ページの画像
PDF
ePub

lent and inimitable manner of dressing up a second time for your taste the same dish which they gave you the day before, in case there come over no new pickles from Holland. Therefore, when we have nothing to say to you from the courts and camps, we hope still to give you somewhat new and curious from ourselves: the women of our house, upon occasion, being capable of carrying on the business, according to the laudable custom of the wives in Holland; but, without farther preface, take what we have not mentioned in our former relations.

Letters from Hanover of the thirtieth of the last month say, that the prince royal of Prussia arrived there on the 15th, and left that court on the second of this month, in pursuit of his journey to Flanders, where he makes the ensuing campaign. Those advices add, that the young prince Nassau, hereditary governour of Friesland, celebrated on the twenty-sixth of the last month his marriage with the beauteous princess of Hesse-Cassel, with a pomp and magnificence suitable to their age and quality.

Yesterday, at four in the morning, his grace the duke of Marlborough set out for Margate, and embarked for Holland at eight this morning. Yesterday also Sir George Thorold was declared alderman of Cordwainers Ward, in the room of his brother Sir Charles Thorold, deceased.

*** Any ladies who have any particular stories of their acquaintance, which they are willing privately to make public, may send them by the penny-post to Isaac Bickerstaff, esq. inclosed to Mr. John Morphew, near Stationers'-hall.

STEELE.

N° 12. SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli.

JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86.

Whatever good is done, whatever ill-
By human kind, shall this collection fill.

May 5.

WHEN a man has engaged to keep a stage-coach, he is obliged, whether he has passengers or not, to set out: thus it fares with us weekly historians; but indeed, for my particular, I hope I shall soon have little more to do in this work, than to publish what is sent me from such as have leisure and capacity for giving delight, and being pleased in an elegant manner. The present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect, that we should rise in our public diversions, and manner of enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power. Instead of that, survey this town, and you will find rakes and debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists and illiterate drunkards call themselves freethinkers; and gamesters, banterers, 'biters',' swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in their

This species of folly, which Rowe made the subject of a Comedy, may be explained by the following passage in Swift's Letter to the Rev. Dr. Tisdall: I'll teach you a way to out-wit Mrs. Johnson; it is a new-fashioned way of being witty, and they call it a bite.' You must ask a bantering question, or tell some damned lie in a serious

[ocr errors]

several species, the modern men of wit. Hence it is, that a man, who has been out of town but one half year, has lost the language, and must have some friend to stand by him, and keep him in countenance for talking common sense. To-day I saw a short interlude at White's of this nature, which I took notes of, and put together as well as I could in a public place. The persons of the drama are, Pip, the last gentleman that has been made so at cards; Trimmer, a person half undone at them, and who is now between a cheat and a gentleman; Acorn, an honest Englishman of good plain sense and meaning; and Mr. Friendly, a reasonable man of the town.

White's Chocolate-house, May 5.

Enter PIP, TRIMMER, and ACORN.

Ac. What is the matter, gentlemen? what! take no notice of an old friend?

Pip. Pox on it! do not talk to me, I am 'voweled' by the count, and cursedly out of humour.

Ac. Voweled! pr'ythee, Trimmer, what does he mean by that?

Trim. Have a care, Harry; speak softly; do not show your ignorance:—if you do, they will bite' you wherever they meet you, they are such cursed curs-the present wits.

Ac. Bite me! what do you mean?

manner, and then she will answer or speak as if you were in earnest and then cry you, Madam, there's a bite.' I would not have you undervalue this, for it is the constant amusement in court, and every where else among the great people; and I let you know it, in order to have it obtain among you, and to teach you a new refinement.' Swift's Works, vol. xi. p. 12. 8vo. edit. 1801.

Pip. Why! do not you know what biting is? nay, you are in the right on it. However, one would learn it only to defend one's self against men of wit, as one would know the tricks of play, to be secure against the cheats. But do not you hear, Acorn, that report, that some potentates of the alliance have taken care of themselves exclusively of us?

Ac. How! heaven forbid! after all our glorious victories; all the expence of blood and treasure! Pip. Bite!

Ac. Bite! how?

Trim. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough; that is certain.

Ac. Pox! I do not feel it

-How? where?

[Exeunt Pip and Trimmer laughing. Ac. Ho! Mr. Friendly, your most humble servant; you heard what passed between those fine gentlemen and me. Pip complained to me, that he had been ' voweled'; and they'tell me I am ‘bit.'

Friend. You are to understand, Sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in the world; and in the room of it there are started a thousand little inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of it. Thus for every character in conversation that used to please, there is an impostor put upon you. Him whom we allowed, formerly, for a certain pleasant subtilty, and natural way of giving you an unexpected hit, called 'a droll,' is now mimicked by a biter,' who is a dull fellow, that tells you a lie with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him. Instead of that sort of companion who could rally you, and keep his countenance, until he made you fall into some little inconsistency of behaviour, at which you

yourself could laugh with him, you have the sneerer, who will keep you company from morning to night, to gather your follies of the day (which perhaps you commit out of confidence in him), and expose you in the evening to all the scorners in town. For your man of sense and free spirit, whose set of thoughts were built upon learning, reason, and experience, you have now an impudent creature made up of vice only, who supports his ignorance by his courage, and want of learning by contempt of it.

Ac. Dear Sir, hold: what you have told me already of this change in conversation is too miserable to be heard with any delight; but methinks, as these new creatures appear in the world, it might give an excellent field to writers for the stage, to divert us with the representation of them there.

Friend. No, no; as you say, there might be some hopes of redress of these grievances, if there were proper care taken of the theatre; but the history of that is yet more lamentable, than that of the decay of conversation I gave you.

Ac. Pray, Sir, a little: I have not been in town these six years, until within this fortnight.

Friend. It is now some time since several revolutions in the gay world had made the empire of the stage subject to very fatal convulsions, which were too dangerous to be cured by the skill of little king Oberon', who then sat on the throne of it. The lazi

2 Mr. Owen, or Mac Owen Swiney, an Irishman, was first a manager of Drury-lane theatre, and afterwards of the Queen's theatre in the Haymarket. After leaving that office, he resided in Italy several years, and, at his return, procured a place in the custom-house, and was made keeper of the King's Mews. He died Oct. 2, 1754, and left his fortune to Mrs. Woffington. He was the author of three dramatic pieces.' See N° 4, note.

« 前へ次へ »