Mr. Bickerstaff does hereby give notice the rack and the torture, only to convince her, that he has taken the two famous Universities she has really fine limbs, without spoiling or of this land under his immediate care, and does distorting them. I expect your directions, behereby promise all tutors and pupils, that he will fore I proceed to dwindle and fall away with hear what can be said of each side between them, despair; which at present I do not think adviseand to correct them impartially, by placing them able, because, if she should recant, she may in orders and classes in the learned world, ac- then hate me perhaps, in the other extreme, for cording to their merit. my tenuity. I am (with impatience) your most humble servant, CHARLES STURDY.' Mr. Bickerstaff has received the advices from Clay-hill, which, with all intelligence from honest Mr. Sturdy and others, shall have their place in our future story. 'SIR,-I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed Platonne, the most unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris, and More, and Milton, and the whole set of intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for, to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understand. ing them literally: why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that make her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition. If I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit. She calls her chariot, vehicle; her furbelowed scarf, pinions; her blue mantua and petticoat is her azure dress; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon. It is my misfortune to be six feet and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and, before I was in love, I had a noble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with two bottles. I am not quite six-and-twenty, and my nose is marked truly aquiline. For these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserably, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region; if I assume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of her sex; but perseverance makes it as bad as fixed aversion. I desire your opinion, whether I may not lawfully play the inquisition upon her, make use of a little force, and put her to My patient has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of Platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a manner peculiar from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every man that has wit, and humour, and raillery, can make a good flatterer for women in general: but a Platonne is not to be touched with panegyric: she will tell you, it is a sensuality in the soul You are not there. to be delighted that way. fore to commend, but silently consent to all she You are to consider, in her the does and says. scorn of you is not humour, but opinion. There were, some years since, a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbours, was approved by seven of the founders. There were as many of our sex who took the liberty to visit their mansions of intended severity; among others,* a famous rake of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He came in first; but, upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a design to tell him this was no place for him or his companions, up goes my grave impudence to the maid; Young woman,' said he, if any of the ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the other side towards the gardens: we are, you must know, gentlemen that are travelling England; after which we shall go into foreign parts, where some of us have already been.' Here he bows in the most humble manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort of carriage. He goes on: 'Now, you must know, we have an ambition to have it to say, that we have a protestant nunnery in England: but pray Mrs. Betty'-'Sir,' she replied, my name is SUSAN, at your service.' Then I heartily beg your pardon'--' No offence in the least,' said she, for I have a cousin-german, whose name is Betty.' 'Indeed,' said he I protest to you, that was more than I knew; I spoke at random: but since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentleman to the favour of a civil salute.' His friend advances, and so on, until they had all saluted her. By this means the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, *It is said, that Mr. Repington, a Warwickshire wag, was the famous rake here alluded to. * at a loss what to do, without courage to pass of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an institution foreign to that of Providence. These desires were implanted in us for reverend purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chastity more heroic.' The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second and a third interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelvemonth.* Any unnatural part is long taking up and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself, Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity upon an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires. From my own Apartment, June 22. The evils of this town increase upon me to great a degree, that I am half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found so it. excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject.' Several worthy gentlemen and critics have The lady immediately answered, 'If what I have said could have contributed to raise any applied to me, to give my censure of an enor thoughts in you that may make for the advance-mity which has been revived, after being long ment of intellectual and divine conversation, I suppressed, and is called punning. I have se should think myself extremely happy.' He veral arguments ready to prove, that he cannot immediately fell back with the profoundest of human society. But the way to expose it be a man of honour, who is guilty of this abuse veneration; then advancing, 'Are you then that admired lady? If I may approach lips which is, like the expedient of curing drunkenness, have uttered things so sacred.-He salutes her. showing a man in that condition; therefore I His friends followed his example. The devoted must give my reader warning, to expect a colwithin stood in amazement where this would lection of these offences; without which preend, to see Madonella receive their address paration, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention of it in good company; and their company. But Rake goes on-We would not transgress rules; but if we may take and I hope, I shall be understood to do it, as a the liberty to see the place you have thought fit divine mentions oaths and curses only for their to choose for ever, we would go into such parts condemnation. I shall dedicate this discourse of the gardens, as is consistent with the severi- to a gentleman, my very good friend, who is the Janust of our times, and whom, by his years ties you have imposed on yourselves.' and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but by his dress and morals, of this. To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair-one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbours, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, that he sincerely wished men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for the generation, as well as support, of our species.' This was spoken with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, 'Sir, under the notion *The person here represented, or rather greatly mis represented, under the name of Madonella, a diminutive from Madona, which signifies the Virgin Mary, was Mrs. Mary Astell, a lady of superior understanding, of considerable learning, and singular piety. She was the daughter of a merchant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where she was born about 1668, and lived about twenty years. The remainder of her inoffensive, irreproachable, and exemplary life she spent at London and Chelsea, where she died in 1731. An allusion to, or rather a quotation from, sir T. Brown's Religio Medici.` St. James's Coffee-house, June 22. Last night arrived two mails from Holland, which bring letters from the Hague of the twenty-eighth instant, N. S. with advice, that the enemy lay encamped behind a strong retrenchment, with the marsh of Romiers on their right and left, extending itself as far as Bethune; La Basse is in their front, Lens in their rear, and their camp is strengthened by another line from Lens to Douay. The duke of Marlborough caused an exact observation to be made of their ground, and the works by which they were covered, which appeared so strong, that it was not thought proper to attack them in their present posture. However the This is mere fiction, and unpardonable, as it seems to imply an oblique censure on Mrs. Astell, of a nature totally repugnant to her eminently virtuous and respectable character. Under the fanciful name of Janus, Steele clearly alludes to Swift, the real author of the preceding part of this paper, and pays him some compliments in return for his communication. duke thought fit to make a feint as if he de- | wittiest of them all marry one day or other, it signed it; his grace accordingly marched from is impossible to believe, that if a man thought the abbey at Looze, as did prince Eugene from he should be for ever incapable of being received Lampret, and advanced with all possible dili. by a woman of merit and honour, he would gence towards the enemy. To favour the ap- persist in an abandoned way; and deny himself pearance of an intended assault, the ways were the possibility of enjoying the happiness of wellmade, and orders distributed in such manner, governed desires, orderly satisfactions, and hothat none in either camp could have thoughts nourable methods of life. If our sex were wise, of any thing but charging the enemy by break a lover should have a certificate from the last of day next morning; but soon after the fall woman he served, how he was turned away, beof the night of the twenty-sixth, the whole army fore he was received into the service of another : faced towards Tournay, which place they in- but at present any vagabond is welcome, provested early in the morning of the twenty-se- vided he promises to enter into our livery. It venth. The marshal Villars was so confident is wonderful, that we will not take a footman that we designed to attack him, that he had without credentials from his last master; and drawn great part of the garrison of the place, in the greatest concern of life, we make no which is now invested, into the field; for which scruple of falling into a treaty with the most reason, it is presumed, it must submit within a notorious offender in this behaviour against small time, which the enemy cannot prevent, others. But this breach of commerce between but by coming out of their present camp, and the sexes proceeds from an unaccountable prehazarding a general engagement. These ad- valence of custom, by which a woman is to the vices add, that the garrison of Mons had march-last degree reproachable for being deceived, and ed out under the command of marshal d'Aco; a man suffers no loss of credit for being a dewhich, with the Bavarians, Walloons, and the ceiver. troops of Cologn, have joined the grand army of the enemy. No. 33.] Saturday, June 25, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines- BY MRS. JENNY DISTAFF, HALF-SISTER MR. BICKERSTAFF. From my own Apartment, June 23. P. Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? As for my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and therefore solemnly declare no vow TO shall deceive me, but that of marriage: for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my glass) 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. My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against Saturday lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand; for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to the disadvantage of my own sex. It is much to be lamented, that it is necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency. 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 I gladly embrace this opportunity to express took the liberty, which,' she said, 'her years myself with the resentment I ought, on people and the zeal she had for my welfare gave her who take liberties of speech before that sex, claim to, to assure me, that she observed some of whom the honoured names of Mother, parts of my behaviour which would lead me into Daughter, and Sister are a part: I had like to errors, and give encouragement to some to have named wife in the number; but the sense-entertain hopes I did not think of. What made less world are so mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue, that the frailties of women are to be imputed to the false ornaments which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices of men upon women's secret approbation of libertine characters in them. I did not care to give up a point; but, now he is out of the way, I cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he asserted: but if you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and 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; 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. 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 scized me in his arms: his design was too evident. In my utmost distress, I fell upon my knees 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 service 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 praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the inother 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 was by this time 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. That minis ress 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,' says she, you may very well remem-structions of piety, religion, and reason, for no ber 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 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 throws 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 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 a hope that he might then make a declaration of honour and passion. This threw my eyes 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 motives-but 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-a helpless innocent maid-besides that the place' He saw me in as great confusion as himself; · 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. quest of passion gives ten times more happiness than we can reap from the gratification of it; and she that has got over such a one as mine, will stand among Beaux and Pretty Fellows, with as much safety as in a summer's day among grasshoppers and butterflies. The con P. S. I have ten millions of things more against men, if I ever 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 multitudes of people, that many persons of distinction will be obliged to lie in tents, as long as those courts continue in that place. No. 34.] Tuesday, June 28, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines- Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ. P. Having taken upon me to cure all the dis. tempers which proceed from affections of the mind, I have laboured, since I first kept this public stage, to do all the good I could, and have perfected many cures at my own lodgings; carefully avoiding the common methods of mountebanks, to do their most eminent operations in sight of the people; but must be so just to my patients as to declare, they have testified under their hands, their sense of my poor abilities, and the good have done them, which I publish for the benefit of the world, and not out of any thoughts of private advantage. to give it when the patient is in the rage of the distemper; a bride in her first month, a lady soon after her husband's being knighted, or any person of either sex, who has lately obtained any new good fortune or preferment, must be prepared some time before they use it. It has an effect upon others, as well as the patient, when it is taken in due form. Lady Petulant has by the use of it cured her husband of jealousy, and lady Gad her whole neighbourhood of detraction. The fame of these things, added to my being an old fellow, makes me extremely acceptable to the fair sex. You would hardly believe me, when I tell you there is not a man in town so much their delight as myself. They make no more of visiting me, than going to madam Depingle's; there were two of them, namely, Damia and Clidamira, (I assure you women of distinction) who came to see me this morning in their way to prayers; and being in a very diverting humour (as innocence always makes people cheerful,) they would needs have me, according to the distinction of Pretty and Very Pretty Fellows, inform them if I thought either of them had a title to the Very Pretty among those of their own sex; and if I did, which was the more deserving of the two? To put them to the trial, 'Look ye,' said I, 'I must not rashly give my judgment in matters of this importance; pray let me see you dance, I play upon the kit.' They immediately fell back to the lower end of the room (you may be sure they courtesied low enough to me) and began. Never were two in the world so equally matched, and both scholars to my name-sake Isaac. Never was man in so dangerous a condition as myself, when they began to expand their charms. Oh! ladies, ladies, cried I, not half that air, you will fire the house.' Both smiled; for, by the bye, there is no carrying a metaphor too far, when a lady's charms are spoken of. Somebody, I think, has called a fine woman dancing, a brandished torch of beauty.' These rivals moved with such an agreeable freedom, that you would believe their I have cured fine Mrs. Spy of a great imper-gesture was the necessary effect of the music, fection in her eyes, which made her eternally and not the product of skill and practice. rolling them from one coxcomb to another in Now Clidamira came on with a crowd of gra public places, in so languishing a manner, that ces, and demanded my judgment with so sweet it at once lessened her own power, and her be- an air-and she had no sooner carried it, but holders' vanity. Twenty drops of my ink, placed Damia made her utterly forgot, by a gentle in certain letters on which she attentively looked sinking, and a rigadoon step. The contest held for half an hour, have restored her to the true a full half-hour; and, I protest, I saw no manuse of her sight; which is, to guide and not ner of difference in their perfections, until they mislead us. Ever since she took the liquor, came up together, and expected sentence. which I call Bickerstaff's circumspection-water, 'Look ye, ladies,' said I, 'I see no difference she looks right forward, and can bear being in the least in your performance; but you, looked at for half a day without returning one Clidamira, seem to be so well satisfied, that I glance. This water has a peculiar virtue in it, shall determine for you, that I must give it to which makes it the only true cosmetic or beauty- Damia, who stands with so much diffidence and wash in the world: the nature of it is such, that fear, after showing an equal merit to what she if you go to a glass with a design to admire pretends to. Therefore, Clidamira, you are a your face, it immediately changes it into down- pretty; but, Damia, you are a very pretty lady: right deformity. If you consult it only to look for, said I, beauty loses its force, if not accom with a better countenance upon your friends, panied with modesty. She that has an humble it immediately gives an alacrity to the visage, opinion of herself wil! have every body's ap and new grace to the whole person. There is, indeed, a great deal owing to the constitution *Mr. Isaac, a famous dancing-master at that time of the person to whom it is applied: it is in vain was a Frenchman, and a Roman Catholic. L |