Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Tatler, No. 174

From Thursday May 18. to Saturday May 20. 1710

"By this Means, a disordered Mind, like a broken Limb, will recover its Strength by the sole Benefit of being out of Use, and lying without Motion."

It is necessary in this Place to premise, That the Superiority and Force of Mind which is born with Men of great Genius; and which, when it falls in with a noble Imagination, is called Poetical Fury, does not come under my Consideration: but the Pretence to such an Impulse without natural Warmth, shall be allowed a fit Object of this Charity; and all the Volumes written by such Hands, shall be from Time to Time placed in proper Order upon the Rails of the unhoused Booksellers within the District of the College, (who have long inhabited this Quarter) in the same Manner as they are already disposed soon after their Publication. I promise my self from these Writings my best Opiates for those Patients, whose high Imaginations, and hot Spirits, have waked them into Distraction. Their boiling Tempers are not to be wrought upon by my Gruels and Julips, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or their Recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make Use of such Poets as preserve so constant a Mediocrity, as never to elevate the Mind into Joy, or depress it into Sadness, yet at the same Time keep the Faculties of the Readers in Suspence, tho' they introduce no Idea's of their own. By this Means, a disordered Mind, like a broken Limb, will recover its Strength by the sole Benefit of being out of Use, and lying without Motion. But as Reading is not an Entertainment that can take up the full Time of my Patients, I have now in Pension a proportionable Number of Story-Tellers, who are by Turns to walk about the Galleries of the House, and by their Narrations second the Labours of my pretty good Poets. There are among these Story-Tellers some that have so earnest Countenances, and weighty Brows, that they will draw a Madman, even when his Fit is just coming on, into a Whisper, and by the Force of Shrugs, Nods, and busy Gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may have Time to give him his Broth without Danger.
(III, pp. 295-6; cf. II, pp. 452-3 in Bond ed.)

Body::Limb::Broken Limb

ECCO-TCP

Over 50 entries in the ESTC (1709, 1710, 1711, 1712, 1713, 1716, 1720, 1723, 1728, 1733, 1737, 1743, 1747, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1754, 1759, 1764, 1772, 1774, 1776, 1777, 1785, 1786, 1789, 1794, 1795, 1797).

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