took a walk into the country to divert myself among the fields and
meadows, while the green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As
at this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, and every
hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a great deal of pleasure
among several thickets and bushes that were filled with a great variety
of birds, and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed the
pleasantest scene in the world to one who had passed a whole winter in
noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews that lay upon everything
about me, with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired the birds
with so many delightful instincts, created in me the same kind of
animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with such secret emotions
of joy and satisfaction as are not to be described or accounted for. On
this occasion I could not but reflect upon a beautiful simile in Milton:
_As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight:
The smell of grain, or tedded[67] grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound._[68]
Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive
an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their
memories those charming descriptions with which such authors do
frequently abound.
I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and
applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black
cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake
myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance from
the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the
voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse.
My curiosity was raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great
and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes,
I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I
thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.
After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me
altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say,
that he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendôme. How the
Duke of Vendôme should become a rival of the Black Prince's, I could
not conceive; and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with
great vehemence, that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off,
he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though
the season was so changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming
beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this
odd intelligence, especially when I heard them mention the names of
several other great generals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of
Sweden, who, they said, were both running away: to which they added,
what I entirely agreed with them in, that the Crown of France was very
weak, but that the Mareschal Villars still kept his colours. At last
one of them told the company, if they would go along with him, he would
show them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady in the same bed, which
he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had driven
them, as well as myself, into the house, was now over: and as they were
passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their
company.
The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would
be worth my while, for that he believed he could show me such a blow of
tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.
I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking
in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had
mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according
to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of
honour.
I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these
gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about
us. Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator
as so many beautiful objects, varnished over with a natural gloss, and
stained with such a variety of colours as are not to be equalled in
any artificial dyes or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf
as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres were
woven together into different configurations, which gave a different
colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of the
surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according to
the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever
lived,[69] as a multitude of optic instruments, designed for the
separating light into all those various colours of which it is composed.
I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing
the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip
as one of the finest that I ever saw; upon which they told me, it was
a common fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was
but another kind of fool's-coat. I had the same fate with two or three
more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know
which were the finest of the flowers, for that I was so unskilful in
the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most valuable, and
that those which had the gayest colours were the most beautiful. The
gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he seemed a very plain honest man,
and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched with that
distemper which Hippocrates calls the Τυλιππομανια (Tulippomania);
insomuch that he would talk very rationally on any subject in the world
but a tulip.
He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and
was not above twenty yards in length, and two in breadth, more than he
would the best hundred acres of land in England; and added, that it
would have been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook-maid of
his had not almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful
of tulip-roots for a heap of onions, "and by that means," says he,
"made me a dish of porridge, that cost me above £1000 sterling." He
then showed me what he thought the finest of his tulips, which I found
received all their value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in
mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the greatest beauties.
I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never
fallen into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed anything the
more for its being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason,
I look upon the whole country in spring-time as a spacious garden, and
make as many visits to a spot of daisies, or a bank of violets, as
a florist does to his borders and parterres. There is not a bush in
blossom within a mile of me which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce
a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighbourhood without my
missing it. I walked home in this temper of mind through several fields
and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not without reflecting on
the bounty of Providence, which has made the most pleasing and most
beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Grass mown and spread for drying.
[68] "Paradise Lost," ix. 445.
[69] Sir Isaac Newton.
=No. 219.= [? STEELE.[70]
From _Thursday, Aug. 31_, to _Saturday, Sept. 2, 1710_.
----Solutos
Qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis,...
Affectat, niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto.
HOR., 1 Sat. iv. 82.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 1._
Never were men so perplexed as a select company of us were this evening
with a couple of possessed wits, who through our ill fortune, and their
own confidence, had thought fit to pin themselves upon a gentleman who
had owned to them that he was going to meet such and such persons, and
named us one by one. These pert puppies immediately resolved to come
with him, and from the beginning to the end of the night entertained
each other with impertinences, to which we were perfect strangers. I
am come home very much tired; for the affliction was so irksome to me,
that it surpasses all other I ever knew, insomuch that I cannot reflect
upon this sorrow with pleasure, though it is past.
An easy manner of conversation is the most desirable quality a man can
have; and for that reason coxcombs will take upon them to be familiar
with people whom they never saw before. What adds to the vexation of it
is, that they will act upon the foot of knowing you by fame, and rally
with you, as they call it, by repeating what your enemies say of you;
and court you, as they think, by uttering to your face at a wrong time
all the kind things your friends speak of you in your absence.
These people are the more dreadful, the more they have of what
is usually called wit: for a lively imagination, when it is not
governed by a good understanding, makes such miserable havoc both in
conversation and business, that it lays you defenceless, and fearful
to throw the least word in its way that may give it new matter for its
further errors.
Tom Mercett has as quick a fancy as any one living; but there is no
reasonable man can bear him half-an-hour. His purpose is to entertain,
and it is of no consequence to him what is said, so it be what is
called well said; as if a man must bear a wound with patience, because
he that pushed at you came up with a good air and mien. That part
of life which we spend in company, is the most pleasing of all our
moments; and therefore I think our behaviour in it should have its
laws as well as the part of our being which is generally esteemed the
more important. From hence it is, that from long experience I have
made it a maxim, that however we may pretend to take satisfaction in
sprightly mirth and high jollity, there is no great pleasure in any
company where the basis of the society is not mutual good-will. When
this is in the room, every trifling circumstance, the most minute
accident, the absurdity of a servant, the repetition of an old story,
the look of a man when he is telling it, the most indifferent and
the most ordinary occurrences, are matters which produce mirth and
good-humour. I went to spend an hour after this manner with some
friends who enjoy it in perfection whenever they meet, when those
destroyers above-mentioned came in upon us. There is not a man among
them has any notion of distinction of superiority to one another,
either in their fortunes or their talents, when they are in company.
Or if any reflection to the contrary occurs in their thoughts, it only
strikes a delight upon their minds, that so much wisdom and power is in
possession of one whom they love and esteem.
In these my Lucubrations, I have frequently dwelt upon this one topic.
It would make short work for us reformers, for it is only want of
making this a position that renders some characters bad which would
otherwise be good. Tom Mercett means no man ill, but does ill to
everybody. His ambition is to be witty; and to carry on that design,
he breaks through all things that other people hold sacred. If he
thought wit was no way to be used but to the advantage of society, that
sprightliness would have a new turn, and we should expect what he is
going to say with satisfaction instead of fear. It is no excuse for
being mischievous, that a man is mischievous without malice: nor will
it be thought an atonement that the ill was done not to injure the
party concerned, but to divert the indifferent.
It is, methinks, a very great error that we should not profess honesty
in conversation as much as in commerce. If we consider that there is no
greater misfortune than to be ill received where we love the turning
a man to ridicule among his friends, we rob him of greater enjoyments
than he could have purchased by his wealth; yet he that laughs at him,
would perhaps be the last man who would hurt him in this case of less
consequence. It has been said, the history of Don Quixote utterly
destroyed the spirit of gallantry in the Spanish nation; and I believe
we may say much more truly, that the humour of ridicule has done as
much injury to the true relish of company in England.
Such satisfactions as arise from the secret comparison of ourselves
to others, with relation to their inferior fortunes or merit, are
mean and unworthy. The true and high state of conversation is when
men communicate their thoughts to each other upon such subjects, and
in such a manner, as would be pleasant if there were no such thing as
folly in the world; for it is but a low condition of wit in one man
which depends upon folly in another.
_P.S._--I was here interrupted by the receipt of my letters, among
which is one from a lady, who is not a little offended at my
translation of the discourse between Adam and Eve.[71] She pretends
to tell me my own, as she calls it, and quotes several passages in my
works which tend to the utter disunion of man and wife. Her epistle
will best express her. I have made an extract of it, and shall insert
the most material passages:
"I suppose you know we women are not too apt to forgive: for which
reason, before you concern yourself any further with our sex, I would
advise you to answer what is said against you by those of your own.
I enclose to you business enough till you are ready for your promise
of being witty. You must not expect to say what you please without
admitting others to take the same liberty. Marry come up! You a censor?
Pray read over all these pamphlets, and these notes[72] upon your
Lucubrations; by that time you shall hear further. It is, I suppose,
from such as you that people learn to be censorious, for which I and
all our sex have an utter aversion, when once people come to take the
liberty to wound reputations----"
This is the main body of the letter; but she bids me turn over, and
there I find:
* * * * *
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"If you will draw Mrs. Sissy Trippit according to the enclosed
description, I will forgive you all."
"To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.
"_The humble Petition of Joshua Fairlove of Stepney:_
"Showeth--That your petitioner is a general lover, who for some months
last past has made it his whole business to frequent the bypaths and
roads near his dwelling, for no other purpose but to hand such of the
fair sex as are obliged to pass through them.
"That he has been at great expense for clean gloves to offer his hand
with.
"That towards the evening he approaches near London, and employs
himself as a convoy towards home.
"Your petitioner, therefore, most humbly prays, that for such his
humble services, he may be allowed the title of an esquire."
Mr. Morphew has orders to carry the proper instruments, and the
petitioner is to be hereafter written to upon gilt paper, by the title
of Joshua Fairlove, Esq.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] Nichols suggested that Addison was really the author of this
paper. This theory is supported by the fact that in No. 221 an error in
the motto of this paper was corrected, a matter with respect to which
Addison was much more careful than Steele. The suggestion that Tickell
was the original of Tom Mercett is untenable, especially if Addison was
the writer.
[71] See No. 217.
[72] The "Annotations on the _Tatler_," &c. (see No. 5).
=No. 220.= [ADDISON.
From _Saturday, Sept. 2_, to _Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1710_.
Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui,
Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.
HOR., I Ep. vi. 15.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 4._
Having received many letters filled with compliments and
acknowledgments for my late useful discovery of the Political
Barometer,[73] I shall here communicate to the public an account
of my Ecclesiastical Thermometer, the latter giving as manifest
prognostications of the changes and revolutions in Church as the former
does of those in State, and both of them being absolutely necessary for
every prudent subject who is resolved to keep what he has, and get what
he can.
The Church thermometer, which I am now to treat of, is supposed to
have been invented in the reign of Henry the Eighth, about the time
when that religious prince put some to death for owning the Pope's
supremacy, and others for denying transubstantiation. I do not find,
however, any great use made of this instrument till it fell into the
hands of a learned and vigilant priest or minister (for he frequently
wrote himself both one and the other), who was some time Vicar of Bray.
This gentleman lived in his vicarage to a good old age; and after
having seen several successions of his neighbouring clergy either burnt
or banished, departed this life with the satisfaction of having never
deserted his flock, and died Vicar of Bray. As this glass was first
designed to calculate the different degrees of heat in religion, as it
raged in Popery, or as it cooled and grew temperate in the Reformation,
it was marked at several distances, after the manner our ordinary
thermometer is to this day, viz., Extreme Hot, Sultry Hot, Very Hot,
Hot, Warm, Temperate, Cold, Just Freezing, Frost, Hard Frost, Great
Frost, Extreme Cold.
It is well known, that Toricellius, the inventor of the common
weather-glass, made the experiment in a long tube which held thirty-two
feet of water; and that a more modern virtuoso finding such a machine
altogether unwieldy and useless, and considering that thirty-two inches
of quicksilver weighed as much as so many feet of water in a tube of
the same circumference, invented that sizable instrument which is now
in use. After this manner, that I might adapt the thermometer I am
now speaking of to the present constitution of our Church, as divided
into High and Low, I have made some necessary variations both in the
tube and the fluid it contains. In the first place, I ordered a tube
to be cast in a planetary hour, and took care to seal it hermetically,
when the sun was in conjunction with Saturn. I then took the proper
precautions about the fluid, which is a compound of two very different
liquors: one of them a spirit drawn out of a strong heady wine; the
other a particular sort of rock water, colder than ice, and clearer
than crystal. The spirit is of a red fiery colour, and so very apt to
ferment, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or
pent up very close, it will burst the vessel that holds it, and fly
up in fume and smoke. The water, on the contrary, is of such a subtle
piercing cold, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the
spirits, it will sink through almost everything that it is put into,
and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus
Curtius, which, says the historian, could be contained in nothing but
in the hoof or (as the Oxford manuscript has it) in the skull of an
ass. The thermometer is marked according to the following figure, which
I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of it,
but also to fill up my paper.
Ignorance.
Persecution.
Wrath.
Zeal.
CHURCH.
Moderation.
Lukewarmness.
Infidelity.
Ignorance.
The reader will observe, that the Church is placed in the middle point
of the glass, between Zeal and Moderation, the situation in which she
always flourishes, and in which every good Englishman wishes her who is
a friend to the constitution of his country. However, when it mounts
to Zeal, it is not amiss; and when it sinks to Moderation, is still in
a most admirable temper. The worst of it is, that when once it begins
to rise, it has still an inclination to ascend, insomuch that it is
apt to climb from Zeal to Wrath, and from Wrath to Persecution, which
always ends in Ignorance, and very often proceeds from it. In the same
manner it frequently takes its progress through the lower half of the
glass; and when it has a tendency to fall, will gradually descend from
Moderation to Lukewarmness, and from Lukewarmness to Infidelity, which
very often terminates in Ignorance, and always proceeds from it.
It is a common observation, that the ordinary thermometer will be
affected by the breathing of people who are in the room where it
stands; and indeed, it is almost incredible to conceive how the glass
I am now describing will fall by the breath of a multitude crying
"Popery"; or on the contrary, how it will rise when the same multitude
(as it sometimes happens) cry out in the same breath, "The Church is in
danger."
As soon as I had finished this my glass, and adjusted it to the
above-mentioned scale of religion, that I might make proper experiments
with it, I carried it under my cloak to several coffee-houses,
and other places of resort about this great city. At St. James's
Coffee-house, the liquor stood at Moderation; but at Will's, to my
extreme surprise, it subsided to the very lowest mark on the glass. At
the Grecian, it mounted but just one point higher; at the Rainbow,[74]
it still ascended two degrees: Child's fetched it up to Zeal, and other
adjacent coffee-houses to Wrath.
It fell into the lower half of the glass as I went farther into the
city, till at length it settled at Moderation, where it continued all
the time I stayed about the 'Change, as also whilst I passed by the
Bank. And here I cannot but take notice, that through the whole course
of my remarks, I never observed my glass to rise at the same time that
the stocks did.
To complete the experiment, I prevailed upon a friend of mine, who
works under me in the occult sciences, to make a progress with my glass
through the whole island of Great Britain; and after his return, to
present me with a register of his observations. I guessed beforehand
at the temper of several places he passed through, by the characters
they have had time out of mind. Thus that facetious divine, Dr. Fuller,
speaking of the town of Banbury near a hundred years ago, tells us,
it was a place famous for cakes and zeal, which I find by my glass is
true to this day as to the latter part of this description; though I
must confess, it is not in the same reputation for cakes that it was in
the time of that learned author; and thus of other places. In short, I
have now by me, digested in an alphabetical order, all the counties,
corporations, and boroughs in Great Britain, with their respective
tempers, as they stand related to my thermometer: but this I shall keep
to myself, because I would by no means do anything that may seem to
influence any ensuing elections.
The point of doctrine which I would propagate by this my invention, is
the same which was long ago advanced by that able teacher Horace, out
of whom I have taken my text for this discourse: we should be careful
not to overshoot ourselves in the pursuits even of virtue. Whether zeal
or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one,
and frost out of the other. But alas! the world is too wise to want
such a precaution. The terms High Church and Low Church, as commonly
used, do not so much denote a principle, as they distinguish a party.
They are like words of battle, that have nothing to do with their
original signification, but are only given out to keep a body of men
together, and to let them know friends from enemies.
I must confess, I have considered with some little attention the
influence which the opinions of these great national sects have upon
their practice; and do look upon it as one of the unaccountable things
of our times, that multitudes of honest gentlemen, who entirely agree
in their lives, should take it in their heads to differ in their
religion.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] See No. 214.
[74] The Rainbow Tavern, by the Inner Temple Gate, Fleet Street, was
established as a coffee-house by James Farr, a barber, in or before
1657.
=No. 221.= [? ADDISON.[75]
From _Tuesday, Sept. 5_, to _Thursday, Sept. 7, 1710_.
----Sicut meus est mos,
Nescio quid meditans nugarum; totus in illis.
HOR., 1 Sat. ix. 1.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 6._
As I was this morning going out of my house, a little boy in a black
coat delivered to me the following letter. Upon asking who he was,
he told me, that he belonged to my Lady Gimcrack. I did not at first
recollect the name; but upon inquiry, found it to be the widow of Sir
Nicholas, whose legacy I lately gave some account of to the world.[76]
The letter ran thus:
* * * * *
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,