Gimcrack. You know, sir, that I have lately lost a very whimsical
husband, who I find, by one of your last week's papers, was not
altogether a stranger to you. When I married this gentleman, he had
a very handsome estate; but upon buying a set of microscopes, he
was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society; from which time I do not
remember ever to have heard him speak as other people did, or talk
in a manner that any of his family could understand him. He used,
however, to pass away his time very innocently in conversation with
several members of that learned body; for which reason I never advised
him against their company for several years, till at last I found his
brain was quite turned with their discourses. The first symptom which
he discovered of his being a virtuoso, as you call him, poor man! was
about fifteen years ago, when he gave me positive orders to turn off
an old weeding-woman that had been employed in the family for several
years. He told me at the same time, that there was no such thing in
nature as a weed, and that it was his design to let his garden produce
what it pleased; so that you may be sure it makes a very pleasant show
as it now lies. About the same time he took a humour to ramble up and
down the country, and would often bring home with him his pockets
full of moss and pebbles. This you may be sure gave me a heavy heart;
though at the same time I must needs say, he had the character of a
very honest man, notwithstanding he was reckoned a little weak, till
he began to sell his estate, and buy those strange baubles that you
have taken notice of. Upon Midsummer-day last, as he was walking with
me in the fields, he saw a very odd-coloured butterfly just before
us. I observed, that he immediately changed colour, like a man that is
surprised with a piece of good luck, and telling me that it was what
he had looked for above these twelve years, he threw off his coat,
and followed it. I lost sight of them both in less than a quarter of
an hour; but my husband continued the chase over hedge and ditch till
about sunset; at which time, as I was afterwards told, he caught the
butterfly, as she rested herself upon a cabbage, near five miles from
the place where he first put her up. He was here lifted from the ground
by some passengers in a very fainting condition, and brought home to
me about midnight. His violent exercise threw him into a fever, which
grew upon him by degrees, and at last carried him off. In one of the
intervals of his distemper, he called to me, and after having excused
himself for running out of his estate, he told me, that he had always
been more industrious to improve his mind than his fortune; and that
his family must rather value themselves upon his memory as he was a
wise man, than a rich one. He then told me, that it was a custom among
the Romans, for a man to give his slaves their liberty when he lay upon
his death-bed. I could not imagine what this meant, till after having
a little composed himself, he ordered me to bring him a flea which he
had kept for several months in a chain, with a design, as he said, to
give it its manumission. This was done accordingly. He then made the
will, which I have since seen printed in your works word for word. Only
I must take notice, that you have omitted the codicil, in which he left
a large _Concha Veneris_, as it is there called, to a member of the
Royal Society, who was often with him in his sickness, and assisted him
in his will. And now, sir, I come to the chief business of my letter,
which is, to desire your friendship and assistance in the disposal of
those many rarities and curiosities which lie upon my hands. If you
know any one that has an occasion for a parcel of dried spiders, I will
sell them a pennyworth.[77] I could likewise let any one have a bargain
of cockle-shells. I would also desire your advice, whether I had best
sell my beetles in a lump, or by retail. The gentleman above mentioned,
who was my husband's friend, would have me make an auction of all his
goods, and is now drawing up a catalogue of every particular for that
purpose, with the two following words in great letters over the head
of them, _Auctio Gimcrackiana_. But upon talking with him, I begin to
suspect he is as mad as poor Sir Nicholas was. Your advice in all these
particulars will be a great piece of charity to,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant,
"ELIZABETH GIMCRACK."
I shall answer the foregoing letter, and give the widow my best advice,
as soon as I can find out chapmen for the wares which she has to put
off. In the meantime, I shall give my reader the sight of a letter
which I have received from another female correspondent by the same
post.
* * * * *
"GOOD MR. BICKERSTAFF,
"I am convinced by a late paper of yours,[78] that a passionate woman
(which among the common people goes under the name of a scold) is one
of the most insupportable creatures in the world. But alas! sir, what
can we do? I have made a thousand vows and resolutions every morning
to guard myself against this frailty, but have generally broken them
before dinner, and could never in my life hold out till the second
course was set upon the table. What most troubles me is, that my
husband is as patient and good-natured as your own Worship, or any man
living can be. Pray give me some directions, for I would observe the
strictest and severest rules you can think of to cure myself of this
distemper, which is apt to fall into my tongue every moment. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most humble Servant, &c."
In answer to this most unfortunate lady, I must acquaint her, that
there is now in town an ingenious physician of my acquaintance, who
undertakes to cure all the vices and defects of the mind by inward
medicines, or outward applications. I shall give the world an account
of his patients and his cures in other papers, when I shall be more
at leisure to treat upon this subject. I shall only here inform my
correspondent, that for the benefit of such ladies that are troubled
with virulent tongues, he has prepared a cold bath, over which there is
fastened, at the end of a long pole, a very convenient chair, curiously
gilt and carved. When the patient is seated in this chair, the doctor
lifts up the pole, and gives her two or three total immersions in the
cold bath, till such time as she has quite lost the use of speech.
This operation so effectually chills the tongue, and refrigerates the
blood, that a woman, who at her entrance into the chair is extremely
passionate and sonorous, will come out as silent and gentle as a lamb.
The doctor told me, he would not practise this experiment upon women of
fashion, had not he seen it made upon those of meaner condition with
very good effect.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] This paper has been attributed to Addison, though not included
in his works, because it is a sequel to No. 216, and because of
the corrections in the following number of the folio issue. These
corrections consist of "immersions" for "emersions," and instructions
to omit "immediately" in a passage where the word occurred twice in a
short space. Steele was not in the habit of noticing these small points.
[76] See No. 216.
[77] A bargain. Dryden (translation of Juvenal) wrote, "He had no
mighty pennyworth of his prayer."
[78] No. 217
=No. 222.= [? ADDISON.[79]
From _Thursday, Sept. 7_, to _Saturday, Sept. 9, 1710_.
----Chrysidis udas
Ebrius ante fores extincta cum face cantat.
PERSIUS, Sat. v. 165.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 8._
Whereas by letters from Nottingham we have advice, that the young
ladies of that place complain for want of sleep, by reason of certain
riotous lovers, who for this last summer have very much infested the
streets of that eminent city with violins and bass-viols, between the
hours of twelve and four in the morning, to the great disturbance of
many of her Majesty's peaceable subjects. And whereas I have been
importuned to publish some edict against these midnight alarms, which,
under the name of serenades, do greatly annoy many well-disposed
persons, not only in the place above mentioned, but also in most of the
polite towns of this island.
I have taken that matter into my serious consideration, and do find,
that this custom is by no means to be indulged in this country and
climate.
It is indeed very unaccountable, that most of our British youth should
take such great delight in these nocturnal expeditions. Your robust
true-born Briton, that has not yet felt the force of flames and darts,
has a natural inclination to break windows; while those whose natural
ruggedness has been soothed and softened by gentle passion, have as
strong a propensity to languish under them, especially if they have
a fiddler behind them to utter their complaints: for as the custom
prevails at present, there is scarce a young man of any fashion in a
corporation who does not make love with the town music. The waits often
help him through his courtship; and my friend Mr. Banister[80] has told
me, he was proffered five hundred pounds by a young fellow to play but
for one winter under the window of a lady that was a great fortune, but
more cruel than ordinary. One would think they hoped to conquer their
mistresses' hearts as people tame hawks and eagles, by keeping them
awake, or breaking their sleep when they are fallen into it.
I have endeavoured to search into the original of this impertinent
way of making love, which, according to some authors, is of great
antiquity. If we may believe Monsieur Dacier and other critics,
Horace's tenth ode of the third book was originally a serenade. And if
I was disposed to show my learning, I could produce a line of him in
another place, which seems to have been the burthen of an old heathen
serenade.
----Audis minus et minus jam:
"Me tuo longas pereunte noctes,
Lydia, dormis?"[81]
But notwithstanding the opinions of many learned men upon this subject,
I rather agree with them who look upon this custom, as now practised,
to have been introduced by castrated musicians, who found out this way
of applying themselves to their mistresses at these hours, when men
of hoarser voices express their passions in a more vulgar method. It
must be confessed, that your Italian eunuchs do practise this manner of
courtship to this day.
But whoever were the persons that first thought of the serenade, the
authors of all countries are unanimous in ascribing the invention to
Italy.
There are two circumstances which qualified that country above all
other for this midnight music.
The first I shall mention, was the softness of their climate.
This gave the lover opportunities of being abroad in the air, or of
lying upon the earth whole hours together, without fear of damps or
dews; but as for our tramontane lovers, when they begin their midnight
complaint with,
_My lodging it is on the cold ground,_[82]
we are not to understand them in the rigour of the letter, since it
would be impossible for a British swain to condole himself long in that
situation without really dying for his mistress. A man might as well
serenade in Greenland as in our region. Milton seems to have had in
his thoughts the absurdity of these Northern serenades in the censure
which he passes upon them:
_----Or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain._[83]
The truth of it is, I have often pitied, in a winter night, a vocal
musician, and have attributed many of his trills and quavers to the
coldness of the weather.
The second circumstance which inclined the Italians to this custom, was
that musical genius which is so universal among them. Nothing is more
frequent in that country than to hear a cobbler working to an opera
tune. You can scarce see a porter that has not one nail much longer
than the rest, which you will find, upon inquiry, is cherished for some
instrument. In short, there is not a labourer, or handicraft-man, that
in the cool of the evening does not relieve himself with solos and
sonatas.
The Italian soothes his mistress with a plaintive voice, and bewails
himself in such melting music that the whole neighbourhood sympathises
with him in his sorrow:
_Qualis populea mœrens Philomela sub umbra ...
Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet._[84]
On the contrary, our honest countrymen have so little an inclination to
music, that they seldom begin to sing till they are drunk, which also
is usually the time when they are most disposed to serenade.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] This paper is ascribed to Addison by Nichols, because of the
corrections--five in number--in the following number of the folio issue.
[80] John Banister (died 1735) was the son of a composer and violinist
of the same name. He played in the royal band, and was first violin
at Drury Lane Theatre when Italian operas were introduced into this
country.
[81] Horace, 1 Od. xxv. 8.
[82] The first line in a song in a tragi-comedy, "The Rivals" (1668),
attributed to Sir William Davenant. Mrs. Mary Davis, dancer and
actress, who boarded with Sir William Davenant in his house, is stated
to have sung this song in the character of Celania, a shepherdess mad
for love, so much to the liking of Charles II. that he took her off
the stage. Mary Tudor, their daughter, married Francis Lord Ratcliffe,
afterwards Earl of Derwentwater, and was the mother of James, Earl of
Derwentwater, beheaded in 1716.
[83] "Paradise Lost," iv. 760 (_cf._ Nos. 79 and 82).
[84] Virgil, "Georgics," iv. 511, 514-15.
=No. 223.= [? STEELE.[85]
From _Saturday, Sept. 9_, to _Tuesday, Sept. 12, 1710_.
For when upon their ungot heirs,
Th' entail themselves and all that's theirs,
What blinder bargain e'er was driven,
Or wager laid at six and seven,
To pass themselves away, and turn
Their children's tenants ere they're born?--HUDIBRAS.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 11._
I have been very much solicited by Clarinda, Flavia, and Lysetta, to
reassume my discourse concerning the methods of disposing honourably
the unmarried part of the world,[86] and taking off those bars to it,
jointures and settlements, which are not only the greatest impediments
towards entering into that state, but also the frequent causes of
distrust and animosity in it after it is consummated. I have with very
much attention considered the case; and among all the observations that
I have made through a long course of years, I have thought the coldness
of wives to their husbands, as well as disrespect from children to
parents, to arise from this one source. This trade for minds and bodies
in the lump, without regard to either, but as they are accompanied
with such sums of money, and such parcels of land, cannot but produce
a commerce between the parties concerned suitable to the mean motives
upon which they at first came together. I have heretofore given an
account that this method of making settlements was first invented by
a griping lawyer, who made use of the covetous tempers of the parents
of each side to force two young people into these vile measures of
diffidence, for no other end but to increase the skins of parchment, by
which they were put into each other's possession out of each other's
power. The law of our country has given an ample and generous provision
for the wife, even the third of the husband's estate, and left to her
good-humour and his gratitude the expectation of further provision;
but the fantastical method of going further, with relation to their
heirs, has a foundation in nothing but pride and folly: for as all men
wish their children as like themselves, and as much better as they
can possibly, it seems monstrous that we should give out of ourselves
the opportunities of rewarding and discouraging them according to
their deserts. This wise institution has no more sense in it than
if a man should begin a deed with, "Whereas no man living knows how
long he shall continue to be a reasonable creature, or an honest man:
and whereas I B. am going to enter in the state of matrimony with
Mrs. D., therefore I shall from henceforth make it indifferent to me
whether from this time forward I shall be a fool or a knave: and
therefore in full and perfect health of body, and as sound mind, not
knowing which of my children will prove better or worse, I give to my
first-born, be he perverse, ungrateful, impious, or cruel, the lump
and bulk of my estate, and leave one year's purchase only to each of
my younger children, whether they shall be brave or beautiful, modest
or honourable, from the time of the date hereof wherein I resign my
senses, and hereby promise to employ my judgment no further in the
distribution of my worldly goods from the day of the date hereof,
hereby further confessing and covenanting, that I am from henceforth
married and dead in law."
There is no man that is conversant in modern settlements, but knows
this is an exact translation of what is inserted in these instruments.
Men's passions could only make them submit to such terms; and therefore
all unreasonable bargains in marriage ought to be set aside, as well as
deeds extorted from men under force or in prison, who are altogether as
much masters of their actions as he that is possessed with a violent
passion.
How strangely men are sometimes partial to themselves appears by the
rapine of him that has a daughter's beauty under his direction. He will
make no scruple of using it to force from her lover as much of his
estate as is worth £10,000, and at the same time, as a Justice on the
Bench, will spare no pains to get a man hanged that has taken but a
horse from him.
It is to be hoped the Legislature will in due time take this kind of
robbery into consideration, and not suffer men to prey upon each other
when they are about making the most solemn league, and entering into
the strictest bonds. The only sure remedy is to fix a certain rate on
every woman's fortune; one price for that of a maid, and another for a
widow: for it is of infinite advantage, that there should be no frauds
or uncertainties in the sale of our women.
If any man should exceed the settled rate, he ought to be at liberty
after seven years are over (by which time his love may be supposed
to abate a little, if it is not founded upon reason) to renounce the
bargain, and be freed from the settlement upon restoring the portion;
as a youth married under fourteen years old may be off if he pleases
when he comes to that age, and as a man is discharged from all bargains
but that of marriage made when he is under twenty-one.
It grieves me when I consider, that these restraints upon matrimony
take away the advantage we should otherwise have over other countries,
which are sunk much by those great checks upon propagation, the
convents. It is thought chiefly owing to these that Italy and Spain
want above half their complement of people. Were the price of wives
always fixed and settled, it would contribute to filling the nation
more than all the encouragements that can possibly be given to
foreigners to transplant themselves hither.
I therefore, as censor of Britain, till a law is made, will lay down
rules which shall be observed with penalty of degrading all that break
them into Pretty Fellows, Smarts, Squibs, Hunting-Horns, Drums, and
Bagpipes.
The females that are guilty of breaking my orders I shall respectively
pronounce to be Kits, Hornpipes, Dulcimers, and Kettle-drums. Such
widows as wear the spoils of one husband I will bury if they attempt to
rob another.
I ordain, that no woman ever demand one shilling to be paid after
her husband's death, more than the very sum she brings him, or an
equivalent for it in land.
That no settlement be made, in which the man settles on his children
more than the reversion of the jointure, or the value of it in money;
so that at his death he may in the whole be bound to pay his family but
double to what he has received. I would have the eldest, as well as the
rest, have his provision out of this.
When men are not able to come up to those settlements I have proposed,
I would have them receive so much of the portion only as they can come
up to, and the rest to go to the woman by way of pin-money, or separate
maintenance. In this, I think, I determined equally between the two
sexes.
If any lawyer varies from these rules, or is above two days in drawing
a marriage settlement, or uses more words in it than one skin of
parchment will contain, or takes above five pounds for drawing it, I
would have him thrown over the bar.
Were these rules observed, a woman with a small fortune, and a great
deal of worth, would be sure to marry according to her deserts, if the
man's estate were to be less encumbered in proportion as her fortune is
less than he might have with others.
A man of a great deal of merit, and not much estate, might be chosen
for his worth; because it would not be difficult for him to make a
settlement.
The man that loves a woman best, would not lose her for not being able
to bid so much as another, or for not complying with an extravagant
demand.
A fine woman would no more be set up to auction as she is now. When a
man puts in for her, her friends or herself take care to publish it;
and the man that was the first bidder is made no other use of but to
raise the price. He that loves her, will continue in waiting as long
as she pleases (if her fortune be thought equal to his), and under
pretence of some failure in the rent-roll, or difficulties in drawing
the settlement, he is put off till a better bargain is made with
another.
All the rest of the sex that are not rich or beautiful to the highest
degree are plainly gainers, and would be married so fast, that the
least charming of them would soon grow beauties to the bachelors.
Widows might be easily married, if they would not, as they do now, set
up for discreet, only by being mercenary.
The making matrimony cheap and easy, would be the greatest
discouragement to vice: the limiting the expense of children would
not make men ill inclined, or afraid of having them in a regular way;
and the men of merit would not live unmarried, as they often do now,
because the goodness of a wife cannot be insured to them; but the loss
of an estate is certain, and a man would never have the affliction of a
worthless heir added to that of a bad wife.
I am the more serious, large, and particular on this subject, because
my Lucubrations designed for the encouragement of virtue cannot
have the desired success as long as this encumbrance of settlements
continues upon matrimony.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Steele (or Addison) edited this paper, but the real author was
their friend Edward Wortley Montagu, to whom the second volume of the
_Tatler_ was dedicated. Mr. Moy Thomas says that Addison and Steele
"were in the habit of asking him for hints and heads for papers; and
there are among the Wortley Manuscripts original sketches of essays
which may be found in the _Tatler_." This essay on marriage settlements
"was entirely founded on Mr. Wortley's notes, and is frequently in
his own words." He quarrelled with his future father-in-law because
he objected to settle his property upon a future son, and he eloped
with Lady Mary Pierrepont in August 1712. In a letter to Addison which
accompanied the "loose hints" for this number, he says, "What made me
think so much of it was a discourse with Sir P. King, who says that a
man that settles his estate does not know that two and two make four"
("Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu," ed. Moy Thomas, i. 5, 10, 62). No
doubt Wortley Montagu's notes furnished the materials for No. 199, and
perhaps for No. 198 also.
[86] See No. 199.
=No. 224.= [ADDISON.
From _Tuesday, Sept. 12_, to _Thursday, Sept. 14, 1710_.
Materiam superabat opus.--OVID, Met. ii. 5.
_From my own Apartment, Sept. 13._
It is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those
collections of advertisements that appear at the end of all our public
prints.[87] These I consider as accounts of news from the little
world, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are
from the great. If in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from
his capital city, in the other we hear of a tradesman who hath shut up
his shop, and run away. If in one we find the victory of a general, in
the other we see the desertion of a private soldier. I must confess, I
have a certain weakness in my temper that is often very much affected
by these little domestic occurrences, and have frequently been caught
with tears in my eyes over a melancholy advertisement.