boy, with me; and shall always love the child | future, except those who have sent menaces, for his partiality in all that concerned the for- and not submitted to admonition. tune of Hamlet. This is entering youth into the affections and passions of manhood beforehand, and, as it were, antedating the effects we hope from a long and liberal education.' I cannot, in the midst of many other things which press, hide the comfort that this letter from my ingenious kinsman gives me. To my honoured kinsman, Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire. 'Oxford, September 18. DEAR COUSIN,-I am sorry, though not surprised, to find that you have rallied the men of dress in vain; that the amber-headed cane still maintains its unstable post; that pockets are but a few inches shortened; and a beau is still a beau, from the crown of his night-cap, to the heels of his shoes. For your comfort, I can assure you, that your endeavours succeed better in this famous seat of learning. By them the manners of our young gentlemen are in a fair way of amendment, and their very language is mightily refined. To them it is owing, that not a servitor will sing a catch, nor a seniorfellow make a pun, nor a determining bachelor drink a bumper; and I believe a gentleman. commoner would as soon have the heels of his shoes red, as his stockings. When a witling stands at a coffee-house door, and sneers at those who pass by, to the great improvement of his hopeful audience, he is no longer surnamed 'a slicer,' but a man of fire' is the word. A beauty, whose health is drunk from Heddington to Hinksey; who has been the theme of the muses, her cheeks painted with roses, and her bosom planted with orange boughs, has no more the title of lady,' but reigns an undisputed toast.' When to the plain garb of gown and band a spark adds an inconsistent long wig, we do not say now 'he boshes,' but there goes a smart fellow.' If a virgin blushes, we no longer cry, 'she blues.' He that drinks until he stares, is no-more 'tow-row,' but 'honest.' 'A youngster in a scrape,' is a word out of date; and what bright man says, I was joabed by the dean?' Bambouzling' is exploded; 'a shat' is 'a tatler;' and if the muscular motion of a man's face be violent, no mortal says, he raises a horse,' but he is a merry fellow.' 'I congratulate you my dear kinsman, upon these conquests; such as Roman emperors lamented they could not gain; and in which you rival your correspondent Louis le Grand, and his dictating academy. Be yours the glory to perform, mine to record, as Mr. Dryden has said before me to his kinsman; and while you enter triumphant into the temple of the muses,.I, as my office requires, will with my staff on my shoulder, attend and conduct you. I am, dear cousin, your most af fectionate kinsman, BENJAMIN BEADLESTAFF.' Upon the humble application of certain persons who have made heroic figures in Mr. Bickerstaff's narrations, notice is hereby given, that no such shall ever be mentioned for the I HAVE taken upon me no very easy task in turning all my thoughts on panegyric, when most of the advices I receive tend to the quite contrary purpose; and I have few notices but such as regard follies and vices. But the properest way for me to treat is, to keep in general upon the passions and affections of men, with as little regard to particulars as the nature of the thing will admit. However, I think there is something so passionate in the circumstances of the lovers mentioned in the following letter, that I am willing to go out of my way to obey what is commanded in it: London, Sept. 17. with the characters of the ancient heroes, as 'SIR,-Your design of entertaining the town persons shall send an account to Mr. Morphew's, you, that, encourages me and others to beg of in the mean time, if it is not contrary to the method you have proposed, you would give us Pætus and his wife, when Nero sent him an one paper upon the subject of the death of order to kill himself: his wife, setting him the example, died with these words: "Pætus, it is not painful." You must know the story, and your observations upon it will oblige, Sir, your most humble servant.' When the worst man that ever lived in the world had the highest station in it, human life was the object of his diversion; and he sent orders frequently, out of mere wantonness, to take off such and such, without so much as being angry with them. Nay, frequently, his tyranny was so humorous, that he put men to death because he could not but approve of them. It came one day to his ear, that a certain married couple, Pætus and Arria, lived in a more happy tranquillity and mutual love than any other persons who were then in being. He lis tened with great attention to the account of their manner of spending their time together, of the constant pleasure they were to each other in all their words and actions; and found by exact information, that they were so treasonable as to be much more happy than his imperial majesty himself. Upon which he writ Pætus the following billet: Pætus, you are hereby desired to despatch yourself. I have heard a very good character of you; and therefore leave it to yourself, whether you will die by dagger, sword, or poison. If you outlive this order above an hour, I have given directions to put you to death by torture. NERO.' This familiar epistle was delivered to his wife | home unedified, and troubled in mind. I dipt Arria, who opened it. One must have a soul very well turned for love, pity, and indignation, to comprehend the tumult this unhappy lady was thrown into upon this occasion. The passion of love is no more to be understood by some tempers, than a problem in a science by an ignorant man: but he that knows what affection is, will have, upon considering the condition of Arria, ten thousand thoughts flowing upon him, which the tongue was not formed to express; but the charming statue is now before my eyes, and Arria in her unutterable sorrow, has more beauty than ever appeared in youth, in mirth, or in triumph. These are the great and noble incidents which speak the dignity of our nature, in our sufferings and distresses. Behold, her tender affection for her husband sinks her features into a countenance which appears more helpiess than that of an infant but again, her indignation shows in her visage and her bosom a resentment as strong as that of the bravest man. Long she stood in this agony of alternate rage and love; but at last composed herself for her dissolution, rather than survive her beloved Pætus. When he came into her presence, he found her with the tyrant's letter in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Upon his approach to her, she gave him the order: and at the same time stabbing herself, 'Pætus,' says she, it is not painful;' and expired. Pætus immediately followed her example. The passion of these memorable lovers was such, that it illuded the rigour of their fortune, and baffled the force of a blow, which neither felt, because each received it for the sake of the other. The woman's part in this story is much the more heroic, and has occasioned one of the best epigrams transmitted to us from antiquity.* From my own Apartment, September 23. The boy says, one in a black hat left the following letter: 19th of the Seventh month. 'FRIEND,-Being of that part of Christians whom men call Quakers, and being a seeker of the right way, I was persuaded yesterday to hear one of your most noted teachers; the matter he treated was the necessity of well living, grounded upon a future state. I was attentive; but the man did not appear in earnest. He read his discourse, notwithstanding thy rebukes, so heavily, and with so little air of being convinced himself, that I thought he would have slept, as I observed many of his hearers did. I came into the Lamentations, and from thence turning to the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, I found these words: Woe be to the shepherds of Israel, that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool: ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened; neither have ye healed that which was sick; neither have ye bound up that which was broken; neither have ye brought again that which was driven away; neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them,' &c. Now, I pray thee, friend, as thou art a man skilled in many things, tell me who is meant by the diseased, the sick, the broken, the driven away, and the lost? and whether the prophecy in this chapter be accomplished, or yet to come to pass ? and thou wilt oblige thy friend, though unknown.' This matter is too sacred for this paper; but I cannot see what injury it would do to any clergyman to have it in his eye, and believe all that are taken from him by his want of industry are to be demanded of him. I dare say, Favonius* has very few of these losses. Favonius, in the midst of a thousand impertinent assailants of the divine truths, is an undisturbed defender of them. He protects all under his care, by the clearness of his understanding, and the example of his life; he visits dying men with the air of a man who hopes for his own dissolution, and enforces in others a contempt of this life, by his own expectation of the next. His voice and behaviour are the lively images of a composed and well-governed zeal. None can leave him for the frivolous jargon uttered by the ordinary teachers among dissenters, but such who cannot distinguish vociferation from eloquence, and argument from railing. He is so passions with so superior a command, that he great a judge of mankind, and touches our who deserts his congregation must be a stranger to the dictates of nature as well as to those of grace. But I must proceed to other matters, and resolve the questions of other inquirers; as in the following: Heddington, Sept. 19. 'SIR,-Upon reading that part of the Tatler, No. 69, where mention is made of a certain chapel-clerk, there arose a dispute, and that produced a wager, whether by the words chapelclerk was meant a clergyman or layman? by a clergyman I mean one in holy orders. It was not that any body in the company pretended to guess who the person was; but some asserted, that by Mr. Bickerstaff's words must be meant a clergyman only; others said, that those words might have been said of any clerk of the parish; and some of them more properly of a layman. The wager is half a dozen bottles of wine; in which, if you please to determine it, your health, and all the family of the Staffs, shall certainly be drunk; and you will singularly oblige another * Dr. Smallridge. very considerable family; I mean that of your ancient friend and school-fellow. You know in humble servants, THE TRENCHER CAPS.' It is very customary with us learned men, to find perplexities where no one else can see any. The honest gentlemen, who wrote this, are much at a loss to understand what I thought very plain; and, in return, their epistle is so plain, that I cannot understand it. This, perhaps, is at first a little like nonsense, but I desire all persons to examine these writings with an eye to my being far gone in the occult sciences; and remember, that it is the privilege of the learned and the great to be understood when they please for as a man of much business may be allowed to leave company when he pleases; so one of high learning may be above your capacity when he thinks fit. But without further speeches or fooling, I must inform my friends the Trencher Caps, in plain words, that I meant, in the place they speak of, a drunken clerk of a church: and I will return their civility among my relations, and drink their healths as they do White's Chocolate-house, September 26. I CANNOT express the confusion the following letter gave me, which I received by Sir Thomas* this morning. There cannot be a greater surprise than to meet with sudden enmity in the midst of a familiar and friendly correspondence; which is my case in relation to this epistle: and I have no way to purge myself to the world, but by publishing both it and my answer : your own conscience you gave me leave to touch For aught I know, this fellow may have confused the description of the pack, on purpose to ensnare the game, while I have all along believed he was destroying them as well as my. self; but because they pretend to bark more than ordinary, I shall let them see that I will not throw away the whip, until they know better how to behave themselves. But I must not, at the same time, omit the praises of their economy, expressed in the following advice: Sept. 17. 'MR. BICKERSTAFF,-Though your thoughts are at present employed upon the tables of fame, and marshalling your illustrious dead, it is hoped the living may not be neglected, nor defrauded of their just honours; and since you have begun to publish to the world the great sagacity and vigilance of the Knights of the Industry, it will be expected you shall proceed to do justice to all the societies of them you can be informed of; especially since their own great industry covers their actions as much as possible from that public notice which is their due. memoirs have a place in their history. is hieroglyphically drawn a cavalier contending with a monster, with jaws expanded just ready In a certain part of the town, famous for the freshest oysters, and the plainest English, there is a house, or rather a college, sacred to hospiMR. BICKERSTAFF,—You are a very imputality and the industrious arts. At the entrance dent fellow to put me into the Tatler. Rot you, eir, I have more wit than you; and rot me, have more money than most fools I have bubbled. All persons of quality admire me ; though, rot me if I value a blue garter any more than I do a blue apron. Every body knows I am brave; therefore have a care how you provoke MONOCULUS.'t to devour him. 'Hither the brethren of the Industry resort; but, to avoid ostentation, they wear no habits of distinction, and perform their exercises with as little noise and show as possible. Here are no under-graduates, but each is a master of his art. They are distributed according to their various talents, and detached abroad in parties, to divide the labours of the day. They have dogs as wellnosed and as fleet as any; and no sportsmen show greater activity. Some beat for the game, some hunt it, others come in at the death; and my honest landlord makes very good venison sauce, and eats his share of the dinner. I would fain pursue my metaphors; but a venerable person who stands by me, and waits to bring you this letter, and whom, by a certain benevolence in his look, I suspect to be Pacolet, reproves me, and obliges me to write in plainer terms, that the society had fixed their eyes on a gay young gentleman, who has lately succeeded to a title and an estate; the latter of which they 'London, September 22, 1709. judged would be very convenient for them. Therefore, after several attempts to get into his To the electors of an alderman for the ward of acquaintance, my landlord finds an opportunity to make his court to a friend of the young spark, in the following manner: 'Sir, as I take you to be a lover of ingenuity and plain dealing, I shall speak very freely to you. In a few words, then, you are acquainted with sir Liberal Brisk. Providence has, for our emolument, sent him a fair estate; for men are not born for themselves. Therefore, if you will bring him to my house, we will take care of him, and you shall have half the profits. There is Ace and Cutter will do his business to a hair. You will tell me, perhaps, he is your friend: I grant it, and it is for that I propose it, to prevent his falling into ill hands. "We'll carve him like a dish fit for the gods, In short, there are, to my certain knowledge, a hundred mouths open for him. Now, if we can secure him to ourselves, we shall disappoint all those rascals that do not deserve him. Nay, you need not start at it. Sir, it is for your own advantage. Besides, Partridge has cast me his nativity, and I find by certain destiny, his oaks must be felled. The gentleman, to whom this honest proposal was made, made little answer; but said he would consider it, and immediately took coach to find out the young baronet, and told him all that had passed, together with the new salvo to satisfy a man's conscience in sacrificing his friend. Sir Brisk was fired, swore a dozen oaths, drew his sword, put it up again, called for his man, beat him, and bid him fetch a coach. His friend asked him, what he designed, and whither he was going? He answered, to find out the villains and fight them. To which his friend agreed, and promised to be his second, on condition he would first divide his estate to them, and reserve only a proportion to himself, that so he might have the justice of fighting his equals. His next resolution was to play with them, and let them see he was not the bubble they took him for. But he soon quitted that, and resolved at last to tell Bickerstaff of them, and get them enrolled in the order of the Industry; with this caution to all young landed knights and esquires, that whenever they are drawn to play, they would consider it as calling them down to a sentence already pronounced upon them, and think of the sound of these words: His oaks must be felled.-I am, sir, your faithful humble servant. WILL TRUSTY.'* From my own Apartment, September 26. It is wonderful to consider what a pitch of confidence this world is arrived at. Do people believe I am made up of patience? I have long told them, that I will suffer no enormity to pass, without I have an understanding with the offenders by way of hush-money; and yet the candidates at Queen-Hithe send coals to all the town but me. All the public papers have had this advertisement: *This letter was written by John Hughes, esq. Queen-Hithe. 'Whereas an evil and pernicious custom has of late very much prevailed at the election of aldermen for this city, by treating at taverns and ale-houses, thereby engaging many unwarily to give their vote: which practice appearing to sir Arthur de Bradly to be of dangerous conse. quence to the freedom of elections, he hath avoided the excess thereof. Nevertheless, to make an acknowledgment to this ward for their intended favour, he hath deposited in the hands of Mr., one of the present common-council, four hundred and fifty pounds, to be disposed of as follows, provided the said sir Arthur de Bradly be the alderman, viz. All such that shall poll for sir Arthur de Bradly shall have one chaldron of good coals gratis. 'And half a chaldron to every one that shall not poll against him. And the remainder to be laid out in a clock, dial, or otherwise, as the common-council-men of the said ward shall think fit. And if any person shall refuse to take the said coals to himself, he may assign the same to any poor electors in the ward. I do acknowledge to have received the said four hundred and fifty pounds, for the pur pose above-mentioned, for which I have given a receipt. Witness, J-s H-T, J-Y G―H, E-D D-S J-N M-Y. 'N. B. Whereas several persons have ready engaged to poll for sir Humphry Greenhat, it is hereby further declared, that every such person as doth poll for sir Humphry Greenhat, and doth also poll for sir Arthur de Bradly, shall each of them receive a chaldron of coals gratis, on the proviso above-mentioned.' This is certainly the most plain-dealing that ever was used, except that the just quantity which an elector may drink without excess, and the difference between an acknowledgment and a bribe, wants explanation. Another difficulty with me is, how a man who is bargained with for a chaldron of coals for his vote shall be said to have that chaldron gratis? If my kinsman Greenhat had given me the least intimation of his design, I should have prevented his publishing nonsense; nor should any knight in England have put my relation at the bottom of the leaf as a postscript, when, after all, it appears Greenhat has been the more popular man. There is here such open contradiction, and clumsy art to the freedom of clection is safer when laid out in palliate the matter, and prove to the people, that coals than strong drink, that I can turn this only to a religious use, and admire the dispensation of things; for if these fellows were as wise as they are rich, where would be our liberty? This reminds me of a memorable speech made to a city almost in the same lati tude with Westminster : When I think of A speech of queen Elizabeth to the citizens of London. The writer of the following letter has made a use of me, which I did not foresee I should fall into. But the gentleman having assured me that he has a most tender passion for the fair one, and speaking his intention with so much sincerity, I am willing to let them contrive an interview by my means. 'SIR,-I earnestly entreat you to publish the inclosed; for I have no other way to come at her or return to myself. A. L. 'P. S. MR. BICKERSTAFF,-You cannot imagine how handsome she is: the superscription of my letter will make her recollect the man that gazed at her. Pray put it in.' I can assure the young lady, the gentleman is in the trammels of love: how else would he make his superscription so much longer than his billet? He superscribes; Sept. 25. MR. BICKERSTAFF,-When I read your paper of Thursday, I was surprised to find mine of the thirteenth inserted at large; I never intended myself or you a second trouble of this kind, believing I had sufficiently pointed out the man you had injured, and that by this time you were convinced that silence would be the best answer; but finding your reflections are such as naturally call for a reply, I take this way of doing it; and, in the first place, return you thanks for the compliment made me of my seeming sense and worth. I do assure you, I shall always endeavour to convince mankind of the latter, though I have no pretence to the former. But to come a little nearer, I observe you put yourself under a very severe restriction, even the laying down the Tatler for ever, if I can give you an instance, wherein you have injured any good man, or pointed out any thing which is not the true object of raillery. 'I must confess, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of vices that would shame the gallows, be the best method to point at the true object of raillery, I have, until this time, been very ignorant; but if it be so, I will venture to assert one thing, and lay it down as a maxim, even to the Staffian race, viz. That that method of pointing ought no more to be pursued, suffer by it; because I take both to be murder, than those people ought to cut your throat who and the law is not in every private man's hands to execute but indeed, sir, were you the only 'To the younger of the two ladies in mourn-person would suffer by the Tatler's discontinuing (who sat in the hindmost seat of the middle box at Mr. Winstanley's water-works† on Tuesday was fortnight, and had with them a brother, or some acquaintance that was as careless of that pretty creature as a brother; which seeming brother ushered them to their coach) with great respect. Present.' MADAM,-I have a very good estate, and wish myself your husband: let me know by this way where you live; for I shall be miserable until we live together. ALEXANDER LANDLORD.' This is the modern way of bargain and sale; a certain short-hand writing, in which laconic elder brothers are very successful. All my fear is, that the nymph's elder sister is unmarried; if she is, we are undone; but perhaps the care. less fellow was her husband, and then she will let us go on. From my own Apartment, September 28. The following letter has given me a new sense of the nature of my writings. I have the deepest regard to conviction, and shall never act against it. However, I do not yet understand what good man he thinks I have injured: but his epistle has such weight in it, that I shall always have respect for his admonition, and desire the continuance of it. I am not conscious that I have spoke any faults a man may not mend if he pleases. * Winstanley's mathematical water theatre stood at the lower end of Piccadilly, distinguishable by a windmill at top. แ ance, I have malice enough to punish you in the manner you prescribe; but I am not so great an enemy to the town or my own pleasures as to wish it; nor that you would lay aside lashing the reigning vices, so long as you keep to the true spirit of satire without descending to rake into characters below its dignity; for, as you well observe, there is something very terrible in unjustly attacking men in a way that may prejudice their honour or fortune; and, indeed, where crimes are enormous, the delinquent deserves little pity, yet the reporter may deserve less and here I am naturally led to that celebrated author of "The whole Duty of Man," who hath set this matter in a true light in his treatise "Of the Government of the Tongue;" where, speaking of uncharitable truths, he says, a discovery of this kind serves not to reclaim, but enrage the offender, and precipitate him into further degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame is one of those natural restraints which the wisdom of heaven has put upon mankind; and he that once stumbles, may yet, by a check of that bridle, recover again: but when by a public detection he is fallen under that infamy * Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire,' vol. i. p. 352, has taken much pains to discover the author of this celebrated book; which has been ascribed to no less than eight different writers; viz. to Abraham Woodhead, Obadiah Walker, Bp. Fell, Bp. Chapple. Dr. Allestree, Dr. Henchman, Mr. Fulman, and lady Pakington. Dr. Nash inclines to ascribe the book to lady Pakington, though amply and materially corrected by Bp. Fell, between whom and that lady there subsisted a long and uninterrupted correspondence. The first edition of it appeared in 1654. It has been supposed, that the grandson of lady Pakington was the original of the character of sir Roger de Coveriey, in the Spectator. |