Chapter 57

I shall without any manner of Preface or Apology acquaint you, that I am, and ever have been from my Youth upward, one of the greatest Liars this Island has produced. I have read all the Moralists upon the Subject, but could never find any Effect their Discourses had upon me, but to add to my Misfortune by new Thoughts and Ideas, and making me more ready in my Language, and capable of sometimes mixing seeming Truths with my Improbabilities. With this strong Passion towards Falshood in this kind, there does not live an honester Man or a sincerer Friend; but my Imagination runs away with me, and whatever is started I have such a Scene of Adventures appears in an Instant before me, that I cannot help uttering them, tho', to my immediate Confusion, I cannot but know I am liable to be detected by the first Man I meet.

Upon occasion of the mention of the Battel of _Pultowa_, I could not forbear giving an Account of a Kinsman of mine, a young Merchant who was bred at _Mosco_, that had too much Metal to attend Books of Entries and Accounts, when there was so active a Scene in the Country where he resided, and followed the Czar as a Volunteer: This warm Youth, born at the Instant the thing was spoke of, was the Man who unhorsed the _Swedish_ General, he was the Occasion that the _Muscovites_ kept their Fire in so soldier-like a manner, and brought up those Troops which were covered from the Enemy at the beginning of the Day; besides this, he had at last the good Fortune to be the Man who took Count _Piper_ [1] With all this Fire I knew my Cousin to be the Civilest Creature in the World. He never made any impertinent Show of his Valour, and then he had an excellent Genius for the World in every other kind. I had Letters from him (here I felt in my Pockets) that exactly spoke the Czar's Character, which I knew [perfectly [2]] well; and I could not forbear concluding, that I lay with his Imperial Majesty twice or thrice a Week all the while he lodged at _Deptford_. [3] What is worse than all this, it is impossible to speak to me, but you give me some occasion of coming out with one Lie or other, that has neither Wit, Humour, Prospect of Interest, or any other Motive that I can think of in Nature. The other Day, when one was commending an Eminent and Learned Divine, what occasion in the World had I to say, Methinks he would look more Venerable if he were not so fair a man? I remember the Company smiled. I have seen the Gentleman since, and he is Coal-Black. I have Intimations every Day in my Life that no Body believes me, yet I am never the better. I was saying something the other Day to an old Friend at _Will's_ Coffee-house, and he made me no manner of Answer; but told me, that an Acquaintance of _Tully_ the Orator having two or three times together said to him, without receiving any Answer, That upon his Honour he was but that very Month forty Years of Age; Tully answer'd, Surely you think me the most incredulous Man in the World, if I don't believe what you have told me every Day this ten Years. The Mischief of it is, I find myself wonderfully inclin'd to have been present at every Occurrence that is spoken of before me; this has led me into many Inconveniencies, but indeed they have been the fewer, because I am no ill-natur'd Man, and never speak Things to any Man's Disadvantage. I never directly defame, but I do what is as bad in the Consequence, for I have often made a Man say such and such a lively Expression, who was born a mere Elder Brother. When one has said in my Hearing, Such a one is no wiser than he should be, I immediately have reply'd, Now 'faith, I can't see that, he said a very good Thing to my Lord such a one, upon such an Occasion, and the like. Such an honest Dolt as this has been watch'd in every Expression he uttered, upon my Recommendation of him, and consequently been subject to the more Ridicule. I once endeavoured to cure my self of this impertinent Quality, and resolved to hold my Tongue for seven Days together; I did so, but then I had so many Winks and unnecessary Distortions of my Face upon what any body else said, that I found I only forbore the Expression, and that I still lied in my Heart to every Man I met with. You are to know one Thing (which I believe you'll say is a pity, considering the Use I should have made of it) I never Travelled in my Life; but I do not know whether I could have spoken of any Foreign Country with more Familiarity than I do at present, in Company who are Strangers to me. I have cursed the Inns in _Germany_; commended the Brothels at _Venice_; the Freedom of Conversation in _France_; and tho' I never was out of this dear Town, and fifty Miles about it, have been three Nights together dogged by Bravoes for an Intreague with a Cardinal's Mistress at _Rome_.

It were endless to give you Particulars of this kind, but I can assure you, Mr. SPECTATOR, there are about Twenty or Thirty of us in this Town, I mean by this Town the Cities of _London_ and _Westminster;_ I say there are in Town a sufficient Number of us to make a Society among our selves; and since we cannot be believed any longer, I beg of you to print this my Letter, that we may meet together, and be under such Regulation as there may be no Occasion for Belief or Confidence among us. If you think fit, we might be called _The Historians_, for _Liar_ is become a very harsh Word. And that a Member of the Society may not hereafter be ill received by the rest of the World, I desire you would explain a little this sort of Men, and not let us _Historians_ be ranked, as we are in the Imaginations of ordinary People, among common Liars, Makebates, Impostors, and Incendiaries. For your Instruction herein, you are to know that an Historian in Conversation is only a Person of so pregnant a Fancy, that he cannot be contented with ordinary Occurrences. I know a Man of Quality of our Order, who is of the wrong Side of Forty-three, and has been of that Age, according to _Tully's_ Jest, for some Years since, whose Vein is upon the Romantick. Give him the least Occasion, and he will tell you something so very particular that happen'd in such a Year, and in such Company, where by the by was present such a one, who was afterwards made such a thing. Out of all these Circumstances, in the best Language in the World, he will join together with such probable Incidents an Account that shews a Person of the deepest Penetration, the honestest Mind, and withal something so Humble when he speaks of himself, that you would Admire. Dear Sir, why should this be Lying! There is nothing so instructive. He has withal the gravest Aspect; something so very venerable and great! Another of these Historians is a Young Man whom we would take in, tho' he extreamly wants Parts, as People send Children (before they can learn any thing) to School, to keep them out of Harm's way. He tells things which have nothing at all in them, and can neither please [nor [4]] displease, but merely take up your Time to no manner of Purpose, no manner of Delight; but he is Good-natured, and does it because he loves to be saying something to you, and entertain you.

I could name you a Soldier that [hath [5]] done very great things without Slaughter; he is prodigiously dull and slow of Head, but what he can say is for ever false, so that we must have him.

Give me leave to tell you of one more who is a Lover; he is the most afflicted Creature in the World, lest what happened between him and a Great Beauty should ever be known. Yet again, he comforts himself. _Hang the Jade her Woman. If Mony can keep [the] Slut trusty I will do it, though I mortgage every Acre;_ Anthony _and_ Cleopatra _for that; All for Love and the World well lost ...

Then, Sir, there is my little Merchant, honest _Indigo_ of the _Change_, there's my Man for Loss and Gain, there's Tare and Tret, there's lying all round the Globe; he has such a prodigious Intelligence he knows all the _French_ are doing, or what we intend or ought to intend, and has it from such Hands. But, alas, whither am I running! While I complain, while I remonstrate to you, even all this is a Lie, and there is not one such Person of Quality, Lover, Soldier, or Merchant as I have now described in the whole World, that I know of. But I will catch my self once in my Life, and in spite of Nature speak one Truth, to wit that I am

_Your Humble Servant_, &c.

T.

[Footnote 1: Prime Minister of Charles XII.]

[Footnote 2: exactly]

[Footnote 3: In the Spring of 1698.]

[Footnote 4: or]

[Footnote 5: has]

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No. 137. Tuesday, August 7, 1711. Steele.

At hæc etiam Servis semper libera fuerunt, timerent, gauderent, dolerent, suo potius quam alterius arbitrio.

Tull. Epist.

It is no small Concern to me, that I find so many Complaints from that Part of Mankind whose Portion it is to live in Servitude, that those whom they depend upon will not allow them to be even as happy as their Condition will admit of. There are, as these unhappy Correspondents inform me, Masters who are offended at a chearful Countenance, and think a Servant is broke loose from them, if he does not preserve the utmost Awe in their Presence. There is one who says, if he looks satisfied, his Master asks him what makes him so pert this Morning; if a little sour, Hark ye, Sirrah, are not you paid your Wages? The poor Creatures live in the most extreme Misery together: The Master knows not how to preserve Respect, nor the Servant how to give it. It seems this Person is of so sullen a Nature, that he knows but little Satisfaction in the midst of a plentiful Fortune, and secretly frets to see any Appearance of Content, in one that lives upon the hundredth Part of his Income, who is unhappy in the Possession of the Whole. Uneasy Persons, who cannot possess their own Minds, vent their Spleen upon all who depend upon them: which, I think, is expressed in a lively manner in the following Letters.

_August_ 2, 1711.

_SIR_,

I have read your Spectator of the third of the last Month, and wish I had the Happiness of being preferred to serve so good a Master as Sir ROGER. The Character of my Master is the very Reverse of that good and gentle Knight's. All his Directions are given, and his Mind revealed, by way of Contraries: As when any thing is to be remembered, with a peculiar Cast of Face he cries, _Be sure to forget now_. If I am to make haste back, _Don't come these two Hours; be sure to call by the Way upon some of your Companions_. Then another excellent Way of his is, if he sets me any thing to do, which he knows must necessarily take up half a Day, he calls ten times in a Quarter of an Hour to know whether I have done yet. This is his Manner; and the same Perverseness runs through all his Actions, according as the Circumstances vary. Besides all this, he is so suspicious, that he submits himself to the Drudgery of a Spy. He is as unhappy himself as he makes his Servants: He is constantly watching us, and we differ no more in Pleasure and Liberty than as a Gaoler and a Prisoner. He lays Traps for Faults, and no sooner makes a Discovery, but falls into such Language, as I am more ashamed of for coming from him, than for being directed to me. This, Sir, is a short Sketch of a Master I have served upwards of nine Years; and tho' I have never wronged him, I confess my Despair of pleasing him has very much abated my Endeavour to do it. If you will give me leave to steal a Sentence out of my Master's _Clarendon_, I shall tell you my Case in a Word, _Being used worse than I deserved, I cared less to deserve well than I had done_.

_I am, SIR_, _Your Humble Servant_, RALPH VALET.

Dear Mr. SPECTER, I am the next thing to a Lady's Woman, and am under both my Lady and her Woman. I am so used by them both, that I should be very glad to see them in the SPECTER. My Lady her self is of no Mind in the World, and for that Reason her Woman is of twenty Minds in a Moment. My Lady is one that never knows what to do with her self; she pulls on and puts off every thing she wears twenty times before she resolves upon it for that Day. I stand at one end of the Room, and reach things to her Woman. When my Lady asks for a thing, I hear and have half brought it, when the Woman meets me in the middle of the Room to receive it, and at that Instant she says No she will not have it. Then I go back, and her Woman comes up to her, and by this time she will have that and two or three things more in an Instant: The Woman and I run to each other; I am loaded and delivering the things to her, when my Lady says she wants none of all these things, and we are the dullest Creatures in the World, and she the unhappiest Woman living, for she shan't be dress'd in any time. Thus we stand not knowing what to do, when our good Lady with all the Patience in the World tells us as plain as she can speak, that she will have Temper because we have no manner of Understanding; and begins again to dress, and see if we can find out of our selves what we are to do. When she is Dressed she goes to Dinner, and after she has disliked every thing there, she calls for the Coach, then commands it in again, and then she will not go out at all, and then will go too, and orders the Chariot. Now, good Mr. SPECTER, I desire you would in the Behalf of all who serve froward Ladies, give out in your Paper, that nothing can be done without allowing Time for it, and that one cannot be back again with what one was sent for, if one is called back before one can go a Step for that they want. And if you please let them know that all Mistresses are as like as all Servants.

_I am Your Loving Friend_, PATIENCE GIDDY.

These are great Calamities; but I met the other Day in the five Fields towards _Chelsea_, a pleasanter Tyrant than either of the above represented. A fat Fellow was puffing on in his open Waistcoat; a Boy of fourteen in a Livery, carrying after him his Cloak, upper Coat, Hat, Wig, and Sword. The poor Lad was ready to sink with the Weight, and could not keep up with his Master, who turned back every half Furlong, and wondered what made the lazy Young Dog lag behind.

There is something very unaccountable, that People cannot put themselves in the Condition of the Persons below them, when they consider the Commands they give. But there is nothing more common, than to see a Fellow (who if he were reduced to it, would not be hired by any Man living) lament that he is troubled with the most worthless Dogs in Nature.

It would, perhaps, be running too far out of common Life to urge, that he who is not Master of himself and his own Passions, cannot be a proper Master of another. Æquanimity in a Man's own Words and Actions, will easily diffuse it self through his whole Family. _Pamphilio_ has the happiest Household of any Man I know, and that proceeds from the humane regard he has to them in their private Persons, as well as in respect that they are his Servants. If there be any Occasion, wherein they may in themselves be supposed to be unfit to attend their Master's Concerns, by reason of an Attention to their own, he is so good as to place himself in their Condition. I thought it very becoming in him, when at Dinner the other Day he made an Apology for want of more Attendants. He said, _One of my Footmen is gone to the Wedding of his Sister, and the other I don't expect to Wait, because his Father died but two Days ago_.

T.

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No. 138. Wednesday, August 8, 1711. Steele.

'Utitur in re non Dubia testibus non necessariis.'

Tull.

One meets now and then with Persons who are extreamly learned and knotty in Expounding clear Cases. _Tully_ [1] tells us of an Author that spent some Pages to prove that Generals could not perform the great Enterprizes which have made them so illustrious, if they had not had Men. He asserted also, it seems, that a Minister at home, no more than a Commander abroad, could do any thing without other Men were his Instruments and Assistants. On this Occasion he produces the Example of _Themistodes, Pericles, Cyrus_, and _Alexander_ himself, whom he denies to have been capable of effecting what they did, except they had been followed by others. It is pleasant enough to see such Persons contend without Opponents, and triumph without Victory.

The Author above-mentioned by the Orator, is placed for ever in a very ridiculous Light, and we meet every Day in Conversation such as deserve the same kind of Renown, for troubling those with whom they converse with the like Certainties. The Persons that I have always thought to deserve the highest Admiration in this kind are your ordinary Story-tellers, who are most religiously careful of keeping to the Truth in every particular Circumstance of a Narration, whether it concern the main End or not. A Gentleman whom I had the Honour to be in Company with the other Day, upon some Occasion that he was pleased to take, said, He remembered a very pretty Repartee made by a very witty Man in King _Charles's_ time upon the like Occasion. I remember (said he, upon entring into the Tale) much about the time of _Oates's_ Plot, that a Cousin-German of mine and I were at the _Bear_ in _Holborn:_ No, I am out, it was at the _Cross_ Keys, but _Jack Thompson_ was there, for he was very great with the Gentleman who made the Answer. But I am sure it was spoken some where thereabouts, for we drank a Bottle in that Neighbourhood every Evening: But no matter for all that, the thing is the same; but ...

He was going on to settle the Geography of the Jest when I left the Room, wondering at this odd turn of Head which can play away its Words, with uttering nothing to the Purpose, still observing its own Impertinencies, and yet proceeding in them. I do not question but he informed the rest of his Audience, who had more Patience than I, of the Birth and Parentage, as well as the Collateral Alliances of his Family who made the Repartee, and of him who provoked him to it.

It is no small Misfortune to any who have a just Value for their Time, when this Quality of being so very Circumstantial, and careful to be exact, happens to shew it self in a Man whose Quality obliges them to attend his Proofs, that it is now Day, and the like. But this is augmented when the same Genius gets into Authority, as it often does. Nay I have known it more than once ascend the very Pulpit. One of this sort taking it in his Head to be a great Admirer of Dr. _Tillotson_ and Dr. _Beveridge_, never failed of proving out of these great Authors Things which no Man living would have denied him upon his [own] single Authority. One Day resolving to come to the Point in hand, he said, According to that excellent Divine, I will enter upon the Matter, or in his Words, in the fifteenth Sermon of the Folio Edition, Page 160.

_I shall briefly explain the Words, and then consider the Matter contained in them_.

This honest Gentleman needed not, one would think, strain his Modesty so far as to alter his Design of _Entring into the Matter_, to that of _Briefly explaining_. But so it was, that he would not even be contented with that Authority, but added also the other Divine to strengthen his Method, and told us, With the Pious and Learned Dr. _Beveridge_, Page 4th of his 9th Volume, I _shall endeavour to make it as plain as I can from the Words which I have now read, wherein for that Purpose we shall consider_ ... This Wiseacre was reckoned by the Parish, who did not understand him, a most excellent Preacher; but that he read too much, and was so Humble that he did not trust enough to his own Parts.

Next to these ingenious Gentlemen, who argue for what no body can deny them, are to be ranked a sort of People who do not indeed attempt to prove insignificant things, but are ever labouring to raise Arguments with you about Matters you will give up to them without the least Controversy. One of these People told a Gentleman who said he saw Mr. such a one go this Morning at nine a Clock towards the _Gravel-Pits_, Sir, I must beg your pardon for that, for tho' I am very loath to have any Dispute with you, yet I must take the liberty to tell you it was nine when I saw him at _St. James's_. When Men of this Genius are pretty far gone in Learning they will put you to prove that Snow is white, and when you are upon that Topick can say that there is really no such thing as Colour in Nature; in a Word, they can turn what little Knowledge they have into a ready Capacity of raising Doubts; into a Capacity of being always frivolous and always unanswerable. It was of two Disputants of this impertinent and laborious kind that the Cynick said, _One of these Fellows is Milking a Ram, and the other holds the Pail_.

[Footnote 1: On Rhetorical Invention.]

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

_The Exercise of the Snuff-Box, according to the most fashionable Airs and Motions, in opposition to the Exercise of the Fan, will be Taught with the best plain or perfumed Snuff, at_ Charles Lillie's _Perfumer at the Corner of Beaufort-Buildings in the_ Strand, _and Attendance given for the Benefit of the young Merchants about the Exchange for two Hours every Day at Noon, except_ Saturdays, _at a Toy-shop near_ Garraway's _Coffee-House.

There will be likewise Taught The Ceremony of the Snuff-box, or Rules for offering Snuff to a Stranger, a Friend, or a Mistress, according to the Degrees of Familiarity or Distance; with an Explanation of the Careless, the Scornful, the Politick, and the Surly Pinch, and the Gestures proper to each of them_.

N. B._The Undertaker does not question but in a short time to have formed a Body of Regular Snuff-Boxes ready to meet and make head against [all] the Regiment of Fans which have been lately Disciplined, and are now in Motion_.

T.

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No. 139. Thursday, August 9, 1711. Steele.

Vera Gloria radices agit, atque etiam propagatur: Ficta omnia celeriter, tanquam flosculi, decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum.

Tull.