Kitabı oku: «The Tatler (Vol 4)», sayfa 8
No. 216. [Addison.
From Thursday, Aug. 24, to Saturday, Aug. 26, 1710
– Nugis addere pondus. – Hor., 1 Ep. xix. 42.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 25
Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite. For this reason, I would not discourage any searches that are made into the most minute and trivial parts of the creation. However, since the world abounds in the noblest fields of speculation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little genius to be wholly conversant among insects, reptiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities that furnish out the apartment of a virtuoso.
There are some men whose heads are so oddly turned this way, that though they are utter strangers to the common occurrences of life, they are able to discover the sex of a cockle, or describe the generation of a mite, in all its circumstances. They are so little versed in the world, that they scarce know a horse from an ox; but at the same time will tell you, with a great deal of gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a snail an hermaphrodite. I have known one of these whimsical philosophers who has set a greater value upon a collection of spiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.
I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that is capable of so much higher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us serious upon trifles, by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care, business, and concern of life.
It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention some of the most precious parts of their treasure without a kind of an apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad at a hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever appears trivial or obscene in the common notions of the world, looks grave and philosophical in the eye of a virtuoso.
To show this humour in its perfection, I shall present my reader with the legacy of a certain virtuoso, who laid out a considerable estate in natural rarities and curiosities, which upon his death-bed he bequeathed to his relations and friends, in the following words:
The Will of a Virtuoso
I Nicholas Gimcrack being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner following:
Imprimis, to my dear wife,
One box of butterflies,
One drawer of shells,
A female skeleton,
A dried cockatrice.
Item, to my daughter Elizabeth,
My receipt for preserving dead caterpillars.
As also my preparations of winter May-dew, and embryo pickle.
Item, to my little daughter Fanny,
Three crocodile's eggs.
And upon the birth of her first child, if she marries with her mother's consent,
The nest of a humming-bird.
Item, to my eldest brother, as an acknowledgment for the lands he has vested in my son Charles, I bequeath
My last year's collection of grasshoppers.
Item, to his daughter Susanna, being his only child, I bequeath my
English weeds pasted on royal paper.
With my large folio of Indian cabbage.
Item, to my learned and worthy friend Dr. Johannes Elscrikius, Professor in Anatomy, and my associate in the studies of nature, as an eternal monument of my affection and friendship for him, I bequeath
My rat's testicles, and
Whale's pizzle,
to him and his issue male; and in default of such issue in the said Dr. Elscrikius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.
Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him some years since
A horned scarabæus,
The skin of a rattlesnake, and
The mummy of an Egyptian king,
I make no further provision for him in this my will.
My eldest son John having spoken disrespectfully of his little sister, whom I keep by me in spirits of wine, and in many other instances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giving him a single cockle-shell.
To my second son Charles, I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants, minerals, mosses, shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and vermin, not above specified: as also all my monsters, both wet and dry, making the said Charles whole and sole executor of this my last will and testament; he paying, or causing to be paid, the aforesaid legacies within the space of six months after my decease. And I do hereby revoke all other wills whatsoever by me formerly made.62
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Whereas an ignorant upstart in astrology has publicly endeavoured to persuade the world, that he is the late John Partridge, who died the 28th of March 1708; these are to certify all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time, but continues so to this present day.
Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad.
No. 217. [Steele.
From Saturday, Aug. 26, to Tuesday, Aug. 29, 1710
Atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater.
Virg., Eclog. v. 23.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 28
As I was passing by a neighbour's house this morning, I overheard the wife of the family speak things to her husband which gave me much disturbance, and put me in mind of a character which I wonder I have so long omitted, and that is, an outrageous species of the fair sex which is distinguished by the term Scolds. The generality of women are by nature loquacious: therefore mere volubility of speech is not to be imputed to them, but should be considered with pleasure when it is used to express such passions as tend to sweeten or adorn conversation: but when, through rage, females are vehement in their eloquence, nothing in the world has so ill an effect upon the features; for by the force of it, I have seen the most amiable become the most deformed, and she that appeared one of the Graces, immediately turned into one of the Furies. I humbly conceive, the great cause of this evil may proceed from a false notion the ladies have of what we call a modest woman. They have too narrow a conception of this lovely character, and believe they have not at all forfeited their pretensions to it, provided they have no imputations on their chastity. But alas! the young fellows know they pick out better women in the side-boxes63 than many of those who pass upon the world and themselves for modest.
Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts: when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes. The neighbour I mention is one of your common modest women, that is to say, those as are ordinarily reckoned such. Her husband knows every pain in life with her but jealousy. Now because she is clear in this particular, the man can't say his soul is his own, but she cries, "No modest woman is respected nowadays." What adds to the comedy in this case is, that it is very ordinary with this sort of women to talk in the language of distress: they will complain of the forlorn wretchedness of their condition, and then the poor helpless creatures shall throw the next thing they can lay their hands on at the person who offends them. Our neighbour was only saying to his wife, she went a little too fine, when she immediately pulled his periwig off, and stamping it under her feet, wrung her hands, and said, "Never modest woman was so used." These ladies of irresistible modesty are those who make virtue unamiable; not that they can be said to be virtuous, but as they live without scandal; and being under the common denomination of being such, men fear to meet their faults in those who are as agreeable as they are innocent.
I take the bully among men, and the scold among women, to draw the foundation of their actions from the same defect in the mind. A bully thinks honour consists wholly in being brave, and therefore has regard to no one rule of life, if he preserves himself from the accusation of cowardice. The froward woman knows chastity to be the first merit in a woman; and therefore, since no one can call her one ugly name, she calls all mankind all the rest.
These ladies, where their companions are so imprudent as to take their speeches for any other than exercises of their own lungs, and their husband's patience, gain by the force of being resisted, and flame with open fury, which is no way to be opposed but by being neglected: though at the same time human frailty makes it very hard to relish the philosophy of contemning even frivolous reproach. There is a very pretty instance of this infirmity in the man of the best sense that ever was, no less a person than Adam himself. According to Milton's description of the first couple, as soon as they had fallen, and the turbulent passions of anger, hatred, and jealousy first entered their breasts, Adam grew moody, and talked to his wife, as you may find it in the 359th page, and ninth book, of "Paradise Lost," in the octavo edition, which out of heroics, and put into domestic style, would run thus:
"Madam, if my advice had been of any authority with you when that strange desire of gadding possessed you this morning, we had still been happy: but your cursed vanity and opinion of your own conduct, which is certainly very wavering when it seeks occasions of being proved, has ruined both yourself, and me who trusted you."
Eve had no fan in her hand to ruffle, or tucker to pull down,64 but with a reproachful air she answered:
"Sir, do you impute that to my desire of gadding, which might have happened to yourself with all your wisdom and gravity? The serpent spoke so excellently, and with so good a grace, that – Besides, what harm had I ever done him, that he should design me any? Was I to have been always at your side, I might as well have continued there, and been but your rib still: but if I was so weak a creature as you thought me, why did you not interpose your sage authority more absolutely? You denied me going as faintly, as you say I resisted the serpent. Had not you been too easy, neither you or I had now transgressed."
Adam replied, "Why, Eve, hast thou the impudence to upbraid me as the cause of thy transgression for my indulgence to thee? Thus it will ever be with him who trusts too much to woman: at the same time that she refuses to be governed, if she suffers by her obstinacy, she will accuse the man that shall leave her to herself."
Thus they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning:
And of their vain contest appeared no end. 65
This to the modern will appear but a very faint piece of conjugal enmity; but you are to consider, that they were but just begun to be angry, and they wanted new words for expressing their new passions. But her accusing him of letting her go, and telling him how good a speaker and how fine a gentleman the devil was, we must reckon, allowing for the improvements of time, that she gave him the same provocation as if she had called him cuckold. The passionate and familiar terms with which the same case, repeated daily for so many thousand years, has furnished the present generation, were not then in use; but the foundation of debate has ever been the same, a contention about their merit and wisdom. Our general mother was a beauty, and hearing there was another now in the world, could not forbear (as Adam tells her) showing herself, though to the devil, by whom the same vanity made her liable to be betrayed.
I cannot, with all the help of science and astrology, find any other remedy for this evil, but what was the medicine in this first quarrel; which was, as appeared in the next book, that they were convinced of their being both weak, but one weaker than the other.
If it were possible that the beauteous could but rage a little before a glass, and see their pretty countenances grow wild, it is not to be doubted but it would have a very good effect; but that would require temper: for Lady Firebrand, upon observing her features swell when her maid vexed her the other day, stamped her dressing-glass under her feet. In this case, when one of this temper is moved, she is like a witch in an operation, and makes all things turn round with her. The very fabric is in a vertigo when she begins to charm. In an instant, whatever was the occasion that moved her blood, she has such intolerable servants, Betty is so awkward, Tom can't carry a message, and her husband has so little respect for her, that she, poor woman, is weary of this life, and was born to be unhappy.
Desunt multa
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The season now coming on in which the town will begin to fill, Mr. Bickerstaff gives notice, that from the 1st of October next, he will be much wittier than he has hitherto been.66
No. 218. [Addison.
From Tuesday, Aug. 29, to Thursday, Aug. 31, 1710
Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes.
Hor., 2 Ep. ii. 77.
From my own Apartment, Aug. 30
I chanced to rise very early one particular morning this summer, and took a walk into the country to divert myself among the fields and meadows, while the green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As at this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a great deal of pleasure among several thickets and bushes that were filled with a great variety of birds, and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed the pleasantest scene in the world to one who had passed a whole winter in noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews that lay upon everything about me, with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired the birds with so many delightful instincts, created in me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with such secret emotions of joy and satisfaction as are not to be described or accounted for. On this occasion I could not but reflect upon a beautiful simile in Milton:
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight:
The smell of grain, or tedded 67 grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound. 68
Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories those charming descriptions with which such authors do frequently abound.
I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.
After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendôme. How the Duke of Vendôme should become a rival of the Black Prince's, I could not conceive; and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great vehemence, that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off, he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence, especially when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who, they said, were both running away: to which they added, what I entirely agreed with them in, that the Crown of France was very weak, but that the Mareschal Villars still kept his colours. At last one of them told the company, if they would go along with him, he would show them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady in the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had driven them, as well as myself, into the house, was now over: and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their company.
The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be worth my while, for that he believed he could show me such a blow of tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.
I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour.
I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about us. Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator as so many beautiful objects, varnished over with a natural gloss, and stained with such a variety of colours as are not to be equalled in any artificial dyes or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres were woven together into different configurations, which gave a different colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according to the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever lived,69 as a multitude of optic instruments, designed for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is composed.
I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as one of the finest that I ever saw; upon which they told me, it was a common fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was but another kind of fool's-coat. I had the same fate with two or three more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know which were the finest of the flowers, for that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those which had the gayest colours were the most beautiful. The gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he seemed a very plain honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the Τυλιππομανια (Tulippomania); insomuch that he would talk very rationally on any subject in the world but a tulip.
He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and was not above twenty yards in length, and two in breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres of land in England; and added, that it would have been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook-maid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful of tulip-roots for a heap of onions, "and by that means," says he, "made me a dish of porridge, that cost me above £1000 sterling." He then showed me what he thought the finest of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the greatest beauties.
I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed anything the more for its being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason, I look upon the whole country in spring-time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies, or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders and parterres. There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the most pleasing and most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common.
