Volume 1 — [STEELE.

From Thursday, May 12, to Saturday, May 14, 1709.

From my own Apartment, May 12.

I have taken a resolution hereafter, on any want of intelligence, to carry my familiar abroad with me, who has promised to give me very proper and just notices of persons and things, to make up the history of the passing day. He is wonderfully skilful in the knowledge of men and manners, which has made me more than ordinary curious to know how he came to that perfection, and I communicated to him that doubt. "Mr. Pacolet," said I, "I am mightily surprised to see you so good a judge of our nature and circumstances, since you are a mere spirit, and have no knowledge of the bodily part of us." He answered, smiling, "You are mistaken, I have been one of you, and lived a month amongst you, which gives me an exact sense of your condition. You are to know, that all who enter into human life, have a certain date or stamen given to their being, which they only who die of age may be said to have arrived at; but it is ordered sometimes by fate, that such as die infants, are after death to attend mankind to the end of that stamen of being in themselves, which was broke off by sickness or any other disaster. These are proper guardians to men, as being sensible of the infirmity of their state. You are philosopher enough to know, that the difference of men's understanding proceeds only from the various dispositions of their organs; so that he who dies at a month old, is in the next life as knowing (though more innocent) as they who live to fifty; and after death, they have as perfect a memory and judgment of all that passed in their lifetime, as I have of all the revolutions in that uneasy, turbulent condition of yours; and, you'd say, I had enough of it in a month, were I to tell you all my misfortunes." "A life of a month, can't have, one would think, much variety; but pray," said I, "let us have your story."

Then he proceeds in the following manner:

"It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which I was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so happened, otherwise I had still, in all probability, been living: but I shall recount to you all the occurrences of my short and miserable existence, just as, by examining into the traces made in my brain, they appeared to me at that time. The first thing that ever struck my senses, was a noise over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought I took a full jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking and employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly frightened, and cried out, but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant I could not imagine; for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying, 'An heir, an heir'; upon which I grew a little still, and believed this was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and such as made them, what they called, Heirs. I lay very quiet; but the witch, for no manner of reason or provocation in the world, takes me and binds my head as hard as possibly she could, then ties up both my legs, and makes me swallow down a horrid mixture; I thought it a harsh entrance into life to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must have taken down a great instrument in which she gave it me. When I was thus dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady (my mother I wot) had like to have hugged me to death. From her, they faced me about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the rest of the room, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed wonderfully pleased to see me; but I knew since, my nose belonged to another family. That into which I was born, is one of the most numerous amongst you; therefore crowds of relations came every day to congratulate my arrival; among others, my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature; she whisks me such a height over her head, that I cried out for fear of falling. She pinched me, and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me anew, because I made a noise, to see what ailed me: she did so, and stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still cried: upon which, she lays me on my face in her lap; and to quiet me, fell a nailing in all the pins, by clapping me on the back, and screaming a lullaby. But my pain made me exalt my voice above hers, which brought up the nurse, the witch I first saw, and my grandmother. The girl is turned down stairs, and I stripped again, as well to find out what ailed me, as to satisfy my granam's further curiosity. This good old woman's visit was the cause of all my troubles. You are to understand, that I was hitherto bred by hand, and anybody that stood next, gave me pap, if I did but open my lips; insomuch, that I was grown so cunning, as to pretend myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed. But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their shape, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me, instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I was committed, and put to the breast. This careless jade was eternally romping with the footmen, and downright starved me; insomuch that I daily pined away, and should never have been relieved, had it not been, that on the thirtieth day of my life, a fellow of the Royal Society,²⁰⁵ who had writ upon Cold Baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested, I was utterly lost for want of that method: upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned, and so escaped being lashed into a linguist till sixteen, running after wenches till twenty-five, and being married to an ill-natured wife till sixty: which had certainly been my fate, had not the enchantment between body and soul been broke by this philosopher. Thus, till the age I should have otherwise lived, I am obliged to watch the steps of men; and if you please, shall accompany you in your present walks, and get you intelligence from the aërial lackey, who is in waiting, what are the thoughts and purposes of any whom you inquire for." I accepted his kind offer, and immediately took him with me in a hack to White's.

White's Chocolate-house, May 13.

We got in hither, and my companion threw a powder round us, that made me as invisible as himself; so that we could see and hear all others; ourselves unseen and unheard.

The first thing we took notice of, was a nobleman of a goodly and frank aspect, with his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage and falsehood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ, Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour, and Posterity. The spectre over against him had on his counters the inscriptions of, Dishonour, Impudence, Poverty, Ignorance, and Want of Shame. "Bless me!" said I, "sure my lord does not see what he plays for!" "As well as I do," says Pacolet. "He despises that fellow he plays with, and scorns himself for making him his companion." At the very instant he was speaking, I saw the fellow who played with my lord, hide two cards in the roll of his stocking: Pacolet immediately stole them from thence; upon which the nobleman soon after won the game. The little triumph he appeared in, when he got such a trifling stock of ready money, though he had ventured so great sums with indifference, increased my admiration. But Pacolet began to talk to me. "Mr. Isaac, this to you looks wonderful, but not at all to us higher beings: that noble has as many good qualities as any man of his order, and seems to have no faults but what, as I may say, are excrescences from virtues: he is generous to a prodigality, more affable than is consistent with his quality, and courageous to a rashness. Yet, after all this, the source of his whole conduct is (though he would hate himself if he knew it) mere avarice. The ready cash laid before the gamester's counters makes him venture, as you see, and lay distinction against infamy, abundance against want; in a word, all that's desirable against all that's to be avoided." "However," said I, "be sure you disappoint the sharpers to-night, and steal from them all the cards they hide." Pacolet obeyed me, and my lord went home with their whole bank in his pocket.

Will's Coffee-house, May 13.

To-night was acted a second time a comedy, called "The Busy Body:"²⁰⁶ this play is written by a lady. In old times, we used to sit upon a play here after it was acted; but now the entertainment is turned another way; not but there are considerable men appear in all ages, who, for some eminent quality or invention, deserve the esteem and thanks of the public. Such a benefactor is a gentleman of this house, who is observed by the surgeons with much envy; for he has invented an engine for the prevention of harms by love adventures, and by great care and application, hath made it an immodesty to name his name. This act of self-denial has gained this worthy member of the commonwealth a great reputation. Some lawgivers have departed from their abodes for ever, and commanded the observation of their laws till their return; others have used other artifices to fly the applause of their merit; but this person shuns glory with greater address, and has, by giving his engine his own name, made it obscene to speak of him more. However, he is ranked among, and received by the modern wits, as a great promoter of gallantry and pleasure. But I fear, pleasure is less understood in this age, which so much pretends to it, than in any since the creation. It was admirably said of him who first took notice, that (res est severa voluptas) there is a certain severity in pleasure. Without that, all decency is banished; and if reason is not to be present at our greatest satisfactions, of all the races of creatures, the human is the most miserable. It was not so of old; when Virgil describes a wit, he always means a virtuous man; and all his sentiments of men of genius are such as show persons distinguished from the common level of mankind; such as placed happiness in the contempt of low fears, and mean gratifications: fears, which we are subject to with the vulgar; and pleasures, which we have in common with beasts. With these illustrious personages, the wisest man was the greatest wit; and none was thought worthy of that character, unless he answered this excellent description of the poet:

St. James's Coffee-house, May 13.

We had this morning advice, that some English merchant-ships, convoyed by the Bristol of fifty-four guns, were met with by a part of Mons. du Guy Trouin's squadron, who engaged the convoy. That ship defended itself till the English merchants got clear of the enemy, but being disabled was herself taken. Within few hours after, my Lord Dursley²⁰⁸ came up with part of his squadron and engaging the French, retook the Bristol (which being very much shattered, sunk), and took the Glorieux, a ship of forty-four guns, as also a privateer of fourteen. Before this action, his lordship had taken two French merchant-men; and had, at the despatch of these advices, brought the whole safe into Plymouth.