The Tatler Volume Iii Part 2

Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti; Tempus abire tibi....--HOR., 2 Ep. ii. 214.

_From my own Apartment, January 8._

I thought to have given over my prosecution of the dead for this season, having by me many other projects for the reformation of mankind; but I have received so many complaints from such different hands, that I shall disoblige mult.i.tudes of my correspondents, if I do not take notice of them. Some of the deceased, who I thought had been laid quietly in their graves, are such hobgoblins in public a.s.semblies, that I must be forced to deal with them as Evander did with his triple-lived adversary, who, according to Virgil, was forced to kill him thrice over before he could despatch him.

"_Ter leto sternendus erat._"[15]

I am likewise informed, that several wives of my dead men have, since the decease of their husbands, been seen in many public places without mourning, or regard to common decency.

I am further advised, that several of the defunct, contrary to the Woollen Act,[16] presume to dress themselves in lace, embroidery, silks, muslins, and other ornaments forbidden to persons in their condition.

These and other the like informations moving me thereunto, I must desire, for distinction-sake, and to conclude this subject for ever, that when any of these posthumous persons appear, or are spoken of, their wives may be called "widows"; their houses, "sepulchres"; their chariots, "hea.r.s.es"; and their garments, "flannel": on which condition, they shall be allowed all the conveniences that dead men can in reason desire.

As I was writing this morning on this subject, I received the following letter:

"MR. BICKERSTAFF, _From the Banks of Styx_.

"I must confess I treated you very scurrilously when you first sent me hither; but you have despatched such mult.i.tudes after me to keep me in countenance, that I am very well reconciled both to you and my condition. We live very lovingly together; for as death makes us all equal, it makes us very much delight in one another's company. Our time pa.s.ses away much after the same manner as it did when we were among you: eating, drinking, and sleeping, are our chief diversions. Our quidnuncs between whiles go to a coffee-house, where they have several warm liquors made of the waters of Lethe, with very good poppy tea. We that are the sprightly geniuses of the place, refresh ourselves frequently with a bottle of mum,[17] and tell stories till we fall asleep. You would do well to send among us Mr. Dodwell's[18] book against the immortality of the soul, which would be of great consolation to our whole fraternity, who would be very glad to find that they are dead for good and all, and would in particular make me rest for ever,

"Yours, "JOHN PARTRIDGE.

"P.S.--Sir James[19] is just arrived here in good health."

The foregoing letter was the more pleasing to me, because I perceive some little symptoms in it of a resuscitation; and having lately seen the predictions of this author, which are written in a true Protestant spirit of prophecy, and a particular zeal against the French king, I have some thoughts of sending for him from the Banks of Styx, and reinstating him in his own house, at the sign of the Globe in Salisbury Street. For the encouragement of him and others, I shall offer to their consideration a letter which gives me an account of the revival of one of their brethren:

"SIR, _December 31._

"I have perused your _Tatler_ of this day,[20] and have wept over it with great pleasure: I wish you would be more frequent in your family pieces. For as I consider you under the notion of a great designer, I think these are not your least valuable performances. I am glad to find you have given over your face painting for some time, because, I think, you have employed yourself more in grotesque figures, than in beauties; for which reason, I would rather see you work upon history pieces, than on single portraits.

Your several draughts of dead men appear to me as pictures of still life, and have done great good in the place where I live. The squire of a neighbouring village, who had been a long time in the number of nonent.i.ties, is entirely recovered by them. For these several years past, there was not a hare in the county that could be at rest for him; and I think, the greatest exploit he ever boasted of, was, that when he was high sheriff of the county, he hunted a fox so far, that he could not follow him any farther by the laws of the land. All the hours he spent at home, were in swilling[21] himself with October, and rehearsing the wonders he did in the field. Upon reading your papers, he has sold his dogs, shook off his dead companions, looked into his estate, got the multiplication table by heart, paid his t.i.thes, and intends to take upon him the office of churchwarden next year. I wish the same success with your other patients, and am, &c."

_Ditto, January 9._

When I came home this evening, a very tight middle-aged woman presented to me the following pet.i.tion:

"_To the Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great Britain._

"The humble pet.i.tion of Penelope Prim, widow;

"Sheweth,

"That your pet.i.tioner was bred a clear-starcher and sempstress, and for many years worked to the Exchange; and to several aldermen's wives, lawyers' clerks, and merchants' apprentices.

"That through the scarcity caused by regraters of bread-corn (of which starch is made) and the gentry's immoderate frequenting the operas, the ladies, to save charges, have their heads washed at home, and the beaus put out their linen to common laundresses, so that your pet.i.tioner hath little or no work at her trade: for want of which she is reduced to such necessity, that she and her seven fatherless children must inevitably perish, unless relieved by your worship.

"That your pet.i.tioner is informed, that in contempt of your judgment p.r.o.nounced on Tuesday the third instant against the new-fashioned petticoat, or old-fashioned farthingale,[22] the ladies design to go on in that dress. And since it is presumed your worship will not suppress them by force, your pet.i.tioner humbly desires you would order, that ruffs may be added to the dress; and that she may be heard by her counsel, who has a.s.sured your pet.i.tioner, he has such cogent reasons to offer to your court, that ruffs and farthingales are inseparable; and that he questions not but two-thirds of the greatest beauties about town will have cambric collars on their necks before the end of Easter Term next.

He further says, that the design of our great-grandmothers in this petticoat, was to appear much bigger than the life; for which reason, they had false shoulder-blades, like wings, and the ruff above mentioned, to make their upper and lower parts of their bodies appear proportionable; whereas the figure of a woman in the present dress, bears (as he calls it) the figure of a cone, which (as he advises) is the same with that of an extinguisher, with a little k.n.o.b at the upper end, and widening downward, till it ends in a basis of a most enormous circ.u.mference.

"Your pet.i.tioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would restore the ruff to the farthingale, which in their nature ought to be as inseparable as the two Hungarian twins.[23]

"And your Pet.i.tioner shall ever pray."

I have examined into the allegations of this pet.i.tion, and find, by several ancient pictures of my own predecessors, particularly that of Dame Deborah Bickerstaff, my great-grandmother, that the ruff and farthingale are made use of as absolutely necessary to preserve the symmetry of the figure; and Mrs. Pyramid Bickerstaff, her second sister, is recorded in our family-book, with some observations to her disadvantage, as the first female of our house that discovered, to any besides her nurse and her husband, an inch below her chin or above her instep. This convinces me of the reasonableness of Mrs. Prim's demand; and therefore I shall not allow the reviving of any one part of that ancient mode, except the whole is complied with. Mrs. Prim is therefore hereby empowered to carry home ruffs to such as she shall see in the above-mentioned petticoats, and require payment on demand.

Mr. Bickerstaff has under consideration the offer from the Corporation of Colchester of four hundred pounds per annum, to be paid quarterly, provided that all his dead persons shall be obliged to wear the baize of that place.

[Footnote 14: Nichols suggests that Addison was at least partly responsible for this paper.]

[Footnote 15: "aeneid," viii. 566.]

[Footnote 16: The Act "for burying in wool" (30 Charles II. cap. 3) was intended to protect homespun goods. Sometimes a fine was paid for allowing a person of position to be "buried in linen, contrary to the Act of Parliament." The widow in Steele's "Funeral" (act v. sc. 2) says: "Take care I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm sure." See, too, Pope's "Moral Essays," i. 246:

"'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."

[Footnote 17: Ale brewed with wheat. John Philips ("Cyder," ii. 231) speaks of "bowls of fattening mum."]

[Footnote 18: Henry Dodwell, the nonjuror, died in 1711, in his seventieth year. He tried to prove that immortality was conferred on the soul only at baptism, by the gift of G.o.d, through the hands of the ordained clergy. The t.i.tle of the book alluded to is "An Epistolary Discourse concerning the Soul's Immortality."]

[Footnote 19: Sir James Baker. See No. 115.]

[Footnote 20: No. 114.]

[Footnote 21: The original editions read "swelling."]

[Footnote 22: See No. 116.]

[Footnote 23: Helen and Judith, two united twin-sisters, were born at Tzoni, in Hungary, October 26, 1701; lived to the age of twenty-one, and died in a convent at Petersburg, February 23, 1723. The mother, it is said, survived their birth, bore another child afterwards, and was alive when her singular twins were shown here, at a house in the Strand, near Charing Cross, in 1708. The writers of a periodical publication at that time seem to have examined them carefully, with a view to enable themselves to answer the many questions of their correspondents concerning them. See "The British Apollo," vol. i, Nos. 35, 36, 37, &c.

(1708), and the Royal Society's "Phil. Transact." vol. I. part 1, for the year 1757, art. 39. Nothing more can be well said of the Hungarian twins here, but that they were well shaped, had beautiful faces, and loved each other tenderly; they could read, write, and sing very prettily; they spoke the Hungarian, High and Low Dutch, and French languages, and learnt English when they were in this country (Nichols).]

No. 119. [ADDISON.

From _Tuesday, Jan. 10_, to _Thursday, Jan. 12, 1709-10_.

In tenui labor.--VIRG., Georg. iv. 6.