up stairs, imagines she shall go to church with her sweetheart before the week is at an end. But if in the course of their amours she gives the dear man her hair wove in a true lover's knot, or breaks a crooked ninepence with him, she thinks herself assured of his inviolable fidelity.

It would puzzle the most profound antiquary to discover, what could give birth to the strange notions cherished by fond nymphs and swains. The god of love has more superstitious votaries, and is worshipped with more unaccountable rites than any fabulous deity whatever. Nothing, indeed, is so whimsical as the imagination of a person in love. The dying shepherd carves the name of his mistress on the trees, while the fond maid knits him a pair of garters with an amorous posy: and both look on what they do as a kind of charm to secure the affection of the other. A lover will rejoice to give his mistress a bracelet or a top-knot, and she perhaps will take pleasure in working him a pair of ruffles. These they will regard as the soft bonds of love; but neither would on any account run the risk of cutting love by giving or receiving such a present as a knife or a pair of scissars. But to wear the picture of the beloved object constantly near the heart, is universally accounted a most excellent and never-failing preservative of affection.

Some few years ago there was publicly advertised, among the other extraordinary medicines whose wonderful qualities are daily related in the last page of our newspapers, a most efficacious love-powder; by which a despairing lover might create affection in the bosom of the most cruel mistress. Lovers have, indeed, always been fond of enchantment. Shakspeare has represented Othello as accused of winning his Desdemona by conjuration and mighty magic;' and Theocritus and Virgil have both introduced wo

men into their pastorals, using charms and incanta. tions to recover the affections of their sweethearts In a word, Talismans, Genii, Witches, Fairies, and all the instruments of magic and enchantment were first discovered by lovers, and employed in the business of love.

But I never had a thorough insight into all this amorous sorcery till I received the following letter, which was sent me from the country a day or two after Valentine's day; and I make no doubt, but all true lovers most religiously performed the previous rites mentioned by my correspondent.

'To MR. TOWN.

Feb. 17, 1755.

DEAR SIR, 'You must know I am in love with a very clever man, a Londoner; and as I want to know whether it is my fortune to have him, I have tried all the tricks I can hear of for that purpose. I have seen him several times in coffee-grounds with a sword by his side; and he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup in a coach and six, with two footmen behind it. I got up last May morning, and went into the fields to hear the cuckoo; and when I pulled off my left shoe, I found a hair in it exactly the same colour with his. But I shall never forget what I did last Midsummereve. I and my two sisters tried the Dumb Cake together: you must know, two must make it, two bake it, two break it, and the third put it under each of their pillows (but you must not speak a word all the time), and then you will dream of the man you are to have. This we did; and to be sure I did nothing all night but dream of Mr. Blossom. The same night, exactly at twelve o'clock, I sowed hempseed in our back yard, and said to myself, "Hempseed I sow, hemp-seed I hoe, and he that is my true love come after me and mow." Will you believe

me? I looked back, and saw him behind me, as plain as eyes could see him. After that, I took a clean shift, and turned it, and hung it upon the back of a chair; and very likely my sweetheart would have come and turned it right again (for I heard his step), but I was frightened, and could not help speaking, which broke the charm. I likewise stuck up two Midsummer-men, one for myself, and one for him. Now if his had died away, we should never have come together but I assure you his blowed and turned to mine. Our maid Betty tells me, that if I go backwards without speaking a word into the garden upon Midsummer-eve, and gather a rose, and keep it in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it till Christmas-day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to be my husband will come and take it out. If I am not married before the time come about again, I will certainly do it; and only mind if Mr. Blossom is not the man.

'I have tried a great many other fancies, and they have all turned out right. Whenever I go to lie in a strange bed, I always tie my garter nine times round the bed-post, and knit nine knots in it, and say to myself, "This knot I knit, this knot I tie, to see my love as he goes by, in his apparel and array, as he walks in every day." I did so last holidays at my uncle's, and to be sure I saw Mr. Blossom draw my curtains, and tuck up the clothes at my bed's feet. Cousin Debby was married a little while ago, and she sent me a piece of bride-cake to put under my pillow; and I had the sweetest dream-I thought we were going to be married together. I have, many is the time, taken great pains to pare an apple whole, and afterward flung the peel over my head; and it always falls in the shape of the first letter of his surname or christian name. I am sure Mr. Blossom loves me, because I stuck two of the kernels upon

my forehead, while I thought upon him and the lubberly squire my papa wants me to have: Mr. Blossom's kernel stuck on, but the other dropt off directly.

Last Friday, Mr. Town, was Valentine's day; and I'll tell you what I did the night before. I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it up with salt: and when I went to bed, eat it shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it, and this was to have the same effect with the bay-leaves. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water; and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it? Mr. Blossom was my man; and I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world.

'Dear Mr. Town, if you know any other ways to try our fortune by, do put them in your paper. My mamma laughs at us, and says there is nothing in them; but I am sure there is, for several misses at our boarding-school have tried them, and they have all happened true: and I am sure my own sister Hetty, who died just before Christmas, stood in the church-porch last Midsummer-eve to see all that were to die that year in our parish; and she saw her own apparition. Your humble servant,

T.

ARABELLA WHIMSEY.'

N° 57. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1755.

Dulce Sodalitium!

Now this is worshipful society!

MARTIAL.

SHAKSPEARE.

THERE is no phrase in the whole vocabulary of modern conversation, which has a more vague signification than the words 'Good Company.' People of fashion modestly explain it to mean only themselves; and, like the old Romans, look on all others as barbarians. Thus a star or a riband, a title or a place, denotes good company; and a man rises in the esteem of the polite circle according to his rank or his rentroll. This way of reasoning is so well known and so generally adopted, that we are not surprised to hear polite persons complain, at their return from the play, that the house was very much crowded, but that there was no company; though, indeed, I could not help smiling at a lady's saying she preferred St. James's church to St. George's, because the pews were commonly filled with better company.

I propose at present to consider this comprehensive term, only as it respects a society of friends, who meet in order to pass their time in an agreeable manner. To do this the more effectually, I shall take a cursory view of the several methods now in vogue, by which a set of acquaintance endeavour to amuse each other. The reader will here meet with some very extraordinary inventions for this purpose; and when he has fixed his choice, may try to introduce himself into that company he likes best.

There is a great demand for wit and humour in some parts of this metropolis. Among many, he is reckoned the best company, who can enliven his