Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Tatler, No. 179

From Tuesday May 30. to Thursday June 1. 1710

"In a Word, the Beauties and the Charms of Nature and of Art court all my Faculties, refresh the Fibres of the Brain, and smooth every Avenue of Thought. What pleasing Meditations, what agreeable Wanderings of the Mind, and what delicious Slumbers, have I enjoyed here?"

Now, Sir, you see my whole Contrivance to elude the Rigour of the Year, to bring a Northern Climate nearer the Sun, and to exempt my self from the common Fate of my Countrymen. I must detain you a little longer, to tell you, That I never enter this delicious Retirement, but my Spirits are revived, and a sweet Complacency diffuses it self over my whole Mind. And how can it be otherwise, with a Conscience void of Offence, where the Musick of Falling Waters, the Symphony of Birds, the gentle Humming of Bees, the Breath of Flowers, the fine Imagery of Painting and Sculpture: In a Word, the Beauties and the Charms of Nature and of Art court all my Faculties, refresh the Fibres of the Brain, and smooth every Avenue of Thought. What pleasing Meditations, what agreeable Wanderings of the Mind, and what delicious Slumbers, have I enjoyed here? And when I turn up some Masterly Writer to my Imagination, methinks here his Beauties appear in the most advantagious Light, and the Rays of his Genius shoot upon me with greater Force and Brightness than ordinary. This Place likewise keeps the whole Family in good Humour, in a Season wherein Gloominess of Temper prevails universally in this Island. My Wife does often touch her Lute in one of the Grotto's, and my Daughter sings to it, while the Ladies with you, amidst all the Diversions of the Town, and in the most affluent Fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a lowering Sky for they know not what. In this Green House we often dine, we drink Tea, we dance Country-Dances; and what is the chief Pleasure of all, we entertain our Neighbours in it, and by this Means contribute very much to mend the Climate Five or Six Miles about us. [...]
(III, p. 324; cf. II, p. 477 in Bond ed.)

City::Avenues Geography Motion::Wandering

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