and so as to excite Horrour and Aversion: Whereas Words
representing the Pleasure rather than the Sin, are for this Reason
indecent and dishonest. Your Papers would be chargeable with something
worse than Indelicacy, they would be Immoral, did you treat the
detestable Sins of Uncleanness in the same manner as you rally an
impertinent Self-love and an artful Glance; as those Laws would be
very unjust, that should chastise Murder and Petty Larceny with the
same Punishment. Even Delicacy requires that the Pity shewn to
distressed indigent Wickedness, first betrayed into, and then expelled
the Harbours of the Brothel, should be changed to Detestation, when we
consider pampered Vice in the Habitations of the Wealthy. The most
free Person of Quality, in Mr. Courtly's Phrase, that is, to speak
properly, a Woman of Figure who has forgot her Birth and Breeding,
dishonoured her Relations and her self, abandoned her Virtue and
Reputation, together with the natural Modesty of her Sex, and risqued
her very Soul, is so far from deserving to be treated with no worse
Character than that of a kind Woman, (which is doubtless Mr. Courtly's
Meaning, if he has any,) that one can scarce be too severe on her, in
as much as she sins against greater Restraints, is less exposed, and
liable to fewer Temptations, than Beauty in Poverty and Distress. It
is hoped therefore, Sir, that you will not lay aside your generous
Design of exposing that monstrous Wickedness of the Town, whereby a
Multitude of Innocents are sacrificed in a more barbarous Manner than
those who were offered to Moloch. The Unchaste are provoked to see
their Vice exposed, and the Chaste cannot rake into such Filth without
Danger of Defilement; but a meer SPECTATOR may look into the Bottom,
and come off without partaking in the Guilt. The doing so will
convince us you pursue publick Good, and not meerly your own
Advantage: But if your Zeal slackens, how can one help thinking that
Mr. Courtly's Letter is but a Feint to get off from a Subject, in
which either your own, or the private and base Ends of others to whom
you are partial, or those [of] whom you are afraid, would not endure a
Reformation?

I am, Sir, your humble Servant and Admirer, so long as you tread in
the Paths of Truth, Virtue, and Honour.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Trin. Coll. Cantab. Jan. 12, 1711-12.

It is my Fortune to have a Chamber-Fellow, w