man of the world. And I will lay before you the state of the case, supposing that you had it in your power to make me your mistress, or your wife, and hope to convince you that the latter is more for your interest, and will contribute more to your pleasure. 'We will suppose then the scene was laid, and you were now in expectation of the approaching evening wherein I was to meet you, and be carried to what convenient corner of the town you thought fit, to consummate all which your wanton imagination has promised to you in the possession of one who is in the bloom of youth, and in the reputation of innocence. You would soon have enough of me, as I am sprightly, young, gay, and airy. When fancy is sated, and finds all the promises it made to itself false, where is now the innocence which charmed you? The first hour you are alone, you will find that the pleasure of a debauchee is only that of a destroyer. He blasts all the fruit he tastes; and where the brute has been devouring, there is nothing left worthy the relish of the man. Reason resumes her place after imagination is cloyed; and I am with the utmost distress and confusion to behold myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you, to be visited by stealth, and dwell for the future with two companions (the most unfit for each other in the world), solitude and guilt. I will not insist upon the shameful obscurity we should pass our time in, nor run over the little short snatches of fresh air, and free commerce, which all people must be satisfied with whose actions will not bear examination, but leave them to your reflections, who have seen enough of that life of which I have but a mere idea. 'On the other hand, if you can be so good and generous as to make me your wife, you may promise yourself all the obedience and tenderness with which gratitude can inspire a virtuous woman. Whatever gratifications you may promise yourself from an agreeable person; whatever compliances from an easy temper; whatever consolations from a sincere friendship, you may expect as the due of your generosity. What at present in your ill-view you promise yourself from me, will be followed with distaste and satiety; but the transports of a virtuous love are the least part of its happiness. The raptures of innocent passion are but like lightning to the day; they rather interrupt than advance the pleasure of it. How happy then is that life to be, where the highest pleasures of sense are but the lowest parts of its felicity! 'Now am I to repeat to you the unnatural request of taking me in direct terms. I know there stands between me and that happiness, the haughty daughter of a man who can give you suitably to your fortune. But if you weigh the attendance and behaviour of her who comes to you in partnership of your fortune, and expects an equivalent, with that of her who enters your house as honoured and obliged by that permission, whom of the two will you choose? You, perhaps, will think fit to spend a day abroad in the common entertainments of men of sense and fortune; she will think herself ill used in that absence, and contrive at home an expense proportioned to the appearance which you make in the world. She is in all things to have a regard to the fortune which she brought you; I, to the fortune to which you introduced me. The commerce between you two will eternally have the air of a bargain; between us, of a friendship: joy will ever enter into the room with you, and kind wishes attend my benefactor when he leaves it. Ask yourself how would you be pleased to enjoy for ever the pleasure of having laid an immediate obligation on a grateful mind? Such will be your case with me. In the other marriage, you will live in a constant comparison of benefits, and never know the happiness of conferring or receiving any.. 'It may be you will, after all, act rather in the prudential way, according to the sense of the ordinary world. I know not what to think or say, when that melancholy reflection comes upon me; but shall only add more, that it is in your power to make me your grateful wife, but never your abandoned mistress.' T.R + At Drury-lane, Oct. 18. The Albion Queens, or The Death of Mary Q. of Scotland. Elizabeth, Mrs. Knight; Mary, Mrs. Oldfield; D. of Norfolk, Mr. Wilks; Morton, Mr. Mills; Cecil, Mr. Elrington; Davison, Mr. Booth; Gifford, Mr. Keen; and Douglass, Miss Sherborn.-Spect. in folio, No. 199. By Steele. See final notes to Nos. 6, and 324, on signature T. VOL. II.-34 INDEX TO THE SECOND VOLUME. The Figures in this Index refer to the Numbers of the Spectator ABSTINENCE, the benefits of it, 195. Accompts, their great usefulness, 174. Action, the felicity of soul, 126; no right judgment to be made of our ac- Advertisement from Mr. Sly the haberdasher, 187; about the lottery ticket, 191. Affliction and sorrow, not always expressed by tears, 95; true affliction Age, the unnatural misunderstanding between age and youth, 153; the Albacinda, her character, 144. Alexander, his artifice in his Indian expedition, 127; his answer to those Amaryllis, her character, 144. Ambition, the occasion of factions, 125; by what to be measured, 188. Amusements of life, when innocent, necessary and allowable, 93. Apparitions, the creation of weak minds, 110. Arable, Mrs. the great heiress, the Spectator's fellow-traveller, 132. Argument, rules for the management of one, 197. Aristotle, his account of the world, 166. Aristus and Aspasia, an unhappy couple, 128. Artist, wherein he has the advantage of an author, 166. Association of honest men proposed by the Spectator, 126 Atheists great zealots, 185; and bigots, ibid.; their opinions downright Author: in what manner one author is a mole to another, 124; wherein an |