Your faithful Correspondent_,

  Relicta Lovely.

  Dear Mr. SPECTATOR,

’I depend upon your profess’d Respect for virtuous Love, for your immediate answering the Design of this Letter; which is no other than to lay before the World the Severity of certain Parents who desire to suspend the Marriage of a discreet young Woman of eighteen, three Years longer, for no other reason but that of her being too young to enter into that State.  As to the consideration of Riches, my Circumstances are such, that I cannot be suspected to make my Addresses to her on such low Motives as Avarice or Ambition.  If ever Innocence, Wit and Beauty, united their utmost Charms, they have in her.  I wish you would expatiate a little on this Subject, and admonish her Parents that it may be from the very Imperfection of Human Nature it self, and not any personal Frailty of her or me, that our Inclinations baffled at present may alter; and while we are arguing with our selves to put off the Enjoyment of our present Passions, our Affections may change their Objects in the Operation.  It is a very delicate Subject to talk upon; but if it were but hinted, I am in hopes it would give the Parties concern’d some Reflection that might expedite our Happiness.  There is a Possibility, and I hope I may say it without Imputation of Immodesty to her I love with the highest Honour; I say, there is a Possibility this Delay may be as painful to her as it is to me.  If it be as much, it must be more, by reason of the severe Rules the Sex are under in being denied even the Relief of Complaint.  If you oblige me in this, and I succeed, I promise you a Place at my Wedding, and a Treatment suitable to your Spectatorial Dignity.’

  Your most humble Servant,

  Eustace.

  SIR,

’I Yesterday heard a young Gentleman, that look’d as if he was just come to the Town, and a Scarf, upon Evil-speaking; which Subject, you know, Archbishop Tillotson has so nobly handled in a Sermon in his Folio.  As soon as ever he had named his Text, and had opened a little the Drift of his Discourse, I was in great hopes he had been one of Sir ROGER’S Chaplains.  I have conceived so great an Idea of the charming Discourse above, that I should have thought one part of my Sabbath very well spent in hearing a Repetition of it.  But alas!  Mr. SPECTATOR, this Reverend Divine gave us his Grace’s Sermon, and yet I don’t know how; even I, that I am sure have read it at least twenty times, could not tell what to make of it, and was at a loss sometimes to guess what the Man aim’d at.  He was so just indeed, as to give us all the Heads and the Sub-divisions of the Sermon; and farther I think there was not one beautiful Thought in it but what we had.  But then, Sir, this Gentleman made so many pretty Additions; and he could never give us a Paragraph of the Sermon, but he introduced it with something which, methought,