FROM the account I have already given of my temper and inclinations, it will be readily supposed that the love of power, which our great satirist asserts to be the ruling passion of my sex, is not the least prevailing one of mine; and therefore I will candidly acknowledge that the too perceptible decline of our influence has often been the subject of much painful reflection to me.
We live no longer in those happy times, when to recover one stolen fair one, whole nations took up arms; when the smile of beauty was more powerful than the voice of ambition; when heroes conquered to deserve our favour, and poets preferred the myrtle to the laurel crown.
In this degenerate age instances of dying for love are very rare, and instances of marrying for love are still rarer. Formerly, if a lady had commanded her lover to bring her the head of a lion, he would have gone to Africa in search of the savage conquest, though death were to have been the consequence of his obedience: but now, what lady would presume so much upon her authority, as to exact from her lover the sacrifice of a party at whist, or a match at Newmarket!
However desirous I am to find the cause of this decline of our empire in the depraved manners of the men, yet justice obliges me to own that we ourselves are not wholly free from blame. Beauty, like the majesty of kings, weakens its influence when familiarised to common view. The face that may be seen every morning at auctions, at public breakfastings, and in crouded walks; every evening at assemblies, at the play, the opera, or some other fashionable scene of pleasure, soon loses the charm of novelty, and effaces the impression it first made. We may gaze upon a fine picture till the grace of the attitude, the loveliness of the features, and the strength of the colouring cease to surprise and delight us; and unhappily many of our present race of beauties are too solicitous about their personal charms to attend to the improvement of their minds: so that a fine woman is indeed often no more than a fine picture.
It has been observed, that there is no country in the world where women enjoy so much liberty as in England, and none where their sway is so little acknowledged. In Spain, where the severe father, and jealous brother, guard the secluded maid from all converse with men, she will conquer more hearts by being seen once without a veil, than one of our beauties, who appears with her neck and shoulders uncovered at every place of publick resort during the whole season.
The Spanish lover passes whole nights at his mistress’s door, and employs sighs, tears, serenades, and tender complaints to move her companion; bribes the vigilant duenna with half his estate to procure him a short interview at a grated window: and for this inestimable favour he exposes himself to the rage of her relations, who probably stand ready to punish his presumption with death; while he, regardless of the insidious stab, contemplates her by the faint light of the moon, with enthusiastic rapture.
For her sake he enters the dreadful lists, and encounters the fiercest bull of Andalusia; the spectators tremble at his danger; he looks up to the balcony where she is stated, and catches fortitude from her eyes. Should he be wounded in the unequal combat, a sign from her gives him new force and courage: again he assails his furious antagonist, and drives him bellowing about the field. The lady waves her handkerchief to him as a token of her joy for his victory; the lover, half dead with fatigue and loss of blood, but triumphing more in that instance of her regard for him than in the loud acclamations he hears on every side, turns to the place where she stands, kisses his sword, and is carried out of the lists.
Thus ardent are the flames which love inspires in a country where the promiscuous assembly, the wrangling card-table, the licentious comedy, and late protracted ball, are not permitted to rob beauty of its most engaging charms, the blush of unsullied modesty, and the soft dignity of female reserve.
With us the lover dresses at his mistress, sings, dances, and coquets with her, expects to dazzle her with superior charms, and loves her for the superficial qualities he admires in himself. He hopes not to gain her heart in reward of his services and constancy, but claims it as a price due to the resistless graces of his person.
Such is the low state of our power at present, and such it will continue till our own prudence and reserve supply the place of imposed retiredness, and throw as many difficulties in the lover’s way as the tyranny of custom does in other countries. Beauty, like the Parthian archer, wounds surest when she flies, and we then most certain of victory when we have not courage enough to invite the attack.