“At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no

distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get

without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still

continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget

the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of

those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same

reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their

memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence

to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only

entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

“The language of this country being always on the flux, the

Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither

are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation

(further than by a few general words) with their neighbours, the

mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like

foreigners in their own country.

“This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can

remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the

youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to me

several times by some of my friends; but although they were told

‘that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world’, they had

not the least curiosity to ask me a single question; only desired I

would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; which is a

modest way of begging, to avoid the law that strictly forbids it,

because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a

very scanty allowance.

“They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of

them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded

very particularly; so that you may know their age by consulting the

register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years

past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances.

But the usual way of computing how old they are, is, by asking them

what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting

history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin

his reign after they were fourscore years old.

“They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women

more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities in extreme

old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to

their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half

a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there

was not above a century or two between them.”—_Gulliver’s Travels._

49 The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the

famous Stella and Vanessa; but she had a story of her own to tell

about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of

Swift’s life opens at places kept by these blighted flowers! Varina

must have a paragraph.

She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In

1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a

love-letter to her, beginning, “Impatience is the most inseparable

quality of a lover.” But absence made a great difference in his

feelings; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes

again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the

offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it.

After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, “I shall

be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your

person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the

first, and competency in the second, is all I ask for!”

The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would

be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived

long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without

any _arrière pensée_ of a sad character about the great Dean!

50 A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his

art, in expounding the symbols of the “Little Language”. Usually,

Stella is “M.D.,” but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is

included in it. Swift is “Presto”; also P.D.F.R. We have “Goodnight,

M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella; Dear,

roguish, impudent, pretty M.D.!” Every now and then he breaks into

rhyme, as—

I wish you both a merry new year,

Roast beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, And me a share of

your good cheer.

That I was there, as you were here,

And you are a little saucy dear.

51 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the

evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8:

“She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen;

but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of

the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in

London—only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and

every feature of her face in perfection.

“... Properly speaking”—he goes on with a calmness which, under the

circumstances, is terrible—“she has been dying six months!...”

“Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who

more improved them by reading and conversation.... All of us who had

the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an

afternoon’s or evening’s conversation she never failed before we

parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company.

Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the

French call _bons mots_, wherein she excelled beyond belief.”

The specimens on record, however, in the Dean’s paper called _Bons

Mots de Stella_, scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric.

But the following prove her wit:

“A gentleman, who had been very silly and pert in her company, at

last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead.

A bishop sitting by comforted him—that he should be easy, because

‘the child was gone to heaven’. ‘No, my lord,’ said she; ‘that is it

which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child

there.’

“When she was extremely ill, her physician said, ‘Madam, you are

near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you up

again.’ She answered, ‘Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath

before I get up to the top.’

“A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness

and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came

to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty, by

saying, ‘the doctor’s nails grew dirty by scratching himself.’

“A quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim,

and a label of paper about its neck. ‘What is that?’—said she—‘my

apothecary’s son!’ The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of

the question, set us all a-laughing.”—_Swift’s Works_, SCOTT’S ed.,

vol. ix, 295-6.

52 “I am so hot and lazy after my morning’s walk, that I loitered at

Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, where my best gown and periwig was, and _out of

mere listlessness dine there, very often_; so I did

to-day.”—_Journal to Stella._ Mrs. Vanhomrigh, Vanessa’s mother, was

the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in

King William’s time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a

house in Bury Street, St. James’s—a street made notable by such

residents us Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and

Crabbe.

53 “Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus

is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress;

impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind;

superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness,

gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but

far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts

of being reported Swift’s concubine, but still aiming and intending

to be his wife.”—LORD ORRERY.

54 “You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You

had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your

inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there was such a

one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will

not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I

have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I could have borne the

rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours.

Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more;, but those

resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for there is

something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this

world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak

kindly to me; for I am sure you’d not condemn any one to suffer what

I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is,

because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you; for when I begin

to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your

looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so

much regard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with

pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I

thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; and believe I

cannot help telling you this and live.”—VANESSA. (M. 1714.)

55 “If we consider Swift’s behaviour, so far only as it relates to

women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than

as whole figures.”—ORRERY.

“You must have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of

very virtuous women, who attended him from morning to

night.”—ORRERY.

A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott’s furnished him with the

materials on which to found the following interesting passage about

Vanessa—after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat:—

“Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is

built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its

external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own

account), showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of

Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s gardener, and used to work with his father in the

garden while a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and

his account of her corresponded with the usual description of her

person, especially as to her _embonpoint_. He said she went seldom

abroad, and saw little company; her constant amusement was reading,

or walking in the garden.... She avoided company, and was always

melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed

happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels.

The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she

always planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his

arrival. He showed her favourite seat, still called ‘Vanessa’s

bower’. Three or four trees and some laurels indicate the spot....

There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening

of which commanded a view of the Liffey.... In this sequestered

spot, according to the old gardener’s account, the Dean and Vanessa

used often to sit, with books and writing materials on the table

before them.”—SCOTT’S _Swift_, vol. i, pp. 246-7. “... But Miss

Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself,

determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union

with the object of her affections—to the hope of which she had clung

amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most probable

bar was his undefined connexion with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must

have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long elicited her

secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to

be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when

she writes to him—then in Ireland—‘If you are very happy, it is

ill-natured of you not to tell me so, _except ’tis what is

inconsistent with mine_.’ Her silence and patience under this state

of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly

owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state

of her rival’s health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce

speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa’s impatience

prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs.

Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connexion.

Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and

full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given

another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh’s inquiries

implied, she sent to him her rival’s letter of interrogatories, and,

without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of

Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in

one of those paroxysms of fury to which he was liable, both from

temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered

the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which was

peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the

unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask

whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on

the table, and, instantly leaving the house, remounted his horse,

and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only

found her own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She sunk

at once under the disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished,

hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the

unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How

long she survived the last interview is uncertain, but the time does

not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.”—SCOTT.

56 “M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne

compagnie. Il n’a pas, à la verité, la gaîté du premier, mais il a

toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon goût qui manquent à

notre curé de Meudon. Ses vers sont d’un goût singulier, et presque

inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en

prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans

son pays.”—VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 22.

57 The following is a _conspectus_ of them:—

ADDISON.—Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State;

Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper of the Records

in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of

State, successively.

STEELE.—Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal

Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the Royal Company of

Comedians; Commissioner of “Forfeited Estates in Scotland”.

PRIOR.—Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the

Bedchamber to King William; Secretary to the Embassy in France;

Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France.

TICKELL.—Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices

of Ireland.

CONGREVE.—Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner

for Wine Licences; place in the Pipe-office; post in the

Custom-house; Secretary of Jamaica.

GAY.—Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to

Hanover.)

JOHN DENNIS.—A place in the Custom-house. “En Angleterre ... les

lettres sont plus en honneur qu’ici.”—

VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 20.

58 He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard

Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire—a very

ancient family.

59 “PIPE.—_Pipe_, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the

_great roll_.

“PIPE-_Office_ is an office in which a person called the _Clerk of

the Pipe_ makes out leases of crown lands, by warrant, from the

Lord-Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of

the Exchequer.

“Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c.”—REES,

_Cyclopaed._ Art. PIPE.

“PIPE-_Office_.—Spelman thinks so called because the papers were

kept in a large _pipe_ or cask.

“These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty’s

Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the _pipe_ ... because

the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers

small _pipes_ or quills.”—BACON, _The Office of Alienations_.

[We are indebted to Richardson’s _Dictionary_ for this fragment of

erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these

points—by experience.]

60 “It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in

the least, nor was he ever removed from any post that was given to

him, except to a better. His place in the Custom-house, and his

office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have brought him in

upwards of twelve hundred a year.”—_Biog. Brit._, Art. CONGREVE.

61 Dryden addressed his “twelfth epistle” to “My dear friend Mr.

Congreve,” on his comedy called _The Double Dealer_, in which he

says—

Great Jonson did by strength of judgement please;

Yet, doubling Fletcher’s force, he wants his case.

In differing talents both adorn’d their age:

One for the study, t’other for the stage.

But both to Congreve justly shall submit,

One match’d in judgement, both o’ermatched in wit.

In him all beauties of this age we see, &c. &c.

The _Double Dealer_, however, was not so palpable a hit as the _Old

Bachelor_, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having

fallen foul of it, our “swell” applied the scourge to that

presumptuous body, in the _Epistle Dedicatory_ to the “Right

Honourable Charles Montague.”

“I was conscious,” said he, “where a true critic might have put me

upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, ... but I have not

heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer.” He goes on—

“But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the

false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the

ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I

would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the

fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women

vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a

comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.... I should

be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those

ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy,

than _to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their blood_.”

62 “Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me

leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, with one of the most

valuable men as well as finest writers of my age and country—one who

has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking

it is to do justice to Homer—and one who, I am sure, seriously

rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore,

having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate

it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together in

this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of—A. POPE.”—_Postscript

to Translation of the Iliad of Homer._ Mar. 25, 1720.

63 “When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said, he

had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular

friendship for our author, and generally took him under his

protection in his high authoritative manner.”—THOS. DAVIES,

_Dramatic Miscellanies_.

64 “Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and

lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his

acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted

that house. The Duchess showed us a diamond necklace (which Lady Di.

used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was

purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it

have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle.”—DR. YOUNG

(_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

65 “A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to

bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to

it.”—THOS. DAVIES, _Dramatic Miscellanies_.

66 The sum Congreve left her was 200_l._, as is said in the _Dramatic

Miscellanies_ of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this

charming actress and beautiful woman.

She had a “lively aspect”, says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and

“such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as

inspired everybody with desire”. “Scarce an audience saw her that

were not half of them her lovers.”

Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. “In

_Tamerlane_, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla....;

Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica,

in his _Love for Love_; in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the _Mourning

Bride_; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the _Way of

the World_. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe,

not very distant from the real character of Congreve.”—_Dramatic

Miscellanies_, vol. iii, 1784.

She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public

favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.

67 Johnson calls his legacy the “accumulation of attentive parsimony,

which,” he continues, “though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and

useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family

from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his

relation, reduced to difficulties and distress.”—_Lives of the

Poets._

68 He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called “Amendments of Mr.

Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations,” &c. A specimen or two are

subjoined:—

“The greater part of these examples which he has produced, are only

demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his

utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath.

“Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine

signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he

possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own

blasphemies.

“If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is

because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures.... I will

only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I

think he shall deserve it.

“The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour

critic.”

“Congreve,” says Dr. Johnson, “a very young man, elated with

success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and

security.... The dispute was protracted through two years; but at

last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of

his labours in the reformation of the theatre.”—_Life of Congreve._

69 The scene of Valentine’s pretended madness in _Love for Love_ is a

splendid specimen of Congreve’s daring manner:—

_Scandal._—And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon

him?

_Jeremy._—Yes, Sir; he says he’ll favour it, and mistake her for

_Angelica_.

_Scandal._—It may make us sport.

_Foresight._—Mercy on us!

_Valentine._—Husht—interrupt me not—I’ll whisper predictions to

thee, and thou shalt prophesie;—I am truth, and can teach thy tongue

a new trick,—I have told thee what’s passed—now I’ll tell what’s to

come:—Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? Answer me not—for I

will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro’ craft, and fools

thro’ fortune; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer

suit. Ask me questions concerning tomorrow.

_Scandal._—Ask him, _Mr. Foresight_.

_Foresight._—Pray what will be done at Court?

_Valentine._—_Scandal_ will tell you;—I am truth, I never come

there.

_Foresight._—In the city?

_Valentine._—Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual

hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if

religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go

methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and

the horn’d herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives will

drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the

family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the

cropt prentice that sweeps his master’s shop in the morning, may,

ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things,

that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives with their

legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks.

But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look

suspiciously. Are you a husband?

_Foresight._—I am married.

_Valentine._—Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden _Parish_?

_Foresight._—No; St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

_Valentine._—Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands

shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow’d. Pray, pray, for a

metamorphosis—change thy shape, and shake off age; get the _Medea’s_

kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab’ring callous hands,

and chine of steel, and _Atlas’_ shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the

calves of twenty chairmen, and make the pedestals to stand erect

upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should

have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pidgeons ought rather

to be laid to his feet! ha, ha, ha!

_Foresight._—His frenzy is very high now, _Mr. Scandal_.

_Scandal._—I believe it is a spring-tide.

_Foresight._—Very likely—truly; you understand these matters. _Mr.

Scandal_, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things

he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

_Valentine._—Oh! why would _Angelica_ be absent from my eyes so

long?

_Jeremy._—She’s here, Sir.

_Mrs. Foresight._—Now, Sister!

_Mrs. Frail._—O Lord! what must I say?

_Scandal._—Humour him, Madam, by all means.

_Valentine._—Where is she? Oh! I see her; she comes, like Riches,

Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and

abandoned wretch. Oh—welcome, welcome!

_Mrs. Frail._—How d’ye, Sir? Can I serve you?

_Valentine._—Hark’ee—I have a secret to tell you. _Endymion_ and the

moon shall meet us on _Mount Latmos_, and we’ll be married in the

dead of night. But say not a word. _Hymen_ shall put his torch into

a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her

peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus’s

hundred eyes be shut—ha! Nobody shall know, but _Jeremy._

_Mrs. Frail._—No, no; we’ll keep it secret; it shall be done

presently.

_Valentine._—The sooner the better. _Jeremy_, come

hither—closer—that none may overhear us. _Jeremy_, I can tell you

news; _Angelica_ is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet

we’ll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and

beads, that I may play my part; for she’ll meet me two hours hence

in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we

won’t see one another’s faces ’till we have done something to be

ashamed of, and then we’ll blush once for all....

_Enter_ TATTLE.

_Tattle._—Do you know me, _Valentine_?

_Valentine._—You!—who are you? No, I hope not.

_Tattle._—I am _Jack Tattle_, your friend.

_Valentine._—My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou

canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou canst not

borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend?

_Tattle._—Hah! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a

secret.

_Angelica._—Do you know me, _Valentine_?

_Valentine._—Oh, very well.

_Angelica._—Who am I?

_Valentine._—You’re a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it

grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a

pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white—a sheet of

spotless paper—when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled

and blotted by every goose’s quill. I know you; for I loved a woman,

and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out

what a woman was good for.

_Tattle._—Ay! pr’ythee, what’s that?

_Valentine._—Why, to keep a secret.

_Tattle._—O Lord!

_Valentine._—Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she

should tell, yet she is not to be believed.

_Tattle._—Hah! Good again, faith.

_Valentine._—I would have musick. Sing me the song that I

like.—CONGREVE, _Love for Love_.

There is a _Mrs. Nickleby_, of the year 1700, in Congreve’s comedy

of _The Double Dealer_, in whose character the author introduces

some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the

gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any

of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve.

_Lady Plyant._—Oh, reflect upon the honour of your conduct! Offering

to pervert me [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady

for her daughter’s hand, not for her own]—perverting me from the

road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one

trip—not one _faux pas_. Oh, consider it; what would you have to

answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty! Alas! humanity is

feeble, Heaven knows! Very feeble, and unable to support itself.

_Mellefont._—Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Madam—

_Lady Plyant._—O Lord, ask me the question! I’ll swear I’ll deny

it—therefore don’t ask me; nay, you shan’t ask me, I swear I’ll deny

it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant

I am as red as a turkey-cock; O fie, cousin Mellefont!

_Mellefont._—Nay, madam, hear me; I mean——

_Lady Plyant._—Hear you? No, no; I’ll deny you first, and hear you

afterwards. For one does not know how one’s mind may change upon

hearing—hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are

fallible. I won’t trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is

infallible and uncomatable.

_Mellefont._—For heaven’s sake, madam——

_Lady Plyant._—Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of

Heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be, you don’t

think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don’t think it a sin;

but still, my honour, if it were no sin ——. But, then, to marry my

daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities—I’ll never

consent to that: as sure as can be, I’ll break the match.

_Mellefont._—Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees——

_Lady Plyant._—Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good

nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion.

’Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it,

if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a

captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour.

Well, but your honour, too—but the sin! Well, but the necessity. O

Lord, here’s somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must

consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against

it—strive, be sure; but don’t be melancholick—don’t despair; but

never think that I’ll grant you anything. O Lord, no: but be sure

you lay all thoughts aside of the marriage, for though I know you

don’t love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me; yet it

will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, I can’t

be jealous; for I must not love you; therefore don’t hope; but don’t

despair neither. They’re coming; I _must_ fly.—_The Double Dealer_,

act II, scene v, page 156.

70 “There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to

have done everything by chance. _The Old Bachelor_ was written for

amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently

composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant

ambition of wit.”—JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

71 “Among those by whom it (‘Will’s’) was frequented, Southerne and

Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden’s friendship....

But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon

Dryden’s friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the

celebrated _Old Bachelor_ being put into the poet’s hands to be

revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the

stage, returned it to the author with the high and just

commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever

seen.”—SCOTT’S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 370.

72 It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that

Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life.

The anecdote in the text, relating to his saying that he wished “to

be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of

plainness and simplicity”, is common to all writers on the subject

of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire’s

_Letters concerning the English Nation_, published in London, 1733,

as also in Goldsmith’s _Memoir of Voltaire_. But it is worthy of

remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in

the edition of Voltaire’s _Œuvres Complètes_ in the _Panthéon

Littéraire_, Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.)

“Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porté le plus loin la gloire du

théâtre comique est feu M. Congreve. Il n’a fait que peu de pièces,

mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre.... Vous y voyez

partout le langage des honnêtes gens avec des actions de fripon; ce

qui prouve qu’il connaissait bien son monde, et qu’il vivait dans ce

qu’on appelle la bonne compagnie.”—VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les

Anglais_, Let. 19.

73 On the death of Queen Mary, he published a Pastoral—“The Mourning

Muse of Alexis.” Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the

orthodox way. The Queen is called PASTORA.

“I mourn PASTORA dead, let Albion mourn,

And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn,”

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that—

With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound,

And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground,—

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that

period.... It continues—)

Lord of these woods and wide extended plains,

Stretch’d on the ground and close to earth his face,

Scalding with tears the already faded grass.

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come?

And must Pastora moulder in the tomb?

Ah Death! more fierce and unrelenting far,

Than wildest wolves and savage tigers are;

With lambs and sheep their hunger is appeased,

But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized.

This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a

shepherdess; that figure of the “Great Shepherd”, lying speechless

on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods

nor air can exhibit, are to be remembered in poetry surely, and this

style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve!

In the “Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas” (the young Lord Blandford,

the great Duke of Marlborough’s only son), Amaryllis represents

Sarah Duchess!

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come

into work here again. At the sight of her grief—

Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forgo,

And dumb distress and new compassion show,

Nature herself attentive silence kept,

_And motion seemed suspended while she wept_!

And Pope dedicated the _Iliad_ to the author of these lines—and

Dryden wrote to him in his great hand:

Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,

But Genius must be born and never can be taught.

This is your portion, this your native store;

Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

To SHAKESPEARE gave as much, she could not give him more.

Maintain your Post: that’s all the fame you need,

For ’tis impossible you should proceed;

Already I am worn with cares and age,

And just abandoning th’ ungrateful stage:

Unprofitably kept at Heaven’s expence,

I live a Rent-charge upon Providence:

But you whom every Muse and Grace adorn,

Whom I foresee to better fortune born,

Be kind to my remains, and oh defend

Against your Judgement your departed Friend!

Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue;

But shade those Lawrels which descend to You:

And take for Tribute what these Lines express;

You merit more, nor could my Love do less.

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day.

In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time,

when gentlemen meet they fall into each other’s arms, with “Jack,

Jack, I must buss thee”; or, “’Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee,

lad”. And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren.

Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other

better.

Steele calls Congreve “Great Sir” and “Great Author”; says

“Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name”, and addresses him as

if he were a prince; and speaks of _Pastora_ as one of the most

famous tragic compositions.

74 “To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like

affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has

been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey....

After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been

convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can justly be

claimed by any of our infirm and erring race.”—MACAULAY.

“Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is

reasonable to believe that Addison’s profession and practice were at

no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most

of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and

his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his

friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom

interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the

kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove

against him, though he might lose the love, he retained the

reverence.”—JOHNSON.

75 “Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something

more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man;

but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he

seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of

silence.”—POPE (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

76 “Milton’s chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence

lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the

modern, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the

greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both

modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the

imagination of man to disturb itself with greater ideas than those

which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth

books.”—_Spectator_, No. 279.

“If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts

of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for

one.”—Ibid., No. 417.

These famous papers appeared in each Saturday’s _Spectator_, from

January 19 to May 3, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may

place those he did to Sacred Music.

77 “Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy

afterwards.”—POPE (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

“ ‘Leave him as soon as you can,’ said Addison to me, speaking of

Pope; ‘he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has

an appetite to satire.’ ”—LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence’s

Anecdotes_).

78 Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot

Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield

and Archdeacon of Coventry.

79 “The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his

company, declared that he was ‘a parson in a tye-wig’, can detract

little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and

was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of

Mandeville.”—JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

“Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with

him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to

say of him—‘One day or other you’ll see that man a bishop—I’m sure

he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his

heart.’ ”—POPE (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

“Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as

between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till

between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative

whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought,

that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before

he has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper

with him; kept very little company beside; and had no amour that I

know of; and I think I should have known it, if he had had

any.”—ABBÉ PHILIPPEAUX of Blois (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

80 “His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down

to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and

profound.”—MACAULAY.

81 “Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first

conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing

the present he made him of the _Musae Anglicanae_.”—TICKELL (Preface

to _Addison’s Works_).

82 “It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted

with all of them. _Addison was the best company in the world._ I

never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve.”—LADY WORTLEY

MONTAGU (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

83 Mr. Addison To Mr. Wyche.

“DEAR SIR,

“My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so

the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman

that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in

my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done

could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have

escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a

little recover my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I

write to you, it will be impossible for me to express ye deep sense

I have of ye many favours you have lately shown me. I shall only

tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met

with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so

long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse

when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your company made our stay

at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all ye satisfaction

that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking

your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long lived

as Methusaleh, or, to use a more familiar instance, as ye oldest hoc

in ye cellar. I hope ye two pair of legs that was left a swelling

behind us are by this time come to their shapes again. I can’t

forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to ye owners of them,

and desiring you to believe me always,

“Dear Sir,

“To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty’s Resident at Hambourg,

“May, 1703.”

—From the _Life of Addison_, by Miss Aikin, vol. i, p. 146.

84 It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and

Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory, from first to last. The

value of Swift’s testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his

vision or warped his judgement, can be doubted by nobody.

“Sept. 10, 1710.—I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and

Steele.

“11.—Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat

with him part of this evening.

“18.—To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison’s retirement

near Chelsea.... I will get what good offices I can from Mr.

Addison.

“27.—To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland’s, with Steele

and Addison, too.

“29.—I dined with Mr. Addison,” &c.—_Journal to Stella._

Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his _Travels_ “To Dr.

Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and

the greatest genius of his age.”—SCOTT. From the information of Mr.

Theophilus Swift.

“Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent

person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit

to set him right in his notions of persons and things.”—_Letters._

“I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you

now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I

have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself.”—Swift

to Addison (1717), SCOTT’S _Swift_, vol. xix, p. 274.

Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly

communications. Time renewed them; and Tickell enjoyed Swift’s

friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so

honourably connected.

85 “Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at

Button’s; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes

far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found

it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it.”—POPE

(_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

86 “When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of

appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had

been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was,

therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his

mind.”—JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

87 “Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and

scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several

friends; and would alter almost everything that any of them hinted

at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffident of himself; and too much

concerned about his character as a poet; or (as he worded it) too

solicitous for that kind of praise, which, God knows, is but a very

little matter after all!”—POPE (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

88 “As to poetical affairs,” says Pope, in 1713, “I am content at

present to be a bare looker-on.... Cato was not so much the wonder

of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the

foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party

play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly

in the world be applied to him on this occasion:—

“Envy itself is dumb—in wonder lost;

And factions strive who shall applaud him most.

“The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of

the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the

author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause

proceeding more from the hands than the head.... I believe you have

heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord

Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and

presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgement (as he expressed

it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual

dictator”—POPE’S “Letter to SIR W. TRUMBULL”.

_Cato_ ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote

the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue.

It is worth noticing how many things in _Cato_ keep their ground as

habitual quotations, e.g.:—

“ ... big with the fate

Of Cato and of Rome.”

“’Tis not in mortals to command success,

But we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.”

“Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.”

“I think the Romans call it Stoicism.”

“My voice is still for war.”

“When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,

The post of honour is a private station.”

Not to mention:—

“The woman who deliberates is lost,”

And the eternal:—

“Plato, thou reasonest well,”

which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play!

89 “The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on

which a Turkish princess is espoused—to whom the Sultan is reported

to pronounce, ‘Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.’ The

marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition

to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal....

Rowe’s ballad of _The Despairing Shepherd_ is said to have been

written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable

pair.”—DR. JOHNSON.

“I received the news of Mr. Addison’s being declared Secretary of

State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost

offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really

believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a

post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in

prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the

day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both.”—LADY WORTLEY

MONTAGU to POPE. _Works_, Lord Wharncliffe’s ed., vol. ii, p. 111.

The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who

inherited, on her mother’s death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby,

which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, at an advanced

age. She was of weak intellect.

Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship,

for his Collection contains “Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr.

Addison’s going to Ireland”, in which her ladyship is called

“Chloe”, and Joseph Addison, “Lycidas”; besides the ballad mentioned

by the doctor, and which is entitled “Colin’s Complaint”. But not

even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the

reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a

specimen:—

What though I have skill to complain—

Though the Muses my temples have crowned;

What though, when they hear my sweet strain,

The Muses sit weeping around.

Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain;

Thy pipe and thy laurel resign;

Thy false one inclines to a swain

Whose music is sweeter than thine.

90 One of the most humourous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the

_Spectator_ tells us, particularly pleased his friend SIR ROGER:

“MR. SPECTATOR—

“You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expense of

the country; it is now high time that you should give the country

their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex

are run into great extravagances. Their petticoats, which began to

heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most

enormous concave, and rise every day more and more; in short, sir,

since our women knew themselves to be out of the eye of the

SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a

little too soon, for the modesty of their headdresses; for as the

humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into

another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely

banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts.

What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary

to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time

that they shorten the superstructure.

“The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that they are

very airy and very proper for the season; but this I look upon to be

only a pretence and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not

had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain

the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather; besides, I would

fain ask these tender-constitutioned ladies, why they should require

more cooling than their mothers before them?

“I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has

of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made

use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman’s

honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle

within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of

circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is

sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow,

who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge’s way of making love

in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops.

“Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious

tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some

will have it that it portends the downfall of the _French_ king, and

observe, that the farthingale appeared in _England_ a little before

the ruin of the _Spanish_ monarchy. Others are of opinion that it

foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same

prognostication as the toil of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt

to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world

rather than going out of it,” &c. &c.—_Spectator_, No. 127.

91 “Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and

must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to

make his own.”—POPE’S _Letters_.

92 “I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure

till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of

a mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other

particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right

understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so

natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory

discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account in

them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief

trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my

share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own

history.... There runs a story in the family, that when my mother

was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she

was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a

lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father’s being

a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as

to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my

future life, though that was the interpretation which the

neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very

first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked,

seemed to favour my mother’s dream; for, as she has often told me, I

threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make

use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it.

“As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it

remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my

nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always

the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that _my parts

were solid and would wear well_. I had not been long at the

university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence;

for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public

exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an

hundred words; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke

three sentences together in my whole life....

“I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently

seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a

dozen of my select friends that know me.... There is no place of

general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes

I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will’s,

and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made

in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at

Child’s, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_,

overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on

Tuesday night at St. James’s Coffee-house; and sometimes join the

little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to

hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the

Grecian, the ‘Cocoa-Tree’, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane

and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the

Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in

the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan’s. In short, wherever I

see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my

lips but in my own club.

“Thus I live in the world rather as a ‘_Spectator_’ of mankind than

as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a

speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever

meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the

theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the

economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who

are engaged in them—as standers-by discover blots which are apt to

escape those who are in the game.... In short, I have acted, in all

the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I

intend to preserve in this paper.”—_Spectator_, No. 1.

93 “So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had

recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the

open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us,

the sure mark of a fool.”—MACAULAY.

94 “The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstanding all

the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room

for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in

the country took occasion to whisper in the judge’s ear that _he was

glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit_.

I was listening to the proceedings of the Court with much attention,

and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity

which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our

laws; when, after about an hour’s sitting, I observed to my great

surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was

getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had

acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much

business and great intrepidity.

“Upon his first rising; the Court was hushed, and a general whisper

ran among the country people that Sir Roger _was up_. The speech he

made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my

readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much

designed by the knight himself to inform the Court, as to give him a

figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the

country.”—_Spectator_, No. 122.

95 “Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his

death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true.”—DR.

YOUNG (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

“I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I

consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is

short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are

often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject

to the greatest depression of melancholy: on the contrary,

cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite

gladness, prevents it from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth

is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds,

and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight

in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual

serenity.”—ADDISON, _Spectator_, p. 381.

96 The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father

of the young earl, who was brought to his stepfather’s bed to see

“how a Christian could die”. He was amongst the wildest of the

nobility of that day; and in the curious collection of Chap-Books at

the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote of the freaks

of the gay lord. He was popular in London, as such daring spirits

have been in our time. The anecdotists speak very kindly of his

practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison for his second

homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield’s embassy to the Elector

of Hanover, when Queen Anne sent the garter to H. E. Highness. The

chronicler of the expedition speaks of his lordship as an amiable

young man, who had been in bad company, but was quite repentant and

reformed. He and Macartney afterwards murdered the Duke of Hamilton

between them, in which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable baron’s

name was Charles, and not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened

him.

97 “Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show

it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then,

used to play a little upon them; but he always took it well.”—POPE

(_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

“Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: even

in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to

please and be pleased.”—DR. YOUNG (_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

98 The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene

between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, _The Funeral, or

Grief à la Mode_. Dick wrote this, he said, from “a necessity of

enlivening his character”, which, it seemed, the _Christian Hero_

had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the

eyes of readers of that pious piece.

[_Scene draws, and discovers_ LADY CHARLOTTE, _reading at a

table,_—LADY HARRIET, _playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing

herself._]

_L. Ha._—Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [_looking at

herself as she speaks_] as you sit staring at a book which I know

you can’t attend.—Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he

pleases, but there’s no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of

Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do

but look on me, now, and deny it if you can.

_L. Ch._—You are the maddest girl [_smiling_].

_L. Ha._—Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing

[_looking over Charlotte_].—Oh! I see his name as plain as you

do—F—r—a—n Fran,—c—i—s, cis, Francis, ’tis in every line of the

book.

_L. Ch._ [_rising_]—It’s in vain, I see, to mind anything in such

impertinent company—but granting ’twere as you say, as to my Lord

Hardy—’tis more excusable to admire another than oneself.

_L. Ha._—No, I think not,—yes, I grant you, than really to be vain

of one’s person, but I don’t admire myself—Pish! I don’t believe my

eyes to have that softness. [_Looking in the glass._] They an’t so

piercing: no, ’tis only stuff, the men will be talking.—Some people

are such admirers of teeth—Lord, what signifies teeth! [_Showing her

teeth._] A very black-a-moor has as white a set of teeth as I.—No,

sister, I don’t admire myself, but I’ve a spirit of contradiction in

me: I don’t know I’m in love with myself, only to rival the men.

_L. Ch._—Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev’n of that rival of

his, your dear self.

_L. Ha._—Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that

insolent intruder? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I

am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes,

The public envy and the public care,

I shan’t be so easily catched—I thank him—I want but to be sure, I

should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider

whether he should depart this life or not.

_L. Ch._—Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your

humour does not at all become you.

_L. Ha_.—Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere

than you wise folks; all your life’s an art.—Speak you real.—Look

you there.—[_Hauling her to the glass._] Are you not struck with a

secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony

in your shape, that promptitude in your mien?

_L. Ch._—Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a

little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to

correct it.

_L. Ha._—Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale,

’tis tiresome for me to think at that rate.

_L. Ch._—They that think it too soon to understand themselves will

very soon find it too late.—But tell me honestly, don’t you like

Campley?

_L. Ha._—The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did

not think of getting me so easily.—Oh, I hate a heart I can’t break

when I please.—What makes the value of dear china, but that ’tis so

brittle?—were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in

your closet.’—_The Funeral_, Oct. 2nd.

“We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele’s];

there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom

his _Tatlers_ had not made better by his recommendation of

them.”—CIBBER.

99 “There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made

his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in pain for what

he should say or do. I will go on in his further encouragement. The

best woman that ever man had cannot now lament and pine at his

neglect of himself.”—STEELE [of himself]. _The Theatre_, No. 12,

Feb., 1719-20.

_ 100 The Funeral_ supplies an admirable stroke of humour,—one which

Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his

Lectures.

The undertaker is talking to his employés about their duty.

_Sable._—Ha, you!—A little more upon the dismal [_forming their

countenances_]; this fellow has a good mortal look,—place him near

the corpse: that wainscot-face must be o’ top of the stairs; that

fellow’s almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some

strange misery) at the end of the hall. So—But I’ll fix you all

myself. Let’s have no laughing now on any provocation. Look

yonder,—that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did

not I pity you, take you out of a great man’s service, and show you

the pleasure of receiving wages? _Did not I give you ten, then

fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful?—and the more I

give you I think the gladder you are!_

101 “From my own Apartment, Nov. 16.

“There are several persons who have many pleasures and

entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy; it is,

therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own

happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good

fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state

often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon

the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it,

in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of

life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.

“I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who

was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his

family, for the winter; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife

expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and

every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed,

express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much

joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall

come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door;

and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell

the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty

girl that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has

been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty

subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance;

after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories

they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my

neighbours’ daughters; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said,

‘Nay; if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old

companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs.

Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best

of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very

memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so

much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman,

how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and

dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the

coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.’ With such

reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed

our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady

left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone,

he took me by the hand: ‘Well, my good friend,’ says he, ‘I am

heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen

all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think

the good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her

from the playhouse to find out who she was for me?’ I perceived a

tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little.

But, to turn the discourse, I said, ‘She is not, indeed, that

creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from you,

and told me, “She hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed

no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so

much the gentleman’s friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which

he could never succeed in.” You may remember I thought her in

earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made

his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to

be for ever fifteen.’ ‘Fifteen!’ replied my good friend. ‘Ah! you

little understand—you, that have lived a bachelor—how great, how

exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is

impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me

such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That

fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me

in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like

to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have so

many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of moderation,

think of her present state of health. But, as to what you say of

fifteen, she gives me every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in

the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigour of youth.

Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her

complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my

fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw

it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the

very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my

welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I

conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my

gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the

idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of

buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh, she is

an inestimable jewel! In her examination of her household affairs,

she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her

servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an

ingenuous shame for an offence not always to be seen in children in

other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her

sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a

certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the

poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do

should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I

used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my

girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossipping of

it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.’

“He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady

entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance,

told us ‘she had been searching her closet for something very good,

to treat such an old friend as I was’. Her husband’s eyes sparkled

with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all

his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our

looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and

seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced

cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of;

and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, ‘Mr. Bickerstaff, do

not believe a word of what he tells you: I shall still live to have

you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes

more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You

must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy

place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintances

and schoolfellows are here—_young fellows with fair, full-bottomed

periwigs_. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out

_open-breasted_.’ My friend, who is always extremely delighted with

her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with

that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up

the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery

upon me. ‘Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night

from the playhouse; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow

night, and lead me in the front box.’ This put us into a long field

of discourse about the beauties who were the mothers to the present,

and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, ‘I was glad

she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question

but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.’

“We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the

young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a

drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of

war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him

out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found, upon

conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth,

that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all

the learning on the other side of eight years old. I perceived him a

very great historian in _Aesop’s Fables_; but he frankly declared to

me his mind, ‘that he did not delight in that learning, because he

did not believe they were true;’ for which reason I found he had

very much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the

lives of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the _Seven

Champions_, and other historians of that age. I could not but

observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his

son, and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found

the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the

course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagement of

John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of

Southampton, and loved St. George for being the champion of England;

and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the

notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his

accomplishments, when his mother told me, ‘that the little girl who

led me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he.

Betty,’ said she, ‘deals chiefly in fairies and sprites; and

sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her

accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.’

“I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry,

sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which

gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every

one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different

conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must

confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that

whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive

mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, my

cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to

me.”—_The Tatler._

102 “As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are

happy in this particular, that with them the one is much more nearly

related to the other than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable

from some esteem of her; and as she is naturally the object of

affection, the woman who has your esteem has also some degree of

your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, will whisper

his friend, ‘that creature has a great deal of wit when you are well

acquainted with her.’ And if you examine the bottom of your esteem

for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty

than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time

with the facetious Harry Bickerstaff; but William Bickerstaff, the

most prudent man of our family, shall be my executor.”—_Tatler_, No.

206.

103 The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the

possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss

Scurlock, of Carmarthenshire. She married the Hon. John, afterwards

third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters passed to Mr.

Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele’s; and part to

Lady Trevor’s next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were published by the

learned Nichols—from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our

specimens are quoted.

Here we have him, in his courtship—which was not a very long one.

TO MRS. SCURLOCK

“Aug. 30, 1707.

“MADAM,—

“I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write

from a coffee-house, where I am attending about business. There is a

dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money; while all

my ambition, all my wealth, is love! Love which animates my heart,

sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul; and affects every action of my

life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are

continually affixed to my words and actions; it is the natural

effect of that generous passion to create in the admirer some

similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to

improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that

Heaven which made thee such; and join with me to implore its

influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of

love to bless the rites He has ordained—and mingle with our

happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation

to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavour

to please Him and each other.

“I am for ever your faithful servant,

“RICH. STEELE.”

Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received

the next one—obviously written later in the day!

“Saturday night (Aug. 30, 1707).

“DEAR, LOVELY MRS. SCURLOCK,—

“I have been in very good company, where your health, under the

character of _the woman I loved best_, has been often drunk; so that

I may say that I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than _I

die for you_.

“RICH. STEELE.”

TO MRS. SCURLOCK.

“Sept. 1, 1707.

“MADAM,—

“It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend

business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must

lock myself up, or other people will do it for me.

“A gentleman asked me this morning, ‘What news from Lisbon?’ and I

answered, ‘She is exquisitely handsome.’ Another desired to know

‘when I had last been at Hampton Court?’ I replied, ‘It will be on

Tuesday come se’nnight.’ Pr’ythee allow me at least to kiss your

hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. O Love!

“A thousand torments dwell about thee,

Yet who could live, to live without thee?

“Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language on

earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested

passion,

“I am ever yours,

“RICH. STEELE.”

Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and

prospects to the young lady’s mamma. He dates from “Lord

Sunderland’s office, Whitehall”; and states his clear income at

1,025_l._ per annum. “I promise myself,” says he, “the pleasure of

an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do things agreeable

to you.”

They were married according to the most probable conjectures about

the 7th inst. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the

next month; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and

reckless. General progress, however, may be seen from the following

notes. The “house in Bury Street, St. James’s”, was now taken.

TO MRS. STEELE.

“Oct. 16, 1707.

“DEAREST BEING ON EARTH,—

“Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o’clock, having met a

schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed on things this

night which expressly concern your obedient husband,

“RICH. STEELE.”

TO MRS. STEELE.

“Eight o’clock, Fountain Tavern,

“Oct. 22, 1707.

“MY DEAR,—

“I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a great deal of

business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my

_Gazette_.”

“Dec. 22, 1707.

“MY DEAR, DEAR WIFE,—

“I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged

to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account

(when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and

obedient husband.”

“Devil Tavern, Temple Bar.

“Jan. 3, 1707-8.

“DEAR PRUE,—

“I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose two

guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner.

I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless

more.

“Your faithful husband,” &c.

“Jan. 14, 1707-8.

“DEAR WIFE,—

“Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley, have desired me to sit an

hour with them at the George, in Pall Mall, for which I desire your

patience till twelve o’clock, and that you will go to bed,” &c.

“Gray’s Inn, Feb. 3, 1708.

“DEAR PRUE,—

“If the man who has my shoemaker’s bill calls, let him be answered

that I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get

Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine with him for that

end. He is expected at home every minute.

“Your most humble, obedient servant,” &c.

“Tennis Court Coffee-house,

“May 5, 1708.

“DEAR WIFE,—

“I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you; in the

meantime shall lie this night at a baker’s, one Leg, over against

the ‘Devil’ Tavern, at Charing Cross. I shall be able to confront

the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the satisfaction to see

thee cheerful and at ease.

“If the printer’s boy be at home, send him hither; and let Mrs. Todd

send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall

hear from me early in the morning,” &c.

Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little

parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the _Tatler_ made its

appearance. The following curious note dates April 7, 1710:—

“I inclose to you [‘Dear Prue’] a receipt for the saucepan and

spoon, and a note of 23_l_. of Lewis’s, which will make up the

50_l._ I promised for your ensuing occasion.

“I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the

pleasure I have in your person and society. I only beg of you to add

to your other charms a fearfulness to see a man that loves you in

pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy as it is possible to be in

this life. Rising a little in a morning, and being disposed to a

cheerfulness ... would not be amiss.”

In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being “invited to

supper to Mr. Boyle’s”. “Dear Prue,” he says on this occasion, “do

not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous.”

104 Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote,—

Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits,

All faults he pardons, though he none commits.

105 Here we have some of his later letters:—

TO LADY STEELE.

“Hampton Court, March 16, 1716-17.

“DEAR PRUE,

“If you have written anything to me which I should have received

last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till the next

post.... Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in

tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a

feather. He grows a most delightful child, and very full of play and

spirit. He is also a very great scholar: he can read his primer; and

I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about

the pictures. We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He

begins to be very ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip

him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall

think for his service.”

TO LADY STEELE.

[Undated.]

“You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know

no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom

saying the best things would be so little like flattery. The thing

speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman that

loves retirement—one who does not want wit, and yet is extremely

sincere; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the

good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. But,

indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant

fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me; and that is,

that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my

request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride

I have that you are mine....

“Your most affectionate, obsequious husband,

“RICH. STEELE.

“A quarter of Molly’s schooling is paid. The children are perfectly

well.”

TO LADY STEELE.

“March 26, 1717.

“MY DEAREST PRUE,

“I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible affliction

of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head.... When I lay

in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears

last night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then

awake and in pain; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep.

“For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your

_Prueship_ will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher.”

At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele

was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this

time, was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by

which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he

should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however.

Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She lies buried

in Westminster Abbey.

106 Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic

letter.

107 Steele replied to Dennis in an _Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet,

called __“__The Character of Sir John Edgar__”_. What Steele had to

say against the cross-grained old Critic discovers a great deal of

humour:

“Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should

bring a bailiff along with him....

“Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly, vinegar face, that if you

had any command you would be obeyed out of fear, from your

ill-nature pictured there; not from any other motive. Your height is

about some five feet five inches. You see I can give your exact

measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a good cudgel,

which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to

meet you....

“Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of butter, and

your duck-legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens.

“Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and

while they bark at men of sense, call him knave and fool that wrote

them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own species; and hatest the

sight of a fool but in thy glass.”

Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of

a pecuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the

fact—“’Sdeath!” cries John; “why did not he keep out of the way as I

did?”

The _Answer_ concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered Ten

Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis’s pamphlet; on

which, says Steele,—

“I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the _twentieth

part_ would have over-valued his whole carcass. But I know the

fellow that he keeps to give answers to his creditors will betray

him; for he gave me his word to bring officers on the top of the

house that should make a hole through the ceiling of his garret, and

so bring him to the punishment he deserves. Some people think this

expedient out of the way, and that he would make his escape upon

hearing the least noise. I say so too; but it takes him up half an

hour every night to fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or

three joint-stools, and some other lumber, which he ties together

with cords so fast that it takes him up the same time in the morning

to release himself.”

108 Gay calls him—“Dear Prior ... beloved by every muse”.—_Mr. Pope’s

Welcome from Greece._

Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned

in the _Journal to Stella_. “Mr. Prior,” says Swift, “walks to make

himself fat, and I to keep myself down.... We often walk round the

park together.”

In Swift’s works there is a curious tract called _Remarks on the

Characters of the Court of Queen Anne_ [Scott’s edition, vol. xii].

The _Remarks_ are not by the Dean: but at the end of each is an

addition in italics from his hand, and these are always

characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds,

“_Detestably Covetous_,” &c. Prior is thus noticed—

“MATTHEW PRIOR, ESQ., Commissioner of Trade.

“On the Queen’s accession to the throne, he was continued in his

office; is very well at Court with the ministry, and is an entire

creature of my Lord Jersey’s, whom he supports by his advice; is one

of the best poets in England, but very facetious in conversation. A

thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years old. _This is near the

truth._”

Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,

His virtues and vices were as other men’s are,

High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears,

In a life party-coloured—half pleasure, half care.

Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,

He strove to make interest and freedom agree,

In public employments industrious and grave,

And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he!

Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,

Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust;

And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about,

He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.

PRIOR’S _Poems_. [“For my own monument.”]

109 “They joined to produce a parody, entitled _The Town and Country

Mouse_, part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old

friends Smart and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is

therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the _Rehearsal_....

There is nothing new or original in the idea.... In this piece,

Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest

share.”—SCOTT’S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 330.

110 “He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of

Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman,” says Johnson, “refused to be

associated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act

without a title till the duke’s return next year to England, and

then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador.”

He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his

Epitaph:—

Nobles and heralds by your leave,

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,

The son of Adam and of Eve;

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke.

111 His epigrams have the genuine sparkle:

THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE.

I sent for Radcliff; was so ill,

That other doctors gave me over:

He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill,

And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,

And wine had warmed the politician,

Cured yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.

——

Yes, every poet is a fool;

By demonstration Ned can show it;

Happy could Ned’s inverted rule

Prove every fool to be a poet.

——

On his death-bed poor Lubin lies,

His spouse is in despair;

With frequent sobs and mutual sighs,

They both express their care.

A different cause, says Parson Sly,

The same effect may give;

Poor Lubin fears that he shall die,

His wife that he may live.

112 PRIOR TO SIR THOMAS HANMER.

“Aug. 4, 1709.

“DEAR SIR,

“Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished

by correspondence; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion

it will look more cheerful and thrive better: for in this case, as

in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his

happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and

while you and Chloe are alive, ’tis not enough that I love you both,

except I am sure you both love me again; and as one of her scrawls

fortifies my mind more against affliction than all Epictetus, with

Simplicius’s comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave

me more real pleasure than all the works of Plato.... I must return

my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. The Bath

waters have done a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the

great specific, _Cape Caballum_, will, I think, confirm it. Upon

this head I must tell you that my mare Betty grows blind, and may

one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure: if at Rixham fair any

pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented

himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of

your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him

there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too,

of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her _goings_ and is

not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me,

too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and

honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand....”—_The

Hanmer Correspondence_, p. 120.

FROM MR. PRIOR.

“Paris, 1st-12th May, 1714.

“MY DEAR LORD AND FRIEND,

“Matthew never had so great occasion to write a word to Henry as

now: it is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I

wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert

de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you

commanded) is, What is done for me: and to what I am recalled? It

may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like

me? but it is not such: what is to become of a person who had the

honour to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a

war, with what the Queen designed should make the peace; returning

with the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and

one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not,

_n’importe_); having been left by him in the greatest character

(that of Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary), exercising that power

conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his

departure; having here received more distinguished honour than any

minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never

given to any, but who had that character; having had all the success

that could be expected, having (God be thanked!) spared no pains, at

a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honourable—at a time

when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First

Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected,

forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with

his services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune.

“Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a

pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late

Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me.

God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or

owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of

behaviour and the returns of common civility: some say I am to go to

Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for

settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the meantime,

_dic aliquid de tribus capellis_. Neither of these two are, I

presume, honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear

Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me), are what Drift

may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow clerk, has

or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of

the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him; but in

this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in

that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and

long service. You would do anything for your Queen’s service, but

you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge,

no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr.

Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand,

would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord

Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of

Trade, or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself

kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner? In short, my

lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself,

I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure,

my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my

good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her

Majesty’s service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry,

that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may

think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare

not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, _fiat voluntas Dei_. I

have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored

your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of

this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord; all honour, health,

and pleasure to you.

“Yours ever,

“MATT.”

“PS.—Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths

together in usquebaugh after our tea: we are the greatest friends

alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the _Book of

Travels_ you mentioned; if there be, let friend Tilson send us more

particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find

them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable

tidings.”—_Bolingbroke’s Letters._

113 “I asked whether Prior’s poems were to be printed entire; Johnson

said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales’s censure of Prior in his

preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published

by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions ‘these

impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious

author’. JOHNSON: ‘Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in

Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is,

he must be more combustible than other people.’ I instanced the tale

of _Paulo Purganti and his Wife_. JOHNSON: ‘Sir, there is nothing

there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out

of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady’s book. No lady is ashamed to

have it standing in her library.’ ”—BOSWELL’S _Life of Johnson_.