The Spectator Volume Ii Part 126

I shall now allow my Fair Readers to return to their Romances and Chocolate, provided they make use of them with Moderation, till about the middle of the Month, when the Sun shall have made some Progress in the Crab. Nothing is more dangerous, than too much Confidence and Security. The Trojans, who stood upon their Guard all the while the Grecians lay before their City, when they fancied the Siege was raised, and the Danger past, were the very next Night burnt in their Beds: I must also observe, that as in some Climates there is a perpetual Spring, so in some Female Const.i.tutions there is a perpetual May: These are a kind of Valetudinarians in Chast.i.ty, whom I would continue in a constant Diet. I cannot think these wholly out of Danger, till they have looked upon the other s.e.x at least Five Years through a Pair of Spectacles.

WILL. HONEYCOMB has often a.s.sured me, that its much easier to steal one of this Species, when she has pa.s.sed her grand Climacterick, than to carry off an icy Girl on this side Five and Twenty; and that a Rake of his Acquaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to gain the Affections of a young Lady of Fifteen, had at last made his Fortune by running away with her Grandmother.

But as I do not design this Speculation for the Evergreens of the s.e.x, I shall again apply my self to those who would willingly listen to the Dictates of Reason and Virtue, and can now hear me in cold Blood. If there are any who have forfeited their Innocence, they must now consider themselves under that Melancholy View, in which Chamont regards his Sister, in those beautiful Lines.

--Long she flourish'd, Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye; Till at the last a cruel Spoiler came, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness; Then cast it like a loathsome Weed away. [1]

On the contrary, she who has observed the timely Cautions I gave her, and lived up to the Rules of Modesty, will now Flourish like a Rose in June, with all her Virgin Blushes and Sweetness about her: I must, however, desire these last to consider, how shameful it would be for a General, who has made a Successful Campaign, to be surprized in his Winter Quarters: It would be no less dishonourable for a Lady to lose in any other Month of the Year, what she has been at the pains to preserve in May.

There is no Charm in the Female s.e.x, that can supply the place of Virtue. Without Innocence, Beauty is unlovely, and Quality contemptible, Good-breeding degenerates into Wantonness, and Wit into Impudence. It is observed, that all the Virtues are represented by both Painters and Statuaries under Female Shapes, but if any one of them has a more particular t.i.tle to that s.e.x, it is Modesty. I shall leave it to the Divines to guard them against the opposite Vice, as they may be overpowerd by Temptations; It is sufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led astray by Instinct.

I desire this Paper may be read with more than ordinary Attention, at all Tea-Tables within the Cities of London and Westminster.

X.

[Footnote 1: Otway's Orphan, Act IV.]

No. 396. Wednesday, June 4, 1712. Henley.

'Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton.'

To Mr. SPECTATOR. [1]

From St. John's College Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712.

SIR,

The Monopoly of Punns in this University has been an immemorial Privilege of the Johnians; and we can't help resenting the late Invasion of our ancient Right as to that Particular, by a little Pretender to Clenching in a neighbouring College, who in an Application to you by way of Letter, a while ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by Character a profest Well-wisher to Speculation, you will excuse a Remark which this Gentleman's Pa.s.sion for the Brunette has suggested to a Brother Theorist; 'tis an Offer towards a mechanical Account of his Lapse to Punning, for he belongs to a Set of Mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon Mastery in the more humane and polite Part of Letters. A Conquest by one of this Species of Females gives a very odd Turn to the Intellectuals of the captivated Person, and very different from that way of thinking which a Triumph from the Eyes of another more emphatically of the fair s.e.x, does generally occasion. It fills the Imagination with an a.s.semblage of such Ideas and Pictures as are hardly any thing but Shade, such as Night, the Devil, &c. These Portraitures very near over-power the Light of the Understanding, almost benight the Faculties, and give that melancholy Tincture to the most sanguine Complexion, which this Gentleman calls an Inclination to be in a Brown-study, and is usually attended with worse Consequences in case of a Repulse. During this Twilight of Intellects, the Patient is extremely apt, as Love is the most witty Pa.s.sion in Nature, to offer at some pert Sallies now and then, by way of Flourish, upon the amiable Enchantress, and unfortunately stumbles upon that Mongrel miscreated (to speak in Miltonic) kind of Wit, vulgarly termed, the Punn. It would not be much amiss to consult Dr. T--W--[2] (who is certainly a very able Projector, and whose system of Divinity and spiritual Mechanicks obtains very much among the better Part of our Under-Graduates) whether a general Intermarriage, enjoyned by Parliament, between this Sisterhood of the Olive Beauties, and the Fraternity of the People call'd Quakers, would not be a very serviceable Expedient, and abate that Overflow of Light which s.h.i.+nes within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their Eyes, and dances them into a thousand Vagaries of Error and Enthusiasm. These Reflections may impart some Light towards a Discovery of the Origin of Punning among us, and the Foundation of its prevailing so long in this famous Body. Tis notorious from the Instance under Consideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use of brown Juggs, muddy Belch, and the Fumes of a certain memorable Place of Rendezvous with us at Meals, known by the Name of Staincoat Hole: For the Atmosphere of the Kitchen, like the Tail of a Comet, predominates least about the Fire, but resides behind and fills the fragrant Receptacle above-mentioned. Besides, 'tis farther observable that the delicate Spirits among us, who declare against these nauseous proceedings, sip Tea, and put up for Critic and Amour, profess likewise an equal Abhorrency for Punning, the ancient innocent Diversion of this Society. After all, Sir, tho' it may appear something absurd, that I seem to approach you with the Air of an Advocate for Punning, (you who have justified your Censures of the Practice in a set Dissertation upon that Subject;) yet, I'm confident, you'll think it abundantly atoned for by observing, that this humbler Exercise may be as instrumental in diverting us from any innovating Schemes and Hypothesis in Wit. as dwelling upon honest Orthodox Logic would be in securing us from Heresie in Religion. Had Mr. W--n's [3]

Researches been confined within the Bounds of Ramus or Crackanthorp, that learned News-monger might have acquiesced in what the holy Oracles p.r.o.nounce upon the Deluge, like other Christians; and had the surprising Mr. L--y[4] been content with the Employment of refining upon Shakespear's Points and Quibbles, (for which he must be allowed to have a superlative Genius) and now and then penning a Catch or a Ditty, instead of inditing Odes, and Sonnets, the Gentlemen of the Bon Goust in the Pit would never have been put to all that Grimace in d.a.m.ning the Frippery of State, the Poverty and Languor of Thought, the unnatural Wit, and inartificial Structure of his Dramas.

I am, SIR, Your very humble Servant, Peter de Quir.

[Footnote 1: This letter was by John Henley, commonly called Orator Henley. The paper is without signature in first issue or reprint, but the few introductory lines, doubtless, are by Steele. John Henley was at this time but 20 years old. He was born at Melton Mowbray in 1692, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1709. After obtaining his degree he was invited to take charge of the Grammar School in his native place, and raised it from decay. He published Esther, a poem; went to London; introduced action into pulpit oratory; missing preferment, gave lectures and orations, religious on Sundays, and political on Wednesdays; was described by Pope in the Dunciad as the Zany of his age, and represented by Hogarth upon a scaffold with a monkey by his side saying Amen. He edited a paper of nonsense called the Hip Doctor, and once attracted to his oratory an audience of shoemakers by announcing that he would teach a new and short way of making shoes; his way being to cut off the tops of boots. He died in 1756.]

[Footnote 2: Percy suggests very doubtfully that this may mean Thomas Woolston, who was bom in 1669, educated at Sidney College, Cambridge, published, in 1705, The Old Apology for the Truth against the Jews and Gentiles revived, and afterwards was imprisoned and fined for levity in discussing sacred subjects. The text points to a medical theory of intermarriage. There was a Thomas Winston, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, who travelled over the continent, took degrees at Basle and Padua, returned to take his M.D. at Cambridge, and settled in London in 1607.]

[Footnote 3: William Whiston, born 1667, educated at Tamworth School and Clare Hall, Cambridge, became a Fellow in 1693, and then Chaplain to Bishop Moore. In 1696 he published his New Theory of the Earth, which divided attention with Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth already mentioned. In 1700 Whiston was invited to Cambridge, to act as deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded in 1703 as Lucasian Professor. For holding some unorthodox opinions as to the doctrines of the early Christians, he was, in 1710, deprived of his Professors.h.i.+p, and banished from the University. He was a pious and learned man, who, although he was denied the Sacrament, did not suffer himself to be driven out of the Church of England till 1747. At last he established a small congregation in his own house in accordance with his own notion of primitive Christianity. He lived till 1752.]

[Footnote 4: No L--y of that time has written plays that are remembered.

The John Lacy whom Charles II. admired so much that he had his picture painted in three of his characters, died in 1681, leaving four comedies and an alteration of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. He was a handsome man: first dancing-master, then quarter-master, then an admired comedian. Henley would hardly have used a blank in referring to a well-known writer who died thirty years before. There was another John Lacy advertising in the Post Boy, Aug. 3, 1714, The Steeleids, or the Trial of Wits, a Poem in three cantos, with a motto:

Then will I say, swelled with poetic rage, That I, John Lacy, have reformed the age.]

No. 397. Thursday, June 5, 1712. Addison.

'--Dolor ipse disertum Fecerat--'

Ovid.

As the Stoick Philosophers discard all Pa.s.sions in general, they will not allow a Wise Man so much as to pity the Afflictions of another. If thou seest thy Friend in Trouble, says Epictetus, thou mayst put on a Look of Sorrow, and condole with him, but take care that thy Sorrow be not real. [1] The more rigid of this Sect would not comply so far as to shew even such an outward Appearance of Grief, but when one told them of any Calamity that had befallen even the nearest of their Acquaintance, would immediately reply, What is that to me? If you aggravated the Circ.u.mstances of the Affliction, and shewed how one Misfortune was followed by another, the Answer was still, All this may be true, but what is it to me?

For my own part, I am of Opinion, Compa.s.sion does not only refine and civilize Humane Nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable than what can be met with in such an indolent Happiness, such an Indifference to Mankind as that in which the Stoicks placed their Wisdom. As Love is the most delightful Pa.s.sion, Pity is nothing else but Love softned by a degree of Sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing Anguish, as well as generous Sympathy, that knits Mankind together, and blends them in the same common Lot.

Those who have laid down Rules for Rhetorick or Poetry, advise the Writer to work himself up, if possible, to the Pitch of Sorrow which he endeavours to produce in others. There are none therefore who stir up Pity so much as those who indite their own Sufferings. Grief has a natural Eloquence belonging to it, and breaks out in more moving Sentiments than be supplied by the finest Imagination. Nature on this Occasion dictates a thousand pa.s.sionate things which cannot be supplied by Art.

It is for this Reason that the short Speeches, or Sentences which we often meet with in Histories, make a deeper Impression on the Mind of the Reader, than the most laboured Strokes in a well-written Tragedy.

Truth and Matter of Fact sets the Person actually before us in the one, whom Fiction places at a greater Distance from us in the other. I do not remember to have seen any Ancient or Modern Story more affecting than a Letter of Ann of Bologne, Wife to King Henry the Eighth, and Mother to Queen Elizabeth, which is still extant in the Cotton Library, as written by her own Hand.

Shakespear himself could not have made her talk in a Strain so suitable to her Condition and Character. One sees in it the Expostulations of a slighted Lover, the Resentments of an injured Woman, and the Sorrows of an imprisoned Queen. I need not acquaint my Reader that this Princess was then under Prosecution for Disloyalty to the King's Bed, and that she was afterwards publickly beheaded upon the same Account, though this Prosecution was believed by many to proceed, as she her self intimates, rather from the King's Love to Jane Seymour than from any actual Crime in Ann of Bologne.

Queen Ann Boleyn's last Letter to King Henry.

[Cotton Libr. Otho C. 10.]

SIR,