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THE MODERN SPECTATOR No. VIII

1811-11 :Pages 271-276

Money being the common scale

Of things by measure, weight, and tale;

In all th’ affairs of church and state,

Is both the balance and the weight.

Money is the sov’reign power

That all mankind fall down before:

’Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all

That men divine and sacred call.

Does more than beauty’s utmost charms

T’ extend the lover’s longing arms:

For what’s the worth of any thing,

But so much money as ‘twill bring?

Hudibras

It is ingeniously observed by an eminent moral as well as philosophical writer, that comic playwrights exaggerate every character, and draw their fop or spendthrift, their bully or sharper, their old maid or coquette, with stronger features than are any where to be met with in nature. Indeed, this kind of dramatic painting may be compared to pictures designed for domes and ceilings, where, to produce their proper effect, the colours must be heightened, and the forms of the figures enlarged beyond their natural appearance. Thus the objects of the composition seem monstrous when seen too nigh, but acquire a due proportion when examined in the precise view in which the painter designed them to be surveyed.

This kind of exaggeration, when applied to the stage, is, I think, to be allowed only when the writer means not merely to describe a character, but a passion. In the former it becomes him to keep close to his original, otherwise he launches into caricature, and consequently gives impressions that deceive, instead of affording instruction; but in the latter, where the vice or the folly in all its tendencies and ramifications is compressed into one form, when, instead of representing an individual as he is seen under the partial influence of any predominant passion, the whole is condensed into one mind, and operates in all possible directions, it is no longer a natural representation, because Nature disdains such a compound: at the same time, when it is managed with skill, the effect on the spectator may, in certain cases, be rendered very powerful in producing moral instruction and improvement, which is the legitimate object of all dramatic productions.

This seems to have been the design of Moliere in his play of L’Avare, which, having been translated into English, and frequently acted on our stage under the title of the Miser, is well known to all who are fond of the drama. This character is not intended to represent an ordinary miser, but to be the personification of avarice itself; which, though one of the most detestable passions of the human breast, furnishes, perhaps, more ridiculous varieties than any other; and while it creates as much disgust as the understanding which contemplates it can feel, its conduct is pregnant with circumstances equally calculated to produce mirth; at the same time its distresses are generally of a nature which the most benevolent heart cannot regard with commiseration.

Hence it is that the moralists and philosophers of all ages, who have attacked this irreclaimable vice, appear to have preferred the weapons of wit and humour, in order to create the laugh against it; than those of serious argument and solemn observation, to awaken grave sentiment and moral abhorrence. Thus we find ourselves, as it were, habitually disposed to make avaricious characters the objects rather of a laughing derision, than bitter reproach. Who, it may be asked, can check sensations of merriment at the following stories of misers, though represented to be in the most awful of all situations – the hour of death?

An old usurer, stretched on his sick bed, and in his last agonies, was presented by the priest with a rich crucifix as an object of worship and consolation. He opens his eyes, considers the cross, and exclaims, ere he expires—"Those jewels are all false, and I can only lend five pounds on such a pledge."

Another well known miser, finding himself at his last hour, sent for some of the directors of a neighbouring charity, and gave them a bill of a hundred pounds, payable after his decease, which sum he ordered to be disposed of in the service of their institution; but they had not left the room many minutes when he ordered them to be called back, and offered them ready money if they would allow him the discount. I do not answer for the authenticity of these stories, though our own experience will, I should imagine, furnish us with similar instances of persevering avarice.

One of the best fables of La Motte is on this subject, and does not fail in giving pleasantry to its moral.--"A miser being dead, and, which is of consequence on the occasion, being interred, arrived at the banks of the Styx, and desired to be ferried over with the other ghosts. Charon, however, insisted on his fare; and was equally disappointed and surprised when he saw the miser, in order to avoid paying it, throw himself into the river, and swim over to the other side, in spite of all the clamour and opposition which the unexpected attempt occasioned. All hell was in an uproar; and each of the judges meditated some punishment proportioned to a crime of such dangerous consequence to the infernal revenues. Shall he be chained to the rock with Prometheus? or tremble beneath the precipice in company with the Danaides? or assist Sisyphus in rolling his stone? were the questions which issued from the tribunal. 'No,' said Minos; 'none of these is sufficient, we must invent some severer punishment. Let him be sent back to the earth, to see the use which his heirs are making of his riches.'"

Just as I had finished this lively apologue, I received the following letter, which, though it is not an immediate branch of the subject before me, may be considered as bearing such a relation to it, as to justify its present insertion. Besides, I may, at any time, write an essay on Avarice; but it is not always in my power to oblige a young lady of talents and beauty. That my fair correspondent possesses the former, her letter sufficiently proves; and that she is adorned with the latter, I am most willing to believe, as I have her own authority for it.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

It is now six months, sir, since I attained twenty-one years of age, and I have reason to believe, from other information besides that of my looking-glass, that I am very handsome. Nor am I without the accomplishments that proceed from a fashionable education. But I am still unmarried, and, what is worse, without any immediate prospect of quitting my uncheery condition. Nor can I attribute the misfortune, for such I frankly consider it, to any other cause, but that confounded thing called money. I am not, indeed, at present without what are esteemed the comforts, as well as many of the pleasures of life; for I live with a good-humoured, cheerful, kind-hearted dowager of an aunt, who enjoys a very handsome jointure: but such is her hospitable and benevolent disposition, that she lives up to the full extent of it, so that I have little to expect from her; and whenever it shall please heaven to take her to itself, and the spasms with which she is affected are, at times, very alarming, I shall be left with no more than the paltry sum of fifteen hundred pounds. In that case, if a husband to my mind does not come, in the mean time, to my preservation, I shall have no alternative, but to retire into some cheap, distant part of the kingdom, to board in a farm-house, or, perhaps, to marry a country parson; and like those flowers which are born to blush unseen, I, too, may waste my sweetness on the desert air.

It is not that I am destitute of admiration or attentions; I have, on the contrary, no small portion of them such as they are, but they are very different from those which are paid to the vulgar minxes, who have ten thousand pounds in their pockets. I have overheard it said, What a fine girl that is! but what a pity also it is that she has no fortune!--If Arabella Languish had ten thousand pounds, says another, I would marry her to-morrow.--Faith! exclaims a third, I am absolutely in love with that charming young woman; but I am not equal to living in a cottage, though she were the mistress of it; or to be contented with roasted apples and saw-dusty, though she dressed the dinner. Nay, it was but last week, that a diminutive figure of an heiress, not four feet high, with a nose half as long as herself, a pair of eyes that looked in all directions, the complexion of a Portuguese, and a mouth wide enough to admit of her jumping down her own throat, said to me in a very sarcastic tone--"You are, my dear, it must be confessed, a tall, fine figure, but when I stand upon my father’s title-deeds, I completely overlook you." I was fool enough to be piqued, and to tell her, that though in that case she might look over me, all her father's title-deeds, ten times told, would not purchase her the power to look like me; and thus our conversation and acquaintance ended.

Nor is this all. The son of an attorney who transacts business for my aunt, thought proper to be continually repeating such warm declarations in my favour, as to alarm his father, who forbade him to speak to me, and threatened to turn him out of doors if he married me. I did not hesitate, however, to shew my resentment to his insolence, and to take the first and most public opportunity to assure him, that he might hush his alarms at my having any design on his cub of a sin, as, whatever might be my matrimonial lot, I was determined, at least, to marry into an honest family.

Such are the mortifications I continually receive from the sordid spirit of the world, which makes money the principle of all its views and actions, and is contented that it shall stand in the stead of virtue, honour, talent, and even beauty itself.

I have not been, I must confess, without offers of marriage; but they add to my humiliation. An officer in a marching regiment, quartered in a neighbouring town, chose to become so deeply enamoured of me, as to write me a proposal of marriage to the following effect.--After declaring the violence of his passion through four sides and a half of foolscap paper, and assuring me that, if he were commander-in-chief, he would lay his heart and all his power at my feet, he very candidly informed me that all he possessed in the world was his pay, which amounted to no more than ten shillings a day; at the same time, he added, that he had the expectation of getting the ,majority of his regiment, and that my fortune would enable him to purchase the lieutenant-coloneley: that they were, he must own, ordered to Nova Scotia; at which place, however, when he had obtained the expected rank, he should be a person of considerable consequence. He acknowledged, indeed, that it was a cold, ungenial climate; but he had no doubt that we should be able to soften all its rigours by the warmth of our mutual affection.

Such an offer demanded, at least, a civil answer; so, after a compliment or two in reply to his passionate effusions, I told him, that I absolutely shuddered at the idea of a sea voyage, which the crown of the Indies would not tempt me to undertake: and that, after all, if he should be called into active service, and lose his life, as I could not doubt he was most heroically prepared to do in fighting for Old England, I should then be left in that cold country without the means of keeping myself warm, or finding any one, perhaps, who would be charitable enough to do it for me.

A portrait-painter, also, and indeed an artist of some merit, and as you, I doubt not, will think of some impudence, who, during the summer, exerts his professional talents in a provincial progress, and was employed to paint my aunt's picture, felt himself encouraged, by the abominable state of my finances, to venture on making a matrimonial proposition to me. He said, it had long been his determination never to marry any woman who would not serve him as a model to paint after; and that I possessed the beauty of countenance, the perfection of for, and the graces of attitude, which precisely placed me in that predicament. It would have been a folly to abuse the silly fellow; and, therefore, I replied, with apparent good humour, that as these qualities of mine were at best no made to last, and as accidents of various kinds might shorten their natural duration, I might, perchance, very shortly lose that usefulness on which he appeared to found a regard, which would vanish with it. Such a state of trembling apprehension, I begged leave to decline; and as his affection seemed to be so very mechanical, I recommended him to direct his attachment to a lay-figure, which would remain the same to the end of his life.

The men of fortune it is true say very handsome things to me, but in a way that does not not at all savour of matrimonial inclinations; nay, were it not for the very respectable protection of my aunt, I am persuaded that I should have proposals from some of them in which Hymen would have no concern. Indeed, I cannot even fancy a probability that the wind will, from any quarter, blow me such a husband as I would accept; through, if the man were a gentleman, I should not be very difficult. In short, I have no prospect of any addition to my miserable pittance of a fortune; and, without it, I appear to be destined to that most cheerless and disgraceful of all conditions, exclusive of vice and crime, -- a compulsory state of celibacy.

In this situation, I have employed my very active mind in forming a plan for augmenting the number of marriages; and I am confident, that the interest which such a benevolent spirit as yours must take in the lot of those youthful vestals, who feel a flame in their hearts, which nature tells them it is their duty to keep alive, will induce you to assist me in publishing my project; and as the state, from the essential benefits resulting from it, will, I should think, carry it into immediate execution, I can have little doubt, that public justice will bestow such a reward on the inventress, as will soon procure her a husband, who in rank, manners, fortune, and figure, will satisfy her ambition, her understanding, and her affection. I shall state my plan in as brief a way as the right understanding of it will admit.

As marriage is, and has long been very generally denominated, a lottery, I propose to give my scheme the name, as it, indeed, adopts the character of that mode of distributing the gifts of Fortune. I shall call it, therefore, the Lottery of Hymen.

In the first place, I propose that the kingdom shall be divided into a certain number of districts of a moderate size, of which a city, or some principal town, may form the center; and wherein the inhabitants must be arranged and classified according to their respective ranks, fortunes and occupations.

2. On the first day of every month, all the unmarried men in each district, who have not passed their thirtieth year, shall be obliged, under a heavy penalty, to give in their names and stations to a person specially appointed to the office of receiving them; while every father of a family shall be equally compellable, under a similar penalty, to deliver the names of his unmarried daughters, who have attained the age of eighteen, to the same officer.

3. That on the fifteenth day of each month, if it does not fall on a Sunday, and then on the sixteenth, the persons of the first class, whose names have been thus received, shall appear at a stated hour in a place suited to the purpose, and the different sexes be properly ranged at a becoming distance from each other; the females being covered with veils, that their faces may not be distinguished: while no one shall be admitted but the parties immediately interested in the object of the assembly, and the official attendants.

4. That the wheel in which the names of the young men only shall be deposited, being turned round with due formality, one of the names shall be drawn from it; when he whose name is exposed shall be publicly declared as destined to become the votary of Hymen, and be immediately and solemnly commanded by the president, who must be the father of the largest family in the district, to make his choice of one of the females before him.

5. On the young man's presenting himself for that purpose, the females who feel a disposition to be chosen by him, must immediately lift up their veils, when he will select his future bride; while they who do not wish to be preferred by him, are at liberty to remain covered, and wait a future opportunity, when the name of some one more suited to their preference may be drawn: a stipulated fine, however, must be paid for the exercise of this privilege.

The other classes then follow in rotation, with the same formalities. Thus a certain, and no inconsiderable, number of marriages with necessarily take place every month, in every part of the kingdom; and, I cannot help thinking, with as great probability of domestic comfort, as in those matches which are made by papas and mammas, without consulting the real happiness of their children; or by children without consulting the pleasure of their papas and mammas; or even such as are brought about in Idalian groves, and where the hymeneal coach is rendered fragrant by roses, showered down by bands of fluttering Cupids.

6. That the penalties and fines paid on these occasions, which, from the fancies and caprices of young people of certain ages, must prove very considerable, shall form a fund to supply comfortable fortunes, according to their stations, for those who have attended these assemblies during a certain settled period, without having been chosen by any one.

I give this merely as a general idea, to be rectified, modified, enlarged, and finally arranged by those whose experience and knowledge of the world qualify them for the office. For this purpose, I should recommend a board to be appointed, under the all-powerful sanction of an act of parliament, to consist of an equal number of married men and bachelors, with a widower, who has buried two wives at least, as chairman.

One proposition more and I have done.--That the members of the aforesaid board may not be paid salaries for carrying the project into execution, as they will then most assuredly prolong the final settlement of it for several years; but that government should engage to give each of them a handsome specific sum, when all the necessary arrangements are concluded; and then the business will be done in a few weeks.

It will not be long, I trust, after such a result takes place, that I shall have to thank you for assisting me in this great and good work, under another name than that of

ARABELLA LANGUISH