A QUEEN ANNE POCKET-BOOK[29]

BOOK-PLATE OF THE COUNTESS OF CARNARVON

Copies of a Commelinus Tacitus (1595) and a Horace, Persius and Juvenal (London, 1614-15) bear the arms of John Maitland, created Viscount Lauderdale in 1616; those of the Earl of Huntingdon are found on a Camden's 'Britannica' of 1627; those of William Covert of Sussex, on the 1615 edition of the works of Gervase Babington; The Right Hon.bleMary Wife of Charles Earle of Carnarvon & Sister of James Earle of Abingdon those of Chetwynd, on Matthew of Westminster's 'Flores Historiarum' (Frankfort, 1601); those of Wilmer on Stowe's 'Survey of London,' 1618. Further investigation would no doubt yield a tale as to each of these volumes, but we may not linger over them. We must stop, however, to note that the arms of Archbishop Laud, on a copy of his 'Relation of a conference with Fisher the Jesuit,' do not clearly indicate that this was his own library copy, since an inscription (apparently in Laud's handwriting) informs us that the book was 'presented by yeauthor to SrJo. Bramston, Ch[ief] Ju[stice] of the K[ing's] B[ench],' a book-plate of one of whose descendants, 'Thomas Bramston, Esq., of Skreens,' is found in the volume. In the same way, in the next century, we find Speaker Onslow possessed of a copy of Locke's 'Letters concerning Toleration,' presented to him by Thomas Hollis, and bearing some of the donor's favourite emblems, the cap of liberty, the owl of Minerva and a pen, with the motto 'Placidam sub libertate quietem.' There is no special reason to suppose that either Archbishop Laud or Hollis intended these volumes originally for their libraries, and after having had them bound with that intention subsequently gave them away. It may, of course, have been so, but we should not entirely exclude the supposition that books were also sometimes impressed with the arms or device of the donor, in order to remind the recipient of the source whence the gift came, just as we find gift-plates alongside of the more usual book-plates denoting personal ownership.

ARMS OF SIR KENELM DIGBY AND VENETIA STANLEY, HIS WIFE

Owing to the library of Sir Kenelm Digby having been seized after his death in France under the inhospitable French law which gave to the king the chattels of strangers dying in his country, books with his arms are not often found in England. Sir Wollaston Franks was, therefore, fortunate in obtaining three volumes thus decorated, two of them showing his coat with that of his first wife, Venetia Stanley on an escutcheon of pretence, as figured in Mr. Fletcher's article, while the third bears his coat impaled with hers, and is much more finely cut.

SIR KENELM DIGBY'S ARMS

The arms of the Duke of Albemarle are found on the 1634 edition of Harrington's 'Orlando Furioso,' those of the Earl of Arlington on a copy of a Spanish religious work, 'Trabajos de Iesus,' printed at Madrid in 1647, those of Lord Cornwallis, with a cipher imitated from that of CharlesII., on a 1669 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. Other seventeenth-century collectors of minor note might be mentioned, but we must pass on now beyond the Revolution of 1688, and notice a few coats of later date. A copy of Dryden's 'Miscellany Poems' of 1702 bears the arms of Charles, Lord Halifax ('the Treasurer'), as well as a book-plate dated with the same year, 1702; a Roman History of 1695 and a Prayer Book of 1700 carry two different stamps of the arms of John, Lord Somers; there are three books with the stamp and name of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and three with the Carteret arms. Of these last two, Hammond's 'Sermons' and the 'Divi Britannici,' both published in 1675, bear 'the bloody hand' that marks a baronet, while a Horace of Paris, 1567, shows Lord Carteret's arms as a peer. On Sanderson's 'Nature and Obligation of Conscience' (1722) we have another instance of a lady's book-stamp, that of Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos; the arms and book-plate of the Duke of Montagu are found on a copy of Bishop Berkeley's famous treatise on the virtues of tar-water (1744); lastly, a Utrecht Callimachus of 1697 is adorned with the arms of Sir Philip Sydenham, Bart., and with the book-plate of John Wilkes, who, if a demagogue, was a demagogue of classical tastes.

These eighteenth-century books and their owners are somewhat less interesting than the earlier ones to which most of this article has been devoted, and in attempting to enumerate them it is difficult to avoid the style of a catalogue. The danger is all the greater when we turn to the French books, for here Guigard has been before us, and there is no purpose to be served by making extracts from his pages. As might be expected, the collection contains more than one specimen of the books of De Thou, in which the British Museum was already fairly rich. Among other notable stamps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we may mention that of Antoine de Leve, Abbé de l'Isle en Barrois, on three books published between 1574 and 1624; of Estampes de Valency on a book of 1557; of Peiresc (on a 'Harpocrationis Dictionarium,' 1614), and of Louis Philippeaux, Seigneur de la Vaillière. Of later date are those of the Comtesse de Verrue, Beatrix de Choiseul, La Rochefoucald, President Seguier, Turgot, Montausier, Marie Leczinska, and a host of others too numerous to mention.

The German books are few and apparently unimportant, the Italian mostly ecclesiastical, those from the Low Countries mostly school-prizes. There are also two or three Spanish books, all the more welcome because Spanish bindings are so seldom met with in England, and a few fairly good specimens of the bookbinder's craft without armorial stamps. But the English books are the main feature of the collection.

(By Alice Pollard)

SOME forty years ago there was picked up in the cellar of a large private bank in Lombard Street a little pocket-book, which must have lain there for at least a century. Its parchment covers were yellow and time-stained, and the brown ribbon which fastened them together had become ragged and moth-eaten, but despite its somewhat faded brown ink the crabbed handwriting remained as legible as ever. After its removal from the Lombard Street cellar the queer little book lay for another forty years in the musk-scented drawer of a Chippendale secretaire, which formed for it a not unfitting resting-place. Thence it has to-day been unearthed, and is now to be made to tell its old-world story. This, in truth, is but a simple one, as the book contains chiefly a very carefully kept memorandum of the moneys spent by its owner during his youth and early manhood; but running through these accounts we can trace something of his family history, of his employments, tastes, and habits, and so, I think, gain a very fair idea of the writer's individuality. Now and then, as if to help us, he uses a page as a diary, and by means of such entries as births, deaths, and marriages, we can piece our story together.

'John Payne, 1699,' that is the first information which our book gives us, and we turn from the fly-leaf, where it is boldly written, to inquire who this John Payne was, and what was his business and rank in life. We start with a predisposition to believe that he was a banker, because it was in a bank which still bears his name that his pocket-book was picked up; but the pocket-book itself has nothing to say about banking, while it is very profuse on the subjects of 'Linsayes, dyapers, Westfalia linen,' etc., and informs us that its owner was frequently sending home house linen and dress stuffs to his mother, sisters, and friends. Somewhat reluctantly, therefore, we conclude that our hero began life as a draper, and it is with satisfaction (for we would fain have him cut a figure) that we note sundry entries of a Sir James and my Lady, a Sir Stephen, and a Lady Langham in a connection which shows them to have been either relations or old family friends. There are not wanting other indications that our young draper came of a well-to-do stock, and we may, therefore, conclude that in coming to London to serve a seven years' apprenticeship, he was only acting on the excellent rule that to win success as a merchant (or anything else) you must begin at the beginning. As has been already said, the date inside the pocket-book is 1699, but the accounts begin on January 10, 1696, so that those of the first three years have evidently been copied in from some earlier notes. This ascertained, we become excited to find the entry of the purchase of the book itself, and are rewarded after a little search by the information that, together with some paper and quills, it only cost one shilling and fourpence, certainly no excessive outlay for a book constantly in use for over a quarter of a century. In copying his back accounts into his new purchase, John divided his book into two halves, keeping the first for 'what I have layd out since I came to London on my Father's charge,' and the second for his disbursements from 'the money that I did bring up to town at the first coming up (4l8s.), and sent me since and given me by freinds.' In looking over his accounts for him we will follow the order of his own choosing, and begin with his expenditure for what he considered the necessaries he might fairly charge to his father.

On his first arrival in town the youthful John evidently found himself somewhat behind the times in the cut of his clothes and the fashion of his hair, for on the first page of the book we have distinct suggestions of visits to his tailor and the barber, who between them arrayed his outer man for a first entry into town life, and managed to do so at the moderate cost of £5, 3s. 6d. Here are the items:

Layed out between ye10thof January & ye20thof February 1695/6.£s.d.A paire of Gloves000102A box & hatband000206A pennknife000008A Queer of paper000006A Coppy Booke000008A Porter & letter000006The Barber000003Sugar Candy000002Damask 4 yds0014062 yds¾ of BdCloth0113005 ydsof Shaloone001100Buttons & fustin001011Buckrum & Canvis000103GlazdLin:000005The Taylors Bill010600050306

Tailors were evidently more modest in their charges in those days. It is difficult at first to see under what pretext John could have set down twopennyworth of sugar candy under the head of 'Thinges layd out on my Father's charge,' but we soon find a further entry of 'Things for my cold,' and doubtless the sugar candy might also have come under that head; indeed, the London fogs seem not to have agreed with the Huntingdonshire lad, for more than once in each year we find references to colds which mostly appear to have been treated by blood-letting.

After the first month of 1695/6 the father could have had no cause to complain of his son's extravagance, for his whole expenses for the next quarter come to seventeen shillings and fourpence, even including 'Sister Betty's fringe,' for which he paid eightpence, a tip of sixpence given to 'YeMaide,' and 'Close mending from Top to Toe,' which cost him four shillings and threepence! During the next year and a half he has a fair number of new clothes and makes some wonderful bargains, obtaining 'A Comb: Sisers: Blade & Buttons' for one shilling and ninepence. His barber is still an expensive item, for his 'Peruke' needs constant attention; his cold also requires 'sugar candy and other things,' but he executes a great piece of economy by having 'Wastcoate turned to Breeches' at a cost of only 2s. 1d. In 1699 his 'wigg' again proves costly; it appears to have been thoroughly done up and trimmed to the latest fashion previous to a visit to his home, for we find two entries following each other:

£s.d.My Wigg & its Mending010400My place ith' Coach & charge on the Roade010000

The remaining accounts which he sends in to his father from time to time have no particular interest, being more or less repetitions of those which have gone before, but on the last page of the book he sums up the whole seven years as follows: 'Spent on father's acctin yewhole 7 years of Apprenticeship, 64l.19s.11d.Spent on my own accton Self and freinds, 19l.15s.9d.Spent less than I had saved before and given me after I came to towne in ye7 years, 3l.13s.5d.' The seven years' private accounts start as follows:

The Money that I did bring up to town att y^e first coming up was 4l.8s.0d.Lent me since yt& given me by freinds:£s.d.By father0170By Mother0136By Grandmother1196By SrJames and my Lady2180By Cousen Betty0120By SrStephen0110By Brother0160By Uncle & Aunt0030By Sisters0136Hog Money & old Coate0060By several0046By yeBox Money of yefirst ½ of my time0186By yeKing's Entry0030By Aunt Wikes0026By father more0090By my Lady more0100160107s.6d.I had given me more not sett down because layd out againe In Tokens.

The Money that I did bring up to town att y^e first coming up was 4l.8s.0d.

Lent me since yt& given me by freinds:

7s.6d.I had given me more not sett down because layd out againe In Tokens.

The private accounts are only entered in detail for one half the time of his apprenticeship, and with one or two additions may be all summed up under the following heads:—'Fruit: Necessarys: Lost in wagers and other wayes: on yePoore: Spent with kindred and acquaintance: Tokens: & given.'

The regularity with which the accounts are kept is only equalled by the remarkable steadiness of his expenditure; the first and third years showing an outlay of exactly£1, 2s. each, whilst the second and fourth each run to precisely£2. Perhaps it will be most interesting to examine the four years side by side.

1stYear.2ndYear.3rdYear.4thYear.s.d.s.d.s.d.s.d.In fruit610½807575Necessarys11½291926Lost in wagers & other wayes21162711On YePoore16261712Spent with Kindred & acquaintance41½6846150Tokens——138——116Given——194206

The additional expenses are unnoteworthy with the exception of 'A Key to a Pen,' which certainly arouses curiosity; the price of the key was one shilling, but its size, shape, and use remain a mystery to us.

The next page or two are filled with desultory memoranda of small sums received in the form of 'tips,' and ending up with these two statements:

This being Septrye29th1699 I find I have spent this first half of my time on my own charges 06l.4s.00d..Spent on my own acctin ye7 years 19l.15s.9d.

This being Septrye29th1699 I find I have spent this first half of my time on my own charges 06l.4s.00d..

Spent on my own acctin ye7 years 19l.15s.9d.

One is tempted to speculate as to what form his greater extravagance during the second half of his time took, but on this point the book is silent.

The apprenticeship ended in the early part of 1703, but John apparently stayed on in the same business for several years afterwards at a weekly wage of £5. That this did not constitute his entire income is clear from a page of his diary, which records: 'Father recdof Jos. Atkins for my rent Dew at Lady Day 1701, 16l.13s.00d.taxes being Deducted'; and again, after more references to Jos. Atkins: 'Recdof my tenant in all 64l.17s.being 2 years rent due att Michaelmas 1703.'

We do not find any references either in the diary or the accounts to the time when the young man began to think of taking to himself a wife, but his income at the high value of money in those days would now be quite sufficiently large to enable him to do so, and some time within the next three years he wooed and won his bride. Of the nature of that wooing one would gladly learn a little more, for even with the help of a decided love-letter written to his mistress within six months of their marriage we cannot divine much. How this letter (probably only one amongst many of a like nature) ever fell again into the hands of its original writer, to be placed by him in the pocket of the little account-book, we are unable to say; but there it is, yellow and stained with age, and worn with much folding and refolding. It is written on the thin, rough, large square note-paper of the period, sealed with a monogram and elaborately addressed on the back:

For Mrs. Lydia Durrant attMr. Henry Woodgate's inGoudhurstKentBy Stone Crouch Bag

The letter is so short and so quaint that I transcribe the whole.

I gladly embrace ysfirst opportunity to tell you dearest MdmytI arrived Safe in towne ysevening with a great deal of ease both to my horse & self; The Roads I found much better than by way of Tunbridge & Weather Thanks be to God pretty favourable, My greatest trouble was to think yenearer I was to my journeys End, ytI was still yefarther from yrDear Self. Do me so much Justice Mdmas to believe ytit is impossible for me to have any interest or concern nearer my heart then you & I am sorry so great a truth and pure cannot be expressed in other Words then such as sometimes are forced to serve yeprofane use of Complements. I wish it were any way in my power & I hope it will 'ere long, to shew yetrue affection I have for you & I value myself upon yeopportunity I promise myself of shortly kissing yrhand. I have not mett with father as yett but trust I shall tomorrow morning. Yrletters to Hackney shall be delivered with care and speed. I beg MrsWoodgate's acceptance of yeoranges designed her ysweek by Caryer, I shall rejoice to hear yelittle one is come safe to towne & Aunt in a way of recovery but above all to hear of yrgood health wchwill be an infinite joy. If you did believe or could Imagine how great a refreshment a letter from you would afford me at this melancholy distance you would not faile to write by the first post, & yehopes I conceive you will do so support me under yemisfortune of yrabsence. It is late so adding my humble service to Unkle's & MrParis's family with a thousand thanks shall extend this no farther than yesubscribing myself with a most sincere and hearty affectionMdmyrmost humble admirerJohn Payne.March 12th1705/6 Fetter Lane.

Mdmyrmost humble admirer

John Payne.

March 12th1705/6 Fetter Lane.

'My greatest trouble was to think the nearer I was to my journeys End, that I was still the farther from your Dear Self'—that is a very prettily turned sentence, and yet with a ring about it which sounds straight from the heart. Throughout the whole letter, indeed, there is a delightful simplicity and homeliness which even the stilted phraseology of the period cannot quite spoil, and which tempts us to think that when the 'melancholy distance' (of some thirty miles) no longer kept the lovers apart, John may possibly have greeted his lady just a little more warmly than with that respectful touch of her hand which was all that epistolary conventions allowed him to propose to himself. At any rate his suit prospered, for in the middle of his pocket-book we come across two pages of diary pure and simple which show us that just five months after his letter the wished-for opportunity of showing his 'true affection' was granted by his marriage with Mistress Lydia Durrant in September of the same year. Immediately following this record of his entrance 'into yeholy state of Matrimony, Sept. 4, 1706,' we have the beginning of his household accounts. On the credit side they run as follows:

RecdSept. 27th, 1706—£s.d.4 weeks money from Shop200005 weeks do. Nov. 2d2500RecdFa[ther] pr. BrorWoodford2000RecdBrother Woodford more than layed out2110Nov. 16. 2 weeks' money10000— 23. 1 week's money500Dec. 7. 2 weeks' money1000Jan. 18. 6 weeks' money30000Jan. 25. 1 week's money5000127110

The debit side is evidently headed by expenses in connection with the wedding, and it would appear that, when John had brought his wife to town, the young couple finished the furnishing of their house together.

Septr29, 1706.£s.d.Pdfor hatt11100Other small things01000Mantle pr. glass21000Wife210—Charges of journey6900PdFather for house61500Pdfor Chaires48002 KillsBeere01000Wife for house2600Self for Pockett10000Glasses 12s.6d., Table 8s.10006Chest of Drawers & Do.31600Nov. 18th.Wife for house20000Linen5600Shoes 9s., house 2l.2900Knives 30s.11000Months Rent, Board, & Servtswages to Michms9176Pdwife for house20000Linen for Ditto3006Buttr, Cheese, & Bacon1126W. Clark, Upholster10126W. Litchfeilds Bill5200House 6 weeks120000Pdfor Plate & Spoons1256PdCheesemonger, StMartins200House 2l., Handk. & Muz. 31s.311001061200

On the next page we have a reference to Sarah's wages, which were £2, 3s., but as no dates are given we are unable to decide whether this represents three or six months' hire.

We now begin to notice that besides 'wife for house,' there is another entry of 'wife for self,' which occurs pretty often, 'wife' receiving from two to three pounds at once, and finally she receives five pounds for her 'occassions,' a mysterious allusion which is perhaps explained by a reference later on to 'Parson and Clark, 13s.3d.,' and 'Cradle and Baskitt, 11s.6d.' Turning to the 'Diary,' we have the simple record of the birth, and sad to say the death, of his first child:

My Dear first child was born y^e 23^{rd} of June, 1707, about 10 in yeforenoon.Christened by yename of Eliz. ye25 of yesame month, & dyed ye19thof July following about 11 at night, & lyes in yevault in StVoster's, Londn.

My Dear first child was born y^e 23^{rd} of June, 1707, about 10 in yeforenoon.

Christened by yename of Eliz. ye25 of yesame month, & dyed ye19thof July following about 11 at night, & lyes in yevault in StVoster's, Londn.

With the birth of the child the household expenses increase, and we find in addition to 'House 2l.' further expenses, which are noted down as 'extraordinary,' but soon cease to be looked upon as anything but ordinary.

The household seems to have been kept up on a fairly large scale, for we have mention of a 'Kate' and a 'Betsy' who also receive wages as well as 'Sarah'; but it is evident from the other side of the page that the wife's father lived with the young people and kept his own manservant, paying them for board two sums of £47, 10s. within the twelve months. Items for wine and beer are very common, one brewer's bill for six months being ten pounds! It is difficult to guess what became of the money allowed for 'House,' since the master paid servants' wages, and bills for wine, beer, coals, groceries, house-linen, butcher, butter-man, and taxes! His wife's allowance also was very liberal, and at various times he pays for the following items besides: 'For Wife's Scarf, 2l.10s.0d.; Wife's Callico, 1l.7s.; Wife's Silk, 6l.10s.00d.; Wife, for tippet, 4l.6s.00d.'; in fact, according to his own showing, he appears to have given his wife ample means of providing both for the house and herself, and then to have paid all her bills as well!

Under date October 1708, we come across evidence of the arrival of another child to replace the one too soon lost. This time 'Parson and Clark' head the list, receiving 13s. 3d.; 'Gossiping money' comes to £1. 2s. 6d.; 'Coates for child, 1l.1s.6d.'; 'Midwife and Nurse, 3l.4s.6d.,' and the Diary says:

My second child John was born Octr13th, 1708, & was baptised yeSabbath Day following by W. Benjn. Ibbatt.

There is still another record of the birth of a daughter, who, like the first, lived but a few days.

My daughter Ann was born Novrye12th, 1709, & Dyed ye19thDitto.

After this the regular accounts stop, as does also the Diary, but from stray notes scattered through the book there would appear to have been born yet another daughter who survived infancy, but whose health must have given cause for anxiety. Thus in February 1716, we read: 'PdNurse Patch fifteen Pounds twelve shillings in full for nursing and boarding my Daughter to the 20thof this Instant February.' And again, in February 1720, the child and nurse were evidently sent on a long visit to Huntingdon to Grandmother Payne: 'PdMother Febryye16th, 1720/1, Thirty seaven Pounds fourteen shillings & 6d.in full for Butter, Interest, Child, and Maide's board and wages and all accts.'

After November 1709 there are no more regular house-accounts, and the little book is used principally for jotting down moneys received and larger sums paid out to his mother and sisters. The shop also ceases to be mentioned, and we have numerous entries of rents paid by tenants in Huntingdon;—indeed it would seem that soon after the death of his wife's father, which occurred in June 1709, John Payne left London and went down to manage his estates in Huntingdon, where he seems to have been in possession of about £1000 per annum in landed property, chiefly consisting of small farms let to tenants at from £20 to £50 per annum. Out of this property, however, he has to pay quarterly dividends to his mother and sister Anna, though their income, like that of most widows and unmarried daughters of the time, was very small and could form no great burden on the estate. At what period John Payne again left his country house to mix once more in London business life, whether he was personally connected with the bank or only lent his money and his name, or whether indeed he ever was one of the founders or left that honour to his son John, is all a matter of conjecture; yet one closes the quaint little old book with feelings of regret, and would fain follow its owner a little further. The last date is 1726, when he must still have been a comparatively young man.

The publication of this little article had the pleasant result of enabling the writer to restore the Pocket-Book to a descendant of the original owner. Further notes on some of the persons mentioned will be found in a 'Sequel' contributed by Mr. John Orlebar Payne to the next number (that for April 1889) of 'Longman's Magazine.'

AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ANSWER

(By Alice Pollard)

The title of this article is not of my own choosing. It was fore-ordained for me some time back by the rather excited correspondents of a daily newspaper, which opened its columns to as many solutions of the riddle as ingenuity could devise. It may fairly be objected that the riddle is no riddle at all, but rather belongs to the class of question-begging queries of which 'How long have you ceased beating your mother?' is the most famous example. As a matter of fact, most mendomarry, and it seems, therefore, unreasonable to be asked to explain why they don't. But on this one point my sex is perhaps a little unreasonable. Women have never acquiesced wholeheartedly in Mr. Stevenson's assertion that though the ideal woman is a wife the ideal man is a bachelor, and so long as even a small minority of men of presentable appearance and some visible means of subsistence persist in denying themselves a man's highest privilege, the problem will doubtless continue to be stated in the sweeping form which I here adopt.

The most hardened offenders are undoubtedly the members of a single class: pleasant young fellows, with an income of three or four hundred a year and no prospect of increasing it. A bachelor with £400 a year, if he live within it, persists in regarding himself as a miracle of economy, but with even the smallest gift of husbandry is probably as rich as any man in the kingdom. To marry on the same £400 means a terrible falling-off in the standard of comfort, and the one luxury which these pleasant fellows religiously deny themselves is that of a wife.

The story is not a new one, and the other day, in looking over some pamphlets in a great library, I came across a thin quarto, entitled, 'The Batchelor's Estimate of the Expences of a Married Life In a Letter to a Friend. Being an Answer to a Proposal of Marrying a Lady with 2000l.Fortune.' The date of the pamphlet is 1729, and in it the situation is set forth with so much circumstance, and in so engaging a manner, that I thought there might be some readers who would care to spend a few minutes in looking at it with me.

A gentleman, himself a married man, having a relation a spinster of a marriageable age, and possessing also the, for those days, by no means despicable fortune of £2000, has proposed to a bachelor friend to negotiate a marriage between them.

The bachelor has no innate objection to marriage as such—on the contrary, he looks upon it as 'an agreeable state'; but he cannot 'at present accept the proposal' because 'the following necessary expenses arise so frequently and so openly to his view' that they deter him from considering marriage as possible.

Up to the present time he has lived in chambers at the moderate rent of £12, 10s. per annum. But so impressed is he with the probable requirements of a lady with the 'handsome Fortune' of £2000, that he sees himself at once obliged to secure a house with a rental of £50.

As a bachelor in chambers he has been lucky enough to escape all 'Church, Window and Poor's Taxes, Payments to Rector, Reader and Lecturer, Water Rates, Trophy Money,31Militia, Lamp, Scavengers, Watch, Constable, etc.' As a married man he calculates that for these things alone he will be mulcted to the extent of 'at least' £9 per annum.

Our friend was, we presume, in the habit of taking his morning cup of coffee at a coffee-house. Now he sees in imagination not only his own and his wife's daily supply of coffee to be provided, but he pictures the innumerable 'dishes of tea' which will be consumed by her and her maids, not to mention the additional quantity for gossips and card parties. Thus, 'Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, Sugar, Spirits and Fresh Supply of China will cost 12l.per annum.' We are tempted to inquire what proportion of this sum must be set aside for 'spirits' and broken crockery, and why, indeed, there should be any connection between them, unless tea-drinkings in the early part of the eighteenth century were too often modelled on the style of a certain famous one known to readers of Dickens.

The consideration of tea, this being essentially a domestic article, leads our bachelor to the question of servants. For his own use he has been content with the services of a bedmaker, to whom he gave 50s. a year. He forgets to add an unknown sum to pay for the waste, impositions, and perquisites inseparable from a bedmaker's existence. In the future the dignity of a citizen, a householder, and a married man has to be supported, and the weight of this can only be sustained by a staff of 'two Maid-servants and a Man'—the man to be in livery. Yet even these luxuries will not cost him such a very large sum, since he reckons to procure them all, livery included, for an additional £17, 10s. per annum—i.e.£20 in all.

We are next let into his confidence with regard to the proper amount of entertainment he will think it fit and necessary to allow his wife. She must certainly go to the play, but a lady of independent fortune, the mistress of a grand house and a servant in livery, cannot be expected to walk out in evening-dress, so a coach or chair must be provided for her conveyance, and for the hire of these he makes a yearly computation of £3, 10s. 'Her expenses at these Diversions' (which included, doubtless, entrance fees and refreshments) would amount to another £3, 10s. As a staid and steady bachelor not given (as he tells us later on) to 'sauntering at Coffee-Houses' or playing at hazard, he has been content with going to the play about once a year, but now, as 'it would not be proper she should go alone,' this exemplary husband will even sacrifice his own inclinations, and, obeying the call of duty, attend his wife at a cost of £1, 10s. a year! Not only is he considerate in the matter of providing for his wife's pleasures, but he seems to us decidedly liberal in the matter of pin-money, as he sets aside £30 for her personal expenses.

Coals and candles weigh heavily on his mind. His landlady has hitherto kept him sufficiently warm for an annual 40s. (coals must have been much cheaper, landladies less of harpies, or the winters much milder in those days!), but in his new establishment coals and candles will run up to the large sum of £15.

His bachelor dinners have cost him an average of 10s. per week; when married he must still dine, and even divert himself with 'evening expenses' common both to married men and bachelors, so that instead of a modest £25 for dinners he will now have to pay the following yearly bills:

£s.d.The Butcher350000"Poulterer060000"Fishmonger070000"Herb-Woman050000"Oylman050000"Baker080000"Brewer100000"Grocer060000"Confectioner020000"Cheesemonger040000Wine, Cyder, etc., at a moderate computation300000The Fruiterer011000The Milk-Woman010000Salt, Small-coal, Rotten-stone, Brick-dust, Sand, Oat-meal, Whiteing and many other little Ingredients in House-Keeping I am ignorant of020000

This detailed calculation over, we again catch a glimpse of the man's personality and his conception of what is due from him towards a wife. 'If my Wife pleases me, as I do not doubt but your Relation will, (I know my own Temper so well in that Respect that) I shall be often making her Presents of either Rings, Jewels, Snuff-Boxes, Watch, Tweezers, some Knick-Knacks, and Things of that Nature, in which, one Year with another, I am sure I shall spend 5l.' After this it occurs to him that he has left out one important source of expense which he 'least wishes for,' but which 'happens in most Families'—that is, the fees of doctor and apothecary, which will, he fears, average £5 per annum.

'As for Children, we may reasonably expect one in every two Years, if not oftener.' Reckoning the 'Expence of Lying-Inne, Child-Linen, Midwife, Nurses, Caudles, Possets, Cradle, Christenings, etc.,' the annual expense consequent on being a family man will be £15. But the initial expense is not all: 'Nursing, Maintaining, Education, Cloathes, Schooling,' and—here, surely, we have found the prototype of Mr. Walter Besant's ideal father—providing an endowment or fortune for each child will require a sum of £30 per annum; and he is 'satisfied' that he has stated a sum 'vastly less' than is likely to prove needful in the end—a foreboding in which he was certainly justified, for of payments for school and 'cloathing,' now as then, there is no end!

Having provided himself in imagination with wife, house, servants, and children, our far-seeing friend suddenly remembers that his dignity and respectability will require to be supported by a seat in church, so we find an entry, 'Pew in Church,' £2. This is followed, although we cannot trace the connection, by an estimate of £8 per annum for 'Washing his wife's and the Family Linen,' and we wonder how laundresses managed to live in those days. But so far the house is not furnished, and an initial £350 must be found for that. Fifty pounds is to go for plate alone, 'without which, being so moderate a Quantity, I daresay my wife, nor indeed should I myself be satisfied.' This £350 he calmly proposes to deduct from his wife's fortune, reducing it, therefore, to £1650.

This £1650, placed out at 5 per cent. interest, will bring in an income of £82, but the cautious bachelor says 5 per cent. is not likely to continue, therefore he will reckon interest at 4 per cent. only, and at this rate the wife's fortune will produce an income of only £56. He then proceeds to show that, adding together the foregoing items, he will have to spend on his wife £215, or even £231, 10s., 'above the Income of the Fortune she brings, besides the Hazard and want of certainty for the Money, which ought to be considered.'

And now the pamphlet draws to an end, with a conclusion we will give in the writer's own words:

'These Things considered (and he that marries without previous Consideration acts very indiscreetly), I do not see how I can marry a Woman with the Fortune you propose, or that I should better myself at all by it, and in Prudence, People should do so or let it alone; (not that I propose or think to have more) I must therefore live single, though with some regret that I cannot do otherwise, and increase my own Fortune, which happens to be sufficient for my own Maintenance till (if I may so call it) I can afford Matrimony.'I wish the Lady all Happiness and a better Husband, and if it be for her Satisfaction, one who has thought less of the Matter; not but that I have a very good Opinion of Matrimony, and think of it with Pleasure, as hoping one time or other to enter into its Lists, but I now wait with Patience till my Circumstances or Thought vary. One Thing I would not have you mistaken in, is, that I do not mean, that your Relation will be thus expensive to me, more than any other, only that whenever I marry, let her be who she will, I must necessarily (if She has no more Fortune than you propose) expend considerably more than 200l.a year on her, above the Income of her Fortune, and at present I cannot persuade myself to be at so great an Expense, for the value of trying a dangerous Experiment, whether the Pleasures of Matrimony are yearly worth that Sum.'

'I wish the Lady all Happiness and a better Husband, and if it be for her Satisfaction, one who has thought less of the Matter; not but that I have a very good Opinion of Matrimony, and think of it with Pleasure, as hoping one time or other to enter into its Lists, but I now wait with Patience till my Circumstances or Thought vary. One Thing I would not have you mistaken in, is, that I do not mean, that your Relation will be thus expensive to me, more than any other, only that whenever I marry, let her be who she will, I must necessarily (if She has no more Fortune than you propose) expend considerably more than 200l.a year on her, above the Income of her Fortune, and at present I cannot persuade myself to be at so great an Expense, for the value of trying a dangerous Experiment, whether the Pleasures of Matrimony are yearly worth that Sum.'

And all this is submitted to the proposer by his 'Obliged and Humble Servant.'

The whole question of marriage, with its arguments for and against, seems to have been as engrossing a topic amongst English men and women in the early part of the eighteenth century as it certainly is with us now, and the bachelor's pamphlet brought forward at least two replies, which we found bound up with the original. One of these, purporting to be by the lady herself, and signed 'Philogamia,' may be dismissed in a few words; its arguments are neither serious nor to the point, and such wit as there is is of a low order, and too much in thetu quoquestyle to be amusing. The second rejoinder is by the 'Woman's Advocate,' and is probably not, as it pretends, written by a man on behalf of women in general, but rather by an irritated member of the weaker sex, who finds herself and her fellows insulteden masseby the bachelor's refusal to marry one of them.

The 'Advocate' takes the various items of the 'Batchelor's Estimate' one by one, and proceeds to demolish them to the best of her ability, sometimes with a certain degree of success, due, we fancy, to the more intimate knowledge of housekeeping details naturally possessed by a woman. She at once attacks him on the subject of house-rent, and with truly feminine malice reminds him how she has often heard him praise a friend's house rented at £24, and declare that he 'could wish for nothing better.' This rather reminds us of a young lady who advocated the claims of a somewhat uninteresting young man by saying he would make 'such a delightful brother-in-law.'

Has not our sex, too, been accused, with some degree of justice, of practising little meannesses, and does not the 'Woman's Advocate's' confession that she 'has lived 10 years in one Parish and never paid a penny to the Church' smack slightly of this feminine vice?

She goes on to say: 'To the Rector you will give 6d.as an Easter offering—to the Lecturer what you please. Trophy-money is but 6d.per annum. You need not join the Militia. Lamp, Scavenger, and Watch seldom amount to thirty shillings, and as for the Constable's Tax, I never heard of such a thing in my Life.' So the £9 is reduced to £2.

On the estimate for servants, especially for the footman in livery, the 'Woman's Advocate' pours great scorn. 'A man in livery forsooth! Have the two maids so little to do that you must e'en employ a man to play with 'em?'

But it is perhaps in her attack on the actual house-keeping estimates that the 'Woman's Advocate' is at her best. She does not always assign her reasons, but boldly makes such statements as the following: 'Your Butcher's Bill is over-rated at least one Third. Your Poulterer's and Fishmonger's more than two Thirds. As for the Herb-Woman you have overtopt her with a Vengeance; Twelve pence a week is more than enough for greens etc.,and besides' (does not this bear some resemblance to the traditional postscript?) 'half the year but few sorts are in Season.' There is more banter about greenstuff and salads, during which the bachelor is taunted with being 'a meer Frenchman to eat seven Pounds per annum in Salads,' and with 'outdoing the Italians in oiling it,' and is, moreover, advised to buy his oil direct from the ship instead of from the tavern, thereby effecting a saving of 10s. per quart!—a hint we should imagine well worth carrying out.

Words fail the 'Advocate' in which to pour sufficient contempt on the estimates for grocer and confectioner: 'If you are sweet-Tooth'd,' she says, 'I will allow you now and then a Pennyworth of Sugar-Plumbs, but think 40s.per annum in that kind of Trash too much for a Person of your Years and Frugality; and I could really wish, for your own Sake, you had omitted that Article in your Estimate.'

The mention of the doctor's and apothecary's fees, which he 'least desired,' gives the 'Advocate' a final opportunity for crushing her victim, and will serve as a very fair example of her style of rejoinder throughout the whole answer when she is not dealing with concrete materials: 'I believe you wish for no one Article of Expence; could you have a Wife that would wear no Cloathes, eat no Victuals, bear no Children, never be sick, and bring you 2 or 3,000l., the more the better, I suppose your self-conceited Worship would marry, who imagine, no doubt, you merit a Fortune of 50, nay, 100,000l.To conclude I pronounce Bachelors the Vermin of a State. They enjoy the Benefits of Society but contribute not to its charge, and sponge upon the Publick, without making the least return. Had I any Power in the Legislature, you should not only be punished for Mischievous Libel, but all Batchelors above the age of Thirty should be double Tax'd.'

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A.Constable

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