From _Tuesday, Dec. 5_, to _Thursday, Dec. 7, 1710_.
Non cuicunque datum est habere nasum.
MART., Epig. i. 41.
_From my own Apartment, Dec. 6._
We have a very learned and elaborate dissertation upon thumbs in
Montaigne's Essays,[228] and another upon ears in the "Tale of a
Tub."[229] I am here going to write one upon noses,[230] having chosen
for my text the following verses out of "Hudibras":
_So learned Talicotius from
The brawny part of porter's bum
Cut supplemental noses, which
Lasted as long as parent breech:
But when the date of nock[231] was out,
Off dropped the sympathetic snout._[232]
Notwithstanding that there is nothing obscene in natural knowledge,
and that I intend to give as little offence as may be to readers
of a well-bred imagination, I must, for my own quiet, desire the
critics (who in all times have been famous for good noses) to refrain
from the lecture[233] of this curious tract. These gentlemen were
formerly marked out and distinguished by the little rhinocerical
nose, which was always looked upon as an instrument of derision, and
which they were used to cock, toss, or draw up in a contemptuous
manner, upon reading the works of their ingenious contemporaries. It
is not therefore for this generation of men that I write the present
transaction:
_----Minus aptus acutis
Naribus horum hominum----_
but for the sake of some of my philosophical friends in the Royal
Society, who peruse discourses of this nature with a becoming gravity,
and a desire of improving by them.
Many are the opinions of learned men concerning the rise of that fatal
distemper which has always taken a particular pleasure in venting its
spite upon the nose. I have seen a little burlesque poem in Italian
that gives a very pleasant account of this matter. The fable of it runs
thus: Mars, the god of war, having served during the siege of Naples in
the shape of a French colonel, received a visit one night from Venus,
the goddess of love, who had been always his professed mistress and
admirer. The poem says, she came to him in the disguise of a sutling
wench, with a bottle of brandy under her arm. Let that be as it will,
he managed matters so well, that she went away big-bellied, and was at
length brought to bed of a little Cupid. This boy, whether it were by
reason of any bad food that his father had eaten during the siege, or
of any particular malignity in the stars that reigned at his nativity,
came into the world with a very sickly look and crazy constitution.
As soon as he was able to handle his bow, he made discoveries of a
most perverse disposition. He dipped all his arrows in poison, that
rotted everything they touched; and what was more particular, aimed
all his shafts at the nose, quite contrary to the practice of his
elder brothers, who had made a human heart their butt in all countries
and ages. To break him of this roguish trick, his parents put him to
school to Mercury, who did all he could to hinder him from demolishing
the noses of mankind; but in spite of education the boy continued
very unlucky; and though his malice was a little softened by good
instructions, he would very frequently let fly an envenomed arrow, and
wound his votaries oftener in the nose than in the heart. Thus far the
fable.
I need not tell my learned reader that Correggio has drawn a Cupid
taking his lesson from Mercury, conformable to this poem; nor that the
poem itself was designed as a burlesque upon Fracastorius.[234]
It was a little after this fatal siege of Naples that Talicotius[235]
began to practise in a town of Germany. He was the first clap doctor
that I meet with in history, and a greater man in his age than our
celebrated Dr. Wall.[236] He saw this species extremely mutilated and
disfigured by this new distemper that was crept into it; and therefore,
in pursuance of a very seasonable invention, set up a manufacture of
noses, having first got a patent that none should presume to make
noses besides himself. His first patient was a great man of Portugal,
who had done good services to his country, but in the midst of them
unfortunately lost his nose. Talicotius grafted a new one on the
remaining part of the gristle or cartilaginous substance, which would
sneeze, smell, take snuff, pronounce the letters _m_ or _n_, and, in
short, do all the functions of a genuine and natural nose. There was,
however, one misfortune in this experiment. The Portuguese's complexion
was a little upon the subfusk, with very black eyes and dark eyebrows,
and the nose being taken from a porter that had a white German skin,
and cut out of those parts that are not exposed to the sun, it was very
visible that the features of his face were not fellows. In a word, the
Comdè resembled one of those maimed antique statues that has often a
modern nose of fresh marble glued to a face of such a yellow ivory
complexion as nothing can give but age. To remedy this particular for
the future, the doctor got together a great collection of porters, men
of all complexions, black, brown, fair, dark, sallow, pale, and ruddy;
so that it was impossible for a patient of the most out-of-the-way
colour not to find a nose to match it.
The doctor's house was now very much enlarged, and became a kind of
college, or rather hospital, for the fashionable cripples of both
sexes that resorted to him from all parts of Europe. Over his door was
fastened a large golden snout, not unlike that which is placed over
the great gates at Brasenose College, in Oxford; and as it is usual for
the learned in foreign universities to distinguish their houses by a
Latin sentence, the doctor writ underneath this great golden proboscis
two verses out of Ovid:
_Militat omnis amans, habet et sua castra Cupido,
Pontice, crede mihi, militat omnis amans._[237]
It is reported, that Talicotius had at one time in his house twelve
German counts, nineteen French marquises, and a hundred Spanish
cavaliers, besides one solitary English esquire, of whom more
hereafter. Though the doctor had the monopoly of noses in his own
hands, he is said not to have been unreasonable. Indeed, if a man
had occasion for a high Roman nose, he must go to the price of it. A
carbuncle nose likewise bore an excessive rate: but for your ordinary
short turned-up noses, of which there was the greatest consumption,
they cost little or nothing; at least the purchasers thought so, who
would have been content to have paid much dearer for them, rather than
to have gone without them.
The sympathy betwixt the nose and its parent was very extraordinary.
"Hudibras" has told us, that when the porter died, the nose dropped
of course, in which case it was always usual to return the nose, in
order to have it interred with its first owner. The nose was likewise
affected by the pain as well as death of the original proprietor. An
eminent instance of this nature happened to three Spaniards whose noses
were all made out of the same piece of brawn. They found them one
day shoot and swell extremely, upon which they sent to know how the
porter did, and heard upon inquiry, that the parent of the noses had
been severely kicked the day before, and that the porter kept his bed
on account of the bruises it had received. This was highly resented by
the Spaniards, who found out the person that had used the porter so
unmercifully, and treated him in the same manner as if the indignity
had been done to their own noses. In this and several other cases it
might be said, that the porters led the gentlemen by the nose.
On the other hand, if anything went amiss with the nose, the porter
felt the effects of it, insomuch that it was generally articled with
the patient, that he should not only abstain from all his old courses,
but should on no pretence whatever smell pepper, or eat mustard; on
which occasion, the part where the incision had been made was seized
with unspeakable twinges and prickings.
The Englishman I before mentioned was so very irregular, and relapsed
so frequently into the distemper which at first brought him to the
learned Talicotius, that in the space of two years he wore out five
noses, and by that means so tormented the porters, that if he would
have given £500 for a nose, there was not one of them that would
accommodate him. This young gentleman was born of honest parents, and
passed his first years in fox-hunting; but accidentally quitting the
woods, and coming up to London, he was so charmed with the beauties of
the play-house, that he had not been in town two days before he got
the misfortune which carried off this part of his face. He used to be
called in Germany, the Englishman of five noses, and, the gentleman
that had thrice as many noses as he had ears: such was the raillery of
those times.
I shall close this paper with an admonition to the young men of
this town, which I think the more necessary, because I see several
new fresh-coloured faces, that have made their first appearance in
it this winter. I must therefore assure them, that the art of making
noses is entirely lost; and in the next place, beg them not to follow
the example of our ordinary town rakes, who live as if there was a
Talicotius to be met with at the corner of every street. Whatever young
men may think, the nose is a very becoming part of the face, and a
man makes but a very silly figure without it. But it is the nature of
youth not to know the value of anything till they have lost it. The
general precept, therefore, I shall leave with them is, to regard every
town-woman as a particular kind of siren, that has a design upon their
noses; and that, amidst her flatteries and allurements, they will fancy
she speaks to them in that humorous phrase of old Plautus:
_Ego tibi faciem denasabo mordicus._[238]
"Keep your face out of my way, or I'll bite off your nose."
FOOTNOTES:
[228] Book ii. chap. xxvi.
[229] Swift's "Tale of a Tub," sect. xi.
[230] "You are mistaken in your guesses about _Tatlers_; I did neither
write that on noses nor religion [No. 257], nor do I send him of late
any hints at all" (Swift's "Journal," Jan. 1, 1711).
[231] Notch or nick.
[232] "Hudibras," Part i. canto i. 281. For Talicotius see note below.
[233] Reading.
[234] Hieronymus Fracastorius, physician and poet, and much commended
for his elegance as a Latin Writer, was born in Verona in 1483, and
died in that neighborhood, of an apoplexy, in 1553, at the age of
seventy-one. He was a man of blameless life and engaging manners, which
so endeared him to his friends and countrymen, that they erected a
statue to his memory six years after his death. His "Syphilis," the
book here alluded to, was printed with his other works in two volumes,
at Padua, in 1735. There is a separate edition of his poetical works,
printed at the same place in 1718. Fracastorius was born, it is said,
with his lips so grown together that it was necessary to call in the
assistance of a surgeon to separate them.
[235] Gaspar Taliacotius (1546-1599) was a professor of physic and
surgery at Bologna. In his "De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem" he
taught the art of grafting noses, lips, and ears, with the proper
instruments and bandages. The only manner which he used and recommends
for the reparation of maimed noses, &c., is skin.
[236] A quack doctor whose advertisements may be found in the
newspapers of the day.
[237] Ovid, "Amor. El." ix. 1.
[238]
"Namque edepol si adbites proprius, os denasabit tibi
Mordicus."
--"Captivi," act iii. sc. 4, II. 72-73.
=No. 261.= [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Dec. 7_, to _Saturday, Dec. 9, 1710_.
_From my own Apartment, Dec. 8._
It is the duty of all who make philosophy the entertainment of their
lives, to turn their thoughts to practical schemes for the good of
society, and not pass away their time in fruitless searches, which
tend rather to the ostentation of knowledge than the service of life.
For this reason I cannot forbear reading even the common bills that
are daily put into people's hands as they pass the streets, which give
us notice of the present residence, the past travels, and infallible
medicines of doctors, useful in their generation, though much below
the character of the renowned Talicotius: but upon a nice calculation
of the successes of such adepts, I find their labours tend mostly to
the enriching only one sort of men, that is to say, the Society of
Upholders. From this observation, and many other which occur to me
when I am numbering the good people of Great Britain, I cannot but
favour any proposal which tends to repairing the losses we sustain
by eminent cures. The best I have met with in this kind, has been
offered to my consideration, and recommended by a letter, subscribed
Thomas Clement.[239] The title to his printed articles runs thus:
"By the Profitable Society at the Wheat Sheaf, over against Tom's
Coffee-house, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, new proposals for
promoting a contribution towards raising two hundred and fifty pounds
to be made on the baptizing of any infant born in wedlock." The plan
is laid with such proper regulations, as serves (to such as fall in
with it for the sake of their posterity) all the uses, without any of
the inconveniences of settlements. By this means, such whose fortunes
depend upon their own industry, or personal qualifications, need
not be deterred by fear of poverty from that state which nature and
reason prescribe to us as the fountain of the greatest happiness in
human life. The censors of Rome had power vested in them to lay taxes
on the unmarried; and I think I cannot show my impartiality better
than in inquiring into the extravagant privileges my brother bachelors
enjoy, and fine them accordingly. I shall not allow a single life in
one sex to be reproached, and held in esteem in the other. It would
not, methinks, be amiss, if an old bachelor, who lives in contempt of
matrimony, were obliged to give a portion to an old maid who is willing
to enter into it. At the same time I must allow, that those who can
plead courtship, and were unjustly rejected, shall not be liable to the
pains and penalties of celibacy. But such as pretend an aversion to
the whole sex, because they were ill-treated by a particular female,
and cover their sense of disappointment in women under a contempt of
their favour, shall be proceeded against as bachelors convict. I am not
without hopes, that from this slight warning, all the unmarried men of
fortune, taste, and refinement, will, without further delay, become
lovers and humble servants to such of their acquaintance as are most
agreeable to them, under pain of my censures: and it is to be hoped,
the rest of the world, who remain single for fear of the encumbrances
of wedlock, will become subscribers to Mr. Clement's proposal. By these
means we shall have a much more numerous account of births in the year
1711, than any ever before known in Great Britain, where merely to
be born is a distinction of Providence, greater than being born to a
fortune in another place.
As I was going on in the consideration of this good office which Mr.
Clement proposes to do his country, I received the following letter,
which seems to be dictated by a like modest and public spirit, that
makes use of me also in its design of obliging mankind:
* * * * *
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"In the royal lottery for a million and a half, I had the good fortune
of obtaining a prize. From before the drawing I had devoted a fifth of
whatever should arise to me to charitable uses. Accordingly I lately
troubled you with my request and commission for placing half-a-dozen
youths with Mr. More,[240] writing-master in Castle Street, to whom,
it is said, we owe all the fine devices, flourishes, and the composure
of all the plates, for the drawing and paying the tickets. Be pleased
therefore, good sir, to find or make leisure for complying therewith,
for I would not appear concerned in this small matter. I am very much
"Your humble Servant, &c."
It is no small pleasure to observe, that in the midst of a very
degenerate age, there are still spirits which retain their natural
dignity, and pursue the good of their fellow-creatures: some in making
themselves useful by professed service, some by secret generosity. Were
I at liberty to discover even all the good I know of many men living at
this time, there would want nothing but a suitable historian to make
them appear as illustrious as any of the noblest of the old Greeks or
Romans. The cunning some have used to do handsome and worthy actions,
the address to do men services, and escape their notice, has produced
so many surprising incidents (which have been laid before me during my
censorship), as, in the opinion of posterity, would absolve this age of
all its crimes and follies. I know no way to deal with such delicate
minds as these, but by assuring them, that when they cease to do good,
I shall tell all the good they have done already. Let therefore the
benefactor to the youths above-mentioned continue such bounties, upon
pain of being publicly praised. But there is no probability of his
running into that hazard; for a strong habit of virtue can make men
suspend the receiving acknowledgments due to their merit, till they
are out of a capacity of receiving them. I am so very much charmed
with accidents of this kind, that I have made a collection of all the
memorable handsome things done by private men in my time. As a specimen
of my manner of noting such actions, take the following fragment out of
much more which is written in my Year-Book, on the remarkable will of a
gentleman, whom I shall here call Celamico.
"This day died that plain and excellent man, my much honoured friend
Celamico, who bequeathed his whole estate to a gentleman no way related
to him, and to whom he had given no such expectation in his lifetime."
He was a person of a very enlarged soul, and thought the nearest
relation among men to be the resemblance of their minds and sentiments.
He was not mistaken in the worth of his successor, who received the
news of this unexpected good fortune with an air that showed him less
moved with the benefit than the loss of the benefactor.
ADVERTISEMENT.
"Notice is hereby given, that on Monday the 11th instant, the case
of the visit comes on, between the hours of ten and eleven, at the
Court of Honour; where both persons are to attend, the meeting there
not being to be understood as a visit, and the right of the next
visit being then to be wholly settled, according to the prayer of the
plaintiff."
FOOTNOTES:
[239] See No. 258, _ad fin._ The following advertisement appeared in
No. 252 of the _Tatler_: "Two hundred and fifty pounds to be paid
on the baptizing of a child, being a new proposal by the Profitable
Society; the payment of 2s. 6d. for a policy, and 2s. 6d. towards each
claim, a title to the sum above-mentioned. Proposals of a 2d. society,
where the contribution of 1s. entitled the contributor to £100, to be
had gratis at the Wheat Sheaf, opposite to Tom's Coffee-house, Russell
Street, Covent Garden."
[240] "This ingenious penman was the son of a writing-master in King
Street, Westminster, and lived at the Golden Pen, in Castle Street,
near the Mews, Charing Cross. He succeeded Colonel Ayres, to whom
caligraphy is much indebted for its improvement, in his house and
business in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in some respects enlarged its
glory. He died on a journey in 1727" (Massey, "Origin and Progress of
Letters," 1763; Part ii. 103).
=No. 262.= [ADDISON and STEELE.
From _Saturday, Dec. 9,_ to _Tuesday, Dec. 12, 1710_.
Verba togæ sequeris juncturâ callidus acri,
Ore teres modico, pallentes radere mores
Doctus et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.
PERS., Sat. v. 14.
JOURNAL OF THE COURT OF HONOUR, &C.[241]
Timothy Treatall, Gent., was indicted by several ladies of his
sisters' acquaintance for a very rude affront offered to them at an
entertainment, to which he had invited them on Tuesday the 7th of
November last past, between the hours of eight and nine in the evening.
The indictment set forth, that the said Mr. Treatall, upon the serving
up of the supper, desired the ladies to take their places according
to their different age and seniority, for that it was the way always
at his table to pay respect to years. The indictment added, that this
produced an unspeakable confusion in the company; for that the ladies,
who before had pressed together for a place at the upper end of the
table, immediately crowded with the same disorder towards the end that
was quite opposite; that Mrs. Frontly had the insolence to clap herself
down at the very lowest place of the table; that the Widow Partlett
seated herself on the right hand of Mrs. Frontly, alleging for her
excuse, that no ceremony was to be used at a round table; that Mrs.
Fidget and Mrs. Fescue disputed above half-an-hour for the same chair,
and that the latter would not give up the cause till it was decided by
the parish register, which happened to be kept hard by. The indictment
further said, that the rest of the company who sat down, did it with
a reserve to their right, which they were at liberty to assert on
another occasion; and that Mrs. Mary Pippe, an old maid, was placed by
the unanimous vote of the whole company at the upper end of the table,
from whence she had the confusion to behold several mothers of families
among her inferiors. The criminal alleged in his defence, that what he
had done, was to raise mirth, and avoid ceremony, and that the ladies
did not complain of his rudeness till the next morning, having eaten
up what he had provided for them with great readiness and alacrity.
The Censor frowning upon him told him, that he ought not to discover
so much levity in matters of a serious nature, and (upon the jury's
bringing him in guilty) sentenced him to treat the whole assembly of
ladies over again, and to take care he did it with the decorum which
was due to persons of their quality.
Rebecca Shapely, spinster, was indicted by Mrs. Sarah Smack, for
speaking many words reflecting upon her reputation, and the heels of
her silk slippers, which the prisoner had maliciously suggested to be
two inches higher than they really were. The prosecutor urged, as an
aggravation of her guilt, that the prisoner was herself guilty of the
same kind of forgery which she had laid to the prosecutor's charge,
for that she, the said Rebecca Shapely, did always wear a pair of
steel bodice, and a false rump. The Censor ordered the slippers to be
produced in open court, where the heels were adjudged to be of the
statutable size. He then ordered the grand jury to search the criminal,
who, after some time spent therein, acquitted her of the bodice, but
found her guilty of the rump; upon which she received sentence as is
usual in such cases.
William Trippitt, Esq., of the Middle Temple, brought his action
against the Lady Elizabeth Prudely, for having refused him her hand as
he offered to lead her to her coach from the opera. The plaintiff set
forth, that he had entered himself into the list of those volunteers
who officiate every night behind the boxes as gentlemen-ushers of
the play-house; that he had been at a considerable charge in white
gloves, periwigs, and snuff-boxes, in order to qualify himself for that
employment, and in hopes of making his fortune by it. The counsel for
the defendant replied, that the plaintiff had given out that he was
within a month of wedding their client, and that she had refused her
hand to him in ceremony, lest he should interpret it as a promise that
she would give it him in marriage. As soon as their pleadings on both
sides were finished, the Censor ordered the plaintiff to be cashiered
from his office of gentleman-usher to the play-house, since it was too
plain that he had undertaken it with an ill design; and at the same
time ordered the defendant either to marry the said plaintiff, or to
pay him half-a-crown for the new pair of gloves and coach-hire that he
was at the expense of in her service.