'I am not henpecked; I am not grimalkined; I have no Mrs. Freeman, with her Italian airs; but I have a wife more troublesome than all three by a certain ridiculous and unnecessary devotion that she pays to her father, amounting almost to idolatry. When I first married her, from that specious kind of weakness which meets with encouragement and applause only because it is called good-nature, I permitted her to do whatever she pleased; but when I thought it requisite to pull in the rein, I found that her having the bit in her teeth rendered the strength of my curb of no manner of use to me. Whenever I attempted to draw her in a little, she tossed up her head, snorted, pranced, and gave herself such airs, that unless I let her carry me where she pleased, my limbs if not my life were in danger.'
No. 191. The 'World.'—Aug. 26, 1756.
'Ever since the tax upon dogs was first reported to be in agitation, I have been under the greatest alarm for the safety of the whole race.
'I thought it a little hard, indeed, that a man should be taxed for having one creature in his house in which he might confide; but when I heard that officers were to be appointed to knock out the brains of all these honest domestics who should presume to make their appearance in the streets without the passport of their master's name about their necks, I became seriously concerned for them.
'This enmity against dogs is pretended upon the apprehension of their going mad; but an easier remedy might be applied, by abolishing the custom (with many others equally ingenious) of stringing bottles and stones to their tails, by which means (and in this one particular I must give up my clients) the unfortunate sufferer becomes subject to the persecutions of his own species, too apt to join the run against a brother in distress.
'But great allowance should be made for an animal who, in an intimacy of nearly six thousand years with man, has learnt but one of his bad qualities.'
No. 192. The 'World.'—Sept. 2, 1756.