third half-pint, before the hour of one; and whoever shall transact any matter or matters with a Whetter, not being himself of that order, shall be conducted to Moorfields upon the first application of his next of kin. N. B. No tavern near the the Exchange shall deliver wine to such as drink at the bar standing, except the same shall be three parts of the best cyder; and the master of the house shall produce a certificate of the same from Mr. Tintoret, or some other credible wine-painter. Whereas the model of the intended Bedlam is now finished, and the edifice itself will be very suddenly begun; it is desired, that all such as have relations whom they would recommend to our care, would bring in their proofs with all speed: none being to be admitted, of course but lovers, who are put into an immediate regimen. Young politicians also are received without fees or examination. N° 139. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1709-10. -Nihil est quod credere de se Non posset, cum laudatur Diis æqua polestas. Juv. Sat. iv. 70. Nothing so monstrous can be said or feign'd, DRYDEN. Sheer-lane, February 27. WHEN I reflect upon the many nights I have sat up for some months last past, in the greatest anxiety for the good of my neighbours and contemporaries, it is no small discouragement to me, to see how slow a progress I make in the reformation of the world. But indeed I must do my female readers the justice to own, that their tender hearts are much more susceptible of good impressions, than the minds of the other sex. Business and ambition take up men's thoughts too much to leave room for philosophy: but if you speak to women in a style and manner proper to approach them, they never fail to improve by your counsels. I shall, therefore, for the future, turn my thoughts more particularly to their service; and study the best methods to adorn their persons, and inform their minds in the justest methods, to make them what nature designed them, the most beauteous objects of our eyes, and the most agreeable companions of our lives. But, when I say this I must not omit at the same time to look into their errors and mistakes, that being the readiest way to the intended end of adorning and instructing them. It must be acknowledged, that the very inadvertences of this sex are owing to the other: for if men were not flatterers, women could not fall into that general cause of all their follies, and our misfortunes, their love of flattery. Were the commendation of these agreeable creatures built founupon its proper dation, the higher we raised their opinion of themselves, the greater would be the advantage to our sex but all the topic of praise is drawn from very senseless and extravagant ideas we pretend to have of their beauty and perfection. Thus, when a young man falls in love with a young woman, from that moment she is no more Mrs. Alice such-a-one, born of such a father, and educated by such a mother; but from the first minute that he casts his eye upon her with desire, he conceives a doubt in his mind, what heavenly power gave so unexpected a blow to an heart that was ever before untouched. But who can resist fate and destiny, which are lodged in Mrs. Alice's eyes? After which he desires orders accordingly, whether he is to live or die; the smile or fro of his goddess is the only thing that can now either save or destroy him. By this means, the wellhumoured girl, that would have romped with him before she had received this declaration, assumes a state suitable to the majesty he has given her, and treats him as the vassal he calls himself. The girl's head is immediately turned by having the power of life and death, and takes care to suit every motion and air of her new sovereignty. After he has placed himself at this distance, he must never hope to recover his former familiarity, until she has had the addresses of another, and found them less sincere. If the application to women were justly turned, the address of flattery, though it implied at the same time an admonition, would be much more likely to succeed. Should a captivated lover, in a billet, let his mistress know, that her piety to her parents, her gentleness of behaviour, her prudent economy with respect to her own little affairs, in a virgin condition had improved the passion which her beauty had inspired him with, into so settled an esteem for her, that of all women breathing he wished her his wife: though his commending her for qualities she knew she had as virgin, would make her believe he expected from her an answerable conduct in the character of a matron, I will answer for it, his suit would be carried on with less perplexity.. Instead of this, the generality of our young women, taking all their notions of life from gay writings, or letters of love, consider themselves as goddesses, nymphs, and shepherdesses. By this romantic sense of things, all the natural lations and duties of life are forgotten; and our emale part of mankind are bred and treated, as if they were designed to inhabit the happy fields of Arcadia, rather than be wives and mothers in Old England. It is indeed, long since I had the happi ness to converse familiarly with this sex, and therefore have been fearful of falling into the error which recluse men are very subject to, that of giving false representations of the world, from which they have retired, by imaginary schemes drawn from their own reflections. An old man cannot easily gain admittance into the dressing-room of ladies; I therefore thought it time well spent to turn over Agrippa, and use all my Occult Art to give my old Cornelian ring the same force with that of Gyges, which I have lately spoken of. By the help of this I went unobserved to a friend's house of mine, and followed the chamber-maid invisibly about twelve of the clock into the bed-chamber of the beauteous Flavia, his fine daughter, just before she got up. I drew the curtains; and being wrapped up in the safety of my old age, could with much pleasure, without passion, behold her sleeping with Waller's poems, and letter fixed in that part of him where every woman thinks herself described. The light flashing upon her face awakened her: she opened her eyes, and her lips too, repeating that piece of false wit in that admired poet: "Such Helen was: and who can blame the boy, This she pronounced with a most bewitching sweetness; but after it fetched a sigh, that methought had more desire than languishment: then took out her letter: and read aloud, for the pleasure, I suppose, of hearing soft words in praise of herself, the following epistle : "Madam, "I sat near you at the opera last night; but knew no entertainment from the vain show and noise about me, while I waited wholly intent upon the motion of your bright eyes, in hopes of a gle that might restore me to the pleasure of sight and hearing in the midst of beauty and harmony. It is said, the hell of the accursed in the next life arises from an incapacity to partake the joys of the blessed, though they were to be admitted to them. Such, I am sure, was my condition all that evening; and if you, my Deity, cannot have so much mercy, as to make me by your influence capable of tasting the satisfactions of life, my being is ended, which consisted only in your favour." The letter was hardly read over, when she rushed out of bed in her wrapping gown, and consulted her glass for the truth of his passion. She raised her head, and turned it to a profile, repeating the last lines, "My being is ended, which consisted only in your favour." The goddess immediately called her maid, and fell to dressing that mischievous face of hers, without any manner of consideration for the mortal who had offered up his petition. Nay, it was so far otherwise, that the whole time of her woman's combing her hair was spent in discourse of the impertinence of his passion, and ended in declaring a resolution, "if she ever had him, to make him wait." She also frankly told the favourite gipsy that was prating to her, "that her passionate lover had put it out of her power to be civil to him, if she were inclined to it; for," said she, "if I am thus celestial to my lover, he will certainly so far think himself disappointed, as I grow into the familiarity and form of a mortal woman. I came away as I went in, without staying for other remarks than what confirmed me in the opiion, that it is from the notions the men inspire hem with, that the women are so fantastical in the alue of themselves. This imaginary pre-eminence which is given to the fair sex, is not only formed from the addresses of people of condition; but it is the fashion and humour of all orders to go regularly |