of most splenetic memory, ought rather to lie buried in oblivion. Lest they should flag in their own way of conversation, they admit a fair-one to relieve them with hers. There are two or three thin existences among them, which I think I may call the ghosts of departed beaus, who pay their court more particularly to this lady, though their passion never rises higher than a kiss, which is always Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, MILTON. 'As it is the character of this fraternity to turn their seeming misfortunes to their advantage, they affirm it to be the greatest indulgence imaginable in these amours, that nature perpetuates their good inclinations to the fair, by an inability to extinguish them. During my year of probation, I am to prepare myself with such parts of history as have engaged their application during the leisure of their illfortune; I am therefore to read Rushworth and Clarendon, in the perusal of which authors I am not obliged to enter into the justness of their reflections and characters, but am desired to read, with an eye particularly curious, the battles of Marston-moor and Edge-hill, in one of which every man of this assembly has lost a relation; and each has a story which none who has not read those battles is able to taste. I had almost forgot to mention a most unexampled piece of their gallantry. Some time since, in a prodigious foggy morning, I went in search of these persons to their usual place of resort, and perhaps shall hardly be believed, when I affirm, that, notwithstanding they sucked-in so condensed and poisonous an æther, I found them enjoying themselves with as much vivacity, as if they had breathed in the serenity of Montpelier. I am, Sir, your humble servant, J. W.' N° 45. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1713. I Do not know that I have been more intimately moved with pity in my whole life, than when I was reading a letter from a young woman, not yet nineteen, in which there are these lamentable words, Alas! whither shall I fly? he has deceived, ruined, and left me.' The circumstances of her story are only those ordinary ones, that her lover was a man of greater fortune than she could expect would address her upon honourable terms; but she said to herself, She had wit and beauty, and such charms as often captivate so far as to make men forget those meaner considerations, and innocent freedoms were not to be denied. A gentleman of condition is not to be shunned purely for being such; and they who took notice of it, did it only out of malice, because they were not used by him with the same distinction.' But I would have young women, who are orphans, or unguarded with powerful alliances, consider with horror the insolence of wealth. Fortune does in a great measure denominate what is vice and virtue; or if it does not go so far, innocence is helpless, and oppression unpunished without its assistance; for this reason it is, that I would strictly recommend to my young females not to dally with men whose circumstances can support them against their falsehood, and have the fashion of a base self-interested world on their side, which, instead of avenging the cause of an abused woman, will proclaim her dishonour; while the person injured is shunned like a pestilence, he who did the wrong sees no difference in the reception he meets with, nor is he the less welcome to the rest of the sex, who are still within the pale of honour and innocence. What makes this circumstance the more lamentable, is, that it frequently falls upon those who have greatest merit and understanding. Gentleness of disposition, and taste of polite conversation, I have often known snares towards vice in some, whilst sullenness and disrelish of any thing that was agreeable, have been the only defences of virtue in others. I have my unhappy correspondent's letter before me; and she says she is sure, 6 he is so much a gentleman, and he has that natural softness, that if he reads any thing moving on this subject in my paper, it will certainly make him think.' Poor girl! Cæsar ashamed! Has not he seen Pharsalia? Does the poor creature imagine that a scrip of paper, a collection of sentences, and an old man's talk of pleasure which he is past, will have an effect upon him who could go on in a series of falsehood; let drop ambiguous sentences in her absence, to give her false hope from the repetition of them by some friend that heard them; that could pass as much time in the pursuit of her, as would have attained some useful art or science; and that only to attain a short revel of his senses, under a stupor of faith, ho nour, and conscience! No; the destruction of a well-educated young woman is not accomplished by the criminal who is guilty of it, in a sudden start of desire; he is not surprised into it by frailty; but arrives at it by care, skill, and meditation. It is no small aggravation of the guilt, that it is a thousand times conquered and resisted, even while it is prosecuted. He that waits for fairer occasions, for riper wishes, for the removal of a particular objection, or the conquest of any certain scruple, has it in his power to obey his conscience, which often calls him, during the intrigue, a villain, and a destroyer. There can be nothing said for such an evil: but that the restraints of shame and ignominy are broken down by the prevalence of custom. I do not, indeed, expect that my precautions will have any great weight with men of mode; they may be some way efficacious on those who have not yet taken their party as to vice and virtue for life; but I know not how it is, that our sex has usurped a certain authority to exclude chastity out of the catalogue of masculine virtues, by which means females adventure all, against those who have nothing to lose; and they have nothing but empty sighs, tears, and reproaches, against those who reduced them to real sorrow, and infamy. But as I am now talking to the world yet untainted, I will venture to recommend chastity as the noblest male qualification. It is methinks very unreasonable, that the difficulty of attaining all other good habits is what makes them honourable, but in this case the very attempt is become ridiculous. But, in spite of all the raillery of the world, truth is still truth, and will have beauties inseparable from it. I should upon this occasion bring examples of heroic chas tity, were I not afraid of having my paper thrown away by the modish part of the town, who go no farther, at best, than the mere absence of ill, and are contented to be rather irreproachable than praiseworthy. In this particular, a gentleman in the court of Cyrus reported to his majesty the charms and beauty of Panthea, and ended his panegyric by telling him, that since he was at leisure he would carry him to visit her: but that prince, who is a very great man to this day, answered the pimp, because he was a man of quality, without roughness, and said with a smile, If I should visit her upon your introduction now I have leisure, I do not know but I might go again upon her own invitation, when I ought to be better employed.' But when I cast about all the instances which I have met with in all my reading, I find not one so generous, so honest, and so noble, as that of Joseph in holy writ. When his master had trusted him so unreservedly (to speak it in the emphatical manner of the scripture) He knew not aught he had save the bread which he did eat,' he was so unhappy as to appear irresistibly beautiful to his mistress; but when this shameless woman proceeds to solicit him, how gallant is his answer! 6 Behold my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he hath to my hand, there is none greater in the house than I, neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife.' The same argument, which a base mind would have made to itself for committing the evil, was to this brave man the greatest motive for forbearing it, that he could do it with impunity; the malice and falsehood of the disappointed woman naturally arose on that occasion, and there is but a short step from the practice |