"If a
man of any delicacy were to attend the discourses of the young fellows
of this age," wrote Steele, "he would believe that there were none but
prostitutes to make the objects of passion."[127] "Every woman is at
heart a rake," thought Pope. Women were generally treated with
disrespect, and distinctively female virtues were almost without
appreciation. It is instructive to contrast the deeds of arms done in
honor of a mistress in the Middle Ages, and the elevated sentiments
held regarding women in what Addison called a "barbarous age," with the
actions by which young men sometimes showed their devotion in the
earlier part of the eighteenth century. The latter were as extravagant
as the former, but extravagant after how different a manner. One young
fellow, distinguished himself by drinking wine strained through his
mistress' chemise; another, by drinking out of her shoe; another, by
having her slipper torn to shreds, cooked, and served up as a dish.
Coarseness of thought naturally brought on coarseness of action. Horace
Walpole wrote in 1737, "'Tis no little inducement, to make me wish
myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you
may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty
men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than
they do their coach horses, and have not half the regard for them that
they have for themselves.
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