Chapter 7

THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

Abraham Allcraft, with all his base and sordid habits, was a beggar. His gluttony had been too powerful for his judgment, and he had speculated beyond all computation. His first hit had been received in connexion with some extensive mines. At the outset they had promised to realize a princely fortune. All the calculations had been made with care. The most wary and experienced were eager for a share in the hoped for _el dorado_, and Abraham was the greediest of any. In due time the bubble burst, carrying with it into air poor Abraham's hard-earned fifty thousand pounds, and his hearty execrations. Such a loss was not to be repaired by the slow-healing process of legitimate business. Information reached him respecting an extensive manufactory in Glasgow. Capabilities of turning half a million per annum existed in the house, and were unfortunately dormant simply because the moving principle was wanting. With a comparatively moderate capital, what could not be effected? Ah, what? Had you listened to the sanguine manufacturer your head would have grown giddy with his magnificent proposals, as Allcraft's had, to the cost of his unhappy self, and still unhappier clients. As acting is said to be not a bare servile exhibition of nature, but rather an exalted and poetic imitation of the same, so likewise are the pictures of houses, the portraits of geniuses, _the representations of business facts_, and other works of art which undertake to copy truth, but only embellish it and render it most grateful to the eye. Nothing could _look_ more substantial than the Glasgow manufactory on paper. A prettier painting never charmed the eye of speculating amateur. Allcraft was caught. Ten thousand pounds, which had been sent out to bring the fifty thousand back, never were seen again. The manufacturer decamped--the rickety house gave way, and failed. From this period Allcraft entangled himself more and more in schemes for making money rapidly and by great strokes, and deeper he fell into the slough of difficulty and danger. His troubles were commencing when he heard of Mildred's serious illness, and the certainty of his speedy death. With an affectionate solicitude, he mentally disposed of the splendid fortune which the sick man could not possibly take with him, and contrived a plan for making it fill up the gaps which misfortune had opened in the banking-house. This was a new speculation, and promised more than all the rest. Every energy was called forth--every faculty. His plans we already know--his success has yet to be discovered. Abraham did not die intestate. He left a will, bequeathing to Michael, his son and heir, a rotten firm, a dishonourable name, a history of dishonesty, a nest of troubles. Accompanying his will, there was a letter written in Allcraft's hand to Michael, imploring the young man to act a child's part by his unhappy parent. The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it; and not only upon _it_, he added, but upon the living also. He had procured for him, he said, an alliance which he would never have aspired to--never would have obtained, had not his father laboured so hardly for his boy's happiness and welfare. With management and care, and a gift from his intended wife, nothing need be said--no exposure would take place--the house would retain its high character, and in the course of a very few years recover its solvency and prosperity. A fearful list of the engagements was appended, and an account of every transaction in which the deceased had been concerned. Michael read and read again every line and word, and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure. He raved against his father, swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered down, and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing circumstances--of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals. If there were wanting, as, thank Heaven, there is not, one proof to substantiate the fact, that no rule of life is safe and certain save that made known in the translucent precepts of our God--no species of thought free from hurt or danger--no action secure from ill or mischief, except all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble, loving, _strict_ obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one proof, I say, were wanting, it would be easy to discover it in the natural perverse and inconsistent heart of man. A voice louder than the preacher's--the voice of daily, hourly experience--proclaims the melancholy fact, that no amount of high-wrought feeling, no loftiness of speech, no intensity of expression, is a guarantee for purity of soul and conduct, when obedience, simple, childlike obedience, has ceased to be the spring of every motion and every aim. Reader, let us grapple with this truth! We are servants here on earth, not masters! subjects, and not legislators! Infants are we all in the arms of a just father! The command is from elsewhere--_obedience_ is with us. If you would be happy, I charge you, fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of _honour_--honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial--that shrinks in the path of duty--that slinks away unarmed and powerless, when it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle. Where are the generous sentiments--the splendid outbursts--the fervid eloquence with which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short history of oppression and dishonesty? Where are they now, in the first moments of real danger, whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base as they are cowardly? Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to talk. How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the fascinating Margaret, we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate spirit of commerce, and the back-slidings of all professors of religion. Surely, he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age, was prepared for adversity and its temptations! Not he, nor any man who prefers to be the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason. After a day's deliberation, he had resolved upon two things--first, not to expose himself to the pity or derision of men, as it might chance to be, by proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly, not to risk the loss of Margaret, by acknowledging himself to be a beggar. His father had told him--he remembered the words well that she was induced to name the wedding-day, only upon receiving the assurance of his independence. Not to undeceive her now, would be to wed her under false pretences; but to free her from deception, would be to free her from her plighted word, and this his sense of honour would not let him do. I will not say that Michael grossly and unfeelingly proposed to circumvent--to cheat and rob the luckless Margaret; or that his conscience, that mighty law unto itself, did not wince before it held its peace. There were strugglings and entreaties, and patchings up, and excuses, and all the appliances which precede the commission of a sinful act. Reasons for honesty and disinterestedness were converted for the occasion into justifications of falsehood and artifice. A paltry regard for himself and his own interests was bribed to take the shape of filial duty and affection. The result of all his cogitation and contrivances was one great plan. He would not take from his Margaret's fortune. No, under existing circumstances it would be wrong, unpardonable; but at the same time he was bound to protect his father's reputation. The engagement with the widow must go on. He could not yield the prize; life without her would not be worth the having. What was to be done, then? Why, to wed, and to secure the maintenance of the firm by means which were at his command. Once married to the opulent Mrs Mildred, and nothing would be easier than to obtain men of the first consideration in the county to take a share of his responsibilities. Twenty, whom he could name, would jump at the opportunity and the offer. The house stood already high in the opinion of the world. What would it be with the superadded wealth of the magnificent widow? The private debts of his father were a secret. His parsimonious habits had left upon the minds of people a vague and shadowy notion of surpassing riches; Had he not been rich beyond men's calculation, he would not have ventured to live so meanly. Michael derived support from the general belief, and resolved most secularly to take a full advantage of it. If he could but procure one or two monied men as partners in the house, the thing was settled. Matters would be snug--the property secured. The business must increase. The profits would enable him in time to pay off his father's liabilities, and if, in the meanwhile, it should be deemed expedient to borrow from his wife, he might do so safely, satisfied that he could repay the loan, at length, with interest. Such was the outline of Michael Allcraft's scheme. His spirit was quiet as soon as it was concocted, and he reposed upon it for a season as tired men sleep soundly on a bed of straw.

Whilst the bridegroom was distressed with his peculiar grievances, the lovely bride was doomed to submit to annoyances scarcely less painful. Her late husband's friend, Doctor Wilford, who had been abroad for many months, suddenly returned home, and, in fulfilment of Mildred's dying wish, repaired without delay to the residence of his widow. Wilford had seen a great deal of the world. He did not expect to find the bereaved one inconsolable, but he was certainly staggered to behold her busy in preparations for a second marriage. Indignant at what he conceived to be an affront upon the memory of his friend, he argued and remonstrated against her indecent haste, and besought her to postpone the unseemly union. Roused by all he saw, the faithful friend spoke warmly on the deceased's behalf, and painted in the strongest colours he could employ, the enormity of her transgression. Now Margaret loved Michael as she had never loved before. Slander could not open its lying lips to speak one word against the esteem and gratitude she had ever entertained for Mildred but esteem and gratitude--I appeal to the best, the most virtuous and moral of my readers--cannot put out the fire that nature kindles in the adoring heart of woman. Her error was not that she loved Michael more, but that she had loved Mildred less. Ambition, if it usurp the rights of love, must look for all the punishment that love inflicts. Sooner or later it must come. "Who are you?" enquires the little god of the greater god, ambition, "that you should march into my realms, and create rebellion there? Wait but a little." Short was the interval between ambition's crime and love's revenge with our poor Margaret. Wilford might never know how cruelly his bitter words wrung her smitten soul. She did not answer him. Paler she grew with every reproach--deeper was the self-conviction with every angry syllable. She wept until he left her, and then she wrote to Michael. As matters stood, and with their present understanding--he was perhaps her best adviser. Wilford called to see her on the following day--but Margaret's door was shut against him, and she beheld her husband's friend no more.

And the blissful day came on--slowly, at last, to the happy lovers--for happy they were in each other's sight, and in their passionate attachment. And the blissful day arrived. Michael led her to the altar. A hundred curious eyes looked on, admired, and praised, and envied. He might be proud of his possession, were she unendowed with any thing but that incomparable, unfading loveliness. And he, with his young and vigorous form, was he not made for that rare plant to clasp and hang upon? "Heaven bless them both!" So said the multitude, and so say I, although I scarce can hope it; for who shall dare to think that Heaven will grant its benediction on a compact steeped in earthliness, and formed without one heavenward view!

* * * * *

THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.

I knew, my dear Eusebius, how delighted you would be with that paper in Maga on "Woman's Rights." It was balm to your Quixotic spirit. Though your limbs are a little rheumatic, and you do not so often as you were wont, when your hair was black as raven's wing, raise your hands to take down the armour that you have long since hung up, you know and feel with pride that it has been charmed by due night-watchings, and will yet serve many a good turn, should occasion require your service for woman in danger. Then, indeed, would you buckle on in defence of all or any that ever did, or did not, "buckle to." Then would come a happy cure to aching bones--made whole with honourable bruises, oblivious of pain, the "_bruchia livida_," lithesome and triumphant. Your devotion to the sex has been seasoned under burning sun and winter frost, and has yet vital heat against icy age, come on fast as it will. You would not chill, Eusebius, though you were hours under a pump in a November night, and lusty arms at work watering your tender passion.

I know you. Rebecca and her daughters had a good word, a soft word from you, till you found out their beards. No mercy with them after that with you--the cowardly disguise--pike for pike was the cry. It was laughable to see you, and to hear you, as you brought a battery that could never reach them--fired upon them the reproach of Diogenes to an effeminate--"If he was offended with nature for making him a man, and not a woman;" and the affirmation of the Pedasians, from your friend Herodotus, that, whenever any calamity befell them, a prodigious beard grew on the chin of the priestess of Minerva. You ever thought a man in woman's disguise a profanation--a woman in man's a horror. The fair sex were never, in your eyes, the weaker and the worse; how oft have you delighted in their outward grace and moral purity, contrasting them with gross man, gloriously turning the argument in their favour by your new emphasis--"Give every _man_ his deserts, and who shall escape whipping"--satisfying yourself, and every one else, that good, true, woman-loving Shakspeare must have meant the passage so to be read. And do you remember a whole afternoon maintaining, that the well-known song of "Billy Taylor" was a serious, true, good, epic poem, in eulogy of the exploits of a glorious woman, and in no way ridiculous to those whose language it spoke; and when we all gave it against you, how you turned round upon the poor author, and said he ought to have the bastinado at the soles of his feet?

And if an occasional disappointment, a small delinquency in some feminine character did now and then happen, and a little sly satire would force its way, quietly too, out of the sides of your mouth, how happily would you instantly disown it, fling it from you as a thing not yours, then catch at it, and sport with it as if you could afford to sport with it, and thereby show it was no serious truth, and pass it off with the passage from Dryden--

"Madam, these words are chanticleer's, not mine; I honour dames, and think their sex divine!"

No human being ever collected so many of the good sayings and doings of women as you, Eusebius. I am not, then, surprised that, having read the "Rights of Women," you are come to the determination to take up "The Wrongs of Women." The wrongs of women, alas!

----"Adeo sunt multa loquacem Delassare valent Fabium."

And so you write to me, to supply you with some sketches from nature, instances of the "Wrongs of Woman." Ah me! Does not this earth teem with them--the autumnal winds moan with them? The miseries want a good hurricane to sweep them off the land, and the dwellings the "foul fiend" hath contaminated. Man's doing, and woman's suffering, and thence even arises the beauty of loveliness--woman's patience. In the very palpable darkness besetting the ways of domestic life, woman's virtue walks forth loveliest--

"Virtue gives herself light, through darkness for to wade."

The gentle Spenser, did he not love woman's virtue, and weep for her wrongs? You, Eusebius, were wont ever to quote his tender lament:--

"Naught is there under heaven's wide hollowness That moves more clear compassion of mind Than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness By envy's frowns or fortune's freaks unkind. I, whether lately through her brightness blind, Or through allegiance and fast fealty, Which _I do owe unto all womankind_, Feel my heart pierced with so great agony, When such I see, that all for pity I could die."

This melting mood will not long suit your mercurial spirit. You used to say that the fairies were all, in common belief, creatures feminine, hence deservedly called "good people,"--that they made the country merry, and kept clowns in awe, and were better for the people's morals than a justice of the peace. They tamed the savage, and made him yield, and bow before feminine feet. Sweet were they that hallowed the brown hills, and left tokens of their visits, blessing all seasons to the rustic's ear, whispering therein softly at nightfall--

"Go, take a wife unto thy arms, and see Winter and brownie-hills shall have a charm for thee."

Such was your talk, Eusebius, passing off your discontent of things that are, into your inward ideal, rejoicing in things unreal, breaking out into your wildest paradox--"What is the world the better for all its boasted truth! It has belied man's better nature. Faith, trust, belief, is the better part of him, the spiritual of man; and who shall dare to say that its creations, visible, or invisible, all felt, acknowledged as vital things, are not realities?" All this--in your contempt for beadles and tip-staves, even overseers and churchwardens, and all subdividing machinery of country government, that, when it came in and fairly established itself, drove away the "good people," and with them merriment and love, and sweet fear, from off the earth--that twenty wheedling, flattering Autolycuses did not do half the hurt to morals or manners that one grim-visaged justice did--the curmudgeon, you called him, Eusebius, that would, were they now on earth, and sleeping all lovely with their pearly arms together, locked in leafy bower, have Cupid and Psychè taken up under the Vagrant Act, or have them lodged in a "Union House" to be disunited. You thought the superstition of the world as it was, far above the knowledge it now brags of. You admired the Saxons and Danes in their veneration of the predictions of old women, whom the after ungallantry of a hard age would have burned for witches. Marriage act and poor act have, as you believe, extinguished the holy light of Hymen's torch, and re-lighted it with Lucifer matches in Register offices; and out it soon goes, leaving worse than Egyptian darkness in the dwellings of the poor--the smell of its brimstone indicative of its origin, and ominous of its ending.

I verily believe, Eusebius, you would have spared Don Quixote's whole library, and have preferred committing the curate to the flames. Your dreams, even your day-dreams, have hurried you ever far off and away from the beaten turnpike-road of life, through forests of enchantment, to rescue beauty which you never saw, from knight-begirt and dragon-guarded castles; and little thankful have you been when you have opened your eyes awake in peace to the cold light of our misnamed utilitarian day, and found all your enchantment broken, the knights discomfited, the dragon killed, the drawbridge broken down, and the ladies free--all without your help; and then, when you have gone forth, and in lieu of some rescued paragon of her sex, you have met but the squire's daughter, in her trim bonnet, tripping with her trumpery to set up her fancy-shop in Vanity-Fair, for fops to stare at through their glasses, your imagination has felt the shock, and incredulous of the improvement in manners and morals, and overlooking all advancement of knowledge, all the advantages of their real liberty, momentarily have you wished them all shut up in castles, or in nunneries, to be the more adored till they may chance to be rescued. But soon would the fit go off--and the first sweet, innocent, lovely smile that greeted you, restored your gentleness, and added to your stock of love. And once, when some parish shame was talked of, you never would believe it common, and blamed the Overseer for bringing it to light--and vindicated the sex by quoting from Pennant, how St Werberg lived immaculate with her husband Astardus, copying her aunt, the great Ethelreda, who lived for three years with not less purity with her good man Tonberetus, and for twelve with her second husband the pious Prince Egfrid: and the churchwarden left the vestry, lifting up his hands, and saying--"Poor gentleman!"--and you laughed as if you had never laughed before, when you heard it, and heartily shook him by the hand to convince him you were in your senses; which action he nevertheless put to the credit of the soundness of your heart, and not a bit to that of your head. You saw it--and immediately, with a trifling flaw in the application quite worthy yourself, reminded me of a passage in a letter from Lord Bolingbroke to Swift, that "The truest reflection, and at the same time the bitterest satire, which can be made on the present age, is this, that to think as you think, will make a man pass for romantic. Sincerity, constancy, tenderness, are rarely to be found. They are so much out of use, that the man of mode imagines them to be out of nature." So insane and romantic, you added, are synonymous terms to this incredulous, this matter-of-fact world, that, like the unbelieving Thomas, trusts in, believes in nothing that it does not touch and handle. Your partiality for days of chivalry blinds you a little. The men were splendid--women shone with their reflected splendour--you see them through an illuminated haze, and, as you were not behind the curtain, imagine their minds as cultivated as their beauty was believed to be great. The mantle of chivalry hid all the wrongs, but the particular ones from which they rescued them. If the men are worse, our women are far better--more like those noble Roman ladies, intellectual and high-minded, whom you have ever esteemed the worthiest of history. Then women were valued. Valerius Maximus gives the reason why women had the upper-hand. After the mother of Coriolanus and other Roman women had preserved their country, how could the senate reward them?--"Sanxit uti foeminis semitâ viri cederent--permisit quoque his purpureâ veste et aureis uti segmentis." It was sanctioned by the senate, you perceive, that men should yield the wall to the sex, in honour, and that they should be allowed the distinction of purple vests and golden borders--privileges the female world still enjoy. Yet in times you love to applaud, the paltry interference of men would have curtailed one of these privileges. For a mandate was issued by the papal legate in Germany in the 14th century, decreeing, that "the apparel of women, which ought to be consistent with modesty, but now, through their foolishness, is degenerated into wantonness and extravagance, more particularly the immoderate length of their petticoats, with which they sweep the ground, be restrained to a moderate fashion, agreeably to the decency of the sex, under pain of the sentence of excommunication." "Velamina etiam mulierum, quæ ad verecundiam designandam eis sunt concessa, sed nunc, per insipientiam earum, in lasciviam et luxuriam excreverunt, it immoderata longitudo superpelliccorum quibus pulverem trahunt, ad moderatum usum, sicut decet verecundiam sexus, per excommunicationis sententiam cohibeantur."

Excommunication, indeed! Not even the church could have carried on that war long. Every word of this marks the degradation to which those monkish times would have made the sex submit, "velamina _concessa_ insipientiam earum!" and pretty well for men of the cloth of that day's make, to speak of women's "lasciviam et luxuriam," when, perhaps, the hypocritical mandate arose from nothing but a desire in the coelibatists themselves to get a sly peep at the neatly turned feet and ankles of the women. One would almost think the old nursery song of

--"The beggar whose name was Stout, He cut her petticoats all round about, He cut her petticoats far above her knee, &c.,"

was written to perpetuate the mandate. Certainly a "Stout beggar was the Papal church." "Consistent with modesty," "sicut decet verecundiam sexus;" nothing can beat that bare-faced hypocrisy. So when afterwards the sex shortened their petticoats, other Simon Pures start up and put them in the stocks for immodesty. Poor women! Here was a wrong, Eusebius. Long or short, they were equally immodest. Immodest, indeed! Nature has clad them with modesty and temperance--their natural habit--other garment is conventional. I admire what Oelian says of Phocion's wife.

"[Greek: Êmpeicheto de prôtê tê sôphrosunê, deuterois ge mên tois parousi.]"

"She first arrayed herself in temperance, and then put on what was necessary." Every seed of beauty is sown by modesty. It is woman's glory, "[Greek: hê gar aidôs anthos epispeirei]" says Clearchus in his first book of Erotics, quoting from Lycophronides. The appointment of magistrates at Athens, [Greek: gunaikokosmoi], to regulate the dress of women, was a great infringement on their rights--the origin of men-milliners. You are one, Eusebius, who

"Had rather hear the tedious tales Of Hollingshed, than any thing that trenches On love."

I remember how, in contempt of the story of the Ephesian matron, you had your Petronius interleaved, and filled it with anecdotes of noble virtue, till the comment far exceeded the text--then, finding your excellent women in but bad company, you tore out the text of Petronius, and committed it to the flames. Preserve your precious catalogue of female worthies--often have you lamented that of Hesiod was lost, of all the [Greek: Hoiai megalai] Alcmena alone remaining, and you will not make much boast of her. How far back would you go for the wrongs of women--do you intend to write a library--a library in a series of novels in three volumes--what are all that are published but "wrongs of women?" Could but the Lion have written! Books have been written by men, and be sure they have spared themselves--and yet what a catalogue of wrongs we have from the earliest date! Even the capture of Helen was not with her consent; and how lovely she is! and how indicative is that wondrous history of a high chivalrous spirit and admiration of woman in those days! Old Priam and all his aged council pay her reverence. Menelaus is the only one of the Grecian heroes that had no other wife or mistress--here was devotion and constancy! Andromache has been, and ever will be, the pride of the world. Yet the less refined dramatist has told of her wrongs; for he puts into her mouth a dutiful acquiescence in the gallantries of Hector. Little can be said for the men. Poor old Priam we must pardon, if Hecuba could and did; for Priam told her that he had nineteen children by her, and many others by the concubines in his palace. He had enough, too, upon his hands--yet found time for all things--"[Greek: hôrê eran, hôrê de gamein, hôrê de pepausthai]." How lovely is Penelope, and how great her wrongs!--and the lovely Nausicaa complains of scandal. But great must have been the deference paid to women; for Nausicaa plainly tells Ulysses, that her mother is every thing and every body. People have drawn a very absurd inference to the contrary, from the fact of the princess washing the clothes. That operation may have been as fashionable then as worsted work now, and clothes then were not what clothes are now--there were no Manchesters, and those things were rare and precious, handed down to generations, and given as presents of honour. You have shed tears over the beautiful, noble-hearted Iphigenia--wronged even to death. Glorious was the age that could find an Alcestis to suffer her great wrong! Such women honour human nature, and make man himself better. Oh, how infinitely less selfish are they than we are--confiding, trusting--with a fortitude for every sacrifice! We have no trust like theirs, no confidence--are jealous, suspicious, even on the wedding-day. You quite roared with delight when you heard of a fool, who, mistrusting himself and his bride, tried his fortune after the fashion of the Sortes Virgilianæ, by dipping into Shakspeare on his wedding-day and finding

"Not poppy nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the East, Shall ever med'cine to thee that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday."

You have rather puzzled me, Eusebius, by giving me so wide a field of enquiry--woman's wrongs; of what kind--of ancient or modern times--general or particular? You should have arranged your objects. It is you that are going to write this "Family Library," not I. For my own part, I should have been contented in walking into the next village, an unexpected guest, to the houses of rich and poor--do you think you would have wanted materials? But forewarned is forearmed--and few will "tell the secrets of their prison-house," if you take them with a purpose. On your account, in this matter, I have written to six ladies of my acquaintance, three married and three single. Two of the married have replied that they have nothing to complain of--not a wrong. The third bids me ask her husband. So I put her down as ambiguous--perhaps she wishes to give him a hint through me; I am wise, and shall hold my tongue. Of the unmarried, one says she has received no wrong, but fears she may have inflicted some--another, that as she is going to be married on Monday, she cannot conceive a wrong, and cannot possibly reply till after the honeymoon. The third replies, that it is _very wrong_ in me to ask her. But stay a moment--here is a quarrel going on--two women and a man--we may pick up something. "Rat thee, Jahn," says a stout jade, with her arm out and her fist almost in Jahn's face, "I wish I were a man--I'd gie it to thee!" She evidently thinks it a wrong that she was born a woman--and upon my word, by that brawny arm, and those masculine features, there does appear to have been a mistake in it. If you go to books--I know your learning--you will revert to your favourite classical authorities. Helen of Troy calls herself by a sad name, "[Greek: kuôn hôs eimi]," dog (feminine) as I am--her wrongs must, therefore, go to no account. I know but of one who really takes it in hand to catalogue them, and she is Medea. "We women," says she, "are the most wretched of living creatures." For first--of women--she must buy her husband, pay for him with all she has--secondly, when she has bought him, she has bought a master, one to lord it over her very person--thirdly, the danger of buying a bad one--fourthly, that divorce is not creditable--fifthly, that she ought to be a prophetess, and is not to know what sort of a man he is to whose house she is to go, where all is strange to her--sixthly, that if she does not like her home, she must not leave it, nor look out for sympathising friends--seventhly, that she must have the pains and troubles of bearing children--eighthly, she gives up country, home, parents, friends, for one husband--and perhaps a bad one. So much for Medea and her list; had she lived in modern times it might have been longer; but she was of too bold a spirit to enter into minutiæ. Hers, too, are the wrongs of married life. Nor on this point the wise son of Sophroniscus makes the man the sufferer. "Neither," he says, "can he who marries a wife tell if he shall have cause to rejoice thereat." He had most probably at that moment Xantippe in his eye. You remember how pleasantly Addison, in the _Spectator_, tells the story of a colony of women, who, disgusted with their wrongs, had separated themselves from the men, and set up a government of their own. That there was a fierce war between them and the men--that there was a truce to bury the dead on either side--that the prudent male general contrived that the truce should be prolonged; and during the truce both armies had friendly intercourse--on some pretence or other the truce was still lengthened, till there was not one woman in a condition, or with an inclination, to take up her wrongs--not one woman was any longer a fighting man--they saw their errors--they did not, as the fable says we all do, cast the burden of their own faults behind them, but bravely carried them before them--made peace, and were righted.

We would not, Eusebius, have all their wrongs righted--so lovely is the moral beauty of their wonderful patience in enduring them. What--if they were in a condition to legislate and impose upon us some of their burdens, or divide them with us? What man of your acquaintance could turn dry-nurse--tend even his own babes twelve hours out of the twenty-four?

A pretty head-nurse would my Eusebius make in an orphan asylum. I should like to see you with twins in your arms, both crying into your sensitive ears, and you utterly ignorant of their wants and language. And I do think your condition will be almost as bad, if you publish your catalogue of wrongs in your own name. By all means preserve an incognito. You will be besieged with wrongs--will be the only "Defender of the Faithful"--not knight-_errant_, for you may stay at home, and all will come to you for redress. You will be like the author, or rather translator, of the Arabian Tales, whose window was nightly assailed, and slumber broken in upon, by successive troops of children, crying "Monsieur Galland if you are not asleep, get up--come and tell us one of those pretty stories." Keep your secret. Now, the mention of the Arabian Tales reminds me of Sinbad--_there_ is a true picture of man's cowardice; what loathsome holes did he not creep into to make his escape when the wife of his bosom was sick, and he understood the law that he was to be buried with her. It is all very well, in the sick chamber, for the husband to say to his departing partner for life--"Wait, my dearest--I will go with you." She is sure, as La Fontaine says in his satire, reversing the case, "to take the journey alone." This is all talk on the man's side--but see what the master of the slave woman has actually imposed upon her as a law. The Hindoo widow ascends the funeral pile, and is burnt rejoicing. What male creature ever thought of enduring this for his wife?--this wrong, for it is a grievous wrong thus to tempt her superior fortitude. It was not without reason that, in the heathen mythology, (and it shows the great advancement of civilization when and wherever it was conceived,) were deified all great and noble qualities in the image of the sex. What are Juno, Minerva, and Venus, but acknowledgments of the strength, wisdom, fortitude, beauty, and love, of woman, while their male deities have but borrowed attributes and ambiguous characters? It is a deference--perhaps unintentionally, unconsciously--paid to the sex, that in every language the soul itself, and all its noblest virtues, and the personification of all virtue, are feminine.

I supposed woman the legislatrix--what reason have we to say she would enact a wrong? The story of the mother of Papirius is not against her; for in that case there was only a choice of evils. It is from Aulus Gellius, as having been told and written by M. Cato in the oration which he made to the soldiers against Galba. The mother of young Papirius, who had accompanied his father into the senate-house, as was usual formerly for sons to do who had taken the _toga prætexta_, enquired of her son what the senate had been doing; the youth replied, that he had been enjoined silence. This answer made her the more importunate and he adopted this humorous fallacy--that it had been discussed in the senate which would be most beneficial to the state, for one man to have two wives, or for one woman to have two husbands? Hearing this, she left the house in no small trepidation, and went to tell other matrons what she had heard. The next day a troop of matrons went to the senate-house, and implored, with tears in their eyes, that one woman might be suffered to have two husbands, rather than one man have two wives. The senate honoured the young Papirius with a special law in his favour; they should rather have conferred honour upon his mother and the other matrons for their disinterested virtue, who were content to submit themselves to so great an evil, I may say _wrong_, as to have imposed upon them two masters instead of one. Not that you, Eusebius, ever entertained an idea that women are wronged by not being admitted to a share of legislation. I will not suppose you to be that liberal fool. But you are aware that such a scheme has been, and is still entertained. I believe there is a Miss Somebody now going about our towns, lecturing on the subject, and she is probably worthy to be one of the company of the "Ecclesiagusæ." This idea is not new. The other day I hit upon a letter in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1740 on the subject, by which you will see there was some amusement about it a century ago:--

"TO CALEB D'ANVERS, Esq.

"Sir,--I am a mournful relict of _five husbands_, and the happy mother of _twenty-seven_ children, the tender pledges of our chaste embraces. Had _old Rome_, instead of _England_, been the place of my nativity and abode, what honours might I not have expected to my person, and immunities to my fortune? But I need not tell you that virtue of this sort meets with no encouragement in our northern climate. _Children_, instead of freeing us from _taxes_ increase the weight of them, and matrimony is become the jest of every coxcomb. Nor could I allow, till very lately, that an old bachelor, as you profess yourself to be, had any just pretence to be called a patriot. Don't think that I mean to offer myself to you; for I assure you that I have refused very advantageous proposals since the decease of my _last poor spouse_, who hath been dead near _five months_. I have no design at present of altering my condition again. Few women are so happy as to meet with _five good husbands_, and therefore I should be glad to devote the remaining part of my life to the good of my country and family, in a more public and active station than that of a _wife_, according to your late scheme for _a septennial administration of women_. But I think you ought to have enforced your project with some instances of _illustrious females_, who have appeared in the foremost classes of life, not only for heroic valour, but likewise for several branches of learning, wisdom, and policy--such as _Joan of Naples_, the _Maid of Orleans, Catherine de Medicis, Margaret of Mountfort, Madame Dacier, Mrs Behn, Mrs Manly, Mrs Stephens_, Doctor of Physic, _Mrs Mapp_, Surgeon, the valiant _Mrs Ross_, Dragoon, and the learned _Mrs Osborne_, Politician. I had almost forgot the present Queen of _Spain_, who hath not only an absolute ascendant over the counsels of her _husband_, but hath often outwitted the _greatest statesmen_, as they fancy themselves, of _another kingdom_, which hath already felt the effects of her _petticoat government_.

"If we look back into history, a thousand more instances might be brought of the same kind; but I think those already mentioned sufficient to prove, that the best capacities of _our sex_ are by no means inferior to the best capacities _of yours_; and the triflers of _either sex_ are not designed to be the subject of this letter. But much as _our sex_ are obliged to you, in general, for your proposal, I have one material objection against it; for I think you have carried the point a little too far, by excluding _all males_ from the enjoyment of any office, dignity, or employment; for as they have long engrossed the public administration of the government to themselves, (a few women only excepted,) I am apprehensive that they will be loth to part with it, and that if they give us power for _seven years_, it will be very difficult to get it out of our hands again. I have, therefore, thought of the following expedient, which will almost answer the same purpose--viz. that all power, both _legislative and executive, ecclesiastical and civil_, may be divided among _both sexes_; and that they may be equally capable of sitting in Parliament. Is it not absurd that _women_ in _England_ should be capable of inheriting _the crown_, and yet not intrusted with the representation of a _little borough_, or so much as allowed to vote for a representative? Is this consistent with the rights of a _people_, which certainly includes both _men and women_, though the latter have been generally deprived of their privileges in all countries? I don't mean that the people should be obliged to choose _women_ only, as I said before, for that would be equally hard upon the _men_--but that the _electors_ should be left at their own liberty; for it is certainly a restraint upon the _freedom of elections_, that whatever regard a _corporation_ may have for a _man of quality's family_, if he happened to have no _sons_ or _brothers_, they cannot testify their esteem for it by choosing his _daughters_ or _sisters_. I am for no restraint upon the _members of either sex_; for if the honour, integrity, or great capacity of a _fine lady_ should recommend her to the intimacy or confidence of a _Prime Minister_, in consequence of which he should get her a _place_--would it not be very hard that this very act of mutual friendship must render her incapable of doing either _him_ or _her country_ any real service in the _senate-house_? Is _freedom_ consistent with _restraint_? or can we propose to serve our country by obstructing the natural operations of _love and gratitude_? I would not be understood to propose increasing the number of members. Let every county or corporation choose _a man or a woman_, as they think proper; and if either of the members should be married, let it be in the power of the _constituents_ to return both _husband and wife as one member_, but not to sit at the same time; from whence would accrue great strength to our constitution, by having the _house_ well attended, without the present disagreeable method of _frequent calls_, and putting several _members_ to the expense and disgrace of being brought up to town in the custody of _messengers_; for if a _country gentleman_ should like _fox-hunting_, or any other _rural diversion_, better than attending his _duty in Parliament_, let him send up his _wife_. Or if an _officer in the army_ should be obliged to be at his post in _Ireland_, the _Mediterranean_, the _West Indies_, or aboard the _fleet_, a thousand leagues off, or upon any _public embassy_, if his _wife_ should happen to be chosen, never fear that she would do the _nation's business_, full as well. Besides, in several affairs of great consequence, the resolutions might perhaps be much more agreeable to the tenderness of _our sex_ than the roughness of _yours_. As, for instance, it hath often been thought unnatural for _soldiers_ to promote _peace_. When a debate, therefore, of that sort should be to come on, if the _soldiers_ staid at home, and their _wives_ attended, it would very well become the softness of _the female sex_ to show a regard for their _husbands_; especially if they should be such _pretty, smart, young fellows_, as make a most considerable figure at a review." The lady writer goes on at some length, that she has a borough of her own, and will be certainly returned whether she marries or not, and will act with inflexible zeal, naïvely adding--"If, therefore, I should hereafter be put into a _considerable employment_, and _fourteen of my sons_ be advanced in the _army_; should _the ministry_ provide for the _other seven_ in the _Church_, _Excise Office_, or _Exchequer_; and my poor _girls_, who are but tender infants at the boarding-school, should have places given to them in the _Customs_, which they might officiate by _deputy_--don't imagine that I am under any _undue influence_ if I should happen always to vote with the _Ministry_." We do not quote further. The letter is signed "MARGERY WELDONE."

It is needless to tell you the wrong done to the sex by the rigour of modern law. You have stamped the foot at it often enough. I mean, not so much the separation in the whimsically-called _union_ houses, for, as husbands go, they may have little to complain of on that score; but that dire injustice which throws upon woman the whole penalty of a mutual crime, of which the instigator is always man. Then, is she not injured by the legislative removal of the sanctity of marriage, by which the man is less bound to her--thinks less of the bond--the _vinculum matrimoniæ_ being, in his mind, one of straw, to her one of iron. And here, Eusebius, a difficulty presents itself which I do not remember ever to have seen met, no, nor even noticed. How can a court _ecclesiastical_, which from its very constitution and formula of marriage which it receives and sanctions--that marriage is a Divine institution, that man shall not put asunder those by this matrimony made one--I ask, how can such a court deal with cases where the people have not been put together by the only bond of matrimony which the church can allow? But these are painful subjects, and I feel myself wading in deeper water than will be good for one who can't swim without corks, though he be _levior cortice_; and lighter than cork, too, will be the obligation on the man's side, who has taken trusting woman to one of these registry houses, leaped over a broomstick and called it a marriage. It will soon come to the truth of the old saying, "The first month is the honeymoon or smick-smack, the second is hither and thither; the third is thwick-thwack; the fourth, the devil take them that brought thee and I together."

"Love, light as air, at sight of _human_ ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies."

The great walking monster that does the great wrong to women is, depend upon it, Eusebius, the "brute of a husband," called, by courtesy, in higher life, "_Sir_ John Brute." Horace says wittily, that Venus puts together discordant persons and minds with a bitter joke, "sævo mittere cum joco;" it begins a jest, and ends a _crying_ evil. We name the thing that should be good, with an ambiguous sound that gives disagreement to the sense. It is marry-age, or matter o' money. And let any man who is a euphonist, and takes omens from names, attend the publication of banns, he will be quite shocked at the unharmonious combination. Now, you will laugh when I tell you positively, that within a twelvemonth I have heard called the banns of "John Smasher and Mary Smallbones;" no doubt, by this time they are "marrow bones and cleaver," what else could be expected? Did you never note how it has puzzled curates to read the ill-assorted names?

"Serpentes avibus geminantur, tigribus agni."

Then to look at the couples as they come to be bound for life. One would think they had been shaken together hap-hazard, each in a sack. I have met with a quotation from Hermippus who says--"There was at Lacedæmon a very retired hall or dwelling, in which the unmarried girls and young bachelors were confined, till each of the latter, in that obscurity which precluded the possibility of choice, fixed on one, which he was obliged to take as a wife, without portion. Lysander having abandoned that which fell to his lot, to marry another of greater beauty, was condemned to pay a heavy fine." Is there not in the _Spectator_ a story or dream, where every man is obliged to choose a wife unseen, tied up in a sack? At this said Lacedæmon, by the by, women seem to have somewhat ruled the roast, and taken the law, at least before marriage, into their own hands; for Clearchus Solensis, in his adages, reports, that "at Lacedæmon, on a certain festival, the women dragged the unmarried men about the altar, and beat them with their hands, in order that a sense of shame at the indignity of this injury might excite in them a desire to have children of their own to educate, and to choose wives at a proper season for this purpose." Mr Stephens, in his _Travels in Yucatan_, shows how wives are taken and treated in the New World. "When the Indian grows up to manhood, he requires a woman to make him tortillas, and to provide him warm water for his bath at night. He procures one sometimes by the providence of the master, without much regard to similarity of tastes or parity of age; and though a young man is mated to an old woman, they live comfortably together. If he finds her guilty of any great offence, he brings her up before the master or the alcalde, gets her a whipping, and then takes her under his arm, and goes quietly home with her." This "whipping" the unromantic author considers not at all derogatory to the character of a kind husband, for he adds--"The Indian husband is rarely harsh to his wife, and the devotion of the wife to her husband is always a subject of remark." Some have made it a grave question whether marriages should not be made by the magistrate, and be proclaimed by the town-crier. To imagine which is a wrong and tyranny, and arises from the barbarous custom that no woman shall be the first to tell her mind in matters of affection. Men have set aside the privilege of Leap year; it is as great a nickname as the church's "convocation." We tie her tongue upon the first subject on which she would speak, then impudently call woman a babbler. There is no end, Eusebius, to the _wrongs_ our tongues do the sex. We take up all old, and invent new, proverbs against them. Ungenerous as we are, we learn other languages out of spite, as it were, to abuse them with, and cry out, "One tongue is enough for a woman." We _rate_ them for every thing and at nothing--thus: "He that loseth his wife and a farthing, hath a great loss of his farthing." There's not a natural evil but we contrive to couple them with it. "Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast." I heard a witty invention the other day--it was by a lady, and a wife, and perhaps in her pride. It was asked whence came the saying, that "March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb." "Because," said she, "he meets with Lady Day, and gets his quietus." Whatever we say against them, however, lacks the great essential--truth, and that is why we go on saying, thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter. Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a smiling wife, pats them both in his delight, and calls them both jades--he unbridles the one, and bridles the other. There is no end to it; when one begins with the injustice we do the sex, we may go on for ever, and stick our rhapsodies together "with a hot needle, and a burnt thread," and no good will come of it. It is envy, jealousy--we don't like to see them so much better than ourselves. We dare not tell them what we really think of them, lest they should think less of us. So we speak with a disguise. Sir Walter Scott forgot himself when he spoke of them:--

"Oh woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please;"

as if they were stormy peterals, whose appearance indicated shipwreck and troubled waters on the sea of life. Woman's bard, and such he deserves to be entitled, should only have thought of her as the "fair and gentle maid," or the "pleasing wife," _placens uxor_--the perfectness of man's nature, by whom he is united to goodness, gentleness, the two, man and woman united, making the complete one--as "_Mulier est hominis confusio_"--malevolent would he be that would mistranslate it "man's confusion," for--

"Madam, the meaning of this Latin is, That womankind to man is sovereign bliss."--_Dryden_.

By this "mystical union," man is made "Paterfamilias," that name of truest dignity. See him in that best position, in the old monuments of James's time, kneeling with his spouse opposite at the same table, with their seven sons and seven daughters, sons behind the father, and daughters behind the mother. It is worth looking a day or two beyond the turmoil or even joys of our life, and to contemplate in the mind's eye, one's own _post mortem_ and monumental honour. Such a sight, with all the loving thoughts of loving life, ere this maturity of family repose--is it not enough to make old bachelors gaze with envy, and go and advertise for wives?--each one sighing as he goes, that he has no happy home to receive him--no best of womankind his spouse--no children to run to meet him and devour him with kisses, while secret sweetness is overflowing at his heart and so he beats it like a poor player, and says, that is, if he be a Latinist--

"At non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripère, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."--_Lucret_.

But leaving the "gentle bachelor" to settle the matter with himself as he may, I will not be hurried beyond bounds--not bounds of the subject, or what is due to it, but of your patience, Eusebius, who know and feel, more sensibly than I can express, woman's worth. You want to know her wrongs--and you say that I am a sketcher from life. Well, that being the case, though it is painful to dwell upon any case, accept the following sketch from nature; it is a recent event--you may not question the truth--the names I conceal. A sour, sulky, cantankerous fellow, of some fortune, lean, wizened, and little, with one of those parchment complexions that indicate a cold antipathy to aught but self, married a fine generous creature, fair and large in person; neither bride nor bridegroom were in the flower of youth--a flower which, it is hard to say why, is supposed to shed "a purple light of love." After the wedding, the "happy couple" departed to spend the honeymoon among their relations. In such company, the ill-tempered husband is obliged to behave his best--he coldly puts on the polite hypocrite in the presence of others--but, every moment of _tête-à-tête_, vents maliciously his ill-temper upon his spouse. It happened, that after one day of more remarkably well-acted sweetness, he retired in more than common disgust at the fatigue he had been obliged to endure, to make himself appear properly agreeable. He gets into bed, and instantly tucks up his legs with his knees nigh to his chin, and--detestable little wretch!--throws out a kick with his utmost power against his fair, fat, substantial partner. What is the result? He did not calculate the "_vis inertiæ_," that a little body kicking against the greater is wont to come off second best--so he kicks himself out of bed, and here ends the comedy of the affair; the rest is tragic enough. Some how or other, in his fall, he broke his neck upon the spot. This was a very awkward affair. The bell is rung, up come the friends; the story is told, nor is it other than they had suspected. It does not end here, for, of course, there must be an inquest. It is an Irish jury. All said it served him right--and so what is the verdict?--Justifiable _felo-de-se_." Here, Eusebius, you have something remarkable;--one happier at the termination than the commencement of the honeymoon--a widow happier than a bride. She might go forth to the world again, with the sweet reputation of having smothered him with kisses, and killed him with kindness--if the verdict can be concealed; if not, while the husband is buried with the ignominy of "felonious intent," the widow will be but little disconsolate, and universally applauded. To those of any experience, it will not be a cause of wonder how such parties should come together. It is but an instance of the too common "bitter jokes" of Love, or rather Hymen. I only wish, that if ever man try that experiment again, he may meet with precisely the same success; and that if any man marries, determined to _fall out_ with his bride, he may _fall out_ in that very way, and at the very first opportunity.

The next little incident from married life which I mean to give you, will show you the wonderful wit and ingenuity of the sex. Here the parties had been much longer wedded. The poor woman had borne much. The husband thought he had a second Griselda. The case of his tyranny was pretty well known; indeed, the poor wife too often bore marks, that could not be concealed, of the "purple light" of his love--his passion. The gentleman, for such was, I regret to say, his grade of life, invited a number of friends to dine with him, giving directions to his lady that the dinner should be a good one. Behold the guests assembled--grace said--and hear the dialogue:--Husband--"My dear, what is that dish before you?" Wife--"Oh, my dear, it is a favourite dish of yours--stewed eels." Husband--"Then, my dear, I will trouble you." After a pause, during which the husband endeavours in vain to cut through what is before him--Then--Husband--"Why, my dear, what _is_ this--it is quite hard, I cannot get through it." Wife--"Yes, my dear, it is _very_ hard, and I rather wished you to know _how_ hard--it is the horse whip you gave me for breakfast this morning." I will not add a word to it. You, Eusebius, will not read a line more; you are in antics of delight--you cannot keep yourself quiet for joy--you walk up and down--you sit--you rise--you laugh--you roar out. Oh! this is better than the "taming of a shrew." And do you think "a brute of a husband" is so easily tamed? The lion was a gentle beast, and made himself submissive to sweet Una; but the brute of a husband, he is indeed a very hideous and untameable wild-fowl. Poor, good, loving woman is happily content at some thing far under perfection. In a lower grade of life, good wife once told me, that she had had an excellent husband, for that he had never kicked her but twice. On enquiry, I found he died young.--My dear Eusebius, yours ever, and as ever,

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* * * * *

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.