Chapter 28

Col. PLUME. It was a received custom till that time; but the swords of those days being pretty long, and the principals acting on both sides upon the defensive, and the morning being frosty, Major Adroit desired that the other second, who was also a very topping fellow, would try a thrust or two only to keep them warm, till the principals had decided the matter, which was agreed to by Modish's second, who presently whipped Adroit through the body, disarmed him, and then parted the principals, who had received no harm at all.

Mr. SAGE. But was not Adroit laughed at?

Col. PLUME. On the contrary, the very topping fellows were ever after of opinion, that no man who deserved that character, could serve as a second, without fighting; and the Smarts and Modishes finding their account in it, the humour took without opposition.

Mr. SAGE. Pray, Colonel, how long did that fashion continue?

Col. PLUME, Not long neither, Mr. Sage; for as soon as it became a fashion, the very topping fellows thought their honour reflected upon, if they did not proffer themselves as seconds when any of their friends had a quarrel; so that sometimes there were a dozen of a side.

Sir MARK. Bless me! If that custom had continued, we should have been at a loss now for our very pretty fellows; for they seem to be the proper men to officer, animate, and keep up an army: but, pray, sir, how did that sociable manner of tilting grow out of mode?

Col. PLUME. Why, sir, I'll tell you; it was a law among the combatants, that the party which happened to have the first man disarmed or killed, should yield as vanquished; which some people thought might encourage the Modishes and Smarts in quarrelling, to the destruction of only the very topping fellows; and as soon as this reflection was started, the very topping fellows thought it an incumbrance upon their honour to fight at all themselves. Since that time, the Modishes and the Smarts, throughout all Europe, have extolled the French king's edict.

Sir MARK. Our very pretty fellows, whom I take to be the successors of the very topping fellows, think a quarrel so little fashionable, that they will not be exposed to it by another man's vanity, or want of sense.

Mr. SAGE. But, Colonel, I have observed in your account of duels, that there was a great exactness in avoiding all advantage that might possibly be between the combatants.

Col. PLUME. That's true, sir; for the weapons were always equal.

Mr. SAGE. Yes, sir; but suppose an active, adroit, strong man, had insulted an awkward, or a feeble, or an unpractised swordsman.

Col. PLUME. Then, sir, they fought with pistols.

Mr. SAGE. But, sir, there might be a certain advantage that way; for a good marksman will be sure to hit his man at twenty yards distance; and a man whose hand shakes (which is common to men that debauch in pleasures, or have not used pistols out of their holsters) won't venture to fire, unless he touches the person he shoots at. Now, sir, I am of opinion, that one can get no honour in killing a man (if one has it all rug,[388] as the gamesters say), when they have a trick to make the game secure, though they seem to play upon the square.

Sir MARK. In truth, Mr. Sage, I think such a fact must be murder in a man's own private conscience, whatever it may appear to the world.

Col. PLUME. I have known some men so nice, that they would not fight but upon a cloak without pistols.

Mr. SAGE. I believe a custom, well established, would outdo the Grand Monarch's edict.[389]

Sir MARK. And bullies would then leave off their long swords; but I don't find that a very pretty fellow can stay to change his sword, when he is insulted by a bully with a long diego,[390] though his own at the same time be no longer than a penknife; which will certainly be the case, if such little swords are in mode. Pray, Colonel, how was it between the hectors of your time and the very topping fellows?

Col. PLUME. Sir, long swords happened to be generally worn in those times.

Mr. SAGE. In answer to what you were saying, Sir Mark, give me leave to inform you, that your knights-errant (who were the very pretty fellows of those ancient times) thought they could not honourably yield, though they had fought their own trusty weapons to the stumps; but would venture as boldly with the page's leaden sword, as if it had been of enchanted metal. Whence I conceive, there must be a spice of romantic gallantry in the composition of that very pretty fellow.

Sir MARK. I am of opinion, Mr. Sage, that fashion governs a very pretty fellow; nature, or common sense, your ordinary persons, and sometimes men of fine parts.

Mr. SAGE. But what is the reason, that men of the most excellent sense and morals (in other points) associate their understandings with the very pretty fellows in that chimæra of a duel?

Sir MARK. There's no disputing against so great a majority.

Mr. SAGE. But there is one scruple (Colonel Plume) and I have done: don't you believe there may be some advantage even upon a cloak with pistols, which a man of nice honour would scruple to take?

Col. PLUME. Faith, I can't tell, sir; but since one may reasonably suppose, that (in such a case) there can be but one so far in the wrong as to occasion matters to come to that extremity, I think the chance of being killed should fall but on one; whereas by their close and desperate manner of fighting, it may very probably happen to both.

Sir MARK. Why, gentlemen, if they are men of such nice honour (and must fight), there will be no fear of foul play, if they threw up cross or pile[391] who should be shot.

[Footnote 383: Job xxxviii. 4, 8, 11.]

[Footnote 384: There was a difference between the University terms and the Law terms.]

[Footnote 385: Spencer Cowper (1669-1727), brother of Earl Cowper, and afterwards a judge of the Common Pleas. He was one of the managers of the impeachment of Sacheverell in 1710.]

[Footnote 386: See Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, 205.]

[Footnote 387: At Whitehall.]

[Footnote 388: _Cf._ "Wentworth Papers," p. 394: "June 29, 1714. The changes at Court does not go so rug as some people expected and gave out, that 'twas to be all intire Tory with the least seeming mixture of Whigs."]

[Footnote 389: See _Spectator_, No. 97.]

[Footnote 390: A sword. Don Diego was a familiar name for a Spaniard with both English and French writers in the seventeenth century. San Diego is a corruption of Santiago (St. James), the patron saint of Spain.]

[Footnote 391: A pillar, the design on one side of a coin, bearing on the other a cross. Swift says, "This I humbly conceive to be perfect boys' play; cross, I win, and pile, you lose."]

No. 40. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, July 9_, to _Tuesday, July 12_, 1709.

* * * * *

Will's Coffee-house, July 11.

Letters from the city of London give an account of a very great consternation that place is in at present, by reason of a late inquiry made at Guildhall, whether a noble person[392] has parts enough to deserve the enjoyment of the great estate of which he is possessed. The city is apprehensive that this precedent may go further than was at first imagined. The person against whom this inquisition is set up by his relations, is a peer of a neighbouring kingdom, and has in his youth made some few bulls, by which it is insinuated, that he has forfeited his goods and chattels. This is the more astonishing, in that there are many persons in the said city who are still more guilty than his lordship, and who, though they are idiots, do not only possess, but have also themselves acquired great estates, contrary to the known laws of this realm, which vests their possessions in the Crown. There is a gentleman of this coffee-house at this time exhibiting a bill in Chancery against his father's younger brother, who by some strange magic has arrived at the value of half a plum, as the citizens call a hundred thousand pounds; and in all the time of growing up to that wealth, was never known in any of his ordinary words or actions to discover any proof of reason. Upon this foundation my friend has set forth, that he is illegally master of his coffers, and has writ two epigrams to signify his own pretensions and sufficiency for spending that estate. He has inserted in his plea some things which I fear will give offence; for he pretends to argue, that though a man has a little of the knave mixed with the fool, he is nevertheless liable to the loss of goods; and makes the abuse of reason as just an avoidance of an estate as the total absence of it. This is what can never pass; but witty men are so full of themselves, that there is no persuading them; and my friend will not be convinced, but that upon quoting Solomon, who always used the word "fool" as a term of the same signification with "unjust," and makes all deviation from goodness and virtue to come under the notion of folly--I say, he doubts not, but by the force of this authority, let his idiot uncle appear never so great a knave, he shall prove him a fool at the same time. This affair led the company here into an examination of these points; and none coming here but wits, what was asserted by a young lawyer, that a lunatic is in the care of the Chancery, but a fool in that of the Crown, was received with general indignation. "Why that?" says old Renault. "Why that? Why must a fool be a courtier more than a madman? This is the iniquity of this dull age: I remember the time when it went on the mad side; all your top wits were scowrers,[393] rakes, roarers, and demolishers of windows. I remember a mad lord who was drunk five years together, and was the envy of that age, and is faintly imitated by the dull pretenders to vice and madness in this. Had he lived to this day, there had not been a fool in fashion in the whole kingdom." When Renault had done speaking, a very worthy man assumed the discourse: "This is," said he, "Mr. Bickerstaff, a proper argument for you to treat in your article from this place; and if you would send your Pacolet into all our brains, you would find, that a little fibre or valve, scarce discernible, makes the distinction between a politician and an idiot. We should therefore throw a veil upon those unhappy instances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reason and understanding, as we should avert our eyes with abhorrence from such as live in perpetual abuse and contradiction to these noble faculties. Shall this unfortunate man be divested of his estate, because he is tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, invades no man's bed, nor spends the estate he owes his children and his character; when one who shows no sense above him, but in such practices, shall be esteemed in his senses, and possibly may pretend to the guardianship of him who is no ways his inferior, but in being less wicked? We see old age brings us indifferently into the same impotence of soul, wherein nature has placed this lord. There is something very fantastical in the distribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives these persons into the ward and care of the Crown, because that is best able to protect them from injuries, and the impositions of craft and knavery; that the life of an idiot may not ruin the entail of a noble house, and his weakness may not frustrate the industry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we say, with his eyes open, and all men's eyes upon him, destroys those purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! Folly and guilt are tolerated! Mr. Locke has somewhere made a distinction between a madman and a fool:[394] a fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclusion; but a madman is one who draws a just inference from false principles. Thus the fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay asleep, and hid it, and then waited to see what he would say when he awakened and missed his headpiece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be surprised to find such an alteration in things since he fell asleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was off. A madman fancies himself a prince; but upon his mistake, he acts suitably to that character; and though he is out in supposing he has principalities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in straw, yet you shall see him keep the port of a distressed monarch in all his words and actions. These two persons are equally taken into custody: but what must be done to half this good company, who every hour of their life are knowingly and wittingly both fools and madmen, and yet have capacities both of forming principles, and drawing conclusions, with the full use of reason?"

From my own Apartment, July 11.

This evening some ladies came to visit my sister Jenny; and the discourse, after very many frivolous and public matters, turned upon the main point among the women, the passion of love.[395] Sappho, who always leads on this occasion, began to show her reading, and told us, that Sir John Suckling and Milton had, upon a parallel occasion, said the tenderest things she had ever read. "The circumstance," said she, "is such as gives us a notion of that protecting part which is the duty of men in their honourable designs upon, or possession of, women. In Suckling's tragedy of 'Brennoralt' he makes the lover steal into his mistress's bedchamber, and draw the curtains; then, when his heart is full of her charms, as she lies sleeping, instead of being carried away by the violence of his desires into thoughts of a warmer nature, sleep, which is the image of death, gives this generous lover reflections of a different kind, which regard rather her safety than his own passion. For, beholding her as she lies sleeping, he utters these words:

_"So misers look upon their gold, Which, while they joy to see, they fear to lose: The pleasure of the sight scarce equalling The jealousy of being dispossessed by others. Her face is like the Milky Way i' th' sky, A meeting of gentle lights without name!

"Heavens I shall this fresh ornament of the world, These precious love-lines, pass with other common things Amongst the wastes of time? what pity 'twere!_[396]

"When Milton makes Adam leaning on his arm, beholding Eve, and lying in the contemplation of her beauty, he describes the utmost tenderness and guardian affection in one word:

"_Adam with looks of cordial love Hung over her enamoured._[397]

"This is that sort of passion which truly deserves the name of 'love,' and has something more generous than friendship itself; for it has a constant care of the object beloved, abstracted from its own interests in the possession of it." Sappho was proceeding on the subject, when my sister produced a letter sent to her in the time of my absence, in celebration of the marriage state, which is the condition wherein only this sort of passion reigns in full authority. The epistle is as follows:

"DEAR MADAM,

"Your brother being absent, I dare take the liberty of writing to you my thoughts of that state, which our whole sex either is or desires to be in: you'll easily guess I mean matrimony, which I hear so much decried, that it was with no small labour I maintained my ground against two opponents; but, as your brother observed of Socrates, I drew them into my conclusion from their own concessions; thus:

_"In marriage are two happy things allowed, A wife in wedding-sheets, and in a shroud. How can a marriage state then be accursed, Since the last day's as happy as the first?_

"If you think they were too easily confuted, you may conclude them not of the first sense, by their talking against marriage.

"Yours,

"MARIANA."

I observed Sappho began to redden at this epistle; and turning to a lady, who was playing with a dog she was so fond of as to carry him abroad with her; "Nay," says she, "I cannot blame the men if they have mean ideas of our souls and affections, and wonder so many are brought to take us for companions for life, when they see our endearments so triflingly placed: for, to my knowledge, Mr. Truman would give half his estate for half the affection you have shown to that Shock: nor do I believe you would be ashamed to confess, that I saw you cry, when he had the colic last week with lapping sour milk. What more could you do for your lover himself?" "What more!" replied the lady, "there is not a man in England for whom I could lament half so much." Then she stifled the animal with kisses, and called him, Beau, Life, Dear, Monsieur, Pretty Fellow, and what not, in the hurry of her impertinence. Sappho rose up; as she always does at anything she observes done, which discovers in her own sex a levity of mind, which renders them inconsiderable in the opinion of others.

St. James's Coffee-house, July 11.

Letters from the Hague of the 16th instant, N.S., say, that the siege of Tournay went on with all imaginable success; and that there has been no manner of stop given to the attempts of the Confederates since they undertook it, except that by an accident of firing a piece of ordnance, it burst, and killed fifteen or sixteen men. The French army is still in the camp of Lens, and goes on in improving their entrenchments. When the last advices came away, it was believed the town of Tournay would be in the hands of the Confederates by the end of this month. Advices from Brussels inform us, that they have an account of a great action between the malcontents in the Vivarez, and the French king's forces under the command of the Duke of Roquelaure, in which engagement there were eighteen hundred men killed on the spot. They add, that all sorts of people who are under any oppression or discontent do daily join the Vivarois; and that their present body of men in arms consisted of six thousand. This sudden insurrection has put the Court of France under great difficulties; and the king has given orders, that the main body of his troops in Spain shall withdraw into his own dominions, where they are to be quartered in such countries as have of late discovered an inclination to take up arms: the calamities of that kingdom being such, that the people are not by any means to be kept in obedience, except by the terror of military execution. What makes the distresses still greater, is, that the Court begins to be doubtful of their troops, some regiments in the action in the Cevennes having faced about against their officers; and after the battle was over, joined the malcontents. Upon receiving advice of this battle, the Duke of Berwick detached twelve battalions into those parts, and began to add new works to his entrenchments near Briançon, in order to defend his camp, after being weakened by sending so great a reinforcement into the Cevennes. Letters from Spain say, that the Duchess of Anjou was lately delivered of a second son. They write from Madrid of the 25th of June, that the blockade of Olivenza was continued; but acknowledge, that the late provisions which were thrown into the place, make them doubt whether they shall be masters of it this campaign; though it is at present so closely blocked up, that it appears impracticable to send in any more stores or succours. They are preparing with all expedition to repair the fortifications of Alicante, for the security of the kingdom of Valencia.

[Footnote 392: It appears from Luttrell's "Brief Relation," that in Feb. 1707, Commissioners sat in the Exchequer Room at Westminster to try whether Viscount Wenman, "aged 19, of £5000 per annum estate in Oxfordshire," were an idiot or not. On the 14th February the Commission was superseded. In June 1709, a new Commission passed the Great Seal for inquiring into the Viscount's idiocy, and on July 29 they found that he was no idiot. On July 12, Peter Wentworth wrote thus to Lord Raby: "The prosecution of Lord Wainman is now order'd again, upon wch the _Tatler_ is to day; the accation I am told is this, that last year when there was a stopt put to't 'twas upon the intercession lady Wainman the mother made to the Queen, and that she designed to marry her son, the fool, to Sir John Packington's daughter, 'twas then said that my Lady her self had married her Butler, wch the Queen desired her to tell the truth, and she did assure the Queen upon her word and honour,'twas false, and she never intended any such thing, but of late she has own her marriage to that same Butler, and put off the match with Sir John P----daughter, and married him to her husband's sister, wch they say the Queen is angry at and therefore this fresh prosecution is order'd" ("Wentworth Papers," p. 93). Lord Wenman, the fifth Viscount, was born in 1687, married Susannah, daughter of Seymour Wroughton, Esq., in 1709, and died in 1729. Lord Wenman's brother-in-law, Francis Wroughton, was also his father-in-law, for he had married, in 1699, as her third husband, the Viscount's mother, the Countess of Abingdon.]

[Footnote 393: The Scowrers and Roarers were the forerunners of the Mohocks of 1712. Shadwell wrote a play called "The Scowrers," and often alludes to the window-breakers of his time. See Gay's "Trivia," iii. 325:

"Who has not heard the Scowrer's midnight fame? Who has not trembled at the Mohock's name?" ]

[Footnote 394: "Essay concerning Human Understanding," chap. xii. sect. 14.]

[Footnote 395: See Nos. 6, 35.]

[Footnote 396: "Brennoralt," act iii.]

[Footnote 397: "Paradise Lost," iv. 12, 13.]

No. 41. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, July 12_, to _Thursday, July 14_, 1709.

Celebrare domestica facta.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, July 12.

There is no one thing more to be lamented in our nation, than their general affectation of everything that is foreign; nay, we carry it so far, that we are more anxious for our own countrymen when they have crossed the seas, than when we see them in the same dangerous condition before our eyes at home: else how is it possible, that on the 29th of the last month, there should have been a battle fought in our very streets of London, and nobody at this end of the town have heard of it? I protest, I, who make it my business to inquire after adventures, should never have known this, had not the following account been sent me enclosed in a letter. This, it seems, is the way of giving out of orders in the Artillery Company;[398] and they prepare for a day of action with so little concern, as only to call it, "An Exercise of Arms."

"An Exercise at Arms of the Artillery Company, to be performed on Wednesday, June 29, 1709, under the command of Sir Joseph Woolfe, Knight and Alderman, General; Charles Hopson, Esquire, present Sheriff, Lieutenant-General; Captain Richard Synge, Major; Major John Shorey, Captain of Grenadiers; Captain William Grayhurst, Captain John Buttler, Captain Robert Carellis, Captains.