The Tatler Volume Iii Part 17

This representation of the present state of affairs between the two s.e.xes gave me very much alarm; and I had no more to do, but to recollect what I had seen at any one a.s.sembly for some years last past, to be convinced of the truth and justice of this remonstrance. If there be not a stop put to this evil art, all the modes of address, and the elegant embellishments of life, which arise out of the n.o.ble pa.s.sion of love, will of necessity decay. Who would be at the trouble of rhetoric, or study the _bon mien_, when his introduction is so much easier obtained by a sudden reverence in a downcast look at the meeting the eye of a fair lady, and beginning again to ogle her as soon as she glances another way? I remember very well, when I was last at an opera, I could perceive the eyes of the whole audience cast into particular cross angles one upon another, without any manner of regard to the stage, though King Latinus was himself present when I made that observation. It was then very pleasant to look into the hearts of the whole company; for the b.a.l.l.s of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another to read his heart with. The most ordinary beholder can take notice of any violent agitation in the mind, any pleasing transport, or any inward grief, in the person he looks at; but one of these oglers can see a studied indifference, a concealed love, or a smothered resentment, in the very glances that are made to hide those dispositions of thought.

The naturalists tell us, that the rattlesnake will fix himself under a tree where he sees a squirrel playing; and when he has once got the exchange of a glance from the pretty wanton, will give it such a sudden stroke on its imagination, that though it may play from bough to bough, and strive to avert its eyes from it for some time, yet it comes nearer and nearer by little intervals of looking another way, till it drops into the jaws of the animal, which it knew gazed at it for no other reason but to ruin it. I did not believe this piece of philosophy till that night I was just now speaking of; but I then saw the same thing pa.s.s between an ogler and a coquette. Mirtillo, the most learned of the former, had for some time discontinued to visit Flavia, no less eminent among the latter. They industriously avoided all places where they might probably meet, but chance brought them together to the playhouse, and seated them in a direct line over against each other, she in a front box, he in the pit next the stage. As soon as Flavia had received the looks of the whole crowd below her with that air of insensibility which is necessary at the first entrance, she began to look round her and saw the vagabond Mirtillo, who had so long absented himself from her circle; and when she first discovered him, she looked upon him with that glance, which, in the language of oglers, is called the scornful, but immediately turned her observation another way, and returned upon him with the indifferent. This gave Mirtillo no small resentment; but he used her accordingly. He took care to be ready for her next glance. She found his eyes full in the indolent, with his lips crumpled up in the posture of one whistling. Her anger at this usage immediately appeared in every muscle of her face; and after many emotions, which glistened in her eyes, she cast them round the whole house, and gave them softnesses in the face of every man she had ever seen before. After she thought she had reduced all she saw to her obedience, the play began, and ended their dialogue. As soon as that was over, she stood up with a visage full of dissembled alacrity and pleasure, with which she overlooked the audience, and at last came to him: he was then placed in a side-way, with his hat slouching over his eyes, and gazing at a wench in the side-box,[155] as talking of that gipsy to the gentleman who sat by him.

But as she was fixed upon him, he turned suddenly with a full face upon her, and with all the respect imaginable, made her the most obsequious bow in the presence of the whole theatre. This gave her a pleasure not to be concealed, and she made him the recovering or second curtsy, with a smile that spoke a perfect reconciliation. Between the ensuing acts, they talked to each other with gestures and glances so significant, that they ridiculed the whole house in this silent speech, and made an appointment that Mirtillo should lead her to her coach.

The peculiar language of one eye, as it differs from another, as much as the tone of one voice from another, and the fascination or enchantment which is lodged in the optic nerves of the persons concerned in these dialogues, is, I must confess, too nice a subject for one who is not an adept in these speculations; but I shall, for the good and safety of the fair s.e.x, call my learned friend Sir William Read[156] to my a.s.sistance, and, by the help of his observations on this organ, acquaint them when the eye is to be believed, and when distrusted. On the contrary, I shall conceal the true meaning of the looks of ladies, and indulge in them all the art they can acquire in the management of their glances: all which is but too little against creatures who triumph in falsehood, and begin to forswear with their eyes, when their tongues can be no longer believed.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

A very clean, well-behaved young gentleman, who is in a very good way in Cornhill, has writ to me the following lines, and seems in some pa.s.sages of his letter (which I omit) to lay it very much to heart, that I have not spoken of a supernatural beauty whom he sighs for, and complains to in most elaborate language. Alas! what can a monitor do? All mankind live in romance:

"Royal Exchange, _March 11_.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"Some time since you were pleased to mention the beauties in the New Exchange and Westminster Hall,[157] and in my judgment were not very impartial; for if you were pleased to allow there was one G.o.ddess in the New Exchange, and two shepherdesses in Westminster Hall, you very well might say, there was and is at present one angel in the Royal Exchange: and I humbly beg the favour of you to let justice be done her, by inserting this in your next _Tatler_; which will make her my good angel, and me your most humble servant,

"A. B."[158]

[Footnote 154: See No. 141.]

[Footnote 155: See No. 50.]

[Footnote 156: See No. 9.]

[Footnote 157: See No. 139.]

[Footnote 158: Perhaps Alexander Bayne; see No. 84.]

No. 146. [ADDISON.

From _Tuesday, March 14_, to _Thursday, March 16, 1709-10_.

Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid Conveniat n.o.bis, rebusque sit utile nostris.

Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt Di.

Carior est illis h.o.m.o, quam sibi. Nos animorum Impulsu et caeca magnaque cupidine ducti Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis Notum, qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.

JUV., Sat. x. 347.

_From my own Apartment, March 15._

Among the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer, than the complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude upon the divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as much for consolation on the other side, and is reduced to such an extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me she writes her letter with her pen in one hand and her garter in the other. A gentleman of an ancient family in Norfolk is almost out of his wits upon account of a greyhound, that after having been his inseparable companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another (who I believe is serious) complains to me, in a very moving manner, of the loss of a wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that was taken from him on Bagshot Heath, and which, he tells me, would not have troubled him if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, how men are able to raise affliction to themselves out of everything. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures.

Nay, I have known a m.u.f.f, a scarf, or a tippet, become a solid blessing or misfortune. A lap-dog has broke the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who had buried five children, and two husbands, was never able to get over the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into a fit by a neglect at a ball or an a.s.sembly? Mopsa has kept her chamber ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life upon being left out of it, than Clarinda from the violent cold which she caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such imaginary calamities: many an author has been dejected at the censure of one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot; and many a hero cast into a fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he pa.s.sed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running horse, Suffenus in a gilded chariot, Fulvius in a blue string, and Florio in a tulip root. It would be endless to enumerate the many fantastical afflictions that disturb mankind; but as a misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer, I shall present my readers, who are unhappy either in reality or imagination, with an allegory, for which I am indebted to the great father and prince of poets.

As I was sitting after dinner in my elbow-chair, I took up Homer, and dipped into that famous speech of Achilles to Priam, in which he tells him, that Jupiter has by him two great vessels, the one filled with blessings, and the other with misfortunes; out of which he mingles a composition for every man that comes into the world. This pa.s.sage so exceedingly pleased me, that as I fell insensibly into my afternoon's slumber, it wrought my imagination into the following dream:

When Jupiter took into his hands the government of the world, the several parts of nature, with their presiding deities, did homage to him. One presented him with a mountain of winds, another with a magazine of hail, and a third with a pile of thunderbolts. The stars offered up their influences; the ocean gave in his trident, the earth her fruits, and the sun his seasons. Among the several deities who came to make their court on this occasion, the destinies advanced with two great tuns carried before them, one of which they fixed at the right hand of Jupiter as he sat upon his throne, and the other on his left. The first was filled with all the blessings, and the other with all the calamities of human life. Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the world much more innocent than it is in this iron age, poured very plentifully out of the tun that stood at his right hand; but as mankind degenerated, and became unworthy of his blessings, he set abroach the other vessel, that filled the world with pain and poverty, battles and distempers, jealousy and falsehood, intoxicating pleasures and untimely deaths.

He was at length so very much incensed at the great depravation of human nature, and the repeated provocations which he received from all parts of the earth, that having resolved to destroy the whole species, except Deucalion and Pyrrha, he commanded the Destinies to gather up the blessings which he had thrown away upon the sons of men, and lay them up till the world should be inhabited by a more virtuous and deserving race of mortals.

The three sisters immediately repaired to the earth, in search of the several blessings that had been scattered on it; but found the task which was enjoined them, to be much more difficult than they had imagined. The first places they resorted to, as the most likely to succeed in, were cities, palaces, and courts; but instead of meeting with what they looked for here, they found nothing but envy, repining, uneasiness, and the like bitter ingredients of the left-hand vessel.

Whereas, to their great surprise, they discovered content, cheerfulness, health, innocence, and other the most substantial blessings of life, in cottages, shades, and solitudes.

There was another circ.u.mstance no less unexpected than the former, and which gave them very great perplexity in the discharge of the trust which Jupiter had committed to them. They observed, that several blessings had degenerated into calamities, and that several calamities had improved into blessings, according as they fell into the possession of wise or foolish men. They often found power, with so much insolence and impatience cleaving to it, that it became a misfortune to the person on whom it was conferred. Youth had often distempers growing about it, worse than the infirmities of old age: wealth was often united to such a sordid avarice, as made it the most uncomfortable and painful kind of poverty. On the contrary, they often found pain made glorious by fort.i.tude, poverty lost in content, deformity beautified with virtue. In a word, the blessings were often like good fruits planted in a bad soil, that by degrees fall off from their natural relish, into tastes altogether insipid or unwholesome; and the calamities, like harsh fruits, cultivated in a good soil, and enriched by proper grafts and inoculations, till they swell with generous and delightful juices.

There was still a third circ.u.mstance that occasioned as great a surprise to the three sisters as either of the foregoing, when they discovered several blessings and calamities which had never been in either of the tuns that stood by the throne of Jupiter, and were nevertheless as great occasions of happiness or misery as any there. These were that spurious crop of blessings and calamities which were never sown by the hand of the Deity, but grow of themselves out of the fancies and dispositions of human creatures. Such are dress, t.i.tles, place, equipage, false shame, and groundless fear, with the like vain imaginations that shoot up in trifling, weak, and irresolute minds.

The Destinies finding themselves in so great a perplexity, concluded, that it would be impossible for them to execute the commands that had been given them according to their first intention; for which reason they agreed to throw all the blessings and calamities together into one large vessel, and in that manner offer them up at the feet of Jupiter.

This was performed accordingly, the eldest sister presenting herself before the vessel, and introducing it with an apology for what they had done.

"O Jupiter!" says she, "we have gathered together all the good and evil, the comforts and distresses of human life, which we thus present before thee in one promiscuous heap. We beseech thee that thou thyself wilt sort them out for the future, as in thy wisdom thou shalt think fit. For we acknowledge, that there is none beside thee that can judge what will occasion grief or joy in the heart of a human creature, and what will prove a blessing or a calamity to the person on whom it is bestowed."

No. 147. [ADDISON AND STEELE.

From _Thurs., March 16_, to _Satur., March 18, 1709-10_.

----Ut ameris, amabilis esto.--OVID., Ars Am. ii. 107.

_From my own Apartment, March 17._

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable, or an allegory, is like the health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.

After this preface, I shall set down a very beautiful allegorical fable out of the great poet whom I mentioned in my last paper, and whom it is very difficult to lay aside when one is engaged in the reading of him.

And this I particularly design for the use of several of my fair correspondents, who in their letters have complained to me, that they have lost the affections of their husbands, and desire my advice how to recover them.

Juno, says Homer,[159] seeing her Jupiter seated on the top of Mount Ida, and knowing that he had conceived an aversion to her, began to study how she should regain his affections, and make herself amiable to him. With this thought she immediately retired into her chamber, where she bathed herself in ambrosia, which gave her person all its beauty, and diffused so divine an odour, as refreshed all nature, and sweetened both heaven and earth. She let her immortal tresses flow in the most graceful manner, and took a particular care to dress herself in several ornaments, which the poet describes at length, and which the G.o.ddess chose out as the most proper to set off her person to the best advantage. In the next place, she made a visit to Venus, the deity who presides over love, and begged of her, as a particular favour, that she would lend her for a while those charms with which she subdued the hearts both of G.o.ds and men. "For," says the G.o.ddess, "I would make use of them to reconcile the two deities who took care of me in my infancy, and who, at present, are at so great a variance, that they are estranged from each other's bed." Venus was proud of an opportunity of obliging so great a G.o.ddess, and therefore made her a present of the cestus which she used to wear about her own waist, with advice to hide it in her bosom till she had accomplished her intention. This cestus was a fine parti-coloured girdle, which, as Homer tells us, had all the attractions of the s.e.x wrought into it. The four princ.i.p.al figures in the embroidery were Love, Desire, Fondness of Speech, and Conversation, filled with that sweetness and complacency, which, says the poet, insensibly steal away the hearts of the wisest men.

Juno, after having made these necessary preparations, came as by accident into the presence of Jupiter, who is said to have been as much inflamed with her beauty, as when he first stole to her embraces without the consent of their parents. Juno, to cover her real thoughts, told him as she had told Venus, that she was going to make a visit to Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys. He prevailed upon her to stay with him, protesting to her, that she appeared more amiable in his eye than ever any mortal, G.o.ddess, or even herself, had appeared to him till that day. The poet then represents him in so great an ardour, that (without going up to the house which had been built by the hands of Vulcan according to Juno's direction) he threw a golden cloud over their heads as they sat upon the top of Mount Ida, while the earth beneath them sprung up in lotuses,[160] saffrons, hyacinths, and a bed of the softest flowers for their repose.

This close translation of one of the finest pa.s.sages in Homer, may suggest abundance of instruction to a woman who has a mind to preserve or recall the affection of her husband. The care of the person and the dress, with the particular blandishments woven in the cestus, are so plainly recommended by this fable, and so indispensably necessary in every female who desires to please, that they need no further explanation. The discretion likewise in covering all matrimonial quarrels from the knowledge of others, is taught in the pretended visit to Tethys, in the speech where Juno addresses herself to Venus; as the chaste and prudent management of a wife's charms is intimated by the same pretence for her appearing before Jupiter, and by the concealment of the cestus in her bosom.

I shall leave this tale to the consideration of such good housewives who are never well dressed but when they are abroad, and think it necessary to appear more agreeable to all men living than their husbands: as also to those prudent ladies, who, to avoid the appearance of being overfond, entertain their husband with indifference, aversion, sullen silence, or exasperating language.[161]