in this Town has had her Heart irrecoverably won, by Men who have not made one Advance which ties their Admirers, tho’ the Females languish with the utmost Anxiety.  I have often, by way of Admonition to my female Readers, give them Warning against agreeable Company of the other Sex, except they are well acquainted with their Characters.  Women may disguise it if they think fit, and the more to do it, they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they have no Manner of Approbation of Men, without some Degree of Love:  For this Reason he is dangerous to be entertaind as a Friend or Visitant who is capable of gaining any eminent Esteem or Observation, though it be never so remote from Pretensions as a Lover.  If a Man’s Heart has not the Abhorrence of any treacherous Design, he may easily improve Approbation into Kindness, and Kindness into Passion.  There may possibly be no manner of Love between them in the Eyes of all their Acquaintance, no it is all Friendship; and yet they may be as fond as Shepherd and Shepherdess in a Pastoral, but still the Nymph and the Swain may be to each other no other I warrant you, than Pylades and Orestes.

  When Lucy decks with Flowers her swelling Breast,
  And on her Elbow leans, dissembling Rest,
  Unable to refrain my madding Mind,
  Nor Sleep nor Pasture worth my Care I find.

  Once Delia slept, on easie Moss reclin’d,
  Her lovely Limbs half bare, and rude the Wind;
  I smoothed her Coats, and stole a silent Kiss: 
  Condemn me Shepherds if I did amiss. [4]

Such good Offices as these, and such friendly Thoughts and Concerns for one another, are what make up the Amity, as they call it, between Man and Woman.

It is the Permission of such Intercourse, that makes a young Woman come to the Arms of her Husband, after the Disappointment of four or five Passions which she has successively had for different Men, before she is prudentially given to him for whom she has neither Love nor Friendship.  For what should a poor Creature do that has lost all her Friends?  There’s Marinet the Agreeable, has, to my Knowledge, had a Friendship for Lord Welford, which had like to break her Heart; then she had so great a Friendship for Colonel Hardy, that she could not endure any Woman else should do any thing but rail at him.  Many and fatal have been Disasters between Friends who have fallen out, and their Resentments are more keen than ever those of other Men can possibly be:  But in this it happens unfortunately, that as there ought to be nothing concealed from one Friend to another, the Friends of different Sexes [very often [5]] find fatal Effects from their Unanimity.

For my Part, who study to pass Life in as much Innocence and Tranquility as I can, I shun the Company of agreeable Women as much as possible; and must confess that I have, though a tolerable good Philosopher, but a low Opinion of Platonick Love:  for which Reason I thought it necessary to give my fair Readers a Caution against it, having, to my great Concern, observed the Waste of a Platonist lately swell to a Roundness which is inconsistent with that Philosophy.