11. CHAPTER XI.
Containing may rules, and some examples, concerning falling in love:
Descriptions of beauty, and other more prudential inducements to
matrimony
It hath been observed, by wise men or women, I forget which, that all persons are doomed to be in love
once in their lives. No particular season is, as I remember, assigned for this; but the age at which Miss
Bridget was arrived, seems to me as proper a period as any to be fixed on for this purpose: it often,
indeed, happens much earlier; but when it doth not, I have observed it seldom or never fails about this
time. Moreover, we may remark that at this season love is of a more serious and steady nature than
what sometimes shows itself in the younger parts of life. The love of girls is uncertain, capricious, and
so foolish that we cannot always discover what the young lady would be at; nay, it may almost be
doubted whether she always knows this herself.
Now we are never at a loss to discern this in women about forty; for as such grave, serious, and
experienced ladies well know their own meaning, so it is always very easy for a man of the least
sagacity to discover this with the utmost certainty.
Miss Bridget is an example of all these observations. She had not been many times in the captain's
company before she was seized with this passion. Nor did she go pining and moping about the house,
like a puny, foolish girl, ignorant of her distemper: she felt, she knew, and she enjoyed, the pleasing
sensation, of which, as she was certain it was not only innocent but laudable, she was neither afraid nor
ashamed.
And to say the truth, there is, in all points, great difference between the reasonable passion which
women at this age conceive towards men, and the idle and childish liking of a girl to a boy, which is
often fixed on the outside only, and on things of little value and no duration; as on cherry-cheeks,
small, lily-white hands, sloe-black eyes, flowing locks, downy chins, dapper shapes; nay, sometimes on
charms more worthless than these, and less the party's own; such are the outward ornaments of the
person, for which men are beholden to the tailor, the laceman, the periwig-maker, the hatter, and the
milliner, and not to nature. Such a passion girls may well be ashamed, as they generally are, to own
either to themselves or others.
The love of Miss Bridget was of another kind. The captain owed nothing to any of these fop-makers in
his dress, nor was his person much more beholden to nature. Both his dress and person were such as,
had they appeared in an assembly or a drawing-room, would have been the contempt and ridicule of all
the fine ladies there. The former of these was indeed neat, but plain, coarse, ill-fancied, and out of
fashion. As for the latter, we have expressly described it above. So far was the skin on his cheeks from
being cherry-colored, that you could not discern what the natural color of his cheeks was, they being
totally overgrown by a black beard, which ascended to his eyes. His shape and limbs were indeed
exactly proportioned, but so large that they denoted the strength rather of a ploughman than any other.
His shoulders were broad beyond all sizes, and the calves of his legs larger than those of a common
chairman. In short, his whole person wanted all that elegance and beauty which is the very reverse of
clumsy strength, and which so agreeably sets off most of our fine gentlemen; being partly owing to the
high blood of their ancestors, viz. blood made of rich sauces and generous wines, and partly to an early
town education.
Though Miss Bridget was a woman of the greatest delicacy of taste, yet such were the charms of the
captain's conversation, that she totally overlooked the defects of his person. She imagined, and perhaps
very wisely, that she should enjoy more agreeable minutes with the captain than with a much prettier
fellow; and forewent the consideration of pleasing her eyes, in order to procure herself much more
solid satisfaction.
The captain no sooner perceived the passion of Miss Bridget, in which discovery he was very quick-
sighted, than he faithfully returned it. The lady, no more than her lover, was remarkable for beauty. I
would attempt to draw her picture, but that is done already by a more able master, Mr. Hogarth himself,
to whom she sat many years ago, and hath been lately exhibited by that gentleman in his print of a
winter's morning, of which she was no improper emblem, and may be seen walking (for walk she doth
in the print) to Covent-garden church, with a starved foot-boy behind carrying her prayer-book.
The captain likewise very wisely preferred the more solid enjoyments he expected with this lady, to the
fleeting charms of person. He was one of those wise men who regard beauty in the other sex as a very
worthless and superficial qualification; or, to speak more truly, who rather choose to possess every
convenience of life with an ugly woman, than a handsome one without any of those conveniences. And
having a very good appetite, and but little nicety, he fancied he should play his part very well at the
matrimonial banquet, without the sauce of beauty.
To deal plainly with the reader, the captain, ever since his arrival, at least from the moment his brother
had proposed the match to him, long before he had discovered any flattering symptoms in Miss Bridget,
had been greatly enamoured; that is to sav, of Mr. Allworthy's house and gardens, and of his lands,
tenements, and hereditaments ; of all which the captain was so passionately fond, that he would most
probably have contracted marriage with them, hail he been obliged to have taken the witch of Endor
into the bargain.
As Mr. Allworthy, therefore, had declared to the doctor that he never intended to take a second wife, as
his sister was his nearest relation, and as the doctor had fished out that his intentions were to make any
child of hers his heir, which indeed the law, without his interposition, would have done for him; the
doctor and his brother thought it an act of benevolence to give being to a human creature, who would
be so plentifully provided with the most essential means of happiness. The whole thoughts, therefore,
of both the brothers were how to engage the affections of this amiable lady.
But fortune, who is a tender parent, and often doth more for her favorite offspring than either they
deserve or wish, had been so industrious for the captain, that whilst he was laying schemes to execute
his purpose, the lady conceived the same desires with himself, and was on her side contriving how to
give the captain proper encouragement, without appearing too forward; for she was a strict observer of
all rules of decorum this, however, she easily succeeded; for as the captain was always on the look-out,
no glance, gesture, or word escaped him.
The satisfaction which the captain received from the kind behavior of Miss Bridget, was not a little
abated by his apprehensions of Mr. Allworthy; for, notwithstanding his disinterested professions, the
captain imagined lie would, when he came to act, follow tie example of the rest of the world, and
refuse his consent to a match so disadvantageous, in point of interest, to his sister. From what oracle he
received this opinion, I shall leave the reader to determine: but however he came by it, it strangely
perplexed him how to regulate his conduct so as at once to convey his affection to the lady, and to
conceal it from her brother. He at length resolved to take all private opportunities of making his
addresses; but in the presence of Mr. Allworthy to be as reserved and as much upon his guard as was
possible; and this conduct was highly approved by the brother.
He soon found means to make his addresses, in express terms, to his mistress, from whom he received
an answer in the proper form, viz. the answer which was first made some thousands of years ago, and
which hath been handed down by tradition from mother to daughter ever since. If I was to translate this
into Latin, I should render it by these two words,Nolo Episcopari:
a phrase likewise of immemorial use
on another occasion.
The captain, however he came by his knowledge, perfectly well understood the lady, and very soon
after repeated his application with more warmth and earnestness than before, and was again, according
to due form, rejected; but as he had increased in the eagerness of his desires, so the ladv, with the same
propriety, decreased in the violence of her refusal.
Not to tire the reader, by leading him through every scene of this courtship (which, though in the opinion
of a certain great author, it is the pleasantest scene of life to the actor, is, perhaps, as dull and tiresome as
any whatever to the audience), the captain made his advances in form, the citadel was defended in form,
and at length, in proper form, surrendered at discretion.
During this whole time, which filled the space of near a month, the captain preserved great distance of
behavior to his lady in the presence of the brother; and the more he succeeded with her in private, the
more reserved was he in public. And as for the lady, she had no sooner secured her lover, than she
behaved to him before company with the highest degree of indifference; so that Mr. Allworthy must have
had the insight of the devil (or perhaps some of his worse qualities) to have entertained the least
suspicion of what was going forward.