[Steele.
Reading edition
Thursday, May 18, to Saturday, May 20, 1710.
Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri, Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex Autumat.—Hor., 2 Sat. iii. 43.
From my own Apartment, May 19.
The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service.[269]
We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham.[270] These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such literati as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.
It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college[271] (who have long inhabited this quarter), in the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may have time to give him his broth without danger.
But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom the other talks to.
The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent. Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others.
To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions. This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.
This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agreeable.
My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr. Kidney,[272] with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view.
St. James's Coffee-house, May 19.
This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:
From the Camp before Douay,[273] May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and their left near Crevecœur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the 24th, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry and Isez-Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, from Lille and Tournay, and the canals and dykes we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from the right, to possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circumvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left towards Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and Liège troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle: but if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because in our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults both our siege and convoys.
Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed will have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to assist in council.
Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the avant fossé at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in three or four days batteries will be raised on the glacis, to batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town.
Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of the States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd, to renew the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the 26th, and had communicated to the States-General the new overtures that were made on the part of France, which it is believed, if they are in earnest, may produce a general treaty.