The Tatler Volume I Part 30

Sir MARK. If the fashion of quarrelling and tilting was so often changed in your time, Colonel Plume, a man might fight, yet lose his credit for want of understanding the fashion.

Col. PLUME. Why, Sir Mark, in the beginning of July, a man would have been censured for want of courage, or been thought indigent of the true notions of honour, if he had put up [with] words, which in the end of September following, one could not resent without pa.s.sing for a brutal and quarrelsome fellow.

Sir MARK. But, Colonel, were duels or rencounters most in fashion in those days?

Col. PLUME. Your men of nice honour, sir, were for avoiding all censure of advantage which they supposed might be taken in a rencounter; therefore they used seconds, who were to see that all was upon the square, and make a faithful report of the whole combat; but in a little time it became a fashion for the seconds to fight, and I'll tell you how it happened.

Mr. SAGE. Pray do, Colonel Plume, and the method of a duel at that time, and give us some notion of the punctos upon which your nice men quarrelled in those days.

Col. PLUME. I was going to tell you, Mr. Sage, that one Cornet Modish had desired his friend, Captain Smart's, opinion in some affair, but did not follow it; upon which Captain Smart sent Major Adroit (a very topping fellow of those times) to the person that had slighted his advice. The Major never inquired into the quarrel, because it was not the manner then among the very topping fellows; but got two swords of an equal length, and then waited upon Cornet Modish, desiring him to choose his sword, and meet his friend Captain Smart. Cornet Modish came with his friend to the place of combat; there the princ.i.p.als put on their pumps, and stripped to their shirts, to show they had nothing but what men of honour carry about them, and then engaged.

Sir MARK. And did the seconds stand by, sir?

Col. PLUME. It was a received custom till that time; but the swords of those days being pretty long, and the princ.i.p.als acting on both sides upon the defensive, and the morning being frosty, Major Adroit desired that the other second, who was also a very topping fellow, would try a thrust or two only to keep them warm, till the princ.i.p.als had decided the matter, which was agreed to by Modish's second, who presently whipped Adroit through the body, disarmed him, and then parted the princ.i.p.als, who had received no harm at all.

Mr. SAGE. But was not Adroit laughed at?

Col. PLUME. On the contrary, the very topping fellows were ever after of opinion, that no man who deserved that character, could serve as a second, without fighting; and the Smarts and Modishes finding their account in it, the humour took without opposition.

Mr. SAGE. Pray, Colonel, how long did that fashion continue?

Col. PLUME, Not long neither, Mr. Sage; for as soon as it became a fashion, the very topping fellows thought their honour reflected upon, if they did not proffer themselves as seconds when any of their friends had a quarrel; so that sometimes there were a dozen of a side.

Sir MARK. Bless me! If that custom had continued, we should have been at a loss now for our very pretty fellows; for they seem to be the proper men to officer, animate, and keep up an army: but, pray, sir, how did that sociable manner of tilting grow out of mode?

Col. PLUME. Why, sir, I'll tell you; it was a law among the combatants, that the party which happened to have the first man disarmed or killed, should yield as vanquished; which some people thought might encourage the Modishes and Smarts in quarrelling, to the destruction of only the very topping fellows; and as soon as this reflection was started, the very topping fellows thought it an inc.u.mbrance upon their honour to fight at all themselves. Since that time, the Modishes and the Smarts, throughout all Europe, have extolled the French king's edict.

Sir MARK. Our very pretty fellows, whom I take to be the successors of the very topping fellows, think a quarrel so little fashionable, that they will not be exposed to it by another man's vanity, or want of sense.

Mr. SAGE. But, Colonel, I have observed in your account of duels, that there was a great exactness in avoiding all advantage that might possibly be between the combatants.

Col. PLUME. That's true, sir; for the weapons were always equal.

Mr. SAGE. Yes, sir; but suppose an active, adroit, strong man, had insulted an awkward, or a feeble, or an unpractised swordsman.

Col. PLUME. Then, sir, they fought with pistols.

Mr. SAGE. But, sir, there might be a certain advantage that way; for a good marksman will be sure to hit his man at twenty yards distance; and a man whose hand shakes (which is common to men that debauch in pleasures, or have not used pistols out of their holsters) won't venture to fire, unless he touches the person he shoots at. Now, sir, I am of opinion, that one can get no honour in killing a man (if one has it all rug,[388] as the gamesters say), when they have a trick to make the game secure, though they seem to play upon the square.

Sir MARK. In truth, Mr. Sage, I think such a fact must be murder in a man's own private conscience, whatever it may appear to the world.

Col. PLUME. I have known some men so nice, that they would not fight but upon a cloak without pistols.

Mr. SAGE. I believe a custom, well established, would outdo the Grand Monarch's edict.[389]

Sir MARK. And bullies would then leave off their long swords; but I don't find that a very pretty fellow can stay to change his sword, when he is insulted by a bully with a long diego,[390] though his own at the same time be no longer than a penknife; which will certainly be the case, if such little swords are in mode. Pray, Colonel, how was it between the hectors of your time and the very topping fellows?

Col. PLUME. Sir, long swords happened to be generally worn in those times.

Mr. SAGE. In answer to what you were saying, Sir Mark, give me leave to inform you, that your knights-errant (who were the very pretty fellows of those ancient times) thought they could not honourably yield, though they had fought their own trusty weapons to the stumps; but would venture as boldly with the page's leaden sword, as if it had been of enchanted metal. Whence I conceive, there must be a spice of romantic gallantry in the composition of that very pretty fellow.

Sir MARK. I am of opinion, Mr. Sage, that fashion governs a very pretty fellow; nature, or common sense, your ordinary persons, and sometimes men of fine parts.

Mr. SAGE. But what is the reason, that men of the most excellent sense and morals (in other points) a.s.sociate their understandings with the very pretty fellows in that chimaera of a duel?

Sir MARK. There's no disputing against so great a majority.

Mr. SAGE. But there is one scruple (Colonel Plume) and I have done: don't you believe there may be some advantage even upon a cloak with pistols, which a man of nice honour would scruple to take?

Col. PLUME. Faith, I can't tell, sir; but since one may reasonably suppose, that (in such a case) there can be but one so far in the wrong as to occasion matters to come to that extremity, I think the chance of being killed should fall but on one; whereas by their close and desperate manner of fighting, it may very probably happen to both.

Sir MARK. Why, gentlemen, if they are men of such nice honour (and must fight), there will be no fear of foul play, if they threw up cross or pile[391] who should be shot.

[Footnote 383: Job x.x.xviii. 4, 8, 11.]

[Footnote 384: There was a difference between the University terms and the Law terms.]

[Footnote 385: Spencer Cowper (1669-1727), brother of Earl Cowper, and afterwards a judge of the Common Pleas. He was one of the managers of the impeachment of Sacheverell in 1710.]

[Footnote 386: See Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, 205.]

[Footnote 387: At Whitehall.]

[Footnote 388: _Cf._ "Wentworth Papers," p. 394: "June 29, 1714. The changes at Court does not go so rug as some people expected and gave out, that 'twas to be all intire Tory with the least seeming mixture of Whigs."]

[Footnote 389: See _Spectator_, No. 97.]

[Footnote 390: A sword. Don Diego was a familiar name for a Spaniard with both English and French writers in the seventeenth century. San Diego is a corruption of Santiago (St. James), the patron saint of Spain.]

[Footnote 391: A pillar, the design on one side of a coin, bearing on the other a cross. Swift says, "This I humbly conceive to be perfect boys' play; cross, I win, and pile, you lose."]

No. 40. [STEELE.

From _Sat.u.r.day, July 9_, to _Tuesday, July 12_, 1709.

Will's Coffee-house, July 11.

Letters from the city of London give an account of a very great consternation that place is in at present, by reason of a late inquiry made at Guildhall, whether a n.o.ble person[392] has parts enough to deserve the enjoyment of the great estate of which he is possessed. The city is apprehensive that this precedent may go further than was at first imagined. The person against whom this inquisition is set up by his relations, is a peer of a neighbouring kingdom, and has in his youth made some few bulls, by which it is insinuated, that he has forfeited his goods and chattels. This is the more astonishing, in that there are many persons in the said city who are still more guilty than his lordship, and who, though they are idiots, do not only possess, but have also themselves acquired great estates, contrary to the known laws of this realm, which vests their possessions in the Crown. There is a gentleman of this coffee-house at this time exhibiting a bill in Chancery against his father's younger brother, who by some strange magic has arrived at the value of half a plum, as the citizens call a hundred thousand pounds; and in all the time of growing up to that wealth, was never known in any of his ordinary words or actions to discover any proof of reason. Upon this foundation my friend has set forth, that he is illegally master of his coffers, and has writ two epigrams to signify his own pretensions and sufficiency for spending that estate. He has inserted in his plea some things which I fear will give offence; for he pretends to argue, that though a man has a little of the knave mixed with the fool, he is nevertheless liable to the loss of goods; and makes the abuse of reason as just an avoidance of an estate as the total absence of it. This is what can never pa.s.s; but witty men are so full of themselves, that there is no persuading them; and my friend will not be convinced, but that upon quoting Solomon, who always used the word "fool" as a term of the same signification with "unjust," and makes all deviation from goodness and virtue to come under the notion of folly--I say, he doubts not, but by the force of this authority, let his idiot uncle appear never so great a knave, he shall prove him a fool at the same time. This affair led the company here into an examination of these points; and none coming here but wits, what was a.s.serted by a young lawyer, that a lunatic is in the care of the Chancery, but a fool in that of the Crown, was received with general indignation. "Why that?"

says old Renault. "Why that? Why must a fool be a courtier more than a madman? This is the iniquity of this dull age: I remember the time when it went on the mad side; all your top wits were scowrers,[393] rakes, roarers, and demolishers of windows. I remember a mad lord who was drunk five years together, and was the envy of that age, and is faintly imitated by the dull pretenders to vice and madness in this. Had he lived to this day, there had not been a fool in fashion in the whole kingdom." When Renault had done speaking, a very worthy man a.s.sumed the discourse: "This is," said he, "Mr. Bickerstaff, a proper argument for you to treat in your article from this place; and if you would send your Pacolet into all our brains, you would find, that a little fibre or valve, scarce discernible, makes the distinction between a politician and an idiot. We should therefore throw a veil upon those unhappy instances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reason and understanding, as we should avert our eyes with abhorrence from such as live in perpetual abuse and contradiction to these n.o.ble faculties. Shall this unfortunate man be divested of his estate, because he is tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, invades no man's bed, nor spends the estate he owes his children and his character; when one who shows no sense above him, but in such practices, shall be esteemed in his senses, and possibly may pretend to the guardianship of him who is no ways his inferior, but in being less wicked? We see old age brings us indifferently into the same impotence of soul, wherein nature has placed this lord. There is something very fantastical in the distribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives these persons into the ward and care of the Crown, because that is best able to protect them from injuries, and the impositions of craft and knavery; that the life of an idiot may not ruin the entail of a n.o.ble house, and his weakness may not frustrate the industry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we say, with his eyes open, and all men's eyes upon him, destroys those purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! Folly and guilt are tolerated! Mr. Locke has somewhere made a distinction between a madman and a fool:[394] a fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclusion; but a madman is one who draws a just inference from false principles. Thus the fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay asleep, and hid it, and then waited to see what he would say when he awakened and missed his headpiece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be surprised to find such an alteration in things since he fell asleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was off. A madman fancies himself a prince; but upon his mistake, he acts suitably to that character; and though he is out in supposing he has princ.i.p.alities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in straw, yet you shall see him keep the port of a distressed monarch in all his words and actions. These two persons are equally taken into custody: but what must be done to half this good company, who every hour of their life are knowingly and wittingly both fools and madmen, and yet have capacities both of forming principles, and drawing conclusions, with the full use of reason?"