The De Coverley Papers, From 'The Spectator' Part 11

ROSCOMMON.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy[174] with me, a.s.suring me at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. "The last I saw," said Sir Roger, "was the _Committee_, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good Church of England comedy." He then proceeded to inquire of me who this Distressed Mother was; and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a schoolboy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks[175] should be abroad. "I a.s.sure you,"

says he, "I thought I had fallen into their hands last night; for I observed two or three l.u.s.ty black men that followed me half-way up Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on[176]

to get away from them. You must know," continued the Knight with a smile, "I fancied they had a mind to _hunt_ me; for I remember an honest gentleman in my neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time, for which reason he has not ventured himself in town ever since. I might have shown them very good sport, had this been their design; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodged, and have played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their lives before." Sir Roger added, that if these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed very well in it; "for I threw them out," says he, "at the end of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the corner, and got shelter in my lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. However," says the Knight, "if Captain Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it is full, I will have my coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended."

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we conveyed him in safety to the play-house, where after having marched up the entry in good order, the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned with humanity[177] naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a mult.i.tude of people who seemed pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus[178], the Knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end.

One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after as much for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus.

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, "You cannot imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus his[179] threatening afterwards to leave her, the Knight shook his head and muttered to himself, "Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me in the ear, "These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray,"

says he, "you that are a critic, is the play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of."

The fourth act very luckily begun before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer: "Well," says the Knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, "I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the widow.

He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering he took for Astyanax[180]; but quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, "who," says he, "must needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him." Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, "On my word, a notable young baggage!"

As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the opportunity of the intervals between the acts, to express their opinion of the players, and of their respective parts. Sir Roger hearing a cl.u.s.ter of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time: "And let me tell you," says he, "though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them." Captain Sentry seeing two or three wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke[181] the Knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The Knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, and at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a b.l.o.o.d.y piece of work, that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralise (in his way) upon an evil conscience, adding, that _Orestes, in his madness, looked as if he saw something_.

As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear pa.s.sage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd.

Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodging in the same manner that we brought him to the play-house; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the performance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the old man.

L.

FOOTNOTES:

[174] _New tragedy._ _The Distressed Mother_, by Ambrose Phillips.

[175] _Mohocks._ Gangs of rowdies who roamed the streets at night and a.s.saulted pa.s.sers-by. See _Spectator_, NO. 324

[176] _Put on._ Put on speed.

[177] _Seasoned with humanity._ Tempered with kindliness.

[178] _Pyrrhus._ Son of Achilles, to whom Hector's widow, Andromache, had fallen as his share of the plunder of Troy.

[179] _Pyrrhus his._ This use is due to a wrong idea that the possessive termination is an abbreviation of _his_.

[180] _Astyanax._ Son of Hector and Andromache (and subject of one of the most touching pa.s.sages in Homer).

[181] _Smoke._ A slang word, equivalent to the modern _rag_.

NO. 383. TUESDAY, MAY 20

_Criminibus debent hortos._

JUV. _Sat._ i. ver. 75.

A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain'd.

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject for my next _Spectator_, I heard two or three irregular bounces[182] at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the Philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected[183]

that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring Garden[184], in case it proved a good evening. The Knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating[185] he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says Sir Roger, "I never make use of any body to row me, that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar[186] than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg."

[Ill.u.s.tration: I found all the Children of the Family got about my old Friend]

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed[187] the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Fox-Hall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which pa.s.sed in that glorious action, the Knight in the triumph of his heart made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the n.o.blest river in Europe, that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old Knight turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger: "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches[188] will very much mend the prospect; but church work is slow, church work is slow!"

I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that pa.s.ses by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, though at the same time it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire[189]. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that pa.s.sed by us upon the water; but to the Knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us, what queer old put[190] we had in the boat? with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length a.s.suming a face of magistracy, told us, "That if he were a Middles.e.x justice, he would make such vagrants know that her Majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land."

We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. "You must understand,"

says the Knight, "there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator! the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on the widow by the music of the nightingale!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her? But the Knight, being startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her, "she was a wanton baggage," and bid her go about her business.

We concluded our walk with a gla.s.s of Burton ale, and a slice of hung[191] beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the Knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the Knight's commands with a peremptory look.

I.

FOOTNOTES:

[182] _Bounces._ Loud knocks.

[183] _Recollected._ We should now say _recognised_.

[184] _Spring Garden._ At Vauxhall.

[185] _Speculating._ Ruminating.

[186] _Bate him a few strokes of his oar._ Excuse his rowing slowly.

[187] _Trimmed._ Balanced.

[188] _The fifty new churches._ Voted by Parliament in 1711 for the western suburbs.

[189] _Knight of the shire._ M.P. See p. 44.

[190] _Put._ Rustic, boor.

[191] _Hung._ Salted or spiced.