[279] At this fire, on April 29, 1679, about two hundred persons were
killed.
[280] "Æneid," vi. 653.
[281] See No. 92.
[282] Where the Royal Society then met.
No. 95.
From _Tuesday, Nov. 15_, to _Thursday, Nov. 17, 1709_.
Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati;
Casta pudicitiam servat domus.
VIRG., Georg. ii. 523.
_From my own Apartment, Nov. 16._
There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in
their possession which they do not enjoy. It is therefore a kind and
good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their
attention to such instances of their good fortune which they are apt to
overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor, and
pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and
murmur which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of
all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. I am led
into this thought by a visit I made an old friend who was formerly my
schoolfellow. He came to town last week with his family for the winter,
and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I
am as it were at home at that house, and every member of it knows me
for their well-wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is,
to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither:
the boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is
I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to
me, runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day
I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot
me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing
me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at
the first entrance. After which they began to rally me upon a thousand
little stories they heard in the country about my marriage to one of my
neighbour's daughters: upon which the gentleman my friend said, "Nay,
if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope
mine shall have the preference; there's Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and
would make him as fine a widow as the best of them: but I know him too
well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished
in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern
beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day
to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in your
heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your
verses on her." With such reflections on little passages which happened
long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After
dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we
were alone, he took me by the hand; "Well, my good friend," says he, "I
am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen
all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the
good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her from
the play-house, to find out who she was, for me? I perceived a tear
fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But to
turn the discourse," said I, "She is not indeed quite that creature she
was when she returned me the letter I carried from you; and told me,
she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble
her who had never offended me, but would be so much the gentleman's
friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed
in. You may remember, I thought her in earnest, and you were forced
to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with
her for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen." "Fifteen?"
replied my good friend: "ah! you little understand, you that have
lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in
being really beloved! It is impossible that the most beauteous face
in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon
that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused
by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of
sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell
you sincerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot with
any sort of moderation think of her present state of health. But as
to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond
what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in the
vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances
of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to
my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first
saw it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the
very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare
and interests. Thus at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived
towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what
she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly
called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to
the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her
examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness
to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and
the meanest we have, has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always
to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my
old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest
joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the
next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering
what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years.
The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of the battles,
and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby,[283] and
the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy."
He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered,
and with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance told us, she
had been searching her closet for something very good to treat such an
old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the
cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an
instant. The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had
been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her
with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at
what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a
smile, "Mr. Bickerstaff, don't believe a word of what he tells you. I
shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised
you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his
coming to town. You must know, he tells me, that he finds London is
a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several of
his old acquaintance and school-fellows are here, young fellows with
fair[284] full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning
from going out open-breasted."[285] My friend, who is always extremely
delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did
it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep
up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery
upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night
from the play-house; supposing you should carry me thither to-morrow
night, and lead me into the front box." This put us into a long field
of discourse about the beauties, who were mothers to the present,
and shone in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, I was glad she
had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but
her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.[286] We
were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young
lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and
immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war.[287]
His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the
room; but I would not part with him so.[288] I found, upon conversation
with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child
had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the
other side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in
Æsop's fables; but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did
not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were
true; for which reason, I found he had very much turned his studies,
for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures of Don
Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other
historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the
father took in the forwardness of his son; and that these diversions
might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks, which
might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He
would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift,[289] find fault
with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved St.
George for being the champion of England; and by this means, had his
thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and
honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me,
that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better
scholar than he. "Betty," says she, "deals chiefly in fairies and
sprites; and sometimes in a winter night, will terrify the maids with
her accounts, till they are afraid to go up to bed."
I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes
in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the
only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us
liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of
a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess, it struck
me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off, I shall
leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my
family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog and my cat, who only can be
the better or worse for what happens to me.