which reign in the female breast,-gaming, intriguing, and drinking. The courtly dame of St. James's, the city belle, the St. James's and St. Giles's Cyprian, are equally addicted to them. In general, they are linked thus: they either drink and intrigue, or game and intrigue; for drinking does not suit with those who play for large sums. Some there are, the most perfect of the female sex, in whom all the three cardinal virtues unite, and are equally predominant: there are very few that are not influenced by two, and scarce any without one, of these craving passions.

As your education leads you into various errors, it shall be my endeavour, as far as my abilities will permit me, to guard you against a complication of them, and instruct you how to follow those pursuits with that degree of discretion, modera

tion, and arrangement, as may best suit your constitutions, purse, or inclinations. There are very few of you that are not fond of gaming; and many of you are great proficients in it. I sincerely wish you would study a few good books, which I shall recommend to you, with as much attention as you have perused that book which contains only fifty-two pages, commonly called a pack of cards. Your morals and minds would then receive considerable improvement. The following works I recommend particularly to your attentionCrumbs of Comfort to a Repentant Sinner; Hooks and Eyes for Believers Breeches; High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness; A Shot aimed at the Devil's Head-quarters, through the Tube of a Cannon of the Covenant; Heaven ravished by a Repentant Sinner; A Heel-piece

to a Limping Sinner; A Stone cast from the Sling of David; Little in Stature, but exalted on the Stilts of Faith: Meditations preparatory to the Love-feast at the Tabernacle; with Gross's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue; Dialogues in the Slang Language; and many other productions of a similar nature, equally honourable to the taste and literature of our country.

Strange as the titles of the above works may appear to you, yet I assure you they do exist, and are both moral, religious, and instructive. Let me request you to purchase them; they will form a very pretty little library, and adorn your room, as well as improve the mind.

But to proceed :-Many of

you

have a

very unfair custom : you often play cards for large sums of money, when you have not a shilling in your pocket. I really find myself compelled to condemn this practice: yet you are not so much to be blamed, having examples set you every day by men and women of the first fashion; the latter of whom are not satisfied with the advantage of not being able to lose money, but frequently cheat most abominably into the bargain. I am certain, indeed, that you, ye lovely Cyprians, have too much honesty and too generous a spirit to attempt it: indeed you may avoid all this disgrace, and yet indulge your favourite passion of gaming, in the following manner. There are few of you who have not a great number of pawn-brokers card-tickets; with these you may play at commerce, Pope Joan, Cribbage, and Loo; or, if you' wish to play a very deep game, you may

form them into a pack, and by that means speedily either win all your adversary's pledges, or get rid of your own.

Having instructed

you how to indulge.

the passion of gaming, I shall proceed to give you what information I am able on the other two cardinal virtues. First, to intrigue; but by my modesty I swear I am confoundedly puzzled, and find myself rather at a loss how to instruct you in this important science. Therefore the best method you can adopt is to copy the women of fashion: they are most perfect mistresses of this art; and some even are so expert as to deceive the most suspicious and jealous husbands; who, although they are absolutely qualified to butt with the stoutest ram of their flocks, think their wives as chaste as Diana, and speak of them to all their friends as the Lucretias of the age.