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Wall's History of Infant Baptism; as another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The Finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, &c.

In the second class I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands or personated ones, I cannot tell; but the books they recommend are as follow: A Paraphrase on the History of Susanna. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow prevented. A Dissua. sive from the Play-house. The Virtues of Camphire, with directions to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasure of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated from Cheapside desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes with a postscript, that he hopes I will not forget The Countess of Kent's Receipts. I

may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privycounsellors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond* at the head of }

gue, and if I think proper to give the second place to Cassandra*. Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of scorching their faces with books of house-wifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and intreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates : All for Love is mentioned in above fifteen letters : Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow, in a dozen : The Innocent Adultery is likewise highly approved of; Mithridates King of Pontus has many friends; Alexander the Great and Aurengzebe have the same number of voices; but Theodosius, or the Force. of Love, carries it from all the rest.

my cata

* Two French romances, written by Gautier de Costes Seigneur de Va Calprenede ; and which had been then translated into English.

· I should, in the last place, mention such books as have been proposed by men of learning, and those who appear competent judges of this matter, and must here take occasion to thank A. B, whoever it is that conceals himself under these two letters, for his advice upon this subject. But as I find the work I have undertaken to be very difficult, I shall defer the executing of it till I am further acquainted-with the thoughts of my judicious contemporaries, and have time to examine the several books they offer to me; being resolved, in an affair of this moment, to proceed with the greatest caution.

In the mean while, as I have taken the ladies ander my particular care, I shall make it my business to find out in the best authors, ancient and modern, such

passages as may be for their use, and endeavour to accommodate them as well as I can to their taste ; not questioning but the valuable part of the sex will easily pardon me, if from time to time I laugh at those little vanities and follies which appear in the behaviour of some of them, and which are more proper for ridicule than a serious censure. Most books being calculated for male readers, and generally written with an eye to men of learning, makes a work of this nature the more necessary; besides, I am the more encouraged, because I flatter myself that I see the sex daily improving by these my speculations. My fair readers are already deeper scholars than the beaus. I could name some of them who talk much better than several gentlemen that make a figure at Will's; and as I frequently receive letters from the fine ladies and pretty fellows, I cannot but observe that the former are superior to the others not only in the sense, but in the spelling. This cannot but have a good effect upon the female world, and keep them from being charmed by those empty coxcombs that have hitherto been admired among the women, though laughi. among

the I am credibly informed that Tom Tattle passes for an impertinent fellow, that Will Trippet begins

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to be smoked, and that Frank Smoothly himself is within a month of a coxcomb, in case I think fit to continue this paper. For my part, as it is my business in some measure to detect such as would lead astray weak minds by their false pretences to wit and judgment, humour and gallantry, I shall not fail to lend the best lights I am able to the Fair Sex for the continuation of these their discoveries.

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CREECH.

Spatio brevi
Spenı longam reseces : dum loquimur, fugerit invida
Ætus : carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

HOR. 1 Od. xi. 6.
-Be wise, cut off long cares
From thy contracted span.
E’en whilst we speak, the envious time
Doth make swift haste

away ;
Then seize the present, use thy prime,

Nor trust another day. We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher bas described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thought which are peculiar to his writings.

I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus al. though the whole life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in gene

. ral but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much fäster than it does, Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither flled with pleasure nor business. I do not howeverinclude in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action ; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow.

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. The particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afllicted, are duties that fall in

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almost every day of our lives. A man has

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frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party ; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion. There is another kind of virtue that

may ployment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him : it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such lours when those of other men are the most unactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him ; or on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great Supporter of its existence.

I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our exist. ence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this incthod of passing away our time.

When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the

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