To my Lady B.

Madam,

Though I never had the honour to receive a favour from you, nay, or be known to you, I take the confidence of an author to write to you a billet doux dedicatory, which is no new thing, for by most dedications it appears, that authors, though they praise their p atrons from top to toe and seem to turn them inside out, know them as little as sometimes their patrons their books, though they read them out. And if the poetical daubers did not write the name of the man or woman on top of the picture, it were impossible to guess whose it were. But you, madam, without the help of a poet, have made yourself known and famous in the world and, because you do not want it, are therefore most worthy of an epistle dedicatory. And this play claims naturally your protection, since it has lost its reputation with the ladies of stricter lives in the playhouse; and (you know) when men’s endeavours are discountenanced and refused by the nice coy women of honour, they come to you, to you the great and noble patroness of rejected and bashful men, of which number I profess myself to be one, though a poet, a dedicating poet. To you I say, madam, who have as discerning a judgment, in what’s obscene or not, as any quick-sighted civil person of them all and can make as much of a double meaning saying as the best of them; yet would not, as some do, make nonsense of a poet’s jest, rather than not make it bawdy. By which they show they as little value wit in a play as in a lover, provided they can bring to other thing about. Their sense indeed lies all one way and therefore are only for that in a poet which is moving, as they say, but what do they mean by that word ‘moving’? Well, I must not put them to the blush, since I find I can do it. In short, madam, you would not be one of those who ravish a poet’s innocent words and make them guilty of their own naughtiness (as it is termed) in spite of his teeth. Nay, nothing is secure from the power of their imaginations; no, not their husbands, whom they cuckold with themselves, by thinking of other men and so make the lawful matrimonial embraces adultery, wrong husbands and poets in thought and word, to keep their own reputations, but your ladyship’s justice, I know, would think a woman’s arraigning and damning a poet for her own obscenity, like her crying out a rape and hanging a man for giving her pleasure, only that she might be thought not to consent to it and so to vindicate her honour forfeits her modesty. But you, madam, have too much modesty to pretend to it. Though you have as much to say for your modesty as many a nicer she. For you never were seen at this play, no, not the first day and it is no matter what people’s lives have been, they are unquestionably modest who frequent not this play. For, as Mr. Bays says of his, that it is the only touchstone of men’s wit and understanding; mine is, it seems, the only touchstone of women’s virtue and modesty. But hold, that touchstone is equivocal and, by the strength of a lady’s imagination, may become something that is not civil; but your ladyship, I know, scorns to misapply a touchstone. And, madam, though you have not seen this play, I hope (like other nice ladies) you will the rather read it. Yet, last the chambermaid or page should not be trusted and their indulgence could gain no further admittance for it, than to their lady’s lobbies or outward rooms, take it into your care and protection. For, by your recommendation and procurement, it may have the honour to get into their closets. For what they renounce in public often entertains them there, with your help especially. In fine, madam, for these and many other reasons, you are the fittest patroness or judge of this play: for you show no partiality to this or that author; for from some many ladies will take a broad gist as cheerfully as from the watermen and sit at some downright filthy plays (as they call them) as well satisfied and as still as a poet could wish them elsewhere. Therefore, it must be the doubtful obscenity of my plays alone they take exceptions at, because it is too bashful for them. And indeed, most women hate men, for attempting to halves on their chastity. And bawdy I find, like satire, should be home, not to have it taken notice of. But now I mention satire , some there are who say, it is the plain dealing of the play, not the obscenity, it is taking off the lady’ s masks, not offering at their petti coats, which offends them. And generally, they are not the handsomest, or most innocent, who are the most angry at being discovered.

— Nihil est audacius illis Deprehensis; iram, atque animos a crimine sumunt.

Pardon, madam, the quotation, for a dedication can no more be without ends of Latin, than flattery. And it is no matter whom it is written to. For an author can as easily (I hope) suppose people to have more understanding and languages than they have, as well as more virtues. But why, the devil! Should any of the few modest and handsome be alarmed? ( For some there are who as well as any deserve those attributes, yet refrain not from seeing this play, nor think it any addition to their virtue to set up for it in a playhouse, last there it should look too much like acting). But why, I say, should any at all of the truly virtuous be concerned, if those who are not so are distinguished from them? For by that mask of modesty which women wear promiscuously in public, they are all alike and you can no more know a kept wench from a woman of honour by her looks than by her dress. For those who are of quality without honour (if any such there are) they have their quality to set off their false modesty, as well as their false jewels and you must no more suspect their countenances for counterfeit than their pendants, though , as the plain dealer Montaigne says: Ils envoient leur conscience au bordel, et tiennent leur contenance en règle. But those who act as they look, ought not to be scandalized at the reprehension of others faults, last they tax themselves with them and by too delicate and quick an apprehension not only make that obscene which I meant innocent, but that satire on all, which was intended only on those who deserved it. But, madam, I beg your pardon for this digression, to civil women and ladies of honour, since you and I shall never be the better for them. For a comic poet and a lady of your profession, make most of the other sort and the stage and your houses, like our plantations, are propagated by the least nice women. And as with the ministers of justice, the vices of the age are our best business. But now I mention public persons, I can no longer defer doing you the justice of a dedication and telling you your own, who are, of all public-spirited people, the most necessary, most communicative, most generous and hospitable. Y our house has been the house of the people, your sleep still disturbed for the public and when you arose i t was that others might l i e down and you waked that others might rest. The good you have done is unspeakable. How many young experienced heirs have you kept from rash foolish marriages and from being jilted for their lives by the worst sort of jilts, wives? How many unbewitched widowers’ children have you preserved from the tyranny of stepmothers? How many old dotards from cuckoldage and keeping other men’s wenches and children? How many adulteries and unnatural sins have you prevented? In fine, you have been a constant scourge to the old lecher and often a terror to the young. You have made concupiscence its own punishment and extinguished lust with lust, like blowing up of houses to stop the fire.

Nimirum propter continentiam, incontinentia Necessaria est, incendium ignibus extinguitur.

There’s Latin for you again, madam. I protest to you, as I am an author, I cannot help it. Nay, I can hardly keep myself from quoting Aristotle and Horace and talking to you of the rules of writing (like the French authors), to show you and my readers I understand them, in my epistle, lest neither of you should find it out by the play. And, according to the rules of dedications, it is no matter whether you understand or no, what I quote or say to you, of writing. For an author can as easily make any one a judge or critic, in an epistle, as a hero in his play. But, madam, that this may prove to the end a true epistle dedicatory, I’d have you know it is not without a design upon you, which is in the behalf of the fraternity of Parnassus, that songs and sonnets may go at your houses and in your liberties, for guineas and half guineas.

And that wit, at least with you, as of old, may be the price of beauty and so you will prove a true encourager of poetry, for love is a better help to it than wine. And poets, like painters, draw better after the life, than by fancy. Nay, in justice, madam, I think a poet ought to be as free of your houses, as of the playhouses. Since he contributes to the support of both and is as necessary to such as you, as a ballad singer to the pick purse, in convening the cullies at the theatres, to be picked up and carried to supper and bed at your houses. And, madam, the reason of this motion of mine is, because poor poets can get no favour in the tiring rooms, for they are no keepers, you know. And folly and money, the old enemies of wit, are even too hard for it on its own dunghill. And for other ladies, a poet can least go to the price of them. Besides, his wit, which ought to recommend him to them, is as much an obstruction to his love, as to his wealth or preferment. For most women nowadays, apprehend wit in a lover, as much as in a husband. They hate a man that knows them, they must have a blind easy fool, whom they can lead by the nose and as the Scythian women of old, must baffle a man and put out his eyes, ere they will lie with him and then too, like thieves, when they have plundered and stripped a man, leave him. But if there should be one of a hundred of those ladies generous enough to give herself to a man that has more wit than money (all things considered), he would think it cheaper coming to you for a mistress, though you made him pay his guinea; as a man in a journey (out of good husbandry) had better pay for what he has in an inn, than lie on free cost at a gentleman’s house.

In fine, madam, like a faithful dedicator, I hope I have done myself right in the first place, then you and your profession, which in the wisest and most religious government of the world, is honoured with the public allowance and in those that are thought the most uncivilized and barbarous is protected and supported by the ministers of justice. And of you, madam, I ought to say no more here, for your virtues deserve a poem rather than an epistle, or a volume entire to give the world your memoirs, or life at large and which (upon the word of an author that has a mind to make an end of his dedication) I promise to do, when I write the annals of our British love, which shall be dedicated to the ladies concerned, if they will not think them something too obscene too. When your life, compared with many that are thought innocent, I doubt not may vindicate you and me to the world, for the confidence I have taken in this address to you, which then may be thought neither impertinent, nor immodest. And, whatsoever your amorous misfortunes have been, none can charge you with that heinous and worst of women’s crimes, hypocrisy.

Nay, in spite of misfortunes or age, you are the same woman still, though most of your sex grow Magdalens at fifty and as a solid French author has it,

Après le plaisir, vient la peine, Après la peine la vertu.

But sure, an old sinner’s continency is much like a gamester’s forswearing play, when he has lost all his money. And modesty is a kind of a youthful dress, which, as it makes a young woman more amiable, makes an old one more nauseous. A bashful old woman is like a hopeful old man and the affected chastity of antiquated beauties, is rather a reproach than an honour to them, for it shows the men’s virtue only, not theirs. But you, in fine, madam, are no more a hypocrite than I am when I praise you, therefore I doubt not will be thought (even by yours and the play’s enemies, the nicest ladies) to be the fittest patroness for,

Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most obedient, faithful, humble servant and

The Plain-Dealer.