choice.' This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate Street, with an hundred-pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon the said bag:

"The fruitful mother of a hundred more.'

"Whatever tradesman will try the experiment, and begin the day after you publish this my discourse to treat his customers all alike, and all reasonably and honestly, I will ensure him the same

If you are wise, add not to the troubles which attend the passion of love and bear patiently those which are inseparable from it.

I WAS the other day driving in a hack through Gerrard Street, when my eye was immediately catched with the prettiest object imaginable, the face of a very fair girl, between thirteen and fourteen, fixed at the chin to a painted sash, and made part of the landscape. It seemed admirably done, and, upon throwing myself eagerly out of the coach to look at it, it laughed and flung from the window. This amiable figure dwelt upon me; and I was considering the vanity of the girl, and her pleasant coquetry in acting a picture until she was taken notice of, and raised the admiration of her beholders. This little circumstance made me run into reflections upon the force of beauty, and the wonderful influence the female sex has upon the other part of the species. Our hearts are seized with their enchantments, and there are few of us, but brutal men, who by that hardness lose the chief pleasure in them, can resist their insinuations, though never so much against our own interest and opinion. It is common with women to destroy the good effects a man's following his own way and inclination might have upon his honour and fortune, by interposing their power over him in matters wherein they cannot influence him, but to his loss and disparagement. I do not know therefore a task so difficult in human life, as to be proof against the importunities of a woman a man loves. There is certainly no armour against tears, sullen looks, or at best constrained familiarities, in her whom

you usually meet with transport and alacrity. Sir Walter Raleigh was quoted in a letter (of a very ingenious correspondent of mine) on this subject. That author, who had lived in courts, camps, travelled through many countries, and seen many men under several climates, and of as various complexions, speaks of our impotence to resist the wiles of women in very severe terms. His words are as follow:

What means did the devil find out, or what instruments did his own subtlety present him, as fittest and aptest to work his mischief by? Even the unquiet vanity of the woman; so as by Adam's hearkening to the voice of his wife, contrary to the express commandment of the living God, mankind by that her incantation became the subject of labour, sorrow, and death; the woman being given to man for a comforter and companion, but not for a counsellor. It is also to be noted by whom the woman was tempted; even by the most ugly and unworthy of all beasts, into whom the devil entered and persuaded. Secondly, What was the motive of her disobedience? Even a desire to know what was most unfitting her knowledge; an affection which has ever since remained in all the posterity of her sex. Thirdly, What was it that moved the man to yield to her persuasions? even the same cause which hath moved all men since to the like consent, namely, an unwillingness to grieve her, or make her sad, lest she should pine, and be overcome with sorrow. But if Adam in the state of perfection, and Solomon, the son of David, God's chosen servant, and himself a man endued with the greatest wisdom, did both of them disobey their Creator by the persuasion, and for the love they bare to a woman, it is not so wonderful as lamentable, that other men in succeeding ages have been allured to so many inconvenient and wicked practices by the persuasion of their wives, or other beloved darlings, who cover over and shadow many malicious purposes with a counterfeit passion of dissimulate sorrow and unquietness."

The motions of the minds of lovers are no where so well described as in the works of skilful writers for the stage. The scene between Fulvia and Curius, in the second act of Jonson's Catiline, is an excellent picture of the power of a lady over her gallant. The wench plays with his affections; and as a man of all places in the world wishes to make a good figure with his mistress, upon her upbraiding him with want of spirit, he alludes to enterprises which he cannot reveal but with the hazard of his life. When he is worked thus far, with a little flattery of her opinion of his gallantry, and desire to know more of it out of her overflowing fondness to him,, he brags to her till his life is in her disposal.

When the man is thus liable to be vanquished by the charms of her he loves, the safest way is to determine what is proper to be done, but to avoid all expostulation with her before he exe

cutes what he has resolved. Women are ever to hard for us upon a treaty; and one must consider how senseless a thing it is to argue with one whose looks and gestures are more prevalent with you, than your reasons and arguments can be with her. It is a most miserable slavery to submit to what you disapprove, and give up a truth for no other reason, but that you had not fortitude to support you in asserting it. A man has enough to do to conquer his own unreasonable wishes and desires: but he does that in vain, if he has those of another to gratify. Let his pride be in his wife and family, let him give them all conveniences of life in such a manner as if he were proud of them; but let it be his own innocent pride, and not their exorbitant desires, which are indulged by him. In this case all the little arts imaginable are used to soften a man's heart, and raise his passion above his understanding. But in all concessions of this kind, a man should consider whether the present he makes flows from his own love, or the importunity of his beloved. If from the latter, he is her slave; if from the former, her friend. We laugh it off, and do not weigh this subjection to women with that seriousness which so important a circumstance deserves. Why was courage given to man, if his wife's fears are to frustrate it? When this is once indulged, you are no longer her guardian and protector, as you were designed by nature; but, in compliance to her weaknesses, you have disabled yourself from avoiding the misfortunes into which they will lead you both, and you are to see the hour in which you are to be reproached by herself for that very complaisance to her. It is indeed the most difficult mastery over ourselves we can possibly attain, to resist the grief of her who charms us; but let the heart ache, be the anguish never so quick and painful, it is what must be suffered and passed through, if you think to live like a gentleman, or be conscious to yourself that you are a man of honesty. The old argument, that "you' do not love me if you deny me this," which first was used to obtain a trifle, by habitual success will oblige the unhappy man who gives way to it, to resign the cause even of his country and his honour.

"FINDING that my last letter took, I do intend to continue my

epistolary correspondence with thee, on those dear confounded creatures, women. Thou knowest all the little learning I am master of is upon that subject; I never looked in a book, but for their sakes. I have lately met with two pure stories for a SPECTATOR, which I am sure will please mightily, if they pass through thy hands. The first of them I found by chance in an English book, called Herodotus, that lay in my friend Dapperwit's window, as I visited him one morning. It luckily opened in the place where I met with the following account. He tells us, that it was the manner among the Persians to have several fairs in the kingdom, at which all the young unmarried women were annually exposed to sale. The men who wanted wives came hither to provide themselves every woman was given to the bighest bidder, and the money which she fetched laid aside for the public use, to be employed as thou shalt hear by and by. By this means the richest people had the choice of the market, and culled out all the most extraordinary beauties. As soon as the fair was thus picked, the refuse was to be distributed among the poor, and among those who could not go to the price of a beauty. Several of these married the agreeables, without paying a farthing for them, unless somebody chanced to think it worth his while to bid for them, in which case the best bidder was always the purchaser. But now you must know, SPEC, it happened in Persia, as it does in our own country, that there were as many ugly women as beauties or agreeables; so that by consequence, after the magistrates had put off a great many, there were still a great many that stuck upon their hands. In order therefore to clear the market, the money which the beauties had sold for, was disposed of among the ugly; so that a poor man, who could not afford to have a beauty for his wife, was forced to take up with a fortune; the greatest portion being always given to the most deformed. To this the author adds, that every poor man was forced to live kindly with his wife, or, in case he repented of his bargain, to return her portion with her to the next public sale.

"What I would recommend to thee on this occasion is, to establish such an imaginary fair in Great Britain: thou couldst make it very pleasant, by matching women of quality with cobblers and carmen, or describing titles and garters leading off in great ceremony shopkeepers and farmers' daughters. Though to tell thee the truth, I am confoundedly afraid, that as the love of money prevails in our island more than it did in Persia, we should find that some of our greatest men would choose out the portions, and rival one another for the richest piece of deformity: and that, on the contrary, the toasts and belles would be bought up by extravagant heirs, gamesters, and spendthrifts. Thou couldst make very pretty reflections upon this occasion in honour of the Persian politics, who took care, by such marriages, to beautify the upper

part of the species, and to make the greatest persons in the government the most graceful. But this I shall leave to thy judicious pen.

'I have another story to tell thee, which I likewise met with in a book. It seems the general of the Tartars, after having laid siege to a strong town in China, and taken it by storm, would set to sale all the women that were found in it. Accordingly he put each of them into a sack, and, after having thoroughly considered the value of the woman who was inclosed, marked the price that was demanded for her upon the sack. There were a great confluence of chapmen, that resorted from every part, with a design to purchase, which they were to do 'unsight unseen.' The book mentions a merchant in particular, who, observing one of the sacks to be marked pretty high, bargained for it, and carried it off with him to his house. As he was resting with it upon a halfway bridge, he was resolved to take a survey of his purchase; upon opening the sack, a little old woman popped her head out of it; at which the adventurer was in so great a rage, that he was going to shoot her out into the river. The old lady, however, begged him first of all to hear her story, by which he learned that she was sister to a great Mandarin, who would infallibly make the fortune of his brother-in-law as soon as he should know to whose lot she fell. Upon which the merchant again tied her up in his sack, and carried her to his house, where she proved an excellent wife, and procured him all the riches from her brother that she had promised him.

"I fancy if I was disposed to dream a second time, I could make a tolerable vision upon this plan. I would suppose all the unmarried women in London and Westminster brought to market in sacks, with their respective prices on each sack. The first sack that is sold is marked with five thousand pound: upon the opening of it, I find it filled with an admirable housewife, of an agreeable countenance: the purchaser, upon hearing her good qualities, pays down her price very cheerfully. The second I would open, should be a five hundred pound sack: the lady in it, to our surprise, has the face and person of a toast: as we are wondering how she came to be set at so low a price, we hear that she would have been valued at ten thousand pound, but that the public had made those abatements for her being a scold. I would afterwards find some beautiful, modest, and discreet woman, that should be the top of the market: and perhaps discover half a dozen romps tied up together in the same sack, at one hundred pound a-head. The prude and the coquette should be valued at the same price, though the first should go off the better of the two. I fancy thou wouldst like such a vision, had I time to finish it; because, to talk in thy own way, there is a moral in it. Whatever thou mayest think of it, pr'ythee do not make any of thy queer apologies for