’Your Kindness to Eleonora, in one of your Papers, has given me Encouragement to do my self the Honour of writing to you.  The great Regard you have so often expressed for the Instruction and Improvement of our Sex, will, I hope, in your own Opinion, sufficiently excuse me from making any Apology for the Impertinence of this Letter.  The great Desire I have to embellish my Mind with some of those Graces which you say are so becoming, and which you assert Reading helps us to, has made me uneasie ’till I am put in a Capacity of attaining them:  This, Sir, I shall never think my self in, ’till you shall be pleased to recommend some Author or Authors to my Perusal.

I thought indeed, when I first cast my Eye on Eleonora’s Letter, that I should have had no occasion for requesting it of you; but to my very great Concern, I found, on the Perusal of that Spectator, I was entirely disappointed, and am as much at a loss how to make use of my Time for that end as ever.  Pray, Sir, oblige me at least with one Scene, as you were pleased to entertain Eleonora with your Prologue.  I write to you not only my own Sentiments, but also those of several others of my Acquaintance, who are as little pleased with the ordinary manner of spending one’s Time as my self:  And if a fervent Desire after Knowledge, and a great Sense of our present Ignorance, may be thought a good Presage and Earnest of Improvement, you may look upon your Time you shall bestow in answering this Request not thrown away to no purpose.  And I can’t but add, that unless you have a particular and more than ordinary Regard for Eleonora, I have a better Title to your Favour than she; since I do not content myself with Tea-table Reading of your Papers, but it is my Entertainment very often when alone in my Closet.  To shew you I am capable of Improvement, and hate Flattery, I acknowledge I do not like some of your Papers; but even there I am readier to call in question my own shallow Understanding than Mr. SPECTOR’S profound Judgment.

  I am, Sir,
  your already (and in hopes of being more) your obliged Servant,

  PARTHENIA.

This last Letter is written with so urgent and serious an Air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her Commands, which I shall do very suddenly.

T.

[Footnote 1:  This letter, signed Parthenia, was by Miss Shepheard, sister of Mrs. Perry, who wrote the Letter in No, 92, signed ‘Leonora.’]

* * * * *

No. 141.  Saturday, August 11, 1711.  Steele.

      ’...  Migravit ab Aure voluptas
      Omnis ...’

      Hor.