one another. Honoria is ever complaining of a certain Sufficiency in the young Women of this Age, who assume to themselves an Authority of carrying all things before them, as if they were Possessors of the Esteem of Mankind, and all, who were but a Year before them in the World, were neglected or deceased. Flavia, upon such a Provocation, is sure to observe, that there are People who can resign nothing, and know not how to give up what they know they cannot hold; that there are those who will not allow Youth their Follies, not because they are themselves past them, but because they love to continue in them.  These Beauties Rival each other on all Occasions, not that they have always had the same Lovers but each has kept up a Vanity to shew the other the Charms of her Lover. Dick Crastin and Tom Tulip, among many others, have of late been Pretenders in this Family:  Dick to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only surviving Beau of the last Age, and Tom almost the only one that keeps up that Order of Men in this.

I wish I could repeat the little Circumstances of a Conversation of the four Lovers with the Spirit in which the young Lady, I had my Account from, represented it at a Visit where I had the Honour to be present; but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of Honoria, and Tom Tulip, the Pretender to Flavia, were purposely admitted together by the Ladies, that each might shew the other that her Lover had the Superiority in the Accomplishments of that sort of Creature whom the sillier Part of Women call a fine Gentleman.  As this Age has a much more gross Taste in Courtship, as well as in every thing else, than the last had, these Gentlemen are Instances of it in their different Manner of Application. Tulip is ever making Allusions to the Vigour of his Person, the sinewy Force of his Make; while Crastin professes a wary Observation of the Turns of his Mistress’s Mind. Tulip gives himself the Air of a restless Ravisher, Crastin practises that of a skilful Lover.  Poetry is the inseparable Property of every Man in Love; and as Men of Wit write Verses on those Occasions, the rest of the World repeat the Verses of others.  These Servants of the Ladies were used to imitate their Manner of Conversation, and allude to one another, rather than interchange Discourse in what they said when they met. Tulip the other Day seized his Mistress’s Hand, and repeated out of Ovid’s Art of Love,

  ’Tis I can in soft Battles pass the Night, }
  Yet rise next Morning vigorous for the Fight, }
  Fresh as the Day, and active as the Light. }

Upon hearing this, Crastin, with an Air of Deference, played Honoria’s Fan, and repeated,

  Sedley has that prevailing gentle Art, }
  That can with a resistless Charm impart }
  The loosest Wishes to the chastest Heart:  }
  Raise such a Conflict, kindle such a Fire,
  Between declining Virtue and Desire,
  Till the poor vanquish’d Maid dissolves away
  In Dreams all Night, in Sighs and Tears all Day. [1]