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HOW JOHN
DISCOVERED THAT HOCUS HAD AN INTRIGUE WITH
HIS WIFE; AND WHAT FOLLOWED THEREUPON.
JOHN had not run on a madding so long had it not been for an
extravagant wife, whom Hocus perceiving John to be fond of, was
resolved to win over to his side. It is a true saying, that
the last man of the parish that knows of his cuckoldom is
himself. It was observed by all the neighborhood that Hocus had
dealings with John's wife that were not so much for his honor;
but this was perceived by John a little too late: she was a
luxurious jade, loved splendid equipages, plays, treats and
balls, differing very much from the sober manners of her
ancestors, and by no means fit for a tradesman's wife. Hocus fed
her extravagancy (what was still more shameful) with John's own
money. Everybody said that Hocus had a month's mind to her; be
that as it will, it is matter of fact, that upon all occasions
she ran out extravagantly on the praise of Hocus. When John used
to be finding fault with his bills, she used to reproach him as
ungrateful to his greatest benefactor; one that had taken so much
pains in his lawsuit, and retrieved his family from the
oppression of old Lewis Baboon. A good swinging sum of
John's readiest cash went towards building of Hocus's country
house. This affair between Hocus and Mrs. Bull was now so open,
that all the world was scandalized at it; John was not so
clod-pated, but at last he took the hint. The parson of the
perish preaching one day with more zeal than sense against
adultery, Mrs. Bull told her husband that he was a very uncivil
fellow to use such coarse language before people of condition;
that Hocus was of the same mind, and that they would join to have
him turned out of his living for using personal reflections. How
do you mean, says John, by personal reflections? I hope in God,
wife, he did not reflect upon you? "No, thank God, my
reputation is too well established in the world to receive any
hurt from such a foul-mouthed scoundrel as he; his doctrine tends
only to make husbands tyrants, and wives slaves; must we be shut
up, and husbands left to their liberty? Very pretty indeed! a
wife must never go abroad with a Platonic to see a play or a
ball; she must never stir without her husband; nor walk in Spring
Garden with a cousin. I do say, husband, and I will stand
by it, that without the innocent freedoms of life, matrimony
would be a most intolerable state; and that a wife's virtue ought
to be the result of her own reason, and not of her husband's
government: for my part, I would scorn a husband that would be
jealous, if he saw a fellow with me." All this while John's
blood boiled in his veins: he was now confirmed in all his
suspicions; the hardest names, were the best words that John gave
her. Things went from better to worse, till Mrs. Bull aimed
a knife at John, though John threw a bottle at her head very
brutally indeed: and after this there was nothing but confusion;
bottles, glasses, spoons, plates, knives, forks, and dishes flew
about like dust; the result of which was, that Mrs. Bull received
a bruise in her right side of which she died half a year
after.....
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MRS. BULL'S VINDICATION OF THE INDISPENSABLE DUTY INCUMBENT UPON WIVES IN CASE OF THE
TYRANNY, INFIDELITY, OR INSUFFICIENCY OF HUSBANDS; BEING A FULL ANSWER TO THE
DOCTOR'S SERMON AGAINST ADULTERY.
JOHN found daily fresh proofs of the infidelity and bad designs
of his deceased wife; amongst other things, one day looking over
his cabinet, he found the following paper:
"It is evident that matrimony is founded
upon an original contract, whereby the wife makes over the right
she has by the law of Nature in favor of the husband, by which he
acquires the property of all her posterity. But, then, the
obligation is mutual; and where the contract is broken on one
side it ceases to bind on the other. Where there is a right there
must be a power to maintain it and to punish the offending party.
This power I affirm to be that original right, or rather that
indispensable duty lodged in all wives in the cases
above-mentioned. No wife is bound by any law to which herself has
not consented. All economical government is lodged originally in
the husband and wife, the executive part being in the husband;
both have their privileges secured to them by law and reason; but
will any man infer from the husband being invested with the
executive power, that the wife is deprived of her share, and that
she has no remedy left but preces and lacrymae, or
an appeal to a supreme court of judicature! No less frivolous are
the arrangements that are drawn from the general appellations and
terms of husband and wife. A husband denotes several different
sorts of magistracy, according to the usages and customs of
different climates and countries. In some eastern nations
it signifies a tyrant, with the absolute power of life and
death. In Turkey it denotes an arbitrary governor, with
power of perpetual imprisonment; in Italy it gives the husband
the power of poison and padlocks; in the countries of England,
France, and Holland, it has a quite different meaning, implying a
free and equal government, securing to the wife in certain cases
the liberty of change, and the property of pin-money and separate
maintenance. So that the arguments drawn from the terms of
husband and wife are fallacious, and by no means fit to support a
tyrannical doctrine, as that of absolute unlimited chastity and
conjugal fidelity.
"The general exhortations to fidelity in
wives are meant only for rules in ordinary cases, but they
naturally suppose three conditions of ability, justice, and
fidelity in the husband; such an unlimited, unconditioned
fidelity in the wife could never be supposed by reasonable men.
It seems a reflection upon the Church to charge her with
doctrines that countenance oppression.
"This doctrine of the original right of
change is congruous to the law of Nature, which is superior to
all human laws, and for that I dare appeal to all wives: It is
much to the honor of our English wives that they have never given
up that fundamental point, and that though in former ages they
were muffled up in darkness and superstition, yet that notion
seemed engraven on their minds, and the impression so strong that
nothing could impair it.
"To assert the illegality of change, upon
any pretence whatsoever, were to cast odious colors upon the
married state, to blacken the necessary means of perpetuating
families--such laws can never be supposed to have been designed
to defeat the very end of matrimony. I call them necessary means,
for in many cases what other means are left! Such a doctrine
wounds the honor of families, unsettles the titles to kingdoms,
honors, and estates; for if the actions from which such
settlements spring were illegal, all that is built upon them must
be so too; but the last is absurd, therefore the first must be so
likewise. What is the cause that Europe groans at present
under the heavy load of a cruel and expensive war, but the
tyrannical custom of a certain nation, and the scrupulous nicety
of a silly queen in not exercising this indispensable duty,
whereby the kingdom might have had an heir, and a controverted
succession might have been avoided. These are the effects of the
narrow maxims of your clergy, 'That one must not do evil that
good may come of it.'
"The assertors of this indefeasible
right, and jus divinum of matrimony, do all in their
hearts favor the pretenders to married women; for if the true
legal foundation of the married state be once sapped, and instead
thereof tyrannical maxims introduced, what must follow but
elopements instead of secret and peaceable change?
"From all that has been said, one may
clearly perceive the absurdity of the doctrine of this seditious,
discontented, hot-headed, ungifted, unedifying preacher,
asserting 'that the grand security of the matrimonial state, and
the pillar upon which it stands, is founded upon the wife's
belief of an absolute unconditional fidelity to the husband'; by
which bold assertion he strikes at the root, digs the foundation,
and removes the basis upon which the happiness of a married state
is built. As for his personal reflections, I would gladly know
who are those 'wanton wives' he speaks of? who are those ladies
of high stations that he so boldly traduces in his sermon? It is
pretty plain who these aspersions are aimed at, for which he
deserves the pillory, or something worse.
"In confirmation of this doctrine of the
indispensable duty of change, I could bring the example of the
wisest wives in all ages, who by these means have preserved their
husband's families from ruin and oblivion by want of posterity;
but what has been said is a sufficient ground for punishing this
pragmatical parson."
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THE TWO GREAT PARTIES OF WIVES, THE DEVOTOS AND THE
HITTS.
THE doctrine of unlimited fidelity in wives was universally
espoused by all husbands, who went about the country and made the
wives sign papers signifying their utter detestation and
abhorrence of Mrs. Bull's wicked doctrine of the indispensable
duty of change. Some yielded, others refused to part with their
native liberty, which gave rise to two great parties amongst the
wives, the Devotes and the Hitts. Though, it must be owned, the
distinction was more nominal than real; for the Devotes would
abuse freedoms sometimes, and those who were distinguished by the
name of Hitts were often very honest. At the same time there was
an ingenious treatise came out with the title of "Good
Advice to Husbands," in which they were counselled not to
trust too much to their wives owning the doctrine of unlimited
conjugal fidelity, and so to neglect a due watchfulness over the
manners of their wives; that the greatest security to husbands
was a good usage of their wives and keeping them from temptation,
many husbands having been sufferers by their trusting too much to
general professions, as was exemplified in the case of a foolish
and negligent husband, who, trusting to the efficacy of this
principle, was undone by his wife's elopement from him.
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HOW THE GUARDIANS OF THE
DECEASED MRS. BULL'S
THREE DAUGHTERS CAME TO JOHN, AND
WHAT ADVICE THEY GAVE HIM; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY TREATED THE
CHARACTERS
OF THE THREE DAUGHTERS. ALSO JOHN BULL'S ANSWER TO THE THREE GUARDIANS.
I TOLD YOU in a former chapter that Mrs. Bull, before she
departed this life, had blessed John with three daughters. I need
not here repeat their names ["Polemia, Discordia, and
Usuria"], neither would I willingly use any scandalous
reflections upon young ladies, whose reputations ought to be very
tenderly handled; but the characters of these were so well known
in the neighborhood, that it is doing them no injury to make a
short description of them.
The eldest was a termagant, imperious,
prodigal, lewd, profligate wench, as ever breathed; she used to
rantipole about the house, pinch the children, kick the servants,
and torture the cats and the dogs; she would rob her father's
strong box, for money to give the young fellows that she was fond
of. She had a noble air, and something great in her mien,
but such a noisome infectious breath, as threw all the servants
that dressed her into consumptions; if she smelt to the freshest
nosegay, it would shrivel and wither as it had been blighted: she
used to come home in her cups, and break the china, and the
looking-glasses; and was of such an irregular temper, and so
entirely given up to her passion, that you might argue as well
with the North wind, as with her ladyship: so expensive, that the
income of three dukedoms was not enough to supply her
extravagance. Hocus loved her best, believing her to be his own,
got upon the body of Mrs. Bull.
The second daughter, born a year after her
sister, was a peevish, froward, ill-conditioned creature as ever
was, ugly as the devil, lean, haggard, pale, with saucer eyes, a
sharp nose, and hunched backed; but active, sprightly, and
diligent about her affairs. Her ill complexion was occasioned by
her bad diet, which was coffee morning, noon and night. She never
rested quietly a-bed, but used to disturb the whole family with
shrieking out in her dreams, and plague them next day with
interpreting them, for she took them all for gospel; she would
cry out "Murder!" and disturb the whole neighborhood;
and when John came running downstairs to inquire what the matter
was, nothing forsooth, only her maid had stuck a pin wrong in her
gown; she turned away one servant for putting too much oil in her
salad, and another for putting too little salt in her
water-gruel; but such as by flattery had procured her esteem, she
would indulge in the greatest crime. Her father had two coachmen;
when one was in the coach-box, if the coach swung but the least
to one side, she used to shriek so loud, that all the street
concluded she was overturned; but though the other was eternally
drunk, and had overturned the whole family, she was very angry
with her father for turning him away. Then she used to carry
tales and stories from one to another, till she had set the whole
neighborhood together by the ears; and this was the only
diversion she took pleasure in. She never went abroad, but she
brought home such a bundle of monstrous lies, as would have
amazed any mortal, but such as knew her: of a whale that had
swallowed a fleet of ships; of the lions being let out of the
Tower, to destroy the Protestant religion; of the Pope's being
seen in a brandy-shop at Wapping; and a prodigious strong man
that was going to shove down the cupola of St. Paul's; of three
millions of five pound pieces that Squire South had found under
an old wall; of blazing stars, flying dragons, and abundance of
such stuff. All the servants in the family made high court to
her, for she domineered there, and turned out and in whom she
pleased; only there was an old grudge between her and Sir Roger,
whom she mortally hated and used to hire fellows to squirt kennel
water upon him as he passed along the streets; so that he was
forced constantly to wear a surtout of oiled cloth, by which
means he came home pretty clean, except where the surtout was a
little scanty. As for the third she was a thief and a common
mercenary. She had no respect of persons: a prince or a porter
was all one, according as they paid; yea, she would leave the
finest gentleman in the world to go to an ugly fellow for
sixpence more. In the practice of her profession she had amassed
vast magazines of all sorts of things: she had above five hundred
suits of fine clothes, and yet went abroad like a cinder wench.
She robbed and starved all the servants, so that nobody could
live near her.
So much for John's three daughters, which you
will say were rarities to be fond of. Yet Nature will show
itself...