Volume 1 — [STEELE.
Reading edition
From Thursday, May 5, to Saturday, May 7, 1709.
May 5.
When a man has engaged to keep a stage-coach, he is obliged, whether he has passengers or not, to set out: thus it fares with us weekly historians; but indeed, for my particular, I hope I shall soon have little more to do in this work, than to publish what is sent me from such as have leisure and capacity for giving delight, and being pleased in an elegant manner. The present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect, that we should rise in our public diversions, and manner of enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power. Instead of that, take and survey this town, and you'll find, rakes and debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists, and illiterate drunkards, call themselves free thinkers; and gamesters, banterers, biters,180 swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in their several species, the modern men of wit. Hence it is, that a man who has been out of town but one half-year, has lost the language, and must have some friend to stand by him, and keep him in countenance for talking common sense. To-day I saw a short interlude at White's of this nature, which I took notes of, and put together as well as I could in a public place. The persons of the drama are, Pip, the last gentleman that has been made so at cards; Trimmer, a person half undone at them, and is now between a cheat and a gentleman; Acorn, an honest Englishman, of good plain sense and meaning; and Mr. Friendly, a reasonable man of the town.
White's Chocolate-house, May 5.
[Enter PIP, TRIM, and ACORN.
AC. What's the matter, gentlemen? What! Take no notice of an old friend?
PIP. Pox on it! don't talk to me, I am voweled by the Count, and cursedly out of humour.
AC. Voweled! Prithee, Trimmer, what does he mean by that?
TRIM. Have a care, Harry, speak softly; don't show your ignorance:—If you do, they'll bite you where-e'er they meet you; they are such cursed curs,—the present wits.
AC. Bite me! What do you mean?
PIP. Why! Don't you know what biting is? Nay, you are in the right on it. However, one would learn it only to defend oneself against men of wit, as one would know the tricks of play, to be secure against the cheats. But don't you hear, Acorn, that report, that some potentates of the Alliance have taken care of themselves, exclusive of us?
AC. How! Heaven forbid! After all our glorious victories; all this expense of blood and treasure!
PIP. Bite—
AC. Bite! How?
TRIM. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough; that's certain.
AC. Pox! I don't feel it—how? Where?
[Exit PIP and TRIMMER, laughing.
AC. Ho! Mr. Friendly, your most humble servant; you heard what passed between those fine gentlemen and me. Pip complained to me, that he has been voweled; and they tell me, I am bit.
FRIEND. You are to understand, sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in the world; and in the room of it, there are started a thousand little inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of it. Thus, for every character in conversation that used to please, there is an impostor put upon you. Him whom we allowed formerly for a certain pleasant subtilty, and natural way of giving you an unexpected hit, called a droll, is now mimicked by a biter, who is a dull fellow, that tells you a lie with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him. Instead of that sort of companion, who could rally you, and keep his countenance, till he made you fall into some little inconsistency of behaviour, at which you yourself could laugh with him, you have the sneerer, who will keep you company from morning to night, to gather your follies of the day (which perhaps you commit out of confidence in him), and expose you in the evening to all the scorners in town. For your man of sense and free spirit, whose set of thoughts were built upon learning, reason, and experience, you have now an impudent creature made up of vice only, who supports his ignorance by his courage, and want of learning by contempt of it.
AC. Dear sir, hold: what you have told me already of this change in conversation, is too miserable to be heard with any delight; but, methinks, as these new creatures appear in the world, it might give an excellent field to writers for the stage, to divert us with the representation of them there.
FRIEND. No, no: as you say, there might be some hopes of redress of these grievances, if there were proper care taken of the theatre; but the history of that is yet more lamentable than that of the decay of conversation I gave you.
AC. Pray, sir, a little: I haven't been in town these six years, till within this fortnight.
FRIEND. It is now some years since several revolutions in the gay world had made the empire of the stage subject to very fatal convulsions, which were too dangerous to be cured by the skill of little King Oberon,181 who then sat in the throne of it. The laziness of this prince threw him upon the choice of a person who was fit to spend his life in contentions, an able and profound attorney, to whom he mortgaged his whole empire. This Divito182 is the most skilful of all politicians: he has a perfect art in being unintelligible in discourse, and uncomeatable in business. But he having no understanding in this polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder-dancers,183 rope-dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakespeare's heroes, and Jonson's humorists. When the seat of wit was thus mortgaged, without equity of redemption, an architect184 arose, who has built the muse a new palace, but secured her no retinue; so that instead of action there, we have been put off by song and dance. This latter help of sound has also begun to fail for want of voices; therefore the palace has since been put into the hands of a surgeon,185 who cuts any foreign fellow into an eunuch, and passes him upon us for a singer of Italy.
AC. I'll go out of town to-morrow.
FRIEND.186 Things are come to this pass; and yet the world will not understand, that the theatre has much the same effect on the manners of the age, as the bank on the credit of the nation. Wit and spirit, humour and good sense, can never be revived, but under the government of those who are judges of such talents, who know, that whatever is put up in their stead, is but a short and trifling expedient, to support the appearance of them for a season. It is possible, a peace will give leisure to put these matters under new regulations; but at present, all the assistance we can see towards our recovery, is as far from giving us help, as a poultice is from performing what can be done only by the Grand Elixir.
Will's Coffee-house, May 6.
According to our late design in the applauded verses on the Morning,187 which you lately had from hence, we proceed to improve that just intention, and present you with other labours, made proper to the place in which they were written. The following poem comes from Copenhagen, and is as fine a winter-piece as we have ever had from any of the schools of the most learned painters. Such images as these give us a new pleasure in our sight, and fix upon our minds traces of reflection, which accompany us whenever the like objects occur. In short, excellent poetry and description dwell upon us so agreeably, that all the readers of them are made to think, if not write, like men of wit. But it would be injury to detain you longer from this excellent performance, which is addressed to the Earl of Dorset by Mr. Philips,188 the author of several choice poems in Mr. Tonson's new Miscellany.189
Copenhagen, March 9, 1709. From frozen climes, and endless tracks of snow, From streams that northern winds forbid to flow; What present shall the muse to Dorset bring; Or how, so near the Pole, attempt to sing? The hoary winter here conceals from sight All pleasing objects that to verse invite. The hills and dales, and the delightful woods, The flowery plains, and silver streaming floods, By snow disguised, in bright confusion lie, And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye. No gentle breathing breeze prepares the spring, No birds within the desert region sing. The ships unmoved the boisterous winds defy, While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly. The vast leviathan wants room to play, And spout his waters in the face of day. The starving wolves along the main sea prowl, And to the moon in icy valleys howl. For many a shining league the level main Here spreads itself into a glassy plain: There solid billows of enormous size, Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise. And yet but lately have I seen e'en here, The winter in a lovely dress appear; Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow. At evening a keen eastern breeze arose; And the descending rain unsullied froze. Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew, The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view The face of nature in a rich disguise, And brightened every object to my eyes. For every shrub, and every blade of grass, And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass, In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show, While through the ice the crimson berries glow. The thick-sprung reeds the watery marshes yield, Seem polished lances in a hostile field. The stag in limpid currents with surprise, Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise. The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine, Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine. The frighted birds the rattling branches shun, That wave and glitter in the distant sun. When if a sudden gust of wind arise, The brittle forest into atoms flies: The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And in a spangled shower the prospect ends. Or if a southern gale the region warm, And by degrees unbind the wintry charm; The traveller a miry country sees, And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees. Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads; While here enchanted gardens to him rise, And airy fabrics there attract his eyes, His wandering feet the magic paths pursue; And while he thinks the fair illusion true, The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air, And woods and wilds, and thorny ways appear: A tedious road the weary wretch returns, And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.
From my own Apartment, May 6.
There has a mail this day arrived from Holland; but the matter of the advices importing rather what gives us great expectations, than any positive assurances, I shall, for this time, decline giving you what I know, and apply the following verses of Mr. Dryden, in the second part of "Almanzor," to the present circumstances of things, without discovering what my knowledge in astronomy suggests to me.
When empire in its childhood first appears, A watchful fate o'er sees its tender years: Till grown more strong, it thrusts and stretches out, And elbows all the kingdoms round about. The place thus made for its first breathing free, It moves again for ease and luxury; Till swelling by degrees it has possest The greater space, and now crowds up the rest. When from behind there starts some petty state, And pushes on its now unwieldy fate. Then down the precipice of time it goes, And sinks in minutes, which in ages rose.190