FullReads

‘I am, SIR,
‘Your gentle Reader.’

Mr. SPECTATOR,

‘Your professed Regard to the Fair Sex, may perhaps make them value your Admonitions when they will not those of other Men. I desire you, Sir, to repeat some Lectures upon Subjects which you have now and then in a cursory manner only just touched. I would have a Spectator wholly writ upon good Breeding: and after you have asserted that Time and Place are to be very much considered in all our Actions, it will be proper to dwell upon Behaviour at Church. On Sunday last a grave and reverend Man preached at our Church: There was something particular in his Accent, but without any manner of Affectation. This Particularity a Set of Gigglers thought the most necessary Thing to be taken notice of in his whole Discourse, and made it an Occasion of Mirth during the whole time of Sermon: You should see one of them ready to burst behind a Fan, another pointing to a Companion in another Seat, and a fourth with an arch Composure, as if she would if possible stifle her Laughter. There were many Gentlemen who looked at them stedfastly, but this they took for ogling and admiring them: There was one of the merry ones in particular, that found out but just then that she had but five Fingers, for she fell a reckoning the pretty Pieces of Ivory over and over again, to find her self Employment and not laugh out. Would it not be expedient, Mr. SPECTATOR, that the Church-warden should hold up his Wand on these Occasions, and keep the Decency of the Place as a Magistrate does the Peace in a Tumult elsewhere?

Mr. SPECTATOR,

I am a Woman’s Man, and read with a very fine Lady your Paper, wherein you fall upon us whom you envy: What do you think I did? you must know she was dressing, I read the Spectator to her, and she laughed at the Places where she thought I was touched; I threw away your Moral, and taking up her Girdle cried out,

Give me but what this Ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the [Sun [2]] goes round. [3]

She smiled, Sir, and said you were a Pedant; so say of me what you please, read Seneca and quote him against me if you think fit.
I am,
SIR,
Your humble Servant.

[Footnote 1: is not]

[Footnote 2: World]

[Footnote 3: Waller, On a Girdle.]