Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

18. In my last lucubration I proposed the general use of watergruel, and hinted that it might not be amiss at this very season: but as there are some, whose cases, in regard to their families, will not admit of delay, I have used my interest in several wards of the city, that the wholesome restorative above mentioned may be given in tavern kitchens to the mornings drought-men within the walls, when they call for wine before noon.

19. For a further restraint and mark upon such persons, I have given orders that all the offices, where policies are drawn upon lives, it shall be added to the article which prohibits that the nominee should cross the sea, the words, Provided also that the above mentioned A. B. shall not drink before dinner during the term mentioned in this indenture.

20. I am not without hopes that by this method I shall bring some unsizeable friends of mine into shape and breadth, as well as others who are languid and consumptive into health and vigour. Most of the self-murderers whom I have yet hinted at, are such as preserve a certain regularity in taking their poison, and make it mix pretty well with their food:

21. But the most conspicuous of those who destroy themselves, are such as in their youth fall into this sort of debauchery, and contract a certain uneasiness of spirit, which is not to be diverted but by tippling as often as they can fall into company in the day, and conclude with downright drunkenness at night. These gentlemen never knew the satisfaction of youth, but skip the years of manhood, and are decrepid soon after they are of age.

22. I was godfather to one of these old fellows. He is now three and thirty, which is the grand climacteric of a young drunkard. I went to visit the crazy wretch this morning, with no other purpose but to rally him, under the pain and uneasiness of being sober.

But as our faults are double when they effect others besides ourselves, so this vice is still more odious in a married than single man..

23. He who is the husband of a woman of honour, and comes home overloaded with wine, is still more contemptible, in proportion to the regard we have to the unhappy consort of his bestiality. The imagination cannot shape to itself any thing more monstrous and unnatural, than the familiarities between drunkenness and chastity. The wretched Astraea, who is the perfection of beauty and innocence, has long been thus condemned for life. The romantic tales of virgins devoted to the jaws of monsters, have nothing in them so terrible, as the gift of Astraea to that bacchanal.

24. The reflection of such a match as spotless innocence with abandoned lewdness, is what puts this vice in the worst figure it G

can bear with regard to others; but when it is looked upon with respect only to the drunkard himself, it has deformities enough to make it disagreeable, which may be summed up in a word by allowing, that he who resigns his reason, is actually guilty of all that he is liable to from the want of reason.

TATLER, Vol. IV. No. 241.

Gaming.

1.

[ocr errors]

SIR,

As soon as you have set up your unicorn, there is no

question but the ladies will make him push very furiously at the men; for which reason, I think it is good to be before hand with them, and make the lion roar aloud at female irregularities. Among these, I wonder how their gaming has so long escaped your notice.

2. "You who converse with the sober family of the Lizards, are perhaps a stranger to these viragoes; but what would you say, should you see the Sparkler shaking her elbow for a whole night together, and thumping the table with a dice box? Or how would you like to hear the good widow lady herself returning to her house at midnight, and alarming the whole street with a most enormous rap, after having set up till that time at crimp or ombre? Sir, I am the husband of one of these female gamesters, and a great loser by it both in my rest and my pocket. As my wife reads your papers, one upon this subject might be of use both to her, and

"Your humble Servant."

3. I should ill deserve the name of Guardian, did I not caution all my fair wards against a practice, which, when it runs to excess, is the most shameful, but one, that the female world can fall into. The ill consequences of it are more than can be contained in this paper. However, that I may proceed in method, I shall consider them, First, as they relate to the mind, Secondly, as they relate to the body.

4. Could we look into the mind of a female gamester, we should see it full of nothing but trumps and mattadores. Her slumbers are haunted with kings, queens, and knaves. The day lies heavy upon her till the play-season returns, when for half a dozen hours together, all her faculties are employed in shuffling, cutting, dealing and sorting over a pack of cards; and no ideas to be discovered in a deal which calls itself rational, excepting little square figures of painted and spotted paper.

5. Was the understanding, that divine part in our composition, given for such an use? Is it thus that we improve the greatest talent human nature is endowed with? What would a superior being think, where he shown this intellectual faculty in

a female gamester, and at the same time told, that it was by this she was distinguished from brutes, and allied to angels?

6. When our women thus fill their imaginations with pipes and counters, I cannot wonder at the story I have lately heard of a new-born child that was marked with the five of clubs.

Their passions suffer no less by this practice than their understandings and imaginations. What hope and fear, joy and anger, sorrow and discontent, break out all at once in a fair assembly upon so noble an occasion as that of turning up a card?

7. Who can consider, without a secret indignation, that all those affectations of the mind which should be consecrated to their children, husbands, and parents, are thus vilely prostituted and thrown away upon a hand at loo? For my own part, I cannot but be grieved, when I see a fine woman fretting and bleeding inwardly from such trivial motives: when I behold the face of an angel agitated and discomposed by the heart of a fury.

8. Our minds are of such a make, that they naturally give themselves up to every diversion which they are much accustomed to, and we always find, that play, when followed with assiduity, engrosses the whole woman. She quickly grows uneasy in her own family, takes but little pleasure in all the domestic innocent endearments of lif rows more fond of Pam than of

her husband.

བམ་

and

9. My friend Theophrastus, the best of husbands and of fathers, has often complained to me, with tears in his eyes, of the late hours he is forced to keep if he would enjoy his wife's conversation. When she returns to me with joy in her face, it does not arise, says he, from the sight of her husband, but from the good luck she has had at cards.

10. On the contrary, says he, if she had been a loser, I am doubly a sufferer by it. She comes home out of humour, is angry with every body, displeased with all I can do or say, and in reality, for no other reason but because she has been throwing away my estate. What charming bed-fellows and companions for life are men likely to meet with, who choose their wives out of such women of vogue and fashion? What a race of worthies, what patriots, what heroes must be expected from mothers of this make?

[ocr errors]

11. I come in the next place to consider the ill consequences which gaming has on the bodies of our female adventurers. It is so ordered, that almost every thing which corrupts the soul decays the body. The beauties of the face and mind are generally destroyed by the same means. This consideration should have a particular weight with the female world, who were designed to please the eye and attract the regard of the other half of the species.

12. Now there is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vi gils of the card table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings.

13. I have known a woman carried off half dead from basette, and have many a time grieved, to see a person of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux: in short, I never knew a thorough-paced female gamester hold her beauty two winters together.

14. But there is still another case in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All play-debts must be paid in specie, or by an equivalent. The man who plays beyond his income pawns his estate: the woman must find out something else to mortgage when her pin-money is gone. The husband has his lands to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to consider the consequences.

15. It is needless here to mention the ill consequences attending this passion among the men, who are often bubbled out of their money and estates by sharpers, and to make up their loss, have recourse to means productive of dire events, instances of which frequently occur; for strictly speaking, those who set their minds upon gaming, can hardly be honest: a man's reflections after losing, render him desperate, so as to commit violence either upon himself or some other person, and therefore gaming should be discouraged in all well-regulated communities.

[ocr errors]

SIR.

Whisperers.

S the ladies are naturally become the immediate object

A your a

ed in your paper, which is founded upon a matter of fact? They will pardon me if by laying before you a particular instance I was lately witness of their improper behaviour, I endeavour to expose a reigning evil, which subjects them to many shameful imputations.

2. I received last week a dinner card from a friend, with an intention that I should meet some very agreeable ladies. At my arrival, I found that the company consisted chiefly of females, who indeed did me the honour to rise, but quite disconcerted me in paying my respects, by their whispering each other, and appearing to stifle a laugh. When I was seated, the ladies grouped themselves up in a corner, and entered into a private cabal, seemingly to discourse upon points of great secrecy and impor tance, but of equal merriment and diversion.

3. The same conduct of keeping close to their ranks was observed at table, where the ladies seated themselves together. Their conversation was here also confined wholly to themselves, and seemed like the mysteries of the Dona Dea, in which men were forbidden to have any share. It was a continued laugh and whisper from the beginning to the end of dinner. A whole sentence was scarce ever spoken aloud.

4. Single words, indeed, now and then broke forth; such as, odious, horrible, detestable, shocking HUMBURG. This last new-coined expression, which is only to be found in the nonsensical vocabulary, sounds absurd and disagreeable whenever it is pronounced; but from the mouth of a lady it is "shocking, detestable, horrible and odious."

5. My friend seemed to be in an uneasy situation at his own table; but I was far more miserable. I was mute and seldom dared to lift up my eyes from my plate, or turn my head to call for small beer, lest by some aukward posture I might draw upon me a whisper or a laugh. Sancho, when he was forbid to eat of a delicous banquet set before him, could scarce appear more melancholy.

6. The rueful length of my face might possibly increase the mirth of my tormentors; at least their joy seemed to rise in exact proportion to my misery. At length, however, the time of my delivery approached. Dinner ended, the ladies made their exit in pairs, and went off hand in hand whispering like the two kings of Brentford.

7. Modest men, Mr. Town, are deeply wounded, when they imagine themselves the object of ridicule or contempt; and the pain is the greater, when it is given by those whom they admire, and from whom they are ambitous of receiving any marks of countenance and favour. Yet we must allow, that affronts are pardonable from ladies, as they are often prognostics of future kindness.

8. If a lady strikes our cheek we can very willingly follow the precept of the Gospel, and turn the other cheek to be smitten: even a blow from a fair hand conveys pleasure, but this battery of whispers is against all legal rights of war; poisoned arrows, and stabs in the dark, are not more repugnant to the general laws of humanity.

9. Modern writers of comedy often introduce a pert whitling into their pieces, who is very severe upon the rest of the company; but all his waggery is spoken aside. These gigglers and whisperers seem to be acting the same part in company, that this arch rogue does in the play. Every word or motion produces a train of whispers; the dropping of a snuff-box, or spilling the tea, is sure to be accompanied with a titter, and upon the entrance

« AnteriorContinua »