The foremost of the whole rank of toasts, and the most indisputed in their present empire, are Mrs. Gatty and Mrs. Frontlet: the first an agreeable, the second an awful beauty. These ladies are perfect friends, out of a knowledge, that their perfections are too different to stand in competition. He that likes Gatty can have no relish for so solemn a creature as Frontlet; and an admirer of Frontlet will call Gatty a maypole girl. Gatty for ever smiles upon you; and Frontlet disdains to see you smil Gatty's love is a shining quick fiame; Frontlet's, a slow wast fire. Gatty likes the man that diverts her; Frontlet, him wa adores her. Gatty always improves the soil in which she travels; Frontlet lays waste the country. Gatty does not only smile, but laughs at her lover; Frontlet not only looks serious, but frowns at him. All the men of wit (and coxcombs their followers) are professed servants of Gatty: the politicians and pretenders give solemn worship to Frontlet. Their reign will be best judged of by its duration. Frontlet will never be chosen more; and Gatty is a toast for life. No. 42. SATURDAY, JULY 16. 1709. Celebrare domestica facta. [The first part of this paper was written by Steele.] THIS is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great variety of gardens, statues, and water-works, may be bought cheap in Drury-Lane,' where there are likewise several castles to be disposed of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, fountains, and country seats, with very pleasant prospects on all sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher 1 Drury-Lane theatre had been closed by an order of the Lord Chamberlain.-G. VOL. IV.-2 Rich, Esq., who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of furniture to dispose of, which may be seen be tween the hours of six and ten in the evening. THE INVENTORY. Spirits of right Nants brandy, for lambent flames and appa ritions. Three bottles and a half of lightning. One shower of snow in the whitest French paper. Two showers of a browner sort. 1 A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves, the tenth bigger than ordinary, and a little damaged. A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well conditioned. A rainbow, a little faded. A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning, and furbelowed. A new-moon, something decayed. A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two hogsheads sent over last winter. A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to be sold cheap. A setting sun, a pennyworth. An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the great, and worn by Julius Cæsar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signior Valentini. A basket-hilt sword, very convenient to carry milk in. Othello's handkerchief. The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once. 1 Tenth wave, "Fluctus decumanus," according to the Latin poets, the largest and most dangerous.-G. A wild boar, killed by Mrs. Tofts and Dioclesian. A serpent to sting Cleopatra. A mustard bowl to make thunder with. Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. Dis's directions, little used.4 Six elbow chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots for their partners. The whiskers of a Turkish bassa. The complexion of a murderer in a bandbox; consisting of a large piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke. A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz. a bloody shirt, a doublet curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the breast. A bale of red Spanish wool. Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trap-doors, ladders of ropes, vizard masques, and tables with broad carpets over them. Three oak cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of Mr. Pinkethman. Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten rounds. Aurengzebe's scymitar, made by Will. Brown in Piccadilly. A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex. There are also swords, halberts, sheep-hooks, cardinal hats, turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, an altar, a helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and a jointed baby. 1 Dennis-of whom Pope says, "And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage "-DUNCIAD, b. I. v. 104. had just invented his new method of making thunder! v. also Nicho's ad loc.-G. These are the hard shifts we intelligencers are forced to; therefore our readers ought to excuse us, if a westerly wind blowing for a fortnight together, generally fills every paper with an order of battle; when we show our martial skill in each line, and according to the space we have to fill, we range our men in squadrons and battalions, or draw out company by company, and troop by troop; ever observing, that no muster is to be made, but when the wind is in a cross point, which often happens at the end of a campaign, when half the men are deserted or killed. The Courant is sometimes ten deep, his ranks close the Postboy is generally in files, for greater exactness: and the Postman comes down upon you rather after the Turkish way, sword in hand, pell-mell, without form or discipline; but sure to bring men enough into the field; and wherever they are raised, never to lose a battle for want of numbers.a b No. 75. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1709. From my own Apartment, September 20. I AM called off from public dissertations by a domestic affair of great importance, which is no less than the disposal of my sister Jenny for life. The girl is a girl of great merit, and pleasing conversation; but I being born of my father's first wife, and she of his third, she converses with me rather like a daughter than a sister. I have indeed told her, that if she kept her honour, and behaved herself in such a manner as became the Bickerstaffs, I would get her an agreeable man for her husband; which was a promise I made her after reading a passage in Pli a Of this paper, the inventory only, as I take it, is Mr. Addison's [Why?-G.] The opening of this paper, to-“our own family in this particular” is Sir Richard Steele's. Mr. Addison's hand is only to be traced in the genealogy. [Hurd, by conjecture.-G.] ny's Epistles. That polite author had been employed to find out a consort for his friend's daughter, and gives the following character of the man he had pitched upon. Aciliano plurimum vigoris et industriæ quanquam in maxima verecundia: est illi facies liberalis, multo sanguine, multo rubore, suffusa est ingenua totius corporis pulchritudo, et quidam senatorius decor, quæ ego nequaquam arbitror negligenda; debet enim hoc castitati puellarum quasi præmium dari.1 "Acillanus is a man of extraordinary vigour and industry, accompanied with the greatest modesty. He has very much of the gentleman, with a lively colour, and flush of health in his aspect. His whole person is finely turned, and speaks him a man of quality which are qualifications that, I think, ought by no means to be overlooked, and should be bestowed on a daughter as the reward of her chastity." a A woman that will give herself liberties, need not put her parents to so much trouble; for if she does not possess these orna ments in a husband, she can supply herself elsewhere. But this is not the case of my sister Jenny, who, I may say without vanity, is as unspotted a spinster as any in Great Britain. I shall take this occasion to recommend the conduct of our own family in this particular. We have in the genealogy of our house, the descriptions and pictures of our ancestors from the time of King Arthur; in whose days there was one of my own name, a knight of his round table, 1 Plinii. See Epistolæ, L. 1. ep. xiv. (Nichols).—G. 66 a These ornaments. Advantages" had been better. b In this particular. In what particular? in that of Jenny's chastity.— But there is not a word on the subject, in what follows. I take for granted that, in Sir Richard Steele's draught of this paper, a paragraph was here inserted, to shew the care of the Bickerstaffs, in providing for the honour of the female part of their family; which, not being to Mr. Addison's mind, was struck out, to make room for this pleasant account of their genealogy. But when this was done, it was forgotten to make the requisite change in the introduction. |