From Thursday, August 11, to Saturday, August 13, 1709.

White's Chocolate-house, August 12.

Of the Government of Affection.[50]

When labour was pronounced to be the portion of man, that doom reached the affections of his mind, as well as his person, the matter on which he was to feed, and all the animal and vegetable world about him. There is therefore an assiduous care and cultivation to be bestowed upon our passions and affections; for they, as they are the excrescences of our souls, like our hair and beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut or let them grow. All this grave preface is meant to assign a reason in nature for the unaccountable behaviour of Duumvir,[51] the husband and keeper. Ten thousand follies had this unhappy man escaped, had he made a compact with himself to be upon his guard, and not permitted his vagrant eye to let in so many different inclinations upon him, as all his days he has been perplexed with. But indeed at present he has brought himself to be confined only to one prevailing mistress; between whom and his wife, Duumvir passes his hours in all the vicissitudes which attend passion and affection, without the intervention of reason. Laura his wife, and Phyllis his mistress, are all with whom he has had, for some months, the least amorous commerce. Duumvir has passed the noon of life; but cannot withdraw from those entertainments which are pardonable only before that stage of our being, and which after that season are rather punishments than satisfaction: for palled appetite is humorous, and must be gratified with sauces rather than food. For which end Duumvir is provided with an haughty, imperious, expensive, and fantastic mistress, to whom he retires from the conversation of an affable, humble, discreet, and affectionate wife. Laura receives him after absence with an easy and unaffected complacency; but that he calls insipid: Phyllis rates him for his absence, and bids him return from whence he came: this he calls spirit and fire. Laura's gentleness is thought mean; Phyllis' insolence, sprightly. Were you to see him at his own home, and his mistress's lodgings, to Phyllis he appears an obsequious lover, to Laura an imperious master. Nay, so unjust is the taste of Duumvir, that he owns Laura has no ill quality, but that she is his wife; Phyllis no good one, but that she is his mistress. And he has himself often said, were he married to any one else, he would rather keep Laura than any woman living; yet allows at the same time, that Phyllis, were she a woman of honour, would have been the most insipid animal breathing. The other day Laura, who has a voice like an angel, began to sing to him: "Fie, madam," he cried, "we must be past all these gaieties." Phyllis has a note as rude and as loud as that of a milkmaid: when she begins to warble, "Well," says he, "there is such a pleasing simplicity in all that wench does." In a word, the affectionate part of his heart being corrupted, and his true taste that way wholly lost, he has contracted a prejudice to all the behaviour of Laura, and a general partiality in favour of Phyllis. It is not in the power of the wife to do a pleasing thing, nor in the mistress to commit one that is disagreeable. There is something too melancholy in the reflection on this circumstance to be the subject of raillery. He said a sour thing to Laura at dinner the other day; upon which she burst into tears. "What the devil, madam," says he, "can't I speak in my own house?" He answered Phyllis a little abruptly at supper the same evening; upon which she threw his periwig into the fire. "Well," said he, "thou art a brave termagant jade; do you know, hussy, that fair wig cost forty guineas?" O Laura! is it for this that the faithful Chromius sighed for you in vain? How is thy condition altered, since crowds of youth hung on thy eye, and watched its glances? It is not many months since Laura was the wonder and pride of her own sex, as well as the desire and passion of ours. At plays and at balls, the just turn of her behaviour, the decency of her virgin charms, chastised, yet added to diversions. At public devotions, her winning modesty, her resigned carriage, made virtue and religion appear with new ornaments, and in the natural apparel of simplicity and beauty. In ordinary conversations, a sweet conformity of manners, and a humility which heightened all the complacencies of good breeding and education, gave her more slaves than all the pride of her sex ever made woman wish for. Laura's hours are now spent in the sad reflections on her choice, and that deceitful vanity (almost inseparable from the sex) of believing, she could reclaim one that had so often ensnared others; as it now is, it is not even in the power of Duumvir himself to do her justice: for though beauty and merit are things real, and independent on taste and opinion, yet agreeableness is arbitrary, and the mistress has much the advantage of the wife. But whenever fate is so kind to her and her spouse as to end her days, with all this passion for Phyllis, and indifference for Laura, he has a second wife in view, who may avenge the injuries done to her predecessor. Aglaura is the destined lady, who has lived in assemblies, has ambition and play for her entertainment, and thinks of a man, not as the object of love, but the tool of her interest or pride. If ever Aglaura comes to the empire of this inconstant, she will endear the memory of her predecessor. But in the meantime, it is melancholy to consider, that the virtue of a wife is like the merit of a poet, never justly valued till after death.

From my own Apartment, August 11.

As we have professed, that all the actions of men are our subject, the most solemn are not to be omitted, if there happen to creep into their behaviour anything improper for such occasions. Therefore the offence mentioned in the following epistles (though it may seem to be committed in a place sacred from observation) is such, that it is our duty to remark upon it; for though he who does it is himself only guilty of an indecorum, he occasions a criminal levity in all others who are present at it.

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"It being mine, as well as the opinion of many others, that your papers are extremely well fitted to reform any irregular or indecent practice, I present the following as one which requires your correction. Myself, and a great many good people who frequent the divine service at St. Paul's, have been a long time scandalised by the imprudent conduct of Stentor[52] in that cathedral. This gentleman, you must know, is always very exact and zealous in his devotion, which, I believe, nobody blames; but then he is accustomed to roar and bellow so terribly loud in the responses, that he frightens even us of the congregation, who are daily used to him; and one of our petty canons, a punning Cambridge scholar,[53] calls his way of worship, a bull offering. His harsh untunable pipe is no more fit than a raven's to join with the music of a choir; yet nobody having been enough his friend, I suppose, to inform him of it, he never fails, when present, to drown the harmony of every hymn and anthem, by an inundation of sound beyond that of the bridge at the ebb of the tide, or the neighbouring lions in the anguish of their hunger. This is a grievance which, to my certain knowledge, several worthy people desire to see redressed; and if by inserting this epistle in your paper, or by representing the matter your own way, you can convince Stentor, that discord in a choir is the same sin that schism is in the Church in general, you would lay a great obligation upon us, and make some atonement for certain of your paragraphs which have not been highly approved by us. I am,

"Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

Jeoffry Chanticleer.

"St. Paul's Churchyard, August 11."

It is wonderful there should be such a general lamentation, and the grievance so frequent, and yet the offender never know anything of it. I have received the following letter from my kinsman at the Heralds' Office, near the same place:

"Dear Cousin,

"This office, which has had its share in the impartial justice of your censures, demands at present your vindication of their rights and privileges. There are certain hours when our young heralds are exercised in the faculties of making proclamation, and other vociferations, which of right belong to us only to utter: but at the same hours, Stentor in St. Paul's Church, in spite of the coaches, carts, London cries, and all other sounds between us, exalts his throat to so high a key, that the most noisy of our order is utterly unheard. If you please to observe upon this, you will ever oblige, &c."

There have been communicated to me some other ill consequences from the same cause; as, the overturning of coaches by sudden starts of the horses as they passed that way, women pregnant frightened, and heirs to families lost; which are public disasters, though arising from a good intention: but it is hoped, after this admonition, that Stentor will avoid an act of so great supererogation, as singing without a voice.

But I am diverted from prosecuting Stentor's reformation, by an account, that the two faithful lovers, Lysander and Coriana, are dead; for no longer ago than the 1st of the last month they swore eternal fidelity to each other, and to love till death. Ever since that time, Lysander has been twice a day at the chocolate-house, visits in every circle, is missing four hours in four and twenty, and will give no account of himself. These are undoubted proofs of the departure of a lover; and consequently Coriana is also dead as a mistress. I have written to Stentor to give this couple three calls at the church door, which they must hear if they are living within the bills of mortality; and if they do not answer at that time, they are from that moment added to the number of my defunct.[54]

[50] This article may be by Addison; see note to No. 50.