ay of Admonition to my female Readers,
give them Warning against agreeable Company of the other Sex, except
they are well acquainted with their Characters. Women may disguise it if
they think fit, and the more to do it, they may be angry at me for
saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they have no Manner of
Approbation of Men, without some Degree of Love: For this Reason he is
dangerous to be entertaind as a Friend or Visitant who is capable of
gaining any eminent Esteem or Observation, though it be never so remote
from Pretensions as a Lover. If a Man's Heart has not the Abhorrence of
any treacherous Design, he may easily improve Approbation into Kindness,
and Kindness into Passion. There may possibly be no manner of Love
between them in the Eyes of all their Acquaintance, no it is all
Friendship; and yet they may be as fond as Shepherd and Shepherdess in a
Pastoral, but still the Nymph and the Swain may be to each other no
other I warrant you, than Pylades and Orestes.

When Lucy decks with Flowers her swelling Breast,
And on her Elbow leans, dissembling Rest,
Unable to refrain my madding Mind,
Nor Sleep nor Pasture worth my Care I find.

Once Delia slept, on easie Moss reclin'd,
Her lovely Limbs half bare, and rude the Wind;
I smoothed her Coats, and stole a silent Kiss:
Condemn me Shepherds if I did amiss. [4]

Such good Offices as these, and such friendly Thoughts and Concerns for
one another, are what make up the Amity, as they call it, between Man
and Woman.

It is the Permission of such Intercourse, that makes a young Woman come
to the Arms of her Husband, after the Disappointment of four or five
Passions which she has successively had for different Men, before she is
prudentially given to him for whom she has neither Love nor Friendship.
For what should a poor Creature do that has lost all her Friends?
There's Marinet the Agreeable, has, to my Knowledge, had a Friendship
for Lord Welford, which had like to break her Heart; then she had so
great a Friendship for Colonel Hardy, that she could not endure any
Woman else should do any thing but rail at him. Many and fatal have been
Disasters between Friends who have fallen out, and their Resentments are
more keen than ever those of other Men can possibly be: But in this it
happens unfortunately, that as there ought to be nothing concealed from
one Friend to another, the Friends of different Sexes [very often [5]]
find fatal Effects f