would be so many bars to my happiness with any other man. However, since Frisk can wait, I shall enjoy a summer or two longer, and remain a single woman, in the sublime pleasure of being followed and admired; which nothing can equal except that of being beloved by you. 1 am, &c."

Will's Coffee-house, May 30.

My chief business here this evening was to speak to my friends in behalf of honest Cave Underhill, who has been a comic for three generations: my father admired him extremely when he was a boy. There is certainly nature excellently represented in his manner of action; in which he ever avoided the general fault in players, of doing too much. It must be confessed, he has not the merit of some ingenious persons now on the stage, of adding to his authors; for the actors were so dull in the last age, that many of them have gone out of the world, without having ever spoke one word of their own in the theatre. Poor Cave is so mortified, that he quibbles and tells you, he pretends only to act a part fit for a man who has one foot in the grave, viz. a grave-digger. All admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the gratitude to be present on the last day of his acting, who if he does not happen to please them, will have it even then to say, that it is his first offence.

But there is a gentleman here, who says he has it from good hands, that there is actually a subscription made by many persons of wit and quality for the encouragement of new comedies. This design will very much contribute to the improvement and diversion of the town; but as every man is most concerned for himself, I, who am of a saturnine and melancholy complexion, cannot but murmur, that there is not an equal invitation to write trage.

dies; having by me, in my book of common places, enough to enable me to finish a very sad one by the fifth of the next month. I have the farewell of a general, with a truncheon in his hand, dying for love, in six lines. I have the principles of a politician (who does all the mischief in the play), together with his declaration on the vanity of ambition in his last moments, expressed in a page and an half. I have all my oaths ready, and my similies want nothing but application. I will not pretend to give you an account of the plot, it being the same design upon which all tragedies have been writ for several years last past; and, from the beginning of the first scere, the frequenters of the house may know as well as the author when the battle is to be fought, the lady to yield, and the hero proceed to his wedding and coronation. Besides these advantages which I have in readiness, I have an eminent tragedian very much my friend, who shall come in and go through the whole five acts without troubling me for one sentence, whether he is to kill or be killed, love or be loved, win battles or lose them, or whatever other tragical performance I shall please to assign him.

From my own Apartment, May 30.

I have this day received a letter, subscribed Fidelia, that gives me an account of an inchantment under which a young lady suffers, and desires my help to exorcise her from the power of the sorcerer. Her lover is a rake of sixty; the lady a virtuous woman of twenty-five her relations are to the last degree afflicted, and amazed at this irregular passion. Their sorrow I know not how to remove, but can their astonishment; for, there is no spirit in woman half so prevalent as that of contradiction, which is the sole cause of her perseverance. Let

the whole family go dressed in a body, and call the bride to-morrow morning to her nuptials, and I will undertake the inconstant will forget her lover in the midst of all his aches: but if this expedient does not succeed, I must be so just to the young lady's distinguishing sense, as to applaud her choice. A fine young woman, at last, is but what is due from fate to an honest fellow, who has suffered so unmercifully by the sex; and I think we cannot enough celebrate her heroic virtue, who (like the patriot that ended a pestilence by plunging himself into a gulph) gives herself up to gorge that dragon which has devoured so many virgins before her.

*A letter directed "To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer and Physician in ordinary to her Majesty's subjects of Great Britain, with respect," is come to hand.

No 23. THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli.

JUV. Sat. 1. 85, 86.

Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,
Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

White's Chocolate-house, May 31.

P.

THE generality of mankind are so very fond of this world, and of staying in it, that a man cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but they will, in spite of his teeth, make him a physician also, that being

the science the worldlings have most need of. I pretended, when I first set up, to astrology only; but, I am told, I have deep skill also in medicine. I am applied to now by a gentleman for my advice in behalf of his wife, who, upon the least matrimonial difficulty, is excessively troubled with fits, and can bear no manner of passion without falling into immediate convulsions. I must confess it is a case I have known before, and remember the party was recovered by certain words pronounced in the midst of the fit, by the learned doctor who performed the cure. These ails have usually their beginning from the affections of the mind; therefore you must have patience to let me give you an instance, whereby you may discern the cause of the distemper, and then proceed in the cure as follows:

A fine town-lady was married to a gentleman of antient descent in one of the counties of Great Britain, who had good-humour to a weakness, and was that sort of person of whom it is usually said, he is no man's enemy but his own : one who had too much tenderness of soul to have any authority with his wife; and she too little sense to give him any authority, for that reason: his kind wife ob served this temper in him, and made proper use of it; but, knowing it was below a gentlewoman to wrangle, she resolved upon an expedient to save decorum, and wear her dear to her point at the same time. She therefore took upon her to govern him, by falling into fits whenever she was repulsed in a request, or contradicted in a discourse. It was a fish-day, when, in the midst of her husband's good-humour at table, she bethought herself to try her project she made signs that she had swallowed a bone. The man grew pale as ashes, and ran to her assistance, calling for drink. "No, my dear," said she, recovering, "it is down; do not be fright,

ened." This accident betrayed his softness enough. The next day she complained, a lady's chariot, whose husband had not half his estate, had a crane-neck, and hung with twice the air that hers did. He answered," Madam, you know my income; you know I have lost two coach-horses this spring." down she fell" Hartshorn Betty, Susan, Alice, throw water in her face." With nuch care and pains she was at last brought to herself, and the vehicle in which she visited was amended in the nicest manner, to prevent relapses; but they frequently happened during that husband's whole life, which he had the good fortune to end in few years after, The disconsolate soon pitched upon a very agreeable successor, whom she very prudently designed to govern by the same method. This man knew her little arts, and resolved to break through all tenderness, and be absolute master as soon as occasion offered. One day it happened, that a discourse arose about furniture; he was very glad of the occasion, and fell into an invective against china, protes.ing he would never let five pounds more of his money be laid out that way as long as he breathed. She immediately fainted-he starts up as amazed, and calls for help--the maids run to the closet. He chafes her face, bends her forward, and beats the palms of her hands: her convulsions increase, and down she tumbles on the floor, where she lies quite dead, in spite of what the whole family, from the nursery to the kitchen, could do for her relief.

While every servant was thus helping or lamenting their mistress, he, fixing his cheek to hers, seemed to be following in a trance of sorrow; but secretly whispers her, "My dear, this will never do; what is within my power and fortune, you may always command; but none of your artifices: you are quite in other hands than those you passed