by several of his dispensations seems purposely to show us that our schemes, or prudence, have no share in our advancements. This truth is illustrated in a little Persian fable.-A drop of water fell out of a cloud into the sea, and, finding itself lost in such an immensity of fluid matter, broke out into the following reflection: Alas! what an inconsiderable creature am I in this prodigious ocean of waters! My existence is of no concern to the universe, I am reduced to a kind of nothing, and ain less than the least of the works of God.' It so happened that an oyster, which lay in the neighbourhood of this drop, chanced to gape and swallow it up in the midst of this its humble soliloquy. The drop, says the fable, lay a great while hardening in the shell, until by degrees it was ripened into a pearl, which falling into the hands of a diver, after a long series of adventures, is at present that famous pearl which is fixed on the top of the Persian diadem. ON PIN-MONEY. No. 295. ADDISON. MR. SPECTATOR, "I AM turned of my great climacteric, and am naturally a man of a meek temper. About a dozen years ago I was married, for my sins, to a young woman of a good family, and of a high spirit; but could not bring her to close with me before I had entered into a treaty with her longer than that of the grand alliance. Among other articles, it was therein stipulated that she should have 400l. a year for pin-money, which I obliged myself to pay quarterly into the hands of one who acted as her plenipotentiary in that affair. I have ever since religiously observed my part in this solemn agreement. Now, sir, so it is, that the lady has had several children since I married her; to which, if I should credit our malicious neighbours, her pinmoney has not a little contributed. The education of these my children, who, contrary to my expectation, are born to me every year, straitens me so much, that I have begged their mother to free me from the obligation of the above-mentioned pin-money, that it may go towards making a provision for her family. This proposal makes her noble blood swell in her veins, insomuch that, finding me a little tardy in her last quarter's payment, she threatens me every day to arrest me; and proceeds so far as to tell me, that if I do not do her justice I shall die in a jail. To this she adds, when her passion will let her argue calmly, that she has several play-debts on her hand, which must be discharged very suddenly, and that she cannot lose her money as becomes a woman of her fashion, if she makes me any abatement in this article. I hope, sir, you will take an occasion from hence to give your opinion upon a subject which you have not yet touched, and inform us if there are any precedents for this usage among our ancestors; or whether you find any mention of pin-money in Grotius, Puffendorf, or any other of the civilians. I am ever the humblest of your admirers, As there is no man living who is a more professed advocate for the fair-sex than myself, so there is none that would be more unwilling to invade any of their antient antient rights and privileges; but as the doctrine of pin-money is of a very late date, unknown to our great grandmothers, and not yet received by many of our modern ladies, I think it is for the interest of both sexes to keep it from spreading. Mr. Fribble may not, perhaps, be much mistaken where he intimates that the supplying a man's wife with pin-money is furnishing her with arms against himself, and in a manner becoming accessary to his own dishonour, We may, indeed, generally observe that, in proportion as a woman is more or less beautiful, and her husband advanced in years, she stands in need of a greater or less number of pins, and, upon a treaty of marriage, rises or falls in her demands accordingly. It must likewise be owned, that high quality in a mistress does very much inflame this article. in the marriage-reckoning. But where the age and circumstances of both parties are pretty much upon a level, I cannot but think the insisting upon pin-money is very extraordinary; and yet we find several matches broken off upon this very head. What would a foreigner, or one who is a stranger to this practice, think of a lover that forsakes his mistress because he is not willing to keep her in pins? But what would he think of the mistress, should he be informed that she asks five or six hundred pounds a year for this use? Should a man unacquainted with our customs be told the sums which are allowed in Great Britain under the title of pin-money, what a prodigious consumption of pins would he think there was in this island! A pin a day,' says our frugal proverb, is a groat a year;' so that, according to this calculation, my friend Fribble's wife must every year 6 make make use of eight millions six hundred and forty thousand new pins. I am not ignorant that our British ladies allege they comprehend under this general term several other conveniencies of life; I could therefore wish, for the honour of my countrywomen, that they had rather called it needle-money; which might have implied something of good housewifery, and not have given the malicious world occasion to think that dress and trifles have always the uppermost place in a woman's thoughts. I know several of my fair readers urge, in defence of this practice, that it is but a necessary provision they make for themselves, in case their husband proves a churl or a miser; so that they consider this allowance as a kind of alimony, which they may lay their claim to without actually separating from their husbands. But, with submission, I think a woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apprehension, and trust her person to one whom she will not rely on for the common necessaries of life, may very properly be accused (in the phrase of a homely proverb) of being penny wise and pound foolish.’ It is observed of over cautious generals, that they never engage in a battle without securing a retreat, in case the event should not answer their expectations: on the other hand, the greatest conquerors have burnt their ships, or broke down the bridges behind them, as being determined either to succeed or die in the engagement. In the same manner I should very much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for her retreat, and contrives methods how she may live hap pily, without the affection of one to whom she joins herself for life. Separate purses between man and wife are, in my opinion, as unnatural as separate beds. A marriage cannot be happy, where the pleasures, inclinations, and interests of both parties are not the same. There is no greater incitement to love in the mind of man, than the sense of a person's depending upon him for her ease and happiness; as a woman uses all her endeavours to please the person whom she looks upon as her honour, her comfort, and her support. For this reason I am not very much surprised at the behaviour of a rough country squire, who, being not a little shocked at the proceeding of a young widow that would not recede from her demands of pin-money, was so enraged at her mercenary temper, that he told her in great wrath, as much as she thought him her slave, he would show all the world he did not care a pin for her. Upon which he flew out of the room, and never saw her more. Socrates, in Plato's Alcibiades, says he was informed, by one who had travelled through Persia, that, as he passed over a great tract of lands, and inquired what the name of the place was, they told him it was the queen's girdle;' to which he adds, that another wide field, which lay by it, was called the queen's veil;' and that in the same manner there was a large portion of ground set aside for every part of her majesty's dress. These lands might not be improperly called the queen of Persia's pin-money. I remember my friend sir Roger, who I dare say never read this passage in Plato, told me some time since, that upon his courting the perverse widow (of whom I have given an account in former papers) he VOL. II. G had |