read no others, I happen to meet with what I cannot understand. When this falls out, it is a great grievance to me that I am not able to consult the author himself about his meaning, for commentators are a sect that has little share in my esteem: your elaborate writings have, among many others, this advantage, that their author is still alive, and ready, as his extensive charity makes us expect, to explain whatever may be found in them too sublime for vulgar understandings. This, Sir, makes me presume to ask you, how the Hampstead hero's character could be perfectly new when the last letters came away, and yet sir John Suckling 3 so well acquainted with it sixty years ago? I hope, Sir, you will not take this amiss: I can assure you, I have a profound respect for you, which makes me write this, with the same disposition with which Longinus bids us read Homer and Plato. "When, in reading," says he, 66 any of those celebrated authors, we meet with a passage to which we cannot well reconcile our reasons, we ought firmly to believe, that were those great wits present to answer for themselves, we should to our wonder be convinced, that we only are guilty of the mistakes we before attributed to them." you think fit to remove the scruple that now torments me, it will be an encouragement to me to settle a frequent correspondence with you; several things falling in my way which would not, perhaps, be altogether foreign to your purpose, and whereon your thoughts would be very acceptable to your most humble servant, If 3 See N° 57. 4 This letter by Swift. I own this is clean, and Mr. Green hat has convinced me that I have writ nonsense; yet am I not at all offended at him. Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.' HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 11. I own th' indulgence-Such I give and take.' FRANCIS. This is the true art of raillery, when a man turns another into ridicule, and shews at the same time he is in good humour, and not urged on by malice against the person he rallies. Obadiah Greenhat has hit this very well: for to make an apology to Isaac Bickerstaff, an unknown student and horary historian, as well as astrologer, and with a grave face to say, he speaks of him by the same rules with which he would treat Homer or Plato, is to place him in company where he cannot expect to make a figure; and makes him flatter himself, that it is only being named with them which renders him most ridiculous. I have not known, and I am now past my grand climacteric, being sixty-four years of age, according to my way of life; or rather if you will allow punning in an old gentleman, according to my way of pastime I say, as old as I am, I have not been acquainted with many of the Green hats. There is indeed one Zedekiah Greenhat 3, who is lucky also in his way. He has a very agreeable manner; for when he has a mind thoroughly to correct a man, he never takes from him any thing, but he allows him something for it; or else he blames him for things 5 Perhaps an allusion to Addison. wherein he is not defective, as well as for matters wherein he is. This makes a weak man believe he is in jest in the whole. The other day he told beau Prim, who is thought impotent, that his mistress had declared she would not have him, because he was a sloven, and had committed a rape. The beau bit at the banter, and said very gravely, he thought to be clean was as much as was necessary; and that as to the rape, he wondered by what witchcraft that should come to her ears; but it had indeed cost him an hundred pounds to hush the affair. The Greenhats are a family with small voices and short arms, therefore they have power with none but their friends: they never call after those who run away from them, or pretend to take hold of you if you resist. But it has been remarkable, that all who have shunned their company, or not listened to them, have fallen into the hands of such as have knocked out their brains, or broken their bones. I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry the Second. And it is remarkable, that they are all lefthanded, and have always been very expert at single rapier. A man must be very much used to their play to know how to defend himself; for their posture is so different from that of the right-handed, that you run upon their swords if you push forward; and they are in with you, if you offer to fall back without keeping your guard ❝. There have been also letters lately sent to me which relate to other people: among the rest, some See N° 32, and 63. whom I have heretofore declared to be so, are deceased. I must not therefore break through rules so far, as to speak ill of the dead. This maxim extends to all but the late Partridge 7, who still denies his death. I am informed indeed by several, that he walks; but I shall with all convenient speed lay him. STEELE AND SWIFT. N° 60. SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whatever ill- White's Chocolate-house, August 26. To proceed regularly in the history of my worthies, I ought to give an account of what has passed from day to day in this place; but a young fellow of my acquaintance has so lately been rescued out of the hands of the knights of the industry,' that I rather chuse to relate. the manner of his escape from them, and the uncommon way which was used to reclaim him, than to go on in my intended diary. You are to know then, that Tom Wildair is a student of the Inner Temple, and has spent his time since he left the university for that place, in the common diversions of men of fashion; that is to say, in whoring, drinking, and gaming. The two former vices he 7 See N° 55. had from his father; but was led into the last by the conversation of a partizan of the myrmidons' who had chambers near him. His allowance from his father was a very plentiful one for a man of sense, but as scanty for a modern fine gentleman. His frequent losses had reduced him to so necessitous a condition, that his lodgings were always haunted by impatient creditors; and all his thoughts employed in contriving low methods to support himself in a way of life from which he knew not how to retreat, and in which he wanted means to proceed. There is never wanting some good-natured person to send a man an account of what he has no mind to hear; therefore many epistles were conveyed to the father of this extravagant, to inform him of the company, the pleasures, the distresses, and entertainments, in which his son passed his time. The old fellow received these advices with all the pain of a parent, but frequently consulted his pillow, to know how to behave himself on such important occasions, as the welfare of his son, and the safety of his fortune. After many agitations of mind, he reflected that necessity was the usual snare which made men fall into meanness, and that a liberal fortune generally made a liberal and honest mind; he resolved therefore to save him from his ruin, by giving him opportunities of tasting what it is to be at ease, and inclosed to him the following order upon Sir Tristram Cash2, SIR, PRAY pay to Mr. Thomas Wildair, or order, the sum of one thousand pounds, and place it to the account of Yours, HUMPHREY WILDAIR.' |