T respect to those who are miserable by their fault,, estate, real, mixed, and personal, shall from the and those who are so by their misfortune. Flat-hour of his death be vested in the next heir of the terers (concluded the king smiling) repeat to us person whose blood he spilt. princes, that we are heaven's vicegerents: let us be so, and let the only thing out of our power be to do ill.' Soon after the evening, wherein Pharamond and Eucrate had this conversation, the following edict was published against duels: PHARAMOND'S EDICT AGAINST DUELS. 'Pharamond, King of the Gauls, to all his loving subjects sendeth, greeting. That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offences, or restore the offenders in their estates, honour, or blood, for ever. "Given at our court at Blois, the 8th of February, 420, in the second year of our reign.' STEELE. N° 98. FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1711. -Tanta est quærendi cura decoris. T. WHEREAS it has come to our royal notice and observation, that in contempt of all laws divine and human, it is of late become a custom among the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon THERE is not so variable a thing in nature as a slight and trivial, as well as great and urgent pro vocations, to invite each other into the field, there lady's head-dress. Within my own memory I have by their own hands, and of their own authority, to known it rise and fall above thirty degrees. About decide their controversies by combat; we have ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, inthought fit to take the said custom into our royal somuch that the female part of our species were consideration, and find, upon inquiry into the much taller than the men.* The women were of usual causes whereon such fatal decisions have such an enormous stature, that we appeared as arisen, that by this wicked custom, maugre all the grasshoppers before them:'t at present the whole precepts of our holy religion, and the rules of sex is in a manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race right reason, the greatest act of the human mind, of beauties that seems almost another species.# forgiveness of injuries, is become vile and shame.I remember several ladies, who were once very ful; that the rules of good society and virtuous near seven feet high, that at present want some conversation are hereby inverted; that the loose, inches of five. How they came to be thus curthe vain, and the impudent, insult the careful, the tailed I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be discreet, and the modest; that all virtue is sup- at present under any penance which we know pressed, and all vice supported, in the one act of nothing of, or whether they have cast their head. being capable to dare to the death. We have also dresses in order to surprise us with something in further, with great sorrow of mind, observed that that kind which shall be entirely new; or whether this dreadful action, by long impunity (our royal some of the tallest of the sex being too cunning for attention being employed upon matters of more the rest, have contrived this method to make themgeneral concern), is become honourable, and the selves appear sizeable, is still a secret; though I refusal to engage in it ignominious. In these our find most are of opinion, they are at present like royal cares and inquiries we are yet further made trees new lopped and pruned, that will certainly to understand, that the persons of most eminent sprout up and flourish with greater heads than worth, and most hopeful abilities, accompanied before. For my own part, as I do not love to be with the strongest passion for true glory, are such insulted by women who are taller than myself, I as are most liable to be involved in the dangers admire the sex much more in their present humi arising from this license. Now taking the said liation, which has reduced them to their natural premises into our serious consideration, and well dimensions, than when they had extended their weighing that all such emergencies (wherein the persons, and lengthened themselves out into formi mind is incapable of commanding itself, and dable and gigantic figures. I am not for adding where the injury is too sudden or too exquisite to the beautiful edifices of nature, nor for raising to be borne) are particularly provided for by laws any whimsical superstructure upon her plans: heretofore enacted; and that the qualities of less injuries, like those of ingratitude, are too nice and delicate to come under general rules; we do resolve to blot this fashion, or wantonness of anger, out of the minds of our subjects, by our royal resolutions declared in this edict as follow: must therefore repeat it, that I am highly pleased with the coiffure now in fashion, and think it shows the good sense which at present very much reigns among the valuable part of the sex. One may observe that women in all ages have taken more pains than men to adorn the outside of their heads; and indeed I very much admire, that those female architects, who raise such wonderful structures out of ribands, lace, and wire, have not been recorded for their respective inventions. It is certain there have been as many orders in these kinds of buildThe person who shall prove the sending or reing, as in those which have been made of marble ceiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use Sometimes they rise in the shape of a pyramid, and property, the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders in as ample manner as if the said offenders were actually 'No person who either sends or accepts a challenge, or the posterity of either, though no death ensues thereupon, shall be, after the publication of this our edict, capable of bearing office in these our dominions. deceased. In cases where the laws (which we have already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for Blood; when the criminal is condemned by the said appeal, he shall not only suffer death, but his whole sometimes like a tower, and sometimes like a several orders and stories, as he has very humo. steeple. In Juvenal's time the building grew by rously described it: ladies at the beginning of the 18th century, which by means Alluding to the commode, a kind of head-dress worn by the wire bore up the hair and fore part of the cap, consisting of folds of fine lace, to a great height. + Numbers xiii. 33. The fashion suddenly changed into the opposite extreme all from i their of the n our m don the Geir estre of Febr eign.' "Ta premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum JUV. Sat. vi. 501. With curls on curls they build her head before, And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.' DRYDEN. ing the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, But I do not remember, in any part of my reading, to the most glorious of her works; and when we she seems to have designed the head as the cupola that the head-dress aspired to so great an extrava- load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornagance as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires, whichments, we destroy the symmetry of the human stood so excessively high on each side of the head, figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye that a woman, who was but a pigmy without her from great and real beauties, to childish gew-gaws, head-dress, appeared like a colossus upon putting ribands, and bone-lace. it on. Monsieur Paradin" says, That these oldfashioned fontanges rose an ell above the head: that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of crape fastened to the tops of them, which were curiously fringed, and hung down their es. A backs like streamers. 711. The women might possibly have carried this Goecies thic building much higher, had not a famous monk, en once ADDISON. N° 99. SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1711. Turpi secernis honestam. L. HOR. Sat. 6. l. 1. v. 63. You know to fix the bounds of right and wrong. Thomas Conected by name, attacked it with great THE club, of which I have often declared myself a peazealand resolution. This holy man travelled from the place to place to preach down this monstrous com- member, were last night engaged in a discourse mode; and succeeded so well in it, that as the ma- upon that which passes for the chief point of hogicians sacrificed their books to the flames upon many hints upon the subject, which I thought nour among men and women; and started a great the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the middle of his were entirely new. I shall therefore methodize tha sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the several reflections that arose upon this occathe pulpit. He was so renowned as well for the sion, and present my reader with them for the sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that speculation of this day; after having premised, he had often a congregation of twenty thousand that if there is any thing in this paper which seems people; the men placing themselves on the one side to differ with any passage of last Thursday's, the of his pulpit, and the women on the other, that ap-club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or reader will consider this as the sentiments of the peared (to use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of cedars with their heads rather those of Pharamond. reaching the clouds. He so warmed and animated The great point of honour in men is courage, and the people against this monstrous ornament, that it in women chastity. If a man loses his honour in lay under a kind of persecution; and whenever it one rencounter, it is not impossible for him to reappeared in public, was pelted down by the rab-gain it in another; a slip in a woman's honour is ble, who flung stones at the persons that wore it. irrecoverable. I can give no reason for fixing the But notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while point of honour to these two qualities, unless it be the preacher was among them, it began to appear that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualifiagain some months after his departure, or to tell it cation which renders them the most amiable in the in Monsieur Paradin's own words, the women eyes of the contrary sex. Had men chosen for that, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, themselves, without regard to the opinions of the shot them out again as soon as the danger was fair sex, I should believe the choice would have over. This extravagance of the women's head- fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women deter dresses in that age is taken notice of by Monsieur mined their own point of honour, it is probable d'Argentre in his history of Bretagne, and by that wit or good-nature would have carried it other historians, as well as the person I have here against chastity. quoted. Nothing recommends a man more to the female It is usually observed, that a good reign is the sex than courage; whether it be that they are only proper time for making of laws against the pleased to see one who is a terror to others fall like exorbitance of power: in the same manner an exa slave at their feet, or that this quality supplies cessive head-dress may be attacked the most effec- their own principal defect, in guarding them from hually when the fashion is against it. I do there-insults, and avenging their quarrels; or that couwe recommend this paper to my female readers rage is a natural indication of a strong and sprightly by way of prevention. constitution. On the other side, nothing makes I would desire the fair sex to consider how im women more esteemed by the opposite sex than possible it is for them to add any thing that can be chastity; whether it be that we always prize those omamental to what is already the masterpiece of most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing nature. The head has the most beautiful appearbesides chastity, with its collateral attendants, ance, as well as the highest station, in a human truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautify-endears her to him above all things. property in the person he loves, and consequently A French historical writer of the sixteenth century. A celebrated Carmelite, native of Bretagne, who travelled high several parts of Europe, preaching against the fashion. ces of the age. At length, reproving the enormities of the unish clergy, he was burnt for heresy at Rome in 1484. An eminent French lawyer of the sixteenth century. I am very much pleased with a passage in the inscription on a monument erected in Westminsterabbey to the late Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to ⚫ See No. 97. the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for see, that instead of advancing their reputations all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters they lead them to ignominy and dishonour. virtuous.' Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it In books of chivalry, where the point of honour their glory to despise it; but if every one that is strained to madness, the whole story runs on fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men white palfrey, as an emblem of her innocence; of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice. and, to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for When honour is a support to virtuous principles, her page. She is not to think of a man, until some and runs parallel with the laws of God and our misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her re- country, it cannot be too much cherished and enlief. The knight falls in love, and, did not grati-couraged: but when the dictates of honour are tude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, contrary to those of religion and equity, they are would die at her feet by her disdain. However, the greatest depravations of human nature, by he must waste many years in the desert, before her giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is virgin-heart can think of a surrender. The knight good and laudable; and should therefore be exgoes off, attacks every thing he meets that is bigger ploded by all governments, and driven out as the and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities bane and plague of human society. of being knocked on the head, and after seven years rambling returns to his mistress, whose chastity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valour. ADDISON. N° 100. MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1711, Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. HOR. 1 Sat. v. 44. The greatest blessing is a pleasant friend. L. In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humour, it is a transporting favour for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high; as it is usual for the lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in single combat with a mad bull. A MAN advanced in years, that thinks fit to look The great violation of the point of honour from back upon his former life, and calls that only life man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass un-excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, resented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. an affront that nothing but blood can expiate. The Sickness, ill-humour, and idleness, will have robbed reason perhaps may be, because no other vice im-him of a great share of that space we ordinarily plies a want of courage so much as the making of a call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man lie; and therefore telling a man he lies, is touching that would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, him in the most sensible part of honour, and indi- a disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a rectly calling him a coward. I cannot omit under constant aptitude for the satisfactions of his being. this head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Instead of this, you hardly see a man who is not Persians, that from the age of five years to twenty uneasy in proportion to his advancement in the arts they instruct their sons only in three things, to ma- of life. An affected delicacy is the common imnage the horse,, to make use of the bow, and to provement we meet with in those who pretend to speak truth. be refined above others. They do not aim at true The placing the point of honour in this false kind pleasures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon of courage has given occasion to the very refuse of observing the false pleasures of other men. Such mankind, who have neither virtue nor common people are valetudinarians in society, and they sense, to set up for men of honour. An English should no more come into company than a sick man peer, who has not been long dead, used to tell a should come into the air. If a man is too weak to pleasant story of a French gentleman that visited bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he him early one morning at Paris, and, after great must still keep his chamber. When any one in Sir professions of respect, let him know that he had it Roger's company complains he is out of order, he in his power to oblige him; which in short amount-immediately calls for some posset-drink for him: ed to this, that he believed he could tell his lord- for which reason, that sort of people who are ever ship the person's name who justled him as be came bewailing their constitution in other places, are out from the opera; but before he would proceed, the cheerfullest imaginable when he is present. he begged his lordship, that he would not deny It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they him the honour of making him his second. The not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with English lord to avoid being drawn into a very whom they converse by giving them the history of foolish affair, told him he was under engagements their pains and aches; and imagine such narrations for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends, upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no further in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage. The beating down this false notion of honour, in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king's reign. It is pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstances of shame and infamy; that those who are slaves to them may shire. Thought to be William Cavendish, first Duke of Devon their quota of the conversation. This is of all other the meanest help to discourse; and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insig nificant, when he finds an account of his head-ach answered by another's asking what news in the last mail? Mutual good-humour is a dress we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice: but indeed there are crowds of people who put themselves in no method of pleasing themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call indolent persons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after ity, they nature Es of whe efore be En out as 1711 Sat. all we are out of the nurse's arms. Such an aversion to labour creates a constant weariness, and one would think should make existence itself a burden. The indolent man descends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative. His life consists only in the mere increase and decay of a body, which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind. N° 101. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1711. Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux, IMITATED. HOR. Ep. 1. 1. 2. v. 5. Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Tersett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he mar ried, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. These two people of seeming merit fell into each other's arms; and passion being sated, and no reason or good sense in either to succeed it, their life is now at a stand; their meals are in- CENSURE,' says a late ingenious author,* is the sipid, and their time tedious; their fortune has tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.' placed them above care, and their loss of taste re. It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping duced them below diversion. When we talk of it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the these as instances of inexistence, we do not mean, illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every that in order to live, it is necessary we should al-age in the world, have passed through this fiery ways be in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets persecution. There is no defence against reproach of roses, as the merry fellows among the ancients but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatare described; but it is intended, by considering ness, as satires and invectives were an essential these contraries to pleasure, indolence, and too part of a Roman triumph. much delicacy, to show that it is prudence to preIf men of eminence are exposed to censure on serve a disposition in ourselves to receive a certain one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the delight in all we hear and see. other. If they receive reproaches which are not This portable quality of good-humour seasons all due to them, they likewise receive praises which the parts and occurrences we meet with, in such they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high a manner, that there are no moments lost; but they post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest always considered as a friend or an enemy. For of loads (when it is a load), that of time, is never this reason persons in great stations have seldom felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest their true characters drawn till several years after perfection, and communicates it wherever he ap-their deaths. Their personal friendships and enpears. The sad, the merry, the severe, the melan-[mities must cease, and the parties they were encholy, show a new cheerfulness when he comes gaged in be at an end, before their faults or their amongst them. At the same time, no one can re-virtues can have justice done them. When writers peat any thing that Varilas has ever said that de- have the least opportunities of knowing the truth, serves repetition; but the man has that innate good-they are in the best disposition to tell it. ness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adbecause every man thinks he is so to him. He does just the characters of illustrious persons, and to set not seem to contribute any thing to the mirth of matters right between those antagonists, who by the company; and yet upon reflection you find it their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into all happened by his being there. I thought it was factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great whimsically said of a gentleman, that if Varilas man, without derogating from Pompey; and celehad wit, it would be the best wit in the world. It brate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from is certain, when a well-corrected lively imagina-those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long tion and good-breeding are added to a sweet dis-dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, position, they qualify it to be one of the greatest in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too problessings, as well as pleasures of life. fuse, and his enemies too sparing. Men would come into company with ten times According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations the pleasure they do, if they were sure of hearing the last comet that made its appearance in 1680, nothing which would shock them, as well as ex-imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the sun, pected what would please them. When we know that it would have been two thousand times hotter every person that is spoken of is represented by than red-hot iron, had it been a globe of that one who has no ill-will, and every thing that is metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, mentioned described by one that is apt to set it in and at the same distance from the sun, it would be the best light, the entertainment must be delicate, fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered because the cook has nothing brought to his hand its natural temper. In the like manner, if an but what is the most excellent in its kind. Beau- Englishman considers the great ferment into which tiful pictures are the entertainments of pure minds, our political world is thrown at present, and how and deformities of the corrupted. It is a degree intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suptowards the life of angels, when we enjoy con- pose that it will cool again in less than three hunversation wherein there is nothing presented but dred years. In such a tract of time it is possible in its excellence: and a degree towards that of that the heats of the present age may be extin demons, wherein nothing is shown but in its de-guished, and our several classes of great men re generacy. STEELE. presented under their proper characters. Some verge of the court;* with many improbabilities eminent historian may then probably arise that will of the like nature. We must therefore, in these not write recentibus odiis (as Tacitus expresses it) and the like cases, suppose that these remote hints with the passions and prejudices of a contempo- and allusions aimed at some certain follies which rary author, but make an impartial distribution of were then in vogue, and which at present we have fame among the great men of the present age. not any notion of. We may guess by several pasI cannot forbear entertaining myself very often sages in the speculations, that there were writers with the idea of such an imaginary historian de- who endeavoured to detract from the works of this scribing the reign of Anne the First, and introducing author; but as nothing of this nature has come it with a preface to his reader, that he is now en-down to us, we cannot guess at any objections that tering upon the most shining part of the English could be made to his paper. If we consider his story. The great rivals in fame will be then dis-style with that indulgence which we must show to tinguished according to their respective merits, and old English writers, or if we look into the variety shine in their proper points of light. Such an of his subjects, with those several critical dissertaone (says the historian), though variously repre- tions, moral reflections, sented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity: nor was such an one (though of an opposite party and interest) inferior to him in any of these respects.' The L. The following part of the paragraph is so much several antagonists who now endeavour to depre- to my advantage, and beyond any thing can ciate one another, and are celebrated or traduced pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me by different parties, will then have the same body for not inserting it. of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opinion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age. ADDISON. No 102. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1711. Lusus animo debent aliquando dari, The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian, as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the I Do not know whether to call the following let honourable mention which will then be made of ter a satire upon coquettes, or a representation of me; and have drawn up a paragraph in my own their several fantastical accomplishments, or what imagination, that I fancy will not be altogether un- other title to give it; but as it is I shall communilike what will be found in some page or other of this imaginary historian. cate it to the public. It will sufficiently explain its own intentions, so that I shall give it my reader at length, without either preface or postscript. MR. SPECTATOR, It was under this reign,' says he, that the Spectator published those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except only that he WOMEN are armed with fans as men with swords, was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted and sometimes do more execution with them. To to silence, and so great a lover of knowledge, that the end therefore that ladies may be entire mishe made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other rea-tresses of the weapon which they bear, I have son, but to take the measure of a pyramid. His erected an academy for the training up of young chief friend was one Sir Roger de Coverley, a women in the exercise of the fan, according to the whimsical country knight, and a Templar whose most fashionable airs and motions that are now name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a practised at court. The ladies who carry fans unlodger at the house of a widow-woman, and was a der me are drawn up twice a-day in my great hall, great humourist in all parts of his life. This is where they are instructed in the use of their arms, all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and exercised by the following words of command: and character. As for his speculations, notwith- Handle your fans, Unfurl your fans, Discharge standing the several obsolete words and obscure your fans, Ground your fans, Recover your fans, phrases of the age in which he lived, we still un-Flutter your fans. By the right observation of derstand enough of them to see the diversions and these few plain words of command, a woman of a characters of the English nation in his time; not tolerable genius, who will apply herself diligently but that we are to make allowance for the mirth to her exercise for the space of but one half-year, and humour of the author, who has doubtless shall be able to give her fan all the graces that can strained many representations of things beyond possibly enter into that little modish machine. the truth. For if we interpret his words in their But to the end that my readers may form to literal meaning, we must suppose that women of themselves a right notion of this exercise, I beg the first quality used to pass away whole mornings leave to explain it to them in all its parts. When at a puppet show that they attested their prin- my female regiment, is drawn up in array, with ciples by their patches:† that an audience would every one her weapon in her hand, upon my giving sit out an evening to hear a dramatical perform the word to Handle their fans, each of them shakes ance written in a language which they did not her fan at me with a smile, then gives her rightunderstand that chairs and flower-pots were in-hand woman a tap upon the shoulder, then presses troduced as actors upon the British stage: that a her lips with the extremity of her fan, then lets promiscuous assembly of men and women were al- her arms fall in an easy motion, and stands in lowed to meet at midnight in masks within the readiness to receive the next word of command. * See No. 14. † No. 81. ‡ No. 18. § Nos, 22, 36. No. 8. |