Electronic Bookshelf/Electronic Bookshelf.iso/books/fanny/fanny.txt

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                                  FANNY HILL

                        MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE

                                    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.






                           PART 2

     About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and hav-
ing receiv'd rather a favourable account from Martha, who
had run down to let them in, for Mr. Crofts (that was the
name of my brute) was gone out of the house, after waiting
till he had tired his patience for Mrs. Brown's return, they
came thundering up-stairs, and seeing me pale, my face
bloody, and all the marks of the most thorough dejection,
they employed themselves more to comfort and re-inspirit me,
than in making me the reproaches I was weak enough to fear,
I who had so many juster and stronger to retort upon them.

     Mrs. Brown withdrawn, Phoebe came presently to bed to
me, and what with the answers she drew from me, what with
her own method of palpably satisfying herself, she soon dis-
covered that I had been more frighted than hurt; upon which
I suppose, being herself seiz'd with sleep, and reserving
her lectures and instructions till the next morning, she
left me, properly speaking, to my unrest; for, after tossing
and turning the greatest part of the night, and tormenting
myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things,
I fell, through mere fatigue, into a kind of delirious doze,
out of which I waded late in the morning, in a violent fever:
a circumstance which was extremely critical to reprieve me,
at least for a time, from the attacks of a wretch infinitely
more terrible to me than death itself.

     The interested care that was taken of me during my ill-
ness, in order to restore me to a condition of making good
the bawd's engagements, or of enduring further trials, and
however such an effect on my grateful disposition, that I
even thought myself oblig'd to my undoers for their atten-
tion to promote my recovery; and, above all, for the keeping
out of my sight of that brutal ravisher, the author of my
disorder, on their finding I was too strongly mov'd at the
bare mention of his name.

     Youth is soon raised, and a few days were sufficient to
conquer the fury of my fever: but, what contributed most to
my perfect recovery and to my reconciliation with life, was
the timely news that Mr. Crofts, who was a merchant of con-
siderable dealings, was arrested at the King's suit, for
nearly forty thousand pounds, on account of his driving a
certain contraband trade, and that his affairs were so des-
perate that even were it in his inclination, it would not
be in his power to renew his designs upon me: for he was
instantly thrown into a prison, which it was not likely he
would get out of in haste.

     Mrs. Brown, who had touched his fifty guineas, advanc'd
to so little purpose, and lost all hopes of the remaining
hundred, began to look upon my treatment of him with a more
favourable eye; and as they had observ'd my temper to be
perfectly tractable and conformable to their views, all the
girls that compos'd her flock were suffered to visit me, and
had their cue to dispose me, by their conversation, to a
perfect resignation of myself to Mrs. Brown's direction.

     Accordingly they were let in upon me, and all that
frolic and thoughtless gaiety in which those giddy creatures
consume their leisure made me envy a condition of which I
only saw the fair side; insomuch, that the being one of them
became even my ambitionP a disposition which they all care-
fully cultivated; and I wanted now nothing but to restore my
health, that I might be able to undergo the ceremony of the
initiation.

     Conversation, example, all, in short, contributed, in
that house, to corrupt my native purity, which had taken no
root in education; whilst not the inflammable principal of
pleasure, so easily fired at my age, made strange work
within me, and all the modesty I was brought up in the
habit, not the instruction of, began to melt away like dew
before the sun's heat; not to mention that I made a vice of
necessity, from the constant fears I had of being turn'd
out to starve.

     I was soon pretty well recover'd, and at certain hours
allow'd to range all over the house, but cautiously kept
from seeing any company till the arrival of Lord B . . .,
from Bath, to whom Mrs. Brown, in respect to his experi-
enced generosity on such occasions, proposed to offer the
perusal ot that trinket of mine, which bears so great an
imaginary value; and his lordship being expected in town
in less than a fortnight, Mrs. Brown judged I would be
entirely renewed in beauty and freshness by that time, and
afford her the chance of a better bargain than she had
driven with Mr. Crofts.

     In the meantime, I was so thoroughly, as they call it,
brought over, so tame to their whistle, that, had my cage
door been set open, I had no idea that I ought to fly any-
where, sooner than stay where I was; nor had I the least
sense of regretting my condition, but waited very quietly
for whatever Mrs. Brown should order concerning me; who on
her side, by herself and her agents, took more than the
necessary precautions to lull and lay asleep all just re-
flections on my destination.

     Preachments of morality over the left shoulder; a life
of joy painted in the gayest colours; caresses, promises,
indulgent treatment: nothing, in short, was wanting to do-
mesticate me entirely and to prevent my going out anywhere
to get better advice.  Alas!  I dream'd of no such thing.

     Hitherto I had been indebted only to the girls of the
house for the corruption of my innocence: their luscious
talk, in which modesty was far from respected, their des-
cription of their engagements with men, had given me a
tolerable insight into the nature and mysteries of their
profession, at the same time that they highly provok'd an
itch of florid warm-spirited blood through every vein: but
above all, my bed-fellow Phoebe, whose pupil I more immedi-
ately was, exerted her talents in giving me the first
tinctures of pleasure: whilst nature, now warm'd and wan-
toned with discoveries so interesting, piqu'd a curiosity
which Phoebe artfully whetted, and leading me from question
to question of her own suggestion, explain'd to me all the
mysteries of Venus.  But I could not long remain in such a
house as that, without being an eye-witness of more than I
could conceive from her descriptions.

     One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly re-
cover'd of my fever, I happen'd to be in Mrs. Brown's dark
closet, where I had not been half an hour, resting upon the
maid's settle-bed, before I heard a rustling in the bed-
chamber, separated from the closet only by two sash-doors,
before the glasses of which were drawn two yellow damask
curtains, but not so close as to exclude the full view of
the room form any person in the closet.

     I instantly crept softly, and posted myself so, that
seeing every thing minutely, I could not myself be seen;
and who should come in but the venerable mother Abbess
herself! handed in by a tall, brawny young Horse-grenadier,
moulded in the Hercules style: in fine, the choice of the
most experienced dame, in those affairs, in all London.

     Oh! how still and hush did I keep at my stand, lest
any noise should baulk my curiosity, of bring Madam into
the closet!

     But I had not much reason to fear either, for she was
so entirely taken up with her present great concern, that
she had no sense of attention to spare to any thing else.

     Droll was it to see that clumsy fat figure of hers flop
down on the foot of the bed, opposite to the closet-door, so
that I had a full front-view of all her charms.

     Her paramour sat down by her: he seemed to be a man of
very few words, and a great stomach; for proceeding instant-
ly to essentials, he gave her some hearty smacks, and thrust-
ing his hands into her breasts, disengag'd them from her
stays, in scorn of whose confinement they broke loose, and
swagged down, navel-low at least.  A more enormous pair did
my eyes never behold, nor of a worse colour, flagging-soft,
and most lovingly contiguous: yet such as they were, this
neck-beef eater seem'd to paw them with a most uninvitable
gust, seeking in vain to confine or cover one of them with a
hand scarce less than a shoulder of mutton.  After toying
with them thus some time, as if they had been worth it, he
laid her down pretty briskly, and canting up her petticoats,
made barely a mask of them to her broad red face, that
blush'd with nothing but brandy.

     As he stood on one side, for a minute or so, unbutton-
ing his waist-coat and breeches, her fat, brawny thighs hung
down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly open to my
view; a wide open-mouth'd gap, overshaded with a grizzly
bush, seemed held out like a beggar's wallet for its pro-
vision.

     But I soon had my eyes called off by a more striking
object, that entirely engross'd them.

     Her sturdy stallion had now unbutton'd, and produced
naked, stiff, and erect, that wonderful machine, which I
had never seen before, and which, for the interest my own
seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I star'd at
with all the eyes I had: however, my senses were too much
flurried, too much concenter'd in that now burning spot of
mine, to observe any thing more than in general the make
and turn of that instrument, from which the instinct of
nature, yet more than all I had heard of it, now strongly
informed me I was to expect that supreme pleasure which she
had placed in the meeting of those parts so admirably fitted
for each other.

     Long, however, the young spark did not remain before
giving it two or three shakes, by way of brandishing it; he
threw himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I
could only take his being ingulph'd for granted, by the di-
rections he mov'd in, and the impossibility of missing so
staring a mark; and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled
so, that I could scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the
heaves and pantings that accompanied the action, from the
beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrill'd
to the very soul of me, and made every vein of my body cir-
culate liquid fires: the emotion grew so violent that it
almost intercepted my respiration.

     Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse
of my companions, and Phoebe's minute detail of everything,
no wonder that such a sight gave the last dying blow to my
native innocence.

     Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by
nature only, I stole my hand up my petticoats, and with
fingers all on fire, seized, and yet more inflamed that
center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as if it
would force its way through my bosom; I breath'd with pain;
I twisted my thighs, squeezed, and compressed the lips of
that virgin slit, and following mechanically the example of
Phoebe's manual operation on it, as far as I could find
admission, brought on at last the critical extasy, the
melting flow, into which nature, spent with excess of
pleasure, dissolves and dies away.

     After which, my senses recover'd coolness enough to
observe the rest of the transaction between this happy
pair.

     The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old
lady immediately sprung up, with all the vigour of youth,
derived, no doubt, from her late refreshment; and making
him sit down, began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and
pinch his cheeks, and play with his hair: all which he
receiv'd with an air of indifference and coolness, that
shew'd him to me much altered from what he was when he
first went on to the breach.

     My pious governess, however, not being above calling
in auxiliaries, unlocks a little case of cordials that
stood near the bed, and made him pledge her in a very
plentiful dram: after which, and a little amorous parley,
Madam sat herself down upon the same place, at the bed's
foot; and the young fellow standing sideway by her, she,
with the greatest effrontery imaginable, unbuttons his
breeches, and removing his shirt, draws out his affair, so
shrunk and diminish'd, that I could not but remember the
difference, now crestfallen, or just faintly lifting its
head: but our experienc'd matron very soon, by chafing it
with her hands, brought it to swell to that size and erec-
tion I had before seen it up to.

     I admired then, upon a fresh account, and with a nicer
survey, the texture of that capital part of man: the flam-
ing red head as it stood uncapt, the whiteness of the
shaft, and the shrub growth of curling hair that embrowned
the roots of it, the roundish bag that dangled down from
it, all exacted my eager attention, and renewed my flame.
But, as the main affair was now at the point the industrious
dame had laboured to bring it to, she was not in the humour
to put off the payment of her pains, but laying herself
down, drew him gently upon her, and thus they finish'd in
the same manner as before, the old last act.

     This over, they both went out lovingly together, the
old lady having first made him a present, as near as I
could observe, of three or four pieces; he being not only
her particular favourite on account of his performances,
but a retainer to the house; from whose sight she had taken
great care hitherto to secrete me, lest he might not have
had patience to wait for my lord's arrival, but have in-
sisted on being his taster, which the old lady was under
too much subjection to him to dare dispute with him; for
every girl of the house fell to him in course, and the old
lady only now and then got her turn, in consideration of
the maintenance he had, and which he could scarce be
accused of not earning from her.

     As soon as I heard them go down-stairs, I stole up
softly to my own room, out of which I had luckily not been
miss'd; there I began to breathe freer, and to give a loose
to those warm emotions which the sight of such an encounter
had raised in me.  I laid me down on the bed, stretched
myself out, joining and ardently wishing, and requiring any
means to divert or allay the rekindled rage and tumult of
my desires, which all pointed strongly to their pole: man.
I felt about the bed as if I sought for something that I
grasp'd in my waking dream, and not finding it, could have
cry'd for vexation; every part of me glowing with stimul-
ating fires.  At length, I resorted to the only present
remedy, that of vain attempts at digitation, where the
smallness of the theatre did not yet afford room enough for
action, and where the pain my fingers gave me, in striving
for admission, tho' they procured me a slight satisfaction
for the present, started an apprehension, which I could not
be easy till I had communicated to Phoebe, and received her
explanations upon it.

     The opportunity, however, did not offer till next
morning, for Phoebe did not come to bed till long after
I was gone to sleep.  As soon then as we were both awake,
it was but in course to bring our ly-a-bed chat to land on
the subject of my uneasiness: to which a recital of the
love scene I had thus, by chance, been spectatress of,
serv'd for a preface.

     Phoebe could not hear it to the end without more than
one interruption by peals of laughter, and my ingenuous way
of relating matters did not a little heighten the joke to
her.

     But, on her sounding me how the sight had affected me,
without mincing or hiding the pleasurable emotions it had
inspir'd me with, I told her at the same time that one re-
mark had perplex'd me, and that very considerably.
---"Aye!" say she, "what was that?" --- "Why," replied I,
"having very curiously and attentively compared the size of
that enormous machine, which did not appear, at least to my
fearful imagination, less than my wrist, and at least three
of my handfuls long, to that of the tender small part of me
which was framed to receive it, I can not conceive its being
possible to afford it entrance without dying, perhaps in the
greatest pain, since you well know that even a finger thrust
in there hurts me beyond bearing . . . As to my mistress's
and yours, I can plainly distinguish the different dimen-
sions of them from mine, palpable to the touch, and visible
to the eye; so that, in short, great as the promis'd plea-
sure may be, I am afraid of the pain of the experiment."

     Phoebe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I ex-
pected a very serious solution of my doubts and apprehen-
sions in this matter, only told me that she never heard of
a mortal wound being given in those parts by that terrible
weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately
made as myself, had outlived the operation; that she be-
lieved, at the worst, I should take a great deal of kill-
ing; that true it was, there was a great diversity of sizes
in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing, frequent
over-stretching with unmerciful machines, but that at a
certain age and habit of body, even the most experienc'd in
those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid
and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice,
and things in their natural situation: but that since
chance had thrown in my way one sight of that sort, she
would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more
delicately, and go a great way in the cure of my fears from
that imaginary disproportion.

     On this she asked me if I knew Polly Philips.  "Un-
doubtedly," says I, "the fair girl which was so tender of
me when I was sick, and has been, as you told me, but two
months in the house.":  "The same," says Phoebe.  "You must
know then, she is kept by a young Genoese merchant, whom
his uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he is,
sent over here with an English merchant, his friend, on a
pretext of settling some accounts, but in reality to humour
his inclinations for travelling, and seeing the world.  He
met casually with this Polly once in company, and taking a
liking to her, makes it worth her while to keep entirely to
him.  He comes to her here twice or thrice a week, and she
receives him in her light closet up one pair of stairs,
where he enjoys her in a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the
heat, or perhaps the caprices of his own country.  I say no
more, but to-morrow being his day, you shall see what passes
between them, from a place only known to your mistress and
myself."

     You may be sure, in the ply I was now taking, I had no
objection to the proposal, and was rather a tip-toe for its
accomplishment.

     At five in the evening, next day, Phoebe, punctual to
her promise, came to me as I sat alone in my own room, and
beckon'd me to follow her.

     We went down the back-stairs very softly, and opening
the door of a dark closet, where there was some old furni-
ture kept, and some cases of liquor, she drew me in after
her, and fastening the door upon us, we had no light but
what came through a long crevice in the partition between
ours and the light closet, where the scene of action lay;
so that sitting on those low cases, we could, with the
greatest ease, as well as clearness, see all objects (our-
selves unseen), only by applying our eyes close to the cre-
vice, where the moulding of a panel had warped, or started
a little on the other side.

     The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with
his back directly towards me, looking at a print.  Polly
was not yet come: in less than a minute tho', the door
opened, and she came in; and at the noise the door made he
turned about, and came to meet her, with an air of the
greatest tenderness and satisfaction.

     After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted
us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese help'd
her to a glass of wine, with some Naples bisket on a salver.

     Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and
questions in broken English on one side, he began to un-
button, and, in fine, stript to his shirt.

     As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling
off all their cloaths, a scheme which the heat of the season
perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she
had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant's
officious assistance, undress'd to all but her shift.

     When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loos-
en'd, waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles,
clean off; his shirt collar was unbuttoned too: then, first
giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the
shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and fami-
liariz'd to this humour, blush'd indeed, but less than I
did at the apparition of her, now standing stark-naked,
just as she came out of the hands of pure nature, with her
black hair loose and a-float down her dazzling white neck
and shoulders, whilst the deepen'd carnation of her cheeks
went off gradually into the hue of glaz'd snow: for such
were the blended tints and polish of her skin.

     This girl could not be above eighteen: her face re-
gular and sweet-featur'd, her shape exquisite; nor could I
help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plump'd
out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sus-
tain'd themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples,
pointing different ways, mark'd their pleasing separation;
beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which
terminated in a parting or rift scarce discernible, that
modesty seem'd to retire downwards, and seek shelter be-
tween two plump fleshy thighs: the curling hair that over-
spread its delightful front, cloathed it with the richest
sable fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a
subject for the painters to court her sitting to them for
a pattern of female beauty, in all the true price and pomp
of nakedness.

     The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing
and transported at the sight of beauties that might have
fir'd a dying hermit; his eager eyes devour'd her, as she
shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither were his hands
excluded their share of the high feast, but wander'd, on
the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of her body,
so qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it.

     In the mean time, one could not help observing the
swell of his shirt before, that bolster'd out, and shewed
the condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon
remov'd it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now,
as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.

     The young gentleman, by Phoebe's guess, was about two
and twenty; tall and well limb'd.  His body was finely
form'd and of a most vigorous make, square-shoulder'd, and
broad-chested: his face was not remarkable in any way, but
for a nose inclining to the Roman, eyes large, black, and
sparkling, and a ruddiness in his cheeks that was the more
a grace, for his complexion was of the brownest, not of that
dusky dun colour which excludes the idea of freshness, but
of that clear, olive gloss which, glowing with life, dazzles
perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases more, when it
pleases at all.  His hair, being too short to tie, fell no
lower than his neck, in short easy curls; and he had a few
sprigs about his paps, that garnish'd his chest in a style
of strength and manliness.  Then his grand movement, which
seem'd to rise out of a thicket of curling hair that spread
from the root all round thighs and belly up to the navel,
stood stiff and upright, but of a size to frighten me, by
sympathy, for the small tender part which was the object of
its fury, and which now lay expos'd to my fairest view; for
he had, immediately on stripping off his shirt, gently
push'd her down on the couch, which stood conveniently to
break her willing fall.  Her thighs were spread out to their
utmost extension, and discovered between them the mark of
the sex, the red-center'd cleft of flesh, whose lips, ver-
milioning inwards, exprest a small rubid line in sweet
miniature, such as Guido's touch of colouring could never
attain to the life or delicacy of.

     Phoebe, at this gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for
a whispered question: whether I thought my little maidenhead
was much less?  But my attention was too much engross'd, too
much enwrapp'd with all I saw, to be able to give her any
answer.

     By this time the young gentleman had changed her pos-
ture from lying breadth to length-wise on the couch: but her
thighs were still spread, and the mark lay fair for him, who
now kneeling between them, display'd to us a side-view of
that fierce erect machine of his, which threaten'd no less
than splitting the tender victim, who lay smiling at the up-
lifted stroke, nor seem'd to decline it.  He looked upon his
weapon himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with his
hand to the inviting slit, drew aside the lips, and lodg'd
it (after some thrusts, which Polly seem'd even to assist)
about half way; but there it stuck, I suppose from its grow-
ing thickness: he draws it again, and just wetting it with
spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheath'd it now up to the
hilt, at which Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite
another tone than one of pain; he thrusts, she heaves, at
first gently, and in a regular cadence; but presently the
transport began to be too violent ot observe any order or
measure; their motions were too rapid, their kisses too
fierce and fervent for nature to support such fury long:
both seem'd to me out of themselves: their eyes darted
fires:  "Oh! . . . oh! . . . I can't bear it . . . It is
too much . . . I die . . . I am going . . ." were Polly's
expressions of extasy: his joys were more silent; but soon
broken murmurs, sighs heart-fetch'd, and at length a dis-
patching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her
body, and then motionless languor of all his limbs, all
shewed that the die-away moment was come upon him; which
she gave signs of joining with, by the wild throwing of her
hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep sob, in
which she seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.

     When he had finish'd his stroke, and got from off her,
she lay still without the least motion, breathless, as it
should seem, with pleasure.  He replaced her again breadth-
wise on the couch, unable to sit up, with her thighs open,
between which I could observe a kind of white liquid, like
froth, hanging about the outward lips of that recently
opened wound, which now glowed with a deeper red.  Pre-
sently she gets up, and throwing her arms round him, seemed
far from undelighted with the trial he had put her to, to
judge at least by the fondness with which she ey'd and hung
upon him.

     For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I
felt all over me during this scene; but from that instant,
adieu all fears of what man could do unto me; they were now
changed into such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings,
that I could have pull'd the first of that sex that should
present himself, by the sleeve, and offered him the bauble,
which I now imagined the loss of would be a gain I could not
too soon procure myself.

     Phoebe, who had more experience, and to whom such
sights were not so new, could not however be unmoved at so
warm a scene; and drawing me away softly from the peep-hole,
for fear of being over-heard, guided me as near the door as
possible, all passive and obedient to her least signals.

     Here was no room either to sit or lie, but making me
stand with my back towards the door, she lifted up my
petticoats, and with her busy fingers fell to visit and
explore that part of me where now the heat and irritations
were so violent that I was perfectly sick and ready to die
with desire; that the bare touch of her finger, in that
critical place, had the effect of a fire to a train, and
her hand instantly made her sensible to what a pitch I was
wound up, and melted by the sight she had thus procured me.
Satisfied then with her success in allaying a heat that
would have made me impatient of seeing the continuation of
the transactions between our amourous couple, she brought me
again to the crevice so favourable to our curiosity.

     We had certainly been but a few instants away from it,
and yet on our return we saw every thing in good forwardness
for recommencing the tender hostilities.

     The young foreigner was sitting down, fronting us, on
the couch, with Polly upon one knee, who had her arms round
his neck, whilst the extreme whiteness of her skin was not
undelightfully contrasted by the smooth glossy brown of her
lover's.

     But who could count the fierce, unnumber's kisses given
and taken? in which I could of ten discover their exchanging
the velvet thrust, when both their mouths were double ton-
gued, and seemed to favour the mutual insertion with the
greatest gust and delight.

     In the mean time, his red-headed champion, that has so
lately fled the pit, quell'd and abash'd, was now recover'd
to the top of his condition, perk'd and crested up between
Polly's thighs, who was not wanting, on her part, to coax
and deep it in good humour, stroking it, with her head down,
and received even its velvet tip between the lips of not its
proper mouth: whether she did this out of any particular
pleasure, or whether it was to render it more glib and easy
of entrance, I could not tell; but it had such an effect,
that the young gentleman seem'd by  his eyes, that sparkled
with more excited lustre, and his inflamed countenance, to
receive increase of pleasure.  He got up, and taking Polly
in his arms, embraced her, and said something too softly for
me to hear, leading her withal to the foot of the couch, and
taking delight to slap her thighs and posteriors with that
stiff sinew of his, which hit them with a spring that he
gave it with his hand, and made them resound again, but hurt
her about as much as he meant to hurt her, for she seemed to
have as frolic a taste as himself.

     But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue
lie down on his back, and gently pull down Polly upon him,
who giving way to his humour, straddled, and with her hands
conducted her blind favourite to the right place; and fol-
lowing her impulse, ran directly upon the flaming point of
this weapon of pleasure, which she stak'd herself upon, up
pierc'd and infix'd to the extremest hair-breadth of it:
thus she sat on him a few instants, enjoying and relishing
her situation, whilst he toyed with her provoking breasts.
Sometimes she would stoop to meet his kiss: but presently
the sting of pleasure spurr'd them up to fiercer action;
then began the storm of heaves, which, form the undermost
combatant, were thrusts at the same time, he crossing his
hands over her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet
violence: the inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon
brought on the critical period, in which all the signs of a
close conspiring extasy informed us of the point they were
at.

     For me, I could bear to see no more; I was so overcome,
so inflamed at the second part of the same play, that, mad
to an intolerable degree, I hugg'd, I clasped Phoebe, as if
she had wherewithal to relieve me.  Pleased however with, and
pitying the taking she could feel me in, she drew me towards
the door, and opening it as softly as she could, we both got
off undiscover'd, and she reconducted me to my own room,
where, unable to keep my legs, in the agitation I was in, I
instantly threw myself down on the bed, where I lay trans-
ported, though asham'd at what I felt.

     Phoebe lay down by me, and ask'd me archly if, now that
I had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still
afraid of him? or did I think I could venture to come to a
close engagement with him?  To all which, not a word on my
side; I sigh'd, and could scarce breathe.  She takes hold of
my hand, and having roll'd up her own petticoats, forced it
half strivingly towards those parts, where, now grown more
knowing, I miss'd the main object of my wishes; and finding
not even the shadow of what I wanted, where every thing was
so flat, or so hollow, in the vexation I was in at it, I
should have withdrawn my hand but for fear of disobliging
her.  Abandoning it then entirely to her management, she
made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself
rather the shadow than the substance of any pleasure.  For
my part, I now pin'd for more solid food, and promis'd
tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much longer
with this foolery from woman to woman, if Mrs. Brown did
not soon provide me with the essential specific.  In short,
I had all the air of not being able to wait the arrival of
my lord B . . . tho' he was now expected in a very few days:
nor did I wait for him, for love itself took charge of the
disposal of me, in spite of interest, or gross lust.

     It was now two days after the closet-scene, that I got
up about six in the morning, and leaving my bed-fellow fast
asleep, stole down, with no other thought than of taking a
little fresh air in a small garden, which our back-parlour
open'd into, and from which my confinement debarr'd me at
the times company came to the house; but now sleep and
silence reign'd all over it.

     I open'd the parlour door, and well surpriz'd was I at
seeing, by the side of a fire half-our, a young gentleman in
the old lady's elbow chair, with his legs laid upon another,
fast asleep, and left there by his thoughtless companions,
who had drank him down, and then went off with every one his
mistress, whilst he stay'd behind by the courtesy of the old
matron, who would not disturb of turn him out in that con-
dition, at one in the morning; and beds, it is more than
probable, there were none to spare.  On the table still re-
main'd the punch bowl and glasses, strew's about in their
usual disorder after a drunken revel.

      But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping one,
heavens! what a sight!  No! no term of years, no turn of
fortune could ever erase the lightning-like impression
his form made on me . . . Yes! dearest object of my ear-
liest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of thy
first appearance to my ravish'd eyes . . . it calls thee
up, present; and I see thee now!

     Figure to yourself, Madam, a fair stripling, between
eighteen and nineteen, with his head reclin'd on one of the
sides of the chair, his hair in disorder'd curls, irregular-
ly shading a face on which all the roseate bloom of youth
and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eyes and heart.
Even the languor and paleness of his face, in which the
momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing to the
excesses of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to
the finest features imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep,
displayed the meeting edges of their lids beautifully bor-
dered with long eyelashes; over which no pencil could have
described two more regular arches than those that grac'd his
forehead, which was high, prefectly white and smooth.  Then
a pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch,
as if a bee had freshly stung them, seem'd to challenge me
to get the gloves off this lovely sleeper, had not the mod-
esty and respect, which in both sexes are inseparable from
a true passion, check'd my impulses.

     But on seeing his shirt-collar unbutton'd, and a bosom
whiter than a drift of snow, the pleasure of considering it
could not bribe me to lengthen it, at the hazard of a health
that began to be my life's concern.  Love, that made me
timid, taught me to be tender too.  With a trembling hand I
took hold of one of his, and waking his as gently as possi-
ble, he started, and looking, at first a little wildly, said
with a voice that sent its harmonious sound to my heart:
"Pray, child, what o'clock is it?"  I told him, and added
that he might catch cold if he slept longer with his breast
open in the cool of the morning air.  On this he thanked me
with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with that of his fea-
tures and eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly sur-
veying me, carried the sprightly fires they sparkled with
directly to my heart.
     It seems that having drank too freely before he came
upon the rake with some of his young companions, he had put
himself out of a condition to go through all the weapons
with them, and crown the night with getting a mistress; so
that seeing me in a loose undress, he did not doubt but I
was one of the misses of the house, sent in to repair his
loss of time; but though he seiz'd that notion, and a very
obvious one it was, without hesitation, yet, whether my
figure made a more than ordinary impression on him, or
whether it was natural politeness, he address'd me in a
manner far from rude, tho' still on the foot of one of the
house pliers, come to amuse him; and giving me the first
kiss that I ever relish'd from man in my life, ask'd me it
I could favour him with my company, assuring me that he
would make it worth my while: but had not even new-born
love, that true refiner of lust, oppos'd so sudden a sur-
render, the fear of being surpriz'd by the house was a
sufficient bar to my compliance.

     I told him then, in a tone set me by love itself, that
for reasons I had not time to explain to him, I could not
stay with him, and might not even ever see him again: with
a sigh at these last words, which broke from the bottom of
my heart.  My conqueror, who, as he afterwards told me, had
been struck with my appearance, and lik'd me as much as he
could think of liking any one in my suppos'd way of life,
ask'd me briskly at once if I would be kept by him, and that
he would take a lodging for me directly, and relieve me from
any engagements he presum'd I might be under to the house.
Rash, sudden, undigested, and even dangerous as this offer
might be from a perfect stranger, and that stranger a giddy
boy, the prodigious love I was struck with for him had put a
charm into his voice there was no resisting, and blinded me
to every objection; I could, at that instant, have died for
him: think if I could resist an invitation to live with him!
Thus my heart, beating strong to the proposal, dictated my
answer, after scarce a minute's pause, that I would accept
of his offer, and make my escape to him in what way he
pleased, and that I would be entirely at his disposal, let
it be good or bad.  I have often since wondered that so
great an easiness did not disgust him, or make me too cheap
in his eyes, but my fate had so appointed it, that in his
fears of the hazard of the town, he had been some time
looking out for a girl to take into keeping, and my person
happening to hit his fancy, it was by one of those miracles
reserved to love that we struck the bargain in the instant,
which we sealed by an exchange of kisses, that the hopes of
a more uninterrupted enjoyment engaged him to content him-
self with.

     Never, however, did dear youth carry in his person,
more wherewith to justify the turning of a girl's head, and
making her set all consequences at defiance for the sake of
following a gallant.

     For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which
were assembled in his form, he had an air of neatness and
gentility, a certain smartness in the carriage and port of
his head, that yet more distinguish'd him; his eyes were
sprightly and full of meaning; his looks had in them some-
thing at once sweet and commanding.  His complexion out-
bloom'd the lovely-colour'd rose, whilst its inimitable
tender vivid glow clearly sav'd from the reproach of want-
ing life, of raw and dough-like, which is commonly made to
those so extremely fair as he was.

     Our little plan was that I should get out about seven
the next morning (which I could readily promise, as I knew
where to get the key of the street-door), and he would wait
at the end of the street with a coach to convey me safe off;
after which, he would send, and clear any debt incurr'd by
my stay at Mrs. Brown's, who, he only judged, in gross,
might not care to part with one he thought so fit to draw
custom to the house.

     I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house
his having seen such a person as me, for reasons I would
explain to him more at leisure.  And then, for fear of
miscarrying, by being seen together, I tore myself from
him with a bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my room,
where I found Phoebe still fast asleep, and hurrying off my
few cloaths, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and
anxiety that may be easier conceived than express'd.

     The risks of Mrs. Brown's discovering my purpose, of
disappointments, misery, ruin, all vanish'd before this new-
kindl'd flame.  The seeing, the touching, the being, if but
for a night, with this idol of my fond virgin-heart, appeared
to me a happiness above the purchase of my liberty or life.
He might use me ill, let him! he was the master; happy, too
happy, even to receive death at so dear a hand.

     To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day,
of which every minute seem'd to me a little eternity.  How
often did I visit the clock! nay, was tempted to advance
the tedious hand, as if that would have advanc'd the time
with it!  Had those of the house made the least observations
on me, they must have remark'd something extraordinary from
the discomposure I could not help betraying; especially when
at dinner mention was made of the charmingest youth having
been there, and stay'd breakfast.  "Oh! he was such a beauty!
. . . I should have died for him! . . . they would pull caps
for him! . . ." and the like fooleries, which, however, was
throwing oil on a fire I was sorely put to it to smother the
blaze of.

     The fluctuations of my mind, the whole day, produc'd
one good effect: which was, that, through mere fatigue, I
slept tolerably well till five in the morning, when I got up,
and having dress'd myself, waited, under the double tortures
of fear and impatience, for the appointed hour.  It came at
last, the dear, critical, dangerous hour came; and now, sup-
ported only by the courage love lent me, I ventured, a tip-
toe, down-stairs, leaving my box behind, for fear of being
surpriz'd with it in going out.

     I got to the street-door, the key whereof was always
laid on the chair by our bed-side, in trust with Phoebe, who
having not the least suspicion of my entertaining any design
to go from them (nor indeed had I but the day before), made
no reserve or concealment of it from me.  I open'd the door
with great ease; love, that embolden'd, protected me too:
and now, got safe into the street, I saw my new guardian-
angel waiting at a coach-door, ready open.  How I got to him
I know not: I suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a
trice, and he by the side of me, with his arms clasp'd round
me, and giving me the kiss of welcome.  The coachman had his
orders, and drove to them.

     My eyes were instantly fill'd with tears, but tears of
the most delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of
that beauteous youth was a rapture that my little heart swam
in.  Past or future were equally out of the question with
me.  The present was as much as all my powers of life were
sufficient to bear the transport of, without fainting.  Nor
were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions
wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of never
giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken, in
throwing myself thus entirely upon his honour and generosity.
But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I was drove to it by
a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and I did what I
did because I could not help it.

     In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we
landed at a public house in Chelsea, hosipitably commodious
for the reception of duet-parties of pleasure, where a break-
fast of chocolate was prepared for us.

     An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life
perfectly well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at
me, gave us both joy, and said we were well paired, i' faith!
that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he
had never seen a handsomer couple . . . he was sure I was a
fresh piece . . . I look'd so country, so innocent! well my
spouse was a lucky man! . . . all which common landlord's
cant not only pleas'd and sooth'd me, but help'd to divert
my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, now the
minute approach'd, I began to fear to be alone with: a
timidity which true love had a greater share in than even
maiden bashfulness.

     I wish'd, I doted, I could have died for him; and yet,
I know not how, or why, I dreaded the point which had been
the object of my fiercest wishes; my pulses beat fears,
amidst a flush of the warmest desires.  This struggle of the
passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty and love-
sick longings, made me burst again into tears; which he took,
as he had done before, only for the remains of concern and
emotion at the suddenness of my change of condition, in com-
mitting myself to his care; and, in consequence of that idea,
did and said all that he thought would most comfort and re-
inspirit me.

     After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must
take the liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by),
with a smile full of meaning, took me gently by the hand, and
said:  "Come, my dear, I will show you a room that commands a
fine prospect over some gardens"; and without waiting for an
answer, in which he relieved me extremely, he led me up into
a chamber, airy and light-some, where all seeing of prospects
was out of the question, except that of a bed, which had all
the air of having recommended the room to him.

     Charles had just slipp'd the bolt of the door, and run-
ning, caught me in his arms, and lifting me from the ground,
with his lips glew'd to mine, bore me, trembling, panting,
dying, with soft fears and tender wishes, to the bed; where
his impatience would not suffer him to undress me, more than
just unpinning my handkerchief and gown, and unlacing my
stays.

     My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs,
presented to his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a
pair of young breasts, such as may be imagin'd of a girl not
sixteen, fresh out of the country, and never before handled;
but even their pride, whiteness, fashion, pleasing resistance
to the touch, could not bribe his restless hands from roving;
but giving them the loose, my petticoats and shift were soon
taken up, and their stronger center of attraction laid open
to their tender invasion.  My fears, however, made me mechan-
ically close my thighs; but the very touch of his hand insin-
uated between them, disclosed them and opened a way for the
main attack.

     In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examina-
tion of his eyes and hands, quiet and unresisting; which
confirm'd him the opinion he proceeded so cavalierly upon,
that I was no novice in these matters, since he had taken
me out of a common bawdy-house, nor had I said one thing to
prepossess him of my virginity; and if I had, he would
sooner have believ'd that I took him for a cully that would
swallow such an improbability, than that I was still mis-
tress of that darling treasure, that hidden mine, so eagerly
sought after by the men, and which they never dig for, but
to destroy.

     Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he un-
button'd, and drawing out the engine of love-assaults, drove
it currently, as at a ready-made breach . . . Then! then!
for the first time, did I feel that stiff horn-hard gristle,
battering against the tender part; but imagine to yourself
his surprize when he found, after several vigorous pushes
which hurt me extremely, that he made not the least im-
pression.

     I complain'd but tenderly complain'd that I could not
bear it . . . indeed he hurt me! . . . Still he thought no
more than that being so young, the largeness of his machine
(for few men could dispute size with him) made all the dif-
iculty; and that possible I had not been enjoy'd by any so
advantageously made in that part as himself: for still,
that my virgin flower was yet uncrop'd, never enter'd into
his head, and he would have thought it idling with time and
words to have question'd me upon it.

     He tries again, still no admittance, still no penetra-
tion; but he had hurt me yet more, whilst my extreme love
made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan.  At
length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting
by me, kiss'd my falling tears, and asked me tenderly what
was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not
borne it better from others than I did from him? I answered,
with a simplicity fram'd to persuade, that he was the first
man that ever serv'd me so.  Truth is powerful, and it is
not always that we do not believe what we eagerly wish.




                        Part 3

     Charles, already dispos'd by the evidence of his senses
to think my pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal,
smothers me with kisses, begs me, in the name of love, to
have a little patience, and that he will be as tender of
hurting me as he would be of himself.

     Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joy-
fully to him, whatever pain I foresaw it would cost me.

     He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put
one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a
more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in
ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself
standing between them, made them rest upon his hips; apply-
ing then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he
sought entrance: it was so small, he could scarce assure
himself of its being rightly pointed.  He looks, he feels,
and satisfies himself: the driving forward with fury, its
prodigious stiffness, thus impacted, wedgelike, breaks the
union of those parts, and gain'd him just the insertion of
the tip of it, lip-deep; which being sensible of, he improv-
ed his advantage, and following well his stroke, in a
straight line, forcibly deepens his penetration; but put me
to such intolerable pain, from the separation of the sides
of that soft passage by a hard thick body, I could have
scream'd out; but, as I was unwilling to alarm the house, I
held in my breath, and cramm'd my petticoat, which was
turn'd up over my face, into my mouth, and bit it through
in the agony.  At length, the tender texture of that tract
giving way to such fierce tearing and rending, he pierc'd
something further into me: and now, outrageous and no longer
his own master, but borne headlong away by the fury and
over-mettle of that member, now exerting itself with a kind
of native rage, he breaks in, carries all before him, and
one violent merciless lunge sent it, imbrew'd, and reeking
with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me . . . Then!
then all my resolution deserted me: I scream'd out, and
fainted away with the sharpness of the pain; and, as he told
me afterwards, on his drawing out, when emission was over
with him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood
that flow'd from the wounded torn passage.

     When I recover'd my senses, I found myself undress'd,
and a-bed, in the arms of the sweet relenting murderer of my
virginity, who hung mourning tenderly over me, and holding
in his hand a cordial, which, coming from the still dear
author of so much pain, I could not refuse; my eyes, however,
moisten'd with tears, and languishingly turn'd upon him,
seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and ask him if such
were the rewards of love.  But Charles, to whom I was now
infinitely endear'd by this complete triumph over a maiden-
head, where he so little expected to find one, in tenderness
to that pain which he had put me to, in procuring himself
the height of pleasure, smother'd his exultation, and em-
ploy'd himself with so much sweetness, so much warmth, to
sooth, to caress, and comfort me in my soft complainings,
which breath'd, indeed, more love than resentment, that I
presently drown'd all sense of pain in the pleasure of seeing
him, of thinking that I belong'd to him: he who was now the
absolute disposer of my happiness, and, in one word, my fate.

     The sore was, however, too tender, the wound too bleed-
ing fresh, for Charles's good-nature to put my patience pre-
sently to another trial; but as I could not stir, or walk
across the room, he order'd the dinner to be brought to the
bed-side, where it could not be otherwise than my getting
down the wing of a fowl, and two or three glasses of wine,
since it was my ador'd youth who both serv'd, and urged them
on me, with that sweet irresistible authority with which love
had invested him over me.

     After dinner, and as everything but the wine was taken
away, Charles very impudently asks a leave, he might read the
grant of in my eyes, to come to bed to me, and accordingly
falls to undressing; which I could not see the progress of
without strange emotions of fear and pleasure.

     He is now in bed with me the first time, and in broad
day; but when thrusting up his own shirt and my shift, he
laid his naked glowing body to mine . . . oh! insupportable
delight! oh! superhuman rapture! what pain could stand be-
fore a pleasure so transporting?  I felt no more the smart
of my wounds below; but, curling round him like the tendril
of a vine, as if I fear'd any part of him should be un-
touch'd or unpress'd by me, I return'd his strenuous em-
braces and kisses with a fervour and gust only known to true
love, and which mere lust could never rise to.

     Yes, even at this time, when all the tyranny of the
passions is fully over and my veins roll no longer but a
cold tranquil stream, the remembrance of those passages
that most affected me in my youth, still cheers and re-
freshes me.  Let me proceed then.  My beauteous youth was
now glew'd to me in all the folds and twists that we could
make our bodies meet in; when, no longer able to rein in the
fierceness of refresh'd desires, he gives his steed the head
and gently insinuating his thighs between mine, stopping my
mouth with kisses of humid fire, makes a fresh irruption,
and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and forces his way
up the torn tender folds that yielded him admission with a
smart little less severe that when the breach was first made.
I stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with the passive
fortitude of a heroine; soon his thrusts, more and more fur-
ious, cheeks flush'd with a deeper scarlet, his eyes turn'd
up in the fervent fit, some dying sighs, and an agonizing
shudder, announced the approaches of that extatic pleasure,
I was yet in too much pain to come in for my share of it.

     Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numb'd and
blunted the sense of the smart, and given me to feel the
titillating inspersion of balsamic sweets, drew from me the
delicious return, and brought down all my passion, that I
arrived at excess of pleasure through excess of pain.  But,
when successive engagements had broke and inur'd me, I began
to enter into the true unallay'd relish of that pleasure of
pleasures, when the warm gush darts through all the ravish'd
inwards; what floods of bliss! what melting transports! what
agonies of delight! too fierce, too mighty for nature to
sustain; well has she therefore, no doubt, provided the re-
lief of a delicious momentary dissolution, the approaches of
which are intimated by a dear delirium, a sweet thrill on the
point of emitting those liquid sweets, in which enjoyment
itself is drown'd, when one gives the languishing stretch-out,
and dies at the discharge.

     How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had
subsided after the melting flow, have I, in a tender medi-
tation ask'd myself coolly the question, if it was in nature
for any of its creatures to be so happy as I was?  Or, what
were all fears of the consequence, put in the scale of one
night's enjoyment of any thing so transcendently the taste
of my eyes and heart, as that delicious, fond, matchless
youth?

     Thus we spent the whole afternoon till supper time in
a continued circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing,
toying, and all the rest of the feast.  At length, supper
was serv'd in, before which Charles had, for I do not know
what reason, slipt his cloaths on; and sitting down by the
bed-side, we made table and table-cloth of the bed and sheets,
whilst he suffer'd nobody to attend or serve but himself.  He
ate with a very good appetite, and seem'd charm'd to see me
eat.  For my part, I was so enchanted with my fortune, so
transported with the comparison of the delights I now swam
in, with the insipidity of all my past scenes of life, that
I thought them sufficiently cheap at even the price of my
ruin, or the risk of their not lasting.  The present pos-
session was all my little head could find room for.

     We lay together that night, when, after playing re-
peated prizes of pleasure, nature, overspent and satisfy'd,
gave us up to the arms of sleep: those of my dear youth en-
circled me, the consciousness of which made even that sleep
more delicious.

     Late in the morning I wak'd first; and observing my
lover slept profoundly, softly disengag'd myself from his
arms, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of shortening his
repose; my cap, my hair, my shift, were all in disorder from
the rufflings I had undergone; and I took this opportunity
to adjust and set them as well as I could: whilst, every now
and then, looking at the sleeping youth with inconceivable
fondness and delight, and reflecting on all the pain he had
put me to, tacitly own'd that the pleasure had overpaid me
for my sufferings.

     It was then broad day.  I was sitting up in the bed,
the cloaths of which were all tossed, or rolled off, by the
unquietness of our motions, from the sultry heat of the
weather; nor could I refuse myself a pleasure that solicited
me so irresistibly, as this fair occasion of feasting my
sight with all those treasures of youthful beauty I had en-
joy'd, and which lay now almost entirely naked, his shirt
being truss'd up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the
room and season made me easy about the consequence of.  I
hung over him enamour'd indeed! and devoured all his naked
charms with only two eyes, when I could have wish'd them at
least a hundred, for the fuller enjoyment of the gaze.

     Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still
present to my transported imagination! a whole length of an
allperfect, manly beauty in full view.  Think of a face
without a fault, glowing with all the opening bloom and
vernal freshness of an age in which beauty is of either sex,
and which the first down over his upper lip scarce began to
distinguish.

     The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seem'd
to exhale an air sweeter and purer than what it drew in: ah!
what violence did it not cost me to refrain the so tempted
kiss!

     Then a neck exquisitely turn'd, grac'd behind and on
the sides with his hair, playing freely in natural ringlets,
connected his head to a body of the most perfect form, and
of the most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength
of manhood was conceal'd and soften'd to appearance by the
delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and
the plumpness of his flesh.

     The platform of his snow-white bosom, that was laid out
in a manly proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of
each pap, the idea of a rose about to blow.

     Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing that symmetry
of his limbs, that exactness of shape, in the fall of it to-
wards the loins, where the waist ends and the rounding swell
of the hips commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth, and
dazzling white, burnishes on the stretch over firm, plump,
ripe flesh, that crimp'd and ran into dimples at the least
pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid
over as on the surface of the most polished ivory.

     His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy
roundness, gradually tapering away to the knees, seem'd
pillars worthy to support that beauteous frame; at the
bottom of which I could not, without some remains of terror,
some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible mac-
hine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke into,
torn, and almost ruin'd those soft, tender parts of mine
that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage;
but behold it now! crest fall'n, reclining its half-capt
vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to
all appearance incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had
committed.  Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short
and soft curls round its root, its whiteness, branch'd veins,
the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshort'd,
roll'd and shrunk up into a squab thickness, languid, and
borne up from between his thighs by its globular appendage,
that wondrous treasure-bag of nature's sweets, which,
rivell'd round, and purs'd up in the only wrinkles that are
known to please, perfected the prospect, and all together
formed the most interesting moving picture in nature, and
surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnish'd by
]the painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchas'd
at immense prices; whilst the sight of them in actual life
is scarce sovereignly tasted by any but the few whom nature
has endowed with a fire of imagination, warmly pointed by a
truth of judgment to the spring-head, the originals of
beauty, of nature's unequall'd composition, above all the
imitation of art, or the reach of wealth to pay their price.

     But every thing must have an end.  A motion made by
this angelic youth, in the listlessness of going off sleep,
replac'd his shirt and the bed-cloaths in a posture that
shut up that treasure from longer view.

     I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of
me in which the objects just seen had begun to raise a
mutiny that prevail'd over the smart of them, my fingers now
open'd themselves an easy passage; but long I had not time
to consider the wide difference there, between the maid and
the now finish'd woman, before Charles wak'd, and turning
towards me, kindly enquir'd how I had rested? and, scarce
giving me time to answer, imprinted on my lips one of his
burning rapture-kisses, which darted a flame to my heart,
that from thence radiated to every part of me; and present-
ly, as if he had proudly meant revenge for the survey I had
smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the bed-
cloaths, and trussing up my shift as high as it would go,
took his turn to feast his eyes on all the gifts nature had
bestow'd on my person; his busy hands, too, rang'd intemper-
ately over every part of me.  The delicious austerity and
hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the whiteness
and firmness of my flesh, the freshness and regularity of my
features, the harmony of my limbs, all seem'd to confirm him
in his satisfaction with his bargain; but when curious to
explore the havoc he had made in the centre of his over-
fierce attack, he not only directed his hands there, but
with a pillow put under, placed me favourably for his wanton
purpose of inspection.  Then, who can express the fire his
eyes glisten'd, his hands glow'd with! whilst sighs of plea-
sure, and tender broken exclamations, were all the praises
he could utter.  By this time his machine, stiffly risen at
me, gave me to see it in its highest state and bravery.  He
feels it himself, seems pleas'd at its condition, and, smil-
ing loves and graces, seizes one of my hands, and carries
it, with a gentle compulsion, to his pride of nature, and
its richest masterpiece.

     I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I
could not grasp, a column of the whitest ivory, beautifully
streak'd with blue veins, and carrying, fully uncapt, a
head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn could be harder or
stiffer; yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to the touch.
Presently he guided my hand lower, to that part in which
nature and pleasure keep their stores in concert, so aptly
fasten'd and hung on to the root of their first instrument
and minister, that not improperly he might be styl'd their
purse-bearer too: there he made me feel distinctly, through
their soft cover, the contents, a pair of roundish balls,
that seem'd to play within, and elude all pressure but the
tenderest, from without.

     But now this visit of my soft warm hand in those so
sensible parts had put every thing into such ungovernable
fury that, disdaining all further preluding, and taking ad-
vantage of my commodious posture, he made the storm fall
where I scarce patiently expected, and where he was sure to
lay it: presently, then, I felt the stiff insertion between
the yielding, divided lips of the wound, now open for life;
where the narrowness no longer put me to intolerable pain,
and afforded my lover no more difficulty than what height-
en'd his pleasure, in the strict embrace of that tender,
warm sheath, round the instrument it was so delicately ad-
justed to, and which, now cased home, so gorged me with
pleasure that it perfectly suffocated me and took away my
breath; then the killing thrusts! the unnumber'd kisses!
every one of which was a joy inexpressible; and that joy
lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses!  But this was a
disorder too violent in nature to last long: the vessels,
so stirr'd and intensely heated, soon boil'd over, and for
that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance
and disport had so far consum'd the morning, that it became
a kind of necessity to lay breakfast and dinner into one.

     In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following
account of himself, every word of which was true.  He was
the only son of a father who, having a small post in the
revenue, rather over-liv'd his income, and had given this
young gentleman a very slender education: no profession had
he bred him up to, but design'd to provide for him in the
army, by purchasing him an ensign's commission, that is to
say, provided he could raise the money, or procure it by
interest, either of which clauses was rather to be wish'd
than hoped for by him.  On no better a plan, however, had
this improvident father suffer'd this youth, a youth of
great promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it
at least, in next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no
sort of pains to give him even the common premonitions
against the vices of the town, and the dangers of all sorts,
which wait the unexperienc'd and unwary in it.  He liv'd at
home, and at discretion, with his father, who himself kept a
mistress; and for the rest, provided Charles did not ask him
for money, he was indolently kind to him: he might lie out
when he pleas'd; any excuse would serve, and even his repri-
mands were so slight that they carried with them rather an
air of connivance at the fault than any serious control or
constraint.  But, to supply his calls for money, Charles,
whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a grandmother who
doted upon him.  She had a considerable annuity to live on,
and very regularly parted with every shilling she could spare
to this darling of hers, to the no little heart-burn of his
father; who was vex'd, not that she by this means fed his
son's extravagance, but that she preferr'd Charles to him-
self; and we shall too soon see what a fatal turn such a
mercenary jealousy could operate in the breast of a father.

     Charles was, however, by the means of his grand-
mother's lavish fondness, very sufficiently enabled to keep
a mistress so easily contented as my love made me; and my
good fortune, for such I must ever call it, threw me in his
way, in the manner above related, just as he was on the
look-out for one.

     As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem
born for domestic happiness: tender, naturally polite, and
gentle-manner'd; it could never be his fault if ever jars
or animosities ruffled a calm he was so qualified in every
way to maintain or restore.  Without those great or shining
qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a
noise in the world, he had all those humble ones that com-
pose the softer social merit: plain common sense, set off
with every grace of modesty and good nature, made him, if
not admir'd, what is much happier, universally belov'd and
esteem'd.  But, as nothing but the beauties of his person
had at first attracted my regard and fix'd my passion,
neither was I then a judge of that internal merit, which I
had afterward full occasion to discover, and which perhaps,
in that season of giddiness and levity, would have touch'd
my heart very little, had it been lodg'd in a person less
the delight of my eyes and idol of my senses.  But to re-
turn to our situation.

     After dinner, which we ate a-bed in a most voluptuous
disorder, Charles got up, and taking a passionate leave of
me for a few hours, he went to town where, concerting mat-
ters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together to my
late venerable mistress's, from whence I had, but the day
before, made my elopement, and with whom he was determin'd
to settle accounts in a manner that should cut off all after
reckonings from that quarter.

     Accordingly they went; but on the way, the Templar,
his friend, on thinking over Charles's information, saw
reason to give their visit another turn, and, instead of
offering satisfaction, to demand it.

     On being let in, the girls of the house flock'd round
Charles, whom they knew, and from the earliness of my
escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so
much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his
being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way,
making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him
probably for a fresh cully.  But the Templar soon check'd
their forwardness, by enquiring for the old lady, with whom,
he said, with a grave judge-like countenance, that he had
some business to settle.

     Madam was immediately sent down for, and the ladies
being desir'd to clear the room, the lawyer ask'd her,
severely, if she did know, or had not decoy'd, under pre-
tence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just come out
of the country, called FRANCES or FANNY HILL, describing
me withal as particularly as he could from Charles's des-
cription.

     It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of
justice; and Mrs. Brown, whose conscience was not entirely
clear upon my account, as knowing as she was of the town,
as hackney's as she was in bluffing through all the dangers
of her vocation, could not help being alarm'd at the ques-
tion, especially when he went on to talk of a Justice of
peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for keeping a
disorderly house, pillory, carting, and the whole process
of that nature.  She, who, it is likely, imagin'd I had
lodg'd an information against her house, look'd extremely
blank, and began to make a thousand protestations and
excuses.  However, to abridge, they brought away trium-
phantly my box of things, which, had she not been under an
awe, she might have disputed with them; and not only that;
but a clearance and discharge of any demands on the house,
at the expense of no more than a bowl of arrack-punch, the
treat of which, together with the choice of the house con-
veniences, was offer'd and not accepted.  Charles all the
time acted the chance-companion of the lawyer, who had
brought him there, as he knew the house, and appear'd in
no wise interested in the issue; but he had the collateral
pleasure of hearing all that I had told him verified, so
far as the bawd's fears would give her leave to enter into
my history, which, if one may guess by the composition she
so readily came into, were not small.

     Phoebe, my kind tutoress Phoebe, was at that time gone
out, perhaps in search of me, or their cook'd-up story had
not, it is probable, pass'd so smoothly.

     This negotiation had, however, taken up some time,
which would have appear'd much longer to me, left as I was,
in a strange house, if the landlady, a motherly sort of a
woman, to whom Charles had liberally recommended me, had
not come up and borne me company.  We drank tea, and her
chat help'd to pass away the time very agreeably, since he
was our theme; but as the evening deepened, and the hour
set for his return was elaps'd, I could not dispel the
gloom of impatience and tender fears which gathered upon
me, and which our timid sex are apt to feel in proportion
to their love.

     Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him
over-paid me; and the soft reproach I had prepar'd for him
expired before it reach'd my lips.

     I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise
than awkwardly, and Charles flew to me, catched me in his
arms, rais'd and extending mine to meet his dear embrace,
and gives me an account, interrupted by many a sweet paren-
thesis of kisses, of the success of his measures.

     I could not help laughing at the fright the old woman
had been put into, which my ignorance, and indeed my want
of innocence, had far from prepar'd me for bespeaking.  She
had, it seems, apprehended that I fled for shelter to some
relation I had recollected in town, on my dislike of their
ways and proceeding towards me, and that this application
came from thence; for, as Charles had rightly judg'd not
one neighbour had, at that still hour, seen the circum-
stance of my escape into the coach, or, at least, notic'd
him; neither had any in the house the least hint or clue of
suspicion of my having spoke to him, much less of my having
clapt up such a sudden bargain with a perfect stranger:
thus the greatest improbability is not always what we
should most mistrust.

     We supped with all the gaiety of two young giddy crea-
tures at the top of their desires; and as I had most joy-
fully given up to Charles the whole charge of my future
happiness, I thought of nothing beyond the exquisite plea-
sure of possessing him.

     He came to bed in due time; and this second night,
the pain being pretty well over, I tasted, in full draughts,
all the transports of perfect enjoyment: I swam, I bathed in
bliss, till both fell fast asleep, through the natural con-
sequences of satisfied desires, and appeas'd flames; nor did
we wake but to renew'd raptures.

     Thus, making the most of love and life, did we stay in
this lodging in Chelsea about ten days; in which time Charles
took care to give his excursions from home a favourable gloss,
and to keep his footing with his fond indulgent grandmother,
from whom he drew constant and sufficient supplies for the
charge I was to him, and which was very trifling, in compari-
sion with his former less regular course of pleasures.

     Charles remov'd me then to a private ready furnish'd
lodging in D . . . street, St. James's, where he paid half
a guinea a week for two rooms and a closet on the second
floor, which he had been some time looking out for, and was
more convenient for the frequency of his visits than where
he had at first plac'd me, in a house which I cannot say but
I left with regret, as it was infinitely endear'd to me by
the first possession of my Charles, and the circumstance of
losing, there, that jewel which can never be twice lost.
The landlord, however, had no reason to complain of any
thing, but of a procedure in Charles too liberal not to make
him regret the loss of us.

     Arrived at our new lodgings, I remember I thought them
extremely fine, though ordinary enough, even at that price;
but, had it been a dungeon that Charles had brought me to,
his presence would have made it a little Versailles.

     The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apart-
ment, and with great volubility of tongue explain'd to us
all its conveniences--that her own maid should wait on us
. . . that the best of quality had lodg'd at her house . . .
that her first floor was let to a foreign secretary of an
embassy, and his lady . . . that I looked like a very good-
natur'd lady. . . .  At the word lady, I blush'd out of
flatter'd vanity: this was too strong for a girl of my con-
dition; for though Charles had had the precaution of dressing
me in a less tawdry flaunting style than were the cloaths I
escap'd to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that he
had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on
account of his friends, I dare swear this appear'd extremely
apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so well as she did;
but that was the least of her concern.  It was impossible to
be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the advantage of
letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself
would have far from scandaliz'd her, or broke her bargain.

     A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dis-
pose you to account for the part she is to act in my concerns.

     She was about forty-six years old, tall, meagre, red-
hair'd, with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet
with everywhere, and go about unheeded and unmentioned.  In
her youth she had been kept by a gentleman who, dying, left
her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of
a daughter he had by her; which daughter, at the age of
seven-teen, she sold, for not a very considerable sum nei-
ther, to a gentleman who was going on Envoy abroad, and took
his purchase with him, where he us'd her with the utmost
tenderness, and it is thought, was secretly married to her:
but had constantly made a point of her not keeping up the
least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a
market of her own flesh and blood.  However, as she had no
nature, nor, indeed, any passion but that of money, this
gave her no further uneasiness, than, as she thereby lost a
handle of squeezing presents, or other after-advantages, out
of the bargain.  Indifferent then, by nature of constitution,
to every other pleasure but that of increasing the lump by
any means whatever, she commenc'd a kind of private procur-
ess, for which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave decent
appearance, and sometimes did a job in the match-making way;
in short, there was nothing that appear'd to her under the
shape of gain that she would not have undertaken.  She knew
most of the ways of the town, having not only herself been
upon, but kept up constant intelligences in it, dealing, be-
sides her practice in promoting a harmony between the two
sexes, in private pawn-broking and other profitable secrets.
She rented the house she liv'd in, and made the most of it
by letting it out in lodgings; though she was worth, at
least, near three or four thousand pounds, she would not
allow herself even the necessaries of life, and pinn'd her
subsistence entirely on what she could squeeze out of her
lodgers.

     When she saw such a young pair come under her roof,
her immediate notions, doubtless, were how she should make
the most money of us, by every means that money might be
made, and which, she rightly judged, our situation and
inexperience would soon beget her occasions of.

     In this hopeful sanctuary, and under the clutches of
this harpy, did we pitch our residence.  It will not be
mighty material to you, or very pleasant to me, to enter
into a detail of all the petty cut-throat ways and means
with which she used to fleece us; all which Charles indol-
ently chose to bear with, rather than take the trouble of
removing, the difference of expense being scarce attended
to by a young gentleman who had no idea of stint, or even
of economy, and a raw country girl who knew nothing of the
matter.

     Here, however, under the wings of my sovereignly
belov'd, did I flow the most delicious hours of my life;
my Charles I had, and, in him, everything my fond heart
could wish or desire.  He carried me to plays, operas,
masquerades, and every diversion of the town; all of which
pleas'd me indeed, but pleas'd me infinitely the more for
his being with me, and explaining everything to me, and
enjoying, perhaps, the natural impressions of surprize and
admiration, which such sights, at the first, never fail to
excite in a country girl, new to the delights of them; but
to me, they sensibly prov'd the power and full dominion of
the sole passion of my heart over me, a passion in which
soul and body were concentre'd, and left me no room for any
other relish of life but love.

     As to the men I saw at those places, or at any other,
they suffer'd so much in the comparison my eyes made of
them with my all-perfect Adonis, that I had not the infidel-
ity even of one wandering thought to reproach myself with
upon his account.  He was the universe to me, and all that
was not him was nothing to me.

     My love, in fine, was so excessive, that it arriv'd at
annihilating every suggestion or kindling spark of jealousy;
for, one idea only tending that way, gave me such exquisite
torment that my self-love, and dread of worse than death,
made me for ever renounce and defy it: nor had I, indeed,
occasion; for, were I to enter here on the recital of sev-
eral instances wherein Charles sacrific'd to me women of
greater importance than I dare hint (which, considering his
form, was no such wonder), I might, indeed, give you full
proof of his unshaken constancy to me; but would not you
accuse me of warming up again a feast that my vanity ought
long ago to have been satisfy'd with?

     In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles fram'd
himself one, in instructing me, as far as his own lights
reach'd, in a great many points of life that I was, in con-
sequence of my no-education, perfectly ignorant of: nor did
I suffer one word to fall in vain from the mouth of my love-
ly teacher:  I hung on every syllable he utter'd, and re-
ceiv'd as oracles, all he said; whilst kisses were all the
interruption I could not refuse myself the pleasure of ad-
mitting, from lips that breath'd more than Arabian sweetness.

     I was in a little time enabled, by the progress I had
made, to prove the deep regard I had paid to all that he
had said to me: repeating it to him almost word for word;
and to shew that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I
reflected upon, that I enter'd into it, I join'd my own
comments, and ask'd him questions of explanation.

     My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, man-
ners, and deportment, began now sensibly to wear off, so
quick was my observation, and so efficacious my desire of
growing every day worthier of his heart.

     As to money, though he brought me constantly all he
receiv'd, it was with difficulty he even got me to give it
room in my bureau; and what clothes I had, he could prevail
on me to accept of on no other foot than that of pleasing
him by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond which I had
no ambition.  I could have made a pleasure of the greatest
toil, and worked my fingers to the bone, with joy, to have
supported him: guess, then, if I could harbour any idea of
being burdensome to him, and this disinterested turn in me
was so unaffected, so much the dictate of my heart, that
Charles could not but feel it: and if he did not love me as
I did him (which was the constant and only matter of sweet
contention between us), he manag'd so, at least, as to give
me the satisfaction of believing it impossible for man to
be more tender, more true, more faithful than he was.

     Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my
apartment, from whence I never stirr'd on any pretext with-
out Charles; nor was it long before she worm'd out, without
much art, the secret of our having cheated the church of a
ceremony, and, in course, of the terms we liv'd together
upon; a circumstance which far from displeas'd her, con-
sidering the designs she had upon me, and which, alas! she
will, too soon, have room to carry into execution.  But in
the mean time, her own experience of life let her see that
any attempt, however indirect or disguis'd to divert or
break, at least presently, so strong a cement of hearts as
ours was, could only end in losing two lodgers, of whom
she made very competent advantages, if either of us came
to smoke her commission; for a commission she had from one
of her customers, either to debauch, or get me away from
my keeper at any rate.

     But the barbarity of my fate soon sav'd her the task
of disuniting us.  I had now been eleven months with this
life of my life, which had passed in one continu'd rapid
stream of delight: but nothing so violent was ever made to
last.  I was about three months gone with child by him, a
circumstance which would have added to his tenderness had
he ever left me room to believe it could receive an addi-
tion, when the mortal, the unexpected blow of separation
fell upon us.  I shall gallop post over the particulars,
which I shudder yet to think of, and cannot to this instant
reconcile myself how, or by what means, I could out-live it.

     Two life-long days had I linger'd through without
hearing from him, I who breath'd, who existed but in him,
and had never yet seen twenty-four hours pass without seeing
or hearing from him.  The third day my impatience was so
strong, my alarms had been so severe, that I perfectly
sicken'd with them; and being unable to support the shock
longer, I sunk upon the bed and ringing for Mrs. Jones, who
had far from comforted me under my anxieties, she came up.
I had scarce breath and spirit enough to find words to beg
of her, if she would save my life, to fall upon some means
of finding out, instantly, what was become of its only prop
and comfort.  She pity'd me in a way that rather sharpen'd
my affliction than suspended it, and went out upon this
commission.

     Far she had not to go: Charles's father lived but at
an easy distance, in one of the streets that run into Covent
Garden.  There she went into a publick house, and from
thence sent for a maid-servant, whose name I had given her,
as the properest to inform her.

     The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones
enquir'd of her what was become of Mr. Charles, or whether
he was gone out of town, acquainted her with the disposal of
her master's son, which, the very day after, was no secret
to the servants.  Such sure measures had he taken, for the
most cruel punishment of his child for having more interest
with his grandmother than he had, though he made use of a
pretense, plausible enough, to get rid of him in this secret
and abrupt manner, for fear her fondness should have inter-
pos'd a bar to his leaving England, and proceeding on a
voyage he had concerted for him; which pretext was, that it
was indispensably necessary to secure a considerable inheri-
tance that devolv'd to him by the death of a rich merchant
(his own brother) at one of the factories in the South-Seas,
of which he had lately receiv'd advice, together with a copy
of the will.

     In consequence of which resolution to send away his son,
he had, unknown to him, made the necessary preparations for
fitting him out, struck a bargain with the captain of a ship,
whose punctual execution of his orders he had secured, by his
interest with his principal owner and patron; and, in short,
concerted his measures so secretly and effectually that whilst
his son thought he was going down the river for a few hours,
he was stopt on board of a ship, debar'd from writing, and
more strictly watch'd than a State criminal.

     Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forc'd on
a long voyage, without taking of one friend, or receiving one
line of comfort, except a dry explanation and instructions,
from his father, how to proceed when he should arrive at his
destin'd port, enclosing, withal, some letters of recommenda-
tion to a factor there: all these particulars I did not learn
minutely till some time after.

     The maid, at the same time, added that she was sure this
usage of her sweet young master would be the death of his
grand-mama, as indeed it prov'd true; for the old lady, on
hearing it, did not survive the news a whole month; and as
her fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which she had
laid up no reserves, she left nothing worth mentioning to her
so fatally envied darling, but absolutely refus'd to see his
father before she died.

     When Mrs. Jones return'd and I observ'd her looks, they
seem'd so unconcern'd, and even near to pleas'd, that I half
flatter'd myself she was going to set my tortur'd heart at
ease by bringing me good news; but this, indeed, was a cruel
delusion of hope: the barbarian, with all the coolness imag-
inable, stab'd me to the heart, in telling me, succinctly,
that he was sent away at least on a four years' voyage (here
she stretch'd maliciously), and that I could not expect, in
reason, ever to see him again: and all this with such pre-
nant circumstances that I could not help giving them credit,
as in general they were, indeed, too true!

     She had hardly finish'd her report before I fainted
away and after several successive fits, all the while wild
and senseless, I miscarried of the dear pledge of my
Charles's love: but the wretched never die when it is
fittest they should die, and women are hard-liv'd to a
proverb.

     The cruel and interested care taken to recover me sav'd
an odious life: which, instead of the happiness and joys it
had overflow'd in, all of a sudden presented no view before
me of any thing but the depth of misery, horror, and the
sharpest affliction.

     Thus I lay six weeks, in the struggles of youth and
constitution, against the friendly efforts of death, which I
constantly invoked to my relief and deliverance, but which
proving too weak for my wish, I recovered at length, tho'
into a state of stupefaction and despair that threatened me
with the loss of my senses, and a mad-house.

     Time, however, that great comforter in ordinary, began
to assuage the violence of my sufferings, and to numb my
feeling of them.  My health return'd to me, though I still
retain'd an air of grief, dejection, and languor, which
taking off the ruddiness of my country complexion, render'd
it rather more delicate and affecting.

     The landlady had all this while officiously provided,
and taken care that I wanted for nothing: and as soon as she
saw me retriev'd into a condition of answering her purpose,
one day, after we had dined together, she congratulated me
on my recovery, the merit of which she took entirely to her-
self, and all this by way of introduction to a most terrible
and scurvy epilogue:  "You are now," says she,  "Miss Fanny,
tolerably well, and you are very welcome to stay in the lodg-
ings as long as you please; you see I have ask'd you for
nothing this long time, but truly I have a call to make up a
sum of money, which must be answer'd."  And, with that, pre-
sents me with a bill of arrears for rent, diet, apothecary's
charges, nurse, etc., sum total twenty-three pounds, seven-
teen and six-pence: towards discharging of which, I had not
in the world (which she well knew) more than seven guineas,
left by chance, of my dear Charles's common stock with me.
At the same time, she desir'd me to tell her what course I
would take for payment.  I burst out into a flood of tears
and told her my condition; adding that I would sell what few
cloaths I had, and that, for the rest, I would pay her as
soon as possible.  But my distress, being favourable to her
views, only stiffen'd her the more.

     She told me, very coolly, that "she was indeed sorry for
my misfortunes, but that she must do herself justice, though
it would go to the very heart of her to send such a tender
young creature to prison . . ."  At the word "prison!" every
drop of my blood chill'd, and my fright acted so strongly
upon me, that, turning as pale and faint as a criminal at
the first sight of his place of execution, I was on the
point of swooning.  My landlady, who wanted only to terrify
me to a certain point, and not to throw me into a state of
body inconsistent with her designs upon it, began to soothe
me again, and told me, in a tone compos'd to more pity and
gentleness, that it would be my own fault, if she was forc'd
to proceed to such extremities; but she believ'd there was
a friend to be found in the world who would make up matters
to both our satisfactions, and that she would bring him to
drink tea with us that very afternoon, when she hoped we
would come to a right understanding in our affairs.  To all
this, not a word of answer; I sat mute, confounded, terrify'd.

     Mrs. Jones however, judging rightly that it was time to
strike while the impressions were so strong upon me, left me
to my self and to all the terrors of an imagination, wounded
to death by the idea of going to a prison, and, from a prin-
ciple of self-preservation, snatching at every glimpse of
redemption from it.

     In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallow'd up
in grief and despair, when my landlady came in, and obser-
ving a death-like dejection in my countenance and still in
pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity, and bidding me
be of a good heart:  Things, she said, would not be so bad
as I imagined if I would be but my own friend; and closed
with telling me she had brought a very honourable gentleman
to drink tea with me, who would give me the best advice how
to get rid of all my troubles.  Upon which, without waiting
for a reply, she goes out, and returns with this very hon-
ourable gentleman, whose very honourable procuress she had
been, on this as well as other occasions.

     The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very
civil bow, which I had scarce strength, or presence of mind
enough to return a curtsy to; when the landlady, taking upon
her to do all the honours of the first interview (for I had
never, that I remember'd, seen the gentleman before), sets a
chair for him, and another for herself.  All this while not
a word on either side; a stupid stare was all the face I
could put on this strange visit.

     The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I sup-
pose, to lose any time, observing my silence and shyness
before this entire stranger:  "Come, Miss Fanny," says she,
in a coarse familiar style, and tone of authority, "hold up
your head, child, and do not let sorrow spoil that pretty
face of yours.  What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be
free, here is a worthy gentleman who has heard of your mis-
fortunes and is willing to serve you; you must be better
acquainted with him; do not you now stand upon your punc-
tilio's, and this and that, but make your market while you
may."

     At this so delicate and eloquent harangue, the gentle-
man, who saw I look'd frighted and amaz'd, and indeed, in-
capable of answering, took her up for breaking things in so
abrupt a manner, as rather to shock than incline me to an
acceptance of the good he intended me; then, addressing
himself to me, told me he was perfectly acquainted with my
whole story and every circumstance of my distress, which he
own'd was a cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to
fall into; that he had long taken a liking to my person,
for which he appeal'd to Mrs. Jones, there present, but
finding me so absolutely engag'd to another, he had lost all
hopes of succeeding till he had heard the sudden reverse of
fortune that had happen'd to me, on which he had given par-
ticular orders to my landlady to see that I should want for
nothing; and that, had he not been forc'd abroad to The
Hague, on affairs he could not refuse himself to, he would
himself have attended me during my sickness; that on his
return, which was but the day before, he had, on learning
my recovery, desir'd my landlady's good offices to introduce
him to me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shock'd, at
the manner in which she had conducted herself towards ob-
taining him that happiness; but, that to shew me how much he
disown'd her procedure, and how far he was from taking any
ungenerous advantage of my situation, and from exacting any
security for my gratitude, he would before my face, that
instant, discharge my debt entirely to my landlady and give
me her receipt in full; after which I should be at liberty
either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above
putting any force upon my inclinations.

     Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventur'd
just to look up to him, and observed his figure, which was
that of a very sightly gentleman, well made, about forty,
drest in a suit of plain cloaths, with a large diamond ring
on one of his fingers, the lustre of which play'd in my eyes
as he wav'd his hand in talking, and rais'd my notions of his
importance.  In short, he might pass for what is commonly
call'd a comely black man, with an air of distinction natural
to his birth and condition.

     To all his speeches, however, I answer'd only in tears
that flow'd plentifully to my relief, and choking up my
voice, excus'd me from speaking, very luckily, for I should
not have known what to say.

     The sight, however, mov'd him, as he afterwards told me,
irresistibly, and by way of giving me some reason to be less
powerfully afflicted, he drew out his purse, and calling for
pen and ink, which the landlady was prepar'd for, paid her
every farthing of her demand, independent of a liberal gra-
tification which was to follow unknown to me; and taking a
receipt in full, very tenderly forc'd me to secure it, by
guiding my hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make
me passively put it into my pocket.

     Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melan-
choly despair, as my spirits could not yet recover from the
violent shocks they had receiv'd; and the accommodating
landlady had actually left the room, and me alone with this
strange gentleman, before I observ'd it, and then I observ'd
it without alarm, for I was now lifeless and indifferent to
everything.

     The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this
sort, drew near me; and under the pretence of comforting me,
first with his handkerchief dried my tears as they ran down
my cheeks: presently he ventur'd to kiss me: on my part,
neither resistance nor compliance.  I sat stock-still; and
now looking on myself as bought by the payment that had been
transacted before me, I did not care what became of my
wretched body: and, wanting life, spirits, or courage to
oppose the least struggle, even that of the modesty of my
sex, I suffer'd, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased; who
proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuated
his hand between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled
at discretion: finding thus no repulse, and that every thing
favour'd, beyond expectation, the completion of his desires,
he took me in his arms, and bore me, without life or motion,
to the bed, on which laying me gently down, and having me at
what advantage he pleas'd, I did not so much as know what he
was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless insen-
sibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and
innocent of the least sensation of pleasure: a death-cold
corpse could scarce have less life or sense in it.  As soon
as he had thus pacified a passion which had too little re-
spected the condition I was in, he got off, and after re-
composing the disorder of my cloaths, employ'd himself with
the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and
madness at myself with which I was seized, too late, I con-
fess, for having suffer'd on that bed the embraces of an
utter stranger.  I tore my hair, wrung my hands, and beat
my breast like a mad-woman.  But when my new master, for in
that light I then view'd him, applied himself to appease me,
as my whole rage was levell'd at myself, no part of which I
thought myself permitted to aim at him, I begged of him,
with more submission than anger, to leave me alone that I
might, at least, enjoy my affliction in quiet.  This he
positively refused, for fear, as he pretended, I should do
myself a mischief.

     Violent passions seldom last long, and those of women
least of any.  A dead still calm succeeded this storm, which
ended in a profuse shower of tears.

     Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I
should have ever known any man but Charles, I would have
spit in his face; or had I been offer'd infinitely a greater
sum of money than that I saw paid for me, I had spurn'd the
proposal in cold blood.  But our virtues and our vices
depend too much on our circumstances; unexpectedly beset as
I was, betray'd by a mind weakened by a long severe afflic-
tion, and stunn'd with the terrors of a jail, my defeat
will appear the more excusable, since I certainly was not
present at, or a party in any sense, to it.  However, as the
first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now over the bar, I
thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of
one that had got that advantage over me, no matter how ob-
tain'd; conforming myself then to this maxim, I consider'd
myself as so much in his power that I endur'd his kisses and
embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not that they,
as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevail'd over the aversion
of my soul to give myself up to any sensation of that sort;
what I suffer'd, I suffer'd out of a kind of gratitude, and
as a matter of course after what had pass'd.

     He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the re-
newal of those extremities which had thrown me, just before,
into such violent agitations; but, now secure of possession,
contented himself with bringing me to temper by degrees, and
waiting at the hand of time for those fruits of generosity
and courtship which he since often reproach'd himself with
having gather'd much too green, when, yielding to the invi-
tations of my inability to resist him, and overborne by
desires, he had wreak'd his passion on a mere lifeless,
spiritless body dead to all purposes of joy, since, taking
none, it ought to be suppos'd incapable of giving any.  This
is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly forgave him
the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point
of interest, I had reason to be pleas'd that he found, in my
person, wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as easily as
he had gained me.

     The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanc'd, that
the maid came in to lay the cloth for supper, when I under-
stood, with joy, that my landlady, whose sight was present
poison to me, was not to be with us.

     Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduc'd, and
a bottle of Burgundy, with the other necessaries, were set on
a dumb-waiter.

     The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with
a tender warmth, that I should sit up in the elbow chair by
the fire, and see him eat if I could not be prevailed on to
eat myself.  I obey'd with a heart full of affliction, at the
comparison it made between those delicious tete-a-tetes with
my ever dear youth, and this forc'd situation, this new
awkward scene, impos'd and obtruded on me by cruel necessity.

     At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort
and reconcile me to my fate, he told me that his name was
H . . . , brother to the Earl of L . . . and that having, by
the suggestions of my landlady, been led to see me, he had
found me perfectly to his taste and given her a commission
to procure me at any rate, and that he had at length suc-
ceeded, as much to his satisfaction as he passionately
wished it might be to mine; adding, withal, some flattering
assurances that I should have no cause to repent my know-
ledge of him.

     I had now got down at most half a partridge, and three
or four glasses of wine, which he compelled me to drink by
way of restoring nature; but whether there was anything ex-
traordinary put into the wine, or whether there wanted no
more to revive the natural warmth of my constitution and
give fire to the old train, I began no longer to look with
that constraint, not to say disgust, on Mr. H . . ., which
I had hitherto done; but, withal, there was not the least
grain of love mix'd with this softening of my sentiments:
any other man would have been just the same to me as Mr.
H . . ., that stood in the same circumstances and had done
for me, and with me, what he had done.

     There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine
were, if not at an end, at least suspended: my heart, which
had been so long overloaded with anguish and vexation, began
to dilate and open to the least gleam of diversion or amuse-
ment.  I wept a little, and my tears reliev'd me; I sigh'd,
and my sighs seem'd to lighten me of a load that oppress'd
me; my countenance grew, if not cheerful, at least more
compos'd and free.

     Mr. H . . ., who had watched, perhaps brought on this
change, knew too well not to seize it; he thrust the table
imperceptibly from between us, and bringing his chair to
face me, he soon began, after preparing me by all the en-
dearments of assurances and protestations, to lay hold of
my hands, to kiss me, and once more to make free with my
bosom, which, being at full liberty from the disorder of a
loose dishabille, now panted and throbb'd, less with in-
dignation than with fear and bashfulness at being used so
familiarly by still a stranger.  But he soon gave me
greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping
his hand above my garters: thence he strove to regain the
pass, which he had before found so open, and unguarded: but
not he could not unlock the twist of my thighs; I gently
complained, and begg'd him to let me alone; told him I was
now well.  However, as he saw there was more form and cere-
mony in my resistance than good earnest, he made his condi-
tions for desisting from pursuing his point that I should
be put instantly to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to
the landlady, and that he would return in an hour, when he
hoped to find me more recondil'd to his passion for me
than I seem'd at present.  I neither assented nor deny'd,
but my air and manner of receiving this proposal gave him
to see that I did not think myself enough my own mistress
to refuse it.

     Accordingly he went out and left me, when, a minute or
two after, before I could recover myself into any composure
for thinking, the maid came in with her mistress's service,
and a small silver porringer of what she called a bridal
posset, and desir'd me to eat it as I went to bed, which
consequently I did, and felt immediately a heat, a fire run
like a hue-and-cry thro' every part of my body; I burnt,
I glow'd, and wanted even little of wishing for any man.

     The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle
away, and wishing me a good night, went out of the room
and shut the door after her.

     She had hardly time to get down-stairs before Mr. H .
. . open'd my room-door softly, and came in, now undress'd
in his night-gown and cap, with two lighted wax candles,
and bolting the door, gave me, tho' I expected him, some
sort of alarm.  He came a tip-toe to the bed-side, and
said with a gentle whisper:  "Pray, my dear, do not be
startled . . . I will be very tender and kind to you."  He
then hurry'd off his cloaths, and leap'd into bed, having
given me openings enough, whilst he was stripping, to ob-
serve his brawny structure, strong-made limbs, and rough
shaggy breast.

     The bed shook again when it receiv'd this new load.
He lay on the outside, where he kept the candles burning,
no doubt for the satisfaction of ev'ry sense; for as soon
as he had kiss'd me, he rolled down the bed-cloaths, and
seemed transported with the view of all my person at full
length, which he cover'd with a profusion of kisses, spar-
ing no part of me.  Then, being on his knees between my
legs, he drew up his shirt and bared all his hairy thighs,
and stiff staring truncheon, red-topt and rooted into a
thicket of curls, which covered his belly to the navel and
gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon I felt it join-
ing close to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the
head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on
both sides.





                         Part 4


     I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive,
he soon gave nature such a powerful summons down to her
favourite quarters, that she could no longer refuse repair-
ing thither; all my animal spirits then rush'd mechanically
to that center of attraction, and presently, inly warmed,
and stirr'd as I was beyond bearing, I lost all restraint,
and yielding to the force of the emotion, gave down, as
mere woman, those effusions of pleasure, which, in the
strictness of still faithful love, I could have wished to
have held up.

     Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between
this impression of a pleasure merely animal, and struck out
of the collision of the sexes by a passive bodily effect,
from that sweet fury, that rage of active delight which
crowns the enjoyments of a mutual love-passion, where two
hearts, tenderly and truly united, club to exalt the joy,
and give it a spirit and soul that bids defiance to that
end which mere momentary desires generally terminate in,
when they die of a surfeit of satisfaction!

     Mr. H . . ., whom no distinctions of that sort seemed
to disturb, scarce gave himself or me breathing time from
the last encounter, but, as if he had task'd himself to
prove that the appearances of his vigour were not signs
hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition
for renewing the onset; to which, preluding with a storm
of kisses, he drove the same course as before, with
unabated fervour; and thus, in repeated engagements, kept
me constantly in exercise till dawn of morning; in all
which time he made me fully sensible of the virtues of his
firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest,
compact hard muscles, in short a system of namliness that
might pass for no bad image of our ancient sturdy barons,
when they wielded the battle-ax: whose race is now so
thoroughly refin'd and frittered away into the more deli-
cate and modern-built frame of our pap-nerv'd softlings,
who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as
their sisters.

     Mr. H . . ., content, however, with having the day
break upon his triumphs, delivered me up to the refresh-
ment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon dropped into a
profound sleep.

     Tho' he was some time awake before me, yet did he not
offer to disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion
for; but on my first stirring, which was not till past ten
o'clock, I was oblig'd to endure one more trial of his
manhood.

     About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of
the richest soup, which her experience in these matters had
mov'd her to prepare.  I pass over the fulsome compliments,
the cant of the decent procuress, with which she saluted us
both; but tho' my blood rose at the sight of her, I supprest
my emotions, and gave all my concern to reflections on what
would be the consequence of this new engagement.

     But Mr. H . . ., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not
long suffer me to languish under it.  He acquainted me that,
having taken a solid sincere affection to me, he would begin
by giving me one leading mark of it by removing me out of a
house which must, for many reasons, be irksome and disagree-
able to me, into convenient lodgings, where he would take
all imaginable care of me; and desiring me not to have any
explanations with my landlady, or be impatient till he re-
turned, he dress'd and went out, having left me a purse
with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he had about
him, as he expresst it, to keep my pocket till further sup-
plies.

     As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence
of the first launch into vice (for my love-attachment to
Charles never appear'd to me in that light).  I was instant-
ly borne away down the stream, without making back to the
shore.  My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and above
all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion
I began to find, in this new acquaintance, from the black
corroding thoughts my heart had been a prey to ever since
the absence of my dear Charles, concurr'd to stun all con-
trary reflections.  If I now thought of my first, my only
charmer, it was still with the tenderness and regret of
the fondest love, embitter'd with the consciousness that I
was no longer worthy of him.  I could have begg'd my bread
with him all over the world, but wretch that I was, I had
neither the virtue nor courage requisite not to outlive my
separation from him!

     Yet, had not my heart been thus pre-ingaged, Mr. H .
. . might probably have been the sole master of it; but
the place was full, and the force of conjunctures alone had
made him the possessor of my person; the charms of which
had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and
were, of course, no foundation for a love either very deli-
cate or very durable.

     He did not return till six in the evening to take me
away to my new lodgings; and my moveables being soon pack'd,
and convey'd into a hackney-coach, it cost me but little
regret to take my leave of a landlady whom I thought I had
so much reason not to be overpleas'd with; and as for her
part, she made no other difference to my staying or going,
but what that of the profit created.

     We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was
that of a plain tradesman who, on the score of interest,
was entirely at Mr. H . . .'s devotion, and who let him the
first floor, very genteelly furnish'd, for two guineas a
week, of which I was instated mistress, with a maid to
attend me.

     He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper
from a neighbouring tavern, after which, and a gay glass
or two, the maid put me to bed.  Mr. H . . . soon follow'd,
and notwithstanding the fatigues of the preceding night, I
found no quarter nor remission from him: he piqued himself,
as he told me, on doing the honours of my new apartment.

     The morning being pretty well advanc'd, we got to
breakfast; and the ice now broke, my heart, no longer en-
gross'd by love, began to take ease, and to please itself
with such trifles as Mr. H . . .'s liberal liking led him
to make his court to the usual vanity of our sex.  Silks,
laces, ear-rings, pearl-necklace, gold watch, in short, all
the trinkets and articles of dress were lavishly heap'd
upon me; the sense of which, if it did not create returns
of love, forc'd a kind of grateful fondness something like
love; a distinction it would be spoiling the pleasure of
nine tenths of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I
suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do
make it.

     I was now establish'd the kept mistress in form, well
lodg'd, with a very sufficient allowance, and lighted up
with all the lustre of dress.

     Mr. H . . . continu'd kind and tender to me; yet, with
all this, I was far from happy; for, besides my regret for
my dear youth, which, though often suspended or diverted,
still return'd upon me in certain melancholic, moments with
redoubled violences, I wanted more society, more dissipation.

     As to Mr. H . . ., he was so much my superior in every
sense, that I felt it too much to the disadvantage of the
gratitude I ow'd him.  Thus he gain'd my esteem, though he
could not raise my taste;  I was qualify'd for no sort of
conversation with him except one sort, and that is a satis-
faction which leaves tiresome intervals, if not fill'd up
by love, or other amusements.

     Mr. H . . ., so experienc'd, so learned in the ways of
women, numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubt-
less soon perceiv'd this uneasiness, and without approving
or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance to in-
dulge me.

     He made suppers at my lodgings, where he brought sev-
eral companions of his pleasures, with their mistresses;
and by this means I got into a circle of acquaintance that
soo strip'd me of all the remains of bashfulness and modesty
which might be yet left of my country education, and were,
to a just taste, perhaps the greatest of my charms.

     We visited one another in form, and mimic'd, as near
as we could, all the miseries, the follies, and imperti-
nences of the women of quality, in the round of which they
trifle away their time, without its ever entering into their
little heads that on earth there cannot subsist any thing
more silly, more flat, more insipid and worthless, than,
generally consider'd, their system of life is: they ought
to treat the men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to
condemn them to it.

     But tho', amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now
acquainted with a good many, besides some useful matrons,
who live by their connexions with them), I hardly knew one
that did not perfectly detest her keeper, and, of course,
made little or no scruple of any infidelity she could safely
accomplish, I had still no notion of wronging mine; for,
besides that no mark of jealousy on his side induced in me
the desire or gave me the provocation to play him a trick
of that sort, and that his constant generosity, politeness,
and tender attentions to please me forc'd a regard to him,
that without affecting my heart, insur'd him my fidelity, no
object had yet presented that could overcome the habitual
liking I had contracted for him; and I was on the eve of
obtaining, from the movements of his own voluntary generosity,
a modest provision for life, when an accident happen'd which
broke all the measures he had resolv'd upon in my favor.

     I had now liv'd near seven months with Mr. H . . .,
when one day returning to my lodgings from a visit in the
neighbourhood, where I us'd to stay longer, I found the
street door open, and the maid of the house standing at it,
talking with some of her acquaintances, so that I came in
without knocking; and, as I passed by, she told me Mr. H .
. . was above.  I stept up-stairs into my own bed-chamber,
with no other thought than of pulling off my hat, etc., and
then to wait upon him in the dining room, into which my
bed-chamber had a door, as is common enough.  Whilst I was
untying my hat-strings, I fancied I heard my maid Hannah's
voice and a sort of tussle, which raising my curiosity, I
stole softly to the door, where a knot in the wood had been
slipt out and afforded a very commanding peep-hole to the
scene then in agitation, the actors of which had been too
earnestly employ'd to hear my opening my own door, from the
landing-place of the stairs, into my bed-chamber.

     The first sight that struck me was Mr. H . . . pulling
and hauling this coarse country strammel towards a couch
that stood in a corner of the dining room; to which the girl
made only a sort of awkward boidening resistance, crying out
so loud, that I, who listened at the door, could scarce hear
her:  "Pray sir, don't . . . , let me alone . . . I am not
for your turn . . . You cannot, sure, demean yourself with
such a poor body as I . . . Lord!  Sir, my mistress may come
home . . . I must not indeed . . . I will cry out . . ."
All of which did not hinder her from insensibly suffering
herself to be brought to the foot of the couch, upon which
a push of no mighty violence serv'd to give her a very easy
fall, and my gentleman having got up his hands to the
strong-hold of her VIRTUE, she, no doubt, thought it was
time to  give up the argument, and that all further de-
fense would be in vain: and he, throwing her petticoats over
her face, which was now as red as scarlet, discover'd a pair
of stout, plump, substantial thighs, and tolerably white; he
mounted them round his hips, and coming out with his drawn
weapon, stuck it in the cloven spot, where he seem'd to find
a less difficult entrance than perhaps he had flatter'd him-
self with (for, by the way, this blouze had left her place
in the country, for a bastard), and, indeed, all his motions
shew'd he was lodg'd pretty much at large.  After he had
done, his DEAREE gets up, drops her petticoats down, and
smooths her apron and handkerchief.  Mr. H . . . look'd a
little silly, and taking out some money, gave it her, with
an air indifferent enough, bidding her be a good girl, and
say nothing.

     Had I lov'd this man, it was not in nature for me to
have had patience to see the whole scene through: I should
have broke in and play'd the jealous princess with a ven-
geance.  But that was not the case, my pride alone was hurt,
my heart not, and I could easier win upon myself to see how
far he would go, till I had no uncertainty upon my conscience.

     The least delicate of all affairs of this sort being
now over, I retir'd softly into my closet, where I began to
consider what I should do.  My first scheme, naturally, was
to rush in and upbraid them; this, indeed, flatter'd my
present emotions and vexations, as it would have given im-
mediate vent to them; but, on second thoughts, not being so
clear as to the consequences to be apprehended from such a
step, I began to doubt whether it was not better to dissemble
my discovery till a safer season, when Mr. H . . . should
have perfected the settlement he had made overtures to me of,
and which I was not to think such a violent explanation, as
I was indeed not equal to the management of, could possibly
forward, and might destroy.  On the other hand, the provo-
cation seem'd too gross, too flagrant, not to give me some
thoughts of revenge; the very start of which idea restor'd
me to perfect composure; and delighted as I was with the
confus'd plan of it in my head, I was easily mistress enough
of myself to support the part of ignorance I had prescrib'd
to myself; and as all this circle of reflections was in-
stantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage door, and
opening it with a noise, pass'd for having that moment come
home; and after a short pause, as if to pull off my things,
I opened the door into the dining room, where I found the
dowdy blowing the fire, and my faithful shepherd walking
about the room and whistling, as cool and unconcern'd as if
nothing had happened.  I think, however, he had not much to
brag of having out-dissembled me: for I kept up, nobly, the
character of our sex for art, and went up to him with the
same air of frankness as I had ever receiv'd him.  He stayed
but a little while, made some excuse for not being able to
stay the evening with me, and went out.

     As for the wench, she was now spoil'd, at least for my
servant; and scarce eight and forty hours were gone round,
before her insolence, on what had pass'd between Mr. H . . .
and her, gave me so fair an occasion to turn her away, at a
minute's warning, that not to have done it would have been
the wonder: so that he could neither disapprove it nor find
in it the least reason to suspect my original motive.  What
became of her afterwards, I know not; but generous as Mr.
H . . . was, he undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare
answer, that he kept up no farther commerce with her of that
sort; as his stooping to such a coarse morsel was only a
sudden sally of lust, on seeing a wholesome-looking, buxom
country-wench, and no more strange than hunger, or even a
whimsical appetite's making a fling meal of neck-beef, for
change of diet.

     Had I consider'd this escapade of Mr. H . . . in no
more than that light and contented myself with turning away
the wench, I had thought and acted right; but, flush'd as I
was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H . . .
to have been cheaply off, if I had not push'd my revenge
farther, and repaid him, as exactly as I could for the soul
of me, in the same coin.

     Nor was this worthy act of justice long delay'd: I had
it too much at heart.  Mr. H . . . had, about a fortnight
before, taken into his service a tenant's son, just come out
of the country, a very handsome young lad scarce turn'd of
nineteen, fresh as a rose, well shap'd and clever limb'd: in
short, a very good excuse for any woman's liking, even tho'
revenge had been out of the question; any woman, I say, who
was disprejudic'd, and had wit and spirit enough to prefer a
point of pleasure to a point of pride.

     Mr. H . . . had clap'd a livery upon him; and his chief
employ was, after being shewn my lodgings, to bring and
carry letters or messages between his master and me; and as
the situation of all kept ladies is not the fittest to
inspire respect, even to the meanest of mankind, and, perhaps,
less of it from the most ignorant, I could not help observing
that this lad, who was, I suppose, acquainted with my relation
to his master by his fellow-servants, used to eye me in that
bashful confus'd way, more expressive, more moving and readier
catch'd at by our sex, than any other declarations whatever:
my figure had, it seems, struck him, and modest and innocent
as he was, he did not himself know that the pleasure he took
in looking at me was love, or desire; but his eyes, naturally
wanton, and now enflam'd with passion, spoke a great deal
more than he durst have imagin'd they did.  Hitherto, indeed,
I had only taken notice of the comeliness of the youth, but
without the least design: my pride alone would have guarded
me from a thought that way, had not Mr. H . . .'s condescen-
sion with my maid, where there was not half the temptation in
point of person, set me a dangerous example; but now I began
to look on this stripling as every way a delicious instrument
of my design'd retaliation upon Mr. H . . . of an obligation
for which I should have made a conscience to die in his debt.

     In order then to pave the way for the accomplishment of
my scheme, for two or three times that the young fellow came
to me with messages, I manag'd so, as without affectation to
have him admitted to my bed-side, or brought to me at my
toilet, where I was dressing; and by carelessly shewing or
letting him see, as if without meaning or design, sometimes
my bosom rather more bare than it should be; sometimes my
hair, of which I had a very fine head, in the natural flow
of it while combing; sometimes a neat leg, that had unfor-
tunately slipt its garter, which I made no scruple of tying
before him, easily gave him the impressions favourable to
my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in his eyes,
and glow in his cheeks: then certain slight squeezes by the
hand, as I took letters from him, did his business compleatly.

     When I saw him thus mov'd, and fired for my purpose, I
inflam'd him yet more, by asking him several leading ques-
tions, such as had he a mistress? . . . was she prettier than
me? . . . could he love such a one as I was? . . . and the
like; to all which the blushing simpleton answer'd to my wish,
in a strain of perfect nature, perfect undebauch'd innocence,
but with all the awkwardness and simplicity of country-
breeding.

     When I thought I had sufficiently ripen'd him for the
laudable point I had in view, one day that I expected him
at a particular hour, I took care to have the coast clear
for the reception I design'd him; and, as I laid it, he
came to the dining-room door, tapped at it, and, on my bid-
ding him come in, he did so, and shut the door after him.
I desir'd him, then, to bolt it on the inside, pretending
it would not otherwise keep shut.

     I was then lying at length upon that very couch, the
scene of Mr. H . . .'s polite joys, in an undress which
was with all the art of negligence flowing loose, and in a
most tempting disorder: no stay, no hoop . . . no incum-
brance whatever.  On the other hand, he stood at a little
distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featur'd,
shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh
blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining
black, play'd to his face in natural side-curls, and was set
out with a smart tuck-up behind; new buckskin breeches, that,
clipping close, shew'd the shape of a plump, well made thigh;
white stockings, garter-lac'd livery, shoulder knot, alto-
gether compos'd a figure in which the beauties of pure flesh
and blood appeared under no disgrace form the lowness of a
dress, to which a certain spruce neatness seems peculiarly
fitted.

     I bid him come towards me and give me his letter, at
the same time throwing down, carelessly, a book I had in my
hands.  He colour'd, and came within reach of delivering me
the letter, which he held out, awkwardly enough, for me to
take, with his eyes riveted on my bosom, which was, through
the design'd disorder of my handkerchief, sufficiently bare,
and rather shaded than hid.

     I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immedi-
ately catching gently hold of his shirt sleeve, drew him
towards me, blushing, and almost trembling; for surely his
extreme bashfulness, and utter inexperience, call'd for, at
least, all the advances to encourage him: his body was now
conveniently inclin'd towards me, and just softly chucking
his smooth beardless chin, I asked him if he was afraid of
a lady? . . ., and, with that took, and carrying his hand
to my breasts, I prest it tenderly to them.  They were now
finely furnish'd, and rais'd in flesh, so that, panting
with desire, they rose and fell, in quick heaves, under his
touch: at this, the boy's eyes began to lighten with all
the fires of inflam'd nature, and his cheeks flush'd with a
deep scarlet: tongue-tied with joy, rapture, and bashful-
ness, he could not speak, but then his looks, his emotion,
sufficiently satisfy'd me that my train had taken, and that
I had no disappointment to fear.

     My lips, which I threw in his way, so as that he could
not escape kissing them, fix'd, fired, and embolden'd him:
and now, glancing my eyes towards that part of his dress
which cover'd the essential object of enjoyment, I plainly
discover'd the swell and commotion there; and as I was now
too far advanc'd to stop in so fair a way, and was indeed no
longer able to contain myself, or wait the slower progress
of his maiden bashfulness (for such it seem'd, and really
was), I stole my hand upon his thighs, down one of which I
could both see and feel a stiff hard body, confin'd by his
breeches, that my fingers could discover no end to.  Curious
then, and eager to unfold so alarming a mystery, playing, as
it were, with his buttons, which were bursting ripe from the
active force within, those of his waistband and fore-flap
flew open at a touch, when out IT started; and now, dis-
engag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise,
what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man,
but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had propor-
tions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant.
Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not,
without pleasure, behold, and even ventur'd to feel, such a
length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well
turn'd and fashion'd, the proud stiffness of which distended
its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie
with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose exqui-
site whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black
curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of
which the fair skin shew'd as in a fine evening you may have
remark'd the clear light ether throught the branchwork of
distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the
broad and blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue
serpentines of its veins, altogether compos'd the most
striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature.  In
short, it stood an object of terror and delight.

     But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this
natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the
strictness of his home-breeding, and the little time he had
been in town not having afforded him one, was hitherto an
absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all
that manhood he was so nobly stock'd with; and it now fell
to my lot ot stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve
to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part
of me, which such an oversiz'd machine was very fit to lay
in ruins.

     But it was now of the latest to deliberate; for, by
this time, the young fellow, overheated with the present
objects, and too high mettled to be longer curb'd in by
that modesty and awe which had hitherto restrain'd him,
ventur'd, under the stronger impulse and instructive promp-
tership of nature alone, to slip his hands, trembling with
eager impetuous desires, under my petticoats; and seeing,
I suppose, nothing extremely severe in my looks to stop or
dash him, he feels out, and seizes, gently, the center-spot
of his ardours.  Oh then! the fiery touch of his fingers
determines me, and my fears melting away before the glowing
intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and
yield all liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable move-
ment giving my petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair,
too open to be miss'd.  He is now upon me:  I had placed
myself with a jet under him, as commodious and open as
possible to his attempts, which were untoward enough, for
his machine, meeting with no inlet, bore and batter'd
stiffly against me in random pushes, now above, now below,
now beside his point; till, burning with impatience from
its irritating touches, I guided gently, with my hand,
this furious engine to where my young novice was now to be
taught his first lesson of pleasure.  Thus he nick'd, at
length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made
to find no breach impracticable, and mine, tho' so often
enter'd, was still far from wide enough to take him easily
in.

     By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy
machine was so critically pointed that, feeling him fore-
right against the tender opening, a favourable motion from
me met his timely thrust, by which the lips of it, strenu-
ously dilated, gave way to his thus assisted impetuosity,
so that we might both feel that he had gain'd a lodgement.
Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent, and, to me,
most painful piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so
far in, as to be now tolerably secure of his entrance: here
he stuck, and I now felt such a mixture of pleasure and
pain, as there is no giving a definition of.  I dreaded
alike his splitting me farther up, or his withdrawing;  I
could not bear either to keep or part with him.  The sense
of pain however prevailing, from his prodigious size and
stiffness, acting upon me in those continued rapid thrusts,
with which he furiously pursu'd his penetration, made me
cry out gently:  "Oh! my dear, you hurt me!"  This was
enough to check the tender respectful boy even in his mid-
career; and he immediately drew out the sweet cause of my
complaint, whilst his eyes eloquently express'd, at once,
his grief for hurting me, and his reluctance at dislodging
from quarters of which the warmth and closeness had given
him a gust of pleasure that he was now desire-mad to satisfy,
and yet too much a novice not to be afraid of my withholding
his relief, on account ot the pain he had put me to.

     But I was, myself, far from being pleas'd with his
having too much regarded my tender exclaims; for now, more
and more fired with the object before me, as it still stood
with the fiercest erection, unbonnetted, and displaying its
broad bermilion head, I first gave the youth a re-encourag-
ing kiss, which he repaid me with a fervour that seem'd at
once to thank me, and bribe my farther compliance; and soon
replac'd myself in a posture to receive, at all risks, the
renew'd invasion, which he did not delay an instant: for,
being presently remounted, I once more felt the smooth hard
gristle forcing an entrance, which he achiev'd rather easier
than before.  Pain'd, however, as I was, with his efforts of
gaining a complete admission, which he was so regardful as
to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to complain.
In the meantime, the soft strait passage gradually loosens,
yields, and, stretch'd to its utmost bearing, by the stiff,
thick, indriven engine, sensible, at once, to the ravishing
pleasure of the feel and the pain of the distension, let him
in about half way, when all the most nervous activity he now
exerted, to further his penetration, gain'd him not an inch
of his purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis
of pleasure overtook him, and the close compressure of the
warm surrounding fold drew from him the extatic gush, even
before mine was ready to meet it, kept up by the pain I had
endur'd in the course ot the engagement, from the insuffer-
able size of his weapon, tho' it was not as yet in above
half its length.

     I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would
draw, but was pleasantly disappointed: for he was not to be
let off so.  The well breath'd youth, hot-mettled, and
flush with genial juices, was now fairly in for making me
know my driver.  As soon, then, as he had made a short
pause, waking, as it were, out of the trance of pleasure
(in which every sense seem'd lost for a while, whilst, with
his eyes shut, and short quick breathing, he had yielded
down his maiden tribute), he still kept his post, yet unsated
with enjoyment, and solacing in these so new delights; till
his stiffness, which had scarce perceptibly remitted, being
thoroughly recovered to him, who had not once unsheath'd, he
proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself an entire
entry into me, which was not a little made easy to him by
the balsamic injection with which he had just plentifully
moisten'd the whole internals of the passage.  Redoubling,
then, the active energy of his thrusts, favoured by the
fervid appetite of my motions, the soft oiled wards can no
longer stand so effectual a picklock, but yield, and open
him an entrance.  And now, with conspiring nature, and my
industry, strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates, and at
length, winning his way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and
finally mighty thrust sheaths it up to the guard; on the in-
formation of which, from the close jointure of our bodies
(insomuch that the hair on both sides perfectly interweav'd
and incircl'd together), the eyes of the transported youth
sparkl'd with more joyous fires, and all his looks and mo-
tions acknowledged excess of pleasure, which I now began to
share, for I felt him in my very vitals!  I was quite sick
with delight! stir'd beyond bearing with its furious agita-
tions within me, and gorged and cramm'd, even to surfeit.
Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken
breathings, faltering accents, eyes twinkling with humid
fires, lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness,
gave me to hail the approaches of the second period: it came
. . . and the sweet youth, overpower'd with the extasy, died
away in my arms, melting in a flood that shot in genial
warmth into the innermost recesses of my body; every conduit
of which, dedicated to that pleasure, was on flow to mix with
it.  Thus we continued for some instants, lost, breathless,
senseless of every thing, and in every part but those fav-
ourite ones of nature, in which all that we enjoyed of life
and sensation was now totally concentre'd.

     When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young
fellow had withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he
had most plentifully drowned all thoughts of revenge in the
sense of actual pleasure, the widen'd wounded passage refunded
a stream of pearly liquids, which flowed down my thighs, mixed
with streaks of blood, the marks of the ravage of that montrous
machine of his, which had now triumph'd over a kind of second
maidenhead.  I stole, however, my handkerchief to those parts,
and wip'd them as dry as I could, whilst he was re-adjusting
and buttoning up.

     I made him now sit down by me, and as he had gather'd
courage from such extreme intimacy, he gave me an after-
course of pleasure, in a natural burst of tender gratitude
and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had opened to him:
scenes positively new, as he had never before had the least
acquaintance with that mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of
female distinction, tho' nobody better qualify'd than he to
penetrate into its deepest recesses, or do it nobler justice.
But when, by certain motions, certain unquietnesses of his
hands, that wandered not without design, I found he lan-
guish'd for satisfying a curiosity, natural enough, to view
and handle those parts which attract and concentre the
warmest force of imagination, charmed as I was to have any
occasion of obliging and humouring his young desires, I
suffer'd him to proceed as he pleased, without check or
control, to the satisfaction of them.

     Easily, then, reading in my eyes the full permission of
myself to all his wishes, he scarce pleased himself more
than me when, having insinuated his hand under my petticoat
and shift, he presently removed those bars to the sight by
slyly lifting them upwards, under favour of a thousand
kisses, which he thought, perhaps, necessary to divert my
attention from what he was about.  All my drapery being now
roll'd up to my waist, I threw myself into such a posture
upon the couch, as gave up to him, in full view, the whole
region of delight, and all the luxurious landscape round it.
The transported youth devour'd every thing with his eyes,
and try'd, with his fingers, to lay more open to his sight
the secrets of that dark and delicious deep: he opens the
folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any
thing of a hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight:
and feeling further, meets with, and wonders at, a soft
fleshy excrescence, which, limber and relaxed after the late
enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and examination of his
fiery fingers, more and more stiff and considerable, till
the titillating ardours of that so sensible part made me
sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which he withdrew his curious
probing fingers, asking me pardon, as it were, in a kiss
that rather increased the flame there.

     Novelty ever makes the strongest impressions, and in
pleasures, especially; no wonder, then, that he was swallowed
up in raptures of admiration of things so interesting by
their nature, and now seen and handled for the first time.
On my part, I was richly overpaid for the pleasure I gave
him, in that of examining the power of those objects thus
abandon'd to him, naked and free to his loosest wish, over
the artless, natural stripling: his eyes streaming fire, his
cheeks glowing with a florid red, his fervid frequent sighs,
whilst his hands convulsively squeez'd, opened, pressed to-
gether again the lips and sides of that deep flesh wound, or
gently twitched the overgrowing moss; and all proclaimed the
excess, the riot of joys, in having his wantonness thus
humour'd.  But he did not long abuse my patience, for the
objects before him had now put him by all his, and, coming
out with that formidable machine of his, he lets the fury
loose, and pointing it directly to the pouting-lipt mouth,
that bid him sweet defiance in dumb-shew, squeezes in the
head, and, driving with refreshed rage, breaks in, and plugs
up the whole passage of that soft pleasure-conduit, where
he makes all shake again, and put, once more, all within me
into such an uproar, as nothing could still but a fresh in-
undation from the very engine of those flames, as well as
from all the springs with which nature floats that reservoir
of joy, when risen to its flood-mark.

     I was now so bruised, so batter'd, so spent with this
over-match, that I could hardly stir, or raise myself, but
lay palpitating, till the ferment of my sense subsiding by
degrees, and the hour striking at which I was oblig'd to
dispatch my young man, I tenderly advised him of the neces-
sity there was for parting; which I felt as much displeasure
at as he could do, who seemed eagerly disposed to keep the
field, and to enter on a fresh action.  But the danger was
too great, and after some hearty kisses of leave, and recom-
mendations of secrecy and discretion, I forc'd myself to
send him away, not without assurances of seeing him again,
to the same purpose, as soon as possible, and thrust a guinea
into his hands: not more, lest, being too flush of money, a
suspicion or discovery might arise from thence, having every
thing to fear from the dangerous indiscretion of that age in
which young fellows would be too irresistible, too charming,
if we had not that terrible fault to guard against.

     Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating
draughts of pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely
stretched out, in a delicious languor diffus'd over all my
limbs, hugging myself for being thus revenged to my heart's
content, and that in a manner so precisely alike, and on the
identical spot in which I had received the supposed injury.
No reflections on the consequences ever once perplex'd me,
nor did I make myself one single reproach for having, by
this step, completely entered myself of a profession more
decry'd than disused.  I should have held it ingratitude to
the pleasure I had received to have repented of it; and
since I was now over the bar, I thought, by plunging over
head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to
drown all sense of shame or reflection.

     Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions,
and whispering to myself a kind of tacit vow of inconti-
nency, enters Mr. H . . .  The consciousness of what I had
been doing deepen'd yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed
with the warmth of the late action, which, joined to the
piquant air of my dishabille, drew from Mr. H . . . a com-
pliment on my looks, which he was proceeding to back the
sincerity of with proofs, and that with so brisk an action
as made me tremble for fear of a discovery from the condi-
tion of those parts were left in from their late severe
handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen
with their uncommon distension, the ringlets press down,
crushed and uncurl'd with the over-flowing moisture that
had wet every thing round it; in short, the different feel
and state of things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr.
H . . .'s nicety and experience unaccounted for but by the
real cause.  But here the woman saved me: I pretended a
violent disorder of my head, and a feverish heat, that in-
disposed me too much to receive his embraces.  He gave in to
this, and good-naturedly desisted.  Soon after, an old lady
coming in made a third, very a-propos for the confusion I
was in, and Mr. H . . ., after bidding me take care of my-
self, and recommending me to my repose, left me much at ease
and reliev'd by his absence.

     In the close of the evening, I took care to have pre-
par'd for me a warm bath of aromatick and sweet herbs; in
which having fully laved and solaced myself, I came out
voluptuously refresh'd in body and spirit.

     The next morning, waking pretty early, after a night's
perfect rest and composure, it was not without some dread
and uneasiness that I thought of what innovation that ten-
der, soft system of mine might have sustained from the shock
of a machine so sized for its destruction.

     Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry
my hand thither, to inform myself of the state and posture
of things.

     But I was soon agreeably cur'd of my fears.

     The silky hair that covered round the borders, now
smooth'd and re-pruned, had resumed its wonted curl and
trimness; the fleshy pouting lips that had stood the brunt
of the engagement, were no longer swollen or moisture-
drenched; and neither they, nor the passage into which they
opened, that suffered so great a dilatation, betray'd any
the least alteration, outward or inwardly, to the most
curious research, notwithstanding also the laxity that
naturally follows the warm bath.

     This continuation of that grateful stricture which is
in us, to the men, the very jet of their pleasure, I ow'd,
it seems, to a happy habit of body, juicy, plump and fur-
nished towards the texture of those parts, with a fullness
of soft springy flesh, that yielding sufficiently, as it
does, to almost any distension soon recovers itself so as
to retighten that strict compression of its mantlings and
folds, which form the sides of the passage, wherewith it so
tenderly embraces and closely clips any foreign body intro-
duc'd into it, such as my exploring finger then was.

     Finding then every thing in due tone and order, I
remember'd my fears, only to make a jest of them to myself.
and now, palpably mistress of nay size of man, and tri-
umphing in my double achievement of pleasure and revenge, I
abandon'd myself entirely to the ideas of all the delight I
had swam in.  I lay stretching out, glowingly alive all over,
and tossing with burning impatience for the renewal of joys
that had sinned but in a sweet excess; now did I loose my
longing, for about ten in the morning, according to expect-
ation, Will, my new humble sweetheart, came with a message
from his master, Mr. H . . ., to know how I did.  I had taken
care to send my maid on an errand into the city, that I was
sure would take up time enough; and, from the people of the
house, I had nothing to fear, as they were plain good sorts
of folks, and wise enough to mind no more other people's
business than they could well help.

     All dispositions then made, not forgetting that of
lying in bed to receive him, when he was entered the door
of my bed-chamber, a latch, that I governed by a wire, des-
cended and secur'd it.

     I could not but observe that my young minion was as
much spruced out as could be expected from one in his con-
dition: a desire of pleasing that could not be indifferent
to me, since it prov'd that I pleased him; which, I assure
you, was now a point I was not above having in view.

     His hair trimly dressed, clean linen, and, above all,
a hale, ruddy, wholesome country look, made him out as
pretty a piece of woman's meat as you could see, and I
should have thought nay one much out of taste that could
not have made a hearty meal of such a morsel as nature
seemed to have  design'd for the highest diet of pleasure.



                         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





                        Part 6

LETTER THE SECOND

     Madam,

     If I have delay'd the sequel of my history, it has been
purely to allow myself a little breathing time not without
some hopes that, instead of pressing me to a continuation,
you would have acquitted me of the task of pursuing a con-
fession, in the course of which my self-esteem has so many
wounds to sustain.

     I imagined, indeed, that you would have been cloy'd and
tired with uniformity of adventures and expressions, insep-
arable from a subject of this sort, whose bottom, or ground-
work being, in the nature of things, eternally one and the
same, whatever variety of forms and modes the situations are
susceptible of, there is no escaping a repetition of near
the same images, the same figures, the same expressions,
with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it cre-
ates, that the words JOYS, ARDOURS, TRANSPORTS, EXTASIES,
and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so
received in the PRACTICE OF PLEASURE, flatten and lose much
of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indis-
pensably recur with, in a narrative of which that PRACTICE
professedly composes the whole basis.  I must therefore
trust to the candour of your judgement, for your allowing
for the disadvantage I am necessarily under in that respect,
and to your imagination and sensibility, the pleasing task
of repairing it by their supplements, where my descriptions
flag or fail: the one will readily place the pictures I
present before your eyes; the other give life to the colours
where they are dull, or worn with too frequent handling.

     What you say besides, by way of encouragement, con-
cerning the extreme difficulty of continuing so long in one
strain, in a mean temper'd with taste, between the revolt-
ingness of gross, rank and vulgar expressions, and the ridi-
cule of mincing metaphors and affected circumlocutions, is
so sensible, as well as good-natur'd, that you greatly
justify me to myself for my compliance with a curiosity that
is to be satisfied so extremely at my expense.

     Resuming now where I broke off in my last, I am in my
way to remark to you that it was late in the evening before
I arriv'd at my new lodgings, and Mrs. Cole, after helping
me to range and secure my things, spent the whole evening
with me in my apartment, where we supped together, in giving
me the best advice and instruction with regard to this new
stage of my profession I was now to enter upon; and passing
thus from a private devotee to pleasure into a public one,
to become a more general good, with all the advantages re-
quisite to put my person out to use, either for interest or
pleasure, or both.  But then, she observ'd, as I was a kind
of new face upon the town, that it was an established rule,
and part of trade, for me to pass for a maid, and dispose of
myself as such on the first good occasion, without prejudice,
however, to such diversions as I might have a mind to in the
interim; for that nobody could be a greater enemy than she
was to the losing of time.  That she would, in the mean time,
do her best to find out a proper person, and would undertake
to manage this nice point for me, if I would accept of her
aid and advice to such good purpose that, in the loss of a
fictitious maidenhead, I should reap all the advantages of a
native one.

     Though such a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely
belong to my character at that time, I confess, against my-
self, that I perhaps too readily closed with a proposal which
my candor and ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not
enough to contradict the intention of one to whom I had now
thoroughly abandoned the direction of all my steps.  For Mrs.
Cole had, I do not know how unless by one of those unaccount-
able invincible sympathies that, nevertheless, form the
strongest links, especially of female friendship, won and
got entire possession of me.  On her side, she pretended
that a strict resemblance she fancied she saw in me to an
only daughter whom she had lost at my age, was the first
motive of her taking to me so affectionately as she did.  It
might be so: there exist as slender motives of attachment
that, gathering force from habit and liking, have proved
often more solid and durable than those founded on much
stronger reasons; but this I know, that tho' I had no other
acquaintance with her than seeing her at my lodgings when I
lived with Mr. H . . ., where she had made errands to sell
me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated her-
self so far into my confidence that I threw myself blindly
into her hands, and came, at length, to regard, love, and
obey her implicitly; and, to do her justice, I never experi-
enc'd at her hands other than a sincerity of tenderness, and
care for my interest, hardly heard of in those of her pro-
fession.  We parted that night, after having settled a per-
fect unreserv'd agreement; and the next morning Mrs. Cole
came, and took me with her to her house for the first time.

     Here, at the first sight of things, I found everything
breath'd an air of decency, modesty and order.

     In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young
women, very demurely employ'd on millinery work, which was
the cover of a traffic in more precious commodities; but
three beautifuller creatures could hardly be seen.  Two of
them were extremely fair, the eldest not above nineteen;
and the third, much about that age, was a piquant brunette,
whose black sparkling eyes, and perfect harmony of features
and shape, left her nothing to envy in her fairer companions.
Their dress too had the more design in it, the less it ap-
peared to have, being in a taste of uniform correct neatness,
and elegant simplicity.  These were the girls that compos'd
the small domestick flock, which my governess train'd up with
surprising order and management, considering the giddy wild-
ness of young girls once got upon the loose.  But then she
never continued any in her house, whom, after a due novitiate,
she found untractable, or unwilling to comply with the rules
of it.  Thus had she insensibly formed a little family of
love, in which the members found so sensibly their account,
in a rare alliance of pleasure with interest, and of a
necessary outward decency with unbounded secret liberty,
that Mrs. Cole, who had pick'd them as much for their temper
as their beauty, govern'd them with ease to herself and them
too.

     To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepar'd,
she presented me as a new boarder, and one that was to be
immediately admitted to all the intimacies of the house; upon
which these charming girls gave me all the marks of a welcome
reception, and indeed of being perfectly pleased with my
figure, that I could possibly expect from any of my own sex:
but they had been effectually brought to sacrifice all jeal-
ousy, or competition of charms, to a common interest, and
consider'd me a partner that was bringing no despicable stock
of goods into the trade of the house.  They gathered round
me, view'd me on all sides; and as my admission into this
joyous troop made a little holiday, the shew of work was
laid aside; and Mrs. Cole giving me up, with special recom-
mendation, to their caresses and entertainment, went about
her ordinary business of the house.

     The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views
soon created as unreserv'd a freedom and intimacy as if we
had been for years acquainted.  They took and shew'd me the
house, their respective apartments, which were furnished
with every article of conveniency and luxury; and above all,
a spacious drawing-room, where a select revelling band usu-
ally met, in general parties of pleasure; the girls supping
with their sparks, and acting their wanton pranks with un-
bounded licentiousness; whilst a defiance of awe, modesty or
jealousy were their standing rules, by which, according to
the principles of their society, whatever pleasure was lost
on the side of sentiment was abundantly made up to the
senses in the poignancy of variety, and the charms of ease
and luxury.  The authors and supporters of this secret in-
stitution would, in the height of their humours style them-
selves the restorers of the golden age and its simplicity
of pleasures, before their innocence became so injustly
branded with the names of guilt and shame.

     As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a
shop was shut, the academy open'd; the mask of mock-modesty
was completely taken off, and all the girls deliver'd over
to their respective calls of pleasure or interest with
their men; and none of that sex was promiscuously admitted,
but only such as Mrs. Cole was previously satisfied with
their character and discretion.  In short, this was the
safest, politest, and, at the same time, the most thorough
house of accommodation in town: every thing being conducted
so that decency made no intrenchment upon the most libertine
pleasures, in the practice of which too, the choice familiars
of the house had found the secret so rare and difficult, of
reconciling even all the refinements of taste and delicacy
with the most gross and determinate gratifications of senu-
ality.

     After having consum'd the morning in the endearments
and instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner,
when Mrs. Cole, presiding at the head of her club, gave me
the first idea of her management and address, in inspiring
these girls with so sensible a love and respect for her.
There was no stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or
little jealousies, but all was unaffectedly gay, cheerful
and easy.

     After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies,
acquainted me that there was a chapter to be held that night
in form, for the ceremony of my reception into the sister-
hood; and in which, with all due reserve to my maidenhead,
that was to be occasionally cook'd up for the first proper
chapman, I was to undergo a ceremonial of initiation they
were sure I should not be displeased with.

     Embark'd as I was, and moreover captivated with the
charms of my new companions, I was too much prejudic'd in
favour of any proposal they could make, to much as hesitate
an assent; which, therefore, readily giving in the style of
a carte blanche, I receiv'd fresh kisses of compliment from
them all, in approval of my docility and good nature.  Now
I was "a sweet girl . . ."  I came into things with a "good
grace . . ."  I was not "affectedly coy . . ."  I should be
"the pride of the house . . ." and the like.

     This point thus adjusted, the young women left Mrs.
Cole to talk and concert matters with me: she explained to
me that I should be introduc'd, that very evening, to four
of her best friends, one of whom she had, according to the
custom of the house, favoured with the preference of engag-
ing me in the first party of pleasure; assuring me, at the
same time, that they were all young gentlemen agreeable in
their persons, and unexceptionable in every respect; that
united, and holding together by the band of common pleasures,
they composed the chief support of her house, and made very
liberal presents to the girls that pleas'd and humour'd
them, so that they were, properly speaking, the founders
and patrons of this little seraglio.  Not but that she had,
at proper seasons, other customers to deal with, whom she
stood less upon punctilio with than with these; for instance,
it was not on one of them she could attempt to pass me for
a maid; they were not only too knowing, too much town-bred
to bite at such a bait, but they were such generous bene-
factors to her that it would be unpardonable to think of it.

     Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise
of pleasure, for such I conceiv'd it, stirr'd up in me, I
preserved so much of the woman as to feign just reluctance
enough to make some merit of sacrificing it to the influence
of my patroness, whom I likewise, still in character, re-
minded of it perhaps being right for me to go home and dress,
in favour of my first impressions.

     But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me that
the gentlemen I should be presented to were, by their rank
and taste of things, infinitely superior to the being touched
with any glare of dress or ornaments, such as silly women
rather confound and overlay than set off their beauty with;
that these veteran voluptuaries knew better than not to hold
them in the highest contempt: they with whom the pure native
charms alone could pass current, and who would at any time
leave a sallow, washy, painted duchess on her own hands, for
a ruddy, healthy, firm-flesh'd country maid; and as for my
part, that nature had done enough for me, to set me above
owing the least favour to art; concluding withal, that for
the instant occasion, there was no dress like an undress.

     I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters
not to be easily over-ruled by her: after which she went on
preaching very pathetically the doctrine of passive obedience
and not-resistance to all those arbitrary tastes of pleasure,
which are by some styl'd the refinements, and by others the
depravations of it; between whom it was not the business of
a simple girl, who was to profit by pleasing, to decide, but
to conform to.  Whilst I was edifying by these wholesome
lessons, tea was brought in, and the young ladies, returning,
joined company with us.

     After a great deal of mix'd chat, frolic and humour,
one of them, observing that there would be a good deal of
time on hand before the assembly-hour, proposed that each
girl should entertain the company with that critical period
of her personal history in which she first exchanged the
maiden state for womanhood.  The proposal was approv'd, with
only one restriction of Mrs. Cole, that she, on account of
her age, and I, on account of my titular maidenhead, should
be excused, at least till I had undergone the forms of the
house.  This obtain'd me a dispensation, and the promotress
of this amusement was desired to begin.

     Her name was Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose
limbs were, if possible, too well made, since their plump
fullness was rather to the prejudice of that delicate slimness
requir'd by the nicer judges of beauty; her eyes were blue,
and streamed inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be
prettier than her mouth and lips, which clos'd over a range
of the evenest and whitest teeth.  Thus she began:

     "Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure
of my life, is sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in
the advancement of the proposal you have approv'd of.  My
father and mother were, and for aught I know, are still,
farmers in the country, not above forty miles from town:
their barbarity to me, in favour of a son, on whom only they
vouchsafed to bestow their tenderness, had a thousand times
determined me to fly their house, and throw myself on the
wide world; but, at length, an accident forc'd me on this
desperate attempt at the age of fifteen.  I had broken a
china bowl, the pride and idol of both their hearts; and as
an unmerciful beating was the least I had to depend on at
their hands, in the silliness of those tender years I left
the house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London.
How my loss was resented I do not know, for till this instant
I have not heard a syllable about them.  My whole stock was
too broad pieces of my grandmother's, a few shillings, silver
shoe-buckles and a silver thimble.  Thus equipp'd, with no
more cloaths than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and
frighten'd at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I
hurried on; and I dare swear, walked a dozen miles before I
stopped, through mere weariness and fatigue.  At length I
sat down on a stile, wept bitterly, and yet was still rather
under increased impressions of fear on the account of my
escape; which made dread, worse than death, the going back
to face my unnatural parents.  Refresh'd by this little
repose, and relieved by my tears, I was proceeding onward,
when I was overtaken by a sturdy country lad who was going to
London to see what he could do for himself there, and, like
me, had given his friends the slip.  He could not be above
seventeen, was ruddy, well featur'd enough, with uncombed
flaxen hair, a little flapp'd hat, kersey frock, yarn stock-
ings, in short, a perfect plough-boy.  I saw him come whist-
ling behind me, with a bundle tied to the end of a stick,
his travelling equipage.  We walk'd by one another for some
time without speaking; at length we join'd company, and
agreed to keep together till we got to our journey's end.
What his designs or ideas were, I know not: the innocence of
mine I can solemnly protest.

     "As night drew on, it became us to look out for some
inn or shelter; to which perplexity another was added, and
that was, what we should say for ourselves, if we were
question'd.  After some puzzle, the young fellow started a
proposal, which I thought the finest that could be; and
what was that? why, that we should pass for husband and wife:
I never once dream'd of consequences.  We came presently,
after having agreed on this notable expedient, to one of
those hedge-accommodations for foot passengers, at the door
do which stood an old crazy beldam, who seeing us trudge by,
invited us to lodge there.  Glad of any cover, we went in,
and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him, call'd for what
the house afforded, and we supped together as man and wife;
which, considering our figures and ages, could not have
passed on any one but such as any thing could pass on.  But
when bedtime came on, we had neither of us the courage to
contradict out first account of ourselves; and what was ex-
tremely pleasant, the young lad seem'd as perplex'd as I was,
how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the
state we had pretenced to.  Whilst we were in this quandary,
the landlady takes the candle and lights us to our apartment,
through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate
from the body of the house.  Thus we suffer'd ourselves to
be conducted, without saying a word in opposition to it; and
there, in a wretched room, with a bed answerable, we were
left to pass the night together, as a thing quite of course.
For my part, I was so incredibly innocent as not even then to
think much more harm of going to bed with the young man than
with one of our dairy-wenches; nor had he, perhaps, any other
notions than those of innocence, till such a fair occasion
put them into his head.

     "Before either of us undressed, however, he put out
the candle; and the bitterness of the weather made it a kind
of necessity for me to go into bed: slipping then my cloaths
off, I crept under the bed-cloaths, where I found the young
stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh
rather pleas'd than alarm'd me.  I was indeed too much dis-
turbed with the novelty of my condition to be able to sleep;
but then I had not the least thought of harm.  But, oh! how
powerful are the instincts of nature! how little is there
wanting to set them in action!  The young man, sliding his
arm under my body, drew me gently towards him, as if to keep
himself and me warmer; and the heat I felt from joining our
breasts, kindled another that I had hitherto never felt, and
was, even then, a stranger to the nature of.  Emboldened, I
suppose, by my easiness, he ventur'd to kiss me, and I insen-
sibly returned it, without knowing the consequence of return-
ing it; for, on this encouragement, he slipped his hand all
down from my breast to that part of me where the sense of
feeling is so exquisitely critical, as I then experienc'd by
its instant taking fire upon the touch, and glowing with a
strange tickling heat: there he pleas'd himself and me, by
feeling, till, growing a little too bold, he hurt me, and
made me complain.  Then he took my hand, which he guided,
not unwillingly on my side, between the twist of his closed
thighs, which were extremely warm; there he lodged and
pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me feel the
proud distinction of his sex from mine.  I was frighten'd
at the novelty, and drew back my hand; yet, pressed and
spurred on by sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not
help asking him what that was for?  He told me he would
show me if I would let him; and, without waiting for my
answer, which he prevented by stopping my mouth with kisses
I was far from disrelishing, he got upon me, and inserting
one of his thighs between mine, opened them so as to make
way for himself, and fixed me to his purpose; whilst I was
so much out of my usual sense, so subdu'd by the present
power of a new one, that, between fear and desire, I lay
utterly passive, till the piercing pain rous'd and made me
cry out.  But it was too late: he was too firm fix'd in the
saddle for me to compass flinging him, with all the strug-
gles I could use, some of which only served to further his
point, and at length an irresistible thrust murdered at once
my maidenhead, and almost me.  I now lay a bleeding witness
of the necessity impos'd on our sex, to gather the first
honey off the thorns.

     "But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was
soon reconciled to fresh trials, and before morning, nothing
on earth could be dearer to me than this rifler of my virgin
sweets: he was every thing to me now.  How we agreed to join
fortunes; how we came up to town together, where we lived
some time, till necessity parted us, and drove me into this
course of life, in which I had been long ago battered and
torn to pieces before I came to this age, as much through
my easiness, as through my inclination, had it not been for
my finding refuge in this house: these are all circumstances
which pass the mark I proposed, so that here my narrative
ends."

     In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet's turn to
go on.  Amongst all the beauties of our sex that I had be-
fore or have since seen, few indeed were the forms that
could dispute excellence with her's; it was not delicate,
but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of her
small but exactly fashion'd limbs.  Her complexion, fair as
it was, appeared yet more fair from the effect of two black
eyes, the brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity
than belonged to the colour of it, which was only defended
from paleness by a sweetly pleasing blush in her cheeks,
that grew fainter and fainter, till at length it died away
insensibly into the overbearing white.  Then her miniature
features join'd to finish the extreme sweetness of it,
which was not belied by that of temper turned to indolence,
languor, and the pleasures of love.  Press'd to subscribe
her contingent, she smiled, blushed a little, and thus
complied with our desires:

     "My father was neither better nor worse than a miller
near the city of York; and both he and my mother dying
whilst I was an infant, I fell under the care of a widow
and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord N . . ., at his
seat in the county of . . ., where she brought me up with
all imaginable tenderness.  I was not seventeen, as I am
not now eighteen, before I had, on account of my person
purely (for fortune I had notoriously none), several advan-
tageous proposals; but whether nature was slow in making me
sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had not seen
any of the other sex who had stirr'd up the least emotion
or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till
that age, preserv'd a perfect innocence, even of thought:
whilst my fears of I did not well know what, made me no
more desirous of marrying than of dying.  My aunt, good
woman, favoured my timorousness, which she look'd on as
childish affection, that her own experience might probably
assure her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors
proper answers for me.

     "The family had not been down at that seat for years,
so that it was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt,
and two old domestics to take care of it.  Thus I had the
full range of a spacious lonely house and gardens, situate
at about half a mile distance form any other habitation,
except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.

     "Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up with-
out any memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I
had often done before, left my aunt fast asleep, and secure
for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a kind of
ancient summer-house, at some distance from the house, I
carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its
door and window fac'd upon.  Here I fell into a gentle
breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses, as they
fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that hour;
a cane couch, with my work-basket for a pillow, were all
the conveniencies of my short repose; for I was soon awaked
and alarmed by a flounce, and the noise of splashing in the
water.  I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed
should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I
afterwards found (for I had never seen him before), who had
strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and
the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness
of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jump'd
into it on the other side, which bordered on a wood, some
trees whereof, inclined down to the water, form'd a pleasing
shady recess, commodious to undress and leave his clothes
under.

     "My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in
the water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those
of surprise and fear; and, in course, I should immediately
have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, inter-
posed the objection of the door and window being so situated
that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way
along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I
could not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and con-
founded was I at having seen him.  Condemn'd then to stay
till his departure should release me, I was greatly embar-
rassed how to dispose of myself:  I kept some time betwixt
terror and modesty, even from looking through the window,
which being an old-fashinon'd casement, without any light
behind me, could hardly betray any one's being there to
him from within; then the door was so secure, that without
violence, or my own consent, there was no opening it from
without.

     "But now, by my own experience, I found it too true
that objects which affright us, when we cannot get from
them, draw out eyes as forcibly as those that please us.
I could not long withstand that nameless impulse, which,
without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me to-
wards it; embolden'd too by my certainty of being at once
unseen and safe, I ventur'd by degrees to cast my eyes on an
object so terrible and alarming to my virgin modesty as a
naked man.  But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that
struck me was in general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin
imaginable, which the sun playing upon made the reflection
of it perfectly beamy.  His face, in the confusion I was in,
I could not well distinguish the lineaments of, any farther
than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in
it.  The frolic and various play of all his polish'd limbs,
as they appeared above the surface, in the course of his
swimming or wantoning with the water, amus'd and insensibly
delighted me: sometimes he lay motionless, on his back,
waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head of hair,
that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls.
Then the over-flowing water would make a separation between
his breast and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I
could not escape observing so remarkable a distinction as a
black mossy tuft, out of which appeared to emerge a round,
softish, limber, white something, that played every way,
with ever the least motion or whirling eddy.  I cannot say
but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct,
attracted, detain'd, captivated my attention: it was out of
the power of all my modesty to command my eye away from it;
and seeing nothing so very dreadful in its appearance, I
insensibly lock'd away all my fears: but as fast as they
gave way, new desires and strange wishes took place, and I
melted as I gazed.  The fire of nature, that had so long
lain dormant or conceal'd, began to break out, and made me
feel my sex the first time.  He had now changed his pos-
ture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out with his
legs and arms, finer modell'd than which could not have
been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a neck and
shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off.  Then
the luxuriant swell of flesh that rose form the small of
his back, and terminated its double cope at where the
thighs are sent off, perfectly dazzled one with its watery
glistening gloss.

     "By this time I was so affected by this inward involu-
tion of sentiments, so soften'd by this sight, that now,
betrayed into a sudden transition from extreme fears to ex-
treme desires, I found these last so strong upon me, the
heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt their
rage, that nature almost fainted under them.  Not that I so
much as knew precisely what was wanting to me: my only
thought was that so sweet a creature as this youth seemed
to me could only make me happy; but then, the little like-
lihood there was of compassing an acquaintance with him, or
perhaps of ever seeing him again, dash'd my desires, and
turn'd them into torments.  I was still gazing, with all
the powers of my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in
an instant, down he went.  I had heard of such things as a
cramp seizing on even the best swimmers, and occasioning
their being drowned; and imagining this so sudden eclipse
to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this unknown
lad had given birth to distracted me with the most killing
terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I flew
to the door, open'd it, ran down to the canal, guided
thither by the madness of my fears for him, and the intense
desire of being an instrument to save him, though I was
ignorant how, or by what means to effect it: but was it for
fears, and a passion so sudden as mine, to reason? All this
took up scarce the space of a few moments.  I had then just
life enough to reach the green borders of the waterpiece,
where wildly looking round for the young man, and missing
him still, my fright and concern sunk me down in a deep
swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for I did not
come to myself till I was rous'd out of it by a  sense of
pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked me to the
most surprising circumstance of finding myself not only in
the arms of this very same young gentleman I had been so
solicitous to save, but taken at such an advantage in my
unresisting condition that he had actually completed his
entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all the
preceding conflicts of mind I had suffer'd, and struck dumb
by the violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to
cry out nor the strength to disengage myself from his stren-
uous embraces, before, urging his point, he had forced his
way and completely triumphed over my virginity, as he might
now as well see by the streams of blood that follow'd his
drawing out, as he had felt by the difficulties he had met
with consummating his penetration.  But the sight of the
blood, and the sense of my condition, had (as he told me
afterwards), since the ungovernable rage of his passion was
somewhat appeas'd, now wrought so far on him that at all
risks, even of the worst consequences, he could not find in
his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily
have done.  I still lay all descompos'd in bleeding ruin,
palpitating, speechless, unable to get off, and frightened,
and fluttering like a poor wounded partridge, and ready to
faint away again at the sense of what had befallen me.  The
young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing my hand, and
with tears in his eyes beseeching me to forgive him, and
offering all the reparation in his power.  It is certain
that could I, at the instant of regaining my senses, have
called out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would not have
stuck at it: the violation was attended too with such aggra-
vating circumstances, though he was ignorant of them, since
it was to my concern for the preservation of his life that I
owed my ruin.

     "But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme
to another! and how little are they acquainted with the human
heart who dispute it!  I could not see this amiable criminal,
so suddenly the first object of my love, and as suddenly of
my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my hand with his tears,
without relenting.  He was still stark-naked, but my modesty
had been already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so
much shocked as I should have otherwise been with appearances
only; in short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love
return'd so strong upon me, that I felt it a point of my own
happiness to forgive him.  The reproaches I made him were
murmur'd in so soft a tone, my eyes met his with such glances,
expressing more languor than resentment, that he could not
but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate distance;
but still he would not quit his posture of submission, till
I had pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most
fervent entreaties, protestations, and promises, I had not
the power to withhold.  On which, with the utmost marks of a
fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss my lips, which
I neither declined nor resented; but on my mild expostula-
tions with him upon the barbarity of his treatment, he
explain'd the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the
clearance, at least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in
the eyes of a judge so partial in his favour as I was grown.

     "Its seems that the circumstance of his going down, or
sinking, which in my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for
something very fatal, was no other than a trick of diving
which I had not ever heard, or at least attended to, the
mention of: and he was so long-breath'd at it, that in the
few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet
emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose,
seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was that some
young woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with
him, for he knew I could not have fallen a-sleep there with-
out his having seen me before: agreeably to which notion he
had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign of life,
and still perplex'd as he was what to think of the adventure,
he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into
the summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there
he laid me down on the couch, and tried, as he protested in
good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again,
till fired, as he said, beyond all bearing by the sight and
touch of several parts of me which were unguardedly exposed
to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and the less,
as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon
being a feint was not the very truth of the case: seduced
then by this flattering notion, and overcome by the present,
as he styled them, superhuman temptations, combined with the
solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was not
enough his own master not to make it.  Leaving me then just
only whilst he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled
eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced, he
ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more
than the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to
roused me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I
was not able to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he
talked, the tone of his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly
in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and interesting
an object to me wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the
rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I
lost all sense of the past injury.  The young gentleman soon
discern'd the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened
looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips,
press'd them tenderly to pass his pardon in the return of a
kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it being car-
ried to my heart, and thence to my new-discover'd sphere of
Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him
nothing.  When now he managed his caresses and endearments
so artfully as to insinuate the most soothing consolations
for the past pain and the most pleasing expectations of
future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept my eyes from
seeing his and rather declined them,  I had a glimpse of
that instrument of the mischief which was now, obviously
even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a comparative
observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and
grew greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore
it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one of my
hands carelessly dropt; but then he employ'd such tender
prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning
passion of desire being now so strongly prompted by the
engaging circumstances of the sight and incendiary touch of
his naked glowing beauties, I yielded at length at the
force of the present impressions, and he obtained of my
tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure
left in the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had
cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life and
abilities to guard it.

     "Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop;
but I am so much in motion, that I could not if I would.  I
shall only add, however, that I got home without the least
discovery, or suspicion of what had happened.  I met my
young ravisher several times after, whom I now passionately
lov'd and who, tho' not of age to claim a small but indepen-
dent fortune, would have married me; but as the accidents
that prevented it, and their consequences which threw me on
the publick, contain matters too moving and serious to in-
troduce at present, I cut short here."

     Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now
took her turn to treat the company with her history.  I have
already hinted to you the graces of her person, than which
nothing could be more exquisitely touching; I repeat touch-
ing, as a just distinction from striking, which is ever a
less lasting effect, and more generally belongs to the fair
complexions: but leaving that decision to every one's taste,
I proceed to give you Louisa's narrative as follows:

     "According to practical maxims of life, I ought to
boast of my birth, since I owe it to pure love, without
marriage; but this I know, it was scarce possible to inherit
a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did.
I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman
cabinet-maker on his master's maid: the consequence of which
was a big belly, and the loss of a place.  He was not in
circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this
blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen
and disposed of me to a poor relation's in the country, to
repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London, in
thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the
complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for
a child she had by her first husband.  I had, on that foot-
ing, been taken home, and was not six years old when this
step-father died and left my mother in tolerable circum-
stances, and without any children by him.  As to my natural
father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the
truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not
immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than a
common sailor.  As I grew up, under the eyes of my mother,
who kept on the business, I could not but see, in her
severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip which she did not
care should be hereditary, but we no more choose our pas-
sions than our features or complexion, and the bent of
mine was so strong to the forbidden pleasure, that it got
the better, at length, of all her care and precaution.  I
was scarce twelve years old before that part which she
wanted so much to keep out of harm's way made me feel its
impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play: al-
ready had it put forth the signs of forwardness in the
sprout of a soft down over it, which had often flatter'd,
and I might also say, grown under my constant touch and
visitation, so pleas'd was I with what I took to be a kind
of title to womanhood, that state I pin'd to be entr'd of,
for the pleasures I conceiv'd were annexed to it; and now
the growing importance of that part to me, and the new sen-
sations in it, demolish'd at once all my girlish playthings
and amusements.  Nature now pointed me strongly to more
solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so
fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not
mistake the spot I wanted a playfellow in.

     "I now shunn'd all company in which there was no hopes
of coming at the object of my longings, and used to shut
myself up, to indulge in solitude some tender meditation on
the pleasures I strongly perceiv'd the overture of, in feel-
ing and examining what nature assur'd me must be the chosen
avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I
panted after.

     "But these meditations only increas'd my disorder, and
blew the fire that consumed me.  I was yet worse when, yield-
ing at length to the insupportable irritations of the little
fairy charm that tormented me, I seiz'd it with my fingers,
teasing it to no end.  Sometimes, in the furious excitations
of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my thighs
abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief,
till finding my illusion, I shut and squeez'd them together
again, burning and fretting.  In short, this dev'lish thing,
with its impetuous girds and itching fires, led me such a
life that I could neither night nor day be at peace with it
or myself.  In time, however, I thought I had gained a pro-
digious prize, when figuring to myself that my fingers were
something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way
in for one of them with great agitation and delight; yet
not without pain too did I deflower myself as far as it
could reach; proceeding with such a fury of passion, in
this solitary and last shift of pleasure, as extended me at
length breathless on the bed in an amorous melting trance.

     "But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon
began to perceive that this work was but a paltry shallow
expedient that went but a little way to relieve me, and
rather rais'd more flame than its dry and insignificant
titillation could rightly appease.

     "Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by
what I had industriously picked up at weddings and christen-
ings, was possess'd of the only remedy that could reduce this
rebellious disorder; but watch'd and overlook'd as I was, how
to come at it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an
invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains and inven-
tion how at once to elude my mother's vigilance, and procure
myself the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity and long-
ings for this mighty and untasted pleasure.  At length, how-
ever, a singular chance did at once the work of a long course
of alertness.  One day that we had dined at an acquaintance's
over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occu-
pied the first floor of our house, there started an indis-
pensable necessity for my mother's going down to Greenwich
to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know
what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I cer-
tainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I
had not the least relish for.  The pretext however passed,
and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself
to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe
home, where she consign'd me into the hands of an old
trusty maid-servant, who served in the shop, for we had not
a male creature in the house.

     "As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up
and lie down on our lodger's bed, mine not being made, with
a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it
was only rest I wanted.  This injunction probably prov'd of
eminent service to me.  As soon as I was got into the bed-
chamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside
of the bed-cloaths, in all the loosest undress.  Here I gave
myself up to the old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing,
self-touching, self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of
self-knowledge I could devise, in search of the pleasure that
fled before me, and tantalized with that unknown something
that was out of my reach; thus all only serv'd to enflame
myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst the one
thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I
could have bit my fingers, for representing it so ill.  After
then wearying and fatiguing myself with grasping shadows,
whilst that most sensible part of me disdain'd to content
itself with less than realities, the strong yearnings, the
urgent struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and
the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it, had
wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if
I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the dis-
traction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a
bystander could not have help'd seeing all for love.  And
one there was it seems; for waking out of my very short
slumber, I found my hand lock'd in that of a young man, who
was kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his
boldness: but that being a son to the lady to whom this bed-
chamber, he knew, belonged, he had slipp'd by the servant of
the shop, as he supposed, unperceiv'd, when finding me asleep,
his first ideas were to withdraw; but that he had been fix'd
and detain'd there by a power he could better account for
than resist.

     "What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprize
were instantly subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke
in great presence of mind from the turn this adventure might
take.  He seem'd to me no other than a pitying angel, dropt
out of the clouds: for he was young and perfectly handsome,
which was more than even I had asked for; man, in general,
being all that my utmost desires had pointed at.  I thought
then I could not put too much encouragement into my eyes and
voice; I regretted no leading advances; no matter for his
after-opinion of my forwardness, so it might bring him to
the point of answering my pressing demands of present case;
it was not now with his thoughts, but his actions, that my
business immediately lay.  I rais'd then my head, and told
him, in a soft tone that tended to prescribe the same key to
him, that his mamma was gone out and would not return till
late at night: which I thought no bad hint; but as it prov'd,
I had nothing of a novice to deal with.  The impressions I
had made on him from the discoveries I had betrayed of my
person in the disordered motions of it, during his view of
me asleep, had, as he afterwards told me, so fix'd and charm-
ingly prepar'd him, that, had I known his dispositions, I
had more to hope from his violence than to fear from his
respect; and even less than the extreme tenderness which I
threw into my voice and eyes, would have served to encourage
him to make the most of the opportunity.  Finding then that
his kisses, imprinted on my hand, were taken as tamely as he
could wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his to them, made
me so faint with over-coming joy and pleasure that I fell
back, and he with me, in course, on the bed, upon which I
had, by insensibly shifting from the side to near the middle,
invitingly made room for him.  He is now lain down by me,
and the minutes being too precious to consume in untimely
ceremony, or dalliance, my youth proceeds immediately to
those extremities, which all my looks, flushing and palpi-
tations had assured him he might attempt without the fear of
repulse: those rogues, the men, read us admirably on these
occasions.  I lay then at length panting for the imminent
attack, with wishes far beyond my fears, and for which it
was scarce possible for a girl, barely thirteen, but all and
well grown, to have better dispositions.  He threw up my
petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an instinct
of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so
thoroughly destroy'd all modesty in me, that even their
being now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the
prelude that pleasure deepen'd my blushes at, more than
shame.  But when his hand, and touches, naturally attracted
to their centre, made me feel all their wantonness and
warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a
sense of things did I perceive there, than when under my
own insipid handling!  And now his waistcoat was unbuttoned,
and the confinement of the breeches burst through, when out
started to view the amazing, pleasing object of all my
wishes, all my dreams, all my love, the king member indeed!
I gaz'd at, I devoured it, at length and breadth, with my
eyes intently directed to it, till his getting upon me, and
placing it between my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of
its sight, to give me a far more grateful one in its touch,
in that part where its touch is so exquisitely affecting.
Applying it then to the minute opening, for such at that age
it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt with
too great a rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it,
to heed much the pain that followed: I thought nothing too
dear to pay for this the richest treat of the senses; so
that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled, I was still supe-
riorly pleas'd, and hugg'd the author of all this delicious
ruin.  But when, soon after, he made his second attack, sore
as every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sove-
reign cordial; all my soft complainings were silenc'd, and
the pain melting fast away into pleasure.  I abandon'd myself
over to all its transports, and gave it the full possession
of my whole body and soul; for now all thought was at an end
with me; I lived but in what I felt only.  And who could
describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by
the charm of their novelty and surprize? when that part of
me which had so long hunger'd for the dear morsel that now
so delightfully crammed it, forc'd all my vital sensations
to fix their home there, during the stay of my beloved guest;
who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome in a dissolvent,
richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating her
paramour with, in liquify'd pearl, and ravishingly pour'd
into me, where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry
reception, I hail'd it with the warmest confluence on my
side, amidst all those extatic raptures, not unfamiliar I
presume to this good company!  Thus, however, I arrived at
the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected
indeed, but not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was
just arriv'd in town from college, and came familiarly to
his mother at her apartment, where he had once before been,
though by mere chance.  I had not seen him: so that we knew
one another by hear-say only; and finding me stretched on
his mother's bed, he readily concluded, from her descrip-
tion who it was.  The rest you know.

     "This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the
young gentleman escaping then, and many more times undis-
cover'd.  But the warmth of my constitution, that made the
pleasures of love a kind of necessary of life to me, having
betray'd me into indiscretions fatal to my private fortune,
I fell at length to the publick; from which, it is probable,
I might have met with the worst of ruin if my better fate
had not thrown me into this safe and agreeable refuge."

     Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having
brought the time for the girls to retire, and to prepare
for the revels of the evening, I staid with Mrs. Cole till
Emily came and told us the company was met, and waited for
us.

























                            Part 7

     On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we
were met by a young gentleman, extremely well dress'd, and a
very pretty figure, to whom I was to be indebted for the
first essay of the pleasures of the house.  He saluted me
with great gallantry, and handed me into the drawing room,
the floor of which was overspread with a Turkey carpet, and
all its furniture voluptuously adapted to every demand of
the most study'd luxury; now too it was, by means of a pro-
fuse illumination, enliven'd by a light scarce inferior, and
perhaps more favourable to joy, more tenderly pleasing, than
that of broad sun-shine.

     On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction to
hear a buzz of approbation run through the whole company
which now consisted of four gentlemen, including my parti-
cular (this was the cant-term of the house for one's gallant
for the time), the three young women, in a neat flowing
dishabille, the mistress of the academy, and myself.  I was
welcomed and saluted by a kiss all round, in which, however,
it was easy to discover, in the superior warmth of that of
the men, the distinction of the sexes.

     Aw'd and confounded as I was at seeing myself sur-
rounded, caress'd, and made court to by so many strangers,
I could not immediately familiarize myself to all that air
of gaiety and joy which dictated their compliments, and
animated their caresses.

     They assur'd me that I was so perfectly to their taste
as to have but one fault against me, which I might easily be
cur'd of, and that was my modesty: this, they observ'd, might
pass for a beauty the more with those who wanted it for a
heightener; but their maxim was, that it was an impertinent
mixture, and dash'd the cup so as to spoil the sincere draught
of pleasure; they consider'd it accordingly as their mortal
enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met with it.
This was a prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensu'd.

     In the midst of all the frolic and wantonnesses, which
this joyous band had presently, and all naturally, run into,
an elegant supper was serv'd in, and we sat down to it, my
spark-elect placing himself next to me, and the other couples
without order or ceremony.  The delicate cheer and good wine
soon banish'd all reserve; the conversation grew as lively
as could be wished, without taking too loose a turn: these
professors of pleasure knew too well, to stale impressions
of it, or evaporate the imagination in words, before the time
of action.  Kisses however were snatch'd at times, or where a
handkerchief round the neck interpos'd its feeble barrier, it
was not extremely respected: the hands of the men went to
work with their usual petulance, till the provocations on
both sides rose to such a pitch that my particular's proposal
for beginning the country-dances was received with instant
assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instru-
ments were in tune.  This was a signal for preparation, that
the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood life, took for her
cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for personal service
herself, and content with having settled the order of battle,
she left us the field, to fight it out at discretion.

     As soon as she was gone, the table was remov'd form the
middle, and became a side-board; a couch was brought into
its place, of which when I whisperingly inquired the reason,
of my particular, he told me that as it was chiefly on my
account that this convention was met, the parties intended
at once to humour their taste of variety in pleasures, and
by an open publick enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint
of reserve or modesty, which they look'd on as the poison
of joy; that though they occasionally preached pleasure,
and lived up to the text, they did not enthusiastically set
up for missionaries, and only indulg'd themselves in the
delights of a practical instruction of all the pretty women
they lik'd well enough to bestow it upon, and who fell pro-
perly in the way of it; but that as such a proposal might
be too violent, too shocking for a young beginner, the old
standers were to set an example, which he hoped I would not
be averse to follow, since it was to him I was devolv'd in
favour of the first experiment; but that still I was per-
fectly at my liberty to refuse the party, which being in its
nature one of pleasure, suppos'd an exclusion of all force
or constraint.

     My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my
silence did my acquiescence.  I was now embarked, and
thoroughly determined on any voyage the company would take
me on.

     The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cor-
net of horse, and that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft
and amorous Louisa.  He led her to the couch "nothing loth,"
on which he gave her the fall, and extended her at her
length with an air of roughness and vigour, relishing high
of amorous eagerness and impatience.  The girl, spreading
herself to the best advantage, with her head upon the pillow,
was so concentred in what she was about, that our presence
seemed the least of her care and concern.  Her petticoats,
thrown up with her shift, discovered to the company the
finest turn'd legs and thighs that could be imagined, and in
broad display, that gave us a full view of that delicious
cleft of flesh into which the pleasing hair-grown mount over
it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance between
two close-hedges, delicately soft and pouting.  Her gallant
was now ready, having disencumber'd himself from his cloaths,
overloaded with lace, and presently, his shirt removed, shew'd
us his forces in high plight, bandied and ready for action.
But giving us no time to consider the dimensions, he threw
himself instantly over his charming antagonist, who receiv'd
him as he pushed at once dead at mark like a heroine, without
flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally truer
to the taste of joy, or sincerer in the expressions of its
sensations, than she was: we could observe pleasure lighten
in her eyes, as he introduc'd his plenipotentiary instrument
into her; till, at length, having indulg'd her to its utmost
reach, its irritations grew so violent, and gave her the
spurs so furiously, that collected within herself, and lost
to everything but the enjoyment of her favourite feelings,
she retorted his thrusts with a just concert of springy
heaves, keeping time so exactly with the most pathetic sighs,
that one might have number'd the strokes in agitation by
their distinct murmurs, whilst her active limbs kept wreath-
ing and intertwisting with his, in convulsive folds: then
the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant painless love-
bites, which they both exchang'd in a rage of delight, all
conspiring towards the melting period.  It soon came on when
Louisa, in the ravings of her pleasure-frenzy, impotent of
all restraint, cried out:  "Oh Sir! . . . Good Sir! . . .
pray do not spare me! ah! ah! . . ."  All her accents now
faltering into heart-fetched sighs, she clos'd her eyes in
the sweet death, in the instant of which she was embalm'd by
an injection, of which we could easily see the signs in the
quiet, dying, languid posture of her late so furious driver,
who was stopp'd of a sudden, breathing short, panting, and,
for the time, giving up the spirit of pleasure.  As soon as
he was dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats,
and running up to me, gave me a kiss and drew me to the
side-board, to which she was herself handed by her gallant,
where they made me pledge them in a glass of wine, and toast
a droll health of Louisa's proposal in high frolic.

     By this time the second couple was ready to enter the
lists: which were a young baronet, and that delicatest of
charmers, the winning, tender Harriet.  My gentle esquire
came to acquaint me with it, and brought me back to the
scene of action.

     And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany
her dispositions for the bare-faced part she was engaged to
play with such a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty and
yielding coyness, as she did.  All her air and motions
breath'd only unreserv'd, unlimited complaisance without the
least mixture of impudence, or prostitution.  But what was
yet more surprising, her spark-elect, in the midst of the
dissolution of a publick open enjoyment, doted on her to dis-
traction, and had, by dint of love and sentiments, touched
her heart, tho' for a while the restraint of their engagement
to the house laid him under a kind of necessity of complying
with an institution which himself had had the greatest share
in establishing.

     Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant,
blushing as she look'd at me, and with eyes made to justify
any thing, tenderly bespeaking of me the most favourable
construction of the step she was thus irresistibly drawn
into.

     Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of
the couch, and passing his arm round her neck, preluded with
a kiss fervently applied to her lips, that visibly gave her
life and spirit to go thro' with the scene; and as he kiss'd,
he gently inclined her head, till it fell back on a pillow
disposed to receive it, and leaning himself down  all the way
with her, at once countenanc'd and endear'd her fall to her.
There, as if he had guess'd our wishes, or meant to gratify
at once his pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by
the title of present possession, of beauties delicate beyond
imagination, he discovered her breasts to his own touch, and
our common view; but oh! what delicious manuals of love
devotion! how inimitable fine moulded! small, round, firm,
and excellently white: the grain of their skin, so soothing,
so flattering to the touch! and their nipples, that crown'd
them, the sweetest buds of beauty.  When he had feasted his
eyes with the touch and perusal, feasted his lips with kisses
of the highest relish, imprinted on those all-delicious twin
orbs, the proceeded downwards.

     Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the ten-
derest attention not to shock or alarm her too suddenly, he,
by degrees, rather stole than rolled up her petticoats; at
which, as if a signal had been given, Louisa and Emily took
hold of her legs, in pure wantonness, and, in ease to her,
kept them stretched wide abroad.  Then lay exposed, or, to
speak more properly, display'd the greatest parade in nature
of female charms.  The whole company, who, except myself,
had often seen them, seemed as much dazzled, surpriz'd and
delighted, as any one could be who had now beheld them for
the first time.  Beauties so excessive could not but enjoy
the privileges of eternal novelty.  Her thighs were so ex-
quisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of
flesh than they were, they would have declined from that
point of perfection they presented.  But what infinitely
enrich'd and adorn'd them, was the sweet intersection formed,
where they met, at the bottom of the smoothest, roundest,
whitest belly, by that central furrow which nature had sunk
there, between, the soft relieve of two pouting ridges, and
which in this was in perfect symmetry of delicacy and minia-
ture with the rest of her frame.  No! nothing in nature could
be of a beautifuller cut; then, the dark umbrage of the downy
spring-moss that over-arched it bestowed, on the luxury of
the landscape, a touching warmth, a tender finishing, beyond
the expression of words, or even the paint of thought.

     Her truly enamour'd gallant, who had stood absorbed and
engrossed by the pleasure of the sight long enough to afford
us time to feast ours (no fear of glutting!) addressed him-
self at length to the materials of enjoyment, and lifting
the linen veil that hung between us and his master member of
the revels, exhibited one whose eminent size proclaimed the
owner a true woman's hero.  He was, besides, in every other
respect an accomplish'd gentleman, and in the bloom and
vigour of youth.  Standing then between Harriet's legs, which
were supported by her two companions at their widest exten-
sion, with one hand he gently disclosed the lips of that
luscious mouth of nature, whilst with the other, he  stooped
his mighty machine to its lure, from the height of his stiff
stand-up towards his belly; the lips, kept open by his fin-
gers, received its broad shelving head of coral hue: and
when he had nestled it in, he hovered there a little, and
the girls then deliver'd over to his hips the agreeable
office of supporting her thighs; and now, as if meant to spin
out his pleasure, and give it the more play for its life, he
passed up his instrument so slow that we lost sight of it
inch by inch, till at length it was wholly taken into the
soft laboratory of love, and the mossy mounts of each fairly
met together.  In the mean time, we could plainly mark the
prodigious effect the progressions of this delightful energy
wrought in this delicious girl, gradually heightening her
beauty as they heightened her pleasure.  Her countenance and
whole frame grew more animated; the faint blush of her cheeks,
gaining ground on the white, deepened into a florid vivid
vermilion glow, her naturally brilliant eyes now sparkled
with ten-fold lustre; her languor was vanish'd, and she
appeared, quick spirited, and alive all over.  He now fixed,
nailed, this tender creature with his home-driven wedge, so
that she lay passive by force, and unable to stir, till
beginning to play a strain of arms against this vein of
delicacy, as he urged the to-and-fro confriction, he awaken'd,
rous'd, and touch'd her so to the heart, that unable to
contain herself, she could not but reply to his motions as
briskly as her nicety of frame would admit of, till the
raging stings of the pleasure rising towards the point, made
her wild with the intolerable sensations of it, and she now
threw her legs and arms about at random, as she lay lost in
the sweet transport; which on his side declared itself by
quicker, eager thrusts, convulsive gasps, burning sighs,
swift laborious breathings, eyes darting humid fires: all
faithful tokens of the imminent approaches of the last gasp
of joy.  It came on at length: the baronet led the extasy,
which she critically joined in, as she felt the melting
symptoms from him, in the nick of which glewing more ardently
than ever his lips to hers, he shewed all the signs of that
agony of bliss being strong upon him, in which he gave her
the finishing titillation; inly thrill'd with which, we saw
plainly that she answered it down with all effusion of spirit
and matter she was mistress of, whilst a general soft shudder
ran through all her limbs, which she gave a stretch-out of,
and lay motionless, breathless, dying with dear delight; and
in the height of its expression, shewing, through the nearly
closed lids of her eyes, just the edges of their black, the
rest being rolled strongly upwards in their extasy; then her
sweet mouth appear'd languishingly open, with the tip of her
tongue leaning negligently towards the lower range of her
white teeth, whilst the natural ruby colour of her lips
glowed with heightened life.  Was not this a subject to
dwell upon?  And accordingly her lover still kept on her,
with an abiding delectation, till compressed, squeezed and
distilled to the last drop, he took leave with one fervent
kiss, expressing satisfy'd desires, but unextinguish'd love.

     As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down
on the couch by her, rais'd her head, which she declin'd
gently, and hung on my bosom, to hide her blushes and con-
fusion at what had pass'd, till by degrees she recomposed
herself and accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my
spark, who had left me to fetch it her, whilst her own was
re-adjusting his affairs and buttoning up; after which he
led her, leaning languishingly upon him, to our stand of
view round the couch.

     And now Emily's partner had taken her out for her
share in the dance, when this transcendently fair and sweet
tempered creature readily stood up; and if a complexion to
put the rose and lily out of countenance, extreme pretty
features, and that florid health and bloom for which the
country-girls are so lovely, might pass her for a beauty,
this she certainly was, and one ot the most striking of the
fair ones.

     Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disengage her
breasts, and restore them to the liberty of nature, from the
easy confinement of no more than a pair of jumps; but on
their coming out to view, we thought a new light was added
to the room, so superiourly shining was their whiteness;
then they rose in so happy a swell as to compose her a well-
formed fulness of bosom, that had such an effect on the eye
as to seem flesh hardening into marble, of which it emulated
the polished gloss, and far surpassed even the whitest, in
the life and lustre of its colours, white veined with blue.
Refrain who could from such provoking enticements to it in
reach?  He touched her breasts, first lightly, when the
glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his hand, and made it
slip along the surface; he press'd them, and the springy
flesh that filled them thus pitted by force, rose again
reboundingly with his hand, and on the instant effac'd the
pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of all those
parts of her body throughout, where the fulness of flesh
compacts and constitutes all that fine firmness which the
touch is so highly attach'd to.  When he had thus largely
pleased himself with this branch of dalliance and delight,
he truss'd up her petticoat and shift in a wisp to her waist,
where being tuck'd in, she stood fairly naked on every side;
a blush at this overspread her lovely face, and her eyes down
cast to the ground seemed to be for quarter, when she had so
great a right to triumph in all the treasures of youth and
beauty that she now so victoriously display'd.  Her legs were
perfectly well shaped and her thighs, which she kept pretty
close, shewed so white, so round, so substantial and abound-
ing in firm flesh, that nothing could offer a stronger recom-
mendation to the luxury of the touch, which he accordingly
did not fail to indulge himself in.  Then gently removing her
hand, which in the first emotion of natural modesty she had
carried thither, he gave us rather a glimpse than a view of
that soft narrow chink running its little length downwards
and hiding the remains of it between her thighs; but plain
was to be seen the fringe of light-brown curls, in beauteous
growth over it, that with their silky gloss created a pleas-
ing variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too,
their gentle embrowning shade, considerably raised.  Her
spark then endeavoured, as she stood, by disclosing her
thighs, to gain us a completer sight of that central charm
of attraction, but not obtaining it so conveniently in that
attitude, he led her to the foot of the couch, and bringing
to it one of the pillows, gently inclin'd her head down, so
that as she leaned with it over her crossed hands, strad-
dling with her thighs wide spread, and jutting her body out,
she presented a full back view of her person, naked to the
waist.  Her posteriours, plump, smooth, and prominent,
form'd luxuriant tracts of animated snow, that splendidly
filled the eye, till it was commanded down the parting or
separation of those exquisitely white cliffs, by their
narrow vale, and was there stopt, and attracted by the em-
bowered bottom-cavity, that terminated this delightful
vista and stood moderately gaping from the influence of her
bended posture, so that the agreeable, interior red of the
sides of the orifice came into view, and with respect to
the white that dazzled round it, gave somewhat the idea of
a pink slash in the glossiest white satin.  Her gallant,
who was a gentleman about thirty, somewhat inclin'd to a
fatness that was in no sort displeasing, improving the hint
thus tendered him of this mode of enjoyment, after settling
her well in this posture, and encouraging her with kisses
and caresses to stand him through, drew out his affair ready
erected, and whose extreme length, rather disproportion'd to
its breadth, was the more surprizing, as that excess is not
often the case with those of his corpulent habit; making
then the right and direct application, he drove it up to the
guard, whilst the round bulge of those Turkish beauties of
her's tallying with the hollow made with the bent of his
belly and thighs, as they curved inwards, brought all those
parts, surely not undelightfully, into warm touch, and close
conjunction; his hands he kept passing round her body, and
employed in toying with her enchanting breasts.  As soon too
as she felt him at home as he could reach, she lifted her
head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck, without
much straining, but her cheeks glowing with the deepest scar-
let, and a smile of the tenderest satisfaction, met the kiss
he press'd forward to give her as they were thus close joined
together: when leaving him to pursue his delights, she hid
again her face and blushes with her hands and pillow, and
thus stood passively and as favourably too as she could,
whilst he kept laying at her with repeated thrusts and making
the meeting flesh on both sides resound again with the vio-
lence of them; then ever as he backen'd from her, we could
see between them part of his long whitestaff foamingly in
motion, till, as he went on again and closed with her, the
interposing hillocks took it out of sight.  Sometimes he took
his hands from the semi-globes of her bosoms, and transferred
the pressure of them to those larger ones, the present sub-
jects of his soft blockade, which he squeez'd, grasp'd and
play'd with, till at length a pursuit of driving, so hotly
urged, brought on the height of the fit, with such overpower-
ing pleasure, that his fair partner became, now necessary to
support him, panting, fainting and dying as he discharged;
which she no sooner felt the killing sweetness of, than un-
able to keep her legs, and yielding to the mighty intoxica-
tion, she reeled, and falling forward on the couch, made it
a necessity for him, if he would preserve the warm pleasure-
hold, to fall upon her, where they perfected, in a continued
conjunction of body and extatic flow, their scheme of joys
for that time.

     As soon as he had disengag'd, the charming Emily got up,
and we crowded round her with congratulations and other offi-
cious little services; for it is to be noted, that though all
modesty and reserve were banished from the transaction of
these pleasures, good manners and politeness were inviolably
observ'd: here was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude
behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their
compliance with the humours and desires of the men.  On the
contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and
soften the sense of their condition to them.  Men know not
in general how much they destroy of their own pleasure, when
they break through the respect and tenderness due to our sex,
and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them.  And
this was a maxim perfectly well understood by these polite
voluptuaries, these profound adepts in the great art and sci-
ence of pleasure, who never shew'd these votaries of theirs a
more tender respect than at the time of those exercises of
their complaisance, when they unlock'd their treasures of
concealed beauty, and shewed out in the pride of their native
charms, ever-more touching surely than when they paraded it
in the artificial ones of dress and ornament.

     The frolick was now come round to me, and it being my
turn of subscription to the will and pleasure of my particu-
lar elect, as well as to that of the company, he came to me,
and saluting me very tenderly, with a flattering eagerness,
put me in mind of the compliances my presence there author-
iz'd the hopes of, and at the same time repeated to me that
if all this force of example had not surmounted any repug-
nance I might have to concur with the humours and desires of
the company, that though the play was bespoke for my benefit,
and great as his own private disappointment might be, he
would suffer any thing, sooner than be the instrument of im-
posing a disagreeable task on me.

     To this I answered, without the least hesitation or
mincing grimace, that had I not even contracted a kind of
engagement to be at his disposal without the least reserve,
the example of such agreeable companions would alone deter-
mine me and that I was in no pain about any thing but my
appearing to so great a disadvantage after such superior
beauties.  And take notice that I thought as I spoke.  The
frankness of the answer pleas'd them all; my particular was
complimented on his acquisition, and, by way of indirect
flattery to me, openly envied.

     Mrs. Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater
mark of her regard than in managing for me the choice of this
young gentleman for my master of the ceremonies: for, inde-
pendent of his noble birth and the great fortune he was heir
to, his person was even uncommonly pleasing, well shaped and
tall; his face mark'd with the small-pox, but no more than
what added a grace of more manliness to features rather turn-
ed to softness and delicacy, was marvellously enliven'd by
eyes which were of the clearest sparkling black; in short, he
was one whom any woman would, in the familiar style, readily
call a very pretty fellow.

     I was now handed by him to the cock-pit of our match,
where, as I was dressed in nothing but a white morning gown,
he vouchsafed to play the male-Abigail on this occasion, and
spared me the confusion that would have attended the forward-
ness of undressing myself: my gown then was loosen'd in a
trice, and I divested of it; my stay next offered an obstacle
which readily gave way, Louisa very readily furnishing a pair
of scissors to cut the lace; off went that shell and dropping
my upper-coat, I was reduced to my under one and my shift,
the open bosom of which gave the hands and eyes all the lib-
erty they could wish.  Here I imagin'd the stripping was to
stop, but I reckoned short: my spark, at the desire of the
rest, tenderly begged that I would not suffer the small re-
mains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole
person; and for me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dis-
pute any point with them, and who considered the little more
that remain'd as very immaterial, I readily assented to what-
ever he pleased.  In an instant, then, my under-petticoat was
untied and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so
that my cap, slightly fasten'd, came off with it, and brought
all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered without
vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly ring-
lets, over my neck and shoulders, to the not unfavourable
set-off of my skin.

     I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature,
to whom I could not appear a very disagreeable figure, if you
please to recollect what I have before said of my person,
which time, that at certain periods of life robs us every
instant of our charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly
improved into full and open bloom, for I wanted some months
of eighteen.  My breasts, which in the state of nudity are
ever capital points, now in no more than in graceful pleni-
tude, maintained a firmness and steady independence of any
stay or support that dared and invited the test of the touch.
Then I was as tall, as slim-shaped as could be consistent
with all that juicy plumpness of flesh, ever the most grate-
ful to the senses of sight and touch, which I owed to the
health and youth of my constitution.  I had not, however, so
thoroughly renounc'd all innate shame as not to suffer great
confusion at the state I saw myself in; but the whole troop
round me, men and women, relieved me with every mark of ap-
plause and satisfaction, every flattering attention to raise
and inspire me with even sentiments of pride on the figure I
made, which, my friend gallantly protested, infinitely out-
shone all other birthday finery whatever; so that had I leave
to set down, for sincere, all the compliments these connois-
seurs overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter
myself with having pass'd my examination with the approbation
of the learned.

     My friend however, who for this time had alone the dis-
posal of me, humoured their curiosity, and perhaps his own,
so far that he placed me in all the variety of postures and
lights imaginable, pointing out every beauty under every as-
pect of it, not without such parentheses of kisses, such in-
flammatory liberties of his roving hands, as made all shame
fly before them, and a blushing glow give place to a warmer
one of desire, which led me even to find some relish in the
present scene.

     But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most
material spot of me was not excus'd the strictest visitation;
nor was it but agreed, that I had not the least reason to be
diffident of passing even for a maid, on occasion: so incon-
siderable a flaw had my preceding adventures created there,
and so soon had the blemish of an over-stretch been repaired
and worn out at my age, and in my naturally small make in
that part.

     Now, whether my partner had exhausted all the modes of
regaling the touch or sight, or whether he was now ungovern-
ably wound up to strike, I know not; but briskly throwing off
his clothes, the prodigious heat bred by a close room, a
great fire, numerous candles, and even the inflammatory
warmth of these scenes, induced him to lay aside his shirt
too, when his breeches, before loosen'd, now gave up their
contents to view, and shew'd in front the enemy I had to en-
gage with, stiffly bearing up the port of its head unhooded,
and glowing red.  Then I plainly saw what I had to trust to:
it was one of those just true-siz'd instruments, of which
the masters have a better command than the more unwieldy,
inordinate siz'd ones are generally under.  Straining me
then close to his bosom, as he stood up fore-right against
me and applying to the obvious niche its peculiar idol, he
aimed at inserting it, which, as I forwardly favoured, he
effected at once by canting up my thighs over his naked hips,
and made me receive every inch, and close home; so that stuck
upon the pleasure-pivot, and clinging round his neck, in
which and in his hair I hid my face, burningly flushing with
my present feelings as much as with shame, my bosom glew'd to
his; he carried me once round the couch, on which he then,
without quitting the middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid
me down, and began the pleasure-grist.  But so provokingly
predisposed and primed as we were, by all the moving sights
of the night, our imagination was too much heated not to melt
us of the soonest: and accordingly, I no sooner felt the warm
spray darted up my inwards from him, but I was punctually on
flow, to share the momentary extasy; but I had yet greater
reason to boast of out harmony: for finding that all the
flames of desire were not yet quench'd within me, but that
rather, like wetted coals, I glowed the fiercer for this
sprinkling, my hot-mettled spark, sympathizing with me, and
loaded for a double fire, recontinu'd the sweet battery with
undying vigour; greatly pleas'd at which I gratefully endea-
voured to accommodate all my motions to his best advantage
and delight; kisses, squeezes, tender murmurs, all came into
play, till our joys, growing more turbulent and riotous,
threw us into a fond disorder, and as they raged to a point,
bore us far from ourselves into an ocean of boundless plea-
sures, into which we both plunged together in a transport of
taste.  Now all the impressions of burning desire, from the
lively scenes I had been spectatress of, ripened by the heat
of this exercise, and collecting to a head, throbb'd and agi-
tated me with insupportable irritations: I did not now enjoy
a calm of reason enough to perceive, but I extatically, in-
deed, felt the power of such rare and exquisite provocatives,
as the examples of the night had proved towards thus exalting
our pleasures: which, with great joy, I sensibly found my
gallant shared in, by his nervous and home expressions of it:
his eyes flashing eloquent flames, his action infuriated with
the stings of it, all conspiring to rise my delight by assur-
ing me of his.  Lifted then to the utmost pitch of joy that
human life can bear,undestroyed by excess, I touch'd that
sweetly critical point, whence scarce prevented by the injec-
tion from my partner, I dissolved, and breaking out into a
deep drawn sigh, sent my whole sensitive soul down to that
passage where escape was denied it, by its being so delici-
ously plugged and chok'd up.  Thus we lay a few blissful in-
stants, overpowered, still, and languid; till, as the sense
of pleasure stagnated, we recover'd from out trance, and he
slipt out of me, not however before he had protested his ex-
treme satisfaction by the tenderest kiss and embrace, as well
as by the most cordial expressions.

     The company, who had stood round us in a profound
silence, when all was over, help'd me to hurry on my cloaths
in an instant, and complimented me on the sincere homage
they could not escape observing had been done (as they
termed it) to the sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving
a double payment of tribute at one juncture.  But my partner,
now dress'd again, signaliz'd, above all, a fondness unbated
by the circumstance of recent enjoyment; the girls too kiss'd
and embraced me, assuring me that for that time, or indeed
any other, unless I pleased, I was to go thro' no farther
publick trials, and that I was now consummatedly initiated,
and one of them.

     As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to
his partner, for the night especially, and even till he
relinquish'd possession over to the community, in order to
preserve a pleasing property and to avoid the disgusts and
indelicacy of another arrangement, the company, after a short
refection of biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served in
at now about one in the morning, broke up, and went off in
pairs.  Mrs. Cole had prepared my spark and me an occasional
field-bed, to which we retir'd, and there ended the night in
one continued strain of pleasure, sprightly and uncloy'd
enough for us not to have formed one wish for its ever knowing
an end.  In the morning, after a restorative breakfast in bed,
he got up, and with very tender assurances of a particular
regard for me, left me to the composure and refreshment of a
sweet slumber; waking out of which, and getting up to dress
before Mrs. Cole should come in, I found in one of my pockets
a purse of guineas, which he had slipt there; and just as I
was musing on a liberality I had certainly not expected, Mrs.
Cole came in, to whom I immediately communicated the present,
and naturally offered her whatever share she pleas'd: but
assuring me that the gentleman had very nobly rewarded her,
she would on no terms, no entreaties, no shape I could put it
in, receive any part of it.  Her denial, she observed, was
not affectation of grimace, and proceeded to read me such
admirable lessons on the economy of my person and my purse as
I became amply paid for my general attention and conformity
to in the course of my acquaintance with the town.  After
which, changing the discourse, she fell on the pleasures of
the preceding night, where I learn'd, without much surprize,
as I began to enter on her character, that she had seen every
thing that had passed, from a convenient place managed solely
for that purpose, and of which she readily made me the
confidante.

     She had scarce finish'd this, when the little troop of
love, the girls my companions, broke in and renewed their
compliments and caresses.  I observed with pleasure that the
fatigues and exercises of the night had not usurped in the
least on the life of their complexion, or the freshness of
their bloom: this I found, by their confession, was owing to
the management and advice of our rare directress.  They went
down then to figure it, as usual, in the shop, whilst I
repair'd to my lodgings, where I employed myself till I
returned to dinner at Mrs. Cole's.

     Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other
of these charming girls, till about five in the evening; when
seiz'd with a sudden drowsy fit, I was prevailed on to go up
and doze it off on Harriet's bed, who left me on it to my
repose.  There then I lay down in my cloaths and fell fast
asleep, and had now enjoyed, by guess, about an hour's rest,
when I was pleasingly disturbed by my new and favourite gal-
lant, who, enquiring for me, was readily directed where to
find me.  Coming then into my chamber, and seeing me lie
alone, with my face turn'd from the light towards the inside
of the bed, he, without more ado, just slipped off his
breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment of the naked
touch; and softly turning up my petticoat and shift behind,
opened the prospect of the back avenue to the genial seat of
pleasure; where, as I lay at my side length, inclining rather
face downward, I appeared full fair, and liable to be entered.
/Laying himself then gently down by me, he invested me behind,
and giving me to feel the warmth of his body as he applied
his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of that
machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in
it, to make its way good into me.  I wak'd pretty much star-
tled at first, but seeing who it was, disposed myself to turn
to him, when he gave me a kiss, and desiring me to keep my
posture, just lifted up my upper thigh, and ascertaining the
right opening, soon drove it up to the farthest: satisfied
with which, and solacing himself with lying so close in those
parts, he suspended motion, and thus steeped in pleasure,
kept me lying on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he
term'd it, from the snug indent of the back part of my thighs,
and all upwards, into the space of the bending between his
thighs and belly; till, after some time, that restless and
turbulent inmate, impatient by nature of longer quiet, urg'd
him to action, which now prosecuting with all the usual train
of toying, kissing, and the like, ended at length in the
liquid proof on both sides, that we had not exhausted, or at
least were quickly recruited of last night's draughts of
pleasure in us.

     With this noble and agreeable youth liv'd I in perfect
joy and constancy.  He was full bent on keeping me to himself,
for the honey-month at least; but his stay in London was not
even so long, his father, who had a post in Ireland, taking
him abruptly with him on his repairing thither.  Yet even then
I was near keeping hold of his affection and person, as he had
propos'd, and I had consented to follow him in order to go to
Ireland after him, as soon as he could be settled there; but
meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in that king-
dom, he chose the wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but
at the same time took care that I should receive a very magni-
ficent present, which did not however compensate for all my
deep regret on my loss of him.

     This event also created a chasm in our little society,
which Mrs. Cole, on the foot of her usual caution, was in no
haste to fill up; but then it redoubled her attention to pro-
cure me, in the advantages of a traffic for a counterfeit
maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of widowhood I had
been left in; and this was a scheme she had never lost pro-
spect of, and only waited for a proper person to bring it to
bear with.

     But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this,
as I had been in my first trial of the market.

     I had now pass'd near a month in the enjoyment of all
the pleasures of familiarity and society with my companions,
whose particular favourites (the baronet excepted, who soon
after took Harriet home) had all, on the terms of community
establish'd in the house, solicited the gratification of
their taste for variety in my embraces; but I had with the
utmost art and address, on various pretexts, eluded their
pursuit, without giving them cause to complain; and this
reserve I used neither out of dislike of them, or disgust of
the thing, but my true reason was my attachment to my own,
and my tenderness of invading the choice of my companions,
who outwardly exempt, as they seem'd, from jealousy, could
not but in secret like me the better for the regard I had
for, without making a merit of it to them.  Thus easy, and
beloved by the whole family, did I go on; when one day, that,
about five in the afternoon, I stepped over to a fruiterer's
shop in Covent Garden, to pick some table fruit for myself
and the young women, I met with the following adventure.

     Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I ob-
serv'd myself follow'd by a young gentleman, whose rich
dress first attracted my notice; for the rest, he had no-
thing remarkable in his person, except that he was pale,
thin-made, and ventur'd himself upon legs rather of the
slenderest.  Easy was it to perceive, without seeming to
perceive it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping
his eyes fixed on me, till he came to the same basket that
I stood at, and cheapening, or rather giving the first
price ask'd for the fruit, began his approaches.  Now most
certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a modest
girl.  I had neither the feathers nor fumet of a taudry town-
miss: a straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all,
a certain natural and easy air of modesty (which the appear-
ances of never forsook me, even on those occasions that I
most broke in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave
him no opening to conjecture my condition.  He spoke to me;
and this address from a stranger throwing a blush into my
cheeks that still set him wider off the truth, I answered
him with an aukwardness and confusion the more apt to impose,
as there was really a mixture of the genuine in them.  But
when proceeding, on the foot of having broken the ice, to
join discourse, he went into other leading questions, I put
so much innocence, simplicity, and even childishness into my
answers that on no better foundation, liking my person as he
did, I will answer for it, he would have been sworn for my
modesty.  There is, in short, in the men, when once they are
caught, by the eye especially, a fund of cullibility that
their lordly wisdom little dreams of, and in virtue of which
the most sagacious of them are seen so often our dupes.
Amongst other queries he put to me, one was whether I was
married.  I replied that I was too young to think of that
this many a year.  To that of my age, I answered, and sunk
a year upon him, passing myself for not seventeen.  As to my
way of life, I told him I had serv'd an apprenticeship to a
milliner in Preston, and was come to town after a relation,
that I had found, on my arrival, was dead, and now liv'd
journey-woman to a milliner in town.  That last article,
indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass
for; but it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I
had inspir'd him with.  After he had next got out of me,
very dextrously as he thought, what I had no sort of design
to make reserve of, my own, my mistress's name, and place of
abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the rarest and dearest
he could pick out, and sent me home, pondering on what might
be the consequence of this adventure.

     As soon then as I came to Mrs. Cole's, I related to her
all that passed, on which she very judiciously concluded
that if he did not come after me there was no harm done, and
that, if he did, as her presage suggested to her he would,
his character and his views should be well sifted, so as to
know whether the game was worth the springs; that in the mean
time nothing was easier than my part in it, since no more
rested on me than to follow her cue and promptership through-
out, to the last act.

     The next morning, after an evening spent on his side, as
we afterwards learnt, in perquisitions into Mrs. Cole's char-
acter in the neighbourhood (than which nothing could be more
favourable to her design upon him), my gentleman came in his
chariot to the shop, where Mrs. Cole alone had an inkling of
his errand.  Asking then for her, he easily made a beginning
of acquaintance by be-speaking some millinery ware: when, as
I sat without lifting up my eyes, and pursuing the hem of a
ruffle with the utmost composure and simplicity of industry,
Mrs. Cole took notice that the first impressions I made on
him ran no risk of being destroyed by those of Louisa and
Emily, who were then sitting at work by me.  After vainly
endeavouring to catch my eyes in re-encounter with his (as I
held my head down, affecting a kind of consciousness of guilt
for having, by speaking to him, given him encouragement and
means of following me), and after giving Mrs. Cole direction
when to bring the things home herself, and the time he should
expect them, he went out, taking with him some goods that he
paid for liberally, for the better grace of his introduction.




                          Part 8

     The girls all this time did not in the least smoke the
mystery of this new customer; but Mrs. Cole, as soon as we
were conveniently alone, insur'd me, in virtue of her long
experience in these matters, that for this bout my charms had
not miss'd fire; for that by his eagerness, his manner and
looks, she was sure he had it: the only point now in doubt
was his character and circumstances, which her knowledge of
the town would soon gain her sufficient acquaintance with, to
take her measures upon.

     And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence serv'd
her so well that she learn'd that this conquest of mine was
no other than Mr. Norbert, a gentleman originally of great
fortune, which, with a constitution naturally not the best,
he had vastly impaired by his over-violent pursuit of the
vices of the town; in the course of which, having worn out
and stal'd all the more common modes of debauchery, he had
fallen into a taste of maiden-hunting; in which chase he had
ruin'd a number of girls, sparing no expence to compass his
ends, and generally using them well till tired, or cool'd by
enjoyment, or springing a new face, he could with more ease
disembarrass himself of the old ones, and resign them to
their fate, as his sphere of achievements of that sort lay
only amongst such as he could proceed with by way of bargain
and sale.

     Concluding from these premises, Mrs. Cole observ'd that
a character of this sort was ever a lawful prize; that the
sin would be, not to make the best of our market of him; and
that she thought such a girl as I only too good for him at
any rate, and on any terms.

     She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in
one of our inns of court, which were furnished in a taste of
grandeur that had a special eye to all the conveniences of
luxury and pleasure.  Here she found him in ready waiting;
and after finishing her pretence of business, and a long
circuit of discussions concerning her trade, which she said
was very bad, the qualities of her servants, 'prentices,
journey-women, the discourse naturally landed at length on
me, when Mrs. Cole, acting admirably the good old prating
gossip, who lets every thing escape her when her tongue is
set in motion, cooked him up a story so plausible of me,
throwing in every now and then such strokes of art, with all
the simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and tem-
per, as finished him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing
could be better counterfeited than her innocence of his.  But
when now fired and on edge, he proceeded to drop hints of his
design and views upon me, after he had with much confusion
and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long aloof
from as she thought proper) of understanding him, without now
affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying out
into those violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck
with the better grace and effect to the character of a plain,
good sort of a woman, that knew no harm, and that getting her
bread in an honest way, was made of stuff easy and flexible
enough to be wrought upon to his ends, by his superior skill
and address; but, however, she managed so artfully that three
or four meetings took place before he could obtain the least
favourable hope of her assistance; without which, he had, by
a number of fruitless messages, letters, and other direct
trials of my disposition, convinced himself there was no
coming at me, all which too rais'd at once my character and
price with him.

     Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties
to such a length as might afford time for starting discov-
eries, or incidents, unfavourable to her plan, she at last
pretended to be won over by mere dint of entreaties, pro-
mises, and, above all, by the dazzling sum she took care to
wind him up to the specification of, when it was now even a
piece of art to feign, at once, a yielding to the allurements
of a great interest, as a pretext for her yielding at all,
and the manner of it such as might persuade him she had never
dipp'd her virtuous fingers in an affair of that sort.

     Thus she led him through all the gradations of diffi-
culty, and obstacles, necessary to enhance the balue of the
prize he aim'd at; and in conclusion, he was so struck with
the little beauty I was mistress of, and so eagerly bent on
gaining his ends of me, that he left her even no room to
boast of her management in bringing him up to her mark, he
drove so plum of himself into every thing tending to make him
swallow the bait.  Not but, in other respects, Mr. Norbert
was not clear sighted enough, or that he did not perfectly
know the town, and even by experience, the very branch of
imposition now in practice upon him: but we had his passion
our friend so much, he was so blinded and hurried on by it,
that he would have thought any undeception a very ill office
done to his pleasure.  Thus concurring, even precipitately,
to the point she wanted him at, Mrs. Cole brought him at last
to hug himself on the cheap bargain he consider'd the pur-
chase of my imaginary jewel was to him, at no more than three
hundred guineas to myself, and a hundred to the brokeress:
being a slender recompense for all her pains, and all the
scruples of conscience she had now sacrificed to him for this
the first time of her life; which sums were to be paid down
on the nail, upon livery of my person, exclusive of some no
inconsiderable presents that had been made in the course of
the negotiation: during which I had occasionally, but spar-
ingly been introduc'd inbto his company, at proper times and
hours; in which it is incredible how little it seem'd neces-
sary to strain my natural disposition to modesty higher, in
order to pass it upon him for that of a very maid: all my
looks and gestures ever breathing nothing but that innocence
which the men so ardently require in us, for no other end
than to feast themselves with the pleasures of destroying it,
and which they are so grievously, with all their skill, sub-
ject to mistakes in.

     When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed
on, the stipulated payments duly secur'd, and nothing now
remained but the execution of the main point, which center'd
in the surrender of my person up to his free disposal and
use, Mrs. Cole managed her objections, especially to his
lodgings, and insinuations so nicely, that it became his own
mere notion and urgent request that this copy of a wedding
should be finish'd at her house:  At first, indeed, she did
not care, said she, to have such doings in it . . . she
would not for a thousand pounds have any of the servants or
'prentices know it . . . her precious good name would be gone
forever--with the like excuses.  However, on superior objec-
tions to all other expedients, whilst she took care to start
none but those which were most liable to them, it came round
at last to the necessity of her obliging him in that conveni-
ency, and of doing a little more where she had already done
so much.

     The night then was fix'd, with all possible respect to
the eagerness of his impatience, and in the mean time Mrs.
Cole had omitted no instructions, nor even neglected any
preparation, that might enable me to come off with honour,
in regard to the appearance of my virginity, except that,
favour'd as I was by nature with all the narrowness of
stricture in that part requisite to conduct my designs, I
had no occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that
create a momentary one, easily discover'd by the test of a
warm bath; and as to the usual sanguinary symptoms of de-
floration, which, if not always, are generally attendants on
it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of her
own which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in
its place.

     Everything then being disposed and fix'd for Mr. Nor-
bert's reception, he was, at the hour of eleven at night,
with all the mysteries of silence and secrecy, let in by Mrs.
Cole herself, and introduced into her bed-chamber, where, in
an old-fashioned bed of her's, I lay, fully undressed, and
panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least with
those perhaps greater of a dissembled one which gave me an
air of confusion and bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all
the honour of, and was indeed scarce distinguishable from
it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover: so let
me call him, for I ever thought the term "cully" too cruel a
reproach to the men for their abused weakness for us.

     As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these
occasions, us'd to young women abandoned for the first time
to the will of man, had left us alone in her room, which, by-
the-bye, was well lighted up, at his previous desire, that
seemed to bode a stricter examination that he afterwards
made, Mr. Norbert, still dressed, sprung towards the bed,
where I got my head under the cloaths, and defended them a
good while before he could even get at my lips, to kiss them:
so true it is, that a false virtue, on this occasion, even
makes a greater rout and resistance than a true one.  From
thence he descended to my breasts, the feel I disputed tooth
and nail with him till, tired with my resistance, and think-
ing probably to give a better account of me, when got into
bed to me, the hurry'd his cloaths off in an instant, and
came into bed.

     Mean while, by the glimpse I stole of him, I could
easily discover a person far from promising any such doughty
performances as the storming of maidenheads generally re-
quires, and whose flimsy consumptive texture gave him more
the air of an invalid that was pressed, than of a volunteer,
on such hot service.

     At scarce thirty, he had already reduced his strength of
appetite down to a wretched dependence on forc'd provocatives,
very little seconded by the natural power of a body jaded and
racked off to the lees by constant repeated over-draughts of
pleasure, which had done the work of sixty winters on his
springs of life: leaving him at the same time all the fire
and heat of youth in his imagination, which served at once to
torment and spur him down the precipice.

     As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bed-cloaths,
which I suffered him to force from my hold, and I now lay as
expos'd as he could wish, not only to his attacks, but his
visitation of the sheets; where in the various agitations of
the body, through my endeavours to defend myself, he could
easily assure himself there was no preparation: though, to do
him justice, he seem'd a less strict examinant than I had
apprehended from so experienc'd a practitioner.  My shift
then he fairly tore open, finding I made too much use of it
to barricade my breasts, as well as the more important
avenue: yet in every thing else he proceeded with all the
marks of tenderness and regard to me, whilst the art of my
play was to shew none for him.  I acted then all the nice-
ties, apprehensions, and terrors supposable for a girl per-
fectly innocent to feel at so great a novelty as a naked man
in bed with her for the first time.  He scarce even obtained
a kiss but what he ravished; I put his hand away twenty times
from my breasts, where he had satisfied himself of their
hardness and consistence, with passing for hitherto unhandled
goods.  But when grown impatient for the main point, he now
threw himself upon me, and first trying to examine me with
his finger, sought to make himself further way, I complained
of his usage bitterly:  I thought he would not have serv'd a
body so . . . I was ruin'd . . . I did not know what I had
done . . . I would get up, so I would . . .; and at the same
time kept my thighs so fast locked, that it was not for
strength like his to force them open, or do any good.  Find-
ing thus my advantages, and that I had both my own and his
motions at command, the deceiving him came so easy that it
was perfectly playing upon velvet.  In the mean time his
machine, which was one of those sizes that slip in and out
without being minded, kept pretty stiffly bearing against
that part, which the shutting my thighs barr'd access to; but
finding, at length, he could do no good by mere dint of
bodily strength, he resorted to entreaties and arguments: to
which I only answer'd with a tone of shame and timidity, that
I was afraid he would kill me . . . Lord! . . ., I would not
be served so . . . I was never so used in all my born days .
. . I wondered he was not ashamed of himself, so I did . . .,
with such silly infantile moods of repulse and complaint as I
judged best adapted to the express the character of innocence
and affright.  Pretending, however, to yield at length to the
vehemence of his insistence, in action and words, I sparingly
disclosed my thighs, so that he could just touch the cloven
inlet with the tip of his instrument: but as he fatigued and
toil'd to get it in, a twist of my body, so as to receive it
obliquely, not only thwarted his admission, but giving a
scream, as if he had pierced me to the heart, I shook him off
me with such violence that he could not with all his might to
it, keep the saddle: vex'd indeed at this he seemed, but not
in the style of any displeasure with me for my skittishness;
on the contrary, I dare swear he held me the dearer, and
hugged himself for the difficulties that even hurt his
instant pleasure.  Fired, however, now beyond all bearance of
delay, he remounts and begg'd of me to have patience, strok-
ing and soothing me to it by all the tenderest endearments
and protestations of what he would moreover do for me; at
which, feigning to be something softened, and abating of the
anger that I had shewn at his hurting me so prodigiously, I
suffered him to lay my thighs aside, and make way for a new
trial; but I watched the directions and management of his
point so well, that no sooner was the orifice in the least
open to it, but I gave such a timely jerk as seemed to pro-
ceed not from the evasion of his entry, but from the pain his
efforts at it put me to: a circumstance too that I did not
fail to accompany with proper gestures, sighs and cries of
complaint, of which that he had hurt me . . . he kill'd me .
. . I should die . . ., were the most frequent interjections.
But now, after repeated attempts, in which he had not made
the least impression towards gaining his point, at least for
that time, the pleasure rose so fast upon him that he could
not check or delay it, and in the vigour and fury which the
approaches of the height of it inspir'd him, he made one
fierce thrust, that had almost put me by my guard, and
lodged it so far that I could feel the warm inspersion just
within the exterior orifice, which I had the cruelty not to
let him finish there, but threw him out again, not without a
most piercing loud exclamation, as if the pain had put me
beyond all regard of being overheard.  It was easy then to
observe that he was more satisfy'd, more highly pleased with
the supposed motives of his baulk of consummation, than he
would have been at the full attainment of it.  It was on
this foot that I solved to myself all the falsity I employed
to procure him that blissful pleasure in it, which most
certainly he would not have tasted in the truth of things.
Eas'd however, and relieved by one discharge, he now apply'd
himself to sooth, encourage and to put me into humour and
patience to bear his next attempt, which he began to prepare
and gather force for, from all the incentives of the touch
and sight which he could think of, by examining every indi-
vidual part of my whole body, which he declared his satis-
faction with in raptures of applauses, kisses universally
imprinted, and sparing no part of me, in all the eagerest
wantonness  of feeling, seeing, and toying.  His vigour how-
ever did not return so soon, and I felt him more than once
pushing at the door, but so little in a condition to break
in, that I question whether he had the power to enter, had I
held it ever so open; but this he then thought me too little
acquainted with the nature of things to have any regret or
confusion about, and he kept fatiguing himself and me for a
long time, before he was in any state to resume his attacks
with any prospect of success; and then I breath'd him so
warmly, and kept him so at bay, that before he had made any
sensible progress in point of penetration, he was deliciously
sweated, and weary'd out indeed: so that it was deep in the
morning before he achieved his second let-go, about half way
of entrance, I all the while crying and complaining of his
prodigious vigour, and the immensity of what I appear'd to
suffer splitting up with.  Tired, however, at length, with
such athletic drudgery, my champion began now to give out,
and to gladly embrace the refreshment of some rest.  Kissing
me then with much affection, and recommending me to my
repose, he presently fell fast asleep: which, as soon as I
had well satisfy'd myself of, I with much composure of body,
so as not to wake him by any motion, with much ease and
safety too, played of Mrs. Cole's advice for perfecting the
signs of my virginity.

     In each of the head bed-posts, just above where the bed-
steads are inserted into them, there was a small drawer, so
artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it
might have escap'd even the most curious search: which
drawers were easily open'd or shut by the touch of a spring,
and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a
prepared fluid blood, in which lay soak'd, for ready use, a
sponge that required no more than gently reaching the hand to
it, taking it out and properly squeezing between the thighs,
when it yielded a great deal more of the red liquid than
would save a girl's honour; after which, replacing it, and
touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of
suspicion, was taken away; and all this was not the work of
the fourth part of a minute, and on which ever side one lay,
the thing was equally easy and practicable, by the double
care taken to have each bed-post provided alike.  True it is,
that had he waked and caught me in the act, it would at least
have covered me with shame and confusion; but then, that he
did not, was, with the precautions I took, a risk of a thou-
sand to one in my favour.

     At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or sus-
picion on his side, I address'd myself in good earnest to my
repose, but could obtain none; and in about half an hour's
time my gentleman waked again, and turning towards me, I
feigned a sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but
girding himself again to renew the onset, he began to kiss
and caress me, when now making as if I just wak'd, I com-
plained of the disturbance, and of the cruel pain that this
little rest had stole my senses from.  Eager, however, for
the pleasure, as well of consummating an entire triumph over
my virginity, he said everything that could overcome my
resistance, and bribe my patience to the end, which not I was
ready to listen to, from being secure of the bloody proofs I
had prepared of his victorious violence, though I still
thought it good policy not to let him in yet a while.  I
answered then only to his importunities in sighs and moans
that I was so hurt, I could not bear it . . . I was sure he
had done me a mischief; that he had . . . he was such a sad
man!  At this, turning down the cloaths and viewing the field
of battle by the glimmer of a dying taper, he saw plainly my
thighs, shift, and sheets, all stained with what he readily
took for a virgin effusion, proceeding from his last half-
penetration: convinc'd, and transported at which, nothing
could equal his joy and exultation.  The illusion was com-
plete, no other conception entered his head but that of his
having been at work upon an unopen'd mine; which idea, upon
so strong an evidence, redoubled at once his tenderness for
me, and his ardour for breaking it wholly up.  Kissing me
then with the utmost rapture, he comforted me, and begg'd my
pardon for the pain he had put me to: observing withal, that
it was only a thing in course: but the worst was certainly
past, and that with a little courage and constancy, I should
get it once well over, and never after experience any thing
but the greatest pleasure.  By little and little I suffer'd
myself to be prevailed on, and giving, as it were, up the
point to him, I made my thighs, insensibly spreading them,
yield him liberty of access, which improving, he got a
little within me, when by a well managed reception I work'd
the female screw so nicely, that I kept him from the easy
mid-channel direction, and by dextrous wreathing and contor-
tions, creating an artificial difficulty of entrance, made
him win it inch by inch, with the most laborious struggles,
I all the while sorely complaining: till at length, with
might and main, winding his way in, he got it completely
home, and giving my virginity, as he thought, the coup de
grace, furnished me with the cue of setting up a terrible
outcry, whilst he, triumphant and like a cock clapping his
wings over his down-trod mistress, pursu'd his pleasure:
which presently rose, in virtue of this idea of a complete
victory, to a pitch that made me soon sensible of his melt-
ing period; whilst I now lay acting the deep wounded,breath-
less, frighten'd, undone, no longer maid.

     You would ask me, perhaps, whether all this time I
enjoy'd any perception of pleasure?  I assure you, little or
none, till just towards the latter end, a faintish sense of
it came on mechanically, from so long a struggle and frequent
fret in that ever sensible part; but, in the first place, I
had no taste for the person I was suffering the embraces of,
on a pure mercenary account; and then, I was not entirely
delighted with myself for the jade's part I was playing,
whatever excuses I might have to plead for my being brought
into it; but then this insensibility kept me so much the
mistress of my mind and motions, that I could the better
manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole scene of
deception.

     Recover'd at length to a more shew of life, by his ten-
der condolences, kisses and embraces, I upbraided him, and
reproach'd him with my ruin, in such natural terms as added
to his satisfaction with himself for having accomplish'd it;
and guessing, by certain observations of mine, that it would
be rather favourable to him, to spare him, when he some time
after, feebly enough, came on again to the assault, I reso-
lutely withstood any further endeavours, on a pretext that
flattered his prowess, of my being so violently hurt and sore
that I could not possibly endure a fresh trial.  He then gra-
ciously granted me a respite, and the next morning soon after
advancing, I got rid of further importunity, till Mrs. Cole,
being rang for by him, came in and was made acquainted, in
terms of the utmost joy and rapture, with his triumphant cer-
tainty of my virtue, and the finishing stroke he had given it
in the course of the night: of which, he added, she would see
proof enough in bloody characters on the sheets.

     You may guess how a woman of her turn of address and
experience humour'd the jest, and played him off with mixed
exclamations of shame, anger, compassion for me, and of her
being pleased that all was so well over: in which last, I
believe, she was certainly sincere.  And now, as the objec-
tion which she had represented as an invincible one, to my
lying the first night at his lodgings (which were studiously
calculated for freedom of intrigues), on the account of my
maiden fears and terrors at the thoughts of going to a
gentleman's chambers, and being alone with him in bed, was
surmounted, she pretended to persuade me, in favour to him,
that I should go there to him whenever he pleas'd, and still
keep up all the necessary appearances of working with her,
that I might not lose, with my character, the prospect of
getting a good husband, and at the same time her house would
be kept the safer from scandal.  All this seem'd so reason-
able, so considerate to Mr. Norbert, that he never once per-
ceived that she did not want him to resort to her house, lest
he might in time discover certain inconsistencies with the
character she had set out with to him: besides that, this
plan greatly flattered his own ease, and views of liberty.

     Leaving me then to my much wanted rest, he got up, and
Mrs. Cole, after settling with him all points relating to me,
got him undiscovered out of the house.  After which, as I was
awake, she came in and gave me due praises for my success.
Behaving too with her usual moderation and disinterestedness,
she refus'd any share of the sum I had thus earned, and put
me into such a secure and easy way of disposing of my af-
fairs, which now amounted to a kind of little fortune, that
a child of ten years old might have kept the account and
property of them safe in its hands.

     I was now restor'd again to my former state of a kept
mistress, and used punctually to wait on Mr. Norbert at his
chambers whenever he sent a messenger for me, which I con-
stantly took care to be in the way of, and manag'd with so
much caution that he never once penetrated the nature of my
connections with Mrs. Cole; but indolently given up to ease
and the town dissipations, the perpetual hurry of them hin-
der'd him from looking into his own affairs, much less to
mine.

     In the mean time, if I may judge from my own experience,
none are better paid, or better treated, during their reign,
than the mistresses of those who, enervate by nature, debauc-
heries, or age, have the least employment for the sex: sen-
sible that a woman must be satisfy'd some way, they ply her
with a thousand little tender attentions, presents, caresses,
confidences, and exhaust their inventions in means and de-
vices to make up for the capital deficiency; and even towards
lessening that, what arts, what modes, what refinements of
pleasure have they not recourse to, to raise their languid
powers, and press nature into the service of their sensu-
ality?  But here is their misfortune, that when by a course
of teasing, worrying, handling, wanton postures, lascivious
motions, they have at length accomplish'd a flashy enervate
enjoyment, they at the same time lighted up a flame in the
object of their passion, that, not having the means them-
selves to quench, drives her for relief into the next per-
son's arms, who can finish their work; and thus they become
bawds to some favourite, tried and approv'd of, for a more
vigourous and satisfactory execution; for with women, of our
turn especially, however well our hearts may be dispos'd,
there is a controlling part, or queen seat in us, that
governs itself by its own maxims of state, amongst which not
one is stronger, in practice with it, than, in the matter of
its dues, never to accept the will for the deed.

     Mr. Norbert, who was much in this ungracious case,
though he profess'd to like me extremely, could but seldom
consummate the main-joy itself with me, without such a length
and variety of preparations, as were at once wearisome and
inflammatory.

     Sometimes he would strip me stark naked on a carpet, by
a good fire, when he would contemplate me almost by the hour,
disposing me in all the figures and attitudes of body that it
was susceptible of being viewed in; kissing me in every part,
the most secret and critical one so far from excepted that it
received most of that branch of homage.  Then his touches
were so exquisitely wanton, so luxuriously diffus'd and pene-
trative at times, that he had made me perfectly rage with
titillating fires, when, after all, and with much ado, he had
gained a short-lived erection, he would perhaps melt it away
in a washy sweat, or a premature abortive effusion that pro-
vokingly mock'd my eager desires: or, if carried home, how
falter'd and unnervous the execution! how insufficient the
sprinkle of a few heat-drops to extinguish all the flames he
had kindled!

     One evening, I cannot help remembering that returning
home from him, with a spirit he had raised in a circle his
wand had prov'd too weak to lay, as I turn'd the corner of a
street, I was overtaken by a young sailor.  I was then in
that spruce, neat, plain dress which I ever affected, and
perhaps might have, in my trip, a certain air of restless-
ness unknown to the composure of cooler thoughts.  However,
he seiz'd me as a prize, and without farther ceremony threw
his arms round my neck and kiss'd me boisterously and
sweetly.  I looked at him with a beginning of anger and
indignation at his rudeness, that softened away into other
sentiments as I viewed him: for he was tall, manly carri-
aged, handsome of body and face, so that I ended my stare
with asking him, in a tone turn'd to tenderness, what he
meant; at which, with the same frankness and vivacity as he
had begun with me, he proposed treating me with a glass of
wine.  Now, certain it is, that had I been in a calmer state
of blood than I was, had I not been under the dominion of
unappeas'd irritations and desires, I should have refused
him without hesitation; but I do not know how it was, my
pressing calls, his figure, the occasion, and if you will,
the powerful combination of all these, with a start of
curiosity to see the end of an adventure, so novel too as
being treated like a common street-plyer, made me give a
silent consent; in short, it was not my head that I now
obeyed, I suffered myself to be towed along as it were by
this man-of-war, who took me under his arm as familiarly as
if he had known me all his life-time, and led me into the
next convenient tavern, where we were shewn into a little
room on one side of the passage.  Here, scarce allowing him-
self patience till the waiter brought in the wine call'd for,
he fell directly on board me: when, untucking my handker-
chief, and giving me a snatching buss, he laid my breasts
bare at once, which he handled with that keenness of lust
that abridges a ceremonial ever more tiresome than pleasing
on such pressing occasions; and now, hurrying towards the
main point, we found no conveniency to our purpose, two or
three disabled chairs and a rickety table composing the whole
furniture of the room.  Without more ado, he plants me with
my back standing against the wall, and my petticoats up; and
coming out with a splitter indeed, made it shine, as he
brandished it in my eyes; and going to work with an impetu-
osity and eagerness, bred very likely by a long fast at sea,
went ot give me a taste of it.  I straddled, I humoured my
posture, and did my best in short to buckle to it; I took
part of it in too, but still things did not go to his thor-
ough liking: changing then in a trice his system of battery,
he leads me to the table and with a master-hand lays my head
down on the edge of it, and, with the other canting up my
petticoats and shift, bares my naked posteriours to his blind
and furious guide; it forces its way between them, and I
feeling pretty sensibly that it was not going by the right
door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him
of it: -"Pooh!" says he, "my dear, any port in a storm."
Altering, however, directly his course, and lowering his
point, he fixed it right, and driving it up with a delicious
stiffness, made all foam again, and gave me the tout with
such fire and spirit, that in the fine disposition I was in
when I submitted to him, and stirr'd up so fiercely as I
was, I got the start of him, and went away into the melting
swoon, and squeezing him, whilst in the convulsive grasp of
it, drew from him such a plenteous bedewal as, join'd to my
own effusion, perfectly floated those parts, and drown'd in
a deluge all my raging conflagration of desire.

     When this was over, how to make my retreat was my con-
cern; for, though I had been so extremely pleas'd with the
difference between this warm broadside, pour'd so briskly
into me, and the tiresome pawing and toying to which I had
owed the unappeas'd flames that had driven me into this step,
now I was grown cooler, I began to apprehend the danger of
contracting an acquaintance with this, however agreeable,
stranger; who, on his side, spoke of passing the evening with
me and continuing our intimacy, with an air of determination
that made me afraid of its being not so easy to get away from
him as I could wish.  In the mean time I carefully conceal'd
my uneasiness, and readily pretended to consent to stay with
him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave
a necessary direction, and then instantly return.  This he
very glibly swallowed, on the notion of my being one of those
unhappy street-errants who devote themselves to the pleasure
of the first ruffian that will stoop to pick them up, and of
course, that I would scarce bilk myself of my hire, by my not
returning to make the most of the job.  Thus he parted with
me, not before, however, he had order'd in my hearing a
supper, which I had the barbarity to disappoint him of my
company to.

     But when I got home and told Mrs. Cole my adventure, she
represented so strongly to me the nature and dangerous conse-
quences of my folly, particularly the risks to my health, in
being so open-legg'd and free, that I not only took resolu-
tions never to venture so rashly again, which I inviolably
preserv'd, but pass'd a good many days in continual uneasi-
ness lest I should have met with other reasons, besides the
pleasure of that encounter, to remember it; but these fears
wronged my pretty sailor, for which I gladly make him this
reparation.

     I had now liv'd with Mr. Norbert near a quarter of a
year, in which space I circulated my time very pleasantly
between my amusements at Mrs. Cole's, and a proper attendance
on that gentleman, who paid me profusely for the unlimited
complaisance with which I passively humoured every caprice of
pleasure, and which had won upon him so greatly, that find-
ing, as he said, all that variety in me alone which he had
sought for in a number of women, I had made him lose his
taste for inconstancy, and new faces.  But what was yet at
least agreeable, as well as more flattering, the love I had
inspir'd him with bred a deference to me that was of great
service to his health: for having by degrees, and with most
pathetic representations, brought him to some husbandry of
it, and to insure the duration of his pleasures by moderat-
ing their use, and correcting those excesses in them he was
so addicted to, and which had shatter'd his constitution and
destroyed his powers of life in the very point for which he
seemed chiefly desirous, to live, he was grown more delicate,
more temperate, and in course more healthy; his gratitude
for which was taking a turn very favourable for my fortune,
when once more the caprice of it dash'd the cup from my lips.

     His sister, Lady L . . ., for whom he had a great affec-
tion, desiring him to accompany her down to Bath for her
health, he could not refuse her such a favour; and accord-
ingly, though he counted on staying away from me no more than
a week at farthest, he took his leave of me with an ominous
heaviness of heart, and left me a sum far above the state of
his fortune, and very inconsistent with the intended short-
ness of his journey; but it ended in the longest that can be,
and is never but once taken: for, arriv'd at Bath, he was not
there two days before he fell into a debauch of drinking with
some gentlemen, that threw him into a high fever and carry'd
him off in four days time, never once out of a delirium.  Had
he been in his senses to make a will, perhaps he might have
made favourable mention of me in it.  Thus, however, I lost
him; and as no condition of life is more subject to revolu-
tions than that of a woman of pleasure, I soon recover'd my
cheerfulness, and now beheld myself once more struck off the
list of kept-mistresses, and returned into the bosom of the
community from which I had been in some manner taken.

     Mrs. Cole still continuing her friendship, offered me
her assistance and advice towards another choice; but I was
now in ease and affluence enough to look about me at lei-
sure; and as to any constitutional calls of pleasure, their
pressure, or sensibility, was greatly lessen'd by a consci-
ousness of the ease with which they were to be satisfy'd at
Mrs. Cole's house, where Louisa and Emily still continu'd in
the old way; and by great favourite Harriet used often to
come and see me, and entertain me, with her head and heart
full of the happiness she enjoy'd with her dear baronet,
whom she loved with tenderness, and constancy, even though
he was her keeper, and what is yet more, had made her inde-
pendent, by a handsome provision for her and hers.  I was
then in this vacancy from any regular employ of my person, in
my way of business, when one day, Mrs. Cole, in the course of
the constant confidence we lived in, acquainted me that there
was one Mr. Barville, who used her house, just come to town,
whom she was not a little perplex'd about providing a suit-
able companion for; which was indeed a point of difficulty,
as he was under the tyranny of a cruel taste: that of an
ardent desire, not only of being unmercifully whipp'd him-
self, but of whipping others, in such sort, that tho' he paid
extravagantly those who had the courage and complaisance to
submit to his humour, there were few, delicate as he was in
the choice of his subjects, who would exchange turns with him
so terrible at the expense of their skin.  But, what yet in-
creased the oddity of this strange fancy was the gentleman
being young; whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as
are, through age, obliged to have recourse to this experi-
ment, for quickening the circulation of their sluggish
juices, and determining a conflux of the spirits of pleasure
towards those flagging, shrivelly parts, that rise to life
only by virtue of those titillating ardours created by the
discipline of their opposites, with which they have so sur-
prising a consent.

     This Mrs. Cole could not well acquaint me with, in any
expectation of my offering my service: for, sufficiently easy
as I was in my circumstances, it must have been the tempta-
tion of an immense interest indeed that could have induced me
to embrace such a job; neither had I ever express'd, nor in-
deed felt, the least impulse or curiosity to know more of a
taste that promis'd so much more pain than pleasure to those
that stood in no need of such violent goads: what then should
move me to subscribe myself voluntarily to a party of pain,
foreknowing it such?  Why, to tell the plain truth, it was a
sudden caprice, a gust of fancy for trying a new experiment,
mix'd with the vanity of proving my personal courage to Mrs.
Cole, that determined me, at all risks, to propose myself to
her, and relieve her from any farther lookout.  Accordingly,
I at once pleas'd and surpris'd her with a frank and unre-
served tender of my person to her, and her friend's absolute
disposal on this occasion.

     My good temporal mother was, however, so kind as to use
all the arguments she could imagine to dissuade me: but, as
I found they only turn'd on a motive of tnederness to me, I
persisted in my resolution, and thereby acquitted my offer of
any suspicion of its not having been sincerely made, or out
of compliment only.  Acquiescing then thankfully in it, Mrs.
Cole assur'd me that bating the pain I should be put to, she
had no scruple to engage me to this party, which she assur'd
me I should be liberally paid for, and which, the secrecy of
the transaction preserved safe from the ridicule that other-
wise vulgarly attended it; that for her part, she considered
pleasure, of one sort or other, as the universal port of
destination, and every wind that blew thither a good one,
provided it blew nobody any harm; that she rather compas-
sionated, than blam'd, those unhappy persons who are under a
subjection they cannot shake off, to those arbitrary tastes
that rule their appetites of pleasures with an unaccountable
control: tastes, too, as infinitely deversify'd, as superior
to, and independent of, all reasoning as the different re-
lishes or palates of mankind in their viands, some delicate
stomachs nauseating plain meats, and finding no savour but in
high-seasoned, luxurious dishes, whilst others again pique
themselves upon detesting them.

     I stood now in no need of this preamble of encourage-
ment, of justification: my word was given, and I was deter-
min'd to fulfil my engagements.  Accordingly the night was
set, and I had all the necessary previous instructions how to
act and conduct myself.  The dining-room was duly prepared
and lighted up, and the young gentleman posted there in wait-
ing, for my introduction to him.

     I was then, by Mrs. Cole, brought in, and presented to
him, in a loose dishabille fitted, by her direction, to the
exercise I was to go through, all in the finest linen and a
thorough white uniform: gown, petticoat, stockings, and satin
slippers, like a victim led to sacrifice; whilst my dark
auburn hair, falling in drop-curls over my neck, created a
pleasing distinction of colour from the rest of my dress.

     As soon as Mr. Barville saw me, he got up, with a visi-
ble air of pleasure and surprize, and saluting me, asked Mrs.
Cole if it was possible that so fine and delicate a creature
would voluntarily submit to such sufferings and rigours as
were the subject of his assignation.  She answer'd him pro-
perly, and now, reading in his eyes that she could not too
soon leave us together, she went out, after recommending to
him to use moderation with so tender a novice.

     But whilst she was employing his attention, mine had
been taken up with examining the figure and person of this
unhappy young gentleman, who was thus unaccountably condemn'd
to have his pleasure lashed into him, as boys have their
learning.

     He was exceedingly fair, and smooth complexion'd, and
appeared to me no more than twenty at most, tho' he was three
years older than what my conjectures gave him; but then he
ow'd this favourable mistake to a habit of fatness, which
spread through a short, squab stature, and a round, plump,
fresh-coloured face gave him greatly the look of a Bacchus,
had not an air of austerity, not to say sternness, very un-
suitable even to his shape of face, dash'd that character of
joy, necessary to complete the resemblance.  His dress was
extremely neat, but plain, and far inferior to the ample for-
tune he was in full possession of; this too was a taste in
him, and not avarice.

     As soon as Mrs. Cole was gone, he seated me near him,
when now his face changed upon me into an expression of the
most pleasing sweetness and good humour, the more remarkable
for its sudden shift from the other extreme, which, I found
afterwards, when I knew more of his character, was owing to
a habitual state of conflict with, and dislike of himself,
for being enslaved to so peculiar a gust, by the fatality of
a constitutional ascendant, that render'd him incapable of
receiving any pleasure till he submitted to these extraordi-
nary means of procuring it at the hands of pain, whilst the
constancy of this repining consciousness stamp'd at length
that cast of sourness and severity on his features: which
was, in fact, very foreign to the natural sweetness of his
temper.

     After a competent preparation by apologies, and en-
couragement to go through my part with spirit and constancy,
he stood up near the fire, whilst I went to fetch the in-
struments of discipline out of a closet hard by: these were
several rods, made each of two or three strong twigs of birch
tied together, which he took, handled, and view'd with as
much pleasure, as I did with a kind of shuddering presage.

     Next we took from the side of the room a long broad
bench, made easy to lie at length on by a soft cushion in a
callico-cover; and every thing being now ready, he took his
coat and waistcoat off; and at his motion and desire, I un-
button'd his breeches, and rolling up his shirt rather above
his waist, tuck'd it in securely there: when directing natur-
ally my eyes to that humoursome master-movement, in whose
favour all these dispositions were making, it seemed almost
shrunk into his body, scarce shewing its tip above the sprout
of hairy curls that cloathed those parts, as you may have
seen a wren peep its head out of the grass.

     Stooping then to untie his garters, he gave them me for
the use of tying him down to the legs of the bench: a cir-
cumstance no farther necessary than, as I suppose, it made
part of the humour of the thing, since he prescribed it to
himself, amongst the rest of the ceremonial.

     I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue,
play'd at forcing him to lie down: which, after some little
shew of reluctance, for form-sake, he submitted to; he was
straightway extended flat upon his belly, on the bench, with
a pillow under his face; and as he thus tamely lay, I tied
him slightly hand and foot, to the legs of it; which done,
his shirt remaining truss'd up over the small of his back, I
drew his breeches quite down to his knees; and now he lay,
in all the fairest, broadest display of that part of the
back-view; in which a pair of chubby, smooth-cheek'd and
passing white posteriours rose cushioning upwards from two
stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or separa-
tion by an union at the small of the back, presented a bold
mark, that swell'd, as it were, to meet the scourge.

     Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, and
according to his direction, gave him in one breath, ten
lashes with much good-will, and the utmost nerve and vigour
of arm that I could put to them, so as to make those fleshy
orbs quiver again under them; whilst he himself seem'd no
more concern'd, or to mind them, than a lobster would a flea-
bite.  In the mean time, I viewed intently the effects of
them, which to me at least appear'd surprisingly cruel: every
lash had skimmed the surface of those white cliffs, which
they deeply reddened, and lapping round the side of the fur-
thermost from me, cut specially, into the dimple of it such
livid weals, as the blood either spun out from, or stood in
large drops on; and, from some of the cuts, I picked out even
the splinters of the rod that had stuck in the skin.  Nor was
this raw work to be wonder'd at, considering the greenness of
the twigs and the severity of the infliction, whilst the
whole surface of his skin was so smooth-stretched over the
hard and firm pulp of flesh that fill'd it, as to yield no
play, or elusive swagging under the stroke: which thereby
took place the more plum, and cut into the quick.

     I was however already so mov'd at the piteous sight,
that I from my heart repented the undertaking, and would
willingly have given over, thinking he had full enough; but,
he encouraging and beseeching me earnestly to proceed, I gave
him ten more lashes; and then resting, survey'd the increase
of bloody appearances.  And at length, steel'd to the sight
by his stoutness in suffering, I continued the discipline, by
intervals, till I observ'd him wreathing and twisting his
body, in a way that I could plainly perceive was not the
effect of pain, but of some new and powerful sensation: curi-
ous to dive into the meaning of which, in one of my pauses of
intermission, I approached, as he still kept working, and
grinding his belly against the cushion under him; and, first
stroking the untouched and unhurt side of the flesh-mount
next me, then softly insinuating my hand under his thigh,
felt the posture things were in forwards, which was indeed
surprizing: for that machine of his, which I had, by its ap-
pearance, taken for an impalpable, or at best a very diminu-
tive subject, was now, in virtue of all that smart and havoc
of his skin behind, grown not only to a prodigious stiffness
of erection, but to a size that frighted even me: a non-
pareil thickness indeed! the head of it alone fill'd the ut-
most capacity of my grasp.  And when, as he heav'd and wrig-
gled to and fro, in the agitation of his strange pleasure,
it came into view, it had something of the air of a round
fillet of the whitest veal, and like its owner, squab, and
short in proportion to its breadth; but when he felt my hand
there, he begg'd I would go on briskly with my jerking, or he
should never arrive at the last stage of pleasure.

     Resuming then the rod and the exercise of it, I had
fairly worn out three bundles, when, after an increase of
struggles and motion, and a deep sigh or two, I saw him lie
still and motionless; and now he desir'd me to desist, which
I instantly did; and proceeding to untie him, I could not but
be amazed at his passive fortitude, on viewing the skin of
his butcher'd, mangled posteriours, late so white, smooth and
polish'd, now all one side of them a confused cut-work of
weals, livid flesh, gashes and gore, insomuch that when he
stood up, he could scarce walk; in short, he was in sweet-
briars.

     Then I plainly perceived, on the cushion, the marks of a
plenteous effusion, and already had his sluggard member run
up to its old nestling-place, and enforced itself again, as
if ashamed to shew its head; which nothing, it seems, could
raise but stripes inflicted on its opposite neighbours, who
were thus constantly obliged to suffer for his caprice.































































                          Part 9

     My gentleman had now put on his clothes and recomposed
himself, when giving me a kiss, and placing me by him, he sat
himself down as gingerly as possible, with one side off the
cushion, which was too sore for him to bear resting any part
of his weight on.

     Here he thank'd me for the extreme pleasure I had pro-
cured him, and seeing, perhaps, some marks in my countenance
of terror and apprehension of retaliation on my own skin, for
what I had been the instrument of his suffering in his, he
assured me, that he was ready to give up to me any engagement
I might deem myself under to stand him, as he had done me,
but if that proceeded in my consent to it, he would consider
the difference of my sex, its greater delicacy and incapacity
to undergo pain.  Rehearten'd at which, and piqu'd in honour,
as I thought, not to flinch so near the trial, especially as
I well knew Mrs. Cole was an eye-witness, from her stand of
espial, to the whole of our transactions, I was now less
afraid of my skin than of his not furnishing me with an oppor-
tunity of signalizing my resolution.

     Consonant to this disposition was my answer, but my
courage was still more in my head, than in my heart; and as
cowards rush into the danger they fear, in order to be the
sooner rid of the pain of that sensation, I was entirely
pleas'd with his hastening matters into execution.

     He had then little to do, but to unloose the strings of
my petticoats, and lift them, together with my shift, navel-
high, where he just tuck'd them up loosely girt, and might be
slipt up higher at pleasure.  Then viewing me round with
great seeming delight, he laid me at length on my face upon
the bench, and when I expected he would tie me, as I had done
him, and held out my hands, not without fear and a little
trembling, he told me he would by no means terrify me un-
necessarily with such a confinement; for that though he meant
to put my constancy to some trial, the standing it was to be
completely voluntary on my side, and therefore I might be at
full liberty to get up whenever I found the pain too much for
me.  You cannot imagine how much I thought myself bound, by
being thus allow'd to remain loose, and how much spirit this
confidence in me gave me, so that I was even from my heart
careless how much my flesh might suffer in honour of it.

     All by back parts, naked half way up, were now fully at
his mercy: and first, he stood at a convenient distance, de-
lighting himself with a gloating survey of the attitude I lay
in, and of all the secret stores I thus expos'd to him in
fair display.  Then, springing eagerly towards me, he cover'd
all those naked parts with a fond profusion of kisses; and
now, taking hold of the rod, rather wanton'd with me, in gen-
tle inflictions on those tender trembling masses of my flesh
behind, than in any way hurt them, till by degrees, he began
to tingle them with smarter lashes, so as to provoke a red
colour into them, which I knew, as well by the flagrant glow
I felt there, as by his telling me, they now emulated the
native roses of my other cheeks.  When he had thus amus'd
himself with admiring and toying with them, he went on to
strike harder, and more hard; so that I needed all my patience
not to cry out, or complain at least.  At last, he twigg'd me
so smartly as to fetch blood in more than one lash: at sight
of which he flung down the rod, flew to me, kissed away the
starting drops, and sucking the wounds eased a good deal of my
pain.  But now raising me on my knees, and making me kneel
with them straddling wide, that tender part of me, naturally
the province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share
of suffering: for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the
rod so that the sharp ends of the twigs lighted there, so
sensibly, that I could not help wincing, and writhing my
limbs with smart; so that my contortions of body must neces-
sarily throw it into infinite variety of postures and points
of view, fit to feast the luxury of the eye.  But still I
bore every thing without crying out: when presently giving me
another pause, he rush'd, as it were, on that part whose lips,
and round-about, had felt this cruelty, and by way of repara-
tion, glews his own to them; then he opened, shut, squeez'd
them, pluck'd softly the overgrowing moss, and all this in a
style of wild passionate rapture and enthusiasm, that ex-
press'd excess of pleasure; till betaking himself to the rod
again, encourag'd by my passiveness, and infuriated with this
strange taste of delight, he made my poor posteriours pay for
the ungovernableness of it; for now shewing them no quarter
the traitor cut me so, that I wanted but little of fainting
away, when he gave over.  And yet I did not utter one groan,
or angry expostulation; but in heart I resolv'd nothing so
seriously, as never to expose myself again to the like ser-
verities.

     You may guess then in what a curious pickle those soft
flesh-cushions of mine were, all sore, raw, and in fine, ter-
ribly clawed off; but so far from feeling any pleasure in it,
that the recent smart made me pout a little, and not with the
greatest air of satisfaction receive the compliments, and
after-caresses of the author of my pain.

     As soon as my cloaths were huddled on in a little de-
cency, a supper was brought in by the discreet Mrs. Cole her-
self, which might have piqued the sensuality of a cardinal,
accompanied with a choice of the richest wines: all which she
set before us, and went out again, without having, by a word
or even by a smile, given us the least interruption or confu-
sion, in those moments of secrecy, that we were not yet ripe
to the admission of a third to.

     I sat down then, still scarce in charity with my butch-
er, for such I could not help considering him, and was more-
over not a little piqued at the gay, satisfied air of his
countenance, which I thought myself insulted by.  But when
the now necessary refreshment to me of a glass of wine, a
little eating (all the time observing a profound silence) had
somewhat cheer'd and restor'd me to spirits, and as the smart
began to go off, my good humour return'd accordingly: which
alteration not escaping him, he said and did everything that
could confirm me in, and indeed exalt it.

     But scarce was supper well over, before a change so in-
credible was wrought in me, such violent, yet pleasingly irk-
some sensations took possession of me that I scarce knew how
to contain myself; the smart of the lashes was now converted
into such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me
sigh, squeeze my thighs together, shift and wriggle about my
seat, with a furious restlessness; whilst these itching ar-
dours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of dis-
cipline had principally fallen, detach'd legions of burning,
subtile, stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and cen-
tre of assemblage, where their titillation rag'd so furiously,
that I was even stinging mad with them.  No wonder then, that
in such a taking, and devour'd by flames that licked up all
modesty and reserve, my eyes, now charg'd brimful of the most
intense desire, fired on my companion very intelligible sig-
nals of distress: my companion, I say, who grew in them every
instant more amiable, and more necessary to my urgent wishes
and hopes of immediate ease.

     Mr. Barville, no stranger by experience to these situa-
tions, soon knew the pass I was brought to, soon perceiv'd my
extreme disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out
of the way, he began a prelude that flatter'd me with instant
relief, to which I was not, however, so near as I imagin'd:
for as he was unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and
rouse to action his unactive torpid machine, he blushingly
own'd that no good was to be expected from it unless I took
it in hand to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just
refreshing the smart of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing
it could, no more than a boy's top, keep up without lashing.
Sensible then that I should work as much for my own profit as
his, I hurried my compliance with his desire, and abridging
the ceremonial, whilst he lean'd his head against the back of
a chair, I had scarce gently made him feel the lash, before I
saw the object of my wishes give signs of life, and presently,
as it were with a magic touch, it started up into a noble size
and distinction indeed!  Hastening then to give me the benefit
of it, he threw me down on the bench; but such was the re-
fresh'd soreness of those parts behind, on my leaning so hard
on them, as became me to compass the admission of that stupen-
dous head of his machine, that I could not possibly bear it.
I got up then, and tried, by leaning forwards and turning the
crupper on my assailant, to let him at the back avenue: but
here it was likewise impossible to stand his bearing so
fiercely against me, in his agitations and endeavours to enter
that way, whilst his belly battered directly against the
recent sore.  What should we do now? both intolerably heated;
both in a fury; but pleasure is ever inventive for its own
ends: he strips me in a trice, stark naked, and placing a
broad settee-cushion on the carpet before the fire, oversets
me gently, topsy-turvy, on it; and handling me only at the
waist, whilst you may be sure I favour'd all my dispositions,
brought my legs round his neck; so that my head was kept from
the floor only by my hands and the velvet cushion, which was
now bespread with my flowing hair: thus I stood on my head
and hands, supported by him in such manner, that whilst my
thighs clung round him, so as to expose to his sight all my
back figure, including the theatre of his bloody pleasure,
the centre of my fore part fairly bearded the object of its
rage, that now stood in fine condition to give me satisfaction
for the injuries of its neighbours.  But as this posture was
certainly not the easiest, and our imaginations, wound up to
the height, could suffer no delay, he first, with the utmost
eagerness and effort, just lip-lodg'd that broad acorn-fas-
hion'd head of his instrument; and still frenzied by the fury
with which he had made that impression, he soon stuffed in
the rest; when now, with a pursuit of thrusts, fiercely urg'd,
he absolutely overpower'd and absorb'd all sense of pain and
uneasiness, whether from my wounds behind, my most untoward
posture, or the oversize of his stretcher, in an infinitely
predominant delight; when now all my whole spirits of life
and sensation, rushing impetuously to the cock-pit, where the
prize of pleasure was hotly in dispute and clustering to a
point there, I soon receiv'd the dear relief of nature from
these over-violent strains and provocations of it; harmoniz-
ing with which, my gallant spouted into me such a potent over-
flow of the balsamic injection, as soften'd and unedg'd all
those irritating stings of a new species of titillation, which
I had been so intolerably madden'd with, and restor'd the fer-
ment of my senses to some degree of composure.

     I had now achiev'd this rare adventure ultimately much
more to my satisfaction than I had bespoken the nature of it
to turn out; nor was it much lessen'd, you may think, by my
spark's lavish praises of my constancy and complaisance, which
he gave weight to by a present that greatly surpassed my ut-
most expectation, besides his gratification to Mrs. Cole.

     I was not, however, at any time, re-enticed to renew
with him, or resort again to the violent expedient of lashing
nature into more haste than good speed: which, by the way, I
conceive acts somewhat in the manner of a dose of Spanish
flies; with more pain perhaps, but less danger; and might be
necessary to him, but was nothing less so than to me, whose
appetite wanted the bridle more than the spur.

     Mrs. Cole, to whom this adventurous exploit had more and
more endear'd me, looked on me now as a girl after her own
heart, afraid on nothing, and, on a good account, hardy enough
to fight all the weapons of pleasure through.  Attentive then,
in consequence of these favourable conceptions, to promote
either my profit or pleasure, she had special regard for the
first, in a new gallant of a very singular turn, that she pro-
cur'd for and introduced to me.

     This was a grave, staid, solemn, elderly gentleman whose
peculiar humour was a delight in combing fine tresses of hair;
and as I was perfectly headed to his taste, he us'd to come
constantly at my toilette hours, when I let down my hair as
loose as nature, and abandon'd it to him to do what he pleased
with it; and accordingly he would keep me an hour or more in
play with it, drawing the comb through it, winding the curls
round his fingers, even kissing it as he smooth'd it; and all
this led to no other use of my person, or any other liberties
whatever, any more than if a distinction of sexes had not
existed.

     Another peculiarity of taste he had, which was to present
me with a dozen pairs of the whitest kid gloves at a time:
these he would divert himself with drawing on me, and then
biting off the fingers' ends; all which fooleries of a sickly
appetite, the old gentleman paid more liberally for than most
others did for more essential favours.  This lasted till a
violent cough, seizing and laying him up, deliver'd me from
this most innocent and insipid trifler, for I never heard more
of him after his first retreat.

     You may be sure a by-job of this sort interfer'd with no
other pursuit, or plan of life; which I led, in truth, with a
modesty and reserve that was less the work of virtue than of
exhausted novelty, a glut of pleasure, and easy circumstances,
that made me indifferent to any engagements in which pleasure
and profit were not eminently united; and such I could, with
the less impatience, wait for at the hands of time and for-
tune, as I was satisfy'd I could never mend my pennyworths,
having evidently been serv'd at the top of market, and even
been pamper'd with dainties: besides that, in the sacrifice
of a few momentary impulses, I found a secret satisfaction in
respecting myself, as well as preserving the life and fresh-
ness of my complexion.  Louisa and Emily did not carry indeed
their reserve so high as I did; but still they were far from
cheap or abandon'd tho' two of their adventures seem'd to con-
tradict this general character, which, for their singularity,
I shall give you in course, beginning first with Emily's:

     Louisa and she went one night to a ball, the first in
the habit of a shepherdess, Emily in that of a shepherd:  I
saw them in their dresses before they went, and nothing in
nature could represent a prettier boy than this last did,
being so fair and well limbed.  They had kept together for
some time, when Louisa, meeting an old acquaintance of hers,
very cordially gives her companion the drop, and leaves her
under the protection of her boy's habit, which was not much,
and of her discretion, which was, it seems, still less.
Emily, finding herself deserted, sauntered thoughtless about
a-while, and, as much for coolness and air as anything else,
at length pull'd off her mask and went to the sideboard;
where, eyed and mark'd out by a gentleman in a very handsome
domino, she was accosted by, and fell into chat with him.
The domino, after a little discourse, in which Emily doubt-
less distinguish'd her good nature and easiness more than her
wit, began to make violent love to her, and drawing her in-
sensibly to some benches at the lower end of the masquerade
room, for her to sit by him, where he squeez'd her hands,
pinch'd her cheeks, prais'd and played with her fine hair,
admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship dash'd
with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of,
poor Emily attributed to his falling in with the humour of her
disguise; and being naturally not the cruellest of her profes-
sion, began to incline to a parley on those essentials.  But
here was the stress of the joke: he took her really for what
she appear'd to be, a smock-fac'd boy; and she, forgetting her
dress, and of course ranging quite wide of his ideas, took all
those addresses to be paid to herself as a woman, which she
precisely owed to his not thinking her one.  However, this
double error was push'd to such a height on both sides, that
Emily, who saw nothing in him but a gentleman of distinction
by those points of dress to which his disguise did not extend,
warmed too by the wine he had ply'd her with, and the caresses
he had lavished upon her, suffered herself to be persuaded to
go to a bagnio with him; and thus, losing sight of Mrs. Cole's
cautions, with a blind confidence, put herself into his hands,
to be carried wherever he pleased.  For his part, equally
blinded by his wishes, whilst her egregious simplicity favour-
ed his deception more than the most exquisite art could have
done, he supposed, no doubt, that he had lighted on some soft
simpleton, fit for his purpose, or some kept minion broken to
his hand, who understood him perfectly well and enter'd into
his designs.  But, be that as it would, he led her to a coach,
went into it with her, and brought her to a very handsome
apartment, with a bed in it; but whether it was a bagnio or
not, she could not tell, having spoken to nobody but himself.
But when they were alone together, and her enamorato began to
proceed to those extremities which instantly discover the sex,
she remark'd that no description could paint up to the life
the mixture of pique, confusion and disappointment that ap-
peared in his countenance, joined to the mournful exclamation:
"By heavens, a woman!"  This at once opened her eyes, which
had hitherto been shut in downright stupidity.  However, as if
he had meant to retrieve that escape, he still continu'd to
toy with and fondle her, but with so staring an alteration
from extreme warmth into a chill and forced civility, that
even Emily herself could not but take notice of it, and now
began to wish she had paid more regard to Mrs. Cole's premon-
itions against ever engaging with a stranger.  And now and
excess of timidity succeeded to an excess of confidence, and
she thought herself so much at his mercy and discretion, that
she stood passive throughout the whole progress of his pre-
lude: for now, whether the impressions of so great a beauty
had even made him forgive her her sex, or whether her appear-
ance of figure in that dress still humour'd his first illu-
sion, he recover'd by degrees a good part of his first warmth,
and keeping Emily with her breeches still unbuttoned, stript
them down to her knees, and gently impelling her to lean down,
with her face against the bed-side, placed her so, that the
double way, between the double rising behind, presented the
choice fair to him, and he was so fairly set on a mis-direc-
tion, as to give the girl no small alarms for fear of losing
a maidenhead she had not dreamt of.  However, her complaints,
and a resistance, gentle, but firm, check'd and brought him
to himself again; so that turning his steed's head, he drove
him at length in the right road, in which his imagination
having probably made the most of those resemblances that
flatter'd his taste, he got, with much ado, to his journey's
end: after which, he led her out himself, and walking with
her two or three streets' length, got her a chair, when mak-
ing her a present not any thing inferior to what she could
have expected, he left her, well recommended to the chairman,
who, on her directions, brought her home.

     This she related to Mrs. Cole and me the same morning,
not without the visible remains of the fear and confusion she
had been in still stamp'd on her countenance.  Mrs. Cole's
remark was that her indescretion proceeding from a constitu-
tional facility, there were little hopes of any thing curing
her of it, but repeated severe experience.  Mine was that I
could not conceive how it was possible for mankind to run
into a taste, not only universally odious, but absurd, and
impossible to gratify; since, according to the notions and
experience I had of things, it was not in nature to force
such immense disproportions.  Mrs. Cole only smil'd at my
ignorance, and said nothing towards my undeception, which was
not affected but by ocular demonstration, some months after,
which a most singular accident furnish'd me, and which I will
here set down, that I may not return again to so disagreeable
a subject.

     I had, on a visit intended to Harriet, who had taken
lodgings at Hampton-court, hired a chariot to go out thither,
Mrs. Cole having promis'd to accompany me; but some indis-
pensable business intervening to detain her, I was obliged to
set out alone; and scarce had I got a third of my way, before
the axle-tree broke down, and I was well off to get out, safe
and unhurt, into a publick-house of a tolerable handsome ap-
pearance, on the road.  Here the people told me that the
stage would come by in a couple of hours at farthest; upon
which, determining to wait for it, sooner than lose the jaunt
I had got so far forward on, I was carried into a very clean
decent room, up one pair of stairs, which I took possession of
for the time I had to stay, in right of calling for sufficient
to do the house justice.

     Here, whilst I was amusing myself with looking out of the
window, a single horse-chaise stopt at the door, out of which
lightly leap'd two gentlemen, for so they seem'd, who came in
only as it were to bait and refresh a little, for they gave
their horse to be held in readiness against they came out.
And presently I heard the door of the next room, where they
were let in, and call'd about them briskly; and as soon as
they were serv'd, I could just hear that they shut and fast-
ened the door on the inside.

     A spirit of curiosity, far from sudden, since I do not
know when I was without it, prompted me, without any parti-
cular suspicion, or other drift or view, to see what they
were, and examine their persons and behaviour.  The partition
of our rooms was one of those moveable ones that, when taken
down, serv'd occasionally to lay them into one, for the con-
veniency of a large company; and now, my nicest search could
not shew me the shadow of a peep-hole, a circumstance which
probably had not escap'd the review of the parties on the
other side, whom much it stood upon not to be deceived in it;
but at length I observed a paper patch of the same colour as
the wainscot, which I took to conceal some flaw: but then it
was so high, that I was obliged to stand upon a chair to
reach it, which I did as softly as possibly, and, with a point
of a bodkin, soon pierc'd it.  And now, applying my eye close,
I commanded the room perfectly, and could see my two young
sparks romping and pulling one another about, entirely, to my
imagination, in frolic and innocent play.

     The eldest might be, on my nearest guess, towards nine-
teen, a tall comely young man, in a white fustian frock, with
a green velvet cape, and a cut bob-wig.

     The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy,
compleatly well made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty
stripling: he was--I fancy, too, a country-lad, by his dress,
which was a green plush frock and breeches of the same, white
waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with his yellowish
hair, long and loose, in natural curls.

     But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the
eldest cast every way round the room, probably in too much
hurry and heat not to overlook the very small opening I was
posted at, especially at the height it was, whilst my eye
close to it kept the light from shining through and betraying
it, he said something to his companion and presently chang'd
the face of things.

     For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the
younger, to put his hands into his bosom, and give him such
manifest signs of an amorous intention, as made me conclude
the other to be a girl in disguise: a mistake that nature kept
me in countenance for, for she had certainly made one, when
she gave him the male stamp.

     In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were
to accomplish their project of preposterous pleasure, at the
risk of the very worst of consequences, where a discovery was
nothing less than improbable, they now proceeded to such
lengths as soon satisfied me what they were.

     The criminal scene they acted, I had the patience to see
to an end, purely that I might gather more facts and certainly
against them in my design to do their deserts instance jus-
tice; and accordingly, when they had readjusted themselves,
and were preparing to go out, burning as I was with rage and
indignation, I jumped down from the chair, in order to raise
the house upon them, but with such an unlucky impetuosity,
that some nail or ruggedness in the floor caught my foot, and
flung me on my face with such violence that I fell senseless
on the ground, and must have lain there some time e'er any
one came to my relief: so that they, alarmed, I suppose, by
the noise of my fall, had more than the necessary time to
make a safe retreat.  This they effected, as I learnt, with a
precipitation nobody could account for, till, when come to
myself, and compos'd enough to speak, I acquainted those of
the house with the whole transaction I had been evidence to.

     When I came home again, and told Mrs. Cole this adven-
ture, she very sensibly observ'd to me that there was no doubt
of due vengeance one time of other overtaking these miscre-
ants, however they might escape for the present; and that, had
I been the temporal instrument of it, I should have been at
least put to a great deal more trouble and confusion that I
imagined; that, as to the thing itself, the less said of it
was the better; but that though she might be suspected of
partiality, from its being the common cause of woman-kind, out
of whose mouths this practice tended to take something more
than bread, yet she protested against any mixture of passion,
with a declaration extorted from her by pure regard to truth;
which was that whatever effect this infamous passion had in
other ages and other countries, it seem'd a peculiar blessing
on our air and climate, that there was a plague-spot visibly
imprinted on all that are tainted with it, in this nation at
least; for that among numbers of that stamp whom she had
known, or at least were universally under the scandalous sus-
picion of it, she would not name an exception hardly of one
of them, whose character was not, in all other respects, the
most worthless and despicable that could be, stript of all
the manly virtues of their own sex, and fill'd up with only
the worst vices and follies of ours: that, in fine, they were
scarce less execrable than ridiculous in their monstrous in-
consistence, of loathing and condemning women, and all at the
same time apeing all their manners, air, lips, skuttle, and,
in general, all their little modes of affectation, which be-
come them at least better than they do these unsex'd male-
misses.

     But here, washing my hands of them, I re-plunge into the
stream of my history, into which I may very properly ingraft
a terrible sally of Louisa's, since I had some share in it
myself, and have besides engag'd myself to relate it, in point
of countenance to poor Emily.  It will add, too, one more
example to thousands, in confirmation of the maxim that when
women get once out of compass, there are no lengths of licen-
tiousness that they are not capable of running.

     One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone
out for the day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the
house-maid) were left in charge of the house, whilst we were
loitering away the time in looking through the shop windows,
the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard bread indeed by
mending stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood, offer'd us
some nosegays, ring'd round a small basket; by selling of
which the poor boy eked out his mother's maintenance of them
both: nor was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he
was not only a perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammer'd so
that there was no understanding even those sounds his half-
dozen, at most, animal ideas prompted him to utter.

     The boys and servants in the neighbourhood had given him
the nick-name of Good-natured Dick, from the soft simpleton's
doing everything he was bid at the first word, and from his
naturally having no turn to mischief; then, by the way, he
was perfectly well made, stout, clean-limb'd, tall of his age,
as strong as a horse and, withal, pretty featur'd; so that he
was not, absolutely, such a figure to be snuffled at neither,
if your nicety could, in favour of such essentials, have dis-
pens'd with a face unwashed, hair tangled for want of comb-
ing, and so ragged a plight, that he might have disputed
points of shew with e'er a heathen philosopher of them all.

     This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out
of pure compassion, and nothing more; but just at this time
as he stood presenting us his basket, a sudden whim, a start
of wayward fancy, seiz'd Louisa; and, without consulting me,
she calls him in, and beginning to examine his nosegays,
culls out two, one for herself, another for me, and pulling
out half a crown, very currently gives it him to change, as
if she had really expected he could have changed it: but the
boy, scratching his head, made his signs explaining his in-
ability in place of words, which he could not, with all his
struggling, articulate.

     Louisa, at this, says:  "Well, my lad, come up-stairs
with me, and I will give you your due," winking at the same
time to me, and beckoning me to accompany her, which I did,
securing first the street-door, that by this means, together
with the shop, became wholly the care of the faithful house-
maid.

     As we went up, Louisa whispered to me that she had con-
ceiv'd a strange longing to be satisfy'd, whether the general
rule held good with regard to this changeling, and how far
nature had made him amends, in her best bodily gifts, for her
denial of the sublimer intellectual ones; begging, at the
same time, my assistance in procuring her this satisfaction.
A want of complaisance was never my vice, and I was so far
from opposing this extravagant frolic, that now, bit with the
same maggot, and my curiosity conspiring with hers, I enter'd
plum into it, on my own account.

     Consequently, as soon as we came into Louisa's bed-
chamber, whilst she was amusing him with picking out his
nosegays, I undertook the lead, and began the attack.  As it
was not then very material to keep much measures with a mere
natural, I made presently very free with him, though at my
first motion of meddling, his surprize and confusion made
him receive my advances but aukwardly: nay, insomuch that he
bashfully shy'd, and shy'd back a little; till encouraging
him with my eyes, plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking
his cheeks, and forwarding my point by a number of little
wantonness, I soon turn'd him familiar, and gave nature her
sweetest alarm: so that arous'd, and beginning to feel him-
self, we could, amidst all the innocent laugh and grin I had
provoked him into, perceive the fire lighting in his eyes,
and, diffusing over his cheeks, blend its glow with that of
his blushes.  The emotion in short of animal pleasure glar'd
distinctly in the simpleton's countenance; yet, struck with
the novelty of the scene, he did not know which way to look
or move; but tame, passive, simpering, with his mouth half
open in stupid rapture, stood and tractably suffer'd me to
do what I pleased with him.  His basket was dropt out of his
hands, which Louisa took care of.

     I had now, through more than one rent, discovered and
felt his thighs, the skin of which seemed the smoother and
fairer for the coarseness, and even dirt of his dress, as
the teeth of Negroes seem the whiter for the surrounding
black; and poor indeed of habit, poor of understanding, he
was, however, abundantly rich in personal treasures, such as
flesh, firm, plump, and replete with the juices of youth,
and robust well-knit limbs.  My fingers too had now got with-
in reach of the true, the genuine sensitive plant, which,
instead of shrinking from the touch, joys to meet it, and
swells and vegetates under it: mine pleasingly informed me
that matters were so ripe for the discovery we meditated,
that they were too mighty for the confinement they were ready
to break.  A waistband that I unskewer'd, and a rag of a shirt
that I removed, and which could not have cover'd a quarter of
it, revealed the whole of the idiot's standard of distinction,
erect, in full pride and display: but such a one! it was posi-
tively of so tremendous a size, that prepared as we were to
see something extraordinary, it still, out of measure, sur-
pass'd our expectation, and astonish'd even me, who had not
been used to trade in trifles.  In fine, it might have answer-
ed very well the making a show of; its enormous head seemed,
in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep's heart; then you
might have troll'd dice securely along the broad back of the
body of it; the length of it too was prodigious; then the rich
appendage of the treasure-bag beneath, large in proportion,
gather'd adn crisp'd up round in shallow furrows, helped to
fill the eye, and complete the proof of his being a natural,
not quite in vain; since it was full manifest that he inherit-
ed, and largely too, the prerogative of majesty which distin-
guishes that otherwise most unfortunate condition, and gives
rise to the vulgar saying "A fool's bauble is a lady's play-
fellow."  Not wholly without reason: for, generally speaking,
it is in love as it is in war, where longest weapon carries
it.  Nature, in short, had done so much for him in those
parts, that she perhaps held herself acquitted in doing so
little for his head.

     For my part, who had sincerely no intention to push the
joke further than simply satisfying my curiosity with the
sight of it alone, I was content, in spite of the temptation
that star'd me in the face, with having rais'd a May-pole
for another to hang a garland on: for, by this time, easily
reading Louisa's desires in her wishful eyes, I acted the
commodious part and made her, who sought no better sport,
significant terms of encouragement to go through-stitch with
her adventure; intimating too that I would stay and see fair
play: in which, indeed, I had in view to humour a new-born
curiosity, to observe what appearances active nature would put
on in a natural, in the course of this her darling operation.

     Louisa, whose appetite was up, and who, like the indus-
trious bee, was, it seems, not above gathering the sweets of
so rare a flower, tho' she found it planted on a dunghill,
was but too readily disposed to take the benefit of my
cession.  Urg'd then strongly by her own desires, and em-
bolden'd by me, she presently determined to risk a trial of
parts with the idiot, who was by this time nobly inflam'd
for her purpose, by all the irritations we had used to put
the principles of pleasure effectually into motion, and to
wind up the springs of its organ to their supreme pitch; and
it stood accordingly stiff and straining, ready to burst with
the blood and spirits that swelled it . . . to a bulk!  No!
I shall never forget it.

     Louisa then, taking and holding the fine handle that
so invitingly offer'd itself, led the ductile youth by that
master-tool of his, as she stept backward towards the bed;
which he joyfully gave way to, under the incitations of in-
stinct and palpably deliver'd up to the goad of desire.

     Stopped then by the bed, she took the fall she lov'd,
and lean'd to the most, gently backward upon it, still hold-
ing fast what she held, and taking care to give her cloaths
a convenient toss up, so that her thighs duly disclos'd, and
elevated, laid open all the outward prospect of the treasury
of love: the rose-lipt overture presenting the cock-pit so
fair, that it was not in nature even for a natural to miss it.
Nor did he, for Louisa, fully bent on grappling with it, and
impatient of dalliance or delay, directed faithfully the point
of the battering-piece, and bounded up with a rage of so vora-
cious appetite, to meet and favour the thrust of insertion,
that the fierce activity on both sides effected it with such
pain of distention, that Louisa cry'd out violently that she
was hurt beyond bearing, that she was killed.  But it was too
late: the storm was up, and force was on her to give way to
it; for now the man-machine, strongly work'd upon by the sen-
sual passion, felt so manfully his advantages and superiority,
felt withal the sting of pleasure so intolerable, that madden-
ing with it, his joys began to assume a character of furious-
ness which made me tremble for the too tender Louisa.  He
seemed, at this juncture, greater than himself; his counten-
ance, before so void of meaning, or expression, now grew big
with the importance of the act he was upon.  In short, it was
not now that he was to be play'd the fool with.  But, what is
pleasant enough, I myself was aw'd into a sort of respect for
him, by the comely terrors his motions dressed him in: his
eyes shooting sparks of fire; his face glowing with ardours
that gave another life to it; his teeth churning; his whole
frame agitated with a raging ungovernable impetuosity: all
sensibly betraying the formidable fierceness with which the
genial instinct acted upon him.  Butting then and goring all
before him, and mad and wild like an over-driven steer, he
ploughs up the tender furrow, all insensible to Louisa's com-
plaints; nothing can stop, nothing can keep out a fury like
his: with which, having once got its head in, its blind rage
soon made way for the rest, piercing, rending, and breaking
open all obstructions.  The torn, split, wounded girl cries,
struggles, invokes me to her rescue, and endeavours to get
from under the young savage, or shake him off, but alas! in
vain: her breath might as soon have still'd or stemm'd a storm
in winter, as all her strength have quell'd his rough assault,
or put him out of his course.  And indeed, all her efforts and
struggles were manag'd with such disorder, that they serv'd
rather to entangle, and fold her the faster in the twine of
his boisterous arms; so that she was tied to the stake, and
oblig'd to fight the match out, if she died for it.  For his
part, instinct-ridden as he was, the expressions of his animal
passion, partaking something of ferocity, were rather worrying
than kisses, intermix'd with eager ravenous love-bites on her
cheeks and neck, the prints of which did not wear out for some
days after.

     Poor Louisa, however, bore up at length better than could
have been expected; and though she suffer'd, and greatly too,
yet, ever true to the good old cause, she suffer'd with plea-
sure and enjoyed her pain.  And soon now, by dint of an en-
rag'd enforcement, the brute-machine, driven like a whirl-
wind, made all smoke again, and wedging its way up, to the
utmost extremity, left her, in point of penetration, nothing
to fear or to desire: and now,

     "Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,"
                                         (Shakespeare.)

Louisa lay, pleas'd to the heart, pleas'd to her utmost capa-
city of being so, with every fibre in those parts, stretched
almost to breaking, on a rack of joy, whilst the instrument
of all this overfulness searched her senses with its sweet
excess, till the pleasure gained upon her so, its point stung
her so home, that catching at length the rage from her fur-
ious driver and sharing the riot of his wild rapture, she
went wholly out of her mind into that favourite part of her
body, the whole intenseness of which was so fervously fill'd,
and employ'd: there alone she existed, all lost in those de-
lirious transports, those extasies of the senses, which her
winking eyes, the brighten'd vermilion of her lips and cheeks,
and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched, so pathetically ex-
press'd.  In short, she was now as mere a machine as much
wrought on, and had her motions as little at her own command
as the natural himself, who thus broke in upon her, made her
feel with a vengeance his tempestuous tenderness, and the
force of the mettle he battered with; their active loins
quivered again with the violence of their conflict, till the
surge of pleasure, foaming and raging to a height, drew down
the pearly shower that was to allay this hurricane.  The
purely sensitive idiot then first shed those tears of joy that
attend its last moments, not without an agony of delight and
even almost a roar of rapture, as the gush escaped him; so
sensibly too for Louisa, that she kept him faithful company,
going off, in consent, with the old symptoms: a delicious
delirium, a tremulous convulsive shudder, and the critical
dying Oh!  And now, on his getting off, she lay pleasure-
drench'd, and re-gorging its essential sweets; but quite
spent, and gasping for breath, without other sensation of
life than in those exquisite vibrations that trembled yet on
the strings of delight, which had been too intensively
touched, and which nature had been so intensly stirred with,
for the senses to be quickly at peace from.

     As for the changeling, whose curious engine had been
thus successfully played off, his shift of countenance and
gesture had even something droll, or rather tragi-comic in
it: there was now an air of sad repining foolishness, super-
added to his natural one of no-meaning and idiotism, as he
stood with his label of manhood, now lank, unstiffen'd, be-
calm'd, and flapping against his thighs, down which it reach'd
half-way, terrible even in its fall, whilst under the dejec-
tion of spirit and flesh, which naturally followed, his eyes,
by turns, cast down towards his struck standard, or piteously
lifted to Louisa, seemed to require at her hands what he had
so sensibly parted from to her, and now ruefully miss'd.  But
the vigour of nature, soon returning, dissipated the blast of
faintness which the common law of enjoyment had subjected him
to; and now his basket re-became his main concern, which I
look'd for, and brought him, whilst Louisa restor'd his dress
to its usual condition, and afterwards pleased him perhaps
more by taking all his flowers off his hands, and paying him,
at his rate, for them, than if she had embarrass'd him by a
present that he would have been puzzled to account for, and
might have put others on tracing the motives of.

     Whether she ever return'd to the attack I know not, and,
to say the truth, I believe not.  She had had her freak out,
and had pretty plentifully drown'd her curiosity in a glut of
pleasure, which, as it happened, had no other consequence
than that the lad, who retain'd only a confused memory of the
transaction, would, when he saw her, for some time after,
express a grin of joy and familiarity, after his idiot manner,
and soon forgot her in favour of the next woman, tempted, on
the report of his parts, to take him in.





                         Part 10

     Louisa herself did not long outstay this adventure at
Mrs. Cole's (to whom, by-the-bye, we took care not to boast
of our exploit, till all fear of consequences were clearly
over): for an occasion presenting itself of proving her
passion for a young fellow, at the expense of her discretion,
proceeding all in character, she pack'd up her toilet at half
a day's warning and went with him abroad, since which I
entirely lost sight of her, and it never fell in my way to
hear what became of her.

     But a few days after she had left us, two very pretty
young gentlemen, who were Mrs. Cole's especial favourites,
and free of her academy, easily obtain'd her consent for
Emily's and my acceptance of a party of pleasure at a little
but agreeable house belonging to one of them, situated not
far up the river Thames, on the Surry side.

     Everything being settled, and it being a fine summer-
day, but rather of the warmest, we set out after dinner, and
got to our rendez-vous about four in the afternoon; where,
landing at the foot of a neat, joyous pavillion, Emily and I
were handed into it by our squires, and there drank tea with
a cheerfulness and gaiety that the beauty of the prospect,
the serenity of the weather, and the tender politeness of our
sprightly gallants naturally led us into.

     After tea, and taking a turn in the garden, my particu-
lar, who was the master of the house, and had in no sense
schem'd this party of pleasure for a dry one, propos'd to us,
with that frankness which his familiarity at Mrs. Cole's
entitled him to, as the weather was excessively hot, to bathe
together, under a commodious shelter that he had prepared
expressly for that purpose, in a creek of the river, with
which a side-door of the pavilion immediately communicated,
and where we might be sure of having our diversion out, safe
from interruption, and with the utmost privacy.

     Emily, who never refus'd anything, and I, who ever
delighted in bathing, and had no exception to the person who
propos'd it, or to those pleasures it was easy to guess it
implied, took care, on this occasion, not to wrong our
training at Mrs. Cole's, and agreed to it with as good a
grace as we could.  Upon which, without loss of time, we
return'd instantly to the pavilion, one door of which open'd
into a tent, pitch'd before it, that with its marquise,
formed a pleasing defense against the sun, or the weather,
and was besides as private as we could wish.  The lining of
it, imbossed cloth, represented a wild forest-foliage, from
the top down to the sides, which, in the same stuff, were
figur'd with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between
fill'd with flower-vases, the whole having a gay effect upon
the eye, wherever you turn'd it.

     Then it reached sufficiently into the water, yet con-
tain'd convenient benches round it, on the dry ground, either
to keep our cloaths, or . . ., or . . ., in short, for more
uses than resting upon.  There was a side-table too, loaded
with sweetmeats, jellies, and other eatables, and bottles of
wine and cordials, by way of occasional relief from any raw-
ness, or chill of the water, or from any faintness from what-
ever cause; and in fact, my gallant, who understood chere
entiere perfectly, and who, for taste (even if you would not
approve this specimen of it) might have been comptroller of
pleasures to a Roman emperor, had left no requisite towards
convenience or luxury unprovided.

     As soon as we had look'd round this inviting spot, and
every preliminary of privacy was duly settled, strip was the
word: when the young gentlemen soon dispatch'd the undressing
each his partner and reduced us to the naked confession of
all those secrets of person which dress generally hides, and
which the discovery of was, naturally speaking, not to our
disadvantage.  Our hands, indeed, mechanically carried towards
the most interesting part of us, screened, at first, all from
the tufted cliff downwards, till we took them away at their
desire, and employed them in doing them the same office, of
helping off with their cloaths; in the process of which, there
pass'd all the little wantonnesses and frolicks that you may
easily imagine.

     As for my spark, he was presently undressed, all to his
shirt, the fore-lappet of which as he lean'd languishingly on
me, he smilingly pointed to me to observe, as it bellied out,
or rose and fell, according to the unruly starts of the mo-
tion behind it; but it was soon fix'd, for now taking off his
shirt, and naked as a Cupid, he shew'd it me at so upright a
stand, as prepar'd me indeed for his application to me for
instant ease; but, tho' the sight of its fine size was fit
enough to fire me, the cooling air, as I stood in this state
of nature, joined to the desire I had of bathing first, en-
abled me to put him off, and tranquillize him, with the re-
mark that a little suspense would only set a keener edge on
the pleasure.  Leading then the way, and shewing our friends
an example of continency, which they were giving signs of
losing respect to, we went hand in hand into the stream, till
it took us up to our neck, where the no more than grateful
coolness of the water gave my senses a delicious refreshment
from the sultriness of the season, and made more alive, more
happy in myself, and, in course, more alert, and open to
voluptuous impressions.

     Here I lav'd and wanton'd with the water, or sportively
play'd with my companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at
discretion.  Mine, at length, not content with making me take
the plunge over head and ears, kept splashing me, and provok-
ing me with all the little playful tricks he could devise,
and which I strove not to remain in his debt for.  We gave,
in short, a loose to mirth; and now, nothing would serve him
but giving his hands the regale of going over every part of
me, neck, breast, belly, thighs, and all the et cetera, so
dear to the imagination, under the pretext of washing and
rubbing them; as we both stood in the water, no higher now
than the pit of our stomachs, and which did not hinder him
from feeling, and toying with that leak that distinguishes
our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for his fingers,
in vain dilating and opening it, only let more flame than
water into it, be it said without a figure.  At the same time
he made me feel his own engine, which was so well wound up,
as to stand even the working in water, and he accordingly
threw one arm round my neck, and was endeavouring to get the
better of that harsher construction bred by the surrounding
fluid; and had in effect won his way so far as to make me
sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether-lips, from
the in-driving machine; when, independent of my not liking
that aukward mode of enjoyment, I could not help interrupt-
ing him, in order to become joint spectators of a plan of
joy, in hot operation between Emily and her partner; who
impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of the bath, had led
his nymph to one of the benches on the green bank, where he
was very cordially proceeding to teach her the difference be-
twixt jest and earnest.

     There, setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over
the surface of that smooth polish'd snow-white skin of hers,
which now doubly shone with a dew-bright lustre, and presented
to the touch something like what one would imagine of animated
ivory, especially in those ruby-nippled globes, which the
touch is so fond of and delights to make love to, with the
other he was lusciously exploring the sweet secret of nature,
in order to make room for a stately piece of machinery, that
stood uprear'd, between her thighs, as she continued sitting
on his lap, and pressed hard for instant admission, which the
tender Emily, in a fit of humour deliciously protracted, af-
fecting to decline, and elude the very pleasure she sigh'd
for, but in a style of waywardness so prettily put on, and
managed, as to render it ten times more poignant; then her
eyes, all amidst the softest dying languishment, express'd at
once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her sweetness
was zested with a coyness so pleasingly provoking, her moods
of keeping him off were so attractive, that they redoubled
the impetuous rage with which he cover'd her with kisses: and
the kisses that, whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for,
the cunning wanton contrived such sly returns of, as were
doubtless the sweeter for the gust she gave them, of being
stolen ravished.

     Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself,
in favour of her principal end, pleasure, had inspir'd her
with, the art of yielding, coy'd it indeed, but coy'd it to
the purpose; for with all her straining, her wrestling, and
striving to break from the clasp of his arms, she was so far
wiser yet than to mean it, that in her struggles, it was
visible she aim'd at nothing more than multiplying points of
touch with him, and drawing yet closer the folds that held
them every where entwined, like two tendrils of a vine inter-
curling together: so that the same effect, as when Louisa
strove in good earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now
produced by different motives.

     Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had
caused a general glow, a tender suffusion of heighten'd
carnation over their bodies; both equally white and smooth-
skinned; so that as their limbs were thus amorously inter-
woven, in sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to distin-
guish who they respectively belonged to, but for the brawnier,
bolder muscles of the stronger sex.

     In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in
with her, and had tied at all points the true lover's knot;
when now, adieu all the little refinements of a finessed re-
luctance; adieu the friendly feint!  She was presently driven
forcibly out of the power of using any art; and indeed, what
art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with her
assailant, invaded in the heart of her capital and carried by
storm, lay at the mercy of the proud conqueror who had made
his entry triumphantly and completely?  Soon, however, to be-
come a tributary: for the engagement growing hotter and
hotter, at close quarters, she presently brought him to the
pass of paying down the dear debt to nature; which she had no
sooner collected in, but, like a duellist who has laid his
antagonist at his feet, when he has himself received a mortal
wound, Emily had scarce time to plume herself upon her vic-
tory, but, shot with the same discharge, she, in a loud ex-
piring sigh, in the closure of her eyes, the stretch-out of
her limbs, and a remission of her whole frame, gave manifest
signs that all was as it should be.

     For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood
in the water all this time, to view this warm action, I lean'd
tenderly on my gallant, and at the close of it, seemed'd to
ask him with my eyes what he thought of it; but he, more eager
to satisfy me by his actions than by words or looks, as we
shoal'd the water towards the shore, shewed me the staff of
love so intensely set up, that had not even charity beginning
at home in this case, urged me to our mutual relief, it would
have been cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to burst
with straining, when the remedy was so obvious and so near at
hand.

     Accordingly we took to a bench, whilst Emily and her
spark, who belonged it seems to the sea, stood at the side-
board, drinking to our good voyage: for, as the last observ'd,
we were well under weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and
full-freighted; nor indeed were we long before we finished our
trip to Cythera, and unloaded in the old haven; but, as the
circumstances did not admit of much variation, I shall spare
you the description.

     At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse
I am conscious of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much
affected the figurative style; though surely, it can pass no-
where more allowably than in a subject which is so properly
the province of poetry, nay, is poetry itself, pregnant with
every flower of imagination and loving metaphors, even were
not the natural expressions, for respects of fashion and
sound, necessarily forbid it.

     Resuming now my history, you may please to know that
what with a competent number of repetitions, all in the same
strain (and, by-the-bye, we have a certain natural sense that
those repetitions are very much to the taste), what with a
circle of pleasures delicately varied, there was not a moment
lost to joy all the time we staid there, till late in the
night we were re-escorted home by our squires, who delivered
us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks for our company.

     This too was Emily's last adventure in our way: for
scarce a week after, she was, by an accident too trivial to
detail to you the particulars, found out by her parents, who
were in good circumstances, and who had been punish'd for
their partiality to their son, in the loss of him, occasion'd
by a circumstance of their over-indulgence to his appetite;
upon which the so long engross'd stream of fondness, running
violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly abandon'd child
whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long
before have recovered.  They were now so overjoyed at the re-
trieval of her, that, I presume, it made them much less strict
in examining the bottom of things: for they seem'd very glad
to take for granted, in the lump, everything that the grave
and decent Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass upon them; and soon
afterwards sent her, from the country, a handsome acknowledge-
ment.

     But it was not so easy to replace to our community the
loss of so sweet a member of it: for, not to mention her
beauty, she was one of those mild, pliant characters that if
one does not entirely esteem, one can scarce help loving,
which is not such a bad compensation neither.  Owing all her
weakness to good-nature, and an indolent facility that kept
her too much at the mercy of first impressions, she had just
sense enough to know that she wanted leading-strings, and
thought herself so much obliged to any who would take the
pains to think for her, and guide her, that with a very little
management, she was capable of being made a most agreeable,
nay, a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is probable, had never
been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been for occasion,
or example, or had she not depended less upon herself than
upon her circumstances.  This presumption her conduct after-
wards verified: for presently meeting with a match that was
ready cut and dry for her, with a neighbour's son of her own
rank, and a young man of sense and order, who took her as the
widow of one lost at sea (for so it seems one of her gallants,
whose name she had made free with, really was), she naturally
struck into all the duties of their domestic life with as much
constancy and regularity, as if she had never swerv'd from a
state of undebauch'd innocence from her youth.

     These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs.
Cole's brood that she was left with only me like a hen with
one chicken; but tho' she was earnestly entreated and encou-
rag'd to recruit her corps, her growing infirmities, and,
above all, the tortures of a stubborn hip-gout, which she
found would yield to no remedy, determin'd her to bread up her
business and retire with a decent pittance into the country,
where I promis'd myself nothing so sure, as my going down to
live with her as soon as I had seen a little more of life and
improv'd my small matters into a competency that would create
in me an independence on the world: for I was, now, thanks to
Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that essential in view.

     Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did
the Philosophers of the town the White Crow of her profession.
For besides that she never ransacked her customers, whose
taste too she ever studiously consulted, besides that she
never racked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor
ever put their hard earnings, as she call'd them, under the
contribution of poundage.  She was a severe enemy to the
seduction for innocence, and confin'd her acquisitions solely
to those unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were
but the juster objects of compassion: among these, indeed,
she pick'd but such as suited her views and taking them under
her protection, rescu'd them from the danger of the publick
sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or do for them, well or
ill, in the manner you have seen.  Having then settled her
affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most
tender leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instruc-
tions, recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly
maternal.  In short, she affected me so much, that I was not
presently reconcil'd to myself for suffering her at any rate
to go without me; but fate had, it seems, otherwise dispos'd
of me.

     I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant
convenient house at Marybone, but easy to rent and manage from
its smallness, which I furnish'd neatly and modestly.  There,
with a reserve of eight hundred pounds, the fruit of my defer-
ence to Mrs. Cole's counsels, exclusive of cloaths, some
jewels, some plate, I saw myself in purse for a long time, to
wait without impatience for what the chapter of accidents
might produce in my favour.

     Here, under the new character of a young gentle-woman
whose husband was gone to sea, I had mark'd me out such lines
of life and conduct, as leaving me at a competent liberty to
pursue my views either out of pleasure or fortune, bounded me
nevertheless strictly within the rules od decency and discre-
tion: a disposition in which you cannot escape observing a
true pupil of Mrs. Cole.

     I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when
going out one morning pretty early to enjoy the freshness of
it, in the pleasing outlet of the fields, accompanied only by
a maid, whom I had newly hired, as we were carelessly walking
among the trees we were alarmed with the noise of a violent
coughing: turning our heads towards which, we distinguish'd a
plain well-dressed elderly gentleman, who, attack'd with a
sudden fit, was so much overcome as to be forc'd to give way
to it and sit down at the foot of a tree, where he seemed
suffocating with the severity of it, being perfectly black in
the face: not less mov'd than frighten'd with which, I flew
on the instant to his relief, and using the rote of practice
I had observ'd on the like occasion, I loosened his cravat
and clapped him on the back; but whether to any purpose, or
whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the fit
immediately went off; and now recover'd to his speech and
legs, he returned me thanks with as much emphasis as if I had
sav'd his life.  This naturally engaging a conversation, he
acquainted me where he lived, which was at a considerable
distance from where I met with him, and where he had stray'd
insensibly on the same intention of a morning walk.

     He was, as I afterwards learn'd in the course of the
intimacy which this little accident gave birth to, an old
bachelor, turn'd of sixty, but of a fresh vigorous complexion,
insomuch that he scarce marked five and forty, having never
rack'd his constitution by permitting his desires to overtax
his ability.

     As to his birth and condition, his parents, honest and
fail'd mechanicks, had, by the best traces he could get of
them, left him an infant orphan on the parish; so that it was
from a charity-school, that, by honesty and industry, he made
his way into a merchant's counting-house; from whence, being
sent to a house in CADIZ, he there, by his talents and acti-
vity, acquired a fortune, but an immense one, with which he
returned to his native country; where he could not, however,
so much as fish out one single relation out of the obscurity
he was born in.  Taking then a taste for retirement, and
pleas'd to enjoy life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed
his days in all the ease of opulence, without the least parade
of it; and, rather studying the concealment than the shew of a
fortune, looked down on a world he perfectly knew; himself, to
his wish, unknown and unmarked by.

     But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the
pleasure of retracing to you all the particulars of my ac-
quaintance with this ever, to me, memorable friend, I shall,
in this, transiently touch on no more than may serve, as
mortar to cement, to form the connection of my history, and
to obviate your surprize that one of my high blood and relish
of life should count a gallant of threescore such a catch.

     Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain
by what progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at
first, insensibly changed nature, and ran into unplatonic
lengths, as might well be expected from one of my condition
of life, and above all, from that principle of electricity
that scarce ever fails of producing fire when the sexes meet.
I shall only her acquaint you, that as age had not subdued
his tenderness for our sex, neither had it robbed him of the
power of pleasing, since whatever he wanted in the bewitching
charms of youth, he aton'd for, or supplemented with the ad-
vantages of experience, the sweetness of his manners, and
above all, his flattering address in touching the heart, by
an application to the understanding.  From him it was I first
learn'd, to any purpose, and not without infinite pleasure,
that I had such a portion of me worth bestowing some regard
on; from him I received my first essential encouragement, and
instructions how to put it in that train of cultivation, which
I have since pushed to the little degree of improvement you
see it at; he it was, who first taught me to be sensible that
the pleasures of the mind were superior to those of the body;
at the same time, that they were so far from obnoxious to, or
incompatible with each other, that, besides the sweetness in
the variety and transition, the one serv'd to exalt and per-
fect the taste of the other to a degree that the senses alone
can never arrive at.

     Himself a rational pleasurist, as being much too wise to
be asham'd of the pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but
loved me with dignity; in a mean equally remov'd from the
sourness, of forwardness, by which age is unpleasingly char-
acteriz'd, and from that childish silly dotage that so often
disgraces it, and which he himself used to turn into ridicule,
and compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a young kid.

     In short, everything that is generally unamiable in his
season of life was, in him, repair'd by so many advantages,
that he existed a proof, manifest at least to me, that it is
not out of the power of age to please, if it lays out to
please, and if, making just allowances, those in that class
do not forget that it must cost them more pains and attention
than what youth, the natural spring-time of joy, stands in
need of: as fruits out of season require proportionably more
skill and cultivation, to force them.

     With this gentleman then, who took me home soon after
our acquaintance commenc'd, I lived near eight months; in
which time, my constant complaisance and docility, my atten-
tion to deserve his confidence and love, and a conduct, in
general, devoid of the least art and founded on my sincere
regard and esteem for him, won and attach'd him so firmly to
me, that, after having generously trusted me with a genteel,
independent settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection
on me, he appointed me, by an authentick will, his sole
heiress and executrix: a disposition which he did not outlive
two months, being taken from me by a violent cold that he
contracted as he unadvisedly ran to the window on an alarm of
fire, at some streets distance, and stood there naked-breast-
ed, and exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night-air.

     After acquitting myself of my duty towards my deceas'd
benefactor, and paying him a tribute of unfeign'd sorrow,
which a little time chang'd into a most tender, grateful
memory of him that I shall ever retain, I grew somewhat com-
forted by the prospect that now open'd to me, if not of hap-
piness at least of affluence and independence.

     I saw myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth
(for I was not yet nineteen) actually at the head of so large
a fortune, as it would have been even the height of impudence
in me to have raised my wishes, much more my hopes, to; and
that this unexpected elevation did not turn my head, I ow'd
to the pains my benefactor had taken to form and prepare me
for it, as I ow'd his opinion of my management of the vast
possessions he left me, to what he had observ'd of the pru-
dential economy I had learned under Mrs. Cole, of which the
reserve he saw I had made was a proof and encouragement to
him.

     But, alas! how easily is the enjoyment of the greatest
sweets in life, in present possession, poisoned by the regret
of an absent one! but my regret was a mighty and just one,
since it had my only truly beloved Charles for its object.

     Given him up I had, indeed, compleatly, having never once
heard from him since our separation; which, as I found after-
wards, had been my misfortune, and not his neglect, for he
wrote me several letters which had all miscarried; but for-
gotten him I never had.  Amidst all my personal infidelities,
not one had made a pin's point impression on a heart impene-
trable to the true love-passion, but for him.

     As soon, however, as I was mistress of this unexpected
fortune, I felt more than ever how dear he was to me, from
its insufficiency to make me happy, whilst he was not to
share it with me.  My earliest care, consequently, was to
endeavour at getting some account of him; but all my re-
searches produc'd me no more light than that his father had
been dead for some time, not so well as even with the world;
and that Charles had reached his port of destination in the
South-Seas, where, finding the estate he was sent to recover
dwindled to a trifle, by the loss of two ships in which the
bulk of his uncle's fortune lay, he was come away with the
small remainder, and might, perhaps, according to the best
advice, in a few months return to England, from whence he
had, at the time of this my inquiry, been absent two years
and seven months.  A little eternity in love!

     You cannot conceive with what joy I embraced the hopes
thus given me of seeing the delight of my heart again.  But,
as the term of months was assigned it, in order to divert
and amuse my impatience for his return, after settling my
affairs with much ease and security, I set out on a journey
for Lancashire, with an equipage suitable to my fortune, and
with a design purely to revisit my place of nativity, for
which I could not help retaining a great tenderness; and might
naturally not be sorry to shew myself there, to the advantage
I was now in pass to do, after the report Esther Davis had
spread of my being spirited away to the plantations; for on
no other supposition could she account for the suppression of
myself to her, since her leaving me so abruptly at the inn.
Another favourite intention I had, to look out for my rela-
tions, though I had none besides distant ones, and prove a
benefactress to them.  Then Mrs. Cole's place of retirement
lying in my way, was not amongst the least of the pleasures I
had proposed to myself in this expedition.

     I had taken nobody with me but a discreet decent woman,
to figure it as my companion, besides my servants, and was
scarce got into an inn, about twenty miles from London, where
I was to sup and pass the night, when such a storm of wind
and rain sprang up as made me congratulate myself on having
got under shelter before it began.

     This had continu'd a good half hour, when bethinking me
of some directions to be given to the coachman, I sent for
him, and not caring that his shoes should soil the very clean
parlour, in which the cloth was laid, I stept into the hall-
kitchen, where he was, and where, whilst I was talking to him,
I slantingly observ'd two horsemen driven in by the weather,
and both wringing wet; one of whom was asking if they could
not be assisted with a change, while their clothes were dried.
But, heavens! who can express what I felt at the sound of a
voice, ever present to my heart, and that is now rebounded at!
or when pointing my eyes towards the person it came from, they
confirm'd its information, in spite of so long an absence, and
of a dress one would have imagin'd studied for a disguise: a
horseman's great coat, with a stand-up cape, and his hat
flapp'd . . . but what could escape the piercing alertness of
a sense surely guided by love?  A transport then like mine was
above all consideration, or schemes of surprize; and I, that
instant, with the rapidity of the emotions that I felt the
spur of, shot into his arms, crying out, as I threw mine round
his neck:  "My life! . . . my soul! . . . my Charles! . . ."
and without further power of speech, swoon'd away, under the
pressing agitations of joy and surprize.

     Recover'd out of my entrancement, I found myself in my
charmer's arms, but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd
which this event had gather'd round us, and which immediately,
on a signal from the discreet landlady, who currently took him
for my husband, clear'd the room, and desirably left us alone
to the raptures of this reunion; my joy at which had like to
have prov'd, at the expense of my life, power superior to that
of grief at our fatal separation.

     The first object then, that my eyes open'd on, was their
supreme idol, and my supreme wish Charles, on one knee, hold-
ing me fast by the hand and gazing on me with a transport of
fondness.  Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak, and
give vent to his patience of hearing my voice again, to
satisfy him once more that it was me; but the mightiness and
suddenness of the surprize, continuing to stun him, choked
his utterance: he could only stammer out a few broken, half
formed, faltering accents, which my ears greedily drinking
in, spelt, and put together, so as to make out their sense;
"After so long! . . . so cruel . . . an absence! . . . my
dearest Fanny! . . . can it? . . . can it be you? . . ."
stifling me at the same time with kisses, that, stopping my
mouth, at once prevented the answer that he panted for, and
increas'd the delicious disorder in which all my senses were
rapturously lost.  Amidst however, this crowd of ideas, and
all blissful ones, there obtruded only one cruel doubt, that
poison'd nearly all the transcendent happiness: and what was
it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real?  I
trembled now with the fear of its being no more than a
dream, and of my waking out of it into the horrors of find-
ing it one.  Under this fond apprehension, imagining I could
not make too much of the present prodigious joy, before it
should vanish and leave me in the desert again, nor verify
its reality too strongly, I clung to him, I clasp'd him, as
if to hinder him from escaping me again:  "Where have you
been? . . . how could you . . . could you leave me? . . .
Say you are still mine . . . that you still love me . . .
and thus! thus!" (kissing him as if I would consolidate lips
with him!)  "I forgive you . . . forgive my hard fortune in
favour of this restoration."

     All these interjections breaking from me, in that wild-
ness of expression that justly passes for eloquence in love,
drew from him all the returns my fond heart could wish or
require.  Our caresses, our questions, our answers, for some
time observ'd no order; all crossing, or interrupting one
another in sweet confusion, whilst we exchang'd hearts at our
eyes, and renew'd the ratifications of a love unbated by time
or absence: not a breath, not a motion, not a gesture on
either side, but what was strongly impressed with it.  Our
hands, lock'd in each other, repeated the most passionate
squeezes, so that their fiery thrill went to the heart again.

     Thus absorbed, and concentre'd in this unutterable de-
light, I had not attended to the sweet author of it, being
thoroughly wet, and in danger of catching cold; when, in good
time, the landlady, whom the appearance of my equipage (which,
by-the-bye, Charles knew nothing of) had gain'd me an interest
in, for me and mine, interrupted us by bringing in a decent
shift of linen and cloaths, which now, somewhat recover'd into
a calmer composure by the coming in of a third person, I prest
him to take the benefit of, with a tender concern and anxiety
that made me tremble for his health.

     The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift; in
the act of which, tho' he proceeded with all that modesty
which became these first solemner instants of our re-meeting
after so long an absence, I could not contain certain snatches
of my eyes, lured by the dazzling discoveries of his naked
skin, that escaped him as he chang'd his linen, and which I
could not observe the unfaded life and complexion of without
emotions of tenderness and joy, that had himself too purely
for their object to partake of a loose or mistim'd desire.

     He was soon drest in these temporary cloaths, which
neither fitted him now became the light my passion plac'd
him in, to me at least; yet, as they were on him, they look'd
extremely well, in virtue of that magic charm which love put
into everything that he touch'd, or had relation to him: and
where, indeed, was that dress that a figure like this would
not give grace to?  For now, as I ey'd him more in detail, I
could not but observe the even favourable alteration which
the time of his absence had produced in his person.

     There were still the requisite lineaments, still the
same vivid vermilion and bloom reigning in his face: but now
the roses were more fully blown; the tan of his travels, and
a beard somewhat more distinguishable, had, at the expense
of no more delicacy than what he could well spare, given it
an air of becoming manliness and maturity, that symmetriz'd
nobly with that air of distinction and empire with which
nature had stamp'd it, in a rare mixture with the sweetness
of it; still nothing had he lost of that smooth plumpness of
flesh, which, glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the
eye, and delicious to the touch; then his shoulders were
grown more square, his shape more form'd, more portly, but
still free and airy.  In short, his figure show'd riper,
greater, and perfecter to the experienced eye than in his
tender youth; and now he was not much more than two and
twenty.

     In this interval, however, I pick'd out of the broken,
often pleasingly interrupted account of himself, that he was,
at that instant, actually on his road to London, in not a
very paramount plight or condition, having been wreck'd on
the Irish coast for which he had prematurely embark'd, and
lost the little all he had brought with him from the South
Seas; so that he had not till after great shifts and hard-
ships, in the company of his fellow-traveller, the captain,
got so far on his journey; that so it was (having heard of
his father's death and circumstances) he had now the world
to begin again, on a new account: a situation which he
assur'd me, in a vein of sincerity that, flowing from his
heart, penetrated mine, gave him to farther pain, than that
he had it not in his power to make me as happy as he could
wish.  My fortune, you will please to observe, I had not
enter'd upon any overture of, reserving to feast myself with
the surprize of it to him, in calmer instants.  And, as to
my dress, it could give him no idea of the truth, not only
as it was mourning, but likewise in a style of plainness and
simplicity that I had ever kept to with studied art.  He
press'd me indeed tenderly to satisfy his ardent curiosity,
both with regard to my past and present state of life since
his being torn away from me: but I had the address to elude
his questions by answers that, shewing his satisfaction at
no great distance, won upon him to waive his impatience, in
favour of the thorough confidence he had in my not delaying
it, but for respects I should in good time acquaint him with.

     Charles, however, thus returned to my longing arms,
tender, faithful, and in health, was already a blessing too
mighty for my conception: but Charles in distress! . . .
Charles reduc'd, and broken down to his naked personal merit,
was such a circumstance, in favour of the sentiments I had
for him, as exceeded my utmost desires; and accordingly I
seemed so visibly charm'd, so out of time and measure pleas'd
at his mention of his ruin'd fortune, that he could account
for it no way, but that the joy of seeing him again had swal-
low'd up every other sense, or concern.

     In the mean time, my woman had taken all possible care
of Charles's travelling companion; and as supper was coming
in, he was introduc'd to me, when I receiv'd him as became my
regard for all of Charles's acquaintance or friends.

     We four then supp'd together, in the style of joy, con-
gratulation, and pleasing disorder that you may guess.  For
my part, though all these agitations had left me not the
least stomach but for that uncloying feast, the sight of my
ador'd youth, I endeavour'd to force it, by way of example
for him, who I conjectur'd must want such a recruit after
riding; and, indeed, he ate like a traveller, but gaz'd at,
and addressed me all the time like a lover.

     After the cloth was taken away, and the hour of repose
came on, Charles and I were, without further ceremony, in
quality of man and wife, shewn up together to a very handsome
apartment, and, all in course, the bed, they said, the best
in the inn.

     And here, Decency, forgive me! if once more I violate
thy laws and keeping the curtains undrawn, sacrifice thee for
the last time to that confidence, without reserve, with which
I engaged to recount to you the most striking circumstances
of my youthful disorders.

     As soon, then, as we were in the room together, left to
ourselves, the sight of the bed starting the remembrance of
our first joys, and the thought of my being instantly to
share it with the dear possessor of my virgin heart, mov'd
me so strongly, that it was well I lean'd upon him, or I
must have fainted again under the overpowering sweet alarm.
Charles saw into my confusion, and forgot his own, that was
scarce less, to apply himself to the removal of mine.

     But now the true refining passion had regain'd thorough
possession of me, with all its train of symptoms: a sweet
sensibility, a tender timidity, love-sick yearnings temper'd
with diffidence and modesty, all held me in a subjection of
soul, incomparably dearer to me than the liberty of heart
which I had been long, too long! the mistress of, in the
course of those grosser gallantries, the consciousness of
which now made me sigh with a virtuous confusion and regret.
No real virgin, in view of the nuptial bed, could give more
bashful blushes to unblemish'd innocence than I did to a
sense of guilt; and indeed I lov'd Charles too truly not to
feel severely that I did not deserve him.

     As I kept hesitating and disconcerted under this soft
distraction, Charles, with a fond impatience, took the pains
to undress me; and all I can remember amidst the flutter and
discomposure of my senses was some flattering exclamations of
joy and admiration, more specially at the feel of my breasts,
now set at liberty form my stays, and which panting and ris-
ing in tumultuous throbs, swell'd upon his dear touch, and
gave it the welcome pleasure of finding them well form'd, and
unfail'd in firmness.

     I was soon laid in bed, and scarce languish'd an instant
for the darling partner of it, before he was undress'd and
got between the sheets, with his arms clasp'd round me, giv-
ing and taking, with gust inexpressible, a kiss of welcome,
that my heart rising to my lips stamp'd with its warmest
impression, concurring to by bliss, with that delicate and
voluptuous emotion which Charles alone had the secret to
excite, and which constitutes the very life, the essence of
pleasure.

     Meanwhile, two candles lighted on a side-table near us,
and a joyous wood-fire, threw a light into the bed that took
from one sense, of great importance to our joys, all pretext
for complaining of its being shut out of its share of them;
and indeed, the sight of my idolized youth was alone, from
the ardour with which I had wished for it, without other cir-
cumstance, a pleasure to die of.

     But as action was now a necessity to desires so much on
edge as ours, Charles, after a very short prelusive dalliance,
lifting up my linen and his own, laid the broad treasures of
his manly chest close to my bosom, both beating with the
tenderest alarms: when now, the sense of his glowing body, in
naked touch with mine, took all power over my thoughts out of
my own disposal, and deliver'd up every faculty of the soul
to the sensiblest of joys, that affecting me infinitely more
with my distinction of the person than of the sex, now
brought my conscious heart deliciously into play: my heart,
which eternally constant to Charles, had never taken any part
in my occasional sacrifices to the calls of constitution,
complaisance, or interest.  But ah! what became of me, when
as the powers of solid pleasure thickened upon me, I could
not help feeling the stiff stake that had been adorn'd with
the trophies of my despoil'd virginity, bearing hard and
inflexible against one of my thighs, which I had not yet
opened, from a true principle of modesty, reviv'd by a pas-
sion too sincere to suffer any aiming at the false merit of
difficulty, or my putting on an impertinent mock coyness.

     I have, I believe, somewhere before remark'd, that the
feel of that favourite piece of manhood has, in the very na-
ture of it, something inimitably pathetic.  Nothing can be
dearer to the touch, nor can affect it with a more delicious
sensation.  Think then! as a love thinks, what must be the
consummate transport of that quickest of our senses, in their
central seat too! when, after so long a deprival, it felt
itself re-inflam'd under the pressure of that peculiar scep-
ter-member which commands us all: but especially my darling,
elect from the face of the whole earth.  And now, at its
mightiest point of stiffness, it felt to me something so
subduing, so active, so solid and agreeable, that I know not
what name to give its singular impression: but the sentiment
of consciousness of its belonging to my supremely beloved
youth, gave me so pleasing an agitation, and work'd so
strongly on my soul, that it sent all its sensitive spirits
to that organ of bliss in me, dedicated to its reception.
There, concentreing to a point, like rays in a burning glass,
they glow'd, they burnt with the intensest heat; the springs
of pleasure were, in short, wound up to such a pitch, I
panted now, with so exquisitely keen an appetite for the emi-
nent enjoyment that I was even sick with desire, and unequal
to support the combination of two distinct ideas, that de-
lightfully distracted me: for all the thought I was capable
of, was that I was now in touch, at once, with the instrument
of pleasure, and the great-seal of love.  Ideas that, ming-
ling streams, pour'd such an ocean of intoxicating bliss on
a weak vessel, all too narrow to contain it, that I lay over-
whelm'd, absorbed, lost in an abyss of joy, and dying of
nothing but immoderate delight.

     Charles then rous'd me somewhat out of this extatic dis-
traction with a complaint softly murmured, amidst a crowd of
kisses, at the position, not so favourable to his desires, in
which I receiv'd his urgent insistance for admission, where
that insistance was alone so engrossing a pleasure that it
made me inconsistently suffer a much dearer one to be kept
out; but how sweet to correct such a mistake!  My thighs, now
obedient ot the intimations of love and nature, gladly dis-
close, and with a ready submission, resign up the soft gate-
way to the entrance of pleasure: I see, I feel the delicious
velvet tip! . . . he enters me might and main, with . . . oh!
my pen drops from me here in the extasy now present to my
faithful memory!  Description too deserts me, and delivers
over a task, above its strength of wing, to the imagination:
but it must be an imagination exalted by such a flame as mine
that can do justice to that sweetest, noblest of all sensa-
tions, that hailed and accompany'd the stiff insinuation all
the way up, till it was at the end of its penetration, send-
ing up, through my eyes, the sparks of the love-fire that
ran all over me and blaz'd in every vein and every pore of
me: a system incarnate of joy all over.

     I had now totally taken in love's true arrow from the
point up to the feather, in that part, where making now new
wound, the lips of the original one of nature, which had
owed its first breathing to this dear instrument, clung, as
if sensible of gratitude, in eager suction round it, whilst
all its inwards embrac'd it tenderly with a warmth of gust,
a compressive energy, that gave it, in its way, the hearti-
est welcome in nature; every fibre there gathering tight
round it, and straining ambitiously to come in for its share
of the blissful touch.

     As we were giving them a few moments of pause to the
delectation of the senses, in dwelling with the highest
relish on this intimatest point of re-union, and chewing the
cud of enjoyment, the impatience natural to the pleasure soon
drove us into action.  Then began the driving tumult on his
side, and the responsive heaves on mine, which kept me up to
him; whilst, as our joys grew too great for utterance, the
organs of our voices, voluptuously intermixing, became organs
of the touch . . . and oh, that touch! how delicious! . . .
how poignantly luscious! . . . And now! now I felt to the
heart of me! I felt the prodigious keen edge with which love,
presiding over this act, points the pleasure: love! that may
be styled the Attic salt of enjoyment; and indeed, without
it, the joy, great as it is, is still a vulgar one, whether
in a king or a beggar; for it is, undoubtedly, love alone
that refines, ennobles and exalts it.

     Thus happy, then, by the heart, happy by the senses, it
was beyond all power, even of thought, to form the conception
of a greater delight than what I was now consummating the
fruition of.

     Charles, whose whole frame was convulsed with the agita-
tion of his rapture, whilst the tenderest fires trembled in
his eyes, all assured me of a prefect concord of joy, pene-
trated me so profoundly, touch'd me so vitally, took me so
much out of my own possession, whilst he seem'd himself so
much in mine, that in a delicious enthusiasm, I imagin'd such
a transfusion of heart and spirit, as that coalescing, and
making one body and soul with him, I was he, and he, me.

     But all this pleasure tending, like life from its first
instants, towards its own dissolution, liv'd too fast not to
bring on upon the spur its delicious moment of mortality; for
presently the approach of the tender agony discover'd itself
by its usual signals, that were quickly follow'd by my dear
love's emanation of himself that spun our, and shot, feel-
ingly indeed! up the ravish'd in-draught: where the sweetly
soothing balmy titillation opened all the juices of joy on my
side, which extatically in flow, help'd to allay the prurient
glow, and drown'd our pleasure for a while.  Soon, however,
to be on float again!  For Charles, true to nature's laws, in
one breath expiring and ejaculating, languish'd not long in
the dissolving trance, but recovering spirit again, soon gave
me to feel that the true-mettle springs of his instrument of
pleasure were, by love, and perhaps by a long vacation, wound
up too high to be let down by a single explosion: his stiff-
ness still stood my friend.  Resuming then the action afresh,
without dislodging, or giving me the trouble of parting from
my sweet tenant, we play'd over again the same opera, with
the same delightful harmony and concert: our ardours, like
our love, knew no remission; and, all as the tide serv'd my
lover, lavish of his stores, and pleasure milked, over-flowed
me once more from the fulness of his oval reservoirs of the
genial emulsion: whilst, on my side, a convulsive grasp, in
the instant of my giving down the liquid contribution, ren-
der'd me sweetly subservient at once to the increase of his
joy, and of its effusions: moving me so, as to make me exert
all those springs of the compressive exsuction with which the
sensitive mechanism of that part thirstily draws and drains
the nipple of Love; with much such an instinctive eagerness
and attachment as, to compare great with less, kind nature
engages infants at the breast by the pleasure they find in
the motion of their little mouths and cheeks, to extract the
milky stream prepar'd for their nourishment.

     But still there was no end of his vigour: this double
discharge had so far from extinguish'd his desires, for that
time, that it had not even calm'd them; and at his age, de-
sires are power.  He was proceeding then amazingly to push it
to a third triumph, still without uncasing, if a tenderness,
natural to true love, had not inspir'd me with self-denial
enough to spare, and not overstrain him: and accordingly,
entreating him to give himself and me quarter, I obtain'd,
at length, a short suspension of arms, but not before he had
exultingly satisfy'd me that he gave out standing.

     The remainder of the night, with what we borrow'd upon
the day, we employ'd with unweary'd fervour in celebrating
thus the festival of our re-meeting; and got up pretty late
in the morning, gay, brisk and alert, though rest had been a
stranger to us: but the pleasures of love had been to us,
what the joy of victory is to an army; repose, refreshment,
everything.

     The journey into the country being now entirely out of
the question, and orders having been given over-night for
turning the horses' heads towards London, we left the inn as
soon as we had breakfasted, not without a liberal distribu-
tion of the tokens of my grateful sense of the happiness I
had met with in it.

     Charles and I were in my coach; the captain and my com-
panion in a chaise hir'd purposely for them, to leave us the
conveniency of a tete-a-tete.

     Here, on the road, as the tumult of my senses was toler-
ably compos'd, I had command enough to head to break properly
to him the course of life that the consequence of my separa-
tion from him had driven me into: which, at the same time
that he tenderly deplor'd with me, he was the less shocked
at; as, on reflecting how he had left me circumstanc'd, he
could not be entirely unprepar'd for it.

     But when I opened the state of my fortune to him, and
with that sincerity which, from me to him, was so much a
nature in me, I begg'd of him his acceptance of it, on his
own terms.  I should appear to you perhaps too partial to my
passion, were I to attempt the doing his delicacy justice.
I shall content myself then with assuring you, that after
his flatly refusing the unreserv'd, unconditional donation
that I long persecuted him in vain to accept, it was at
length, in obedience to his serious commands (for I stood
out unaffectedly, till he exerted the sovereign authority
which love had given him over me), that I yielded my consent
to waive the remonstrance I did not fail of making strongly
to him, against his degrading himself, and incurring the
reflection, however unjust, of having, for respects of for-
tune, barter'd his honour for infamy and prostitution, in
making one his wife, who thought herself too much honour'd
in being but his mistress.

     The plea of love then over-ruling all objections,
Charles, entirely won with the merit of my sentiments for
him, which he could not but read the sincerity of in a heart
ever open to him, oblig'd me to receive his hand, by which
means I was in pass, among other innumerable blessings, to
bestow a legal parentage on those fine children you have
seen by this happiest of matches.

     Thus at length, I got snug into port, where, in the
bosom of virtue, I gather'd the only uncorrupt sweets: where,
looking back on the course of vice I had run, and comparing
its infamous blandishments with the infinitely superior joys
of innocence, I could not help pitying, even in point of
taste, those who, immers'd in gross sensuality, are insen-
sible to the so delicate charms of VIRTUE, than which even
PLEASURE has not a greater friend, nor than VICE a greater
enemy.  Thus temperance makes men lords over those pleasures
that intemperance enslaves them to: the one, parent of
health, vigour, fertility, cheerfulness, and every other
desirable good of life; the other, of diseases, debility,
barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil incident to
human nature.

     You laugh, perhaps, at this tail-piece of morality, ex-
tracted from me by the force of truth, resulting from com-
par'd experiences: you think it, no doubt, out of place, out
of character; possibly too you may look on it as the paltry
finesse of one who seeks to mask a devotee to Vice under a
rag of a veil, impudently smuggled from the shrine of Virtue:
just as if one was to fancy one's self compleatly disguised
at a masquerade, with no other change of dress than turning
one's shoes into slippers; or, as if a writer should think to
shield a treasonable libel, by concluding it with a formal
prayer for the King.  But, independent of my flattering my-
self that you have a juster opinion of my sense and sincerity,
give me leave to represent to you, that such a supposition is
even more injurious to Virtue than to me: since, consistently
with candour and good-nature, it can have no foundation but
in the falsest of fears, that its pleasures cannot stand in
comparison with those of Vice; but let truth dare to hold it
up in its most alluring light: then mark, how spurious, how
low of taste, how comparatively inferior its joys are to those
which Virtue gives sanction to, and whose sentiments are not
above making even a sauce for the senses, but a sauce of the
highest relish; whilst Vices are the harpies that infect and
foul the feast.  The paths of Vice are sometimes strew'd with
roses, but then they are for ever infamous for many a thorn,
for many a canker-worm: those of Virtue are strew'd with roses
purely, and those eternally unfading ones.

     If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly
consistent in the incense I burn to Virtue.  If I have painted
Vice in all its gayest colours, if I have deck'd it with flow-
ers, it has been solely in order to make the worthier, the
solemner sacrifice of it, to Virtue.

     You know Mr. C*** O***, you know his estate, his worth,
and good sense: can you, will you pronounce it ill meant, at
least of him, when anxious for his son's morals, with a view
to form him to virtue, and inspire him with a fix'd, a
rational contempt for vice, he condescended to be his master
of the ceremonies, and led him by the hand thro' the most
noted bawdy-houses in town, where he took care he should be
familiarized with all those scenes of debauchery, so fit to
nauseate a good taste?  The experiment, you will cry, is
dangerous.  True, on a fool: but are fools worth so much
attention?

     I shall see you soon, and in the mean time think
candidly of me, and believe me ever,
                           MADAM,

     Yours, etc., etc., etc.,

                           THE END