N° 74. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines -nostri est farrago libelli.-Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, White's Chocolate-house, September 28. The writer did eft lovesee I should fall into. But HE writer of the following letter has made a use of the gentleman having assured me that he has a most tender passion for the fair one, and speaking his intention with so much sincerity, I am willing to let them contrive an interview by my means. "I earnestly entreat you to publish the enclosed; for I have no other way to come at her, or return to myself. "P. S. Mr. Bickerstaff, A. L. "You cannot imagine how handsome she is: the superscription of my letter will make her recollect the man that gazed at her. Pray put it in." I can assure the young lady, the gentleman is in the trammels of love: how else would he make his superscription so much longer than his billet? He superscribes ; "To the younger of the two ladies in mourning (who sat in the hindmost seat of the middle box at Mr. Win. stanley's water-works* on Tuesday was fortnight, and had with them a brother, or some acquaintance that was as careless of that pretty creature as a brother; which seeming brother ushered them to their coach) with great respect. Present." *Winstanley's mathematical water-theatre stood at the lower end of Piccadilly, distinguishable by a windmill at top. The exhibitions here, between five and six in the evening, were diversified to suit the seasons, and the humours of the company; and the prices, except that of the sixpenny gallery, varied accordingly. Boxes from four shillings to half-a-crown, pit from three to two shillings, and a seat in the shilling gallery sometimes cost eighteen-pence. The quantity of water used on extraordinary occasions was from 300 to 800 tuns. "MADAM, "I have a very good estate, and wish myself your husband: let me know by this way where you live; for I shall be miserable until we live together. "ALEXANDER LANDLORD." This is the modern way of bargain and sale; a certain short-hand writing, in which laconic elder brothers are very successful. All my fear is, that the nymph's elder sister is unmarried; if she is, we are undone: but perhaps the careless fellow was her husband, and then she will let us go on. From my own Apartment, September 28. The following letter has given me a new sense of the nature of my writings. I have the deepest regard to conviction, and shall never act against it. However, I do not yet understand what good man he thinks I have injured; but his epistle has such weight in it, that I shall always have respect for his admonition, and desire the continuance of it. I am not conscious that I have spoke any faults a man may not mend if he pleases. "MR. BICKERSTAFF, Sept. 25. "When I read your paper of Thursday, I was surprised to find mine of the thirteenth inserted at large; I never intended myself or you a second trouble of this kind, believing I had sufficiently pointed out the man you had injured, and that by this time you were convinced that silence would be the best answer: but finding your reflections are such as naturally call for a reply, I take this way of doing it; and in the first place, return you thanks for the compliment made me of my seeming sense and worth. I do assure you, I shall always endeavour to convince mankind of the latter, though I have no pretence to the former. But to come a little nearer, I observe you put yourself under a very severe restriction, even the laying down the Tatler for ever, if I can give you an instance, wherein you have injured any good man, or pointed out any thing which is not the true object of raillery. I must confess, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of vices that would shame the gallows, be the best method to point at the true object of raillery, I have until this time been very ignorant; but if it be so, I will venture to assert one thing, and lay it down as a maxim, even to the Staffian race, viz, That that method of pointing ought no more to be pursued, than those people ought to cut your throat who suffer by it; because I take both to be murder, and the law is not in every private man's hands to execute : but indeed, Sir, were you the only person would suffer by the Tatler's discontinuance, I have malice enough to punish you in the manner you prescribe; but I am not so great an enemy to the town or my own pleasures as to wish it; nor that you would lay aside lashing the reigning vices, so long as you keep to the true spirit of satire, without descending to rake into characters below its dignity; for, as you well observe, there is something very terrible in unjustly attacking men in a way that may prejudice their honour or fortune; and indeed where crimes are enormous, the delinquent deserves little pity, yet the reporter may deserve less: and here I am naturally led to that celebrated author of The whole Duty of Man,' who hath set this matter in a true light in his treatise 'Of the Government of the Tongue;' where, speaking of uncharitable truths, he says, a discovery of this kind serves not to reclaim, but enrage the offender, and precipitate him into farther degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame is one of these natural restraints which the wisdom of Heaven has put upon mankind; and he that once stumbles, may yet by a check of that bridle recover again: but when, by a public detection, he has fallen under that infamy he feared, he will then be apt to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself the utmost pleasures of vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay, perhaps, he advances farther, and sets up for a reversed sort of fame, by being eminently wicked, and he who before was but a clandestine disciple, becomes a doctor of impiety,' &c. This sort of reasoning, Sir, most certainly induced our wise legislators very lately to repeal that law which put the stamp of infamy in the face of felons; therefore, you had better give an act of oblivion to your delinquents, at least for transportation, than to continue to mark them in so notorious a manner. I cannot but applaud your designed attempt of raising merit from obscurity, celebrating virtue · in distress, and attacking vice in another method, by setting innocence in a proper light.' Your pursuing these noble themes will make a greater advance to the reformation you seem to aim at, than the method you have hitherto taken, by putting mankind beyond the power of retrieving themselves, or indeed to think it possible. But if, after all your endeavours in this new way, there should then remain any hardened impenitents, you must even give them up to the rigour of the law, as delinquents not within the benefit of clergy. Pardon me, good Mr. Bickerstaff, for the tediousness of this epistle, and believe it is not from any self-conviction I have taken up so much of your time, or my own; but supposing you mean all your lucubrations should tend to the good of mankind, I may the easier hope your pardon, being, Sir, yours, &c.' Grecian Coffee-house, September 29. This evening I thought fit to notify to the literati of this house, and by that means to all the world, that on Saturday the fifteenth of October next ensuing, I design to fix my first table of fame; and desire that such as are acquainted with the characters of the twelve most famous men that have ever appeared in the world would send in their lists, or name any one man for that table, assigning also his place at it before that time, upon pain of having such his man of fame postponed, or placed too high for ever. I shall not, upon any application whatsoever, alter the place which upon that day I shall give to any of these worthies. But whereas there are many who take upon them to admire this hero, or that author, upon secondhand, I expect each subscriber should underwrite his reason for the place he allots his candidate. The thing is of the last consequence; for we are about settling the greatest point that ever has been debated in any age; and I shall take precautions accordingly. Let every man who votes, consider, that he is now going to give away that, for which the soldier gave up his rest, his pleasure, and his life; the scholar resigned his whole series of thought, his midnight repose, and his morning slumbers. In a word, he is, as I may say, to be judge of that afterfe, which no ble spirits prefer to their very real beings. I The hope I shall be forgiven, therefore, if I make some objections against their jury, as they shall occur to me. whole of the number by whom they are to be tried, are to be scholars. I am persuaded also, that Aristotle will be put up by all that class of men. However, in behalf of others, such as wear the livery of Aristotle, the two famous universities are called upon, on this occasion; but I except the men of Queen's, Exeter, and Jesus colleges, in Oxford, who are not to be electors, because he shall not be crowned from an implicit faith in his writings, but receive his honour from such judges as shall allow him to be censured. Upon this election, as I was just now going to say, I banish all who think and speak after others to concern themselves in it. For which reason all illiterate distant admirers are forbidden to corrupt the voices, by sending, according to the new mode, any poor students coals and candles for their votes in behalf of such worthies as they pretend to esteem. All news-writers are also excluded, because they consider fame, as it is, a report which gives foundation to the filling up their rhapsodies, and not as it is the emanation or consequence of good and evil actions. These are excepted against as justly as butchers in case of life and death: their familiarity with the greatest names takes off the delicacy of their regard, as dealing in blood makes the Lanii less tender of spilling it. St. James's Coffee-house, September 28. Letters from Lisbon, of the twenty-fifth instant, N. S. speak of a battle which has been fought near the river Cinca, in which General Staremberg had overthrown the army of the Duke of Anjou. The persons who send this, excuse their not giving particulars, because they believed an account must have arrived here before we could hear from them. They had advices from different parts, which concurred in the circumstances of the action; after which the army of his Catholic majesty advanced as far as Fraga, and the enemy retired to Saragossa. There are reports, that the Duke of Anjou was in the engagement; but letters of good authority say, that prince was on the road towards the camp when he received the news of the de feat of his troops. We promise ourselves great consequences |