was the head-for Evelina says:

"As to the pump

room I was amazed at the public exhibition of the ladies in the bath; it is true that their heads are covered with bonnets, but the very idea of being seen in such a situation by whoever pleases to look is indelicate." But we can correct this impression from the account given of the same scene by another young lady, Miss Lydia Melford, in 'Humphry Clinker:' "Right under the pump-room window is the king's bath-a large cistern-where you see the patients up to their neck in the hot water. The ladies wear jackets and petticoats of brown linen with chip hats, in which they fix their handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat from their faces; but . . . . they look so flushed and so frightful, that I always turn my eyes another way."

No complaint was more common than that of insults offered to women when travelling in a public conveyance, by the loose and indecent talk of their male companions. And they were not always so fortunate as to find an Ephraim the Quaker, who was in the stage-coach with the Spectator when a recruiting officer began to be impertinent to a young lady, and who was abashed by his rebuke: "Thy mirth, friend, savoreth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a type of thee, it soundeth because it is

And at

empty. Verily, it is not from thy fulness but thy emptiness that thou hast spoken this day."* places of public resort, like Ranelagh and Vauxhall, ladies were exposed to the grossest insults from "pretty fellows," and "fine gentlemen," as will be shown more fully hereafter.

A second cause was, that a woman was regarded chiefly for her beauty and accomplishments, and little honor was paid to her virtues and understanding. Steele was the author of those days, who seems to have regarded women with most respect, and to have been most disposed to look upon them as something better than playthings for amusement or instruments of desire. "The love of a woman," he says, in one of his papers in the Tatler,' "is inseparable from some esteem of her, and she is naturally the object of affection; the woman who has your esteem has also some degree of your love. A man that dotes on a

6

*Spectator,' No. 132. I remember once in the old days of coaching, being on the top of a coach, when the driver told me that the day before there was a Quaker on the box, and a man behind him who was ridiculing the Bible. The Quaker remained silent until, being addressed by the stranger thus: " Come, old square-toes, you say nothing: what do you think of the story of David and Goliath? Do you believe that David killed the giant with a pebble?" he replied, "I'll tell thee what, friend, if Goliath's forehead was as soft as thy pate, there could have been no difficulty in the matter."

woman for her beauty will whisper his friend, 'That creature has a great deal of wit when you are well acquainted with her.' And if you examine the bottom of your esteem for a woman you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty than anybody else." This last sentence is certainly equivocal-for it may mean that esteem is founded upon admiration of the gift of beauty-but I think it has a nobler and profounder sense, that a man who esteems a woman finds in her a beauty which is unseen by others. The idea is the converse of that expressed by Withers in the two charming lines

"If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?"

A certain degree of license must always be allowed to the stage, and it would not be fair to consider it an exact test of the modesty and decorum of a particular period. We ourselves should be sorry to be judged hereafter by such exhibitions as take place in the ballet, where decency is outraged without a blush before the eyes of wives, mothers, and daughters. But if some future writer were to describe them, and then go on to say that they were patronized and applauded by English ladies, it would be very difficult to resist the inference that delicacy and purity among us had

sunk to a very low ebb. And when we look at the plays which were acted at the theatres during the last century we are filled with astonishment. Grave matrons and young virgins listened to and laughed at jokes as broad and coarse as those of Aristophanes, and heard without a blush the language of the stables and the stews. "It is," says the 'Spectator' (A. D. 1712), "one of the most unaccountable things in our age, that the lewdness of our theatres should be so much complained of, so well exposed, and so little redressed. . . . As matters stand at present, multitudes are shut out from this noble diversion, by reason of those abuses and corruptions that accompany it. A father is often afraid that his daughter should be ruined by those entertainments which were invented for the accomplishment and refining of human naCuckoldom is the basis of most of our modern plays. If an alderman appears upon the stage you may be sure that it is in order to be cuckoldedknights and baronets, country squires, and justices of the quorum come up to town for no other purpose The accomplished gentleman upon the English stage is the person that is familiar with other men's wives and indifferent to his own, as the fine woman is generally a composition of sprightliness and falsehood."

ture

...

Lady Cowper tells us in her 'Diary' (1715), that

she went with the Princess of Wales to see the play of the Wanton Wife'-better known as the Amorous Widow,' by Betterton, a sort of free translation of Molière's 'George Dandin,' and she says: "I had seen it once; and I believe there were few in town had seen it so seldom, for it used to be a favorite play and often bespoke by the ladies. . . . Went to the play with my mistress; and to my great satisfaction she liked it as well as any play she had seen; and it certainly is not more obscene than old comedies are. It were to be wished our stage was chaster." In a paper in the Connoisseur,' published in the middle of the century, the writer says: "I was present a few nights ago at the representation of the 'Chances,"" a most indecent play, "and when I looked round the boxes and observed the loose dress of all the ladies, and the great relish with which they received the high-seasoned jests in that comedy, I was almost apprehensive that the old story of the outrage of the Romans on the Sabine women would be inverted."

In a letter from Richardson, in 1748, to Lady Bradshaigh, who under the feigned name of Belfour carried on a correspondence with him, he says, "A good comedy is a fine performance; but how few are there which can be called good? Even those that are tolerable, are so mixed with indecent levities (at which