'If I come in at a time when the shop, which is commodiously situated above stairs, is full of company, I usually place myself in an obscure corner of it, and observe what passes with secret satisfaction. 'Tis pleasant to hear my landlady, by the mere incessancy of tittle-tattle, persuade her pretty customers out of all the understanding that they brought along with them; and on the other side of the counter to see the little bosoms pant with irresolution, and swell at the view of trifles, which humour and custom have taught them to call necessary and convenient. Hard by perhaps stands a customer of inferior quality, a citizen's wife suppose her, who is reduced to the hard necessity of regulating her expenses by her husband's allowance, and is bursting with vexation to know herself stinted to lace of but fifty shillings a yard; whereas if she could rise to three pounds, she might be mistress of a very pretty head, and what she really thinks she need not be ashamed to be seen in. But for want of this all goes wrong; she hates her superiors, despises her husband, neglects her children, and is ashamed and weary of herself.
'This seems ridiculous to my men readers, and it certainly is so; but are our follies and extravagances more reasonable? Or, rather, are they not infinitely more dangerous and destructive? What violences do we not commit upon our consciences for the mere gratification of our avarice? How much of the real ease and happiness of life do we daily sacrifice to the vanity of ambition? Is it possible, then, since even the greatest men are but a bigger sort of children, to be seriously angry that women are no more? If in my old age I am struck with the harmony of a rattle, or long to get astride on a hobby-horse; if I love still to be caressed and flattered, and am delighted with good words and high titles, why should I be angry that my wife and daughters do not play the philosopher, and have not more wit than myself?
Of Masquerades.
'I must desire my reader, as he values his repose, not to let his thoughts run upon anything loose or frightful for two hours at least before he goes to bed. Titus Livius, the Roman historian, is my usual entertainment, when I don't find myself disposed for closer application. Happening to come home sooner than ordinary two nights ago, I took it up, and read the 8th and following chapters of his 39th book, where he gives us a large account of some nocturnal assemblies lately set up at Rome; I think he calls them Bacchanals, and describes the ceremonies, rites of initiation, and religious practices, together with their music, singing, shrieks, and howlings. The men were dressed like satyrs, and raved like persons distracted, with enthusiastic motions of the head and violent distortions of the body. The ladies ran with their hair about their ears and burning torches in their hands; some covered with the skins of panthers, others with those of tigers, all attended with drums and trumpets, while they themselves were the most noisy. "To this diversion," says the historian, "were added the pleasures of feasting and wine to draw the more in; and when wine, the night, and a mixed company of men and women, jumbled together, had extinguished all sense of shame, there were extravagances of all sorts committed; each having that pleasure ready prepared for him to which his nature was most inclined."
''Tis with design I have referred my reader to the very place, being resolved not to trouble him with any farther relation of these midnight revellings, for fear I should draw him into the same misfortune I unluckily fell under myself. The very idea of it makes me tremble still, when I think of those monstrous habits, fantastical gestures, hideous faces, and confused noises I had in my sleep. Join to these the many assignations made for the next night, the signs given for the present execution of former agreements; and the various plots and contrivances I overheard, for parting man and wife, and ruining whole families at once. These frightful appearances put me into such uncommon agitations of body, and I looked so ghastly at my first waking, that a friend of mine, who came early in the morning to make me a visit, was struck with such a terror at the sight of me, that he made to the street door as fast he could, where he had only time to bid one of my servants run for a physician immediately, for he was sure I was going mad.'
Of Sedition.
'The multitude of papers is a complaint so common in the introduction of every new one, that it would be a shame to repeat it; for my own part, I am so far from repining at this evil, that I sincerely wish there were ten times the number. By this means one may hope to see the appetite for impertinence, defamation, and treason (so prevalent in the generality of readers) at last surfeit itself, and my honoured brethren the modern authors be obliged to employ themselves in some more honest manufacture than that of the Belles Lettres.