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THE WORKS

OF

JOSEPH ADDISON.

COMPLETE

IN THREE VOLUMES.

EMBRACING

THE WHOLE OF THE "SPECTATOR," & c.

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LIBRARY OF THE

Union Theologal Seminary

NEW YORK CITY

PRESENTED BY

Samuel Macauley Jackson

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THE TATLER.

1837

(3)

No. 20.] Thursday, May 26, 1709. THOUGH the theatre is now breaking, it

is allowed still to sell animals there; therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Pinkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate. The downfall of May-Fair has quite sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other curiosities of nature. A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox: and I am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs for very near the value of one with four. I hear likewise, that there is a great desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of them pressed, and the queens beating hemp. Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for her ingenious Puppet-show, has set up a shop in the Exchange, where she sells her little troop, under the term of Jointed Babies. I could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that rakehell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She told me, with a sigh, that, despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting, with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as sentry to a brandy-shop. The great revolutions of this nature, bring to my mind the distresses of the unfortunate Camilla, who has had the ill luck to break before her voice, and to disappear at a time when her beauty was at the height of its bloom. This lady entered so thoroughly into the great characters she acted, that when she had finished her part, she could not think of retrenching her equipage, but would appear in her own lodgings with the same magnificence that she did upon the stage. This greatness of soul has reduced that unhappy princess to an involuntary retirement, where she now passes her time among the woods and forests, thinking on the crowns and sceptres she has lost, and often humming over in her solitude,

I was born of royal race,
Yet must wander in disgrace, &c,

But for fear of being over-heard, and her

quality known, she usually sings it in Italian.

Naqui al Regno, naqui al Trono
Et per sono

Inventurata Pastorella

Since I have touched upon this subject, I shall communicate to my reader part of a letter I have received from a friend at Amsterdam, where there is a very noble theatre; though the manner of furnishing it with actors is something peculiar to that place, and gives us occasion to admire both the politeness and frugality of the people.

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My friends have kept me here a week longer than ordinary, to see one of their plays, which was performed last night with great applause. The actors are all of them tradesmen, who, after their day's work is over, earn about a guilder a night by personating kings and generals. The hero of the tragedy I saw, was a journeyman_tailor, and his first minister of state a coffeeman. The empress made me think of Parthenope in the Rehearsal; for her mother keeps an ale-house in the suburbs of Amsterdam. When the tragedy was over, they entertained us with a short farce, in which the cobbler did his part to a miracle; but, upon inquiry, I found he had really been working at his own trade, and representing on the stage what he acted every day in his shop. The profits of the theatre maintain an hospital: For as here they do not think the profession of an actor the only trade that a man ought to exercise, so they will not allow any body to grow rich on a profession that in their opinion so little conduces to the good of the commonwealth. If I am not mistaken, your playhouses in England have done the same thing; for, unless I am misinformed, the hospital at Dulledge was erected and endowed by Mr. Allen, a player: and it is also said, a famous she-tragedian has settled her estate, after her death, for the maintenance of decayed wits, who are to be taken in as soon as they grow dull, at whatever time of their life that shall happen.'

No. 42.] Saturday, July 16, 1709.

-Celebrare Domestica Facta.

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THIS is to give notice, that a magnificenpalace, with great variety of gardens, stat

tues, and water-works, may be bought cheap in Drury-Lane; where there are likewise several castles to be disposed of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, fountains, and country seats, with very pleasant prospects on all sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esq. who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six and ten in the evening.

The Inventory.

Spirits of right Nants brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions.

Three bottles and a half of lightning. One shower of snow, in the whitest French paper.

Two showers of a browner sort.

A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves, the tenth bigger than ordinary, and a little damaged.

A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well conditioned.

A rainbow, a little faded.

A set of clouds, after the French mode, streaked with lightning, and furbelowed. A new-moon, something decayed.

A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two hogsheads sent over last winter.

A coach, very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to be sold cheap.

A setting-sun, a penny-worth.

An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius Cæsar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signior Valentíni.

A basket-hilt sword, very convenient to carry milk in.

Roxana's night-gown.
Othello's handkerchief.

The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.

A wild boar, killed by Mrs. Tofts, and Dioclesian.

A serpent to sting Cleopatra.

A mustard-bowl, to make thunder with. Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. Dis's directions, little used.

Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots for their partners.

The whiskers of a Turkish Bassa.

The complexion of a murderer, in a bandbox; consisting of a large piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke.

A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz, a bloody shirt, a doublet curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the breast. A bale of red Spanish wool.

Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trap-doors, ladders of ropes, vizardmasques, and tables with broad carpets over them.

Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree: all bought for the use of Mr. Pinkethman. Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten rounds.

Aurengzebe's scimitar, made by Will. Brown in Piccadilly.

A plume of feathers, never used but by Edipus and the Earl of Essex.

There are also swords, halberts, sheephooks, cardinals' hats, turbans, drums, gallypots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cartwheel, an altar, a helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and a jointed baby.

These are the hard shifts we intelligencers are forced to; therefore our readers ough to excuse us, if a westerly wind, blowing for a fortnight together, generally fills every paper with an order of battle; when we show our martial skill in each line, and, according to the space we have to fill, we range our men in squadrons and battalions, to draw out company by company, and troop by troop; ever observing, that no muster is to be made, but when the wind is in a cross point, which often happens at the end of a campaign, when half the men are deserted or killed. The Courant is sometimes ten deep, his ranks close: the Post-boy is generally in files, for greater exactness; and the Post-man comes down upon you rather after the Turkish way, sword in hand, pell-mell, without form or discipline; but sure to bring men enough into the field; and wherever they are raised, never to lose a battle for want of numbers.

No. 75.] Saturday, October 1, 1709.

From my own Apartment, September 30.

I AM called off from public dissertations by a domestic affair of great importance, which is no less than the disposal of my sister Jenny for life. The girl is a girl of great merit, and pleasant conversation; but I being born of my father's first wife, and she of his third, she converses with me rather like a daughter than a sister. I have indeed told her, that if she kept her honour, and behaved herself in such a manner as became the Bickerstaffes, I would get her an agreeable man for her husband; which was a promise I made her after reading a passage in Pliny's Epistles. That polite author had been employed to find out a consort for his friend's daughter, and gives the following character of the man he had pitched upon.

Aciliano plurimum vigoris et industriæ quanquam in maxima verecundia: est illi facies liberalis, multo sanguine, multo rubore, suffusa: est ingenua totius corporis pulchritudo, et quidam senatorius decor, quæ ego nequaquam arbitror negligenda; debet enim hoc castitati puellarum quasi præmium dari.

"Acilianus is a man of extraordinary vigour and industry, accompanied with the greatest modesty. He has very much of the gentleman, with a lively colour, and flush of health in his aspect. His whole person is finely turned, and speaks him a man of quality which are qualifications, that, I think, ought by no means to be over

looked, and should be bestowed on a daugh- Jin our bones, insomuch that we did not reter as the reward of her chastity."

cover our health and legs, till Sir Walter Bickerstaffe married Maud the milkmaid, of whom the then Garter king at arms (a facetious person) said pleasantly enough, "That she had spoiled our blood, but mended our constitutions."

After this account of the effect our pruchoice of matches has had upon our persons and features, I cannot but observe, that there are daily instances of as great changes made by marriage upon mens' minds and humours. One might wear any passion out of a family by culture, as skilful gardeners blot a colour out of a tulip that hurts its beauty. One might produce an affable temper out of a shrew, by grafting the mild upon the choleric; or raise a jackpudding from a prude, by inoculating mirth and melancholy. It is for want of care in the dispo sing of our children, with regard to our bodies and minds, that we go into a house, and see such different complexions and humours in the same race and family. But to me it is as plain as a pike-staff, from what mixture it is, that this daughter silently lowers, the other steals a kind look at you, a third is exactly well behaved, a fourth a splenetic, and a fifth a coquette.

A woman that will give herself liberties, need not put her parents to so much trouble; for if she does not possess these ornaments in a husband, she can supply herself elsewhere. But this is not the case of my sister Jenny, who, I may say, without vanity, is as unspotted a spinster as any in Great Britain.dent I shall take this occasion to recommend the conduct of our own family in this particular. We have in the genealogy of our house, the descriptions and pictures of our ancestors from the time of King Arthur; in whose days there was one of my own name, a knight of his round table, and known by the name of Sir Isaac Bickerstaffe. He was low of stature, and of a very swarthy complexion, not unlike a Portuguese Jew. But he was more prudent than men of that height usually are, and would often communicate to his friends his design of lengthening and whitening his posterity. His eldest son Ralph (for that was his name) was, for this reason, married to a lady who had little else to recommend her, but that she was very tall and fair. The issue of this match, with the help of his shoes, made a tolerable figure in the next age; though the complexion of the family was obscure, until the fourth generation from that marriage. From which time, until the reign of William the Conqueror, the females of our house were famous for their needlework, and fine skins. In the male line there happened an unlucky accident, in the reign of Richard the Third, the eldest son of Philip, then chief of the family, being born with a hump-back, and very high nose. This was the more astonishing, because none of his forefathers ever had such a blemish; nor indeed was there any in the neighborhood of that make, except the butler, who was noted for round shoulders and a Roman nose: what made the nose the less excusable, was the remarkable smallness of his eyes.

These several defects were mended by succeeding matches; his eyes were opened in the next generation, and the hump fell in a century and a half; but the greatest difficulty was how to reduce the nose; which I do not find was accomplished till about the middle of Henry the Seventh's reign, or rather the beginning of that of Henry the Eighth.

But while our ancestors were thus taken up in cultivating the eyes and nose, the face of the Bickerstaffe's fell down insensibly into chin; which was not taken notice of (their thoughts being so much employed upon the more noble features) till it became almost too long to be remedied.

In this disposal of my sister, I have chosen, with an eye to her being a wit, and provided, that the bridegroom be a man of a sound and excellent judgment, who will seldom mind what she says when she begins to harangue: for Jenny's only imperfection is an admiration of her parts, which inclines her to be a little, but a very little, sluttish; and you are ever to remark, that we are apt to cultivate most, and bring into observation, what we think most excellent in ourselves, or most capable of improvement. Thus my sister, instead of consulting her glass and her toilet for an hour and an half after her private devotion, sits with her nose full of snuff, and a man's nightcap on her head, reading plays and romances. wit she thinks her distinction; therefore knows nothing of the skill of dress, or making her person agreeable. It would make you laugh, to see me often with my spectacles on lacing her stays; for she is so very a wit, that she understands no ordinary thing

in the world.

Her

For this reason I have disposed of her to a man of business, who will soon let her see, that to be well dressed, in good humour, and cheerful in the command of her family, are the arts and sciences of female life. I could have bestowed her upon a fine gentleman, who extremely admired her wit, and would But length of time, and successive care in have given her a coach and six: but I found our alliances, have cured this also, and re-it absolutely necessary to cross the strain; duced our faces into that tolerable oval which we enjoy at present. I would not be tedious in this discourse, but cannot but observe, that our race suffered very much about three hundred years ago, by the marriage of one of her heiresses with an eminent courtier, who gave us spindle-shanks, and cramps

for had they met, they had eternally been rivals in discourse, and in continual contention for the superiority of understanding, and brought forth critics, pedants, or pretty good poets.

As it is, I expect an offspring fit for the habitation of city, town, or country; crea

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