No. 229. [Addison.
From Saturday, Sept. 23, to Tuesday, Sept. 26, 1710.
Quæsitam meritis——
Hor., 3 Od. xxx. 14.
From my own Apartment, Sept. 25.
The whole creation preys upon itself: every living creature is inhabited. A flea has a thousand invisible insects that tease him as he jumps from place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary microscope shows us that a louse is itself a very lousy creature. A whale, besides those seas and oceans in the several vessels of his body, which are filled with innumerable shoals of little animals, carries about it a whole world of inhabitants; insomuch that, if we believe the calculations some have made, there are more living creatures which are too small for the naked eye to behold about the leviathan, than there are of visible creatures upon the face of the whole earth. Thus every nobler creature is as it were the basis and support of multitudes that are his inferiors.
This consideration very much comforts me, when I think on those numberless vermin that feed upon this paper, and find their sustenance out of it: I mean, the small wits and scribblers that every day turn a penny by nibbling at my Lucubrations. This has been so advantageous to this little species of writers, that, if they do me justice, I may expect to have my statue erected in Grub Street, as being a common benefactor to that quarter.
They say, when a fox is very much troubled with fleas, he goes into the next pool with a little lock of wool in his mouth, and keeps his body under water till the vermin get into it, after which he quits the wool, and diving, leaves his tormentors to shift for themselves, and get their livelihood where they can. I would have these gentlemen take care that I do not serve them after the same manner; for though I have hitherto kept my temper pretty well, it is not impossible but I may some time or other disappear; and what will then become of them? Should I lay down my paper, what a famine would there be among the hawkers, printers, booksellers, and authors? It would be like Dr. B——'s[116] dropping his cloak, with the whole congregation hanging upon the skirts of it. To enumerate some of these my doughty antagonists, I was threatened to be answered weekly Tit for Tat: I was undermined by the Whisperer, haunted by Tom Brown's Ghost, scolded at by a Female Tatler, and slandered by another of the same character, under the title of Atalantis. I have been annotated, re-tattled, examined, and condoled;[117] but it being my standing maxim never to speak ill of the dead, I shall let these authors rest in peace, and take great pleasure in thinking that I have sometimes been the means of their getting a bellyful. When I see myself thus surrounded by such formidable enemies, I often think of the Knight of the Red Cross in Spenser's "Den of Error," who after he has cut off the dragon's head, and left it wallowing in a flood of ink, sees a thousand monstrous reptiles making their attempts upon him, one with many heads, another with none, and all of them without eyes.
That well-nigh chokèd with the deadly stink,
His forces fail, he can no longer fight;
Whose courage when the fiend perceived to shrink,
She pourèd forth out of her hellish sink
Her fruitful cursèd spawn of serpents small,
Deformèd monsters, foul, and black as ink;
Which swarming all about his legs did crawl,
And him encumbered sore, but could not hurt at all.
When ruddy Phœbus 'gins to welk in West,
High on an hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hasty supper best;
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him molest,
All striving to infix their feeble stings,
That from their 'noyance he nowhere can rest;
But with his clownish hands their tender wings
He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.[118]
If ever I should want such a fry of little authors to attend me, I shall think my paper in a very decaying condition. They are like ivy about an oak, which adorns the tree at the same time that it eats into it; or like a great man's equipage, that do honour to the person on whom they feed. For my part, when I see myself thus attacked, I do not consider my antagonists as malicious, but hungry, and therefore am resolved never to take any notice of them.
As for those who detract from my labours without being prompted to it by an empty stomach, in return to their censures I shall take pains to excel, and never fail to persuade myself, that their enmity is nothing but their envy or ignorance.
Give me leave to conclude, like an old man and a moralist, with a fable:
The owls, bats, and several other birds of night, were one day got together in a thick shade, where they abused their neighbours in a very sociable manner. Their satire at last fell upon the sun, whom they all agreed to be very troublesome, impertinent, and inquisitive. Upon which the sun, who overheard them, spoke to them after this manner: "Gentlemen, I wonder how you dare abuse one that you know could in an instant scorch you up, and burn every mother's son of you: but the only answer I shall give you, or the revenge I shall take of you, is, to shine on."[119]
FOOTNOTES:
[116] Daniel Burgess (see No. 66).
[117] The first number of Tit for Tat appeared under the name of Jo. Partridge, Esq., on March 2, 1710, with an announcement of Bickerstaff's death; probably it reached only to five numbers. Of the Whisperer (October 11, 1709), and the Gazette à-la-Mode, or Tom Brown's Ghost (May 12, 1709), only single numbers are known. The Female Tatler, issued by Thomas Baker, lasted from July 8, 1709, to March 31, 1710; and there was a rival paper, with the same title, printed for A Baldwin. The "New Atalantis," Mrs. Manley's well-known book, contained more than one attack on Steele. "Annotated" refers to the satirical "Annotations upon the Tatler," 1710 (see No. 224); and "condoled," to a pamphlet, "A Condoling Letter to the Tatler; on account of the misfortunes of Isaac Bickerstaff, a prisoner in the —— on suspicion of debt" (September 19, 1710). The Tory Examiner had much to say about the Tatler and Steele's subsequent writings. Nothing is known of a Re-Tatler.
"For my part," wrote Defoe, "I have always thought that the weakest step the Tatler ever took, if that complete author can be said to have done anything weak, was to stoop to take the least notice of the barkings of the animals that have condoled him, examined him, &c. He should have let every bark and fool rail, and, according to his own observation of the fable of the sun, continued to shine on. This I have found to be agreeable to the true notion of contempt. Silence is the utmost slight nature can dictate to a man, and the most insupportable for a vain man to bear."
[118] "Faërie Queene," 1. i. 22, 23.
[119] See No. 239.