among burning plough-shares, without being scorched or singed by them. It is not therefore for the use of the salamander, whether in a married or single state of life, that I design the following paper; but for such females only as are made of flesh and blood, and find themselves subject to human frailties. As for this part of the fair sex, who are not of the salamander kind, I would most earnestly advise them to observe a quite different conduct in their behaviour; and to avoid as much as possible what religion calls temptations, and the world opportunities. Did they but know how many thousands of their sex have been gradually betrayed from innocent freedoms to ruin and infamy; and how many millions of ours have begun with flatteries, protestations, and endearments, but ended with reproaches, perjury, and perfidiousness; they would shun like death the very first approaches of one that might lead them into inextricable labyrinths of guilt and misery. I must so far give up the cause of the male world, as to exhort the female sex in the language of Chamont in the Orphan, Trust not a man; we are by nature false, When a man talks of love, with caution trust him; I might very much enlarge upon this subject, but shall conclude it with a story which I lately heard from one of our Spanish officers, and which may show the danger a woman incurs by too great familiarities with a male companion. An inhabitant of the kingdom of Castile, being a man of more than ordinary prudence, and of a grave, composed behaviour, determined about the fiftieth year of his age to enter upon wedlock. In order to make himself easy in it, he cast his eye upon a young woman who had nothing to recommend her but her beauty and her education, her parents having been reduced to great poverty by the wars which for some years have laid that whole country waste. The Castilian having made his addresses to her and married her, they lived together in perfect happiness for some time; when at length the husband's affairs made it necessary for him to take a voyage to the kingdom of Naples, where a great part of his estate lay. The wife loved him too tenderly to be left behind him. They had not been on shipboard above a day, when they unluckily fell into the hands of an Algerine pirate, who carried the whole company on shore, and made them slaves. The Castilian and his wife had the comfort to be under the same master; who seeing how dearly they loved one another, and gasped after their liberty, demanded a most exorbitant price for their ransom. The Castilian, though he would rather have died in slavery himself than have paid such a sum as he found would go near to ruin him, was so moved with compassion towards his wife, that he sent repeated orders to his friend in Spain (who happened to be his next relation) to sell his estate, and transmit the money to him. His friend, hoping that the terms of his ransom might be made more reasonable, and unwilling to sell an estate which he himself had some prospect of inheriting, formed so many delays, that three whole years passed away without anything being done for the setting of them at liberty. There happened to live a French renegado in the same place where the Castilian and his wife were kept prisoners. As this fellow had in him all the vivacity of his nation, he often entertained the captives with accounts of his own adventures; to which he sometimes added a song or a dance, or some other piece of mirth, to divert them during their confinement. His acquaintance with the manners of the Algerines enabled him likewise to do them several good offices. The Castilian, as he was one day in conversation with this renegado, discovered to him the negligence and treachery of his correspondent in Castile, and at the same time asked his advice how he should behave himself in that exigency: he further told the renegado, that he found it would be impossible for him to raise the money, unless he himself might go over to dispose of his estate. The renegado, after having represented to him that his Algerine master would never consent to his release upon such a pretence, at length contrived a method for the Castilian to make his escape in the habit of a seaman. The Castilian succeeded in his attempt; and having sold his estate, being afraid lest the money should miscarry by the way, and determining to perish with it rather than lose what was much dearer to him than his life, he returned himself in a little vessel that was going to Algiers. It is impossible to describe the joy he felt upon this occasion, when he considered that he should soon see the wife whom he so much loved, and endear himself more to her by this uncommon piece of generosity. The renegado, during the husband's absence, so insinuated himself into the graces of his young wife, and so turned her head with stories of gallantry, that she quickly thought him the finest gentleman she had ever conversed with. To be brief, her mind was quite alienated from the honest Castilian, whom she was taught to look upon as a formal old fellow, unworthy the possession of so charming a creature. She had been instructed by the renegado how to manage herself upon his arrival; so that she received him with an appearance of the utmost love and gratitude, and at length persuaded him to trust their common friend the renegado with the money he had brought over for their ransom; as not questioning but he would beat down the terms of it, and negotiate the affair more to their advantage than they themselves could do. The good man admired her prudence and followed her advice. I wish I could conceal the sequel of this story, but since I cannot, I shall despatch it in as few words as possible. The Castilian having slept longer than ordinary the next morning, upon his awaking found his wife had left him: he immediately rose and inquired after her, but was told that she was seen with the renegado about break of day. In a word, her lover having got all things ready for their departure, they soon made their escape out of the territories of Algiers, carried away the money, and left the Castilian in captivity: who partly through the cruel treatment of the incensed Algerine his master, and partly through the unkind usage of his unfaithful wife, died some few months after. SATIRE ON WOMEN No. 209.] TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1711. [ADDISON.] Γυναικὸς οὐδὲ χρῆμ ̓ ἀνὴρ ληίζεται Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; SIMONIDES. HERE are no authors I am more pleased with, than those who several ages of the world in their different manners. A reader cannot be more rationally entertained, than by comparing the virtues and vices of his own times with those which prevailed in the times of his forefathers; and drawing a parallel in his mind between his own private character, and that of other persons, whether of his own age, or of the ages that went before him. The contemplation of mankind, under these changeable colours, is apt to shame us out of any particular vice, or animate us to any particular virtue; to make us pleased or displeased with ourselves in the most proper points; to clear our minds of prejudice and prepossession; and rectify that narrowness of temper which inclines us to think amiss of those who differ from ourselves. If we look into the manners of the most remote ages of the world, we discover human nature in her simplicity; and, the more we come downwards towards our own times, may observe her hiding herself in artifices and refinements, polished insensibly out of her original plainness, and at length, entirely lost under form and ceremony, and (what we call) good-breeding. Read the accounts of men and women as they are given us by the most ancient writers, both sacred and profane, and you would think you were reading the history of another species. Among the writers of antiquity, there are none who instruct us more openly in the manners of their respective times in which they lived, than those who have employed themselves in satire, under what dress soever it may appear; as there are no other authors whose province it is to enter so directly into the ways of men, and set their miscarriages in so strong a light. Simonides, a poet famous in his generation, is, I think, author of the oldest satire that is now extant; and, as some say, of the first that was ever written. This poet flourished about four hundred years after the siege of Troy; and shows, by his way of writing, the simplicity, or rather coarseness, of the age in which he lived. I have taken notice, in my hundred and sixty-first speculation, that the rule of observing what the French call the Bienseance in an allusion, has been found out of later years; and that the ancients, provided there was a likeness in their similitudes, did not much trouble themselves about the decency of the comparison. The satires or iambics of Simonides, with which I shall entertain my readers in the present paper, are a remarkable instance of what I formerly advanced. The subject of this satire is woman. He describes the sex in their several characters, which he derives to them from a fanciful supposition raised upon the doctrine of pre existence. He tells us, that the gods formed the souls of women out of those seeds and principles which compose several kinds of animals and elements; and that their good or bad dispositions arise in them according as such and such seeds and principles predominate in their constitutions. I have translated the author very faithfully, and if not word for word (which our language would not bear), at least so as to comprehend every one of his sentiments, without adding anything of my own. I have already apologized for this author's want of delicacy, and must farther premise, that the following satire affects only some of the lower part of the sex, and not those who have been refined by a polite education, which was not so common in the age of this poet. "In the beginning God made the souls of womankind out of different materials, and in a separate state from their bodies. "The souls of one kind of women were formed out of those ingredients which compose a swine. A woman of this make is a slut in her house, and a glutton at her table. She is uncleanly in her person, a slattern in her dress, and her family is no better than a dunghill. "A second sort of female soul was formed out of the same materials that enter into the composition of a fox. Such an one is what we call a notable discerning woman, who has an insight into every thing whether it be good or bad. In this species of females there are some virtuous and some vicious. "A third kind of women were made up of canine particles. These are what we commonly call scolds, who imitate the animals out of which they were taken, that are always busy and barking, that snarl at every one who comes in their way, and live in perpetual clamour. "The fourth kind of women were made out of the earth. These are your sluggards, who pass away their time in indolence and ignorance, hover over the fire a whole winter, and apply themselves with alacrity to no kind of business but eating. "The fifth species of females were made out of the sea. These are women of variable uneven tempers, sometimes all storm and tempests, sometimes all calm and sunshine. The stranger who sees one of these in her smiles and smoothness, would cry her up for a miracle of good-humour; but on a sudden her looks and words are changed, she is nothing but fury and outrage, noise and hurri cane. |