the ladies of Addison's day revived the old "fardingales," an expansion
of dress which has always been a subject of ridicule, and probably will
continue to be upon all its future appearances. The matter is first here
brought forward as follows:
"The humble petition of William Jingle, Coachmaker and Chairmaker
to the Liberty of Westminster.
"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Censor of Great Britain.
"Showeth,--That upon the late invention of Mrs. Catherine
Cross-stitch, Mantua-maker, the petticoats of ladies were too wide
for entering into any coach or chair, which was in use before the
said invention.
"That, for the service of the said ladies, your petitioner has
built a round chair, in the form of a lantern, six yards and a half
in circumference, with a stool in the centre of it; the said
vehicle being so contrived, as to receive the passenger by opening
in two in the middle, and closing mathematically when she is
seated.
"That your petitioner has also invented a coach for the reception
of one lady only, who is to be let in at the top.
"That the said coach has been tried by a lady's woman in one of
these full petticoats, who was let down from a balcony and drawn up
again by pullies to the great satisfaction of her lady, and all who
beheld her.
"Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that for the
encouragement of ingenuity and useful inventions, he may be heard
before you pass sentence upon the petticoats aforesaid. And your
petitioner, &c.,"
Addison, in No. 116, proceeds to try the question:--
"The Court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the
petticoat, I gave orders to bring in a criminal, who was taken up
as she went out of the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was
now standing in the street with a great concourse of people about
her. Word was brought me that she had endeavoured twice or thrice
to come in, but could not do it by reason of her petticoat, which
was too large for the entrance of my house, though I had ordered
both the folding doors to be thrown open for its reception. The
garment having been taken off, the accused, by a committee of
matrons, was at length brought in, and 'dilated' so as to show it
in its utmost circumference, but my great hall was too narrow for
the experiment; for before it was half unfolded it described so
immoderate a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face
as I sat in the chair of judicature. I finally ordered the vest,
which stood before us, to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my
great hall, and afterwards to be spread open, in such a manner that
it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads, and
covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken
rotunda, in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's."
A considerable part of "The Tatler" is occupied with gay attacks upon
the foppery of the beaux, whom it calls "pretty fellows," or "smart
fellows." The red-heeled shoes and the cane hung by its blue ribbon on
the last button of the coat, came in for an especial share of ridicule.
A letter purporting to be from Oxford, and reporting some improvement
effected in the conversation of the University, also says:--
"I am sorry though not surprised to find that you have rallied the
men of dress in vain: that the amber-headed cane still maintains
its unstable post," (on the button) "that pockets are but a few
inches shortened, and a beau is still a beau, from the crown of his
night-cap to the heels of his shoes. For your comfort, I can assure
you that your endeavours succeed better in this famous seat of
learning. By them the manners of our young gentlemen are in a fair
way of amendment." ...
The ladies also did not escape censure for their love of finery.
"A matron of my acquaintance, complaining of her daughter's vanity,
was observing that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher
than ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction
in herself, mixed with a scorn of others. 'I did not know,' says my
friend, 'what to make of the carriage of this fantastical girl,
until I was informed by her elder sister, that she had a pair of
striped garters on.'"
Again:--
"Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the loss of a wig, and been
ruined by the tapping of a snuff box. It is impossible to describe
all the execution that was done by the shoulder knot, while that
fashion prevailed, or to reckon up all the maidens that have fallen
a sacrifice to a pair of fringed gloves. A sincere heart has not
made half so many conquests as an open waistcoat: and I should be
glad to see an able head make so good a figure in a woman's company
as a pair of red heels. A Grecian hero, when he was asked whether
he could play upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply
when he had answered 'No, but I can make a great city of a little
one.' Notwithstanding his boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of
any Toast in town whether she would not think the lutenist
preferable to the statesman."
The general tone of "The Tatler," is that of a fashionable London paper,
and it often notices the difference of thought in town and country. This
distinction is much less now than in his day, before the time of
railways, and when the country gentlemen, instead of having houses in
London, betook themselves for the gay season to their county towns.
"I was this evening representing a complaint sent me out of the
country by Emilia. She says, her neighbours there have so little
sense of what a refined lady of the town is, that she who was a
celebrated wit in London, is in that dull part of the world in so
little esteem that they call her in their base style a tongue-pad.
Old Truepenny bid me advise her to keep her wit until she comes to
town again, and admonish her that both wit and breeding are local;
for a fine court lady is as awkward among country wives, as one of
them would appear in a drawing-room."
Again:--
"I must beg pardon of my readers that, for this time I have, I
fear, huddled up my discourse, having been very busy in helping an
old friend out of town. He has a very good estate and is a man of
wit; but he has been three years absent from town, and cannot bear
a jest; for which I have with some pains convinced him that he can
no more live here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so
fond of dear London that he began to fret, only inwardly; but being
unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the Northern
coach for him and his family; and hope he has got to-night safe
from all sneerers in his own parlour.
"To know what a Toast is in the country gives as much perplexity as
she herself does in town; and indeed the learned differ very much
upon the original of this word, and the acceptation of it among the
moderns; however, it is agreed to have a cheerful and joyous
import. A toast in a cold morning, heightened by nutmeg, and
sweetened with sugar, has for many ages been given to our rural
dispensers of justice before they entered upon causes, and has been
of great politic use to take off the severity of their sentences;
but has indeed been remarkable for one ill effect, that it inclines
those who use it immoderately to speak Latin; to the admiration
rather than information of an audience. This application of a toast
makes it very obvious that the word may, without a metaphor, be
understood as an apt name for a thing which raises us in the most
sovereign degree; but many of the Wits of the last age will assert
that the word in its present sense was known among them in their
youth, and had its rise from an accident in the town of Bath in the
reign of King Charles the Second. It happened that on a public day,
a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one
of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of water in which the
fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in
the place a gay fellow half fuddled, who swore that though he liked
not the liquor, he would take the toast. He was opposed in his
resolution, yet this whim gave foundation to the present honor
which is due to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever
since been called a Toast."[7]
Courtships, and the hopes and fears of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, form
many tender and classic episodes throughout this periodical--
"Though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being
depends upon her, the termagant for whom he sighs is in love with a
fellow who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and
lets her plainly see she may possibly be his rival, but never his
mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my
first narrative, pleases himself with a vain imagination that, with
the language of his eyes he shall conquer her, though her eyes are
intent upon one who looks from her; which is ordinary with the sex.
It is certainly a mistake in the ancients to draw the little
gentleman Love as a blind boy, for his real character is a little
thief that squints; for ask Mrs. Meddle, who is a confidant or spy
upon all the passions in the town, and she will tell you that the
whole is a game of cross purposes. The lover is generally pursuing
one who is in pursuit of another, and running from one that desires
to meet him. Nay, the nature of this passion is so justly
represented in a squinting little thief (who is always in a double
action) that do but observe Clarissa next time you see her, and you
will find when her eyes have made the soft tour round the company,
they make no stay on him they say she is to marry, but rest two
seconds of a minute on Wildair, who neither looks nor thinks of
her, or any woman else. However, Cynthio had a bow from her the
other day, upon which he is very much come to himself; and I heard
him send his man of an errand yesterday without any manner of
hesitation; a quarter of an hour after which he reckoned twenty,
remembered he was to sup with a friend, and went exactly to his
appointment."
All the love-making in "The Tatler" is of a very correct description.
Marriage is nowhere despised or ridiculed, though suggestions are made
for composing the troubles which sometimes accompany it:--
"A young gentleman of great estate fell desperately in love with a
great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long
flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. However, my
young spark ventures upon her like a man of quality, without being
acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, until it was a
crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with
possession, and the charms of this lady soon wanted the support of
good humour and complacency of manners; upon this, my spark flies
to the bottle for relief from satiety; she disdains him for being
tired of that for which all men envied him; and he never came home
but it was, 'Was there no sot that would stay longer?' 'Would any
man living but you?' 'Did I leave all the world for this usage?' to
which he, 'Madam, split me, you're very impertinent!' In a word,
this match was wedlock in its most terrible appearances. She, at
last weary of railing to no purpose, applies to a good uncle, who
gives her a bottle he pretended he had bought of Mr. Partridge, the
conjurer. 'This,' said he, 'I gave ten guineas for. The virtue of
the enchanted liquor (said he that sold it) is such, that if the
woman you marry proves a scold (which it seems, my dear niece is
your misfortune, as it was your good mother's before you) let her
hold three spoonfuls of it in her mouth for a full half hour after
you come home.'"
But Steele says that his principal object was "to stem the torrent of
prejudice and vice." He did not limit himself to making amusement out of
the affectation of the day; he often directed his humour to higher ends.
He deprecated inconstancy, observing that a gentleman who presumed to
pay attention to a lady, should bring with him a character from the one
he had lately left. He must be especially commended for having been one
of the first to advocate consideration for the lower animals, and to
condemn swearing and duelling. The latter, as he said, owed its
continuance to the force of custom, and he supposes that if a duellist
"wrote the truth of his heart," he would express himself to his
lady-love in the following manner:--
"Madam,--I have so tender a regard for you and your interests that
I will knock any man on the head that I observe to be of my mind,
and to like you. Mr. Truman, the other day, looked at you in so
languishing a manner that I am resolved to run him through
to-morrow morning. This, I think, he deserves for his guilt in
adoring you, than which I cannot have a greater reason for
murdering him, except it be that, you also approve him. Whoever
says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill
him,
"I am, Madam,
"Your most obedient humble servant."
Among other offensive habits, "The Tatler" discountenances the custom of
taking snuff, then common among ladies.
"I have been these three years persuading Sagissa[8] to leave it
off; but she talks so much, and is so learned, that she is above
contradiction. However, an accident brought that about, which all
my eloquence could never accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow
in her closet, who ran thither to avoid some company that came to
visit her; she made an excuse to go to him for some implement they
were talking of. Her eager gallant snatched a kiss; but being
unused to snuff, some grains from off her upper lip made him sneeze
aloud, which alarmed her visitors, and has made a discovery."
[It is impossible to say what effect this ridicule produced upon the
snuff-taking public, but the custom gradually declined. A hundred years
later, James Beresford, a fellow of Merton, places among the "Miseries
of Human Life," the "Leaving off Snuff at the request of your Angel,"
and writes the following touching farewell.]
"Box thou art closed, and snuff is but a name!
It is decreed my nose shall feast no more!
To me no more shall come--whence dost it come?--
The precious pulvil from Hibernia's shore!
"Virginia, barren be thy teeming soil,
Or may the swallowing earthquake gulf thy fields!
Fribourg and Pontet! cease your trading toil,
Or bankruptcy be all the fruit it yields!
"And artists! frame no more in tin or gold,
Horn, paper, silver, coal or skin, the chest,
Foredoomed in small circumference to hold
The titillating treasures of the West!"
The fellows of Merton seem to have discovered some hidden efficacy in
snuff.
"Who doth not know what logic lies concealed,
Where diving finger meets with diving thumb?
Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field,
Unhurt by argument, by snuff struck dumb?
"The box drawn forth from its profoundest bed,
The slow-repeated tap, with frowning brows.
The brandished pinch, the fingers widely spread,
The arm tossed round, returning to the nose.
"Who can withstand a battery so strong?
Wit, reason, learning, what are ye to these?
Or who would toil through folios thick and long,
When wisdom may be purchased with a sneeze?
"Shall I, then, climb where Alps on Alps arise?
No; snuff and science are to me a dream,
But hold my soul! for that way madness lies,
Love's in the scale, tobacco kicks the beam."
CHAPTER V.
Spectator--The Rebus--Injurious Wit--The Everlasting Club--The Lovers'
Club--Castles in the Air--The Guardian--Contributions by Pope--"The
Agreeable Companion"--The Wonderful Magazine--Joe Miller--Pivot
Humour.
When "The Tatler" had completed two hundred and seventy-one numbers, it
occurred to the fertile mind of Steele that it might be modified with
advantage. For the future it should be a daily paper, and only contain
an essay upon one subject. In making this alteration he thought it would
be better to give the periodical a title of more important
signification, and accordingly called it the "Spectator." But the most
important difference was that Addison was to contribute a much larger
portion of the material. This gave more solidity to the work.
Addison never obtained a questionable success by descending too low in
coarse language. His style has been recommended as a model, for he is
lively and interesting without approaching dangerous ground. As we read
his pleasant pages we can almost agree with Lord Chesterfield
that:--"True wit never raised a laugh since the world was," but here and
there we find a passage that shows us the grave censor was mistaken.
Speaking of the "absurdities of the modern opera" Addison says,
"As I was walking in the streets about a fortnight ago, I saw an
ordinary fellow carrying a cage full of little birds upon his
shoulder; and as I was wondering with myself what use he would put
them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaintance, who had the
same curiosity. Upon his asking what he had upon his shoulder, he
told him that he had been buying sparrows for the opera. 'Sparrows
for the opera,' says his friend, licking his lips, 'what! are they
to be roasted?' 'No, no,' says the other, 'they are to enter
towards the end of the first act, and to fly about the stage.'
"There have been so many flights of sparrows let loose in this
opera, that it is feared the house will never get rid of them, and
that in other plays they may make their entrance in very wrong and
improper scenes, so as to be seen flying in a lady's bedchamber, or
perching upon a king's throne; besides the inconvenience which the
heads of the audience may sometimes suffer for them. I am credibly
informed that there was once a design of casting into an opera the
story of Whittington and his Cat, and that in order to it there had
been got together a great quantity of mice; but Mr. Rich, the
proprietor of the play-house, very prudently considered that it
would be impossible for the cat to kill them all, and that
consequently the princes of the stage might be as much infested
with mice as the prince of the island was before the cat's arrival
upon it."
To a letter narrating country sports, and a whistling match won by a
footman, he adds as a postscript,
"After having despatched these two important points of grinning and
whistling, I hope you will oblige the world with some reflections
upon yawning, as I have seen it practised on a Twelfth Night among
other Christmas gambols at the house of a very worthy gentleman
who entertains his tenants at that time of the year. They yawn for
a Cheshire cheese, and begin about midnight, when the whole company
is supposed to be drowsy. He that yawns widest, and at the same
time so naturally as to produce the most yawns among the
spectators, carries home the cheese. If you handle this subject as
you ought, I question not but your paper will set half the kingdom
a-yawning, though I dare promise you it will never make anybody
fall asleep."
Johnson observes that Addison never out-steps the modesty of nature, nor
raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. He wrote several
essays in the "Spectator" on wit, and condemns much that commonly passes
under the name. Together with verbal humour and many absurd devices
connected with it, he especially repudiates the rebus. In the first part
of the following extract he refers to this device being used for other
objects than those of amusement, and he might have reminded us of the
alphabets of primitive times, when the picture of an animal signified
the sound with which its name commenced; but the rebus proper is merely
a bad attempt at humour--a sort of pictorial pun--
"I find likewise among the ancients that ingenious kind of conceit
which the moderns distinguish by the name of a rebus, that does not
sink a letter, but a whole word, by substituting a picture in its
place. When Cæsar was one of the masters of the Roman mint, he
placed the figure of an elephant upon the reverse of the public
money; the word Cæsar signifying an elephant in the Punic language.
This was artificially contrived by Cæsar, because it was not lawful
for a private man to stamp his own figure upon the coin of the
Commonwealth. Cicero, so called from the founder of his family, who
was marked on the nose with a little wen like a vetch, (which is
Cicer in Latin,) instead of Marcus Tullius Cicero, ordered the
words Marcus Tullius with the figure of a vetch at the end of them,
to be inscribed on a public monument. This was done probably to
show that he was neither ashamed of his name or family,
notwithstanding the envy of his competitors had often reproached
him with both. In the same manner we read of a famous building that
was marked in several parts of it with the figures of a frog and a
lizard; these words in Greek having been the names of the
architects, who by the laws of their country were never permitted
to inscribe their own names upon their works. For the same reason,
it is thought that the forelock of the horse in the antique
equestrian statute of Marcus Aurelius, represents at a distance the
shape of an owl, to intimate the country of the statuary, who in
all probability was an Athenian. This kind of wit was very much in
vogue among our own countrymen about an age or two ago, who did not
practise it for any oblique reason, as the ancients above
mentioned, but purely for the sake of being witty. Among
innumerable instances that may be given of this nature, I shall
produce the device of one, Mr. Newberry, as I find it mentioned by
our learned Camden, in his remains. Mr. Newberry, to represent his
name by a picture, hung up at his door the sign of a yew-tree that
had several berries upon it, and in the midst of them a great
golden N hung upon the bough of the tree, which by the help of a
little false spelling made up the word N-ew-berry."
Addison disproved of that severity and malice which was too common among
the writers of his age. He refers to it in his essays on wit, in
allusion, as it is thought, to Swift.
"There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than
the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation; lampoons and
satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned
darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For
this reason I am very much troubled when I see the talents of
humour and ridicule in the possession of an ill-natured man.... It
must indeed be confessed, that a lampoon or a satire does not carry
in it robbery or murder; but at the same time, how many are there
that would rather lose a considerable sum of money, or even life
itself, than be set up as a mark of infamy and derision."
He goes on to notice how various persons behaved under the ordeal--
"When Julius Cæsar was lampooned by Catullus he invited him to
supper, and treated him with such a generous civility that he made
the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarin gave the same kind
of treatment to the learned Guillet, who had reflected upon his
Eminence in a famous Latin poem. The Cardinal sent for him, and
after some kind expostulation upon what he had written, assured him
of his esteem, and dismissed him with a promise of the next good
Abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him a
few months after. This had so good an effect upon the author that
he dedicated the second edition of his book to the Cardinal, after
having expunged the passages, which had given him offence. Sextus
Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his
being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was dressed in a very dirty
shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear
foul linen because his laundress was made a princess. This was a
reflection upon the Pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her
brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented
her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the Pope
offered a considerable sum of money to any person that should
discover the author of it. The author relying on his Holiness'
generosity, as also upon some private overtures he had received
from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him
the reward he had promised, but at the same time to disable the
satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both
his hands to be chopped off."
When Addison treats of the ladies' "commode," a lofty head-dress which
had been in fashion in his time, he adds reflections which may moderate
all such vanities--
"There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
Within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty
degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height,
inasmuch as the female part of our species were much taller than
the men. The women were of such an enormous stature that 'we
appeared as grasshoppers before them.' At present, the whole sex is
in a manner dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems
almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once
very near seven feet high, that at present want some inches of
five.... I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it
is for them to add anything that can be ornamental to what is
already the master-piece of Nature. The head has the most beautiful
appearance, as well as the highest station in a human figure.
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has
touched it with vermillion, planted in it a double row of ivory,
made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up, and
enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side
with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot
be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair
as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she
seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious
of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary
ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and
foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real
beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribbands, and bone-lace."
But the popularity of "The Spectator" was not a little due to the
stronger and more daring genius of Steele. His writing, though not so
didactic, or so ripe in style, as that of Addison, was antithetical,
sparkling, and more calculated to "raise a horse."
The continuation of the periodical, which was carried on by others, was
not equally successful. In the earlier volumes we recognise Steele's
hand in the Essays on "Clubs." He gives us an amusing account of the
"Ugly Club," for which no one was eligible who had not "a visible
quearity in his aspect, or peculiar cast of countenance;" and of the
"Everlasting Club," which was to sit day and night from one end of the
year to another; no party presuming to rise till they were relieved by
those who were in course to succeed them.
"This club was instituted towards the end of the Civil Wars, and
continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire,
which burnt them out and dispersed them for several weeks. The
steward at this time maintained his post till he had been like to
have been blown up with a neighbouring house (which was demolished
in order to stop the fire) and would not leave the chair at last,
till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received
repeated directions from the Club to withdraw himself."
The following on "Castles in the Air" is interesting, as Steele himself
seems to have been addicted to raising such structures,--
"A castle-builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have
grasped imaginary sceptres, and delivered uncontrollable edicts
from a throne to which conquered nations yielded obeisance. I have
made I know not how many inroads into France, and ravaged the very
heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drunk
champagne at Versailles; and I would have you take notice I am not
only able to vanquish a people already 'cowed' and accustomed to
flight, but I could Almanzor-like, drive the British general from
the field, were I less a Protestant, or had ever been affronted by
the confederates. There is no art or profession whose most
celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have afforded my
salutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn and agues to shake
the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon me, an apt
gesture and a proper cadence has animated each sentence, and gazing
crowds have found their passions worked up into rage, or soothed
into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon sight of
a fine woman, I have stretched into proper stature, and killed with
a good air and mien. These are the gay phantoms that dance before
my waking eyes and compose my day-dreams. I should be the most
contented happy man alive, were the chimerical happiness which
springs from the paintings of Fancy less fleeting and transitory.
But alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the least breath of
wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my
groves, and left me no more trace of them than if they had never
been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door; the
salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the
same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen
from my head. The ill consequences of these reveries is
inconceivably great, seeing the loss of imaginary possessions makes
impressions of real woe. Besides bad economy is visible and
apparent in the builders of imaginary mansions. My tenants'
advertisements of ruins and dilapidations often cast a damp over my
spirits, even in the instant when the sun, in all his splendour,
gilds my Eastern palaces."
In marking the differences between the humour at the time of "The
Spectator" and that of the present day, we feel happy that the tone of
society has so altered that such jests as the following would be quite
inadmissible.
"Mr. Spectator,--As you are spectator general, I apply myself to
you in the following case, viz.: I do not wear a sword, but I often
divert myself at the theatre, when I frequently see a set of
fellows pull plain people, by way of humour and frolic, by the
nose, upon frivolous or no occasion. A friend of mine the other
night applauding what a graceful exit Mr. Wilks made, one of those
wringers overhearing him, pinched him by the nose. I was in the pit
the other night (when it was very much crowded); a gentleman
leaning upon me, and very heavily, I very civilly requested him to
remove his hand, for which he pulled me by the nose. I would not
resent it in so public a place, because I was unwilling to create a
disturbance: but have since reflected upon it as a thing that is
unmanly and disingenuous, renders the nose-puller odious, and makes
the person pulled by the nose look little and contemptible. This
grievance I humbly request you will endeavour to redress. I am,
&c., JAMES EASY.
"I have heard of some very merry fellows among whom the frolic was
started, and passed by a great majority, that every man should
immediately draw a tooth: after which they have gone in a body and
smoked a cobler. The same company at another night has each man
burned his cravat, and one, perhaps, whose estate would bear it,
has thrown a long wig and laced hat into the fire. Thus they have
jested themselves stark naked, and run into the streets and
frighted the people very successfully. There is no inhabitant of
any standing in Covent Garden, but can tell you a hundred good
humours where people have come off with a little bloodshed, and yet
scoured all the witty hours of the night. I know a gentleman that
has several wounds in the head by watch-poles, and has been twice
run through the body to carry on a good jest. He is very old for a
man of so much good humour; but to this day he is seldom merry, but
he has occasion to be valiant at the same time. But, by the favour
of these gentlemen, I am humbly of opinion that a man may be a very
witty man, and never offend one statute of this kingdom."
More harmless was the joking of Villiers, the last Duke of Buckingham,
(father of Lady Mary Wortley Montague), who seems to have inherited some
of the family humour. Addison tells us,
"One of the wits of the last age, who was a man of a good estate,
thought he never laid out his money better than on a jest. As he
was one year at Bath, observing that in the great confluence of
fine people there were several among them with long chins, a part
of the visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he
invited to dinner half a score of these remarkable persons, who had
their mouths in the middle of their faces. They had no sooner
placed themselves about the table, but they began to stare upon one
another, not being able to imagine what had brought them together.
Our English proverb says:
''Tis merry in the hall
When beards wag all.'
"It proved so in the assembly I am now speaking of, who seeing so
many peaks of faces agitated with eating, drinking and discourse,
and observing all the chins that were present meeting together very
often over the centre of the table, every one grew sensible of the
jest, and came into it with so much good humour that they lived in
strict friendship and alliance from that day forward."
In August, 1712, a tax of a halfpenny was placed upon newspapers, and
led to several leading journals being discontinued, a failure
facetiously termed "the fall of the leaf." "The Spectator" survived the
loss, but not unshaken, and the price was raised to twopence. It seems
strange that such an addition should affect a periodical of this
character, but a penny was a larger sum then than it is now. Steele
says, "the ingenious J. W. (Dr. Walker, Head-Master of the Charterhouse)
tells me that I have deprived him of the best part of his breakfast, for
that since the rise of my paper, he is forced every morning to drink his
dish of coffee by itself, without the addition of 'The Spectator,' that
used to be better than lace (_i.e._, brandy) to it."
After "The Spectator" had run through six hundred and thirty-five
numbers, Steele, with his usual restlessness, discontinued it, or
rather, changed its name, and called it "The Guardian." He commenced
writing this new periodical by himself, but soon obtained the assistance
of Addison. The only feature worth notice in which it differed from its
predecessor, was the prominent appearance of Pope as an essayist,
although from political reasons he would have preferred to have been an
anonymous contributor. Among his articles we may notice a powerful one
against cruelty to animals and field sports in general. Another was an
ironical attack upon the Pastorals of Ambrose Philips comparing them
with his own, and affords an illustration of what we observed in
another place, that such modes of warfare are easily misunderstood--for
the essay having been sent to Steele anonymously, he hesitated to
publish it lest Pope should be offended! But his best article in this
periodical is directed against poetasters in general--whom he never
treated with much mercy. He says that poetry is now composed upon
mechanical principles, in the same way that house-wives make
plum-puddings--
"What Molière observes of making a dinner, that any man can do it
with money, and if a professed cook cannot without, he has his art
for nothing; the same may be said of making a poem, it is easier
brought about by him that has a genius, but the skill lies in doing
it without one. In pursuance of this end, I shall present the
reader with a plain and certain recipe, by which even sonneteers
and ladies may be qualified for this grand performance."
He then proceeds to give a "receipt to make an epic poem," and after
giving directions for the "fable," the "manners," and the "machines," he
comes to the "descriptions."
"_For a Tempest._--Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, and cast
them together in one verse. Add to these of rain, lightning, and of
thunder (the loudest you can,) _quantum sufficit_. Mix your clouds
and billows well together until they foam, and thicken your
description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well
in your head before you set it a blowing.
"_For a Battle._--Pick a large quantity of images and descriptions
from Homer's 'Iliad,' with a spice or two of Virgil, and if there
remain any overplus, you may lay them by for a skirmish. Season it
well with simiters, and it will make an excellent battle.
"_For the Language_--(I mean the diction.) Here it will do well to
be an imitator of Milton, for you will find it easier to imitate
him in this, than in anything else. Hebraisms and Grecisms are to
be found in him without the trouble of learning the languages. I
knew a painter who (like our poet) had no genius, make his daubings
to be thought originals by setting them in the smoke. You may in
the same manner give the venerable air of antiquity to your piece,
by darkening it up and down with old English. With this you may be
easily furnished upon any occasion by the dictionary commonly
printed at the end of Chaucer.
"I must not conclude without cautioning all writers without genius
in one material point, which is, never to be afraid of having too
much fire in their works. I should advise rather to take their
warmest thoughts, and spread them abroad upon paper; for they are
observed to cool before they are read."
In an article on laughter by Dr. Birch, Prebendary of Worcester, we have
the following fanciful list of those who indulge in it:--
"The dimplers, the smilers, the laughers, the grimacers, the
horse-laughers.
"The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is
frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover; this was called
by the ancients the chin laugh.
"The smile is for the most part confined to the fair sex and their
male retinue. It expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of
approbation, doth not too much disorder the features, and is
practised by lovers of the most delicate address. This tender
motion of the physignomy the ancients called the Ionic laugh.
"The laugh among us is the common risus of the ancients. The grin
by writers of antiquity is called the Syncrusian, and it was then,
as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful set of
teeth.
"The horse-laugh, or the sardonic, is made use of with great
success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind,
by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This
upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received
with great applause in coffee-house disputes, and that side the
laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of his
antagonist."
In an amusing article upon punning, he gives the following instance of
its beneficial effects:--
"A friend of mine who had the ague this Spring was, after the
failing of several medicines and charms, advised by me to enter
into a course of quibbling. He threw his electuaries out of his
window, and took Abracadabra off from his neck, and by the mere
force of punning upon that long magical word, threw himself into a
fine breathing sweat, and a quiet sleep. He is now in a fair way of
recovery, and says pleasantly, he is less obliged to the Jesuits
for their powder, than for their equivocation."
Several periodicals of a similar character were afterwards published by
Steele and others, but they wanted the old "salt," and were not equally
successful.
Thus, in 1745, a humorous periodical of a somewhat different character
was attempted, which went through eight weekly numbers. It was called
"The Agreeable Companion; or an Universal Medley of Wit and Good
Humour." There was little original matter in it, but the proprietor
recognized the desirability of having pieces by various hands, and so
made long extracts from Prior, Gay, and Fenton. Although there was a
considerable number of epitaphs, riddles, and fables, nearly all the
jests were well known and trite. But the subjoined have a certain amount
of neatness.
TO DORCAS.
"Oh! what bosom must but yield,
When like Pallas you advance,
With a thimble for your shield,
And a needle for your lance;
Fairest of the stitching train,
Ease my passion by your art,
And in pity to my pain,
Mend the hole that's in my heart."
TO SALLY, AT THE CHOP-HOUSE.
"Dear Sally, emblem of thy chop-house ware,
As broth reviving, and as white bread fair;
As small beer grateful, and as pepper strong,
As beef-steak tender, as fresh pot-herbs young;
Sharp as a knife, and piercing as a fork,
Soft as new butter, white as fairest pork;
Sweet as young mutton, brisk as bottled beer,
Smooth as is oil, juicy as cucumber,
And bright as cruet void of vinegar.
O, Sally! could I turn and shift my love
With the same skill that you your steaks can move,
My heart, thus cooked, might prove a chop-house feast,
And you alone should be the welcome guest.
But, dearest Sal! the flames that you impart,
Like chop on gridiron, broil my tender heart!
Which if thy kindly helping hand be n't nigh,
Must like an up-turned chop, hiss, brown, and fry;
And must at least, thou scorcher of my soul,
Shrink, and become an undistinguished coal."
As the idea gradually gained ground that it would be necessary that the
public, or a considerable number of writers, should take part in the
literary work of a periodical, we now find a more important and
promising publication called a magazine, and having the grand title of
"The Wonderful Magazine!" It went through three monthly numbers in 1764.
Even this was not intended to be exclusively humorous, but was to
contain light stories as well as paradoxes and inquiries; the editor
observing in the introduction that "a tailor's pattern-book must consist
of various colours and various cloths; and what one thinks fashionable,
another deems ridiculous." To help the new enterprise, an incentive to
emulation was proposed by the offer of two silver medals, one for the
most humorous tale, and the other for the best answer to a prize enigma.
The Magazine contained a long story of enchantments, a dramatic scene
full of conflicts and violence, some old _bons mots_, and pieces of
indifferent poetry. The editor had evidently no good source to draw
from, and the best pieces in the work are the following:--
"Belinda has such wondrous charms,
'Tis heaven to be within her arms;
And she's so charitably given,
She wishes all mankind in heaven."
and
_A copy of Verses on Mr. Day,
Who from his Landlord ran away._
"Here Day and Night conspired a sudden flight,
For Day, they say, is run away by Night,
Day's past and gone. Why, landlord, where's your rent?
Did you not see that Day was almost spent?
Day pawned and sold, and put off what we might,
Though it be ne'er so dark, Day will be light;
You had one Day a tenant, and would fain
Your eyes could see that Day but once again.
No, landlord, no; now you may truly say
(And to your cost, too,) you have lost the Day.
Day is departed in a mist; I fear,
For Day is broke, and yet does not appear.
* * * * *
"But how, now, landlord, what's the matter, pray?
What! you can't sleep, you long so much for Day?
Cheer up then, man; what though you've lost a sum,
Do you not know that pay-day yet will come?
I will engage, do you but leave your sorrow,
My life for yours, Day comes again to-morrow;
And for your rent--never torment your soul,
You'll quickly see Day peeping through a hole."
Births, deaths, and marriages are recorded in this Magazine, under such
headings as "The Merry Gossips," "The Kissing Chronicle," and "The
Undertaker's Harvest-Home," or "The Squallers--a tragi-comedy," "All for
Love," and "Act V. Scene the Last."
It seems to have been more easy at that time to collect wonders than
witticisms--perhaps also the former were more appreciated, for the
"Wonderful Magazine" was re-commenced in 1793, and went through sixty
weekly numbers. It was intended to be humorous as well as marvellous,
but the latter element predominated. Here we have accounts and
engravings of witches, and of men remarkable for height and corpulence,
for mental gifts or strange habits--a man is noticed who never took off
his clothes for forty years. One of the most interesting biographies is
that of Thomas Britton, known as "the musical small-coal man," who
started the first musical society, and, notwithstanding his lowly
calling, had great wit and literary attainments, and was intimate with
Handel, and many noblemen. Probably he would not have obtained a place
in this Magazine but for the circumstances of his death. There was, it
seems, one Honeyman, a blacksmith, who was a ventriloquist, and could
speak with his mouth closed. He was introduced to Britton, and, by way
of a joke, told him in a sepulchral voice that he should die in a few
hours. Britton never recovered the shock, but died a few days afterwards
in 1714. Among the humorous pieces in this Magazine, we have:--
A DREADFUL SIGHT.
I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a comet drop down hail
I saw a cloud begirt with ivy round
I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground
I saw a pismire swallow up a whale
I saw the sea brimful of ale
I saw a Venice glass full six feet deep
I saw a well filled with men's tears that weep
I saw men's eyes all in a flame of fire
I saw a house high as the moon and higher
I saw the sun even at midnight
I saw the man who saw this dreadful sight.
There are a few amusing anecdotes in it, such as that about Alphonso,
King of Naples. It says that he had a fool who recorded in a book the
follies of the great men of the Court. The king sent a Moor in his
household to the Levant to buy horses, for which he gave him ten
thousand ducats, and the fool marked this as a piece of folly. Some time
afterwards the king asked for the book to look over it, was surprised to
find his own name, and asked why it was there. "Because," said the
jester, "you have entrusted your money to one you are never likely to
see again." "But if he does come again," demanded the king, "and brings
me the horses, what folly have I committed?" "Well, if he does return,"
replied the fool, "I'll blot out your name and put in his."
We also find some puns remarkable for an absurdity so extravagant as to
be noteworthy. There is a string of derivations of names of places
constructed in the following manner:--
"When the seamen on board the ship of Christopher Columbus came in
sight of San Salvador, they burst out into exuberant mirth and
jollity. 'The lads are in a merry key,' cried the commodore.
America is now the name of half the globe.
"The city of Albany was originally settled by Scotch people. When
strangers on their arrival there asked how the new comers did, the
answer was 'All bonny.' The spelling is now a little altered but
the sound is the same.
"When the French first settled on the banks of the river St.
Lawrence, they were stinted by the intendant, Monsieur Picard, to a
can of spruce beer a day. The people thought this measure very
scant, and were constantly exclaiming, 'Can-a-day!' It would be
ungenerous of any reader to require a more rational derivation of
the word Canada."
No name is more familiar to us in connection with humour than that of
"Joe" (Josias) Miller. He was well known as a comedian, between 1710 and
1738, and had considerable natural talent, but was unable to read. He
owes his celebrity to popular jest books having been put forward in his
name soon after his death.[9] It was common at that time, as we have
seen in the case of Scogan, for compilers to seek to give currency to
their humorous collections by attributing them to some celebrated wit of
the day. To Jo Miller was attributed the humour most effective at the
period in which he lived, and it has since passed as a byword for that
which is broad and pointless. Sometimes it merely suggests staleness,
and I have heard it said that he must have been the cleverest man in the
world, for nobody ever heard a good story related that someone did not
afterwards say that it was "a Jo Miller."
A question may here be raised whether these humorous sayings, which are
similar in all ages, have been handed down or re-invented over and over
again. It must be admitted that the minds of men have a tendency to move
in the same direction, and may have struck upon the same points in ages
widely separated. In reading general literature, we constantly find the
same thought suggesting itself to different writers, and I have known
two people, who had no acquaintance with each other, make precisely the
same joke--original in both cases. On the other hand, the rarity of
genuine humour has given a permanent character to many clever sayings,
and there has always been a demand for them to enliven the convivial and
social intercourse of mankind. Their subtlety--the small points on which
they turn--makes it difficult to remember them, but there will be always
some men, who will treasure them for the delectation of their friends.
It is remarkable that people are never tired of repeating humorous
sayings, though they are soon wearied of hearing a repetition of them by
others. A man who cannot endure to hear a joke three times, will keep
telling the same one over and over all his life, and but for this, fewer
good stories would survive. The pleasure derived from humour, while it
lasts, is greater than that from sentiment or wisdom; hence we repeat it
more in daily converse than poetry or proverbs, and the constant
reproduction of it until it is reduced to a mere phantom, causes its
influence to appear more transient than it is.
And hence, although humour is generally "fleeting as the flowers," some
of the jests, which pass with us as new, are more than two thousand
years old. Porson said that he could trace back all the "Joe Millers" to
a Greek origin. The domestic cat--the cause of many of our household
calamities--was in full activity in the days of Aristophanes. Then, as
now, mourners had recourse to the friendly onion; and if Pythagoreans
had never dreamed of a donkey becoming a man, they had often known a man
to become a donkey. If they were not able to skin a flint, they knew
well what was meant by "skinning a flayed dog," and "shearing an ass."
These and similar sayings, being of a simple character, may have been
due to the same thought occurring to different minds, and this may be
the case even where there is more point; thus, "an ass laden with gold
will get into the strongest fortress," has been attributed to Frederick
the Great and to Napoleon, and may have been due to both. The saying
"Treat a friend as though he would one day become an enemy," has been
attributed to Lord Chesterfield, to Publius Syrus, and even to Bias, one
of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Many may exclaim, "Perish those who
have said our good things before us!"
But where the saying is very remarkable, or depends on some peculiar
circumstances, we may conclude that there is one original, and that upon
this pivot a number of different names and characters have been made to
revolve. It has been ascribed to or appropriated by many. We have read
of two eminent comic writers in classical times dying of laughter at
seeing an ass eat figs. Here it is most probable that there was some
standing joke upon this subject, or that some instance of the kind
occurred, and so this strange death came to be attributed to several
individuals. The saying,
"On two days is a wife enjoyable,
That of her bridal and her burial,"
attributed to Palladas in the fifth century A.D., was really
due to Hipponax in the fifth century B.C.
There is a story that Lord Stair was so like Louis XIV. that, when he
went to the French Court, the King asked him whether his mother was ever
in France, and that he replied "No, your Majesty, but my father was."
This is in reality a Roman story, and the answer was made to Augustus by
a young man from the country.
Sydney Smith's reply when it was proposed to pave the approach to St.
Paul's with blocks of wood, "The canons have only to put their heads
together and it will be done," was not original; Rochester had made a
similar remark to Charles II. when he noticed a construction near
Shoreditch: and the story of the man who complained that the chicken
brought up for his dinner had only one leg, and was told to go and look
into the roost-house, is to be found in an old Turkish jest-book of the
fifteenth century. When Byron said of Southey's poems that "they would
be read when Homer and Virgil were forgotten--but not till then," he was
no doubt repeating what Porson said of Sir Richard Blackmore's. "Most
literary stories," observes Mr. Willmott, "seem to be shadows, brighter
or fainter, of others told before."
CHAPTER VI.
Sterne--His Versatility--Dramatic Form--Indelicacy--Sentiment and
Geniality--Letters to his Wife--Extracts from his Sermons--Dr.
Johnson.
Sterne exceeded Smollett[10] in indelicacy as much as in humorous
talent. He calls him Smelfungus, because he had written a fastidious
book of travels. But he profited by his works, and the character of
Uncle Toby reminds us considerably of Commodore Trunnion. But Sterne is
more immediately associated in our minds with Swift, for both were
clergymen, and both Irishmen by birth, though neither by parentage.
Sterne's great-grandfather had been Archbishop of York, and his mother
heiress of Sir Roger Jacques, of Elvington in Yorkshire. Through family
interest Sterne became a Prebendary of York, and obtained two livings;
at one of which he spent his time in quiet obscurity until his
forty-seventh year, when the production of "Tristram Shandy" made him
famous. He did not long enjoy his laurels, dying nine years afterwards
in 1768.
In both Sterne and Swift, as well as Congreve, we see the fertile
erratic fancy of Ireland improved by the labour and reflection of
England. Sterne's humour was inferior to Swift's, narrower and smaller;
it was a sparkling wine, but light-bodied, and often bad in colour. His
pleasantry had no depth or general bearing. He appealed to the senses,
referred entirely to some particular and trivial coincidence, and often
put amatory weaknesses under contribution to give it force. The current
of his thoughts glided naturally and imperceptibly into poetry and
humour, but his subject matter was not intellectual, though he sometimes
showed fine emotional feeling.
Under the head of acoustic humour we may place that abruptness of style
which he managed so adroitly, and that dramatic punctuation, which he
may be said to have invented, and of which no one ever else made so much
use. No doubt he was an accomplished speaker; and we know that he had a
good ear for music.
There is something in Sterne which reminds us of a conjurer exhibiting
tricks on the stage; in one place indeed, he speaks of his cap and
bells, and no doubt many would have thought them more suitable to him
than a cap and gown. He was a versatile man; fond of light and artistic
pursuits, occupying, as he tells us, his leisure time with books,
painting, fiddling, and shooting. In his nature there was much emotion
and exuberance of mind, being that of an accomplished rather than of a
thoughtful man; and we can believe when he avers that he "said a
thousand things he never dreamed of." He had not sufficient foundation
for humour of the highest kind; but in form and diction he was
unrivalled. Perhaps this was why Thackeray said "he was a great jester,
not a great humorist." But he had a dashing style, and the quick
succession of ideas necessary for a successful author. Not only was he
master of writing, but of the kindred art of rhetoric. He makes a
correction in the accentuation of Corporal Trim, who begins to read a
sermon with the text,--
"_For we trust we have a good conscience._ Heb. xiii., 8.
'TRUST! Trust we have a good conscience!!' 'Certainly,'
Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, 'you give that sentence a
very improper accent, for you curl up your nose, man, and read it
with such a sneering tone, as if the parson was going to abuse the
apostle.'"
The same kind of discrimination is shown in the following--
"'And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?' 'Oh, against
all rule, my lord--most ungrammatically. Betwixt the substantive
and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and
gender, he made a breach thus, stopping, as if the point wanted
settling; and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship
knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the
epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three-fifths by a stop
watch, my lord, each time.' 'Admirable grammarism!' 'But in
suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise? Did no
expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the
eye silent? Did you narrowly look?' 'I looked only at the stop
watch, my lord.' 'Excellent observer!'"
His sensibility and taste in this direction was probably one of the
bonds of the close intimacy, which existed between himself and David
Garrick.
We find among his works, numerous instances of his peculiar and artistic
punctuation. Sometimes he continues an exclamation by means of dashes
for three lines. Sometimes, by way of pause, he leaves out a whole page,
and the first time he does this he humorously adds:--"Thrice happy book!
thou wilt have one page which malice cannot blacken." One of the
chapters of Tristram begins--
"And a chapter it shall have."
"A sermon commences--Judges xix. 1. 2. 3.
"'And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in
Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of
Mount Ephraim, who took unto himself a concubine.'
"'A concubine! but the text accounts for it, for in those days
'there was no king in Israel!' then the Levite, you will say, like
every other man in it, did what was right in his own eyes; and so,
you may add, did his concubine too, for she went away.'"
Another from Ecclesiastes--
"'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of
feasting.'--Eccl. vii. 2.
"That I deny--but let us hear the wise man's reasoning for
it:--'for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to
his heart; sorrow is better than laughter, for a crack-brained
order of enthusiastic monks, I grant, but not for men of the
world.'"
Of course, he introduces this cavil to combat it, but still maintains
that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of
the country they are passing through.
The following represents his arrival in the Paris of his day--
"Crack, crack! crack, crack! crack, crack!--so this is Paris! quoth
I,--and this is Paris!--humph!--Paris! cried I, repeating the name
the third time."
"The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
"The streets, however, are nasty.
"But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells. Crack, crack!
crack, crack! what a fuss thou makest! as if it concerned the good
people to be informed that a man with a pale face, and clad in
black had the honour to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at
night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with a
red calamanco! Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! I wish thy
whip----But it is the spirit of the nation; so crack, crack on."
Here is another instance;--
"Ptr--r--r--ing--twing--twang--prut--trut;--'tis a cursed bad
fiddle. Do you know whether my fiddle's in tune or no?--trut--prut.
They should be fifths. 'Tis wickedly strung--tr--a, e, i, o, u,
twang. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely
down,--else,--trut--prut.
"Hark! 'tis not so bad in tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle,
diddle, diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good
judges; but there's a man there--no, not him with the bundle under
his arm--the grave man in black,--'sdeath! not the man with the
sword on. Sir, I had rather play a capriccio to Calliope herself
than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet
I'll stake my Cremona to a Jew's trump, which is the greatest odds
that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and
fifty leagues out of time upon my fiddle without punishing one
single nerve that belongs to him. Twiddle diddle,--tweddle
diddle,--twiddle diddle,--twoddle diddle,--twiddle
diddle;--prut-trut--krish--krash--krush,--I've outdone you, Sir,
but you see he's no worse; and was Apollo to take his fiddle after
me, he can make him no better. Diddle diddle; diddle diddle, diddle
diddle,--hum--dum--drum.
"Your worships and your reverences love music, and God has made you
all with good ears, and some of you play delightfully yourselves;
trut-prut--prut-trut."
In the following passages we may also observe that peculiar neat and
dramatic form of expression for which Sterne was remarkable.
"'Are we not,' continued Corporal Trim, looking still at
Susanah--'Are we not like a flower of the field?' A tear of pride
stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation--else no tongue
could have described Susanah's affliction--'Is not all flesh
grass?--'Tis clay--'tis dirt.' They all looked directly at the
scullion;--the scullion had been just scouring a fish kettle--It
was not fair.
"'What is the finest face man ever looked at?' 'I could hear Trim
talk so for ever,' cried Susanah, 'What is it?' Susanah laid her
head on Trim's shoulder--'but corruption!'--Susanah took it off.
"Now I love you for this;--and 'tis this delicious mixture within
you, which makes you dear creatures what you are;--and he, who
hates you for it--all I can say of the matter is--that he has
either a pumpkin for his head, or a pippin for his heart...."
"Wanting the remainder of a fragment of paper on which he found an
amusing story, he asked his French servant for it; La Fleur said he
had wrapped it round the stalks of a bouquet, which he had given to
his _demoiselle_ upon the Boulevards. 'Then, prithee, La Fleur,'
said I 'step back to her, and see if thou canst get it.' 'There is
no doubt of it,' said La Fleur, and away he flew.
"In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than would
arise from the simple irreparability of the payment. _Juste ciel!_
in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
farewell of her--his faithless mistress had given his _gage
d'amour_ to one of the Count's footmen--the footman to a young
semptress--and the semptress to a fiddler, with my fragment at the
end of it. Our misfortunes were involved together--I gave a sigh,
and La Fleur echoed it back to my ear. 'How perfidious!' cried La
Fleur, 'How unlucky,' said I.
"'I should not have been mortified, Monsieur,' quoth La Fleur, 'If
she had lost it.'
"'Nor I, La Fleur,' said I, 'had I found it.'"
We very commonly form our opinion of an Author's character from his
writings, and there is no doubt that his tendencies can scarcely fail to
betray themselves to a careful observer. But experience has generally
taught him to curb or quicken his feelings according to the notions of
the public taste, so that he often expresses the sentiments of others
rather than his own. Hence a literary friend once observed to me that a
man is very different from what his writings would lead you to suppose.
I think there are certain indications in Sterne's writings that he
introduced those passages to which objection was justly taken for the
purpose of catching the favour of the public. He had already published
some Sermons, which, he says, "found neither purchasers nor readers."
Conscious of his talent, and being no doubt reminded of it by his
friends, he wished to obtain a field for it, and determined now to try a
different course. He wrote "Tristram Shandy" as he says "not to be fed,
but to be famous," and so just was the opinion of what would please the
age in which he lived that we find the quiet country rector suddenly
transformed into the most popular literary man of the day,--going up to
London and receiving more invitations than he could accept. He had made
his gold current by a considerable admixture of alloy; and endeavoured
to excuse his offences of this kind by a variety of subterfuges. Upon
one occasion, he compared them to the antics of children which although
unseemly, are performed with perfect innocence.
Of course this was a jest. Sterne was not living in a Paradisaical age,
and he intentionally overstept the boundaries of decorum. But granting
he had an object in view, was he justified in adopting such means to
obtain it? certainly not; but he had some right to laugh, as he does, at
the inconsistency of the public, who, while they blamed his books,
bought up the editions of them as fast as they could be issued.
If Sterne's humour was often offensive, we must in justice admit it was
never cynical. Had it possessed more satire it would have, perhaps, been
more instructive, but there was a bright trait in Sterne's character,
that he never accused others. On the contrary, he censures men who,
"wishing to be thought witty, and despairing of coming honestly by the
title, try to affect it by shrewd and sarcastic reflections upon
whatever is done in the world. This is setting up trade with the broken
stock of other people's failings--perhaps their misfortunes--so, much
good may it do them with what honour they can get--the farthest extent
of which, I think, is to be praised, as we do some sauces--with tears in
our eyes. It has helped to give a bad name to wit, as if the main
essence of it was satire."
Sterne had no personal enmities; his faults were all on the amiable
side, nor can we imagine a selfish cold-hearted sensualist writing "Dear
Sensibility, source inexhausted by all that is precious in our joys, or
costly in our sorrows." His letters to his wife before their marriage
exhibit the most tender and beautiful sentiments;--
"My L---- talks of leaving the country; may a kind angel guide thy
steps hither--Thou sayest thou will quit the place with regret;--I
think I see you looking twenty times a day at the house--almost
counting every brick and pane of glass, and telling them at the
same time with a sigh, you are going to leave them--Oh, happy
modification of matter! they will remain insensible to thy loss.
But how wilt thou be able to part with thy garden? the recollection
of so many pleasant walks must have endeared it to you. The trees,
the shrubs, the flowers, which thou reared with thy own hands, will
they not droop, and fade away sooner upon thy departure? Who will
be thy successor to raise them in thy absence? Thou wilt leave thy
name upon the myrtle tree--If trees, shrubs, and flowers could
compose an elegy, I should expect a very plaintive one on this
subject."
In the course of one of his sermons he writes very characteristically--
"Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone, God speed
him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; let me
be wise and religious, but let me be man; wherever Thy Providence
places me, or whatever be the road I take to get to Thee, give me
some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to. 'How our
shadows lengthen as the sun goes down,' to whom I may say, 'How
fresh is the face of nature! How sweet the flowers of the field!
How delicious are these fruits!'"
We believe these to have been sincere expressions--inside his motley
garb he had a heart of tenderness. It went forth to all, even to the
animal world--to the caged starling. Some may attribute the ebullitions
of feeling in his works to affectation, but those who have read them
attentively will observe the same impulses too generally predominant to
be the work of design. The story of the prisoner Le Fevre and of Maria
bear the brightest testimony to his character in this respect. What
sentiments can surpass in poetic beauty or religious feeling that in
which he commends the distraught girl to the beneficence of the Almighty
who "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."
We have no proof that Sterne was a dissipated man. He expressly denies
it in a letter written shortly before his death, and in another, he
says, "The world has imagined because I wrote 'Tristram Shandy,' that I
myself was more Shandean than I really was." In his day many, not only
of the laity, but of the clergy, thought little of indulging in coarse
jests, and of writing poetry which contained much more wit than decency.
Sterne having lived in retirement until 1759, must have had a feeble
constitution, for in the Spring of 1762 he broke a blood vessel, and
again in the same Autumn he "bled the bed full," owing, as he says, to
the temperature of Paris, which was "as hot as Nebuchadnezzar's oven."
He complains of the fatigue of writing and preaching, and these
dangerous attacks were constantly recurring, until the time of his
death.
Sterne's sermons went through seven editions. They are not doctrinal,
but enjoin benevolence and charity. There is not so much humour in them
as in some of the present day, but he sometimes gives point to his
reflections.
On the subject of religious fanaticism he says:--
"When a poor disconsolate drooping creature is terrified from all
enjoyments--prays without ceasing till his imagination is
heated--fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a
plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances
and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head,
should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what
they are? or that in such a situation every commotion should help
to fix him in this malady, and make him a fitter subject for the
treatment of a physician than of a divine.
"The insolence of base minds in success is boundless--not unlike
some little particles of matter struck off from the surface of the
dial by the sunshine, they dance and sport there while it lasts,
but the moment it is withdrawn they fall down--for dust they are,
and unto dust they will return.
"When Absalom is cast down, Shimei is the first man who hastens to
meet David; and had the wheel turned round a hundred times. Shimei,
I dare say, at every period of its rotation, would have been
uppermost. Oh, Shimei! would to heaven when thou wast slain, that
all thy family had been slain with thee, and not one of thy
resemblance left! but ye have multiplied exceedingly and
replenished the earth; and if I prophecy rightly, ye will in the
end subdue it."
Dr. Johnson speaks of "the man Sterne," and was jealous of his receiving
so many more invitations than himself. But the good Doctor with all his
learning and intellectual endowments was not so pleasant a companion as
Sterne, and, although sometimes sarcastic, had none of his talent for
humour.
Johnson wrote some pretty Anacreontics, but his turn of mind was rather
grave than gay. He was generally pompous, which together with his
self-sufficiency led Cowper, somewhat irreverently, to call him a
"prig." Among his few light and humorous snatches, we have lines written
in ridicule of certain poems published in 1777--
"Wheresoe'er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new;
Endless labour all along,
Endless labour to be wrong:
"Phrase that time has flung away
Uncouth words in disarray,
Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet
Ode, and elegy, and sonnet."
An imitation--
"Hermit poor in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening grey,
Strike thy bosom sage and tell
Which is bliss, and which the way.
"Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed
Scarce repressed the starting tear
When the hoary sage replyed
'Come my lad, and drink some beer.'"
The following is an impromptu conceit. "To Mrs. Thrale, on her
completing her thirty-fifth year."
"Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive
Better years than thirty-five,
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five,
Ladies stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five,
For howe'er we boast and strive
Life declines from thirty-five.
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five,
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."
There is a pleasing mixture of wisdom and humour in the following stanza
written to Miss Thrale on hearing her consulting a friend as to a dress
and hat she was inclined to wear--
"Wear the gown and wear the hat
Snatch thy pleasures while they last,
Had'st thou nine lives like a cat
Soon those nine lives would be past."
Johnson's friends Garrick and Foote, although so great in the mimetic
art, do not deserve any particular mention as writers of comedy.
It is said that Garrick went to a school in Tichfield at which Johnson
was an usher, and that master and pupil came up to London together to
seek their fortunes. But although Garrick became the first of comic
actors, he produced nothing literary but a few indifferent farces. The
same may be said of Foote, who was also a celebrated wit in
conversation. Johnson said, "For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth,
I know not his equal."
One of Dr. Johnson's friends was Mrs. Charlotte Lennox to whom he gives
the palm among literary ladies. Up to this time there were few lady
humorists, and none of an altogether respectable description. But Mrs.
Lennox appeared as a harbinger of that refined and harmless pleasantry
which has since sparkled through the pages of our best authoresses. She
wrote a comedy, poems, and novels, her most remarkable production being
the Female Quixote. Here a young lady who had been reading romances,
enacts the heroine with very amusing results. In plan the work is a
close imitation of Don Quixote but the character is not so natural as
that drawn by Cervantes.
CHAPTER VII.
Dodsley--"A Muse in Livery"--"The Devil's a Dunce"--"The Toy
Shop"--Fielding--Smollett.
Robert Dodsley was born in 1703. He was the son of a schoolmaster in
Mansfield, but went into domestic service as a footman, and held several
respectable situations. While in this capacity, he employed his leisure
time in composing poetry, and he appropriately named his first
production "A Muse in Livery." The most pleasant and interesting of
these early poems is that in which he gives an account of his daily
life, showing how observant a footman may be. It is in the form of an
epistle:--
"Dear friend,
Since I am now at leisure,
And in the country taking pleasure,
It may be worth your while to hear
A silly footman's business there;
I'll try to tell in easy rhyme
How I in London spent my time.
And first,
As soon as laziness would let me
I rise from bed, and down I sit me
To cleaning glasses, knives, and plate,
And such like dirty work as that,
Which (by the bye) is what I hate!
This done, with expeditious care
To dress myself I straight prepare,
I clean my buckles, black my shoes,
Powder my wig and brush my clothes,
Take off my beard and wash my face,
And then I'm ready for the chase.
Down comes my lady's woman straight,
'Where's Robin?' 'Here!' 'Pray take your hat
And go--and go--and go--and go--
And this and that desire to know.'
The charge received, away run I
And here and there, and yonder fly,
With services and 'how d'ye does,'
Then home return well fraught with news.
Here some short time does interpose
Till warm effluvias greet my nose,
Which from the spits and kettles fly,
Declaring dinner time is nigh.
To lay the cloth I now prepare
With uniformity and care;
In order knives and forks are laid,
With folded napkins, salt, and bread:
The sideboards glittering too appear
With plate and glass and china-ware.
Then ale and beer and wine decanted,
And all things ready which are wanted.
The smoking dishes enter in,
To stomachs sharp a grateful scene;
Which on the table being placed,
And some few ceremonies past,
They all sit down and fall to eating,
Whilst I behind stand silent waiting.
This is the only pleasant hour
Which I have in the twenty-four.
For whilst I unregarded stand,
With ready salver in my hand,
And seem to understand no more
Than just what's called for out to pour,
I hear and mark the courtly phrases,
And all the elegance that passes;
Disputes maintained without digression,
With ready wit and fine expression;
The laws of true politeness stated,
And what good breeding is, debated.
This happy hour elapsed and gone,
The time for drinking tea comes on,
The kettle filled, the water boiled,
The cream provided, biscuits piled,
And lamp prepared, I straight engage
The Lilliputian equipage,
Of dishes, saucers, spoons and tongs,
And all the et cetera which thereto belongs;
Which ranged in order and decorum
I carry in and set before 'em,
Then pour the green or bohea out,
And as commanded hand about."
After the early dinner and "dish" of tea, his mistress goes out visiting
in the evening, and Dodsley precedes her with a flambeau.
Another fancy was entitled "The Devil's a Dunce," was directed against
the Pope.[11] Two friends apply to him for absolution, one rich and the
other poor. The rich man obtained the pardon, but the poor sued in vain,
the Pope replying:--
"I cannot save you if I would,
Nor would I do it if I could."
"Home goes the man in deep despair,
And died soon after he came there,
And went 'tis said to hell: but sure
He was not there for being poor!
But long he had not been below
Before he saw his friend come too.
At this he was in great surprise
And scarcely could believe his eyes,
'What! friend,' said he, 'are you come too?
I thought the Pope had pardoned you.'
'Yes,' quoth the man, 'I thought so too,
But I was by the Pope trepanned,
_The devil couldn't read his hand_.'"
The footman's next literary attempt was in a dramatic poem named "The
Toy-Shop," and he had the courage to send it to Pope. Why he selected
this poet does not plainly appear; by some it is said that his then
mistress introduced her servant's poems to Pope's notice, but it is not
improbable that Dodsley had heard of him from his brother, who was
gardener to Mr. Allen of Prior Park, Bath, where Pope was often on a
visit. However this may have been, he received a very kind letter from
the poet, and an introduction to Mr. Rich, whose approval of the piece
led to its being performed at Covent Garden.[12] This play was the
foundation of Dodsley's fortune. By means of the money thus obtained, he
set himself up as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and became known to the
world of rank and genius. He produced successively "The King and the
Miller of Mansfield," and "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green." He
published for Pope, and in 1738, Samuel Johnson sold his first original
publication to him for ten guineas. He suggested to Dr. Johnson the
scheme of writing an English Dictionary, and also, in conjunction with
Edmund Burke, commenced the "Annual Register." Dodsley's principal work
was the "Economy of Human Life," written in an aphoristic style, and
ascribed to Lord Chesterfield. He also made a collection of six volumes
of contemporary poems, and they show how much rarer humour was than
sentiment, for Dodsley was not a man to omit anything sparkling. The
following imitation of Ambrose Philips--a general butt--has merit:
A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Little tube of mighty power,
Charmer of an idle hour,
Object of my warm desire
Lip of wax, and eye of fire,
And thy snowy taper waist
With my finger gently braced,
And thy pretty smiling crest
With my little stopper pressed,
And the sweetest bliss of blisses
Breathing from thy balmy kisses,
Happy thrice and thrice again
Happiest he of happy men,
Who, when again the night returns,
When again the taper burns,
When again the cricket's gay,
(Little cricket full of play),
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed.
Pleasures for a nose divine
Incense of the god of wine,
Happy thrice and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men.
Few humorous writers have attained to a greater celebrity than Fielding.
He was born in 1707, was a son of General Fielding, and a relative of
Lord Denbigh. In his early life, his works, which were comedies, were
remarkable for severe satire, and some of them so political as to be
instrumental in leading to the Chamberlain's supervision of the stage.
His turn of mind was decidedly cynical.
In the "Pleasures of the Town," we have many songs, of which the
following is a specimen:--
"The stone that always turns at will
To gold, the chemist craves;
But gold, without the chemist's skill,
Turns all men into knaves.
"The merchant would the courtier cheat,
When on his goods he lays
Too high a price--but faith he's bit--
For a courtier never pays.
"The lawyer with a face demure,
Hangs him who steals your pelf,
Because the good man can endure
No robber but himself.
"Betwixt the quack and highwayman,
What difference can there be?
Tho' this with pistol, that with pen,
Both kill you for a fee."
His plays were not very successful. They abounded in witty sallies and
repartee, but the general plot was not humorous. The jollity was of a
rough farcical character. It was said he left off writing for the stage
when he should have begun. He took little care with his plays, and would
go home late from a tavern, and bring a dramatic scene in the morning,
written on the paper in which he had wrapped his tobacco.
In many of his works he shows a mind approaching that of the Roman
satirists. Speaking of "Jonathan Wild," he says:--
"I think we may be excused for suspecting that the splendid palaces
of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on; nor
do I know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation
higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended
with all imaginary misery and infamy, and in the other with the
highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be
asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty,
lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery
is best fitted? Surely his answer will be certain and immediate;
and yet I am afraid all these ingredients glossed over with wealth
and a title have been treated with the highest respect and
veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned
to the gallows in the other. If there are, then, any men of such
morals, who dare call themselves great, and are so reputed, or
called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a little private
censure by the few is a very moderate tax for them to pay."
There is a considerable amount of humour in Fielding's "Journey from
this World to the Next." He represents the spirits as drawing lots
before they enter this life as to what their destinies are to be, and he
introduces a sort of migration of souls, in which Julian becomes a king,
fool, tailor, beggar, &c. As a tailor, he speaks of the dignity of his
calling, "the prince gives the title, but the tailor makes the man." Of
course his reflections turn very much upon his bills.
"Courtiers," he says, "may be divided into two sorts, very
essentially different from each other; into those who never intend
to pay for their clothes, and those who do intend to pay for them,
but are never able. Of the latter sort are many of those young
gentlemen whom we equip out for the army, and who are, unhappily
for us, cast off before they arrive at preferment. This is the
reason why tailors in time of war are mistaken for politicians by
their inquisitiveness into the event of battles, one campaign very
often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us."
Julian also gives his experience during his life as a beggar, showing
that his life was not so very miserable.
"I married a charming young woman for love; she was the daughter of
a neighbouring beggar, who with an improvidence too often seen,
spent a very large income, which he procured from his profession,
so that he was able to give her no fortune down. However, at his
death he left her a very well-accustomed begging hut situated on
the side of a steep hill, where travellers could not immediately
escape from us; and a garden adjoining, being the twenty-eighth
part of an acre well-planted. She made the best of wives, bore me
nineteen children, and never failed to get my supper ready against
my return home--this being my favourite meal, and at which I, as
well as my whole family, greatly enjoyed ourselves."
"No profession," he observes, "requires a deeper insight into human
nature than a beggar's. Their knowledge of the passions of men is
so extensive, that I have often thought it would be of no little
service to a politician to have his education among them. Nay,
there is a much greater analogy between these two characters than
is imagined: for both concur in their first and grand principle, it
being equally their business to delude and impose on mankind. It
must be admitted that they differ widely in the degree of
advantage, which they make of their deceit; for whereas the beggar
is contented with a little, the politician leaves but a little
behind."
There is a considerable amount of indelicacy in the episodes in "Tom
Jones," and also of hostility, which is exhibited in the rough form of
pugilistic encounters, so as almost to remind us of the old comic stage.
He seems especially fond of settling quarrels in this way, and wishes
that no other was ever used, and that "iron should dig no bowels but
those of the earth." The character of Deborah Wilkins, the old maid who
is shocked at the frivolity of Jenny Jones; of Thwackum, the
schoolmaster, whose "meditations were full of birch;" and of the barber,
whose jests, although they brought him so many slaps and kicks "would
come," are excellent. There is a vast fertility of humour in his pages,
which depending upon the general circumstances and peculiar characters
of the persons introduced, cannot be easily appreciated in extracts. The
following, however, can be understood easily:--
"'I thought there must be a devil,' the sergeant says to the
innkeeper, 'notwithstanding what the officers said, though one of
them was a captain, for methought, thinks I to myself, if there be
no devil how can wicked people be sent to him? and I have read all
that upon a book.' 'Some of your officers,' quoth the landlord,
'will find there is a devil to their shame, I believe. I don't
question but he'll pay off some old scores upon my account. Here
was one quartered upon me half-a-year, who had the conscience to
take up one of my best beds, though he hardly spent a shilling a
day in the house, and his man went to roast cabbages at the kitchen
fire, because I would not give them a dinner on Sunday. Every good
Christian must desire that there should be a devil for the
punishment of such wretches....'"
The Man of the Hill gives his travelling experiences:--
"'In Italy the landlords are very silent. In France they are more
talkative, but yet civil. In Germany and Holland they are generally
very impertinent. And as for their honesty I believe it is pretty
equal in all those countries.... As for my own part, I past through
all these nations, as you perhaps may have through a crowd at a
show, jostling to get by them, holding my nose with one hand, and
defending my pockets with the other, without speaking a word to any
of them while I was pressing on to see what I wanted to see.'
"'Did you not find some of the nations less troublesome to you than
the others?' said Jones.
"'Oh, yes,' replied the old man, 'the Turks were much more
tolerable to me than the Christians, for they are men of profound
taciturnity, and never disturb a stranger with questions. Now and
then, indeed, they bestow a short curse upon him, or spit in his
face as he walks in the streets, but then they have done with
him.'"
From another passage, we find that ladies are armed with very deadly
weapons. He had said that Love was no more capable of allaying hunger
than a rose is capable of delighting the ear, or a violin of gratifying
the smell, and he gives an instance:--
"Say then, ye graces, you that inhabit the heavenly mansions of
Seraphina's countenance, what were the weapons used to captivate
the heart of Mr. Jones. First, from two lovely blue eyes, whose
bright orbs flashed lightning at their discharge, flew off two
pointed ogles; but, happily for our hero, hit only a vast piece of
beef, which he was then conveying into his plate. The fair warrior
perceived their miscarriage, and immediately from her fair bosom
drew forth a deadly sigh; a sigh, which none could have heard
unmoved, and which was sufficient at once to have swept off a dozen
beaux--so soft, so sweet, so tender, that the insinuating air must
have found its subtle way to the heart of our hero, had it not
luckily been driven from his ears by the coarse bubbling of some
bottled ale which at that time he was pouring forth. Many other
weapons did she essay; but the god of eating (if there be any such
deity) preserved his votary; or, perhaps, the security of Jones may
be accounted for by natural means, for, as love frequently
preserves from the attacks of hunger, so may hunger possibly, in
some cases, defend us against love. No sooner was the cloth
removed, than she again began her operations. First, having planted
her right eye sideways against Mr. Jones, she shot from its corner
a most penetrating glance, which, though great part of its force
was spent before it reached our hero, did not vent itself without
effect. This, the fair one perceiving, hastily withdrew her eyes,
and levelled them downwards as if she was concerned only for what
she had done, though by this means she designed only to draw him
from his guard, and indeed to open his eyes, through which she
intended to surprise his heart. And now gently lifting those two
bright orbs, which had already begun to make an impression on poor
Jones, she discharged a volley of small charms from her whole
countenance in a smile. Not a smile of mirth or of joy, but a smile
of affection, which most ladies have always ready at their command,
and which serves them to show at once their good-humour, their
pretty dimples, and their white teeth.
"This smile our hero received full in his eyes, and was immediately
staggered with its force. He then began to see the designs of the
enemy, and indeed to feel their success. A parley now was set on
foot between the parties, during which the artful fair so slily and
imperceptibly carried on her attack, that she had almost subdued
the heart of our hero before she again repaired to acts of
hostility. To confess the truth, I am afraid Mr. Jones maintained a
kind of Dutch defence, and treacherously delivered up the garrison
without duly weighing his allegiance to the fair Sophia."
It has generally been the custom to couple the name of Smollett with
that of Fielding, but the former has scarcely any claim to be regarded
as a humorist, except such as is largely due to the use of gross
indelicacy and coarse caricature. He first attempted poetry, and wrote
two dull satires "Advice" and "Reproof." His "Ode to Mirth," is somewhat
sprightly, but of his songs the following is a favourable specimen:--
"From the man whom I love, though my heart I disguise,
I will freely describe the wretch I despise,
And if he has sense but to balance a straw
He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw.
"A wit without sense, without fancy, a beau,
Like a parrot he chatters, and struts like a crow;
A peacock in pride, in grimace a baboon,
In courage a hind, in conceit a gascon.
"As a vulture rapacious, in falsehood a fox,
Inconstant as waves, and unfeeling as rocks,
As a tiger ferocious, perverse as a hog,
In mischief an ape, and in fawning a dog.
"In a word, to sum up all his talents together,
His heart is of lead, and his brain is of feather,
Yet if he has sense to balance a straw
He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw."
Although Smollett indulged in great coarseness, I doubt whether he has
anything more humorous in his writings than the above lines. Sir Walter
Scott formed a more just opinion of him than some later critics. He
says:--
"Smollett's humour arises from the situation of the persons, or the
peculiarity of their external appearance, as Roderick Random's
carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of
candles; or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that
follow it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all his productions."
Smollett was born in Dumbartonshire in 1721. He became a surgeon, and
for six or seven years was employed in the Navy in that capacity. This
may account for the strong flavour of brine and tar in the best of his
works--his sea sketches have a considerable amount of character in
them--sometimes rather too much. His liberal use of nautical language is
exhibited when Lieutenant Hatchway is going away,
"Trunnion, not a little affected, turned his eye ruefully upon the
lieutenant saying in piteous tone, 'What! leave me at last, Jack,
after we have weathered so many hard gales together? Damn my limbs!
I thought you had been more of an honest heart: I looked upon you
as my foremast and Tom Pipes as my mizen; now he is carried away;
if so be as you go too, my standing rigging being decayed d'ye see,
the first squall will bring me by the board. Damn ye, if in case I
have given offence, can't you speak above board, and I shall make
you amends."
Some idea of his best comic scenes, which have a certain kind of
humorous merit, may be obtained from the following description of the
progress of Commodore Trunnion and his party to the Wedding. Wishing to
go in state, they advance on horseback, and are seen crossing the road
obliquely so as to avoid the eye of the wind. The cries of a pack of
hounds unfortunately reach the horses' ears, who being hunters,
immediately start off after them in full gallop.
"The Lieutenant, whose steed had got the heels of the others,
finding it would be great folly and presumption in him to pretend
to keep the saddle with his wooden leg, very wisely took the
opportunity of throwing himself off in his passage through a field
of rich clover, among which he lay at his ease; and seeing his
captain advancing at full gallop, hailed him with the salutation of
'What cheer? ho!' The Commodore, who was in infinite distress,
eyeing him askance, as he passed replied with a faltering voice, 'O
damn ye! you are safe at an anchor, I wish to God I were as fast
moored.' Nevertheless, conscious of his disabled heel, he would not
venture to try the experiment that had succeeded so well with
Hatchway, but resolved to stick as close as possible to his
horse's back, until Providence should interpose in his behalf. With
this view he dropped his whip, and with his right hand laid fast
hold of the pommel, contracting every muscle of his body to secure
himself in the seat, and grinning most formidably in consequence of
this exertion. In this attitude he was hurried on a considerable
way, when all of a sudden his view was comforted by a five-bar gate
that appeared before him, as he never doubted that there the career
of his hunter must necessarily end. But alas! he reckoned without
his host. Far from halting at this obstruction, the horse sprang
over with amazing agility, to the utter confusion and disorder of
his owner, who lost his hat and periwig in the leap, and now began
to think in good earnest that he was actually mounted on the back
of the devil. He recommended himself to God, his reflection forsook
him, his eyesight and all his other senses failed, he quitted the
reins, and fastening by instinct on the main, was in this condition
conveyed into the midst of the sportsmen, who were astonished at
the sight of such an apparition. Neither was their surprise to be
wondered at, if we reflect on the figure that presented itself to
their view."
Smollett delights in practical jokes, fighting, and violent language.
Sometimes we are almost in danger of the dagger. He rejoices in fun, in
such scenes as that of Random fighting Captain Weasel with the
roasting-spit, and what he says in "Humphrey Clinker" of the ladies, at
a party in Bath, might better apply to his own dialogues. "Some cried,
some swore, and the tropes and figures of Billingsgate were used without
reserve in all their native rest and flavour."
CHAPTER VIII.
Cowper--Lady Austen's Influence--"John Gilpin"--"The
Task"--Goldsmith--"The Citizen of the World"--Humorous
Poems--Quacks--Baron Münchausen.
Humour seems to have an especial claim upon us in connection with the
name of Cowper, inasmuch as but for it we should never have become
acquainted with his writings. Many as are the charms of his works, they
would never have become popularly known without this addition. In 1782
he published his collection of poems, but it only had an indifferent
sale. Although friends spoke well of them, reviews gave forth various
and uncertain opinions, and there was no sufficient inducement to lead
the public to buy or read. Cowper was upon the verge of sinking into the
abyss of unsuccessful authors, when a bright vision crossed his path.
Lady Austen paid a visit to Olney. She had lived much in France, and was
overflowing with good humour and vivacity. She came to reside at the
Vicarage at the back of his house, and they became so intimate that
they passed the days alternately with each other. "Lady Austen's
conversation had," writes Southey, "as happy an effect on the melancholy
spirit of Cowper, as the harp of David had upon Saul."
It is refreshing to turn from cynicism and prurience, to gentle and more
harmless pleasantry. Cowper was very sympathetic, and easily took the
impression of those with whom he consorted. Most of his pieces were
written at the suggestion of others. Mrs. Unwin was of a melancholy and
serious turn of mind, and tended to repress his lighter fancies, but his
letters show that playfulness was natural to him; and in his first
volume of poems we find two pieces of a decidedly humorous cast. We have
"The Report of an Adjudged Case not to be found in any of the books."
"Between nose and eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong,
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong."
We know the Chief Baron Ear, finally gave his decision--
"That whenever the nose put his spectacles on
By daylight or candlelight, eyes should be shut."
The other piece is called "Hypocristy Detected."
"Thus says the prophet of the Turk,
Good Mussulman, abstain from pork,
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination
On pain of excommunication.
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Had he the sinful part expressed
They might with safety eat the rest;
But for one piece they thought it hard
From the whole hog to be debarred,
And set their wit at work to find
What joint the prophet had in mind.
Much controversy straight arose
These choose the back, the belly those;
By some 'tis confidently said
He meant not to forbid the head;
While others at that doctrine rail,
And piously prefer the tail.
Thus conscience freed from every clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog."
The moral follows, pointing out that each one makes an exception in
favour of his own besetting sin.
These touches of humour which had hitherto appeared timidly in his
writings were encouraged by Lady Austen. "A new scene is opening," he
writes, "which will add fresh plumes to the wings of time." She was his
bright and better genius. Trying in every way to cheer his spirits, she
told him one day an old nursery story she had heard in her
childhood--the "History of John Gilpin." Cowper was much taken with it,
and next morning he came down to breakfast with a ballad composed upon
it, which made them laugh till they cried. He sent it to Mr. Unwin, who
had it inserted in a newspaper. But little was thought of it, until
Henderson, a well-known actor introduced it into his readings.[13] From
that moment Cowper's fame was secured, and his next work "The Task,"
also suggested by Lady Austen, had a wide circulation.
After this success, Lady Austen set Cowper a "Task," which he performed
excellently and secured his fame. He was at first at a loss how to begin
it--"Write on anything," she said, "on this sofa." He took her at her
word, and proceeded--
"The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick,
Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he
Who quits the coachbox at the midnight hour
To sleep within the carriage more secure,
His legs depending at the open door.
Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk,
The tedious rector drawling o'er his head,
And sweet the clerk below: but neither sleep
Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead,
Nor his, who quits the box at midnight hour
To slumber in the carriage more secure,
Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk,
Nor yet the dozings of the clerk are sweet
Compared with the repose the sofa yields."
Cowper lived in the country, and wrote many poems on birds and flowers.
In his first volume there are "The Doves," "The Raven's Nest," "The
Lily and the Rose," "The Nightingale and the Glowworm," "The Pine-Apple
and the Bee," "The Goldfinch starved to death in a Cage," and some
others. They are pretty conceits, but at the present day remind us a
little of the nursery.
Goldsmith's humour deserves equal praise for affording amusement without
animosity or indelicacy. With regard to the former, his satire is so
general that it cannot inflict any wound; and although he may have
slightly erred in one or two passages on the latter score, he condemns
all such seasoning of humour, which is used, as he says, to compensate
for want of invention. In his plays, there is much good broad-humoured
fun without anything offensive. Simple devices such as Tony Lumpkin's
causing a manor-house to be mistaken for an inn, produces much harmless
amusement. It is noteworthy that the first successful work of Goldsmith
was his "Citizen of the World." Here the correspondence of a Chinaman in
England with one of his friends in his own country, affords great scope
for humour, the manners and customs of each nation being regarded
according to the views of the other. The intention is to show
absurdities on the same plan which led afterwards to the popularity of
"Hadji Baba in England." Sometimes the faults pointed out seem real,
sometimes the criticism is meant to be oriental and ridiculous. Thus
going to an English theatre he observes--
"The richest, in general, were placed in the lowest seats, and the
poor rose above them in degrees proportionate to their poverty. The
order of precedence seemed here inverted; those who were undermost
all the day, enjoyed a temporary eminence and became masters of the
ceremonies. It was they who called for the music, indulging every
noisy freedom, and testifying all the insolence of beggary in
exaltation."
Real censure is intended in the following, which shows the change in
ladies dress within the last few years--
"What chiefly distinguishes the sex at present is the train. As a
lady's quality or fashion was once determined here by the
circumference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of
her tail. Women of moderate fortunes are contented with tails
moderately long, but ladies of tone, taste, and distinction set no
bounds to their ambition in this particular. I am told the Lady
Mayoress on days of ceremony carries one longer than a bell-wether
of Bantam, whose tail, you know, is trundled along in a
wheelbarrow."
A "little beau" discoursing with the Chinaman, observes--