amusing enough, the manner in which the ordinances ran. Assemblies were
quite unknown among them; the czarina was satisfied with introducing
them, for she found it impossible to render them polite. An ordinance was
therefore published according to their notions of breeding, which, as it
is a curiosity, and has never before been printed that we know of, we
shall give our readers.
“I. The person at whose house the assembly is to be kept, shall signify
the same by hanging out a bill, or by giving some other public notice, by
way of advertisement, to persons of both sexes.
“II. The assembly shall not be open sooner than four or five o’clock in
the afternoon, nor continue longer than ten at night.
“III. The master of the house shall not be obliged to meet his guests,
or conduct them out, or keep them company; but though he is exempt from
all this, he is to find them chairs, candles, liquors, and all other
necessaries that company may ask for; he is likewise to provide them with
cards, dice, and every necessary for gaming.
“IV. There shall be no fixed hour for coming or going away; it is enough
for a person to appear in the assembly.
“V. Every one shall be free to sit, walk, or game as he pleases; nor
shall any one go about to hinder him, or take exceptions at what he does,
upon pain of emptying the great eagle (a pint bowl full of brandy): it
shall likewise be sufficient, at entering or retiring, to salute the
company.
“VI. Persons of distinction, noblemen, superior officers, merchants,
and tradesmen of note, head-workmen, especially carpenters, and persons
employed in chancery, are to have liberty to enter the assemblies; as
likewise their wives and children.
“VII. A particular place shall be assigned the footmen, except those of
the house, that there may be room enough in the apartments designed for
the assembly.
“VIII. No ladies are to get drunk upon any pretence whatsoever: nor shall
gentlemen be drunk before nine.
“IX. Ladies who play at forfeitures, questions and commands, &c. shall
not be riotous; no gentleman shall attempt to force a kiss, and no person
shall offer to strike a woman in the assembly, under pain of future
exclusion.”
Such are the statutes upon this occasion, which, in their very
appearance, carry an air of ridicule and satire. But politeness must
enter every country by degrees; and these rules resemble the breeding of
a clown, awkward but sincere.
VIII.
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY THE ORDINARY OF NEWGATE.
Man is a most frail being, incapable of directing his steps, unacquainted
with what is to happen in this life; and perhaps no man is a more
manifest instance of the truth of this maxim, than Mr. The. Cibber, just
now gone out of the world. Such a variety of turns of fortune, yet such
a persevering uniformity of conduct, appears in all that happened in his
short span, that the whole may be looked upon as one regular confusion:
every action of his life was matter of wonder and surprise, and his death
was an astonishment.
This gentleman was born of creditable parents, who gave him a very good
education, and a great deal of good learning, so that he could read and
write before he was sixteen. However he early discovered an inclination
to follow lewd courses; he refused to take the advice of his parents,
and pursued the bent of his inclination: he played at cards on Sundays,
called himself a gentleman; fell out with his mother and laundress; and
even in these early days his father was frequently heard to observe, that
young The.— would be hanged.
As he advanced in years, he grew more fond of pleasure; would eat an
ortolan for dinner, though he begged the guinea that bought it; and was
once known to give three pounds for a plate of green pease, which he had
collected over-night as charity for a friend in distress: he ran into
debt with every body that would trust him, and none could build a sconce
better than he: so that at last his creditors swore with one accord that
The.— would be hanged.
But as getting into debt, by a man who had no visible means but impudence
for subsistence, is a thing that every reader is not acquainted with, I
must explain that point a little, and that to his satisfaction.
There are three ways of getting into debt; first, by pushing a face; as
thus: “You, Mr. Lutestring, send me home six yards of that paduasoy,
dammee;—but, harkee, don’t think I ever intend to pay you for it,
dammee.” At this the mercer laughs heartily; cuts off the paduasoy, and
sends it home; nor is he, till too late, surprised to find the gentleman
had said nothing but truth, and kept his word.
The second method of running into debt is called fineering; which is
getting goods made up in such a fashion, as to be unfit for every other
purchaser; and if the tradesman refuses to give them credit, then
threaten to leave them upon his hands.
But the third and best method is called, “Being the good customer.” The
gentleman first buys some trifle, and pays for it in ready money; he
comes a few days after with nothing about him but bank-bills, and buys,
we will suppose, a six-penny tweezer-case; the bills are too great to be
changed, so he promises to return punctually the day after, and pay for
what he has bought. In this promise he is punctual, and this is repeated
for eight or ten times, till his face is well known, and he has got at
last the character of a good customer. By this means he gets credit for
something considerable, and then never pays for it.
In all this the young man, who is the unhappy subject of our present
reflections, was very expert; and could face, fineer, and bring custom to
a shop with any man in England: none of his companions could exceed him
in this; and his very companions at last said that The.— would be hanged.
As he grew old he grew never the better; he loved ortolans and green
pease as before; he drank gravy-soup when he could get it, and always
thought his oysters tasted best when he got them for nothing, or, which
was just the same, when he bought them upon tick. Thus the old man kept
up the vices of the youth, and what he wanted in power, he made up by
inclination; so that all the world thought that old The.— would be hanged.
And now, reader, I have brought him to his last scene; a scene where
perhaps my duty should have obliged me to assist. You expect, perhaps,
his dying words, and the tender farewell he took of his wife and
children; you expect an account of his coffin and white gloves, his pious
ejaculations, and the papers he left behind him. In this I cannot indulge
your curiosity; for, oh! the mysteries of Fate, The.— was drowned!
“Reader,” as Hervey saith, “pause and ponder; and ponder and pause; who
knows what thy own end may be!”
IX.
ON NATIONAL CONCORD.
I take the liberty to communicate to the public a few loose thoughts
upon a subject, which, though often handled, has not yet, in my opinion,
been fully discussed: I mean national concord, or unanimity, which in
this kingdom has been generally considered as a bare possibility, that
existed no where but in speculation. Such an union is perhaps neither to
be expected nor wished for in a country, whose liberty depends rather
upon the genius of the people, than upon any precautions which they have
taken in a constitutional way for the guard and preservation of this
inestimable blessing.
There is a very honest gentleman, with whom I have been acquainted these
thirty years, during which there has not been one speech uttered against
the ministry in parliament, nor struggle at an election for a burgess to
serve in the House of Commons, nor a pamphlet published in opposition
to any measure of the administration, nor even a private censure passed
in his hearing upon the misconduct of any person concerned in public
affairs, but he is immediately alarmed, and loudly exclaims against such
factious doings, in order to set the people by the ears together at such
a delicate juncture. “At any other time (says he) such opposition might
not be improper, and I don’t question the facts that are alleged; but at
this crisis, sir, to inflame the nation!—the man deserves to be punished
as a traitor to his country.” In a word, according to this gentleman’s
opinion, the nation has been in a violent crisis at any time these
thirty years; and were it possible for him to live another century, he
would never find any period, at which a man might with safety impugn the
infallibility of a minister.
The case is no more than this: my honest friend has invested his whole
fortune in the stocks, on government security, and trembles at every
whiff of popular discontent. Were every British subject of the same tame
and timid disposition, Magna Charta (to use the coarse phrase of Oliver
Cromwell) would be no more regarded by an ambitious prince, than magna
f—ta, and the liberties of England expire without a groan. Opposition,
when restrained within due bounds, is the salubrious gale that ventilates
the opinions of the people, which might otherwise stagnate into the most
abject submission. It may be said to purify the atmosphere of politics;
to dispel the gross vapours raised by the influence of ministerial
artifice and corruption, until the constitution, like a mighty rock,
stands full disclosed to the view of every individual, who dwells within
the shade of its protection. Even when this gale blows with augmented
violence, it generally tends to the advantage of the commonwealth, it
awakes the apprehension, and consequently arouses all the faculties
of the pilot at the helm, who redoubles his vigilance and caution,
exerts his utmost skill, and becoming acquainted with the nature of the
navigation, in a little time learns to suit his canvass to the roughness
of the sea, and the trim of the vessel. Without these intervening storms
of opposition to exercise his faculties, he would become enervate,
negligent, and presumptuous; and in the wantonness of his power, trusting
to some deceitful calm, perhaps hazard a step that would wreck the
constitution. Yet there is a measure in all things. A moderate frost
will fertilize the glebe with nitrous particles, and destroy the eggs of
pernicious insects, that prey upon the fancy of the year: but if this
frost increases in severity and duration, it will chill the seeds, and
even freeze up the roots of vegetables; it will check the bloom, nip the
buds, and blast all the promise of the spring. The vernal breeze that
drives the fogs before it, that brushes the cobwebs from the boughs,
that fans the air, and fosters vegetation, if augmented to a tempest,
will strip the leaves, overthrow the tree, and desolate the garden. The
auspicious gale before which the trim vessel plows the bosom of the sea,
while the mariners are kept alert in duty and in spirits, if converted to
a hurricane, overwhelms the crew with terror and confusion. The sails are
rent, the cordage cracked, the masts give way; the master eyes the havock
with mute despair, and the vessel founders in the storm. Opposition, when
confined within its proper channel, sweeps away those beds of soil and
banks of sand which corruptive power had gathered; but when it overflows
its banks, and deluges the plain, its course is marked by ruin and
devastation.
The opposition necessary in a free state, like that of Great Britain, is
not at all incompatible with that national concord, which ought to unite
the people on all emergencies, in which the general safety is at stake.
It is the jealousy of patriotism, not the rancour of party; the warmth of
candour, not the virulence of hate; a transient dispute among friends,
not an implacable feud that admits of no reconciliation. The history
of all ages teems with the fatal effects of internal discord; and were
history and tradition annihilated, common sense would plainly point out
the mischiefs that must arise from want of harmony and national union.
Every school-boy can have recourse to the fable of the rods, which, when
united in a bundle, no strength could bend; but when separated into
single twigs, a child could break with ease.
X.
FEMALE WARRIORS.
I have spent the greater part of my life in making observations on
men and things, and in projecting schemes for the advantage of my
country; and though my labours met with an ungrateful return, I will
still persist in my endeavours for its service, like that venerable,
unshaken, and neglected patriot, Mr. Jacob Henriquez, who, though of the
Hebrew nation, hath exhibited a shining example of Christian fortitude
and perseverance[1]. And here my conscience urges me to confess, that
the hint upon which the following proposals are built, was taken from
an advertisement of the said patriot Henriquez, in which he gave the
public to understand, that Heaven had indulged him with “seven blessed
daughters.” Blessed they are, no doubt, on account of their own and their
father’s virtues: but more blessed may they be, if the scheme I offer
should be adopted by the legislature.
The proportion which the number of females born in these kingdoms
bears to the male children, is, I think, supposed to be as thirteen to
fourteen: but as women are not so subject as the other sex to accidents
and intemperance, in numbering adults we shall find the balance on the
female side. If, in calculating the numbers of the people, we take in
the multitudes that emigrate to the plantations, whence they never
return, those that die at sea and make their exit at Tyburn, together
with the consumption of the present war, by sea and land, in the
Atlantic, Mediterranean, in the German and Indian oceans, in Old France,
New France, North America, the Leeward Islands, Germany, Africa, and
Asia, we may fairly state the loss of men during the war at one hundred
thousand. If this be the case, there must be a superplus of the other sex
amounting to the same number, and this superplus will consist of women
able to bear arms; as I take it for granted, that all those who are fit
to bear children are likewise fit to bear arms. Now as we have seen the
nation governed by old women, I hope to make it appear that it may be
defended by young women; and surely this scheme will not be rejected as
unnecessary at such a juncture,[2] when our armies in the four quarters
of the globe are in want of recruits; when we find ourselves entangled in
a new war with Spain, on the eve of a rupture in Italy, and indeed in a
fair way of being obliged to make head against all the great potentates
of Europe.
But, before I unfold my design, it may be necessary to obviate, from
experience as well as argument, the objections which may be made to the
delicate frame and tender disposition of the female sex, rendering them
incapable of the toils, and insuperably averse to the horrors of war. All
the world has heard of the nation of Amazons, who inhabited the banks
of the river Thermodoon in Cappadocia; who expelled their men by force
of arms, defended themselves by their own prowess, managed the reins
of government, prosecuted the operations in war, and held the other
sex in the utmost contempt. We are informed by Homer that Penthesilea,
queen of the Amazons, acted as auxiliary to Priam, and fell valiantly
fighting in his cause before the walls of Troy. Quintus Curtius tells
us, that Thalestris brought one hundred armed Amazons in a present
to Alexander the Great. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, there was a
nation of female warriors in Africa, who fought against the Libyan
Hercules. We read in the voyages of Columbus, that one of the Caribbee
islands was possessed by a tribe of female warriors, who kept all the
neighbouring Indians in awe; but we need not go further than our own age
and country to prove that the spirit and constitution of the fair sex
are equal to the dangers and fatigues of war. Every novice who has read
the authentic and important History of the Pirates, is well acquainted
with the exploits of two heroines, called Mary Read and Anne Bonny. I
myself have had the honour to drink with Anne Cassier, alias Mother
Wade, who had distinguished herself among the buccaneers of America,
and in her old age kept a punch-house in Port-Royal of Jamaica. I have
likewise conversed with Moll Davis, who had served as a dragoon in all
queen Anne’s wars, and was admitted on the pension of Chelsea. The late
war with Spain, and even the present, hath produced instances of females
enlisting both in the land and sea service, and behaving with remarkable
bravery in the disguise of the other sex. And who has not heard of the
celebrated Jenny Cameron, and some other enterprising ladies of North
Britain, who attended a certain Adventurer in all his expeditions, and
headed their respective clans in a military character? That strength of
body is often equal to the courage of mind implanted in the fair sex,
will not be denied by those who have seen the water-women of Plymouth;
the female drudges of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland; the fish-women of
Billingsgate; the weeders, podders, and hoppers, who swarm in the fields;
and the bunters who swagger in the streets of London; not to mention the
indefatigable trulls who follow the camp, and keep up with the line of
march, though loaded with bantlings and other baggage.
There is scarcely a street in this metropolis without one or more
viragos, who discipline their husbands, and domineer over the whole
neighbourhood. Many months are not elapsed since I was witness to a
pitched battle between two athletic females, who fought with equal skill
and fury until one of them gave out, after having sustained seven falls
on the hard stones. They were both stripped to the under petticoat; their
breasts were carefully swathed with handkerchiefs, and as no vestiges
of features were to be seen in either when I came up, I imagined the
combatants were of the other sex, until a bystander assured me of the
contrary, giving me to understand that the conqueror had lain in about
five weeks of twin bastards, begot by her second, who was an Irish
chairman. When I see the avenues of the Strand beset every night with
troops of fierce Amazons, who, with dreadful imprecations, stop, and
beat, and plunder passengers, I cannot help wishing that such martial
talents were converted to the benefit of the public; and that those who
are so loaded with temporal fire, and so little afraid of eternal fire,
should, instead of ruining the souls and bodies of their fellow-citizens,
be put in a way of turning their destructive qualities against the
enemies of the nation.
Having thus demonstrated that the fair sex are not deficient in strength
and resolution, I would humbly propose, that as there is an excess on
their side in quantity to the amount of one hundred thousand, part of
that number may be employed in recruiting the army, as well as in
raising thirty new Amazonian regiments, to be commanded by females, and
serve in regimentals adapted to their sex. The Amazons of old appeared
with the left breast bare, an open jacket and trowsers, that descended
no farther than the knee; the right breast was destroyed, that it might
not impede them in bending the bow, or darting the javelin; but there
is no occasion for this cruel excision in the present discipline, as we
have seen instances of women who handle the musquet, without finding any
inconvenience from that protuberance.
As the sex love gaiety, they may be clothed in vests of pink satin, and
open drawers of the same, with buskins on their feet and legs, their hair
tied behind and floating on their shoulders, and their hats adorned with
white feathers: they may be armed with light carbines and long bayonets,
without the encumbrance of swords or shoulder-belts. I make no doubt but
many young ladies of figure and fashion will undertake to raise companies
at their own expense, provided they like their colonels; but I must
insist upon it, if this scheme should be embraced, that Mr. Henriquez’s
seven blessed daughters may be provided with commissions, as the project
is in some measure owing to the hints of that venerable patriot. I
moreover give it as my opinion, that Mrs. Kitty Fisher[3] shall have the
command of a battalion, and the nomination of her own officers, provided
she will warrant them all sound, and be content to wear proper badges of
distinction.
A female brigade, properly disciplined and accoutred, would not, I am
persuaded, be afraid to charge a numerous body of the enemy, over whom
they would have a manifest advantage; for if the barbarous Scythians were
ashamed to fight with the Amazons who invaded them, surely the French,
who pique themselves on their sensibility and devotion to the fair sex,
would not act upon the offensive against a band of female warriors,
arrayed in all the charms of youth and beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A man well known at this period (1762), as well as during many
preceding years, for the numerous schemes he was daily offering to
various ministers, for the purpose of raising money by loans, paying off
the national encumbrances, &c. &c. none of which, however, were ever
known to have received the smallest notice.
[2] In the year 1762.
[3] A celebrated courtezan of that time.
XI.
ON NATIONAL PREJUDICE.
As I am one of that sauntering tribe of mortals who spend the greatest
part of their time in taverns, coffee-houses, and other places of public
resort, I have thereby an opportunity of observing an infinite variety of
characters, which, to a person of a contemplative turn, is a much higher
entertainment than a view of all the curiosities of art or nature. In one
of these my late rambles, I accidentally fell into the company of half a
dozen gentlemen who were engaged in a warm dispute about some political
affair; the decision of which, as they were equally divided in their
sentiments, they thought proper to refer to me, which naturally drew me
in for a share of the conversation.
Amongst a multiplicity of other topics, we took occasion to talk of the
different characters of the several nations of Europe; when one of the
gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance as if
he had possessed all the merit of the English nation in his own person,
declared that the Dutch were a parcel of avaricious wretches; the French
a set of flattering sycophants; that the Germans were drunken sots, and
beastly gluttons; and the Spaniards proud, haughty, and surly tyrants;
but that in bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other virtue, the
English excelled all the rest of the world.
This very _learned_ and _judicious remark_ was received with a general
smile of approbation by all the company—all, I mean, but your humble
servant; who, endeavouring to keep my gravity as well as I could, and
reclining my head upon my arm, continued for some time in a posture of
affected thoughtfulness, as if I had been musing on something else, and
did not seem to attend to the subject of conversation; hoping by these
means to avoid the disagreeable necessity of explaining myself, and
thereby depriving the gentleman of his imaginary happiness.
But my pseudo-patriot had no mind to let me escape so easily. Not
satisfied that his opinion should pass without contradiction, he was
determined to have it ratified by the suffrage of every one in the
company; for which purpose, addressing himself to me, with an air of
inexpressible confidence, he asked me if I was not of the same way of
thinking. As I am never forward in giving my opinion, especially when
I have reason to believe that it will not be agreeable; so, when I
am obliged to give it, I always hold it for a maxim to speak my real
sentiments. I therefore told him, that for my own part I should not have
ventured to talk in such a peremptory strain, unless I had made the tour
of Europe, and examined the manners of these several nations with great
care and accuracy: that perhaps a more impartial judge would not scruple
to affirm, that the Dutch were more frugal and industrious, the French
more temperate and polite, the Germans more hardy and patient of labour
and fatigue, and the Spaniards more staid and sedate, than the English;
who, though undoubtedly brave and generous, were at the same time rash,
headstrong, and impetuous; too apt to be elated with prosperity, and to
despond in adversity.