The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 by George A. Aitken (best e reader for android txt) 📕

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Wills Coffee-house, April 26.

The play of "The London Cuckolds"[143] was acted this evening before a suitable audience, who were extremely well diverted with that heap of vice and absurdity. The indignation which Eugenio, who is a gentleman of a just taste, has, upon occasion of seeing human nature fall so low in their delights, made him, I thought, expatiate upon the mention of this play very agreeably. "Of all men living," said he, "I pity players (who must be men of good understanding to be capable of being such) that they are obliged to repeat and assume proper gestures for representing things, of which their reason must be ashamed, and which they must disdain their audience for approving. The amendment of these low gratifications is only to be made by people of condition, by encouraging the presentation of the noble characters drawn by Shakespeare and others, from whence it is impossible to return without strong impressions of honour and humanity. On these occasions, distress is laid before us with all its causes and consequences, and our resentment placed according to the merit of the persons afflicted. Were dramas of this nature more acceptable to the taste of the town, men who have genius would bend their studies to excel in them. How forcible an effect this would have on our minds, one needs no more than to observe how strongly we are touched by mere pictures. Who can see Le Brun's[144] picture of the Battle of Porus, without entering into the character of that fierce gallant man,[145] and being accordingly spurred to an emulation of his constancy and courage? When he is falling with his wound, the features are at the same time very terrible and languishing; and there is such a stern faintness diffused through his look, as is apt to move a kind of horror, as well as pity, in the beholder. This, I say, is an effect wrought by mere lights and shades; consider also a representation made by words only, as in an account given by a good writer: Catiline in Sallust makes just such a figure as Porus by Le Brun. It is said of him, 'Catilina vero longe a suis inter hostium cadavera repertus est; paululum etiam spirans, ferocitatemque animi quam vivus habuerat in vultu retinens.'[146] ('Catiline was found killed far from his own men among the dead bodies of the enemy: he seemed still to breathe, and still retained in his face the same fierceness he had when he was living.') You have in that one sentence, a lively impression of his whole life and actions. What I would insinuate from all this, is, that if the painter and the historian can do thus much in colours and language, what may not be performed by an excellent poet, when the character he draws is presented by the person, the manner, the look, and the motion, of an accomplished player? If a thing painted or related can irresistibly enter our hearts, what may not be brought to pass by seeing generous things performed before our eyes?" Eugenio ended his discourse, by recommending the apt use of a theatre, as the most agreeable and easy method of making a polite and moral gentry, which would end in rendering the rest of the people regular in their behaviour, and ambitious of laudable undertakings.


St. James's Coffee-house, April 27.

Letters from Naples of the 9th instant, N.S., advise, that Cardinal Grimani had ordered the regiment commanded by General Pate to march towards Final, in order to embark for Catalonia, whither also a thousand horse are to be transported from Sardinia, besides the troops which come from the Milanese. An English man-of-war has taken two prizes, one a vessel of Malta, the other of Genoa, both laden with goods of the enemy. They write from Florence of the 13th, that his Majesty of Denmark had received a courier from the Hague, with an account of some matters relating to the treaty of a peace; upon which he declared, that he thought it necessary to hasten to his own dominions.

Letters from Switzerland inform us, that the effects of the great scarcity of corn in France were felt at Geneva; the magistrates of which city had appointed deputies to treat with the cantons of Berne and Zurich, for leave to buy up such quantities of grain within their territories as should be thought necessary. The Protestants of Tockenburg are still in arms about the convent of St. John, and have declared, that they will not lay them down, till they shall have sufficient security from the Roman Catholics, of living unmolested in the exercise of their religion. In the meantime the deputies of Berne and Tockenburg have frequent conferences at Zurich, with the regency of that canton, to find out methods for the quieting these disorders.

Letters from the Hague of the 3rd of May advise, that the President Rouillé, after his last conference with the deputies of the States, had retired to Bodegrave, five miles distant from Worden, and expected the return of a courier from France on the 4th, with new instructions. It is said, if his answer from the French Court shall not prove satisfactory, he will be desired to withdraw out of these parts. In the meantime it is also reported, that his equipage, as an ambassador on this great occasion, is actually on the march towards him. They write from Flanders, that the great convoy of provisions, which set out from Ghent, is safely arrived at Lille. Those advices add, that the enemy had assembled near Tournay a considerable body of troops drawn out of the neighbouring garrisons. Their high mightinesses having sent orders to their Ministers at Hamburg and Dantzic, to engage the magistrates of those cities to forbid the sale of corn to the French, and to signify to them, that the Dutch merchants will buy up as much of that commodity as they can spare, the Hamburgers have accordingly contracted with the Dutch, and refused any commerce with the French on that occasion.


From my own Apartment.

After the lassitude of a day spent in the strolling manner, which is usual with men of pleasure in this town, and with a head full of a million of impertinences, which had danced round it for ten hours together, I came to my lodging, and hastened to bed. My
valet-de-chambre [147] knows my University trick of reading there; and he being: a good scholar for a gentleman, ran over the names of Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and others, to know which I would have. "Bring Virgil," said I, "and if I fall asleep, take care of the candle." I read the sixth book over with the most exquisite delight, and had gone half through it a second time, when the pleasing ideas of Elysian Fields, deceased worthies walking in them, sincere lovers enjoying their languishment without pain, compassion for the unhappy spirits who had misspent their short daylight, and were exiled from the seats of bliss for ever; I say, I was deep again in my reading, when this mixture of images had taken place of all others in my imagination before, and lulled me into a dream, from which I am just awake, to my great disadvantage. The happy mansions of Elysium by degrees seemed to be wafted from me, and the very traces of my late waking thoughts began to fade away, when I was cast by a sudden whirlwind upon an island, encompassed with a roaring and troubled sea, which shaked its very centre, and rocked its inhabitants as in a cradle. The islanders lay on their faces, without offering to look up, or hope for preservation; all her harbours were crowded with mariners, and tall vessels of war lay in danger of being driven to pieces on her shores. "Bless me!" said I, "why have I lived in such a manner that the convulsion of nature should be so terrible to me, when I feel in myself, that the better part of me is to survive it? Oh! may that be in happiness." A sudden shriek, in which the whole people on their faces joined, interrupted my soliloquy, and turned my eyes and attention to the object which had given us that sudden start, in the midst of an inconsolable and speechless affliction. Immediately the winds grew calm, the waves subsided, and the people stood up, turning their faces upon a magnificent pile in the midst of the island. There we beheld an hero of a comely and erect aspect, but pale and languid, sitting under a canopy of state. By the faces and dumb sorrow of those who attended we thought him in the article of death. At a distance sat a lady, whose life seemed to hang upon the same thread with his: she kept her eyes fixed upon him, and seemed to smother ten thousand thousand nameless things, which urged her tenderness to clasp him in her arms: but her greatness of spirit overcame those sentiments, and gave her power to forbear disturbing his last moment; which immediately approached. The hero looked up with an air of negligence, and satiety of being, rather than of pain to leave it; and leaning back his head, expired.[148]

When the heroine, who sat at a distance, saw his last instant come, she threw herself at his feet, and kneeling, pressed his hand to her lips; in which posture she continued under the agony of an unutterable sorrow, till conducted from our sight by her attendants. That commanding awe, which accompanies the grief of great minds, restrained the multitude while in her presence; but as soon as she retired, they gave way to their distraction, and all the islanders called upon their deceased hero. To him, methought, they cried out, as to a guardian being, and I gathered from their broken accents, that it was he who had the empire over the ocean and its powers, by which he had long protected the island from shipwreck and invasion. They now give a loose to their moan, and think themselves exposed without hopes of human or divine assistance. While the people ran wild, and expressed all the different forms of lamentation, methought a sable cloud overshadowed the whole land, and covered its inhabitants with darkness: no glimpse of light appeared, except one ray from heaven upon the place in which the heroine now secluded herself from the world, with her eyes fixed on those abodes to which her consort was ascended.[149] Methought, a long period of time had passed away in mourning and in darkness, when a twilight began by degrees to enlighten the hemisphere; and looking round me, I saw a boat rowed towards the shore, in which sat a personage adorned with warlike trophies, bearing on his left arm a shield, on which was engraven the image of Victory, and in his right hand a branch of olive. His visage was at once so winning and so awful, that the shield and the olive seemed equally suitable to his genius.

When this illustrious person[150] touched on the shore, he was received by the acclamations of the people, and followed to the palace of the heroine. No pleasure in the glory of her arms, or the acclamations of her applauding subjects, were ever capable to suspend her sorrow for one moment, until she saw the olive branch in the hand of that auspicious messenger. At that sight, as Heaven bestows its blessings on the wants and importunities of mortals, out of its native bounty, and not to increase its own power, or honour, in compassion to the world, the celestial mourner was then