Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Tatler, No. 54

From Thursd. Aug. 11. to Saturd. Aug. 13. 1709

"There is therefore an assiduous Care and Cultivation to be bestowed upon our Passions and Affections; for they, as they are the Excrescencies of our Souls, like our Hair and Beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut or let 'em grow."

WHEN Labour was pronounced to be the Portion of Man, that Doom reached the Affections of his Mind, as well as his Person, the Matter on which he was to feed, and all the animal and vegetable World about him. There is therefore an assiduous Care and Cultivation to be bestowed upon our Passions and Affections; for they, as they are the Excrescencies of our Souls, like our Hair and Beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut or let 'em grow. All this grave Preface is meant to assign a Reason in Nature for the unaccountable Behaviour of Duumvir, the Husband and Keeper. Ten Thousand Follies had this unhappy Man escaped, had he made a Compact with himself to be upon his Guard, and not permitted his vagrant Eye to let in so many different Inclinations upon him, as all his Days he has been perplexed with. But indeed at present he has brought himself to be confined only to one prevailing Mistress; between whom and his Wife, Duumvir passes his Hours in all the Vicissitudes which attend Passion and Affection, without the Intervention of Reason. Laura his Wife, and Phillis his Mistress, are all with whom he has had, for some Months, the least amorous Commerce. Duumvir has passed the Noon of Life; but cannot withdraw from those Entertainments which are pardonable only before that Stage of our Being, and which after that Season are rather Punishments than Satisfactions: For pall'd Appetite is humorous, and must be gratified with Sauces rather than Food. For which End Duumvir is provided with an haughty, imperious, expensive, and fantastick Mistress, to whom he retires from the Conversation of an affable, humble, discrect, and affectionate Wife. Laura receives him after Absence with an easie and unaffected Complacency; but that he calls insipid: Phillis rates him for his Absence, and bids him return from whence he came: This he calls Spirit and Fire. Laura's Gentleness is thought mean; Phillis's Insolence, sprightly. Were you to see him at his own Home, and his Mistress's Lodgings, to Phillis he appears an obsequious Lover, to Laura an imperious Master. Nay, so unjust is the Taste of Duumvir, that he owns Laura has no ill Quality, but that she is his Wife; Phillis no good one, but that she is his Mistress. And he has himself often said, were he married to any one else, he would rather keep Laura than any Woman living; yet allows at the same Time, that Phillis, were she a Woman of Honour, would have been the most insipid Animal breathing. [...]
(II, pp. 23-4; cf. I, pp. 378-9 in Bond ed.)

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See The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. Dates of Publication: No. 1 (Tuesday, April 12, 1709.) through No. 271 (From Saturday December 30, to Tuesday January 2, 1710 [i.e. 1711]). <Link to ESTC>

Collected in two volumes, and printed and sold by J. Morphew in 1710, 1711. Also collected and reprinted as The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.

Consulting Donald Bond's edition of The Tatler, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). Searching and pasting text from The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq: Revised and Corrected by the Author (London: Printed by John Nutt, and sold by John Morphew, 1712): <Link to Vol. 1><Vol. 2><Vol. 3><Vol. 4><Vol. 5>. Some text also from Project Gutenberg digitization of 1899 edition edited by George A. Aitken.

03/02/2014