Books: Isaac Bickerstaff
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Richard Steele >> Isaac Bickerstaff
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Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it
was the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and
upon all occasions winked upon his nephew to mind what passed.
This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent
conversation, which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my
maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect
with myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative humour of old
men, and the little figure which that part of life makes in one who
cannot employ this natural propensity in discourses which would make
him venerable. I must own, it makes me very melancholy in company,
when I hear a young man begin a story; and have often observed, that
one of a quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and-twenty,
gathers circumstances every time he tells it, till it grows into a
long Canterbury tale of two hours by that time he is three-score.
The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age is to
lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as
may make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind
of man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and
will consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or
improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous
than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more
venerable than one who has turned his experience to the
entertainment and advantage of mankind.
In short, we, who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to
indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what we speak be
worth being heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of
Nestor, which Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its
sweetness.
I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking
of, when I cannot conclude without observing that Milton certainly
thought of this passage in Homer, when, in his description of an
eloquent spirit, he says--
"His tongue dropped manna."
XVI.--A VERY PRETTY POET.
Will's Coffee-house, April 24.
I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally
make their appearance, with a design to read over all the
newspapers; but, upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly,
who saw me from a corner in the other end of the room, where I found
he had been writing something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I
observe by a late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a
humour; for you must know, of all impertinences, there is nothing
which I so much hate as news. I never read a gazette in my life;
and never trouble my head about our armies, whether they win or
lose, or in what part of the world they lie encamped." Without
giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his
pocket, telling me, "that he had something which would entertain me
more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon every
line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came
in."
Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.
Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best
and worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly
has got all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon
occasion, to show his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is
indeed a true English reader, incapable of relishing the great and
masterly strokes of this art; but wonderfully pleased with the
little Gothic ornaments of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points,
and quibbles, which are so frequent in the most admired of our
English poets, and practised by those who want genius and strength
to represent, after the manner of the ancients, simplicity in its
natural beauty and perfection.
Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was
resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure and to divert myself as
well as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand,"
says Ned, "that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written
upon a lady, who showed me some verses of her own making, and is,
perhaps, the best poet of our age. But you shall hear it."
Upon which he began to read as follows:
"TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS.
1.
"When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine,
And tune your soft melodious notes,
You seem a sister of the Nine,
Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.
2.
"I fancy, when your song you sing,
Your song you sing with so much art,
Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing;
For, ah! it wounds me like his dart."
"Why," says I, "this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of
salt: every verse has something in it that piques; and then the
dart in the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of
an epigram, for so I think you critics call it, as ever entered into
the thought of a poet." "Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me
by the hand, "everybody knows you to be a judge of these things;
and, to tell you truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of
Horace's 'Art of Poetry' three several times before I sat down to
write the sonnet which I have shown you. But you shall hear it
again, and pray observe every line of it; for not one of them shall
pass without your approbation.
"'When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine,'
"That is," says he, "when you have your garland on; when you are
writing verses." To which I replied, "I know your meaning: a
metaphor!" "The same," said he, and went on.
"'And tune your soft melodious notes,'
"Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a consonant
in it: I took care to make it run upon liquids. Give me your
opinion of it." "Truly," said I, "I think it as good as the
former." "I am very glad to hear you say so," says he; "but mind
the next.
"'You seem a sister of the Nine,
"That is," says he, "you seem a sister of the Muses; for, if you
look into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion that
there were nine of them." "I remember it very well," said I; "but
pray proceed."
"'Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.'
"Phoebus," says he, "was the god of Poetry. These little instances,
Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from
the air of learning, which Phoebus and the Muses had given to this
first stanza, you may observe, how it falls all of a sudden into the
familiar; 'in petticoats!'
"'Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.'"
"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza; I find the
first line is still a continuation of the metaphor.
"'I fancy when your song you sing.'"
"It is very right," says he; "but pray observe the turn of words in
those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have
still a doubt upon me whether in the second line it should be, 'Your
song you sing; or, You sing your song?' You shall hear them both:
"'I fancy, when your song you sing,
Your song you sing with so much art,'
or,
"'I fancy, when your song you sing,
You sing your song with so much art.'"
"Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural either way, that you have
made me almost giddy with it." "Dear sir," said he, grasping me by
the hand, "you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do you
think of the next verse?
"'Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing.'"
"Think!" says I; "I think you have made Cupid look like a little
goose." "That was my meaning," says he: "I think the ridicule is
well enough hit off. But we come now to the last, which sums up the
whole matter.
"'For, ah! it wounds me like his dart.'
"Pray how do you like that Ah! doth it not make a pretty figure in
that place? Ah!--it looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at
being pricked with it.
"'For, ah! it wounds me like his dart.'
"My friend Dick Easy," continued he, "assured me, he would rather
have written that Ah! than to have been the author of the AEneid.
He indeed objected, that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of
the lines, and like a dart in the other. But as to that--" "Oh! as
to that," says I, "it is but supposing Cupid to be like a porcupine,
and his quills and darts will be the same thing." He was going to
embrace me for the hint; but half a dozen critics coming into the
room, whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the sonnet into his
pocket, and whispered me in the ear, "he would show it me again as
soon as his man had written it over fair."
XVII.--FATHERLY CARE.
From my own Apartment, June 23.
Having lately turned my thoughts upon the consideration of the
behaviour of parents to children in the great affair of marriage, I
took much delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a
gentleman's steward in the country had sent me some time ago. This
parcel is a collection of letters written by the children of the
family to which he belongs to their father, and contain all the
little passages of their lives, and the new ideas they received as
the years advanced. There is in them an account of their diversions
as well as their exercises; and what I thought very remarkable is,
that two sons of the family, who now make considerable figures in
the world, gave omens of that sort of character which they now bear
in the first rudiments of thought which they show in their letters.
Were one to point out a method of education, one could not,
methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the
children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and
inclinations to their best friend with so much freedom, that he can
form schemes for their future life and conduct from an observation
of their tempers; and by that means be early enough in choosing
their way of life, to make them forward in some art or science at an
age when others have not determined what profession to follow. As
to the persons concerned in this packet I am speaking of, they have
given great proofs of the force of this conduct of their father in
the effect it has upon their lives and manners. The older, who is a
scholar, showed from his infancy a propensity to polite studies, and
has made a suitable progress in literature; but his learning is so
well woven into his mind, that from the impressions of it, he seems
rather to have contracted a habit of life than manner of discourse.
To his books he seems to owe a good economy in his affairs, and a
complacency in his manners, though in others that way of education
has commonly a quite different effect. The epistles of the other
son are full of accounts of what he thought most remarkable in his
reading. He sends his father for news the last noble story he had
read. I observe he is particularly touched with the conduct of
Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had said, if
he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country. Many
other incidents in his little letters give omens of a soul capable
of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is,
that this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and
happiness of doing an action for which only it was worth coming into
the world. Their father is the most intimate friend they have; and
they always consult him rather than any other, when any error has
happened in their conduct through youth and inadvertency. The
behaviour of this gentleman to his sons has made his life pass away
with the pleasures of a second youth; for as the vexations which men
receive from their children hasten the approach of age, and double
the force of years; so the comforts which they reap from them, are
balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the injuries of time.
Parents of children repeat their lives in their offspring; and their
concern for them is so near, that they feel all their sufferings and
enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own proper persons.
But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common race of
'squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are waiting
only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and happiness;
as indeed they are, by their own making them such. In cases where a
man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it is
commonly said, Let him look at home. I am sorry to own it; but
there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs who have been
as erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family
whatsoever. The head of this branch is now in town, and has brought
up with him his son and daughter, who are all the children he has,
in order to be put some way into the world, and see fashions. They
are both very ill-bred cubs; and having lived together from their
infancy, without knowledge of the distinctions and decencies that
are proper to be paid to each other's sex, they squabble like two
brothers. The father is one of those who knows no better than that
all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines, when he sees a man become
his estate, that he will certainly spend it. This branch are a
people who never had among them one man eminent either for good or
ill: however, have all along kept their heads just above water, not
by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the matches
they have made in to their house. When one of the family has in the
pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the
third part of the value of his estate, such a spendthrift has
dressed up his eldest son, and married what they call a good
fortune: who has supported the father as a tyrant over them during
his life, in the same house or neighbourhood. The son, in
succession, has just taken the same method to keep up his dignity,
till the mortgages he has ate and drank himself into have reduced
him to the necessity of sacrificing his son also, in imitation of
his progenitor. This had been for many generations, the whole that
had happened in the family of Sam Bickerstaff, till the time of my
present cousin Samuel, the father of the young people we have just
now spoken of.
Samuel Bickerstaff, esquire, is so happy as that by several legacies
from distant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and other
instances of good fortune, he has besides his real estate, a great
sum of ready money. His son at the same time knows he has a good
fortune, which the father cannot alienate; though he strives to make
him believe he depends only on his will for maintenance. Tom is now
in his nineteenth year. Mrs. Mary in her fifteenth. Cousin Samuel,
who understands no one point of good behaviour as it regards all the
rest of the world, is an exact critic in the dress, the motion, the
looks, and gestures, of his children. What adds to their misery is,
that he is excessively fond of them, and the greatest part of their
time is spent in the presence of this nice observer. Their life is
one of continued constraint. The girl never turns her head, but she
is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town. The boy is
not to turn fop, or be quarrelsome, at the same time not to take an
affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and heard
his fatherly table-talk as we sat at dinner, which, if my memory
does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I shall set down as
he spoke it; which was much as follows, and may be of great use to
those parents who seem to make it a rule, that their children's turn
to enjoy the world is not to commence till they themselves have left
it.
"Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the inns of court. I allow
you to take a walk once or twice a day round the garden. If you
mind your business, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as
Coke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be sure
you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give
out to your laundress, and what she brings home again. Go as little
as possible to the other end of the town; but if you do, come home
early. I believe I was as sharp as you for your years, and I had my
hat snatched off my head coming home late at a stop by St. Clement's
church, and I do not know from that day to this who took it. I do
not care if you learn to fence a little; for I would not have you
made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything, every post; I
am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need not spare your
pains. As for you, daughter Molly, do not mind one word that is
said to you in London, for it is only for your money."
XVIII.--BICKERSTAFF CENSOR:--CASES IN COURT.
From my own Apartment, December 5.
There is nothing gives a man greater satisfaction than the sense of
having despatched a great deal of business, especially when it turns
to the public emolument. I have much pleasure of this kind upon my
spirits at present, occasioned by the fatigue of affairs which I
went through last Saturday. It is some time since I set apart that
day for examining the pretensions of several who had applied to me
for canes, perspective glasses, snuff-boxes, orange-flower-waters,
and the like ornaments of life. In order to adjust this matter, I
had before directed Charles Lillie of Beaufort Buildings to prepare
a great bundle of blank licenses in the following words:
"You are hereby required to permit the bearer of this cane to pass
and repass through the streets and suburbs of London, or any place
within ten miles of it, without let or molestation, provided that he
does not walk with it under his arm, brandish it in the air, or hang
it on a button: in which case it shall be forfeited; and I hereby
declare it forfeited, to any one who shall think it safe to take it
from him.
"ISAAC BICKERSTAFF."
The same form, differing only in the provisos, will serve for a
perspective, snuff-box, or perfumed handkerchief. I had placed
myself in my elbow-chair at the upper end of my great parlour,
having ordered Charles Lillie to take his place upon a joint stool,
with a writing-desk before him. John Morphew also took his station
at the door; I having, for his good and faithful services, appointed
him my chamber-keeper upon court days. He let me know that there
were a great number attending without. Upon which I ordered him to
give notice, that I did not intend to sit upon snuff-boxes that day;
but that those who appeared for canes might enter. The first
presented me with the following petition, which I ordered Mr. Lillie
to read.
"TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQUIRE, CENSOR OF GREAT BRITAIN.
"The humble petition of SIMON TRIPPIT,
"Showeth,
"That your petitioner having been bred up to a cane from his youth,
it is now become as necessary to him as any other of his limbs.
"That, a great part of his behaviour depending upon it, he should be
reduced to the utmost necessities if he should lose the use of it.
"That the knocking of it upon his shoe, leaning one leg upon it, or
whistling with it on his mouth, are such great reliefs to him in
conversation, that he does not know how to be good company without
it.
"That he is at present engaged in an amour, and must despair of
success if it be taken from him.
"Your petitioner, therefore, hopes, that the premises tenderly
considered, your Worship will not deprive him of so useful and so
necessary a support.
"And your petitioner shall ever, etc."
Upon the hearing of his case, I was touched with some compassion,
and the more so, when, upon observing him nearer, I found he was a
prig. I bade him produce his cane in court, which he had left at
the door. He did so, and I finding it to be very curiously clouded
with a transparent amber head, and a blue riband to hang upon his
wrist, I immediately ordered my clerk Lillie to lay it up, and
deliver out to him a plain joint headed with walnut; and then, in
order to wean him from it by degrees, permitted him to wear it three
days in a week, and to abate proportionably till he found himself
able to go alone.
The second who appeared came limping into the court; and setting
forth in his petition many pretences for the use of a cane, I caused
them to be examined one by one, but finding him in different
stories, and confronting him with several witnesses who had seen him
walk upright, I ordered Mr. Lillie to take in his cane, and rejected
his petition as frivolous.
A third made his entry with great difficulty, leaning upon a slight
stick, and in danger of falling every step he took. I saw the
weakness of his hams; and I bade him leave his cane, and gave him a
new pair of crutches, with which he went off in great vigour and
alacrity. This gentleman was succeeded by another, who seemed very
much pleased while his petition was reading, in which he had
represented, That he was extremely afflicted with the gout, and set
his foot upon the ground with the caution and dignity which
accompany that distemper. I suspected him for an impostor, and,
having ordered him to be searched, I committed him into the hands of
Doctor Thomas Smith in King Street, my own corn-cutter, who attended
in an outward room: and wrought so speedy a cure upon him, that I
thought fit to send him also away without his cane.
While I was thus dispensing justice, I heard a noise in my outward
room; and inquiring what was the occasion of it, my door-keeper told
me, that they had taken one up in the very fact as he was passing by
my door. They immediately brought in a lively fresh-coloured young
man, who made great resistance with hand and foot, but did not offer
to make use of his cane, which hung upon his fifth button. Upon
examination, I found him to be an Oxford scholar who was just
entered at the Temple. He at first disputed the jurisdiction of the
court; but, being driven out of his little law and logic, he told me
very pertly, "that he looked upon such a perpendicular creature as
man to make a very imperfect figure without a cane in his hand. It
is well known," says he, "we ought, according to the natural
situation of our bodies, to walk upon our hands and feet: and that
the wisdom of the ancients had described man to be an animal of four
legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night; by which they
intimated that a cane might very properly become part of us in some
period of life." Upon which I asked him, whether he wore it at his
breast to have it in readiness when that period should arrive. My
young lawyer immediately told me, he had a property in it, and a
right to hang it where he pleased, and to make use of it as he
thought fit, provided that he did not break the peace with it; and
farther said, that he never took it off his button, unless it were
to lift it up at a coachman, hold it over the head of a drawer,
point out the circumstances of a story, or for other services of the
like nature, that are all within the laws of the land. I did not
care for discouraging a young man, who, I saw, would come to good;
and, because his heart was set upon his new purchase, I only ordered
him to wear it about his neck, instead of hanging it upon his
button, and so dismissed him.
There were several appeared in court, whose pretensions I found to
be very good, and, therefore, gave them their licenses upon paying
their fees; as many others had their licenses renewed, who required
more time for recovery of their lameness than I had before allowed
them.
Having despatched this set of my petitioners, there came in a
well-dressed man with a glass tube in one hand, and his petition in
the other. Upon his entering the room, he threw back the right side
of his wig, put forward his right leg, and advancing the glass to
his right eye, aimed it directly at me. In the meanwhile, to make
my observations also, I put on my spectacles, in which posture we
surveyed each other for some time. Upon the removal of our glasses
I desired him to read his petition, which he did very promptly and
easily; though at the same time it set forth that he could see
nothing distinctly, and was within very few degrees of being utterly
blind, concluding with a prayer that he might be permitted to
strengthen and extend his sight by a glass. In answer to this I
told him he might sometimes extend it to his own destruction. "As
you are now," said I, "you are out of the reach of beauty, the
shafts of the finest eyes lose their force before they can come at
you; you cannot distinguish a Toast from an orange-wench; you can
see a whole circle of beauty without any interruption from an
impertinent face to discompose you. In short, what are snares for
others--" My petitioner would hear no more, but told me very
seriously, "Mr. Bickerstaff, you quite mistake your man; it is the
joy, the pleasure, the employment, of my life to frequent public
assemblies, and gaze upon the fair." In a word, I found his use of
a glass was occasioned by no other infirmity than his vanity, and
was not so much designed to make him see, as to make him be seen and
distinguished by others. I therefore refused him a license for a
perspective, but allowed him a pair of spectacles, with full
permission to use them in any public assembly as he should think
fit. He was followed by so very few of this order of men that I
have reason to hope this sort of cheats are almost at an end.
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