free all this while, and laugh at us poor married
Patients.

'I have known one Wench in this Town carry an haughty Dominion over
her Lovers so well, that she has at the same time been kept by a
Sea-Captain in the _Straits_, a Merchant in the City, a Country
Gentleman in _Hampshire_, and had all her Correspondences managed by
one she kept for her own Uses. This happy Man (as the Phrase is) used
to write very punctually every Post, Letters for the Mistress to
transcribe. He would sit in his Night-Gown and Slippers, and be as
grave giving an Account, only changing Names, that there was nothing
in those idle Reports they had heard of such a Scoundrel as one of the
other Lovers was; and how could he think she could condescend so low,
after such a fine Gentleman as each of them? For the same Epistle said
the same thing to and of every one of them. And so Mr. Secretary and
his Lady went to Bed with great Order.

'To be short, _Mr_. SPECTATOR, we Husbands shall never make the Figure
we ought in the Imaginations of young Men growing up in the World,
except you can bring it about that a Man of the Town shall be as
infamous a Character as a Woman of the Town. But of all that I have
met in my time, commend me to _Betty Duall_: She is the Wife of a
Sailor, and the kept Mistress of a Man of Quality; she dwells with the
latter during the Sea-faring of the former. The Husband asks no
Questions, sees his Apartments furnished with Riches not his, when he
comes into Port, and the Lover is as joyful as a Man arrived at his
Haven when the other puts to Sea. _Betty_ is the most eminently
victorious of any of her Sex, and ought to stand recorded the only
Woman of the Age in which she lives, who has possessed at the same
time two Abused, and two Contented...

T.

* * * * *

No. 487. Thursday, September 18, 1712. Addison.

'--Cum prostrata sopore
Urget membra quies, et mem sine pondere ludit--'

Petr.

Tho' there are many Authors, who have written on Dreams, they have
generally considered them only as Revelations of what has already
happened in distant parts of the World, or as Presages of what is to
happen in future Periods of time.

I shall consider this Subject in another Light, as Dreams may give us
some Idea of the great Excellency of an Human Soul, and some Intimation
of its Independency o