Query: Which is most disgusting to a woman of sense, a coxcomb, a sot, or an illiterate clown?

• Posted by mgr on September 8th, 2008 filed in HISTORISCHES, Zeitdokumente
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FOR THE LADIES? LITERARY CABINET. DEBATES FOR THE LADIES. QUERY. — Which is most disgusting to a woman of sense, a coxcomb, a sot, or an illiterate clown?

Capt. Rattle. — It appears to me, gentlemen, that the question now before us, affords very little scope for discussion. Without attempting to advance any thing from my own observation, I will content myself with repeating a maxim of the late Lord Chesterfield, “that want of elegance is a fault which a woman can never pardon.” This author, however immoral the general tendency of his works may appear, possessed infinite knowledge of the female heart; he well knew, that even the most uninformed among them, admire polished manners and a pleasing exterior. Can it then for a moment be doubted, but that a female, possessing the advantages of education, and a cultivated understanding, can behold, without unconquerable disgust, that uncouth being, whose awkwardness and ignorance would every instant bring a blush of mortification and shame, if especially that very being should, by the authority of parents or other contingences, become her husband. A coxcomb may be ridiculous, but his frivolity amuses, rather than disgusts; and a sot, however his irregularities may hurt the delicacy and sensibility of the female, has intervals in which he may prove a sensible and affectionate companion; but a clown is ever the same — boorish, untractable, and disgusting.

Mr. Placid. — I cannot but express my surprise, that a gentleman possessing the talents of our friend Rattle, should have taken such a superficial view of a subject, which, in my opinion, requires mature deliberation. We are willing to allow that there is no character so bad, but which has its light shades; but in the present argument, we are to consider the nature of the evil itself, and the consequences resulting therefrom, without any of the palliatives which an occasional amiable trait may afford; as the present question is proposed merely with a view to point out to our fair friends the evil they should most cautiously shun, I shall not hesitate to say, that a sot is both the most disgusting, and the most dangerous character of the three. What subsequent kindness can make amends for the brutality which some men commit in the hour of intoxication? How can any woman respect the man who degrades himself below the standard of a brute, who ruins his constitution, squanders his property, and sets an infamous example to his family? This is a vice, and a vice only should be really disgusting.

Mr. Cavil. — With all due deference to the gentleman who spoke last, I must presume to say, that he seems to have misunderstood the subject of the debate. It was not imagined that either of the characters specified, were to be considered either as husbands or fathers — in that case, little, indeed, can be said in defence of the latter; but regarded merely as their absurdity affects society, I cannot hesitate to pronounce a coxcomb the most despicable animal in creation. A sot may have various excuses, and even temptations to plead in mitigation of his misconduct; and the ignorance of the clown may be ascribed rather to the disadvantages of local situation, than a natural defect of the understanding. But what can be said in defence of that creature whose vanity, affectation, and pride leads him into the most unpardonable absurdities — who attends more to the growth of his whiskers, than the cultivation of his intellectual faculties — and who cares not, so that his head is Brutus without, how much it is brute within — whose morning study is that repertorium of male elegance, the “beau monde” and a treatise on blacking — and who throws away his six shillings at the theatre, not to see or hear, but to be seen and heard — whose conversation is embellished, not with the flowers of rhetoric or graces of elocution, but with the following choice phrases: — Quiz, Bore, Hoax, Quidnunc, Flim Flam, &c. &c. ? But I can better delineate this precious mortal by relating a dialogue which I yesterday overheard in Bond-street. I will not say whether it was on the pavement, or behind a counter, for it is pretty much the same now.

Polish. — Ah, Skipton! how are you, my boy? why, where the devil have you been? Egad, I am glad to see you.
Skipton. — How do, my buck! thought you’d miss me. I’ve been rusticating these three weeks.
Polish. — Rusticating, indeed! why the plague have you been borrowing the grazier’s coat? Quiz me, but its down to your heels.
Skipton. — Oh! curse that tailor of mine! I know he has made it two inches too long, stupid bore! but I’ll match him — I’ll keep him two months longer without his bill for it, and then he’ll remember my cut another time — he! he!
Polish. — Faith you know how to fit him I see. That fellow with the half starved wife and seven brats in Threadneedle- street, eh!
Skipton. — The same. But Polish, cus me, where did you get these exquisite boots? I gave five guineas for Tom Varnish’s receipt, and I brush away at them an hour every morning, yet you eclipse me, Polish.
Polish. — Poh! you are hoaxing me; but Egad, they do look stylish too.

So much for the sense and sensibility of a coxcomb; and despicable, in my eye, would be the woman, who could listen, without disgust, to the thoughtless profligate, who would lavish his money in frivolous fopperies, while he defrauds an indigent tradesman of his due, and derides that poverty which his extravagance causes. Yet this is but a true picture of the innumerable loungers who disgrace their sex and station in life. The contagion spreads from the earl to the haberdasher; and the fopling, one of the tribe, is as unjust and extravagant, as the coxcomb of the other.

Mr. Meanwell. — I hope, for the honour of humanity and dignity of man, that the picture just drawn by our friend Cavil, is rather a caricature than a portrait. I will not, therefore, let his humourous delineation have any power to silence me, or make me relinquish the opinion I at first intended to maintain. Notwithstanding what has been advanced, I am still inclined to believe that a sot is, by far, the most disgusting object,whether considered as a temporary companion, or a partner for life; he is equally extravagant with the coxcomb, and indelicate as the boor; he is troublesome, impertinent, stupid, and brutal. He will quarrel with his best friend, insult the most modest women, and, in short, there is no vice or folly of which a drunken man is not guilty.

The majority of members coinciding with Mr. Meanwell, the answers was given against a sot. If you wish to sour a man’s temper, and to blunt his moral feelings, charge him with immoral conduct an suspicion; and persevere in your criminations from the most trifling and casual circumstances.

Quoted from: Samuel Woodworth: The Ladies’ Literary Cabinet. Vol. 1, No. 15, February 19, 1820. New York, 1820.

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