[68] Lord Hinchinbroke; see Nos. 5, 22, 35.
[69] Captain Bluffe, in Congreve's "Old Bachelor," act ii. sc. 2:
"Faith, Hannibal was a very pretty fellow; but, Sir Joseph, comparisons
are odious; Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days, it must
be granted; but, alas, sir, were he alive now, he would be nothing,
nothing in the earth."
[70] He was really 27 at this time. Steele seems to have based this
article on a translation of Valerius Maximus. Florus says that Scipio
declined to see the lady; Livy's account is in his twenty-sixth book,
chap. 50.
[71] "Though we have men of intelligence that have spoken of the
proposals of peace and conferences which have been held at Tournay,
there are no certain advices of any such treaty. We" (folio).
No. 59. [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, August 23_, to _Thursday, August 25, 1709_.
_White's Chocolate-house, August 24._
Æsop has gained to himself an immortal renown for figuring the manners,
desires, passions, and interests of men, by fables of beasts and birds:
I shall in my future accounts of our modern heroes and wits, vulgarly
called "sharpers," imitate the method of that delightful moralist; and
think, I cannot represent those worthies more naturally than under the
shadow of a pack of dogs; for this set of men are like them, made up
of finders, lurchers, and setters. Some search for the prey, others
pursue others take it; and if it be worth it, they all come in at the
death, and worry the carcass. It would require a most exact knowledge
of the field, and the harbours where the deer lie, to recount all
the revolutions in the chase: but I am diverted from the train of my
discourse of the fraternity about this town by letters from Hampstead,
which give me an account, there is a late institution there, under the
name of a raffling-shop, which is, it seems, secretly supported by a
person who is a deep practitioner in the law, and, out of tenderness
of conscience, has, under the name of his maid Sisly, set up this
easier way of conveyancing and alienating estates from one family to
another. He is so far from having an intelligence with the rest of the
fraternity, that all the humbler cheats who appear there, are faced by
the partners in the bank, and driven off by the reflection of superior
brass. This notice is given to all the silly faces that pass that
way, that they may not be decoyed in by the soft allurement of a fine
lady, who is the sign to the pageantry. And at the same time Signior
Hawksly, who is the patron of the household, is desired to leave off
this interloping trade, or admit, as he ought to do, the knights of
the industry to their share in the spoil. But this little matter is
only by way of digression. Therefore to return to our worthies: the
present race of terriers and hounds would starve, were it not for the
enchanted Actæon, who has kept the whole pack for many successions
of hunting seasons. Actæon has long tracts of rich soil; but had the
misfortune in his youth to fall under the power of sorcery, and has
been ever since, some parts of the year, a deer, and in some parts a
man. While he is a man (such is the force of magic), he no sooner grows
to such a bulk and fatness, but he is again turned into a deer, and
hunted till he is lean; upon which he returns to his human shape. Many
arts have been tried, and many resolutions taken by Actæon himself,
to follow such methods as would break the enchantment; but all have
hitherto proved ineffectual. I have therefore, by midnight watchings
and much care, found out, that there is no way to save him from the
jaws of his hounds, but to destroy the pack, which, by astrological
prescience, I find I am destined to perform. For which end I have
sent out my familiar, to bring me a list of all the places where they
are harboured, that I may know where to sound my horn, and bring them
together, and take an account of their haunts and their marks, against
another opportunity.
_Will's Coffee-house, August 24._
The author of the ensuing letter, by his name, and the quotations he
makes from the ancients, seems a sort of spy from the old world, whom
we moderns ought to be careful of offending; therefore I must be free,
and own it a fair hit where he takes me, rather than disoblige him.[72]
"SIR,
"Having a peculiar humour of desiring to be somewhat the better or
wiser for what I read, I am always uneasy when, in any profound
writer (for I read no others), I happen to meet with what I
cannot understand. When this falls out, it is a great grievance
to me that I am not able to consult the author himself about
his meaning; for commentators are a sect that has little share
in my esteem. Your elaborate writings have, among many others,
this advantage, that their author is still alive, and ready (as
his extensive charity makes us expect) to explain whatever may
be found in them too sublime for vulgar understandings. This,
sir, makes me presume to ask you, how the Hampstead hero's[73]
character could be perfectly new when the last letters came away,
and yet Sir John Suckling so well acquainted with it sixty years
ago? I hope, sir, you will not take this amiss: I can assure you,
I have a profound respect for you; which makes me write this,
with the same disposition with which Longinus bids us read Homer
and Plato. 'When in reading,' says he, 'any of those celebrated
authors, we meet with a passage to which we cannot well reconcile
our reasons, we ought firmly to believe, that were those great
wits present to answer for themselves, we should to our wonder
be convinced, that we only are guilty of the mistakes we before
attributed to them.' If you think fit to remove the scruple that
now torments me, it will be an encouragement to me to settle a
frequent correspondence with you, several things falling in my way
which would not, perhaps, be altogether foreign to your purpose,
and whereon your thoughts would be very acceptable to
"Your most humble Servant,
OBADIAH GREENHAT."
I own this is clean, and Mr. Greenhat has convinced me that I have writ
nonsense; yet am I not at all offended at him.
_Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim._[74]
This is the true art of raillery, when a man turns another into
ridicule, and shows at the same time he is in good humour, and not
urged by malice against the person he rallies. Obadiah Greenhat has
hit this very well: for to make an apology to Isaac Bickerstaff, an
unknown student and horary historian, as well as astrologer, and with
a grave face to say, he speaks of him by the same rules with which he
would treat Homer or Plato, is to place him in company where he cannot
expect to make a figure; and makes him flatter himself, that it is
only being named with them which renders him most ridiculous. I have
not known, and I am now past my grand climacteric, being sixty-four
years of age, according to my way of life, or rather (if you will allow
punning in an old gentleman) according to my way of pastime; I say,
old as I am, I have not been acquainted with many of the Greenhats.
There is indeed one Zedekiah Greenhat, who is lucky also in his way.
He has a very agreeable manner; for when he has a mind thoroughly to
correct a man, he never takes from him anything, but he allows him
something for it; or else, he blames him for things wherein he is not
defective, as well as for matters wherein he is. This makes a weak man
believe he is in jest in the whole. The other day he told Beau Prim,
who is thought impotent, that his mistress had declared she would not
have him, because he was a sloven, and had committed a rape. The beau
bit at the banter, and said very gravely, he thought to be clean was
as much as was necessary; and that as to the rape, he wondered by what
witchcraft that should come to her ears; but it had indeed cost him
a hundred pounds to hush the affair. The Greenhats are a family with
small voices and short arms, therefore they have power with none but
their friends: they never call after those who run away from them, or
pretend to take hold of you if you resist. But it has been remarkable,
that all who have shunned their company, or not listened to them, have
fallen into the hands of such as have knocked out their own brains, or
broken their bones. I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt
of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are akin to the Staffs. They
descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff,
in the reign of Harry II. And it is remarkable, that they are all
left-handed, and have always been very expert at single rapier. A man
must be very much used to their play to know how to defend himself; for
their posture is so different from that of the right-handed, that you
run upon their swords if you push forward; and they are in with you,
if you offer to fall back without keeping your guard. There have been
other letters lately sent to me which relate to other people: among
others, some whom I have heretofore declared to be so, are deceased.
I must not therefore break through rules so far, as to speak ill of
the dead. This maxim extends to all but the late Partridge, who still
denies his death. I am informed indeed by several, that he walks; but I
shall with all convenient speed lay him.
_St. James's Coffee-house, August 24._
We hear from Tournay, that on the night between the 22nd and 23rd, they
went on with their works in the enemy's mines, and levelled the earth
which was taken out of them. The next day, at eight in the morning,
when the French observed we were relieving our trenches, they sprung
a larger mine than any they had fired during this siege, which killed
only four private sentinels. The ensuing night, we had three men and
two officers killed, as also seven men wounded. Between the 24th and
25th, we repaired some works, which the enemy had ruined. On the next
day, some of the enemy's magazines blew up; and it is thought they were
destroyed on purpose by some of their men, who are impatient of the
hardships of the present service. There happened nothing remarkable for
two or three days following. A deserter, who came out of the citadel on
the 27th, says, the garrison is brought to the utmost necessity; that
their bread and water are both very bad; and that they were reduced to
eat horse-flesh. The manner of fighting in this siege has discovered a
gallantry in our men unknown to former ages; their meeting with adverse
parties underground, where every step is taken with apprehensions of
being blown up with mines below them, or crushed by the fall of the
earth above them, and all this acted in darkness, has something in it
more terrible than ever is met with in any other part of a soldier's
duty. However, this is performed with great cheerfulness. In other
parts of the war we have also good prospects: Count Thaun has taken
Annecy, and the Count de Merci marched into Franche Comté, while his
Electoral Highness is much superior in number to Monsieur d'Harcourt;
so that both on the side of Savoy and Germany, we have reason to expect
very suddenly some great event.