No. 178
[Steele.
Saturday, May 27, to Tuesday, May 30, 1710
Sheer Lane, May 29
When we look into the delightful history of the most ingenious Don Quixote of the Mancha, and consider the exercises and manner of life of that renowned gentleman, we cannot but admire the exquisite genius and discerning spirit of Michael Cervantes, who has not only painted his adventurer with great mastery in the conspicuous parts of his story, which relate to love and honour, but also intimated in his ordinary life, economy, and furniture, the infallible symptoms he gave of his growing frenzy, before he declared himself a knight-errant. His hall was furnished with old lances, halberds, and morions; his food, lentils; his dress, amorous. He slept moderately, rose early, and spent his time in hunting. When by watchfulness and exercise he was thus qualified for the hardships of his intended peregrinations, he had nothing more to do but to fall hard to study; and before he should apply himself to the practical part, get into the methods of making love and war by reading books of knighthood. As for raising tender passion in him, Cervantes reports284 that he was wonderfully delighted with a smooth intricate sentence; and when they listened at his study-door, they could frequently hear him read aloud, "The reason of the unreasonableness, which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with all reason I do justly complain on your beauty." Again, he would pause till he came to another charming sentence, and with the most pleasing accent imaginable be loud at a new paragraph: "The high heavens, which, with your divinity, do fortify you divinely with the stars, make you deserveress of the deserts that your greatness deserves." With these, and other such passages (says my author) the poor gentleman grew distracted, and was breaking his brains day and night to understand and unravel their sense.
As much as the case of this distempered knight is received by all the readers of his history as the most incurable and ridiculous of all phrensies, it is very certain we have crowds among us far gone in as visible a madness as his, though they are not observed to be in that condition. As great and useful discoveries are sometimes made by accidental and small beginnings, I came to the knowledge of the most epidemic ill of this sort, by falling into a coffee-house where I saw my friend the upholsterer,285 whose crack286 towards politics I have heretofore mentioned. This touch in the brain of the British subject is as certainly owing to the reading newspapers, as that of the Spanish worthy above mentioned to the reading works of chivalry. My contemporaries the novelists287 have, for the better spinning out paragraphs, and working down to the end of their columns, a most happy art in saying and unsaying, giving hints of intelligence, and interpretations of indifferent actions, to the great disturbance of the brains of ordinary readers. This way of going on in the words, and making no progress in the sense, is more particularly the excellence of my most ingenious and renowned fellow-labourer, the Postman288; and it is to this talent in him that I impute the loss of my upholsterer's intellects. That unfortunate tradesman has for years past been the chief orator in ragged assemblies, and the reader in alley coffee-houses. He was yesterday surrounded by an audience of that sort, among whom I sat unobserved through the favour of a cloud of tobacco, and saw him with the Postman in his hand, and all the other papers safe under his left elbow. He was intermixing remarks, and reading the Paris article of May 30, which says that "it is given out that an express arrived this day, with advice, that the armies were so near in the plain of Lens, that they cannonaded each other." ("Ay, ay, here we shall have sport.") "And that it was highly probable the next express would bring us an account of an engagement." ("They are welcome as soon as they please.") "Though some others say, that the same will be put off till the 2nd or 3rd of June, because the Marshal Villars expects some further reinforcements from Germany, and other parts, before that time." ("What-a-pox does he put it off for? Does he think our horse is not marching up at the same time? But let us see what he says further.") "They hope that Monsieur Albergotti,289 being encouraged by the presence of so great an army, will make an extraordinary defence." ("Why then I find, Albergotti is one of those that love to have a great many on their side. Nay, I'll say that for this paper, he makes the most natural inferences of any of them all.") "The Elector of Bavaria being uneasy to be without any command, has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project, if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon us, he goes upon sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")
What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have secured him from. Next to the labours of the Postman, the upholsterer took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' Letter,290 and there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr. Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday, we shall not stand upon the day291 with them, whether it be before or after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read in print. But Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence, which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish," says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them." Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment292 of the idea from what has been told us from the press by others. This wishing a good tide had its effect upon us, and he was commended for his salutation, as showing as well the capacity of a bellman as an historian. My distempered old acquaintance read in the next place the account of the affairs abroad in the Courant;293 but the matter was told so distinctly, that these wanderers thought there was no news in it; this paper differing from the rest as a history from a romance. The tautology, the contradictions, the doubts, and wants of confirmations, are what keep up imaginary entertainments in empty heads, and produce neglect of their own affairs, poverty, and bankruptcy, in many of the shop-statesmen; but turn the imaginations of those of a little higher orb into deliriums of dissatisfaction, which is seen in a continual fret upon all that touches their brains, but more particularly upon any advantage obtained by their country, where they are considered as lunatics, and therefore tolerated in their ravings.
What I am now warning the people of is, that the newspapers of this island are as pernicious to weak heads in England as ever books of chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the utmost care and vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing evils. A flaming instance of this malady appeared in my old acquaintance at this time, who, after he had done reading all his papers, ended with a thoughtful air, "If we should have a peace, we should then know for certain whether it was the King of Sweden that lately came to Dunkirk." I whispered him, and desired him to step aside a little with me. When I had opportunity, I decoyed him into a coach, in order for his more easy conveyance to Moorfields. The man went very quietly with me; and by that time he had brought the Swede from the defeat by the Czar to the Boristhenes, we were passing by Will's Coffeehouse, where the man of the house beckoned to us. We made a full stop, and could hear from above a very loud voice swearing, with some expressions towards treason, that the subject in France was as free as in England. His distemper would not let him reflect, that his own discourse was an argument of the contrary. They told him, one would speak with him below. He came immediately to our coach-side. I whispered him, that I had an order to carry him to the Bastile. He immediately obeyed with great resignation: for to this sort of lunatic, whose brain is touched for the French, the name of a gaol in that kingdom has a more agreeable sound than that of a paternal seat in this their own country. It happened a little unluckily bringing these lunatics together, for they immediately fell into a debate concerning the greatness of their respective monarchs; one for the King of Sweden, the other for the Grand Monarch of France. This gentleman from Will's is now next door to the upholsterer, safe in his apartment in my Bedlam, with proper medicaments, and the Mercure Galant294 to soothe his imagination that he is actually in France. If therefore he should escape to Covent Garden again, all persons are desired to lay hold of him, and deliver him to Mr. Morphew, my overseer. At the same time, I desire all true subjects to forbear discourse with him, any otherwise than when he begins to fight a battle for France, to say, "Sir, I hope to see you in England."
No. 179
[Steele.
Tuesday, May 30, to Thursday, June 1, 1710
——O! quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra?
Virg., Georg. ii. 488.295
From my own Apartment, May 31
In this parched season, next to the pleasure of going into the country, is that of hearing from it, and partaking the joys of it in description, as in the following letter:
"Sir,
"I believe you will forgive me, though I write to you a very long epistle, since it relates to the satisfaction of a country life, which I know you would lead, if you could. In the first place I must confess to you, that I am one of the most luxurious men living; and as I am such, I take care to make my pleasures lasting, by following none but such as are innocent and refined, as well as, in some measure, improving. You have in your labours been so much concerned to represent the actions and passions of mankind, that the whole vegetable world has almost escaped your observation: but sure there are gratifications to be drawn from thence, which deserve to be recommended. For your better information, I wish you could visit your old friend in Cornwall: you would be leased to see the many alterations I have made about my house, and how much I have improved my estate without raising the rents of it.
"As the winter engrosses with us near a double portion of the year (the three delightful vicissitudes being crowded almost within the space of six months), there is nothing upon which I have bestowed so much study and expense, as in contriving means to soften the severity of it, and, if possible, to establish twelve cheerful months about my habitation. In order to this, the charges I have been at in building and furnishing a greenhouse will, perhaps, be thought somewhat extravagant by a great many gentlemen whose revenues exceed mine. But when I consider, that all men of any life and spirit have their inclinations to gratify, and when I compute the sums laid out by the generality of the men of pleasure (in the number of which I always rank myself) in riotous eating and drinking, in equipage and apparel, upon wenching, gaming, racing and hunting; I find, upon the balance, that the indulging of my humour comes at a reasonable rate.
"Since I communicate to you all incidents serious and trifling, even to the death of a butterfly, that fall out within the compass of my little empire, you will not, I hope, be ill pleased with the draught I now send you of my little winter paradise, and with an account of my way of amusing myself and others in it.
"The younger Pliny, you know, writes a long letter to his friend Gallus,296 in which he gives him a very particular plan of the situation, the conveniences, and the agreeableness of his villa. In my last, you may remember, I promised you something of this kind. Had Pliny lived in a northern climate, I doubt not but we should have found a very complete orangery amongst his Epistles; and I, probably, should have copied his model, instead of building after my own fancy, and you had been referred to him for the history of my late exploits in architecture: by which means my performances would have made a better figure, at least in writing, than they are like to make at present.
"The area of my greenhouse is a hundred paces long, fifty broad, and the roof thirty feet high. The wall toward the north is of solid stone. On the south side, and at both the ends, the stonework rises but three feet from the ground, excepting the pilasters, placed at convenient distances to strengthen and beautify the building. The intermediate spaces are filled up with large sashes of the strongest and most transparent glass. The middle sash (which is wider than any of the others) serves for the entrance, to which you mount by six easy steps, and descend on the inside by as many. This opens and shuts with greater ease, keeps the wind out better, and is at the same time more uniform than folding-doors.
"In the middle of the roof there runs a ceiling thirty feet broad from one end to the other. This is enlivened by a masterly pencil, with all the variety of rural scenes and prospects, which he has peopled with the whole tribe of sylvan deities. Their characters and their stories are so well expressed, that the whole seems a collection of all the most beautiful fables of the ancient poets translated into colours. The remaining spaces of the roof, ten feet on each side of the ceiling, are of the clearest glass, to let in the sky and clouds from above. The building points full east and west, so that I enjoy the sun while he is above the horizon. His rays are improved through the glass, and I receive through it what is desirable in a winter-sky, without the coarse alloy of the season, which is a kind of sifting or straining the weather. My greens and lowers are as sensible as I am of this benefit: they flourish and look cheerful as in the spring, while their fellow creatures abroad are starved to death. I must add, that a moderate expense of fire, over and above the contributions I receive from the sun, serves to keep this large room in a due temperature; it being sheltered from the cold winds by a hill on the north, and a wood on the east.
"The shell, you see, is both agreeable and convenient; and now you shall judge, whether I have laid out the floor to advantage. There goes through the whole length of it a spacious walk of the finest gravel, made to bind and unite so firmly, that it seems one continued stone; with this advantage, that it is easier to the foot, and better for walking, than if it were what it seems to be. At each end of the walk, on the one and on the other side of it, lies a square plot of grass of the finest turf and brightest verdure. What ground remains on both sides, between these little smooth fields of green, is flagged with large quarries of white marble, where the blue veins trace out such a variety of irregular windings through the clear surface, that these bright plains seem full of rivulets and streaming meanders. This to my eye, that delights in simplicity, is inexpressibly more beautiful than the chequered floors which are so generally admired by others. Upon the right and upon the left, along the gravel walk, I have ranged interchangeably the bay, the myrtle, the orange and the lemon trees, intermixed with painted hollies, silver firs, and pyramids of yew; all so disposed, that every tree receives an additional beauty from its situation; besides the harmony that rises from the disposition of the whole, no shade cuts too strongly, or breaks in harshly upon the other; but the eye is cheered with a mild rather than gorgeous diversity of greens.
"The borders of the four grass plots are garnished with pots of flowers: those delicacies of Nature create two senses at once, and leave such delightful and gentle impressions upon the brain, that I cannot help thinking them of equal force with the softest airs of music, toward the smoothing of our tempers. In the centre of every plot is a statue. The figures I have made choice of are a Venus, an Adonis, a Diana, and an Apollo; such excellent copies, as to raise the same delight as we should draw from the sight of the ancient originals.
"The north wall would have been but a tiresome waste to the eye, if I had not diversified it with the most lively ornaments, suitable to the place. To this intent, I have been at the expense to lead over arches from a neighbouring hill a plentiful store of spring water, which a beautiful Naiad, placed as high as is possible in the centre of the wall, pours out from an urn. This, by a fall of above twenty foot, makes a most delightful cascade into a basin, that opens wide within the marble floor on that side. At a reasonable distance, on either hand of the cascade, the wall is hollowed into two spreading scallops, each of which receives a couch of green velvet, and forms at the same time a canopy over them. Next to them come two large aviaries, which are likewise let into the stone. These are succeeded by two grottoes, set off with all the pleasing rudeness of shells and moss, and cragged stones, imitating in miniature rocks and precipices, the most dreadful and gigantic works of Nature. After the grottoes, you have two niches, the one inhabited by Ceres, with her sickle and sheaf of wheat; and the other by Pomona, who, with a countenance full of good cheer, pours a bounteous autumn of fruits out of her horn. Last of all come two colonies of bees, whose stations lying east and west, the one is saluted by the rising, the other by the setting sun. These, all of them being placed at proportioned intervals, furnish out the whole length of the wall; and the spaces that lie between are painted in fresco, by the same hand that has enriched my ceiling.
"Now, sir, you see my whole contrivance to elude the rigour of the year, to bring a northern climate nearer the sun, and to exempt myself from the common fate of my countrymen. I must detain you a little longer, to tell you, that I never enter this delicious retirement, but my spirits are revived, and a sweet complacency diffuses itself over my whole mind. And how can it be otherwise, with a conscience void of offence, where the music of falling waters, the symphony of birds, the gentle humming of bees, the breath of flowers, the fine imagery of painting and sculpture: in a word, the beauties and the charms of nature and of art court all my faculties, refresh the fibres of the brain and smooth every avenue of thought. What pleasing meditations, what agreeable wanderings of the mind, and what delicious slumbers, have I enjoyed here! And when I turn up some masterly writer to my imagination, methinks here his beauties appear in the most advantageous light, and the rays of his genius shoot upon me with greater force and brightness than ordinary. This place likewise keeps the whole family in good humour, in a season wherein gloominess of temper prevails universally in this island. My wife does often touch her lute in one of the grottoes, and my daughter sings to it, while the ladies with you, amidst all the diversions of the town, and in the most affluent fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a lowering sky for they know not what. In this greenhouse we often dine, we drink tea, we dance country dances; and what is the chief pleasure of all, we entertain our neighbours in it, and by this means contribute very much to mend the climate five or six miles about us. I am,
"Your most humble Servant,"T. S."297
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