rich widow, I laid aside all thoughts of making my fortune any other way, and without loss of time made my applications to one who had buried her husband about a week before. By the help of some of her she-friends who were my relations, I got into her company when she would see no man besides myself and her lawyer, who is a little, rivelled, spindle-shanked gentleman, and married to boot, so that I had no reason to fear him. Upon my first seeing her, she said in conversation within my hearing, that she thought a pale complexion the most agreeable either in man or woman. Now you must know, sir, my face is as white as chalk. This gave me some encouragement; so that to mend the matter I bought a fine flaxen long wig that cost me thirty guineas', and found an opportunity of seeing her in it the next day. She then let drop some expressions about an agate snuff-box. I immediately took the hint, and bought one, being unwilling to omit any thing that might make me desirable in her eyes. I was betrayed after the same manner into a brocade waistcoat, a swordknot, a pair of silver-fringed gloves, and a diamond ring. But whether out of fickleness or a design upon me, I cannot tell; but I found by her discourse, that what she liked one day, she disliked another: so that in six months space I was forced to equip myself above a dozen times. As I told you before, I took her hints at a distance, for I could never find an opportunity of talking with her directly to the point. All this time however, I was allowed the utmost familiarities with her lap-dog, and have played with it above an hour together, without receiving the least reprimand, and had many other marks of favour shown • Duumvir's fair wig cost forty guineas. Tatler, No. 54. me, which I thought amounted to a promise. If she chanced to drop her fan, she received it from my hands with great civility. If she wanted any thing, I reached it for her. I have filled her tea-pot above an hundred times, and have afterwards received a dish of it from her own hands. Now, Sir, do you judge, if after such encouragements she was not obliged to marry me. I forgot to tell you that I kept a chair by the week, on purpose to carry me thither and back again. Not to trouble you with a long letter, in the space of about a twelvemonth I have run out of my whole thousand pound upon her, having laid out the last fifty in a new suit of clothes, in which I was resolved to receive a final answer, which amounted to this, "that she was engaged to another; that she never dreamt I had any such thing in my head as marriage; and that she thought I had frequented her house only because I loved to be in company with my relations." This, you know, Sir, is using a man like a fool, and so I told her; but the worst of it is, that I have spent my fortune to no purpose. All therefore that I desire of you is, to tell me whether upon exhibiting the several particulars which I have here related to you, I may not sue her for damages in a court of justice. Your advice in this particular will very much oblige, Your most humble admirer, 6 SIMON SOFTLY.' Before I answer Mr. Softly's request, I find myself under a necessity of discussing two nice points. First of all, What it is, in cases of this nature, that amounts to an encouragement? And, secondly, What it is that amounts to a promise? Each of which subjects requires more time to examine than I am at present master of. Besides, I would have my friend Simon consider, whether he has any counsel that will undertake his cause in formá pauperis, he having unluckily disabled himself, by his own account of the matter, from prosecuting his suit any other way. In answer however to Mr. Softly's request, I shall acquaint him with a method made use of by a young fellow in king Charles the Second's reign, whom I shall here call Silvio, who had long made love with much artifice and intrigue, to a rich widow, whose true name I shall conceal under that of Zelinda. Silvio, who was much more smitten with her fortune than her person, finding a twelvemonth's application unsuccessful, was resolved to make a saving bargain of it; and since he could not get the widow's estate into his possession, to recover at least what he had laid out of his own in the pursuit of it. In order to this he presented her with a bill of costs, having particularized in it the several expences he had been at in his long perplexed amour. Zelinda was so pleased with the humour of the fellow, and his frank way of dealing, that upon the perusal of the bill, she sent him a purse of fifteen hundred guineas, by the right application of which, the lover in less than a year, got a woman of greater fortune than her" he had missed. The several articles in the bill of costs I pretty well remember, though I have forgotten the particular sum charged to each article. Laid out in supernumerary full-bottom wigs. Fiddles for a serenade, with a speaking trumpet. Gilt paper in letters, and billet-doux, with perfumed wax. A ream of sonnets and love-verses, purchased at different times of Mr. Triplet at a crown a sheet. To Zelinda two sticks of May-cherries. u "Than she was whom he had missed." Lowth's Introd. to Engl. Grammar, 2d edit. 1763. p. 160. Last summer at several times, a bushel of peaches. Three porters whom I planted about her to watch her motions. The first who stood centry near her door. The second who had his stand at the stables where her coach was put up. The third who kept watch at the corner of the street where Ned Courtall lives, who has since married her. Two additional porters planted over her during the whole month of May. Five conjurors kept in pay all last winter. Spy-money to John Trott her footman, and Mrs. Sarah Wheedle her companion. A new Conningsmark blade to fight Ned Courtall. To Zelinda's woman (Mrs. Abigail) an Indian fan, a dozen pair of white kid gloves, a piece of Flanders lace, and fifteen guineas in dry money. Secret-service money to Betty at the ring. THE first who undertook to instruct the world in single papers was Isaac Bickerstaff of famous memory: a man nearly related to the family of the Ironsides. We have often smoked a pipe together; for I was so much in his books", that at his decease he left me V * ADDISON'S. Distinguished by a hand, the mark of Addison's papers in the Guardian; and reprinted in Addison's Works, 4to. edit. 1721, vol. iv. p. 141. w Books, i, e. good graces. a silver standish, a pair of spectacles, and the lamp by which he used to write his Lucubrations. The venerable Isaac was succeeded by a gentleman of the same family, very memorable for the shortness of his face and of his speeches. This ingenious author published his thoughts, and held his tongue with great applause, for two years together. I Nestor Ironside, have now for some time undertaken to fill the place of these my two renowned kinsmen and predecessors. For it is observed of every branch of our family, that we have all of us a wonderful inclination to give good advice, though it is remarked of some of us, that we are apt on this occasion, rather to give than take*. However it be, I cannot but observe with some secret pride, that this way of writing diurnal papers has not succeeded for any space of time in the hands of any persons who are not of our line. I believe I speak within compass, when I affirm that above a hundred different authors have endeavoured after our family-way of writing, some of which have been writers in other kinds of the greatest eminence in the kingdom: but I do not know how it has happened, they have none of them hit upon the art. Their projects have always dropt after a few unsuccessful essays. It puts me in mind of a story which was lately told me by a pleasant friend of mine, who has a very fine hand on the violin. His maid-servant seeing his instrument lying upon the table, and being sensible there was music in it, if she knew how to fetch it out, drew the bow over every part of the strings, and at last told her master she had tried the fiddle all over, but could not for her heart find where about the tune lay. But though the whole burthen of such a paper is * An allusion to Steele. See Addison's let. in Hughes's Correspondence. Vol. i. p. 80. let. 26. |