By Mrs. JENNY DISTAFF, half-sister to Mr. BICKERSTAFF.
From _Thursday, June 30_, to _Saturday, July 2_, 1709.
* * * * *
From our own Apartment, June 30.
Many affairs calling my brother into the country, the care of our
intelligence with the town is left to me for some time; therefore you
must expect the advices you meet with in this paper to be such as more
immediately and naturally fall under the consideration of our sex:
history therefore written by a woman, you will easily imagine to consist
of love in all its forms, both in the abuse of, and obedience to that
passion. As to the faculty of writing itself, it will not, it is hoped,
be demanded, that style and ornament shall be so much consulted, as
truth and simplicity; which latter qualities we may more justly pretend
to beyond the other sex. While therefore the administration of our
affairs is in my hands, you shall from time to time have an exact
account of all false lovers, and their shallow pretences for breaking
off; of all termagant wives who make wedlock a yoke; of men who affect
the entertainments and manners suitable only to our sex, and women who
pretend to the conduct of such affairs as are only within the province
of men. It is necessary further to advertise the reader, that the usual
places of resort being utterly out of my province or observation, I
shall be obliged frequently to change the dates of places, as
occurrences come into my way. The following letter I lately received
from Epsom.[364]
Epsom, June 28.
"It is now almost three weeks since what you writ about happened in this
place: the quarrel between my friends did not run so high as I find your
accounts have made it. The truth of the fact you shall have very
faithfully. You are to understand, that the persons concerned in this
scene were, Lady Autumn, and Lady Springly:[365] Autumn is a person of
good breeding, formality, and a singular way practised in the last age;
and Lady Springly, a modern impertinent of our sex, who affects as
improper familiarity, as the other does distance. Lady Autumn knows to a
hair's-breadth where her place is in all assemblies and conversations;
but Springly neither gives nor takes place of anybody, but understands
the place to signify no more, than to have room enough to be at ease
wherever she comes. Thus while Autumn takes the whole of this life to
consist in understanding punctilio and decorum, Springly takes
everything to be becoming which contributes to her ease and
satisfaction. These heroines have married two brothers, both knights.
Springly is the spouse of the elder, who is a baronet; and Autumn, being
a rich widow, has taken the younger, and her purse endowed him with an
equal fortune and knighthood of the same order. This jumble of titles,
you need not doubt, has been an aching torment to Autumn, who took place
of the other on no pretence, but her carelessness and disregard of
distinction. This secret occasion of envy broiled long in the breast of
Autumn; but no opportunity of contention on that subject happening, kept
all things quiet till the accident, of which you demand an account.
"It was given out among all the gay people of this place, that on the
9th instant several damsels, swift of foot, were to run for a suit of
head-clothes at the Old Wells. Lady Autumn on this occasion invited
Springly to go with her in her coach to see the race. When they came to
the place where the governor of Epsom and all his court of citizens were
assembled, as well as a crowd of people of all orders, a brisk young
fellow addresses himself to the younger of the ladies, viz., Springly,
and offers her his service to conduct her into the music-room. Springly
accepts the compliment, and is led triumphantly through the bowing
crowd, while Autumn is left among the rabble, and has much ado to get
back into her coach; but she did it at last: and as it is usual to see
by the horses my lady's present disposition, she orders John to whip
furiously home to her husband; where, when she enters, down she sits,
began to unpin her hood, and lament her foolish fond heart to marry into
a family where she was so little regarded, she that might--Here she
stops; then rises up and stamps, and sits down again. Her gentle knight
made his approaches with a supple beseeching gesture. 'My dear,' said
he--'Tell me no dears,' replied Autumn; in the presence of the governor
and all the merchants; 'What will the world say of a woman that has
thrown herself away at this rate?' Sir Thomas withdrew, and knew it
would not be long a secret to him; as well as that experience told him,
he that marries a fortune, is of course guilty of all faults against his
wife, let them be committed by whom they will. But Springly, an hour or
two after, returns from the Wells, and finds the whole company together.
Down she sat, and a profound silence ensued. You know a premeditated
quarrel usually begins and works up with the words, 'Some people.' The
silence was broken by Lady Autumn, who began to say, 'There are some
people who fancy, that if some people--' Springly immediately takes her
up; 'There are some people who fancy, if other people--' Autumn
repartees, 'People may give themselves airs; but other people, perhaps,
who make less ado, may be, perhaps, as agreeable as people who set
themselves out more.' All the other people at the table sat mute, while
these two people, who were quarrelling, went on with the use of the word
'people,' instancing the very accidents between them, as if they kept
only in distant hints. 'Therefore,' says Autumn, reddening, 'there are
some people who will go abroad in other people's coaches, and leave
those, with whom they went, to shift for themselves; and if, perhaps,
those people have married the younger brother, yet, perhaps, he may be
beholden to those people for what he is.' Springly smartly answers,
'People may bring so much ill humour into a family, as people may repent
their receiving their money'; and goes on--'Everybody is not
considerable enough to give her uneasiness.' Upon this, Autumn comes up
to her, and desired her to kiss her, and never to see her again; which
her sister refusing, my lady gave her a box on the ear. Springly
returns; 'Ay, ay,' said she, 'I knew well enough you meant me by your
"some people,"' and gives her another on the other side. To it they went
with most masculine fury: each husband ran in. The wives immediately
fell upon their husbands, and tore periwigs and cravats. The company
interposed; when (according to the slip-knot of matrimony, which makes
them return to one another when any put in between) the ladies and their
husbands fell upon all the rest of the company; and having beat all
their friends and relations out of the house, came to themselves time
enough to know, there was no bearing the jest of the place after these
adventures, and therefore marched off the next day. It is said, the
governor has sent several joints of mutton, and has proposed divers
dishes very exquisitely dressed, to bring them down again. From his
address and knowledge in roast and boiled, all our hopes of the return
of this good company depend. I am,
"Dear Jenny,
"Your ready Friend
"And Servant,
"MARTHA TATLER."
White's Chocolate-house, June 30.
This day appeared here a figure of a person, whose services to the fair
sex have reduced him to a kind of existence, for which there is no name.
If there be a condition between life and death, without being absolutely
dead or living, his state is that. His aspect and complexion in his
robust days gave him the illustrious title of Africanus:[366] but it is
not only from the warm climates in which he has served, nor from the
disasters which he has suffered, that he deserves the same appellation
with that renowned Roman; but the magnanimity with which he appears in
his last moments, is what gives him the undoubted character of Hero.
Cato stabbed himself, and Hannibal drank poison; but our Africanus lives
in the continual puncture of aching bones and poisoned juices. The old
heroes fled from torments by death, and this modern lives in death and
torments, with a heart wholly bent upon a supply for remaining in them.
An ordinary spirit would sink under his oppressions; but he makes an
advantage of his very sorrow, and raises an income from his diseases.
Long has this worthy been conversant in bartering, and knows, that when
stocks are lowest, it is the time to buy. Therefore, with much prudence
and tranquillity, he thinks, that now he has not a bone sound, but a
thousand nodous parts for which the anatomists have not words, and more
diseases than the College ever heard of, it is the only time to purchase
an annuity for life. Sir Thomas[367] told me, it was an entertainment
more surprising and pleasant than can be imagined, to see an inhabitant
of neither world without hand to lift, or leg to move, scarce tongue to
utter his meaning, so keen upon biting the whole world, and making
bubbles at his exit. Sir Thomas added, that he would have bought twelve
shillings a year of him, but that he feared there was some trick in it,
and believed him already dead: "What!" says that knight, "is Mr.
Partridge, whom I met just now going on both his legs firmer than I can,
allowed to be quite dead; and shall Africanus, without one limb that can
do its office, be pronounced alive?" What heightened the tragi-comedy of
this market for annuities was, that the observation of it provoked
Monoculus[368] (who is the most eloquent of all men) to many excellent
reflections, which he spoke with the vehemence and language both of a
gamester and an orator. "When I cast," said that delightful speaker, "my
eye upon thee, thou unaccountable Africanus, I cannot but call myself as
unaccountable as thou art; for certainly we were born to show what
contradictions nature is pleased to form in the same species. Here am I,
able to eat, to drink, to sleep, and do all acts of nature, except
begetting my like; and yet by an unintelligible force of spleen and
fancy, I every moment imagine I am dying. It is utter madness in thee to
provide for supper; for I'll bet you ten to one, you don't live till
half an hour after four; and yet I am so distracted as to be in fear
every moment, though I'll lay ten to three, I drink three pints of burnt
claret at your funeral three nights hence. After all, I envy thee; thou
who dying hast no sense of death, art happier than one in health
that[369] always fears it." The knight had gone on, but that a third man
ended the scene by applauding the knight's eloquence and philosophy, in
a laughter too violent for his own constitution, as much as he mocked
that of Africanus and Monoculus.
St. James's Coffee-house, July 1.
This day arrived three mails from Holland, with advices relating to the
posture of affairs in the Low Countries, which say, that the Confederate
army extends from Luchin, on the causeway between Tournay and Lisle, to
Epain near Mortagne on the Scheldt. The Marshal Villars remains in his
camp at Lens; but it is said, he detached ten thousand men under the
command of the Chevalier de Luxembourg, with orders to form a camp at
Crepin on the Haine, between Condé and St. Guillain, where he is to be
joined by the Elector of Bavaria with a body of troops, and after their
conjunction, to attempt to march into Brabant. But they write from
Brussels, that the Duke of Marlborough having it equally in his power to
make detachments to the same parts, they are under no apprehensions from
these reports for the safety of their country. They further add from
Brussels, that they have good authority for believing that the French
troops under the conduct of Marshal de Bezons are retiring out of
Spain.[370]
[Footnote 363: Nichols argued that this and the two following numbers
were by Addison. (1) At the end of No. 37 there is a list of errata for
the preceding number. It was Addison's frequent practice to make verbal
alterations in a preceding paper, and this Steele never did, except in
rare cases, or where there was a positive mistake. (2) All the three
papers are _superscribed_, as Addison's often were, and appear upon the
face of them, to be of the nature, and in the number of those, for which
Steele stood sponsor, and was very patiently traduced and calumniated,
as he acknowledges to Congreve, in the Dedication prefixed to "The
Drummer." There is nothing in the style or manner of any of the three
that appears incongruous with such a supposition; and the nature of
their principal contents seems to support it. They consist chiefly of
pleasantries and oblique strokes, apparently on persons of fashion, in
that age, of both sexes. It appears from the Dedication to "The
Drummer," that Steele had Addison's direct injunctions to hide papers
which he never did declare to be Addison's. The case, in short, seems to
be, that as, as Steele says, there are communications in the course of
this work, which Addison's modesty, so there are likewise others, which
Addison's prudence, "would never have admitted to come into daylight,
but under such a shelter." According to the usual rule where there is
uncertainty, Steele's name is placed at the head of the papers in this
edition. Probably he was responsible in any case for part of the
contents of each of these numbers.]
[Footnote 364: Epsom was frequented for its mineral waters, and was also
a favourite holiday resort. "At the Crown Coffee-house, behind the Royal
Exchange, fresh Epsom water, with the rest of the purging waters, at 2d.
per quart, and sold both winter and summer, and Epsom salt." (See
"British Apollo," vol. iii. No. 15, 1710, and "Post Man," June 11,
1700.) "The New Wells at Epsom, with variety of raffling-shops, a
billiard-table, and a bowling-green, and attended with a new set of
music, are now open," &c. (_Flying Post_, Aug. 4-6, 1709.) The new Wells
were opened on Easter Monday, 1709 (_Daily Courant_, April 23, 1709). We
can form some idea of Epsom some years before, with its wells and
bowling-green, from Shadwell's play, "Epsom Wells," 1673. See also No.
7.]
[Footnote 365: On July 8, 1709, Peter Wentworth wrote to Lord Raby: "I
have not sent you the _Tatler_ of last Saturday, because I was told
'twas dull, but that persons judgement I shall take no more; for having
since read it I think it diverting enough, the news from Epsom is almost
matter of fact, wch makes the jest the better; the Ladys are city ladys,
named Turners" ("Wentworth Papers," p. 93). This is confirmed by the MS.
annotator mentioned in No. 4.]
[Footnote 366: "I like the description of Africanus, wch is Sir Scipio
Hill ... Sir Scipio Hill with his new project of getting money occasions
some diversion and talk at White's. You may have heard for this long
while he was dieing of the ----; he now come abroad and look a divel, or
at least a sad _memento mori_. He gives forescore guineas to receive ten
guineas a quarter for his life, Sir James of the Peak is his agent, and
runs about offering it all that will take. Boscowen has took it, and two
or three more, who are of opinion he will not live a month. Those he had
made his heirs does not approve of this whim, for he's resolved to
dispose of all his ready money this way if he can find substantial fools
enough to take it; but the crack begins to run as if he may live a great
while for all he looks so ill, for he has recovered his voice to a
miracle" (Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, July 1 and 8, 1709; "Wentworth
Papers," pp. 92-3).]
[Footnote 367: The waiter. See No. 16.]
[Footnote 368: Said to be Sir Humphrey Monoux, Bart., who was elected
M.P. for Tavistock in 1728, and for Stockbridge in 1734. He succeeded to
the baronetage in 1707, and died without issue in 1757.]
[Footnote 369: "Thou that hast no sense of death, art happier than one
that" (folio; altered in Errata in No. 37).]
[Footnote 370: "This paper, with a blank leaf to write business on, may
be had of J. Morphew, near Stationers'-hall" (folio).]