Part 5

The hour of nine was come this morning, and I had no sooner set chairs, by the steward's letter, and fixed my tea-equipage, but I heard a knock at my door, which was opened, but no one entered; after which followed a long silence, which was broke at last by, "Sir, I beg your pardon; I think I know better," and another voice, "Nay, good Sir Giles--" I looked out from my window, and saw the good company all with their hats off and arms spread, offering the door to each other. After many offers, they entered with much solemnity, in the order Mr. Thrifty was so kind as to name them to me. But they are now got to my chamber-door, and I saw my old friend Sir Harry enter. I met him with all the respect due to so reverend a vegetable; for you are to know that is my sense of a person who remains idle in the same place for half a century. I got him with great success into his chair by the fire, without throwing down any of my cups. The knight-bachelor told me "he had a great respect for my whole family, and would, with my leave, place himself next to Sir Harry, at whose right hand he had sat at every quarter-sessions these thirty years, unless he was sick." The steward in the rear whispered the young templar, "That is true to my knowledge." I had the misfortune, as they stood cheek by jowl, to desire the esquire to sit down before the justice of the quorum, to the no small satisfaction of the former, and resentment of the latter. But I saw my error too late, and got them as soon as I could into their seats. "Well," said I, "gentlemen, after I have told you how glad I am of this great honour, I am to desire you to drink a dish of tea." They answered one and all, "that they never drank tea in a morning." "Not in a morning!" said I, staring round me; upon which the pert jackanapes, Nic Doubt, tipped me the wink, and put out his tongue at his grandfather. Here followed a profound silence, when the steward in his boots and whip proposed, "that we should adjourn to some public house, where everybody might call for what they pleased, and enter upon the business." We all stood up in an instant, and Sir Harry filed off from the left, very discreetly, countermarching behind the chairs towards the door. After him Sir Giles in the same manner. The simple esquire made a sudden start to follow, but the justice of the quorum whipped between upon the stand of the stairs. A maid, going up with coals, made us halt, and put us into such confusion that we stood all in a heap, without any visible possibility of recovering our order; for the young jackanapes seemed to make a jest of this matter, and had so contrived, by pressing amongst us under pretence of making way, that his grandfather was got into the middle, and he knew nobody was of quality to stir a step till Sir Harry moved first. We were fixed in this perplexity for some time, till we heard a very loud noise in the street, and Sir Harry asking what it was, I, to make them move, said it was fire. Upon this, all ran down as fast as they could, without order or ceremony, till we got into the street, where we drew up in very good order, and filed off down Sheer Lane; the impertinent templar driving us before him as in a string, and pointing to his acquaintance who passed by.

I must confess I love to use people according to their own sense of good breeding, and therefore whipped in between the justice and the simple esquire. He could not properly take this ill, but I overheard him whisper the steward, "that he thought it hard that a common conjuror should take place of him, though an elder esquire." In this order we marched down Sheer Lane, at the upper end of which I lodge.

When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry and Sir Giles got over, but a run of coaches kept the rest of us on this side the street. However, we all at last landed, and drew up in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying with great humanity; from whence we proceeded again till we came to Dick's coffee-house, where I designed to carry them. Here we were at our old difficulty, and took up the street upon the same ceremony. We proceeded through the entry, and were so necessarily kept in order by the situation, that we were now got into the coffee-house itself, where, as soon as we arrived we repeated our civilities to each other, after which, we marched up to the high table, which has an ascent to it enclosed in the middle of the room. The whole house was alarmed at this entry, made up of persons of so much state and rusticity. Sir Harry called for a mug of ale and Dyer's Letter. The boy brought the ale in an instant, but said they did not take in the Letter. "No!" says Sir Harry, "then take back your mug; we are like indeed to have good liquor at this house!" Here the templar tipped me a second wink, and, if I had not looked very grave upon him, I found he was disposed to be very familiar with me. In short, I observed after a long pause, that the gentlemen did not care to enter upon business till after their morning draught, for which reason I called for a bottle of mum, and finding that had no effect upon them, I ordered a second and a third, after which Sir Harry reached over to me and told me in a low voice, "that the place was too public for business, but he would call upon me again to-morrow morning at my own lodgings, and bring some more friends with him."

XI.--DUELLO.

From my own Apartment, November 11.

I had several hints and advertisements from unknown hands, that some, who are enemies to my labours, design to demand the fashionable way of satisfaction for the disturbance my Lucubrations have given them. I confess, as things now stand, I do not know how to deny such inviters, and am preparing myself accordingly. I have bought pumps and foils, and am every morning practising in my chamber. My neighbour, the dancing-master, has demanded of me why I take this liberty, since I would not allow it him? but I answered, "His was an act of an indifferent nature, and mine of necessity." My late treatises against duels have so far disobliged the fraternity of the noble science of defence, that I can get none of them to show me so much as one pass. I am, therefore, obliged to learn by book; and have accordingly several volumes, wherein all the postures are exactly delineated. I must confess I am shy of letting people see me at this exercise, because of my flannel waistcoat, and my spectacles, which I am forced to fix on, the better to observe the posture of the enemy.

I have upon my chamber-walls drawn at full length the figures of all sorts of men, from eight foot to three foot two inches. Within this height, I take it, that all the fighting men of Great Britain are comprehended. But, as I push, I make allowances for my being of a lank and spare body, and have chalked out in every figure my own dimensions: for I scorn to rob any man of his life, or to take advantage of his breadth: therefore, I press purely in a line down from his nose, and take no more of him to assault than he has of me: for, to speak impartially, if a lean fellow wounds a fat one in any part to the right or left, whether it be in carte or in tierce, beyond the dimensions of the said lean fellow's own breadth, I take it to be murder, and such a murder as is below a gentleman to commit. As I am spare, I am also very tall, and behave myself with relation to that advantage with the same punctilio; and I am ready to stoop or stand, according to the stature of my adversary. I must confess I have had great success this morning, and have hit every figure round the room in a mortal part, without receiving the least hurt, except a little scratch by falling on my face, in pushing at one at the lower end of my chamber; but I recovered so quick, and jumped so nimbly into my guard, that, if he had been alive, he could not have hurt me. It is confessed I have writ against duels with some warmth; but in all my discourses I have not ever said that I knew how a gentleman could avoid a duel if he were provoked to it; and since that custom is now become a law, I know nothing but the legislative power, with new animadversions upon it, can put us in a capacity of denying challenges, though we are afterwards hanged for it. But, no more of this at present. As things stand, I shall put up no more affronts; and I shall be so far from taking ill words, that I will not take ill looks. I therefore, warn all hot young fellows not to look hereafter more terrible than their neighbours: for, if they stare at me with their hats cocked higher than other people, I will not bear it. Nay, I give warning to all people in general to look kindly at me, for I will bear no frowns, even from ladies; and if any woman pretends to look scornfully at me, I shall demand satisfaction of the next of kin of the masculine gender.

XII.--HAPPY MARRIAGE.

From my own Apartment, November 16.

There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good fortune which they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.

I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me, for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country about my marriage to one of my neighbour's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages, which happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand; "Well, my good friend," says he, "I am heartily glad to see thee: I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her from the play-house, to find out who she was for me?" I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, said I, "She is not indeed quite that creature she was, when she returned me the letter I carried from you: and told me 'she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in.' You may remember I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen." "Fifteen!" replied my good friend; "ah! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really beloved! It is impossible, that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me, in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature, which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children: and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend: ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of the battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy."

He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us "she had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend as I was." Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, "Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you. I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country, for he sees several of his old acquaintances and school-fellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted." My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the front box." This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties, who were mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, "I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a Toast."

We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found upon conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in AEsop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies for about a twelve-month past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his son; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mis-managements of John Hickathrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. "Betty," says she, "deals chiefly in fairies and sprites, and sometimes in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts, till they are afraid to go up to bed."

I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious, discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me.

XIII.--DEAD FOLK.

From my own Apartment, November 17.

It has cost me very much care and thought to marshal and fix the people under their proper denominations, and to range them according to their respective characters. These my endeavours have been received with unexpected success in one kind, but neglected in another; for though I have many readers, I have but few converts. This must certainly proceed from a false opinion, that what I write is designed rather to amuse and entertain than convince and instruct. I entered upon my Essays with a declaration that I should consider mankind in quite another manner than they had hitherto been represented to the ordinary world, and asserted that none but a useful life should be, with me, any life at all. But, lest this doctrine should have made this small progress towards the conviction of mankind, because it may appear to the unlearned light and whimsical, I must take leave to unfold the wisdom and antiquity of my first proposition in these my essays, to wit, that "every worthless man is a dead man." This notion is as old as Pythagoras, in whose school it was a point of discipline, that if among the Akoustikoi, * or probationers, there were any who grew weary of studying to be useful, and returned to an idle life, the rest were to regard them as dead, and upon their departing, to perform their obsequies and raise them tombs, with inscriptions, to warn others of the like mortality, and quicken them to resolutions of refining their souls above that wretched state. It is upon a like supposition that young ladies, at this very time, in Roman Catholic countries, are received into some nunneries with their coffins, and with the pomp of a formal funeral, to signify that henceforth they are to be of no further use, and consequently dead. Nor was Pythagoras himself the first author of this symbol, with whom, and with the Hebrews, it was generally received. Much more might be offered in illustration of this doctrine from sacred authority, which I recommend to my reader's own reflection; who will easily recollect, from places which I do not think fit to quote here, the forcible manner of applying the words dead and living to men, as they are good or bad.

* Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.