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No. 148

[Addison.

Saturday, March 18, to Tuesday, March 21, 1709-10

——Gustus elementa per omnia quærunt,

Nunquam animo pretiis obstantibus.

Juv., Sat. xi. 14.

From my own Apartment, March 20

Having intimated in my last paper, that I design to take under my inspection the diet of this great city, I shall begin with a very earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not go up so high as the history of Guy Earl of Warwick, who is well known to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing.¹⁶⁴ The renowned King Arthur is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a whole roasted ox (which was certainly the best way to preserve the gravy), and it is further added, that he and his knights sat about it at his Round Table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they would enter upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed lover of the brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the institution of the Order of Beef-eaters, which are all so many evident and undeniable marks of the great respect which our warlike predecessors have paid to this excellent food. The tables of the ancient gentry of this nation were covered thrice a day with hot roast beef; and I am credibly informed, by an antiquary who has searched the registers in which the bills of fare of the Court are recorded, that instead of tea and bread and butter, which have prevailed of late years, the maids of honour in Queen Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for their breakfast. Mutton has likewise been in great repute among our valiant countrymen, but was formerly observed to be the food rather of men of nice and delicate appetites, than those of strong and robust constitutions. For which reason, even to this day, we use the word "sheep-biter" as a term of reproach, as we do "beef-eater" in a respectful and honourable sense. As for the flesh of lamb, veal, chicken, and other animals under age, they were the invention of sickly and degenerate palates, according to that wholesome remark of Daniel the historian,¹⁶⁵ who takes notice, that in all taxes upon provisions, during the reigns of several of our kings, there is nothing mentioned besides the flesh of such fowl and cattle as were arrived at their full growth, and were mature for slaughter. The common people of this kingdom do still keep up the taste of their ancestors; and it is to this that we in a great measure owe the unparalleled victories that have been gained in this reign: for, I would desire my reader to consider, what work our countrymen would have made at Blenheim and Ramillies, if they had been fed with fricassees and ragouts.

For this reason, we at present see the florid complexion, the strong limb, and the hale constitution, are to be found chiefly among the meaner sort of people, or in the wild gentry, who have been educated among the woods or mountains. Whereas many great families are insensibly fallen off from the athletic constitution of their progenitors, and are dwindled away into a pale, sickly, spindle-legged, generation of valetudinarians.

I may perhaps be thought extravagant in my notion; but I must confess, I am apt to impute the dishonours that sometimes happen in great families to the inflaming kind of diet which is so much in fashion. Many dishes can excite desire without giving strength, and heat the body without nourishing it; as physicians observe, that the poorest and most dispirited blood is most subject to fevers. I look upon a French ragout to be as pernicious to the stomach as a glass of spirits; and when I have seen a young lady swallow all the instigations of high soups, seasoned sauces, and forced meats, I have wondered at the despair or tedious sighing of her lovers.

The rules among these false delicates are to be as contradictory as they can be to nature.

Without expecting the return of hunger, they eat for an appetite, and prepare dishes not to allay, but to excite it.

They admit of nothing at their tables, in its natural form, or without some disguise.

They are to eat everything before it comes in season, and to leave it off as soon as it is good to be eaten.

They are not to approve anything that is agreeable to ordinary palates; and nothing is to gratify their senses, but what would offend those of their inferiors.

I remember I was last summer invited to a friend's house, who is a great admirer of the French cookery, and (as the phrase is) eats well. At our sitting down, I found the table covered with a great variety of unknown dishes. I was mightily at a loss to learn what they were, and therefore did not know where to help myself. That which stood before me, I took to be a roasted porcupine, however did not care for asking questions; and have since been informed, that it was only a larded turkey. I afterwards passed my eye over several hashes, which I do not know the names of to this day; and hearing that they were delicacies, did not think fit to meddle with them.

Among other dainties, I saw something like a pheasant, and therefore desired to be helped to a wing of it; but to my great surprise, my friend told me it was a rabbit, which is a sort of meat I never cared for. At last I discovered, with some joy, a pig at the lower end of the table, and begged a gentleman that was near it to cut me a piece of it. Upon which the gentleman of the house said, with great civility, "I am sure you will like the pig, for it was whipped to death." I must confess, I heard him with horror, and could not eat of an animal that had died so tragical a death. I was now in great hunger and confusion, when, methought, I smelt the agreeable savour of roast beef, but could not tell from which dish it arose, though I did not question but it lay disguised in one of them. Upon turning my head, I saw a noble sirloin on the side-table smoking in the most delicious manner. I had recourse to it more than once, and could not see, without some indignation, that substantial English dish banished in so ignominious a manner, to make way for French kickshaws.

The dessert was brought up at last, which in truth was as extraordinary as anything that had come before it. The whole, when ranged in its proper order, looked like a very beautiful winter-piece. There were several pyramids of candied sweetmeats, that hung like icicles, with fruit scattered up and down, and hid in an artificial kind of frost. At the same time there were great quantities of cream beaten up into a snow, and near them little plates of sugar-plums, disposed like so many heaps of hailstones, with a multitude of congelations in jellies of various colours. I was indeed so pleased with the several objects which lay before me, that I did not care for displacing any of them, and was half angry with the rest of the company, that for the sake of a piece of lemon-peel, or a sugar-plum, would spoil so pleasing a picture. Indeed, I could not but smile to see several of them cooling their mouths with lumps of ice which they had just before been burning with salts and peppers.

As soon as this show was over I took my leave, that I might finish my dinner at my own house: for as I in every thing love what is simple and natural, so particularly in my food; two plain dishes, with two or three good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends, would make me more pleased and vain, than all that pomp and luxury can bestow. For it is my maxim, that he keeps the greatest table, who has the most valuable company at it.

No. 149

[Steele.

Tuesday, March 21, to Thursday, March 23, 1709-10

From my own Apartment, March 22

It has often been a solid grief to me, when I have reflected on this glorious nation, which is the scene of public happiness and liberty, that there are still crowds of private tyrants, against whom there neither is any law now in being, nor can there be invented any by the wit of man. These cruel men are ill-natured husbands. The commerce in the conjugal state is so delicate, that it is impossible to prescribe rules for the conduct of it, so as to fit ten thousand nameless pleasures and disquietudes which arise to people in that condition. But it is in this as in some other nice cases, where touching upon the malady tenderly, is half way to the cure; and there are some faults which need only to be observed to be amended. I am put into this way of thinking by a late conversation which I am going to give an account of.

I made a visit the other day to a family for which I have a great honour, and found the father, the mother, and two or three of the younger children, drop off designedly to leave me alone with the eldest daughter, who was but a visitant there as well as myself, and is the wife of a gentleman of a very fair character in the world. As soon as we were alone, I saw her eyes full of tears, and methought she had much to say to me, for which she wanted encouragement. "Madam," said I, "you know I wish you all as well as any friend you have: speak freely what I see you are oppressed with, and you may be sure, if I cannot relieve your distress, you may at least reap so much present advantage, as safely to give yourself the ease of uttering it." She immediately assumed the most becoming composure of countenance, and spoke as follows: "It is an aggravation of affliction in a married life, that there is a sort of guilt in communicating it: for which reason it is, that a lady of your and my acquaintance, instead of speaking to you herself, desired me the next time I saw you, as you are a professed friend to our sex, to turn your thoughts upon the reciprocal complaisance which is the duty of a married state.

"My friend was neither in fortune, birth nor education, below the gentleman whom she has married. Her person, her age, and her character, are also such as he can make no exception to. But so it is, that from the moment the marriage ceremony was over, the obsequiousness of a lover was turned into the haughtiness of a master. All the kind endeavours which she uses to please him, are at best but so many instances of her duty. This insolence takes away that secret satisfaction, which does not only excite to virtue, but also rewards it. It abates the fire of a free and generous love, and embitters all the pleasures of a social life." The young lady spoke all this with such an air of resentment, as discovered how nearly she was concerned in the distress.

When I observed she had done speaking, "Madam," said I, "the affliction you mention is the greatest that can happen in human life, and I know but one consolation in it, if that be a consolation, that the calamity is a pretty general one. There is nothing so common as for men to enter into marriage, without so much as expecting to be happy in it. They seem to propose to themselves a few holidays in the beginning of it; after which they are to return at best to the usual course of their life; and for aught they know, to constant misery and uneasiness. From this false sense of the state they are going into, proceeds the immediate coldness and indifference, or hatred and aversion, which attend ordinary marriages, or rather bargains to cohabit." Our conversation was here interrupted by company which came in upon us.

The humour of affecting a superior carriage, generally rises from a false notion of the weakness of a female understanding in general, or an overweening opinion that we have of our own: for when it proceeds from a natural ruggedness and brutality of temper, it is altogether incorrigible, and not to be amended by admonition. Sir Francis Bacon, as I remember, lays it down as a maxim, that no marriage can be happy in which the wife has no opinion of her husband's wisdom;¹⁶⁶ but without offence to so great an authority, I may venture to say, that a sullen-wise man is as bad as a good-natured fool. Knowledge, softened with complacency and good breeding, will make a man equally beloved and respected; but when joined with a severe, distant and unsociable temper, it creates rather fear than love. I who am a bachelor, have no other notion of conjugal tenderness, but what I learn from books, and shall therefore produce three letters of Pliny,¹⁶⁷ who was not only one of the greatest, but the most learned men in the whole Roman Empire. At the same time I am very much ashamed, that on such occasions I am obliged to have recourse to heathen authors, and shall appeal to my readers, if they would not think it a mark of a narrow education in a man of quality to write such passionate letters to any woman but a mistress. They were all three written at a time when she was at a distance from him: the first of them puts me in mind of a married friend of mine, who said, sickness itself is pleasant to a man that is attended in it by one whom he dearly loves.

Pliny to Calphurnia

"I never was so much offended at business, as when it hindered me from going with you into the country, or following you thither: for I more particularly wish to be with you at present, that I might be sensible of the progress you make in the recovery of your strength and health; as also of the entertainment and diversions you can meet with in your retirement. Believe me, it is an anxious state of mind to live in ignorance of what happens to those whom we passionately love. I am not only in pain for your absence, but also for your indisposition. I am afraid of everything, fancy everything, and, as it is the nature of men in fear, I fancy those things most which I am most afraid of. Let me therefore earnestly desire you to favour me under these my apprehensions with one letter every day, or, if possible, with two; for I shall be a little at ease while I am reading your letters, and grow anxious again as soon as I have read them."

Second Letter

"You tell me that you are very much afflicted at my absence, and that you have no satisfaction in anything but my writings, which you often lay by you upon my pillow. You oblige me very much in wishing to see me, and making me your comforter in my absence. In return, I must let you know, I am no less pleased with the letters which you writ to me, and read them over a thousand times with new pleasure. If your letters are capable of giving me so much pleasure, what would your conversation do? Let me beg of you to write to me often; though at the same time I must confess, your letters give me anguish whilst they give me pleasure."

Third Letter

"It is impossible to conceive how much I languish for you in your absence; the tender love I bear you is the chief cause of this my uneasiness, which is still the more insupportable, because absence is wholly a new thing to us. I lie awake most part of the night in thinking of you, and several times of the day go as naturally to your apartment, as if you were there to receive me; but when I miss you, I come away dejected, out of humour, and like a man that had suffered a repulse. There is but one part of the day in which I am relieved from this anxiety, and that is when I am engaged in public affairs.

"You may guess at the uneasy condition of one who has no rest but in business, no consolation but in trouble."

I shall conclude this paper with a beautiful passage out of Milton,¹⁶⁸ and leave it as a lecture to those of my own sex, who have a mind to make their conversation agreeable as well as instructive, to the fair partners who are fallen into their care. Eve, having observed that Adam was entering into some deep disquisitions with the angel, who was sent to visit him, is described as retiring from their company, with a design of learning what should pass there from her husband.

 
So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed
Entering on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve
Perceiving where she sat retired in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers.
Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear
Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,
Adam relating, she sole auditress;
Her husband the relater she preferred
Before the angel, and of him to ask
Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix
Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
With conjugal caresses; from his lip
Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now
Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?
 

No. 150

[Steele.

Thursday, March 23, to Saturday, March 25, 1710

Hæc sunt jucundi causa, cibusque mali.

Ovid, Rem. Amor. 138.

From my own Apartment, March 24

I have received the following letter upon the subject of my last paper. The writer of it tells me, I there spoke of marriage as one that knows it only by speculation, and for that reason he sends me his sense of it, as drawn from experience:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"I have read your paper of this day, and think you have done the nuptial state a great deal of justice in the authority you give us of Pliny, whose letters to his wife you have there translated: but give me leave to tell you, that it is impossible for you, that are a bachelor, to have so just a notion of this way of life, as to touch the affections of your readers in a particular wherein every man's own heart suggests more than the nicest observer can form to himself without experience. I therefore, who am an old married man, have sat down to give you an account of the matter from my own knowledge, and the observations which I have made upon the conduct of others in that most agreeable or wretched condition.

"It is very commonly observed, that the most smart pangs which we meet with are in the beginning of wedlock, which proceed from ignorance of each other's humour, and want of prudence to make allowances for a change from the most careful respect to the most unbounded familiarity. Hence it arises, that trifles are commonly occasions of the greatest anxiety; for contradiction being a thing wholly unusual between a new married couple, the smallest instance of it is taken for the highest injury; and it very seldom happens, that the man is slow enough in assuming the character of a husband, or the woman quick enough in condescending to that of a wife. It immediately follows, that they think they have all the time of their courtship been talking in masks to each other, and therefore begin to act like disappointed people. Philander finds Delia ill-natured and impertinent; and Delia, Philander surly and inconstant.

"I have known a fond couple quarrel in the very honeymoon about cutting up a tart: nay, I could name two, who after having had seven children, fell out and parted beds upon the boiling of a leg of mutton. My very next neighbours have not spoken to one another these three days, because they differed in their opinions, whether the clock should stand by the window, or over the chimney. It may seem strange to you, who are not a married man, when I tell you how the least trifle can strike a woman dumb for a week together. But if you ever enter into this state, you will find, that the soft sex as often express their anger by an obstinate silence, as by an ungovernable clamour.

"Those indeed who begin this course of life without jars at their setting out, arrive within few months at a pitch of benevolence and affection, of which the most perfect friendship is but a faint resemblance. As in the unfortunate marriage, the most minute and indifferent things are objects of the sharpest resentment; so in a happy one, they are occasions of the most exquisite satisfaction. For what does not oblige in one we love? What does not offend in one we dislike? For these reasons I take it for a rule, that in marriage, the chief business is to acquire a prepossession in favour of each other. They should consider one another's words and actions with a secret indulgence: there should be always an inward fondness pleading for each other, such as may add new beauties to everything that is excellent, give charms to what is indifferent, and cover everything that is defective. For want of this kind propensity and bias of mind, the married pair often take things ill of each other, which no one else would take notice of in either of them.

"But the most unhappy circumstance of all is, where each party is always laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a magazine of provocations to exasperate each other with when they are out of humour. These people in common discourse make no scruple to let those who are by know they are quarrelling with one another, and think they are discreet enough, if they conceal from the company the matters which they are hinting at. About a week ago, I was entertained for a whole dinner with a mysterious conversation of this nature; out of which I could learn no more, than that the husband and wife were angry at one another. We had no sooner sat down, but says the gentleman of the house, in order to raise discourse, 'I thought Margarita¹⁶⁹ sung extremely well last night.' Upon this, says the lady, looking as pale as ashes, 'I suppose she had cherry-coloured ribands¹⁷⁰ on.' 'No,' answered the husband, with a flush in his face, 'but she had laced shoes.'¹⁷¹ I look upon it, that a bystander on such occasions has as much reason to be out of countenance as either of the combatants. To turn off my confusion, and seem regardless of what had passed, I desired the servant who attended to give me the vinegar, which unluckily created a new dialogue of hints; for as far as I could gather by the subsequent discourse, they had dissented the day before about the preference of elder to wine vinegar. In the midst of their discourse, there appeared a dish of chickens and asparagus, when the husband seemed disposed to lay aside all disputes; and looking upon her with a great deal of good nature, said, 'Pray, my dear, will you help my friend to a wing of the fowl that lies next you, for I think it looks extremely well.' The lady, instead of answering him, addressing herself to me, 'Pray, sir,' said she, 'do you in Surrey reckon the white- or the black-legged fowls the best?' I found the husband changed colour at the question; and before I could answer, asked me, whether we did not call hops 'broom' in our country? I quickly found, they did not ask questions so much out of curiosity as anger: for which reason I thought fit to keep my opinion to myself, and, as an honest man ought (when he sees two friends in warmth with each other), I took the first opportunity I could to leave them by themselves.

"You see, sir, I have laid before you only small incidents, which are seemingly trivial; but take it from a man who am very well experienced in this state, they are principally evils of this nature which make marriages unhappy. At the same time, that I may do justice to this excellent institution, I must own to you, there are unspeakable pleasures which are as little regarded in the computation of the advantages of marriage, as the others are in the usual survey that is made of its misfortunes.

"Lovemore and his wife live together in the happy possession of each other's hearts, and by that means have no indifferent moments, but their whole life is one continued scene of delight. Their passion for each other communicates a certain satisfaction, like that which they themselves are in, to all that approach them. When she enters the place where he is, you see a pleasure which he cannot conceal, nor he or any one else describe. In so consummate an affection, the very presence of the person beloved has the effect of the most agreeable conversation. Whether they have matter to talk of or not, they enjoy the pleasures of society, and at the same time the freedom of solitude. Their ordinary life is to be preferred to the happiest moments of other lovers. In a word, they have each of them great merit, live in the esteem of all who know them, and seem but to comply with the opinions of their friends, in the just value they have for each other."