The Tatler (Vol 4)

"Being now of great credit and antiquity, I was rather looked upon as a medal than an ordinary coin; for which reason a gamester laid hold of me, and converted me to a counter, having got together some dozens of us for that use. We led a melancholy life in his possession, being busy at those hours wherein current coin is at rest, and partaking the fate of our master, being in a few moments valued at a crown, a pound, or a sixpence, according to the situation in which the fortune of the cards placed us. I had at length the good luck to see my master break, by which means I was again sent abroad under my primitive denomination of a shilling.

"I shall pass over many other accidents of less moment, and hasten to that fatal catastrophe when I fell into the hands of an artist, who conveyed me under ground, and with an unmerciful pair of shears cut off my titles, clipped my brims, retrenched my shape, rubbed me to my inmost ring, and, in short, so spoiled and pillaged me, that he did not leave me worth a groat. You may think what a confusion I was in to see myself thus curtailed and disfigured. I should have been ashamed to have shown my head, had not all my old acquaintance been reduced to the same shameful figure, excepting some few that were punched through the belly. In the midst of this general calamity, when everybody thought our misfortune irretrievable, and our case desperate, we were thrown into the furnace together, and (as it often happens with cities rising out of a fire) appeared with greater beauty and lustre than we could ever boast of before. What has happened to me since the change of sex which you now see, I shall take some other opportunity to relate. In the meantime I shall only repeat two adventures, as being very extraordinary, and neither of them having ever happened to me above once in my life. The first was, my being in a poet's pocket, who was so taken with the brightness and novelty of my appearance, that it gave occasion to the finest burlesque poem in the British language, entitled from me, 'The Splendid Shilling.'184 The second adventure, which I must not omit, happened to me in the year 1703, when I was given away in charity to a blind man; but indeed this was by a mistake, the person who gave me having heedlessly thrown me into the hat among a pennyworth of farthings."

No. 250. [Addison.

From Saturday, Nov. 11, to Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1710

Scis etenim justum gemina suspendere lanceAncipitis libræ. —Pers., Sat. iv. 10.From my own Apartment, Nov. 13

I last winter erected a Court of Justice for the correcting of several enormities in dress and behaviour, which are not cognisable in any other courts of this realm. The vintner's case185 which I there tried is still fresh in every man's memory. That of the petticoat186 gave also a general satisfaction, not to mention the more important points of the cane and perspective;187 in which, if I did not give judgments and decrees according to the strictest rules of equity and justice, I can safely say, I acted according to the best of my understanding. But as for the proceedings of that court, I shall refer my reader to an account of them, written by my secretary, which is now in the press, and will shortly be published under the title of "Lillie's188 Reports."

As I last year presided over a Court of Justice, it is my intention this year to set myself at the head of a Court of Honour. There is no court of this nature anywhere at present, except in France, where, according to the best of my intelligence, it consists of such only as are marshals of that kingdom. I am likewise informed, that there is not one of that honourable board at present who has not been driven out of the field by the Duke of Marlborough; but whether this be only an accidental or a necessary qualification, I must confess I am not able to determine.

As for the Court of Honour of which I am here speaking, I intend to sit myself in it as president, with several men of honour on my right hand, and women of virtue on my left, as my assistants. The first place of the bench I have given to an old Tangerine captain with a wooden leg. The second is a gentleman of a long twisted periwig without a curl in it, a muff with very little hair upon it, and a threadbare coat with new buttons, being a person of great worth, and second brother to a man of quality. The third is a gentleman-usher, extremely well read in romances, and grandson to one of the greatest wits in Germany, who was some time master of the ceremonies to the Duke of Wolfembuttel.

As for those who sit farther on my right hand, as it is usual in public courts, they are such as will fill up the number of faces upon the bench, and serve rather for ornament than use.189

The chief upon my left hand are, an old maiden lady, that preserves some of the best blood of England in her veins.

A Welsh woman of a little stature, but high spirit.

An old prude that has censured every marriage for these thirty years, and is lately wedded to a young rake.

Having thus furnished my bench, I shall establish correspondencies with the Horse Guards, and the veterans of Chelsea College; the former to furnish me with twelve men of honour as often as I shall have occasion for a grand jury, and the latter with as many good men and true for a petty jury.

As for the women of virtue, it will not be difficult for me to find them about midnight at crimp and basset.

Having given this public notice of my court, I must further add, that I intend to open it on this day sevennight, being Monday the twentieth instant; and do hereby invite all such as have suffered injuries and affronts that are not to be redressed by the common laws of this land, whether they be short bows, cold salutations, supercilious looks, unreturned smiles, distant behaviour, or forced familiarity; as also all such as have been aggrieved by any ambiguous expression, accidental jostle, or unkind repartee; likewise all such as have been defrauded of their right to the wall, tricked out of the upper end of the table, or have been suffered to place themselves in their own wrong on the back seat of the coach: these, and all of these, I do, as I above said, invite to bring in their several cases and complaints, in which they shall be relieved with all imaginable expedition.

I am very sensible, that the office I have now taken upon me will engage me in the disquisition of many weighty points that daily perplex the youth of the British nation, and therefore I have already discussed several of them for my future use; as, How far a man may brandish his cane in the telling a story, without insulting his hearer? What degree of contradiction amounts to the lie? How a man should resent another's staring and cocking a hat in his face? If asking pardon is an atonement for treading upon one's toes? Whether a man may put up [with] a box on the ear received from a stranger in the dark? Or, Whether a man of honour may take a blow off his wife? With several other subtleties of the like nature.

For my direction in the duties of my office, I have furnished myself with a certain astrological pair of scales which I have contrived for this purpose. In one of them I lay the injuries, in the other the reparations. The first are represented by little weights made of a metal resembling iron, and the other in gold. These are not only lighter than the weights made use of in avoirdupois, but also than such as are used in troy weight. The heaviest of those that represent the injuries amount but to a scruple; and decrease by so many subdivisions, that there are several imperceptible weights which cannot be seen without the help of a very fine microscope. I might acquaint my reader, that these scales were made under the influence of the sun when he was in Libra, and describe many signatures on the weights both of injury and reparation: but as this would look rather to proceed from an ostentation of my own art than any care for the public, I shall pass it over in silence.

The letter of the 7th instant, inquired for by another of the 11th, came to hand.

No. 251. [Steele.

From Tuesday, Nov. 14, to Thursday, Nov. 16, 1710

Quisnam igitur liber? Sapiens, sibi qui imperiosus,Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula, terrent:Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honoresFortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus,Externi ne quid valeat per leve morari;In quem manca ruit semper fortuna. —Hor., 2 Sat. vii. 83.From my own Apartment, Nov. 15

It is necessary to an easy and happy life, to possess our minds in such a manner as to be always well satisfied with our own reflections. The way to this state is to measure our actions by our own opinion, and not by that of the rest of the world. The sense of other men ought to prevail over us in things of less consideration, but not in concerns where truth and honour are engaged. When we look into the bottom of things, what at first appears a paradox is a plain truth; and those possessions which, for want of being duly weighed, seem to proceed from a sort of romantic philosophy, and ignorance of the world, after a little reflection are so reasonable, that it is direct madness to walk by any other rules. Thus to contradict our desires, and to conquer the impulses of our ambition, if they do not fall in with what we in our inward sentiments approve, is so much our interest, and so absolutely necessary to our real happiness, that to contemn all the wealth and power in the world, where they stand in competition with a man's honour, is rather good sense than greatness of mind.

Did we consider that the mind of a man is the man himself, we should think it the most unnatural sort of self-murder to sacrifice the sentiment of the soul to gratify the appetites of the body. Bless us! Is it possible, that when the necessities of life are supplied, a man would flatter to be rich, or circumvent to be powerful? When we meet a poor wretch urged with hunger and cold asking an alms, we are apt to think this a state we could rather starve than submit to: but yet how much more despicable is his condition who is above necessity, and yet shall resign his reason and his integrity to purchase superfluities? These are both abject and common beggars; but sure it is less despicable to beg a supply to a man's hunger than his vanity. But custom and general prepossessions have so far prevailed over an unthinking world, that those necessitous creatures who cannot relish life without applause, attendance, and equipage, are so far from making a contemptible figure, that distressed virtue is less esteemed than successful vice. But if a man's appeal in cases that regarded his honour were made to his own soul, there would be a basis and standing rule for our conduct, and we should always endeavour rather to be than appear honourable. Mr. Collier, in his essay on Fortitude,190 has treated this subject with great wit and magnanimity. "What," says he, "can be more honourable than to have courage enough to execute the commands of reason and conscience; to maintain the dignity of our nature, and the station assigned us? To be proof against poverty, pain, and death itself? I mean so far as not to do anything that is scandalous or sinful to avoid them? To stand adversity under all shapes with decency and resolution? To do this, is to be great above title and fortune. This argues the soul of a heavenly extraction, and is worthy the offspring of the Deity."

What a generous ambition has this man pointed to us? When men have settled in themselves a conviction by such noble precepts, that there is nothing honourable that is not accompanied with innocence; nothing mean but what has guilt in it; I say, when they have attained thus much, though poverty, pain, and death may still retain their terrors, yet riches, pleasures, and honours will easily lose their charms, if they stand between us and our integrity.

What is here said with allusion to fortune and fame, may as justly be applied to wit and beauty; for these latter are as adventitious as the other, and as little concern the essence of the soul. They are all laudable in the man who possesses them only for the just application of them. A bright imagination, while it is subservient to an honest and noble soul, is a faculty which makes a man justly admired by mankind, and furnishes him with reflections upon his own actions, which add delicates to the feast of a good conscience: but when wit descends to wait upon sensual pleasures, or promote the base purposes of ambition, it is then to be contemned in proportion to its excellence. If a man will not resolve to place the foundation of his happiness in his own mind, life is a bewildered and unhappy state, incapable of rest or tranquillity: for to such a one the general applause of valour, wit, nay of honesty itself, can give him but a very feeble comfort, since it is capable of being interrupted by any one who wants either understanding or good-nature to see or acknowledge such excellences. This rule is so necessary, that one may very safely say, it is impossible to know any true relish of our being without it. Look about you in common life among the ordinary race of mankind, and you will find merit in every kind is allowed only to those who are in particular districts or sets of company: but since men can have little pleasure in these faculties which denominate them persons of distinction, let them give up such an empty pursuit, and think nothing essential to happiness but what is in their own power, the capacity of reflecting with pleasure on their own actions, however they are interpreted.

It is so evident a truth, that it is only in our own bosoms we are to search for anything to make us happy, that it is, methinks, a disgrace to our nature to talk of the taking our measures from thence only as a matter of fortitude. When all is well there, the vicissitudes and distinctions of life are the mere scenes of a drama, and he will never act his part well who has his thoughts more fixed upon the applause of the audience than the design of his part.

The life of a man who acts with a steady integrity, without valuing the interpretation of his actions, has but one uniform regular path to move in, where he cannot meet opposition, or fear ambuscade. On the other side, the least deviation from the rules of honour introduces a train of numberless evils, and involves him in inexplicable mazes. He that has entered into guilt has bid adieu to rest, and every criminal has his share of the misery expressed so emphatically in the tragedian:191

Macbeth shall sleep no more! 192

It was with detestation of any other grandeur but the calm command of his own passion, that the excellent Mr. Cowley cries out with so much justice:

If e'er ambition did my fancy cheatWith any thought so mean as to be great,Continue, Heaven, still from me to removeThe humble blessings of that life I love. 193

No. 252. [Steele.

From Thursday, Nov. 16 to Saturday, Nov. 18, 1710

Narratur et prisci CatonisSæpe mero caluisse virtus.Hor., 3 Od. xxi. 11.From my own Apartment, Nov. 17

The following letter, and several others to the same purpose, accuse me of a rigour of which I am far from being guilty, to wit, the disallowing the cheerful use of wine.

"From my Country-house,Oct. 25.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"Your discourse against drinking, in Tuesday's Tatler,194 I like well enough in the main; but in my humble opinion, you are become too rigid where you say to this effect: 'Were there only this single consideration, that we are the less masters of ourselves if we drink the least proportion beyond the exigence of thirst.' I hope no one drinks wine to allay this appetite. This seems to be designed for a loftier indulgence of Nature; for it were hard to suppose, that the Author of Nature, who imposed upon her her necessities and pains, does not allow her her pleasures, and we may reckon among the latter the moderate use of the grape: and though I am as much against excess, or whatever approaches it, as yourself, yet I conceive one may safely go further than the bounds you there prescribe, not only without forfeiting the title of being one's own master, but also to possess it in a much greater degree. If a man's expressing himself upon any subject with more life and vivacity, more variety of ideas, more copiously, more fluently, and more to the purpose, argues it, he thinks clearer, speaks more ready, and with greater choice of comprehensive and significant terms. I have the good fortune now to be intimate with a gentleman remarkable for this temper, who has an inexhaustible source of wit to entertain the curious, the grave, the humorous, and the frolic. He can transform himself into different shapes, and adapt himself to every company; yet in a coffee-house, or in the ordinary course of affairs, appears rather dull than sprightly. You can seldom get him to the tavern, but when once he is arrived to his pint, and begins to look about and like his company, you admire a thousand things in him, which before lay buried. Then you discover the brightness of his mind and the strength of his judgment, accompanied with the most graceful mirth. In a word, by this enlivening aid, he is whatever is polite, instructive, and diverting. What makes him still more agreeable is, that he tells a story, serious or comical, with as much delicacy of humour as Cervantes himself. And for all this, at other times, even after a long knowledge of him, you shall scarce discern in this incomparable person a whit more than what might be expected from one of a common capacity. Doubtless there are men of great parts that are guilty of downright bashfulness, that by a strange hesitation and reluctance to speak, murder the finest and most elegant thoughts, and render the most lively conceptions flat and heavy.

"In this case, a certain quantity of my white or red cordial, which you will, is an easy, but an infallible remedy. It awakens the judgment, quickens memory, ripens understanding, disperses melancholy, cheers the heart; in a word, restores the whole man to himself and his friends without the least pain or indisposition to the patient. To be taken only in the evening in a reasonable quantity before going to bed. Note.– My bottles are sealed with three fleurs-de-lis and a bunch of grapes. Beware of counterfeits. I am,

"Your most humble Servant, &c."

Whatever has been said against the use of wine, upon the supposition that it enfeebles the mind, and renders it unfit for the duties of life, bears forcibly to the advantage of that delicious juice, in cases where it only heightens conversation, and brings to light agreeable talents, which otherwise would have lain concealed under the oppression of an unjust modesty. I must acknowledge I have seen many of the temper mentioned by this correspondent, and own, wine may very allowably be used in a degree above the supply of mere necessity by such as labour under melancholy, or are tongue-tied by modesty. It is certainly a very agreeable change, when we see a glass raise a lifeless conversation into all the pleasures of wit and good-humour. But when Caska adds to his natural impudence the fluster of a bottle, that which fools called fire when he was sober, all men abhor as outrage when he is drunk. Thus he that in the morning was only saucy, is in the evening tumultuous. It makes one sick to hear one of these fellows say, they love a friend and a bottle. Noisy mirth has something too rustic in it to be considered without terror by men of politeness: but while the discourse improves in a well-chosen company, from the addition of spirits which flow from moderate cups, it must be acknowledged, that leisure time cannot be more agreeably, or perhaps more usefully employed than at such meetings: but there is a certain prudence in this and all other circumstances which makes right or wrong in the conduct of ordinary life. Sir Geoffrey Wildacre has nothing so much at heart as that his son should know the world betimes: for this end he introduces him among the sots of his own age, where the boy learns to laugh at his father from the familiarity with which he sees him treated by his equals. This the old fellow calls living well with his heir, and teaching him to be too much his friend to be impatient for his estate. But for the more exact regulation of society in this and other matters, I shall publish tables of the characters and relations among men, and by them instruct the town in making sets and companies for a bottle. This humour of Sir Geoffrey shall be taken notice of in the first place; for there is, methinks, a sort of incest in drunkenness, and sons are not to behold fathers stripped of all reverence.

It is shocking in nature for the young to see those whom they should have an awe for in circumstances of contempt. I shall therefore utterly forbid, that those in whom nature should admonish to avoid too gross familiarities, shall be received in parties of pleasure where there is the least danger of excess. I should run through the whole doctrine of drinking, but that my thoughts are at present too much employed in the modelling my Court of Honour; and altering the seats, benches, bar, and canopy from that of the court wherein I last winter sat upon causes of less moment. By the way, I shall take an opportunity to examine, what method is to be taken to make joiners and other artificers get out of a house they have once entered, not forgetting to tie them under proper regulations. It is for want of such rules, that I have a day or two longer than I expected been tormented and deafened with hammers, insomuch that I neither can pursue this discourse, or answer the following and many other letters of the highest importance.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"We are man and wife, and have a boy and a girl: the lad seventeen, the maiden sixteen. We are quarrelling about some parts of their education. I, Ralph, cannot bear that I must pay for the girl's learning on the spinnet, when I know she has no ear. I, Bridget, have not patience to have my son whipped because he cannot make verses, when I know he is a blockhead. Pray, sir, inform us, is it absolutely necessary that all who wear breeches must be taught to rhyme, all in petticoats to touch an instrument? Please to interpose in this and the like cases, to end much solid distress which arises from trifling causes, as it is common in wedlock, and you will very much oblige us and ours.

"Ralph }} Yokefellow.""Bridget }

No. 253. [Addison and Steele. 195

From Saturday, Nov. 18, to Tuesday, Nov. 21, 1710

-Pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quemConspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant.Virg., Æn. i. 151.From my own Apartment, Nov. 20Extract of the Journal of the Court of Honour, 1710.196Die lunae vicesimo Novembris, hora nona ante-meridiana

The court being sat, an oath prepared by the censor was administered to the assistants on his right hand, who were all sworn upon their honour. The women on his left hand took the same oath upon their reputation. Twelve gentlemen of the Horse Guards were empanelled, having unanimously chosen Mr. Alexander Truncheon, who is their right-hand man in the troop, for their foreman in the jury. Mr. Truncheon immediately drew his sword, and holding it with the point towards his own body, presented it to the censor. Mr. Bickerstaff received it, and after having surveyed the breadth of the blade, and sharpness of the point, with more than ordinary attention, returned it to the foreman in a very graceful manner. The rest of the jury, upon the delivery of the sword to their foreman, drew all of them together as one man, and saluted the bench with such an air, as signified the most resigned submission to those who commanded them, and the greatest magnanimity to execute what they should command.

Mr. Bickerstaff, after having received the compliments on his right hand, cast his eye upon the left, where the whole female jury paid their respects by a low courtesy, and by laying their hands upon their mouths. Their forewoman was a professed Platonist,197 that had spent much of her time in exhorting the sex to set a just value upon their persons, and to make the men know themselves.

There followed a profound silence, when at length, after some recollection, the censor, who continued hitherto uncovered, put on his hat with great dignity; and after having composed the brims of it in a manner suitable to the gravity of his character, he gave the following charge, which was received with silence and attention, that being the only applause which he admits of, or is ever given in his presence: