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was driven to the usual resource of necessitous wits-to write for bread. In this project he succeeded to the admiration of a numerous class of readers, though he failed to rise in fortune as he rose in fame. He is said to have wanted urbanity, and to have possessed a quality very common with wits of his description, who would rather lose a friend than a joke. He died in 1704.

His works were printed in 1707; and consist of "Dialogues, Essays, Declamations, Satires, Letters from the Dead to the Living, Translations, Amusements," &c. The following passage will serve to give an idea of his man

ner.

Ladies.

The chief virtue in the ladies' catechism is, to please; and beauty pleases men more effectually than wisdom. One man loves sweetness and modesty in a woman; another loves a jolly damsel with life and vigour; but agreeableness and beauty relishes with all human palates. A young woman who has no other portion than her hopes of pleasing, is at a loss what measures to take that she may make her for tune. Is she simple? We despise her. Is she virtuous? We don't like her company. Is she a coquet? We avoid her. Therefore, to succeed well in this

world, 'tis necessary that she be virtuous, simple, and a coquet, all at once. Simplicity invites us, coquetry amuses, and virtue retains us. 'Tis a hard matter for a woman to escape the censures of the men. 'Tis much more so to guard themselves from the women's tongues. A lady that sets up virtue, makes herself envied; she that pretends to gallantry, makes herself despised; but she that pretends to nothing, escapes contempt and envy, and saves herself between two reputations. This management surpasses the capacity of a young woman, she being exposed to two temptations. To preserve themselves from them, they want the assistance of reason; and 'tis their misfortune that reason comes not in to their relief, till their youth and beauty, and the danger, are gone together. Tell us why should not reason come as soon as beauty, since one was made to defend the other? It does not depend upon a woman to be handsome; the only beauty that all of them might have, and some of them, to speak modestly, often part with, is chastity; but of all beauties whatsoever, 'tis the easiest to lose. She that never was yet in love, is so ashamed of her first weakness," that she would by all means conceal it from herself; as for the second, she desires to conceal it from others; but she does not think it worth the while to conceal the third from any body. When chastity is once gone, 'tis no more to be retrieved than youth.

Those that have lost their chastities, assume an affected one, which is much sooner provoked than that which is real.

Tom Brown is now usually decried as a buffoon, and mere merry fellow; but he had great shrewdness and observation, and was a droll of the very first order. His great fault is his indecency-a fault which seems almost inseparable from a humourist,

VOL. III.

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James II.

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