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handsome, I have heard all that can be said towards my undoing; and shall therefore, for warning-sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my manner of rejecting them, and my assistances to keep my resolution.

In the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has procured him, and all who belong to her. This excellent body sat next to me for some months at church, and took the liberty, which," she said, "her years and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her claim to, to assure me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not think of. What made you," said she, "look through your fan at that lord, when your eyes should have been turned upwards, or closed in attention upon better objects?" I blushed and pretended fifty odd excuses;-but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see that confusion, and goes on; 66 Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take notice of it; my value for you made me speak it; for though he is my kinsman, I have a nearer regard to virtue than any other consideration." She had hardly done speaking, when this noble lord came up to us, and led her to her coach.

My head ran all that day and night on the exemplary carriage of this woman; who could be so virtuously impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with. However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl, that it may possibly be, his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous of him: and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but

I still in all public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my passion for him. It is so hard a thing to check the return of agreeable thoughts, that he became my dream, my vision, my food, my wish, my torment.

That ministress of darkness, the lady Sempronia, perceived too well the temper I was in, and would one day after evening service, needs take me to the park. When we were there, my lord passes by; I flushed into a flame. "Mrs. Distaff," said she, "you may very well remember the concern I was in upon the first notice I took of your regard to that lord; and forgive me, who had a tender friendship for your mother (now in her grave), that I am vigilant of your conduct." She went on with much severity, and, after great solicitation, prevailed on me to go with her into the country, and there spend the ensuing summer out of the way of a man she saw I loved, and one whom she perceived meditated my ruin, by frequently desiring her to introduce him to me: which she absolutely refused, except he would give his honour that he had no other design but to marry me. To her country-house a week or two after we went: there was at the further end of her garden a kind of wilderness, in the middle of which ran a soft rivulet by an arbour of jessamine. In this place I usually passed my retired hours, and read some romantic or poetical tale until the close of the evening. It was near that time, in the heat of summer, when gentle winds, soft murmurs of water, and notes of nightingales, had given my mind an indolence, which added to that repose of soul twilight and the end of a warm day naturally throw upon the spirits. It was at such an hour, and in such a state of tranquillity I sat, when, to my inexpressible amazement, I saw my lord walking towards me, whom I knew not until that moment to have been in the country. I could observe in his

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approach the perplexity which attends a man big with design; and I had, while he was coming forward, time to reflect that I was betrayed; the sense of which gave me a resentment suitable to such a baseness but, when he entered into the bower where I was, my heart flew towards him, and, I confess, a certain joy came into my mind, with an hope that he might then make a declaration of honour and passion. This threw my eye upon him with such tenderness as gave him power, with a broken accent, to begin. "Madam-you will wonder for it is certain, you must have observed— though I fear you will misinterpret the motivesbut by heaven and all that is sacred! if you could" -Here he made a full stand, and I recovered power to say, "The consternation I am in you will not, I hope, believe-an helpless innocent maidbesides that, the place."- He saw me in as great confusion as himself; which attributing to the same causes, he had the audaciousness to throw himself at my feet, talk of the stillness of the evening, and then ran into deifications of my person, pure flames, constant love, eternal raptures, and a thousand other phrases drawn from the images we have of heaven, which ill men use for the service of hell, when run over with uncommon vehemence. After which he seized me in his arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my knees

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My lord, pity me, on my knees- -on my knees in the cause of virtue, as you were lately in that of wickedness. Can you think of destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education, for the base purpose of a sudden appetite; to throw one that loves you, that doats on you, out of the company and the road of all that is virtuous and praise-worthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety, religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of lust, and abandoned to

scorn? Assume yourself, my lord; and do not attempt to vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. If I have injured you, stab this bosom, and let me die, but not be ruined, by the hand I love." The ardency of my passion made me incapable of uttering more; and I saw my lover astonished and reformed by my behaviour; when rushed in Sempronia. "Ha! faithless base man, could you then steal out of town, and lurk like a robber about my house, for such brutish purposes !"

My lord by this time was recovered, and fell into a violent laughter at the turn which Sempronia designed to give her villany. He bowed to me with the utmost respect: "Mrs. Distaff," said he, "be careful hereafter of your company;" and so retired. The fiend Sempronia congratulated my deliverance with a flood of tears.

This nobleman has since very frequently made his addresses to me with honour; but I have as often refused them; as well knowing that familiarity and marriage will make him, on some ill-natured occasion, call all I said in the arbour a theatrical action. Besides that, I glory in contemning a man, who had thoughts to my dishonour. If this method were the imitation of the whole sex, innocence would be the only dress of beauty; and all affectation by any other arts to please the eyes of men, would be banished to the stews for ever. The conquest of passion gives ten times more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she, that has got over such an one as mine, will stand among Beaux and Pretty Fellows, with as much safety as in a summer's day among grasshoppers and butterflies.

P.S. I have ten millions of things more against men, if ever I get the pen again.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 24.

Our last advices from the Hague, dated the twenty-eighth instant, N. S. say, that, on the twenty-fifth, a squadron of Dutch men of war sailed out of the Texel to join Admiral Baker at Spithead. The twenty-sixth was observed as a day of fasting and humiliation, to implore a blessing on the arms of the allies this ensuing campaign. Letters from Dresden are very particular in the account of the gallantry and magnificence, in which that Court has appeared since the arrival of the King of Denmark. No day has passed in which public shows have not been exhibited for his entertainment and diversion: the last of that kind which is mentioned is a carousal, wherein many of the youth of the first quality, dressed in the most splendid manner, ran for the prize. His Danish Majesty condescended to the same; but having observed that there was a design laid to throw it in his way, passed by without attempting to gain it. The Court of Dresden was preparing to accompany his Danish Majesty to Potsdam, where the expectation of an interview of three kings, had drawn together such a multitude of people, that many persons of distinction will be obliged to lie in tents, as long as those Courts continue in that place.

N° 34. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli.

Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86.

Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,

Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esquire.

White's Chocolate-house, June 25.

P.

HAVING taken upon me to cure all the distempers which proceed from affections of the mind, I have

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