one to agree about that, give me the ten shillings.'"

"A gentleman came with a great equipage and a fine coach to the Society,
and desired to be heard. He told them a long story of his wife; how
ill-natured, how sullen, how unkind she was, and that in short she made
his life very uncomfortable. The Society asked him several questions
about her, whether she was

"Unfaithful? No.

"A thief? No.

"A Slut? No.

"A scold? No.

"A drunkard? No.

"A Gossip? No.

"But still she was an ill wife, and very bad wife, and he did not know
what to do with her. At last one of the Society asked him, 'If his
worship was a good husband,' at which being a little surprised, he could
not tell what to say. Whereupon the Club resolved,

"1. That most women that are bad wives are made so by their husbands. 2.
That this Society will hear no complaint against a virtuous bad wife
from a vicious good husband. 3. He that has a bad wife and can't find
the reason of it in her, 'tis ten to one that he finds it in himself."

Sometimes correspondents ask advice as to which of several lovers they
should choose. The following applicants have a different grievances.

"Gentlemen.--There are no less than sixty ladies of us, all neighbours,
dwelling in the same village, that are now arrived at those years at
which we expect (if ever) to be caressed and adored, or, at least
flattered. We have often heard of the attempts of whining lovers; of the
charming poems they had composed in praise of their mistresses' wit and
beauty (tho' they have not had half so much of either of them as the
meanest in our company), of the passions of their love, and that death
itself had presently followed upon a denial. But we find now that the
men, especially of our village, are so dull and lumpish, so languid and
indifferent, that we are almost forced to put words into their mouths,
and when they have got them they have scarce spirit to utter them. So
that we are apt to fear it will be the fate of all of us, as it is
already of some, to live to be old maids. Now the thing, Gentlemen, that
we desire of you is, that, if possible, you would let us understand the
reason why the case is so mightily altered from what it was formerly;
for our experience is so vastly different from what we have heard, that
we are ready to believe that all the stories we have heard of lovers and
their mistresses are fictions and mere banter."

The case of these ladies is indeed to be pitied,