The English lady's complete catechism
THE
ENGLISH LADY'S
COMPLETE
CATECHISM.
SETTING FORTH
Stirling, Printed in this Preſent Year.
THE
ENGLISH LADY’S
COMPLETE
CATECHISM.
Queſt. YOU ſay, Madam, you was brought up in the Chriſtian religion: Pray of what nation are you?
A. I am an Engliſh Lady by birth.
Q. Pray what is your name?
A. VANITY.
Q. Who gave you this name?
A. Every body.
Q. Who were your godfathers and godmothers?
A. The Mercer, Laceman, Semſtreſs, and Milliner.
Q. Who confirm’d you?
A. Madamoiſelle, the French mantua-maker.
Q. What is your form of devotion?
A. Six yards extraordinary furbelow’d up to the pockets, and three guineas for making.
Q. Why will you give a French woman three guineas, when an Engliſh woman would do it for one, as well, if not better?
A. Only for the name of having it made by a French woman, that when I am aſked by another Lady of quality, Who made my mantua? I may ſay, in a French tone, Madamoiſelle the French mantua-maker.
Q. How was you educate?
A. At a French boarding-ſchool.
Q. After what manner?
A. By the help of a French dancing-maſter, a French ſinging-maſter, and a French waiting-woman.
Q. Let me hear you proceed?
A. Before I could ſpeak Engliſh, I was taught to jabber French: In ſhort, I danced French dances at eight, ſung French ſongs at eleven, and before I was fifteen, could talk nothing elſe but French.
Q. Let me hear you go on till you come to twenty
A. At ſixteen I began to think of a man; at ſeventeen I loved a man; at eighteen I ſigh'd for a man; at nineteen I ſent for a man; and at twenty I ran away with a man.
Q. How do you employ your time now?
A. I ly in bed till noon, dreſs all the afternoon, dine in the evening, and play at cards till midnight.
Q. How do you ſpend the Sabbath?
A. In chit-chat.
Q What do you talk of?
A. New faſhions and new plays.
Q. How often do you go to church?
A. Twice a year, or oftener, as my huſband gives me new clothes.
Q Why do you go to church when you have new clothes?
A. To be admired by the men, to ſee other folks finery, and to ſhow my own; and to laugh at thoſe ſcurvy out of faſhion creatures who come there for devotion.
Q. Pray, Madam, what books do you read?
A. I read Plays and Romances.
Q What ſort of people do you converſe with?
A. Thoſe like myſelf, who make pride and pleaſure their devotion: new faſhions their daily prayers, laugh at all below them, and deny thoſe above them.
Q. What is it you love?
A. Myſelf.
Q. What! no body else?
A. Yes; my Monkey, my Lap-dog, and my Page.
Q. Why do you love them?
A. Why, becauſe I am an Engliſh Lady, and they are foreign creatures, my Monkey from the Eaſt Indies, my Page from Genoa, and my Lap-dog from Vigo.
Q. Would they not have pleaſed you as well if they had been English?
A. No; I hate every thing that Old England brings forth, except it be the temper of an English huſband, and the liberty of an Engliſh wife, I love French bread, French wines, French ſauces, and French cooks; in ſhort, I have all about me either French or Foreign, from my waiting-maid to my parrot, only my ſteward.
Q. Why would you have your ſteward Engliſh, and all the reſt of your ſervants Foreigners?
A. Becauſe I would be cheated in my own language; I would have my footman a Frenchman, my butler an Italian, my porter a Dutchman, and my coachman a Spaniard; then for my furniture, I would have nothing Engliſh from my bed to my chamber-pot, and was I forced to eat Engliſh proviſions, they ſhould come from Cornwall, Berwick upon Tweed, or ſome other remote place.
Q. How do you beſtow your charity?
A. On ſuperannuated Ladies, and the French Whores, whole pride and vanity have brought them to poverty; and yet retain ſo much of the French modes, that to the laſt you may ſee them in an old tattered ſilk gown, high head, and draggled tail, a pair of laced ſhoes, an old furbelow’d ſcarf, and never a ſmock on: and theſe they will have, if they dine on ſcraps for a fortnight.
Q. What do the poor get at your door? A. Nothing.
Q. How do you anſwer them?
A. In theſe dictates of charity, They muſt go to their own pariſhes; and ſometimes they give me the trouble to ſend for the beadle to carry them hither.
Q. Then, Madam, ſince you are ſo religious and charitable, how do you carry yourſelf towards your neighbours?
A. Sir, I ſcorn my poor neighbours, and backbite the rich.———The rich I invite to dinner becauſe they do not want it, and I deny the poor becauſe they do.
Q. How do you govern your family?
A. As other Ladies do. I love gameing, and therefore tolerate it among my ſervants, for the ſame reaſon I leave them to their own licentious appetites, to ſwear, curſe, riot, drink, and do what they pleaſe. I give them a great deal of liberty and little wages. And if my ſteward happens to get my houſe-keeper with child, I make my coachman marry her; turn away my footman for aſpiring to my maid, and her I marry to my Lord's chamberlain, and gives her ſix changes of my old clothes for her dowry; and ſometimes I fancy the butler, becauſe he is handſomer than my own huſband.
Q. How often do you call your family to prayers?
A. I never call my family to prayers, but I ſend then to church ſometimes; and that is, when I am about to cuckold my huſband at home, that I may do it in private; and my ſervants are glad of the opportunity. But if they never go near the church, I am pleaſed with any excuſe, and don't care where they go.
Q. Pray how do you pay your debts?
A. Some with money, and ſome with fair promiſes. I ſeldom pay any body's bills, but I run more in their debt. I give poor tradeſmen ill words, and the rich I treat civily, in hopes to get farther into their debt.
FINIS.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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