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No. 172.]

DOROTHY CARE,

Monday, September 28, 1713.

and halberts, and be transported without farther | must own, much the more beautiful sex. I am, trouble into several courts and families of dis- sir, your humble reader, tinction, where they may eat, and drink, and strut, at free cost.' As this project was not communicated to me for a secret, I thought it might be for the service of the above-said persons to divulge it with all convenient speed; that those who are disposed to employ their talents to the best advantage, and to shine in the station of life for which they seem to be born, may have time to adorn their upper lip, by rais ing a quickset beard there in the form of whiskers, that they may pass to all intents and purposes for true Switzers.

-Vitam excoluere per artes. Virg. Æn. vi. 663.
They grac'd their age with new invented arts.
Dryden.

MR. IRONSIDE,-I have been a long time in expectation of something from you on the subject of speech and letters. I believe the world might be as agreeably entertained on that subject, as with any thing that ever came into the lion's mouth. For this end I send you the following sketch; and am, yours,

PHILOGRAM.

Upon taking a view of the several species of living creatures our earth is stocked with, we may easily observe, that the lower orders of them, such as insects and fishes, are wholly without a power of making known their wants and calamities. Others, which are conversant with man, have some few ways of expressing the pleasure and pain they undergo by certain sounds and gestures; but man has articulate sounds whereby to make known his inward sen

'INDEFATIGABLE NESTOR,-Give me leave to thank you, in behalf of myself and my whole family, for the daily diversion and improvement we receive from your labours. At the same time I must acquaint you, that we have all of us taken a mighty liking to your lion. His roar ings are the joy of my heart, and I have a little boy, not three years old, that talks of nothing else, and who, I hope, will be more afraid of him as he grows up. That your animal may be kept in good plight, and not roar for want of prey, I shall, out of my esteem and affection for you, contribute what I can towards his sustenance: "Love me, love my lion," says the proverb. I will not pretend, at any time, to fur-timents and affections, though his organs of nish out a full meal for him; but I shall now and then send him a savory morsel, a tid bit. You must know, I am but a kind of holiday writer, and never could find in my heart to set my pen to a work of above five or six periods long. My friends tell me my performances are little and pretty. As they have no manner of connexion one with the other, I write them upon loose pieces of paper, and throw them into a drawer by themselves; this drawer I call the lion's pantry. I give you my word, I put nothing into it but what is clean and wholesome nourriture. Therefore remember me to the lion, and let him know, that I shall always pick and cull the pantry for him; and there are morsels in it, I can assure you, will make his chaps to water. I am, with the greatest respect, sir, your most obedient servant, and most assiduous reader.'

I must ask pardon of Mrs. Dorothy Care, that I have suffered her billet to lie by me these three weeks without taking the least notice of it. But I believe the kind warning in it, to our sex, will

not be now too late.

GOOD MR. IRONSIDE,-I have waited with impatience for that same unicorn you promised should be erected for the fair sex. My business is, before winter comes on, to desire you would precaution your own sex against being Adamites, by exposing their bare breasts to the rigour of the season. It was this practice amongst the fellows, which at first encouraged our sex to show so much of their necks. The downy dockleaves you speak of would make good stomachers for the beaux. In a word, good Nestor, so long as the men take a pride in showing their hairy skins, we may with a much better grace set out our snowy chests to view. We arc, we own, the weaker, but at the same time, you

speech are no other than what he has in common with many other less perfect animals. But the use of letters, as significative of these sounds, is such an additional improvement to them, that I know not whether we ought not to attribute the invention of them to the assistance of a power more than human.

There is this great difficulty which could not but attend the first invention of letters, to wit, that all the world must conspire in affixing steadily the same signs to their sounds, which affixing was at first as arbitrary as possible; there being no more connexion between the letters and the sounds they are expressive of, than there is between those sounds and the ideas of the mind they immediately stand for. Notwithstanding which difficulty, and the variety of languages, the powers of the letters in each are very nearly the same, being in all places about twenty-four.

But be the difficulty of the invention as great as it will, the use of it is manifest, particularly in the advantage it has above the method of conveying our thoughts by words or sounds, because this way we are confined to narrow limits of place and time: whereas we may have occasion to correspond with a friend at a dis tance; or a desire, upon a particular occasion, to take the opinion of an honest gentleman who has been dead this thousand years. Both which defects are supplied by the noble invention of letters. By this means we materialize our ideas, and make them as lasting as the ink and paper, their vehicles. This making our thoughts by art visible to the eye, which, nature had made intelligible only by the ear, is next to the adding a sixth sense, as it is a supply in case of the defect of one of the five nature gave us, namely, hearing, by making the voice become visible.

Have any of any school of painters gotten themselves an immortal name, by drawing a face, or painting a landscape; by laying down on a piece of canvass a representation only of what nature had given them originals? What applauses will he merit, who first made his ideas sit to his pencil, and drew to his eye the picture of his mind! Painting represents the outward man, or the shell; but cannot reach the inhabitant within, or the very organ by which the inhabitant is revealed. This art may reach to represent a face, but cannot paint a voice. Kneller can draw the majesty of the queen's person; Kneller can draw her sublime air, and paint her bestowing hand as fair as the lily; but the historian must inform posterity, that she has one peculiar excellence above all other mortals, that her ordinary speech is more charming than

song.

But to drop the comparison of this art with any other, let us see the benefit of it in itself. By it the English trader may hold commerce with the inhabitants of the East or West Indies, without the trouble of à journey. Astronomers seated at a distance of the earth's diameter asunder, may confer; what is spoken and thought at one pole, may be heard and understood at the other. The philosopher who wished he had a window in his breast, to lay open his heart to all the world, might as easily have revealed the secrets of it this way, and as easily left them to the world, as wished it. This silent art of speaking by letters, remedies the inconvenience arising from distance of time, as well as place; and is much beyond that of the Egyptians, who could preserve their mummies for ten centuries. This preserves the works of the immortal part of men, so as to make the dead still useful to the living. To this we are beholden for the works of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Seneca and Plato; without it the Iliad of Homer, and Æneid of Virgil, had died with their authors; but by this art those excellent men still speak to us.

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I LATELY took a particular friend of mind to my house in the country, not without some apprehension that it could afford little entertainment to a man of his polite taste, particularly in architecture and gardening, who had so long been conversant with all that is beautiful and great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise to me, to hear him often declare, he had found in my little retirement that beauty which he always thought wanting in the most celebrated seats, or, if you will, villas, of the nation. This he described to me in those verses, with which Martial begins one of his epigrams:

'Baiana postri villa, Basse, Faustini,
Non otiosis ordinata myrtetis,
Viduaque platano, tonsilique buxeto,
Ingrata lati spatia detinet campi;

grace,

Sed rure vero barbaroque lætatur.' Lib. iii. Ep. 58. Our friend Faustinus' country seat I've seen: No myrtles, plac'd in rows, and idly green, No widow'd plantain, nor clyp'd box-tree there, The useless soil unprofitably share; But simple nature's hand, with nobler Diffuses artless beauties o'er the place." There is certainly something in the amiable simplicity of unadorned nature that spreads over the mind a more noble sort of tranquillity, and a loftier sensation of pleasure, that can be

raised from the nicer scenes of art.

'I shall be glad if what I have said on this This was the taste of the ancients in their art, gives you any new hints for the more, use- gardens, as we may discover from the descripful or agreeable application of it. I am, sir, &c.' tions extant of them. The two most celebrated I shall conclude this paper with an extract wits of the world have each of them left us a from a poem in praise of the invention of writ-particular picture of a garden; wherein those ing, written by a lady.' I am glad of such a quotation, which is not only another instance how much the world is obliged to this art, but also a shining example of what I have heretofore asserted, that the fair sex are as capable as men of the liberal sciences; and indeed there is no very good argument against the frequent instruction of females of condition this way, but that they are but too powerful without that advantage. The verses of the charining author are as follow:

Blest be the man! his memory at least,
Who found the art thus to unfold his breast,
And taught succeeding times an easy way
Their secret thoughts by letters to convey;
To baille absence, and secure delight,
Which till that time was limited to sight.
The parting farewell spoke, the last adien,
The less'ning distance past, then lost to view,

The friend was gone which some kind moments gave,
And absence separated, like the grave.

When for a wife the youthful patriarch sent,

The camels, jewels, and the steward went,

great masters, being wholly unconfined, and painting at pleasure, may be thought to have given a full idea of what they esteemed most excellent in this way. These (one may observe,) consist entirely of the useful part of horticul ture, fruit-trees, herbs, water, &c. The pieces I am speaking of, are Virgil's account of the garden of the old Corycian, and Homer's of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English reader, by the excellent versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison. The other having never been attempted in our language with any elegance, and being the most beautiful plan of this sort that can be imagined, I shall here present the reader with a translation of it. The Garden of Alcinous, from Homer's Odyssey,

Book 7.

Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies;
Four acres was the allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around.

Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould;
The redd'ning apple ripens here to gold;
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows:
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale
Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail:
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise;

The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.
Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear
With all the united labours of the year.
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun.
Others to tread the liquid harvest join,
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd,
Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side,
And there in Autumn's richest purple dy'd.
Beds of all various herbs for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crown'd;

This through the gardens leads its streams around. Visits each plant, and waters all the ground: While that in pipes beneath the palace flows, And thence its current on the town bestows; To various use their various streams they bring, The people one, and one supplies the king. Sir William Temple has remarked, that this description contains all the justest rules and provisions which can go toward composing the best gardens. Its extent was four aeres, which in those times, of simplicity was looked upon as a large one, even for a prince; it was inclosed all round for defence; and for conveniency joined close to the gates of the palace.

He mentions next the trees, which were stand. ards, and suffered to grow to their full height. The fine description of the fruits that never failed, and the eternal zephyrs, is only a more no. ble and poetical way of expressing the continual succession of one fruit after another, throughout the year.

The vineyard seems to have been a plantation distinct from the garden; as also the beds of greens mentioned afterwards at the extremity of the inclosure, in the nature and usual place of our kitchen gardens.

The two fountains are disposed very remarkably. They rose within the inclosure, and were brought by conduits, or ducts, one of them to water all parts of the gardens, and the other underneath the palace into the town for the service of the public.

How contrary to this simplicity is the modern practice of gardening! We seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous at tempts beyond the reach of the art itself. We run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular

of their own.

Hinc et nexilibus videas e frondibus hortos, Implexos late muros, et monia circum Porrigere, et latas e ramis surgere turres; Deflexam et myrtum in puppes, atque ærca rostra: In buxisque undare fretum, atque e rore rudentes. Parte alia frondere suis tentoria castris; Scutaque spiculaque et jaculantia citria vallos.' Here interwoven branches form a wall, And from the living fence green turrets rise; There ships of myrtle sail in seas of box; A green encampment yonder meets the eye, And loaded citrous bearing shields and spears.

I believe it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties and fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens; where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other.

For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. He represents, that for the advancement of a politer sort of ornament in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in order to distinguish those places from the mere barbarous countries of gross na ture, the world stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener who has a turn to sculpture, and is thereby capable of improving upon the ancients of his profession in the imagery of evergreens. My correspondent is arrived to such perfection, that he cuts, family pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands' in hornbeam. He is a puritan wag, and never fails when he shows his garden, to repeat that passage in the Psalms, Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine, and thy children as olive branches round thy table.' I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation.

'Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm: Eve and the serpent very flourishing.

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The tower of Babel, not yet finished.

St. George in box; his arm scarce, long enough, but will be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April.

A green dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present.

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N. B. These two not to be sold separately. Edward the Black Prince in cypress. A laurestine bear in blossom, with a juniper hunter in berries.

A pair of giants, stunted, to be sold cheap. A queen Elizabeth in phylyræa, a little inclining to the green-sickness, but of full growth.

Another queen Elizabeth in myrtle, which was very forward, but miscarried by being too near a savine.

'An old maid of honour in wormwood. A topping Ben Jonson in laurel. 'Divers eminent modern poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of, a pennyworth.

A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather.

A lavender pig, with sage growing in his belly.

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but by one of a serious turn, these healthful springs may rather be likened to the Stygian waters, which made the body invulnerable; or to the river of Lethe, one draught of which washed away all pain and anguish in a moment.

As I have taken upon me a name which ought to abound in humanity, I shall make it my business, in this paper, to cool and assuage those malignant humours of scandal which run throughout the body of men and women there assembled; and after the manner of those famous waters, I will endeavour to wipe away all foul aspersions, to restore bloom and vigour to decayed reputations, and set injured characters upon their legs again. I shall herein regulate myself by the example of that good man, who used to talk with charity of the greatest villains; nor was ever heard to speak with rigour of any one, until he affirmed with severity that Nero was a wag.

Having thus prepared thee, gentle reader, I shall not scruple to entertain thee with a panegyric upon the gamesters. I have indeed spoken incautiously heretofore of that class of men; but I should forfeit all titles to modesty, should I any longer oppose the common sense of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom. Were we to treat all those with contempt, who are the favourites of blind chance, few levees would be crowded. It is not the height of sphere in which a man moves, but the manner in which he acts, that makes him truly valuable. When therefore I see a gentleman lose his money with serenity, I recognize in him all the great qualities of a philosopher.

If he storms, and invokes the gods, I lament that he is not placed at the head of a regiment. The great gravity of the countenances round Harrison's table, put me in mind of a council board; and the indefatigable application of the

In public assemblies there are generally some envious splenetic people, who having no merit to procure respect, are ever finding fault with those who distinguish themselves. This happens more frequently at those places, where this season of the year calls persons of both sexes together for their health. I have had reams of fetters from Bath, Epsom, Tunbridge, and St. Wenefrede's well; wherein I could observe that a concern for honour and virtue, proceeded from the want of health, beauty, or fine petticoats. A lady who subscribes herself Endosia, writes a bitter invective against Chloe, the celebrated dancer; but I have learned, that she herself is lame of the rheumatism. Another, who hath been a prude ever since she had the small-pox, is very bitter against the coquettes and their indecent airs; and a sharp wit hath sent me a keen epigram against the gamesters; but I took notice, that it was not written upon gilt paper. Having had several strange pieces of intelligence from the Bath; as, that more constitutions were weakened there than repaired; that the physicians were not more busy in destroy-several combatants furnishes me with an unaning old bodies, than the young fellows in producing new ones; with several other common. place strokes of raillery; I resolved to look upon the company there, as I returned lately out of the country. It was a great jest to see such a grave ancient person as I am, in an embroidered cap and brocade night-gown. But, besides the necessity of complying with the custom, by these means I passed undiscovered, and had a pleasure I much covet, of being alone in a crowd. It was no little satisfaction to me, to view the mixed mass of all ages and dig. Upon considerations like these, the ladies nities upon a level, partaking of the same bene. share in these diversions. I must own, that I fits of nature, and mingling in the same diver- receive great pleasure in seeing my pretty counsions. I sometimes entertained myself by ob- trywomen engaged in an amusement which serving what a large quantity of ground was puts them upon producing so many virtues. hid under spreading petticoats; and what little Hereby they acquire such a boldness, as raises patches of earth were covered by creatures with them near the lordly creature man. Here they wigs and hats, in comparison to those spaces are taught such contempt of wealth, as may dithat were distinguished by flounces, fringes, and late their minds, and prevent many curtain lecfurbelows. From the earth my fancy was di- tures. Their natural tenderness is a weakness verted to the water, where the distinctions of here easily unlearned; and I find my soul exsex and condition are concealed; and where the alted, when I see a lady sacrifice the fortune of mixture of men and women hath given occasion her children with as little concern as a Spartan to some persons of light imaginations, to com- or a Roman dame. In such a place as the Bath pare the Bath to the fountain of Salmacis, which I might urge, that the casting of a die is indeed had the virtue of joining the two sexes into one the properest exercise for a fair creature to asperson; or to the stream wherein Diana washed sist the waters; not to mention the opportunity herself when she bestowed horns on Actæon; it gives to display the well-turned arm, and to

swerable reply to those gloomy mortals, who censure this as an idle life. In short, I cannot see any reason why gentlemen should be hindered from raising a fortune by those means, which at the same time enlarge their minds. Nor shall I speak dishonourably of some little artifice and finesse used upon these occasions; since the world is so just to any man who is become a possessor of wealth, as not to respect him the less, for the methods he took to come by it.

No. 175.]

Thursday, October 1, 1713.

scatter to advantage the rays of the diamond. I may diffuse their ample charities. Mr. TomBut I am satisfied, that the gamester ladies pion gave a clock to the Bath; and I, Nestor have surmounted the little vanities of showing Ironside, have dedicated a Guardian. their beauty, which they so far neglect, as to throw their features into violent distortions, and wear away their lilies and roses in tedious watching, and restless lucubrations. I should rather observe that their chief passion is an emulation of manhood; which I am the more inclined to believe, because, in spite of all slanders, their confidence in their virtue keeps them up all night, with the most dangerous creatures of our sex. It is to me an undoubted argument of their ease of conscience, that they go directly from church to the gaming-table; and so highly reverence play, as to make it a great part of their exercise on Sundays.

The water poets are an innocent tribe, and deserve all the encouragement I can give them. It would be barbarous to treat those authors with bitterness, who never write out of the season, and whose works are useful with the waters. I made it my care, therefore, to sweeten some sour critics who were sharp upon a few sonnets, which, to speak in the language of the Bath, were mere alkalies. I took particular notice of a lenitive electuary, which was wrapped up in some of these gentle compositions; and am persuaded that the pretty one who took it, was as much relieved by the cover as the medicine. There are a hundred general topics put into metre every year, viz: The lover is inflamed in the water; or, he finds his death where he sought his cure; or, the nymph feels her own pain, without regarding her lover's torment.' These being for ever repeated, have at present a very good effect; and a physician assures me, that laudanum is almost out of doors at the Bath.

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The physicians here are very numerous, but very good-natured. To these charitable gentlemen I owe, that I was cured, in a week's time, of more distempers than I ever had in my life. They had almost killed me with their humanity, A learned fellow-lodger prescribed me a little something, at my first coming, to keep up my spirits; and the next morning I was so much enlivened by another, as to have an order to bleed for my fever. I was proffered a cure for the scurvy by a third, and had a recipe for the dropsy gratis before night. In vain did I modestly decline these favours; for I was awakened early in the morning by an apothecary, who brought me a dose from one of my well-wishers. I paid him, but withal told him, severely, that I never took physic. My landlord hereupon took me for an Italian merchant that suspected poison; but the apothecary, with more sagacity, guessed that I was certainly a physician my

self.

The oppression of civilities which I underwent from the sage gentlemen of the faculty, frightened me from making such inquiries into the nature of these springs, as would have furnished out a nobler entertainment upon the Bath, than the loose hints I have now thrown together. Every man who hath received any benefit there, ought, in proportion to his abilities, to improve, adorn, or recommend it. A prince should found hospitals, the noble and rich

Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.
Virg. En. vi. 664.
Who rais'd by merit an immortal name.

THE noble genius of Virgil would have been exalted still higher, had he had the advantage of Christianity. According to our scheme of thoughts, if the word memores in the front of this paper were changed into similes, it would have very much heightened the motive to virtue in the reader. To do good and great actions merely to gain reputation, and transmit a name to posterity, is a vicious appetite, and will certainly ensnare the person who is moved by it, on some occasions, into a false delicacy for fear of reproach; and at others, into artifices which taint his mind, though they may enlarge his fame. The endeavour to make men like you, rather than mindful of you, is not subject to such ill consequences, but moves with its reward in its own hand; or to speak more in the language of the world, a man with this aim is as happy as a man in an office, that is paid out of money under his own direction. There have been very worthy examples of this self-denying virtue among us in this nation; but I do not know of a nobler example in this taste, than that of the late Mr. Boyle, who founded a lec ture for the Proof of the Christian religion, against atheists, and other notorious infidels.' The reward of perpetual memory amongst men, which might possibly have some share in this sublime charity, was certainly considered but in a second degree; and Mr. Boyle had it in his thoughts to make men imitate him as well as speak of him, when he was gone off our stage.

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The world has received much good from this institution, and the noble emulation of great men on the inexhaustible subject of the essence, praise, and attributes of the Deity, has had the natural effect, which always attends this kind of contemplation: to wit, that he who writes upon it with a sincere heart, very eminently excels whatever he has produced on any other occasion. It eminently appears from this observation, that a particular blessing has been bestowed on this lecture. This great philosopher provided for us, after his death, an employment not only suitable to our condition, but to his own at the same time. It is a sight fit for angels, to behold the benefactor and the persons obliged, not only in different places, but under different beings, employed in the same work.

This worthy man studied nature, and traced all her ways to those of her unsearchable author. When he had found him, he gave this bounty for the praise and contemplation of him. To one who has not run through regular courses of philosophical inquiries (the other learned labourers in this vineyard will forgive me,) I cannot but principally recommend the book, intitled, Phisico-Theology: printed for William Innys, in St. Paul's church-yard.

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