No More Learning

)
Copyrighted 1885, by Edmund Clarence Stedman
This
HERE are questions that come home to one who would aid in
speeding the return of “the Muse, disgusted at the “age
and clime. ” Can I, he asks, be reckoned with the promot-
ers of her new reign? Yes, it will be answered, if your effort is
in earnest, and if you are in truth a poet. To doubt of this
is almost the doubt's own confirmation. The writer to whom
rhythmic phrases come as the natural utterance of his extremest
hope, regret, devotion, is a poet of some degree. At the rarest
crises he finds that, without and even beyond his will, life and
death and all things dear and sacred are made auxiliary to the
compulsive purpose of his art; just as in the passion for science,
as if to verify the terrible irony of Balzac and Wordsworth, the


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EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
13871
1
alchemist will analyze his wife's tears, the Linnæan will botanize
upon his mother's grave:-
“Alas, and hast thou then so soon forgot
The bond that with thy gift of song did go-
Severe as fate, fixed and unchangeable ?
Dost thou not know this is the poet's lot! ”
-
If when his brain is in working humor, its chambers filled
with imaged pageantry, the same form of utterance becomes his
ready servant, then he is a poet indeed. But if he has a dexter-
ous metrical faculty, and hunts for theme and motive,- or if his
verse does not say what otherwise cannot be said at all, — then
he is a mere artisan in words, and less than those whose thought
and feeling are too deep for speech. The true poet is haunted
by his gift, even in hours of drudgery and enforced prosaic life.
He cannot escape it. After spells of dejection and weariness,
when it has seemed to leave for ever, it always, always returns
again,- perishable only with himself.
Again he will ask, What are my opportunities ? What is the
final appraisement of the time and situation ? We have noted
those latter-day conditions that vex the poet's mind. Yet art is
the precious outcome of all conditions: there are none that may
not be transmuted in its crucible. Science, whose iconoclasm had
to be considered, first of all, in our study of the Victorian period,
has forced us to adjust ourselves to its dispensation. A scientific
conflict with tradition always has been in progress, though never
so determinedly as now. But the poet and artist keep pace with
it, even forestall it, so that each new wonder leads to greater
things, and the so-called doom of art is a victorious transition:-
“If my bark sinks, 'tis to another sea. ”
As to material conditions, we find that the practical eagerness
of the age, and of our own people before all, has so nearly satis-
fied its motive as to beget the intellectual and æsthetic needs to
which beauty is the purveyor. As heretofore in Venice and other
commonwealths, first nationality, then riches, then the rise of
poetry and the arts. After materialism and the scientific stress,
the demands of journalism have been the chief counter-sway to
poetic activity. But our journals are now the adjuvants of imagi-
native effort in prose and verse: the best of them are conducted
by writers who have the literary spirit, and who make room for
ideal literature, even if it does not swell their lists so rapidly as


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13872
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
-
that of another kind. The poet can get a hearing; our Chatter-
tons need not starve in their garrets: there never was a better
market for the wares of Apollo; their tuneful venders need not
hope for wealth, but if one cannot make his genius something
more than its own exceeding great reward, it is because he mis-
takes the period, or scorns to address himself fitly to his readers.
Finally, criticism is at once more catholic and more discriminat-
ing than of old. Can it make a poet, or teach him his mission ?
Hardly; but it can spur him to his best, and point out the
heresies from which he must free himself or address the oracle
in vain.
Such being our opportunities, we have seen that the personal
requirements are coequal, and their summing-up may well be the
conclusion of the whole matter. Warmth, action, genuine human
interest, must vivify the minstrel's art: the world will receive
him if he in truth comes into his own. Taste and adroitness can
no longer win by novelty. Natural emotion is the soul of poetry,
as melody is of music: the same faults are engendered by over-
study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible
impulse, in both the poet and the composer. The decorative
vogue has reached its lowest grade, - that of assumption for bur-
lesque and persiflage; just as Pre-Raphaelitism, at first a reform
in art, extended to poetry, to architecture, to wall decoration, to
stage-setting, finally to the dress of moonstruck blue-stockings
and literary dandies. What has been gained in new design will
survive. But henceforth the sense of beauty must have something
“far more deeply interfused,” — the ideal, which, though not made
with hands of artificers, is eternal on the earth as in the heavens,
because it is inherent in the soul. There is also one prerequisite,
upon which stress was laid by Dr. Storrs, in his application to
modern art of Goethe's reservation as to the worth of certain
engravings: "Still something is wanting in all these pictures, -
the Manly.
The pictures lack a certain urgent power,”
etc. Culture, I have said, will make a poet draw ahead of his un-
studious fellows; but the resolve born of conviction is needed
to sustain the advance. The lecturer rightly declared that only
courageous work will suit America, whose race is essentially
courageous and stoical.
Our keynote assuredly should be that
of freshness and joy; the sadness of declining races only, has the
beauty of natural pathos. There is no cause for morbidly intro-
spective verse - no need, I hope, for dilettanteism - in this brave
country of ours for centuries to come.
.
((


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EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
13873
I think, too, we may claim that there is no better ideal of
manhood than the American ideal, derived from an aggregation
of characteristic types. Our future verse should be more native
than that of the past, in having a flavor more plainly distinct
from the motherland. Not that our former contingent misrep-
resented the America of its time. Even Longfellow's work,
.
,
with so much of imported theme and treatment, conveyed a sen-
timent that came, say what we will, from no foreign source.
The reason that a decidedly autochthonous kind was not then
proffered, unless by Whitman, was that a distinction between the
conditions of England and America was not more strongly estab-
lished. Since the War our novitiate has ended. We welcome
home productions; our servility of foreign judgment has lessened,
and we apply with considerable self-poise our own standards of
criticism to things abroad. We have outlived the greed of child-
hood that depends on sustenance furnished by its elders; and are
far indeed from the senile atrophy which also must borrow to
recruit its wasting powers. Our debt to acute foreign critics is
none the less memorable. They, in truth, were the first to coun-
sel us that we should lean upon ourselves; to insist that we
ought at least to escape Old World limitations,—the first to rec-
ognize so heartily anything purely American, even our sectional
humor, as to bring about our discovery that it was not neces-
sarily "a poor thing,” although our own. ”
It is agreed that sectional types, which thus have lent their
raciness to various productions, are subsidiary to the formation
of one that shall be national. A character formed of mingling
components must undergo the phases of defective hybridity; our
own is just beginning to assume a coherence that is the promise
of a similar adjustment in art. As local types disappear there
may be special losses, yet a general gain. The lifting of the
Japanese embargo was harmful to the purity of the insular art,
but added something to the arts of the world at large. Even
now our English cousins, seeking for what they term American-
ism in our literature, begin to find its flavor stealthily added to
their own.
Our people have blundered from isolation: confront them with
the models of older lands and they quickly learn to choose the
fit and beautiful; and the time is now reached when the finest
models are widely attainable. Secondly, our inheritance is a lan-
guage that is relatively the greatest treasure-house of the world's
XXIV-868


## p. 13874 (#52) ###########################################

13874
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
literature: at once the most laconic and the most copious of
tongues, the sturdiest in its foundations of emotion and utility,
the most varied by appropriation of synonyms from all languages,
new and old; the youngest and most occidental of the great
modes of speech, steadily diffusing itself about the globe, with no
possible supplanter or successor except itself at further stages
of maturity; finally, elastic and copious most of all in the land
which adds to it new idioms, of cisatlantic growth, or assimilated
from the dialects of many races that here contribute their diction
to its own: a language whose glory is that even corruptions
serve to speed its growth, and whose fine achievement long has
been to make the neologism, even the solecism, of one genera-
tion the classicism of the next. This is the potent and sonorous
instrument which our poet has at his command; and the genius
of his country, like Ariel, bids him
« — take
This slave of music, for my sake. ”
The twilight of the poets, succeeding to the brightness of
their first diurnal course, is a favorable interval at which to
review the careers of those whose work therewith is ended.
Although at such a time public interest may set in other direc-
tions, I have adhered to a task so arduous, yet so fascinating to
the critical and poetic student. When the lustre of a still more
auspicious day shall yield in its turn to the recurring dusk, a new
chronicler will have the range of noble imaginations to consider,
heightened in significance by comparison with the field of these
prior excursions. But if I have not wholly erred in respect to
the lessons derivable from the past, he will not go far beyond
them. The canons are not subject to change; he, in turn, will
deduce the same elements appertaining to the chief of arts, and
test his poets and their bequests by the same unswerving laws.
And concerning the dawn which may soon break upon us un-
awares, as we make conjecture of the future of American song,
it is difficult to keep the level of restraint — to avoid “rising on
the wings of prophecy. ” Who can doubt that it will correspond
to the future of the land itself, — of America now wholly free and
interblending, with not one but a score of civic capitals, each an
emulative centre of taste and invention, a focus of energetic life,
ceaseless in action, radiant with the glow of beauty and creative
power?


## p. 13874 (#53) ###########################################

1


## p. 13874 (#54) ###########################################


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## p. 13874 (#55) ###########################################

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## p. 13874 (#56) ###########################################


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## p. 13875 (#57) ###########################################

13875
SIR RICHARD STEELE
(1671-1729)
race.
t is entirely indicative of our opinions and feelings of the life
and writings of this British author of the eighteenth cen-
tury that we should think of Addison's friend and fellow-
essayist as Richard, or Dick, or Dicky Steele, rather than of Sir
Richard Steele, as he is known in the history of literature.
Dick or
Dicky Steele conveys to our minds the impression which the heavy-
limbed, square-jawed, dark-eyed, tender-hearted, awkward, careless,
wholly unselfish Irishman conveyed to his personal friends and ac-
quaintances.
Irish by birth,- for he was born in Dublin in 1671,- he was of
English parentage and descent, being the son of the secretary of the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormond. Yet he had many
of the amiable, kindly, mirthful, genial traits attributed to the Irish
Through the Duke's influence he was sent to the Charter-
house, London, where he first met Addison, of the same age as him-
self; with whom he formed the closest intimacy, which, continuing
for many years, is one of the most memorable in literature. Steele
always looked up to Addison, cherishing for him a respect almost
reverential; and Addison's stronger, more stable, more serious char-
acter affected very favorably his own wayward, volatile nature,
without causing any permanent change in it. Notwithstanding that
he lived to be fifty eight, - dying at Llangunnor, Wales, September
ist, 1729,- he seemed never to have quite grown up. He preserved
through all his vicissitudes, and to the very last, the same gay, reck-
less, jovial, irregular, prodigal disposition; never intending to do ill,
but always getting into straits from which his friends were obliged
to extricate him so far as they could, until he fell into new ones.
His errors were ever human, ever committed without reflection; and
though they demand at times broad charity, it is impossible not to
forgive, on the whole, his shortcomings, and not to love him despite
his grave defects. If he constantly needed help, he was constantly
trying to help others; and to this cause are due most of his per-
plexities.
The two friends were together at Merton College, Oxford; where
Steele remained for three years, but left without taking a degree.
He had conceived a passion for the army; and unable to get a


## p. 13876 (#58) ###########################################

13876
SIR RICHARD STEELE
commission, he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. A rich
kinsman in Ireland had menaced him with disinheritance should he
take such a step; but being naturally independent, he defied inter-
ference. He was liked in the army, and gained the rank of captain;
a promotion due to his colonel, Lord Cutts, to whom he had dedi-
cated his Christian Hero' (published in 1701), which was so moral
and pious as to displease his very worldly associates, and which was
written in those moods of contrition so frequent and so transient
with him. It was at this time that he made that intimate acquaint-
ance with the follies and vices of the era, and with human nature as
he saw it, which made him an acute delineator of manners when he
embraced literature as a profession.
As a man about town he frequented the London theatres, and be-
came intimately acquainted with the players and their companions.
This naturally turned his mind to the stage; and in 1702 he wrote
a comedy, "The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode (in striking contrast
with the Christian Hero'), which met with marked favor at Drury
Lane. The next year he brought out “The Tender Husband'; and
two years later a third comedy, "The Lying Lover,' adapted from
Le Menteur' of Thomas Corneille. This was too staid, too solemn,
to suit his audience, who so energetically condemned it that he did
not attempt until 1722 another play, The Conscious Lovers' (based
on Terence's (Andria'), his most successful drama, and conspicuously
decorous.
Steele was now a popular and a fashionable man, having political
no less than social position. He was appointed gazetteer and gentle-
man usher to Prince George of Denmark. He had taken a wife, who
lived but a little while, leaving him a considerable estate in Barba-
does. His second wife (he was married again in 1707), born Molly
Scurlock, increased his fortune. His letters to this wife, some four
hundred of which have been preserved, form an extraordinary cor-
respondence. They reveal the author as he was,- full of faults and
weaknesses, of dissipations and repentance, of affection and tender-
ness, of ardent promises of reform and reckless promise-breaking.
They are wholly artless and confidential, written without premedita-
tion or second thought; mere talk on paper. They are dated from
jails, taverns, wine-shops, bailiffs' offices, under the influence of vinous
headaches, marital contritions, fresh impulses of devotion, and tearful
regrets for neglected duties. They afford a curious, rather melan-
choly, at the same time entertaining, history of a drinking, impul-
sive, vacillating, over-generous, spendthrift, loving husband's checkered
life.
To a man of Steele's temperament and habits, money was of lit-
tle benefit. He was always in debt, and always would have been,
whether his income were five hundred pounds or five thousand. He


## p. 13877 (#59) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13877
-
had neither order nor method; but in their stead numberless whims
and desires. He had not the slightest conception of business; he was.
entirely destitute of practicality: but no kind of adversity, no mis-
fortune, could depress his ever-buoyant spirit.
In 1709 a felicitous financial idea occurred to him; and oddly
enough, he acted on it. His office of gazetteer put him in control
of early foreign intelligence; and in imitation of Defoe's plan, he
organized the Tatler, issuing the first number April 12th. He secured
the assistance of Addison, who furnished many of the principal
articles, and who aided him in procuring the appointment of com-
missioner of the Stamp Office. When the Whigs were overthrown
in 1710, Steele, as a strong Whig, was deprived of his gazetteership,
and with it the means of supplying the items of official news which
were at the beginning important to the Tatler. This paper was
accordingly succeeded the next year by the Spectator, mostly writ-
ten by the two friends. The Tatler had appeared thrice a week,
price one penny; but the Spectator appeared daily at twopence,
issuing five hundred and fifty-five numbers, — the last December 6th,
1712. Many of Addison's most famous contributions were printed
in the two papers; though Steele furnished the larger number, and
stamped himself and his character on what he wrote. His object was
to expose what was false in life, manners, morals; to strip disguises
from vanity, selfishness, affectation; to recommend simplicity and sin-
cerity; to correct public taste, and urge the adoption of true English
sentiment and opinion. Steele and Addison co-operated also in the
Guardian: and Steele at different periods was interested in similar
periodicals, like the Englishman, the Lover, the Reader, the Plebeian;
but they were short-lived, and added nothing to his reputation. Few
of Steele's essays are remembered; nor is the fact that he was the
originator of the noted characters “Sir Roger de Coverley” and “Will
Honeycomb,” though Addison afterward adopted them, making them
virtually his own.
As an essayist he is admired for vivacity and ease, but not for
finish: he was often neglectful of his style. His charm is his per-
fect naturalness. He had great versatility, being a humorist, satirist,
critic, story-teller, and remarkable in each capacity. Political acri-
mony raged in 1713. Steele's patriotism triumphed over self-interest;
he resigned his office, and plunged headlong into political contro-
versy. He gained a seat in Parliament as a member for Stockbridge
in Hampshire; vehemently supported the Protestant succession, which
he believed in peril; and published a pamphlet, (The Crisis,' warn-
ing the kingdom against the danger of a Popish succession, for which
he was expelled from the House of Commons. The death of Queen
Anne mollified his opponents. In the new reign he received several


## p. 13878 (#60) ###########################################

13878
SIR RICHARD STEELE
profitable employments; was knighted, and elected to Parliament
from Boroughbridge. But, head over heels in debt again, he was
soon attacked with paralysis and rendered incapable of exertion.
He
retired to a small estate (left him by his second wife), where he
passed away nearly forgotten by his contemporaries. He was dis-
tinguished, in an era that cherished slight respect for women, for his
high opinion of and chivalrous feeling for them. No loftier com-
pliment has ever been paid to woman than his to Lady Elizabeth
Hastings: “To love her was a liberal education. ”
ON BEHAVIOR AT CHURCH
From the Guardian
THE
HERE is not anywhere, I believe, so much talk about religion,
as among us in England; nor do I think it possible for the
wit of man to devise forms of address to the Almighty in
more ardent and forcible terms than are everywhere to be found
in our Book of Common Prayer; and yet I have heard it read
with such a negligence, affectation, and impatience, that the effi-
cacy of it has been apparently lost to all the congregation. For
my part, I make no scruple to own it, that I go sometimes to
a particular place in the city, far distant from my own home,
to hear a gentleman whose manner I admire, read the liturgy. I
am persuaded devotion is the greatest pleasure of his soul, and
there is none hears him read without the utmost reverence. I
have seen the young people who have been interchanging glances
of passion to each other's person, checked into an attention to
the service at the interruption which the authority of his voice
has given them.
But the other morning I happened to rise earlier than ordi-
nary, and thought I could not pass my time better than to go
upon the admonition of the morning bell, to the church prayers
at six of the clock. I was there the first of any in the congre-
gation, and had the opportunity (however I made use of it) to
look back on all my life, and contemplate the blessing and advan-
tage of such stated early hours for offering ourselves to our
Creator, and prepossessing ourselves with the love of him, and
the hopes we have from him, against the snares of business and
pleasure in the ensuing day. But whether it be that people think


## p. 13879 (#61) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13879
fit to indulge their own ease in some secret, pleasing fault, or
whatever it was, there was none at the confession but a set of
poor scrubs of us, who could sin only in our wills, whose per-
sons could be no temptation to one another, and might have,
without interruption from anybody else, humble, lowly hearts, in
frightful looks and dirty dresses, at our leisure.
When we poor souls had presented ourselves with a contrition
suitable to our worthlessness, some pretty young ladies in mobs
popped in here and there about the church, clattering the pew
door after them, and squatting into a whisper behind their fans.
Among others, one of Lady Lizard's daughters and her hopeful
maid made their entrance: the young lady did not omit the
ardent form behind the fan, while the maid immediately gaped
round her to look for some other devout person, whom I saw at
a distance, very well dressed; his air and habit a little military,
but in the pertness, not the true possession of the martial char-
acter. This jackanapes was fixed at the end of a pew, with the
utmost impudence declaring, by a fixed eye on that seat where
our beauty was placed, the object of his devotion. This obscene
sight gave me all the indignation imaginable, and I could attend
to nothing but the reflection that the greatest affronts imaginable
are such as no one can take notice of.
Before I was out of such vexatious inadvertencies to the busi-
ness of the place, there was a great deal of good company now
come in.
There was a good number of very jaunty slatterns,
us to understand that it is neither dress nor art to
which they were beholden for the town's admiration. Besides
these, there were also by this time arrived two or three sets of
whisperers, who carry on most of their calumnies by what they
entertain one another with in that place; and we were now
altogether very good company. There were indeed a few in
whose looks there appeared a heavenly joy and gladness upon
the entrance of a new day, as if they had gone to sleep with
expectation of it. For the sake of these it is worth while that
the Church keeps up such early matins throughout the cities
of London and Westminster; but the generality of those who
observe that hour perform it with so tasteless a behavior that
it appears a task rather than a voluntary act. But of all the
world, those familiar ducks who are, as it were, at home at the
church, and by frequently meeting there throw the time of prayer
very negligently into their common life, and make their coming
who gav


## p. 13880 (#62) ###########################################

13880
SIR RICHARD STEELE
together in that place as ordinary as any other action, and do
not turn their conversation upon any improvements suitable to
the true design of that house, but' on trifles below even their
worldly concerns and characters. These are little groups of
acquaintance dispersed in all parts of the town, who are forsooth
the only people of unspotted characters, and throw all the spots
that stick on those of other people.
Malice is the ordinary vice of those who live in the mode
of religion, without the spirit of it. The pleasurable world are
hurried by their passions above the consideration of what others
think of them, into a pursuit of irregular enjoyment; while these
who forbear the gratifications of flesh and blood, without having
won over the spirit to the interests of virtue, are implacable in
defamations on the errors of such who offend without respect
to fame. But the consideration of persons whom one cannot
but take notice of when one sees them in that place, has drawn
me out of my intended talk, which was to bewail that people do
not know the pleasure of early hours, and of dedicating the first
moments of the day, with joy and singleness of heart, to their
Creator. Experience should convince us that the earlier we left
our beds the seldomer should we be confined to them.
One great good which would also accrue from this, were it
become a fashion, would be, that it is possible our chief divines
would condescend to pray themselves, or at least those whom
they substitute would be better supplied than to be forced to
appear at those oraisons in a garb and attire which makes them
appear mortified with worldly want, and not abstracted from the
world by the contempt of it. How is it possible for a gentle-
man, under the income of fifty pounds a year, to be attentive
to sublime things ? He must rise and dress like a laborer for
sordid hire, instead of approaching his place of service with the
utmost pleasure and satisfaction that now he is going to be
mouth of a crowd of people who have laid aside all the distinc-
tions of this contemptible being, to beseech a protection under its
manifold pains and disadvantages, or a release from it by His
favor who sent them into it. He would, with decent superiority,
look upon himself as orator before the Throne of Grace, for a
crowd who hang upon his words while he asks for them all that
is necessary in a transitory life; from the assurance that a good
behavior, for a few moments in it, will purchase endless joy and
happy immortality.


## p. 13881 (#63) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13881
>>
But who can place himself in this view who, though not
pinched with want, is distracted with care from the fear of it? ?
No: a man in the least degree below the spirit of a saint or a
martyr will loll, huddle over his duty, look confused, or assume
a resolution in his behavior which will be quite as ungraceful,
except he is supported above the necessities of life.
“Power and commandment to his minister to declare and pro-
nounce to his people is mentioned with a very unguarded air,
when the speaker is known in his own private condition to be
almost an object of their pity and charity. This last circum-
stance, with many others here loosely suggested, are the occasion
that one knows not how to recommend, to such as have not
already a fixed sense of devotion, the pleasure of passing the
earliest hours of the day in a public congregation. But were
this morning solemnity as much in vogue even as it is now at
more advanced hours of the day, it would necessarily have so
good an effect upon us as to make us more disengaged and
cheerful in conversation, and less artful and insincere in busi-
ness. The world would be quite another place than it is now,
the rest of the day; and every face would have an alacrity in it
which can be borrowed from no other reflections but those which
give us the assured protection of Omnipotence.
MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND
From the Tatler
TE
HERE are several persons who have many pleasures and enter-
tainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. It
is therefore a kind and good office to acquaint them with
their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of
their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the
married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their
days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur,
which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of
all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.
I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who
was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week with
his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word
his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at


## p. 13882 (#64) ###########################################

13882
SIR RICHARD STEELE
that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-
wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is to be met by
the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The
boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is
I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the
race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bicker-
staff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought
must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these
two years.
Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with
us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which
they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard
in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbors'
daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, “Nay, if
Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I
hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary is now
sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of
them. But I know him too well: he is so enamored with the
very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will
not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember,
old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh
your countenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in your
heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some
of your verses on her. »
With such reflections on little passages which happened long
ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and elegant meal.
After dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the children.
As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand: “Well, my
good friend,” says he, “I am heartily glad to see thee: I was
afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined
with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of
the house a little altered since you followed her from the play-
house, to find out who she was, for me? ” I perceived a tear
fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little.
But to turn the discourse I said, "She is not indeed quite that
creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from
you: and told me she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be
employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me;
but would be so much the gentleman's friend, as to dissuade
him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in. ' You
may remember, I thought her in earnest; and you were forced
to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted


## p. 13883 (#65) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13883
>>
with her, for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fif-
teen. ”
“Fifteen! ” replied my good friend: "ah! you little understand,
you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleas-
ure there is in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the
most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing
ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in
her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my
fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness which had like to
have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so
many obligations to her that I cannot with any sort of modera-
tion think of her present state of health. But as to what you say
of fifteen, she gives me every-day pleasures beyond what I ever
knew in the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigor
of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances
of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in
regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful
than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature which
I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some
anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus at the same
time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she
was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of
a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that
name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant
mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her
examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fear-
fulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like
children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for
an offense, not always to be seen in children in other families. I
speak freely to you, my old friend: ever since her sickness, things
that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain
anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the
poor things by their steps; and am considering what they must
do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The
pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and
asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and
the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melan-
choly. ”
He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good
lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her counte-
nance told us, “she had been searching her closet for something


## p. 13884 (#66) ###########################################

13884
SIR RICHARD STEELE
very good, to treat such an old friend as I was. ” Her husband's
eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her counte-
nance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant.
The lady
observing something in our looks which showed we had been
more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her
with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately
guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to
me, said with a smile, “Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word
of what he tells you: I shall still live to have you for my sec-
ond, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of
himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must
know he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy
place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintance
and schoolfellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed
periwigs. I could scarce keep him in this morning from going
out open-breasted. ”
My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agree-
able humor, made her sit down with us. She did it with that
easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up
the good-humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery
upon me. “Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one
night from the play-house: suppose you should carry me thither
to-morrow night, and lead me into the front box. ”
us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were
mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years
ago.
I told her, “I was glad she had transferred so many of
her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was
within half a year of being a toast. ”
We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment
of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with
the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson
to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and
chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I would not
part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though
he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent
parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other
side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in
Æsop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, that “he
did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they
were true;" for which reason I found he had very much turned
his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and
This put


## p. 13885 (#67) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13885
adventures of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven
Champions, and other historians of that age. I could not but
observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his
son; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found
the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him
during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the
mismanagements of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the pas-
sionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved St. George
for being the champion of England; and by this means had his
thoughts insensibly molded into the notions of discretion, virtue,
and honor. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother
told me that “the little girl who led me in this morning was in
her way a better scholar than he. Betty,” said she, “deals chiefly
in fairies and sprights; and sometimes in a winter night will ter-
rify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up
to bed. ”
I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry,
sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure,
which gives the only true relish to all conversation,-a sense
that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering
the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor;
and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect
that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In
this pensive mood I returned to my family; that is to say, to my
maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse
for what happens to me.
>
ON COFFEE-HOUSES; SUCCESSION OF VISITORS; CHARACTER
OF EUBULUS
From the Spectator
I'
Tis very natural for a man who is not turned for mirthful
meetings of men, or assemblies of the fair sex, to delight in
that sort of conversation which we find in coffee-houses.
Here a man of my temper is in his element; for if he cannot
talk, he can still be more agreeable to his company, as well as
pleased in himself, in being only a hearer. It is a secret known
but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when
you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should


## p. 13886 (#68) ###########################################

13886
SIR RICHARD STEELE
consider is whether he has a great inclination to hear you, or
that you should hear him. The latter is the more general desire;
and I know very able flatterers that never speak a word in
praise of the persons from whom they obtain daily favors, but still
practice a skillful attention to whatever is uttered by those with
whom they converse. We are very curious to observe the behav-
ior of great men and their clients: but the same passions and
interests move men in lower spheres; and I (that have nothing
else to do but make observations) see in every parish, street,
lane, and alley of this populous city, a little potentate that has
his court, and his flatterers, who lay snares for his affection and
favor by the same arts that are practiced upon men in higher
stations.
In the place I most usually frequent, men differ rather in the
time of day in which they make a figure, than in any real great-
ness above one another. I, who am at the coffee-house at six in
the morning, know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has
a levee of more undissembled friends and admirers than most of
the courtiers or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him
has perhaps a newspaper in his hand; but none can pretend to
guess what step will be taken in any one court of Europe, till
Mr. Beaver has thrown down his pipe and declares what meas-
ures the allies must enter into upon this new posture of affairs.
Our coffee-house is near one of the Inns of Court, and Beaver has
the audience and admiration of his neighbors from six till within
a quarter of eight; at which time he is interrupted by the stu-
dents of the house, some of whom are ready dressed for West-
minster at eight in a morning, with faces as busy as if they
were retained in every cause there; and others come in their
night-gowns to saunter away their time, as if they never designed
to go thither.
I do not know that I meet in any of my walks
objects which move both my spleen and laughter so effectu-
ally as those young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Serle's, and
all other coffee-houses adjacent to the law, who rise early for
no other purpose but to publish their laziness. One would think
these young virtuosos take a gay cap and slippers, with a scarf
and party-colored gown, to be ensigns of dignity; for the vain
things approach each other with an air which shows they regard
one another for their vestments. I have observed that the supe-
riority among these proceeds from an opinion of gallantry and
fashion. The gentleman in the strawberry sash, who presides so


## p. 13887 (#69) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13887
much over the rest, has, it seems, subscribed to every opera this
last winter, and is supposed to receive favors from one of the
actresses.
When the day grows too busy for these gentlemen to enjoy
any longer the pleasures of their dishabille with any manner of
confidence, they give place to men who have business or good
sense in their faces, and come to the coffee-house either to trans-
act affairs or enjoy conversation. The persons to whose behavior
and discourse I have most regard, are such as are between these
two sorts of men; such as have not spirits too active to be happy
and well pleased in a private condition, nor complexions too warm
to make them neglect the duties and relations of life. Of these
sort of men consist the worthier part of mankind; of these are
all good fathers, generous brothers, friends, and faithful sub-
jects. Their entertainments are derived rather from reason than
imagination; which is the cause that there is no impatience or
instability in their speech or action. You see in their counte-
nances they are at home, and in quiet possession of their present
instant as it passes, without desiring to quicken it by gratifying
any passion, or prosecuting any new design. These are the men
formed for society, and those little communities which we express
by the word neighborhoods.
The coffee-house is the place of rendezvous to all that live
near it, who are thus turned to relish calm and ordinary life.
Eubulus presides over the middle hours of the day, when this
assembly of men meet together. He enjoys a great fortune
handsomely, without launching into expense; and exerts many
noble and useful qualities, without appearing in any public em-
ployment. His wisdom and knowledge are serviceable to all that
think fit to make use of them; and he does the office of a coun-
sel, a judge, an executor, and a friend, to all his acquaintance,
not only without the profits which attend such offices, but also
without the deference and homage which are usually paid to
them. The giving of thanks is displeasing to him.
est gratitude you can show him is to let him see that you are a
better man for his services; and that you are as ready to oblige
others as he is to oblige you.
In the private exigencies of his friends, he lends at legal
value considerable sums, which he might highly increase by roll-
ing in the public stocks. He does not consider in whose hands
his money will improve most, but where it will do most good.
The great.


## p. 13888 (#70) ###########################################

I
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13888
Eubulus has so great an authority in his little diurnal audi-
ence, that when he shakes his head at any piece of public news,
they all of them appear dejected; and on the contrary, go home
to their dinners with a good stomach and cheerful aspect when
Eubulus seems to intimate that things go well. Nay, their ven-
eration towards him is so great that when they are in other
company they speak and act after him; are wise in his sentences,
and are no sooner sat down at their own tables, but they hope
or fear, rejoice or despond, as they saw him do at the coffee-
house. In a word, every man is Eubulus as soon as his back is
turned.
Having here given an account of the several reigns that suc-
ceed each other from daybreak till dinner-time, I shall mention
the monarchs of the afternoon on another occasion, and shut up
the whole series of them with the history of Tom the Tyrant;
who, as the first minister of the coffee-house, takes the govern-
ment upon him between the hours of eleven and twelve at night,
and gives his orders in the most arbitrary manner to the serv.
ants below him, as to the disposition of liquors, coal, and cinders.
ON THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC MOURNING: PLAINNESS IN DRESS
From the Tatler
W*
THEN artists would expose their diamonds to an advantage,
they usually set them to show in little cases of black
'velvet. By this means the jewels appear in their true
and genuine lustre, while there is no color that can infect their
brightness, or give a false cast to the water. When I was at the
opera the other night, the assembly of ladies in mourning made
me consider them in the same kind of view. A dress wherein
there is so little variety shows the face in all its natural charms,
and makes one differ from another only as it is more or less
beautiful. Painters are
Painters are ever careful of offending against a rule
which is so essential in all just representations. The chief figure
must have the strongest point of light, and not be injured by any
gay colorings that may draw away the attention to any less con-
siderable part of the picture. The present fashion obliges every-
body to be dressed with propriety, and makes the ladies' faces
the principal objects of sight. Every beautiful person shines out


## p. 13889 (#71) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13889
in all the excellence with which nature has adorned her; gaudy
ribbons and glaring colors being now out of use, the sex has no
opportunity given them to disfigure themselves, which they sel-
dom fail to do whenever it lies in their power. When a woman
comes to her glass, she does not employ her time in making her-
self look more advantageously what she really is; but endeavors
to be as much another creature as she possibly can. Whether
this happens because they stay so long, and attend their work so
diligently, that they forget the faces and persons which they first
sat down with, or whatever it is, they seldom rise from the toilet
the same women they appeared when they began to dress. What
jewel can the charming Cleora place in her ears that can please
her beholders so much as her eyes? The cluster of diamonds
upon the breast can add no beauty to the fair chest of ivory
which supports it. It may indeed tempt a man to steal a
woman, but never to love her. Let Thalestris change herself
into a motley party-colored animal: the pearl necklace, the flow-
ered stomacher, the artificial nosegay, and shaded furbelow may
be of use to attract the eye of the beholder, and turn it from the
imperfections of her features and shape. But if ladies will take
my word for it (and as they dress to please men, they ought to
consult our fancy rather than their own in this particular), I can
assure them there is nothing touches our imagination so much
as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. There might be more
agreeable ornaments found in our own manufacture, than any
that rise out of the looms of Persia.
This, I know, is a very harsh doctrine to womankind, who
are carried away with everything that is showy, and with what
delights the eye, more than any other species of living creatures
whatsoever. Were the minds of the sex laid open, we should
find the chief idea in one to be a tippet, in another a muff, in
a third a fan, and in a fourth a farthingale. The memory of an
old visiting lady is so filled with gloves, silks, and ribbons, that I
can look upon it as nothing else but a toy shop. A matron of my
acquaintance, complaining of her daughter's vanity, was obsery-
ing 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 the 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 eldest sister that she had a pair of
XXIV—869
»


## p. 13890 (#72) ###########################################

13890
SIR RICHARD STEELE
striped garters on. ” This odd turn of mind often makes the sex
unhappy, and disposes them to be struck with everything that
makes a show, however trifling and superficial.
Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the toss 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 virgins 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 answered, “No; but I can make a
great city of a little one. " Notwithstanding his boasted wis-
dom, I appeal to the heart of any toast in town, whether she
would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman ? I do
not speak this out of any aversion that I have to the sex; on
the contrary, I have always had a tenderness for them: but I
must confess, it troubles me very much to see the generality of
them place their affections on improper objects, and give up all
the pleasures of life for gewgaws and trifles.
Mrs. Margery Bickerstaff, my great-aunt, had a thousand
pounds to her portion, which our family was desirous of keeping
among themselves, and therefore used all possible means to turn
off her thoughts from marriage. The method they took was, in
any time of danger, to throw a new gown or petticoat in her
way. When she was about twenty-five years of age she fell in
love with a man of an agreeable temper and equal fortune, and
would certainly have married him had not my grandfather, Sir
Jacob, dressed her up in a suit of flowered satin; upon which she
set so immoderate a value upon herself that the lover was con-
temned and discarded. In the fortieth year of her age she was
again smitten; but very luckily transferred her passion to a tip-
pet, which was presented to her by another relation who was in
the plot.
This, with a white sarsenet hood, kept her safe in the
family until fifty. About sixty, which generally produces a kind
of latter spring in amorous constitutions, my aunt Margery had
again a colt's tooth in her head; and would certainly have eloped
from the mansion-house had not her brother Simon, who was a
wise man and a scholar, advised to dress her in cherry-colored


## p. 13891 (#73) ###########################################

SIR RICHARD STEELE
13891
ribbons, which was the only expedient that could have been
found out by the wit of man to preserve the thousand pounds in
our family, part of which I enjoy at this time.
This discourse puts me in mind of a humorist mentioned by
Horace, called Eutrapelus, who when he designed to do a man
a mischief made him a present of a gay suit; and brings to my
memory another passage of the same author, when he describes
the most ornamental dress that a woman can appear in with two
words, simplex munditiis, which I have quoted for the benefit of
my female readers.
1
ON THE ART OF GROWING OLD
From the Tatler
I"
am
T would be a good appendix to The Art of Living and Dying,'
if any one would write The Art of Growing Old,' and teach
men to resign their pretensions to the pleasures and gallant-
ries of youth, in proportion to the alteration they find in them-
selves by the approach of age and infirmities. The infirmities of
this stage of life would be much fewer if we did not affect those
which attend the more vigorous and active part of our days;
but instead of studying to be wiser, or being contented with our
present follies, the ambition of many of us is also to be the same
sort of fools we formerly have been. I have often argued, as I
a professed lover of women, that our sex grows old with a
much worse grace than the other does; and have ever been of
opinion that there are more well-pleased old women than old
men. I thought it a good reason for this, that the ambition of
the fair sex being confined to advantageous marriages, or shining
in the
eyes
of
men, their parts were over sooner, and conse-
quently the errors in the performances of them. The conversa-
tion of this evening has not convinced me of the contrary; for
one or two fop-women shall not make a balance for the crowds
of coxcombs among ourselves, diversified according to the differ-
ent pursuits of pleasure and business.
Returning home this evening a little before my usual hour, I
scarce had seated myself in my easy-chair, stirred the fire, and
stroked my cat, but I heard somebody come rumbling up-stairs.
I saw my door opened, and a human figure advancing towards
me so fantastically put together that it was some minutes before


## p. 13892 (#74) ###########################################

13892
SIR RICHARD STEELE
I discovered it to be my old and intimate friend Sam Trusty.
Immediately I rose up, and placed him in my own seat; a com-
pliment I pay to few. The first thing he uttered was, “Isaac,
fetch me a cup of your cherry brandy before you offer to ask
any question. ” He drank a lusty draught, sat silent for some
time, and at last broke out: "I am come,” quoth he, "to insult
thee for an old fantastic dotard, as thou art, in ever defending
the women. I have this evening visited two widows who are
now in that state I have often heard you call an (after-life'; I
suppose you mean by it, an existence which grows out of past
entertainments, and is an untimely delight in the satisfactions
which they once set their hearts upon too much to be ever
able to relinquish. Have but patience,” continued he, until I
give you a succinct account of my ladies, and of this night's
adventure.