Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1702-1714 -- Humor; Political satire, English
She left him three daughters, whose names were Polemia, Discordia, and
Usuria.**
* Endeavours and hopes of some people to hinder the
dissolution of that Parliament.
** War, faction, and usury.
CHAPTER X. Of John Bull's second Wife, and the good Advice that she gave
him.*
John quickly got the better of his grief, and, seeing that neither his
constitution nor the affairs of his family, could permit him to live in
an unmarried state, he resolved to get him another wife; a cousin of his
last wife's was proposed, but John would have no more of the breed. In
short, he wedded a sober country gentlewoman, of a good family and a
plentiful fortune, the reverse of the other in her temper; not but that
she loved money, for she was saving, and applied her fortune to pay
John's clamorous debts, that the unfrugal method of his last wife, and
this ruinous lawsuit, had brought him into. One day, as she had got
her husband in a good humour, she talked to him after the following
manner:--"My dear, since I have been your wife, I have observed great
abuses and disorders in your family: your servants are mutinous and
quarrelsome, and cheat you most abominably; your cookmaid is in a
combination with your butcher, poulterer, and fishmonger; your butler
purloins your liquor, and the brewer sells you hogwash; your baker
cheats both in weight and in tale; even your milkwoman and your
nursery-maid have a fellow feeling; your tailor, instead of shreds,
cabbages whole yards of cloth; besides, leaving such long scores, and
not going to market with ready money forces us to take bad ware of the
tradesmen at their own price. You have not posted your books these ten
years. How is it possible for a man of business to keep his affairs even
in the world at this rate? Pray God this Hocus be honest; would to God
you would look over his bills, and see how matters stand between Frog
and you. Prodigious sums are spent in this lawsuit, and more must be
borrowed of scriveners and usurers at heavy interest. Besides, my
dear, let me beg of you to lay aside that wild project of leaving
your business to turn lawyer, for which, let me tell you, Nature never
designed you. Believe me, these rogues do but flatter, that they may
pick your pocket; observe what a parcel of hungry ragged fellows live by
your cause; to be sure they will never make an end of it. I foresee this
haunt you have got about the courts will one day or another bring your
family to beggary. Consider, my dear, how indecent it is to abandon
your shop and follow pettifoggers; the habit is so strong upon you, that
there is hardly a plea between two country esquires, about a barren acre
upon a common, but you draw yourself in as bail, surety, or solicitor."
John heard her all this while with patience, till she pricked his
maggot, and touched him in the tender point. Then he broke out into
a violent passion: "What, I not fit for a lawyer? let me tell you, my
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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