Mr. SPECTATOR,
You have given many Hints in your Papers to the Disadvantage of
Persons of your own Sex, who lay Plots upon Women. Among other hard
Words you have published the Term Male-Coquets, and been very severe
upon such as give themselves the Liberty of a little Dalliance of
Heart, and playing fast and loose, between Love and Indifference, till
perhaps an easie young Girl is reduced to Sighs, Dreams and Tears; and
languishes away her Life for a careless Coxcomb, who looks astonished,
and wonders at such an Effect from what in him was all but common
Civility. Thus you have treated the Men who are irresolute in
Marriage; but if you design to be impartial, pray be so honest as to
print the Information I now give you, of a certain Set of Women who
never Coquet for the Matter, but with an high Hand marry whom they
please to whom they please. As for my Part, I should not have
concerned my self with them, but that I understand I am pitched upon
by them, to be married, against my Will, to one I never saw in my
Life. It has been my Misfortune, Sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a
plentiful Fortune, of which I am Master, to bespeak a fine Chariot, to
give Direction for two or three handsome Snuff-Boxes, and as many
Suits of fine Cloaths; but before any of these were ready, I heard
Reports of my being to be married to two or three different young
Women. Upon my taking Notice of it to a young Gentleman who is often
in my Company he told me smiling, I was in the Inquisition. You may
believe I was not a little startled at what he meant, and more so when
he asked me if I had bespoke any thing of late that was fine. I told
him several; upon which he produced a Description of my Person from
the Tradesmen whom I had employed, and told me that they had certainly
informed against me. Mr. SPECTATOR, Whatever the World may think of
me, I am more Coxcomb than Fool, and I grew very inquisitive upon this
Head, not a little pleased with the Novelty. My Friend told me there
were a certain Set of Women of Fashion whereof the Number of Six made
a Committee, who sat thrice a Week, under the Title of the Inquisition
on Maids and Batchelors. It seems, whenever there comes such an
unthinking gay Thing as my self to Town, he must want all Manner of
Necessaries, or be put into the Inquisition by the first Tradesman he
employs. They have constant Intelligence with Cane-Shops, Perfumers,
Toymen, Coach-makers, and China-houses. From these several Places,
these Undertakers for Marriages have as constant and regular
Correspondence, as the Funeral-men have with Vintners and
Apothecaries. All Batchelors are under their immediate Inspection, and
my Friend produced to me a Report given into their Board, wherein an
old Unkle of mine, who came to Town with me, and my self, were
inserted, and we stood thus; the Unkle smoaky, rotten, poor; the
Nephew raw, but no Fool, sound at present, very rich. My Information
did not end here, but my Friends Advices are so good, that he could
shew me a Copy of the Letter sent to the young Lady who is to have me
which I enclose to you.
Madam,
This is to let you know, that you are to be Married to a Beau that
comes out on Thursday Six in the Evening. Be at the Park. You cannot
but know a Virgin Fop; they have a Mind to look saucy, but are out
of Countenance. The Board has denied him to several good Families. I
wish you Joy.
Corinna.
What makes my Correspondents Case the more deplorable, is, that as I
find by the Report from my Censor of Marriages, the Friend he speaks of
is employed by the Inquisition to take him in, as the Phrase is. After
all that is told him, he has Information only of one Woman that is laid
for him, and that the wrong one; for the Lady-Commissioners have devoted
him to another than the Person against whom they have employed their
Agent his Friend to alarm him. The Plot is laid so well about this young
Gentleman, that he has no Friend to retire to, no Place to appear in, or
Part of the Kingdom to fly into, but he must fall into the Notice, and
be subject to the Power of the Inquisition. They have their Emissaries
and Substitutes in all Parts of this united Kingdom. The first Step they
usually take, is to find from a Correspondence, by their Messengers and
Whisperers with some Domestick of the Batchelor (who is to be hunted
into the Toils they have laid for him) what are his Manners, his
Familiarities, his good Qualities or Vices; not as the Good in him is a
Recommendation, or the ill a Diminution, but as they affect or
contribute to the main Enquiry, What Estate he has in him? When this
Point is well reported to the Board, they can take in a wild roaring
Fox-hunter, as easily as a soft, gentle young Fop of the Town. The Way
is to make all Places uneasie to him, but the Scenes in which they have
allotted him to act. His Brother Huntsmen, Bottle Companions, his
Fraternity of Fops, shall be brought into the Conspiracy against him.
Then this Matter is not laid in so bare-faced a Manner before him, as to
have it intimated Mrs. Such-a-one would make him a very proper Wife; but
by the Force of their Correspondence they shall make it (as Mr. Waller
said of the Marriage of the Dwarfs) as impracticable to have any Woman
besides her they design him, as it would have been in Adam to have
refused Eve. The Man named by the Commission for Mrs. Such-a-one, shall
neither be in Fashion, nor dare ever to appear in Company, should he
attempt to evade their Determination.
The Female Sex wholly govern domestick Life; and by this Means, when
they think fit, they can sow Dissentions between the dearest Friends,
nay make Father and Son irreconcilable Enemies, in spite of all the Ties
of Gratitude on one Part, and the Duty of Protection to be paid on the
other. The Ladies of the Inquisition understand this perfectly well; and
where Love is not a Motive to a Man's chusing one whom they allot, they
can, with very much Art, insinuate Stories to the Disadvantage of his
Honesty or Courage, till the Creature is too much dispirited to bear up
against a general ill Reception, which he every where meets with, and in
due time falls into their appointed Wedlock for Shelter. I have a long
Letter bearing Date the fourth Instant, which gives me a large Account
of the Policies of this Court; and find there is now before them a very
refractory Person who has escaped all their Machinations for two Years
last past: But they have prevented two successive Matches which were of
his own Inclination, the one, by a Report that his Mistress was to be
married, and the very Day appointed, Wedding-Clothes bought, and all
things ready for her being given to another; the second time, by
insinuating to all his Mistresss Friends and Acquaintance, that he had
been false to several other Women, and the like. The poor Man is now
reduced to profess he designs to lead a single Life; but the Inquisition
gives out to all his Acquaintance, that nothing is intended but the
Gentleman's own Welfare and Happiness. When this is urged, he talks
still more humbly, and protests he aims only at a Life without Pain or
Reproach; Pleasure, Honour or Riches, are things for which he has no
taste. But notwithstanding all this and what else he may defend himself
with, as that the Lady is too old or too young, of a suitable Humour, or
the quite contrary, and that it is impossible they can ever do other
than wrangle from June to January, Every Body tells him all this is
Spleen, and he must have a Wife; while all the Members of the
Inquisition are unanimous in a certain Woman for him, and they think
they all together are better able to judge, than he or any other private
Person whatsoever.
Temple, March 3, 1711.
Sir,
Your Speculation this Day on the Subject of Idleness, has employed me,
ever since I read it, in sorrowful Reflections on my having loitered
away the Term (or rather the Vacation) of ten Years in this Place, and
unhappily suffered a good Chamber and Study to lie idle as long. My
Books (except those I have taken to sleep upon) have been totally
neglected, and my Lord Coke and other venerable Authors were never so
slighted in their Lives. I spent most of the Day at a Neighbouring
Coffee-House, where we have what I may call a lazy Club. We generally
come in Night-Gowns, with our Stockings about our Heels, and sometimes
but one on. Our Salutation at Entrance is a Yawn and a Stretch, and
then without more Ceremony we take our Place at the Lolling Table;
where our Discourse is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore
shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this Loss
of Time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double Diligence) to
retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the Arguments of Mr. Slack
out of the Senseless Stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to
demonstrate that Penitence accompanies my Confession, and Constancy my
Resolutions, I have locked my Door for a Year, and desire you would
let my Companions know I am not within. I am with great Respect,
SIR, Your most obedient Servant,