I cannot tell what the Law, or the Parents of the Lady, will do for this
Injured Gentleman, but must allow he has very much Justice on his Side.
I have indeed very long observed this Evil, and distinguished those of
our Women who wear their own, from those in borrowed Complexions, by the
_Picts_ and the _British_. There does not need any great Discernment to
judge which are which. The _British_ have a lively, animated Aspect; The
_Picts_, tho' never so Beautiful, have dead, uninformed Countenances.
The Muscles of a real Face sometimes swell with soft Passion, sudden
Surprize, and are flushed with agreeable Confusions, according as the
Objects before them, or the Ideas presented to them, affect their
Imagination. But the _Picts_ behold all things with the same Air,
whether they are Joyful or Sad; the same fixed Insensibility appears
upon all Occasions. A _Pict_, tho' she takes all that Pains to invite
the Approach of Lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain Distance; a
Sigh in a Languishing Lover, if fetched too near her, would dissolve a
Feature; and a Kiss snatched by a Forward one, might transfer the
Complexion of the Mistress to the Admirer. It is hard to speak of these
false Fair Ones, without saying something uncomplaisant, but I would
only recommend to them to consider how they like coming into a Room new
Painted; they may assure themselves, the near Approach of a Lady who
uses this Practice is much more offensive.
WILL. HONEYCOMB told us, one Day, an Adventure he once had with a
_Pict_. This Lady had Wit, as well as Beauty, at Will; and made it her
Business to gain Hearts, for no other Reason, but to rally the Torments
of her Lovers. She would make great Advances to insnare Men, but without
any manner of Scruple break off when there was no Provocation. Her
Ill-Nature and Vanity made my Friend very easily Proof against the
Charms of her Wit and Conversation; but her beauteous Form, instead of
being blemished by her Falshood and Inconstancy, every Day increased
upon him, and she had new Attractions every time he saw her. When she
observed WILL. irrevocably her Slave, she began to use him as such, and
after many Steps towards such a Cruelty, she at last utterly banished
him. The unhappy Lover strove in vain, by servile Epistles, to revoke
his Doom; till at length he was forced to the last Refuge, a round Sum
of Money to her Maid. This corrupt Attendant placed him early in the
Morning behind the Hangings in her Mistress's Dressing-Room. He stood
very conveniently to observe, without being seen. The _Pict_ begins the
Face she designed to wear that Day, and I have heard him protest she had
worked a full half Hour before he knew her to be the same Woman. As soon
as he saw the Dawn of that Complexion, for which he had so long
languished, he thought fit to break from his Concealment, repeating that
of _Cowley:_
'Th' adorning Thee, with so much Art,
Is but a barbarous Skill;
'Tis like the Pois'ning of a Dart,
Too apt before to kill.' [2]
The _Pict_ stood before him in the utmost Confusion, with the prettiest
Smirk imaginable on the finished side of her Face, pale as Ashes on the
other. HONEYCOMB seized all her Gallypots and Washes, and carried off
his Han kerchief full of Brushes, Scraps of _Spanish_ Wool, and Phials
of Unguents. The Lady went into the Country, the Lover was cured.
It is certain no Faith ought to be kept with Cheats, and an Oath made to
a _Pict_ is of it self void. I would therefore exhort all the _British_
Ladies to single them out, nor do I know any but _Lindamira_, who should
be Exempt from Discovery; for her own Complexion is so delicate, that
she ought to be allowed the covering it with Paint, as a Punishment for
choosing to be the worst Piece of Art extant, instead of the Masterpiece
of Nature. As for my part, who have no Expectations from Women, and
consider them only as they are Part of the Species, I do not half so
much fear offending a Beauty, as a Woman of Sense; I shall therefore
produce several Faces which have been in Publick this many Years, and
never appeared. It will be a very pretty Entertainment in the Playhouse
(when I have abolished this Custom) to see so many Ladies, when they
first lay it down, _incog._, in their own Faces.
In the mean time, as a Pattern for improving their Charms, let the Sex
study the agreeable _Statira_. Her Features are enlivened with the
Chearfulness of her Mind, and good Humour gives an Alacrity to her Eyes.
She is Graceful without affecting an Air, and Unconcerned without
appearing Careless. Her having no manner of Art in her Mind, makes her
want none in her Person.
How like is this Lady, and how unlike is a _Pict_, to that Description
Dr. _Donne_ gives of his Mistress?
Her pure and eloquent Blood
Spoke in her Cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her Body thought. [3]
[Footnote 1: Ben Jonson's 'Epicoene', or the Silent Woman, kept the
stage in the Spectator's time, and was altered by G. Colman for Drury
Lane, in 1776. Cutbeard in the play is a barber, and Thomas Otter a Land
and Sea Captain.
"Tom Otter's bull, bear, and horse is known all over England, 'in
rerum naturâ.'"
In the fifth act Morose, who has married a Silent Woman and discovered
her tongue after marriage, is played upon by the introduction of Otter,
disguised as a Divine, and Cutbeard, as a Canon Lawyer, to explain to
him
'for how many causes a man may have 'divortium legitimum', a
lawful divorce.'
Cutbeard, in opening with burlesque pedantry a budget of twelve
impediments which make the bond null, is thus supported by Otter:
'Cutb.' The first is 'impedimentum erroris'.
'Otter.' Of which there are several species.
'Cutb.' Ay, 'as error personæ'.
'Otter. If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her
another.']
[Footnote 2: This is fourth of five stanzas to 'The Waiting-Maid,' in
the collection of poems called 'The Mistress.']
[Footnote 3: Donne's Funeral Elegies, on occasion of the untimely death
of Mistress Elizabeth Drury. 'Of the Progress of the Soul,' Second
Anniversary. It is the strain not of a mourning lover, but of a mourning
friend. Sir Robert Drury was so cordial a friend that he gave to Donne
and his wife a lodging rent free in his own large house in Drury Lane,
'and was also,' says Isaac Walton, 'a cherisher of his studies, and
such a friend as sympathized 'with him and his, in all their joys and
sorrows.'
The lines quoted by Steele show that the sympathy was mutual;
but the poetry in them is a flash out of the clouds of a dull context.
It is hardly worth noticing that Steele, quoting from memory, puts
'would' for 'might' in the last line. Sir Robert's daughter Elizabeth,
who, it is said, was to have been the wife of Prince Henry, eldest son
of James I, died at the age of fifteen in 1610.]
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