History of English Humour, Vol. 2
by A. G. K. L'Estrange · English · Gutenberg #18906 · 554,319 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: History of English Humour, Vol. 2
Author: A. G. K. L'Estrange
Release date: July 25, 2006 [eBook #18906]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18906
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Transcriber's note:
The letter "e" with a macron is rendered [=e] in this text.
The astute reader will notice there is no Chapter XV in the
Table of Contents or in the text. This was a printer's error
in the original book. The chapters were incorrectly numbered,
but no chapter was missing. This e-book has been transcribed
to match the original.
HISTORY OF ENGLISH HUMOUR
With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour.
by
THE REV. A. G. L'ESTRANGE,
Author of
"The Life of the Rev. William Harness,"
"From the Thames to the Tamar,"
Etc.
In Two Volumes.
Vol. II.
London:
Hurst and Blackett, Publishers,
13, Great Marlborough Street.
1878.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
Burlesque--Parody--The "Splendid Shilling"--Prior--Pope--Ambrose
Philips--Parodies of Gray's Elegy--Gay 1
CHAPTER II.
Defoe--Irony--Ode to the Pillory--The "Comical Pilgrim"--The
"Scandalous Club"--Humorous Periodicals--Heraclitus
Ridens--The London Spy--The British
Apollo 22
CHAPTER III.
Swift--"Tale of a Tub"--Essays--Gulliver's Travels--Variety
of Swift's Humour--Riddles--Stella's Wit--Directions
for Servants--Arbuthnot 44
CHAPTER IV.
Steele--The Funeral--The Tatler--Contributions of Swift--Of
Addison--Expansive Dresses--"Bodily Wit"--Rustic
Obtuseness--Crosses in Love--Snuff-taking 62
CHAPTER V.
Spectator--The Rebus--Injurious Wit--The Everlasting
Club--The Lovers' Club--Castles in the Air--The
Guardian--Contributions by Pope--"The Agreeable
Companion"--The Wonderful Magazine--Joe Miller--Pivot
Humour 77
CHAPTER VI.
Sterne--His Versatility--Dramatic Form--Indelicacy--Sentiment
and Geniality--Letters to his Wife--Extracts
from his Sermons--Dr. Johnson 99
CHAPTER VII.
Dodsley--"A Muse in Livery"--"The Devil's a Dunce"--"The
Toy Shop"--Fielding--Smollett 113
CHAPTER VIII.
Cowper--Lady Austen's Influence--"John Gilpin"--"The
Task"--Goldsmith--"The Citizen of the World"--Humorous
Poems--Quacks--Baron Münchausen 127
CHAPTER IX.
The Anti-Jacobin--Its Objects and Violence--"The
Friends of Freedom"--Imitation of Latin Lyrics--The
"Knife Grinder"--The "Progress of Man" 141
CHAPTER X.
Wolcott--Writes against the Academicians--Tales of a
Hoy--"New Old Ballads"--"The Sorrows of Sunday"--Ode
to a Pretty Barmaid--Sheridan--Comic Situations--"The
Duenna"--Wits 150
CHAPTER XI.
Southey--Drolls of Bartholomew Fair--The "Doves"--Typographical
Devices--Puns--Poems of Abel Shufflebottom 164
CHAPTER XII.
Lamb--His Farewell to Tobacco--Pink Hose--On the
Melancholy of Tailors--Roast Pig 175
CHAPTER XIII.
Byron--Vision of Judgment--Lines to Hodgson--Beppo--Humorous
Rhyming--Profanity of the Age 184
CHAPTER XIV.
Theodore Hook--Improvisatore Talent--Poetry--Sydney
Smith--The "Dun Cow"--Thomas Hood--Gin--Tylney
Hall--John Trot--Barham's Legends 196
CHAPTER XVI.
Douglas Jerrold--Liberal Politics--Advantages of Ugliness--Button
Conspiracy--Advocacy of Dirt--The "Genteel
Pigeons" 207
CHAPTER XVII.
Thackeray--His Acerbity--The Baronet--The Parson--Medical
Ladies--Glorvina--"A Serious Paradise" 216
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dickens--Sympathy with the Poor--Vulgarity--Geniality--Mrs.
Gamp--Mixture of Pathos and Humour--Lever
and Dickens compared--Dickens' power of Description--General
Remarks 226
CHAPTER XIX.
Variation--Constancy--Influence of Temperament--Of
Observation--Bulls--Want of Knowledge--Effects
of Emotion--Unity of the Sense of the Ludicrous 241
CHAPTER XX.
Definition--Difficulties of forming one of Humour 276
CHAPTER XXI.
Charm of Mystery--Complication--Poetry and Humour
compared--Exaggeration 285
CHAPTER XXII.
Imperfection--An Impression of Falsity implied--Two
Views taken by Philosophers--Firstly that of Voltaire,
Jean Paul, Brown, the German Idealists, Léon Dumont,
Secondly that of Descartes, Marmontel and Dugald
Stewart--Whately on Jests--Nature of Puns--Effect of
Custom and Habit--Accessory Emotion--Disappointment
and Loss--Practical Jokes 307
CHAPTER XXIII.
Nomenclature--Three Classes of Words--Distinction between
Wit and Humour--Wit sometimes dangerous,
generally innocuous 339
HISTORY OF ENGLISH HUMOUR.
CHAPTER I.
Burlesque--Parody--The "Splendid Shilling"--Prior--Pope--Ambrose
Philips--Parodies of Gray's Elegy--Gay.
Burlesque, that is comic imitation, comprises parody and caricature. The
latter is a valuable addition to humorous narrative, as we see in the
sketches of Gillray, Cruikshank and others. By itself it is not
sufficiently suggestive and affords no story or conversation. Hence in
the old caricatures the speeches of the characters were written in
balloons over their heads, and in the modern an explanation is added
underneath. For want of such assistance we lose the greater part of the
humour in Hogarth's paintings.
We may date the revival of Parody from the fifteenth century, although
Dr. Johnson speaks as though it originated with Philips. Notwithstanding
the great scope it affords for humorous invention, it has never become
popular, nor formed an important branch of literature; perhaps, because
the talent of the parodist always suffered from juxtaposition with that
of his original. In its widest sense parody is little more than
imitation, but as we should not recognise any resemblance without the
use of the same form, it always implies a similarity in words or style.
Sometimes the thoughts are also reproduced, but this is not sufficient,
and might merely constitute a summary or translation. The closer the
copy the better the parody, as where Pope's lines
"Here shall the spring its earliest sweets bestow
Here the first roses of the year shall blow,"
were applied by Catherine Fanshawe to the Regent's Park with a very
slight change--
"Here shall the spring its earliest coughs bestow,
Here the first noses of the year shall blow."
But all parody is not travesty, for a writing may be parodied without
being ridiculed. This was notably the case in the Centones,[1] Scripture
histories in the phraseology of Homer and Virgil, which were written by
the Christians in the fourth century, in order that they might be able
to teach at once classics and religion. From the pious object for which
they were first designed, they degenerated into fashionable exercises of
ingenuity, and thus we find the Emperor Valentinian composing some on
marriage, and requesting, or rather commanding Ausonius to contend with
him in such compositions. They were regarded as works of fancy--a sort
of literary embroidery.
It may be questioned whether any of these parodies were intended to
possess humour; but wherever we find such as have any traces of it, we
may conclude that the imitation has been adopted to increase it. This
does not necessarily amount to travesty, for the object is not always to
throw contempt on the original. Thus, we cannot suppose "The Battle of
the Frogs and Mice," or "The Banquet of Matron,"[2] although written in
imitation of the heroic poetry of Homer, was intended to make "The
Iliad" appear ridiculous, but rather that the authors thought to make
their conceits more amusing, by comparing what was most insignificant
with something of unsurpassable grandeur. The desire to gain influence
from the prescriptive forms of great writings was the first incentive to
parody. We cannot suppose that Luther intended to be profane when he
imitated the first psalm--
"Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the way of the
Sacramentarians, not sat in the seat of the Zuinglians, or followed
the counsel of the Zurichers."
Probably Ben Jonson saw nothing objectionable in the quaintly whimsical
lines in Cynthia's Revels--
_Amo._ From Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, irps,
and all affected humours.
_Chorus._ Good Mercury defend us.
_Pha._ From secret friends, sweet servants, loves, doves,
and such fantastique humours.
_Chorus._ Good Mercury defend us.
The same charitable allowance may be conceded to the songs composed by
the Cavaliers in the Civil War. We should not be surprised to find a
tone of levity in them, but they were certainly not intended to throw
any discredit on our Church. In "The Rump, or an exact collection of the
choicest poems and songs relating to the late times from 1639" we have
"A Litany for the New Year," of which the following will serve as a
specimen--
"From Rumps, that do rule against customes and laws
From a fardle of fancies stiled a good old cause,
From wives that have nails that are sharper than claws,
Good Jove deliver us."
Among the curious tracts collected by Lord Somers we find a "New
Testament of our Lords and Saviours, the House of our Lords and
Saviours, the House of Commons, and the Supreme Council at Windsor." It
gives "The Genealogy of the Parliament" from the year 1640 to 1648, and
commences "The Book of the Generation of Charles Pim, the son of Judas,
the son of Beelzebub," and goes on to state in the thirteenth verse that
"King Charles being a just man, and not willing to have the people
ruinated, was minded to dissolve them, (the Parliament), but while he
thought on these things. &c."
Of the same kind was the parody of Charles Hanbury Williams at the
commencement of the last century, "Old England's Te Deum"--the character
of which may be conjectured from the first line
"We complain of Thee, O King, we acknowledge thee to be a
Hanoverian."
Sometimes parodies of this kind had even a religious object, as when Dr.
John Boys, Dean of Canterbury in the reign of James I., in his zeal,
untempered with wisdom, attacked the Romanists by delivering a form of
prayer from the pulpit commencing--
"Our Pope which art in Rome, cursed be thy name,"
and ending,
"For thine is the infernal pitch and sulphur for ever and ever. Amen."
"The Religious Recruiting Bill" was written with a pious intention, as
was also the Catechism by Mr. Toplady, a clergyman, aimed at throwing
contempt upon Lord Chesterfield's code of morality. It is almost
impossible to draw a hard and fast line between travesty and harmless
parody--the feelings of the public being the safest guide. But to
associate Religion with anything low is offensive, even if the object in
view be commendable.
Some parodies of Scripture are evidently not intended to detract from
its sanctity, as, for instance, the attack upon sceptical philosophy
which lately appeared in an American paper, pretending to be the
commencement of a new Bible "suited to the enlightenment of the age,"
and beginning--
"Primarily the unknowable moved upon kosmos and evolved protoplasm.
"And protoplasm was inorganic and undifferentiated, containing all
things in potential energy: and a spirit of evolution moved upon
the fluid mass.
"And atoms caused other atoms to attract: and their contact begat
light, heat, and electricity.
"And the unconditioned differentiated the atoms, each after its
kind and their combination begat rocks, air, and water.
"And there went out a spirit of evolution and working in protoplasm
by accretion and absorption produced the organic cell.
"And the cell by nutrition evolved primordial germ, and germ
devolved protogene, and protogene begat eozoon and eozoon begat
monad and monad begot animalcule ..."
We are at first somewhat at a loss to understand what made the "Splendid
Shilling" so celebrated: it is called by Steele the finest burlesque in
the English language. Although far from being, as Dr. Johnson asserts,
the first parody, it is undoubtedly a work of talent, and was more
appreciated in 1703 than it can be now, being recognised as an imitation
of Milton's poems which were then becoming celebrated.[3] Reading it at
the present day, we should scarcely recognise any parody; but blank
verse was at that time uncommon, although the Italians were beginning to
protest against the gothic barbarity of rhyme, and Surrey had given in
his translation of the first and fourth books of Virgil a specimen of
the freer versification.
Meres says that "Piers Plowman was the first that observed the true
quality of our verse without the curiositie of rime" but he was not
followed.
The new character of the "Splendid Shilling" caused it to bring more
fame to its author than has been gained by any other work so short and
simple. It was no doubt an inspiration of the moment, and was written by
John Philips at the age of twenty. There is considerable freshness and
strength in the poem, which commences--
"Happy the man, who void of cares and strife
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A splendid shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise
To Juniper's Magpie or Town Hall[4] repairs.
Meanwhile he smokes and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous or conumdrum quaint;
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,
And hunger sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff
(Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain:
Then solitary walk or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff.
Regale chilled fingers, or from tube as black
As winter chimney, or well polished jet
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent."
He goes on to relate how he is besieged by duns, and what a chasm there
is in his "galligaskins." He wrote very little altogether, but produced
a piece called "Blenheim," and a sort of Georgic entitled "Cyder."
Prior, like many other celebrated men, partly owed his advancement to an
accidental circumstance. He was brought up at his uncle's tavern "The
Rummer," situate at Charing Cross--then a kind of country suburb of the
city, and adjacent to the riverside mansions and ornamental gardens of
the nobility. To this convenient inn the neighbouring magnates were wont
to resort, and one day in accordance with the classic proclivities of
the times, a hot dispute, arose among them about the rendering of a
passage in Horace. One of those present said that as they could not
settle the question, they had better ask young Prior, who then was
attending Westminster School. He had made good use of his opportunities,
and answered the question so satisfactorily that Lord Dorset there and
then undertook to send him to Cambridge. He became a fellow of St.
John's, and Lord Dorset afterwards introduced him at Court, and obtained
for him the post of secretary of Legation at the Hague, in which office
he gave so much satisfaction to William III. that he made him one of his
gentlemen of the bed chamber. He became afterwards Secretary of the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, Ambassador in France, and Under Secretary of
State.
During his two year's imprisonment by the Whigs on a charge of high
treason--from which he was liberated without a trial--he prepared a
collection of his works, for which he obtained a large sum of money. He
then retired from office, but died shortly afterwards in his
fifty-eighth year.
Prior is remarkable for his exquisite lightness and elegance of style,
well suited to the pretty classical affectations of the day. He delights
in cupids, nymphs, and flowers. In two or three places, perhaps, he
verges upon indelicacy, but conceals it so well among feathers and rose
leaves, that we may half pardon it. Although always sprightly he is not
often actually humorous, but we may quote the following advice to a
husband from the "English Padlock"
"Be to her virtues very kind,
And to her faults a little blind,
Let all her ways be unconfined,
And clap your padlock on her mind."
"Yes; ev'ry poet is a fool;
By demonstration Ned can show it;
Happy could Ned's inverted rule,
Prove ev'ry fool to be a poet."
"How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task,
For she has really two ages.
"Stiff in brocade and pinched in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on:
All day let envy view her face,
And Phyllis is but twenty-one.
"Paint, patches, jewels, laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied,
And Phyllis is some forty-three."
"Helen was just slipt from bed,
Her eyebrows on the toilet lay,
Away the kitten with them fled,
As fees belonging to her prey."
"For this misfortune, careless Jane,
Assure yourself, was soundly rated:
And Madam getting up again,
With her own hand the mouse-trap baited.
"On little things as sages write,
Depends our human joy or sorrow;
If we don't catch a mouse to-night,
Alas! no eyebrows for to-morrow."
He wrote the following impromptu epitaph on himself--
"Nobles and heralds by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve,
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher."
But he does not often descend to so much levity as this, his wing is
generally in a higher atmosphere. Sir Walter Scott observes that in the
powers of approaching and touching the finer feelings of the heart, he
has never been excelled, if indeed he has ever been equalled.
Prior wrote a parody called "Erle Robert's Mice," but Pope is more
prolific than any other poet in such productions. His earlier taste
seems to have been for imitation, and he wrote good parodies on Waller
and Cowley, and a bad travesty on Spencer. "January and May" and "The
Wife of Bath" are founded upon Chaucer's Tales. Pope did not generally
indulge in travesty, his object was not to ridicule his original, but
rather to assist himself by borrowing its style. His productions are the
best examples of parodies in this latter and better sense. Thus, he
thought to give a classic air to his satires on the foibles of his time
by arranging them upon the models of those of Horace. In his imitation
of the second Satire of the second Book we have--
"He knows to live who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side nor on that,
Nor stops for one bad cork his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away,
Nor lets, like Nævius, every error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass."
There is a slight amount of humour in these adaptations, and it seems to
have been congenial to the poets mind. Generally he was more turned to
philosophy, and the slow measures he adopted were more suited to the
dignified and pompous, than to the playful and gay. Occasionally,
however, there is some sparkle in his lines, and, we read in "The Rape
of the Lock"--
"Now love suspends his golden scales in air,
Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair,
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side,
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside."
Again, his friend Mrs. Blount found London rather dull than gay--
"She went to plain work and to purling brooks,
Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks,
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks and prayers three hours a day,
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse and spill her solitary tea,
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with a spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon,
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the Squire,
Up to her Godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray--for that's the way to Heaven."
He was seldom able to bring a humorous sketch to the close without
something a little objectionable. Often inclined to err on the side of
severity, he was one of those instances in which we find acrimonious
feeling associated with physical infirmity. "The Dunciad" is the
principal example of this, but we have many others--such as the epigram:
"You beat your pate and fancy wit will come,
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."
At one time he was constantly extolling the charms of Lady Wortley
Montagu in every strain of excessive adulation. He wrote sonnets upon
her, and told her she had robbed the whole tree of knowledge. But when
the ungrateful fair rejected her little crooked admirer, he completely
changed his tone, and descended to lampoon of this kind--
"Lady Mary said to me, and in her own house,
I do not care for you three skips of a louse;
I forgive the dear creature for what she has said,
For ladies will talk of what runs in their head."
He is supposed to have attacked Addison under the name of Atticus. He
says that "like the Turk he would bear no brother near the throne," but
that he would
"View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise,
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And with our sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike,
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend,
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obleeging that he ne'er obleeged."
Pope at first praised Ambrose Philips, and said he was "a man who could
write very nobly," but afterwards they became rivals, and things went so
far between them that Pope called Philips "a rascal," and Philips hung
up a rod with which he said he would chastise Pope. He probably had
recourse to this kind of argument, because he felt that he was worsted
by his adversary in wordy warfare, having little talent in satire. In
fact, his attempts in this direction were particularly clumsy as--"On a
company of bad dancers to good music."
"How ill the motion with the music suits!
So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes."
Still there is a gaiety and lightness about many of his pieces. The
following is a specimen of his favourite style. Italian singers, lately
introduced, seem to have been regarded by many with disfavour and alarm.
TO SIGNORA CUZZONI.
"Little syren of the stage,
Charmer of an idle age,
Empty warbler, breathing lyre,
Wanton gale of fond desire,
Bane of every manly art,
Sweet enfeebler of the heart;
O! too pleasing is thy strain,
Hence, to southern climes again,
Tuneful mischief, vocal spell,
To this island bid farewell,
Leave us, as we ought to be,
Leave the Britons rough and free."
To parody a work is to pay it a compliment, though perhaps
unintentionally, for if it were not well known the point of the
imitation would be lost. Thus, the general appreciation of Gray's
"Elegy" called forth several humorous parodies of it about the middle
of the last century. The following is taken from one by the Rev. J.
Duncombe, Vicar of Bishop Ridley's old church at Herne in Kent. It is
entitled "An Evening Contemplation in a College."
"The curfew tolls the hour of closing gates,
With jarring sound the porter turns the key,
Then in his dreamy mansion, slumbering waits,
And slowly, sternly quits it--though for me.
"Now shine the spires beneath the paly moon,
And through the cloister peace and silence reign,
Save where some fiddler scrapes a drowsy tune,
Or copious bowls inspire a jovial strain.
"Save that in yonder cobweb-mantled room,
Where lies a student in profound repose,
Oppressed with ale; wide echoes through the gloom,
The droning music of his vocal nose.
"Within those walls, where through the glimmering shade,
Appear the pamphlets in a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow bed till morning laid,
The peaceful fellows of the college sleep.
"The tinkling bell proclaiming early prayers,
The noisy servants rattling o'er their head,
The calls of business and domestic cares,
Ne'er rouse these sleepers from their drowsy bed.
"No chattering females crowd the social fire,
No dread have they of discord and of strife,
Unknown the names of husband and of sire,
Unfelt the plagues of matrimonial life.
"Oft have they basked along the sunny walls,
Oft have the benches bowed beneath their weight,
How jocund are their looks when dinner calls!
How smoke the cutlets on their crowded plate!
"Oh! let not Temperance too disdainful hear
How long their feasts, how long their dinners last;
Nor let the fair with a contemptuous sneer,
On these unmarried men reflections cast.
* * * * *
"Far from the giddy town's tumultuous strife,
Their wishes yet have never learned to stray,
Content and happy in a single life,
They keep the noiseless tenor of their way.
"E'en now their books, from cobwebs to protect,
Inclosed by door of glass, in Doric style,
On polished pillars raised with bronzes decked,
Demand the passing tribute of a smile."
Another parody of this famous Elegy published about the same date, has a
less pleasant subject--the dangers and vices of the metropolis. It
speaks of the activities of thieves.
"Oft to their subtlety the fob did yield,
Their cunning oft the pocket string hath broke,
How in dark alleys bludgeons did they wield!
How bowed the victim 'neath their sturdy stroke!
"Let not ambition mock their humble toil,
Their vulgar crimes and villainy obscure;
Nor rich rogues hear with a disdainful smile,
The low and petty knaveries of the poor.
"Beneath the gibbet's self perhaps is laid,
Some heart once pregnant with infernal fire,
Hands that the sword of Nero might have swayed,
And midst the carnage tuned the exulting lyre.
"Ambition to their eyes her ample page
Rich with such monstrous crimes did ne'er unroll,
Chill penury repressed their native rage,
And froze the bloody current of their soul.
"Full many a youth, fit for each horrid scene,
The dark and sooty flues of chimneys bear;
Full many a rogue is born to cheat unseen,
And dies unhanged for want of proper care."
Gay dedicated his first poem to Pope, then himself a young man, and this
led to an intimacy between them. In 1712 he held the office of Secretary
to Ann, Duchess of Monmouth; and in 1714 he accompanied the Earl of
Clarendon to Hanover. In this year he wrote a good travesty of Ambrose
Philips' pastoral poetry, of which the following is a specimen--
_Lobbin Clout._ As Blouzelinda, in a gamesome mood,
Behind a hayrick loudly laughing stood,
I slily ran and snatched a hasty kiss;
She wiped her lips, nor took it much amiss.
Believe me, Cuddy, while I'm bold to say,
Her breath was sweeter than the ripened hay.
_Cuddy._ As my Buxoma in a morning fair,
With gentle finger stroked her milky care,
I quaintly stole a kiss; at first, 'tis true,
She frowned, yet after granted one or two.
Lobbin, I swear, believe who will my vow,
Her breath by far excelled the breathing cow.
_Lobbin._ Leek to the Welsh, to Dutchmen butter's dear,
Of Irish swains potato is the cheer,
Oats for their feasts the Scottish shepherds grind,
Sweet turnips are the food of Blouzelind;
While she loves turnips, butter I'll despise,
Nor leeks, nor oatmeal, nor potato prize.
_Cuddy._ In good roast beef my landlord sticks his knife,
And capon fat delights his dainty wife;
Pudding our parson eats, the squire loves hare,
But white-pot thick is my Buxoma's fare;
While she loves white-pot, capon ne'er shall be
Nor hare, nor beef, nor pudding, food for me.
The following is not without point at the present day--
TO A LADY ON HER PASSION FOR OLD CHINA.
What ecstasies her bosom fire!
How her eyes languish with desire!
How blessed, how happy, should I be,
Were that fond glance bestowed on me!
New doubts and fears within me war,
What rival's here? A China jar!
China's the passion of her soul,
A cup, a plate, a dish, a bowl,
Can kindle wishes in her breast,
Inflame with joy, or break her rest.
* * * * *
Husbands more covetous than sage,
Condemn this China-buying rage,
They count that woman's prudence little,
Who sets her heart on things so brittle;
But are those wise men's inclinations
Fixed on more strong, more sure foundations?
If all that's frail we must despise,
No human view or scheme is wise.
Gay's humour is often injured by the introduction of low scenes, and
disreputable accompaniments.
"The Dumps," a lament of a forlorn damsel, is much in the same style as
the Pastorals. It finishes with these lines--
"Farewell ye woods, ye meads, ye streams that flow,
A sudden death shall rid me of my woe,
This penknife keen my windpipe shall divide,
What, shall I fall as squeaking pigs have died?
No--to some tree this carcase I'll suspend;
But worrying curs find such untimely end!
I'll speed me to the pond, where the high stool,
On the long plank hangs o'er the muddy pool,
That stool, the dread of every scolding queen:
Yet sure a lover should not die, so mean!
Thus placed aloft I'll rave and rail by fits,
Though all the parish say I've lost my wits;
And thence, if courage holds, myself I'll throw,
And quench my passion in the lake below."
He published in 1727 "The Beggar's Opera," the idea had been suggested
by Swift. This is said to have given birth to the English Opera--the
Italian having been already introduced here. This opera, or musical
play, brought out by Mr. Rich, was so renumerative that it was a common
saying that it made "Rich gay, and Gay rich."
In "The Beggar's Opera" the humour turns on Polly falling in love with
a highwayman. Peachum gives an amusing account of the gang. Among them
is Harry Paddington--"a poor, petty-larceny rascal, without the least
genius; that fellow, though he were to live these six months would never
come to the gallows with any credit--and Tom Tipple, a guzzling, soaking
sot, who is always too drunk to stand, or make others stand. A cart is
absolutely necessary for him." Peachum, and his wife lament over their
daughter Polly's choice of Captain Macheath. There are numerous songs,
such as that of Mrs. Peachum beginning--
"Our Polly is a sad slut! nor heeds what we have taught her,
I wonder any man alive will ever rear a daughter."
Polly, contemplating the possibility of Macheath's being hanged
exclaims--
"Now, I'm a wretch indeed. Methinks, I see him already in the cart,
sweeter and more lovely than the nosegay in his hand! I hear the
crowd extolling his resolution and intrepidity! What volleys of
sighs are sent down from the windows of Holborn, that so comely a
youth should be brought to disgrace. I see him at the tree! the
whole circle are in tears! even butchers weep! Jack Ketch himself
hesitates to perform his duty, and would be glad to lose his fee by
a reprieve. What then will become of Polly?"
To Macheath
Were you sentenced to transportation, sure, my dear, you could not
leave me behind you?
_Mac._ "Is there any power, any force, that could tear thee from me.
You might sooner tear a pension out of the hands of a courtier, a
fee from a lawyer, a pretty woman from a looking-glass, or any
woman from quadrille."[5]
Gay may have taken his idea of writing fables from Dryden whose
classical reading tempted him in two or three instances to indulge in
such fancies. They were clever and in childhood appeared humorous to us,
but we have long ceased to be amused by them, owing to their excessive
improbability. Such ingenuity seems misplaced, we see more absurdity
than talent in representing a sheep as talking to a wolf. To us fables
now present, not what is strange and difficult of comprehension, but
mentally fanciful folly. In some few instances in La Fontaine and Gay,
the wisdom of the lessons atones for the strangeness of their garb, and
the peculiarity of the dramatis personæ may tend to rivet them in our
minds. There is something also fresh and pleasant in the scenes of
country life which they bring before us. But the taste for such conceits
is irrevocably gone, and every attempt to revive it, even when
recommended by such ingenuity and talent as that of Owen Meredith, only
tends to prove the fact more incontestably. In Russia, a younger nation
than ours, the fables of Kriloff had a considerable sale at the
beginning of this century, but they had a political meaning.
CHAPTER II.
Defoe--Irony--Ode to the Pillory--The "Comical Pilgrim"--The "Scandalous
Club"--Humorous Periodicals--Heraclitus Ridens--The London Spy--The
British Apollo.
Defoe was born in 1663, and was the son of a butcher in St. Giles'. He
first distinguished himself by writing in 1699 a poetical satire
entitled "The True Born Englishman," in honour of King William and the
Dutch, and in derision of the nobility of this country, who did not much
appreciate the foreign court. The poem abounded with rough and rude
sarcasm. After giving an uncomplimentary description of the English, he
proceeds to trace their descent--
"These are the heroes that despise the Dutch
And rail at new-come foreigners so much,
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;
A horrid race of rambling thieves and drones
Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns;
The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot,
By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
Who joined with Norman-French compound the breed
From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
Dutch, Walloons, Flemings, Irishmen, and Scots,
Vaudois, and Valtolins and Huguenots,
In good Queen Bess's charitable reign,
Supplied us with three hundred thousand men;
Religion--God we thank! sent them hither,
Priests, protestants, the devil, and all together."
The first part concludes with a view of the low origin of some of our
nobles.
"Innumerable city knights we know
From Bluecoat hospitals and Bridewell flow,
Draymen and porters fill the City chair,
And footboys magisterial purple wear.
Fate has but very small distinction set
Betwixt the counter and the coronet.
Tarpaulin lords, pages of high renown
Rise up by poor men's valour, not their own;
Great families of yesterday we show
And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who."
So much keen and clever invective levelled at the higher classes of
course had its reward in a wide circulation; but we are surprised to
hear that the King noticed it with favour; the author was honoured with
a personal interview, and became a still stronger partizan of the court.
Defoe called the "True Born Englishman",
"A contradiction
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction;"
and we may observe that he was particularly fond of an indirect and
covert style of writing. He thought that he could thus use his weapons
to most advantage, but his disguise was seen through by his enemies as
well as by his friends. Irony--the stating the reverse of what is meant,
whether good or bad--is often resorted to by those treading on
dangerous ground, and admits of two very different interpretations. It
is especially ambiguous in writing, and should be used with caution.
Defoe's "Shortest Way with the Dissenters" was first attributed to a
High Churchman, but soon was recognised as the work of a Dissenter. He
explained that he intended the opposite of what he had said, and was
merely deprecating measures being taken against his brethren; but his
enemies considered that his real object was to exasperate them against
the Government. Even if taken ironically, it hardly seemed venial to
call furiously for the extermination of heretics, or to raise such
lamentation as, "Alas! for the Church of England! What with popery on
one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified
between two thieves!" Experience had not then taught that it was better
to let such effusions pass for what they were worth, and Defoe was
sentenced to stand in the pillory, and suffer fine and imprisonment He
does not seem to have been in such low spirits as we might have expected
during his incarceration, for he employed part of his time in composing
his "Hymn to the Pillory,"
"Hail hieroglyphic state machine,
Contrived to punish fancy in:
Men that are men in thee can feel no pain,
And all thy insignificants disdain."
He continues in a strong course of invective against certain persons
whom he thinks really worthy of being thus punished, and proceeds--
"But justice is inverted when
Those engines of the law,
Instead of pinching vicious men
Keep honest ones in awe:
Thy business is, as all men know,
To punish villains, not to make men so.
"Whenever then thou art prepared
To prompt that vice thou shouldst reward,
And by the terrors of thy grisly face,
Make men turn rogues to shun disgrace;
The end of thy creation is destroyed
Justice expires of course, and law's made void.
"Thou like the devil dost appear
Blacker than really thou art far,
A wild chimeric notion of reproach
Too little for a crime, for none too much,
Let none the indignity resent,
For crime is all the shame of punishment.
Thou bugbear of the law stand up and speak
Thy long misconstrued silence break,
Tell us who 'tis upon thy ridge stands there
So full of fault, and yet so void of fear,
And from the paper on his hat,
Let all mankind be told for what."
These lines refer to his own condemnation, and the piece concludes,--
"Tell them the men who placed him here
Are friends unto the times,
But at a loss to find his guile
They can't commit his crimes."
Defoe seems to have thoroughly imbibed the ascetic spirit of his
brethren. He was fond of denouncing social as well as political
vanities. The "Comical Pilgrim" contains a considerable amount of coarse
humour, and in one place the supposed cynic inveighs against the drama,
and describes the audience at a theatre--
"The audience in the upper gallery is composed of lawyers, clerks,
valets-de-chambre, exchange girls, chambermaids, and skip-kennels, who
at the last act are let in gratis in favour to their masters being
benefactors to the devil's servants. The middle gallery is taken up by
the middling sort of people, as citizens, their wives and daughters, and
other jilts. The boxes are filled with lords and ladies, who give money
to see their follies exposed by fellows as wicked as themselves. And the
pit, which lively represents the pit of hell, is crammed with those
insignificant animals called beaux, whose character nothing but wonder
and shame can compose; for a modern beau, you must know, is a pretty,
neat, fantastic outside of a man, a well-digested bundle of costly
vanities, and you may call him a volume of methodical errata bound in a
gilt cover. He's a curiously wrought cabinet full of shells and other
trumpery, which were much better quite empty than so emptily filled.
He's a man's skin full of profaneness, a paradise full of weeds, a
heaven full of devils, a Satan's bedchamber hung with arras of God's own
making. He can be thought no better than a Promethean man; at best but a
lump of animated dust kneaded into human shape, and if he has only such
a thing as a soul it seems to be patched up with more vices than are
patches in a poor Spaniard's coat. His general employment is to scorn
all business, but the study of the modes and vices of the times, and you
may look upon him as upon the painted sign of a man hung up in the air,
only to be tossed to and fro with every wind of temptation and vanity."
It would appear that servants had in his day many of the faults which
characterise some of them at present. In "Everybody's Business is
Nobody's Business" we have an amusing picture of the over-dressed maid
of the period.
"The apparel," he says, "of our women-servants should be next regulated,
that we may know the mistress from the maid. I remember I was once put
very much to the blush, being at a friend's house, and by him required
to salute the ladies. I kissed the chamber-jade into the bargain, for
she was as well dressed as the best. But I was soon undeceived by a
general titter, which gave me the utmost confusion; nor can I believe
myself the only person who has made such a mistake."
Again "I have been at places where the maid has been so dizzied with
idle compliments that she has mistook one thing for another, and not
regarded her mistress in the least, but put on all the flirting airs
imaginable. This behaviour is nowhere so much complained of as in
taverns, coffee houses, and places of public resort, where there are
handsome barkeepers, &c. These creatures being puffed up with the
fulsome flattery of a set of flies, which are continually buzzing about
them, carry themselves with the utmost insolence imaginable--insomuch
that you must speak to them with the utmost deference, or you are sure
to be affronted. Being at a coffee-house the other day, where one of
these ladies kept the bar, I bespoke a dish of rice tea, but Madam was
so taken up with her sparks that she quite forgot it. I spoke for it
again, and with some temper, but was answered after a most taunting
manner, not without a toss of the head, a contraction of the nostrils,
and other impertinences, too many to enumerate. Seeing myself thus
publickly insulted by such an animal, I could not choose but show my
resentment. 'Woman,' said I sternly, 'I want a dish of rice tea, and not
what your vanity and impudence may imagine; therefore treat me as a
gentleman and a customer, and serve me with what I call for. Keep your
impertinent repartees and impudent behaviour for the coxcombs that swarm
round your bar, and make you so vain of your blown carcass.' And indeed,
I believe the insolence of this creature will ruin her master at last,
by driving away men of sobriety and business, and making the place a den
of vagabonds."
In July, 1704, Defoe commenced a periodical which he called a "Review of
the Affairs of France." It appeared twice, and afterwards three times a
week. From the introduction, we might conclude that the periodical,
though principally containing war intelligence, would be partly of a
humorous nature. He says--
"After our serious matters are over, we shall at the end of every paper
present you with a little diversion, as anything occurs to make the
world merry; and whether friend or foe, one party or another, if
anything happens so scandalous as to require an open reproof, the world
may meet with it there. Accordingly at the end of every paper we find
'Advice for the Scandalous Club: A weekly history of Nonsense,
Impertinence, Vice, and Debauchery.'" This contained a considerable
amount of indelicacy, and the humour was too much connected with
ephemeral circumstances of the times to be very amusing at the present
day. The Scandalous Club was a kind of Court of Morals, before whom all
kinds of offences were brought for judgment, and it also settled
questions on love affairs in a very judicious manner. Some of the advice
is prompted by letters asking for it, but it is probable that they were
mostly fictitious and written by Defoe himself. Many of the shafts in
this Review were directed against magistrates, and other men in
authority. Thus we read in April 18, 1704:
"An honest country fellow made a complaint to the Club that he had been
set in the stocks by the Justice of the Peace without any manner of
reason. He told them that he happened to get a little drunk one night at
a fair, and being somewhat quarrelsome, had beaten a man in his
neighbourhood, broke his windows, and two or three such odd tricks.
'Well, friend,' said the Director of the Society, 'and was it for this
the Justice set you in the stocks?' 'Yes!' replied the man. 'And don't
you think you deserved it?' said the Director. 'Why, yes, Sir,' says the
honest man; 'I had deserved it from you, if you had been the Justice,
but I did not deserve it from Sir Edward--for it was not above a month
before that he was so drunk that he fell into our mill-pond, and if I
had not lugged him out he would have been drowned.' The Society told him
he was a knave, and then voted 'that the Justice had done him no wrong
in setting him in the stocks--but that he had done the nation wrong
when he pulled him out of the pond,' and caused it to be entered in
their books--'That Sir Edward was but an indifferent Justice of the
Peace.'"
Sometimes religious subjects are touched upon. The following may be
interesting at the present day--
"There happened a great and bloody fight this week, (July 18th 1704),
between two ladies of quality, one a Roman Catholic, the other a
Protestant; and as the matter had come to blows, and beauty was
concerned in the quarrel, having been not a little defaced by the
rudeness of the scratching sex, the neighbours were called in to part
the fray, and upon debate the quarrel was referred to the Scandalous
Club. The matter was this:
"The Roman Catholic lady meets the Protestant lady in the Park, and
found herself obliged every time she passed her to make a reverent
curtsey, though she had no knowledge of her or acquaintance with her.
The Protestant lady received it at first as a civility, but afterwards
took it for a banter, and at last for an affront, and sends her woman to
know the meaning of it. The Catholic lady returned for answer that she
did not make her honours to the lady, for she knew no respect she
deserved, but to the diamond cross she wore about her neck, which she,
being a heretic, did not deserve to wear. The Protestant lady sent her
an angry message, and withal some reflecting words upon the cross
itself, which ended the present debate, but occasioned a solemn visit
from the Catholic lady to the Protestant, where they fell into grievous
disputes; and one word followed another till the Protestant lady offered
some indignities to the jewel, took it from her neck and set her foot
upon it--which so provoked the other lady that they fell to blows, till
the waiting-women, having in vain attempted to part them, the footmen
were fain to be called in. After they were parted, they ended the battle
with their other missive weapon, the tongue--and there was all the
eloquence of Billingsgate on both sides more than enough. At last, by
the advice of friends it was, as is before noted, brought before the
Society."
The judgment was that for a Protestant to wear a cross was a
"ridiculous, scandalous piece of vanity"--that it should only be worn in
a religious sense, and with due respect, and is not more fitting to be
used as an ornament than "a gibbet, which, worn about the neck, would
make but a scurvy figure."
Most of the stories show the democratic tendencies of the writer, for
instance--
"A poor man's cow had got into a rich man's corn, and he put her into
the pound; the poor man offered satisfaction, but the rich man insisted
on unreasonable terms, and both went to the Justice of the Peace. The
Justice advised the man to comply, for he could not help him; at last
the rich man came to this point; he would have ten shillings for the
damage. 'And will you have ten shillings,' says the poor man, 'for six
pennyworth of damage?' 'Yes, I will,' says the rich man. 'Then the devil
will have you,' says the poor man. 'Well,' says the rich man, 'let the
devil and I alone to agree about that, give me the ten shillings.'"
"A gentleman came with a great equipage and a fine coach to the Society,
and desired to be heard. He told them a long story of his wife; how
ill-natured, how sullen, how unkind she was, and that in short she made
his life very uncomfortable. The Society asked him several questions
about her, whether she was
"Unfaithful? No.
"A thief? No.
"A Slut? No.
"A scold? No.
"A drunkard? No.
"A Gossip? No.
"But still she was an ill wife, and very bad wife, and he did not know
what to do with her. At last one of the Society asked him, 'If his
worship was a good husband,' at which being a little surprised, he could
not tell what to say. Whereupon the Club resolved,
"1. That most women that are bad wives are made so by their husbands. 2.
That this Society will hear no complaint against a virtuous bad wife
from a vicious good husband. 3. He that has a bad wife and can't find
the reason of it in her, 'tis ten to one that he finds it in himself."
Sometimes correspondents ask advice as to which of several lovers they
should choose. The following applicants have a different grievances.
"Gentlemen.--There are no less than sixty ladies of us, all neighbours,
dwelling in the same village, that are now arrived at those years at
which we expect (if ever) to be caressed and adored, or, at least
flattered. We have often heard of the attempts of whining lovers; of the
charming poems they had composed in praise of their mistresses' wit and
beauty (tho' they have not had half so much of either of them as the
meanest in our company), of the passions of their love, and that death
itself had presently followed upon a denial. But we find now that the
men, especially of our village, are so dull and lumpish, so languid and
indifferent, that we are almost forced to put words into their mouths,
and when they have got them they have scarce spirit to utter them. So
that we are apt to fear it will be the fate of all of us, as it is
already of some, to live to be old maids. Now the thing, Gentlemen, that
we desire of you is, that, if possible, you would let us understand the
reason why the case is so mightily altered from what it was formerly;
for our experience is so vastly different from what we have heard, that
we are ready to believe that all the stories we have heard of lovers and
their mistresses are fictions and mere banter."
The case of these ladies is indeed to be pitied, and the Society have
been further informed that the backwardness or fewness of the men in
that town has driven the poor ladies to unusual extremities, such as
running out into the fields to meet the men, and sending their maids to
ask them; and at last running away with their fathers' coachmen,
prentices, and the like, to the particular scandal of the town.
The Society concluded that the ladies should leave the village "famous
for having more coaches than Christians in it," as a learned man once
took the freedom to tell them "from the pulpit" and go to market,
_i.e._, to London.
The "Advice of the Scandalous Club" was discontinued from May, 1703.
Although we cannot say that Defoe carried his sword in a myrtle wreath,
he certainly owed much of his celebrity to his insinuating under
ambiguous language the boldest political opinions. He was fond of
literary whimsicalities, and wrote a humorous "History," referring
mostly to the events of the times. Towards the end of his career, he
happily turned his talent for disguises and fictions into a quieter and
more profitable direction. How many thousands remember him as the author
of "Robinson Crusoe" who never heard a word about his jousts and
conflicts, his animosities and misfortunes!
The last century, although adorned by several celebrated wits, was less
rich in humour than the present. Literature had a grave and pedantic
character, for where there was any mental activity, instruction was
sought almost to the exclusion of gaiety. It required a greater spread
of education and experience to create a source of superior humour, or to
awaken any considerable demand for it. Hence, although the taste was so
increased that several periodicals of a professedly humorous nature were
started, they disappeared soon after their commencement. To record their
brief existence is like writing the epitaphs of the departed. Towards
the termination of the previous century, comic literature was
represented by an occasional fly-sheet, shot off to satirize some
absurdity of the day. The first humorous periodical which has come to
our knowledge, partakes, as might have been expected, of an
ecclesiastical character and betokens the severity of the times. It
appeared in 1670, under the title of "Jesuita Vapulans, or a Whip for
the Fool's Back, and a Gad for his Foul Mouth." The next seems to have
been a small weekly paper called "Heraclitus Ridens," published in 1681.
It was mostly directed against Dissenters and Republicans; and in No. 9,
we have a kind of Litany commencing:--
"From Commonwealth, Cobblers and zealous State Tinkers,
From Speeches and Expedients of Politick Blinkers,
From Rebellion, Taps, and Tapsters, and Skinkers,
Libera Nos.
* * * * *
"From Papists on one hand, and Phanatick on th' other,
From Presbyter Jack, the Pope's younger brother,
And Congregational Daughters, far worse than their Mother,
Libera Nos."
In the same year appeared "Hippocrates Ridens," directed against quacks
and pretenders to physic, who seem then to have been numerous. The
contents of these papers were mostly in dialogue--a form which seems to
have been approved, as it was afterwards adopted in similar
publications. These papers do not seem to have been written by
contributors from the public, but by one or two persons, and this, I
believe, was the case with all the periodicals of this time, and one
cause of their want of permanence--the periodical was not carried on by
an editor, but by its author.
The "London Spy" appeared in 1699, and went through eighteen monthly
parts. Any one who wishes to find a merry description of London manners
at the end of the seventeenth century, cannot look in a better place. It
was written by Edward (Ned) Ward, author of an indifferent narrative
entitled "A Trip to Jamaica;" but he must have possessed considerable
observation and talent. A man who proposes to visit and unmask all the
places of resort, high and low in the metropolis, could not have much
refinement in his nature, but at the present day we cannot help
wondering how a work should have been published and bought, containing
so much gross language.
Under the character of a countryman who has come up to see the world, he
gives us some amusing glimpses of the metropolis, for instance. He goes
to dine with some beaux at a tavern, and gives the following description
of the entertainment:--
"As soon as we came near the bar, a thing started up all ribbons,
lace, and feathers, and made such a noise with her bell and her
tongue together, that had half-a-dozen paper-mills been at work
within three yards of her, they'd have signified no more to her
clamorous voice than so many lutes to a drum, which alarmed two or
three nimble-heel'd fellows aloft, who shot themselves downstairs
with as much celerity as a mountebank's Mercury upon a rope from
the top of a church-steeple, every one charged with a mouthful of
'coming! coming!' This sudden clatter at our appearance so
surprised me that I looked as silly as a bumpkin translated from
the plough-tail to the play-house, when it rains fire in the
tempest, or when Don John's at dinner with the subterranean
assembly of terrible hobgoblins. He that got the start and first
approached us of these greyhound-footed emissaries, desir'd us to
walk up, telling my companion his friends were above; then with a
hop, stride and jump, ascended the stair-head before us, and from
thence conducted us to a spacious room, where about a dozen of my
schoolfellow's acquaintances were ready to receive us. Upon our
entrance they all started up, and on a suddain screwed themselves
into so many antick postures, that had I not seen them first erect,
I should have query'd with myself, whether I was fallen into the
company of men or monkeys.
"This academical fit of riggling agility was almost over before I
rightly understood the meaning on't, and found at last they were
only showing one another how many sorts of apes' gestures and fops'
cringes had been invented since the French dancing-masters
undertook to teach our English gentry to make scaramouches of
themselves; and how to entertain their poor friends, and pacifie
their needy creditors with compliments and congies. When every
person with abundance of pains had shown the ultimate of his
breeding, contending about a quarter of an hour who should sit down
first, as if we waited the coming of some herauld to fix us in our
proper places, which with much difficulty being at last agreed on,
we proceed to a whet of old hock to sharpen our appetites to our
approaching dinner; though I confess my stomach was as keen already
as a greyhound's to his supper after a day's coursing, or a miserly
livery-man's, who had fasted three days to prepare himself for a
Lord Mayor's feast. The honest cook gave us no leisure to tire our
appetites by a tedious expectancy; for in a little time the cloth
was laid, and our first course was ushered up by the _dominus
factotum_ in great order to the table, which consisted of two
calves'-heads and a couple of geese. I could not but laugh in my
conceit to think with what judgment the caterer had provided so
lucky an entertainment for so suitable a company. After the
victuals were pretty well cooled, in complimenting who should begin
first, we all fell to; and i'faith I found by their eating, they
were no ways affronted by their fare; for in less time than an old
woman could crack a nut, we had not left enough to dine the
bar-boy. The conclusion of our dinner was a stately Cheshire
cheese, of a groaning size, of which we devoured more in three
minutes than a million of maggots could have done in three weeks.
After cheese comes nothing; then all we desired was a clear stage
and no favour; accordingly everything was whipped away in a trice
by so cleanly a conveyance, that no juggler by virtue of Hocus
Pocus could have conjured away balls with more dexterity. All our
empty plates and dishes were in an instant changed into full quarts
of purple nectar and unsullied glasses. Then a bumper to the Queen
led the van of our good wishes, another to the Church Established,
a third left to the whimsie of the toaster, till at last their
slippery engines of verbosity coined nonsense with such a facil
fluency, that a parcel of alley-gossips at a christening, after the
sack had gone twice round, could not with their tattling tormentors
be a greater plague to a fumbling godfather, than their lame jest
and impertinent conundrums were to a man of my temper. Oaths were
as plenty as weeds in an alms-house garden.
"The night was spent in another tavern in harmony, the songs being
such as:--
"Musicks a crotchet the sober think vain,
The fiddle's a wooden projection,
Tunes are but flirts of a whimsical brain,
Which the bottle brings best to perfection:
Musicians are half-witted, merry and mad,
The same are all those that admire 'em,
They're fools if they play unless they're well paid,
And the others are blockheads to hire 'em."
Perhaps the most interesting account is that of St. Paul's
Cathedral--then in progress. We all know that it was nearly fifty years
in building, but have not perhaps been aware of all the causes of the
delay:--
"Thence we turned through the west gate of St. Paul's Churchyard,
where we saw a parcel of stone-cutters and sawyers so very hard at
work, that I protest, notwithstanding the vehemency of their
labour, and the temperateness of the season, instead of using their
handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat off their faces, they were most of
them blowing their nails. 'Bless me!' said I to my friend, 'sure
this church stands in a colder climate than the rest of the nation,
or else those fellows are of a strange constitution to seem ready
to freeze at such warm exercise.' 'You must consider,' says my
friend, 'this is work carried on at a national charge, and ought
not to be hastened on in a hurry; for the greater reputation it
will gain when it's finished will be, "That it was so many years in
building."' From thence we moved up a long wooden bridge that led
to the west porticum of the church, where we intermixed with such a
train of promiscuous rabble that I fancied we looked like the
beasts driving into the ark in order to replenish a new succeeding
world....
"We went a little farther, where we observed ten men in a corner,
very busie about two men's work, taking as much care that everyone
should have his due proportion of the labour, as so many thieves in
making an exact division of their booty. The wonderful piece of
difficulty, the whole number had to perform, was to drag along a
stone of about three hundred weight in a carriage in order to be
hoisted upon the moldings of the cupula, but were so fearful of
dispatching this facile undertaking with too much expedition, that
they were longer in hauling on't half the length of the church,
than a couple of lusty porters, I am certain, would have been
carrying it to Paddington, without resting of their burthen.
"We took notice of the vast distance of the pillars from whence
they turn the cupula, on which, they say, is a spire to be erected
three hundred feet in height, whose towering pinnacle will stand
with such stupendous loftiness above Bow Steeple dragon or the
Monument's flaming urn, that it will appear to the rest of the Holy
Temples like a cedar of Lebanon, among so many shrubs, or a Goliath
looking over the shoulders of so many Davids."
"The British Apollo, or curious Amusements for the Ingenious, performed
by a Society of Gentlemen;" appeared in 1708, and seems to have been a
weekly periodical, and to have been soon discontinued. The greater part
of it consisted of questions and answers. Information was desired on all
sorts of abstruse and absurd points--some scriptural, others referring
to natural philosophy, or to matters of social interest.
_Question._ Messieurs. Pray instruct your Petitioner how he shall
go away for the ensuing Long Vacation, having little liberty, and
less money. Yours, SOLITARY.
_Answer._ Study the virtues of patience and abstinence. A right
judgment in the theory may make the practice more agreeable.
_Ques._ Gentlemen. I desire your resolution of the following
question, and you will oblige your humble servant, Sylvia. Whether
a woman hath not a right to know all her husband's concerns, and in
particular whether she may not demand a sight of all the letters he
receives, which if he denies, whether she may not open them
privately without his consent?
_Ans._ Gently, gently, good nimble-fingered lady, you run us out of
breath and patience to trace your unexampled ambition. What! break
open your husband's letters! no, no; that privilege once granted,
no chain could hold you; you would soon proceed to break in upon
his conjugal affection, and commit a burglary upon the cabinet of
his authority. But to be serious, although a well-bred husband
would hardly deny a wife the satisfaction of perusing his familiar
letters, we can noways think it prudent, much less his duty, to
communicate all to her; since most men, especially such as are
employed in public affairs, are often trusted with important
secrets, and such as no wife can reasonably pretend to claim
knowledge of.
_Ques._ Apollo say,
Whence 'tis I pray,
The ancient custom came,
Stockins to throw
(I'm sure you know,)
At bridegroom and dame?
_Ans._ When Britons bold
Bedded of old,
Sandals were backward thrown,
The pair to tell,
That ill or well,
The act was all their own.
_Ques._ Long by Orlinda's precepts did I move,
Nor was my heart a foe or slave to love,
My soul was free and calm, no storm appeared,
While my own sex my love and friendship shared;
The men with due respect I always used,
And proffered hearts still civilly refused.
This was my state when young Alexis came
With all the expressions of an ardent flame,
He baffles all the objections I can make,
And slights superior matches for my sake;
Our humour seem for one another made,
And all things else in equal ballance laid;
I love him too, and could vouchsafe to wear
The matrimonial hoop, but that I fear
His love should not continue, cause I'm told,
That women sooner far than men grow old;
I, by some years, am eldest of the two,
Therefore, pray Sirs, advise me what to do.
_Ans._ If 'tis your age alone retards your love,
You may with ease that groundless fear remove;
For if you're older, you are wiser too,
Since few in wit must hope to equal you.
You may securely, therefore, crown a joy,
Not all the plagues of Hymen can destroy,
For tho' in marriage some unhappy be,
They are not, sure, so fair, so wise as thee.
CHAPTER III.
Swift--"Tale of a Tub"--Essays--Gulliver's Travels--Variety of Swift's
Humour--Riddles--Stella's Wit--Directions for Servants--Arbuthnot.
The year 1667 saw the birth of Swift, one of the most highly gifted and
successful humorists any country ever produced. A bright fancy runs like
a vein of gold through nearly all his writings, and enriches the wide
and varied field upon which he enters. He says of himself--
"Swift had the sin of wit, no venial crime;
Nay, 'tis affirmed he sometimes dealt in rhyme:
Humour and mirth had place in all he writ,
He reconciled divinity and wit."
Whether religion, politics, social follies, or domestic peculiarities
come before him, he was irresistibly tempted to regard them in a
ludicrous point of view. He observes--
"It is my peculiar case to be often under a temptation to be witty,
upon occasions where I could be neither wise nor sound, nor
anything to the matter in hand."
This general tendency was the foundation of his fortunes, and gained him
the favour of Sir William Temple, and of such noblemen as Berkeley,
Oxford, and Bolingbroke. They could nowhere find so pleasant a
companion, for his natural talent was improved by cultivation, and it is
when humour is united with learning--a rare combination--that it attains
its highest excellence. There was much classical erudition at that day,
and it was exhibited by men of letters in their ordinary conversation in
a way which would appear to us pedantic. Thus many of Swift's best
sayings turned on an allusion to some ancient author, as when speaking
of the emptiness of modern writers, who depend upon compilations and
digressions for filling up a treatise "that shall make a very comely
figure on a bookseller's shelf, there to be preserved neat and clean for
a long eternity, never to be thumbed or greased by students: but when
the fulness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of
purgatory in order to ascend the sky." He continues:--
"From such elements as these I am alive to behold the day, wherein
the corporation of authors can outvie all its brethren in the
guild. A happiness derived to us, with a great many others, from
our Scythian ancestors, among whom the number of pens was so
infinite that Grecian eloquence had no other way of expressing it
than by saying that in the regions of the north it was hardly
possible for a man to travel--the very air was so replete with
feathers."
The above is taken from the "Tale of a Tub" published in 1704, but never
directly owned by him. At the commencement of it he says that,
"Wisdom is a fox, who after long hunting will at last cost you the
pains to dig out; it is a cheese which, by how much the richer, has
the thicker, the homelier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a
judicious palate the maggots are the best; it is a sack posset,
wherein the deeper you go you will find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a
hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is
attended with an egg, but then, lastly, it is a nut, which unless
you choose with judgment may cost you a tooth, and pay you with
nothing but a worm."
He attacks indiscriminately the Pope, Luther, and Calvin. Of the first
he says--
"I have seen him, Peter, in his fits take three old high-crowned
hats, and clap them all on his head three story high, with a huge
bunch of keys at his girdle, and an angling rod in his left hand.
In which guise, whoever went to take him by the hand in the way of
salutation, Peter with much grace, like a well educated spaniel,
would present them with his foot; and if they refused his civility,
then he would raise it as high as their chaps, and give them a
damned kick in the mouth, which has ever since been called a
salute."
He also ridicules Transubstantiation, representing Peter as asking his
brothers to dine, and giving them a loaf of bread, and insisting that it
was mutton.
In the history of Martin Luther--a continuation of the "Tale of a Tub,"
he represents Queen Elizabeth as "setting up a shop for those of her own
farm, well furnished with powders, plasters, salves, and all other drugs
necessary, all right and true, composed according to receipts made by
physicians and apothecaries of her own creating, which they extracted
out of Peter's, Martin's, and Jack's receipt books; and of this muddle
and hodge-podge made up a dispensary of their own--strictly forbidding
any other to be used, and particularly Peter's, from whom the greater
part of this new dispensatory was stolen."
At the conclusion of the "Tale of a Tub," he says, "Among a very polite
nation in Greece there were the same temples built and consecrated to
Sleep and the Muses, between which two deities they believed the
greatest friendship was established. He says he differs from other
writers in that he shall be too proud, if by all his labours he has any
ways contributed to the repose of mankind in times so turbulent and
unquiet."
It is evident from this work, as from the "Battle of the Books," "The
Spider and the Bee," and other of his writings, that Allegory was still
in high favour.
Swift first appeared as a professed author in 1708, when he wrote
against astrologers, and prophetic almanack-makers, called
philomaths--then numerous, but now only represented by Zadkiel. This
Essay was one of those, which gave rise to "The Tatler." He wrote about
the same time, "An argument against Christianity"--an ironical way of
rebuking the irreligion of the time--
"It is urged that there are by computation in this kingdom above
ten thousand persons, whose revenues added to those of my lords the
bishops, would suffice to maintain two hundred young gentlemen of
wit and pleasure, and freethinking,--enemies to priestcraft, narrow
principles, pedantry, and prejudices; who might be an ornament to
the court and town; and then again, so great a body of able
(bodied) divines might be a recruit to our fleet and armies."
"Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity is
the clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely lost, and
consequently the kingdom one seventh less in trade, business, and
pleasure; besides the loss to the public of so many stately
structures, now in the hands of the clergy, which might be
converted into play-houses, market-houses, exchanges, common
dormitories, and other public edifices. I hope I shall be forgiven
a hard word, if I call this a perfect _cavil_. I readily own there
has been an old custom, time out of mind, for people to assemble in
the churches every Sunday, and that shops are still frequently
shut, in order, as it is conceived, to preserve the ancient
practice, but how they can be a hindrance to business or pleasure
it is hard to imagine. What if the men of pleasure are forced one
day in the week to game at home instead of in the chocolate houses?
Are not the taverns and coffee-houses open? Is not that the chief
day for traders to sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers
to prepare their briefs.... But I would fain know how it can be
contended that the churches are misapplied? Where more care to
appear in the foremost box with greater advantage of dress. Where
more meetings for business, where more bargains are driven, and
where so many conveniences and enticements to sleep?"
"I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are
apt to murmur, and be choked at the sight of so many draggle-tailed
parsons, who happen to fall in their way and offend their eyes; but
at the same time, these wise reformers do not consider what an
advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided
with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and
improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each
other, or on themselves; especially, when all this may be done
without the least imaginable danger to their persons."
"And to add another argument of a parallel nature--if Christianity
were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the strong
reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to find another
subject so calculated in all points, whereon to display their
abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived
of, from those whose genius, by continual practice, has been wholly
turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would,
therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any
other subject! We are daily complaining of the great decline of Wit
among us, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only
topic we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgil for a wit,
and Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible supply of
Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials?
What other subject through all Art and Nature could have produced
Tindal for a profound author, and furnished him with readers? It is
the wise choice of the subject, which alone adorns and
distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been
employed on the side of religion, they would have sunk into silence
and oblivion."
Pope claims to have shadowed forth such a work as Gulliver's Travels in
the Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus; but Swift, no doubt, took the idea
from Lucian's "True History." He was also indebted to Philostratus, who
speaks of an army of pigmies attacking Hercules. Something may also have
been gathered from Defoe's minuteness of detail; and he made use of all
these with a master-hand to improve and increase the fertile resources
of his own mind. Swift produced the work, by which he will always
survive, and be young. In the voyage to Lilliput he depreciates the
court and ministers of George I., by comparing them to something
insignificantly small: in the voyage to Brobdingnag by likening them to
something grand and noble. But the immortality of the work owes nothing
to such considerations but everything to humour and fancy, especially to
the general satire upon human vanity. "The Emperor of Lilliput is taller
by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his Court, which alone is
enough to strike awe into beholders."
In the Honyhuhums, the human race is compared to the Yahoos, and placed
in a loathsome and ridiculous light. They are represented as most
irrational creatures, frequently engaged in wars or acrimonious disputes
as to whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh, whether it be better to
kiss a post or throw it into the fire, and what is the best colour of a
coat!--referring to religious disputes between Catholics and
Protestants. He says, that among the Yahoos, "It is a very justifiable
cause of war to invade the country after the people have been wasted by
famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among
themselves." With regard to internal matters, "there is a society of men
among us, bred up from youth in the art of proving by words multiplied
for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as
they are paid. In this society all the rest of the people are slaves."
Swift's humour, as has been already intimated, by no means confined
itself to being a mere vehicle of instruction. It luxuriated in a
hundred forms, and on every passing subject. He wrote verses for great
women, and for those who sold oysters and herrings, as well as apples
and oranges. The flying leaves, so common at that time, contained a
great variety of squibs and parodies written by him. Here, for instance
is a travesty of Ambrose Philips' address to Miss Carteret--
"Happiest of the spaniel race
Painter, with thy colours grace,
Draw his forehead large and high,
Draw his blue and humid eye,
Draw his neck, so smooth and round,
Little neck, with ribbons bound,
And the spreading even back,
Soft and sleek, and glossy black,
And the tail that gently twines
Like the tendrils of the vines,
And the silky twisted hair
Shadowing thick the velvet ear,
Velvet ears, which hanging low
O'er the veiny temples flow ..."
He could scarcely stay at an inn without scratching something humorous
on the window pane. At the Four Crosses in the Wading Street Road,
Warwickshire, he wrote--
"Fool to put up four crosses at your door
Put up your wife--she's crosser than all four."
On another, he deprecated this scribbling on windows, which, it seems,
was becoming too general--
"The sage, who said he should be proud
Of windows in his breast
Because he ne'er a thought allowed
That might not be confessed;
His window scrawled, by every rake,
His breast again would cover
And fairly bid the devil take
The diamond and the lover."
The members of the Kit Kat club used to write epigrams in honour of
their "Toasts" on their wine glasses.[6]
He sometimes amused himself with writing ingenious riddles. Additional
grace was added to them by giving them a poetic form. They differ from
modern riddles, which are nearly all prose, and turn upon puns. They
more resemble the old Greek and Roman enigmas, but have not their
obscurity or simplicity. Most of them are long, but the following will
serve as a specimen--
"We are little airy creatures
All of different voice and features;
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you'll find in jet
T'other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you."
This may have suggested to Miss C. Fanshawe her celebrated enigma on the
letter H.
The humorous talent possessed by the Dean made him a great acquisition
in society, and, as it appears, somewhat too fascinating to the fair
sex. Ladies have never been able to decide satisfactorily why he did not
marry. It may have been that having lived in grand houses, he did not
think he had a competent income. In his thoughts on various subjects, he
says, "Matrimony has many children, Repentance, Discord, Poverty,
Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, &c."
His sentimental and platonic friendship with young ladies, to whom he
gave poetical names, made them historical, but not happy. "Stella," to
whom he is supposed to have been privately married before her death,
charmed him with her loveliness and wit. Some of his prettiest pieces,
in which poetry is intermingled with humour, were written to her. In an
address to her in 1719, on her attaining thirty-five years of age, after
speaking of the affection travellers have for the old "Angel Inn," he
says--
"Now this is Stella's case in fact
An angel's face a little cracked,
(Could poets or could painters fix
How angels look at thirty-six)
This drew us in at first to find
In such a form an angel's mind;
And every virtue now supplies
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes
See at her levée crowding swains
Whom Stella greatly entertains
With breeding humour, wit, and sense
And puts them out to small expense,
Their mind so plentifully fills
And makes such reasonable bills,
So little gets, for what she gives
We really wonder how she lives,
And had her stock been less, no doubt,
She must have long ago run out."
Swift says that Stella "always said the best thing in the company," but
to judge by the specimens he has preserved, this must have been the
opinion of a lover, unless the society she moved in was extremely dull.
At the same time those who assert that her allusions were coarse, have
no good foundation for such a calumny. Her humour contrasted with that
of the Dean, both in its weakness and its delicacy. Swift was too fond
of bringing forward into the light what should be concealed, but saw the
fault in others, and imputed it to an absence of inventive power. He
writes--
"You do not treat nature wisely by always striving to get beneath the
surface. What to show and to conceal she knows, it is one of her
eternal laws to put her best furniture forward."
The last of his writings before his mind gave way was his "Directions to
Servants." It was compiled apparently from jottings set down in hours of
idleness, and shows that his love of humour survived as long as any of
his faculties. He was blamed by Lord Orrery for turning his mind to such
trifling concerns, and the stricture might have had some weight had not
his primary object been to amuse. That this was his aim rather than mere
correction, is evident from the specious reasons he gives for every one
of his precepts, and he would have found it difficult to choose a
subject which would meet with a more general response.
The following few extracts will give an idea of the work--
"Rules that concern all servants in general--When your master or
lady calls a servant by name, if that servant be not in the way,
none of you are to answer, for then there will be no end of
drudgery; and masters themselves allow that if a servant comes,
when he is called, it is sufficient.
"When you have done a fault, be always pert and insolent, and
behave yourself as if you were the injured person; this will
immediately put your master or lady off their mettle.
"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, scrape 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 scrap 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
scraps. 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 acumen 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 classic 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
coarseness 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 principally 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 lustre 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 butter;
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 noble 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 shells; 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 instituted 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 coarse 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
chastisement 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 passing 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 title, it contained some good comic
passages, 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 assistance 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."
This application seems to have met with some response, for although we
have only before us the perpetual Isaac Bickerstaff, he soon tells us
that "he shall have little to do but to publish what is sent him," and
finally that some of the best pieces were not written by himself. Two or
three were from the hand of Swift, who does not seem to have much
appreciated the gentle periodical--says that as far as he is concerned,
the editor may "fair-sex it to the world's end," and asserts with equal
ill-nature and falsity that the publication was finally given up for
want of materials. Probably it was to the solicitude of Addison, who was
at that time employed in Ireland, that we are indebted for the few
productions of Swift's bold genius which adorn this work. One of these
is upon the peculiar weakness then prevalent among ladies for studding
their faces with little bits of black plaster.
"Madam.--Let me beg of you to take off the patches at the lower end
of your left cheek, and I will allow two more under your left eye,
which will contribute more to the symmetry of your face; except you
would please to remove the ten black atoms from your ladyship's
chin, and wear one large patch instead of them. If so, you may
properly enough retain the three patches above mentioned.
"I am, &c."
The next describes a downfall of rain in the city.
"Careful observers may foretell the hour,
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower;
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more;
Returning home at night you'll find the sink
Strike your offended nose with double stink;
If you be wise, then go not far to dine,
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine,
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage;
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen,
He damns the climate and complains of spleen....
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town,
To shops in crowds the draggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy,
The Templar spruce, while ev'ry spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach,
The tuck'd up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides;
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed,
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs."
The contributions of Addison were more numerous. He is more precise and
old-fashioned than Steele, being particularly fond of giving a classical
and mythological air to his writings, and thus we have such subjects as
"The Goddess of Justice distributing rewards," and "Juno's method of
retaining the affections of Jupiter." Allegories were his delight, and
he tells us how artistically the probable can be intermingled with the
marvellous. Such conceits were then still in fashion, and the numbers
of the "Tatler" which contained them had the largest sale. They remind
us of the "Old Moralities," and at this time succeeded to the prodigies,
whales, plagues, and famines to which the news-writers had recourse when
the exciting events of the Civil War came to an end. In general, the
subjects chosen by Addison were more important than those chosen by
Steele, and no doubt the earnest bent of his mind would have led him to
write lofty and learned essays on morals and literature quite unsuitable
to a popular periodical. But being kept down in a humbler sphere by the
exigency of the case, he produced what was far more telling, and,
perhaps, more practically useful. In one place he uses his humorous
talent to protest, in the cause of good feeling, against the indignities
put upon chaplains--a subject on which Swift could have spoken with more
personal experience, but not with such good taste and light pleasantry.
The article begins with a letter from a chaplain, complaining that he
was not allowed to sit at table to the end of dinner, and was rebuked by
the lady of the house for helping himself to a jelly. Addison remarks:--
"The case of this gentleman deserves pity, especially if he loves
sweetmeats, to which, if I may guess from his letter, he is no
enemy. In the meantime, I have often wondered at the indecency of
discharging the holiest men from the table as soon as the most
delicious parts of the entertainments are served up, and could
never conceive a reason for so absurd a custom. Is it because a
liquorish palate, or a sweet-tooth, as they call it, is not
consistent with the sanctity of his character? This is but a
trifling pretence. No man of the most rigid virtue gives offence in
any excesses of plum-pudding or plum-porridge, and that because
they are the first parts of the dinner. Is there anything that
tends to incitation in sweetmeats more than in ordinary dishes?
Certainly not. Sugar-plums are a very innocent diet, and conserves
of a much colder nature than your common pickles."
In another place speaking of the dinner table, Addison ridicules the
"false delicacies" of the time. He tells us how at a great party he
could find nothing eatable, and how horrified he was at being asked to
partake of a young pig that had been whipped to death. Eventually, he
had to finish his dinner at home, and is led to inculcate his maxim that
"he keeps the greatest table who has the most valuable company at it."
In another place he complains of the lateness of the dinner-hour, and
asks what it will come to eventually, as it is already three o'clock!
Of the evil courses of the "wine-brewers" Addison, who lived in the
world of the rich, no doubt heard frequent complaints--
"There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators,
who work underground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to
conceal their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind.
These subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the
transmutation of liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and
incantations, raising under the streets of London the choicest
products of the hills and valleys of France. They can squeeze
Bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw Champagne from an apple. Virgil
in that remarkable prophecy,
'Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,'
The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn,
seems to have hinted at this art, which can turn a plantation of
northern hedges in a vineyard. These adepts are known among one
another by the name of _wine-brewers_; and I am afraid do great
injury not only to Her Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many
of her good subjects."
After what we have seen in our own times we need not be surprised that
the ladies of Addison's day revived the old "fardingales," an expansion
of dress which has always been a subject of ridicule, and probably will
continue to be upon all its future appearances. The matter is first here
brought forward as follows:
"The humble petition of William Jingle, Coachmaker and Chairmaker
to the Liberty of Westminster.
"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Censor of Great Britain.
"Showeth,--That upon the late invention of Mrs. Catherine
Cross-stitch, Mantua-maker, the petticoats of ladies were too wide
for entering into any coach or chair, which was in use before the
said invention.
"That, for the service of the said ladies, your petitioner has
built a round chair, in the form of a lantern, six yards and a half
in circumference, with a stool in the centre of it; the said
vehicle being so contrived, as to receive the passenger by opening
in two in the middle, and closing mathematically when she is
seated.
"That your petitioner has also invented a coach for the reception
of one lady only, who is to be let in at the top.
"That the said coach has been tried by a lady's woman in one of
these full petticoats, who was let down from a balcony and drawn up
again by pullies to the great satisfaction of her lady, and all who
beheld her.
"Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that for the
encouragement of ingenuity and useful inventions, he may be heard
before you pass sentence upon the petticoats aforesaid. And your
petitioner, &c.,"
Addison, in No. 116, proceeds to try the question:--
"The Court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the
petticoat, I gave orders to bring in a criminal, who was taken up
as she went out of the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was
now standing in the street with a great concourse of people about
her. Word was brought me that she had endeavoured twice or thrice
to come in, but could not do it by reason of her petticoat, which
was too large for the entrance of my house, though I had ordered
both the folding doors to be thrown open for its reception. The
garment having been taken off, the accused, by a committee of
matrons, was at length brought in, and 'dilated' so as to show it
in its utmost circumference, but my great hall was too narrow for
the experiment; for before it was half unfolded it described so
immoderate a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face
as I sat in the chair of judicature. I finally ordered the vest,
which stood before us, to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my
great hall, and afterwards to be spread open, in such a manner that
it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads, and
covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken
rotunda, in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's."
A considerable part of "The Tatler" is occupied with gay attacks upon
the foppery of the beaux, whom it calls "pretty fellows," or "smart
fellows." The red-heeled shoes and the cane hung by its blue ribbon on
the last button of the coat, came in for an especial share of ridicule.
A letter purporting to be from Oxford, and reporting some improvement
effected in the conversation of the University, also says:--
"I am sorry though not surprised to find that you have rallied the
men of dress in vain: that the amber-headed cane still maintains
its unstable post," (on the button) "that pockets are but a few
inches shortened, and a beau is still a beau, from the crown of his
night-cap to the heels of his shoes. For your comfort, I can assure
you that your endeavours succeed better in this famous seat of
learning. By them the manners of our young gentlemen are in a fair
way of amendment." ...
The ladies also did not escape censure for their love of finery.
"A matron of my acquaintance, complaining of her daughter's vanity,
was observing that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher
than ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction
in herself, mixed with a scorn of others. 'I did not know,' says my
friend, 'what to make of the carriage of this fantastical girl,
until I was informed by her elder sister, that she had a pair of
striped garters on.'"
Again:--
"Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the loss of a wig, and been
ruined by the tapping of a snuff box. It is impossible to describe
all the execution that was done by the shoulder knot, while that
fashion prevailed, or to reckon up all the maidens that have fallen
a sacrifice to a pair of fringed gloves. A sincere heart has not
made half so many conquests as an open waistcoat: and I should be
glad to see an able head make so good a figure in a woman's company
as a pair of red heels. A Grecian hero, when he was asked whether
he could play upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply
when he had answered 'No, but I can make a great city of a little
one.' Notwithstanding his boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of
any Toast in town whether she would not think the lutenist
preferable to the statesman."
The general tone of "The Tatler," is that of a fashionable London paper,
and it often notices the difference of thought in town and country. This
distinction is much less now than in his day, before the time of
railways, and when the country gentlemen, instead of having houses in
London, betook themselves for the gay season to their county towns.
"I was this evening representing a complaint sent me out of the
country by Emilia. She says, her neighbours there have so little
sense of what a refined lady of the town is, that she who was a
celebrated wit in London, is in that dull part of the world in so
little esteem that they call her in their base style a tongue-pad.
Old Truepenny bid me advise her to keep her wit until she comes to
town again, and admonish her that both wit and breeding are local;
for a fine court lady is as awkward among country wives, as one of
them would appear in a drawing-room."
Again:--
"I must beg pardon of my readers that, for this time I have, I
fear, huddled up my discourse, having been very busy in helping an
old friend out of town. He has a very good estate and is a man of
wit; but he has been three years absent from town, and cannot bear
a jest; for which I have with some pains convinced him that he can
no more live here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so
fond of dear London that he began to fret, only inwardly; but being
unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the Northern
coach for him and his family; and hope he has got to-night safe
from all sneerers in his own parlour.
"To know what a Toast is in the country gives as much perplexity as
she herself does in town; and indeed the learned differ very much
upon the original of this word, and the acceptation of it among the
moderns; however, it is agreed to have a cheerful and joyous
import. A toast in a cold morning, heightened by nutmeg, and
sweetened with sugar, has for many ages been given to our rural
dispensers of justice before they entered upon causes, and has been
of great politic use to take off the severity of their sentences;
but has indeed been remarkable for one ill effect, that it inclines
those who use it immoderately to speak Latin; to the admiration
rather than information of an audience. This application of a toast
makes it very obvious that the word may, without a metaphor, be
understood as an apt name for a thing which raises us in the most
sovereign degree; but many of the Wits of the last age will assert
that the word in its present sense was known among them in their
youth, and had its rise from an accident in the town of Bath in the
reign of King Charles the Second. It happened that on a public day,
a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one
of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of water in which the
fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in
the place a gay fellow half fuddled, who swore that though he liked
not the liquor, he would take the toast. He was opposed in his
resolution, yet this whim gave foundation to the present honor
which is due to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever
since been called a Toast."[7]
Courtships, and the hopes and fears of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, form
many tender and classic episodes throughout this periodical--
"Though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being
depends upon her, the termagant for whom he sighs is in love with a
fellow who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and
lets her plainly see she may possibly be his rival, but never his
mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my
first narrative, pleases himself with a vain imagination that, with
the language of his eyes he shall conquer her, though her eyes are
intent upon one who looks from her; which is ordinary with the sex.
It is certainly a mistake in the ancients to draw the little
gentleman Love as a blind boy, for his real character is a little
thief that squints; for ask Mrs. Meddle, who is a confidant or spy
upon all the passions in the town, and she will tell you that the
whole is a game of cross purposes. The lover is generally pursuing
one who is in pursuit of another, and running from one that desires
to meet him. Nay, the nature of this passion is so justly
represented in a squinting little thief (who is always in a double
action) that do but observe Clarissa next time you see her, and you
will find when her eyes have made the soft tour round the company,
they make no stay on him they say she is to marry, but rest two
seconds of a minute on Wildair, who neither looks nor thinks of
her, or any woman else. However, Cynthio had a bow from her the
other day, upon which he is very much come to himself; and I heard
him send his man of an errand yesterday without any manner of
hesitation; a quarter of an hour after which he reckoned twenty,
remembered he was to sup with a friend, and went exactly to his
appointment."
All the love-making in "The Tatler" is of a very correct description.
Marriage is nowhere despised or ridiculed, though suggestions are made
for composing the troubles which sometimes accompany it:--
"A young gentleman of great estate fell desperately in love with a
great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long
flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. However, my
young spark ventures upon her like a man of quality, without being
acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, until it was a
crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with
possession, and the charms of this lady soon wanted the support of
good humour and complacency of manners; upon this, my spark flies
to the bottle for relief from satiety; she disdains him for being
tired of that for which all men envied him; and he never came home
but it was, 'Was there no sot that would stay longer?' 'Would any
man living but you?' 'Did I leave all the world for this usage?' to
which he, 'Madam, split me, you're very impertinent!' In a word,
this match was wedlock in its most terrible appearances. She, at
last weary of railing to no purpose, applies to a good uncle, who
gives her a bottle he pretended he had bought of Mr. Partridge, the
conjurer. 'This,' said he, 'I gave ten guineas for. The virtue of
the enchanted liquor (said he that sold it) is such, that if the
woman you marry proves a scold (which it seems, my dear niece is
your misfortune, as it was your good mother's before you) let her
hold three spoonfuls of it in her mouth for a full half hour after
you come home.'"
But Steele says that his principal object was "to stem the torrent of
prejudice and vice." He did not limit himself to making amusement out of
the affectation of the day; he often directed his humour to higher ends.
He deprecated inconstancy, observing that a gentleman who presumed to
pay attention to a lady, should bring with him a character from the one
he had lately left. He must be especially commended for having been one
of the first to advocate consideration for the lower animals, and to
condemn swearing and duelling. The latter, as he said, owed its
continuance to the force of custom, and he supposes that if a duellist
"wrote the truth of his heart," he would express himself to his
lady-love in the following manner:--
"Madam,--I have so tender a regard for you and your interests that
I will knock any man on the head that I observe to be of my mind,
and to like you. Mr. Truman, the other day, looked at you in so
languishing a manner that I am resolved to run him through
to-morrow morning. This, I think, he deserves for his guilt in
adoring you, than which I cannot have a greater reason for
murdering him, except it be that, you also approve him. Whoever
says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill
him,
"I am, Madam,
"Your most obedient humble servant."
Among other offensive habits, "The Tatler" discountenances the custom of
taking snuff, then common among ladies.
"I have been these three years persuading Sagissa[8] to leave it
off; but she talks so much, and is so learned, that she is above
contradiction. However, an accident brought that about, which all
my eloquence could never accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow
in her closet, who ran thither to avoid some company that came to
visit her; she made an excuse to go to him for some implement they
were talking of. Her eager gallant snatched a kiss; but being
unused to snuff, some grains from off her upper lip made him sneeze
aloud, which alarmed her visitors, and has made a discovery."
[It is impossible to say what effect this ridicule produced upon the
snuff-taking public, but the custom gradually declined. A hundred years
later, James Beresford, a fellow of Merton, places among the "Miseries
of Human Life," the "Leaving off Snuff at the request of your Angel,"
and writes the following touching farewell.]
"Box thou art closed, and snuff is but a name!
It is decreed my nose shall feast no more!
To me no more shall come--whence dost it come?--
The precious pulvil from Hibernia's shore!
"Virginia, barren be thy teeming soil,
Or may the swallowing earthquake gulf thy fields!
Fribourg and Pontet! cease your trading toil,
Or bankruptcy be all the fruit it yields!
"And artists! frame no more in tin or gold,
Horn, paper, silver, coal or skin, the chest,
Foredoomed in small circumference to hold
The titillating treasures of the West!"
The fellows of Merton seem to have discovered some hidden efficacy in
snuff.
"Who doth not know what logic lies concealed,
Where diving finger meets with diving thumb?
Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field,
Unhurt by argument, by snuff struck dumb?
"The box drawn forth from its profoundest bed,
The slow-repeated tap, with frowning brows.
The brandished pinch, the fingers widely spread,
The arm tossed round, returning to the nose.
"Who can withstand a battery so strong?
Wit, reason, learning, what are ye to these?
Or who would toil through folios thick and long,
When wisdom may be purchased with a sneeze?
"Shall I, then, climb where Alps on Alps arise?
No; snuff and science are to me a dream,
But hold my soul! for that way madness lies,
Love's in the scale, tobacco kicks the beam."
CHAPTER V.
Spectator--The Rebus--Injurious Wit--The Everlasting Club--The Lovers'
Club--Castles in the Air--The Guardian--Contributions by Pope--"The
Agreeable Companion"--The Wonderful Magazine--Joe Miller--Pivot
Humour.
When "The Tatler" had completed two hundred and seventy-one numbers, it
occurred to the fertile mind of Steele that it might be modified with
advantage. For the future it should be a daily paper, and only contain
an essay upon one subject. In making this alteration he thought it would
be better to give the periodical a title of more important
signification, and accordingly called it the "Spectator." But the most
important difference was that Addison was to contribute a much larger
portion of the material. This gave more solidity to the work.
Addison never obtained a questionable success by descending too low in
coarse language. His style has been recommended as a model, for he is
lively and interesting without approaching dangerous ground. As we read
his pleasant pages we can almost agree with Lord Chesterfield
that:--"True wit never raised a laugh since the world was," but here and
there we find a passage that shows us the grave censor was mistaken.
Speaking of the "absurdities of the modern opera" Addison says,
"As I was walking in the streets about a fortnight ago, I saw an
ordinary fellow carrying a cage full of little birds upon his
shoulder; and as I was wondering with myself what use he would put
them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaintance, who had the
same curiosity. Upon his asking what he had upon his shoulder, he
told him that he had been buying sparrows for the opera. 'Sparrows
for the opera,' says his friend, licking his lips, 'what! are they
to be roasted?' 'No, no,' says the other, 'they are to enter
towards the end of the first act, and to fly about the stage.'
"There have been so many flights of sparrows let loose in this
opera, that it is feared the house will never get rid of them, and
that in other plays they may make their entrance in very wrong and
improper scenes, so as to be seen flying in a lady's bedchamber, or
perching upon a king's throne; besides the inconvenience which the
heads of the audience may sometimes suffer for them. I am credibly
informed that there was once a design of casting into an opera the
story of Whittington and his Cat, and that in order to it there had
been got together a great quantity of mice; but Mr. Rich, the
proprietor of the play-house, very prudently considered that it
would be impossible for the cat to kill them all, and that
consequently the princes of the stage might be as much infested
with mice as the prince of the island was before the cat's arrival
upon it."
To a letter narrating country sports, and a whistling match won by a
footman, he adds as a postscript,
"After having despatched these two important points of grinning and
whistling, I hope you will oblige the world with some reflections
upon yawning, as I have seen it practised on a Twelfth Night among
other Christmas gambols at the house of a very worthy gentleman
who entertains his tenants at that time of the year. They yawn for
a Cheshire cheese, and begin about midnight, when the whole company
is supposed to be drowsy. He that yawns widest, and at the same
time so naturally as to produce the most yawns among the
spectators, carries home the cheese. If you handle this subject as
you ought, I question not but your paper will set half the kingdom
a-yawning, though I dare promise you it will never make anybody
fall asleep."
Johnson observes that Addison never out-steps the modesty of nature, nor
raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. He wrote several
essays in the "Spectator" on wit, and condemns much that commonly passes
under the name. Together with verbal humour and many absurd devices
connected with it, he especially repudiates the rebus. In the first part
of the following extract he refers to this device being used for other
objects than those of amusement, and he might have reminded us of the
alphabets of primitive times, when the picture of an animal signified
the sound with which its name commenced; but the rebus proper is merely
a bad attempt at humour--a sort of pictorial pun--
"I find likewise among the ancients that ingenious kind of conceit
which the moderns distinguish by the name of a rebus, that does not
sink a letter, but a whole word, by substituting a picture in its
place. When Cæsar was one of the masters of the Roman mint, he
placed the figure of an elephant upon the reverse of the public
money; the word Cæsar signifying an elephant in the Punic language.
This was artificially contrived by Cæsar, because it was not lawful
for a private man to stamp his own figure upon the coin of the
Commonwealth. Cicero, so called from the founder of his family, who
was marked on the nose with a little wen like a vetch, (which is
Cicer in Latin,) instead of Marcus Tullius Cicero, ordered the
words Marcus Tullius with the figure of a vetch at the end of them,
to be inscribed on a public monument. This was done probably to
show that he was neither ashamed of his name or family,
notwithstanding the envy of his competitors had often reproached
him with both. In the same manner we read of a famous building that
was marked in several parts of it with the figures of a frog and a
lizard; these words in Greek having been the names of the
architects, who by the laws of their country were never permitted
to inscribe their own names upon their works. For the same reason,
it is thought that the forelock of the horse in the antique
equestrian statute of Marcus Aurelius, represents at a distance the
shape of an owl, to intimate the country of the statuary, who in
all probability was an Athenian. This kind of wit was very much in
vogue among our own countrymen about an age or two ago, who did not
practise it for any oblique reason, as the ancients above
mentioned, but purely for the sake of being witty. Among
innumerable instances that may be given of this nature, I shall
produce the device of one, Mr. Newberry, as I find it mentioned by
our learned Camden, in his remains. Mr. Newberry, to represent his
name by a picture, hung up at his door the sign of a yew-tree that
had several berries upon it, and in the midst of them a great
golden N hung upon the bough of the tree, which by the help of a
little false spelling made up the word N-ew-berry."
Addison disproved of that severity and malice which was too common among
the writers of his age. He refers to it in his essays on wit, in
allusion, as it is thought, to Swift.
"There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than
the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation; lampoons and
satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned
darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For
this reason I am very much troubled when I see the talents of
humour and ridicule in the possession of an ill-natured man.... It
must indeed be confessed, that a lampoon or a satire does not carry
in it robbery or murder; but at the same time, how many are there
that would rather lose a considerable sum of money, or even life
itself, than be set up as a mark of infamy and derision."
He goes on to notice how various persons behaved under the ordeal--
"When Julius Cæsar was lampooned by Catullus he invited him to
supper, and treated him with such a generous civility that he made
the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarin gave the same kind
of treatment to the learned Guillet, who had reflected upon his
Eminence in a famous Latin poem. The Cardinal sent for him, and
after some kind expostulation upon what he had written, assured him
of his esteem, and dismissed him with a promise of the next good
Abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him a
few months after. This had so good an effect upon the author that
he dedicated the second edition of his book to the Cardinal, after
having expunged the passages, which had given him offence. Sextus
Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his
being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was dressed in a very dirty
shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear
foul linen because his laundress was made a princess. This was a
reflection upon the Pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her
brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented
her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the Pope
offered a considerable sum of money to any person that should
discover the author of it. The author relying on his Holiness'
generosity, as also upon some private overtures he had received
from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him
the reward he had promised, but at the same time to disable the
satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both
his hands to be chopped off."
When Addison treats of the ladies' "commode," a lofty head-dress which
had been in fashion in his time, he adds reflections which may moderate
all such vanities--
"There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
Within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty
degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height,
inasmuch as the female part of our species were much taller than
the men. The women were of such an enormous stature that 'we
appeared as grasshoppers before them.' At present, the whole sex is
in a manner dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems
almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once
very near seven feet high, that at present want some inches of
five.... I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it
is for them to add anything that can be ornamental to what is
already the master-piece of Nature. The head has the most beautiful
appearance, as well as the highest station in a human figure.
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has
touched it with vermillion, planted in it a double row of ivory,
made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up, and
enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side
with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot
be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair
as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she
seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious
of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary
ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and
foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real
beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribbands, and bone-lace."
But the popularity of "The Spectator" was not a little due to the
stronger and more daring genius of Steele. His writing, though not so
didactic, or so ripe in style, as that of Addison, was antithetical,
sparkling, and more calculated to "raise a horse."
The continuation of the periodical, which was carried on by others, was
not equally successful. In the earlier volumes we recognise Steele's
hand in the Essays on "Clubs." He gives us an amusing account of the
"Ugly Club," for which no one was eligible who had not "a visible
quearity in his aspect, or peculiar cast of countenance;" and of the
"Everlasting Club," which was to sit day and night from one end of the
year to another; no party presuming to rise till they were relieved by
those who were in course to succeed them.
"This club was instituted towards the end of the Civil Wars, and
continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire,
which burnt them out and dispersed them for several weeks. The
steward at this time maintained his post till he had been like to
have been blown up with a neighbouring house (which was demolished
in order to stop the fire) and would not leave the chair at last,
till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received
repeated directions from the Club to withdraw himself."
The following on "Castles in the Air" is interesting, as Steele himself
seems to have been addicted to raising such structures,--
"A castle-builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have
grasped imaginary sceptres, and delivered uncontrollable edicts
from a throne to which conquered nations yielded obeisance. I have
made I know not how many inroads into France, and ravaged the very
heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drunk
champagne at Versailles; and I would have you take notice I am not
only able to vanquish a people already 'cowed' and accustomed to
flight, but I could Almanzor-like, drive the British general from
the field, were I less a Protestant, or had ever been affronted by
the confederates. There is no art or profession whose most
celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have afforded my
salutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn and agues to shake
the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon me, an apt
gesture and a proper cadence has animated each sentence, and gazing
crowds have found their passions worked up into rage, or soothed
into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon sight of
a fine woman, I have stretched into proper stature, and killed with
a good air and mien. These are the gay phantoms that dance before
my waking eyes and compose my day-dreams. I should be the most
contented happy man alive, were the chimerical happiness which
springs from the paintings of Fancy less fleeting and transitory.
But alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the least breath of
wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my
groves, and left me no more trace of them than if they had never
been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door; the
salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the
same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen
from my head. The ill consequences of these reveries is
inconceivably great, seeing the loss of imaginary possessions makes
impressions of real woe. Besides bad economy is visible and
apparent in the builders of imaginary mansions. My tenants'
advertisements of ruins and dilapidations often cast a damp over my
spirits, even in the instant when the sun, in all his splendour,
gilds my Eastern palaces."
In marking the differences between the humour at the time of "The
Spectator" and that of the present day, we feel happy that the tone of
society has so altered that such jests as the following would be quite
inadmissible.
"Mr. Spectator,--As you are spectator general, I apply myself to
you in the following case, viz.: I do not wear a sword, but I often
divert myself at the theatre, when I frequently see a set of
fellows pull plain people, by way of humour and frolic, by the
nose, upon frivolous or no occasion. A friend of mine the other
night applauding what a graceful exit Mr. Wilks made, one of those
wringers overhearing him, pinched him by the nose. I was in the pit
the other night (when it was very much crowded); a gentleman
leaning upon me, and very heavily, I very civilly requested him to
remove his hand, for which he pulled me by the nose. I would not
resent it in so public a place, because I was unwilling to create a
disturbance: but have since reflected upon it as a thing that is
unmanly and disingenuous, renders the nose-puller odious, and makes
the person pulled by the nose look little and contemptible. This
grievance I humbly request you will endeavour to redress. I am,
&c., JAMES EASY.
"I have heard of some very merry fellows among whom the frolic was
started, and passed by a great majority, that every man should
immediately draw a tooth: after which they have gone in a body and
smoked a cobler. The same company at another night has each man
burned his cravat, and one, perhaps, whose estate would bear it,
has thrown a long wig and laced hat into the fire. Thus they have
jested themselves stark naked, and run into the streets and
frighted the people very successfully. There is no inhabitant of
any standing in Covent Garden, but can tell you a hundred good
humours where people have come off with a little bloodshed, and yet
scoured all the witty hours of the night. I know a gentleman that
has several wounds in the head by watch-poles, and has been twice
run through the body to carry on a good jest. He is very old for a
man of so much good humour; but to this day he is seldom merry, but
he has occasion to be valiant at the same time. But, by the favour
of these gentlemen, I am humbly of opinion that a man may be a very
witty man, and never offend one statute of this kingdom."
More harmless was the joking of Villiers, the last Duke of Buckingham,
(father of Lady Mary Wortley Montague), who seems to have inherited some
of the family humour. Addison tells us,
"One of the wits of the last age, who was a man of a good estate,
thought he never laid out his money better than on a jest. As he
was one year at Bath, observing that in the great confluence of
fine people there were several among them with long chins, a part
of the visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he
invited to dinner half a score of these remarkable persons, who had
their mouths in the middle of their faces. They had no sooner
placed themselves about the table, but they began to stare upon one
another, not being able to imagine what had brought them together.
Our English proverb says:
''Tis merry in the hall
When beards wag all.'
"It proved so in the assembly I am now speaking of, who seeing so
many peaks of faces agitated with eating, drinking and discourse,
and observing all the chins that were present meeting together very
often over the centre of the table, every one grew sensible of the
jest, and came into it with so much good humour that they lived in
strict friendship and alliance from that day forward."
In August, 1712, a tax of a halfpenny was placed upon newspapers, and
led to several leading journals being discontinued, a failure
facetiously termed "the fall of the leaf." "The Spectator" survived the
loss, but not unshaken, and the price was raised to twopence. It seems
strange that such an addition should affect a periodical of this
character, but a penny was a larger sum then than it is now. Steele
says, "the ingenious J. W. (Dr. Walker, Head-Master of the Charterhouse)
tells me that I have deprived him of the best part of his breakfast, for
that since the rise of my paper, he is forced every morning to drink his
dish of coffee by itself, without the addition of 'The Spectator,' that
used to be better than lace (_i.e._, brandy) to it."
After "The Spectator" had run through six hundred and thirty-five
numbers, Steele, with his usual restlessness, discontinued it, or
rather, changed its name, and called it "The Guardian." He commenced
writing this new periodical by himself, but soon obtained the assistance
of Addison. The only feature worth notice in which it differed from its
predecessor, was the prominent appearance of Pope as an essayist,
although from political reasons he would have preferred to have been an
anonymous contributor. Among his articles we may notice a powerful one
against cruelty to animals and field sports in general. Another was an
ironical attack upon the Pastorals of Ambrose Philips comparing them
with his own, and affords an illustration of what we observed in
another place, that such modes of warfare are easily misunderstood--for
the essay having been sent to Steele anonymously, he hesitated to
publish it lest Pope should be offended! But his best article in this
periodical is directed against poetasters in general--whom he never
treated with much mercy. He says that poetry is now composed upon
mechanical principles, in the same way that house-wives make
plum-puddings--
"What Molière observes of making a dinner, that any man can do it
with money, and if a professed cook cannot without, he has his art
for nothing; the same may be said of making a poem, it is easier
brought about by him that has a genius, but the skill lies in doing
it without one. In pursuance of this end, I shall present the
reader with a plain and certain recipe, by which even sonneteers
and ladies may be qualified for this grand performance."
He then proceeds to give a "receipt to make an epic poem," and after
giving directions for the "fable," the "manners," and the "machines," he
comes to the "descriptions."
"_For a Tempest._--Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, and cast
them together in one verse. Add to these of rain, lightning, and of
thunder (the loudest you can,) _quantum sufficit_. Mix your clouds
and billows well together until they foam, and thicken your
description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well
in your head before you set it a blowing.
"_For a Battle._--Pick a large quantity of images and descriptions
from Homer's 'Iliad,' with a spice or two of Virgil, and if there
remain any overplus, you may lay them by for a skirmish. Season it
well with simiters, and it will make an excellent battle.
"_For the Language_--(I mean the diction.) Here it will do well to
be an imitator of Milton, for you will find it easier to imitate
him in this, than in anything else. Hebraisms and Grecisms are to
be found in him without the trouble of learning the languages. I
knew a painter who (like our poet) had no genius, make his daubings
to be thought originals by setting them in the smoke. You may in
the same manner give the venerable air of antiquity to your piece,
by darkening it up and down with old English. With this you may be
easily furnished upon any occasion by the dictionary commonly
printed at the end of Chaucer.
"I must not conclude without cautioning all writers without genius
in one material point, which is, never to be afraid of having too
much fire in their works. I should advise rather to take their
warmest thoughts, and spread them abroad upon paper; for they are
observed to cool before they are read."
In an article on laughter by Dr. Birch, Prebendary of Worcester, we have
the following fanciful list of those who indulge in it:--
"The dimplers, the smilers, the laughers, the grimacers, the
horse-laughers.
"The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is
frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover; this was called
by the ancients the chin laugh.
"The smile is for the most part confined to the fair sex and their
male retinue. It expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of
approbation, doth not too much disorder the features, and is
practised by lovers of the most delicate address. This tender
motion of the physignomy the ancients called the Ionic laugh.
"The laugh among us is the common risus of the ancients. The grin
by writers of antiquity is called the Syncrusian, and it was then,
as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful set of
teeth.
"The horse-laugh, or the sardonic, is made use of with great
success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind,
by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This
upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received
with great applause in coffee-house disputes, and that side the
laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of his
antagonist."
In an amusing article upon punning, he gives the following instance of
its beneficial effects:--
"A friend of mine who had the ague this Spring was, after the
failing of several medicines and charms, advised by me to enter
into a course of quibbling. He threw his electuaries out of his
window, and took Abracadabra off from his neck, and by the mere
force of punning upon that long magical word, threw himself into a
fine breathing sweat, and a quiet sleep. He is now in a fair way of
recovery, and says pleasantly, he is less obliged to the Jesuits
for their powder, than for their equivocation."
Several periodicals of a similar character were afterwards published by
Steele and others, but they wanted the old "salt," and were not equally
successful.
Thus, in 1745, a humorous periodical of a somewhat different character
was attempted, which went through eight weekly numbers. It was called
"The Agreeable Companion; or an Universal Medley of Wit and Good
Humour." There was little original matter in it, but the proprietor
recognized the desirability of having pieces by various hands, and so
made long extracts from Prior, Gay, and Fenton. Although there was a
considerable number of epitaphs, riddles, and fables, nearly all the
jests were well known and trite. But the subjoined have a certain amount
of neatness.
TO DORCAS.
"Oh! what bosom must but yield,
When like Pallas you advance,
With a thimble for your shield,
And a needle for your lance;
Fairest of the stitching train,
Ease my passion by your art,
And in pity to my pain,
Mend the hole that's in my heart."
TO SALLY, AT THE CHOP-HOUSE.
"Dear Sally, emblem of thy chop-house ware,
As broth reviving, and as white bread fair;
As small beer grateful, and as pepper strong,
As beef-steak tender, as fresh pot-herbs young;
Sharp as a knife, and piercing as a fork,
Soft as new butter, white as fairest pork;
Sweet as young mutton, brisk as bottled beer,
Smooth as is oil, juicy as cucumber,
And bright as cruet void of vinegar.
O, Sally! could I turn and shift my love
With the same skill that you your steaks can move,
My heart, thus cooked, might prove a chop-house feast,
And you alone should be the welcome guest.
But, dearest Sal! the flames that you impart,
Like chop on gridiron, broil my tender heart!
Which if thy kindly helping hand be n't nigh,
Must like an up-turned chop, hiss, brown, and fry;
And must at least, thou scorcher of my soul,
Shrink, and become an undistinguished coal."
As the idea gradually gained ground that it would be necessary that the
public, or a considerable number of writers, should take part in the
literary work of a periodical, we now find a more important and
promising publication called a magazine, and having the grand title of
"The Wonderful Magazine!" It went through three monthly numbers in 1764.
Even this was not intended to be exclusively humorous, but was to
contain light stories as well as paradoxes and inquiries; the editor
observing in the introduction that "a tailor's pattern-book must consist
of various colours and various cloths; and what one thinks fashionable,
another deems ridiculous." To help the new enterprise, an incentive to
emulation was proposed by the offer of two silver medals, one for the
most humorous tale, and the other for the best answer to a prize enigma.
The Magazine contained a long story of enchantments, a dramatic scene
full of conflicts and violence, some old _bons mots_, and pieces of
indifferent poetry. The editor had evidently no good source to draw
from, and the best pieces in the work are the following:--
"Belinda has such wondrous charms,
'Tis heaven to be within her arms;
And she's so charitably given,
She wishes all mankind in heaven."
and
_A copy of Verses on Mr. Day,
Who from his Landlord ran away._
"Here Day and Night conspired a sudden flight,
For Day, they say, is run away by Night,
Day's past and gone. Why, landlord, where's your rent?
Did you not see that Day was almost spent?
Day pawned and sold, and put off what we might,
Though it be ne'er so dark, Day will be light;
You had one Day a tenant, and would fain
Your eyes could see that Day but once again.
No, landlord, no; now you may truly say
(And to your cost, too,) you have lost the Day.
Day is departed in a mist; I fear,
For Day is broke, and yet does not appear.
* * * * *
"But how, now, landlord, what's the matter, pray?
What! you can't sleep, you long so much for Day?
Cheer up then, man; what though you've lost a sum,
Do you not know that pay-day yet will come?
I will engage, do you but leave your sorrow,
My life for yours, Day comes again to-morrow;
And for your rent--never torment your soul,
You'll quickly see Day peeping through a hole."
Births, deaths, and marriages are recorded in this Magazine, under such
headings as "The Merry Gossips," "The Kissing Chronicle," and "The
Undertaker's Harvest-Home," or "The Squallers--a tragi-comedy," "All for
Love," and "Act V. Scene the Last."
It seems to have been more easy at that time to collect wonders than
witticisms--perhaps also the former were more appreciated, for the
"Wonderful Magazine" was re-commenced in 1793, and went through sixty
weekly numbers. It was intended to be humorous as well as marvellous,
but the latter element predominated. Here we have accounts and
engravings of witches, and of men remarkable for height and corpulence,
for mental gifts or strange habits--a man is noticed who never took off
his clothes for forty years. One of the most interesting biographies is
that of Thomas Britton, known as "the musical small-coal man," who
started the first musical society, and, notwithstanding his lowly
calling, had great wit and literary attainments, and was intimate with
Handel, and many noblemen. Probably he would not have obtained a place
in this Magazine but for the circumstances of his death. There was, it
seems, one Honeyman, a blacksmith, who was a ventriloquist, and could
speak with his mouth closed. He was introduced to Britton, and, by way
of a joke, told him in a sepulchral voice that he should die in a few
hours. Britton never recovered the shock, but died a few days afterwards
in 1714. Among the humorous pieces in this Magazine, we have:--
A DREADFUL SIGHT.
I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a comet drop down hail
I saw a cloud begirt with ivy round
I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground
I saw a pismire swallow up a whale
I saw the sea brimful of ale
I saw a Venice glass full six feet deep
I saw a well filled with men's tears that weep
I saw men's eyes all in a flame of fire
I saw a house high as the moon and higher
I saw the sun even at midnight
I saw the man who saw this dreadful sight.
There are a few amusing anecdotes in it, such as that about Alphonso,
King of Naples. It says that he had a fool who recorded in a book the
follies of the great men of the Court. The king sent a Moor in his
household to the Levant to buy horses, for which he gave him ten
thousand ducats, and the fool marked this as a piece of folly. Some time
afterwards the king asked for the book to look over it, was surprised to
find his own name, and asked why it was there. "Because," said the
jester, "you have entrusted your money to one you are never likely to
see again." "But if he does come again," demanded the king, "and brings
me the horses, what folly have I committed?" "Well, if he does return,"
replied the fool, "I'll blot out your name and put in his."
We also find some puns remarkable for an absurdity so extravagant as to
be noteworthy. There is a string of derivations of names of places
constructed in the following manner:--
"When the seamen on board the ship of Christopher Columbus came in
sight of San Salvador, they burst out into exuberant mirth and
jollity. 'The lads are in a merry key,' cried the commodore.
America is now the name of half the globe.
"The city of Albany was originally settled by Scotch people. When
strangers on their arrival there asked how the new comers did, the
answer was 'All bonny.' The spelling is now a little altered but
the sound is the same.
"When the French first settled on the banks of the river St.
Lawrence, they were stinted by the intendant, Monsieur Picard, to a
can of spruce beer a day. The people thought this measure very
scant, and were constantly exclaiming, 'Can-a-day!' It would be
ungenerous of any reader to require a more rational derivation of
the word Canada."
No name is more familiar to us in connection with humour than that of
"Joe" (Josias) Miller. He was well known as a comedian, between 1710 and
1738, and had considerable natural talent, but was unable to read. He
owes his celebrity to popular jest books having been put forward in his
name soon after his death.[9] It was common at that time, as we have
seen in the case of Scogan, for compilers to seek to give currency to
their humorous collections by attributing them to some celebrated wit of
the day. To Jo Miller was attributed the humour most effective at the
period in which he lived, and it has since passed as a byword for that
which is broad and pointless. Sometimes it merely suggests staleness,
and I have heard it said that he must have been the cleverest man in the
world, for nobody ever heard a good story related that someone did not
afterwards say that it was "a Jo Miller."
A question may here be raised whether these humorous sayings, which are
similar in all ages, have been handed down or re-invented over and over
again. It must be admitted that the minds of men have a tendency to move
in the same direction, and may have struck upon the same points in ages
widely separated. In reading general literature, we constantly find the
same thought suggesting itself to different writers, and I have known
two people, who had no acquaintance with each other, make precisely the
same joke--original in both cases. On the other hand, the rarity of
genuine humour has given a permanent character to many clever sayings,
and there has always been a demand for them to enliven the convivial and
social intercourse of mankind. Their subtlety--the small points on which
they turn--makes it difficult to remember them, but there will be always
some men, who will treasure them for the delectation of their friends.
It is remarkable that people are never tired of repeating humorous
sayings, though they are soon wearied of hearing a repetition of them by
others. A man who cannot endure to hear a joke three times, will keep
telling the same one over and over all his life, and but for this, fewer
good stories would survive. The pleasure derived from humour, while it
lasts, is greater than that from sentiment or wisdom; hence we repeat it
more in daily converse than poetry or proverbs, and the constant
reproduction of it until it is reduced to a mere phantom, causes its
influence to appear more transient than it is.
And hence, although humour is generally "fleeting as the flowers," some
of the jests, which pass with us as new, are more than two thousand
years old. Porson said that he could trace back all the "Joe Millers" to
a Greek origin. The domestic cat--the cause of many of our household
calamities--was in full activity in the days of Aristophanes. Then, as
now, mourners had recourse to the friendly onion; and if Pythagoreans
had never dreamed of a donkey becoming a man, they had often known a man
to become a donkey. If they were not able to skin a flint, they knew
well what was meant by "skinning a flayed dog," and "shearing an ass."
These and similar sayings, being of a simple character, may have been
due to the same thought occurring to different minds, and this may be
the case even where there is more point; thus, "an ass laden with gold
will get into the strongest fortress," has been attributed to Frederick
the Great and to Napoleon, and may have been due to both. The saying
"Treat a friend as though he would one day become an enemy," has been
attributed to Lord Chesterfield, to Publius Syrus, and even to Bias, one
of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Many may exclaim, "Perish those who
have said our good things before us!"
But where the saying is very remarkable, or depends on some peculiar
circumstances, we may conclude that there is one original, and that upon
this pivot a number of different names and characters have been made to
revolve. It has been ascribed to or appropriated by many. We have read
of two eminent comic writers in classical times dying of laughter at
seeing an ass eat figs. Here it is most probable that there was some
standing joke upon this subject, or that some instance of the kind
occurred, and so this strange death came to be attributed to several
individuals. The saying,
"On two days is a wife enjoyable,
That of her bridal and her burial,"
attributed to Palladas in the fifth century A.D., was really
due to Hipponax in the fifth century B.C.
There is a story that Lord Stair was so like Louis XIV. that, when he
went to the French Court, the King asked him whether his mother was ever
in France, and that he replied "No, your Majesty, but my father was."
This is in reality a Roman story, and the answer was made to Augustus by
a young man from the country.
Sydney Smith's reply when it was proposed to pave the approach to St.
Paul's with blocks of wood, "The canons have only to put their heads
together and it will be done," was not original; Rochester had made a
similar remark to Charles II. when he noticed a construction near
Shoreditch: and the story of the man who complained that the chicken
brought up for his dinner had only one leg, and was told to go and look
into the roost-house, is to be found in an old Turkish jest-book of the
fifteenth century. When Byron said of Southey's poems that "they would
be read when Homer and Virgil were forgotten--but not till then," he was
no doubt repeating what Porson said of Sir Richard Blackmore's. "Most
literary stories," observes Mr. Willmott, "seem to be shadows, brighter
or fainter, of others told before."
CHAPTER VI.
Sterne--His Versatility--Dramatic Form--Indelicacy--Sentiment and
Geniality--Letters to his Wife--Extracts from his Sermons--Dr.
Johnson.
Sterne exceeded Smollett[10] in indelicacy as much as in humorous
talent. He calls him Smelfungus, because he had written a fastidious
book of travels. But he profited by his works, and the character of
Uncle Toby reminds us considerably of Commodore Trunnion. But Sterne is
more immediately associated in our minds with Swift, for both were
clergymen, and both Irishmen by birth, though neither by parentage.
Sterne's great-grandfather had been Archbishop of York, and his mother
heiress of Sir Roger Jacques, of Elvington in Yorkshire. Through family
interest Sterne became a Prebendary of York, and obtained two livings;
at one of which he spent his time in quiet obscurity until his
forty-seventh year, when the production of "Tristram Shandy" made him
famous. He did not long enjoy his laurels, dying nine years afterwards
in 1768.
In both Sterne and Swift, as well as Congreve, we see the fertile
erratic fancy of Ireland improved by the labour and reflection of
England. Sterne's humour was inferior to Swift's, narrower and smaller;
it was a sparkling wine, but light-bodied, and often bad in colour. His
pleasantry had no depth or general bearing. He appealed to the senses,
referred entirely to some particular and trivial coincidence, and often
put amatory weaknesses under contribution to give it force. The current
of his thoughts glided naturally and imperceptibly into poetry and
humour, but his subject matter was not intellectual, though he sometimes
showed fine emotional feeling.
Under the head of acoustic humour we may place that abruptness of style
which he managed so adroitly, and that dramatic punctuation, which he
may be said to have invented, and of which no one ever else made so much
use. No doubt he was an accomplished speaker; and we know that he had a
good ear for music.
There is something in Sterne which reminds us of a conjurer exhibiting
tricks on the stage; in one place indeed, he speaks of his cap and
bells, and no doubt many would have thought them more suitable to him
than a cap and gown. He was a versatile man; fond of light and artistic
pursuits, occupying, as he tells us, his leisure time with books,
painting, fiddling, and shooting. In his nature there was much emotion
and exuberance of mind, being that of an accomplished rather than of a
thoughtful man; and we can believe when he avers that he "said a
thousand things he never dreamed of." He had not sufficient foundation
for humour of the highest kind; but in form and diction he was
unrivalled. Perhaps this was why Thackeray said "he was a great jester,
not a great humorist." But he had a dashing style, and the quick
succession of ideas necessary for a successful author. Not only was he
master of writing, but of the kindred art of rhetoric. He makes a
correction in the accentuation of Corporal Trim, who begins to read a
sermon with the text,--
"_For we trust we have a good conscience._ Heb. xiii., 8.
'TRUST! Trust we have a good conscience!!' 'Certainly,'
Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, 'you give that sentence a
very improper accent, for you curl up your nose, man, and read it
with such a sneering tone, as if the parson was going to abuse the
apostle.'"
The same kind of discrimination is shown in the following--
"'And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?' 'Oh, against
all rule, my lord--most ungrammatically. Betwixt the substantive
and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and
gender, he made a breach thus, stopping, as if the point wanted
settling; and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship
knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the
epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three-fifths by a stop
watch, my lord, each time.' 'Admirable grammarism!' 'But in
suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise? Did no
expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the
eye silent? Did you narrowly look?' 'I looked only at the stop
watch, my lord.' 'Excellent observer!'"
His sensibility and taste in this direction was probably one of the
bonds of the close intimacy, which existed between himself and David
Garrick.
We find among his works, numerous instances of his peculiar and artistic
punctuation. Sometimes he continues an exclamation by means of dashes
for three lines. Sometimes, by way of pause, he leaves out a whole page,
and the first time he does this he humorously adds:--"Thrice happy book!
thou wilt have one page which malice cannot blacken." One of the
chapters of Tristram begins--
"And a chapter it shall have."
"A sermon commences--Judges xix. 1. 2. 3.
"'And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in
Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of
Mount Ephraim, who took unto himself a concubine.'
"'A concubine! but the text accounts for it, for in those days
'there was no king in Israel!' then the Levite, you will say, like
every other man in it, did what was right in his own eyes; and so,
you may add, did his concubine too, for she went away.'"
Another from Ecclesiastes--
"'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of
feasting.'--Eccl. vii. 2.
"That I deny--but let us hear the wise man's reasoning for
it:--'for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to
his heart; sorrow is better than laughter, for a crack-brained
order of enthusiastic monks, I grant, but not for men of the
world.'"
Of course, he introduces this cavil to combat it, but still maintains
that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of
the country they are passing through.
The following represents his arrival in the Paris of his day--
"Crack, crack! crack, crack! crack, crack!--so this is Paris! quoth
I,--and this is Paris!--humph!--Paris! cried I, repeating the name
the third time."
"The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
"The streets, however, are nasty.
"But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells. Crack, crack!
crack, crack! what a fuss thou makest! as if it concerned the good
people to be informed that a man with a pale face, and clad in
black had the honour to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at
night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with a
red calamanco! Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! I wish thy
whip----But it is the spirit of the nation; so crack, crack on."
Here is another instance;--
"Ptr--r--r--ing--twing--twang--prut--trut;--'tis a cursed bad
fiddle. Do you know whether my fiddle's in tune or no?--trut--prut.
They should be fifths. 'Tis wickedly strung--tr--a, e, i, o, u,
twang. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely
down,--else,--trut--prut.
"Hark! 'tis not so bad in tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle,
diddle, diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good
judges; but there's a man there--no, not him with the bundle under
his arm--the grave man in black,--'sdeath! not the man with the
sword on. Sir, I had rather play a capriccio to Calliope herself
than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet
I'll stake my Cremona to a Jew's trump, which is the greatest odds
that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and
fifty leagues out of time upon my fiddle without punishing one
single nerve that belongs to him. Twiddle diddle,--tweddle
diddle,--twiddle diddle,--twoddle diddle,--twiddle
diddle;--prut-trut--krish--krash--krush,--I've outdone you, Sir,
but you see he's no worse; and was Apollo to take his fiddle after
me, he can make him no better. Diddle diddle; diddle diddle, diddle
diddle,--hum--dum--drum.
"Your worships and your reverences love music, and God has made you
all with good ears, and some of you play delightfully yourselves;
trut-prut--prut-trut."
In the following passages we may also observe that peculiar neat and
dramatic form of expression for which Sterne was remarkable.
"'Are we not,' continued Corporal Trim, looking still at
Susanah--'Are we not like a flower of the field?' A tear of pride
stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation--else no tongue
could have described Susanah's affliction--'Is not all flesh
grass?--'Tis clay--'tis dirt.' They all looked directly at the
scullion;--the scullion had been just scouring a fish kettle--It
was not fair.
"'What is the finest face man ever looked at?' 'I could hear Trim
talk so for ever,' cried Susanah, 'What is it?' Susanah laid her
head on Trim's shoulder--'but corruption!'--Susanah took it off.
"Now I love you for this;--and 'tis this delicious mixture within
you, which makes you dear creatures what you are;--and he, who
hates you for it--all I can say of the matter is--that he has
either a pumpkin for his head, or a pippin for his heart...."
"Wanting the remainder of a fragment of paper on which he found an
amusing story, he asked his French servant for it; La Fleur said he
had wrapped it round the stalks of a bouquet, which he had given to
his _demoiselle_ upon the Boulevards. 'Then, prithee, La Fleur,'
said I 'step back to her, and see if thou canst get it.' 'There is
no doubt of it,' said La Fleur, and away he flew.
"In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than would
arise from the simple irreparability of the payment. _Juste ciel!_
in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
farewell of her--his faithless mistress had given his _gage
d'amour_ to one of the Count's footmen--the footman to a young
semptress--and the semptress to a fiddler, with my fragment at the
end of it. Our misfortunes were involved together--I gave a sigh,
and La Fleur echoed it back to my ear. 'How perfidious!' cried La
Fleur, 'How unlucky,' said I.
"'I should not have been mortified, Monsieur,' quoth La Fleur, 'If
she had lost it.'
"'Nor I, La Fleur,' said I, 'had I found it.'"
We very commonly form our opinion of an Author's character from his
writings, and there is no doubt that his tendencies can scarcely fail to
betray themselves to a careful observer. But experience has generally
taught him to curb or quicken his feelings according to the notions of
the public taste, so that he often expresses the sentiments of others
rather than his own. Hence a literary friend once observed to me that a
man is very different from what his writings would lead you to suppose.
I think there are certain indications in Sterne's writings that he
introduced those passages to which objection was justly taken for the
purpose of catching the favour of the public. He had already published
some Sermons, which, he says, "found neither purchasers nor readers."
Conscious of his talent, and being no doubt reminded of it by his
friends, he wished to obtain a field for it, and determined now to try a
different course. He wrote "Tristram Shandy" as he says "not to be fed,
but to be famous," and so just was the opinion of what would please the
age in which he lived that we find the quiet country rector suddenly
transformed into the most popular literary man of the day,--going up to
London and receiving more invitations than he could accept. He had made
his gold current by a considerable admixture of alloy; and endeavoured
to excuse his offences of this kind by a variety of subterfuges. Upon
one occasion, he compared them to the antics of children which although
unseemly, are performed with perfect innocence.
Of course this was a jest. Sterne was not living in a Paradisaical age,
and he intentionally overstept the boundaries of decorum. But granting
he had an object in view, was he justified in adopting such means to
obtain it? certainly not; but he had some right to laugh, as he does, at
the inconsistency of the public, who, while they blamed his books,
bought up the editions of them as fast as they could be issued.
If Sterne's humour was often offensive, we must in justice admit it was
never cynical. Had it possessed more satire it would have, perhaps, been
more instructive, but there was a bright trait in Sterne's character,
that he never accused others. On the contrary, he censures men who,
"wishing to be thought witty, and despairing of coming honestly by the
title, try to affect it by shrewd and sarcastic reflections upon
whatever is done in the world. This is setting up trade with the broken
stock of other people's failings--perhaps their misfortunes--so, much
good may it do them with what honour they can get--the farthest extent
of which, I think, is to be praised, as we do some sauces--with tears in
our eyes. It has helped to give a bad name to wit, as if the main
essence of it was satire."
Sterne had no personal enmities; his faults were all on the amiable
side, nor can we imagine a selfish cold-hearted sensualist writing "Dear
Sensibility, source inexhausted by all that is precious in our joys, or
costly in our sorrows." His letters to his wife before their marriage
exhibit the most tender and beautiful sentiments;--
"My L---- talks of leaving the country; may a kind angel guide thy
steps hither--Thou sayest thou will quit the place with regret;--I
think I see you looking twenty times a day at the house--almost
counting every brick and pane of glass, and telling them at the
same time with a sigh, you are going to leave them--Oh, happy
modification of matter! they will remain insensible to thy loss.
But how wilt thou be able to part with thy garden? the recollection
of so many pleasant walks must have endeared it to you. The trees,
the shrubs, the flowers, which thou reared with thy own hands, will
they not droop, and fade away sooner upon thy departure? Who will
be thy successor to raise them in thy absence? Thou wilt leave thy
name upon the myrtle tree--If trees, shrubs, and flowers could
compose an elegy, I should expect a very plaintive one on this
subject."
In the course of one of his sermons he writes very characteristically--
"Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone, God speed
him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; let me
be wise and religious, but let me be man; wherever Thy Providence
places me, or whatever be the road I take to get to Thee, give me
some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to. 'How our
shadows lengthen as the sun goes down,' to whom I may say, 'How
fresh is the face of nature! How sweet the flowers of the field!
How delicious are these fruits!'"
We believe these to have been sincere expressions--inside his motley
garb he had a heart of tenderness. It went forth to all, even to the
animal world--to the caged starling. Some may attribute the ebullitions
of feeling in his works to affectation, but those who have read them
attentively will observe the same impulses too generally predominant to
be the work of design. The story of the prisoner Le Fevre and of Maria
bear the brightest testimony to his character in this respect. What
sentiments can surpass in poetic beauty or religious feeling that in
which he commends the distraught girl to the beneficence of the Almighty
who "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."
We have no proof that Sterne was a dissipated man. He expressly denies
it in a letter written shortly before his death, and in another, he
says, "The world has imagined because I wrote 'Tristram Shandy,' that I
myself was more Shandean than I really was." In his day many, not only
of the laity, but of the clergy, thought little of indulging in coarse
jests, and of writing poetry which contained much more wit than decency.
Sterne having lived in retirement until 1759, must have had a feeble
constitution, for in the Spring of 1762 he broke a blood vessel, and
again in the same Autumn he "bled the bed full," owing, as he says, to
the temperature of Paris, which was "as hot as Nebuchadnezzar's oven."
He complains of the fatigue of writing and preaching, and these
dangerous attacks were constantly recurring, until the time of his
death.
Sterne's sermons went through seven editions. They are not doctrinal,
but enjoin benevolence and charity. There is not so much humour in them
as in some of the present day, but he sometimes gives point to his
reflections.
On the subject of religious fanaticism he says:--
"When a poor disconsolate drooping creature is terrified from all
enjoyments--prays without ceasing till his imagination is
heated--fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a
plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances
and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head,
should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what
they are? or that in such a situation every commotion should help
to fix him in this malady, and make him a fitter subject for the
treatment of a physician than of a divine.
"The insolence of base minds in success is boundless--not unlike
some little particles of matter struck off from the surface of the
dial by the sunshine, they dance and sport there while it lasts,
but the moment it is withdrawn they fall down--for dust they are,
and unto dust they will return.
"When Absalom is cast down, Shimei is the first man who hastens to
meet David; and had the wheel turned round a hundred times. Shimei,
I dare say, at every period of its rotation, would have been
uppermost. Oh, Shimei! would to heaven when thou wast slain, that
all thy family had been slain with thee, and not one of thy
resemblance left! but ye have multiplied exceedingly and
replenished the earth; and if I prophecy rightly, ye will in the
end subdue it."
Dr. Johnson speaks of "the man Sterne," and was jealous of his receiving
so many more invitations than himself. But the good Doctor with all his
learning and intellectual endowments was not so pleasant a companion as
Sterne, and, although sometimes sarcastic, had none of his talent for
humour.
Johnson wrote some pretty Anacreontics, but his turn of mind was rather
grave than gay. He was generally pompous, which together with his
self-sufficiency led Cowper, somewhat irreverently, to call him a
"prig." Among his few light and humorous snatches, we have lines written
in ridicule of certain poems published in 1777--
"Wheresoe'er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new;
Endless labour all along,
Endless labour to be wrong:
"Phrase that time has flung away
Uncouth words in disarray,
Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet
Ode, and elegy, and sonnet."
An imitation--
"Hermit poor in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening grey,
Strike thy bosom sage and tell
Which is bliss, and which the way.
"Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed
Scarce repressed the starting tear
When the hoary sage replyed
'Come my lad, and drink some beer.'"
The following is an impromptu conceit. "To Mrs. Thrale, on her
completing her thirty-fifth year."
"Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive
Better years than thirty-five,
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five,
Ladies stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five,
For howe'er we boast and strive
Life declines from thirty-five.
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five,
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."
There is a pleasing mixture of wisdom and humour in the following stanza
written to Miss Thrale on hearing her consulting a friend as to a dress
and hat she was inclined to wear--
"Wear the gown and wear the hat
Snatch thy pleasures while they last,
Had'st thou nine lives like a cat
Soon those nine lives would be past."
Johnson's friends Garrick and Foote, although so great in the mimetic
art, do not deserve any particular mention as writers of comedy.
It is said that Garrick went to a school in Tichfield at which Johnson
was an usher, and that master and pupil came up to London together to
seek their fortunes. But although Garrick became the first of comic
actors, he produced nothing literary but a few indifferent farces. The
same may be said of Foote, who was also a celebrated wit in
conversation. Johnson said, "For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth,
I know not his equal."
One of Dr. Johnson's friends was Mrs. Charlotte Lennox to whom he gives
the palm among literary ladies. Up to this time there were few lady
humorists, and none of an altogether respectable description. But Mrs.
Lennox appeared as a harbinger of that refined and harmless pleasantry
which has since sparkled through the pages of our best authoresses. She
wrote a comedy, poems, and novels, her most remarkable production being
the Female Quixote. Here a young lady who had been reading romances,
enacts the heroine with very amusing results. In plan the work is a
close imitation of Don Quixote but the character is not so natural as
that drawn by Cervantes.
CHAPTER VII.
Dodsley--"A Muse in Livery"--"The Devil's a Dunce"--"The Toy
Shop"--Fielding--Smollett.
Robert Dodsley was born in 1703. He was the son of a schoolmaster in
Mansfield, but went into domestic service as a footman, and held several
respectable situations. While in this capacity, he employed his leisure
time in composing poetry, and he appropriately named his first
production "A Muse in Livery." The most pleasant and interesting of
these early poems is that in which he gives an account of his daily
life, showing how observant a footman may be. It is in the form of an
epistle:--
"Dear friend,
Since I am now at leisure,
And in the country taking pleasure,
It may be worth your while to hear
A silly footman's business there;
I'll try to tell in easy rhyme
How I in London spent my time.
And first,
As soon as laziness would let me
I rise from bed, and down I sit me
To cleaning glasses, knives, and plate,
And such like dirty work as that,
Which (by the bye) is what I hate!
This done, with expeditious care
To dress myself I straight prepare,
I clean my buckles, black my shoes,
Powder my wig and brush my clothes,
Take off my beard and wash my face,
And then I'm ready for the chase.
Down comes my lady's woman straight,
'Where's Robin?' 'Here!' 'Pray take your hat
And go--and go--and go--and go--
And this and that desire to know.'
The charge received, away run I
And here and there, and yonder fly,
With services and 'how d'ye does,'
Then home return well fraught with news.
Here some short time does interpose
Till warm effluvias greet my nose,
Which from the spits and kettles fly,
Declaring dinner time is nigh.
To lay the cloth I now prepare
With uniformity and care;
In order knives and forks are laid,
With folded napkins, salt, and bread:
The sideboards glittering too appear
With plate and glass and china-ware.
Then ale and beer and wine decanted,
And all things ready which are wanted.
The smoking dishes enter in,
To stomachs sharp a grateful scene;
Which on the table being placed,
And some few ceremonies past,
They all sit down and fall to eating,
Whilst I behind stand silent waiting.
This is the only pleasant hour
Which I have in the twenty-four.
For whilst I unregarded stand,
With ready salver in my hand,
And seem to understand no more
Than just what's called for out to pour,
I hear and mark the courtly phrases,
And all the elegance that passes;
Disputes maintained without digression,
With ready wit and fine expression;
The laws of true politeness stated,
And what good breeding is, debated.
This happy hour elapsed and gone,
The time for drinking tea comes on,
The kettle filled, the water boiled,
The cream provided, biscuits piled,
And lamp prepared, I straight engage
The Lilliputian equipage,
Of dishes, saucers, spoons and tongs,
And all the et cetera which thereto belongs;
Which ranged in order and decorum
I carry in and set before 'em,
Then pour the green or bohea out,
And as commanded hand about."
After the early dinner and "dish" of tea, his mistress goes out visiting
in the evening, and Dodsley precedes her with a flambeau.
Another fancy was entitled "The Devil's a Dunce," was directed against
the Pope.[11] Two friends apply to him for absolution, one rich and the
other poor. The rich man obtained the pardon, but the poor sued in vain,
the Pope replying:--
"I cannot save you if I would,
Nor would I do it if I could."
"Home goes the man in deep despair,
And died soon after he came there,
And went 'tis said to hell: but sure
He was not there for being poor!
But long he had not been below
Before he saw his friend come too.
At this he was in great surprise
And scarcely could believe his eyes,
'What! friend,' said he, 'are you come too?
I thought the Pope had pardoned you.'
'Yes,' quoth the man, 'I thought so too,
But I was by the Pope trepanned,
_The devil couldn't read his hand_.'"
The footman's next literary attempt was in a dramatic poem named "The
Toy-Shop," and he had the courage to send it to Pope. Why he selected
this poet does not plainly appear; by some it is said that his then
mistress introduced her servant's poems to Pope's notice, but it is not
improbable that Dodsley had heard of him from his brother, who was
gardener to Mr. Allen of Prior Park, Bath, where Pope was often on a
visit. However this may have been, he received a very kind letter from
the poet, and an introduction to Mr. Rich, whose approval of the piece
led to its being performed at Covent Garden.[12] This play was the
foundation of Dodsley's fortune. By means of the money thus obtained, he
set himself up as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and became known to the
world of rank and genius. He produced successively "The King and the
Miller of Mansfield," and "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green." He
published for Pope, and in 1738, Samuel Johnson sold his first original
publication to him for ten guineas. He suggested to Dr. Johnson the
scheme of writing an English Dictionary, and also, in conjunction with
Edmund Burke, commenced the "Annual Register." Dodsley's principal work
was the "Economy of Human Life," written in an aphoristic style, and
ascribed to Lord Chesterfield. He also made a collection of six volumes
of contemporary poems, and they show how much rarer humour was than
sentiment, for Dodsley was not a man to omit anything sparkling. The
following imitation of Ambrose Philips--a general butt--has merit:
A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Little tube of mighty power,
Charmer of an idle hour,
Object of my warm desire
Lip of wax, and eye of fire,
And thy snowy taper waist
With my finger gently braced,
And thy pretty smiling crest
With my little stopper pressed,
And the sweetest bliss of blisses
Breathing from thy balmy kisses,
Happy thrice and thrice again
Happiest he of happy men,
Who, when again the night returns,
When again the taper burns,
When again the cricket's gay,
(Little cricket full of play),
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed.
Pleasures for a nose divine
Incense of the god of wine,
Happy thrice and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men.
Few humorous writers have attained to a greater celebrity than Fielding.
He was born in 1707, was a son of General Fielding, and a relative of
Lord Denbigh. In his early life, his works, which were comedies, were
remarkable for severe satire, and some of them so political as to be
instrumental in leading to the Chamberlain's supervision of the stage.
His turn of mind was decidedly cynical.
In the "Pleasures of the Town," we have many songs, of which the
following is a specimen:--
"The stone that always turns at will
To gold, the chemist craves;
But gold, without the chemist's skill,
Turns all men into knaves.
"The merchant would the courtier cheat,
When on his goods he lays
Too high a price--but faith he's bit--
For a courtier never pays.
"The lawyer with a face demure,
Hangs him who steals your pelf,
Because the good man can endure
No robber but himself.
"Betwixt the quack and highwayman,
What difference can there be?
Tho' this with pistol, that with pen,
Both kill you for a fee."
His plays were not very successful. They abounded in witty sallies and
repartee, but the general plot was not humorous. The jollity was of a
rough farcical character. It was said he left off writing for the stage
when he should have begun. He took little care with his plays, and would
go home late from a tavern, and bring a dramatic scene in the morning,
written on the paper in which he had wrapped his tobacco.
In many of his works he shows a mind approaching that of the Roman
satirists. Speaking of "Jonathan Wild," he says:--
"I think we may be excused for suspecting that the splendid palaces
of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on; nor
do I know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation
higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended
with all imaginary misery and infamy, and in the other with the
highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be
asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty,
lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery
is best fitted? Surely his answer will be certain and immediate;
and yet I am afraid all these ingredients glossed over with wealth
and a title have been treated with the highest respect and
veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned
to the gallows in the other. If there are, then, any men of such
morals, who dare call themselves great, and are so reputed, or
called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a little private
censure by the few is a very moderate tax for them to pay."
There is a considerable amount of humour in Fielding's "Journey from
this World to the Next." He represents the spirits as drawing lots
before they enter this life as to what their destinies are to be, and he
introduces a sort of migration of souls, in which Julian becomes a king,
fool, tailor, beggar, &c. As a tailor, he speaks of the dignity of his
calling, "the prince gives the title, but the tailor makes the man." Of
course his reflections turn very much upon his bills.
"Courtiers," he says, "may be divided into two sorts, very
essentially different from each other; into those who never intend
to pay for their clothes, and those who do intend to pay for them,
but are never able. Of the latter sort are many of those young
gentlemen whom we equip out for the army, and who are, unhappily
for us, cast off before they arrive at preferment. This is the
reason why tailors in time of war are mistaken for politicians by
their inquisitiveness into the event of battles, one campaign very
often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us."
Julian also gives his experience during his life as a beggar, showing
that his life was not so very miserable.
"I married a charming young woman for love; she was the daughter of
a neighbouring beggar, who with an improvidence too often seen,
spent a very large income, which he procured from his profession,
so that he was able to give her no fortune down. However, at his
death he left her a very well-accustomed begging hut situated on
the side of a steep hill, where travellers could not immediately
escape from us; and a garden adjoining, being the twenty-eighth
part of an acre well-planted. She made the best of wives, bore me
nineteen children, and never failed to get my supper ready against
my return home--this being my favourite meal, and at which I, as
well as my whole family, greatly enjoyed ourselves."
"No profession," he observes, "requires a deeper insight into human
nature than a beggar's. Their knowledge of the passions of men is
so extensive, that I have often thought it would be of no little
service to a politician to have his education among them. Nay,
there is a much greater analogy between these two characters than
is imagined: for both concur in their first and grand principle, it
being equally their business to delude and impose on mankind. It
must be admitted that they differ widely in the degree of
advantage, which they make of their deceit; for whereas the beggar
is contented with a little, the politician leaves but a little
behind."
There is a considerable amount of indelicacy in the episodes in "Tom
Jones," and also of hostility, which is exhibited in the rough form of
pugilistic encounters, so as almost to remind us of the old comic stage.
He seems especially fond of settling quarrels in this way, and wishes
that no other was ever used, and that "iron should dig no bowels but
those of the earth." The character of Deborah Wilkins, the old maid who
is shocked at the frivolity of Jenny Jones; of Thwackum, the
schoolmaster, whose "meditations were full of birch;" and of the barber,
whose jests, although they brought him so many slaps and kicks "would
come," are excellent. There is a vast fertility of humour in his pages,
which depending upon the general circumstances and peculiar characters
of the persons introduced, cannot be easily appreciated in extracts. The
following, however, can be understood easily:--
"'I thought there must be a devil,' the sergeant says to the
innkeeper, 'notwithstanding what the officers said, though one of
them was a captain, for methought, thinks I to myself, if there be
no devil how can wicked people be sent to him? and I have read all
that upon a book.' 'Some of your officers,' quoth the landlord,
'will find there is a devil to their shame, I believe. I don't
question but he'll pay off some old scores upon my account. Here
was one quartered upon me half-a-year, who had the conscience to
take up one of my best beds, though he hardly spent a shilling a
day in the house, and his man went to roast cabbages at the kitchen
fire, because I would not give them a dinner on Sunday. Every good
Christian must desire that there should be a devil for the
punishment of such wretches....'"
The Man of the Hill gives his travelling experiences:--
"'In Italy the landlords are very silent. In France they are more
talkative, but yet civil. In Germany and Holland they are generally
very impertinent. And as for their honesty I believe it is pretty
equal in all those countries.... As for my own part, I past through
all these nations, as you perhaps may have through a crowd at a
show, jostling to get by them, holding my nose with one hand, and
defending my pockets with the other, without speaking a word to any
of them while I was pressing on to see what I wanted to see.'
"'Did you not find some of the nations less troublesome to you than
the others?' said Jones.
"'Oh, yes,' replied the old man, 'the Turks were much more
tolerable to me than the Christians, for they are men of profound
taciturnity, and never disturb a stranger with questions. Now and
then, indeed, they bestow a short curse upon him, or spit in his
face as he walks in the streets, but then they have done with
him.'"
From another passage, we find that ladies are armed with very deadly
weapons. He had said that Love was no more capable of allaying hunger
than a rose is capable of delighting the ear, or a violin of gratifying
the smell, and he gives an instance:--
"Say then, ye graces, you that inhabit the heavenly mansions of
Seraphina's countenance, what were the weapons used to captivate
the heart of Mr. Jones. First, from two lovely blue eyes, whose
bright orbs flashed lightning at their discharge, flew off two
pointed ogles; but, happily for our hero, hit only a vast piece of
beef, which he was then conveying into his plate. The fair warrior
perceived their miscarriage, and immediately from her fair bosom
drew forth a deadly sigh; a sigh, which none
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