The Tatler Volume Iii Part 31

She now drew open the curtains, and by the help of moonlight saw his hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable reflection upon her goodness and his own villainy, that he jumped to the bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His wife had still strength to go to her sister's apartment, and give her an account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their b.a.l.l.s took place, and both immediately expired.

[Footnote 263: "Last Sunday Mr. Francis Eustace committed a most barbarous murder on the body of his wife, by giving her seven or eight stabs with his sword, of which she died instantly. He jumped out of the window, and falling on a palisado pale, tore his legs and thighs in such a manner that he was forced to have them dressed by the surgeon, who is since sent to Newgate for letting him escape, and a proclamation is issued out for apprehending him" (_British Mercury_, 1710).]

No. 173. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, May 16_, to _Thursday, May 18, 1710_.

----Sapientia prima est Stult.i.tia caruisse.--HOR., I Ep. i. 41.

_Sheer Lane, May 17._

When I first began to learn to push[264] this last winter, my master had a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"[265]

was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French gentleman was making a full pa.s.s at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of education so well, as to make my pa.s.ses so clear, and recover hand and foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers.

The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt.

In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.

I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you would stand in admiration."----"I a.s.sure you," continued she, "for all he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:

_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus, Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?_[266]

and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar.

I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed.

But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made generous in aeneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did before I had a sense of pa.s.sion, for not apprehending that the smile of Lalage was what pleased Horace;[267] and I verily believe, the stripes I suffered about _digito male pertinaci_[268] has given that irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against coquettes.

As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him, they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say, there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies, and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time.

All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers like waiting-servants, who report what pa.s.sed at their master's table; but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which they were uttered.

[Footnote 264: Fence.]

[Footnote 265: Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."]

[Footnote 266: Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.]

[Footnote 267: See 1 Od. xxii. 23:

"Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem."

[Footnote 268: Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.]

No. 174. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 18_, to _Sat.u.r.day, May 20, 1710_.

Quem mala stult.i.tia, et quaecunque inscitia veri, Caec.u.m agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex Autumat.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

_From my own Apartment, May 19._

The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service.[269]

We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen.

The care and information of the former I a.s.sign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr.

Langham.[270] These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such _literati_ as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.

It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a n.o.ble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college[271] (who have long inhabited this quarter), in the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may have time to give him his broth without danger.

But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom the other talks to.

The pa.s.sion which first touched the brain of both these persons was envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent.

Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others.

To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions.

This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.

This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agreeable.

My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr.

Kidney,[272] with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view.

_St. James's Coffee-house, May 19._

This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:

From the Camp before Douay,[273] May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the French a.s.sembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and their left near Crevecoeur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the 24th, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry and Isez-Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, from Lille and Tournay, and the ca.n.a.ls and d.y.k.es we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from the right, to possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circ.u.mvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left towards Arras, and, according to our advices, will pa.s.s the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and Liege troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they pa.s.s the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle: but if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because in our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults both our siege and convoys.

Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed will have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to a.s.sist in council.

Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the _avant fosse_ at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in three or four days batteries will be raised on the _glacis_, to batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town.

Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of the States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd, to renew the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the 26th, and had communicated to the States-General the new overtures that were made on the part of France, which it is believed, if they are in earnest, may produce a general treaty.

[Footnote 269: See Nos. 125, 127, 175.]

[Footnote 270: Two of the numerous astrologers who lived in Moorfields.]