The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899, George A. Aitken [top 50 books to read .txt] 📗

upon her the resentment of that sort of men of wit who were exposed, and was the true cause of the fable published in the Tatler a little after the "Enquiry" appeared. But she notes that, although the Tatler showed its teeth against the "Proposal to the Ladies," the compilator made amends to the author (if not to the bookseller), by transcribing above a hundred pages into his Ladies' Library verbatim, except in a few places, which would not be found to be improved. The "Enquiry after Wit" is dedicated "To the most Illustrious Society of the Kit-Cats," with many sarcastic allusions to their luxury, oaths, &c. True, their names had not been heard of from Hochsted or Ramillies, but then their heroism found in every place an ample theatre for their merits. "The Bath, the Wells, and every Fair, each Chocolate, Gaming House and Tavern resounds with your noble exploits."]

[Footnote 331: This is borrowed from Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici," part ii. sect. 9.]

[Footnote 332: "Second," in original editions.]

[Footnote 333: There is an apology for punning in No. 36 of the
Guardian .]

[Footnote 334: Swift.]


No. 33. [STEELE.

By Mrs. JENNY DISTAFF, half-sister to Mr. BICKERSTAFF.

From Thursday, June 23 , to Saturday, June 25 , 1709.

* * * * *


From my own Apartment, June 23.

My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against Saturday lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand; for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to the disadvantage of my own sex. It is much to be lamented, that it is necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency. Turning over the papers of memorials or hints for the ensuing discourses, I find a letter subscribed by Mr. Truman.

"SIR,

"I am lately come to town, and have read your works with much pleasure. You make wit subservient to good principles and good manners. Yet, because I design to buy the Tatlers for my daughters to read, I take the freedom to desire you, for the future, to say nothing about any combat between Alexander and Thalestris."[335]

This offence gives me occasion to express myself with the resentment I ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that sex of whom the honoured names of mother, daughter, and sister, are a part: I had liked to have named wife in the number; but the senseless world are so mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue, that the frailties of women are to be imputed to the false ornaments which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices of men upon women's secret approbation of libertine characters in them. I did not care to give up a point; but now he is out of the way, I cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he asserted: for if you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and the wittiest of them all marry one day or other, is it possible to believe, that if a man thought he should be for ever incapable of being received by a woman of merit and honour, he would persist in an abandoned way, and deny himself the possibility of enjoying the happiness of well-governed desires, orderly satisfactions, and honourable methods of life? If our sex were wise, a lover should have a certificate from the last woman he served, how he was turned away, before he was received into the service of another: but at present any vagabond is welcome, provided he promises to enter into our livery. It is wonderful, that we will not take a footman without credentials from his last master; and in the greatest concern of life, we make no scruple of falling into a treaty with the most notorious offender in his behaviour against others. But this breach of commerce between the sexes, proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver. Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations, are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? As for my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and therefore solemnly declare, no vow shall deceive me, but that of marriage: for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my glass) handsome, I have heard all that can be said towards my undoing, and shall therefore, for warning sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my manner of rejecting them, and my assistances to keep my resolution. In the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady, extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has procured him, and all who belong to her. This excellent body sat next to me for some months at church, and took the liberty (which she said her years and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her claim to) to assure me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not think of. "What made you," said she, "look through your fan at that lord, when your eyes should have been turned upward, or closed in attention upon better objects?" I blushed, and pretended fifty odd excuses;--but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see that confusion, and goes on: "Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take notice of it, my value for you made me speak it; for though he is my kinsman, I have a nearer regard to virtue than any other consideration." She had hardly done speaking, when this noble lord came up to us, and took her hand to lead her to her coach. My head ran all that day and night on the exemplary carriage of this woman who could be so virtuously impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with. However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl that it may possibly be, his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous of him, and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but I still in all public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my passion for him. It is so hard a thing to check the return of agreeable thoughts, that he became my dream, my vision, my food, my wish, my torment. That minister of darkness, the Lady Sempronia,[336] perceived too well the temper I was in, and would one day after evening service needs take me to the Park. When we were there, my lord passes by; I flushed into a flame. "Mrs. Distaff," said she, "you may very well remember the concern I was in upon the first notice I took of your regard to that lord, and forgive me, who had a tender friendship for your mother (now in her grave) that I am vigilant of your conduct." She went on with much severity, and after great solicitation, prevailed on me to go with her into the country, and there spend the ensuing summer out of the way of a man she saw I loved, and one whom she perceived meditated my ruin, by frequently desiring her to introduce him to me; which she absolutely refused, except he would give his honour that he had no other design but to marry me. To her country house a week or two after we went: there was at the farther end of her garden a kind of wilderness, in the middle of which ran a soft rivulet by an arbour of jessamine. In this place I usually passed my retired hours, and read some romantic or poetical tale till the close of the evening. It was near that time in the heat of summer, when gentle winds, soft murmurs of water, and notes of nightingales had given my mind an indolence, which added to that repose of soul, which twilight and the end of a warm day naturally throws upon the spirits. It was at such an hour, and in such a state of tranquillity I sat, when, to my unexpressible amazement, I saw my lord walking towards me, whom I knew not till that moment to have been in the country. I could observe in his approach the perplexity which attends a man big with design; and I had, while he was coming forward, time to reflect that I was betrayed; the sense of which gave me a resentment suitable to such a baseness: but when he entered into the bower where I was, my heart flew towards him, and, I confess, a certain joy came into my mind, with a hope that he might then make a declaration of honour and passion. This threw my eye upon him with such tenderness, as gave him power, with a broken accent, to begin. "Madam,--You will wonder--For it is certain, you must have observed--though I fear you will misinterpret the motives--But by Heaven, and all that's sacred! If you could--" Here he made a full stand. And I recovered power to say, "The consternation I am in you will not, I hope, believe--A helpless innocent maid--Besides that, the place--" He saw me in as great confusion as himself; which attributing to the same causes, he had the audaciousness to throw himself at my feet, and talk of the stillness of the evening; then ran into deifications of my person, pure flames, constant love, eternal raptures, and a thousand other phrases drawn from the images we have of heaven, which ill men use for the service of hell, were run over with uncommon vehemence. After which, he seized me in his arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my knees--"My lord, pity me, on my knees--On my knees in the cause of virtue, as you were lately in that of wickedness. Can you think of destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education, for the base service of a sudden appetite, to throw one that loves you, that dotes on you, out of the company and road of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety, religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of lust, and abandoned to scorn? Assume yourself, my lord, and do not attempt to vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. If I have injured you,