The Tatler, Volume 1

May 5

When a man has engaged to keep a stage-coach, he is obliged, whether he has passengers or not, to set out: thus it fares with us weekly historians; but indeed, for my particular, I hope I shall soon have little more to do in this work, than to publish what is sent me from such as have leisure and capacity for giving delight, and being pleased in an elegant manner. The present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect, that we should rise in our public diversions, and manner of enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power. Instead of that, take and survey this town, and you'll find, rakes and debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists, and illiterate drunkards, call themselves free thinkers; and gamesters, banterers, biters,180 swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in their several species, the modern men of wit. Hence it is, that a man who has been out of town but one half-year, has lost the language, and must have some friend to stand by him, and keep him in countenance for talking common sense. To-day I saw a short interlude at White's of this nature, which I took notes of, and put together as well as I could in a public place. The persons of the drama are, Pip, the last gentleman that has been made so at cards; Trimmer, a person half undone at them, and is now between a cheat and a gentleman; Acorn, an honest Englishman, of good plain sense and meaning; and Mr. Friendly, a reasonable man of the town.

White's Chocolate-house, May 5

AC. What's the matter, gentlemen? What! Take no notice of an old friend?

PIP. Pox on it! don't talk to me, I am voweled by the Count, and cursedly out of humour.

AC. Voweled! Prithee, Trimmer, what does he mean by that?

TRIM. Have a care, Harry, speak softly; don't show your ignorance:—If you do, they'll bite you where-e'er they meet you; they are such cursed curs,—the present wits.

AC. Bite me! What do you mean?

PIP. Why! Don't you know what biting is? Nay, you are in the right on it. However, one would learn it only to defend oneself against men of wit, as one would know the tricks of play, to be secure against the cheats. But don't you hear, Acorn, that report, that some potentates of the Alliance have taken care of themselves, exclusive of us?

AC. How! Heaven forbid! After all our glorious victories; all this expense of blood and treasure!

PIP. Bite—

AC. Bite! How?

TRIM. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough; that's certain.

AC. Pox! I don't feel it—how? Where?

AC. Ho! Mr. Friendly, your most humble servant; you heard what passed between those fine gentlemen and me. Pip complained to me, that he has been voweled; and they tell me, I am bit.

FRIEND. You are to understand, sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in the world; and in the room of it, there are started a thousand little inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of it. Thus, for every character in conversation that used to please, there is an impostor put upon you. Him whom we allowed formerly for a certain pleasant subtilty, and natural way of giving you an unexpected hit, called a droll, is now mimicked by a biter, who is a dull fellow, that tells you a lie with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him. Instead of that sort of companion, who could rally you, and keep his countenance, till he made you fall into some little inconsistency of behaviour, at which you yourself could laugh with him, you have the sneerer, who will keep you company from morning to night, to gather your follies of the day (which perhaps you commit out of confidence in him), and expose you in the evening to all the scorners in town. For your man of sense and free spirit, whose set of thoughts were built upon learning, reason, and experience, you have now an impudent creature made up of vice only, who supports his ignorance by his courage, and want of learning by contempt of it.

AC. Dear sir, hold: what you have told me already of this change in conversation, is too miserable to be heard with any delight; but, methinks, as these new creatures appear in the world, it might give an excellent field to writers for the stage, to divert us with the representation of them there.

FRIEND. No, no: as you say, there might be some hopes of redress of these grievances, if there were proper care taken of the theatre; but the history of that is yet more lamentable than that of the decay of conversation I gave you.

AC. Pray, sir, a little: I haven't been in town these six years, till within this fortnight.

FRIEND. It is now some years since several revolutions in the gay world had made the empire of the stage subject to very fatal convulsions, which were too dangerous to be cured by the skill of little King Oberon,181 who then sat in the throne of it. The laziness of this prince threw him upon the choice of a person who was fit to spend his life in contentions, an able and profound attorney, to whom he mortgaged his whole empire. This Divito182 is the most skilful of all politicians: he has a perfect art in being unintelligible in discourse, and uncomeatable in business. But he having no understanding in this polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder-dancers,183 rope-dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakespeare's heroes, and Jonson's humorists. When the seat of wit was thus mortgaged, without equity of redemption, an architect184 arose, who has built the muse a new palace, but secured her no retinue; so that instead of action there, we have been put off by song and dance. This latter help of sound has also begun to fail for want of voices; therefore the palace has since been put into the hands of a surgeon,185 who cuts any foreign fellow into an eunuch, and passes him upon us for a singer of Italy.

AC. I'll go out of town to-morrow.

FRIEND.186 Things are come to this pass; and yet the world will not understand, that the theatre has much the same effect on the manners of the age, as the bank on the credit of the nation. Wit and spirit, humour and good sense, can never be revived, but under the government of those who are judges of such talents, who know, that whatever is put up in their stead, is but a short and trifling expedient, to support the appearance of them for a season. It is possible, a peace will give leisure to put these matters under new regulations; but at present, all the assistance we can see towards our recovery, is as far from giving us help, as a poultice is from performing what can be done only by the Grand Elixir.

Will's Coffee-house, May 6

According to our late design in the applauded verses on the Morning,187 which you lately had from hence, we proceed to improve that just intention, and present you with other labours, made proper to the place in which they were written. The following poem comes from Copenhagen, and is as fine a winter-piece as we have ever had from any of the schools of the most learned painters. Such images as these give us a new pleasure in our sight, and fix upon our minds traces of reflection, which accompany us whenever the like objects occur. In short, excellent poetry and description dwell upon us so agreeably, that all the readers of them are made to think, if not write, like men of wit. But it would be injury to detain you longer from this excellent performance, which is addressed to the Earl of Dorset by Mr. Philips,188 the author of several choice poems in Mr. Tonson's new Miscellany.189

From my own Apartment, May 6

There has a mail this day arrived from Holland; but the matter of the advices importing rather what gives us great expectations, than any positive assurances, I shall, for this time, decline giving you what I know, and apply the following verses of Mr. Dryden, in the second part of "Almanzor," to the present circumstances of things, without discovering what my knowledge in astronomy suggests to me.

From my own Apartment, May 8

Much hurry and business had 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 would 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 1st 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 mere 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,

entered Philander,192 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 almost had 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, and she will remember that evening nine months, from the 6th of April, by a very remarkable token. The next, as I said, I went to was a common swearer: never was 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, a pox rot me! Where is the washball? Call the chairmen: damn them, I warrant they are at the ale-house 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, 'Oddsbodikins!' '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." This ended our first discourse; and it is hoped, 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.

St. James's Coffee-house, May 9

We hear from the Hague of the 14th instant, N.S., that Monsieur de Torcy hath had frequent conferences with the Grand Pensioner, and the other Ministers who were heretofore commissioned to treat with Monsieur Rouillé. The preliminaries of a peace are almost settled, and the proceedings wait only for the arrival of the Duke of Marlborough; after whose approbation of the articles proposed, it is not doubted but the methods of the treaty will be publicly known. In the meantime, the States have declared an abhorrence of making any step in this great affair, but in concert with the Court of Great Britain, and other princes of the Alliance. The posture of affairs in France does necessarily oblige that nation to be very much in earnest in their offers; and Monsieur de Torcy hath professed to the Grand Pensioner, that he will avoid all occasions of giving him the least jealousy of his using any address in private conversations for accomplishing the ends of his embassy. It is said, that as soon as the preliminaries are adjusted, that Minister is to return to the French Court. The States of Holland have resolved to make it an instruction to all their men-of-war and privateers, to bring into their ports whatever neutral ships they shall meet with laden with corn, and bound for France; and to avoid all cause of complaint from the potentates to whom these ships shall belong, their full demand for their freight shall be paid them there. The French Protestants residing in that country have applied themselves to their respective magistrates, desiring that there may be an article in the treaty of peace, which may give liberty of conscience to the Protestants in France. Monsieur Bosnage, minister of the Walloon church at Rotterdam, has been at the Hague and hath had some conferences with the deputies of the States on that subject. It is reported there, that all the French refugees in those dominions are to be naturalised, that they may enjoy the same good effects of the treaty with the Hollanders themselves, in respect of France.

Letters from Paris say, the people conceive great hopes of a sudden peace, from Monsieur Torcy's being employed in the negotiation, he being a Minister of too great weight in that Court, to be sent on any employment in which his master would not act in a manner wherein he might justly promise himself success. The French advices add, that there is an insurrection in Poictou; 3000 men having taken up arms, and beaten the troops which were appointed to disperse them: three of the mutineers being taken, were immediately executed; and as many of the king's party were used after the same manner.