Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

5

in the middle of the winter. It is the most dead uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoyce their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince-pye upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their ΙΟ innocent tricks, and smutting one another. Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shews a thousand roguish tricks upon these occasions.

15

I was very much delighted with the reflection of my old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. He then launched out into the praise of the late Act of Parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect; for that a rigid Dissenter, who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully 20 of his plumb-porridge.

After having dispatched all our country matters, Sir ROGER made several enquiries concerning the club, and particularly of his old antagonist Sir ANDREW FREEPORT. He asked me with a kind of smile, whether Sir ANDREW had not taken the 25 advantage of his absence, to vent among them some of his Republican doctrines; but soon after gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, Tell me truly, says he, don't you think Sir ANDREW had a hand in the Pope's procession but without giving me time to answer him, Well, well, says he, I know you are a wary man, and do not care to talk of publick matters.

The Knight then asked me, if I had seen Prince Eugene; and made me promise to get him a stand in some convenient

30

5

place where he might have a full sight of that extraordinary man, whose presence does so much honour to the British nation. He dwelt very long on the praises of this great General, and I found that since I was with him in the country, he had drawn many observations together out of his reading in Baker's Chronicle, and other Authors, who always lie in his hall window, which very much redound to the honour of this Prince.

Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in 10 hearing the Knight's reflections, which were partly private, and partly political, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe with him over a dish of Coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take a delight in complying with every thing that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the 15 Coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of Tobacco, a dish of Coffee, a wax candle, and the Supplement, with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the Coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that no body else could come at a dish of Tea, till the Knight had got all his conveniencies about him.

20

N° 295. Thursday, February 7. [1712.]

Prodiga non sentit pereuntem fæmina censum :

At velut exhaustâ redivivus pullulet arcâ

Nummus, et è pleno semper tollatur acervo,

Non unquam reputat quanti sibi gaudia constent. Juv.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

"I am turned of my great climacteric, and am naturally a "man of a meek temper. About a dozen years ago I was "married, for my sins, to a young woman of a good family, "and of an high spirit; but could not bring her to close with "me, before I had entered into a treaty with her longer than "that of the grand Alliance. Among other articles, it was "therein stipulated, that she should have 400 7. a year for "Pin-money, which I obliged my self to pay quarterly into "the hands of one who acted as her Plenipotentiary in that "affair. I have ever since religiously observed my part in "this solemn agreement. Now, Sir, so it is, that the Lady "has had several children since I married her; to which, if "I should credit our malicious neighbours, her Pin-money "has not a little contributed. The education of these my "children, who, contrary to my expectation, are born to me every year, streightens me so much that I have begged "their mother to free me from the obligation of the above"mentioned Pin-money, that it may go towards making a provision for her family. This proposal makes her noble "blood swell in her veins, insomuch that finding me a little tardy in her last quarter's payment, she threatens me every day to arrest me; and proceeds so far as to tell me, that if "I do not do her justice, I shall dye in a jayl. To this she "adds, when her passion will let her argue calmly, that she "has several play-debts on her hand, which must be dis66 charged very suddenly, and that she cannot lose her money

66

66

66

66

5

IO

15

20

25

5

[ocr errors]

"as becomes a woman of her fashion, if she makes me any "abatements in this article. I hope, Sir, you will take an "occasion from hence to give your opinion upon a subject "which you have not yet touched, and inform us if there are any precedents for this usage among our ancestors; 66 or whether you find any mention of Pin-money in Grotius, Puffendorf, or any other of the Civilians.

66

66

I am ever the humblest of your Admirers, Josiah Fribble, Esq;

As there is no man living who is a more professed advocate for the fair sex than my self, so there is none that would be more unwilling to invade any of their ancient rights and privileges; but as the doctrine of Pin-money is of a very late date, unknown to our great grandmothers, and not yet received by many of our modern Ladies, I think it is for the interest of 15 both sexes to keep it from spreading.

20

Mr. Fribble may not, perhaps, be much mistaken where he intimates, that the supplying a man's wife with Pin-money, is furnishing her with arms against himself, and in a manner becoming accessary to his own dishonour. We may, indeed, generally observe, that in proportion as a woman is more or less beautiful, and her husband advanced in years, she stands in need of a greater or less number of Pins, and upon a treaty of marriage, rises or falls in her demands accordingly. It must likewise be owned, that high quality in a Mistress does 25 very much inflame this article in the marriage reckoning.

But where the age and circumstances of both parties are pretty much upon a level, I cannot but think the insisting upon Pin-money is very extraordinary; and yet we find several matches broken off upon this very head. What would a 30 foreigner, or one who is a stranger to this practice, think of a Lover that forsakes his Mistress, because he is not willing to keep her in Pins; but what would he think of the Mistress, should he be informed that she asks five or six hundred

pounds a year for this use? Should a man unacquainted

with our customs be told the sums which are allowed in Great Britain, under the title of Pin-money, what a prodigious consumption of Pins would he think there was in this island? A Pin a day, says our frugal proverb, is a groat a year; so that according to this calculation, my friend Fribble's wife must every year make use of eight millions six hundred and forty thousand new Pins.

I am not ignorant that our British Ladies alledge they comprehend under this general term several other conveniences of life; I could therefore wish, for the honour of my countrywomen, that they had rather called it Needle-money, which might have implied something of good-housewifry, and not have given the malicious world occasion to think, that dress and trifle have always the uppermost place in a woman's thoughts.

5

IO

15

20

I know several of my fair Readers urge, in defence of this practice, that it is but a necessary provision to make for themselves, in case their husband proves a churl or a miser; so that they consider this allowance as a kind of Alimony, which they may lay their claim to without actually separating from their husbands. But with submission, I think a woman who will give up her self to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apprehension, and trust her person to one whom she will not rely on for the common necessaries of life, 25 may very properly be accused (in the phrase of an homely proverb) of being penny wise and pound foolish.

It is observed of over-cautious Generals, that they never engage in a battel without securing a retreat, in case the event should not answer their expectations; on the other hand, the greatest Conquerors have burnt their ships, and broke down the bridges behind them, as being determined either to succeed or die in the engagement. In the same manner I should very much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for

30

« ZurückWeiter »