that the said Mrs. Flambeau had not been to see the said Lady Townly,
and wish her joy, since her marriage with Sir Ralph, notwithstanding
she, the said Lady Townly, had paid Mrs. Flambeau a visit upon her
first coming to town. It was urged in the behalf of the defendant,
that the plaintiff had never given her any regular notice of her being
in town; that the visit she alleged had been made on a Monday, which
she knew was a day on which Mrs. Flambeau was always abroad, having
set aside that only day in the week to mind the affairs of her family;
that the servant who inquired whether she was at home did not give the
visiting knock; that it was not between the hours of five and eight
in the evening; that there was no candles lighted up; that it was not
on Mrs. Flambeau's day; and, in short, that there was not one of the
essential points observed that constitute a visit. She further proved
by her porter's book, which was produced in court, that she had paid
the Lady Townly a visit on the twenty-fourth day of March,[242] just
before her leaving the town, in the year 1709-10, for which she was
still creditor to the said Lady Townly. To this the plaintiff only
replied, that she was now under covert, and not liable to any debts
contracted when she was a single woman. Mr. Bickerstaff finding the
cause to be very intricate, and that several points of honour were
likely to arise in it, he deferred giving judgment upon it till the
next session day, at which time he ordered the ladies on his left hand
to present to the court a table of all the laws relating to visits.
Winifred Lear brought her action against Richard Sly for having broken
a marriage contract, and wedded another woman, after he had engaged
himself to marry the said Winifred Lear. She alleged, that he had
ogled her twice at an opera, thrice in St. James's Church, and once
at Powell's Puppet-Show,[243] at which time he promised her marriage
by a side glance, as her friend could testify that sat by her. Mr.
Bickerstaff finding that the defendant had made no further overture of
love or marriage, but by looks and ocular engagement; yet at the same
time considering how very apt such impudent seducers are to lead the
ladies' hearts astray, ordered the criminal to stand upon the stage in
the Haymarket, between each act of the next opera, there to be exposed
to public view as a false ogler.
Upon the rising of the court, Mr. Bickerstaff having taken one of
these counterfeits in the very fact as he was ogling a lady of the
grand jury, ordered him to be seized, and prosecuted upon the statute
of ogling. He likewise directed the clerk of the court to draw up an
edict against these common cheats, that make women believe they are
distracted for them by staring them out of countenance, and often
blast a lady's reputation whom they never spoke to, by saucy looks and
distant familiarities.
FOOTNOTES:
[241] See Nos. 253, 256, and 259.
[242] Then the last day of the year.
[243] See Nos. 44, 45, 50, 115; and _Spectator_, Nos. 14, 372. Martin
Powell (sometimes called Robert) was a cripple who came to London from
Bath in 1710, and set up "Punch's Theatre" under the Piazza in Covent
Garden. There he produced puppet plays, burlesquing the operas at the
Haymarket. Defoe, or whoever was the author of the "Groans of Great
Britain" (1711), lamented Powell's popularity, and said that he was
rich enough to buy up all the poets of England. In 1715 Thomas Burnet
wrote a satire on Robert Harley under the title of a "History of Robert
Powell the Puppet-Showman."
=No. 263.= [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, Dec. 12_, to _Thursday, Dec. 14, 1710_.
----Minimâ contentos nocte Britannos.
JUV., Sat ii. 161.
_From my own Apartment Dec. 13._
An old friend of mine being lately come to town, I went to see him
on Tuesday last about eight o'clock in the evening, with a design
to sit with him an hour or two and talk over old stories; but upon
inquiring after him, his servant told me he was just gone to bed. The
next morning, as soon as I was up and dressed, and had despatched
a little business, I came again to my friend's house about eleven
o'clock, with a design to renew my visit; but upon asking for him,
his servant told me he was just sat down to dinner. In short, I found
that my old-fashioned friend religiously adhered to the example of his
forefathers, and observed the same hours that had been kept in the
family ever since the Conquest.[244]
It is very plain that the night was much longer formerly in this
island than it is at present. By the night I mean that portion of time
which nature has thrown into darkness, and which the wisdom of mankind
had formerly dedicated to rest and silence. This used to begin at eight
o'clock in the evening, and conclude at six in the morning. The curfew,
or eight o'clock bell, was the signal throughout the nation for putting
out their candles and going to bed.
Our grandmothers, though they were wont to sit up the last in the
family, were all of them fast asleep at the same hours that their
daughters are busy at crimp and basset.[245] Modern statesmen are
concerting schemes, and engaged in the depth of politics, at the time
when their forefathers were laid down quietly to rest, and had nothing
in their heads but dreams. As we have thus thrown business and pleasure
into the hours of rest, and by that means made the natural night but
half as long as it should be, we are forced to piece it out with a
great part of the morning; so that near two-thirds of the nation lie
fast asleep for several hours in broad daylight. This irregularity
is grown so very fashionable at present, that there is scarce a lady
of quality in Great Britain that ever saw the sun rise. And if the
humour increases in proportion to what it has done of late years, it
is not impossible but our children may hear the bellman going about
the streets at nine o'clock in the morning, and the watch making
their rounds till eleven. This unaccountable disposition in mankind
to continue awake in the night, and sleep in sunshine, has made me
inquire, whether the same change of inclination has happened to any
other animals? For this reason I desired a friend of mine in the
country to let me know, whether the lark rises as early as he did
formerly? and whether the cock begins to crow at his usual hour? My
friend has answered me, that his poultry are as regular as ever, and
that all the birds and the beasts of his neighbourhood keep the same
hours that they have observed in the memory of man; and the same which,
in all probability, they have kept for these five thousand years.
If you would see the innovations that have been made among us in this
particular, you may only look into the hours of colleges, where they
still dine at eleven, and sup at six, which were doubtless the hours
of the whole nation at the time when those places were founded. But at
present the courts of justice are scarce opened in Westminster Hall at
the time when William Rufus used to go to dinner in it. All business is
driven forward: the landmarks of our fathers (if I may so call them)
are removed, and planted further up into the day; insomuch that I am
afraid our clergy will be obliged (if they expect full congregations)
not to look any more upon ten o'clock in the morning as a canonical
hour. In my own memory the dinner has crept by degrees from twelve
o'clock to three, and where it will fix nobody knows.[246]
I have sometimes thought to draw up a memorial in the behalf of supper
against dinner, setting forth, that the said dinner has made several
encroachments upon the said supper, and entered very far upon his
frontiers; that he has banished him out of several families, and in
all has driven him from his headquarters, and forced him to make his
retreat into the hours of midnight; and in short, that he is now in
danger of being entirely confounded and lost in a breakfast. Those who
have read Lucian, and seen the complaints of the letter "t" against "s"
upon account of many injuries and usurpations of the same nature,[247]
will not, I believe, think such a memorial forced and unnatural. If
dinner has been thus postponed, or (if you please) kept back from
time to time, you may be sure that it has been in compliance with
the other business of the day, and that supper has still observed a
proportionable distance. There is a venerable proverb, which we have
all of us heard in our infancy, of "putting the children to bed, and
laying the goose to the fire." This was one of the jocular sayings
of our forefathers, but may be properly used in the literal sense at
present. Who would not wonder at this perverted relish of those who are
reckoned the most polite part of mankind, that prefer sea-coals[248]
and candles to the sun, and exchange so many cheerful morning hours
for the pleasures of midnight revels and debauches? If a man was only
to consult his health, he would choose to live his whole time (if
possible) in daylight, and to retire out of the world into silence and
sleep, while the raw damps and unwholesome vapours fly abroad without a
sun to disperse, moderate, or control them. For my own part, I value
an hour in the morning as much as common libertines do an hour at
midnight. When I find myself awakened into being, and perceive my life
renewed within me, and at the same time see the whole face of nature
recovered out of the dark uncomfortable state in which it lay for
several hours, my heart overflows with such secret sentiments of joy
and gratitude as are a kind of implicit[249] praise to the great Author
of Nature. The mind in these early seasons of the day is so refreshed
in all its faculties, and borne up with such new supplies of animal
spirits, that she finds herself in a state of youth, especially when
she is entertained with the breath of flowers, the melody of birds, the
dews that hang upon the plants, and all those other sweets of nature
that are peculiar to the morning.
It is impossible for a man to have this relish of being, this exquisite
taste of life, who does not come into the world before it is in all its
noise and hurry; who loses the rising of the sun, the still hours of
the day, and immediately upon his first getting up plunges himself into
the ordinary cares or follies of the world.
I shall conclude this paper with Milton's inimitable description of
Adam's awakening his Eve in Paradise, which indeed would have been a
place as little delightful as a barren heath or desert to those who
slept in it. The fondness of the posture in which Adam is represented,
and the softness of his whisper, are passages in this divine poem that
are above all commendation, and rather to be admired than praised.
_Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep
Was airy-light from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland, which th' only sound
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song
Of birds on every bough; so much the more
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve,
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek,
As through unquiet rest: he on his side
Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty, which whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces. Then with voice
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: "Awake,
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,
Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight;
Awake, the morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring
Our tended plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How Nature paints her colours, how the bee
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet."
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake:
"O soul! in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My glory, my perfection, glad I see
Thy face, and morn returned."_----[250]
FOOTNOTES:
[244] _Cf._ Pope's "Epistle to Miss Blount, on her leaving the Town
after the Coronation" (1715):
"She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
Up to her godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray, for that's the way to heaven."
[245] Games at cards. Pope wrote a poem called "The Basset Table."
[246] Four o'clock was soon the fashionable hour. Mr. Dobson quotes
from Swift's "Journal of a Modern Lady" (1728):--
"This business of importance o'er,
And madam almost dressed by four,
The footman, in his usual phrase,
Comes up with 'Madam, dinner stays.'"
[247] See Lucian's "Judicium Vocalium." Such words as σήμερον and σὺκον
afterwards came to be spelled τήμερον and τὺκον.
[248] Coal carried by sea from the colliery, as was then the case with
all the coal used in London. In the country wood was burned; and Will
Honeycomb, after his marriage to a farmer's daughter, said that had his
steward not run away, he would still have been "immersed in sin and
sea-coal" in London, with its smoke and gallantries (_Spectator_, No.
530).
[249] Implied.
[250] "Paradise Lost," v. 1.
=No. 264.= [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Dec. 14_, to _Saturday Dec. 16, 1710_.
Favete linguis.----HOR., 3 Od. i. 2.
_From my own Apartment, Dec. 15._
Boccalini[251] in his "Parnassus," indicts a laconic writer for
speaking that in three words which he might have said in two, and
sentences him for his punishment to read over all the works of
Guicciardin.[252] This Guicciardin is so very prolix and circumstantial
in his writings, that I remember our countryman Dr. Donne, speaking
of that majestic and concise manner in which Moses has described the
creation of the world, adds that "if such an author as Guicciardin were
to have written on such a subject, the world itself would not have
been able to have contained the books that gave the history of its
creation."[253]
I look upon a tedious talker, or what is generally known by the name
of a story-teller, to be much more insufferable than even a prolix
writer. An author may be tossed out of your hand and thrown aside
when he grows dull and tiresome; but such liberties are so far from
being allowed towards your orators in common conversation, that I have
known a challenge sent a person for going out of the room abruptly,
and leaving a man of honour in the midst of a dissertation. This evil
is at present so very common and epidemical, that there is scarce
a coffee-house in town that has not some speakers belonging to it,
who utter their political essays, and draw parallels out of Baker's
"Chronicle"[254] to almost every part of her Majesty's reign. It was
said of two ancient authors who had very different beauties in their
style, that if you took a word from one of them, you only spoiled
his eloquence; but if you took a word from the other, you spoiled his
sense. I have often applied the first part of this criticism to several
of these coffee-house speakers whom I have at present in my thoughts,
though the character that is given to the last of those authors is
what I would recommend to the imitation of my loving countrymen:
but it is not only public places of resort, but private clubs and
conversations over a bottle, that are infested with this loquacious
kind of animal, especially with that species which I comprehend under
the name of a story-teller. I would earnestly desire these gentlemen
to consider, that no point of wit or mirth at the end of a story can
atone for the half-hour that has been lost before they come at it. I
would likewise lay it home to their serious consideration, whether they
think that every man in the company has not a right to speak as well
as themselves? and whether they do not think they are invading another
man's property, when they engross the time which should be divided
equally amongst the company to their own private use?
What makes this evil the much greater in conversation is, that these
humdrum companions seldom endeavour to wind up their narrations into
a point of mirth or instruction, which might make some amends for the
tediousness of them, but think they have a right to tell anything that
has happened within their memory. They look upon matter of fact to be
a sufficient foundation for a story, and give us a long account of
things, not because they are entertaining or surprising, but because
they are true.
My ingenious kinsman, Mr. Humphry Wagstaff,[255] used to say, the life
of man is too short for a story-teller.
Methusalem might be half an hour in telling what o'clock it was; but
as for us postdiluvians, we ought to do everything in haste; and in
our speeches, as well as actions, remember that our time is short. A
man that talks for a quarter of an hour together in company, if I meet
him frequently, takes up a great part of my span. A quarter of an hour
may be reckoned the eight and fortieth part of a day, a day the three
hundred and sixtieth part of a year, and a year the threescore and
tenth part of life. By this moral arithmetic, supposing a man to be in
the talking world one-third part of the day, whoever gives another a
quarter of an hour's hearing, makes him a sacrifice of more than the
four hundred thousandth part of his conversable life.
I would establish but one great general rule to be observed in all
conversation, which is this, that men should not talk to please
themselves, but those that hear them. This would make them consider,
whether what they speak be worth hearing; whether there be either wit
or sense in what they are about to say; and whether it be adapted to
the time when, the place where, and the person to whom, it is spoken.
For the utter extirpation of these orators and story-tellers, which
I look upon as very great pests of society, I have invented a watch,
which divides the minute into twelve parts, after the same manner
that the ordinary watches are divided into hours; and will endeavour
to get a patent, which shall oblige every club or company to provide
themselves with one of these watches (that shall lie upon the table
as an hour-glass is often placed near the pulpit) to measure out the
length of a discourse.[256]
I shall be willing to allow a man one round of my watch, that is, a
whole minute, to speak in; but if he exceeds that time, it shall be
lawful for any of the company to look upon the watch, or to call him
down to order.
Provided, however, that if any one can make it appear he is turned of
threescore, he may take two, or, if he pleases, three rounds of the
watch without giving offence. Provided also, that this rule be not
construed to extend to the fair sex, who shall still be at liberty
to talk by the ordinary watch that is now in use. I would likewise
earnestly recommend this little automaton, which may be easily carried
in the pocket without any encumbrance, to all such as are troubled with
this infirmity of speech, that upon pulling out their watches, they may
have frequent occasion to consider what they are doing, and by that
means cut the thread of their story short, and hurry to a conclusion. I
shall only add, that this watch, with a paper of directions how to use
it, is sold at Charles Lillie's.
I am afraid a _Tatler_ will be thought a very improper paper to censure
this humour of being talkative; but I would have my readers know, that
there is a great difference between tattle and loquacity, as I shall
show at large in a following Lucubration,[257] it being my design to
throw away a candle upon that subject, in order to explain the whole
art of tattling in all its branches and subdivisions.
FOOTNOTES:
[251] Trajan Boccalini, lawyer and satirical writer, was born in
1556 at Loreto, and died in 1613. He is best known by his "News from
Parnassus," a translation of which was revised and reissued by John
Hughes in 1706.
[252] Francis Guicciardini, politician and historian, was born at
Florence in 1482. He died in 1540, and his lengthy "History of Italy"
was published in 1561. An article on Guicciardini, by Mr. John Morley,
appeared in the _Nineteenth Century_ for November 1897.
[253] Donne's "Sermons," ii. 239.
[254] Sir Richard Baker's "Chronicle of the Kings of England" (1641)
was a favourite authority with Sir Roger de Coverley (_Spectator_, No.
269).
[255] Probably Swift (See No. 9).
[256] "And spoke the hour-glass in her praise, quite out" (Gay,
"Shepherd's Week," 1714).
[257] No. 268.
=No. 265.= [ADDISON and STEELE.
From _Saturday Dec. 16_, to _Tuesday, Dec. 19, 1710_.
Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite jocosâ.
OVID, Met. iii. 332.
CONTINUATION OF THE JOURNAL OF THE COURT OF HONOUR, &C.
As soon as the court was sat, the ladies of the bench presented,
according to order, a table of all the laws now in force relating to
visits and visiting-days, methodically digested under their respective
heads, which the Censor ordered to be laid upon the table, and
afterwards proceeded upon the business of the day.
Henry Heedless, Esq., was indicted by Colonel Touchy, of her Majesty's
trained-bands,[258] upon an action of assault and battery; for that he
the said Mr. Heedless having espied a feather upon the shoulder of the
said colonel, struck it off gently with the end of a walking-staff,
value threepence. It appeared, that the prosecutor did not think
himself injured till a few days after the aforesaid blow was given him;
but that having ruminated with himself for several days, and conferred
upon it with other officers of the militia, he concluded, that he
had in effect been cudgelled by Mr. Heedless, and that he ought to
resent it accordingly. The counsel for the prosecutor alleged, that
the shoulder was the tenderest part in a man of honour; that it had a
natural antipathy to a stick, and that every touch of it, with anything
made in the fashion of a cane, was to be interpreted as a wound in
that part, and a violation of the person's honour who received it.
Mr. Heedless replied, that what he had done was out of kindness to the
prosecutor, as not thinking it proper for him to appear at the head
of the trained-bands with a feather upon his shoulder; and further
added, that the stick he had made use of on this occasion was so very
small, that the prosecutor could not have felt it, had he broken it on
his shoulders. The Censor hereupon directed the jury to examine into
the nature of the staff, for that a great deal would depend upon that
particular. Upon which he explained to them the different degrees of
offence that might be given by the touch of crab-tree from that of
cane, and by the touch of cane from that of a plain hazel stick. The
jury, after a short perusal of the staff, declared their opinion by the
mouth of their foreman, that the substance of the staff was British
oak. The Censor then observing that there was some dust on the skirts
of the criminal's coat, ordered the prosecutor to beat it off with his
aforesaid oaken plant; "and thus," said the Censor, "I shall decide
this cause by the law of retaliation: if Mr. Heedless did the colonel
a good office, the colonel will by this means return it in kind; but
if Mr. Heedless should at any time boast that he had cudgelled the
colonel, or laid his staff over his shoulders, the colonel might boast
in his turn, that he has brushed Mr. Heedless's jacket, or (to use the
phrase of an ingenious author) that he has rubbed him down with an
oaken towel."