No. 065 [from The Spectator]

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Title:     No. 065 [from The Spectator]
Author: Richard Steele [More Titles by Steele]

No. 65
Tuesday, May 15, 1711.

'... Demetri teque Tigelli
Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.'

Hor.

After having at large explained what Wit is, and described the false Appearances of it, all that Labour seems but an useless Enquiry, without some Time be spent in considering the Application of it. The Seat of Wit, when one speaks as a Man of the Town and the World, is the Play-house; I shall therefore fill this Paper with Reflections upon the Use of it in that Place. The Application of Wit in the Theatre has as strong an Effect upon the Manners of our Gentlemen, as the Taste of it has upon the Writings of our Authors. It may, perhaps, look like a very presumptuous Work, though not Foreign from the Duty of a SPECTATOR, to tax the Writings of such as have long had the general Applause of a Nation; But I shall always make Reason, Truth, and Nature the Measures of Praise and Dispraise; if those are for me, the Generality of Opinion is of no Consequence against me; if they are against me, the general Opinion cannot long support me.

Without further Preface, I am going to look into some of our most applauded Plays, and see whether they deserve the Figure they at present bear in the Imagination of Men, or not.

In reflecting upon these Works, I shall chiefly dwell upon that for which each respective Play is most celebrated. The present Paper shall be employed upon Sir _Fopling Flutter_. [1] The received Character of this Play is, That it is the Pattern of Genteel Comedy. _Dorimant_ and _Harriot_ are the Characters of greatest Consequence, and if these are Low and Mean, the Reputation of the Play is very Unjust.

I will take for granted, that a fine Gentleman should be honest in his Actions, and refined in his Language. Instead of this, our Hero in this Piece is a direct Knave in his Designs, and a Clown in his Language. _Bellair_ is his Admirer and Friend; in return for which, because he is forsooth a greater Wit than his said Friend, he thinks it reasonable to persuade him to marry a young Lady, whose Virtue, he thinks, will last no longer than till she is a Wife, and then she cannot but fall to his Share, as he is an irresistible fine Gentleman. The Falshood to Mrs. _Loveit_, and the Barbarity of Triumphing over her Anguish for losing him, is another Instance of his Honesty, as well as his Good-nature. As to his fine Language; he calls the Orange-Woman, who, it seems, is inclined to grow Fat, _An Over-grown Jade, with a Flasket of Guts before her_; and salutes her with a pretty Phrase of _How now, Double Tripe_? Upon the mention of a Country Gentlewoman, whom he knows nothing of, (no one can imagine why) he _will lay his Life she is some awkward ill-fashioned Country Toad, who not having above four Dozen of Hairs on her Head, has adorned her Baldness with a large white Fruz, that she may look Sparkishly in the Forefront of the King's Box at an old Play_. Unnatural Mixture of senseless Common-Place!

As to the Generosity of his Temper, he tells his poor Footman, _If he did not wait better_--he would turn him away, in the insolent Phrase of, _I'll uncase you_.

Now for Mrs. _Harriot_: She laughs at Obedience to an absent Mother, whose Tenderness _Busie_ describes to be very exquisite, for _that she is so pleased with finding_ Harriot _again, that she cannot chide her for being out of the way_. This Witty Daughter, and fine Lady, has so little Respect for this good Woman, that she Ridicules her Air in taking Leave, and cries, _In what Struggle is my poor Mother yonder? See, see, her Head tottering, her Eyes staring, and her under Lip trembling_. But all this is atoned for, because _she has more Wit than is usual in her Sex, and as much Malice, tho' she is as Wild as you would wish her and has a Demureness in her Looks that makes it so surprising!_ Then to recommend her as a fit Spouse for his Hero, the Poet makes her speak her Sense of Marriage very ingeniously: _I think_, says she, _I might be brought to endure him, and that is all a reasonable Woman should expect in an Husband_. It is, methinks, unnatural that we are not made to understand how she that was bred under a silly pious old Mother, that would never trust her out of her sight, came to be so Polite.

It cannot be denied, but that the Negligence of every thing, which engages the Attention of the sober and valuable Part of Mankind, appears very well drawn in this Piece: But it is denied, that it is necessary to the Character of a Fine Gentleman, that he should in that manner trample upon all Order and Decency. As for the Character of _Dorimant_, it is more of a Coxcomb than that of _Fopling_. He says of one of his Companions, that a good Correspondence between them is their mutual Interest. Speaking of that Friend, he declares, their being much together _makes the Women think the better of his Understanding, and judge more favourably of my Reputation. It makes him pass upon some for a Man of very good Sense, and me upon others for a very civil Person_.

This whole celebrated Piece is a perfect Contradiction to good Manners, good Sense, and common Honesty; and as there is nothing in it but what is built upon the Ruin of Virtue and Innocence, according to the Notion of Merit in this Comedy, I take the Shoemaker to be, in reality, the Fine Gentleman of the Play: For it seems he is an Atheist, if we may depend upon his Character as given by the Orange-Woman, who is her self far from being the lowest in the Play. She says of a Fine Man who is _Dorimant's_ Companion, There _is not such another Heathen in the Town, except the Shoemaker_. His Pretension to be the Hero of the _Drama_ appears still more in his own Description of his way of Living with his Lady. _There is_, says he, _never a Man in Town lives more like a Gentleman with his Wife than I do; I never mind her Motions; she never enquires into mine. We speak to one another civilly, hate one another heartily; and because it is Vulgar to Lye and Soak together, we have each of us our several Settle-Bed_. That of _Soaking together_ is as good as if _Dorimant_ had spoken it himself; and, I think, since he puts Human Nature in as ugly a Form as the Circumstances will bear, and is a staunch Unbeliever, he is very much Wronged in having no part of the good Fortune bestowed in the last Act.

To speak plainly of this whole Work, I think nothing but being lost to a sense of Innocence and Virtue can make any one see this Comedy, without observing more frequent Occasion to move Sorrow and Indignation, than Mirth and Laughter. At the same time I allow it to be Nature, but it is Nature in its utmost Corruption and Degeneracy. [2]

R.

[Footnote 1: 'The Man of Mode', or 'Sir Fopling Flutter', by Sir George Etherege, produced in 1676. Etherege painted accurately the life and morals of the Restoration, and is said to have represented himself in Bellair; Beau Hewit, the son of a Herefordshire Baronet, in Sir Fopling; and to have formed Dorimant upon the model of the Earl of Rochester.]

[Footnote 2: To this number of the Spectator is appended the first advertisement of Pope's 'Essay on Criticism'.

   
        This Day is publish'd An ESSAY on CRITICISM.
    Printed for W. Lewis in Russell street Covent-Garden;
   and Sold by W. Taylor, at the Ship in Pater Noster Row;
          T. Osborn, in Gray's Inn near the Walks;
              T. Graves, in St. James's Street;
            and T. Morphew, near Stationers-Hall.
                         Price 1s.]

[The end]
Richard Steele's essay: No. 65 [from The Spectator]

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