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To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occasions to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress how happy 10 he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen bound to Barbadoes. When a 20 vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and oxen.

""To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh with himself how many day's interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which consideration, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a 30 Barbadian merchant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiserate her condition, told him that she was with child by him: but he only made use of that information, to rise in his demands upon the purchaser.”'

I was so touched with this story (which I think should be always a counterpart to the Ephesian Matron) that I left the room with tears in my eyes, which a woman of Arietta's good sense did, I am sure, take for greater applause than any compliments I could make her.

Spectator, No. 11.]

[March 13, 1711.

No. 105. The Story of Brunetta and Phillis.

Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.
HOR. Ep. i. 11. 27.

In the year 1688, and on the same day of that year, were born in Cheapside, London, two females of exquisite feature and shape; the one we shall call Brunetta, the other Phillis. A close intimacy between their parents made each of them the first acquaintance the other knew in the world. They played, dressed babies", acted visitings, learned to dance and make curtsies, together. They were inseparable companions in all the little entertainments their tender years were capable of; which innocent happiness continued until the beginning o of their fifteenth year, when it happened that Mrs. Phillis had a head-dress on, which became her so very well, that instead of being beheld any more with pleasure for their amity to each other, the eyes of the neighbourhood were turned to remark them with comparison of their beauty. They now no longer enjoyed the ease of mind and pleasing indolence in which they were formerly happy, but all their words and actions were misinterpreted by each other, and every excellence in their speech and behaviour was looked upon as an act of emulation to surpass the other. These beginnings of disinclio nation soon improved into a formality of behaviour, a general coldness, and by natural steps into an irreconcilable hatred.

These two rivals for the reputation of beauty, were, in their stature, countenance, and mien, so very much alike, that if you were speaking of them in their absence, the words in which you described the one must give you an idea of the other. They were hardly distinguishable, you would think, when they were apart, though extremely different when together. What made their enmity the more entertaining to all the rest of their sex was, that in detraction from each, ;o neither could fall upon any terms which did not hit herself as much as her adversary. Their nights grew restless with meditation of new dresses to outvie each other, and inventing new devices to recal admirers, who observed the charms of the one rather than those of the other, on the last meeting.

Their colours failed at each other's appearance, flushed with pleasure at the report of a disadvantage, and their countenances withered upon instances of applause. The decencies to which women are obliged, made these virgins stifle their resentment so far as not to break into open violences, while they equally suffered the torments of a regulated anger. Their mothers, as it is usual, engaged in the quarrel, and supported the several pretensions of their daughters with all that ill-chosen sort of expense which is common with people of plentiful fortunes IO and mean taste. The girls preceded their parents like queens of May, in all the gaudy colours imaginable, on every Sunday to church, and were exposed to the examination of the audience for superiority of beauty.

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During this constant struggle it happened, that Phillis one day at public prayers smote the heart of a gay West Indian, who appeared in all the colours which can affect an eye that could not distinguish between being fine and tawdry. This American, in a Summer-island" suit, was too shining and too gay to be resisted by Phillis, and too intent upon her charms to be diverted by any of the laboured attractions of Brunetta. Soon after, Brunetta had the mortification to see her rival disposed of in a wealthy marriage, while she was only addressed to in a manner that shewed she was the admiration of all men, but the choice of none. Phillis was carried to the habitation of her spouse in Barbadoes. Brunetta had the ill-nature to inquire for her by every opportunity, and had the misfortune to hear of her being attended by numerous slaves, fanned into slumbers by successive bands of them, and carried from place to place in all the pomp of 30 barbarous magnificence. Brunetta could not endure these repeated advices, but employed all her arts and charms in laying baits for any of condition of the same island, out of a mere ambition to confront her once more before she died. She at last succeeded in her design, and was taken to wife by a gentleman whose estate was contiguous to that of her enemy's husband. It would be endless to enumerate the many occasions on which these irreconcilable beauties laboured to excel each other; but in process of time it happened. that a ship put into the island consigned to a friend of Phillis, who had 40 directions to give her the refusal of all goods for apparel, before

Brunetta could be alarmed of their arrival. He did so, and Phillis was dressed in a few days in a brocade more gorgeous and costly than had ever before appeared in that latitude. Brunetta languished at the sight, and could by no means come up to the bravery" of her antagonist. She communicated her anguish of mind to a faithful friend, who, by an interest in the wife of Phillis's merchant, procured a remnant of the same silk for Brunetta. Phillis took pains to appear in all public places where she was sure to meet Brunetta; Brunetta was now pre>pared for the insult, and came to a public ball in a plain black silk mantua, attended by a beautiful negro girl in a petticoat of the same brocade" with which Phillis was attired.

This drew

the attention of the whole company, upon which the unhappy Phillis swooned away, and was immediately conveyed to her house. As soon as she came to herself, she fled from her husband's house, went on board a ship in the road, and is now landed in inconsolable despair at Plymouth ...

Spectator, No. 80.]

[June 1, 1711.

III.

THEATRICAL PAPERS.

No. 106. On the Pleasures of Playgoing; Wilks and Cibber; a new Play and an old One.

Spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis.-HOR. Ep. ii. 1. 197.

The town grows so very empty, that the greater number of my gay characters are fled out of my sight into the country. My beaux are now shepherds, and my belles wood-nymphs. They are lolling over rivulets, and covered with shades, while we who remain in town, hurry through the dust about impertinencies without knowing the happiness of leisure and retirement. To add to this calamity, even the actors are going to desert us for a season, and we shall not shortly have so much as a landscape or a forest scene to refresh ourselves with in the 10 midst of our fatigues. This may not, perhaps, be so sensible a loss to any other as to me; for I confess it is one of my greatest delights to sit unobserved and unknown in the gallery, and entertain myself either with what is personated on the stage, or observe what appearances present themselves in the audience. If there were no other good consequences in a playhouse, than that so many persons of different ranks and conditions are placed there in their most pleasing aspects, that prospect only would be very far from being below the pleasures of a wise man. There is not one person you can see, in whom, if you look with 20 an inclination to be pleased, you may not behold something worthy or agreeable. Our thoughts are in our features; and the visage of those in whom love, rage, anger, jealousy, or envy, have their frequent mansions, carries the traces of those passions wherever the amorous, the choleric, the jealous, or the envious, are pleased to make their appearance. However, the assembly

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