No. 132. [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Feb. 9_, to _Sat.u.r.day, Feb. 11, 1709-10_.
Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, quae mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit, potionis et cibi sustulit.--CICERO, De Sen. 46.
_Sheer Lane, February 10._
After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have pa.s.sed many hours, with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.
Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces[79] of thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the condition of a thinking man when he is but half awake. After this, my reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pa.s.s two or three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity, as well as to the society at the Trumpet,[80] of which I am a member, did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons among whom I have pa.s.sed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but partly by the severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that number: in which however we have this consolation, that the best company is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and difficulty.
Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and c.o.c.k-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest worthy gentleman who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart.
Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor;[81] and every night tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices;[82] for which he is in great esteem amongst us.
Honest old d.i.c.k Reptile is the third of our society: he is a good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our jokes, and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.
This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs at anything that pa.s.ses, he is constantly told by his uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools; but we old men know you are."[83]
The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.[84] He has about ten distichs of "Hudibras" without book, and never leaves the club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.
For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am something respected by others, though at the same time I understand by their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?"
Our club meets precisely at six o"clock in the evening; but I did not come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about three-quarters after six; I found also, that my good friend, the bencher, had already spent three of his distichs, and only waiting an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."[85] At my entrance into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle.
I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire.
I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could, to put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett was a game-c.o.c.k, upon whose head the knight in his youth had won five hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the major upon the account of Edge Hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle"s.
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 pa.s.sed.
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[86] 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 circ.u.mstances 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.[87]
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 pa.s.sage in Homer, when in his description of an eloquent spirit, he says, "His tongue dropped manna."[88]
[Footnote 79: Paths.]
[Footnote 80: The Trumpet stood about half-way up Shire Lane, between Temple Bar and Carey Street, at the widest and best part of the lane, and remained almost entirely in its original state until demolished to make way for the new Law Courts. It had the old sign of the Trumpet to the last, as it is figured in Limbard"s "Mirror," in a picture where it is placed side by side with a view of the house in Fulwood"s Rents where papers for the _Spectator_ were taken in.]
[Footnote 81: July 2, 1644.]
[Footnote 82: In July 1647 the London apprentices presented a pet.i.tion, and forced their way into the House of Commons.]
[Footnote 83: This retort, in almost identical words, occurs in Swift"s "Genteel Conversation" (1739), and in Defoe"s "Life of Duncan Campbell"
(1720).]
[Footnote 84: Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance, but rather artful than witty. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful, it is said, than was necessary to arrive, as she did, at the honour of being a mistress to the Duke of York. This sister Ogle laid under very frequent contributions to supply his wants and support his extravagance.
It is said that, by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed, as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot guards, at that time under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this era of Ogle"s life the story of the red petticoat refers. He had p.a.w.ned his trooper"s cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady"s red petticoat, which he carried rolled up _en croupe_ behind him. The Duke of Monmouth "smoked" it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a detection, gave order to "cloak all," with which Ogle, after some hesitation, was obliged to comply; although he could not cloak, he said he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know more of the history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may consult the account of them in the "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, 12mo, p. 183 (Nichols).]
[Footnote 85:
"When pulpit drum ecclesiastic Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
--"Hudibras," Part I. c. i. line 10.
[Footnote 86: Cf. No. 130, Advertis.e.m.e.nts. The dangers of the streets at the beginning of the eighteenth century are described in Gay"s "Trivia,"
iii. 335 _seq._]
[Footnote 87: "Iliad," i. 249.]
[Footnote 88: Milton says of Belial ("Paradise Lost," ii. 112):
"But all was false and hollow, though his tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better cause."
No. 133. [ADDISON.
From _Sat.u.r.day, Feb. 11_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1709-10_.
Dum tacent, clamant.--TULL.
_Sheer Lane, February 13._
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most n.o.ble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind. Several authors have treated of silence as a part of duty and discretion, but none of them have considered it in this light.
Homer compares the noise and clamour of the Trojans advancing towards the enemy, to the cackling of cranes when they invade an army of pigmies.[89] On the contrary, he makes his countrymen and favourites, the Greeks, move forward in a regular determined march, and in the depth of silence. I find in the accounts which are given us of some of the more Eastern nations, where the inhabitants are disposed by their const.i.tutions and climates to higher strains of thought, and more elevated raptures than what we feel in the northern regions of the world, that silence is a religious exercise among them. For when their public devotions are in the greatest fervour, and their hearts lifted up as high as words can raise them, there are certain suspensions of sound and motion for a time, in which the mind is left to itself, and supposed to swell with such secret conceptions as are too big for utterance. I have myself been wonderfully delighted with a masterpiece of music, when in the very tumult and ferment of their harmony, all the voices and instruments have stopped short on a sudden, and after a little pause recovered themselves again as it were, and renewed the concert in all its parts. Methought this short interval of silence has had more music in it than any the same s.p.a.ce of time before or after it. There are two instances of silence in the two greatest poets that ever wrote, which have something in them as sublime as any of the speeches in their whole works. The first is that of Ajax, in the eleventh book of the Odyssey.[90] Ulysses, who had been the rival of this great man in his life, as well as the occasion of his death, upon meeting his shade in the region of departed heroes, makes his submission to him with a humility next to adoration, which the other pa.s.ses over with dumb sullen majesty, and such a silence, as (to use the words of Longinus) had more greatness in it than anything he could have spoken.
The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet, doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;[91] though I do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. aeneas finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most pa.s.sionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover, and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.[92]
I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such pa.s.sions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,[93] as a reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it, but withdraws his face from his friend"s ear, and bursts into tears.
The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the extremity of most pa.s.sions, particularly surprise, admiration, astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.
But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them. One might produce an example of it in the behaviour of one in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one whose silence, as well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or (if possible) with an entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind.
And I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they contemned the envy and detraction of it.
All that is inc.u.mbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, till the prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often read with a great deal of pleasure a legacy of the famous Lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced: after having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form, he adds, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to my countrymen, after some time be pa.s.sed over."
At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must confess I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper is duller than in conscience it ought to be, I think the time an age till I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous again for two days.