N° 20. THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli.

Whatever good is done, whatever ill

JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86.

By human kind, shall this collection fill.

White's Chocolate-house, May 24.

Ir is not to be imagined how far prepossession will run away with people's understandings, in cases wherein they are under present uneasiness. The following narration is a sufficient testimony of the truth of this observation.

I had the honour the other day of a visit from a gentlewoman (a stranger to me) who seemed to be about thirty. Her complexion is brown; but the air of her face has an agreeableness which surpasses the beauties of the fairest women. There appeared in her look and mien a sprightly health: and her eyes had too much vivacity to become the language of complaint, which she began to enter into. She seemed sensible of it; and therefore, with downcast looks, said she, Mr. Bickerstaff, you see before you the unhappiest of women; and therefore, as you are esteemed by all the world both a great civilian, as well as an astrologer, I must desire your advice and assistance, in putting me in a method of obtaining a divorce from a marriage, which I know the law will pronounce void.'-' Madam,' said I, 'your grievance is of such a nature, that you must be very ingenuous in representing the causes of your complaint, or I cannot give you the satisfaction you desire.'-'Sir,'

she answers, 'I believe there would be no need of half your skill in the art of divination, to guess why a woman would part from her husband.'—' It is true,' said I; but suspicions, or guesses at what you mean, nay certainty of it, except you plainly speak it, are no foundation for a formal suit.' She clapped her fan before her face; My husband,' said she, is no more an husband' (here she burst into tears) than one of the Italian singers.'

6

Madam,' said I, the affliction you complain of is to be redressed by law; but, at the same time, consider what mortifications you are to go through, in bringing it into open court: how will you be able to bear the impertinent whispers of the people present at the trial, the licentious reflections of the pleaders, and the interpretations that will in general be put upon your conduct by all the world? How little (will they say) could that lady command her passions! Besides, consider, that curbing our desires is the greatest glory we can arrive at in this world, and will be most rewarded in the next.' She answered, like a prudent matron: Sir, if you please to remember the office of matrimony, the first cause of its institution is that of having posterity. Therefore, as to the curbing desires, I am willing to undergo any abstinence from food as you please to enjoin me; but I cannot, with any quiet of mind, live in the neglect of a necessary duty, and an express commandment, "Increase and multiply"." Observing she was learned, and knew so well the duties of life, I turned my arguments rather to dehort her from this public procedure by examples than precepts. Do but consider, madam, what crowds of beauteous women live in nunneries, secluded for ever from the sight and conversation of men, with all the alacrity of spirit

imaginable; they spend their time in heavenly raptures, in constant and frequent devotions, and at proper hours in agreeable conversations.'—' Sir,' said she hastily, 'tell not me of papists, or any of their idolatries. Well then, madam, consider how many fine ladies live innocently in the eye of the world, and this gay town, in the midst of temptation: there is the witty Mrs. 'W- is a virgin of forty-four, Mrs. T- ——s is thirty-nine, Mrs. L-ce thirty-three; yet you see they laugh, and are gay, at the park, at the play-house, at balls, and at visits; and so much at ease, that all this seems hardly a self-denial.'-' Mr. Bickerstaff,' said she, with some emotion, 'you are an excellent casuist; but the last word destroyed your whole argument; if it is not self-denial, it is no virtue. I presented you with an half-guinea, in hopes not only to have my conscience eased, but my fortune told. Yet'—'Well, Madam,' said I, 'pray of what age is your husband?' He is,' replied my injured client, fifty; and I have been his wife fifteen years.'' How happened it you never communicated your distress, in all this time, to your friends and relations?' She answered, 'He has been thus but a fortnight.' I am the most serious man in the world to look at, and yet could not forbear laughing out. "Why, madam, in case of infirmity which proceeds only from age, the law gives no remedy.'-' Sir,' said she, 'I find you have no more learning than Dr. Case 2: and I am told of a young man, not five and twenty, just come from Oxford, to whom I will

I See the first note on No 10, concerning Mrs. and Miss. A noted practitioner in physic and astrology, who was considered as the successor of Lilly and Safford, and possessed the magical utensils of both.

communicate this whole matter, and doubt not but he will appear to have seven times more useful and satisfactory knowledge than you and all your boasted family. Thus I have entirely lost my client: but if this tedious narrative preserves Pastorella 3 from the intended marriage with one twenty years her senior -to save a fine lady, I am contented to have my learning decried, and my predictions bound up with Poor Robin's Almanacs+.

Will's Coffee-house, May 25.

THIS evening was acted The Recruiting Officer', in which Mr. Estcourt's proper sense and observation is what supports the play. There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Serjeant Kite; but it is admirably supplied by his action. If I have skill to judge, that man is an excellent actor; but the crowd of the audience are fitter for representations at May-fair, than a theatre-royal. Yet that fair is now broke, as well as the theatre is breaking: but it

3 Pastorella, it appears, from what is said of her here and in No 13, was not much bettered by her conversion from coquetry, related in No 9.

4 First published early in the reign of Charles II.

5 A comedy by Farquhar, who, in the delineation of the characters in it, is said to have had living originals in his eye. Justice Ballance (we are told) was a Mr. Berkley, then recorder of Shrewsbury; Mr. Hill, an inhabitant of the same town, was one of the other justices. Mr. Worthy was a Mr. Owen of Rusason, on the borders of Shropshire; Capt. Plume was Farquhar himself; Melinda was a Miss Harnage of Belsadine, near the Wreken; Sylvia Miss Berkley, daughter of the recorder of Shrewsbury; and the story the author's invention.

is allowed still to sell animals there. Therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Penkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate. The downfal of May-fair has quite sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other curiosities of nature. A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox ; and I am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs, for very near the value of one with four. I hear likewise that there is a great desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of them pressed, and the queens beating hemp. Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for her ingenious puppet-show, has set up a shop in the Exchange, where she sells her little troop under the term of 'jointed babies.' I could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that rake-hell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She told me, with a sigh, that, despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting, with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as centry to a brandy-shop. The great revolutions of this nature bring to my mind the distresses of the unfortunate Camilla, who has had the ill luck to break before

6 See N° 4, and 188; Spec. No 31, 370, and 455. 7 Mentioned in N° 4, note.

8 Chetwood, in his General History of the stage, says (p. 142.) Italian operas, so fashionable at this time, were too much supported by the excellent voice and judgment of