. He afterwards
goes on to shew that our Love of Sports comes from the same Reason, and
is particularly severe upon
Hunting
,
What
, says he,
unless it be to
drown Thought, can make Men throw away so much Time and Pains upon a
silly Animal, which they might buy cheaper in the Market
? The foregoing
Reflection is certainly just, when a Man suffers his whole Mind to be
drawn into his Sports, and altogether loses himself in the Woods; but
does not affect those who propose a far more laudable End from this
Exercise, I mean,
The Preservation of Health, and keeping all the
Organs of the Soul in a Condition to execute her Orders
.
that
incomparable Person, whom I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to
himself in this Point, the World might probably have enjoyed him much
longer; whereas thro' too great an Application to his Studies in his
Youth, he contracted that ill Habit of Body, which, after a tedious
Sickness, carried him oft in the fortieth Year of his Age
; and the
whole History we have of his Life till that Time, is but one continued
Account of the behaviour of a noble Soul struggling under innumerable
Pains and Distempers.
For my own part I intend to Hunt twice a Week during my Stay with Sir
Roger
; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this Exercise to all my
Country Friends, as the best kind of Physick for mending a bad
Constitution, and preserving a good one.
cannot do this better, than in the following Lines out of Mr.
Dryden
.
The first Physicians by Debauch were made;
Excess began, and Sloth sustains the Trade.
By Chace our long-liv'd Fathers earn'd their Food;
Toil strung the Nerves, and purify'd the Blood;
But we their Sons, a pamper'd Race of Men,
Are dwindled down to threescore Years and ten.
Better to hunt in Fields for Health unbought,
Than fee the Doctor for a nauseous Draught.
The Wise for Cure on Exercise depend:
God never made his Work for Man to mend.
As to dogs, the difference is great between a hunt now and
a hunt in the
Spectator's
time. Since the early years of the last
century the modern foxhound has come into existence, while the beagle
and the deep-flewed southern hare-hound, nearly resembling the
bloodhound, with its sonorous note, has become almost extinct.
Absolutely extinct also is the old care to attune the voices of a pack.
Henry II, in his breeding of hounds, is said to have been careful not
only that they should be fleet, but also 'well-tongued and consonous;'
the same care in Elizabeth's time is, in the passage quoted by the
Spectator
, attributed by Shakespeare to Duke Theseus; and the paper
itself shows that care was taken to match the voices of a pack in the
reign also of Queen Anne. This has now been for some time absolutely
disregarded. In many important respects the pattern harrier of the
present day differs even from the harriers used at the beginning of the
present century.
Act IV. sc. 1.
Pascal, who wrote a treatise on Conic sections at the age
of 16, and had composed most of his mathematical works and made his
chief experiments in science by the age of 26, was in constant
suffering, by disease, from his 18th year until his death, in 1662, at
the age stated in the text. Expectation of an early death caused him to
pass from his scientific studies into the direct service of religion,
and gave, as the fruit of his later years, the Provincial Letters and
the
Pensées
.
Epistle
to his kinsman, J. Driden, Esq., of Chesterton.
Contents
Contents p.4
|
Saturday, July 14, 1711 |
Addison |
... Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.
Virg.
There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, without
engaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith as
this, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutely
necessary to a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors and Prepossessions.
When the Arguments press equally on both sides in Matters that are
indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give up our selves to
neither.
It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject of
Witchcraft. When I hear the Relations that are made from all Parts of
the World, not only from
Norway
and
Lapland
, from the
East
and
West Indies
, but from every particular Nation in
Europe
, I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an
Intercourse and Commerce with Evil Spirits, as that which we express by
the Name of Witch-craft. But when I consider that the ignorant and
credulous Parts of the World abound most in these Relations, and that
the Persons among us, who are supposed to engage in such an Infernal
Commerce, are People of a weak Understanding and a crazed Imagination,
and at the same time reflect upon the many Impostures and Delusions of
this Nature that have been detected in all Ages, I endeavour to suspend
my Belief till I hear more certain Accounts than any which have yet come
to my Knowledge. In short, when I consider the Question, whether there
are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is
divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my
Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a
thing as Witch-craft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any
particular Instance of it.
I am engaged in this Speculation, by some Occurrences that I met with
Yesterday, which I shall give my Reader an Account of at large. As I was
walking with my Friend Sir
Roger
by the side of one of his Woods, an old
Woman applied herself to me for my Charity.
Dress and Figure put me
in mind of the following Description in
Otway
.
In a close Lane as I pursued my Journey,
I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with Age grown double,
Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self.
Her Eyes with scalding Rheum were gall'd and red,
Cold Palsy shook her Head; her Hands seem'd wither'd;
And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrap'd
The tatter'd Remnants of an old striped Hanging,
Which served to keep her Carcase from the Cold:
So there was nothing of a Piece about her.
Her lower Weeds were all o'er coarsly patch'd
With diff'rent-colour'd Rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seem'd to speak Variety of Wretchedness.2
As I was musing on this Description, and comparing it with the Object
before me, the Knight told me,
that
very old Woman had the
Reputation of a Witch all over the Country, that her Lips were observed
to be always in Motion, and that there was not a Switch about her House
which her Neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of
Miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found Sticks or Straws
that lay in the Figure of a Cross before her. If she made any Mistake at
Church, and cryed
Amen
in a wrong Place, they never failed to
conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. There was not a Maid
in the Parish that would take a Pin of her, though she would offer a Bag
of Mony with it. She goes by the Name of
Moll White
, and has made
the Country ring with several imaginary Exploits which are palmed upon
her. If the Dairy Maid does not make her Butter come so soon as she
should have it,
Moll White
is at the Bottom of the Churn. If a
Horse sweats in the Stable,
Moll White
has been upon his Back. If
a Hare makes an unexpected escape from the Hounds, the Huntsman curses
Moll White
. Nay, (says Sir
Roger
) I have known the Master of the
Pack, upon such an Occasion, send one of his Servants to see if
Moll
White
had been out that Morning.
This Account raised my Curiosity so far, that I begged my Friend Sir
Roger
to go with me into her Hovel, which stood in a solitary Corner
under the side of the Wood. Upon our first entering Sir
Roger
winked to
me, and pointed at something that stood behind the Door, which, upon
looking that Way, I found to be an old Broom-staff. At the same time he
whispered me in the Ear to take notice of a Tabby Cat that sat in the
Chimney-Corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a
Report as
Moll White
her self; for besides that
Moll
is
said often to accompany her in the same Shape, the Cat is reported to
have spoken twice or thrice in her Life, and to have played several
Pranks above the Capacity of an ordinary Cat.
I was secretly concerned to see Human Nature in so much Wretchedness and
Disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear Sir
Roger
, who is a little puzzled about the old Woman, advising her as a
Justice of Peace to avoid all Communication with the Devil, and never to
hurt any of her Neighbours' Cattle. We concluded our Visit with a
Bounty, which was very acceptable.
In our Return home, Sir
Roger
told me, that old
Moll
had been
often brought before him for making Children spit Pins, and giving Maids
the Night-Mare; and that the Country People would be tossing her into a
Pond and trying Experiments with her every Day, if it was not for him
and his Chaplain.
have since found upon Enquiry, that Sir
Roger
was several times
staggered with the Reports that had been brought him concerning this old
Woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the County Sessions,
had not his Chaplain with much ado perswaded him to the contrary
.
I have been the more particular in this Account, because I hear there is
scarce a Village in
England
that has not a
Moll White
in
it. When an old Woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a Parish,
she is generally turned into a Witch, and fills the whole Country with
extravagant Fancies, imaginary Distempers and terrifying Dreams. In the
mean time, the poor Wretch that is the innocent Occasion of so many
Evils begins to be frighted at her self, and sometimes confesses secret
Commerce and Familiarities that her Imagination forms in a delirious old
Age. This frequently cuts off Charity from the greatest Objects of
Compassion, and inspires People with a Malevolence towards those poor
decrepid Parts of our Species, in whom Human Nature is defaced by
Infirmity and Dotage.
L.
Ottway
, which I could not forbear repeating on this
occasion.
Orphan
, Act II. Chamont to Monimia.
The knight told me, upon hearing the Description,
When this essay was written, charges were being laid
against one old woman, Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village north
of Hertford, which led to her trial for witchcraft at assizes held in
the following year, 1712, when she was found guilty; and became
memorable as the last person who, in this country, was condemned to
capital punishment for that impossible offence. The judge got first a
reprieve and then a pardon. The lawyers had refused to draw up any
indictment against the poor old creature, except, in mockery, for
'conversing familiarly with the devil in form of a cat.' But of that
offence she was found guilty upon the testimony of sixteen witnesses,
three of whom were clergymen. One witness, Anne Thorne, testified that
every night the pins went from her pincushion into her mouth. Others
gave evidence that they had seen pins come jumping through the air into
Anne Thorne's mouth. Two swore that they had heard the prisoner, in the
shape of a cat, converse with the devil, he being also in form of a cat.
Anne Thorne swore that she was tormented exceedingly with cats, and that
all the cats had the face and voice of the witch. The vicar of Ardeley
had tested the poor ignorant creature with the Lord's Prayer, and
finding that she could not repeat it, had terrified her with his moral
tortures into some sort of confession. Such things, then, were said and
done, and such credulity was abetted even by educated men at the time
when this essay was written. Upon charges like those ridiculed in the
text, a woman actually was, a few months later, not only committed by
justices with a less judicious spiritual counsellor than Sir Roger's
chaplain, but actually found guilty at the assizes, and condemned to
death.
Contents
Contents p.4
|
Monday, July 16, 1711 |
Steele |
... Haret lateri lethalis arundo.
Virg.
This agreeable Seat is surrounded with so many pleasing Walks, which are
struck out of a Wood, in the midst of which the House stands, that one
can hardly ever be weary of rambling from one Labyrinth of Delight to
another. To one used to live in a City the Charms of the Country are so
exquisite, that the Mind is lost in a certain Transport which raises us
above ordinary Life, and is yet not strong enough to be inconsistent
with Tranquility. This State of Mind was I in, ravished with the Murmur
of Waters, the Whisper of Breezes, the Singing of Birds; and whether I
looked up to the Heavens, down on the Earth, or turned to the Prospects
around me, still struck with new Sense of Pleasure; when I found by the
Voice of my Friend, who walked by me, that we had insensibly stroled
into the Grove sacred to the Widow.
This Woman, says he, is of all others the most unintelligible: she
either designs to marry, or she does not. What is the most perplexing
of all, is, that she doth not either say to her Lovers she has any
Resolution against that Condition of Life in general, or that she
banishes them; but conscious of her own Merit, she permits their
Addresses, without Fear of any ill Consequence, or want of Respect,
from their Rage or Despair. She has that in her Aspect, against which
it is impossible to offend. A Man whose Thoughts are constantly bent
upon so agreeable an Object, must be excused if the ordinary
Occurrences in Conversation are below his Attention. I call her indeed
perverse, but, alas! why do I call her so? Because her superior Merit
is such, that I cannot approach her without Awe, that my Heart is
checked by too much Esteem: I am angry that her Charms are not more
accessible, that I am more inclined to worship than salute her: How
often have I wished her unhappy that I might have an Opportunity of
serving her? and how often troubled in that very Imagination, at
giving her the Pain of being obliged? Well, I have led a miserable
Life in secret upon her Account; but fancy she would have condescended
to have some regard for me, if it had not been for that watchful
Animal her Confident.
Of all Persons under the Sun (continued he, calling me by my Name) be
sure to set a Mark upon Confidents: they are of all People the most
impertinent. What is most pleasant to observe in them, is, that they
assume to themselves the Merit of the Persons whom they have in their
Custody. Orestilla is a great Fortune, and in wonderful Danger
of Surprizes, therefore full of Suspicions of the least indifferent
thing, particularly careful of new Acquaintance, and of growing too
familiar with the old. Themista, her Favourite-Woman, is every
whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and what she says. Let the Ward
be a Beauty, her Confident shall treat you with an Air of Distance;
let her be a Fortune, and she assumes the suspicious Behaviour of her
Friend and Patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried Women
of Distinction, are to all Intents and Purposes married, except the
Consideration of different Sexes. They are directly under the Conduct
of their Whisperer; and think they are in a State of Freedom, while
they can prate with one of these Attendants of all Men in general, and
still avoid the Man they most like. You do not see one Heiress in a
hundred whose Fate does not turn upon this Circumstance of choosing a
Confident. Thus it is that the Lady is addressed to, presented and
flattered, only by Proxy, in her Woman. In my Case, how is it possible
that
Sir
Rodger
was proceeding in his Harangue, when we heard the Voice of
one speaking very importunately, and repeating these Words,
'What, not
one Smile?'
We followed the Sound till we came to a close Thicket, on
the other side of which we saw a young Woman sitting as it were in a
personated Sullenness just over a transparent Fountain. Opposite to her
stood Mr.
William
, Sir Roger's Master of the Game. The Knight
whispered me, 'Hist, these are Lovers.' The Huntsman looking earnestly
at the Shadow of the young Maiden in the Stream,
'Oh thou dear Picture, if thou couldst remain there in the Absence of
that fair Creature whom you represent in the Water, how willingly
could I stand here satisfied for ever, without troubling my dear
Betty herself with any Mention of her unfortunate
William, whom she is angry with: But alas! when she pleases to
be gone, thou wilt also vanish — Yet let me talk to thee while thou
dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon
her, than does her William? Her Absence will make away with me
as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I'll jump into these
Waves to lay hold on thee; her self, her own dear Person, I must never
embrace again — Still do you hear me without one Smile — It is too much
to bear — '
He had no sooner spoke these Words, but he made an Offer of throwing
himself into the Water: At which his Mistress started up, and at the
next Instant he jumped across the Fountain and met her in an Embrace.
She half recovering from her Fright, said in the most charming Voice
imaginable, and with a Tone of Complaint,
'I thought how well you would drown yourself. No, no, you won't drown
yourself till you have taken your leave of Susan Holliday.'
The Huntsman, with a Tenderness that spoke the most passionate Love, and
with his Cheek close to hers, whispered the softest Vows of Fidelity in
her Ear, and cried,
'Don't, my Dear, believe a Word Kate Willow says; she is
spiteful and makes Stories, because she loves to hear me talk to her
self for your sake.'
Look you there, quoth Sir Roger, do you see there, all Mischief comes
from Confidents! But let us not interrupt them; the Maid is honest,
and the Man dares not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her Father: I
will interpose in this matter, and hasten the Wedding. Kate
Willow is a witty mischievous Wench in the Neighbourhood, who was
a Beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the perverse Widow in her
Condition. She was so flippant with her Answers to all the honest
Fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her Beauty, that she
has valued herself upon her Charms till they are ceased. She therefore
now makes it her Business to prevent other young Women from being more
Discreet than she was herself: However, the saucy Thing said the other
Day well enough, 'Sir Roger and I must make a Match, for we are 'both
despised by those we loved:' The Hussy has a great deal of Power
wherever she comes, and has her Share of Cunning.
However, when I reflect upon this Woman, I do not know whether in the
main I am the worse for having loved her: Whenever she is recalled to
my Imagination my Youth returns, and I feel a forgotten Warmth in my
Veins. This Affliction in my Life has streaked all my Conduct with a
Softness, of which I should otherwise have been incapable. It is,
perhaps, to this dear Image in my Heart owing, that I am apt to
relent, that I easily forgive, and that many desirable things are
grown into my Temper, which I should not have arrived at by better
Motives than the Thought of being one Day hers. I am pretty well
satisfied such a Passion as I have had is never well cured; and
between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some
whimsical Effect upon my Brain: For I frequently find, that in my most
serious Discourse I let fall some comical Familiarity of Speech or odd
Phrase that makes the Company laugh; However, I cannot but allow she
is a most excellent Woman. When she is in the Country I warrant she
does not run into Dairies, but reads upon the Nature of Plants; but
has a Glass Hive, and comes into the Garden out of Books to see them
work, and observe the Policies of their Commonwealth. She understands
every thing. I'd give ten Pounds to hear her argue with my Friend Sir
Look you there, quoth Sir Roger, do you see there, all Mischief comes
from Confidents! But let us not interrupt them; the Maid is honest,
and the Man dares not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her Father: I
will interpose in this matter, and hasten the Wedding. Kate
Willow is a witty mischievous Wench in the Neighbourhood, who was
a Beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the perverse Widow in her
Condition. She was so flippant with her Answers to all the honest
Fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her Beauty, that she
has valued herself upon her Charms till they are ceased. She therefore
now makes it her Business to prevent other young Women from being more
Discreet than she was herself: However, the saucy Thing said the other
Day well enough, 'Sir Roger and I must make a Match, for we are 'both
despised by those we loved:' The Hussy has a great deal of Power
wherever she comes, and has her Share of Cunning.
However, when I reflect upon this Woman, I do not know whether in the
main I am the worse for having loved her: Whenever she is recalled to
my Imagination my Youth returns, and I feel a forgotten Warmth in my
Veins. This Affliction in my Life has streaked all my Conduct with a
Softness, of which I should otherwise have been incapable. It is,
perhaps, to this dear Image in my Heart owing, that I am apt to
relent, that I easily forgive, and that many desirable things are
grown into my Temper, which I should not have arrived at by better
Motives than the Thought of being one Day hers. I am pretty well
satisfied such a Passion as I have had is never well cured; and
between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some
whimsical Effect upon my Brain: For I frequently find, that in my most
serious Discourse I let fall some comical Familiarity of Speech or odd
Phrase that makes the Company laugh; However, I cannot but allow she
is a most excellent Woman. When she is in the Country I warrant she
does not run into Dairies, but reads upon the Nature of Plants; but
has a Glass Hive, and comes into the Garden out of Books to see them
work, and observe the Policies of their Commonwealth. She understands
every thing. I'd give ten Pounds to hear her argue with my Friend Sir
Andrew Freeport about Trade. No, no, for all she looks so innocent as
it were, take my Word for it she is no Fool.
T.
Contents
Contents p.4
|
Tuesday, July 17, 1711 |
Addison |
Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Melibæe, putavi
Stultus ego huic nostræ similem ...
Virg.
The first and most obvious Reflections which arise in a Man who changes
the City for the Country, are upon the different Manners of the People
whom he meets with in those two different Scenes of Life. By Manners I
do not mean Morals, but Behaviour and Good Breeding, as they shew
themselves in the Town and in the Country.
And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great Revolution
that has happen'd in this Article of Good Breeding. Several obliging
Deferences, Condescensions and Submissions, with many outward Forms and
Ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the
politer Part of Mankind, who lived in Courts and Cities, and
distinguished themselves from the Rustick part of the Species (who on
all Occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual Complaisance
and Intercourse of Civilities. These Forms of Conversation by degrees
multiplied and grew troublesome; the Modish World found too great a
Constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside.
Conversation, like the
Romish
Religion, was so encumbered with Show
and Ceremony, that it stood in need of a Reformation to retrench its
Superfluities, and restore it to its natural good Sense and Beauty. At
present therefore an unconstrained Carriage, and a certain Openness of
Behaviour, are the Height of Good Breeding. The Fashionable World is
grown free and easie; our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so
modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shews it
self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.
If after this we look on the People of Mode in the Country, we find in
them the Manners of the last Age. They have no sooner fetched themselves
up to the Fashion of the polite World, but the Town has dropped them,
and are nearer to the first State of Nature than to those Refinements
which formerly reign'd in the Court, and still prevail in the Country.
One may now know a Man that never conversed in the World, by his Excess
of Good Breeding. A polite Country 'Squire shall make you as many Bows
in half an Hour, as would serve a Courtier for a Week. There is
infinitely more to do about Place and Precedency in a Meeting of
Justices Wives, than in an Assembly of Dutchesses.
This Rural Politeness is very troublesome to a Man of my Temper, who
generally take the Chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the
Front or in the Rear, as Chance directs. I have known my Friend Sir
Roger's Dinner almost cold before the Company could adjust the
Ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have heartily pitied
my old Friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his Guests,
as they sat at the several Parts of his Table, that he might drink their
Healths according to their respective Ranks and Qualities. Honest
Will.
Wimble
, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with
Ceremony, gives me abundance of Trouble in this Particular. Though he
has been fishing all the Morning, he will not help himself at Dinner
'till I am served. When we are going out of the Hall, he runs behind me;
and last Night, as we were walking in the Fields, stopped short at a
Stile till I came up to it, and upon my making Signs to him to get over,
told me, with a serious Smile, that sure I believed they had no Manners
in the Country.
There has happened another Revolution in the Point of Good Breeding,
which relates to the Conversation among Men of Mode, and which I cannot
but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first
Distinctions of a well-bred Man, to express every thing that had the
most remote Appearance of being obscene, in modest Terms and distant
Phrases; whilst the Clown, who had no such Delicacy of Conception and
Expression, clothed his
Ideas
in those plain homely Terms that are the
most obvious and natural. This kind of Good Manners was perhaps carried
to an Excess, so as to make Conversation too stiff, formal and precise:
for which Reason (as Hypocrisy in one Age is generally succeeded by
Atheism in another) Conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the
first Extream; so that at present several of our Men of the Town, and
particularly those who have been polished in
France
, make use of the
most coarse uncivilized Words in our Language, and utter themselves
often in such a manner as a Clown would blush to hear.
This infamous Piece of Good Breeding, which reigns among the Coxcombs of
the Town, has not yet made its way into the Country; and as it is
impossible for such an irrational way of Conversation to last long among
a People that make any Profession of Religion, or Show of Modesty, if
the Country Gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the
Lurch. Their Good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be
thought a Parcel of lewd Clowns, while they fancy themselves talking
together like Men of Wit and Pleasure.
As the two Points of Good Breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon,
regard Behaviour and Conversation, there is a third which turns upon
Dress. In this too the Country are very much behind-hand. The Rural
Beaus are not yet got out of the Fashion that took place at the time of
the Revolution, but ride about the Country in red Coats and laced Hats,
while the Women in many Parts are still trying to outvie one another in
the Height of their Head-dresses.