“Business calling me to London, I went to St. James’s Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells.  Her behavior during the whole service was so pert, languishing, and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me.  I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd and speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her house, not very far from Ch-r-ng Cr-ss.

“Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card tables, and a crowd of wits and admirers.  I made the best bow I could, and advanced towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name.

“Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright.  She turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and words; and I replied with as ridiculous fulsome compliments as I could pay her:  indeed, one in which I compared her to an angel visiting the sick wells, went a little too far; nor should I have employed it, but that the allusion came from the Second Lesson last Sunday, which we both had heard, and I was pressed to answer her.

“Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked how I spelt my name?  ‘Madam,’ says I, turning on my heel, ’I spell it with a Y.’  And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of the town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to look elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader,

“Cymon WYLDOATS.”

“You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a letter as HUPSILON.  But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa, wonders that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby respectfully informed the reason Y.”

The above is a parable, whereof the writer will now expound the meaning.  Jocasta was no other than Miss Esmond, Maid of Honor to her Majesty.  She had told Mr. Esmond this little story of having met a gentleman somewhere, and forgetting his name, when the gentleman, with no such malicious intentions as those of “Cymon” in the above fable, made the answer simply as above; and we all laughed to think how little Mistress Jocasta-Beatrix had profited by her artifice and precautions.

As for Cymon, he was intended to represent yours and her very humble servant, the writer of the apologue and of this story, which we had printed on a “Spectator” paper at Mr. Steele’s office, exactly as those famous journals were printed, and which was laid on the table at breakfast in place of the real newspaper.  Mistress Jocasta, who had plenty of wit, could not live without her Spectator to her tea; and this sham Spectator was intended to convey to the young woman that she herself was a flirt, and that Cymon was a gentleman of honor and resolution, seeing all her faults, and determined to break the chains once and for ever.