The Tatler, Volume 3

No. 173

——Sapientia prima est

Stultitia caruisse.—Hor., I Ep. i. 41.

When I first began to learn to push265 this last winter, my master had a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"266 was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers. The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt. In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains. I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you would stand in admiration."–"I assure you," continued she, "for all he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:

and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar. I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed. But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made generous in Æneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of Lalage was what pleased Horace;268 and I verily believe, the stripes I suffered about digito male pertinaci269 has given that irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against coquettes.

As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him, they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say, there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies, and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time. All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table; but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which they were uttered.

No. 174

Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri,

Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex

Autumat.—Hor., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service.270

We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham.271 These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such literati as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.

It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college272 (who have long inhabited this quarter), in the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may have time to give him his broth without danger.

But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom the other talks to.

The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent. Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others.

To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions. This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.

This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agreeable.

My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr. Kidney,273 with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view.

This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:

From the Camp before Douay,274 May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and their left near Crevecœur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the 24th, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry and Isez-Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, from Lille and Tournay, and the canals and dykes we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from the right, to possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circumvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left towards Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and Liège troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle: but if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because in our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults both our siege and convoys.

Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed will have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to assist in council.

Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the avant fossé at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in three or four days batteries will be raised on the glacis, to batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town.

Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of the States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd, to renew the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the 26th, and had communicated to the States-General the new overtures that were made on the part of France, which it is believed, if they are in earnest, may produce a general treaty.

No. 175

In the distribution of the apartments in the new Bedlam, proper regard is had to the different sexes, and the lodgings accommodated accordingly. Among other necessaries, as I have thought fit to appoint storytellers to soothe the men, so I have allowed tale-bearers to indulge the intervals of my female patients. But before I enter upon disposing of the main of the great body that wants my assistance, it is necessary to consider the human race abstracted from all other distinctions and considerations except that of sex. This will lead us to a nearer view of their excellences and imperfections, which are to be accounted the one or the other, as they are suitable to the design for which the persons so defective or accomplished came into the world.

To make this inquiry aright, we must speak of the life of people of condition, and the proportionable applications to those below them will be easily made, so as to value the whole species by the same rule. We will begin with the woman, and behold her as a virgin in her father's house. This state of her life is infinitely more delightful than that of her brother at the same age. While she is entertained with learning melodious airs at her spinet, is led round a room in the most complaisant manner to a fiddle, who is entertained with applauses of her beauty and perfection in the ordinary conversation she meets with: the young man is under the dictates of a rigid schoolmaster or instructor, contradicted in every word he speaks, and curbed in all the inclinations he discovers. Mrs. Elizabeth is the object of desire and admiration, looked upon with delight, courted with all the powers of eloquence and address, approached with a certain worship, and defended with a certain loyalty. This is her case as to the world: in her domestic character, she is the companion, the friend, and confidante of her mother, and the object of a pleasure something like the love between angels, to her father. Her youth, her beauty, her air, are by him looked upon with an ineffable transport beyond any other joy in this life, with as much purity as can be met with in the next.

Her brother William, at the same years, is but in the rudiments of those acquisitions which must gain him esteem in the world. His heart beats for applause among men, yet is he fearful of every step towards it. If he proposes to himself to make a figure in the world, his youth is damped with a prospect of difficulties, dangers, and dishonours; and an opposition in all generous attempts, whether they regard his love or his ambition.

In the next stage of life she has little else to do, but (what she is accomplished for by the mere gifts of nature) to appear lovely and agreeable to her husband, tender to her children, and affable to her servants: but a man, when he enters into this way, is but in the first scene, far from the accomplishment of his designs. He is now in all things to act for others as well as himself. He is to have industry and frugality in his private affairs, and integrity and addresses in public. To these qualities, he must add a courage and resolution to support his other abilities, lest he be interrupted in the prosecution of his just endeavours, in which the honour and interest of posterity are as much concerned as his own personal welfare.

This little sketch may in some measure give an idea of the different parts which the sexes have to act, and the advantageous as well as inconvenient terms on which they are to enter upon their several parts of life. This may also be some rule to us in the examination of their conduct. In short, I shall take it for a maxim, that a woman who resigns the purpose of being pleasing, and the man who gives up the thoughts of being wise, do equally quit their claim to the true causes of living; and are to be allowed the diet and discipline of my charitable structure to reduce them to reason.

On the other side, the woman who hopes to please by methods which should make her odious, and the man who would be thought wise by a behaviour that renders him ridiculous, are to be taken into custody for their false industry, as justly as they ought for their negligence.

N.B. Mr. Bickerstaff is taken extremely ill with the toothache, and cannot proceed in this discourse.

Advices from Flanders of the 30th instant, N.S., say, that the Duke of Marlborough having intelligence of the enemy's passing the Scarp on the 29th in the evening, and their march towards the plains of Lens, had put the Confederate army in motion, which was advancing towards the camp on the north side of that river between Vitry and Henin-Lietard. The Confederates, since the approach of the enemy, have added several new redoubts to their camp, and drawn the cannon out of the lines of circumvallation in a readiness for the batteries.

It is not believed, notwithstanding these appearances, that the enemy will hazard a battle for the relief of Douay; the siege of which place is carried on with all the success that can be expected, considering the difficulties they meet with occasioned by the inundations. On the 28th at night we made a lodgment on the salient angle of the glacis of the second counterscarp, and our approaches are so far advanced, that it is believed the town will be obliged to surrender before the 8th of the next month.

No. 176

Nul lum numen abest, si sit Prudentia.

This evening, after a little ease from the raging pain caused by so small an organ as an aching tooth, under which I had behaved myself so ill as to have broke two pipes and my spectacles, I began to reflect with admiration on those heroic spirits, which in the conduct of their lives seem to live so much above the condition of our make, as not only under the agonies of pain to forbear any intemperate word or gesture, but also in their general and ordinary behaviour to resist the impulses of their very blood and constitution. This watch over a man's self, and the command of his temper, I take to be the greatest of human perfections, and is the effect of a strong and resolute mind. It is not only the most expedient practice for carrying on our own designs, but is also very deservedly the most amiable quality in the sight of others. It is a winning deference to mankind, which creates an immediate imitation of itself whenever it appears, and prevails upon all (who have to do with a person endued with it) either through shame or emulation. I do not know how to express this habit of mind, except you will let me call it equanimity. It is a virtue, which is necessary at every hour, in every place, and in all conversations, and is the effect of a regular and exact prudence. He that will look back upon all the acquaintances he has had in his whole life, will find he has seen more men capable of the greatest employments and performances, than such as could in the general bent of their carriage act otherwise than according to their own complexion and humour. But the indulgence of ourselves in wholly giving way to our natural propensity, is so unjust and improper a licence, that when people take it up, there is very little difference, with relation to their friends and families, whether they are good- or ill-natured men: for he that errs by being wrought upon by what we call the sweetness of his temper, is as guilty as he that offends through the perverseness of it.