former; for, as I told you she is a great artist at her needle, 'tis incredible what sums she expends in embroidery; for, besides what is appropriated to her personal use, as mantuas, petticoats, stomachers, handkerchiefs, purses, pin-cushions, and workingaprons, she keeps four French Protestants continually employed in making divers pieces of superfluous furniture, as quilts, toilets, hangings for closets, beds, window-curtains, easy chairs, and tabourets ; nor have I any hopes of ever reclaiming her from this extravagance, while she obstinately persists in thinking it a notable piece of good housewifery, because they are made at home, and she has had some share in the performance. There would be no end of relating to you the particulars of the annual charge, in furnishing her store-room with a profusion of pickles and preserves; for she is not contented with having every thing, unless it be done every way, in which she consults an hereditary book of receipts for her female ancestors have been always famed for good housewifery, one of whom is made immortal, by giving her name to an eye-water and two sorts of puddings. I cannot undertake to recite all her medicinal preparations, as salves, serecloths, powders, confects, cordials, ratafia, persico, orange-flower, and cherry-brandy, together with innumerable sorts of simple waters. But there is nothing I lay so much to my heart as that detestable catalogue of counterfeit wines, which derive their names from the fruits, herbs, or trees, of whose juices they are chiefly compounded. They are loathsome to the taste, and pernicious to the health; and as they seldom survive the year, and then are thrown away, under a false pretence of frugality, I may affirm they stand me in more than if I entertained all our visitors with the best burgundy and champaign. Coffee, chocolate, and green imperial, peco, and bohea teas, seem to be trifles; but when the proper appurtenances of the tea-table are added, they swell the account higher than one would imagine. I cannot conclude without doing her justice in one article; where her frugality is so remarkable, I must not deny her the merit of it, and that is in relation to her children, who are all confined, both boys and girls, to one large room in the remotest part of the house, with bolts on the doors and bars to the windows, under the care and tuition of an old woman, who had been dry nurse to her grandmother. This is their residence all the year round; and, as they are never allowed to appear, she prudently thinks it needless to be at any expense in apparel or learning. Her eldest daughter to this day would have neither read nor wrote, if it had been not for the butler, who, being the son of a country attorney, has taught her such a hand as is generally used for engrossing bills in chancery. By this time I have sufficiently tired your patience with my domestic grievances; which I hope you will agree could not well be contained in a narrower compass, when you consider what a paradox I undertook to maintain in the beginning of my epistle, and which manifestly appears to be but too melancholy a truth. And now I heartily wish the relation I have given of my misfortunes may be of use and benefit to the public. By the example I have set before them, the truly virtuous wives may learn to avoid these errors which have so unhappily misled mine, and which are visibly these three :First, in mistaking the proper objects of her esteem, and fixing her affections upon such things as are only the trappings and decorations of her sex. Secondly, in not distinguishing what becomes the different stages of life. And, lastly, the abuse and corruption of some excellent qualities, which, if circumscribed within just bounds, would have been the N° 328*. blessing and prosperity of her family; but, by a vicious extreme, are like to be the bane and destruction of it.'-T. No 328*. MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1711-12. Delectata illa urbanitate tam stulta.-PETRON. ARB. THAT Useful part of learning which consists in emendations, knowledge of different readings, and the like, is what in all ages persons extremely wise and learned have had in great veneration. For this reason I cannot but rejoice at the following epistle, which lets us into the true author of the letter to Mrs. Margaret Clark, part of which I did myself the honour to publish in a former paper. I must confess I do not naturally affect critical learning; but finding myself not so much regarded as I am apt to flatter myself I may deserve from some professed patrons of learning, I could not but do myself the justice to shew I am not a stranger to such erudition as they smile upon, if I were duly encouraged. However, this is only to let the world see what I could do; and shall not give my reader any more of this kind, if he will forgive the ostentation I shew at present. * As many of our readers may be pleased to see, in puris naturalibus, the original paper, in room of which the preceding number was very early substituted, and as this curiosity may now be inoffensively gratified, it is here faithfully reprinted from the copy in folio, in its order, marked as at first, No. 328*, only with the addition of an asterisk. It had the signature T. at the bottom; but see the desire annexed to the short letter in the following note, both which made the concluding part of No. 330 in the original publication of these papers in folio. 'SIR, March 13, 1711-12. Upon reading your paper of yesterday, I took the pains to look out a copy I had formerly taken, and remembered to be very like your last letter: comparing them, I found they were the very same; and have, underwritten, sent you that part of it which you say was torn off. I hope you will insert it, that posterity may know 'twas Gabriel Bullock that made love in that natural style of which you seem to be fond. But, to let you see I have other manuscripts in the same way, I have sent you enclosed three copies, faithfully taken by my own hand from the originals, which were wrote by a Yorkshire gentleman of a good estate to Madam Mary, and an uncle of hers, a knight very well known by the most ancient gentry in that and several other counties of Great Britain. I have exactly followed the form and spelling. I have been credibly informed that Mr. William Bullock, the famous comedian, is the descendant of this Gabriel, who begot Mr. William Bullock's great grandfather on the body of the abovementioned Mrs. Margaret Clark. As neither Speed, nor Baker, nor Selden, take notice of it, I will not pretend to be positive; but desire that the letter may be reprinted, and what is here recovered may be in Italics. I am, Sir, Your daily Reader.' To her I very much respect, Mrs. Margaret Clark. 'Lovely, and oh that I could write loving Mrs. Margaret Clark, I pray you let affection excuse presumption. Having been so happy as to enjoy the sight of your sweet countenance and comely body sometimes when I had occasion to buy treacle or liquorish powder at the apothecary's shop, I am so enamoured with you, that I can no more keep close my flaming desire to become your servant. And I am the more bold now to write to your sweet self, because I am now my own man, and may match where I please; for my father is taken away; and now I am come to my living, which is ten yardland, and a house; and there is never a yardland* in our field but is as well worth ten pounds a year as a thief's worth a halter; and all my brothers and sisters are provided for: besides I have good household stuff, though I say it, both brass and pewter, linens and woollens; and though my house be thatched, yet if you and I match, it shall go hard but I will have one half of it slated. If you shall think well of this motion, I will wait upon you as soon as my new clothes are made, and hay-harvest is in. I could, though I say it, have good matches in our town; but my mother (God's peace be with her) charged me upon her death-bed to marry a gentlewoman, one who had been well trained up in the sowing and cookery. I do not think but that if you and I can agree to marry, and lay our means together, I shall be made grand juryman ere two or three years come about, and that will be a great credit to us. If I could have got a messenger for sixpence, I would have sent one on purpose, and some trifle or other for a token of my love; but I hope there is nothing lost for that neither. So, hoping you will take this letter in good part, and answer it with what care and speed you can, I rest and remain, Yours, if my own, Sweepston, Leicestershire. MR. GABRIEL BULLOCK, now my father is dead. 'When the coal carts come, I shall send oftener; and may come in one of them myself.'+ In some counties 20, in some 24, and in others 30 acres of land. Virgata Terra. + See No. 324, and note, where this letter is given imperfectly, and supplied otherwise. す |