[210] The puppet-show man.
[211] The corrections noted in the following number of the folio issue
suggest that Addison contributed towards this paper.
[212] See Nos. 36 and 73.
[213] James Nayler, the Quaker, was born about 1617. Enthusiasts
proclaimed that he possessed supernatural powers, and he was convicted
of blasphemy, and was pilloried and whipped. Nayler himself only said
that "Christ was in him," but his followers worshipped him as God. He
died in 1660.
[214] No. 67.
[215] Perhaps Sir Samuel Garth (died 1719), the author of the
mock-heroic poem, "The Dispensary."
[216] See No. 10.
[217] The reference here is not, as Nichols suggested, to the
"Annotations on the _Tatler_," by "Walter Wagstaff, Esq.," because
the writer of that work refers clearly to Steele as author of the
_Tatler_, and because the book was not published until August 1710.
The First Part, price 1s., was advertised in the _Post Man_ and _Post
Boy_ for August 31 to September 2, 1710, and Part II. was advertised as
published that day in the _Daily Courant_ for September 20, 1710.
No. 79. [STEELE.
From _Saturday, Oct. 8_, to _Tuesday, Oct. 11, 1709_.
Felices ter, et amplius,
Quos irrupta tenet copula; nec malis
Divulsus querimoniis
Supremâ citius solvet amor die.
HOR., I Od. xiii. 17.
_From my own Apartment, October 10._
My sister Jenny's lover, the honest Tranquillus (for that shall be his
name), has been impatient with me to despatch the necessary directions
for his marriage; that while I am taken up with imaginary schemes (as
he called them) he might not burn with real desire, and the torture
of expectation. When I had reprimanded him for the ardour wherein he
expressed himself, which I thought had not enough of that veneration
with which the marriage-bed is to be ascended, I told him, the day of
his nuptials should be on the Saturday following, which was the 8th
instant. On the 7th in the evening, poor Jenny came into my chamber,
and having her heart full of the great change of life from a virgin
condition to that of a wife, she long sat silent. I saw she expected
me to entertain her on this important subject, which was too delicate
a circumstance for herself to touch upon; whereupon I relieved her
modesty in the following manner: "Sister," said I, "you are now going
from me; and be contented, that you leave the company of a talkative
old man, for that of a sober young one: but take this along with you,
that there is no mean in the state you are entering into, but you
are to be exquisitely happy or miserable, and your fortune in this
way of life will be wholly of your own making. In all the marriages
I have ever seen (most of which have been unhappy ones), the great
cause of evil has proceeded from slight occasions; and I take it to
be the first maxim in a married condition, that you are to be above
trifles. When two persons have so good an opinion of each other as to
come together for life, they will not differ in matters of importance,
because they think of each other with respect in regard to all things
of consideration that may affect them, and are prepared for mutual
assistance and relief in such occurrences; but for less occasions, they
have formed no resolutions, but leave their minds unprepared. This,
dear Jenny, is the reason that the quarrel between Sir Harry Willit
and his lady, which began about her squirrel, is irreconcilable: Sir
Harry was reading a grave author; she runs into his study, and in a
playing humour, claps the squirrel upon the folio. He threw the animal
in a rage on the floor; she snatches it up again, calls Sir Harry a
sour pedant, without good nature or good manners. This cast him into
such a rage, that he threw down the table before him, kicked the book
round the room; then recollected himself: 'Lord, Madam,' said he, 'why
did you run into such expressions? I was,' said he, 'in the highest
delight with that author when you clapped your squirrel upon my book;'
and smiling, added upon recollection, 'I have a great respect for your
favourite, and pray let us all be friends.' My lady was so far from
accepting this apology, that she immediately conceived a resolution
to keep him under for ever, and with a serious air replied, 'There is
no regard to be had to what a man says, who can fall into so indecent
a rage, and such an abject submission, in the same moment, for which
I absolutely despise you.' Upon which she rushed out of the room. Sir
Harry stayed some minutes behind to think and command himself; after
which he followed her into her bedchamber, where she was prostrate
upon the bed, tearing her hair, and naming twenty coxcombs who would
have used her otherwise. This provoked him to so high a degree, that
he forbore nothing but beating her; and all the servants in the family
were at their several stations listening, while the best man and
woman, the best master and mistress, defamed each other in a way that
is not to be repeated even at Billingsgate. You know this ended in an
immediate separation: she longs to return home, but knows not how to
do it: he invites her home every day, and lies with every woman he
can get. Her husband requires no submission of her; but she thinks
her very return will argue she is to blame, which she is resolved to
be for ever, rather than acknowledge it. Thus, dear Jenny, my great
advice to you is, be guarded against giving or receiving little
provocations. Great matters of offence I have no reason to fear either
from you or your husband." After this, we turned our discourse into a
more gay style, and parted: but before we did so, I made her resign
her snuff-box[218] for ever, and half drown herself with washing away
the stench of the musty.[219] But the wedding morning arrived, and our
family being very numerous, there was no avoiding the inconvenience
of making the ceremony and festival more public than the modern way
of celebrating them makes me approve of. The bride next morning came
out of her chamber, dressed with all the art and care that Mrs. Toilet
the tire-woman could bestow on her. She was on her wedding-day three
and twenty: her person is far from what we call a regular beauty;
but a certain sweetness in her countenance, an ease in her shape and
motion, with an unaffected modesty in her looks, had attractions beyond
what symmetry and exactness can inspire without the addition of these
endowments. When her lover entered the room, her features flushed
with shame and joy; and the ingenuous manner, so full of passion and
of awe, with which Tranquillus approached to salute her, gave me good
omens of his future behaviour towards her. The wedding was wholly under
my care. After the ceremony at church, I was resolved to entertain
the company with a dinner suitable to the occasion, and pitched upon
the Apollo,[220] at the Old Devil at Temple Bar, as a place sacred
to mirth, tempered with discretion, where Ben Jonson and his "sons"
used to make their liberal meetings. Here the chief of the Staffian
race appeared; and as soon as the company were come into that ample
room, Lepidus Wagstaff began to make me compliments for choosing that
place, and fell into a discourse upon the subject of pleasure and
entertainment, drawn from the rules of Ben's Club,[221] which are in
gold letters over the chimney. Lepidus has a way very uncommon, and
speaks on subjects, on which any man else would certainly offend, with
great dexterity. He gave us a large account of the public meetings of
all the well-turned minds who had passed through this life in ages
past, and closed his pleasing narrative with a discourse on marriage,
and a repetition of the following verses out of Milton:--
_Hail wedded love! mysterious law! true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise, of all things common else.
By thee adult'rous lust was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range; by thee,
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother, first were known,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled, and chaste pronounced,
Present or past, as saints or patriarchs used.
Here Love his golden shafts employs; here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings:
Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,
Casual fruition; nor in court amours,
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain._[222]
In these verses, all the images that can come into a young woman's head
on such an occasion, are raised; but that in so chaste and elegant
a manner, that the bride thanked him for his agreeable talk, and we
sat down to dinner. Among the rest of the company, there was got in a
fellow you call a wag. This ingenious person is the usual life of all
feasts and merriments, by speaking absurdities, and putting everybody
of breeding and modesty out of countenance. As soon as we sat down, he
drank to the bride's diversion that night, and then made twenty double
meanings on the word thing. We are the best bred family, for one so
numerous, in this kingdom; and indeed we should all of us have been as
much out of countenance as the bride, but that we were relieved by an
honest rough relation of ours at the lower end of the table, who is a
lieutenant of marines.
This soldier and sailor had good plain sense, and saw what was wrong
as well as another; he had a way of looking at his plate, and speaking
aloud in an inward manner; and whenever the wag mentioned the word
"thing," or the words "that same," the lieutenant in that voice cried,
"Knock him down." The merry man wondering, angry, and looking round,
was the diversion of the table. When he offered to recover, and say,
"To the bride's best thoughts," "Knock him down," says the lieutenant,
and so on. This silly humour diverted, and saved us from the fulsome
entertainment of an ill-bred coxcomb, and the bride drank the
lieutenant's health. We returned to my lodging, and Tranquillus led his
wife to her apartment, without the ceremony of throwing the stocking,
which generally costs two or three maidenheads without any ceremony at
all.