Volume Ii Part 5 (2/2)
_Picadilly, October_ 31, 1711.
_SIR,_
I am joined in Wedlock for my Sins to one of those Fillies who are described in the old Poet with that hard Name you gave us the other Day. She has a flowing Mane, and a Skin as soft as Silk: But, Sir, she pa.s.ses half her Life at her Gla.s.s, and almost ruins me in Ribbons. For my own part, I am a plain handicraft Man, and in Danger of breaking by her Laziness and Expensiveness. Pray, Master, tell me in your next Paper, whether I may not expect of her so much Drudgery as to take care of her Family, and curry her Hide in case of Refusal.
_Your loving Friend_,
Barnaby Brittle.
_Cheapside, October_ 30.
_Mr_. SPECTATOR,
I am mightily pleased with the Humour of the Cat, be so kind as to enlarge upon that Subject.
_Yours till Death_,
Josiah Henpeck.
P.S. You must know I am married to a _Grimalkin_.
_Wapping, October_ 31, 1711.
SIR,
Ever since your _Spectator_ of _Tuesday_ last came into our Family, my Husband is pleased to call me his _Oceana_, because the foolish old Poet that you have translated says, That the Souls of some Women are made of Sea-Water. This, it seems, has encouraged my Sauce-Box to be witty upon me. When I am angry, he cries Prythee my Dear _be calm_; when I chide one of my Servants, Prythee Child _do not bl.u.s.ter_. He had the Impudence about an Hour ago to tell me, That he was a Sea-faring Man, and must expect to divide his Life between _Storm_ and _Suns.h.i.+ne_. When I bestir myself with any Spirit in my Family, it is _high Sea_ in his House; and when I sit still without doing any thing, his Affairs forsooth are _Wind-bound_. When I ask him whether it rains, he makes Answer, It is no Matter, so that it be _fair Weather_ within Doors. In short, Sir, I cannot speak my Mind freely to him, but I either _swell_ or _rage_, or do something that is not fit for a civil Woman to hear. Pray, _Mr_. SPECTATOR, since you are so sharp upon other Women, let us know what Materials your Wife is made of, if you have one. I suppose you would make us a Parcel of poor-spirited tame insipid Creatures; but, Sir, I would have you to know, we have as good Pa.s.sions in us as your self, and that a Woman was never designed to be a Milk-Sop.
MARTHA TEMPEST.
L.
[Footnote 1: Odes, I. 16. ]
[Footnote 2: In the Timaeus Plato derives woman and all the animals from man, by successive degradations. Cowardly or unjust men are born again as women. Light, airy, and superficial men, who carried their minds aloft without the use of reason, are the materials for making birds, the hair being trans.m.u.ted into feathers and wings. From men wholly without philosophy, who never looked heavenward, the more brutal land animals are derived, losing the round form of the cranium by the slackening and stopping of the rotations of the encephalic soul. Feet are given to these according to the degree of their stupidity, to multiply approximations to the earth; and the dullest become reptiles who drag the whole length of their bodies on the ground. Out of the very stupidest of men come those animals which are not judged worthy to live at all upon earth and breathe this air, these men become fishes, and the creatures who breathe nothing but turbid water, fixed at the lowest depths and almost motionless, among the mud. By such transitions, he says, the different races of animals pa.s.sed originally and still pa.s.s into each other.]
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