These inward Languishings of a Mind infected with this Softness, have given birth to a Phrase which is made use of by all the melting Tribe, from the highest to the lowest, I mean that of dying for Love.

Romances, which owe their very Being to this Passion, are full of these metaphorical Deaths.  Heroes and Heroines, Knights, Squires, and Damsels, are all of them in a dying Condition.  There is the same kind of Mortality in our Modern Tragedies, where every one gasps, faints, bleeds and dies.  Many of the Poets, to describe the Execution which is done by this Passion, represent the Fair Sex as Basilisks that destroy with their Eyes; but I think Mr. Cowley has with greater Justness of Thought compared a beautiful Woman to a Porcupine, that sends an Arrow from every Part. [1]

I have often thought, that there is no way so effectual for the Cure of this general Infirmity, as a Man’s reflecting upon the Motives that produce it.  When the Passion proceeds from the Sense of any Virtue or Perfection in the Person beloved, I would by no means discourage it; but if a Man considers that all his heavy Complaints of Wounds and Deaths rise from some little Affectations of Coquetry, which are improved into Charms by his own fond Imagination, the very laying before himself the Cause of his Distemper, may be sufficient to effect the Cure of it.

It is in this view that I have looked over the several Bundles of Letters which I have received from Dying People, and composed out of them the following Bill of Mortality, which I shall lay before my Reader without any further Preface, as hoping that it may be useful to him in discovering those several Places where there is most Danger, and those fatal Arts which are made use of to destroy the Heedless and Unwary.

  Lysander, slain at a Puppet-show on the third of September.

  Thirsis, shot from a Casement in Pickadilly.

  T. S., wounded by Zehinda’s Scarlet Stocking, as she was
               stepping out of a Coach.

  Will.  Simple, smitten at the Opera by the Glance of an Eye that was
                aimed at one who stood by him.

  Tho.  Vainlove, lost his Life at a Ball.

  Tim.  Tattle, kill’d by the Tap of a Fan on his left Shoulder by
               Coquetilla, as he was talking carelessly with her in a
               Bow-window.

  Sir Simon Softly, murder’d at the Play-house in Drury-lane by a Frown.

  Philander, mortally wounded by Cleora, as she was adjusting her
               Tucker.

  Ralph Gapely, Esq., hit by a random Shot at the Ring.

  F. R., caught his Death upon the Water, April the 31st.

  W. W., killed by an unknown Hand, that was playing with the
               Glove off upon the Side of the Front-Box in Drury-Lane.

  Sir Christopher Crazy, Bart.,
               hurt by the Brush of a Whalebone Petticoat.