to live with his children with equanimity and a good grace. He had
three sons and one daughter, whom he bred with all the care imaginable
in a liberal and ingenuous way.[134] I have often heard him say, he
had the weakness to love one much better than the other, but that
he took as much pains to correct that as any other criminal passion
that could arise in his mind. His method was, to make it the only
pretension in his children to his favour to be kind to each other;
and he would tell them, that he who was the best brother, he would
reckon the best son. This turned their thoughts into an emulation for
the superiority in kind and tender affection towards each other. The
boys behaved themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their
sister, instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in
behaviour, usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as
much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It was
an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at meal in that family. I have
often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon occasions
which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to the turn
of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his children's
good-will to one another, created in him the God-like pleasure of
loving them, because they loved each other.[135] This great command of
himself, in hiding his first impulse to partiality, at last improved
to a steady justice towards them; and that which at first was but an
expedient to correct his weakness, was afterwards the measure of his
virtue.
The truth of it is, those parents who are interested in the care of one
child more than that of another, no longer deserve the name of parents,
but are in effect as childish as their children, in having such
unreasonable and ungovernable inclinations. A father of this sort has
degraded himself into one of his own offspring; for none but a child
would take part in the passions of children.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] Nichols thinks that Addison was probably the author of this
paper, because of the allusion to Addison's family at the close. But
Steele had visited Dr. Lancelot Addison's home when he was a boy at the
Charterhouse. The paper is not printed in Addison's works.
[134] Addison's father, Dr. Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield, had
three sons: (1) Joseph; (2) Gulston, who died Governor of Fort-George
in the East Indies; (3) Lancelot, who was entered in Queen's College,
and afterwards became Master of Arts, and Fellow of Magdalen College in
Oxford; and a daughter, Dorothy, first married to Dr. Sartre, formerly
minister of Montpellier, and afterwards Prebendary of Westminster; and,
secondly, to Daniel Combes, Esq. Swift wrote on October 25, 1710: "I
dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Mr. Addison, who
is married to one Mons. Sartre, a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster,
who has a delicious house and garden; yet I thought it was a sort of
monastic life in those cloisters, and I liked Laracor better. Addison's
sister is a sort of a wit, very like him. I am not fond of her."
Addison had two other sisters, who died young. Of his brother Gulston
we read thus in the "Wentworth Papers" (pp. 75-76): "Since I wrote
this, I am told a great piece of news, that Mr. Addison is really a
very great man with the juncto, and that he has got his elder brother,
who has been a factor abroad in those parts, to be Governor of Fort St.
George.... It seems Mr. Addison's friends can do what they please with
the chief of the East India Company, who, I think, have the liberty of
naming their Governor, and by management with them this place is got,
which they say some years is worth £20,000" (Peter Wentworth to Lord
Raby, January 28, 1709).
[135] In the Dedication to Congreve of Addison's "Drummer" (1722),
Steele said, "Mr. Dean Addison, father of this memorable man, left
behind him four children, each of whom, for excellent talents and
singular perfections, was as much above the ordinary world as their
brother Joseph was above them. Were things of this nature to be exposed
to public view, I could show, under the Dean's own hand, in the warmest
terms, his blessing on the friendship between his son and me; nor had
he a child who did not prefer me in the first place of kindness and
esteem, as their father loved me like one of them."
=No. 236.= [STEELE.[136]
From _Tuesday, Oct. 10_, to _Thursday, Oct. 12, 1710_.
Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine mentem
Tangit, et immemorem non sinit esse sui.
OVID, Ep. ex Pont. 1. iii.
_From my own Apartment, Oct. 11._
I find in the registers of my family, that the branch of the
Bickerstaffs from which I am descended, came originally out of
Ireland.[137] This has given me a kind of natural affection for that
country. It is therefore with pleasure that I see not only some of the
greatest warriors, but also of the greatest wits, to be natives of that
kingdom. The gentleman who writes the following letter is one of these
last. The matter of fact contained in it is literally true, though the
diverting manner in which it is told may give it the colour of a fable.
To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq., at his House in Great Britain.
_Dublin_.
"SIR,
"Finding by several passages of your _Tatlers_, that you are a person
curious in natural knowledge, I thought it would not be unacceptable
to you to give you the following history of the migration of frogs
into this country. There is an ancient tradition among the wild
philosophers of the kingdom, that this whole island was once as much
infested by frogs, as that wherein Whittington made his fortune was by
mice; insomuch that it is said, Macdonald the First could no more sleep
by reason of these Dutch nightingales (as they are called at Paris),
than Pharaoh could when they croaked in his bed-chamber. It was in
the reign of this great monarch that St. Patrick arrived in Ireland,
being as famous for destroying vermin as any rat-catcher of our times.
If we may believe the tradition, he killed more in one day than a
flock of storks could have done in a twelvemonth. From that time for
about five hundred years, there was not a frog to be heard in Ireland,
notwithstanding the bogs still remained, which in former ages had been
so plentifully stocked with those inhabitants.
"When the arts began to flourish in the reign of King Charles the
Second, and that great monarch had placed himself at the head of the
Royal Society, to lead them forward into the discoveries of nature, it
is said, that several proposals were laid before his Majesty for the
importing of frogs into Ireland. In order to it, a virtuoso of known
abilities was unanimously elected by the Society, and entrusted with
the whole management of that affair. For this end he took along with
him a sound, able-bodied frog, of a strong, hale constitution, that had
given proof of his vigour by several leaps which he made before that
learned body. They took ship, and sailed together till they came within
sight of the Hill of Howth, before the frog discovered any symptoms
of being indisposed by his voyage: but as the wind chopped about,
and began to blow from the Irish coast, he grew sea-sick, or rather
land-sick; for his learned companion ascribed it to the particles of
the soil with which the wind was impregnated. He was confirmed in his
conjecture, when, upon the wind's turning about, his fellow-traveller
sensibly recovered, and continued in good health till his arrival upon
the shore, where he suddenly relapsed, and expired upon a Ring's End
car[138] on his way to Dublin. The same experiment was repeated several
times in that reign, but to no purpose. A frog was never known to take
three leaps upon Irish turf, before he stretched himself out and died.
"Whether it were that the philosophers on this side the water despaired
of stocking the island with this useful animal, or whether in the
following reign it was not thought proper to undo the miracle of a
Popish saint, I do not hear of any further progress made in this affair
till about two years after the battle of the Boyne.
"It was then that an ingenious physician,[139] to the honour as well as
improvement of his native country, performed what the English had been
so long attempting in vain. This learned man, with the hazard of his
life, made a voyage to Liverpool, where he filled several barrels with
the choicest spawn of frogs that could be found in those parts. This
cargo he brought over very carefully, and afterwards disposed of it in
several warm beds that he thought most capable of bringing it to life.
The doctor was a very ingenious physician, and a very good Protestant;
for which reason, to show his zeal against Popery, he placed some of
the most promising spawn in the very fountain that is dedicated to the
Saint, and known by the name of St. Patrick's Well, where these animals
had the impudence to make their first appearance. They have since that
time very much increased and multiplied in all the neighbourhood of
this city. We have here some curious inquirers into natural history who
observe their motions, with a design to compute in how many years they
will be able to hop from Dublin to Wexford; though, as I am informed,
not one of them has yet passed the mountains of Wicklow.
"I am further informed, that several graziers of the county of Cork
have entered into a project of planting a colony in those parts, at the
instance of the French Protestants: and I know not but the same design
may be on foot in other parts of the kingdom, if the wisdom of the
British nation do not think fit to prohibit the further importation of
English frogs. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"T. B."
There is no study more becoming a rational creature than that of
natural philosophy; but as several of our modern virtuosos manage it,
their speculations do not so much tend to open and enlarge the mind,
as to contract and fix it upon trifles.
This in England is in a great measure owing to the worthy elections
that are so frequently made in our Royal Society.[140] They seem to
be in a confederacy against men of polite genius, noble thought, and
diffusive learning; and choose into their assemblies such as have no
pretence to wisdom, but want of wit; or to natural knowledge, but
ignorance of everything else. I have made observations in this matter
so long, that when I meet with a young fellow that is a humble admirer
of the sciences, but more dull than the rest of the company, I conclude
him to be a Fellow of the Royal Society.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] The authorship of the letter which forms the principal part of
this number is unknown. Goldsmith was told that a Dean of Killaloe was
the author of a paper in the _Tatler_ or _Spectator_, but there is
nothing to connect the Dean (Jerome Ryves) with this particular number.
[137] This may apply either to Swift, from whom Steele borrowed the
name of Bickerstaff, or to Steele himself.
[138] "Our one horse vehicles have always been peculiar to ourselves,
and were in use long before anything of a similar kind was introduced
into England. The earliest and rudest of these were the Ring's End
cars, so called from their plying principally to that place and
Irishtown, then the resort of the _beau monde_ for the benefit of
sea-bathing. This car consisted of a seat suspended in a strap of
leather between shafts, and without springs. The noise made by the
creaking of the strap, which supported the whole weight of the company,
particularly distinguished this mode of conveyance" ("Sketches of
Ireland Sixty Years Ago," p. 77, quoted in _Notes and Queries_, 7th
Series, iv. 178-179). Ring's End is a fishing village near Dublin.
[139] Sir Hans Sloane. The hazardous voyage to Liverpool is, perhaps,
an allusion to the doctor's voyage to Jamaica, ridiculed by Dr. William
King, in "A Voyage to the Island of Cajamai."
[140] For previous attacks on the Royal Society by Addison, see Nos.
119, 216, and 221.
=No. 237.= [? STEELE.[141]
From _Thursday, Oct. 12_, to _Saturday, Oct. 14, 1710_.
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
Corpora.----
OVID, Met. i. 1.
_From my own Apartment, Oct. 13._
Coming home last night before my usual hour, I took a book into my
hand, in order to divert myself with it till bed-time. Milton chanced
to be my author, whose admirable poem of "Paradise Lost" serves, at
once, to fill the mind with pleasing ideas, and with good thoughts,
and was therefore the most proper book for my purpose. I was amusing
myself with that beautiful passage in which the poet represents Eve
sleeping by Adam's side, with the devil sitting at her ear, and
inspiring evil thoughts under the shape of a toad. Ithuriel, one of
the guardian angels of the place, walking his nightly rounds, saw the
great enemy of mankind hid in this loathsome animal, which he touched
with his spear. This spear being of a celestial temper, had such a
secret virtue in it, that whatever it was applied to, immediately flung
off all disguise, and appeared in its natural figure. I am afraid the
reader will not pardon me if I content myself with explaining the
passage in prose, without giving it in the author's own inimitable
words:
_----On he led his radiant files,
Dazzling the morn: these to the bower direct,
In search of whom they sought. Him there they found,
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve;
Essaying by his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams;
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint
The animal spirits (that from pure blood arise
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure), thence raise
At least distempered, discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
Blown up with high conceits, engendering pride.
Him thus intent, Ithuriel with his spear
Touched lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to his own likeness. Up he starts,
Discovered and surprised. As when a spark
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
Fit for the tun, some magazine to store
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain,
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;
So started up in his own shape the fiend._[142]
I could not forbear thinking how happy a man would be in the possession
of this spear; or what an advantage it would be to a Minister of State,
were he master of such a white staff. It would let him discover his
friends from his enemies, men of abilities from pretenders: it would
hinder him from being imposed upon by appearances and professions, and
might be made use of as a kind of State test, which no artifice could
elude.
These thoughts made very lively impressions on my imagination, which
were improved, instead of being defaced by sleep, and produced in me
the following dream: I was no sooner fallen asleep, but, methought, the
angel Ithuriel appeared to me, and with a smile that still added to his
celestial beauty, made me a present of the spear which he held in his
hand, and disappeared. To make trials of it, I went into a place of
public resort.
The first person that passed by me, was a lady that had a particular
shyness in the cast of her eye, and a more than ordinary reservedness
in all the parts of her behaviour. She seemed to look upon man as an
obscene creature, with a certain scorn and fear of him. In the height
of her airs I touched her gently with my wand, when, to my unspeakable
surprise, she fell upon her back, and kicked up her heels in such a
manner as made me blush in my sleep. As I was hasting away from this
undisguised prude, I saw a lady in earnest discourse with another, and
overheard her say with some vehemence, "Never tell me of him, for I am
resolved to die a virgin!" I had a curiosity to try her; but as soon
as I laid my wand upon her head, she immediately fell in labour. My
eyes were diverted from her by a man and his wife, who walked near me
hand-in-hand after a very loving manner. I gave each of them a gentle
tap, and the next instant saw the woman in breeches, and the man with
a fan in his hand. It would be tedious to describe the long series of
metamorphoses that I entertained myself with in my night's adventure,
of Whigs disguised in Tories, and Tories in Whigs; men in red coats
that denounced terror in their countenances, trembling at the touch of
my spear; others in black with peace in their mouths, but swords in
their hands. I could tell stories of noblemen changed into usurers,
and magistrates into beadles; of free-thinkers into penitents, and
reformers into whoremasters. I must not, however, omit the mention of
a grave citizen that passed by me with a huge clasped Bible under his
arm, and a band of most immoderate breadth; but upon a touch on the
shoulder, he let drop his book, and fell a-picking my pocket.
In the general I observed, that those who appeared good, often
disappointed my expectation; but that, on the contrary, those who
appeared very bad, still grew worse upon the experiment; as the toad
in Milton, which one would have thought the most deformed part of the
creation, at Ithuriel's stroke, became more deformed, and started up
into a devil.
Among all the persons that I touched, there was but one who stood the
test of my wand; and after many repetitions of the stroke, stuck to his
form, and remained steady and fixed in his first appearance. This was a
young man who boasted of foul distempers, wild debauches, insults upon
holy men, and affronts to religion.
My heart was extremely troubled at this vision: the contemplation of
the whole species, so entirely sunk in corruption, filled my mind with
a melancholy that is inexpressible, and my discoveries still added to
my affliction.
In the midst of these sorrows which I had in my heart, methought there
passed by me a couple of coaches with purple liveries. There sat in
each of them a person with a very venerable aspect. At the appearance
of them, the people who were gathered round me in great multitudes
divided into parties, as they were disposed to favour either of those
reverend persons. The enemies of one of them begged me to touch him
with my wand, and assured me, I should see his lawn converted into a
cloak. The opposite party told me with as much assurance, that if I
laid my wand upon the other, I should see his garments embroidered
with fleurs-de-lis, and his head covered with a cardinal's cap. I
made the experiment, and, to my great joy, saw them both, without any
change, distributing their blessings to the people, and praying for
those who had reviled them. Is it possible, thought I, that good men,
who are so few in number, should be divided among themselves, and give
better quarter to the vicious that are in their party, than the most
strictly virtuous who are out of it? Are the ties of faction above
those of religion?--I was going on in my soliloquies, but some sudden
accident awakened me, when I found my hand grasped, but my spear gone.
The reflection on so very odd a dream made me figure to myself, what
a strange face the world would bear, should all mankind appear in
their proper shapes and characters, without hypocrisy and disguise? I
am afraid the earth we live upon would appear to other intellectual
beings no better than a planet peopled with monsters. This should,
methinks, inspire us with an honest ambition of recommending ourselves
to those invisible spies, and of being what we would appear. There
was one circumstance in my foregoing dream which I at first intended
to conceal; but upon second thoughts, I cannot look upon myself as a
candid and impartial historian, if I do not acquaint my reader, that
upon taking Ithuriel's spear into my hand, though I was before an old
decrepid fellow, I appeared a very handsome, jolly, black man. But I
know my enemies will say, this is praising my own beauty, for which
reason I will speak no more of it.
FOOTNOTES:
[141] Nichols thought this paper was written by Addison, or with his
assistance. "The _Tatler_ upon Milton's 'spear' is not mine, madam.
What a puzzle there was between you and your judgment! In general you
may sometimes be sure of things, as that about Style [_Tatler_, No.
230], because it is what I have frequently spoken of; but guessing is
mine;--and I defy mankind if I please" (Swift's "Journal to Stella,"
Nov. 8, 1710).
[142] "Paradise Lost," iv. 797-819.
=No. 238.= [STEELE and SWIFT.[143]
From _Saturday, Oct. 14_, to _Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1710_.
----Poetica surgit
Tempestas----
JUV., Sat. xii. 23.
_From my own Apartment, Oct. 16._
Storms at sea are so frequently described by the ancient poets, and
copied by the moderns, that whenever I find the winds begin to rise in
a new heroic poem, I generally skip a leaf or two till I come into
fair weather. Virgil's Tempest is a masterpiece in this kind, and is
indeed so naturally drawn, that one who has made a voyage can scarce
read it without being sea-sick.
Land showers are no less frequent among the poets than the former,
but I remember none of them which have not fallen in the country; for
which reason they are generally filled with the lowings of oxen and the
bleatings of sheep, and very often embellished with a rainbow.
Virgil's Land Shower is likewise the best in its kind: it is indeed a
shower of consequence, and contributes to the main design of the poem,
by cutting off a tedious ceremonial, and bringing matters to a speedy
conclusion between two potentates of different sexes. My ingenious
kinsman, Mr. Humphrey Wagstaff, who treats of every subject after a
manner that no other author has done, and better than any other can do,
has sent me the description of a City Shower. I do not question but the
reader remembers my cousin's description of the Morning as it breaks in
town, which is printed in the ninth _Tatler_, and is another exquisite
piece of this local poetry:
Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower:
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine,
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches throb,[144] your hollow tooth will rage.
Saunt'ring in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.
Meanwhile the south rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And like a drunkard gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope.
Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean.
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunned th'unequal strife,
But aided by the wind, fought still for life;
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas doubtful which was rain and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade;
His only coat, where dust confused with rain
Roughen the nap, and leave a mingled stain.
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds, he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed.
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through.)
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.
Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all hues and odours seem to tell
What street they sailed from, by their sight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluent joined at Snow Hill ridge,
Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood.
FOOTNOTES: