Part 2

"I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed _Platonne_, the most unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris[2] and More,[3] and Milton,[4] and the whole set of Intellectual Triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition: If I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit. She calls her chariot, vehicle; her furbelowed scarf, pinions; her blue manteau and petticoat is her azure dress; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon. It is my misfortune to be six foot and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before I was in love, I had a noble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with two bottles. I am not quite six and twenty, and my nose is marked truly aquiline. For these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserable, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region: If I assume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of the sex; but perseverance makes it as bad as a fixed aversion. I desire your opinion, Whether I may not lawfully play the inquisition upon her, make use of a little force, and put her to the rack and the torture, only to convince her, she has really fine limbs, without spoiling or distorting them. I expect your directions, ere I proceed to dwindle and fall away with despair; which at present I don't think advisable, because, if she should recant, she may then hate me perhaps in the other extreme for my tenuity. I am (with impatience)

"Your most humble servant,

"CHARLES STURDY."

My patient has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of Platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every man that has wit, and humour, and raillery, can make a good flatterer for woman in general; but a _Platonne_ is not to be touched with panegyric: she will tell you, it is a sensuality in the soul to be delighted that way. You are not therefore to commend, but silently consent to all she does and says. You are to consider in her the scorn of you is not humour, but opinion.

There were some years since a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbours, was approved by seven of the founders. There were as many of our sex who took the liberty to visit those mansions of intended severity; among others, a famous rake[5] of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He came in first; but upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a design to tell him, this was no place for him or his companions, up goes my grave impudence to the maid: "Young woman," said he, "if any of the ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the other side towards the gardens: we are, you must know, gentlemen that are travelling England; after which we shall go into foreign parts, where some of us have already been." Here he bows in the most humble manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort of carriage. He goes on; "Now you must know we have an ambition to have it to say, that we have a Protestant nunnery in England: but pray Mrs. Betty----"--"Sir," she replied, "my name is Susan, at your service."--"Then I heartily beg your pardon----"--"No offence in the least," says she, "for I have a cousin-german whose name is Betty."[6]--"Indeed," said he, "I protest to you that was more than I knew, I spoke at random: But since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentleman to the favour of a civil salute." His friend advances, and so on, till that they had all saluted her. By this means, the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss what to do, without courage to pass through them; and the Platonics, at several peepholes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were observed, and therefore took care to keep Sukey in chat with questions concerning their way of life; when appeared at last Madonella,[7] a lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall; and Rake, knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from his company. She begins, "Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was sent out to know, What affair could make strangers press upon a solitude which we, who are to inhabit this place, have devoted to Heaven and our own thoughts?"-- "Madam," replies Rake, (with an air of great distance, mixed with a certain indifference, by which he could dissemble dissimulation) "your great intention has made more noise in the world than you design it should; and we travellers, who have seen many foreign institutions of this kind, have a curiosity to see, in its first rudiments, this seat of primitive piety; for such it must be called by future ages, to the eternal honour of the founders. I have read Madonella's excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject." The lady immediately answers, "If what I have said could have contributed to raise any thoughts in you that may make for the advancement of intellectual and divine conversation, I should think myself extremely happy." He immediately fell back with the profoundest veneration; then advancing, "Are you then that admired lady? If I may approach lips which have uttered things so sacred--" He salutes her. His friends followed his example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to see Madonella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on--"We would not transgress rules; but if we may take the liberty to see the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such parts of the gardens as is consistent with the severities you have imposed on yourselves."

To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbours, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, "That he sincerely wished men might rise out of the earth like plants;[8] and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for the generation, as well as support of our species." This was spoke with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, "Sir, under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an institution foreign to that of Providence: These desires were implanted in us for reverend purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chastity more heroic." The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second and a second interview;[9] and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelvemonth.

Any unnatural part is long taking up, and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself, Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires.

[Footnote 1: This letter is introduced by the following words:

"White's Chocolate-house, June 22.

"An Answer to the following letter being absolutely necessary to be dispatched with all expedition, I must trespass upon all that come with horary questions into my ante-chamber, to give the gentleman my opinion."

This paper is written in ridicule of some affected ladies of the period, who pretended, with rather too much ostentation, to embrace the doctrines of Platonic Love. Mrs. Mary Astell, a learned and worthy woman, had embraced this fantastic notion so deeply, that, in an essay upon the female sex, in 1696, she proposed a sort of female college, in which the young might be instructed, and 'ladies nauseating the parade of the world,' might find a happy retirement. The plan was disconcerted by Bishop Burnet, who, understanding that the Queen intended to give £10,000 towards the establishment, dissuaded her, by an assurance, that it would lead to the introduction of Popish orders, and be called a nunnery. This lady is the Madonella of the Tatler.... This paper has been censured as a gross reflection on Mrs. Astell's character, but on no very just foundation. Swift only prophesies the probable issue of such a scheme, as that of the Protestant nunnery; and it is a violent interpretation of his words to suppose him to insinuate, that the conclusion had taken place without the premises. Indeed, the scourge of ridicule is seldom better employed than on that species of _Précieuse_, who is anxious to confound the boundaries which nature has fixed for the employments and studies of the two sexes. No man was more zealous than Swift for informing the female mind in those points most becoming and useful to their sex. His "Letter to a Young Married Lady" and "Thoughts on Education" point out the extent of those studies. [S.]

Nichols, in his edition of "The Tatler" (1786), ascribes this paper to "Swift and Addison"; but he thinks the humour of it "certainly originated in the licentious imagination of the Dean of St. Patrick's." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: John Norris (1657-1711), Rector of Bemerton, author of "The Theory and Regulation of Love" (1688), and of many other works. His correspondence with the famous Platonist, Henry More, is appended to this "moral essay." Chalmers speaks of him as "a man of great ingenuity, learning, and piety"; but Locke refers to him as "an obscure, enthusiastic man." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Henry More (1614-1687), the famous Cambridge Platonist, and author of "Philosophicall Poems" (1647), "The Immortality of the Soul" (1659), and other works of a similar nature. Chalmers notes that "Mr. Chishall, an eminent bookseller, declared, that Dr. More's 'Mystery of Godliness' and his other works, ruled all the booksellers of London for twenty years together." [T.S. ]]

[Footnote 4: The reference here is to Milton's "Apology for Smectymnuus." Milton and More were, during one year, fellow-students at Christ's College, Cambridge. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Said to refer to a Mr. Repington, a well-known wag of the time, and a member of an old Warwickshire family, of Amington, near Tamworth. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6: The Betty here referred to is the Lady Elizabeth Hastings (1682-1739), daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of Huntingdon. In No. 49 of "The Tatler," Steele refers to her in the famous sentence: "to love her is a liberal education." She contributed to Mrs. Astell's plans for the establishment of a "Protestant nunnery." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7: See previous note. Mrs. Mary Astell (1668-1731) the authoress of "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their true and greatest Interest" (1694), was the friend of Lady Elizabeth Hastings and the correspondent of John Norris of Bemerton. There is not the slightest foundation for the gross and cruel insinuations against her character in this paper. The libel is repeated in the 59th and 63rd numbers of "The Tatler." Her correspondence with Norris was published in 1695, with the title, "Letters Concerning the Love of God". Later in life she attacked Atterbury, Locke, and White Kennett. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 8: The reference here is to Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici," part ii., section 9. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 9: M. Bournelle--a pseudonym of William Oldisworth--remarks: "The next interview after a _second_ is still a _second_; there is no progress in time to lovers" ("Annotations on 'The Tatler'"). Chalmers reads here, "a second and a third interview." [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 35.

FROM TUESDAY JUNE 28. TO THURSDAY JUNE 30. 1709.

"SIR,[1]

"Not long since[2] you were pleased to give us a chimerical account of the famous family of _Staffs_, from whence I suppose you would insinuate, that it is the most ancient and numerous house in all Europe. But I positively deny that it is either; and wonder much at your audacious proceedings in this matter, since it is well known, that our most illustrious, most renowned, and most celebrated Roman family of _Ix_, has enjoyed the precedency to all others from the reign of good old Saturn. I could say much to the defamation and disgrace of your family; as, that your relations _Distaff_ and _Broomstaff_ were both inconsiderate mean persons, one spinning, the other sweeping the streets, for their daily bread. But I forbear to vent my spleen on objects so much beneath my indignation. I shall only give the world a catalogue of my ancestors, and leave them to determine which hath hitherto had, and which for the future ought to have, the preference.

"First then comes the most famous and popular lady _Meretrix_, parent of the fertile family of _Bellatrix, Lotrix, Netrix, Nutrix, Obstetrix, Famulatrix, Coctrix, Ornatrix, Sarcinatrix, Fextrix, Balneatrix, Portatrix, Saltatrix, Divinatrix, Conjectrix, Comtrix, Debitrix, Creditrix, Donatrix, Ambulatrix, Mercatrix, Adsectrix, Assectatrix, Palpatrix, Praeceptrix, Pistrix._

"I am yours,

"ELIZ. POTATRIX."

[Footnote 1: This letter is introduced:

"From my own Apartment, June 29.

"It would be a very great obligation, and an assistance to my treatise upon punning, if any one would please to inform me in what class among the learned, who play with words, to place the author of the following letter."

The proposed work had been promised in the 32nd number of "The Tatler," where it was stated that, "I shall dedicate this discourse to a gentleman, my very good friend, who is the Janus of our times, and whom, by his years and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: In the 11th number of "The Tatler," by Heneage Twisden. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 59.

FROM TUESDAY AUGUST 23. TO THURSDAY AUGUST 25. 1709.

_Will's Coffee-house, August 24._

The author of the ensuing letter, by his name, and the quotations he makes from the ancients, seems a sort of spy from the old world, whom we moderns ought to be careful of offending; therefore I must be free, and own it a fair hit where he takes me, rather than disoblige him.

"SIR, Having a peculiar humour of desiring to be somewhat the better or wiser for what I read, I am always uneasy when, in any profound writer (for I read no others) I happen to meet with what I cannot understand. When this falls out, it is a great grievance to me that I am not able to consult the author himself about his meaning; for commentators are a sect that has little share in my esteem. Your elaborate writings have, among many others, this advantage, that their author is still alive, and ready (as his extensive charity makes us expect) to explain whatever may be found in them too sublime for vulgar understandings. This, Sir, makes me presume to ask you, how the Hampstead hero's character could be perfectly new[1] when the last letters came away, and yet Sir John Suckling so well acquainted with it sixty years ago? I hope, Sir, you will not take this amiss: I can assure you, I have a profound respect for you; which makes me write this, with the same disposition with which Longinus bids us read Homer and Plato.

"'When in reading,' says he, 'any of those celebrated authors, we meet with a passage to which we cannot well reconcile our reasons, we ought firmly to believe, that were those great wits present to answer for themselves, we should to our wonder be convinced, that we only are guilty of the mistakes we before attributed to them.' If you think fit to remove the scruple that now torments me, it will be an encouragement to me to settle a frequent correspondence with you, several things falling in my way which would not, perhaps, be altogether foreign to your purpose, and whereon your thoughts would be very acceptable to

"Your most humble servant,

"OBADIAH GREENHAT."

[Footnote 1: In No. 57 of "The Tatler" Steele wrote: "Letters from Hampstead say, there is a coxcomb arrived there, of a kind which is utterly new. The fellow has courage, which he takes himself to be obliged to give proofs of every hour he lives. He is ever fighting with the men, and contradicting the women. A lady, who sent him to me, superscribed him with this description out of Suckling:

"'I am a man of war and might, And know thus much, that I can fight, Whether I am i' th' wrong or right. Devoutly. 'No woman under Heaven I fear, New oaths I can exactly swear; And forty healths my brains will bear, Most stoutly.'"

The "description out of Suckling" is from that writer's rondeau, "A Soldier." As the poet died in 1642, Swift ridicules the statement that this kind of coxcomb was "utterly new." [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 63.

FROM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER I. TO SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3, 1709. "SIR,[1]

"It must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the World sees them to be in downright nonsense. You'll be pleased, Sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you when you seemed anything dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lorrain's[2] saints, seem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, Sir, to show a good example to your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to discover beauties in it, which, I will assure you, he that drew it never dreamed of: And to make your civility the more accomplished, you have honoured him with the title of your kinsman,[3] which, though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My brother (for such Obadiah is) being at present very busy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for all these favours; and, as a small token of his gratitude, to communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you than to any others of our modern historians.

"_Madonella_, who as it was thought had long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution[4] mentioned in yours of June the 23rd, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed in nurseries and boarding-schools. To remedy this evil, she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where, instead of scissors, needles, and samplers; pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene,[5] the writer of 'Memoirs from the Mediterranean,' who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is to be a certain lady, who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels[6], which are said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of Queen Emma's Court, as the 'Memoirs from the New Atalantis' are with those of ours. I shall make it my business to enquire into the progress of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of their 'Philosophical Transactions[7], and Searches after Nature.'

"Yours, &c.

"TOBIAH GREENHAT."

[Footnote 1: This letter was introduced:

"From my own Apartment, September 2.

"The following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow writers to publish it." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: The Rev. Paul Lorrain was ordinary of Newgate Prison from 1698 until 1719. He issued the dying speeches and confessions of the condemned criminals in the form of broadsheets. In these confessions, the penitence of the criminals was most strongly emphasized, hence the term "Lorrain's saints." Lorrain died in 1719. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Isaac Bickerstaff, commenting on the letter in No. 59, printed above, says: "I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry II." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: See No. 32 _ante_. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Mrs. Mary de la Rivière Manley, author of "Memoirs of Europe, towards the Close of the Eighth Century" (1710), which she dedicated to Isaac Bickerstaff, and of "Secret Memoirs and Manners ... from the New Atalantis" (1709). She was associated with Swift in the writing of several pamphlets In support of the Harley Administration, and in his work on "The Examiner" (see vol. v., pp. 41, 118, and 171 of the present edition of Swift's works).

Epicene is an allusion to Ben Jonson's comedy, "Epicoene; or, the Silent Woman" (1609).

Mrs. Manley seems to have credited Steele with this attack on her, for she attacked him, in turn, in her "New Atalantis," and printed, in her dedication to the "Memoirs of Europe," Steele's denial of the authorship of this paper. This did not, however, prevent her making new charges against him. "The Narrative of Guiscard's Examination," "A Comment on Dr. Hare's Sermon," and "The Duke of Marlborough's Vindication," were written either by herself, or at the suggestion of, and with instructions from, Swift. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6: Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob (1683-1756), a niece of the learned Dr. Hickes, issued, in 1709, "An English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory." The work was dedicated to Queen Anne. She was a friend of Mary Granville, afterwards Mrs. Pendarves, and better known as Mrs. Delany. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7: An allusion to "Useful Transactions in Philosophy," etc., January and February, 1708/9, which commenced with an article entitled "An Essay on the Invention of Samplers," by Mrs. Arabella Manly (_sic_). She had a friend, Mrs. Betty Clavel. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 66.

FROM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 8. TO SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10. 1709.