and finds the time lessen insensibly, according to the different workings of his disdain. I have not mentioned the incest of her marriage, which is so obvious a provocation; but cannot forbear taking notice, that when his fury is at its height, he cries, "Frailty, thy name is woman!" as railing at the sex in general, rather than giving himself leave to think his mother worse than others.-Desiderantur multa.

Whereas Mr. Jeffery Groggram has surrendered himself by his letter bearing date December 7, and has sent an acknowledgment that he is dead, praying an order to the Company of Upholders for interment at such a reasonable rate as may not impoverish his heirs: the said Groggram having been dead ever since he was born, and added nothing to his small patrimony, Mr. Bickerstaff has taken the premises into consideration; and being sensible of the ingenuous and singular behaviour of this petitioner, pronounces the said Jeffery Groggram a live man, and will not suffer that he should bury himself out of modesty; but requires him to remain among the living, as an example to those obstinate dead men, who will neither labour for life, nor go to their grave.

N.B.-Mr. Groggram is the first person that has come in upon Mr. Bickerstaff's dead warrant.

Florinda demands by her letter of this day to be allowed to pass for a living woman, having danced the Derbyshire hornpipe in the presence of several friends on Saturday last.

Granted; provided she can bring proof, that she can make a pudding on the 24th instant.

No. 107.

[STEELE.

From Tuesday, Dec. 13, to Thursday, Dec. 15, 1709.

-Ah

-Ah miser,

Quanta laborabas Charybdi

Digne puer meliore flammâ !

HOR., I Od. xxvii. 18.

Sheer Lane, Dec. 14.

About four this afternoon, which is the hour I usually

put myself in readiness to receive company, there entered a gentleman who I believed at first came upon some ordinary question; but as he approached nearer to me, I saw in his countenance a deep sorrow, mixed with a certain ingenuous complacency that gave me a sudden good-will towards him." He stared, and betrayed an absence of thought as he was going to communicate his business to me. But at last, recovering himself, he said, with an air of great respect, "Sir, it would be an injury to your knowledge in the occult sciences, to tell you what is my distress; I dare say, you read it in my countenance : I therefore beg your advice to the most unhappy of all men." Much experience has made me particularly sagacious in the discovery of distempers, and I soon saw that his was love. I then turned to my commonplace book, and found his case under the word "coquette"; and reading over the catalogue which I have collected out of this great city of all under that character, I saw at the name of Cynthia his fit came upon him. I repeated the name thrice after a musing manner, and immediately perceived his pulse quicken two-thirds; when his eyes, instead of the wildness with which they appeared at his

entrance, looked with all the gentleness imaginable upon me, not without tears. "O sir!" said he, "you know not the unworthy usage I have met with from the woman my soul dotes on. I could gaze at her to the end of my being; yet when I have done so, for some time past I have found her eyes fixed on another. She is now twoand-twenty, in the full tyranny of her charms, which she once acknowledged she rejoiced in, only as they made her choice of me, out of a crowd of admirers, the more obliging. But in the midst of this happiness, so it is, Mr. Bickerstaff, that young Quicksett, who is just come to town, without any other recommendation than that of being tolerably handsome, and excessively rich, has won her heart in so shameless a manner, that she dies for him. In a word, I would consult you, how to cure myself of this passion for an ungrateful woman, who triumphs in her falsehood, and can make no man happy, because her own satisfaction consists chiefly in being capable of giving distress. I know Quicksett is at present considerable with her for no other reason but that he can be without her, and feel no pain in the loss. Let me therefore desire you, sir, to fortify my reason against the levity of an inconstant, who ought only to be treated with neglect." All this time I was looking over my receipts, and asked him if he had any good winter boots. Boots, sir!" said my patient. I went on: "You may easily reach Harwich in a day, so as to be there when the packet goes off." "Sir," said the lover, "I find you design me for travelling; but alas! I have no language; it will be the same thing to me as solitude, to be in a strange country. I have," continued he, sighing, "been many years in love with this creature, and have almost lost even my English, at least to speak such as anybody else does. I asked a tenant of ours, who came up to town the other day with rent,

whether the flowery mead near my father's house in the country had any shepherd in it. I have called a cave a grotto these three years, and must keep ordinary company, and frequent busy people for some time, before I can recover my common words." I smiled at his raillery upon himself, though I well saw it came from a heavy heart. "You are," said I, "acquainted, to be sure, with some of the general officers; suppose you made a campaign?" "If I did," said he, "I should venture more than any man there, for I should be in danger of starving; my father is such an untoward old gentleman, that he would tell me he found it hard enough to pay his taxes towards the war, without making it more expensive by an allowance to me. With all this, he is as fond as he is rugged, and I am his only son."

I looked upon the young gentleman with much tenderness, and not like a physician, but a friend; for I talked to him so largely, that if I had parcelled my discourse into distinct prescriptions, I am confident I gave him two hundred pounds' worth of advice. He heard me with great attention, bowing, smiling, and showing all other instances of that natural good-breeding which ingenuous tempers pay to those who are elder and wiser than themselves. I entertained him to the following purpose. "I am sorry, sir, that your passion is of so long a date, for evils are much more curable in their beginnings; but at the same time must allow, that you are not to be blamed, since your youth and merit has been abused by one of the most charming, but the most unworthy, sort of women, the coquettes. A coquette is a chaste jilt, and differs only from a common one, as a soldier, who is perfect in exercise, does from one that is actually in service. This grief, like all other, is to be cured only by time; and although you are convinced this moment, as much as you will be

ten years hence, that she ought to be scorned and neglected, you see you must not expect your remedy from the force of reason. The cure then is only in time, and the hastening of the cure only in the manner of employing that time. You have answered me as to travel and a campaign, so that we have only Great Britain to avoid her in. Be then yourself, and listen to the following rules, which only can be of use to you in this unaccountable distemper, wherein the patient is often averse even to his recovery. It has been of benefit to some to apply themselves to business; but as that may not lie in your way, go down to your estate, mind your fox-hounds, and venture the life you are weary of over every hedge and ditch in the country. These are wholesome remedies; but if you can have resolution enough, rather stay in town, and recover yourself even in the town where she inhabits. Take particular care to avoid all places where you may possibly meet her, and shun the sight of everything which may bring her to your remembrance; there is an infection in all that relates to her: you'll find, her house, her chariot, her domestics, and her very lap-dog, are so many instruments of torment. Tell me seriously, do you think you could bear the sight of her fan?" He shook his head at the question, and said, "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff, you must have been a patient, or you could not have been so good a physician." "To tell you truly," said I, "about the thirtieth year of my age, I received a wound that has still left a scar in my mind, never to be quite worn out by time or philosophy.

"The means which I found the most effectual for my cure, were reflections upon the ill-usage I had received from the woman I loved, and the pleasure I saw her take in my sufferings.

"I considered the distress she brought upon me the

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