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serious anger she was in, she replied in the following

manner :

Sir, when I confider how perfectly new all you have faid on this subject is, and that the story you have given us, is not quite two thousand years old, I cannot but think it a piece of presumption to difpute with you: But your quotations put me in mind of the fable of the lion and the man. The man walking with that noble animal, shewed him, in the oftentation of human fuperiority, the sign of a man killing a lion. Upon which the lion faid very justly, we lions are none of us painters, else we could shew a hundred men killed by lions, for one lion killed by a man. You men are writers, and can represent us women as unbecoming as you please in your works, while we are unable to return the injury. Such a writer, I doubt not was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleasant aggravations of the frailty of the Ephesian lady; but when we consider this question between the sexes, which has been either a point of dispute or raillery ever since there were men and women, let us take facts from plain people, and from fuch as have not either ambition or capacity to embellish their narrations with any beauties of imagination. I was the other day amusing myself with Ligon's account of Barbadoes: And, in answer to your well-wrought tale, I will give you (as it dwells upon my memory) out of that honeft. traveller, in his fifty fifth page, the history of Inkle and Yarico.

Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years, embarked in the Downs, on the ship called the Achil les, bound for the West-Indies, on the 16th of June, 1674, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third fon of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to instil into his mind an early love of gain, by making hima perfect master of numbers, and confequently giving him a quick view of lofs and advantage, and preventing the natural impulses of his passions, by prepoffeffion towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a person every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in fome distress, put into a Creek on the main of America, in search of provifions. The youth, who is the hero of my story, among others went ashore on this occafion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who flew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer escaped among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired, and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprize, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American, the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of an European, covered. - from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and confequently solicitous for his prefervation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, - and led him to a stream to flake his thirst. In the midst of those good offices, she would fometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers: Then open his bosom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for she every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and beads. She likewife brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers, had presented to her, fo that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beasts, and most party-coloured feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dufk of the evening, or by the favour of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and folitudes, and shew him where to lie down in safety, and fleep amid the falls of water, and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and awake him on occafions to consult his fafety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be cloathed in such filks as his waistcoat was made of, and carried in houses drawn by horfes, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of without fuch fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coaft, to which she made signals: and in the night, with the utmost joy and fatisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that Island, it seems the planters come to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horfes and oxen.

To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began feriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh with himself how many days interest of his money he had loft during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very penfive and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon this confideratio", the prudent and frugal young man fold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiferate her condition, told him that she was with child by him. But he only made use of that information, to rife in his demands upon the purchaser.

I was to touched with this story (which I think should be always a counterpart to the Ephefion matron) that I left the room with tears in my eyes; which a woman of Arietta's good sense, did, I am fure, take for greater applause, than any compliments I could make her. SPECTATOR, Vol. I. No. XI.

FINIS.

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