As you have hitherto delayed the performance of the promise, by which
you gave us reason to hope for another paper upon matrimony, I imagine
you desirous of collecting more materials than your own experience, or
observation, can supply; and I shall therefore lay candidly before you
an account of my own entrance into the conjugal state.
I was about eight-and-twenty years old, when, having tried the diversions
of the town till I began to be weary, and being awakened into attention
to more serious business, by the failure of an attorney to whom I had
implicitly trusted the conduct of my fortune, I resolved to take my
estate into my own care, and methodise my whole life according to the
strictest rules of economical prudence.
In pursuance of this scheme, I took leave of my acquaintance, who
dismissed me with numberless jests upon my new system; having first
endeavoured to divert me from a design so little worthy of a man of wit,
by ridiculous accounts of the ignorance and rusticity into which many
had sunk in their retirement, after having distinguished themselves in
taverns and playhouses, and given hopes of rising to uncommon eminence
among the gay part of mankind.
When I came first into the country, which, by a neglect not uncommon
among young heirs, I had never seen since the death of my father, I
found every thing in such confusion, that being utterly without practice
in business, I had great difficulties to encounter in disentangling the
perplexity of my circumstances; they however gave way to diligent
application; and I perceived that the advantage of keeping my own
accounts would very much overbalance the time which they could require.
I had now visited my tenants, surveyed my land, and repaired the old
house, which, for some years, had been running to decay. These proofs of
pecuniary wisdom began to recommend me as a sober, judicious, thriving
gentleman, to all my graver neighbours of the country, who never failed
to celebrate my management in opposition to Triftless and Latterwit,
two smart fellows, who had estates in the same part of the kingdom,
which they visited now and then in a frolick, to take up their rents
beforehand, debauch a milk-maid, make a feast for the village, and tell
stories of their own intrigues, and then rode post back to town to spend
their money.
It was doubtful, however, for some time, whether I should be able to
hold my resolution; but a short perseverance removed all suspicions.
I rose every day in reputation, by the decency of my conversation, and
the regularity of my conduct, and was mentioned with great regard at the
assizes, as a man very fit to be put in commission for the peace.
During the confusion of my affairs, and the daily necessity of visiting
farms, adjusting contracts, letting leases, and superintending repairs,
I found very little vacuity in my life, and therefore had not many
thoughts of marriage; but, in a little while, the tumult of business
subsided, and the exact method which I had established enabled me to
dispatch my accounts with great facility. I had, therefore, now upon my
hands, the task of finding means to spend my time, without falling back
into the poor amusements which I had hitherto indulged, or changing them
for the sports of the field, which I saw pursued with so much eagerness
by the gentlemen of the country, that they were indeed the only
pleasures in which I could promise myself any partaker.
The inconvenience of this situation naturally disposed me to wish for
a companion, and the known value of my estate, with my reputation for
frugality and prudence, easily gained me admission into every family;
for I soon found that no inquiry was made after any other virtue, nor
any testimonial necessary, but of my freedom from incumbrances, and
my care of what they termed the _main chance_. I saw, not without
indignation, the eagerness with which the daughters, wherever I came,
were set out to show; nor could I consider them in a state much
different from prostitution, when I found them ordered to play their
airs before me, and to exhibit, by some seeming chance, specimens of
their musick, their work, or their housewifery. No sooner was I placed
at table, than the young lady was called upon to pay me some civility or
other; nor could I find means of escaping, from either father or mother,
some account of their daughter's excellencies, with a declaration that
they were now leaving the world, and had no business on this side the
grave, but to see their children happily disposed of; that she whom I
had been pleased to compliment at table was indeed the chief pleasure of
their age; so good, so dutiful, so great a relief to her mamma in the
care of the house, and so much her papa's favourite for her cheerfulness
and wit, that it would be with the last reluctance that they should
part; but to a worthy gentleman in the neighbourhood, whom they might
often visit, they would not so far consult their own gratification, as
to refuse her; and their tenderness should be shown in her fortune,
whenever a suitable settlement was proposed.
As I knew these overtures not to proceed from any preference of me
before another equally rich, I could not but look with pity on young
persons condemned to be set to auction, and made cheap by injudicious
commendations; for how could they know themselves offered and rejected
a hundred times, without some loss of that soft elevation, and maiden
dignity, so necessary to the completion of female excellence?
I shall not trouble you with a history of the stratagems practised upon
my judgment, or the allurements tried upon my heart, which, if you have,
in any part of your life, been acquainted with rural politicks, you will
easily conceive. Their arts have no great variety, they think nothing
worth their care but money, and supposing its influence the same upon
all the world, seldom endeavour to deceive by any other means than false
computations.
I will not deny that, by hearing myself loudly commended for my
discretion, I began to set some value upon my character, and was
unwilling to lose my credit by marrying for love. I therefore resolved
to know the fortune of the lady whom I should address, before I inquired
after her wit, delicacy, or beauty.
This determination led to Mitissa, the daughter of Chrysophilus, whose
person was at least without deformity, and whose manners were free
from reproach, as she had been bred up at a distance from all common
temptations. To Mitissa therefore I obtained leave from her parents
to pay my court, and was referred by her again to her father, whose
direction she was resolved to follow. The question then was, only, what
should be settled? The old gentleman made an enormous demand, with which
I refused to comply. Mitissa was ordered to exert her power; she told me,
that if I could refuse her papa, I had no love for her; that she was an
unhappy creature, and that I was a perfidious man; then she burst into
tears, and fell into fits. All this, as I was no passionate lover, had
little effect. She next refused to see me, and because I thought myself
obliged to write in terms of distress, they had once hopes of starving
me into measures; but finding me inflexible, the father complied with my
proposal, and told me he liked me the more for being so good at a bargain.
I was now married to Mitissa, and was to experience the happiness of a
match made without passion. Mitissa soon discovered that she was equally
prudent with myself, and had taken a husband only to be at her own
command, and to have a chariot at her own call. She brought with her
an old maid recommended by her mother, who taught her all the arts of
domestick management, and was, on every occasion, her chief agent and
directress. They soon invented one reason or other to quarrel with all
my servants, and either prevailed on me to turn them away, or treated
them so ill that they left me of themselves, and always supplied their
places with some brought from my wife's relations. Thus they established
a family, over which I had no authority, and which was in a perpetual
conspiracy against me; for Mitissa considered herself as having a
separate interest, and thought nothing her own, but what she laid up
without my knowledge. For this reason she brought me false accounts of
the expenses of the house, joined with my tenants in complaints of hard
times, and by means of a steward of her own, took rewards for soliciting
abatements of the rent. Her great hope is to outlive me, that she may
enjoy what she has thus accumulated, and therefore she is always
contriving some improvements of her jointure land, and once tried to
procure an injunction to hinder me from felling timber upon it for
repairs. Her father and mother assist her in her projects, and are
frequently hinting that she is ill used, and reproaching me with the
presents that other ladies receive from their husbands.
Such, Sir, was my situation for seven years, till at last my patience
was exhausted, and having one day invited her father to my house, I laid
the state of my affairs before him, detected my wife in several of her
frauds, turned out her steward, charged a constable with her maid, took
my business in my own hands, reduced her to a settled allowance, and now
write this account to warn others against marrying those whom they have
no reason to esteem.