Poetess Archive: Anna Barbauld's Prose Works
	"Letter of John Bull" (1792)

Letter of John Bull

1.         Sir,

2.         I have long had the happiness of being married, as I have said and sworn, to the best of all possible wives; but as this best of all possible wives has a few fancies, which I should be glad she were cured of, I have taken the liberty to lay my case before you.

3.         My wife, sir, has been much admired in her time, and still is, in my eye, a very desirable woman. But you well know, sir, that let wives wear as well as you can suppose, they will be the worse for wear; -- and so it is with my dame: and if I were to say that I can see in her neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, I should belie my own eyesight. I like her however, altogether, better than any woman I know; and we should jog on quietly enough together, -- but that, of late, she has been pleased to insist upon my declaring, in all companies, that she is absolutely the handsomest woman under the sun; and that none of

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my neighbors' wives are fit to hold the candle to her: and there is one 'Squire Edmund, a hectoring bullying fellow, who, they say, is a little cracked (a great favourite with my wife, notwithstanding, ever since he has flattered and spoke her fair; for it is not long ago that he used to be drawing caricatures of her); -- he, I say, goes about everywhere, telling people I ought to challenge any one who presumes to assert to the contrary. -- "Cara sposa," have I often said to her, "is it not sufficient that I love thee best, and that for the best reason, because thou art my wife? I chose thee freely, and am content to be 'to thy faults a little blind;' but to be entirely so, is nether good for thee nor for me." -- She lately made me sign a paper, that she was, in all parts, of the exact proportions of the Venus de'Medici; though, Heaven knows! I never measured them together: and that not only there never was a more beautiful creature produced upon God's earth, but that it was utterly impossible for the imagination of man to conceive a more beautiful. I confess I was a good deal ashamed to make such boasts; nevertheless, I complied, for the sake of peace. My wife, moreover, entertains an idea, that every man who sees her is in love with her: and, like Belise in the Femmes Sçavantes, she is resolved not to give up the point, though the best compliments she has met with of late from her neighbours have

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been, "that she looks very well for a woman of her years; that she wears well, considering; that she has fine remains, and that one may easily see she has been a handsome woman in her time." These are speeches, one would think, not very apt to feed her vanity; yet, whenever she hears of a match that is likely to take place, she cannot help fancying the lover was attracted by some remote resemblance to her admired person. "Yes," she will cry on such occasions, "there was a tint of my complexion, which did the business; not so brilliant indeed -- something of my majestic look -- and an evident imitation of my walk." With all this opinion of herself, my poor wife, especially of late, has been distractedly jealous of me. She is continually teasing me with embarrassing questions; as, "whether I love her as well as I did on my wedding-day; whether I will promise to love her if she should be blind, or decrepid, or out of her wits," &c. -- A circumstance has occurred lately, which has increased this jealously tenfold. My next-door neighbour, you must know, is married again; and ever since that event she watches me as a cat watches a mouse. I cannot look out of the window, or inquire which way the wind sets, but it is in order to admire my neighbour's new wife. She pretends to have found love-letters which have passed between us; and is sure, she says, I design to part with her,

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"false-hearted man as I am;" upon which, the other day, she threw herself into violent hysterics, and alarmed the whole family and neighbourhood.

4.         To be sure, the bride did send me a favour, which I wore in my hat, openly; and I do not deny but I may have paid her a few compliments, and written some verses upon her, for she is a showy, fine-spoken woman; but for all that, I would not marry her if I were free tomorrow; for, to tell you the truth, I suspect her to be too much of a termagant for me; and besides, John Bull is not given to change.

5.         My wife has another failing, sir. She is fond of every thing that is old, because it is old; and she never will give any reason, except a woman's reason, which, you know, is no reason at all, for any one thing she does. If I presume to hint things might be better after a different fashion, I can get no other answer than "that it is her way -- that her grandmother and great-grandmother did so before her; and that it is her maxim never to alter the family management." I can scarcely stir about my house, it is so filled with heavy lumbering furniture, half of which is worm-eaten, and of no use but to harbour vermin; but my wife cannot persuade herself to part with any of it, she has such a respect for a fine piece of antiquity: "and the," says she, "old furniture has such a creditable look!" "So it might, my dear," says I,

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"if it were all of a-piece; but, you know, we are continually buying new; and when one article does not suit with another, you must be sensible nothing can have a worse effect. For instance, now; this dismal old tapestry, how preposterous it looks along with the Indian matting and painted rout-chairs! I wish you would let it come down, it is fit for nothing but for the rats to play at hide-and-seek behind it." -- "I would not have it down, my dear," says she, "for the world; it is the story of the Spanish Armada, and was done in the glorious days of Queen Bess." "Then give it a through cleaning at least," returned I. -- "If you offer to draw a nail," rejoined she, "there are so many private doors and secret passages made in the wall, you will be blinded with dust and mortar; and, for aught I know, pull an old house over your head." "Let me, at least, give a brushing to the beards of the old Dons," replied I. -- "A stroke of the brush would shake them to pieces," insisted my wife; "they are as tender as a cobweb, I tell you, and I positively will not have them meddled with. Nobody, who has any regard for his ancestors, would think of pulling down a venerable set of hangings, made in the glorious days of Queen Elizabeth," Now I care little when a thing was made; the question is, what is it good for? and I know nothing so much useless lumber is good for, but to oblige us to

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keep a great many supernumerary servants, at high wages, to look after it.

6.         I have still another grievance, sir. If you are a married man, you may chance to know, that it is often as much as a man can do to manage his wife; but to manage one's wife and mother too is a task too hard for any mortal. Now, my mother, sir, lives with us, and I am sure I have always behaved myself as a dutiful and obedient son; her arm-chair is always set in the best place by the fire; she eats of the best, and drinks of the best; neither do I grudge it her, though the poor children's bellies are often pinched, while she is feasting upon nice bits. But with all this, I have much ado to keep her in good humour. If I stir about a little more briskly than ordinary, my mother has weak nerves, and the noise I make over her head will throw her into fits. If I offer but to dust the books in my study, my mother is afraid some of them should fall upon her head: -- indeed, the old lady did get an unlucky blow with one or two of them, which has shaken her not a little. Besides which, she insists, and my wife stands by her in it, that I should consult her in all matters of business; and if I do not, I am cried out against as a graceless atheistical wretch; and a thousand idle reports are raised, that I am going to strip and turn my poor old mother our of doors. Then, my mother is rather particular in her dress; and the children sometimes will be tittering and

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making game, when she is displaying some of her old fallals; upon which my wife always insists I should whip them, which I used to do pretty severely, though of late, I confess, I have only hung the rod up over the chimney, in terrorem; -- on such occasions, my wife never fails to observe, "how becoming it is in one of my mother's age to keep the same fashion in her dress," This, by the way, is not true, for I remember my mother stuck all over with crosses and embroidery, to her very shoes, with strings of beads and such trumpery; yet she says, as well as my wife, that she never changes any thing.

7.         I am, myself, Mr. Editor, an easy, peaceable, plain-spoken man as any that exists; and am a man of little or no expense for my own gratification: yet so it is, that what with the large establishment of servants which we are obliged to keep, and the continual drains upon my purse to supply my extravagant neighbours, I run out every year, and cannot help having many serious thoughts and melancholy forebodings where all this may end. But I apprehend, the first step ought to be for my wife and I to consult together, and make a reform in the family management wherever there may be occasion. If, therefore, you can persuade her to lay aside her groundless jealousies, and talk a little reason, I shall be highly obliged to you, and am your humble servant,

8.         JOHN BULL.