have been your
neck, as well as your leg; and then you had not had the opportunity you
now have for repentance--and, the Lord have mercy upon you! into what a
state might you have awoke!

Then did the poor wretch set up an inarticulate frightful howl, such a
one as I never before heard of her; and seeing every one half-frighted,
and me motioning to withdraw, O pity me, pity me, Mr. Belford, cried she,
her words interrupted by groans--I find you think I shall die!--And what
may I be, and where, in a very few hours--who can tell?

I told her it was vain to flatter her: it was my opinion she would not
recover.

I was going to re-advise her to calm her spirits, and endeavour to resign
herself, and to make the beset of the opportunity yet left her; but this
declaration set her into a most outrageous raving. She would have torn
her hair, and beaten her breast, had not some of the wretches held her
hands by force, while others kept her as steady as they could, lest she
should again put out her new-set leg; so that, seeing her thus incapable
of advice, and in a perfect phrensy, I told Sally Martin, that there was
no bearing the room; and that their best way was to send for a minister
to pray by her, and to reason with her, as soon as she should be capable
of it. And so I left them; and never was so sensible of the benefit of
fresh air, as I was the moment I entered the street.

Nor is it to be wondered at, when it is considered that, to the various
ill smells that will always be found in a close sick bed-room, (for
generally, when the physician comes, the air is shut out,) this of Mrs.
Sinclair was the more particularly offensive, as, to the scent of
plasters, salves, and ointments, were added the stenches of spirituous
liquors, burnt and unburnt, of all denominations; for one or other of
the creatures, under pretence of colics, gripes, or qualms, were
continually calling for supplies of these, all the time I was there.
And yet this is thought to be a genteel house of the sort; and all the
prostitutes in it are prostitutes of price, and their visiters people of
note.

O, Lovelace! what lives do most of us rakes and libertines lead! what
company do we keep! And, for such company, what society renounce, or
endeavour to make like these!

What woman, nice in her person, and of purity in her mind and manners,
did she know what miry wallowers the generality of men of our class are
in themselves, and constantly trough and st