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In paring modern with a manners, leased to pliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as females.I shall believe that this principle actuates our duct, when I fet, that in the eenth tury of the era from which we date our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent practice of whipping females in publi on with the coarsest male offenders.
I shall believe it to be iial, when I shut my eyes to the fact, that in England womeill occasionally -- hanged.
I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen.
I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, whie unlucky dray has just dissipated. I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts in this refi, shall act upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not observed -- when I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders of the poor woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the same stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain -- when I shall no longer see a woman standing up i of a Londore, till she is sid faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till ohat seems to have more manners or sce than the rest, signifitly declares "she should be wele to his seat, if she were a little younger and handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that ri<bdi>藏书网</bdi>der, in a circle of their own female acquaintance, and you shall fess you have not seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.
Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle influeng our duct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.
Until that day es, I shall never believe this boasted point to be any thing more than a ventional fi; a pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which both find their at equally.
I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fis of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as<tt></tt> to handsome, to coarse plexions as to clear -- to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title.
I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed pany advert to the topic of female old age without exg, and intending to excite, a sneer: -- when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one has "overstood her market," pronounced in good pany, shall raise immediate offen man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.
Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, mert, and one of the Directors of the South-Sea pany -- the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare entator, has addressed a fine so -- was the only pattern of sistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at an early age, aowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts and example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not much) in my position. It was not his fault that I did not profit more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a mert, he was the fi gentleman of his time. He had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distin. But he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casu<big>藏书网</big>alties of a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed -- smile if you please -- to a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to some street -- in such a posture of unforced civility, as her to embarrass her in the acceptanor himself in the offer, of it. He was no dangler, in the on acceptation of the word, after women: but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen him -- nay, smile not --tenderly esc a market-woman, whom he had entered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a tess. To the reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to an a beggarwoman) with more ceremony than we afford to show randams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses, that had long faded theill bloomed for him in those withered and yellow cheeks.
He was never married, hut in his youth he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley -- old Winstanleys daughter of Clapton -- who dying in the early days of their courtship, firmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speech -- the on gallantries -- to which kind of thing she had hitherto maed nnance -- but in this instah no effect. He could not obtain from her a det aowledgment iurn. She rather seemed to resent his pliments. He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her ess of yesterday, she fessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown pliments; that a young laced in her situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of insiy, with as little injury to her humility as most young women: but that -- a little before he had enced his pliment -- she had overheard him by act, in rather rough language, rating a young woman, who had nht home his cravats quite to the appoiime, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady -- a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, -- I have my choice of the fi speeches from the mouth of this very fileman who is c me -- but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one (naming the milliner), -- and had failed ing home the cravats to the appointed hour -- though perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them -- what sort of pliments should I have received then? -- And my ride came to my assistance; and I thought, that if it were only to do me honour, a female, like myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches, to the promise of that sex, the belonging to which was after all my stro claim and title to them."
I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagihat the unon strain of courtesy, which through life regulated the as and behaviour of my friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy in to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress.
I wish the whole female world would eain the same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something of the spirit of sistent gallantry; and no longer withe anomaly of the same man -- a pattern of true politeo a wife -- of cold pt, or rudeness, to a sister -- the idolater of his female mistress -- the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate -- still female -- maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever dition placed -- her handmaid, or depe -- she deserves to have diminished from herself on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, ay, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attra. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after i<cite>.</cite>t, is first -- respect for her as she is a woman; -- ao that -- to be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon her female character as upon a foundation; ahe attentions, io individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and ors -- as many, and as fanciful, as you please -- to that main structure. Let her first lesson -- with sweet Susan Winstanley -- to reverence her sex.
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