reproof to some of my own sex, I mean those gentlemen who give
themselves unnecessary airs, and cannot go to see a friend, but
they must kiss and slop the maid; and all this is done with an air
of gallantry, and must not be resented. Nay, some gentlemen are so
silly, that they shall carry on an underhand affair with their
friend’s servant-maid, to their own disgrace, and the ruin of many
a young creature. Nothing is more base and ungenerous, yet nothing
more common, and withal so little taken notice of. D-n me, Jack,
says one friend to another, this maid of yours is a pretty girl,
you do so and so to her, by G-d. This makes the creature pert,
vain, and impudent, and spoils many a good servant.
What gentleman will descend to this low way of intrigue, when he
shall consider that he has a footboy or an apprentice for his
rival, and that he is seldom or never admitted, but when they have
been his tasters; and the fool of fortune, though he comes at the
latter end of the feast, yet pays the whole reckoning; and so
indeed would I have all such silly cullies served.
If I must have an intrigue, let it be with a woman that shall not
shame me. I would never go into the kitchen, when the parlour door
was open. We are forbidden at Highgate, to kiss the maid when we
may kiss the mistress; why then will gentlemen descend so low, by
too much familiarity with these creatures, to bring themselves into
contempt?
I have been at places where the maid has been so dizzied with these
idle compliments that she has mistook one thing for another, and
not regarded her mistress in the least; but put on all the flirting
airs imaginable. This behaviour is nowhere so much complained of
as in taverns, coffeehouses, and places of public resort, where
there are handsome bar-keepers, &c. These creatures being puffed
up with the fulsome flattery of a set of flesh-flies, which are
continually buzzing about them, carry themselves with the utmost
insolence imaginable; insomuch, that you must speak to them with a
great deal of deference, or you are sure to be affronted. Being at
a coffeehouse the other day, where one of these ladies kept the
bar, I had bespoke a dish of rice tea; but madam was so taken up
with her sparks, she had quite forgot it. I spake for it again,
and with some temper, but was answered after a most taunting
manner, not without a toss of the head, a contraction of the
nostrils, and other impertinences, too many to enumerate. Seeing
myself thus publicly insulted by such an animal, I could not choose
but show my resentment. Woman, said I, sternly, I want a dish of
rice tea, and not what your vanity and impudence may imagine;
therefore treat me as a gentleman and a customer, and serve me with
what I call for: keep your impertinent repartees and impudent
behaviour for the coxcombs that swarm round your bar, and make you
so vain of your blown carcase. And indeed I believe the insolence
of this creature will ruin her master at last, by driving away men
of sobriety and business, and making the place a den of vagabonds
and rakehells.
Gentlemen, therefore, ought to be very circumspect in their
behaviour, and not undervalue themselves to servant-wenches, who
are but too apt to treat a gentleman ill whenever he puts himself
into their power.
Let me now beg pardon for this digression, and return to my subject
by proposing some practicable methods for regulating of servants,
which, whether they are followed or not, yet, if they afford matter
of improvement and speculation, will answer the height of my
expectation, and I will be the first who shall approve of whatever
improvements are made from this small beginning.
The first abuse I would have reformed is, that servants should be
restrained from throwing themselves out of place on every idle
vagary. This might be remedied were all contracts between master
and servant made before a justice of peace, or other proper
officer, and a memorandum thereof taken in writing. Nor should