but I must acknowledge, though the age is very
degenerate, that it is not quite void of perfection. I know some
persons that still reconcile me to the world, and that convince me that
virtue is not fled, though it is confined to a few."[133] "The men have
so despicable an opinion of women, and treat them by their words and
actions so ungenerously and inhumanly."[134] "The women were never so
audacious as now; this may well be called the brazen age."[135] The
material tone of society and its lack of sentiment were largely
responsible for the low estimation in which women were held. Marriages
were almost universally arranged on the simple basis of money, a
circumstance which explains much of the conjugal infidelity and
unhappiness which prevailed. "My Lady A.'s behaviour," wrote Mrs.
Delany,[136] "and some more wives' behaviour of the same stamp, has so
disgraced matrimony that I am not surprised the men are afraid of it;
and if we consider the loose morals of the men, it is strange the women
are so easily won to their own undoing." Mrs. Delany, while a young
married woman, although she was known to be of a virtuous character,
was subjected to licentious attacks which fell little short of
violence. It is hardly necessary to comment on the hard drinking and
the hard swearing which were almost universal characteristics of
gentlemen of fashion. Duelling was still a custom, and gambling was the
favorite amusement at court, at the clubs, and in ladies'
drawing-rooms. The title of gentleman depended on birth, and had
nothing to do with personal conduct. Caste feeling was very strong.
Gentlemen looked upon professional men or men of letters as beneath
them, however superior they might be in manners, morals, or education.
A curious instance of this caste feeling occurred in the case of
Captain Vratz, who said of himself and companions on their way to the
gallows for murder, that "God would show them some respect as they were
gentlemen." When Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was put on the stage, the
fashionable world crowded to see their own coarseness and immorality
exhibited in the persons of thieves and highwaymen, and to laugh at the
truth of the Beggar's words: "Through the whole piece you may observe
such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult
to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen
imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the
fine gentlemen."

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