1

so well, as hearing verses which he would believe worse than his own; I read him therefore the "Brussels Postscript"; after which I recited some heroic lines of my own, which operated so strongly on the tympanum of his ear, that I doubt not but I have kept out all other sounds for a fortnight; and have reason to hope, we shall see him abroad the day before his poem. This you see, is a particular secret I have found out, viz., that you are not to choose your physician for his knowledge in your distemper, but for having it himself. Therefore I am at hand for all maladies arising from poetical vapours, beyond which I never pretend. For being called the other day to one in love, I took indeed their three guineas, and gave them my advice; which was, to send for Esculapius. Esculapius, as soon as he saw the patient, cries out, ""Tis love! 'tis love! Oh! the unequal pulse! these are the symptoms a lover feels; such sighs, such pangs, attend the uneasy mind; nor can our art, or all our boasted skill, availYet O fair! for thee___" Thus the sage ran on, and owned the passion which he pitied, as well as that he felt a greater pain than ever he cured. After which he concluded, "All I can advise, is marriage : charms and beauty will give new life and vigour, and turn the course of nature to its better prospect. This is the new way; and thus Esculapius has left his beloved powders, and writes a recipe for a wife at sixty. In short, my friend followed the prescription, and married youth and beauty in its perfect bloom.

Supine in Silvia's snowy arms he lies,
And all the busy care of life defies:
Each happy hour is filled with fresh delight,

While peace the day, and pleasure crowns the night.

1 See No. 46.

2 Dr. Radcliffe. See No. 44.

From my own Apartment, July 27.

"It

Tragical passion was the subject of the discourse where I last visited this evening; and a gentleman who knows that I am at present writing a very deep tragedy, directed his discourse in a particular manner to me.. is the common fault," said he, "of you, gentlemen, who write in the buskin style, that you give us rather the sentiments of such who behold tragical events, than of such who bear a part in them themselves. I would advise all who pretend this way, to read Shakespeare with care, and they will soon be deterred from putting forth what is usually called 'tragedy.' The way of common writers in this kind, is rather the description, than the expression of sorrow. There is no medium in these attempts; and you must go to the very bottom of the heart, or it is all mere language; and the writer of such lines is no more a poet, than a man is a physician for knowing the names of distempers, without the causes of them. Men of sense are professed enemies to all such empty labours: for he who pretends to be sorrowful, and is not, is a wretch yet more contemptible than he who pretends to be merry, and is not. Such a tragedian is only maudlin drunk." The gentleman went on with much warmth; but all he could say had little effect upon me: but when I came hither, I so far observed his counsel, that I looked into Shakespeare. The tragedy I dipped into was, "Harry the Fourth." the scene where Morton is preparing to tell Northumberland of his son's death, the old man does not give him time to speak, but says,

VOL. I.

"The whiteness of thy cheeks

Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand;
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so deaa in look, so woebegone,

385

2 B

In

Drew Priam's curtain at the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burnt :
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,

And I my Percy's death ere thou reportest it.”

The image in this place is wonderfully noble and great; yet this man in all this is but rising towards his great affliction, and is still enough himself, as you see, to make a simile: but when he is certain of his son's death, he is lost to all patience, and gives up all the regards of this life; and since the last of evils is fallen upon him, he calls for it upon all the world.

"Now let not Nature's hand

Keep the wild flood confined; let Order die,
And let the world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the firstborn Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set
On bloody courses, the wide scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead."

Reading but this one scene has convinced me, that he who describes the concern of great men, must have a soul as noble, and as susceptible of high thoughts, as they whom he represents: I shall therefore lay by my drama for some time, and turn my thoughts to cares and griefs, somewhat below that of heroes, but no less moving. A misfortune proper for me to take notice of, has too lately happened the disconsolate Maria' has three days kept her chamber for the loss of the beauteous Fidelia, her

1 2 Henry IV., act i. sc. I.

2 This Tatler I know nothing of, only they say the Dutchess of Montague has lately lost a bitch she call'd fidel, and has had it cry'd.” -(Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby; "Wentworth Papers," p. 97.)

lap-dog. Lesbia herself1 did not shed more tears for her sparrow. What makes her the more concerned, is, that we know not whether Fidelia was killed or stolen; but she was seen in the parlour window when the train-bands went by, and never since. Whoever gives notice of her, dead or alive, shall be rewarded with a kiss of her lady.

No. 48.

[STEELE. From Thursday, July 28, to Saturday, July 30, 1709.

From my own Apartment, July 29.

This day I obliged Pacolet to entertain me with matters which regarded persons of his own character and occupation. We chose to take our walk on Tower Hill; and as we were coming from thence in order to stroll as far as Garraway's, I observed two men, who had but just landed, coming from the waterside. I thought there was something uncommon in their mien and aspect; but though they seemed by their visage to be related, yet was there a warmth in their manner, as if they differed very much in their sentiments of the subject on which they were talking. One of them seemed to have a natural confidence, mixed with an ingenious freedom in his gesture, his dress very plain, but very graceful and becom

1 See Catullus, passim.

2 A coffee-house in Exchange Alley, Cornhill, with an auction-room on the first floor, where wine and other things were sold (see No. 147). Thomas Garway was originally a tobacconist and coffee-man. Defoe ("Journey through England") says that this coffee-house was frequented by "the people of quality who have business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens."

ing the other, in the midst of an overbearing carriage, betrayed (by frequently looking round him) a suspicion that he was not enough regarded by those he met, or that he feared they would make some attack upon him. This person was much taller than his companion, and added to that height the advantage of a feather in his hat, and heels to his shoes so monstrously high, that he had three or four times fallen down, had he not been supported by his friend. They made a full stop as they came within a few yards of the place where we stood. The plain gentleman bowed to Pacolet; the other looked on him with some displeasure: upon which I asked him, who they both were, when he thus informed me of their persons and circumstances.

"You may remember, Mr. Isaac, that I have often told you, there are beings of a superior rank to mankind, who frequently visit the habitations of men, in order to call them from some wrong pursuits in which they are actually engaged, or divert them from methods which will lead them into errors for the future. He that will carefully reflect upon the occurrences of his life, will find he has been sometimes extricated out of difficulties, and received favours where he could never have expected such benefits; as well as met with cross events from some unseen hand, which have disappointed his best laid designs. Such accidents arrive from the interventions of aërial beings, as they are benevolent or hurtful to the nature of man, and attend his steps in the tracts of ambition, of business, and of pleasure. Before I ever appeared to you in the manner I do now, I have frequently followed you in your evening walks, and have often, by throwing some accident in your way, as the passing by of a funeral, or the appearance of some other solemn object, given your imagination a new turn, and changed a night you had destined to mirth and jollity, into an exercise of study and contemplation. I