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able to discover from them, that any body has died fopner or been married later for counting time wrong; and, therefore, I began to fancy that there was a great buftle with little confequence.

At laft, two friends of my papa, Mr. Cycle, and Mr. Starlight, being, it feems, both of high learning, and able to make an almanack, began to talk about the new ftile. Sweet Mr. Starlight-1 am fure I fhall love his name as long as I live; for he told Cycle roundly, with a fierce look, that we fhould never be right without a year of confufion. Dear Mr. RAMBLER, did you ever hear any thing fo charming? a whole year of confufion! When there has been a rout at mamma's, I have thought one night of confufion worth a thousand nights of reft; and if I can but fee a year of confufion, a whole year, of cards in one room, and dancings in another, here a feast, and there a masquerade, and plays, and coaches, and hurries, and meffages, and milliners, and raps at the door, and vifits, and frolicks, and new fashions, I fhall not care what they do with the rest of the time, nor whether they count it by the old ftile or the new; for I am refolved to break loofe from the nursery in the tumulf, and play my part among the reft; and it will be ftrange if I cannot get a husband and a chariot in the year of confusion.

Cycle, who is neither fo young nor fo handsome as Starlight, very gravely maintained, that all the perplexity may be avoided by leaping over eleven days in the reckoning; and indeed, if it should come only to this, I think the new ftile is a delightful thing; for my mamma fays I fhall go to court when I am fixteen, and if they can but contrive often to

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leap over eleven days together, the months of reftraint will foon be at an end. It is ftrange, that with all the plots that have been laid against time, they could never kill it by act of parliament before. Dear Sir, if you have any vote or interest, get them but for once to destroy eleven months, and then I fhall be as old as fome married ladies. But this is defired only if you think they will not comply with Mr. Starlight's fcheme; for nothing furely could please me like a year of confufion, when I fhall no longer be fixed this hour to my pen and the next to my needle, or wait at home for the dancing-master one day, and the next for the mufick-master, but run from ball to ball, and from drum to drum; and spend all my time without talks, and without account, and go out without telling whither, and come home with out regard to prescribed hours, or family-rules.

I am, SIR,

Your humble Servant,

Mr. RAMBLER,

PROPERANTIA,

I WAS feized this morning with an unusual pen fiveness, and, finding that books only ferved to heighten it, took a ramble into the fields, in hopes of relief and invigoration from the keennefs of the air and brightness of the fun.

As I wandered wrapped up in thought, my eyes were ftruck with the hofpital for the reception of deferted infants, which I furveyed with pleasure, till, by a natural train of fentiment, I began to reflect on the fate of the mothers. For to what shelter can

they

they fly? Only to the arms of their betrayer, which perhaps are now no longer open to receive them; and then how quick must be the tranfition from deluded virtue to fhameless guilt, and from fhameless guilt to hopeless wretchedness?

The anguifh that I felt, left me no reft till I had, by your means, addreffed myself to the publick on behalf of those forlorn creatures, the women of the town; whofe mifery here might fatisfy the moft rigorous cenfor, and whofe participation of our common nature might furely induce us to endeavour, at least, their preservation from eternal punishment.

These were all once, if not virtuous, at leaft innocent; and might ftill have continued blameless and eafy, but for the arts and infinuations of thofe whofe rank, fortune, or education, furnished them with means to corrupt or to delude them. Let the libertine reflect a moment on the fituation of that woman, who, being forfaken by her betrayer, is reduced to the neceflity of turning prostitute for bread, and judge of the enormity of his guilt by the evils which it produces.

It cannot be doubted but that numbers follow this dreadful courfe of life, with fhame, horrour, and regret; but where can they hope for refuge?" The world is not their friend, nor the world's law." Their fighs, and tears, and groans, are criminal in the eye of their tyrants, the bully and the bawd, who fatten on their mifery, and threaten them with want or a gaol, if they fhew the least defign of efcaping from their bondage.

"To wipe all tears from off all faces," is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the oppor

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tunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected, with equal difregard of policy and goodness.

There are places, indeed, fet apart, to which these unhappy creatures may refort, when the diseases of incontinence feize upon them; but if they obtain a cure, to what are they reduced? Either to return with the fmall remains of beauty to their former guilt, or perish in the streets with nakedness and hunger.

How frequently have the gay and thoughtless, in their evening frolicks, feen a band of these miserable females, covered with rags, fhivering with cold, and pining with hunger; and, without either pitying their calamities, or reflecting upon the cruelty of those who perhaps firft feduced them by careffes of fondnefs, or magnificence of promifes, go on to reduce others to the fame wretchedness by the fame means?

To stop the increase of this deplorable multitude, is undoubtedly the first and most preffing confideration. To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilance and feverity are properly employed. But furely thofe whom paffion or interest have already depraved, have fome claim to compaffion, from beings equally frail and fallible with themselves. Nor will they long groan in their prefent afflictions, if none were to refuse them relief, but those that owe their exemption from the fame distress only to their wisdom and their virtue.

I am, &c.

AMICUS.

NUMB. 108, SATURDAY, March 30, 1751,

Sapere aude,

Incipe. Vivendi rectè qui prorogat horam,
Ruflicus expectat dum defluat amnis: at ille
Labitur, & labetur in omne volubilis ævum.

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife;
He who defers his work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay,

Hoz.

Till the whole ftream, which stopp'd him, fhould be gone,
That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.

COWLEY.

AN ancient poet, unreasonably discontented at the present state of things, which his system of opinions obliged him to represent in its worft form, has observed of the earth," that its greater part is "covered by the uninhabitable ocean; that of the "reft fome is encumbered with naked mountains,

and fome loft under barren fands; fome fcorched

with unintermitted heat, and fome petrified with "perpetual frost; fo that only a few regions remain "for the production of fruits, the pafture of cattle, "and the accommodation of man."

The fame obfervation may be transferred to the time allotted us in our present state. When we have deducted all that is abforbed in fleep, all that is inevitably appropriated to the demands of nature, or irresistibly engroffed by the tyranny of cuftom; all that paffes in regulating the fuperficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of civi

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