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When the day grows too busy for these gentlemen to enjoy any longer the pleasures of their dishabille with any manner of confidence, they give place to men who have business or good sense in their faces, and come to the coffee-house either to transact affairs, or enjoy conversation. The persons to whose behaviour and discourse I have most regard, are such as are between these two sorts of men; such as have not spirits too active to be happy and well pleased in a private condition, nor complexions too warm to make them neglect the duties and relations of life Of these sort of men consist the worthier part of mankind; of these are all good fathers, generous brothers, sincere friends, and faithful subjects. Their entertainments are derived rather from reason than imagination: which is the cause that there is no impatience or instability in their speech or action. You see in their countenances they are at home, and in quiet possession of the present instant as it passes, without desiring to quicken it by gratifying any passion, or prosecuting any new design. These are the men formed for society, and those little communities which we express by the word neighbourhood.

The coffee-house is the place of rendezvous to all that live near it, who are thus turned to relish calm and ordinary life. Eubulus presides over the middle hours of the day, when this assembly of men meet together. He enjoys a great fortune handsomely, without launching into expense; and exerts many noble and useful qualities, without appearing in any public employment. His wisdom and knowledge are serviceable to all that think fit to make use of them; and he does the office of a counsel, a judge, an executor, and a friend, to all his acquaintance, not only without the profits which attend such offices, but also without the deference and homage which are usually paid to them. The giving of thanks is displeasing to him. The greatest gratitude you can shew him is, to let him see that you are a better man for his services; and that you are as ready to oblige others, as he is to oblige you.

In the private exigencies of his friends, he lends at legal value considerable sums which he might highly increase by rolling in the public stocks. He does not consider in whose hands his money will improve most, but where it will do most good.

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Good taste and nature always speak the same. WHEN the four Indian kings were in this country about a twelvemonth ago, I often mixed with the rabble, and followed them a whole day together, being wonderfully struck with the sight of every thing that is new or uncommon. I have, since their departure, employed a friend to make many inquiries of their landlord the upholsterer, relating to their manners and conversation, as also concerning the remarks which they made in this country for next to the forming a right notion of such strangers, I should be desirous of learning what ideas they have conceived of us.

The upholsterer finding my friend very inquisitive about these his lodgers, brought him some time since a little bundle of papers, which he assured him were written by king Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash Tow, and, as he supposes, left behind by some mistake. These papers are now translated, and contain abundance of very odd observations, which I find this little fraternity of kings made during their stay in the isle of Great Britain. I shall present my reader with a short specimen of them in this paper, and may perhaps communicate more to him hereafter. In the article of London are the following words, which, without doubt are meant of the church of St. Paul:

"On the most rising part of the town there stands a huge house, big enough to contain the whole nation of which I am king. Our good brother E Tow O Koam, king of the Rivers, is of opinion it was made by the hands of that great God to whom it is consecrated. The kings of Granajah and of the Six Nations believe that it was created with the earth, and produced on the same day with the sun and moon. But for my own part, by the best information that I could get of this matter, I am apt to think that this prodigious pile was fashioned into the shape it now bears by several tools and instruments, of which they have a wonderful variety in this country. It was probably at first a huge misshapen rock that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the country (after having cut into a kind of regular figure) bored and hollowed with incredible pains aud industry, till they had wrought in it all those beautiful vaults and caverns into which it is divided at this day. As soon as this rock was thus curiously scooped to their liking, a prodigious number of hands must have been employed in chipping the outside of it, which is now as smooth as the surface of a pebble; and is in several places hewn out into pillars that stand like the trunks of so many trees bound about the top with garlands of leaves. It is probable that when this great work was begun, which must have been many hundred years ago, there was some religion among this people; for they give it the name Having here given an account of the several reigns of a temple, and have a tradition that it was dethat succeed each other from day-break till dinner-signed for men to pay their devotion in. And indeed time, I shall mention the monarchs of the afternoon there are several reasons which make us think that on another occasion, and shut up the whole series of them with the history of Tom the Tyrant ;* who, as the first minister of the coffee-house, takes the government upon him between the hours of eleven and twelve at night, and gives his orders in the most arbitrary manner to the servants below him, as to the disposition of liquors, coal, and cinders.-R.

Eubulus has so great an authority in his little diurnal audience, that when he shakes his head at any piece of publie news, they all of them appear dejected; and on the contrary, go home to their dinners with a good stomach and cheerful aspect when Eubulus seems to intimate that things go well. Nay, their veneration towards him is so great, that when they are in other company they speak and act after him; are wise in his sentences, and are no sooner sat down at their own tables, but they hope or fear, rejoice or despond, as they saw him do at the coffeehouse. In a word, every man is Eubulus as soon as his back is turned.

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the natives of this country had formerly among them some sort of worship, for they set apart every seventh day as sacred; but upon my going into one of these holy houses on that day, I could not observe any circumstance of devotion in their behaviour. There was indeed a man in black, who was mounted above the rest, and seemed to utter something with a great deal of vehemence; but as for those underneath him, instead of paying their worship to the deity of the place, they were most of them bowing and curt

Beying to one another, and a considerable number of them fast asleep.

"The queen of the country appointed two men to attend us, that had enough of our language to make themselves understood in some few particulars. But. we soon perceived that these two were very great enemies to one another, and did not always agree in the same story. We could make shift to gather out of one of them, that this island was very much in fested with a monstrous kind of animals, in the shape of men, called whigs; and he often told us, that he hoped we should meet with none of them in our way, for that if we did, they would be apt to knock us down for being kings.

"Our other interpreter used to talk very much of a kind of animal called a tory, that was as great a monster as the whig, and would treat us as ill for being foreigners. These two creatures, it seems, are born with a secret antipathy to one another, and engage when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros.* But as we saw none of either of these species, we are apt to think that our guides deceived us with misrepresentations and fictions, and amused us with an account of such monsters as are not really in their country.

but when they disappear in one part of the face, they are very apt to break out in.another, insomuch that I have seen a spot upon the forehead in the afternoon, which was upon the chin in the morning.”

The author then proceeds to show the absurdity of breeches and petticoats, with many other curious observations which I shall reserve for another occasion. I cannot, however, conclude this paper without taking notice, that amidst these wild remarks there now and then appears something very reasonable. I cannot likewise forbear observing, that we are all guilty in some measure of the same narrow way of thinking which we meet with in this abstract of the Indian journal, when we fancy the customs, dresses, and manners of other countries are ridiculous and extravagant, if they do not resemble those of our own.-C.

No. 51. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1711.
Torquet ab obscenis jam nunc sermonibus aurem.
HOR. 1 Ep. i 12.
He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth.-POPE.
"MR. SPECTATOR,

"My fortune, quality, and person, are such as
render me as conspicuous as any young woman in
town. It is in my power to enjoy it in all its va-
nities, but I have, from a very careful education,
contracted a great aversion to the forward air and
fashion which is practised in all public places and
assemblies. I attribute this very much to the style
and manner of our plays, I was last night at the
Funeral, where a confident lover in the play, speak-
ing of his mistress, cries out- Oh that Harriet! to
fold these arms about the waist of that beauteous,
struggling, and at last yielding fair!' Such an
image as this ought by no means to be presented to
a chaste and regular audience. I expect your opi-
nion of this sentence, and recommend to your con-
sideration, as a Spectator, the conduct of the stage
at present with relation to chastity and modesty.
"I am, Sir,

"These particulars we made a shift to pick out from the discourse of our interpreters, which we put together as well as we could, being able to understand but here and there a word of what they said, and afterward making up the meaning of it among ourselves. The men of the country are very cunning and ingenious in handicraft works, but withal so very idle, that we often saw young lusty raw-boned fellows carried up and down the streets in little covered rooms, by a couple of porters, who are hired for that service. Their dress is likewise very barbarous, for they almost strangle themselves about the neck, and bind their bodies with several ligatures, that we are apt to think are the occasion of several distempers among them, which our country is entirely free from. Instead of those beautiful feathers with which we adorn our heads, they often buy up a monstrous bush of hair, which covers their heads and falls down in a large fleece below the middle of their backs; and with which they walk up and down the streets, and are as proud of it as if it was of their own growth. "We were invited to one of their public diver-sons who cannot pretend to that delicacy and mosions, where we hoped to have seen the great men of their country running down a stag, or pitching a bar, that we might have discovered who were the persons of the greatest abilities among them; but instead of that, they conveyed us into a huge room lighted up with abundance of candles, where this lazy people sat still above three hours to see several feats of ingenuity performed by others, who it seems were paid for it.

"As for the women of the country, not being able to talk with them, we could only make our remarks upon them at a distance. They let the hair of their heads grow to a great length; but as the men make a great show with heads of hair that are none of their own, the women, who they say have very fine heads of hair, tie up in a knot, and cover it from being seen. The women look like angels, and would be more beautiful than the sun, were it not for little black spots that are apt to break out in their faces, and sometimes rise in very odd figures. I have observed that those little blemishes wear off very soon;

Of these two animals the Indian kings could have no ideas, and therefore seem here to be illustrating obscurum per obscurius," and explaining the monsters spoken of here by animals that were not really in their country.

"Your constant reader and well wisher." the offence is gross enough to have displeased perThe complaint of this young lady is so just, that

deal to be said in behalf of an author. If the audesty, of which she is mistress. But there is a great dience would but consider the difficulty of keeping up a sprightly dialogue for five acts together, they would allow a writer, when he wants wit, and cannot please any otherwise, to help it out with a little smuttiness. I will answer for the poets, that no one ever writ bawdry, for any other reason but dearth of invention. When the author cannot

strike out of himself any more of that which he has superior to those who make up the bulk of his audience, his natural recourse is to that which he has in common with them; and a description which gratifies a sensual appetite will please, when the author has nothing about him to delight a refined imathis and all other sentences in plays, which are of gination. It is to such a poverty we must impute this kind, and which are commonly termed luscious expressions*.

that he practised the lessons which he taught, and did not re-
Be it said here, to the honour of the author of this paper,
ject good advice from what quarter soever it came.
He pub
lished this lady's letter, and approved her indignation. He
submitted to her censure, condemned himself publicly, and
corrected the obnoxious passage of his play, in a new edition
which was published in 1712.

selves in their chief characters, and the women writers may be allowed the same liberty. Thus, as the male wit gives his hero a great fortune, the female gives her heroine a good gallant at the end of the play. But, indeed, there is hardly a play oDe can go to, but the hero or fine gentleman of it struts off upon the same account, and leaves us to corsider what good office he has put us to, or to employ ourselves as we please. To be plain, a man who frequents plays would have a very respectful notion of himself, were he to recollect how often he has been used as a pimp to ravishing tyrants, or successful rakes. When the actors make their exit

This expedient to supply the deficiencies of wit has been used more or less by most of the authors who have succeeded on the stage; though I know but one who has professedly writ a play upon the basis of the desire of multiplying our species, and that is the polite Sir George Etheridge; if I understand what the lady would be at, in the play called She Would if She Could. Other poets have here and there given an intimation that there is this design, under all the disguises and affectations which a lady may put on; but no author, except this, has made sure work of it, and put the imaginations of the audience upon this one purpose from the beginning to end of the comedy. It has always fared accord-on this good occasion, the ladies are sure to have an ingly; for whether it be that all who go to this piece would if they could, or that the innocents go to it, to guess only what she would if she could, the play has always been well received.

examining glance from the pit, to see how they relish what passes; and a few lewd fools are very ready to employ their talents upon the composure or freedom of their looks. Such incidents as these It lifts a heavy empty sentence, when there is make some ladies wholly absent themselves from the added to it a lascivious gesture of body; and when playhouse; and others never miss the first day of a it is too low to be raised even by that, a flat meaning play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit their is enlivened by making it a double one. Writers going with any countenance to it on the second. who want genius, never fail of keeping this secret If men of wit, who think fit to write for the stage, in reserve, to create a laugh or raise a clap. I, who instead of this pitiful way of giving delight, would know nothing of women but from seeing plays, can turn their thoughts upon raising it from such good give great guesses at the whole structure of the fair natural impulses as are in the audience, but are sex, by being innocently placed in the pit, and in- choked up by vice and luxury, they would not only sulted by the petticoats of their dancers; the advan- please, but befriend us at the same time. If a man tages of whose pretty persons are a great help to a had a mind to be new in his way of writing, might dull play. When a poet flags in writing lusciously, not he who is now represented as a fine gentleman a pretty girl can move lasciviously, and have the though he betrays the honour and bed of his neighsame good consequence for the author. Dull poets bour and friend, and lies with half the women in in this case use their audiences as dull parasites do the play, and is at last rewarded with her of the their patrons; when they cannot longer divert them best character in it ;-I say, upon giving the comedy with their wit or humour, they bait their ears with another cast, might not such a one divert the ausomething which is agreeable to their temper, though dience quite as well, if at the catastrophe he were below their understanding. Apicius cannot resist found out for a traitor, and met with contempt ac being pleased, if you give him an account of a de-cordingly? There is seldom a person devoted to licious meal: or Clodius, if you describe a wanton beauty; though, at the same time, if you do not awake those inclinations in them, no men are better judges of what is just and delicate in conversation. But, as I have before observed, it is easier to talk to the man than to the man of sense.

above one darling vice at a time, so that there is room enough to catch at men's hearts to their good and advantage, if the poets will attempt it with the honesty which becomes their characters.

There is no man who loves his bottle or his mistress, in a manner so very abandoned, as not to be It is remarkable that the writers of least learning capable of relishing an agreeable character, that is are best skilled in the luscious way. The poetesses no way a slave to either of these pursuits. A man of the age have done wonders in this kind; and we that is temperate, generous, valiant, chaste, faithful, are obliged to the lady who writ Ibrahim*, for in- and honest, may, at the same time, have wit, humour, troducing a preparatory scene to the very action, good-breeding, and gallantry. While he exerts when the emperor throws his handkerchief as a sig- these latter qualities, twenty occasions might be innal for his mistress to follow him into the most re-vented to show he is master of the other noble virtired part of the seraglio. It must be confessed his tues. Such characters would smite and reprove the Turkish majesty went off with a good air, but me- heart of a man of sense, when he is given up to his thought we made but a sad figure who waited with-pleasures. He would see he has been mistaken all out. This ingenious gentlewoman, in this piece of this while, and be convinced that a sound conitubawdry, refined upon an author of the same sext, tion and an innocent mind are the true ingredients who, in the Rover, makes a country 'squire strip to for becoming, and enjoying life. All men of true his Holland drawers. For Blunt is disappointed, taste would call a man of wit, who should turn his and the emperor is understood to go on to the ut- ambition this way, a friend and benefactor to his most. The pleasantry of stripping almost naked country; but I am at a loss what name they would has been since practised (where indeed it should give him, who makes use of his capacity for conhave been begun) very successfully at Bartholomew trary purposes.-R. fair.

It is not to be here omitted, that in one of the above-mentioned female compositions, the Rover is very frequently sent on the same errand; as I take it, above once every act. This is not wholly unnatural; for, they say, the men authors draw them

⚫ Mrs. Mary Pís.

↑ Mrs. Behn.

1 The appearance of Lady Mary, a rope-dancer at Bartho kmew fair, gave occasion to this proper animadversion.

* On the first night of the exhibition of a new play, virtuous women about this time came to see it in masks, then worn by women of the town, as the characteristic mark of their being prostitutes.

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No. 52.] MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1711.

Omnes ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos
Exigat, et pulchra faciat te prole parentem.
VIRG. Æn. i. 78

To crown thy worth, she shall be ever thine,
And make thee father of a beautecus line.

meet with many admirers here as frightful as her self. But being a long-headed gentlewoman. I am apt to imagine she has some farther design than you have yet penetrated; and perhaps has more mind to the Spectator than any of his fraternity, as the person of all the world she could like for a paramour. AN ingenious correspondent, like a sprightly wife, And if so, really I cannot but applaud her choice, will always have the last word. I did not think my and should be glad, if it might lie in my power, to last letter to the deformed fraternity would have oc- effect an amicable accommodation betwixt two faces casioned any answer, especially since I had promised of such different extremes, as the only possible exthem so sudden a visit: but as they think they can-pedient to mend the breed, and rectify the physiog not shew too great a veneration for my person, they nomy of the family on both sides. And again, as have already sent me up an answer. As to the pro- she is a lady of a very fluent elocution, you need posal of a marriage between myself and the match- not fear that your child will be born dumb, which less Hecatissa, I have but one objection to it; which otherwise you might have some reason to be appreis, That all the society will expect to be acquainted hensive of. To be plain with you, I can see nothing with her; and who can be sure of keeping a woman's shocking in it; for though she has not a face like a heart long where she may have so much choice? john-apple, yet as a late friend of mine, who at am the more alarmed at this, because the lady seems sixty-five ventured on a lass of fifteen, very fre. particularly smitten with men of their make. quently in the remaining five years of his life gave me to understand, that as old as he then seemned, when they were first married he and his spouse could make but fourscore; so may Madam Hecatissa very justly allege hereafter, that as long-visaged as she may then be thought, upon their wedding-day Mr. Spectator and she had but half an ell of face betwixt them; and this my worthy predecessor, Mr. Serjeant Chin, always maintained to be no more than the true oval proportion between man and wife. But as this may be a new thing to you, who have hitherto had no expectations from women, I shall allow you what time you think fit to consider on it; not without some hope of seeing at last your thoughts hereupon subjoined to mine, and which is an honour much desired by,

I believe I shall set my heart upon her; and think never the worse of my mistress for an epigram a smart fellow writ, as he thought, against her; it does but the more recommend her to me. At the

same time I cannot but discover that his malice is
stolen from Martial:

Tacta places; audita places; si non videare,
Tota places; neutro, si videare, places.
Whilst in the dark on thy soft hand I hung,
And heard the tempting Syren in thy tongue,
What flames, what darts, what anguish I endur'd!
But when the candle enter'd, I was cur'd,

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Sir, your assured friend,

"And most humble servant,
"HUGH GOBLIN, Prases"

The following letter has not much in it, but, as it is written in my own praise, I cannot from my heart suppress it.

«SIR,

"You proposed, in your Spectator of last Tuesday, Mr. Hobbs's hypothesis for solving that very odd phenomenon of laughter. You have made the hy pothesis valuable by espousing it yourself; for had it continued Mr. Hobbs's, nobody would have minded it. Now here this perplexed case arises. A certain company laughed very heartily upon the reading of that very paper of yours; and the truth on it is, he must be a man of more than ordinary constancy that could stand out against so much comedy, and not do as we did. Now there are few men in the world so far lost to all good sense, as to look upon you to be a man in a state of folly inferior to himself.'-Pray then how do you justify your hypothesis of laughter?

"Your letter to us we have received, as a signal mark of your favour and brotherly affection. We shall be heartily glad to see your short face in Oxford; and since the wisdom of our legislature has been immortalized in your speculations, and our personal deformities in some sort by you recorded to all posterity, we hold ourselves in gratitude bound to receive, with the highest respect, all such persons as for their extraordinary merit you shall think fit, from time to time, to recommend unto the board. As for the Pictish damsel, we have an easy chair prepared at the upper end of the table: which we doubt not but she will grace with a very hideous aspect, and much better become the seat in the native and unaffected uncomeliness of her person, than with all the superficial airs of the pencil, which (as you have very ingeniously observed) vanish with a breath, and the most innocent adorer may deface the shrine with a salutation, and in the literal sense of our poets, snatch and imprint his balmy kisses, and devour her melting lips. In short, the only faces of the Pictish kind that will endure the weather, must be of Dr. Carbuncle's die; though his, in truth, has cost him a world the painting; but then he boasts with Zeuxes, in æternitatem pingo; and oft jocosely tells the fair ones, would they acquire colours that would stand kissing, they must no longer paint, but drink for a complexion: a maxim that in this our age has been pursued with no ill success; and has been as admirable in its effects, as the famous cosmetic mentioned in the Postman, and invented by In answer to your letter, I must desire you to rethe renowned British Hippocrates of the pestle and collect yourself; and you will find, that when you mortar; making the party, after a due course, rosy, laughed at the idiot, the German courtier, the gaper, did me the honour to be so merry over my paper, you hale, and airy; and the best and most approved receipt now extant, for the fever of the spirits. But the merry-andrew, the haberdasher, the biter, the to return to our female candidate, who, I understand, butt, and not at is returned to herself, and will no longer hang out false colours; as she is the first of her sex that has done us so great an honour, she will certainly in a very short time, both in prose and verse, be a lady of the most celebrated deformity now living, and|

66

"Your most humble, Thursday, the 26th of the month of fools." "SIR,

R

Q. R.

"Your humble servant,
"THE SPECTATOR."

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“MR. SPECTATOR,

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selves to a censorious world. I am far from thinking you can altogether disapprove of conversation between ladies and gentlemen, regulated by the rules of honour and prudence; and have thought it an observation not ill-made, that where that was wholly denied, the women lost their wit, and the men their good manners. It is sure from those improper liberties you mentioned, that a sort of undistinguishing people shall banish from their drawing-rooms the best-bred men in the world, and condemn those that

do not. Your stating this point might, I think, be
of good use, as well as much oblige,

"Sir, your admirer and most humble servant,
"ANNA BELLA."

No answer to this, till Anna Bella sends a description of those she calls the best-bred men in the world.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

“I am glad I can inform you, that your endeavours to adorn that sex, which is the fairest part of the visible creation, are well received, and like to prove not unsuccessful. The triumph of Daphne over her sister Lætitia has been the subject of conversation at several tea-tables where I was present; and I have observed the fair circle not a little pleased to find you considering them as reasonable creatures, and endeavouring to banish that Mahometan custom, which had too much prevailed even "I am a gentleman who for many years last past in this island, of treating women as if they had no have been well known to be truly splenetic, and souls. I must do them the justice to say, that there that my spleen arises from having contracted so seems to be nothing wanting to the finishing of these great a delicacy, by reading the best authors and lovely pieces of human nature, besides the turning keeping the most refined company, that I cannot and applying their ambition properly, and the keep- bear the least impropriety of language, or rusticity ing them up to a sense of what is their true merit. of behaviour. Now, Sir, I have ever looked upon Epictetus, that plain honest philosopher, as little as this as a wise distemper; but by late observations he had of gallantry, appears to have understood find, that every heavy wretch who has nothing to them as well as the polite St. Evremont, and has say, excuses his dulness by complaining of the hit this point very luckily. When young women,' spleen. Nay, I saw the other day, two fellows in a says he, arrive at a certain age, they hear them- tavern kitchen set up for it, call for a pint and pipes, selves called Mistresses, and are made to believe and only by guzzling liquors to each other's health, that their only business is to please the men; they and wasting smoke in each other's face, pretend to immediately begin to dress, and to place all their throw off the spleen. I appeal to you whether these hopes in the adorning of their persons; it is there- dishonours are to be done to the distemper of the fore,' continues he, 'worth the while to endeavour great and the polite. I beseech you, Sir, to inform by all means to make them sensible that the honour these fellows that they have not the spleen because paid to them is only upon account of their conducting they cannot talk without the help of a glass at their themselves with virtue, modesty, and discretion.' mouths, or convey their meaning to each other with"Now to pursue the matter yet farther, and to ren-out the interposition of clouds. If you will not do der your cares for the improvement of the fair ones more effectual, I would propose a new method like those applications which are said to convey their virtue by sympathy; and that is, that in order to embellish the mistress, you should give a new education to the lover, and teach the men not to be any longer daz- formed Starer, and conceived a detestation for that "This is to let you understand that I am a realed by false charms and unreal beauty. I cannot but think that if our sex knew always how to place But as you have been very severe upon the behaviour practice from what you have writ upon the subject. their esteem justly, the other would not be so of us men at divine service, I hope you will not be so apoften wanting to themselves in deserving it. For parently partial to the women as to let them go wholly as the being enamoured with a woman of sense and unobserved. If they do every thing that is possible to virtue is an improvement to a man's understanding attract our eyes, are we more culpable than they for and morals, and the passion is ennobled by the ob-looking at them? I happened last Sunday to be shut ject which inspires it; so on the other side, the appearing amiable to a man of a wise and elegant mind, carries in itself no small degree of merit and accomplishment. I conclude, therefore, that one way to make the women yet more agreeable is, to

make the men more virtuous.

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this with all speed, I assure you, for my part, I will wholly quit the disease, and for the future be merry with the vulgar. I am, Sir, your humble servant."

"SIR,

into a pew, which was full of young ladies, in the bloom of youth and beauty. When the service began, I had not room to kneel at the confession, but as I stood kept my eyes from wandering as well as I was able, till one of the young ladies, who is a Peeper, resolved to bring down my looks, and fix my devotion on herself. You are to know, Sir, that a Peeper works with her hands, eyes, and fan; one of which is continually in motion, while she thinks she is not actually the admiration of some ogler or starer in the congregation. As I stood utterly at a loss how to behave myself, surrounded as I was, this Peeper so placed herself as to be kneeling just before me. She displayed the most beautiful bosom imaginable, which heaved and fell with some fervour, while a delicate and well-shaped arm held a fan over her face. "But, Sir, there are others yet, that your instruc- It was not in nature to command one's eyes from this tions might be of great use to, who, after their best object. I could not avoid taking notice also of her endeavours, are sometimes at a loss to acquit them-fan, which had on it various figures very improper to

"I am, Sir, your most humble servant, "R. B." SIR, April 26th. "Yours of Saturday last I read, not without some resentment; but I will suppose when you say you expect an inundation of ribands and brocades, and to see many new vanities which the women will fall into upon a peace with France, that you intend only the unthinking part of our sex: and what methods can reduce them to reason is hard to imagine.

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