ale part of mankind are bred and
treated, as if they were designed to inhabit the happy fields of
Arcadia, rather than be wives and mothers in old England. It is indeed
long since I had the happiness to converse familiarly with this sex, and
therefore have been fearful of falling into the error which recluse men
are very subject to, that of giving false representations of the world
from which they have retired, by imaginary schemes drawn from their own
reflections. An old man cannot easily gain admittance into the
dressing-room of ladies; I therefore thought it time well spent, to turn
over Agrippa, and use all my occult art, to give my old cornelian ring
the same force with that of Gyges, which I have lately spoken of.[123]
By the help of this, I went unobserved to a friend's house of mine, and
followed the chamber-maid invisibly about twelve of the clock into the
bed-chamber of the beauteous Flavia, his fine daughter, just before she
got up.

I drew the curtains, and being wrapped up in the safety of my old age,
could with much pleasure, without passion, behold her sleeping with
Waller's poems, and a letter fixed in that part of him, where every
woman thinks herself described. The light flashing upon her face,
awakened her: she opened her eyes, and her lips too, repeating that
piece of false wit in that admired poet:

_Such Helen was, and who can blame the boy,
That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?_[124]

This she pronounced with a most bewitching sweetness; but after it
fetched a sigh, that methought had more desire than languishment, then
took out her letter, and read aloud, for the pleasure, I suppose, of
hearing soft words in praise of herself, the following epistle:

"MADAM,

"I sat near you at the Opera last night; but knew no entertainment
from the vain show and noise about me, while I waited wholly intent
upon the motion of your bright eyes, in hopes of a glance, that
might restore me to the pleasures of sight and hearing in the midst
of beauty and harmony. It is said, the hell of the accursed in the
next life arises from an incapacity to partake the joys of the
blessed, though they were to be admitted to them. Such I am sure
was my condition all this evening; and if you, my deity, cannot
have so much mercy as to make me by your influence capable of
tasting the satisfactions of life, my being is ended, which
consisted only in your