An answer to the following letter being absolutely necessary to be despatched with all expedition, I must trespa.s.s upon all that come with horary questions into my ante-chamber, to give the gentlemen my opinion.
#"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._#
"_June 18_, 1709.
"SIR,
"I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed Platonne, the most unaccountable creature of her s.e.x. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris,[327] and More,[328] and Milton,[329] and the whole set of intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition: if I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit. She calls her chariot, "vehicle"; her furbelowed scarf, "pinions": her blue mant and petticoat is her "azure dress"; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon. It is my misfortune to be six foot and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before I was in love, I had a n.o.ble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with two bottles. I am not quite six and twenty, and my nose is marked truly aquiline. For these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserable, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region: if I a.s.sume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of her s.e.x; but perseverance makes it as bad as fixed aversion. I desire your opinion, whether I may not lawfully play the Inquisition upon her, make use of a little force, and put her to the rack and the torture, only to convince her she has really fine limbs, without spoiling or distorting them. I expect your directions, ere I proceed to dwindle and fall away with despair; which at present I don"t think advisable; because, if she should recant, she may then hate me perhaps in the other extreme for my tenuity. I am (with impatience) "Your most humble Servant,
"CHARLES St.u.r.dY."
My patient has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the s.e.x. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every man that has wit, and humour, and raillery, can make a good flatterer for woman in general; but a Platonne is not to be touched with panegyric: she will tell you, it is a sensuality in the soul to be delighted that way. You are not therefore to commend, but silently consent to all she does, and says. You are to consider in her the scorn of you is not humour, but opinion. There were some years since a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbours, was approved by seven of the founders. There were as many of our s.e.x who took the liberty to visit those mansions of intended severity; among others, a famous rake of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He came in first; but upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a design to tell him, this was no place for him or his companions, up goes my grave impudence to the maid: "Young woman," said he, "if any of the ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the other side towards the gardens: we are, you must know, gentlemen that are travelling England; after which we shall go into foreign parts, where some of us have already been." Here he bows in the most humble manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort of carriage. He goes on: "Now you must know we have an ambition to have it to say, that we have a Protestant nunnery in England: but pray Mrs.
Betty--" "Sir," she replied, "my name is Susan, at your service." "Then I heartily beg your pardon--" "No offence in the least," says she, "for I have a cousin-german whose name is Betty." "Indeed," said he, "I protest to you that was more than I knew, I spoke at random: but since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentleman to the favour of a civil salute." His friend advances, and so on, till that they had all saluted her. By this means, the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss what to do, without courage to pa.s.s through them; and the Platonics, at several peep-holes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were observed, and therefore took care to keep Suky in chat with questions concerning their way of life; when appeared at last Madonella,[330] a lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall; and Rake, knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from his company. She begins, "Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was sent out to know, what affair could make strangers press upon a solitude which we, who are to inhabit this place, have devoted to Heaven and our own thoughts?" "Madam," replies Rake, with an air of great distance, mixed with a certain indifference, by which he could dissemble dissimulation, "your great intention has made more noise in the world than you design it should; and we travellers, who have seen many foreign inst.i.tutions of this kind, have a curiosity to see, in its first rudiments, this seat of primitive piety; for such it must be called by future ages, to the eternal honour of the founders. I have read Madonella"s excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject." The lady immediately answers, "If what I have said could have contributed to raise any thoughts in you that may make for the advancement of intellectual and divine conversation, I should think myself extremely happy." He immediately fell back with the profoundest veneration; then advancing, "Are you then that admired lady? If I may approach lips which have uttered things so sacred--" He salutes her. His friends follow his example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to see Madonella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on, "We would not transgress rules; but if we may take the liberty to see the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such parts of the gardens as is consistent with the severities you have imposed on yourselves." To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the a.s.sembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbors, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, "That he sincerely wished that men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appet.i.tes for the generation, as well as support of our species."[331] This was spoke with so easy and fixed an a.s.surance, that Madonella answered, "Sir, under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an inst.i.tution foreign to that of Providence: these desires were implanted in us for reverent purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chast.i.ty more heroic." The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second and a third[332]
interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelve-month.
Any unnatural part is long taking up, and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. St.u.r.dy may a.s.sure himself, Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires.
From my own Apartment, June 22.
The evils of this town increase upon me to so great a degree, that I am half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found it.
Several worthy gentlemen and critics have applied to me, to give my censure of an enormity which has been revived (after being long oppressed) and is called Punning.[333] I have several arguments ready to prove, that he cannot be a man of honour who is guilty of this abuse of human society. But the way to expose it, is like the expedient of curing drunkenness, showing a man in that condition: therefore I must give my reader warning, to expect a collection of these offences; without which preparation, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention of it in good company; and hope I shall be understood to do it, as a divine mentions oaths and curses, only for their condemnation. I shall dedicate this discourse to a gentleman my very good friend, who is the Ja.n.u.s[334] of our times, and whom by his years and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this.
St. James"s Coffee-house, June 22.
Last night arrived two mails from Holland, which brings letters from the Hague of the 28th instant, N.S., with advice, that the enemy lay encamped behind a strong retrenchment, with the marsh of Remieres on their right and left, extending itself as far as Bethune: La Ba.s.see is in their front, Lens in their rear, and their camp is strengthened by another line from Lens to Douay. The Duke of Marlborough caused an exact observation to be made of their ground, and the works by which they were covered, which appeared so strong, that it was not thought proper to attack them in their present posture. However, the Duke thought fit to make a feint as if he designed it; and accordingly marching from the abbey at Looze, as did Prince Eugene from Lampret, advanced with all possible diligence towards the enemy. To favour the appearance of an intended a.s.sault, the ways were made, and orders distributed in such a manner, that none in either camp could have thoughts of anything but charging the enemy by break of day the next morning: but soon after the fall of the night of the 26th, the whole army faced towards Tournay, which place they invested early in the morning of the 27th. The Marshal Villars was so confident that we designed to attack him, that he had drawn great part of the garrison of the place, which is now invested, into the field: for which reason, it is presumed it must submit within a small time; which the enemy cannot prevent, but by coming out of their present camp, and hazarding a general engagement. These advices add, that the garrison of Mons had marched out under the command of Marshal d"Arco; which, with the Bavarians, Walloons, and the troops of Cologne, have joined the grand army of the enemy.
[Footnote 327: John Norris (1657-1711), the divine, published, in 1688, "The Theory and Regulation of Love, a Moral Essay; to which are added Letters Philosophical and Moral between the author and Doctor Henry More."]
[Footnote 328: Henry More, the platonist (1614-87), published "Divine Dialogues," "Conjectura Cabalistica," and many other works.]
[Footnote 329: It is not clear why Milton is bracketed with Norris and More; perhaps Swift had in mind such pa.s.sages about heavenly love as that in "Paradise Lost," viii. 588-614.]
[Footnote 330: Swift seems to have been the author of this first portion of No. 32, which contains a scandalous attack on Mary Astell. Nichols thought that Addison also had a share in it. See Nos. 59, 63. Mrs.
Astell, a friend of Lady Elizabeth Hastings and John Norris, published, in 1694, her "Serious Proposal to the Ladies," advocating a Church of England monastery, without any irrevocable vows. Provision was made for mental as well as moral training; in fact, the inst.i.tution was to have been "rather academical than monastic." But Bishop Burnet advised Lady Elizabeth Hastings not to subscribe to the proposed building, and the scheme fell through. In 1709, Miss Astell published a book called "Bart"lemy Fair; or, An Enquiry after Wit.... By Mr. Wotton, in answer to Lord Shaftesbury"s Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and other profane writers." In the advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Second Edition ("An Enquiry after Wit," &c., 1722), Mary Astell says that, although her book was at first published under a borrowed name, it was ascribed to her, and drew upon her the resentment of that sort of men of wit who were exposed, and was the true cause of the fable published in the _Tatler_ a little after the "Enquiry" appeared. But she notes that, although the _Tatler_ showed its teeth against the "Proposal to the Ladies," the compilator made amends to the author (if not to the bookseller), by transcribing above a hundred pages into his _Ladies" Library_ verbatim, except in a few places, which would not be found to be improved. The "Enquiry after Wit"
is dedicated "To the most Ill.u.s.trious Society of the Kit-Cats," with many sarcastic allusions to their luxury, oaths, &c. True, their names had not been heard of from Hochsted or Ramillies, but then their heroism found in every place an ample theatre for their merits. "The Bath, the Wells, and every Fair, each Chocolate, Gaming House and Tavern resounds with your n.o.ble exploits."]
[Footnote 331: This is borrowed from Sir Thomas Browne"s "Religio Medici," part ii. sect. 9.]
[Footnote 332: "Second," in original editions.]
[Footnote 333: There is an apology for punning in No. 36 of the _Guardian_.]
[Footnote 334: Swift.]
No. 33. [STEELE.
By Mrs. JENNY DISTAFF, half-sister to Mr. BICKERSTAFF.
From _Thursday, June 23_, to _Sat.u.r.day, June 25_, 1709.
From my own Apartment, June 23.
My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against Sat.u.r.day lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand; for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to the disadvantage of my own s.e.x. It is much to be lamented, that it is necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency. Turning over the papers of memorials or hints for the ensuing discourses, I find a letter subscribed by Mr. Truman.
"SIR,
"I am lately come to town, and have read your works with much pleasure.
You make wit subservient to good principles and good manners. Yet, because I design to buy the _Tatlers_ for my daughters to read, I take the freedom to desire you, for the future, to say nothing about any combat between Alexander and Thalestris."[335]
This offence gives me occasion to express myself with the resentment I ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that s.e.x of whom the honoured names of mother, daughter, and sister, are a part: I had liked to have named wife in the number; but the senseless world are so mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue, that the frailties of women are to be imputed to the false ornaments which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices of men upon women"s secret approbation of libertine characters in them.
I did not care to give up a point; but now he is out of the way, I cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he a.s.serted: for if you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and the wittiest of them all marry one day or other, is it possible to believe, that if a man thought he should be for ever incapable of being received by a woman of merit and honour, he would persist in an abandoned way, and deny himself the possibility of enjoying the happiness of well-governed desires, orderly satisfactions, and honourable methods of life? If our s.e.x were wise, a lover should have a certificate from the last woman he served, how he was turned away, before he was received into the service of another: but at present any vagabond is welcome, provided he promises to enter into our livery. It is wonderful, that we will not take a footman without credentials from his last master; and in the greatest concern of life, we make no scruple of falling into a treaty with the most notorious offender in his behaviour against others. But this breach of commerce between the s.e.xes, proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver.
Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations, are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? As for my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and therefore solemnly declare, no vow shall deceive me, but that of marriage: for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my gla.s.s) handsome, I have heard all that can be said towards my undoing, and shall therefore, for warning sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my manner of rejecting them, and my a.s.sistances to keep my resolution. In the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady, extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has procured him, and all who belong to her. This excellent body sat next to me for some months at church, and took the liberty (which she said her years and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her claim to) to a.s.sure me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not think of. "What made you," said she, "look through your fan at that lord, when your eyes should have been turned upward, or closed in attention upon better objects?" I blushed, and pretended fifty odd excuses;--but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see that confusion, and goes on: "Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take notice of it, my value for you made me speak it; for though he is my kinsman, I have a nearer regard to virtue than any other consideration."
She had hardly done speaking, when this n.o.ble lord came up to us, and took her hand to lead her to her coach. My head ran all that day and night on the exemplary carriage of this woman who could be so virtuously impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with.
However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl that it may possibly be, his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous of him, and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but I still in all public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my pa.s.sion for him. It is so hard a thing to check the return of agreeable thoughts, that he became my dream, my vision, my food, my wish, my torment. That minister of darkness, the Lady Semp.r.o.nia,[336] perceived too well the temper I was in, and would one day after evening service needs take me to the Park. When we were there, my lord pa.s.ses by; I flushed into a flame. "Mrs. Distaff," said she, "you may very well remember the concern I was in upon the first notice I took of your regard to that lord, and forgive me, who had a tender friendship for your mother (now in her grave) that I am vigilant of your conduct." She went on with much severity, and after great solicitation, prevailed on me to go with her into the country, and there spend the ensuing summer out of the way of a man she saw I loved, and one whom she perceived meditated my ruin, by frequently desiring her to introduce him to me; which she absolutely refused, except he would give his honour that he had no other design but to marry me. To her country house a week or two after we went: there was at the farther end of her garden a kind of wilderness, in the middle of which ran a soft rivulet by an arbour of jessamine. In this place I usually pa.s.sed my retired hours, and read some romantic or poetical tale till the close of the evening. It was near that time in the heat of summer, when gentle winds, soft murmurs of water, and notes of nightingales had given my mind an indolence, which added to that repose of soul, which twilight and the end of a warm day naturally throws upon the spirits. It was at such an hour, and in such a state of tranquillity I sat, when, to my unexpressible amazement, I saw my lord walking towards me, whom I knew not till that moment to have been in the country. I could observe in his approach the perplexity which attends a man big with design; and I had, while he was coming forward, time to reflect that I was betrayed; the sense of which gave me a resentment suitable to such a baseness: but when he entered into the bower where I was, my heart flew towards him, and, I confess, a certain joy came into my mind, with a hope that he might then make a declaration of honour and pa.s.sion. This threw my eye upon him with such tenderness, as gave him power, with a broken accent, to begin. "Madam,--You will wonder--For it is certain, you must have observed--though I fear you will misinterpret the motives--But by Heaven, and all that"s sacred! If you could--" Here he made a full stand. And I recovered power to say, "The consternation I am in you will not, I hope, believe--A helpless innocent maid--Besides that, the place--" He saw me in as great confusion as himself; which attributing to the same causes, he had the audaciousness to throw himself at my feet, and talk of the stillness of the evening; then ran into deifications of my person, pure flames, constant love, eternal raptures, and a thousand other phrases drawn from the images we have of heaven, which ill men use for the service of h.e.l.l, were run over with uncommon vehemence. After which, he seized me in his arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my knees--"My lord, pity me, on my knees--On my knees in the cause of virtue, as you were lately in that of wickedness. Can you think of destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education, for the base service of a sudden appet.i.te, to throw one that loves you, that dotes on you, out of the company and road of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety, religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of l.u.s.t, and abandoned to scorn? a.s.sume yourself, my lord, and do not attempt to vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. If I have injured you, stab this bosom, and let me die, but not be ruined by the hand I love." The ardency of my pa.s.sion made me incapable of uttering more; and I saw my lover astonished and reformed by my behaviour: when rushed in Semp.r.o.nia. "Ha! Faithless, base man, could you then steal out of town, and lurk like a robber about my house for such brutish purposes?" My lord was by this time recovered, and fell into a violent laughter at the turn which Semp.r.o.nia designed to give her villany. He bowed to me with the utmost respect: "Mrs. Distaff," said he, "be careful hereafter of your company"; and so retired. The fiend Semp.r.o.nia congratulated my deliverance with a flood of tears. This n.o.bleman has since very frequently made his addresses to me with honour, but I have as often refused them; as well knowing, that familiarity and marriage will make him, on some ill-natured occasion, call all I said in the arbour a theatrical action. Besides that, I glory in contemning a man who had thoughts to my dishonour. And if this method were the imitation of the whole s.e.x, innocence would be the only dress of beauty; and all affectation by any other arts to please the eyes of men, would be banished to the stews for ever. The conquest of pa.s.sion gives ten times more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she that has got over such a one as mine, will stand among beaux and pretty fellows, with as much safety as in a summer"s day among gra.s.shoppers and b.u.t.terflies.
P.S.--I have ten millions of things more against men, if I ever get the pen again.
St. James"s Coffee-house, June 24.
Our last advices from the Hague, dated the 28th instant, say, that on the 25th a squadron of Dutch men-of-war sailed out of the Texel to join Admiral Baker at Spithead. The 26th was observed as a day of fasting and humiliation, to implore a blessing on the arms of the Allies this ensuing campaign. Letters from Dresden are very particular in the account of the gallantry and magnificence in which that Court has appeared since the arrival of the King of Denmark. No day has pa.s.sed in which public shows have not been exhibited for his entertainment and diversion: the last of that kind which is mentioned is a carousal, wherein many of the youth of the first quality, dressed in the most splendid manner, ran for the prize. His Danish Majesty condescended to the same; but having observed that there was a design laid to throw it in his way, pa.s.sed by without attempting to gain it. The Court of Dresden was preparing to accompany his Danish Majesty to Potsdam, where the expectation of an interview of three kings had drawn together such mult.i.tudes of people, that many persons of distinction will be obliged to lie in tents as long as those Courts continue in that place.
[Footnote 335: See No. 31.]
[Footnote 336: See Sall.u.s.t, "Bell. Catal." chap. 21. The person here referred to as Semp.r.o.nia is said to be the same as the Madam d"Epingle elsewhere alluded to.]
No. 34. [STEELE.
By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.
From _Sat.u.r.day, June 25_, to _Tuesday, June 28, 1709._