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• MADAM,

IT

T is a strange state of mind a man is in, when the very imperfections of a woman he loves turn into excellencies and advantages. I do affure you, I am very much afraid of venturing upon you. I now like you in fpite of my reafon, and think it an ill circumstance to owe one's happinefs to nothing but infatuation. I can fee you ogle all the young fellows who look at you, and • obferve your eye wander after new conquefts every moment you are in a publick place; and yet there is fuch a beauty in all your looks and geftures, that I cannot but admire you in the very act of endeavouring to gain the hearts of others. My condition is the fame with that of the lover in the Way of the World. I have ftudied your 'faults fo long, that they are become as familiar to me, and I like them as well as I do my own. 'Look to it, Madam, and confider whether you think this gay behaviour will appear to me as amiable when an husband, as it does now to me a Lover. Things are fo far advanced, that we muft proceed; and I hope you will lay it to heart, that it will be becoming in me to appear ftill your Lover, but not in you to be still my mistress. Gaiety in the matrimonial life is graceful in one fex, but exceptionable in the other. As you improve thefe little hints, you will afcertain the happiness or uneafincfs of,

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· SIR,

WHEN

MADAM,

.

Your moft obedient,

moft humble fervant,
'T. D.'

HEN I fat at the window, and you at the other end of the room by my coufin, I faw you catch me looking at you. Since you have the fecret at laft, which I am fure you fhould never have known but by inadvertency, what my VOL. III.

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eyes

. eyes faid was true. But it is too foon to confirm it with my hand, therefore fhall not subscribe my

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name.'

• SIR,

THERE were other Gentlemen nearer, and I know no neceffity you were under to take up that flippant creature's fan last night; but you fhall never touch a ftick of mine more, that's pos.

To Colonel R

'PHILLIS,'

S in Spain.

BEFORE this can reach the best of husbands and

the fondest lover, those tender names will be no more of concern to me. The indifpofition in which you, to obey the dictates of your honour and duty, left me, has increafed upon me; and I am acquainted by my phyficians I cannot live a week longer, At this time my fpirits fail me; and it is the ardent love I have for you that carries me beyond my ftrength, and enables me to tell you, The most painful thing in the profpect of death is, that I must part with you. But let

it be a comfort to you, that I have no guilt hangs upon me, no unrepented folly that retards me; but I pafs away my laft hours in reflection upon the happinefs we have lived in together, and in forrow that it is fo foon to have an end. This is a frailty which I hope is fo far from criminal, that methinks there is a kind of piety in being fo unwilling to be feparated from a ftate which is the inftitution of heaven, and in which we have lived according to its laws. As we know no more of the next life, but that it will be an happy one to the good, and miferable to the wicked, why may we not please ourselves at leaft, to alleviate the difficulty of refigning this Being, in imagining that we shall have a fenfe of what paffes be

low,

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low, and may poffibly be employed in guiding the fteps of those with whom we walked with innocence when mortal? Why may not I hope to go on in my ufual work, and, though un'known to you, be affiftant in all the conflicts of your mind? Give me leave to fay to you, O best of men, that I cannot figure to myfelf a greater happinefs than in fuch an employment: To be prefent at all the adventures to which human life is expofed, to adminifter flumber to thy eyelids in 'the agonies of a fever, to cover thy beloved face in the day of battle, to go with thee a guardian 'angel incapable of wound or pain, where I have longed to attend thee when a weak, a fearful woman: These, my dear, are the thoughts with ' which I warm my poor languid heart; but in'deed I am not capable under my prefent weakness of bearing the ftrong agonies of mind I fall into, when I form to myself the grief you will be in upon your first hearing of my departure. I will 'not dwell upon this, because your kind and generous heart will be but the more afflicted, the more the person for whom you lament offers you confolation. My laft breath will, if I am myfelf, expire in a prayer for you. I shall never fee thy face again. Farewel for ever.'

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No 205. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25.

T

Decipimur fpecie recti

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 25

Deluded by a feeming excellence. RoscoMMON. WHEN I meet with any vicious character that

is not generally known, in order to prevent its doing mischief, I draw it at length, and fet it up as a scarecrow; by which means I do not only make an example of the perfon to whom it belongs, but

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give

give warning to all her Majesty's fubjects, that they may not fuffer by it. Thus, to change the allufion, I have marked out feveral of the fhoals and quickfands of life, and am continually employed in difcovering thofe which are ftill concealed, in order to keep the ignorant and unwary from running upon them. It is with this intention that I publifh the following letter, which brings to light fome fecrets of this nature.

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Mr. SPECTATOR,

There are none of your fpeculations which I read over with greater delight, than those which are defigned for the improvement of our fex. You have endeavoured to correct our un⚫ reafonable fears and fuperftitions, in your feventh and twelfth paper; our fancy for equipage, in your fifteenth; our love of puppet-shows, in your thirty-first; our notions of beauty, in your thirtythird; our inclination for romances, in your thirty-feventh; our paffion for French fopperies, in your forty-fifth; our manhood and party-zeal, in your fifty-feventh; our abuse of dancing, in your fixty-fixth and fixty-feventh; our levity, in your hundred and twenty-eighth; our love of coxcombs, in your hundred and fifty-fourth and ⚫ hundred and fifty-feventh; our tyranny over the henpeckt, in your hundred and feventy-fixth. You have defcribed the Pit in your forty-first ; the idol, in your feventy-third; the demurer, in your eighty-ninth; the falamander, in your hundred and ninety-eighth. You have likewife taken to pieces our drefs, and reprefented to us the extravagancies we are often guilty of in that particular. You have fallen upon our patches, in your fiftieth, and eighty-firft; our commodes, in your ninety-eighth; our fans, in your hundred and fecond; our riding-habits, in your hundred and fourth; our hoop-petticoats, in your hundred

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· and

' and twenty-feventh; befides a great many little 'blemishes which you have touched upon in your feveral other papers, and in those many letters 'that are scattered up and down your works. At the fame time we must own, that the compli ments you pay our fex are innumerable, and that thofe very faults which you represent in us, are 'neither black in themfelves, nor, as you own, univerfal among us. But, Sir, it is plain that thefe your difcourfes are calculated for none but the fashionable part of womankind, and for the ufe of those who are rather indifcreet than vicious. But, Sir, there is a fort of proftitutes in "the lower part of our fex, who are a scandal to

us, and very well deferve to fall under your cenfure. I know it would debafe your paper too 'much to enter into the behaviour of thefe female libertines; but as your remarks on fome part of it would be a doing of juftice to feveral women of virtue and honour, whofe reputations fuffer by it, I hope you will not think it improper to give the publick fome accounts of this nature. You muft know, Sir, I am provoked to write you this letter by the behaviour of an infamous woman, who having paffed her youth in a moft fhameless •ftate of prostitution, is now one of those who gain their livelihood by feducing others, that are younger than themfelves, and by establishing a 'criminal commerce between the two sexes. A

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mong feveral of her artifices to get money, fhe frequently perfuades a vain young fellow, that 'fuch a woman of quality, or fuch a celebrated toft, entertains a fecret paffion for him, and wants 'nothing but an opportunity of revealing it: Nay, fhe has gone fo far as to write letters in the name of a woman of figure, to borrow money of one ' of these foolish Roderigos, which she has afterwards appropriated to her own use. In the mean

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