Part 3

_Wills Coffee-house, September_ 9.

We have been very much perplexed here this evening, by two gentlemen who took upon them to talk as loud as if it were expected from them to entertain the company. Their subject was eloquence and graceful action. Lysander, who is something particular in his way of thinking and speaking, told us, "a man could not be eloquent without action: for the deportment of the body, the turn of the eye, and an apt sound to every word that is uttered, must all conspire to make an accomplished speaker. Action in one that speaks in public, is the same thing which a good mien is in ordinary life. Thus, as a certain insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and jest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to great sentiments: For the jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; but when you are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the more you will move others.

"There is," said he, "a remarkable example of that kind: Aeschines, a famous orator of antiquity, had pleaded at Athens in a great cause against Demosthenes; but having lost it, retired to Rhodes. Eloquence was then the quality most admired among men; and the magistrates of that place having heard he had a copy of the speech of Demosthenes, desired him to repeat both their pleadings. After his own, he recited also the oration of his antagonist. The people expressed their admiration of both, but more of that of Demosthenes. 'If you are,' said he, 'thus touched with hearing only what that great orator said, how would you have been affected had you seen him speak? for he who hears Demosthenes only, loses much the better part of the oration.' Certain it is, that they who speak gracefully, are very lamely represented, in having their speeches read or repeated by unskilful people; for there is something native to each man, that is so inherent to his thoughts and sentiments, which it is hardly possible for another to give a true idea of. You may observe in common talk, when a sentence of any man's is repeated, an acquaintance of his shall immediately observe, 'That is so like him, methinks I see how he looked when he said it.' But of all the people on the earth, there are none who puzzle me so much as the clergy of Great Britain, who are, I believe, the most learned body of men now in the world; and yet this art of speaking, with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, is wholly neglected among them; and I will engage, were a deaf man to behold the greater part of them preach, he would rather think they were reading the contents only of some discourse they intended to make, than actually in the body of an oration, even when they are upon matters of such a nature as one would believe it were impossible to think of without emotion.

"I own there are exceptions to this general observation, and that the Dean[1] we heard the other day together, is an orator. He has so much regard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he is to say to them; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, that it must attract your attention. His person it is to be confessed is no small recommendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that advantage, and adding to the propriety of speech (which might pass the criticism of Longinus)[2] an action which would have been approved by Demosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has many of his audience[3] who could not be intelligent hearers of his discourse, were there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art of his is used with the most exact and honest skill: he never attempts your passions, till he has convinced your reason. All the objections which he can form, are laid before you and dispersed, before he uses the least vehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he has your head, he very soon wins your heart; and never pretends to show the beauty of holiness, till he has convinced you of the truth of it.

"Would every one of our clergymen be thus careful to recommend truth and virtue in their proper figures, and show so much concern for them as to give them all the additional force they were able, it is not possible that nonsense should have so many hearers as you find it has in dissenting congregations, for no reason in the world but because it is spoken _extempore_: For ordinary minds are wholly governed by their eyes and ears, and there is no way to come at their hearts but by power over their imagination. There is my friend and merry companion Daniel[4]: he knows a great deal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well as any orthodox neighbour. But he knows very well, that to bawl out, 'My beloved;' and the words 'grace! regeneration! sanctification! a new light! the day! The day! aye, my beloved, the day!' or rather, 'the night! The night is coming! and judgment will come, when we least think of it!'--and so forth--He knows, to be vehement is the only way to come at his audience; and Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, can give him a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! the regenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all the incoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan, and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parish goes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, 'It is not the shepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows.' Another thing, very wonderful this learned body should omit, is, learning to read; which is a most necessary part of eloquence in one who is to serve at the altar: for there is no man but must be sensible, that the lazy tone, and inarticulate sound of our common readers, depreciates the most proper form of words that were ever extant in any nation or language, to speak our own wants, or His power from whom we ask relief.

"There cannot be a greater instance of the power of action than in little parson Dapper,[5] who is the common relief to all the lazy pulpits in town. This smart youth has a very good memory, a quick eye, and a clean handkerchief. Thus equipped, he opens his text, shuts his book fairly, shows he has no notes in his Bible, opens both palms, and shows all is fair there too. Thus, with a decisive air, my young man goes on without hesitation; and though from the beginning to the end of his pretty discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet at the conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his head; 'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of action is such, that it is more prevalent (even when improper) than all the reason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concluded his discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers would learn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time we should not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in Great Britain."

[Footnote 1: In his original preface to the fourth volume, Steele explains that "the amiable character of the Dean in the sixty-sixth 'Tatler,' was drawn for Dr. Atterbury." Steele cites this as a proof of his impartiality. Scott thinks that it must have cost him "some effort to permit insertion of a passage so favourable to a Tory divine." At the time the character was published Atterbury was Dean of Carlisle and one of the Queen's chaplains. He was later created Bishop of Rochester. There is no doubt that Atterbury was deeply implicated in the various Jacobite plots for the bringing in of the Pretender. Under a bill of pains and penalties he was condemned and deprived of all his ecclesiastical offices. In 1723 he left England and died in exile in 1732. His body, however, was privately buried in Westminster Abbey. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: "De Sublimitate," viii. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: For twenty years Atterbury was preacher at the chapel of Bridewell Hospital. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Daniel Burgess (1645-1713), the son of a Wiltshire clergyman, was a schoolmaster in Ireland before he became minister to the Presbyterian meeting-house people in Brydges Street, Covent Garden. A chapel was built for him in New Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn, and this was destroyed during the Sacheverell riots in 1710. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Dr. Joseph Trapp (1679-1747), professor of poetry at Oxford, where he published his "Praelectiones Poeticae" (1711-15), He assisted Sacheverell and became a strong partisan of the High Church party. Swift thought very little of him. To Stella he writes, he is "a sort of pretender to wit, a second-rate pamphleteer for the cause, whom they pay by sending him to Ireland" (January 7th, 1710/1, see vol. ii., p. 96). This sending to Ireland refers to his chaplaincy to Sir Constantine Phipps, Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1710-12). On July 17th, 1712, Swift again speaks of him to Stella: "I have made Trap chaplain to Lord Bolingbroke, and he is mighty happy and thankful for it" (_ibid_., p. 379). Trapp afterwards held several preferments in and near London. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 67.

FROM SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10. TO TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13. 1709.

_From my own Apartment, September_ 12.

No man can conceive, till he comes to try it, how great a pain it is to be a public-spirited person. I am sure I am unable to express to the world, how much anxiety I have suffered, to see of how little benefit my Lucubrations have been to my fellow-subjects. Men will go on in their own way in spite of all my labour. I gave Mr. Didapper a private reprimand for wearing red-heeled shoes, and at the same time was so indulgent as to connive at him for fourteen days, because I would give him the wearing of them out; but after all this I am informed, he appeared yesterday with a new pair of the same sort. I have no better success with Mr. Whatdee'call[1] as to his buttons: Stentor[2] still roars; and box and dice rattle as loud as they did before I writ against them. Partridge[3] walks about at noon-day, and Aesculapius[4] thinks of adding a new lace to his livery. However, I must still go on in laying these enormities before men's eyes, and let them answer for going on in their practice.[5] My province is much larger than at first sight men would imagine, and I shall lose no part of my jurisdiction, which extends not only to futurity, but also is retrospect to things past; and the behaviour of persons who have long ago acted their parts, is as much liable to my examination, as that of my own contemporaries.

In order to put the whole race of mankind in their proper distinctions, according to the opinion their cohabitants conceived of them, I have with very much care, and depth of meditation, thought fit to erect a Chamber of Fame, and established certain rules, which are to be observed in admitting members into this illustrious society. In this Chamber of Fame there are to be three tables, but of different lengths; the first is to contain exactly twelve persons; the second, twenty; the third, an hundred. This is reckoned to be the full number of those who have any competent share of fame. At the first of these tables are to be placed in their order the twelve most famous persons in the world, not with regard to the things they are famous for, but according to the degree of their fame, whether in valour, wit, or learning. Thus if a scholar be more famous than a soldier, he is to sit above him. Neither must any preference be given to virtue, if the person be not equally famous. When the first table is filled, the next in renown must be seated at the second, and so on in like manner to the number of twenty; as also in the same order at the third, which is to hold an hundred. At these tables no regard is to be had to seniority: for if Julius Caesar shall be judged more famous than Romulus and Scipio, he must have the precedence. No person who has not been dead an hundred years, must be offered to a place at any of these tables: and because this is altogether a lay society, and that sacred persons move upon greater motives than that of fame, no persons celebrated in Holy Writ, or any ecclesiastical men whatsoever, are to be introduced here.

At the lower end of the room is to be a side-table for persons of great fame, but dubious existence, such as Hercules, Theseus, Aeneas, Achilles, Hector, and others. But because it is apprehended, that there may be great contention about precedence, the proposer humbly desires the opinion of the learned towards his assistance in placing every person according to his rank, that none may have just occasion of offence.

The merits of the cause shall be judged by plurality of voices.

For the more impartial execution of this important affair, it is desired, that no man will offer his favourite hero, scholar, or poet; and that the learned will be pleased to send to Mr. Bickerstaff, at Mr. Morphew's near Stationers' Hall, their several lists for the first table only, and in the order they would have them placed; after which, the composer will compare the several lists, and make another for the public, wherein every name shall be ranked according to the voices it has had. Under this chamber is to be a dark vault for the same number of persons of evil fame.

It is humbly submitted to consideration, whether the project would not be better, if the persons of true fame meet in a middle room, those of dubious existence in an upper room, and those of evil fame in a lower dark room.

It is to be noted, that no historians are to be admitted at any of these tables, because they are appointed to conduct the several persons to their seats, and are to be made use of as ushers to the assemblies.

I call upon the learned world to send me their assistance towards this design, it being a matter of too great moment for any one person to determine. But I do assure them, their lists shall be examined with great fidelity, and those that are exposed to the public, made with all the caution imaginable.

[Footnote 1: "N.B. Mr. How'd'call is desired to leave off those buttons."--No. 21. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Dr. William Stanley (1647-1731), master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was Dean of St. Asaph in 1706-31. In No. 54 of "The Tatler," he is described as a person "accustomed to roar and bellow so terribly loud in the responses that . . . one of our petty canons, a punning Cambridge scholar, calls his way of worship a _Bull-offering._" In the sixty-first number a further reference is made to him: "A person of eminent wit and piety [Dr. R. South] wrote to Stentor: 'Brother Stentor,' said he, 'for the repose of the Church, hearken to Bickerstaff; and consider that, while you are so devout at St. Paul's, we cannot sleep for you at St. Peter's.'" [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: John Partridge (1644-1715) cobbler, philomath, and quack, was the author of "Merlinus Liberatus," first issued in 1680. He libelled his master, John Gadbury, in his "Nebulo Anglicanus" (1693), and quarrelled with George Parker, a fellow-quack and astrologer. It is of him that Swift wrote his famous "Predictions" (see vol. i. of this edition, p. 298), and issued his broadside, concluding with the lines:

"Here, five feet deep, lies on his back, A cobler, starmonger, and quack, Who to the stars in pure good will Does to his best look upward still: Weep, all you customers that use His pills, his almanacks, or shoes."

In No. 59 of "The Tatler," his death is referred to in harmony with the tone of Swift's fun: "The late Partridge, who still denies his death. I am informed indeed by several that he walks." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: The famous Dr. John Radcliffe (1650-1714) who refused the appointment of physician to King William III., and offended Anne by his churlish disregard of her requests to attend on her. He fell in love with a Miss Tempest, one of Queen Anne's maids of honour. In the 44th number of "The Tatler" Steele ridicules this attachment by making him address his mistress in the following words: "O fair! for thee I sit amidst a crowd of painted deities on my chariot, buttoned in gold, clasped in gold, without having any value for that beloved metal, but as it adorns the person and laces the hat of thy dying lover." Radcliffe attended Swift for his dizziness, but that did not prevent the latter from referring to him as "that puppy," in writing to Stella, for neglecting to attend to Harley's wound. He seems to have had a high standing for skill as a physician, and probably on that account gave himself airs. It is told of him that "during a long attendance in the family of a particular friend, he regularly refused the fee pressed upon him at each visit. At length, when the cure was performed, and the doctor about to give up attendance, the convalescent patient again proffered him a purse containing the fees for every day's visit. The doctor eyed it some time in silence, and at length extended his hand, exclaiming, 'Singly, I could have refused them for ever; but altogether they are irresistible.'" Radcliffe died at Carshalton in 1714. From his bequests were founded the Radcliffe Infirmary and Observatory at Oxford. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Scott omits, from his edition, the whole of this paragraph up to this point. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 68.

FROM TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13. TO THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 15. 1709.

_From my own Apartment, September_ 14.

The progress of our endeavours will of necessity be very much interrupted, except the learned world will please to send their lists to the Chamber of Fame with all expedition. There is nothing can so much contribute to create a noble emulation in our youth, as the honourable mention of such whose actions have outlived the injuries of time, and recommended themselves so far to the world, that it is become learning to know the least circumstance of their affairs. It is a great incentive to see, that some men have raised themselves so highly above their fellow-creatures; that the lives of ordinary men are spent in inquiries after the particular actions of the most illustrious. True it is, that without this impulse to fame and reputation, our industry would stagnate, and that lively desire of pleasing each other die away. This opinion was so established in the heathen world, that their sense of living appeared insipid, except their being was enlivened with a consciousness, that they were esteemed by the rest of the world.

Upon examining the proportion of men's fame for my table of twelve, I thought it no ill way, since I had laid it down for a rule, that they were to be ranked simply as they were famous, without regard to their virtue, to ask my sister Jenny's advice, and particularly mentioned to her the name of Aristotle. She immediately told me, he was a very great scholar, and that she had read him at the boarding-school. She certainly means a trifle sold by the hawkers, called, "Aristotle's Problems." [1] But this raised a great scruple in me, whether a fame increased by imposition of others is to be added to his account, or that these excrescencies, which grow out of his real reputation, and give encouragement to others to pass things under the covert of his name, should be considered in giving him his seat in the Chamber? This punctilio is referred to the learned. In the mean time, so ill-natured are mankind, that I believe I have names already sent me sufficient to fill up my lists for the dark room, and every one is apt enough to send in their accounts of ill deservers. This malevolence does not proceed from a real dislike of virtue, but a diabolical prejudice against it, which makes men willing to destroy what they care not to imitate. Thus you see the greatest characters among your acquaintance, and those you live with, are traduced by all below them in virtue, who never mention them but with an exception. However, I believe I shall not give the world much trouble about filling my tables for those of evil fame, for I have some thoughts of clapping up the sharpers there as fast as I can lay hold of them.

At present, I am employed in looking over the several notices which I have received of their manner of dexterity, and the way at dice of making all _rugg_, as the cant is. The whole art of securing a die has lately been sent me by a person who was of the fraternity, but is disabled by the loss of a finger, by which means he cannot, as he used to do, secure a die. But I am very much at a loss how to call some of the fair sex, who are accomplices with the Knights of Industry; for my metaphorical dogs[2] are easily enough understood; but the feminine gender of dogs has so harsh a sound, that we know not how to name it. But I am credibly informed, that there are female dogs as voracious as the males, and make advances to young fellows, without any other design but coming to a familiarity with their purses. I have also long lists of persons of condition, who are certainly of the same regiment with these banditti, and instrumental to their cheats upon undiscerning men of their own rank. These add their good reputation to carry on the impostures of those, whose very names would otherwise be defence enough against falling into their hands. But for the honour of our nation, these shall be unmentioned, provided we hear no more of such practices, and that they shall not from henceforward suffer the society of such, as they know to be the common enemies of order, discipline, and virtue. If it prove that they go on in encouraging them, they must be proceeded against according to severest rules of history, where all is to be laid before the world with impartiality, and without respect to persons.

"So let the stricken deer go weep."[3]

[Footnote 1: This was not a translation of Aristotle's "Problemata," but an indecent pamphlet with that title. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: In the 62nd number of "The Tatler" Steele wrote a paper comparing some of the pests of society, such as the gamblers, to dogs, and said: "It is humbly proposed that they may be all together transported to America, where the dogs are few, and the wild beasts many." Scott notes that when one of the fraternity referred to threatened Steele with personal vengeance, Lord Forbes silenced him with these words: "You will find it safer, sir, in this country, to cut a purse than to cut a throat." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: "Why, let the stricken deer go weep."--_Hamlet_, iii. 2. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 70.

FROM SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17. TO TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 20. 1709.

"SIR,[1]

"I read with great pleasure in the _Tatler_[2] of Saturday last the conversation upon eloquence; permit me to hint to you one thing the great Roman orator observes upon this subject, _Caput enim arbitrabatur oratoris_, (he quotes Menedemus[3] an Athenian) _ut ipsis apud quos ageret talis qualem ipse optaret videretur, id fieri vitae dignitate_.[4] It is the first rule, in oratory, that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be, and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life. I believe it might be of great service to let our public orators know, that an unnatural gravity, or an unbecoming levity in their behaviour out of the pulpit, will take very much from the force of their eloquence in it. Excuse another scrap of Latin; it is from one of the Fathers: I think it will appear a just observation to all, as it may have authority with some; _Qui autem docent tantum, nec faciunt, ipsi praeceptis suis detrahunt pondus; Quis enim obtemperet, cum ipsi praeceptores doceant non obtemperare?_[5] I am,

"SIR,

"Your humble servant,

"JONATHAN ROSEHAT.