[45] Perhaps this article is by Addison; see note to No. 50.
[46] The name of a character in Jonson's "Silent Woman."
[47] A game of cards played by three persons, of which particulars will
be found in Pope's "Rape of the Lock."
[48] In the _Spectator_, No. 42, Addison ridiculed the way in which
dignity was sought for the hero on the stage by means of grand dresses
and guards with halberts and battleaxes. "Can all the trappings or
equipage of a king or hero give Brutus half that pomp and majesty which
he receives from a few lines in Shakespeare?"
[49] "Julius Cæsar," act ii. sc. 2.
No. 54. [STEELE.
From _Thursday, August 11_, to _Saturday, August 13, 1709_.
_White's Chocolate-house, August 12._
_Of the Government of Affection._[50]
When labour was pronounced to be the portion of man, that doom reached
the affections of his mind, as well as his person, the matter on which
he was to feed, and all the animal and vegetable world about him. There
is therefore an assiduous care and cultivation to be bestowed upon our
passions and affections; for they, as they are the excrescences of our
souls, like our hair and beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut
or let them grow. All this grave preface is meant to assign a reason
in nature for the unaccountable behaviour of Duumvir,[51] the husband
and keeper. Ten thousand follies had this unhappy man escaped, had he
made a compact with himself to be upon his guard, and not permitted
his vagrant eye to let in so many different inclinations upon him, as
all his days he has been perplexed with. But indeed at present he has
brought himself to be confined only to one prevailing mistress; between
whom and his wife, Duumvir passes his hours in all the vicissitudes
which attend passion and affection, without the intervention of reason.
Laura his wife, and Phyllis his mistress, are all with whom he has had,
for some months, the least amorous commerce. Duumvir has passed the
noon of life; but cannot withdraw from those entertainments which are
pardonable only before that stage of our being, and which after that
season are rather punishments than satisfaction: for palled appetite
is humorous, and must be gratified with sauces rather than food. For
which end Duumvir is provided with an haughty, imperious, expensive,
and fantastic mistress, to whom he retires from the conversation of
an affable, humble, discreet, and affectionate wife. Laura receives
him after absence with an easy and unaffected complacency; but that
he calls insipid: Phyllis rates him for his absence, and bids him
return from whence he came: this he calls spirit and fire. Laura's
gentleness is thought mean; Phyllis' insolence, sprightly. Were you
to see him at his own home, and his mistress's lodgings, to Phyllis
he appears an obsequious lover, to Laura an imperious master. Nay, so
unjust is the taste of Duumvir, that he owns Laura has no ill quality,
but that she is his wife; Phyllis no good one, but that she is his
mistress. And he has himself often said, were he married to any one
else, he would rather keep Laura than any woman living; yet allows at
the same time, that Phyllis, were she a woman of honour, would have
been the most insipid animal breathing. The other day Laura, who has
a voice like an angel, began to sing to him: "Fie, madam," he cried,
"we must be past all these gaieties." Phyllis has a note as rude and
as loud as that of a milkmaid: when she begins to warble, "Well," says
he, "there is such a pleasing simplicity in all that wench does." In
a word, the affectionate part of his heart being corrupted, and his
true taste that way wholly lost, he has contracted a prejudice to all
the behaviour of Laura, and a general partiality in favour of Phyllis.
It is not in the power of the wife to do a pleasing thing, nor in the
mistress to commit one that is disagreeable. There is something too
melancholy in the reflection on this circumstance to be the subject of
raillery. He said a sour thing to Laura at dinner the other day; upon
which she burst into tears. "What the devil, madam," says he, "can't I
speak in my own house?" He answered Phyllis a little abruptly at supper
the same evening; upon which she threw his periwig into the fire.
"Well," said he, "thou art a brave termagant jade; do you know, hussy,
that fair wig cost forty guineas?" O Laura! is it for this that the
faithful Chromius sighed for you in vain? How is thy condition altered,
since crowds of youth hung on thy eye, and watched its glances? It is
not many months since Laura was the wonder and pride of her own sex, as
well as the desire and passion of ours. At plays and at balls, the just
turn of her behaviour, the decency of her virgin charms, chastised,
yet added to diversions. At public devotions, her winning modesty, her
resigned carriage, made virtue and religion appear with new ornaments,
and in the natural apparel of simplicity and beauty. In ordinary
conversations, a sweet conformity of manners, and a humility which
heightened all the complacencies of good breeding and education, gave
her more slaves than all the pride of her sex ever made woman wish for.
Laura's hours are now spent in the sad reflections on her choice, and
that deceitful vanity (almost inseparable from the sex) of believing,
she could reclaim one that had so often ensnared others; as it now is,
it is not even in the power of Duumvir himself to do her justice: for
though beauty and merit are things real, and independent on taste and
opinion, yet agreeableness is arbitrary, and the mistress has much
the advantage of the wife. But whenever fate is so kind to her and
her spouse as to end her days, with all this passion for Phyllis, and
indifference for Laura, he has a second wife in view, who may avenge
the injuries done to her predecessor. Aglaura is the destined lady, who
has lived in assemblies, has ambition and play for her entertainment,
and thinks of a man, not as the object of love, but the tool of
her interest or pride. If ever Aglaura comes to the empire of this
inconstant, she will endear the memory of her predecessor. But in the
meantime, it is melancholy to consider, that the virtue of a wife is
like the merit of a poet, never justly valued till after death.
_From my own Apartment, August 11._
As we have professed, that all the actions of men are our subject, the
most solemn are not to be omitted, if there happen to creep into their
behaviour anything improper for such occasions. Therefore the offence
mentioned in the following epistles (though it may seem to be committed
in a place sacred from observation) is such, that it is our duty to
remark upon it; for though he who does it is himself only guilty of an
indecorum, he occasions a criminal levity in all others who are present
at it.
* * * * *
"MR. BICKERSTAFF,
"It being mine, as well as the opinion of many others, that your papers
are extremely well fitted to reform any irregular or indecent practice,
I present the following as one which requires your correction. Myself,
and a great many good people who frequent the divine service at St.
Paul's, have been a long time scandalised by the imprudent conduct
of Stentor[52] in that cathedral. This gentleman, you must know, is
always very exact and zealous in his devotion, which, I believe, nobody
blames; but then he is accustomed to roar and bellow so terribly loud
in the responses, that he frightens even us of the congregation, who
are daily used to him; and one of our petty canons, a punning Cambridge
scholar,[53] calls his way of worship, a bull offering. His harsh
untunable pipe is no more fit than a raven's to join with the music of
a choir; yet nobody having been enough his friend, I suppose, to inform
him of it, he never fails, when present, to drown the harmony of every
hymn and anthem, by an inundation of sound beyond that of the bridge at
the ebb of the tide, or the neighbouring lions in the anguish of their
hunger. This is a grievance which, to my certain knowledge, several
worthy people desire to see redressed; and if by inserting this epistle
in your paper, or by representing the matter your own way, you can
convince Stentor, that discord in a choir is the same sin that schism
is in the Church in general, you would lay a great obligation upon us,
and make some atonement for certain of your paragraphs which have not
been highly approved by us. I am,
"Sir,
Your most humble Servant,
JEOFFRY CHANTICLEER.
"St. Paul's Churchyard, _August 11_."
It is wonderful there should be such a general lamentation, and the
grievance so frequent, and yet the offender never know anything of it.
I have received the following letter from my kinsman at the Heralds'
Office, near the same place:
"DEAR COUSIN,
"This office, which has had its share in the impartial justice of
your censures, demands at present your vindication of their rights
and privileges. There are certain hours when our young heralds
are exercised in the faculties of making proclamation, and other
vociferations, which of right belong to us only to utter: but at
the same hours, Stentor in St. Paul's Church, in spite of the
coaches, carts, London cries, and all other sounds between us,
exalts his throat to so high a key, that the most noisy of our
order is utterly unheard. If you please to observe upon this, you
will ever oblige, &c."
There have been communicated to me some other ill consequences from
the same cause; as, the overturning of coaches by sudden starts of the
horses as they passed that way, women pregnant frightened, and heirs to
families lost; which are public disasters, though arising from a good
intention: but it is hoped, after this admonition, that Stentor will
avoid an act of so great supererogation, as singing without a voice.
But I am diverted from prosecuting Stentor's reformation, by an
account, that the two faithful lovers, Lysander and Coriana, are dead;
for no longer ago than the 1st of the last month they swore eternal
fidelity to each other, and to love till death. Ever since that time,
Lysander has been twice a day at the chocolate-house, visits in every
circle, is missing four hours in four and twenty, and will give no
account of himself. These are undoubted proofs of the departure of
a lover; and consequently Coriana is also dead as a mistress. I have
written to Stentor to give this couple three calls at the church door,
which they must hear if they are living within the bills of mortality;
and if they do not answer at that time, they are from that moment added
to the number of my defunct.[54]