Tom Varnish

Steele's writing reflects his charm, spontaneity, wit, and imagination. The following is a humorous story about a vain and foolish young man who tries to seduce a lady, only to get himself tricked. Concise as it is, the story is very subtle in description and unforgettable. The image of this bold, arrogant and cocksure young man will cling to the readers' mind.

Because I have a professed aversion to long beginnings of stories, I will go into this at once, by telling you, that there dwells near the Royal Exchange as happy a couple as ever entered into wedlock. These live in that mutual confidence of each other, which renders the satisfaction of marriage even greater than those of friendship, and makes wife and husband the dearest appellations of human life. Mr. Balance is a merchant of good consideration, and understands the world, not from speculation, but practice. His wife is the daughter of an honest house, ever bred in a family-way; and has, from a natural good understanding and great innocence, a freedom which men of sense know to be the certain sign of virtue, and fools take to be an encouragement to vice.

Tom Varnish, a young gentleman of the Middle Temple, by the bounty of a good father, who was so obliging as to die, and leave him, in his twenty-fourth year, besides a good estate, a large sum which lay in the hands of Mr. Balance, had by this means an intimacy at his house; and being one of those hard students who read plays for the improvement of the law, took his rules of life from thence. Upon mature deliberation, he conceived it very proper, that he, as a man of wit and pleasure of the town, should have an intrigue with his merchant's wife. He no sooner thought of this adventure, but he began it by an amorous epistle to the lady and a faithful promise to wait upon her at a certain hour the next evening, when he knew her husband was to be absent.

The letter was no sooner received, but it was communicated to the husband, and produced no other effect in him, than that he joined with his wife to raise all the mirth they could out of this fantastical piece of gallantry. They were so little concerned at this dangerous man of mode, that they plotted ways to perplex him without hurting him. Varnish comes exactly at this hour; and the lady's well-acted confusion at his entrance gave him opportunity to repeat some couplets very fit for the occasion with very much grace and spirit. His theatrical manner of making love was interrupted by an alarm of the husband's coming; and the wife, in a personated terror, beseeched him, “if he had any value for the honour of a woman that loved him, he would jump out of the window.”He did so, and fell upon featherbeds placed there on purpose to receive him.

It is not to be conceived how great the joy of an amorous man is, when he has suffered for his mistress, and is never the worse for it. Varnish the next day writ a most elegant billet, wherein he said all that imagination could form upon the occasion. He violently protested, “going out of the window was no way terrible, but as it was going from her”; with several other kind expressions, which procured him a second assignation. Upon his second visit, he was conveyed by a faithful maid into her bed chamber, and left there to expect the arrival of her mistress. But the wench, according to her instructions, ran in again to him, and locked the door after her to keep out her master. She had just time enough to convey the lover into a chest before she admitted the husband and his wife into the room.

You may be sure that trunk was absolutely necessary to be opened; but upon her husband's ordering it, she assured him, “she had taken all the care imaginable in packing up the things with her own hands, and he might send the trunk abroad as soon as he thought fit.”The easy husband believed his wife, and the good couple went to bed; Varnish having the happiness to pass the night in the mistress's bedchamber without molestation. The morning arose, but our lover was not well situated to observe her blushes; so all we know of his sentiments on this occasion is, that he heard Balance ask for the key, and say, “he would himself go with this chest, and have it opened before the captain of the ship, for the greater safety of so valuable a lading.”

The goods were hoisted away; and Mr. Balance, marching by his chest with great care and diligency, omitting nothing that might give his passenger perplexity. But, to consummate all, he delivered the chest, with strict charge, “in case they were in danger of being taken, to throw it overboard, for there were letters in it, the matter of which might be of great service to the enemy.”

Questions

1. How do you describe the tone of the author?
2. What is your attitude toward Tom Varnish?
3. Does Tom Varnish deserve the tricks played on him? Why or why not?
4. How could Tom Varnish come up with the idea of seducing the merchant's wife?
5. What do you think is the most distinctive feature of this story?