Finding some persons have mistaken Pasquin who was mentioned in my last,
for one who has been pilloried at Rome; I must here advertise them, that
it is only a maimed statue so called, on which the private scandal of
that city is generally pasted. Morforio is a person of the same quality,
who is usually made to answer whatever is published by the other: the
wits of that place, like too many of our own country, taking pleasure in
setting innocent people together by the ears. The mentioning of this
person, who is a great wit, and a great cripple, put me in mind of Mr.
Estcourt,[75] who is under the same circumstances. He was formerly my
apothecary, and being at present disabled by the gout and stone, I must
recommend him to the public on Thursday next, that admirable play of Ben
Jonson's, called, "The Silent Woman," being appointed to be acted for
his benefit. It would be indecent for me to appear twice in a season at
these ludicrous diversions; but as I always give my man and my maid one
day in the year, I shall allow them this, and am promised by Mr.
Estcourt, my ingenious apothecary, that they shall have a place kept for
them in the first row of the middle gallery.
[Footnote 68: Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison,
because in No. 131 Addison has the following note: "For the benefit of
my readers, I think myself obliged here to let them know that I always
make use of an old-fashioned e, which very little differs from an o.
This has been the reason that my printer sometimes mistakes the one for
the other; as in my last paper, I find, _those_ for _these_, _beheld_
for _behold_, Corvix for Cervix, and the like." The internal evidence
supports this view; but the paper is not included in Addison's Works.]
[Footnote 69: The Duke of Marlborough.]
[Footnote 70: Sidney, Lord Godolphin.]
[Footnote 71: Lord Somers. See No. 4.]
[Footnote 72: Lord Chancellor Cowper. See the Dedication to this
volume.]
[Footnote 73: Edward Russell, Earl of Oxford. See No. 4.]
[Footnote 74: Thomas, Earl of Wharton, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.]
[Footnote 75: See Nos. 20, 51. Estcourt was apprenticed to an
apothecary, and is said to have tried that business before going on the
stage.]
No. 131. [ADDISON.
From _Tuesday, Feb. 7_, to _Thursday, Feb. 9, 1709-10_.
----Scelus est jugulare Falernum,
Et dare Campano toxica saeva mero.
MART., Epig. i. 18.
* * * * *
_Sheer Lane, February 8._
There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who
work under ground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal
their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These
subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of
liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising
under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and
valleys of France. They can squeeze bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw
champagne from an apple. Virgil in that remarkable prophecy,
_Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva_,[76]
(_The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn_),
seems to have hinted at this art which can turn a plantation of Northern
hedges into a vineyard. These adepts are known among one another by the
name of "wine-brewers," and I am afraid do great injury, not only to her
Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects.
Having received sundry complaints against these invisible workmen, I
ordered the proper officer of my court to ferret them out of their
respective caves, and bring them before me, which was yesterday executed
accordingly.
The person who appeared against them was a merchant, who had by him a
great magazine of wines that he had laid in before the war: but these
gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's palate, that no man
could believe his to be French, because it did not taste like what they
sold for such. As a man never pleads better than where his own personal
interest is concerned, he exhibited to the court with great eloquence,
that this new corporation of druggists had inflamed the bills of
mortality, and puzzled the College of Physicians with diseases, for
which they neither knew a name nor cure. He accused some of giving all
their customers colics and megrims; and mentioned one who had boasted,
he had a tun of claret by him, that in a fortnight's time should give
the gout to a dozen of the healthiest men in the city, provided that
their constitutions were prepared for it by wealth and idleness. He then
enlarged, with a great show of reason, upon the prejudice which these
mixtures and compositions had done to the brains of the English nation;
as is too visible (said he) from many late pamphlets, speeches and
sermons, as well as from the ordinary conversations of the youth of this
age. He then quoted an ingenious person, who would undertake to know by
a man's writings, the wine he most delighted in; and on that occasion
named a certain satirist, whom he had discovered to be the author of a
lampoon, by a manifest taste of the sloe, which showed itself in it by
much roughness, and little spirit.
In the last place, he ascribed to the unnatural tumults and
fermentations which these mixtures raise in our blood, the divisions,
heat and animosities, that reign among us; and in particular, asserted
most of the modern enthusiasms and agitations to be nothing else but the
effects of adulterated port.
The counsel for the brewers had a face so extremely inflamed and
illuminated with carbuncles, that I did not wonder to see him an
advocate for these sophistications. His rhetoric was likewise such as I
should have expected from the common draught, which I found he often
drank to a great excess. Indeed, I was so surprised at his figure and
parts, that I ordered him to give me a taste of his usual liquor; which
I had no sooner drunk, but I found a pimple rising in my forehead; and
felt such a sensible decay in my understanding, that I would not proceed
in the trial till the fume of it was entirely dissipated.
This notable advocate had little to say in the defence of his clients,
but that they were under a necessity of making claret if they would keep
open their doors, it being the nature of mankind to love everything that
is prohibited. He further pretended to reason, that it might be as
profitable to the nation to make French wine as French hats; and
concluded with the great advantage that this had already brought to
part of the kingdom. Upon which he informed the court, that the lands in
Hertfordshire were raised two years' purchase since the beginning of the
war.
When I had sent out my summons to these people, I gave at the same time
orders to each of them to bring the several ingredients he made use of
in distinct phials, which they had done accordingly, and ranged them
into two rows on each side of the court. The workmen were drawn up in
ranks behind them. The merchant informed me, that in one row of phials
were the several colours they dealt in, and in the other the tastes. He
then showed me on the right hand one who went by the name of Tom
Tintoret, who (as he told me) was the greatest master in his colouring
of any vintner in London.[77] To give me a proof of his art, he took a
glass of fair water; and by the infusion of three drops out of one of
his phials, converted it into a most beautiful pale burgundy. Two more
of the same kind heightened it into a perfect languedoc: from thence it
passed into a florid hermitage: and after having gone through two or
three other changes, by the addition of a single drop, ended in a very
deep pontack.[78] This ingenious virtuoso seeing me very much surprised
at his art, told me, that he had not an opportunity of showing it in
perfection, having only made use of water for the groundwork of his
colouring: but that if I were to see an operation upon liquors of
stronger bodies, the art would appear to a much greater advantage. He
added, that he doubted not that it would please my curiosity to see the
cider of one apple take only a vermilion, when another, with a less
quantity of the same infusion, would rise into a dark purple, according
to the different texture of parts in the liquor. He informed me also,
that he could hit the different shades and degrees of red, as they
appear in the pink and the rose, the clove and the carnation, as he had
Rhenish or Moselle, perry, or white port, to work in.
I was so satisfied with the ingenuity of this virtuoso, that, after
having advised him to quit so dishonest a profession, I promised him, in
consideration of his great genius, to recommend him as a partner to a
friend of mine, who has heaped up great riches, and is a scarlet dyer.
The artists on my other hand were ordered in the second place to make
some experiments of their skill before me: upon which the famous Harry
Sippet stepped out, and asked me what I would be pleased to drink. At
the same time he filled out three or four white liquors in a glass, and
told me, that it should be what I pleased to call for; adding very
learnedly, that the liquor before him was as the naked substance or
first matter of his compound, to which he and his friend, who stood over
against him, could give what accidents or form they pleased. Finding him
so great a philosopher, I desired he would convey into it the qualities
and essence of right bordeaux. "Coming, coming, sir," said he, with the
air of a drawer; and after having cast his eye on the several tastes and
flavours that stood before him; he took up a little cruet that was
filled with a kind of inky juice, and pouring some of it out into the
glass of white wine, presented it to me, and told me, this was the wine
over which most of the business of the last term had been despatched. I
must confess, I looked upon that sooty drug which he held up in his
cruet as the quintessence of English bordeaux, and therefore desired
him to give me a glass of it by itself, which he did with great
unwillingness. My cat at that time sat by me upon the elbow of my chair;
and as I did not care for making the experiment upon myself, I reached
it to her to sip of it, which had like to have cost her her life; for
notwithstanding it flung her at first into freakish tricks, quite
contrary to her usual gravity, in less than a quarter of an hour she
fell into convulsions; and had it not been a creature more tenacious of
life than any other, would certainly have died under the operation.
I was so incensed by the tortures of my innocent domestic, and the
unworthy dealings of these men, that I told them, if each of them had as
many lives as the injured creature before them, they deserved to forfeit
them for the pernicious arts which they used for their profit. I
therefore bid them look upon themselves as no better than as a kind of
assassins and murderers within the law. However, since they had dealt so
clearly with me, and laid before me their whole practice, I dismissed
them for that time; with a particular request, that they would not
poison any of my friends and acquaintance, and take to some honest
livelihood without loss of time.
For my own part, I have resolved hereafter to be very careful in my
liquors, and have agreed with a friend of mine in the army, upon their
next march, to secure me two hogsheads of the best stomach-wine in the
cellars of Versailles, for the good of my Lucubrations, and the comfort
of my old age.
[Footnote 76: Eclog. iv. 29.]
[Footnote 77: See No. 138.]
[Footnote 78: A fashionable eating-house in Abchurch Lane, kept by one
Pontack, who was son of the President of Bordeaux, then owner, as Evelyn
tells us, of the excellent vineyards of Pontaq and Haut Brion.]
No. 132. [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Feb. 9_, to _Saturday, Feb. 11, 1709-10_.
Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, quae mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit,
potionis et cibi sustulit.--CICERO, De Sen. 46.
* * * * *
_Sheer Lane, February 10._
After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my
studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the
conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I
find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to
draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is
the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have
passed many hours, with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.
Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: it takes the mind
down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces[79] of
thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the
condition 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 my 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,[80] of which I am a member,
did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons
among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last
forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; 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 however 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 difficulty.
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 run it out in hounds, horses, and
cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest
worthy gentleman who has had misfortunes 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 fight of Marston Moor;[81] and every night
tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the
London apprentices;[82] for which he is in great esteem amongst 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 show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.
This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his
mouth, or laughs at anything that passes, he is constantly told by his
uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us
fools; but we old men know you are."[83]
The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the
neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.[84] He
has about ten distichs 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 respected by others, though at the same time I understand by
their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal
of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major
sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the
philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey 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 till 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 distichs, and only waiting an
opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the
couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."[85] 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 seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill
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
endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and
to set the conversation 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, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett
was a game-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 for 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 till about ten of the clock, when my maid[86] came
with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself as
I was going out upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little
figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this
natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must
own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I 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 circumstances every time he
tells it, till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that
time he is three-score.
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 observation as may
make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in
a 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 ridiculous than an old trifling
story-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 endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which
Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.[87]
I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of,
when I cannot conclude 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."[88]
[Footnote 79: Paths.]
[Footnote 80: The Trumpet stood about half-way up Shire Lane, between
Temple Bar and Carey Street, at the widest and best part of the lane,
and remained almost entirely in its original state until demolished to
make way for the new Law Courts. It had the old sign of the Trumpet to
the last, as it is figured in Limbard's "Mirror," in a picture where it
is placed side by side with a view of the house in Fulwood's Rents where
papers for the _Spectator_ were taken in.]
[Footnote 81: July 2, 1644.]
[Footnote 82: In July 1647 the London apprentices presented a petition,
and forced their way into the House of Commons.]
[Footnote 83: This retort, in almost identical words, occurs in Swift's
"Genteel Conversation" (1739), and in Defoe's "Life of Duncan Campbell"
(1720).]
[Footnote 84: Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent
family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance,
but rather artful than witty. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful,
it is said, than was necessary to arrive, as she did, at the honour of
being a mistress to the Duke of York. This sister Ogle laid under very
frequent contributions to supply his wants and support his extravagance.
It is said that, by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed,
as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot guards, at that time
under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this era of Ogle's life
the story of the red petticoat refers. He had pawned his trooper's
cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady's
red petticoat, which he carried rolled up _en croupe_ behind him. The
Duke of Monmouth "smoked" it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a
detection, gave order to "cloak all," with which Ogle, after some
hesitation, was obliged to comply; although he could not cloak, he said
he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know
more of the history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may
consult the account of them in the "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, 12mo,
p. 183 (Nichols).]
[Footnote 85:
"When pulpit drum ecclesiastic
Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
--"Hudibras," Part I. c. i. line 10.
]
[Footnote 86: Cf. No. 130, Advertisements. The dangers of the streets at
the beginning of the eighteenth century are described in Gay's "Trivia,"
iii. 335 _seq._]
[Footnote 87: "Iliad," i. 249.]
[Footnote 88: Milton says of Belial ("Paradise Lost," ii. 112):
"But all was false and hollow, though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better cause."
]
No. 133. [ADDISON.
From _Saturday, Feb. 11_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1709-10_.
Dum tacent, clamant.--TULL.
* * * * *
_Sheer Lane, February 13._
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble
and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication
of a great mind. Several authors have treated of silence as a part of
duty and discretion, but none of them have considered it in this light.
Homer compares the noise and clamour of the Trojans advancing towards
the enemy, to the cackling of cranes when they invade an army of
pigmies.[89] On the contrary, he makes his countrymen and favourites,
the Greeks, move forward in a regular determined march, and in the depth
of silence. I find in the accounts which are given us of some of the
more Eastern nations, where the inhabitants are disposed by their
constitutions and climates to higher strains of thought, and more
elevated raptures than what we feel in the northern regions of the
world, that silence is a religious exercise among them. For when their
public devotions are in the greatest fervour, and their hearts lifted up
as high as words can raise them, there are certain suspensions of sound
and motion for a time, in which the mind is left to itself, and supposed
to swell with such secret conceptions as are too big for utterance. I
have myself been wonderfully delighted with a masterpiece of music, when
in the very tumult and ferment of their harmony, all the voices and
instruments have stopped short on a sudden, and after a little pause
recovered themselves again as it were, and renewed the concert in all
its parts. Methought this short interval of silence has had more music
in it than any the same space of time before or after it. There are two
instances of silence in the two greatest poets that ever wrote, which
have something in them as sublime as any of the speeches in their whole
works. The first is that of Ajax, in the eleventh book of the
Odyssey.[90] Ulysses, who had been the rival of this great man in his
life, as well as the occasion of his death, upon meeting his shade in
the region of departed heroes, makes his submission to him with a
humility next to adoration, which the other passes over with dumb sullen
majesty, and such a silence, as (to use the words of Longinus) had more
greatness in it than anything he could have spoken.
The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet,
doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;[91] though I
do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. AEneas
finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had
lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses
himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most
passionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all
which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover,
and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that
she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning
away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her
eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his
protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the
arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.[92]
I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in
this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their
works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such
passions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is
something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre
is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,[93] as a
reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to
rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is
going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it,
but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into tears.
The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has
recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the
spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a
complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look
as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper
silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the
extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration,
astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to
see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an
agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.
But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is
made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just
occasion for them. One might produce an example of it in the behaviour
of one in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one whose silence, as
well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this
subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur
to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of
it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust
reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or (if possible) with an
entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind.
And I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the
greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they
deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they
contemned the envy and detraction of it.
All that is incumbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a
treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, till the
prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often
read with a great deal of pleasure a legacy of the famous Lord Bacon,
one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced:
after having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form,
he adds, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to my
countrymen, after some time be passed over."
At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must
confess I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of
my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper
is duller than in conscience it ought to be, I think the time an age
till I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous
again for two days.
I must not close my discourse upon silence, without informing my reader,
that I have by me an elaborate treatise on the Aposiopesis called an "Et
caetera," it being a figure much used by some learned authors, and
particularly by the great Littleton, who, as my Lord Chief Justice Coke
observes, had a most admirable talent at an et cetera.[94]