bring the lady with you to ask pardon for you :' then aloud,Look to it, Will, I'll never forgive you else.' The fellow went back to his mistress, and telling her, with a loud voice and an oath, that was the honestest fellow in the world, conveyed her to an hackney-coach.

But the many irregularities committed by servants in the places above-mentioned, as well as in theatres, of which masters are generally the occasions, are too various not to need being resumed on another occasion.

R.

N° 89. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1711.

-Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,

Finem animo certum, miserisque viatica canis.
Cras hoc fiet. Idem cras fiet. Quid? quasi magnum,
Nempe diem donas? sed cùm lux altera venit,
Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
Egerit hos annos, & semper paulum erit ultra.
Nam quamvis prope te, quamvis temone sub uno,
Vertentem sese frustrà sectabere canthum.

PERS. Sat. v. 64.

Pers. From thee both old and young, with profit learn
The bounds of good and evil to discern.

Corn. Unhappy he, who does this work adjourn,
And to to-morrow wou'd the search delay:

His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of ease too much to borrow?

Corn. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow.

That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd;

And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd:
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,

And wilt be ever to begin thy task;

Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, are curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.

DRYDEN.

As my correspondents upon the subject of love are very numerous, it is my design, if possible, to range them under several heads, and address myself to them at different times. The first branch of them, to whose service I shall dedicate this paper, are those that have to do with women of dilatory tempers, who are for spinning out the time of courtship to an immoderate length, without being able either to close with their lovers, or to dismiss them. I have many letters by me filled with complaints against this sort of women. In one of them no less

a man than a brother of the coif* tells me, that he began his suit vicesimo nono Caroli secundi, before he had been a twelvemonth at the Temple; that he prosecuted it for many years after he was called to the bar; that at present he is a serjeant at law; and notwithstanding he hoped that matters would have been long since brought to an issue, the fair one still demurs. I am so well pleased with this gentleman's phrase, that I shall distinguish this sect of women by the title of Demurrers. I find by another letter from one that calls himself Thyrsis, that his mistress has been demurring above these seven years. But among all my plaintiffs of this nature, I most pity the unfortunate Philander, a man of a constant passion and plentiful fortune, who sets forth that the timorous and irresolute Sylvia has demurred till she is past child-bearing. Strephon appears by his letter to be a very choleric lover, and irrevocably smitten with one that demurs out of self-interest. He tells me with great passion that she has bubbled him out of his youth; that she drilled him on to five and fifty, and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age, if she can find her account in another. I shall conclude this narrative with a letter from honest Sam Hopewell, a very pleasant fellow, who it seems has at last married a Demurrer. I must only premise, that Sam, who is a very good bottle-companion, has been the diversion of his friends, upon account of his passion, ever since the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-one.

DEAR SIR,

'You know very well my passion for Mrs. Martha, and what a dance she has led me. She took me out at the age of two and twenty, and i. e. A serjeant at law,

dodged with me above thirty years. I have loved her till she is is grown as grey as a cat, and am with much ado become the master of her person, such as it is at present. She is however in my eye a very charming old woman. We often lament that we did not marry sooner, but she has nobody to blame for it but herself. You know very well that she would never think of me whilst she had a tooth in her head. I have put the date of my passion (anno amoris trigesimo primo) instead of a posy on my wedding ring. I expect you should send me a congratulatory letter, or if you please, an epithalamium upon this occasion.

Mrs. Martha's and your's eternally,

SAM HOPEWELL.'

In order to banish an evil out of the world, that does not only produce great uneasiness to private persons, but has also a very bad influence on the public, I shall endeavour to show the folly of demurrage from two or three reflections which I earnestly recommend to the thoughts of my fair readers.

First of all I would have them seriously think on the shortness of their time. Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in. A timorous woman drops into her grave before she has done deliberating. Were the age of man the same that it was before the flood, a lady might sacrifice half a century to a scruple, and be two or three ages in demurring. Had she nine hundred years good, she might hold out to the conversion of the Jews before she thought fit to be prevailed upon. But, alas! she ought to play her part in haste, when she considers that she is suddenly to quit the stage, and make room for others.

In the second place, I would desire my female readers to consider, that as the term of life is short,

that of beauty is much shorter. The finest skin wrinkles in a few years, and loses the strength of its colourings so soon, that we have scarce time to admire it. I might embellish this subject with roses and rainbows, and several other ingenious conceits, which I may possibly reserve for another opportunity.

There is a third consideration which I would likewise recommend to a demurrer, and that is the great danger of her falling in love when she is about threescore, if she cannot satisfy her doubts and scruples before that time. There is a kind of latter spring, that sometimes gets into the blood of an old woman, and turns her into a very odd sort of an animal. I would therefore have the Demurrer consider what a strange figure she will make, if she chances to get over all difficulties, and comes to a final resolution, in that unseasonable part of her life.

I would not however be understood, by any thing I have here said, to discourage that natural modesty in the sex, which renders a retreat from the first approaches of a lover both fashionable and graceful. All that I intend is, to advise them, when they are prompted by reason and inclination, to demur only out of form, and so far as decency requires. A virtuous woman should reject the first offer of marriage, as a good man does that of a bishoprick; but I would advise neither the one nor the other to persist in refusing what they secretly approve. I would in this particular propose the example of Eve to all her daughters, as Milton has represented her in the following passage, which I cannot forbear transcribing intire, though only the twelve last lines are to my present purpose.

The rib he form'd and fashion'd with his hands;
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Man-like, but different sex; so lovely fair,