only without forfeiting the title of being one's own master, but also to possess it in a much greater degree if a man's expressing himself upon any subject with more life and vivacity, more variety of ideas, more copiously, more fluently, and more to the purpose, argues it: he thinks clearer, speaks more ready, and with greater choice of comprehensive and significant terms. I have the good fortune now to be intimate with a gentleman remarkable for this temper, who hath an inexhaustible source of wit to entertain the curious, the grave, the humourous, and the frolic. He can transform himself into different shapes, and adapt himself to every company; yet in a coffee-house, or in the ordinary course of affairs, he appears rather dull than sprightly. You can seldom get him to the tavern; but when once he is arrived to his pint, and begins to look about, and like his company, you admire a thousand things in him, which before lay buried. Then you discover the brightness of his mind, and the strength of his judgment, accompanied with the most graceful mirth. In a word, by this enlivening aid, he is whatever is polite, instructive, and diverting. What makes him still more agreeable is, that he tells a story, serious or comical, with as much delicacy of humour as Cervantes himself. And for all this, at other times, even after a long knowledge of him, you shall scarce discern in this incomparable person, a whit more than what might be expected from one of a common capacity. Doubtless, there are men of great parts that are guilty of downright bashfulness; that, by a strange hesitation and reluctance to speak, murder the finest and most elegant thoughts, and render the most lively conceptions flat and heavy. In this case, a certain quantity of my white or red cordial, which you will, is an easy, but infallible remedy. It awakens the judgment, quickens the memory, ripens the understanding, disperses melancholy, cheers the heart; in a word, restores the whole man to himself and his friends, without the least pain or indisposition to the patient. To be taken only in the evening, in a reasonable quantity, before going to bed. Note: My bottles are sealed with three fleur-de-luces and a bunch of grapes. Beware of counterfeits. spirits which flow from moderate cups, it must be acknowledged, that leisure time cannot be more agreeably, or perhaps more usefully, employed than at such meetings. There is a certain prudence in this and all other circumstances, which makes right or wrong in the conduct of ordinary life. Sir Jeoffrey Wildacre has nothing so much at heart, as that his son should know the world betimes. For this end he introduces him among the sots of his own age, where the boy learns to laugh at his father from the familiarity with which he sees him treated by his equals. This the old fellow calls ‘living well with his heir, and teaching him to be too much his friend to be impatient for his estate. But, for the more exact regulation of society in this and other matters, I shall publish tables of the characters and relations among men, and by them instruct the town in making sets and companies for a bottle. This humour of sir Jeoffrey shall be taken notice of in the first place; for there is, methinks, a sort of incest in drunkenness; and sons are not to behold fathers stripped of all reverence. It is shocking in nature for the young to see those, whom they should have an awe for, in circumstances of contempt. I shall therefore utterly forbid, that those whom nature should admonish to avoid too gross familiarities, shall be received into parties of pleasure where there is the least danger of excess. I should run through the whole doctrine of drinking, but that my thoughts are at present too much em ployed in the modelling my Court of Honour, and altering the seats, benches, bar, and canopy from that of the court wherein I, last winter, sat upon causes of less moment. By the way, I shall take an opportunity to examine, what method is to make joiners and other artificers get out of a house they have once entered: not forgetting to tie them under proper regulations. It is for want of such rules that I have, a day or two longer than I expected, been tormented and deafened with hammers; insomuch, that I neither can pursue this discourse, nor answer the following and many other letters of the highest importance. 'MR. BICKERSTAFF, "We are man and wife, and have a boy and a girl; 'I am your most humble servant, &c.' the lad seventeen, the maid sixteen. We are quarWhatever has been said against the use of wine relling about some parts of their education. I upon the supposition that it enfeebles the mind, and Ralph, cannot bear that I must pay for the girl's renders it unfit for the duties of life, bears forcibly learning on the spinnet, when I know she has no to the advantages of that delicious juice in cases ear. I, Bridget, have not patience to have my son where it only heightens conversation, and brings to whipped because he cannot make verses, when I light agreeable talents which otherwise would have know he is a blockhead. Pray, sir, inform us, is it lain concealed under the oppression of an unjust absolutely necessary that all who wear breeches modesty. I must acknowledge I have seen many of must be taught to rhyme; all in petticoats to touch the temper mentioned by this correspondent, and an instrument? Please to interpose in this and own wine may very allowably be used, in a degree the like cases, to end much solid distress which above the supply of mere necessity, by such as la- arises from trifling causes, as it is common in wed bour under melancholy, or are tongue-tied by mo- lock, and you will very much oblige us, and ours, desty. It is certainly a very agreeable change, when we see a glass raise a lifeless conversation into. all the pleasures of wit and good humour. But when Caska adds to his natural impudence the flus 'RALPH, 'BRIDGET, YOKEFELLOW ter of a bottle, that which fools called fire when he No. 253.] TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1710. was sober, all men abhor as outrage when he is drunk, Thus he that in the morning was only saucy, is in the evening tumultuous. It makes one sick to hear one of these fellows say, 'they love a friend and a bottle.' Noisy mirth has something too rustic in it to be considered without terror by men of politeness: but, while the discourse improves in a well-chosen company, from the addition of EXTRACT OF THE JOURNAL OF THE COURT OF Die Lunæ, vicesimo Novembris, horâ nonâ 345 But the most pernicious circumstance in this case is, that the man who suffers the injury must put himself upon the same foot of danger with him that gave it, before he can have his just revenge so that the punishment is altogether accidental, and may fall as well upon the innocent as the guiltyds I shall only mention a case which happens fre THE Court being sat, an oath, prepared by the quently among the more polite nations of the world, Censor, was administered to the assistants on his and which I the rather mention, because both sexes are right hand, who were all sworn upon their honour. concerned in it, and which, therefore, you gentle The women on his left hand took the same oath, men, and you ladies of the jury, will the rather upon their reputation. Twelve gentlemen of the take notice of; I mean, that great and known case horse guards were empanelled, having unanimously of cuckoldom. Supposing the person who has sufchosen Mr. Alexander Truncheon, who is their right- fered insults in his dearer and better half; suppos hand man in the troop, for their foreman in the jury.ing, I say, this person should resent the injuries Mr. Truncheon immediately drew his sword, and, done to his tender wife; what is the reparation holding it with the point towards his own body, he may expect? Why, to be used worse than his presented it to the Censor. Mr. Bickerstaff received poor lady-run through the body, and left breathless it; and, after having surveyed the breadth of the upon the bed of honour. What then, will you on blade, and sharpness of the point, with more than my right hand say, must the man do that is af ordinary attention, returned it to the foreman in a fronted?-Must our sides be elbowed, our shins very graceful manner. The rest of the jury, upon broken? Must the wall, or perhaps our-mistress, the delivery of the sword to their foreman, drew all be taken from us? May a man knit his forehead of them together as one man, and saluted the into a frown, toss up his arm, or pish at what we bench with such an air, as signified the most resigned say, and must the villain live after it? Is there no submission to those who commanded them, and the redress for injured honour? Yes, gentlemen, that greatest magnanimity to execute what they should is the design of the judicature we have here estacommand. Mr. Bickerstaff, after having received the compliments on his right hand, cast his eye upon the left, where the whole female jury paid their respects by a low courtsey, and by laying their hands upon their mouths. Their forewoman was a professed Platonist, and had spent much of her time in exhorting the sex to set a just value upon their persons, and to make the men know themselves. There followed a profound silence, when at length, after some recollection, the Censor, who continued hitherto uncovered, put on his hat with great dignity; and, after having composed the brims of it in a manner suitable to the gravity of his character, he gave the following charge; which was received with silence and attention, that being the only applause which he admits of, or is ever given in his presence: The nature of my office, and the solemnity of this occasion, requiring that I should open my first session with a speech, I shall cast what I have to say under two principal heads. "Under the first I shall endeavour to show the necessity and usefulness of this new-erected court; and under the second, I shall give a word of advice and instruction to every constituent part of it. As for the first, it is well observed by Phædrus, heathen poet: blished. A court of conscience, we very well know, was first instituted for the determining of several points of property, that were too little and trivial for the cognizance of higher courts of justice. In the same manner, our court of honour is appointed for the examination of several niceties and punctilios, that do not pass for wrongs in the eye of our common law. But notwithstanding no legislators of any nation have taken into consideration these little circumstances, they are such as often lead to crimes big enough for their inspection, though they come before them too late for their redress. 'Besides, I appeal to you, ladies, (here Mr. Bickerstaff turned to his left hand) if these are not the little stings and thorns in life, that make it more uneasy than its most substantial evils? Confess ingenuously, did you never lose a morning's devotions because you could not offer them up from the highest Have you not been in pain place in the pew? even at a ball, because another has been taken out Do you love any of your to dance before you? friends so much as those who are below you? Or, have you any favourites that walk on your right hand? You have answered me in your looks; I ask no more. I come now to the second part of my discourse, which obliges me to address myself in particular to the respective members of the court, in which I shall be very brief Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est gloria. Which is the same, ladies, as if I should say, it would be of no reputation for me to be president of 'As for you, gentlemen and ladies, my assistants a court which is of no benefit to the public. Now, and grand juries, I have made choice of you on my the advantages that may arise to the weal-public right hand, because I know you very jealous of your from this institution will more plainly appear, if we honour; and you on my left, because I know you consider what it suffers for the want of it. Are not very much concerned for the reputation of others: our streets daily filled with wild pieces of justice, for which reason I expect great exactness and imand random penalties? Are not crimes undeter-partiality in your verdicts and judgments. mined, and reparations disproportioned ? 'I must, in the next place, address myself to you, often have we seen the lie punished by death, and gentlemen of the council: you all know that I have the liar himself deciding his own cause-nay, not not chosen you for your knowledge in the litigious only acting the judge, but the executioner! Have parts of the law; but because you have all of you we not nown a box on the ear more severely accounted for than manslaughter? In these extrajudicial proceedings of mankind, an unmannerly jest is frequently as capital as a premeditated murder, How formerly fought duels, of which I have reason to think you have repented, as being now settled in the peaceable state of benchers. My advice to you is, only that in your pleadings you will be short and expressive. To which end, you are to banish out one another we lost several of our words, and could of your discourse all synonymous terms, and un-not hear one another at above two yards distance, necessary multiplication of verbs and nouns. I do and that too when we sat very near the fire. After moreover forbid you the use of the words also and much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the likewise; and must further declare, that if I catch air before they could reach the ears of the persons any one among you, upon any pretence whatsoever, to whom they were spoken. I was soon confirmed using the particle or, I shall instantly order him to in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of the be stripped of his gown, and thrown over the bar. cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; "This is a true copy: CHARLES LITTLE.' for every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever; but the sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and lost. It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another, every man talking, and no man heard. One might observe a seaman that could hail a ship at a league's distance, beckoning with his hand, straining his lungs, and tearing his throat; but all in vain: N. B. The sequel of the proceedings of this day will be published on Tuesday next. No. 254.] THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1710. From my own Apartment, November 22. Ovid. — Nec vox nec verba sequuntur. 'Nor voice, nor words ensued. 'We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immedi ately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter &, that occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear; for those, being of a soft and gentle substance, immediately liquified in the warm wind that blew across our cabin. These were soon followed by syllables and short words, and at length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed; so that we now heard every thing that had I have got into my hands, by great chance, seve-been spoken during the whole three weeks that wa ral manuscripts of these two eminent authors, which had been silent, if I may use that expression. It was are filled with greater wonders than any of those they now very early in the morning, and yet, to my surhave communicated to the public; and indeed, were prise, I heard somebody say, "Sir John, it is midthey not so well attested, they would appear altoge- night, and time for the ship's crew to go to bed." ther improbable. I am apt to think the ingenious This I knew to be the pilot's voice; and, upon recolauthors did not publish them with the rest of their lecting myself, I concluded that he had spoken these works, lest they should pass for fictions and fables: words to me some days before, though I could not a caution not unnecessary, when the reputation of hear them until the present thaw. My reader will their veracity was not yet established in the world. easily imagine how the whole crew was amazed to But as this reason has now no further weight, I shall hear every man talking, and see no man opening his make the public a present of these curious pieces, at mouth. In the midst of this great surprise we were such times as I shall find myself unprovided with all in, we heard a volley of oaths and curses, lasting other subjects. for a long while, and uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew belonged to the boatswain, who was a very choleric fellow, and had taken his opportunity of cursing and swearing at me when he thought I could not hear him; for I had several times given him the strappado on that account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his pious soliloquies, when I got The present paper I intend to fill with an extract from sir John's journal, in which that learned and worthy knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which he made in the territories of Nova Zembla. I need not inform my reader, that the author of Hudibras alludes to this strange quality in that cold climate, when, speak-him on ship-board. ing of abstract notions clothed in a visible shape, he adds that apt simile: 'I must not omit the names of several beauties in Wapping, which were heard every now and then, in the midst of a long sigh that accompanied them; as, "Dear Kate!" "Pretty Mrs. Peggy!" "When shall I see my Sue again!" This betrayed several amours which had been concealed until that time, and furnished us with a great deal of mirth in our return to England. Like words congealed in northern air. Not to keep my reader any longer in suspense, the relation, put into modern language, is as follows: 'We were separated by a storm in the latitude of seventy three, insomuch, that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and French vessel, got safe When this confusion of voices was pretty well into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed, in order over, though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as fearto refit our vessels and store ourselves with pro-ing I should not be heard, I proposed a visit to the visions. The crew of each vessel made themselves Dutch cabin, which lay about a mile farther up in a cabin of turf and wood, at some distance from the country. My crew were extremely rejoiced to each other, to fence themselves against the incle-find they had again recovered their hearing; though mencies of the weather, which was severe beyond every man uttered his voice with the same apprehenimagination. We soon observed, that in talking to sions that I had done, Et timide verba intermissu retentat. Ovid Met. i. "47. 'And try'd his tongue, his silence softly broke. Dryden 'At about half-a-mile's distance from our cabin we heard the groanings of a bear, which at first startled us; but, upon inquiry, we were informed by some of our company that he was dead, and now lay in salt, having been killed upon that very spot about a fortnight before, in the time of the frost. Not far from the same place, we were likewise entertained with some posthumous snarls and barkings of a fox. We at length arrived at the little Dutch settlement; and, upon entering the room, found it filled with sighs that smelt of brandy, and several other unsavoury sounds, that were altogether inarticulate. My valet, who was an Irishman, fell into so great a rage at what he heard, that he drew his sword; but not knowing where to lay the blame, he put it up again. We were stunned with these confused noises, but did not hear a single word until about half an hour after; which I ascribed to the harsh and obdurate sounds of that language, which wanted more time than ours to melt and become audible. cannot tell; but thus it is: I am chaplain to an honourable family, very regular at the hours of devotion, and, I hope, of an unblameable life; but for not offering to rise at the second course, I found my patron and his lady very sullen and out of humour, though at first I did not know the reason of it. At length, when I happened to help myself to a jelly, the lady of the house, otherwise a devout woman, told me that it did not become a man of my cloth to delight in such frivolous food: but as I still continued to sit out the last course, I was yesterday informed by the butler that his lordship had no further occasion for my service. All which is humbly submitted to your consideration by, 'Sir, your most humble servant, &c.' The case of this gentleman deserves pity, especially if he loves sweetmeats, to which, if I may guess by his letter, he is no enemy. In the mean time, I have often wondered at the indecency of discharging the holiest man from the table as soon as the most delicious parts of the entertainment 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 After having here met with a very hearty wel-character? This is but a trifling pretence. No man, come, we went to the cabin of the French, who, to make amends for their three weeks' silence, were of the most rigid virtue, gives offence by any excesses in plum-pudding or plum-porridge, and that because talking and disputing with greater rapidity and con- they are the first parts of the dinner. Is there any fusion than I ever heard in an assembly, even of that thing that tends to incitation in sweetmeats more nation. Their language, as I found, upon the first than in ordinary dishes? Certainly not. Sugargiving of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. I plums are a very innocent diet, and conserves of a was here convinced of an error into which I had be- much colder nature than your common pickles. I fore fallen: for I fancied, that for the freezing of the have sometimes thought that the ceremony of the sound, it was necessary for it to be wrapped up, and, chaplain's flying away from the dessert was typical as it were, preserved in breath: but I found my mis- and figurative, to mark out to the company how they take when I heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet ought to retire from all the luscious baits of temptation, and deny their appetites the gratifications that over our heads. I asked the occasion of it; upon are most pleasing to them; or, at least, to signify which one of the company told me that it would play there above a week longer; "for," says he, "find that we ought to stint ourselves in our most lawful satisfactions, and not make our pleasure, but our suping ourselves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the company, who had his musical instrument port, the end of eating. But most certainly, if such about him, to play to us from morning to night; all a lesson of temperance had been necessary at a table, which time we employed in dancing, in order to dis-our clergy would have recommended it to all the layipate our chagrin, et tuer le temps." masters of families, and not have disturbed other men's tables with such unseasonable examples of abHere sir John gives very good philosophical rea- stinence. The original, therefore, of this barbarous sons why the kit could not be heard during the frost, custom, I take to have been merely accidental. The but, as they are something prolix, them over pass in silence, and shall only observe, that the honoura- chaplain retired, out of pure complaisance, to make ble author seems, by his quotations, to have been well room for the removal of the dishes, or possibly for versed in the ancient poets, which perhaps raised his fancy above the ordinary pitch of historians, and very much contributed to the embellishments of his writings. the ranging of the dessert. This by degrees grew into a duty, until at length, as the fashion improved, the good man found himself cut off from the third part of the entertainment; and, if the arrogance of the patron goes on, it is not impossible but, in the next generation, he may see himself reduced to the No. 255.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1710. tithe, or tenth dish of the table; a sufficient caution Nec te tua plurima, Pantheu, From my own Apartment, November 24. I AM at present under very great difficulties, which it is not in the power of any one, besides yourself, to redress. Whether or no you shall think it Froper case to come before your court of honour, I not to part with any privilege we are once possessed of. It was usual for the priest in old times to feast upon the sacrifice, nay the honey-cake, while the hungry laity looked upon him with great devotion; or, as the late lord Rochester describes it, in a very lively manner, And while the priest did eat, the people star'd. At present the custom is inverted; the laity feast, while the priest stands by as an humble spectator. This necessarily puts a good man upon making great ravages on all the dishes that stand near him; and distinguishing himself by voraciousness of appetite, as knowing that his time is short. I would fain ask these stiff-necked patrons, whether they would not take it ill of a chaplain that in his grace after meat should return thanks for the whole entertainment, -Nostrum est tantas componere lites. The Proceedings of the Court of Honour, held in with an exception to the dessert? And yet I cannot No. 256.] TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1710. but think that, in such a proceeding, he would but deal with them as they deserved. What would a Roman Catholic priest think, who is always helped first, and placed next the ladies, should he see a clergyman giving his company the slip at the first appearance of the tarts or sweetmeats? Would not he believe that he had the same antipathy to a candied orange or a piece of puff paste, as some have to a Cheshire cheese, or a breast of mutton? Yet, to so ridiculous a height is this foolish custom grown, that even the Christmas pie, which in its very nature is a kind of consecrated cake, and a badge of distinction, is often forbidden to the druid of the family. Strange! that a sirloin of beef, whether boiled or roasted, when entire, is exposed to his utmost depredations and incisions; but, if minced into small pieces, and tossed up with plums and sugar, changes its property, and forsooth is meat for his master. PETER PLUMB, of London, merchant, was indicted by the honourable Mr. Thomas Gules, of Gule-hall in the county of Salop, for that the said Peter Plumb did, in Lombard-street, London, between the hours of two and three in the afternoon, meet the said Mr. Thomas Gules, and, after a short salutation, put on his hat, value five-pence, while the honourable Mr. Gules stood bare-headed for the space of two seconds. It was further urged against the criminal, that, during his discourse with the prosecutor, he feloniously stole the wall of him, having clapped his back against it in such a manner, that it was impossible for Mr. Gules to recover it again at his taking leave of him. The prosecutor alleged, that he was the cadet of a very ancient family; and that, according to the principles of all the younger brothers of the said family, he had never sullied himself with business, but had chosen rather to starve, like a man of bonour, than do any thing beneath his quality. He produced several witnesses, that he had never employed himself beyond the twisting of a whip, or the making a pair of nut-crackers, in which he only worked for his diversion, in order to make a present now and then to his friends. The prisoner being asked, 'what he could say for himself,' cast several scan-reflections upon the honourable Mr. Gules; as, In this case I know not which to censure, the patron or the chaplain; the insolence of power or the abjectness of dependence. For my own part, I have often blushed to see a gentleman, whom I knew to have much more wit and learning than myself, and who was bred up with me at the university upon the same foot of a liberal education, treated in such an ignominious manner, and sunk beneath those of his own rank, by reason of that character which ought to bring him honour, This deters men of generous minds from placing themselves in such a station of life, and by that means, frequently excludes persons of quality from the improving and agreeable conversation of a learned and obsequious friend. Mr. Oldham lets us know, that he was affrighted 'that he was not worth a groat; that nobody in the city would trust him for a halfpenny; that he owed him money, which he had promised to pay him several. times, but had never kept his word: and, in short, that he was an idle beggarly fellow, and of no use to the public. This sort of language was very severely reprimanded by the Censor, who told the criminal, that he spoke in contempt of the court, and that he should be proceeded against for contumacy, if he did not change his style. The prisoner, therefore desired to be heard by his counsel, who urged in his defence, that he put on his hat through ignorance, and took the wall by accident.' They likewise produced several witnesses, that he made several motions with his hat in his hand, which are generally understood as an invitation to the person we talk with to be covered; and that, the gentleman not taking the hint, he was forced to put on his hat, as being troubled with a cold. There was likewise an Irishman, who deposed, "that he had heard him cough three-and-twenty times that morning. as for the wall, it was alleged, that he had taken it inadvertently, to save himself from a shower of rain which was then falling. The Censor, having consulted the men of honour who sat at his right hand defence made by the prisoner's counsel did rather on the bench, found they were all of opinion, that the aggravate than extenuate his crime; that the motions hardships that are by no means suitable to the dig-ority in conversation, and therefore not to be used by and intimations of the hat were a token of superinity of his profession. When dinner calls, the implement must wait a This author's raillery is the raillery of a friend, and does not turn the sacred order into ridicule; but is just censure on such persons as take advantage, from the necessities of a man of merit, to impose on him And the criminal to a man of the prosecutor's quality, who was likewise invested with a double title to the wall at the time of the conversation, both as it was the upper hand, and as it was a shelter from the weather. The evidence being very full and clear, the jury, without going out of court, declared their opinion unanimously, by the mouth of their foreman, |