Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.* This is the true art of raillery, when a man turns another into ridicule, and shews at the same time he is in good humour, and not urged on by malice against the person he rallies. Obadiah Greenhat has hit this very well: for to make an apology to Isaac Bickerstaff, an unknown student and horary historian, as well as astrologer, and with a grave face to say, he speaks of him by the same rules with which he would treat Homer or Plato, is to place him in company where he cannot expect to make a figure; and makes him flatter himself, that it is only being named with them that renders him most ridiculous. I have not known, and I am now past my grand climacteric, being sixty-four years of age, according to my way of life; or rather, if you will allow punning in an old gentleman, according to my way of pastime; I say, as old as I am, I have not been acquainted with many of the Greenhats. There is indeed one Zedekiah Greenhat, who is lucky also in this way. He has a very agreeable manner; for when he has a mind thoroughly to correct a man, he never takes from him anything, but he allows him something for it; or else he blames him for things wherein he is not defective, as well as for matters wherein he is. This makes a weak man believe he is in jest in the whole. The other day he told Beau Brim, who is thought impotent, that his mistress had declared she would not have him, because he was a sloven, and had committed a rape. The beau bit at the banter, and said very gravely, "he thought to be clean was as much as was necessary; and that "I own th' indulgence- -Such I give and take." FRANCIS. as to the rape, he wondered by what witchcraft that should come to her ears; but it had indeed cost him an hundred pounds, to hush the affair." The Greenhats are a family with small voices and short arms, therefore they have power with none but their friends: they never call after those who run away from them, or pretend to take hold of you if you resist. But it has been remarkable, that all who have shunned their company, or not listened to them, have fallen into the hands of such as have knocked out their brains, or broken their bones. I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are akin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry the Second. And it is remarkable, that they are all left-handed, and have always been very expert at single rapier. A man must be much used to their play to know how to defend himself, for their posture is so different from that of the right-handed, that you run upon their swords if you push forward; and they are in with you, if you offer to fall back without keeping your guard.-Tatler, No. 59. "SIR, THE TATLER, No. LXIII. SATURDAY, SEPT. 10, 1709. "To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq. "It must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all others the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, * though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense. You will be pleased, sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you, when you seemed anything dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lorraine's saints, seem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, sir, to shew a good example to your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to discover beauties in it, which, I will assure you, he that drew it never dreamed of. And, to make your civility the more accomplished, you have honoured him with the title of your kinsman, which, though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My brother, for such Obadiah is, being at present very busy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for all these favours; and as a small token of his gratitude, to communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you, than to any others of our modern historians. "Madonella, who, as it was thought, had long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution mentioned in yours of June the twentythird, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed Paul Lorraine was the ordinary of Newgate. + The subsequent passage alludes to Mrs. Astell's proposal for establishing a seminary for the education of young ladies. in nurseries and boarding-schools. To remedy this evil she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels where (instead of scissars, needles, and samplers) pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them as least a superficial tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene, the writer of "Memoirs from the Mediterranean," who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is said to be a certain lady, who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels,† which are said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of Queen Emma's Court, as the "Memoirs from the New Atalantis" are with those of ours. I shall make it my business to inquire into the progress of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of their "Philosophical Transactions, and Searches after Nature." "Yours, &c. "TOBIAH GREENHAT." * Mrs. Manley, author of the Memoirs of the New Atalantis. Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob, eminent for her knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and antiquities. See an account of her in Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies. THE TATLER, No. LXVI. SATURDAY, SEPT. 10, 1709. Will's Coffeehouse, Sept. 9. THE subject of the discourse this evening was eloquence and graceful action. Lysander, who is something particular in his way of thinking and speaking, told us, "a man could not be eloquent without action; for the deportment of the body, the turn of the eye, and an apt sound to every word that is uttered, must all conspire to make an accomplished speaker. Action in one that speaks in public, is the same thing as a good mien in ordinary life. Thus, as a certain insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and jest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to great sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; but when you are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the more you will move others. "There is," said he, "a remarkable example of that kind. Æschines, a famous orator of antiquity, had pleaded at Athens in a great cause against Demosthenes; but having lost it, retired to Rhodes. Eloquence was then the quality most admired among men, and the magistrates of that place, having heard he had a copy of the speech of Demosthenes, desired him to repeat both their pleadings. After his own, he recited also the oration of his antagonist. The people expressed their admiration of both, but more of that of Demosthenes. 'If you are,' said he, 'thus touched with hearing only what that great orator VOL. IX. B |