From Thursday, Oct. 27, to Saturday, Oct. 29, 1709.

Will's Coffee-house, October 28.

There is nothing which I contemplate with greater pleasure than the dignity of human nature, which often shows itself in all conditions of life: for notwithstanding the degeneracy and meanness that is crept into it, there are a thousand occasions in which it breaks through its original corruption, and shows what it once was, and what it will be hereafter. I consider the soul of man as the ruin of a glorious pile of building; where, amidst great heaps of rubbish, you meet with noble fragments of sculpture, broken pillars and obelisks, and a magnificence in confusion. Virtue and wisdom are continually employed in clearing the ruins, removing these disorderly heaps, recovering the noble pieces that lie buried under them, and adjusting them as well as possible according to their ancient symmetry and beauty. A happy education, conversation with the finest spirits, looking abroad into the works of nature, and observations upon mankind, are the great assistances to this necessary and glorious work. But even among those who have never had the happiness of any of these advantages, there are sometimes such exertions of the greatness that is natural to the mind of man, as show capacities and abilities, which only want these accidental helps to fetch them out, and show them in a proper light. A plebeian soul is still the ruin of this glorious edifice, though encumbered with all its rubbish. This reflection rose in me from a letter which my servant dropped as he was dressing me, and which he told me was communicated to him, as he is an acquaintance of some of the persons mentioned in it. The epistle is from one Sergeant Hall of the Foot Guards. It is directed to Sergeant Cabe, in the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards,[251] at the Red Lettice[252] in the Butcher Row,[253] near Temple Bar.

I was so pleased with several touches in it, that I could not forbear showing it to a cluster of critics, who, instead of considering it in the light I have done, examined it by the rules of epistolary writing: for as these gentlemen are seldom men of any great genius, they work altogether by mechanical rules, and are able to discover no beauties that are not pointed out by Bouhours and Rapin.[254] The letter is as follows:

From the Camp before Mons,
September 26.

"Comrade,

"I received yours, and am glad yourself and your wife are in good health, with all the rest of my friends. Our battalion suffered more than I could wish in the action;[255] but who can withstand Fate? Poor Richard Stephenson had his fate with a great many more: he was killed dead before we entered the trenches. We had above 200 of our battalion killed and wounded: we lost 10 sergeants; 6 are as followeth: Jennings, Castles, Roach, Sherring, Meyrick, and my son Smith. The rest are not your acquaintance. I have received a very bad shot in my head myself, but am in hopes, and please God, I shall recover. I continue in the field, and lie at my colonel's quarters. Arthur is very well; but I can give you no account of Elms; he was in the hospital before I came into the field. I will not pretend to give you an account of the battle, knowing you have a better in the prints. Pray give my service to Mrs. Cook and her daughter, to Mr. Stoffet and his wife, and to Mr. Lyver, and Thomas Hogsdon, and to Mr. Ragdell, and to all my friends and acquaintance in general who do ask after me. My love to Mrs. Stephenson: I am sorry for the sending such ill news. Her husband was gathering a little money together to send to his wife, and put it into my hands. I have seven shillings and threepence, which I shall take care to send her. Wishing your wife a safe delivery, and both of you all happiness, rest

"Your assured Friend and Comrade,

John Hall."

"We had but an indifferent breakfast, but the mounseers never had such a dinner in all their lives.

"My kind love to my comrade Hinton, and Mrs. Morgan, and to John Brown and his wife. I sent two shillings, and Stephenson sixpence, to drink with you at Mr. Cook's; but I have heard nothing from him. It was by Mr. Edgar.

"Corporal Hartwell desires to be remembered to you, and desires you to inquire of Edgar, what is become of his wife Peg; and when you write, to send word in your letter what trade she drives.

"We have here very bad weather, which I doubt will be a hindrance to the siege;[256] but I am in hopes we shall be masters of the town in a little time, and then I believe we shall go to garrison."

I saw the critics prepared to nibble at my letter; therefore examined it myself, partly in their way, and partly my own. "This is," said I, "truly a letter, and an honest representation of that cheerful heart which accompanies the poor soldier in his warfare. Is not there in this all the topic of submitting to our destiny as well discussed as if a greater man had been placed, like Brutus, in his tent at midnight, reflecting on all the occurrences of past life, and saying fine things on "being" itself? What Sergeant Hall knows of the matter, is, that he wishes there had not been so many killed, and he had himself a very bad shot in the head, and should recover if it pleased God. But be that as it will, he takes care, like a man of honour, as he certainly is, to let the widow Stephenson know, that he had seven and threepence for her; and that if he lives, he is sure he shall go into garrison at last. I doubt not but all the good company at the Red Lettice drank his health with as much real esteem as we do any of our friends. All that I am concerned for, is, that Mrs. Peggy Hartwell may be offended at showing this letter, because her conduct in Mr. Hartwell's absence is a little inquired into. But I could not sink that circumstance, because you critics would have lost one of the parts which I doubt not but you have much to say upon, whether the familiar way is well hit in this style or not? As for myself, I take a very particular satisfaction in seeing any letter that is fit only for those to read who are concerned in it, but especially on such a subject: for if we consider the heap of an army, utterly out of all prospect of rising and preferment, as they certainly are, and such great things executed by them, it is hard to account for the motive of their gallantry. But to me, who was a cadet at the battle of Coldstream, in Scotland, when Monck charged at the head of the regiment, now called Coldstream from the victory of that day;[257] (I remember it as well as if it were yesterday) I stood on the left of old West, who I believe is now at Chelsea: I say, to me, who know very well this part of mankind, I take the gallantry of private soldiers to proceed from the same, if not from a nobler, impulse than that of gentlemen and officers. They have the same taste of being acceptable to their friends, and go through the difficulties of that profession by the same irresistible charm of fellowship, and the communication of joys and sorrows, which quickens the relish of pleasure, and abates the anguish of pain. Add to this, that they have the same regard to fame, though they do not expect so great a share as men above them hope for; but I will engage, Sergeant Hall would die ten thousand deaths, rather than a word should be spoken at the Red Lettice, or any part of the Butcher Row, in prejudice to his courage or honesty. If you will have my opinion then of the sergeant's letter, I pronounce the style to be mixed, but truly epistolary; the sentiment relating to his own wound, is in the sublime; the postscript of Peg Hartwell, in the gay; and the whole, the picture of the bravest sort of men, that is to say, a man of great courage and small hopes."

From my own Apartment, October 28.

When I came home this evening, I found, after many attempts to vary my thoughts, that my head still ran upon the subject of the discourse to-night at Will's. I fell therefore into the amusement of proportioning the glory of a battle among the whole army, and dividing it into shares, according to the method of the Million Lottery.[258] In this bank of fame, by an exact calculation, and the rules of political arithmetic, I have allotted ten hundred thousand shares; five hundred thousand of which is the due of the general, two hundred thousand I assign to the general officers, and two hundred thousand more to all the commissioned officers, from colonels to ensigns; the remaining hundred thousand must be distributed among the non-commissioned officers and private men: according to which computation, I find Sergeant Hall is to have one share and a fraction of two-fifths. When I was a boy at Oxford, there was among the antiquities near the theatre a great stone, on which were engraven the names of all who fell in the battle of Marathon. The generous and knowing people of Athens understood the force of the desire of glory, and would not let the meanest soldier perish in oblivion. Were the natural impulse of the British animated with such monuments, what man would be so mean as not to hazard his life for his ten-hundred-thousandth part of the honour in such a day as that of Blenheim or Blaregnies?

[251] This had been Steele's own regiment.