, insomuch that
the Female Part of our Species were much taller than the Men.
Women
were of such an enormous Stature, that
we appeared as Grasshoppers
before them
. At present the whole Sex is in a manner dwarfed and
shrunk into a race of Beauties that seems almost another Species. I
remember several Ladies, who were once very near seven Foot high, that
at present want some inches of five: How they came to be thus curtailed
I cannot learn; whether the whole Sex be at present under any Penance
which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their Head-dresses
in order to surprize us with something in that kind which shall be
entirely new; or whether some of the tallest of the Sex, being too
cunning for the rest, have contrived this Method to make themselves
appear sizeable, is still a Secret; tho' I find most are of Opinion,
they are at present like Trees new lopped and pruned, that will
certainly sprout up and flourish with greater Heads than before. For my
own part, as I do not love to be insulted by Women who are taller than
my self, I admire the Sex much more in their present Humiliation, which
has reduced them to their natural Dimensions, than when they had
extended their Persons and lengthened themselves out into formidable and
gigantick Figures. I am not for adding to the beautiful Edifices of
Nature, nor for raising any whimsical Superstructure upon her Plans: I
must therefore repeat it, that I am highly pleased with the Coiffure now
in Fashion, and think it shews the good Sense which at present very much
reigns among the valuable Part of the Sex. One may observe that Women in
all Ages have taken more Pains than Men to adorn the Outside of their
Heads; and indeed I very much admire, that those Female Architects, who
raise such wonderful Structures out of Ribbands, Lace, and Wire, have
not been recorded for their respective Inventions. It is certain there
has been as many Orders in these Kinds of Building, as in those which
have been made of Marble: Sometimes they rise in the Shape of a Pyramid,
sometimes like a Tower, and sometimes like a Steeple. In
Juvenal's
time the Building grew by several Orders and Stories,
as he has very humorously described it.
Tot premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum
Ædificat caput: Andromachen a fronte videbis;
Post minor est: Altam credas.
Juv.
But I do not remember in any Part of my Reading, that the Head-dress
aspired to so great an Extravagance as in the fourteenth Century; when
it was built up in a couple of Cones or Spires, which stood so
excessively high on each Side of the Head, that a Woman, who was but a
Pigmie
without her Head-dress, appear'd like a
Colossus
upon putting it on.
Paradin
says,
'That these
old-fashioned Fontanges rose an Ell above the Head; that they were
pointed like Steeples, and had long loose Pieces of Crape fastened to
the Tops of them, which were curiously fringed and hung down their Backs
like Streamers.'
Women might possibly have carried this Gothick Building much higher,
had not a famous Monk,
Thomas Conecte
by Name, attacked it
with great Zeal and Resolution.
This holy Man travelled from Place to Place to preach down this
monstrous Commode; and succeeded so well in it, that as the Magicians
sacrificed their Books to the Flames upon the Preaching of an Apostle,
many of the Women threw down their Head-dresses in the Middle of his
Sermon, and made a Bonfire of them within Sight of the Pulpit. He was so
renowned as well for the Sanctity of his Life as his Manner of Preaching
that he had often a Congregation of twenty thousand People; the Men
placing themselves on the one Side of his Pulpit, and the Women on the
other, that appeared (to use the Similitude of an ingenious Writer) like
a Forest of Cedars with their Heads reaching to the Clouds. He so warmed
and animated the People against this monstrous Ornament, that it lay
under a kind of Persecution; and whenever it appeared in publick was
pelted down by the Rabble, who flung Stones at the Persons that wore it.
But notwithstanding this Prodigy vanished, while the Preacher was among
them, it began to appear again some Months after his Departure, or to
tell it in Monsieur
Paradin's
own Words,
'The Women that, like
Snails, in a Fright, had drawn in their Horns, shot them out again as
soon as the Danger was over.'
Extravagance of the Womens
Head-dresses in that Age is taken notice of by Monsieur
d'Argentré
in the History of
Bretagne
, and by other
Historians as well as the Person I have here quoted.
It is usually observed, that a good Reign is the only proper Time for
making of Laws against the Exorbitance of Power; in the same manner an
excessive Head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the
Fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this Paper to my Female
Readers by way of Prevention.
I would desire the Fair Sex to consider how impossible it is for them to
add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the Master-piece
of Nature. The Head has the most beautiful Appearance, as well as the
highest Station, in a human Figure. Nature has laid out all her Art in
beautifying the Face; she has touched it with Vermilion, planted in it a
double Row of Ivory, made it the Seat of Smiles and Blushes, lighted it
up and enlivened it with the Brightness of the Eyes, hung it on each
Side with curious Organs of Sense, given it Airs and Graces that cannot
be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing Shade of Hair as
sets all its Beauties in the most agreeable Light: In short, she seems
to have designed the Head as the Cupola to the most glorious of her
Works; and when we load it with such a Pile of supernumerary Ornaments,
we destroy the Symmetry of the human Figure, and foolishly contrive to
call off the Eye from great and real Beauties, to childish Gewgaws,
Ribbands, and Bone-lace.
L.
The Commode, called by the French
Fontange
, worn on
their heads by ladies at the beginning of the 18th century, was a
structure of wire, which bore up the hair and the forepart of the lace
cap to a great height. The
Spectator
tells how completely and
suddenly the fashion was abandoned in his time.
Numbers
xiii 33.
Guillaume Paradin, a laborious writer of the 16th century,
born at Cuizeau, in the Bresse Chalonnoise, and still living in 1581,
wrote a great many books. The passages quoted by the
Spectator
are from his
Annales de Bourgoigne
, published in 1566.
Thomas Conecte, of Bretagne, was a Carmelite monk, who
became famous as a preacher in 1428. After reproving the vices of the
age in several parts of Europe, he came to Rome, where he reproved the
vices he saw at the Pope's court, and was, therefore, burnt as a heretic
in 1434.
Bertrand d'Argentré was a French lawyer, who died, aged 71,
in 1590. His
Histoire de Bretagne
was printed at Rennes in 1582.
Contents
|
Saturday, June 23, 1711 |
Addison |
The Club, of which I have often declared my self a Member, were last
Night engaged in a Discourse upon that which passes for the chief Point
of Honour among Men and Women; and started a great many Hints upon the
Subject, which I thought were entirely new: I shall therefore methodize
the several Reflections that arose upon this Occasion, and present my
Reader with them for the Speculation of this Day; after having premised,
that if there is any thing in this Paper which seems to differ with any
Passage of last
Thursday's
, the Reader will consider this as the
Sentiments of the Club, and the other as my own private Thoughts, or
rather those of
Pharamond
.
The great Point of Honour in Men is Courage, and in Women Chastity. If a
Man loses his Honour in one Rencounter, it is not impossible for him to
regain it in another; a Slip in a Woman's Honour is irrecoverable. I can
give no Reason for fixing the Point of Honour to these two Qualities,
unless it be that each Sex sets the greatest Value on the Qualification
which renders them the most amiable in the Eyes of the contrary Sex. Had
Men chosen for themselves, without Regard to the Opinions of the Fair
Sex, I should believe the Choice would have fallen on Wisdom or Virtue;
or had Women determined their own Point of Honour, it is probable that
Wit or Good-Nature would have carried it against Chastity.
Nothing recommends a Man more to the Female Sex than Courage; whether it
be that they are pleased to see one who is a Terror to others fall like
a Slave at their Feet, or that this Quality supplies their own principal
Defect, in guarding them from Insults and avenging their Quarrels, or
that Courage is a natural Indication of a strong and sprightly
Constitution. On the other side, nothing makes a Woman more esteemed by
the opposite Sex than Chastity; whether it be that we always prize those
most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides Chastity, with
its collateral Attendants, Truth, Fidelity, and Constancy, gives the Man
a Property in the Person he loves, and consequently endears her to him
above all things.
I am very much pleased with a Passage in the Inscription on a Monument
erected in
Westminster Abbey
to the late Duke and Dutchess of
Newcastle:
'Her Name was Margaret Lucas, youngest Sister
to the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble Family, for all the
Brothers were valiant, and all the Sisters virtuous.
In Books of Chivalry, where the Point of Honour is strained to Madness,
the whole Story runs on Chastity and Courage. The Damsel is mounted on a
white Palfrey, as an Emblem of her Innocence; and, to avoid Scandal,
must have a Dwarf for her Page. She is not to think of a Man, 'till some
Misfortune has brought a Knight-Errant to her Relief. The Knight falls
in Love, and did not Gratitude restrain her from murdering her
Deliverer, would die at her Feet by her Disdain. However he must wait
some Years in the Desart, before her Virgin Heart can think of a
Surrender. The Knight goes off, attacks every thing he meets that is
bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all Opportunities of being
knock'd on the Head, and after seven Years Rambling returns to his
Mistress, whose Chastity has been attacked in the mean time by Giants
and Tyrants, and undergone as many Tryals as her Lover's Valour.
In
Spain
, where there are still great Remains of this Romantick
Humour, it is a transporting Favour for a Lady to cast an accidental
Glance on her Lover from a Window, tho' it be two or three Stories high;
as it is usual for the Lover to assert his Passion for his Mistress, in
single Combat with a mad Bull.
The great Violation of the Point of Honour from Man to Man, is giving
the Lie. One may tell another he Whores, Drinks, Blasphemes, and it may
pass unresented; but to say he Lies, tho' but in Jest, is an Affront
that nothing but Blood can expiate. The Reason perhaps may be, because
no other Vice implies a want of Courage so much as the making of a Lie;
and therefore telling a man he Lies, is touching him in the most
sensible Part of Honour, and indirectly calling him a Coward.
I cannot
omit under this Head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient
Persians, That from the Age of five Years to twenty they instruct
their Sons only in three things, to manage the Horse, to make use of the
Bow, and to speak Truth.
The placing the Point of Honour in this false kind of Courage, has given
Occasion to the very Refuse of Mankind, who have neither Virtue nor
common Sense, to set up for Men of Honour.
English
Peer
,
who has not been long dead, used to tell a pleasant Story of a
French
Gentleman that visited him early one Morning at
Paris
, and after great Professions of Respect, let him know that
he had it in his Power to oblige him; which in short, amounted to this,
that he believed he could tell his Lordship the Person's Name who
justled him as he came out from the Opera, but before he would proceed,
he begged his Lordship that he would not deny him the Honour of making
him his Second. The
English
Lord, to avoid being drawn into a
very foolish Affair, told him, that he was under Engagements for his two
next Duels to a Couple of particular Friends. Upon which the Gentleman
immediately withdrew, hoping his Lordship would not take it ill if he
medled no farther in an Affair from whence he himself was to receive no
Advantage.
The beating down this false Notion of Honour, in so vain and lively a
People as those of
France
, is deservedly looked upon as one of
the most glorious Parts of their present King's Reign. It is pity but
the Punishment of these mischievous Notions should have in it some
particular Circumstances of Shame and Infamy, that those who are Slaves
to them may see, that instead of advancing their Reputations they lead
them to Ignominy and Dishonour.
Death is not sufficient to deter Men who make it their Glory to despise
it, but if every one that fought a Duel were to stand in the Pillory, it
would quickly lessen the Number of these imaginary Men of Honour, and
put an end to so absurd a Practice.
When Honour is a Support to virtuous Principles, and runs parallel with
the Laws of God and our Country, it cannot be too much cherished and
encouraged: But when the Dictates of Honour are contrary to those of
Religion and Equity, they are the greatest Depravations of human Nature,
by giving wrong Ambitions and false Ideas of what is good and laudable;
and should therefore be exploded by all Governments, and driven out as
the Bane and Plague of Human Society.
L.
Percy said he had been told that this was William
Cavendish, first Duke of Devonshire, who died in 1707.
Contents
|
Monday, June 25, 1711 |
Steele |
Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.
Hor.
translation
A man advanced in Years that thinks fit to look back upon his former
Life, and calls that only Life which was passed with Satisfaction and
Enjoyment, excluding all Parts which were not pleasant to him, will find
himself very young, if not in his Infancy. Sickness, Ill-humour, and
Idleness, will have robbed him of a great Share of that Space we
ordinarily call our Life. It is therefore the Duty of every Man that
would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a Disposition to be
pleased, and place himself in a constant Aptitude for the Satisfactions
of his Being. Instead of this, you hardly see a Man who is not uneasy in
proportion to his Advancement in the Arts of Life. An affected Delicacy
is the common Improvement we meet with in those who pretend to be
refined above others: They do not aim at true Pleasures themselves, but
turn their Thoughts upon observing the false Pleasures of other Men.
Such People are Valetudinarians in Society, and they should no more come
into Company than a sick Man should come into the Air: If a Man is too
weak to bear what is a Refreshment to Men in Health, he must still keep
his Chamber. When any one in Sir
Roger's
Company complains he is out of
Order, he immediately calls for some Posset-drink for him; for which
reason that sort of People who are ever bewailing their Constitution in
other Places are the Chearfullest imaginable when he is present.
It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd,
shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the History
of their Pains and Aches; and imagine such Narrations their Quota of the
Conversation. This is of all other the meanest Help to Discourse, and a
Man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he
finds an Account of his Head-ach answer'd by another's asking what News
in the last Mail? Mutual good Humour is a Dress we ought to appear in
whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns our
selves, without it be of Matters wherein our Friends ought to rejoyce:
But indeed there are Crowds of People who put themselves in no Method of
pleasing themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call
indolent Persons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate State between
Pleasure and Pain, and very much unbecoming any Part of our Life after
we are out of the Nurse's Arms. Such an Aversion to Labour creates a
constant Weariness, and one would think should make Existence it self a
Burthen. The indolent Man descends from the Dignity of his Nature, and
makes that Being which was Rational merely Vegetative: His Life consists
only in the meer Encrease and Decay of a Body, which, with relation to
the rest of the World, might as well have been uninformed, as the
Habitation of a reasonable Mind.
Of this kind is the Life of that extraordinary Couple
Harry Tersett
and his Lady.
Harry
was in the Days of his Celibacy one of those pert
Creatures who have much Vivacity and little Understanding; Mrs.
Rebecca
Quickly
, whom he married, had all that the Fire of Youth and a lively
Manner could do towards making an agreeable Woman. The two People of
seeming Merit fell into each other's Arms; and Passion being sated, and
no Reason or good Sense in either to succeed it, their Life is now at a
Stand; their Meals are insipid, and their Time tedious; their Fortune
has placed them above Care, and their Loss of Taste reduced them below
Diversion. When we talk of these as Instances of Inexistence, we do not
mean, that in order to live it is necessary we should always be in
Jovial Crews, or crowned with Chaplets of Roses, as the merry Fellows
among the Ancients are described; but it is intended by considering
these Contraries to Pleasure, Indolence, and too much Delicacy, to shew
that it is Prudence to preserve a Disposition in our selves to receive a
certain Delight in all we hear and see.
This portable Quality of good Humour seasons all the Parts and
Occurrences we meet with, in such a manner, that, there are no Moments
lost; but they all pass with so much Satisfaction, that the heaviest of
Loads (when it is a Load) that of Time, is never felt by us.
Varilas
has this Quality to the highest Perfection, and communicates it wherever
he appears: The Sad, the Merry, the Severe, the Melancholy, shew a new
Chearfulness when he comes amongst them. At the same time no one can
repeat any thing that
Varilas
has ever said that deserves Repetition;
but the Man has that innate Goodness of Temper, that he is welcome to
every Body, because every Man thinks he is so to him. He does not seem
to contribute any thing to the Mirth of the Company; and yet upon
Reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was
whimsically said of a Gentleman, That if
Varilas
had Wit, it would be
the best Wit in the World. It is certain, when a well-corrected lively
Imagination and good Breeding are added to a sweet Disposition, they
qualify it to be one of the greatest Blessings, as well as Pleasures of
Life.
Men would come into Company with ten times the Pleasure they do, if they
were sure of hearing nothing which should shock them, as well as
expected what would please them. When we know every Person that is
spoken of is represented by one who has no ill Will, and every thing
that is mentioned described by one that is apt to set it in the best
Light, the Entertainment must be delicate; because the Cook has nothing
brought to his Hand but what is the most excellent in its Kind.
Beautiful Pictures are the Entertainments of pure Minds, and Deformities
of the corrupted. It is a Degree towards the Life of Angels, when we
enjoy Conversation wherein there is nothing presented but in its
Excellence: and a Degree towards that of Dæmons, wherein nothing is
shewn but in its Degeneracy.
T.
Contents
|
Tuesday, June 26, 1711 |
Addison |
Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux,
Post ingentia facta, Deorum in templa recepti;
Dum terras hominumque colunt genus, aspera bella
Componunt, agros assignant, oppida condunt;
Ploravere suis non respondere favorem
Speratum meritis: ...
Hor.
translation
, says a late ingenious Author,
is the Tax a Man pays to the
Publick for being Eminent
. It is a Folly for an eminent Man to
think of escaping it, and a Weakness to be affected with it. All the
illustrious Persons of Antiquity, and indeed of every Age in the World,
have passed through this fiery Persecution. There is no Defence against
Reproach, but Obscurity; it is a kind of Concomitant to Greatness, as
Satyrs and Invectives were an essential Part of a
Roman
Triumph.
If Men of Eminence are exposed to Censure on one hand, they are as much
liable to Flattery on the other. If they receive Reproaches which are
not due to them, they likewise receive Praises which they do not
deserve. In a word, the Man in a high Post is never regarded with an
indifferent Eye, but always considered as a Friend or an Enemy. For this
Reason Persons in great Stations have seldom their true Characters drawn
till several Years after their Deaths. Their personal Friendships and
Enmities must cease, and the Parties they were engaged in be at an End,
before their Faults or their Virtues can have Justice done them. When
Writers have the least Opportunities of knowing the Truth they are in
the best Disposition to tell it.
It is therefore the Privilege of Posterity to adjust the Characters of
illustrious Persons, and to set Matters right between those Antagonists,
who by their Rivalry for Greatness divided a whole Age into Factions. We
can now allow
Cæsar
to be a great Man, without derogating from
Pompey
; and celebrate the Virtues of
Cato
, without
detracting from those of
Cæsar
. Every one that has been long dead
has a due Proportion of Praise allotted him, in which whilst he lived
his Friends were too profuse and his Enemies too sparing.
to Sir
Isaac Newton's
Calculations, the last Comet that
made its Appearance in 1680, imbib'd so much Heat by its Approaches to
the Sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot
Iron, had it been a Globe of that Metal; and that supposing it as big as
the Earth, and at the same Distance from the Sun, it would be fifty
thousand Years in cooling, before it recovered its natural Temper
.
In the like manner, if an
Englishman
considers the great Ferment
into which our Political World is thrown at present, and how intensely
it is heated in all its Parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again
in less than three hundred Years. In such a Tract of Time it is possible
that the Heats of the present Age may be extinguished, and our several
Classes of great Men represented under their proper Characters. Some
eminent Historian may then probably arise that will not write
recentibus odiis
(as
Tacitus
expresses it) with the
Passions and Prejudices of a contemporary Author, but make an impartial
Distribution of Fame among the Great Men of the present Age.
I cannot forbear entertaining my self very often with the Idea of such
an imaginary Historian describing the Reign of
Anne
the First,
and introducing it with a Preface to his Reader, that he is now entring
upon the most shining Part of the
English
Story. The great Rivals
in Fame will then be distinguished according to their respective Merits,
and shine in their proper Points of
. Such
an
one (says the
Historian) tho' variously represented by the Writers of his own Age,
appears to have been a Man of more than ordinary Abilities, great
Application and uncommon Integrity: Nor was such an one (tho' of an
opposite Party and Interest) inferior to him in any of these Respects.
The several Antagonists who now endeavour to depreciate one another, and
are celebrated or traduced by different Parties, will then have the same
Body of Admirers, and appear Illustrious in the Opinion of the whole
British
Nation. The deserving Man, who can now recommend himself
to the Esteem of but half his Countrymen, will then receive the
Approbations and Applauses of a whole Age.
Among the several Persons that flourish in this Glorious Reign, there is
no question but such a future Historian as the Person of whom I am
speaking, will make mention of the Men of Genius and Learning, who have
now any Figure in the
British
Nation. For my own part, I often
flatter my self with the honourable Mention which will then be made of
me; and have drawn up a Paragraph in my own Imagination, that I fancy
will not be altogether unlike what will be found in some Page or other
of this imaginary Historian.
It was under this Reign, says he, that the
Spectator publish'd those
little Diurnal Essays which are still extant. We know very little of the
Name or Person of this Author, except only that he was a Man of a very
short Face, extreamly addicted to Silence, and so great a Lover of
Knowledge, that he made a Voyage to
Grand Cairo for no other
Reason, but to take the Measure of a Pyramid. His chief Friend was one
Sir
Roger De Coverley, a whimsical Country Knight, and a
Templar
whose Name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a Lodger at the
House of a Widow-Woman, and was a great Humourist in all Parts of his
Life. This is all we can affirm with any Certainty of his Person and
Character. As for his Speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete
Words and obscure Phrases of the Age in which he lived, we still
understand enough of them to see the Diversions and Characters of the
English Nation in his Time: Not but that we are to make Allowance
for the Mirth and Humour of the Author, who has doubtless strained many
Representations of Things beyond the Truth.
For if we interpret his
Words in the literal Meaning, we must suppose that Women of the first
Quality used to pass away whole Mornings at a Puppet-Show: That they
attested their Principles by their
Patches: That an Audience
would sit out
an4 Evening to hear a Dramatical Performance written
in a Language which they did not understand: That Chairs and Flower-pots
were introduced as Actors upon the
British Stage: That a
promiscuous Assembly of Men and Women were allowed to meet at Midnight
in Masques within the Verge of the Court; with many Improbabilities of
the like Nature. We must therefore, in these and the like Cases, suppose
that these remote Hints and Allusions aimed at some certain Follies
which were then in Vogue, and which at present we have not any Notion
of. We may guess by several Passages in the
Speculations, that
there were Writers who endeavoured to detract from the Works of this
Author; but as nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot
guess at any Objections that could be made to his Paper. If we consider
his Style with that Indulgence which we must shew to old
English
Writers, or if we look into the Variety of his Subjects, with those
several Critical Dissertations, Moral Reflections,