This is the modern way of bargain and sale; a certain shorthand
writing, in which laconic elder brothers are very successful. All my
fear is, that the nymph's elder sister is unmarried. If she is, we are
undone: but perhaps the careless fellow was her husband; and then she
will let us go on.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 28._
The following letter has given me a new sense of the nature of my
writings. I have the deepest regard to conviction, and shall never act
against it. However, I do not yet understand what good man he thinks
I have injured: but his epistle has such weight in it, that I shall
always have respect for his admonition, and desire the continuance of
it. I am not conscious that I have spoken any faults a man may not mend
if he pleases.
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
_Sept. 25._
"When I read your paper of Thursday,[190] I was surprised to find
mine of the 13th inserted at large; I never intended myself or
you a second trouble of this kind, believing I had sufficiently
pointed out the man you had injured, and that by this time you
were convinced that silence would be the best answer; but finding
your reflections are such as naturally call for a reply, I take
this way of doing it; and, in the first place, return you thanks
for the compliment made me of my seeming sense and worth. I do
assure you, I shall always endeavour to convince mankind of the
latter, though I have no pretence to the former. But to come a
little nearer, I observe you put yourself under a very severe
restriction, even the laying down the _Tatler_ for ever, if I can
give you an instance, 'wherein you have injured any good man, or
pointed at anything which is not the true object of raillery.'
"I must confess, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of
vices that would shame the gallows, be the best methods to point
at the true object of raillery, I have until this time been very
ignorant; but if it be so, I will venture to assert one thing, and
lay it down as a maxim, even to the Staffian race, viz., that that
method of pointing ought no more to be pursued, than those people
ought to cut your throat who suffer by it, because I take both
to be murder, and the law is not in every private man's hands to
execute: but indeed, sir, were you the only person would suffer by
the _Tatler's_ discontinuance, I have malice enough to punish you
in the manner you prescribe; but I am not so great an enemy to the
town or my own pleasures, as to wish it; nor that you would lay
aside lashing the reigning vices, so long as you keep to the true
spirit of satire, without descending to rake into characters below
its dignity; for as you well observe, 'there is something very
terrible in unjustly attacking men in a way that may prejudice
their honour or fortune;' and indeed, where crimes are enormous,
the delinquent deserves little pity, yet the reporter may deserve
less: and here I am naturally led to that celebrated author of
'The Whole Duty of Man,' who hath set this matter in a true light
in his treatise of 'The Government of the Tongue;'[191] where,
speaking of uncharitable truths, he says, a discovery of this kind
serves not to reclaim, but enrage the offender, and precipitate
him into further degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame is
one of those natural restraints, which the wisdom of heaven has
put upon mankind; and he that once stumbles, may yet by a check
of that bridle recover again: but when by a public detection
he is fallen under that infamy he feared, he will then be apt
to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself the utmost
pleasures of vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay, perhaps
he advances further, and sets up for a reversed sort of fame, by
being eminently wicked, and he who before was but a clandestine
disciple, becomes a doctor of impiety, &c. This sort of reasoning,
sir, most certainly induced our wise legislators very lately to
repeal that law which put the stamp of infamy in the face of
felons; therefore you had better give an act of oblivion to your
delinquents, at least for transportation, than continue to mark
them in so notorious a manner. I cannot but applaud your designed
attempt of raising merit from obscurity, celebrating virtue
in distress, and attacking vice in another method, by setting
innocence in a proper light. Your pursuing these noble themes,
will make a greater advance to the reformation you seem to aim
at, than the method you have hitherto taken, by putting mankind
beyond the power of retrieving themselves, or indeed to think it
possible. But if after all your endeavours in this new way, there
should then remain any hardened impenitents, you must even give
them up to the rigour of the law, as delinquents not within the
benefit of their clergy. Pardon me, good Mr. Bickerstaff, for
the tediousness of this epistle, and believe it is not from any
self-conviction I have taken up so much of your time, or my own;
but supposing you mean all your lucubrations should tend to the
good of mankind, I may the easier hope your pardon, being,
"Sir,
Yours, &c."
#/
_Grecian Coffee-house, Sept. 29._[192]
This evening I thought fit to notify to the literati of this house,
and by that means to all the world, that on Saturday the 15th of
October next ensuing, I design to fix my first table of fame;[193] and
desire that such as are acquainted with the characters of the twelve
most famous men that have ever appeared in the world, would send in
their lists, or name any one man for that table, assigning also his
place at it before that time, upon pain of having such his man of
fame postponed, or placed too high for ever. I shall not, upon any
application whatsoever, alter the place which upon that day I shall
give to any of these worthies. But whereas there are many who take upon
them to admire this hero, or that author, upon second-hand, I expect
each subscriber should underwrite his reason for the place he allots
his candidate.
The thing is of the last consequence; for we are about settling the
greatest point that has ever been debated in any age, and I shall take
precautions accordingly. Let every man who votes consider, that he is
now going to give away that, for which the soldier gave up his rest,
his pleasure, and his life; the scholar resigned his whole series of
thought, his midnight repose, and his morning slumbers. In a word, he
is (as I may say) to be judge of that after-life, which noble spirits
prefer to their very real being. I hope I shall be forgiven therefore,
if I make some objections against their jury as they shall occur to
me. The whole of the number by whom they are to be tried, are to be
scholars. I am persuaded also, that Aristotle will be put up by all
of that class of men. However, in behalf of others, such as wear the
livery of Aristotle, the two famous universities are called upon on
this occasion; but I except the men of Queen's, Exeter, and Jesus
Colleges,[194] in Oxford, who are not to be electors, because he shall
not be crowned from an implicit faith in his writings, but to receive
his honour from such judges as shall allow him to be censured. Upon
this election (as I was just now going to say) I banish all who think
and speak after others to concern themselves in it. For which reason
all illiterate distant admirers are forbidden to corrupt the voices,
by sending, according to the new mode, any poor students coals and
candles for their votes[195] in behalf of such worthies as they pretend
to esteem. All news-writers are also excluded, because they consider
fame as it is a report which gives foundation to the filling up their
rhapsodies, and not as it is the emanation or consequence of good and
evil actions. These are excepted against as justly as butchers in case
of life and death: their familiarity with the greatest names takes off
the delicacy of their regard, as dealing in blood makes the _lanii_
less tender of spilling it.
_St. James's Coffee-house, Sept. 28._
Letters from Lisbon of the 25th inst., N. S., speak of a battle which
has been fought near the river Cinca, in which General Staremberg had
overthrown the army of the Duke of Anjou. The persons who send this,
excuse their not giving particulars, because they believed an account
must have arrived here before we could hear from them. They had advices
from different parts, which concurred in the circumstances of the
action; after which the army of his Catholic Majesty advanced as far as
Fraga, and the enemy retired to Saragossa. There are reports that the
Duke of Anjou was in the engagement; but letters of good authority say,
that prince was on the road towards the camp when he received the news
of the defeat of his troops. We promise ourselves great consequences
from such an advantage, obtained by so accomplished a general as
Staremberg; who, among the men of this present age, is esteemed the
third in military fame and reputation.