Part 5

These contributions to the new "Tatler" are printed from the original periodical issue with the exception of No. 5, which is taken from the second edition of the reprint (1720), as no copy of the original issue has been met with.

[T.S.]

THE TATLER, NUMB. I.

_Quis ego sum saltem, si non sum Sosia? Te interrogo._ PLAUT. AMPHITR.[1]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13. 1711.[2]

It is impossible, perhaps, for the best and wisest amongst us, to keep so constant a guard upon our temper, but that we may at one time or other lie open to the strokes of Fortune, and such incidents as we cannot foresee. With sentiments of this kind I came home to my lodgings last night, much fatigued with a long and sudden journey from the country, and full of the ungrateful occasion of it. It was natural for me to have immediate recourse to my pen and ink; but before I would offer to make use of them, I resolved deliberately to tell over a hundred, and when I came to the end of that sum, I found it more advisable to defer drawing up my intended remonstrance, till I had slept soundly on my resentments. Without any other preface than this, I shall give the world a fair account of the treatment I have lately met with, and leave them to judge, whether the uneasiness I have suffered be inconsistent with the character I have generally pretended to. About three weeks since, I received an invitation from a kinsman in Staffordshire, to spend my Christmas in those parts. Upon taking leave of Mr. Morphew, I put as many papers into his hands as would serve till my return, and charged him at parting to be very punctual with the town. In what manner he and Mr. Lillie have been tampered with since, I cannot say; they have given me my revenge, if I desired any, by allowing their names to an idle paper, that in all human probability cannot live a fortnight to an end. Myself, and the family I was with, were in the midst of gaiety, and a plentiful entertainment, when I received a letter from my sister Jenny, who, after mentioning some little affairs I had intrusted to her, goes on thus:--"The inclosed,[2] I believe, will give you some surprise, as it has already astonished every body here: Who Mr. Steele is, that subscribes it, I do not know, any more than I can comprehend what could induce him to it. Morphew and Lillie, I am told, are both in the secret. I shall not presume to instruct you, but hope you will use some means to disappoint the ill nature of those who are taking pains to deprive the world of one of its most reasonable entertainments. I am, &c."

I am to thank my sister for her compliment; but be that as it will, I shall not easily be discouraged from my former undertaking. In pursuance of it, I was obliged upon this notice to take places in the coach for myself and my maid with the utmost expedition, lest I should, in a short time, be rallied out of my existence, as some people will needs fancy Mr. Partridge has been, and the real Isaac Bickerstaff have passed for a creature of Mr. Steele's imagination. This illusion might have hoped for some tolerable success, if I had not more than once produced my person in a crowded theatre; and such a person as Mr. Steele, if I am not misinformed in the gentleman, would hardly think it an advantage to own, though I should throw him in all the little honour I have gained by my "Lucubrations." I may be allowed, perhaps, to understand pleasantry as well as other men, and can (in the usual phrase) take a jest without being angry; but I appeal to the world, whether the gentleman has not carried it too far, and whether he ought not to make a public recantation, if the credulity of some unthinking people should force me to insist upon it. The following letter is just come to hand, and I think it not improper to be inserted in this paper.

"TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ;

"Sir,

"I am extremely glad to hear you are come to town, for in your absence we were all mightily surprised with an unaccountable paper, signed 'Richard Steele,' who is esteemed by those that know him, to be a man of wit and honour; and therefore we took it either to be a counterfeit, or a perfect Christmas frolic of that ingenious gentleman. But then, your paper ceasing immediately after, we were at a loss what to think: If you were weary of the work you had so long carried on, and had given this Mr. Steele orders to signify so to the public, he should have said it in plain terms; but as that paper is worded, one would be apt to judge, that he had a mind to persuade the town that there was some analogy between Isaac Bickerstaff and him. Possibly there may be a secret in this which I cannot enter into; but I flatter my self that you never had any thoughts of giving over your labours for the benefit of mankind, when you cannot but know how many subjects are yet unexhausted, and how many others, as being less obvious, are wholly untouched. I dare promise, not only for my self, but many other abler friends, that we shall still continue to furnish you with hints on all proper occasions, which is all your genius requires. I think, by the way, you cannot in honour have any more to do with Morphew and Lillie, who have gone beyond the ordinary pitch of assurance, and transgressed the very letter of the proverb, by endeavouring to cheat you of your Christian and surname too. Wishing you, Sir, long to live for our instruction and diversion, and to the defeating of all impostors, I remain,

"Your most obedient humble servant,

"and affectionate kinsman,

"HUMPHRY WAGSTAFF."

[Footnote 1: _Amphitryon_, I. i 282. "Who am I, at all events, if I am not Sosia? I ask you _that_."--H.T. RILEY. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: _I.e._ 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: This, no doubt, was Steele's last "Tatler," No. 271. [T. S.]]

THE TATLER, No. 2.

_Alios viri reverentia, vultusque ad continendum populum mire formatus, alios etiam, quibus ipse interesse non potuit, vis scribendi tamen, et magni nominis autoritas pervicere._--TULL. EPIST.[1]

FROM SATURD. JAN. 13. TO TUESDAY JAN, l6. 1710.[2]

I remember Ménage,[3] tells a story of Monsieur Racan, who had appointed a day and hour to meet a certain lady of great wit whom he had never seen, in order to make an acquaintance between them. "Two of Racan's friends, who had heard of the appointment, resolved to play him a trick. The first went to the lady two hours before the time, said his name was Racan, and talked with her an hour; they were both mightily pleased, began a great friendship, and parted with much satisfaction. A few minutes after comes the second, and sends up the same name; the lady wonders at the meaning, and tells him, Mr. Racan had just left her. The gentleman says it was some rascally impostor, and that he had been frequently used in that manner. The lady is convinced, and they laugh at the oddness of the adventure. She now calls to mind several passages, which confirm her that the former was a cheat. He appoints a second meeting, and takes his leave. He was no sooner gone, but the true Racan comes to the door, and desires, under that name, to see the lady. She was out of all patience, sends for him up, rates him for an impostor, and, after a thousand injuries, flings a slipper at his head. It was impossible to pacify or disabuse her; he was forced to retire, and it was not without some time, and the intervention of friends, that they could come to an _éclaircissement_." This, as I take it, is exactly the case with Mr. S[tee]le, the pretended "TATLER" from Morphew, and myself, only (I presume) the world will be sooner undeceived than the lady in Ménage. The very day my last paper came out, my printer brought me another of the same date, called "The Tatler," by Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; and, which was still more pleasant, with an advertisement[4] at the end, calling me the "_Female_ TATLER": it is not enough to rob me of my name, but now they must impose a sex on me, when my years have long since determined me to be of none at all. There is only one thing wanting in the operation, that they would renew my age, and then I will heartily forgive them all the rest. In the mean time, whatever uneasiness I have suffered from the little malice of these men, and my retirement in the country, the pleasures I have received from the same occasion, will fairly balance the account. On the one hand, I have been highly delighted to see my name and character assumed by the scribblers of the age, in order to recommend themselves to it; and on the other, to observe the good taste of the town, in distinguishing and exploding them through every disguise, and sacrificing their trifles to the supposed _manes_ of Isaac Bickerstaff Esquire. But the greatest merit of my journey into Staffordshire, is, that it has opened to me a new fund of unreproved follies and errors that have hitherto lain out of my view, and, by their situation, escaped my censure. For, as I have lived generally in town, the images I had of the country were such only as my senses received very early, and my memory has since preserved with all the advantages they first appeared in.

Hence it was that I thought our parish church the noblest structure in England, and the Squire's Place-House, as we called it, a most magnificent palace. I had the same opinion of the alms-house in the churchyard, and of a bridge over the brook that parts our parish from the next. It was the common vogue of our school, that the master was the best scholar in Europe, and the usher the second. Not happening to correct these notions, by comparing them with what I saw when I came into the world, upon returning back, I began to resume my former imaginations, and expected all things should appear in the same view as I left them when I was a boy: but to my utter disappointment I found them wonderfully shrunk, and lessened almost out of my knowledge. I looked with contempt on the tribes painted on the church walls, which I once so much admired, and on the carved chimneypiece in the Squire's Hall. I found my old master to be a poor ignorant pedant; and, in short, the whole scene to be extremely changed for the worse. This I could not help mentioning, because though it be of no consequence in itself, yet it is certain, that most prejudices are contracted and retained by this narrow way of thinking, which, in matters of the greatest moment are hardly shook off: and which we only think true, because we were made to believe so, before we were capable to distinguish between truth and falsehood. But there was one prepossession which I confess to have parted with, much to my regret: I mean the opinion of that native honesty and simplicity of manners, which I had always imagined to be inherent in country-people. I soon observed it was with them and us, as they say of animals; That every species at land has one to resemble it at sea; for it was easy to discover the seeds and principles of every vice and folly that one meets with in the more known world, though shooting up in different forms. I took a fancy out of the several inhabitants round, to furnish the camp, the bar, and the Exchange, and some certain chocolate and coffeehouses, with exact parallels to what, in many instances, they already produce. There was a drunken quarrelsome smith, whom I have a hundred times fancied at the head of a troop of dragoons. A weaver, within two doors of my kinsman, was perpetually setting neighbours together by the ears. I lamented to see how his talents were misplaced, and imagined what a figure he might make in Westminster-Hall. Goodman Crop of Compton Farm, wants nothing but a plum and a gold chain to qualify him for the government of the City. My kinsman's stable-boy was a gibing companion that would always have his jest. He would often put cow-itch in the maids' beds, pull stools from under folks, and lay a coal upon their shoes when they were asleep. He was at last turned off for some notable piece of roguery, and when I came away, was loitering among the ale-houses. Bless me, thought I, what a prodigious wit would this have been with us! I could have matched all the sharpers between St. James's and Covent Garden, with a notable fellow in the same neighbourhood, (since hanged for picking pockets at fairs) could he have had the advantages of their education. So nearly are the corruptions of the country allied to those of the town, with no further difference than what is made by another turn of thought and method of living!

[Footnote 1: "A reverend aspect, and a countenance formed to command, have power to restrain some people; while others, who pay no regard to those, are prevailed upon by the dint of writing, and the authority of a great name." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: _I.e._ 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Gilles Ménage (1613-1692). The story is given in "Menagiana" (vol. ii. pp. 49-51, second edition, 1695). C. Sorel, however, in his "Francion" (1623) tells a similar story of a poet named Saluste, who was fooled in like manner. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Morphew's "Tatler" for January 13th, 1710 (No. 276), contains the following: "Whereas an advertisement was yesterday delivered out by the author of the late 'Female Tatler,' insinuating, [according to his custom] that he is Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.; This is to give notice, that this paper is continued to be sold by John Morphew as formerly," etc.

"The Female Tatler, by Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows every thing," had been begun July 8th, 1709, but was now defunct. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, No. 5.

----_Laceratque, trahitque_ _Molle pecus_ VIR.[1]

FROM TUESDAY JAN. 23. TO SATURDAY JAN. 27. 1710.[2]

Amongst other severities I have met with from some critics, the cruellest for an old man is, that they will not let me be at quiet in my bed, but pursue me to my very dreams. I must not dream but when they please, nor upon long continued subjects, however visionary in their own natures; because there is a manifest moral quite through them, which to produce as a dream is improbable and unnatural. The pain I might have had from this objection, is prevented by considering they have missed another, against which I should have been at a loss to defend myself. They should have asked me, whether the dreams I publish can properly be called Lucubrations, which is the name I have given to all my papers, whether in volumes or half-sheets: so manifest a contradiction _in terminis_, that I wonder no sophister ever thought of it: But the other is a cavil. I remember when I was a boy at school, I have often dreamed out the whole passages of a day; that I rode a journey, baited, supped, went to bed, and rose the next morning: and I have known young ladies who could dream a whole contexture of adventures in one night large enough to make a novel. In youth the imagination is strong, not mixed with cares, nor tinged with those passions that most disturb and confound it, such as avarice, ambition, and many others. Now as old men are said to grow children again, so in this article of dreaming, I am returned to my childhood. My imagination is at full ease, without care, avarice, or ambition, to clog it; by which, among many others, I have this advantage of doubling the small remainder of my time, and living four-and-twenty hours in the day. However, the dream I am now going to relate, is as wild as can well be imagined, and adapted to please these refiners upon sleep, without any moral that I can discover.

"It happened that my maid left on the table in my bedchamber, one of her story books (as she calls them) which I took up, and found full of strange impertinences, fitted to her taste and condition; of poor servants that came to be ladies, and serving-men of low degree, who married kings' daughters. Among other things, I met this sage observation, 'That a lion would never hurt a true virgin.' With this medley of nonsense in my fancy I went to bed, and dreamed that a friend waked me in the morning, and proposed for pastime to spend a few hours in seeing the parish lions, which he had not done since he came to town; and because they showed but once a week, he would not miss the opportunity. I said I would humour him; though, to speak the truth, I was not fond of those cruel spectacles; and if it were not so ancient a custom, founded, as I had heard, upon the wisest maxims, I should be apt to censure the inhumanity of those who introduced it." All this will be a riddle to the waking reader, till I discover the scene my imagination had formed upon the maxim, "That a lion would never hurt a true virgin." "I dreamed, that by a law of immemorial time, a he-lion was kept in every parish at the common charge, and in a place provided, adjoining to the churchyard: that, before any one of the fair sex was married, if she affirmed herself to be a virgin, she must on her wedding day, and in her wedding clothes, perform the ceremony of going alone into the den, and stay an hour with the lion let loose, and kept fasting four-and-twenty hours on purpose. At a proper height, above the den, were convenient galleries for the relations and friends of the young couple, and open to all spectators. No maiden was forced to offer herself to the lion; but if she refused, it was a disgrace to marry her, and every one might have liberty of calling her a whore. And methought it was as usual a diversion to see the parish lions, as with us to go to a play or an opera. And it was reckoned convenient to be near the church, either for marrying the virgin if she escaped the trial, or for burying the bones when the lion had devoured the rest, as he constantly did."

To go on therefore with the dream: "We called first (as I remember) to see St. Dunstan's lion, but we were told they did not shew to-day: From thence we went to that of Covent-Garden, which, to my great surprise, we found as lean as a skeleton, when I expected quite the contrary; but the keeper said it was no wonder at all, because the poor beast had not got an ounce of woman's flesh since he came into the parish. This amazed me more than the other, and I was forming to myself a mighty veneration for the ladies in that quarter of the town, when the keeper went on, and said, He wondered the parish would be at the charge of maintaining a lion for nothing. Friend, (said I) do you call it nothing, to justify the virtue of so many ladies, or has your lion lost his distinguishing faculty? Can there be anything more for the honour of your parish, than that all the ladies married in your church were pure virgins? That is true, (said he) and the doctor knows it to his sorrow; for there has not been a couple married in our church since his worship has been amongst us. The virgins hereabouts are too wise to venture the claws of the lion; and because nobody will marry them, have all entered into vows of virginity. So that in proportion we have much the largest nunnery in the whole town. This manner of ladies entering into a vow of virginity, because they were not virgins, I easily conceived; and my dream told me, that the whole kingdom was full of nunneries, plentifully stocked from the same reason.

"We went to see another lion, where we found much company met in the gallery; the keeper told us, we should see sport enough, as he called it; and in a little time, we saw a young beautiful lady put into the den, who walked up towards the lion with all imaginable security in her countenance, and looked smiling upon her lover and friends in the gallery; which I thought nothing extraordinary, because it was never known that any lion had been mistaken. But, however, we were all disappointed, for the lion lifted up his right paw, which was the fatal sign, and advancing forward, seized her by the arm, and began to tear it: The poor lady gave a terrible shriek, and cried out, 'The lion is just, I am no true virgin! Oh! Sappho, Sappho.' She could say no more, for the lion gave her the _coup de grace_, by a squeeze in the throat, and she expired at his feet. The keeper dragged away her body to feed the animal when the company was gone, for the parish-lions never used to eat in public. After a little pause, another lady came on towards the lion in the same manner as the former; we observed the beast smell her with great diligence, he scratched both her hands with lifting them to his nose, and clapping a claw on her bosom, drew blood; however he let her go, and at the same time turned from her with a sort of contempt, at which she was not a little mortified, and retired with some confusion to her friends in the gallery. Methought the whole company immediately understood the meaning of this, that the easiness of the lady had suffered her to admit certain imprudent and dangerous familiarities, bordering too much upon what is criminal; neither was it sure whether the lover then present had not some sharers with him in those freedoms, of which a lady can never be too sparing.

"This happened to be an extraordinary day, for a third lady came into the den, laughing loud, playing with her fan, tossing her head, and smiling round on the young fellows in the gallery. However, the lion leaped on her with great fury, and we gave her for gone; but on a sudden he let go his hold, turned from her as if he were nauseated, then gave her a lash with his tail; after which she returned to the gallery, not the least out of countenance: and this, it seems, was the usual treatment of coquettes.

"I thought we had now seen enough, but my friend would needs have us go and visit one or two lions in the city. We called at two or three dens where they happened not to shew, but we generally found half a score young girls, between eight and eleven years old, playing with each lion, sitting on his back, and putting their hands into his mouth; some of them would now and then get a scratch; but we always discovered, upon examining, that they had been hoydening with the young apprentices. One of them was calling to a pretty girl of about twelve years, that stood by us in the gallery, to come down to the lion, and upon her refusal, said, 'Ah! Miss Betty, we could never get you to come near the lion, since you played at hoop and hide with my brother in the garret.'

"We followed a couple, with the wedding-folks, going to the church of St. Mary-Axe. The lady, though well stricken in years, extremely crooked and deformed, was dressed out beyond the gaiety of fifteen; having jumbled together, as I imagined, all the tawdry remains of aunts, godmothers, and grandmothers, for some generations past: One of the neighbours whispered me, that she was an old maid, and had the clearest reputation of any in the parish. There is nothing strange in that, thought I, but was much surprised, when I observed afterwards that she went towards the lion with distrust and concern. The beast was lying down, but upon sight of her, snuffed up his nose two or three times, and then giving the sign of death, proceeded instantly to execution. In the midst of her agonies, she was heard to name the words, 'Italy' and 'artifices,' with the utmost horror, and several repeated execrations: and at last concluded, 'Fool that I was, to put so much confidence in the toughness of my skin.'