Chapter II (2)

The summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me to pass away a month or two in the country, and indeed nothing could be more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations: and I am admonished by some of our club, who have lately visited Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could think, been astonished that drinking should be the vice of the country. If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight, by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects which Nature has produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of their being rational, but lead mere animal lives, making it their whole endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts; to wit, the use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted in the writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they have brought us to dwell in society (a blessing which no other creatures know), so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise, that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I'll undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so many hours in the parlour and the pigsty, it would appear, the gentleman of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs.

This, with many other evils, arises from the error in men's judgments, and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants of that marriage possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is, there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land is not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is to be noted, that a peasant with a great estate is but an incumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to be a landlord. A landlord enjoys what he has with his heart, an incumbent with his stomach. Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertainments of an incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large diversions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of property but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A gentleman in a country life enjoys Paradise with a temper fit for it; a clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could be tormented with when he was expelled from it.

There is no character more deservedly esteemed than that of a country gentleman, who understands the station in which heaven and nature have placed him. He is father to his tenants, and patron to his neighbours, and is more superior to those of lower fortune by his benevolence than his possessions. He justly divides his time between solitude and company, so as to use the one for the other. His life is spent in the good offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, a mediator, and a friend. His counsel and knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and innocence of those of lower talents, and the entertainment and happiness of those of equal. When a man in a country life has this turn, as it is to be hoped thousands have, he lives in a more happy condition than any is described in the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the vainglorious solitudes recorded by philosophers.

To a thinking man it would seem prodigious, that the very situation in a country life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure; and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and himself the happiest being in it, as he is the most conscious of her gifts and enjoyments. It would be the most impertinent piece of pedantry imaginable to form our pleasures by imitation of others. I will not therefore mention Scipio and Laelius, who are generally produced on this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind, will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more particularly inflamed with desire when they see others in the enjoyment of it, especially when men carry into the country a knowledge of the world as well as of nature. The leisure of such persons is endeared and refined by reflection upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of past labours doubles present pleasures, which is still augmented, if the person in solitude has the happiness of being addicted to letters. My cousin Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion of this sort of felicity in the following letter:

"SIR,

"I write this to communicate to you the happiness I have in the
neighbourhood and conversation of the noble lord whose health you
inquired after in your last. I have bought that little hovel which
borders upon his royalty; but am so far from being oppressed by his
greatness, that I who know no envy, and he who is above pride,
mutually recommend ourselves to each other by the difference of our
fortunes. He esteems me for being so well pleased with a little,
and I admire him for enjoying so handsomely a great deal. He has
not the little taste of observing the colour of a tulip, or the
edging of a leaf of box, but rejoices in open views, the regularity
of this plantation, and the wildness of another, as well as the
fall of a river, the rising of a promontory, and all other objects
fit to entertain a mind like his, that has been long versed in
great and public amusements. The make of the soul is as much seen
in leisure as in business. He has long lived in Courts, and been
admired in assemblies, so that he has added to experience a most
charming eloquence; by which he communicates to me the ideas of my
own mind upon the objects we meet with, so agreeably, that with his
company in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a landscape
of it. He is now altering the course of canals and rivulets, in
which he has an eye to his neighbour's satisfaction, as well as his
own. He often makes me presents by turning the water into my
grounds, and sends me fish by their own streams. To avoid my
thanks, he makes Nature the instrument of his bounty, and does all
good offices so much with the air of a companion, that his
frankness hides his own condescension, as well as my gratitude.
Leave the world to itself, and come see us.

"Your affectionate Cousin,
"FRANCIS BICKERSTAFF."

No. 170. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 9_, to _Thursday, May 11, 1710_.

Fortuna saevo laeta negotio et
Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax
Transmutat incertos honores,
Nunc mihi, nunc alii, benigna.
HOR., 3 Od. xxix. 49.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, May 10._

Having this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the vicissitude of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate on the discourse which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road in which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our true happiness and tranquillity to fix our minds upon anything which is in the power of Fortune. It is excusable only in animals who have not the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is nothing further to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger, thirst, and cold. We are to remember, that everything else is despicable, and not worth our care. To want little is true grandeur, and very few things are great to a great mind. Those who form their thoughts in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the way of Fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial to them, while by their studies and writings they recommend to them the small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine, under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune, we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own. All things from without are but borrowed. What Fortune gives us, is not ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.

It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I will not give philosophy so poor a look, as to say it cannot live in courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence, when amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of himself and those about him abstracted from these circumstances. Such a philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks herself up from it.

Full of these thoughts I left my lodgings, and took a walk to the Court end of the town; and the hurry, and busy faces I met with about Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought, had the same thing in view, but prosecuted their hopes with a different air: some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some a winning deference, but the generality a servile complaisance.

I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the fault of studious men to appear in public with too contemplative a carriage; and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made me particular: for which reason I thought it better to remove a studious countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the Privy Garden.[259]

When my friend was alone with me there, "Isaac," said he, "I know you came abroad only to moralise and make observations, and I will carry you hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persons and proper mechanisms. The Graces, the Muses, the Fates, all the beings which have a good or evil influence upon human life, are, you'll say, very justly figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you'll see enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as will make them be respectively called Deities or Furies, as their labour shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries." Without waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the Banqueting House, where there were placed at two long tables a large company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up tickets for the lottery appointed by the Government. There walked between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman seemed an emblem of Fortune, she commanded as if unconcerned in their business; and though everything was performed by her direction, she did not visibly interpose in particulars. She seemed in pain at our near approach to her, and most to approve us, when we made her no advances. Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had something that spoke both familiarity and dignity. She therefore appeared to me not only a picture of Fortune, but of Fortune as I liked her; which made me break out in the following words:

"MADAM,

"I am very glad to see the fate of the many who now languish in
expectation of what will be the event of your labours in the hands
of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me,
that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the
respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing
and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your
sex, repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and
the humble. I know you fly the importunate, but smile no more on
the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer, but give the
power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants who cannot
enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can
bear it with more ease than he can see it in another."

ADVERTISEMENT.

Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda by letter bearing date Thursday 12 o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the evening at Rosamond's Pond,[260] faithfully protesting, that in case she would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said Philander the next day floating on the said lake of Love, and that he desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: it is desired, if he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda, being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.

[Footnote 259: Now Whitehall Gardens, between Parliament Street and the Thames. There Pepys had the pleasure of seeing Lady Castlemaine in 1662: "In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom; and did me good to look at them."]

[Footnote 260: See No. 60.]

No. 171. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 11_, to _Saturday, May 13, 1710_.

Alter rixatur de lana saepe caprina,
Propugnat nugis armatus.--
HOR., I Ep. xviii. 15.

* * * * *

_Grecian Coffee-house, May 12._

It has happened to be for some days the deliberation at the learnedest board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original. Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinions, but is thought particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom, by the rules of nature and reason, in a very handsome discourse gave the company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from simplicity of life, and natural justice, the wise among them thought it necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving them who adhered to the interests of innocence and truth, some distinguishing name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles and terms of honour. "Such a name," continued he, "without the qualities which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to be called Hector, or Alexander? Everything must bear a proportion with the outward value that is set upon it; or instead of being long had in veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach." When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings,[261] who were lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged. "They were placed," said he, "in a handsome apartment, at an upholsterer's in King Street, Covent Garden. The man of the house, it seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service. These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes, by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The Emperor of the Mohocks, and the other three kings, stood up, and in that posture recounted the civilities they had received, and particularly repeated the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed (I will not say less knowing) people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved, to call their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in their part of the world. When they had agreed upon the name, they sent for their landlord, and as he entered into their presence, the Emperor of the Mohocks taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which the other three princes repeated the same word and ceremony."

Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account, and having a philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those nations which we esteem polite, and express himself with disdain at our usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations, barbarous. "I have," says he, "so great a deference for the distinction given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer----" He was going on, but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician; one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way of making himself considerable, but by contradicting all he hears said. He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant suspicion as to State affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, that it was a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of things. "Will any man," continued he, "persuade me, that this was not from the beginning to the end a concerted affair? Who can convince the world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the Two Crowns and Cushion,[262] and one of them fall sick, and the place be called King Street, and all this by mere accident? No, no: to a man of very small penetration, it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however, Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton, and E Tow Oh Koam, might be surprised in this matter; nevertheless, Ho Nee Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot on the English shore."

Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time, then shaked his head, paid for his tea, and marched off. Several others who sat around him, were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman who was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to Hammersmith. "I must beg your pardon," says Minucio, "when we say a place is so far off, we do not mean exactly from the very spot of earth we are in, but from the town where we are; so that you must begin your account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I'll lay any man ten to one, it is not above three good miles off." Another, about Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important argument, and maintained, that considering the way from Pimlico at the end of St. James's Park, and the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's Court, he would stand to it, that it was full four miles. But Minucio replied with great vehemence, and seemed so much to have the better of the dispute, that this adversary quitted the field, as well as the other. I sat till I saw the table almost all vanished, where, for want of discourse, Minucio asked me, how I did? To which I answered, "Very well." "That's very much," said he; "I assure you, you look paler than ordinary." "Nay," thought I, "if he won't allow me to know whether I am well or not, there is no staying for me neither." Upon which I took my leave, pondering as I went home at this strange poverty of imagination, which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they cannot improve that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks extraordinary, I go no further than, "Say you so, sir? Indeed! Heyday!" or "Is it come to that!" These little rules, which appear but silly in the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than flattery, so contradiction is more odious than culumny.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Mr. Bickerstaff's aerial messenger has brought him a report of what passed at the auction of pictures which was in Somerset House Yard on Monday last, and finds there were no "screens" present, but all transacted with great justice.

N.B. All false buyers at auctions being employed only to hide others, are from this day forward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by the word "screens."

[Footnote 261: The four kings were Iroquois chiefs who had been persuaded by adjacent British colonists to come and pay their respects to Queen Anne, and satisfy themselves of the untruth of the assertion made by the Jesuits, that the English and all other nations were vassals to the French king. They were said also to have been told that the Saviour was born in France and crucified in England. The names of the kings, according to Boyer's "Annals," were: Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow, and Sa Ga Yean Qua Prah Ton, of the Maquas; Elow Oh Kaom, and Oh Nee Yeath Ton No Prow, of the River Sachem, and the Ganajoh-hore Sachem. They had an audience of the Queen on April 19, 1710, and were afterwards entertained by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the Duke of Ormonde, &c., until their departure for Boston on the 8th of May. See Addison's paper in the _Spectator_, No. 50, and Swift's remark upon it in the "Journal to Stella," April 28, 1711. A concert at York Buildings on May 1, 1710, "for the entertainment of the Emperor of the Mohocks and the three Indian kings," was advertised in No. 165 of the _Tatler_. The kings were lodged at the Two Crowns and Cushion, the house of an upholsterer in Covent Garden, probably Thomas Arne, the father of Dr. Thomas Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber, the actress. The following advertisement appeared at the end of No. 250, dated Nov. 14, 1710, and with some variation was reprinted in Nos. 253, 256, and 267 of the original edition: "This is to give notice, that the metzotinto-prints, by John Simmonds, in whole lengths, of the four Indian kings, that are done from the original pictures drawn by John Verelst, which her Majesty has at her palace at Kensington, are now to be delivered to subscribers, and sold at the Rainbow and Dove, the corner of Ivy Bridge in the Strand."]

[Footnote 262: Arne's shop.]

No. 172. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, May 13_, to _Tuesday, May 16, 1710_.

Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in horas.--HOR., 2 Od. xiii. 13.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, May 15._

When a man is in a serious mood, and ponders upon his own make, with a retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions, and it is to the very end of our days a struggle between our reason and our temper, which shall have the empire over us. However, this is very much to be helped by circumspection, and a constant alarm against the first onsets of passion. As this is in general a necessary care to make a man's life easy and agreeable to himself, so it is more particularly the duty of such as are engaged in friendship and more near commerce with others. Those who have their joys, have also their griefs in proportion, and none can extremely exalt or depress friends, but friends. The harsh things which come from the rest of the world, are received and repulsed with that spirit which every honest man bears for his own vindication; but unkindness in words or actions among friends, affects us at the first instant in the inmost recesses of our souls. Indifferent people, if I may so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous parts, maim us in our legs or arms; but the friend can make no pass but at the heart itself. On the other side, the most impotent assistance, the mere well-wishes of a friend, gives a man constancy and courage against the most prevailing force of his enemies. It is here only a man enjoys and suffers to the quick. For this reason, the most gentle behaviour is absolutely necessary to maintain friendship in any degree above the common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say, marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should, if possible, soften his passions; if not for his own ease, in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know it is hard not to do it on this subject; but I must go on to say, that the soul of a man and that of a woman are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men wisdom, is in women prudence. It is a partiality to call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of honour as a wise man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a weight upon our very beings, it is very proper each of the couple should frequently remember, that there are many things which grow out of their very natures that are pardonable, nay becoming, when considered as such, but without that reflection must give the quickest pain and vexation. To manage well a great family is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to execute a great employment; and for the generality, as women perform the considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs, so in their common behaviour, those of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the common rate of men; and in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every whit as good an entertainment as the beating a snuff-box.

But however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my readers, how pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are most liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours. Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider what we are capable of being wrought up to against all the ties of nature, love, honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of princes, and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient manner, and pass through our imaginations, as incidents in which our fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them. Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use (if anybody could hit it) to lay before the world such adventures as befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought, would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men, who are so prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for nature, and believe nothing can relate to them that does not happen to such as live and look like themselves.

The unhappy end of a gentleman whose story an acquaintance of mine was just now telling me, would be very proper for this end if it could be related with all the circumstances as I heard it this evening; for it touched me so much, that I cannot forbear entering upon it.

Mr. Eustace,[263] a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in Ireland, married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with her in general with much ease and tranquillity; but was in his secret temper impatient of rebuke: she is apt to fall into little sallies of passion, yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault, and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that sort of men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife observing her husband extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing between two people who from their infancy had been angry and pleased with each other every half-hour. But it descended deeper into his thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately retired to her chamber, whither her husband soon after followed. When they were in bed, he soon dissembled a sleep, and she, pleased that his thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country house. He now saw his opportunity, and with a dagger he had brought to bed with him, stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but immediately imagined it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians, began to grasp him, and strive to awake and rouse him to defend himself. He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound.

She now drew open the curtains, and by the help of moonlight saw his hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable reflection upon her goodness and his own villainy, that he jumped to the bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His wife had still strength to go to her sister's apartment, and give her an account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took place, and both immediately expired.

[Footnote 263: "Last Sunday Mr. Francis Eustace committed a most barbarous murder on the body of his wife, by giving her seven or eight stabs with his sword, of which she died instantly. He jumped out of the window, and falling on a palisado pale, tore his legs and thighs in such a manner that he was forced to have them dressed by the surgeon, who is since sent to Newgate for letting him escape, and a proclamation is issued out for apprehending him" (_British Mercury_, 1710).]

No. 173. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 16_, to _Thursday, May 18, 1710_.

----Sapientia prima est
Stultitia caruisse.--HOR., I Ep. i. 41.

* * * * *

_Sheer Lane, May 17._

When I first began to learn to push[264] this last winter, my master had a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"[265] was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers. The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt. In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains. I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you would stand in admiration."----"I assure you," continued she, "for all he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:

_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,
Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?_[266]

and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar. I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed. But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made generous in AEneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of Lalage was what pleased Horace;[267] and I verily believe, the stripes I suffered about _digito male pertinaci_[268] has given that irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against coquettes.

As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him, they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say, there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies, and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time. All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table; but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which they were uttered.

[Footnote 264: Fence.]

[Footnote 265: Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."]

[Footnote 266: Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.]

[Footnote 267: See 1 Od. xxii. 23:

"Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem."
]

[Footnote 268: Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.]

No. 174. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 18_, to _Saturday, May 20, 1710_.

Quem mala stultitia, et quaecunque inscitia veri,
Caecum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex
Autumat.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, May 19._

The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service.[269]

We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham.[270] These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such _literati_ as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.

It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college[271] (who have long inhabited this quarter), in the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may have time to give him his broth without danger.

But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom the other talks to.

The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent. Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others.

To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions. This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.

This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agreeable.

My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr. Kidney,[272] with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view.

_St. James's Coffee-house, May 19._

This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices: