ページの画像
PDF
ePub

present; a species of disease, which I am apt to consider as not the less terrible for being less mortal than many others. I speak not from personal experience, Mr. MIRROR; my own constitution, thank God! is pretty robust; but I have the misfortune to be afflicted with a nervous wife.

It is impossible to enumerate a twentieth part of the symptoms of this lamentable disorder, or of the circumstances by which its paroxysms are excited or increased. Its dependence on the natural phenomena of the wind and weather, on the temperature of the air, whether hot or cold, moist or dry, might be accounted for; and my wife would then be in no worse situation than the lady in a red cap and green jacket, whose figure I have seen in the little Dutch barometers, known by the name of babyhouses. But, beside feeling the impression of those particulars, her disorder is brought on by incidents still more frequent, and less easy to be foreseen, than even the occasional changes in our atmosphere. A person running hastily up or down stairs, shutting a door roughly, placing the tongs on the left side of the grate, and the poker on the right, setting the china figures on the mantel-piece a little awry, or allowing the tassel of the bell-string to swing but for a moment; any of those little accidents has an immediate and irresistible effect on the nervous system of my wife, and produces symptoms, sometimes of languor, sometimes of irritation, which I her husband, my three children by a former marriage, and the other members of our family, equally feel and regret. The above causes of her distemper a very attentive and diligent discharge of our several duties might possibly prevent; but even our involuntary actions are apt to produce effects of a similar or more violent nature. It was but the other day she told my boy Dick he eat his pudding so voraciously, as almost to

make her faint, and remonstrated against my sneezing in the manner I did, which, she said, tore her poor nerves in pieces.

One thing I have observed peculiar to this disorder, which those conversant in the nature of sympathetic affections may be able to explain. It is not always produced by exactly similar causes, if such causes exist in dissimilar situations. I have known my wife squeezed for hours in a side-bor, dance a whole night at a ball, have my Lord talking as fast and as loud to her as was possible there, and her nose assailed by the stink of a whole row of flambeaux, at going in and coming out, without feeling her nerves in the smallest degree affected; yet, the very day after, at home, she could not bear my chair, or the chair of one of the children, to come within several feet of hers; walking up stairs perfectly overcame her; none of us durst talk but in whispers ; and the smell of my buttered roll made her sick to death.

As I reckon your paper a proper record for singular cases, and intolerable grievances of every sort, I send the above for your insertion, stating it according to its nature, in terms as physically descriptive as my little acquaintance with the healing art can supply. I am, &c.

JOSEPH MEEKLY.

This correspondent, as far as his wife's case falls within the department of the physician, I must refer to my very learned friends Doctors Cullen and Monro, who, upon being properly attended, will give him, I am persuaded, as sound advice as it is in the power of medical skill to suggest. In point of prudence, to which only my prescriptions apply, I can advise nothing so proper for Mr. Meekly himself as to imitate the conduct of the husband of that little lady he

be

describes, the mistress of the Dutch babyhouse; tween whom and his wife, though there subsists a very intimate connexion, there is yet a contract of a particular kind; whenever the gentleman is at home, the lady is abroad, and vice versa. In their house, indeed, I do not observe any children; from which I conclude that they have all been sent to the academy and the boarding-school.

I.

SIR,

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE MIRROR.

To reconcile man to man, has been one of the great objects of moralists. They tell us, 'that men have one common original, and why should relations quarrel?' but then a petulant wit interposes, and observes, that the original is not near enough to form a strong connexion; and if the modern theory of volcanoes be true, the original is so very distant as not to form any sensible connexion at all. The Duke of Aremberg and Sir Thomas Urquhart may count kindred with the Antediluvians; for the former has such a pedigree preserved at his castle at Hainault, and the latter has set forth his in print; but there are few genealogies so complete.

[ocr errors]

We are next told, that all men are engaged in one common journey through life, and why should they quarrel on the road? The answer is but too obvious-we do not quarrel merely for the sake of quarrelling: but as we have opportunity, we take the road, and oblige others, for our conveniency, to yield it; while eagerly galloping to the next stage, we bespatter those who are in our way; we send a servant before to bespeak the best beds at the inn, and the choice of the larder; and we make ourselves

as important and as troublesome as we can, merely for our own convenience: nay, we bribe a waiter to give us all his attendance, and to let the other passengers ring till their arms ache; but it is all to render ourselves as easy as possible.

[ocr errors]

The last consideration is, that we are all hastening to one common grave, and why should we quarrel now, since our quarrels must be soon at an end?' This proves that our disputes must be short, not that they may not be sharp.

I remember to have read somewhere of a people, I think to the north-west of Hungary, who had a name in their own language, which answers nearly to our word brothers, and who prided themselves, for a while, in that whimsical appellation. Their tenets were simple and full of benevolence, and, in general, so plain, that those who heard them for the first time imagined that they had been previously acquainted with them. The men of whom I speak could not have any long contests, for they were all hastening to the common goal of mortality, yet their disputes, although short, were sharp; early did they begin to bite, and, as soon as they gained strength, they devoured each other, if the expression may be allowed. According to the Scottish phrase, they quarrelled about the turning of a straw;' they vexed, tormented, and proscribed each other; nay, some assert that they cut throats; but still they declared that they meant nothing personal, and, for a long while, they still retained the name of brothers.

[ocr errors]

If that singular people, so full of benevolence, quarrelled incessantly for any cause, or for no cause, how can it be expected that we should walk through life to the grave with the calm and inoffensive solemnity of mourners at an interment, especially when so few of us have time to bestow our thoughts on the grave and its consequences?

VOL. I.

L

It is impossible to reconcile man to man; but it is possible to bring individuals of the human race to a better understanding with each other.

I might dilate this proposition in a feigned tale, or obscure it by an allegory; but I rather choose to prove it in the course of a simple narrative of matter of fact.

While the Duchess of Marlborough enjoyed power little short of sovereign, she frequently felt the satirical lashes of Dr. Swift; and, when disgraced, she could not but remember them; for she had a quick sense of injuries, and her nature was not much inclined to forgiveness.

Thwarted ambition, great wealth, and increasing years, rendered her more and more peevish: she hated courts over which she had no influence, and she became at length the most ferocious animal that is suffered to go loose, a violent party-woman.

Every one knows, that as her Grace was obliged to descend from the highest round of the ladder of ambition, so the Doctor was not allowed to mount the first step; and his disappointment produced the like effects on him as lost empire had done on her.

Yet the Duchess of Marlborough became the passionate admirer of her satirist, and was even willing to forgive him. The perusal of Gulliver's Travels produced this moral revolution in her sentiments; and that which debased the author in the opinion of many of his friends exalted him in the opinion of the Duchess of Marlborough.

There are now lying before me some original letters of that celebrated lady. Dean Swift,' says she, 'gives the most exact account of kings, ministers, bishops, and the courts of justice, that is possible to be writ.-I could not help wishing, since I read his books, that we had had his assistance in the opposition-for I could easily forgive him all the slaps he

« 前へ次へ »