(_From the New Monthly Magazine._)
Daniel De Foe said there was only this difference between the fates of
Charles the First, and his son James the Second; that the former's was a
wet martyrdom and the other's a dry one. When Sir Richard Steele was
made a Member of the Commons it was expected from his ingenious writings
that he would have been an admirable orator, but it not proving so, De
Foe said "He had better have continued the _Spectator_ than the
_Tatler_."
The local designation of the following anecdote confirms its
authenticity, which however required no other indication than the
characteristic humour of Addison in his odd conception of old Montaigne.
When Mr. Addison lodged in Kensington Square, he read over some of
"Montaigne's Essays," and finding little or no information in the
chapters of what their titles promised, he closed the book more confused
than satisfied.
"What think you of this famous French author?" said a gentleman present.
"Think!" said he, smiling. "Why that a pair of manacles, or a stone
doublet would probably have been of some service to that author's
infirmity."
"Would you imprison a man for singularity in writing?"
"Why let me tell you," replied Addison, "if he had been a horse he would
have been pounded for straying, and why he ought to be more favoured
because he is a man, I cannot understand."
A medical confession, frankly delivered by that eminent physician and
wit, Sir Samuel Garth, has been fortunately preserved; perhaps the truth
it reveals is as conspicuous as its humour.
Dr. Garth (so he is called in the manuscript) who was one of the Kit-Kat
Club, coming there one night, declared he must soon begone, having many
patients to attend; but some good wine being produced he forgot them.
When Sir Richard Steele reminded him of his appointments, Garth
immediately pulled out his list, which amounted to fifteen--and said,
"It's no great matter whether I see them to-night or not, for nine of
them have such bad constitutions, that all the physicians in the world
can't save them, and the other six have so good constitutions that all
the physicians in the world can't kill them."
Sir Godfrey Kneller latterly painted more for profit than for praise,
and is said to have used some whimsical preparations in his colours
which made them work fair and smoothly off, but not endure. A friend
noticing it to him said, "What do you think posterity will say, Sir
Godfrey Kneller, when they see these pictures some years hence?"
"Say!" replied the artist: "Why they'll say Sir Godfrey Kneller never
painted them!"
An extraordinary prosecution for a singular libel occurred under the
administration of the Duke of Buckingham. Some fiddlers at Staines were
indicted for singing scandalous songs of the Duke. The songs also did
not fail to libel both James and Charles. The Bench were puzzled how to
proceed. The offensive passages they would not permit to be openly read
in court, lest the scandals should spread. It was a difficult point to
turn. They were anxious that the people should see that they did not
condemn these songs without due examination. They hit upon this
expedient. Copies of the songs were furnished to every Lord and Judge
present; and the Attorney-General in his charge, when touching on the
offending passages, did not, as usual, read them out, but noticed them
by only repeating the first and the final lines, and when he had closed
they were handed to the fiddlers at the bar, interrogating them whether
these were not the songs which they had sung of the Duke? To this they
confessed, and were condemned in a heavy fine of 500_l._ and to be
pilloried and whipped.
This novel and covert mode of trial excited great discontent among the
friends of civil freedom. It was asserted, that all trials should be
open, and that a court of justice was always a public place, where the
judges publicly delivered the reasons and the grounds of their judgment.
The mode now resorted to, was turning a court of judgment into a private
chamber, and excluding the hearers from understanding the reasons of
every judge's opinion, and the court themselves from hearing each
other's. It was farther alleged, that in the present case, the Lords
could not be sure that the copies showed to the prisoners were the same
as that which each had before him, or that every Lord had looked into
the same paper which was showed to the fiddlers, so that they might be
condemned for that in which they stood not implicated.--I suppose this
singular case of the _Fiddlers of Staines_, to be unique, and never to
have been perpetuated in any of our law books.
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