Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire, 'Between declining virtue and desire,

'Till the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.'

When Crastin had uttered these verses, with a tenderness which at once spoke passion and respect, Honoria cast a triumphant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the elegance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraiding her with the homeliness of Tulip's. Tulip understood the reproach, and in return began to applaud the wisdom of old amorous gentlemen, who turned their mistress' imagination as far as possible from what they had long themselves forgot, and ended his discourse with a sly commendation of the doctrine of Platonic love: at the same time he ran over, with a laughing eye, Crastin's thin legs, meagre looks, and spare body. The old gentleman immediately left the room with some disorder, and the conversation fell upon untimely passion after love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sung, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed.

'Celia the fair, in the bloom offifteen :" when there came a servant with a letter to him, which was as follows:

'SIR,

I UNDERSTAND very well what you meant by your mention of Platonic love. I shall be ghd to 'meet you immediately in Hyde-Park, or behind Montague-House, or attend you to Barn-Elms, or any other fashionable place that is fit for a gentlemen to die 'in, that you shall appoint for, Sir,

"Your most humble servant, RICHARD CRASTIN.'

Tulip's colour changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away, and the ladies now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief:

• but

Arithmetic, and concludes with a postcript, that he hopes I will not forget The Countess of Kent's Receipts.

I may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privy-counsellors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond at the head of my catalogue, and if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassandra. Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of schorching their faces with books of housewifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and intreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates: All for love, is mentioned in above fifteen letters; Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow, in a dozen; The Innocent Adultery is likewise highly approved of: Mithridates King of Pontus has many friends: Alexander the Great, and Aurangzebe have the same number of voices; but Theodosius, or The Force of Love, carries it from all the rest.

I should, in the last place, mention such books as have been proposed by men of learning, and those who appear competent judges of this matter; and must here take occasion to thank A. B. whoever it is that conceals himself under those two letters, for his advice upon this subject: but as I find the work I have undertaken to be very difficult, I shall defer the executing of it till I am further acquainted with the thoughts of my judicious contemporaries, and have time to examine the several books they offer to me; being resolved, in an affair of this moment, to proceed with the greatest caution.

In the mean while, as I have taken the ladies under my particular care, I shall make it my business to find out, in the best authors ancient and modern, such passages as may be for their use, and endeavour to accommodate them as well as I can to their taste; not questioning but the valuable part of the sex will easily pardon me, if,from time to time, I laugh at those little vanities and follies which appear in the behaviour of some of them, and which are more proper for ridicule than a serious censure. Most books being calculated for male readers, and generally written with an eye to men of learning, makes a work of this nature the more necessary; besides, I am the more encouraged,

because

because I flatter myself that I see the sex daily improving by these my speculations. My fair readers are already deeper scholars than the beaux: I could name some of them who talk much better than several gentlemen that make a figure at Wills'; and as I frequently receive letters from the fine ladies and pretty fellows, I cannot but observe that the former are superior to the others, not only in the sense but in the spelling. This cannot but have a good effect upon the female world, and keep them from being charmed by those empty coxcombs that have hitherto been admired among the women, though laughed at among the men.

I am credibly informed that Tom Tattle passes for an impertinent fellow, that Will Trippet begins to be smoked, and that Frank Smoothly himself is within a month of a coxcomb, in case I think it to continue this pa. For my part, as it is my business in some measure to detect such as would lead astray weak minds by their false pretences to wit and judgment, humour and gallantry, I shall not fail to lend the best lights I am able to the fair sex for the continuation of these their discoveries.

L

No 93.

SATURDAY, June 16.
By ADDISON.

-Spatio brevi

Spem longan reseces: dum loquimur, figerit invida
Atas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

----Be wise, cut off long cares

From thy contracted span.

HOR. Od. 11. 1. 1. v. 6,

E'en whilst we speak, the envious time
Doth make swift haste away;

Then seize the present, use thy prime,
Nor trust another day.

CREECH.

WE all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Senec, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are present either is doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose

or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher bas described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thought which are peculiar to his writings.

I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfic to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are 10, pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not however include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to there bersons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow.

The

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most genera acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion.

There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under a habitual sense of the Divine Presence keeps up a perpetual chearfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: It is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most inactive: He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great Supporter of its existence.

I have here only considered the necessity of a man's baing virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us, for putting in prac tice this method of passing away our time.

C6

When