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as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.

I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.

5

gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.

Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would 10 increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit in15 stead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous 20 enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather 25 to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.

Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which 30 by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.

35

Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds 40 per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods 45 being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.

Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will 50 be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.

Fifthly, This food would likewise bring. great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine

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Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence. to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.

Supposing that one thousand families in this city would be constant customers for infants' flesh, beside others who might have it at merry-meetings, particularly weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.

I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I freely. own, and was indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual king

dom of Ireland and for no other that ever was, is, or I think ever can be upon earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound; of using neither clothes nor household furniture except what is of our own growth and manufacture; of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign

glad to eat up our whole nation without it.

After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any 5 offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better,

luxury; of curing the expensiveness of 10 I desire the author or authors will be

pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women; of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence, and temperance; of learning to love our country, wherein we

pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and

differ even from LAPLANDERS and the 15 backs. And secondly, there being a

inhabitants of TOPINAMBOO; of quitting
our animosities and factions, nor act any
longer like the Jews, who were murdering
one another at the very moment their city
was taken; of being a little cautious not 20
to sell our country and conscience for
nothing; of teaching landlords to have.
at least one degree of mercy toward their
tenants; lastly, of putting a spirit of
honesty, industry, and skill into our shop- 25
keepers; who, if a resolution could now
be taken to buy only our native goods,
would immediately unite to cheat and ex-
act upon us in the price, the measure, and
the goodness, nor could ever yet be 30
brought to make one fair proposal of just
dealing, though often and earnestly in-
vited to it.

Therefore I repeat, let no man talk

common

round million of creatures in human
figure throughout this kingdom, whose
whole subsistence put into a
stock would leave them in debt two mil-
lions of pounds sterling, adding those who
are beggars by profession to the bulk of
farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with
their wives and children who are beggars
in effect: I desire those politicians who
dislike my overture, and may perhaps be
so bold as to attempt an answer, that
they will first ask the parents of these
mortals, whether they would not at this
day think it a great happiness to have
been sold for food at a year old in the
manner I prescribe, and thereby have
avoided such a perpetual scene of mis-
fortunes as they have since gone through
by the oppression of landlords, the im-

to me of these and the like expedients, till 35 possibility of paying rent without money

he hath at least some glimpse of hope that there will be ever some hearty and sincere

attempt to put them in practice.

But as to myself, having been wearied

or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect

out for many years with offering vain, 40 of entailing the like or greater miseries

idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success I fortunately fell upon this proposal; which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expense and little trouble, 45 full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging ENGLAND. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to admit a long so continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country which would be

upon their breed for ever.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.

(1729)

55

SIR RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729)

Steele, like Swift, was born in Dublin. He passed, with Addison, through Charterhouse School to Oxford, but soon left the university to seek his fortune in the army.

By 1701, he had gained a captaincy in the Tower Guards and was a vivacious figure among the wits who haunted the coffee-houses, clubs, and theaters of London. Several comedies, in which he made a manly and effective effort to win a place for decency on the English stage, were still sprightly enough to sustain his reputation as a wit and good fellow. He was soon taken on by the government and, in 1707, was commissioned to write The Gazette. While officially 'keeping that paper very innocent and very insipid,' Steele discovered the possibilities of periodical writing. Two years later he began The Tatler, picking up as a disguise the character of a fictitious astrologer, Isaac Bickerstaff, which Swift had let drop after provoking the town to hilarious scoffing at one Partridge, an almanac-maker. Addison soon penetrated the disguise and was eagerly welcomed as a contributor. After about a year, Steele and Addison together devised the more commodious plan of The Spectator. The novel periodical created and supplied a new kind of literary demand. Its freedom from party bias, and the penetrating and yet urbane irony of its portrayals and criticisms of English manners gave it a wide appeal. The Spectator became a part of the tea-equipage' in London clubs and coffee-houses and wide-awake provincial homes. It turned out a valuable pecuniary asset; but the partnership did not last. Steele was a turbulent politician; Addison disapproved of his factious spirit; and, after the earlier numbers of The Guardian (1713), they ceased to collaborate. None of the later periodicals of either approximated the success of The Spectator. Steele was now approaching the liveliest part of his life. He had a stormy parliamentary experience, was made supervisor of the Drury Lane Theater, and George I knighted him for energetic championship of the Hanoverian succession.

His prosperity was brief, however. Through his opposition to the Peerage Bill (1719), he lost the support of his party and received some sore knocks from his old friend. He was frequently in money difficulties, and finally, broken in health as well as fortune, he took refuge in Wales, not as Swift venomously rimed, from perils of a hundred gaols,' but from the expenses of a London establishment, so that his debts might be paid before his death. Steele's Irish imprudences are sometimes exaggerated for the sake of contrasting him with Addison. He was not, in practice, above the fashionable vices of his times, and he was sinfully reckless in money matters. He was, nevertheless, a sincere champion of virtue and lover of piety; he was chivalrous toward women, generous and forgiving toward his friends, and intrepid where his political conscience was involved. The uncalculating prodigality and sweetness of his nature are reflected in his pages, and have made many besides Thackeray 'own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much better men and much better authors.'

[No. 1.]

FROM THE TATLER

THE ADVERTISEMENT

public-spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look into transactions of state. Now these gentlemen, for the most part, being persons of strong zeal and weak 5 intellects, it is both a charitable and necessary work to offer something whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after their reading, what to think; which shall be the end and purpose of this my paper, wherein I shall from time to time report and consider all matters of what kind soever that shall occur to me, and publish such my advices

Though the other papers which are published for the use of the good people of England have certainly very wholesome effects and are laudable in their particular kinds, they do not seem to to come up to the main design of such narrations, which, I humbly presume, should be principally intended for the use of politic persons, who are SO

and reflections every Tuesday, Thursday
and Saturday in the week, for the con-
venience of the post. I resolve also to
have something which may be of enter-
tainment to the fair sex, in honor of
whom I have invented the title of this
paper. I therefore earnestly desire all
persons, without distinction, to take it in
for the present gratis, and hereafter at
the price of one penny, forbidding all 10
hawkers to take more for it at their peril.
And I desire all persons to consider that
I am at a very great charge for proper
materials for this work, as well as that,
before I resolved upon it, I had settled 15
a correspondence in all parts of the
known and knowing world. And foras-
much as this globe is not trodden upon
by mere drudges of business only, but
that men of spirit and genius are justly 20
to be esteemed as considerable agents in
it, we shall not upon a dearth of news
present you with musty foreign edicts, or
dull proclamations, but shall divide our
relation of the passages which occur in 25
action or discourse throughout this town,
as well as elsewhere, under such dates of
places as may prepare you for the matter
you are to expect, in the following man-

ner:

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and 35 domestic news, you will have from Saint James's Coffee-house; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment.

casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.

But this last faculty I shall use very sparingly, and speak but of few things 5 until they are passed, for fear of divulging matters which may offend our superiors. Tuesday, April 12, 1709.

[No. 181.]

A RECOLLECTION

The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling Papa'; for I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me 30 in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport, which, methought struck me with an instinct of sorrow which, before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo, and receives impressions so forcible that they are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit; but, having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defenses from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since insnared me into ten thousand calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that, in such a humor as I am

40

I once more desire my reader to consider that, as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Wills under twopence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to the Grecian, without allowing him some plain 45 Spanish, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even kidney at Saint James's without clean linen; I say, these considerations will, I hope, make all per- 50 sons willing to comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a penny a piece; especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible for me to 55 want means to entertain them, having, besides the force of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by

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beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his com5 pany; when he comes into a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; that he fills the chair 10 at a quarter-sessions with great abilities, and three months ago, gained universal applause, by explaining a passage in the game-act.

The first of our society is a gentleman. of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name is Sir Roger de 15 Coverley. His great grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He 20 is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. 25 However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor, by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county 35 to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to 40 town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee house for calling him youngster. But, being ill used by the above mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his 45 temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the 50 time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind: but there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior, that he is rather

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us, is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humorsome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage articles, leases and tenures, in the neighborhood; all which questions he 30 agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully; but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable; as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell court, 55 and takes a turn at Will's, till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed, and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of

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