Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer Part 5

This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation, which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man begin a story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and-twenty, gathers circ.u.mstances every time he tells it, till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that time he is three-score.

The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age is to lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as may make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind.

In short, we, who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what we speak be worth being heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.

I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of, when I cannot conclude without observing that Milton certainly thought of this pa.s.sage in Homer, when, in his description of an eloquent spirit, he says--

"His tongue dropped manna."

XVI.--A VERY PRETTY POET.

Will's Coffee-house, April 24.

I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally make their appearance, with a design to read over all the newspapers; but, upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I observe by a late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humour; for you must know, of all impertinences, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never read a gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies, whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie encamped." Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his pocket, telling me, "that he had something which would entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon every line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came in."

Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.

Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best and worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English reader, incapable of relis.h.i.+ng the great and masterly strokes of this art; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic ornaments of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.

Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure and to divert myself as well as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand," says Ned, "that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a lady, who showed me some verses of her own making, and is, perhaps, the best poet of our age. But you shall hear it."

Upon which he began to read as follows:

"TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS.

1.

"When dressed in laurel wreaths you s.h.i.+ne, And tune your soft melodious notes, You seem a sister of the Nine, Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.

2.

"I fancy, when your song you sing, Your song you sing with so much art, Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing; For, ah! it wounds me like his dart."

"Why," says I, "this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of salt: every verse has something in it that piques; and then the dart in the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram, for so I think you critics call it, as ever entered into the thought of a poet." "Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me by the hand, "everybody knows you to be a judge of these things; and, to tell you truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry'

three several times before I sat down to write the sonnet which I have shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every line of it; for not one of them shall pa.s.s without your approbation.

"'When dressed in laurel wreaths you s.h.i.+ne,'

"That is," says he, "when you have your garland on; when you are writing verses." To which I replied, "I know your meaning: a metaphor!" "The same," said he, and went on.

"'And tune your soft melodious notes,'

"Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a consonant in it: I took care to make it run upon liquids. Give me your opinion of it." "Truly," said I, "I think it as good as the former." "I am very glad to hear you say so," says he; "but mind the next.

"'You seem a sister of the Nine,

"That is," says he, "you seem a sister of the Muses; for, if you look into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion that there were nine of them." "I remember it very well," said I; "but pray proceed."

"'Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.'

"Phoebus," says he, "was the G.o.d of Poetry. These little instances, Mr.

Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from the air of learning, which Phoebus and the Muses had given to this first stanza, you may observe, how it falls all of a sudden into the familiar; 'in petticoats!'

"'Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.'"

"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza; I find the first line is still a continuation of the metaphor.

"'I fancy when your song you sing.'"

"It is very right," says he; "but pray observe the turn of words in those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have still a doubt upon me whether in the second line it should be, 'Your song you sing; or, You sing your song?' You shall hear them both:

"'I fancy, when your song you sing, Your song you sing with so much art,'

or,

"'I fancy, when your song you sing, You sing your song with so much art.'"

"Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural either way, that you have made me almost giddy with it." "Dear sir," said he, grasping me by the hand, "you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do you think of the next verse?

"'Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing.'"

"Think!" says I; "I think you have made Cupid look like a little goose."

"That was my meaning," says he: "I think the ridicule is well enough hit off. But we come now to the last, which sums up the whole matter.

"'For, ah! it wounds me like his dart.'

"Pray how do you like that Ah! doth it not make a pretty figure in that place? Ah!--it looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at being p.r.i.c.ked with it.

"'For, ah! it wounds me like his dart.'

"My friend d.i.c.k Easy," continued he, "a.s.sured me, he would rather have written that Ah! than to have been the author of the AEneid. He indeed objected, that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines, and like a dart in the other. But as to that--" "Oh! as to that," says I, "it is but supposing Cupid to be like a porcupine, and his quills and darts will be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint; but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear, "he would show it me again as soon as his man had written it over fair."

XVII.--FATHERLY CARE.

From my own Apartment, June 23.

Having lately turned my thoughts upon the consideration of the behaviour of parents to children in the great affair of marriage, I took much delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a gentleman's steward in the country had sent me some time ago. This parcel is a collection of letters written by the children of the family to which he belongs to their father, and contain all the little pa.s.sages of their lives, and the new ideas they received as the years advanced. There is in them an account of their diversions as well as their exercises; and what I thought very remarkable is, that two sons of the family, who now make considerable figures in the world, gave omens of that sort of character which they now bear in the first rudiments of thought which they show in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations to their best friend with so much freedom, that he can form schemes for their future life and conduct from an observation of their tempers; and by that means be early enough in choosing their way of life, to make them forward in some art or science at an age when others have not determined what profession to follow. As to the persons concerned in this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force of this conduct of their father in the effect it has upon their lives and manners. The older, who is a scholar, showed from his infancy a propensity to polite studies, and has made a suitable progress in literature; but his learning is so well woven into his mind, that from the impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of life than manner of discourse. To his books he seems to owe a good economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in others that way of education has commonly a quite different effect. The epistles of the other son are full of accounts of what he thought most remarkable in his reading. He sends his father for news the last n.o.ble story he had read. I observe he is particularly touched with the conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had said, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country. Many other incidents in his little letters give omens of a soul capable of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and happiness of doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their father is the most intimate friend they have; and they always consult him rather than any other, when any error has happened in their conduct through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his sons has made his life pa.s.s away with the pleasures of a second youth; for as the vexations which men receive from their children hasten the approach of age, and double the force of years; so the comforts which they reap from them, are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their offspring; and their concern for them is so near, that they feel all their sufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own proper persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common race of 'squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and happiness; as indeed they are, by their own making them such. In cases where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it is commonly said, Let him look at home. I am sorry to own it; but there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs who have been as erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatsoever. The head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his son and daughter, who are all the children he has, in order to be put some way into the world, and see fas.h.i.+ons. They are both very ill-bred cubs; and having lived together from their infancy, without knowledge of the distinctions and decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's s.e.x, they squabble like two brothers. The father is one of those who knows no better than that all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines, when he sees a man become his estate, that he will certainly spend it. This branch are a people who never had among them one man eminent either for good or ill: however, have all along kept their heads just above water, not by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the matches they have made in to their house. When one of the family has in the pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the third part of the value of his estate, such a spendthrift has dressed up his eldest son, and married what they call a good fortune: who has supported the father as a tyrant over them during his life, in the same house or neighbourhood. The son, in succession, has just taken the same method to keep up his dignity, till the mortgages he has ate and drank himself into have reduced him to the necessity of sacrificing his son also, in imitation of his progenitor. This had been for many generations, the whole that had happened in the family of Sam Bickerstaff, till the time of my present cousin Samuel, the father of the young people we have just now spoken of.

Samuel Bickerstaff, esquire, is so happy as that by several legacies from distant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and other instances of good fortune, he has besides his real estate, a great sum of ready money. His son at the same time knows he has a good fortune, which the father cannot alienate; though he strives to make him believe he depends only on his will for maintenance. Tom is now in his nineteenth year.

Mrs. Mary in her fifteenth. Cousin Samuel, who understands no one point of good behaviour as it regards all the rest of the world, is an exact critic in the dress, the motion, the looks, and gestures, of his children. What adds to their misery is, that he is excessively fond of them, and the greatest part of their time is spent in the presence of this nice observer. Their life is one of continued constraint. The girl never turns her head, but she is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town. The boy is not to turn fop, or be quarrelsome, at the same time not to take an affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and heard his fatherly table-talk as we sat at dinner, which, if my memory does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I shall set down as he spoke it; which was much as follows, and may be of great use to those parents who seem to make it a rule, that their children's turn to enjoy the world is not to commence till they themselves have left it.

"Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the inns of court. I allow you to take a walk once or twice a day round the garden. If you mind your business, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as c.o.ke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be sure you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give out to your laundress, and what she brings home again. Go as little as possible to the other end of the town; but if you do, come home early. I believe I was as sharp as you for your years, and I had my hat s.n.a.t.c.hed off my head coming home late at a stop by St. Clement's church, and I do not know from that day to this who took it. I do not care if you learn to fence a little; for I would not have you made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything, every post; I am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need not spare your pains. As for you, daughter Molly, do not mind one word that is said to you in London, for it is only for your money."