From my own Apartment, May 8.
Much hurry and business have to-day perplexed me into a mood too
thoughtful for going into company; for which reason, instead of the
tavern, I went into Lincoln's Inn walks; and having taken a round or
two, I sat down, according to the allowed familiarity of these places,
on a bench; at the other end of which sat a venerable gentleman, who,
speaking with a very affable air, "Mr. Bickerstaff," said he, "I take
it for a very great piece of good fortune that you have found me out."
"Sir," said I, "I had never, that I know of, the honour of seeing you
before." "That," replied he, "is what I have often lamented; but, I
assure you, I have for many years done you good offices, without being
observed by you; or else, when you had any little glimpse of my being
concerned in an affair, you have fled from me, and shunned me like an
enemy; but, however, the part I am to act in the world is such that I am
to go on in doing good, though I meet with never so many repulses, even
from those I oblige." This, thought I, shows a great good nature, but
little judgment, in the persons upon whom he confers his favours. He
immediately took notice to me that he observed, by my countenance, I
thought him indiscreet in his beneficence, and proceeded to tell me
his quality in the following manner: "I know thee, Isaac, to be so well
versed in the occult sciences that I need not much preface, or make
long preparations, to gain your faith that there are airy beings who are
employed in the care and attendance of men, as nurses are to infants,
till they come to an age in which they can act of themselves. These
beings are usually called amongst men guardian angels; and, Mr.
Bickerstaff, I am to acquaint you that I am to be yours for some time
to come; it being our orders to vary our stations, and sometimes to have
one patient under our protection, and sometimes another, with a power of
assuming what shape we please, to ensnare our wards into their own good.
I have of late been upon such hard duty, and know you have so much work
for me, that I think fit to appear to you face to face, to desire you
will give me as little occasion for vigilance as you can." "Sir," said
I, "it will be a great instruction to me in my behaviour if you please
to give me some account of your late employments, and what hardships
or satisfactions you have had in them, that I may govern myself
accordingly." He answered, "To give you an example of the drudgery we go
through, I will entertain you only with my three last stations. I was on
the first of April last put to mortify a great beauty, with whom I was
a week; from her I went to a common swearer, and have been last with
a gamester. When I first came to my lady, I found my great work was to
guard well her eyes and ears; but her flatterers were so numerous, and
the house, after the modern way, so full of looking-glasses, that I
seldom had her safe but in her sleep. Whenever we went abroad, we were
surrounded by an army of enemies; when a well-made man appeared, he was
sure to have a side-glance of observation; if a disagreeable fellow, he
had a full face, out of more inclination to conquests; but at the close
of the evening, on the sixth of the last month, my ward was sitting on a
couch, reading Ovid's epistles; and as she came to this line of Helen to
Paris,
'She half consents who silently denies,'
entered Philander, who is the most skilful of all men in an address to
women. He is arrived at the perfection of that art which gains them;
which is, 'to talk like a very miserable man, but look like a very happy
one.' I saw Dictinna blush at his entrance, which gave me the alarm; but
he immediately said something so agreeable on her being at study, and
the novelty of finding a lady employed in so grave a manner, that he
on a sudden became very familiarly a man of no consequence, and in an
instant laid all her suspicions of his skill asleep, as he had almost
done mine, till I observed him very dangerously turn his discourse upon
the elegance of her dress, and her judgment in the choice of that very
pretty mourning. Having had women before under my care, I trembled at
the apprehension of a man of sense who could talk upon trifles, and
resolved to stick to my post with all the circumspection imaginable. In
short, I prepossessed her against all he could say to the advantage of
her dress and person; but he turned again the discourse, where I found
I had no power over her, on the abusing her friends and acquaintance.
He allowed, indeed, that Flora had a little beauty, and a great deal of
wit; but then she was so ungainly in her behaviour, and such a laughing
hoyden! Pastorella had with him the allowance of being blameless; but
what was that towards being praiseworthy? To be only innocent is not to
be virtuous! He afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple's forehead,
Mrs. Prim's mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice's teeth, and Mrs. Fidget's cheeks
that she grew downright in love with him; for it is always to be
understood that a lady takes all you detract from the rest of her sex
to be a gift to her. In a word, things went so far that I was dismissed.
The next, as I said, I went to was a common swearer. Never was a
creature so puzzled as myself when I came first to view his brain; half
of it was worn out, and filled up with mere expletives that had nothing
to do with any other parts of the texture; therefore, when he called for
his clothes in a morning, he would cry, 'John!' John does not answer.
'What a plague! nobody there? What the devil, and rot me, John, for a
lazy dog as you are!' I knew no way to cure him but by writing down all
he said one morning as he was dressing, and laying it before him on the
toilet when he came to pick his teeth. The last recital I gave him of
what he said for half an hour before was, 'What, the devil! where is
the washball? call the chairmen! d--n them, I warrant they are at the
alehouse already! zounds! and confound them!' When he came to the glass
he takes up my note--'Ha! this fellow is worse than me: what, does he
swear with pen and ink?' But, reading on, he found them to be his
own words. The stratagem had so good an effect upon him that he grew
immediately a new man, and is learning to speak without an oath; which
makes him extremely short in his phrases; for, as I observed before,
a common swearer has a brain without any idea on the swearing side;
therefore my ward has yet mighty little to say, and is forced to
substitute some other vehicle of nonsense to supply the defect of his
usual expletives. When I left him, he made use of 'Odsbodikins! Oh
me! and Never stir alive!' and so forth; which gave me hopes of his
recovery. So I went to the next I told you of, the gamester. When we
first take our place about a man, the receptacles of the pericranium are
immediately searched. In his I found no one ordinary trace of thinking;
but strong passion, violent desires, and a continued series of different
changes had torn it to pieces. There appeared no middle condition;
the triumph of a prince, or the misery of a beggar, were his alternate
states. I was with him no longer than one day, which was yesterday. In
the morning at twelve we were worth four thousand pounds; at three, we
were arrived at six thousand; half an hour after, we were reduced to one
thousand; at four of the clock, we were down to two hundred; at five,
to fifty; at six, to five; at seven, to one guinea; the next bet to
nothing. This morning he borrowed half a crown of the maid who cleans
his shoes, and is now gaming in Lincoln's Inn Fields among the boys for
farthings and oranges, till he has made up three pieces, and then he
returns to White's into the best company in town."
Thus ended our first discourse; and it is hoped that you will forgive me
that I have picked so little out of my companion at our first interview.
In the next it is possible he may tell me more pleasing incidents; for
though he is a familiar, he is not an evil, spirit.