Among the Spaniards, they so generally consider the part of the human body of which we are treating here, as the properest to bear ill usage and mortification, that in every place there is commonly some good Friar who makes his posteriors answerable for the sins of the whole Parish; and who, according as he has been fee’d for that purpose, flogs himself, or at least tells his Customers he has done so: hence the common Spanish saying, which is mentioned in the History of Friar Gerundio de Campazas, Yo soi el culo del Frayle;—‘I am as badly off as the Friar’s backside;’ which is said by persons who think that they are made to pay, or suffer, for advantages they are not admitted to share.
Nor is the above method of self-correction confined to Spanish friars only: it is likewise adopted by a number of religious Orders of Men, established in the other Countries of Europe. It is also by correlations directed to the same part, that is to say, by Cornelian disciplines, that numbers of pious Confessors, zealous for the purity of the morals of their female penitents, endeavour to procure their improvement. Nay, it is upon the same part we speak of, upon that part to which the Greeks had erected a Temple, that the whole tribe of Nuns and female Devotees constantly choose to practice those mortifications and lower disciplines by which they seek to atone for their sins; and several among them really treat that part, by which they perhaps have the best chance to create themselves admirers, with wonderful severity.
The above Dissertation, which, before I engaged in it, I did not think would prove so long, or so interesting, has till now kept me from delivering my opinion concerning those flagellations with which certain holy Men have served those Ladies who ventured to make amorous applications to them: a satisfaction which, before I conclude, I must give the Reader, as having pledged my word for it. Now, to fulfill my engagement in that respect, I declare that I totally disapprove such flagellations; and I am firmly of opinion that this kind of treatment ought to be ranked among those actions of Saints, which, as hath been observed in a former place, are not fit for all persons to imitate.
In fact, we find that several Authors, among those who best knew the world, and were excellent Judges of propriety, who had occasion to describe situations like those in which the above Saints were placed, have made their personages act in quite a different manner from that in which the Saints behaved; and on this occasion we may mention the conduct of Parson Adams, one of the Heroes of Fielding, in that celebrated night he spent at Lady Booby’s. If, in the first instance, he, as must be confessed, gave Mrs. Slipslop that remembrance in her guts mentioned by the Author, it was not till she had herself given him a dreadful cuff on his chops; besides that he did not know yet her sex, nor what she meant. But when he afterwards found himself in the same bed with Fanny, which, as he thought, was his own bed, he shrunk, as it were, and retired to the farthest extremity of it, where he lay quiet, and above all manifested no thought whatever of flagellating her; which if he had done, Joseph would not certainly have thanked him for it.
Don Quixote, in Cervantes, when the lovely Maritornes came during the night to his bed, and threw herself into his arms, had no thought of employing either whips or straps for dismissing the amorous Fair-one; and certainly if he had applied to an expedient of this kind, he would have had no right to complain of the boxes and kicks with which the Muleteer presently after belaboured him in the dark. But, like a gallant and exceedingly well-bred Knight, he excused himself from the nature of the anterior engagements he was under, and above all did not forget to pay proper compliments to the Lady’s beauty and great perfections. Indeed, the speech which the Knight addressed to the fair Maritornes, may be proposed as a pattern of compliment for occasions of the kind. ‘Oh! thou most lovely temptation! Oh that I now might but pay a warm acknowledgment for the mighty blessing which your great goodness would lavish on me! Yes, most beautiful Charmer, I would give an empire to purchase your more desirable embraces; but Fate has put to it an invincible obstacle; I mean my plighted faith to Dulcinea del Toboso, the sole mistress of my wishes, and absolute sovereign of my heart. Oh! did not this oppose my present happiness, I could never be so insensible a Knight as to lose the benefit of this extraordinary favour you now condescend to offer me.’
Nor ought the Gentleman, after delivering the above speech, or some other equally respectful, to stop there; it would be moreover extremely proper for him to desire the Lady to do him the honour to sit upon his bed, and then enter into a fuller explanation of his conduct, and of the nature of those prior engagements by which he is so fatally tied.
This done, and the Lady being perfectly convinced of the propriety of his conduct, he should rise from his bed, and offer to attend her, I do not say to the bottom of the stairs, and so far as the street door, for that might be the means of discovering the secret of the affair to other persons and endangering the Lady’s reputation, but to the remotest door of his own apartment. I would moreover have him, in his passage to that door, keep the Lady’s hand tenderly squeezed in his own, and all the while manifest, by the nature of his gestures and exclamations, the grief under which he labours. And lastly, when he had reached the furthest place to which he may safely conduct her, he ought to take leave of her by a low and most respectful bow, in order completely to convince her, that the kindness she had ventured to shew him, has not, in the least, lowered her in his esteem.
Such, dear Reader, is the manner in which, for my own part, I have always acted on those delicate occasions we are speaking of. However, I do not pretend to dictate to others the manner in which they ought to behave, nor insist upon any of the above circumstances in particular. All I intreat of you, is, by all means to forbear to use those sudden and harsh flagellations that were recurred to, by St. Edmund, St. Bernardin of Sienna, and Brother Mathew. Such a treatment savours too much of ingratitude: nay, to have recourse to it, is cruel in the extreme; it is heaping distress upon the distressed. Nor are you to expect that the Lady will love you the better for it afterwards, as was the case with St. Bernardin of Sienna; on the contrary, such a proceeding on your part, if it were once known, would irreparably destroy your reputation with the whole Sex, and you may depend, no proposal or application of the like kind would be made to you ever after. Now, though you may be ever so firmly determined to reject all proposals like these; yet, as every Lady will tell you, it is no unpleasing thing to have them made to you: besides that you do not know but you may afterwards alter your resolution.
[103] He punished differently, on a certain occasion, a Roman Knight who had been guilty of the abovementioned fault. He sent him, without delay, to carry a letter to Africa; without allowing the time to call at his house, and take leave of his family.