Only tell her that I love,
      Leave the rest to her, and Fate;
    Some kind planet from above,
    May, perhaps, her passsion move: 
      Lovers on their stars must wait.[115]

But the stars I am so intimately acquainted with, that I can assure him, he will never have her:  for would you believe it, though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends on her, the termagant for whom he sighs, is in love with a fellow, who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see, she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress.  Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my first narrative, pleases himself with a vain imagination, that with the language of his eyes, now he has found who she is, he shall conquer her, though her eyes are intent upon one who looks from her; which is ordinary with the sex.  It is certainly a mistake in the ancients, to draw the little gentleman, Love, as a blind boy; for his real character is, a little thief that squints.  For ask Mrs. Meddle, who is a confidante, or spy, upon all the passions in town, and she will tell you, that the whole is a game of cross purposes.  The lover is generally pursuing one who is in pursuit of another, and running from one that desires to meet him.  Nay, the figure of this passion is so justly represented in a squinting little thief (who is always in a double action) that do but observe Clarissa next time you see her, and you’ll find, when her eyes have made their tour round the company, she makes no stay on him they say she is to marry, but rests two seconds of a minute on Wildair, who neither looks nor thinks on her, or any woman else.  However, Cynthio had a bow from her the other day, upon which he is very much come to himself; and I heard him send his man of an errand yesterday without any manner of hesitation; a quarter of an hour after which he reckoned twenty, remembered he was to sup with a friend, and went exactly to his appointment.  I sent to know how he did this morning, and I find he very perfectly remembers that he spoke to me yesterday.

Will’s Coffee-house, April 20.

This week[116] being sacred to holy things, and no public diversions allowed, there has been taken notice of, even here, a little treatise, called, “A Project for the Advancement of Religion; dedicated to the Countess of Berkeley."[117] The title was so uncommon, and promised so peculiar a way of thinking, that every man here has read it, and as many as have done so, have approved it.  It is written with the spirit of one, who has seen the world enough to undervalue it with good breeding.  The author must certainly be a man of wisdom, as well as piety, and have spent much time in the exercise of both.  The real causes of the decay of the interest of religion, are set forth in a clear and lively manner, without unseasonable passions; and the whole air of the book, as to the language, the sentiments, and the reasonings, show it was written by one whose virtue sits easy about him, and to whom vice is thoroughly contemptible.  It was said by one of this company,[118] alluding to the knowledge the author seems to have of the world, “The man writes much like a gentleman, and goes to heaven with a very good mien.”