Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer Part 4

I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious, discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me.

XIII.--DEAD FOLK.

From my own Apartment, November 17.

It has cost me very much care and thought to marshal and fix the people under their proper denominations, and to range them according to their respective characters. These my endeavours have been received with unexpected success in one kind, but neglected in another; for though I have many readers, I have but few converts. This must certainly proceed from a false opinion, that what I write is designed rather to amuse and entertain than convince and instruct. I entered upon my Essays with a declaration that I should consider mankind in quite another manner than they had hitherto been represented to the ordinary world, and a.s.serted that none but a useful life should be, with me, any life at all. But, lest this doctrine should have made this small progress towards the conviction of mankind, because it may appear to the unlearned light and whimsical, I must take leave to unfold the wisdom and antiquity of my first proposition in these my essays, to wit, that "every worthless man is a dead man." This notion is as old as Pythagoras, in whose school it was a point of discipline, that if among the Akoustikoi, * or probationers, there were any who grew weary of studying to be useful, and returned to an idle life, the rest were to regard them as dead, and upon their departing, to perform their obsequies and raise them tombs, with inscriptions, to warn others of the like mortality, and quicken them to resolutions of refining their souls above that wretched state.

It is upon a like supposition that young ladies, at this very time, in Roman Catholic countries, are received into some nunneries with their coffins, and with the pomp of a formal funeral, to signify that henceforth they are to be of no further use, and consequently dead. Nor was Pythagoras himself the first author of this symbol, with whom, and with the Hebrews, it was generally received. Much more might be offered in ill.u.s.tration of this doctrine from sacred authority, which I recommend to my reader's own reflection; who will easily recollect, from places which I do not think fit to quote here, the forcible manner of applying the words dead and living to men, as they are good or bad.

* Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.

I have, therefore, composed the following scheme of existence for the benefit both of the living and the dead; though chiefly for the latter, whom I must desire to read it with all possible attention. In the number of the dead I comprehend all persons, of what t.i.tle or dignity soever, who bestow most of their time in eating and drinking, to support that imaginary existence of theirs which they call life; or in dressing and adorning those shadows and apparitions, which are looked upon by the vulgar as real men and women. In short, whoever resides in the world without having any business in it, and pa.s.ses away an age without ever thinking on the errand for which he was sent hither, is to me a dead man to all intents and purposes, and I desire that he may be so reputed. The living are only those that are some way or other laudably employed in the improvement of their own minds, or for the advantage of others; and even among these, I shall only reckon into their lives that part of their time which has been spent in the manner above mentioned. By these means, I am afraid we shall find the longest lives not to consist of many months, and the greatest part of the earth to be quite unpeopled.

According to this system we may observe that some men are born at twenty years of age, some at thirty, some at threescore, and some not above an hour before they die; nay, we may observe mult.i.tudes that die without ever being born, as well as many dead persons that fill up the bulk of mankind, and make a better figure in the eyes of the ignorant, than those who are alive, and in their proper and full state of health.

However, since there may be many good subjects, that pay their taxes, and live peaceably in their habitations, who are not yet born, or have departed this life several years since, my design is to encourage both to join themselves as soon as possible to the number of the living. For as I invite the former to break forth into being and become good for something, so I allow the latter a state of resuscitation, which I chiefly mention for the sake of a person who has lately published an advertis.e.m.e.nt, with several scurrilous terms in it, that do by no means become a dead man to give. It is my departed friend, John Partridge, who concludes the advertis.e.m.e.nt of his next year's almanack with the following note:

"Whereas it has been industriously given out by Bickerstaff, Esquire, and others, to prevent the sale of this year's almanack, that John Partridge is dead: this may inform all his loving countrymen, that he is still living in health, and they are knaves that reported it otherwise.

"J. P."

From my own Apartment, November 25.

I have already taken great pains to inspire notions of honour and virtue into the people of this kingdom, and used all gentle methods imaginable, to bring those who are dead in idleness, folly, and pleasure, into life, by applying themselves to learning, wisdom, and industry. But, since fair means are ineffectual, I must proceed to extremities, and shall give my good friends, the Company of Upholders, full power to bury all such dead as they meet with, who are within my former descriptions of deceased persons. In the meantime the following remonstrance of that corporation I take to be very just.

"WORTHY SIR,

"Upon reading your Tatler of Sat.u.r.day last, by which we received the agreeable news of so many deaths, we immediately ordered in a considerable quant.i.ty of blacks, and our servants have wrought night and day ever since to furnish out the necessaries for these deceased. But so it is, Sir, that of this vast number of dead bodies that go putrifying up and down the streets, not one of them has come to us to be buried.

Though we should be loth to be any hindrance to our good friends the physicians, yet we cannot but take notice what infection Her Majesty's subjects are liable to from the horrible stench of so many corpses. Sir, we will not detain you; our case in short is this: Here are we embarked in this undertaking for the public good. Now, if people should be suffered to go on unburied at this rate, there is an end of the usefullest manufactures and handicrafts of the kingdom; for where will be your s.e.xtons, coffin-makers, and plumbers? What will become of your embalmers, epitaph-mongers, and chief-mourners? We are loth to drive this matter any farther, though we tremble at the consequences of it; for if it shall be left to every dead man's discretion not to be buried till he sees his time, no man can say where that will end; but thus much we will take upon us to affirm, that such a toleration will be intolerable.

"What would make us easy in this matter is no more but that your Wors.h.i.+p would be pleased to issue out your orders to ditto Dead to repair forthwith to our office, in order to their interment, where constant attendance shall be given to treat with all persons according to their quality, and the poor to be buried for nothing. And, for the convenience of such persons as are willing enough to be dead, but that they are afraid their friends and relations should know it, we have a back door into Warwick Street, from whence they may be interred with all secrecy imaginable, and without loss of time or hindrance of business. But in case of obstinacy, for we would gladly make a thorough riddance, we desire a farther power from your Wors.h.i.+p, to take up such deceased as shall not have complied with your first orders wherever we meet them; and if, after that, there shall be complaints of any person so offending, let them lie at our doors.

"We are your Wors.h.i.+p's till death,

"The MASTER and COMPANY of UPHOLDERS.

"P.S. We are ready to give in our printed proposals at large, and if your Wors.h.i.+p approves of our undertaking, we desire the following advertis.e.m.e.nt may be inserted in your next paper:

"Whereas a commission of interment has been awarded against Doctor John Partridge, philomath, professor of physic and astrology, and whereas the said Partridge hath not surrendered himself, nor shown cause to the contrary: These are to certify that the Company of Upholders will proceed to bury him from Cordwainer's Hall, on Tuesday the twenty-ninth instant, where any six of his surviving friends, who still believe him to be alive, are desired to come prepared to hold up the pall.

"Note. We shall light away at six in the evening, there being to be a sermon.

"From our Office near the Haymarket, Nov. 23."

XIV.--THE WIFE DEAD.

Sheer Lane, December 30.

I was walking about my chamber this morning in a very gay humour, when I saw a coach stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen alighting out of it, who I perceived to be the eldest son of my bosom friend, that I gave some account of in a previous paper. I felt a sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my acquaintance having begun with his father when he was just such a stripling, and about that very age. When he came up to me, he took me by the hand, and burst into tears. I was extremely moved, and immediately said, "Child, how does your father do?" He began to reply, "My mother--" but could not go on for weeping. I went down with him into the coach, and gathered out of him, "That his mother was then dying; and that, while the holy man was doing the last offices to her, he had taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he said, would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort him." The child's discretion in coming to me of his own head, and the tenderness he showed for his parents would have quite overpowered me, had I not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable performances of those duties which I owed to my friend. As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the character of that excellent woman, and the greatness of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support to him under all other afflictions. How, thought I, will he be able to bear the hour of her death, that could not, when I was lately with him, speak of a sickness, which was then past, without sorrow! We were now got pretty far into Westminster, and arrived at my friend's house. At the door of it I met Favonius, not without a secret satisfaction to find he had been there. I had formerly conversed with him at his house; and as he abounds with that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes religion beautiful, and never leads the conversation into the violence and rage of party disputes, I listened to him with great pleasure. Our discourse chanced to be upon the subject of death, which he treated with such a strength of reason, and greatness of soul, that, instead of being terrible, it appeared to a mind rightly cultivated, altogether to be contemned, or rather to be desired. As I met him at the door, I saw in his face a certain glowing of grief and humanity, heightened with an air of fort.i.tude and resolution, which, as I afterwards found, had such an irresistible force, as to suspend the pains of the dying, and the lamentation of the nearest friends who attended her. I went up directly to the room where she lay, and was met at the entrance by my friend, who, notwithstanding his thoughts had been composed a little before, at the sight of me turned away his face and wept. The little family of children renewed the expressions of their sorrow according to their several ages and degrees of understanding. The eldest daughter was in tears, busied in attendance upon her mother; others were kneeling about the bedside: and what troubled me most, was, to see a little boy, who was too young to know the reason, weeping only because his sisters did.

The only one in the room who seemed resigned and comforted was the dying person. At my approach to the bedside, she told me, with a low broken voice, "This is kindly done--take care of your friend--do not go from him!" She had before taken leave of her husband and children, in a manner proper for so solemn a parting, and with a gracefulness peculiar to a woman of her character. My heart was torn to pieces, to see the husband on one side suppressing and keeping down the swellings of his grief, for fear of disturbing her in her last moments; and the wife even at that time concealing the pains she endured, for fear of increasing his affliction. She kept her eyes upon him for some moments after she grew speechless, and soon after closed them for ever. In the moment of her departure, my friend, who had thus far commanded himself, gave a deep groan, and fell into a swoon by her bedside. The distraction of the children, who thought they saw both their parents expiring together, and now lying dead before them, would have melted the hardest heart; but they soon perceived their father recover, whom I helped to remove into another room, with a resolution to accompany him till the first pangs of his affliction were abated. I knew consolation would now be impertinent; and, therefore, contented myself to sit by him, and condole with him in silence. For I shall here use the method of an ancient author, who in one of his epistles, relating the virtues and death of Macrinus's wife, expresses himself thus: "I shall suspend my advice to this best of friends, till he is made capable of receiving it by those three great remedies (necessitas ipsa, dies longa, et satietas doloris), the necessity of submission, length of time, and satiety of grief."

In the meantime, I cannot but consider, with much commiseration, the melancholy state of one who has had such a part of himself torn from him, and which he misses in every circ.u.mstance of life. His condition is like that of one who has lately lost his right arm, and is every moment offering to help himself with it. He does not appear to himself the same person in his house, at his table, in company, or in retirement; and loses the relish of all the pleasures and diversions that were before entertaining to him by her partic.i.p.ation of them. This additional satisfaction, from the taste of pleasures in the society of one we love, is admirably described in Milton, who represents Eve, though in Paradise itself, no further pleased with the beautiful objects around her, than as she sees them in company with Adam, in that pa.s.sage so inexpressibly charming:

"With thee conversing, I forget all time; All seasons, and their change; all please alike.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun, When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth After short showers; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild; the silent night, With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train.

But neither breath of morn when she ascends With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night, With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon, Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."

The variety of images in this pa.s.sage is infinitely pleasing; and the recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the expression, makes one of the finest turns of words that I have ever seen: which I rather mention because Mr. Dryden has said, in his preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with no turn of words in Milton.

It may further be observed, that though the sweetness of these verses has something in it of a pastoral, yet it excels the ordinary kind, as much as the scene of it is above an ordinary field or meadow. I might here, as I am accidentally led into this subject, show several pa.s.sages in Milton that have as excellent turns of this nature as any of our English poets whatsoever; but shall only mention that which follows, in which he describes the fallen angels engaged in the intricate disputes of predestination, free-will, and fore-knowledge; and, to humour the perplexity, makes a kind of labyrinth in the very words that describe it.

"Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost."

XV.--THE CLUB AT "THE TRUMPET."

Sheer Lane, February 10, 1710.

After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather easy than s.h.i.+ning companions. This I find particularly necessary for me before I retire, to rest, in order to draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have pa.s.sed many hours with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.

Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep; it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the condition of a thinking man, when he is but half-awake. After this, my reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pa.s.s two or three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity, as well as to the society at "The Trumpet," of which I am a member, did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons among whom I have pa.s.sed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but, partly by the severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that number: in which, however, we have this consolation that the best company is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and difficulty.

Sir Jeoffery Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and c.o.c.k-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest, worthy gentleman, who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart.

Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe worth talking of, since the fight of Marston Moor; and every night tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices; for which he is in great esteem among us.

Honest old d.i.c.k Reptile is the third of our society. He is a good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our jokes; and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.

This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs at anything that pa.s.ses, he is constantly told by his uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools; but we old men know you are."

The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a Bencher, of the neighbouring Inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle. He has about ten distichs of Hudibras without book, and never leaves the club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town-frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.

For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am something respected by others; though at the same time I understand by their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch, that the Major sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the philosopher; and Sir Jeoffery, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the Scholar say to it?"

Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about three-quarters after six. I found also, that my good friend the Bencher had already spent three of his distichs; and only waiting an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of that he might introduce the couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic." At my entrance into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the Bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle.

I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffery, to show his good will towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me; and therefore, in requital for his kindness, and to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could to put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett was a game-c.o.c.k, upon whose head the knight, in his youth, had won five hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the Major upon the account of Edge-hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's.

Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and upon all occasions winked upon his nephew to mind what pa.s.sed.