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No. 145 [from The Spectator] |
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Title: No. 145 [from The Spectator] Author: Richard Steele [More Titles by Steele] No. 145. 'Stultitiam patiuntur opes ...' Hor.
'I am obliged to you for your Discourse the other Day upon frivolous Disputants, who with great Warmth, and Enumeration of many Circumstances and Authorities, undertake to prove Matters which no Body living denies. You cannot employ your self more usefully than in adjusting the Laws of Disputation in Coffee-houses and accidental Companies, as well as in more formal Debates. Among many other things which your own Experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you please to take notice of Wagerers. I will not here repeat what _Hudibras_ says of such Disputants, which is so true, that it is almost Proverbial; [1] but shall only acquaint you with a Set of young Fellows of the Inns of Court, whose Fathers have provided for them so plentifully, that they need not be very anxious to get Law into their Heads for the Service of their Country at the Bar; but are of those who are sent (as the Phrase of Parents is) to the _Temple_ to know how to keep their own. One of these Gentlemen is very loud and captious at a Coffee-house which I frequent, and being in his Nature troubled with an Humour of Contradiction, though withal excessive Ignorant, he has found a way to indulge this Temper, go on in Idleness and Ignorance, and yet still give himself the Air of a very learned and knowing Man, by the Strength of his Pocket. The Misfortune of the thing is, I have, as it happens sometimes, a greater Stock of Learning than of Mony. The Gentleman I am speaking of, takes Advantage of the Narrowness of my Circumstances in such a manner, that he has read all that I can pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive Air, and with such powerful Arguments, that from a very Learned Person I am thought a mere Pretender. Not long ago I was relating that I had read such a Passage in _Tacitus_, up starts my young Gentleman in a full Company, and pulling out his Purse offered to lay me ten Guineas, to be staked immediately in that Gentleman's Hands, (pointing to one smoaking at another Table) that I was utterly mistaken. I was Dumb for want of ten Guineas; he went on unmercifully to Triumph over my Ignorance how to take him up, and told the whole Room he had read _Tacitus_ twenty times over, and such a remarkable Instance as that could not escape him. He has at this time three considerable Wagers depending between him and some of his Companions, who are rich enough to hold an Argument with him. He has five Guineas upon Questions in Geography, two that the _Isle of Wight_ is a Peninsula, and three Guineas to one that the World is round. We have a Gentleman comes to our Coffee-house, who deals mightily in Antique Scandal; my Disputant has laid him twenty Pieces upon a Point of History, to wit, that _Caesar_ never lay with _Cato's_ Sister, as is scandalously reported by some People. There are several of this sort of Fellows in Town, who wager themselves into Statesmen, Historians, Geographers, Mathematicians, and every other Art, when the Persons with whom they talk have not Wealth equal to their Learning. I beg of you to prevent, in these Youngsters, this compendious Way to Wisdom, which costs other People so much Time and Pains, and you will oblige Your humble Servant. Coffee-House near the Temple, Aug. 12, 1711.
Mr. SPECTATOR, 'Here's a young Gentleman that sings Opera-Tunes or Whistles in a full House. Pray let him know that he has no Right to act here as if he were in an empty Room. Be pleased to divide the Spaces of a Publick Room, and certify Whistlers, Singers, and Common Orators, that are heard further than their Portion of the Room comes [to,] that the Law is open, and that there is an Equity which will relieve us from such as interrupt us in our Lawful Discourse, as much as against such as stop us on the Road. I take these Persons, Mr. SPECTATOR, to be such Trespassers as the Officer in your Stage-Coach, and of the same Sentiment with Counsellor _Ephraim_. It is true the Young Man is rich, and, as the Vulgar say, [needs [1]] not care for any Body; but sure that is no Authority for him to go whistle where he pleases. I am, SIR, Your Most Humble Servant, P.S. I have Chambers in the _Temple_, and here are Students that learn upon the Hautboy; pray desire the Benchers that all Lawyers who are Proficients in Wind-Musick may lodge to the _Thames_.
Mr. SPECTATOR, We are a Company of young Women who pass our Time very much together, and obliged by the mercenary Humour of the Men to be as Mercenarily inclined as they are. There visits among us an old Batchelor whom each of us has a Mind to. The Fellow is rich, and knows he may have any of us, therefore is particular to none, but excessively ill-bred. His Pleasantry consists in Romping, he snatches Kisses by Surprize, puts his Hand in our Necks, tears our Fans, robs us of Ribbons, forces Letters out of our Hands, looks into any of our Papers, and a thousand other Rudenesses. Now what I'll desire of you is to acquaint him, by Printing this, that if he does not marry one of us very suddenly, we have all agreed, the next time he pretends to be merry, to affront him, and use him like a Clown as he is. In the Name of the Sisterhood I take my Leave of you, and am, as they all are, Your Constant Reader and Well-wisher.
Mr. SPECTATOR, I and several others of your Female Readers, have conformed our selves to your Rules, even to our very Dress. There is not one of us but has reduced our outward Petticoat to its ancient Sizable Circumference, tho' indeed we retain still a Quilted one underneath, which makes us not altogether unconformable to the Fashion; but 'tis on Condition, Mr. SPECTATOR extends not his Censure so far. But we find you Men secretly approve our Practice, by imitating our Pyramidical Form. The Skirt of your fashionable Coats forms as large a Circumference as our Petticoats; as these are set out with Whalebone, so are those with Wire, to encrease and sustain the Bunch of Fold that hangs down on each Side; and the Hat, I perceive, is decreased in just proportion to our Head-dresses. We make a regular Figure, but I defy your Mathematicks to give Name to the Form you appear in. Your Architecture is mere _Gothick_, and betrays a worse Genius than ours; therefore if you are partial to your own Sex, I shall be less than I am now Your Humble Servant.
[Footnote 1: Hudibras, Part II. c. i.]
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