worth. I could likewise let any one have a bargain of cockle-shells. I would also desire your advice, whether I had best sell my beetles in a lump, or by retail. The gentleman above-mentioned, who was my husband's friend, would have me make an auction of all his goods, and is now drawing up a catalogue of every particular for that purpose, with the two following words in great letters over the head of them, Auctio Gimcrackiana. But upon talking with him, I began to suspect he is as mad as poor Sir Nicholas was. Your advice in all these particulars will be a great piece of charity to,

SIR,

Your most humble servant,

ELIZABETH GIMCRACK."

I shall answer the foregoing letter, and give the widow my best advice, as soon as I can find out chapmen for the wares which she has to put off. In the mean time, I shall give my reader the sight of a letter, which I have received from another female correspondent by the same post.

"GOOD MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"I am convinced by a late paper of yours, that a passionate woman, who among the common people goes under the name of a scold, is one of the most insupportable creatures in the world. But, alas! Sir, what can we do? I have made a thousand vows and resolutions every morning to guard myself against this frailty; but have generally broken them before dinner, and could never in my life hold out until the second course was set upon the table. What most troubles me is, that my husband is as patient and good-natured as your own Worship, or any man living can be. Pray give me some directions, for I would observe the strictest and se

verest rules you can think of to cure myself of this distemper, which is apt to fall into my tongue every moment. I am, Sir,

Your most humble servant, &c."

In answer to this most unfortunate lady, I must acquaint her, that there is now in town an ingenious physician of my acquaintance, who undertakes to cure all the vices and defects of the mind by inward medicines or outward applications. I shall give the world an account of his patients and his cures in other Papers, when I shall be more at leisure to treat upon this subject. I shall only here inform my correspondent, that, for the benefit of such ladies as are troubled with virulent tongues, he has prepared a cold-bath, over which there is fastened at the end of a long pole, a very convenient chair, curiously gilt and carved. When the patient is seated in this chair, the doctor lifts up the pole, and gives her two or three total immersions in the cold-bath, until such time as she has quite lost the use of speech. This operation so effectually chills the tongue, and refrigerates the blood, that a woman, who at her entrance into the chair is extremely passionate and sonorous, will come out as silent and gentle as a lamb. The doctor told me, he would not practise this experiment upon women of fashion, had not he seen it made upon those of meaner condition with very good effect.

N° 222. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1710.

Chrysidis udas

Ebrius ante fores extinctâ cum face cantat.

PERSIUS, Sat. v. 165.

Shall I at Chrysis' door the night prolong
With midnight serenade, or drunken song?

R. WYNNE.

From my own Apartment, September 8. WHEREAS, by letters from Nottingham, we have advice, that the young ladies of that place complain for want of sleep, by reason of certain riotous lovers, who for this last summer have very much infested the streets of that eminent city, with violins and bass-viols, between the hours of 12 and 4 in the morning, to the great disturbance of many of her Majesty's peaceable subjects: And whereas I have been importuned to publish some edict against those midnight alarms, which, under the name of serenades, do greatly annoy many well-disposed persons, not only in the place above-mentioned, but also in most of the polite towns of this island: I have taken that matter into my serious consideration, and do find that this custom is by no means to be indulged in this country and climate.

It is indeed very unaccountable, that most of our British youth should take such great delight in these nocturnal expeditions. Your robust true-born Briton, that has not yet felt the force of flames and darts, has a natural inclination to break windows;.

while those whose natural ruggedness has been soothed and softened by gentle passions, have as strong a propensity to languish under them, especially if they have a fiddler behind them to utter their complaints for, as the custom prevails at present, there is scarce a young man of any fashion in a corporation, who does not make love with the townmusic. The Waits often help him through his courtship; and my friend Banister has told me, he was proffered five hundred pounds by a young fellow, to play but one winter under the window of a lady, that was a great fortune, but more cruel than ordinary. One would think they hoped to conquer their mistresses hearts as people tame hawks and eagles, by keeping them awake or breaking their sleep when they are falling into it.

I have endeavoured to search into the original of this impertinent way of making love, which, according to some authors, is of great antiquity, If we may believe Monsieur Dacier and other critics, Horace's tenth Ode of the third book was originally a Serenade. And if I was disposed to shew my learning, I could produce a line of him in another place, which seems to have been the burden of au old heathen Serenade.

Audis minus, et minus jam, "Me tuo longas pereunte noctes, "Lydia, dormis ?"

HOR. 1 Od. xxv.

Now less and less assail thine ear

These plaints, "Ah! sleepest thou, my dear,
"While I, whole nights, thy True-love here

"Am dying?"

FRANCIS.

But notwithstanding the opinions of many learned men upon this subject, I rather agree with them

* Mr. John Banister, a composer, and at the head of the band in Drury-lane.

who look upon this custom, as now practised, to have been introduced by castrated musicians; who found out this method of applying themselves to their mistresses at these hours, when men of hoarser voices express their passions in a more vulgar method. It must be confessed, that your Italian eunuchs do practise this manner of courtship to this day.

But whoever were the persons that first thought of the serenade, the authors of all countries are unanimous in subscribing the invention to Italy.

There are two circumstances, which qualified that country above all others for this midnight music. The first I shall mention was the softness of their climate.

This gave the lover opportunities of being abroad in the air, or of lying upon the earth whole hours together, without fear of damps or dews; but as for our tramontane lovers, when they begin their midnight complaint with,

My lodging upon the cold ground is,

we are not to understand them in the rigour of the letter; since it would be impossible for a British swain to condole himself long in that situation, without dying for his mistress. A man might as well serenade in Greenland as in our region. Milton seems to have had in his thoughts the absurdity of these Northern Serenades, in the censure which he passes upon them:

Or midnight ball,

Or Serenade, which the starv'd lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.

The truth of it is, I have often pitied, in a winter night, a vocal musician, and have attributed