[Footnote 1: Aristotle.]
[Footnote 2: Plato.]
[Footnote 3: Socrates.]
[Footnote 4: Theophrastus.]
[Footnote 5: Eudosia]
[Footnote 6: Antisthenes. Quoted from Diogenes Laertius, Lib. vi. cap.
I.]
* * * * *
No. 145. Thursday, August 16, 1711. Steele.
'Stultitiam patiuntur opes ...'
Hor.
If the following Enormities are not amended upon the first Mention, I
desire further Notice from my Correspondents.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
'I am obliged to you for your Discourse the other Day upon frivolous
Disputants, who with great Warmth, and Enumeration of many
Circumstances and Authorities, undertake to prove Matters which no
Body living denies. You cannot employ your self more usefully than in
adjusting the Laws of Disputation in Coffee-houses and accidental
Companies, as well as in more formal Debates. Among many other things
which your own Experience must suggest to you, it will be very
obliging if you please to take notice of Wagerers. I will not here
repeat what _Hudibras_ says of such Disputants, which is so true, that
it is almost Proverbial; [1] but shall only acquaint you with a Set of
young Fellows of the Inns of Court, whose Fathers have provided for
them so plentifully, that they need not be very anxious to get Law
into their Heads for the Service of their Country at the Bar; but are
of those who are sent (as the Phrase of Parents is) to the _Temple_ to
know how to keep their own. One of these Gentlemen is very loud and
captious at a Coffee-house which I frequent, and being in his Nature
troubled with an Humour of Contradiction, though withal excessive
Ignorant, he has found a way to indulge this Temper, go on in Idleness
and Ignorance, and yet still give himself the Air of a very learned
and knowing Man, by the Strength of his Pocket. The Misfortune of the
thing is, I have, as it happens sometimes, a greater Stock of Learning
than of Mony. The Gentleman I am speaking of, takes Advantage of the
Narrowness of my Circumstances in such a manner, that he has read all
that I can pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive Air, and
with such powerful Arguments, that from a very Learned Person I am
thought a mere Pretender. Not long ago I was relating that I had read
such a Passage in _Tacitus_, up starts my young Gentleman in a full
Company, and pulling out his Purse offered to lay me ten Guineas, to
be staked immediately in that Gentleman's Hands, (pointing to one
smoaking at another Table) that I was utterly mistaken. I was Dumb for
want of ten Guineas; he went on unmercifully to Triumph over my
Ignorance how to take him up, and told the whole Room he had read
_Tacitus_ twenty times over, and such a remarkable Instance as that
could not escape him. He has at this time three considerable Wagers
depending between him and some of his Companions, who are rich enough
to hold an Argument with him. He has five Guineas upon Questions in
Geography, two that the _Isle of Wight_ is a Peninsula, and three
Guineas to one that the World is round. We have a Gentleman comes to
our Coffee-house, who deals mightily in Antique Scandal; my Disputant
has laid him twenty Pieces upon a Point of History, to wit, that
_Cæsar_ never lay with _Cato's_ Sister, as is scandalously reported by
some People.
There are several of this sort of Fellows in Town, who wager
themselves into Statesmen, Historians, Geographers, Mathematicians,
and every other Art, when the Persons with whom they talk have not
Wealth equal to their Learning. I beg of you to prevent, in these
Youngsters, this compendious Way to Wisdom, which costs other People
so much Time and Pains, and you will oblige
_Your humble Servant._
_Coffee-House near the_ Temple, Aug. 12, 1711.
_Mr_. SPECTATOR,
'Here's a young Gentleman that sings Opera-Tunes or Whistles in a full
House. Pray let him know that he has no Right to act here as if he
were in an empty Room. Be pleased to divide the Spaces of a Publick
Room, and certify Whistlers, Singers, and Common Orators, that are
heard further than their Portion of the Room comes [to,] that the Law
is open, and that there is an Equity which will relieve us from such
as interrupt us in our Lawful Discourse, as much as against such as
stop us on the Road. I take these Persons, Mr. SPECTATOR, to be such
Trespassers as the Officer in your Stage-Coach, and of the same
Sentiment with Counsellor _Ephraim_. It is true the Young Man is rich,
and, as the Vulgar say, [needs [1]] not care for any Body; but sure
that is no Authority for him to go whistle where he pleases.
_I am, SIR_, _Your Most Humble Servant_,
_P.S._ I have Chambers in the _Temple_, and here are Students that
learn upon the Hautboy; pray desire the Benchers that all Lawyers who
are Proficients in Wind-Musick may lodge to the _Thames_.
_Mr_. SPECTATOR,
We are a Company of young Women who pass our Time very much together,
and obliged by the mercenary Humour of the Men to be as Mercenarily
inclined as they are. There visits among us an old Batchelor whom each
of us has a Mind to. The Fellow is rich, and knows he may have any of
us, therefore is particular to none, but excessively ill-bred. His
Pleasantry consists in Romping, he snatches Kisses by Surprize, puts
his Hand in our Necks, tears our Fans, robs us of Ribbons, forces
Letters out of our Hands, looks into any of our Papers, and a thousand
other Rudenesses. Now what I'll desire of you is to acquaint him, by
Printing this, that if he does not marry one of us very suddenly, we
have all agreed, the next time he pretends to be merry, to affront
him, and use him like a Clown as he is. In the Name of the Sisterhood
I take my Leave of you, and am, as they all are,
_Your Constant Reader and Well-wisher_.
_Mr_. SPECTATOR,
I and several others of your Female Readers, have conformed our selves
to your Rules, even to our very Dress. There is not one of us but has
reduced our outward Petticoat to its ancient Sizable Circumference,
tho' indeed we retain still a Quilted one underneath, which makes us
not altogether unconformable to the Fashion; but 'tis on Condition,
Mr. SPECTATOR extends not his Censure so far. But we find you Men
secretly approve our Practice, by imitating our Pyramidical Form. The
Skirt of your fashionable Coats forms as large a Circumference as our
Petticoats; as these are set out with Whalebone, so are those with
Wire, to encrease and sustain the Bunch of Fold that hangs down on
each Side; and the Hat, I perceive, is decreased in just proportion to
our Head-dresses. We make a regular Figure, but I defy your
Mathematicks to give Name to the Form you appear in. Your Architecture
is mere _Gothick_, and betrays a worse Genius than ours; therefore if
you are partial to your own Sex, I shall be less than I am now
_Your Humble Servant_.