Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1874 — Popping the Question. [ARTICLE]

Popping the Question.

Popping the question has always been a matter of considerable importance among lovers. Swift, who had no more tenderness than one of his own Yahoos, indited the most brutal proposal we know of. Tired of his shilly-shallying, Miss Wary ng seems to have insisted upon his speaking out, and Swift spoke out with a vengeance. After professing he is too just to stand in the way of her accepting a more advantageous offer, he says he must ask her a few questions—questions he had long since resolved to ask of the woman with whom he meant to spend his life: “ Areyou in a condition to manage domestic affairs with an income of less than £3OO a year? Have you such an inclination to my person and honor as to comply with my desires and way of living, and endeavor to make us both as happy as you can* Will you be ready to engage in those methods I shall direct for the improvement of your mind, so as to make us entertaining company for each other, without being miserable, when we are neither visiting nor visited ? Can you bend your love, esteem and indifference to others the same way as I do mine? Have you so much good nature as to endeavor by soft words to smooth any rugged humor occasioned by the cross incidents of life? Shall the place wherein your husband is thrown be more welcome than courts and cities without him? ” Surely never was a lady so catechised by a suitor for her hand. When Jane Waryng felt able to answer every question in the affirmative, then, and not till then, her lover says: “ I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the first and competency in the second is all I ;look for!” This unique epistle ends: ‘sl single you out at first from the rest of women, and I expect not to be used like a common lover.” Swift was evidently enough a very uncommon one. There is a world of difference between the love making of morbid, self-loving Swift and that of cheery-hearted Richard Steele ; the raven’s croak and the lark’s song are not more unlike. The Christian hero made love like a lover and a gentleman. He never dreamed of plying his mistress with doubting question upon question. Believing his Prue to be as beautiful, witty, prudent and goodhumored as a woman could be, Steele was contented to know she loved him and took the rest upon trust. "Instead of “J™? * •kali die for you, I profess I should be glad to lead my life with you!” T . ™ the WM y ke pops the question. A Frenchman smitten with the charms of fair Lydia Bterne, instead of trying to secure her good-will, wrote to her father ~ desiring to be informed what he was prepared to give her upon marriage, and now much he intended to bequeath her. He thought he would be able to say to Miss Lydia as Petruchio said to Kate the cunt: Your father hac consented

But Sterne was not so eager to get rid of his girl as was Signor Baptise, and replied: “Sir, I shall give my daughter ten thousand pounds the day of marriage. My calculation is as follows: She is not 18, you are' 62—there goes £5,000. Then, sir, you, at least, think her not ugly; she has many accomplishments, speaks Italian and French, plays upon the guitar; and as I fear you play on no instrument whatever, I think you will be happy to take her on any terms, for here finishes the account of the £10,000.” Whitefield asked the hand of a young American lady of her parents, without troubling to ascertain her inclinations, and was good enough to let them know they need not be afraid of offending him by declining the honor, since he blessed God he was free from the passion called love. Miss Kenrick, the beautiful heiress celebrated in the ballad of “ The Berkshire Lady’s Garland,” adopted a singular method of winning the handsome young attorney, Benjamin Child, with whom she had fallen in love at sight. She sent him an anonymous letter, demanding satisfaction for injuries received. After vainly puzzling himself to guess whom his challenger might be, and how he had offended, Child betook himself, duly provided with a second, to the place of meeting, near a pleasant crystal fountain. There he saw no fierce gallant, only a masked lady, who asked him his business there. He told it; whereupon his fair questioner, flashing a rapier she carried for her security, said: It Is I that did Invite you; You shall wed me, or I’ll fight you, Underneath those spreading trees; Therefore choose from winch you please 1 Rather taken aback by such a summons to surrender, Benjamin asked to see his challenger’s face ere he decided. This was denied; she would not unmask until the knot was tied, but generously accorded him an hour’s grace to turn the matter in his mind. His friend advised him, as he could lose nothing, to take the lady; and the three went off in her gilded coach to church, were the lady gay and her attorney were made one without delay— Though sweet, pretty Cupids hover’d Round her eyes, her face was cover’d With a mask—he took her thus, '- Just for better or for worse. He did not rfepent the leap in . the dark when he found his summer morning’s adventure had brought “beauty, honor, riches, store;” but, taking his place among the gentry of the country, lived happy ever afterward. The hero of this romance was, in 1714, High Sheriff of Berkshire. Not in such warlike fashion did Margaret Charlton attack Richard Baxter. She sought to attain the end by negotiation ; and never was a bachelor of fortyfive more astonished than that worthy. minister when Margaret’s ambassadress opened her mind to him. He was destined to an additional shock. While he was vehemently declaring the idea preposterous, Margaret was listening at the study door, ana, losing all self-control, burst into the room, threw herself at her idol’s feet, crying, “ Dear Mr. Baxter, I protest with a sincere heart that I do not make a tender of myself to you upon any worldly or carnal account ;‘but to have a-more perfect converse with so holy and prudent a yoke fellow to assist me on my way to heaven, and to keep me steadfast in my perseverance which I design to God’s glory and my soul’s good!” Margaret Charlton was very pretty ; Baxter was mortal and succumbed. It were hardly fair to reckon pretty Elizabeth Simpson among proposing ladies, although answering Mr. Inchbald’s suggestion that he would marry with “ Who would marry met” was tantamount to seeking the reply, “ I will, if you will have me.” The actor was not so unready as Dean Ramsay’s Scotch beadle, who could hit upon no better way of popping the question than by taking the object of his affections to the churchyard gate antTsaying f” Mary, iny folk lie there; would you like to lie there, Mary?” Being, like Barkis, willing, Mary was as indifferent as to how the question was put as the Galloway girl, who, when her uncouth swain carelessly remarked: “I think I’ll many thee, Jean,” responded: “Man Jock, I would be muckle* obliged to ye if ye would.”— AV the Year Round.