[Footnote 115: These lines are part of a song by Lord Cutts, under whom Steele had served as secretary when in the army. The verses will be found in Nichols' "Select Collection" (1780), ii. 327.]
[Footnote 117: First published as "By a Person of Quality." "The gentleman I here intended was Dr. Swift, this kind of man I thought him at that time. We have not met of late, but I hope he deserves this character still." (Steele's "Apology," 1714.) This pamphlet is closely in accord with the _Tatler_ in its condemnation of gaming, drunkenness, swearing, immorality on the stage, and other evils of the time. Swift suggests, too, a revival of censors.]
[Footnote 118: Forster suggests that it was Addison.]
[Footnote 120: This phrase, as well as Unnion's forgetting his wound, is criticised in a little book called, "Annotations on the _Tatler_, in two parts," 12mo, said to have been written originally in French by Monsieur Bournelle, and translated into English by Walter Wagstaff, Esq. London, Bernard Lintott, 1710. The annotator goes no farther with his annotations than to _Tatler_ No. 83. See Nos. 78, 191.]
[Footnote 122: "A man of a particular turn of mind" (Johnson).]
[Footnote 123: In 1705, after the battle of Blenheim, Marlborough was made Prince of Mildenheim by the Emperor. Lewis XIV. succeeded to the French throne in 1643; Marlborough was born in 1650.]
From _Thursday, April 21_, to _Saturday, April 23_, 1709.
I am just come from visiting Sappho,[124] a fine lady, who writes verses, sings, dances and can say and do whatever she pleases, without the imputation of anything that can injure her character; for she is so well known to have no passion but self-love, or folly, but affectation; that now upon any occasion they only cry, "'Tis her way," and "That's so like her," without further reflection. As I came into the room, she cries, "O Mr. Bickerstaff, I am utterly undone! I have broke that pretty Italian fan I showed you when you were here last, wherein were so admirably drawn our first parents in Paradise asleep in each other's arms." But there is such an affinity between painting and poetry, that I have been improving the images which were raised by that picture, by reading the same representation in two of our greatest poets. Look you, here are the passages in Milton and in Dryden. All Milton's thoughts are wonderfully just and natural, in this inimitable description which Adam makes of himself in the eighth book of "Paradise Lost." But there is none of them finer than that contained in the following lines, where he tells us his thoughts when he was falling asleep a little after his creation.