new face in new quarters of the world. My first step I chose with judgment; for I went to Astrop*, and came down among a crowd of academics, at one dash, the impudentest fellow they had ever seen in their lives. Flushed with this success, I made love and was happy. Upon this conquest I thought it would be unlike a gentleman to stay long with my mistress, and crossed the country to Bury+. I could give you a very good account of myself at that place also. At these two ended my first summer of gallantry. The winter following you would wonder at it, but I relapsed into modesty upon coming among people of figure in London, yet not so much but that the ladies who had formerly laughed at me, said, "Bless us! how wonderfully that gentleman is improved!" Some familiarities about the playhouses towards the end of the ensuing winter, made me conceive new hopes of adventures. And instead of returning the next summer to Astrop or Bury, I thought myself qualified to go to Epsom, and followed a young woman, whose relations were jealous of my place in her favour, to Scarborough. I carried my point, and in my third year aspired to go to Tunbridge, and in the autumn of the same year made my appearance at Bath. I was now got into the way of talk proper for ladies, and was run into a vast acquaintance among them, which I always improved to the best advantage. In all this course of time, and some years following, I found a sober modest man was always looked upon by both sexes as a precise unfashioned fellow of no life or spirit. It was ordinary for a man who had been drunk in good company, or passed a night with a wench, to speak of it next day before women for whom he had the Astrop-wells in Oxfordshire; into which Doctor Radcliffe 'put a toad.'

Bury-fair. A place of fashionable resort.

greatest respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a blow of the fan, or with an "Oh fie!" but the angry lady still preserved an apparent approbation in her countenance. He was called a strange wicked fellow, a sad wretch; he shrugs his shoulders, swears, receives another blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well. You might often see men game in the presence of women, and throw at once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as men of spirit. I found by long experience that the loosest principles and most abandoned behaviour, carried all before them in pretensions to women of fortune. The encouragement given to people of this stamp made me soon throw off the remaining impressions of a sober education. In the above-mentioned places, as well as in town, I always kept company with those who lived most at large; and in the process of time I was a pretty rake among the men, and a very pretty fellow among the women. I must confess, I had some melancholy hours upon the account of the narrowness of my fortune, but my conscience at the same time gave me the comfort that I had qualified myself for marrying a fortune.

• When I had lived in this manner for some time, and became thus accomplished, I was now in the twenty-seventh year of my age, and about the fortyseventh of my constitution, my health and estate wasting very fast; when I happened to fall into the company of a very pretty young lady in her own disposal. I entertained the company, as we men of gallantry generally do, with the many haps and disasters, watchings under windows, escapes from jealous hubands, and several other perils. The young thing was wonderfully charmed with one that knew the world so well, and talked so fine: with Desdemona, all her lover said affected her; "it was

the most immodest things in my hearing. At the same time half a dozen of them loll at the bar staring just in my face, ready to interpret my looks and gestures according to their own imaginations. In this passive condition I know not where to cast my eyes, place my hands, or what to employ myself in. But this confusion is to be a jest, and I hear them say in the end, with an insipid air of mirth and subtlety, Let her alone, she knows as well as we, for all she looks so. Good Mr. Spectator, persuade gentlemen that it is out of all decency. Say it is possible a woman may be modest and yet keep a public-house. Be pleased to argue, that in truth the affront is the more unpardonable because I am obliged to suffer it, and cannot fly from it. I do assure you, Sir, the cheerfulness of life which would arise from the honest gain I have, is utterly lost to me, from the endless, flat, impertinent pleasantries which I hear from morning to night. In a word, it is too much for me to hear; and I desire you to acquaint them, that I will keep pen and ink at the bar, and write down all they say to me, and send it to you for the press. It is possible when they see how empty what they speak, without the advantage of an impudent countenance and gesture, will appear, they may come to some sense of themselves, and the insults they are guilty of towards me.

I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

THE IDOL.'

This representation is so just, that it is hard to speak of it without an indignation which perhaps would appear too elevated to such as can be guilty of this inhuman treatment, where they see they affront a modest, plain, and ingenuous behaviour. This correspondent is not the only sufferer in this kind, for I have long letters both from the Royal and New

Exchange on the same subject. They tell me that a young fop cannot buy a pair of gloves, but he is at the same time straining for some ingenious ribaldry to say to the young woman who helps them on. It is no small addition to the calamity, that the rogues buy as hard as the plainest and modestest customers they have; besides which, they loll upon their counters half an hour longer than they need, to drive away other customers, who are to share their impertinences with the milliner, or go to another shop. Letters from Change-alley are full of the same evil; and the girls tell me, except I can chase some eminent merchants from their shops they shall in a short time fail. It is very unaccountable, that men can have so little deference to all mankind who pass by them, as to bear being seen toying by twos and threes at a time, with no other purpose but to appear gay enough to keep up a light conversation or common-place jests, to the injury of her whose credit is certainly hurt by it, though their own may be strong enough to bear it. When we come to have exact accounts of these conversations, it is not to be doubted but that their discourses will raise the usual style of buying and selling. Instead of the plain downright lying, and asking and bidding so unequally to what they will really give and take, we may hope to have from these fine folks an exchange of compliments. There must certainly be a great deal of pleasant difference be'tween the commerce of lovers, and that of all other dealers, who are, in a kind, adversaries. A sealed bond, or a bank-note, would be a pretty gallantry to convey unseen into the hands of one whom a director is charmed with; otherwise the city-loiterers are still more unreasonable than those at the other end of the town. At the New-Exchange they are eloquent for want of cash, but in the city they ought with cash to supply their want of eloquence.

strange, it was wondrous strange." In a word, I saw the impression I had made upon her, and with a very little application the pretty thing has married me. There is so much charm in her innocence and beauty, that I do now as much detest the course I have been in for many years, as I ever did before I entered into it.

'What I intend, Mr. Spectator, by writing all this to you, is that you would, before you go any farther with your panegyrics on the fair sex, give them some lectures upon their silly approbations.—It is that I am weary of vice, and that it was not my natural way, that I am now so far recovered as not to bring this believing dear creature to contempt and poverty for her generosity to me. At the same time tell the youth of good education of our sex, that they take too little care of improving themselves in little things. A good air at entering into a room, a proper audacity in expressing himself with gaiety and gracefulness, would make a young gentleman of virtue and sense capable of discountenancing the shallow impudent rogues, that shine among the women.

'Mr. Spectator, I do not doubt but you are a very sagacious person, but you are so great with Tully of late, that I fear you will contemn these things as matters of no consequence: but believe me, Sir, they are of the highest importance to human life; and if you can do any thing towards opening fair eyes, you will lay an obligation upon all your contemporaries who are fathers, husbands, or brothers, to females. Your most affectionate humble servant, 'SIMON HONEYCOMB.'

T.