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                 FANNY HILL

        MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE

                    c 1749

               by John Cleand

Letter The First

     Madam,

     I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my con-
sidering your desires as indispensable orders.  Ungracious
then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scan-
dalous stages of my life, out of which I emerg'd, at length,
to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love,
health, and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of
youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by
great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding,
naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst
the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tost in, exerted
more observation on the characters and manners of the world
than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who
looking on all thought or reflection as their capital enemy,
keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it
without mercy.

     Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary preface,
I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther
apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my
life, wrote with the same liberty that I led it.

     Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not
so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze
wrapper on it, but paint situations such as they actually
rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of
decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies
as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of
the ORIGINALS themselves, to sniff prudishly and out of
character at the PICTURES of them.  The greatest men, those
of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning
their private closets with nudities, though, in compliance
with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them decent deco-
rations of the staircase, or salon.

     This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal
history.  My maiden name was Frances Hill.  I was born at a
small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents ex-
tremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.

     My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that
disabled him from following the more laborious branches of
country-drudgery, got, by making of nets, a scanty subsis-
tence, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping
a little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood.
They had had several children; but none lived to any age
except myself, who had received from nature a constitution
perfectly healthy.

     My education, till past fourteen, was no better than
very vulgar; reading, or rather spelling, an illegible
scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work composed the whole
system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no
other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity
general to our sex, in the tender stage of life when objects
alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else.
But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expence of
innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look
on a man as a creature of prey that will eat her.

     My poor mother had divided her time so entirely be-
tween her scholars and her little domestic cares, that she
had spared very little of it to my instruction, having,
from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of
guarding me against any.

     I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the
worst of ills befell me in the loss of my tender fond par-
ents, who were both carried off by the small-pox, within a
few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby
hastening the death of my mother; so that I was now left an
unhappy friendless orphan (for my father's coming to settle
there was accidental, he being originally a Kentishman).
That cruel distemper which had proved so fatal to them, had
indeed seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms,
that I was presently out of danger, and, what I then did not
know the value of, was entirely unmark'd.  I skip over here
an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt
on this melancholy occasion.  A little time, and the giddi-
ness of that age dissipated, too soon, my reflections on
that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to recon-
cile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put
into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a
service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice
from one Esther Davis, a young woman that had been down to
see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was
to return to her place.

     As I had now nobody left alive in the village who had
concern enough about what should become of me to start any
objections to this scheme, and the woman who took care of
me after my parents; death rather encouraged me to pursue
it, I soon came to a resolution of making this launch into
the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to SEEK
MY FORTUNE, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more
adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it
made or advanced.

     Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me
to venture with her, by piquing my childish curiosity with
the fine sights that were to be seen in London: the Tombs,
the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and
Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within
her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which per-
fectly turn'd the little head of me.

     Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent ad-
miration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor
girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise above dowlass
shifts and stuff gowns, beheld Esther's scowered satin gowns,
caps border'd with an inch of lace, taudry ribbons, and shoes
belaced with silver: all which we imagined grew in London,
and entered for a great deal into my determination of trying
to come in for my share of them.

     The idea however of having the company of a townswoman
with her, was the trivial, and all the motives that engaged
Esther to take charge of me during my journey to town, where
she told me, after her manner and style, "as how several
maids out of the country had made themselves and all their
kin for ever: that by preserving their VIRTUE, some had taken
so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept
them coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some,
may-hap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I,
as well as another?"; with other almanacs to this purpose,
which set me a tip-toe to begin this promising journey, and
to leave a place which, though my native one, contained no
relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insup-
portable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into
a cold air of charity, with which I was entertain'd even at
the only friend's house that I had the least expectation of
care and protection from.  She was, however, so just to me,
as to manage the turning into money of the little matters
that remained to me after the debts and burial charges were
accounted for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune
into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe,
pack'd up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with
seventeen shillings in silver; stowed up in a spring-pouch,
which was a greater treasure than ever I had yet seen to-
gether, and which I could not conceive there was a possi-
bility of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken
up with the joy of seeing myself mistress of such an im-
mense sum, that I gave very little attention to a world of
good advice which was given me with it.

     Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the
London waggon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of
leavetaking, at which I dropt a few tears betwixt grief and
joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over
all that happened to me on the road, such as the waggoner's
looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of
the passengers, which were defeated by the vigilance of my
guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly
care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for her pro-
tection by making me bear all travelling charges, which I
defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought myself
much obliged to her into the bargain.

     She took indeed great care that we were not over-rated,
or imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible;
expensiveness was not her vice.

     It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached
London-town, in our slow conveyance, though drawn by six at
length.  As we passed through the greatest streets that led
to our inn, the noise of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds
of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops
and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.

     But guess at my mortification and surprize when we
came to the inn, and our things were landed and deliver'd
to us, when my fellow traveller and protectress, Esther
Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during
the journey, and prepared me by no preceding signs for the
stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only depend-
ence and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden
assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded
my becoming a burden to her.

     Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her
assistance and good offices, which I relied upon, and never
more wanted, she thought herself, it seems, abundantly ac-
quitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe
to my journey's end; and seeing nothing in her procedure
towards me but what was natural and in order, began to em-
brace me by way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded,
so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so much as
to mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and
knowledge of the place she had brought me to.

     Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubt-
less attributed to nothing more than a concern at parting,
this idea procured me perhaps a slight alleviation of it,
in the following harangue:  That now we were got safe to
London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she
advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible;
that I need not fear getting one; there were more places
than parish-churches; that she advised me to go to an
intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing stirring,
she would find me out and let me know; that in the meantime,
I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where to
send to me; that she wish'd me good luck, and hoped I should
always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bring a
disgrace on my parentage.  With this, she took her leave of
me, and left me, as it were, on my own hands, full as
lightly as I had been put into hers.

     Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless,
I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this
separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room
in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the af-
fliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances burst
out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the
oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupefied,
and most perfectly perplex'd how to dispose of myself.

     One of the waiters coming in, added yet more to my
uncertainty by asking me, in a short way, if I called for
anything? to which I replied innocently:  "No."  But I
wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that
night.  He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who
accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in
the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have
a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some
friends in town (here I fetched a deep sigh in vain!) I
might provide for myself in the morning.

     'Tis incredible what trifling consolations the human
mind will seize in its greatest afflictions.  The assurance
of nothing more than a bed to lie on that night, calmed my
agonies; and being asham'd to acquaint the mistress of the
inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed
to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an intelli-
gence office, to which I was furnish'd with written direc-
tions on the back of a ballad Esther had given me.  There I
counted on getting information of any place that such a
country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get
into any sort of being, before my little stock should be
consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated
to me that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, how-
ever affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely
cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly,
that her procedure was all in course, and that it was only
my ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light
I at first did.

     Accordingly, the next morning I dress'd myself as clean
and as neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and
having left my box, with special recommendation, with the
landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any more
difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl,
barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing
trap, I got to the wish'd-for intelligence office.

     It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the
receipt of custom, with a book before her in great form and
order, and several scrolls, ready made out, of directions
for places.

     I made up then to this important personage, without
lifting up my eyes or observing any of the people round me,
who were attending there on the same errand as myself, and
dropping her curtsies nine-deep, just made a shift to
stammer out my business to her.

     Madam having heard me out, with all the gravity and
brow of a petty minister of State, and seeing at one glance
over my figure what I was, made me no answer, but to ask
me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told
me places for women were exceedingly scarce, especially as
I seemed too slight built for hard work; but that she
would look over her book, and see what was to be done for
me, desiring me to stay a little till she had dispatched
some other customers.

     On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified
at a declaration which carried with it a killing uncertainty
that my circumstances could not well endure.

     Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some di-
version from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my
head a little, and sent my eyes on a course round the room,
wherein they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such
my extreme innocence pronounc'd her) sitting in a corner of
the room, dress'd in a velvet mantle (nota bene, in the
midst of summer), with her bonnet off; squab-fat, red-faced,
and at least fifty.

     She look'd as if she would devour me with her eyes,
staring at me from head to foot, without the least regard
to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so fixedly put
me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest re-
commendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose.
After a little time, in which my air, person and whole
figure had undergone a strict examination, which I had, on
my part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming,
drawing up my neck, and setting my best looks, she advanced
and spoke to me with the greatest demureness:

     "Sweet-heart, do you want a place?"

     "Yes, and please you" (with a curtsy down to the
ground).

     Upon this she acquainted me that she was actually
come to the office herself to look out for a servant; that
she believed I might do, with a little of her instructions;
that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character;
that London was a very wicked, vile place; that she hoped I
would be tractable, and keep out of bad company; in short,
she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in
town could think of, and which was much more than was neces-
sary to take in an artless inexperienced country-maid, who
was even afraid of becoming a wanderer about the streets,
and therefore gladly jump'd at the first offer of a shelter,
especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such my
flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was;
I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that
kept the office, whose shrewd smiles and shrugs I could not
help observing, and innocently interpreted them as marks of
her being pleased at my getting into place so soon; but, as
I afterwards came to know, these BELDAMS understood one an-
other very well, and this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my
mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh
goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers,
and her own profit.

     Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain,
that fearing, I presume, lest better advice or some accident
might occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would
officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling
herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered with-
out the least scruple or explanation as to where I was going.

     This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop
in St. Paul's Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves,
which she gave me, and thence renewed her directions to the
coachman to drive to her house in *** street, who accord-
ingly landed us at her door, after I had been cheer'd up and
entertain'd by the way with the most plausible flams, without
one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I
was, by the greatest good luck, fallen into the hands of the
kindest mistress, not to say friend, that the varsal world
could afford; and accordingly I enter'd her doors with most
compleat confidence and exultation, promising myself that,
as soon as I should be a little settled, I would acquaint
Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.

     You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not
lessen'd by the appearance of a very handsome back parlour,
into which I was led and which seemed to me magnificently
furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordi-
nary ones in inns upon the road.  There were two gilt pier-
glasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plates, set
out to the most shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me
that I must be got into a very reputable family.

     Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me
that I must have good spirits, and learn to be free with
her; that she had not taken me to be a common servant, to
do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her;
and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more than
twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the
profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few mono-
syllables, such as "yes! no! to be sure!"

     Presently my mistress touch'd the bell, and in came a
strapping maid-servant, who had let us in.  "Here, Martha,"
said Mrs. Brown--"I have just hir'd this young woman to
look after my linen; so step up and shew her her chamber;
and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you
would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her,
and I do not know what I shall do for her."

     Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this
decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy,
and asked me to walk up with her; and accordingly shew'd
me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which
there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to
lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress's,
who she was sure would be vastly good to me.  Then she ran
out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her
sweet mistress! and how happy I was to light upon her!
that I could not have bespoke a better; with other the
like gross stuff, such as would itself have started sus-
picions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was
perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said in
the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but she
readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and
measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me,
so as to make me pleased with my cage, and blind to the
wires.

     In the midst of these false explanations of the nature
of my future service, we were rung for down again, and I was
reintroduced into the same parlour, where there was a table
laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her
one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house,
and whose business it was to prepare and break such young
fillies as I was to the mounting-block; and she was accord-
ingly, in that view, allotted me for a bed-fellow; and, to
give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin con-
ferr'd on her by the venerable president of this college.

     Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full
approbation of Mrs. Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress
elect, to whose care and instructions I was affectionately
recommended.

     Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating
me as a companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all
dispute, soon over-rul'd my most humble and most confused
protestations against sitting down with her LADYSHIP, which
my very short breeding just suggested to me could not be
right, or in the order of things.

     At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the
two madams, and carried on in double-meaning expressions,
interrupted every now and then by kind assurance to me, all
tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present
condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was
I then.

     It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and
out of sight for a few days, till such cloaths could be
procured for me as were fit for the character I was to
appear in, of my mistress's companion, observing withal,
that on the first impressions of my figure much might
depend; and, as they well judged, the prospect of ex-
changing my country cloaths for London finery, made the
clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me.  But
the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be
seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her
DOES (as they call'd the girls provided for them), till
she had secured a good market for my maidenhead, which I
had at least all the appearances of having brought into her
LADYSHIP'S service.

     To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my
story, I pass the interval to bed-time, in which I was more
and more pleas'd with the views that opened to me, of an
easy service under these good people; and after supper being
shew'd up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluc-
tance in me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before her,
now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with
unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go
on with undressing myself; and, still blushing at now seeing
myself naked to my shift, I hurried to get under the bed-
cloaths out of sight.  Phoebe laugh'd and was not long before
she placed herself by my side.  She was about five and twenty,
by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all
appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years;
allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course
of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her consti-
tution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur,
that stale stage in which those of her profession are re-
duced to think of SHOWING company, instead of SEEING it.

     No sooner then was this precious substitute of my
mistress's laid down, but she, who was never out of her way
when any occasion of lewdness presented itself, turned to
me, embraced and kiss'd me with great eagerness.  This was
new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kind-
ness, which, for aught I knew, it might be the London way
to express in that manner, I was determin'd not to be behind
hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with
all the fervour that perfect innocence knew.

     Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free,
and wander'd over my whole body, with touches, squeezes,
pressures, that rather warm'd and surpriz'd me with their
novelty, than they either shock'd or alarm'd me.

     The flattering praises she intermingled with these in-
vasions, contributed also not a little to bribe my passive-
ness; and, knowing no ill, I feared none, especially from
one who had prevented all doubt of her womanhood by conduct-
ing my hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down,
in a size and volume that full sufficiently distinguished
her sex, to me at least, who had never made any other com-
parison...

     I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst
her freedom raised no other emotions but those of a strange,
and, till then, unfelt pleasure.  Every part of me was open
and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which,
like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thaw'd all
coldness as they went.

     My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so
two hard, firm, rising hillocks, that just began to shew them-
selves, or signify anything to the touch, employ'd and amus'd
her hands a-while, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth
track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a
few months before put forth and garnish'd the mount-pleasant
of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful shelter over
the seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which had been,
till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence.
Her fingers play'd and strove to twine in the young tendrils
of that moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and
ornament.

     But, not contented with these outer posts, she now
attempts the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate,
and at length to force an introduction of a finger into the
quick itself, in such a manner, that had she not proceeded
by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of
modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I should
have jump'd out of bed and cried for help against such strange
assaults.

     Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up
a new fire that wanton'd through all my veins, but fix'd with
violence in that center appointed them by nature, where the
first strange hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing,
compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger
between, till an "Oh!" express'd her hurting me, where the
narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any
depth.

     In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid
stretchings, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to assure
that experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended
at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses
and exclamations, such as "Oh! what a charming creature thou
art! . . . What a happy man will he be that first makes a
woman of you! . . . Oh! that I were a man for your sake! ...
with the like broken expressions, interrupted by kisses as
fierce and fervent as ever I received from the other sex.

     For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of
myself; feelings so new were too much for me.  My heated
and alarm'd senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all
liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gush'd from my eyes,
and somewhat assuaged the fire that rag'd all over me.

     Phoebe, herself, the hackney'd, thorough-bred Phoebe,
to whom all modes and devices of pleasure were known and
familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise of her art to
break young girls, the gratification of one of those arbi-
trary tastes, for which there is no accounting.  Not that
she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex;
but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety
of enjoyments in the common road, perhaps too, a secret
bias, inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever
she could find it, without distinction of sexes.  In this
view, now well assured that she had, by her touches, suf-
ficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she roll'd down
the bed-cloaths gently, and I saw myself stretched nak'd,
my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power
or sense to oppose it.  Even my glowing blushes expressed
more desire than modesty, whilst the candle, left (to be
sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on my
whole body.

     "No!" says Phoebe, "you must not, my sweet girl, think
to hide all these treasures from me.  My sight must be
feasted as well as my touch . . . I must devour with my
eyes this springing BOSOM . . . Suffer me to kiss it . . .
I have not seen it enough . . . Let me kiss it once more
. . . What firm, smooth, white flesh is here! . . . How
delicately shaped! . . . Then this delicious down!  Oh!
let me view the small, dear, tender cleft! . . . This is
too much, I cannot bear it! . . . I must . . . I must . . ."
Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where
you will easily guess.  But what a difference in the state
of the same thing! . . . A spreading thicket of bushy curls
marked the full-grown, complete woman.  Then the cavity to
which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as
she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with
so rapid a friction that I presently withdrew it, wet and
clammy, when instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two
or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving me a
kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she
replaced the bed-cloaths over us.  What pleasure she had
found I will not say; but this I know, that the first sparks
of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were
caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and
communication with the bad of our own sex, is often as fatal
to innocence as all the seductions of the other.  But to go
on.  When Phoebe was restor'd to that calm, which I was far
from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all
the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous
mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undis-
sembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all
imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance,
easiness, and warmth of constitution.

     After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left
me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness from
the violent emotions I had been led into, when nature (which
had been too warmly stir'd and fermented to subside without
allaying by some means or other) relieved me by one of those
luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior
to those of waking real action.

     We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed,
when in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel:
in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they
termed it, completely.

     In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and
refreshed.  Phoebe was up before me, and asked me in the
kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and if I was
ready for breakfast, carefully, at the same time, avoiding
to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her
in the face, by any hint of the night's bed scene.  I told
her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she
would be pleased to set me about.  She smil'd; presently
the maid brought in the tea-equipage, and I had just hud-
dled my cloaths on, when in waddled my mistress.  I expected
no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late rising,
when I was agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my
pure and fresh looks.  I was "a bud of beauty" (this was her
style), "and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!"
to all which my answer did not, I can assure you, wrong my
breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish,
and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they
proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the
world.

     Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquette
heart flutter'd with joy at the sight of a white lute-string,
flower'd with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for
spick-and-span new, a Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and
the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured
instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of
the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the
house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he
had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the
premises, but also on immediate surrender to him, in case of
his agreeing for me; concluding very wisely that such a place
as I was in was of the hottest to trust the keeping of such
a perishable commodity in as a maidenhead.

     The care of dressing, and tricking me out for the
market, was then left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if
not well, at least perfectly to the satisfaction of every
thing but my impatience of seeing myself dress'd.  When it
was over, and I view'd myself in the glass, I was, no doubt,
too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the
change; a change, in the real truth, for much the worse,
since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity
of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, taudry finery
that I could not conceal my strangeness to.

     Phoebe's compliments, however, in which her own share
in dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me
in the first notions I had ever entertained concerning my
person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable
to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of
place here to sketch you an unflatter'd picture.

     I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I
before remark'd, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape
perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light and free, without
owing any thing to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and
as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and
did not a little set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my
face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate,
and the shape a roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin
had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as
can be imagin'd, and rather languishing than sparkling, ex-
cept on certain occasions, when I have been told they struck
fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever carefully perserv'd,
were small, even and white; my bosom was finely rais'd, and
one might then discern rather the promise, than the actual
growth, of the round, firm breasts, that in a little time
made that promise good.  In short, all the points of beauty
that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my
vanity forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sove-
reign judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at least,
gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with, even in
my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice,
whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endea-
vouring to detract from me, in points of person and figure
that I obviously excelled in.  This is, I own, too strong of
self praise; but should I not be ungrateful to nature, and
to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure
and fortune, were I to suppress, through and affectation of
modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts?

     Well then, dress'd I was, and little did it then enter
into my head that all this gay attire was no more than deck-
ing the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attri-
buted all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good
Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under
pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me, without the
least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which re-
mained to me after the expences of my journey.

     After some little time most agreeably spent before the
glass, in scarce self-admiration, since my new dress had by
much the greatest share in it, I was sent for down to the
parlour, where the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy
of my new cloaths, which she was not asham'd to say, fitted
me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time;
but what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow?
At the same time, she presented me to another cousin of her
own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry
into the room, and on my dropping a curtsy to him, saluted
me, and seemed a little affronted that I had only presented
my cheek to him; a mistake, which, if one, he immediately
corrected, by glewing his lips to mine, with an ardour which
his figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for; his
figure, I say, than which nothing could be more shocking or
detestable: for ugly, and disagreeable, were terms too gentle
to convey a just idea of it.

     Imagine to yourself a man rather past threescore, short
and ill-made, with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggling
eyes that stared as if he was strangled; and out-mouth from
two more properly tusks than teeth, livid-lips, and breath
like a jake's: then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin
that made him perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women
with child; yet, made as he was thus in mock of man, he was
so blind to his own staring deformities as to think himself
born for pleasing, and that no woman could see him with im-
punity: in consequence of which idea, he had lavish'd great
sums on such wretches as could gain upon themselves to pre-
tend love to his person, whilst to those who had not art or
patience to dissemble the horror it inspir'd, he behaved
even brutally.  Impotence, more than necessity, made him
seek in variety the provocative that was wanting to raise
him to the pitch of enjoyment, which too he often saw him-
self baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this
always threw him into a fit of rage, which he wreak'd, as
far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of
momentary desire.

     This then was the monster to which my conscientious
benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way,
had doom'd me, and sent for me down purposely for his ex-
amination.  Accordingly she made me stand up before him,
turn'd me round, unpinn'd my handkerchief, remark'd to him
the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just
beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took even a han-
dle from the rusticity of my gait, to inflame the inventory
of my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship;
to which he only answer'd by gracious nods of approbation,
whilst he look'd goats and monkies at me: for I sometimes
stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his fiery,
eager stare, looked another way from pure horror and af-
fright, which he, doubtless in character, attributed to
nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affec-
tation of it.

     However, I was soon dismiss'd, and reconducted to my
room by Phoebe, who stuck close to me, not leaving me alone
and at leisure to make such reflections as might naturally
rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just
gone through; but to my shame be it confess'd, such was my
invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that
I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown's designs, and saw
nothing in this titular cousin of hers but a shocking hide-
ous person which did not at all concern me, unless that my
respect to all her cousinhood.

     Phoebe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of
my heart towards this monster, asking me how I should approve
of such a fine gentleman for a husband?  (fine gentleman, I
suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace).  I
answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a hus-
band, but that if I was to choose one, it should be among my
own degree, sure!  So much had my aversion to that wretch's
hideous figure indisposed me to all "fine gentlemen," and
confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been neces-
sarily cast in the same mould that he was!  But Phoebe was
not to be beat off so, but went on with her endeavours to
melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception into that
hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in general,
she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than
one reason shewed her would be easily enough obtained of me;
but then she had too much experience not to discover that my
particular fix'd aversion to that frightful cousin would be a
block not so readily to be removed, as suited the consum-
mation of their bargain, and sale of me.

     Mother Brown had in the mean time agreed the terms with
this liquorish old goat, which I afterwards understood were
to be fifty guineas peremptory for the liberty of attempting
me, and a hundred more at the compleat gratification of his
desires, in the triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I
was to be left entirely at the discretion of his liking and
generosity.  This unrighteous contract being thus settled,
he was so eager to be put in possession, that he insisted
on being introduc'd to drink tea with me that afternoon,
when we were to be left alone; nor would he hearken to the
procuress's remonstrances, that I was not sufficiently pre-
pared and ripened for such an attack; that I was too green
and untam'd, having been scarce twenty-four hours in the
house: it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his
vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the
common  resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him
reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was
thus fix'd, unknown to me, for that very evening.

     At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run
riot in praises of this wonderful cousin, and how happy
that woman would be that he would favour with his addresses;
in short my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to
persuade me to accept them: "that the gentleman was violently
smitten with me at first sight . . . that he would make my
fortune if I would be a good girl and not stand in my own
light . . . that I should trust his honour . . . that I
should be made for ever, and have a chariot to go abroad in
. . . ," with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of
such a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here
my aversion had taken already such deep root in me, my heart
was so strongly defended from him by my senses, that wanting
the art to mask my sentiments, I gave them no hopes of their
employer's succeeding, at least very easily, with me.  The
glass too march'd pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to
make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the
minutes of the imminent attack.

     Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six
in the evening, after I was retired to my own apartment, and
the tea board was set, enters my venerable mistress, follow'd
close by that satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar
to him, and by his odious presence confirm'd me in all the
sentiments of detestation which his first appearance had
given birth to.

     He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling
me in a manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion,
all the marks of which he still explained to be my bash-
fulness, and not being used to see company.

     Tea over, the commoding old lady pleaded urgent busi-
ness (which indeed was true) to go out, and earnestly desir'd
me to entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both
for my own sake and her's; and then with a "Pray, sir, be
very good, be very tender of the sweet child," she went out
of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and un-
prepar'd, by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.

     We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of
trembling seiz'd me.  I was so afraid, without a precise
notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I sat on the
settee, by the fire-side, motionless, and petrified, with-
out life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir.

     But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of
stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee,
and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms
about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him,
oblig'd me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage
from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me.
Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears
off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there to his
eyes and hands: still I endur'd all without flinching, till
embolden'd by my sufferance and silence, for I had not the
power to speak or cry out, he attempted to lay me down on
the settee, and I felt his hand on the lower part of my
naked thighs, which were cross'd, and which he endeavoured
to unlock . . . Oh then!  I was roused out of my passive
endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was
not prepar'd for, threw myself at his feet, and begg'd him,
in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would
not hurt me:--"Hurt you, my dear?" says the brute; "I intend
you no harm . . . has not the old lady told you that I love
you? . . . that I shall do handsomely by you?"  "She has
indeed, sir," said I; "but I cannot love you, indeed I can
not! . . . pray let me alone . . .  yes! I will love you
dearly if you will let me alone, and go away . . . "  But I
was talking to the wind; for whether my tears, my attitude,
or the disorder of my dress prov'd fresh incentives, or
whether he was not under the dominion of desires he could
not bridle, but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he
renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts to extend
and fix me on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to
lay me along, and even to toss my petticoats over my head,
and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept close, nor
could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them
open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the
main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches,
yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay
struggling with indignation, and dying with terror; but he
stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, curs-
ing, and repeating "old and ugly!" for so I had very natur-
ally called him in the heat of my defence.

     The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood,
brought on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate
period of his hot fit of lust, which his power was too short
liv'd to carry him through the full execution of; of which
my thighs and linen received the effusion.

     When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure,
get up, saying that he would not do me the honour to think
of me any more . . . that the old bitch might look out for
another cully . . . that he would not be fool'd so by e'er
a country mock modesty in England . . . that he supposed I
had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country,
and was come to dispose of my skin-milk in town, with a
volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more
pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love
from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of re-
ceiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to
him, I look'd on this railing as my security against his
renewing his most odious caresses.

     Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I
had not the heart or spirit to open my eyes to them: still
I could not part with my dependence on that beldam, so
much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I
sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good
opinion of her, and chose to wait the worst at her hands
sooner than be turn'd out to starve in the streets, with-
out a penny of money or a friend to apply to: these fears
were my folly.

     Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head,
and I sat pensive by the fire, with my eyes brimming with
tears, my neck still bare, and my cap fall'n off in the
struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess,
the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at
the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself
to his view, a bloom yet unenjoy'd, and of course not yet
indifferent to him.

     After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice
mightily softened, whether I would make it up with him
before the old lady returned and all should be well; he
would restore me his affections, at the same time offering
to kiss me and feel my breasts.  But now my extreme aver-
sion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me
a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him,
I ran to the bell and rang it, before he was aware, with
such violence and effect as brought up the maid to know what
was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted any thing;
and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she
bounc'd into the room, and seeing me stretch'd on the floor,
my hair all dishevell'd, my nose gushing out blood, which
did not a little tragedize the scene, and my odious per-
secutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved by
all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and
did not know what to say.

     As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and
hardened to transactions of this sort, all womanhood must
have been out of her heart, could she have seen this un-
mov'd.  Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined
that matters had gone greater lengths than they really
had, and that the courtesy of the house had been actually
consummated on me, and flung me into the condition I was
in: in this notion she instantly took my part, and advis'd
the gentleman to go down and leave me to recover myself,
and "that all would be soon over with me . . . that when
Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were return'd,
they would take order for every thing to his satisfaction
. . . that nothing would be lost by a little patience with
the poor tender thing . . . that for her part she was . . .
frighten'd . . . she could not tell what to say to such
doings . . . but that she would stay by me till my mistress
came home."  As the wench said all this in a resolute tone,
and the monster himself began to perceive that things would
not mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of
the room, murmuring, and pleating his brows like an old ape,
so that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable
presence.

     As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered
me her assistance in any thing, and would have got me some
hartshorn drops, and put me to bed; which last, I at first
positively refused, in the fear that the monster might re-
turn and take me at that advantage.  However, with much
persuasion, and assurances that I should not be molested
that night, she prevailed on me to lie down; and indeed I
was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful
apprehensions, so terror-struck, that I had not power to
sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions with
which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd me.

     Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded
the sight of Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal
and she the person injur'd; a mistake which you will not
think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue
nor principles had the least share in the defence I had
made, but only the particular aversion I had conceiv'd
against the first brutal and frightful invader of my
tender innocence.

     I pass'd then the time till Mrs. Brown's return home,
under all the agitations of fear and despair that may
easily be guessed.

                     END PART 1