History of English Humour Volume II Part 5

"The cook, the butler, the groom, the market-man, and every other servant, who is concerned in the expenses of the family, should act as if his whole master's estate ought to be applied to that peculiar business. For instance, if the cook computes his master's estate to be a thousand pounds a year, he reasonably concludes that a thousand pounds a year will afford meat enough, and therefore he need not be sparing; the butler makes the same judgment; so may the groom and the coachman, and thus every branch of expense will be filled to your master's honour.

"Take all tradesmen's parts against your master, and when you are sent to buy anything, never offer to cheapen it, but generously pay the full demand. This is highly to your master's honour, and may be some shillings in your pocket, and you are to consider, if your master has paid too much, he can better afford the loss than a poor tradesman.

"Write your own name and your sweetheart's with the smoke of a candle on the roof of the kitchen, or the servant's hall to show your learning.

"Lay all faults upon a lap dog or favourite cat, a monkey, a parrot, or a child; or on the servant, who was last turned off; by this rule you will excuse yourself, do no hurt to anybody else, and save your master or lady the trouble and vexation of chiding.

"When you cut bread for a toast, do not stand idly watching it, but lay it on the coals, and mind your other business; then come back, and if you find it toasted quite through, sc.r.a.pe off the burnt side and serve it up.

"When a message is sent to your master, be kind to your brother servant who brings it; give him the best liquor in your keeping, for your master's honour; and, at the first opportunity he will do the same to you.

"When you are to get water for tea, to save firing, and to make more haste, pour it into the tea-kettle from the pot where cabbage or fish have been boiling, which will make it much wholesomer by curing the acid and corroding quality of the tea.

"Directions to cooks.--Never send up the leg of a fowl at supper, while there is a cat or dog in the house that can be accused of running away with it, but if there happen to be neither, you must lay it upon the rats, or a stray greyhound.

"When you roast a long joint of meat, be careful only about the middle, and leave the two extreme parts raw, which will serve another time and also save firing.

"Let a red-hot coal, now and then fall into the dripping pan that the smoke of the dripping may ascend and give the roast meat a high taste.

"If your dinner miscarries in almost every dish, how could you help it? You were teased by the footman coming into the kitchen; and to prove it, take occasion to be angry, and throw a ladleful of broth on one or two of their liveries.

"To Footmen.--In order to learn the secrets of other families, tell them those of your masters; thus you will grow a favourite both at home and abroad, and be regarded as a person of importance.

"Never be seen in the streets with a basket or bundle in your hands, and carry nothing but what you can hide in your pockets, otherwise you will disgrace your calling; to prevent which, always retain a blackguard boy to carry your loads, and if you want farthings, pay him with a good slice of bread or sc.r.a.p of meat.

"Let a shoe-boy clean your own boots first, then let him clean your master's. Keep him on purpose for that use, and pay him with sc.r.a.ps. When you are sent on an errand, be sure to edge in some business of your own, either to see your sweetheart, or drink a pot of ale with some brother servants, which is so much time clear gained. Take off the largest dishes and set them on with one hand, to show the ladies your strength and vigour, but always do it between two ladies that if the dish happens to slip, the soup or sauce may fall on their clothes, and not daub the floor."

We think that he might have written "directions" for the masters of his day, as by incidental allusions he makes, we find they were not unaccustomed to beat their servants.

Sarcasm was Swift's foible. But we must remember that the age in which he lived was that of Satire. Humour then took that form as in the latter days of Rome. Critical ac.u.men had attained a considerable height, but the state of affairs was not sufficiently settled and tranquil to foster mutual forbearance and amity. Swift, it must be granted, was not so personal as most of his contemporaries, seeking in his wit rather to amuse his friends than to wound his rivals. But his scoffing spirit made him enemies--some of whom taking advantage of certain expressions on church matters in "The Tale of a Tub" prejudiced Queen Anne, and placed an insuperable obstacle in the way of his ambition. He writes of himself.

"Had he but spared his tongue and pen He might have rose like other men; But power was never in his thought And wealth he valued not a groat."

In his poem on his own death, written in 1731, he concludes with the following general survey--

"Perhaps I may allow the Dean Had too much satire in his vein; And seemed determined not to starve it, Because no age could more deserve it.

Yet malice never was his aim He lashed the vice, but spared the name: No individual could repent Where thousands equally meant; His satire points out no defect But what all mortals may correct: For he abhorred that senseless tribe Who call it humour, when they gibe: He spared a hump or crooked nose Whose owners set not up for beaux.

Some genuine dulness moved his pity Unless it offered to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confessed He ne'er offended with a jest; But laughed to hear an idiot quote A verse of Horace, learned by drote.

He knew a hundred pleasing stories With all the turns of Whigs and Tories; Was cheerful to his dying day, And friends would let him have his way.

He gave the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad; And showed by one satiric touch, No nation wanted it so much, That kingdom he has left his debtor, I wish it soon may have a better."

We may here mention a minor luminary, which shone in the constellation in Queen Anne's cla.s.sic reign. Pope said that of all the men that he had met Arbuthnot had the most prolific wit, allowing Swift only the second place. Robinson Crusoe--at first thought to be a true narrative--was attributed to him, and in the company who formed themselves into the Scriblerus Club to write critiques or rather satires on the literature, science and politics of the day, we have the names of Oxford, Bolingbroke, Swift, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot. Of the last, who seems to have written mostly in prose, a few works survive devoid of all the coa.r.s.eness which stains most contemporary productions and also deficient in point of wit. It is noteworthy that the two authors who endeavoured to introduce a greater delicacy into the literature of the day, were both court physicians to Queen Anne. The death of this sovereign caused the Scriblerus project to be abandoned, but Gulliver's Travels, which had formed part of it, were afterwards continued, and some of the introductory papers remain, especially one called "Martinus Scriblerus,"

supposed to have been the work of Arbuthnot. It contains a violent onslaught princ.i.p.ally upon Sir Richard Blackmore's poetry, such as we should more easily attribute to Pope, or at least to his suggestions. It resembles "The Dunciad" in containing more bitterness than humour.

Examples are given of the "Pert style," the "Alamode" style, the "Finical style." The exceptions taken to such hyperbole as the following, seem to be the best founded--

OF A LION.

"He roared so loud and looked so wondrous grim His very shadow durst not follow him."

OF A LADY AT DINNER.

"The silver whiteness that adorns thy neck Sullies the plate, and makes the napkins black."

OF THE SAME.

"The obscureness of her birth Cannot eclipse the l.u.s.tre of her eyes Which make her all one light."

OF A BULL BAITING.

"Up to the stars the sprawling mastiffs fly And add new monsters to the frighted sky."

There is a certain amount of humour in Arbuthnot's "History of John Bull," and in his "Harmony in an Uproar." A letter to Frederick Handel, Esquire, Master of the Opera House in the Haymarket, from Hurlothrumbo Johnson, Esquire, Composer Extraordinary to all the theatres in Great Britain, excepting that of the Haymarket, commences--

"Wonderful Sir!--The mounting flames of my ambition have long aspired to the honour of holding a small conversation with you; but being sensible of the almost insuperable difficulty of getting at you, I bethought me a paper kite might best reach you, and soar to your apartment, though seated in the highest clouds, for all the world knows I can top you, fly as high as you will."

But we may consider his best piece to be "A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling."

"The Romans, tho' our conquerors, found themselves much outdone in dumplings by our forefathers; the Roman dumplings being no more to compare to those made by the Britons, than a stone dumpling is to a marrow pudding; though indeed the British dumpling at that time was little better than what we call a stone dumpling, nothing else but flour and water. But every generation growing wiser and wiser the project was improved, and dumpling grew to be pudding. One projector found milk better than water; another introduced b.u.t.ter; some added marrow, others plums; and some found out the use of sugar; so that to speak truth, we know not where to fix the genealogy or chronology of any of these pudding projectors to the reproach of our historians, who eat so much pudding, yet have been so ungrateful to the first professor of the n.o.ble science as not to find them a place in history.

"The invention of eggs was merely accidental. Two or three having casually rolled from off a shelf into a pudding, which a good wife was making, she found herself under the necessity either of throwing away her pudding or letting the eggs remain; but concluding that the innocent quality of the eggs would do no hurt, if they did no good, she merely jumbled them all together after having carefully picked out the sh.e.l.ls; the consequence is easily imagined, the pudding became a pudding of puddings, and the use of eggs from thence took its date. The woman was sent for to Court to make puddings for King John, who then swayed the sceptre; and gained such favour that she was the making of the whole family.

"From this time the English became so famous for puddings, that they are called pudding-eaters all over the world to this day.

"At her demise her son was taken into favour, and made the King's chief cook; and so great was his fame for puddings, that he was called Jack Pudding all over the kingdom, though in truth his real name was John Brand. This Jack Pudding, I say, became yet a greater favourite than his mother, insomuch that he had the King's ear as well as his mouth at command, for the King you must know was a mighty lover of pudding; and Jack fitted him to a hair. But what raised our hero in the esteem of this pudding-eating monarch was his second edition of pudding, he being the first that ever invented the art of broiling puddings, which he did to such perfection and so much to the King's liking (who had a mortal aversion to cold pudding) that he thereupon inst.i.tuted him Knight of the Gridiron, and gave him a gridiron of gold, the ensign of that order, which he always wore as a mark of his Sovereign's favour."

CHAPTER IV.

Steele--The Funeral--The Tatler--Contributions of Swift--Of Addison--Expansive Dresses--"Bodily Wit"--Rustic Obtuseness--Crosses in Love--Snuff-taking.

A new description of periodical was published in 1709, and met with deserved success. It was little more or less than the first lady's newspaper, consisting of a small half sheet printed on both sides, and sold three times a week. The price was a penny, and the form was so unpretentious that deprecators spoke of its "tobacco-paper" and "scurvy letter." Like Defoe's review, it was strong in Foreign War intelligence, but beyond this the aim was to attract readers, not by political sarcasm or coa.r.s.e jesting, but by sparkling satire on the foibles of the fashionable world. Addison says that the design was to bring philosophy to tea-tables, and to check improprieties "too trivial for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit," and that these papers had a "perceptible influence upon the conversation of the time, and taught the frolic and gay to unite merriment with decency." Johnson says that previously, with the exception of the writers for the theatre, "England had no masters of common life," and considers the Italian and the French to have introduced this kind of literature. From its social character, this publication gives us a great amount of interesting information as to the manners and customs of the time, and the name "Tatler" was selected "in honour of the fair."

The originator of this enterprise, Richard Steele, was English on his father's side, Irish on his mother's. He was educated at Charterhouse, and followed much the same course as his countryman, Farquhar. He tells us gaily, "At fifteen I was sent to the University, and stayed there for some time; but a drum pa.s.sing by, being a lover of music, I enlisted myself as a soldier." He seems to have been at this time ambitious of being one of those "topping fellows," of whom he afterwards spoke with so much contempt. Among the various appointments he successively obtained, was that of Gentleman Usher to Prince George, and that of Gazetteer, an office which gave him unusual facilities for affording his readers foreign intelligence. He was also Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, and wrote plays, his best being "The Conscious Lovers"

and "The Funeral." The latter was much liked by King William.

Notwithstanding its melancholy t.i.tle, it contained some good comic pa.s.sages, as where the undertaker marshalls his men and puts them through a kind of rehearsal:--

_Sable._ Well, come, you that are to be mourners in this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal--(_forming their countenances_)--this fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse; that wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall--so--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation, (_makes faces_.) Look yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think the gladder you are.

At the first commencement of the "Tatler," Steele seems to have intended, as was usual at the time, to write almost the whole newspaper himself, and he always continued nominally to do so under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. The only a.s.sistance he could have at all counted upon was that of Addison--his old schoolfellow at Charterhouse--whose contributions proved to be very scanty. We soon find him falling short of material and calling upon the the public for contributions. Thus he makes at the ends of some of the early numbers such suggestions as "Mr.

Bickerstaff thanks Mr. Quarterstaff for his kind and instructive letter," and "Any ladies, who have any particular stories of their acquaintance, which they are willing privately to make public, may send them to Isaac Bickerstaff."