ient match; and when they are informed of your age and fortune,
offer a partner for life with the same readiness, and the same
indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits
his customer with a coat.

It might be expected that they should soon be discouraged from this
officious interposition by resentment or contempt; and that every man
should determine the choice on which so much of his happiness must
depend, by his own judgment and observation: yet it happens, that as
these proposals are generally made with a shew of kindness, they seldom
provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten. They
influence weak minds to approbation; for many are sure to find in a new
acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and
in more powerful and active understandings they excite curiosity, and
sometimes, by a lucky chance, bring persons of similar tempers within
the attraction of each other.

I was known to possess a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was
frequently attended by these hymeneal solicitors, with whose importunity
I was sometimes diverted, and sometimes perplexed; for they contended
for me as vultures for a carcase; each employing all his eloquence, and
all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the
success of which he was to receive no other advantage than the pleasure
of defeating others equally eager, and equally industrious.

An invitation to sup with one of those busy friends, made me, by a
concerted chance, acquainted with Camilla, by whom it was expected that
I should be suddenly and irresistibly enslaved. The lady, whom the same
kindness had brought without her own concurrence into the lists of love,
seemed to think me at least worthy of the honour of captivity; and
exerted the power, both of her eyes and wit, with so much art and
spirit, that though I had been too often deceived by appearances to
devote myself irrevocably at the first interview, yet I could not
suppress some raptures of admiration, and flutters of desire. I was
easily persuaded to make nearer approaches; but soon discovered, that an
union with Camilla was not much to be wished. Camilla professed a
boundless contempt for the folly, levity, ignorance, and impertinence of
her own sex; and very frequently expressed her wonder that men of
learning or experience could submit to trifle away life with beings
incapable of solid thought. In mixed companies, sh