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EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS.
With slower pen, men used to write,
Of old, when " letters " were " polite " ;
In Anna's, or in George's days.
They could afford to turn a phrase,
Or trim a straggling theme aright.
They knew not steam ; electric light
Not yet had dazed their calmer sight; —
They meted out hoth blame and praise
"With slower pen.
More swiftly now the hours take flight !
What 's read at morn is dead at night ;
Scant; space have we for Art's delays,
Whose breathless thought so briefly stays,
We may not work — ah ! would we might.
With slower pen !
?R
EIGHTEENTH CENTURYDi,
~ mi
ESSAYS. ^^^'
SELECTED AND ANNOTATED BT
AUSTIN DOBSON.
Collecta revirescunt.
BOSTON :
WILLARD SMALL,
24 Frankun Street.
1888.
Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers,
24 Franklin Street,
Boston.
TO
MRS. RICHMOND THACKERAY RITCHIE.
Madam, — Inputting the finishing Strokes to
that famous Novel of the Eighteenth Century,
which is one of the chief Glories of the Nine-
teenth, the Author of Esmond did not neglect
one needful and indeed indispensable Detail,
the Dedication to an Illustrious Personage. So
high a Precedent may not improperly be fol-
lowed in Cases more obscure. Were Mr. Thack-
eray still among us, the Homage of this Selec-
tion of Eighteenth-Century Essays (had he been
pleased to accept it) would have belonged of
right to the literary Descendant of Addison and
Fielding, of Goldsmith and Steele; and it would
have been my Privilege to have found in it the
Pretext for a Tribute (however trifling) to a great
Writer whom I love and honor. But alas !
. . . nullum
Saeva Caput Proserpina fugit :
and Fate, that cannot kill a Noble Work, is
absolute over him who gives it Birth. I am
reminded, not the less, that there are still written,
for our unthinking Moderns, Pages in which it
is not difficult to trace some softer Relation to
that pure and unaffected Pathos, that keen yet
kindly Satire. I presume therefore to offer this
Utile Volume to Mr. Thackeray'' s Daughter.
I am. Madam, Your obedient Servant,
AUSTIN DOBSON.
CONTENTS.
Introduction
No. 1. Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend
" 2. Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend (con
tinned')
3. The Trumpet Club .
4. The Political Upholsterer .
5. Tom Folio
6. Ned Softly the Poet .
7. Kecollections of Childhood
8. Adventures of a Shilhng .
9. Frozen Voices ....
10. Stage Lions ....
11. Meditations in "Westminster Abbey
12. The Exercise of the Fan .
13. Will Wimble ....
14. Sir Roger de Coverley's Ancestors
15. Sir.Roger de Coverley Hare-Hunting
16. The Citizen's Journal
17. The Fine Lady's Journal .
18. Sir Roger de Coverley at the Play
19. A Day's Ramble in London
20. Dick Estcourt : In Memoriam .
21. Deatli of Sir Roger de Coverlev
22. The Tory Fox-Hunter
23. A Modern Conversation .
24. A Modern Conversation {continued')
25. The Squire in Orders
2Q. Country Congregations
27. Dick Minim the Critic
28. Dick Minim the Critic (continued)
FASK
9
19
26
32
38
44
49
55
61
67
74
79
84
8!)
94
100
106
113
120
126
134
140
1<5
152
160
168
174
181
188
8
CONTENTS.
PAGE
No. 29.
Art-Connoisseurs
. 193
" 30.
The Man in Blaclc .
. 198
" 31.
Beau Tibbs
. 203
«' 32.
Beau Tibbs at Home .
. 205
" 33.
Beau Tibbs at Vauxhall .
. 214
" Si.
A Country Dowager .
. 221
Illustb
>ATivK Notes
. 228
INTRODUCTION.
The Eighteenth-Century Essayists, even in
the compact editions of Chalmers and Berguer,
occupy some forty or fifty volumes. These,
again, are only a part of those whose names are
given in the laborious list compiled by Dr.
Nathan Drake. To compress any representa-
tive selection from such a mass of literature
within the limits of the " Parchment Library"
is clearly out of the question ; and it must there-
fore be distinctly explained that we are here
concerned only with a particular division of the
subject. That grave and portentous produc-
tion — the essay "critical," "metaphysical,"
" moral," which so impressed our forefathers,
has become to us a little lengthy — a little weari-
some. Much of it is old-fashioned; something
is obsolete. With the march of time philosophy
has taken fresh directions; a new apparatus
criticus has displaced the old; and if we are
didactic now, we are didactic with a difference.
But the sketches of social life and character
still retain their freshness, because the types are
eternal. Le jour va passer ; mais Us badauds ne
passeront pas I As the frivolous chatter of the
Syracusan ladies in Theocritus is still to be
heard at every Hyde-Park review, as the Cris-
pinus and Suffenus of Horace and Catullus still
haunt our clubs and streets, as the personages
of Chaucer and Molifere and La Bruyfere and
10 INTBODUCTJON.
Shakespeare still live and move in our midst, —
so the " Will Wimbles " and " Ned Softlys," the
"Beau Tibbs's " and the " Men in Black," are
as familiar to us now as they were to the be-
wigged and be-powdered readers of the " Spec-
tator" and the "Citizen of the World." We
laugh at them; but we sympathize with them
too; and find them, on the whole, more endur-
ingly diverting than dissertations on the *' Non-
locality of Happiness " or the " Position of the
Pineal Gland."
In the conviction, therefore, that the majority
of the graver essays have lost their interest for
the general public, the present gathering is
mainly confined to sketches of character and
manners, and those chiefly of the humorous
kind. The examples chosen will speak so
])lainly for themselves that any lenglhy intro-
duction would only needlessly occupy space;
but a few rapid indications with respect to the
earlier collections and the succession of the
leading writers, will not be superfluous. Set-
ting aside for the moment the " Scandal Club "
of Defoe's " Review," the Eighteenth-Century
Essay proper may be said to begin with the
"Tatler" by " Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq."— the
first number of which is dated "Tuesday, April
12, 1709." In appearance it was a modest-look-
ing sheet enough, and not entirely free from the
imputations of " tobacco-paper " and " scurvy
letter" cast upon it by an injured correspond-
ent.* Its price was a penny; and it was issued
three times a week. To the first and many sub-
sequent papers was prefixed that well-worn
" Quicquid ayunt homines " which has recently
entered upon a new career of usefulness with
Lord Beaconsfield's "Endymion"; and its
"general purpose," as discovered in the " Pref-
•"Tatler,"No.l61.
INTBODUCTION. 11
ace ' to vol. i., was " to expose the false arts of
life; to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity,
and affectation; and to recommend a general
simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our
hehavior." Steele's first idea seems to have
heen to corahine the latest news (for which his
position as " Gazetteer " gave him exceptional
facilities) with familiar sketches and dramatic
and literary notes. But after eighty numbers
had appeared, he was permanently joined by
Addison, and the essay began to assume the
definite form which it retained for a century,
namely, that of a short paper, generally on
one subject, and headed with a Greek or Latin
motto. Then, in January, 1711, the "Tatler"
came to an end. Its place was filled, in the
following March, by the more famous " Specta-
tor," which ran its course until December, 1712.
After this, in 1713, came the " Guardian"; and
in 1714 an eighth volume of the "Spectator"
was issued by Addison alone. He was also the
sole author of the " Freeholder," 1715, Avhich
contains the admirable sketch of the " Tory
Foxhunter." Steele, on his side, followed up
the " Guardian " by the " Lover," the " Reader,"
and half a dozen abortive efforts; but his real
successes, as well as those of Addison, were in
the three great collections for which they
worked together.
Any comparison of these two masters of the
Eighteenth-Century Essay is as futile as it will
probably be perpetual. While people continue
to pit Fielding against Smollett, and Thackeray
against Dickens, there will always be a party for
Addison and a party for Steele. The adherents
of the former will draw conviction from Lord
Macaulay's famous defiance in the "Edinburgh "
apropos of Aikin's " Life "; those of the latter
from that vigorous counterblast which (after
12 INTJiODUCTION.
ten years' meditation) Mr. Forster sounded in
the " Quarterly." But the real lovers of litera-
ture will be content to enjoy the delightfully
distinctive characteristics of both. For them
Steele's frank and genial humor, his chivalrous
attitude to women, and the engaging warmth
and generosity of his nature, will retain their
attraction, in spite of his literary inequalities
and structural negligence; while the occasional
coldness and restraint of Addison's manner will
not prevent those who study his work from
admiring his unfailing good taste, the archness
of his wit, his charming sub-humorous gravity,
and the perfect keeping of his character-painting.
It is needless to particularize the examples here
selected from these writers, for they are all
masterpieces.
About four fifths of the " Tatler," "Specta-
tor," and " Guardian" was written by Addison
and Steele alone. The work of their coadjutors
was consequently limited in extent, and, as a
rule, unimportant. Budgell, Addison's cousin,
whose memoiy survives chiefly by his tragic
end, and a malignant couplet of Pope, was one
of the most regular. Once, working on Addi-
son's lines, and aided, it may be, by Addison's
refining pen, he made a respectable addition to
the " Coverley " series, which is here reprinted;
but we have not cared to preserve any further
examples of his style. From Hughes, again,
another frequent writer, and an amiable man,
whose contributions were for the most part in
the form of letters, nothing has been taken.
Next, b)' the amount of his assistance, comes
the Bishop of Cloyne and the author of "Tar-
water" — the great and good Dr. Berkeley.
Excellent as they are, however, his papers in
the " Guardian " against Collins and the Free-
thinkers do not come within our scheme.
introduction: is
Among the remaining " occasionals " were sev-
eral " eminent hands." These, though they
may have graced the board, did not add materi-
ally to the feast. Pope, who has a couple of
papers in the "Spectator" and eight in the
"Guardian," is not at his best as an essayist.
His satire on " Dedications,"* and his side-
laugh at Bossu in the " Receipt to make an
Epick Poem,"t are the happiest of his efforts.
His well-known ironic parallel between the
pastorals of Ambrose Philips and his own J is
admirably ingenious; but, unfortunately, we
have come to think the one as artificial as the
other. The " City Shower "§ of Swift scarcely
ranks as an essay at all, and his only remaining
paper of importance is a letter on " Slang. "|
This, like Pope's pieces, is too exclusively liter-
ary for our purpose. Of Congreve, Gay, Tickell,
Parnell, and the long list of obscurer writers,
there is nothing that seems to merit the honors
of revival.
Between the " Guardian " of 1713 and the
"Eambler" of 1750-2, there were a number of
periodical essayists of varying merit. It is
scarcely necessary to recall the names of these
now forgotten "Intelligencers," "Moderators,"
" Remembrancers," and the like, the bulk of
which were political. Eieldiug places one of
them, the " Freethinker " of Philips, nearly on
a level with " those great originals, the ' Tatlers'
and ' Spectators ' " ; but the initial chapters to
the different books of " Tom Jones " attract us
more forcibly to the author's own " Champion,"
written in conjunction with the Ralph who
"makes Night hideous" in the " Dunciad."
Those utterances, however, which can with any
* " Guardian," No. 4. t " Gnard5an,"No. 73.
X " Guardian," No. 40. § " Tatler," No. 238.
II " Tatler," No. 230.
U mTB OD UCTION.
certainty be attributed to Fielding, bear such
obvious signs of haste that it is scarcely fair to
oppose any of them to the more fiuished and
leisurely efforts of Addison. Another of Field-
ing's enterprises in the " Spectator " vein was
the " Covent Garden Journal," 1752. This,
besides a remarkable paper on the " Choice of
Books," contains a masterly essay on " Profan-
ity," * including a character sketch of the most
vigorous kind, but the very ridelity of the pic-
ture unfits it for a modern audience.
Concurrently with the " Covent Garden Jour-
nal " appeared the final volume of Johnson's
" Rambler," a work upon the cardinal defect of
which its author laid his finger when, in later
life, he declared it to be " too wordy." Coming
from the Archpriest of magniloquence, this is
no light admission. He seems also to have been
fully alive to its want of variety, and frequently
regretted that his labors had not been occasion-
ally relieved by some lighter pen, in which con-
nection (according to Arthur Murphy) he was
accustomed to quote sonorously his own fine lines
to Cave:
" Non uUa Musis pa^^a gratior,
Quam quae sever is ludicra jungere
Novit, fatigatamque nugis
Utilibus recreate mentem."
Lady Mary said in her smart way that the
"Rambler" followed the "Spectator" as "a
packhorse would do a hunter " ; but slow-paced
and lumbering as it is, no one can fail to recog-
nize the frequent majesty of the periods and the
uniform vigor of the thought. In the twenty-
nine papers which Johnson wrote for Hawkes-
worth's " Adventurer," the " Rambler" style is
maintained. In the "Idler," however, which
* " Covent Garden Journal," Kos. 10 and 33.
INTRODUCTION. 15
belongs to a later date, when its author's mind
was unclouded, and he was comparatively free
from the daily pressure of necessity, he adopts
a simpler and less polysyllabic style. It is true
that he still speaks of the changes of the ba-
rometer as " the fallacious promises ... of the
oraculous glasses " ; but his themes are less
didactic, and, in an unwieldy fashion, almost
playful. To select positively humorous exam-
ples from his papers would, notwithstanding, be
a difficult task. Compared with the somewhat
similar productions of earlier essayists,* the
oft-praised "Journey in a Stage-Coach" of the
" Adventurer " is poor; but his large knowledge
of literature and literary life gives point to the
portrait of that inimitably commonplace critic
" Dick Minim," though even here Addison has
anticipated him with "Sir Timothy Tittle. "f
" Dick Minim " appears to have suggested three
letters from Reynolds, the first of which, on
" Art-Connoisseurs," we have been tempted to
reproduce. Neither Langton nor Thomas War-
ton, both of whom gave some assistance in the
" Idler," supplied anything of moi'e importance
than this thoughtful, if not very satirical, paper
by Sir Joshua.
As already stated, Johnson was only a con-
tributor to the " Adventurer," 1752, the editor
and chief writer of which was Dr. Hawkesworth
of " Cook's Voyages," who was aided by Bath-
urst, the physician, and Joseph Warton, " Jack
Hawkesworth," said Johnson, " is one of my
imitators." His strength lay chiefly in the old-
fashioned oriental tale, and his social efforts are
not very remarkable. In the " Gradation from
a Greenhorn to a Blood," % there is some useful
costume; and there are ludicrous passages in
* €. g., " Spectator," No. 132. t " Tatler," No. 165.
t " Adventurer," No. 100.
16 INTRODUCTION.
the " Distresses of an Author invited to read
his Play," * where, by the way, the writer vindi-
cates his claim to be reckoned a follower of " the
great Lexicographer," by speaking of a chance
addition to his wig as " the pendulous reproach
to the honors of my head" ; but it woidd not
be possible to admit these two papers, as well as
some others in the "Adventurer," into any
modern collection, without what, when they
were \yritten, would have been styled " judicious
castigation." For our present purpose, there-
fore, we have borrowed nothing from Hawkes-
worth and his colleagues.
With the exception of Goldsmith's " Chinese
Letters " in the " Public Ledger," the most note-
worthy of the remaining Essayists are the
" World," 1753-6, and the " Connoisseur," 1754-6.
The editor of the former was Edward Moore,
author of some once-popular " Fables for the
Female Sex." With the assistance of Fielding's
friend, Lyttelton, his list of contributors was
swelled by a number of aristocratic amateurs,
such as Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Soame
Jenyns, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Hamilton
Boyle, and the "World" became, par excellence,
the Eighteenth-Century journal " written by
gentlemen for gentlemen," — '' the bow of
Ulysses (as one of the writers put it), in which
it was the fashion for men of rank and genius
to try their strength." The " Connoisseur," on
the other hand, was mainly the work of two
friends, George Colman and Bonnel Thornton,
the Erckmanu-Chatrian of their age. Whether
writing separately or together, their stj'le is un-
distiuguishable. They had a few assistants, the
most notable of whom were Cowperthe poet, and
Churchill's friend, the unfortunate Robert Lloyd.
From the " Connoisseur" and the " World" we
have made one or two selections.
• " Adventurer," No. 52.
INTB OD UCTION. 17
On the " Citizen of the World," 1760-1, there
is no need to enlarge. That charm of simplicity
and grace, of kindliness and gentle humor,
which we recognize as Goldsmith's special prop-
erty, requires no fresh description. The remain-
ing Essayists of any importance may be sum-
marily dismissed. From the Edinburgh " Mir-
ror," 1779-80, and its sequel the " Lounger,"
1785-7, one paper only has been chosen. But
there are others which show that Henry Mac-
kenzie, the chief writer, is something more than
the watery Sterne of the " Man of Feeling " and
" Julia de Roubigne," and that he had gifts as a
humorist and character-painter of no mean order.
From the •' Observer " of Richard Cumberland,
1785-90, a large proportion of which is made up
of papers on Greek Literature, we have taken
nothing.
A retrospect of the Eighteenth-Century Essay-
ists subsequent to the " Tatler," "Spectator,"
and " Guardian," only serves to confirm the
supremacy of Addison and Steele. Some of
their successors approached them in serious
writing; others carried the lighter kinds to con-
siderable perfection; but none (Goldsmith alone
excepted) really rivalled them in that happy
mingling of the lively and severe, which Johnson
envied but could not emulate. In native purity
of tone, moreover, they were far in advance of
their age, and were certainly not excelled by
any of those who followed them. For this
reason, no less than for their general superi-
ority, their work preponderates in the present
volume.
It is only necessary to add, that as the condi-
tions under which the essays first appeared make
it easy to date them accurately, the chronological
order has been adopted in preference to any
more elaborate arrangement. With the excep-
2
18 INTBODUCTION.
tion of some retrenchments specified in the
notes, and the alteration or suppression of a
word now and again, the text of the best edi-
tions has been scrupulously followed.
AUSTIN DOBSOK.
Tatleb.] N"o. 1. [Steelk,
MR. BICKEESTAFF VISITS A FRIEND.
Interea dnlces pendent circum oscula nati :
Casta pudicitiam servat domas. . . . Virg.
There are several persons who have many
pleasures and entertainments in their posses-
sion which they do not enjoy. It is therefore
a kind and good ofBce 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 com-
plication 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 pleas-
ure 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
20 MR. BICKEBSTAFF
door ; and that child which loses the race to
me, runs back again to tell the father it is Mr.
Bickerstafl. 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 ray
marriage to one of ray neighbor'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. 1 remember, old gentle-
man, 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 re-
flections 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
VISITS A FBIEND. 21
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 playhouse, 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 dis-
course, 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 of-
fended me ; but would be so much the gentle-
man'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 forever fif-
teen." — " 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 impos-
sible that the most beauteous face in nature
should raise in me such plasing 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 miny obliga-
tions 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
22 MB. BICKERSTAFF
what I ever knew in the possession of her
beauty, when I was in the vigor of youth.
Every moment of her life brings me fresh
instances of her complacency to ray inclina-
tions, and her prudence in regard to my
fortune. Her face is to me much more beau-
tiful 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
shews a certain fearfulness to find a fault,
which makes her servants obey her like chil-
dren ; and the meanest we have has an ingen-
uous 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, 1 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 ray boy stories of the
battles, and asking my gii'l questions about the
disposal of her baby, and the go->sipiug of it,
VISITS A FBIEND, 23
is turned into inward reflection and melan-
choly."
He would have gone on in this tender way,
when the good lady entered, and with an in-
expressible sweetness in her countenance told
us she had been searching her closet for some-
thing very good, to treat such an old friend
as I was. Her husband's eyes sparkled with
pleasure at the cheerfulness of her counte-
nance ; and I saw all his fears vanish in an in-
stant. The lady observing something in our
looks which shewed we had been more serious
than ordinary, and seeing her husband rec^ ive
her with great concern under a forced cheer-
fulness, 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 prom sed 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
acquaintance and school-f ellaws 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 al-
ways extremely delighted with her agreeable
humor, 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-
humor she had brought in with her, turned
her raillery upon me : " Mr. Bickerstaff, you
24 MB. BICKERSTAFF
remember you followed me one night from the
playhouse ; supposing you should carry me
thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the
fronL-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 fan-
tastical preferment of the J'oung lady, when
on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of
a drum, and immediately entered my little god-
son to give me a point of war. His mother,
between laughing and chiding, would have put
him out of tlie 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 ^sop's Fables : but he frankly
declared to me his mind, that he did not de-
light in that learning, because he did not be-
lieve they were true ; for which reason I found
he had very much turned his studies for about
a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adven-
tures of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of War-
wick, the Seven Champions, and other histo-
rians of that age. I could not but observe the
satisfaction the fathei* took in the forwardness
of his son ; and that these diversions might
turn to some profit, I found the boy had made
VISITS A FBIEND. 25
remarks, which might bo of service to him dur-
ing the course of his whole life. He would tell
you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift,
find fault with the passionate temper in Be^as
of Southampton, and love Saint George for
being the champion of England ; and by this
means, had his thoughts insensibly moulded
into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor.
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, some-
times in merry, sometimes in serious discourse
with this particular pleasure, which gives the
only true relish to all conversation, a sense
that ever}' 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 con-
cern, to reflect, that whenever I go off, I shall
leave no traces behind me. In this pensive
mood I returned 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.
Nov. 17, 1709.
Tatleb.J No. S. [Stbelb.
MR. BICKERSTArr YISITS A TEIEND.
(Continved.)
Ut in vita, sic in studiis, pulcherrimum et huraanissimum ex-
istimo, severitatein coniitatemquo miscere, ne ilia in tristitiani,
lisec in petulantiam procedat. — flin.
I WAS walking about my chamber this morn-
ing in a very gay humor, when I saw a coach
stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen
alighting out of it, whom I perceived to be
the eldest son of my bosom friend, that I
gave some account of in my paper of the sev-
enteenth of the last month. 1 felt a sensible
pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my
acquaintance having begun with his father
when he was just such a stripling, and about
that very age. When he came up to me, he
took me by the hand, and burst out in tears.
I was extremely moved, and immediately
said, "Child, how does your father do?"
He began to reply, "My mother " but
could not go on for weeping. I went down
with him into the coach, and gathered out of
him, that his mother was then dying, and that
while the holy man was doing his last offices
to her, he had taicen that time to come and
call me to his father who (he said) would cer-
tainly break his heart if I did not go and com-
fort him. The child's discretion in coming to
me of his own head, an! the tenderness he
ME. BICKEBSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND. 27
shewed for his parents, would have quite over-
powered me, had I not resolve<l to fortify my-
self for the seasonable performances of those
duties which I owed to my friend. As we
were going. I could not but reflect upon the
character of that excellent woman, and the
greatness of his grief for the loss of one who
has ever been the support to him imder all
other afflictions. " IIow," thought I, "will
he be able to bear the hour of hor death, that
could not. when I was lately with him, speak
of a sickness, which was then past, without
sorrow ? " We were now got pretty far into
"Westminster, and arrived at my friend's house.
At the door of it I met Favonius, not without
a secret satisfaction to find he had been there.
I had formerly conversed with him at his
house ; and as he abounds with that sort of
virtue and knowledge which makes religion
beautiful, and never leads the conversation
into the violence and rage of party disputes, I
listened to him with great pleasure. Our dis-
course chanced to be upon the subject of
death, which he treated with such a strength
of reason, and greatness of soul, that instead
of being terrible, it appeared to a mind rightly
cultivated, altogether to be contemned, or
rather to be desired. As I mot him at the
door, I saw in his face a certain glowing of
grief and humanity, heightened with an air of
fortitude and resolution, which, as I after-
wards found, had such an irresistible force, as
to suspend the pains of the dying, and the
lamentations of the nearest friends who at-
28 MR. BICKEIiSTAFF
tended her. I went up directly to the room
where she lay, and was met at the entrance by
ray friend, who, notwithstanding his thoughts
had been composed a little before, at the sight
of me turned away his face and wept. The
little family of children renewed the expres-
sions of their sorrow according to their sev-
eral ages and degrees of understanding. The
eldest daughter was in tears, busied in attend-
an' e upon her mother ; others were kneeling
about the bedside : and what troubled me most
was to see a little boy, who was too young to
know the reason, weeping only because his
sisters did. The only one in the room who
seemed resigned and comforted was the d3ing
person. At my approach to the bedside, she
told me, with a low broken voice, "This is
kindly done — Take care of your friend —
Don't go from him." She had before taken
leave of her husband and children, in a man-
ner proper for so solemn a parting, and with
a gracefulness peculiar to a woman of her
character. My heart was torn in pieces to see
the husband on one side suppressing and keep-
ing down the swellings of his grief, for fear
of disturbing her in her last moments ; and
the wife even at that time concealing the pains
she endured, for fear of increasing his afflic-
tion. She kept her e3'es upon him for some
moments after she grew speechless, and soon
after closed them forever. In the moment of
her departure, my friend (who had thus far
commanded himself) gave a deep groan, and
fell into a swoon by her bedside. The dis-
VISITS A FBIEND. 29
traction of the children, who thought they saw
both thi ir parents expiring together, and now
lying dead before them, would have melted
the hardest heart; but they soon perceived
their father recover, whom I helped to remove
into another room, with a resolution to accom-
pany him until tlie first pangs of his affliction
were abated. I knew consolation would now
be impertinent ; and therefore contented my-
self to sit by him, and condole with him in
silence. For I shall here use the method of
an ancient author, who in one of his epistles
relating the virtues and death of Maerinus's
wife, expresses himself thus: "I shall sus-
pend my advice to this best of friends, until
he is made capable of receiving it by those
great remedies — Necessitas ipsa, dies longa, et
satietas doloris — the necessity of submission,
length of time, and satiety of grief."
In the mean time, I cannot but consider with
much commiseration, tlie melancholy state of
one who has had such a part of himself torn
from him, and which he misses in every cir-
cumstance of life. His condition is like that
of one who has lately lost his right arm, and
is every moment offering to help himself with
it. He does not appear to himself the same
person in his house, at his table, in company,
or in retirement ; and loses the relish of all
the pleasures and diversions that were before
entertaining to him by her participation of
them. The most agreeable objects recall the
sorrow for her with whom he used to enjoy
them. This additional satisfaction, from the
30 MR. BICKERSTAFF
taste of pleasures in the society of one we love,
is admirably described in Milton, who repre-
sents Eve, though in Paradise itself, no farther
pleased with the beautiful objects around her,
than as she sees them in company with Adam,
in that passage so inexpressibly charming :
With thee conversing, I forgot all time,
All seasons, and their change; all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant tlie sun,
When first on this delightful laud he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tr.'e, fruit and flower,
Glist'ring with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft show'rs, and sweet the coming on
Of grateful ev'niug mild ; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these th" gems of heaven, her starrj' train.
But neither bi-eath of m^m when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
In this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrant after showers,
Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.
The variety of images in this passage is in-
finitely pleasing, and the recapitulation of each
particular image, with a little varying of the
expression, makes one of the finest turns of
words that I have ever seen : which I rather
mention, because Mr. Dryden has said in his
preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with
no turn of words in Milton.
It may be further observed, that though the
sweetness of these verses has something in it
of a pastoral, yet it excels the ordinary kind,
as much as the scene of it is above an ordinary
field or meadow. I might here, since I am
VISITS A FRIEND. 31
accidentally led into this subject, shew several
passages iu Milton that have as excellent turns
of this nature, as any ot' our English poets
whatsoever ; but shall only mention that which
follows, in which he describes the fallen angels
engaged in the intricate disputes of predesti-
nation, free-will, and foreknowledge; and to
humor the perplexity, makes a kind of laby-
rinth in the very words that describe it :
Others apart sate on a liill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and r«asoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found uo end in wand'ring mazes lost.
Dec. 31, 1709.
TATUtB.] N"o. 3. [Steeu.
THE TRUMPET CLUB.
Haheo Renectuti magnam gratiam, quae mitai Bcrmonis avidita-
tem ausit, potionis et cibi sustulit. — Tull. de Sen.
After having applied my mind with more
than oidinary attention to my studies, it is
my usual custom to relax and unbend it in
the conversation of such as are rather eas}'
than shining companions. This I find par-
ticularly necessary for me before I retire to
rest, in ordir to draw m}' slumbers upon me
by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This
is the particuar use I make of a set of heavy
honest men, with whom I have passed many
hours with much indolence, though not with
great pl-asure. Their conversation is a kind
of preparative for sleep : it takes the mind
down from its abstractions, leads it into the
familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into
that state of tranquillity which is the condi-
tion of a thinking man, when he is but half
awake. After this, my reader will not be
surprised to hear the account which I am about
to give of a club of my own contemporaries,
among whom I pass two or three hours every
evening. This I look upon as taking m}' first
nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is,
I should think myself unjust to posterity, as
well as to the society at the Trumpet, of
THE TRUMPET CLUB. 33
which I am a member, did not I in some part
of my writings give an account of the per-
sons among whom I have passed almost a
sixth part of my time for these last forty
years. Our club consisted originally of fif-
teen ; but partly by the severity of the law in
arbitrary times, and partly by the natural
effects of old age, we are at present reduced
to a third part of that number ; in which, how-
ever, we have this consolation, that the best
company is said to consist of five persons. I
must confess, besides the aforementioned
benefit which I meet with in the conversation
of this select society, I am not the less pleased
with the company, in that I find myself the
greatest wit among them, and am heard as
their oracle in all points of learning and difll-
culty.
Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the
club, has been in possession of the right-hand
chair time out of mind, and is the only man
among us that has the liberty of stirring the
fire. This our foreman is a gentleman of an
ancient family, that came to a great estate
some years before he had discretion, and ran
it out in hounds, horses, and cock-fighting ;
for which reason he looks upon himself as an
honest, worthy gentleman, who has had mis-
fortunes in the world, and calls every thriving
man a pitiful upstart.
Major Matchlock is the next senior, who
served in the last civil wars, and has all the
battles by heart. He does not think any
action in Europe worth talking of since the
3
34 THE TBUMPET CLUB.
fight of Marston Moor ; and every night tells
us of his having been knocked off his horse
at the rising of the London apprentices ; for
which he is in great esteem among us.
Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our
society. He is a good-natured indolent man,
who speaks little himself, but laughs at our
jokes ; and brings his young nephew along
with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to
shew him good company, and give him a taste
of the world. This young fellow sits gener-
ally silent ; but whenever he opens his mouth,
or laughs at anything that passes, he is con-
stantly told by his uncle, after a jocular
manner, "Aye, aye. Jack, you young men
think us fools, but we old men know you are."
The greatest wit of our company, next to
myself, is a Bencher of a neighboring inn, who
in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
Charing Cross, and pretends to have been
intimate with Jack Ogle. He has about ten
distiches of Hudibras without book, and never
leaves the club till he has applied them all.
If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town
frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the
dulness of the present age, and tells us a story
of Jack Ogle.
For my own part, I am esteemed among
them, because they see I am something re-
spected by others ; though at the same time I
understand by their behavior, that I am con-
sidered by them as a man of a great deal of
learning, but no knowledge of the world ; in-
somuch that the Major sometimes, in the
THE TRUMPET CLUB. 35
height of his military pride, calls me the Phi-
losopher ; and Sir Jeoffre}', no longer ago than
last night, upon a dispute what day of the
month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe
out of his mouth, and cried, " What does the
scholar say to it ? "
Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in
the evening ; but I did not come last night
until half an hour after seven, by which means
I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the
Major usually begins at about three quarters
after six : I found also, that my good friend,
the Bencher, had already spent three of his
distiches, and only waited an opportunity to
hear a sermon spoken of, that he might intro-
duce the couplet where "a stick" rhymes to
" ecclesiastic." At my entrance into the
room, they were naming a red petticoat and
a cloak, by which I found that the Bencher
had been diverting them with a story of Jack
Ogle.
I had no sooner taken my S'^at, but Sir
Jeoffrey, to shew his good- will towards me,
gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and
stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a point
of morality, to be obliged by those who
endeavor to oblige me ; and therefore, in
requital for his kindness, and to set the con-
versation a-going, I took the best occasion I
could to put him upon telling us the story of
old Gantlett, which he always does with very
particular concern. He traced up his descent
on both sides for several generations, describ-
ing his diet and manner of life, with his
36 THE TRUMPET CLUB.
several battles, and particularly that in which
he fell. This Gantlett was a gamo cock,
upon whose head the knight, in his youth,
had won five hundred pounds, and lost two
thousand. This naturally set the Major upon
the account of Edge-hill fight, and ended in a
duel of Jack Ogle's.
Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all
that was said, though it was the same he had
heard every night f > r these twenty years ; and
upon all occasions winked upon his nephew to
mind what passed.
This may suffice to give the world a taste of
our innocent conversation, which we spun out
until about ten of the clock, when my maid
came with a lanthorn to light me home. I
could not but reflect with myself, as I was
going out, upon the talkative humor of old
men, and the little figure which that part of
life makes in one who cannot employ his
natural propensity in discourses which would
make him venerable. I must own, it makes
me very melancholy in company, when 1 hear
a young man begin a story ; and have often
observed, that one of a quarter of an hour
long in a man of five-and-twenty gathers cir-
cumstances every time he tells it, until it
grows into a long Canterbury tale of two
hours by that time he is threescore.
The only way of avoiding such a trifling
and frivolous old age is, to lay up in our way
to it such stores of knowledge and observa-
tions, as may make us useful and agreeable in
our declining years. The mind of man in a
THE TBUMPET CLUB. 87
long life will become a magazine of wisdom or
folly, and will consequently discharge itself
in something impertinent or improving. For
which reason, as there is nothing more ridicu-
lous than an old trifling storj'-teller, so there is
nothing more venerable, than one who has
turned his experience to the entertainment and
advantage of mankind.
In short, we, who are in the last stage of
life, and are apt to indulge ourselves in talk,
ought to consider, if what we speak be worth
being heard, and endeavor to make our dis-
course like that of Nestor, which Homer com-
pares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.
I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this
excess I am speaking of, when I cannot con-
clude without observing, that Milton certainly
thought of this passage in Homer, when in
his description of an eloquent spirit, he
says, " His tongue dropped manna."
Feb. 11, 1710.
Tatlkb.] TTo. 4. [Addison.
THE POLITICAL UPIOLSTERER.
. . . aliena negotia curat,
EzcussuB propriiB. nor.
There lived some years since within my
neighborhood a very grave person, an Uphol-
sterer, who seemed a man of more than ordi-
nary application to business. He was a very
earlj' riser, and was often abrond two or
three hours before any of his neighbors. He
had a particular carefulness in the knitting of
his brows, and a kind of impatience in all
his motions, that plainh' discovered he was al-
waj's intent on matters of importance. Upon
my enquiry into his life and conversation, I
found him to be the greatest newsmonger in
our quarter ; that he rose before day to read
the Postman ; and that he would take two or
three turns to the other end of the town
before his neighbors were up, to see if there
were any Dutch mails come in. He had a
wife and several children ; but was much
more inquisitive to know what passed in
Poland than in his own family, and was in
greater pain and anxiety of mind for King
Augustus's welfare than that of his nearest
relations. He looked extremely thin in a
dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in
a westerly wind. This indefatigable kind of
THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTEBER. 39
life wns the ruin of his shop ; for about the
time that his favorite prince left the crown of
Poland, he broke and disappeared.
This man and his affairs had been long out
of ray mind, till about three days ago, as I was
walking in St. James's Park, I heard some-
body at a distance hemming after me : and
who should it be but my old neighbor the
Upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to ex-
treme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities
in his dress : for notwithstanding that it was a
very sultry day for the time of the year, he
wore a loose great-coat and a muff, with a long
campaign wig out of curl ; to which he had
added the ornament of a pair of black garters
buckled under the knee. Upon his coming up
to me, I was going to enquire into his present
circumstances ; but was prevented by his ask-
ing me, with a whisper, Whether the last
letters brought any accounts that one might
rely upon from Bender? I told him, None
that I heard of ; and asked him whether he
had jet married his eldest daughter ? He told
me, No. "But pray," says he, "tell me
sincerelj', what are your thoughts of the King
of Sweden ? " For though his wife and chil-
dren were starving, I found his chief concern
at present was for this great monarch. I told
him, that I looked upon him as one of the first
heroes of the age. " But pray," says he, " do
you think there is anything in the story of his
wound?" And finding me surprised at the
question — "Nay," says he, " I only propose
it to you." I answered, that I thought there
40 THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTEBEB.
was no reason to doubt of it. " But why in
the heel," says he, " more than any other part
of the body?" — "Because," said I, "the
bullet chanced to light there."
This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner
ended, but he began to launch out into a long
dissertation upon the affairs of the North ; and
after having spent some time on them, he told
me he was in great perplexity how to reconcile
the Supplement with the English Post, and
had been just now examining what the other
papers say upon the same subject, "The
Daily Courant," says he, "has these words:
' We have advices from very good hands, that
a certain prince has some matters of great im-
portance under consideration.' This is very
mysterious ; but the Post-boy leaves us more
in the dark, for he tells us ' That there are
private intimations of measures taken by a
certain prince, which time will bring to light.'
Now the Postman," says he, " who uses to be
very clear, refers to the same news in these
words : ' The late conduct of a certain prince
affords great matter of speculation.' This
certain prince," says the Upholsterer, " whom
they are all so cautious of naming, I take to
be ." Upon which, though there was
nobody near us, he whispered something in
my ear, which I did not hear, or tliink worth
my while to make him repeat.
We were now got to the upper end of the
mall, where were three or four very odd fel-
lows sitting together upon the bench. These
I found were all of them politicians, who used
THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTEBER. 41
to sun themselves in that place every day
about dinner-time. Observing them to be
curiosities in their kind, and my friend's ac-
quaintance, I sat down among them.
The chief poliiician of the bench was a great
asserter of paradoxes. He told us, with a
seeming concern. That by some news he had
lately read from Muscovy, it appeared to him
that there was a storm gathering- in the Black
Sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval
forces of this nation. To this he added, That
for his part, he could not wish to see the Turk
driven out of Europe, which he believed could
not but be prejudicial to our woollen manufac-
ture. He then told us, that he looked upon
those extraordinary revolutions which had
lately happened in those parts of the world,
to have risen chiefly from two persons who
were not much talked of ; "And those," says
he, " are Prince Menzikoflf, and the Duchess
of Mii'andola." He backed his assertions with
so many broken hints, and such a show of
depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up
to his opinions.
The discourse at length fell upon a point
which seldom escapes a knot of true-born
Englishmen, Whether, in case of a religious
war, the Protestants would not be too strong
for the Papists ? This we unanimously deter-
mined on the Protestant side. One who sat
on my right hand, and, as I found by his dis-
course, had been in the West Indies, assured
us that it would be a very easy matter for the
Protestants to beat the Pope at sea ; and
42 THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTEBEB.
added, that whenever such a war does break
out, it must turn to tlie good of the Leeward
Islands. Upon this, one who sat at the end
of the bench, and as I afterwai'ds found, was
the geographer of the company', said, that in
case the Papists should drive the Protestants
from these parts of Europe, when the worst
came to the worst, it would be impossible to
beat them out of Norway and Greenland, pro-
vided the Northern crowns hold together, and
the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter.
He further told us, for our comfort, that
there were vast tracts of land about the Pole,
inhabited neither by Protestants nor Papists,
and of greater extent than all the Roman
Catholic dominions in Europe.
When we had fully discussed this point, my
friend the Upholsterer began to exert himself
upon the present negotiations of peace ; in
which he deposed princes, settled the bounds
of kingdoms, and balanced the power of
Europe, with great justice and impartiality.
I at length took my leave of the company,
and was going away ; but had not gone thirty
yards, before the Upholsterer hemmed again
after me. Upon his advancing towards me,
with a whisper, I expected to hear some secret
piece of news, which he had not thought fit to
communicate to the bench ; but instead of
that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half
a crown. In compassion to so needy a states-
man, and to dissipate the confusion I found he
was in, I told him, if he pleased. I would give
him five shillings, to receive five pounds of
THE POLITICAL UPHOLSTERER. 43
him when the Great Tui-k was driven out of
Constantinople ; which he very readily ac-
cepted, but not before he had laid down to me
the impossibility of such an event, as the
affairs of Europe now stand.
This paper I design for the particular bene-
fit of those worthy citizens who live more in a
coffee-house than in their shops, and whose
thoughts are so taken up with the affairs of the
Allies, that they forget their customers.
April 6, 1710.
Tatleb.] N^o. 5. [Addisok.
TOM POLIO.
Faciunt nse intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant. Ter.
Tom Folio is a broker in learning, employed
to get together good editions, and stock the
libraries of great men. There is not a sale of
books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door.
There is not an auction where his name is not
heard, and that too in the very nick of time,
in the critical moment, before the last decisive
stroke of the hammer. There is not a sub-
scription goes forward, in which Tom is not
privy to the first rough draught of the propo-
sals ; nor a catalogue printed, that doth not
come to him wet from the press. He is an
universal scholar, so far as the title-page of
all authors, knows the manuscripts in which,
they were discovered, the editions through
which they have passed, with the praises or
censures which they have received from the
several members of the learned world. He
has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir,
than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of
Herodotus, he breaks out into a panegyric
upon Harry Stephens. He thinks he gives you
an account of an author when he tells you the
subject he treats of, the name of the editor,
and the year in which it was printed. Or if
TOM FOLIO. 45
you draw him into further particulars, he cries
up the goodness of the paper, extols the dili-
gence of the corrector, and is transported with
the beauty of the letter. This he looks upon
to be sound learning and substantial criticism.
As for those who talk of the fineness of style,
and the justness of thought, or describe the
brightness of any particular passages ; nay,
though they themselves write in the genius and
spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks
upon them as men of superficial learning, and
flashy parts.
I had yesterday morning a visit from this
learned idiot (for that is the light in which I
consider every pedant) ; when I discovered in
him some little touches of the coxcomb, which
I had not before observed. Being very full of
the figure which he makes in the republic of
letters, and wonderfully satisfied with his great
stock of knowledge, he gave me broad intima-
tions, that he did not believe in all points as
his forefathers had done. He then communi-
cated to me a thought of a certain author
upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead,
which 1 made the subject of a late paper.
This thought hath taken very much among
men of Tom's pitch and understanding, though
universally exploded by all that know how
to construe Virgil, or liave any reUsh of an-
tiquity. Not to trouble my reader with it, I
found upon the whole, that Tom did not be-
lieve a future state of rewards and punish-
ments, because ^ueas, at his leaving the em-
pire of the dead, passed thi'ough the Gate of
46 TOM FOLIO.
Ivory, and not through that of Horn. Know-
ing that Tom had not sense enough to give up
an opinion which he had once received, that he
might avoid wrangUng, I told him, that Virgil
possibly had his oversights as well as another
author. "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he,
"you would have another opinion of him, if
you would read him in Daniel Heinsius's edi-
tion. I have perused him myself several times
in that edition," continued he; "and after
the strictest and most malicious examination,
could find but two faults in him ; one of them
is in the ^neids, where there are two commas
instead of a parenthesis ; and another in the
third Georgic, where you may find a semicolon
turned upside down." — "Perhaps," said I,
" these were not Virgil's faults, but those of
the transcriber," — " I do not design it." says
Tom, " as a reflection on Virgil : on the con-
trary, I know that all the manuscripts reclaim
against such a punctuation. Oh ! Mr. Bicker-
staff," says he, " what would a man give to
see one simile of Virgil writ in his own hand !"
I asked him which was the simile he meant ;
but was answered, " Any simile in Virgil."
He then told me all the secret history in the
conunonwealth of learning ; of modern pieces
that had the names of ancient authors an-
nexed to them ; of all the books that were
now writing or printing in the several parts of
Europe ; of many amendments which are
made, and not yet published ; and a thousand
other particulars, which I would not have my
memory burdened with for a Vatican.
TOM FOLIO. 47
At length, being fully persuaded that I
thoroughly admired him, and looked upon him
as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I
know several of Tom's class who are professed
admirers of Tasso, without understanding a
word of Italian ; and one in particular, that
carries a Pastor Fido in his pocket, in which I
am sure he is acquainted with no other beauty
but the clearness of the character.
There is another kind of pedant, who with
all Tom Folio's impertinences, hath greater
superstructures and embellishments of Greek
and Latin ; and is still more insupportable than
the other, in the same degree as he is more
learned. Of this kind very often are editors,
commentators, interpreters, scholiasts, and
critics; and, in short, all men of deep learn-
ing without common sense. These persons
set a greater value on themselves for hav-
ing found out the meaning of a passage in
Greek, than upon the author for having
written it ; nay, will allow the passage it-
self not to have any beauty in it, at the
same time that they would be considered as
the greatest men of the age, for having in-
terpreted it. They will look with contempt on
the most beautiful poems that have been com-
posed by any of their contemporaries ; but
will lock themselves up in their studies for a
twelvemonth together, to correct, publish, and
expound such trifles of antiquity as a modern
author would be contemned for. Men of the
strictest morals, severest lives, and the gravest
professions, will write volumes upon an idle
48 TOM FOLIO.
sonnet, that is originally in Greek or Latin ;
give editions of the most immoral authors ;
and spin out whole pages upon the various
readings of a lewd expression. All that can
be said in excuse for them is, That their works
sufficiently shew they have no taste of their
authors ; and tliat what they do in this kind
is out of their great learning, and not out of
any levity or lasciviousness of temper.
A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well
described in six lines of Boileau, with which I
shall conclude his character :
XJn pedant enyvr^ de sa vaine science,
Tout herisse de Grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance,
Et qui de mille auteurs retenus mot par mot,
Dans sa tete entassez n'a souvent fait qu'un sot,
Oroit qu'iui livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote
La raison ne voit goutte, et le boa sens radote.
April 13, 1710.
Tatler.] No. Q. [Addison.
NED SOFTLY THE POET.
Idem inficeto est inficetior rure,
Simul poemata attigit; neque idem uaquam
jlSque est beatus, ac poeina quum scribit:
Tarn gaudct iu ee, tamqiie se ipse miratiir.
Nimirum idem oranes lalliraur; neque est quisquam
Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenuni
Possis. . . . Catul.
I YESTERDAY Came hither about two hours
before the company generally make their ap-
pearance, with a design to read over all the
newspapers ; but upon my sitting down, I was
accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from a
corner in the other end of the room, where I
found he had been writing something. " Mr.
Bickerstaft'," says he, " I observe by a late
paper of yours, that you and I are just of a
humor ; for you must know, of all imperti-
nences, there is nothing which I so much hate
as news. I never read a gazette in my life ;
and never trouble my head about our armies,
whether they win or lose ; or in what part of
the world they I'e encamped." Without giv-
ing me time to reply, he drew a paper of
verses out of his pocket, telling me, That he
had something which would entertain me more
agreeably ; and that he would desire my judg-
ment upon every line, for that we had time
enough before us until the company came in.
4
50 NED SOFTLY THE POET.
Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a
great admirer of easy lines. Waller is his
favorite ; and as that admirable writer has the
best and worst verses of any among our great
English poets, Ned Softly has got all the bad
ones without book ; which he repeats upon
occasion, to shew his reading, and g irnish his
conversation. Ned is indeed a true English
reader, incapable of relishing the great and
masterly strokes of this art ; but wonderfully
pleased with the little Gothic ornaments of
epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and
quibbles, which are so frequent in the most
admired of our English poets, and practised
by those who want genius and strength to
represent, after the manner of the ancients,
simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.
Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such
a conversation, I was resolved to turn my pain
into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well
as I could with so very odd a fellow. " You
must understand," says Ned, "that the son-
net I am going to read to you was written
upon a lady who shewed me some verses of
her own making, and is, perhaps, the best poet
of our age. But you shall hear it." Upon
which he began to read as follows :
TO MIBA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS.
"When dress' d in laurel wreaths you shine,
And tuue your soft melodious notes,
You seem a sister of the Nine,
Or Phoebas' self in petticoats.
WSD SOFTLY THE POET. 61
I fancy, when your song you sing
(Your song you sing with so much art),
Your pen was pluck 'a from Cupid's wing;
For, ah ! it wounds me lilce his dart.
" Why," says I, " this is a little nosegay of
conceits, a very lump of salt : every verse
hath something in it that piques ; and then the
Dart in the last line is certainly as pretty a
sting in the tail of an epigram (for so 1 think
your critics call it) as ever entered into the
thought of a poet." — "Dear Mr. Bicker-
staff," says he, shaking me by the hand,
" everybody knows you to be a judge of these
things ; and to tell you truly, I read over
Roscommon's translation of Horace's Art of
Poetry three several times, before I sat down to
write the sonnet which I have shewn you. But
you shall hear it again, and pray observe every
line of it, for not one of them shall pass with-
out your approbation.
"When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine.
"This is," says he, " when you have your
garland on ; when you are writing verses."
To which I replied, " I know your meaning :
A metaphor!" — "The same," said he, and
went on.
And tune your soft melodious notes.
"Pray observe the gliding of that verse;
there is scarce a consonant in it : I took care
to make it run upon liquids. Give me your
opinion of it." — " Truly," said I, " I think
52 NED SOFTLY THE POET.
it as good as the former." — " I am very glad
to hear you say so," says he ; " but mind the
next:
You seem a sister of the Nine.
" That is," says he, " you seem a sister of
the Muses ; for, if you look into ancient
authors, you will find it was then* opiuion,
that there were nine of them." — " I remember
it very well," said I: " but pray proceed."
Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.
"Phoebus," says he, "was the god of po-
etry. These little instances, Mr. Bickerstafif,
shew a gentleman's reading. Then to take off
from the air of learning, which Phoebus and
the Muses have given to this first stanza, you
may observe how it falls, all of a sudden, into
the familiar — ' in petticoats.' "
Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.
*' Let us now," says I, " enter upon the
second stanza ; I find the first line is still a
continuation of the metaphor.
I fancy, when your song you sing."
"It is very right," saj's he ; " but pray
observe the turn of words in those two lines.
I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and
have still a doubt upon me whether, in the
second line it should be, ' Your soug you
sing,' or, ' You sing your song.' You shall
hear them both : —
or,
NED SOFTLY THE POET. 53
I fancy, when your song you sing
(Your song you sing with so much art) ;
I fnncy when your song you sing
(You sing your song with so much art)."
" Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural
either way, that you have made me almost giddy
with it." — " Dear sir," said he, grasping me
by t!.e hand, "you have a great deal of pa-
tience ; but pray what do you think of the
next verse ? —
Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing."
" Think ! " says I ; "I think you have made
Cupid look like a little goose." — " That was
my meaning," says he : "I think the ridicule
is well enough hit off. But we come now to
the last, which sums up the whole matter.
For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart.
" Pray how do you like that ah f doth it not
make a pretty figure in that place? Ah I — it
looks as if he felt the dart, and cried out at
being pricked with it.
For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart.
" My friend, Dick Easy," continued he,
" assured me he would rather have written
that ah ! than to have been the author of the
jfEneid. He indeed objected, that I made
Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines, and
like a dart in the other. But as to that — "
" Oh ! as to that," says I, " it is but supposing
54 NED SOFTLY THE POET.
Cupid to be like a porcupine, and his quills
and darts will be the same thing." He was
going to embrace me for the hint ; but half a
dozen critics coming into the room, whose
faces he did not like, he conveyed the sonnet
into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear,
he would shew it me again as soon as his man
had written it over fair.
Apeil 25, 1710.
Tatleb.] - KTo. 7. [Stebli.
EECOLLECTIONS Of CHILDHOOD.
. . . Pies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum,
Semper honoratum, sic dii voluistis, nabebo. Virff.
There are those among mankind, who can
enjoy no relish of their being, except the
world is made acquainted with all that relates
to them, and think everything lost that passes
unobserved ; but others find a solid delight in
stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life
after such a manner, as is as much above the
approbation as the practice of the vulgar.
Life being too short to give instances great
enough of true friendship or good-will, some
sages have thought it pious to preserve a cer-
tain reverence for the Manes of their deceased
ftiends ; and have withdrawn themselves from
tlie rest of the world at certain seasons, to
commemorate in their own thoughts such of
their acquaintance who have gone before them
out of this life ; and indeed, when we are
advanced in years, there is not a more pleas-
ing entertainment, than to recollect in a
gloomy moment the many we h:ive parted
with, that have been dear and agreeable to us,
and to cast a melancholy thought or two after
those, with whom, perhaps, we have indulged
ourselves in whole nights of mirth and jollity.
56 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD.
With such inclinations in my heart I went to
my closet yesterday in the evening, and
resolved to be sorrowful ; upon which occa-
sion I could not but look with disdain upon
myself, that though all the reasons -which I
had to lament the loss of many of my friends
are now as forcible as at. the moment of their
departure, yet did not my heart swell with the
same sorrow which I felt at the time ; but I
could, without tears, reflect upon many pleas-
ing adventures I have had with some, who
have long been blended with common earth.
Though it is by the benefit of Nature that
length of time thus blots out the violence of
afflictions ; yet with tempers too much given
to pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive
the old places of grief in our memory ; and
ponder step by step on past life, to lead the
mind into that sobriety of thought which
poises the heart, and makes it beat with due
time, without being quickened with desire, or
retarded with despair, from its proper and
equal motion. When we wind up a clock that
is out of order, to make it go well for the
future, we do not immediately set the hand to
the present instant, but we make it strike the
round of all its hours, before it can recover
the regularity of its time. Such, thought I,
shall be my method this evening ; and since it
is thit day of the year which I dedicate to the
memory of such in another life as I much
delighted in when living, an hour or two shall
be sacred to sorrow and their memory, while I
run over all the melancholy circumstances of
RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 57
this kind which have occurred to me in my
whole life. v
The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was
upon the death of my father, at which time I
was not quite five years of age ; but was rather
amazed at what all the house meant, than pos-
sessed with a real understanding why nobody
was willing to play with me. I remember I
went into ihe room where his body lay, and
my mother sat weeping alone ])y it. I had my
battledoor in my hand, and fell a-beating the
coffin, and calling Papa ; for, I know not how,
I had some slight idea that he was locked up
there. My mother catched me in her arms,
and, transported beyond all patience of the
silent grief she was before in, she almost
smothered me in her embrace ; and told me in
a flood of tears, Papa could not hear me, and
would play with me no more, for they were
going to put him underground, where he could
never come to us again. She was a very beau-
tiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was
a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness
of her transport; which, methought, struck
me with an instinct of sorrow, that befo: e I was
sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my
very soul, and has made pity the weakness of
my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is,
methinks, like the body in embryo ; and receives
impressions so forcible, that they are as hard
to be removed by reason, as any mark, with
which a child is born, is to be taken away by
any future application. Hence it is, that good-
nature in me is no merit ; but having been so
68 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD.
frequently overwhelmed with her tears before
I knew the cause of any affliction, or could
draw defences from my own judgment, I im-
bibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly
gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared
me into ten thousand calamities ; and from
whence I can reap no advantage, except it be,
that, in such a humor as I am now in, I can
the better indulge myself in the softnesses of
humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety that
arises from the memory of past afflictions.
We, that are very old, are better able to
remember things which befell us in our distant
youth, than the passages of later dax-s. For
this reason it is, that the companions of my
strong and vigorous years present themselves
more immediately to me in this office of sor-
row. Untimely and unhappy deaths are what
we are most apt to lament ; so little are we
able to make it indifferent when a thing hap-
pens, though we know it must happen. Thus
we groan under life, and bewail those who are
relieved from it. Every object that returns
to our imagination raises different passions,
according to the circumstance of their depart-
ure. Who can have lived in an arm}-, and in
a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and
agreeable men that might long have flourished
in the arts of peace, and not join with the im-
precations of the fatherless and widow on the
tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices ?
But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword,
move rather our veneration than our pity ; and
we gather relief enough from their own con-
BECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 69
tempt of death, to make it no evil, which was
approached with so much cheerfulness, and
attended with so much honor. But when we
turn our thoughts from the great parts of life
on such occasions, and instead of lamenting
those who stood ready to give death to those
from whom they had the fortuue to receive it ;
I say, when we let our thoughts wander f lom
such noble obJ3cts, and consider the havoc
which is made among the tender and the inno-
cent, pity enters with an unmixed softness,
and possesses all our souls at once.
Here (were there words to express such
sentiments with proper tenderness) I should
record the beaut}', innocence, and untimely
death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld
with love. The beauteous virgin ! How igno-
rantly did she charm, how carelessly excel !
O Deatli, thou hast right to the bold, to the
ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty ;
but why this cruelty to the humble, to the
meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless?
Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase
the dear image from my imagination. In the
same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and
in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death
become the pretty trifler ! I still behold the
smiling earth A large train of disasters
were coming on to my memory, when my ser-
vant knocked at my closet door, and interrupted
me with a letter, attended with a hamper of
wine, of the same sort with that which is to be
put to sale on Thursday next, at Garraway's
Coflfee-house. Upon the receipt of it, I sent
GO RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD.
for three of my friends. We are so intimate,
that we can be company in whatever state of
mind we meet, and can entertain each other
without expecting always to rejoice. The wine
we found to be generous and warming, but
with such an heat as moved us ratlier to
be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the
spirits, without firing the blood. We com-
mended it until two of the clock this morning ;
and having to-day met a little before dinner,
we found, that though we drank two bottles a
man, we had much more reason to recollect
than forget what had passed the night before.
June 6, 1710.
Tatlbb.] N"o. 8. [Addisow.
ADYENTUEES OF A SHILLING.
Per varies casus, per tot discrlmiQa rernm,
TendlmuB. . . . Vlrg.
I WAS last night visited by a friend of mine
who has an inexhaustible fund of discourse,
and never fails to entertain his company with
a variety of thoughts and hints that are alto-
gether new and uncommon. Whether it were
in complaisance to my way of living, or his real
opinion, he advanced the following paradox.
That it required much greater talents to fill
up and become a retired life, than a life of
business. Upon this occasion he rallied very
agreeably the busy men of the age, who only
valued themselves for being in motion, and
passing through a series of trifling and insig-
nificant actions. In the heat of his discourse,
seeing a piece of money lying on my table —
" I defy." says he, "any of these active per-
sons to produce half the adventures that this
twelvepenny-piece has been engaged in, were
it possible for him to give us an account of his
life."
My friend's talk made so odd an impression
upon my mind, that soon after I was abed
I fell insensibly into a most unaccountable
revery, that had neither moral nor design in
62 ADVENTUBES OF A SHILLINa.
it, and cannot be so properly called a dream
as a delirium.
Methought that the Shilling that lay upon
the table reared itself upon its edge, and turn-
ing the face towards me, opened its mouth,
and in a soft silver sound gave me the fol-
lowing account of his life and adventures :
" I was born," says he, " on the side of a
mountain, near a little village of Peru, and
made a voyage to England in an ingot, under
the convoy of Sir Francis Drake. I was, soon
after my arrival, taken out of my Indian habit,
refined, naturalized, and put into the Biitish
mode, with the face of Queen Elizabeth on
one side, and the arms of the country on the
other. Being thus equipped, I found in me a
wonderful inclination to ramble, and visit all
parts of the new world into which I was
brought. The people very much favored my
natural disposition, and shifted me so fast
from hand to h.md, that before I was five
years old, I had travelled into almost every
corner of the nation. But in the beginning of
my sixth year, to my unspeakable grief, I fell
into the hands of a miserable old fellow, who
clapped me into an iron chest, where I found
five hundred more of my own quality, who lay
under the same confinement. The only relief
we had, was to be taken out and counted over
ill the frtsh air every morning and evening.
After an imprisonment of several years, we
heard somebody knocking at our chest, and
breaking it open with an hammer. This we
found was the old man's heir, who, as his
ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING. 63
father lay a-dying, was so good as to come to
our release : he separated us that very day.
What was the fate of my companions I know
not : as for myself, I was sent to the apothe-
cary's shop for a pint of sack. The apoth. cary
gave me to an herb woman, the herb woman
to a butcJaer, the butcher to a brewer, and the
brewer to his wife, who made a present of
me to a Non-conformist preacher. After this
manner I made my way merrily through the
world ; for, as I told you before, we Nhillings
love nothing so much as travelling. I some-
times fetched in a shoulder of mutton, some-
times a play-book, jind often had the satis-
faction to treat a Templar at a twelvepenny
ordinary, or carry him with three friends to
Westminster Hall.
" In the midst of this pleasant progress,
which I made from place to place, I was arrested
by a superstitious old woman, who shut me
up in a greasy purse, in pursuance of a foolish
saying, that while she kept a Queen Elizabeth's
Shilling about her, she should never be with-
out money. I continued here a close prisoner
for many months, until atlast I was exchanged
for eight-and-forty farthings.
" I thus rambled from pocket to pocket
until the beginning of the civil wars, when, to
my shame be it spoken, I was employed in
raising soldiers against the king ; for being of
a very tempting breadth, a sorjeant made use
of me to inveigle country fellows, and list
them in the service of the parliament.
" As soon as he had made one man sure,
64 ADVENTURES OF A SHILLING.
his way was to oblige him to take a Shilling of
a more homely figure, and then practise the
same trick upon another. Thus I continued
doing great mischief to the Crown, until my
officer chancing one morning to walk abroad
earlier than ordinary, sacrificed me to his
pleasures, and made use of me to seduce a
milkmaid. This wench bent me, and gave
me to her sweetheart, apphing more properly
than she intended the usual form of — ' To
my love and from my love.' This ungener-
ous gallant marrying her within few daj'S
after, pawned me for a dram of brandy ; and
drinking me out next day, I was beaten flat
with an hammer, and again set a-running.
*' After many adventures, which it would be
tedious to relate, I was sent to a young spend-
thrift, in company with the will of his deceased
father. The young fellow, who, I found, was
very extravagant, gave great demonstrations
of joy at the receiving the will ; but opening
it, he found himself disinherited, and cut off
from the possession of a fair estate by virtue
of my being made a present to him. This put
him into such a passion, that after having
taken me in his hand, and cursed me, he
squirred me away from him as far as he could
fling me. I chanced to light in an unfre-
quented place under a dead wall, where I lay
undiscovered and useless, during the usurpa-
tion of Oliver Cromwell.
*' About a year after the king's return, a poor
cavalier that was walking there about dinner-
time, fortunately cast his eye upon me, and,
ADVENTUBES OF A SHILLING. 65
to the great joy of us both, carried me to a
cook's shop, where he dined upon me, and
drank the king's health. When I came again
into the world, I found that I had been hap-
pier in my retirement than I thought, having
probably by that means escaped wearing a
monstrous pair of breeches.
" Being now of great credit and antiquity, I
was rather looked upon as a medal than an or-
dinary coin ; for which reason a gamester laid
hold of me and converted me to a counter,
having got together some dozens of us for that
use. We led a melancholy life in liis posses-
sion, being busy at those hours wherein cur-
rent coin is at rest, and pai taking the fate of
our master ; being in a few moments valued at
a crown, a pound or a sixpence, according to
the situation in which the fortune of the cards
placed us. I had at length the good luck to
see my master break, by which means I was
again sent abroad under my primitive denomi-
tion of a Shilling.
" I shall pass over man}' other accidents of
Jess moment, and hasten to that fatal catas-
trophe when I fell into the hands of an artist,
who conveyed me under ground, and with an
unmerciful pair of shears, cut off my titles,
clipped my brims, retrenched my shape,
rubbed me to ^ inmost ring ; and in short, so
spoiled and pillaged me, that he did not leave
me worth a groat. You may think what a
confusion I was in to see myself thus curtailed
and disfigured. I should have been ashamed
to have shewn my head, had not all my old ac-
6
66 ADVENTUBES OF A SMILLING.
quaintance been reduced to the same shameful
figure, excepting some few that were punched
through the belly. In the midst of this gen-
eral calamity, when evirybod}' thought our mis-
fortune irretrievable, and our case desperate,
■we were thrown into the furnace together, and
(as it often happens with cities rising out of a
fire) appeared with greater beaut}^ and lustre
than we could ever boast of before. What
has happened to me since this change of sex
which you now see, I shall take some other
opportunity to relate. In the mean time I
shall only repeat two adventures ; as being very
extraordinary, and neither of them having ever
happened to me above once in my life. The
first was, my being in a poet's pocket, who
was so taken with the brightness and novelty
of my appearance, that it gave occasion to the
finest burlesque poem in the British language,
intituled from me, ' The Splendid Shilling.'
The second adventure, which I must not omit,
happened to me in the year one thousand
seven hundred and three, when I was given
away in charity to a blind man ; but indeed
this was by a mistake, the person who gave me
having heedlessly thrown me into the hat
among a pennyworth of farthings."
Nov. 11, 1710.
Tatleb.] No, Q. [ABDisoa.
FEOZEN YOICES.
Splendide mendax. . . . ITor.
There are no books which I more delight
in than in Travels, especially those that
describe remote countries, and give the writer
an opportunity of shewing his parts without
incurring any danger of being examined or
contradicted. Among all the authors of this
kind, our renowned countryman, Sir John
Mandeville, has distinguished himself by the
copiousness of his invention, and greatness of
his genius. The second to Sir John I take to
have been Fei-dinand Mendez Pinto, a person
of infinite adventure, and unbounded imagina-
tion. One reads the voyages of these two
great wits with as much astonishment as the
Travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red-
Cross Knight in Spenser. All is enchanted
ground and fairy land.
I have got into my hand, by great chance,
several manuscripts of these two eminent
authors, which are filled with greater wonders
than any of those they have communicated to
the public ; and indeed, were they not so well
attested, would appear altogether improbable.
I am apt to think the ingenious authors did
not publish them with the rest of their works,
68 FBOZEN VOICES.
lest they should pass for fictions and fables :
a caution not unnecessary, when the reputa-
tion of their veracity was not yet established
in the world. But as this reason has now no
further weight, I shall make the public a pres-
ent of these curious pieces at such times as I
shall find myself unprovided with other sub-
jects.
The present paper I intend to fill with an
extract of Sir John's Journal, in which that
learned and worthy knight gives an account of
the freezing and thawing of several short
speeches, which he made in the territories of
Nova Zembla. I need not inform my reader,
that the author of Hudibras alludes to this
strange quality in that cold climate, when,
speaking of abstracted notions clothed in a
visible shape, he adds that apt simile —
Like words congeal'd in northern air.
Not to keep my reader any longer in sus-
pense, the relation, put into modern language,
is as follows :
"We were separated by a storm in the lati-
tude of 73°, iusomuch that only the ship
which I was in, with a Dutch and French ves-
sel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zembla.
We landed in order to refit our vessels, and
store ourselves with provisions. The crew of
each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf
and wood, at some distance from each other,
to fence themselves against the inclemencies
of the weather, which was severe beyond
imagination. We soon observed, that in talk-
FROZEN VOICES. 69
ing to one another we lost several of our
words, and could not hear one another at
above two yards' distance, and that too when
we sat very near the fire. After much per-
plexity, I found that our words froze in the
air, before they could reach the ears of the
persons to whom they were spoken. I was
soon confirmed in the conjecture, when, upon
the increase of the cold, the whole company
grew dumb, or rather deaf ; for every man
was sensible, as we afterwards found, that he
spoke as well as ever ; but the sounds no
sooner took air, than they were condensed
and lost. It was now a miserable spectacle
to see us nodding and gapiug at one another,
every man talking, and no man heard. One
might observe a seaman, that could hail a ship
at a league's distance, beckoning with his
hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his
throat ; but all in vain.
. . . Nee vox, nee verba, sequuntur.
" We continued here three weeks in this dis-
mal plight. At length, upon a turn of wind,
the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin
was immediately filled with a dry clattering
sound, which I afterwards found to be the
crackling of consonants that broke above our
heads, and were often mixed with a gentle
hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that
occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I
soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing
by my ear ; for those being of a soft and
gentle substance, immediately liquefied in
70 FBOZEN VOICES.
the warm wind that blew across our cabin.
These were soon followed by syllables and
short words, and at length by entire sen-
tences, that melted sooner or later as they
were more or less congealed ; so that we now
heard everything that had been spoken during
the whole three weeks that we had been site7it,
if I may use that expression. It was now
very early in the morning, and yet to my sur-
prise, I heard somebody say, ' Sir John, it is
midnight and time for the ship's crew to go
to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's voice,
and upon recollecting mjself, I concluded
that he had spoken these words to me some
days before, though I could not hear them
until the present thaw. My reader will easily
imagine how the whole crew was amazed to
hear every man talking and see no man open
his mouth. In the midst of this great sur-
prise we were all in, we heaj-d a volley of
oaths and curses, lasting for a long while, and
uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew
belonged to the boatswain, who was a very
choleric fellow, and had taken his oppor: unity
of cursing and swearing at me when he
thought I could not hear him ; for I had sev-
eral times given him the strappado on that
account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these
his pious soliloquies, when I got him on ship-
board.
" I must not omit the names of several
beauties in "Wapping, which were heard every
now and then, in the midst of a long sigh that
accompanied them ; as ' Dear Kate ! ' ' Pretty
FBOZEN VOICES. 71
Mrs. Peggy ! ' ' "When shall I see my Sue
again ? ' This betrayed several amours which
had been concealed until that time, and fur-
nished us with a great deal of mirth in our
return to England.
" When this confusion of voices was pretty
well over, though I was afraid to offer at
speaking, as fearing I should not he heard, I
proposed a visit to the Dutch cabin, which lay
about a mile further up into the country. My
crew were extremely rejoiced to find they had
again recovered their hearing ; though every
man uttei*ed his voice with the same appre-
hensions that I had done —
Et timide verba intermissa retentat.
" At about half a mile's distance from our
cabin, we heard the groanings of a bear,
which at first startled us ; but upon inquiry,
we were informed by some of our company
that he was dead, and now lay in salt, having
been killed upon that very spot about a fort-
night before, in the time of the frost. Not
far from the same place, we were likewise
entertained with some posthumous snarls and
barkings of a fox.
"We at length arrived at the little Dutch
settlement; and upon entering the room,
found it filled with sighs that smelt of brandy,
and several other unsavory sounds, that were
altogether inarticulate, ily valet, who was
an Irishman, fell into so great a rage at what
he heard, %\iQX he drew his sword ; but not
knowing where to lay the blame, he put it up
72 FROZEN VOICES.
again. We were stunned with these con-
fused noises, but did not hear a single word
until about half an hour after; which I
ascribed to the harsh and obdurate sounds
of that language, which wanted more time
than ours to melt and become audible.
" After having here met with a very hearty
welcome, we went to the cabin of the French,
who, to make amends for their three weeks'
silence, were talking and disputing with
greater rapidity and confusion than ever I
heard in an assembly even of that nation.
Their language, as I found, upon the first giv-
ing of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved.
I was here convinced of an error, into which I
had before fallen ; for I fancied that, for the
freezing of the sound, it was necessary for it
to be wrapped up and, as it were, preserved
in breath : but I found my mistake, when I
heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet over
our heads. I asked the occasion of it ; upon
which one of the company told me, it would
play there above a week longer, if the thaw
continued ; ' for,' says he, ' finding our-
selves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon
one of the company, who had this musical
instrument about him, to play to us from
morning to night ; all which time we employed
in dancing, in order to dissipate our chagrin,
et tuer le temps.' "
Here Sir John gives very good philosoph-
ical reasons why the kit could not be heard
during the frost ; bat as they are sometliing
prolix, I pass them over in silence, and shall
FROZEN VOICES. 73
only observe, thtit the honorable author seems
by his quotations to have been well versea in
the ancient poets, which perhaps raised his
fancy above the ordinary pitch of historians,
and very much contributed to the embellish-
ment of his writings.
Nov, 23, 1710.
Spectator.] No. lO. [Addisok.
STAGE IIONS.
Dicmibi, si fueris tu leo, qnalis eris? Mart.
There is nothing that of late years has
afforded matter of greater amusement to the
town than Signior Nieolini's combat with a
Lion in the Haymarket, which has been very
often exhibited to the general satisfaction of
most of the nobility and gentry in the king-
dom of Great Britain. Upon the first rumor
of this intended combat, it was confidently
affirmed, and is still believed by many in both
galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent
from the Tower every opera night, in order to
be killed by Hydaspes, This report, though
altogether groundless, so universally prevailed
in the upper regions of the playhouse, that
some of the most refined politicians in those
parts of the audience gave it out in whisper,
that the Lion was a cousin -gei'man of the Tiger
who made his appearance in King William's
days, and that the stage would be supplied
with lions at the public expense during the
whole session. Many likewise were the con-
jectures of the treatment which this Lion was
to meet with from the hands of Signior Nico-
lini : some supposed that he was to subdue him
in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild
beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock
STAGE LIONS. 75
him on the head ; some fancied that the Lion
would not pretend to lay his paws upon the
hero, by reason of the received opinion, that a
Lion will not hurt a Virgin. Several, who
pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had
informed their friends, that the Lion was to
act a part in High-Dutch, and roar twice or
thrice to a thorough-bass, before he fell at the
feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that
was so variously reported, I have made it my
business to examine whether this pretended
Lion is really the savage he appears to be, or
only a counterfeit.
But before I communicate my discoveries, I
must acquaint the reader, that upon my walking
behind the scenes last winter, as I was think-
ing on something else, I accidentally justled
against a monstrous animal that extremely
startled me, and, upon ray nearer survey of it,
appeared to be a Lion-Rampant. The Lion,
seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a
gentle voice, that I might come by him if I
pleased — "For," says he, "I do not intend
to hurt anybody." I thanked him very kindly,
and passed by him ; and m a little time after
saw him leap upon the stage, and act his part
with very great applause. It has been observed
by several, that the Lion has changed his man-
ner of acting twice or thrice since liis first ap-
pearance ; which will not seem strange, when
I acquaint ray reader that the Lion has been
changed upon the audience three several times.
The first Lion was a Candle-snuffer, who being
a fellow of a testy, choleric temper, overdid
76 STAGE LIONS.
his part, and would not suffer himself to be
killed so easily as he ought to have done ;
besides, it was observed of him, that he grew
more surly every time he came out of the Lion ;
and having dropt some words in ordinary con-
versation, as if he had not fought his best,
and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon
his back in the scuffle, and that he would
wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased,
out of his Lion's skin, it was thought proper
to discard him ; and it is verily believed, to
this day, that had he been brought upon
the stage another time, he would certainly
have done mischief. Besides, it was objected
against the first Lion, that he reared himself
so high upon his hinder paws, and walked in
so erect a posture, that he looked more like an
old Man than a Lion.
The second Lion was a Tailor by trade, who
belonged to the playhouse, and liad the char-
acter of a mild and peaceable man in his pro-
fession. If the former was too furious, this
was too sheepish, for his part ; insomuch that,
after a short modest walk upon the stage, he
would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, with-
out grappling with him, and giving him an op-
portunity of s'.ewing his variety of Italian
trips : it is said indeed, that he once gave him
a rip in his flesh-colored doublet ; but this was
only to make work for himself, in his private
character of a Tailor. I must not omit that
it was this second Lion who treated me with
so much humanity behind the scenes.
The acting Lion at present is, as I am in-
STAGE LIONS. 77
formed, a Country Gentleman, who does it for
his diversion, but desires his name may be
concealed. He says very handsomely iu his
own excuse, that he does not act for gain ;
that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it ;
and that it is better to pass away an evening
in t'.iis manner, than in gaming and drinking ;
but at the same time says, with a very agree-
able raillery upon himself, that if his name
should be known, the ill-natured world might
call him the Ass in the Lion's skin. This gen-
tleman's temper is made of such a happy mix-,
ture of the mild and the choleric, that he
outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn
together greater audiences than have been
known in the memory of man.
I must not conclude my narrative, without
taking notice of a groundless report that h is
been raised, to a gentleman's disadvantage, of
whom I must declare myself an admirer ;
namely, that Signior Nicolini and the Lion
have been sitting peaceably by one another,
and smoking a pipe together, behind the
scenes ; by which their common enemies would
insinuate, it is but a sham combat which they
represent upon the stage ; but upon enquiry I
find, that if any such correspondence has
passed between them, it was not till the com-
bat was over, when the Lion was to be looked
upon as dead, according to the received rules
of the Drama. Besides this is what is prac-
tised every day in Westminster Hall, where
nothing is more usual than to see a couple of
lawyers, who have been tearing each other to
78 STAGE LIONS.
pieces in the court, embracing one another as
soon as they are out of it.
I would not be thought, in any part of this
relation, to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who
in acting this part only complies with the
wretched taste of his audience ; he knows very
well, that the Lion has many more admirers
than him-elf ; as they say of the famous eques-
trian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, that
more people go to see the horse, than the
king who sits upon it. On the contrar}', it
gives me a just indignation to see a person
whose action gives new majesty to kings, res-
olution to heroes, and softness to lovers, thus
sinking from the greatness of his behavior,
and degraded into the character of the Lon-
don 'Prentice. I have often wished, that our
tragedians would copy after this great master
in action. Could they make the same use of
their arms and legs, and inform their faces
with as significant looks and passions, how
glorious would an English tragedy appear with
that action, which is capable (>f giving a dig-
nity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, and
unnatur d expressions of an Italian opera !
In the mean time, I have related this combat
of the Lion, to shew what are at present the
reigning entertainments of the politer part of
Great Britain.
Audiences have often been reproached by
writers for the coarseness of their taste ; but
our present grievance does not seem to be the
want of a good taste, but of common sense.
Mabch 15, 1711.
Spectator. J "No. XI- [Addisoh.
MEDITATIONS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Pallida mors cequo pulsat pede paup'erum tabernas
Hegumque turres. O beate Sesti,
Vitse Biimma brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.
Jam te premet iiox, fabulieque manes,
Et domus oxilis I'lutonia. . . . Bbr.
■ "When I am in a serious humor, I very
oftea walk by myself in Westminster A])bey ;
where tlie gloominess of the place, and the use
to which it is applied, with the solemnity of
the building, and the condition of the people
who lie in it, are npt to fill the mind with a
kind of melancholy, or rather, thoughtfulness,
that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed
a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the clois-
tei s, and the church, amusing myself with the
tombstones and inscriptions. that I met with in
those several regions of the dead. Most of
them recorded nothing e'se of the buried per-
son, but that he was born upon one day, and
died upon another : the whole history of his
life being comprehended in those two circum-
stances, that jire common to all mankind. I
could not but look upon these registers of exist-
ence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind
of satire upon the departed persons ; who had
left no other memorial of them, but that they
were born and that they died. They put me
in mind of several persons mentioned in the
80 MEDITATIONS IN
battles of heroic poems, who have sounding
names given them, for no other reason but
that they may be killed, and are celebrated
for nothing but being knoclced on the head.
TKuivKOv re, MeSdira t«, &ep<TiXox6v re.
Glancamque, Medontaqiie, Thersilochumque.
The life of these men is finely described in
Holy "Writ by " the path of an arrow," which
is immediately closed up and lost.
Upon my going into the church, I enter-
tained myself with the digging of a grave ; and
saw in every shovelful of what was thrown up,
the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed
with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that
some time or other had a place in the compo-
sition of a human bod}-. Upon this I began
to consider with myself, what innumerable
multitudes of people lay confused together
under the pavement of that ancient cathedral ;
how men and women, friends and enemies,
priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries,
were crumbled amongst one another, and
blended together in the same common mass ;
how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age,
weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished
in the same promiscuous heap of matter.
After ha-s-ing thus surveyed this great mag-
azine of mortality, as it were in the lump, I
examined it more particularly by the accounts
which I found on several of the monuments
which are raised in everj' quarter of that an-
cient fabric. Some of them were covered with
WE8TMIN8TEB ABBEY. 81
such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were pos-
sible for the person to be acquainted with
them, he would blush at the praises which his
friends have bestowed upon him. There are
others so excessively modest, that they deliver
the character of the person departed in Greek
or Hebrew, and by that means are not under-
stood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical
quarter, I found there were poets who had no
monuments, and monuments which had no
poets. I observed indeed that the present
war had filled the church with many of these
uninhabited monuments, which had been
erected to the memory of persons whose
bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of
Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.
I could not but be very much delighted with
several modern epitaphs, which are written
with great elegance of expression and just-
ness of thought, and therefore do honor to
the living as well as the dead. As a for-
eigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the
ignorance or politeness of a nation from the
turn of their public monuments and inscrip-
tions, they should be submitted to the perusal
of men of learning and genius before they are
put in execution. SirCloudesly Shovel's mon-
ument has very often given me offence ; in-
stead of the brave, rough English admiral,
which was the distinguishing character of that
plain gallant man, he is represented on his
tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a
long periwig, and reposing himself upon vel-
vet cushions under a canopy of state. The
6
82 MEDITATIONS IN
inscription is answerable to the monument ;
for instead of celebrating the many remarka-
ble actions he had performed in the service of
his country, it acquaints us only with the man-
ner of his death, in which it was impossible
for him to reap any honor. The Dutch, whom
we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew
an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and
politeness in their buildings and works of this
nature, than what we meet with in those of
our own country. The monuments of their
admirals, which have been erected at the pub-
lic expense, represent them like themselves ;
and are adornecl with rostral crowns and naval
ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-
weed, shells, and coral.
But to return to our subject. I have left the
repository of our English kings for the con-
templation of another day, when I shall find
my mind disposed for so serious an amusement.
I know that entertainments of this nature are
apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in tim-
orous minds and gloomy imaginations ; but
for my own part, though I am always serious,
I do not know what it is to be melancholy ;
and can, therefore, take a view of Nature, in
her deep and solemn scenes, with the same
pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones.
By this means I can improve myself with
those objects, which others consider with ter-
ror. When I look upon the tombs of the
great, every emotion of e:ivy dies in me ;
when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful,
every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 83
with tbi grief of parents upon a tombstone,
my heart melts with compassion ; when I see
the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider
the vanity of grieving for those whom we
must quickly follow ; when I see kings lying
by those \\ho deposed them, when I consider
rival wits placed side by e-ide, or the holy men
that drv'ided the world with their contests and
disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonish-
ment on the little competitions, factions, and
debates of mankind. When I read the sev-
eral dates of the tombs, of some that died
yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I
consider that great day when we shall all of us
be contemporaries, and make our appearance
together.
March 30, 1711.
Spkctator.] No. IS. [Addison.
THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN.
. . . Lusas animo debent aliqaando dari.
Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sibi. Phatdr.
I DO not know whether to call the follow-
ing letter a satire upon coquettes, or a repre-
sentation of their several fantastical accom-
plishments, or what other title to give it ; but
as it is I shall communicate it to the public.
It will sufficiently explain its own intentions,
so that I shall give it my reader at length,
without either preface or postscript.-
3/r. Spectator, — Women are armed with
fans as men with swords, and sometimes do
more execution with them. To the end there-
fore that ladies may be entire mistresses of the
weapon which they bear, I have erected au
academy for the training up of young women
in the ''Exercise of the Fan," according to
the most fashionable airs and motions that
are now practised at court. The ladies who
" carry" fans under me are drawn up twice a
day in my great hall, where they are instructed
in the use of their arms, and exercised by the
following words of command :
Handle your fans,
Unfurl your fans,
Discharge your fans.
Ground your fans,
Recover your fans,
Flutter your fans.
THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 85
By the right observation of these few plaia
words of command, a woman of a tolerable
genius, who will app'y herself diligently to
her exercise for the space of but one half-year,
shall be able to give her fan all the graces that
can possibly enter into that little modish ma-
chine.
Bnt to the end that my readers may form to
themselves a right notion of this exercise, I
beg leave to explain it to them ia all its parts.
When my female regiment is drawn up in
array, with every one her weapon in her hand,
upon my giving the word to " handle their
fan," each of them shakes her fan at mo with
a smile, then gives her right-hand woman a
tap upon t'le shoulder, then presses her lips
with the extremity of her fan, then lets her
arms fall in an e-isy motion, and stands in a
readiness to receive the next word of com-
mand. All this is done with a close fan, and
is general. y learned in the first week.
The next motion is that of " unfurling the
fan," in which are comprehended several little
flirts and vibrations, as also gradual and delib-
erate openings, with many voluntary fallings
asunder in the fan itself, that are seldom
learned under a month's practice. This part
of the exercise pleases the spectators more
than any other, as it discovers on a sudden an
infinite number of cupids, garlands, altars,
birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like agreea-
ble figures, that display themselves to view,
whilst every one in the regiment holds a pic-
ture in her hand.
80 THE EXEEGI8E OF THE FAN.
Upon my giving the word to " discharge
their fans," they give one general crack that
may be heard at a considerable distance M'hen
the wind sits fair. This is one of the most
ditflcult parts of the exercise ; but I have sev-
eral ladies with me, who at their first entrance
could not give a pop loud enough to be heard
at the further end of a room, who can now
" discharge a fan" in such a manner, that it
shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I
have likewise taken care (in order to hinder
young women from letting off their fans in
wrong places or unsuitable occasions) to show
upon what subject the crack of a fan may
come in properly : I have likewise invented a
fan with which a girl of sixteen, b}" the help
of a little wind which is inclosed about one of
the largest sticks, can make as loud a crack as
a woman of fifty with an ordinary fan.
When the fans are thus " discharged," t'le
word of command in course is to '* ground
their fans." This teaches a lady to quit her
fan gracefully when she throws it aside in
order to take up a pack of cards, adjust a
curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or. apply
herself to any other matter of importance.
This part of the exercise, as it only consists
in tossing a fan with an air upon a long table
(which stands by for that purpose), may be
h'arned in two days' time as well as in a
twelvemonth.
When my female regiment is thus disarmed,
I generally let them walk about the room for
some time ; when on a sudden (like ladies that
THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 87
look upon their watches after a long visit),
they all of them hasten to their arms, catch
them up in a hurry, and place themselves in
their proper stations upon my calling out,
" Recover your fans ! " This part of the ex-
ercise is not difficult, provided a woman ap-
plies her thoughts to it.
The " fluttering of the fan" is the last and
indeed the masterpiece of the whole exercise ;
but if a lady does not mis-spend her time, she
may make herself mistress of it in three
months. I generally lay aside the dog-days
and the hot time of the summer for the teach-
ing this part of the " exercise " ; for as soon
as ever I pronounce, "Flutter your fans,"
the place is filled with so many zephyrs and
gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that
season of the year, though they might be dan-
gerous to ladies of a tender constitution in
any other.
There is an infinite variety of motions to be
made use of in the "flutter of a fan" : there
is the angry flutter, the modest flutter, the
timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry
flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be
tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the
mind which does not produce a suitable agita-
tion in the fan ; insomuch, that if 1 only see
the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very
well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes.
I have seen a fan so very angry, that it would
have been dangerous for the absent lover who
provoked it to have come within the wind of
it ; and at other times so very languishing, that
88 THE EXERCISE OF THE FAX.
I have been glad for the lady's sake the lover
was at a sufficient distance from it. I need
not add, that a fan is either a prude or co-
quette, according to the nature of the person
who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must
acquaint you that I have from my own obser-
vations compiled a little treatise for the use of
my scholars, entitled " Tlie Passions of the
Fan"; which I will communicate to you, if
you think it may be of use to the public. I
shall have a general review on Thursday next ;
to which you shall be very welcome if you will
honor it with your presence.
I am, etc.
P. S. I teach young gentlemen the whole
art of gallanting a fan.
N. B. I have several little plain fans made
for this use, to avoid expense.
June 27, 1711.
Spectator.] USTo. 13. [Addison.
WILL WIMBLE.
Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agens. Phcedr.
As I was yesterday morning walking with
Sir Roger before his house, a country-follow
brought him a huge fish, which, he told him,
Mr. William Wimble had caught that very
morning ; and that he presented it, with his
service to him, and intended to come and dine
with him. At the same time he delivered a
letter which my friend read to me as soon as
the messenger left him.
Sir Roger ^ — I desire you to accept of a
jack, which is the best I have caught this sea-
son. I intend to come and stay with"^you a
week, and see how the perch bite in the Black
River. I observed with some concern, the
last thne I saw you upon the bowling-green,
that your whip wanted a lash to it ; I will bring
half a dozen with me that I twisted last week,
which I hope will serve you all the time you
are in the country. I have not been out of
the saddle for six days last past, having been
at Eton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes
to his learning hugely. — I am, sir, your hum-
ble servant,
"Will Wimble.
90 WILL WIMBLE.
This extraordinary letter, and the message
that accompanied it, made me verj curious to
know the character and quality of the gentle-
man who sent them, which I found to be as
follows. Will Wimble is j'ounger brother to a
baronet, and descended of the ancient family
of the Wimbles. He is now between fortj'
and fifty ; but being bred to no business and
born to no estate, he generally lives with his
elder brother as superintendent of his game.
He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man
in the country, and is very famous for finding
out a h ire. He is extremely well versed in all
the little handicrafts of an idle man. He
makes a Maj'-fly to a miracle ; and furnishes
the whole country with angle-rods. As he is a
good-natured officious fellow, and very much
esteemed upon account of his family, he is a
welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a
good correspondence among all the gentlemen
about him. He carries a tulip-root in his
pocket from one to another, or exchanges a
puppy between a couple of friends that live
perhaps in the opposite sides of the county.
Will is a particular favorite of all the young
heii's, whom he frequently obliges with a net
that he has weaved or a setting-dog that he
has made himself. He now and then presents
a pair of garters of his own knitting to their
mothers or sisters ; and raises a great deal of
mirth among them, by inquiring as often as he
meets them, '• How they wear?" These gen-
tleman-like manufactures and obliging little
humors make Will the darling of the country.
WILL WIMBLE. 91
Sir Roger was proceeding in the character
of him, when he saw him make up to us with
two or three hazel-twigs in his hand that he
had cut in Sir Roger's woods, as he came
through them, in his way to tlie house. I was
vei}' much pleased to observe on one side the
hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir
Roger receive I him, and on the other, the
secret joy which his guest discovered at sight
of the good old knight. After the first salutes
were over, Will desired Sir Roger to lend him
one of his servants to carry a set of shuttle-
cocks he had with him in a little box to a lady
that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems
he had promised such a present for above this
half-year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner
turned, but honest Will began to tell me of a
large cock- pheasant that he had sprung in one
of the neighboring woods, with two or three
other adventures of the same nature. Odd
and uncommon characters are the game that I
look for, and most delight in ; for which reason
I was as much pleased with the novelty of the
person that talked to me as he could be for his
life with the springing of the pheasant, and
therefore listened to him with more than ordi-
nary attention.
In the midst of this discourse the bell rung
to dinner, where the gentleman I have been
speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the
huge jack he had caught, served up for the
first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon
our sitting down to it, he gave us a long ac-
count how he had hooked it, played with it,
92 WILL WTMBLE.
foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the
bank, with several other particulars that lasted
all the first course. A dish of wild fowl that
came afterwards furnished conversation for
the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a
late invention of "Will's for improving the
quail-pipe.
Upon withdrawing into my room after din-
ner,- I was s cretly touched with compassion
towards the honest gentleman that had dined
with us ; and could not but consider with a
great deal of concern, how so good an heart
and such busy hands were wholly employed in
trifles ; that so much humanity should be so
little beneficial to others, and so much industry
so little advantageous to himself. The same
temper of mind and application to affairs
might have recommended him to the public
esteem, and have raised his fortune in another
station of life. What good to his country or
himself might not a trader or merchant have
done with such useful though ordinary qualifi-
cations ?
Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger
brother of a great family, who had rather see
their children starve like gentlemen, than thrive
in a trade or profession that is beneath their
quality. This humor fills several parts of Europe
with pride and beggary. It is the happiness
of a trading nation, like ours, that the younger
sous, though incapable of any liberal art or
profession, may be placed in such a way of
life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with
the best of their family : accordingly we find
WILL WIMBLE. 93
several citizens that w. re launched into the
world with narrow fortunes, rising by an hon-
est industry to greater estates than those of
their elder brothers. It is not improbable but
Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or
physic ; and that finding his genius did not lie
that way, his parents gave liim up at length to
his own inventions. But certainly, however
improper he might have been for studies of a
higher nature, he was perfectly well turned
for the occupations of trade and commerce,
July 4, 1711.
Spectator.] N"o. 14. [Steblb.
SIR ROGEE DE COVERLEY'S ANCESTORS.
Abnormis sapiens. . . . Hor,
I WAS this morning walking in the gallery,
when Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to
me, and advancing towards me, said he was
glad to meet me among his relations the De
Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversation
of so much good company, who were as silent
as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures,
and as he is a gentleman who does not a little
value himself upon his ancient descent, I
expected he would give me some account of
them. We were now arrived at the upper end of
the gallery, when the knight faced towards one
of the pictures, and as we stood before it, he
entered into the matter, after his blunt way of
saying things, as they occur to his imagina-
tion, without regular introduction, or care to
preserve the appearance of chain of thought.
" It is," said he, '' worth while to consider
the force of dress ; and how the persons of
one age differ from those of another merely
by that only. One may observe also, that
the general fashion of one age has been
followed by one particular set of people in
another, and by them preserved from one gen-
eration to another. Thus the vast jetting coat
ANCEST0B8. 95
and small bonnet, which was the habit in Harry
the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen
©f tlie guard ; not without a good and politic
view, because they look a foot taller, and a
foot and a half broader ; besides, that the cap
leaves the face expanded, and consequently
more terrible, and fitter to stand at the entrance
of palaces.
" This predecessor of ours, you see, is
dressed after this manner, and his cheeks
would be no larger tlian mine, wore he in a
hat as I am. He was the last man that won
a prize in the Tilt-Yard ( which is now a com-
mon street before Whitehall) . You see the
broken lance that lies there by his right foot ;
he shivered that lance of his adversary all to
pieces ; and bearing himself, look you. Sir, in
this manner, at the same time he came within
the target of the gentleman who rode against
him, and taking him with incredible force
before him on the pommel of his saddle, he in
that manner rid the tournament over, with an
air that shewed he did it rather to perform the
rule of the lists than expose his enemy ;
however, it appeared he knew how to make
use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he
marched up to a gallery wliere their mistress
sat (for thoy wei'e rivals), and let hira down
with laudable courtesy and pardonable inso-
lence. I don't know but it might be exactly
where the Cotfee-house is now.
' ' You are to know this my ancestor was
not only of a military genius, but fit also for
the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-
96 Silt BOGEB DE COVEBLEY'S
viol as well as any gentleman at court ; j^ou
see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt
sword. The action at the Tilt-Yard you may
be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of
honor, and the greatest beauty of her time ;
here she stands, the next picture. You see,
Sir, my great-great-grandmother has on the
new-fashioned petticoat, except that the mod-
ern is gathered at the waist ; my grandmother
appears as if she stood in a large drum,
whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in
a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at
court, she became an excellent country-wife,
she brought ten children, and when I shew
you the library, you shall see in her own hand
(allowing for the difference of the language)
the best receipt now in England both for an
hasty pudding and a white-pot.
" If you please to fall back a little, because
'tis necessary to look at the three next pic-
tures at one view, these are three sisters. She
on the right hand, who is so very beautiful,
died a maid ; the next to her, still handsomer,
had the same fate, against her will ; this
homely thi-.g in the middle had both their
portions added to her own, and was stolen by
a neighboring gentleman, a man of stratagem
and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs
to come at her, and knocked down two deer-
stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes
happen in all families : the theft of this romp
and so much money, was no great matter to
our estate. But the next heir that possessed
it was this soft gentleman, whom you see
ANCESTOBS. 97
there : observe the small buttons, the little
boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes,
and above all the posture he is drawn in
(which to be sure was his own choosing) ; you
see lie sits with one hand on a desk writing,
and looking as it were another way, like an
easy writer, or a sonneteer : he was one of
those that had too ranch wit to know how to
live in the world ; he was a man of no justice,
but great good manners ; he ruined everybody
that had anything to do with him, but never
said a rude thing in his life ; the most indolent
person in the world, he would sign a deed
that passed away half his estate with his
gloves on, but would not put on his hat before
a lady, if it were to save his country. He is
said t ) be the first that made love by squeez-
ing the hand. He left the estate with ten
thousand pounds debt upon it ; but however,
by all hands I liave been informed that he
was every way the finest gentleman in the world.
That debt lay heavy on our house for one
generation, but it was retrieved by a gift from
that honest man you see there, a citizen of
our name, but nothing at all akin to us. I
know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind
my back that this man was descended from-
one of the ten children of the maid of honor I
shewed you above ; but it was never made
out. We winked at the thing indeed, because
money was wanting at that time."
Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed,
and turned my face to the next portraiture.
Sir Roger went on with his account of the
7
98 SIB BOGEB DE COVEBLEY'S
gallery in the following manner. " This man"
(pointing to him I looked at) " I take to be the
honor of our house, Sir Humphrey de Cover-
ley ; he was in his dealings as punctual as a
tradesman and as generous as a gentleman.
He would have thought himself as much un-
done by breaking his word as if it were to be
followed by bankruptcy. He served his coun-
try as knight of the shire to his dying day.
He found it no easy matter to maintain an
integrity in his words and actions, even in
things that regarded the offices which were
incumbent upon him, in the care of his own
affairs and relations of life ; and therefore
dreaded (though lie had great talents) to go
into employments of state, where he must be
exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence
of life and great ability were the distinguish-
ing parts of his character ; the latter, he had
often observed, had led to the desti'uction of
the former, and used frequently to lament that
great and good had not the same signification.
He was an excellent husbandman, but had re-
solved not to exceed such a degree of wealth ;
all above it he bestowed in secret bounties
many years after the sum he aimed at for his
own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken
his industry, but to a decent old age spent the
life and fortune which was superfluous to him-
self, in the service of his friends and neigh-
bors."
Here we were called to dinner, and Sir
Roger ended the discourse of this gentleman,
by telling me, as we followed the servant, that
ANCESTORS. 99
this his ancestor was a brave man, and nar-
rowly escaped being killed in the civil wars ;
" Fur," said lie, " he was sent out of the field
upon a private message, ihe day before the
baitle of Worcester." The whim of narrowly
escaping by having been within a day of
danger, with other matters abovementioned,
mixed with good sense, left me at a loss
whether I was more delighted with my friend's
wisdom or simplicity.
July 5, 1711.
Spectatob.] No. 1.5. [Bttoqkll.
SIE ROGER DE COVERLEY HARE-HTJNTING.
. . . Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron,
Taygetique canes. . . . Virg.
Those who have searched into human na-
ture observe, that nothing so much shews the
nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity con-
sists in action. Every man has such an active
principle in him, that he will find out some-
thing to employ himself upon, in whatever
place or state of life he is posted. I have
heard of a gentleman who was under close
confinement iu the Bastile seven years ; during
which time he amused himself in scattering a
few small pins about his chamber, gathering
them up again, and placing them iu different
figures on the arm of a great chair. He often
told his friends afterwards, that unless he had
found out this piece of exercise, he verily be-
lieved he should have lost his senses.
After what has been said, I need not inform
my readers, that Sir Roger, with whose char-
acter I hope they are at present pretty well
acquainted, has in his youth gone through the
whole course of those rural diversions which
the country abounds in ; and which seem to be
extremely well suited to that laborious industry
a man may observe here in a far greater degree
HABE-HUNTma. 101
than in towns and cities. I have before hinted
at some of my friend's exploits : he has in his
youthful days talien forty coveys of partridges
in a season ; and tired many a salmon with a
line consisting but of a single hair. The con-
stant thanlcs and goo 1 wishes of the neighbor-
hood always attended him, on account of his
remarkable enmity towards foxes ; having de-
stroyed more of those vermin in one year,
than it was thought the whole country could
have produced. Indeed the knight does not
scruple to own among his most intimate
friends, that in order to establish his reputa-
tion this way, he has secretly sent for great
numbers of them out of other counties, which
he used to turn loose about the country by
night, that he might the better signalize him-
self in their destruction the next day. His
hunting-horses were the finest and best man-
aged in all these parts : his tenants are still
full of the praises of a gray stone-horse that
unhappily staked himself several years since,
and was buried with gi-eat solemnity in the
orchard.
Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-
hunting, to keep himself in action, has dis-
posed of his beagles, and got a pack of Stop-
hounds. What these want in speed, he en-
deavors to make amends for by the deepness
of their mouths and the variety of their notes,
which are suited in such a manner to each
other, that the whole cry makes up a complete
concort. He is so nice in this particular, that
a gentleman having made him a present of a
a02 SIB BOGER DE COVEBLET
very fine hound the other day, the knight re-
turned it hy the servant with a great many
expressions of civility ; but desired him to tell
his master, that the dog he had sent was in-
deed a most excellent bass, but that at present
he only wanted a counter-tenor. Could I
believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare,
I should certainly conclude he had taken the
hint from Theseus in the " Midsummer Night's
Dream "' :
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung
"With ears that sweep away the morning dew ;
Crooked-knee 'd and dew-lapp'd like Tliessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in month like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tunahle
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn.
Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he
has been out almost every day since I came
down ; and upon the chaplain's offering to
lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on
yesterday morning to make one of the com-
pany, I was extremely pleased, as we rid
along, to observe the general benevolence of
all the neighborhood towards my friend. The
farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they
could open a gate for the good old knight as
he passed by ; which he generally requited with
a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their
fathers and uncles.
After we had rid iibont a mile from home,
we came upon a large heath, and the sports-
men began to beat. They had done so for
some time, when, as I was at a little distance
HARE-HUNTING. 103
from the rest of the company, I saw a hare
pop out from a small fm"ze-brake almost under
my horse's feet. I marked the way she took,
which I endeavored to make the company
sensible of by extending my arm ; but to no
purpose, until Sir Roger, who knows that none
of my extraordinary motions are insigni (leant,
rode up to me, and asked me "if Puss was
gone that way ? " Upon my answering ' ' Yes,"
he immediately called in the dogs, and put
them upon the scent. As thej'' were going off,
I heard one of the country-fellows muttering
to his companion, " that 'twas a wonder they
had not lost all their sport, for want of the
silent gentleman's crying — Stole away."
This, with my aversion to leaping hedges,
made me withdraw to a rising ground, from
whence I could have the pleasure of the whole
chase, without the fatigue of keeping in with
the hounds. The hare immediately threw them
above a mile behind her ; but I was pleased
to find, that instead of running straight for-
wards, or in hunter's language, "flying the
country," as I was afraid she might have done,
she wheeled about, and described a sort of
circle round the hill where I had taken my
station, in such a manner as gave me a very
distinct view of the sport. I could see her
first pass by, and the dogs some time after-
wards unravelling the whole track she had
made, and following her through all her
doubles. I was at the same time delighted
in observing that deference which the rest
of the pack paid to each particular hound,
104 SIB ROGEB DE COVERLET
according to the character he had acquired
amongst them : if they were at a fault, and
an old hound of reputation opened but once,
he was immediately followed by the whole cry ;
while a raw dog, or one who was a noted liar,
might have yelped his heart out, without being
taken notice of.
The hare now, after having squatted two or
three times, and been put up again as often,
came still nearer to the place where she was
at first started. The dogs pursued her, and
these were followed by the jolly knight, who
rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by
his tenants and servants, and cheering his
hounds with all the gayety of five-and-twenty.
One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told
me, that he was sure the chase was almost at
an end, because the old dogs, which had hith-
erto lain behind, now headed the pack. The
fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large
field just under us, followed by the full cry
" in view." I must confess the brightness of
the weather, the cheerfulness of everything
around me, the chiding of the hounds, which
was returned upon us in a double echo from
two neighboring hills, with the hollaing of the
sportsman, and the sounding of the horn, lifted
my spirits into a most lively pleasure, which
I freely indulged, because I was sure it was
innocent. If I was under any concern, it was
on the account of the poor hare, that was now
quite spent, and almost within the reach of
her enemies ; when the huntsman getting for-
ward, threw down his pole before the dogs.
HARE-HUNTING. 105
They were now within eight yards of that
game which they had been pursuing for almost
as many hours ; yet on the signal before
mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and
though they continued opening as much as
before, durst not once attempt to pass be^'ond
the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode
forward, and alighting, took up the hare in
his arms ; which he soon delivered up to one
of his servants, with an order, if she could be
kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard ;
where it seems he has several of these prisoners
of war, who live together in a very comfortable
captivity. I was highly pleased to see the
discipline of the pack, and the good-nature of
the knight, who could not find in his heart to
murder a creatui'e that had given him so much
diversion.
July 13, 1711,
Spkctatob.] TTo. 16. [Addison.
THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL.
. . . f rugea consomere nati. Hor.
Augustus, a few moments before his death,
asked his friends who stood about him, if
they thought he had acted his part well ; and
upon receiving such an answer as was due
to his extraordinary merit — "Let me then,"
says he, "go off the stage with your ap-
plause " ; using the expression with which the
Roman actors made their t!ixit at the conclu-
sion of a dramatic piece. I could wish that
men, while they are in health, would consider
well the nature of the part they are engaged
in, and what figure it will make in the minds
of those they leave behind them : whether it
was worth coming into the world for ; whether
it be suitable to a reasonable being ; in short,
whether it appears graceful in this life, or will
turn to an advantage in the next. Let the
sycophant, or buffoon, the satirist, or the good
companion, consider with himself, when his
body shall be laid in the grave, and his soul
pass into another state of existence, how much
it would redound to his praise to have it said
of him, that no man in England eat better,
that he had an admirable talent at turnino his
friends into ridicule, that nobody outdid him
THE CITIZEN'S JOUBNAL. 107
at an ill-uatured jest, or that he never went to
bed before he had despatched his third bottle.
These are, however, very common funeral ora-
tions, and eulogiums on deceased persons wiio
have acted among mankind with some figure
and reputation.
But if we look into the bulk of our species,
they are such as are not likely to be remem-
bered a moment after their disappearance.
They leave behind them uo traces of their
existence, but are forgotten as though they had
never been. They are neither wanted by the
poor, regretted by the rich, nor celebrated by
the learned. They are neither missed in the
commonwealth, nor lamented by private per-
sons. Their actions are of no significancy to
mankind, and might have been performed by
creatures of much less dignity than those who
are distinguished by the faculty of reason.
An eminent French author speaks somewhere
to the following purpose : " I have often seen
from my chamber-window two noble creatures,
both of them of an erect countenance, and en-
dowed with reason. These two intellectual
beings are employed from morning to night,
in rubbing two smooth stones upon one
another; that is, as the vulgar phrase it, in
polishing marble."
My friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, as we were
sitting in the club last night, gave us an
account of a sober citizen, who died a few
days since. This honest man being of greater
consequence in his own thoughts, than in the
eye of the world, had for some years past
108 THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL.
kept a journal of his life. Sir Andrew shewed
us one week of it. Since the occurrences set
down in it mark out such a road of action as
that I have been speaking of, I shall present my
reader with a faithful copy of it ; after having
first informed him, that the deceased person
had in his youth been bred to trade, but finding
himself not so well turned for business, he had
for several years last past lived altogether
upon a moderate annuity.
Monday^ eight a-clock. I put on my
clothes, and walked into the parlor.
Nine a-clock ditto. Tied my knee-striogs,
and washed my hands.
Hours ten, eleven, and twelve. Smoked
three pipes of Virginia. Read the Supplement
and Daily Courant. Things go ill in the north.
Mr. Nisby's opinion thereupon.
One a-clock in the afternoon. Chid Ralph
for mislaying my tobacco-box.
Two a-clock. Sat down to dinner. Mem.
Too many plums, and no suet.
From three to four. Took my afternoon's
nap.
From four to six. Walked into the fields.
Wind, S. S. E.
From six to ten. At the club. Mr. Nisby's
opinion about the peace.
Ten a-clock. Went to bed, slept sound.
T«esday, being holiday, eight a-clock. Rose
as usual.
Nine a-clock. Washed hands and face,
shaved, put on my double-soled shoes.
THE CITIZEW8 JOURNAL. 109
Ten, eleven, twelve. Took a walk to Isling-
ton.
One. Took a pot of mother Cob's mild.
Between two and three. Returned, dined
on a knuckle of veal and bacon. Mem.
Sprouts wanting.
Three. Nap as usual.
From four to six. Coffee-house. Read
the news. A dish of twist. Grand Vizier
strangled.
From six to ten. At the club. Mr.
Nisby's account of the Great Turk.
Ten. Dream of the Grand Vizier. Broken
sleep.
Wednesday^ eight a-clock. Tongue of my
shoe-buckle broke. Hands but not face.
Nine. Paid off the butcher's bill. Mem.
To be allowed for the last leg of mutton.
Ten, eleven. At the coffee-house. More
work in the north. Stranger in a black wig
asked me how stocks went.
From twelve to one. Walked in the fields.
"Wind to the south.
From one to two. Smoked a pipe and a
half.
Two. Dined as usual. Stomach good.
Three. Nap broke by the falling of a pew-
ter dish. Mem. Cook-maid in love, and
grown careless.
From four to six. At the coffee-house.
Advice from Smyrna, that the Grand Vizier
was first of all strangled, and afterwards
beheaded.
110 THE CITIZEN'S JOURNAL.
Six a-clock in the evening. Was half an
hour in the club before anybody else came.
Mr. Nisby of opinion that the Grand Vizier
was not strangled the sixth iustant.
Ten at night Went to bed. Slept with-
out waking until nine next morning.
Thursday., nine a-clock. Stayed within
until two a-clock for Sir Timothy ; who did
not bring me my annuity according to his
promise.
Two in the afternoon. Sat down to dinner.
Loss of appetite. Small beer sour. Beef
over-corned.
Three. Could not take my nap.
Four and five. Gave Ralph a box on the
ear. Turned off my cook-maid. Sent a mes-
senger to Nir Timothy. Mem. I did not go
to the club to-night. Went to bed at nine
a-clock.
Friday. Passed the morning in meditation
upon Sir Timothy, who was with me a quarter
before twelve.
Twelve a-clock. Bought a new head to my
cane, and a tongue to my buckle. Drank a
glass of purl to recover appetite.
Two and three. Dined, and slept well.
From four to six. Went to the coffee-
house. Met Mr. Nisby there. Smoked sev-
eral pipes. Mr. Nisby of opinion that laced
coffee is bad for the head.
Six a-clock. At the club as steward. Sat
late.
TUE CITIZEN'S JOUBNAL. Ill
Twelve a-clock. Went to bed, dreamt that
I drank small beer with the Grand Vizier.
Saturday. Waked at eleven, walked in
the fields, wind N. E.
Twelve. Caught in a shower.
One in the afternoon. Returned home,
and dried myself.
Two. Mr. Nisby dined with me. First
course, marrow-bones ; second, ox-cheek, with
a bottle of Brooks and Hellier.
Three a-clock. Overslept myself.
Six. Went to the club. Like to have fallen
into a gutter. Grand Vizier certainly dead, etc.
I question not but the reader will be sur-
prised to find the above-mentioned journalist
taking so much care of a life that was filled
with such inconsiderable actions, and received
so very small improvements ; and yet, if we
look into the behavior of many whom we daily
converse with, we shall find that most of their
hours are taken up in those three important
articles of eating, drinking, and sleeping. I
do not suppose that a man loses his time, who
is not engaged in public affairs, or in an illus-
trious course of action. On the contrary, I
believe our hours may very often be more
profitably laid out in such transactions as make
no figure in the world, than in such as are apt
to draw upon them the attention of mankind.
One may become wiser and better by several
methods of employing one's self in secrecy and
silence, and do what is laudable without noise
112 THE CITIZEN'S JOUBNAL.
or ostentation. I would, however, recommend
to every one of my readers, the keeping a
journal of their lives for one week, and setting
down punctually their whole series of employ-
ments during that space of time. This kind
of self-examination would give them a true
state of 'themselves, and incline them to con-
sider seriously what they are about. One day
would rectify the omissions of another, and
make a man weigh all those indifferent actions,
which, though they are easily forgotten, must
certainly be accounted for.
Mabch 4, 1712.
Spectator.] No. IT. [Addison.
THE FINE LADY'S JOUENAL.
. . . Modo vir, modo foemina. . . . Virg.
The journal with which I presented my
reader on Tuesday last, has brought me in
several letters, with accounts of many pri-
vate lives cast into that form. I have the
Rake's Journal, the Sot's Journal, and among
several others a very curious piece, entitled
" The Journal of a Mohock." By these in-
stances I find that the intention of my last
Tuesday's paper has been mistaken by many
of my readers. I did not design so much to
expose vice as idleness, and aimed at those
persons who pass away their time rather in
trifle aud impertinence, than in crimes and
immoralities. Offences of this latter kind are
not to be dallied with, or treated in so ludi-
crous a manner. In short, my journal only
holds up folly to the light, and shews the dis-
agreeableness of such actions as are indifferent
in themselves, and blamable only as they pro-
ceed from creatures en^iowed with reason.
My following correspondent, who calls her-
self Clarinda y is such a journalist as I require :
she seems by her letter to be placed in a modish
state of indifference between vice and virtue,
and to be susceptible of either, were there
8
114 THE FINE LADY'S JO VENAL.
proper pains taken with her. Had her journal
been filled with gallantries, or such occurrences
as had shewn her wholly divested of her natu-
ral innocence, notwithstanding it might have
been more pleasing to the generality of readers,
I should not have published it ; but as it is
only the picture of a life filled with a fashion-
able kind of gayety and laziness, I shall set
down five days of it, as I have received it from
the hand of my fair correspondent.
Dear Mr. Spectator, — You having set your
readers an exercise in one of your last week's
papers, I have performed mine according
to your orders, and herewith send it you
inclosed. You must know, Mr. Spectator,
that I am a maiden lady of a good fortune,
who have had several matches offered me for
these ten years last past, and have at present
warm applications made to me by a very pretty
fellow. As I am at my own disposal, I corae
up to town every winter, and pass my time in
it after the manner you will find in the follow-
ing journal, which I began to write upon the
very day after your Spectator upon that sub-
ject.
Tuesday night. Could not go to sleep till
one in the morning for thinking of my journal.
Wednesday. From eight till ten. Drank
two dishes of chocolate in bed, and fell asleep
after them.
From ten to eleven. Eat a slice of bread
THE FIXE LADY'S JOURNAL. 116
and butter, d aak a dish of bohea, read the
Spectator.
From eleven to one. At my toilet, tried
a new head Gave orders for Veny to be
combe 1 and washed. Mem. I look best in
blue.
From one till half an hour after two. Drove
to the Change. Cheapened a couple of fans.
l ill four. At dinner. Mem. Mr. Froth
passed by in his new liveries.
From four to six. Dressed, paid a visit to
old Lad}' Blithe and her sister, having before
heard they were gone out of town that day.
From six to eleven. At Basset. Alem.
Never set again upou the ace of diamonds.
Thursday. From eleven at night to eight
in the morning. Dreamed that I punted to
Mr. Froth.
From eight to ten. Chocolate. Read two
acts in Aurengzebe abed.
From ten to eleven. Tea-table. Read the
play-bills. Received a letter from Mr. Froth.
Mem. Locked it up in my strong box.
Rest of the morning. Fontange, the tire-
woman, her account of my Lady Blithe's wash.
Broke a tooth in my little tortoise-shell comb.
Sent Frank to know how my Lady Hectic rested
after her monkey's leaping out at window.
Looked pale. Fontange tells me my glass is
not true. Dressed by three.
From three to four. Dinner cold before I
sat down.
From four to eleven. Saw company. Mr.
116 THE FINE LADY'S JOUBNAL.
Froth's opinion of Milton. His account of
the Mohocks. His fancy for a pin-cushion.
Picture in the lid of his snuff-box. Old Lady
Faddle promises me her woman to cut my hair.
Lost five guineas at crimp.
Twelve a'clock at night. Went to bed.
Friday. Eight in the morning. Abed.
Read over all Mr. Froth's letters.
Ten a'clock. Staid within all day, not at
home.
From ten to twelve. In conference with
my raantua-maker. Sorted a suit of ribbons.
Broke ray blue china cup.
From twelve to one. Shut myself up in
my chamber, practised Lady Betty Modely's
skuttle.
One in the afternoon. Called for my flow-
ered handkerchief. Worked half a violet-leaf
in it. Eyes ached and head out of order.
Threw by my work, and read over the re-
maining part of Aurengzebe.
From three to four. Dined.
From four to twelve. Changed my mind,
dressed, went abroad, and played at crimp till
midnight. Found Mrs. Spitely at home.
Conversation: Mrs. Brilliant's necklace false
stones. Old Lady Loveday going to be mar-
ried to a young fellow that is not worth a groat.
Miss Prue gone into the country. Tom Town-
ley has red hair. Mem. Mrs. Spitely whis-
pered in my ear that she had something to tell
me about Mr. Froth, I am sure it is not true.
Between twelve and one. Dreamed that
THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL, 117
Mr. Froth lay at my feet, and called me
Indamora.
Saturday. Rose at eight a'elock in the
morning. Sat down to my toilet.
From eight to nine. Shifted a patch for
half an hour before I could determine it.
Fixed it above my left eyebrow.
From nine to twelve. Drank my tea, and
dressed.
From twelve to two. At chapel. A great
deal of good company. Mem. The third
air in the new opei-a. Lady Blithe dressed
frightfully.
From three to four. Dined. Miss Kitty
called upon me to go to the opera before I
was risen from table.
From dinner to six. Drank tea. Turned
off a footman for being rude to Veny.
Six a'elock. Went to the opera. I did not
see Mr. Froth till the beginning of the second
act. Mr. Froth talked to a gentleman in a
black vrig. Bowed to a lady in the front box.
Mr. Froth and his friend clapped Nicolini in
the third act. Mr. Froth cried out Ancora.
Mr. Froth led me to my chair. I think he
squeezed my hand.
Eleven at night. Went to bed. Melan-
choly dreams. Methought Nicolini said he
was Mr. Froth.
Sunday. Indisposed.
Monday. Eight a'elock. Waked by Miss
118 THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL.
Kitty. Aurengzebe lay upon the chair by me,
Kitty repeated without book the eight best
lines in the play. Went in our mobs to the
dumb man according to appointment. Told
me that my lover's name began with a G.
Mem. The conjurer was within a letter of
Mr. Froth's name, etc.
Upon looking back into this my journal, I
find that I am at a loss to know whether I
pass my time well or ill ; and indeed never
thought of considering how I did it before I
perused j'our speculation upon that subject.
I scarce find a single action in these five days
that I can thoroughly approve of, except the
working upon the violet-leaf, which I am re-
solved to finish the first day I am at leisure.
As for Mr. Froth and Veny, I did not think
they took up so much of my time and thoughts
as I find they do upon my journal. The latter
of them I will turn off, if you insist upon it ;
and if Mr. Froth does not bring matters to a
conclusion very suddenly, I will not let my
life run away in a dream.
Your humble servant,
Clakinda.
To resume one of the morals of my first
paper, and to confirm Clarinda in her good in-
clinations, I would have her consider what a
pretty figure she would make among posterity,
were the history of her whole life published
like these five days of it. I shall conclude
my paper with an epitaph written by an uncer-
THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 119
tain author on Sir Philip Sidney's sister, a
lady, who seems to have been of a temper
very much different from that of Clarinda.
The last thought of it is so very noble, that
I dare say my reader will pardon me the
quotation.
ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE.
Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:
Death, ere thou hast kill'd another,
Fair, and learned, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Makch 11, 1712.
Spbctatob.] !N"o. 1Q. [Addisok.
SIR EOGER DE COVEELEY AT THE PLAY.
Respicere exemplar vita? morumque jubebo
Doctum imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces. Hor.
Mt friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we
last met together at the club, told me that he
had a great mind to see the new tragedy with
me, assuring me, at the same time, that he had
not been at a play these twenty years. "The
last I saw," said Sir Roger, " was the Com-
mittee, which I should not have gone to
neither, had not I been told beforehand, that
it was a good Church of England comedy."
He then proceeded to inquire of me who this
distressed mother was ; and upon hearing that
she was Hector's widow, he told me that her
husband was a brave man, and that when he
was a school-boy he had read his life at the
end of the dictionary. My friend asked me,
in the next place, if there would not be some
danger in coming home late, in case the Mo-
hocks should be abroad. "I assure you,"
says he, "I thought I had fallen into their
hands last night ; for I observed two or three
lusty black men that followed me half-way up
Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind
me, in proportion as I put on to get away from
them. You must know," continued the knight
AT THE PLAT. 121
with a smile, " I fancied they had a mind to
hunt me ; for I remember an honest gentleman
in my neighborhood, who was served such a
trick in King Charles the Second's time ; for
which reason he has not ventured himself in
town ever since. I might have shewn them
very good sport, had this been their design ;
for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have
turned and dodged, and have played them a
thousand tricks they had never seen in tlieir
lives before." Sir Roger added, that if these
gentlemen had any such intention, they did
not succeed very well in it : " For I threw them
out," says he, " at the end of Norfolk Street,
where I doubled the corner and got shelter in
my lodgings before they could imagine what
was become of me. However," says the
knight, " if Captain Sentry will make one with
us to-morrow night, and you will both of you
call upon me about four o'clock, that we may
be at the house before it is full, I will have
my own coach in readiness to attend you,
for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels
mended."
The Captain, who did not fail to meet me
there at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear
nothing, for that he had put on the same
sword which he made use of at the battle of
Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among
the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found,
provided themselves with good oaken plants,
to attend their master upon this occasion.
When he had placed him in his coach, with
myself at his left hand, the Captain before
122 SIE BOOER DE COVERLEY
him, and his butler at the head of his footmen
in the rear, we convo3'ed him in safety to the
playhouse, where, after having marched up
the entry in good ordt r, the Captain and I
went in with him, and seated him betv\-ixt us
in the pit. As soon as the house was full,
and the candles lighted, my old friend stood
up and looked about him with that pleasure,
which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally
feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of
people who seem pleased with one another,
and partake of the same common entertain-
ment. I could not but fancy to myself, as
the old man stood up in the middle of the pit,
that he made a very proper centre to a tragic
audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the
knight told me that he did not believe the King
of France himself had a better strut. I was
indeed very attentive to my old friend's re-
marks, because I looked upon them as a piece
of natural criticism, and was well pleased to
hear him, at the conclusion of almost every
scene, telling me that he could not imagine
how the play would end. One while he ap-
peared much concerned for Andromache ; and
a little while after as much for Hermione ; and
was extremely puzzled to think what would
become of Pyrrhus.
When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obsti-
nate refusal to her lover's importunities, he
whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she
would never have him ; to which he added,
with a more than ordinary vehemence, "You
can't imagine, Sir, what 'tis to have to do
AT THE PLAY. 123
with a widow." Upon Pyrrlius's threatening
afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his
head and muttered to himself, " Ay, do if
you can." This part dwelt so much upon my
friend's imagination, that at tim close of the
third act, as I was thinking of something else,
he whispered me in the ear, " These widows,
Sir, are the most perverse creatures in the
world. But pray," says he, "you that are a
critic, is the play according to your dramatic
rules, as you call them? Should your people
in tragedy always talk to be understood?
"Why, there is not a single sentence in this
play that I do not know the meaning of."
The fourth act very luckily begun before I
had time to give the old gentleman an answer.
"Well," says the knight, sitting down with
great satisfaction, " I suppose we are now to
see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his
attention, and, from time to time, fell a-prais-
ing the widow. He made, indeed, a little mis-
take as to one of her pages, whom, at his first
entering, he took for Astyanax ; but quickly
set himself right in that particular, though, at
the same time, he owned he should have been
very glad to have seen the little boy, who,
says he, must needs be a fine child by the
account that is given of him. Upon Her-
mione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus,
the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir
Roger added, " On my word, a notable young
baggage ! "
As there was a very remarkable silence and
stillness in the audience during: the whole
124 SIB BOGEB BE COVEBLEY
action, it was natural for them to take the
opportunity of the intervals between the acts,
to express their opinion of the players, and of
their respective parts. Sir Roger hearing a
•cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with
them, and told them, that he thought his
friend Pylades was a very sensible man ; as
they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir
Roger put in a second time : " And let me tell
you," says he, " though he speaks but little,
I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any
of them." Captain Sentry seeing two or three
wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive
ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they
should smoke the knight, plucked him by the
elbow, and whispered something in his ear,
that lasted till the opening of the fifth act.
The knight was wonderfully attentive to the
account which Orestes gives of P^Trhus's
death ; and at the conclusion of it, told me it
was such a bloody piece of work, that he was
glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing
afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he gi*ew
more than ordinary serious, and took occasion
to moralize (in his way) upon an evil con-
science ; adding, that Orestes, in his madness,
looked as if he saw something.
As we were the first that came into the
house, so we were the last that went out
of it ; being resolved to have a clear passage
for our old friend, whom we did not care to
venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir
Roger went out fully satisfied with his enter-
tainment, and we guarded him to his lodging
AT THE PLAY. 125
in the same manner that we brought him to
the playhouse ; being highly pleased, for my
own part, not only with the performance of
the excellent piece which had been presented,
but with the satisfaction which it had given
the old man.
March 25, 1712.
Spectator.] No. 19, [Steelb.
A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON.
Sine me, vaciTum tempus ne qnod dem mihi
LaboriB. Ter.
It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a
little of the world, and be of no character or
significancy in it.
To be ever unconcerned, and ever looking
on new objects with an endless curiosity, is a
delight known only to those who are turned
for speculation : nay, they who enjoy it, must
value things only as they are the objects of
speculation, without drawing any worldly ad-
vantage to themselves from them, but ju^t as
they are what contribute to their amusements,
or the improvement of the mind. I lay one
night last week at Richmond ; and, beiug rest-
less not out of dissatisfaction, but a certain
busy inclination one sometimes has, I rose at
four in the morning, and took boat for London,
with a resolution to rove by boat and coach
for the next four-and-twenty hours, until the
many different objects I must needs meet with
should tire my imagination, and give me an
inclination to a repose more profound than I
was at that time capable of. I beg people's
pardon for an odd humor I am guilty of, and
was often that day, which is saluting any
person whom I like, whether I know him or
A DAY'S BAMBLE IN LOy^DOJST. 127
not. This is a particularity would be tolerated
in me, if they considered that the greatest
pleasure I know I receive at my eyes, and
that I am obliged to an agreeable person for
coming abroad into my view, as another is for
a visit of conversation at their own houses.
The hours of the day and night are taken
up in the cities of London and Westminster,
by people as different from each other as those
who are born in different centuries. Men of
six a-clock give way to those of nine, they of
nine to the generation of twelve, and they of
twelve disappear, and make room for the
fashionable world who have made two a-clock
the noon of the day.
When we first put off from shore, we soon
fell in with a fleet of gardeners bound for the
several market-ports of London ; and it was
the most pleasing scene imaginable to see the
cheerfulness with which those industrious peo-
ple plied their way to a certain sale of their
goods. The banks on each side are as well
peopled, and beautified with as agreeable plan-
tations as any spot on the earth ; but the
Thames itself, loaded with the product of
each shore, added very much to the landscape.
It was very easy to observe by their sailing,
and the countenances of the ruddy virgins,
who were supercargoes, the parts of the town
to which they were bound. Tliere was an air
in the purveyors for Covent Garden, who fre-
quently converse with morning rakes, very un-
like the seemly sobriety of those bound for
Stocks Market.
128 A DAY'S RAMBLE IX LONDON,
Nothing remarkable happened in our voy-
age ; but I landed with ten sail of apricot
boats at Strand Bridge, after having put in at
Nine-Elms, and taken in melons, consigned
by Mr. Cuffe of that place, to Sarah Sewell
and company, at their stall in Covent Garden.
We arrived at Strand Bridge at six of the
clock, and were unloading, when the hackney-
coachmen of the foregoing night took their
leave of each other at the Dark-house, to go
to bed before the day was too far spent.
Chimney-sweepers passed by us as we made
up to the market, and some raillery happened
between one of the fruit-wenches and those
black men, about the Devil and Eve, with
allusion to their several professions. I could
not believe any place more entertaining than
Covent Garden ; where I strolled from one
fruit shop to another, with crowds of agreeable
young women around me, who were purchas-
ing fruit for their respective families. It was
almost eight of the clock before I could leave
that variety of objects. I took coach and fol-
lowed a young lady, who tripped into another
just before me, attended by her maid. I saw
immediately she was of the family of the
Vain-loves. There are a set of these who of
all things affect the play of Blindman's-buff,
and leading men into love for they know not
whom, who are fled they know not where.
This sort of woman is usually a jaunty slat-
tern ; she hangs on her clothes, plaj's her
head, varies her posture, and changes place
incessantly ; and all with an appearance of
A DAY'S B AMBLE IN LONDON. 129
striving at the same time to hide herself, and
yet give you to understand she is in humor to
laugh at you. You must have often seen the
coachmen make signs with their fingers as they
drive by each other, to intimate how much
they have got that day. They can carry on
that language to give intelligence where they
are driving. In an instant my coachman took
the wink to pursue, and the lady's driver gave
the hint that he was going through Long-
Acre, towards St. James's. While he whipped
up James Street, we drove for King Street,
to save the pass at St. Martin's Lane. The
coachmen took care to meet, jostle, and threaten
each other for way, and be entangled at the
end of Newport Street and Long-Acre. The
fright, you must believe, brought down the
lady's coach-door, and obliged her, with her
mask off, to enquire into the bustle, when
she sees the man she would avoid. The
tackle of the coach-window is so bad she can-
not draw it up again, and she drives on some-
times wholly discovered, and sometimes half
escaped, according to the accident of car-
riages in her way. One of these ladies keeps
her seat in a hackney-coach, as well as the
best rider does on a managed horse. The
laced shoe of her left foot, with a careless
gesture, just appearing on the opposite cushion,
held her both firm, and in a proper attitude to
receive the next jolt.
As she was an excellent coach-woman,
many were the glances at each other which
we had for an hour and an half, in all parts of
9
130 A DAY'S BAMBLE IN LONDON.
the town, by the skill of our drivers ; unlil at
last my lad3' was conveniently lost with notice
from hvT coachman to ours to make off, and
he should hear where she went. This chase
was now at an end, and the fellow who drove
her came to us, and discovered that he was
ordered to come again in an hour, for that
she was a ISilk-worm. I was surprised with
this phrase, but found it was a cant among the
hackney fraternity for their best customers,
women who ramble twice or thrice a week
from sh{ p to shop, to turn over ad the goods
in town without buying anything. The Silk-
worms are, it seems, indulged by the trades-
men ; for though they never buy, they are ever
talking of new silks, laces, and ribbons, and
serve the owners, in getting them customers
as their common dunners do in making them
pay.
The day of people of fashion began now
to break, and carts and hacks were mingled
with equipages of show and vanity ; when I
resolved to walk it out of cheapness ; but my
unhappy curiosity is such, that I find it always
my interest to take coach, for some odd
adventure among beggars, ballad-singers, or
the like, detains and throws me into expense.
It happened so immediately ; for at the corner
of Warwick Street, as I was listening to a
new ballad, a ragged rascal, a beggar who
knew me, came up to me, and began to turn
the eyes of the good company upon me, by
telling me he was extreme poor, and should
die in the street for want of drink, except I
A BAY'S B AMBLE AY LONDON. 131
immediately would have the charity to give
him sixpeuce to go into the next alehouse and
save bis life. He urged, with a me anchol}^
face, that all his family had died of thirst.
All the mob have humor, and two or three
began to talve the jest ; by which Mr. Sturdy
carried his point, and let me sneak off to a
coach. As I (h-ove along, it was a pleasinp^
reflection to see the world so prettily checkered
since I left Richmond, and the scene still
filling with children of a new hour. This sat-
isfaction increased as I moved towards the
city, and gay signs, well-disposed streets, mag-
nificent public structures, and wealthy shops,
adorned with contented faces, made the joy
still rising till we came into the centre of the
city, and centre of the world of trade, the
Exchange of London. As other men in the
crowds about me were pleased with their hopes
and bargains, I found my account in observing
them, in attention to their several interests.
I, indeed, looked upon myself as the richest
man that walked the Exchange that da}' ; for
my benevolence made me share the gains of
every bargain that was made. It was not the
least of my satisfactions in my survey, to
go up-stairs, and pass the shops of agreeable
females ; to obsei-ve so many pretty hands
busy in the folding of ribbons, and the utUiOst
eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of
patches, pins, and wires, on each side the
counters, was an amusement in which I should
longer have indulged myself, had not the dear
creatures called to me to ask what I wanted,
132 A BAT'S B AMBLE IN LONDON.
when I could not answer, only ' ' To look at
you." I went to one of the windows which
opened to the area below, where all the several
voices lost their distinction, and rose up in a
confused humming, which created in me a
reflection that could not come into the mind
of any but of one a little too studious ; for I
said to myself, with a kind of pun in thought,
" What nonsense is all the hun-y of this
world to those who are above it?" In these,
or not much wiser thoughts, I had like to have
lost my plice at the chop-house, where every
man, according to the natural bashfulness or
sullenness of our nation, eats in a public
room a mess of broth, or chop of meat, in
dumb silence, as if they had no pret^ce to
speak to each other on the foot of being men,
except they were of each other's acquaintance.
I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw peo-
ple who had dined with me at the fivepenny
ordinary just before, give bills for the value of
large estates ; and could not but behold with
great pleasure, property lodged in, and trans-
ferred in a moment from such as would never
be masters of half as much as is seemingly
in them, and given from them every day they
live. But before five in the afternoon I left
the city, came to my common scene of Covent
Garden, and passed the evening at Will's,
in attending the discourses of several sets of
people, who relieved each other within my
hearing on the subject of cards, dice, love,
learning, and politics. The last subject kept
me until I heard the streets in the possession
A DAY'S BAMBLE IN LONDON. 133
of the bell-man, who had now the world to
himself, and cried, " Past two of the clock."
This roused me from my seat, and I went to
my lodging, led by a light, whom I put into
the discourse of his private economy, and
made him give me an account of the charge,
hazard, profit, and loss of a family that de-
pended upon a link, with a design to end ray
trivial day with the generosity of sixpence,
instead of a third part of that sum. When I
came to my chambers I writ down these min-
utes ; but was at a loss what instruction I
should propose to my reader from the enumera-
tion of so many insignificant matters and oc-
currences ; and I thought it of great use, if
they could learn with me to keep their minds
open to gratification, and ready to receive it
from anything it meets with. This one cir-
cumstance will make every face you see give
you the satisfaction you now take in beholding
that of a friend ; will make every object a
pleasing one ; will make all the good which
arrives to any man, an increase of happiness
to yourself.
August 11, 1712.
Bpbctatob.] ITo. 20. [Stbelb.
DICK ESTCOUET: IN MEMOEIAM.
Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum et salis
haberet et fellis, nee candoris miuus. — Plin.
My paper is in a kind a letter of news, but
it regards rather what passes in the world of
conversation than that of business. I am very
sorry that I have at present a circumstance
before me, which is of very great importance
to all who have a relish for gayety, wit, mirth,
or humor ; I mean the death of poor Dick
Estcourt. I have bei n obliged to him for so
many hours of jollit}^ that it is but a small
recompense, though all I can give him, to pass
a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so
agreeable a man. Poor Estcourt ! the last
time I saw him, we were plotting to shew the
town his great capacity for acting in its full
light, by introducing him as dictating to a set
of young players in what manner to speak this
sentence, and utter t' other passion. — He had
so exquisite a discerning of what was defective
in any object before him, that in an instant he
could shew you the ridiculous side of what
would pass for beautiful and just, even to
men of no ill judgment, before he had pointed
at the failure. He was no less skilful in the
knowledge of beauty; and. I daie say, there
is no one who knew him well, but can repeat
DICK E Sr COURT: m MEMORIAM. 136
more well-turned compliments, as well as
smart repartees, of Mr. Estcourt's, than of
any other man in England. This was easily
to be observed in his inimitable faculty of tell-
ing a story, in which he would throw in natural
and unexpected incidents to make his court to
one part, and rally the other part of the com-
pany : then he would vary the usage he gave
them, according as he saw them bear kind or
sharp language. He had the knack to raise
up a pensive temper, and mortify an imperti-
nently gay one, with the most agreeable skill
imaginable. There are a thousand things
which crowd into my memory, which make me
too much concerned to tell on about him.
Hamlet holding up the skull which the grave-
digger threw to him, with an account that it
was the head of the king's jester, falls into
very pleasing reflections, and cries out to his
companion : —
" Alas, poor Yorick ! I knew him, Horatio :
a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy : he hath borne me on his back a thou-
sand times ; and how abhorred in my imagina-
tion it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung
those lips that 1 have kissed I know not how
oft. Where be your gibes now ? your gam-
bols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Not one now to mock your own grinning?
quite chop-fallen ? Now get you to my lad3''8
chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favor she must come ; make her
laugh at that."
136 DICK ESTCOUBT: IN MEMOBIAM.
It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to
affix, as much as in them lies, the chai'acter of
a man to his cii'cumstances. Thus it is ordi-
nary with them to praise faintly the good
qualities of those below them, and say, it is
very extraordinary in such a man as he is, or
the like, when they are forced to acknowledge
the value of him whose lowness upbraids their
exaltation. It is to this humor only, that it is
to be ascribed that a quick wit in conversation,
a nice judgment upon any emergency that
could arise, and a most blameless inoffensive
behavior could not raise this man above being
received only upon the foot of contributing to
mirth and diversion. But he was as easy
under that condition, as a man of so excellent
talents was capable, and since they would
have it that to divert was his business, he did
it with all the seeming alacrity imaginable,
though it stung him to the heart that it was
his business. Men of sense, who could taste
his excellences, were well satisfied to let him
lead the way in conversation, and play after
his own manner ; but fools who provoked him
to mimicry, found he had the indignation to
let it be at their expense, who called for it,
and he would show the form of conceited
heavy fellows as jests to the company at their
own request, in revenge for interrupting him
from being a companion to put on the charac-
ter of a jester.
What was peculiarl}- excellent in this memo-
rable companion was, that in the account he
gave of persons and sentiments, he did not
DICK ESTCOURT: IN MEMO EMM. 137
only hit the figure of their faces, and manner
of their gestures, but he would in his narra-
tion fall into their very way of thinking, and
this when he recounted passages wherein men
of the best wit were concerned, as well as
such wherein were represented men of the
lowest rank of understanding. It is certainly
as great an instance of self-love to a weak-
ness, to be impatient of being mimicked, as
any can be imagined. There were none but
the vain, the formal, the proud, or those who
were incapable of amending their faults, that
dreaded him ; to others he was in the highest
degree pleasing ; and I do not know any satis-
faction of any indifferent kind I ever tasted
so much as having got over an impatience of
my seeing myself in the air he could put me
when I have displeased him. It is indeed to
his exquisite talent this way, more than any
philosophy I could read on the subject, that
my person is very little of my care, and it is
indifferent to me what is said of my shape, my
air, my manner, my speech, or my address.
It is to poor Estcourt I chiefly owe that I am
arrived at the happiness of thinking nothing
a diminution to me but what argues a deprav-
ity of my will.
It has as much surprised me as anything in
nature, to have it frequently said. That he
was not a good player : but that must be ow-
ing to a partiality for former actors in the
parts in which he succeeded them, and judging
by Qpmparison of what was liked before,
rather than bv the nature, of the thing. When
138 DICK E8TC0UBT: IN MEMORIAM.
a man of his wit and smartness could put on
an utter absence of common sense in his face,
as he did in the character of Bullfinch in the
Northern Lass, and an air of insipid cunning
and vivacity in the character of Pounce in the
Tender Husband, it is folly to dispute his ca-
pacity and success, as he was an actor.
Poor Estcourt ! let the vain and proud be at
rest, they will no more disturb their admiration
of their dear selves, and thou art no longer to
drudge in raising the mirth of stupids, who
know nothing of thy merit, for thy mainte-
nance.
It is natural for the generality of mankind
to run into reflections upon our mortalit}',
when disturbers of the world are laid at rest,
but to take no notice wlien they who can
please and divert are pulled from us : but for
my part, I cannot but think the loss of such
talents as the man of whom I am speaking
was master of, a more melancholy instance of
mortality than the dissolution of persons of
never so high characters in the world, whose
pretensions were that they were noisy and
mischievous.
But I must grow more succinct, and as a
Spectator, give an account of this extraordi-
nary man, who, in his way, never had an equal
in any age before him, or in that wherein he
lived. I speak of him as a companion, and a
man qualified for conversation. His fortune
exposed him to an obsequiousness towards the
worst sort of company, but his excellent qual-
ities rendered him capable of making the best
DICK E8TC0UBT: IN MEMOBIAM. 139
figure ill the most refined. I have been pres-
ent with him among men of the most delicate
taste a whole night, and have known him (for
he saw it was desired) keep the discourse to
himself the most part of it, and maintain his
good-humor with a countenance in a language
so delightful, without offence to any person or
thing upon earth, still preserving the distance
his circumstances obliged him to ; I say, I
have seen him do all this in such a charming
manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at
will read this, without giving him some sorrow
for their abundant mirth, and one gush of
tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish
it were any honor to the pleasant creature's
memory, that my eyes are too much suffused
to let me go on —
August 27, 1712.
Spbctatob.] No. SI. [Addison.
DEATH or SIR ROGER DE COVERLET.
Hen pletas ! Heu prisca fides ! . . . Tirg.
We last night received a piece of ill news
at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every
one of us. I question not but my readers
themselves will be troubled at the hearing of
it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir
Roger de Coverley is dead. He departed this
life at his house in the country, after a few
weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a
letter from one of his correspondents in tliose
parts, that informs him the old man caught a
cold at the county sessions, as he was very
warmly promoting an address of his own pen-
ning, in whicli he succeeded according to his
wishes. But this particular comes from a
Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir
Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters
both from the chaplain and Captain Sentry
which mention nothing of it, but are filled
witli many particulars to the honor of the
good old man. I have likewise a letter from
the butler, who took so much care of me last
summer when I was at the knight's house.
As my friend the butler mentions, in the
simplicity of his heart, several circumstances
the others have passed over in silence, I shall
Sm BOGEB DE COVERLET. 141
give my reader a copy of his letter, without
any alteration or diminution.
Honored Sir, — Knowing that you was my
.old master's good friend, 1 could not forbear
sending you the melancholy news of his death,
which has affected the whole country, as well
as his poor servants, who loved hun, I may
say, better than we did our lives. I am
afraid he caught his death the last county
sessions, where he would go to see justice
done to a poor widow woman and her father-
less children, that had been wronged by a
neighboring gentleman ; for you know, Sir,
my good master was always the poor man's
friend. Upon his coming home, the first com-
plaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-
beef stomach, not being able to touch a sir-
loin, which was served up according to cus-
tom ; and you know he used to take great
delight in it. From that time forward he
grew worse and worse, but still kept a good
heart to the last. Indeed, we were once in
great hope of his recovery, upon a kind mes-
sage that was sent him f i om the widow lady
whom he had made love to the forty last years
of his life ; but this only proved a light'ning
before death. He has bequeathed to this
lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl
necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set
with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady
his mother : he has bequeathed the fine white
gelding, that be used to ride a-hunting upon,
to his chaplain, because he thought he would
142 DEATH OF
be kind to Him, and has left you all his books.
He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain
a very pretty tenement with good lands about
it. It being a vei-y cold day when he made
his will, he left for mourning, to every man
in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every
woman a black riding-hood. It was a most
moving sight to see him take leave of his poor
servants, commending us all for our fidelity,
whilst we "were not able to speak a word for
weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-
headed in our dear master's service, he has
left us pensions and legacies, which we may
live very comfortably upon, the remaining
part of our days. He has bequeathed a great
deal more in charity, which is not yet come to
my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in
the parish, that he has left money to build a
steeple to the church ; for he was heard to say
some time ago, that if lie lived two years
longer, Coverley church should have a steeple
to it. The chaplain tells everybody that he
made a very good end, and never speaks of
him without tears. He was buried, according
to his own directions, among the family of the
Coverlej's, on the left-hand of his father Sir
Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his
tenants, and the pall held up by six of the
quorum : the whole parish followed the corpse
with heavy hearts, and in their mourning
suits, the men in frieze, and the women in
riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's
nephew, has taken possession of the Hall-
House, and the whole estate. "When my old
SIB liOGER DE COVERLEY. 143
master saw him a little before bis death, he
shook him by the hand, and wished him joy
of the estate which was falling to him, desir-
ing him only to make a good use of it, and
pay the several legacies and the gifts of
charity which he told him he had left as quit-
rents upon the estate. The captain truly
seems a courteous man, though he says but
little. He makes much of those whom mj'
master loved, and shows great kindness to the
old house-dog, that you know my poor master
was so fond of. It would have gone to your
heart to have heard the moans the dumb
creature made on the day of my master's
death. He has never joyed himself since ;
no more has any of us. It was the melan-
choliest day for the poor people that ever
happened in Worcestershire. This being all
from, honored Sir,
Your most sorrowful servant,
Edward Biscuit.
P. S. My master desu-ed, some weeks be-
fore he died, that a book, which comes up to
you by the carrier, should be given up to Sir
Andrew Freeport, in his name.
This letter, notwithstanding the poor but-
ler's manner of writing it, gave us such an
idea of our good old friend that upon the
reading of it there was not a dry eye in the
club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found
it to be a collection of acts of parliament.
There was in particular the Act of Uniformity,
144 SIB BOQER BE COVERLET.
with some passages in it marked by Sir Eoger's
own hand. Sir Andrew found that they re-
lated to two or three points, which he had
disputed with Sir Roger the last time he had
appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would
have been merry at such an incident on an-
other occasion, at the sight of the old man's
handwriting burst into tears, and put the book
into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me
that the knight has left rings and mourning
for every one in the club.
OCTOBBB 28, 1712.
Fkbb-holdbb.] No. S3. [Addison.
THE TOKY POX-HUNTEE.
Studiis rudis, sermone barbarne, impetu strcnuus, manu
promptus, cogitatione celer. — Veil. Paterc.
For the honor of his Majesty, and the safety
of his government, we cannot but observe, that
those, who have appeared the greatest enemies
to both, are of that rank of men, who are com-
monly distinguished by the title of Fox-hunt-
ers. As several of these have had no part
of their education in cities, camps, or courts,
it is doubtful whether they are of greater orna-
ment or use to the nation in which tliey live.
It would be an everlasting reproach to politics,
should such men be able to overturn an estab-
lishment which has been formed by the wisest
laws, and is supported by the ablest heads.
The wrong notions and prejudices which cleave
to many of these country gentlemen, who have
always lived out of the way of being better
informed, are not easy to be conceived by a
person who has never conversed with them.
That I may give my readers an image of
these rural st itesmen, I shall, without further
preface, set down an account of a discourse I
chanced to have with one of them some time
ago. I was travelling towards one of the re-
motest parts of England, when about three
o'clock in the afternoon, seeing a country
10
146 THE TOBY FOX-HUNTEB.
gentleman trotting before me with a spaniel by
his horse's side, I made up to him. Our con-
versation opened, as usual, upon the weather ;
in which we were very unanimous ; having both
agreed that it was too dry for the season of
the year. My fellow-traveller, upon this, ob-
served to me, that there had been no good
weather since the Revolution. I was a little
startled at so extraordinary a remark, but
would not interrupt him until he proceeded to
tell me of the fine weather they used to have in
King Charles the Second's reign. I only an-
swered that I did not see how the badness of the
weather could be the king's fault ; and without
waiting for his reply, asked him whose ho^ se
it was we saw upon a rising ground at a little
distance from us. He told me it belonged to
an old fanatical cur, Mr. Such-a-one. " You
must have heard of him," says he, "he's one
of the Rump." I knew the gentlemsm's char-
acter upon hearing his name, but assured him
that to my knowledge he was a good church-
man. " Ay ! " says he with a kind of surprise,
" we were told in the country, that he spoke
twice in the queen's time against taking off the
duties upon French claret." This n:tturally
led us into the proceedings of late parliaments,
upon which occasion he affirmed roundly, that
there had not been one good law passed since
King William's accession to the throne, except
the act for preserving the game. I had a mind
to see him out, and therefore, did not care for
contradicting him. " Is it not hard," says he,
" that honest gentlemen should be taken into
THE TOBY FOX-HUNTEB. 147
custody of messengers to prevent them from
acting according to their consciences ? But,"
says he, " what can we expect when a parcel
of factious sons of — " He was going on in
great passion, but chanced to miss his dog,
who was amusing himself about a bush that
grew at some distance behind us. We stood
still till he had whistled him up ; when he fe!l
into a long panegyric upon his spaniel, who
seemed indeed excellent in his kind : but I
found the most remarJcable adventure of his
life was, that he had once like to have worried
a dissenting teacher. The m stor could hardly
sit on his horse for laughing all the while he
was giving me the particulars of this story,
which I found had mightily endeared his dog
to him, and, as he himself told me, had made
him a great favorite with all the honest gentle-
men of the country. We were at length di-
verted from this piece of mirth by a post-boy,
who winding his horn at us, my companion
gave h'm two or three curses, and left the way
c'eai- for him. "I fancy," said I, " that post
brings news from Scotland. I shall long to
see the next Gazette." — "Sir," says he, *'I
make it a rule never to believe any of your
printed news. We never see, sir, how things
go, except now and then in ' Dyer's Letter,'
and I read that more for the style than the
news. Tiie man has a clever pen, it must be
owned. But is it not strange that we should
be making war upon Church-of- England men,
with Dutch and Swiss soldiers, men of anti-
monarchical principles? These foreigners will
148 THE TOBY FOX-HUNTER.
never be loved iu England, sir ; they have not
that wit and good-breeding that we have." I
must confess I did not expect to hear luy new
acquaintance value himself upon these qunlifi-
cations ; but finding him such a critic upon
foreigners, I asked him if he had ever trav-
elled. He told me, he did not know what
travelling was good for, but to teach a man
to ride the great horse, to jabber French, and
to talk against passive obedience. To which
he added, that he scarce ever knew a traveller
in his life who had not forsook his principh s
and lost his hunting seat. " For my part,"
says he, " I and my father before me have
always been for passive obedience, and shall
be always for opposing a prince who makes
use of ministers that are of another opinion.
But where do you intend to inn to-night ? "
(for we were now come in sight of the next
town;) "I can help you to a very good
landlord if you will go along with me. He is
a lusty, jolly fellow, that lives well,- at least
three yards in the girth, and the best Church-
of-England man upon the road." I had the
curiosity to see this high-cliurch innkeeper,
as well as to enjoy more of the conversation
of my fi'llow-traveller, and therefore readih'^
consented to set our horses together for that
night. As we rode side by side through the
town, I was let into the characters of all the prin-
cipal inhabitants who n we met in our way.
One was a dog, another a wh ilp, and another
a cur, under which several denominations were
comprehended all that voted on the Whig side
THE TOBY FOX-HUXTEB. H9
in the last election of burgesses. As for those
of his own party, he distinguished them by a
nod of his head, and asking them how they
did by their Christian names. U['On our
arrival at the inn, my companion fetched out
the jolly landlord, who knew him by his whistlo.
Many endearments and private whispei'S passed
between them, though it was easy to see by
the landlord's scratching his head that things
did not go to their wishes. The landlord had
swelled his body to a prodigious size, and
worked up his complexion to a standing crim-
son b}' his zeal for the prosperity of the
Church, which he expressed every hour of the
day, as his customers dropt in, by repeated
bumpers. He had not time to go to church
himself, but, as my friend told me in my ear,
had headed a mob at the pulling down of two
or three meeting-houses. While supper was
preparing, he enlarged upon the happiness of
the neighboring shire ; "■ For," sa^'s he, " there
is scarce a Presbyterian in the whole county
except the bishop." In short, I found by his
discourse that he had learned a great deal of
politics, but not one word of religion, from
the parson of his parish ; and indeed, that he
liad scarce any other notion of religion, but
that it consisted in hating Presbyterians. I
had a remarkable instance of his notions in
this particular. Upon seeing a poor decrepit
old woman pass under the window where he
sat, he desired me to take notice of her ; and
afterwards informed me, that she was gener-
ally reputed a witch by the country people,
150 THE TOBY FOX-HUXTEIi:
but that, for his part, he was apt to believe
she was a Presby teriau .
Supper was no sooner served in, than he
took occasion, from a shoulder of mutton that
lay before us, to cry up the plenty of England,
which would be the happiest country in the
world, provided we would live within our-
selves. Upon which, he expatiated on the
inconveniences of trade, that carried from us
the commodities of our countr}', and made a
parcel of upstarts as rich as men of the most
ancient families of England. He then de-
clared frankly, that he had always been against
all treaties and alliances with foreigners :
"Our wooden walls," says he, ''are our se-
curity, and we may bid defiance to the whole
world, especially if tliey should attack us when
the militia is out." I ventured to reply, that
I had as great an opinion of the English fleet
as he had ; but I could not see how they could
be paid, and manned, and fitted out, unless we
encouraged trade and navigation. He replied
with some vehemence, That he would under-
take to prove ti'ade would be the ruin of the
English nation. I would fain have put him
upon it ; but he contented himself with affinn-
ing it more eagerly, to which he added two or
three curses upon the London merchants, not
forgetting the directors of the Bank. After
supper he asked me if I was an admirer of
punch, and immediately called for a sneaker.
I took this occasion to insinuate the advan-
tages of trade, by obsening to him, that water
was the only native of England that could be
IIIE TORY FOX-HUNTEB. ir.l
made use of on this occasion ; but that the
lemons, the brand}*, the sugar, and the nutmeg
were all foreigners. This put him into some
<?onf usion : but the landlord who overheard
me, brought him off, by affirming, That for
constant use there was no liquor like a cup of
English water, provided it had malt enough in
it. My squire laughed heartily at the conceit,
and made the landlord sit down with us. We
sat pretty late over our punch ; and amidst a
great deal of improving discourse, drank the
healths of several persons in the country, whom
I had never heard of, that, they both assured
me, were the ablest statesmen in the nation ;
and of some Londoners, whom they extolled
to the skies for their wit, and who, I knew,
passed in town for silly fellows. It being now
midnight, and my friend perceiving by his al-
manac that the moon wis up, he called for
his horse, and took a sudden resolution to go
to his house, which was at three miles' dis-
tance from the town, after having bethought
himself that he never slept well out of his own
bed. He shook me very heartily by the hand
at parting, and discovered a groat air of satis-
faction in his looks, that he had met with an
opportunity of showing his parts, and left me
a much wiser man than he found me.
March 5, 1716.
World.] No. 33. [CffKSTBBMBLD.
A MODERN CONVERSATION.
[Vultis severi me quoqae snmere
Partem Falernl? ffor.]
An old friend and fellow-student of mine at
the university called upon me the other morn-
ing and found me reading Plato's Symposiou,
I laid down my book to receive him ; which,
after the first usual compliments, he took up,
saying, " You will give me leave to see what
was the object of your studies." — "Nothing
less than the divine Plato," said I. " that ami-
able philosopher — " "With whom," inter-
rupted my friend, "Cicero declares that he
would rather be in the wrong, than in the right
with any other." — "I cannot," replied I,
"carry my veneration for him to that degree
of enthusiasm ; but yet, wherever I understand
him (for I confess I do not everywhere), I
prefer him to all the ancient philosophers.
His Symposion more particularly engages and
entertains me, as I see there the manners and
characters of the most eminent men, of the
politest times of the politest city of Greece.
And, with all due respect to the moderns, I
much question whether an account of a modern
Symposion, though written by the ablest hand,
could be read with so much pleasure and im-
provement." — "I do not know that," replied
A MODERN CONVEBSATION. 153
my friend, " for though I revere the ancients
as much as you possibly can, and look upon the
moderns as pygmies when compared to those
giants, yet if we come up to, or near them in
anything, it is in the elegancy and delicacy of
our convivial intercourse."
I was the more surprised at this doubt of my
friend's, because I knew that he implicity sub-
scribed to, and superstitiously maintained, all
the articles of the classical faith. I therefore
asked him whether he was serious. He an-
swered that he was ; that in his mind, Plato
spun out that silly affair of love too fine and
too long ; and that if I would but let him in-
troduce me to the club, of which he was an
unworthy member, he believed I should at
least entertain the same doubt, or perhaps
even decide in favor of the moderns. I
thanked my friend for his kindness, but added,
that in whatever society he was an unworthy
inember, I should be a still more unworthy
guest. That moreover my retired and domes-
tic turn of life was as inconsistent with the
engagements of a club, as my natural taci-
turnity amongst strangers would be misplaced
in the midst of all that festal mirth and gay-
ety. " You mistake me," answered my friend,
" every member of our club has the privilege
of bringing one friend along with him, who is
by no means thereby to become a member of
it ; and as for your taciturnity, we have some
silent members, who, by the way, are none of
our worst. Silent people never spoil com-
pany ; but, on the contrary, by being good
154 A MODES. y CONYEBSATION.
hearers, encourage good speakers." — "But I
have another difficulty," answered I, " and
that I doubt a very solid one ; which is, that I
drink nothing but water" — "So much the
worse for you," replied my friend, who, by the
by, loves his bottle most academically, '••you
will pay for the clai'et you do not drink. We
use no compulsion ; every ( ne drinks as little
as he pleases." — " Which I presume," inter-
rupted I, "is. as much as he can." — "That
is just as it happens," said he ; " sometimes it
is true, we make prettj' good sittings ; but for
ray own part, I choose to go home always be-
fore eleven ; for, take my word for it, it is the
sitting up late, and not the drink, thiit destroj'S
the constitution." As I found that my friend
would have taken a refusal ill, I told him, that
for this once I would certainly attend him to
club ; but desired him to give me previously
the outlines of the characters of the sitting
members, that I might know how to behave
mj'self properly. " Your precaution," said he,
"is a prudent one, and I will make you so
well acquainted with them beforehand that you
shall not seem :^ f-trauger when among them.
You must know, then, that our club consists
of at least forty members when complete. Of
these, many are now in the country ; and be-
sides, we have some vacancies which cannot
be filled up till next winter. Palsies and apo-
plexies have of late, I don't know why, been
pretty rife among us, and carried off a good
many. It is not above a week ago that j)oor
Tom Toastwell fell on a sudden under the
A MODEBN COXVERSATIOX. 1.^5
table, as we thought only a little in drink, but
he was carried home, and never spoke more.
Those whom you will probably meet with to-
day are, first of all, Lord Feeble, a nobleman
of admirable sense, a true fine gentleman, and
for a man of quality, a pretty classic. He has
lived rather fast formerly, and impaired his
constitution by sitting up late, and drinking
your thin sharp wines, lie is still what you
call nervous, which makes him. a little low-
spirited' and reserved at first ; but he grows
very affable and cheerful as soon as he has
warmed his stomach with about a bottle of
good claret.
" Sir Tunbelly Guzzle is a very worthy north-
country baronet, of a good estate, and one who
was beforehand in the world, till being twice
chosen knight of the shire, and having in con-
sequence got a pretty employment at court,
he ran out considerably. He has left off
housekeeping, and is now upon a retrieving
scheme. He is the heartiest, honestest fellow
living, and though he is a man of very few
words, I can assure you he does not want
sense. He had an university education, and
has a good notion of the classics. The poor
man is confined half the year at least with the
gout, and has besides an inveterate scurvy,
which I cannot account for : no man can live
more regularly ; he eats nothing but plain
meat, and very little of that ; he drinks no
thin wines ; and never sits up late, for he has
his full dose by eleven.
'' Colonel Culverin is a brave old experienced
156 A MODERN CONVERSATION.
officer, though but a lieutenant-colonel of foot.
Between 3'ou and me, he has had great injus-
tice done him ; and is now commanded b}'
many who were not born when he came first
into the army. He has served in Ireland,
Minorca, and Gibraltar ; and would have been
in all the late battles in Flanders, had the
regiment been ordered there. It is a pleasure
to hear him talk of war. He is the best-
natured man alive, but a little too jealous of
his honor, and too apt to be in a passion ; but
that is soon over, and then he is sorry for it.
I fear he is dropsical, which I impute to his
drinking your Champagnes and Burgundies.
He got that ill habit abroad.
" 8ir George Plyant is well born, has a gen-
teel fortune, keeps the very best company-,
and is to be sure one of the best-bred men
alive : he is so good-natured, that lie seems to
have no will of his own. He will drink as
little or as much as you please, and no matter
of what. He has been a mighty man with the
ladies formerly, and loves the crack of the
whip still, lie is our news-monger ; for, being
a member of the privy chamber, he goes to
court every day, and consequently knows
pretty well what is going forward there. Poor
gentleman ! I fear we shall not keep him
long, for he seems far gone in a consumption,
though the doctors say it is only a ner^'ous
atrophy.
" Will Sitfast is the best-natured fellow
living, and an excellent companion, though he
seldom speaks ; but he is no flincher, and sits
A MODERN CONVERSATION. 167
every man's hand out at the club. He is a
very good, scholar, and can write very pretty
Latin verses. I doubt he is in a declining
wa}- ; for a paralytica! stroke has lately
twitched up one side of his mouth so, that he
is now obliged to take his wine diagonally.
However, he keeps up his spirits bravely, and
never shams his glass.
" Doctor Carbuncle is an honest, jolly, merry
parson, well affected to the government, and
much of a gentleman. He is the life of our
club, instead of being the least restraint upon
it. He is an admirable scholar, and I reall}'
believe has all Horace by heart ; I know he
has him always in his pocket. His red face,
inflamed nose, and swelled legs make him
generall}' thought a hard drinker by those who
do not know him ; but I must do him the
justice to say, that I never saw him disguised
with liquor in my life. It is true, he is a very
large man, and can hold a great deal, which
makes the colonel call him, pleasantly enough,
a vessel of election.
" The last and least," concluded my friend,
" is your humble sei*vant, such as lam; and
if you please, we will go and walk in the
park till dinner time." I agreed, and we set
out togetlier. But here the reader will per-
haps expect that I should let him walk on a
little, while I give his character. We were of
the same year of St. John's College in Cam-
bridge : he was a younger brother of a good
family, was bred to the church, and had just
got a fellowship in the college, when, his elder
158 A MODEBX CONVERSATION.
brother dj'ing, he succeeded to an easy fortune,
and resolved to make himself easy with it,
that is, to do nothing. As he had resided
long in college, he had contracted all the
habits, prejudices, the laziness, the soaking,
the pride, and the pedantr3' of the cloister,
which after a certain time are never to be
rubbed ofif. He considered the critical knowl-
edge of the Greek and Latin words, as the
utmost efifoii; of the human understanding,
and a glass of good wine in good company, r.s
the highest pitch of human felicity. Accord-
ingly, he passes his mornings in reading the
classics, most of which he has long had by
heart ; and his evenings in drinking his glass
of good wine, which by frequent filling,
amounts at least to two, and often to three
bottles a day. I must not omit mentioning
that my friend is tormented with the stone,
which misfortune he imputes to having once
drank water for a month, by the prescription
of the late Doctor Cheyne, and by no means to
at least two quarts of claret a day, for these
last thirty years. To return to my friend —
" 1 am very much mistaken," said he, as we
were walking in the park, "if you do not
thank me for procuring this day's entertain-
ment : for a set of worthier gentlemen to be
sure never lived." — "I make no doubt of it,"
said I, " and am therefore the more concerned
M hen I reflect, that this club of worthy gentle-
men might, b^' your own account, be not im-
properly called an hospital of incurables, as
there is not one amongf them who does not
A MODERN C0NVEB8ATI0N. 159
labor under some chronical and mortal dis-
temper." — " I see what you would be at,"
answered my friend; "you would insinuate
that it is all owing to wine ; but let me assui-e
you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, that wine^ especially
claret, if neat and good, can hurt no tnan." I
did not reply to this aphorism of ray friend's,
whicli I know would draw on too long a dis-
cussion, especially as we were just going into
the club-room, where I took it for granted,
that it was one of the great constitutional
principles. The account of this modern 83'm-
posion shall be the subject of my next paper.
Sept. 19, 1754.
WoBLD.] N'o. Q4L. [Chestebfikld.
A MODEEN CONVERSATION. {Continued.)
[Implentur veteris Baccbi. Virg.']
Mt friend presented me to the company, in
what he thought the most obliging manner ;
but which I confess put me a little out of
countenance. "Give me leave, gentlemen,"
said he, "to present to you my old friend,
Mr. Fitz-Adam, the ingenious author of the
World." The word Author instantly excited
the attention of the whole company, and drew
all their eyes upon me : for people who are not
apt to w^ite themselves have a strange curios-
ity to seo a Live Author. The gentlemen re-
ceived me in common with those gestures that
intimate welcome ; and I on my part resi)ect-
fully muttered some of those nothings, which
stand instead of the something one should say,
and perhnps do full as well.
The weather being hot, the gentlemen were
refreshing themselves before dinner with what
they called a cool tankard ; in which they suc-
cessively drank to Me. When it came to my
turn, I thought I could not decently decline
drinking the gentlemen's healths, which I did
aggregately; but how was I surprised, when,
upon the first taste, I discovered that this
tooling and refreshing draught was composed
A MODEB^ CONVEBSATION. 161
of the strongest Mountain wine, lowered in-
deed with a very little lemon and water, but
then heightened again by a quantity of those
comfortable aromatics, nutmeg and ginger !
Dinner, which had been called for more than
once with some impatience, was at last brought
up, upon the colonel's threatening perdition to
the master and all the waiters of the house, if
it was delayed two minutes longer. "We sat
down without ceremony ; and we were no
sooner sat down, than everybody (except my-
self) di-unk everybody's health, which made a
tumultuous kind of noise. I observed, with
surprise, that the common quantity of wine
was put into glasses of an immense size and
weight ; but my surprise ceased, when I saw
the tremulous hands that took them, and for
which I supposed they were intended as bal-
last. But even this precaution did not pro-
tect the nose of Dr. Carbuncle from a severe
shock, in his attempt to hit his mouth. The
colonel, who observed this accident, cried out
pleasantly, " Why, Doctor, I find you are
but a bad engiucer. While you aim at your
mouth, you will never hit it, take my word for
it. A floating battery, to hit the mark, must
be pointed something above, or below it. If
you would hit 3'our mouth, direct your four-
pounder at your forehead, or your chin." The
doctor good-humoredly thanked the colonel for
the hint, and promised him to communicate it
to his frieuds at Oxford, where he owned that
he had seen many a good glass of Port spilt
for want of it. Sii' Tunbelly almost smiled,
11
162 A MODEBN C0NVEB8ATI0N.
Sir George laughed, and the whole company,
somehow or other, applauded this elegant
piece of raillery. But, alas ! things soon took
a less pleasant turn ; for an enormous buttock
of boiled salt beef, which had succeeded the
soup, proved not to be sufficiently corned for
Sir Tunbelly, who had bespoke it ; and. at the
same time. Lord Feeble took a dislike to the
claret, which he affirmed not to be the same
which they had drank the day before ; it had
no silkiness^ went rough off the tongue., and his
lordship shi-ewdly susijected that it was mixed
with Benecarlo, or some of those black wines.
This was a common cause, and excited univer-
sal attention. The whole company tasted it
seriously, and everyone found a different fault
with it. The master of the house was imme-
diately sent for up, examined, and treated as
a criminal. Sir Tunbelly reproached him witli
freshness of the beef, while, at the same time,
all the others fell upon him for the badness of
his wine, telling him, that it was not fit usage
for such good customers as they were ; and, in
fine, threatening him with a migration of the
club to some other house. The criminal laid
the blame of the beef's not being corned
enough upon his cook, whom he promised to
turn away ; and attested heaven and earth
that the wine was the very same which they
had all approved of the day before ; Jind, as
he had a soul to be saved, was true Chateau
Margaux — '' Chateau devil," said the colonel
with warmth, " it is your rough Chaos wine."
Will Sitfast, who thought himself obliged to
A MODEBN CONVERSATION. 163
articulate upon this occasion, said, He was
not sure it was a mixed wine, but that in-
deed it drank down. — " If that is all," inter-
rupted the doctor, "let us e'en drink it up
then. Or, if that won't do, since we can-
not have the true Falernum, let us take up
or once with the vile Sabinum. "What say
you, gentlemen, to good honest Fort, which I
am convinced is a much wholesomer stomach
wine?" My friend, who in his heart loves
Port better than any other wine in the world,
willingly seconded the doctor's motion, and
spoke very favorably of your Portingal wines
in general, if neat. Upon this some was im-
mediately brought up, which I observed my
friend and the doctor stuck to the whole even-
ing. I could not help asking the doctor if he
re illy preferred P a-t to lighter wines. To
which he answered, "You know, Mr. Fitz-
Adam, that use is second nature ; and Fort is,
in a manner, mother's milk to me ; for it is
what my Alma Mater suckles all her numerous
progeny with." I silently assented to the doc-
tor's account, which I was convinced was a
ti'ue one, and then attended to the judicious
animadversions of the other gentlemen upon
the claret, which were still continued, though
at the same time they continued to drink it. I
hinted my surprise at this to Sir Tunbelly, who
gravely answered me, and in a moving way,
''Why, what can we do?"— "Not drink it,"
replied I, " since it is not good." — " But what
will you have us do ? And how shall we pass
the evening?" rejoined the baronet. "One
164 A MODERN CONVEJiSATIOX.
cannot go home at five o'clock." — " That de-
pends upon a great deal of use," said I. "It
may be so, to a certain degree," said the
doctor. '"But give me leave lo ask you, Mr.
Fitz- Adam, you, who drink nothing but water,
and live much at home, how do you keep up
your spirits?" — " Why, Doctor," said I, '• as-
I never lowered my spirits by strong liquor, I do
not want to raise them." Here we were in-
iuterruptcd by the colonel's raising his voice
and indignation against the Burgundy and
Champagne ; swearing that the former was
ropy, and the latter upon the fret, and not
without some suspicion of cider and sugar-
candy ; notwithstanding which, he drank, in a
bumper of it, confusion to the town of Bristol
{ind the Bottle Act. It was a shame, he said,
th:>t gentlemen could have no good Burgun-
dies and Champagnes, for the sake of some
increase of the revenue, the manufacture of
glass bottles, and such sort of stuff. Sir
George confirmed the same, adding, that it
was sea dalous; and the whole company
agreed, that the new parliament would cer-
tainly repeal so absurd an act the very first
session ; but if they did not, they hoped they
would receive instructions lo that purpose from
their constituents. '-To be sure," said the
colonel, " what a rout tliey made about the
repeal of the Jew Bill, for which nobod}' cared
one farthing! But, by the way," continued
he, " I think everybody his done eating, jtud
therefore had not we better liave the dinner
taken away, and the wine set upon the table?"
A MODERN COyVERSATIOX. 165
To this the company gave an unanimous
"Aye! " While this was doing, I asked my
friend, with seeming seriousness, whether no
part of the dinner was to be served up regain,
when the wine should be sej; upon the t-.ible.
He seemed surprised at my question, and
asked me if I was hungry. To which I an-
swered, " No " ; but asked him, in my turn,
if he was dry. To which he also answered,
" No." — " Then, pray," replied I, '• why not
as well eat without being hungry, as drink
without being dry?" M}' friend was so
stunned with this, that he attempted no reply,
but stared at me with as much astonishment
as he would have done at my groat ancestor
Adam in his primitive state of nature.
The cloth was now taken away, and the
bottles, glasses, and dish-clouts put upon the
table ; when Will Sitfast, who I found was a
perpetual to ist-maker, toolc the chair, of
course, as the man of application to business.
He began the king's health in a bumper, which
circulated in the same manner, not wiihout
some nice examinations of the chairman as. to
day-light. The bottfe standing by me, 1 was
called upon by the chairman ; who added, that
though a water-drinker, he hoped I wou'd not
refuse that health in wine. I begged to be
excused, and told him, that I never drank his
Majesty's health at all, though no one of his
subjects wished it more heartily than I did.
-That hitherto it had not appeared to me, that
there could be the least relation between the
wine I drank and the king's state of health ;
1G6 A MODEBN CONVERSATIOX.
and that, till I was convinced that impairing
my own health would improve his Majesty's,
I was resolved to preserve the use of my
faculties and my limbs,- to employ both in his
service, if he could ever have occasion for
them. I had foreseen the consequences of this
refusal ; and though my friend had answered
for my principles, I easily discovered an air of
suspicion in the countenmces of t!ie company ;
and I overhead the colonel whisper to Lord
Feeb'e, " This author is a very old dog."
My friend was ashamed of me ; but, how-
ever, to help me off as well as he could, he said
to me aloud, " Mr. Fitz-Adam, this is one
of those singularities which j'ou have con-
tracted by living so much alone." From this
moment the company gave me up to my <dd-
nesses, and took no further notice of me. I
leaned silently upon the table, waiting for
(though, to say the truth, without expei ting)
some of that festal gayety, that urbanity, and
that elegant mirth, of which my friend h. d
promised so large a share. Instead of all
which, the conversation ran chiefly into narra-
tive, and grew duller and duller with every
bottle. Lord Feeble recounted his former
achievements in love and wine ; the colonel
complained, though with dignity, of hardships
and injustice ; Sir George hinted at some im-
portant discoveries which he had made that
day at court, but cautiously avoided naming
names ; Sir Tunbelly slept between glass and
glass ; the doctor and my friend talked over
college matters, and quoted Latin ; and our
A MODERN CONVERSATION. 167
worthy president applied himself wholly to
business, never speaking but to order ; as,
"Sir, the bottle stands with you — Sir, you
are to name a toast — ^That has been drank
already — Here, more claret!" etc. In the
height of all this convivial pleasantry, which
I plainly saw was come to its zenith, I stole
away at about nine o'clock, and went home ;
where reflections upon the entertainment of
the day crowded into my mind, and may per-
haps be the subject of some future paper.
Sbpt. 26, 1754.
-No., S5.
CONNOISSXUB.] [COLMAN AND ThoBNTOH.
TEE SQUIRE IN OEDERS.
Gaudet eqnis canibusqne, et aprici grarnine campi. Hbr.
My Cousin Village, from whom I had not
heard for some time, has lately sent me an ac-
count of a Country Parson, which I dare say
will prove entertaining to my town reid' rs,
who can have no other idea of our clergy th:in
what they have collected from the spruce and
genteel figures which they have been used to
contemplate here in doctors' scarfs, pudding-
sleeves, starched bands, and feather-iop griz-
zles. It will be found from my cousin's de-
scription, that these reverend ensigns of ortho-
doxy are not so necessary to be displayed
among the rustics ; and that, when they are
out of the pulpit or surplice, the good pastors
may, without censure, put on the manners as
well as dress of a groom or whipper-in.
DoNC ASTER, Jan. 14, 1756.
Dear Cousin, — I am just arrived here, after
having paid a visit to our old acquaintance
Jack Quickset, who is now become the Rever-
end Mr. Quickset, rector of parish in the
North-Riding of this county, a living Morth up-
wards of three hundred pounds per ann. As
the ceremonies of ordination have occasioned
THE SqUIBE IN OBDEBS. 169
no alteration in Jack's morals or behavior, the
figure he makes in the church is somewhat re-
markable : but as there are many other incum-
bents of countiy livings, whose clerical charac-
ters will be found to tally with his, perhaps a
slight sketch, or, as I may say, rough draught
of him, with some account of my visit, will not
be uneutertaining to your readers.
Jack, hearing that I was in this part of the
world, sent me u very hearty letter, inform-
ing me that he had bi^en double japanned (as
he called it) about a year ago, and was the
present incumbent of , where, if I would
favor him with ray company, he would give
me a cup of the best Yorkshire Stingo, and
wou^d engage to shew me a noble day's sport,
as he was in a fine open country with plenty of
foxes. I rejoiced to hear he was so comfort-
ably settled, and set out immediately for his
living When I arrived within the gate, my
ears were alarmed with such a loud chorus of
" No mortals on earth are so jovial as we,"
that I began to think I had made a mis-
take ; but its close neighborhood to the church
soon convinced me that this could be no other
than the parsonage-house. On my entrance,
my friend (whom I found in the midst of a
full room of fox-hunters in boots and bob-
wigs) got up to welcoue me to , and era-
bracing me, gave rae the full favor of his
Stingo by breathing ia ray face, as he did me
the honor of saluting me. He then introduced
me to his friends ; and placing rae at the right
hand of his own elbow chair, assured them
170 THE SQUIRE /iV OEDERS.
that I was a very honest Cock, and loved a
chase of five-and-twenty miles on eud as
well as any of them : to preserve the credit
of which character, I was obliged to comply
with an injunction to toss off a pint bumper
of Port, with the foot of the fox dipped and
squeezed into it to give a zest to the Jiquor.
The whole economy of Jack's life is very
different from that of his brethren. Instead
of having a wife and a house full of children
(the most common family of a country cler-
gyman) , he is single ; unless we credit some
idle whispers in the parish that he is married
to his housekeeper. The calm amusements
of piquet, chess, and backgammon have no
charms for Jack, who " sees his dearest action
in the field," and boasts that he has a brace of
as good hunters ia his stable as ever leg was
laid over. Hunting and shooting are the only
business of his life ; fox-hounds and pointers
lay about in every parlor ; and he is himself,
like Pistol, always in boots. The estimation
in which he holds his friends is rated accord-
ing to their excellence as sportsmen ; and to
be able to make a good shot, or hunt a pack
of hounds well, are most recommending qual-
ities. His parishioners often earn a shilling
and a cup of ale at his house, by coming to
acquaint him that they have found a hare sit-
ting, or a fox in cover. One day, when I was
alone with my friend, the servant came in to
tell him that the clerk wanted to speak with
him. He was ordered in ; but I could not
help smiling, when (instead of giving notice
TEE SqUIBE m OliDEBS. 171
of a burying, christening, or some other church
business, as I expected) I found the honest
clerk came only to acquaint his reverend supe-
rior that there was a covey of partridges, of a
dozen brace at least, not above three fields
from the house.
Jack's elder brother, Sir Thomas Quickset,
who gave him the benefice, is lord of the
ra inor ; so that Jack has full power to beat up
the game unmolested. He goes out three times
a-week with his brother's hounds, whether Sir
Thomas hunts or not ; and has besides a depu-
tation from him as lord of the manor, consign-
ing the game to his care, and empowering him
to take away a,l guns, nets, and dogs, from
persons not duly qualifi. d. Jack is more proud
of his office, than many other country clergy-
men are of being in ihe commission of the
peace. Poaching is, in his eye, the most hei-
nous ciiine ill the two tables; nor does the
care of souls appear to him half so important
a duty as the preservation of the game.
Sunday, you may suppose, is as dull and
tedious to this ordained sportsman as to any
fine la Jy in town : not that he makes the duties
of his function any fatigue to him, but as this
day is necessarily a day of rest from the
usual toils of shooting and the chase. It hap-
pened that the first Sunday after I was with
him, he had engaged to take care of a church,
which was about twenty miles off, in the
absence of a neighboring clergyman. He
asked me to accompany him ; and the more to
encourage me, he assured me that we should
172 THE SQVIBE IN OBDEBS.
ride over as fine a champaign open country as
any in the North. Accordingly I was roused
by him in the morning before daybreak, by a
loud hallooing of " Hark to Merriman ! " and
the repeated smacks of his half -hunter ; and
after we had fortified our stomachs with sev-
eral slices of hung beef, and a horn or two of
Stingo, we sallied forth. Jack was mounted
upon a hunter which he assured me was never
yet thrown out: and as we rode along, he
could not help lamenting that so fine a soft
morning should be thrown away upon a Sun-
day ; at. the same time remarking that the dogs
might run breast high.
Though we made the best of our way over
hedge and ditch, and took everything, we were
often delayed by trying if we could prick a
hare, or by leaving the road to examine a
piece of cover ; and he frequently made me
stop while he pointed out the particular course
that Reynarh took, or the spot where he had
earth'd. At length we arrived on full g illop
at the church, whore we found the congrega-
tion waiing for us ; but as Jack had nothing
to do but to alight, pull his band out of the
sermon-case, give his brown scratch bob a
shake, and clap on the surplice, he was pres-
ently equipp. d for the service. In short, he
behaved himself, both in the desk and pulpit,
to the entire satisfaction of all the parish, as
well as the squire of it, who, after thanking
Jack for his exce-llcnt discourse, very cordially
took us home to diriner with him.
I shall not trouble you with an account of
THE SQUIRE IX OBDEBS. 173
our entertainment at the squire's ; who, being
himself as keen a sportsman as ever followed
a pack of doj;8, was hugely delighted with
Jack's conversation. " Church and King,"
and another particular toast (in compliment,
I suppose, to my friend's clerical character),
were the first drank after dinner ; but these
were directly followed by a pint bumper to
"Horses sound. Dogs healthy, Earths stopt,
and Foxes plenty." AVhen we had run over
again, with great joy and vociferation, as many
chases as the time would permit, the bell called
us to evening prayers ; after which, though
the squire would fain have had us stay and
take a hunt with him, we mounted our horses
at the church door, and rode home in the dark ;
because Jack had engaged to meet several of
his brother sportsmen, who were to lie all
night at his own house, to be in readiness to
make up for the loss of Sunday, by going out
a-cock-shooting very early the next morning.
I must leave it to you, Cousin, to make what
reflections 30U please on this character : only
observing, that the country can furnish many
instances of these ordained sportsmen, whose
thoughts are more taken up with the stable or
the dog-kennel than the church ; and indeed,
it will be found that our friend Jack and all
of his stamp are regarded by their parishion-
ers, not as Parsons of the Parish, but rather
as Squkes in Orders.
I am, dear Cousin, yours, etc.
Jan. 29, 1756.
CONNOISSKDB.] N^O. 26. [COWPKB.
COUNTEY CONGREGATIONS.
Delicta majorum immeritus lues,
Komane, donee templa refecerls
JEdesquc labentes deorum, et
Foeda nigro simulacra f umo. Hor.
Dear Cousin, — The country at present, no
less than the metropolis, abounding with politi-
cians of every kind, I begun to despair of pick-
ing up any intelligence that might possibly be
entertaiuing to your readers. However, I
have lately visited some of the most distant
parts of the kingdom with a clergyman of my
acquaintance : 1 shall not trouble you with an
account of the improvements that have been
made in the seats we saw according to the
modern toste, but proceed to give you some
reflections, which occurred to us on observing
several country churches, and the behavior of
the congregations.
The ruinous condition of some of these
edifices gave me great offence ; and I could
not help wishing, that the honest vicar,
instead of indulging his genius for improve-
ments, by inclosing his gooseberry-bushes
within a Chinese rail, and converting half an
acre of his glebe-land into a bowling-green,
would have applied part of his income to the
more laudable purpose of sheltering his parish-
COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 175
ioners from the weather, during their attend-
ance on divine service. It is no uncommon
thing to see the parsonage-house well thatched,
and in exceeding gO( d repair, while the church
perhaps has scarce any other roof than the ivy
th it grows over it. The noise of owls, bats,
and magpies makes the principal part of the
church-music in many of these ancient edifices ;
and the walls, like a large map, seem to be
portioned out into capes, seas, and promon-
tories, by the various colors by which the
damps have stained them. Sometimes, the
foundation bein^ too weak to support the
steeple any longer, it has been expedient to pull
down that part of the building, and to hang
the bells under a wooden shed on the ground
beside it. This is the case in a parish in
Norfolk, through which I lately passed, and
where the clerk and the sexton, like the two
figures at St. Dunstan's, serve the bells in
capacity of clappers, by striking them alter-
nately with a hammerr
In other churches I have observed, that
nothing unseemly or ruinous is to be found,
except in the clergyman, and the appendages
of his person. The squire of the parish, or
his ancestors, perhaps, to testily their devo-
tion, and leave a lasting monument of their
magnificence, have adorned the altar-piece
with the richest crimson velvet, embroidered
with vine-leaves and ears of wheat ; and have
dressed up the pulpit with the same splendor
and expense ; while the gentleman, who fills it,
is exalted in the midst of all this finerv, with
176 COUNTRY COXGREGATIONS.
a surplice as dirt}- as a farmer's frock, and a
periwig that seems to have transferred its
faculty of curling to the band which appears in
full buckle beneath it.
But if I was concerned to see several dis-
tressed pastors, as well as many of our coun-
try churches in a tottering condition, I was
more offended with the indecency of worship
in others. I could wish that the clergy would
inform their congregations, that there is no
occasion to scream themselves hoarse in mak-
ing the responses ; that the town-crier is not
the only person qualified to pray with due
devotion ; and that he who bawls the loudest
may, nevertheless, be the wickedest fellow in
the parish. The old women too in the aisle
might be told, that their time would be better
employed in attending to the sermon, than in
fumbling over their tattered Testaments till
they have found the text ; by which time the
discourse is near drawing to a conclusion :
while a word or two of instruction might not
be thrown away upon the younger part of the
congregation, to teach them that making posies
in summer time, and cracking nuts in autumn,
is no part of the religious ceremony.
The good old practice of psalm-singing is,
indeed, wonderfully improved in many coun-
try churches since the days of Steruhold and
Hopkins ; and there is scarce a painsh clerk
who has so little taste as not to pick his staves
out of the New Version. This has occasioned
great complaints in some places, where the
clerk has been foiced to bawl by himself,
COUNTS Y CONGBEGATIONS. 177
because the rest of the congregation cannot
find the psalm at the end of their prayer-
books ;' while others are highly disgusted at
the innovation, and stick as obstinately to the
Old Version as to the Old Style. The tunes
themselves have also been new-set to jiggish
measures ; and the sober di'awl, which used to
accompany the first two staves of the hun-
dredth psalm, with the gloria patri, is now
split into as many quavers as an Italian air.
For this purpose there is in every county an
itinerant band of vocal musicians, who make
it their business to go round to all the
churches in their turns, and, after a prelude
with the pitch-pipe, astonish the audience
with hymns set to the new Winchester meas-
ure, and anthems of their own composing. As
these new-fashioned psalmodists are neces-
sarily made up of young men and maids, we
may naturally suppose, that there is a perfect
concord and symphony between them : and,
indeed, I have known it happen that these
sweet singers have more than once been
brought into disgrace, by too close an unison
between the thorough-bass and the treble.
It is a difficult matter to decide, which is
looked upon as the greatest man in a coun-
try church, the parson or his clerk. The lat-
ter is most ceitainly held in higher veneration
where the former happens to be only a |;oor
curate, -who rides post every Sabbath from
village to village, and mounts or dismounts
at the church door. The clerk's office is not
onl}^ to tag the prayers with an Amen, or
12
178 COUXTBY CONGBEGATIONS.
usher iu the sermon with a stave ; but he is
also the universal father to give away the
brides, and the standing god-father to all the
new-born bantlings. But in many places there
is a still greater man belonging to the church,
than either the parson or the clerk himself.
The person I mean is the Squire ; who, like
the King, may be styled Head of the Church
in his own parish. If the benefice be in his
own gift, the vicar is his creature, and of con-
sequence entirely at his devotion : or, if the
care of the church be left to a curate, the
Sunday fees of roast beef and plum pudding,
and a liberty to shoot in the manor, will bring
him as much under the Squire's command as
his dogs and horses. For this reason the bell
is often kept tolling, and the people waiting
in the church-yard an hour longer than the
usual time ; nor must the service begin till the
Squire has strutted up the aisle, and seated
himself in the great pew in the chancel. The
length of the sermon is also measured by the
will of the Squire, as formerly by the hour-
glass : and I know one parish where the
preacher has always the complaisance to con-
clude his discourse, however abruptly, the
minute that the Squire give the signal, by ris-
ing up after his nap.
In a village church, the Squire's lady or the
vicar's wife are perhaps the only females that
are stared at for their finery : but in the larger
cities and towns, where the newest fashions
are brought down weekly by the stage-coach
or wagon, all the wives and daughters of the
COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS. 179
most topping tradesmen vie with each other
every Sunday in the elegance of their apparel.
I could even trace their gradations in tiieir
dress, according to the opulence, the extent,
and the distance of the place from London.
I was at church in a populous city in the
North, where the mace-bearer cleared the way
for Mrs. Mayoress, who came sidling after
him in an enormous fan-hoop, of a pattern
which had never been seen before in those
parts. At another church, in a corporation
town, I saw several Negligees, with furbe-
lowed aprons, which had long disputed the
prize of superiority : but these were most wo-
fully eclipsed by a burgess's daughter, just
come from London, who appeared in a Trol-
lope or Slammei'kiu, with treble ruffles to the
cuffs, pinked and gimped, and the sides of the
petticoat drawn up in fistoons. In some
lesser borough towns, the contest, I found,
lay between three or four black and green bibs
and aprons ; at one, a grocer's wife attracted
our eyes, by a new-fashioned cap, called a
Joan ; and, at another, they were wholly taken
up by a mercer's daughter in a Nun's Hood.
I need not say anything of the behavior of
the congregations in these more polite places
of religious resort ; as the same genteel cere-
monies are practised there, as at the most
fashionable churches in town. The ladies,
immediately on their entrance, breathe a pious
ejacu'ation through their fan-sticks, and the
beaux very gravely address themselves to the
Haberdashers' Bills, glued upon the linings of
180 COUNTRY CONGBEGATIONS.
their hats. This pious duty is no sooner per-
formed, than the exercise of bowing and curt-
sying succeeds ; the locking and unlocking of
the pews drowns the reader's voice at the
beginning of the ser^^ce ; and the rustling of
silks, added to the whispering and tittering of
so much good company, renders him totally
unintelligible to the very end of it.
I am, dear Cousin, yours, etc.
Aua. 19, 1756.
Idler.] "No. 87. [Johnson.
DICK MINIM THE CEITIC.
[Inter-strepit anser olores. Virg.}
Criticism is a study by which men grow
important and formidable at very small ex-
pense. The power of invention has been
conferred by Nature upon few, and the labor
of learning those sciences which may, by mere
labor, be obtained, is too great to be willingly
endured ; but every man can exert such judg-
ment as he has upon the works of others ;
and he whom Nature has made weak, and
Idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his
vanity by the name of a Critic.
I hope it will give comfort to great numbers
who are passing through the world in obscu-
rity, when I inform them how easily distinction
may be obtained. All the other powers of
literature are coy and haughty ; they must be
long courted, and at last are not always
gained^ but Criticism is a goddess easy of
access, and forward of advance, who will
meet the slow, and encourage the timorous ;
the want of meaning she supplies with words,
and the want of spirit she recompenses with
malignity.
This profession has one recommendation
peculiar to itself, that it gives vent to malig-
182 DICK MINIM THE CBITIC.
nity without real mischief. No genius -was
ever blasted by the breath of critics. The
poison which, if coiifiued, would have burst
the heart, fumes away in empty hisses, and
malice is set at ease with very little danger to
merit. The critic is the only man whose tri-
umph is without another's pain, and whose
greatness does not rise upon another's ruin.
To a study at once so easy and so reputable,
so malicious and so harmless, it cannot be
necessary to invite my readers by a long or
labored exhortation ; it is sufficient, since all
would be critics if they could, to shew by one
eminent example, that all can be critics if they
will.
Dick Minim, after the common course of
puerile studies, in which he was no great pro-
ficient, was put apprentice to a brewer, with
whom he had lived two years, when his uncle
died in the city, and left him a large fortune
in the stocks, Dick had for six months before
used the company of the lower players, of
whom he had learned to scorn a trade ; and
being now at liberty to follow his genius, he
resolved to be a man of wit and humor. That
he might be properly initiated in his new char-
acter, he frequented the coffee-houses nt ar the
theatres, where he listened very diligently,
day after day, to those who talked of language
and sentiments, and unities and catastrophes,
till, by slow degrees, he began to think that
he understood something of the stage, and
hoped in time to talk himself.
But he did not trust so much to natural sa-
DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 183
gacity, as wholty to neglect the help of books.
Whea the theatres were shut, he retu'ed to
Richmond with a few select writers, whose
opinions he impressed upon his memory by un-
wearied diligence ; and when he returned with
other wits to the town, was able to tell in very
proper phrases, that the chief business of art
is to copy nature ; that a perfect writer is not
to be expected, because genius decays as
judgment increases ; that the great art is the
art of blotting ; and that, according to the
rule of Horace, every piece should be kept
nine years.
Of the great authors he now began to dis-
play the characters, laying down, as an uni-
versal position, that all had beauties and
defects. His opinion was, that Shakespeare,
committing himself wholly to the impulse of
nature, wanted that correctness which learn-
ing would have given him ; and that Jonson,
trusting to learning, did not sufficiently cast
his e^'e on nature. He blamed the Stanza of
Spenser, and could not bear the Hexameters
of Sidney. Denham and "Waller he held the
first reformers of English numbers ; and
thought that if Waller could have obtained
the strength of Denham, or Denham the
sweetness of Waller, there had been nothing
wanting to complete a poet. He often ex-
pressed his commiseration of Dryden's pov-
erty, and his indignation at the age which suf-
fered him to write for bread ; he repeated with
rapture the first lines of All for Love, but
wondered at the corruption of taste which
184 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC-
could bear anything so unnatural as rhyming
tragedies. In Otway he found uncommon
powers of moving the passions, but was dis-
gusted by his general negligence, and blamed
him for making a conspirator his hero ; and
never concluded his disquisition, • without ro-
marlcing how happily the sound of the clock
is made to alarm the audience. Southerne
would have been his favorite, but that he
mixes comic with tragic scenes, intercepts the
natural course of the passions, and fills the
mind with a wild confusion of mirth and
melancholy. . The versification of Rowe he
thought too melodious for the stage, and too
little varied in different passions. lie made
it the great fault of Congreve, that all his
persons were wits, and that he always wrote
with more art than nature. lie considered
Cato rather as a poem tlian a play, and al-
lowed Addison to be the complete master of
allegory and grave humor, but paid no great
deference to him as a critic. He thought the
chief merit of Prior was in his easy tales and
lighter poems, though he allowed that his Sol-
omon had many noble sentiments elegantly
expressed. In Swift he discovered an inimi-
table vein of irony, and an easiness which all
would hope and few would attain. Pope he
was inclined to degrade from a poet to a ver-
sifier, and thought his numbers rather luscious
than sweet. He often lamented the neglect of
Phaedra and Hippolitus, and wished to see
the stage under better regulations.
These assertions passed commonly uncon-
DICK MINIM THE CRITIC. 185
tradicted ; and if now and then an opponent
started up, he was quickly repressed by the
suffrages of the company, and Minim went
away from every dispute with elation of heart
and increase of confidencp.
He now grew conscious of his abilities, and
began to talk of tiie present state of di*araatic
poetry ; wondered what was become of the
comic genius which supplied our ancestors
with wit and pleasantry, and why no writer
could bo found that durst now venture beyond
a farce. He saw no reason for thinking that
the vein of humor was exhausted, since we
live in a country where liberty suffers every
character to spread itself to its utmost bulk,
and which therefore produces more originals
than all the rest of the world together. Of
tragedy he concluded business to be the soul,
and yet often hinted that love predominates
too much upon the modern stage.
He was now an acknowledged critic, and
had his own seat in a coffee-house, and headed
a party in the pit. Minim has more vanity
than ill-nature, and seldom desires to do much
mischief ; he will perhaps murmur a little in
the ear of him that sits next him, but endeav-
ors to influence the audience to favor, by clap-
ping when an actor exclaims. Ye Gods ! or
laments the misery of his country.
By degrees he was admitted to rehearsals ;
and many of his friends are of opinion, that
our present poets are indebted to him for their
happiest thoughts ; by his contrivance the bell
was rung twice in Barbarossa ; and by his
186 DICK MINIM THE CRITIC.
persuasion the author of Cleone conchided his
play without a couplet ; for what can be more
absurd, said Minim, than* that part of a play
should be rhymed, and part written in blank
verse? and by what acquisition of faculties is
the speaker, who never could find rhymes
before, enabled to rhyme at the conclusion of
an act?
He is the great investigator of hidden
beauties, and is particularly delighted when
he finds the sound an echo to the sense. He
has read all our poets with particular atten-
tion to this delicacy of versification, and won-
ders at the supineness with which their works
have been hitherto perused, so that no man
has found the sound of a drum in this distich :
" When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick" ;
and that the wonderful lines upon Honor and
a Bubble have hitherto passed without notice :
" Honor is like the glassy bubble,
Which cost philosophf rs such trouble ;
Where one part crack'd, tlie whole does fly.
And wits are crack'd to find out why."
In these verses, says Minim, we have two
striking accommodations of the sound to the
sense. It is impossible to utter the two lines
emphatically without an act like that which
they describe ; Bubble and Trouble causing a
momentary inflation of the cheeks by the re-
tention of the breath, which is afterwards
forcibly emitted, as in the practice of bloicing
bubbles. But the greatest excellence is in the
DICK MINIM THE ClilTIC. 187
third line, which is crack'' d in the middle to
express a crack, and then shivers into mono-
syllables. Yet has this diamond lain neg-
lected with common stones ; and araon^ the
innumerable admirers of Hudibras the obser-
vation of this superlative passage has been
reserved for the sagacity of Minim.
June 9, 1759. /
IDLXB.] No. 28. [Johnson.
DICK MINIM THE CEITIC. (.Continued.)
[Di te, Damasippe, Deseque
Verum oo consilium douent tonsore 1 Bbr.]
Mr. Minim had now advanced himself to the
zenith of critical reputation ; when he was in
the pif, every eye in the boxes was fixed upon
him ; when he entered his coffee-house, he
was surrounded by circles of candidates, who
passed theu- novitiate of literature under his
tuition ; his opinion was asked by all who had
no opinion of their own, and j'et loved to
debate and decide ; and no composition was
supposed to pass in safety to posterity, till it
had been secured by Minim's approbation.
Minim professes great admiration of the
wisdom and munificence by which the acade-
mies of the Continent were raised, and often
wishes for some standard of taste, for some
tribunal, to which merit may appeal from
caprice, prejudice, and malignity. He has
formed a plan for an Academy of Criticism,
where ever}- work of imagination may be read
before it is printed, and which shall authori-
tatively direct the theatres what pieces to
receive or reject, lo exclude or to revive.
Such an institution would, in Dick's opin-
ion, spread the fame of English literature over
Europe, and make London the metropolis of
DICK MINIM THE CRITIC 189
elegance and politeness, the place to which
the learned and ingenious of all countries
would repair for instruction and improvement,
and where nothing would any longer be ap-
plauded or endured that was not conformed to
the nicest rules, and finished with the highest
elegance.
Till soma happy conjunction of the planets
shall dispose our princes or minister to make
themselves immortal by such an academy.
Minim contents himself to preside four nights
in a week in a critical society selected by him-
self, where he is heard without contradiction,
and whence his judgment is disseminated
through the great vulgar and the small.
When he is placed in the chair of criticism,
he declares loudly for the noble simplicity of
our ancestors, in opposition to the petty re-
finements, and ornamental luxuria,nce. Some-
times ho is sunk in despair, and perceives
false delicacy daily gaining ground ; and
sometimes brightens his countenance with a
gleam of hope, and predicts the revival of the
true sublime. He then fulminates his loudest
censures against the monkish barbarity of
rhyme ; wonders how beings that pretend to
reason can be pleased with one line always
ending like another ; tells how unjustl}^ and
unnaturally sense is sacrificed to sound ; how
often the best thoughts are mangled by the
necessity of confining or extending them to
the dimensions of a couplet ; and rejoices that
genius has, in our days, shaken off the shackles
which had incumbered it so long. Yet he
190 DICK MINIM THE CBITIC.
allows that rhyme may sometimes be borne, if
the lines be often broken, and the pauses
judiciously diversified.
From blank verse he makes an easy transi-
tion to Milton, -whom he produces as an ex-
ample of the slow advance of lasting reputa-
tion. Milton is the only writer in whose books
Minim can read forever without weariness.
What cause it is that exempts this pleasure
from satiety he has long and diligently in-
quired, and believes it to consist in the per-
petual variation of the numbers, by which the
ear is gratified and the attention awakened.
The lines that are commonly thought rugged
and unmusical, he conceives to have been
written to temper the melodious luxury of the
rest, or to express things by a proper cadence :
for he scarcely finds a verse that has not this
favorite beauty ; he declares that he could
shiver in a hot-house, when he reads that
" the ground
Bums frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire ";
and that, when Milton bewails his blindness,
the verse
" So thick a drop serene has quenched these orbs "
has, he knows not how, something that strikes
him with an obscure sensation like that which
he fancies would be felt from the sound of
darkness.
Minim is not so confident of his rules of
judgment as not very eagerly to catch new
light from the name of the author. He is
commonly so prudent as to spare those whom
DICK JIIXIM THE CRITIC. 191
he cannot resist, unless, as will sometimes
happen, he finds the public combined against
them. But a fresh preteudex* to fame he is
strongly inclined to censure, lill his own honor
requires tliat he commend him. Till he knows
the success of a composition, he intrenches
himself in general terms ; there are some new
thoughts and beautiful passages ; but there is
likewise much which he would have advised
the author to expunge. He has several favor-
ite epithets, of which he has never settled the
meaning, but which are very commodiously
applied to books which he has not read, or
cannot understand. One is manly., another is
dry., another stiff, and another flimsy ; some-
times he discovers delicacy of style, and
sometimes meets with strange expressions.
He is never so great, or so happy, as when
a youth of promising parts is brought to re-
ceive his directions for the [irosecution of his
studies. He then puts on a very serious air ;
he advises his pupil to read none but the best
authors ; and, when he finds one congenial to
his own mind, to study his beauties, but avoid
his faults; ami, when he sits down to write,
to consider how his favorite author would
think at the present time on the present occa-
sion. He exhorts him to catch those moments
when he finds his thoughts expanded and his
genius exalted ; but to take care lest imagina-
tion hurry him beyond the bounds of nature.
He holds diligence the mother of success : yet
enjoins him, with great earnestness, not to
read more than he can digest, and not to con-
1D2 DICK MINIM THE CIiITIC.
fuse his mind by pursuing studies of contrary
tendencies. He tells him that every man has
his genius, and that Cicero could never be a
poet. The boy retires illuminated, resolves
to follow his genius, and to think how Milton
would have thought : and Minim feasts upon
his own beneficence till another day brings
another pupil.
June 16, 1759.
Idler.] N"o. S9. [Reynolds.
AET-CONNOISSETJES.
[Babtilia vetemm judex et callidus. . . , Jlor.]
Siu, — I was much pleased with your ridicule
of those shallow Critics, whose judgment,
though often right as far as it goes, j-et
reaches only to inferior beauties, and who,
unable to comprehend the whole, judge only
by parts, and from thence determine the merit
of extensive works. But there is another
kind of Critic still worse, who judges by nar-
row rules, and those too often false, and which,
though they should be true, and founded on
naturo, will lead him but a very little way
towards the just estimation of the sublime
beauties in works of genius ; for whatever
part of an art can be executed or criticised by
rules, that part is no longer the work of genius,
which implies excellence out of the reach of
rules. For my own part, I profess myself an
Idl r, and love to give my judgment, such as
it is, from my immediate perceptions, without
much fatigue of thinking ; and 1 am of opinion,
that if a man has not those perceptions right,
it will be vain for him to endeavor to supply
their place by rules, which may enable him to
talk more learnedly, but not to distinguish
more acutely. Another reason which has les-
sened ray affection for the study of criticism
13
194 ABT-CONNOISSETmS.
is, that Critics, so far as I have observed,
debar themselves from receiving any pleasure
from the polite arts, at the same time that
they profess to love and admu'e them : for
these rules, being always uppermost, give tliem
such a propensity to criticise, that, instead of
giving up the reins of their imagination into
their author's hands, their frigid minds are
emploj'ed in examining whether the perform-
ance be according to the rules of art.
To those who are resolved to be Critics in
spite of nature, and, at the same time, have
no great disposition to much reading and
study, I would recommend to them to assume
the character of Connoisseur, which may be
purchased at a much cheaper rate than that of
a Critic in poetry. The remembrance of a
few names of painters, with their general
characters, with a few rules of the Academy,
which they may pick up among the painters,
will go a great way towards making a very
notable Connoisseur.
"With a gentleman of this cast, I visited last
week the Cartoons at Hampton-Court ; he was
just returned from Italy, a Connoisseur of
course, and of course his mouth full of nothing
but the grace of Raflfaelle, the purity of Do-
menichino, the learning of Poussin, the air of
Guido, the greatness of taste of the Caraches,
and the sublimity and grand contorno of
Michael Angelo ; with all the rest of the cant
of criticism, which he emitted with that volu-
bility which generally those orators have who
annex no idea to their words.
ABT-G0NN0ISSEUR8. 195
As we were passing through the rooms, in
our way to the gallery, I made him observe a
whole length of Charles the First, by Vandyke,
as a perfect representation of the character as
well as the figure of tho man. He agreed it
was very fine, but it wanted spirit and con-
trast, and had not the flowing line, without
which a figure could not possibly be graceful.
Wlien we entered the Gallery, I thought I
could perceive him recollecting his rules by
which he was to criticise Raffaelle. I shall
pass over his observation of the boats being
too little, and other criticisms of that kind,
till we arrived at St. Paul jyreacJdng. "This
(says he) is esteemed the most excellent of all
the Cartoons ; what nobleness, what dignity
there is in that figure of St. Paul ! and yet
what an addition to that nobleness could Raf-
faelle have given, had the art of contrast been
known in his time ! but, above all, the flowing
line, which constitutes grace and beauty.
You would not then have seen an upright fig-
ure standing equally on both legs, and both
hands stretched forward in the same dii'ection,
and his drapery, to all appearance, without the
least art of disposition." The following pic-
ture is the Charge to Peter. "Here (says he)
are twelve upright figures ; what a pity it is
that Raffaelle was not acquainted with the
pyramidal principle ! He would then have con-
trived the figures in the middle to have been
on higher ground, or the figures at the ex-
tremities stooping or lying, which would not
only have formed the group into the shape of
196 ABT-COXNOISSEUES.
a pyramid, but likewise contrasted the stand-
ing figures. Indeed," added he, " I have often
lamented that so great a genius as Raffaelle
had not lived in this enlightened age, since
the art has been reduced to principles, and had
had his education in one of the modern acade-
mies ; what glorious works might we then have
expected from his divine pencil ! "
I shall trouble you no longer with my
friend's observations, which, I suppose, you
are now able to continue by yourself. It is
curious to observe, that, at the same time that
great admiration is pretended for a name of
fixed reputation, objections are raised against
those very qualities by which that great name
was acquired.
Those Critics are continually lamenting
that Raffaelle had not the coloring and har-
mony of Rubens, or the light and shadow of
Rembrandt, without considering how much
the gay harmony of the former, and affecta-
tion of the latter, would take from the diguity^
of Raffaelle ; and yet Rubens had great har-
mony, and Rembrandt understood light and
shadow : but what may be an excellence in a
lower class of painting, becomes a blemish in
a higher ; as the quick, sprightly turn which
is the life and beauty of epigrammatic com-
positions, would but ill suit with the majesty
of heroic poetry.
To conclude : I would not be thought to
infer from anything that has been said that
rules are absolutely unnecessary ; but to cen-
sure scrupulosity, a servile attention to minute
ART-C0NN0ISSEUB8. 197
exactness, which is sometimes inconsistent
with higher excellency, and is lost in the blaze
of eNpanded genius.
I do not know whether 3-011 will think paint-
ing a general subject. By inserting this let-
ter, perhaps you will incur the censure a man
would deserve, whose business being to enter-
tain a whole room, should turn his back to
the company, and talk to a particular person.
I am, Sir, etc.
Skpt. 29, 1759.
CiT. "WoKLD.] N'o. 30, [Goldsmith.
THE MAN IN BLACK.
['O avdpMTTOi eiitpyeroi Jre^vxiis. Antotlin.]
Though fond of many acquaintances, I
desire an intimacy only with a few. The
Man in Black, whom I have often mentioned,
is one whose friendship I could wish to ac-
quire, because he possesses my esteem. His
manners, it is true, are tinctured with some
strange inconsistencies ; and he may be justly
termed an humorist in a nation of humorists.
Though he is generous even to profusion, he
affects to be thought a prodigy of parsimony
and prudence ; though his conversation be
replete with the most sordid and selfish
maxims, his heart is dilated with the most
unbounded love. I have known him profess
himself a man-hater, while his cheek was
glowing with compassion ; and, while his looks
were softened into pity, I have heard him use
the language of the most unbounded ill-nature.
Some affect humanity and tenderness, others
boast of having such dispositions from Nature ;
but he is the only man I ever knew who
seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence.
He takes as much pains to hide his feelings,
as any hypocrite would to conceal his indiffer-
ence ; but on every unguarded moment the
THE MAN IN BLACK. 199
mask drops off, and reveals him to the most
superficial observer.
In one of our late excursions into the
country, happening to discourse upon the
provision that was made for the poor in
England, he seemed amazed how any of his
countrymen could be so foolishly weak as to
relieve occasional objects of charity, when the
laws had made such ample provision for their
support. " In every parish-house," says he,
^' the poor are supplied with food, clothes,
fire, and a bed to lie on ; they want no more,
I desire no more myself ; yet still they seem
discontented. I 'm surprised at the inactivity
of our magistrates, in not taking up such
vagrants, who are only a weight upon the in-
dustrious ; I 'm surprised that the people are
found to relieve them, when they must be at
the same time sensible that it, in some measure,
encoiu-ages idleness, extravagance, and im-
posture. Were I to advise any man for
whom I had the least regard, I would caution
him by all means not to be imposed upon by
their false pretences : let me assure you, Sir,
they are impostors, every one of them ; and
rather merit a prison than relief."
He was proceeding in this strain earnestly,
to dissuade me from an imprudence of which
I am seldom guilty, when an old man, who
still had about him the remnants of tattered
finery, implored our compassion. He assured
us that he was no common beggar, but forced
into the shameful profession to support a
dying wife and five hungiy children. Being
200 THE MAN IN BLACK.
prepossessed against such falsehoods, his story
had not the least influence upon me ; but it
was quite otherwise with the iNIan in Black ; I
could see it visibly operate upon his counte-
nance, and effectually interrupt his harangue.
I could easily perceive that his heart burned
to relieve the five starving children, but he
seemed ashamed to discover his weakness to
me. While he thus hesitated between com-
passion and pride, I pretended to look another
way, and he seized this opportunity of giviDg
the poor petitioner a piece of silver, bidding
him at the same time, in order that I should
hear, go work for his bread, and not tease
passengers with such impertinent falsehoods
for the future.
As he had fancied himself quite unperceived,
he continued, as we proceeded, to rail against
beggars with as much animosity as before ; he
threw in some episodes on his own amazing
prudence and economy, with his profound
skill in discovering impostors ; he explained
the manner in which he would deal with beg-
gars, were he a magistrate, hinted at enlar-
ging some of the prisons for their reception,
and told two stories of ladies that were robbed
by beggar-men. He was beginning a third to
the same purpose, when a sailor with a wooden
leg once more crossed our walks, desiring our
pity, and blessing our limbs. I was for going
on without taking any notice, but my friend
looking wishfully upon the poor petitioner, bid
me stop, and he would shew me with how much
ease he could at any time detect an impostor.
THE MAN IN BLACK. 201
He now, therefore, assumed a look of im-
portance, and in an angry tone began to exam-
ine the sailor, demanding in what engagement
he was thus disabled and rendered unfit for
service. The sailor replied in atone as angrily
as he, that he had been an officer on board
a private ship of war, and that he had lost his
leg abroad, in defence of those who did noth-
ing at home. At this reply, all my friend's
importance vanished in a moment ; he had not
a single question more to ask ; he now only
studied what method he should take to relieve
him unobserved. He had, however, no easy
part to act, as he was obliged to presei've the
appearance of ill-nature before me, and yet
relieve himself by relieving the sailor. Cast-
ing, therefore, a furious look upon some bun-
dles of chips which the fellow carried in a
string at his back, my friend demanded how
he sold his matches ; but not waiting for a
reply, desired, in a surly tone, to have a
shilling's worth. The sailor seemed at first
surprised at his demand, but soon recollecting
himself, and presenting his whole bundle —
" Here, master," says he, " take all my cargo,
and a blessing into the bargain."
It is impossible t > describe with what an air
of triumph my friend marched off with his new
purchase ; he assured me that he was firmly
of opinion that those fellows must have stolen
their goods who could thus afford to sell them
for half value. He informed me of several
different uses to which those chips might be
applied ; he expatiated largely upon the sav-
202 THE MAN IN BLACK.
ings that would result from lighting candles
with a match instead of thrusting them into
the fire. He averred that he would as soon
have parted with a tooth as his money to those
vagabonds, unless for some valuable consid-
eration. I cannot tell how long this panegyric
upon frugality and matches might have con-
tinued, had not his attention been called ofif by
another object more distressful than either of
the former. A woman in rags, with one child
in her arras, and another on her back, was
attempting to sing ballads, but with such a
mournful voice that it was difficult to deter-
mine whether she was singing or crying. A
wretch who in the deepest distress still aimed
at good-humor, was an object my friend was
by no means capable of withstanding ; his
vivacity and his discourse were instantly in-
terrupted ; upon this occasion his very dis-
simulation had forsaken him. Even in my
presence, he immediately applied his hands
to his pockets, in order to relieve her ; but
guess his confusion, when he found he had
already given away all the money he carried
about him to former objects. The misery
painted in the woman's visage was not half so
strongly expressed as the agony in his. He
continued to search for some time, but to no
purpose, till, at length, recollecting himself,
with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had
no money, he put into her hands his shilling's
worth of matches.
1760.
CiT. WoBU).] No. 31. [Goldsmith.
BEAU TIBBS.
[Quid . • . feret hie promiasor? JTorJ]
Though naturally pensive, yet I am fond of
gay company, and take every opportunity of
thus dismissing the mind from duty. From
this motive I am often found in the centre of
a crowd ; and wherever pleasure is to be sold,
am always a purchaser. In those places, with-
out being remarked by any, I join in whatever
goes forward ; work my passions into a simili-
tude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they
shout, and condemn as they happen to dis-
approve. A mind thus sunk for a while below
its natural standard, is qualified for stronger
flights, as those first retire who would spring
forward with greater vigor.
Attracted by the serenity of the evening, a
friend and I lately went to gaze upon the com-
pany in one of the public walks near the city.
Here we sauntered together for some time,
either praising the beauty of such as were
handsome, or the dresses of such as had noth-
ing else to recommend them. We had gone
thus deliberately forward for some time, when
my friend, stopping on a sudden, caught me
by the elbow, and led me out of the public
walk. I could perceive by the quickness of
20i BEAU TIBBS.
his pace, and by his frequently looking behind,
that he was attempting to avoid somebody
■who followed ; we now turned to the right,
then to the left ; as we went forward, he still
went faster, but in vain ; the person whom he
attempted to escape, hunted us through every
doubling, and gained upon us each moment ;
so that at last we fairly stood still, resolving
to face what we could not avoid.
Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us
with all the familiarity of an old acquaintance.
" My dear Charles," cries he, shaking my
friend's hand, " where have you been hiding
this half a century ? Positively I had fancied
you were gone down to cultivate matrimony
and your estate in the country." During the
reply I had an opportunity of surveying the
appearance of our new companion. His hat
was pinched up with peculiar smartness ; his
looks were pale, thin, and sharp ; round his
neck he wore a broad black ribbon, and in his
bosom a buckle studded with glass ; his coat
was trimmed with tarnished twist ; he wore
by his side a sword with a black hilt, and
his stockings of si;k, though newly washed,
were grown yellow by long service. I was so
much engaged with the peculiarity of his dress,
that I attended only to the latter part of my
friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr.
Tibbs on the taste of his clothes, and the bloom
in his countenance. " Psha, psha, Charles ! "
cried the figure, " no more of that if you love
me ; you know I hate flattery, on my soul I
do ; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with the
BEAU TIBBS. 206
great will improve one's appearance, and a
course of venison will fatten ; and yet, faith,
I despise the great as much as you do ; but
there are a great many honest fellows among
them ; and we must not quarrel with one half
because the other wants breeding. If they
were all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the
most good-natured creatures that ever squeezed
a lemon, I should myself be among the num-
ber of their admirers. I was j'esterday to dine
at the Duchess of Piccadilly's. My lord was
there. ' Ned,' says he to me, ' Ned,' says he,
' I '11 hold gold to silver I can tell where you
were poaching last night.' — 'Poaching, my
lord?' says 1; 'faith, you have missed al-
ready ; for I stayed at home, and let the girls
poach for me. That 's my wa}^ ; I take a fine
woman as some animals do their prey ; stand
still, and swoop, they fall into my mouth.' "
'• Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow,"
cried my companion, with looks of infinite
pity; "I hope your fortune is as much im-
proved as your understanding in such com-
pany? " — " Improved ! " replied the other ;
" you shall know — but let it go no further —
a great secret — five hundred a year to begin
with. My lord's word of honor for it. His
lordship took me down in his own chariot yes-
terday, and we had a tete-a-tete dinner in the
country ; where we talked of nothing else."
— "I fancy j'ou forgot, Sir," cried I ; " you
told us but this moment of your dining yester-
day in town ! " — " Did I say so?" replied he,
coolly. "To be sure if I said so it was so.
206 BEAU TIBBS.
Dined in town : egad, now I do remember, I
did dine in town ; but I dined in the country
too ; for you must know, my boys, I eat two
dinners. By the by, I am grown as nice as
the devil in my eating. I '11 tell you a pleas-
ant affair about that : We were a select party
of us to dine at Lady Grogram's, an affected
piece, but let it go no further ; a secret.
' Well,' says I, ' I'll hold a thousand guineas,
and say done first, that — ' But, dear Charles,
you are an honest creature, lend me half a
crown for a minute or two, or so, just till —
But, harkee, ask me for it the next time we
meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget
to pay you."
When he left us, our conversation naturally
turned upon so extraordinary a character.
" His very dress," cries my friend, " is not
less extraordinary than his conduct. If you
meet him this day, you find him in rags ; if the
next, in embroidery. With those persons of
distinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, he
has scarce a coffee-house acquaiiitance. How-
ever, both for the interests of society, and
perhaps for his own, Heaven has made him
poor ; and while all the world perceives his
wants, he fancies them concealed from every
eye. An agreeable companion, because he
understands flattery ; and all must be pleased
with the first part of his conversation, though
all are sure of its ending with a demand on
their purse. While his youth countenances
the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a
precarious subsistence ; but when age comes
BEAU TIBBS. 207
on, the gravity of which is incompatible with
buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken
by all ; condemned, in the decline of life, to
hang upon some rich family whom he once
despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of
studied contempt, to be employed only as a
spy upon the servants, or a bugbear to fright
children into duty,"
i760.
Crr. World.] No. 3S. [Gou)Smith.
BEAU TIBBS AT HOME.
[. . . Hie vivimus ambitiosa
Panpertate omnea. . . . Juv.}
There are some acquaintances wliom it is
no easy matter to shake off. My little beau
yesterday overtook me again in one of the
public walks, and, slapping me on the shoul-
der, saluted me with an air of the most per-
fect familiarity. His dress was the same as
usual, except that he had more powder in
his hair ; wore a dirtier shirt, and had on a
pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under
his arm.
As I knew him to be an harmless amusing
little thing, I could not return his smiles with
any degree of severity ; so we walked forward
on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few
minutes discussed all the usual topics prelimi-
nary to particular conversation.
The oddities that marked his character, how-
ever, soon began to appear ; he bowed to sev-
eral well-dressed persons, who, by their manner
of returning the compliment, appeared perfect
strangers. At intervals he drew out a pocket-
book, seeming to take memorandums before
all the company, with much importance and
assiduity. In this manner he led me through
the length of the whole Mall, fretting at his
BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 209
absurdities, and fancying m3'self laughed at
as well as he by every spectator.
When we were got to the end of our proces-
sion — " Hang me ! " cries he, with an air of
vivacity, " I never saw the Park so thin in my
life before ; there 's no company at all to-day.
Not a single face to be seen." — " No com-
pany!" interrupted I, peevishly; "no com-
pany where there is such-a crowd? why, man,
there is too much. What are the thousands
that have been laughing at us but company?"
— "Lord, my dear," returned he, with the
utmost good-humor, " you seem immensely
chagrined ; but, hang me, when the world
laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and so
we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash, the
Creolian, and I, sometimes make a party at
being ridiculous ; and so we say and do a
thousand things for the joke sake. But I see
you are grave, and if you are for a fine grave
sentimental companion, you shall dine with
my wife to-day ; I must insist on 't ; I '11 in-
troduce 3'ou to Mrs. Tibbs, a lady of as elegant
qualifications as any in nature ; she was bred,
but that's between ourselves, under the in-
spection of the Countess of Shoreditch. A
charming body of voice ! But no more of
that, she shall give us a song. You shall see
my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelma Amelia
Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature ; I design her
for my Lord Drumstick's eldest son ; but
that's in friendship, let it go no further ; she's
but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet,
and plays on tlie guitar immensely already.
14
210 BEAU TIBBS AT HOME.
I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in
every accoraplisliment. In the first place I '11
make her a scholar ; I '11 teach her Greek my-
self, and I intend to learn that language
purposely to instruct her ; but let that be a
secret."
Thus saying, without waiting for a reply,
he took me by the arm and hauled me along.
We passed through many dark alleys and
winding ways ; for, from some motives to me
unknown, he seemed to have a particular aver-
sion to every frequented street ; at last, how-
ever, we got to the door of a dismal-looking
house in the outlets of the town, where he in-
formed me he chose to reside for the benefit
of the air.
"We entered the lower door, which seemed
ever to lie most hospitably open : and I began
to ascend an old and creaking staircase, when,
as he mounted to shew me the way, he de-
manded, whether I delighted in prospects ; to
which answering in the affirmative, — "Then,"
says he, "I shall show you one of the most
charming out of my windows ; we sliall see
the ships sailing, and the whole country for
twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My
Lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas
for such a one ; but, as I sometimes pleasantly
tell hira, I always love to keep my prospects
at home, that my friends may come to see me
the oftener."
By this time we were arrived as high as the
stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came
to what he was facetiously pleased to call the
BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 211
first floor down the chimney ; and knocking at
the door, a voice, with a Scotch accent, from
within, demanded, " "Wha 's there ? " M}' con-
ductor answered, that it was him. But this
not satisfying the querist, the voice again
repeated the demand : to which he answered
louder than before, and now the door was
opened by an old maid-servant with cautious
reluctance.
AVTien we were got in, he welcomed me to
his house with great ceremony, and turning to
the old woman, asked where her lady was.
" Good troth," replied she in the northern
dialect, " she 's washing your twa shirts at the
next door, because they have taken an oath
against lending out the tub any longer." —
"My two shirts!" cries he in a tone that
faltered with confusion, " what does the idiot
mean ! " — " I ken what I mean well enough,"
replied the other ; ' ' she 's washing your twa
shirts at the next door, because — " "Fire
and fury ! no more of thy stupid explanations,"
cried he. " Go and inform her we have got
company. "Were that Scotch hag," continued
he, turning to me, " to be. forever in the
famil}', she would never learn politeness, nor
forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers,
or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or
high life ; and yet it is very surprising too, as
I had her from a parliament man, a friend of
mine, from the Highlands, one of the politest
men in the world ; but that 's a secret."
We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs' ar-
rival, during which interval I had a full op-
212 BEAU TIBB8 AT HOME.
portiinity of surveying the chamber and all its
furniture ; which consisted of four chairs with
old wrought bottoms, that he assured me were
his wife's embroidery ; a square table that had
been once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a
lumbering cabinet in the other ; a broken
shepherdess, and a mandarin without a head,
were stuck over the chimney ; and round the
walls several paltry, unf ramed pictures, which,
he observed, were all of his own drawing —
" What do you think, Sir, of that head in
the corner, done in the manner of Grisoni?
There 's the true keeping in it ; it 's my own
face : and though there happens to be no like-
ness, a countess offered me an hundred for its
fellow : I refused her ; for, hang it, that would
be mechanical, you know."
The wife, at last, made her appearance, at
once a slattern and a coquette ; much ema-
ciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty.
She made twenty apologies for being seen in
such odious dishabille, but hoped to be ex-
cused, as she had stayed out all night at Vaux-
hall Gardens with the countess, who was
excessively fond of the horns. " And indeed,
my dear," added she, turning to her husband,
" his lordship drank your health in a bumper."
— "Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-
natured creature, I know he loves me ; but I
hope, my dear, you have given orders for
dinner? 3'ou need make no great preparations
neither, there are but three of us ; something
elegant, and little will do ; a turbot, an orto-
lan, or a — " "Or what do you think, my
BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. 213
dear," interrupts the wife, "of a nice, pretty
bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with
a little of my own sauce ? " — " The very
thing," replies he ; "it will eat best with some
smart bottled beer ; but be sure to let 's have
the sauce his grace was so fond of. I hate
your immense loads of meat ; that is country
all over ; extreme disgusting to those who are
in the least acquainted with high life."
By this time my curiosity began to abate,
and my appetite to increase ; the company of
fools may at first make us smile, but at last
never fails of rendering us melancholy. I
therefore pretended to recollect a prior engage-
ment, and after having shewn my respect to
the house, by giving the old servant a piece of
money at the door, I took my leave : Mr.
Tibbs assuring me that dinner, if I stayed,
would be ready at least in less than two hours.
1760.
CiT. WOHU).] N"o. 33. [QOU)BMITH.
BEAU TIBBS AT YAUXHALL.
t. . Nunc et campus, et arese, ^
enesque sub noctem suBurri
Composita repetantur hora. Mor.}
The people of London are as fond of walk-
ing as our friends at Pekin of riding ; one of
the principal entertainments of the citizens
here in summer is to repair about nightfall to
a garden not far from town, where they walk
about, shew their best clothes and best faces,
and listen to a concert provided for the occa-
sion.
I accepted an invitation, a few evenings
ago, from my old friend, the Man in Black, to
be one of a party that was to sup there ; and
at the appointed hour waited upon him at his
lodgings. There I found the company assem-
bled, and expecting my arrival. Our party
consisted of my friend in superlative finery, his
•stockings rolled, a black velvet waistcoat which
was formerly new, and his gray wig combed
down in imitation of hair ; a pawn-broker's
widow, of whom, by the by, my fripnd was
a professed admirer, dressed out in green
damask, with three gold rings on every finger ;
Mr. Tibbs, the second-rate beau I have for-
merly described, together with his lady, in
BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 215
flimsy silk, dirty gauze instead of linen, and
a hat as big as an umbrella.
Our first difficulty was in settling how we
should set out. Mrs. Tibbs had a natural
aversion to the water ; and the widow, being
a little in flesh, as warmly protested against
walking ; a coach was therefore agreed upon ;
which being too small to carry five, Mr. Tibbs
consented to sit in his wife's lap.
In this manner, therefore, we set forward,
being entertained by the way with the bodings
of Mr. Tibbs, who assured us he did not ex-
pect to see a single creature for the evening
above the degree of a cheesemonger ; that
this was the last night of the gardens, and
that, consequently, we should be pestered
with the nobility and gentry from Thames
Street and Crooked Lane ; with several other
prophetic ejaculations, probably inspired by
the uneasiness of his situation.
The illuminations began before we arrived ;
"and I must confess, that, upon entering the
gardens, I found every sense overpaid with
more than expected pleasure : the lights every-
where glimmering through the scarcely moving
trees ; the full-bodied concert bursting on the
stillness of the night, the natural concert of
the birds, in the more retired part of the grove,
vying with that which was formed by art ; the
company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction,
and the tables spread with various delicacies ;
all conspired to fill my imagination with the
visionary happiness of the Arabian law-giver,
and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration.
216 BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL.
" Head of Confucius," cried I to my friend,
*' this is fine ! this unites rural beauty with
courtly magnificence ; if we except the virgins
of immortality that hang on every tree, and
may be plucked at every desire, I do not sec
how this falls short of Mahomet's Paradise ! "
— "As for virgins," cries my friend, "it is
true, they are a fruit that don't much abound
in our gardens here ; but if ladies, as plenty
as apples in autumn, and as complying as any
houri of them all, can content 30U, I fancy
we have no need to go to heaven for para-
dise."
I was going to second his remarks, when we
were called to a consultation by Mr. Tibbs and
the rest of the company, to know in what
manner we were to lay out the evening to
the greatest advantage. Mrs. Tibbs was for
keeping the genteel walk of the garden, where,
she observed, there was always the very best
company ; the widow, on the contrary, who
came but once a season, was for securing a
good standing-place to see the water-works,
which, she assured us, would begin in less
than an hour at farthest : a dispute therefore
began ; and, as it was managed between two
of very opposite characters, it threatened to
grow more bitter at every reply. Mrs. Tibbs
wondeied how people could pretend to know
the polite world, who had received all tlieir
rudiments of breeding behind a counter ; to
which the other replied, that, though some
people sat behind counters, yet they could sit
at the head of their own tables too, and carve
BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 217
three good dishes of hot meat whenever they
thought proper, which was more than some
people could say for themselves, that hardly
knew a rabbit and onions from a green goose
and gooseberries.
It is hard to say where this might have
ended, had not the husband, who probably
knew the impetuosity of his wife's disposition,
proposed to end the dispute by adjourning to
a box, and try if there was anything to be
had for supper that was supportable. To this
we all consented ; but here a new distress
arose, Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs would sit in none
but a genteel box, a box where they might see
and be seen ; one, as they expressed it, in the
very focus of public view : but such a box
was not easy to be obtained, for though we
were perfectly convinced of our own gentility,
and the gentility of our appearance, yet we
found it a difficult matter to persuade the
keepers of the boxes to be of our opinion ;
they chose to reserve genteel boxes for what
they judged more genteel company.
At last, however, we were fixed, though
somewhat obscurely, and supplied with the
usual entertainment of the place. The widow
found the supper excellent, but Mrs. Tibbs
thought everything detestable. " Come,
come, my dear," cries the husband, by way of
consolation, "to be sure we can't find such
dressing here as we have at Lord Crump's, or
Lady Crimp's ; but for Vauxhall dressing, it
is pretty good ; it is not their victuals, indeed,
I find fault with, but their wine ; their wine,"
218 BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXEALL.
cries he, drinking off a glass, " indeed, is most
abominable."
By this last contradiction, the widow was
fairly conquered in point of politeness. She
perceived now that she had no pretensions in
the world to taste, her very senses were vul-
gar, since she had praised detestable custard,
and smacked at wretched wine ; she was there-
fore content to yield the victory, and for the
rest of the night to listen and improve. It is
true, she would now and then forget herself,
and confess she was pleased ; but they soon
brought her back again to miserable refine-
ment. She once praised the painting of the
box in which we were sitting ; but was soon
convinced that such paltry pieces ought rather
to excite horror than satisfaction ; she ven-
tured again to commend one of the singers ;
but Mrs. Tibbs soon let her know, in the style
of a connoisseur, that the singer in question
had neither ear, voice, nor judgment.
Mr. Tibbs, now willing to prove that his
wife's pretensions to music were just, entreated
her to favor the company with a song ; but to
this she gave a positive denial — "For you
know very well, my dear," says she, " that I
am not in voice to-day ; and when one's voice
is not equal to one's judgment, what signifies
singing ? Besides, as there is no accompani-
ment, it would be but spoiling music." All
these excuses, however, were over-ruled by
the rest of the company ; who, though one
would think they already had music enough,
joined in the entreaty ; but particularly the
BEAU TIBBS AT VAUXHALL. 219
widow, now willing to convince the company
of her breeding, pressed so warmly, that she
seemed determined to take no refusal. At
last, then, the lady complied ; and, after hum-
ming for some minutes, began with such a
voice, and such affectation, as I could perceive
gave but little satisfaction to any except her
husband. He sat with rapture in his eye, and
beat time with his hand on the table.
You must observe, my friend, that it is the
custom of this country, when a lady or gentle-
man happens to sing, for the company to sit
as mute and motionless as statues. Every
feature, every limb, must seem to correspond
in fixed attention ; and while the song con-
tinues, the}' are to remain in a state of univer-
sal petrifaction. In this mortifying situation,
we had continued for some time, listening to
the song, and looking with tranquillity, when
the master of the box came to inform us, that
the water-works were going to begin. At this
information, I could instantly perceive the
widow bounce from her seat ; but correcting
herself, she sat down again, repressed by
motives of good-breeding. Mrs. Tibbs, who
had seen the water-works a hundred times,
resolving not to be interrupted, continued her
song without any share of mercy, nor had the
smallest pity upon our impatience. The wid-
ow's face, I own, gave me high entertainment ;
in it I could plainly read the struggle she felt
between good-breeding and curiosity ; she
talked of the water-works the whole evening
before, and seemed to have come merely in
220 BEAU TIBB8 AT VAUXHALL.
order to see them ; but then she could not
bounce out in the very middle of a song, for
that would be forfeiting all pretensions to
high life, or high-lived company, ever after :
Mrs. Tibbs therefore kept on singing, and we
continued to listen, till at last, when the song
was just concluded, the waiter came to in-
fonn us that the water-works were over !
" The water- works over ! " cried the widow ;
"the water- works over already ! that's im-
possible ; they can't be over so soon ! " — "It
is not my business," replied the fellow, " to
contradict 3'our ladyship ; I '11 run again and
see." He went, and soon returned with a
confirmation of the dismal tidings. No cere-
mony could now bind my friend's disappointed
mistress, she testified her displeasure in the
openest manner ; in short, she now began to
find fault in turn, and at last insisted upon
going home, just at the time that IMi*. and Mrs.
Tibbs assured the company that the polite
hours were going to begin, and that the ladies
would instantaneously be entertained with the
horns.
1760.
LOUSGEB.] N"o. 34. [SfACKENZIE.
A COUNTRY DOWAGER.
. . . Seil Jn longum tamen sevum
Manserunt bodieque maneut vestigia ruris. Ilor.
That there is Nobody in town, is the ob-
servation of every person one has met for
several weeks past ; and though the word
Nobody^ like its fellow-vocable Everybody, has
a great latitude of signification, »nd in this
instance means upwards of threescore thou-
sand people, yet undoubtedly, in a certain
rank of life, one finds, at this season, a very
great blank in one's accustomed society. He
whom circumstances oblige to remain in town,
feels a sort of imprisonment from which his
move fortunate acquaintance have escaped to
purer air, to fresher breezes, and a clearer
sky. He sees, with a very melancholy aspect,
the close window-shutters of deserted houses,
the rusted knockers, and mossy pavement of
unfrequented squares, and the few distant
scattered figures of empty walks ; while he
fancies, in the country, the joyousness of
the reapers, and the shout of the sportsman
enlivening the fields ; and within doors, the
hours made jocund by the festivity of assem-
bled friends, the frolic, the dance, and the
song. . . .
I am not sure if, in the regret which I feel
222 A COUNTBY DOWAGEB.
for my absence from the country, I do not
rate its enjoyments higher, and paint its land-
scapes in more glowing colors, than the reality
might afford. I have long cultivated a talent
very fortunate for a man of my disposition,
that of travelling in my easy-chair, of trans-
porting myself, without stirring from my par-
lor, to distant places and to absent friends, of
drawing scenes in my mind's eye, and of
peopling them with the groups of fancy, or
the society of remembrance. "When I have
sometimes lately felt the dreariness of the
town, deserted by my acquaintance ; when I
have returned from the coffee-house where
the boxes were unoccupied, and strolled out
for my accustomed walk, which even the lame
beggar had left ; I was fain to shut myself up
in my room-, order a dish of my best tea (for
there is a sort of melancholy which disposes
one to make much of one's self), and calling
up the powers of memory and imagination,
leave the solitary town for a solitude more
interesting, which my younger days enjoyed in
the country, which I think, and if I am wrong
I do not wish to be undeceived, was the most
Elysian spot in the w^orld.
'T was at an old lady's, a relation and god-
mother of mine, where a particular incident
occasioned my being left during the vacation
of two successive seasons. Her house was
formed out of the remains of an old Gothic
castle, of which one tower was still almost
entire ; it was tenanted by kindly daws and
swallows. Beneath, in a modernized part of
A COUNTRY DOWAGEB. 223
the building, resided the mistress of the man-
sion. The house was skirted with a few
majestic elms and beeches, and the stumps of
several others shewed that they had once been
more numerous. To the west, a clump of firs
covered a ragged rocky dell, where the rooks
claimed a prescriptive seignory. Through
this XI dashing rivulet forced its way, which
afterwards grew quiet in its progress ; and
gurgling gently through a piece of downy
meadow-ground, crossed the bottom of the
garden, where a little rustic paling enclosed a
washing-green, and a wicker seat, fronting the
south, was placed for the accommodation of
the old Lady, whose lesser tour, when her
fields did not require a visit, used to terminate
in this spot. Here, too, were ranged the
hives for her bees, whose hum, in a still,
warm sunshine, soothed the good old Lady's
indolence, while their proverbial industry was
sometimes quoted for the instruction of her
washers. The brook ran brawling through
some underwood on the outside of the garden,
and soon after formed a little cascade, which
fell into the river that winded through a valley
in front of the house. When haymaking or
harvest was going on, my godmother took her
long stick in her hand, and overlooked the
labors of the mowers or r.\ipevs ; though I
believe there was little thrift in the super-
intendency, as the visit generally cost her a
draught of beer or a dram, to encourage their
diligence.
Within doors she had so able an assistant.
224 A COUNTS Y DOWAGEB.
that her labor was little.. In that department
an old man-servant was her minister, the
father of my Peter, who serves me not the
less faithfully that we have gathered nuts
together in ray godmother's hazel-bank. This
old butler (1 call him by his title of honor,
though in truth he had many subordinate
offices) had originally enlisted with her hus-
band, who went into the army a youth, thougli
he afterwards married and became a country
gentleman, had been his servant abroad, and
attended him during his last illness at home.
His best hat, which he wore a-Sundays, with a
scarlet waistcoat of his master's, had still a
cockade ia it.
Her husband's books were in a room at the
top of a screw stau-case, which had scarce
been opened since his death ; but her own
library for Sabbath or rainy days was ranged
in a little book-press in the parlor. It con-
sisted, as far as I can remember, of several
volumes of sermons, a Concordance, Thomas
a'Kempis, Antoninus's Mediiiations, the "Works
of the Author of the Whole Duty of Man,
and a translation of Boethius ; the original
editions of the Spectator and Guardian, Cow-
ley's Poems, Dryden's "Works (of which I had
lost a volume soon after I first came about
her house). Baker's Chronicle, Burnet's His-
tory of his own Times, Lamb's Royal Cook-
ery, Abercromby's Scots "Warriors, and Nis-
bet's Heraldry.
The subject of the last-mentioned book was
my godmother's strong ground ; and she could
A COUNTIiY DOWAGER. 225
disentangle a point of genealogy bej^ond any-
body I ever knew. kShe had an excellent
memory for anecdote, and her stories, though
sometimes long, wore never tiresome ; lor she
had been a woman of great beauty and ac-
complishments in her youth, and had kept
such company as made the drama of her
stories respectable and interesting. She spoke
frequently of such of her own family as she
remembered when a child, but scarcely ever of
those she had lost, though one could see she
thought of them often. She had buried a
beloved husband and four children. Her
3'oungest, Edward, " her beautiful, her brave,"
fell in Flanders, and was not entombed with
his ancestors. His picture, done when a
child, an artless red and white portrait, smell-
ing at a nosegay, but very like withal, hung
at her bedside, and his sword and gorget
were crossed under it. When she spoke of a
soldier, it was in a style above her usual sim-
plicity ; there was a sort of swell in her lan-
guage, which sometimes a tear (for her age
had not lost the privilege of tears) made still
more eloquent. She kept her sorrows, like
the devotions that solaced them, sicred to
herself. They threw nothing of gloom over
her deportment ; a g ntle shade only, like the
flackered clouds of summer, that increase, not
diminish, tlie bonignity of the season.
She had few neighbors, and still fewer
visitors ; but her reception of such as did visit
her was cordial in the extreme. She pressed
a little too much, perhaps ; but there was so
15
226 A COUNTET DOWAGEB.
much heart and good-will in her importunity,
as made her good things seem better than
those of any other table. Nor was her atten-
tion confined only to the good fare of her
guests, though it might have flattered her
vanity more than that of most exhibitors of
good dinners, because the cookery was gen-
erally directed by herself. Their servants
lived as well in her hall, and their horses in
her stable. She looked after the airing of
their sheets, and saw their fires mended if the
night was cold. Her old butler, who rose be-
times, would never suffer anybody to mount
his horse fasting.
The parson of the parish was her guest
every Sunday, and said prayers in the evening.
To say truth, he was no great genius, nor
much a scholar. I believe my godmother
knew rather more of divinity than he did ; but
she received from him information of another
sort ; he told her who were the poor, the sick,
the dying of the parish, and she had some as-
sistance, some comfort for them all.
I could draw the old lady at this moment !
— dressed in gray, with a clean white hood
nicely plaited (f<>r she was somewhat finical
about the neatness of her person) , sitting in
her straight-backed elbow-chair, which stood
in a large window scooped out of the thickness
of the ancient wall. The middle panes of the
window were of painted glass, the story of
Joseph and his brethren. On the outside
waved a honeysuckle-tree, which often threw
ita shade across her book or her work ; but
A COUNTHY DO WAGES. 227
she would not allow it to be cnt down. " It
has stood tliere many a day," said she, " and
we old inhabitants should bear with one an-
other." Methinks I see her thus seated, her
spectacles on, but raised a little on her brow
for a pause of explanation, their shagreen-case
laid between the leaves of a silver-clasped
family Bible, On one side her bell and snuff-
box ; on the other her knitting apparatus in a
blue damask bag. Between her and the fire
an old Spanish pointer, that had formerly been
her son Edward's, teased but not teased out
of his gravity, by a little terrier of mine. All
this is before me, and I am a hundred miles
from town, its inhabitants, and its business.
In town I may have seen such a figure ; but
the country scenery around, like the tasteful
frame of an excellent picture, gives it a height-
ening, a relief, which it would lose in any other
situation.
Some of my readers, perhaps, will look with
little relish on the portrait. I know it is an
egotism in me to talk of its value ; but over
this dish of tea, and in such a temper of mind,
one is given to egotism. It will be only add-
ing another to say, that when I recall tlie rural
scene of the good old lady's abode, her sim-
ple, her innocent, her useful employments, the
afflictions she sustained in this world, the com-
forts she drew from another, I feel a serenity
of soul, a benignity of affections, which I am
sure confer happiness, and I think must pro-
mote virtue.
Sept. 30, 178G.
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
No. I, page 19. — Mr. Bickerstaff visits a Friend.
— For those to whom the touching domestic picture
contained in this and the following paper is unfa-
miliar, it may be well to recall a passage from Mr.
Forster's Steele {Historical and Biographical Essays,
1858, ii., 138) : "In connection with it, too, it is
to be remembered that at this time [17o9], as Mr.
Macaulay observes in his Essay, no such thing as
the English novel existed. De Foe as yet was
only an eager politician, Richardson an industrious
compositor, Fielding a mischievous school-boy, and
Smollett and Goldsmith were not born. For 5our
circulating libraries (the first of which had been
established some six years before, to the horror of
sellers of books, and the ruin of its ingenious in-
ventor), there was as yet nothing livelier, in that
direction, than the interminable Grand Cyrus of
Madame de ScudSri, or the long-winded Cassandra
and Pharamond of the lord of La Calprenede, which.
Steele so heartily laughed at in his Tender Husband."
A ♦• point of war " (p. 24) is used l»y Shakespeare
and the Elizabethans for a strain of military music.
(See Henry IV., Act iv., Sc. 1.) "John Hicka-
thrift" (p. 25) is generally styled "Thomas" in the
" Pleasant and Delightful Histories," which record
his adventures. But Sterne also calls him " Jack"
in vol. i., ch. xiv. of Tristram Shandy.
No. 2, page 26. — Mr. Bickerstaff visits a Friend
(continued). — The latter part of this paper was
written by Addison. " It would seem [to quote
Mr. Forster once more] as though Steele felt him-
self unable to proceed, and his friend had taken the
pen from his trembling hand." — (/&., p. 141.)
ILLU8TBATIVE NOTES. 229
" Favonius "(p. 27), as Steele acknowledges in the
" Preface" to the Tatter of 1710 (vol. iv.), was Dr.
George Smah'idge, at that time Lecturer of St. Dun-
stau's. Fleet Street, and ultimately Bishop of Bris-
tol, lie took part, on the siile of the a .cients, in
the Boyle and Bentley controversy. M icaulay, in
the life of Atterbury which he wrote in 1853 for the
Encyclopcedia Britannica, calls him " the humane and
accomplished Smalridge." There is an excellent
priut of him by Vertue after Kneller (1724).
No. 3, page 32. — The Trumpet Club. — " Jack
Ogle " (p. 34) was a noted gambler and duellist.
On one occasicm, having lost his "martial cloak"
at play, he came to muster in his landlady's red
petticoat. The Duke of Monmouth, who was in the
secret, ordered the troop to cloak. " Gentlemen,"
biwled the unibashed Ogle, "if I can't cloak, I
can petticoat with the best of you ! " This is the
Bencher's story.
Mr. BickerstaflTs " maid with a lanthorn " (p. 36)
throws a curious light upon the dim nocturnal Lon-
don of 1710, where only in the more frequented
thoroughfares,
"... oily rays,
Shot from the crystal lamp o'erspread the ways."
For some of its many perils to belated pedestrians,
consult Gay's Trivia, Bk. iii., 1. 335 et seq.
The Trumpet -vyas a public-house, in Sheer- or
Shire-lane, by Temple Bar, where the New Law
Courts now stand. It still existed as the Duke of
York in Leigh Hunt's time. — (Z%e Town, 1848,
i., 148.)
No. 4, page 38. — The Political Upholsterer. —
King Augustus of Poland (p. 38) was deposed in
1704; Charles XII. of Sweden (p 39) was wounded
in a skirmish on the banks of the Vorskla before
Poltava, June 28th, 1709. The winter muft'for men
(p. 39) which figures among the "shabby super-
fluities" of the Upholsterer's costume, although of
L30 ILLU8TBATIVE NOTES.
anterior date, is not of ten referred to so early. Ex-
amples of it are to be seen in Hogarth's Sweanng a
Child (1735), Bakes Progress (1735), PI. iv., and
Taste in High Life (1742). But it was most in
fashion twenty or thirty years later. In November,
1766, my Lord of March and Euglcn (the March of
the Virginians) writes thus to George Selwyn at
Paris: "The muff you sent me by the Duke of
Richmond I like prodigiously : vastly better than
if it had been tigre, or of any glaring color : several
are now making after it." — (Jesse's Selwyn, 1843,
ii., 71 ; see also Goldsmith's Bee, 1759, No. ii., " On
Dress.")
Fielding's comedy of the Coffee-House Folitician,
1730, has certain afflnites with this paper; and
Arthur Murphy's farce of The Upholsterer ; or, What
News? 1758, is said to have been based upon it. It
has also been alleged that Mr. Thomas Arne, an
upholsterer at the sign of the " Two Crowns and
Cushions," in King Street, Covent Garden, father
of Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber the tragic
actress, was the person here satirized by Addison.
In Identifications of this sort, however, the fol-
lowing passage may well be borne in mind: "To
prevent, therefore, any such malicious applications,
I declare here, once for all, I describe not men, but
manners ; not an individual but a species. Perhaps
it will be answered, Are not the characters then
taken from life? To which I answer in the affirm-
ative; nay, I believe I might aver that I have writ
little more than I have seen." — (Joseph Andrews,
Bk. iii., ch. i.)
No. 5, page 44. — Tor)i Folio. — Rightly or
wrongly (see previous note), "Tom Folio" has
been said to be intended for Thomas Kawlinson,
a famous book-lover of the eighteenth century.
According to Dibdin. he was " a very extraor-
dinarj' character, and most desperately addicted
to book-hunting. Because his own house was not
large enough, he hired London House, in Aldersgate
Street, for the reception of his library, and here he
ILLU8TBATIVE NOTES. 231
used to regale himself with the sight and the scent
of innumerabe black-letter volumes, arranged in
' sable garb,' and stowed perhaps ' three-deep,' from
the bottom to the top of his house. He died in
1725 ; and catalogues of his boolis for sale con-
tinued, for nine successive years, to meet the pub-
lic eye." — {The Bibliomania; or, Book-Madness,
1809, p. 33.)
The quotation (p. 48) is from Boileau's fourth
satire, addressed in 1G64 to Monsieur I'Abbfi le
Vayer.
No. 6, page 49. — Xed Softly the Poet. — Although
the fact seems to have escaped Chalmers and the
earlier annotators, Addison must plainly have been
thinking of Scene IX. of Les Precieuses Bidicules
when he penned this pleasant piece of raillery : —
" Masctirille. Avee-vous remarqui ce commencement: Oh!
oh? Voila qui est extraordinaire: oh, ohl Commevn kommo
qui s'avise tout d'un coup: oh, oh! La surprise: oh, oh I
" Madelon. Oui,je trouve ce oh, oh! admirable.
" Mascarille. // semble que cela ne soit rien.
" Ciithoa. Ah! mon Dieu, que dites-coua t Ce sont Id de cet
gorti't de chases qtti ne se peuvent payer.
" Afadelon. SSans doute; et j'aimerois mietix avoir fait ce
oh, oh! qu'nn poeme epique." — (Les Grands Ecrivains de la
France: Moliere, 1875, ii., 86.)
No. 7, page 55. — Becollections of Childhood. —
There is a stanza in Prior's poem of The Garland,
which has a superficial resemblance to Steele's words
at p. 59 respecting his first love : —
" At Dawn poor Stella danc'd and snog;
The am'rous Youth around Her bow'd:
At Night ber fatal Knell waa rung;
I eaw, and kiss'd Her in her Shioad."
The Garland is not included in Prior's Poems on
Several Occasions, 1709; but it appears at p. 91 of
the folio of 1718. It is therefore just possible that
the lines may have been suggested by Steele's
paper.
Gairaway's Coflfee-House (p. 59), where "mer-
chants most did congregate," was in Exchange
2S3 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
Alley, Comhill ; and, in the original folio issue of
this Tatter, there is a long advertisement of the
coming sale of "46 Hogsheads and One half of ex-
traordinary French Claret," for which Steele's con-
cluding paragraph is no doubt a " puft" collateral."
Comparing the treatment of Death by Swift, Ad-
dison, and Steele, ilr. Thackeray selected the second
paragraph of this essay for its characteristic con-
trast to Addison's "lonely serenity" and Swift's
"savage indignation": "The third, whose theme
is Death, too, and who will speak his word of moral
as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's
cofBn, and shews you his beautiful mother weeping,
and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at
her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes
your hand, and confidingly asks for 3our sympathy.
' See how good and innocent and beautiful women
are,' he says, ' how tender little children ! Let us
love these and one another, brother — God knows
we have need of love and pardon.'" — {The Eng-
lish Humorists of the Eighteenth Century: Steele,
1853, p. 149.)
No. 8, page 6i. — Adventures of a Shilling. —
Hawkesworth copied this idea in the Adventurer,
No. 43, substituting a halfpeimy for a shilling, and
later Charles Johnstone amplified it into Chrysal ;
or, The Adventures of a Guinea, 17GO-5. The inven-
tive "friend" of the first lines was Swift. In the
Journal to Stella, Dec. 14, 1710, he refers to the
paper, saying that he did not do more than give the
" hint and two or three general heads for it "
The allusion to " Westminster Hall" (p. 63) sug-
gests Lloyd's lines in the Laio Student, —
" 'T is not enough each mom, on Term's approach,
To club your legal threepence for a coach,"
but they belong to a later date. " A monstrous pair
of breeches " (p. 65) is said to refer to the hose-
like shields on the Commonwealth coinage. John
Phillips, author of The Splendid Shilling (p. 66),
died in 1708.
ILLU8TBATIVE NOTES. 233
No. 9, page 67. — Frozen Voices. — According to
Tickell, Steele assisted in tliis paper. Its germ may
perhaps be traced to llabelais, Boole iv., Cliaps. 55,
5G (i. e., " Comment en hauUe mer Fantayruel ouyt
diuerscs paroUes desgelees," and " Comment, entre
Its parolles gelees, Pantagrvel treuua des viotz de
gueulle)"; or to the following passage from Hey-
lyn's description of Muscovie : " This excesse of
cold in the aj're, gaue occasion to Castilian in his
Aitlicus, wittily & not Incongruously to f aiue ; that
if two men being somewhat distant, talke together
in the winter, their words will be so frozen, that
they cannot bee heard : but if the parties in the
spring retume to the same place, their words wil
melt in the same order that they were frozen and
spoken, & be plainely vnderstood." — (Miicpo<co<7fios, a
little Description of the great World, 4th edn., 1629,
p. 345.)*
The episode of the Frenchmen's kit (p. 72) may
be compared with the later account in Munchhausen
of the postilion's horn that began to play of its
own accord when hung in the chimney comer:
" Suddenly we heard a Tcreng ! tereng ! teng ! tetig !
"We looked round, and now found the reason why
the postilion had not been able to sound his horn ;
his tunes were frozen up in the horn, and came out
now by thawing, plain enough, and much to the
credit of the driver : so that the honest fellow en-
tertained us for some time with a variety of tunes,
without putting his mouth to the horn — The King
of Prussia's march — Over the hill and over the
dale — with many other favorite tunes : at length
* Ileylyn must have quoted from memory, for CaMlian's
(Castiglione's) Btc)ry, which is too long for reproduction, differs
in some respects from the above. — (See /f Corteffiano, or the
Courtier-, Italian and English, London, 1727, Bk. ii., p. 189.)
But the idya is probably much earlier than any of the writers
named. In SuUh I'lid (^/rien for 1850 will be found a full dia-
cuesion of this question, for reference to which, as well as for
many other friendly services that deserve more prominent rec-
ognition tlian a foot-note, we are indebted to the kindness of
Mr. It. F. Bketchley, Keeper of the Dyce and Forster Library
at South Ktiusingtou.
234 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
the thawing entertainment concluded, as I shall this
short account of my Russian travels." — (The Sur-
prising Travels and Adventures of Baron Munch-
hausen, Hughes's edn., no date, p. 19. The book
was first pubnshed by Kearsley in 1786.)
No. 10, page 74. — Stage Lions. — Nicolino Gri-
maldi, or " Nicolini," came to London in 1708, and in
the Tatler of Januarys, 1710 (No. 115), Steele, gives
a highly favorable account of his powers. He had
not only a good voice, but, as Addison also admits
(p. 78), he was a good actor as well; and Gibber
thought "that no Singer, since his Time, had so
justly and gracefully acquitted liimself , in whatever
Character he appear'd, as Nicolini." — {An Apology
for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, 1740,
p. 225. ) There is a further reference to him in No.
405 of the Spectator.
Ilydaspes (p. 75) was first pioduced on May 23,
1710. Being thrown naked to a lion, the hero,
after an operatic combat selon les regies, strangles his
opponent.
,No. II, page 79. — Meditations in Westminster
Abbey. — Bird's Monument to Sir Cloudesly Shovel
(p. 81) is in the south aisle of the Choir. The con-
cluding paragraph of this paper may be contrasted
with another classic passage: "O Eloquent, Just
and Mighty Death ! whom none could advise, thou
hast pers waded; what none hath dared, thou hast
done ; antl whom all the AVorld hath flattered, thou
only hast cast out of the World and despised : thou
has drawn together aU the far stretched Greatness,
all the Pride, Cruelty and Ambition of Man, and
covered it all over with these two narrow words.
Hie jacet." The grave words of Addison pale beside
the grave words of Raleigh, and the difference in
style is the difference between the Eighteenth Cen-
tury and the Seventeenth. Unfortunately, the His-
tory of the World is not entirely of a piece with the
above quotation.
ILLU8TBATIVE NOTES. 235
No. 12, page 84. — The Exercise of the Fan. —
The first suggestion of this essay, like some others
by Addison, is due to Steele (see the account of tlie
Fan which the " beauteous Delamira" resigns to the
' ' matchless Virgulta " in the Tatter for August 9,
1709, No. 52). The following verses by Atterbury,
which Steele quotes in Tatter No. 238, may also have
been in Addison's mind : —
"Flavin the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art erniiloy.
This fan in meaner bands would prove
An engine of small force in love ;
But she with such an air and mien,
Not to be told, or safely seen,
Directs its wanton motions so,
That it wounds more than Cupid's Low;
Gives coolness to the matchlees dame,
To ev'ry other breast a flame."
A more modem illustration of the use of this
dangerous weapon is to be found in the Spanish
experiences of Contarini Fleming (Part v., ch. 6) :
" But the fan is the most wonderful part of the
whole scene. A Spanish lady, with her fan, might
shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now she
unfurls it with tlie slow pomp and conscious ele-
gance of the bird of Juno ; now she flutters it with
all tlie languor of a listless beauty, now with all the
liveliness of a vivacious one. Now, in the midst of
a very tornado, she closes it witli a whir, which
makes you start. . . . Magical instrument ! In this
land it speaks a particular language, and gallantry
I'equirts no other mode to express its most subtle
conceits or its most unreasonable demands than this
delicate machine." " Machine " and " tactics " read
a little suspiciously ; and it may be that Lord Bea-
cousfleld in turn remembered his Spectator.
No. 13, page 89. — Will Wimble. — Steele's first
outline of Sir Iloger is here printed as it appears in
the folio issue of the Spectator (No. 2, March 2,
1711'): —
" The first of our Society is a Gentleman of Wor-
236 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
cestershire, of ancient Descent, a Baronet, his Name
Sir RoGKR DE CovERLY. His great Grandfatiier
was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is
call'd after him. All who know that Shiro, are very
well acquainted with the Parts and Merits of Sir
Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singular in
his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his
good Sense, and are Contradictions to the Manners
of the World, only as he thinks the World is in
the wrong. However, this Humour creates him no
Enemies, for he does nothing with Sowemess or
Obstinacy ; and his being unconfiued to Jlodes and
Forms, makes hira but the readier and more capable
to please and oblige all who know him. When he
is in Town he lives in Suho-Square : It is said, he
keeps himself a Batchelor by reason he was crossed
in Love, by a perverse beautiful Widow of the next
County to him. Before this Disappointment, Sir
Roger was what you call a fine Gentleman, had
often supped with my Lord liochester and Sir George
Etherege, fought a Duel upon his first coming to
Town, and kick'd Bully Daicson in a publick Coffee-
house for calling him Youngster. But being ill-
used by the above-mentioned Widow, he was very
serious for a Year and a half ; and tho* his Temper
being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew
careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards ;
he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet of the
same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his
Repulse, which, in his merry Humours, lie tells us,
has been in and out twelve Times since he first wore
it. . . . He is now in his Fiftysixth Year, cheerful,
gay, and hearty ; keeps a good House both in Town
and Country ; a great Lover of Mankind ; but there
is such a mirthful Cast in his Behaviour, that he is
rather beloved than esteemed : His Tenants grow
rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young
Women profess Love to him, and the young Men
are glad of his Company : When he comes into a
House he calls the Servants by their Names, and
talks all the Way up Stairs to a Visit. I must not
omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the Quorum;
ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES. 237
that he flll9 the Chair at a Quarter-Session with
great Abilities, and three Montiis ago, gain'd uni-
versal Applause by explaining a Passage in the
Game-Act." The character thus generally sketched,
was subsequently elaborated, though not without
certain discrepancies, into one of the most popular
personages of fiction. The lion's share of the
work was Addison's, Steele's contributions being
only seven in number. Budgell and Tickell also
assisted. (See No. 15, Sir Boger de Goverley Hare'
Hunting, and note to No. 21, Death of Sir Boger de
Coverley. )
Sir John Pakington, a Tory Knight of "Worcester-
shire, has been named as the original of Sir Roger ;
while the death of the reputed prototype of Will
Wimble is thus recorded in the Crentleman's Maga-
zine for 1741, p. 387: ''July 2. At Dublin, Mr.
Tho. Morecrnft, a Baronet's younger Son, the Per-
son mentioned by the Spectator in the Character of
Will Wimble." But, for the reasons given in a
previous note, no real importance can be attached
to either of these indications. It is much more
likely, as suggested by Mr. W. Henry Wills {Sir
Boger de Coverley, 1850, p. 193), that the character
account of "Mr. Thomas Gules of Gule Hall,"
of Wiinble grew out of a hint of Steele's. (See
Tatler, No. 256.)
No. 14, page 94. — Sir Boger de Coverley's Ances-
tors. — In Fisher's Ground Plan of Whitehall, 16»0,
the Tilt-Yard (p. 95) is shewn facing the Banquet-
ing House, and extending to the right. Jenny
Man's " Tilt-Yard Coffee House," to which Sir
Roger refers, is said to have stood on the site at
present occupied by the Paymaster General's Office,
and still existed in 1819. Now (1882), the Pay-
master General's itself is to be pulled down, and in
a brief space of time fresh structures will again
arise upon the spot where the Knight's ancestor
manipulated his adversary with such " laudable
Courtesy and pardonable Insolence." As Bram-
ston sings : —
238 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
" What's not destroy'd by Time's devouring hand?
Where 'a Troy, and where 'b the may-pole in the Strand P "
A "white-pot" (p. 96), according to Halliwell, is
a dish made of cream, sugar, rice, cimiamon, etc.,
formerly much eaten in Devonshire. Gay, who
came from that county, thus refers to it in the
Shepherd's Week, IZll : —
"Pudding our Parson eats, the Squire loves Hare,
But White-pot thick is my Jiuxoma's Fare."
Monday; or. The Squabble.
No. 15, page 100. — Sir Boger de Coverley Hare-
Hunting. — As to Sir Roger's solicitude with re-
spect to the voices of his dogs, compare Somer-
vile's Chace, 1735, Bk. i. p. 18 : —
" But above all take heed, nor mix thy Honnds
Of difC'rent Kinds; discordaut sounds shall grate
Thy Ears offended, and a lagging Line
Of babbling Curs disgrace thy broken Pack."
The concluding portion of this paper, on the advan-
tages of hunting, has been omitted.
No. 16, page 106. — The Citizen's Journal. —
The " falling of a pewter dish" (p. 109) suggests
an eighteenth-century detail hardly realizable in
these days, namely, the scarcity of common earthen-
ware. Plates, b.xsins, spoons, flagons, — every-
thing was pewter. Some quaint illustrations of
tills are to be found in a very interesting article on
" Mrs. Harris's Household Book" which appeared
in the Saturday Bemew for January 21st, 1882.
"Brooke [not 'Brook's'] and Hellier" (p. Ill)
were wine-merchants in " Basing Lane near Bread
Street," who frequently advertised in the Spectator
(see Nos. 150 etseq., original issue), a fact which
probably accounts for their presence in the text,
here and elsewhere, as neither Steele nor Addison
seem to have been averse to " backing of their
friends."
Every club or coffee-house (we must assume)
had its private oracle, who, at Will's or the Grecian,
ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES. 239
" Like Cato, gave his little Senate laws,
And Bat atteutive to his own applause ";
or like Mr. Nisby, in tlie liumbler houses of call,
" Emptied his pint, and sputter'd his decrees,"
through a cloud of "Virginia.
" Laced Coffee " — it is perhaps needless to add
— is coffee dashed with spirits.
No. 17, page 1x3. — The Fine Lady's Journal.
— "Bohea" (p. 115), in Clarinda's time, was 20s.
alb. (see the "Private Account Book of Isabella,
Duchess of Grafton," in the Ilanmer Correspond-
ence, 1838, p. 239). "Aurengzebe" (p. 116) was
an heroic play produced by Di-yden in ltj75 ; " Inda-
mora" (p. 117) was the name of the heroine.
For Nicolini, see Note to No. 10, Stage Lions.
The " dumb man" (p. 118) was Duncan Campbell,
a fashionable fortune-teller, whose headquarters
in 1712 (see Spectator, No. 474) were at the
" Golden Lion " in Drury Lane. De Foe compiled a
popular life of hira, which Curll published in 1720.
He was then " living in Exeter Court, over against
the Savoy, in the Strand," and still prospering
with the credulous. As to "Lady Betty Modely's
skuttle" (p. 116), and "mobs" (p. 118), Chalmers
has two highly edifying notes. He explains the
former to be "a pace of affected piecipitation,"
and the latter ' ' a huddled oeconomy of dress so
called." "Mobs" were in vogue long after the
date of this paper. They are referred to as late as
1773 or 1774 in those dancing couplets which Gold-
smith wrote to pretty Mrs. Bunbury at Barton, and
which were first given to the world in the Hanmer
Correspondence, p. 382 : —
"Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum,
With bunches of fennell, and nosegays before 'em;
Both cover their faces with mobs, and all that,
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat."
The authorship of the celebrated epitaph " On
the Countess Dowager of Pembroke" (p. 119) still
240 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
remains ** uncertain." In the original issue of this
essay Addison assigned it to Ben Jonson, in whose
works it was included by his first editor Whalley,
whom Gilford follows (Jonson's Works, 1816, viii.,
p. 337). In the previous year (1815) Sir Egerton
Brydges, when editing his Original Poems, never
published, by William Broione (the author of Britan-
nia's Pastorals), had thought himself justified in
claiming it for that author, because he had found
it, with a second stanza, in a collection of poems
purporting to be by Browne, which forms part of
the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 777, Art. i.) Of this
version the following is a textual copy from the
MS. (fol. 43) : —
" Vnderneath thU sable Herse
Lyes the subiect of all verse
Sydneyes sister Pembrokes mother
Death ere thou hast slaine another
ffaire & Learn'd &; good as she
Tyme shall throw a dart at thee.
" Marble pyles let no man raise
To her name for after dayes
Some kind ■woman borne as she
Heading this like Xiobe
Shall tnrne Marble & become
Both her Mourner & her Tombe.'*
Browne was on intimate terms with WiUiam, Earl
of Pembroke, here referred to. But, oddly enough,
the foregoing verses (and this assumes the existence
of another MS. copy) are to be found among what
are described as Pembroke's own poems, printed
with Rudyard's in 1660 by the younger Donne, and
reprinted by Brydges in 1817. In this collection,
however, they do not, according to Brydges, bear
Pembroke's initial ; and as the volume also contains
several pieces which have been traced to well-known
writers (see Hannah's Poems by Sir Henry Wotton,
Sir Walter Raleigh, and others, 1845, p. Ixi), Pem-
broke's claim to any hand in them, improbable on
other grounds, may fairly be dismissed. The
choice therefore lies between Jonson, to whom tra-
dition assigns them, and Browne, in whose MS.
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 241
poems they appear. From the inferior and even
contradictory character of tlie second stanza, edit-
ors have naturally hesitated to give Jonson the
credit of it. But this is to insist a little too much
upon great authors being always equal to themselves.
If, as we cannot but believe, he wrote the first verse,
it is not impossible that he also wrote the second,
only discarding it perhaps when it vpas too late to
suppress it entirely. At all events, the " sable
Herse" of line i. seems to anticipate the " Marble
pyles " of liue vii. ; and the fact that, in addition to
the two cases mentioned above, " both parts are
found in many ancient copies, e. g., in Bancroft's
Collection, MS. Tann. 465, fol. G2; and in MS,
Ashm. 781, p. 152" (Hannah, ut supra, p. Ixii;, is
in favor of their being the work of one and the
same writer, whether it be Browne or Jonson.
No. i8, page 120. — Sir Roger de Coverley at the
Play. — The Distrest Mother (p. 120), the new play
referred to, was a dull and decorous version by
Ambrose Philips of Racine's Andromaque. Field-
ing burlesqued it in the Covent Garden Tragedy, 1732.
The part of Andromache was taken by Pope's " Nar-
cissa," Mrs. Oldfleld; and Addison and Budgell fur-
nished a liighly popular Epilogue. Steele, who
wrote the Prologue, had already praised the piece
in an earlier ;^ec^ator (No. 200). The Committee;
or, The Faithful Irishman, 1665 (p. 120) was a play
by Sir Robert Howard, Dryden's brother-in-law.
Captain Sentry (p. 121) was Sir Roger's nephew
and heir. (See No. 21, Death of Sir Roger de Cov-
erley.)
The "Mohocks" or Mohawks (p. 120), of whom
mention was made in the Fine Lady's Journal, were
a club or " nocturnal fraternity," who perpetrated
all kinds of brutal excesses. There is a letter giv-
ing a particular account of them in No. 324 of the
Spectator. Swift also writes: "Did I tell you of
a race of rakes, called the Mohocks, that play the
devil about this town every night, slit people's
noses and beat them, etc. ? " Again, " Our Mohocks
16
242 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
go on still, and cut people's faces every night.
'Faith, they sha'n't cut mine : I like it better sis it
is. The dogs will cost me at least a crown a week
in chairs. I believe the souls of your houghers of
cattle have got into them, and now they don't dis-
tinguish between a cow and a Christian." (Journal
to Stella, Forster's corrected text, March 8 and 26,
1712.) "What would Swift have said to the ' ' hough-
ers of cattle" to-day?
No. ig, page 126. — A Day's Bamble in London.
— The old "Stocks Market" (p. 127), a view of
which by Joseph Nichols, shewing the statue of
Charles II. trampling upon Oliver Cromwell, was
engraved in 1738, stood on the site of the present
Mansion House; and " Strand Bridge " (p. 128) was
at the foot of Strand Lane, between King's College
and Surrey Street. There was a "Dark-house"
(p. 128) in Billmgsgate; but it can scarcely be the
one here referred to. "James Street "(p. 129) is
James Street, Covent Garden.
The " Silkworm" of this Voyage ou il vous plaira
still survived at the close of the century iu Cowper's
"... Miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop
'Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks
The polished counter, and approving none.
Or promising with smiles to call again."
(r<MA, Bk.vi.)
— nor is the race even now extinct. Steele's frank
admiration for female beauty is one of the most
engaging features in his papers. A subsequent
Spectator (.No. 510) begins thus: "I was the
other Day driving in an Hack thro' Gerard Street,
when my Eye was immediately catch'd with the
prettiest Object imaginable, the Face of a very fair
Girl, between Thirteen and Fourteen, fixed at the
Chin to a painted Sash, and made part of the Lan-
skip. It seem'd admirably done, and upon throwing
myself eagerly out of the Coach to look at it, it
laugh'd, and flung from the Window. This amiable
Figure dwelt upon me," — and so forth. See also
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 243
the episode of the beautiful Amazon of Enfield
Chase in Tatler, No. 248. One wonders a little
if "Dearest Prue" ever studied these particular
essays.
No. 20, page 134. — Dick Estcourt ! In Memoriam. —
Estcourt was buried in the south aisle of St. Paul's,
Covent Garden, on the day this paper was issued
(August 27, 1712).* Another contemporary and
eye-witness of his performances closely confirms
Steele's words respecting his imitative powers.
" This Man was so amazing and extraordinary a
Mimick, that no Man or Woman, from the Coquette
to the Privy-Councillor, ever mov'd or spoke be-
fore him, but he could carry their Voice, Look,
Mien, and Motion, instantly into another Company :
I have heard him make long Harangues, and from
various Arguments, even in the Manner of Think-
ing, of an eminent Pleader at the Bar, with
every the least Article and Singularity of his Utter-
ance so perfectly imitated, that he was the very
alter ipse, scarce to be distinguish'd from his Origi-
nal." — {An Apology for the Life of Mr. Golley Cib-
ber, Comedian, 1740, p. 69.) Yet Cibber goes on
to say that these qualities deserted him upon the
stage; and that he was on the whole " a languid,
unaft'ecting Actor."
The Northern Lasse (p. 138), first acted in 1632,
was by Richard Brome ; the Tender Husband, 1703
(p. 138), was Steele's own. There are other refer-
ences to Estcourt in Nos. 264, 358, and 370 of the
Spectator. He acted as Providore of the famous
Beef-Steak Club, and wore a golden gridiron as his
badge of ofBce.
No. 21, page 140. — Death of Sir Boger de Cov-
erley. — " The reason which induced Cervantes to
bring his hero to the grave, para mi sola nacio Don
Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with
* The date of Estconrt's burial has been obligingly supplied
by Colonel Jos. L. Chester.
244 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
undue vehemence of expression, that he Tvould kill
Sir Roger, being of opinion that they were born for
one another, and that any other hand would do him
wrong." — (Johnson's Lives, by Cunningham, ii.,
134.) Johnson's statement is based upon a passage
in Budgell's Bee, 1733, No. 1. There is also a tradi-
tion that Addison was displeased by certain liberties
taken with his favorite character in No. 410 of the
Spectator, supposed to be by Tick ell. If this be so,
his resentment was somewhat tardily exhibited, for
there is an interval of four months between the
paper referred to, and the present essay. The true
ground for Sir Roger's death is probably to be
found in the fact that Steele was preparing to wind
up vol. vii. — (See Introduction, p. 11.)
No. 22, page 145. — The Tory Fox-Hunter. — The
reader is referred to Mr. Caldecott's humorous fron-
tispiece. The huge overfed horseman, with his
jolting seat and noisy laugh, is surely a creation
worthy of Addison's text. Will not Mr. Caldecott
some day give us a series of studies from the
Essayists? He seems to seize the very spirit of the
age : other men draw its dress.
" Dyer's Letter " (p. 147) was a news-letter, hav-
ing a blank page for correspondence. In No. 127
of the Spectator, Sir Roger is represented as read-
ing it aloud each morning to his guests. There was
another issued by Ichabod Dawks ( Tatler, No. 178).
That elegant Latinist, Mr. Smith, of Phaedra and
Hippolitus fame (see note to No. 28), put them both
into verse : —
" Scribe Becurus, quid agit Senatus,
Quid caput stertit grave Lambethanum,
Quid Comes Guildford, quid habent novornm
Dawkaqae Dyerqne."
No. 23, page 152. — A 3Iodern Conversation. —
Lord Chestertteld's sketch of his academic friend
may be compared with Thomas "Warton's Journal of
a Senior Fellow (also of Cambridge) in No. 33 of
The Idler, — a paper that would have found a place
ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES. 245
in this collection but for its evident relationship to
Addison's earlier Journals (Nos. 16 and 17). Warton
had already satirized the easy, inglorious life of the
average college don of the period in his " Progress
of Disconte)\t,' the first version of which appeared
in the Student of June 30, 1750 : —
" Return, ye days, when endless pleasure
I found In reading, or in leisure I
When calm around the common room
I puff'd ray daily pipe's perfume !
Uodo for u stomach, and inspected,
At annual bottlings, corks selected :
And din'd untax'd, untroubled, under
The portrait of our pious Founder! "
(Poetical Works, ii., 1802, p. 197.)
"The late Dr. [George] Cheyne" (p. 168^ died
in April, 1743. His English Malady {i. e., Hypo-
chondria), published in 1733, is more than once
referred to in Boswell's Johnson, and he was the
friend of lUchardson. His last book was dedicated
to Chesterfield. In Gillray's well-known Temperance
enjoying a Frugal Meal, 1792, which represents
King George III. and Queen Charlotte at breakfast
on eggs and salad, " Dr. Cheyne on tlie Benefits
of a Spare Diet " is a prominent object in the fore-
ground.
No. 24, page 160. — A Modem Conversation (con-
tinued). — By " Chaos wine" (p. 162), Colonel Cul-
verin is explained to have meant "Cahors." The
" Bottle Act" (p. 104) referred to was, in all prob-
ability, the Act of 1753 for preventing wines from
being brought into the port of London without pay-
ing the London duty. Next to London, Bristol was
the lai'gest importer of wines, and a centre of the
glass bottle trade, which miiy account for its con-
nection with the toabt ; but the allusion is obscure.
The "Jew Bill " (p. 164) was the unpopular meas-
ure for natm-aliziiig the Jews wliich was passed and
repealed in 1753. Lord Chesterfield approved it,
and regarded its repeal as a concession to the mob.
— (^Letters, Nov. 26, 1753.) There are many satiri-
246 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
cal prints relating to tliis subject in the British.
Museum ; and in Hogarth's Election Entertainment,
1755, a lioolt-nosed efBgy, with a placard round its
neck inscribed "No Jews," is conspicuous among
the objects seen through the open window.
No. 25, page 168. — The Squire in Orders. —
To be "japanned" (p. 169) is "Eighteenth-Cen-
tury" for being ordained. When Sir William Tre-
lawney found he could only assist his protege and
medical adviser, Jolm Wolcot (afterwards ' ' Peter
Pindar"), by giving him a living, he sent him from
Jamaica to England to "get himself japanned."
Wolcot's brief clerical career was of a piece with
this beginning. His congregation, chiefly negroes,
frequently failed to attend, and on these occasions,
he used to while away the service-time on the
shore by shooting ring-tailed pigeons with his
clerk.
As a pendant to " Mr. Village's " picture, we sub-
join Fielding's portrait (^Champion, February 26,
1740) of another kind of " country parson," — a
portrait which its author affirms to have been taken
from tlie life : —
" Sometime since I went with my wife to pay a
visit to a country clergyman, who hath a living of
somewhat above £100 a jear. In his youth he had
sacrificed a Fellowship in one of the Universities,
to marry a very agreeable woman, who with a small
fortune had had a very good education. Soon after
his marriage he was presented to the living, of
which he is now incumbent. Since his coming
hither, he hath improv'd the Parsonage-house and
garden, both which are now in the neatest order.
At our arrival we were met at the gate by the
clergyman and two of his sons. After telling us
with the most cheerful voice and countenance that
he was extremely glad to see us, he took my wife
down in his arras, and committing our two horses
to the care of his sons, lie conducted us into a little
neat parlor, where a table was spread for our enter-
tainment. Here the good woman and her eldest
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 247
daughter receiv'd us with many hearty expressions
of kindness, and very earnest desires that we would
take something to refresh ourselves before dinner.
Upon this a bottle of Mead was produc'd, which
was of their own making, and very good in its kind.
Dinner soon follow'd, being a gammon of bacon
and some chickens, with a most excellent apple-pye.
My friend excused himself from not treating me
with a roasted pig (a dish I am particularly fond
of), by telling us that as times were hard, he had
relinquish'd those Tithes to his parishioners. Our
liquors were the aforesaid mead, elder wine, with
strong beer, ale, etc., all perfectly good, and which
our friends exprest great pleasure at our drinking
and liking. After a meal spent with the utmost
cneerfulness, we walked into a little, neat garden,
where we passed the afternoon with the gayest and
most innocent mirth, the good man and good
woman, their sons and daughters, all vying with
one another, who should shew us the greatest signs
of respect, and of their forwardness to help us to
anything they had.
*' The economy of these good people may be in-
structive to some, as well as entertaining to all my
readers.
" The clergyman, who is an excellent scholar, is
himself the school-master to his boys (which are
three in number). As soon as the hours, appointed
for their studies, are over, the master and all the
scholars employ themselves at work either in the
garden, or some other labor about the house, while
the little woman is no less industrious in her sphere
with her two daughters within. Thus the furniture
of their house, their garden, their table, and their
cellar, are almost all the work of their own hands ;
and the sons grow at once robust and learned, while
the daughters become housewives, at the same time
that they learn of their mother several of the gen-
teeler accomplishments.
"Love and friendship Avere never in greater
purity than between this good couple, and as they
both have the utmost tenderness for their children,
248 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
so tliey meet Avith the greatest returns of gratitude
and respect from them. Nay the whole parish is
by their example the family of love, of which they
daily receive instances from their spiritual guide,
and which hath such an eflfect on them, that I
believe — covimunihus annis — he receives volun-
tarily from his parishioners more than his due,
though not half so much as he deserves. — (Edn.
1741, i. 310.)
It will be noted that, so far from being
" passing rich with forty pounds a year,"
one of these clergymen has £300, and the other has
£100 per annum.
No. 26, page 174. — Country Congrer/ations. —
This paper of Cowper's is a little in the vein of
Washington Irving's charming studies in the Sketch-
Book. The " Negligee," the " Slammerkin," and
the "Trollope," or "TrollopSe" (p. 179), as may be
guessed from the names, were loose gowns worn
by ladies towards the middle of the century.
" Mrs. Roundabout," in Goldsmith's Bee (No. ii.,
Oct. 13, 1759), wears a "lutestring troUopee" with
a two-yard train. The " Joan " (p. 179) was a close
cap — the reverse of a mob.
The "two figures at St. Dunstan's" {i. e., St.
Dunstan's, Fleet Street) referred to at p. 175, are
described as " 2 Figures of Savages or wild Men,
well carved in Wood, and painted natural Color,
appearing as big as tlie Life, standing erect, each
with a knotty Club in his Hand, whereby they alter-
nately strike the Quarters, not only from their Arms,
but even their Heads moving at every Blow." The
writer of the above, parish-clerk in 1732, goes onto
say " they are more admired by many of tlie Popu-
lace on Sniidays, than the most elegant Preacher
from the Pulpit within." Cowper refers to them
again in his Table-Talk, 1782.
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 249
No. 27, page i8i. — Dick Minim the Cntic. —
Fhmlra and UippoUtus (p. 184), an adaptation by
Edmund Smith of Racine's Phedre, was produced at
the Haymarket, 21st April. 1707, and acted four
times. Addison wrote the Prologue, Prior the Epi-
logue. The former (Spectator, No. 18) calls it " an
admirable tragedy " ; but it pleased the critics better
than tlie pit. It was revived at Covent Garden in
November, 1754, whicli is perhaps an additional
reason wliy Jolmson remembered it here. Baba-
rossa CP- 185), produced at Drury Lane in the same
year, was a tragedy by the Rev. Dr. Brown. In
tliis play tlie bells for the midnight and the second
watch are used as signals by the assassins of the
chief character. Cleone (p. 186), also a tragedy,
was by Robert Dodsley, the bookseller, who published.
London and the Vanity of Human Wishes. It first
came out at Covent Garden on December 2, 1758.
Johnson regarded it as superior to Otway,.and thus
speaks of it in a letter to Bennet Langton, dated
January 9, 1759 : " Cleone was well acted by all
the characters, but Bellamy [i. e., the blue-eyed and
beautiful George Ann Bellamy, who, as the heroine,
made the fortune of the piece] left nothing to be
desired. I went the first night, and supported it as
well as I might ; for Doddy, you know, is my patron,
and I would not desert him. The play was very
well received. Doddy, after the danger was over,
went every night to the stage-side, and cried at the
distress of poor Cleone." — (BosioelVs Life, by
Croker, Chap. XIII.)
Dick Minim would have rejoiced over the opening
verse of Enoch Arden : —
" Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm."
No. 28, page 188. — Dick Minim the Oritic (con-
tinued). — In a forcible passage respecting transla-
tions, which is t ) be found in the " Preface" to the
Dictionarij. Jolmson had already declared his aver-
sion to tribunals of taste (p. 188) : " If an acad-
emy should be established for the cultivation of our
style, which I, who can never wish to see depend-
250 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES,
ence multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty
will hinder or destroy, let them, instead of compil-
ing grammars and dictionaries, endeavor, with all
their influence, to stop the license of ti'anslators,
whose idleness and ignorance, if it be sutlcred to
proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of
France." The writer who, as Garrick expressed it
with more patriotism than elegance,
"... arm'd like a hero of yore,
Had beat forty French, and would beat forty more,"
t
might perhaps be pardoned for a little self-satisfac-
tion, M. Littr6 not having yet arisen as a formidable
rival. But those who care to ascertain what the fore-
most English critic of our day has to say upon the
same theme should turn to Mr. Matthew Arnold's
paper on TTie Literary Influence of Academies. —
{CornhiU Magazine, x., pp. 154-172.)
In Oldisworth's panegyric on Edmund Smith (see
Note to No. 27) quoted by Johnson in his life of that
author, there is a passage of which he may have
been thinking when he wrote Minim's advice to
aspiring youth (p. 191) : " "When he was writing
upon a subject, he would seriously consider what
Demosthenes; Homer, Virgil, or Horace, if alive,
would say upon that occasion, which whetted him
to exceed himself as well as others." — {Lives of the
Poets, Cunningham's edn., ii., 46.)
No. 29, page 193. — Art- Connoisseurs. — This
Essay, and those on the Grand Stifle of Painting,
and the True Idea of Beauty (Idlers, Nos. 79 and
82), were said by Northcote to be "a kind of syl-
labus " of Sir Joshua's famous Discourses. The
references in this paper to " the flowing line, which
constitutes grace and beauty," and the "pyramidal
principle " (p. 195), would seem to be sidelong
strokes at Hogarth's Analysis, 1753, which had its
origin in the precept attributed to Michael Angelo
that a figure should alway be " Pyramidall, Serpent-
like^ and multiplied by one two and three." — (Pref-
ace, p. V.)
ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES. 261
No. 30, page 198. — The Man in Black. — The
paper which iinmediately follows this one in the
Citizen of the World, while professing to give the
personal history of the " Man in Black," contains
several particulars which belong to Goldsmith's
own biogi-aphy. "Who can possibly doubt," says
Mr. Forster, "the original fioin whom the man
in black's experiences were taken?" (^Citizen of
the TTorM, xxvii.) " The first opportunity he [my
father] had of finding his expectations disappointed
was in the middling figure I made at the university :
he had flattered himself that he should soon see me
rising into the foremost rank in literary reputation,
but was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and
unknown. His disappointment might have been
partly ascribed to his having overrated my talents>
and partly to my dislike of mathematical reasonings
at a time when my imagination and memory, yet
unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects than
desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This,
however, did not please my tutor, who observed
indeed that I was a little dull ; but at the same time
allowed that I seemed to be very good-natured, and
had no harm in me." — {Life, Bk. I., Chap, ii.)
No. 31, page 203. — Beau TV)hs. — This paper
and the next, although included in the Citizen of
the World, are here printed as revised in the Essays
by Mr. Goldsmith, published by W. Griffln in 1765.
"It is supposed that this exquisite sketch had a
living original in one of Goldsmith's casual ac-
quaintance ; a person named Thornton, once in the
army."— (Forster's Life, Bk. III., Chap, iv.)
No. 32, page 208. — Beau T\bbs (^continued). — As
indicative of Goldsmith's fondness of the Christian
name of little Miss Tibbs, Cunningham points out
that he transfers them to a character of later
date : ' ' Lady Blarney was particularly attached to
Olivia; Miss Carolina "Wilhclmina Amelia Skeggs
(/ love to give the whole name) took a greater fancy
252 ILLUSTBATIVE NOTES.
to her sister." — {Vicar of Wakefield, Chap, xi.)
The italics are ours.
No. 33, page 214. — Beau Tibbs at Vauxhall. —
Vauxhall, much fallen and degraded, saw its " posi-
tively last " day in 1859. The flf teen hundred lamps,
the waterworks, and the French horns so dear to
Mrs. Tibbs's Countess, had then long been things of
the past ; and those who wish to realize the splen-
dors of the Rotunda, the " magnificent orchestra of
Gothic construction," the mechanical landscape, the
Grove, and the "Lover's Walk," must reconstruct
them from the pages of Walpole and Miss Burney,
or the design of Wale and Canaletto. It is possi-
ble that those decorations of the pavilions which the
much-suffering pawnbroker's widow admired were
the very paintings which Hogarth and Hayman had
executed for Jonathan Tyers as far back as 1732.
They existed for many years subsequent to the date
when Goldsmith wrote, being sold with other prop-
erty in 1841. At that time tliey were said to be
greatly " obscured by dirt." Wher it is added that
they had long been exposed to the air, varnished
every year, and freely assaulted by sandwich knives,
it will be seen that their condition was indeed deplor-
able. But the little beau would not have approved
them at any stage; he would have shrugged his
shoulders, rapped his box, and talked of the grand
contorno of Alesso Baldovinetti.
Neither this admirable study in genre nor the
Man in Black is included in Goldsmith's selected
Essays of 1765. It is difficult to account for their
absence, except by that strange paternal blindness
which also led Prior to omit from his collected
poems the " Secretary" and the lines to a " Child of
Quality," two of the pieces by which he is perhaps
best known to readers of to-day.
No. 34, page 221. — A Country Dowager. — This
paper is printed from the edition of Mackenzie's
works published at Edinburgh in 1808, and revised
by the author.