would do! Can't they learn to curse and swear in jest? and be good, and true, and faithful, just when a lady wants them to be good, and true, and faithful!-But you would be content, if the good men would dress, only dress, like rakes-But, hold! on looking back to your ladyship's letter, I find the words dress and address: "The good man need only to assume the dress and address of the rake, and you will wager ten to four that he will be preferred to him." Will you be pleased, madam, to give me particulars of the taking dress of a rake? Will you be pleased to describe the address with which the ladies in general shall be taken? The rake is, must be, generally, in dress a coxcomb; in address, a man of great assurance: thinking highly of himself, meanly of the sex; he must be past blushing, and laugh at those who are not. He must flatter, lie, laugh, sing, caper, be a monkey, and not a man. And can a good man put on these appearances? We have heard that the devil has transformed himself into an angel of light, to bring about his purposes; but never that an angel of light borrowed a coat and waistcoat of the devil, for any purpose whatever. And must the good man thus debase himself, to stand well with the fair sex?

"To reform Lovelace for Clarissa's sake!". Excellent ladies !—Unbounded charity!-Dear souls! how I love your sex forgiving charmers!But they acknowledge this, I hope, only among themselves!—If there are any Lovelaces of their acquaintance, I hope they give not to them such an indirect invitation to do their worst, in order to give themselves an opportunity to exercise one of the brighest graces of a Christian.

Well, but for fear I should be called scurrilous again, let me see how your ladyship explains yourself." A man may DESERVE the name of a rake, without being QUITE an abandoned profligate; as a man may sometimes drink A LITTLE TOO MUCH without being a sot."

And, were I to attempt to draw a good man, are these, madam, the outlines of his character? Must he be a moderate rake?-Must he qualify himself for the ladies' favour by taking any liberties that are criminal? Only taking care that he stop at a few; "that he be not QUITE an abandoned profligate! that though he may now and then drink a little too much, yet that he stop short of the SOT!"-O my dear lady Bradshaigh-and am I scurrilous for saying, that there is no such thing, at least that it is very difficult, so to draw a good man, that he may be thought agreeable to the ladies in general?

Did I ever tell you, madam, of the contention I had with Mr. Cibber, about the character of a good man, which he undertook to draw, and to whom, at setting out, he gave a mistress, in order to show the virtue of his hero in parting with her, when he had fixed upon a particular lady, to whom he made honourable addresses? A male-virgin, said he-ha, ha, ha, hah! when I made my objections to the mistress, and she was another man's wife too, but ill used by her husband; and he laughed me quite out of countenance!—And it was but yesterday, in company, some of which he never was in before, that he was distinguishing upon a moderate rake (though not one word has he seen or heard of your ladyship's letter or notion), by urging, that men

might be criminal without being censurable!—a doctrine that he had no doubt about, and to which he declared that none but divines and prudes would refuse to subscribe to!-Bless me, thought I!and is this knowing the world?-What an amiable man was Mr. B, in Pamela, in this light!

But I have this comfort, upon the whole, that I find the good man's character is not impracticable; and I think Mr. Cibber, if I can have weight with him, shall undertake the arduous task. He is as gay and as lively at seventy-nine as he was at twenty-nine; and he is a sober man, who has seen ́a great deal, and always dressed well, and was noted for his address, and for his success too, on two hundred and fifty occasions, a little too many, I doubt, for a moderate rake: but then his long life must be considered. I wish we could fix upon the number of times a man might be allowed to be overcome with wine, without being thought a sot. Once a week? Once a fortnight? Once a month? How shall we put it? Youth will have its follies. Why-but I will not ask the question I was going to ask, lest I should provoke your ladyship beyond your strength.

Dear, dear madam, let me beg of you to make your own virtuous sentiments and behaviour in life. which render you equally beloved and revered by all who have the honour to know you, the standard of virtue for all your sex. When you extend your charity too far, and allow for what is, rather than insist upon what should be, in cases of duty and of delicacy, my love for the sex makes me apply to your ladyship's words-" you provoke me beyond my strength."

Just this moment came in my wife.-(Thursday morning, eleven.)—" O, Betsy," said I," begone! Ask me not what I am writing; I have been cutting your dear lady all to pieces."-" Dear good lady!" said she, "never will I forgive you, then." Then looking at you over the chimney, with an eye of love, and my eye following hers, "You can be but in jest," said she. "Pray make my best compliments to her ladyship, and to her sir Roger." With which I conclude, &c.

1

LETTER XLVI.

MR. RICHARDSON TO LADY BRADSHAIGH.

North-End, Dec. 26, 1751.

EVER obliging lady Bradshaigh! And was it, could it be, five weeks, almost six, before I paid my duty to my dearest correspondent?-How proud do you make me by your reproaches! You tell me you are angry with me! the first time I have been able to make you so.-Yet, sweet bee of Hybla! how you sting, when you tell me, that you suppose I would make no excuses for my long silence, because I would not allow of white fibs in myself!-O my lady! how could you, and in the same sentence in which you were gracious?—but how can I cry out, though hurt, when I revolve the friendly, the condescending, the indulgent motive?

You have seen in the papers, I suppose, that our friend is married; may he be happy! most cordially I wish for it: not only because he is our friend, but because he is our fellow-creature.

"Much depends upon the lady; and common sense will not be sufficient to make him so.-She must have sense enough to make him see, that she thinks him her superior in sense," as you once told me. Proud mortal! and vain!-And cannot he be content with the greater pride, as a man of sense would think it, to call a richer jewel than he had before, his, while he is all his own!-But, such is the nature of woman if she be not a vixen indeed, that if the man sets out right with her; if he lets her early know that he is her lord, and that she is but his vassal; and that he has a stronger sense of his prerogative than of her merit and beauty; she will succumb: and, after a few struggles, a few tears, will make him a more humble, a more passive wife, for his insolent bravery, and high opinion of himself. I am sorry to say it; but I have too often observed, that fear, as well as love, is necessary on the lady's part, to make wedlock happy; and it will generally do it, if the man sets out with asserting his power and her dependence. And now will your ladyship rise upon me! I expect it. And yet you have yourself allowed the case to be thus, with regard to this husband and his wife.

The struggle would be only at first: and if a man would be obstinate, a woman would be convinced, or seem to be so, and very possibly think the man more a man for his tyranny, and value herself when he condescended to praise, or smile upon her.

I have as good a wife as man need to wish for. I believe your ladyship thinks so.-Yet-shall I