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pert, giddy, unthinking girls, who upon the recommendation only of an agreeable person and a fashionable air, take themselves to be with women of the greatest merit.

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I take this way to acquaint you with what common rules and forms would never permit me to tell you otherwise; to wit, that you and I, though equals in quality and fortune, are by no means suitable companions. You are, it is true, very pretty, can dance, and make a very good figure in a public assembly; but alas, Madam, you must go no further; distance and silence are your best recommendations: therefore, let me beg of you never to make me any more visits. You come in a literal sense to see one, for you have nothing to say. I do not say this, that I would by any means lose your acquaintance; but I would keep it up with the strictest forms of good breeding. Let us pay visits, but never see one another; if you will be so good as to deny yourself always to me, I shall return the obligation by giving the same orders to my servants. When accident makes us meet at a third place, we may mutually lament the misfortune of never finding one another at home, go in the same party to a benefit play, and smile at each other, and put down glasses as we pass in our coaches. Thus we may enjoy as much of each other's friendship as we are capable of; for there are some people who are to be known only by sight, with which sort of friendship I hope you will always honour, madam,

Your most humble servant,
MARY TUESDAY.

'P. S. I subscribe myself by the name of the day I keep, that my supernumerary friends may know who I am.'

ADVERTISEMENT.

To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such things from them as are not properly within their respective provinces, this is to give notice, that Kidney, keeper of the book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted: and Samuel Birdock comes as shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird.' R.

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No. 25.

THURSDAY, MARCH 29. By Addison.

-Egrescitque medendo. VIRG.

And sickens by the very means of health.

THE following letter will explain itself, and needs no apology:

SIR,

'I am one of that sickly tribe, who are commonly known by the name of Valetudinarians; and do confess to you, that I first contracted this ill habit of body, or rather of mind, by the study of physic. I no sooner began to peruse books of this nature but I found my pulse was irregular; and scarce

ever read the account of any disease that I did not fancy myself afflicted with. Dr. Sydenham's learned treatise of fevers threw me into a lingering hectic, which hung upon me all the while I was reading that excellent piece. I then applied myself to the study of several authors, who have written upon phthysical distempers, and by that means fell into a consumption; till at length, growing very fat, I was in a manner shamed out of that imagination. Not long after this I found in myself all the symptoms of the gout, except pain; but was cured of it by a treatise upon the gravel, written by a very ingenious author, who (as it is usual for physicians to convert one distemper into another) eased me of the gout by giving me the stone. I at length studied myself into a complication of distempers; but accidentally taking into my hand that ingenious discourse written by Sanctorious, I was resolved to direct myself by a scheme of rules, which I had collected from his observations. The learned world are very well acquainted with that gentleman's invention; who, for the better carrying on of his experiments, contrived a certain mathematical chair, which was so artificially hung upon springs, that it would weigh any thing as well as a pair of scales. By this means he discovered how many ounces of his food passed by perspiration, what quantity of it was turned into nourishment, and how much went away by the other channels and distributions of nature.

'Having provided myself with this chair, I used to study, eat, drink and sleep in it; insomuch that I may be said, for these last three years, to have lived in a pair of scales. I compute myself, when I am in full health, to be precisely two hundred

weight, falling shortofit about a pound after a day's fast, and exceeding it as much after a full meal; so that it is my continual employment to trim the balance between these two volatile pounds in my constitution. In my ordinary meals I fetch myself up to two hundred weight and a half pound; and if after having dined I find myself fall short of it, I drink just so much small-beer, or eat such a quantity of bread, as is sufficient to make me weight. In my greatest excesses I do not transgress more than the other half pound; which, for my health's sake, I do the first Monday in every month. As soon as I find myself duly poised after dinner, I walk till I have perspired five ounces and four scruples; and when I discover by my chair that I am so far reduced, I fall to my books, and study away three ounces more. As for the remaining parts of the pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and sup by the clock, but by. my chair; for when that informs me my pound of food is exhausted, I conclude myself to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of abstinence I lose a pound and ahalf, and on solemn fasts am two pounds lighter than on other days in the year.

'I allow myself, one night with another, a quarter of a pound of sleep within a few grains, more or less; and if upon my rising I find that I have not consumed my whole quantity, I take out the rest in my chair. Upon an exact calculation of what I expended and received the last year, which I always register in a book, I find the medium to be two hundred weight, so that I can not discover that I am impaired one ounce in my health during a whole twelvemonth. And yet, sir, notwithstand

ing this my great care to ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poise, so it is that I find myself in a sick and languishing condition. My complexion is grown very sallow, my pulse low, and my body hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, sir, to consider me as your patient, and to give me more certain rules to walk by than those I have already observed; and you will very much oblige your humble servant.'

This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a valetudinarian: Stavo ben, ma per star meglio, sto qui:' which it is impossible to translate. The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save there lives, which infallibly destroy them. This is a reflection made by some historians, upon observing that there are many more thousands kill*ed in a flight than in a battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary sick persons that break their constitutions by physic, and throw themselves into the arms of death, by endeavouring to escape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To consult the preservation of life, as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or course of physic, are purposes so abject, so mean, so unworthy of human nature, that a generous soul would rather die than submit to them. Besides, that a continual anxiety for life vitiates all the relishes for it, and casts a gloom over the whole face of nature; as it is impossible that we should take delight in any thing that we are every moment afraid of losing.

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