At the coming of William III.
return
Footnote 3:
The third edition of Dryden's
Satires of Juvenal and Persius
, published in 1702, was the first 'adorn'd with Sculptures.' The Frontispiece represents at full length Juvenal receiving a mask of Satyr from Apollo's hand, and hovered over by a Cupid who will bind the Head to its Vizard with a Laurel Crown.
return
Footnote 4:
Larvati were bewitched persons; from Larva, of which the original meaning is a ghost or spectre; the derived meanings are, a Mask and a Skeleton.
return
Contents
Fervidus tecum Puer, et solutisGratiæ zonis, properentque Nymphæ,Et parum comis sine te Juventas,Mercuriusque.Hor.ad Venerem.translation
A friend of mine has two Daughters, whom I will call
Lætitia
and
Daphne
; The Former is one of the Greatest Beauties of the Age in which she lives, the Latter no way remarkable for any Charms in her Person. Upon this one Circumstance of their Outward Form, the Good and Ill of their Life seems to turn.
Lætitia
has not, from her very Childhood, heard any thing else but Commendations of her Features and Complexion, by which means she is no other than Nature made her, a very beautiful Outside. The Consciousness of her Charms has rendered her insupportably Vain and Insolent, towards all who have to do with her.
Daphne
, who was almost Twenty before one civil Thing had ever been said to her, found her self obliged to acquire some Accomplishments to make up for the want of those Attractions which she saw in her Sister. Poor
Daphne
was seldom submitted to in a Debate wherein she was concerned; her Discourse had nothing to recommend it but the good Sense of it, and she was always under a Necessity to have very well considered what she was to say before she uttered it; while
Lætitia
was listened to with Partiality, and Approbation sate in the Countenances of those she conversed with, before she communicated what she had to say. These Causes have produced suitable Effects, and
Lætitia
is as insipid a Companion, as
Daphne
is an agreeable one.
Lætitia
, confident of Favour, has studied no Arts to please;
Daphne
, despairing of any Inclination towards her Person, has depended only on her Merit.
Lætitia
has always something in her Air that is sullen, grave and disconsolate.
Daphne
has a Countenance that appears chearful, open and unconcerned. A young Gentleman saw
Lætitia
this Winter at a Play, and became her Captive. His Fortune was such, that he wanted very little Introduction to speak his Sentiments to her Father. The Lover was admitted with the utmost Freedom into the Family, where a constrained Behaviour, severe Looks, and distant Civilities, were the highest Favours he could obtain of
Lætitia
; while
Daphne
used him with the good Humour, Familiarity, and Innocence of a Sister: Insomuch that he would often say to her,
Dear
Daphne;
wert thou but as Handsome as Lætitia!
— She received such Language with that ingenuous and pleasing Mirth, which is natural to a Woman without Design. He still Sighed in vain for
Lætitia
, but found certain Relief in the agreeable Conversation of
Daphne
. At length, heartily tired with the haughty Impertinence of
Lætitia
, and charmed with repeated Instances of good Humour he had observed in
Daphne
, he one Day told the latter, that he had something to say to her he hoped she would be pleased with. —
Faith Daphne,
continued he,
I am in Love with thee, and despise thy Sister sincerely
. The Manner of his declaring himself gave his Mistress occasion for a very hearty Laughter. —
Nay,
says he,
I knew you would Laugh at me, but I'll ask your Father.
He did so; the Father received his Intelligence with no less Joy than Surprize, and was very glad he had now no Care left but for his
Beauty
, which he thought he could carry to Market at his Leisure. I do not know any thing that has pleased me so much a great while, as this Conquest of my Friend
Daphne's
. All her Acquaintance congratulate her upon her Chance. Medley, and laugh at that premeditating Murderer her Sister. As it is an Argument of a light Mind, to think the worse of our selves for the Imperfections of our Persons, it is equally below us to value our selves upon the Advantages of them. The Female World seem to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in this Particular; for which Reason, I shall recommend the following Extract out of a Friend's Letter to the Profess'd Beauties, who are a People almost as unsufferable as the Profess'd Wits.
MonsieurSt.Evremont1has concluded one of his Essays, with affirming that the last Sighs of a Handsome Woman are not so much for the loss of her Life, as of her Beauty. Perhaps this Raillery is pursued too far, yet it is turn'd upon a very obvious Remark, that Woman's strongest Passion is for her own Beauty, and that she values it as her Favourite Distinction. From hence it is that all Arts, which pretend to improve or preserve it, meet with so general a Reception among the Sex. To say nothing of many False Helps and Contraband Wares of Beauty, which are daily vended in this great Mart, there is not a Maiden-Gentlewoman, of a good Family in any County ofSouth-Britain, who has not heard of the Virtues ofMay-Dew, or is unfurnished with some Receipt or other in Favour of her Complexion; and I have known a Physician of Learning and Sense, after Eight Years Study in the University, and a Course of Travels into most Countries ofEurope, owe the first raising of his Fortunes to a Cosmetick Wash.This has given me Occasion to consider how so Universal a Disposition in Womankind, which springs from a laudable Motive, the Desire of Pleasing, and proceeds upon an Opinion, not altogether groundless, that Nature may be helped by Art, may be turn'd to their Advantage. And, methinks, it would be an acceptable Service to take them out of the Hands of Quacks and Pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon themselves, by discovering to them the true Secret and Art of improving Beauty.In order to this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be necessary to lay down a few Preliminary Maxims,viz.That no Woman can be Handsome by the Force of Features alone, any more than she can be Witty only by the Help of Speech.That Pride destroys all Symmetry and Grace, and Affectation is a more terrible Enemy to fine Faces than the Small-Pox.That no Woman is capable of being Beautiful, who is not incapable of being False.And, That what would be Odious in a Friend, is Deformity in a Mistress.From these few Principles, thus laid down, it will be easie to prove, that the true Art of assisting Beauty consists in Embellishing the whole Person by the proper Ornaments of virtuous and commendable Qualities.Bythis Help alone it is that those who are the Favourite Work of Nature, or, as Mr.Drydenexpresses it, the Porcelain Clay of human Kind2, become animated, and are in a Capacity of exerting their Charms: And those who seem to have been neglected by her, like Models wrought in haste, are capable, in a great measure, of finishing what She has left imperfect.It is, methinks, a low and degrading Idea of that Sex, which was created to refine the Joys, and soften the Cares of Humanity, by the most agreeable Participation, to consider them meerly as Objects of Sight. This is abridging them of their natural Extent of Power, to put them upon a Level with their Pictures atKneller's. How much nobler is the Contemplation of Beauty heighten'd by Virtue, and commanding our Esteem and Love, while it draws our Observation? How faint and spiritless are the Charms of a Coquet, when compar'd with the real Loveliness ofSophronia'sInnocence, Piety, good Humour and Truth; Virtues which add a new Softness to her Sex, and even beautify her Beauty! That Agreeableness, which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest Virgin, is now preserv'd in the tender Mother, the prudent Friend, and the faithful Wife. Colours, artfully spread upon Canvas, may entertain the Eye, but not affect the Heart; and she, who takes no care to add to the natural Graces of her Person any excelling Qualities, may be allowed still to amuse, as a Picture, but not to triumph as a Beauty.WhenAdamis introduced byMiltondescribingEvein Paradise, and relating to the Angel the Impressions he felt upon seeing her at her first Creation, he does not represent her like aGrecian Venusby her Shape or Features, but by the Lustre of her Mind which shone in them, and gave them their Power of charming.Grace was in all her Steps, Heaven in her Eye,In all her Gestures Dignity and Love.Without this irradiating Power the proudest Fair One ought to know, whatever her Glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect Features are Uninform'd and Dead.Icannot better close this Moral, than by a short Epitaph written byBen Johnson,with a Spirit which nothing could inspire but such an Object as I have been describing.Underneath this Stone doth lieAs much Virtue as cou'd die,Which when alive did Vigour giveTo as much Beauty as cou'd live3.I am, Sir,Your most humble Servant,R. B.
Grace was in all her Steps, Heaven in her Eye,In all her Gestures Dignity and Love.
Underneath this Stone doth lieAs much Virtue as cou'd die,Which when alive did Vigour giveTo as much Beauty as cou'd live3.
R.
Footnote 1:
Charles de St. Denis, Sieur de St. Evremond, died in 1703, aged 95, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His military and diplomatic career in France was closed in 1661, when his condemnations of Mazarin, although the Cardinal was then dead, obliged him to fly from the wrath of the French Court to Holland and afterwards to England, where Charles II granted him a pension of £300 a-year. At Charles's death the pension lapsed, and St. Evremond declined the post of cabinet secretary to James II. After the Revolution he had William III for friend, and when, at last, he was invited back, in his old age, to France, he chose to stay and die among his English friends. In a second volume of
Miscellany Essays by Monsieur de St. Evremont,
done into English by Mr. Brown (1694), an Essay
Of the Pleasure that Women take in their Beauty
ends (p. 135) with the thought quoted by Steele.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
In
Don Sebastian, King of Portugal,
act I, says Muley Moloch, Emperor of Barbary,
Ay; There look like the Workmanship of Heav'n:This is the Porcelain Clay of Human Kind.
return
Footnote 3:
The lines are in the Epitaph
on Elizabeth L.H.
'One name was Elizabeth,The other, let it sleep in death.'
But Steele, quoting from memory, altered the words to his purpose. Ben Johnson's lines were:
Underneath this stone doth lie,As much Beauty as could die,Which in Life did Harbour giveTo more Virtue than doth live.
return
Contents
... parcitCognatis maculis similis fera ...Juv.translation
The Club of which I am a Member, is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different Ways of Life, and disputed as it were out of the most conspicuous Classes of Mankind: By this Means I am furnished with the greatest Variety of Hints and Materials, and know every thing that passes in the different Quarters and Divisions, not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My Readers too have the Satisfaction to find, that there is no Rank or Degree among them who have not their Representative in this Club, and that there is always some Body present who will take Care of their respective Interests, that nothing may be written or published to the Prejudice or Infringement of their just Rights and Privileges.
I last Night sat very late in company with this select Body of Friends, who entertain'd me with several Remarks which they and others had made upon these my Speculations, as also with the various Success which they had met with among their several Ranks and Degrees of Readers.
Will. Honeycomb
told me, in the softest Manner he could, That there were some Ladies (but for your Comfort, says
Will
., they are not those of the most Wit) that were offended at the Liberties I had taken with the Opera and the Puppet-Show: That some of them were likewise very much surpriz'd, that I should think such serious Points as the Dress and Equipage of Persons of Quality, proper Subjects for Raillery.
He was going on, when Sir
Andrew Freeport
took him up short, and told him, That the Papers he hinted at had done great Good in the City, and that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: And further added, That the whole City thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous Intentions to scourge Vice and Folly as they appear in a Multitude, without condescending to be a Publisher of particular Intrigues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir
Andrew
, if you avoid that foolish beaten Road of falling upon Aldermen and Citizens, and employ your Pen upon the Vanity and Luxury of Courts, your Paper must needs be of general Use.
Upon this my Friend the
Templar
told Sir
Andrew
, That he wondered to hear a Man of his Sense talk after that Manner; that the City had always been the Province for Satyr; and that the Wits of King
Charles's
Time jested upon nothing else during his whole Reign. He then shewed, by the Examples of
Horace, Juvenal, Boileau
, and the best Writers of every Age, that the Follies of the Stage and Court had never been accounted too sacred for Ridicule, how great so-ever the Persons might be that patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your Raillery has made too great an Excursion, in attacking several Persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any Precedent for your Behaviour in that Particular. My good Friend Sir
Roger De Coverley
, who had said nothing all this while, began his Speech with a Pish! and told us. That he wondered to see so many Men of Sense so very serious upon Fooleries. Let our good Friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it: I would only advise you, Mr.
Spectator
, applying himself to me, to take Care how you meddle with Country Squires: They are the Ornaments of the
English
Nation; Men of good Heads and sound Bodies! and let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention Fox-hunters with so little Respect.
Captain
Sentry
spoke very sparingly on this Occasion. What he said was only to commend my Prudence in not touching upon the Army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that Point.
By this Time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken away from me by one or other of the Club; and began to think my self in the Condition of the good Man that had one Wife who took a Dislike to his grey Hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an Aversion to, they left his Head altogether bald and naked.
While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy Friend the Clergy-man, who, very luckily for me, was at the Club that Night, undertook my Cause. He told us, That he wondered any Order of Persons should think themselves too considerable to be advis'd: That it was not Quality, but Innocence which exempted Men from Reproof; That Vice and Folly ought to be attacked where-ever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous Stations of Life. He further added, That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the Pains of Poverty, if it chiefly expos'd those who are already depressed, and in some measure turn'd into Ridicule, by the Meanness of their Conditions and Circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take Notice of the great Use this Paper might be of to the Publick, by reprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the Chastisement of the Law, and too fantastical for the Cognizance of the Pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my Undertaking with Chearfulness; and assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose Praises do Honour to the Persons on whom they are bestowed. The whole Club pays a particular Deference to the Discourse of this Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says as much by the candid and ingenuous Manner with which he delivers himself, as by the Strength of Argument and Force of Reason which he makes use of.
Will. Honeycomb
immediately agreed, that what he had said was right; and that for his Part, he would not insist upon the Quarter which he had demanded for the Ladies. Sir
Andrew
gave up the City with the same Frankness. The
Templar
would not stand out; and was followed by Sir
Roger
and the
Captain
: Who all agreed that I should be at Liberty to carry the War into what Quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with Criminals in a Body, and to assault the Vice without hurting the Person.
This Debate, which was held for the Good of Mankind, put me in Mind of that which the
Roman
Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their Destruction. Every Man at first stood hard for his Friend, till they found that by this Means they should spoil their Proscription: And at length, making a Sacrifice of all their Acquaintance and Relations, furnished out a very decent Execution.
Having thus taken my Resolution to march on boldly in the Cause of Virtue and good Sense, and to annoy their Adversaries in whatever Degree or Rank of Men they may be found: I shall be deaf for the future to all the Remonstrances that shall be made to me on this Account. If
Punch
grow extravagant, I shall reprimand him very freely: If the Stage becomes a Nursery of Folly and Impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, If I meet with any thing in City, Court, or Country, that shocks Modesty or good Manners, I shall use my utmost Endeavours to make an Example of it. I must however intreat every particular Person, who does me the Honour to be a Reader of this Paper, never to think himself, or any one of his Friends or Enemies, aimed at in what is said: For I promise him, never to draw a faulty Character which does not fit at least a Thousand People; or to publish a single Paper, that is not written in the Spirit of Benevolence and with a Love to Mankind.
C.
Contents
Risu inepto res ineptior milla est.Mart.translation
Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excell. It is not an Imagination that teems with Monsters, an Head that is filled with extravagant Conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the World with Diversions of this nature; and yet if we look into the Productions of several Writers, who set up for Men of Humour, what wild irregular Fancies, what unnatural Distortions of Thought, do we meet with? If they speak Nonsense, they believe they are talking Humour; and when they have drawn together a Scheme of absurd, inconsistent Ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor Gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the Reputation of Wits and Humourists, by such monstrous Conceits as almost qualify them for
Bedlam;
not considering that Humour should always lye under the Check of Reason, and that it requires the Direction of the nicest Judgment, by so much the more as it indulges it self in the most boundless Freedoms.
There
is a kind of Nature that is to be observed in this sort of Compositions, as well as in all other, and a certain Regularity of Thought
which
1
must discover the Writer to be a Man of Sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to Caprice: For my part, when I read the delirious Mirth of an unskilful Author, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert my self with it, but am rather apt to pity the Man, than to laugh at any thing he writes.
The
deceased Mr.
Shadwell
, who had himself a great deal of the Talent, which I am treating of, represents an empty Rake, in one of his Plays, as very much surprized to hear one say that breaking of Windows was not Humour
2
; and I question not but several
English
Readers will be as much startled to hear me affirm, that many of those raving incoherent Pieces, which are often spread among us, under odd Chimerical Titles, are rather the Offsprings of a Distempered Brain, than Works of Humour.
It is indeed much easier to describe what is not Humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as
Cowley
has done Wit, by Negatives. Were I to give my own Notions of it, I would deliver them after
Plato's
manner, in a kind of Allegory, and by supposing Humour to be a Person, deduce to him all his Qualifications, according to the following Genealogy.
Truth
was the Founder of the Family, and the Father of
Good Sense
.
Good Sense
was the Father of
Wit
, who married a Lady of a Collateral Line called
Mirth
, by whom he had Issue
Humour
.
Humour
therefore being the youngest of this Illustrious Family, and descended from Parents of such different Dispositions, is very various and unequal in his Temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave Looks and a solemn Habit, sometimes airy in his Behaviour and fantastick in his Dress: Insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a Judge, and as jocular as a
Merry-Andrew
. But as he has a great deal of the Mother in his Constitution, whatever Mood he is in, he never fails to make his Company laugh.
But
since there
is an Impostor
3
abroad, who
takes upon him
4
the Name of this young Gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the World; to the end that well-meaning Persons may not be imposed upon by
Cheats
5
, I would desire my Readers, when they meet with
this Pretender,
6
to look into his Parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to
Truth
, and lineally descended from
Good Sense
; if not, they may conclude him a Counterfeit.
They
may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive Laughter, in which he seldom gets his Company to join with him. For, as
True Humour
generally looks serious, whilst every Body laughs
about him
7
;
False Humour
is always laughing, whilst every Body about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a Mixture of both Parents, that is, if he would pass for the Offspring of
Wit
without
Mirth
, or
Mirth
without
Wit
, you may conclude him to be altogether Spurious, and a Cheat.
The Impostor, of whom I am speaking, descends Originally from
Falsehood
, who was the Mother of
Nonsense
, who was brought to Bed of a Son called
Frenzy
, who Married one of the Daughters of
Folly
, commonly known by the Name of
Laughter
, on whom he begot that Monstrous Infant of which I have been here speaking. I shall set down at length the Genealogical Table of
False Humour
, and, at the same time, place under it the Genealogy of
True Humour
, that the Reader may at one View behold their different Pedigrees and Relations.