unpunished without its assistance; for this reason it is, that I would strictly recommend to my young females not to dally with men whose circumstances can support them against their falsehood, and have the fashion of a base self-interested world on their side, which, instead of avenging the cause of an abused women, will proclaim her dishonour; while the person injured is shunned like a pestilence, he who did the wrong sees no difference in the reception he meets with, nor is he the less welcome to the rest of the sex, who are still within the pale of honour and innocence.

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What makes this circumstance the more lamentable, is, that it frequently falls upon those who have greatest merit and understanding. Gentleness of disposition, and taste of polite conversation, I have often known snares towards vice in some, whilst sullenness and disrelish of any thing that was agreeable, have been the only defences of virtue in others. I have my unhappy correspondent's letter before me; and she says she is sure, he is so much a gentleman, and he has that natural softness, that if he reads any thing moving on this subject in my paper, it will certainly make him think. Poor girl! Cæsar ashamed! Has not he seen Pharsalia?' Does the poor creature imagine that a scrip of paper, a collection of sentences, and an old man's talk of pleasure which he is past, will have an effect upon him who could go on in a series of falsehood; let drop ambiguous sentences in her absence, to give her false hope from the repetition of them by some friend that heard them; that could pass as much time in the pursuit of her, as would have attained some useful art or science; and that only to attain a short revel of his senses, under a stupor of faith, ho

It

nour, and conscience! No; the destruction of a well-educated young woman is not accomplished by the criminal who is guilty of it, in a sudden start of desire; he is not surprised into it by frailty; but arrives at it by care, skill, and meditation. is no small aggravation of the guilt, that it is a thousand times conquered and resisted, even while it is prosecuted. He that waits for fairer occasions, for riper wishes, for the removal of a parti cular objection, or the conquest of any certain scruple, has it in his power to obey his conscience, which often calls him, during the intrigue, a villain and a destroyer. There can be nothing said for such an evil: but that the restraints of shame and ignominy are broken down by the prevalence of custom. I do not, indeed, expect that my precautions will have any great weight with men of mode; they may be some way efficacious on those who have not yet taken their party as to vice and virtue for life; but I know not how it is, that our sex has usurped a certain authority to exclude chastity out of the catalogue of masculine virtues, by which means females adventure all, against those who have nothing to lose; and they have nothing but empty sighs, tears, and reproaches, against those who reduced them to real sorrow, and infamy. But as I am now talking to the world yet untainted, I will venture to recommend chastity as the noblest male qualification.

It is methinks very unreasonable, that the dif ficulty of attaining all other good habits is what makes them honourable, but in this case the very attempt is become ridiculous. But, in spite of all the raillery of the world, truth is still truth, and will have beauties inseparable from it. I should upon this occasion bring examples of heroic chas

tity, were I not afraid of having my paper thrown away by the modish part of the town, who go no farther, at best, than the mere absence of ill, and are contented to be rather irreproachable than praiseworthy. In this particular, a gentleman in the court of Cyrus reported to his majesty the charms and beauty of Panthea, and ended his panegyric by telling him, that since he was at leisure he would carry him to visit her: but that prince, who is a very great man to this day, answered the pimp, because he was a man of quality, without roughness, and said with a smile, If I . should visit her upon your introduction now I have leisure, I do not know but I might go again upon her own invitation, when I ought to be better employed.' But when I cast about all the instances which I have met with in all my reading, I find not one so generous, so honest, and so noble, as that of Joseph in holy writ. When his master had trusted him so unreservedly (to speak it in the emphatical manner of the scripture) He knew not aught he had save the bread which he did eat,' he was so unhappy as to appear irresistibly beautiful to his mistress; but when this shameless woman proceeds to solicit him, how gallant is his answer!

Behold my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he hath to my hand, there is none greater in the house than 1, neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife.' The same argument, which base mind would have made to itself for committing the evil, was to this brave man the greatest motive for forbearing it, that he could do it with impunity; the malice and falsehood of the disappointed woman naturally arose on that occasion, and there is but a short step from the practice

of virtue, to the hatred of it. It would therefore be worth serious consideration in both sexes, and the matter is of importance enough to them, to ask themselves whether they would change lightness of heart, indolence of mind, chearful meals, untroubled slumbers, and gentle dispositions, for a constant pruriency, which shuts out all things that are great or indifferent, clouds the imagination with insensibility and prejudice to all manner of delight, but that which is common to all creatures that extend. their species.

A loose behaviour and an inattention to every thing that is serious, flowing from some degree of this petulancy, is observable in the generality of the youth of both sexes in this age. It is the one common face of most public meetings, and breaks in upon the sobriety, I will not say severity, that we ought to exercise in churches. The pert boys and flippant girls are but faint followers of those in the same inclinations, at more advanced years. I know not who can oblige them to mend their manners; all that I pretend to, is to enter my protest that they are neither fine gentlemen nor fine ladies for this behaviour. As for the portraitures which I would propose, as the images of agreeable men and women, if they are not imitated or regarded, I can only answer, as I remember Mr. Dryden did on the like occasion, when a young fellow, just come from the play of Cleomenes, told him in raillery against the continency of his principal character, if I had been alone with a lady I should not have passed my time like your Spartan ; • That be' answered the bard with a very grave face, but give me leave to tell you, sir, you are no hero.'

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may

N° 46. MONDAY, MAY 4, 1713.

Sola est cœlesti digna reperta tero.

OVID, 3 Ep. de Ponto, i. 118.

Alone found worthy a celestial bed.

YESTERDAY, at my lady Lizard's tea-table, the discourse happened to turn upon women of renown such as have distinguished themselves in the world by surprising actions, or by any great and shining qualities, so as to draw upon themselves the envy of their own sex, and the admiration of ours. My lady has been curious in collecting the lives of the most famous, of which she has a considerable number, both in print and manuscript. This naturally led me to speak of madam Maintenon: and, at the request of my lady and her daughters, I have undertaken to put together such circumstances of her life, as I had formerly gathered out of books, and picked up from conversation in my travels.

"Madam Maintenon was born a gentlewoman, her name is Frances Daubigné. Monsieur Daubigné, her grandfather, was not only a person of condition, but likewise of great merit. He was born in the year 1550, and died in 1630, in the 80th year of his age. A little before his death he writ his own epitaph, which is engraven upon his tomb-stone in the cloister of St. Peter's church at Geneva, and may be seen in Spon's history of that republic. He was a leading man among the Protestants in France, and much courted to come over