[Footnote 2: Compare Swift's "Proposal for Correcting the English Tongue." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Thomas Harley, cousin of the first Earl of Oxford. He was Secretary of the Treasury, and afterwards minister at Hanover. He died in 1737. (T.S.)]

[Footnote 4: It is interesting to note that Swift, who insisted that the word "mob" should never be used for "rabble," wrote "mob" in the 15th number of "The Examiner," and in Faulkner's reprint of 1741 the word was changed to "rabble." Scott notes: "The Dean carried on the war against the word 'mob' to the very last. A lady who died in 1788, and was well known to Swift, used to say that the greatest scrape into which she got with him was by using the word 'mob.' 'Why do you say that?' said he, in a passion; 'never let me hear you say that word again.' 'Why, sir,' said she, 'what am I to say?' 'The "rabble," to be sure,' answered he." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5.] See Swift's Letter to the Earl of Pembroke (Scott's edition, vol. xv., p. 350) where a little more fun is poked at the Bishop of Clogher, in the same strain. [T.S.]

[Footnote 6: The great Richard Hooker (1554-1600) author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7: Robert Parsons (1546-1610) the famous Jesuit missionary, and the author of a large number of works including the "Conference about the next Succession" (1594). Several of his books were privately printed by him at a secret printing press, which he set up in East Ham with the assistance of the poet Campion. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 8: Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) author of "Reliquiae Wottonianae," and the friend of John Donne. He was Provost of Eton from 1624 until his death, and distinguished himself as a diplomatist. To him is ascribed the saying: "An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 9: Sir Robert Naunton (1563-1635), Secretary of State in 1618, and author of "Fragmenta Regalia" published in 1641. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 10: Francis Osborne (1593-1659) wrote "Advice to a Son" (1656-58), a work that gave him a great reputation. This work was issued with his other writings in a collected form in 1673. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 11: Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) is said to have succeeded Spenser as poet-laureate. In addition to his plays and poems (including a history of the Civil Wars in eight books, 1595-1609) he wrote a History of England, in two parts (1612-1617). [T.S.]]



THE TATLER, NUMB. 258.

FROM THURSDAY NOVEMBER 30. TO SATURDAY DECEMBER 2. 1710.

To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF ESQ;

Nov. 22. 1710.[1]

SIR,

Dining yesterday with Mr. South-British, and Mr. William North-Briton two gentlemen, who, before you ordered it otherwise,[2] were known by the names of Mr. English and Mr. William Scott. Among other things, the maid of the house (who in her time I believe may have been a North-British warming-pan) brought us up a dish of North-British collops. We liked our entertainment very well, only we observed the table-cloth, being not so fine as we could have wished, was North-British cloth: But the worst of it was, we were disturbed all dinner-time by the noise of the children, who were playing in the paved court at North-British hoppers; so we paid our North-Briton[3] sooner than we designed, and took coach to North-Britain yard, about which place most of us live. We had indeed gone a-foot, only we were under some apprehensions lest a North-British mist should wet a South-British man to the skin.

We think this matter properly expressed, according to the accuracy of the new style settled by you in one of your late papers. You will please to give your opinion upon it to,

Sir, Your most humble servants,

J.S. M.P. N.R.

[Footnote 1: This letter appeared originally under the heading: "From my own Apartment, December I." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: In his "Journal to Stella" (December 2, 1710) Swift writes: "Steele, the rogue, has done the impudentest thing in the world. He said something in a 'Tatler,' that we ought to use the word Great Britain, and not England, in common conversation, as, the finest lady in Great Britain, &c. Upon this Rowe, Prior, and I, sent him a letter, turning this into ridicule. He has to-day printed the letter, and signed it J.S., M.P. and N.R. the first letters of our names. Congreve told me to-day, he smoked it immediately." The passage referred to by Swift, was a letter, signed Scoto-Britannus, printed in No. 241 of "The Tatler," in which it was objected that a gentleman ended every sentence with the words, "the best of any man in England," and called upon him to "mend his phrase, and be hereafter the wisest of any man in Great Britain." Writing to Alderman Barber, under date August 8, 1738, Swift remarks: "The modern phrase 'Great Britain' is only to distinguish it from Little Britain where old clothes and old books are to be bought and sold." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: We paid our scot; i.e., our share of the reckoning. [T.S.]]

NOTE.

With No. 271 Steele brought his venture to a close. It was issued on January 2nd, 1710. "I am now," he wrote, "come to the end of my ambition in this matter, and have nothing further to say to the world under the character of Isaac Bickerstaff." His ostensible reason for thus terminating so successful an undertaking he put down to the fact that Bickerstaff was no longer a disguise, and that he could not hope to have the same influence when it was known who it was that led the movement. Another reason, however, suggests itself in Steele's recognition of Harley's kindness in not depriving him of his Commissionership of Stamps, as well as of his Gazetteership for the satires Steele permitted to appear against Harley in "The Tatler." That Steele did have something further to say to the world may be gathered from the fact that two months after "The Tatler's" decease he started "The Spectator."

But "The Tatler" was too good a thing for the publishers to permit to die. Two days after the issue of No. 271, appeared a No. 272, with the imprint of John Baker, of "the Black Boy at Paternoster Row." It extolled the "Character of Richard Steele, alias Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," and promised to continue in his footsteps, and be delivered regularly to its subscribers "at 5 in the morning." On January 6th, 1710, No. 273 was published by "Isaac Bickerstaff, Jr." John Baker, however, was not to have it all his own way, for on January 6th, 1710, Morphew brought out a number—not a double number, although called "Numbers 272, 273"—and continued it without intermission on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, until May 19th, when the final number, No. 330, was issued. The date 1711 was first used on March 31st. Meanwhile, on January 13th, A. Baldwin issued a No. 1 of a "Tatler," in which the public were informed that Isaac Bickerstaff had had no intention to discontinue the paper, but would continue to publish it every Tuesday and Saturday. This was the new "Tatler" in which Swift was interesting himself on behalf of William Harrison. Writing to Stella, under date January 11th, he says: "I am setting up a new 'Tatler,' little Harrison, whom I have mentioned to you. Others have put him on it, and I encourage him; and he was with me this morning and evening, showing me his first, which comes out on Saturday. I doubt he will not succeed, for I do not much approve his manner; but the scheme is Mr. Secretary St. John's and mine, and would have done well enough in good hands." When the paper came out he wrote again: "There is not much in it, but I hope he will mend. You must understand that, upon Steele's leaving off, there were two or three scrub Tatlers came out, and one of them holds on still, and to-day it advertised against Harrison's; and so there must be disputes which are genuine, like the strops for razors. I am afraid the little toad has not the true vein for it." Apparently, he hadn't, for later, referring to another number, Swift writes: "The jackanapes wants a right taste: I doubt he won't do."

With all Swift's assistance, Harrison did not hold out. He quarrelled with Baldwin, and went to Morphew and Lillie, the publishers of the original "Tatler." Only six numbers bear Baldwin's imprint, namely, Nos. 1-6, dated respectively, January 13th, January 16th, January 20th, January 23rd, January 27th, and February 1st. Harrison's first number, under Morphew, was called No. 285 (February 3rd). For a very exhaustive and careful research into the publications of "The Tatler" and its imitators the reader is referred to Aitken's "Life of Sir Richard Steele" (2 vols., 1889).

William Harrison (1685-1713) was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. He obtained Addison's favour by his acquaintance with "polite literature," and was introduced by him to Swift. Swift took to him very kindly, spoke of the young fellow "we are all fond of," thought him "a pretty little fellow, with a great deal of wit, good sense, and good nature," and interested himself in him to the extent that through him St. John got Lord Raby to take him to The Hague as his secretary. He returned with the Barrier Treaty, but without a penny. He had not been paid any of his salary. Swift heard of this, and immediately went about collecting a sum of money for his assistance. When, however, he called with the money, at Harrison's lodgings in Knightsbridge, he found the poor fellow had died an hour before.

These contributions to the new "Tatler" are printed from the original periodical issue with the exception of No. 5, which is taken from the second edition of the reprint (1720), as no copy of the original issue has been met with.

[T.S.]

THE TATLER, NUMB. I.

Quis ego sum saltem, si non sum Sosia? Te interrogo. PLAUT. AMPHITR.[1]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13. 1711.[2]

It is impossible, perhaps, for the best and wisest amongst us, to keep so constant a guard upon our temper, but that we may at one time or other lie open to the strokes of Fortune, and such incidents as we cannot foresee. With sentiments of this kind I came home to my lodgings last night, much fatigued with a long and sudden journey from the country, and full of the ungrateful occasion of it. It was natural for me to have immediate recourse to my pen and ink; but before I would offer to make use of them, I resolved deliberately to tell over a hundred, and when I came to the end of that sum, I found it more advisable to defer drawing up my intended remonstrance, till I had slept soundly on my resentments. Without any other preface than this, I shall give the world a fair account of the treatment I have lately met with, and leave them to judge, whether the uneasiness I have suffered be inconsistent with the character I have generally pretended to. About three weeks since, I received an invitation from a kinsman in Staffordshire, to spend my Christmas in those parts. Upon taking leave of Mr. Morphew, I put as many papers into his hands as would serve till my return, and charged him at parting to be very punctual with the town. In what manner he and Mr. Lillie have been tampered with since, I cannot say; they have given me my revenge, if I desired any, by allowing their names to an idle paper, that in all human probability cannot live a fortnight to an end. Myself, and the family I was with, were in the midst of gaiety, and a plentiful entertainment, when I received a letter from my sister Jenny, who, after mentioning some little affairs I had intrusted to her, goes on thus:—"The inclosed,[2] I believe, will give you some surprise, as it has already astonished every body here: Who Mr. Steele is, that subscribes it, I do not know, any more than I can comprehend what could induce him to it. Morphew and Lillie, I am told, are both in the secret. I shall not presume to instruct you, but hope you will use some means to disappoint the ill nature of those who are taking pains to deprive the world of one of its most reasonable entertainments. I am, &c."

I am to thank my sister for her compliment; but be that as it will, I shall not easily be discouraged from my former undertaking. In pursuance of it, I was obliged upon this notice to take places in the coach for myself and my maid with the utmost expedition, lest I should, in a short time, be rallied out of my existence, as some people will needs fancy Mr. Partridge has been, and the real Isaac Bickerstaff have passed for a creature of Mr. Steele's imagination. This illusion might have hoped for some tolerable success, if I had not more than once produced my person in a crowded theatre; and such a person as Mr. Steele, if I am not misinformed in the gentleman, would hardly think it an advantage to own, though I should throw him in all the little honour I have gained by my "Lucubrations." I may be allowed, perhaps, to understand pleasantry as well as other men, and can (in the usual phrase) take a jest without being angry; but I appeal to the world, whether the gentleman has not carried it too far, and whether he ought not to make a public recantation, if the credulity of some unthinking people should force me to insist upon it. The following letter is just come to hand, and I think it not improper to be inserted in this paper.

"TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ;

"Sir,

"I am extremely glad to hear you are come to town, for in your absence we were all mightily surprised with an unaccountable paper, signed 'Richard Steele,' who is esteemed by those that know him, to be a man of wit and honour; and therefore we took it either to be a counterfeit, or a perfect Christmas frolic of that ingenious gentleman. But then, your paper ceasing immediately after, we were at a loss what to think: If you were weary of the work you had so long carried on, and had given this Mr. Steele orders to signify so to the public, he should have said it in plain terms; but as that paper is worded, one would be apt to judge, that he had a mind to persuade the town that there was some analogy between Isaac Bickerstaff and him. Possibly there may be a secret in this which I cannot enter into; but I flatter my self that you never had any thoughts of giving over your labours for the benefit of mankind, when you cannot but know how many subjects are yet unexhausted, and how many others, as being less obvious, are wholly untouched. I dare promise, not only for my self, but many other abler friends, that we shall still continue to furnish you with hints on all proper occasions, which is all your genius requires. I think, by the way, you cannot in honour have any more to do with Morphew and Lillie, who have gone beyond the ordinary pitch of assurance, and transgressed the very letter of the proverb, by endeavouring to cheat you of your Christian and surname too. Wishing you, Sir, long to live for our instruction and diversion, and to the defeating of all impostors, I remain,

"Your most obedient humble servant,

"and affectionate kinsman,

"HUMPHRY WAGSTAFF."

[Footnote 1: Amphitryon, I. i 282. "Who am I, at all events, if I am not Sosia? I ask you that."—H.T. RILEY. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: This, no doubt, was Steele's last "Tatler," No. 271. [T. S.]]

THE TATLER, No. 2.

Alios viri reverentia, vultusque ad continendum populum mire formatus, alios etiam, quibus ipse interesse non potuit, vis scribendi tamen, et magni nominis autoritas pervicere.—TULL. EPIST.[1]

FROM SATURD. JAN. 13. TO TUESDAY JAN, l6. 1710.[2]

I remember Menage,[3] tells a story of Monsieur Racan, who had appointed a day and hour to meet a certain lady of great wit whom he had never seen, in order to make an acquaintance between them. "Two of Racan's friends, who had heard of the appointment, resolved to play him a trick. The first went to the lady two hours before the time, said his name was Racan, and talked with her an hour; they were both mightily pleased, began a great friendship, and parted with much satisfaction. A few minutes after comes the second, and sends up the same name; the lady wonders at the meaning, and tells him, Mr. Racan had just left her. The gentleman says it was some rascally impostor, and that he had been frequently used in that manner. The lady is convinced, and they laugh at the oddness of the adventure. She now calls to mind several passages, which confirm her that the former was a cheat. He appoints a second meeting, and takes his leave. He was no sooner gone, but the true Racan comes to the door, and desires, under that name, to see the lady. She was out of all patience, sends for him up, rates him for an impostor, and, after a thousand injuries, flings a slipper at his head. It was impossible to pacify or disabuse her; he was forced to retire, and it was not without some time, and the intervention of friends, that they could come to an eclaircissement." This, as I take it, is exactly the case with Mr. S[tee]le, the pretended "TATLER" from Morphew, and myself, only (I presume) the world will be sooner undeceived than the lady in Menage. The very day my last paper came out, my printer brought me another of the same date, called "The Tatler," by Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; and, which was still more pleasant, with an advertisement[4] at the end, calling me the "Female TATLER": it is not enough to rob me of my name, but now they must impose a sex on me, when my years have long since determined me to be of none at all. There is only one thing wanting in the operation, that they would renew my age, and then I will heartily forgive them all the rest. In the mean time, whatever uneasiness I have suffered from the little malice of these men, and my retirement in the country, the pleasures I have received from the same occasion, will fairly balance the account. On the one hand, I have been highly delighted to see my name and character assumed by the scribblers of the age, in order to recommend themselves to it; and on the other, to observe the good taste of the town, in distinguishing and exploding them through every disguise, and sacrificing their trifles to the supposed manes of Isaac Bickerstaff Esquire. But the greatest merit of my journey into Staffordshire, is, that it has opened to me a new fund of unreproved follies and errors that have hitherto lain out of my view, and, by their situation, escaped my censure. For, as I have lived generally in town, the images I had of the country were such only as my senses received very early, and my memory has since preserved with all the advantages they first appeared in.

Hence it was that I thought our parish church the noblest structure in England, and the Squire's Place-House, as we called it, a most magnificent palace. I had the same opinion of the alms-house in the churchyard, and of a bridge over the brook that parts our parish from the next. It was the common vogue of our school, that the master was the best scholar in Europe, and the usher the second. Not happening to correct these notions, by comparing them with what I saw when I came into the world, upon returning back, I began to resume my former imaginations, and expected all things should appear in the same view as I left them when I was a boy: but to my utter disappointment I found them wonderfully shrunk, and lessened almost out of my knowledge. I looked with contempt on the tribes painted on the church walls, which I once so much admired, and on the carved chimneypiece in the Squire's Hall. I found my old master to be a poor ignorant pedant; and, in short, the whole scene to be extremely changed for the worse. This I could not help mentioning, because though it be of no consequence in itself, yet it is certain, that most prejudices are contracted and retained by this narrow way of thinking, which, in matters of the greatest moment are hardly shook off: and which we only think true, because we were made to believe so, before we were capable to distinguish between truth and falsehood. But there was one prepossession which I confess to have parted with, much to my regret: I mean the opinion of that native honesty and simplicity of manners, which I had always imagined to be inherent in country-people. I soon observed it was with them and us, as they say of animals; That every species at land has one to resemble it at sea; for it was easy to discover the seeds and principles of every vice and folly that one meets with in the more known world, though shooting up in different forms. I took a fancy out of the several inhabitants round, to furnish the camp, the bar, and the Exchange, and some certain chocolate and coffeehouses, with exact parallels to what, in many instances, they already produce. There was a drunken quarrelsome smith, whom I have a hundred times fancied at the head of a troop of dragoons. A weaver, within two doors of my kinsman, was perpetually setting neighbours together by the ears. I lamented to see how his talents were misplaced, and imagined what a figure he might make in Westminster-Hall. Goodman Crop of Compton Farm, wants nothing but a plum and a gold chain to qualify him for the government of the City. My kinsman's stable-boy was a gibing companion that would always have his jest. He would often put cow-itch in the maids' beds, pull stools from under folks, and lay a coal upon their shoes when they were asleep. He was at last turned off for some notable piece of roguery, and when I came away, was loitering among the ale-houses. Bless me, thought I, what a prodigious wit would this have been with us! I could have matched all the sharpers between St. James's and Covent Garden, with a notable fellow in the same neighbourhood, (since hanged for picking pockets at fairs) could he have had the advantages of their education. So nearly are the corruptions of the country allied to those of the town, with no further difference than what is made by another turn of thought and method of living!

[Footnote 1: "A reverend aspect, and a countenance formed to command, have power to restrain some people; while others, who pay no regard to those, are prevailed upon by the dint of writing, and the authority of a great name." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Gilles Menage (1613-1692). The story is given in "Menagiana" (vol. ii. pp. 49-51, second edition, 1695). C. Sorel, however, in his "Francion" (1623) tells a similar story of a poet named Saluste, who was fooled in like manner. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Morphew's "Tatler" for January 13th, 1710 (No. 276), contains the following: "Whereas an advertisement was yesterday delivered out by the author of the late 'Female Tatler,' insinuating, [according to his custom] that he is Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.; This is to give notice, that this paper is continued to be sold by John Morphew as formerly," etc.

"The Female Tatler, by Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows every thing," had been begun July 8th, 1709, but was now defunct. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, No. 5.

——Laceratque, trahitque Molle pecus VIR.[1]

FROM TUESDAY JAN. 23. TO SATURDAY JAN. 27. 1710.[2]

Amongst other severities I have met with from some critics, the cruellest for an old man is, that they will not let me be at quiet in my bed, but pursue me to my very dreams. I must not dream but when they please, nor upon long continued subjects, however visionary in their own natures; because there is a manifest moral quite through them, which to produce as a dream is improbable and unnatural. The pain I might have had from this objection, is prevented by considering they have missed another, against which I should have been at a loss to defend myself. They should have asked me, whether the dreams I publish can properly be called Lucubrations, which is the name I have given to all my papers, whether in volumes or half-sheets: so manifest a contradiction in terminis, that I wonder no sophister ever thought of it: But the other is a cavil. I remember when I was a boy at school, I have often dreamed out the whole passages of a day; that I rode a journey, baited, supped, went to bed, and rose the next morning: and I have known young ladies who could dream a whole contexture of adventures in one night large enough to make a novel. In youth the imagination is strong, not mixed with cares, nor tinged with those passions that most disturb and confound it, such as avarice, ambition, and many others. Now as old men are said to grow children again, so in this article of dreaming, I am returned to my childhood. My imagination is at full ease, without care, avarice, or ambition, to clog it; by which, among many others, I have this advantage of doubling the small remainder of my time, and living four-and-twenty hours in the day. However, the dream I am now going to relate, is as wild as can well be imagined, and adapted to please these refiners upon sleep, without any moral that I can discover.

"It happened that my maid left on the table in my bedchamber, one of her story books (as she calls them) which I took up, and found full of strange impertinences, fitted to her taste and condition; of poor servants that came to be ladies, and serving-men of low degree, who married kings' daughters. Among other things, I met this sage observation, 'That a lion would never hurt a true virgin.' With this medley of nonsense in my fancy I went to bed, and dreamed that a friend waked me in the morning, and proposed for pastime to spend a few hours in seeing the parish lions, which he had not done since he came to town; and because they showed but once a week, he would not miss the opportunity. I said I would humour him; though, to speak the truth, I was not fond of those cruel spectacles; and if it were not so ancient a custom, founded, as I had heard, upon the wisest maxims, I should be apt to censure the inhumanity of those who introduced it." All this will be a riddle to the waking reader, till I discover the scene my imagination had formed upon the maxim, "That a lion would never hurt a true virgin." "I dreamed, that by a law of immemorial time, a he-lion was kept in every parish at the common charge, and in a place provided, adjoining to the churchyard: that, before any one of the fair sex was married, if she affirmed herself to be a virgin, she must on her wedding day, and in her wedding clothes, perform the ceremony of going alone into the den, and stay an hour with the lion let loose, and kept fasting four-and-twenty hours on purpose. At a proper height, above the den, were convenient galleries for the relations and friends of the young couple, and open to all spectators. No maiden was forced to offer herself to the lion; but if she refused, it was a disgrace to marry her, and every one might have liberty of calling her a whore. And methought it was as usual a diversion to see the parish lions, as with us to go to a play or an opera. And it was reckoned convenient to be near the church, either for marrying the virgin if she escaped the trial, or for burying the bones when the lion had devoured the rest, as he constantly did."

To go on therefore with the dream: "We called first (as I remember) to see St. Dunstan's lion, but we were told they did not shew to-day: From thence we went to that of Covent-Garden, which, to my great surprise, we found as lean as a skeleton, when I expected quite the contrary; but the keeper said it was no wonder at all, because the poor beast had not got an ounce of woman's flesh since he came into the parish. This amazed me more than the other, and I was forming to myself a mighty veneration for the ladies in that quarter of the town, when the keeper went on, and said, He wondered the parish would be at the charge of maintaining a lion for nothing. Friend, (said I) do you call it nothing, to justify the virtue of so many ladies, or has your lion lost his distinguishing faculty? Can there be anything more for the honour of your parish, than that all the ladies married in your church were pure virgins? That is true, (said he) and the doctor knows it to his sorrow; for there has not been a couple married in our church since his worship has been amongst us. The virgins hereabouts are too wise to venture the claws of the lion; and because nobody will marry them, have all entered into vows of virginity. So that in proportion we have much the largest nunnery in the whole town. This manner of ladies entering into a vow of virginity, because they were not virgins, I easily conceived; and my dream told me, that the whole kingdom was full of nunneries, plentifully stocked from the same reason.

"We went to see another lion, where we found much company met in the gallery; the keeper told us, we should see sport enough, as he called it; and in a little time, we saw a young beautiful lady put into the den, who walked up towards the lion with all imaginable security in her countenance, and looked smiling upon her lover and friends in the gallery; which I thought nothing extraordinary, because it was never known that any lion had been mistaken. But, however, we were all disappointed, for the lion lifted up his right paw, which was the fatal sign, and advancing forward, seized her by the arm, and began to tear it: The poor lady gave a terrible shriek, and cried out, 'The lion is just, I am no true virgin! Oh! Sappho, Sappho.' She could say no more, for the lion gave her the coup de grace, by a squeeze in the throat, and she expired at his feet. The keeper dragged away her body to feed the animal when the company was gone, for the parish-lions never used to eat in public. After a little pause, another lady came on towards the lion in the same manner as the former; we observed the beast smell her with great diligence, he scratched both her hands with lifting them to his nose, and clapping a claw on her bosom, drew blood; however he let her go, and at the same time turned from her with a sort of contempt, at which she was not a little mortified, and retired with some confusion to her friends in the gallery. Methought the whole company immediately understood the meaning of this, that the easiness of the lady had suffered her to admit certain imprudent and dangerous familiarities, bordering too much upon what is criminal; neither was it sure whether the lover then present had not some sharers with him in those freedoms, of which a lady can never be too sparing.

"This happened to be an extraordinary day, for a third lady came into the den, laughing loud, playing with her fan, tossing her head, and smiling round on the young fellows in the gallery. However, the lion leaped on her with great fury, and we gave her for gone; but on a sudden he let go his hold, turned from her as if he were nauseated, then gave her a lash with his tail; after which she returned to the gallery, not the least out of countenance: and this, it seems, was the usual treatment of coquettes.

"I thought we had now seen enough, but my friend would needs have us go and visit one or two lions in the city. We called at two or three dens where they happened not to shew, but we generally found half a score young girls, between eight and eleven years old, playing with each lion, sitting on his back, and putting their hands into his mouth; some of them would now and then get a scratch; but we always discovered, upon examining, that they had been hoydening with the young apprentices. One of them was calling to a pretty girl of about twelve years, that stood by us in the gallery, to come down to the lion, and upon her refusal, said, 'Ah! Miss Betty, we could never get you to come near the lion, since you played at hoop and hide with my brother in the garret.'

"We followed a couple, with the wedding-folks, going to the church of St. Mary-Axe. The lady, though well stricken in years, extremely crooked and deformed, was dressed out beyond the gaiety of fifteen; having jumbled together, as I imagined, all the tawdry remains of aunts, godmothers, and grandmothers, for some generations past: One of the neighbours whispered me, that she was an old maid, and had the clearest reputation of any in the parish. There is nothing strange in that, thought I, but was much surprised, when I observed afterwards that she went towards the lion with distrust and concern. The beast was lying down, but upon sight of her, snuffed up his nose two or three times, and then giving the sign of death, proceeded instantly to execution. In the midst of her agonies, she was heard to name the words, 'Italy' and 'artifices,' with the utmost horror, and several repeated execrations: and at last concluded, 'Fool that I was, to put so much confidence in the toughness of my skin.'

"The keeper immediately set all in order again for another customer, which happened to be a famous prude, whom her parents after long threatenings, and much persuasion, had with the extremest difficulty prevailed on to accept a young handsome goldsmith, that might have pretended to five times her fortune. The fathers and mothers in the neighbourhood used to quote her for an example to their daughters. Her elbows were rivetted to her sides, and her whole person so ordered as to inform everybody that she was afraid they should touch her. She only dreaded to approach the lion, because it was a he one, and abhorred to think an animal of that sex should presume to breathe on her. The sight of a man at twenty yards distance made her draw back her head. She always sat upon the farther corner of the chair, though there were six chairs between her and her lover, and with the door wide open, and her little sister in the room. She was never saluted but at the tip of her ear, and her father had much ado to make her dine without her gloves, when there was a man at table. She entered the den with some fear, which we took to proceed from the height of her modesty, offended at the sight of so many men in the gallery. The lion beholding her at a distance, immediately gave the deadly sign; at which the poor creature (methinks I see her still) miscarried in a fright before us all. The lion seemed to be surprised as much as we, and gave her time to make her confession, 'That she was four months gone, by the foreman of her father's shop, that this was her third big belly;' and when her friends asked, why she would venture the trial? she said, 'Her nurse assured her, that a lion would never hurt a woman with child.'" Upon this I immediately waked, and could not help wishing, that the deputy-censors of my late institution were endued with the same instinct as these parish-lions were.

[Footnote 1: "Manditque, trahitque Molle pecus." Aeneid, ix. 340-341. "Devours and tears the peaceful flock." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]



THE TATLER, NUMB. 298.[1]

Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, Emollit mores. OVID.[2]

FROM SATURDAY MARCH 3. TO TUESDAY MARCH 6. 1710.[3]

From my own Apartment in Channel-Row, March 5.

Those inferior duties of life which the French call les petites morales, or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by the name of good manners,[4] or breeding. This I look upon, in the general notion of it, to be a sort of artificial good sense, adapted to the meanest capacities, and introduced to make mankind easy in their commerce with each other. Low and little understandings, without some rules of this kind, would be perpetually wandering into a thousand indecencies and irregularities in behaviour, and in their ordinary conversation fall into the same boisterous familiarities that one observes amongst them, when a debauch has quite taken away the use of their reason. In other instances, it is odd to consider, that for want of common discretion the very end of good breeding is wholly perverted, and civility, intended to make us easy, is employed in laying chains and fetters upon us, in debarring us of our wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires and inclinations. This abuse reigns chiefly in the country, as I found to my vexation, when I was last there, in a visit I made to a neighbour about two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the parlour, they forced me into the great chair that stood close by a huge fire, and kept me there by force till I was almost stifled. Then a boy came in great hurry to pull off my boots, which I in vain opposed, urging that I must return soon after dinner. In the mean time the good lady whispered her eldest daughter, and slipped a key into her hand. She returned instantly with a beer glass half full of aqua mirabilis and syrup of gillyflowers. I took as much as I had a mind for; but Madam vowed I should drink it off, (for she was sure it would do me good after coming out of the cold air) and I was forced to obey, which absolutely took away my stomach. When dinner came in, I had a mind to sit at a distance from the fire; but they told me, it was as much as my life was worth, and set me with my back just against it. Though my appetite was quite gone, I resolved to force down as much as I could, and desired the leg of a pullet. "Indeed, Mr. Bickerstaff," says the lady, "you must eat a wing to oblige me," and so put a couple upon my plate. I was persecuted at this rate during the whole meal. As often as I called for small beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man who came with me to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked, and the children hid away my cloak and boots. The next question was, what I would have for supper? I said I never eat anything at night, but was at last in my own defence obliged to name the first thing that came into my head. After three hours spent chiefly in apology for my entertainment, insinuating to me, "That this was the worst time of the year for provisions, that they were at a great distance from any market, that they were afraid I should be starved, and they knew they kept me to my loss," the lady went, and left me to her husband (for they took special care I should never be alone.) As soon as her back was turned, the little misses ran backwards and forwards every moment; and constantly as they came in or went out, made a curtsy directly at me, which in good manners I was forced to return with a bow, and "Your humble servant pretty Miss." Exactly at eight the mother came up, and discovered by the redness of her face, that supper was not far off. It was twice as large as the dinner, and my persecution doubled in proportion. I desired at my usual hour to go to my repose, and was conducted to my chamber by the gentleman, his lady, and the whole train of children. They importuned me to drink something before I went to bed, and upon my refusing, at last left a bottle of stingo, as they called it, for fear I should wake and be thirsty in the night. I was forced in the morning to rise and dress myself in the dark, because they would not suffer my kinsman's servant to disturb me at the hour I had desired to be called. I was now resolved to break through all measures to get away, and after sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, neats'-tongues, venison-pasty, and stale beer, took leave of the family; but the gentleman would needs see me part of my way, and carry me a short cut through his own grounds, which he told me would save half a mile's riding. This last piece of civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in danger of my neck, by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the dirt, when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover him again.

It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it. I cannot so easily excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts of it. Ned Fashion has been bred all his life about Court, and understands to a tittle all the punctilios of a drawing-room. He visits most of the fine women near St. James's, and upon all occasions says the civilest and softest things to them of any man breathing. To Mr. Isaac[5] he owes an easy slide in his bow, and a graceful manner of coming into a room. But in some other cases he is very far from being a well-bred person: He laughs at men of far superior understanding to his own, for not being as well dressed as himself, despises all his acquaintance that are not quality, and in public places has on that account often avoided taking notice of some of the best speakers in the House of Commons. He rails strenuously at both Universities before the members of either, and never is heard to swear an oath, or break in upon morality or religion, but in the company of divines. On the other hand, a man of right sense has all the essentials of good breeding, though he may be wanting in the forms of it. Horatio has spent most of his time at Oxford. He has a great deal of learning, an agreeable wit, and as much modesty as serves to adorn without concealing his other good qualities. In that retired way of living, he seems to have formed a notion of human nature, as he has found it described in the writings of the greatest men, not as he is like to meet with it in the common course of life. Hence it is, that he gives no offence, that he converses with great deference, candour, and humanity. His bow, I must confess, is somewhat awkward; but then he has an extensive, universal, and unaffected knowledge, which makes some amends for it. He would make no extraordinary figure at a ball; but I can assure the ladies in his behalf, and for their own consolation, that he has writ better verses on the sex than any man now living, and is preparing such a poem for the press as will transmit their praises and his own to many generations.

[Footnote 1: In the reprint of "The Tatler," volume v., this number was called No. 20. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Epist. ex Ponto, II. ix. 47-48.

"An understanding in the liberal arts Softens men's manners." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Compare Swift's "Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: A famous dancing-master in those days. [FAULKNER.] He died in 1740. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB, 302.[1]

O Lycida, vivi pervenimus, advena nostri, (Quod numquam veriti sumus) ut possessor agelli Diceret, Haec mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni. VIRG.[2]

FROM TUESDAY MARCH 13. TO THURSDAY MARCH 15. 1710.[3]

From my own Apartment in Channel-Row, March 14.

The dignity and distinction of men of wit is seldom enough considered, either by themselves or others; their own behaviour, and the usage they meet with, being generally very much of a piece. I have at this time in my hands an alphabetical list of the beaux esprits about this town, four or five of whom have made the proper use of their genius, by gaining the esteem of the best and greatest men, and by turning it to their own advantage in some establishment of their fortunes, however unequal to their merit; others satisfying themselves with the honour of having access to great tables, and of being subject to the call of every man of quality, who upon occasion wants one to say witty things for the diversion of the company. This treatment never moves my indignation so much, as when it is practised by a person, who though he owes his own rise purely to the reputation of his parts, yet appears to be as much ashamed of it, as a rich city knight to be denominated from the trade he was first apprenticed to, and affects the air of a man born to his titles, and consequently above the character of a wit, or a scholar. If those who possess great endowments of the mind would set a just value upon themselves, they would think no man's acquaintance whatsoever a condescension, nor accept it from the greatest upon unworthy or ignominious terms. I know a certain lord that has often invited a set of people, and proposed for their diversion a buffoon player, and an eminent poet, to be of the party; and which was yet worse, thought them both sufficiently recompensed by the dinner, and the honour of his company. This kind of insolence is risen to such a height, that I my self was the other day sent to by a man with a title, whom I had never seen, desiring the favour that I would dine with him and half a dozen of his select friends. I found afterwards, the footman had told my maid below stairs, that my lord having a mind to be merry, had resolved right or wrong to send for honest Isaac. I was sufficiently provoked with the message; however I gave the fellow no other answer, than that "I believed he had mistaken the person, for I did not remember that his lord had ever been introduced to me." I have reason to apprehend that this abuse hath been owing rather to a meanness of spirit in men of parts, than to the natural pride or ignorance of their patrons. Young students coming up to town from the places of their education, are dazzled with the grandeur they everywhere meet, and making too much haste to distinguish their parts, instead of waiting to be desired and caressed, are ready to pay their court at any rate to a great man, whose name they have seen in a public paper, or the frontispiece of a dedication. It has not always been thus: wit in polite ages has ever begot either esteem or fear. The hopes of being celebrated, or the dread of being stigmatized, procured an universal respect and awe for the persons of such as were allowed to have the power of distributing fame or infamy where they pleased. Aretine had all the princes of Europe his tributaries, and when any of them had committed a folly that laid them open to his censure, they were forced by some present extraordinary to compound for his silence; of which there is a famous instance on record. When Charles the Fifth had miscarried in his African expedition, which was looked upon as the weakest undertaking of that great Emperor, he sent Aretine[4] a gold chain, who made some difficulty of accepting it, saying, "It was too small a present in all reason for so great a folly." For my own part, in this point I differ from him, and never could be prevailed upon, by any valuable consideration to conceal a fault or a folly since I first took the censorship upon me.

Having long considered with my self the ill application that some make of their talents, I have this day erected a Court of Alienation, by the statutes of which the next a kin is empowered to beg the parts and understanding of any such person as can be proved, either by embezzling, making a wrong use, or no use at all of the said parts and understanding, not to know the true value thereof: who shall immediately be put out of possession, and disqualified for ever; the said kinsman giving sufficient security that he will employ them as the court shall direct. I have set down under certain heads the several ways by which men prostitute and abuse their parts, and from thence have framed a table of rules, whereby the plaintiff may be informed when he has a good title to eject the defendant. I may in a following paper give the world some account of the proceedings of this court. I have already got two able critics for my assessors upon the bench, who, though they have always exercised their pens in taking off from the wit of others, have never pretended to challenge any themselves, and consequently are in no danger of being engaged in making claims, or of having any suits commence against them. Every writer shall be tried by his peers, throughly versed in that point wherein he pretends to excel; for which reason the jury can never consist of above half the ordinary number. I shall in general be very tender how I put any person out of his wits; but as the management of such possessions is of great consequence to the world, I shall hold my self obliged to vest the right in such hands as will answer the great purposes they were intended for, and leave the former proprietors to seek their fortune in some other way.

[Footnote 1: Called No. 24 in the reprint of "The Tatler," vol. v. [T. S.]]

[Footnote 2: Eclogues, ix. 2-4.

"O Lycidas, We never thought, yet have we lived to see A stranger seize our farm, and say, 'Tis mine, Begone, ye old inhabitants."—C.R. KENNEDY. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: I.e. 1710-11. Under date March 14th Swift writes to Stella: "Little Harrison the 'Tatler' came to me, and begged me to dictate a paper to him, which I was forced in charity to do." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Pietro Aretino (1492-1557), called "the scourge of Princes." His prose is fiercely satirical, and his poetry as strongly obscene. His works were condemned for their indecency and impiety. He received numerous and valuable gifts from those who were afraid of his criticisms. His sonnets, written to accompany engravings by Marc Antonio, from designs by Giulio Romano (1524), largely contributed to his reputation for obscenity. [T.S.]]



THE TATLER, NUMB. 306.[1]

Morte carent animae; semperque, priore relicta Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptae. Ipse ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram— OVID. MET.[2]

FROM THURSDAY MARCH 22, TO SATURDAY MARCH 24, 1710.[3]

From my own Apartment, March 22.

My other correspondents will excuse me if I give the precedency to a lady, whose letter, amongst many more, is just come to hand.

"DEAR ISAAC,

"I burn with impatience to know what and who you are. The curiosity of my whole sex is fallen upon me, and has kept me waking these three nights. I have dreamed often of you within this fortnight, and every time you appeared in a different form. As you value my repose, tell me in which of them I am to be

"Your admirer,

"SYLVIA."

It is natural for a man who receives a favour of this kind from an unknown fair, to frame immediately some idea of her person, which being suited to the opinion we have of our own merit, is commonly as beautiful and perfect as the most lavish imagination can furnish out. Strongly possessed with these notions, I have read over Sylvia's billet; and notwithstanding the reserve I have had upon this matter, am resolved to go a much greater length, than I yet ever did, in making my self known to the world, and, in particular, to my charming correspondent. In order to it I must premise, that the person produced as mine in the play-house last winter, did in nowise appertain to me. It was such a one however as agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the purpose I intended it for; which was to continue the awe and reverence due to the character I was vested with, and, at the same time, to let my enemies see how much I was the delight and favourite of this town. This innocent imposture, which I have all along taken care to carry on, as it then was of some use, has since been of singular service to me, and by being mentioned in one of my papers, effectually recovered my egoity out of the hands of some gentlemen who endeavoured to wrest it from me. This is saying, in short, what I am not: what I am, and have been for many years, is next to be explained. Here it will not be improper to remind Sylvia, that there was formerly such a philosopher as Pythagoras, who, amongst other doctrines, taught the transmigration of souls, which, if she sincerely believes, she will not be much startled at the following relation.

I will not trouble her, nor my other readers, with the particulars of all the lives I have successively passed through since my first entrance into mortal being, which is now many centuries ago. It is enough that I have in every one of them opposed myself with the utmost resolution to the follies and vices of the several ages I have been acquainted with, that I have often rallied the world into good manners, and kept the greatest princes in awe of my satire. There is one circumstance which I shall not omit, though it may seem to reflect on my character, I mean that infinite love of change which has ever appeared in the disposal of my existence. Since the days of the Emperor Trajan, I have not been confined to the same person for twenty years together; but have passed from one abode to another, much quicker than the Pythagorean system generally allows. By this means, I have seldom had a body to myself, but have lodged up and down wherever I found a genius suitable to my own. In this manner I continued, some time with the top wit of France, at another with that of Italy, who had a statue erected to his memory in Rome. Towards the end of the 17th century, I set out for England; but the gentleman I came over in dying as soon as he got to shore, I was obliged to look out again for a new habitation. It was not long before I met with one to my mind, for having mixed myself invisibly with the literati of this kingdom, I found it was unanimously agreed amongst them, That nobody was endowed with greater talents than Hiereus;[4] or, consequently, would be better pleased with my company. I slipped down his throat one night as he was fast asleep, and the next morning, as soon as he awaked, he fell to writing a treatise that was received with great applause, though he had the modesty not to set his name to that nor to any other of our productions. Some time after, he published a paper of predictions, which were translated into several languages, and alarmed some of the greatest princes in Europe. To these he prefixed the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq; which I have been extremely fond of ever since, and have taken care that most of the writings I have been concerned in should be distinguished by it; though I must observe, that there have been many counterfeits imposed upon the public by this means. This extraordinary man being called out of the kingdom by affairs of his own, I resolved, however, to continue somewhat longer in a country where my works had been so well received, and accordingly bestowed myself with Hilario.[5] His natural wit, his lively turn of humour, and great penetration into human nature, easily determined me to this choice, the effects of which were soon after produced in this paper, called "The Tatler." I know not how it happened, but in less than two years' time Hilario grew weary of my company, and gave me warning to be gone. In the height of my resentment, I cast my eyes on a young fellow,[6] of no extraordinary qualifications, whom, for that very reason, I had the more pride in taking under my direction, and enabling him, by some means or other, to carry on the work I was before engaged in. Lest he should grow too vain upon this encouragement, I to this day keep him under due mortification. I seldom reside with him when any of his friends are at leisure to receive me, by whose hands, however, he is duly supplied. As I have passed through many scenes of life, and a long series of years, I choose to be considered in the character of an old fellow, and take care that those under my influence should speak consonantly to it. This account, I presume, will give no small consolation to Sylvia, who may rest assured, that Isaac Bickerstaff is to be seen in more forms than she dreamt of; out of which variety she may choose what is most agreeable to her fancy. On Tuesdays, he is sometimes a black, proper, young gentleman, with a mole on his left cheek. On Thursdays, a decent well-looking man, of a middle stature, long flaxen hair, and a florid complexion. On Saturdays, he is somewhat of the shortest, and may be known from others of that size by talking in a low voice, and passing through the streets without much precipitation.

[Footnote 1: No. 28 in the reprint of "The Tatler," vol. v. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Metamorphoses, xv. 158-161.

"Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats In other forms, and only changes seats. Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare, Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war."

J. DRYDEN. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Swift. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Steele. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6: Harrison. [T.S.]]

* * * * * *



CONTRIBUTIONS TO "THE EXAMINER."

NOTE.

The new ministry, which came into power on the fall of the able administration of Godolphin in 1710, was the famous Oxford ministry headed by Harley and St. John. The new leaders were well aware that they would have to use all the means in their power not only to justify themselves to the English nation, but successfully to defeat the strong opposition which had such a man as Marlborough for its moving spirit. The address to Queen Anne from the Commons, showing undoubted evidences of St. John's hand, was the first employment of a means by which this ministry hoped to appeal to the public. But this remarkable literary effort had already been preceded by the establishment of a weekly political paper, entitled "The Examiner," a few weeks before Godolphin's fall. During the months of August, September, and October, in which were issued twelve papers, Dr. Freind, Atterbury, Prior and St. John, were the men employed to arouse the nation to a necessary condition of discontent. Now that the ministry was in power, the necessity for continuing these public appeals was felt to be all the stronger; and Harley's shrewdness in selecting Swift to take this important matter in hand shows his ability as a party leader.

The first number of "The Examiner" was issued on August 3rd, 1710, and the paper was continued until July 26th, 1711. On December 6th, 1711, William Oldisworth revived it, and issued it weekly until December 18th, 1712, after which date it was published twice a week until July 26th, 1714, though it occasionally happened that only one was issued in a week. The last number was No. 19 of the sixth volume, so that Oldisworth edited vols. ii., iii., iv., v., and what was published of vol. vi. The death of the Queen put an end to the publication.

Swift was called to his work about the middle of October of 1710, and his first paper appeared in No. 14. From that number to No. 45, Swift continued with unabated zeal and with masterly effect to carry out the policy of his friends. He also wrote a part of No. 46, and Nos. 16 and 21 of the third volume, which appeared on January 16th and February 2nd, 1712-13. These two last numbers are not included in the present volume; since they have been printed in the fifth volume of this edition of Swift's works with the titles "An Appendix to the Conduct of the Allies" and "The Vindication of Erasmus Lewis."

The appearance of "The Examiner" had brought an opposition paper into the field, entitled "The Whig Examiner," a periodical that ably maintained its party's stand in the face of St. John's attacks. But this paper only lasted for five weeks, and when Swift took charge of the Tory organ, the position of "The Examiner" was entirely altered. As Mr. Churton Collins ably remarks: "It became a voice of power in every town and in every hamlet throughout England. It was an appeal made, not to the political cliques of the metropolis, but to the whole kingdom; and to the whole kingdom it spoke.... No one who will take the trouble to glance at Swift's contributions to 'The Examiner' will be surprised at their effect. They are masterpieces of polemical skill. Every sentence—every word—comes home. Their logic, adapted to the meanest capacity, smites like a hammer. Their statements, often a tissue of mere sophistry and assumption, appear so plausible, that it is difficult even for the cool historian to avoid being carried away by them. At a time when party spirit was running high, and few men stopped to weigh evidence, they must have been irresistible." ("Jonathan Swift," 1893, p. 81.)

In his "Memoirs relating to that Change" (vol. v., p 384), Swift gives the following explanation of the foundation of this paper. "Upon the rise of this ministry the principal persons in power thought it necessary that some weekly paper should be published, with just reflections upon former proceedings, and defending the present measures of Her Majesty. This was begun about the time of the Lord Godolphin's removal, under the name of 'The Examiner.' ... The determination was that I should continue it, which I did accordingly for about eight months."

Gay remarks in his pamphlet, "The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a Friend in the Country," 1711: "'The Examiner' is a paper which all men, who speak without prejudice, allow to be well writ. Though his subject will admit of no great variety, he is continually placing it on so many different lights, and endeavouring to inculcate the same thing by so many beautiful changes of expressions, that men who are concerned in no party, may read him with pleasure. His way of assuming the question in debate is extremely artful; and his 'Letter to Crassus' [No. 28] is, I think, a masterpiece.... I presume I need not tell you that 'The Examiner' carries much the more sail as 'tis supposed to be writ by the direction, and under the eye of some great persons who sit at the helm of affairs, and is consequently looked on as a sort of public notice which way they are steering us. The reputed author is Dr. S[wif]t, with the assistance sometimes of Dr. Att[erbur]y and Mr. P[rio]r." With the fall of Bolingbroke on the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I., "The Examiner" collapsed. [T.S.]



THE EXAMINER.

NUMB. 14.[1]

FROM THURSDAY OCTOBER 26 TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2, 1710.

—Longa est injuria, longae Ambages, sed summa sequar fastigia rerum.[2]

It is a practice I have generally followed, to converse in equal freedom with the deserving men of both parties; and it was never without some contempt, that I have observed persons wholly out of employment, affect to do otherwise: I doubted whether any man could owe so much to the side he was of, though he were retained by it; but without some great point of interest, either in possession or prospect, I thought it was the mark of a low and narrow spirit.

It is hard, that, for some weeks past, I have been forced in my own defence, to follow a proceeding that I have so much condemned in others. But several of my acquaintance among the declining party, are grown so insufferably peevish and splenetic, profess such violent apprehensions for the public, and represent the state of things in such formidable ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions, though I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely affected. To offer them comfort one by one, would be not only an endless, but a disobliging task. Some of them, I am convinced would be less melancholy, if there were more occasion. I shall therefore, instead of hearkening to further complaints, employ some part of this paper for the future, in letting such men see, that their natural or acquired fears are ill-grounded, and their artificial ones as ill-intended. That all our present inconveniencies,[3] are the consequence of the very counsels they so much admire, which would still have increased, if those had continued: and that neither our constitution in Church or State, could probably have been long preserved, without such methods as have been lately taken.

The late revolutions at court, have given room to some specious objections, which I have heard repeated by well-meaning men, just as they had taken them up on the credit of others, who have worse designs. They wonder the Queen would choose to change her ministry at this juncture,[4] and thereby give uneasiness to a general who has been so long successful abroad; and might think himself injured, if the entire ministry were not of his own nomination. That there were few complaints of any consequence against the late men in power, and none at all in Parliament; which on the contrary, passed votes in favour of the chief minister. That if her Majesty had a mind to introduce the other party, it would have been more seasonable after a peace, which now we have made desperate, by spiriting the French, who rejoice at these changes, and by the fall of our credit, which unqualifies us for continuing the war. That the Parliament so untimely dissolved,[5] had been diligent in their supplies, and dutiful in their behaviour. That one consequence of these changes appears already in the fall of the stocks: that we may soon expect more and worse: and lastly, that all this naturally tends to break the settlement of the Crown, and call over the Pretender.

These and the like notions are plentifully scattered abroad, by the malice of a ruined party, to render the Queen and her administration odious, and to inflame the nation. And these are what, upon occasion, I shall endeavour to overthrow, by discovering the falsehood and absurdity of them.

It is a great unhappiness, when in a government constituted like ours, it should be so brought about, that the continuance of a war, must be for the interest of vast numbers (peaceable as well as military) who would otherwise have been as unknown as their original. I think our present condition of affairs, is admirably described by two verses in Lucan,

Hinc usura vorax, avidumque in tempore foenus, Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum,[6]

which without any great force upon the words, may be thus translated,

"Hence are derived those exorbitant interests and annuities; hence those large discounts for advances and prompt payment; hence public credit is shaken, and hence great numbers find their profit in prolonging the war."

It is odd, that among a free trading people, as we take ourselves to be, there should so many be found to close in with those counsels, who have been ever averse from all overtures towards a peace. But yet there is no great mystery in the matter. Let any man observe the equipages in this town; he shall find the greater number of those who make a figure, to be a species of men quite different from any that were ever known before the Revolution, consisting either of generals and colonels, or of such whose whole fortunes lie in funds and stocks: so that power, which according to the old maxim, was used to follow land, is now gone over to money; and the country gentleman is in the condition of a young heir, out of whose estate a scrivener receives half the rents for interest, and hath a mortgage on the whole, and is therefore always ready to feed his vices and extravagancies while there is any thing left. So that if the war continues some years longer, a landed man will be little better than a farmer at a rack rent, to the army, and to the public funds.

It may perhaps be worth inquiring from what beginnings, and by what steps we have been brought into this desperate condition: and in search of this, we must run up as high as the Revolution.

Most of the nobility and gentry who invited over the Prince of Orange, or attended him in his expedition, were true lovers of their country and its constitution, in Church and State; and were brought to yield to those breaches in the succession of the crown, out of a regard to the necessity of the kingdom, and the safety of the people, which did, and could only, make them lawful; but without intention of drawing such a practice into precedent, or making it a standing measure by which to proceed in all times to come; and therefore we find their counsels ever tended to keep things as much as possible in the old course. But soon after, an under set of men, who had nothing to lose, and had neither borne the burthen nor heat of the day, found means to whisper in the king's ear, that the principles of loyalty in the Church of England, were wholly inconsistent with the Revolution.[7] Hence began the early practice of caressing the dissenters, reviling the universities, as maintainers of arbitrary power, and reproaching the clergy with the doctrines of divine-right, passive obedience and non-resistance.[8] At the same time, in order to fasten wealthy people to the new government, they proposed those pernicious expedients of borrowing money by vast premiums, and at exorbitant interest: a practice as old as Eumenes,[9] one of Alexander's captains, who setting up for himself after the death of his master, persuaded his principal officers to lend him great sums, after which they were forced to follow him for their own security.

This introduced a number of new dexterous men into business and credit: It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns, and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense of the war. Several persons who had small or encumbered estates, sold them, and turned their money into those funds to great advantage: merchants, as well as other moneyed men, finding trade was dangerous, pursued the same method: But the war continuing, and growing more expensive, taxes were increased, and funds multiplied every year, till they have arrived at the monstrous height we now behold them. And that which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken; and though all interest be duly paid by the public, yet through the contrivance and cunning of stock-jobbers, there has been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country of the world. I have heard it affirmed by persons skilled in these calculations, that if the funds appropriated to the payment of interest and annuities, were added to the yearly taxes, and the four-shilling aid[10] strictly exacted in all counties of the kingdom, it would very near, if not fully, supply the occasions of the war, at least such a part, as in the opinion of very able persons, had been at that time prudence not to exceed. For I make it a question, whether any wise prince or state, in the continuance of a war, which was not purely defensive, or immediately at his own door, did ever propose that his expense should perpetually exceed what he was able to impose annually upon his subjects? Neither if the war lasts many years longer, do I see how the next generation will be able to begin another, which in the course of human affairs, and according to the various interests and ambition of princes, may be as necessary for them as it has been for us. And had our fathers left us as deeply involved as we are like to leave our children, I appeal to any man, what sort of figure we should have been able to make these twenty years past. Besides, neither our enemies, nor allies, are upon the same foot with us in this particular. France and Holland, our nearest neighbours, and the farthest engaged, will much sooner recover themselves after a war. The first, by the absolute power of the prince who being master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, will quickly find expedients to pay his debts: and so will the other, by their prudent administration, the greatness of their trade, their wonderful parsimony, the willingness of their people to undergo all kind of taxes, and their justice in applotting as well as collecting them. But above all, we are to consider that France and Holland fight in the continent, either upon, or near their own territories, and the greatest part of the money circulates among themselves; whereas ours crosses the sea either to Flanders, Spain, or Portugal, and every penny of it, whether in specie or returns, is so much lost to the nation for ever.

Upon these considerations alone, it was the most prudent course imaginable in the Queen, to lay hold of the disposition of the people for changing the Parliament and ministry at this juncture, and extricating herself, as soon as possible, out of the pupillage of those who found their accounts only in perpetuating the war. Neither have we the least reason to doubt, but the ensuing Parliament will assist her Majesty with the utmost vigour,[11] till her enemies again be brought to sue for peace, and again offer such terms as will make it both honourable and lasting; only with this difference, that the Ministry perhaps will not again refuse them.[12]

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara Juventus.[13]

[Footnote 1: No. 13 in the reprint. The No. 13 (from Thursday, October 19, to Thursday, October 26, 1710) of the original is omitted from the reprint, and the Nos. from 14 to 48 are slipped back one. No. 49 also is omitted, and Nos. 50 to 52 slipped back two. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Virgil, "Aeneid," i. 341-2.

"Her whole tale of wrong 'Twere tedious to relate. But I will give The leading facts."—R. KENNEDY. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: "The Observator" of Nov. 8th, commenting on this statement, remarks: "All the inconveniences we labour under at present, are so far from being the consequence of the counsels of the late ministry, that they are visibly the consequence of those of the 'Examiner's' party, who brought the nation to the brink of Popery and slavery, from which they were delivered by the Revolution; and are pursuing the same measures again," etc. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: See "Memoirs relating to that Change" (vol. v., pp. 359-90). The Queen's action in dismissing her ministers and dissolving Parliament in September was, even to Swift himself, a matter for wonder: "I never remember," he writes to Stella (Sept. 20th, 1710), "such bold steps taken by a Court." And Tindal, commenting on the change, says: "So sudden and so entire a change in the ministry is scarce to be found in our history, especially where men of great abilities had served with such zeal and success." ("Hist. of England," iv. 192.) [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on September 21st. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6: "Pharsalia," i. 181-2.

"Hence debt unthrifty, careless to repay, And usury still watching for its day: Hence perjuries in every wrangling court; And war, the needy bankrupt's last resort," N. ROWE.

Lucan wrote "et concussa," [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7: Commenting on this passage, "The Observator" of Nov. 8th remarked: "One would take the author to be some very great man, since he speaks so contemptuously of both Houses of Parliament; for they actually found those doctrines, as then preached up, to be inconsistent with the Revolution, and declared it loudly to the world without whispering." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 8: Writing to the Earl of Peterborough (Feb. 1710/1), Swift refers to "a pamphlet come out, called 'A Letter to Jacob Banks,' showing that the liberty of Sweden was destroyed by the principle of passive obedience." The pamphlet was written by one W. Benson, and bore the title, "A Letter to Sir J—— B——, By Birth a S——,... Concerning the late Minehead doctrine," etc., 1711. "This dispute," says Swift to Peterborough, "would soon be ended, if the dunces who write on each side, would plainly tell us what the object of this passive obedience is in our country." (Scott, vol. xv., p. 423.)

See also, on this matter, "Examiner," Nos. 34 and 40 post. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 9: Eumenes of Cardia was secretary to Alexander the Great, and distinguished himself both as a statesman and general. He was killed B.C. 316. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 10: The land tax at the time was four shillings in the pound. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 11: In her speech to Parliament on Nov. 27th, 1710, Anne said: "The carrying on the war in all its parts, but particularly in Spain, with the utmost vigour, is the likeliest means, with God's blessing, to procure a safe and honourable peace for us and all our allies, whose support and interest I have truly at heart" ("Journals of House of Lords," xix, 166).]

[Footnote 12: This is a dig at the Duke of Marlborough, for what the Tories thought an unnecessarily harsh insistence on the inclusion of a clause in the preliminaries of the Gertruydenberg Treaty, which it was thought he must have known would be rejected by Louis. They suspected Marlborough did this in order to keep the war going, and so permit himself further opportunities for enriching himself. The treaty for peace, carried on at Gertruydenberg in 1710, was discussed by Marlborough and Townshend acting for England, the Marquis de Torcy acting for France, and Buys and Vanderdussen for the States. Several conferences took place, and preliminary articles were even signed, but the Allies demanded a security for the delivering of Spain. This Louis XIV. refused to do, and the conference broke up in July, 1710. See Swift's "Conduct of the Allies" (vol. v., pp. 55-123). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 13: Horace, "Odes," I. ii. 23, 24. "Our youth will hear, astonished at our crimes, That Roman armies Romans slew; Our youth, alas! will then be few."—A. MAYNWARING. [T.S.]]



NUMB. 15.[1]

FROM THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2, TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9, 1710.

E quibis hi vacuas implent sermonibus aures, Hi narrata ferunt alio: mensuraque ficti Crescit, et auditis aliquid novus adjicit autor, Illic Credulitas, illic temerarius Error, Vanaque Laetitia est, consternatique Timores, Seditioque recens, dubioque autore susurri.[2]

I am prevailed on, through the importunity of friends, to interrupt the scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of Political Lying. We are told, "the Devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning"; so that beyond contradiction, the invention is old: And which is more, his first essay of it was purely political, employed in undermining the authority of his Prince, and seducing a third part of the subjects from their obedience. For which he was driven down from Heaven, where (as Milton expresseth it) he had been viceroy of a great western province;[3] and forced to exercise his talent in inferior regions among other fallen spirits, or poor deluded men, whom he still daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so till he is chained in the bottomless pit.

But though the Devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation, by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is not so clear from history, though I have made some diligent enquiries: I shall therefore consider it only according to the modern system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in the southern part of our own island.

The poets tell us, that after the giants were overthrown by the gods, the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame.[4] And the fable is thus interpreted; that when tumults and seditions are quieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through a nation. So that by this account, lying is the last relief of a routed, earth-born, rebellious party in a state. But here, the moderns have made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of power, and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they have lost it: as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feed themselves when they are hungry, and bite those that tread upon them.

But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying; I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some circumstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is sometimes born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be nursed and dandled by the mob. Sometimes it is produced a monster, and licked into shape; at other times it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it: and often it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. Sometimes it is of noble birth; and sometimes the spawn of a stock-jobber. Here, it screams aloud at the opening of the womb; and there, it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbs half the kingdom with its noise, which though too proud and great at present to own its parents, I can remember in its whisper-hood. To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world without a sting, it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting, it dies.

No wonder, if an infant so miraculous in its birth, should be destined for great adventures: and accordingly we see it has been the guardian spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquer kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle: It gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and raise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years at committees of elections; can wash a blackamoor white; make a saint of an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the nation. This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, to dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, their ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In this glass you will behold your best friends clad in coats powdered with flower-de-luces[5] and triple crowns; their girdles hung round with chains, and beads, and wooden shoes: and your worst enemies adorned with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, and moderation, and a cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of a flying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she therefore dips them in mud, and soaring aloft scatters it in the eyes of the multitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced to stoop in dirty way for new supplies.

I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself in this town; to observe the different shapes, sizes, and colours, of those swarms of lies which buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's ears in summer: or those legions hovering every afternoon in Popes-head Alley[6], enough to darken the air; or over a club of discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scattered at elections.

There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from others of the faculty; that he ought to have but a short memory, which is necessary according to the various occasions he meets with every hour, of differing from himself, and swearing to both sides of a contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed, with whom he has to deal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it is convenient upon every article, to have some eminent person in our eye, from whence we copy our description. I have strictly observed this rule; and my imagination this minute represents before me a certain great man[7] famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which he owes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in England, for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts the next half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute or company to affirm or deny it; so that if you think to refine upon him, by interpreting every thing he says, as we do dreams by the contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally deceived, whether you believe him or no: the only remedy is to suppose that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at all. And besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every proposition: though at the same time I think he cannot with any justice be taxed for perjury, when he invokes God and Christ, because he has often fairly given public notice to the world, that he believes in neither.

Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this, can be of no great use to the owner or his party, after it has been often practised, and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken: Few lies carry the inventor's mark; and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand without being known for the author. Besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers; and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the company parted: or, like a physician who has found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that maxim, so frequent in every body's mouth, that "Truth will at last prevail." Here, has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our understandings, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution both in Church and State; and we at last were brought to the very brink of ruin; yet by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of those, who by their birth, education and merit, could pretend no higher than to wear our liveries; while others,[8] who by their credit, quality and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to the Revolution, were not only laid aside, as dangerous and useless; but loaden with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and pensioners to France; while Truth, who is said to lie in a well, seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I remember, it was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of landed men was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on as an ill omen; and we saw it was with the utmost difficulty that they could preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on their side; till they had learned those admirable expedients for deciding elections, and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld by most dexterous artifice and management: till the people began to apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in danger; then we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion to interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the people, I shall discourse more at large in some following paper; wherein I shall endeavour to undeceive those deluded or deluding persons, who hope or pretend, it is only a short madness in the vulgar, from which they may soon recover. Whereas I believe it will appear to be very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences; and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned, that "Truth" (however sometimes late) "will at last prevail."

[Footnote 1: No. 14 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Ovid, "Metamorphoses," xii. 56-61.

"The troubled air with empty sounds they beat. Intent to hear, and eager to repeat. Error sits brooding there, with added train Of vain Credulity, and Joys as vain: Suspicion, with Sedition joined, are near, And Rumours raised, and Murmurs mixed, and panic Fear." J. DRYDEN. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: "Paradise Lost," v. 708-710. Milton makes Satan say: "We possess the quarters of the North," and places his throne in "the limits of the North." By speaking of a western province Swift intends Ireland, then under the government of the Earl of Wharton. This paper may be read in connection with the 23rd number of "The Examiner," and the "Short Character of Wharton" (vol. v., pp. 1-28). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Fama was said to be a daughter of Terra. See Virgil, "Aeneid," iv. 173-178. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: A reply to the insinuations that the Tories were sympathetic to France, and that the Whigs were the true patriots. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6: The reprint has "Exchange Alley." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7: The Earl of Wharton. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 8: Refers to the Tories generally, and in particular to Sir Thomas Osborne, Bart. (1631-1712), who was created Duke of Leeds in 1694. In 1679, as Earl of Danby, he was impeached by the Commons, and imprisoned in the Tower for five years. "He assisted greatly," says Scott, "in the Revolution, yet continued a steady Tory, and avowed at Sacheverell's trial, that, had he known the Prince of Orange designed to assume the crown, he never would have drawn a sword for him." [T.S.]]



NUMB. 16.[1]

FROM THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9, TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 16, 1710.

—-medioque ut limite curras, Icare, ait, moneo: ne si demissior ibis, Unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat.[2]

It must be avowed, that for some years past, there have been few things more wanted in England, than such a paper as this ought to be; and such as I will endeavour to make it, as long as it shall be found of any use, without entering into the violences of either party. Considering the many grievous misrepresentations of persons and things, it is highly requisite, at this juncture, that the people throughout the kingdom, should, if possible, be set right in their opinions by some impartial hand, which has never been yet attempted: those who have hitherto undertaken it, being upon every account the least qualified of all human-kind for such a work.

We live here under a limited monarchy, and under the doctrine and discipline of an excellent Church: We are unhappily divided into two parties, both which pretend a mighty zeal for our religion and government, only they disagree about the means.[3] The evils we must fence against are, on one side, fanaticism and infidelity in religion; and anarchy, under the name of a commonwealth, in government: on the other side, popery, slavery, and the Pretender from France. Now to inform and direct us in our sentiments, upon these weighty points; here are on one side two stupid, illiterate scribblers, both of them fanatics by profession; I mean the "Review"[4] and "Observator."[5] On the other side we have an open Nonjuror,[6] whose character and person, as well as good learning and sense, discovered upon other subjects, do indeed deserve respect and esteem; but his "Rehearsal," and the rest of his political papers, are yet more pernicious than those of the former two. If the generality of the people know not how to talk or think, till they have read their lesson in the papers of the week, what a misfortune is it that their duty should be conveyed to them through such vehicles as those? For let some gentlemen think what they please, I cannot but suspect, that the two worthies I first mentioned, have in a degree done mischief among us; the mock authoritative manner of the one, and the insipid mirth of the other, however insupportable to reasonable ears, being of a level with great numbers among the lowest part of mankind. Neither was the author of the "Rehearsal," while he continued that paper, less infectious to many persons of better figure, who perhaps were as well qualified, and much less prejudiced, to judge for themselves.