have examined these gentlemen, which letters assure me that they do not at all come up to the idea given of themselves, even in their own modest advertisements. But before I take leave of my ingenious correspondent, I promise her to give notice in this paper of the first maid's husband that falls within my knowledge; and if she pleases to signify where and when she will be waited on by any such gentleman, her commands shall be executed with the nicest punctuality. Or (as it is very considerately expressed in an advertisement now before me) if the lady does not choose to appear personally for the first time, may send any other proper lady of her acquaintance to the place appointed. N° 81. THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1754. THE following letters need no apology. With regard to the first, it may be proper to observe that the complaint contained in it is a very just one of the second I shall say nothing till I have given it to my readers. · SIR, "To Mr. FITZ-ADAM. 'I can assure you with great truth, that you are the first man I ever wrote a letter to, or wished to correspond with, except my father and my brother. I am the youngest of three sisters, am not quite twenty-one, love dress, and love fashions, but cannot consent to appear in the public walks like a woman of the town. I am sorry to say it, but it is really my opinion, that if the common prostitutes than a shift of Paris net, half the young ladies of my acquaintance would come into the fashion. My two sisters may take it as they please, but they are so far gone into the mode, that I hardly ever go abroad with them that we are not addressed by gentlemen who are utter strangers to us, in the most familiar (and sometimes the most indecent) terms imaginable. No longer ago than last week we were mobbed in Spring-gardens, from my eldest sister's having affronted a couple of gentlemen, who would fain have entertained us with a glass of wine at the Cardigan. For my own part I tell them both very frankly, that while they endeavour to look like women of the town, it is a great mistake in them to be above their business. 'Pray, Mr. Fitz-Adam, favour us with a World upon this subject; for, as the youngest sister, my opinion goes for, nothing; and besides, I want to have them mortified a little; for they neither love nor esteem me, because I am said to be handsomer than they, and am better received by all our relations and acquaintance. I am, Sir, your humble servant, SARAH MEANWELL.' SIR, you 'I am a very good-hearted honest girl; but from my situation in life, I am afraid people think me otherwise. It is my unhappiness that from too high a birth, and too low a fortune, I am obliged to live constantly with the great; and to tell the truth, I am really handsomer than most of the women I mix with. From this circumstance I am looked upon with envy by many of my acquaintance; but indeed, Sir, when you know my heart, you will rather think me an object of pity. "Though I have the best spirits in the world, and am as gay as innocence will suffer me to be, I am called a queer creature by the men, and a prude by the women. And all this for what? Truly, because I have more modesty than the company I keep. And yet so prevailing is example, and so necessary to a dependant state are good-humour and compliance, that I have not been able at all times to be quite as modest as I should be. I do not mean that I have been downright wicked, or that I ever wished to be so; but if my grandmother was to rise from the grave, and to be witness to the sentiments I have drank, and the romps I have played, she would certainly box my ears, and call me by a name too coarse for me to mention. 'If you are an old man, Mr. Fitz-Adam, you will hardly understand me; and as I am a young woman, I dare not come to a particular explanation. But if you will be so kind as to convince the people of fashion that decency is a virtue, it would save me from many a rent in my clothes, and make my evenings at home, as well as my parties abroad, much pleasanter to me. "I think I may be allowed to speak a little plainer. The privilege of high birth is to do every thing you have a mind to do. It is a maxim with men to attempt every thing, and with the women to refuse but one thing. The attacks that are made upon a lady's honour, are considered only as compliments to her beauty; and she is the most flattered, who is oftenest insulted. Your correspondent, Mrs. Shuffle, never said a truer thing in her life, than that" cards were an asylum against the dangers of men:" and I really grow fond of routs and drums, because their designs, at such parties, are only against my purse. 'But if women in the most elevated situations, either from their own levity, or the impudence of men, are liable to these fashionable attacks, how must it fare with a poor girl, who has no fortune to among her companions to authorize her resentment? They construe my very complaints into design-" The prude would take us in, would she? She had better be one of us, or egad we'll blow her."-This, with a little plainer swearing, and coarser threatening, has been said of me in my own hearing. 'What shall I do, Mr. Fitz-Adam, to live comfortably, and preserve my reputation? My fortune, which is no more than two thousand pounds, is hardly sufficient to maintain me even in the country, and I see nothing but ruin before me, if I continue where I am, I have always considered the marriage state as a woman's surest happiness; and I verily believe I have every qualification, except money, to make it easy to him who chose me. But unless I transport myself to the East or West Indies for a husband, I have no hopes of one. I neither expect nor desire a man of fashion; for a clergyman I am too poor; a country squire would beat me, and an honest tradesman who knew my education, might imagine I should beat him. Neither of these would be my choice: but if you know of any private gentleman, who has seen enough of the world to despise the follies of it; one who could support me decently, and think himself rewarded by love and gratitude; who could share with me in domestic pleasures, or lend me his arm for a visit to a friend; who at his leisure hours would be pleased with my prattle, and with a look of delight could tell me that he was happy';-if you know of such a man, you may honestly assure him, that though I have lived all my life among the great, I am as clean in my person, and as modest in my inclinations, as if I had never seen good company. You may also add, and with equal truth, that excepting a hobble in my gait, and a small propensity to talk loud in public, I have not the least tincture of quality about me. Your most humble servant, I am, The true spirit of Irony which so plainly appears in this letter, must no doubt be highly pleasing to the polite part of my readers. But as there are many dull people in the world, who have no conceptions beyond the literal meaning of what they read, I shall subjoin a few remarks of my own, to prevent the aforesaid dull people from mistaking a very fine panegyric for an insolent libel against the chastest and most valuable part of mankind. This young lady seems to have formed her plan upon the inimitable Doctor Swift, who, of all men that wrote, understood irony the best; and who had the happiest art of conveying compliment under the disguise of abuse. Her whole epistle is irony; which (as my sagacious friend Mr. Nathan Bayley, in his etymological dictionary, defines it) is a figure in rhetoric, by which we speak contrary to what we think. We are therefore to understand by the above letter, that the nicest decorum and the most exemplary chastity are the distinguishing characteristics of our young men of fashion. That they live in a constant practice of all the virtues; and are the shining examples of temperance, modesty, and true politeness. By the sentiments which are given by the ladies over a glass of wine, my correspondent very genteelly hints, that young women of condition are the only persons in the world who can be merry and wise: that the bottle, which is too apt to intoxicate the vulgar, can inspire these ladies with the most refined ideas of men and things; which ideas are poured forth in sentiments, that Plato, Socrates, and all the sages of antiquity, never thought of. I shall only add, that the notions which mean and ignorant women commonly conceive of matrimony, are finely ridiculed in this letter. The writer very humorously supposes, that the domestic endearments of private life are more eligible than the se |