virtue, and am refolved to preferve my innocence. The only way I can think of to avoid the fatal confequences of the difcovery of this matter, is to fly away for ever, which I must do to avoid my husband's fatal re• fentment against the man who attempts to abuse him, ⚫ and the fhame of expofing a parent to infamy. The 'perfons concerned will know these circumstances relate to them; and tho' the regard to virtue is dead in them, I have fome hopes from their fear of shame upon reading this in your paper; which I conjure you to do, if you have any compaffion for injured virtue. Mr. SPECTATOR, 'I ་ SYLVIA. Am the husband of a woman of merit, but am fallen in love, as they call it, with a lady of her acquaintance, who is going to be married to a gentleman who deferves her. I am in a truft relating to this lady's fortune, which makes my concurrence in this matter neceffary; but I have fo irrefiftable a rage and envy rife in me when I confider his future happiness, that againft all reafon, equity, and common juftice, I am ever playing mean tricks to fufpend the nuptials. I have no manner of hopes for myself; Emilia, for lo • I'll call her, is a woman of the most strict virtue ; her ⚫ lover is a gentleman who of all others I could with my friend; but envy and jealoufy, though placed fo unjuflly, wafte my very being, and with the torment and ⚫fenfe of a demon, I am ever curfing what I cannot but approve. I wish it were the beginning of repentance, that I fit down and defcribe my prefent difpofition with fo hellish an afpe&t; but at prefent the deftruction of thefe two excellent perfons would be more welcome to me than their happiness. Mr. SPECTATOR, pray let me have a paper on these terrible groundless sufferings, and do all you can to exorcife crouds who are in • fome degree poffeffed as I am. ་ Mr. SPECTATOR, I Canibal. Have no other means but this to express my thanks to one man, and my refentment against another, My circumitances are as follow. I have been for five " years, years laft paft courted by a gentleman of greater fortune than I ought to expect, as the market for women goes. You must to be fure have obferved people who live in that fort of way, as all their friends reckon it ⚫ will be a match, and are marked out by all the world ⚫ for each other. In this view we have been regarded ⚫ for fome time, and I have above these three years loved him tenderly. As he is very careful of his forture, I always thought he lived in a near manner, to lay up what he thought was wanting in my fortune to make up what he might expect in another. Within few ⚫ months I have obferved his carriage very much altered, • and he has affected a certain air of getting me alone, and talking with a mighty profufion of paffionate words, how I am not to be refifted longer, how irresisti⚫ble his wilhes are, and the like. As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could not on fuch occafions fay downright to him, You know you may make me yours when you pleafe. But the other night he with great franknefs and impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a miftrefs. I answered this de⚫claration as it deferved; upon which he only doubled ⚫ the terms on which he propofed my yielding. When my anger heightened upon him, he told me he was forry • he had made fo little ufe of the unguarded hours we had been together fo remote from company, as indeed, 'continued he, fo we are at prefent. I flew from him to a neighbouring gentlewoman's houfe, and tho' her husband was in the room, threw myself on a couch and burst into a paffion of tears. My friend desired ⚫ her husband to leave the room. But, faid he, there is fomething fo extraordinary in this, that I will partake in the affliction; and be it what it will, he is fo much your friend, that she knows you may command what fervices I can do her. The man fat down by me, and fpoke fo like a brother, that I told him my whole affiction. He spoke of the injury done me with fo much indignation, and animated me against the love he faid. he faw I had for the wretch who would have betrayed me, with fo much reafon and humanity to my weak• nefs, that I doubt not of my perfeverance. His wife and he are my comforters, and I am under no more • reftrains B 5 • restraint in their company than if I were alone; and I • doubt not but in a small time contempt and hatred will take place of the remains of affection to a rascal. I am, SIR, Mr. SPECTATOR, I Your affectionate reader, Had the misfortune to be an uncle before I knew my nephews from my nieces, and now we are grown up to better acquaintance they deny me the respect they owe. One upbraids me with being their familiar, another will hardly be perfuaded that I am an uncle, a third calls me little uncle, and a fourth ⚫ tells me there is no duty at all to an uncle. I have a • brother-in-law whofe fon will win all my affection, ⚫ unless you fhall think this worthy of your cognizance, ⚫ and will be pleased to prescribe fome rules for our fu⚫ture reciprocal behaviour. It will be worthy the particularity of your genius to lay down rules for his conduct, who was, it it were, born an old man, in which you will much oblige, T No 403 SIR, Your moft obedient fervant, Thursday, June 12. Qui meres hominum multorum vidit Hor. Ars Poet. v. 142. Who many towns, and change of manners faw. W ROSCOMMON. HEN I confider this great city in its feveral quarters and divifions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations diftinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interefts. The courts of two countries do not fo much differ from one another, as the court and city in their peculiar ways of life and converfation. In fhort, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the fame laws, and fpeak the fame language, are a diftinct people from thofe of Cheapfide, who are likewife removed from those of the Temple on the one fide, and thofe of Smithfield on the other, by feveral climates and degrees in their way of thinking and converfing together. For this reafon, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the feveral districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myfelf acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffee-house has fome particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the prefent pofture of affairs. The laft progrefs that I made with this intention, was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the King: of France's death. As I forefaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious fpeculations in our British coffee-houfes, I was very defirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occafion. That I might begin as near the fountain-head as poffible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buz of politics.. The fpeculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were fo very much improved by a knot of theorifts, who fat in the inner room, within the fteams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy difpofed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour. I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I faw a board! of French gentlemen fitting upon the life and death of 5 their their Grand Monarque. Thofe among them who had efpoufed the Whig intereft, very pofitively affirmed, that he departed this life about a week fince, and therefore proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the gallies, and to their own re-establishment; but finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progrefs Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I faw an alerte young fellow that cock'd his hat upon a friend of his who entred juft at the fame time with myself, and accofted him after the following manner. Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris directly. With feveral other deep reflexions of the fame nature. I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing-Crofs and Covent-Garden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French King to that of Monfieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and feveral other poets, whom they regretted on this occafion, as perfons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of fo great a Prince, and fo eminent a patron of learning. At a coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the fucceffion to the Spanish monarchy. One of them feemed to have been retained as advocate for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majefty. They were both for regulating the title to that kingdom by the ftatute laws of England; but finding them going out of my depth, I paffed forward to Paul's church-yard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased King. I then turned on my right hand into Fishftreet, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for fome time) If, fays he, the King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this feafon: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has |