triumph of a prince, or the misery of a beggar, were his alternate states. I was with him no longer than one day, which was yesterday. In the morning at twelve, we were worth four thousand pounds; at three, we were arrived at six thousand; half an hour after, we were reduced to one thousand; at four of the clock, we were down to two hundred; at five, to fifty; at six, to five; at seven, to one guinea; the next bet, to nothing: this morning, he borrowed half a crown of the maid who cleans his shoes; and is now gaming in Lincoln's Inn Fields among the boys for farthings and oranges, till he has made up three pieces, and then he returns to White's into the best company in town." This ended our first discourse; and it is hoped, you will forgive me, that I have picked so little out of my companion at our first interview. In the next, it is possible he may tell me more pleasing incidents; for though he is a familiar, he is not an evil spirit.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 9.

We hear from the Hague of the 14th instant, N.S., that Monsieur de Torcy hath had frequent conferences with the Grand Pensioner, and the other Ministers who were heretofore commissioned to treat with Monsieur Rouillé. The preliminaries of a peace are almost settled, and the proceedings wait only for the arrival of the Duke of Marlborough; after whose approbation of the articles proposed, it is not doubted but the methods of the treaty will be publicly known. In the meantime, the States have declared an abhorrence of making any step in this great affair, but in concert with the Court of Great Britain, and other princes of the Alliance. The posture of affairs in France does necessarily oblige that nation to be very much in earnest in their offers; and Monsieur de Torcy hath professed to the Grand Pensioner, that he will avoid all occasions of giving him the least jealousy of his using any address in private conversations for accomplishing the ends of his embassy. It is said, that as soon as the preliminaries are adjusted, that Minister is to return to the French Court. The States of Holland have resolved to make it an instruction to all their men-of-war and privateers, to bring into their ports whatever neutral ships they shall meet with laden with corn, and bound for France; and to avoid all cause of complaint from the potentates to whom these ships shall belong, their full demand for their freight shall be paid them there. The French Protestants residing in that country have applied themselves to their respective magistrates, desiring that there may be an article in the treaty of peace, which may give liberty of conscience to the Protestants in France. Monsieur Bosnage, minister of the Walloon church at Rotterdam, has been at the Hague and hath had some conferences with the deputies of the States on that subject. It is reported there, that all the French refugees in those dominions are to be naturalised, that they may enjoy the same good effects of the treaty with the Hollanders themselves, in respect of France.

Letters from Paris say, the people conceive great hopes of a sudden peace, from Monsieur Torcy's being employed in the negotiation, he being a Minister of too great weight in that Court, to be sent on any employment in which his master would not act in a manner wherein he might justly promise himself success. The French advices add, that there is an insurrection in Poictou; 3000 men having taken up arms, and beaten the troops which were appointed to disperse them: three of the mutineers being taken, were immediately executed; and as many of the king's party were used after the same manner.

Our late Act of Naturalisation[193] hath had so great an effect in foreign parts, that some princes have prohibited the French refugees in their dominions to sell or transfer their estates to any other of their subjects; and at the same time have granted them greater immunities than they hitherto enjoyed. It has been also thought necessary to restrain their own subjects from leaving their native country, on pain of death.

[Footnote 191: Ovid's "Epistles," 1709; translation of "Helen's Epistle to Paris," by the Earl of Mulgrave and Dryden.]

[Footnote 192: An original for Philander has been found in Lord Halifax. See No. 49.]

[Footnote 193: See No. 9. "If the Whigs were now restored to power, the bill [for a general naturalisation] now to be repealed, would then be re-enacted, and the birthright of an Englishman reduced again to the value of twelve pence."--(_Examiner_, vol. i. No. 26.)]

No. 14. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday May 10_, to _Thursday, May 12_, 1709.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, May 10.

Had it not been that my familiar had appeared to me, as I told you in my last, in person, I had certainly been unable to have found even words, without meaning, to keep up my intelligence with the town: but he has checked me severely for my despondence, and ordered me to go on in my design of observing upon things, and forbearing persons; "for," said he, "the age you live in is such, that a good picture of any vice or virtue will infallibly be misrepresented; and though none will take the kind descriptions you make so much to themselves, as to wish well to the author, yet all will resent the ill characters you produce, out of fear of their own turn in the licence you must be obliged to take, if you point at particular persons." I took his admonition kindly, and immediately promised him to beg pardon of the author of the "Advice to the Poets,"[194] for my raillery upon his work; though I aimed at no more in that examination, but to convince him, and all men of genius, of the folly of laying themselves out on such plans as are below their characters. I hope too it was done without ill-breeding, and nothing spoken below what a civilian (as it is allowed I am) may utter to a physician. After this preface, all the world may be safe from my writings; for if I can find nothing to commend, I am silent, and will forbear the subject: for, though I am a reformer, I scorn to be an inquisitor.

It would become all men, as well as me, to lay before them the noble character of Verus the magistrate,[195] who always sat in triumph over, and contempt of, vice; he never searched after it, or spared it when it came before him: at the same time, he could see through the hypocrisy and disguise of those, who have no pretence to virtue themselves, but by their severity to the vicious. This same Verus was, in times long past, chief justice (as we call it amongst us) in Fælicia.[196] He was a man of profound knowledge of the laws of his country, and as just an observer of them in his own person. He considered justice as a cardinal virtue, not as a trade for maintenance. Wherever he was judge, he never forgot that he was also counsel. The criminal before him was always sure he stood before his country, and, in a sort, a parent of it. The prisoner knew, that though his spirit was broken with guilt, and incapable of language to defend itself, all would be gathered from him which could conduce to his safety; and that his judge would wrest no law to destroy him, nor conceal any that could save him. In his time, there were a nest of pretenders to justice, who happened to be employed to put things in a method for being examined before him at his usual sessions: these animals were to Verus, as monkeys are to men, so like, that you can hardly disown them; but so base, that you are ashamed of their fraternity. It grew a phrase, "Who would do justice on the justices?" That certainly would Verus. I have seen an old trial where he sat judge on two of them; one was called Trick-Track, the other Tearshift;[197] one was a learned judge of sharpers, the other the quickest of all men at finding out a wench. Trick-Track never spared a pickpocket, but was a companion to cheats: Tearshift would make compliments to wenches of quality, but certainly commit poor ones. If a poor rogue wanted a lodging, Trick-Track sent him to gaol for a thief: if a poor whore went only with one thin petticoat, Tearshift would imprison her for being loose in her dress. These patriots infested the days of Verus, while they alternately committed and released each other's prisoners. But Verus regarded them as criminals, and always looked upon men as they stood in the eye of justice, without respecting whether they sat on the bench, or stood at the bar.

Will's Coffee-house, May 11

Yesterday we were entertained with the tragedy of "The Earl of Essex,"[198] in which there is not one good line, and yet a play which was never seen without drawing tears from some part of the audience: a remarkable instance, that the soul is not to be moved by words, but things; for the incidents in this drama are laid together so happily, that the spectator makes the play for himself, by the force which the circumstance has upon his imagination. Thus, in spite of the most dry discourses, and expressions almost ridiculous with respect to propriety, it is impossible for one unprejudiced to see it untouched with pity. I must confess, this effect is not wrought on such as examine why they are pleased; but it never fails to appear on those who are not too learned in nature, to be moved by her first suggestions. It is certain, the person and behaviour of Mr. Wilks[199] has no small share in conducing to the popularity of the play; and when a handsome fellow is going to a more coarse exit than beheading, his shape and countenance make every tender one reprieve him with all her heart, without waiting till she hears his dying words.

This evening "The Alchemist"[200] was played. This comedy is an example of Ben's extensive genius and penetration into the passions and follies of mankind. The scene in the fourth act, where all the cheated people oppose the man that would open their eyes, has something in it so inimitably excellent, that it is certainly as great a masterpiece as has ever appeared by any hand. The author's great address in showing covetousness the motive of the actions of the Puritan, the epicure, the gamester, and the trader; and that all their endeavours, how differently soever they seem to tend, centre only in that one point of gain, shows he had to a great perfection, that discernment of spirit, which constitutes a genius for comedy.

White's Chocolate-house, May 11.

It is not to be imagined how far the violence of our desires will carry us towards our own deceit in the pursuit of what we wish for. A gentleman here this evening was giving me an account of a dumb fortune-teller,[201] who outdoes Mr. Partridge, myself, or the unborn-doctor,[202] for predictions. All his visitants come to him full of expectations, and pay his own rate for the interpretations they put upon his shrugs and nods. There is a fine rich City widow stole thither the other day (though it is not six weeks since her husband's departure from her company to rest), and, with her trusty maid, demanded of him, whether she should marry again, by holding up two fingers, like horns on her forehead. The wizard held up both his hands forked. The relict desired to know, whether he meant by his holding up both hands, to represent that she had one husband before, and that she should have another? Or that he intimated, she should have two more? The cunning-man looked a little sour; upon which Betty jogged her mistress, who gave the other guinea; and he made her understand, she should positively have two more; but shaked his head, and hinted, that they should not live long with her. The widow sighed, and gave him the other half-guinea. After this prepossession, all that she had next to do, was to make sallies to our end of the town, and find out who it is her fate to have. There are two who frequent this place, whom she takes for men of vogue, and of whom her imagination has given her the choice. They are both the appearances of fine gentlemen, to such as do not know when they see persons of that turn; and indeed, they are industrious enough to come at that character, to deserve the reputation of being such: but this town will not allow us to be the things we seem to aim at, and are too discerning to be fobbed off with pretences. One of these pretty fellows fails by his laborious exactness; the other, by his as much studied negligence. Frank Careless, as soon as his valet has helped on and adjusted his clothes, goes to his glass, sets his wig awry, tumbles his cravat; and in short, undresses himself to go into company. Will Nice is so little satisfied with his dress, that all the time he is at a visit, he is still mending it, and is for that reason the more insufferable; for he who studies carelessness, has, at least, his work the sooner done of the two. The widow is distracted whom to take for her first man; for Nice is every way so careful, that she fears his length of days; and Frank is so loose, that she has apprehensions for her own health with him. I am puzzled how to give a just idea of them; but in a word, Careless is a coxcomb, and Nice a fop: both, you'll say, very hopeful candidates for a gay woman just set at liberty. But there is a whisper, her maid will give her to Tom Terrour the gamester. This fellow has undone so many women, that he'll certainly succeed if he is introduced; for nothing so much prevails with the vain part of that sex, as the glory of deceiving them who have deceived others.

_Desunt multa_.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 11.

Letters from Berlin, bearing date May 11, N.S., inform us, that the birthday of her Prussian Majesty has been celebrated there with all possible magnificence; and the king made her on that occasion a present of jewels to the value of thirty thousand crowns. The Marquis de Quesne, who has distinguished himself by his great zeal for the Protestant interest, was, at the time of the despatch of these letters, at that Court, soliciting the king to take care, that an article in behalf of the refugees, admitting their return to France, should be inserted in the treaty of peace. They write from Hanover of the 14th, that his electoral highness had received an express from Count Merci, representing how necessary it was to the common cause, that he would please to hasten to the Rhine; for that nothing but his presence could quicken the measures towards bringing the imperial army into the field. There are very many speculations upon the intended interview of the King of Denmark and King Augustus. The latter has made such preparations for the reception of the other, that it is said his Danish Majesty will be entertained in Saxony with much more elegance than he met with in Italy itself.

Letters from the Hague of the 18th instant, N.S., say, that his Grace the Duke of Marlborough landed the night before at the Brill, after having been kept out at sea by adverse winds two days longer than is usual in that passage. His Excellency the Lord Townshend, her Majesty's ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the States-General, was driven into the Veere in Zealand on Thursday last, from whence he came to the Hague within few hours after the arrival of his grace. The duke, soon after his coming to the Hague, had a visit from the Pensioner of Holland. All things relating to the peace were in suspense till this interview; nor is it yet known what resolutions will be taken on that subject; for the troops of the Allies have fresh orders despatched to them to move from their respective quarters, and march with all expedition to the frontiers, where the enemy are making their utmost efforts for the defence of their country. These advices further inform us, that the Marquis de Torcy had received an answer from the Court of France to his letters which he had sent thither by an express on the Friday before.

Mr. Bickerstaff has received letters from Mr. Coltstaff, Mr. Whipstaff, and Mrs. Rebecca Wagstaff; all which relate chiefly to their being left out in the genealogy of the family lately published;[203] but my cousin being a clerk in the Heralds' Office who writ that draught, and being at present under the displeasure of the chapter, it is feared, if that matter should be touched upon at this time, the young gentleman would lose his place for treason against the Kings at Arms.[204]

[Footnote 194: Sir Richard Blackmore. See No. 3.]

[Footnote 195: Sir John Holt (see _Examiner_, vol. iv. No. 14) was born in 1642, made Recorder of London and knighted in 1686, and appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1689, a position which he filled very ably and impartially for twenty-one years. He died March 5, 1710.]

[Footnote 196: Britain.]

[Footnote 197: According to a MS. note in the copy of the Tatler referred to in a note to No. 4, these justices were "Sir H. C---- and Mr. C----r." Who the latter was I do not know; the former appears to be meant for Sir Henry Colt, of whom Luttrell gives some particulars. In April 1694, a Bill was found against Sir Henry Colt and Mr. Lake, son to the late Bishop of Chichester, for fighting a duel in St. James's Park; the trial was to be on May 31. Sir Henry Colt, a Justice of the Peace, had a duel with Beau Feilding on the 11th January, 1696, and Colt was run through the body. A reward of £200 was offered for Feilding's arrest, and he was captured in March; but in the following month he was set at liberty upon Colt promising not to prosecute. In July 1698, Colt unsuccessfully contested Westminster, and in December the Committee of Privileges decided that his petition against the return of Mr. Chancellor Montague and Mr. Secretary Vernon was vexatious, frivolous and scandalous; and Colt was put out of the commission of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex. In 1701, he became M.P. for Westminster, for one Parliament only. In August 1702, he was again displaced from being a Justice for Westminster. In July 1708, he was defeated at Westminster, and the petition which he lodged against Mr. Medlicot's election was dismissed, after Huggins, the head bailiff, had been examined.]

[Footnote 198: By John Banks, 1685.]

[Footnote 199: Robert Wilks died in 1732, age 62. See No. 182, and the _Spectator_, Nos. 268, 370: "When I am commending Wilks for representing the tenderness of a husband and a father in 'Macbeth', the contrition of a reformed prodigal in 'Harry the Fourth', the winning emptiness of a young man of good-nature and wealth in 'The Trip to the Jubilee', the officiousness of an artful servant in 'The Fox', when thus I celebrate Wilks, I talk to all the world who are engaged in any of those circumstances."]

[Footnote 200: Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" was published in 1610.]

[Footnote 201: Duncan Campbell, who is best known through Defoe's "History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, a gentleman, who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any strange name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune," 1720. Several other books about Campbell appeared, and some said that he only pretended to be deaf and dumb. Campbell had a very large number of clients (_Spectator_, No. 560). He died in 1730.]

[Footnote 202: The name of this quack was Kirleus. He pretended to extraordinary endowments, on the score of his having been introduced into the world by means of the Cesarean operation. In the _Examiner_, vol. i. No. 49, original edition in folio, there is among the advertisements subjoined, July 5, 1711, notice given that some of his nostrums, which had been tested for fifty years, were to be had of "Mary Kirleus, widow of John Kirleus, son of Dr. Tho. Kirleus, a sworn physician in ordinary to K. Charles II." Nichols says that there were two male and two female quacks of the name of Kirleus; Thomas the father, and his son John, Susannah the widow of Thomas, and Mary the relict of John; but it does not appear that any of them all were rich. The women, after the decease of their husbands, engaged in a paper war, which was carried on about this time in polemical advertisements. Dr. Kirleus and Dr. Case (see No. 20) are said to have been sent for to prescribe to Partridge in his last illness. Garth ("Dispensary," canto iii.) wrote:

"Whole troops of quacks shall join us on the place, From great Kirleus down to Doctor Case."

"In Grays-Inn-lane in Plow-yard, the third door, lives Dr. Thomas Kirleus, a Collegiate Physician and sworn Physician in Ordinary to King Charles the Second until his death; who with a drink and pill (hindring no business) undertakes to cure any ulcers," &c. &c. "Take heed whom you trust in physick, for it's become a common cheat to profess it. He gives his opinion to all that writes or comes for nothing" (_Athenian Mercury_, February 13, 1694). See also _Tatler_, Nos. 41, 226, 240.]

[Footnote 203: See No. 11.]

[Footnote 204: "Castabella's complaint is come to hand" (folio). See No. 16.]

No. 15. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 12_, to _Saturday, May 14_, 1709.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, May 12.

I have taken a resolution hereafter, on any want of intelligence, to carry my familiar abroad with me, who has promised to give me very proper and just notices of persons and things, to make up the history of the passing day. He is wonderfully skilful in the knowledge of men and manners, which has made me more than ordinary curious to know how he came to that perfection, and I communicated to him that doubt. "Mr. Pacolet," said I, "I am mightily surprised to see you so good a judge of our nature and circumstances, since you are a mere spirit, and have no knowledge of the bodily part of us." He answered, smiling, "You are mistaken, I have been one of you, and lived a month amongst you, which gives me an exact sense of your condition. You are to know, that all who enter into human life, have a certain date or stamen given to their being, which they only who die of age may be said to have arrived at; but it is ordered sometimes by fate, that such as die infants, are after death to attend mankind to the end of that stamen of being in themselves, which was broke off by sickness or any other disaster. These are proper guardians to men, as being sensible of the infirmity of their state. You are philosopher enough to know, that the difference of men's understanding proceeds only from the various dispositions of their organs; so that he who dies at a month old, is in the next life as knowing (though more innocent) as they who live to fifty; and after death, they have as perfect a memory and judgment of all that passed in their lifetime, as I have of all the revolutions in that uneasy, turbulent condition of yours; and, you'd say, I had enough of it in a month, were I to tell you all my misfortunes." "A life of a month, can't have, one would think, much variety; but pray," said I, "let us have your story."

Then he proceeds in the following manner:

"It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which I was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so happened, otherwise I had still, in all probability, been living: but I shall recount to you all the occurrences of my short and miserable existence, just as, by examining into the traces made in my brain, they appeared to me at that time. The first thing that ever struck my senses, was a noise over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought I took a full jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking and employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly frightened, and cried out, but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant I could not imagine; for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying, 'An heir, an heir'; upon which I grew a little still, and believed this was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and such as made them, what they called, Heirs. I lay very quiet; but the witch, for no manner of reason or provocation in the world, takes me and binds my head as hard as possibly she could, then ties up both my legs, and makes me swallow down a horrid mixture; I thought it a harsh entrance into life to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must have taken down a great instrument in which she gave it me. When I was thus dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady (my mother I wot) had like to have hugged me to death. From her, they faced me about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the rest of the room, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed wonderfully pleased to see me; but I knew since, my nose belonged to another family. That into which I was born, is one of the most numerous amongst you; therefore crowds of relations came every day to congratulate my arrival; among others, my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature; she whisks me such a height over her head, that I cried out for fear of falling. She pinched me, and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me anew, because I made a noise, to see what ailed me: she did so, and stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still cried: upon which, she lays me on my face in her lap; and to quiet me, fell a nailing in all the pins, by clapping me on the back, and screaming a lullaby. But my pain made me exalt my voice above hers, which brought up the nurse, the witch I first saw, and my grandmother. The girl is turned down stairs, and I stripped again, as well to find out what ailed me, as to satisfy my granam's further curiosity. This good old woman's visit was the cause of all my troubles. You are to understand, that I was hitherto bred by hand, and anybody that stood next, gave me pap, if I did but open my lips; insomuch, that I was grown so cunning, as to pretend myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed. But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their shape, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me, instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I was committed, and put to the breast. This careless jade was eternally romping with the footmen, and downright starved me; insomuch that I daily pined away, and should never have been relieved, had it not been, that on the thirtieth day of my life, a fellow of the Royal Society,[205] who had writ upon Cold Baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested, I was utterly lost for want of that method: upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned, and so escaped being lashed into a linguist till sixteen, running after wenches till twenty-five, and being married to an ill-natured wife till sixty: which had certainly been my fate, had not the enchantment between body and soul been broke by this philosopher. Thus, till the age I should have otherwise lived, I am obliged to watch the steps of men; and if you please, shall accompany you in your present walks, and get you intelligence from the aërial lackey, who is in waiting, what are the thoughts and purposes of any whom you inquire for." I accepted his kind offer, and immediately took him with me in a hack to White's.

White's Chocolate-house, May 13.

We got in hither, and my companion threw a powder round us, that made me as invisible as himself; so that we could see and hear all others; ourselves unseen and unheard.

The first thing we took notice of, was a nobleman of a goodly and frank aspect, with his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage and falsehood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ, Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour, and Posterity. The spectre over against him had on his counters the inscriptions of, Dishonour, Impudence, Poverty, Ignorance, and Want of Shame. "Bless me!" said I, "sure my lord does not see what he plays for!" "As well as I do," says Pacolet. "He despises that fellow he plays with, and scorns himself for making him his companion." At the very instant he was speaking, I saw the fellow who played with my lord, hide two cards in the roll of his stocking: Pacolet immediately stole them from thence; upon which the nobleman soon after won the game. The little triumph he appeared in, when he got such a trifling stock of ready money, though he had ventured so great sums with indifference, increased my admiration. But Pacolet began to talk to me. "Mr. Isaac, this to you looks wonderful, but not at all to us higher beings: that noble has as many good qualities as any man of his order, and seems to have no faults but what, as I may say, are excrescences from virtues: he is generous to a prodigality, more affable than is consistent with his quality, and courageous to a rashness. Yet, after all this, the source of his whole conduct is (though he would hate himself if he knew it) mere avarice. The ready cash laid before the gamester's counters makes him venture, as you see, and lay distinction against infamy, abundance against want; in a word, all that's desirable against all that's to be avoided." "However," said I, "be sure you disappoint the sharpers to-night, and steal from them all the cards they hide." Pacolet obeyed me, and my lord went home with their whole bank in his pocket.

Will's Coffee-house, May 13.

To-night was acted a second time a comedy, called "The Busy Body:"[206] this play is written by a lady. In old times, we used to sit upon a play here after it was acted; but now the entertainment is turned another way; not but there are considerable men appear in all ages, who, for some eminent quality or invention, deserve the esteem and thanks of the public. Such a benefactor is a gentleman of this house, who is observed by the surgeons with much envy; for he has invented an engine for the prevention of harms by love adventures, and by great care and application, hath made it an immodesty to name his name. This act of self-denial has gained this worthy member of the commonwealth a great reputation. Some lawgivers have departed from their abodes for ever, and commanded the observation of their laws till their return; others have used other artifices to fly the applause of their merit; but this person shuns glory with greater address, and has, by giving his engine his own name, made it obscene to speak of him more. However, he is ranked among, and received by the modern wits, as a great promoter of gallantry and pleasure. But I fear, pleasure is less understood in this age, which so much pretends to it, than in any since the creation. It was admirably said of him who first took notice, that (_res est severa voluptas_) there is a certain severity in pleasure. Without that, all decency is banished; and if reason is not to be present at our greatest satisfactions, of all the races of creatures, the human is the most miserable. It was not so of old; when Virgil describes a wit, he always means a virtuous man; and all his sentiments of men of genius are such as show persons distinguished from the common level of mankind; such as placed happiness in the contempt of low fears, and mean gratifications: fears, which we are subject to with the vulgar; and pleasures, which we have in common with beasts. With these illustrious personages, the wisest man was the greatest wit; and none was thought worthy of that character, unless he answered this excellent description of the poet:

_Qui--metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari._[207]

St. James's Coffee-house, May 13.

We had this morning advice, that some English merchant-ships, convoyed by the _Bristol_ of fifty-four guns, were met with by a part of Mons. du Guy Trouin's squadron, who engaged the convoy. That ship defended itself till the English merchants got clear of the enemy, but being disabled was herself taken. Within few hours after, my Lord Dursley[208] came up with part of his squadron and engaging the French, retook the _Bristol_ (which being very much shattered, sunk), and took the _Glorieux_, a ship of forty-four guns, as also a privateer of fourteen. Before this action, his lordship had taken two French merchant-men; and had, at the despatch of these advices, brought the whole safe into Plymouth.

[Footnote 205: Probably William Oliver, M.D., F.R.S., who published a Dissertation on Bath waters, and cold baths, in 1709 (_Flying Post_, Feb. 10 to 12, 1709). Sir John Floyer's "Inquiry into the right Use and Abuses of the Hot, Cold, and Temperate Baths in England, &c.," appeared in 1697.]

[Footnote 206: By Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, a lady of Whig views, who was possessed of considerable beauty. (See also No. 19.) Isaac Bickerstaff had promised a prologue to "The Busy Body" before it was to be first played, as appears from a poetical epistle of Mrs. Centlivre, claiming the performance of such a promise, printed by Charles Lillie ("Orig. Letters to _Tatler_ and _Spectator_" vol. ii. pp. 33, 34). Leigh Hunt ("The Town") suggests that Pope put Mrs. Centlivre in the "Dunciad" (ii. 410--"At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail") on account of her intimacy with Steele and other friends of Addison. Mrs. Centlivre (1667-1723) married, as her second husband, Mr. Carrol, a gentleman of the army, and afterwards Mr. Joseph Centlivre, principal cook to Queen Anne, 1706.]

[Footnote 207: Virgil, "Georgics," ii. 492.]

[Footnote 208: In November 1709, James Viscount Dursley was raised to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Blue. Next year he succeeded his father in the title of Earl of Berkeley.]

No. 16. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, May 14_, to _Tuesday, May 17_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, May 15.

Sir Thomas,[209] of this house, has shown me some letters from the Bath, which give accounts of what passes among the good company of that place; and allowed me to transcribe one of them, that seems to be writ by some of Sir Thomas' particular acquaintances, and is as follows:

"DEAR KNIGHT,

"I desire you would give my humble service to all our friends, which I speak of to you (out of method) in the very beginning of my epistle, lest the present disorders, by which this seat of gallantry and pleasure is torn to pieces, should make me forget it. You keep so good company, that you know Bath is stocked with such as come hither to be relieved from luxuriant health, or imaginary sickness, and consequently is always as well stowed with gallants as invalids, who live together in a very good understanding. But the season is so early, that our fine company is not yet arrived: and the warm Bath, which in heathen times was dedicated to Venus, is now used only by such as really want it for health's sake. There are however a good many strangers, among whom are two ambitious ladies, who being both in the autumn of their life, take the opportunity of placing themselves at the head of such as we are, before the Chloes, Clarissas, and Pastorellas come down. One of these two is excessively in pain, that the ugly being called Time will make wrinkles in spite of the lead forehead-cloth; and therefore hides, with the gaiety of her air, the volubility of her tongue, and quickness of her motion, the injuries which it has done her. The other lady is but two years behind her in life, and dreads as much being laid aside as the former, and consequently has taken the necessary precautions to prevent her reign over us. But she is very discreet, and wonderfully turned for ambition, being never apparently transported either with affection or malice. Thus, while Florimel is talking in public, and spreading her graces in assemblies, to gain a popular dominion over our diversions, Prudentia visits very cunningly all the lame, the splenetic, and the superannuated, who have their distinct classes of followers and friends. Among these, she has found that some body has sent down printed certificates of Florimel's age, which she has read and distributed to this unjoyful set of people, who are always enemies to those in possession of the good opinion of the company. This unprovoked injury done by Prudentia, was the first occasion of our fatal divisions here, and a declaration of war between these rivals. Florimel has abundance of wit, which she has lavished in decrying Prudentia, and giving defiance to her little arts. For an instance of her superior power, she bespoke the play of 'Alexander the Great,'[210] to be acted by the company of strollers, and desired us all to be there on Thursday last. When she spoke to me to come, 'As you are,' said she, 'a lover, you will not fail the death of Alexander: the passion of love is wonderfully hit--Statira! Oh that happy woman--to have a conqueror at her feet--but you will be sure to be there.' I, and several others, resolved to be of her party. But see the irresistible strength of that unsuspected creature, a silent woman. Prudentia had counterplotted us, and had bespoke on the same evening the puppet-show of 'The Creation of the World.'[211] She had engaged everybody to be there, and, to turn our leader into ridicule, had secretly let them know, that the puppet Eve was made the most like Florimel that ever was seen. On Thursday morning the puppet-drummer, Adam and Eve, and several others who lived before the Flood, passed through the streets on horseback, to invite us all to the pastime, and the representation of such things as we all knew to be true; and Mr. Mayor was so wise as to prefer these innocent people the puppets, who, he said, were to represent Christians, before the wicked players, who were to show Alexander, a heathen philosopher. To be short, this Prudentia had so laid it, that at ten of the clock footmen were sent to take places at the puppet-show, and all we of Florimel's party were to be out of fashion, or desert her. We chose the latter. All the world crowded to Prudentia's house, because it was given out, nobody could get in. When we came to Noah's flood in the show, Punch and his wife were introduced dancing in the Ark. An honest plain friend of Florimel's, but a critic withal, rose up in the midst of the representation, and made many very good exceptions to the drama itself, and told us, that it was against all morality, as well as rules of the stage, that Punch should be in jest in the Deluge, or indeed that he should appear at all. This was certainly a just remark, and I thought to second him; but he was hissed by Prudentia's party; upon which, really, Sir Thomas, we who were his friends, hissed him too. Old Mrs. Petulant desired both her daughters to mind the moral; then whispered Mrs. Mayoress, 'This is very proper for young people to see.' Punch at the end of the play made Madam Prudentia a compliment, and was very civil to the whole company, making bows till his buttons touched the ground. All was carried triumphantly against our party. In the meantime Florimel went to the tragedy, dressed as fine as hands could make her, in hopes to see Prudentia pine away with envy. Instead of that, she sat a full hour alone, and at last was entertained with this whole relation from Statira, who wiped her eyes with her tragical-cut handkerchief, and lamented the ignorance of the quality. Florimel was stung with this affront, and the next day bespoke the puppet-show. Prudentia, insolent with power, bespoke 'Alexander.' The whole company came then to 'Alexander.' Madam Petulant desired her daughters to mind the moral, and believe no man's fair words; 'For you'll see, children,' said she, 'these soldiers are never to be depended upon; they are sometimes here, sometimes there--don't you see, daughter Betty, Colonel Clod, our next neighbour in the country, pulls off his hat to you? Courtesy, good child, his estate is just by us.' Florimel was now mortified down to Prudentia's humour; and Prudentia exalted into hers. This was observed: Florimel invites us to the play a second time, Prudentia to the show. See the uncertainty of human affairs! The beaux, the wits, the gamesters, the prues,[212] the coquettes, the valetudinarians, and gallants, all now wait upon Florimel. Such is the state of things at this present date; and if there happens any new commotions, you shall have immediate advice from,

"Sir,

"Your affectionate Friend

"and Servant.

"Bath, _May 11_, 1709."

#"_To Castabella._#

"MADAM,

I have the honour of a letter from a friend of yours, relating to an incivility done to you at the opera, by one of your own sex; but I, who was an eye-witness of the accident, can testify to you, that though she pressed before you, she lost her ends in that design; for she was taken notice of for no other reason, but her endeavours to hide a finer woman than herself. But indeed, I dare not go farther in this matter, than just this bare mention; for though it was taking your place of right, rather than place of precedence, yet it is so tender a point, and on which the very life of female ambition depends, that it is of the last consequence to meddle in it: all my hopes are from your beautiful sex; and those bright eyes, which are the bane of others, are my only sunshine. My writings are sacred to you; and I hope I shall always have the good fortune to live under your protection; therefore take this public opportunity to signify to all the world, that I design to forbear anything that may in the least tend to the diminution of your interest, reputation, or power. You will therefore forgive me, that I strive to conceal every wrong step made by any who have the honour to wear petticoats; and shall at all times do what is in my power, to make all mankind as much their slaves as myself. If they would consider things as they ought, there needs not much argument to convince them, that it is their fate to be obedient to you, and that your greatest rebels do only serve with a worse grace.

"I am, Madam,

"Your most obedient, and

"most humble Servant,

"ISAAC BICKERSTAFF.

"_May 16._"

St. James's Coffee-house, May 16.

Letters from the Hague, bearing date the 21st instant, N.S., advise, that his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, immediately after his arrival, sent his secretary to the President and the Pensionary, to acquaint them therewith. Soon after, these Ministers visited the duke, and made him compliments in the name of the States-General; after which they entered into a conference with him on the present posture of affairs, and gave his grace assurances of the firm adherence of the States to the alliance: at the same time acquainting him, that all overtures of peace were rejected, till they had an opportunity of acting in concert with their allies on that subject. After this interview, the Pensionary and the President returned to the assembly of the States. Monsieur Torcy has had a conference at the Pensioner's house with his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and his Excellency the Lord Townshend. The result of what was debated at that time is kept secret; but there appears an air of satisfaction and good understanding between these Ministers. We are apt also to give ourselves very hopeful prospects from Monsieur Torcy's being employed in this negotiation, who has been always remarkable for a particular way of thinking, in his sense of the greatness of France; which he has always said, was to be promoted rather by the arts of peace, than those of war. His delivering himself freely on this subject, has formerly appeared an unsuccessful way to power in that Court; but in its present circumstances, those maxims are better received; and it is thought a certain argument of the sincerity of the French king's intentions, that this Minister is at present made use of. The marquis is to return to Paris within few days, who has sent a courier thither to give notice of the reasons of his return, that the Court may be the sooner able to despatch commissions for a formal treaty.

The expectations of peace are increased by advices from Paris of the 17th instant, which say, the Dauphin hath altered his resolution of commanding in Flanders the ensuing campaign. The Saxon and Prussian reinforcements, together with Count Merci's regiment of Imperial horse, are encamped in the neighbourhood of Brussels; and sufficient stores of corn and forage are transported to that place and Ghent for the service of the confederate army.

They write from Mons, that the Elector of Bavaria had advice, that an advanced party of the Portuguese army had been defeated by the Spaniards.

We hear from Languedoc, that their corn, olives and figs, were wholly destroyed; but that they have a hopeful prospect of a plentiful vintage.

[Footnote 209: The nickname of a waiter at White's (see No. 1).]

[Footnote 210: "The Rival Queens; or, Alexander the Great," by Nathaniel Lee, 1677.]

[Footnote 211: The following advertisement is among the Harleian MSS. (Bayford's Coll. 5931): "At Crawley's show at the Golden Lion, near St. George's Church, during the time of Southwark Fair, will be presented the whole story of the old 'Creation of the World, or Paradise Lost,' yet newly revived with the addition of 'Noah's Flood'; &c. The best known puppet-show man was Martin Powell. (See No. 236.)]

[Footnote 212: So in the folio and original collected editions. "Prue" was Steele's favourite name for his wife; here it means "prude," and no doubt Steele sometimes thought "dear Prue" was unnecessarily and unreasonably particular.]

No. 17. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 17_, to _Thursday, May 19_, 1709.

* * * * *

Will's Coffee-house, May 18.

The discourse has happened to turn this evening upon the true nature of panegyric, the perfection of which was asserted to consist in a certain artful way of conveying the applause in an indirect manner. There was a gentleman gave us several instances of it: among others, he quoted, from Sir Francis Bacon, in his "Advancement of Learning," a very great compliment made to Tiberius, as follows: In a full debate upon public affairs in the Senate, one of the assembly rose up, and with a very grave air said, he thought it for the honour and dignity of the commonwealth, that Tiberius should be declared a god, and have divine worship paid him. The Emperor was surprised at the proposal, and demanded of him to declare whether he had made any application to incline him to that overture? The senator answered, with a bold and haughty tone, "Sir, in matters that concern the commonwealth, I will be governed by no man."[213] Another gentleman mentioned something of the same kind spoken by the late Duke of B----m,[214] to the late Earl of O----y:[215] "My lord," says the duke, after his libertine way, "you will certainly be damned." "How, my lord!" says the earl with some warmth. "Nay," said the duke, "there's no help for it, for it is positively said, 'Cursed is he of whom all men speak well.'"[216] This is taking a man by surprise, and being welcome when you have so surprised him. The person flattered receives you into his closet at once; and the sudden change in his heart, from the expectation of an ill-wisher, to find you his friend, makes you in his full favour in a moment. The spirits that were raised so suddenly against you, are as suddenly for you. There was another instance given of this kind at the table: a gentleman who had a very great favour done him, and an employment bestowed upon him, without so much as being known to his benefactor, waited upon the great man who was so generous, and was beginning to say, he was infinitely obliged. "Not at all," says the patron, turning from him to another, "had I known a more deserving man in England, he should not have had it."

We should certainly have had more examples, had not a gentleman produced a book which he thought an instance of this kind: it was a pamphlet, called, "The Naked Truth."[217] The idea any one would have of that work from the title, was, that there would be much plain dealing with people in power, and that we should see things in their proper light, stripped of the ornaments which are usually given to the

## actions of the great: but the skill of this author is such, that he

has, under that rugged appearance, approved himself the finest gentleman and courtier that ever writ. The language is extremely sublime, and not at all to be understood by the vulgar: the sentiments are such as would make no figure in ordinary words; but such is the art of the expression, and the thoughts are elevated to so high a degree, that I question whether the discourse will sell much. There was an ill-natured fellow present, who hates all panegyric mortally. "P---- take him!" said he, "what the devil means his 'Naked Truth,' in speaking nothing but to the advantage of all whom he mentions? This is just such a great action as that of the champion's on a coronation day, who challenges all mankind to dispute with him the right of the sovereign, surrounded with his guards." The gentleman who produced the treatise, desired him to be cautious, and said, it was writ by an excellent soldier, which made the company observe it more narrowly: and, as critics are the greatest conjurers at finding out a known truth, one said, he was sure it was writ by the hand of his sword-arm. I could not perceive much wit in that expression: but it raised a laugh, and I suppose, was meant as a sneer upon valiant men. The same man pretended to see in the style, that it was a horse officer; but sure that's being too nice: for though you may know officers of the cavalry by the turn of their feet, I can't imagine how you should discern their hands from those of other men. But it is always thus with pedants, they will ever be carping; if a gentleman or a man of honour puts pen to paper, I don't doubt, but this author will find this assertion too true, and that obloquy is not repulsed by the force of arms. I will therefore set this excellent piece in a light too glaring for weak eyes, and, in imitation of the critic Longinus, shall, as well as I can, make my observations in a style like the author's, of whom I treat; which perhaps I am as capable of as another, having an unbounded force of thinking, as well as a most exquisite address, extensively and wisely indulged to me by the supreme powers. My author, I will dare to assert, shows the most universal knowledge of any writer who has appeared this century. He is a poet, and merchant, which is seen in two master-words, Credit Blossoms. He is a grammarian, and a politician; for he says, the uniting the two kingdoms is the emphasis of the security to the Protestant Succession. Some would be apt to say he is a conjurer; for he has found that a republic is not made up of every body of animals, but is composed of men only, and not of horses. Liberty and property have chosen their retreat within the emulating circle of a human commonwealth. He is a physician; for he says, "I observe a constant equality in its pulse, and a just quickness of its vigorous circulation." And again: "I view the strength of our Constitution plainly appear in the sanguine and ruddy complexion of a well-contented city." He is a divine; for he says, "I cannot but bless myself." And indeed, this excellent treatise has had that good effect upon me, who am far from being superstitious, that I, also, can't but bless myself.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 18.

This day arrived a mail from Lisbon, with letters of the 13th instant, N.S., containing a particular account of the late action in Portugal. On the 7th instant, the army of Portugal, under the command of the Marquis de Frontera, lay on the side of the Caya, and the army of the Duke of Anjou, commanded by the Marquis de Bay, on the other. The latter commander having an ambition to ravage the country, in a manner in sight of the Portuguese, made a motion with the whole body of his horse toward Fort St. Christopher, near the town of Badajos. The generals of the Portuguese, disdaining that such an insult should be offered to their arms, took a resolution to pass the river, and oppose the designs of the enemy. The Earl of Galway represented to them, that the present posture of affairs was such on the side of the Allies, that there needed no more to be done at present in that country, but to carry on a defensive part. But his arguments could not avail in the council of war. Upon which, a great detachment of foot, and the whole of the horse of the King of Portugal's army, passed the river, and with some pieces of cannon did good execution on the enemy. Upon observing this, the Marquis de Bay advanced with his horse, and attacked the right wing of the Portuguese cavalry, who faced about, and fled, without standing the first encounter. But their foot repulsed the same body of horse in three successive charges, with great order and resolution. While this was transacting, the British general commanded the brigade of Pearce to keep the enemy in diversion by a new attack. This was so well executed, that the Portuguese infantry had time to retire in good order, and repass the river. But that brigade, which rescued them, was itself surrounded by the enemy, and Major-General Sarkey, Brigadier Pearce, together with both their regiments, and that of the Lord Galway, lately raised, were taken prisoners.

During the engagement, the Earl of Barrymore having advanced too far to give some necessary order, was hemmed in by a squadron of the enemy; but found means to gallop up to the brigade of Pearce, with which he remains also a prisoner. My Lord Galway had his horse shot under him in this

## action; and the Conde de St. Juan, a Portuguese general, was taken

prisoner. The same night the army encamped at Aronches, and on the 9th moved to Elvas, where they lay when these despatches came away. Colonel Stanwix's regiment is also taken. The whole of this affair has given the Portuguese a great idea of the capacity and courage of my Lord Galway, against whose advice they entered upon this unfortunate affair, and by whose conduct they were rescued from it. The prodigious constancy and resolution of that great man is hardly to be paralleled, who, under the oppression of a maimed body, and the reflection of repeated ill fortune, goes on with an unspeakable alacrity in the service of the common cause. He has already put things in a very good posture after this ill accident, and made the necessary dispositions for covering the country from any further attempt of the enemy, who lie still in the camp they were in before the battle.

Letters from Brussels, dated the 25th instant, advise, that notwithstanding the negotiations of a peace seem so far advanced, that some do confidently report the preliminaries of a treaty to be actually agreed on; yet the Allies hasten their preparations for opening the campaign; and the forces of the Empire, the Prussians, the Danes, the Wirtembergers, the Palatines, and Saxon auxiliaries, are in motion towards the general rendezvous, they being already arrived in the neighbourhood of Brussels. These advices add, that the deputies of the States of Holland having made a general review of the troops in Flanders, set out for Antwerp on the 21st instant from that place. On the same day the Prince Royal of Prussia came thither _incognito_, with a design to make the ensuing campaign under his Grace the Duke of Marlborough.

This day is published a treatise called, "The Difference between Scandal and Admonition." By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; and on the 1st of July next, you may expect, "A Prophecy of Things Past; wherein the Art of Fortune-telling is laid open to the meanest capacity." And on the Monday following, "Choice Sentences for the Company of Masons and Bricklayers, to be put upon new Houses, with a translation of all the Latin sentences that have been built of late years, together with a comment upon stone walls," by the same hand.

[Footnote 213: See Tacitus, "Annals," i. 8.]

[Footnote 214: George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.]

[Footnote 215: Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery.]

[Footnote 216: Luke vi. 26.]

[Footnote 217: Like Nichols, I have not been able to see a copy of this pamphlet, or the defence of it, mentioned in No. 21; but a letter from Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, dated 20 May, 1709, throws some light on the matter: "Dear Brother, ... Brigadeer Crowder of late has made some talk in the Coffee Houses upon a peice he has lately been pleased to print, he did me the favour to show it me some time agoe in manuscript, and I complymented him with desiring a coppy of it, that I might have the pleasure of reading it more than once, and that I might communicate the like sattisfaction to you by sending it to Berlin. He told me it had the approbation of very ingenious men and good scholars, and his very good friends who had persuaded him to print it, and then you, as he always esteem'd to be such, shou'd be sure to have one. The day before yesterday he perform'd his promise but desir'd I wou'd not tell you directly who was the author, but recommend it to you with his most humble service, as from a friend of his. Yesterday came out this _Tatler_, and tho' I reckon myself a little base after all the fine complyments he made me upon my great judgment, I can't forbear sending it you as a fine peice of rallery upon his elaborate work, which I can assure you he has not been a little proud of. I han't seen him since to know if this _Tatler_ has given him any mortification. I know before he was prepar'd for the censorious, for he said lett people say what they wou'd, he was sure the intention was good, and his meaning for the service of the public. I am sorry he has printed, for he's very civill to me, and always profess a great respect for you, and I wou'd have none that does so exposed" ("Wentworth Papers," pp. 86-7). See No. 46. A writer in "Notes and Queries" (7 S. iii. 526), in reply to a question of mine, stated that there is a copy of "Naked Truth," 4to, 1709, in the Bamburgh Castle Library. The pamphlet is anonymous, but is ascribed in the catalogue to Colonel Crowder. In May 1710, Thomas Crowther was made a Major-General (Pointer's "Chron. History," ii. 679).]

No. 18. [STEELE AND ADDISON.[218]

From _Thursday, May 19_, to _Saturday, May 21_, 1709.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, May 20.

It is observed too often, that men of wit do so much employ their thoughts upon fine speculations, that things useful to mankind are wholly neglected; and they are busy in making emendations upon some enclitics in a Greek author, while obvious things, that every man may have use for, are wholly overlooked. It would be a happy thing, if such as have real capacities for public service, were employed in works of general use; but because a thing is everybody's business, it is nobody's business: this is for want of public spirit. As for my part, who am only a student, and a man of no great interest, I can only remark things, and recommend the correction of them to higher powers. There is an offence I have a thousand times lamented, but fear I shall never see remedied; which is, that in a nation where learning is so frequent as in Great Britain, there should be so many gross errors as there are in the very directions of things, wherein accuracy is necessary for the conduct of life. This is notoriously observed by all men of letters when they first come to town (at which time they are usually curious that way) in the inscriptions on sign-posts. I have cause to know this matter as well as anybody; for I have (when I went to Merchant Taylors' School) suffered stripes for spelling after the signs I observed in my way; though at the same time, I must confess, staring at those inscriptions first gave me an idea and curiosity for medals; in which I have since arrived at some knowledge.[219] Many a man has lost his way and his dinner by this general want of skill in orthography: for, considering that the painters are usually so very bad, that you cannot know the animal under whose sign you are to live that day, how must the stranger be misled, if it be wrong spelled, as well as ill painted? I have a cousin now in town, who has answered under Bachelor at Queen's College, whose name is Humphrey Mopstaff (he is akin to us by his mother). This young man going to see a relation in Barbican, wandered a whole day by the mistake of one letter; for it was written, "This is the BEER," instead of "This is the BEAR." He was set right at last, by inquiring for the house, of a fellow who could not read, and knew the place mechanically, only by having been often drunk there. But, in the name of goodness, let us make our learning of use to us, or not. Was not this a shame, that a philosopher should be thus directed by a cobbler? I'll be sworn, if it were known how many have suffered in this kind by false spelling since the union, this matter would not long lie thus. What makes these evils the more insupportable, is, that they are so easily amended, and nothing done in it. But it is so far from that, that the evil goes on in other arts as well as orthography. Places are confounded, as well for want of proper distinctions, as things for want of true characters. Had I not come by the other day very early in the morning, there might have been mischief done; for a worthy North Briton was swearing at Stocks Market,[220] that they would not let him in at his lodgings; but I knowing the gentleman, and observing him look often at the King on horseback, and then double his oaths, that he was sure he was right, found he mistook that for Charing Cross, by the erection of the like statue in each place. I grant, private men may distinguish their abodes as they please; as one of my acquaintance who lives at Marylebone, has put a good sentence of his own invention upon his dwelling-place, to find out where he lives: he is so near London, that his conceit is this, "The country in town; or, the town in the country"; for you know, if they are both in one, they are all one. Besides that, the ambiguity is not of great consequence; if you are safe at the place, it is no matter if you do not distinctly know where to say the place is. But to return to the orthography of public places: I propose that every tradesman in the cities of London and Westminster shall give me sixpence a quarter for keeping their signs in repair, as to the grammatical part; and I will take into my house a Swiss Count[221] of my acquaintance, who can remember all their names without book, for despatch sake, setting up the head of the said foreigner for my sign; the features being strong, and fit for hanging high.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 20.

This day a mail arrived from Holland, by which there are advices from Paris, that the kingdom of France is in the utmost misery and distraction. The merchants of Lyons have been at Court, to remonstrate their great sufferings by the failure of their public credit; but have received no other satisfaction, than promises of a sudden peace; and that their debts will be made good by funds out of the revenue, which will not answer, but in case of the peace which is promised. In the meantime, the cries of the common people are loud for want of bread, the gentry have lost all spirit and zeal for their country, and the king himself seems to languish under the anxiety of the pressing calamities of the nation, and retires from hearing those grievances which he hath not power to redress. Instead of preparations for war, and the defence of their country, there is nothing to be seen but evident marks of a general despair. Processions, fastings, public mournings, and humiliations, are become the sole employments of a people, who were lately the most vain and gay of any in the universe.

The Pope has written to the French king on the subject of a peace, and his Majesty has answered in the lowliest terms, that he entirely submits his affairs to divine providence, and shall soon show the world, that he prefers the tranquillity of his people to the glory of his arms, and extent of his conquests.

Letters from the Hague of the 24th say, that his Excellency the Lord Townshend delivered his credentials on that day to the States-General, as plenipotentiary from the Queen of Great Britain; as did also Count Zinzendorf, who bears the same character from the Emperor.

Prince Eugene intended to set out the next day for Brussels, and his Grace the Duke of Marlborough on the Tuesday following. The Marquis de Torcy talks daily of going, but still continues here. The army of the Allies is to assemble on the 7th of the next month at Helchin; though it is generally believed, that the preliminaries to a treaty are fully adjusted.

The approach of a peace[222] strikes a panic through our armies, though that of a battle could never do it, and they almost repent of their bravery, that made such haste to humble themselves and the French king. The Duke of Marlborough, though otherwise the greatest general of the age, has plainly shown himself unacquainted with the arts of husbanding a war. He might have grown as old as the Duke of Alva, or Prince Waldeck, in the Low Countries, and yet have got reputation enough every year for any reasonable man: for the command of general in Flanders hath been ever looked upon as a provision for life. For my part, I can't see how his grace can answer it to the world, for the great eagerness he hath shown to send a hundred thousand of the bravest fellows in Europe a begging. But the private gentlemen of the infantry will be able to shift for themselves; a brave man can never starve in a country stocked with hen-roosts. "There is not a yard of linen," says my honoured progenitor, Sir John Falstaff, "in my whole company; but as for that," says this worthy knight, "I am in no great pain, we shall find shirts on every hedge."[223] There is another sort of gentlemen whom I am much more concerned for, and that is, the ingenious fraternity of which I have the honour to be an unworthy member; I mean the news-writers of Great Britain, whether Postmen or Postboys,[224] or by what other name or title soever dignified or distinguished. The case of these gentlemen is, I think, more hard than that of the soldiers, considering that they have taken more towns, and fought more battles. They have been upon

## parties and skirmishes, when our armies have lain still; and given the

general assault to many a place, when the besiegers were quiet in their trenches. They have made us masters of several strong towns many weeks before our generals could do it; and completed victories, when our greatest captains have been glad to come off with a drawn battle. Where Prince Eugene has slain his thousands, Boyer[225] has slain his ten thousands. This, gentleman can indeed be never enough commended for his courage and intrepidity during this whole war: he has laid about him with an inexpressible fury, and like the offended Marius of ancient Rome, made such havoc among his countrymen, as must be the work of two or three ages to repair. It must be confessed, the redoubted Mr. Buckley[226] has shed as much blood as the former; but I cannot forbear saying (and I hope it will not look like envy) that we regard our brother Buckley as a Drawcansir,[227] who spares neither friend nor foe, but generally kills as many of his own side as the enemy's. It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a peace: every one remembers the shifts they were driven to in the reign of King Charles II., when they could not furnish out a single paper of news, without lighting up a comet in Germany, or a fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter without a paragraph on an earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familiar, that they had lost their name, as a great poet of that age has it. I remember Mr. Dyer,[228] who is justly looked upon by all the fox-hunters in the nation as the greatest statesman our country has produced, was particularly famous for dealing in whales; insomuch that in five months' time (for I had the curiosity to examine his letters on that occasion) he brought three into the mouth of the river Thames, besides two porpoises and a sturgeon. The judicious and wary Mr. I. Dawks[229] hath all along been the rival of this great writer, and got himself a reputation from plagues and famines, by which, in those days, he destroyed as great multitudes as he has lately done by the sword. In every dearth of news, Grand Cairo was sure to be unpeopled.

It being therefore visible, that our society will be greater sufferers by the peace than the soldiery itself; insomuch that the _Daily Courant_[230] is in danger of being broken, my friend Dyer of being reformed, and the very best of the whole band of being reduced to half-pay; might I presume to offer anything in the behalf of my distressed brethren, I would humbly move, that an appendix of proper apartments furnished with pen, ink, and paper, and other necessaries of life should be added to the Hospital of Chelsea,[231] for the relief of such decayed news-writers as have served their country in the wars; and that for their exercise, they should compile the annals of their brother-veterans, who have been engaged in the same service, and are still obliged to do duty after the same manner.

I cannot be thought to speak this out of an eye to any private interest; for, as my chief scenes of action are coffee-houses, play-houses, and my own apartment, I am in no need of camps, fortifications, and fields of battle, to support me; I don't call out for heroes and generals to my assistance. Though the officers are broken, and the armies disbanded, I shall still be safe as long as there are men or women, or politicians, or lovers, or poets, or nymphs, or swains, or cits, or courtiers in being.

[Footnote 218: It is very possible that the first article in this number (see the allusion to medals) is by Addison, as well as the account of the Distress of the News-writers.]

[Footnote 219: There is much about medals in Addison's "Remarks on several Parts of Italy," 1705. His "Dialogues on Medals" was published posthumously by Tickell.]

[Footnote 220: Stocks Market was so named from a pair of stocks which were erected there as early as the 13th century. The two statues referred to were really very unlike. The one was of white marble; the other, of brass, was originally intended for John Sobieski, King of Poland, but being bought by Sir Robert Viner in 1672, it was altered and erected in honour of King Charles II. The Turk underneath the horse was metamorphosed into Oliver Cromwell; but his turban escaped unnoticed or unaltered, to testify the truth. The statue in Stocks Market, with the conduit and all its ornaments, was removed to make way for the Mansion House in 1739. Marvell refers to these statues in his "Satires."]

[Footnote 221: Heidegger. See No. 12.]

[Footnote 222: The remainder of this paper is by Addison. See Steele's Preface, and his Dedication of "The Drummer" to Congreve.]

[Footnote 223: "There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St. Alban, or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry. But that's all one, they'll find linen enough on every hedge." (1 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 2).]

[Footnote 224: The Tory _Postboy_ was published by Abel Roper; and the Whig _Flying Post_ by George Ridpath:

"There Ridpath, Roper, cudgelled might ye view, The very worsted still looked black and blue."

("Dunciad," ii. 149.) It is remarkable that both Roper and Ridpath died on the same day, Feb. 5, 1726. Swift and others sometimes contributed to Roper's paper for party purposes.]

[Footnote 225: Abel Boyer (1667-1729), author of "The Political State of Great Britain," was a Whig journalist towards whom Swift felt bitterly. "The Secretary promises me to swinge him," he wrote in 1711; "I must make that rogue an example for a warning to others." Boyer compiled a valuable French and English dictionary.]

[Footnote 226: Samuel Buckley was printer of the _London Gazette, Daily Courant_, and _Spectator_. He died in 1741.]

[Footnote 227: Drawcansir, in "The Rehearsal," is described by another character as "a great hero, who frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard to number, good sense, or justice."]

[Footnote 228: John Dyer was a Jacobite journalist who issued a news-letter to country subscribers, among whom was Sir Roger de Coverley (_Spectator_, No. 127), by whom he was held in high esteem. Defoe (_Review_, vi. 132) says that Dyer "did not so much write what his readers should believe, as what they would believe." Vellum, in Addison's "The Drummer" (act ii. sc. i), cannot but believe his master is living, "because the news of his death was first published in Dyer's Letter." See also _Spectator_, Nos. 43 and 457. At the trial of John Tutchin for seditious libel (Howell's "State Trials," xiv. 1150), on complaint being made by counsel that Dyer had charged him with broaching seditious principles, Lord Chief Justice Holt said, "Dyer is very familiar with me too sometimes; but you need not fear such a little scandalous paper of such a scandalous author."]

[Footnote 229: Ichabod Dawks was another "epistolary historian" (see _Spectator_, No. 457, and _Tatler_, No. 178). Dawks and Dyer are both introduced by Edmund Smith, author of "Phædra and Hippolitus," in his poem, "Charlettus Percivallo suo":

"Scribe securus, quid agit Senatus, Quid caput stertit grave Lambethanum, Quid comes Guilford, quid habent novorum. "Dawksque Dyerque." ]

[Footnote 230: The _Daily Courant_, our first daily newspaper, was begun in 1702.]

[Footnote 231: Chelsea Hospital, for old soldiers, was founded in 1682.]

No. 19. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, May 21_, to _Tuesday, May 24_, 1709.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, May 23.

There is nothing can give a man of any consideration greater pain, than to see order and distinction laid aside amongst men, especially when the rank (of which he himself is a member) is intruded upon by such as have no pretence to that honour. The appellation of Esquire is the most notoriously abused in this kind of any class amongst men, insomuch that it is become almost the subject of derision: but I will be bold to say, this behaviour towards it proceeds from the ignorance of the people in its true origin. I shall therefore, as briefly as possible, do myself and all true esquires the justice to look into antiquity upon this subject.

In the first ages of the world, before the invention of jointures and settlements, when the noble passion of love had possession of the hearts of men, and the fair sex were not yet cultivated into the merciful disposition which they have showed in latter centuries, it was natural for great and heroic spirits to retire to rivulets, woods, and caves, to lament their destiny, and the cruelty of the fair persons who were deaf to their lamentations. The hero in this distress was generally in armour, and in a readiness to fight any man he met with, especially if distinguished by any extraordinary qualifications, it being the nature of heroic love to hate all merit, lest it should come within the observation of the cruel one, by whom its own perfections are neglected. A lover of this kind had always about him a person of a second value, and subordinate to him, who could hear his afflictions, carry an enchantment for his wounds, hold his helmet when he was eating (if ever he did eat); or in his absence, when he was retired to his apartment in any king's palace, tell the prince himself, or perhaps his daughter, the birth, parentage, and adventures, of his valiant master. This trusty companion was styled his esquire, and was always fit for any offices about him; was as gentle and chaste as a gentleman usher, quick and

## active as an equerry, smooth and eloquent as a master of the ceremonies.

A man thus qualified was the first, as the ancients affirm, who was called an esquire; and none without these accomplishments ought to assume our order: but, to the utter disgrace and confusion of the heralds, every pretender is admitted into this fraternity, even persons the most foreign to this courteous institution. I have taken an inventory of all within this city, and looked over every letter in the post-office for my better information. There are of the Middle Temple, including all in the buttery books, and in the lists of the house, 5000. In the Inner, 4000. In the King's Bench Walks, the whole buildings are inhabited by esquires only. The adjacent street of Essex, from Morris' Coffee-house, and the turning towards the Grecian, you cannot meet one who is not an esquire, till you take water. Every house in Norfolk and Arundel Streets is governed also by a squire, or his lady. Soho Square, Bloomsbury Square, and all other places where the floors rise above nine feet, are so many universities, where you enter yourselves, and become of our order. However, if this were the worst of the evil, it were to be supported, because they are generally men of some figure and use; though I know no pretence they have to an honour which had its rise from chivalry. But if you travel into the counties of Great Britain, we are still more imposed upon by innovation. We are indeed derived from the field: but shall that give title to all that ride mad after foxes, that halloo when they see a hare, or venture their necks full speed after a hawk, immediately to commence esquires? No, our order is temperate, cleanly, sober, and chaste; but these rural esquires commit immodesties upon haycocks, wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day. These men are also to the last degree excessive in their food: an esquire of Norfolk eats two pounds of dumpling every meal, as if obliged to it by our order: an esquire of Hampshire is as ravenous in devouring hogs' flesh: one of Essex has as little mercy on calves. But I must take the liberty to protest against them, and acquaint those persons, that it is not the quantity they eat, but the manner of eating, that shows a squire. But above all, I am most offended at small quillmen, and transcribing clerks, who are all come into our order, for no reason that I know of, but that they can easily flourish it at the end of their name. I'll undertake, that if you read the superscriptions to all the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to any but esquires. I have myself a couple of clerks, and the rogues make nothing of leaving messages upon each other's desk: one directs, to "Degory Goosequill, Esq."; to which the other replies by a note, to "Nehemiah Dashwell, Esq.; with respect." In a word, it is now, _populus armigerorum_, a people of esquires. And I don't know, but, by the late Act of Naturalisation,[232] foreigners will assume that title, as part of the immunity of being Englishmen. All these improprieties flow from the negligence of the Heralds' Office. Those gentlemen in parti-coloured habits do not so rightly, as they ought, understand themselves; though they are dressed _cap-a-pié_ in hieroglyphics, they are inwardly but ignorant men. I asked an acquaintance of mine, who is a man of wit, but of no fortune, and is forced to appear as Jack Pudding on the stage to a mountebank: "Prithee, Jack, why is your coat of so many colours?" He replied, "I act a fool, and this spotted dress is to signify, that every man living has a weak place about him; for I am knight of the shire, and represent you all." I wish the heralds would know as well as this man does, in his way, that they are to act for us in the case of our arms and appellations: we should not then be jumbled together in so promiscuous and absurd a manner. I design to take this matter into further consideration, and no man shall be received as an esquire, who cannot bring a certificate, that he has conquered some lady's obdurate heart; that he can lead up a country dance, or carry a message between her and her lover, with address, secrecy and diligence. A squire is properly born for the service of the sex, and his credentials shall be signed by three toasts, and one prude, before his title shall be received in my office.

Will's Coffee-house, May 23.

On Saturday last was presented, "The Busy Body," a comedy, written (as I have heretofore remarked) by a woman.[233] The plot and incidents of the play are laid with that subtlety of spirit which is peculiar to females of wit, and is very seldom well performed by those of the other sex, in whom craft in love is an act of invention, and not, as with women, the effect of nature and instinct.

To-morrow will be acted a play, called, "The Trip to the Jubilee."[234] This performance is the greatest instance that we can have of the irresistible force of proper action. The dialogue in itself has something too low to bear a criticism upon it: but Mr. Wilks enters into the part with so much skill, that the gallantry, the youth, and gaiety of a young man of a plentiful fortune, is looked upon with as much indulgence on the stage, as in real life, without any of those intermixtures of wit and humour, which usually prepossess us in favour of such characters in other plays.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 23.

Letters from the Hague of the 23rd instant, N.S., say, Mr. Walpole[235] (who is since arrived) was going with all expedition to Great Britain, whither they doubted not but he carried with him the preliminaries to a treaty of peace. The French Minister, Monsieur Torcy, has been observed in this whole negotiation to turn his discourse upon the calamities sent down by Heaven upon France, and imputed the necessities they were under to the immediate hand of Providence, in inflicting a general scarcity of provision, rather than the superior genius of the generals, or the bravery of the armies against them. It would be impious not to acknowledge the indulgence of Heaven to us; but at the same time, as we are to love our enemies, we are glad to see them mortified enough to mix Christianity with their politics. An authentic letter from Madame Maintenon to Monsieur Torcy has been stolen by a person about him, who has communicated a copy of it to some of the dependants of a Minister of the Allies. That epistle is writ in the most pathetic manner imaginable, and in a style which shows her genius, that has so long engrossed the heart of this great monarch.[236]

"SIR,

"I received yours, and am sensible of the address and capacity with which you have hitherto transacted the great affair under your management. You well observe, that our wants here are not to be concealed; and that it is vanity to use artifices with the knowing men with whom you are to deal. Let me beg you therefore, in this representation of our circumstances, to lay aside art, which ceases to be such when it is seen, and make use of all your skill, to gain us what advantages you can from the enemy's jealousy of each other's greatness; which is the place where only you have room for any dexterity. If you have any passion for your unhappy country, or any affection for your distressed master, come home with peace. O Heaven! Do I live to talk of Lewis the Great as the object of pity? The king shows a great uneasiness to be informed of all that passes; but at the same time, is fearful of every one who appears in his presence, lest he should bring an account of some new calamity. I know not in what terms to represent my thoughts to you, when I speak of the king, with relation to his bodily health. Figure to yourself that immortal man, who stood in our public places, represented with trophies, armour, and terrors, on his pedestal: consider, the Invincible, the Great, the Good, the Pious, the Mighty, which were the usual epithets we gave him, both in our language and thoughts. I say, consider him whom you knew the most glorious and great of monarchs; and now think you see the same man an unhappy Lazar, in the lowest circumstances of human nature itself, without regard to the state from whence he is fallen. I write from his bedside: he is at present in a slumber. I have many, many things to add; but my tears flow too fast, and my sorrow is too big for utterance.

"I am, etc."

There is such a veneration due from all men to the persons of princes, that it were a sort of dishonesty to represent further the condition which the king is in; but it is certain, that soon after the receipt of these advices, Monsieur Torcy waited upon his Grace the Duke of Marlborough and the Lord Townshend, and in that conference gave up many points, which he had before said were such, as he must return to France before he could answer.

[Footnote 232: See No. 13.]

[Footnote 233: Mrs. Centlivre. See No. 15.]

[Footnote 234: Wilks took the part of Sir Harry Wildair in Farquhar's "The Constant Couple; or, A Trip to the Jubilee," 1699.]

[Footnote 235: Horatio Walpole, Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague, and brother of Sir Robert Walpole.]

[Footnote 236: This letter is a pure invention.]

No. 20. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 24_, to _Thursday, May 26_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, May 24.

It is not to be imagined how far prepossession will run away with people's understandings, in cases wherein they are under present uneasiness. The following narration is a sufficient testimony of the truth of this observation.

I had the honour the other day of a visit from a gentlewoman (a stranger to me) who seemed to be about thirty. Her complexion is brown; but the air of her face has an agreeableness, which surpasses the beauties of the fairest women. There appeared in her look and mien a sprightly health; and her eyes had too much vivacity to become the language of complaint, which she began to enter into. She seemed sensible of it; and therefore, with downcast looks, said she, "Mr. Bickerstaff, you see before you the unhappiest of women; and therefore, as you are esteemed by all the world both a great civilian, as well as an astrologer, I must desire your advice and assistance, in putting me in a method of obtaining a divorce from a marriage, which I know the law will pronounce void." "Madam," said I, "your grievance is of such a nature, that you must be very ingenuous in representing the causes of your complaint, or I cannot give you the satisfaction you desire." "Sir," she answers, "I believed there would be no need of half your skill in the art of divination, to guess why a woman would part from her husband." "It is true," said I; "but suspicions, or guesses at what you mean, nay certainty of it, except you plainly speak it, are no foundation for a formal suit." She clapped her fan before her face; "My husband," said she, "is no more a husband" (here she burst into tears) "than one of the Italian singers."

"Madam," said I, "the affliction you complain of, is to be redressed by law; but at the same time, consider what mortifications you are to go through in bringing it into open court; how you will be able to bear the impertinent whispers of the people present at the trial, the licentious reflections of the pleaders, and the interpretations that will in general be put upon your conduct by all the world: 'How little,' will they say, 'could that lady command her passions.' Besides, consider, that curbing our desires is the greatest glory we can arrive at in this world, and will be most rewarded in the next." She answered, like a prudent matron, "Sir, if you please to remember the office of matrimony, the first cause of its institution is that of having posterity: therefore, as to the curbing desires, I am willing to undergo any abstinence from food as you please to enjoin me; but I cannot, with any quiet of mind, live in the neglect of a necessary duty, and an express commandment, Increase and multiply." Observing she was learned, and knew so well the duties of life, I turned my arguments rather to dehort her from this public procedure by examples, than precepts. "Do but consider, madam, what crowds of beauteous women live in nunneries, secluded for ever from the sight and conversation of men, with all the alacrity of spirit imaginable; they spend their time in heavenly raptures, in constant and frequent devotions, and at proper hours in agreeable conversations." "Sir," said she hastily, "tell not me of Papists, or any of their idolatries." "Well then, madam, consider how many fine ladies live innocently in the eye of the world, and this gay town, in the midst of temptation: there's the witty Mrs. W---- is a virgin of 44, Mrs. T----s is 39, Mrs. L----ce, 33; yet you see, they laugh and are gay, at the park, at the playhouse, at balls, and at visits; and so much at ease, that all this seems hardly a self-denial." "Mr. Bickerstaff," said she, with some emotion, "you are an excellent casuist; but the last word destroyed your whole argument; if it is not self-denial, it is no virtue. I presented you with a half-guinea, in hopes not only to have my conscience eased, but my fortune told. Yet--" "Well, madam," said I, "pray of what age is your husband?" "He is," replied my injured client, "fifty, and I have been his wife fifteen years." "How happened it, you never communicated your distress in all this time to your friends and relations?" She answered, "He has been thus but a fortnight." I am the most serious man in the world to look at, and yet could not forbear laughing out. "Why, madam, in case of infirmity, which proceeds only from age, the law gives no remedy." "Sir," said she, "I find you have no more learning than Dr. Case;[237] and I am told of a young man, not five and twenty, just come from Oxford, to whom I will communicate this whole matter, and doubt not but he will appear to have seven times more useful and satisfactory knowledge than you and all your boasted family." Thus I have entirely lost my client: but if this tedious narrative preserves Pastorella from the intended marriage with one twenty years her senior--To save a fine lady, I am contented to have my learning decried, and my predictions bound up with Poor Robin's Almanacks.

Will's Coffee-house, May 25.

This evening was acted, "The Recruiting Officer,"[238] in which Mr. Estcourt's[239] proper sense and observation is what supports the play. There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Sergeant Kite; but it is admirably supplied by his action. If I have skill to judge, that man is an excellent actor; but the crowd of the audience are fitter for representations at Mayfair, than a theatre royal. Yet that fair is now broke,[240] as well as the theatre is breaking: but it is allowed still to sell animals there. Therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Pinkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate.[241] The downfall of Mayfair has quite sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other curiosities of nature. A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox; and I am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs, for very near the value of one with four. I hear likewise, that there is a great desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of them pressed, and the queens beating hemp. Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for her ingenious puppet-show, has set up a shop in the Exchange,[242] where she sells her little troop under the term of jointed babies.[243] I could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that rake-hell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She told me, with a sigh, that despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting, with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as sentry to a brandy-shop. The great revolutions of this nature bring to my mind the distresses of the unfortunate Camilla[244], who has had the ill-luck to break before her voice, and to disappear at a time when her beauty was in the height of its bloom. This lady entered so thoroughly into the great characters she acted, that when she had finished her part, she could not think of retrenching her equipage, but would appear in her own lodgings with the same magnificence that she did upon the stage. This greatness of soul has reduced that unhappy princess to an involuntary retirement, where she now passes her time among the woods and forests, thinking on the crowns and sceptres she has lost, and often humming over in her solitude,

_"I was born of royal race, Yet must wander in disgrace," &c._

But for fear of being overheard, and her quality known, she usually sings it in Italian:

_"Naqui al regno, naqui al trono E pur sono Inventurata Pastorella--"_

Since I have touched upon this subject, I shall communicate to my reader part of a letter I have received from an ingenious friend at Amsterdam, where there is a very noble theatre; though the manner of furnishing it with actors is something peculiar to that place, and gives us occasion to admire both the politeness and frugality of the people.

My friends have kept me here a week longer than ordinary to see one of their plays, which was performed last night with great applause. The actors are all of them tradesmen, who, after their day's work is over, earn about a guilder a night by personating kings and generals. The hero of the tragedy I saw, was a journeyman tailor, and his first minister of state a coffee-man. The empress made me think of Parthenope[245] in "The Rehearsal"; for her mother keeps an ale-house in the suburbs of Amsterdam. When the tragedy was over, they entertained us with a short farce, in which the cobbler did his part to a miracle; but upon inquiry, I found he had really been working at his own trade, and representing on the stage what he acted every day in his shop. The profits of the theatre maintain a hospital: for as here they do not think the profession of an actor the only trade that a man ought to exercise, so they will not allow anybody to grow rich on a profession that in their opinion so little conduces to the good of the commonwealth. If I am not mistaken, your playhouses in England have done the same thing; for, unless I am misinformed, the hospital at Dulwich was erected and endowed by Mr. Alleyn,[246] a player: and it is also said, a famous she-tragedian[247] has settled her estate, after her death, for the maintenance of decayed wits, who are to be taken in as soon as they grow dull, at whatever time of their life that shall happen.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 25.

Letters from the Hague of the 31st instant, N.S., say, that the articles preliminary to a general peace were settled, communicated to the States-General and all the foreign Ministers residing there, and transmitted to their respective masters on the 28th. Monsieur Torcy immediately returned to the Court of France, from whence he is expected again on the 4th of the next month, with those articles ratified by that Court. The Hague is agreed upon for the place of treaty, and the 15th of the next month the day on which it is to commence. The terms on which this negotiation is founded, are not yet declared by public authority; but what is most generally received, is as follows:

Her Majesty's right and title, and the Protestant succession to those dominions, is forthwith to be acknowledged. King Charles is also to be owned the lawful sovereign of Spain; and the French king shall not only recall his troops out of that kingdom, and deliver up to the Allies the towns of Roses, Fontarabia, and Pampeluna; but in case the Duke of Anjou shall not retire out of the Spanish dominions, he shall be obliged to assist the Allies to force him from thence. A cessation of arms is agreed upon for two months from the first day of the treaty. The port and fortifications of Dunkirk are to be demolished within four months; but the town itself left in the hands of the French. The Pretender is to be obliged to leave France. All Newfoundland is to be restored to the English. As to the other parts of America, the French are to restore whatever they may have taken from the English, as the English in like manner to give up what they may have taken from the French before the commencement of the treaty. The trade between Great Britain and France shall be settled upon the same foundation as in the reign of King Charles II.

The Dutch are to have for their barriers, Nieuport, Berg, St. Vinox, Furnes, Ipres, Lille, Tournay, Douay, Valenciennes, Condé, Maubeuge, Mons, Charleroy, Namur, and Luxemburg; all which places shall be delivered up to the Allies before the end of June. The trade between Holland and France shall be on the same foot as in 1664. The cities of Strasburg, Brisac, and Alsatia, shall be restored to the Emperor and Empire; and the King of France, pursuant to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, shall only retain the protection of ten imperial cities, viz., Colmar, Schlestat, Haguenau, Munster, Turkeim, Keisemberg, Obrenheim, Rosheim, Weisemburg, and Landau. Huninguen, Fort Louis, Fort Kiel, and New Brisac shall be demolished, and all the fortifications from Basle to Philipsburg. The King of Prussia shall remain in the peaceable possession of Neufchatel. The affair of Orange, as also the pretensions of his Prussian Majesty in the French Comté, shall be determined at this general negotiation of peace. The Duke of Savoy shall have a restitution made of all that has been taken from him by the French, and remain master of Exilles, Chamont, Fenestrelles, and the Valley of Pragelas.[248]

[Footnote 237: John Case, astrologer and friend of John Partridge, succeeded to Saffold's habitation in Blackfriars gateway, opposite to Ludgate Church, whence he issued many advertisements. "Their old physician begged they would not forget him--he gives his advice for nothing--his cures are private. At Lilly's Head, &c., is the only place to obtain health, long life, and happiness, by your old friend Dr. Case, who extirpates the foundation of all diseases":

"At the Golden Ball and Lillie's Head John Case lives though Saffold's dead."

His handbills were commonly adorned with a variety of emblematic devices and poetry. See note on Kirleus, in No. 14; and Nos. 216, 240. Case's most important book was his "Compendium Anatomicum nova methodo institutum," 1695.]

[Footnote 238: By Farquhar; first acted in 1706.]

[Footnote 239: Richard Estcourt (1668-1712), whom Farquhar specially selected to act the part of Sergeant Kite, is celebrated by Steele in a well-known paper in the _Spectator_ (No. 468; see also No. 390). Estcourt was providore of the Beefsteak Club, and wrote two or three dramatic pieces. See No. 51.]

[Footnote 240: See No. 4. This article was printed by Tickell among Addison's works.]

[Footnote 241: In 1704, Pinkethman advertised that at his booth he would speak an epilogue upon an elephant between nine and ten feet high, arrived from Guinea, led upon the stage by six blacks.]

[Footnote 242: This may be either the Royal Exchange or the New Exchange, in the Strand. There were shops for the sale of trinkets and toys at both places.]

[Footnote 243: "Baby" was a term often applied to dolls.]

[Footnote 244: Mrs. Katherine Tofts sang in English to Nicolini's Italian, in Buononcini's opera of "Camilla," but this absurdity was forgiven on account of the charm of their voices. In 1709, in the height of her beauty, Mrs. Tofts left the stage, owing to her intellect becoming disordered; but afterwards she married Mr. Joseph Smith, a gentleman who lived in great state; but his wife's mind again gave way, and she spent hours walking and singing in a garden attached to a remote part of the house. She died in 1760. See _Spectator,_ Nos. 18, 22 and 443, where there is a letter purporting to be from Mrs. Tofts, at Venice.]

[Footnote 245: In act iii. sc. 2 of "The Rehearsal," Prince Volscius falls in love at first sight with Parthenope, who says:

"My mother, sir, sells ale by the town-walls, And me her dear Parthenope she calls;"

whereupon Volscius (repeating words from Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes") replies:

"Can vulgar vestments high-born beauty shroud? Thou bring'st the morning pictured in a cloud." ]

[Footnote 246: Edward Alleyn, the actor, who died in 1626, aged 61, founded Dulwich Hospital.]

[Footnote 247: Mrs. Bracegirdle; see No. 1.]

[Footnote 248: "It is said that Monsieur Torcy, when he signed this instrument broke into this exclamation: 'Would Colbert have signed such a treaty for France?' On which a Minister present was pleased to say, 'Colbert himself would have been proud to have saved France in these circumstances on such terms'" (folio).]

No. 21. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 26_, to _Saturday, May 28_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, May 26.

A gentleman has writ to me out of the country a very civil letter, and said things which I suppress with great violence to my vanity. There are many terms in my narratives which he complains want explaining, and has therefore desired, that, for the benefit of my country readers, I would let him know what I mean by a Gentleman, a Pretty Fellow, a Toast, a Coquette, a Critic, a Wit, and all other appellations in the gayer world, who are in present possession of these several characters; together with an account of those who unfortunately pretend to them. I shall begin with him we usually call a Gentleman, or man of conversation. It is generally thought, that warmth of imagination, quick relish of pleasure, and a manner of becoming it, are the most essential qualities for forming this sort of man. But any one that is much in company will observe, that the height of good breeding is shown rather in never giving offence, than in doing obliging things. Thus, he that never shocks you, though he is seldom entertaining, is more likely to keep your favour, than he who often entertains, and sometimes displeases you. The most necessary talent therefore in a man of conversation, which is what we ordinarily intend by a fine gentleman, is a good judgment. He that has this in perfection, is master of his companion, without letting him see it; and has the same advantage over men of any other qualifications whatsoever, as one that can see would have over a blind man of ten times his strength. This is what makes Sophronius the darling of all who converse with him, and the most powerful with his acquaintance of any man in town. By the light of this faculty, he acts with great ease and freedom among the men of pleasure, and acquits himself with skill and despatch among the men of business. This he performs with so much success, that, with as much discretion in life as any man ever had, he neither is, nor appears, cunning. But as he does a good office, if he ever does it, with readiness and alacrity; so he denies what he does not care to engage in, in a manner that convinces you, that you ought not to have asked it. His judgment is so good and unerring, and accompanied with so cheerful a spirit, that his conversation is a continual feast, at which he helps some, and is helped by others, in such a manner, that the equality of society is perfectly kept up, and every man obliges as much as he is obliged: for it is the greatest and justest skill in a man of superior understanding, to know how to be on a level with his companions. This sweet disposition runs through all the actions of Sophronius, and makes his company desired by women, without being envied by men. Sophronius would be as just as he is, if there were no law; and would be as discreet as he is, if there were no such thing as calumny.

In imitation of this agreeable being, is made that animal we call a Pretty Fellow; who being just able to find out, that what makes Sophronius acceptable, is a natural behaviour; in order to the same reputation, makes his own an artificial one. Jack Dimple is his perfect mimic, whereby he is of course the most unlike him of all men living. Sophronius just now passed into the inner room directly forward: Jack comes as fast after as he can for the right and left looking-glass, in which he had but just approved himself by a nod at each, and marched on. He will meditate within for half an hour, till he thinks he is not careless enough in his air, and come back to the mirror to recollect his forgetfulness.

Will's Coffee-house, May 27.

This night was acted the comedy, called, "The Fox";[249] but I wonder the modern writers do not use their interest in the house to suppress such representations. A man that has been at this, will hardly like any other play during the season: therefore I humbly move, that the writings, as well as dresses, of the last age, should give way to the present fashion. We are come into a good method enough (if we were not interrupted in our mirth by such an apparition as a play of Jonson's) to be entertained at more ease, both to the spectator and the writer, than in the days of old. It is no difficulty to get hats, and swords, and wigs, and shoes, and everything else, from the shops in town, and make a man show himself by his habit, without more ado, to be a counsellor, a fop, a courtier, or a citizen, and not be obliged to make those characters talk in different dialects to be distinguished from each other. This is certainly the surest and best way of writing: but such a play as this makes a man for a month after overrun with criticism, and inquire, what every man on the stage said? What had such a one to do to meddle with such a thing? How came the other, who was bred after such a manner, to speak so like a man conversant among a different people? These questions rob us of all our pleasure; for at this rate, no one sentence in a play should be spoken by any one character, which could possibly enter into the head of any other man represented in it; but every sentiment should be peculiar to him only who utters it. Laborious Ben's works will bear this sort of inquisition; but if the present writers were thus examined, and the offences against this rule cut out, few plays would be long enough for the whole evening's entertainment. But I don't know how they did in those old times: this same Ben Jonson has made every one's passion in this play be towards money, and yet not one of them expresses that desire, or endeavours to obtain it any way but what is peculiar to him only: one sacrifices his wife, another his profession, another his posterity from the same motive; but their characters are kept so skilfully apart, that it seems prodigious their discourses should rise from the invention of the same author. But the poets are a nest of hornets, and I'll drive these thoughts no farther, but must mention some hard treatment I am like to meet with from my brother-writers. I am credibly informed, that the author of a play, called, "Love in a Hollow Tree,"[250] has made some remarks upon my late discourse on "The Naked Truth."[251] I cannot blame a gentleman for writing against any error; it is for the good of the learned world. But I would have the thing fairly left between us two, and not under the protection of patrons. But my intelligence is, that he has dedicated his treatise to the Honourable Mr. Ed----d H----rd.[252]

From my own Apartment, May 27.

"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._

"York, May 16, 1709.

"SIR,

"Being convinced as the whole world is, how infallible your predictions are, and having the honour to be your near relation, of the Staffian family, I was under great concern at one of your predictions relating to yourself, wherein you foretold your own death would happen on the 17th instant, unless it were prevented by the assistance of well-disposed people:[253] I have therefore prevailed on my own modesty to send you a piece of news, which may serve instead of Goddard's Drops,[254] to keep you alive for two days, till nature be able to recover itself, or till you meet with some better help from other hands. Therefore, without further ceremony, I will go on to relate a singular adventure just happened in the place where I am writing, wherein it may be highly useful for the public to be informed.[255]

"Three young ladies of our town were on Saturday last indicted for witchcraft. The witnesses against the first deposed upon oath before Justice Bindover, that she kept spirits locked up in velvets, which sometimes appeared in flames of blue fire; that she used magical herbs, with some of which she drew in hundreds of men daily to her, who went out from her presence all inflamed, their mouths parched, and a hot steam issuing from them, attended with a grievous stench; that many of the said men were by the force of that herb metamorphosed into swine, and lay wallowing in the kennels for twenty-four hours, before they could reassume their shapes or their senses.

"It was proved against the second, that she cut off by night the limbs from dead bodies that were hanged, and was seen to dig holes in the ground, to mutter some conjuring words, and bury pieces of the flesh, after the usual manner of witches.

"The third was accused for a notorious piece of sorcery, long practised by hags, of moulding up pieces of dough into the shapes of men, women, and children; then heating them at a gentle fire, which had a sympathetic power to torment the bowels of those in the neighbourhood.

"This was the sum of what was objected against the three ladies, who indeed had nothing to say in their own defence, but downright denying the facts, which is like to avail very little when they come upon their trials.

"But the parson of our parish, a strange refractory man, will believe nothing of all this; so that the whole town cries out, 'Shame! that one of his coat should be such an atheist;' and design to complain of him to the bishop. He goes about very oddly to solve the matter. He supposes, that the first of these ladies keeping a brandy and tobacco shop, the fellows went out smoking, and got drunk towards evening, and made themselves beasts. He says, the second is a butcher's daughter, and sometimes brings a quarter of mutton from the slaughter-house overnight against a market-day, and once buried a bit of beef in the ground, as a known receipt to cure warts on her hands. The parson affirms, that the third sells gingerbread, which, to please the children, she is forced to stamp with images before it is baked; and if it burns their guts, it is because they eat too much, or do not drink after it.

"These are the answers he gives to solve this wonderful phenomenon; upon which I shall not animadvert, but leave it among the philosophers: and so wishing you all success in your undertakings for the amendment of the world, I remain,

"Dear Cousin,

"Your most affectionate Kinsman,

"and humble Servant,

"EPHRAIM BEDSTAFF."

"P.S.--Those who were condemned to death among the Athenians, were obliged to take a dose of poison, which made them die upwards, seizing first upon their feet, making them cold and insensible, and so ascending gradually, till it reached the vital parts. I believe your death, which you foretold would happen on the 17th instant, will fall out the same way, and that your distemper hath already seized on you, and makes progress daily. The lower part of you, that is, the advertisements,[256] is dead; and these have risen for these ten days last past, so that they now take up almost a whole paragraph. Pray, sir, do your endeavour to drive this distemper as much as possible to the extreme parts, and keep it there, as wise folks do the gout; for if it once gets into your stomach, it will soon fly up into your head, and you are a dead man."

St. James's Coffee-house, May 27.

We hear from Leghorn, that Sir Edward Whitaker, with five men-of-war, four transports, and two fire-ships, was arrived at that port, and Admiral Byng was suddenly expected. Their squadrons being joined, they design to sail directly for Final, to transport the reinforcements, lodged in those parts, to Barcelona.

They write from Milan, that Count Thaun arrived there on the 16th instant, N.S., and proceeded on his journey to Turin on the 21st, in order to concert such measures with his royal highness, as shall appear necessary for the operations of the ensuing campaign.

Advices from Dauphiny say, that the troops of the Duke of Savoy began already to appear in those valleys, whereof he made himself master the last year; and that the Duke of Berwick applied himself with all imaginable diligence to secure the passes of the mountains by ordering entrenchments to be made towards Briançon, Tourneau, and the Valley of Queiras. That general has also been at Marseilles and Toulon, to hasten the transportation of the corn and provisions designed for his army.

Letters from Vienna, bearing date May 23, N.S., import, that the Cardinal of Saxe-Zeits and the Prince of Lichtenstein were preparing to set out for Presburg, to assist at the Diet of the States of Hungary, which is to be assembled at that place on the 25th of this month. General Heister would shortly appear at the head of his army at Trentschin, which place is appointed for the general rendezvous of the Imperial forces in Hungary; from whence he will advance to lay siege to Neuhausel: in the meantime, reinforcements, with a great train of artillery, are marching the same way. The King of Denmark arrived on the both instant at Innspruck, and on the 26th at Dresden, under a triple discharge of the artillery of that place; but his Majesty refused the ceremonies of a public entry.

Our letters from the Upper Rhine say, that the Imperial army began to form itself at Etlingen; where the respective deputies of the Elector Palatine, the Prince of Baden Durlach, the Bishopric of Spires, &c. were assembled, and had taken the necessary measures for the provision of forage, the security of the country against the incursions of the enemy, and laying a bridge over the Rhine. Several vessels laden with corn are daily passing before Frankfort for the Lower Rhine.

Letters from Poland inform us, that a detachment of Muscovite cavalry, under the command of General Infland, had joined the confederate army; and the infantry commanded by General Goltz, was expected to come up within few days. These succours will amount to 20,000 men.

Our last advices from the Hague, dated June the 4th, N.S., say, that they expected a courier from the French Court with the ratification of the preliminaries that night or the day following. His Grace the Duke of Marlborough will set out for Brussels on Wednesday or Thursday next, if the despatches which are expected from Paris don't alter his resolutions. Letters from Majorca confirm the honourable capitulation of the castle of Alicante, and also the death of the governor, Major-General Richards, Colonel Sibourg, and Major Vignolles, who were all buried in the ruins of that place, by the springing of their great mine, which did, it seems, more execution than was reported. Monsieur Torcy passed through Mons in his return, and had there a long conference with the Elector of Bavaria; after which, that prince spoke publicly of the treatment he had from France with the utmost indignation.

Any person that shall come publicly abroad in a fantastical habit, contrary to the present mode and fashion, except Don Diego Dismallo,[257] or any other out of poverty, shall have his name and dress inserted in our next.

N.B.--Mr. How'd'call is desired to leave off those buttons.

[Footnote 249: Ben Jonson's "Volpone; or, The Fox."]

[Footnote 250: The comedy, "Love in a Hollow Tree; or, The Lawyer's Fortune," was published by William, Lord Viscount Grimston (1683-1756), when he was twenty-two years of age. On the occasion of a contested election for the borough of St. Albans (1736), it was reprinted--by the Duchess of Marlborough, it is said--with notes attacking the author, and adorned with the frontispiece of an elephant dancing on a rope. The viscount bought up as nearly as he could the whole edition. "This worthy notleman was a good husband to one of the best of wives, an indulgent father of a numerous offspring, a kind master to his servants, a generous friend, and an affable, hospitable neighbour." (Biog. Dram.)]

[Footnote 251: See No. 17]

[Footnote 252: Probably the Hon. Edward Howard, second son of Henry, fifth Earl of Suffolk. On the death of his nephew without issue in 1722, he became eighth Earl of Suffolk, but he died unmarried in 1731.]

[Footnote 253: See No. 7.]

[Footnote 254: Dr. Jonathan Goddard, the physician and confidant of Cromwell, a member of the Royal Society, and medical professor of Gresham College, discovered in the course of his chemical experiments, the famous elixir, called here his "drops." Dr. Goddard died of an apoplexy in 1675. "March 24, 1674-5. About 10 o'clock that night, my very good friend, Dr. Jonathan Goddard, reader of the physic lectures at Gresham College, suddenly fell down dead in the street, as he was entering into a coach. He was a pretty corpulent and tall man, a bachelor between 45 and 50 years of age; he was melancholy, inclined to be cynical, and used now and then to complain of giddiness in his head. He was an excellent mathematician, and some time physician to Oliver the Protector" (John Coniers, apothecary, in Shoe Lane. MSS. Sloan. 958). The "drops" were a preparation of spirit of hartshorn, with other things; they were used in fainting, apoplexies, &c.]

[Footnote 255: With this satire on the vulgar prejudices concerning witches, may be compared what Addison says in the _Spectator_ (No. 117): "I believe in general that there is and has been such a thing as witchcraft; but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it."]

[Footnote 256: The number of advertisements in the Tatler gradually increased; but as a compensation the "news" paragraph was dropped.]

[Footnote 257: This name was afterwards applied by the Tory writers to the Earl of Nottingham; and the author of the 'Examiner' (vol. iii. No 48) says that it was Steele who first used the name for this nobleman, "and upon no less an important affair, than the oddness of his buttons." In the 'Guardian (No. 53), however, Steele disavowed any reference to Lord Nottingham: "I do not remember the mention of Don Diego; nor do I remember tht ever I thought of Lord Nottingham in any character drawn in any one paper of Bickerstaff." See also No. 31, below.]

No. 22. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, May 28_, to _Tuesday, May 31_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, May 28.

I came hither this evening to see fashions, and who should I first encounter but my old friend Cynthio[258] (encompassed by a crowd of young fellows) dictating on the passion of love with the gayest air imaginable. "Well," says he, "as to what I know of the matter, there is nothing but ogling with skill carries a woman; but indeed it is not every fool that is capable of this art: you will find twenty can speak eloquently, fifty can fight manfully, and a thousand that can dress genteelly at a mistress, where there is one that can gaze skilfully. This requires an exquisite judgment, to take the language of her eyes to yours exactly, and not let yours talk too fast for hers; as at a play between the acts, when Beau Frisk stands upon a bench full in Lindamira's face, and her dear eyes are searching round to avoid that flaring open fool; she meets the watchful glance of her true lover, and sees his heart attentive on her charms, and waiting for a second twinkle of her eye for its next motion." Here the good company sneered; but he goes on. "Nor is this attendance a slavery, when a man meets encouragement, and her eye comes often in his way: for, after an evening so spent, and the repetition of four or five significant looks at him, the happy man goes home to his lodging, full of ten thousand pleasing images: his brain is dilated, and gives him all the ideas and prospects which it ever lets in to its seat of pleasure. Thus a kind look from Lindamira revives in his imagination all the beauteous lawns, green fields, woods, forests, rivers and solitudes, which he had ever before seen in picture, description, or real life: and all with this addition, that he now sees them with the eyes of a happy lover, as before only with those of a common man. You laugh, gentlemen: but consider yourselves (you common people that were never in love) and compare yourselves in good humour with yourselves out of humour, and you will then acknowledge, that all external objects affect you according to the disposition you are in to receive their impressions, and not as those objects are in their own nature. How much more shall all that passes within his view and observation, touch with delight a man who is prepossessed with successful love, which is an assemblage of soft affections, gay desires, and hopeful resolutions?" Poor Cynthio went on at this rate to the crowd about him, without any purpose in his talk, but to vent a heart overflowing with sense of success. I wondered what could exalt him from the distress in which he had long appeared, to so much alacrity. But my familiar has given me the state of his affairs. It seems then, that lately coming out of the play-house, his mistress, who knows he is in her livery (as the manner of insolent beauties is), resolved to keep him still so, and gave him so much wages, as to complain to him of the crowd she was to pass through. He had his wits and resolution enough about him to take her hand, and say, he would attend her to her coach. All the way thither, my good young man stammered at every word, and stumbled at every step. His mistress, wonderfully pleased with her triumph, put him to a thousand questions, to make a man of his natural wit speak with hesitation, and let drop her fan, to see him recover it awkwardly. This is the whole foundation of Cynthio's recovery to the sprightly air he appears with at present. I grew mighty curious to know something more of that lady's affairs, as being amazed how she could dally with an offer of one of his merit and fortune. I sent Pacolet to her lodgings; he immediately brought me back the following letter to her friend and confidante Amanda in the country, wherein she has opened her heart and all its folds.

"DEAR AMANDA,

The town grows so empty, that you must expect my letter so too, except you will allow me to talk of myself instead of others: you cannot imagine what pain it is, after a whole day spent in public, to want your company, and the ease which friendship allows in being vain to each other, and speaking all our minds. An account of the slaughter which these unhappy eyes have made within ten days last past, would make me appear too great a tyrant to be allowed in a Christian country. I shall therefore confine myself to my principal conquests, which are the hearts of Beau Frisk, and Jack Freeland, besides Cynthio, who, you know, wore my fetters before you went out of town. Shall I tell you my weakness? I begin to love Frisk: it is the best-humoured impertinent thing in the world: he is always too in waiting, and will certainly carry me off one time or other. Freeland's father and mine have been upon treaty without consulting me; and Cynthio has been eternally watching my eyes, without approaching me, my friends, my maid, or any one about me: he hopes to get me, I believe, as they say the rattlesnake does the squirrel, by staring at me till I drop into his mouth. Freeland demands me for a jointure which he thinks deserves me; Cynthio thinks nothing high enough to be my value: Freeland therefore will take it for no obligation to have me; and Cynthio's idea of me, is what will vanish by knowing me better. Familiarity will equally turn the veneration of the one, and the indifference of the other, into contempt. I will stick therefore to my old maxim, to have that sort of man, who can have no greater views than what are in my power to give him possession of. The utmost of my dear Frisk's ambition is, to be thought a man of fashion; and therefore has been so much in mode, as to resolve upon me, because the whole town likes me. Thus I choose rather a man who loves me because others do, than one who approves me on his own judgment. He that judges for himself in love, will often change his opinion; but he that follows the sense of others, must be constant, as long as a woman can make advances. The visits I make, the entertainments I give, and the addresses I receive, will be all arguments for me with a man of Frisk's second-hand genius; but would be so many bars to my happiness with any other man. However, since Frisk can wait, I shall enjoy a summer or two longer, and remain a single woman, in the sublime pleasure of being followed and admired; which nothing can equal, except that of being beloved by you.

"I am, &c."

Will's Coffee-house, May 30.

My chief business here this evening was to speak to my friends in behalf of honest Cave Underhill,[259] who has been a comic for three generations: my father[260] admired him extremely when he was a boy. There is certainly nature excellently represented in his manner of

## action; in which he ever avoided that general fault in players, of doing

too much. It must be confessed, he has not the merit of some ingenious persons now on the stage, of adding to his authors; for the actors were so dull in the last age, that many of them have gone out of the world, without having ever spoke one word of their own in the theatre. Poor Cave is so mortified, that he quibbles, and tells you, he pretends only to act a part fit for a man who has one foot in the grave; viz., a gravedigger. All admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the gratitude to be present on the last day of his acting, who, if he does not happen to please them, will have it even then to say, that it is his first offence.

But there is a gentleman here, who says he has it from good hands, that there is actually a subscription made by many persons of wit and quality, for the encouragement of new comedies. This design will very much contribute to the improvement and diversion of the town: but as every man is most concerned for himself, I, who am of a saturnine and melancholy complexion, cannot but murmur, that there is not an equal invitation to write tragedies, having by me, in my book of commonplaces, enough to enable me to finish a very sad one by the 5th of next month. I have the farewell of a general, with a truncheon in his hand, dying for love, in six lines. I have the principles of a politician (who does all the mischief in the play) together with his declaration on the vanity of ambition in his last moments, expressed in a page and a half. I have all my oaths ready, and my similes want nothing but application. I won't pretend to give you an account of the plot, it being the same design upon which all tragedies have been writ for several years last past; and from the beginning of the first scene, the frequenters of the house may know, as well as the author, when the battle is to be fought, the lady to yield, and the hero to proceed to his wedding and coronation. Besides these advantages which I have in readiness, I have an eminent tragedian very much my friend, who shall come in, and go through the whole five acts, without troubling me for one sentence, whether he is to kill or be killed, love or be loved, win battles or lose them, or whatever other tragical performance I shall please to assign him.

From my own Apartment, May 30.

I have this day received a letter subscribed "Fidelia," that gives me an account of an enchantment under which a young lady suffers, and desires my help to exorcise her from the power of the sorcerer. Her lover is a rake of sixty; the lady a virtuous woman of twenty-five: her relations are to the last degree afflicted, and amazed at this irregular passion: their sorrow I know not how to remove, but can their astonishment; for there is no spirit in woman half so prevalent as that of contradiction, which is the sole cause of her perseverance. Let the whole family go dressed in a body, and call the bride to-morrow morning to her nuptials, and I'll undertake, the inconstant will forget her lover in the midst of all his aches. But if this expedient does not succeed, I must be so just to the young lady's distinguishing sense, as to applaud her choice. A fine young woman, at last, is but what is due from fate to an honest fellow, who has suffered so unmercifully by the sex; and I think we cannot enough celebrate her heroic virtue, who (like the patriot that ended a pestilence by plunging himself into a gulf) gives herself up to gorge that dragon which has devoured so many virgins before her.

A letter directed to "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; astrologer and physician in ordinary to her Majesty's subjects of Great Britain, with respect," is come to hand.

[Footnote 258: See Nos. 1, 5, 35, 85.]

[Footnote 259: The following advertisement appeared in Nos. 20 and 22: "Mr. Cave Underhill, the famous comedian in the reigns of Charles II., King James II., King William and Queen Mary, and her present Majesty Queen Anne; but now not able to perform so often as heretofore in the playhouse, and having had losses to the value of near £2500, is to have the tragedy of 'Hamlet' acted for his benefit, on Friday, the 3rd of June next, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, in which he is to perform his original part, the Grave-maker. Tickets may be had at the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street." Colley Cibber says that Underhill was

## particularly admired in the character of the Grave-digger; and he adds:

"Underhill was a correct and natural comedian; his particular excellence was in characters that may be called still-life; I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid; to these he gave the exactest and most expressive colours, and in some of them looked as if it were not in the power of human passions to alter a feature of him. A countenance of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the blockhead of a character required it; his face was full and long; from his crown to the end of his nose was the shorter half of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features, when soberly composed, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal, that ever made beholders merry; not but, at other times, he could be wakened into spirit equally ridiculous." Genest says that Underhill acted again as the Grave-digger on Feb. 23, 1710, at Drury Lane.]

[Footnote 260: "Grandfather" (folio).]

No. 23. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 31_, to _Thursday, June 2_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, May 31.

The generality of mankind are so very fond of this world, and of staying in it, that a man cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but they will, in spite of his teeth, make him a physician also, that being the science the worldlings have most need of. I pretended, when I first set up, to astrology only; but I am told, I have deep skill also in medicine. I am applied to now by a gentleman for my advice in behalf of his wife, who, upon the least matrimonial difficulty, is excessively troubled with fits, and can bear no manner of passion without falling into immediate convulsions. I must confess, it is a case I have known before, and remember the party was recovered by certain words pronounced in the midst of the fit by the learned doctor who performed the cure. These ails have usually their beginning from the affections of the mind: therefore you must have patience to let me give you an instance, whereby you may discern the cause of the distemper, and then proceed in the cure as follows:

A fine town lady was married to a gentleman of ancient descent in one of the counties of Great Britain, who had good humour to a weakness, and was that sort of person, of whom it is usually said, he is no man's enemy but his own: one who had too much tenderness of soul to have any authority with his wife; and she too little sense to give him authority for that reason. His kind wife observed this temper in him, and made proper use of it. But knowing it was below a gentlewoman to wrangle, she resolved upon an expedient to save decorum, and wear her dear to her point at the same time. She therefore took upon her to govern him, by falling into fits whenever she was repulsed in a request, or contradicted in a discourse. It was a fish-day, when in the midst of her husband's good humour at table, she bethought herself to try her project. She made signs that she had swallowed a bone. The man grew pale as ashes, and ran to her assistance, calling for drink. "No, my dear," said she, recovering, "it is down; don't be frightened." This accident betrayed his softness enough. The next day she complained, a lady's chariot, whose husband had not half his estate, had a crane-neck, and hung with twice the air that hers did. He answered, "Madam, you know my income; you know I have lost two coach-horses this spring."--Down she fell.--"Hartshorn! Betty, Susan, Alice, throw water in her face." With much care and pains she was at last brought to herself, and the vehicle in which she visited was amended in the nicest manner, to prevent relapses; but they frequently happened during that husband's whole life, which he had the good fortune to end in few years after. The disconsolate soon pitched upon a very agreeable successor, whom she very prudently designed to govern by the same method. This man knew her little arts, and resolved to break through all tenderness, and be absolute master, as soon as occasion offered. One day it happened, that a discourse arose about furniture: he was very glad of the occasion, and fell into an invective against china,[261] protesting, he would never let five pounds more of his money be laid out that way as long as he breathed. She immediately fainted--he starts up as amazed, and calls for help--the maids ran to the closet--he chafes her face, bends her forwards, and beats the palms of her hands: her convulsions increase, and down she tumbles on the floor, where she lies quite dead, in spite of what the whole family, from the nursery to the kitchen, could do for her relief.

While every servant was thus helping or lamenting their mistress, he, fixing his cheek to hers, seemed to be following her in a trance of sorrow; but secretly whispers her, "My dear, this will never do: what is within my power and fortune, you may always command, but none of your artifices: you are quite in other hands than those you passed these pretty passions upon." This made her almost in the condition she pretended; her convulsions now came thicker, nor was she to be held down. The kind man doubles his care, helps the servants to throw water in her face by full quarts; and when the sinking part of the fit came again, "Well, my dear," said he, "I applaud your action; but I must take my leave of you till you are more sincere with me. Farewell for ever: you shall always know where to hear of me, and want for nothing." With that, he ordered the maids to keep plying her with hartshorn, while he went for a physician: he was scarce at the stairhead when she followed; and pulling him into a closet, thanked him for her cure; which was so absolute, that she gave me this relation herself, to be communicated for the benefit of all the voluntary invalids of her sex.

From my own Apartment, May 31.

The public is not so little my concern, though I am but a student, as that I should not interest myself in the present great things in agitation. I am still of opinion, the French king will sign the preliminaries. With that view, I have sent him by my familiar the following epistle, and admonished him, on pain of what I shall say of him to future generations, to act with sincerity on this occasion.

#"London, May 31.#

#"Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Great Britain, to Lewis XIV. of France.#

"The surprising news which arrived this day, of your Majesty's having refused to sign the treaty your Ministers have in a manner sued for, is what gives ground to this application to your Majesty, from one whose name, perhaps, is too obscure to have ever reached your territories; but one who, with all the European world, is affected with your determinations. Therefore, as it is mine and the common cause of mankind, I presume to expostulate with you on this occasion. It will, I doubt not, appear to the vulgar extravagant, that the actions of a mighty prince should be balanced by the censure of a private man, whose approbation or dislike are equally contemptible in their eyes, when they regard the thrones of sovereigns. But your Majesty has shown, through the whole course of your reign, too great a value for liberal arts to be insensible, that true fame lies only in the hands of learned men, by whom it is to be transmitted to futurity, with marks of honour or reproach to the end of time. The date of human life is too short to recompense the cares which attend the most private condition: therefore it is, that our souls are made as it were too big for it, and extend themselves in the prospect of a longer existence, in a good fame and memory of worthy actions after our decease. The whole race of men have this passion in some degree implanted in their bosoms, which is the strongest and noblest incitation to honest attempts: but the base use of the arts of peace, eloquence, poetry, and all the parts of learning, have been possessed by souls so unworthy those faculties, that the names and appellations of things have been confounded by the labours and writings of prostituted men, who have stamped a reputation upon such

## actions as are in themselves the objects of contempt and disgrace. This

is that which has misled your Majesty in the conduct of your reign, and made that life, which might have been the most imitable, the most to be avoided. To this it is, that the great and excellent qualities of which your Majesty is master, are lost in their application; and your Majesty has been carrying on for many years the most cruel tyranny, with all the noble methods which are used to support a just reign. Thus it is, that it avails nothing that you are a bountiful master; that you are so generous as to reward even the unsuccessful with honour and riches; that no laudable action passes unrewarded in your kingdoms; that you have searched all nations for obscure merit; in a word, that you are in your private character endowed with every princely quality, when all this is subjected to unjust and ill-taught ambition, which to the injury of the world, is gilded by those endowments. However, if your Majesty will condescend to look into your own soul, and consider all its faculties and weaknesses with impartiality; if you will but be convinced, that life is supported in you by the ordinary methods of food, rest, and sleep; you would think it impossible that you could ever be so much imposed on, as to have been wrought into a belief, that so many thousands of the same make with yourself, were formed by Providence for no other end, but by the hazard of their very being to extend the conquests and glory of an individual of their own species. A very little reflection will convince your Majesty, that such cannot be the intent of the Creator; and if not, what horror must it give your Majesty to think of the vast devastations your ambition has made among your fellow creatures? While the warmth of youth, the flattery of crowds, and a continual series of success and triumph, indulged your Majesty in this allusion of mind, it was less to be wondered at, that you proceeded in this mistaken pursuit of grandeur; but when age, disappointments, public calamities, personal distempers, and the reverse of all that makes men forget their true being, are fallen upon you: heavens! is it possible you can live without remorse? Can the wretched man be a tyrant? Can grief study torments? Can sorrow be cruel?--

"Your Majesty will observe, I do not bring against you a railing accusation; but as you are a strict professor of religion, I beseech your Majesty to stop the effusion of blood, by receiving the opportunity which presents itself, for the preservation of your distressed people. Be no longer so infatuated, as to hope for renown from murder and violence: but consider, that the great day will come, in which this world and all its glory shall change in a moment: when nature shall sicken, and the earth and sea give up the bodies committed to them, to appear before the last tribunal. Will it then, O king! be an answer for the lives of millions who have fallen by the sword, 'They perished for my glory'? That day will come on, and one like it is immediately approaching: injured nations advance towards thy habitation: vengeance has begun its march, which is to be diverted only by the penitence of the oppressor. Awake, O monarch, from thy lethargy! Disdain the abuses thou hast received: pull down the statue which calls thee immortal: be truly great: tear thy purple, and put on sackcloth.

"I am,

"Thy generous Enemy,

"ISAAC BICKERSTAFF."

St. James's Coffee-house, June 1.

Advices from Brussels of the 6th instant, N.S., say, his Highness Prince Eugene had received a letter from Monsieur Torcy, wherein that Minister, after many expressions of great respect, acquaints him, that his master had absolutely refused to sign the preliminaries to the treaty which he had, in his Majesty's behalf, consented to at the Hague. Upon the receipt of this intelligence, the face of things at that place were immediately altered, and the necessary orders were transmitted to the troops (which lay most remote from thence) to move towards the place of rendezvous with all expedition. The enemy seem also to prepare for the field, and have at present drawn together twenty-five thousand men in the plains of Lenz. Marshal Villars is at the head of those troops; and has given the generals under his command all possible assurances, that he will turn the fate of the war to the advantage of his master.

They write from the Hague of the 7th, that Monsieur Rouillé had received orders from the Court of France, to signify to the States-General and the Ministers of the High Allies, that the king could not consent to the preliminaries of a treaty of peace, as it was offered to him by Monsieur Torcy. The great difficulty is the business of Spain, on which

## particular his Ministers seemed only to say, during the treaty, that it

was not so immediately under their master's direction, as that he could answer for its being relinquished by the Duke of Anjou: but now he positively answers, that he cannot comply with what his Minister has promised in his behalf, even in such points as are wholly in himself to

## act in or not. This has had no other effect, than to give the Alliance

fresh arguments for being diffident of engagements entered into by France. The Pensioner made a report of all which this Minister had declared to the Deputies of the States-General, and all things turn towards a vigorous war. The Duke of Marlborough designed to leave the Hague within two days, in order to put himself at the head of the army, which is to assemble on the 17th instant between the Scheldt and the Lis. A fleet of eighty sail, laden with corn from the Baltic, is arrived in the Texel. The States have sent circular letters to all the provinces, to notify this change of affairs, and animate their subjects to new resolutions in defence of their country.

[Footnote 261: Addison ridiculed the prevalent craze for collecting china in No. 10 of the _Lover_; and Swift wrote to Steele, "What do I know whether china is dear or not; I once took a fancy of resolving to go mad for it, but now it is off."]

No. 24. [ADDISON.

From _Thursday, June 2_, to _Saturday, June 4_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 2.

In my paper of the 28th of the last month,[262] I mentioned several characters which want explanation to the generality of readers: among others, I spoke of a Pretty Fellow; but I have received a kind admonition in a letter, to take care that I do not omit to show also what is meant by a Very Pretty Fellow, which is to be allowed as a character by itself, and a person exalted above the other by a peculiar sprightliness, as one who, by a distinguishing vigour, outstrips his companions, and has thereby deserved and obtained a particular appellation, or nickname of familiarity. Some have this distinction from the fair sex, who are so generous as to take into their protection those who are laughed at by the men, and place them for that reason in degrees of favour. The chief of this sort is Colonel Brunett, who is a man of fashion, because he will be so; and practises a very jaunty way of behaviour, because he is too careless to know when he offends, and too sanguine to be mortified if he did know it. Thus the colonel has met with a town ready to receive him, and cannot possibly see why he should not make use of their favour, and set himself in the first degree of conversation. Therefore he is very successfully loud among the wits, familiar among the ladies, and dissolute among the rakes. Thus he is admitted in one place, because he is so in another; and every man treats Brunett well, not out of his particular esteem for him, but in respect to the opinion of others. It is to me a solid pleasure to see the world thus mistaken on the good-natured side; for it is ten to one but the colonel mounts into a general officer, marries a fine lady, and is master of a good estate, before they come to explain upon him. What gives most delight to me in this observation, is, that all this arises from pure nature, and the colonel can account for his success no more than those by whom he succeeds. For these causes and considerations, I pronounce him a true woman's man, and in the first degree, "a very pretty fellow." The next to a man of this universal genius, is one who is peculiarly formed for the service of the ladies, and his merit chiefly is to be of no consequence. I am indeed a little in doubt, whether he ought not rather to be called a "very happy," than a "very pretty" fellow? For he is admitted at all hours: all he says or does, which would offend in another, are passed over in him; and all actions and speeches which please, doubly please if they come from him: no one wonders or takes notice when he is wrong; but all admire him when he is in the right. By the way it is fit to remark, that there are people of better sense than these, who endeavour at this character; but they are out of nature; and though, with some industry, they get the characters of fools, they cannot arrive to be "very," seldom to be merely "pretty fellows." But where nature has formed a person for this station amongst men, he is gifted with a peculiar genius for success, and his very errors and absurdities contribute to it; this felicity attending him to his life's end. For it being in a manner necessary that he should be of no consequence, he is as well in old age as youth; and I know a man, whose son has been some years a pretty fellow, who is himself at this hour a "very" pretty fellow. One must move tenderly in this place, for we are now in the ladies' lodgings, and speaking of such as are supported by their influence and favour; against which there is not, neither ought there to be, any dispute or observation. But when we come into more free air, one may talk a little more at large. Give me leave then to mention three, whom I do not doubt but we shall see make considerable figures; and these are such as, for their Bacchanalian performances, must be admitted into this order. They are three brothers lately landed from Holland: as yet, indeed, they have not made their public entry, but lodge and converse at Wapping. They have merited already on the waterside particular titles: the first is called Hogshead; the second Culverin; and the third Musket. This fraternity is preparing for our end of the town by their ability in the exercises of Bacchus, and measure their time and merit by liquid weight, and power of drinking. Hogshead is a prettier fellow than Culverin by two quarts, and Culverin than Musket by a full pint. It is to be feared, Hogshead is so often too full, and Culverin overloaded, that Musket will be the only lasting "very" pretty fellow of the three.[263] A third sort of this denomination are such as, by very daring adventures in love, have purchased to themselves renown and new names; as, Joe Carry, for his excessive strength and vigour; Tom Drybones, for his generous loss of youth and health; and Cancrum, for his meritorious rottenness. These great and leading spirits are proposed to all such of our British youth as would arrive at perfection in these different kinds; and if their parts and accomplishments were well imitated, it is not doubted but that our nation would soon excel all others in wit and arts, as they already do in arms.

N.B.--The gentleman who stole Betty Pepin,[264] may own it, for he is allowed to be a "very" pretty fellow.

#But we must proceed to the explanation of other terms in our writings.#

To know what a Toast is in the country, gives as much perplexity as she herself does in town: and, indeed, the learned differ very much upon the original of this word, and the acceptation of it among the moderns. However, it is by all agreed to have a joyous and cheerful import. A toast in a cold morning, heightened by nutmeg, and sweetened with sugar, has for many ages been given to our rural dissenters of justice, before they entered upon causes, and has been of great and politic use to take off the severity of their sentences; but has indeed been remarkable for one ill effect, that it inclines those who use it immoderately, to speak Latin, to the admiration, rather than information, of an audience. This application of "a toast" makes it very obvious, that the word may, without a metaphor, be understood as an apt name for a thing which raises us in the most sovereign degree. But many of the wits of the last age will assert, that the word, in its present sense, was known among them in their youth, and had its rise from an accident at the town of Bath, in the reign of King Charles II. It happened, that on a public day a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay fellow, half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a "toast." Though this institution had so trivial a beginning, it is now elevated into a formal order; and that happy virgin who is received and drank to at their meetings, has no more to do in this life, but to judge and accept of the first good offer. The manner of her inauguration is much like that of the choice of a Doge in Venice: it is performed by balloting; and when she is so chosen, she reigns indisputably for that ensuing year; but must be elected anew to prolong her empire a moment beyond it. When she is regularly chosen, her name is written with a diamond on a drinking-glass.[265] The hieroglyphic of the diamond is to show her, that her value is imaginary; and that of the glass to acquaint her, that her condition is frail, and depends on the hand which holds her. This wise design admonishes her, neither to overrate nor depreciate her charms; as well considering and applying, that it is perfectly according to the humour and taste of the company, whether the toast is eaten, or left as an offal.

The foremost of the whole rank of toasts, and the most undisputed in their present empire, are Mrs. Gatty and Mrs. Frontlet: the first, an agreeable; the second, an awful beauty. These ladies are perfect friends, out of a knowledge that their perfections are too different to stand in competition. He that likes Gatty can have no relish for so solemn a creature as Frontlet; and an admirer of Frontlet will call Gatty a maypole-girl. Gatty for ever smiles upon you; and Frontlet disdains to see you smile. Gatty's love is a shining quick flame; Frontlet's a slow wasting fire. Gatty likes the man that diverts her; Frontlet him who adores her. Gatty always improves the soil in which she travels; Frontlet lays waste the country. Gatty does not only smile, but laughs at her lover; Frontlet not only looks serious, but frowns at him. All the men of wit (and coxcombs their followers) are professed servants of Gatty: the politicians and pretenders give solemn worship to Frontlet. Their reign will be best judged of by its duration. Frontlet will never be chosen more; and Gatty is a toast for life.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 3.

Letters from Hamburg of the 7th instant, N.S., inform us, that no art or cost is omitted to make the stay of his Danish Majesty at Dresden agreeable; but there are various speculations upon the interview between King Augustus and that prince, many putting politic constructions upon his Danish Majesty's arrival, at a time when his troops are marching out of Hungary, with orders to pass through Saxony, where it is given out, that they are to be recruited. It is said also, that several Polish senators have invited King Augustus to return into Poland. His Majesty of Sweden, according to the same advices, has passed the Dnieper without any opposition from the Muscovites, and advances with all possible expedition towards Voldinia, where he proposes to join King Stanislaus and General Cressau.

We hear from Berne of the 1st instant, N.S., that there is not a province in France, from whence the Court is not apprehensive of receiving accounts of public emotions, occasioned by the want of corn. The General Diet of the thirteen cantons is assembled at Baden, but have not yet entered upon business, so that the affair of Tockenburg is yet at a stand.

Letters from the Hague, dated the 11th instant, N.S., advise that Monsieur Rouillé having acquainted the Ministers of the Allies, that his master had refused to ratify the preliminaries of a treaty adjusted with Monsieur Torcy, set out for Paris on Sunday morning. The same day the foreign Ministers met a committee of the States-General, where Monsieur van Hessen opened the business upon which they were assembled, and in a very warm discourse laid before them the conduct of France in the late negotiations, representing the abject manner in which she had laid open her own distresses, which reduced her to a compliance with the demands of all the Allies, and the mean manner in receding from those points to which her Minister had consented. The respective Ministers of each potentate of the Alliance severally expressed their resentment of the faithless behaviour of the French, and gave each other mutual assurances of the constancy and resolution of their principles to proceed with the utmost vigour against the common enemy. His Grace the Duke of Marlborough set out from the Hague on the 9th, in the afternoon, and lay that night at Rotterdam, from whence at four the next morning he proceeded towards Antwerp, with design to reach Ghent as on this day. All the troops in the Low Countries are in motion towards the general rendezvous between the Scheldt and Lis, and the whole army will be formed on the 12th instant; and it is said that on the 14th they will advance towards the enemy's country. In the meantime the Marshal de Villars has assembled the French army between Lens, la Bassée, and Douay.

Yesterday morning Sir John Norris[266] with the squadron under his command, sailed from the Downs for Holland.

From my own Apartment, June 3.

I have the honour of the following letter from a gentleman whom I receive into my family, and order the heralds at arms to enroll him accordingly.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"Though you have excluded me the honour of your family, yet I have ventured to correspond with the same great persons as yourself, and have wrote this post to the King of France; though I'm in a manner unknown in his country, and have not been seen there these many months.

#"'To Lewis le Grand.#

"'Though in your country I'm unknown, Yet, sir, I must advise you; Of late so poor and mean you're grown, That all the world despise you.

Here vermin eat your majesty, There meagre subjects stand unfed; What surer signs of poverty, Than many lice, and little bread?

Then, sir, the present minute choose, Our armies are advanced; Those terms you at the Hague refuse, At Paris won't be granted.

Consider this, and Dunkirk raze, And Anna's title own; Send one Pretender out to graze, And call the other home.'

"Your humble Servant,

"BREAD, THE STAFF OF LIFE."

[Footnote 262: No. 21.]

[Footnote 263: It would seem from the passage in the _Examiner_ (vol. iii. No. 48), that three men of distinction at that time, probably noblemen, were supposed to be denoted under the names of Hogshead, Culverin, and Musket, from Wapping; or, as they are named by the _Examiner_, "Tun, Gun, and Pistol, from Wapping." They are there mentioned among others, said to have been, "with at least fifty more, sufferers of figure under this author's satire, in the days of his mirth," &c. In the _Guardian_ (No. 53) Steele says, "Tun, Gun, and Pistol from Wapping, laughed at the representation which was made of them, and were observed to be more regular in their conduct afterwards."]

[Footnote 264: The kept mistress of a knight of the shire near Brentford, who squandered his estate on women, and in contested elections. He has long since gone into the land of oblivion. See No. 51.--(Nichols.)]

[Footnote 265: Several such verses, inscribed on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, are given in Nichols' "Select Collection of Poems," v. 168-178.]

[Footnote 266: Admiral Sir John Norris (died 1749) was sent in June 1709, with a small squadron, to stop the French supply of corn from the Baltic.]

No. 25. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, June 4_, to _Tuesday, June 7_, 1709.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 6.

A letter from a young lady, written in the most passionate terms (wherein she laments the misfortune of a gentleman, her lover, who was lately wounded in a duel), has turned my thoughts to that subject, and inclined me to examine into the causes which precipitate men into so fatal a folly.[267] And as it has been proposed to treat of subjects of gallantry in the article from hence, and no one point of nature is more proper to be considered by the company who frequent this place, than that of duels, it is worth our consideration to examine into this chimerical groundless humour, and to lay every other thought aside, till we have stripped it of all its false pretences to credit and reputation amongst men. But I must confess, when I consider what I am going about, and run over in my imagination all the endless crowd of men of honour who will be offended at such a discourse, I am undertaking, methinks, a work worthy an invulnerable hero in romance, rather than a private gentleman with a single rapier; but as I am pretty well acquainted by great opportunities with the nature of man, and know of a truth, that all men fight against their will, the danger vanishes, and resolution rises upon this subject. For this reason I shall talk very freely on a custom which all men wish exploded, though no man has courage enough to resist it. But there is one unintelligible word which I fear will extremely perplex my dissertation, and I confess to you I find very hard to explain, which is, the term "satisfaction." An honest country gentleman had the misfortune to fall into company with two or three modern men of honour, where he happened to be very ill-treated; and one of the company being conscious of his offence, sends a note to him in the morning, and tells him, he was ready to give him satisfaction. "This is fine doing," says the plain fellow: "last night he sent me away cursedly out of humour, and this morning he fancies it would be a satisfaction to be run through the body." As the matter at present stands, it is not to do handsome actions denominates a man of honour; it is enough if he dares to defend ill ones. Thus you often see a common sharper in competition with a gentleman of the first rank; though all mankind is convinced, that a fighting gamester is only a pickpocket with the courage of a highwayman. One cannot with any patience reflect on the unaccountable jumble of persons and things in this town and nation, which occasions very frequently, that a brave man falls by a hand below that of the common hangman, and yet his executioner escapes the clutches of the hangman for doing it. I shall therefore hereafter consider, how the bravest men in other ages and nations have behaved themselves upon such incidents as we decide by combat; and show, from their practice, that this resentment neither has its foundation from true reason, nor solid fame; but is an imposture,[268] made up of cowardice, falsehood, and want of understanding. For this work, a good history of quarrels would be very edifying to the public, and I apply myself to the town for

## particulars and circumstances within their knowledge, which may serve to

embellish the dissertation with proper cuts. Most of the quarrels I have ever known, have proceeded from some valiant coxcomb's persisting in the wrong, to defend some prevailing folly, and preserve himself from the ingenuity of owning a mistake.[269]

By this means it is called, "giving a man satisfaction," to urge your offence against him with your sword; which puts me in mind of Peter's order to the keeper, in the "Tale of a Tub": "If you neglect to do all this, damn you and your generation for ever; and so we bid you heartily farewell."[270] If the contradiction in the very terms of one of our challenges were as well explained, and turned into plain English, would it not run after this manner?

"SIR,

"Your extraordinary behaviour last night, and the liberty you were pleased to take with me, makes me this morning give you this, to tell you, because you are an ill-bred puppy, I will meet you in Hyde Park an hour hence; and because you want both breeding and humanity, I desire you would come with a pistol in your hand, on horseback, and endeavour to shoot me through the head; to teach you more manners. If you fail of doing me this pleasure, I shall say, you are a rascal on every post in town: and so, sir, if you will not injure me more, I shall never forgive what you have done already. Pray sir, do not fail of getting everything ready, and you will infinitely oblige,

"Sir,

"Your most obedient,

"humble Servant, &c."

From my own Apartment, June 6.

Among the many employments I am necessarily put upon by my friends, that of giving advice is the most unwelcome to me; and indeed, I am forced to use a little art in the matter; for some people will ask counsel of you, when they have already acted what they tell you is still under deliberation. I had almost lost a very good friend the other day, who came to know how I liked his design to marry such a lady. I answered, "By no means; and I must be positive against it, for very solid reasons, which are not proper to communicate." "Not proper to communicate!" said he with a grave air, "I will know the bottom of this." I saw him moved, and knew from thence he was already determined; therefore evaded it by saying, "To tell you the truth, dear Frank, of all women living, I would have her myself." "Isaac," said he, "thou art too late, for we have been both one these two months." I learned this caution by a gentleman's consulting me formerly about his son. He railed at his damned extravagance, and told me, in a very little time, he would beggar him by the exorbitant bills which came from Oxford every quarter. "Make the rogue bite upon the bridle,"[271] said I, "pay none of his bills, it will but encourage him to further trespasses." He looked plaguy sour at me. His son soon after sent up a paper of verses, forsooth, in print, on the last public occasion; upon which, he is convinced the boy has parts, and a lad of spirit is not to be too much cramped in his maintenance, lest he take ill courses. Neither father nor son can ever since endure the sight of me. These sort of people ask opinions, only out of the fulness of their heart on the subject of their perplexity, and not from a desire of information. There is nothing so easy as to find out which opinion the person in doubt has a mind to; therefore the sure way is to tell him, that is certainly to be chosen. Then you are to be very clear and positive; leave no handle for scruple. "Bless me! sir, there is no room for a question." This rivets you into his heart; for you at once applaud his wisdom, and gratify his inclination. However, I had too much bowels to be insincere to a man who came yesterday to know of me, with which of two eminent men in the City he should place his son? Their names are Paulo and Avaro.[272] This gave me much debate with myself, because not only the fortune of the youth, but his virtue also depended upon this choice. The men are equally wealthy; but they differ in the use and application of their riches, which you immediately see upon entering their doors.

The habitation of Paulo has at once the air of a nobleman and a merchant. You see the servants act with affection to their master, and satisfaction in themselves: the master meets you with an open countenance, full of benevolence and integrity: your business is despatched with that confidence and welcome which always accompanies honest minds: his table is the image of plenty and generosity, supported by justice and frugality. After we had dined here, our affair was to visit Avaro: out comes an awkward fellow with a careful countenance; "Sir, would you speak with my master? May I crave your name?" After the first preambles, he leads us into a noble solitude, a great house that seemed uninhabited; but from the end of the spacious hall moves towards us Avaro, with a suspicious aspect, as if he believed us thieves; and as for my part, I approached him as if I knew him a cut-purse. We fell into discourse of his noble dwelling, and the great estate all the world knew he had to enjoy in it: and I, to plague him, fell a commending Paulo's way of living. "Paulo," answered Avaro, "is a very good man; but we who have smaller estates, must cut our coat according to our cloth." "Nay," says I, "every man knows his own circumstance best; you are in the right, if you haven't wherewithal." He looked very sour (for it is, you must know, the utmost vanity of a mean-spirited rich man to be contradicted, when he calls himself poor). But I was resolved to vex him, by consenting to all he said; the main design of which was, that he would have us find out, he was one of the wealthiest men in London, and lived like a beggar. We left him, and took a turn on the 'Change. My friend was ravished with Avaro. "This," said he, "is certainly a sure man." I contradicted him with much warmth, and summed up their different characters as well as I could. "This Paulo," said I, "grows wealthy by being a common good; Avaro, by being a general evil: Paulo has the art, Avaro the craft of trade. When Paulo gains, all men he deals with are the better: whenever Avaro profits, another certainly loses. In a word, Paulo is a citizen, and Avaro a cit." I convinced my friend, and carried the young gentleman the next day to Paulo, where he will learn the way both to gain, and enjoy a good fortune. And though I cannot say, I have, by keeping him from Avaro, saved him from the gallows, I have prevented his deserving it every day he lives: for with Paulo he will be an honest man, without being so for fear of the law; as with Avaro, he would have been a villain within the protection of it.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 6.

We hear from Vienna of the 1st instant, that Baron Imoff, who attended her Catholic Majesty with the character of Envoy from the Duke of Wolfembuttel, was returned thither. That Minister brought an account, that Major-general Stanhope, with the troops which embarked at Naples, was returned to Barcelona. We hear from Berlin, by advices of the 8th instant, that his Prussian Majesty had received intelligence from his Minister at Dresden, that the King of Denmark desired to meet his Majesty at Magdeburg. The King of Prussia has sent answer, that his present indisposition will not admit of so great a journey; but has sent the king a very pressing invitation to come to Berlin or Potsdam. These advices say, that the Minister of the King of Sweden has produced a letter from his master to the King of Poland, dated from Batitzau the 30th of March, O.S., wherein he acquaints him, that he has been successful against the Muscovites in all the occasions which have happened since his march into their country. Great numbers have revolted to the Swedes since General Mazeppa went over to that side; and as many as have done so, have taken solemn oaths to adhere to the interests of his Swedish Majesty.

Advices from the Hague of the 14th instant, N.S., say, that all things tended to a vigorous and active campaign; the Allies having strong resentments against the late behaviour of the Court of France; and the French using all possible endeavours to animate their men to defend their country against a victorious and exasperated enemy. Monsieur Rouillé had passed through Brussels without visiting either the Duke of Marlborough or Prince Eugene, who were both there at that time. The States have met, and publicly declared their satisfaction in the conduct of their deputies during the whole treaty. Letters from France say, that the Court is resolved to put all to the issue of the ensuing campaign. In the meantime, they have ordered the preliminary treaty to be published, with observation upon each article, in order to quiet the minds of the people, and persuade them, that it has not been in the power of the king to procure a peace, but to the diminution of his Majesty's glory, and the hazard of his dominions. His Grace the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene arrived at Ghent on Wednesday last, where, at an assembly of all the general officers, it was thought proper, by reason of the great rains which have lately fallen, to defer forming a camp, or bringing the troops together; but as soon as the weather would permit, to march upon the enemy with all expedition.[273]

[Footnote 267: For Steele's other papers on duelling, see Nos. 26, 28, 29, 31, 38, 39.]

[Footnote 268: Something imposed upon us.]

[Footnote 269: "While this barbarous custom of duelling is tolerated, we shall never be rid of coxcombs, who will defend their understandings by the sword, and force us to bear nonsense on pain of death."--(Steele, _Theatre_, No. 26.)]

[Footnote 270: Swift's "Tale of a Tub," sect. 4.]

[Footnote 271: _I.e._, hold him in.]

[Footnote 272: Said to be Bateman and Heathcote, both eminent citizens--(_Gentleman's Magazine_, lx. 679.)]

[Footnote 273: "Mr. Bickerstaff has received a letter, dated June 6, with the just exceptions against the pretence of persons therein mentioned, to the name of Pretty Fellows, which shall be taken notice of accordingly: as likewise, the letter from Anthony Longtail of Canterbury, concerning the death of Thomas à Becket" (folio). See Nos. 24, 26.]

No. 26. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, June 7_, to _Thursday, June 9_, 1709.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, June 8.

I have read the following letter with delight and approbation, and I hereby order Mr. Kidney at St. James's, and Sir Thomas at White's[274] (who are my clerks for enrolling all men in their distant classes, before they presume to drink tea or chocolate in those places), to take care, that the persons within the descriptions in the letter be admitted, and excluded according to my friend's remonstrance.[275]

"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; at Mr. Morphew's near Stationers' Hall._

"_June 6_, 1709.

"SIR,

"Your paper of Saturday[276] has raised up in me a noble emulation, to be recorded in the foremost rank of worthies therein mentioned; and if any regard be had to merit or industry, I may hope to succeed in the promotion, for I have omitted no toil or expense to be a proficient; and if my friends do not flatter, they assure me, I have not lost my time since I came to town. To enumerate but a few particulars; there's hardly a coachman I meet with, but desires to be excused taking me, because he has had me before. I have compounded two or three rapes; and let out to hire as many bastards to beggars. I never saw above the first act of a play: and as to my courage, it is well known, I have more than once had sufficient witnesses of my drawing my sword both in tavern and playhouse. Dr. Wall[277] is my particular friend; and if it were any service to the public to compose the difference between Marten and Sintilaer[278] the pearl-driller, I don't know a judge of more experience than myself: for in that I may say with the poet,

"'_Quæ regio in villa nostri non plena laboris?_'[279]

"I omit other less particulars, the necessary consequences of greater

## actions. But my reason for troubling you at this present is, to put a

stop, if it may be, to an insinuating, increasing set of people, who sticking to the letter of your treatise, and not to the spirit of it, do assume the name of 'pretty fellows'; nay, and even get new names, as you very well hint. Some of them I have heard calling to one another, as I have sat at White's and St. James's, by the names of Betty, Nelly, and so forth. You see them accost each other with effeminate airs: they have their signs and tokens like freemasons: they rail at women-kind; receive visits on their beds in gowns, and do a thousand other unintelligible prettinesses that I cannot tell what to make of. I therefore heartily desire you would exclude all this sort of animals.

"There is another matter I am foreseeing an ill consequence from, but may be timely prevented by prudence; which is, that for the last fortnight, prodigious shoals of volunteers have gone over to bully the French, upon hearing the peace was just signing; and this is so true, that I can assure you, all engrossing work about the Temple is risen above 3_s_. in the pound for want of hands. Now as it is possible some little alteration of affairs may have broken their measures, and that they will post back again, I am under the last apprehension, that these will, at their return, all set up for 'pretty fellows,' and thereby confound all merit and service, and impose on us some new alteration in our nightcap-wigs[280] and pockets, unless you can provide a particular class for them. I cannot apply myself better than to you, and I am sure I speak the mind of a very great number as deserving as myself."

The pretensions of this correspondent are worthy a particular distinction: he cannot indeed be admitted as a "pretty," but is, what we more justly call, a "smart fellow." Never to pay at the playhouse, is an act of frugality, that lets you into his character. And his expedient in sending his children a-begging before they can go, are characteristical instances that he belongs to this class. I never saw the gentleman; but I know by his letter, he hangs his cane on his button;[281] and by some lines of it, he should wear red-heeled shoes;[282] which are essential parts of the habit belonging to the order of "smart fellows."

My familiar is returned with the following letter from the French king:

"Versailles, _June 13_, 1709.

#"_Louis XIV. to Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._[283]#

"SIR,

"I have your epistle, and must take the liberty to say, that there has been a time, when there were generous spirits in Great Britain, who would not have suffered my name to be treated with the familiarity you think fit to use. I thought liberal men would not be such time-servers, as to fall upon a man because his friends are not in power. But having some concern for what you may transmit to posterity concerning me, I am willing to keep terms with you, and make a request to you, which is, that you would give my service to the nineteenth century (if ever you or yours reach to them), and tell them, that I have settled all matters between them and me by Monsieur Boileau. I should be glad to see you here."

It is very odd this prince should offer to invite me into his dominions, or believe I should accept the invitation. No, no, I remember too well how he served an ingenious gentleman, a friend of mine,[284] whom he locked up in the Bastille for no reason in the world, but because he was a wit, and feared he might mention him with justice in some of his writings. His way is, that all men of sense are preferred, banished, or imprisoned. He has indeed a sort of justice in him, like that of the gamesters; if a stander-by sees one at play cheat, he has a right to come in for snares, for knowing the mysteries of the game. This is a very wise and just maxim; and if I have not left at Mr. Morphew's, directed to me, bank bills for £200 on or before this day sevennight, I shall tell how Tom Cash got his estate. I expect three hundred pounds of Mr. Soilett, for concealing all the money he has lent to himself, and his landed friend bound with him, at thirty per cent. at his scrivener's. Absolute princes make people pay what they please in deference to their power: I do not know why I should not do the same, out of fear or respect to my knowledge. I always preserve decorums and civilities to the fair sex: therefore if a certain lady, who left her coach at the New Exchange[285] door in the Strand, and whipped down Durham Yard into a boat with a young gentleman for Fox Hall;[286] I say, if she will send me word, that I may give the fan which she dropped, and I found, to my sister Jenny, there shall be no more said of it. I expect hush-money to be regularly sent for every folly or vice any one commits in this whole town; and hope I may pretend to deserve it better than a chamber-maid, or _valet-de-chambre_: they only whisper it to the little set of their companions; but I can tell it to all men living, or who are to live. Therefore I desire all my readers to pay their fines, or mend their lives.

White's Chocolate-house, June 8.

My familiar being come from France, with an answer to my letter to Lewis of that kingdom, instead of going on in a discourse of what he had seen in that Court, he put on the immediate concern of a guardian, and fell to inquiring into my thoughts and adventures since his journey. As short as his stay had been, I confessed I had had many occasions for his assistance in my conduct; but communicated to him my thoughts of putting all my force against the horrid and senseless custom of duels. "If it were possible," said he, "to laugh at things in themselves so deeply tragical as the impertinent profusion of human life, I think I could divert you with a figure I saw just after my death, when the philosopher threw me, as I told you some days ago, into the pail of water.[287] You are to know, that when men leave the body, there are receptacles for them as soon as they depart, according to the manner in which they lived and died. At the very instant that I was killed, there came away with me a spirit which had lost its body in a duel. We were both examined. Me, the whole assembly looked at with kindness and pity, but at the same time with an air of welcome, and consolation: they pronounced me very happy, who had died in innocence; and told me, a quite different place was allotted to me, than that which was appointed for my companion; there being a great distance from the mansions of fools and innocents: 'though at the same time,' said one of the ghosts, there is a great affinity between an idiot who has been so for long life, and a child who departs before maturity. But this gentleman who has arrived with you is a fool of his own making, is ignorant out of choice, and will fare accordingly.' The assembly began to flock about him, and one said to him, 'Sir, I observed you came into the gate of persons murdered, and I desire to know what brought you to your untimely end?' He said, he had been a second. Socrates (who may be said to have been murdered by the commonwealth of Athens) stood by, and began to draw near him, in order, after his manner, to lead him into a sense of his error by concessions in his own discourse. 'Sir,' said that divine and amicable spirit, 'what was the quarrel?' He answered, 'We shall know very suddenly, when the principal in the business comes, for he was desperately wounded before I fell.' 'Sir,' said the sage, 'had you an estate?' 'Yes, sir,' the new guest answered, 'I have left it in a very good condition; I made my will the night before this occasion.' 'Did you read it before you signed it?' 'Yes sure, sir,' said the newcomer. Socrates replies, could a man that would not give his estate without reading the instrument, dispose of his life without asking a question? That illustrious shade turned from him, and a crowd of impertinent goblins, who had been drolls and parasites in their lifetime, and were knocked on the head for their sauciness, came about my fellow-traveller, and made themselves very merry with questions about the words 'carte' and 'terce' and other terms of fencers. But his thoughts began to settle into reflection upon the adventure which had robbed him of his late being; and with a wretched sigh, said he, 'How terrible are conviction and guilt when they come too late for penitence!'" Pacolet was going on in this strain, but he recovered from it, and told me, it was too soon to give my discourse on this subject so serious a turn; you have chiefly to do with that part of mankind which must be led into reflection by degrees, and you must treat this custom with humour and raillery to get an audience, before you come to pronounce sentence upon it. There is foundation enough for raising such entertainments from the practice on this occasion. Don't you know, that often a man is called out of bed to follow implicitly a coxcomb (with whom he would not keep company on any other occasion) to ruin and death? Then a good list of such as are qualified by the laws of these uncourteous men of chivalry to enter into combat (who are often persons of honour without common honesty): these, I say, ranged and drawn up in their proper order, would give an aversion to doing anything in common with such as men laugh at and contemn. But to go through this work, you must not let your thoughts vary, or make excursions from your theme: consider at the same time, that the matter has been often treated by the ablest and greatest writers; yet that must not discourage you; for the properest person to handle it, is one who has roved into mixed conversations, and must have opportunities (which I shall give you) of seeing these sort of men in their pleasures and gratifications; among which, they pretend to reckon fighting. It was pleasantly enough said of a bully in France, when duels first began to be punished: "The king has taken away gaming, and stage-playing, and now fighting too; how does he expect gentlemen shall divert themselves?"[288]

[Footnote 274: See Nos. 1, 10, 16.]

[Footnote 275: This letter is probably by Anthony Henley; see advertisement at end of No. 25. At this time Henley was M.P. for Weymouth, and a friend of the wits belonging to the Whig party. He died in 1711. See Nos. 11, 193.]

[Footnote 276: No. 21.]

[Footnote 277: Wall and the others named were quack doctors.]

[Footnote 278: Sintelaer, who lived in High Holborn, published in Feb. 1709, "The Scourge of Venus and Mercury. With an appendix in answer to Mr. John Marten's reflections thereupon" (_Postman_, Feb. 24 to 26, 1709).]

[Footnote 279: "Æneid," i. 460. Steele alters Virgil's "terriss" to "villa."]

[Footnote 280: A sort of periwig, with a short tie and small round head. See No. 30, end. In the _Spectator_ (No. 319), Dorinda describes a humble servant of hers who "appeared to me in one of those wigs that I think you call a 'night-cap,' which had altered him more effectually than before. He afterwards played a couple of black riding wigs upon me, with the same success."]

[Footnote 281: The elaborate canes used by the beaux commonly had a ribbon to enable them to be hung on the button of the waistcoat. Thus we find among the advertisements for lost canes, "A cane with a silver head and a black ribbon in it, the top of it amber, part of the head to turn round, and in it a perspective glass."]

[Footnote 282: Men of fashion wore very high-heeled shoes, and their red heels are often satirised by Steele and Addison (cf. _Spectator_, No. 311). In No. 16 of the _Spectator_ Addison said, "It is not my intention to sink the dignity of this my paper with reflections upon red-heels or topknots."]

[Footnote 283: See Nos. 19, 23.]

[Footnote 284: Probably Sir John Vanbrugh.]

[Footnote 285: A bazaar on the south side of the Strand, between George Court and Durham Street, and opposite Bedford Street. There were two long and double galleries, one above the other, containing shops, with pretty attendants. The New Exchange was a favourite lounge, and is frequently mentioned in the Restoration literature; it was pulled down in 1737. See _Spectator_, Nos. 96, 155, and Steele's "Lying Lover," act ii. sc. 2, where Young Bookwit says, "My choice was so distracted among the pretty merchants and their dealers, that I knew not where to run first." On the other hand, we find complaints that young fops hindered business by lolling on the counter an hour longer than was necessary, and annoyed the young women who served them with ingenious ribaldry.]

[Footnote 286: Vauxhall, or Fox-hall, Gardens were formed about 1661, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and were at first called the New Spring Gardens, to distinguish them from the Old Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. At the end of the seventeenth century Vauxhall was a favourite place for assignations, and Pepys was scandalised at scenes he there witnessed. The gardens were reopened in 1732, after being closed, it would seem, for some years, and they continued to be a place of fashionable resort until the end of the reign of George III.]

[Footnote 287: See No. 15.]

[Footnote 288: "Whereas several gentlemen have desired this paper with a blank leaf to write business on, and for the convenience of the post; this is to give notice, that this day, and for the future, it may be had of Mr. Morphew, near Stationers' Hall" (folio, advertisement).]

No. 27. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, June 9_, to _Saturday, June 11, 1709_.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 9.

Pacolet being gone a strolling among the men of the sword, in order to find out the secret causes of the frequent disputes we meet with, and furnish me with material for my treatise on duelling; I have room left to go on in my information to my country readers, whereby they may understand the bright people whose memoirs I have taken upon me to write. But in my discourse of the 28th of the last month,[289] I omitted to mention the most agreeable of all bad characters; and that is, a Rake.

A Rake is a man always to be pitied; and if he lives, is one day certainly reclaimed; for his faults proceed not from choice or inclination, but from strong passions and appetites, which are in youth too violent for the curb of reason, good sense, good manners, and good nature: all which he must have by nature and education, before he can be allowed to be, or have been of this order. He is a poor unwieldy wretch, that commits faults out of the redundance of his good qualities. His pity and compassion make him sometimes a bubble to all his fellows, let them be never so much below him in understanding. His desires run away with him through the strength and force of a lively imagination, which hurries him on to unlawful pleasures, before reason has power to come in to his rescue. Thus, with all the good intentions in the world to amendment, this creature sins on against heaven, himself, his friends, and his country, who all call for a better use of his talents. There is not a being under the sun so miserable as this: he goes on in a pursuit he himself disapproves, and has no enjoyment but what is followed by remorse; no relief from remorse, but the repetition of his crime. It is possible I may talk of this person with too much indulgence; but I must repeat it, that I think this a character which is the most the object of pity of any in the world. The man in the pangs of the stone, gout, or any acute distempers, is not in so deplorable a condition in the eye of right sense, as he that errs and repents, and repents and errs on. The fellow with broken limbs justly deserves your alms for his impotent condition; but he that cannot use his own reason, is in a much worse state; for you see him in miserable circumstances, with his remedy at the same time in his own possession, if he would or could use it. This is the cause, that of all ill characters, the rake has the best quarter in the world; for when he is himself, and unruffled with intemperance, you see his natural faculties exert themselves, and attract an eye of favour towards his infirmities. But if we look round us here, how many dull rogues are there, that would fain be what this poor man hates himself for? All the noise towards six in the evening,[290] is caused by his mimics and imitators. How ought men of sense to be careful of their

## actions, if it were merely from the indignation of feeling themselves

ill drawn by such little pretenders? not to say, he that leads, is guilty of all the actions of his followers: and a rake has imitators whom you would never expect should prove so. Second-hand vice sure of all is the most nauseous. There is hardly a folly more absurd, or which seems less to be accounted for (though it is what we see every day) than that grave and honest natures give into this way, and at the same time have good sense, if they thought fit to use it: but the fatality (under which most men labour) of desiring to be what they are not, makes them go out of a method, in which they might be received with applause, and would certainly excel, into one, wherein they will all their life have the air of strangers to what they aim at. For this reason, I have not lamented the metamorphosis of any one I know so much as of Nobilis, who was born with sweetness of temper, just apprehension, and everything else that might make him a man fit for his order. But instead of the pursuit of sober studies and applications, in which he would certainly be capable of making a considerable figure in the noblest assembly of men in the world; I say, in spite of that good nature, which is his proper bent, he will say ill-natured things aloud, put such as he was, and still should be, out of countenance, and drown all the natural good in him, to receive an artificial ill character, in which he will never succeed: for Nobilis is no rake. He may guzzle as much wine as he pleases, talk bawdy if he thinks fit; but he may as well drink water-gruel, and go twice a day to church, for it will never do. I pronounce it again, Nobilis is no rake. To be of that order, he must be vicious against his will, and not so by study or application. All Pretty Fellows are also excluded to a man, as well as all Inamaratos, or persons of the epicene gender, who gaze at one another in the presence of ladies. This class, of which I am giving you an account, is pretended to also by men of strong abilities in drinking; though they are such whom the liquor, not the conversation, keeps together. But blockheads may roar, fight, and stab, and be never the nearer; their labour is also lost; they want sense: they are no rakes.

As a rake among men is the man who lives in the constant abuse of his reason, so a coquette among women is one who lives in continual misapplication of her beauty. The chief of all whom I have the honour to be acquainted with, is pretty Mrs. Toss: she is ever in practice of something which disfigures her, and takes from her charms; though all she does, tends to a contrary effect. She has naturally a very agreeable voice and utterance, which she has changed for the prettiest lisp imaginable. She sees what she has a mind to see, at half a mile distance; but poring with her eyes half shut at every one she passes by, she believes much more becoming. The Cupid on her fan and she have their eyes full on each other, all the time in which they are not both in motion. Whenever her eye is turned from that dear object, you may have a glance, and your bow, if she is in humour, returned as civilly as you make it; but that must not be in the presence of a man of greater quality: for Mrs. Toss is so thoroughly well bred, that the chief person present has all her regards. And she, who giggles at divine service, and laughs at her very mother, can compose herself at the approach of a man of a good estate.

Will's Coffee-house, June 9.

A fine lady showed a gentleman of this company, for an eternal answer to all his addresses, a paper of verses, with which she is so captivated, that she professed, the author should be the happy man in spite of all other pretenders. It is ordinary for love to make men poetical, and it had that effect on this enamoured man: but he was resolved to try his vein upon some of her confidantes or retinue, before he ventured upon so high a theme as herself. To do otherwise than so, would be like making an heroic poem a man's first attempt. Among the favourites to the fair one, he found her parrot not to be in the last degree: he saw Poll had her ear, when his sighs were neglected. To write against him, had been a fruitless labour; therefore he resolved to flatter him into his interests, in the following manner:

#"To a Lady on her Parrot.#

_"When nymphs were coy, and love could not prevail, The gods disguised were seldom known to fail, Leda was chaste, but yet a feathered Jove Surprised the fair, and taught her how to love. There's no celestial but his heaven would quit, For any form which might to thee admit. See how the wanton bird, at every glance, Swells his glad plumes, and feels an amorous trance. The queen of beauty has forsook the dove, Henceforth the parrot be the bird of love."_

It is indeed a very just proposition, to give that honour rather to the parrot than the other volatile. The parrot represents us in the state of making love: the dove in the possession of the object beloved. But instead of turning the dove off, I fancy it would be better if the chaise of Venus had hereafter a parrot added (as we see sometimes a third horse to a coach) which might intimate, that to be a parrot, is the only way to succeed; and to be a dove, to preserve your conquests. If the swain would go on successfully, he must imitate the bird he writes upon. For he who would be loved by women, must never be silent before the favour, or open his lips after it.

From my own Apartment, June 10.

I have so many messages from young gentlemen who expect preferment and distinction, that I am wholly at a loss in what manner to acquit myself. The writer of the following letter tells me in a postscript, he cannot go out of town till I have taken some notice of him, and is very urgent to be somebody, in town before he leaves it, and returns to his commons at the university. But take it from himself.

#"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Monitor-General of Great Britain._#

"Shire Lane, _June 8._

I have been above six months from the university, of age these three months, and so long in town. I was recommended to one Charles Bubbleboy[291] near the Temple, who has supplied me with all the furniture he says a gentleman ought to have. I desired a certificate thereof from him, which he said would require some time to consider of; and when I went yesterday morning for it, he tells me, upon due consideration, I still want some few odd things more, to the value of threescore or fourscore pounds, to make me complete. I have bespoke them; and the favour I beg of you is, to know, when I am equipped, in what part or class of men in this town you will place me. Pray send me word what I am, and you shall find me,

"Sir,

"Your most humble Servant,

"JEFFRY NICKNACK."

I am very willing to encourage young beginners; but am extremely in the dark how to dispose of this gentleman. I cannot see either his person or habit in this letter; but I'll call at Charles', and know the shape of his snuff-box, by which I can settle his character. Though indeed, to know his full capacity, I ought to be informed, whether he takes Spanish or musty.[292]

St. James's Coffee-house, June 10.

Letters from the Low Countries of the 17th instant say, that the Duke of Marlborough and the Prince of Savoy intended to leave Ghent on that day, and join the army, which lies between Pont d'Espiere and Courtray, their headquarters being at Helchin. The same day the Palatine foot was expected at Brussels. Lieutenant-General Dompre, with a body of eight thousand men, is posted at Alost, in order to cover Ghent and Brussels. The Marshal de Villars was still on the plains of Lens; and it is said, the Duke of Vendôme is appointed to command in conjunction with that general. Advices from Paris say, Monsieur Voisin is made Secretary of State, upon Monsieur Chamillard's resignation of that employment. The want of money in that kingdom is so great, that the Court has thought fit to command all the plate of private families to be brought into the Mint. They write from the Hague of the 18th, that the States of Holland continue their session; and that they have approved the resolution of the States-General, to publish a second edict to prohibit the sale of corn to the enemy. Many eminent persons in that assembly have declared, that they are of opinion, that all commerce whatsoever with France should be wholly forbidden: which point is under present deliberation; but it is feared it will meet with powerful opposition.

[Footnote 289: No. 21.]

[Footnote 290: People of fashion dined at about four o'clock in Queen Anne's time, and by six the men, who had often drunk a good deal of wine, would be finding their way to the clubs and coffee-houses.]

[Footnote 291: Charles Mather, a toyman in Fleet Street, next door to Nandoe's Coffee-house, over against Chancery Lane. Swift wrote ("Sid Hamet's Rod," 1710):

"No hobby horse with gorgeous top, The dearest in Charles Mather's shop; Or glittering tinsel of Mayfair Could with the rod of Sid compare."

See Nos. 113, 142, and _Spectator_, Nos. 328, 503 ("One of Charles Mather's fine tablets"), and 570 ("The famous Charles Mather was bred up under him").]

[Footnote 292: Charles Lillie, the perfumer, tells us how snuff came into use. A great quantity of musty snuff was captured in the Spanish fleet taken at Vigo in 1702, and snuff with this special musty flavour became the fashion. In No. 138 of the _Spectator_, Steele humorously announced that "the exercise of the snuff-box, according to the most fashionable airs and motions, in opposition to the exercise of the fair, will be taught with the best plain or perfumed snuff at Charles Lillie's, perfumer, at the corner of Beaufort Buildings in the Strand."]

No. 28. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, June 11_, to _Tuesday, June 14, 1709._

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 13.

I had suspended the business of duelling to a distant time, but that I am called upon to declare myself on a point proposed in the following letter.

"_June 9, at night._

"Sir,

"I desire the favour of you to decide this question, whether calling a gentleman a 'smart fellow' is an affront or not? A youth entering a certain coffee-house, with his cane tied at his button, wearing red-heeled shoes, I thought of your description,[293] and could not forbear telling a friend of mine next to me, 'There enters a smart fellow.' The gentleman hearing it, had immediately a mind to pick a quarrel with me, and desired satisfaction: at which I was more puzzled than at the other, remembering what mention your familiar makes of those that had lost their lives on such occasions. The thing is referred to your judgment, and I expect you to be my second, since you have been the cause of our quarrel. I am,

"Sir,

"Your Friend and humble Servant."

I absolutely pronounce, that there is no occasion of offence given in this expression; for a "smart fellow" is always an appellation of praise, and is a man of double capacity. The true cast or mould in which you may be sure to know him is, when his livelihood or education is in the Civil List, and you see him express a vivacity or mettle above the way he is in by a little jerk in his motion, short trip in his steps, well-fancied lining of his coat, or any other indications which may be given in a vigorous dress. Now, what possible insinuation can there be, that it is a cause of quarrel for a man to say, he allows a gentleman really to be, what he, his tailor, his hosier, and his milliner, have conspired to make him? I confess, if this person who appeals to me had said, he was _not_ a "smart fellow," there had been cause for resentment; but if he stands to it that he is one, he leaves no manner of ground for a misunderstanding. Indeed, it is a most lamentable thing, that there should be a dispute raised upon a man's saying another is, what he plainly takes pains to be thought. But this point cannot be so well adjusted, as by inquiring what are the sentiments of wise nations and communities of the use of the sword, and from thence conclude, whether it is honourable to draw it so frequently or not? An illustrious commonwealth of Italy[294] has preserved itself for many ages, without letting one of their subjects handle this destructive instrument, always leaving that work to such of mankind as understand the use of a whole skin so little, as to make a profession of exposing it to cuts and scars. But what need we run to such foreign instances: our own ancient and well-governed cities are conspicuous examples to all mankind in their regulation of military achievements. The chief citizens, like the noble Italians, hire mercenaries to carry arms in their stead; and you shall have a fellow of a desperate fortune, for the gain of one half-crown, go through all the dangers of Tothill Fields, or the Artillery Ground,[295] clap his right jaw within two inches of the touch-hole of a musket, fire it off, and huzza, with as little concern as he tears a pullet. Thus you see to what scorn of danger these mercenaries arrive, out of a mere love of sordid gain: but methinks it should take off the strong prepossession men have in favour of bold

## actions, when they see upon what low motives men aspire to them. Do but

observe the common practice in the government of those heroic bodies, our militia and lieutenancies, the most ancient corps of soldiers, perhaps, in the universe. I question whether there is one instance of an animosity between any two of these illustrious sons of Mars since their institution, which was decided by combat? I remember indeed to have read the chronicle of an accident which had like to have occasioned bloodshed in the very field before all the general officers, though most of them were justices of the peace: Captain Crabtree of Birching Lane, haberdasher, had drawn a bill upon Major-General Maggot, cheesemonger in Thames Street. Crabtree draws this upon Mr. William Maggot and Company. A country lad received this bill, and not understanding the word "company," used in drawing bills on men in partnership, carried it to Mr. Jeffry Stick of Crooked Lane (lieutenant of the major-general's company) whom he had the day before seen march by the door in all the pomp of his commission. The lieutenant accepts it, for the honour of the company, since it had come to him. But repayment being asked from the major-general, he absolutely refuses. Upon this, the lieutenant thinks of nothing less than to bring this to a rupture, and takes for his second, Tobias Armstrong of the Counter,[296] and sends him with a challenge in a script of parchment, wherein was written, "Stitch contra Maggot," and all the fury vanished in a moment. The major-general gives satisfaction to the second, and all was well. Hence it is, that the bold spirits of our city are kept in such subjection to the civil power. Otherwise, where would our liberties soon be? If wealth and valour were suffered to exert themselves with their utmost force: if such officers as are employed in the terrible bands above-mentioned, were to draw bills as well as swords: these dangerous captains, who could victual an army as well as lead it, would be too powerful for the State. But the point of honour justly gives way to that of gain; and by long and wise regulation, the richest is the bravest man. I have known a captain rise to a colonel in two days by the fall of stocks; and a major, my good friend, near the Monument, ascended to that honour by the fall of the price of spirits, and the rising of right Nantz. By this true sense of honour, that body of warriors are ever in good order and discipline, with their colours and coats all whole: as in other battalions (where their principles of action are less solid) you see the men of service look like spectres, with long sides, and lank cheeks. In this army, you may measure a man's services by his waist, and the most prominent belly is certainly the man who has been most upon action. Besides all this, there is another excellent remark to be made in the discipline of these troops. It being of absolute necessity that the people of England should see what they have for their money, and be eye-witnesses of the advantages they gain by it, all battles which are fought abroad are represented here. But since one side must be beaten, and the other conquer, which might create disputes, the eldest company is always to make the other run, and the younger retreats, according to the last news and best intelligence. I have myself seen Prince Eugene make Catinat fly from the back-side of Gray's Inn Lane to Hockley-in-the-Hole,[297] and not give over the pursuit, till obliged to leave the Bear Garden on the right, to avoid being borne down by fencers, wild bulls and monsters, too terrible for the encounter of any heroes, but such whose lives are their livelihood.

We have here seen, that wise nations do not admit of fighting, even in the defence of their country, as a laudable action; and they live within the walls of our own city in great honour and reputation without it. It would be very necessary to understand, by what force of the climate, food, education, or employment, one man's sense is brought to differ so essentially from that of another; that one is ridiculous and contemptible for forbearing a thing which makes for his safety; and another applauded for consulting his ruin and destruction.

It will therefore be necessary for us (to show our travelling) to examine this subject fully, and tell you how it comes to pass, that a man of honour in Spain, though you offend him never so gallantly, stabs you basely; in England, though you offend never so basely, challenges fairly: the former kills you out of revenge; the latter out of good breeding. But to probe the heart of a man in this particular to its utmost thoughts and recesses, I must wait for the return of Pacolet, who is now attending a gentleman lately in a duel, and sometimes visits the person by whose hand he received his wounds.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 13.

Letters from Vienna of the 8th instant say, there has been a journal of the marches and actions of the King of Sweden, from the beginning of January to the 11th of April, N.S., communicated by the Swedish Ministers to that Court. These advices inform, that his Swedish Majesty entered the territories of Muscovy in February last with the main body of his army, in order to oblige the enemy to a general engagement; but that the Muscovites declining a battle, and a universal thaw having rendered the rivers unpassable, the king returned into Ukrania. There are mentioned several rencounters between considerable detachments of the Swedish and Russian armies. Marshal Heister intended to take his leave of the Court on the day after the date of these letters, and put himself at the head of the army in Hungary. The malcontents had attempted to send in a supply of provisions into Neuheusel; but their design was disappointed by the Germans.

Advices from Berlin of the 15th instant, N.S., say, that his Danish Majesty having received an invitation from the King of Prussia to an interview, designed to come to Potsdam within few days; and that King Augustus resolved to accompany him thither. To avoid all difficulties in ceremony, the three kings, and all the company who shall have the honour to sit with them at table, are to draw lots, and take precedence accordingly.

They write from Hamburg of the 18th instant, N.S., that some particular letters from Dantzic speak of a late action between the Swedes and Muscovites near Jaroslaw; but that engagement being mentioned from no other place, there is not much credit given to this intelligence.

We hear from Brussels, by letters, dated the 20th, that on the 14th in the evening the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene arrived at Courtray, with a design to proceed the day following to Lille, in the neighbourhood of which city the confederate army was to rendezvous the same day. Advices from Paris inform us, that the Marshal de Bezons is appointed to command in Dauphiné; and that the Duke of Berwick is set out for Spain, with a design to follow the fortunes of the Duke of Anjou, in case the French king should comply with the late demands of the Allies.

The Court of France has sent a circular letter to all the governors of the provinces, to recommend to their consideration his Majesty's late conduct in the affair of peace. It is thought fit in that epistle, to condescend to a certain appeal to the people, whether it is consistent with the dignity of the crown, or the French name, to submit to the preliminaries demanded by the confederates? The letter dwells upon the unreasonableness of the Allies, in requiring, that his Majesty should assist in dethroning his grandson, and treats this particular in language more suitable to it, as it is a topic of oratory, than a real circumstance, on which the interests of nations, and reasons of State, which affect all Europe, are concerned.

The close of this memorial seems to prepare the people to expect all events, attributing the confidence of the enemy to the goodness of their troops; but acknowledging, that his sole dependence is upon the intervention of Providence.

[Footnote 293: See No. 26.]

[Footnote 294: Venice, where mercenaries were employed for fighting purposes.]

[Footnote 295: The City train-bands were often the subject of ridicule by the wits. See "Harleian Misc." i. 206, Cowper's "John Gilpin," and Nos. 38, 41. Tothill Fields, Westminster, and the Artillery Ground, Finsbury, were the usual exercising-grounds for the train-bands.]

[Footnote 296: The Compter was a prison for the city of London, where debtors and others were confined.]

[Footnote 297: Steele wrote at length in the _Spectator_ (No. 436) of a trial of skill in the noble art of self-defence at Hockley-in-the-Hole; and in No. 630 there is an allusion to the gladiators of Hockley-in-the-Hole. In the "Beggar's Opera," Mrs. Peachum says: "You should to Hockley-in-the-Hole and to Marybone, child, to learn valour; there are the schools that have bred so many brave men." As to the other sports at the Bear Garden, see No. 134, and Gay's "Trivia," ii. 407-12:

"When thro' the town, with slow and solemn air, Led by the nostril, walks the muzzled bear; Behind him moves, majestically dull, The pride of Hockley-hole, the surly bull; Learn hence the periods of the week to name: Mondays and Thursdays are the days of game."

There were seats, at half a crown and upwards, for the quality; the neighbourhood of the Bear Garden was infested by thieves. The following are specimens of the advertisements common about 1709: "At the Bear-garden, in Hockley in the Hole. A trial of skill, to be performed between two profound masters of the noble science of defence, on Wednesday next, the 13th of July, 1702, at two o'clock precisely. I George Gray, born in the city of Norwich, who has fought in most parts of the West Indies, viz., Jamaica, Barbadoes, and several other parts of the world, in all twenty-five times upon the stage, and was never yet worsted; and am now lately come to London, do invite James Harris to meet, and exercise at the following weapons, back-sword, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, single falchon, and case of falchons. I James Harris, master of the said noble science of defence, who formerly rid in the Horse-guards, and hath fought 110 prizes, and never left a stage to any man, will not fail (God willing) to meet this brave and bold inviter, at the time and place appointed, desiring sharp swords, and from him no favour. No person to be upon the stage, but the seconds. _Vivat Regina_."

"At the Bear-garden in Hockley in the Hole, near Clerkenwell Green, 1710. This is to give notice to all gentlemen, gamesters, and others, that on this present Monday is a match to be fought by two dogs, one from Newgate-market, against one from Honey-lane market, at a bull, for a guinea to be spent, five let-goes out of hand, which goes fairest and fastest in, wins all. Likewise, a green bull to be baited, which was never baited before; and a bull to be turned loose with fireworks all over him. Also a mad ass to be baited. With a variety of bull-baiting and bear-baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with fireworks. To begin exactly at three of the clock."]

No. 29. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, June 14_, to _Thursday, June 16, 1709._

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 14.

Having a very solid respect for human nature, however it is distorted from its natural make, by affectation, humour, custom, misfortune, or vice, I do apply myself to my friends to help me in raising arguments for preserving it in all its individuals, as long as it is permitted. To one of my letters on this subject, I have received the following answer:[298]

"SIR,

"In answer to your question, why men of sense, virtue, and experience, are seen still to comply with that ridiculous custom of duelling, I must desire you to reflect, that custom has dished up in ruffs the wisest heads of our ancestors, and put the best of the present age into huge falbala periwigs.[299] Men of sense would not impose such encumbrances on themselves; but be glad they might show their faces decently in public upon easier terms. If then such men appear reasonably slaves to the fashion, in what regards the figure of their persons, we ought not to wonder, that they are at least so in what seems to touch their reputations. Besides, you can't be ignorant, that dress and chivalry have been always encouraged by the ladies, as the two principal branches of gallantry. It is to avoid being sneered at for his singularity, and from a desire to appear more agreeable to his mistress, that a wise, experienced, and polite man, complies with the dress commonly received, and is prevailed upon to violate his reason and principles, in hazarding his life and estate by a tilt, as well as suffering his pleasures to be constrained and soured by the constant apprehension of a quarrel. This is the more surprising, because men of the most delicate sense and principles have naturally in other cases a particular repugnance in accommodating themselves to the maxims of the world: but one may easily distinguish the man that is affected with beauty, and the reputation of a tilt, from him who complies with both, merely as they are imposed upon him by custom; for in the former you will remark an air of vanity and triumph; whereas when the latter appears in a long Duvillier full of powder, or has decided a quarrel by the sword, you may perceive in his face, that he appeals to custom for an excuse. I think it may not be improper to inquire into the genealogy of this chimerical monster, called a 'duel', which I take to be an illegitimate species of the ancient knight-errantry. By the laws of this whim, your heroic person, or man of gallantry, was indispensably obliged to starve in armour a certain number of years in the chase of monsters, encounter them at the peril of his life, and suffer great hardships, in order to gain the affection of the fair lady, and qualify himself for assuming the _belair_, that is, of a pretty fellow, or man of honour according to the fashion: but since the publishing of 'Don Quixote' and extinction of the race of dragons, which Suetonius says happened in that of Wantley,[300] the gallant and heroic spirits of these latter times have been under the necessity of creating new chimerical monsters to entertain themselves with, by way of single combats, as the only proofs they are able to give their own sex, and the ladies, that they are in all points men of nice honour. But to do justice to the ancient and real monsters, I must observe, that they never molested those who were not of a humour to hunt for them in the woods and deserts; whereas on the contrary, our modern monsters are so familiarly admitted and entertained in all the Courts and cities of Europe (except France) that one can scarce be in the most humanised society without risking one's life; the people of the best sort, and the fine gentlemen of the age, being so fond of them, that they seldom appear in any public place without one. I have some further considerations upon this subject, which, as you encourage me, shall be communicated to you, by, sir, a cousin but once removed from the best family of the Staffs, namely, "Sir,

"Your humble Servant,

"Kinsman and Friend,

"TIM SWITCH."

It is certain, Mr. Switch has hit upon the true source of this evil; and that it proceeds only from the force of custom that we contradict ourselves in half the particulars and occurrences of life. But such a tyranny in love, which the fair impose upon us, is a little too severe, that we must demonstrate our affection for them by no certain proof but hatred to one another, or come at them (only as one does to an estate) by survivorship. This way of application to gain a lady's heart, is taking her as we do towns and castles, by distressing the place, and letting none come near them without our pass. Were such a lover once to write the truth of his heart, and let her know his whole thoughts, he would appear indeed to have a passion for her; but it would hardly be called love. The billet-doux would run to this purpose:

"MADAM,

"I have so tender a regard for you and your interests, that I'll knock any man in the head whom I observe to be of my mind, and like you. Mr. Truman the other day looked at you in so languishing a manner, that I am resolved to run him through to-morrow morning: this, I think, he deserves for his guilt in admiring you; than which I cannot have a greater reason for murdering him, except it be that you also approve him. Whoever says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill him. I am,

"Madam,

"Your most obedient,

"Most humble Servant."

From my own Apartment, June 14.

I am just come hither at ten at night, and have ever since six been in the most celebrated, though most nauseous, company in town: the two leaders of the society were a critic and a wit. These two gentlemen are great opponents upon all occasions, not discerning that they are the nearest each other in temper and talents of any two classes of men in the world; for to profess judgment, and to profess wit, both arise from the same failure, which is want of judgment. The poverty of the critic this way proceeds from the abuse of his faculty; that of the wit from the neglect of it. It is a particular observation I have always made, that of all mortals, a critic is the silliest; for by inuring himself to examine all things, whether they are of consequence or not, be never looks upon anything but with a design of passing sentence upon it; by which means, he is never a companion, but always a censor. This makes him earnest upon trifles; and dispute on the most indifferent occasions with vehemence. If he offers to speak or write, that talent which should approve the work of the other faculties, prevents their operation. He comes upon action in armour; but without weapons: he stands in safety; but can gain no glory. The wit on the other hand has been hurried so long away by imagination only, that judgment seems not to have ever been one of his natural faculties. This gentleman takes himself to be as much obliged to be merry, as the other to be grave. A thorough critic is a sort of Puritan in the polite world. As an enthusiast in religion stumbles at the ordinary occurrences of life, if he cannot quote scripture examples on the occasion; so the critic is never safe in his speech or writing, without he has among the celebrated writers an authority for the truth of his sentence. You will believe we had a very good time with these brethren, who were so far out of the dress of their native country, and so lost to its dialect, that they were as much strangers to themselves, as to their relation to each other. They took up the whole discourse; sometimes the critic grew passionate, and when reprimanded by the wit for any trip or hesitation in his voice, he would answer, Mr. Dryden makes such a character on such an occasion break off in the same manner; so that the stop was according to nature, and as a man in a passion should do. The wit, who is as far gone in letters as himself, seems to be at a loss to answer such an apology; and concludes only, that though his anger is justly vented, it wants fire in the utterance. If wit is to be measured by the circumstances of time and place, there is no man has generally so little of that talent, as he who is a wit by profession. What he says, instead of arising from the occasion, has an occasion invented to bring it in. Thus he is new for no other reason, but that he talks like nobody else; but has taken up a method of his own, without commerce of dialogue with other people. The lively Jasper Dactyle[301] is one of this character. He seems to have made a vow to be witty to his life's end. When you meet him, "What do you think," says he, "I have been entertaining myself with?" Then out comes a premeditated turn, to which it is to no purpose to answer; for he goes on in the same strain of thought he designed without your speaking. Therefore I have a general answer to all he can say; as, "Sure there never was any creature had so much fire!" Spondee, who is a critic, is seldom out of this fine man's company. They have no manner of affection for each other, but keep together, like Novel and Oldfox in "The Plain Dealer,"[302] because they show each other. I know several of sense who can be diverted with this couple; but I see no curiosity in the thing, except it be, that Spondee is dull, and seems dull; but Dactyle is heavy with a brisk face. It must be owned also, that Dactyle has almost vigour enough to be a coxcomb; but Spondee, by the lowness of his constitution, is only a blockhead.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 15.

We have no particulars of moment since our last, except it be, that the copy of the following original letter came by the way of Ostend. It is said to have been found in the closet of Monsieur Chamillard, the late Secretary of State of France, since his disgrace. It was signed by two brothers of the famous Cavallier,[303] who led the Cevennois, and had a personal interview with the king, as well as a capitulation to lay down his arms, and leave the dominions of France. There are many other names to it; among whom, is the chief of the family of the Marquis Guiscard.[304] It is not yet known, whether Monsieur Chamillard had any real design to favour the Protestant interest, or only thought to place himself at the head of that people, to make himself considerable enough to oppose his enemies at Court, and reinstate himself in power there.

"SIR,

"We have read your Majesty's[305] letter to the governors of your provinces, with instructions what sentiments to insinuate into the minds of your people: but as you have always acted upon the maxim, that we were made for you, and not you for us, we must take leave to assure your Majesty, that we are exactly of the contrary opinion, and must desire you to send for your grandson home, and acquaint him, that you now know by experience, absolute power is only a vertigo in the brain of princes, which for a time may quicken their motion, and double in their diseased sight the instances of power above them; but must end in their fall and destruction. Your memorial speaks a good father of your family, but a very ill one of your people. Your Majesty is reduced to hear truth when you are obliged to speak it: there is no governing any but savages by any methods but their own consent, which you seem to acknowledge, in appealing to us for our opinion of your conduct in treating of peace. Had your people been always of your council, the King of France had never been reduced so low, as to acknowledge his arms were fallen into contempt. But since it is thus, we must ask, 'How is any man of France, but they of the House of Bourbon, the better that Philip is King of Spain?' We have outgrown that folly of placing our happiness in your Majesty's being called, The Great; therefore as you and we are all alike bankrupts,[306] and undone, let us not deceive ourselves, but compound with our adversaries, and not talk like their equals. Your Majesty must forgive us that we cannot wish you success, or lend you help; for if you lose one battle more, we may have a hand in the peace you make; and doubt not but your Majesty's faith in treaties will require the ratification of the states of your kingdoms. So we bid you heartily farewell, till we have the honour to meet you assembled in Parliament. This happy expectation makes us willing to wait the event of another campaign, from whence we hope to be raised from the misery of slaves, to the privileges of subjects. We are,

"Your Majesty's

"Truly faithful, and

"Loyal Subjects, &c."

[Footnote 298: See Nos. 25, 26, 28.]

[Footnote 299: The full-bottomed dress wigs. Another name was "Duvillier," used below.]

[Footnote 300: See Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," ed. Wheatley, iii. 279. "The Dragon of Wantley" is a satire on the old ballads of chivalry.]

[Footnote 301: See Nos. 3, 63.]

[Footnote 302: In the list of characters, Wycherley defines Novel as "a pert railing coxcomb, and an admirer of novelties," and Major Oldfox as "an old impertinent fop, given to scribbling."]

[Footnote 303: James Cavallier was the celebrated leader of the French Protestants in the Cevennes, when these warlike but enthusiastic mountaineers opposed the tyranny of Lewis XIV. and made a vigorous stand against the whole power of France, which for a long time laboured in vain to subdue them. It was in the heat of this gallant struggle to preserve themselves from religious slavery, that the first seeds of that wild fanaticism were sown, which afterwards grew up to such an amazing extravagance, and distinguished them, by the name of French Prophets, among the most extraordinary enthusiasts that are to be found in the history of human folly. Cavallier, who found in his latter days an hospitable asylum in Ireland, published, in 1726, "Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes, under Col. Cavallier, in defence of the Protestants persecuted in that country, and of the peace concluded between him and the Mareschal Duke of Villars; of his conference with the King of France, after the conclusion of the peace; with letters relating thereto, from Mareschal Villars, and Chamillard, secretary of state." (Percy.)]

[Footnote 304: It was a younger brother, an abbé, who used his pen and sword against Lewis XIV. He was employed in England, had preferment in the army, and a pension; but, being found a useless villain, he was soon discarded. He then endeavoured to make his peace with France, by acting here as a spy; but being detected, he was brought before the Cabinet Council, to be examined, March 8, 1711. In the course of his examination he took an opportunity to stab Mr. Harley. Of the wounds given to this assassin on that occasion, he died in Newgate soon after. See the "Narrative of Guiscard's Examination," by Mrs. Manley, from facts communicated to her by Dr. Swift. See also _Examiner_, No. 32. (Nichols.)]

[Footnote 305: Soon after the conclusion of the late treaty of peace, the French king dispersed a letter through his dominions, wherein he shows the reasons why he could not ratify the preliminaries. _Vide_ the public newspapers of this date. (Steele.)]

[Footnote 306: N.B.--Mons. Bernard and the chief bankers of France became bankrupts about this time (Steele).--See news paragraph in Nos. 3, 5, 9.]

No. 30. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, June 16_, to _Saturday, June 18, 1709._

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, June 16.

The vigilance, the anxiety, the tenderness, which I have for the good people of England, I am persuaded will in time be much commended; but I doubt whether they will ever be rewarded. However, I must go on cheerfully in my work of reformation: that being my great design, I am studious to prevent my labours increasing upon me; therefore am

## particularly observant of the temper and inclinations of childhood and

youth, that we may not give vice and folly supplies from the growing generation. It is hardly to be imagined how useful this study is, and what great evils or benefits arise from putting us in our tender years to what we are fit, or unfit: therefore on Tuesday last (with a design to sound their inclinations) I took three lads who are under my guardianship a rambling, in a hackney-coach, to show them the town, as the lions,[307] the tombs,[308] Bedlam,[309] and the other places which are entertainments to raw minds, because they strike forcibly on the fancy. The boys are brothers, one of sixteen, the other of fourteen, the other of twelve. The first was his father's darling, the second his mother's, and the third is mine, who am their uncle. Mr. William is a lad of true genius; but being at the upper end of a great school, and having all the lads below him, his arrogance is insupportable. If I begin to show a little of my Latin, he immediately interrupts: "Uncle, under favour, that which you say is not understood in that manner." "Brother," says my boy Jack, "you do not show your manners much in contradicting my Uncle Isaac." "You queer cur," says Mr. William, "do you think my uncle takes any notice of such a dull rogue as you are?" Mr. William goes on; "He is the most stupid of all my mother's children: he knows nothing of his book: when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws and marbles, or laying up farthings. His way of thinking is, four and twenty farthings make sixpence, and two sixpences a shilling, two shillings and sixpence half a crown, and two half-crowns five shillings. So within these two months, the close hunks has scraped up twenty shillings, and we'll make him spend it all before he comes home." Jack immediately claps his hands into both pockets, and turns as pale as ashes. There is nothing touches a parent (and such I am to Jack) so nearly, as a provident temper. This lad has in him the true temper for a good husband, a kind father, and an honest executor. All the great people you see make considerable figures on the 'Change, in Court, and sometimes in Senates, are such as in reality have no greater faculty than what may be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to their own preservation, and that of their friends, without being capable of striking out of the road for adventures. There is Sir William Scrip was of this sort of capacity from his childhood: he has bought the country round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry Wildfire with all his wit and humour. Sir Harry never wants money but he comes to Scrip, laughs at him half an hour, and then gives bond for the other thousand. The close men are incapable of placing merit anywhere but in their pence, and therefore gain it; while others, who have larger capacities, are diverted from the pursuit by enjoyments, which can be supported only by that cash which they despise; and therefore are in the end, slaves to their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once heard a man of excellent sense observe, that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their business, than by being in the conduct of such as wanted abilities to execute them. Jack therefore being of a plodding make, shall be a citizen; and I design him to be the refuge of the family in their distress, as well as their jest in prosperity. His brother Will, shall go to Oxford with all speed, where, if he does not arrive at being a man of sense, he will soon be informed wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place such a true spirit of raillery and humour, that if they can't make you a wise man, they will certainly let you know you are a fool, which is all my cousin wants to cease to be so. Thus having taken these two out of the way, I have leisure to look at my third lad. I observe in the young rogue a natural subtilty of mind, which discovers itself rather in forbearing to declare his thoughts on any occasion, than in any visible way of exerting himself in discourse. For which reason I will place him where, if he commits no faults, he may go farther than those in other stations, though they excel in virtues. The boy is well fashioned, and will easily fall into a graceful manner; wherefore, I have a design to make him a page to a great lady of my acquaintance; by which means he will be well skilled in the common modes of life, and make a greater progress in the world by that knowledge, than with the greatest qualities without it. A good mien in a Court will carry a man greater lengths than a good understanding in any other place. We see a world of pains taken, and the best years of life spent, in collecting a set of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life; and after all, the man so qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a good suit of clothes, and want common sense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is, that wisdom, valour, justice, and learning, can't keep a man in countenance that is possessed with these excellences, if he wants that less art of life and behaviour, called "good breeding." A man endowed with great perfections without this, is like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always wants change for his ordinary occasions. Will. Courtly is a living instance of this truth, and has had the same education which I am giving my nephew. He never spoke a thing but what was said before; and yet can converse with the wittiest men without being ridiculous. Among the learned, he does not appear ignorant; nor with the wise, indiscreet. Living in conversation from his infancy, makes him nowhere at a loss; and a long familiarity with the persons of men, is in a manner of the same service to him, as if he knew their arts. As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equals.

Will's Coffee-house, June 17.

The suspension of the playhouse[310] has made me have nothing to send you from hence; but calling here this evening, I found the party I usually sit with, upon the business of writing, and examining what was the handsomest style in which to address women, and write letters of gallantry. Many were the opinions which were immediately declared on this subject: some were for a certain softness; some for I know not what delicacy; others for something inexpressibly tender: when it came to me, I said there was no rule in the world to be made for writing letters, but that of being as near what you speak face to face as you can; which is so great a truth, that I am of opinion, writing has lost more mistresses than any one mistake in the whole legend of love. For when you write to a lady for whom you have a solid and honourable love, the great idea you have of her, joined to a quick sense of her absence, fills your mind with a sort of tenderness, that gives your language too much the air of complaint, which is seldom successful. For a man may flatter himself as he pleases, but he will find, that the women have more understanding in their own affairs than we have, and women of spirit are not to be won by mourners. Therefore he that can keep handsomely within rules, and support the carriage of a companion to his mistress, is much more likely to prevail, than he who lets her see, the whole relish of his life depends upon her. If possible therefore divert your mistress, rather than sigh to her. The pleasant man she will desire for her own sake; but the languishing lover has nothing to hope from but her pity. To show the difference I produced two letters a lady gave me, which had been writ to her by two gentlemen who pretended to her, but were both killed the next day after the date at the battle of Almanza. One of them was a mercurial gay-humoured man; the other a man of a serious, but a great and gallant spirit. Poor Jack Careless! This is his letter: you see how it is folded: the air of it is so negligent, one might have read half of it by peeping into it, without breaking it open. He had no exactness.

"MADAM,

"It is a very pleasant circumstance I am in, that while I should be thinking of the good company we are to meet within a day or two, where we shall go to loggerheads, my thoughts are running upon a fair enemy in England. I was in hopes I had left you there; but you follow the camp, though I have endeavoured to make some of our leaguer ladies drive you out of the field. All my comfort is, you are more troublesome to my colonel than myself: I permit you to visit me only now and then; but he downright keeps you. I laugh at his Honour as far as his gravity will allow me; but I know him to be a man of too much merit to succeed with a woman. Therefore defend your heart as well as you can, I shall come home this winter irresistibly dressed, and with quite a new foreign air. And so I had like to say, I rest, but alas! I remain,

"Madam,

"Your most obedient,

"Most humble Servant,

"JOHN CARELESS."

Now for Colonel Constant's epistle; you see it is folded and directed with the utmost care.

"MADAM,

"I do myself the honour to write to you this evening, because I believe to-morrow will be a day of battle, and something forebodes in my breast that I shall fall in it. If it proves so, I hope you will hear, I have done nothing below a man who had a love of his country, quickened by a passion for a woman of honour. If there be anything noble in going to a certain death; if there be any merit, that I meet it with pleasure, by promising myself a place in your esteem; if your applause, when I am no more, is preferable to the most glorious life without you: I say, madam, if any of these considerations can have weight with you, you will give me a kind place in your memory, which I prefer to the glory of Cæsar. I hope, this will be read, as it is writ, with tears."

The beloved lady is a woman of a sensible mind; but she has confessed to me, that after all her true and solid value for Constant, she had much more concern for the loss of Careless. Those great and serious spirits have something equal to the adversities they meet with, and consequently lessen the objects of pity. Great accidents seem not cut out so much for men of familiar characters, which makes them more easily pitied, and soon after beloved. Add to this, that the sort of love which generally succeeds, is a stranger to awe and distance. I asked Romana, whether of the two she should have chosen had they survived? She said, she knew she ought to have taken Constant; but believed she should have chosen Careless.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 17.

Letters from Lisbon of the 9th instant, N.S., say, that the enemy's army, having blocked up Olivenza, was posted on the Guadiana. The Portuguese are very apprehensive that the garrison of that place, though it consists of five of the best regiments of their army, will be obliged to surrender, if not timely relieved, they not being supplied with provisions for more than six weeks. Hereupon their generals held a council of war on the 4th instant, wherein it was concluded to advance towards Badajos. With this design the army decamped on the 5th from Jerumena, and marched to Cancaon. It is hoped, that if the enemy follow their motions, they may have opportunity to put a sufficient quantity of provision and ammunition into Olivenza.

Mr. Bickerstaff gives notice to all persons that dress themselves as they please, without regard to decorum (as with blue and red stockings in mourning; tucked cravats, and nightcap wigs, before people of the first quality) that he has yet received no fine for indulging them in that liberty, and that he expects their compliance with this demand, or that they go home immediately and shift themselves. This is further to acquaint the town, that the report that the hosiers, toymen, and milliners, have compounded with Mr. Bickerstaff for tolerating such enormities, is utterly false and scandalous.

[Footnote 307: At the Tower of London. The Tower menagerie was one of the sights of London until its removal in 1834. See Addison's _Freeholder_; No. 47.]

[Footnote 308: In Westminster Abbey.]

[Footnote 309: The Priory of Bethlem, in St. Botolph Without, Bishopsgate, was given by Henry VIII. to the Corporation of London, and was from thenceforth used as a hospital for lunatics. In 1675 a new hospital was built near London Wall, in Moorfields, at a cost of £17,000. See Hogarth's "Rake's Progress," Plate 8. In No. 127, Steele calls Bedlam "that magnificent palace."]

[Footnote 310: Drury Lane Theatre was closed on June 6, 1709, by order of the Lord Chamberlain, in consequence of Rich's ill-treatment of the actors.]

No. 31. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, June 18_, to _Tuesday, June 21, 1709._

* * * * *

Grecian Coffee-house, June 18.

In my dissertation against the custom of single combat,[311] it has been objected, that there is not learning, or much reading, shown therein, which is the very life and soul of all treatises; for which reason, being always easy to receive admonitions, and reform my errors, I thought fit to consult this learned board on the subject. Upon proposing some doubts, and desiring their assistance, a very hopeful young gentleman, my relation, who is to be called to the bar within a year and a half at farthest, told me, that he had ever since I first mentioned duelling turned his head that way; and that he was principally moved thereto, by reason that he thought to follow the circuits in the North of England and South of Scotland, and to reside mostly at his own estate at Landbadernawz[312] in Cardiganshire. The northern Britons and southern Scots are a warm people, and the Welsh a nation of gentlemen; so that it behoved him to understand well the science of quarrelling. The young gentleman proceeded admirably well, and gave the board an account, that he had read Fitzherbert's "Grand Abridgment,"[313] and had found, that duelling is a very ancient part of the law: for when a man is sued, be it for his life or his land, the person that joins the issue, whether plaintiff or defendant, may put the trial upon the duel. Further he argued, under favour of the court, that when the issue is joined by the duel in treason or other capital crimes, the parties accused and accuser must fight in their own proper persons: but if the dispute be for lands, you may hire a champion at Hockley-in-the-Hole,[314] for anywhere else. This part of the law we had from the Saxons; and they had it, as also the trial by ordeal, from the Laplanders.[315] "It is indeed agreed," said he, "the Southern and Eastern nations never knew anything of it; for though the ancient Romans would scold, and call names filthily, yet there is not an example of a challenge that ever passed amongst them." His quoting the Eastern nations, put another gentleman in mind of an account he had from a boatswain of an East Indiaman; which was, that a Chinese had tricked and bubbled him, and that when he came to demand satisfaction the next morning, and like a true tar of honour called him "Son of a whore," "Liar," "Dog," and other rough appellatives used by persons conversant with winds and waves; the Chinese, with great tranquillity, desired him not to come aboard fasting, nor put himself in a heat, for it would prejudice his health. Thus the East knows nothing of this gallantry. There sat at the left of the table a person of a venerable aspect, who asserted, that half the impositions which are put upon these ages, have been transmitted by writers who have given too great pomp and magnificence to the exploits of the ancient Bear Garden, and made their gladiators, by fabulous tradition, greater than Gorman[316] and others of Great Britain. He informed the company, that he had searched authorities for what he said, and that a learned antiquary, Humphrey Scarecrow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole, recorder to the Bear Garden, was then writing a discourse on the subject. It appears by the best accounts, says this gentleman, that the high names which are used among us with so great veneration, were no other than stage-fighters, and worthies of the ancient Bear Garden. The renowned Hercules always carried a quarterstaff, and was from thence called Claviger. A learned chronologist is about proving what wood this staff was made of, whether oak, ash, or crab-tree. The first trial of skill he ever performed, was with one Cacus, a deer-stealer; the next was with Typhonus, a giant of forty feet four inches. Indeed it was unhappily recorded, that meeting at last with a sailor's wife, she made his staff of prowess serve her own use, and dwindle away to a distaff: she clapped him on an old tar jacket of her husband's; so that this great hero drooped like a scabbed sheep. Him his contemporary Theseus succeeded in the Bear Garden, which honour he held for many years: this grand duellist went to hell, and was the only one of that sort that ever came back again. As for Achilles and Hector (as the ballads of those times mention), they were pretty smart fellows; they fought at sword and buckler; but the former had much the better of it; his mother, who was an oyster-woman, having got a blacksmith of Lemnos to make her son's weapons. There is a pair of trusty Trojans in a song of Virgil's, that were famous for handling their gauntlets, Dares, and Entellus;[317] and indeed it does appear, they fought [for] no sham prize. What arms the great Alexander used, is uncertain; however, the historian mentions, when he attacked Thalestris, it was only at single rapier; but the weapon soon failed; for it was always observed, that the Amazons had a sort of enchantment about them, which made the blade of the weapon, though of never so good metal, at every home push, lose its edge and grow feeble. The Roman Bear Garden was abundantly more magnificent than anything Greece could boast of; it flourished most under those delights of mankind, Nero and Domitian: at one time it is recorded, four hundred senators entered the list, and thought it an honour to be cudgelled and quarterstaffed.[318] I observe, the Lanistaé were the people chiefly employed, which makes me imagine our Bear Garden copied much after this, the butchers being the greatest men in it. Thus far the glory and honour of the Bear Garden stood secure, till fate, that irresistible ruler of sublunary things, in that universal ruin of arts and politer learning, by those savage people the Goths and Vandals, destroyed and levelled it to the ground. Thus fell the grandeur and bravery of the Roman state, till at last the warlike genius (but accompanied with more courtesy) revived in the Christian world under those puissant champions, St. George, St. Denis, and other dignified heroes: one killed his dragon, another his lion, and were all afterwards canonised for it, having red letters before them to illustrate their martial temper.[319] The Spanish nation, it must be owned, were devoted to gallantry and chivalry above the rest of the world. What a great figure does that great name, Don Quixote, make in history? How shines this glorious star in the Western world? O renowned hero! O mirror of knighthood!

_Thy brandished whinyard all the world defies, And kills as sure as del Tobosa's eyes._

I am forced to break off abruptly, being sent for in haste, with my rule, to measure the degree of an affront, before the two gentlemen (who are now in their breeches and pumps ready to engage behind Montague House[320]) have made a pass.

From my own Apartment, June 18.

It is an unreasonable objection I find against my labours, that my stock is not all my own, and therefore the kind reception I have met with is not so deserved as it ought to be. But I hope, though it be never so true that I am obliged to my friends for laying their cash in my hands, since I give it them again when they please, and leave them at their liberty to call it home, it will not hurt me with my gentle readers. Ask all the merchants who act upon consignments, where is the necessity (if they answer readily what their correspondents draw) of their being wealthy themselves? Ask the greatest bankers, if all the men they deal with were to draw at once, what would be the consequence? But indeed a country friend has writ me a letter which gives me great mortification; wherein I find I am so far from expecting a supply from thence, that some have not heard of me, and the rest do not understand me. His epistle is as follows:[321]

"DEAR COUSIN,

"I thought when I left the town to have raised your fame here, and helped you to support it by intelligence from hence; but alas! they had never heard of the _Tatler_ until I brought down a set. I lent them from house to house; but they asked me what they meant. I began to enlighten them, by telling who and who were supposed to be intended by the characters drawn. I said for instance, Chloe[322] and Clarissa are two eminent toasts. A gentleman (who keeps his greyhound and gun, and one would think might know better) told me, he supposed they were papishes, for their names were not English: 'Then,' said he, 'why do you call live people "toasts"?' I answered, that was a new name found out by the wits, to make a lady have the same effect as burridge[323] in the glass when a man is drinking. 'But,' says I, 'sir, I perceive this is to you all bamboozling; why you look as if you were Don Diego'd[324] to the tune of a thousand pounds.' All this good language was lost upon him: he only stared, though he is as good a scholar as any layman in the town, except the barber. Thus, cousin, you must be content with London for the centre of your wealth and fame; we have no relish for you. Wit must describe its proper circumference, and not go beyond it, lest (like little boys, when they straggle out of their own parish), it may wander to places where it is not known, and be lost. Since it is so, you must excuse me that I am forced at a visit to sit silent, and only lay up what excellent things pass at such conversations.

"This evening I was with a couple of young ladies; one of them has the character of the prettiest company, yet really I thought her but silly; the other, who talked a great deal less, I observed to have understanding. The lady who is reckoned such a companion among her acquaintance, has only, with a very brisk air, a knack of saying the commonest things: the other, with a sly serious one, says home things enough. The first (Mistress Giddy) is very quick; but the second (Mrs. Slim) fell into Giddy's own style, and was as good company as she. Giddy happens to drop her glove; Slim reaches it to her: 'Madam,' says Giddy, 'I hope you'll have a better office.' Upon which Slim immediately repartees, and sits in her lap, and cries, 'Are you not sorry for my heaviness?' This sly wench pleased me to see how she hit her height of understanding so well. We sat down to supper. Says Giddy, mighty prettily, 'Two hands in a dish and one in a purse': says Slim, 'Ay, madam, the more the merrier; but the fewer the better cheer.' I quickly took the hint, and was as witty and talkative as they. Says I,

"_'He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay;'_

and so helped myself. Giddy turns about, 'What, have you found your tongue?' 'Yes,' says I, 'it is manners to speak when I am spoken to; but your greatest talkers are little doers, and the still sow eats up all the broth.' 'Ha! ha!' says Giddy, 'one would think he had nothing in him, and do you hear how he talks when he pleases.' I grew immediately roguish and pleasant to a degree in the same strain. Slim, who knew how good company we had been, cries, 'You'll certainly print this bright conversation.'"

It is so; and hereby you may see how small an appearance the prettiest things said in company, make when in print.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 20.

A mail from Lisbon has brought advices of June the 12th, from the King of Portugal's army encamped at Torre Allegada, which inform us, that the general of the army called a court-martial on the 4th at the camp of Gerumhena, where it was resolved to march with a design to attempt the succour of Olivenza. Accordingly the army moved on the 5th, and marched towards Badajos. Upon their approach, the Marquis de Bay detached so great a party from the blockade of Olivenza, that the Marquis des Minas, at the head of a large detachment, covered a great convoy of provisions towards Olivenza, which threw in their stores, and marched back to the main army, without molestation from the Spaniards. They add, that each army must necessarily march into quarters within twenty days.

Whosoever can discover a surgeon's apprentice, who fell upon Mr. Bickerstaff's messenger, or (as the printers call him) devil, going to the press, and tore out of his hand part of his essay against duels, in the fragments of which were the words, "You lie," and "Man of honour," taken up at the Temple Gate; and the words, "Perhaps,"--"May be not,"--"By your leave, sir,"--and other terms of provocation, taken up at the door of Young Man's Coffee-house,[325] shall receive satisfaction from Mr. Morphew, besides a set of arguments to be spoken to any man in a passion, which, if the said enraged man listens to, will prevent quarrelling.

Mr. Bickerstaff does hereby give notice, that he has taken the two famous universities of this land under his immediate care, and does hereby promise all tutors and pupils, that he will hear what can be said of each side between them, and to correct them impartially, by placing them in orders and classes in the learned world, according to their merit.[326]

[Footnote 311: See Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29.]

[Footnote 312: Probably meant for Llanbadern Vawr, if not a name coined for the occasion.]

[Footnote 313: Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's book was published in 1514.]

[Footnote 314: See Nos. 28, 134.]

[Footnote 315: See Selden, "De Duello" (1610), p. 19.]

[Footnote 316: A prize-fighter mentioned in Lansdowne's epilogue to "The Jew of Venice."]

[Footnote 317: "Æneid," v. 437 _seq._]

[Footnote 318: Suetonius, "Life of Nero," chap. 12.]

[Footnote 319: An allusion to the rubrics in Roman missals.]

[Footnote 320: The fields at the back of Montague House, Bloomsbury, were a favourite place for duels in the first half of the eighteenth century. Cf. _Spectator_, No. 91: "I shall be glad to meet you immediately in Hyde Park or behind Montague House, or attend you to Barn Elms, or any other fashionable place that's fit for a gentleman to die in."]

[Footnote 321: It has been suggested, with some probability, that this letter is by Swift.]

[Footnote 322: See No. 4.]

[Footnote 323: Borago was a plant formerly used as a cordial.]

[Footnote 324: See No. 21.]

[Footnote 325: Young Man's Coffee-house at Charing Cross, had a back door into Spring Garden. It seems to have been specially frequented by officers.]

[Footnote 326: "Mr. Bickerstaff has received the advices from Clay Hill, which, with all intelligence from honest Mr. Sturdy and others, shall have their place in our future story" (folio).]

No. 32. [SWIFT AND STEELE.

From _Tuesday, June 21_, to _Thursday, June 23, 1709._

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, June 22.

An answer to the following letter being absolutely necessary to be despatched with all expedition, I must trespass upon all that come with horary questions into my ante-chamber, to give the gentlemen my opinion.

#"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._#

"_June 18_, 1709.

"SIR,

"I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed Platonne, the most unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris,[327] and More,[328] and Milton,[329] and the whole set of intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition: if I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit. She calls her chariot, 'vehicle'; her furbelowed scarf, 'pinions': her blue mant and petticoat is her 'azure dress'; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon. It is my misfortune to be six foot and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before I was in love, I had a noble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with two bottles. I am not quite six and twenty, and my nose is marked truly aquiline. For these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserable, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region: if I assume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of her sex; but perseverance makes it as bad as fixed aversion. I desire your opinion, whether I may not lawfully play the Inquisition upon her, make use of a little force, and put her to the rack and the torture, only to convince her she has really fine limbs, without spoiling or distorting them. I expect your directions, ere I proceed to dwindle and fall away with despair; which at present I don't think advisable; because, if she should recant, she may then hate me perhaps in the other extreme for my tenuity. I am (with impatience) "Your most humble Servant,

"CHARLES STURDY."

My patient has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every man that has wit, and humour, and raillery, can make a good flatterer for woman in general; but a Platonne is not to be touched with panegyric: she will tell you, it is a sensuality in the soul to be delighted that way. You are not therefore to commend, but silently consent to all she does, and says. You are to consider in her the scorn of you is not humour, but opinion. There were some years since a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbours, was approved by seven of the founders. There were as many of our sex who took the liberty to visit those mansions of intended severity; among others, a famous rake of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He came in first; but upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a design to tell him, this was no place for him or his companions, up goes my grave impudence to the maid: "Young woman," said he, "if any of the ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the other side towards the gardens: we are, you must know, gentlemen that are travelling England; after which we shall go into foreign parts, where some of us have already been." Here he bows in the most humble manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort of carriage. He goes on: "Now you must know we have an ambition to have it to say, that we have a Protestant nunnery in England: but pray Mrs. Betty--" "Sir," she replied, "my name is Susan, at your service." "Then I heartily beg your pardon--" "No offence in the least," says she, "for I have a cousin-german whose name is Betty." "Indeed," said he, "I protest to you that was more than I knew, I spoke at random: but since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentleman to the favour of a civil salute." His friend advances, and so on, till that they had all saluted her. By this means, the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss what to do, without courage to pass through them; and the Platonics, at several peep-holes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were observed, and therefore took care to keep Suky in chat with questions concerning their way of life; when appeared at last Madonella,[330] a lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall; and Rake, knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from his company. She begins, "Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was sent out to know, what affair could make strangers press upon a solitude which we, who are to inhabit this place, have devoted to Heaven and our own thoughts?" "Madam," replies Rake, with an air of great distance, mixed with a certain indifference, by which he could dissemble dissimulation, "your great intention has made more noise in the world than you design it should; and we travellers, who have seen many foreign institutions of this kind, have a curiosity to see, in its first rudiments, this seat of primitive piety; for such it must be called by future ages, to the eternal honour of the founders. I have read Madonella's excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject." The lady immediately answers, "If what I have said could have contributed to raise any thoughts in you that may make for the advancement of intellectual and divine conversation, I should think myself extremely happy." He immediately fell back with the profoundest veneration; then advancing, "Are you then that admired lady? If I may approach lips which have uttered things so sacred--" He salutes her. His friends follow his example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to see Madonella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on, "We would not transgress rules; but if we may take the liberty to see the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such parts of the gardens as is consistent with the severities you have imposed on yourselves." To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbors, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, "That he sincerely wished that men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for the generation, as well as support of our species."[331] This was spoke with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, "Sir, under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an institution foreign to that of Providence: these desires were implanted in us for reverent purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chastity more heroic." The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second and a third[332] interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelve-month.

Any unnatural part is long taking up, and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself, Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires.

From my own Apartment, June 22.

The evils of this town increase upon me to so great a degree, that I am half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found it. Several worthy gentlemen and critics have applied to me, to give my censure of an enormity which has been revived (after being long oppressed) and is called Punning.[333] I have several arguments ready to prove, that he cannot be a man of honour who is guilty of this abuse of human society. But the way to expose it, is like the expedient of curing drunkenness, showing a man in that condition: therefore I must give my reader warning, to expect a collection of these offences; without which preparation, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention of it in good company; and hope I shall be understood to do it, as a divine mentions oaths and curses, only for their condemnation. I shall dedicate this discourse to a gentleman my very good friend, who is the Janus[334] of our times, and whom by his years and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 22.

Last night arrived two mails from Holland, which brings letters from the Hague of the 28th instant, N.S., with advice, that the enemy lay encamped behind a strong retrenchment, with the marsh of Remières on their right and left, extending itself as far as Bethune: La Bassée is in their front, Lens in their rear, and their camp is strengthened by another line from Lens to Douay. The Duke of Marlborough caused an exact observation to be made of their ground, and the works by which they were covered, which appeared so strong, that it was not thought proper to attack them in their present posture. However, the Duke thought fit to make a feint as if he designed it; and accordingly marching from the abbey at Looze, as did Prince Eugene from Lampret, advanced with all possible diligence towards the enemy. To favour the appearance of an intended assault, the ways were made, and orders distributed in such a manner, that none in either camp could have thoughts of anything but charging the enemy by break of day the next morning: but soon after the fall of the night of the 26th, the whole army faced towards Tournay, which place they invested early in the morning of the 27th. The Marshal Villars was so confident that we designed to attack him, that he had drawn great part of the garrison of the place, which is now invested, into the field: for which reason, it is presumed it must submit within a small time; which the enemy cannot prevent, but by coming out of their present camp, and hazarding a general engagement. These advices add, that the garrison of Mons had marched out under the command of Marshal d'Arco; which, with the Bavarians, Walloons, and the troops of Cologne, have joined the grand army of the enemy.

[Footnote 327: John Norris (1657-1711), the divine, published, in 1688, "The Theory and Regulation of Love, a Moral Essay; to which are added Letters Philosophical and Moral between the author and Doctor Henry More."]

[Footnote 328: Henry More, the platonist (1614-87), published "Divine Dialogues," "Conjectura Cabalistica," and many other works.]

[Footnote 329: It is not clear why Milton is bracketed with Norris and More; perhaps Swift had in mind such passages about heavenly love as that in "Paradise Lost," viii. 588-614.]

[Footnote 330: Swift seems to have been the author of this first portion of No. 32, which contains a scandalous attack on Mary Astell. Nichols thought that Addison also had a share in it. See Nos. 59, 63. Mrs. Astell, a friend of Lady Elizabeth Hastings and John Norris, published, in 1694, her "Serious Proposal to the Ladies," advocating a Church of England monastery, without any irrevocable vows. Provision was made for mental as well as moral training; in fact, the institution was to have been "rather academical than monastic." But Bishop Burnet advised Lady Elizabeth Hastings not to subscribe to the proposed building, and the scheme fell through. In 1709, Miss Astell published a book called "Bart'lemy Fair; or, An Enquiry after Wit.... By Mr. Wotton, in answer to Lord Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and other profane writers." In the advertisement to the Second Edition ("An Enquiry after Wit," &c., 1722), Mary Astell says that, although her book was at first published under a borrowed name, it was ascribed to her, and drew upon her the resentment of that sort of men of wit who were exposed, and was the true cause of the fable published in the _Tatler_ a little after the "Enquiry" appeared. But she notes that, although the _Tatler_ showed its teeth against the "Proposal to the Ladies," the compilator made amends to the author (if not to the bookseller), by transcribing above a hundred pages into his _Ladies' Library_ verbatim, except in a few places, which would not be found to be improved. The "Enquiry after Wit" is dedicated "To the most Illustrious Society of the Kit-Cats," with many sarcastic allusions to their luxury, oaths, &c. True, their names had not been heard of from Hochsted or Ramillies, but then their heroism found in every place an ample theatre for their merits. "The Bath, the Wells, and every Fair, each Chocolate, Gaming House and Tavern resounds with your noble exploits."]

[Footnote 331: This is borrowed from Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici,"