The Tatler (Vol 4)

"It is to be noted, that Trueman refused twenty thousand pounds with another young lady; so that reckoning both his self-denials, he is to have in your court the merit of having given £30,000 for the woman he loved. This gentleman I claim your justice to; and hope you will be convinced, that some of us have larger views than only cash debtor, per contra creditor.

    "Yours,
    "Richard Traffic."

"N.B.– Mr. Thomas Trueman of Lime Street is entered among the heroes of domestic life.

    "Charles Lillie."

No. 214. [Steele.[56 - It is not unlikely that the account of a State weather-glass in this paper is by Addison, who was the author of the description of an ecclesiastical thermometer in No. 220.]

From Saturday, Aug. 19, to Tuesday, Aug. 22, 1710

– Soles et aperta serena
Prospicere, et certis poteris cognoscere signis.

    Virg., Georg. i. 393.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 21

In every party there are two sorts of men, the rigid and the supple. The rigid are an intractable race of mortals, who act upon principle, and will not, forsooth, fall into any measures that are not consistent with their received notions of honour. These are persons of a stubborn, unpliant morality, that sullenly adhere to their friends when they are disgraced, and to their principles, though they are exploded. I shall therefore give up this stiff-necked generation to their own obstinacy, and turn my thoughts to the advantage of the supple, who pay their homage to places, and not persons; and without enslaving themselves to any particular scheme of opinions, are as ready to change their conduct in point of sentiment as of fashion. The well-disciplined part of a court are generally so perfect at their exercise, that you may see a whole assembly, from front to rear, face about at once to a new man of power, though at the same time they turn their backs upon him that brought them thither. The great hardship these complaisant members of society are under, seems to be the want of warning upon any approaching change or revolution; so that they are obliged in a hurry to tack about with every wind, and stop short in the midst of a full career, to the great surprise and derision of their beholders.

When a man foresees a decaying ministry, he has leisure to grow a malcontent, reflect upon the present conduct, and by gradual murmurs fall off from his friends into a new party, by just steps and measures. For want of such notices, I have formerly known a very well-bred person refuse to return a bow of a man whom he thought in disgrace, that was next day made Secretary of State; and another, who after a long neglect of a minister, came to his levee, and made professions of zeal for his service the very day before he was turned out.

This produces also unavoidable confusions and mistakes in the descriptions of great men's parts and merits. That ancient lyric, Mr. D'Urfey,[57 - See Nos. 1, 11, and 43. The dedication was to the Second Part of "Don Quixote," which D'Urfey addressed to Charles, Earl of Dorset, in these lines:"You have, my Lord, a patent from above,And can monopolise both wit and love,Inspired and blest by Heaven's peculiar care,Adored by all the wise and all the fair;To whom the world united give this due,Best judge of men, and best of poets too."] some years ago wrote a dedication to a certain lord, in which he celebrated him for the greatest poet and critic of that age, upon a misinformation in Dyer's Letter[58 - See No. 18.], that his noble patron was made Lord Chamberlain. In short, innumerable votes, speeches, and sermons have been thrown away, and turned to no account, merely for want of due and timely intelligence. Nay, it has been known, that a panegyric has been half printed off, when the poet, upon the removal of the minister, has been forced to alter it into a satire.

For the conduct therefore of such useful persons as are ready to do their country service upon all occasions, I have an engine in my study, which is a sort of a Political Barometer, or, to speak more intelligibly, a State Weather-Glass, that, by the rising and falling of a certain magical liquor, presages all changes and revolutions in government, as the common glass does those of the weather. This weather-glass is said to have been invented by Cardan,[59 - Jerome Cardan (1501-1576), physician and astrologer (see Professor Henry Morley's "Life of Girolamo Cardano," 1854).] and given by him as a present to his great countryman and contemporary Machiavel, which (by the way) may serve to rectify a received error in chronology, that places one of these some years after the other. How or when it came into my hands, I shall desire to be excused if I keep to myself; but so it is, that I have walked by it for the better part of a century, to my safety at least, if not to my advantage; and have among my papers, a register of all the changes that happened in it from the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

In the time of that princess, it stood long at Settled Fair. At the latter end of King James the First, it fell to Cloudy. It held several years after at Stormy; insomuch that at last despairing of seeing any clear weather at home, I followed the royal exile, and some time after finding my glass rise, returned to my native country with the rest of the loyalists. I was then in hopes to pass the remainder of my days in Settled Fair: but alas! during the greatest part of that reign, the English nation lay in a Dead Calm, which, as it is usual, was followed by high winds and tempests till of late years: in which, with unspeakable joy and satisfaction, I have seen our political weather returned to Settled Fair. I must only observe, that for all this last summer my glass has pointed at Changeable. Upon the whole, I often apply to Fortune Æneas's speech to the sybil:

– Non ulla laborum,

O virgo, nova mi fades inopinave surgit:

Omnia præcepi, atque animo me cum ante peregi.[60 - Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 103.]

The advantages which have accrued to those whom I have advised in their affairs, by virtue of this sort of prescience, have been very considerable. A nephew of mine, who has never put his money into the stocks, or taken it out, without my advice, has in a few years raised five hundred pounds to almost so many thousands. As for myself, who look upon riches to consist rather in content than possessions, and measure the greatness of the mind rather by its tranquillity than its ambition, I have seldom used my glass to make my way in the world, but often to retire from it. This is a by-path to happiness, which was first discovered to me by a most pleasing apothegm of Pythagoras: "When the winds," says he, "rise, worship the echo." That great philosopher (whether to make his doctrines the more venerable, or to gild his precepts with the beauty of imagination, or to awaken the curiosity of his disciples; for I will not suppose what is usually said, that he did it to conceal his wisdom from the vulgar) has couched several admirable precepts in remote allusions and mysterious sentences. By the winds in this apothegm, are meant State hurricanes and popular tumults. "When these arise," says he, "worship the echo;" that is, withdraw yourself from the multitude into deserts, woods, solitudes, or the like retirements, which are the usual habitations of the echo.

No. 215. [Steele.

From Tuesday, Aug. 22, to Thursday, Aug. 24, 1710

From my own Apartment, Aug. 23

Lysander has written to me out of the country, and tells me, after many other circumstances, that he had passed a great deal of time with much pleasure and tranquillity, till his happiness was interrupted by an indiscreet flatterer, who came down into those parts to visit a relation. With the circumstances in which he represents the matter, he had no small provocation to be offended, for he attacked him in so wrong a season, that he could not have any relish of pleasure in it; though, perhaps, at another time, it might have passed upon him without giving him much uneasiness. Lysander had, after a long satiety of the town, been so happy as to get to a solitude he extremely liked, and recovered a pleasure he had long discontinued, that of reading. He was got to the bank of a rivulet, covered by a pleasing shade, and fanned by a soft breeze, which threw his mind into that sort of composure and attention in which a man, though with indolence, enjoys the utmost liveliness of his spirits, and the greatest strength of his mind at the same time. In this state, Lysander represents that he was reading Virgil's "Georgics"; when on a sudden the gentleman above-mentioned surprised him, and, without any manner of preparation, falls upon him at once. "What! I have found you out at last, after searching all over the wood. We wanted you at cards after dinner, but you are much better employed. I have heard indeed that you are an excellent scholar: but at the same time, is it not a little unkind to rob the ladies, who like you so well, of the pleasure of your company? But that is indeed the misfortune of you great scholars, you are seldom so fit for the world as those who never trouble themselves with books. Well, I see you are taken up with your learning there, and I'll leave you." Lysander says, he made him no answer, but took a resolution to complain to me.

It is a substantial affliction, when men govern themselves by the rules of good-breeding, that by the very force of them they are subjected to the insolence of those who either never will, or never can, understand them. The superficial part of mankind form to themselves little measures of behaviour from the outside of things. By the force of these narrow conceptions, they act amongst themselves with applause, and do not apprehend they are contemptible to those of higher understanding, who are restrained by decencies above their knowledge from showing a dislike. Hence it is, that because complaisance is a good quality in conversation, one impertinent takes upon him on all occasions to commend; and because mirth is agreeable, another thinks fit eternally to jest. I have of late received many packets of letters complaining of these spreading evils. A lady who is lately arrived at the Bath acquaints me, there was in the stage-coach wherein she went down, a common flatterer, and a common jester. These gentlemen were (she tells me) rivals in her favour; and adds, if there ever happened a case wherein of two persons one was not liked more than another, it was in that journey. They differed only in proportion to the degree of dislike between the nauseous and the insipid. Both these characters of men are born out of a barrenness of imagination. They are never fools by nature, but become such out of an impotent ambition of being what she never intended them, men of wit and conversation. I therefore think fit to declare, that according to the known laws of this land, a man may be a very honest gentleman, and enjoy himself and his friend, without being a wit; and I absolve all men from taking pains to be such for the future. As the present case stands, is it not very unhappy that Lysander must be attacked and applauded in a wood, and Corinna jolted and commended in a stage-coach; and this for no manner of reason, but because other people have a mind to show their parts? I grant indeed, if these people (as they have understanding enough for it) would confine their accomplishments to those of their own degree of talents, it were to be tolerated; but when they are so insolent as to interrupt the meditations of the wife, the conversations of the agreeable, and the whole behaviour of the modest, it becomes a grievance naturally in my jurisdiction. Among themselves, I cannot only overlook, but approve it. I was present the other day at a conversation, where a man of this height of breeding and sense told a young woman of the same form, "To be sure, madam, everything must please that comes from a lady." She answered, "I know, sir, you are so much a gentleman that you think so." Why, this is very well on both sides; and it is impossible that such a gentleman and lady should do other than think well of one another. These are but loose hints of the disturbances in human society, of which there is yet no remedy; but I shall in a little time publish tables of respect and civility, by which persons may be instructed in the proper times and seasons, as well as at what degree of intimacy a man may be allowed to commend or rally his companions; the promiscuous licence of which is at present far from being among the small errors in conversation.

P.S.– The following letter was left, with a request to be immediately answered, lest the artifices used against a lady in distress may come into common practice:

"Sir,

"My elder sister buried her husband about six months ago; and at his funeral, a gentleman of more art than honesty, on the night of his interment, while she was not herself, but in the utmost agony of her grief, spoke to her of the subject of love. In that weakness and distraction which my sister was in (as one ready to fall is apt to lean on anybody), he obtained her promise of marriage, which was accordingly consummated eleven weeks after. There is no affliction comes alone, but one brings another. My sister is now ready to lie-in. She humbly asks of you, as you are a friend to the sex, to let her know who is the lawful father of this child, or whether she may not be relieved from this second marriage, considering it was promised under such circumstances as one may very well suppose she did not what she did voluntarily, but because she was helpless otherwise. She is advised something about engagements made in gaol, which she thinks the same as to the reason of the thing. But, dear sir, she relies upon your advice, and gives you her service; as does

    "Your humble Servant,
    "Rebecca Midriffe."

The case is very hard; and I fear, the plea she is advised to make, from the similitude of a man who is in duress, will not prevail. But though I despair of remedy as to the mother, the law gives the child his choice of his father where the birth is thus legally ambiguous.

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq

"The humble Petition of the Company of Linendrapers residing within the Liberty of Westminster;

"Showeth – That there has of late prevailed among the ladies so great an affectation of nakedness, that they have not only left the bosom wholly bare, but lowered their stays some inches below the former mode.[61 - This mode, which originated in the reign of King Charles II., is shown in Sir Peter Lely's ladies; but Walpole says that Vandyck's habits are those of the times, but Lely's are fantastic dresses. The prevalence and dislike of this fashion occasioned in 1678 the publication of a book translated from the French by Edward Cooke, under the following title, "A Just and Reasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders, written by a grave and learned Papist."Half a century after the Tatler, the "moulting of their clothes" by ladies was again the subject of comment by the moral essayist. There are several papers on the subject in the World (Nos. 6, 21, 169, &c.), in which it is remarked that it was the fashion to undress to go abroad, and to dress when at home and not seeing company.]

"That in particular, Mrs. Arabella Overdo has not the least appearance of linen, and our best customers show but little above the small of their backs.

"That by this means, your petitioners are in danger of losing the advantage of covering a ninth part of every woman of quality in Great Britain.

"Your petitioners humbly offer the premises to your indulgence's consideration, and shall ever, &c."

Before I answer this petition, I am inclined to examine the offenders myself.

No. 216. [Addison.

From Thursday, Aug. 24, to Saturday, Aug. 26, 1710

– Nugis addere pondus. – Hor., 1 Ep. xix. 42.

From my own Apartment, Aug. 25

Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite. For this reason, I would not discourage any searches that are made into the most minute and trivial parts of the creation. However, since the world abounds in the noblest fields of speculation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little genius to be wholly conversant among insects, reptiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities that furnish out the apartment of a virtuoso.

There are some men whose heads are so oddly turned this way, that though they are utter strangers to the common occurrences of life, they are able to discover the sex of a cockle, or describe the generation of a mite, in all its circumstances. They are so little versed in the world, that they scarce know a horse from an ox; but at the same time will tell you, with a great deal of gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a snail an hermaphrodite. I have known one of these whimsical philosophers who has set a greater value upon a collection of spiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.

I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that is capable of so much higher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us serious upon trifles, by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care, business, and concern of life.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention some of the most precious parts of their treasure without a kind of an apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad at a hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever appears trivial or obscene in the common notions of the world, looks grave and philosophical in the eye of a virtuoso.

To show this humour in its perfection, I shall present my reader with the legacy of a certain virtuoso, who laid out a considerable estate in natural rarities and curiosities, which upon his death-bed he bequeathed to his relations and friends, in the following words:

The Will of a Virtuoso

I Nicholas Gimcrack being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner following:

Imprimis, to my dear wife,

One box of butterflies,