Читать книгу The Tatler (Vol. 1-4) - Joseph Addison - Страница 103

I have read the following letter with delight and approbation, and I hereby order Mr. Kidney at St. James's, and Sir Thomas at White's²⁷⁴ (who are my clerks for enrolling all men in their distant classes, before they presume to drink tea or chocolate in those places), to take care, that the persons within the descriptions in the letter be admitted, and excluded according to my friend's remonstrance.²⁷⁵

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; at Mr. Morphew's near Stationers' Hall.

"June 6, 1709.

"SIR,

"Your paper of Saturday²⁷⁶ has raised up in me a noble emulation, to be recorded in the foremost rank of worthies therein mentioned; and if any regard be had to merit or industry, I may hope to succeed in the promotion, for I have omitted no toil or expense to be a proficient; and if my friends do not flatter, they assure me, I have not lost my time since I came to town. To enumerate but a few particulars; there's hardly a coachman I meet with, but desires to be excused taking me, because he has had me before. I have compounded two or three rapes; and let out to hire as many bastards to beggars. I never saw above the first act of a play: and as to my courage, it is well known, I have more than once had sufficient witnesses of my drawing my sword both in tavern and playhouse. Dr. Wall²⁷⁷ is my particular friend; and if it were any service to the public to compose the difference between Marten and Sintilaer²⁷⁸ the pearl-driller, I don't know a judge of more experience than myself: for in that I may say with the poet,

"'Quæ regio in villa nostri non plena laboris?'²⁷⁹

"I omit other less particulars, the necessary consequences of greater actions. But my reason for troubling you at this present is, to put a stop, if it may be, to an insinuating, increasing set of people, who sticking to the letter of your treatise, and not to the spirit of it, do assume the name of 'pretty fellows'; nay, and even get new names, as you very well hint. Some of them I have heard calling to one another, as I have sat at White's and St. James's, by the names of Betty, Nelly, and so forth. You see them accost each other with effeminate airs: they have their signs and tokens like freemasons: they rail at women-kind; receive visits on their beds in gowns, and do a thousand other unintelligible prettinesses that I cannot tell what to make of. I therefore heartily desire you would exclude all this sort of animals.

"There is another matter I am foreseeing an ill consequence from, but may be timely prevented by prudence; which is, that for the last fortnight, prodigious shoals of volunteers have gone over to bully the French, upon hearing the peace was just signing; and this is so true, that I can assure you, all engrossing work about the Temple is risen above 3s. in the pound for want of hands. Now as it is possible some little alteration of affairs may have broken their measures, and that they will post back again, I am under the last apprehension, that these will, at their return, all set up for 'pretty fellows,' and thereby confound all merit and service, and impose on us some new alteration in our nightcap-wigs²⁸⁰ and pockets, unless you can provide a particular class for them. I cannot apply myself better than to you, and I am sure I speak the mind of a very great number as deserving as myself."

The pretensions of this correspondent are worthy a particular distinction: he cannot indeed be admitted as a "pretty," but is, what we more justly call, a "smart fellow." Never to pay at the playhouse, is an act of frugality, that lets you into his character. And his expedient in sending his children a-begging before they can go, are characteristical instances that he belongs to this class. I never saw the gentleman; but I know by his letter, he hangs his cane on his button;²⁸¹ and by some lines of it, he should wear red-heeled shoes;²⁸² which are essential parts of the habit belonging to the order of "smart fellows."

My familiar is returned with the following letter from the French king:

"Versailles, June 13, 1709.