[89] Gambling-houses were very numerous at this time; they were largely
supported by foreign adventurers, many of whom lived in Suffolk Street,
Haymarket.
[90] Dryden defines wit as "a propriety of thoughts and words; or,
in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject"
(Preface to "The State of Innocence"). Addison observes that this "is
not so properly a definition of wit, as of good writing in general"
(_Spectator_, No. 62).
[91] "Told us" (folio).
[92] See news paragraph below.
[93] I Od. v. 5. See No. 212, for Steele's remarks on a well-dressed
woman, in reply to a lady who asked what was the meaning of these words.
[94] William Dampier (1652-1715), captain, traveller and buccaneer,
tells another story of a voyage in 1686, when provisions were nearly
exhausted. "The men had contrived first to kill Captain Swan and eat
him when the victuals were gone, and after him all of us who were
accessory in promoting the undertaking this voyage. This made Captain
Swan say to me, after our arrival at Guam, 'Ah, Dampier, you would have
made them but a poor meal'; for I was as lean as the captain was lusty
and fleshy."
[95] It has been suggested that there is here a reference to John
Oldmixon, the Whig historian and journalist; but in No. 71 Steele seems
to disclaim such an intention.
No. 63. [STEELE, ETC.
From _Thursday September 1_, to _Saturday, September 3, 1709_.
_White's Chocolate-house, September 2._
_Of the Enjoyment of Life with Regard to others._[96]
I have ever thought it the greatest diminution to the Roman glory
imaginable, that in their institution of public triumphs, they led
their enemies in chains when they were prisoners. It is to be allowed,
that doing all honour to the superiority of heroes above the rest of
mankind, must needs conduce to the glory and advantage of a nation;
but what shocks the imagination to reflect upon, is, that a polite
people should think it reasonable, that an unhappy man, who was no way
inferior to the victor, but by the chance of war, should be led like a
slave at the wheels of his chariot. Indeed these other circumstances
of a triumph, that it was not allowed in a civil war, lest part of it
should be in tears, while the other was making acclamations; that it
should not be allowed, except such a number were slain in battle; that
the general should be disgraced who made a false muster of his dead:
these, I say, had great and politic ends in their being established,
and tended to the apparent benefit of the commonwealth. But this
behaviour to the conquered had no foundation in nature or policy,
only to gratify the insolence of a haughty people, who triumphed
over barbarous nations, by acting what was fit only for those very
barbarians to practise. It seems wonderful, that they who were so
refined as to take care, that to complete the honour done to the
victorious officer, no power should be known above him in the Empire
on the day of his triumph, but that the consuls themselves should be
but guests at his table that evening, could not take it into thought
to make the man of chief note among his prisoners one of the company.
This would have improved the gladness of the occasion, and the victor
had made a much greater figure, in that no other man appeared unhappy
on his day, than in that no other man appeared great. But we will waive
at present such important incidents, and turn our thoughts rather to
the familiar part of human life, and we shall find, that the great
business we contend for, is in a less degree what those Romans did on
more solemn occasions, to triumph over our fellow creatures; and there
is hardly a man to be found, who would not rather be in pain to appear
happy, than be really happy and thought miserable. This men attempt
by sumptuous equipages, splendid houses, numerous servants, and all
the cares and pursuits of an ambitious or fashionable life. Bromeo
and Tabio are particularly ill-wishers to each other, and rivals in
happiness. There is no way in nature so good to procure the esteem of
the one, as to give him little notices of certain secret points wherein
the other is uneasy. Gnatho has the skill of doing this, and never
applauds the improvements Bromeo has been many years making, and ever
will be making; but he adds, "Now this very thing was my thought when
Tabio was pulling up his underwood, yet he never would hear of it; but
now your gardens are in this posture, he is ready to hang himself.
Well, to be sincere, that situation of his can never make an agreeable
seat: he may make his house and appurtenances what he pleases; but he
cannot remove them to the same ground where Bromeo stands. But of all
things under the sun, a man that is happy at second-hand is the most
monstrous." "It is a very strange madness," answers Bromeo, "if a
man on these occasions can think of any end but pleasing himself. As
for my part, if things are convenient, I hate all ostentation: there
is no end of the folly of adapting our affairs to the imagination of
others." Upon which, the next thing he does, is to enlarge whatever he
hears his rival has attempted to imitate him in; but their misfortune
is, that they are in their time of life, in their estates, and in their
understandings equal; so that the emulation may continue to the last
day of their lives. As it stands now, Tabio has heard Bromeo has lately
purchased two hundred a year in the annuities since he last settled the
account of their happiness, in which he thought himself to have the
balance. This may seem a very fantastical way of thinking in these men;
but there is nothing so common, as a man's endeavouring rather to go
farther than some other person towards an easy fortune, than to form
any certain standard that would make himself happy.
_Will's Coffee-house, September 2._
Mr. Dactile has been this evening very profuse of his eloquence upon
the talent of turning things into ridicule; and seemed to say very
justly, that there was generally in it something too disingenuous
for the society of liberal men, except it were governed by the
circumstances of persons, time, and place. "This talent," continued
he, "is to be used as a man does his sword, not to be drawn but in
his own defence, or to bring pretenders and impostors in society to
a true light." But we have seen this faculty so mistaken, that the
burlesque of Virgil himself has passed, among men of little taste, for
wit; and the noblest thoughts that can enter into the heart of man,
levelled with ribaldry and baseness: though by the rules of justice,
no man ought to be ridiculed for any imperfection, who does not set
up for eminent sufficiency in that way wherein he is defective. Thus
cowards, who would hide themselves by an affected terror in their mien
and dress; and pedants, who would show the depth of their knowledge
by a supercilious gravity, are equally the objects of laughter. Not
that they are in themselves ridiculous for their want of courage, or
weakness of understanding, but that they seem insensible of their
own place in life, and unhappily rank themselves with those, whose
abilities, compared to their defects, make them contemptible. At the
same time, it must be remarked, that risibility being the effect of
reason, a man ought to be expelled from sober company who laughs
without it. "Ha! ha!" says Will. Truby, who sat by, "will any man
pretend to give me laws when I should laugh, or tell me what I should
laugh at?" "Look ye," answered Humphrey Slyboots, "you are mightily
mistaken; you may, if you please, make what noise you will, and nobody
can hinder an English gentleman from putting his face into what posture
he thinks fit; but, take my word for it, that motion which you now
make with your mouth open, and the agitation of your stomach, which
you relieve by holding your sides, is not laughter: laughter is a more
weighty thing than you imagine; and I'll tell you a secret, you never
did laugh in your life; and truly I am afraid you never will, except
you take great care to be cured of those convulsive fits." Truby left
us, and when he had got two yards from us, "Well," said he, "you are
strange fellows," and was immediately taken with another fit.
The Trubies are a well-natured family, whose particular make is such,
that they have the same pleasure out of good Will, which other people
have in that scorn which is the cause of laughter: therefore their
bursting into the figures of men when laughing, proceeds only from a
general benevolence they are born with; as the Slyboots smile only on
the greatest occasion of mirth; which difference is caused rather from
a different structure of their organs, than that one is less moved than
the other. I know Sowerly frets inwardly when Will. Truby laughs at
him; but when I meet him, and he bursts out, I know it is out of his
abundant joy to see me, which he expresses by that vociferation which
is in others laughter. But I shall defer considering this subject at
large, till I come to my treatise of oscitation, laughter, and ridicule.
_From my own Apartment, September 2._
The following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which
every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for
the good of my fellow writers to publish it.[97]
"SIR,
"It must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors
the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own
themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be
in downright nonsense. You'll be pleased, sir, to pardon this
expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to
excuse you when you seemed anything dull. Most writers, like the
generality of Paul Lorrain's Saints,[98] seem to place a peculiar
vanity in dying hard. But you, sir, to show a good example to
your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord
mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to
discover beauties in it, which, I'll assure you, he that drew it
never dreamed of: and to make your civility the more accomplished,
you have honoured him with the title of your kinsman, which,
though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My
brother (for such Obadiah is) being at present very busy about
nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for
all these favours; and, as a small token of his gratitude to
communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which,
he thinks, belongs more properly to you than to any other of
our modern historians. Madonella,[99] who as it was thought had
long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still
walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has
found, by deep reflections on the revolution mentioned in yours
of June 23rd, that where early instructions have been wanting
to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of
her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of
perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws
which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed
in nurseries and boarding-schools. To remedy this evil, she has
laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where, instead
of scissors, needles, and sampler; pens, compasses, quadrants,
books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their
whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate
exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of
the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be
taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the ancient
and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the
direction is undertaken by Epicene,[100] the writer of Memoirs
from the Mediterranean, who, by the help of some artificial
poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought
many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more
surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours,
revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools
of Lethe. Another of the professors is to be a certain lady,[101]
who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels, which are
said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of Queen
Emma's Court, as the Memoirs from the new Atalantis are with those
of ours. I shall make it my business to inquire into the progress
of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of
their philosophical transactions, and searches after nature.
"Yours, &c.,
TOBIAH GREENHAT."
_St. James's Coffee-house, September 2._
This day we have received advices by the way of Ostend, which give an
account of an engagement between the French and the Allies on the 11th
instant, N.S.[102] Marshal Boufflers arrived in the enemy's camp on
the 5th, and acquainted Marshal Villars, that he did not come in any
character, but to receive his commands for the king's service, and
communicate to him his orders upon the present posture of affairs.
On the 9th, both armies advanced towards each other, and cannonaded
all the ensuing day till the close of the evening, and stood on their
arms all that night. On the day of battle, the cannonading was renewed
about seven: the Duke of Argyle had orders to attack the wood Saar on
the right, which he executed so successfully, that he pierced through
it, and won a considerable post. The Prince of Orange had the same
good fortune in a wood on the left: after which, the whole body of
the confederates, joined by the forces from the siege, marched up,
and engaged the enemy, who were drawn up at some distance from these
woods. The dispute was very warm for some time; but towards noon the
French began to give ground from one wing to the other: which advantage
being observed by our generals, the whole army was urged on with fresh
vigour, and in a few hours the day ended with the entire defeat of the
enemy.