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his water-gruel, administered him his medicines, and, notwithstanding the prudent advice of her aunt to the contrary, almost entirely resided in her wounded lover's apartment.

The ladies of the town began to take her conduct under consideration; it was the chief topic of discourse at their tea-tables, and was very severely censured by the most part; especially by Lindamira, a lady whose discreet and starch carriage, together with a constant attendance at church three times a-day, had utterly defeated many malicious attacks on her own reputation: for such was the envy that Lindamira's virtue had attracted, that, notwithstanding her own strict behaviour, and strict inquiry into the lives of others, she had not been able to escape being the mark of some arrows herself, which however did her no injury; a blessing perhaps owed by her to the clergy, who were her chief male companions, and with two or three of whom she had been barbarously and unjustly calumniated. "Not so unjustly neither, perhaps," says Slipslop; "for the clergy are men, as well as other folks."

The extreme delicacy of Lindamira's virtue was cruelly hurt by those freedoms which Leonora allowed herself: she said, "It was an affront to her sex; that she did not imagine it consistent with any woman's honour to speak to the creature, or to be seen in her company; and that, for her part, she should always refuse to dance at an assembly with her, for fear of contamination, by taking her by the hand."

But to return to my story: as soon as Bellarmine was recovered, which was somewhat with in a month from his receiving the wound, he set out, according to agreement, for Leonora's father's, in order to propose the match, and settle all matters with him touching settlements, and the like.

A little before his arrival, the old gentleman had received an intimation of the affair by the following letter, which I can repeat verbatim, and which, they say, was written neither by Leonora nor her aunt, though it was in a woman's hand. The letter was in these words:

"SIR,

"I am sorry to acquaint you, that your daughter Leonora hath acted one of the basest, as well as most simple parts with a young gentleman to whom she had engaged herself, and whom she hath (pardon the word) jilted for another of inferior fortune, notwithstanding his superior figure. You may take what measures you please on this occasion; I have performed what I thought my duty; as I have, though unknown to you, a very great respect for your family."

The old gentleman did not give himself the trouble to answer this kind epistle; nor did he take any notice of it after he had read it, 'till he saw Bellarmine. He was, to say the truth, one

of those fathers who look on children as an unhappy consequence of their youthful pleasures; which, as he would have been delighted not to have had attended them, so he was no less pleased with any opportunity to rid himself of the incumbrance. He passed, in the world's language, as an exceeding good father, being not only so rapacious as to rob and plunder all mankind to the utmost of his power, but even to deny himself the conveniences, and almost necessaries of life; which his neighbours attributed to a desire of raising immense fortunes for his children; but in fact it was not so: he heaped up money for its own sake only, and looked on his children as his rivals, who were to enjoy his beloved mistress, when he was incapable of possessing her, and which he would have been much more charmed with the power of carrying along with him: nor had his children any other security of being his heirs, than that the law would constitute them such without a will, and that he had not affection enough for any one living to take the trouble of writing one.

To this gentleman came Bellarmine on the errand I have mentioned. His person, his equipage, his family, and his estate, seemed to the father to make him an advantageous match for his daughter; he therefore very readily accepted his proposals: but when Bellarmine imagined the principal affair concluded, and began to open the incidental matters of fortune, the old gentleman presently changed his countenance, saying, he resolved never to marry his daughter on a Smithfield match; that whoever had love for her to take her, would, when he died, find her share of his fortune in his coffers: but he had seen such examples of undutifulness happen from the too early generosity of parents, that he had made a vow never to part with a shilling whilst he lived. He commended the saying of Solomon, He that spareth the rod, spoileth the child: but added, he might have likewise asserted, that he that spareth the purse, saveth the child. He then ran into a discourse on the extravagance of the youth of the age; whence he launched into a dissertation on horses, and came at length to commend those Bellarmine drove. That fine gentleman, who, at another season, would have been well enough pleased to dwell a little on that subject, was now very eager to resume the circumstance of fortune. He said, "He had a very high value for the young lady, and would receive her with less than he would any other whatever; but that even his love to her made some regard to worldly matters necessary; for it would be a most distracting sight for him to see her, when he had the honour to be her husband, in less than a coach and six." The old gentleman answered, "Four will do, four will do ;" and then took a turn from horses to extravagance, and from extravagance to horses, till he came round to the equipage again, whither he was no sooner arrived than Bellarmine brought him

back to the point, but all to no purpose; he made his escape from that subject in a minute; till at last the lover declared, "That, in the present situation of his affairs, it was impossible for him, though he loved Leonora more than tout le monde, to marry her without any fortune.' To which the father answered, "He was sorry then his daughter must lose so valuable a match; that if he had an inclination, at present it was not in his power to advance a shilling: that he had had great losses, and been at great expences on projects, which, though he had great expectations from them, had yet produced him nothing; that he did not know what might happen hereafter, as on the birth of a son, or such accident; but he would make no promise, nor enter into any article: for he would not break his vow for all the daughters in the world."

In short, ladies, to keep you no longer in suspense, Bellarmine having tried every argument and persuasion that he could invent, and finding them all ineffectual, at length took his leave, but not in order to return to Leonora ; he proceeded directly to his own seat, whence, after a few days stay, he returned to Paris, to the great delight of the French, and the honour of the English nation.

But as soon as he arrived at his home, he presently dispatched a messenger with the following epistle to Leonora.

"ADORABLE AND CHARMANTE,

"I AM sorry to have the honour to tell you I am not the heureux person destined for your divine arms. Your papa hath told me so with a politesse not often seen on this side Paris. You may perhaps guess his manner of refusing me. -Ah mon Dieu! You will certainly believe me, madame, incapable myself of delivering this triste message, which I intend to try the French air to cure the consequences of A jamais! Cœur! Ange!-Au diable !If your papa obliges you to a marriage, I hope we shall see you at Paris; till when the wind that flows from thence will be the warmest dans le monde : for it will consist almost entirely of my sighs. Adieu, ma princesse! Ah l'amour!

"BELLARMINE."

I shall not attempt, ladies, to describe Leonora's condition, when she received this letter. It is a picture of horror, which I should have as little pleasure in drawing as you in beholding. She immediately left the place, where she was the subject of conversation and ridicule, and retired to that house I shewed you when I began the story; where she hath ever since led a disconsolate life, and deserves perhaps pity for her misfortunes, more than our censure for a behaviour to which the artifices of her aunt very probably contributed, and to which very young women are often rendered too liable by

that blameable levity in the education of our

sex.

"If I was inclined to pity her," said a young lady in the coach, "it would be for the loss of Horatio; for I cannot discern any misfortune in her missing such a husband as Bellarmine."

"Why, I must own," says Slipslop, "the gentleman was a little false-hearted: but howsumever, it was hard to have two lovers, and get never a husband at all.-But pray, madam, what became of Our-asho?"

He remains, said the lady, still unmarried, and hath applied himself so strictly to his business, that he hath raised, I hear, a very considerable fortune. And what is remarkable, they say, he never hears the name of Leonora without a sigh, nor hath ever uttered one syllable to charge her with her ill conduct towards him.

CHAP. VII.

A very short chapter, in which Parson Adams went a great way.

THE lady having finished her story, received the thanks of the company: and now Joseph, putting his head out of the coach, cried out, "Never believe me if yonder be not Parson Adams walking along without his horse." "On my word, and so he is," says Slipslop; "and as sure as twopence he hath left him behind at the inn." Indeed, true it is, the parson had exhibited a fresh instance of his absense of mind: for he was so pleased with having got Joseph into the coach, that he never once thought of the beast in the stable; and finding his legs as nimble as he desired, he sallied out brandishing a crab-stick, and had kept on before the coach, mending and slackening his pace occasionally, so that he had never been much more or less than a quarter of a mile distant from it.

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Mrs Slipslop desired the coachman to overtake him, which he attempted, but in vain : for the faster he drove, the faster the parson ran, often crying out, Ay, ay, catch me if you can:" till at length the coachman swore he would as soon attempt to drive after a greyhound; and giving the parson two or three hearty curses, he cried, " Softly, softly, boys," to his horses, which the civil beasts immediately obeyed.

But we will be more courteous to our reader than he was to Mrs Slipslop; and leaving the coach and its company to pursue their journey, we will carry our reader on after Parson Adams, who stretched forwards without looking once behind him, till having left the coach full three miles in his rear, he came to a place, where, by keeping the extremest track to the right, it was just barely possible for a human creature to miss his way. This track, however, did he

keep, as indeed he had a wonderful capacity at these kind of bare possibilities; and travelling in it about three miles over the plain, he arrived at the summit of a hill, whence, looking a great way backwards, and perceiving no coach in sight, he sat himself down on the turf, and pulling out his Eschylus, determined to wait. here for its arrival.

He had not sat long here, before a gun going off very near a little startled him; he looked up, and saw a gentleman within a hundred paces taking up a partridge, which he had just shot.

Adams stood up, and presented a figure to the gentleman which would have moved laughter in inany; for his cassock had just again fallen down below his great coat, that is to say it reached his knees; whereas the skirt of his great-coat descended no lower than half way down his thighs: but the gentleman's mirth gave way to his surprise at beholding such a personage in such a place.

Adams, advancing to the gentleman, told him, he hoped he had good sport; to which the other answered, "Very little." "I see, sir," said Adams, "you have smote one partridge:" to which the sportsman made no reply, but proceeded to charge his piece.

Whilst the gun was charging, Adams remained in silence, which he at last broke, by observing, that it was a delightful evening. The gentleman, who had at first sight conceived a distasteful opinion of the parson, began, on perceiving a book in his hand, and smoaking likewise the information of the cassock, to change his thoughts, and made a small advance to conversation on his side, by saying, "Sir, I suppose you are not one of these parts?"

"

Adams immediately told him, "No: that he was a traveller, and invited by the beauty of the evening and the place, to repose a little, and amuse himself with reading." "I may as well repose myself too," said the sportsman; " for I have been out this whole afternoon, and the devil a bird have I seen till I came hither." "Perhaps then the game is not very plenty hereabouts," cries Adams." No, sir," said the gentleman; "the soldiers who are quartered in the neighbourhood have killed it all." "It is very probable," cries Adams; " for shooting is their profession." "Ay, shooting the game," answered the other, "but I don't see they are so forward to shoot our enemies. I don't like that affair of Carthagena; if I had been there, I believe I should have done other guess things, d-n me; what's a man's life when his country demands it? A man who won't sacrifice his life for his country deserves to be hang'd, d-n me." Which words he spoke with so violent a gesture, so loud a voice, so strong an accent, and so fierce a countenance, that he might have frightened a captain of trained bands at the head of his company; but Mr

"OL. I.

Adams was not greatly subject to fear: he told him intrepidly, that he very much approved his virtue, but disliked his swearing, and begged him not to addict himself to so bad a custom, without which he said he might fight as bravely as Achilles did. Indeed he was charmed with this discourse; he told the gentleman he would willingly have gone many miles to have met a man of his generous way of thinking; that if he pleased to sit down, he should be greatly delighted to commune with him: for though he was a clergyman, he would himself be ready, if thereto called, to lay down his life for his country.

The gentleman sat down, and Adams by him ; and then the latter began, as in the following chapter, a discourse which we have placed by itself, as it is not only the most curious in this, but perhaps in any other book.

CHAP. VIII.

A notable dissertation by Mr Abraham Adams, wherein that gentleman appears in a political light.

"I Do assure you, sir," says he, taking the gentleman by the hand, "I am heartily glad to meet with a man of your kidney: for though I am a poor parson, I will be bold to say, I am an honest man, and would not do an ill thing to be made a bishop: nay, though it hath not fallen in my way to offer so noble a sacrifice, I have not been without opportunities of suffering for the sake of my conscience, I thank heaven for them; for I have had relations, though I say it, who made some figure in the world, particularly a nephew who was a shopkeeper, and an alderman of a corporation. He was a good lad, and was under my care when a boy, and I believe would do what I bade him to his dying day. Indeed it looks like extreme vanity in me, to affect being a man of such consequence, as to have so great an interest in an alderman; but others have thought so too, as manifestly appeared by the rector, whose curate I formerly was, sending for me on the approach of an election, and telling me, if I expected to continue in his cure, that I must bring my ne phew to vote for one Colonel Courtly, a gentleman whom I had never heard tidings of till that instant. I told the rector, I had no power over my nephew's vote, (God forgive me for such prevarication!) that I supposed he would give it according to his conscience; that I would by no means endeavour to influence him to give it otherwise. He told me, it was in vain to equivocate; that he knew I had already spoke to him in favour of Esquire Fickle my neighbour; and indeed it was true I had; for it was at a season when the church was in danger, and when all good men expected they knew not

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what would happen to us all. I then answered boldly, If he thought I had given my promise, he affronted me in proposing any breach of it.' Not to be too prolix; I persevered, and so did my nephew, in the Esquire's interest, who was chose chiefly through his means; and so I lost my curacy. Well, sir, but do you think the Esquire ever mentioned a word of the church? Ne verbum quidem, ut ita dicam. Within two years he got a place, and hath ever since lived in London; where I have been informed, (but God forbid I should believe that,) that he never so much as goeth to church. I remained, sir, a considerable time without any cure, and lived a full month on one funeral sermon, which I preached on the indisposition of a clergyman: but this by the bye. At last, when Mr Fickle got his place, Colonel Courtly stood again, and who should make interest for him but Mr Fickle himself! that very identical Mr Fickle, who had formerly told me, the colonel was an enemy both to the church and state, had the confidence to solicit my nephew for him; and the colonel himself offered to make me chaplain to his regiment, which I refused in favour of Sir Oliver Hearty, who told us he would sacrifice every thing to his country, and I believe he would except his hunting, which he stuck so close to, that in five years together he went but twice up to parliament; and one of those times, I have been told, never was within sight of the house. However, he was a worthy man, and the best friend I ever had; for by his interest with a bishop, he got me replaced into my curacy, and gave me eight pounds out of his own pocket, to buy me a gown and cassock, and furnish my house. He had our interest while he lived, which was not many years. On his death I had fresh applications made to me; for all the world knew the interest I had with my good nephew, who now was a leading man in the corporation; and Sir Thomas Booby buying the estate which had been Sir Oliver's, proposed himself a candidate. He was then a young gentleman just come from his travels; and it did me good to hear him discourse on affairs, which, for my part, I knew nothing of. If I had been master of a thousand votes, he should have had them all. I engaged my nephew in his interest, and he was elected; and a very fine parliament-man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour long, and I have been told very fine ones: but he could never persuade the parliament to be of his opinion. Non omnia possumus omnes. He promised me a living, poor man, and I believe I should have had it; but an accident happened, which was, that my lady had promised it before, unknown to him. This, indeed, I never heard till afterwards; for my nephew, who died about a month before the incumbent, always told me I might be assured of it. Since that time, Sir Thomas, poor man, had always so

much business, that he never could find leisure to see me. I believe it was partly my lady's fault too, who did not think my dress good enough for the gentry at her table. However, I must do him the justice to say, he never was ungrateful; and I have always found his kitchen, and his cellar too, open to me: many a time after service, on a Sunday, (for I preach at four churches,) have I recruited my spirits with a glass of his ale. Since my nephew's death the corporation is in other hands, and I am not a man of that consequence I was formerly. I have now no longer any talents to lay out in the service of my country; and to whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required. However, on all proper seasons, such as the approach of an election, I throw a suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen my neighbours, who have all promised me these five years, to pro cure an ordination for a son of mine, who is now near thirty, hath an infinite stock of learning, and is, I thank heaven, of an unexceptionable life; though, as he never was at an university, the bishop refuses to ordain him. Too much care cannot indeed be taken in admitting any to the sacred office, though I hope he will never act so as to be a disgrace to any order, but will serve his God and his country to the utmost of his power, as I have endeavoured to do before him; nay, and will lay down his life whenever called to that purpose. I am sure I have educated him in those principles; so that I have acquitted my duty, and shall have nothing to answer for on that account: but I do not distrust him, for he is a good boy; and if Providence should throw it in his way to be of as much consequence in a public light as his father once was, I can answer for him, he will use his talents as honestly as I have done."

CHAP. IX.

In which the gentleman descants on bravery and heroic virtue, till an unlucky accident puts an end to the discourse.

THE gentleman highly commended Mr Adams for his good resolutions, and told him, he hoped his son would tread in his steps; adding, "That if he would not die for his country, he would not be worthy to live in it. I would make no more of shooting a man that would not die for his country than

"Sir," said he, "I have disinherited a nephew who is in the army, because he would not exchange his commission and go to the West Indies. I believe the rascal is a coward, though he pretends to be in love forsooth. I would have all such fellows hanged, sir; I would have them hanged." Adams answered, "That would be too severe; that men

did not make themselves; and if fear had too much ascendance in the mind, the man was rather to be pitied than abhorred; that reason and time might teach him to subdue it." He said, "A man might be a coward at one time, and brave at another. Homer," says he, "who so well understood and copied Nature, hath taught us this lesson; for Paris fights, and Hector runs away: nay, we have a mightier instance of this in the history of later ages, no longer ago than in the seven hundred and fifth year of Rome, when the great Pompey, who had won so many battles, and had been honour ed with so many triumphs, and of whose valour several authors, especially Cicero and Paterculus, have formed such eulogiums; this very Pompey left the battle of Pharsalia before he had lost it, and retreated to his tent, where he sat like the most pusillanimous rascal in a fit of despair, and yielded a victory, which was to determine the empire of the world, to Cæsar. I am not much travelled in the history of modern times, that is to say, these last thousand years; but those who are, can, I make no question, furnish you with parallel instances." He concluded therefore, that had he taken any such hasty resolutions against his nephew, he hoped he would consider better, and retract them. The gentleman answered with great warmth, and talked much of courage and his country, till, perceiving it grew late, he asked Adams, "What place he intended for that night?" He told him, "He waited there for the stage-coach." "The stage-coach! sir," said the gentleman, "they are all past by long ago. You may see the last yourself almost three miles before us." "I protest and so they are," cries Adams; "then I must make haste and follow them." The gentleman told him, "He would hardly be able to overtake them: and that if he did not know his way, he would be in danger of losing himself on the Downs; for it would be presently dark, and he might ramble about all night, and perhaps find himself farther from his journey's end in the morning than he was now." He advised him therefore to accompany him to his house, which was very little out of his way, assuring him, that he would find some country fellow in his parish, who would conduct him for sixpence to the city where he was going. Adams accepted this proposal, and on they travelled, the gentleman renewing his discourse on courage, and the infamy of not being ready at all times to sacrifice our lives to our country. Night overtook them much about the same time as they arrived near some bushes; whence, on a sudden, they heard the most violent shrieks imaginable in a female voice. Adams offered to snatch the gun out of his companion's hand. "What are you doing?" said he. "Doing!" says Adams, "I am hastening to the assistance of the poor creature whom some villains are murdering." "You are not mad

enough, I hope," says the gentleman, trembling; "Do you consider this gun is only charged with shot, and that the robbers are most probably furnished with pistols loaded with bullets? This is no business of ours; let us make as much haste as possible out of the way, or we may fall into their hands ourselves." The shrieks now increasing, Adams made no answer, but snapt his fingers, and, brandishing his crabstick, made directly to the place whence the voice issued, and the man of courage made as much expedition towards his own home, whither he escaped in a very short time without once looking behind him: where we will leave him to contemplate his own bravery, and to censure the want of it in others, and return to the good Adams, who, on coming up to the place whence the noise proceeded, found a woman struggling with a man who had thrown her on the ground, and had almost overpowered her. The great abilities of Mr Adams were not necessary to have formed a right judgment of this affair on the first sight. He did not therefore want the entreaties of the poor wretch to assist her; but, lifting up his crabstick, he immediately levelled a blow at that part of the ravisher's head, where, according to the opinion of the ancients, the brains of some persons are deposited, and which he had undoubtedly let forth, had not Nature (who, as wise men have observed, equips all creatures with what is most expedient for them) taken a provident care (as she always doth with those she intends for encounters) to make this part of the head three times as thick as those of ordinary men, who are designed to exercise talents which are vulgarly called rational, and for whom, as brains are necessary, she is obliged to leave some room for them in the cavity of the skull; whereas those ingredients being entirely useless to persons of the heroic calling, she hath an opportunity of thickening the bone, so as to make it less subject to any impression, or liable to be cracked or broken. And indeed, in some who are predestined to the command of armies or empires, she is supposed sometimes to make that part perfectly solid.

As a game-cock, when engaged in amorous toying with a hen, if perchance he espies another cock at hand, immediately quits his female, and opposes himself to his rival; so did the ravisher, on the information of the crabstick, immediately leap from the woman, and hasted to assail the man. He had no weapons but what nature had furnished him with. However, he clenched his fist, and presently darted it at that part of Adams's breast where the heart is lodged. Adams staggered at the violence of the blow, when, throwing away his staff, he likewise clenched that fist, which we have before commemorated, and would have discharged it full in the breast of his antagonist, had he not dexterously caught it with his left hand, at the

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