After the above melancholy Narration, it may perhaps be a Relief to the
Reader to peruse the following Expostulation.
To Mr. Spectator.
The just Remonstrance of affronted That.
'Tho' I deny not the Petition of Mr.
Who and
Which, yet
You should not suffer them to be rude and call honest People Names:
For that bears very hard on some of those Rules of Decency, which You
are justly famous for establishing. They may find fault, and correct
Speeches in the Senate and at the Bar: But let them try to get
themselves so
often and with so much
Eloquence
repeated in a Sentence, as a great Orator doth frequently introduce
me.
My Lords! (says he) with humble Submission,
That that I say is
this; that,
That that that Gentleman has advanced, is not
That, that he should have proved to your Lordships. Let those two
questionary Petitioners try to do thus with their
Who's and their
Whiches.
What great advantage was I of to Mr.
Dryden in his
Indian
Emperor,
You force me still to answer You in That,
to furnish out a Rhyme to
Morat? And what a poor Figure would Mr.
Bayes have made without his
Egad and all That? How can a judicious
Man distinguish one thing from another, without saying
This here, or
That there? And how can a sober Man without using the
Expletives
of Oaths (in which indeed the Rakes and Bullies have a great advantage
over others) make a Discourse of any tolerable Length, without
That
is; and if he be a very grave Man indeed, without
That is to say?
And how instructive as well as entertaining are those usual
Expressions in the Mouths of great Men,
Such Things as That and
The
like of That.
I am not against reforming the Corruptions of Speech You mention, and
own there are proper Seasons for the Introduction of other Words
besides
That; but I scorn as much to supply the Place of a
Who or
a
Which at every Turn, as they are
unequal always to fill mine;
And I expect good Language and civil Treatment, and hope to receive it
for the future:
That, that I shall only add is, that I am,
Yours,
That.'
R.
Contents
To The Right Honourable
Charles Lord Hallifax1.
My Lord,
Similitude of Manners and Studies is usually mentioned as one of the
strongest motives to Affection and Esteem; but the passionate Veneration
I have for your Lordship, I think, flows from an Admiration of Qualities
in You, of which, in the whole course of these Papers I have
acknowledged myself incapable. While I busy myself as a Stranger upon
Earth, and can pretend to no other than being a Looker-on, You are
conspicuous in the Busy and Polite world, both in the World of Men, and
that of Letters; While I am silent and unobserv'd in publick Meetings,
You are admired by all that approach You as the Life and Genius of the
Conversation. What an happy Conjunction of different Talents meets in
him whose whole Discourse is at once animated by the Strength and Force
of Reason, and adorned with all the Graces and Embellishments of Wit:
When Learning irradiates common Life, it is then in its highest Use and
Perfection; and it is to such as Your Lordship, that the Sciences owe
the Esteem which they have with the active Part of Mankind. Knowledge of
Books in recluse Men, is like that sort of Lanthorn which hides him who
carries it, and serves only to pass through secret and gloomy Paths of
his own; but in the Possession of a Man of Business, it is as a Torch in
the Hand of one who is willing and able to shew those, who are
bewildered, the Way which leads to their Prosperity and Welfare. A
generous Concern for your Country, and a Passion for every thing which
is truly Great and Noble, are what actuate all Your Life and Actions;
and I hope You will forgive me that I have an Ambition this Book may be
placed in the Library of so good a Judge of what is valuable, in that
Library where the Choice is such, that it will not be a Disparagement to
be the meanest Author in it. Forgive me, my Lord, for taking this
Occasion of telling all the World how ardently I Love and Honour You;
and that I am, with the utmost Gratitude for all Your Favours,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's
Most Obliged,
Most Obedient, and
Most Humble Servant,
The Spectator.
When the
Spectators
were reissued in volumes, Vol. I. ended
with No. 80, and to the second volume, containing the next 89 numbers,
this Dedication was prefixed.
Charles Montague, at the time of the dedication fifty years old, and
within four years of the end of his life, was born, in 1661, at Horton,
in Northamptonshire. His father was a younger son of the first Earl of
Manchester. He was educated at Westminster School and at Trinity
College, Cambridge.
Apt for wit and verse, he joined with his friend Prior in writing a
burlesque on Dryden's
Hind and Panther
, 'Transversed to the Story of
the Country and the City Mouse.' In Parliament in James the Second's
reign, he joined in the invitation of William of Orange, and rose
rapidly, a self-made man, after the Revolution. In 1691 he was a Lord of
the Treasury; in April, 1694, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
in May, 1697, First Lord of the Treasury, retaining the Chancellorship
and holding both offices till near the close of 1699. Of his dealing
with the currency, see note on p. 19. In 1700 he was made Baron Halifax,
and had secured the office of Auditor of the Exchequer, which was worth
at least £4000 a year, and in war time twice as much. The Tories, on
coming to power, made two unsuccessful attempts to fix on him charges of
fraud. In October, 1714, George I. made him Earl of Halifax and Viscount
Sunbury. Then also he again became Prime Minister. He was married, but
died childless, in May, 1715. In 1699, when Somers and Halifax were the
great chiefs of the Whig Ministry, they joined in befriending Addison,
then 27 years old, who had pleased Somers with a piece of English verse
and Montague with Latin lines upon the Peace of Ryswick.
Now, therefore, having dedicated the First volume of the
Spectator
to
Somers, it is to Halifax that Steele and he inscribe the Second.
Of the defect in Charles Montague's character, Lord Macaulay writes
that, when at the height of his fortune,
"He became proud even to insolence. Old companions ... hardly knew
their friend Charles in the great man who could not forget for one
moment that he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he was Chancellor
of the Exchequer, that he had been a Regent of the kingdom, that he
had founded the Bank of England, and the new East India Company, that
he had restored the Currency, that he had invented the Exchequer
Bills, that he had planned the General Mortgage, and that he had been
pronounced, by a solemn vote of the Commons, to have deserved all the
favours which he had received from the Crown. It was said that
admiration of himself and contempt of others were indicated by all his
gestures, and written in all the lines of his face."
Contents
|
Saturday, June 2, 1711
|
Addison |
Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure Tigris
Horruit in maculas ...
Statins.
translation
About the Middle of last Winter I went to see an Opera at the Theatre in
the
Hay-Market
, where I could not but take notice of two Parties
of very fine Women, that had placed themselves in the opposite
Side-Boxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of Battle-Array one against
another. After a short Survey of them, I found they were Patch'd
differently; the Faces on one Hand, being spotted on the right Side of
the Forehead, and those upon the other on the Left. I quickly perceived
that they cast hostile Glances upon one another; and that their Patches
were placed in those different Situations, as Party-Signals to
distinguish Friends from Foes. In the Middle-Boxes, between these two
opposite Bodies, were several Ladies who Patched indifferently on both
Sides of their Faces, and seem'd to sit there with no other Intention
but to see the Opera. Upon Inquiry I found, that the Body of
Amazons
on my Right Hand, were Whigs, and those on my Left,
Tories; And that those who had placed themselves in the Middle Boxes
were a Neutral Party, whose Faces had not yet declared themselves. These
last, however, as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took their
Party with one Side or the other; insomuch that I observed in several of
them, the Patches, which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone
over to the Whig or Tory Side of the Face. The Censorious say, That the
Men, whose Hearts are aimed at, are very often the Occasions that one
Part of the Face is thus dishonoured, and lies under a kind of Disgrace,
while the other is so much Set off and Adorned by the Owner; and that
the Patches turn to the Right or to the Left, according to the
Principles of the Man who is most in Favour. But whatever may be the
Motives of a few fantastical Coquets, who do not Patch for the Publick
Good so much as for their own private Advantage, it is certain, that
there are several Women of Honour who patch out of Principle, and with
an Eye to the Interest of their Country. Nay, I am informed that some of
them adhere so stedfastly to their Party, and are so far from
sacrificing their Zeal for the Publick to their Passion for any
particular Person, that in a late Draught of Marriage-Articles a Lady
has stipulated with her Husband, That, whatever his Opinions are, she
shall be at liberty to Patch on which Side she pleases.
I must here take notice, that
Rosalinda
, a famous Whig Partizan,
has most unfortunately a very beautiful Mole on the Tory Part of her
Forehead; which being very conspicuous, has occasioned many Mistakes,
and given an Handle to her Enemies to misrepresent her Face, as tho' it
had Revolted from the Whig Interest. But, whatever this natural Patch
may seem to intimate, it is well known that her Notions of Government
are still the same. This unlucky Mole, however, has mis-led several
Coxcombs; and like the hanging out of false Colours, made some of them
converse with
Rosalinda
in what they thought the Spirit of her
Party, when on a sudden she has given them an unexpected Fire, that has
sunk them all at once. If
Rosalinda
is unfortunate in her Mole,
Nigranilla
is as unhappy in a Pimple, which forces her, against
her Inclinations, to Patch on the Whig Side.
I am told that many virtuous Matrons, who formerly have been taught to
believe that this artificial Spotting of the Face was unlawful, are now
reconciled by a Zeal for their Cause, to what they could not be prompted
by a Concern for their Beauty.
way of declaring War upon one
another, puts me in mind of what is reported of the Tigress, that
several Spots rise in her Skin when she is angry, or as Mr.
Cowley
has imitated the Verses that stand as the Motto on this
Paper,
...
She swells with angry Pride,
And calls forth all her Spots on ev'ry Side1.
When I was in the Theatre the Time above-mentioned, I had the Curiosity
to count the Patches on both Sides, and found the Tory Patches to be
about Twenty stronger than the Whig; but to make amends for this small
Inequality, I the next Morning found the whole Puppet-Show filled with
Faces spotted after the Whiggish Manner. Whether or no the Ladies had
retreated hither in order to rally their Forces I cannot tell; but the
next Night they came in so great a Body to the Opera, that they
out-number'd the Enemy.
This Account of Party Patches, will, I am afraid, appear improbable to
those who live at a Distance from the fashionable World: but as it is a
Distinction of a very singular Nature, and what perhaps may never meet
with a Parallel, I think I should not have discharged the Office of a
faithful
Spectator
, had I not recorded it.
I have, in former Papers, endeavoured to expose this Party-Rage in
Women, as it only serves to aggravate the Hatreds and Animosities that
reign among Men, and in a great measure deprive the Fair Sex of those
peculiar Charms with which Nature has endowed them.
When the
Romans
and
Sabines
were at War, and just upon the Point of
giving Battel, the Women, who were allied to both of them, interposed
with so many Tears and Intreaties, that they prevented the mutual
Slaughter which threatned both Parties, and united them together in a
firm and lasting Peace.
I would recommend this noble Example to our
British
Ladies, at a Time
when their Country is torn with so many unnatural Divisions, that if
they continue, it will be a Misfortune to be born in it. The
Greeks
thought it so improper for Women to interest themselves in Competitions
and Contentions, that for this Reason, among others, they forbad them,
under Pain of Death, to be present at the
Olympick
Games,
notwithstanding these were the publick Diversions of all
Greece
.
our
English
Women excel those of all Nations in Beauty, they should
endeavour to outshine them in all other Accomplishments
proper
to
the Sex, and to distinguish themselves as tender Mothers, and faithful
Wives, rather than as furious Partizans. Female Virtues are of a
Domestick Turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to
shine in. If they must be shewing their Zeal for the Publick, let it not
be against those who are perhaps of the same Family, or at least of the
same Religion or Nation, but against those who are the open, professed,
undoubted Enemies of their Faith, Liberty and Country. When the
Romans
were pressed with a Foreign Enemy, the Ladies voluntarily contributed
all their Rings and Jewels to assist the Government under a publick
Exigence, which appeared so laudable an Action in the Eyes of their
Countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted by a Law to pronounce
publick Orations at the Funeral of a Woman in Praise of the deceased
Person, which till that Time was peculiar to Men. Would our
English
Ladies, instead of sticking on a Patch against those of their own
Country, shew themselves so truly Publick-spirited as to sacrifice every
one her Necklace against the common Enemy, what Decrees ought not to be
made in Favour of them?
I am recollecting upon this Subject such Passages as occur to my
Memory out of ancient Authors, I cannot omit a Sentence in the
celebrated Funeral Oration of
Pericles
which he made in Honour of
those brave
Athenians
that were slain in a fight with the
Lacedæmonians
. After having addressed himself to the several Ranks
and Orders of his Countrymen, and shewn them how they should behave
themselves in the Publick Cause, he turns to the Female Part of his
Audience;
'And as for you (says he) I shall advise you in very few
Words: Aspire only to those Virtues that are peculiar to your Sex;
follow your natural Modesty, and think it your greatest Commendation not
to be talked of one way or other'.
C.
Davideis
, Bk III. But Cowley's Tiger is a Male.
that are proper
Thucydides, Bk II.
Contents
'
|
Monday, June 4, 1711 |
Steele |
under
Ludgate
the other Day, I heard a Voice bawling for
Charity, which I thought I had somewhere heard before. Coming near to
the Grate, the Prisoner called me by my Name, and desired I would throw
something into the Box: I was out of Countenance for him, and did as he
bid me, by putting in half a Crown. I went away, reflecting upon the
strange Constitution of some Men, and how meanly they behave themselves
in all Sorts of Conditions. The Person who begged of me is now, as I
take it, Fifty; I was well acquainted with him till about the Age of
Twenty-five; at which Time a good Estate fell to him by the Death of a
Relation. Upon coming to this unexpected good Fortune, he ran into all
the Extravagancies imaginable; was frequently in drunken Disputes, broke
Drawers Heads, talked and swore loud, was unmannerly to those above him,
and insolent to those below him. I could not but remark, that it was the
same Baseness of Spirit which worked in his Behaviour in both Fortunes:
The same little Mind was insolent in Riches, and shameless in Poverty.
This Accident made me muse upon the Circumstances of being in Debt in
general, and solve in my Mind what Tempers were most apt to fall into
this Error of Life, as well as the Misfortune it must needs be to
languish under such Pressures. As for my self, my natural Aversion to
that sort of Conversation which makes a Figure with the Generality of
Mankind, exempts me from any Temptations to Expence; and all my Business
lies within a very narrow Compass, which is only to give an honest Man,
who takes care of my Estate, proper Vouchers for his quarterly Payments
to me, and observe what Linnen my Laundress brings and takes away with
her once a Week: My Steward brings his Receipt ready for my Signing; and
I have a pretty Implement with the respective Names of Shirts, Cravats,
Handkerchiefs and Stockings, with proper Numbers to know how to reckon
with my Laundress. This being almost all the Business I have in the
World for the Care of my own Affairs, I am at full Leisure to observe
upon what others do, with relation to their Equipage and Œconomy.
When I walk the Street, and observe the Hurry about me in this Town,
Where with like Haste, tho' diff'rent Ways they run;
Some to undo, and some to be undone;2
I say, when I behold this vast Variety of Persons and Humours, with the
Pains they both take for the Accomplishment of the Ends mentioned in the
above Verse of
Denham,
I cannot much wonder at the Endeavour after
Gain, but am extremely astonished that Men can be so insensible of the
Danger of running into Debt. One would think it impossible a Man who is
given to contract Debts should know, that his Creditor has, from that
Moment in which he transgresses Payment, so much as that Demand comes to
in his Debtor's Honour, Liberty, and Fortune. One would think he did not
know, that his Creditor can say the worst thing imaginable of him, to
wit,
That he is unjust
, without Defamation; and can seize his Person,
without being guilty of an Assault. Yet such is the loose and abandoned
Turn of some Men's Minds, that they can live under these constant
Apprehensions, and still go on to encrease the Cause of them. Can there
be a more low and servile Condition, than to be ashamed, or afraid, to
see any one Man breathing? Yet he that is much in Debt, is in that
Condition with relation to twenty different People. There are indeed
Circumstances wherein Men of honest Natures may become liable to Debts,
by some unadvised Behaviour in any great Point of their Life, or
mortgaging a Man's Honesty as a Security for that of another, and the
like; but these Instances are so particular and circumstantiated, that
they cannot come within general Considerations: For one such Case as one
of these, there are ten, where a Man, to keep up a Farce of Retinue and
Grandeur within his own House, shall shrink at the Expectation of surly
Demands at his Doors. The Debtor is the Creditor's Criminal, and all the
Officers of Power and State, whom we behold make so great a Figure, are
no other than so many Persons in Authority to make good his Charge
against him. Human Society depends upon his having the Vengeance Law
allots him; and the Debtor owes his Liberty to his Neighbour, as much as
the Murderer does his Life to his Prince.
Our Gentry are, generally speaking, in Debt; and many Families have put
it into a kind of Method of being so from Generation to Generation. The
Father mortgages when his Son is very young: and the Boy is to marry as
soon as he is at Age, to redeem it, and find Portions for his Sisters.
This, forsooth, is no great Inconvenience to him; for he may wench, keep
a publick Table or feed Dogs, like a worthy
English
Gentleman, till he
has out-run half his Estate, and leave the same Incumbrance upon his
First-born, and so on, till one Man of more Vigour than ordinary goes
quite through the Estate, or some Man of Sense comes into it, and scorns
to have an Estate in Partnership, that is to say, liable to the Demand
or Insult of any Man living. There is my Friend Sir
Andrew.
, tho' for
many Years a great and general Trader, was never the Defendant in a
Law-Suit, in all the Perplexity of Business, and the Iniquity of Mankind
at present: No one had any Colour for the least Complaint against his
Dealings with him. This is certainly as uncommon, and in its Proportion
as laudable in a Citizen, as it is in a General never to have suffered a
Disadvantage in Fight. How different from this Gentleman is
Jack
Truepenny,
who has been an old Acquaintance of Sir
Andrew.
and my self
from Boys, but could never learn our Caution.
Jack
has a whorish
unresisting Good-nature, which makes him incapable of having a Property
in any thing. His Fortune, his Reputation, his Time and his Capacity,
are at any Man's Service that comes first. When he was at School, he was
whipped thrice a Week for Faults he took upon him to excuse others;
since he came into the Business of the World, he has been arrested twice
or thrice a Year for Debts he had nothing to do with, but as a Surety
for others; and I remember when a Friend of his had suffered in the Vice
of the Town, all the Physick his Friend took was conveyed to him by
Jack
, and inscribed, 'A Bolus or an Electuary for Mr.
Truepenny
.'
Jack
had a good Estate left him, which came to nothing; because he
believed all who pretended to Demands upon it. This Easiness and
Credulity destroy all the other Merit he has; and he has all his Life
been a Sacrifice to others, without ever receiving Thanks, or doing one
good Action.
I will end this Discourse with a Speech which I heard
Jack
make to one
of his Creditors, (of whom he deserved gentler Usage) after lying a
whole Night in Custody at his Suit.
Sir,
'Your Ingratitude for the many Kindnesses I have done you, shall not
make me unthankful for the Good you have done me, in letting me see
there is such a Man as you in the World. I am obliged to you for the
Diffidence I shall have all the rest of my Life: I shall hereafter
trust no Man so far as to be in his Debt.'
R.
Ludgate was originally built in 1215, by the Barons who
entered London, destroyed houses of Jews and erected this gate with
their ruins. It was first used as a prison in 1373, being then a free
prison, but soon losing that privilege. Sir Stephen Forster, who was
Lord Mayor in 1454, had been a prisoner at Ludgate and begged at the
grate, where he was seen by a rich widow who bought his liberty, took
him into her service, and eventually married him. To commemorate this he
enlarged the accommodation for the prisoners and added a chapel. The old
gate was taken down and rebuilt in 1586. That second gate was destroyed
in the Fire of London.
The gate which succeeded and was used, like its predecessors, as a
wretched prison for debtors, was pulled down in 1760, and the prisoners
removed, first to the London workhouse, afterwards to part of the
Giltspur Street Compter.
Sir John Denham's
Cooper's Hill.
Contents
|
Tuesday, June 5, 1711 |
Addison |
When the Weather hinders me from taking my Diversions without Doors, I
frequently make a little Party with two or three select Friends, to
visit any thing curious that may be seen under Covert. My principal
Entertainments of this Nature are Pictures, insomuch that when I have
found the Weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole Day's
Journey to see a Gallery that is furnished by the Hands of great
Masters. By this means, when the Heavens are filled with Clouds, when
the Earth swims in Rain, and all Nature wears a lowering Countenance, I
withdraw myself from these uncomfortable Scenes into the visionary
Worlds of Art; where I meet with shining Landskips, gilded Triumphs,
beautiful Faces, and all those other Objects that fill the mind with gay
Ideas, and disperse that Gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in
those dark disconsolate Seasons.
I was some Weeks ago in a Course of these Diversions; which had taken
such an entire Possession of my Imagination, that they formed in it a
short Morning's Dream, which I shall communicate to my Reader, rather as
the first Sketch and Outlines of a Vision, than as a finished Piece.
I dreamt that I was admitted into a long spacious Gallery, which had one
Side covered with Pieces of all the Famous Painters who are now living,
and the other with the Works of the greatest Masters that are dead.
On the side of the
Living
, I saw several Persons busy in Drawing,
Colouring, and Designing; on the side of the
Dead
Painters, I could
not discover more than one Person at Work, who was exceeding slow in his
Motions, and wonderfully nice in his Touches.
I was resolved to examine the several Artists that stood before me, and
accordingly applied my self to the side of the
Living
. The first I
observed at Work in this Part of the Gallery was
Vanity
, with his Hair
tied behind him in a Ribbon, and dressed like a
Frenchman
. All the
Faces he drew were very remarkable for their Smiles, and a certain
smirking Air which he bestowed indifferently on every Age and Degree of
either Sex. The
Toujours Gai
appeared even in his Judges, Bishops, and
Privy-Counsellors: In a word all his Men were
Petits Maitres
, and all
his Women
Coquets
. The Drapery of his Figures was extreamly
well-suited to his Faces, and was made up of all the glaring Colours
that could be mixt together; every Part of the Dress was in a Flutter,
and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.
On the left Hand of
Vanity
stood a laborious Workman, who I found was
his humble Admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a