Volume Iii Part 36 (1/2)

Then they must further a.s.sent to a prescribed form of disavowal, and deprive Rechteren of his place as a deputy. This was the high policy of the affair of the lackeys, which, as Addison says, held all the affairs of Europe in suspense, a policy avowed with all complacency by the high politician who was puller of the strings. (Memoires de Torcy, Vol. iii.

pp. 411-13.)

[Footnote 4: It is Monsieur in the first issue and also in the first reprint.]

[Footnote 5: [begun]]

No. 482. Friday, September 12, 1712. Addison.

'Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant.'

Lucr.

When I have published any single Paper that falls in with the Popular Taste, and pleases more than ordinary, it always brings me in a great return of Letters. My _Tuesday's_ Discourse, wherein I gave several Admonitions to the Fraternity of the _Henpeck'd_, has already produced me very many Correspondents; the Reason I cannot guess at, unless it be that such a Discourse is of general Use, and every married Man's Money.

An honest Tradesman, who dates his Letter from _Cheapside_, sends me Thanks in the name of a Club, who, he tells me, meet as often as their Wives will give them leave, and stay together till they are sent for home. He informs me, that my Paper has administered great Consolation to their whole Club, and desires me to give some further Account of _Socrates_, and to acquaint them in whose Reign he lived, whether he was a Citizen or a Courtier, whether he buried _Xantippe_, with many other particulars: For that by his Sayings he appears to have been a very Wise Man and a good Christian. Another, who writes himself _Benjamin Bamboo_, tells me, that being coupled with a Shrew, he had endeavoured to tame her by such lawful means as those which I mentioned in my last _Tuesday's_ Paper, and that in his Wrath he had often gone further than _Bracton_ allows in those cases; but that for the future he was resolved to bear it like a Man of Temper and Learning, and consider her only as one who lives in his House to teach him Philosophy. _Tom Dapperwit_ says, that he agrees with me in that whole Discourse, excepting only the last Sentence, where I affirm the married State to be either an Heaven or an h.e.l.l. _Tom_ has been at the charge of a Penny upon this occasion, to tell me, that by his Experience it is neither one nor the other, but rather that middle kind of State, commonly known by the Name of _Purgatory_.

The Fair s.e.x have likewise obliged me with their Reflections upon the same Discourse. A Lady, who calls herself _Euterpe_, and seems a Woman of Letters, asks me whether I am for establis.h.i.+ng the _Salick_ Law in every Family, and why it is not fit that a Woman who has Discretion and Learning should sit at the Helm, when the Husband is weak and illiterate? Another, of a quite contrary Character, subscribes herself _Xantippe_, and tells me, that she follows the Example of her Name-sake; for being married to a Bookish Man, who has no Knowledge of the World, she is forced to take their Affairs into her own Hands, and to spirit him up now and then, that he may not grow musty, and unfit for Conversation.

After this Abridgment of some Letters which are come to my hands upon this Occasion, I shall publish one of them at large.

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

You have given us a lively Picture of that kind of Husband who comes under the Denomination of the Hen-peck'd; but I do not remember that you have ever touched upon one that is of the quite different Character, and who, in several Places of _England_, goes by the Name of a Cot-Quean. I have the Misfortune to be joined for Life with one of this Character, who in reality is more a Woman than [I am. [1]] He was bred up under the Tuition of a tender Mother, till she had made him as good a House-wife as her self. He could preserve Apricots, and make Gellies, before he had been two Years out of the Nursery. He was never suffered to go abroad, for fear of catching Cold: when he should have been hunting down a Buck, he was by his Mother's Side learning how to Season it, or put it in Crust; and was making Paper-Boats with his Sisters, at an Age when other young Gentlemen are crossing the Seas, or travelling into Foreign Countries. He has the whitest Hand that you ever saw in your Life, and raises Paste better than any Woman in _England_. These Qualifications make him a sad Husband: He is perpetually in the Kitchin, and has a thousand Squabbles with the Cook-maid. He is better acquainted with the Milk-Score, than his Steward's Accounts. I fret to Death when I hear him find fault with a Dish that is not dressed to his liking, and instructing his Friends that dine with him in the best Pickle for a Walnut, or Sauce for an Haunch of Venison. With all this, he is a very good-natured Husband, and never fell out with me in his Life but once, upon the over-roasting of a Dish of Wild-Fowl: At the same time I must own I would rather he was a Man of a rough Temper, that would treat me harshly sometimes, than of such an effeminate busy Nature in a Province that does not belong to him. Since you have given us the Character of a Wife who wears the Breeches, pray say something of a Husband that wears the Petticoat. Why should not a Female Character be as ridiculous in a Man, as a Male Character in one of our s.e.x?

_I am_, &c.

O.

[Footnote 1: [my self.]]

No. 483. Sat.u.r.day, September 13, 1712. Addison.