consider the soul of man as the ruin of a glorious pile of building; where, amidst great heaps of rubbish, you meet with noble fragments of sculpture, broken pillars and obelisks, and a magnificence in confusion. Virtue and wisdom are continually employed in clearing the ruins, removing these disorderly heaps, recovering the noble pieces that lie buried under them, and adjusting them as well as possible according to their ancient symmetry and beauty. A happy education, conversation with the finest spirits, looking abroad into the works of nature, and observations upon mankind, are the great assistances to this necessary and glorious work. But even among those who have never had the happiness of any of these advanvantages, there are sometimes such exertions of the greatness that is natural to the mind of man, as show capacities and abilities, which only want these accidental helps to fetch them out, and show them in a proper light. A plebeian soul is still the ruin of this glorious edifice, though encumbered with all its rubbish. This reflection rose in me from a letter which my servant dropped as he was dressing me, and which he told me was communicated to him, as he is an acquaintance of some of the persons mentioned in it. The epistle is from one serjeant Hall of the foot-guards. It is directed: 'To serjeant Cabe, in the Coldstream regiment of foot-guards, at the Red-lettice, in the Butcher-row, near Temple-bar.' I was so pleased with several touches in it, that I could not forbear showing it to a cluster of critics, who, instead of considering it in the light I have done, examined it by the rules of epistolary writing. For as these gentlemen are-seldom men of any great genius, they work altogether by mechanical rules, and are able to discover no beauties that are not pointed out by Bouhours and Rapin. The letter is as follows: 'COMRADE, He was knowing you have a better in the prints. Pray, give my service to Mrs. Cook and her daughter, to Mr. Stoffet and his wife, and to Mr. Lyver, and Thomas Hogsdon, and to Mr. Ragdell, and to all my friends and acquaintance in general who do ask after me. My love to Mrs. Stevenson. I am sorry for the sending such ill Her husband was gathering a little money together to send to his wife, and put it into my hands. I have seven shillings and three pence, which I shall take care to send Wishing your wife a safe delivery, and both of you all happiness, rest news. her. Your assured friend, and comrade, We had but an indifferent breakfast; but the mounseers never had such a dinner in all their lives. 'My kind love to my comrade Hinton, and Mrs. Morgan, and to John Brown and his wife. I sent two shillings, and Stevenson sixpence, to drink with you at Mr. Cook's; but I have heard nothing from him. It was by Mr. Edgar. Corporal Hartwell desires to be remembered to you, and desires you to enquire of Edgar, what is become of his wife Pegg; and when you write, to send word in your letter what trade she drives. 6 'We have here very bad weather, which I doubt will be a hinderance to the siege; but I am in hopes we shall be masters of the town in a little time, and then, I believe, we shall go to garrison.' I saw the critics prepared to nibble at my letter; therefore examined it myself, partly in their way, and partly my own. This is, said I, truly a letter, and an honest representation of that cheerful heart which accompanies the poor soldier in his warfare. Is not there in this all the topic of submitting to our destiny as well discussed as if a greater man had been placed, like Brutus, in his tent at midnight, reflecting on all the occurrences of past life, and saying fine things on Being itself? What serjeant Hall knows of the matter is, that he wishes there had not been so many killed; and he had himself a very bad shot in the head, and should recover if it pleased God. But be that as it will, he takes care, like a man of honour as he certainly is, to let the widow Stevenson know, that he had seven and threepence for her, and that, if he lives, he is sure he shall go into garrison at last. I doubt not but all the good company at the Red lettice drank his From the camp before Mons, September 26. 'I received yours, and am glad yourself and your wife are in good health, with all the rest of my friends. Our battalion suffered more than I could wish in the action. But who can withstand fate? Poor Richard Stevenson had his fate with a great many more. killed dead before we entered the trenches. We had above two hundred of our battalion killed and wounded. We lost ten serjeants, six are as followeth: Jennings, Castles, Roach, Sherring, Meyrick, and my son Smith. The rest are not your acquaintance. I have re-health with as much real esteem as we do of ceived a very bad shot in my head myself, but am in hopes, and please God, I shall recover. I continue in the field, and lie at my colonel's quarters. Arthur is very well; but I can give you no account of Elms; he was in the hospital before I came into the field. I will not pretend to give you an account of the battle, any of our friends. All that I am concerned for is, that Mrs. Peggy Hartwell may be offended at showing this letter, because her conduct in Mr. Hartwell's absence is a little enquired into. But I could not sink that circumstance, because you critics would have lost one of the parts which I doubt not but you have much to say upon, whether the familiar way is well hit in this style or not? As for myself, I take a very particular satisfaction in seeing any letter that is fit only for those to read who are conrerned in it, but especially on such a subject. the theatre, a great stone, on which were engraven the names of all who fell in the battle of Marathon. The generous and knowing people of Athens understood the force of the desire of glory, and would not let the meanest soldier perish in oblivion. Were the natural impulse of the British nation animated with such monuments, what man would be so mean, as not to hazard his life for his ten hundred thousandth part of the honour in such a day as that of Blenheim or Blaregnies? No. 88.] Tuesday, November 1, 1709. White's Chocolate-house, October 31. If we consider the heap of an army, utterly out of all prospect of rising and preferment, as they certainly are, and such great things executed by them, it is hard to account for the motive of their gallantry. But to me, who was a cadet at the battle of Coldstream in Scotland, when Monk charged at the head of the regiment, now called Coldstream, from the victory of that day; I remember it as well as if it were yesterday, I stood on the left of old West, who I believe is now at Chelsea; I say, to me, who know very well this part of mankind, I take the gallantry of private soldiers to proceed from the same, if not from a nobler impulse than that of gentlemen and officers. They have the same taste of being acceptable to their friends, and go through the difficulties of that profession by the same irresistible charm of fellowship, and the communication of joys and sorrows, which quickens the relish of pleasure, and abates the anguish of pain. Add to this, that they have the same regard to fame, though they do not expect so great a share as men above them hope for; but I will engage serjeant Hall would die ten thousand deaths, rather than a word should be spoken at the Red-lettice, or any part of the Butcher-nary circulation does not reach that city within tow, in prejudice to his courage or honesty. If you will have my opinion, then, of the serjeant's letter, I pronounce the style to be mixed, but truly epistolary; the sentiment relating to his own wound is in the sublime; the postscript of Pegg Hartwell, in the gay; and the whole, the picture of the bravest sort of men, that is to say, a man of great courage and small hopes. I HAVE lately received a letter from a friend in the country, wherein he acquaints me, 'that two or three men of the town are got among them, and have brought down particular words and phrases, which were never before in those parts.' He mentions in particular the words Gunner and Gunster, which my correspondent observes, they make use of, when any thing has been related that is strange and surprising; and, therefore, desires I would explain those terms, as I have many others, for the information of such as live at a distance from this town and court, which he calls the great mints of language. His letter is dated from York: and, if he tells me truth, a word in its ordi the space of five years after it is first stamped. I cannot say how long these words have been current in town, but I shall now take care to send them down by the next post. I must, in the first place, observe, that the words Gunner and Gunster* are not to be useà promiscuously; for a Gunner, properly speaking, is not a Gunster; nor is a Gunster, vice versa, a Gunner. They both, indeed, are derived from the word gun, and so far they agree. But as a gun is remarkable for its destroying at a distance, or for the report it makes, which is apt to startle all its bearers, those who recount strange accidents and circumstances, which have no manner of foundation in truth, when they desigu to do mischief are comprehended under the appellation of Gunners; but when they endeavour only to surprise and entertain, they are distinguised by the name of Gunsters. Gunners, therefore, are the pest of society, but the Gunsters often the diversion. The Gunner is destructive, and hated; the Gunster innocent, and laughed at. The first is prejudicial to others, the other only to himself From my own Apartment, October 28. When I came home this evening, I found, after many attempts to vary my thoughts, that my head still ran upon the subject of the discourse to-night at Will's. I fell, therefore, into the amusement of proportioning the glory of a battle among the whole army, and dividing it into shares, according to the method of the million lottery. In this bank of fame, by an exact calculation, and the rules of political arithmetic, I have allotted ten hundred thousand shares; five hundred thousand of which is the due of the general, two hundred thousand I assign to the general officers, and two hundred thousand more to all the commissioned officers, from colonels to ensigns; the remaining hundred thousand must be distributed among the non-commissioned officers and private men according to which computation, I find serjeant Hall is to have one share and a fraction of two fifths. When I was a boy ating Oxford, there was, among the antiquities near This being premised, I must, in the next place, subdivide the Gunner into severa A writer in the Examiner, having, about three years after this, used the expression of Gunsters, adds the follow marginal note, A whiggish cant word for liars. branches: all, or the chief of which are, I is more destructive in all parts of life, than any think, as follows: of the materials made use of by any of the fraternity. First, the Bombadier. Secondly, the Miner. Thirdly, the Squib. Fourthly, the Serpent. And, First, of the first. The Bombadier tosses his balls sometimes into the midst of a city, with a design to fill all around him with terror and combustion. He has been some times known to drop a bomb in a senate-house, and to scatter a panic over a nation. But his chief aim is at several eminent stations, which he looks upon as the fairest marks, and uses all his skill to do execution upon those who possess them. Every man so situated, let his merit be never so great, is sure to undergo a bombardment. It is further observed, that the only way to be out of danger from the bursting of a bomb, is to lie prostrate on the ground; a posture too abject for generous spirits. Secondly, The Miner. As the bombadier levels his mischief at nations and cities, the Miner busies himself in ruining and overturning private houses and particular persons. He often acts as a spy, in discovering the secret avenues and unguarded accesses of families, where, after he has made his proper discoveries and dispositions, he sets sudden fire to his train, that blows up families, scatters friends, separates lovers, disperses kindred, and shakes a whole neighbourhood. It is to be noted, that several females are great proficients in this way of engineering. The marks by which they are to be known are a wonderful solicitude for the reputation of their friends, and a more than ordinary concern for the good of their neighbours. There is also in them something so very like religion, as may deceive the vulgar; but if you look upon it more nearly, you see on it such a cast of censoriousness, as discovers it to be nothing but hypocrisy. Cleomilla is a great instance of a female Miner: but, as my design is to expose only the incorrigible, let her be silent for the future, and I shall be so too. Come we now to the Gunsters. This race of engineers deals altogether in wind-guns, which, by recoiling, often knock down those who discharge them, without hurting any body else; and, according to the various compressions of the air, make such strange squeaks, cracks, pops, and bounces, as it is impossible to hear without laughing. It is observable, however, that there is a disposition in a Gunster to become a Gunner; and though their proper instruments are only loaden with wind, they often, out of wantonness, fire a bomb, or spring a mine, out of their natural inclination to engineering; by which means, they do mischief when they do not design it, and have their bones broken when they do not deserve it. This sort of engineers are the most unaccountable race of men in the world. Some of them have received above a hundred wounds, and yet have not a scar in their bodies; some have debauched multitudes of women, who have died maids. You may be with them from morning until night, and the next day they shall tell you a thousand adventures that happened when you were with them, which you know nothing of. They have a quality of having been present at every thing they hear related; and never heard a man commended, who was not their intimate acquaintance, if not their kinsman. I hope these notes may serve as a rough draught for a new establishment of engineers, which I shall hereafter fill up with proper persons, according to my own observations on their conduct, having already had one recom mended to me for the general of my artillery. But that, and all the other posts, I intend to keep open, until I can inform myself of the can didates having resolved in this case to depend no more upon their friends' word, than I would upon their own. From my own Apartment, October 31. *I was this morning awakened by a sudden shake of the house; and as soon as I had got a little out of my consternation, I felt another, which was followed by two or three repetitions of the same convulsion. I got up as fast as possible, girt on my rapier, and snatched up my hat, when my landlady came up to me, and told me, that the gentlewoman of the next house begged me to step thither, for that a lodger she had taken in was run mad; and she desired my advice,' as indeed every body in the whole lane does upon important occasions. I am not, like some artists, saucy because I can be beneficial, but went immediately. Our The remainder of this paper was written by Addison 6 neighbour told us, she had the day before let her second floor to a very genteel youngish man, who told her, he kept extraordinary good hours, and was generally at home most part of the morning and evening at study; but that this morning he had for an hour together made this extravagant noise which we then heard.' I went up stairs with my hand upon the hilt of my rapier, and approached this new lodger's door. I looked in at the key-hole, and there I saw a well-made man look with great attention on a book, and, on a sudden, jump into the air so high, that his head almost touched the ceiling. He came down safe on his right foot, and again flew up, alighting on his left; then looked again at his book, and, holding out his right leg, put it into such a quivering motion, that I thought he would have shaked it off. He used the left after the same manner, when, on a sudden, to my great surprise, he stooped himself incredibly low, and turned gently on his toes. After this circular motion, he continued bent in that hunible posture for some time, looking on his book. After this, he recovered himself with a sudden spring, and flew round the room in all the violence and disorder imaginable, until he made a full pause for want of breath. In this interim my woman asked, what I thought.' I whispered, that I thought this learned person an enthusiast, who possibly had his first education in the Peripatetic way, which was a sect of philosophers who always studied when walking.' But, observing him much out of breath, I thought it the best time to master him if he were disordered, and knocked at his door. I was surprised to find him open it, and say with great civility and good mein, 'that he hoped he had not disturbed us.' I believed him in a lucid interval, and desired he would please to let me see his book." He did so, smiling. I could not make any thing of it, and, therefore, asked in what language it was writ.' He said, it was one he studied with great application; but it was his profession to teach it, and could not communicate his knowledge without a consideration.' I answered that I hoped he would hereafter keep his thoughts to himself, for his meditation this morning had cost me three coffee-dishes, and a clean pipe.' He seemed concerned at that, and told me he was a dancing-master, and had been reading a dance or two before he went out, which had been written by one who taught at an academy in France.'* He observed me at a stand, and went on to inform me, that now articulate motions, as well as sounds, were expressed by proper characters; and that there is nothing so common, Thoinet Arbean, a dancing-master at Paris, is here Justly celebrated, as the real inventor of the art of writing dances in characters, termed orchesography, from two Greek words, of, a dance, and ypxpw, I write, as to communicate a dance by a letter.' I besought him hereafter to meditate in a groundroom, for that otherwise it would be impossible for an artist of any other kind to live near him; and that I was sure several of his thoughts this morning would have shaken my spectacles off my nose, had I been myself at study. I then took my leave of this virtuoso, and returned to my chamber, meditating on the various occupations of rational creatures. "That the country is barren of news has been the excuse, time out of mind, for dropping a correspondence with our friends in London; as if it were impossible, out of a coffee-house, to write an agreeable letter. I am too ingenuous to endeavour at the covering of my negligence with so common an excuse. Doubtless, amongst friends, bred, as we have been, to the knowledge of books as well as men, a letter dated from a garden, a grotto, a fountain, a wood, a meadow, or the banks of a river, may be more entertaining than one from Tom's, Will's, White's, or St. James's. I promise, therefore, to be frequent for the future in my rural dates to you. But, for fear you should, from what I have said, be induced to believe I shun the commerce of men, I must inform you, that there is a fresh topic of discourse lately arisen amongst the ingenious in our part of the world, and is become the more fashionable for the ladies giving into it. This we owe to Isaac Bickerstaff, who is very much censured by some, and as much justified by others. Some criticise his style, his humour, and his matter; others admire the whole man. Some pretend, from the informations of their friends in town, to decypher the author; and others confess they are lost in their guesses. For my part, I must own myself a professed admirer of the paper, and desire you to send me a complete set, together with As soon as she was gone, my maid brought up the following epistle, which, by the style, and the description she gave of the person, I suppose was left by Nick Doubt. 'Hark you,' said he, girl, tell old Basket-hilt I would have him answer it by the first opportunity.' What be says is this. There goes just such another story of the same paternal tenderness in Bavius, an ingenious contemporary of mine, who had writ several comedies, which were rejected by the players. This, my friend Bavius took for envy, and therefore prevailed upon a gentleman to a new play of his, desiring he would personate the author, and read it, to baffle the spite of the actors. The friend consented, and to reading they went. They had not gone over three at her lover, with a parcel of romps of her acquaintance. One of them, who I suppose had the same design upon me, told me she said, 'Do you see how briskly my old gentleman mounts?' This made me cut off my amour, and to reflect with myself, that no married life could be so unhappy, as where the wife proposes no other ad-go with him to the play-house, and gave him vantage from her husband, than that of making herself fine, and keeping her out of the dirt.' My fair client burst out a-laughing at the account I gave her of my escape, and went away seemingly convinced of the reasonable-similes, before Roscius the player made the ness of my discourse to her. acting author stop, and desired to know, what he meant by such a rapture? and how it came to pass, that in this condition of the lover, instead of acting according to his circumstances, he spent his time in considering what his present state was like ?--That is very true,' says the mock author; I believe we had as good strike these lines out.'-' By your leave,' says Bavius, you shall not spoil your play, you are too modest; those very lines, for aught I know, are as good as any in your play, and they shall stand.' Well, they go on, and the particle 'and' stood unfortunately at the end of a verse, and was made to rhyme to the word 'stand.' This, Roscius excepted against. The new poet gave up that too, and said, he would not dispute for a monosyllable.'-' For a monosyllable,' says the real author, 'I can assure you, a monosyllable may be of as great force as a word of ten syllables. I tell you, sir, “and" is the connection of the matter in that place; without that word, you may put all that follows into any other play as well as this. Besides, if you leave it out, it will look as if you had put it in only for the sake of the rhyme.' Roscius persisted, assuring the gentleman, that it was ISAAC, 'You seem a very honest fellow; therefore, pray tell me, did not you write that letter in praise of the squire and his lucubrations yourself,' &c. The greatest plague of coxcombs is, that they often break upon you with an impertinent piece of good sense, as this jackanapes has hit me in a right place enough. I must confess, I am as likely to play such a trick as another; but that letter he speaks of was really genuine. When I first set up, I thought it fair enough to let myself know from all parts, that my works were wonderfully enquired for, and were become the diversion as well as instruction, of all the choice spirits in every county of Great Britain. I do not doubt but the more intelligent of my readers found it, before this jacka-impossible to speak it, but the "and" must be napes, I can call him no better, took upon him to observe upon my style and my basket-hilt. A very pleasant gentleman of my acquaintance told me one day a story of this kind of falsehood and vanity in an author. Mævius showed him a paper of verses, which he said he had received that morning by the penny-post from an unknown hand. My friend admired them extremely. 'Sir,' said he,' this must come from a man that is eminent: you see fire, life, and spirit, run through the whole, and at the same time a correctness, which shows he is used to writing. Pray, sir, read them over again.' He begins again, title and all; To Mævius, on his incomparable poems.' The second reading was performed with much more vehemence and action than the former; after which, my friend fell into downright rapturesWhy, they are truly sublime! there is energy in this line! description in that! Why! it is the thing itself! this is perfect picture!' Mævius could bear no more; but, Faith,' says he, 'Ned, to tell you the plain truth, I writ them myself.' lost, so it might as well be blotted out.' Bavius snatched his play out of their hands, said, 'they were both blockheads,' and went off; repeating a couplet, because he would not make his exit irregularly. A witty man of these days compared this true and feigned poet to the contending mothers before Solomon; the true one was easily discovered from the pretender, by refusing to see his offspring dissected. |