To be bred
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
## p.
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
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.
«They are much of an age, but very different in their charac-
ters. The one of them, with all the advances which years have
made upon her, goes on in a certain romantic road of love
and friendship which she fell into in her teens; the other has
transferred the amorous passions of her first years to the love of
cronies, pets, and favorites, with which she is always surrounded:
but the genius of each of them will best appear by the account
of what happened to me at their houses. About five this after-
noon, being tired with study, the weather inviting, and time
lying a little upon my hands, I resolved at the instigation of my
evil genius to visit them; their husbands having been our con-
temporaries. This I thought I could do without much trouble,
for both live in the very next street.
“I went first to my lady Camomile; and the butler, who had
lived long in the family, and seen me often in his master's time,
ushered me very civilly into the parlor, and told me though my
lady had given strict orders to be denied, he was sure I might
be admitted, and bid the black boy acquaint his lady that I was
come to wait upon her. In the window lay two letters, one
broke open, the other fresh sealed with a wafer: the first directed
to the divine Cosmelia, the second to the charming Lucinda;
but both, by the indented characters, appeared to have been writ
by very unsteady hands. Such uncommon addresses increased
my curiosity, and put me upon asking my old friend the butler,
if he knew who those persons were ? Very well,' says he:
'that is from Mrs. Furbish to my lady, an old schoolfellow and
## p. 13893 (#75) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13893
great crony of her ladyship’s; and this the answer. I inquired
in what county she lived. Oh dear! ' says he, but just by, in
the neighborhood. Why, she was here all this morning, and that
letter came and was answered within these two hours. They
have taken an odd fancy, you must know, to call one another
hard names; but for all that, they love one another hugely. By
this time the boy returned with his lady's humble service to me,
desiring I would excuse her; for she could not possibly see me
nor anybody else, for it was opera-night. ”
"Methinks,” says I, “such innocent folly as two old women's
courtship to each other should rather make you merry than put
you out of humor. ”
"Peace, good Isaac,” says he, “no interruption, I beseech
you. I got soon to Mrs. Feeble's,- she that was formerly Betty
Frisk; you must needs remember her: Tom Feeble of Brazen
Nose fell in love with her for her fine dancing. Well, Mrs.
Ursula without further ceremony carries me directly up to her
mistress's chamber, where I found her environed by four of the
most mischievous animals that can ever infest a family: an
old shock dog with one eye, a monkey chained to one side of
the chimney, a great gray squirrel to the other, and a parrot
waddling in the middle of the room. However, for a while, all
was in a profound tranquillity. Upon the mantel-tree (for I am a
pretty curious observer) stood a pot of lambetive electuary, with
a stick of liquorice, and near it a phial of rosewater and pow.
der of tutty. Upon the table lay a pipe filled with betony and
colt’s-foot, a roll of wax candle, a silver spitting-pot, and
Seville orange. The lady was placed in a large wicker chair,
and her feet wrapped up in flannel, supported by cushions; and
in this attitude, would you believe it, Isaac, she was reading a
romance with spectacles on. The first compliments over, as she
was industriously endeavoring to enter upon conversation, a vio-
lent fit of coughing seized her. This awaked Shock, and in a
trice the whole room was in an uproar; for the dog barked, the
squirrel squealed, the monkey chattered, the parrot screamed,
and Ursula, to appease them, was more clamorous than all the
rest. You, Isaac, who know how any harsh noise affects my
head, may guess what I suffered from the hideous din of these
discordant sounds. At length all was appeased, and quiet re-
stored: a chair was drawn for me, where I was no sooner seated,
but the parrot fixed his horny beak, as sharp as a pair of shears,
a
## p. 13894 (#76) ###########################################
13894
SIR RICHARD STEELE
in one of my heels, just above the shoe. I sprung from the
place with an unusual agility; and so, being within the monkey's
reach, he snatches off my new bob-wig and throws it upon two
apples that were roasting by a sullen sea-coal fire. I was nim.
ble enough to save it from any further damage than singeing
the foretop. I put it on; and composing myself as well as I
could, I drew my chair towards the other side of the chimney.
The good lady, as soon as she had recovered breath, employed it
in making a thousand apologies, and with great eloquence and
a numerous train of words lamented my misfortune. In the
middle of her harangue, I felt something scratching near my
knee; and feeling what it should be, found the squirrel had got
into my coat pocket. As I endeavored to remove him from his
burrow, he made his teeth meet through the fleshy part of my
forefinger. This gave me an inexpressible pain. The Hungary
water was immediately brought to bathe it, and gold-beater's
skin applied to stop the blood. The lady renewed her excuses;
but being now out of all patience, I abruptly took my leave, and
hobbling down-stairs with heedless haste, I set my foot full in a
pail of water, and down we came to the bottom together. ”
Here my friend concluded his narrative, and with a composed
countenance I began to make him compliments of condolence;
but he started from his chair, and said, Isaac, you may spare
your speeches, - I expect no reply. When I told you this, I
knew you would laugh at me; but the next woman that makes
me ridiculous shall be a young one. ”
ON FLOGGING AT SCHOOLS
From the Spectator
I
AM very much at a loss to express by any word that occurs to
me in our language, that which is understood by indoles in
Latin. The natural disposition to any particular art, science,
profession, or trade, is very much to be consulted in the care
of youth, and studied by men for their own conduct when they
form to themselves any scheme of life. It is wonderfully hard,
indeed, for a man to judge of his own capacity impartially. That
may look great to me which may appear little to another; and I
may be carried by fondness towards myself so far as to attempt
## p. 13895 (#77) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13895
things too high for my talents and accomplishments. But it is
not, methinks, so very difficult a matter to make a judgment
of the abilities of others, especially of those who are in their
infancy.
My commonplace-book directs me on this occasion to men-
tion the dawning of greatness in Alexander, who, being asked in
his youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic games, answered
he would, if he had kings to run against him. Cassius, who
was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof
of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a playfellow, the
son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman peo-
ple. Scipio is reported to have answered, when some flatterers at
supper were asking him what the Romans should do for a gen-
eral arter his death, “Take Marius. ” Marius was then a very
boy, and had given no instances of his valor; but it was visible
to Scipio, from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul
formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings.
I must confess I have very often, with much sorrow, bewailed
the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider
the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmas-
ters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for
the long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors, to which our
childhood is exposed in going through a grammar-school. Many
of these stupid tyrants exercise their cruelty without any man-
ner of distinction of the capacities of children, or the intention
of parents in their behalf. There are many excellent tempers
which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible
diligence and care, that were never designed to be acquainted
with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have
capacities for understanding every word those great persons have
writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings.
For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who
have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable
creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are
for ever near a right understanding and will never arrive at it.
These are the scandal of letters, and these are generally the men
who are to teach others.
The sense of shame and honor is enough to keep the world
itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train
the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. It happens, I
doubt not, more than once in a year, that a lad is chastised for
## p. 13896 (#78) ###########################################
13896
SIR RICHARD STEELE
a blockhead, when it is good apprehension that makes him inca-
pable of knowing what his teacher means. A brisk imagination
very often may suggest an error, which a lad could not have
fallen into if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his mas-
ter in explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong
interpretation of his meaning: the sufferings of the scholar's body
are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.
I am confident that no boy who will not be allured to let-
ters without blows, will ever be brought to anything with them.
A great or good mind must necessarily be the worse for such
indignities; and it is a sad change, to lose of its virtue for the
improvement of its knowledge. No one who has gone through
what they call a great school, but must remember to have seen
children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards
appeared in their manhood),- I say no man has passed through
this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature,
expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and
silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and kneel on its tender
knees to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quan-
tity of a word in making a Latin verse. The child is punished,
and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a third with
the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man
whether this lad, in the simplicity of his native innocence, full
of shame, and capable of any impression from that grace of soul,
was not fitter for any purpose in this life, than after that spark
of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write
twenty verses in an evening?
Seneca says, after his exalted way of talking, “As the immor-
tal gods never learnt any virtue, though they are endued with
all that is good, so there are some men who have so natural a
propensity to what they should follow, that they learn it almost
as soon as they hear it. ” Plants and vegetables are cultivated
into the production of finer fruits than they would yield with-
out that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing
a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same
methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece
of stone.
It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a
certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally
educated, carry about them in all their behavior.
To be bred
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
## p. 13897 (#79) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13897
it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes
in men of letters.
The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen
and hid under his coat) to eat into his bowels, I daresay had
not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools
among us; but the glorious sense of honor, or rather fear of
shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the
learning in the world without it.
It is, methinks, a very melancholy consideration, that a lit-
tle negligence can spoil us, but great industry is necessary to
improve us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but
evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits.
To help this by punishments is the same thing as killing a
man to cure him of a distemper: when he comes to suffer pun-
ishment in that one circumstance, he is brought below the exist-
ence of a rational creature, and is in the state of a brute that
moves only by the admonition of stripes. But since this custom
of educating by the lash is suffered by the gentry of Great Brit-
ain, I would prevail only that honest heavy lads may be dismissed
from slavery sooner than they are at present, and not whipped
on to their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether they expect any
progress from them or not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith
examined, and he sent to some mechanic way of life, without
respect to his birth, if nature designed him for nothing higher;
let him go before he has innocently suffered, and is debased into
a dereliction of mind for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain
man. I would not here be supposed to have said that our learned
men of either robe who have been whipped at school are not
still men of noble and liberal minds; but I am sure they would
have been much more so than they are, had they never suffered
that infamy.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING
From the Guardian
.
.
I
HAVE often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a
poet. It is, I think, certain that some men have such a pe-
culiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light
than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination
and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in
the same
manner as they themselves were affected with them;
## p. 13898 (#80) ###########################################
13898
SIR RICHARD STEELE
and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted
at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same
occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the
disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only
which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is there-
fore not an art, but what we call a “knack”; it does not so
much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add that it is
not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which nat-
urally attend such merry emotions of the mind.
I know very
well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off
to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end:
but this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently con-
venient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agita-
tions. I will go yet further; and affirm that the success of a
story very often depends upon the make of the body, and forma-
tion of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this
opinion ever since I criticized upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I
very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his
conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the
coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor
could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, though
upon examination I thought most of them very fat and insipid.
I found, after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded
upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair
of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness which robbed him
of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months
before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his
floridity.
He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good
constitution for wit.
Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature are apt
to show their parts with too much ostentation: I would there-
fore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but
as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conver-
sation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that
are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly intro-
duced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of
allusion. Those that are altogether new should never be ushered
in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons
concerned, because by that means you make the company ac-
quainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and
trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us administer more
mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.
## p. 13898 (#81) ###########################################
## p. 13898 (#82) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNEK
## p. 13898 (#83) ###########################################
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## p. 13898 (#84) ###########################################
## p. 13899 (#85) ###########################################
13899
LAURENCE STERNE
(1713-1768)
enue
He life of the Reverend Laurence Sterne was as inconsistent
with his profession as with his writings. Reading these, no
one would for a moment believe that he was a clergyman.
Such a career as his would not be possible to-day; but to a Church
of England parson of the eighteenth century, extraordinary moral
latitude was allowed, and toward him extraordinary tolerance was
exercised. Although Sterne's sermons were clever, they were very
peculiar. His contemporaries thought of him only as a literary man,
and it is doubtful if he took himself seriously as a cleric.
He was a
humorist to the marrow, and had all the vagaries of his natural
predilection. Although in his day the English Church was chosen
for a calling, like the army, the navy, or the law, and the re
from a benefice was fitly named a living, it is not likely that he vol-
untarily selected his profession.
He was the great-grandson of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of
York; and the recollection of his distinguished ancestor, with consid-
erations of family influence, must have decided his vocation. His
father, a younger son, was an ensign of the 34th Regiment, with
which he served in Flanders, taking part in the sieges of Lisle and
Douay. His mother was Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of good
connections. The ensign and his wife went to Clonmel, in Ireland,
at the close of the war; and there, in barracks, Laurence was born,
November 24th, 1713; his parents and all his progenitors being Eng-
lish. His father having been recalled into active service, the child
was carried from barracks to transport, from Ireland to England, and
was familiar with the shifts, hardships, and vulgarities of a vagabond
military life, until he reached his tenth year. This happy-go-lucky
existence, with its fun, its extravagance, and its pinching poverty, no
doubt influenced his character, and affected his ways of thinking.
At the age of ten he was fortunately rescued from it by a good-
natured cousin, Squire Sterne, and sent first to school at Halifax,
and then to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which the archiepiscopal
great-grandfather had been master. He was entered as a sizar; and
in exchange for his free commons and free tuition, had to render
such services as Goldsmith gave a few years later,- sweeping the
courts, carrying up the dishes to the fellows' dining-hall, and pour-
ing the ale. The position involved some mortifications, and the little
-
## p. 13900 (#86) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13900
beneficiary, already half an invalid, was unequal to much hard work.
But he seems to have accepted all the conditions of life with a good-
natured philosophy that made him popular.
After ordination he procured, through another kinsman, Dr. Jaques
Sterne, the vicarage of Sutton in Yorkshire, and in time a prebendal
stall in York Cathedral. Marrying at twenty-eight, he received from
a friend of his wife the living of Stillington, in the immediate neigh-
borhood of Sutton. The churchman had been fortunate from his
boyhood; and that supposed good luck continued which led to phys-
ical and moral deterioration, and his premature death at fifty-four.
For nearly twenty years he led a free-and-easy life in the country,
reading, painting, fiddling, fishing, shooting, dining, but writing nothing
save his regular sermons, with occasional political squibs and para-
graphs for a Whig newspaper. He had gained, however, a local rep-
utation for wit and story-telling, and was much quoted in York for
smart sayings, not at all sacerdotal. His disposition was extremely
gay, and the kind of gayety he preferred was expensive. His income
proving inadequate, he began to run in debt,- a habit which increased
with his years. He had published a few sermons which found ad-
mirers; but on the first day of January, 1760, being then forty-six years
of age, he burst on an astonished world with two volumes of "The
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. '
Though printed in the provincial town of York, the story gave
him instantaneous renown. York was immensely scandalized at the
satirical levity of its prebend; but London was taken captive by. the
cleverness and the unconventionality of the new free-lance. The book
was republished under the pen-name of Yorick; Yorick being a char-
acter in "Tristram Shandy,'— a sporting parson, who claims descent
from the king's jester in Hamlet. ' Everybody, however, soon knew
the author to be no other than Laurence Sterne. Eager to enjoy
his triumph, he visited London, and was received with an enthusiasm
wholly beyond his fondest anticipations. He was honored and flat-
tered as few authors have been; he was feasted, courted, caressed;
he became at once the talk and the lion of the town. It was a dis-
tinction to have seen, much more to have spoken to, Laurence Sterne.
He was classed with Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett as a master
of prose fiction. Praise was exhausted on his humor, his invention,
his learning, his originality. Lord Falconbridge conferred on him the
living of Coxwould; the arrogant Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester,
presented him with a purse of gold; Reynolds painted his portrait;
Dodsley offered him seven hundred pounds for two more volumes of
(Tristram Shandy,' and a second edition. He was invited to dine
with the most noted men of the metropolis, three weeks in advance;
and the most fashionable game of cards was named after his hero.
## p. 13901 (#87) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13901
Such incense, as welcome as intoxicating to Sterne, turned his head,
ruined his fragile constitution, and undermined such moral principles
as he still professed. Having once enjoyed the stimulus, the diver-
sity, the delightful adulation of London, he could not content himself
in the provinces. He took a house in York for his wife and daugh-
ter Lydia, to whom he was much attached; but passed most of his
own time in the capital, or on the Continent.
The third and fourth volumes of (Tristram Shandy) appeared
in 1761; the fifth and sixth in 1762. Sterne was “fully determined
to write as hard as could be,” and was sure that he could give the
public “two volumes of Shandyism every year for forty years to
come. ”
Too much feasting, however, too late hours, and perhaps too
constant application, wore him out. From birth he had been delicate,
-a tendency to consumption sapping his nervous energies, para-
lyzing his will, and vitiating perhaps his moral impulses. A hemor-
rhage, a cough, and increasing weakness drove him to France for a
sojourn of more than two years. There he met the warmest recep-
tion from literary and fashionable circles, and wrote to Garrick from
Paris:— «'Tis comme à Londres. I have just now a fortnight's dinners
and suppers on my hands. Be it known I Shandy it away fifty times
more than I was ever wont,- talk more nonsense than ever you
heard me talk in all your days, and to more sorts of people. ” When
society would let him, he still worked at the history of the Shandy
family, and in 1765, after his return to England (very little better
for the sort of health journey he had undertaken), he brought out
the fourth installment of two volumes. The later issues only deep-
ened and intensified the impression made by the first two.
He was
universally regarded not only as a writer of rare genius, but as one
of the most original of humorists, and compared with Rabelais and
Cervantes. His novel was accepted on its face in that uncritical
age, and not impartially judged till after his death. But in Dr.
Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne,' published in 1812, that ingenious
gentleman took pains to track the humorist's phrases and inventions
to their source in Rabelais and other old French authors; to Bur-
ton, from whose (Anatomy of Melancholy, much of his erudition is
«lifted”; to Bishop Hall, Dr. Donne, Dr. Arbuthnot, and many more.
Yet Dr. Ferriar admitted that these appropriations were of material
only; that Sterne, like Shakespeare, bettered what he took, and that
his reputation as a great literary artist is not in the least affected by
this habit of spoliation. Indeed, he was strikingly original,- as such
characters as Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr. Slop,
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
“Tristram Shandy' is in no strict sense a novel. Such story as
there is is constantly interrupted by episodes, digressions, absurdities,
affectations, and incongruities. In more than one volume the whole
## p. 13902 (#88) ###########################################
13902
LAURENCE STERNE
(
(
>
movement is suspended while the author introduces a discourse, a
journey, or any other irrelevant personal experience. But he knew
his own tendencies, and declared that he had reconciled digressive
motion with progressive. ”
Longing to spin out the tawdry life of excitement and pleasure
that seemed so fine to him, yet racked by his cough and hampered by
weakness, Sterne went to Italy in 1765, hoping to improve in a milder
climate. Again he gained little in health; but he managed to bring
out the concluding volume of Tristram Shandy) in 1767. This was
received with hardly diminished favor, and edition after edition of
the coinpleted story was sold. To the taste of to-day it makes lit-
tle appeal,-- its premeditated quaintness, its pervading coarseness, and
its archaisms repel the general reader; yet for its higher qualities it
retains almost unequaled charm to a minority of cultivated minds,
and even children can fall under its spell with a lasting enchantment.
The “Sentimental Journey through France and Italy) was projected
as a long story, but Sterne's strength was unequal to his resolution.
In 1767 he brought out the first part — and the last; full of fine
description and admirable pathos. This work was partly undertaken
to ridicule Smollett's Travels through France and Italy' (1766): one
of its most quoted phrases, “I pity the man who can travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry 'Tis all barren, ” is directly aimed at the too
sincere Scotchman, whom he patently nicknames Smelfungus.
At the height of his fame, just after the publication of the 'Senti-
mental Journey,' Sterne died in lodgings, “at the sign of the Silk
Bag” in Old Bond Street, alone but for the presence of a hired nurse.
He had desired to end his life at an inn, and his desire was fulfilled.
Although he had earned much money, he died in debt; and a collec-
tion of eight hundred pounds was made at the York races for his wife
and daughter.
Sterne has been accused of gross vices. He has been called a
man overflowing with sentiment on paper, but devoid of real feeling;
a weeper over dead asses, and a discarder of the common ties of
humanity. His late biographers have defended him stoutly, declaring
his memory to have been maligned. But his own correspondence,
published posthumously, convicts him of many offenses. It has been
said by one of his fairest critics that though in any just estimation
of him, censure must be lost in pity, yet the fact remains that Sterne
is one of the very few men of real genius, who, however faulty in
their lives, have in their writings not sought to be faithful to the
highest truth they knew. Concerning his work there is but one ver-
dict: that whatever its superficial defects, and however unattractive
its quality to modern taste, its art is exquisite; and that by reason
of this its author is entitled to a place with the great masters of
literature.
## p. 13903 (#89) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13903
THE WIDOW WADMAN LAYS SIEGE TO UNCLE TOBY'S HEART
From "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
"I
-
)
Am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, hold-
ing up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she
approached the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry-box. "A
mote, or sand, or something — I know not what — has got into
this eye of mine; do look into it—it is not in the white. ”
In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside
my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of
his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without
rising up.
“Do look into it,” said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as inuch innocence
of heart as ever child looked into a raree-show box; and 'twere
as much a sin to have hurt thee.
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.
«They are much of an age, but very different in their charac-
ters. The one of them, with all the advances which years have
made upon her, goes on in a certain romantic road of love
and friendship which she fell into in her teens; the other has
transferred the amorous passions of her first years to the love of
cronies, pets, and favorites, with which she is always surrounded:
but the genius of each of them will best appear by the account
of what happened to me at their houses. About five this after-
noon, being tired with study, the weather inviting, and time
lying a little upon my hands, I resolved at the instigation of my
evil genius to visit them; their husbands having been our con-
temporaries. This I thought I could do without much trouble,
for both live in the very next street.
“I went first to my lady Camomile; and the butler, who had
lived long in the family, and seen me often in his master's time,
ushered me very civilly into the parlor, and told me though my
lady had given strict orders to be denied, he was sure I might
be admitted, and bid the black boy acquaint his lady that I was
come to wait upon her. In the window lay two letters, one
broke open, the other fresh sealed with a wafer: the first directed
to the divine Cosmelia, the second to the charming Lucinda;
but both, by the indented characters, appeared to have been writ
by very unsteady hands. Such uncommon addresses increased
my curiosity, and put me upon asking my old friend the butler,
if he knew who those persons were ? Very well,' says he:
'that is from Mrs. Furbish to my lady, an old schoolfellow and
## p. 13893 (#75) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13893
great crony of her ladyship’s; and this the answer. I inquired
in what county she lived. Oh dear! ' says he, but just by, in
the neighborhood. Why, she was here all this morning, and that
letter came and was answered within these two hours. They
have taken an odd fancy, you must know, to call one another
hard names; but for all that, they love one another hugely. By
this time the boy returned with his lady's humble service to me,
desiring I would excuse her; for she could not possibly see me
nor anybody else, for it was opera-night. ”
"Methinks,” says I, “such innocent folly as two old women's
courtship to each other should rather make you merry than put
you out of humor. ”
"Peace, good Isaac,” says he, “no interruption, I beseech
you. I got soon to Mrs. Feeble's,- she that was formerly Betty
Frisk; you must needs remember her: Tom Feeble of Brazen
Nose fell in love with her for her fine dancing. Well, Mrs.
Ursula without further ceremony carries me directly up to her
mistress's chamber, where I found her environed by four of the
most mischievous animals that can ever infest a family: an
old shock dog with one eye, a monkey chained to one side of
the chimney, a great gray squirrel to the other, and a parrot
waddling in the middle of the room. However, for a while, all
was in a profound tranquillity. Upon the mantel-tree (for I am a
pretty curious observer) stood a pot of lambetive electuary, with
a stick of liquorice, and near it a phial of rosewater and pow.
der of tutty. Upon the table lay a pipe filled with betony and
colt’s-foot, a roll of wax candle, a silver spitting-pot, and
Seville orange. The lady was placed in a large wicker chair,
and her feet wrapped up in flannel, supported by cushions; and
in this attitude, would you believe it, Isaac, she was reading a
romance with spectacles on. The first compliments over, as she
was industriously endeavoring to enter upon conversation, a vio-
lent fit of coughing seized her. This awaked Shock, and in a
trice the whole room was in an uproar; for the dog barked, the
squirrel squealed, the monkey chattered, the parrot screamed,
and Ursula, to appease them, was more clamorous than all the
rest. You, Isaac, who know how any harsh noise affects my
head, may guess what I suffered from the hideous din of these
discordant sounds. At length all was appeased, and quiet re-
stored: a chair was drawn for me, where I was no sooner seated,
but the parrot fixed his horny beak, as sharp as a pair of shears,
a
## p. 13894 (#76) ###########################################
13894
SIR RICHARD STEELE
in one of my heels, just above the shoe. I sprung from the
place with an unusual agility; and so, being within the monkey's
reach, he snatches off my new bob-wig and throws it upon two
apples that were roasting by a sullen sea-coal fire. I was nim.
ble enough to save it from any further damage than singeing
the foretop. I put it on; and composing myself as well as I
could, I drew my chair towards the other side of the chimney.
The good lady, as soon as she had recovered breath, employed it
in making a thousand apologies, and with great eloquence and
a numerous train of words lamented my misfortune. In the
middle of her harangue, I felt something scratching near my
knee; and feeling what it should be, found the squirrel had got
into my coat pocket. As I endeavored to remove him from his
burrow, he made his teeth meet through the fleshy part of my
forefinger. This gave me an inexpressible pain. The Hungary
water was immediately brought to bathe it, and gold-beater's
skin applied to stop the blood. The lady renewed her excuses;
but being now out of all patience, I abruptly took my leave, and
hobbling down-stairs with heedless haste, I set my foot full in a
pail of water, and down we came to the bottom together. ”
Here my friend concluded his narrative, and with a composed
countenance I began to make him compliments of condolence;
but he started from his chair, and said, Isaac, you may spare
your speeches, - I expect no reply. When I told you this, I
knew you would laugh at me; but the next woman that makes
me ridiculous shall be a young one. ”
ON FLOGGING AT SCHOOLS
From the Spectator
I
AM very much at a loss to express by any word that occurs to
me in our language, that which is understood by indoles in
Latin. The natural disposition to any particular art, science,
profession, or trade, is very much to be consulted in the care
of youth, and studied by men for their own conduct when they
form to themselves any scheme of life. It is wonderfully hard,
indeed, for a man to judge of his own capacity impartially. That
may look great to me which may appear little to another; and I
may be carried by fondness towards myself so far as to attempt
## p. 13895 (#77) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13895
things too high for my talents and accomplishments. But it is
not, methinks, so very difficult a matter to make a judgment
of the abilities of others, especially of those who are in their
infancy.
My commonplace-book directs me on this occasion to men-
tion the dawning of greatness in Alexander, who, being asked in
his youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic games, answered
he would, if he had kings to run against him. Cassius, who
was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof
of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a playfellow, the
son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman peo-
ple. Scipio is reported to have answered, when some flatterers at
supper were asking him what the Romans should do for a gen-
eral arter his death, “Take Marius. ” Marius was then a very
boy, and had given no instances of his valor; but it was visible
to Scipio, from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul
formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings.
I must confess I have very often, with much sorrow, bewailed
the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider
the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmas-
ters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for
the long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors, to which our
childhood is exposed in going through a grammar-school. Many
of these stupid tyrants exercise their cruelty without any man-
ner of distinction of the capacities of children, or the intention
of parents in their behalf. There are many excellent tempers
which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible
diligence and care, that were never designed to be acquainted
with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have
capacities for understanding every word those great persons have
writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings.
For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who
have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable
creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are
for ever near a right understanding and will never arrive at it.
These are the scandal of letters, and these are generally the men
who are to teach others.
The sense of shame and honor is enough to keep the world
itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train
the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. It happens, I
doubt not, more than once in a year, that a lad is chastised for
## p. 13896 (#78) ###########################################
13896
SIR RICHARD STEELE
a blockhead, when it is good apprehension that makes him inca-
pable of knowing what his teacher means. A brisk imagination
very often may suggest an error, which a lad could not have
fallen into if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his mas-
ter in explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong
interpretation of his meaning: the sufferings of the scholar's body
are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.
I am confident that no boy who will not be allured to let-
ters without blows, will ever be brought to anything with them.
A great or good mind must necessarily be the worse for such
indignities; and it is a sad change, to lose of its virtue for the
improvement of its knowledge. No one who has gone through
what they call a great school, but must remember to have seen
children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards
appeared in their manhood),- I say no man has passed through
this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature,
expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and
silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and kneel on its tender
knees to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quan-
tity of a word in making a Latin verse. The child is punished,
and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a third with
the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man
whether this lad, in the simplicity of his native innocence, full
of shame, and capable of any impression from that grace of soul,
was not fitter for any purpose in this life, than after that spark
of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write
twenty verses in an evening?
Seneca says, after his exalted way of talking, “As the immor-
tal gods never learnt any virtue, though they are endued with
all that is good, so there are some men who have so natural a
propensity to what they should follow, that they learn it almost
as soon as they hear it. ” Plants and vegetables are cultivated
into the production of finer fruits than they would yield with-
out that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing
a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same
methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece
of stone.
It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a
certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally
educated, carry about them in all their behavior.
To be bred
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
## p. 13897 (#79) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13897
it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes
in men of letters.
The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen
and hid under his coat) to eat into his bowels, I daresay had
not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools
among us; but the glorious sense of honor, or rather fear of
shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the
learning in the world without it.
It is, methinks, a very melancholy consideration, that a lit-
tle negligence can spoil us, but great industry is necessary to
improve us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but
evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits.
To help this by punishments is the same thing as killing a
man to cure him of a distemper: when he comes to suffer pun-
ishment in that one circumstance, he is brought below the exist-
ence of a rational creature, and is in the state of a brute that
moves only by the admonition of stripes. But since this custom
of educating by the lash is suffered by the gentry of Great Brit-
ain, I would prevail only that honest heavy lads may be dismissed
from slavery sooner than they are at present, and not whipped
on to their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether they expect any
progress from them or not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith
examined, and he sent to some mechanic way of life, without
respect to his birth, if nature designed him for nothing higher;
let him go before he has innocently suffered, and is debased into
a dereliction of mind for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain
man. I would not here be supposed to have said that our learned
men of either robe who have been whipped at school are not
still men of noble and liberal minds; but I am sure they would
have been much more so than they are, had they never suffered
that infamy.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING
From the Guardian
.
.
I
HAVE often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a
poet. It is, I think, certain that some men have such a pe-
culiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light
than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination
and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in
the same
manner as they themselves were affected with them;
## p. 13898 (#80) ###########################################
13898
SIR RICHARD STEELE
and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted
at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same
occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the
disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only
which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is there-
fore not an art, but what we call a “knack”; it does not so
much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add that it is
not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which nat-
urally attend such merry emotions of the mind.
I know very
well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off
to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end:
but this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently con-
venient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agita-
tions. I will go yet further; and affirm that the success of a
story very often depends upon the make of the body, and forma-
tion of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this
opinion ever since I criticized upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I
very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his
conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the
coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor
could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, though
upon examination I thought most of them very fat and insipid.
I found, after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded
upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair
of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness which robbed him
of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months
before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his
floridity.
He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good
constitution for wit.
Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature are apt
to show their parts with too much ostentation: I would there-
fore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but
as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conver-
sation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that
are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly intro-
duced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of
allusion. Those that are altogether new should never be ushered
in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons
concerned, because by that means you make the company ac-
quainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and
trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us administer more
mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.
## p. 13898 (#81) ###########################################
## p. 13898 (#82) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNEK
## p. 13898 (#83) ###########################################
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## p. 13898 (#84) ###########################################
## p. 13899 (#85) ###########################################
13899
LAURENCE STERNE
(1713-1768)
enue
He life of the Reverend Laurence Sterne was as inconsistent
with his profession as with his writings. Reading these, no
one would for a moment believe that he was a clergyman.
Such a career as his would not be possible to-day; but to a Church
of England parson of the eighteenth century, extraordinary moral
latitude was allowed, and toward him extraordinary tolerance was
exercised. Although Sterne's sermons were clever, they were very
peculiar. His contemporaries thought of him only as a literary man,
and it is doubtful if he took himself seriously as a cleric.
He was a
humorist to the marrow, and had all the vagaries of his natural
predilection. Although in his day the English Church was chosen
for a calling, like the army, the navy, or the law, and the re
from a benefice was fitly named a living, it is not likely that he vol-
untarily selected his profession.
He was the great-grandson of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of
York; and the recollection of his distinguished ancestor, with consid-
erations of family influence, must have decided his vocation. His
father, a younger son, was an ensign of the 34th Regiment, with
which he served in Flanders, taking part in the sieges of Lisle and
Douay. His mother was Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of good
connections. The ensign and his wife went to Clonmel, in Ireland,
at the close of the war; and there, in barracks, Laurence was born,
November 24th, 1713; his parents and all his progenitors being Eng-
lish. His father having been recalled into active service, the child
was carried from barracks to transport, from Ireland to England, and
was familiar with the shifts, hardships, and vulgarities of a vagabond
military life, until he reached his tenth year. This happy-go-lucky
existence, with its fun, its extravagance, and its pinching poverty, no
doubt influenced his character, and affected his ways of thinking.
At the age of ten he was fortunately rescued from it by a good-
natured cousin, Squire Sterne, and sent first to school at Halifax,
and then to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which the archiepiscopal
great-grandfather had been master. He was entered as a sizar; and
in exchange for his free commons and free tuition, had to render
such services as Goldsmith gave a few years later,- sweeping the
courts, carrying up the dishes to the fellows' dining-hall, and pour-
ing the ale. The position involved some mortifications, and the little
-
## p. 13900 (#86) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13900
beneficiary, already half an invalid, was unequal to much hard work.
But he seems to have accepted all the conditions of life with a good-
natured philosophy that made him popular.
After ordination he procured, through another kinsman, Dr. Jaques
Sterne, the vicarage of Sutton in Yorkshire, and in time a prebendal
stall in York Cathedral. Marrying at twenty-eight, he received from
a friend of his wife the living of Stillington, in the immediate neigh-
borhood of Sutton. The churchman had been fortunate from his
boyhood; and that supposed good luck continued which led to phys-
ical and moral deterioration, and his premature death at fifty-four.
For nearly twenty years he led a free-and-easy life in the country,
reading, painting, fiddling, fishing, shooting, dining, but writing nothing
save his regular sermons, with occasional political squibs and para-
graphs for a Whig newspaper. He had gained, however, a local rep-
utation for wit and story-telling, and was much quoted in York for
smart sayings, not at all sacerdotal. His disposition was extremely
gay, and the kind of gayety he preferred was expensive. His income
proving inadequate, he began to run in debt,- a habit which increased
with his years. He had published a few sermons which found ad-
mirers; but on the first day of January, 1760, being then forty-six years
of age, he burst on an astonished world with two volumes of "The
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. '
Though printed in the provincial town of York, the story gave
him instantaneous renown. York was immensely scandalized at the
satirical levity of its prebend; but London was taken captive by. the
cleverness and the unconventionality of the new free-lance. The book
was republished under the pen-name of Yorick; Yorick being a char-
acter in "Tristram Shandy,'— a sporting parson, who claims descent
from the king's jester in Hamlet. ' Everybody, however, soon knew
the author to be no other than Laurence Sterne. Eager to enjoy
his triumph, he visited London, and was received with an enthusiasm
wholly beyond his fondest anticipations. He was honored and flat-
tered as few authors have been; he was feasted, courted, caressed;
he became at once the talk and the lion of the town. It was a dis-
tinction to have seen, much more to have spoken to, Laurence Sterne.
He was classed with Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett as a master
of prose fiction. Praise was exhausted on his humor, his invention,
his learning, his originality. Lord Falconbridge conferred on him the
living of Coxwould; the arrogant Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester,
presented him with a purse of gold; Reynolds painted his portrait;
Dodsley offered him seven hundred pounds for two more volumes of
(Tristram Shandy,' and a second edition. He was invited to dine
with the most noted men of the metropolis, three weeks in advance;
and the most fashionable game of cards was named after his hero.
## p. 13901 (#87) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13901
Such incense, as welcome as intoxicating to Sterne, turned his head,
ruined his fragile constitution, and undermined such moral principles
as he still professed. Having once enjoyed the stimulus, the diver-
sity, the delightful adulation of London, he could not content himself
in the provinces. He took a house in York for his wife and daugh-
ter Lydia, to whom he was much attached; but passed most of his
own time in the capital, or on the Continent.
The third and fourth volumes of (Tristram Shandy) appeared
in 1761; the fifth and sixth in 1762. Sterne was “fully determined
to write as hard as could be,” and was sure that he could give the
public “two volumes of Shandyism every year for forty years to
come. ”
Too much feasting, however, too late hours, and perhaps too
constant application, wore him out. From birth he had been delicate,
-a tendency to consumption sapping his nervous energies, para-
lyzing his will, and vitiating perhaps his moral impulses. A hemor-
rhage, a cough, and increasing weakness drove him to France for a
sojourn of more than two years. There he met the warmest recep-
tion from literary and fashionable circles, and wrote to Garrick from
Paris:— «'Tis comme à Londres. I have just now a fortnight's dinners
and suppers on my hands. Be it known I Shandy it away fifty times
more than I was ever wont,- talk more nonsense than ever you
heard me talk in all your days, and to more sorts of people. ” When
society would let him, he still worked at the history of the Shandy
family, and in 1765, after his return to England (very little better
for the sort of health journey he had undertaken), he brought out
the fourth installment of two volumes. The later issues only deep-
ened and intensified the impression made by the first two.
He was
universally regarded not only as a writer of rare genius, but as one
of the most original of humorists, and compared with Rabelais and
Cervantes. His novel was accepted on its face in that uncritical
age, and not impartially judged till after his death. But in Dr.
Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne,' published in 1812, that ingenious
gentleman took pains to track the humorist's phrases and inventions
to their source in Rabelais and other old French authors; to Bur-
ton, from whose (Anatomy of Melancholy, much of his erudition is
«lifted”; to Bishop Hall, Dr. Donne, Dr. Arbuthnot, and many more.
Yet Dr. Ferriar admitted that these appropriations were of material
only; that Sterne, like Shakespeare, bettered what he took, and that
his reputation as a great literary artist is not in the least affected by
this habit of spoliation. Indeed, he was strikingly original,- as such
characters as Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr. Slop,
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
“Tristram Shandy' is in no strict sense a novel. Such story as
there is is constantly interrupted by episodes, digressions, absurdities,
affectations, and incongruities. In more than one volume the whole
## p. 13902 (#88) ###########################################
13902
LAURENCE STERNE
(
(
>
movement is suspended while the author introduces a discourse, a
journey, or any other irrelevant personal experience. But he knew
his own tendencies, and declared that he had reconciled digressive
motion with progressive. ”
Longing to spin out the tawdry life of excitement and pleasure
that seemed so fine to him, yet racked by his cough and hampered by
weakness, Sterne went to Italy in 1765, hoping to improve in a milder
climate. Again he gained little in health; but he managed to bring
out the concluding volume of Tristram Shandy) in 1767. This was
received with hardly diminished favor, and edition after edition of
the coinpleted story was sold. To the taste of to-day it makes lit-
tle appeal,-- its premeditated quaintness, its pervading coarseness, and
its archaisms repel the general reader; yet for its higher qualities it
retains almost unequaled charm to a minority of cultivated minds,
and even children can fall under its spell with a lasting enchantment.
The “Sentimental Journey through France and Italy) was projected
as a long story, but Sterne's strength was unequal to his resolution.
In 1767 he brought out the first part — and the last; full of fine
description and admirable pathos. This work was partly undertaken
to ridicule Smollett's Travels through France and Italy' (1766): one
of its most quoted phrases, “I pity the man who can travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry 'Tis all barren, ” is directly aimed at the too
sincere Scotchman, whom he patently nicknames Smelfungus.
At the height of his fame, just after the publication of the 'Senti-
mental Journey,' Sterne died in lodgings, “at the sign of the Silk
Bag” in Old Bond Street, alone but for the presence of a hired nurse.
He had desired to end his life at an inn, and his desire was fulfilled.
Although he had earned much money, he died in debt; and a collec-
tion of eight hundred pounds was made at the York races for his wife
and daughter.
Sterne has been accused of gross vices. He has been called a
man overflowing with sentiment on paper, but devoid of real feeling;
a weeper over dead asses, and a discarder of the common ties of
humanity. His late biographers have defended him stoutly, declaring
his memory to have been maligned. But his own correspondence,
published posthumously, convicts him of many offenses. It has been
said by one of his fairest critics that though in any just estimation
of him, censure must be lost in pity, yet the fact remains that Sterne
is one of the very few men of real genius, who, however faulty in
their lives, have in their writings not sought to be faithful to the
highest truth they knew. Concerning his work there is but one ver-
dict: that whatever its superficial defects, and however unattractive
its quality to modern taste, its art is exquisite; and that by reason
of this its author is entitled to a place with the great masters of
literature.
## p. 13903 (#89) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13903
THE WIDOW WADMAN LAYS SIEGE TO UNCLE TOBY'S HEART
From "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
"I
-
)
Am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, hold-
ing up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she
approached the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry-box. "A
mote, or sand, or something — I know not what — has got into
this eye of mine; do look into it—it is not in the white. ”
In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside
my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of
his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without
rising up.
“Do look into it,” said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as inuch innocence
of heart as ever child looked into a raree-show box; and 'twere
as much a sin to have hurt thee.
