TOM VARNISH. No. 136. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1709-10. [STEELE.] HOR. 1 Sat. ii. ver. ult. Deprendi miserum est: Fabio vel judice vincam. To be surpris'd, is, sure a wretched tale, BECAUSE I have a professed aversion to long beginnings of stories, I will go into this at once, by telling you, that there dwells near the Royal Exchange as happy a couple as ever entered into wedlock. These live in that mutual confidence of each other, which renders the satisfaction of marriage even greater than those of friendship, and makes wife and husband the dearest appellations of human life. Mr. Balance is a merchant of good consideration, and understands the world, not from speculation, but practice. His wife is the daughter of an honest house, ever bred in a family-way; and has, from a natural good understanding, and great innocence, a freedom which men of sense know to be the certain sign of virtue, and fools take to be an encouragement to vice. Tom Varnish, a young gentleman of the Middle-Temple, by the bounty of a good father, who was so obliging as to die, and leave him, in his twenty-fourth year, besides a good estate, a large sum which lay in the hands of Mr. Balance, had by this means an intimacy at his house; and being one of those hard students who read plays for the improvement in the law, took his rules of life from thence. Upon mature deliberation, he conceived it very proper, that he, as a man of wit and pleasure of the town, should have an intrigue with his merchant's wife. He no sooner thought of this adventure, but he began it by an amorous epistle to the lady, and a faithful promise to wait upon her at a certain hour the next evening, when he knew her husband was to be absent. The letter was no sooner received, but it was communicated to the husband, and produced no other effect in him, than that he mirth they could out of They were so little con joined with his wife to raise all the this fantastical piece of gallantry. cerned at this dangerous man of mode, that they plotted ways to perplex him without hurting him. Varnish comes exactly at his hour; and the lady's well-acted confusion at his entrance gave him opportunity to repeat some couplets very fit for the occasion with very much grace and spirit. His theatrical manner of making love was interrupted by an alarm of the husband's coming; and the wife, in a personated terror, beseeched him, " if he had any value for the honour of a woman that loved him, he would jump out of the window." He did so, and fell upon feather-beds placed on purpose to receive him. 66 It is not to be conceived how great the joy of an amorous man is, when he has suffered for his mistress, and is never the worse for it. Varnish the next day writ a most elegant billet, wherein he said all that imagination could form upon the occasion. He violently protested, "going out of the window was no way terrible, but as it was going from her;" with several other kind expressions, which procured him a second assignation. Upon his second visit, he was conveyed by a faithful maid into her bed chamber, and left there to expect the arrival of her mistress. But the wench, according to her instructions, ran in again to him, and locked the door after her to keep out her master. She had just time enough to convey the lover into a chest before she admitted the husband and his wife into the room. You may be sure that trunk was absolutely necessary to be opened; but upon her husband's ordering it, she assured him, "she had taken all the care imaginable in packing up the things with her own hands, and he might send the trunk abroad as soon as he thought fit." The easy husband believed his wife, and the good couple went to bed; Varnish having the happiness to pass the night in his mistress's bedchamber without molestation. The morning arose, but our lover was not well situated to observe her blushes; so that all we know of his sentiments on this occasion is, that he heard Balance ask for the key, and say, "he would himself go with this chest, and have it opened before the captain of the ship, for the greater safety of so valuable a lading." The goods were hoisted away; and Mr. Balance, marching by his chest with great care and diligence, omitted nothing that might give his passenger perplexity. But, to consummate all, he delivered the chest, with strict charge, "in case they were in danger of being taken, to throw it overboard, for there were letters in it, the matter of which might be of great service to the enemy." EXCRESCENCES OF DISCOURSE. No. 137. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1709-10. [STEELE.] Ter centum tonat ore Deos, Erebúmque, Chaósque, Tergeminámque Hecaten VIRG. En. iv. 510. He thrice invokes th' infernal powers profound Of Erebus and Chaos; thrice he calls On Hecate's triple form DICK REPTILE and I sat this evening later than the rest of the club and as some men are better company when only with one friend, others when there is a larger number, I found Dick to be of the former kind. He was bewailing to me, in very just terms, the offences which he frequently met with in the abuse of speech: some use ten times more words than they need; some put in words quite foreign to their purpose; and others adorn their discourses with oaths and blasphemies, by way of tropes and figures. What my good friend started dwelt upon me after I came home this evening, and led me into an inquiry with myself, Whence should arise such strange excrescences in discourse? whereas it must be obvious to all reasonable beings, that the sooner a man speaks his mind, the more complaisant he is to the man with whom he talks: but, upon mature deliberation, I am come to this resolution, that for one man who speaks to be understood, there are ten who talk only to be admired. The antient Greeks had little independent syllables called expletives, which they brought into their discourses both in verse and prose, for no other purpose but for the better grace and sound of their sentences and periods. I know no example but this, which can authorize the use of more words than are necessary. But whether it be from this freedom taken by that wise nation, or however it arises, Dick Reptile hit upon a very just and common cause of offence in the generality of people of all orders. We have one here in our lane, who speaks nothing without quoting an authority; for it is always with him, so and so, "as the man said." He asked me this morning, how I did, " as the man said?" and hoped I would come now and then to see him, "as the man said." I am acquainted with another, who never delivers himself upon any subject, but he cries, "he only speaks his poor judgment; this is his humble opinion; as for his part, if he might presume to offer any thing on that subject."--But of all persons who add elegances and superfluities to their discourses, those who deserve the foremost rank are the swearers; and the lump of these may, I think, be very aptly divided into the common distinction of High and Low. Dulness and barrenness of thought is the original of it in both these sects, and they differ only in constitution: The Low is generally a phlegmatic, and the High a choleric coxcomb. The man of phlegm is sensible of the emptiness of his discourse, and will tell you, that, "I'fackins," such a thing is true or if you warm him a little, he may run into a passion, and cry, "Odsbodikins, you do not say right." But the High affects a sublimity in dulness, and invokes "hell and damnation" at the breaking of a glass, or the slowness of a drawer. I was the other day trudging along Fleet-street on foot, and an old army-friend came up with me. We were both going towards Westminster; and, finding the streets were so crowded that we could not keep together, we resolved to club for a coach. This gentleman I knew to be the first of the order of the choleric. I must confess, were there no crime in it, nothing S : could be more diverting than the impertinence of the High juror for whether there is remedy or not against what offends him, still he is to shew he is offended; and he must, sure, not omit to be magnificently passionate, by falling on all things in his way. We were stopped by a train of coaches at Templebar. "What the devil!" says my companion, "cannot you drive on, coachman? D-n you all, for a set of sons of whores ; you would stop here to be paid by the hour! There is not such a set of confounded dogs as the coachmen, unhanged! But these rascally cits 'Ounds, why should there not be a tax to make these dogs widen their gates? Oh ! but the hellhounds move at last." 66 Ay," said I, "I knew you would make them whip on, if once they heard you". "No," says he "but would it not fret a man to the devil, to pay for being carried slower than he can walk? Look'ye! there is for ever a stop at this hole by St. Clement's church. Blood, you dog! Hark'ye, sirrah!Why, and be d-d to you, do not you drive over that fellow ?-Thunder, furies, and damnation! I will cut your ears off, you fellow before thereCome hither, you dog you, and let me wring your neck round your shoulders." We had a repetition of the same eloquence at the Cockpit, and the turning into Palace-yard. This gave me a perfect image of the insignificancy of the creatures who practise this enormity; and make me conclude, that it is ever want of sense makes a man guilty in this kind. It was excellently well said, "that this folly had no temptation to excuse it, no man being born of a swearing constitution." In a word, a few rumbling words and consonants clapped together without any sense, will make an accomplished It is needless to dwell long upon this blustering impertinence, which is already banished out of the society of well-bred men, and can be useful only to bullies and ill tragic writers, who would have sound and noise pass for courage and swearer. sense. |