網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

ments and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of li which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not somet of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lam that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuo view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour express but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was no for it. A strict honesty, and an even regular behaviour, are themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, endeavour at the same end with himself, the favor of a comman He will, however, in his way of talk, excuse generals for not posing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it: for, s he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: the fore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, pecially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, a assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a ci cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expe as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is yo duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of hims and others. The same frankness runs through all his conver tion. The military part of his life has furnished him with ma adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to t company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to co mand men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obs quious, from a habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humourists u acquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we hav among us the gallant Will. Honeycomb,' a gentleman who, a

1 Col. Cleland of the Life Guards has been named as the real perso

cording to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by such a sort of. petticoat, and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year: in a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the house, he starts up, "He has good blood in his veins : Tom Mirabel begot him: the rogue cheated me in that affair: that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who

here described: but, as in the former instances, the supposition is ill supported.

is usually called a well-bred fine gentleman. To conclud character, where women are not concerned, he is an h worthy man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but sel but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoymen himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of ge learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact breed He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as pr ments in his function would oblige him to: he is there among divines, what a chamber-counsellor is among lawy The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. introduces the subject he speaks upon but we are so far :

He sel

in years, that he observes when he is among us, an earnest to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always tr with much authority, as one who has no interests in this wo as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and ceives hope from his, decays and infirmities. These are ordinary companions."—(STEELE.)

a

[ocr errors]

Though this paper, in former editions, is not marked with any le of the word CLIO, by which Mr. Addison distinguished his performan it was thought necessary to insert it, as containing characters of the sev persons mentioned in the whole course of this work.-T.

(The characters were concerted with Mr. Addison; and the draught them, in this paper, I suppose touched by him)—H.

A supposition altogether gratuitous, or rather founded upon the comm tator's unjustifiable dislike of Steele.-G.

NO. 3. SATURDAY, MARCH 3.

Quoi quisque fere studio devinctus adhæret:
Aut Quibus in rebus multùm sumus ante morati :
Atque in quâ ratione fuit contenta magis mens;
In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire.

LUCR. L. 4. 959.

-What studies please, what most delight,
And fill men's thoughts, they dream them o'er at night.

CREECH.

In one of my late rambles, or rather speculations, I looked into the great hall where the Bank is kept, and was not a little pleased to see the directors, secretaries, and clerks, with all the other members of that wealthy corporation, ranged in their several stations, according to the parts they act in that just and regular æconomy. This revived in my memory the many discourses which I had both read and heard concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which, in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interests, and party principles.

The thoughts of the day gave my mind employment for the whole night, so that I fell insensibly into a kind of methodical dream, which disposed all my contemplations into a vision or allegory, or what else the reader shall please to call it.

Methoughts I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before, but, to my surprise, instead of the company that I left there, I saw towards the upper end of the hall a

beautiful virgin, seated on a throne of gold.

Her name (as they

told me) was Public Credit. The walls, instead of being adorned with pictures and maps, were

Parliament written in golden letters.

hung with many Acts of

At the upper end of the

• Methoughts. Rather Methought, for Methinks (though the composition seems strange) is a verb, of which methought is the preterperfect.-H.

hall was the Magna Charta, with the Act of Uniformity o right hand, and the Act of Toleration on the left. At the end of the hall was the Act of Settlement, which was placed in the eye of the virgin that sat upon the throne. Bot sides of the hall were covered with such Acts of Parliamen had been made for the establishment of public funds. The seemed to set an unspeakable value upon these several piece furniture, insomuch that she often refreshed her eye with t and often smiled with a secret pleasure, as she looked them; but, at the same time, shewed a very particular un ness, if she saw any thing approaching that might hurt t She appeared, indeed, infinitely timorous in all her behavi and, whether it was from the delicacy of her constitution that she was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told one who I found was none of her well-wishers, she chan colour, and startled at every thing she heard. She was like (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I ever met with, even in her own sex, and subject to such mon tary consumptions, that, in the twinkling of an eye, she wo fall away from the most florid complexion, and the most hea ful state of body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recove were often as sudden as her decays, insomuch that she wo revive in a moment out of a wasting distemper, into a habit the highest health and vigour.

I had very soon an opportunity of observing these quick tu and changes in her constitution. There sate at her feet a cou of secretaries, who received every hour letters from all parts the world, which the one or the other of them was perpetua reading to her; and, according to the news she heard, to wh

[ocr errors]

Any thing. It should be something.-H.

This note of Hurd applies to the reading of Tickell's edition as if she s which has been corrected by Chalmers and other editors.-G.

« 上一頁繼續 »