given them of being witty. But let them remember, that I do hereby enter my caveat against this piece of rallery.

NO II. TUESDAY, MARCH 13.

Dat veniam corvis, vexat cenfura columbas.

Juv. Sat. ii. 1. 63.

The doves are cenfur'd, while the crows are spar'd.

ARIETTA is visited by all perfons of both

sexes, who have any pretence to wit and gallantry. She is in that time of life which is neither affected with the follies of youth, or infirmities of age; and her conversation is so mixed with gaiety and prudence, that she is agreeable both to the young and the old. Her behaviour is very frank, without being in the leaft blameable; and as the is out of the track of any amorous or ambitious purfuits of her own, her vifitants entertain her with accounts of themselves very freely, whether they concern their paffions or their interests. I made her a vifit this afternoon, having been formerly introduced to the honour of her acquaintance by my friend WILL HONEYCOMB, who has prevailed upon her to admit me fometimes into her affembly, as a civil inoffenfive man. I found her accompanied with one perfon only, a common-place talker, who, upon my entrance, arofe, and after a very flight civility fat down again; then turning to Arietta, pursued his difcourse, which I found was upon the old topic of conftancy in love. He went on with great facility in repeating what he talks every day of his life; and with the ornaments of infignificant laughs and gestures, enforced his arguments by quotations out of plays and fongs, which, allude to the perjuries of the Fair, and the general

!

levity of women. Methought he strove to shine more than ordinarily in his talkative way, that he might infult my filence, and diftinguith himself before a woman of Arietta's taste and understanding. She had often an inclination to interrupt him, but could find no opportunity, until the larum ceased of itfelf; which it did not until he had repeated and murdered the celebrated story of the Ephesian Matron.

Arietta feemed to regard this piece of rallery as an outrage done to her fex; as indeed I have always observed that women, whether out of a nicer regard to their honour, or what other reason I cannot tell, are more sensibly touched with those general afperfions which are cast upon their sex, than men are by what is faid of theirs.

When she had a little recovered herself from the serious anger she was in, she replied in the following manner:

Sir, When I consider how perfectly new all you have faid on this fubject is, and that the story you have given us is not quite two thousand years old, I cannot but think it a piece of prefumption to difpute with you: But your quotations put me in mind of the fable of the lion and the man. The man walking with that noble animal, shewed him, in the oftentation of human fuperiority, a sign of a man killing a lion. Upon which the lion faid very justly, We lions are none of us painters, elfe we could Shew a hundred men killed by lions, for one lion killed by a man. You men are writers, and can reprefent us women as unbecoming as you please in your works, while we are unable to return the injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your difcourse, that hypocrify is the very foundation of our education; and that an ability to dissemble our affections is a professed part of our breeding. These, and fuch other reflections, are sprinkled up and down the writings of all ages, by authors, who leave behind them memorials of their resentment against the scorn of particular women, in invectives againft the whole fex. Such a writer, I doubt not, was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleafant aggravations of the frailty of the Ephefian Lady; but when we confider this question between the sexes, which has been either a point of dispute or rallery ever fince there were men and women, let us take facts from plain people, and from fuch as have not either ambition or capacity to embellish their narrations with any beauties of imagination. I was the other day amusing myself with Ligon's account of Barbadoes; and, in answer to your well-wrought tale, I will give you (as it dwells upon my memory) out of that honest traveller, in his fifty-fifth page, the history of Inkle and Yarico.

Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years, embarked on the Downs in the good fhip called the Achilles, bound for the West-Indies, on the 16th of June 1674, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third fon of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to inftil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and confequently giving him a quick view of lofs and advantage, and preventing the natural impulses of his paflions, by prepoffeffion towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a perfon every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loofely flowing on his shoulders. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in fome distress, put into a creek on the main of America, in search of provisions. The youth, who is the hero of my story, among others went afhore on this occafion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose.

The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from

4

from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who flew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer escaped among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprize, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American, the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and confequently folicitous for his prefervation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a stream to flake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would fometimes play with his hair, and delight in the oppofition of its colour to that of her fingers; then open his bofom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for the every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and braids. She likewife brought him a great many fpoils, which her other lovers had presented to her, so that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beafts, and most party-coloured feathers of fowls which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moon-light, to unfrequented groves and folitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and fleep 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 awake him on occafions to confult his fafety. In this manner did

the lovers pass away their time, until they had VOL. I. learned

+ E

learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he fhould be to have her in his country, where the should be clothed in such filks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horfes, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without fuch fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correfpondence these lovers lived for feveral months, when Yarico, inftructed by her lover, discovered a vefiel on the coaft, to which she made signals; and, in the night, with the utmost joy and fatisfaction, accompanied him to a fhip's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that ifland, it feems, the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horfes and

oxen.

To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began ferioufly to reflect upon his lofs of time, and to weigh with himself how many days interest of his money he had loft during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very penfive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which confideration, the prudent and frugal young man fold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiferate her condition, told him that she was with child by him: But he only made use of that information, to rife in his demands upon the purchafer.

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 fure, take for greater applaufe, than any compliments I could make her.

WEDNESDAY,