“Well then, madam, consider how many fine ladies live innocently in the eye of the world, and this gay town, in the midst of temptation:  there’s the witty Mrs. W——­ is a virgin of 44, Mrs. T——­s is 39, Mrs. L——­ce, 33; yet you see, they laugh and are gay, at the park, at the playhouse, at balls, and at visits; and so much at ease, that all this seems hardly a self-denial.”  “Mr. Bickerstaff,” said she, with some emotion, “you are an excellent casuist; but the last word destroyed your whole argument; if it is not self-denial, it is no virtue.  I presented you with a half-guinea, in hopes not only to have my conscience eased, but my fortune told.  Yet—­” “Well, madam,” said I, “pray of what age is your husband?” “He is,” replied my injured client, “fifty, and I have been his wife fifteen years.”  “How happened it, you never communicated your distress in all this time to your friends and relations?” She answered, “He has been thus but a fortnight.”  I am the most serious man in the world to look at, and yet could not forbear laughing out.  “Why, madam, in case of infirmity, which proceeds only from age, the law gives no remedy.”  “Sir,” said she, “I find you have no more learning than Dr. Case;[237] and I am told of a young man, not five and twenty, just come from Oxford, to whom I will communicate this whole matter, and doubt not but he will appear to have seven times more useful and satisfactory knowledge than you and all your boasted family.”  Thus I have entirely lost my client:  but if this tedious narrative preserves Pastorella from the intended marriage with one twenty years her senior—­To save a fine lady, I am contented to have my learning decried, and my predictions bound up with Poor Robin’s Almanacks.

Will’s Coffee-house, May 25.

This evening was acted, “The Recruiting Officer,"[238] in which Mr. Estcourt’s[239] proper sense and observation is what supports the play.  There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Sergeant Kite; but it is admirably supplied by his action.  If I have skill to judge, that man is an excellent actor; but the crowd of the audience are fitter for representations at Mayfair, than a theatre royal.  Yet that fair is now broke,[240] as well as the theatre is breaking:  but it is allowed still to sell animals there.  Therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Pinkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate.[241] The downfall of Mayfair has quite sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other curiosities of nature.  A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox; and I am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs, for very near the value of one with four.  I hear likewise, that there is a great desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of them pressed, and the queens beating hemp.  Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for her ingenious puppet-show,