Honeft SPEC, Middle-Temple, June 24. I am very glad to hear that thou beginneft to prate; and find, by thy yesterday's vifion, thou art • so used to it, that thou canst not forbear talking in thy fleep. Let me only advife thee to fpeak like other men, for I am afraid thou wilt be very queer, if thou doft not intend to ufe the phrafes in fafhion, as thou calleft them in thy fecond paper. Haft thou a mind to pafs for a Bantamite, or to make us all Qikers? I do affure thee, dear SPEC, • I am not polished out of my veracity, when I fub• fcribe myself Thy conftant admirer, • and humble fervant, FRANK TOWNLY." No. 561. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30. -Paulatim abolere Sichæum Incipit, et vivo tentat prævertere amore But he VIRG. Æn. i. ver. 724 Works in the pliant bofom of the fair, And moulds her heart anew, and blots her former care. The dead is to the living love refign'd, I • SIR, DRYDEN AM a tall, broad-fhouldered, impudent, black fellow, and, as I thought, every way qualified for a rich widow: but, after having tried my • fortune for above three years together, I have not been able to get one fingle relict in the mind. Ily first attacks were generally fuccefsful, but always C 3 • broke broke off as foon as they came to the word fettlement. Though I have not improved my fortune this way, I have my experience, and have learned feveral fecrets which may be of ufe to thofe unhap py gentlemen, who are commonly diftinguished by the name of widow-hunters, and who do not know that this tribe of women are, generally speaking, as much upon the catch as themfelves. I fhall here ⚫ communicate to you the myfteries of a certain fe< male cabal of this order, who call themselves the • Widow-Club. This club confifts of nine experienced dames, who take their places, once a-week, round a large oval table. • I. Mrs. President is a person who has difpofed of fix hufbands, and is now determined to take a feventh; being of opinion, that there is as much virtue in the touch of a feventh husband as of a feventh fon. Her comrades are as follow: II. Mrs. Snap, who has four jointures by four different bed-fellows of four different fhires. She is at prefent upon the point of marriage with a Middlefex man, and is faid to have an ambition of extending her poffeffions through all the countiesin England, on this fide the Trent. III. Mrs. Medlar, who, after two hufbands and a gallant, is now wedded to an old gentlemen of fixty. Upon her making her report to the club, • after a week's cohabitation, fhe is ftill allowed to fit as a widow, and accordingly takes her place at the board. IV. The widow Quick, married within a fortnight after the death of her last husband. Her weeds have ferved her thrice, and as new. are still as good She was a wi V. Lady Katharine Swallow. dow at eighteen, and has fince buried a fecond hufband and two coachmen. VI. The Lady Waddle. She was married in the fifteenth year of her age to Sir Simon Waddle, knight, knight, aged threefcore and twelve, by whom the had twins nine months after his decease. In the • fifty-fifth year of her age the was married to James Spindle, Efq; a youth of one-and-twenty, who did ⚫ not out-live his honey-moon. Vil. Deborah Conqueft. The cafe of this Lady is fomething particular. She is the relict of Sir • Sampfon Conquest, sometime justice of the Quorum. • Sir Sampfon was feven feet high, and two feet in • breadth from the tip of one fhoulder to the other. • He had married three wives, who all of them died in child-bed. This terrified the whole fex, who • none of them durft venture on Sir Sampson. At length Mrs. Deborah undertook him, and gave fo • good an account of him, that in three years time the very fairly laid him out, and measured his length upon the ground. This exploit has gained her fo • great a reputation in the club, that they have added Sir Sampfon's three victories to hers, and give her the merit of a fourth widowhood; and the takes her • place accordingly. VIII. The widow Wildfire, relict of Mr. John • Wildfire, fox-hunter, who broke his neck over a fix• bar gate. She took his death fo much to heart, that it was thought it would have put an end to • her life, had the not diverted her forrows by receiving the addreffes of a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who made love to her in the second month of her widow-hood. This gentleman was • difcarded in a fortnight, for the fake of a young Templar, who had the poffeffion of her for fix ♦ weeks after, until he was beaten out by a broken officer, who likewife gave up his place to a gentle6 man at court. The courtier was as fhort-lived a favourite as his predeceffors, but had the pleasure to fee himself fucceeded by a long feries of lovers, who followed the widow Wildfire to the thirty-feventh year of her age, at which time there enfued a ceffation of ten years, when John Felt, haber⚫ dasher, dafher, took it in his head to be in love with her, and it is thought will very fuddenly carry her off. IX. The laft is pretty Mrs. Runnet, who broke her first husband's heart before fhe was fixteen, at which time he was entered of the club, but foon after left it, upon account of a fecond, whom the made fo quick a difpatch of, that fhe returned to her feat in less than a twelvemonth. This young • matron is looked upon as the most rising member of the fociety, and will probably be in the prefi• dent's chair before the dies. Thefe Ladies, upon their firft inftitution, refolved to give the pictures of their deceafed hufbands to the club-room, but two of them bringing in their dead at full length, they covered all the walls upon which they came to a fecond refolution, that every matron fhould give her own picture, and set it round with her hufbands in mi⚫niature. As they have most of them the misfortune to be troubled with the colic, they have a noble cellar ⚫ of cordials and frong waters. When they grow maudlin, they are very apt to commemorate their • former partners with a tear. But afk them which • of their bufbands they condole, they are not able to tell you, and difcover plainly that they do not fo much for the lofs of a husband as for the want of one. weep The principal rule, by which the whole fociety are to govern themselves is this, to cry up the pleafures of a fingle life upon all occafions, in order to • deter the rest of their fex from marriage, and ingrofs the whole male world to themselves. They are obliged, when any one makes love to a • member of the fociety, to communicate his name, at which time the whole affembly fit upon his reputation, perfon, fortune, and good humour; and if they find him qualified for a fifter of the club, they lay their heads together how to make him fure. By this means they are acquainted with all the widow-hunters about town, who often afford them great diverfion. There is an honeft Irish gentleman, it seems, who knows nothing of this fociety, but at different times has made love to the whole club. Their converfation often turns upon their former hufbands, and it is very diverting to hear them re'late their feveral arts and ftratagems, with which they amufed the jealous, pacified the choleric, or wheedled the good-natured man, until at laft, to • use the club-phrase, They sent him out of the house with his heels foremost. The politics which are moft cultivated by this 'fociety of fhe-Machiavels, relate chiefly to these two points, How to treat a lover, and how to manage a husband. As for the firft fet of artifices, they ' are too numerous to come within the compass of " your paper, and fhall therefore be referved for a • fecond letter. The management of a husband is built upon the • following doctrines, which are univerfally affented to by the whole club. Not to give him his head at firft. Not to allow him too great freedoms and familiarities. Not to be treated by him like a raw girl, but as a woman that knows the world. Not to leffen any thing of her former figure. To ce'lebrate the generofity, or any other virtue of a deceafed hufband, which fhe would recommend to his fucceffor. To turn away all his old friends and 'fervants, that the may have the dear man to herfelf. To make him difinherit the undutiful children of any former wife. Never to be thoroughly 'convinced of his affection, until he has made over to her all his goods and chattels, After fo long a letter, I am, without more ce" remony, Your humble fervant, &c.' FRIDAY, |