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Advice to the lovely Cyprians, and Fair Sex in general, how to conduct themselves in future, and to practise with greater satisfaction the three cardinal virtues, namely, Drinking, Gambling, and Intriguing.

[p127] I am perfectly convinced of the defects that prevail in the education of the loveliest part of the creation: but, however desirous I may be to correct them, and point out the errors in which they are brought up, I am convinced that it never will be in my power; for, were I to write a treatise on female education, founded on the purest principles of virtue, morality and religion, which would certainly [p128] be my object and endeavour; yet, if it were not announced under the sanction of some eminent divine, I would not believe that there is a mother in England who would permit her daughters to read it: nor is there a boarding-school in or round about London, or elsewhere, in which the mistress would not sooner admit any of the modern lascivious novels, than a Treatise on the Improvement of Female Education, by Colonel George Hanger; -- so true is the proverb, "Give a dog a bad name, and you may as well hang him." But I, ye lovely fair, mind not what your mothers say or think of me; for those censorious antiquated beldams are only, like the dog in the manger, envious of your more youthful charms. They wish, by depreciating the character of any man who so truly adores the sex as I do, to deter you from enjoying those [p129] pleasures which they themselves wish for; and sure I am, that they would rather see a total decay of the Arts and Sciences, than be excluded a share in the patronage. When hunted by bailiffs, the blood-hounds of unrelenting usurers, and their more rapacious attornies; how often have I secreted myself in the house of some fair one, or with her fled the town, to some distance scene of freedom and security! When I have experienced that balm to a distracted mind which female converse only can impart, although opressed by anxious care, and sinful poverty (that worst of crimes), give me but health, and the affections of some kind sympathising fair one, and I will oppose a sea of troubles. Oh woman! all care relieving woman! thou art the true physician to the sickly mind: a Warren or a Jebb [p130] may ease the body sinking with disease and pain; but the heart rejects their art, for love defies all Esculapian power. Yes, ye fair! I own those pleasing tortures you inflict; nay more, I glory in the bondage in which you have held me, by having a heart obedient to your charms -- No doctor's hand, convulsive to the touch of gold, can heal those wounds you give; but one endearing smile restores to life and happiness your dying suppliant. Thanks be to Venus, you possess a sovereign antidote to your poison: for Telephus with his magic spear never had more power to heal than you. Oh Cytherea, and thy Paphian nymphs, be generous, be kind, be propitious to my call! -- Ye beauteous fair, to whom all nature yields and bends the knee, whose power the soldier dreads more than the hostile foe in battle [p131] fierce, strike deep your dagger in my breast; but, oh, in pity heal me with your smiles! First kill, then cure; first bind the lover fast, then loose the silken band. Draw, oh draw your Cytherean arrows to the head, and whirl them from the twanging, Paphian yew, to pierce the lover's breast! but, in compassion, quickly close the combat, or the sad wretch in misery expires!

It would give me the most heart-felt satisfaction, could I be numbered in the honourable list of those who have been instrumental to the expansion of your minds, the promotion of your happiness, and the refinement of your morals. A perfect amendment cannot be effected by any other means than a total alteration in the system of your education; for you are taught, from your infancy, to belie [p132] your thoughts and wishes, and to vow that you have not the smallest propensity to those objects which are your chief delight and pleasure. These wishes, your education, whether at home, or in that seminary of wholesome instruction called a boarding-school, teaches you to smother.

As we have very little hopes that the system of your education, defective as it is, will be altered, I shall attempt to instruct you how to make the most of your circumstances, such as they are, and to turn them to the greatest advantage. I will endeavour to teach you how to enjoy the pleasure and delights of life, that your days to come may be more satisfactory and beneficial.

It is a bold and arduous task, I avow; but [p133] friendship and affection commands me to attempt it. There are some delights in life which are essential to it, yet it may not be altogether prudent openly and daringly to avow them; for truth is not to be spoken at all times. Be mindful, therefore, ye lovely fair, who have any regard for your characters, and are tenacious of that respect of the world which is so much sought after; be ever mindful, I entreat you, by that regard and affection I have for your welfare and happiness, that it is not so much for what women do that they suffer, as how they do it. With good conduct and discretion, and by following good advice, (such as I shall give you,) I do not hesitate to assert, that you may enjoy more real and solid happiness, than by rashly plunging into the fatal gulph of luxury and dissipation. Then be, with caution, [p134] bold: -- the proverb is vulgar, but none more true, that "the silent sow sucks the most grains." Let me, therefore, recommend moderation to you in the enjoyment of every thing. Excess is ever destructive both to health and happiness, even in things most salutary; for excess of pleasure is often productive of excessive pain. There is no excuse to be pleaded for your indulging in excess in any thing; except at such times when the ablest physicians tell us that women have longed even for poisonous things, and have taken them without the smallest detriment to their health or constitution; though, at any other period, they would have caused instant death.

Two very singular instances of this nature have come to my knowledge: -- A [p135] very delicate woman, who at other times could not be prevailed on to drink above one glass of wine after dinner, suddenly drank two bottles, which had no more effect on her than if she had drank so much water. The other is still more extraordinary; but I declare it to be an absolute fact: -- A woman longed for a three-legged joint-stool, which she totally devoured, and it passed off without any inconvenience or detriment to her health. Had she longed for a may-pole, at so particular a time, it would have made no difference. I assure the reader I am serious, and that I am well informed of the truth of these two singular cases. Certain it is that even the most noxious and poisonous ingredients may, at those peculiar times, be taken into the human body, without any detriment to the constitution; [p136] yet I am not so ridiculously credulous as to believe the assertions of a woman who said she longed for charcoal when she was brought-to-bed of a black child.

It is equally necessary that you should attend to your finances as to your health, although there is nothing more detestable than a mercenary woman, except a mercenary man. Yet I would not have you undervalue or despise money as much as the celebrated Kitty Fisher¹. Indeed, in these days, notes of that value are not so plenty; for scarcely do I ever see a note of one hundred pounds.

I applaud the generosity of your minds [p137] in attributing the scanty and ungenerous donations of your friends to the distress of the times, and their real want of cash: but you are deceived; it is not the real fact: it proceeds from nothing but a cursed sordid avarice, and the wants of true generosity. Our legislators assure us, (and who can know so well as they? and whom ought we to believe but them?) that our country is in the highest state of affluence, that it is in a most flourishing situation, and that our trade and commerce increase daily. I trust you will, as well as me, implicitly believe their assurances; for, although sometimes I see artificers who tell us they are obliged to inlist as soldiers for want of employment, and though I read the weekly list of bankrupts, I do not give credit or attention more than is justly due to them; [p138] for I am certain those workmen are only a set of idle rascals who will not work, and their masters lazy, indolent fellows, who prefer idleness and beggary to opulence and industry. Men are now more abundant in this country than was ever known at any other period. The Royal Exchange of London can scarce support its wealth. Tell your ungenerous friends this; they cannot deny it: you are sanctioned by your senators, in whom it is your duty, as well as that of the whole nation, to place an implicit confidence. Yet I would not have you follow them, or exactly imitate them, in your system of taxation; for if you should adopt the same method with your individual friends as they have with the public at large, I am afraid you will find as many persons, in proportion to the number of [p139] your acquaintance, swear off², by which your income will be deficient nearly two-thirds; and I am afraid even your commerce will perish.

There are three predominant passions [p140] which reign in the female breast, -- gambling, intriguing, and drinking. The courtly dame of St. James's, the city belle, the St. James's and St. Giles's Cyprian, are equally addicted to them. In general, they are linked thus: they either drink and intrigue, or game and intrigue; for drinking does not suit with those who play for large sums. Some there are, the most perfect of the female sex, in whom all the three cardinal virtues unit, and are equally predominant: there are very few that are not influenced by two, and scarce any without one, of these craving passions.

As your education leads you into various errors, it should be my endeavour, as far as my abilities will permit me, to guard you against a complication of them, and instruct you how to follow those pursuits with that degree of discretion, moderation, [p141] and arrangement, as may best suit your constitutions, purse, or inclinations. There are very few of you that are not fond of gaming; and many of you are great proficiency in it. I sincerely wish you would study a few good books, which I shall recommend to you, with as much attention as you have perused that book which contains only fifty-two pages, commonly called a pack of cards. Your morals and minds would then receive considerable improvement. The following works I recommend particularly to your attention -- Crumbs of Comfort to a Repentant Sinner; Hooks and Eyes for Believers Breeches; High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness; A Shot aimed at the Devil's Head-quarters, through the Tube of a Cannon of the Covenant; Heaven Ravished by a Repentant Sinner; A Heel-piece [p142] to a limping Sinner; a Stone cast from the Sling of David; Little in Stature, but exalted on the Stilts of Faith: Meditations preparatory to the Love-feast at the Tabernacle; with Gross's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue; Dialogues in the Slang language; and many other productions of a similar nature, equally honourable to the taste and literature of our country.

Strange as the titles of the above works may appear to you, yet I assure you they do exist, and are both moral, religious, and instructive. Let me request you to purchase them; they will form a very pretty little library, and adorn your room, as well as improve the mind.

But to proceed: -- Many of you have a [p143] very unfair custom: you often play cards for large sums of money, when you have not a shilling in your pocket. I really find myself compelled to condemn this practice: yet you are not so much to be blamed, having examples set you every day by men and women of the first fashion; the latter of whom are not satisfied with the advantage of not being able to lose money, but frequently cheat most abominably into the bargain. I am certain, indeed, that you, ye lovely Cyprians, have too much honesty and too generous a spirit to attempt it: indeed you may avoid all this disgrace, and yet indulge your favourite passion of gaming, in the following manner. There are few of you who have not a great number of pawn-brokers card-tickets; with these you may play at commerce, Pope Joan, Cribbage, and Loo; or, if you wish to play a very deep game, you may [p144] form them into a pack, and by that means speedily either win all your adversary's pledges, or get rid of your own.

Having instructed you how to indulge the passion of gaming, I shall proceed to give you what information I am able on the other two cardinal virtues. First, to intrigue; but by my modesty I swear I am confoundedly puzzled, and find myself rather at a loss how to instruct you in this important science. Therefore the best method you can adopt is to copy the women of fashion: they are most perfect mistresses of this art; and some even are so expert as to deceive the most suspicious and jealous husbands; who, although they are absolutely qualified to butt with the stoutest ram of their flocks, think their wives as chaste as Diana, and speak of them to all their friends as the Lucretias of the age.

[p145] You, ye lovely Cyprians, (I address myself to those of the first class,) are too unguarded in your conduct. I do not in any other respect condemn you, or charge you with excess, as from my heart I believe you are as moderate in your amours as the women of fashion. No comparison, however, can be fairly drawn between you and them; for intrigue is not only your province, but your trade: you cannot live without it; they may: I, therefore, say you are by far the less to be blamed; and certainly the balance in favour of modesty and virtue is on your side. In one sense, indeed, there is a very strong resemblance between you and them; for there is no great difference whether a woman receives money to intrigue, or intrigues with a man to whom she has lost a sum of money too large for her finances to pay; and it is well known [p146] that many modest women have liquidated their debts of honour by an honourable surrender of their persons.

In the following case there is no comparison whatever to be made between you and them. You often receive large sums of money to intrigue with men for whom you have not the smallest predilection. Modest women often, to pay a debt of honour lost at cards, have honourably surrendered their persons to men equally disagreeable to them. You are tempted to the deed, to defray your necessary expences: they have no excuse whatever: it is not even to gratify their sensual passions that they make a surrender of their persons, but only to indulge that cursed vice -- gaming.

[p147] In one particular respect they have a much greater claim to our praise and gratitude than you: but then we should be very ungrateful indeed if we did not allow you a sufficient share equivalent to your kindness; when any of you make us objects of real affection. The favour the woman of fashion grants is not to be esteemed in the smallest degree more valuable than that which you grant: the different only is in the consequences, if discovered, which to some lovers enhance the value of the sacrifice. If found out, they are not only forsaken by their friends and relations, but deserted, condemned, and scandalized by their old associates and acquaintance, one half of whom are as culpable as themselves, though, perhaps, the first to censure, and the most severe in their condemnation; for there are too many of them, who, in public, will [p148] strain at a gnat, in private will swallow a camel. I once knew a lady so scrupulously decorous in her conduct in public, that she would never give her hand to any one but her partner in dancing, but presented her elbow, who afterwards was unfortunately caught in familiar conversation with a lamplighter, one dark evening, in the home passage. Remember, I beseech you, that no blot is a blot until it is hit; -- then be, ye fair, with caution bold!

One would be inclined to imagine, that the heavy penalties in Westminster-hall, for playing at hunt-the-slipper with a tailor's wife, and various other actual cases of crim. con. for which the legislature has severely punished the offenders, would deter others from attempting the conjugal bed. But in truth, men who [p149] live in the politer circles of haut ton cannot avoid it: he must either quit his friends, and retire from the gayer circles of life, or submit to the ruling fashion of the day: when at Rome, a man must do as they do at Rome, or nobody will associate with him. In some families, if a man is invited to dinner, and he does not say handsome things to the mistress of the house, she will hardly give him sauce to his meat. This contraband trade I ever have condemned. It is so gross an encroachment on the fair trader, that, did I possess any influence with the Minister, or the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, I would procure a law to be enacted for the purpose of inflicting the severest penalties on this species of smuggling.

Now, ye lovely and fair sex in general, [p150] let us proceed to the use of the third and last cardinal virtue, though not the least in your esteem or mine; I mean that of drinking. Of the three cardinal virtues that I wish the fair sex in general to understand better than they now do, and to practise with more advantage and satisfaction, drinking is by far the most to be commended for many reasons, but particularly for that which I am going to mention; for it is said, on the best authority, that it is what passes out of the mouth of a man that defileth him, and not what passeth therein. This the clergy in former days have acknowledged, as appears from that authentic work, Voltaire's History of Charles the Twelfth. "Un homme digne de foi m'assuré qu'il avoit assisté à une These publique, ou il s'agissoit de savoir, si l'usage du tabac à fumer etoit permis et [p151] de s'enivrer d'eau-de-vie, mais none de fumer, parce que la très sainte ecriture dit que cè qui sort de la bouche de l'homme la souille, et que ce qui y entre ne la souille point."

The two other cardinal virtues may be deemed sinful by certain rigid zealots, but this cannot. Your habits in this particular, ye lovely Cyprians, are already so perfect that it is unnecessary for me to recommend it to you; for, to do you justice, the generality of you are comfortably devoted to your bottle: nor are the modest women, many of them, far behind you in their devotions to Bacchus; though, it must be acknowledged, this cardinal virtue amongst them is not in such general practice. As for myself, I confess, nothing is so charming, nothing so delightful, as a woman in a state of exhilarating inebriation. [p152] You are so sweet, so soft, so charming, and, above all, so tender, when half-seas over! This delightful passion exhilarates the spirits, dispels the deepest melancholy, and drowns all care; it is, therefore, proper you should be taught how to indulge it in a manner most conducive both to your constitution and your finances. I therefore strongly recommend you to give the preference, beyond all other liquors, to gin; which is drink fit for a king. Both the king of the gipsies and the king of the beggars, at their royal coronation feasts, and on other festival occasions, treat with no other liquor, and command the use of it to their subjects.

When I was married to the lovely Egyptia of Norwood, I had the honour of drinking many a glass at the wandering [p153] monarch's hospitable board. It is even believed by several philosophers of the present age, that the nectar formerly drank by the inhabitants of Olympus was nought but gin.

There are three sovereign reasons why you should give the preference to this admirable fluid. First, you are not forbidden by holy writ to drink it; for, the priests in former ages having avowed that it did not defile the body even to get drunk with brandy, provided it only went in at the mouth, and did not come out of it; gin, being a spirit by far more salubrious, must be more highly sanctioned. Secondly, it is by far the cheapest of all liquors; for humble port now-a-days is at the exorbitant price of three shillings and sixpence a bottle; while, at the christening of little Joey, you may treat [p154] a whole company, and send them merry away, with three shillings and six pennyworth of gin, when with the same expence you can only give them one bottle of wine. Besides, ye lovely Cyprians, in your line of life, it is most salutary and conducive to your health, from its diuretic qualities³.

Truth has been very properly termed a gem of inestimable value; it is, indeed, the brightest ornament of man and woman. Learn then, ye lovely Cyprians, to place a due value on it; though I already know ye are exemplary economists of that eminent quality. But, great as my tender regards and predilection are for you, I [p155] will not sacrifice it on the altar of personal partiality: I will not attribute a virtue solely to the Paphian tribe, which is common to all the fair daughters of Eve; from those that breath the pure air of St. James's, to those that imbibe the spungy vapours of St. Giles's; for the courtly belle and the city dame are equally sparing of it as yourselves. As it is your province to make man happy, truth has nothing to do in it; for, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the sense, we shall find that all its properties will end under this short definition: that, it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived⁴. In this, ye lovely fair, you want no instruction, or I would readily give it you: you are perfect mistresses of [p156] it from your cradle to an age of maturity: in short, you are brought up and educated in that science so well adapted to protect the weakness of your sex.

With relation to the mind or understanding, it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth; and the reason is plain, because imagination can build nobler scenes, and produce more wonderful revolutions, than fortune or nature will be at the expence to furnish: nor are you, ye lovely fair, to be blamed for deceit, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived⁵; and so the question is only this, whether things that have place in the imagination, may not as properly be said to exist as those that are [p157] seated in the memory, which may be justly held in the affirmative; and very much to the advantage of the former: since this is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the grave⁶. Again, if we take this definition of happiness, and examine it with reference to the senses, it will be acknowledged wonderfully adapted. How fading and insipid do all objects appear to us, that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion! How shrunk is every thing as it appears in the glass of nature! So that if it were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsil; there would be a mighty level in the felicity and enjoyment of mortal man⁷. The most perfect happiness which we can enjoy is to be [p158] well deceived: why then should you deal in truth, when, by substituting deceit, and, if suspected in the least degree, even by swearing to it, which, in due justice, I will allow you are generally very ready to do, you can make your lover happy, who otherwise would be miserable, were he to know one half of your thoughts and actions? -- It is humane and charitable in you to keep him in ignorance. Besides, you are sanctioned by Aristotle, who asserts, that a humane lie is preferable to a cruel truth.

The two senses that give you, ye lovely fair, the greatest satisfaction, are the sight and the touch. Therefore, in a lover never examine further than his countenance, shape, and figure. By no means attempt to examine his brain, for not one man in five hundred possesses any. If [p159] he be but handsome, well-made, and healthy, it is sufficient; for, the greater blockhead and fool he is, the more sure will you be of commanding both his affections and purse. Great characters are seldom worth a strict examination; they are like old china jars, beautiful and admired, by the world in general, for the exquisite workmanship with which they are adorned; but when you look into them, they generally contain dust, dirt, and cobwebs. The two senses, sight and touch, when conjunct, are delightful; but the pleasure of sight alone is imperfect, and is even a torment to the mind, if not accompanied with the delight of touching; for whose pleasures Cicero gives a beautiful idea when he says, "The touch is uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and appulses of things." This charming description from [p160] that celebrated orator, philosopher, and moralist, you will, ye lovely fair, I am certain, join with me in admiring; for the sight of things can give but little satisfaction if we are denied to feel them.

There is no comparison between the excellence of the two senses: for sight without touch is nothing; it is not worth the possessing. For instance, how mortifying would any of you find your situation, if you were chained down on one bed, and your lover fastened on another in the same room: though there were twenty candles lighted, you would be in as cruel a situation as Tantalus, immersed to his chin in water and not permitted to drink.

As touching without seeing, although (to repeat the words of the elegant and [p161] moral Cicero) by it we are enabled to feel all strokes and appulses of things, is not completely satisfactory; for, what additional pleasure do we receive from beholding the shape and countenance of a beautiful woman! and ye well know, ye lovely Cyprians, that a lover taken in the dark may, when the light unfolds him to you, be so hideous as to frighten you into fits. For the above reasons, I recommend it to you never to sleep without candles in your room, to keep all ghosts away, who are very disagreeable visitors, and particularly fond of disturbing lovers. There is no instance of one ever having been seen by day; and be assured they never make their appearance at night where there is a light, for they are in as much dread of a candle as the devil is of holy water, of which if half a pint only were to be forced down [p162] his throat, it would be sure to kill him: for, once on a time, he by chance tasted a very small quantity, which operated most violently on him, both as an emetic and cathartic, sudorific and diuretic⁸, that it was with great difficulty his life was preserved. Ever since this violent attack, his olfactory organs are so much improved that he can smell a font ten miles off, and cautiously avoids going near one, for fear only of being splashed by some ill-natured priest, as it would infallibly raise blisters on his skin.

You have already been admonished by me, in the choice of a lover, never to look for any accomplishment, or to wish for any perfection in him, [p163] except a handsome face, an elegant shape, and manly appearance: the more ignorant and stupid you find him, the better for you.

I trust you will pay the greater attention to my opinion of a suitable friend to your conveniences, wants, and pleasures, is drawn from the works of the memorable and learned Plutarch, who informs us, that the best musical instruments are made from the bones of asses. Therefore you must agree with me, that the more stupid ass you have to deal with, with greater ease and facility will you be able to play upon him, and use him as an instrument for your wants and pleasures. In the choice of a lover you should be attentive in particular to his features, as they are a great ornament to the outward [p164] man, and a type of grace in the inward. For it is held by naturalists, that if there be a protuberancy of parts in the superior region of the body, as in the ears or nose, there must be a parity also in the inferior. This evidently accounts for the predilection which some women have had for long noses. The devout sisters in the monasteries look upon all extraordinary dilations, as protrusions of zeal, or spiritual excrescences, and honour them with superior homage and devotion.

Although the countenance, shape, and manly appearance of a lover are the three chief points you should look to in your choice of one, yet I wish you to pay some degree of attention to another good quality that may be of infinite benefit to you, provided you are fortunate enough to meet with a man who possesses it, I mean -- honour. [p165] Let me, therefore, recommend you to form no connection but with a nobleman. In him you are sure to meet with it; for, in all great families, honour, like the gout, is hereditary. In former days this would have restricted your amours; but now you need not despair of finding one, for within these few years so many large batches of peers have been made, that every fourth coach passing the streets of London is graced with a coronet, and peers are as plenty as postilions. Indeed, I will not take upon me to say what diminution of coronets the armorial bearing-tax will produce on carriages; for the nobility are not fonder of contributing to the exigency of the State than the middling order or common people, of which we have had evident proofs by so many of them swearing off last year, to lessen the payment of the income tax.

[p166] In conversation you should ever try to introduce the phrases and expressions of greater characters. Attend to the few following; they are the best I can at present recollect: and you may, with a very little attention, learn them by heart; and your good sense will instruct you when to apply them properly.

When you are in love with a man, and wish to express your gratitude and affection, you may say, When I forsake him, may God forsake me!

When an impertinent tradesman duns you, and complains how flat his and all other trades are; tell him that your trade also is not so good as it was, from the encroachments made on your privileges by the modest women. Then boldly declare, that, whether his trade [p167] or any other, is on the decline, it is nothing to you -- Perish commerce, so that your constitution lives!

When rather deranged in your circumstances, mention the pressure of your affairs: when on business with your attorney, tell him your affairs are so deranged that they require a vigour beyond the law; tell him you have a high opinion of his judgment, although he is only a chicken of the law: and when any person relates to you a strange out-of-the-way story, tell him that you should be looked upon as a goose if you credited his assertions.

When you speak of and wish to describe the person and accomplishments of a handsome well-made man, say, you saw him in the horizon; and surely a [p168] brighter vision never lit on this earth, for he scarcely seemed to touch it: and do not forget, when you speak of the common people, always to call them the swinish multitude.

If your lover will not run any man through the body for inadvertently treading on your gown in Kensington Gardens, tell him that the age of chivalry is gone, and that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of your country is extinguished for ever! and little did you dream that you should live to see such disasters fall upon you, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers; that you thought ten thousand swords would have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened you with insult.

[p169] When you speak of the cruelty and excesses committed in war, do not forget to say, that, to compel women to discover where their money and jewels were hid, they applied red-hot irons to the source of nature⁹: but be sure you can prove such a horrid assertion, or you deserve to have your tongue cut out.

You will often find it very convenient, when you are pressed to answer some perplexing question, to tell them to ask your grandmother's muff. When you want to get money from a vain, miserly, ugly fellow, you should always praise his beauty; and be sure not to accept any present from him at the first interview. Tell him, the favours you granted were most voluntarily conferred; and that the [p170] charms of his person were too captivating not to attract the admiration of any woman of real taste and judgment. A handsome man does not want to be told of his beauty; he knows that he is well-looking: but if he has a defect, of which he is conscious, be sure to conceal your knowledge of it from him. Some women of my acquaintance have got considerable presents, only by taking my advice, from the ugliest fellows that nature ever formed, (but then I knew his weak side, and told them how to tickle his fancy,) who would not have given them five pounds in five months if they had gone the common way to work. And do you know that one stupid fellow has been told so often of his beauty, that he positively believes himself a very handsome well-looking man; and so vain is he now, that he can never keep his eyes [p171] out of a looking-glass, although I would not permit my favourite mistress, if she was with child, to look at him.

Lord Chesterfield says, somewhere in his Works, that it is not possible to flatter a woman too much: if ever so gross, she will believe it. But I do not mind what he says; for he was not half so well acquainted with these matters as myself. It is a scandalous libel on your understanding, and proceeds from not having a true knowledge of your unaffected simplicity and unconscious charms. Yet, I confess, by praising the teeth, which were remarkably good, of an ugly woman, [p172] I have made her study an hundred forms with her mouth to shew them in company, and grin as if she had been performing through a horse-collar for the Cheshire cheese: and many ugly women, who really had handsome legs, I have, by praising them, been the occasion of their wearing their petticoats at least four inches shorter; but then they were very weak women. A real female philosopher, or one of the blue-stocking club ladies, would not have been guilty of such folly. They are not to be amused with such futile unsatisfactory accomplishment. You must talk to them of the centre of attraction and gravity; of raising perpendiculars, and of dividing the circle; of Aristotle, Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, and the more modern authors, who have written concerning and touching the rights claimed and performed by women.

The French language is a very great accomplishment; and I recommend it to your particular attention: but I guard [p173] you against using French phrases until you perfectly understand it. Neither is it prudent to speak it until you are perfect mistress of it; for you will be subject to as much ridicule in company if you misapply any phrase, or commit errors, as those who have spoken Greek in either house of parliament, without understanding it. I recommend to your attention particularly, that you discriminate well between the masculine and feminine genders; as mon and ma, in various words, totally alter the sense of them: also in words that sound alike, take care you are not led into an error: and as we are not so polite a nation as the French, and have not that happy turn in our languages as theirs admit of, you may meet with some gross and indecent reply, that would make you blush for a week to come.

[p174] Strange errors and ridiculous expressions have been made use of very innocently, and particularly by servants, not understanding the French language; of which I will give you a very ludicrous instance.

The Duke and Duchess of _____, some few years before the Revolution, were at Paris; and one of the princes of the blood made a present to the duchess, of a most beautiful foreign horse, perfectly docile, and well broke for her own riding. On their return to England, a coachman, a faithful and old servant in the family, was pitched upon as the properest person to be entrusted with his favourite horse, to bring him to England; the coachman having brought a set of English horses over to Paris with great success, although he could not speak a word [p175] of the French language. The duke and duchess accordingly set off from Paris, leaving the horse to the care of their faithful coachman: and, in about a week after their arrival in London, one evening her grace having a private party to cards, the groom of the chambers announced the arrival of the coachman and her horse; when her grace requested the company would permit her to speak a moment to the coachman in their presence, and he was immediately ordered up stairs into the drawing-room. Well, coachman, said her grace, how is my horse after his journey? Please your grace, he is in very good health and spirits; he travelled well and fed heartily. I am very glad to hear it. -- But, pray, coachman, how did you come through the country? did you find no difficulty in your journey? To be sure, an't please your grace, I was put to some [p176] trouble and difficulty now and then; but what with bougering one, and foutering another, I came on tolerably well.

That of kissing the Pope's toe, is certainly a most absurd ceremony, as well as the most humiliating. To be sure, if any part of a man is to be kissed by man, it is but of little consequence whether it be the toe, the hand, or parts behind, as long as the party so respected, and to whom that homage is due, be but well bred, and decorous: for, to be saluted by a fillip on the nose, or by posterior vociferations, would be fully as disagreeable to the olfactory and auricular organs, as a kick on the chops to the organ of speech. The whole is a very indelicate custom with men: but with women it is quite different; for no attention or kindness whatever, or wherever, which is paid them, [p177] can degrade or humiliate the man who is so happily employed.

Embracing amongst friends is much the custom abroad, and is considered a common act of civility. It is indeed practised in this country, though not so frequent. In performing these ceremonies, we should be particularly attentive and not let our thoughts ramble on other things, with which our minds are deeply impressed; lest we should be guilty of some strange eccentricity, which may not be conceived or understood, and to a due consideration of which I shall refer my readers to a future part of my work.

So great is my regard for your interest and welfare, ye lovely Cyprians, that I cannot without much concern reflect on the [p178] encroachments which the modest women daily make on your privileges. Not a term passes without some new instance occuring in Westminster Hall, of crim. con. which is an unwarrantable intrusion on your profession; and if this traffic increases, crim. con. will soon be as general and familiar to us as nem. con. For, in those days, the modest women, as the Scripture sayeth, came skipping over mountains of sin; and the men, instead of being votaries at your shrine, are become like unto horses, every one neighbouring after his neighbour's wife.

History informs us, that when Julius Caesar invaded Britain, the Britons had their wives in common, and that they were not only the bravest, but happiest of mankind. I cannot, therefore, see any reason why married men, who are real [p179] patriots, should lament the infidelity of their wives; as, by such a disposition, our common country may derive an increase both of happiness and valour. Indeed, cuckolds in general are the very best of men; and the disgrace is merely ideal, if you will only for a moment reflect, that the greatest heroes, statesmen, and divines, ancient as well as modern, have had their brows decorated with antlers. History informs us, that the foreheads of Caesar and of Pompey were not adorned with laurels only; nor is that of the conqueror of Italy, the modern Alexander, without those insignia which put one in mind of a Lord Mayor. Indeed, if the criterion of our country's happiness depends on the endeavours of our modest women, we have just reason to suppose that we are approaching as fast as possible to the perfection of it. In my [p180] younger days, when I made my debut in the great world, it was absolutely necessary for every young man to be à cavaglier 'servente to some lady of fashion, and to pay her every respect and attention, in order to procure admission into good company; for there was no such thing as gaming in those days at the fashionable assemblies: now, any person, it matters not who or what he is if he has but a few guineas to throw away at their gaming tables, is a welcome guest¹⁰.

All who know me, (and who is there among the polite, fashionable, and learned [p181] world who do not know me?) will do me the justice to acknowledge, that I ever have possessed a strong predilection in favour of you, ye lovely Cyprians; and since a certain gentleman was fined 13,000l. for innocently playing at Hunt the Slipper with the wife of a tailor, which the jury [p182] construed into a criminal conversation, I should think it madness to attempt the thing; for, by Heavens, not all the tailors' wives in London possess temptation enough for me to risk the loss of one-fifth part of the sum!

I am so frightened, I assure you, at being alone in a room with a married woman, that, a very few months ago, a lady of above sixty years old called on me relative to the purchasing of an ensigncy for a relation: when she came into the room, I politely apologised to her for opening the window-shutter, which had been shut to prevent the sun from putting the fire out, by saying; that, ever since Peeping Tom, the Mary-le-bone tailor, had given his evidence about a window-shutter being closed when a lady came into the room of a house opposite [p183] to him, I did not think it prudent to sit with mine shut: so I seated her by the fire, and placed myself in the window, that the opposite neighbours, if they were inclined to take a peep, might view my conduct.

Some half-witted philosophers have asserted, that the passions of women are usually as much weaker than the passions of men, as their bodily strength is weaker than the strength of men. This is a gross error. Indeed we read in ancient history, that Hercules actually deflowered fifty virgins in one night: but such a fabulous account is to be considered as a mere display of poetical figure; or at least we may say, that, with respect to such feats, the days of chivalry are past. Your passions, ye lovely fair, in general [p184] are naturally violent; but we are more particularly indebted, for the propriety of your conduct, to the virtuous novels and romances which are put into your hands the moment you can read: it is from such studies that you learn and acquire the firmness, fortitude, and self-forbearance which you never fail to evince in curbing your passions, which otherwise would ultimately overwhelm you in guilt and ruin. No law in the statute-books can keep you in any degree of moderation, or limit your conduct within the bounds of decency and decorum; if it were not for the philosophy, wisdom, and religion that is disseminated by those most useful and admirable establishments, the circulating libraries. It is the virtue and morality instilled so early into your minds by the study of their invaluable productions, that will ever suppress [p185] the wanton breezes are so often disturb the tranquility of hearts. By them, early in life, you are taught to admire love, which is the noblest passion in the human breast; -- then succeed jealousy, intrigue, economy of truth, revenge, poison, and elopements. When resolved on the latter, I charge you never to effect it but out of a window at least one story high. When you fly to Gretna Green, or any other green or rural retirement, with your lover, never pass out at the door, although you have the key in your pocket, and all the servants in the house in your pay. There is no prowess, no enterprize, no danger, no eclat at all in such an elopement. Oh, no! out of the window you must go. It will impress your lover with a respect for your heroism, and ever establish you, in his opinion, as a woman of true spirit, courage, and spunk: who will do any [p186] thing, go any where, and proceed in any lengths, for the man she loves.

Ye charming Cyprians, there is a rock as dangerous to you as the rocks of Scilly are to the mariner, on which many of you founder. I shall place a beacon of mercy on it, to warn you against those calamities which numbers of your sisterhood have suffered. Many of you, who have acquired a competent independence by years of industry, have been induced to give ear to the solicitations of matrimony from some low fellow, merely from an anxious desire of being made what the world vulgarly calls an honest woman. Are you not sufficiently honest, as long as you act by others as you wish them to act by you; -- are grateful and kind to your friends; defraud no one; and are guilty of no treachery or baseness; -- and are instigated [p187] in all your actions by nought but friendship, love, gratitude, and honour? Do you think, if you cannot reserve your charms for one man by a fixed determination of the mind, that a ring has such magic powers to ensure either your continency or a man's fidelity? And with respect to being made an honest woman, are you not to the full as honest as a modest woman who makes a beast of her husband; holds him out to the ridicule of the world; and who, with her milliner, her bijoux merchant, and at the gaming-table, squanders, in useless trifles and profligacy, as much in two winters as would be a moderate fortune for two of her children? These fellows, when you are married to them, immediately consider themselves as independent gentlemen; forsake their occupations, live in idleness, and indulge in every fashionable vice. Drinking, [p188] gaming, and horse-racing, are their chief amusements; so that they very soon run through your fortune; when they enlist, go to sea, or fly the country, leaving you in beggary and misery. Many women have been in this manner ruined and reduced to the most abject poverty from a life of independence. One in particular, with whom I was intimately acquainted before I went to America, had an independence of four hundred a-year regularly paid her, an elegant house completely furnished, and did not owe a guinea. She married a fellow of this description, who shortly spent all her fortune. Seven years afterwards, on my return to England, she wrote to me, and I found her in a miserable garret near Soho-square, hired at half-a-crown a-week. She had pawned and sold every thing of value to support her, except one [p189] gown; and declared that for a considerable time she had not known the taste of meat, but had subsisted chiefly on tea and bread, and now and then a pennyworth of sprats.

My next attempt, ye lovely Cyprians, shall be to instruct you how to command sympathy and compassion when very dejected, melancholy, and in terrible low spirits, brought on from the want of cash, and having held your hand up too frequently to your heads. Many of you, I make no doubt, have read the description given in the Rolliad and Probationary Odes, of Mrs. Geo. Anne Bellamy; how she was accustomed, when out of cash, to sit with her legs astride the ballustrades of Westminster-bridge. One particular day, having parted with her diamond wind-mill, sitting as she was wont to, when out of cash, on the bridge, with her [p190] favourite lap-dog under her arm, meditating on plunging into eternity, an old admirer of her, a gallant baronet, Sir C----- W-----, at this moment passing by, and fortunately observing her, took hold, as she says, of her dog by the tail, and gently drew her back, fainting, into his arms. You, ye generous Cyprians, will agree with me, that whether he laid hold of her dog by the tail or not, it was equally gallant and humane, so that he was but the cause of saving her invaluable life. Recovering from her swoon, she found herself in a clean hackney-coach, drawn by two beautiful white horses, in her gallant C-----'s arms; but could not find her diamond-pin, which was of some value, though she by no means taxes the baronet with the smallest suspicion of having taken it. However, some charming poetry in a few days passed between them, which, for its sentiment and elegance, [p191] I shall present to you. The baronet wrote her the following: --

To which Mrs. Geo. Anne Bellamy, with her usual wit and abilities, replied --

For Heaven's sake, ye lovely Cyprians, however out of spirits or out of cash you may be, let me entreat you never to follow her example in her accustomed airing. I will teach you how to command pity and attract more notice, when in any accidental state of inconvenience, by a much more easy and safe method, and which will by no means expose your lives to such imminent danger. If you [p192] have a balcony before your house, you may place yourself in a chair in a loungeing posture, with one leg hung over the railing. If your house has no balcony, a one-pair-of-stairs window will do equally as well: you may sit in a lounging, desponding posture, with one let in and the other out, in a degagé style. I am certain a man must have a heart of stone who would not stop, on viewing a beautiful leg elegantly disposed out of a window, and make the most anxious inquiries after the wants, wishes, and peculiar circumstances of the fair owner of it. I judge at least by my own feelings; for certainly, impressed by the curious despondency of your attitude, I should be desirous of administering all the comfort that I could produce.

Ye lovely Cyprians, I shall not trouble [p193] you much with politics. As all of you take in the news, you may, if you please, be as well acquainted with public as you are with domestic affairs: it will undoubtedly be your own fault if you are not.

I must now call your attention, ye lovely Cyprians, to the Works of the celebrated and moral Godwin. This philosopher has extended his morality, his virtue, and his tender regard and affections to a very great length. His abhorrence of all sin, immorality, and the carnal lusts of the flesh, is so great, that he has even exposed to the world the frailties of the wife of his bosom, which she, in the tenderest moments of confidence, imparted to him; as all generous and open-hearted women are disposed to do to a man on whom they have fixed their affections. I shall imagine that it must [p194] have been at her own desire that such things should be made known, although the moral and affectionate husband did not publish her observations until after her death. It may indeed appear, at first, very extraordinary to you, that a man of honour or feeling should expose the foibles and vices of a woman, communicated to him in a state of sacred confidence; and, particularly, that he should choose his own wife as a subject of exposure: but, by reading the following passages from that philosopher's works¹¹, you will easily unravel the mystery, and see that sincerity and the love of innocence were the author's motives.

"The powerful recommendations attendant upon sincerity are obvious; it is [p195] intimately connected with the general dissemination of innocence, energy, intellectual improvement, and philanthropy." I think this sentence would have been more moral and energetic, if the philosopher had, in addition to philanthropy, added affection for woman. Again; he continues¹² -- "We have only to suppose men obliged to consider, before they determined upon an equivocal action, whether they chose to be their own historians, the future narrators of a scene in which they were acting a part; and the most ordinary imagination will instantly suggest how essential a variation would be introduced into human affairs. It has been justly observed, that the Popish practice of Auricular confession is attended with some salutary effects. How much [p196] better would it be, if, instead of an institution thus equivocal, and which has been so dangerous an instrument of ecclesiastical despotism, every man were to make the world his confessional, and the human species the keeper of his conscience? There is a further benefit that would result to me from the habit of telling every man the truth, regardless of the dictates of worldly prudence and custom: I should acquire a clear, ingenuous, and unbiassed air."

How little am I acquainted with true honour, innocence, virtue, and sincerity! Indeed I should for ever have remained in darkness, if the character of this philosopher had not induced me to read his Works. I have been taught, from my early youth, to believe that no happiness on earth was equal to the enjoyment of [p197] a woman's confidence, who, in the hour of tender affection, unbosoms her soul to the man in whom she reposes every faith; who not only makes him acquainted with those trivial foibles and errors into which she has been led by the weakness of her sex, but does not even scruple to avow the whole catalogue of her misconduct. I have also held it as sacred as my creed, that it was an excess of infamy either to betray or expose favours granted or confidence reposed: but how have I erred, according to this philosopher's tenets; sinful and unsincere have I been; for, so help me God, I never yet have betrayed a woman, nor ever intentionally injured one of the sex, nor ever exposed their weakness or hurt their feelings. Are we not satisfied with the possession of their charms and their confidence, but must we also betray and expose them? Cursed be such [p198] sincerity, such frankness, such unembarrassed air, such innocence, such worldly confession ¹³. I am resolved, however, to continue in my past unphilosophic, unmetaphysic error, and avow my want of innocence, sincerity, and world confession; for never will I betray or expose the lovely, weaker part of human nature, to whom it is our duty to render every assistance, as well as to bewail their misfortunes, and sympathize in their errors. A brave man can never betray a woman's confidence; it is an act only of a coward and atheistical philosopher. Such worldly sincerity and confession can only spring from a cold metaphysic heart, incapable of being warmed by the tender passion of love, and who is dead to that happiness which woman alone [p199] can bestow. There are many passages in his Works which you, ye lovely fair, who are unacquainted with metaphysics, will not understand; nor indeed do many others: pass them over, dwell and judge of them as they in general are judged of by people who do not understand them; who, for their being unintelligible, pronounce them sensible, learned, virtuous, moral, and excellent productions.

One grand principle in his Works you certainly can verify; for he teaches us to believe, that no act of benevolence or friendship is ever done, without a view or expectancy of a return; for you, ye lovely Cyprians, to your sorrow, can testify, that few men render you favours but with the hope of an equivalent return.

[p200] Speaking of the succession of ideas, this learned philosopher gives us farther information, in these words: "My mind wanders to the different parts of my body, and receives a sensation from the chair upon which I sit, and from the table on which I lean." If the mind can receive sensation from a chair or table, certainly it must be operated on also by the bed you lay on; therefore, you should be particularly attentive to the construction of them. Feather beds uppermost, and next to the human body, are deemed very prejudicial to health, and generally exploded for mattresses. The celebrated Doctor Graham, in his printed lectures, recommends, that mattresses should be made from the hair of horses tails, they being of a more elastic quality than any other hair. You, ye lovely Cyprians, should be particularly attentive to this [p201] celebrated doctor's instruction: for, although your mind may have sufficient volition to be active, which it is desirous of communicating to the body; yet, from a defect in the co-acting elastic powers, the volition in activity both of mind and body may be impeded; for, as this author assures us that the mind does receive sensation from an inanimate chair or table, it certainly is more likely to receive sensation from an elastic hair mattress, made from the hair of horses tails.

Speaking of the phenomenon of walking ¹⁴, he says: "Walking is in all cases originally a voluntary motion; in a child, when he learns to walk; in a rope-dancer, when he begins to practise that particular exercise." I must confess, that I do not [p202] perfectly understand the learned author in this point; for, many rope-dancers, in attempting to learn the profession, have involuntarily broken their necks; and to use the philosopher's own favourite expression, notwithstanding the great degree of volition he may have to live, that volition of living does not prevent a man from breaking his neck. You, ye lovely Cyprians, who have made so many false steps, by which you have been ruined, though you have not absolutely broken your necks, may, perhaps, be more capable of elucidating this paradox, than the learned author, or his friend, who have both written much concerning volition, and assure us that no man can die unless he has lost his volition to live.

Being naturally of a gay disposition, and blessed with an excellent constitution [p203] and good spirits, I have often been much vexed, on perusing my own works, to find them so very dull and insipid, after having tried as far as lay in my power to make them lively. I now have discovered the cause: it is from no natural defect, or want of gaiety, but it has proceeded from having always sat on a hard wooden chair whilst I was writing them, for Mr. Godwin informs us in the following words: "My mind wanders to the different parts of my body, and receives a sensation from the chair upon which I sit." This philosopher, for ought I know, being quite different from other men, may sit on his head; but I sit on those parts that the rest of mankind sit on; and as we are assured that the mind receives sensation a posteriori, when I write my next work, I shall be particularly attentive to the construction of the chair in which I sit, [p204] and will employ that ingenious mechanic, Mr. Weeks, to make one of the following materials; the works of Swift, Fielding, Tom Browne, Rabelais, Sterne, &c.

As the mind receives sensation a posteriori, from the chair we sit on, it is impossible but my mind must receive sensation from books replete with such a store of wit; and my future works will subsequently be more gay, lively, and amusing. This enigmatical philosopher, Godwin, though he has studied to please the reader of his work, has never studied how to please you; for if man, as he says, were a passive being, and not active, he certainly would not be so agreeable to you; as motion is positively necessary to produce pleasure: for instance, if any parts of the body were affected with that irritation vulgarly called itching, and [p205] you were to apply a finger to the irritated part, what pleasure would that afford, unless you possessed the volition of rubbing it: you must therefore allow, that friction is absolutely necessary to allay the itching; and that it must proceed from action. His Majesty King James the First felt the force of this argument so strongly, as to declare, that scratching was too great a pleasure for a subject to enjoy. Mr. Godwin in one respect is right, and with grief and shame we must acknowledge, that there are men, if men they may be called, who are actually passive; but such are of a description too detestable and depraved to be recorded in a work like this; whose object is to reform reformable vices, and to restore those principles of morality and religion which heretofore characterized our forefathers.

[p206] From the numerous visits I have paid at your doors, I have been, ye lovely Cyprians, often inclined to think that most of you have read this philosopher's works; or at least that your servant-maids have, and have most particularly attended to chap. the vi. book the iv. vol. the first, intituled, "Of the mode of excluding visitors." The learned, pious, and virtuous author, is so scrupulously attentive to truth, as to deem it perfectly immoral for a servant to deny his master, when at home, to any visitor, let him be ever so troublesome; and says, "whatever sophistry we may employ to excuse our proceedings, certain it is that the servant understands the lesson we teach him to be a lie. It is accompanied with all the retinue of falsehood, and before it can be skilfully practised, he must be no mean proficient in hypocrisy.

[p207] "When he has learned this degenerate lesson in one instance, who will undertake that it shall produce no unfavourable effects upon his general conduct?"

I wish, from my soul, that great men, in public employments of the state, would attend to this philosopher's precepts, and take a leaf out of his book. They never are at home, and must be the most idle and indolent of the human race; being ever aboard, attending to their own private amusement, and not to the affairs of state; or their servants are, all of them, most abominable and wicked liars.

You, ye lovely Cyprians, widely differ in sincerity from all great men, and attend most diligently to your business; for, when at home, you never are denied to a visitor. Great praise is due to this [p208] philosopher, for having on one instance improved you in morality and virtue, and for having preserved the character of your confidential Abigail from being contaminated with a Plebeian lie¹⁵. For Molly, kind and sympathising, never denies her mistress, though at that moment it is not convenient for her to be seen; but, like a virtuous and sincere Godwinnite, tells you, "My mistress is at present engaged, Sir; but if you will be so good as to call again in an hour's time, I have no doubt but she will be visible." "You think, then, by that time, Molly, that she will be at leisure?" "Oh, yes, Sir, for certain: be so kind as to call again, Sir; pray do." I must confess, I have been much gratified in contemplating the native purity, simplicity, and unpolluted [p209] truth of such a petticoated Godwinnite; and at the same time have been struck with a remorse of conscience, on being so great a hypocrite myself, and making my servants such infamous liars: for they often have orders to deny me, when I am really engaged on business, to every soul living, except to a bailiff; and those gentlemen I order positively, at all times, if ever so unseasonable, to be admitted: it is by far more politic to see them, as you may perhaps prevail on them to call again at a more convenient time, or send for some friend to bail you. If you deny yourself, he is certain to wait in the street for you, and catch you up when engaged with people of fashion; and many gentlemen would feel a considerable degree of mortification, from being the cause of introducing such a character into such company. [p210] As for myself, I confess I have not for some years been troubled by this ridiculous mauvaise honte. Such an unwelcome visitor may considerably derange the nervous system of some young men who are not on such familiar footing with them. But practice makes perfect.

The History of the Lovely Aegyptia of Norwood: -- a true and affecting Love-tale.

THAT the Gipsies are a very wise and learned race, you, ye lovely Cyprians, I trust, as well as myself, will acknowledge. My regard for you would not be sufficiently manifested, were I not, as far [p211] as lay in my power, to attend to your health and constitutions, as well as to your worldly interest and mental improvements. As some of you, more kind and liberal in the distribution of favours than your sex in general, have generously let me partake and share your sufferings and miseries, as well as your pleasures and happiness, I should be truly ungrateful if I did not impart to you a most valuable secret, by which those maladies, that often bid defiance to all Aesculapian powers, are cured by a single touch. This invaluable charm I was taught by one of the Aegyptian tribe, from whom I formerly acquired much knowledge and science; though my attachment and regard for a beautiful young female wanderer, who made so liberal a return for my affections, as not only to permit me to possess her confidence and choicest secrets, [p212] but to obtain for me the respect of her whole tribe.

Before I disclose this valuable secret to you, I must relate the miseries I suffered from my attachment to this charming vagrant, from her cruel infidelity. If the heart of this beautiful angel had been as fair as her countenance, we should have continued till this day, I make no doubt, mutually enjoying the delights of love. She had an enchanting voice, a pretty taste for music, and played charmingly on the dulcimer. By the light of the moon how have her strains enchanted me! -- strictly in time, and never out of tune. Amongst various other songs, she often used to sing, with a considerable degree of sentiment and expression, the following beautiful elegy on the accomplishments and trade of a tinker:

[p213] Tom Tinker's my true love,
And I am his dear;
And all the world over
His budget I'll bear.

I cannot recollect the rest. I used to listen with raptures to the melody of her voice whilst singing this charming air, and was far too infatuated to suspect her cruel deceit; for I thought her the Pamela of Norwood, the paragon of her race, the Hester of the eighteenth century, until, on my return, after a short absence, to the rural abode of her tender and affectionate parents, they informed me that she had gone off with a travelling tinker of a neighbouring tribe, who wandered about the country mending pots and kettles. Sighing my sorrows to the woods and fields, how did I curse the falsehood of the sex! for what happiness or constancy could I expect from the higher [p214] orders, perfected by education, when a nymph, a stranger both to courts and cities -- born in the lap of earth -- educated and bred up in rural retirement as a child of nature, could thus forsake and abandon to misery such an affectionate lover and husband? The generous parents, feeling for my distress, endeavoured, to the utmost of their power, to alleviate my sorrows for the inconstancy of their child, my wife; the charming Aegyptia having been betrothed to me: for these wise and enlightened wanderers have no marriage rites performed by a priest, any more than our forefathers of old, who thought it sufficient to obey the command of God -- Increase and multiply. I had both her consent, and that of her parents: I took her, and led her to my tent rejoicing. For early in life did I learn, both from Scripture and the [p215] learned Madan, to follow the will of the Creator, in preference to the arrogated and unsanctioned ceremonies of priests. They endeavoured to atone to me for the inconstancy of their child, by instructing me in all the arts and mysteries for which their nation is so celebrated.

The father was a perfect magician; so wonderfully skilful as to possess a power of transforming sheep and calves into wearing apparel and linen; pigs and chickens into shoes and stockings; cocks and hens in breeches and petticoats; and all sorts of game and venison into rum, gin, brandy, and beer. So perfect a master was he also of the sciences of mechanism, and of their powers, that bolts, bars, locks, and doors, fled open at his touch. In fine, all art and nature bent to his magic powers. The mother, [p216] in her knowledge of the stars and heavenly bodies, nearly rivalled the great Sir Isaac Newton; and her principia were as renowned amongst the tribes of gipsies as his amongst the philosophers.

She could tell and foretell all events; and see the coming of a comet or an earthquake in a coffee or tea-cup: she was the female Aesculapius of her nation; no noxious drugs, by force of fire and chemic art prepared, did she administer: but nature's choicest herbs, culled from earth's fragrant, flowery bosom, by her all-skilful hand, gave to the wearied dropping patient new life and spirits, and made him rise and hail the morn, grateful for new-born health and vigour.

The whole family was distinguished, respected, and admired: the father and [p217] mother for their mental and moral endowments, and my charming Aegyptia for her beauty and personal accomplishments; for that was the name of the enchanting inconstant, though I familiarly used to call her Gipp, to which name she ever very condescendingly answered. She was the only child of enlightened and enraptured parents, who had studied, with unwearied care, from the cradle to the day she was betrothed to me, as my wife, to breed her up in the paths of virtue and honesty. But depraved nature, in humble cots, as well as in courts and cities, will too often set all human precept, however pure and perfect, at defiance; and launch the frail frame, with unbridled passion, into a sea of desperation. To those unhallowed paths did the cruel destinies force my lovely Aegyptia.

[p218] How different was the conduct of her parents, to that of the generality of those in the first circles in life! They used no threats or parental influence over their child, to compel her to be my wife, on account of my fortune; far from it: I had the lovely, fair Aegyptia's consent, before her parents ever knew my desires: we then solicited their's; they assented, and with their blessing ratified the nuptial rites: nor did they, for one false step, desert and abandon their child, or suffer her, as many in high life have done, to plunge into a sea of troubles and guilt, with a kind parental admonition; calling the wanderer back with the soothing and consolatory promises of forgiveness and forgetfulness of errors. They, on the contrary, sought her, and, with the most persuasive kindness, entreated her to return home, and with the fullest assurance of their protection, [p219] pardon, and oblivion, to bury all past indiscretion in their hospitable but homely dwelling, and look to better deeds and days. But no parental tears or supplication could prevail on her to quit the seducing tinker; for such magic powers did he possess, and he had so entranced her soul and fixed such a spell upon her actions, that she would listen to no persuasions, and irrevocably resolved to share Tom Tinker's fate.

What will a generous and compassionate mind (when it reflects on the conduct of these unenlightened wanderers to their child) think of those parents, in the most enlightened and distinguished ranks, who, heathen-like, though professing themselves Christians, forget our Savior's holy, humane example; who told the woman caught in adultery, to go and sin [p220] no more; though they themselves are the too frequent cause of their daughter's guilt? for how often do we see a brutal tyranny exercised towards them, which makes them view the home that ought to be their greatest happiness and comfort, with horror and disgust. Alas! how many are there, who, (to their eternal infamy be it said!) for the sake of sordid wealth, or gaudy, tinsel titles, have absolutely compelled their daughters, by threats most infamous and unhallowed, to wed the man they hate. The unjust and oppressive influence, too often used by parents and guardians, over children and wards, is emphatically described by the Marquis of Beccaria, in his Essays on Crimes and Punishments: "Conjugal fidelity," says he, "is always greater in proportion as marriages are more numerous and less difficult. But when the interest [p221] or pride of families, or paternal authority, not the inclination of the parties unite the sexes, gallantry soon breaks the slender ties, in spite of common moralists, who exclaim against the effect which they pardon the cause."

What must any man of reflection think of such a parent, who leads his own child to the altar, and in that sacred place, and under the awful sanctions that accompany it, is the compulsive cause of her prostitution? -- for it is allowed by all sentimental philosophers, that the woman who marries without a proper friendship and affection for the man whom she weds, is but a prostitute licensed by the church. What must be his feelings, on the reflection of such a heinous transaction? -- And what can the lustful ravisher expect, [p222] but, brute as he is, to be perfected, by being made a beast.

View the fair wretched victim on the bridal, wedding-day; mournful she sighs away the live-long hours: her bosom pants not for the auspicious moment, when two hearts, united by the silken bands of love, retire to rest. With downcast looks, slow steps, and trembling limbs, she draws near the prostituted Hymeneal altar, sacred to love alone, there to surrender to a man she hates, her virgin sacrifice: -- Foul befall the wretch who dares to perpetrate the unhallowed crime! at which nature itself revolts.

I will suppose, by way of example, that my sex is changed, and that I am [p223] the victim which I have described, whom my parents have compelled to the altar, by threats of disinheritance, and expulsion from their doors; -- I feel there is a God above, whose laws I reverence and adore, and no priestly power, sanctioned by custom, human, not divine, will I obey. I will resist the ravisher of my person; and if he attempt by force to perpetrate the deed, and rob the man I love of that dear virgin pledge, which so justly is his due, and which I will surrender to none but him, ere thus submit to his abhorred embrace, I'll stab him in the heart. Fly, wretched virgin, ere thou art polluted by this monster's touch! -- This arm and sword shall protect thee until I deliver thy unspotted charms into the arms of thy grateful and distracted lover. It cannot be adultery that I tempt thee to commit: -- no; it is holy matrimony; [p224] for mutual consent and consummation are the only ties¹⁶ which God commands. A priest may arrogate to himself that power; but the God above, with thy consent, and with thy husband's sacred pledges never to put thee from him, will sanction thy wedding-day. Again, I repeat, oh never surrender thy charms to the man thou cannot abide, who wooes thee only with his wealth! It is base, it is vile in the extreme; it is worse than whoredom; for art thou not purchased at a greater price.

These learned wanderers, like the ancients, are extremely skilful in examining the entrails of beasts, and viewing the flight of birds; by both, they judge of, [p225] and often foretell, future events. I confess, to my sorrow, I have had woful experience of their knowledge in two or three instances, which I shall relate.

In the evening of our nuptial day, when Phoebus, wearied with his golden race, turned his fiery-footed coursers to the west, and sought his watery couch, as I sat chiding the night's delay, in amorous dalliance with the lovely fair one, and conversation chaste, affectionate and instructive, with her enlightened and aged parents, an horned owl, of an enormous size, lighted on the tree which shaded our bower, and hooted loudly. The father, addressing himself to me, said, Son, (for so the tender parent ever called me,) behold, the bird of wisdom greets you, and hails your nuptial day! -- Poh, said the old woman, (putting her two forefingers up to her [p226] forehead, and pointing them towards her husband,) my dear, it is no such thing: you ought to know better. At that very time I never heeded the old woman's sagacious foresight, though often since the remembrance of it has caused my heart to ache; and, at this day, whenever I see a horned owl, or any owl, it brings to my mind my former misery and disgrace. Hence do I hate an owl, whether I view him in the field, in the church, or in the state.

So blindly lost in love was I, I never could harbour the slightest suspicion of my lovely bride, who, to my doting and deluded mind, was all innocence, all beauty, all perfection. My soul was wrapped in delight and extacy; for consent and consummation constituted our nuptials.

[p227] Another omen, in the morn, equally unknown and unsuspected then by me, assailed my ears. I was alarmed by the report of a gun. Rising from the bed, where many hours, unnumbered in Love's kalendar, passed but as moments, I opened the door of my rural abode, and asked who had been shooting at our peaceful habitations? The old man replied, It was me: I shot a cuckoo perched on the tree which shades your nuptial couch, a bird whose notes I hate --

"O bird of woe,
"So fatal to the wedded state!"

At that time I gave ear to none of these omens; but, to my sorrow, they were all shortly verified.

These learned wanderers possess a singular faith; they believe not only in the [p228] Pythagorean metampsychosis, that the human soul after death passes into the brute creation, but that the souls of birds, beasts, and fishes also pass into human bodies. Many instances the old woman pointed out to me, and endeavoured to make me believe; in some of which, it must be allowed, strong parodies are to be drawn. Amongst many others, I recollect only the following transformations, and give them with her remarks.

Jays, said she, are turned into beaux, whose only beauty consists in their plumage; wagtails into gay women: I thought this a very ludicrous idea, to my mind it is totally incomprehensible: wolves into lawyers, from their propensity to devour the human race; carrion-crows into parish-priests, from their tything poultry; hawks into gamblers, [p229] from their pouncing on pigeons and doves; swans into sharpers, from their having black legs¹⁷; elephants into judges, from their known sagacity; hungry dogs into ministers and ex-ministers, quarrelling for and defending bones, the discontented all snarling at those happy dogs who have run away with and hold fast the prey¹⁸; [p230] horned cattle into aldermen and common-council-men; cuckoos into cuckold-makers, from their laying their eggs in other birds' nests; parrots into gossips and idle prattling fellows; and owls into a species of men who pass for men of abilities, because they put on a formal wise look, and speak little; bees into beautiful women, from their stings and their honey; wasps into old maids; drones into bishops; locusts into placemen and pensioners.

The old woman, breaking off from her Pythagorean dissertations, said to me, I dare say you have seen, in various parts [p231] of London, six or seven young girls, from fifteen to twenty, in one house, under the care of an elderly lady: they formerly were all young pullets; ruffs, and rees, and ottelans; and are as greedily sought after by people of a certain appetite as the birds are by epicures, and bear as high a price at their first appearance, when young, plump, and tender. There are also women, says she, (like birds of passage,) of a migratory nature, who remove, after a certain time, from St. James's and Mary-le-bone end of the town, to Covent-garden, then to the Strand, and from thence to St. Giles's and Wapping; from which latter places they frequently migrate much further, even to New Wales. I asked her, if they, like some birds, come back at certain seasons? She answered, Some few in [p232] seven years, some in fourteen, and some not at all.

She also informed me, with her usual gravity, that, during their stay here, like birds, they made their nests upon feathers, some higher and some lower than others: at first they generally built them on the first floor, afterwards on the second, and then up in the cock-loft and garrets; from whence they generally took to the open air, and became ambulatory and noctivagous; and as their price grows less, their wandering increases, when many perish from the inclemency of the weather, and others take their flight aboard.

"Mother," said I, "with sorrow have I viewed many of these unfortunate women, [p233] but never knew before that they had formerly been of the feathered race." "They have, my son, and gay and gawdy in their plumage, hopping from twig to twig; enjoying the present moment of pleasure, and never looking to the following day." Continuing her instructive discourse; says she, "My son, let us walk to the neighbouring village, and, at the first butcher's shop, I will shew thee my powers and knowledge of future events by inspecting the entrails of beasts." "Mother, I doubt not the powers of thy wondrous art: and, oh kind parent, I pray thee, instruct me in them!" To which she affectionately replied -- "I will, my son:" so coming to the first slaughter-house, where an ox was newly dissected, she began to examine the entrails: fixing her eye directly on the liver of the animal, she thus unfolded her predictions: -- "Son, by the entrails of this animal I plainly [p234] see that the next Lord Mayor for the city of London will be chosen from the fish-mongers' company." Turning up the hyde of the ox, I found the animal had no horns, for it was a poled bullock. "Mother," said I, "the animal has no horns; and can this have any reference to the Lord Mayor?" She replied, "Undoubtedly, my son; though I must acknowledge it is a very uncommon case." This event happened very early in October, before any common-hall had been called; and some time afterwards, on inquiry, I found that the Lord Mayor for that ensuing year had been elected from the fishmongers' company, and that he never had been married; which made it the more singular, and verified my mother's skill in omens.

I must here relate to you another wonderful proof of the knowledge and foresight [p235] of my mother's black cat. A few days after my marriage, returning home, I found Tom Tinker with my wife. I, an innocent youth, and unversed in worldly deceit and intrigue, suspected not his base designs; my dear lovely Aegyptia telling me that he came only to stop an hole in the kettle. The sagacious Felis, who was extremely fond of me, followed me into our rural abode, and jumped on the table where the tinker was at work; and the moment this insidious disturber of the my happiness touched the cat, the sagacious, friendly animal, seized his hand, and tore it grievously with his talons; being impelled by the consciousness that the tinker came there on no good design. "Would I had been endowed with the foresight of my purring friend, I might perhaps have prevented the future misery and disgrace which awaited me, and [p236] have lived in happiness, even to these days, with the beautiful Aegyptia; but the cruel Destinies decreed it otherwise, and doomed me to misery, and the pangs of deserted love.

One day as I sat me down on the banks of a murmuring stream, shaded by an aged patriarch of the woods, venerable and revered as the holy Fanes of Nature, under whose spreading roofs our forefathers of old worshipped and sacrificed to their divinities, ere priests had wealthy benefices, or temples were built by human hands, the aged mother of my fair inconstant approached, and thus addressed me:

"Son, listen to the voice of age mature, versed in all deeds past, present, and to come. To thee, in early youth, will I impart secrets which shall guide thee in [p237] time to come, and teach thee how to baffle fickle fortune, to banter poverty, and assuage the heart's distress. Place not too firm a faith on woman's constancy: be kind, be generous, good-tempered, and affectionate to the fair; but if they thy kindness wrongly requite, and should fickle and inconstant prove, console thyself with another, and another too, and on many multiply thy kind, scattering thy maker's image o'er the land. One woful truth hast thou experienced of woman's infidelity; and many more await not thee alone, but all mankind. Thou wert betrothed; thou led'st her to the nuptial tent. Thou thinkest, perhaps, that hadst thou been married by a priest, the ceremony might have fixed her wandering passions¹⁹. How little dost thou [p238] know! Wilt thou believe that a ring put on a woman's finger, accompanied by a form of words, can bind a woman's affection, who, from nature and constitution, may be frail and fickle? Thy passion for Aegyptia was sudden, violent, and without reflection: beauteously formed, and cast in nature's choicest mould, you viewed her nimble as the deer bounding o'er the plain; first in the dance, and foremost in our sports: blindly in love, and captivated with her outward form, nought could relieve thy passion but possession: thou hast had it, and thou hast suffered; and thus will each and every man be deceived, who, blindly amorous, looks to nought but amorous indulgence. It is mutual friendship and sympathy, with an anxious desire for [p239] each other's welfare, which alone can bind two souls in unison and concord: and rest assured, though thou mayest rival even bulls and goats in love, thou wild never ensure woman's fidelity or affections: the insensible ligaments of the soul can alone secure true happiness. Then quit, my son, the town, the court, the tented field, and live with us in wandering happiness: wives thou shalt have as many as thou canst maintain; and they mind shall ne'er again be bound to one capricious and faithless fair one." -- "But," said I, "is it not sinful, mother, to have more wives than one?" -- "My son, the wisest and the best of men, Solomon, had wives and concubines in abundance; and, in the Jewish history, we read it may be so, without offence to Heaven: nay, by Judaic law, it is permitted; and that law, you know, is still a sacred canon. [p240] A priest may tell thee it is just to tythe and take large benefices for holy deeds, and fees for various rites performed, which they themselves have framed." "Mother, I did not think to hear the priests condemned by thee for acts which well though knowest your wandering tribes commit." -- "They also tythe, 'tis true, my son; but then they take but from the rich: the priest makes no distinction."

Led away, as I have been, in describing the miseries and disappointments I suffered from the cruel infidelity of my lovely Egyptia, I had nearly forgotten to relate a very curious ceremony, peculiar to these learned and enlightened wanderers, which took place at my nuptials. When the father and mother betrothed her to me, there was no body present but us four, and the black tom-cat, whose [p241] sagacity I have already mentioned. The old woman took the sagacious felis, and placed him on a table; the old man, holding the black Tom by the body, commanded me to take the cat's left forepaw into my right hand, at the same time directing Egyptia to take the cat's tail in her left hand, as we stood on opposite sides of the table, which was placed directly east and west. But whether Egyptia pressed the cat's tail too hard, so as to produce any comical sensation in the animal, I cannot determine; but the animal, whilst the old man was repeating a few sentences in the Egyptian language, which I judged to be a parental blessing, the cat began to swear and spit, and shewed such discontent, either at his position on the table, or at the nuptial ceremony, that it was with the utmost difficulty we could keep him on the table till the old man had finished his benediction. [p242] My mother (for so I always called her) shook her head, and said to her husband, this forebodes no good. I valued not at the time what my mother said; but from fatal experience I was taught to revere both her knowledge, in foreseeing by omens future events, and the intuitive wisdom of the black cat. I have no doubt but the animal at that moment knew that the cruel destinies had decreed my misery, by Egyptia's future infidelity with the travelling tinker.

Ye lovely Cyprians, I have for a considerable time delayed discovering to you that invaluable secret, how to cure all critical tumers by a touch, which is of infinite consequence to you, and by which you and many others may receive very great and essential advantages, spiritual and temporal.

You do not suppose that I am much [p243] troubled with superstition. My habits of life, and the way I have taken in the world, do not seem to encourage those dispositions of the mind which are called superstitions. But if you imagine that the gay, the thoughtless, and the dissipated, whatever evils or irregularities they may acquire, are cured of that, you are very much mistaken.

A being composed, as man is, of hope and fear, will be naturally led, under the immoderate impulses of those predominating springs of human action, to attach important to circumstances and events which they do not naturally possess; and those situations, in which the due equilibrium is lost, are proportionally subject to superstitious affections.

No men are more liable to be affected [p244] by ominous circumstances than gamesters: and I once heard a gentleman, very long and very well known on the turf, solemnly declare, that in his journies from one race to another, if he happened to hear a magpie chatter from a tree by the road-side, he always made it a rule to bet against his own horses, which were never known to win after such an unfavourable omen.

Nor are you, ye Cyprians, less subject to those propensities than others; for, whose life is more continually agitated by hopes and fears than your own? I will leave the bottom of tea-cups, the burning of candles, and the varieties of a coal-fire, to washerwomen: but how much of your time do you pass under the apprehension of evil, or the expectation of good, in consulting those magical tablets which [p245] compose a pack of cards, and which you apply to as containing the secrets of your future destiny?

I therefore do not apologize for informing you of a long-tried, and, as I suppose, effectual remedy; otherwise is would not have been continued to the present enlightened moment, in most parts of England; nay, it was even practised in London, till Tyburn was succeeded as a place of execution by the New Drop opposite Newgate. I allude to the practice of applying the hands and feet of persons in the act of being hanged, to wens and other tumours, as well as parts afflicted with the scrophula and other inveterate humours. I do not pretend to know in what the virtue of this application consists, nor how long it will remain; though I well remember being [p246] shewn the desiccated hand of a person who had closed his life on a gallows, and was actually present when a poor man afflicted with a wen applied to be rubbed with it. It was in the possession of a Roman Catholic priest, in a distant part of England.

When, therefore, you are afflicted with wens or other troublesome tumours, you know your remedy. Do not be afraid, I beg of you, to look the gallows in the face; it is, I must confess, an alarming object, but it has a powerful tendency to check untoward propensities. At all events, you will derive some good from such a visit: it may be of service to you in more ways than one; and if I should prove serviceable to you in any way, the benevolent design of these pages will be amply fulfilled.

Continue...

Notes:

¹ She ate a hundred pound bank-note between two slices of bread and butter. [ back ]

² Relative to the morality and honesty of such noblemen and gentlemen's honest who have sworn off, I shall not presume to offer any aminadversion of my own, but content myself in giving the reader the following opinion from Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 548. "The laws against smugglers are entirely juris positivi: but the criminality of actions can only be measured by their consequences; and he who saves a sum of money by evading the payment of a tax, does equally the same injury to society as he who steals so much from the treasury, and is therefore guilty of as great immorality, or as great an act of dishonesty. Smuggling has been compared to that species of fraud which a man would practise who should join with his friends in ordering a dinner at a tavern, and, after the festivity and gratification of the day, should steal away and leave his companions to pay his share of the reckoning." [ back ]

³ A physician of respectability, in this town, is of opinion, that, were it not for the grand use of gin amongst the common women, one half of them would die rotten. [ back ]

⁴ Dean Swift. [ back ]

⁵ Dean Swift. [ back ]

⁶ Dean Swift. [ back ]

⁷ Swift's Works. [ back ]

⁸ See the Bishop of Bergen's Treatise, so well known among metaphysical writers, De natura diaboli, et infernorum spirituum officiis, &c. [ back ]

⁹ Vide Burke's speech on Warren Hastings's trial. [ back ]

¹⁰ Amongst the sights, equally novel and scandalous, which the depraved manners of those who call themselves the fashionable world have introduced, and which must strike the mind of every well-bred foreigner with disgust and astonishment, is the odious appearance of Bow-street runners at fashionable routs and galas. Although no man admires the professional abilities of my old acquaintance Townsend more than I do, (for who is such an adept in the art of frisking a ken, trapping a scamp, or hobbling a nuckler?) yet, when I form to myself an idea of the pure and grave morals and manners of our mothers and grandmothers, I cannot help feeling most sensible for that extraordinary and rapid decay of every principle that dignified and adorned society in their time; the dereliction of which must necessarily expose us in the eyes of Europe, where, with all their vices, the assembles of the higher orders are not disgraced by the superintendance of police-officers, who are only qualified to be masters of the ceremonies at routs and balls in those polite parts of the town, Saltpetre Bank, Petticoat-lane, Tothilfields, and St. Giles's. [ back ]

¹¹ Godwin, p329, vol. i. [ back ]

¹² Page 322. [ back ]

¹³ Vide Godwin's words, p. 329, 330, vol.i. [ back ]

¹⁴ Vide page 418. [ back ]

¹⁵ Vide Godwin's own words, vol. i. page 360. [ back ]

¹⁶ Vide the chapter on Polygamy, Matrimony, and Monogamy. [ back ]

¹⁷ It certainly is very singular, but true it is, that meet Newmarket betters at any time of the year, and any where, you never see them without boots, which certainly must be to prevent our seeing the colour of their legs through their stockings. [ back ]

¹⁸ Here I remember I stopped the old woman, or I dare swear she would have abused both parties like pickpockets. "Mother," said I, "stop; no politics, let me entreat of you: besides, if thou indulgest thyself in improper freedom of speech in my presence, though mayest do so elsewhere, when the beadle will be ordered to flog thee through the next town, on a full market-day: be cautious; for, besides the grief I should feel for the pain thou wouldst suffer, my pride would suffer a mortal wound to see the parent of my lovely Aegyptia shamefully disgraced and tied to the tail of a cart." [ back ]

¹⁹ At the moment the old woman's words made a great impression on my mind, and I am inclined to believe have been the chief cause of my never having been married. [ back ]