Seeing this table full, I desired my guide for variety to lead me to the fabulous apartment, the roof of which was painted with gorgons, chimeras, and centaurs, with many other emblematical figures, which I wanted both time and skill to unriddle. The first table was almost full. At the upper end sat Hercules, leaning an arm upon his club. On his right hand were Achilles and Ulysses, and between them Æneas. On his left were Hector, Theseus, and Jason. The lower end had Orpheus, Æsop, Phalaris,[228] and Musæus. The ushers seemed at a loss for a twelfth man, when, methought, to my great joy and surprise, I heard some at the lower end of the table mention Isaac Bickerstaff: but those of the upper end received it with disdain, and said, if they must have a British worthy, they would have Robin Hood. While I was transported with the honour that was done me, and burning with envy against my competitor, I was awakened by the noise of the cannon which were then fired for the taking of Mons.[229] I should have been very much troubled at being thrown out of so pleasing a vision on any other occasion; but thought it an agreeable change to have my thoughts diverted from the greatest among the dead and fabulous heroes, to the most famous among the real and the living.
[225] In the list which he gave to Tickell, Steele describes this paper as written by Addison and himself jointly. Hawkesworth claimed for Swift Nos. 66, 67, 74, and 81, and no doubt the idea of "tables of fame" (No. 67) was started by him. On October 8, Steele wrote to Swift: "I wonder you do not write sometimes to me. The town is in great expectation from Bickerstaff; what passed at the election for the first table being to be published this day seven-night. I have not seen Ben Tooke a great while, but long to usher you and yours into the world." But it seems clear that Swift left his friends to carry out the execution of the plan. As Nichols points out, Swift afterwards wrote: "I was told that Brutus, and his ancestor Junius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato the younger, and Sir Thomas More, were perpetually together: a sextumvirate, to which all the ages of the world cannot add a seventh." Now there are only _two_ of this sextumvirate admitted to seats at the first "table of fame" in the _Tatler_. There are besides, in this paper, manifest deviations from the plan proposed in No. 67, and palpable contradictions to it. The "side-table" is here forgotten; the heroes of "great fame but dubious existence" are turned into a separate apartment; the number of the company at the second table is reduced from twenty to twelve; Bickerstaff, who "had not been dead an hundred years," is mentioned to make out the dozen; of the third table there is nothing said; and the subject seems finally discussed in one paper, which was evidently intended to have made three.