History of English Humour Volume II Part 3

In July, 1704, Defoe commenced a periodical which he called a "Review of the Affairs of France." It appeared twice, and afterwards three times a week. From the introduction, we might conclude that the periodical, though princ.i.p.ally containing war intelligence, would be partly of a humorous nature. He says--

"After our serious matters are over, we shall at the end of every paper present you with a little diversion, as anything occurs to make the world merry; and whether friend or foe, one party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open reproof, the world may meet with it there. Accordingly at the end of every paper we find 'Advice for the Scandalous Club: A weekly history of Nonsense, Impertinence, Vice, and Debauchery.'" This contained a considerable amount of indelicacy, and the humour was too much connected with ephemeral circ.u.mstances of the times to be very amusing at the present day. The Scandalous Club was a kind of Court of Morals, before whom all kinds of offences were brought for judgment, and it also settled questions on love affairs in a very judicious manner. Some of the advice is prompted by letters asking for it, but it is probable that they were mostly fict.i.tious and written by Defoe himself. Many of the shafts in this Review were directed against magistrates, and other men in authority. Thus we read in April 18, 1704:

"An honest country fellow made a complaint to the Club that he had been set in the stocks by the Justice of the Peace without any manner of reason. He told them that he happened to get a little drunk one night at a fair, and being somewhat quarrelsome, had beaten a man in his neighbourhood, broke his windows, and two or three such odd tricks.

'Well, friend,' said the Director of the Society, 'and was it for this the Justice set you in the stocks?' 'Yes!' replied the man. 'And don't you think you deserved it?' said the Director. 'Why, yes, Sir,' says the honest man; 'I had deserved it from you, if you had been the Justice, but I did not deserve it from Sir Edward--for it was not above a month before that he was so drunk that he fell into our mill-pond, and if I had not lugged him out he would have been drowned.' The Society told him he was a knave, and then voted 'that the Justice had done him no wrong in setting him in the stocks--but that he had done the nation wrong when he pulled him out of the pond,' and caused it to be entered in their books--'That Sir Edward was but an indifferent Justice of the Peace.'"

Sometimes religious subjects are touched upon. The following may be interesting at the present day--

"There happened a great and b.l.o.o.d.y fight this week, (July 18th 1704), between two ladies of quality, one a Roman Catholic, the other a Protestant; and as the matter had come to blows, and beauty was concerned in the quarrel, having been not a little defaced by the rudeness of the scratching s.e.x, the neighbours were called in to part the fray, and upon debate the quarrel was referred to the Scandalous Club. The matter was this:

"The Roman Catholic lady meets the Protestant lady in the Park, and found herself obliged every time she pa.s.sed her to make a reverent curtsey, though she had no knowledge of her or acquaintance with her.

The Protestant lady received it at first as a civility, but afterwards took it for a banter, and at last for an affront, and sends her woman to know the meaning of it. The Catholic lady returned for answer that she did not make her honours to the lady, for she knew no respect she deserved, but to the diamond cross she wore about her neck, which she, being a heretic, did not deserve to wear. The Protestant lady sent her an angry message, and withal some reflecting words upon the cross itself, which ended the present debate, but occasioned a solemn visit from the Catholic lady to the Protestant, where they fell into grievous disputes; and one word followed another till the Protestant lady offered some indignities to the jewel, took it from her neck and set her foot upon it--which so provoked the other lady that they fell to blows, till the waiting-women, having in vain attempted to part them, the footmen were fain to be called in. After they were parted, they ended the battle with their other missive weapon, the tongue--and there was all the eloquence of Billingsgate on both sides more than enough. At last, by the advice of friends it was, as is before noted, brought before the Society."

The judgment was that for a Protestant to wear a cross was a "ridiculous, scandalous piece of vanity"--that it should only be worn in a religious sense, and with due respect, and is not more fitting to be used as an ornament than "a gibbet, which, worn about the neck, would make but a scurvy figure."

Most of the stories show the democratic tendencies of the writer, for instance--

"A poor man's cow had got into a rich man's corn, and he put her into the pound; the poor man offered satisfaction, but the rich man insisted on unreasonable terms, and both went to the Justice of the Peace. The Justice advised the man to comply, for he could not help him; at last the rich man came to this point; he would have ten shillings for the damage. 'And will you have ten shillings,' says the poor man, 'for six pennyworth of damage?' 'Yes, I will,' says the rich man. 'Then the devil will have you,' says the poor man. 'Well,' says the rich man, 'let the devil and I alone to agree about that, give me the ten shillings.'"

"A gentleman came with a great equipage and a fine coach to the Society, and desired to be heard. He told them a long story of his wife; how ill-natured, how sullen, how unkind she was, and that in short she made his life very uncomfortable. The Society asked him several questions about her, whether she was

"Unfaithful? No.

"A thief? No.

"A s.l.u.t? No.

"A scold? No.

"A drunkard? No.

"A Gossip? No.

"But still she was an ill wife, and very bad wife, and he did not know what to do with her. At last one of the Society asked him, 'If his worship was a good husband,' at which being a little surprised, he could not tell what to say. Whereupon the Club resolved,

"1. That most women that are bad wives are made so by their husbands. 2.

That this Society will hear no complaint against a virtuous bad wife from a vicious good husband. 3. He that has a bad wife and can't find the reason of it in her, 'tis ten to one that he finds it in himself."

Sometimes correspondents ask advice as to which of several lovers they should choose. The following applicants have a different grievances.

"Gentlemen.--There are no less than sixty ladies of us, all neighbours, dwelling in the same village, that are now arrived at those years at which we expect (if ever) to be caressed and adored, or, at least flattered. We have often heard of the attempts of whining lovers; of the charming poems they had composed in praise of their mistresses' wit and beauty (tho' they have not had half so much of either of them as the meanest in our company), of the pa.s.sions of their love, and that death itself had presently followed upon a denial. But we find now that the men, especially of our village, are so dull and lumpish, so languid and indifferent, that we are almost forced to put words into their mouths, and when they have got them they have scarce spirit to utter them. So that we are apt to fear it will be the fate of all of us, as it is already of some, to live to be old maids. Now the thing, Gentlemen, that we desire of you is, that, if possible, you would let us understand the reason why the case is so mightily altered from what it was formerly; for our experience is so vastly different from what we have heard, that we are ready to believe that all the stories we have heard of lovers and their mistresses are fictions and mere banter."

The case of these ladies is indeed to be pitied, and the Society have been further informed that the backwardness or fewness of the men in that town has driven the poor ladies to unusual extremities, such as running out into the fields to meet the men, and sending their maids to ask them; and at last running away with their fathers' coachmen, prentices, and the like, to the particular scandal of the town.

The Society concluded that the ladies should leave the village "famous for having more coaches than Christians in it," as a learned man once took the freedom to tell them "from the pulpit" and go to market, _i.e._, to London.

The "Advice of the Scandalous Club" was discontinued from May, 1703.

Although we cannot say that Defoe carried his sword in a myrtle wreath, he certainly owed much of his celebrity to his insinuating under ambiguous language the boldest political opinions. He was fond of literary whimsicalities, and wrote a humorous "History," referring mostly to the events of the times. Towards the end of his career, he happily turned his talent for disguises and fictions into a quieter and more profitable direction. How many thousands remember him as the author of "Robinson Crusoe" who never heard a word about his jousts and conflicts, his animosities and misfortunes!

The last century, although adorned by several celebrated wits, was less rich in humour than the present. Literature had a grave and pedantic character, for where there was any mental activity, instruction was sought almost to the exclusion of gaiety. It required a greater spread of education and experience to create a source of superior humour, or to awaken any considerable demand for it. Hence, although the taste was so increased that several periodicals of a professedly humorous nature were started, they disappeared soon after their commencement. To record their brief existence is like writing the epitaphs of the departed. Towards the termination of the previous century, comic literature was represented by an occasional fly-sheet, shot off to satirize some absurdity of the day. The first humorous periodical which has come to our knowledge, partakes, as might have been expected, of an ecclesiastical character and betokens the severity of the times. It appeared in 1670, under the t.i.tle of "Jesuita Vapulans, or a Whip for the Fool's Back, and a Gad for his Foul Mouth." The next seems to have been a small weekly paper called "Herac.l.i.tus Ridens," published in 1681.

It was mostly directed against Dissenters and Republicans; and in No. 9, we have a kind of Litany commencing:--

"From Commonwealth, Cobblers and zealous State Tinkers, From Speeches and Expedients of Politick Blinkers, From Rebellion, Taps, and Tapsters, and Skinkers, Libera Nos.

"From Papists on one hand, and Phanatick on th' other, From Presbyter Jack, the Pope's younger brother, And Congregational Daughters, far worse than their Mother, Libera Nos."

In the same year appeared "Hippocrates Ridens," directed against quacks and pretenders to physic, who seem then to have been numerous. The contents of these papers were mostly in dialogue--a form which seems to have been approved, as it was afterwards adopted in similar publications. These papers do not seem to have been written by contributors from the public, but by one or two persons, and this, I believe, was the case with all the periodicals of this time, and one cause of their want of permanence--the periodical was not carried on by an editor, but by its author.

The "London Spy" appeared in 1699, and went through eighteen monthly parts. Any one who wishes to find a merry description of London manners at the end of the seventeenth century, cannot look in a better place. It was written by Edward (Ned) Ward, author of an indifferent narrative ent.i.tled "A Trip to Jamaica;" but he must have possessed considerable observation and talent. A man who proposes to visit and unmask all the places of resort, high and low in the metropolis, could not have much refinement in his nature, but at the present day we cannot help wondering how a work should have been published and bought, containing so much gross language.

Under the character of a countryman who has come up to see the world, he gives us some amusing glimpses of the metropolis, for instance. He goes to dine with some beaux at a tavern, and gives the following description of the entertainment:--

"As soon as we came near the bar, a thing started up all ribbons, lace, and feathers, and made such a noise with her bell and her tongue together, that had half-a-dozen paper-mills been at work within three yards of her, they'd have signified no more to her clamorous voice than so many lutes to a drum, which alarmed two or three nimble-heel'd fellows aloft, who shot themselves downstairs with as much celerity as a mountebank's Mercury upon a rope from the top of a church-steeple, every one charged with a mouthful of 'coming! coming!' This sudden clatter at our appearance so surprised me that I looked as silly as a b.u.mpkin translated from the plough-tail to the play-house, when it rains fire in the tempest, or when Don John's at dinner with the subterranean a.s.sembly of terrible hobgoblins. He that got the start and first approached us of these greyhound-footed emissaries, desir'd us to walk up, telling my companion his friends were above; then with a hop, stride and jump, ascended the stair-head before us, and from thence conducted us to a s.p.a.cious room, where about a dozen of my schoolfellow's acquaintances were ready to receive us. Upon our entrance they all started up, and on a suddain screwed themselves into so many antick postures, that had I not seen them first erect, I should have query'd with myself, whether I was fallen into the company of men or monkeys.

"This academical fit of riggling agility was almost over before I rightly understood the meaning on't, and found at last they were only showing one another how many sorts of apes' gestures and fops'

cringes had been invented since the French dancing-masters undertook to teach our English gentry to make scaramouches of themselves; and how to entertain their poor friends, and pacifie their needy creditors with compliments and congies. When every person with abundance of pains had shown the ultimate of his breeding, contending about a quarter of an hour who should sit down first, as if we waited the coming of some herauld to fix us in our proper places, which with much difficulty being at last agreed on, we proceed to a whet of old hock to sharpen our appet.i.tes to our approaching dinner; though I confess my stomach was as keen already as a greyhound's to his supper after a day's coursing, or a miserly livery-man's, who had fasted three days to prepare himself for a Lord Mayor's feast. The honest cook gave us no leisure to tire our appet.i.tes by a tedious expectancy; for in a little time the cloth was laid, and our first course was ushered up by the _dominus factotum_ in great order to the table, which consisted of two calves'-heads and a couple of geese. I could not but laugh in my conceit to think with what judgment the caterer had provided so lucky an entertainment for so suitable a company. After the victuals were pretty well cooled, in complimenting who should begin first, we all fell to; and i'faith I found by their eating, they were no ways affronted by their fare; for in less time than an old woman could crack a nut, we had not left enough to dine the bar-boy. The conclusion of our dinner was a stately Cheshire cheese, of a groaning size, of which we devoured more in three minutes than a million of maggots could have done in three weeks.

After cheese comes nothing; then all we desired was a clear stage and no favour; accordingly everything was whipped away in a trice by so cleanly a conveyance, that no juggler by virtue of Hocus Pocus could have conjured away b.a.l.l.s with more dexterity. All our empty plates and dishes were in an instant changed into full quarts of purple nectar and unsullied gla.s.ses. Then a b.u.mper to the Queen led the van of our good wishes, another to the Church Established, a third left to the whimsie of the toaster, till at last their slippery engines of verbosity coined nonsense with such a facil fluency, that a parcel of alley-gossips at a christening, after the sack had gone twice round, could not with their tattling tormentors be a greater plague to a fumbling G.o.dfather, than their lame jest and impertinent conundrums were to a man of my temper. Oaths were as plenty as weeds in an alms-house garden.

"The night was spent in another tavern in harmony, the songs being such as:--

"Musicks a crotchet the sober think vain, The fiddle's a wooden projection, Tunes are but flirts of a whimsical brain, Which the bottle brings best to perfection: Musicians are half-witted, merry and mad, The same are all those that admire 'em, They're fools if they play unless they're well paid, And the others are blockheads to hire 'em."

Perhaps the most interesting account is that of St. Paul's Cathedral--then in progress. We all know that it was nearly fifty years in building, but have not perhaps been aware of all the causes of the delay:--

"Thence we turned through the west gate of St. Paul's Churchyard, where we saw a parcel of stone-cutters and sawyers so very hard at work, that I protest, notwithstanding the vehemency of their labour, and the temperateness of the season, instead of using their handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat off their faces, they were most of them blowing their nails. 'Bless me!' said I to my friend, 'sure this church stands in a colder climate than the rest of the nation, or else those fellows are of a strange const.i.tution to seem ready to freeze at such warm exercise.' 'You must consider,' says my friend, 'this is work carried on at a national charge, and ought not to be hastened on in a hurry; for the greater reputation it will gain when it's finished will be, "That it was so many years in building."' From thence we moved up a long wooden bridge that led to the west portic.u.m of the church, where we intermixed with such a train of promiscuous rabble that I fancied we looked like the beasts driving into the ark in order to replenish a new succeeding world....

"We went a little farther, where we observed ten men in a corner, very busie about two men's work, taking as much care that everyone should have his due proportion of the labour, as so many thieves in making an exact division of their booty. The wonderful piece of difficulty, the whole number had to perform, was to drag along a stone of about three hundred weight in a carriage in order to be hoisted upon the moldings of the cupula, but were so fearful of dispatching this facile undertaking with too much expedition, that they were longer in hauling on't half the length of the church, than a couple of l.u.s.ty porters, I am certain, would have been carrying it to Paddington, without resting of their burthen.

"We took notice of the vast distance of the pillars from whence they turn the cupula, on which, they say, is a spire to be erected three hundred feet in height, whose towering pinnacle will stand with such stupendous loftiness above Bow Steeple dragon or the Monument's flaming urn, that it will appear to the rest of the Holy Temples like a cedar of Lebanon, among so many shrubs, or a Goliath looking over the shoulders of so many Davids."

"The British Apollo, or curious Amus.e.m.e.nts for the Ingenious, performed by a Society of Gentlemen;" appeared in 1708, and seems to have been a weekly periodical, and to have been soon discontinued. The greater part of it consisted of questions and answers. Information was desired on all sorts of abstruse and absurd points--some scriptural, others referring to natural philosophy, or to matters of social interest.

_Question._ Messieurs. Pray instruct your Pet.i.tioner how he shall go away for the ensuing Long Vacation, having little liberty, and less money. Yours, SOLITARY.

_Answer._ Study the virtues of patience and abstinence. A right judgment in the theory may make the practice more agreeable.

_Ques._ Gentlemen. I desire your resolution of the following question, and you will oblige your humble servant, Sylvia. Whether a woman hath not a right to know all her husband's concerns, and in particular whether she may not demand a sight of all the letters he receives, which if he denies, whether she may not open them privately without his consent?

_Ans._ Gently, gently, good nimble-fingered lady, you run us out of breath and patience to trace your unexampled ambition. What! break open your husband's letters! no, no; that privilege once granted, no chain could hold you; you would soon proceed to break in upon his conjugal affection, and commit a burglary upon the cabinet of his authority. But to be serious, although a well-bred husband would hardly deny a wife the satisfaction of perusing his familiar letters, we can noways think it prudent, much less his duty, to communicate all to her; since most men, especially such as are employed in public affairs, are often trusted with important secrets, and such as no wife can reasonably pretend to claim knowledge of.

_Ques._ Apollo say, Whence 'tis I pray, The ancient custom came, Stockins to throw (I'm sure you know,) At bridegroom and dame?

_Ans._ When Britons bold Bedded of old, Sandals were backward thrown, The pair to tell, That ill or well, The act was all their own.