"I am,
"Madam, &c."
I have heard it often argued in conversation, that this evil practice is owing to the perverted taste of the wits in the last generation. A libertine on the throne could very easily make the language and the fashion turn his own way. Hence it is, that woman is treated as a mistress, and not a wife. It is from the writings of those times, and the traditional accounts of the debauches of their men of pleasure, that the coxcombs nowadays take upon them, forsooth, to be false swains and perjured lovers. Methinks I feel all the woman rise in me, when I reflect upon the nauseous rogues that pretend to deceive us. Wretches, that can never have it in their power to overreach anything living but their mistresses! In the name of goodness, if we are designed by nature as suitable companions to the other sex, why are we not treated accordingly? If we have merit, as some allow, why is it not as base in men to injure us as one another? If we are the insignificants that others call us, where is the triumph in deceiving us? But when I look at the bottom of this disaster, and recollect the many of my acquaintance whom I have known in the same condition with the Northern lass that occasions this discourse, I must own I have ever found the perfidiousness of men has been generally owing to ourselves, and we have contributed to our own deceit. The truth is, we do not conduct ourselves as we are courted, but as we are inclined. When we let our imaginations take this unbridled swing, it is not he that acts best is most lovely, but he that is most lovely acts best. When our humble servants make their addresses, we do not keep ourselves enough disengaged to be judges of their merit; and we seldom give our judgment of our lover, till we have lost our judgment for him.
While Clarinda was passionately attended and addressed to by Strephon, who is a man of sense and knowledge in the world, and Cassio, who has a plentiful fortune and an excellent understanding, she fell in love with Damon at a ball: from that moment she that was before the most reasonable creature of all my acquaintance, cannot hear Strephon speak, but it is something "so out of the way of ladies' conversation;" and Cassio has never since opened his mouth before us, but she whispers me, "How seldom do riches and sense go together!" The issue of all this is, that for the love of Damon, who has neither experience, understanding, or wealth, she despises those advantages in the other two which she finds wanting in her lover; or else thinks he has them for no reason but because he is her lover. This and many other instances may be given in this town; but I hope thus much may suffice to prevent the growth of such evils at Edinburgh.
[No. 248. [Steele.]
By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
From Tuesday, Nov. 7, to Thursday, Nov. 9, 1710.
——Media sese tulit obvia silva,
Virginis os habitumque gerens——
Virg., Æn. i. 314.
From my own Apartment, Nov. 8.
It may perhaps appear ridiculous; but I must confess, this last summer as I was riding in Enfield Chase, I met a young lady whom I could hardly get out of my head, and for aught I know my heart, ever since.[177] She was mounted on a pad, with a very well-fancied furniture. She sat her horse with a very graceful air; and when I saluted her with my hat, she bowed to me so obligingly, that whether it was her civility or beauty that touched me so much, I know not, but I am sure I shall never forget her. She dwells in my imagination in a figure so much to her advantage, that if I were to draw a picture of youth, health, beauty, or modesty, I should represent any or all of them in the person of that young woman.