Time of Youth and vigorous Manhood passed the Way in which I have disposed of it, is attended with these Consequences; but to those who live and pass away Life as they ought, all Parts of it are equally pleasant; only the Memory of good and worthy Actions is a Feast which must give a quicker Relish to the Soul than ever it could possibly taste in the highest Enjoyments or Jollities of Youth.  As for me, if I sit down in my great Chair and begin to ponder, the Vagaries of a Child are not more ridiculous than the Circumstances which are heaped up in my Memory.  Fine Gowns, Country Dances, Ends of Tunes, interrupted Conversations, and midnight Quarrels, are what must necessarily compose my Soliloquy.  I beg of you to print this, that some Ladies of my Acquaintance, and my Years, may be perswaded to wear warm Night-caps this cold Season:  and that my old Friend Jack Tawdery may buy him a Cane, and not creep with the Air of a Strut.  I must add to all this, that if it were not for one Pleasure, which I thought a very mean one till of very late Years, I should have no one great Satisfaction left; but if I live to the 10th of March, 1714, and all my Securities are good, I shall be worth Fifty thousand Pound.

  I am, SIR, Your most humble Servant, Jack Afterday.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

You will infinitely oblige a distressed Lover, if you will insert in your very next Paper, the following Letter to my Mistress.  You must know, I am not a Person apt to despair, but she has got an odd Humour of stopping short unaccountably, and, as she her self told a Confident of hers, she has cold Fits.  These Fits shall last her a Month or six Weeks together; and as she falls into them without Provocation, so it is to be hoped she will return from them without the Merit of new Services.  But Life and Love will not admit of such Intervals, therefore pray let her be admonished as follows.

    Madam,

I Love you, and I honour you:  therefore pray do not tell me of waiting till Decencies, till Forms, till Humours are consulted and gratified.  If you have that happy Constitution as to be indolent for ten Weeks together, you should consider that all that while I burn in Impatiences and Fevers; but still you say it will be Time enough, tho I and you too grow older while we are yet talking.  Which do you think the more reasonable, that you should alter a State of Indifference for Happiness, and that to oblige me, or I live in Torment, and that to lay no Manner of Obligation upon you?  While I indulge your Insensibility I am doing nothing; if you favour my Passion, you are bestowing bright Desires, gay Hopes, generous Cares, noble Resolutions and transporting Raptures upon, Madam,

    Your most devoted humble Servant.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

Here’s a Gentlewoman lodges in the same House with me, that I never did any Injury to in my whole Life; and she is always railing at me to those that she knows will tell me of it.  Don’t you think she is in Love with me? or would you have me break my Mind yet or not? Your Servant, T. B.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,