* * * * *
White's Chocolate-house, June 22.
An answer to the following letter being absolutely necessary to be
despatched with all expedition, I must trespass upon all that come with
horary questions into my ante-chamber, to give the gentlemen my opinion.
#"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._#
"_June 18_, 1709.
"SIR,
"I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen
desperately in love with a professed Platonne, the most unaccountable
creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over
Norris,[327] and More,[328] and Milton,[329] and the whole set of
intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who
understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine
views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by
understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when
it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that
is a high breach of the idea of intuition: if I offer at her hand or
lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would
contract herself into mere spirit. She calls her chariot, 'vehicle'; her
furbelowed scarf, 'pinions': her blue mant and petticoat is her 'azure
dress'; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon. It is my misfortune
to be six foot and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders,
thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before I was in love, I had
a noble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with two bottles. I am
not quite six and twenty, and my nose is marked truly aquiline. For
these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall
I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserable, she
reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region:
if I assume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me,
and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of her sex; but
perseverance makes it as bad as fixed aversion. I desire your opinion,
whether I may not lawfully play the Inquisition upon her, make use of a
little force, and put her to the rack and the torture, only to convince
her she has really fine limbs, without spoiling or distorting them. I
expect your directions, ere I proceed to dwindle and fall away with
despair; which at present I don't think advisable; because, if she
should recant, she may then hate me perhaps in the other extreme for my
tenuity. I am (with impatience) "Your most humble Servant,
"CHARLES STURDY."
My patient has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in
so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great
perspicuity. This order of platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a
peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general
way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every
man that has wit, and humour, and raillery, can make a good flatterer
for woman in general; but a Platonne is not to be touched with
panegyric: she will tell you, it is a sensuality in the soul to be
delighted that way. You are not therefore to commend, but silently
consent to all she does, and says. You are to consider in her the scorn
of you is not humour, but opinion. There were some years since a set of
these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be
their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved
to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was
pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings
of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbours, was approved by
seven of the founders. There were as many of our sex who took the
liberty to visit those mansions of intended severity; among others, a
famous rake of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He
came in first; but upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a
design to tell him, this was no place for him or his companions, up goes
my grave impudence to the maid: "Young woman," said he, "if any of the
ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the
other side towards the gardens: we are, you must know, gentlemen that
are travelling England; after which we shall go into foreign parts,
where some of us have already been." Here he bows in the most humble
manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort
of carriage. He goes on: "Now you must know we have an ambition to have
it to say, that we have a Protestant nunnery in England: but pray Mrs.
Betty--" "Sir," she replied, "my name is Susan, at your service." "Then
I heartily beg your pardon--" "No offence in the least," says she, "for
I have a cousin-german whose name is Betty." "Indeed," said he, "I
protest to you that was more than I knew, I spoke at random: but since
it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this
gentleman to the favour of a civil salute." His friend advances, and so
on, till that they had all saluted her. By this means, the poor girl was
in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss what to do,
without courage to pass through them; and the Platonics, at several
peep-holes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were
observed, and therefore took care to keep Suky in chat with questions
concerning their way of life; when appeared at last Madonella,[330] a
lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the
projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall; and Rake,
knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from his
company. She begins, "Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was
sent out to know, what affair could make strangers press upon a solitude
which we, who are to inhabit this place, have devoted to Heaven and our
own thoughts?" "Madam," replies Rake, with an air of great distance,
mixed with a certain indifference, by which he could dissemble
dissimulation, "your great intention has made more noise in the world
than you design it should; and we travellers, who have seen many foreign
institutions of this kind, have a curiosity to see, in its first
rudiments, this seat of primitive piety; for such it must be called by
future ages, to the eternal honour of the founders. I have read
Madonella's excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject." The lady
immediately answers, "If what I have said could have contributed to
raise any thoughts in you that may make for the advancement of
intellectual and divine conversation, I should think myself extremely
happy." He immediately fell back with the profoundest veneration; then
advancing, "Are you then that admired lady? If I may approach lips which
have uttered things so sacred--" He salutes her. His friends follow his
example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to
see Madonella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on,
"We would not transgress rules; but if we may take the liberty to see
the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such
parts of the gardens as is consistent with the severities you have
imposed on yourselves." To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead
her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took
his fair one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the
gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the
arbors, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence,
when the whole company stood round him, to say, "That he sincerely
wished that men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our
minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for
the generation, as well as support of our species."[331] This was spoke
with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, "Sir,
under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an
institution foreign to that of Providence: these desires were implanted
in us for reverent purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving
opportunities for making our chastity more heroic." The conference was
continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the
managers on both sides, that it created a second and a third[332]
interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was
hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelve-month.
Any unnatural part is long taking up, and as long laying aside;
therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself, Platonica will fly for ever
from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this
model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and
condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much
body, and urged by such violent desires.
From my own Apartment, June 22.
The evils of this town increase upon me to so great a degree, that I am
half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found it.
Several worthy gentlemen and critics have applied to me, to give my
censure of an enormity which has been revived (after being long
oppressed) and is called Punning.[333] I have several arguments ready to
prove, that he cannot be a man of honour who is guilty of this abuse of
human society. But the way to expose it, is like the expedient of curing
drunkenness, showing a man in that condition: therefore I must give my
reader warning, to expect a collection of these offences; without which
preparation, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention
of it in good company; and hope I shall be understood to do it, as a
divine mentions oaths and curses, only for their condemnation. I shall
dedicate this discourse to a gentleman my very good friend, who is the
Janus[334] of our times, and whom by his years and wit, you would take
to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this.
St. James's Coffee-house, June 22.
Last night arrived two mails from Holland, which brings letters from the
Hague of the 28th instant, N.S., with advice, that the enemy lay
encamped behind a strong retrenchment, with the marsh of Remières on
their right and left, extending itself as far as Bethune: La Bassée is
in their front, Lens in their rear, and their camp is strengthened by
another line from Lens to Douay. The Duke of Marlborough caused an exact
observation to be made of their ground, and the works by which they were
covered, which appeared so strong, that it was not thought proper to
attack them in their present posture. However, the Duke thought fit to
make a feint as if he designed it; and accordingly marching from the
abbey at Looze, as did Prince Eugene from Lampret, advanced with all
possible diligence towards the enemy. To favour the appearance of an
intended assault, the ways were made, and orders distributed in such a
manner, that none in either camp could have thoughts of anything but
charging the enemy by break of day the next morning: but soon after the
fall of the night of the 26th, the whole army faced towards Tournay,
which place they invested early in the morning of the 27th. The Marshal
Villars was so confident that we designed to attack him, that he had
drawn great part of the garrison of the place, which is now invested,
into the field: for which reason, it is presumed it must submit within a
small time; which the enemy cannot prevent, but by coming out of their
present camp, and hazarding a general engagement. These advices add,
that the garrison of Mons had marched out under the command of Marshal
d'Arco; which, with the Bavarians, Walloons, and the troops of Cologne,
have joined the grand army of the enemy.
[Footnote 327: John Norris (1657-1711), the divine, published, in 1688,
"The Theory and Regulation of Love, a Moral Essay; to which are added
Letters Philosophical and Moral between the author and Doctor Henry
More."]
[Footnote 328: Henry More, the platonist (1614-87), published "Divine
Dialogues," "Conjectura Cabalistica," and many other works.]
[Footnote 329: It is not clear why Milton is bracketed with Norris and
More; perhaps Swift had in mind such passages about heavenly love as
that in "Paradise Lost," viii. 588-614.]
[Footnote 330: Swift seems to have been the author of this first portion
of No. 32, which contains a scandalous attack on Mary Astell. Nichols
thought that Addison also had a share in it. See Nos. 59, 63. Mrs.
Astell, a friend of Lady Elizabeth Hastings and John Norris, published,
in 1694, her "Serious Proposal to the Ladies," advocating a Church of
England monastery, without any irrevocable vows. Provision was made for
mental as well as moral training; in fact, the institution was to have
been "rather academical than monastic." But Bishop Burnet advised Lady
Elizabeth Hastings not to subscribe to the proposed building, and the
scheme fell through. In 1709, Miss Astell published a book called
"Bart'lemy Fair; or, An Enquiry after Wit.... By Mr. Wotton, in answer
to Lord Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and other profane
writers." In the advertisement to the Second Edition ("An Enquiry after
Wit," &c., 1722), Mary Astell says that, although her book was at first
published under a borrowed name, it was ascribed to her, and drew upon
her the resentment of that sort of men of wit who were exposed, and was
the true cause of the fable published in the _Tatler_ a little after the
"Enquiry" appeared. But she notes that, although the _Tatler_ showed its
teeth against the "Proposal to the Ladies," the compilator made amends
to the author (if not to the bookseller), by transcribing above a
hundred pages into his _Ladies' Library_ verbatim, except in a few
places, which would not be found to be improved. The "Enquiry after Wit"
is dedicated "To the most Illustrious Society of the Kit-Cats," with
many sarcastic allusions to their luxury, oaths, &c. True, their names
had not been heard of from Hochsted or Ramillies, but then their heroism
found in every place an ample theatre for their merits. "The Bath, the
Wells, and every Fair, each Chocolate, Gaming House and Tavern resounds
with your noble exploits."]
[Footnote 331: This is borrowed from Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio
Medici," part ii. sect. 9.]
[Footnote 332: "Second," in original editions.]
[Footnote 333: There is an apology for punning in No. 36 of the
_Guardian_.]
[Footnote 334: Swift.]
No. 33. [STEELE.
By Mrs. JENNY DISTAFF, half-sister to Mr. BICKERSTAFF.
From _Thursday, June 23_, to _Saturday, June 25_, 1709.
* * * * *
From my own Apartment, June 23.
My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against
Saturday lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand;
for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of
things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to
the disadvantage of my own sex. It is much to be lamented, that it is
necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid
creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency. Turning over the
papers of memorials or hints for the ensuing discourses, I find a letter
subscribed by Mr. Truman.
"SIR,
"I am lately come to town, and have read your works with much pleasure.
You make wit subservient to good principles and good manners. Yet,
because I design to buy the _Tatlers_ for my daughters to read, I take
the freedom to desire you, for the future, to say nothing about any
combat between Alexander and Thalestris."[335]
This offence gives me occasion to express myself with the resentment I
ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that sex of whom
the honoured names of mother, daughter, and sister, are a part: I had
liked to have named wife in the number; but the senseless world are so
mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in
human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and
I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue,
that the frailties of women are to be imputed to the false ornaments
which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices
of men upon women's secret approbation of libertine characters in them.
I did not care to give up a point; but now he is out of the way, I
cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he asserted: for if
you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and the wittiest
of them all marry one day or other, is it possible to believe, that if a
man thought he should be for ever incapable of being received by a woman
of merit and honour, he would persist in an abandoned way, and deny
himself the possibility of enjoying the happiness of well-governed
desires, orderly satisfactions, and honourable methods of life? If our
sex were wise, a lover should have a certificate from the last woman he
served, how he was turned away, before he was received into the service
of another: but at present any vagabond is welcome, provided he promises
to enter into our livery. It is wonderful, that we will not take a
footman without credentials from his last master; and in the greatest
concern of life, we make no scruple of falling into a treaty with the
most notorious offender in his behaviour against others. But this breach
of commerce between the sexes, proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence
of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being
deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver.
Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the
writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we
have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows,
and adorations, are made use of as words of course, what arts are not
necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? As for
my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and
therefore solemnly declare, no vow shall deceive me, but that of
marriage: for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some
wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my glass) handsome, I have
heard all that can be said towards my undoing, and shall therefore, for
warning sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my
manner of rejecting them, and my assistances to keep my resolution. In
the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady,
extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her
husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has
procured him, and all who belong to her. This excellent body sat next to
me for some months at church, and took the liberty (which she said her
years and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her claim to) to assure
me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me
into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not
think of. "What made you," said she, "look through your fan at that
lord, when your eyes should have been turned upward, or closed in
attention upon better objects?" I blushed, and pretended fifty odd
excuses;--but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see
that confusion, and goes on: "Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take
notice of it, my value for you made me speak it; for though he is my
kinsman, I have a nearer regard to virtue than any other consideration."
She had hardly done speaking, when this noble lord came up to us, and
took her hand to lead her to her coach. My head ran all that day and
night on the exemplary carriage of this woman who could be so virtuously
impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with.
However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl that it may possibly be,
his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous
of him, and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make
me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but I still in all
public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my passion
for him. It is so hard a thing to check the return of agreeable
thoughts, that he became my dream, my vision, my food, my wish, my
torment. That minister of darkness, the Lady Sempronia,[336] perceived
too well the temper I was in, and would one day after evening service
needs take me to the Park. When we were there, my lord passes by; I
flushed into a flame. "Mrs. Distaff," said she, "you may very well
remember the concern I was in upon the first notice I took of your
regard to that lord, and forgive me, who had a tender friendship for
your mother (now in her grave) that I am vigilant of your conduct." She
went on with much severity, and after great solicitation, prevailed on
me to go with her into the country, and there spend the ensuing summer
out of the way of a man she saw I loved, and one whom she perceived
meditated my ruin, by frequently desiring her to introduce him to me;
which she absolutely refused, except he would give his honour that he
had no other design but to marry me. To her country house a week or two
after we went: there was at the farther end of her garden a kind of
wilderness, in the middle of which ran a soft rivulet by an arbour of
jessamine. In this place I usually passed my retired hours, and read
some romantic or poetical tale till the close of the evening. It was
near that time in the heat of summer, when gentle winds, soft murmurs
of water, and notes of nightingales had given my mind an indolence,
which added to that repose of soul, which twilight and the end of a warm
day naturally throws upon the spirits. It was at such an hour, and in
such a state of tranquillity I sat, when, to my unexpressible amazement,
I saw my lord walking towards me, whom I knew not till that moment to
have been in the country. I could observe in his approach the perplexity
which attends a man big with design; and I had, while he was coming
forward, time to reflect that I was betrayed; the sense of which gave me
a resentment suitable to such a baseness: but when he entered into the
bower where I was, my heart flew towards him, and, I confess, a certain
joy came into my mind, with a hope that he might then make a declaration
of honour and passion. This threw my eye upon him with such tenderness,
as gave him power, with a broken accent, to begin. "Madam,--You will
wonder--For it is certain, you must have observed--though I fear you
will misinterpret the motives--But by Heaven, and all that's sacred! If
you could--" Here he made a full stand. And I recovered power to say,
"The consternation I am in you will not, I hope, believe--A helpless
innocent maid--Besides that, the place--" He saw me in as great
confusion as himself; which attributing to the same causes, he had the
audaciousness to throw himself at my feet, and talk of the stillness of
the evening; then ran into deifications of my person, pure flames,
constant love, eternal raptures, and a thousand other phrases drawn from
the images we have of heaven, which ill men use for the service of hell,
were run over with uncommon vehemence. After which, he seized me in his
arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my
knees--"My lord, pity me, on my knees--On my knees in the cause of
virtue, as you were lately in that of wickedness. Can you think of
destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education,
for the base service of a sudden appetite, to throw one that loves you,
that dotes on you, out of the company and road of all that is virtuous
and praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety,
religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of lust,
and abandoned to scorn? Assume yourself, my lord, and do not attempt to
vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. If I have
injured you, stab this bosom, and let me die, but not be ruined by the
hand I love." The ardency of my passion made me incapable of uttering
more; and I saw my lover astonished and reformed by my behaviour: when
rushed in Sempronia. "Ha! Faithless, base man, could you then steal out
of town, and lurk like a robber about my house for such brutish
purposes?" My lord was by this time recovered, and fell into a violent
laughter at the turn which Sempronia designed to give her villany. He
bowed to me with the utmost respect: "Mrs. Distaff," said he, "be
careful hereafter of your company"; and so retired. The fiend Sempronia
congratulated my deliverance with a flood of tears. This nobleman has
since very frequently made his addresses to me with honour, but I have
as often refused them; as well knowing, that familiarity and marriage
will make him, on some ill-natured occasion, call all I said in the
arbour a theatrical action. Besides that, I glory in contemning a man
who had thoughts to my dishonour. And if this method were the imitation
of the whole sex, innocence would be the only dress of beauty; and all
affectation by any other arts to please the eyes of men, would be
banished to the stews for ever. The conquest of passion gives ten times
more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she
that has got over such a one as mine, will stand among beaux and pretty
fellows, with as much safety as in a summer's day among grasshoppers and
butterflies.
P.S.--I have ten millions of things more against men, if I ever get the
pen again.
St. James's Coffee-house, June 24.
Our last advices from the Hague, dated the 28th instant, say, that on
the 25th a squadron of Dutch men-of-war sailed out of the Texel to join
Admiral Baker at Spithead. The 26th was observed as a day of fasting and
humiliation, to implore a blessing on the arms of the Allies this
ensuing campaign. Letters from Dresden are very particular in the
account of the gallantry and magnificence in which that Court has
appeared since the arrival of the King of Denmark. No day has passed in
which public shows have not been exhibited for his entertainment and
diversion: the last of that kind which is mentioned is a carousal,
wherein many of the youth of the first quality, dressed in the most
splendid manner, ran for the prize. His Danish Majesty condescended to
the same; but having observed that there was a design laid to throw it
in his way, passed by without attempting to gain it. The Court of
Dresden was preparing to accompany his Danish Majesty to Potsdam, where
the expectation of an interview of three kings had drawn together such
multitudes of people, that many persons of distinction will be obliged
to lie in tents as long as those Courts continue in that place.
[Footnote 335: See No. 31.]
[Footnote 336: See Sallust, "Bell. Catal." chap. 21. The person here
referred to as Sempronia is said to be the same as the Madam d'Epingle
elsewhere alluded to.]
No. 34. [STEELE.
By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.