o dream a second time, I could make a
tolerable Vision upon this Plan. I would suppose all the unmarried
Women in _London_ and _Westminster_ brought to Market in Sacks, with
their respective Prices on each Sack. The first Sack that is sold is
marked with five thousand Pound: Upon the opening of it, I find it
filled with an admirable Housewife, of an agreeable Countenance: The
Purchaser, upon hearing her good Qualities, pays down her Price very
chearfully. The second I would open, should be a five hundred Pound
Sack: The Lady in it, to our surprize, has the Face and Person of a
Toast: As we are wondering how she came to be set at so low a Price,
we hear that she would have been valued at ten thousand Pound, but
that the Publick had made those Abatements for her being a Scold. I
would afterwards find some beautiful, modest, and discreet Woman, that
should be the top of the Market; and perhaps discover half a dozen
Romps tyed up together in the same Sack, at one hundred Pound an Head.
The Prude and the Coquet should be valued at the same Price, tho' the
first should go off the better of the two. I fancy thou wouldst like
such a Vision, had I time to finish it; because, to talk in thy own
way, there is a Moral in it. Whatever thou may'st think of it,
pr'ythee do not make any of thy queer Apologies for this Letter, as
thou didst for my last. The Women love a gay lively Fellow, and are
never angry at the Railleries of one who is their known Admirer. I am
always bitter upon them, but well with them.

_Thine_,

HONEYCOMB.

O.

* * * * *

No. 512. Friday, October 17, 1712. Addison.

'Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo.'

Hor.

There is nothing which we receive with so much Reluctance as Advice. We
look upon the Man who gives it us as offering an Affront to our
Understanding, and treating us like Children or Ideots. We consider the
Instruction as an implicit Censure, and the Zeal which any one shews for
our Good on such an Occasion as a Piece of Presumption or Impertinence.
The Truth of it is, the Person who pretends to advise, does, in that
particular, exercise a Superiority over us, and can have no other Reason
for it, but that in comparing us with himself, he thinks us defective
either in our Conduct or our Understanding. For these Reasons, there is
nothing so difficult as the