To be short, Madonella permitted Rake to lead her into the assembly of nuns, followed by his friends, and each took his fair-one by the hand, after due explanation, to walk round the gardens. The conversation turned upon the lilies, the flowers, the arbours, and the growing vegetables; and Rake had the solemn impudence, when the whole company stood round him, to say, that he sincerely wished men might rise out of the earth like plants; and that our minds were not of necessity to be sullied with carnivorous appetites for the generation, as well as support, of our species. This was spoken with so easy and fixed an assurance, that Madonella answered, 'Sir, under the notion of a pious thought, you deceive yourself in wishing an institution foreign to that of Providence. These desires were implanted in us for reverend purposes, in preserving the race of men, and giving opportunities for making our chastity more heroic.' The conference was continued in this celestial strain, and carried on so well by the managers on both sides, that it created a second, and a third interview; and, without entering into further particulars, there was hardly one of them but was a mother or father that day twelvemonth.

Any unnatural part is long taking up, and as long laying aside; therefore Mr. Sturdy may assure himself Platonica will fly for ever from a forward behaviour; but if he approaches her according to this model, she will fall in with the necessities of mortal life, and condescend to look with pity on an unhappy man, imprisoned in so much body, and urged by such violent desires.

8 An allusion to Sir Thomas Brown's Religio Medici, part ii. sect. 9.

From my own Apartment, June 22.

THE evils of this town increase upon me to so great a degree, that I am half afraid I shall not leave the world much better than I found it. Several worthy gentlemen and critics have applied to me, to give my censure of an enormity which has been revived, after being long suppressed, and is called 'punning'.' I have several arguments ready to prove, that he cannot be a man of honour, who is guilty of this abuse of human society. But the way to expose it is, like the expedient of curing drunkenness, shewing a man in that condition: therefore I must give my reader warning, to expect a collection of these offences; without which preparation, I thought it too adventurous to introduce the very mention of it in good company; and I hope, I shall be understood to do it, as a divine mentions oaths and curses, only for their condemnation. I shall dedicate this discourse to a gentleman, my very good friend, who is the Janus 1° of our times, and whom, by his years and wit, you would take to be of the last age; but his dress and morals, of this.

SWIFT AND ADDISON.

9 See Guard. No 36. Here seems to be an oblique stroke at Dennis (the critic) who held punning in detestation.

10 This fanciful name of Janus is supposed to be an allusion to Swift as a punster.

N° 33. SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 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.

BY MRS. JENNY DISTAFF, HALF-SISTER TO MR.
BICKERSTAFF.

From my own Apartment, June 23.

My brother has made an excursion into the country, and the work against Saturday lies upon me. I am very glad I have got pen and ink in my hand; for I have for some time longed for his absence, to give a right idea of things, which I thought he put in a very odd light, and some of them to the disadvantage of my own sex. It is much to be lamented, that it is necessary to make discourses, and publish treatises, to keep the horrid creatures, the men, within the rules of common decency.

I gladly embrace this opportunity to express myself with the resentment I ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that sex, of whom the honoured names of mother, daughter, and sister are a part: I had like to have named wife in the number : but the senseless world are so mistaken in their sentiments of pleasure, that the most amiable term in human life is become the derision of fools and scorners. My brother and I have at least fifty times quarrelled upon this topic. I ever argue, that the frailties of

women are to be imputed to the false ornaments which men of wit put upon our folly and coquetry. He lays all the vices of men upon women's secret approbation of libertine characters in them. I did not care to give up a point; but, now he is out of the way, I cannot but own I believe there is very much in what he asserted: but if you will believe your eyes, and own, that the wickedest and wittiest of them all marry one day or other, it is impossible to believe, that if a man thought he should be for ever incapable of being received by a woman of merit and honour, he would persist in an abandoned way; and deny himself the possibility of enjoying the happiness of well governed desires, orderly satisfactions, and honourable methods of life. If our sex were wise, a lover should have a certificate from the last woman he served, how he was turned away, before he was received into the service of another: but at present any vagabond is welcome, provided he promises to enter into our livery. It is wonderful, that we will not take a footman without credentials from his last master; and in the greatest concern of life, we make no scruple of falling into a treaty with the most notorious offender in this behaviour against others. But this breach of commerce between the sexes, proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver.

Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from

such as glory in the breach of them? As for my part, I am resolved to hear all, and believe none of them; and therefore solemnly declare no vow shall deceive me, but that of marriage; for I am turned of twenty, and being of a small fortune, some wit, and (if I can believe my lovers and my glass) handsome, I have heard all that can be said towards my undoing; and shall therefore, for warning-sake, give an account of the offers that have been made me, my manner of rejecting them, and my assistances to keep my resolution.

In the sixteenth year of my life, I fell into the acquaintance of a lady extremely well known in this town for the quick advancement of her husband, and the honours and distinctions which her industry has procured him, and all who belong to her. This excellent body sat next to me for some months at church, and took the liberty, which, she said, her years, and the zeal she had for my welfare, gave her claim to, to assure me, that she observed some parts of my behaviour which would lead me into errors, and give encouragement to some to entertain hopes I did not think of. What made you,' said she, look through your fan at that lord, when your eyes should have been turned upwards, or closed in attention upon better objects? I blushed, and pretended fifty odd excuses; but confounded myself the more. She wanted nothing but to see that confusion, and goes on; Nay, child, do not be troubled that I take notice of it; my value for you made though he is my kinsınan, I have a virtue than any other consideration.' done speaking, when this noble lord came up to us, and led her to her coach:

me speak it; for nearer regard to She had hardly

My head ran all that day and night on the exem