(T.) — —— — To
live great, Had made her Husband rob the State: Page
20 Line 6.
WHat our common Rogues when they are going to be
hanged chiefly complain of, as the Cause of their
untimely End, is, next to the neglect of the Sabbath,
their having kept Company with ill Women, meaning
Whores; and I don’t question, but that among the
lesser Villains many venture their Necks to indulge
and satisfy their low Amours. But the Words that have
given Occasion to this Remark, may serve to hint to
us, that among the great ones Men are often put upon
such dangerous Projects, and forced into such
pernicious Measures by their Wives, as the most subtle
Mistress never could have persuaded them to. I have
shewn already that the worst of Women and most
profligate of the Sex did contribute to the
Consumption of Superfluities, as well as the
Necessaries of Life, and consequently were Beneficial
to many peaceable Drudges, that work hard to maintain
their Families, and have no worse design than an
honest Livelihood. —Let them be banished
notwithstanding, says a good Man: When every Strumpet
is gone, and the Land wholly freed from Lewdness, God
Almighty will pour such Blessings upon it as will
vastly exceed the Profits that are now got by
Harlots.—This perhaps would be true; but I can make it
evident, that with or without Prostitutes, nothing
could make amends for the Detriment Trade would
sustain, if all those of that Sex, who enjoy the happy
State of Matrimony, should act and behave themselves
as a sober wise Man could wish them.
The variety of Work that is perform’d, and the number
of Hands employ’d to gratify the Fickleness and Luxury
of Women is prodigious, and if only the married ones
should hearken to Reason and just Remonstrances, think
themselves sufficiently answer’d with the first
refusal, and never ask a second time what had been
once denied them: If, I say, Married Women would do
this, and then lay out no Money but what their
Husbands knew and freely allowed of, the Consumption
of a thousand things, they now make use of, would be
lessened by at least a fourth Part. Let us go from
House to House and observe the way of the World only
among the middling People, creditable Shop-keepers,
that spend Two or Three Hundred a Year, and we shall
find the Women when
they have half a Score Suits of Clothes, Two or Three
of them not the worse for wearing, will think it a
sufficient Plea for new Ones, if they can say that
they have never a Gown or Petticoat, but what they
have been often seen in, and are known by, especially
at Church; I don’t speak now of profuse extravagant
Women, but such as are counted Prudent and Moderate in
their Desires.
If by this Pattern we should in Proportion judge of
the highest Ranks, where the richest Clothes are but a
trifle to their other Expences, and not forget the
Furniture of all sorts, Equipages, Jewels, and
Buildings of Persons of Quality, we should find the
fourth Part I speak of a vast Article in Trade, and
that the Loss of it would be a greater Calamity to
such a Nation as ours, than it is possible to conceive
any other, a raging Pestilence not excepted: for the
Death of half a Million of People could not cause a
tenth Part of the Disturbance to the Kingdom, that the
same Number of Poor unemploy’d would certainly create,
if at once they were to be added to those, that
already one way or other are a Burthen to the Society.
Some few Men have a real Passion for their Wives, and
are fond of them without reserve; others that don’t
care, and have little Occasion for Women, are yet
seemingly uxorious, and love out of Vanity; they take
Delight in a handsome Wife, as a Coxcomb does in a
fine Horse, not for the use he makes of it, but
because it is His: The Pleasure lies in the
consciousness of an uncontrolable Possession, and what
follows from it, the Reflexion on the mighty Thoughts
he imagines others to have of his Happiness. The Men
of either sort may be very lavish to their Wives, and
often preventing their Wishes croud New Clothes and
other Finery upon them faster than they can ask it,
but the greatest part are wiser than to indulge the
Extravagances of their Wives so far, as to give them
immediately every thing they are pleas’d to fancy.
It is incredible what vast quantity of Trinkets as
well as Apparel are purchas’d and used by Women, which
they could never have come at by any other means, than
pinching their Families, Marketting, and other ways of
cheating and pilfering from their Husbands: Others by
ever teazing their Spouses, tire them into Compliance,
and conquer even obstinate Churls by perseverance and
their assiduity of asking; A Third sort are outrageous
at a denial, and by downright Noise and Scolding bully
their tame Fools out of any thing they have a mind to;
while thousands by the force of Wheedling know how to
overcome the best weigh’d Reasons and the most
positive reiterated Refusals; the Young and Beautiful
especially laugh at all Remonstrances and Denials, and
few of them scruple to employ the most tender Minutes
of Wedlock to promote a sordid Interest. Here had I
time I could inveigh with warmth against those Base,
those wicked Women, who calmly play their Arts and
false deluding Charms against our Strength and
Prudence, and act the Harlots with their Husbands!
Nay, she is worse than Whore, who impiously prophanes
and prostitutes the Sacred Rites of Love to Vile
Ignoble Ends; that first excites to Passion and
invites to Joys with seeming Ardour, then racks our
Fondness for no other purpose than to extort a Gift,
while full of Guile in Counterfeited Transports she
watches for the Moment when Men can least deny.
I beg pardon for this Start out of my way, and desire
the experienced Reader duly to weigh what has been
said as to the main Purpose, and after that call to
mind the temporal Blessings, which Men daily hear not
only toasted and wish’d for, when People are merry and
doing of nothing; but likewise gravely and solemnly
pray’d for in Churches, and other religious
Assemblies, by Clergymen of all Sorts and Sizes: And
as soon as he shall have laid these Things together,
and, from what he has observ’d in the common Affairs
of Life, reason’d upon them consequentially without
Prejudice, I dare flatter my self, that he will be
oblig’d to own, that a considerable Portion of what
the Prosperity of London and Trade in general,
and consequently the Honour, Strength, Safety, and all
the worldly Interest of the Nation consist in, depends
entirely on the Deceit and vile Stratagems of Women;
and that Humility, Content, Meekness, Obedience to
reasonable Husbands, Frugality, and all the Virtues
together, if they were possess’d of them in the most
eminent Degree, could not possibly be a thousandth
Part so serviceable, to make an opulent, powerful, and
what we call a flourishing Kingdom, than their most
hateful Qualities.
I don’t question, but many of my Readers will be
startled at this Assertion, when they look on the
Consequences that may be drawn from it; and I shall be
ask’d, whether People may not as well be virtuous in a
populous, rich, wide, extended Kingdom, as in a small,
indigent State or Principality, that is poorly inhabited?
And if that be impossible, Whether it is not the Duty
of all Sovereigns to reduce their Subjects, as to
Wealth and Numbers, as much as they can? If I allow
they may, I own my self in the wrong; and if I affirm
the other, my Tenets will justly be call’d impious, or
at least dangerous to all large Societies. As it is
not in this Place of the Book only, but a great many
others, that such Queries might be made even by a
well-meaning Reader, I shall here explain my self, and
endeavour to solve those Difficulties, which several
Passages might have rais’d in him, in order to
demonstrate the Consistency of my Opinion to Reason,
and the strictest Morality.
I lay down as a first Principle, that in all
Societies, great or small, it is the Duty of every
Member of it to be good, that Virtue ought to be
encourag’d, Vice discountenanc’d, the Laws obey’d, and
the Transgressors punish’d. After this I affirm, that
if we consult History both Ancient and Modern, and
take a view of what has past in the World, we shall
find that Human Nature since the Fall of Adam
has always been the same, and that the Strength and
Frailties of it have ever been conspicuous in one Part
of the Globe or other, without any Regard to Ages,
Climates, or Religion. I never said, nor imagin’d,
that Man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and
mighty Kingdom, as in the most pitiful Commonwealth;
but I own it is my Sense that no Society can be rais’d
into such a rich and mighty Kingdom, or so rais’d,
subsist in their Wealth and Power for any considerable
Time, without the Vices of Man.
This I imagine is sufficiently prov’d throughout the
Book; and as Human Nature still continues the same, as
it has always been for so many thousand Years, we have
no great Reason to suspect a future Change in it,
while the World endures. Now I cannot see what
Immorality there is in
shewing a Man the Origin and Power of those Passions,
which so often, even unknowingly to himself, hurry him
away from his Reason; or that there is any Impiety in
putting him upon his Guard against himself, and the
secret Stratagems of Self-Love, and teaching him the
difference between such Actions as proceed from a
Victory over the Passions, and those that are only the
result of a Conquest which one Passion obtains over
another; that is, between Real, and Counterfeited
Virtue. It is an admirable Saying of a worthy Divine,
That tho’ many Discoveries have been made in the
World of Self-Love, there is yet abundance of
Terra incognita left behind. What hurt do I do to
Man if I make him more known to himself than he was
before? But we are all so desperately in Love with
Flattery, that we can never relish a Truth that is
mortifying, and I don’t believe that the Immortality
of the Soul, a Truth broach’d long before
Christianity, would have ever found such a general
Reception in human Capacities as it has, had it not
been a pleasing one, that extoll’d and was a
Compliment to the whole Species, the Meanest and most
Miserable not excepted.
Every one loves to hear the Thing well spoke of, that
he has a Share in, even Bailiffs, Goal-keepers, and
the Hangman himself would have you think well of their
Functions; nay, Thieves and House-breakers have a
greater Regard to those of their Fraternity than they
have for Honest People; and I sincerely believe, that
it is chiefly Self-Love that has gained this little
Treatise (as it was before the last Impression)
so many Enemies; every one
looks upon it as an Affront done to himself, because
it detracts from the Dignity, and lessens the fine
Notions he had conceiv’d of Mankind, the most
Worshipful Company he belongs to. When I say that
Societies cannot be rais’d to Wealth and Power, and
the Top of Earthly Glory without Vices, I don’t think
that by so saying I bid Men be Vicious, any more than
I bid ’em be Quarrelsome or Covetous, when I affirm
that the Profession of the Law could not be maintain’d
in such Numbers and Splendor, if there was not
abundance of too Selfish and Litigious People.
But as nothing would more clearly demonstrate the
Falsity of my Notions, than that the generality of the
People should fall in with them, so I don’t expect the
Approbation of the Multitude. I write not to many, nor
seek for any Well-wishers, but among the few that can
think abstractly, and have their Minds elevated above
the Vulgar. If I have shewn the way to worldly
Greatness, I have always without Hesitation preferr’d
the Road that leads to Virtue.
Would you banish Fraud and Luxury, prevent
Profaneness and Irreligion, and make the generality of
the People Charitable, Good and Virtuous, break down
the Printing-Presses, melt the Founds, and burn all
the Books in the Island, except those at the
Universities, where they remain unmolested, and suffer
no Volume in private Hands but a Bible: Knock down
Foreign Trade, prohibit all Commerce with Strangers,
and permit no Ships to go to Sea, that ever will
return, beyond Fisher-Boats. Restore to the Clergy,
the King and the Barons their Ancient Privileges,
Prerogatives and Possessions : Build New
Churches, and convert all the Coin you can come at
into Sacred Utensils: Erect Monasteries and Almshouses
in abundance, and let no Parish be without a
Charity-School. Enact Sumptuary Laws, and let your
Youth be inured to Hardship: Inspire them with all the
nice and most refined Notions of Honour and Shame, of
Friendship and of Heroism, and introduce among them a
great Variety of imaginary Rewards: Then let the
Clergy preach Abstinence and Self-denial to others,
and take what Liberty they please for themselves; let
them bear the greatest Sway in the Management of
State-Affairs, and no Man be made Lord-Treasurer but a
Bishop.
By such pious Endeavours, and wholsome Regulations,
the Scene would be soon alter’d; the
greatest part of the Covetous, the Discontented, the
Restless and Ambitious Villains would leave the Land,
vast Swarms of Cheating Knaves would abandon the City,
and be dispers’d throughout the Country: Artificers
would learn to hold the Plough, Merchants turn
Farmers, and the sinful over-grown Jerusalem,
without Famine, War, Pestilence, or Compulsion, be
emptied in the most easy manner, and ever after cease
to be dreadful to her Sovereigns. The happy reform’d
Kingdom would by this means be crowded in no part of
it, and every thing Necessary for the Sustenance of
Man be cheap and abound: On the contrary, the Root of
so many thousand Evils, Money, would be very scarce,
and as little wanted , where every
Man should enjoy the Fruits of his own Labour, and our
own dear Manufacture unmix’d be promiscuously wore by
the Lord and the Peasant. It is impossible, that such
a Change of Circumstances should not influence the
Manners of a Nation, and render them Temperate,
Honest, and Sincere, and from the next Generation we
might reasonably expect a more healthy and robust
Offspring than the present; an harmless, innocent and
well-meaning People, that would never dispute the
Doctrine of Passive Obedience, nor any other
Orthodox Principles, but be submissive to Superiors,
and unanimous in religious Worship.
Here I fancy my self interrupted by an Epicure,
who not to want a restorative Diet in case of
Necessity, is never without live Ortelans, and I am
told that Goodness and Probity are to be had at a
cheaper rate than the Ruin of a Nation, and the
Destruction of all the Comforts of Life; that Liberty
and Property may be maintain’d without Wickedness or
Fraud, and Men be good Subjects without being Slaves,
and religious tho’ they refus’d to be Priest-rid; that
to be frugal and saving is a Duty incumbent only on
those, whose Circumstances require it, but that a Man
of a good Estate does his Country a Service by living
up to the Income of it; that as to himself, he is so
much Master of his Appetites that he can abstain from
any thing upon occasion; that where true Hermitage
was not to be had he could content himself with plain
Bourdeaux, if it had a good Body; that many a
Morning instead of St. Lawrence he has made a Shift with Fronteniac,
and after Dinner given Cyprus Wine, and even Madera,
when he has had a large Company, and thought it
Extravagant to treat with Tockay; but that all
voluntary Mortifications are Superstitious, only
belonging to blind Zealots and Enthusiasts. He’ll
quote my Lord Shaftsbury against me, and tell
me that People may be Virtuous and Sociable without
Self-denial, that it is an
Affront to Virtue to make it inaccessible, that I make
a Bugbear of it to frighten Men from it as a thing
impracticable; but that for his part he can praise
God, and at the same time enjoy his Creatures with a
good Conscience; neither will he forget any thing to
his Purpose of what I have said, Page 127. He’ll ask
me at last, whether the Legislature, the Wisdom of the
Nation it self, while they endeavour as much as possible to
discourage Profaneness and Immorality, and promote the
Glory of God, do not openly profess at the same time
to have nothing more at Heart than the Ease and
Welfare of the Subject, the Wealth, Strength, Honour,
and what else is call’d the true Interest of the
Country; and moreover, whether the most Devout and
most Learned of our Prelates in their greatest Concern
for our Conversion, when they beseech the Deity to
turn their own as well as our Hearts from the World
and all Carnal Desires, do not in the same Prayer as
loudly sollicit him to pour all Earthly Blessings and
temporal Felicity on the Kingdom they belong to.
These are the Apologies, the Excuses and common
Pleas, not only of those who are notoriously vicious,
but the generality of Mankind, when you touch the
Copy-hold of their Inclinations; and trying the real
Value they have for Spirituals, would actually strip
them of what their Minds are wholly bent upon. Ashamed
of the many Frailties they feel within, all Men
endeavour to hide themselves, their Ugly Nakedness ,
from each other, and wrapping up the true Motives of
their Hearts in the Specious Cloke of Sociableness,
and their Concern for the publick Good, they are in
hopes of concealing their filthy Appetites and the
Deformity of their Desires; while they are conscious
within of the Fondness for their darling Lusts, and
their Incapacity, barefac’d, to tread the arduous,
rugged Path of Virtue.
As to the two last Questions, I own they are very
puzzling: To what the Epicure asks I am
oblig’d to answer in the Affirmative; and unless I
would (which God forbid!) arraign the Sincerity of
Kings, Bishops, and the whole Legislative Power, the
Objection stands good against me: All I can say for
myself is, that in the Connexion of the Facts there is
a Mystery past Human Understanding; and to convince
the Reader, that this is no Evasion, I shall
illustrate the Incomprehensibility of it in the
following Parable.
In old Heathen Times there was, they say, a whimsical
Country, where the People talk’d much of Religion, and
the greatest part as to outward Appearance seem’d
really Devout: The chief moral Evil among them was
Thirst, and to quench it a damnable Sin; yet they
unanimously agreed that every one was born Thirsty
more or less: Small Beer in Moderation was allow’d to
all, and he was counted an Hypocrite, a Cynick, or a
Madman, who pretended that one could live altogether
without it; yet those, who owned they loved it, and
drank it to Excess, were counted wicked. All this
while the Beer it self was reckon’d a Blessing from
Heaven, and there was no harm in the use of it; all
the Enormity lay in the Abuse, the Motive of the
Heart, that made them drink it. He that took the least
Drop of it to quench his Thirst, committed a heinous
Crime, while others drank large Quantities without any
Guilt, so they did it indifferently, and for no other
Reason than to mend their Complexion.
They Brew’d for other Countries as well as their own,
and for the Small Beer they sent abroad, they received
large Returns of Westphalia-Hams, Neats-Tongues,
Hung-Beef, and Bolonia-Sausages, Red-Herrings,
Pickled-Sturgeon, Cavear, Anchoves, and every thing
that was proper to make their Liquor go down with
Pleasure. Those who kept great Stores of Small Beer by
them without making use of it, were generally envied,
and at the same time very odious to the Publick, and
no body was easy that had not enough of it come to his
own share. The greatest Calamity they thought could
befal them, was to keep their Hops and Barley upon
their Hands, and the more they yearly consumed of
them, the more they reckon’d the Country to flourish.
264The Government had many very wise
Regulations concerning the Returns that were made for
their Exports, encouraged very much the Importation of
Salt and Pepper, and laid heavy Duties on every thing
that was not well season’d, and might any ways
obstruct the Sale of their own Hops and Barley. Those
at Helm, when they acted in publick, shew’d
themselves on all Accounts exempt and wholly divested
from Thirst, made several Laws to prevent the Growth
of it, and punish the Wicked who openly dared to
quench it. If you examin’d them in their private
Persons, and pry’d narrowly into their Lives and
Conversations, they seem’d to be more fond, or at
least drank larger Draughts of Small Beer than others,
but always under Pretence that the mending of
Complexions required greater Quantities of Liquor in
them, than it did in those they Ruled over; and that,
what they had chiefly at Heart, without any regard to
themselves, was to procure great Plenty of Small Beer
among the Subjects in general, and a great Demand for
their Hops and Barley.
As no body was debarr’d from Small Beer, the Clergy
made use of it as well as the Laity, and some of them
very plentifully; yet all of them desired to be
thought less Thirsty by their Function than others,
and never would own that they drank any but to mend
their Complexions. In their Religious Assemblies they
were more sincere; for as soon as they came there,
they all openly confess’d, the Clergy as well as the
Laity, from the highest to the lowest, that they were
Thirsty, that mending their Complexions was what they
minded the least, and that all their Hearts were set
upon Small Beer and quenching their Thirst, whatever
they might pretend to the contrary. What was
remarkable is, that to have laid hold of those Truths
to any one’s Prejudice, and made use of those
Confessions afterwards out of their Temples would have
been counted very impertinent, and every body thought
it an heinous Affront to be call’d Thirsty,
tho’ you had seen him drink Small Beer by whole
Gallons. The chief Topicks of their Preachers was the
great Evil of Thirst, and the Folly there was in
quenching it. They exhorted their Hearers to resist
the Temptations of it, inveigh’d against Small Beer,
and often told them it was Poison, if they drank it
with Pleasure, or any other Design than to mend their
Complexions.
In their Acknowledgments to the Gods, they thank’d
them for the Plenty of comfortable Small Beer they had
receiv’d from them, notwithstanding they had so little
deserv’d it, and continually quench’d their Thirst
with it; whereas they were so thorowly satisfy’d, that
it was given them for a better Use. Having begg’d
Pardon for those Offences, they desired the Gods to
lessen their Thirst, and give them Strength to resist
the Importunities of it; yet, in the midst of their
sorest Repentance, and most humble
Supplications, they never forgot Small Beer, and
pray’d that they might continue to have it in great
Plenty, with a solemn Promise, that how neglectful
soever they might hitherto have been in this Point,
they would for the future not drink a Drop of it with
any other Design than to mend their Complexions.
These were standing Petitions put together to last;
and having continued to be made use of without any
Alterations for several hundred Years together; it was
thought by some, that the Gods, who understood
Futurity, and knew that the same Promise they heard in
June would be made to them the January
following, did not rely much more on those Vows, than
we do on those waggish Inscriptions by which Men offer
us their Goods, To-day for Money, and To-morrow for
nothing. They often began their Prayers very
mystically, and spoke many things in a spiritual
Sense; yet, they never were so abstract from the World
in them, as to end one without beseeching the Gods to
bless and prosper the Brewing Trade in all its
Branches, and for the Good of the Whole, more and more
to increase the Consumption of Hops and Barley.