As Jack Gayless was not one of those milksops, who let family excuses stand in the way of the more amiable office of obliging his friends, and saw in its just light the ridicule he would naturally expose himself to, if he sheltered himself under so filly a pretence as a wife's fickness, he would infallibly have obeyed her ladyship's commands, and set out with the Highland tarrier instead of Mrs. Gayless, if he had not been divided by another very preffing attention, which every man of the world will acknowledge the importance of. There was a certain young lady of easy virtue, who had made a tender impreffion on his heart as he was innocently taking the air in Hyde Park: He had prevailed fo far with her as to gain her consent to an appointment for that day; not foreseeing, as I should fuppofe, or perhaps not just at that moment recollecting his wife's journey, and the call there would be upon him on that account. This young lady, who was wanting in no other virtue but chastity, had learnt some particulars of Mr. Gayless, which she had not been informed of when she yielded to the affignation, and in consequence had written him the following perplexing billet: Sir, I am forry it is not possible for me to receive the honour bonour of your visit, and the more so, as I am afraid my reason for declining it, though infuperable with me, will not appear a sufficient one in your opinion. I have just now been informed that you are a married man; this would have been enough, if I had not heard it with the addition, that your Lady is one of the most excellent and most injured women living if indeed she be yet living, for I learn from the fame authority that she is in the last stage of a rapid decline. In what light must I regard myself, if I was to fupply you with a motive for neglecting that attention, which her fituation demands of you? Don't let it furprize you, that a woman who has forfeited her claim to modesty, should yet retain fome pretenfions to humanity: If you have renounced both the one and the other, I have a double motive for declining your acquaintance. I am, &c. ** The stile of this letter seemed so extraordinary to Jack, and fo unlike what he had been used to receive from correspondents of this lady's description, that it is not to be wondered at, if it threw him into a profound meditation: Not that the rebuke made any other impreffion on him, than as it seemed to involve a mystery, which he could not expound; for it never entered into his head to suppose that the writer was in earnest. In this dilemma he imparted it to a friend, and with his usual gaiety defired his help to unriddle it: His friend perused it, and with a serious countenance told him he was acquainted with the lady, and gave her perfect credit for the fincerity of the sentiments it contained: She was a romantic girl, he told him, and not worth a further thought; but as he perceived he was chagrined with the affair, he advised him to take poft for the country, and attend the summons of his noble correspondent, for that he himself had always found the diffipation of a journey the best remedy in all cases of vexation, like the present. This friendly advice was immediately followed by an order for the journey, and Jack Gayless put himself into his poft-chaise, with his tarrier by his fide, ordering his groom to follow with Moll Ross by easy stages. Whilft Jack was rapidly posting towards the house of jollity and diffipation, his fuffering and forsaken wife by flow stages pursued her last melancholy journey: Supported in her coach by her two women, and attended by an old man fervant of her father's, she at last reached the allotted house, where her miseries were to find a period. One indifcretion only, a stolen and precipitate VOL. III. Y marriage, She marriage, had marked her life with a blemish, and the husband, who in early youth had betrayed her artless affection into that fatal mistake, was now the chosen instrument of chastisement. bore her complicated afflictions with the most patient refignation; neither sickness nor forrow forced a complaint from her; and Death, by the gentleness of his advances, seemed to lay afide his terrors, and approach her with respect and pity. Jack was still upon his visit, when he received the news of her death: This event obliged him to break off from a most agreeable party, and take a journey to London; but as the season had happened to fet in for a severe froft, and the foxhounds were confined to their kennel, he had the confolation to reflect that his amusements were not fo much interrupted as they might have been. He gave orders for a handsome funeral, and deported himself with such outward propriety on the occafion, that all the world gave him credit for his behaviour, and he continues to be the fame popular character amongst his acquaintance, and universally caressed: In short, Jack Gaylefs (to use the phrase of fashion) is the honefteft fellow in England, and a disgrace to human na ture. N° XCIII. B N° XCIII. : EING now arrived at the conclufion of my Third Volume, and having hitherto given my readers very little interruption in my own person, I hope I may be permitted to make one short valedictory address to these departing adventurers, in whose success I am naturally so much interested. I have employed much time and care in rearing up these Essays to what I conceived maturity, and qualifying them, as far as I was able, to shift for themselves, in a world where they are to inherit no popularity from their author, nor to look for any favour but what they can earn for themselves. To any, who shall question them who they are, and whence they come, they may truly answer-We are all one man's fonswe are indeed Obfervers, but no Spies. If this shall not fuffice, and they must needs give a further account of themselves, they will have to say, that he who sent them into the world, fent them as an offering of his good-will to mankind; that he trusts they have been so trained as not to hurt the feelings or offend the principles of any man, who shall admit them into his company; and that for their errors (which he cannot doult are many) Y 2 |