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"You have given many hints in your papers to the disadvantage of persons of your own sex, who lay plots upon women. Among other hard words you have published the term 'Male Coquets,' and been very severe upon such as give them selves the liberty of a little dalliance of heart, and playing fast and loose between love and indifference, until perhaps an easy young girl is reduced to sighs, dreams, and tears, and languishes away her life for a careless coxcomb, who looks astonished, and wonders at such an effect from what in him was all but common civility. Thus you have treated the men who were irresolute in marriage; but if you design to be impartial, pray be so honest as to print the information I now give you of a certain set of women who never coquet for the matter, but, with a high hand, marry whom they please to whom they please. As for my part I should not have concerned myself with them, but that I understand I am pitched upon by them to be married, against my will, to one I never saw in my life. It has been my misfortune, Sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a plentiful fortune, of which I am master, to bespeak a fine chariot, to give directions for two or three handsome snuffboxes, and as many suits of fine clothes; but before any of these were ready, I heard reports of my being to be married to two or three different young women. Upon my taking notice of it to a young gentleman who is often in my company, he told me smiling, I was in the inquisition. You may believe I was not a little startled at what he meant, and more so when he asked me if I had bespoke anything of late that was fine. I told him several; upon which he produced a description of my person, from the tradesmen whom I had employed, and told me that they had certainly informed against me. Mr. Spectator, whatever the world may think of me, I am more coxcomb than fool. and I grow very inquisitive upon this head, not a little pleased with the novelty. My friend told me, there were a certain set of women of fashion, whereof the number of six made a committee, who sat thrice a week, under the title of 'The Inquisition on Maids and Bachelors.' It seems, whenever there comes such an unthinking gay thing as myself to town, he must want all manner of necessaries, or be put into the inquisition by the first tradesman he employs. They have constant intelligence with cane-shops, perfumers, toy-men, coach-makers, and china-houses. From these several places these undertakers for marriages have as constant and regular correspondence as the funeral-men have with vintners and apothecaries. All bachelors are under their immediate inspection; and my friend produced to me a report given into their board, wherein an old uncle of mine, who came to town with me, and myself were inserted, and we stood thus: the uncle smoky, rotten, poor; the nephew raw, but no fool; sound at present, very rich. My informa

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tion did not end here; but my friend's advices are so good, that he could show me a copy of the letter sent to the young lady who is to have me; which I inclose to you:

"MADAM,

"This is to let you know, that you are to be married to a beau that comes out on Thursday, six in the evening. Be at the park. You cannot but know a virgin fop; they have a mind to look saucy, but are out of countenance. The board has denied him to several good families. I wish you joy. "CORINNA."

What makes my correspodent's case the more deplorable is, that, as I find by the report from my censor of marriages, the friend he speaks of is employed by the inquisition to take him in, as the phrase is. After all that is told him, he has information only of one woman that is laid for him, and that the wrong one; for the lady commissioners have devoted him to another than the person against whom they have employed their agent his friend to alarm him. The plot is laid so well about this young gentleman, that he has no friend to retire to, no place to appear in, or part of the kingdom to fly into, but he must fall into the notice, and be subject to the power of the inquisition. They have their emissaries and substitutes in all parts of this united kingdom. The first step they usually take, is to find from a correspondence, by their messengers and whisperers, with some domestic of the bachelor (who is to be hunted into the toils they have laid for him), what are his manners, his familiarities, his good qualities, or vices; not as the good in him is a recommendation, or the ill a diminution, but as they affect to contribute to the main inquiry, what estate he has in him. When this point is well reported to the board, they can take in a wild roaring fox-hunter, as casily as a soft, gentle young fop of the town. The way is to make all places uneasy to him, but the scenes in which they have alloted him to act. His brother huntsmen, bottle companions, his fraternity of fops, shall be brought into the conspiracy against him. This matter is not laid in so barefaced a manner before him as to have intimated, Mrs. Such-a-one would make him a very proper wife; but, by the force of their correspondence, they shall make it (as Mr. Waller said. of the marriage of the dwarfs) as impracticable to have any woman beside her they design him, as it would have been in Adam to have refused Eve. The man named by the commission for Mrs. Such-a-one shall neither be in fashion, nor dare ever to appear in company, should he attempt to evade their determination.

The female sex wholly govern domestic life; and by this means, when they think fit they can sow dissensions between the dearest friends, nay, make father and son irreconcilable enemies, in spite of all the ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty of protection to be paid on the other. The ladies of the inquisition understand this perfectly well; and where love is not a motive to a man's choosing one whom they allot, they can with very much art insinuate stories to the disadvantage of his honesty or courage, until the creature is too much dispirited to bear up against a general ill reception, which he everywhere meets with, and in due time falls into their appointed wedlock for shelter. I have a long letter bearing date the fourth instant, which gives me a large account of the policies of this court; and find there is now before them a very refractory person, who has escaped all their machinations for two years last past; but they have prevented two successive

matches which were of his own inclination; the one by a report that his mistress was to be married, and the very day appointed, wedding clothes bought, and all things ready for her being given to another; the second time by insinuating to all his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that he had been false to several other women and the like. The poor man is now reduced to profess he designs to lead a single life; but the inquisition give out to all his acquaintance, that nothing is intended but the gentleman's own welfare and happiness. When this is urged, he talks still more humbly, and protests he aims only at a life without pain or reproach; pleasure, honor, or riches, are things for which he has no taste. But notwithstanding all this, and what else he may defend himself with, as that the lady is too old or too young: of a suitable humor, or the quite contrary; and that it is impossible they can ever do other than wrangle from June to January, everybody tells him all this is spleen, and he must have a wife; while all the members of the inquisition are unanimous in a certain woman for him, and they think they all together are better able to judge than he, or any other private person whatsoever. "SIR,

Temple, March 3, 1711.

"Your speculation this day on the subject of idleness has employed me, ever since I read it, in sorrowful reflections on my having loitered away the term (or rather the vacation) of ten years in this place, and unhappily suffered a good chamber and study to lie idle as long. My books (except those I have taken to sleep upon) have been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke and other venerable authors were never so slighted in their lives. I spend most of the day at a neighboring coffee-house, where we have what I may call a lazy club. We generally come in night-gowns, with our stockings about our heels, and sometimes but one on. Our salutation at entrance is a yawn and a stretch, and then without more ceremony we take our place at the lolling-table, where our discourse is, what I fear you would not read, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this loss of time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double diligence) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened, by the arguinents of Mr. Slack, out of the senseless stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that penitence accompanies my confessions, and constancy my resolutions, I have locked my door for a year, and desire you would let my companions know I am not within. I am, with great respect,

"Sir, "Your most obedient Servant, "N. B."

No. 321.] SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1711-12. Nec satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 99. 'Tis not enough a poem's finely writ: It must affect and captivate the soul. THOSE Who know how many volumes have been written on the poems of Homer and Virgil will easily pardon the length of my discourse upon Miltor. The Paradise Lost, is looked upon, by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least the noblest work of genius, in our language, and therefore deserves to be set before an English reader in its ful' beauty. For this reason, though I have endeavored to give a general idea of Its graces and imperfections in my first six papers, I thought myself obliged to bestow one upon every book in particular. The first three books I have already dispatched, and am now entering upon the

fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there are multitudes of beauties in this great author, especially in the descriptive parts of this poem, which I have not touched upon; it being my intention to point out those only which appear to be the most exquisite, or those which are not so obvi ous to ordinary readers. Every one that has read the critics who have written upon the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the Eneid, knows very well, that though they agree in their opinions of the great beauties in those poems, they have, nevertheless, each of them discovered several master-strokes, which have escaped the observation of the rest. In the same manner, I question not but any writer who shall treat of this subject after me, may find several beauties in Milton, which I have not taken notice of. I must likewise observe, that as the greatest masters of critical learning differ among one another, as to some particular points in an epic poem, I have not bound myself scrupulously to the rules which any of them have laid down upon that art, but have taken the liberty some times to join with one, and sometimes with another, and sometimes to differ from all of them, when I have thought that the reason of the thing was on my side.

We may conclude the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the first are those pictures of still-life, which we meet with in the description of Eden, Paradise, Adam's Bower, etc. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behavior of the good and bad angels. In the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem.

In the description of Paradise, the poet has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak inactive parts of the fable which are not supported by the beauty of sentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may observe, that the expressions are more florid and elaborate in these descriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I must further add, that though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly censured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecessary length-the description of Paradise would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is requisite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch which we have of it in holy writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth such a redundancy of ornaments on this seat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular.

I must not quit this head without further observing, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the sentiments and allusions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradise. In short, as the critics have remarked, that in those poems wherein shepherds are the actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; so we may observe, that our first parents seldom lose sight of their happy station in anything they speak or do: and if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always "paradisaical.”

We are in the next place to consider the machines of the fourth book. Satan being now within prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments different from those which he discovered

while he was in hell. The place inspires him ted by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects who are both represented with their feet standing upon the happy condition from whence he fell, upon the earth, and their heads reaching above and breaks forth into a speech that is softened the clouds: with several transient touches of remorse and self-accusation: but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his design of drawing man into his own state of guilt and misery. This conflict of passions is raised with a great deal of art, as the opening of his speech to the sun is very bold and noble:

"O thou that, with surprising glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice: and add thy name, O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere." This speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan, in the whole poem. The evil spirit afterward proceeds to make his discoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be best attacked. His bounding over the walls of Paradise; his sitting in the shape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which stood in the center of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are so beautifully represented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming himself into different shapes, in order to hear their conversation; are circumstances that give an agreeable surprise to the reader, and are devised with great art, to connect that series of adventures in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud.

The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himself on the tree of life, seems raised upon that passage in the Iliad, where two deities are described as perching on the top of an oak in the shape of vultures.

His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumstance of the same nature: as his starting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal description, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His answer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an account of himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character:

"Know ye not, then," said Satan, fill'd with scorn,
"Know ye not me! Ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where you durst not soar;
Not to know me argues yourself unknown,
The lowest of your throng".

Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterward led away to Gabriel, the chief of the guardian angels, who kept watch in Paradise. His disdainful behavior on this occasion is so remarkable a beauty, that the most ordinary reader cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's discovering his approach at a distance, is drawn with great strength and liveliness of imagination:

"O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade,
And with them comes a third of regal port
But faded splendor wan; who by his gait
And fierce demeanor seems the prince of hell;
Not likely to part hence without contest;
Stand firm, for in his look defiance low'rs."

The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with sentiments proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror when he prepares for the combat is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord, celebra

While thus he spake, th' angelic squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, sharp'ning in mooned horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported spears, etc.

On the other side Satan alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved.

His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plum'd.-

I must here take notice, that Milton is every. where full of hints, and sometimes literal translations, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may reserve for a discourse by itself, because I would not break the thread of these speculations, that are designed for English readers, with such reflections as would be of no use but to the learned.

I must, however, observe in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22d Iliad.

Virgil, before the last decisive combat, describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Eneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above-mentioned, but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours be fore he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been weighed in the scales, and to have been found wanting."

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I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a sunbeam, with the poet's device to make him descend, as well in his return to the sun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but seems below the genius of Milton. The description of the host of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradise is of another spirit:

So saying, on he led his radiant files,
Dazzling the moon;

as that account of the hymns which our first pa

rents used to hear them sing in these their midnight walks is altogether divine, and inexpressi bly amusing to the imagination.

which Adam and Eve act in the fourth book. The
We are, in the last place, to consider the part
description of them as they first appeared to Sa-
tan, is exquisitely drawn, and sufficient to make
the fallen angel gaze upon them with all that
astonishment, and those emotions of envy, in
which he is represented:

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all;
And worthy seem'd; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;
Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd;
For contemplation he and valor form'd,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace,
He for God only, she for God in him.

His fur large front, and eye sublime, declared
Absolute rule: and hyacinthian locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
She, as a vail, down to her slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore.
Dishevel'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd.—
So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met.

observing the masterly transition which the poet makes to their evening worship in the following lines:

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,

Both turned, and under open sky ador'd

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,
And starry pole: "Thou also mad'st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day," etc.

There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines the ancients, in beginning a speech without preMost of the modern heroic poets have imitated which follow, wherein they are described as sit-mising that the person said thus or thus; but as ting on a bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals.

The speeches of these two first lovers flow equally from passion and sincerity. The profes sions they make to one another are full of warmth; .but at the same time founded on truth. In a word, they are the gallantries of Paradise:

-When Adam, first of men

"Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thyself than all;-

But let us ever praise Him, and extol

His bounty, following our delightful task,

To prune these growing plants, and tend these flow'rs, Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet." To whom thus Eve replied: "O thou for whom, And from whom, I was form'd, flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my guide And head, what thou hast said is just and right. For we to Him indeed all praises owe, And daily thanks: I chiefly, who enjoy So far the happier lot, enjoying thee Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou Like consort to thyself canst nowhere find," etc. The remaining part of Eve's speech, in which she gives an account of herself upon her first creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is, I think, as beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. These passages are all worked off with so much art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate reader without offending the most

severe.

"That day I oft remember, when from sleep," etc. A poet of less judgment and invention than this great author, would have found it very difficult to have filled these tender parts of the poem with sentiments proper for a state of innocence; to have described the warmth of love, and the professions of it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing things without descending from his natural dignity, and the woman receiving them without departing from the modesty of her character: in a word, to adjust the prerogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper force and loveliness. This mutual subordination of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole poem, as particularly in the speech of Eve I have before mentioned, and upon the conclusion of it in the following lines:

So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd,
And meek surrender, half-embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smil'd with superior love.-

The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the sight of so much happiness.

We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve in particular, is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of words and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired

I shall close my reflections upon this book with

it is easy to imitate the ancients in the omission it in such a manner as they shall not be missed, of two or three words, it requires judgment to do and that the speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine instance of this kind out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus.

L.

No. 322.] MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1711-12,
-Ad humum moerore gravi deducit et angit.
HOR. Ars. Poet., v, 110.

-Grief wrings her soul, and bends it down to earth.
FRANCIS.

Ir is often said, after a man has heard a story with extraordinary circumstances, "it is a very good one, if it be true:" but as for the following relation, I should be glad were I sure it were false. It is told with such simplicity, and there are so many artless touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes too much from the heart :

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'Some years ago it happened that I lived in the same house with a young gentleman of merit, with whose good qualities I was so much taken, as to make it my endeavor to show as many as I was able in myself. Familiar converse improved general civilities into an unfeigned passion on both sides. He watched an opportunity to declare himself to me, and I, who could not expect a man of so great an estate as his, received his addresses in such terms, as gave him no reason to believe I was displeased with them, though I did nothing to make him think me more easy than was decent. His father was a very hard, worldly man, and proud; so that there was no reason to believe he would easily be brought to think there was anything in any woman's person, or character, that could balance the disadvantage of an unequal fortune. In the meantime the son continued his application to me, and omitted no occasion of demonstrating the most disinterested passion imaginable to me; and in plain direct terms offered to marry me privately, and keep it so till he should be so happy as to gain his father's approbation. or become possessed of his estate. I passionately loved him, and you will believe I did not deny such a one what was my interest also to grant. However, I was not so young as not to take the precaution of carrying with me a faithful servant, who had been also my mother's maid, to be prosent at the ceremony. When that was over, I demanded a certificate to be signed by the minister, my husband, and the servant I just now spoke of. After our nuptials, we conversed together very familiarly in the same house: but the restraints we were generally under, and the interviews we had being stolen and interrupted, made our behavior to each other have rather the impatient fondness which is visible in lovers, than the regular and gratified affection which is to be ob served in man and wife. This observation made the father very anxious for his son, and press him to a match he had in his eye for him. To relieve

T.

"

"

"OCTAVIA."

No. 323.] TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1711-12. -Modo vir, modo fœmina.-VIRG. Sometimes a man sometimes a woman.* THE journal with which I presented my reader on Tuesday last, has brought me in several letters with accounts of many private lives cast into that form. I have the "Rake's Journal," the "Sot's Journal," the 'Whoremaster's Journal," and among several others, a very curious piece, entitled, The Journal of a Mohock." By these instances, I find that the intention of my last Tuesday's paper has been mistaken by many of my readers. I did not design so much to expose vice as idleness, and aimed at those persons who passed away their time rather in trifles and impertinence, than in crimes and immoralities. Offenses of this latter kind are not to be dallied with, or treated in so ridiculous a manner. In short, my journal only holds up folly to the light, and shows the disagreeableness of such actions as are indifferent in themselves, and blamable only as they proceed from creatures endowed with reason.

my husband from this importunity, and conceal think is my piercing affliction?—I leave you to the secret of our marriage, which I had reason to represent my distress your own way, in which I know would not be long in my power in town, it desire you to be speedy, if you have compassion was resolved that I should retire into a remote for innocence exposed to infamy. place in the country, and converse under feigned names by letter. We long continued this way of commerce; and I with my needle, a few books, and reading over and over my husband's letters, passed my time in a resigned expectation of better days. Be pleased to take notice, that within four months after I left my husband I was delivered of a daughter, who died within a few hours after her birth. This accident, and the retired manner of life I led, gave criminal hopes to a neighboring brute of a country gentleman, whose folly was the source of all my affliction. This rustic is one of those rich clowns who supply the want of all manner of breeding by the neglect of it, and with noisy mirth, half understanding, and ample fortune, force themselves upon persons and things, without any sense of time or place. The poor ignorant people where I lay concealed, and now passed for a widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as they called it, to the squire; and were bribed by him to admit him whenever he thought fit: I happened to be sitting in a little parlor which belonged to my own part of the house, and musing over one of the fondest of my husband's letters, in which I always kept the certificate of my marriage, when this rude fellow came in, and with the nauseous familiarity of such unbred brutes, snatched the papers out of my hand. I was immediately under so great a concern, that I threw myself at his feet, and begged of him to return them. He, with the same odious pretense to freedom and gayety, swore he would read them. I grew more importunate, he more curious, till at last, with an indignation arising from a passion I then first discovered in him, he threw the papers into the fire, swearing that since he was not to read them, the man who wrote them should never be so happy as to have me read them over again. It is insignificant to tell you my tears and reproaches made the boisterous calf leave the room ashamed and out of countenance, when I had leisure to ruminate on this accident with more than ordinary sorrow. However, such was then my confidence in my husband, that I wrote to him the misfortune, and desired another paper of the same kind. He deferred writing two or three posts, and at last answered me in general, that he could not then send me what I asked for; but when he could find a proper conveyance, I should be sure to have it. From this time his letters were more cold every day than the other, and, as he grew indifferent, I grew jealous. This has at last brought me to town, where I find both the witnesses of my marriage dead, and that my husband, after three months' cohabitation, has buried a young lady whom he married in obedience to his father. In a word, he shuns and disowns me. Should I come to the house and confront him, the father would join in supporting him against me, though he believed my story: should I talk it to the world, what reparation can I expect for an injury I cannot make out? I believe he ineans to bring me, through necessity, to resign my pretensions to him for some provision for my life; but I will die first. Pray bid him remember what he said, and how he was charmed when he laughed at the heedless discovery I often made of myself: let him remember how awkward I was in my indifference toward him before company: ask him, how I, who could never conceal my love for him, at his own request, can part with him for quoted from memory, instead of the following lines:

ever? Oh, Mr. SPECTATOR, Sensible spirits know no indifference in marriage: what then do you

My following correspondent, who calls herself Clarinda, is such a journalist as I require. She seems by her letter to be placed in a modish state of indifference between vice and virtue, and to be susceptible of either, were there proper pains taken with her. Had her journal been filled with gallantries, or such occurrences as had shown her wholly divested of her natural innocence, notwithstanding it might have been more pleasing to the generality of readers, I should not have published it: but as it is only the picture of a lazy life, filled with a fashionable kind of gayety and laziness, I shall set down five days of it, as I have received it from the hand of my fair correspondent.

"DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,

"You having set your readers an exercise in one of your last week's papers, I have performed mine according to your orders, and herewith send it you inclosed. You must know, Mr. SPECTATOR, that I am a maiden lady of a good fortune, who have had several good matches offered me for these ten years last past, and have at present warm applications made to me by A Very Pretty Fellow.' I am at my own disposal, I come up to town every winter, and pass my time in it after the manner you will find in the following journal, which I began to write the very day after your SPECTATOR upon that subject."

As

Tuesday night. Could not go to sleep till one in the morning for thinking of my journal.

Wednesday. From eight till ten. Drank two dishes of chocolate in bed, and fell asleep after them.

From ten to eleven. Ate a slice of bread and butter, drank a dish of bohea, and read the SPECTATOR.

From eleven to one. At my toilette, tried a new hood. Gave orders for Veny to be combed and washed. Mem. I look best in blue.

*This motto, not to be found in Virgil, was probably

-Et juvenis quondam, nunc fœmina.

VIRG. Æn., vi, 448

A man before, now to a woman chang'd

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