y eyes, without
approaching me, my friends, my maid, or any one about me: he hopes to
get me, I believe, as they say the rattlesnake does the squirrel, by
staring at me till I drop into his mouth. Freeland demands me for a
jointure which he thinks deserves me; Cynthio thinks nothing high enough
to be my value: Freeland therefore will take it for no obligation to
have me; and Cynthio's idea of me, is what will vanish by knowing me
better. Familiarity will equally turn the veneration of the one, and the
indifference of the other, into contempt. I will stick therefore to my
old maxim, to have that sort of man, who can have no greater views than
what are in my power to give him possession of. The utmost of my dear
Frisk's ambition is, to be thought a man of fashion; and therefore has
been so much in mode, as to resolve upon me, because the whole town
likes me. Thus I choose rather a man who loves me because others do,
than one who approves me on his own judgment. He that judges for himself
in love, will often change his opinion; but he that follows the sense of
others, must be constant, as long as a woman can make advances. The
visits I make, the entertainments I give, and the addresses I receive,
will be all arguments for me with a man of Frisk's second-hand genius;
but would be so many bars to my happiness with any other man. However,
since Frisk can wait, I shall enjoy a summer or two longer, and remain a
single woman, in the sublime pleasure of being followed and admired;
which nothing can equal, except that of being beloved by you.

"I am, &c."

Will's Coffee-house, May 30.

My chief business here this evening was to speak to my friends in behalf
of honest Cave Underhill,[259] who has been a comic for three
generations: my father[260] admired him extremely when he was a boy.
There is certainly nature excellently represented in his manner of
action; in which he ever avoided that general fault in players, of doing
too much. It must be confessed, he has not the merit of some ingenious
persons now on the stage, of adding to his authors; for the actors were
so dull in the last age, that many of them have gone out of the world,
without having ever spoke one word of their own in the theatre. Poor
Cave is so mortified, that he quibbles, and tells you, he pretends only
to act a part fit for a man who has one foot in the grave; viz., a
gravedigger. All admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the
gratitude to be pres