To the EDITOR of the LADY’S MAGAZINE.

SIR,
IT is very commonly observed that a woman may be a little vain of her personal attractions, without exposing herself to any extraordinary share of ridicule; but that a man cannot shew the least consciousness of those accomplishments, without incurring every body’s contempt. The observation, Sir, is unhappily, but too forcible: I experience it every hour in a husband of whom I am doatingly fond, and feel many a mortifying pang, in recollecting, that he is the universal laughter of his acquaintance.

Before I was married to him, Sir, it was impossible for me to be sensible of this foible. The hours which he spent in the dressing-room I could have no conception of; and if at any time he seemed more than commonly attentive to the circumstance of appearance, I set it down to his extraordinary solicitude to consult my inclinations; to be sure, my friends spoke of him as a coxcomb: but the severity of their opinion, I put down to the excess of their prejudice, or lamented the poverty of their taste, and the narrowness of their understanding. If yon have ever been in love, Sir; if your bosom has been ever lapt in Elysium, as Milton expresses it, by a melting look, or a passionate declaration of tenderness from the woman of your heart, you will easily make allowances for my infatuation. What we wish to be perfect, we generally imagine to be so; and even a glaring error in a favourite object, is frequently converted into a capital accomplishment.

Blinded, however, as I might be, with my tenderness for Mr. Brilliant, before our marriage, when I had been united to him about six months, I could see the coxcomb in him in a very strong light. Instead of devoting his time good-naturedly to any little amusements which might prove entertaining to me, he was shut up half the morning with a filthy French valet, whom he seems now to consider as the most important person in the family. Whole hours were employed in discovering some new improvement in the curling of a lock, the adjustment of bag, or the fashion of a sword-knot. His teeth took up a prodigious deal of time; and the paring of his nails frequently obliged an elegant dinner to be put back, even when we expected a world of company. ‘Twas in vain
I expostulated with him about this excessive attention to his appearance; ’twas in vain I allured him that an occasional disregard of dress, gave birth to a very agreeable variety in him.

Nothing could steal him a moment from sacrificing at the altar of his owm vanity; and what rendered the matter still more insufferable, was the readiness with which he suffered me to see that I received not the least part of the incense thus continually offered at it. On the contrary, tho’ I loft him all the time he was dressing, I was not permitted on any account to approach him when he was dressed. If I strove to take hold of his hand, he was agonies for his ruffle; and if I attempted to throw my arm round his neck, he roared out with apprehension for his bag. I was prohibited from sitting on the sopha with him, for fear of touching the skirt of his coat; and as to conversation, there was no possibility of getting a syllable from him, he was so profoundly taken up with the study of the looking-glass. Thus, Sir, dressing or dresed, I lost him entirely: , if we had company, I was tortured on the wheel of my own
shame, in seeing him constantly laughed at; and if we had not, his palpable indifference made me as completely miserable. In this manner, Sir, matters have gone on for a considerable time, and so far from finding any likelihood of a reformation in him, I have every hour the unhappiness of seeing his vanity upon the increase. Painters out
of number, and those too artists of the greatest eminence, are employed to draw him in a variety of attitudes; and a much larger sum of money is prodigally wasted in this way, than would lay an elegant foundation for a growing family., Do, Sir, give this sketch of him a place in your Magazine, and I will read it to him as soon as it is published; perhaps such an address to that vanity which renders him so ridiculous, may make some impression on him.

Yours, &c.

BARBARA BRILLIANT

Quoted from: The Lady’s Magazine. No. LXVI. December 1778.