Roman History.  In the 44th Page of the second Volume the Author observes, that Augustus, upon his Return to Rome at the end of a War, received Complaints that too great a Number of the young Men of Quality were unmarried.  The Emperor thereupon assembled the whole Equestrian Order; and having separated the Married from the Single, did particular Honours to the former, but he told the latter, that is to say, Mr. SPECTATOR, he told the Batchelors,

“That their Lives and Actions had been so peculiar, that he knew not by what Name to call ’em; not by that of Men, for they performed nothing that was manly; not by that of Citizens, for the City might perish notwithstanding their Care; nor by that of Romans, for they designed to extirpate the Roman Name.”

  Then proceeding to shew his tender Care and hearty Affection for his
  People, he further told them,

“That their Course of Life was of such pernicious Consequence to the Glory and Grandeur of the Roman Nation, that he could not chuse but tell them, that all other Crimes put together could not equalize theirs:  For they were guilty of Murder, in not suffering those to be born which should proceed from them; of Impiety, in causing the Names and Honours of their Ancestors to cease; and of Sacrilege, in destroying their Kind, which proceeded from the immortal Gods, and Human Nature, the principal thing consecrated to ’em:  Therefore in this Respect they dissolved the Government, in disobeying its Laws; betrayed their Country, by making it barren and waste; nay and demolished their City, in depriving it of Inhabitants.  And he was sensible that all this proceeded not from any kind of Virtue or Abstinence, but from a Looseness and Wantonness, which ought never to be encouraged in any Civil Government.”

There are no Particulars dwelt upon that let us into the Conduct of these young Worthies, whom this great Emperor treated with so much Justice and Indignation; but any one who observes what passes in this Town, may very well frame to himself a Notion of their Riots and Debaucheries all Night, and their apparent Preparations for them all Day.  It is not to be doubted but these Romans never passed any of their Time innocently but when they were asleep, and never slept but when they were weary and heavy with Excesses, and slept only to prepare themselves for the Repetition of them.  If you did your Duty as a SPECTATOR, you would carefully examine into the Number of Births, Marriages, and Burials; and when you had deducted out of your Deaths all such as went out of the World without marrying, then cast up the number of both Sexes born within such a Term of Years last past, you might from the single People departed make some useful Inferences or Guesses how many there are left unmarried, and raise some useful Scheme for the Amendment of the Age in that particular.  I have not Patience