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lady? If I may approach lips which have uttered things so sacred.'-He salutes her. His friends followed his example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to see Madonella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on- We would not transgress rules; but if we may take the liberty to see the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such parts of the gardens, as is consistent with the severities you have imposed on yourselves.'

To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair-one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbours, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, that he sincerely wished men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for the generation, as well as support, of our species.' This was spoken with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, 'Sir, under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an institution foreign to that of Providence. These desires were implanted in us for reverend purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chastity more heroic.' The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second and a third interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelvemonth.†

Any unnatural part is long taking up and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself, Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires.

From my own Apartment, June 22. The evils of this town increase upon me to so great a degree, that I am half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found it. Several worthy gentlemen and critics have applied to me, to give my censure of an enormity which has been revived, after being long

An allusion to, or rather a quotation from, sir T. Brown's 'Religio Medici.'

This is mere fiction, and unpardonable, as it seems to imply an oblique censure on Mrs. Astell, of a nature totally repugnant to her eminently virtnons and respectable cha

racter.

suppressed, and is called punning. I have several arguments ready to prove, that he cannot be a man of honour, who is guilty of this abuse of human society. But the way to expose it is, like the expedient of curing drunkenness, showing a man in that condition; therefore I must give my reader warning, to expect a collection of these offences; without which pre paration, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention of it in good company; and I hope, I shall be understood to do it, as a divine mentions oaths and curses only for their condemnation. I shall dedicate this discourse to a gentleman, my very good friend, who is the Janus of our times, and whom, by his years and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 22. Last night arrived two mails from Holland, which bring letters from the Hague of the twenty-eighth instant, N. S. with advice, that the enemy lay encamped behind a strong retrenchment, with the marsh of Romiers on their right and left, extending itself as far as Bethune: La Basse is in their front, Lens in their rear, and their camp is strengthened by another line from Lens to Douay. The duke of Marlborough caused an exact observation to be made of their ground, and the works by which they were covered, which appeared so strong, that it was not thought proper to attack them in their present posture. However the duke thought fit to make a feint as if he designed it: his grace accordingly marched from the abbey at Looze, as did prince Eugene from Lampret, and advanced with all possible diligence towards the enemy. To favour the appearance of an intended assault, the ways were made, and orders distributed in such manner, that none in either camp could have thoughts of any thing but charging the enemy by break of day next morning; but soon after the fall of the night of the twenty-sixth, the whole army faced towards Tournay, which place they invested early in the morning of the twenty-seventh. The marshal Villars was so confident that we designed to attack him, that he had drawn great part of the garrison of the place, which is now invested, into the field; for which reason, it is presumed, it must submit within a small time, which the enemy cannot prevent, but by coming out of their present camp, and hazarding a general engagement. These advices add, that the garrison of Mons had marched out under the command of marshal d'Aco; which, with the

* Under the fanciful name of Janus, Steele clearly alludes to Swift, the real author of the preceding part of this paper, and pays him some compliments in return for his coinmir nication.

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From my own Apartment, June 23. My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against Saturday lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand; for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to the disadvantage of my own sex. It is much to be lamented, that it is necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency.

I gladly embrace this opportunity to express myself with the resentment I ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that sex, of whom the honoured names of Mother, Daughter, and Sister are a part: I had like to have named Wife in the number; but the seuseless world are so mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue, that the frailties of women are to be imputed to the false ornaments which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices of men upon women's secret approbation of libertine characters in them. I did not care to give up a point; but, now he is out of the way, I cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he asserted: but if you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and wittiest of them all marry one day or other, it is impossible to believe, that if a man thought he should be for ever incapable of being received by a woman of merit and honour, he would persist in an abandoned way; and deny himself the possibility of enjoying the happiness of well-governed desires, orderly satisfactions, and honourable methods of life. If our sex were wise, a lover should have a certificate from the last women he served, how he was turned away, before he was received into the service of another: but at present any vagabond is welcome, provided be promises to enter into our livery. It is wonderful, that we will not take a footman without credentials from his last master; and in the greatest concern of life, we make no scruple of falling into a treaty with the most notorious

offender in this behaviour against others. But this breach of commerce between the sexes proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver.

Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? As for my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and therefore solemnly declare no vow shall deceive me, but that of marriage: for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my glass) handsome, I have heard all that can be said towards my undoing; and shall therefore, for warning-sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my manner of rejecting them, and my assistances to keep my resolution.

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In the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has procured him and all who belongs to her. This excellent body sat next to me for some months at church, and took the liberty, which,' she said, ' her years and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her claim to, to assure me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not think of. What made you,' said she, 'look through your fan at that lord, when your eyes should have been turned upwards, or closed in attention upon better objects?' I blushed, and pretended fifty odd excuses;-but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see that confusion, and goes on; Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take notice of it; my value for you made me speak it; for though he is my kinsman, I have a nearer regard to virtue than any other consideration.' She had hardly done speaking, when this noble lord came up to us and led her to her coach.

My head ran all that day and night on the exemplary carriage of this woman, who could be so virtuously impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with. However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl, that it may possibly be, his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous of him; and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but I still in all public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my passion for him. It is so

hard a thing to check the return of agreeable thoughts, that he became my dream, my vision, my food, my wish, my torment.

That ministress of darkness, the lady Sempronia, perceived too well the temper I was in, and would one day after evening service, needs take me to the park. When we were there, my lord passes by; I flushed into a flame. 'Mrs. Distaff,' says she, 'you may very well remember the concern I was in upon the first notice I took of your regard to that lord; and forgive me, who had a tender friendship for your mother (now in her grave) that I am vigilant of your conduct.' She went on with much severity, and after great solicitation, prevailed on me to go with her into the country, and there spend the ensuing summer out of the way of a man she saw I loved, and one whom she perceived meditated my ruin, by frequently desiring her to introduce him to me: which she absolutely refused, except he would give his honour that he had no other design but to marry me. To her country-house, a week or two after, we went there was at the further end of her garden, a kind of wilderness, in the middle of which ran a soft rivulet by an arbour of jessamine. In this place I usually passed my retired hours, and read some romantic or poetical tale until the close of evening. It was near that time in the heat of summer, when gentle winds, soft murmurs of water, and notes of nightingales, had given my mind an indolence, which added to that repose of soul twilight and the end of a warm day naturally throws upon the spirits. It was at such an hour, and in such a state of tranquillity I sat, when, to my inexpressible amazement, I saw my lord walking to wards me, whom I knew not until that moment to have been in the country. I could observe in his approach the perplexity which attends a man big with design; and I had, while he was coming forward, time to reflect that I was betrayed; the sense of which gave me a resentment suitable to such a baseness; but, when he entered into the bower where I was, my heart flew towards him, and, I confess, a certain joy came into my mind, with a hope that he might then make a declaration of honour and passion. This threw my eye upon him with such tenderness as gave him power, with a broken accent, to begin. Madam-you will wonder-for it is certain, you must have observed-though I fear you will misinterpret the motives-but by heaven, and all that is sacred! if you could'— Here he made a full stand, and I recovered power to say, 'The consternation I am in, you will not, I hope, believe-a helpless innocent maidbesides that, the place'-He saw me in as great confusion as himself; which attributing to the same causes, he had the audaciousness to throw nimself at my feet, talk of the stillness of the evening, and then ran into deifications of my person, pure flames, constant love, eternal

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raptures, and a thousand other phrases drawn from the images we have of heaven, which ill men use for the service of hell, when run over with uncommon vehemence. After which, he seized me in his arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my knees My lord, pity me, on my knees-on my knees in the cause of virtue, as you were lately in that of wickedness. Can you think of destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education, for the base service of a sudden appetite; to throw one that loves you, that doats on you, out of the company and the road of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety, religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of lust, and abandoned to scorn? Assume yourself, my lord; and do not attempt to vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. If I have injured you, stab this bosom, and let me die, but not be ruined by the hand I love." The ardency of my passion made me incapable of uttering more; and I saw my lover astonished, and reformed by my behaviour: when rushed in Sempronia, ‘Ha! faithless base man, could you then steal out of town, and lurk like a robber about my house for such brutish purposes?'

My lord was by this time recovered, and fell into a violent laughter at the turn which Sempronia designed to give her villany. He bowed to me with the utmost respect: Mrs. Distaff,' said he, be careful hereafter of your company ;' and so retired. The fiend Sempronia congratulated my deliverance with a flood of tears.

This nobleman has since very frequently made his addresses to me with honour; but I have as often refused them; as well knowing that familiarity and marriage will make him, on some ill-natured occasion, call all I said in the arbour a theatrical action. Besides that, I glory in contemning a man, who had thoughts to my dishonour. If this method were the imitation of the whole sex, innocence would be the only dress of beauty; and all affectation by any other arts to please the eyes of men would be banished to the stews for ever. The conquest of passion gives ten times more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she that has got over such a one as mine, will stand among Beaux and Pretty Fellows, with as much safety as in a summer's day among grass-hoppers and butterflies,

P. S. I have ten millions of things more against men, if I ever get the pen again.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 24. Our last advices from the Hague,dated the twenty-eighth instant, N. S. say, that on the twenty-fifth, a squadron of Dutch men-of-war sailed out of the Texel to join admiral Baker at Spithead. The twenty-sixth was observed as a day of fasting and humiliation, to implore

changes it into downright deformity. If you consult it only to look with a better countenauce upon your friends, it immediately gives an alacrity to the visage, aud new grace to the whole person. There is, indeed, a great deal owing to the constitution of the person to

a blessing on the arms of the allies this ensu- | ing campaign. Letters from Dresden are very particular in the account of the gallantry and magnificence, in which that court has appeared since the arrival of the king of Denmark. No day has passed in which public shows have not been exhibited for his entertainment and di-whom it is applied: it is in vain to give it when version; the last of that kind which is mentioned is a carousal, wherein many of the youth of the first quality dressed in the most splendid manner, ran for the prize. His Danish majesty condescended to the same; but having observed that there was a design laid to throw it in his way, passed by without attempting to gain it. The court of Dresden was preparing to accompany his Danish majesty to Potsdam, where the expectation of an interview of three kings, had drawn together such multitudes of people, that many persons of distinction will be obliged to lie in tents, as long as those courts continue in that place.

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BY ISAAC EICKERSTAFF, ESQ. White's Chocolate-house, June 25. HAVING taken upon me to cure all the distempers which proceed from affections of the mind, I have laboured, since I first kept this public stage, to do all the good I could, and have perfected many cures at any own lodg. ings; carefully avoiding the common methods of mountebanks, to do their most eminent operations in sight of the people; but must be so just to my patients as to declare, they have testified under their hands, their sense of my poor abilities, and the good I have done them, which I publish for the benefit of the world, and not out of any thoughts of private advantage.

the patient is in the rage of the distemper; a bride in her first month, a lady soon after her husband's being knighted, or any person of either sex, who has lately obtained any new good fortune or preferment, must be prepared some time before they use it. It has an effect upon others, as well as the patient, when it is taken in due form. Lady Petulant has by the use of it cured her husband of jealousy, and lady Gad her whole neighbourhood of detraction.

The fame of these things, added to my being an old fellow, makes me extremely acceptable to the fair sex. You would hardly believe me, when I tell you there is not a man in town so much their delight as myself. They make no more of visiting me, than going to madam Depingle's; there were two of them, namely, Damia and Clidamira, (I assure you women of distinction) who came to see me this morning in their way to prayers; and being in a very diverting humour (as innocence always makes people cheerful,) they would needs have me, according to the distinction of Pretty and Very Pretty Fellows, inform them if I thought either of them had a title to the Very Pretty among those of their own sex; and if I did, which was the more deserving of the two?

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To put them to the trial, 'Look ye,' said I, I must not rashly give my judgment in matters of this importance; pray let me see you dance, I play upon the kit.' They immediately fell back to the lower end of the room (you may be sure they courtesied low enough to me) and began. Never were two in the world so equally matched, and both scholars to my name-sake Isaac.* Never was man in so dangerous condition as myself, when they began to exI have cured fine Mrs. Spy of a great imper-pand their charms. "Oh! ladies, ladies, fection in her eyes, which made her eternally cried I, not half that air, you will fire the rolling them from one coxcomb to another in house. Both smiled; for, by the bye, there public places, in so languishing a manner, that is no carrying a metaphor too far, when a lady's it at once lessened her own power, and her charms are spoken of. Somebody, I think, beholders' vanity. Twenty drops of my ink, has called a fine woman dancing, a brandished placed in certain letters on which she atten- torch of beauty.' These rivals moved with such tively looked for half an hour, have restored an agreeable freedom, that you would believe her to the true use of her sight; which is, to their gesture was the necessary effect of the guide and not mislead us. Ever since she took music, and not the product of skill and practhe liquor, which I call Bickerstaff's circum- tice. Now Clidamira came on with a crowd spection-water, she looks right forward, and of graces, and demanded my judgment with can bear being looked at for half a day without so sweet an air-and she had no sooner carreturning one glance. This water has a peculiar ried it, but Damia made her utterly forgot, virtue in it, which makes it the only true cos- by a gentle sinking, and a rigadoon step. The metic or beauty-wash in the world: the nature of it is such, that if you go to a glass with a design to admire your face, it immediately

Mr. Isaac, a famons dancing-master at that time, was a Frenchman, and a Roman Catholic

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for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary. Men are usually, but unjustly distinguished rather by their fortunes than their talents, otherwise this personage would make a great figure in that class of men which I distinguish under the title of Odd Fellows. But it is the misfortune of persons of great genius to have their faculties dissipated by attention to too many things at once. Mr. Salter is an

contest held a full half-hour; and, I protest, I saw no manner of difference in their perfections, until they came up together, and expected sentence. Look ye, ladies,' said I, I see no difference in the least in your performance; but you, Clidamira, seem to be so well satisfied that I shall determine for you, that I must give it to Damia, who stands with so much diffidence and fear, after showing an equal merit to what she pretends to. There-instance of this: if he would wholly give him fore, Clidamira, you are a pretty ; but, Damia, you are a very pretty lady: for,' said I, 'beauty loses its force, if not accompanied with modesty. She that has an humble opinion of herself, will have every body's applause, because she does not expect it; while the vain creature loses approbation through too great a sense of deserving it.'

From my own Apartment, June 27. Being of a very spare and hective constitution, I am forced to make frequent journeys of a mile or two for fresh air; and indeed by this last, which was no farther than the village of Chelsea, I am farther convinced of the necessity of travelling to know the world; for, as it is usual with young voyagers, as soon as they land upon a shore, to begin their accounts of the nature of the people, their soil, their government, their inclinations, and their passions; so really I fancied I could give you an immediate description of this village, from the five fields where the robbers lie in wait, to the coffee-house where the Literati sit in council. A great ancestor of ours by the mother's side, Mr. Justice Overdo* (whose history is written by Ben Jonson,) met with more enormities by walking incognito than he was capable of correcting; and found great mortifications in observing also persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of. Thus it fared with me, even in a place so near the town as this. When I came into the coffee-house, I had not time to salute the company, before my eye was diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the cieling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of a thin and meagre countenance; which aspect made me doubt, whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic: but I very soon perceived him to be of that sect which the ancients call Gingivista; in our language, toothdrawers. I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very rational hypothesis, not to cure, but take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter ;†

* Adam Overdo, a name given to a justice of peace whose character is drawn in Bartholomew Fair,' a comedy so called, by Ben Jonson.

↑ Mr. Salter was a noted barber, who began to make a collection of natural curiosities. He kept a coffee-house at Chelsea, which still bears his name. His curiosities were sold a few years ago by auction.

self up to the string,* instead of playing twenty beginnings to tunes, he might, before he dies, play Roger de Caubly quite out. I heard him go through his whole round, and indeed I thiuk he does play the Merry Christ Church bells'+ pretty justly; but he confessed to me, he did that rather to show he was orthodox, than that he valued himself upon the music itself. Or, if he did proceed in his anatomy, why might he not hope in time to cut off legs, as well as draw teeth? The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed, that of all the lower order, barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men. Watermen brawl, cobblers sing: but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician? The learned Vossius says, his barber used to comb his head in lambics. And indeed, in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated by the most eminent hands. You see the barber in Don Quixote is one of the principal characters in the history; which gave me satisfaction in the doubt, why Don Saltero writ his name with a Spanish termination: for he is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from that memorable companion of the knight of Mancha. And I hereby certify all the worthy citizens who travel to see his rarities, that his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his Sclopeta and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by the said ancestor to all his progeny down to Don Saltero. Though I go thus far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, I cannot allow a liberty he takes of imposing several names (without my licence) on the collections he has made,|| to the abuse of the

There was no passing his house, if he was at home, without having one's ears grated with the sound of his fiddle, ou which he scraped most execrably.

↑ A well known and still celebrated catch, composed by Dr. Henry Aldrich, dean of Christ Church.

Tradescant was the person who collected the curiosities which Elias Ashmole left to the University of Oxford.

Vice admiral Munden, and some other sea officers, who had been much upon the coasts of Spain, and in the Mediterranean, frequented this house, and gave this Spanish termination to the name of the landlord, which soon came into general use. They likewise gave him the most of his curiosities, among which was the relics of a Spanish saint, that had some how or other fallen into their hands, wh was said to have wrought miracles.

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