From Thursday September 1, to Saturday, September 3, 1709.

White's Chocolate-house, September 2.

Of the Enjoyment of Life with Regard to others.[96]

I have ever thought it the greatest diminution to the Roman glory imaginable, that in their institution of public triumphs, they led their enemies in chains when they were prisoners. It is to be allowed, that doing all honour to the superiority of heroes above the rest of mankind, must needs conduce to the glory and advantage of a nation; but what shocks the imagination to reflect upon, is, that a polite people should think it reasonable, that an unhappy man, who was no way inferior to the victor, but by the chance of war, should be led like a slave at the wheels of his chariot. Indeed these other circumstances of a triumph, that it was not allowed in a civil war, lest part of it should be in tears, while the other was making acclamations; that it should not be allowed, except such a number were slain in battle; that the general should be disgraced who made a false muster of his dead: these, I say, had great and politic ends in their being established, and tended to the apparent benefit of the commonwealth. But this behaviour to the conquered had no foundation in nature or policy, only to gratify the insolence of a haughty people, who triumphed over barbarous nations, by acting what was fit only for those very barbarians to practise. It seems wonderful, that they who were so refined as to take care, that to complete the honour done to the victorious officer, no power should be known above him in the Empire on the day of his triumph, but that the consuls themselves should be but guests at his table that evening, could not take it into thought to make the man of chief note among his prisoners one of the company. This would have improved the gladness of the occasion, and the victor had made a much greater figure, in that no other man appeared unhappy on his day, than in that no other man appeared great. But we will waive at present such important incidents, and turn our thoughts rather to the familiar part of human life, and we shall find, that the great business we contend for, is in a less degree what those Romans did on more solemn occasions, to triumph over our fellow creatures; and there is hardly a man to be found, who would not rather be in pain to appear happy, than be really happy and thought miserable. This men attempt by sumptuous equipages, splendid houses, numerous servants, and all the cares and pursuits of an ambitious or fashionable life. Bromeo and Tabio are particularly ill-wishers to each other, and rivals in happiness. There is no way in nature so good to procure the esteem of the one, as to give him little notices of certain secret points wherein the other is uneasy. Gnatho has the skill of doing this, and never applauds the improvements Bromeo has been many years making, and ever will be making; but he adds, "Now this very thing was my thought when Tabio was pulling up his underwood, yet he never would hear of it; but now your gardens are in this posture, he is ready to hang himself. Well, to be sincere, that situation of his can never make an agreeable seat: he may make his house and appurtenances what he pleases; but he cannot remove them to the same ground where Bromeo stands. But of all things under the sun, a man that is happy at second-hand is the most monstrous." "It is a very strange madness," answers Bromeo, "if a man on these occasions can think of any end but pleasing himself. As for my part, if things are convenient, I hate all ostentation: there is no end of the folly of adapting our affairs to the imagination of others." Upon which, the next thing he does, is to enlarge whatever he hears his rival has attempted to imitate him in; but their misfortune is, that they are in their time of life, in their estates, and in their understandings equal; so that the emulation may continue to the last day of their lives. As it stands now, Tabio has heard Bromeo has lately purchased two hundred a year in the annuities since he last settled the account of their happiness, in which he thought himself to have the balance. This may seem a very fantastical way of thinking in these men; but there is nothing so common, as a man's endeavouring rather to go farther than some other person towards an easy fortune, than to form any certain standard that would make himself happy.

Will's Coffee-house, September 2.

Mr. Dactile has been this evening very profuse of his eloquence upon the talent of turning things into ridicule; and seemed to say very justly, that there was generally in it something too disingenuous for the society of liberal men, except it were governed by the circumstances of persons, time, and place. "This talent," continued he, "is to be used as a man does his sword, not to be drawn but in his own defence, or to bring pretenders and impostors in society to a true light." But we have seen this faculty so mistaken, that the burlesque of Virgil himself has passed, among men of little taste, for wit; and the noblest thoughts that can enter into the heart of man, levelled with ribaldry and baseness: though by the rules of justice, no man ought to be ridiculed for any imperfection, who does not set up for eminent sufficiency in that way wherein he is defective. Thus cowards, who would hide themselves by an affected terror in their mien and dress; and pedants, who would show the depth of their knowledge by a supercilious gravity, are equally the objects of laughter. Not that they are in themselves ridiculous for their want of courage, or weakness of understanding, but that they seem insensible of their own place in life, and unhappily rank themselves with those, whose abilities, compared to their defects, make them contemptible. At the same time, it must be remarked, that risibility being the effect of reason, a man ought to be expelled from sober company who laughs without it. "Ha! ha!" says Will. Truby, who sat by, "will any man pretend to give me laws when I should laugh, or tell me what I should laugh at?" "Look ye," answered Humphrey Slyboots, "you are mightily mistaken; you may, if you please, make what noise you will, and nobody can hinder an English gentleman from putting his face into what posture he thinks fit; but, take my word for it, that motion which you now make with your mouth open, and the agitation of your stomach, which you relieve by holding your sides, is not laughter: laughter is a more weighty thing than you imagine; and I'll tell you a secret, you never did laugh in your life; and truly I am afraid you never will, except you take great care to be cured of those convulsive fits." Truby left us, and when he had got two yards from us, "Well," said he, "you are strange fellows," and was immediately taken with another fit.

The Trubies are a well-natured family, whose particular make is such, that they have the same pleasure out of good Will, which other people have in that scorn which is the cause of laughter: therefore their bursting into the figures of men when laughing, proceeds only from a general benevolence they are born with; as the Slyboots smile only on the greatest occasion of mirth; which difference is caused rather from a different structure of their organs, than that one is less moved than the other. I know Sowerly frets inwardly when Will. Truby laughs at him; but when I meet him, and he bursts out, I know it is out of his abundant joy to see me, which he expresses by that vociferation which is in others laughter. But I shall defer considering this subject at large, till I come to my treatise of oscitation, laughter, and ridicule.

From my own Apartment, September 2.

The following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow writers to publish it.[97]

"Sir,

"It must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense. You'll be pleased, sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you when you seemed anything dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lorrain's Saints,[98] seem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, sir, to show a good example to your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to discover beauties in it, which, I'll assure you, he that drew it never dreamed of: and to make your civility the more accomplished, you have honoured him with the title of your kinsman, which, though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My brother (for such Obadiah is) being at present very busy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for all these favours; and, as a small token of his gratitude to communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you than to any other of our modern historians. Madonella,[99] who as it was thought had long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution mentioned in yours of June 23rd, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed in nurseries and boarding-schools. To remedy this evil, she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where, instead of scissors, needles, and sampler; pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene,[100] the writer of Memoirs from the Mediterranean, who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is to be a certain lady,[101] who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels, which are said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of Queen Emma's Court, as the Memoirs from the new Atalantis are with those of ours. I shall make it my business to inquire into the progress of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of their philosophical transactions, and searches after nature.

"Yours, &c.,

Tobiah Greenhat."

St. James's Coffee-house, September 2.

This day we have received advices by the way of Ostend, which give an account of an engagement between the French and the Allies on the 11th instant, N.S.[102] Marshal Boufflers arrived in the enemy's camp on the 5th, and acquainted Marshal Villars, that he did not come in any character, but to receive his commands for the king's service, and communicate to him his orders upon the present posture of affairs. On the 9th, both armies advanced towards each other, and cannonaded all the ensuing day till the close of the evening, and stood on their arms all that night. On the day of battle, the cannonading was renewed about seven: the Duke of Argyle had orders to attack the wood Saar on the right, which he executed so successfully, that he pierced through it, and won a considerable post. The Prince of Orange had the same good fortune in a wood on the left: after which, the whole body of the confederates, joined by the forces from the siege, marched up, and engaged the enemy, who were drawn up at some distance from these woods. The dispute was very warm for some time; but towards noon the French began to give ground from one wing to the other: which advantage being observed by our generals, the whole army was urged on with fresh vigour, and in a few hours the day ended with the entire defeat of the enemy.