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

or three ages to repair. It must be confessed, the redoubted Mr. Buckley[226] has shed as much blood as the former; but I cannot forbear saying (and I hope it will not look like envy) that we regard our brother Buckley as a Drawcansir,[227] who spares neither friend nor foe, but generally kills as many of his own side as the enemy's. It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a peace: every one remembers the shifts they were driven to in the reign of King Charles II., when they could not furnish out a single paper of news, without lighting up a comet in Germany, or a fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter without a paragraph on an earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familiar, that they had lost their name, as a great poet of that age has it. I remember Mr. Dyer,[228] who is justly looked upon by all the fox-hunters in the nation as the greatest statesman our country has produced, was particularly famous for dealing in whales; insomuch that in five months' time (for I had the curiosity to examine his letters on that occasion) he brought three into the mouth of the river Thames, besides two porpoises and a sturgeon. The judicious and wary Mr. I. Dawks[229] hath all along been the rival of this great writer, and got himself a reputation from plagues and famines, by which, in those days, he destroyed as great multitudes as he has lately done by the sword. In every dearth of news, Grand Cairo was sure to be unpeopled.

It being therefore visible, that our society will be greater sufferers by the peace than the soldiery itself; insomuch that the Daily Courant [230] is in danger of being broken, my friend Dyer of being reformed, and the very best of the whole band of being reduced to half-pay; might I presume to offer anything in the behalf of my distressed brethren, I would humbly move, that an appendix of proper apartments furnished with pen, ink, and paper, and other necessaries of life should be added to the Hospital of Chelsea,[231] for the relief of such decayed news-writers as have served their country in the wars; and that for their exercise, they should compile the annals of their brother-veterans, who have been engaged in the same service, and are still obliged to do duty after the same manner.

I cannot be thought to speak this out of an eye to any private interest; for, as my chief scenes of action are coffee-houses, play-houses, and my own apartment, I am in no need of camps, fortifications, and fields of battle, to support me; I don't call out for heroes and generals to my assistance. Though the officers are broken, and the armies disbanded, I shall still be safe as long as there are men or women, or politicians, or lovers, or poets, or nymphs, or swains, or cits, or courtiers in being.


[Footnote 218: It is very possible that the first article in this number (see the allusion to medals) is by Addison, as well as the account of the Distress of the News-writers.]

[Footnote 219: There is much about medals in Addison's "Remarks on several Parts of Italy," 1705. His "Dialogues on Medals" was published posthumously by Tickell.]

[Footnote 220: Stocks Market was so named from a pair of stocks which were erected there as early as the 13th century. The two statues referred to were really very unlike. The one was of white marble; the other, of brass, was originally intended for John Sobieski, King of Poland, but being bought by Sir Robert Viner in 1672, it was altered and erected in honour of King Charles II. The Turk underneath the horse was metamorphosed into Oliver Cromwell; but his turban escaped unnoticed or unaltered, to testify the truth. The statue in Stocks Market, with the conduit and all its ornaments, was removed to make way for the Mansion House in 1739. Marvell refers to these statues in his "Satires."]

[Footnote 221: Heidegger. See No. 12.]

[Footnote 222: The remainder of this paper is by Addison. See Steele's Preface, and his Dedication of "The Drummer" to Congreve.]

[Footnote 223: "There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St. Alban, or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry. But that's all one, they'll find linen enough on every hedge." (1 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 2).]

[Footnote 224: The Tory Postboy was published by Abel Roper; and the Whig Flying Post by George Ridpath:

"There Ridpath, Roper, cudgelled might ye view,
The very worsted still looked black and blue."

("Dunciad," ii. 149.) It is remarkable that both Roper and Ridpath died on the same day, Feb. 5, 1726. Swift and others sometimes contributed to Roper's paper for party purposes.]

[Footnote 225: Abel Boyer (1667-1729), author of "The Political State of Great Britain," was a Whig journalist towards whom Swift felt bitterly. "The Secretary promises me to swinge him," he wrote in 1711; "I must make that rogue an example for a warning to others." Boyer compiled a valuable French and English dictionary.]

[Footnote 226: Samuel Buckley was printer of the London Gazette, Daily Courant , and Spectator . He died in 1741.]

[Footnote 227: Drawcansir, in "The Rehearsal," is described by another character as "a great hero, who frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard to number, good sense, or justice."]

[Footnote 228: John Dyer was a Jacobite journalist who issued a news-letter to country subscribers, among whom was Sir Roger de Coverley ( Spectator , No. 127), by whom he was held in high esteem. Defoe ( Review , vi. 132) says that Dyer "did not so much write what his readers should believe, as what they would believe." Vellum, in Addison's "The Drummer" (act ii. sc. i), cannot but believe his master is living, "because the news of his death was first published in Dyer's Letter." See also Spectator , Nos. 43 and 457. At the trial of John Tutchin for seditious libel (Howell's "State Trials," xiv. 1150), on complaint being made by counsel that Dyer had charged him with broaching seditious principles, Lord Chief Justice Holt said, "Dyer is very familiar with me too sometimes; but you need not fear such a little scandalous paper of such a scandalous author."]

[Footnote 229: Ichabod Dawks was another "epistolary historian" (see
Spectator , No. 457, and Tatler , No. 178). Dawks and Dyer are both introduced by Edmund Smith, author of "Phædra and Hippolitus," in his poem, "Charlettus Percivallo suo":

"Scribe securus, quid agit Senatus,
Quid caput stertit grave Lambethanum,
Quid comes Guilford, quid habent novorum.
"Dawksque Dyerque." ]

[Footnote 230: The Daily Courant , our first daily newspaper, was begun in 1702.]

[Footnote 231: Chelsea Hospital, for old soldiers, was founded in 1682.]


No. 19. [STEELE.

From Saturday, May 21 , to Tuesday, May 24 , 1709.

* * * * *


From my own Apartment, May 23.

There is nothing can give a man of any consideration greater pain, than to see order and distinction laid aside amongst men, especially when the rank (of which he himself is a member) is intruded upon by such as have no pretence to that honour. The appellation of Esquire is the most notoriously abused in this kind of any class amongst men, insomuch that it is become almost the subject of derision: but I will be bold to say, this behaviour towards it proceeds from the ignorance of the people in its true origin. I shall therefore, as briefly as possible, do myself and all true esquires the justice to look into antiquity upon this subject.

In the first ages of the world, before the invention of jointures and settlements, when the noble passion of love had possession of the hearts of men, and the fair sex were not yet cultivated into the merciful disposition which they have showed in latter centuries, it was natural for great and heroic spirits to retire to rivulets, woods, and caves, to lament their destiny, and the cruelty of the fair persons who were deaf to their lamentations. The hero in this distress was generally in armour, and in a readiness to fight any man he met with, especially if distinguished by any extraordinary qualifications, it being the nature of heroic love to hate all merit, lest it should come within the observation of the cruel one, by whom its own perfections are neglected. A lover of this kind had always about him a person of a second value, and subordinate to him, who could hear his afflictions, carry an enchantment for his wounds, hold his helmet when he was eating (if ever he did eat); or in his absence, when he was retired to his apartment in any king's palace, tell the prince himself, or perhaps his daughter, the birth, parentage, and adventures, of his valiant master. This trusty companion was styled his esquire, and was always fit for any offices about him; was as gentle and chaste as a gentleman usher, quick and active as an equerry, smooth and eloquent as a master of the ceremonies. A man thus qualified was the first, as the ancients affirm, who was called an esquire; and none without these accomplishments ought to assume our order: but, to the utter disgrace and confusion of the heralds, every pretender is admitted into this fraternity, even persons the most foreign to this courteous institution. I have taken an inventory of all within this city, and looked over every letter in the post-office for my better information. There are of the Middle Temple, including all in the buttery books, and in the lists of the house, 5000. In the Inner, 4000. In the King's Bench Walks, the whole buildings are inhabited by esquires only. The adjacent street of Essex, from Morris' Coffee-house, and the turning towards the Grecian, you cannot meet one who is not an esquire, till you take water. Every house in Norfolk and Arundel Streets is governed also by a squire, or his lady. Soho Square, Bloomsbury Square, and all other places where the floors rise above nine feet, are so many universities, where you enter yourselves, and become of our order. However, if this were the worst of the evil, it were to be supported, because they are generally men of some figure and use; though I know no pretence they have to an honour which had its rise from chivalry. But if you travel into the counties of Great Britain, we are still more imposed upon by innovation. We are indeed derived from the field: but shall that give title to all that ride mad after foxes, that halloo when they see a hare, or venture their necks full speed after a hawk, immediately to commence esquires? No, our order is temperate, cleanly, sober, and chaste; but these rural esquires commit immodesties