AN ORATION ON THE VIRTUES OF THE OLD WOMEN, AND THE PRIDE OF THE YOUNG.
AN ORATION ON THE VIRTUES OF THE OLD WOMEN, AND THE PRIDE OF THE YOUNG.
The madness of this unmuzzled age has driven me to mountains of thoughts, and a continual meditation: It is enough to make an auld wife rin red-wood, and drive a body beyond the halter’s-end of ill-nature, to see what I see, and here what I hear: Therefore the hinges of my anger are broke, and the bands of my good and mild nature are burst in two, the door of civility is laid quite open, plain speech and mild admonition is of none effect; nothing must be used now but thunder-bolts of reproach tartly trimm’d up in a tantalizing stile, roughly redd up and manufactured thro’ an auld Matron’s mouth, who is indeed but frail in the teeth, but will squeeze surprizingly with her auld gums, until her very chaft-blades crack in the crushing of your vice.
I shall branch out my discourse into four heads.
First, What I have seen, and been witness to.
Secondly, What I now see, and am witness to.
Thirdly, What I have heard, does hear, and cannot help; I mean the difference between the old women and the young.
Fourthly, Conclude with an advice to young men and young women, how to avoid the buying of Janet Juniper’s stinking butter,[138]which will have a rotten rift on their stomach as long as they live.[139]
First, The first thing then, I see and observe is, that a wheen daft giddy-headed, cock-nosed, juniper nebbed mothers, bring up a wheen sky-racket dancing daughters, a’ bred up to be ladies, without so much as the breadth of their lufe of land, it’s an admiration to me, whare the lairds are a’ to come frae that’sto be coupled to them; work, na, na, my bairn manna work, she’s to be a lady, they ca’ her Miss, I maun hae her lugs bor’d says auld Numps the mither; thus the poor pet is brought up like a mitherless lamb, or a parrot in a cage; they learn naething but prick and sew, and fling their feet when the fidle plays, so they become a parcel of yellow-faced female-taylors, unequal matches for countrymen, Flanders-babbies, brought up in a box, and must be carried in a basket; knows nothing but pinching-poverty, hunger and pride; can neither milk kye, muck a byre, card, spin, nor yet keep a cow from a corn-rigg; the most of such are as blind penny-worths, as buying pigs in pocks, and ought only to be matched with Tacket-makers, Tree-trimmers, and Male-taylors, that they may be male and female agreeable in trade, since their piper fac’d fingers are not for hard labour; yet they might also pass on a pinch for a black Sutor’s wife, for the stitching of white seams round the mouth of a lady’s shoe; or, with Barbers or Bakers they might be buckled, because of their muslin-mouth and pinch-beck speeches, when barm is scant, they can blow up their bread with fair wind, and when the razor is rough, can trim their chafts with a fair tale, oil their peruke with their white lips, and powder the beau’s pow with a French-puff; they are well versed in all the science of flattery, musical tunes, horn-pipes, and country-dances, though perfect in none but the reel of Gamon.
Yet these are they the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon; a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones, Maggy and the Much, like twa fir-sticks and a pickle tow, neither for his plate nor his plow; very unproper plenishing, neither for his profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands through Hawkey’s[140]caff-cog, is a hateful hardship for Mammy’s Pet, and will hack a’ her hands. All this I have seen and heard, and been witness to; but my pen being a goose-quill, cannot expose their names nor places of abode, but warns the working-men out of their way.
Secondly, I see another sort, who can work, and maun work till they be married, and become mistresses themselves; but as the young man receives them, the thrift leaves them; before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, busked as for a brag, scour’d their din skins as a wauker does worsted blankets, kept as mim in the mouth as a minister’s wife, comely as Diana, chaste as Susanna, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, though their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking condition; their backs and their bellies are box’d about with the fins of a big fish,[141]six petticoats, a gown and apron, besides a side sark down to the ankle-banes; ah! what monstrous rags are here, what a cloth is consumed for a covering to one pair of buttocks! I leave it to the judgement of any ten taylors in town, if 30 pairs of mens’ breeches may not be cut, from a little above the easing of Bessy’s bum, and this makes her a motherly-like woman, as sturdy a fabric as ever strade to market or mill.
But when she’s married she turns a madam, her mistress did not work much, and why should she! Her mother tell’d ay she wad be a lady, but cou’d never show where her lands lay; but when money is all spent, credit broken, and conduct out of keeping, a wheen babling bubly bairns, crying piece minny, parich minny, the witless waster[142]is at her wit’s-end. Work now or want, and do not say that the world has war’d you; but Lofty-Nodle, your giddy-headed-mother has led you astray, by learning you to be a lady, before ye was fit to be a servant-lass, by teaching you laziness instead of hard labour, by giving you such a high conceit of yourself, that no body thinks any thing of you now, and you may judge yourself to be one of those, that wise people call Littleworth; but after all, my Dear Dirty-face, when you begin the warld again, be perfectly rich before you be gentle, work hard for what you gain, and you’ll ken better how to guide it, for pride is an unperfect fortune, and a ludicrous life will not last long.
Another sort I see, who has got more silver than sense, more gold than good nature, more muslins and means than good manners, tho’ a sack can hold their siller, six houses and a half cannot contain their ambitious desires. Fortunatus’s wonderful purse[143]would fail in fetching the fourth part of their worldly wants, and the children imitate their mothers, chattering like hungry cranes, crying still I want, I want, ever craving, willfully wanting, till all be brought to a doleful dish of desolation, and with cleanness of teeth, a full breast, an empty belly, big pockets without pence, pinching penury perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money, and friends both, old age, dim eyes, feeble joints, without shoes or clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings thoughtless Fops to both faith and repentance in one day.
Thirdly, Another thing I see, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding of bairns, and bringing them up like bill-stirks, they gie them walth o’ meat, but nae manners: but whan I was a bairn, if I didna bend to obedience, I ken mysel what I gat which learned me what to gie mine again; if they had tell’d me tuts, or prute-no, I laid them o’er my knee, and a com’d crack for crack o’er their hurdies, like a knock bleaching a harn-web, till the red wats stood on their hips, this brought obedience into my house, and banished dods and ill-nature out at the door; I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet dish-clout till they did my bidding: But now the bairns are brought up to spit fire in their mither’s face, and cast dirt at their auld daddies: How can they be good who never saw a sample of it; or reverence old age, who practised no precepts in their youth? How can they love their parents, who gave them black poison instead of good principles? Who shewed them no good, nor taught them no duties! No marvel such children despise old age, and reverence their parents as an old horse does his father.
Fourthly, The last prevailing evil which I see, all men mayhear, but none strive to help,[144]the banishment of that noble holy-day called the Sabbath, which has been blasted by a whirl-wind from the south; I am yet alive who saw this hurricane coming thro’ the walled city[145]near Solway in the South; it being on a Sunday, and a beautiful sun-shine day amangst some foul weeks in harvest-weather, which caused the Lord Mayor of the place to work hard, and put in the whole fields of wheat harvest, and the priests of that church commended him therefore: Because the season was backward, why should not man be disobedient! And this infection is come here also, surely the loss of this Sabbath-day will be counted a black Saturday to some; when I walk in the fields, I know it not but by the stopping of the plow, when in the city, only by the clossness of a few shop-doors and the sound of the bells; degenerate ideas of religion indeed! when the high praise is sounded only by bell-metal,A sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbal: Is it not come to pass, the taverns roar like Ætna’s mouth; children follow their gaming, and old sinners their stroling about, nothing stopt but coal-carts and common carriers, the Sabbath lasts no longer than the sermon, and the sermon is measured by a little sand in a glass; many, too many frequent the church, seemingly only to show their antic dress, with heads of a monstruous form, more surprizing than those described by Aristotle, as for length exceeding that of an asses’s head, ears and all; and ah! How humbling would it be, to see their heads struck into such a hideous form, &c.
They disdain now to ride on pads as of old, or to be hobled on a horse’s hurdies, but must be hurled behind the tail, safely seated in a leather conveniency, and there they fly swiftly as in the chariot of Aminadab.[146]
They will not speak the mother language[147]of their native country, but must have southern oaths, refined like raw-sugar thro’ the mills of cursing, finely polished, and fairly struck in the profane mint of London, into a perfect form of flunky-language; even the very wild Arabs from the mountain-tops, who have not yet got English to profane his Maker’s name, will cry,Cot, Cot; hateful it is to hear them swear, who cannot speak. O! strange alteration since the days of old![148]the downful of Popery, and the Prelates’ decay, when reformation was alive, and religion in taste and fashion; the people during the sabbath, were all packed up in closets, and their children kept within doors, when every city appeared like a sanctuary, nothing to be heard on the streets, but the sound of prayer on the right-hand, and the melodious sound of psalms on the left.
Now is the days of counting, scribing, riding of horses, and the sound of the post-horn come; surely there will be trade now; and none will miss prosperity when every day is a fair; I add no more on this head, but every one claim a right to his own set time, &c.
Another grievance of the female offenders I cannot omit, which attacks a man’s fancy, and is the cause of his fall;[149]I mean Flighters who has gotten a little of the means of Mammon, more silver than sense, more gold than good nature, haughtiness for humility, value themselves as a treasure incomprehensible,their heads and hearts of Ophir-gold, their hips of silver, & their whole body as set about with precious stones, great and many are the congresses of their courtship, and the solemnizing of their marriage is like the conclusion of a peace after a bloody and tedious war.[150]
And what is she after all! yea, her poor penny will never be exhausted, it must be laid out in lunacy and laziness, she must have fine teas and the tuther thing: When pregnancy and the speuing of porich approaches, then she prophecies of her death; as she hatches life, she embraces laziness; then O the bed, the bed, nothing like the bed for a bad wife, her body becomes as par-boil’d,[151]being so bed-ridden, this rots their children in the brewing, and buries them in the bringing up; yea, some mothers are so beastly, as to water the bed and blame the child therefore; yet such lazy wives live long, and their children soon die; their far fetched feigned sickness, soon render the husband to the substance of one sixpence, he becomes poor and hen-peck’t under such petticoat government.
But when I Janet was a Janet, and had the judgement of my own house, my husband was thrice happy, I never held him down, he was above me day and night, I sat late and raise early, kept a fu’ house and rough back, when summer came we minded winter’s cauld, we had peace ay at porich-time, and harmony through the day; we supp’d our sowens at supper-time with a seasonable heat, and went to bed good bairns kent naething but stark love and kindness, we wrought for riches, and our ages and earthly stores increased alike, wehated pride and loved peace, he died with a good name; I let you ken I live, but not as many do, not so lordly of my brain as some are of their belly! and was not my life strange by that now practised? Come help yourselves you hillocat-livers and avoid it.
Now after a’, if a poor man want a perfect wife, let him wale a weel blooded hissie wi’ braid shouders an thick about the haunches, that has been lang servant in ae house, tho’ twice or thrice awa’ and ay fied back, that’s weel liked by the bairns and the bairns’ mither, that’s naeway cankard to the cats, nor kicks the colly-dogs amang her feet, that wad let a’ brute-beasts live, but rats, mice, lice, flaes, neets and bugs, that bites the wee bairns in their cradles, that carefully comb the young things’ heads, washes their faces, and claps their cheeks, snites the snotter frae their nose[152]as they were a’ her ain, that’s the lass that will mak a good wife; for them that dauts the young bairns, will ay be kind to auld fouk an they had them.
And ony hale-hearted halsome hissie, that wants to halter a good husband, never tak a widow’s ae son, for a’ the wifely gates in the warld will be in him, for want of a father to teach him manly actions; neither tak a sour looking sumf wi’ a muckle mouth, and a wide guts, who will eat like a horse and soss like a sow, suffer none to sup but himsel, eat your meat and the bairns baith; when hungry angry, when fu’ full of pride, ten sacks will not haud his sauce, tho’ a pea-shap wad haud his siller: But go, tak your chance, and if cheated, channer not on me, for fashionable fouk flee to fashionable things, for lust is brutish-blind, and fond love is blear-ey’d. I add no more, says Janet; so be it, said Humphray the Clerk.
Finis.