Part 9 (1/2)
THE FIRST PLEASURE.
_The young Couple begin to keep Shop, and demand their promised Portion._
Till now, O new Married Couple, you have pa.s.sed through the First part of your Wedlock with feasting and pleasures, and have injoied no smal delights in it. But what is there in this World that we grow not weary of? You have seen that the sumptuosest Feast full of delicate dishes, and the pleasurablest Country Scituations, with al their rich fruits, finally cloggeth, through the continual injoyment of them.
Nevertheless it is the generall desire of all persons, forasmuch as it is possible, to live in the World in pleasure and delights. Amongst the rest the gain of mony is none of the smallest pleasures, and this appears to be the least burthensom, tho it have much trouble in it.
Therefore is it very much commendable, O young Couple, though you have a pretty estate of your own, according as your Contract of Marriage testifies, and as we have also seen by the Wedding you kept, your apparel, and the other ap and dependances, that you begin to meditate how to make the best benefit of your stock; and so much the more, because your Predecessors got it with a slavish diligence, reaped it together with sobriety, kept it with care, and finally left it unto you for your great pleasure. It is then also not strange, if you, as true bred children, keep it carefully, and make the best profit of it; to the end, that your Successors, when time shall serve, may find that they have had frugall Parents; and so walk in your footsteps. Verily this is one of the necessariest meditations in the World. If we could but any waies make the dead sensible of it in their grave, undoubtedly the Reliques of your Parents would rejoice at so happy and carefull an intention of you their children.
And truly, what is there, among other cogitations, more pleasurable, then to begin with a handsom Shop-keeping? For this through the daily gain, yeelds every day new pleasures, and by consequence a merry life.
'Tis true, Merchandize bears a greater respect, and yeelds also sometimes great gains; but with these trouble somtimes, it is for the most part subject to great and weighty losses, which is the destruction of young people, and so intangles the merriest part of their lives, that fears and cares deprives them of their night rest.
If the wind blow hard, they are presently in a fear that the s.h.i.+ps at sea laden with their Goods and Wares may be s.h.i.+pwrack'd. If they will a.s.sure them, then the a.s.surer goes away with the profit: and they are also so greedy and cunning, that the least storm or bad tiding makes them very slow and circ.u.mspect; or if they be not so, it is to be feared, so there happen many losses, that then the a.s.surer himself might come to be lost.
But the handsom Shop-keeping is the surest and pleasurablest; for every moment you get new customers as well from abroad as at home, who buy continually with ready mony; or otherwise pay the old score, and trust the new. Yea all the news that goes about the City, is brought home and imparted to you. There's not a man dies, or woman brought to bed, but you have knowledge of it. Well then, what greater pleasure can there be then this?
Also, young Woman, you may, through love and care, herein be a.s.sistant to your husband oftentimes, which you cannot do in Merchandize, and so by degrees learn to understand the Shop, and converse neatly with the customers; whereby you can in his absence, also help the customers, and give them pleasing answers, insomuch that you oftentimes attain to as perfect a knowledge of the Trading, as your husband himself.
You are happy, yea ten times over happy, O housewively young Woman in this choice, and that not only for your husband, but princ.i.p.ally for your self. For if that mischance might happen to you, that death should bereave you of your husband, you find your self oftentimes setled in a way of Trading, which you can manage your self, and set forward with reputation. Nay though you might happen to have children, you have the opportunity your self to bring them up in the same way, and so get a due, faithfull and carefull a.s.sistance from them, which will not so well be done by Men and Maid-servants, and over whom there is seldom so much command, as over ones own children.
And if your husband continue in health, and find that Trading grows quick, he perceives that by the a.s.sistance of his wife, something else may be taken by the hand that is also profitable, and then he will alwaies exercise some sort of Merchandise that is secure and advantagious.
It is most certain, sweet Woman, you will be the more tied to your housekeeping, and cannot so often go to visit and take your pleasure with your Gossips as you formerly did, in Coaches or by Water; as if your husband had taken any sort of Merchandice in hand; because that a Woman who is married to a Shopkeeper, is as it were also wedded to the Counter, by reason you dare not trust your Shop to old, much less to new men or Maid-servants, because they do not perfectly understand the Trade, and thereby also find occasion to make one bed serve for both and junket together; which makes no small confusion in the family; but little regard must be taken about that, for the importantest must alwaies be taken care of.
And be a.s.sured, if the desire of gain, small Trading, and bad paiment, begin once to take possession of you, the thoughts of all the former pleasures will remove, and you will exchange them for those that are more n.o.ble and becoming, _viz._ in the well governing of your Men and Maid-servants in the Shop and House, and taking inspection that they be obedient unto you; the Family must be wel taken care of; going to Market with the Maid to buy that which is good, and let her dress it to your mind; and every Market day precisely, with the Maid neatly drest, and following you with a hand-basket, go to take a view of Newgate, Cheapside, and the Poultry Markets; and afterwards, when your got a little farther, then to have your Baby carried by you, neatly and finically drest up; and in hearing of it, whilest it is in the standing stool, calling in its own language so prettily Daddy and Mammy. O that is such an extraordinary pleasure, that where ever you go, what soever you delight in, all your delight is, to be at home again in your Shop, by your servants; and most especially (when you have it) to be by your Baby.
And if you do get a fit to be gadding abroad with some of your friends and neighbours (for one cannot alwaies be tied as if they were in Bridewell, nor the Bow ever stiff bent) why then you have Ascen-sion-day, which may as well be used for pleasure as devotion.
And if that be too short, presently follows Whitsontide, then you may sing tantarroraara three daies together, and get your fill of it. So that you may find time enough to take your delight and pleasure, tho you be a little tied to a Shop.
This being then in such manner taken into a ripe deliberation by some of the nearest relations, it is concluded on to set up a handsom Shop, and to furnish it with al sorts of necessaries; and by that means make that you may alwaies say Yea and never No to the Customers.
O how glad the good Woman is, now she sees that her husband, who is otherwise somewhat stifnecked, lets himself be perswaded to this, by his friends! and how joyfull is the husband that his Wife, who at first seemed to be high-spirited, is now herewith so absolutely contented.
O happy Match, where the delight and pleasure of both parties, is bent upon one subject. How fast doth this writhe and twist the Bands of Wedlock and love together! Certainly to be of one mind, may very well be said to be happily married, and called a Heaven upon Earth.
Here they are cited to appear who display the married estate too monstrously, as if there were nothing but horrors and terrors to be found in it. Now they would see how that Love in her curious Crusible, melteth two hearts and ten sences together. To this all Chymists vail their Bonnets, though they brag of their making the hardest Minerals as soft as Milk and b.u.t.ter. This Art surpa.s.seth all others.
Yet here ought to be considered what sort of Trading shall be pitcht upon. The man hath good knowledge in Cloath, Silk stufs, French Manufactures and Galantries, &c. But the Woman thinks it would be much better, if they handled by the gross in Italian Confits, Candied and Musk sugar plums, Raisons of the Sun, Figs, Almonds, Pistaches, Bon Christian Pears, Granad-Apples, and dried fruits; together with Greek and Spanish Wines, delicate Sack, Muskadine, and Frontinyack Wine; which is a Negotiation, pleasing to the ey, delicious for the tast, and beloved by all the World. And by this she thinks she shall procure as many Customers as her husband, because she hath familiar acquaintance with severall brave Gentlewomen, that throw away much mony upon such commodities, and make many invitations, Treats and Feastings. And she her self could alwaies be presently ready, when she received an honourable visit.
O happy man, who hath gotten such an ingenious understanding wife!
that takes care and considers with her self for the doing all fit and necessary things to the best advantage. And really she is not one jot out of the way, for this sort of Merchandize is both relis.h.i.+ng and delightfull, and must be every foot bought again.
Now the time requires going to market to buy Fir, Oak, and Sackerdijne Wood, and to order that the Shop may be neatly built and set up. And you are happy, that Master Paywell, who is a very neat Joiner and Cabinet-Maker, is of your very good acquaintance, and so near by the hand: He knows how to fit and join the pannels most curiously together, and so inlaies, shaves, and polishes the fine wood, that you would swear it is all of one piece.
Well here again is another new pleasure and delight! If all things go thus forward, certainly the wedding-cloaths will in a short time be, at the least, a span too little. O how glad you'l be, when this trouble is but once over! and that the Shop is neatly built, painted, gilt, furnished, and finely put into a posture.
O how n.o.bly it appears, and how delightfull and pleasing it will be when this new Negotiant sees his Shop full of Customers, and he at one Counter commending, praising and selling, and one servant bringing commodities to him, and another hath his hands full with measuring and weighing! And his beloved at another Counter finds imploiment enough with telling mony, weighing of gold, and discoursing with the Customers. Then it wil not seem strange unto you, how it came to pa.s.s that your Predecessors got such fine sums of mony together, and left them unto you to be merry with. Therefore you ought also, even as they did, to provide your selves with a curious and easie to be remembred Sign, because your Customers by mistake might not come to run into your Neighbors Shops.