FOOTNOTES:
[262] See No. 112.
[263] Tom's Coffee-house, in Russell Street, opposite Button's, was named after the landlord, Captain Thomas West. Macky ("A Journey through England," 1722, i. 172) says, "After the play the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's Coffee-houses, near adjoining, where there is playing at piquet, and the best of conversation till midnight. Here you will see blue and green ribbons and stars sitting familiarly."
[264] Here and elsewhere Steele describes his own life.
[No. 90. [Steele.]
From Thursday, Nov. 3, to Saturday, Nov. 5, 1709.
----Amoto quæramus seria ludo.—Hor., 1 Sat. i. 27.
Will's Coffee-house, Nov. 4.
The passion of love happened to be the subject of discourse between two or three of us at the table of the poets this evening; and among other observations, it was remarked, that the same sentiment on this passion had run through all languages and nations. Menmius, who has a very good taste, fell into a little sort of dissertation on this occasion. "It is," said he, "remarkable, that no passion has been treated by all who have touched upon it with the same bent of design but this. The poets, the moralists, the painters, in all their descriptions, allegories, and pictures, have represented it as a soft torment, a bitter sweet, a pleasing pain, or an agreeable distress, and have only expressed the same thought in a different manner. The[267] joining of pleasure and pain together in such devices, seems to me the only pointed thought I ever read which is natural; and it must have proceeded from its being the universal sense and experience of mankind, that they have all spoken of it in the same manner. I have in my own reading remarked a hundred and three epigrams, fifty odes, and ninety-one sentences tending to this sole purpose. It is certain, there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree: but this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated. Human nature would sink into deadness and lethargy, if not quickened with some active principle; and as for all others, whether ambition, envy, or avarice, which are apt to possess the mind in the absence of this passion, it must be allowed that they have greater pains, without the compensation of such exquisite pleasures as those we find in love. The great skill is to heighten the satisfactions, and deaden the sorrows of it, which has been the end of many of my labours, and shall continue to be so for the service of the world in general, and in particular of the fair sex who are always the best or the worst part of it. It is pity that a passion which has in it a capacity of making life happy, should not be cultivated to the utmost advantage. Reason, prudence, and good-nature, rightly applied, can thoroughly accomplish this great end, provided they have always a real and constant love to work upon. But this subject I shall treat more at large in the history of my married sister; and in the meantime, shall conclude my reflection on the pains and pleasures which attend this passion with one of the finest allegories which I think I have ever read. It is invented by the divine Plato, and to show the opinion he himself had of it, ascribed by him to his admired Socrates, whom he represents as discoursing with his friends, and giving the history of love in the following manner:
"At the birth of Beauty," says he, "there was a great feast made, and many guests invited: among the rest was the god Plenty, who was the son of the goddess Prudence, and inherited many of his mother's virtues. After a full entertainment, he retired into the garden of Jupiter, which was hung with a great variety of ambrosial fruits, and seems to have been a very proper retreat for such a guest. In the meantime an unhappy female, called Poverty, having heard of this great feast, repaired to it in hopes of finding relief. The first place she lights upon was Jupiter's garden, which generally stands open to people of all conditions. Poverty enters, and by chance finds the god Plenty asleep in it. She was immediately fired with his charms, laid herself down by his side, and managed matters so well that she conceived a child by him. The world was very much in suspense upon the occasion, and could not imagine to themselves what would be the nature of an infant that was to have its original from two such parents. At the last, the child appears; and who should it be but Love. This infant grew up, and proved in all his behaviour what he really was, a compound of opposite beings. As he is the son of Plenty (who was the offspring of Prudence), he is subtle, intriguing, full of stratagems and devices; as the son of Poverty, he is fawning, begging, serenading, delighting to lie at a threshold or beneath a window. By the father, he is audacious, full of hopes, conscious of merit, and therefore quick of resentment: by the mother, he is doubtful, timorous, mean-spirited, fearful of offending, and abject in submissions. In the same hour you may see him transported with raptures, talking of immortal pleasures, and appearing satisfied as a god; and immediately after, as the mortal mother prevails in his composition, you behold him pining, languishing, despairing, dying."