The Tatler (Vol 4)

No. 218. [Addison.

From Tuesday, Aug. 29, to Thursday, Aug. 31, 1710

Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes.

I chanced to rise very early one particular morning this summer, and took a walk into the country to divert myself among the fields and meadows, while the green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As at this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a great deal of pleasure among several thickets and bushes that were filled with a great variety of birds, and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed the pleasantest scene in the world to one who had passed a whole winter in noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews that lay upon everything about me, with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired the birds with so many delightful instincts, created in me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with such secret emotions of joy and satisfaction as are not to be described or accounted for. On this occasion I could not but reflect upon a beautiful simile in Milton:

Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories those charming descriptions with which such authors do frequently abound.

I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.

After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendôme. How the Duke of Vendôme should become a rival of the Black Prince's, I could not conceive; and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great vehemence, that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off, he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence, especially when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who, they said, were both running away: to which they added, what I entirely agreed with them in, that the Crown of France was very weak, but that the Mareschal Villars still kept his colours. At last one of them told the company, if they would go along with him, he would show them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady in the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had driven them, as well as myself, into the house, was now over: and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their company.

The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be worth my while, for that he believed he could show me such a blow of tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.

I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour.

I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about us. Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator as so many beautiful objects, varnished over with a natural gloss, and stained with such a variety of colours as are not to be equalled in any artificial dyes or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres were woven together into different configurations, which gave a different colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according to the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever lived,69 as a multitude of optic instruments, designed for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is composed.

I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as one of the finest that I ever saw; upon which they told me, it was a common fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was but another kind of fool's-coat. I had the same fate with two or three more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know which were the finest of the flowers, for that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those which had the gayest colours were the most beautiful. The gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he seemed a very plain honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the Τυλιππομανια (Tulippomania); insomuch that he would talk very rationally on any subject in the world but a tulip.

He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and was not above twenty yards in length, and two in breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres of land in England; and added, that it would have been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook-maid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful of tulip-roots for a heap of onions, "and by that means," says he, "made me a dish of porridge, that cost me above £1000 sterling." He then showed me what he thought the finest of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the greatest beauties.

I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed anything the more for its being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason, I look upon the whole country in spring-time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies, or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders and parterres. There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the most pleasing and most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common.

No. 219. [? Steele. 70

From Thursday, Aug. 31, to Saturday, Sept. 2, 1710

Never were men so perplexed as a select company of us were this evening with a couple of possessed wits, who through our ill fortune, and their own confidence, had thought fit to pin themselves upon a gentleman who had owned to them that he was going to meet such and such persons, and named us one by one. These pert puppies immediately resolved to come with him, and from the beginning to the end of the night entertained each other with impertinences, to which we were perfect strangers. I am come home very much tired; for the affliction was so irksome to me, that it surpasses all other I ever knew, insomuch that I cannot reflect upon this sorrow with pleasure, though it is past.

An easy manner of conversation is the most desirable quality a man can have; and for that reason coxcombs will take upon them to be familiar with people whom they never saw before. What adds to the vexation of it is, that they will act upon the foot of knowing you by fame, and rally with you, as they call it, by repeating what your enemies say of you; and court you, as they think, by uttering to your face at a wrong time all the kind things your friends speak of you in your absence.

These people are the more dreadful, the more they have of what is usually called wit: for a lively imagination, when it is not governed by a good understanding, makes such miserable havoc both in conversation and business, that it lays you defenceless, and fearful to throw the least word in its way that may give it new matter for its further errors.

Tom Mercett has as quick a fancy as any one living; but there is no reasonable man can bear him half-an-hour. His purpose is to entertain, and it is of no consequence to him what is said, so it be what is called well said; as if a man must bear a wound with patience, because he that pushed at you came up with a good air and mien. That part of life which we spend in company, is the most pleasing of all our moments; and therefore I think our behaviour in it should have its laws as well as the part of our being which is generally esteemed the more important. From hence it is, that from long experience I have made it a maxim, that however we may pretend to take satisfaction in sprightly mirth and high jollity, there is no great pleasure in any company where the basis of the society is not mutual good-will. When this is in the room, every trifling circumstance, the most minute accident, the absurdity of a servant, the repetition of an old story, the look of a man when he is telling it, the most indifferent and the most ordinary occurrences, are matters which produce mirth and good-humour. I went to spend an hour after this manner with some friends who enjoy it in perfection whenever they meet, when those destroyers above-mentioned came in upon us. There is not a man among them has any notion of distinction of superiority to one another, either in their fortunes or their talents, when they are in company. Or if any reflection to the contrary occurs in their thoughts, it only strikes a delight upon their minds, that so much wisdom and power is in possession of one whom they love and esteem.

In these my Lucubrations, I have frequently dwelt upon this one topic. It would make short work for us reformers, for it is only want of making this a position that renders some characters bad which would otherwise be good. Tom Mercett means no man ill, but does ill to everybody. His ambition is to be witty; and to carry on that design, he breaks through all things that other people hold sacred. If he thought wit was no way to be used but to the advantage of society, that sprightliness would have a new turn, and we should expect what he is going to say with satisfaction instead of fear. It is no excuse for being mischievous, that a man is mischievous without malice: nor will it be thought an atonement that the ill was done not to injure the party concerned, but to divert the indifferent.

It is, methinks, a very great error that we should not profess honesty in conversation as much as in commerce. If we consider that there is no greater misfortune than to be ill received where we love the turning a man to ridicule among his friends, we rob him of greater enjoyments than he could have purchased by his wealth; yet he that laughs at him, would perhaps be the last man who would hurt him in this case of less consequence. It has been said, the history of Don Quixote utterly destroyed the spirit of gallantry in the Spanish nation; and I believe we may say much more truly, that the humour of ridicule has done as much injury to the true relish of company in England.

Such satisfactions as arise from the secret comparison of ourselves to others, with relation to their inferior fortunes or merit, are mean and unworthy. The true and high state of conversation is when men communicate their thoughts to each other upon such subjects, and in such a manner, as would be pleasant if there were no such thing as folly in the world; for it is but a low condition of wit in one man which depends upon folly in another.

P.S.– I was here interrupted by the receipt of my letters, among which is one from a lady, who is not a little offended at my translation of the discourse between Adam and Eve.71 She pretends to tell me my own, as she calls it, and quotes several passages in my works which tend to the utter disunion of man and wife. Her epistle will best express her. I have made an extract of it, and shall insert the most material passages:

"I suppose you know we women are not too apt to forgive: for which reason, before you concern yourself any further with our sex, I would advise you to answer what is said against you by those of your own. I enclose to you business enough till you are ready for your promise of being witty. You must not expect to say what you please without admitting others to take the same liberty. Marry come up! You a censor? Pray read over all these pamphlets, and these notes72 upon your Lucubrations; by that time you shall hear further. It is, I suppose, from such as you that people learn to be censorious, for which I and all our sex have an utter aversion, when once people come to take the liberty to wound reputations – "

This is the main body of the letter; but she bids me turn over, and there I find:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"If you will draw Mrs. Sissy Trippit according to the enclosed description, I will forgive you all."

"Showeth – That your petitioner is a general lover, who for some months last past has made it his whole business to frequent the bypaths and roads near his dwelling, for no other purpose but to hand such of the fair sex as are obliged to pass through them.

"That he has been at great expense for clean gloves to offer his hand with.

"That towards the evening he approaches near London, and employs himself as a convoy towards home.

"Your petitioner, therefore, most humbly prays, that for such his humble services, he may be allowed the title of an esquire."

Mr. Morphew has orders to carry the proper instruments, and the petitioner is to be hereafter written to upon gilt paper, by the title of Joshua Fairlove, Esq.

No. 220. [Addison.

From Saturday, Sept. 2, to Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1710

Having received many letters filled with compliments and acknowledgments for my late useful discovery of the Political Barometer,73 I shall here communicate to the public an account of my Ecclesiastical Thermometer, the latter giving as manifest prognostications of the changes and revolutions in Church as the former does of those in State, and both of them being absolutely necessary for every prudent subject who is resolved to keep what he has, and get what he can.

The Church thermometer, which I am now to treat of, is supposed to have been invented in the reign of Henry the Eighth, about the time when that religious prince put some to death for owning the Pope's supremacy, and others for denying transubstantiation. I do not find, however, any great use made of this instrument till it fell into the hands of a learned and vigilant priest or minister (for he frequently wrote himself both one and the other), who was some time Vicar of Bray. This gentleman lived in his vicarage to a good old age; and after having seen several successions of his neighbouring clergy either burnt or banished, departed this life with the satisfaction of having never deserted his flock, and died Vicar of Bray. As this glass was first designed to calculate the different degrees of heat in religion, as it raged in Popery, or as it cooled and grew temperate in the Reformation, it was marked at several distances, after the manner our ordinary thermometer is to this day, viz., Extreme Hot, Sultry Hot, Very Hot, Hot, Warm, Temperate, Cold, Just Freezing, Frost, Hard Frost, Great Frost, Extreme Cold.

It is well known, that Toricellius, the inventor of the common weather-glass, made the experiment in a long tube which held thirty-two feet of water; and that a more modern virtuoso finding such a machine altogether unwieldy and useless, and considering that thirty-two inches of quicksilver weighed as much as so many feet of water in a tube of the same circumference, invented that sizable instrument which is now in use. After this manner, that I might adapt the thermometer I am now speaking of to the present constitution of our Church, as divided into High and Low, I have made some necessary variations both in the tube and the fluid it contains. In the first place, I ordered a tube to be cast in a planetary hour, and took care to seal it hermetically, when the sun was in conjunction with Saturn. I then took the proper precautions about the fluid, which is a compound of two very different liquors: one of them a spirit drawn out of a strong heady wine; the other a particular sort of rock water, colder than ice, and clearer than crystal. The spirit is of a red fiery colour, and so very apt to ferment, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or pent up very close, it will burst the vessel that holds it, and fly up in fume and smoke. The water, on the contrary, is of such a subtle piercing cold, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the spirits, it will sink through almost everything that it is put into, and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, which, says the historian, could be contained in nothing but in the hoof or (as the Oxford manuscript has it) in the skull of an ass. The thermometer is marked according to the following figure, which I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of it, but also to fill up my paper.

Ignorance.

Persecution.

Wrath.

Zeal.

Church.

Moderation.

Lukewarmness.

Infidelity.

Ignorance.

The reader will observe, that the Church is placed in the middle point of the glass, between Zeal and Moderation, the situation in which she always flourishes, and in which every good Englishman wishes her who is a friend to the constitution of his country. However, when it mounts to Zeal, it is not amiss; and when it sinks to Moderation, is still in a most admirable temper. The worst of it is, that when once it begins to rise, it has still an inclination to ascend, insomuch that it is apt to climb from Zeal to Wrath, and from Wrath to Persecution, which always ends in Ignorance, and very often proceeds from it. In the same manner it frequently takes its progress through the lower half of the glass; and when it has a tendency to fall, will gradually descend from Moderation to Lukewarmness, and from Lukewarmness to Infidelity, which very often terminates in Ignorance, and always proceeds from it.

It is a common observation, that the ordinary thermometer will be affected by the breathing of people who are in the room where it stands; and indeed, it is almost incredible to conceive how the glass I am now describing will fall by the breath of a multitude crying "Popery"; or on the contrary, how it will rise when the same multitude (as it sometimes happens) cry out in the same breath, "The Church is in danger."