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

to the scourers, and when it comes home, to despatch it after him. At the same time C---- R----[429] Esq. is invited to bring down himself his Setting Sun, and be box-keeper to a theatre erected by this gentleman near Southampton. Thus there has been nothing but artifice in the management of this affair; for which reason I beg pardon of the town, that I inserted the inventory in my paper and solemnly protest, I knew nothing of this artful design of vending these rarities: but I meant only the good of the world in that and all other things which I divulge. And now I am upon this subject, I must do myself justice in relation to an article in a former paper, wherein I made mention of a person who keeps a puppet-show in the town of Bath;[430] I was tender of naming names, and only just hinted, that he makes larger promises, when he invites people to his dramatic representations, than he is able to perform: but I am credibly informed, that he makes a profane lewd jester, which he calls Punch, speak to the dishonour of Isaac Bickerstaff with great familiarity; and before all my learned friends in that place, takes upon him to dispute my title to the appellation of Esquire. I think I need not say much to convince all the world, that this Mr. Powell (for that is his name) is a pragmatical and vain person to pretend to argue with me on any subject. Mecum certasse feretur [431]; that is to say, it will be an honour to him to have it said he contended with me; but I would have him to know, that I can look beyond his wires, and know very well the whole trick of his art, and that it is only by these wires that the eye of the spectator is cheated, and hindered from seeing that there is a thread on one of Punch's chops, which draws it up, and lets it fall at the discretion of the said Powell, who stands behind and plays him, and makes him speak saucily of his betters. He! to pretend to make prologues against me! But a man never behaves himself with decency in his own case; therefore I shall command myself, and never trouble me further with this little fellow, who is himself but a tall puppet, and has not brains enough to make even wood speak as it ought to do: and I, that have heard the groaning board,[432] can despise all that his puppets shall be able to speak as long as they live. But, Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius [433]. He has pretended to write to me also from the Bath, and says, he thought to have deferred giving me an answer till he came to his books[434]; but that my writings might do well with the waters: which are pert expressions that become a schoolboy, better than one that is to teach others: and when I have said a civil thing to him, he cries, "Oh! I thank you for that--I am your humble servant for that."[435] Ah! Mr. Powell, these smart civilities will never run down men of learning: I know well enough your design is to have all men automata, like your puppets; but the world is grown too wise, and can look through these thin devices. I know you design to make a reply to this; but be sure you stick close to my words; for if you bring me into discourses concerning the government of your puppets, I must tell you, I neither am, nor have been, nor will be, at leisure to answer you. It is really a burning shame this man should be tolerated in abusing the world with such representations of things: but his parts decay, and he is not much more alive than Partridge.


From my own Apartment, July 14.

I must beg pardon of my readers that for this time I have, I fear, huddled up my discourse, having been very busy in helping an old friend of mine out of town. He has a very good estate, is a man of wit; but he had been three years absent from town, and cannot bear a jest; for which reason I have, with some pains, convinced him, that he can no more live here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so fond of dear London, that he began to fret only inwardly; but being unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the northern coach for him and his family; and hope he is got to-night safe from all sneerers in his own parlour.


St. James's Coffee-house, July 20.

This morning we received by express, the agreeable news of the surrender of the town of Tournay on the 28th instant, N.S. The place was assaulted at the attacks of General Schuylemburg, and that of General Lottum, at the same time. The action at both those parts of the town was very obstinate, and the Allies lost a considerable number at the beginning of the dispute; but the fight was continued with so great bravery, that the enemy observing that we were masters of all the posts which were necessary for a general attack, beat the chamade,[436] and hostages were received from the town, and others sent from the besiegers, in order to come to a formal capitulation for the surrender of the place. We have also this day received advice, that Sir John Leake, who lies off of Dunkirk, had intercepted several ships laden with corn from the Baltic; and that the Dutch privateers had fallen in with others, and carried them into Holland. The French letters advise, that the young son to the Duke of Anjou lived but eight days.


[Footnote 424: Dr. John Radcliffe, the physician (1650-1714), was disappointed in love when about sixty. The matter is referred to again in Nos. 46, 47, 50 and 67. Radcliffe became rich, but was considered to be a quack by many other doctors. "The last Tatler is upon Dr. Ratclif who they say is desparately in love with Dutchess of Bolton, his passion runs so high as to declare he'll make her eldest son his heir, upon wch account they say the Duke of B---- is not at all alarm'd, but gives the Old amorist opportunity to make his Court, the Dr. lately gave the Dutchess and some other Ladys an entertainm' of musick upon the water, and a fine supper in the Barge" ("Wentworth Papers," p. 97). This identification of Hebe with the Duchess of Bolton is corroborated by the MS. annotator mentioned in a note to No. 4. According to another account she was a Miss Tempest, a maid of honour to the Queen. The writer of the article on Radcliffe in the "Biog. Britannica" says: "The lady, who made the doctor, at this advanced age, stand in need of a physician himself, was of great beauty, wealth, and quality; and too attractive not to inspire the coldest heart with the warmest sentiments. After he had made a cure of her, he could not but imagine, as naturally he might, that her ladyship would entertain a favourable opinion of him. But the lady, however grateful she might be for the care he had taken of her health, divulged the secret, and one of her confidants revealed it to Steele, who, on account of party, was so ill-natured as to write the ridicule of it in the Tatler " Radcliffe never married.]

[Footnote 425: I have a pamphlet called "The Tatler's Character (July 21) of Æsculapius guessing diseases, without the knowledge of drugs; applied to the British Physicians and Surgeons: or, The difficult diseases of the Royal Family, Nobility and Gentry will never be understood and recover'd, when the populace are oppress'd and destroy'd by the Practising-Apothecaries and Empiricks confess'd by the College and Mr. Bernard the Surgeon. By a Consultation of Gentlemen of Quality." London, 8vo, 1709. The pamphlet contains some interesting remarks on the physicians, apothecaries and hospitals of the time. Mr. Bickerstaff is called "the most ingenious physician of our vices and follies."]

[Footnote 426: See No. 42.]

[Footnote 427: A friend of Nichols said, "I have seen somewhere, but cannot immediately refer to the book, an account of a theatre built at Southwick, in the county of Hants, by a Mr. Richard Norton, whose will is in the Gentleman's Magazine , 1733, p. 57. He is the person, I believe, who wrote a play called 'Pausanias' (1696). Cibber dedicated his first play to him." The MS. annotator mentioned in No. 4 also identifies the gentleman of Hampshire with "Mr. N----n."]

[Footnote 428: An auctioneer.]

[Footnote 429: Christopher Rich, the manager.]

[Footnote 430: Under the name of Powell, the puppet-show man, Steele attacked Dr. Blackall, Bishop of Exeter (see No. 37), who was engaged in a controversy with Benjamin Hoadly. In March 1709, Blackall preached before the Queen a sermon laying down the doctrine of passive obedience in its most extreme form, but in 1704 he had preached obedience limited by the laws of the State. Hoadly wrote against the sermon of 1709, and brought against the Bishop the sermon of 1704. The Bishop, angry at this mode of refutation, answered haughtily, and dwelt on the superiority of his rank as compared with that of Hoadly, then simply rector of a London parish. Bickerstaff here reproaches Blackall for the pride and rudeness of his answer, and then, under the guise of Powell, proprietor of the puppet-show, satirises the extreme doctrine of divine right taught by the Bishop, a doctrine which would make the subjects mere automata, to be moved only at the will of the prince.]

[Footnote 431: Ovid, "Met." xiii. 20.]

[Footnote 432: The following printed advertisement appeared in 1682: "At the sign of the wool-sack, in Newgate-market, is to be seen, a strange and wonderful thing, which is an elm-board, being touched with a hot iron, doth express itself, as if it were a man dying with groans, and trembling, to the great admiration of all the hearers. It hath been presented before the King and his nobles, and hath given great satisfaction. Vivat Rex ."--(MSS. Sloan. 958.)]

[Footnote 433: "Ne e quovis ligno Mercurius fiat" is one of the proverbs in the "Adagia" of Erasmus. But its history, as originally from the Greek, is thus given in a note of Andr. Schottus, quoted by Gaisford in his "Parcemiographia Græci," p. 39, Ox. 1836:--"Illiud adagium ὀυκ ἐκ παντὸς ξύλου Ἕρμης ἂν γένοιτο [ouk ek pantòs zýlon Hermês àn génoito], quod a Pythagora primum profectum auctor est Apuleius 'Apol.'" [t. ii. p. 499] (Ed. Marshall, "Notes and Queries," March 26, 1887). See Apuleius, "Apologia," 476: "Non enim ex omni ligno, ut Pythagoras dicebat, debet Mercurius exsculpi."]

[Footnote 434: In the Bishop's answer to Hoadly's letter, 1709, there is this passage: "I have no books here; and being under these circumstances, I hope I may be excused, if, in citing Scripture, I should not always name chapter and verse, nor hit exactly upon the very words of the translation" (Lord Bishop of Exeter's Answer, &c., pp. 2 and 3).--"As to the Tatlers relating to Powell's puppets, and the doctrines of passive obedience and absolute non-resistance, and to Bishop Blackall, I know it gave my father some uneasiness, that there is a reference to a fact, which, as he resolved himself never to take notice of, thinking it ungenerous, so he was sorry to see any friend of the cause had; which is, that the Bishop had said inadvertently, he was at Bath, and had not a Bible in his family. It is worth remarking, that all the arguments used by Powell about his power