The Tatler (Vol 4)

"There are some abuses among us of great consequence, the reformation of which is properly your province; though as far as I have been conversant in your papers, you have not yet considered them. These are the deplorable ignorance that for some years hath reigned among our English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and the continual corruption of our style. I say nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, divinity, law, physic, and the like; I mean the traders in history and politics, and the belles lettres; together with those by whom books are not translated, but (as the common expressions are) done out of French, Latin, or other language, and made English. I cannot but observe to you, that till of late years a Grub Street book was always bound in sheepskin, with suitable print and paper, the price never above a shilling, and taken off wholly by common tradesmen or country pedlars; but now they appear in all sizes and shapes, and in all places. They are handed about from lapfuls in every coffee-house to persons of quality; are shown in Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests. You may see them gilt and in royal paper of five or six hundred pages, and rated accordingly. I would engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books published within the compass of seven years past, which at the first hand would cost you a hundred pounds, wherein you shall not be able to find ten lines together of common grammar or common sense.

"These two evils, ignorance and want of taste, have produced a third; I mean the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without some timely remedy, will suffer more by the false refinements of twenty years past than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred. And this is what I design chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your animadversion.

"But instead of giving you a list of the late refinements crept into our language, I here send you the copy of a letter I received some time ago from a most accomplished person in this way of writing; upon which I shall make some remarks. It is in these terms:

"'Sir,

"'I cou'dn't get the things you sent for all about town. I thôt to ha' come down myself, and then I'd h'bôt 'um; but I ha'n't don't, and I believe I can't d't,that's pozz. Tom[121 - Thomas Harley, minister at the Court of Hanover, and cousin of Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford. He died in 1737.] begins to gi'mself airs, because he's going with the plenipo's. 'Tis said the French King will bamboozl' us agen, which causes many speculations. The Jacks and others of that kidney are very uppish, and alert upon't, as you may see by their phizz's. Will Hazzard has got the hipps, having lost to the tune of five hundr'd pound, thô he understands play very well, nobody better. He has promis't me upon rep, to leave off play; but you know 'tis a weakness he's too apt to give into, thô he has as much wit as any man, nobodymore. He has lain incog. ever since. The mobb's very quiet with us now. I believe you thôt I bantr'd you in my last like a country put. I shan't leave town this month,' &c.

"This letter is in every point an admirable pattern of the present polite way of writing, nor is it of less authority for being an epistle: you may gather every flower in it, with a thousand more of equal sweetness, from the books, pamphlets, and single papers, offered us every day in the coffee-houses: and these are the beauties introduced to supply the want of wit, sense, humour, and learning, which formerly were looked upon as qualifications for a writer. If a man of wit, who died forty years ago, were to rise from the grave on purpose, how would he be able to read this letter? And after he had got through that difficulty, how would he be able to understand it? The first thing that strikes your eye is the breaks at the end of almost every sentence, of which I know not the use, only that it is a refinement, and very frequently practised. Then you will observe the abbreviations and elisions, by which consonants of most obdurate sound are joined together, without one softening vowel to intervene; and all this only to make one syllable of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greeks and Romans, altogether of the Gothic strain, and a natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity, which delights in monosyllables, and uniting of mute consonants, as it is observable in all the Northern languages. And this is still more visible in the next refinement, which consists in pronouncing the first syllable in a word that has many, and dismissing the rest; such as phizz, hipps, mobb, pozz, rep, and many more, when we are already overloaded with monosyllables, which are the disgrace of our language. Thus we cram one syllable, and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened her mice after she had bit off their legs, to prevent them from running away; and if ours be the same reason for maiming our words, it will certainly answer the end, for I am sure no other nation will desire to borrow them. Some words are hitherto but fairly split, and therefore only in their way to perfection, as incog. and plenipo; but in a short time, 'tis to be hoped, they will be further docked to inc. and plen. This reflection has made me of late years very impatient for a peace, which I believe would save the lives of many brave words, as well as men. The war has introduced abundance of polysyllables, which will never be able to live many more campaigns. Speculations, operations, preliminaries, ambassadors, palisadoes, communication, circumvallation, battalions, as numerous as they are, if they attack us too frequently in our coffee-houses, we shall certainly put them to flight, and cut off the rear.

"The third refinement observable in the letter I send you, consists in the choice of certain words invented by some pretty fellows, such as banter, bamboozle, country put, and kidney, as it is there applied, some of which are now struggling for the vogue, and others are in possession of it. I have done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of mobb and banter, but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.

"In the last place, you are to take notice of certain choice phrases scattered through the letter, some of them tolerable enough, till they were worn to rags by servile imitators. You might easily find them, though they were not in a different print, and therefore I need not disturb them.

"These are the false refinements in our style which you ought to correct: first, by argument and fair means; but if those fail, I think you are to make use of your authority as censor, and by an annual 'Index Expurgatorius' expunge all words and phrases that are offensive to good sense, and condemn those barbarous mutilations of vowels and syllables. In this last point the usual pretence is, that they spell as they speak: a noble standard for language! To depend upon the caprice of every coxcomb, who, because words are the clothing of our thoughts, cuts them out and shapes them as he pleases, and changes them oftener than his dress. I believe all reasonable people would be content that such refiners were more sparing in their words and liberal in their syllables: and upon this head I should be glad you would bestow some advice upon several young readers in our churches, who coming up from the university full fraught with admiration of our town politeness, will needs correct the style of their prayer-books. In reading the Absolution, they are very careful to say 'pardons' and 'absolves'; and in the prayer for the royal family it must be 'endue 'um, enrich 'um, prosper 'um, and bring 'um.' Then in their sermons they use all the modern terms of art: sham, banter, mob, bubble, bully, cutting, shuffling, and palming; all which, and many more of the like stamp, as I have heard them often in the pulpit from such young sophisters, so I have read them in some of those sermons that have made most noise of late. The design, it seems, is to avoid the dreadful imputation of pedantry; to show us that they know the town, understand men and manners, and have not been poring upon old unfashionable books in the university.

"I should be glad to see you the instrument of introducing into our style that simplicity which is the best and truest ornament of most things in life, which the politer ages always aimed at in their building and dress (simplex munditiis), as well as their productions of wit. It is manifest, that all new affected modes of speech, whether borrowed from the court, the town, or the theatre, are the first perishing parts in any language; and, as I could prove by many hundred instances, have been so in ours. The writings of Hooker, who was a country clergyman, and of Parsons the Jesuit, both in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are in a style that, with very few allowances, would not offend any present reader; much more clear and intelligible than those of Sir H. Wootton, Sir Rob. Naunton, Osborn, Daniel the historian, and several others who wrote later; but being men of the court, and affecting the phrases then in fashion, they are often either not to be understood, or appear perfectly ridiculous.

"What remedies are to be applied to these evils, I have not room to consider, having, I fear, already taken up most of your paper. Besides, I think it is our office only to represent abuses, and yours to redress them. I am with great respect,

    "Sir,
    "Your, &c."

No. 231. [Steele

Principiis obsta —

    Ovid, Rem. Amor. 91.

From Thursday, Sept. 28, to Saturday, Sept. 30, 1710

From my own Apartment, Sept. 29

There are very many ill habits that might with much ease have been prevented, which, after we have indulged ourselves in them, become incorrigible. We have a sort of proverbial expression, of taking a woman down in her wedding shoes, if you would bring her to reason. An early behaviour of this sort had a very remarkable good effect in a family wherein I was several years an intimate acquaintance.

A gentleman in Lincolnshire[122 - This story is simply that of Katherine and Petruchio, in "The Taming of the Shrew," retold. It would seem that Steele was able to count upon his readers having very little knowledge of Shakespeare.] had four daughters, three of which were early married very happily; but the fourth, though no way inferior to any of her sisters, either in person or accomplishments, had from her infancy discovered so imperious a temper (usually called a high spirit), that it continually made great uneasiness in the family, became her known character in the neighbourhood, and deterred all her lovers from declaring themselves. However, in process of time, a gentleman of a plentiful fortune and long acquaintance, having observed that quickness of spirit to be her only fault, made his addresses, and obtained her consent in due form. The lawyers finished the writings (in which, by the way, there was no pin-money), and they were married. After a decent time spent in the father's house, the bridegroom went to prepare his seat for her reception. During the whole course of his courtship, though a man of the most equal temper, he had artificially lamented to her, that he was the most passionate creature breathing. By this one intimation, he at once made her understand warmth of temper to be what he ought to pardon in her, as well as that he alarmed her against that constitution in himself. She at the same time thought herself highly obliged by the composed behaviour which he maintained in her presence. Thus far he with great success soothed her from being guilty of violences, and still resolved to give her such a terrible apprehension of his fiery spirit, that she should never dream of giving way to her own. He returned on the day appointed for carrying her home; but instead of a coach and six horses, together with the gay equipage suitable to the occasion, he appeared without a servant, mounted on the skeleton of a horse which his huntsman had the day before brought in to feast his dogs on the arrival of their new mistress, with a pillion fixed behind, and a case of pistols before him, attended only by a favourite hound. Thus equipped, he in a very obliging (but somewhat positive) manner desired his lady to seat herself on the cushion; which done, away they crawled. The road being obstructed by a gate, the dog was commanded to open it: the poor cur looked up and wagged his tail; but the master, to show the impatience of his temper, drew a pistol and shot him dead. He had no sooner done it, but he fell into a thousand apologies for his unhappy rashness, and begged as many pardons for his excesses before one for whom he had so profound a respect. Soon after their steed stumbled, but with some difficulty recovered: however, the bridegroom took occasion to swear, if he frightened his wife so again, he would run him through: and alas! the poor animal being now almost tired, made a second trip; immediately on which the careful husband alights, and with great ceremony first takes off his lady, then the accoutrements, draws his sword, and saves the huntsman the trouble of killing him: then says to his wife, "Child, prithee take up the saddle;" which she readily did, and tugged it home, where they found all things in the greatest order, suitable to their fortune and the present occasion. Some time after the father of the lady gave an entertainment to all his daughters and their husbands, where, when the wives were retired, and the gentlemen passing a toast about, our last married man took occasion to observe to the rest of his brethren, how much, to his great satisfaction, he found the world mistaken as to the temper of his lady, for that she was the most meek and humble woman breathing. The applause was received with a loud laugh: but as a trial which of them would appear the most master at home, he proposed they should all by turns send for their wives down to them. A servant was despatched, and answer was made by one, "Tell him I will come by-and-by;" another, that she would come when the cards were out of her hand; and so on. But no sooner was her husband's desire whispered in the ear of our last married lady, but the cards were clapped on the table, and down she comes with, "My dear, would you speak with me?" He receives her in his arms, and after repeated caresses, tells her the experiment, confesses his good-nature, and assures her, that since she could now command her temper, he would no longer disguise his own.

I received the following letter, with a dozen of wine, and cannot but do justice to the liquor, and give my testimony, that I have tried it upon several of my acquaintances, who were given to impertinent abbreviations,[123 - See No. 230.] with great success:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"I send you by this bearer, and not per bearer, a dozen of that claret which is to be sold at Garraway's Coffee-house on Thursday the fifth of October next. I can assure you, I have found by experience the efficacy of it in amending a fault you complain of in your last. The very first draught of it has some effect upon the speech of the drinker, and restores all the letters taken away by the elisions so justly complained of. Will Hazzard was cured of his hypochondria by three glasses; and the gentleman who gave you an account of his late indisposition, has in public company, after the first quart, spoke every syllable of the word plenipotentiary.

    "Your, &c."

No. 232. [Steele.

From Saturday Sept. 30, to Tuesday, Oct. 3, 1710

From my own Apartment, Oct. 2

I have received the following letter from my unfortunate old acquaintance the upholsterer,[124 - See Nos. 155, 160, and 178.] who, I observed, had long absented himself from the bench at the upper end of the Mall. Having not seen him for some time, I was in fear I should soon hear of his death, especially since he never appeared, though the noons have been of late pretty warm, and the councils at that place very full from the hour of twelve to three, which the sages of that board employ in conference, while the unthinking part of mankind are eating and drinking for the support of their own private persons, without any regard to the public.

"Sir,

"I should have waited on you very frequently to have discoursed you upon some matters of moment, but that I love to be well informed in the subject upon which I consult my friends before I enter into debate with them. I have therefore with the utmost care and pains applied myself to the reading all the writings and pamphlets which have come out since the trial,[125 - Sacheverell's.] and have studied night and day in order to be master of the whole controversy; but the authors are so numerous, and the state of affairs alters so very fast, that I am now a fortnight behindhand in my reading, and know only how things stood twelve days ago. I wish you would enter into those useful subjects; for, if I may be allowed to say so, these are not times to jest in. As for my own part, you know very well, that I am of a public spirit, and never regarded my own interest, but looked further; and let me tell you, that while some people are minding only themselves and families, and others are thinking only of their own country, things go on strangely in the North. I foresee very great evils arising from the neglect of transactions at a distance; for which reason I am now writing a letter to a friend in the country, which I design as an answer to the Czar of Muscovy's letter to the Grand Signior concerning his Majesty of Sweden. I have endeavoured to prove that it is not reasonable to expect that his Swedish Majesty should leave Bender without forty thousand men; and I have added to this an apology for the Cossacks. But the matter multiplies upon me, and I grow dim with much writing; therefore desire, if you have an old green pair of spectacles, such as you used about your fiftieth year, that you send them to me; as also, that you would please to desire Mr. Morphew to send me in a bushel of coals on the credit of my answer to his Czarian Majesty; for I design it shall be printed for Morphew, and the weather grows sharp. I shall take it kindly if you would order him also to send me the papers as they come out. If there are no fresh pamphlets published, I compute that I shall know before the end of next month what has been done in town to this day. If it were not for an ill custom lately introduced by a certain author, of talking Latin at the beginning of papers, matters would be in a much clearer light than they are; but to our comfort, there are solid writers who are not guilty of this pedantry. The Post-Man writes like an angel: the Moderator[126 - The Moderator, which professed to discuss the arguments of both parties impartially, lasted from May to November 1710.] is fine reading! It would do you no harm to read the Post-Boy with attention; he is very deep of late. He is instructive; but I confess a little satirical: a sharp pen! He cares not what he says. The Examiner is admirable, and is become a grave and substantial author. But above all, I am at a loss how to govern myself in my judgment of those whose whole writings consist in interrogatories: and then the way of answering, by proposing questions as hard to them, is quite as extraordinary. As for my part, I tremble at these novelties; we expose, in my opinion, our affairs too much by it. You may be sure the French King will spare no cost to come at the reading of them. I dread to think if the fable of the Blackbirds should fall into his hands. But I shall not venture to say more till I see you. In the meantime,

    "I am, &c.

"P.S.– I take the Bender letter in the Examiner to be spurious."[127 - No. 7 of the Examiner contained what purported to be a letter from a Swedish officer at Bender to his friend at Stockholm.]

This unhappy correspondent, whose fantastical loyalty to the King of Sweden has reduced him to this low condition of reason and fortune, would appear much more monstrous in his madness, did we not see crowds very little above his circumstances from the same cause, a passion to politics.

It is no unpleasant entertainment to consider the commerce even of the sexes interrupted by difference in State affairs. A wench and her gallant parted last week upon the words "unlimited" and "passive": and there is such a jargon of terms got into the mouths of the very silliest of the women, that you cannot come into a room even among them, but you find them divided into Whig and Tory. What heightens the humour is, that all the hard words they know they certainly suppose to be terms useful in the disputes of the parties. I came in this day where two were in very hot debate, and one of them proposed to me to explain to them what was the difference between circumcision and predestination. You may be sure I was at a loss; but they were too angry at each other to wait for my explanation, but proceeded to lay open the whole state of affairs, instead of the usual topics of dress, gallantry, and scandal.

I have often wondered how it should be possible that this turn to politics should so universally prevail, to the exclusion of every other subject out of conversation; and upon mature consideration, find it is for want of discourse. Look round you among all the young fellows you meet, and you see those who have least relish for books, company, or pleasure, though they have no manner of qualities to make them succeed in those pursuits, shall make very passable politicians. Thus the most barren invention shall find enough to say to make one appear an able man in the top coffee-houses. It is but adding a certain vehemence in uttering yourself, let the thing you say be never so flat, and you shall be thought a very sensible man, if you were not too hot. As love and honour are the noblest motives of life; so the pretenders to them, without being animated by them, are the most contemptible of all sorts of pretenders. The unjust affectation of anything that is laudable, is ignominious in proportion to the worth of the thing we affect: thus, as love of one's country is the most glorious of all passions, to see the most ordinary tools in a nation give themselves airs that way, without any one good quality in their own life, has something in it romantic, yet not so ridiculous as odious.

Advertisement

Mr. Bickerstaff has received Silvia's letter from the Bath, and his sister is set out thither. Tom Frontley, who is one of the guides for the town, is desired to bring her into company, and oblige her with a mention in his next lampoon.

No. 233. [Steele.

From Tuesday, Oct. 3, to Thursday, Oct. 5, 1710

-Sunt certa piacula, quæ te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

    Hor., 1 Ep. i. 36.

From my own Apartment, Oct. 4

When the mind has been perplexed with anxious cares and passions, the best method of bringing it to its usual state of tranquillity, is, as much as we possibly can, to turn our thoughts to the adversities of persons of higher consideration in virtue and merit than ourselves. By this means all the little incidents of our own lives, if they are unfortunate, seem to be the effect of justice upon our faults and indiscretions. When those whom we know to be excellent and deserving of a better fate are wretched, we cannot but resign ourselves, whom most of us know to merit a much worse state than that we are placed in. For such and many other occasions, there is one admirable relation which one might recommend for certain periods of one's life, to touch, comfort, and improve the heart of man. Tully says, somewhere, the pleasures of a husbandman are next to those of a philosopher. In like manner one may say (for methinks they bear the same proportion one to another), the pleasures of humanity are next to those of devotion. In both these latter satisfactions, there is a certain humiliation which exalts the soul above its ordinary state. At the same time that it lessens our value of ourselves, it enlarges our estimation of others. The history I am going to speak of, is that of Joseph in Holy Writ, which is related with such majestic simplicity, that all the parts of it strike us with strong touches of nature and compassion, and he must be a stranger to both who can read it with attention, and not be overwhelmed with the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow. I hope it will not be a profanation to tell it one's own way here, that they who may be unthinking enough to be more frequently readers of such papers as this than of Sacred Writ, may be advertised, that the greatest pleasures the imagination can be entertained with are to be found there, and that even the style of the Scriptures is more than human.

Joseph, a beloved child of Israel, became invidious to his elder brethren, for no other reason but his superior beauty and excellence of body and mind, insomuch that they could not bear his growing virtue, and let him live. They therefore conspire his death; but nature pleaded so strongly for him in the heart of one of them, that by his persuasion they determined rather to bury him in a pit, than be his immediate executioners with their own hands. When thus much was obtained for him, their minds still softened towards him, and they took the opportunity of some passengers to sell him into Egypt. Israel was persuaded by the artifice of his sons, that the youth was torn to pieces by wild beasts: but Joseph was sold to slavery, and still exposed to new misfortunes, from the same cause as before, his beauty and his virtue. By a false accusation he was committed to prison, but in process of time delivered from it, in consideration of his wisdom and knowledge, and made the governor of Pharaoh's house. In this elevation of his fortune, his brothers were sent into Egypt to buy necessaries of life in a famine. As soon as they are brought into his presence, he beholds, but he beholds with compassion, the men who had sold him to slavery approaching him with awe and reverence. While he was looking over his brethren, he takes a resolution to indulge himself in the pleasure of stirring their and his own affections, by keeping himself concealed, and examining into the circumstances of their family. For this end, with an air of severity, as a watchful minister to Pharaoh, he accuses them as spies, who are come into Egypt with designs against the State. This led them into the account which he wanted of them, the condition of their ancient father and little brother, whom they had left behind them. When he had learned that his brother was living, he demands the bringing him to Egypt, as a proof of their veracity.

But it would be a vain and empty endeavour to attempt laying this excellent representation of the passions of man in the same colours as they appear in the Sacred Writ in any other manner, or almost any other words, than those made use of in the page itself. I am obliged therefore to turn my designed narration rather into a comment upon the several parts of that beautiful and passionate scene. When Joseph expects to see Benjamin, how natural and how forcible is the reflection, "This affliction is come upon us in that we saw the anguish of our brother's soul without pity!" How moving must it be to Joseph to hear Reuben accuse the rest, that they would not hear what he pleaded in behalf of his innocence and distress! He turns from them and weeps, but commands his passion so far as to give orders for binding one of them in the presence of the rest, while he at leisure observed their different sentiments and concern in their gesture and countenance. When Benjamin is demanded in bondage for stealing the cup, with what force and what resignation does Judah address his brother!

"In what words shall I speak to my lord; with what confidence can I say anything? Our guilt is but too apparent; we submit to our fate. We are my lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found." When that is not accepted, how pathetically does he recapitulate the whole story! And approaching nearer to Joseph, delivers himself as follows; which, if we fix our thoughts upon the relation between the pleader and the judge, it is impossible to read without tears:

"Sir, let me intrude so far upon you, even in the high condition in which you are, and the miserable one in which you see me and my brethren, to inform you of the circumstances of us unhappy men that prostrate ourselves before you. When we were first examined by you, you inquired (for what reason my lord inquired we know not), but you inquired whether we had not a father or a brother? We then acquainted you, that we had a father, an old man, who had a child of his old age, and had buried another son whom he had by the same woman. You were pleased to command us to bring the child he had remaining down to us: we did so, and he has forfeited his liberty. But my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons: one of them was torn in pieces: if mischief befall this also, it will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Accept, therefore, oh my lord! me for your bondman, and let the lad return with his brethren, that I may not see the evil that shall come on my father.' Here Joseph's passion grew too great for further disguise, and he reveals himself with exclamations of transport and tenderness.

"After their recovery from their first astonishment, his brethren were seized with fear for the injuries they had done him; but how generously does he keep them in countenance, and make an apology for them: 'Be not angry with yourselves for selling me hither; call it not so, but think Providence sent me before you to preserve life.'"

It would be endless to go through all the beauties of this sacred narrative; but any who shall read it, at an hour when he is disengaged from all other regard or interests than what arise from it, will feel the alternate passion of a father, a brother, and a son, so warm in him, that they will incline him to exert himself (in such of those characters as happen to be his) much above the ordinary course of his life.

No. 234. [Steele.