nd is fretted
with vexatious Passions for young Mens doing foolishly what it is
Folly to do at all. Dear Sir, this is my present State of Mind; I hate
those I should laugh at, and envy those I contemn. The Time of Youth
and vigorous Manhood passed the Way in which I have disposed of it, is
attended with these Consequences; but to those who live and pass away
Life as they ought, all Parts of it are equally pleasant; only the
Memory of good and worthy Actions is a Feast which must give a quicker
Relish to the Soul than ever it could possibly taste in the highest
Enjoyments or Jollities of Youth. As for me, if I sit down in my great
Chair and begin to ponder, the Vagaries of a Child are not more
ridiculous than the Circumstances which are heaped up in my Memory.
Fine Gowns, Country Dances, Ends of Tunes, interrupted Conversations,
and midnight Quarrels, are what must necessarily compose my Soliloquy.
I beg of you to print this, that some Ladies of my Acquaintance, and
my Years, may be perswaded to wear warm Night-caps this cold Season:
and that my old Friend _Jack Tawdery_ may buy him a Cane, and not
creep with the Air of a Strut. I must add to all this, that if it were
not for one Pleasure, which I thought a very mean one till of very
late Years, I should have no one great Satisfaction left; but if I
live to the 10th of _March_, 1714, and all my Securities are good, I
shall be worth Fifty thousand Pound.

_I am, SIR, Your most humble Servant,_ Jack Afterday.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

You will infinitely oblige a distressed Lover, if you will insert in
your very next Paper, the following Letter to my Mistress. You must
know, I am not a Person apt to despair, but she has got an odd Humour
of stopping short unaccountably, and, as she her self told a Confident
of hers, she has cold Fits. These Fits shall last her a Month or six
Weeks together; and as she falls into them without Provocation, so it
is to be hoped she will return from them without the Merit of new
Services. But Life and Love will not admit of such Intervals,
therefore pray let her be admonished as follows.

_Madam,_

I Love you, and I honour you: therefore pray do not tell me of
waiting till Decencies, till Forms, till Humours are consulted and
gratified. If you have that happy Constitution as to be indolent for
ten Weeks together, you should consider that all that while I burn