"I made my first addresses to a young lady in the country; but when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daugh- 5 ter to a fox hunter in the neighborhood.

"I made my next applications to a widow, and attacked her so briskly that I thought myself within a fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, she told me that she intended to keep her ready money and jointure in her 10 own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn, who would adjust with me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so rebuffed by this overture that I never inquired either for her or her attorney afterwards.

"A few months after, I addressed myself to a young 15 lady who was an only daughter and of a good family; I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, said soft things to her, and, in short, made no doubt of her heart; and, though my fortune was not equal to hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny her 20 the man she had fixed her affections upon. But, as I went one day to the house in order to break the matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, and heard, to my unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny was that very morning run away with the butler.

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"I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to this day how I came to miss her, for she had often commended my person and behavior. Her maid, indeed, told me one day that her mistress had said she never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs as Mr. 30 Honeycomb.

"After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, and being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly made a breach in their hearts; but I don't know how it

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came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the daughter's consent, I could never in my life get the old people on my side.

"I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colors if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, had not she 10 been carried off by an hard frost."

As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir Roger, and applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book I had considered last Saturday which deserved to be writ in letters of gold; 15 and taking out a pocket Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall: "Oh! why did our Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With Spirits masculine, create at last

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This novelty on Earth, this fair defect

Of Nature, and not fill the World at once

With men as Angels, without feminine;

Or find some other way to generate

Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen,
And more that shall befall - innumerable

Disturbances on Earth through female snares,

And straight conjunction with this sex. For either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such

As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;

Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain,

Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained
By a far worse, or, if she love, withheld

By parents; or his happiest choice too late

Shall meet, already linked and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame:
Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound."

Sir Roger listened to this passage with great attention, and desiring Mr. Honeycomb to fold down a leaf at the place and lend him his book, the knight put it up in his pocket, and told us that he would read over those verses again before he went to bed.

X. 5

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud, cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered 10 very innocently that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice, and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring Garden, in case it proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of 15 the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being mightily 20 pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked 25 about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says

Sir Roger, "I never make use of anybody to row me that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that had been wounded in the Queen's service. If I 5 was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg."

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My old friend, after having seated himself and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, Io made the best of our way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on 15 the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of 20 the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice to take a survey of this great 25 metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger; "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; 30 but church work is slow, church work is slow!"

I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity,

though at the same time it renders him so popular among all his country neighbors that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire.

He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in 5 town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but to the knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of return- 10 ing the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in the boat, with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length, assuming a face of magistracy, told us that if he were a Middlesex justice he would make such vagrants know that 15 her Majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land.

We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs 20 of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call 25 an aviary of nightingales. "You must understand," says the knight, "there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator! the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself and thought on the widow by the music of the 30 nightingales!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her.