Puff them, ye wanton gales, away, THE TATLER. R. Winne. But I am interrupted by a packet from Mr. Kidney, from St. James's coffee-house, which I am obliged to insert in the very style and words which Mr. Kidney uses in his letter. St. James's Coffee-house, May 2. We are advised by letters from Bern, dated the first instant, N. S. that the duke of Berwick arrived at Lyons the twenty-fifth of the last month, and continued his journey the next day to visit the passes of the mountains and other posts in Dauphiné and Provence. These letters also inform us, that the miseries of the people in France are heightened to that degree, that unless a peace be speedily concluded, half of that kingdom would perish for want of bread. On the twenty-fourth, the marshal de Thesse passed through Lyons, in his way to Versailles; and two battalions, which were marching from Alsace to reinforce the army of the duke of Berwick, passed also through that place. Those troops were to be followed by six battalions more. [No. 10. Pedro Ronquillo, with advice, that the confedseventeenth; and, having for some time cannonerate squadron appeared before Alicant on the aded the city, endeavoured to land some troops for the relief of the castle; but general Stanhope, finding the passes well guarded, and the enter prise dangerous, demanded to capitulate for the castle; which being granted him, the garrison, ed out with their arms and baggage the day consisting of six hundred regular troops, march. following; and being received on board, they immediately set sail for Barcelona. These letters add, that the march of the French and Swiss regiments is further deferred for a few days; and that the duke of Noailles was just ready to set out for Roussillon as well as the count de Bezons for Catalonia. for sixpence a pound; and that there was not The same advices say, bread was sold at Paris half enough, even at that rate, to supply the necessities of the people, which reduced them to the utmost despair; that three hundred men had taken up arms, and having plundered the market of the suburb of St. Germain, pressed down by their multitude the king's guards who Letters from Naples of the sixteenth of April afterwards seized and condemned to death; but opposed them. Two of those mutineers were say, that the marquis de Prie's son was arrived four others went to the magistrate who prothere, with instructions from his father, to sig-nounced that sentence, and told him, he must nify to the viceroy the necessity his imperial majesty was under, of desiring an aid from that kingdom, for carrying on the extraordinary expenses of the war. of the same month they made a review of the On the fourteenth Spanish troops in that garrison, and afterwards of the marines; one part of whom will embark with those designed for Barcelona, and the rest are to be sent on board the galleys appointed to convoy provisions to that place. We hear from Rome, by letters dated the twentieth of April, that the count de Mellos. envoy from the king of Portugal, had made his public entry into that city with much state and magnificence. The pope has lately held two other consistories, wherein he made a promotion of two cardinals; but the acknowledgment of king Charles is still deferred. Letters from other parts of Italy advise us, that the doge of Venice continues dangerously ill; that the prince de Carignan, having relapsed into a violent fever, died the twenty-third of April, in his eightieth year. Advices from Vienna of the twenty-seventh of April import, that the archbishop of Saltzburg is dead, who is succeeded by count Harrach, formerly bishop of Vienna, and for these last three years coadjutor to the said archbishop; and that prince Maximilian of Lichtenstein is likewise departed this life, at his country seat called Cromaw in Moravia. These advices add, that the emperor has named count Zinzendorf, count Goes, and monsieur Consbruck, for his plenipotentiaries in an ensuing treaty of peace; and they hear from Hungary, that the imperialists have had several successful skirmishes with the malcontents. Letters from Paris, dated May the sixth, say that the marshal de Thesse arrived there on the twenty-ninth of last month, and that the chevalier de Beuil was sent thither by Don govern expect to answer with his own life for those of their comrades. All order and sense of ment being thus lost among the enraged people, the guards, who saw all their insolence, preto keep up a show of authority, the captain of tended, that he had represented to the king their deplorable condition, and had obtained their pardon. It is further reported, that the dauphin and dutchess of Burgundy, as they of people, who upbraided them with their neglect went to the opera, were surrounded by crowds of the general calamity, in going to diversions, when the whole people were ready to perish for want of bread. Edicts are daily published to suppress these riots: and papers with menaces against the government, as publicly thrown about. Among others, these words were dropRavilliac or Jesuit to deliver her.' Besides this ped in a court of Justice. France wants a universal distress, there is a contagious sickness, which, it is feared, will end in a pestilence. Letters from Bourdeaux bring accounts no less from their abodes into that city, and make lamentable; the peasants are driven by hunger lamentations in the streets without redress. dated the tenth instant, N. S. that on the sixth We are advised by letters from the Hague, the marquis de Torcy arrived there from Paris; but the passport, by which he came, having been sent blank by monsieur Rouille, he was there two days before his quality was known. That minister offered to communicate to monsieur Heinsius the proposals which he had to make; but the pensionary refused to see them, and said, he would signify it to the states, who deputed some of their own body to acquaint him, the arrival of his grace the duke of Marlbothat they would enter into no negotiation until rough, and the other ministers of the alliance. Prince Eugene was expected there the twelfth instant from Brussels. It is said, that besides A KINSMAN has sent me a letter, wherein he informs me, he had lately resolved to write an heroic poem, but by business has been interrupted, and has only made one similitude, which he should be afflicted to have wholly lost; and begs of me to apply it to something, being very desirous to see it well placed in the world. I am so willing to help the distressed, that I have taken it in; but, though his greater genius might very well distinguish his verses from mine, I have marked where his begin. His lines are a description of the sun in eclipse, which I know nothing more like than a brave man in sorrow, who bears it as he should, without imploring the pity of his friends, or being dejected with the contempt of his enemies; as in the case of Cato. When all the globe to Cesar's fortune bowed, 'Thus when the Ruler of the genial day This is a very lively image; but I must take the liberty to say, my kinsmam drives the sun a little like Phaeton; he has all the warmth * Ovid, Metam. ii. 1. E of Phoebus, but will not stay for his direction of it. Avail and toil, defect and tract, will never do for rhymes. But, however, he has the true spirit in him; for which reason I was willing to entertain any thing he pleased to send me. The subject which he writes upon, naturally raises great reflections in the soul, and puts us in mind of the mixed condition which we mortals are to support; which, as it varies to good or bad, adorns or defaces our actions to the beholders; all which glory and shame must end in, what we so much repine at, death. But doctrines on this occasion, any other than that of living well, are the most insignificant and most empty of all the labours of men. None but a tragedian can die by rule, and wait till he discovers a plot, or says a fine thing upon his exit. In real life, this is a chimera; and by noble spirits it will be done decently, without the ostentation of it. We see men of all conditions and characters go through it with equal resolution; and if we consider the speeches of the mighty philosophers, heroes, lawgivers, and great captains, they can produce no more in a discerning spirit, than rules to make a man a fop on his death-bed. Commend me to that natural greatness of soul, expressed by an innocent, and consequently resolute country-fellow, who said, in the pains of the colic, "If I once get this breath out of my body, you shall hang me before you put it in again.' Honest Ned! and so he died.t But it is to be supposed, that from this place you may expect an account of such a thing as a new play is not to be omitted. That acted this night is the newest that ever was writ. The author is my ingenious friend Mr. Thomas Durfey. This drama is called, "The Modern Prophets,' and is a most unanswerable satire against the late spirit of enthusiasm. The writer had by long experience observed that, in company, very grave discourses had been followed by bawdry; and therefore has turned the humour that way with great success, and taken from his audience all manner of superstition, by the agitations of pretty Mrs. Bignell, whom he has, with great subtilty, made a laysister, as well as a prophetess; by which means she carries on the affairs of both worlds with great success. My friend designs to go on with another work against winter, which he intends to call, The Modern poets,' a people no less mistaken in their opinions of being inspired, than the other. In order to this, he has by him seven songs, besides many ambiguities, which cannot be mistaken for any thing but what he means them. Mr. Durfey generally writes state-plays, and is wonderfully useful to the world in such representations. This method is the same that was used by the old Athenians, to laugh out of countenance, or promote, opinions among the people. My friend has therefore, against this play is acted for his own benefit, made two dances, which may be also of an universal benefit. In the first, ho has represented absolute power in the person This Ned was a farmer of Anthony Henley, Esq. who mentions this saying of his in a letter to Swift.Swift's Works, vol. xviii. p. 15. : of a tall man with a hat and feather, who gives | his first minister, that stands just before him, a huge kick; the minister gives the kick to the next before; and so to the end of the stage. In this moral and practical jest, you are made to understand, that there is, in an absolute government, no gratification but giving the kick you receive from one above you to one below you. This is performed to a grave and melancholy air; but on a sudden the tune moves quicker, and the whole company fall into a circle, and take hands; and then, at a certain sharp note, they move round, and kick as kick can. This latter performance he makes to be the representation of a free state; where, if you all mind your steps, you may go round and round very jollily, with a motion pleasant to yourselves and those you dance with; nay, if you put yourselves out, at the worst, you only kick and are kicked, like friends and equals. From my own Apartment, May 4. Of all the vanities under the sun, I confess that of being proud of one's birth is the great est. At the same time, since in this unreasonable age, by the force of prevailing custom, things in which men have no hand are imputed to them; and that I am used by some people, as if Isaac Bickerstaff, though I write myself Esquire, was nobody; to set the world right in that particular, I shall give you my genealogy, as a kinsman of ours has sent it me from the herald's office. It is certain, and observed by the wisest writers, that there are women who are not nicely chaste, and men not severely honest, in all families; therefore let those who may be apt to raise aspersions upon ours, please to give us as impartial an account of their own, and we shall be satisfied. The business of heralds is a matter of so great nicety, that, to avoid mistakes, I shall give you my cousin's letter verbatim, without altering a syllable. DEAR COUSIN," Since you have been pleased to make yourself so famous of late, by your ingenious writings, and some time ago by your learned predictions; since Partridge, of immortal memory, is dead and gone, who, poetical as he was, could not understand his own poetry; and philomatical as he was, could not read his own destiny; since the pope, the king of France, and great part of his court, are either literally or metaphorically defunct; since, I say, these things (not foretold by any one but yourself) have come to pass after so surprising a manner; it is with no small concern I see the original of the Staf. fian race so little known in the world as it is at this time; for which reason, as you have employed your studies in astronomy, and the occult sciences, so I, my mother being a Welch woman, dedicated mine to genealogy, particularly that of our own family, which, for its antiquity and number, may challenge any in Great Britain. The Staffs are originally of Staffordshire, which took its name from them: the first that I find of the Staffs was one Jacobstaff, a famous and renowned astronomer, who, by Dorothy his wife had issue seven sons: viz. Bickerstaff, Longstaff, Wagstaff, Quarterstaff, Whitestaff, Fal. staff, and Tipstaff. He also had a younger brother, who was twice married, and had five sons: viz. Distaff, Pikestaff, Mopstaff, Broomstaff, and Raggedstaff. As for the branch from whence you spring, I shall say very little of it, only that it is the chief of the Staffs, and called Bickerstaff, quasi Biggerstaff; as much as to say, the Great Staff, or Staff of Staffs; and that it has applied itself to astronomy with great success, after the example of our aforesaid forefather. The descendants from Longstaff, the second son, were a rakish disorderly sort of people, and rambled from one place to another, until, in the time of Harry the Second, they settled in Kent, and were called Long-tails, from the long tails which were sent them as a punishment for the murder of Thomas-a-Becket, as the legends say. They have always been sought after by the ladies; but whether it be to show their aversion to popery, or their love to miracles, I cannot say. The Wagstaffs are a merry, thoughtless sort of people, who have always been opinionated of their own wit; they have turned themselves mostly to poetry. This the poorest. The Quarterstaffs are most of them is the most numerous branch of our family, and prize-fighters or deer-stealers; there have been so many of them hanged lately, that there are very few of that branch of our family left. The Whitestaffs are all courtiers, and have had very considerable places. There have been some of them of that strength and dexterity, that five hundredt of the ablest men in the kingdom have often tugged in vain to pull a staff out of their hands. The Falstaffs are strangely given to whoring and drinking; there are abundance of them in and about London. One thing is very remarkable of this branch, and that is, there are just as many women as men in it. There was a wicked stick of wood of this name in Harry the Fourth's time, one sir John Falstaff. As for Tipstaff, the youngest son, he was an honest fellow; but his sons, and his sons' sons, have all of them been the veriest rogues living; it is this unlucky branch that has stocked the nation with that swarm of lawyers, attorneys, serjeants, and bailiffs, with which the nation is over-run. Tipstaff, being a seventh son, used to cure the king's-evil; but his rascally descendants are so far from having that healing quality, that, by a touch upon the shoulder, they give a man such an ill habit of body, that he can never come abroad afterwards. This is all I know of the line of Jacobstaff; his younger brother Isaacstaff, as I told you before, had five sons, and was married twice: his first wife was a Staff (for they did not stand upon false heraldry in those days) by whom he had one son, who, in process of time, being a schoolmaster and well read in the Greek, called himself Distaff, or Twicestaff. He was not very rich, so he put his children out to trades; and the Distaff's have ever since been employed in the woollen and linen manufactures, except myself, who am a genealogist. Pikestaff, the eldest son by the second venter, was a man of business, a downright plodding *An allusion to the staff carried by the first lord of the treasury, afterwards humourosly compared by Steele to "an emmet distinguished from his fellows by a white straw." †The House of Commons. fellow, and withal so plain, that he became a proverb. Most of this family are at present in the army. Raggedstaff was an unlucky boy, and used to tear his cloaths in getting birds' nests, and was always playing with a tame bear his father kept. Mopstaff fell in love with one of his father's maids, and used to help her to clean the house. Broomstaff was a chimney-sweeper. The Mopstaff's and Broomstaffs are naturally as civil people as ever went out of doors; but alas! if they once get into ill hands, they knock down all before them. Pilgramstaff ran away from his friends, and went strolling about the country; and Pipestaff was a wine-cooper. These two were the unlawful issue of Longstaff. N. B. The Canes, the Clubs, the Cudgels, the Wands, the Devil upon two Sticks, and one Bread, that goes by the name of Staff of Life, are none of our relations. I am, dear cousin, your humble servant, 'D. DISTAFF.' From the Herald's Office, May 1, 1709. St. James's Coffee-house, May 4. WHEN a man has engaged to keep a stage coach, he is obliged, whether he has passengers or not, to set out; thus it fares with us weekly historians; but indeed, for my particular, I hope, I shall soon have little more to do in this work, than to publish what is sent me from such as have leisure and capacity for giving delight, and being pleased in an elegant manner. The present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect, that we should rise in our public diversions, and manner of enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power. Instead of that, survey this town, and you will find rakes and debauchees are your men of pleasure: thoughtless atheists and illiterate drunk As political news is not the principal subject on which we treat, we are so happy as to have no occasion for that art of cookery which our brother newsmongers so much excel in; as appears by their excellent and inimitable manner of dressing up a second time for your taste the same dish which they gave you the day before, in case there come over no new pickles from Holland. Therefore, when we have nothing to say to you from courts and camps, we hope still to give you somewhat new and curious from ourselves; the women of our house, upon occasion, being capable of carrying on the business, according to the laudable custom of the wives in Holland; but, without farther preface, take what we have not mentioned in our former rc-ards call themselves free-thinkers; and gamelations. Letters from Hanover of the thirtieth of the last month say, that the prince royal of Prussia arrived there on the fifteenth, and left that court on the second of this month, in pursuit of his journey to Flanders, where he makes the ensuing campaign. Those advices add, that the young prince Nassau, hereditary governor of Friesland, celebrated, on the twenty-sixth of the last month, his marriage with the beauteous princess of Hesse-Cassel, with a pomp and magnificence suitable to their age and quality. sters, banterers, biters, swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in their several species, the modern men of wit. Hence it is, that a man, who has been out of town but one half year, has lost the language, and must have some friend to stand by him, and keep him in countenance for talking common sense. To-day I saw a short interlude at White's of this nature, which I took notes of, and put together as well as I could in a public place. The persons of the drama are Pip, the last gentleman that has been made so at cards; Trimmer, a person Letters from Paris say, his most Christian half undone at them, and who is now between a majesty retired to Marley on the first instant, cheat and a gentleman; Acorn, an honest EnN. S. and our last advices from Spain informglishman of good plain sense and meaning; and us, that the prince of Asturias had made his public entry into Madrid in great splendour. The duke of Anjou has given Don Joseph Hartado de Amaraga the government of Terra firma de Veragua, and the presidency of Panama in America. They add, that the forces commanded by the marquis de Bay have been reinforced by six battalions of Spanish Walloon guards. Letters from Lisbon advise, that the army of the king of Portugal was at Elvas on the twenty-second of the last month, and would decamp on the twenty-fourth, in order to march upon the enemy who lay at Badajos. Yesterday, at four in the morning, his grace Mr. Friendly, a reasonable man of the town. White's Chocolate-house, May 5. Ac. What is the matter, gentlemen? what! take no notice of an old friend? Pip. Pox on it! do not talk to me, I am voweled by the count and cursedly out of humour. Ac. Voweled! pry'thce, Trimmer, what does he mean by that? Trim. Have a care, Harry, speak softly; do not show your ignorance :-if you do, they will bite you wherever they meet you, they are such cursed curs-the present wits. Ac. Bite me! what do you mean? Pip. Why do not you know what biting is? nay, you are in the right on it. However, one would learn it only to defend one's self against men of wit, as one would know the tricks of play, to be secure against the cheats. But do not you hear, Acorn, that report, that some potentates of the alliance have taken care of themselves exclusively of us? Ac. How! heaven forbid! after all our glorious victories; all the expense of blood and trea sure! Pip. BITE. Bite! how? Trim. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough; that is certain. Ac. Pox! I do not feel it-How? where ? [Exeunt Pip and Trimmer laughing. Ac. Ho! Mr. Friendly, your most humble servant; you heard what passed between those fine gentlemen and me. Pip complained to me, that he had been voweled; and they tell me I am bit. Friend. It is now some time since several revolutions in the gay world had made the empire of the stage subject to very fatal convul sions, which were too dangerous to be cured by the skill of little king Oberon, who then sat in the throne of it. The laziness of this prince threw him upon the choice of a person who was fit to spend his life in contentions, an able and profound attorney, to whom he mortgaged his whole empire. This Divitot is the most skilful of all politicians; he has a perfect art in being unintelligible in discourse, and uncomeatable in business. But he, having no understanding in this polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakspeare's heroes, and Jonson's humorists. When the seat of wit was thus mortgaged without equity of redemption, an architectt arose, who has built the muse a new palace, but secured her no retinue; so that, instead of action there, we have been put off by song and dance. This latter help of sound has also begun to fail for want of voices; therefore the palace has since been put into the hands of a surgeon, who cuts any foreign fellow into a eunuch,§ and passes him upon us for a singer of Italy. Friend. You are to understand, sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in the world; and in the room of it there are started a thousand little inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of it. Thus, for every character in conversation that used to please, there is an impostor put upon you. Him whom we allowed, formerly, for a certain pleasant subtilty, and natural way of giving you an unexpected hit, called a droll, is now mimicked by a biter, who is a dull fellow, that tells you a lie with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him. Instead of that sort of companion who could rally you, and keep his countenance, until he made you fall into some little inconsistency of behaviour, at which you your-only by the grand elixir. self could laugh with him, you have the sneerer, who will keep you company from morning to night, to gather your follies of the day (which perhaps you commit out of confidence in him) and expose you in the evening to all the scorners in town. For your man of sense and free spirit, whose set of thoughts were built upon learning, reason, and experience, you have now an impudent creature made up of vice only, who supports his ignorance by his courage, and want of learning by contempt of it. Ac. I will go out of town to-morrow. Friend. Things are come to this pass; and yet the world will not understand, that the theatre has much the same effect on the manners of the age, as the bank on the credit of the nation. Wit and spirit, humour and good sense, can never be revived, but under the government of those who are judges of such talents; who know, that whatever is put up in their stead, is but a short and trifling expedient, to support the appearance of them for a season. It is possible, a peace will give leisure to put these matters under new regulations, but, at present, all the assistance we can see towards our recovery is as far from giving us help, as a poultice is from performing what can be done Ac. Dear sir, hold: what you have told me already of this change in conversation is too miserable to be heard with any delight; but, methinks, as these new creatures appear in the world, it might give an excellent field to writers for the stage, to divert us with the representation of them there. Friend. No, no; as you say, there might be some hopes of redress of these grievances, if there were proper care taken of the theatre; but the history of that is yet more lamentable than that of the decay of conversation I gave you. Ac. Pray, sir, a little: I have not been in town these six years, until within this fortnight. Will's Coffee-house, May 6. According to our late design in the applauded verses on the morning,|| which you lately had from hence, we proceed to improve that just intention, and present you with other labours, made proper to the place in which they were written. The following poem comes from Copenhagen, and is as fine a winter-piece as we have ever had from any of the schools of the most learned painters. Such images as these give us a new pleasure in our sight, and fix *Mr. Owen, or Mac Owen Swiney, was born in Ireland, and formerly a manager of Drury-lane theatre, and afterwards of the Queen's theatre in the Haymarket. After leaving that office, he resided in Italy several years, and at his return, procured a place in the customhouse, and was keeper of the king's mews. He died Oct. 2, 1754, and left his fortune to Mrs. Woffington. He was the author of several dramatic pieces.' † Christopher Rich. Sir John Vanbrugh. John James Hegdegger, esq. styled here a surgeon, in allusion to the employment assigned to him: he had at that time the direction of the operas, as he had after wards of the masquerades. By Swift. |