think it the most unnatural sort of self-murder to sacrifice the
sentiment of the soul to gratify the appetites of the body. Bless
us! Is it possible, that when the necessities of life are supplied,
a man would flatter to be rich, or circumvent to be powerful? When
we meet a poor wretch urged with hunger and cold asking an alms, we
are apt to think this a state we could rather starve than submit
to: but yet how much more despicable is his condition who is above
necessity, and yet shall resign his reason and his integrity to
purchase superfluities? These are both abject and common beggars; but
sure it is less despicable to beg a supply to a man's hunger than his
vanity. But custom and general prepossessions have so far prevailed
over an unthinking world, that those necessitous creatures who cannot
relish life without applause, attendance, and equipage, are so far from
making a contemptible figure, that distressed virtue is less esteemed
than successful vice. But if a man's appeal in cases that regarded his
honour were made to his own soul, there would be a basis and standing
rule for our conduct, and we should always endeavour rather to be
than appear honourable. Mr. Collier, in his essay on Fortitude,[190]
has treated this subject with great wit and magnanimity. "What," says
he, "can be more honourable than to have courage enough to execute
the commands of reason and conscience; to maintain the dignity of our
nature, and the station assigned us? To be proof against poverty,
pain, and death itself? I mean so far as not to do anything that is
scandalous or sinful to avoid them? To stand adversity under all
shapes with decency and resolution? To do this, is to be great above
title and fortune. This argues the soul of a heavenly extraction, and
is worthy the offspring of the Deity."
What a generous ambition has this man pointed to us? When men have
settled in themselves a conviction by such noble precepts, that there
is nothing honourable that is not accompanied with innocence; nothing
mean but what has guilt in it; I say, when they have attained thus
much, though poverty, pain, and death may still retain their terrors,
yet riches, pleasures, and honours will easily lose their charms, if
they stand between us and our integrity.
What is here said with allusion to fortune and fame, may as justly be
applied to wit and beauty; for these latter are as adventitious as the
other, and as little concern the essence of the soul. They are all
laudable in the man who possesses them only for the just application of
them. A bright imagination, while it is subservient to an honest and
noble soul, is a faculty which makes a man justly admired by mankind,
and furnishes him with reflections upon his own actions, which add
delicates to the feast of a good conscience: but when wit descends to
wait upon sensual pleasures, or promote the base purposes of ambition,
it is then to be contemned in proportion to its excellence. If a man
will not resolve to place the foundation of his happiness in his
own mind, life is a bewildered and unhappy state, incapable of rest
or tranquillity: for to such a one the general applause of valour,
wit, nay of honesty itself, can give him but a very feeble comfort,
since it is capable of being interrupted by any one who wants either
understanding or good-nature to see or acknowledge such excellences.
This rule is so necessary, that one may very safely say, it is
impossible to know any true relish of our being without it. Look about
you in common life among the ordinary race of mankind, and you will
find merit in every kind is allowed only to those who are in particular
districts or sets of company: but since men can have little pleasure
in these faculties which denominate them persons of distinction, let
them give up such an empty pursuit, and think nothing essential to
happiness but what is in their own power, the capacity of reflecting
with pleasure on their own actions, however they are interpreted.
It is so evident a truth, that it is only in our own bosoms we are to
search for anything to make us happy, that it is, methinks, a disgrace
to our nature to talk of the taking our measures from thence only as
a matter of fortitude. When all is well there, the vicissitudes and
distinctions of life are the mere scenes of a drama, and he will never
act his part well who has his thoughts more fixed upon the applause of
the audience than the design of his part.
The life of a man who acts with a steady integrity, without valuing the
interpretation of his actions, has but one uniform regular path to move
in, where he cannot meet opposition, or fear ambuscade. On the other
side, the least deviation from the rules of honour introduces a train
of numberless evils, and involves him in inexplicable mazes. He that
has entered into guilt has bid adieu to rest, and every criminal has
his share of the misery expressed so emphatically in the tragedian:[191]
_Macbeth shall sleep no more!_[192]
It was with detestation of any other grandeur but the calm command of
his own passion, that the excellent Mr. Cowley cries out with so much
justice:
_If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat
With any thought so mean as to be great,
Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love._[193]
FOOTNOTES:
[190] See Jeremy Collier's "Essays upon Several Moral Subjects" (1709),
Part iv. pp. 205-236.
[191] Here used for tragic writer.
[192] "Macbeth," act ii. sc. 2.
[193] "Essays," vi.: "Of Greatness."
=No. 252.= [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Nov. 16_ to _Saturday, Nov. 18, 1710_.
Narratur et prisci Catonis
Sæpe mero caluisse virtus.
HOR., 3 Od. xxi. 11.
_From my own Apartment, Nov. 17._
The following letter, and several others to the same purpose, accuse
me of a rigour of which I am far from being guilty, to wit, the
disallowing the cheerful use of wine.
* * * * *
"_From my Country-house,
Oct. 25._
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"Your discourse against drinking, in Tuesday's _Tatler_,[194] I like
well enough in the main; but in my humble opinion, you are become
too rigid where you say to this effect: 'Were there only this single
consideration, that we are the less masters of ourselves if we drink
the least proportion beyond the exigence of thirst.' I hope no one
drinks wine to allay this appetite. This seems to be designed for a
loftier indulgence of Nature; for it were hard to suppose, that the
Author of Nature, who imposed upon her her necessities and pains, does
not allow her her pleasures, and we may reckon among the latter the
moderate use of the grape: and though I am as much against excess, or
whatever approaches it, as yourself, yet I conceive one may safely
go further than the bounds you there prescribe, not only without
forfeiting the title of being one's own master, but also to possess
it in a much greater degree. If a man's expressing himself upon any
subject with more life and vivacity, more variety of ideas, more
copiously, more fluently, and more to the purpose, argues it, he thinks
clearer, speaks more ready, and with greater choice of comprehensive
and significant terms. I have the good fortune now to be intimate
with a gentleman remarkable for this temper, who has an inexhaustible
source of wit to entertain the curious, the grave, the humorous, and
the frolic. He can transform himself into different shapes, and adapt
himself to every company; yet in a coffee-house, or in the ordinary
course of affairs, appears rather dull than sprightly. You can seldom
get him to the tavern, but when once he is arrived to his pint, and
begins to look about and like his company, you admire a thousand things
in him, which before lay buried. Then you discover the brightness of
his mind and the strength of his judgment, accompanied with the most
graceful mirth. In a word, by this enlivening aid, he is whatever is
polite, instructive, and diverting. What makes him still more agreeable
is, that he tells a story, serious or comical, with as much delicacy
of humour as Cervantes himself. And for all this, at other times,
even after a long knowledge of him, you shall scarce discern in this
incomparable person a whit more than what might be expected from one
of a common capacity. Doubtless there are men of great parts that are
guilty of downright bashfulness, that by a strange hesitation and
reluctance to speak, murder the finest and most elegant thoughts, and
render the most lively conceptions flat and heavy.
"In this case, a certain quantity of my white or red cordial, which you
will, is an easy, but an infallible remedy. It awakens the judgment,
quickens memory, ripens understanding, disperses melancholy, cheers the
heart; in a word, restores the whole man to himself and his friends
without the least pain or indisposition to the patient. To be taken
only in the evening in a reasonable quantity before going to bed.
_Note._--My bottles are sealed with three fleurs-de-lis and a bunch of
grapes. Beware of counterfeits. I am,
"Your most humble Servant, &c."
Whatever has been said against the use of wine, upon the supposition
that it enfeebles the mind, and renders it unfit for the duties of
life, bears forcibly to the advantage of that delicious juice, in cases
where it only heightens conversation, and brings to light agreeable
talents, which otherwise would have lain concealed under the oppression
of an unjust modesty. I must acknowledge I have seen many of the temper
mentioned by this correspondent, and own, wine may very allowably be
used in a degree above the supply of mere necessity by such as labour
under melancholy, or are tongue-tied by modesty. It is certainly a very
agreeable change, when we see a glass raise a lifeless conversation
into all the pleasures of wit and good-humour. But when Caska adds to
his natural impudence the fluster of a bottle, that which fools called
fire when he was sober, all men abhor as outrage when he is drunk. Thus
he that in the morning was only saucy, is in the evening tumultuous.
It makes one sick to hear one of these fellows say, they love a friend
and a bottle. Noisy mirth has something too rustic in it to be
considered without terror by men of politeness: but while the discourse
improves in a well-chosen company, from the addition of spirits which
flow from moderate cups, it must be acknowledged, that leisure time
cannot be more agreeably, or perhaps more usefully employed than at
such meetings: but there is a certain prudence in this and all other
circumstances which makes right or wrong in the conduct of ordinary
life. Sir Geoffrey Wildacre has nothing so much at heart as that his
son should know the world betimes: for this end he introduces him among
the sots of his own age, where the boy learns to laugh at his father
from the familiarity with which he sees him treated by his equals. This
the old fellow calls living well with his heir, and teaching him to be
too much his friend to be impatient for his estate. But for the more
exact regulation of society in this and other matters, I shall publish
tables of the characters and relations among men, and by them instruct
the town in making sets and companies for a bottle. This humour of Sir
Geoffrey shall be taken notice of in the first place; for there is,
methinks, a sort of incest in drunkenness, and sons are not to behold
fathers stripped of all reverence.
It is shocking in nature for the young to see those whom they should
have an awe for in circumstances of contempt. I shall therefore utterly
forbid, that those in whom nature should admonish to avoid too gross
familiarities, shall be received in parties of pleasure where there is
the least danger of excess. I should run through the whole doctrine of
drinking, but that my thoughts are at present too much employed in the
modelling my Court of Honour; and altering the seats, benches, bar, and
canopy from that of the court wherein I last winter sat upon causes
of less moment. By the way, I shall take an opportunity to examine,
what method is to be taken to make joiners and other artificers get out
of a house they have once entered, not forgetting to tie them under
proper regulations. It is for want of such rules, that I have a day or
two longer than I expected been tormented and deafened with hammers,
insomuch that I neither can pursue this discourse, or answer the
following and many other letters of the highest importance.
* * * * *
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"We are man and wife, and have a boy and a girl: the lad seventeen, the
maiden sixteen. We are quarrelling about some parts of their education.
I, Ralph, cannot bear that I must pay for the girl's learning on the
spinnet, when I know she has no ear. I, Bridget, have not patience to
have my son whipped because he cannot make verses, when I know he is a
blockhead. Pray, sir, inform us, is it absolutely necessary that all
who wear breeches must be taught to rhyme, all in petticoats to touch
an instrument? Please to interpose in this and the like cases, to end
much solid distress which arises from trifling causes, as it is common
in wedlock, and you will very much oblige us and ours.
"RALPH }
} YOKEFELLOW."
"BRIDGET }
FOOTNOTES:
[194] No. 241.
=No. 253.= [ADDISON and STEELE.[195]
From _Saturday, Nov. 18_, to _Tuesday, Nov. 21, 1710_.
----Pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant.
VIRG., Æn. i. 151.
_From my own Apartment, Nov. 20._
EXTRACT OF THE JOURNAL OF THE COURT
OF HONOUR, 1710.[196]
Die lunae vicesimo Novembris, hora nona ante-meridiana.
The court being sat, an oath prepared by the censor was administered to
the assistants on his right hand, who were all sworn upon their honour.
The women on his left hand took the same oath upon their reputation.
Twelve gentlemen of the Horse Guards were empanelled, having
unanimously chosen Mr. Alexander Truncheon, who is their right-hand man
in the troop, for their foreman in the jury. Mr. Truncheon immediately
drew his sword, and holding it with the point towards his own body,
presented it to the censor. Mr. Bickerstaff received it, and after
having surveyed the breadth of the blade, and sharpness of the point,
with more than ordinary attention, returned it to the foreman in a very
graceful manner. The rest of the jury, upon the delivery of the sword
to their foreman, drew all of them together as one man, and saluted the
bench with such an air, as signified the most resigned submission to
those who commanded them, and the greatest magnanimity to execute what
they should command.
Mr. Bickerstaff, after having received the compliments on his right
hand, cast his eye upon the left, where the whole female jury paid
their respects by a low courtesy, and by laying their hands upon their
mouths. Their forewoman was a professed Platonist,[197] that had spent
much of her time in exhorting the sex to set a just value upon their
persons, and to make the men know themselves.
There followed a profound silence, when at length, after some
recollection, the censor, who continued hitherto uncovered, put on his
hat with great dignity; and after having composed the brims of it in a
manner suitable to the gravity of his character, he gave the following
charge, which was received with silence and attention, that being the
only applause which he admits of, or is ever given in his presence:
"The nature of my office, and the solemnity of this occasion, requiring
that I should open my first session with a speech, I shall cast what I
have to say under two principal heads.
"Under the first, I shall endeavour to show the necessity and
usefulness of this new-erected court; and under the second, I shall
give a word of advice and instruction to every constituent part of it.
"As for the first, it is well observed by Phædrus, a heathen poet:
_Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est gloria._[198]
Which is the same, ladies, as if I should say, It would be of no
reputation for me to be president of a court which is of no benefit to
the public. Now the advantages that may arise to the weal-public from
this institution will more plainly appear, if we consider what it
suffers for the want of it. Are not our streets daily filled with wild
pieces of justice and random penalties? Are not crimes undetermined,
and reparations disproportioned? How often have we seen the lie
punished by death, and the liar himself deciding his own cause? nay,
not only acting the judge, but the executioner? Have we not known a
box on the ear more severely accounted for than manslaughter? In these
extra-judicial proceedings of mankind, an unmannerly jest is frequently
as capital as a premeditated murder.
"But the most pernicious circumstance in this case is, that the man
who suffers the injury must put himself upon the same foot of danger
with him that gave it, before he can have his just revenge; so that
the punishment is altogether accidental, and may fall as well upon the
innocent as the guilty.
"I shall only mention a case which happens frequently among the more
polite nations of the world, and which I the rather mention, because
both sexes are concerned in it, and which therefore you gentlemen
and you ladies of the jury will the rather take notice of; I mean
that great and known case of cuckoldom. Supposing the person who has
suffered insults in his dearer and better half; supposing, I say, this
person should resent the injuries done to his tender wife, what is the
reparation he may expect? Why, to be used worse than his poor lady, run
through the body, and left breathless upon the bed of honour. What then
will you on my right hand say must the man do that is affronted? Must
our sides be elbowed, our shins broken? Must the wall, or perhaps our
mistress, be taken from us? May a man knit his forehead into a frown,
toss up his arm, or pish at what we say, and must the villain live
after it? Is there no redress for injured honour? Yes, gentlemen, that
is the design of the judicature we have here established.
"A Court of Conscience, we very well know, was first instituted for
the determining of several points of property that were too little and
trivial for the cognisance of higher courts of justice. In the same
manner, our Court of Honour is appointed for the examination of several
niceties and punctilios that do not pass for wrongs in the eye of our
common laws. But notwithstanding no legislators of any nation have
taken into consideration these little circumstances, they are such as
often lead to crimes big enough for their inspection, though they come
before them too late for their redress.
"Besides, I appeal to you, ladies [here Mr. Bickerstaff turned to his
left hand], if these are not the little stings and thorns in life
that make it more uneasy than its most substantial evils? Confess
ingenuously, did you never lose a morning's devotions because you could
not offer them up from the highest place of the pew? Have you not been
in pain, even at a ball, because another has been taken out to dance
before you? Do you love any of your friends so much as those that are
below you? Or have you any favourites that walk on your right hand? You
have answered me in your looks, I ask no more.
"I come now to the second part of my discourse, which obliges me to
address myself in particular to the respective members of the court, in
which I shall be very brief.
"As for you, gentlemen and ladies, my assistants and grand juries,
I have made choice of you on my right hand, because I know you very
jealous of your honour; and you on my left, because I know you very
much concerned for the reputation of others; for which reason I expect
great exactness and impartiality in your verdicts and judgments.
"I must in the next place address myself to you, gentlemen of the
council: you all know, that I have not chosen you for your knowledge
in the litigious parts of the law, but because you have all of you
formerly fought duels, of which I have reason to think you have
repented, as being now settled in the peaceable state of benchers.
My advice to you is, only that in your pleadings you are short and
expressive: to which end you are to banish out of your discourses all
synonymous terms, and unnecessary multiplications of verbs and nouns.
I do moreover forbid you the use of the words 'also' and 'likewise';
and must further declare, that if I catch any one among you, upon any
pretence whatsoever, using the particle 'or,' I shall incessantly order
him to be stripped of his gown, and thrown over the bar."
"This is a true copy.--CHARLES LILLIE."
_N.B._--The sequel of the proceedings of this day will be published on
Tuesday next.[199]
FOOTNOTES:
[195] Tickell says that Steele assisted in this paper.
[196] See No. 250.
[197] Mary Astell (see Nos. 32 and 166).
[198] "Fables," iii. 17. 12. The correct reading is "stulta est gloria."
[199] See No. 256.
=No. 254.= [ADDISON and STEELE.[200]
Splendidè mendax.----
HOR., 3 Od. xi. 35.
From _Tuesday, Nov. 21_, to _Thursday, Nov. 23, 1710_.
_From my own Apartment, Nov. 22._
There are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially
those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an
opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being
examined or contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our
renowned countryman Sir John Mandeville[201] has distinguished himself,
by the copiousness of his invention, and greatness of his genius. The
second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto,[202]
a person of infinite adventure and unbounded imagination. One reads
the voyages of these two great wits with as much astonishment as the
travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red-Cross Knight in Spenser. All
is enchanted ground and fairy-land.
I have got into my hands by great chance several manuscripts of these
two eminent authors, which are filled with greater wonders than any
of those they have communicated to the public; and indeed, were they
not so well attested, would appear altogether improbable. I am apt to
think, the ingenious authors did not publish them with the rest of
their works, lest they should pass for fictions and fables: a caution
not unnecessary, when the reputation of their veracity was not yet
established in the world. But as this reason has now no further weight,
I shall make the public a present of these curious pieces at such times
as I shall find myself unprovided with other subjects.
The present paper I intend to fill with an extract of Sir John's
journal, in which that learned and worthy knight gives an account of
the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which he made in the
territories of Nova Zembla.[203] I need not inform my reader, that
the author of "Hudibras" alludes to this strange quality in that cold
climate, when, speaking of abstracted notions clothed in a visible
shape, he adds that apt simile:
_Like words congealed in Northern air._[204]
Not to keep my reader any longer in suspense, the relation put into
modern language is as follows:
"We were separated by a storm in the latitude of 73, insomuch that only
the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and a French vessel, got safe
into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed, in order to refit our vessels,
and store ourselves with provisions. The crew of each vessel made
themselves a cabin of turf and wood, at some distance from each other,
to fence themselves against the inclemencies of the weather, which was
severe beyond imagination. We soon observed, that in talking to one
another we lost several of our words, and could not hear one another at
above two yards' distance, and that too when we sat very near the fire.
After much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air before
they could reach the ears of the person to whom they were spoken. I
was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of the
cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was
sensible, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever; but
the sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and lost. It was
now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another,
every man talking, and no man heard. One might observe a seaman that
could hail a ship at a league distance, beckoning with his hands,
straining his lungs, and tearing his throat, but all in vain.
_----Nec vox, nec verba, sequuntur._[205]
"We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a
turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immediately
filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the
crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often
mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that
occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I soon after felt a breeze
of whispers rushing by my ear; for those being of a soft and gentle
substance, immediately liquefied in the warm wind that blew across our
cabin. These were soon followed by syllables and short words, and at
length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were
more or less congealed; so that we now heard everything that had been
spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been silent, if I may
use that expression. It was now very early in the morning, and yet,
to my surprise, I heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and
time for the ship's crew to go to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's
voice, and upon recollecting myself, I concluded that he had spoken
these words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before
the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how the whole crew was
amazed, to hear every man talking, and see no man opening his mouth.
In the midst of this great surprise we were all in, we heard a volley
of oaths and curses, lasting for a long while, and uttered in a hoarse
voice, which I knew belonged to the boatswain, who was a very choleric
fellow, and had taken his opportunity of cursing and swearing at me
when he thought I could not hear him; for I had several times given him
the strappado on that account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these
his pious soliloquies when I got him on shipboard.