y a band of fiddlers, and serenaded her with some choice
verses. After the suitor was accepted and the marriage arranged for,
little of sentiment entered into it. There was no attempt to hide
the mercenary motives, which were frankly displayed. Indeed, women's
marriage portions were regarded by the seventeenth-century writers as
the cause of much wedded misery and sin. It was argued that if these
marriage portions were dispensed with, marriage would be more likely
to be contracted upon the enduring basis of compatibility and love;
but among the nobility, monetary considerations and questions of
rank were usually regarded as sufficient motives for marriage, unless
passion swept aside caution and led to a _mesalliance_. Gallants who
serenaded with dishonorable motives were generally treated roughly. A
life spent between a town residence and a country house, with frequent
attendance at court, comprised the ambitions of the young nobility.
Marriage was frequently regarded simply as an incident which did not
materially alter the attitude of either of the contracting parties to
the rest of the court personnel.

The manners of the times of Charles II. were not the manners of
England sober, but of England intoxicated with the new wine of French
frivolity; and with the passing away of the king who had led them to
worship false gods, the English people gradually returned to their
habitual steadiness. Yet, the dalliance with frivolity had effects to
be seen throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century, in the
superficiality of the era in regard to woman, and, finally, in a stiff
and artificial scheme of convention.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WOMEN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The artificiality of eighteenth-century society was a precursor of the
practicality of that of the nineteenth. The influences which had given
shape to the society of the time of the Stuarts had passed away, and
the new influences and forces were in operation. The result of the
contest between the Puritan and the sensualist had been a broadened
social apprehension; and into this new concept entered harmoniously
the catholicity of the worldly spirit and the conservatism of the
religious spirit. This was the society which was productive of
women of eminence in the arts and literature, as well as of women
untalented, but blessed with a broader scope of life, more varied
experience and controlled natures, than those who had gone before
them.

Society