History of English Humour, Vol. 2

CHAPTER IV.

Steele—The Funeral—The Tatler—Contributions of Swift—Of Addison—Expansive Dresses—"Bodily Wit"—Rustic Obtuseness—Crosses in Love—Snuff-taking.

A new description of periodical was published in 1709, and met with deserved success. It was little more or less than the first lady's newspaper, consisting of a small half sheet printed on both sides, and sold three times a week. The price was a penny, and the form was so unpretentious that deprecators spoke of its "tobacco-paper" and "scurvy letter." Like Defoe's review, it was strong in Foreign War intelligence, but beyond this the aim was to attract readers, not by political sarcasm or coarse jesting, but by sparkling satire on the foibles of the fashionable world. Addison says that the design was to bring philosophy to tea-tables, and to check improprieties "too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit," and that these papers had a "perceptible influence upon the conversation of the time, and taught the frolic and gay to unite merriment with decency." Johnson says that previously, with the exception of the writers for the theatre, "England had no masters of common life," and considers the Italian and the French to have introduced this kind of literature. From its social character, this publication gives us a great amount of interesting information as to the manners and customs of the time, and the name "Tatler" was selected "in honour of the fair."

The originator of this enterprise, Richard Steele, was English on his father's side, Irish on his mother's. He was educated at Charterhouse, and followed much the same course as his countryman, Farquhar. He tells us gaily, "At fifteen I was sent to the University, and stayed there for some time; but a drum passing by, being a lover of music, I enlisted myself as a soldier." He seems to have been at this time ambitious of being one of those "topping fellows," of whom he afterwards spoke with so much contempt. Among the various appointments he successively obtained, was that of Gentleman Usher to Prince George, and that of Gazetteer, an office which gave him unusual facilities for affording his readers foreign intelligence. He was also Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, and wrote plays, his best being "The Conscious Lovers" and "The Funeral." The latter was much liked by King William. Notwithstanding its melancholy title, it contained some good comic passages, as where the undertaker marshalls his men and puts them through a kind of rehearsal:—

Sable. Well, come, you that are to be mourners in this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal—(forming their countenances)—this fellow has a good mortal look—place him near the corpse; that wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall—so—but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation, (makes faces.) Look yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think the gladder you are.

At the first commencement of the "Tatler," Steele seems to have intended, as was usual at the time, to write almost the whole newspaper himself, and he always continued nominally to do so under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. The only assistance he could have at all counted upon was that of Addison—his old schoolfellow at Charterhouse—whose contributions proved to be very scanty. We soon find him falling short of material and calling upon the the public for contributions. Thus he makes at the ends of some of the early numbers such suggestions as "Mr. Bickerstaff thanks Mr. Quarterstaff for his kind and instructive letter," and "Any ladies, who have any particular stories of their acquaintance, which they are willing privately to make public, may send them to Isaac Bickerstaff."

This application seems to have met with some response, for although we have only before us the perpetual Isaac Bickerstaff, he soon tells us that "he shall have little to do but to publish what is sent him," and finally that some of the best pieces were not written by himself. Two or three were from the hand of Swift, who does not seem to have much appreciated the gentle periodical—says that as far as he is concerned, the editor may "fair-sex it to the world's end," and asserts with equal ill-nature and falsity that the publication was finally given up for want of materials. Probably it was to the solicitude of Addison, who was at that time employed in Ireland, that we are indebted for the few productions of Swift's bold genius which adorn this work. One of these is upon the peculiar weakness then prevalent among ladies for studding their faces with little bits of black plaster.

"Madam.—Let me beg of you to take off the patches at the lower end of your left cheek, and I will allow two more under your left eye, which will contribute more to the symmetry of your face; except you would please to remove the ten black atoms from your ladyship's chin, and wear one large patch instead of them. If so, you may properly enough retain the three patches above mentioned.

"I am, &c."

The next describes a downfall of rain in the city.

"Careful observers may foretell the hour,
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower;
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more;
Returning home at night you'll find the sink
Strike your offended nose with double stink;
If you be wise, then go not far to dine,
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine,
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage;
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen,
He damns the climate and complains of spleen....
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town,
To shops in crowds the draggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy,
The Templar spruce, while ev'ry spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach,
The tuck'd up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides;
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed,
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs."

The contributions of Addison were more numerous. He is more precise and old-fashioned than Steele, being particularly fond of giving a classical and mythological air to his writings, and thus we have such subjects as "The Goddess of Justice distributing rewards," and "Juno's method of retaining the affections of Jupiter." Allegories were his delight, and he tells us how artistically the probable can be intermingled with the marvellous. Such conceits were then still in fashion, and the numbers of the "Tatler" which contained them had the largest sale. They remind us of the "Old Moralities," and at this time succeeded to the prodigies, whales, plagues, and famines to which the news-writers had recourse when the exciting events of the Civil War came to an end. In general, the subjects chosen by Addison were more important than those chosen by Steele, and no doubt the earnest bent of his mind would have led him to write lofty and learned essays on morals and literature quite unsuitable to a popular periodical. But being kept down in a humbler sphere by the exigency of the case, he produced what was far more telling, and, perhaps, more practically useful. In one place he uses his humorous talent to protest, in the cause of good feeling, against the indignities put upon chaplains—a subject on which Swift could have spoken with more personal experience, but not with such good taste and light pleasantry. The article begins with a letter from a chaplain, complaining that he was not allowed to sit at table to the end of dinner, and was rebuked by the lady of the house for helping himself to a jelly. Addison remarks:—

"The case of this gentleman deserves pity, especially if he loves sweetmeats, to which, if I may guess from his letter, he is no enemy. In the meantime, I have often wondered at the indecency of discharging the holiest men from the table as soon as the most delicious parts of the entertainments are served up, and could never conceive a reason for so absurd a custom. Is it because a liquorish palate, or a sweet-tooth, as they call it, is not consistent with the sanctity of his character? This is but a trifling pretence. No man of the most rigid virtue gives offence in any excesses of plum-pudding or plum-porridge, and that because they are the first parts of the dinner. Is there anything that tends to incitation in sweetmeats more than in ordinary dishes? Certainly not. Sugar-plums are a very innocent diet, and conserves of a much colder nature than your common pickles."

In another place speaking of the dinner table, Addison ridicules the "false delicacies" of the time. He tells us how at a great party he could find nothing eatable, and how horrified he was at being asked to partake of a young pig that had been whipped to death. Eventually, he had to finish his dinner at home, and is led to inculcate his maxim that "he keeps the greatest table who has the most valuable company at it." In another place he complains of the lateness of the dinner-hour, and asks what it will come to eventually, as it is already three o'clock!

Of the evil courses of the "wine-brewers" Addison, who lived in the world of the rich, no doubt heard frequent complaints—

"There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who work underground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and valleys of France. They can squeeze Bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw Champagne from an apple. Virgil in that remarkable prophecy,

'Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,'
The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn,

seems to have hinted at this art, which can turn a plantation of northern hedges in a vineyard. These adepts are known among one another by the name of wine-brewers; and I am afraid do great injury not only to Her Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects."

After what we have seen in our own times we need not be surprised that the ladies of Addison's day revived the old "fardingales," an expansion of dress which has always been a subject of ridicule, and probably will continue to be upon all its future appearances. The matter is first here brought forward as follows:

"The humble petition of William Jingle, Coachmaker and Chairmaker to the Liberty of Westminster.

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Censor of Great Britain.

"Showeth,—That upon the late invention of Mrs. Catherine Cross-stitch, Mantua-maker, the petticoats of ladies were too wide for entering into any coach or chair, which was in use before the said invention.

"That, for the service of the said ladies, your petitioner has built a round chair, in the form of a lantern, six yards and a half in circumference, with a stool in the centre of it; the said vehicle being so contrived, as to receive the passenger by opening in two in the middle, and closing mathematically when she is seated.

"That your petitioner has also invented a coach for the reception of one lady only, who is to be let in at the top.

"That the said coach has been tried by a lady's woman in one of these full petticoats, who was let down from a balcony and drawn up again by pullies to the great satisfaction of her lady, and all who beheld her.

"Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that for the encouragement of ingenuity and useful inventions, he may be heard before you pass sentence upon the petticoats aforesaid. And your petitioner, &c.,"

Addison, in No. 116, proceeds to try the question:—

"The Court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the petticoat, I gave orders to bring in a criminal, who was taken up as she went out of the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was now standing in the street with a great concourse of people about her. Word was brought me that she had endeavoured twice or thrice to come in, but could not do it by reason of her petticoat, which was too large for the entrance of my house, though I had ordered both the folding doors to be thrown open for its reception. The garment having been taken off, the accused, by a committee of matrons, was at length brought in, and 'dilated' so as to show it in its utmost circumference, but my great hall was too narrow for the experiment; for before it was half unfolded it described so immoderate a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face as I sat in the chair of judicature. I finally ordered the vest, which stood before us, to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my great hall, and afterwards to be spread open, in such a manner that it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads, and covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken rotunda, in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's."

A considerable part of "The Tatler" is occupied with gay attacks upon the foppery of the beaux, whom it calls "pretty fellows," or "smart fellows." The red-heeled shoes and the cane hung by its blue ribbon on the last button of the coat, came in for an especial share of ridicule. A letter purporting to be from Oxford, and reporting some improvement effected in the conversation of the University, also says:—

"I am sorry though not surprised to find that you have rallied the men of dress in vain: that the amber-headed cane still maintains its unstable post," (on the button) "that pockets are but a few inches shortened, and a beau is still a beau, from the crown of his night-cap to the heels of his shoes. For your comfort, I can assure you that your endeavours succeed better in this famous seat of learning. By them the manners of our young gentlemen are in a fair way of amendment." ...

The ladies also did not escape censure for their love of finery.

"A matron of my acquaintance, complaining of her daughter's vanity, was observing that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher than ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction in herself, mixed with a scorn of others. 'I did not know,' says my friend, 'what to make of the carriage of this fantastical girl, until I was informed by her elder sister, that she had a pair of striped garters on.'"

Again:—

"Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the loss of a wig, and been ruined by the tapping of a snuff box. It is impossible to describe all the execution that was done by the shoulder knot, while that fashion prevailed, or to reckon up all the maidens that have fallen a sacrifice to a pair of fringed gloves. A sincere heart has not made half so many conquests as an open waistcoat: and I should be glad to see an able head make so good a figure in a woman's company as a pair of red heels. A Grecian hero, when he was asked whether he could play upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply when he had answered 'No, but I can make a great city of a little one.' Notwithstanding his boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of any Toast in town whether she would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman."

The general tone of "The Tatler," is that of a fashionable London paper, and it often notices the difference of thought in town and country. This distinction is much less now than in his day, before the time of railways, and when the country gentlemen, instead of having houses in London, betook themselves for the gay season to their county towns.

"I was this evening representing a complaint sent me out of the country by Emilia. She says, her neighbours there have so little sense of what a refined lady of the town is, that she who was a celebrated wit in London, is in that dull part of the world in so little esteem that they call her in their base style a tongue-pad. Old Truepenny bid me advise her to keep her wit until she comes to town again, and admonish her that both wit and breeding are local; for a fine court lady is as awkward among country wives, as one of them would appear in a drawing-room."

Again:—

"I must beg pardon of my readers that, for this time I have, I fear, huddled up my discourse, having been very busy in helping an old friend out of town. He has a very good estate and is a man of wit; but he has been three years absent from town, and cannot bear a jest; for which I have with some pains convinced him that he can no more live here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so fond of dear London that he began to fret, only inwardly; but being unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the Northern coach for him and his family; and hope he has got to-night safe from all sneerers in his own parlour.

"To know what a Toast is in the country gives as much perplexity as she herself does in town; and indeed the learned differ very much upon the original of this word, and the acceptation of it among the moderns; however, it is agreed to have a cheerful and joyous import. A toast in a cold morning, heightened by nutmeg, and sweetened with sugar, has for many ages been given to our rural dispensers of justice before they entered upon causes, and has been of great politic use to take off the severity of their sentences; but has indeed been remarkable for one ill effect, that it inclines those who use it immoderately to speak Latin; to the admiration rather than information of an audience. This application of a toast makes it very obvious that the word may, without a metaphor, be understood as an apt name for a thing which raises us in the most sovereign degree; but many of the Wits of the last age will assert that the word in its present sense was known among them in their youth, and had its rise from an accident in the town of Bath in the reign of King Charles the Second. It happened that on a public day, a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay fellow half fuddled, who swore that though he liked not the liquor, he would take the toast. He was opposed in his resolution, yet this whim gave foundation to the present honor which is due to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a Toast."[7]

Courtships, and the hopes and fears of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, form many tender and classic episodes throughout this periodical—

"Though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends upon her, the termagant for whom he sighs is in love with a fellow who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my first narrative, pleases himself with a vain imagination that, with the language of his eyes he shall conquer her, though her eyes are intent upon one who looks from her; which is ordinary with the sex. It is certainly a mistake in the ancients to draw the little gentleman Love as a blind boy, for his real character is a little thief that squints; for ask Mrs. Meddle, who is a confidant or spy upon all the passions in the town, and she will tell you that the whole is a game of cross purposes. The lover is generally pursuing one who is in pursuit of another, and running from one that desires to meet him. Nay, the nature of this passion is so justly represented in a squinting little thief (who is always in a double action) that do but observe Clarissa next time you see her, and you will find when her eyes have made the soft tour round the company, they make no stay on him they say she is to marry, but rest two seconds of a minute on Wildair, who neither looks nor thinks of her, or any woman else. However, Cynthio had a bow from her the other day, upon which he is very much come to himself; and I heard him send his man of an errand yesterday without any manner of hesitation; a quarter of an hour after which he reckoned twenty, remembered he was to sup with a friend, and went exactly to his appointment."

All the love-making in "The Tatler" is of a very correct description. Marriage is nowhere despised or ridiculed, though suggestions are made for composing the troubles which sometimes accompany it:—

"A young gentleman of great estate fell desperately in love with a great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. However, my young spark ventures upon her like a man of quality, without being acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, until it was a crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with possession, and the charms of this lady soon wanted the support of good humour and complacency of manners; upon this, my spark flies to the bottle for relief from satiety; she disdains him for being tired of that for which all men envied him; and he never came home but it was, 'Was there no sot that would stay longer?' 'Would any man living but you?' 'Did I leave all the world for this usage?' to which he, 'Madam, split me, you're very impertinent!' In a word, this match was wedlock in its most terrible appearances. She, at last weary of railing to no purpose, applies to a good uncle, who gives her a bottle he pretended he had bought of Mr. Partridge, the conjurer. 'This,' said he, 'I gave ten guineas for. The virtue of the enchanted liquor (said he that sold it) is such, that if the woman you marry proves a scold (which it seems, my dear niece is your misfortune, as it was your good mother's before you) let her hold three spoonfuls of it in her mouth for a full half hour after you come home.'"

But Steele says that his principal object was "to stem the torrent of prejudice and vice." He did not limit himself to making amusement out of the affectation of the day; he often directed his humour to higher ends. He deprecated inconstancy, observing that a gentleman who presumed to pay attention to a lady, should bring with him a character from the one he had lately left. He must be especially commended for having been one of the first to advocate consideration for the lower animals, and to condemn swearing and duelling. The latter, as he said, owed its continuance to the force of custom, and he supposes that if a duellist "wrote the truth of his heart," he would express himself to his lady-love in the following manner:—

"Madam,—I have so tender a regard for you and your interests that I will knock any man on the head that I observe to be of my mind, and to like you. Mr. Truman, the other day, looked at you in so languishing a manner that I am resolved to run him through to-morrow morning. This, I think, he deserves for his guilt in adoring you, than which I cannot have a greater reason for murdering him, except it be that, you also approve him. Whoever says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill him,

"I am, Madam,
"Your most obedient humble servant."

Among other offensive habits, "The Tatler" discountenances the custom of taking snuff, then common among ladies.

"I have been these three years persuading Sagissa[8] to leave it off; but she talks so much, and is so learned, that she is above contradiction. However, an accident brought that about, which all my eloquence could never accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow in her closet, who ran thither to avoid some company that came to visit her; she made an excuse to go to him for some implement they were talking of. Her eager gallant snatched a kiss; but being unused to snuff, some grains from off her upper lip made him sneeze aloud, which alarmed her visitors, and has made a discovery."

[It is impossible to say what effect this ridicule produced upon the snuff-taking public, but the custom gradually declined. A hundred years later, James Beresford, a fellow of Merton, places among the "Miseries of Human Life," the "Leaving off Snuff at the request of your Angel," and writes the following touching farewell.]

"Box thou art closed, and snuff is but a name!
It is decreed my nose shall feast no more!
To me no more shall come—whence dost it come?—
The precious pulvil from Hibernia's shore!
"Virginia, barren be thy teeming soil,
Or may the swallowing earthquake gulf thy fields!
Fribourg and Pontet! cease your trading toil,
Or bankruptcy be all the fruit it yields!
"And artists! frame no more in tin or gold,
Horn, paper, silver, coal or skin, the chest,
Foredoomed in small circumference to hold
The titillating treasures of the West!"

The fellows of Merton seem to have discovered some hidden efficacy in snuff.

"Who doth not know what logic lies concealed,
Where diving finger meets with diving thumb?
Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field,
Unhurt by argument, by snuff struck dumb?
"The box drawn forth from its profoundest bed,
The slow-repeated tap, with frowning brows.
The brandished pinch, the fingers widely spread,
The arm tossed round, returning to the nose.
"Who can withstand a battery so strong?
Wit, reason, learning, what are ye to these?
Or who would toil through folios thick and long,
When wisdom may be purchased with a sneeze?
"Shall I, then, climb where Alps on Alps arise?
No; snuff and science are to me a dream,
But hold my soul! for that way madness lies,
Love's in the scale, tobacco kicks the beam."

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