bottoms, that they are airy, and very proper for the season; but this I look upon to be only a pretense, and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather. Beside, I would fain ask these tender-constitutioned ladies, why they should require more cooling than their mothers before them? "I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honor cannot be better intrenched than after this manner in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone, is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of making Love in a Tub,'* as in the midst of so many hoops. "Among these various conjectures there are men of superstitious tempers, who look upon the hooppetticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfall of the French king, and observe that the farthingal appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of it. "The first time I saw a lady dressed in one of these petticoats, I could not forbear blaming her in my own thoughts for walking abroad when she was so near her time,' but soon recovered myself out of my error, when I found all the modish part of the sex as far gone' as herself. It is generally thought some crafty women have thus betrayed their companions into hoops, that they might make them accessory to their own concealments, and by that means escape the censure of the world: as wary generals have sometimes dressed two or three dozen of their friends in their own habit, that they might not draw upon themselves any particular attacks from the enemy. The strutting petticoat smooths all distinctions, levels the mother with the daughter, and sets maids and matrons, wives and widows, upon the same bottom. In the meanwhile, I cannot but be troubled to see so many well-shaped innocent virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied wo men. "Should this fashion get among the ordinary people, our public ways would be so crowded, that we should want street-room. Several congregations of the best fashion find themselves already very much straitened; and if the mode increase, I wish it may not drive many ordinary women into meetings and conventicles. Should our sex at the same time take it into their heads to wear trunk beeches (as who knows what their indignation at this female treatment may drive them to?) a man and his wife would fill a whole pew. "You know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great, that in his Indian expedition he buried several suits of armor, which by his directions were made much too big for any of his soldiers, in order to give posterity an extraordinary idea of him, and make them believe he had commanded an army of giants. I am persuaded that if one of the present petticoats happens to be hung up in any repository of curiosities, it would lead into the same error the generations that lie some removes from us; unless we can believe our posterity will think so disrespectfully of their greatgrandmothers, that they made themselves monstrous to appear amiable. "When I survey this new-fashioned rotunda in all its parts, I cannot but think of the old philosopher, who after having entered into an Egyp tian temple, and looked about for the idol of the place, at length discovered a little black monkey enshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, to the great scandal of the worshipers, What a magnificent place is here for such a ridiculous inhabitant!' " Though you have taken a resolution, in one of your papers, to avoid descending to particular-, ities of dress, I believe you will not think it below you, on so extraordinay an occasion, to unhoop the fair sex, and cure this unfashionable tympany that is got among them. I am apt to think the petticoat will shrink of its own accord at your first coming to town; at least a touch of your pen will make it contract itself like the sensitive plant, and by that means oblige several who are either terrified or astonished at this portentous novelty, and among the rest, Your humble servant," etc. C. No. 128.] THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1711. WOMEN in their nature are much more gay and joyous than men; whether it be that their blood is more refined, their fibers more delicate, and their animal spirits more light and volatile; or whether, as some have imagined, there may not be a kind of sex in the very soul, I shall not pretend to determine. As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men. They should each of them therefore keep a watch upon the particular bias which nature has fixed in their minds, that it may not draw too much, and lead them out of the paths of reason. This will certainly happen, if the one in every word and action af fects the character of being rigid and severe, and the other of being brisk and airy. Men should beware of being captivated by a kind of savage philosophy, women by a thoughtless gallantry Where these precautions are not observed, the man often degenerates into a cynic, the woman into a coquette; the man grows sullen and morose, the woman impertinent and fantastical. By what I have said, we may conclude, men and women were made as counterparts to one another, that the pains and anxieties of the husband might be relieved by the sprightliness and good humor of the wife. When these are rightly tempered, care and cheerfulness go hand in hand; and the family, like a ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither sail nor ballast. Natural historians observe (for while I am in the country, I must fetch my allusions from thence) that only the male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breeding-time, and end a little after: that while the hen is cov ering her eggs, the male generally takes his stand upon a neighboring bough within her hearing: and by that means amuses and diverts her with See his play so called, act iv, scene 6, where Dufoy, a his songs during the whole time of her sitting, Frenchman, is thrust into a tub without a bottom, which he carries about the stage on his shoulders, his head coming till a brood of young ones arises from it: so that This contract among birds lasts no longer than through a hole at the top. +Vir: in 1558. in the feathered kind, the cares and fatigues of the married state, if I may so call it, lie principally | upon the female. On the contrary, as, in our species, the man and the woman are joined together for life, and the main burden rests upon the former, nature has given all the little arts of soothing and blandishment to the female, that she may cheer and animate her companion in a constant and assiduous application to the making a provision for his family, and the educating of their common children. This however is not to be taken so strictly, as if the same duties were not often reciprocal, and incumbent on both parties; but only to set forth what seems to have been the general intention of nature, in the different inclinations and endowments which are bestowed on the different sexes. But whatever was the reason that man and woman were made with this variety of temper, if we observe the conduct of the fair sex, we find that they choose rather to associate themselves with a person who resembles them in that light and volatile humor which is natural to them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counterbalance it. It has been an old complaint, that the coxcomb carries it with them before the man of sense. When we see a fellow loud and talkative, full of insipid life and laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female favorite. "Noise and flutter are such accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the passion of an ordinary woman for a man is nothing else than self-love diverted upon another object. She would have the lover a woman in everything but the sex. I do not know a finer piece of satire on this part of womankind, than those lines of Mr. Dryden: Our thoughtless sex is caught by outward form, And empty noise; and loves itself in man. This is a source of infinite calamities to the sex, as it frequently joins them to men who, in their own thoughts, are as fine creatures as themselves; or if they chance to be good-humored, serve only to dissipate their fortunes, inflame their follies, and aggravate their indiscretions. The same female levity is no less fatal to them after marriage than before. It represents to their imaginations the faithful, prudent husband, as an honest, tractable, and domestic animal; and turns their thoughts upon the fine, gay gentleman that laughs, sings, and dresses so much more agreeably. As this irregular vivacity of temper leads astray the hearts of ordinary women in the choice of their lovers and the treatment of their husbands, it operates with the same pernicious influence toward their children, who are taught to accomplish themselves in all those sublime perfections that appear captivating in the eye of their mother. She admires in her son what she loved in her gallant; and by that means contributes all she can to perpetuate herself in a worthless progeny. The younger Faustina was a lively instance of this sort of women. Notwithstanding she was married to Marcus Aurelius, one of the greatest, wisest, and best of the Roman emperors, she thought a common gladiator much the prettier gentleman; and had taken such care to accomplish her son Commodus according to her own notions of a fine man, that when he ascended the throne of his father, he became the most foolish and abandoned tyrant that ever was placed at the head of the Roman empire, signalizing himself in nothing but the fighting of prizes, and knocking out men's brains. As he had no taste of true glory, we see him in several medals and statues, which are still extant of him, equipped like a Hercules, with a club and a lion's skin. I have been led into this speculati characters I have heard of a country and his lady, who do not live many r Sir Roger. The wife is an old coque always hankering after the diversions of the husband a morose rustic, that frown at the name of it. The wife is overrun tation, the husband sunk into brutal lady cannot bear the noise of the larks ingales, hates your tedious summer-da sick at the sight of shady woods ar streams; the husband wonders how ar be pleased with the fooleries of plays a and rails from morning till night at ess and tawdry courtiers. The children a in these different notions of their par sons follow their father about his grou the daughters read volumes of love-lett mances to their mother. By this mea to pass that the girls look upon their clown, and the boys think their moth than she should be. How different are the lives of Aristus sia! The innocent vivacity of the one ed and composed by the cheerful gra other. The wife grows wise by the di the husband, and the husband good-h the conversations of the wife. Aristu be so amiable were it not for his Aspa pasia so much esteemed were it not fo tus. Their virtues are blended in the and diffuse through the whole family spirit of benevolence, complacency, a tíon.-C. No. 129.] SATURDAY, JULY 2 Vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthu Thou, like the hindmost chariot-wheels: Still to be near, but ne'er to be the first. GREAT masters in painting never ca ing people in the fashion: as very w that the head-dress or periwig, that n and gives a grace to their portraiture will make a very odd figure and p monstrous in the eyes of posterity. son they often represent an illustrious Roman habit, or some other dress th ries. I could wish for the sake of friends, that there was such a kind of drapery to be made use of by all who tain distance from the town, and that agree upon such fashions as should ble to changes and innovations. For standing dress, a man who takes a the country is as much surprised walks in a gallery of old family I finds as great a variety of garbs and persons he converses with. Did they constant dress they would sometim fashion, which they never are as mat aged at present. If instead of runn mode, they would continue fixed in habit, the mode would sometime or o them, as a clock that stands still is right once in twelve hours. In thi fore, I would advise them, as a gentl friend who was hunting about the after a rambling fellow-If you fol will never find him, but if you plan the corner of any one street, I will e not be long before you see him. I have already touched upon this speculation which shows how cruelly are led astray in following the town ped in a ridiculous habit, when they fancy them- | see he had a clean shirt on, which was ruffled selves in the height of the mode. Since that down to his middle. speculation I have received a letter (which I there hinted at) from a gentleman who is now on the western circuit. "MR. SPECTATOR, "Being a lawyer of the Middle-Temple, a Cornishman by birth, I generally ride the western circuit for my health; and as I am not interrupted with clients, have leisure to make many observations that escape the notice of my fellow-travelers. "One of the most fashionable women I met with in all the circuit was my landlady at Staines, where I chanced to be on a holiday. Her commode was not half a foot high, and her petticoat within some yards of a modish circumference. In the same place I observed a young fellow with a tolerable periwig, had it not been covered with a hat that was shaped in the Ramilie-cock. As I proceeded in my journey, I observed the petticoat grew scantier and scantier, and about threescore miles from London was so very unfashionable, that a woman might walk in it without any manner of inconvenience. "Not far from Salisbury I took notice of a justice of the peace's lady, who was at least ten years behind-hand in her dress, but at the same time as fine as hands could make her. She was flounced and furbelowed from head to foot; every ribbon was wrinkled, and every part of her garments in curl, so that she looked like one of those animals which in the country we call a Friesland hen. "Not many miles beyond this place I was informed that one of the last year's little muffs had by some means or other straggled into those parts, and that all the women of fashion were cutting their old muffs in two, or retrenching them, according to the little model which was got among them. I cannot believe the report they have there, that it was sent down franked by a parliament-man in a little packet; but probably by next winter this fashion will be at the height in the country, when it is quite out at London. "The greatest beau at our next country sessions was dressed in a most monstrous flaxen periwig, that was made in King William's reign. The wearer of it goes, it seems, in his own hair when he is at home, and lets his wig lie in a buckle for a whole half-year, that he may put it on upon occasion to meet the judges in it. "I must not here omit an adventure which happened to us in a country church upon the frontiers of Cornwall. As we were in the midst of the service, a lady, who is the chief woman of the place, and had passed the winter at London with her husband, entered the congregation in a little headdress, and a hooped petticoat. The people, who were wonderfully startled at such a sight, all of them rose up. Some stared at the prodigious bottom, and some at the little top of this strange dress. In the meantime the lady of the manor filled the area of the church, and walked up to her pew with an unspeakable satisfaction, amidst the whispers, conjectures, and astonishments of the whole congregation. "Upon our way from hence we saw a young fellow riding toward us full gallop, with a bob wig and a black silken bag tied to it. He stopped short at the coach, to ask us how far the judges were behind us. His stay was so very short, that we had only time to observe his new silk waistcoat, which was unbuttoned in several places, to let us Counselors generally go on the circuits through the counties in which they are born and bred. "From this place, during our progress through the most western parts of the kingdom, we fancied ourselves in King Charles the Second's reign, the people having made very little variations in their dress since that time. The smartest of the country 'squires appears still in the Monmouthcock, and when they go a wooing (whether they have any post in the militia or not) they generally put on a red coat. We were, indeed, very much surprised, at the place we lay at last night, to meet with a gentleman that had accoutered himself in a nightcap wig, a coat with long pockets and slit sleeves, and a pair of shoes with high scollop tops; but we soon found by his conversation that he was a person who laughed at the ig norance and rusticity of the country people, and was resolved to live and die in the mode. "Sir, if you think this account of my travels may be of any advantage to the public, I will next year trouble you with such occurrences as I shall meet with in other parts of England. For I am informed there are greater curiosities in the northern circuit than in the western; and that a fashion makes it progress much slower into Cumberland than into Cornwall. I have heard in particular, that the Steenkirk* arrived but two months ago at Newcastle, and that there are several commodes in those parts which are worth taking a journey thither to see." C. No. 10.] MONDAY, JULY 30, 1711. A plundering race, still eager to invade, On spoil they live, and make of theft a trade. As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of gipsies. Upon the first discovery of them, my friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert the justice of the peace upon such a band of lawless vagrants; but not having his clerk with him, who is a necessary counselor with him on these occasions, and fearing that his poultry might fare the worse for it, let the thought drop-but at the same time gave me a particular account of the mischiefs they do in the country, in stealing people's goods and spoiling their servants. "If a stray piece of linen hangs upon a hedge," says Sir Roger, "they are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey: our geese cannot live in peace for them; if a man prosecutes them with severity, his hen-roost is sure to pay for it. They generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done as it should be while they are in the country. I have an honest dairy-maid who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every summer, and never fails being promised the handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend the butler has been fool enough to be seduced by them; and though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork or a spoon every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself up in the pantry with an old gipsy for above half an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all those who apply themselves to them. You see now and then some *The Steenkirk was a kind of military cravat of black silk; probably first worn at the battle of Steenkirk, fought August 2, 1692. handsome young jades among them: the sluts have white teeth and black eyes." himself lost a child some years befor rents, after a long search for him, g drowned in one of the canals with country abounds; and the mother was at the loss of a fine boy, who was h that she died for grief of it. Upon lay all particulars, and examining severa Sir Roger observing that I listened with great attention to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, told me, that if I would, they should tell us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal, we rode up, and communicated our hands to them. A Cas-marks by which the mother used to sandra of the crew, after having examined my child when he was first missing, the lines very diligently, told me, that I loved a pretty to be the son of the merchant whose maid in a corner, that I was a good woman's unaccountably melted at the sight of man, with some other particulars which I do not lad was very well pleased to find a fat think proper to relate. My friend Sir Roger so rich and likely to leave him a good alighted from his horse, and exposing his palm father on the other hand was not a lit to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled to see a son return to him, whom he h it all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle for lost, with such a strength of that could be made in it; when one of them, who sharpness of understanding, and s was older and more sunburnt than the rest, told guages." Here the printed story lea him, that he had a widow in his line of life. if I may give credit to reports, our Upon which the knight cried, "Go, go, you are ing received such extraordinary rudin an idle baggage ;" and at the same time smiled a good education, was afterward tr The gipsy finding he was not dis- everything that became a gentleman; pleased in his heart, told him, after a farther by little and little all the vicious hab inquiry into his hand, that his true-love was con- tices that he had been used to in the stant, and that she should dream of him to-night. peregrinations. Nay, it is said, that My old friend cried pish, and bid her go on. The been employed in foreign courts u gipsy told him that he was a bachelor, but would business, with great reputation to not be so long; and that he was dearer to some- honor to those who sent him, and body than he thought. The knight still repeated, visited several countries as a public She was an idle baggage," and bid her go on. which he formerly wandered as a gi "Ah, master," said the gipsy, "that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing." The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse. upon me. As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me, that he knew several sensible people who believed these gipsies now and then foretold very strange things; and for half an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the height of his good humor, meeting a common beggar upon the road, who was no conjurer, as he went to relieve him he found his pocket was picked; that being a kind of palmistry at which this race of vermin are very dextrous. No. 131.] TUESDAY, JULY -Ipsæ rursum concedite sylva VI Once more, ye woods, adieu. It is usual for a man who loves c to preserve the game in his own divert himself upon those that belong bor. My friend Sir Roger generally three miles from his house, and frontiers of his estate, before he be search of a hare or partridge, on pur his own fields, where he is always su diversion, when the worst comes t By this means the breed about his h to increase and multiply, beside tha I might here entertain my reader with historical more agreeable where the game is h remarks on this idle, profligate people, who infestat, and where it does not lie so thick all the countries of Europe, and live in the midst any perplexity or confusion in the of governments in a kind of commonwealth by these reasons the country gentleman themselves. But instead of entering into obser- seldom preys near his own home. vations of this nature, I shall fill the remaining In the same manner I have ma part of my paper with a story which is still fresh excursion out of the town, which is t in Holland, and was printed in one of our month-of game for sportsmen of my specie ly accounts about twenty years ago. "As the fortune in the country, where I have trek-schuyt, or hackney-boat which carries passen- al subjects, and hunted them down gers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, pleasure to myself, and I hope to a boy running along the side of the canal desired here forced to use a great deal of dil to be taken in: which the master of the boat I can spring anything to my mind refused, because the lad had not quite money town, while I am following one chara enough to pay the usual fare.* An eminent mer- to one but I am crossed in my wa chant being pleased with the looks of the boy, and and put up such a variety of odd secretly touched with compassion toward him, both sexes, that they foil the scent of paid the money for him, and ordered him to be and puzzle the chase. My greatest taken on board. Upon talking with him after- the country is to find sport, and in to ward, he found that he could speak readily in it. In the meantime, as I have g three or four languages, and learned upon farther month's rest to the cities of Lond examination, that he had been stolen away when minster, I promise myself abundance he was a child by a gipsy, and had rambled ever upon my return thither. since with a gang of those strollers up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the merchant, whose heart seemed to have inclined toward the boy by a secret kind of instinct, had * Hardly more than three pence. It is indeed high time for me to le try, since I find the whole neighborl grow very inquisitive after my name ter; my love of solitude, taciturnity lar way of life, having raised a grea all these parts. woods and meadows. If thou dost not come up The notions which have been framed of me are various: some look upon me as very proud, some as very modest, and some as very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a man. The country people seem to sus-monwealth's-men. pect me for a conjurer; and some of them hearing of the visit which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir Roger has brought down a cunning man with him, to cure the old woman, and free the country from her charms. So that the character which I go under in part of the neighborhood, is what they call here a White Witch. A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and is not of Sir Roger's party, has, it seems, said twice or thrice at his table, that he wishes Sir Roger does not harbor a Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen of the country would do very well to make me give some account of myself. On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing fellow; and as they have heard that he converses very promiscuously when he is in town, do not know but he has brought down with him some discarded whig, that is sullen, and says nothing because he is out of place. Such is the variety of opinions which are here entertained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected person, and among others for a popish priest; among some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer; and all this for no other reason that I can imagine, but because I do not hoot, and halloo, and make a noise. It is true, my friend Sir Roger tells them,-"That it is my way," and that I am only a philosopher;-but this will not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than he discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing. For these and other reasons I shall set out for London to-morrow, having found by experience that the country is not the place for a person of my temper, who does not love jollity, and what they call good neighborhood. A man that is out of humor when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to every chance comer-that will be the master of his own time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations, makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of life. I shall therefore retire into the town, if I may make use of that phrase, and get into the crowd again as fast as I can, in order to be alone. I can there raise what speculations I please upon others without being observed myself, and at the same time enjoy all the advantages of company with all the privileges of solitude. In the meanwhile, to finish the month, and conclude these my rural speculations, I shall here insert a letter from my friend Will Honeycomb, who has not lived a month for these forty years out of the smoke of London, and rallies me after his way upon my country life. "DEAR SPEC., "I suppose this letter will find thee picking of daisies, or smelling to a lock of hay, or passing away thy time in some innocent country diversion of the like nature. I have however orders from the club to summon thee up to town, being all of us cursedly afraid thou wilt not be able to relish Our company, after thy conversations with Moll White and Will Wimble. Prithee do not send us up any more stories of a cock and a bull, nor frighten the town with spirits and witches. Thy speculations begin to smell confoundedly of No. 132.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1711. Qui, aut tempus quid postulet non videt, aut plura loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eorum quibuscum est rationem non habet, is ineptus esse dicitur.-TULL. That man may be called impertinent, who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in. HAVING notified to my good friend Sir Roger that I should set out for London the next day, his horses were ready at the appointed hour in the evening; and attended by one of his grooms, I arrived at the county-town at twilight, in order to be ready for the stage-coach the day following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the servant who waited upon me inquired of the chamberlain in my hearing what company he had for the coach? The fellow answered, "Mrs. Betty Arable, the great fortune, and the widow her mother; a recruiting officer (who took a place because they were to go); young 'Squire Quickset, her cousin (that her mother wished her to be married to); Ephraim the Quaker, her guardian; and a gentleman that had studied himself dumb from Sir Roger de Coverley's." I observed by what he said of myself, that according to his office he dealt much in intelligence; and doubted not but there was some foundation for his reports of the rest of the company, as well as for the whimsical account he gave of me. The next morning at day-break we were all called; and I, who know my own natural shyness, and endeavor to be as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed immediately that I might make no one wait. The first preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's half-pike was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the meantime the drummer, the captain's equipage, was very loud, "that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled;" upon which his cloak-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach; and the captain himself, according to a frequent, though invidious behavior of military men, ordered his man to look sharp that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting the coach-box. We were in some little time fixed in our seats, and sat with that dislike which people not too good-natured usually conceive of each other at first sight. The coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity: and we had not moved above two miles, when the widow asked the captain what success he had in his recruiting? The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, told her, "that indeed he had but very little luck, and had suffered much by desertion, therefore should be glad to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair daughter. In a word," continued he, "I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character: you see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take me yourself, widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a soldier of fortune, ha!"-This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed. "Come," said he, "resolve upon it, we |