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                         Part 5


     And why should I here suppress the delight I received
from this amiable creature, in remarking each artless look,
each motion of pure undissembled nature, betrayed by his
wanton eyes; or shewing, transparently, the glow and suf-
fusion of blood through his fresh, clear skin, whilst even
his sturdy rustic pressures wanted not their peculiar
charm?  Oh! but, say you, this was a young fellow of too
low a rank of life to deserve so great a display.  May be
so: but was my condition, strictly consider'd one jot more
exalted? or, had I really been much above him, did not his
capacity of giving such exquisite pleasure sufficiently
raise and ennoble him, to me, at least?  Let who would,
for me, cherish, respect, and reward the painter's, the
statuary's, the musician's arts, in proportion to delight
taken in them: but at my age, and with my taste for plea-
sure, a taste strongly constitutional to me, the talent of
pleasing, with which nature has endowed a handsome person,
form'd to me the greatest of all merits; compared to which,
the vulgar prejudices in favour of titles, dignities,
honours, and the like, held a very low rank indeed.  Nor
perhaps would the beauties of the body be so much affected
to be held cheap, were they, in their nature, to be bought
and delivered.  But for me, whose natural philosophy all
resided in the favourite center of sense, and who was rul'd
by its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right
handle, I could scarce have made a choice more to my purpose.

     Mr. H . . .'s loftier qualifications of birth, fortune
and sense laid me under a sort of subjection and constraint
that were far from making harmony in the concert of love,
nor had he, perhaps, thought me worth softening that superi-
ority to; but, with this lad, I was more on that level which
love delights in.

     We may say what we please, but those we can be the easi-
est and freest with are ever those we like, not to say love,
the best.

     With this stripling, all whose art of love was the
action of it, I could, without check of awe or restraint,
give a loose to joy, and execute every scheme of dalliance
my fond fancy might put me on, in which he was, in every
sense, a most exquisite companion.  And now my great plea-
sure lay in humouring all the petulances, all the wanton
frolic of a raw novice just fleshed, and keen on the burning
scent of his game, but unbroken to the sport: and, to carry
on the figure, who could better TREAD THE WOOD than he, or
stand fairer for the HEART OF THE HUNT?

     He advanc'd then to my bed-side, and whilst he fal-
tered out his message, I could observe his colour rise, and
his eyes lighten with joy, in seeing me in a situation as
favourable to his loosest wishes as if he had bespoke the
play.

     I smiled, and put out my hand towards him, which he
kneeled down to (a politeness taught him by love alone,
that great master of it) and greedily kiss'd.  After
exchanging a few confused questions and answers, I ask'd
him if he would come to bed to me, for the little time I
could venture to detain him.  This was just asking a person,
dying with hunger, to feast upon the dish on earth the most
to his palate.  Accordingly, without further reflection,
his cloaths were off in an instant; when, blushing still
more at his new liberty, he got under the bed-cloaths I held
up to receive him, and was now in bed with a woman for the
first time in his life.

     Here began the usual tender preliminaries, as delicious,
perhaps, as the crowning act of enjoyment itself; which they
often beget an impatience of, that makes pleasure destruc-
tive of itself, by hurrying on the final period, and closing
that scene of bliss, in which the actors are generally too
well pleas'd with their parts not to wish them an eternity
of duration.

     When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards
the main point, by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my
breasts, now round and plump, feeling that part of me I might
call a furnace-mouth, from the prodigious intense heat his
fiery touches had rekindled there, my young sportsman, em-
bolden'd by every freedom he could wish, wantonly takes my
hand, and carries it to that enormous machine of his, that
stood with a stiffness! a hardness! an upward bent of erec-
tion! and which, together with its bottom dependence, the
inestimable bulge of lady's jewels, formed a grand show out
of goods indeed!  Then its dimensions, mocking either grasp
or span, almost renew'd my terrors.

     I could not conceive how, or by what means I could
take, or put such a bulk out of sight.  I stroked it gently,
on which the mutinous rogue seemed to swell, and gather a
new degree of fierceness and insolence; so that finding it
grew not to be trifled with any longer, I prepar'd for rub-
bers in good earnest.

     Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give him
the fairest play, I guided officiously with my hand this
furious battering ram, whose ruby head, presenting nearest
the resemblance of a heart, I applied to its proper mark,
which lay as finely elevated as we could wish; my hips
being borne up, and my thighs at their utmost extension,
the gleamy warmth that shot from it made him feel that he
was at the mouth of the indraught, and driving foreright,
the powerfully divided lips of that pleasure-thirsty
channel receiv'd him.  He hesitated a little; then, set-
tled well in the passage, he makes his way up the straits
of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing, widen-
ing as he went, so as to distend and smooth each soft fur-
row: our pleasure increasing deliciously, in proportion as
our points of mutual touch increas'd in that so vital part
of me in which I had now taken him, all indriven, and com-
pletely sheathed; and which, crammed as it was, stretched,
splitting ripe, gave it so gratefully strait an accommoda-
tion! so strict a fold! a suction so fierce! that gave and
took unutterable delight.  We had now reach'd the closest
point of union; but when he backened to come on the fiercer,
as if I had been actuated by a fear of losing him, in the
height of my fury I twisted my legs round his naked loins,
the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to the touch,
quiver'd again under the pressure; and now I had him every
way encircled and begirt; and having drawn him home to me,
I kept him fast there, as if I had sought to unite bodies
with him at that point.  This bred a pause of action, a
pleasure stop, whilst that delicate glutton, my nether-
mouth, as full as it could hold, kept palating, with ex-
quisite relish, the morsel that so deliciously ingorged it.
But nature could not long endure a pleasure that so highly
provoked without satisfying it: pursuing then its darling
end, the battery recommenc'd with redoubled exertion; nor
lay I inactive on my side, but encountering him with all
the impetuosity of motion but encountering him with all
the impetuosity of motion I was mistress of.  The downy
cloth of our meeting mounts was now of real use to break
the violence of the tilt; and soon, too soon indeed! the
highwrought agitation, the sweet urgency of this to-and-fro
friction, raised the titillation on me to its height; so
that finding myself on the point of going, and loath to
leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I employed
all the forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested
to me, to promote his keeping me company to our journey's
end.  I not only then tighten'd the pleasure-girth round my
restless inmate by a secret spring of friction and compres-
sion that obeys the will in those parts, but stole my hand
softly to that store bag of nature's prime sweets, which is
so pleasingly attach'd to its conduit pipe, from which we
receive them; there feeling, and most gently indeed, squeez-
ing those tender globular reservoirs; the magic touch took
instant effect, quicken'd, and brought on upon the spur the
symptoms of that sweet agony, the melting moment of dissolu-
tion, when pleasure dies by pleasure, and the mysterious
engine of it overcomes the titillation it has rais'd in
those parts, by plying them with the stream of a warm li-
quid that is itself the highest of all titillations, and
which they thirstily express and draw in like the hot-
natured leach, which to cool itself, tenaciously attracts
all the moisture within its sphere of exsuction.  Chiming
then to me, with exquisite consent, as I melted away, his
oily balsamic injection, mixing deliciously with the sluices
in flow from me, sheath'd and blunted all the stings of
pleasure, it flung us into an extasy that extended us faint-
ing, breathless, entranced.  Thus we lay, whilst a voluptuous
languor possest, and still maintain'd us motionless and fast
locked in one another's arms.  Alas! that these delights
should be no longer-lived! for now the point of pleasure,
unedged by enjoyment, and all the brisk sensations flat-
ten'd upon us, resigned us up to the cool cares of insipid
life.  Disengaging myself then from his embrace, I made him
sensible of the reasons there were for his present leaving
me; on which, though reluctantly, he put on his cloaths with
as little expedition, however, as he could help, wantonly
interrupting himself, between whiles, with kisses, touches
and embraces I could not refuse myself to.  Yet he happily
return'd to his master before he was missed; but, at taking
leave, I forc'd him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse
it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that
great article of subaltern finery, which he at length ac-
cepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully to preserve of
my affections.

     And here, Madam, I ought, perhaps, to make you an apol-
ogy for this minute detail of things, that dwelt so strongly
upon my memory, after so deep an impression: but, besides
that this intrigue bred one great revolution in my life,
which historical truth requires I should not sink from you,
may I not presume that so exalted a pleasure ought not to be
ungratefully forgotten, or suppress'd by me, because I found
it in a character in low life; where, by the bye, it is of-
tener met with, purer, and more unsophisticate, that among
the false, ridiculous refinements with which the great suf-
fer themselves to be so grossly cheated by their pride: the
great! than whom there exist few amongst those they call
the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who cultivate less,
the art of living than they do; they, I say, who for ever
mistake things the most foreign of the nature of pleasure
itself; whose capital favourite object is enjoyment of
beauty, wherever that rare invaluable gift is found, without
distinction of birth, or station.

     As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any
share in my commerce with this handsome youth.  The sole
pleasures of enjoyment were now the link I held to him by:
for though nature had done such great matters for him in
his outward form, and especially in that superb piece of
furniture she had so liberally enrich'd him with; though he
was thus qualify'd to give the senses their richest feast,
still there was something more wanting to create in me, and
constitute the passion of love.  Yet Will had very good
qualities too; gentle, tractable, and, above all, grateful;
close, and secret, even to a fault: he spoke, at any time,
very little, but made it up emphatically with action; and,
to do him justice, he never gave me the least reason to
complain, either of any tendency to encroach upon me for
the liberties I allow'd him, or of his indiscretion in
blabbing them.  There is, then, a fatality in love, or have
loved him I must; for he was really a treasure, a bit for
the BONNE BOUCHE of a duchess; and, to say the truth, my
liking for him was so extreme, that it was distinguishing
very nicely to deny that I loved him.

     My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but
found an end from my own imprudent neglect.  After having
taken even superfluous precautions against a discovery, our
success in repeated meetings embolden'd me to omit the barely
necessary ones.  About a month after our first intercourse,
one fatal morning (the season Mr. H . . . rarely or never
visited me in) I was in my closet, where my toilet stood, in
nothing but my shift, a bed gown and under-petticoat.  Will
was with me, and both ever too well disposed to baulk an
opportunity.  For my part, a warm whim, a wanton toy had
just taken me, and I had challeng'd my man to execute it on
the spot, who hesitated not to comply with my humour: I was
set in the arm-chair, my shift and petticoat up, my thighs
wide spread and mounted over the arms of the chair, present-
ing the fairest mark to Will's drawn weapon, which he stood
in act to plunge into me; when, having neglected to secure
the chamber door, and that of the closet standing a-jar, Mr.
H . . . stole in upon us before either of us was aware, and
saw us precisely in these convicting attitudes.

     I gave a great scream, and drop'd my petticoat: the
thunder-struck lad stood trembling and pale, waiting his
sentence of death.  Mr. H . . . looked sometimes at one,
sometimes at the other, with a mixture of indignation and
scorn; and, without saying a word, turn'd upon his heel and
went out.

     As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn
the key, and lock the chamber-door upon us, so that there
was no escape but through the dining-room, where he himself
was walking about with distempered strides, stamping in a
great chafe, and doubtless debating what he would do with
us.

     In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of
his senses, and, as much need as I had of spirits to sup-
port myself, I was obliged to employ them all to keep his
a little up.  The misfortune I had now brought upon him,
endear'd him the more to me, and I could have joyfully suf-
fered any punishment he had not shared in.  I water'd,
plentifully, with my tears, the face of the frightened youth,
who sat, not having strength to stand, as cold and as life-
less as a statue.

     Presently Mr. H . . . comes in to us again, and made
us go before him into the dining-room, trembling and dread-
ing the issue.  Mr. H . . . sat down on a chair whilst we
stood like criminals under examination; and beginning with
me, ask'd me, with an even firm tone of voice, neither soft
nor severe, but cruelly indifferent, what I could say for
myself, for having abused him in so unworthy a manner, with
his own servant too, and how he had deserv'd this of me?

     Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity that of
an audacious defence of it, in the old style of a common
kept Miss, my answer was modest, and often interrupted by my
tears, in substance as follows: that I never had a single
thought of wronging him (which was true), till I had seen
him taking the last liberties with my servant-wench (here he
colour'd prodigiously), and that my resentment at that,
which I was over-awed from giving vent to by complaints, or
explanations with him, had driven me to a course that I did
not pretend to justify; but that as to the young man, he was
entirely faultless; for that, in the view of making him the
instrument of my revenge, I had down-right seduced him to
what he had done; and therefore hoped, whatever he deter-
mined about me, he would distinguish between the guilty and
the innocent; and that, for the rest, I was entirely at his
mercy.

     Mr. H . . ., on hearing what I said, hung his head a
little; but instantly recovering himself, he said to me,
as near as I can retain, to the following purpose:

     "Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have
fairly turn'd the tables upon me.  It is not with one of
your cast of breeding and sentiments that I should enter
into a discussion of the very great difference of the pro-
vocations: be it sufficient that I allow you so much
reason on your side, as to have changed my resolutions, in
consideration of what you reproach me with; and I own, too,
that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest in
you.  Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross.  I
give you a week's warning to go out of these lodgings;
whatever I have given you, remains to you; and as I never
intend to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty
pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I
hope you will own I do not leave you in a worse condition
than what I took you up in, or than you deserve of me.
Blame yourself only that it is no better."

     Then, without giving me time to reply, he address'd
himself to the young fellow:

     "For you, spark, I shall, for your father's sake, take
care of you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as
thou art; and to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge
of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to your
father, not to let you return and be spoil'd here."

     At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting
to stop him by throwing myself at his feet.  He shook me off,
though he seemed greatly mov'd too, and took Will away with
him, who,  I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off.

     I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands,
by a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve.  And all the
letters, arts, friends' entreaties that I employed within the
week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much
as to see me again.  He had irrevocably pornounc'd my doom,
and submission to it was my only part.  Soon after he married
a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard, he prov'd
an irreproachable husband.

     As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the
country to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was
not four months before and inn-keeper's buxom young widow,
with a very good stock, both in money and trade, fancy'd,
and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies,
marry'd him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good
foundation for their living happily together.

     Though I should have been charm'd to see him before
he went, such measures were taken, by Mr. H . . .'s orders,
that it was impossible; otherwise I should certainly have
endeavour'd to detain him in town, and would have spared
neither offers nor expence to have procured myself the
satisfaction of keeping him with me.  He had such powerful
holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be shaken
off, or replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the
question: glad, however, I was from my soul, that nothing
worse, and as things turn'd out, probably nothing better
could have happened to him.

     As to Mr. H . . ., though views of conveniency made
me, at first, exert myself to regain his affection, I was
giddy and thoughtless enough to be much easier reconcil'd
to my failure than I ought to have been; but as I never had
lov'd him, and his leaving me gave me a sort of liberty that
I had often long'd for, I was soon comforted; and flattering
myself that the stock of youth and beauty I was going into
trade with could hardly fail of procuring me a maintenance,
I saw myself under a necessity of trying my fortune with
them, rather, with pleasure and gaiety, than with the least
idea of despondency.

     In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among
the sisterhood, who had soon got wind of my misfortune,
flocked to insult me with their malicious consolations.
Most of them had long envied me the affluence and splendour
I had been maintain'd in; and though there was scarce one
of them that did not at least deserve to be in my case, and
would probably, sooner or later, come to it, it was equally
easy to remark, even in their affected pity, their secret
pleasure at seeing me thus disgrac'd and discarded, and
their secret grief that it was no worse with me.  Unaccount-
able malice of the human heart! and which is not confin'd
to the class of life they were of.

     But as the time approached for me to come to some
resolution how to dispose of myself, and I was considering
round where to shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle-
aged discreet sort of woman, who had been brought into my
acquaintance by one ot the Misses that visited me, upon
learning my situation, came to offer her cordial advice and
service to me; and as I had always taken to her more than
to any of my female acquaintances, I listened the easier to
her proposals.  And, as it happened, I could not have put
myself into worse, or into better hands in all London: into
worse, because keeping a house of conveniency, there were
no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to go, in
compliance with her customers; no schemes of pleasure, or
even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight
in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more
experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was
fitter to advise and guard one against the worst dangers of
our profession; and what was rare to be met with in those
of her's, she contented herself with a moderate living pro-
fit upon her industry and good offices, and had nothing of
their greedy rapacious turn.  She was really too a gentle-
woman born and bred, but through a train of accidents
reduc'd to this course, which she pursued, partly through
necessity, partly through choice, as never woman delighted
more in encouraging a brisk circulation of trade for the
sake of the trade itself, or better understood all the my-
steries and refinements of it, than she did; so that she
was consummately at the top of her profession, and dealt
only with customers of distinction: to answer the demands
of whom she kept a competent number of her daughters in
constant recruit (so she call'd those whom by her means,
and through her tuition and instructions, succeeded very
well in the world).

     This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now
threw myself, having her reasons of state, respecting Mr.
H . . ., for not appearing too much in the thing herself,
sent a friend of her's, on the day appointed for my removal,
to conduct me to my new lodgings at a brushmaker's in R***
street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her own house,
where she had no conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings
that, by having been for several successions tenanted by
ladies of pleasure, the landlord of them was familiarized
to their ways; and provided the rent was duly paid, every
thing else was as easy and commodious as one could desire.

     The fifty guineas promis'd me by Mr. H . . ., at his
parting with me, having been duly paid me, all my cloaths
and moveables chested up, which were at least of two
hundred pound's value, I had them convey'd into a coach,
where I soon followed them, after taking a civil leave of
the landlord and his family, with whom I had never liv'd in
a degree of familiarity enough to regret the removal; but
still, the very circumstance of its being a removal drew
tears from me.  I left, too, a letter of thanks for Mr.
H . . ., from whom I concluded myself, as I really was,
irretrievably separated.

     My maid I had discharged the day before, not only
because I had her of Mr. H . . ., but that I suspected her
of having some how or other been the occasion of his dis-
covering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not having trusted
her with him.

     We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so hand-
somely furnish'd nor so showy as those I left, were to the
full as convenient, and at half price, though on the first
floor.  My trunks were safely landed, and stow'd in my
apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante, Mrs.
Cole, was ready with my landlord to receive me, to whom she
took care to set me out in the most favourable light, that
of one from whom there was the clearest reason to expect
the regular payment of his rent: all the cardinal virtues
attributed to me would not have had half the weight of that
recommendation alone.

     I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandon'd to
my own conduct, and turned loose upon the town, to sink or
swim, as I could manage with the current of it; and what
were the consequences, together with the number of adven-
tures which befell me in the exercise of my new profession,
will compose the matter of another letter: for surely it is
high time to put a period to this.

                 I am,
                      MADAM
                        Yours, etc., etc., etc.

                 THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER

                         END PART 5