The Tatler, Volume 3

No. 177

—Male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.

The ingenious Mr. Penkethman,278 the comedian, has lately left here a paper or ticket, to which is affixed a small silver medal, which is to entitle the bearer to see one-and-twenty plays at his theatre for a guinea. Greenwich is the place where, it seems, he has erected his house; and his time of action is to be so contrived, that it is to fall in with going and returning with the tide: besides, that the bearer of this ticket may carry down with him a particular set of company to the play, striking off for each person so introduced one of his twenty-one times of admittance. In this warrant of his, he has made me a high compliment in a facetious distich, by way of dedication of his endeavours, and desires I would recommend them to the world. I must needs say, I have not for some time seen a properer choice than he has made of a patron: who more fit to publish his work than a novelist279? who to recommend it than a censor? This honour done me, has made me turn my thoughts upon the nature of dedications in general, and the abuse of that custom, as well by a long practice of my predecessors, as the continued folly of my contemporary authors.

In ancient times, it was the custom to address their works to some eminent for their merit to mankind, or particular patronage of the writers themselves, or knowledge in the matter of which they treated. Under these regards, it was a memorable honour to both parties, and a very agreeable record of their commerce with each other. These applications were never stuffed with impertinent praises, but were the native product of their esteem, which was implicitly received, or generally known to be due to the patron of the work: but vain flourishes came into the world, with other barbarous embellishments; and the enumeration of titles, and great actions, in the patrons themselves, or their sires, are as foreign to the matter in hand as the ornaments are in a Gothic building. This is clapping together persons which have no manner of alliance, and can for that reason have no other effect than making both parties justly ridiculous. What pretence is there in Nature for me to write to a great man, and tell him, "My lord, because your Grace is a duke, your Grace's father before you was an earl, his lordship's father was a baron, and his lordship's father both a wise and a rich man, I, Isaac Bickerstaff, am obliged, and could not possibly forbear addressing to you the following treatise." Though this is the plain exposition of all I could possibly say to him with a good conscience, yet the silly custom has so universally prevailed, that my lord duke and I must necessarily be particular friends from this time forward, or else I have just room for being disobliged, and may turn my panegyric into a libel. But to carry this affair still more home, were it granted that praises in dedications were proper topics, what is it that gives a man authority to commend, or what makes it a favour to me that he does commend me? It is certain, that there is no praise valuable but from the praiseworthy. Were it otherwise, blame might be as much in the same hands. Were the good and evil of fame laid upon a level among mankind, the judge on the bench, and the criminal at the bar, would differ only in their stations; and if one's word is to pass as much as the other's, their reputation would be much alike to the jury. Pliny,280 speaking of the death of Martial, expresses himself with great gratitude to him for the honours done him in the writings of that author; but he begins it with an account of his character, which only made the applause valuable. He indeed in the same Epistle says, it is a sign we have left off doing things which deserve praise, when we think commendation impertinent. This is asserted with a just regard to the persons whose good opinion we wish for; otherwise reputation would be valued according to the number of voices a man has for it, which are not always to be insured on the more virtuous side. But however we pretend to model these nice affairs, true glory will never attend anything but truth; and there is something so peculiar in it, that the very self-same action done by different men cannot merit the same degree of applause. The Roman, who was surprised in the enemy's camp before he had accomplished his design, and thrust his bare arm into a flaming pile, telling the general, there were many as determined as himself who (against sense of danger) had conspired his death, wrought in the very enemy an admiration of his fortitude, and a dismission with applause.281 But the condemned slave who represented him in the theatre, and consumed his arm in the same manner, with the same resolution, did not raise in the spectators a great idea of his virtue, but of him whom he imitated in an action no way differing from that of the real Scævola, but in the motive to it.

Thus true glory is inseparable from true merit, and whatever you call men, they are no more than what they are in themselves; but a romantic sense has crept into the minds of the generality, who will ever mistake words and appearances for persons and things.

The simplicity of the ancients was as conspicuous in the address of their writings, as in any other monuments they have left behind them. Cæsar and Augustus were much more high words of respect, when added to occasions fit for their characters to appear in, than any appellations which have ever been since thought of. The latter of these great men had a very pleasant way of dealing with applications of this kind. When he received pieces of poetry which he thought had worth in them, he rewarded the writer; but where he thought them empty, he generally returned the compliment made him with some verses of his own.

This latter method I have at present occasion to imitate. A female author has dedicated a piece to me,282 wherein she would make my name (as she has others) the introduction of whatever is to follow in her book; and has spoke some panegyrical things which I know not how to return, for want of better acquaintance with the lady, and consequently being out of a capacity of giving her praise or blame. All therefore that is left for me, according to the foregoing rules, is to lay the picture of a good and evil woman before her eyes, which are but mere words if they do not concern her. Now you are to observe, the way in a dedication is to make all the rest of the world as little like the person we address to as possible, according to the following epistle:

"Madam, "But, M–

No. 178

When we look into the delightful history of the most ingenious Don Quixote of the Mancha, and consider the exercises and manner of life of that renowned gentleman, we cannot but admire the exquisite genius and discerning spirit of Michael Cervantes, who has not only painted his adventurer with great mastery in the conspicuous parts of his story, which relate to love and honour, but also intimated in his ordinary life, economy, and furniture, the infallible symptoms he gave of his growing frenzy, before he declared himself a knight-errant. His hall was furnished with old lances, halberds, and morions; his food, lentils; his dress, amorous. He slept moderately, rose early, and spent his time in hunting. When by watchfulness and exercise he was thus qualified for the hardships of his intended peregrinations, he had nothing more to do but to fall hard to study; and before he should apply himself to the practical part, get into the methods of making love and war by reading books of knighthood. As for raising tender passion in him, Cervantes reports284 that he was wonderfully delighted with a smooth intricate sentence; and when they listened at his study-door, they could frequently hear him read aloud, "The reason of the unreasonableness, which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with all reason I do justly complain on your beauty." Again, he would pause till he came to another charming sentence, and with the most pleasing accent imaginable be loud at a new paragraph: "The high heavens, which, with your divinity, do fortify you divinely with the stars, make you deserveress of the deserts that your greatness deserves." With these, and other such passages (says my author) the poor gentleman grew distracted, and was breaking his brains day and night to understand and unravel their sense.

As much as the case of this distempered knight is received by all the readers of his history as the most incurable and ridiculous of all phrensies, it is very certain we have crowds among us far gone in as visible a madness as his, though they are not observed to be in that condition. As great and useful discoveries are sometimes made by accidental and small beginnings, I came to the knowledge of the most epidemic ill of this sort, by falling into a coffee-house where I saw my friend the upholsterer,285 whose crack286 towards politics I have heretofore mentioned. This touch in the brain of the British subject is as certainly owing to the reading newspapers, as that of the Spanish worthy above mentioned to the reading works of chivalry. My contemporaries the novelists287 have, for the better spinning out paragraphs, and working down to the end of their columns, a most happy art in saying and unsaying, giving hints of intelligence, and interpretations of indifferent actions, to the great disturbance of the brains of ordinary readers. This way of going on in the words, and making no progress in the sense, is more particularly the excellence of my most ingenious and renowned fellow-labourer, the Postman288; and it is to this talent in him that I impute the loss of my upholsterer's intellects. That unfortunate tradesman has for years past been the chief orator in ragged assemblies, and the reader in alley coffee-houses. He was yesterday surrounded by an audience of that sort, among whom I sat unobserved through the favour of a cloud of tobacco, and saw him with the Postman in his hand, and all the other papers safe under his left elbow. He was intermixing remarks, and reading the Paris article of May 30, which says that "it is given out that an express arrived this day, with advice, that the armies were so near in the plain of Lens, that they cannonaded each other." ("Ay, ay, here we shall have sport.") "And that it was highly probable the next express would bring us an account of an engagement." ("They are welcome as soon as they please.") "Though some others say, that the same will be put off till the 2nd or 3rd of June, because the Marshal Villars expects some further reinforcements from Germany, and other parts, before that time." ("What-a-pox does he put it off for? Does he think our horse is not marching up at the same time? But let us see what he says further.") "They hope that Monsieur Albergotti,289 being encouraged by the presence of so great an army, will make an extraordinary defence." ("Why then I find, Albergotti is one of those that love to have a great many on their side. Nay, I'll say that for this paper, he makes the most natural inferences of any of them all.") "The Elector of Bavaria being uneasy to be without any command, has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project, if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon us, he goes upon sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")

What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have secured him from. Next to the labours of the Postman, the upholsterer took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' Letter,290 and there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr. Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday, we shall not stand upon the day291 with them, whether it be before or after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read in print. But Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence, which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish," says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them." Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment292 of the idea from what has been told us from the press by others. This wishing a good tide had its effect upon us, and he was commended for his salutation, as showing as well the capacity of a bellman as an historian. My distempered old acquaintance read in the next place the account of the affairs abroad in the Courant;293 but the matter was told so distinctly, that these wanderers thought there was no news in it; this paper differing from the rest as a history from a romance. The tautology, the contradictions, the doubts, and wants of confirmations, are what keep up imaginary entertainments in empty heads, and produce neglect of their own affairs, poverty, and bankruptcy, in many of the shop-statesmen; but turn the imaginations of those of a little higher orb into deliriums of dissatisfaction, which is seen in a continual fret upon all that touches their brains, but more particularly upon any advantage obtained by their country, where they are considered as lunatics, and therefore tolerated in their ravings.

What I am now warning the people of is, that the newspapers of this island are as pernicious to weak heads in England as ever books of chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the utmost care and vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing evils. A flaming instance of this malady appeared in my old acquaintance at this time, who, after he had done reading all his papers, ended with a thoughtful air, "If we should have a peace, we should then know for certain whether it was the King of Sweden that lately came to Dunkirk." I whispered him, and desired him to step aside a little with me. When I had opportunity, I decoyed him into a coach, in order for his more easy conveyance to Moorfields. The man went very quietly with me; and by that time he had brought the Swede from the defeat by the Czar to the Boristhenes, we were passing by Will's Coffeehouse, where the man of the house beckoned to us. We made a full stop, and could hear from above a very loud voice swearing, with some expressions towards treason, that the subject in France was as free as in England. His distemper would not let him reflect, that his own discourse was an argument of the contrary. They told him, one would speak with him below. He came immediately to our coach-side. I whispered him, that I had an order to carry him to the Bastile. He immediately obeyed with great resignation: for to this sort of lunatic, whose brain is touched for the French, the name of a gaol in that kingdom has a more agreeable sound than that of a paternal seat in this their own country. It happened a little unluckily bringing these lunatics together, for they immediately fell into a debate concerning the greatness of their respective monarchs; one for the King of Sweden, the other for the Grand Monarch of France. This gentleman from Will's is now next door to the upholsterer, safe in his apartment in my Bedlam, with proper medicaments, and the Mercure Galant294 to soothe his imagination that he is actually in France. If therefore he should escape to Covent Garden again, all persons are desired to lay hold of him, and deliver him to Mr. Morphew, my overseer. At the same time, I desire all true subjects to forbear discourse with him, any otherwise than when he begins to fight a battle for France, to say, "Sir, I hope to see you in England."

No. 179

——O! quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi

Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra?

In this parched season, next to the pleasure of going into the country, is that of hearing from it, and partaking the joys of it in description, as in the following letter:

"Sir,

"I believe you will forgive me, though I write to you a very long epistle, since it relates to the satisfaction of a country life, which I know you would lead, if you could. In the first place I must confess to you, that I am one of the most luxurious men living; and as I am such, I take care to make my pleasures lasting, by following none but such as are innocent and refined, as well as, in some measure, improving. You have in your labours been so much concerned to represent the actions and passions of mankind, that the whole vegetable world has almost escaped your observation: but sure there are gratifications to be drawn from thence, which deserve to be recommended. For your better information, I wish you could visit your old friend in Cornwall: you would be leased to see the many alterations I have made about my house, and how much I have improved my estate without raising the rents of it.