lick Good. I am a very great Lover of Women, that is to say
honestly, and as it is natural to study what one likes, I have
industriously applied my self to understand them. The present
Circumstance relating to them, is, that I think there wants under you,
as SPECTATOR, a Person to be distinguished and vested in the Power and
Quality of a Censor on Marriages. I lodge at the Temple, and know, by
seeing Women come hither, and afterwards observing them conducted by
their Council to Judges Chambers, that there is a Custom in Case of
making Conveyance of a Wife's Estate, that she is carried to a Judges
Apartment and left alone with him, to be examined in private whether
she has not been frightened or sweetned by her Spouse into the Act she
is going to do, or whether it is of her own free Will. Now if this be
a Method founded upon Reason and Equity, why should there not be also
a proper Officer for examining such as are entring into the State of
Matrimony, whether they are forced by Parents on one Side, or moved by
Interest only on the other, to come together, and bring forth such
awkward Heirs as are the Product of half Love and constrained
Compliances? There is no Body, though I say it my self, would be
fitter for this Office than I am: For I am an ugly Fellow of great Wit
and Sagacity. My Father was an hail Country-Squire, my Mother a witty
Beauty of no Fortune: The Match was made by Consent of my Mothers
Parents against her own: and I am the Child of a Rape on the
Wedding-Night; so that I am as healthy and as homely as my Father, but
as sprightly and agreeable as my Mother. It would be of great Ease to
you if you would use me under you, that Matches might be better
regulated for the future, and we might have no more Children of
Squabbles. I shall not reveal all my Pretensions till I receive your
Answer; and am, Sir,
Your most humble Servant,
Mules Palfrey.

Mr. Spectator,

I am one of those unfortunate Men within the City-Walls, who am
married to a Woman of Quality, but her Temper is something different
from that of Lady Anvil. My Lady's whole Time and Thoughts are spent
in keeping up to the Mode both in Apparel and Furniture. All the Goods
in my House have been changed three times in seven Years. I have had
seven Children by her; and by our Marriage Articles she was to have
her Apartment new furnished as often as she lay in. Nothing in our
Ho