man walks in
continual jeopardy, from the looseness and inadvertency of men's
tongues, ay, and women's too; for though I am all along very tender of
the ladies, and would do justice to the sex, by telling you, they were
not the dangerous people whom I had in view in my first writing upon
this subject, yet I must be allowed to say, that they are sometimes
fully even with the men, for ill usage, when they please to fall upon
them in this nice article, in revenge for any slight, or but pretended
slight, put upon them.

It was a terrible revenge a certain lady, who was affronted by a
tradesman in London, in a matter of love, took upon him in this very
article. It seems a tradesman had courted her some time, and it was
become public, as a thing in a manner concluded, when the tradesman left
the lady a little abruptly, without giving a good reason for it, and,
indeed, she afterwards discovered, that he had left her for the offer of
another with a little more money, and that, when he had done so, he
reported that it was for another reason, which reflected a little on the
person of the lady; and in this the tradesman did very unworthily
indeed, and deserved her resentment: but, as I said, it was a terrible
revenge she took, and what she ought not to have done.

First, she found out who it was that her former pretended lover had been
recommended to, and she found means to have it insinuated to her by a
woman-friend, that he was not only rakish and wicked, but, in short,
that he had a particular illness, and went so far as to produce letters
from him to a quack-doctor, for directions to him how to take his
medicines, and afterwards a receipt for money for the cure; though both
the letters and receipt also, as afterwards appeared, were forged, in
which she went a dismal length in her revenge, as you may see.

Then she set two or three female instruments to discourse her case in
all their gossips' companies, and at the tea-tables wherever they came,
and to magnify the lady's prudence in refusing such a man, and what an
escape she had had in being clear of him.

'Why,' says a lady to one of these emissaries, 'what was the matter? I
thought she was like to be very well married.'

'Oh no, Madam! by no means,' says the emissary.

'Why, Madam,' says another lady, 'we all know Mr H----; he is a very
pretty sort of a man.'

'Ay, Madam,' says the emissary again, 'but you know a pretty man is not
all that is required.'

'Nay,' say