and mad to pursue, instead of shunning, what must add to our anguish under disease, sickness, or misfortune. It is possible there may be those whose bloods are too warm to admit of those compunctions: if there are such, I am sure they are laying up store for them: but I have better hopes of those who have not yet erased the impressions and advantages of a good education and fortune; they may be assured, that whoever wholly gives themselves up to lust, will soon find it the least fault they are guilty of.

Irreconcileable hatred to those they have injured, mean shifts to cover their offences, envy and malice to the innocent, and a general sacrifice of all that is good-natured or praise-worthy when it interrupts them, will possess all their faculties, and make them utter strangers to the noble pleasures which flow from honour and virtue. Happy are they, who from the visitation of sickness, or any other accident, are awakened from a course which leads to an insensibility of the greatest enjoyments in human life.

A French author, giving an account of a very agreeable man, in whose character he mingles good qualities and infirmities, rather than vices or virtues, tells the following story.

6

Our knight,' says he, was pretty much addicted to the most fashionable of all faults. He had a loose rogue for a lackey, not a little in his favour, though he had no other name for him when he spoke of him but "the rascal," or, to him, but "sirrah." One morning when he was dressing, "Sirrah," says he, " be sure you bring home this evening a pretty wench." The fellow was a person of diligence and capacity, and had for some time addressed himself to a decayed old gentlewoman,

who had a young maiden to her daughter, beauteous as an angel, not yet sixteen years of age. The mother's extreme poverty, and the insinuations of this artful lackey concerning the soft disposition and generosity of his master, made her consent to deliver up her daughter. But many were the intreaties and representations of the mother to gain her child's consent to an action, which she said she abhorred, at the same time she exhorted her to it; "but child," says she, 66 can you see your mother die for hunger?" The virgin argued no longer, but bursting into tears, said she would go any where. The lackey conveyed her with great obsequiousness and secrecy to his master's lodging, and placed her in a commodious apartment till he came home. The knight, who knew his man never failed of bringing in his prey, indulged his genius at a banquet, and was in high humour at an entertainment with ladies, expecting to be received in the evening by one as agreeable as the best of them. When he came home, his lackey met him with a saucy and joyful familiarity, crying out, "She is as handsome as an angel (for there is no other simile on these occasions); but the tender fool has wept till her eyes are swelled and bloated; for she is a maid and a gentlewoman." With that he conducted his master to the room where she was, and retired. The knight, when he saw her bathed in tears, said in some surprise, "Do not you know, young woman, why you are brought hither?" The unhappy maid fell on her knees, and with many interruptions of sighs and tears, said to him “I know, alas! too well why I am brought hither; my mother, to get bread for her and myself, has sent me to do what you pleased; but would it would please Heaven I could die, before I am added to the

number of those miserable wretches who live without honour!" With this reflection she wept anew, and beat her bosom. The knight, stepping back from her, said, "I am not so abandoned as to hurt your innocence against your will."

'The novelty of the accident surprized him into virtue; and, covering the young maid with a cloak, he led her to a relation's house, to whose care he recommended her for that night. The next morning he sent for her mother, and asked her if her daughter was a maid? The mother assured him, that when she delivered her to his servant, she was a stranger to man. "Are not you then," replied the knight, 66 a wicked woman to contrive the debauchery of your own child?" She held down her face with fear and shame, and in her confusion uttered some broken words concerning her poverty. "Far be it," said the gentleman, "that you should relieve yourself from want by a much greater evil: your daughter is a fine young creature; do you know of none that ever spoke of her for a wife ?” The mother answered, "There is an honest man in our neighbourhood that loves her, who has often said he would marry her with two hundred pounds." The knight ordered his man to reckon out that sum, with an addition of fifty to buy the bride cloaths, and fifty more as a help to her mother.'

I appeal to all the gallants in the town, whether possessing all the beauties in Great Britain could give half the pleasure as this young gentleman had in the reflection of having relieved a miserable parent from guilt and poverty, an innocent virgin from public shame, and bestowing a virtuous wife upon an honest man?

Though all men who are guilty this way have not fortunes or opportunities for making such atone

*

ments for their vices, yet all men may do what is certainly in their power at this good season For my part, I do not care how ridiculous the mention of it may be, provided I hear it has any good consequence upon the wretched, that I recommend the most abandoned and miserable of mankind to the charity of all in prosperous conditions under the same guilt with those wretches. The Lock hospital in Kent-street, Southwark, for men; that in Kingsland for women, is a receptacle for all sufferers mangled by this iniquity. Penitents should in their own hearts take upon them all the shame and sorrow they have escaped; and it would become them to make an oblation for their crimes, by charity to those upon whom vice appears in that utmost misery and deformity, which they themselves are free from by their better fortune, rather than greater innocence. It would quicken our compassion in this case, if we considered there may be objects there, who would now move horror and loathing, that we have once embraced with transport: and as we are men of honour (for I must not speak as we are Christians) let us not desert our friends for the loss of their noses.

* Viz. Lent.

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VOL. XVI,