Such beautiful Prospects gladden our Minds, and when considered in general, give innocent and pleasing Ideas.  He that dwells upon any one Object of Beauty, may fix his Imagination to his Disquiet; but the Contemplation of a whole Assembly together, is a Defence against the Encroachment of Desire:  At least to me, who have taken pains to look at Beauty abstracted from the Consideration of its being the Object of Desire; at Power, only as it sits upon another, without any Hopes of partaking any Share of it; at Wisdom and Capacity, without any Pretensions to rival or envy its Acquisitions:  I say to me, who am really free from forming any Hopes by beholding the Persons of beautiful Women, or warming my self into Ambition from the Successes of other Men, this World is not only a meer Scene, but a very pleasant one.  Did Mankind but know the Freedom which there is in keeping thus aloof from the World, I should have more Imitators, than the powerfullest Man in the Nation has Followers.  To be no Man’s Rival in Love, or Competitor in Business, is a Character which if it does not recommend you as it ought to Benevolence among those whom you live with, yet has it certainly this Effect, that you do not stand so much in need of their Approbation, as you would if you aimed at it more, in setting your Heart on the same things which the Generality doat on.  By this means, and with this easy Philosophy, I am never less at a Play than when I am at the Theatre; but indeed I am seldom so well pleased with the Action as in that Place, for most Men follow Nature no longer than while they are in their Night-Gowns, and all the busy Part of the Day are in Characters which they neither become or act in with Pleasure to themselves or their Beholders.  But to return to my Ladies:  I was very well pleased to see so great a Crowd of them assembled at a Play, wherein the Heroine, as the Phrase is, is so just a Picture of the Vanity of the Sex in tormenting their Admirers.  The Lady who pines for the Man whom she treats with so much Impertinence and Inconstancy, is drawn with much Art and Humour.  Her Resolutions to be extremely civil, but her Vanity arising just at the Instant that she resolved to express her self kindly, are described as by one who had studied the Sex.  But when my Admiration is fixed upon this excellent Character, and two or three others in the Play, I must confess I was moved with the utmost Indignation at the trivial, senseless, and unnatural Representation of the Chaplain.  It is possible there may be a Pedant in Holy Orders, and we have seen one or two of them in the World; but such a Driveler as Sir Roger, so bereft of all manner of Pride, which is the Characteristick of a Pedant, is what one would not believe could come into the Head of the same Man who drew the rest of the Play.  The Meeting between Welford and him shews a Wretch without any Notion of the Dignity of his Function; and it is out of all common Sense that he should give an Account of himself as one