THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills’s. Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors, actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee and the “Flying Post,” I listened very attentively to the conversation. Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or two of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned an excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a tobacconist’s shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as soon as he had filled his box.*

* “Tatler.”

While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget, the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance, but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness which could never be made to fit it.

“Ha, Steele!” cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to the company,—“Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the tavern?” and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to participate in the pleasure of a good thing.

Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,—

“All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest tradesman,—rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without paying any attention to it.”

“Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there,” cried a gentleman in a flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.

Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the “Flying Post,” and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.

“Pray,” said Colonel Cleland, taking snuff and swinging himself to and fro with an air of fashionable grace, “has any one seen the new paper?”

“What!” cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig, “what! the ‘Tatler’s’ successor,—the ‘Spectator’?”

“The same,” quoth the colonel.

“To be sure; who has not?” returned he of the flaxen ornament. “People say Congreve writes it.”

“They are very much mistaken, then,” cried a little square man with spectacles; “to my certain knowledge Swift is the author.”

“Pooh!” said Cleland, imperiously, “pooh! it is neither the one nor the other; I, gentlemen, am in the secret—but—you take me, eh? One must not speak well of one’s self; mum is the word.”

“Then,” asked Steele, quietly, “we are to suppose that you, Colonel, are the writer?”

“I never said so, Dicky; but the women will have it that I am,” and the colonel smoothed down his cravat.

“Pray, Mr. Addison, what say you?” cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig; “are you for Congreve, Swift, or Colonel Cleland?” This was addressed to a gentleman of a grave but rather prepossessing mien; who, with eyes fixed upon the ground, was very quietly and to all appearance very inattentively solacing himself with a pipe; without lifting his eyes, this personage, then eminent, afterwards rendered immortal, replied,

“Colonel Cleland must produce other witnesses to prove his claim to the authorship of the ‘Spectator:’ the women, we well know, are prejudiced in his favour.”

“That’s true enough, old friend,” cried the colonel, looking askant at his orange-coloured coat; “but faith, Addison, I wish you would set up a paper of the same sort, d’ye see; you’re a nice judge of merit, and your sketches of character would do justice to your friends.”

“If ever I do, Colonel, I, or my coadjutors, will study at least to do justice to you.” *

* This seems to corroborate the suspicion entertained of the identity of Colonel Cleland with the Will Honeycomb of the “Spectator.”

“Prithee, Steele,” cried the stranger in spectacles, “prithee, tell us thy thoughts on the subject: dost thou know the author of this droll periodical?”

“I saw him this morning,” replied Steele, carelessly.

“Aha! and what said you to him?”

“I asked him his name.”

“And what did he answer?” cried he of the flaxen wig, while all of us crowded round the speaker, with the curiosity every one felt in the authorship of a work then exciting the most universal and eager interest.

“He answered me solemnly,” said Steele, “in the following words,—

* “The Greek wants an ablative, the Italians a dative, I a nominative.”

“Famous—capital!” cried the gentleman in spectacles; and then, touching Colonel Cleland, added, “what does it exactly mean?”

“Ignoramus!” said Cleland, disdainfully, “every schoolboy knows Virgil!”

“Devereux,” said Tarleton, yawning, “what a d——d delightful thing it is to hear so much wit: pity that the atmosphere is so fine that no lungs unaccustomed to it can endure it long, Let us recover ourselves by a walk.”

“Willingly,” said I; and we sauntered forth into the streets.

“Wills’s is not what it was,” said Tarleton; “‘tis a pitiful ghost of its former self, and if they had not introduced cards, one would die of the vapours there.”

“I know nothing so insipid,” said I, “as that mock literary air which it is so much the fashion to assume. ‘Tis but a wearisome relief to conversation to have interludes of songs about Strephon and Sylvia, recited with a lisp by a gentleman with fringed gloves and a languishing look.”

“Fie on it,” cried Tarleton, “let us seek for a fresher topic. Are you asked to Abigail Masham’s to-night, or will you come to Dame de la Riviere Manley’s?”

“Dame de la what?—in the name of long words who is she?”

“Oh! Learning made libidinous: one who reads Catullus and profits by it.”

“Bah, no, we will not leave the gentle Abigail for her. I have promised to meet St. John, too, at the Mashams’.”

“As you like. We shall get some wine at Abigail’s, which we should never do at the house of her cousin of Marlborough.”

And, comforting himself with this belief, Tarleton peaceably accompanied me to that celebrated woman, who did the Tories such notable service, at the expense of being termed by the Whigs one great want divided into two parts; namely, a great want of every shilling belonging to other people, and a great want of every virtue that should have belonged to herself. As we mounted the staircase, a door to the left (a private apartment) was opened, and I saw the favourite dismiss, with the most flattering air of respect, my old preceptor, the Abbe Montreuil. He received her attentions as his due, and, descending the stairs, came full upon me. He drew back, changed neither hue nor muscle, bowed civilly enough, and disappeared. I had not much opportunity to muse over this circumstance, for St. John and Mr. Domville—excellent companions both—joined us; and the party being small, we had the unwonted felicity of talking, as well as bowing, to each other. It was impossible to think of any one else when St. John chose to exert himself; and so even the Abbe Montreuil glided out of my brain as St. John’s wit glided into it. We were all of the same way of thinking on politics, and therefore were witty without being quarrelsome,—a rare thing. The trusty Abigail told us stories of the good Queen, and we added bons mots by way of corollary. Wine, too, wine that even Tarleton approved, lit up our intellects, and we spent altogether an evening such as gentlemen and Tories very seldom have the sense to enjoy.

O Apollo! I wonder whether Tories of the next century will be such clever, charming, well-informed fellows as we were!