For

of the gentlemen in the country, not, says Sir Roger, that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants as upon her larks and nightingales. she says that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a consort, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year.

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of her sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable though more in fashion? What improvements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert the imagination ?

PARTY ZEAL

Quem præstare potest mulier galeata pudorem,

Quæ fugit à sexu?

Juv., Sat. vi. 251.

What sense of shame in woman's breast can lie
Inured to arins, and her own sex to fly?

DRYDEN.

THERE is one consideration which I would earnestly recommend to all my female readers, and which, I hope, will have some weight with them. In short, it is this, that there is nothing so bad for the face as party zeal. It gives an ill-natured cast to the eye, and a disagreeable sourness to the look; besides that it makes the lines too strong, and flushes them worse than brandy. I have seen a woman's face break out in heats, as she has been talking against a great lord, whom she had never seen in her life; and indeed never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth. I would therefore advise all my female readers, as they value their complexions, to let alone all disputes of this nature; though at the same time I would give free liberty to all superannuated motherly partisans to be as violent as they please, since there will be no

danger either of their spoiling their faces or of their gaining converts.

For my own part, I think a man makes an odious and despicable figure that is violent in a party; but a woman is too sincere to mitigate the fury of her principles with temper and discretion, and to act with that caution and reservedness which are requisite in our sex. When this unnatural zeal gets into them, it throws them into ten thousand heats and extravagancies; their generous souls set no bounds to their love or to their hatred, and whether a Whig or Tory, a lapdog or gallant, an opera or a puppet-show, be the object of it, the passion, while it reigns, engrosses the whole woman.

I remember when Dr. Titus Oates was in all his glory, I accompanied my friend Will Honeycomb in a visit to a lady of his acquaintance. We were no

sooner sat down, but, upon casting my eyes about the room, I found in almost every corner of it a print that represented the doctor in all magnitudes and dimensions. A little after, as the lady was discoursing with my friend, and held her snuff-box in her hand, who should I see in the lid of it but the doctor. It was not long after this when she had occasion for her handkerchief, which, upon the first opening, discovered among the plaits of it the figure of the doctor. Upon this my friend Will, who loves raillery, told her that if he was

in Mr. Truelove's place, for that was the name of her husband, he should be made as uneasy by a handkerchief as ever Othello was. "I am afraid,” said she,

Mr. Honeycomb, you are a Tory: tell me truly, are you a friend to the doctor or not ?" Will, instead of making her a reply, smiled in her face, for indeed she was very pretty, and told her that one of her patches was dropping off. She immediately adjusted it, and looking a little seriously, "Well," says she, "I will be hanged if you and your silent friend there are not against the doctor in your hearts; I suspected as much by his saying nothing." Upon this she took her fan into her hand, and upon the opening of it, again displayed to us the figure of the doctor, who was placed with great gravity among the sticks of it. In a word, I found that the doctor had taken possession of her thoughts, her discourse, and most of her furniture ; but finding myself pressed too close by her question, I winked upon my friend to take his leave, which he did accordingly.

WILL HONEYCOMB'S ABSENCE OF MIND

Non convivere licet nec urbe totâ

Quisquam est tam propè, tam proculque nobis.

MART., Ep. i. 87.

What correspondence can I hold with you,
Who are so near, and yet so distant too?

A little

My friend Will Honeycomb is one of those sort of men who are very often absent in conversation, and what the French call à reveur and à distrait. before our club-time last night, we were walking together in Somerset Garden, where Will had picked up a small pebble of so odd a make that he said he would present it to a friend of his, an eminent virtuoso. After we had walked some time, I made a full stop with my face towards the west, which Will knowing to be my usual method of asking what's o'clock, in an afternoon, immediately pulled out his watch, and told me we had seven minutes good. We took a turn or two more, when, to my great surprise, I saw him squir away his watch a considerable way into the Thames, and, with great sedateness in his looks, put up the pebble, he had before found, in his fob. As I have naturally an aversion to much speaking, and do not love to be the