No. 127 Thursday, July 26
Quantum est in rebus inane? PERS. Sat. i. ver. 1.
How much of emptiness we find in things!
It is our custom at Sir ROGER’S, upon the coming in of the post, to sit about a pot of coffee, and hear the old Knight read Dyer’s letter; which he does with his spectacles upon his nose, and in an audible voice, smiling very often at those little strokes of satire, which are so frequent in the writings of that author; I afterwards communicate to the Knight such packets as I receive under the quality of SPECTATOR. The following letter chancing to please him more than ordinary, I shall publish it at his request.
‘Mr. SPECTATOR,
‘You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expence of the country, it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagancies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more: In short, Sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon for the modesty of their head-dresses; for, as the humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure.
‘I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman’s honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of out-works and lines of circumvallation, A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege’s way of making love in a tub, as in the midst of so many hoops.
‘Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers, who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfal of the French King, and observe that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it fortels battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star.
‘Should this fashion get among the ordinary people, our publick ways would be so crowded that we should want street-room. Several congregations of the best fashion find themselves already very much straitened, and if the mode increase I wish it may not drive many ordinary women into meetings and conventicles. Should our sex at the same time take it into their heads to wear trunk-breeches (as who knows what their indignation at this female treatment may drive them to) a man and his wife would fill a whole pew.
‘You know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great, that in his Indian expedition he buried several suits of armour, which, by his direction, were made much too big for any of his soldiers, in order to give posterity an extraordinary idea of him, and make them believe he had commanded an army of giants. I am persuaded that if one of the present petticoats happens to be hung up in any repository of curiosities, it will lead into the same error the generations that lie some removes from us, unless we can believe our posterity will think so disrespectfully of their great-grandmothers, that they made themselves monstrous to appear amiable.
‘When I survey this new-fashioned Rotunda in all its parts, I cannot but think of the old philosopher, who, after having entered into an AEgyptian temple, and looked about for the idol of the place, at length discovered a little black monkey enshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great scandal of the worshippers) What a magnificent palace is here for such a ridiculous inhabitant!
‘Though you have taken a resolution, in one of your papers, to avoid descending to particularities of dress, I believe you will not think it below you on so extraordinary an occasion, to unhoop the fair sex, and cure this fashionable tympany that is got among them. I am apt to think the petticoat will shrink of its own accord at your first coming to town; at least a touch of your pen will make it contract itself, like the sensitive plant, and by that means oblige several who are either terrified or astonished at this portentous novelty, and among the rest,
‘Your humble servant, &c.’