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An essay by Richard Steele |
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No. 158 [from The Spectator] |
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Title: No. 158 [from The Spectator] Author: Richard Steele [More Titles by Steele] No. 158 'Nos hoec novimus esse nihil.' Martial.
I have observed through the whole Course of your Rhapsodies, (as you once very well called them) you are very industrious to overthrow all that many your Superiors who have gone before you have made their Rule of writing. I am now between fifty and sixty, and had the Honour to be well with the first Men of Taste and Gallantry in the joyous Reign of _Charles_ the Second: We then had, I humbly presume, as good Understandings among us as any now can pretend to. As for yourself, Mr. SPECTATOR, you seem with the utmost Arrogance to undermine the very Fundamentals upon which we conducted our selves. It is monstrous to set up for a Man of Wit, and yet deny that Honour in a Woman is any thing else but Peevishness, that Inclination [is [1]] the best Rule of Life, or Virtue and Vice any thing else but Health and Disease. We had no more to do but to put a Lady into good Humour, and all we could wish followed of Course. Then again, your _Tully_, and your Discourses of another Life, are the very Bane of Mirth and good Humour. Pr'ythee don't value thyself on thy Reason at that exorbitant Rate, and the Dignity of human Nature; take my Word for it, a Setting-dog has as good Reason as any Man in _England_. Had you (as by your Diurnals one would think you do) set up for being in vogue in Town, you should have fallen in with the Bent of Passion and Appetite; your Songs had then been in every pretty Mouth in _England_, and your little Distichs had been the Maxims of the Fair and the Witty to walk by: But alas, Sir, what can you hope for from entertaining People with what must needs make them like themselves worse than they did before they read you? Had you made it your Business to describe _Corinna_ charming, though inconstant, to find something in human Nature itself to make _Zoilus_ excuse himself for being fond of her; and to make every Man in good Commerce with his own Reflections, you had done something worthy our Applause; but indeed, Sir, we shall not commend you for disapproving us. I have a great deal more to say to you, but I shall sum it up all in this one Remark, In short, Sir, you do not write like a Gentleman. 'I am, SIR,
'The other Day we were several of us at a Tea-Table, and according to Custom and your own Advice had the _Spectator_ read among us: It was that Paper wherein you are pleased to treat with great Freedom that Character which you call a Woman's Man. We gave up all the Kinds you have mentioned, except those who, you say, are our constant Visitants. I was upon the Occasion commissioned by the Company to write to you and tell you, That we shall not part with the Men we have at present, 'till the Men of Sense think fit to relieve them, and give us their Company in their Stead. You cannot imagine but that we love to hear Reason and good Sense better than the Ribaldry we are at present entertained with, but we must have Company, and among us very inconsiderable is better than none at all. We are made for the Cements of Society, and came into the World to create Relations among Mankind; and Solitude is an unnatural Being to us. If the Men of good Understanding would forget a little of their Severity, they would find their Account in it; and their Wisdom would have a Pleasure in it, to which they are now Strangers. It is natural among us when Men have a true Relish of our Company and our Value, to say every thing with a better Grace; and there is without designing it something ornamental in what Men utter before Women, which is lost or neglected in Conversations of Men only. Give me leave to tell you, Sir, it would do you no great Harm if you yourself came a little more into our Company; it would certainly cure you of a certain positive and determining Manner in which you talk sometimes. In hopes of your Amendment, 'I am, SIR,
Mr. SPECTATOR, 'Your professed Regard to the Fair Sex, may perhaps make them value your Admonitions when they will not those of other Men. I desire you, Sir, to repeat some Lectures upon Subjects which you have now and then in a cursory manner only just touched. I would have a _Spectator_ wholly writ upon good Breeding: and after you have asserted that Time and Place are to be very much considered in all our Actions, it will be proper to dwell upon Behaviour at Church. On Sunday last a grave and reverend Man preached at our Church: There was something particular in his Accent, but without any manner of Affectation. This Particularity a Set of Gigglers thought the most necessary Thing to be taken notice of in his whole Discourse, and made it an Occasion of Mirth during the whole time of Sermon: You should see one of them ready to burst behind a Fan, another pointing to a Companion in another Seat, and a fourth with an arch Composure, as if she would if possible stifle her Laughter. There were many Gentlemen who looked at them stedfastly, but this they took for ogling and admiring them: There was one of the merry ones in particular, that found out but just then that she had but five Fingers, for she fell a reckoning the pretty Pieces of Ivory over and over again, to find her self Employment and not laugh out. Would it not be expedient, Mr. SPECTATOR, that the Church-warden should hold up his Wand on these Occasions, and keep the Decency of the Place as a Magistrate does the Peace in a Tumult elsewhere?
I am a Woman's Man, and read with a very fine Lady your Paper, wherein you fall upon us whom you envy: What do you think I did? you must know she was dressing, I read the _Spectator_ to her, and she laughed at the Places where she thought I was touched; I threw away your Moral, and taking up her Girdle cried out,
[Footnote 2: _World_] [Footnote 3: Waller, _On a Girdle_.] [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |