No. 74.

[STEELE.

From Tuesday, Sept. 27, to Thursday, Sept. 29, 1709.

The

White's Chocolate-house, Sept. 28.

he writer of the following letter has made a use of me, which I did not foresee I should fall into. But the gentleman having assured me, that he has a most tender passion for the fair one, and speaking his intentions with so much sincerity, I am willing to let them contrive an interview by my means.

"SIR,

"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 can't 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 true trammels of love: how else would he make his superscription so very 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. Winstanley's water-works,' on Tuesday was fortnight, and had

1 Henry Winstanley, son of Hamlet Winstanley, the projector and builder of Eddystone light-house, was designed for a painter, but became an engraver, and clerk of the works at Audley Inn in 1694, and New

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.

"I

MADAM,

have a very good estate, and wish myself your husband. Let me know by this way where you live, for I shall be miserable till we live together.

"ALEXANDER LANDLORD.'

This is the modern way of bargain and sale; a certain shorthand writing, in which laconic elder brothers are market in 1700. Walpole supposes that he learned in Italy the tricks and contrivances which amused the public at Piccadilly and Littlebury. Winstanley's mathematical water theatre stood at the lower end of Piccadilly, distinguishable by a windmill at the top. The exhibitions here were diversified to suit the seasons and the company; and the prices, except that of the sixpenny gallery, varied accordingly. Boxes were from four shillings to half-a-crown, pit from three to two shillings, and a seat in the shilling gallery sometimes cost eighteenpence. The quantity of water used on extraordinary occasions was from 300 to 800 tons. Winstanley had another house of this sort at Littlebury, in Essex, where there were similar exhibitions. On his death, his houses came into the possession of his widow, for whose benefit they were shown in 1713.

From contemporary advertisements we learn, that the mathematical barrel was at times turned into a tavern, and supplied the company with different sorts of wine, biscuits, spa-water, and cold tankards; it was also converted into a coffee-house, and a flying cupid presented tea, coffee, and newspapers to the gentlemen; fruits, flowers, and sweetmeats to the ladies. In the month of May there was the addition of a May-pole and garland, a milkmaid, a fiddler, and syllabubs. Soft music was heard at a distance, or sirens sung on the rocks. An advertisement in the Daily Courant for Jan. 20, 1713, speaks of "great additions, to the expense of 300 tons of water, and fire mingling with the water, and two flying boys, and a flaming torch with water flowing out of the burning flame."

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, Sept. 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 spoken any faults a man may not mend if he pleases.

"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,

"When

Sept. 25.

hen I read your paper of Thursday,1 I was surprised to find mine of the 13th 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 at anything which is not the true object of raillery.'

1 No. 71.

"I must confess, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of vices that would shame the gallows, be the best methods 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 further degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame is one of those 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

1

1 Published in 1674. "The Whole Duty of Man" has been attributed to various authors; but probably it was written by Richard Allestrec.

is 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 further, 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 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 their 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."