SamuelPepys

The man in the street fiercely despised continental influences and considered that the best place for a foreigner was the river. Loose behaviour by his betters sometimes gave him an excuse to show his displeasure. One who received a salutary warning against making love in public was Samuel Pepys. He had persuaded the man-starved Mrs Lane to accompany him to a Rhenish wine-house, where he ordered her a lobster. Afterwards, when she was in a pliant mood, he 'toused' her all over, to such a degree that he was able to report that 'she has a very white thigh and leg, but monstrous fat'.

For safety's sake, they broke it up. Pepys left by the back door 'without being observed, I think'.

Even in church, Pepys was a man to be watched. Once, standing beside a pretty maid, he tried, in vain, to take her by the hand. She edged away from him, 'and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing I did forbear and was glad I did spy her design'.

But the setback was only brief. He began to 'doze' on another pretty maid and she returned his interest; 'and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew. So the sermon ended and the chinch broke up and my amours ended also.'

There were still those who shook their heads over the folly of the age. Robert Codrington, author of Youth's Behaviour or Decency in Conversation Amongst Women (1664), takes especial exception to 'the vain custom now so much in fashion to deform the face with black spots under a pretence of making it more beautiful'. (The Puritans had drawn up a Bill to ban- among other things-black spots on ladies' cheeks, but it had failed to reach the Statute Book.) Codrington says he has seen a young woman's face spotted all over with half-moons and stars. Supposedly, it is just another artificial way of luring the male eye. 'You shall observe one to simper with her lips that she may the better cover the deformity, or the greatness, of her teeth.. . another doth lay an azure complexion on her veins or doth imbolster her decayed breasts to purchase her a sweetheart.' He quotes a citizen as saying: 'I know not what may be reserved for the eyes of a chaste husband when almost through all markets where they go the secret parts of his wife's body are exposed as if they were ready to be delivered to the best bidder.' Codrington is one of several who deplore the bad breath of the women of the age. It is the result, he thinks, of'shutting up themselves in a whale-bone prison'. He is honest enough to admit that the men of the age are much more addicted to superfluities of dress and ornament than women.

Love, Codrington is convinced, is no basis for matrimony. 'Few marriages succeed well that derive their beginnings from amorous desires. Marriage hath need of a nobler foundation and must walk more warily. This boiling affection is worth nothing.'

In the last decade of the century comes John Evelyn's eloquent regret for the passing of a politer world, fit to be set beside that of John Aubrey. It is contained in the preface to Mundus Muliebris, or the Ladies' Dressing-Room Unlocked and Her Toilet Spread. The modern suitor, Evelyn says, must for ever be squiring his loved one to the play, the park and the
music. He must 'present her at the raffle', and follow her to Tunbridge at the season to drink the waters, though he has no need of them himself. He must learn to sneer at other ladies and at fops like himself,

Thus you see, young Sparks, how the style and method of wooing is quite changed, as well as the language, since the days of our forefathers (of unhappy memory, simple and plain men as they were) who courted and chose their wives for their modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery and other economical virtues than, in reputation. And when the young damsels were taught all these in the country and in their parents' houses the portion they brought back was more in virtue than in money, and she was a richer match than one who could have brought a million and nothing else to commend her.

And Evelyn goes on to sigh for the solid days of cupboards of ancient plate, furniture made to last a century, ancient hospitality and warm charity, a perpetual fire in the kitchen, and the grave and steady mare which carried the knight and his lady behind him to church. Now all is rattling carts, and 'damme lacqueys'. The young men travel only that they may bring home the sins of other nations; the young women stuff their heads with romances, and are 'universally afflicted with hysterical fits', and, of course, bad breath.