purpose: I am sorry, Sir, that your passion is of so long a date, for evils are much more curable in their beginnings; but at the same time must allow, that you are not to be blamed, since your youth and merit has been abused by one of the most charming, but the most unworthy sort of women, the Coquettes. A Coquette is a chaste jilt, and differs only from a common one, as a soldier, who is perfect in exercise, does from one that is actually in service. This grief, like all other, is to be cured only by time; and although you are convinced this moment as much as you will be ten years hence, that she ought to be scorned and neglected, you see you must not expect your remedy from the force of reason. The cure then is only in time, and the hastening of the cure only in the manner of employing that time. You have answered me as to travel and a campaign, so that we have only Great Britain to avoid her in. Be then yourself, and listen to the following rules, which only can be of use to you in this unaccountable distemper, wherein the patient is often averse even to his recovery. It has been of benefit to some to apply themselves to business: but as that may not lay in your way, go down to your estate, mind your fox-hounds, and venture the life you are weary of, over every hedge and ditch in the country. These are wholesome remedies; but if you can have resolution enough, rather stay in town, and recover yourself even in the town where she inhabits. Take particular care to avoid all places where you may possibly meet her, and shun the sight of every thing which may bring her to your remembrance; there is an infection in all that relates to her: you will find her house, her chariot, her domestics, and her very lap-dog, are so many instruments of torment. Tell me seriously, do you think you could bear the sight of her fan?' He shook his head at the question, and said, ́ Ah! Mr. Bickterstaff, you must have been a patient, or you could not have been so good a physician. To tell you truly,' said I, about the thirtieth year of my age, I received a wound that has still left a scar in my mind, never to be quite worn out by time or philosophy. 6 The means, which I found the most effectual for my cure were reflections upon the ill usage I had received from the woman I loved, and the pleasure I saw her take in my sufferings. I considered the distress she brought upon me the greatest that could befall a human creature; at the same time that she did not inflict this upon one who was her enemy, one that had done her an injury, one that had wished her ill; but on the man who loved her more than any else loved her, and more than it was possible for him to love any other person. In the next place, I took pains to consider her in all her imperfections; and that I might be sure to hear of them constantly, kept company with those her female friends, who were her dearest and most intimate acquaintance. 6 Among her highest imperfections, I still dwelt upon her baseness of mind and ingratitude, that made her triumph in the pain and anguish of the man who loved her, and of one who in those days, without vanity be it spoken, was thought to deserve her love. To shorten my story, she was married to another, which would have distracted me, had he proved a good husband: but to my great pleasure, he used her at first with coldness, and afterwards with contempt. I hear he still treats her very ill; and am informed, that she often says to her woman, this is a just revenge for my falsehood to my first love: what a wretch am I, that might have been married to the famous Mr. Bickerstaff!' 6 My patient looked upon me with a kind of melancholy pleasure, and told me, He did not think it was possible for a man to live to the age I now am of, who in his thirtieth year had been tortured with that passion in its violence. For my part,' said he, < I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep in it; nor keep company with any body, but two or three friends who are in the same condition.' There,' answered I, 'you are to blame; for as you ought to avoid nothing more than keeping company with yourself, so you ought to be particularly cautious of keeping company with men like yourself. As long as you do this, you do but indulge your distemper. 'I must not dismiss you without further instructions. If possible, transfer your passion from the woman you are now in love with to another; or, if you cannot do that, change the passion itself into some other passion, that is, to speak more plainly, find out some other agreeable woman; or if you cannot do this, grow covetous, ambitious, litigious : turn your love of woman into that of profit, preferment, reputation; and for a time give up yourself entirely to the pursuit. This is a method we sometimes take in physic, when we turn a desperate disease into one we can more easily cure.' He made little answer to all this, but crying out, Ah, Sir!' for his passion reduced his discourse to interjections. There is one thing,' added I, which is present death to a man in your condition, and, therefore, to be avoided with the greatest care and caution: that is, in a word, to think of your mistress and rival together, whether walking, discoursing, dallying-' The devil!' he cried out, who can bear it? To compose him, for I pitied him very much; The time will come,' said I, when you shall not only bear it, but laugh at it. As a preparation to it, ride every morning, an hour at least, with the wind full in your face. Upon your return, recollect the several precepts which I have now given you, and drink upon them a bottle of Spawwater. Repeat this every day for a month successively, and let me see you at the end of it.' He was taking his leave with many thanks, and some appearance of consolation in his countenance, when I called him back to acquaint him, that I had private information of a design of the Coquettes to buy up all the true Spaw-water in town:' upon which he took his leave in haste, with a resolution to get all things ready for entering upon his regimen the next morning. No: 108. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1709. Pronaque cum spectent animalia cætera terram, OVID. MET. i. 84. Thus while the mute creation downward bend DRYDEN. SHEER-LANE, DECEMBER 16. It is not to be imagined how great an effect welldisposed lights, with proper forms and orders in assemblies, have upon some tempers. I am sure I feel it in so extraordinary a manner, that I cannot in a day or two get out of my imagination any very beautiful or disagreeable impression which I receive on such occasions. For this reason, I frequently look in at the play-house, in order to enlarge my thoughts, and warm my mind with some new ideas, that may be serviceable to me in my lucubrations. In this disposition I entered the theatre the other day, and placed myself in a corner of it very convenient for seeing, without being myself observed. I found the audience hushed in a very deep attention; and did not question but some noble tragedy was just then in its crisis, or that an incident was to be unravelled, which would determine the fate of a hero. While I was in this suspense, expecting every moment to see my old friend, Mr. Betterton, appear in all the majesty of distress, to my unspeakable amazement there came up a monster with a face between his feet; and as I was looking VOL. III. |