a person that barely consents; and indeed such a one, if a man were
able to purchase or maintain him, cannot be bought too dear. Such a
one never contradicts you, but gains upon you, not by a fulsome way
of commending you in broad terms, but liking whatever you propose or
utter; at the same time is ready to beg your pardon, and gainsay you,
if you chance to speak ill of yourself. An old lady is very seldom
without such a companion as this, who can recite the names of all her
lovers, and the matches refused by her in the days when she minded such
vanities (as she is pleased to call them, though she so much approves
the mention of them). It is to be noted, that a woman's flatterer is
generally older than herself, her years serving at once to recommend
her patroness's age, and to add weight to her complaisance in all other
particulars.
We gentlemen of small fortunes are extremely necessitous in this
particular. I have indeed one who smokes with me often; but his parts
are so low, that all the incense he does me is to fill his pipe with
me, and to be out at just as many whiffs as I take. This is all the
praise or assent that he is capable of, yet there are more hours when I
would rather be in his company than that of the brightest man I know.
It would be a hard matter to give an account of this inclination to be
flattered; but if we go to the bottom of it, we shall find that the
pleasure in it is something like that of receiving money which lay out.
Every man thinks he has an estate of reputation, and is glad to see one
that will bring any of it home to him: it is no matter how dirty a bag
it is conveyed to him in, or by how clownish a messenger, so the money
is good. All that we want to be pleased with flattery, is to believe
that the man is sincere who gives it us. It is by this one accident
that absurd creatures often outrun the more skilful in this art. Their
want of ability is here an advantage, and their bluntness, as it is the
seeming effect of sincerity, is the best cover to artifice.
Terence introduces a flatterer talking to a coxcomb whom he cheats out
of a livelihood, and a third person on the stage makes on him this
pleasant remark, "This fellow has an art of making fools madmen."[36]
The love of flattery is indeed sometimes the weakness of a great mind;
but you see it also in persons who otherwise discover no manner of
relish of anything above mere sensuality. These latter it sometimes
improves, but always debases the former. A fool is in himself the
object of pity till he is flattered. By the force of that his stupidity
is raised into affectation, and he becomes of dignity enough to be
ridiculous. I remember a droll, that upon one's saying, "The times
are so ticklish that there must great care be taken what one says in
conversation," answered with an air of surliness and honesty, "If
people will be free, let them be so in the manner that I am, who never
abuse a man but to his face." He had no reputation for saying dangerous
truths; therefore when it was repeated, "You abuse a man but to his
face?" "Yes," says he, "I flatter him."
It is indeed the greatest of injuries to flatter any but the unhappy,
or such as are displeased with themselves for some infirmity. In this
latter case we have a member of our club, that when Sir Jeffery falls
asleep, wakens him with snoring. This makes Sir Jeffery hold up for
some moments the longer, to see there are men younger than himself
among us who are more lethargic than he is.
When flattery is practised upon any other consideration, it is the most
abject thing in nature; nay, I cannot think of any character below the
flatterer, except he that envies him. You meet with fellows prepared
to be as mean as possible in their condescensions and expressions;
but they want persons and talents to rise up to such a baseness. As a
coxcomb is a fool of parts, so is a flatterer a knave of parts.
The best of this order that I know, is one who disguises it under a
spirit of contradiction or reproof. He told an errant driveller the
other day, that he did not care for being in company with him, because
he heard he turned his absent friends into ridicule. And upon Lady
Autumn's[37] disputing with him about something that happened at the
Revolution, he replied with a very angry tone, "Pray, madam, give me
leave to know more of a thing in which I was actually concerned, than
you, who were then in your nurse's arms."
FOOTNOTES:
[35] A hanger-on. As Mr. Dobson points out, Thackeray gives the title
of "led-captain" to Lord Steyne's toady and trencher-man, Mr. Wagg
("Vanity Fair," chap. xxi.).
[36] "Eunuchus," act ii. sc. 2, l. 23.
[37] See Nos. 36 and 140.
=No. 209.= [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, Aug. 8_, to _Thursday, Aug. 10, 1710_.
_From my own Apartment, Aug. 9._
A noble painter, who has an ambition to draw a history-piece, has
desired of me to give him a subject on which he may show the utmost
force of his art and genius. For this purpose I have pitched upon that
remarkable incident between Alexander the Great and his physician.
This Prince, in the midst of his conquests in Persia, was seized by a
violent fever; and according to the account we have of his vast mind,
his thoughts were more employed about his recovery as it regarded the
war, than as it concerned his own life. He professed, a slow method
was worse than death to him, because it was what he more dreaded, an
interruption of his glory. He desired a dangerous, so it might be a
speedy remedy. During this impatience of the King, it is well known
that Darius had offered an immense sum to any who should take away
his life. But Philippus, the most esteemed and most knowing of his
physicians, promised, that within three days' time he would prepare a
medicine for him which should restore him more expeditiously than could
be imagined. Immediately after this engagement, Alexander receives a
letter from the most considerable of his captains, with intelligence,
that Darius had bribed Philippus to poison him. Every circumstance
imaginable favoured this suspicion; but this monarch, who did nothing
but in an extraordinary manner, concealed the letter; and while the
medicine was preparing, spent all his thoughts upon his behaviour
in this important incident. From his long soliloquy he came to this
resolution: "Alexander must not lie here alive to be oppressed by his
enemy. I will not believe my physician guilty; or, I will perish rather
by his guilt than my own diffidence."
At the appointed hour, Philippus enters with the potion. One cannot
but form to one's self on occasion the encounter of their eyes,
the resolution in those of the patient, and the benevolence in the
countenance of the physician. The hero raised himself in his bed, and
holding the letter in one hand, and the potion in the other, drank
the medicine. It will exercise my friend's pencil and brain to place
this action in its proper beauty. A prince observing the features of
a suspected traitor after having drank the poison he offered him, is
a circumstance so full of passion, that it will require the highest
strength of his imagination to conceive it, much more to express it.
But as painting is eloquence and poetry in mechanism, I shall raise
his ideas, by reading with him the finest draughts of the passions
concerned in this circumstance from the most excellent poets and
orators. The confidence which Alexander assumes from the air of
Philippus's face as he is reading his accusation, and the generous
disdain which is to rise in the features of a falsely accused man, are
principally to be regarded. In this particular he must heighten his
thoughts, by reflecting, that he is not drawing only an innocent man
traduced, but a man zealously affected to his person and safety, full
of resentment for being thought false. How shall we contrive to express
the highest admiration mingled with disdain? How shall we in strokes of
a pencil say what Philippus did to his Prince on this occasion? "Sir,
my life never depended on yours more than it does now. Without knowing
this secret, I prepared the potion, which you have taken as what
concerned Philippus no less than Alexander; and there is nothing new in
this adventure, but that it makes me still more admire the generosity
and confidence of my master." Alexander took him by the hand, and
said, "Philippus, I am confident you had rather I had any other way to
have manifested the faith I have in you, than a case which so nearly
concerns me: and in gratitude I now assure you, I am anxious for the
effect of your medicine, more for your sake than my own."[38]
My painter is employed by a man of sense and wealth to furnish him a
gallery, and I shall join with my friend in the designing part. It is
the great use of pictures to raise in our minds either agreeable ideas
of our absent friends, or high images of eminent personages. But the
latter design is, methinks, carried on in a very improper way; for to
fill a room full of battle-pieces, pompous histories of sieges, and
a tall hero alone in a crowd of insignificant figures about him, is
of no consequence to private men. But to place before our eyes great
and illustrious men in those parts and circumstances of life wherein
their behaviour may have an effect upon our minds, as being such as
we partake with them merely as they were men: such as these, I say,
may be just and useful ornaments of an elegant apartment. In this
collection therefore that we are making, we will not have the battles,
but the sentiments of Alexander. The affair we were just now talking
of, has circumstances of the highest nature, and yet their grandeur has
little to do with his fortune. If by observing such a piece as that of
his taking a bowl of poison with so much magnanimity, a man, the next
time he has a fit of the spleen, is less froward to his friend or his
servants; thus far is some improvement.
I have frequently thought, that if we had many draughts which were
historical of certain passions, and had the true figure of the great
men we see transported by them, it would be of the most solid advantage
imaginable. To consider this mighty man on one occasion administer to
the wants of a poor soldier, benumbed with cold, with the greatest
humanity; at another, barbarously stabbing a faithful officer: at
one time, so generously chaste and virtuous as to give his captive
Statira her liberty; at another, burning a town at the instigation of
Thais--this sort of changes in the same person are what would be more
beneficial lessons of morality than the several revolutions in a great
man's fortune. There are but one or two in an age to whom the pompous
incidents of his life can be exemplary; but I or any man may be as
sick, as good-natured, as compassionate, and as angry as Alexander the
Great. My purpose in all this chat is, that so excellent a furniture
may not for the future have so romantic a turn, but allude to incidents
which come within the fortunes of the ordinary race of men. I do not
know but it is by the force of this senseless custom that people are
drawn in postures they would not for half they are worth be surprised
in. The unparalleled fierceness of some rural squires drawn in red,
or in armour, who never dreamed to destroy anything above a fox, is a
common and ordinary offence of this kind. But I shall give an account
of our whole gallery on another occasion.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Q. Curtius, "Hist.," iii. 6, &c.
=No. 210.= [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Aug. 10_, to _Saturday, Aug. 12, 1710_.
_Sheer Lane, Aug. 10._
I did myself the honour this day to make a visit to a lady of quality,
who is one of those who are ever railing at the vices of the age,
but mean only one vice, because it is the only vice they are not
guilty of. She went so far as to fall foul on a young woman who has
had imputations; but whether they were just or not, no one knows but
herself. However that is, she is in her present behaviour modest,
humble, pious, and discreet. I thought it became me to bring this
censorious lady to reason, and let her see she was a much more vicious
woman than the person she spoke of.
"Madam," said I, "you are very severe to this poor young woman, for a
trespass which I believe Heaven has forgiven her, and for which you
see she is for ever out of countenance." "Nay, Mr. Bickerstaff," she
interrupted, "if you at this time of day contradict people of virtue,
and stand up for ill women--" "No, no, madam," said I, "not so fast;
she is reclaimed, and I fear you never will be. Nay, nay, madam, do not
be in a passion, but let me tell you what you are. You are indeed as
good as your neighbours, but that is being very bad. You are a woman at
the head of a family, and lead a perfect town lady's life. You go on
your own way, and consult nothing but your glass. What imperfections
indeed you see there, you immediately mend as fast as you can. You may
do the same by the faults I tell you of, for they are much more in your
power to correct.
"You are to know, then, that you visiting ladies, that carry your
virtue from house to house with so much prattle in each other's
applause, and triumph over other people's faults, I grant you have but
the speculation of vice in your own conversations, but promote the
practice of it in all others you have to do with.
"As for you, madam, your time passes away in dressing, eating,
sleeping, and praying. When you rise in a morning, I grant you an hour
spent very well; but you come out to dress in so froward a humour,
that the poor girl who attends you, curses her very being in that she
is your servant, for the peevish things you say to her; when this poor
creature is put into a way, that good or evil are regarded but as they
relieve her from the hours she has and must pass with you. The next you
have to do with is your coachman and footmen. They convey your ladyship
to church. While you are praying there, they are cursing, swearing,
and drinking in an alehouse. During the time also which your ladyship
sets apart for heaven, you are to know, that your cook is swearing and
fretting in preparation for your dinner. Soon after your meal you make
visits, and the whole world that belongs to you speaks all the ill of
you which you are repeating of others. You see, madam, whatever way you
go, all about you are in a very broad one. The morality of these people
it is your proper business to inquire into; and till you reform them,
you had best let your equals alone; otherwise, if I allow you you are
not vicious, you must allow me you are not virtuous."
I took my leave, and received at my coming home the following letter:
* * * * *
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"I have lived a pure and undefiled virgin these twenty-seven years; and
I assure you, 'tis with great grief and sorrow of heart I tell you,
that I become weary and impatient of the derision of the gigglers of
our sex, who call me old maid, and tell me I shall lead apes.[39] If
you are truly a patron of the distressed, and an adept in astrology,
you will advise whether I shall or ought to be prevailed upon by the
impertinencies of my own sex, to give way to the importunities of
yours. I assure you, I am surrounded with both, though at present a
forlorn.
"I am, &c."
I must defer my answer to this lady out of a point of chronology. She
says, she has been twenty-seven years a maid; but I fear, according
to a common error, she dates her virginity from her birth, which is a
very erroneous method; for a woman of twenty is no more to be thought
chaste so many years, than a man of that age can be said to have been
so long valiant. We must not allow people the favour of a virtue till
they have been under the temptation to the contrary. A woman is not
a maid till her birthday, as we call it, of her fifteenth year. My
plaintiff is therefore desired to inform me, whether she is at present
in her twenty-eighth or forty-third year, and she shall be despatched
accordingly.[40]
_St. James's Coffee-house, Aug. 11._[41]
A merchant came hither this morning, and read a letter from a
correspondent of his at Milan. It was dated of the 7th instant, N.S.
The following is an abstract of it: On the 25th of the last month, five
thousand men were on their march in the Lampourdan, under the command
of General Wesell, having received orders from his Catholic Majesty to
join him in his camp with all possible expedition. The Duke of Anjou
soon had intelligence of their motion, and took a resolution to decamp,
in order to intercept them, within a day's march of our army. The King
of Spain was apprehensive the enemy might make such a movement, and
commanded General Stanhope[42] with a body of horse, consisting of
fourteen squadrons, to observe their course, and prevent their passage
over the rivers Segre and Noguera between Lerida and Balaguer. It
happened to be the first day that officer had appeared abroad after
a dangerous and violent fever; but he received the King's commands
on this occasion with a joy which surmounted his present weakness,
and on the 27th of last month came up with the enemy on the plains
of Balaguer. The Duke of Anjou's rear-guard consisting of twenty-six
squadrons, that general sent intelligence of their posture to the King,
and desired his Majesty's orders to attack them. During the time which
he waited for his instructions, he made his disposition for the charge,
which was to divide themselves into three bodies; one to be commanded
by himself in the centre, a body on the right by Count Maurice of
Nassau, and the third on the left by the Earl of Rochford.[43] Upon the
receipt of his Majesty's direction to attack the enemy, the general
himself charged with the utmost vigour and resolution, while the Earl
of Rochford and Count Maurice extended themselves on his right and
left, to prevent the advantage the enemy might make of the superiority
of their numbers. What appears to have misled the enemy's general
in this affair was, that it was not supposed practicable that the
confederates would attack him till they had received a reinforcement.
For this reason he pursued his march without facing about, till we
were actually coming on to engagement. General Stanhope's disposition
made it impracticable to do it at that time, Count Maurice and the
Earl of Rochford attacking them in the instant in which they were
forming themselves. The charge was made with the greatest gallantry,
and the enemy very soon put into so great disorder, that their whole
cavalry were commanded to support their rear-guard. Upon the advance
of this reinforcement, all the horse of the King of Spain were come
up to sustain General Stanhope, insomuch that the battle improved
to a general engagement of the cavalry of both armies. After a warm
dispute for some time, it ended in the utter defeat of all the Duke
of Anjou's horse. Upon the despatch of these advices, that Prince was
retiring towards Lerida. We have no account of any considerable loss on
our side, except that both those heroic youths, the Earl of Rochford
and Count Nassau, fell in this action. They were, you know, both sons
of persons who had a great place in the confidence of your late King
William; and I doubt not but their deaths will endear their families,
which were ennobled by him, in your nation. General Stanhope has been
reported by the enemy dead of his wounds; but he received only a slight
contusion on the shoulder.
"_P.S._--We acknowledge you here a mighty brave people; but you are
said to love quarrelling so well, that you cannot be quiet at home. The
favourers of the House of Bourbon among us affirm, that this Stanhope,
who could as it were get out of his sick-bed to fight against their
King of Spain, must be of the anti-monarchical party."
FOOTNOTES:
[39] Lady Strafford, writing in 1712, says: "Sis Betty ... hopes you'll
provide her a husband against she comes, for she begins to be in fears
of leading apes in hell" ("Wentworth Papers," 285).
[40] See reply in No. 212.
[41] The fifth paper of the first volume of the _Examiner_ is a
critique on this article, with a comparison of the account of the same
events given in the _Gazette_.
"We too are sorry," says the writer, "for the loss of the Earl of
Rochford; but I am afraid Isaac Bickerstaff, who now compliments him
with the title of 'heroic youth,' has forgot the _Tatler_ of Tun, Gun,
and Pistol." This seems to allude to No. 24.
In the conclusion of the paper, Steele is reproached for meddling
with matters of State, and warned in a contemptuous manner, with a
reference, no doubt, to his being gazetteer, &c., to take care of
himself. Arguments of a different kind, it is said, were made use of
about this time, to detach Steele from his party, equally in vain.
[42] James Stanhope, who became Secretary of State on the accession
of George I., and Earl Stanhope in 1718, had been appointed
commander-in-chief of the British forces in Spain in 1708. He died in
1721.
[43] William, second Earl of Rochford, brigadier-general, was
thirty-six years of age when he was killed at the battle of Almenara.
=No. 211.= [STEELE.
From _Saturday, Aug. 12_, to _Tuesday, Aug. 15, 1710_.
----Nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum.
JUV., Sat. vii. 56.
_Sunday, Aug. 13._
If there were no other consequence of it, but barely that human
creatures on this day assemble themselves before their Creator, without
regard to their usual employments, their minds at leisure from the
cares of this life, and their bodies adorned with the best attire
they can bestow on them; I say, were this mere outward celebration of
a Sabbath all that is expected from men, even that were a laudable
distinction, and a purpose worthy the human nature. But when there is
added to it the sublime pleasure of devotion, our being is exalted
above itself; and he who spends a seventh day in the contemplation of
the next life, will not easily fall into the corruptions of this in
the other six. They who never admit thoughts of this kind into their
imagination, lose higher and sweeter satisfactions than can be raised
by any other entertainment. The most illiterate man who is touched
with devotion, and uses frequent exercises of it, contracts a certain
greatness of mind, mingled with a noble simplicity, that raises him
above those of the same condition; and there is an indelible mark of
goodness in those who sincerely possess it. It is hardly possible it
should be otherwise; for the fervours of a pious mind will naturally
contract such an earnestness and attention towards a better being,
as will make the ordinary passages of life go off with a becoming
indifference. By this, a man in the lowest condition will not appear
mean, or in the most splendid fortune, insolent.
As to all the intricacies and vicissitudes under which men are
ordinarily entangled with the utmost sorrow and passion, one who is
devoted to Heaven when he falls into such difficulties is led by a
clue through a labyrinth. As to this world, he does not pretend to
skill in the mazes of it, but fixes his thoughts upon one certainty,
that he shall soon be out of it. And we may ask very boldly, What can
be a more sure consolation than to have a hope in death? When men are
arrived at thinking of their very dissolution with pleasure, how few
things are there that can be terrible to them? Certainly nothing can
be dreadful to such spirits, but what would make death terrible to
them, falsehood towards man, or impiety towards Heaven. To such as
these, as there are certainly many such, the gratifications of innocent
pleasures are doubled, even with reflections upon their imperfection.
The disappointments which naturally attend the great promises we make
ourselves in expected enjoyments, strike no damp upon such men, but
only quicken their hopes of soon knowing joys, which are too pure to
admit of allay or satiety.
It is thought among the politer part of mankind an imperfection to want
a relish of any of those things which refine our lives. This is the
foundation of the acceptance which eloquence, music, and poetry make
in the world; and I know not why devotion, considered merely as an
exaltation of our happiness, should not at least be so far regarded as
to be considered. It is possible the very inquiry would lead men into
such thoughts and gratifications as they did not expect to meet with
in this place. Many a good acquaintance has been lost from a general
prepossession in his disfavour, and a severe aspect has often hid under
it a very agreeable companion.