FANNY HILL MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE by John Cleland c 1749

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Letter The First

 

     Madam,

 

     I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my con-

sidering your desires as indispensable orders.  Ungracious

then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scan-

dalous stages of my life, out of which I emerg'd, at length,

to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love,

health, and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of

youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by

great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding,

naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst

the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tost in, exerted

more observation on the characters and manners of the world

than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who

looking on all thought or reflection as their capital enemy,

keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it

without mercy.

 

     Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary preface,

I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther

apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my

life, wrote with the same liberty that I led it.

 

     Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not

so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze

wrapper on it, but paint situations such as they actually

rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of

decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies

as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of

the ORIGINALS themselves, to sniff prudishly and out of

character at the PICTURES of them.  The greatest men, those

of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning

their private closets with nudities, though, in compliance

with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them decent deco-

rations of the staircase, or salon.

 

     This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal

history.  My maiden name was Frances Hill.  I was born at a

small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents ex-

tremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.

 

     My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that

disabled him from following the more laborious branches of

country-drudgery, got, by making of nets, a scanty subsis-

tence, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping

a little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood.

They had had several children; but none lived to any age

except myself, who had received from nature a constitution

perfectly healthy.

 

     My education, till past fourteen, was no better than

very vulgar; reading, or rather spelling, an illegible

scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work composed the whole

system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no

other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity

general to our sex, in the tender stage of life when objects

alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else.

But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expence of

innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look

on a man as a creature of prey that will eat her.

 

     My poor mother had divided her time so entirely be-

tween her scholars and her little domestic cares, that she

had spared very little of it to my instruction, having,

from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of

guarding me against any.

 

     I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the

worst of ills befell me in the loss of my tender fond par-

ents, who were both carried off by the small-pox, within a

few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby

hastening the death of my mother; so that I was now left an

unhappy friendless orphan (for my father's coming to settle

there was accidental, he being originally a Kentishman). 

That cruel distemper which had proved so fatal to them, had

indeed seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms,

that I was presently out of danger, and, what I then did not

know the value of, was entirely unmark'd.  I skip over here

an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt

on this melancholy occasion.  A little time, and the giddi-

ness of that age dissipated, too soon, my reflections on

that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to recon-

cile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put

into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a

service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice

from one Esther Davis, a young woman that had been down to

see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was

to return to her place.

 

     As I had now nobody left alive in the village who had

concern enough about what should become of me to start any

objections to this scheme, and the woman who took care of

me after my parents; death rather encouraged me to pursue

it, I soon came to a resolution of making this launch into

the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to SEEK

MY FORTUNE, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more

adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it

made or advanced.

 

     Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me

to venture with her, by piquing my childish curiosity with

the fine sights that were to be seen in London: the Tombs,

the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and

Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within

her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which per-

fectly turn'd the little head of me.

 

     Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent ad-

miration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor

girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise above dowlass

shifts and stuff gowns, beheld Esther's scowered satin gowns,

caps border'd with an inch of lace, taudry ribbons, and shoes

belaced with silver: all which we imagined grew in London,

and entered for a great deal into my determination of trying

to come in for my share of them.

 

     The idea however of having the company of a townswoman

with her, was the trivial, and all the motives that engaged

Esther to take charge of me during my journey to town, where

she told me, after her manner and style, "as how several

maids out of the country had made themselves and all their

kin for ever: that by preserving their VIRTUE, some had taken

so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept

them coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some,

may-hap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I,

as well as another?"; with other almanacs to this purpose,

which set me a tip-toe to begin this promising journey, and

to leave a place which, though my native one, contained no

relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insup-

portable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into

a cold air of charity, with which I was entertain'd even at

the only friend's house that I had the least expectation of

care and protection from.  She was, however, so just to me,

as to manage the turning into money of the little matters

that remained to me after the debts and burial charges were

accounted for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune

into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe,

pack'd up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with

seventeen shillings in silver; stowed up in a spring-pouch,

which was a greater treasure than ever I had yet seen to-

gether, and which I could not conceive there was a possi-

bility of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken

up with the joy of seeing myself mistress of such an im-

mense sum, that I gave very little attention to a world of

good advice which was given me with it.

 

     Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the

London waggon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of

leavetaking, at which I dropt a few tears betwixt grief and

joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over

all that happened to me on the road, such as the waggoner's

looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of

the passengers, which were defeated by the vigilance of my

guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly

care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for her pro-

tection by making me bear all travelling charges, which I

defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought myself

much obliged to her into the bargain.

 

     She took indeed great care that we were not over-rated,

or imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible;

expensiveness was not her vice.

 

     It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached

London-town, in our slow conveyance, though drawn by six at

length.  As we passed through the greatest streets that led

to our inn, the noise of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds

of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops

and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.

 

     But guess at my mortification and surprize when we

came to the inn, and our things were landed and deliver'd

to us, when my fellow traveller and protectress, Esther

Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during

the journey, and prepared me by no preceding signs for the

stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only depend-

ence and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden

assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded

my becoming a burden to her.

 

     Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her

assistance and good offices, which I relied upon, and never

more wanted, she thought herself, it seems, abundantly ac-

quitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe

to my journey's end; and seeing nothing in her procedure

towards me but what was natural and in order, began to em-

brace me by way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded,

so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so much as

to mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and

knowledge of the place she had brought me to.

 

     Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubt-

less attributed to nothing more than a concern at parting,

this idea procured me perhaps a slight alleviation of it,

in the following harangue:  That now we were got safe to

London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she

advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible;

that I need not fear getting one; there were more places

than parish-churches; that she advised me to go to an

intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing stirring,

she would find me out and let me know; that in the meantime,

I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where to

send to me; that she wish'd me good luck, and hoped I should

always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bring a

disgrace on my parentage.  With this, she took her leave of

me, and left me, as it were, on my own hands, full as

lightly as I had been put into hers.

 

     Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless,

I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this

separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room

in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the af-

fliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances burst

out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the

oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupefied,

and most perfectly perplex'd how to dispose of myself.

 

     One of the waiters coming in, added yet more to my

uncertainty by asking me, in a short way, if I called for

anything? to which I replied innocently:  "No."  But I

wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that

night.  He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who

accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in

the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have

a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some

friends in town (here I fetched a deep sigh in vain!) I

might provide for myself in the morning.

 

     'Tis incredible what trifling consolations the human

mind will seize in its greatest afflictions.  The assurance

of nothing more than a bed to lie on that night, calmed my

agonies; and being asham'd to acquaint the mistress of the

inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed

to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an intelli-

gence office, to which I was furnish'd with written direc-

tions on the back of a ballad Esther had given me.  There I

counted on getting information of any place that such a

country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get

into any sort of being, before my little stock should be

consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated

to me that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, how-

ever affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely

cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly,

that her procedure was all in course, and that it was only

my ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light

I at first did.

 

     Accordingly, the next morning I dress'd myself as clean

and as neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and

having left my box, with special recommendation, with the

landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any more

difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl,

barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing

trap, I got to the wish'd-for intelligence office.

 

     It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the

receipt of custom, with a book before her in great form and

order, and several scrolls, ready made out, of directions

for places.

 

     I made up then to this important personage, without

lifting up my eyes or observing any of the people round me,

who were attending there on the same errand as myself, and

dropping her curtsies nine-deep, just made a shift to

stammer out my business to her.

 

     Madam having heard me out, with all the gravity and

brow of a petty minister of State, and seeing at one glance

over my figure what I was, made me no answer, but to ask

me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told

me places for women were exceedingly scarce, especially as

I seemed too slight built for hard work; but that she

would look over her book, and see what was to be done for

me, desiring me to stay a little till she had dispatched

some other customers.

 

     On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified

at a declaration which carried with it a killing uncertainty

that my circumstances could not well endure.

 

     Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some di-

version from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my

head a little, and sent my eyes on a course round the room,

wherein they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such

my extreme innocence pronounc'd her) sitting in a corner of

the room, dress'd in a velvet mantle (nota bene, in the

midst of summer), with her bonnet off; squab-fat, red-faced,

and at least fifty.

 

     She look'd as if she would devour me with her eyes,

staring at me from head to foot, without the least regard

to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so fixedly put

me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest re-

commendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose.

After a little time, in which my air, person and whole

figure had undergone a strict examination, which I had, on

my part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming,

drawing up my neck, and setting my best looks, she advanced

and spoke to me with the greatest demureness:

 

     "Sweet-heart, do you want a place?"

 

     "Yes, and please you" (with a curtsy down to the

ground).

 

     Upon this she acquainted me that she was actually

come to the office herself to look out for a servant; that

she believed I might do, with a little of her instructions;

that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character;

that London was a very wicked, vile place; that she hoped I

would be tractable, and keep out of bad company; in short,

she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in

town could think of, and which was much more than was neces-

sary to take in an artless inexperienced country-maid, who

was even afraid of becoming a wanderer about the streets,

and therefore gladly jump'd at the first offer of a shelter,

especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such my

flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was;

I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that

kept the office, whose shrewd smiles and shrugs I could not

help observing, and innocently interpreted them as marks of

her being pleased at my getting into place so soon; but, as

I afterwards came to know, these BELDAMS understood one an-

other very well, and this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my

mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh

goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers,

and her own profit.

 

     Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain,

that fearing, I presume, lest better advice or some accident

might occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would

officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling

herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered with-

out the least scruple or explanation as to where I was going.

 

     This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop

in St. Paul's Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves,

which she gave me, and thence renewed her directions to the

coachman to drive to her house in *** street, who accord-

ingly landed us at her door, after I had been cheer'd up and

entertain'd by the way with the most plausible flams, without

one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I

was, by the greatest good luck, fallen into the hands of the

kindest mistress, not to say friend, that the varsal world

could afford; and accordingly I enter'd her doors with most

compleat confidence and exultation, promising myself that,

as soon as I should be a little settled, I would acquaint

Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.

 

     You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not

lessen'd by the appearance of a very handsome back parlour,

into which I was led and which seemed to me magnificently

furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordi-

nary ones in inns upon the road.  There were two gilt pier-

glasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plates, set

out to the most shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me

that I must be got into a very reputable family.

 

     Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me

that I must have good spirits, and learn to be free with

her; that she had not taken me to be a common servant, to

do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her;

and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more than

twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the

profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few mono-

syllables, such as "yes! no! to be sure!"

 

     Presently my mistress touch'd the bell, and in came a

strapping maid-servant, who had let us in.  "Here, Martha,"

said Mrs. Brown--"I have just hir'd this young woman to

look after my linen; so step up and shew her her chamber;

and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you

would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her,

and I do not know what I shall do for her."

 

     Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this

decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy,

and asked me to walk up with her; and accordingly shew'd

me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which

there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to

lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress's,

who she was sure would be vastly good to me.  Then she ran

out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her

sweet mistress! and how happy I was to light upon her!

that I could not have bespoke a better; with other the

like gross stuff, such as would itself have started sus-

picions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was

perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said in

the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but she

readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and

measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me,

so as to make me pleased with my cage, and blind to the

wires.

 

     In the midst of these false explanations of the nature

of my future service, we were rung for down again, and I was

reintroduced into the same parlour, where there was a table

laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her

one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house,

and whose business it was to prepare and break such young

fillies as I was to the mounting-block; and she was accord-

ingly, in that view, allotted me for a bed-fellow; and, to

give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin con-

ferr'd on her by the venerable president of this college.

 

     Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full

approbation of Mrs. Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress

elect, to whose care and instructions I was affectionately

recommended.

 

     Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating

me as a companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all

dispute, soon over-rul'd my most humble and most confused

protestations against sitting down with her LADYSHIP, which

my very short breeding just suggested to me could not be

right, or in the order of things.

 

     At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the

two madams, and carried on in double-meaning expressions,

interrupted every now and then by kind assurance to me, all

tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present

condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was

I then.

 

     It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and

out of sight for a few days, till such cloaths could be

procured for me as were fit for the character I was to

appear in, of my mistress's companion, observing withal,

that on the first impressions of my figure much might

depend; and, as they well judged, the prospect of ex-

changing my country cloaths for London finery, made the

clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me.  But

the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be

seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her

DOES (as they call'd the girls provided for them), till

she had secured a good market for my maidenhead, which I

had at least all the appearances of having brought into her

LADYSHIP'S service.

 

     To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my

story, I pass the interval to bed-time, in which I was more

and more pleas'd with the views that opened to me, of an

easy service under these good people; and after supper being

shew'd up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluc-

tance in me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before her,

now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with

unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go

on with undressing myself; and, still blushing at now seeing

myself naked to my shift, I hurried to get under the bed-

cloaths out of sight.  Phoebe laugh'd and was not long before

she placed herself by my side.  She was about five and twenty,

by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all

appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years;

allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course

of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her consti-

tution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur,

that stale stage in which those of her profession are re-

duced to think of SHOWING company, instead of SEEING it.

 

     No sooner then was this precious substitute of my

mistress's laid down, but she, who was never out of her way

when any occasion of lewdness presented itself, turned to

me, embraced and kiss'd me with great eagerness.  This was

new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kind-

ness, which, for aught I knew, it might be the London way

to express in that manner, I was determin'd not to be behind

hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with

all the fervour that perfect innocence knew.

 

     Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free,

and wander'd over my whole body, with touches, squeezes,

pressures, that rather warm'd and surpriz'd me with their

novelty, than they either shock'd or alarm'd me.

 

     The flattering praises she intermingled with these in-

vasions, contributed also not a little to bribe my passive-

ness; and, knowing no ill, I feared none, especially from

one who had prevented all doubt of her womanhood by conduct-

ing my hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down,

in a size and volume that full sufficiently distinguished

her sex, to me at least, who had never made any other com-

parison...

 

     I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst

her freedom raised no other emotions but those of a strange,

and, till then, unfelt pleasure.  Every part of me was open

and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which,

like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thaw'd all

coldness as they went.

 

     My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so

two hard, firm, rising hillocks, that just began to shew them-

selves, or signify anything to the touch, employ'd and amus'd

her hands a-while, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth

track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a

few months before put forth and garnish'd the mount-pleasant

of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful shelter over

the seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which had been,

till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence.

Her fingers play'd and strove to twine in the young tendrils

of that moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and

ornament.

 

     But, not contented with these outer posts, she now

attempts the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate,

and at length to force an introduction of a finger into the

quick itself, in such a manner, that had she not proceeded

by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of

modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I should

have jump'd out of bed and cried for help against such strange

assaults.

 

     Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up

a new fire that wanton'd through all my veins, but fix'd with

violence in that center appointed them by nature, where the

first strange hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing,

compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger

between, till an "Oh!" express'd her hurting me, where the

narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any

depth.

 

     In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid

stretchings, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to assure

that experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended

at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses

and exclamations, such as "Oh! what a charming creature thou

art! . . . What a happy man will he be that first makes a

woman of you! . . . Oh! that I were a man for your sake! ...

with the like broken expressions, interrupted by kisses as

fierce and fervent as ever I received from the other sex.

 

     For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of

myself; feelings so new were too much for me.  My heated

and alarm'd senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all

liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gush'd from my eyes,

and somewhat assuaged the fire that rag'd all over me.

 

     Phoebe, herself, the hackney'd, thorough-bred Phoebe,

to whom all modes and devices of pleasure were known and

familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise of her art to

break young girls, the gratification of one of those arbi-

trary tastes, for which there is no accounting.  Not that

she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex;

but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety

of enjoyments in the common road, perhaps too, a secret

bias, inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever

she could find it, without distinction of sexes.  In this

view, now well assured that she had, by her touches, suf-

ficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she roll'd down

the bed-cloaths gently, and I saw myself stretched nak'd,

my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power

or sense to oppose it.  Even my glowing blushes expressed

more desire than modesty, whilst the candle, left (to be

sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on my

whole body.

 

     "No!" says Phoebe, "you must not, my sweet girl, think

to hide all these treasures from me.  My sight must be

feasted as well as my touch . . . I must devour with my

eyes this springing BOSOM . . . Suffer me to kiss it . . .

I have not seen it enough . . . Let me kiss it once more

. . . What firm, smooth, white flesh is here! . . . How

delicately shaped! . . . Then this delicious down!  Oh!

let me view the small, dear, tender cleft! . . . This is

too much, I cannot bear it! . . . I must . . . I must . . ."

Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where

you will easily guess.  But what a difference in the state

of the same thing! . . . A spreading thicket of bushy curls

marked the full-grown, complete woman.  Then the cavity to

which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as

she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with

so rapid a friction that I presently withdrew it, wet and

clammy, when instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two

or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving me a

kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she

replaced the bed-cloaths over us.  What pleasure she had

found I will not say; but this I know, that the first sparks

of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were

caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and

communication with the bad of our own sex, is often as fatal

to innocence as all the seductions of the other.  But to go

on.  When Phoebe was restor'd to that calm, which I was far

from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all

the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous

mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undis-

sembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all

imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance,

easiness, and warmth of constitution.

 

     After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left

me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness from

the violent emotions I had been led into, when nature (which

had been too warmly stir'd and fermented to subside without

allaying by some means or other) relieved me by one of those

luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior

to those of waking real action.  

 

     We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed,

when in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel:

in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they

termed it, completely.

 

     In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and

refreshed.  Phoebe was up before me, and asked me in the

kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and if I was

ready for breakfast, carefully, at the same time, avoiding

to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her

in the face, by any hint of the night's bed scene.  I told

her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she

would be pleased to set me about.  She smil'd; presently

the maid brought in the tea-equipage, and I had just hud-

dled my cloaths on, when in waddled my mistress.  I expected

no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late rising,

when I was agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my

pure and fresh looks.  I was "a bud of beauty" (this was her

style), "and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!"

to all which my answer did not, I can assure you, wrong my

breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish,

and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they

proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the

world.

 

     Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquette

heart flutter'd with joy at the sight of a white lute-string,

flower'd with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for

spick-and-span new, a Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and

the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured

instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of

the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the

house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he

had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the

premises, but also on immediate surrender to him, in case of

his agreeing for me; concluding very wisely that such a place

as I was in was of the hottest to trust the keeping of such

a perishable commodity in as a maidenhead.

 

     The care of dressing, and tricking me out for the

market, was then left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if

not well, at least perfectly to the satisfaction of every

thing but my impatience of seeing myself dress'd.  When it

was over, and I view'd myself in the glass, I was, no doubt,

too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the

change; a change, in the real truth, for much the worse,

since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity

of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, taudry finery

that I could not conceal my strangeness to.

 

     Phoebe's compliments, however, in which her own share

in dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me

in the first notions I had ever entertained concerning my

person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable

to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of

place here to sketch you an unflatter'd picture.

 

     I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I

before remark'd, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape

perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light and free, without

owing any thing to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and

as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and

did not a little set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my

face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate,

and the shape a roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin

had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as

can be imagin'd, and rather languishing than sparkling, ex-

cept on certain occasions, when I have been told they struck

fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever carefully perserv'd,

were small, even and white; my bosom was finely rais'd, and

one might then discern rather the promise, than the actual

growth, of the round, firm breasts, that in a little time

made that promise good.  In short, all the points of beauty

that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my

vanity forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sove-

reign judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at least,

gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with, even in

my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice,

whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endea-

vouring to detract from me, in points of person and figure

that I obviously excelled in.  This is, I own, too strong of

self praise; but should I not be ungrateful to nature, and

to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure

and fortune, were I to suppress, through and affectation of

modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts?

 

     Well then, dress'd I was, and little did it then enter

into my head that all this gay attire was no more than deck-

ing the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attri-

buted all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good

Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under

pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me, without the

least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which re-

mained to me after the expences of my journey.

 

     After some little time most agreeably spent before the

glass, in scarce self-admiration, since my new dress had by

much the greatest share in it, I was sent for down to the

parlour, where the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy

of my new cloaths, which she was not asham'd to say, fitted

me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time;

but what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow?

At the same time, she presented me to another cousin of her

own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry

into the room, and on my dropping a curtsy to him, saluted

me, and seemed a little affronted that I had only presented

my cheek to him; a mistake, which, if one, he immediately

corrected, by glewing his lips to mine, with an ardour which

his figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for; his

figure, I say, than which nothing could be more shocking or

detestable: for ugly, and disagreeable, were terms too gentle

to convey a just idea of it.

 

     Imagine to yourself a man rather past threescore, short

and ill-made, with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggling

eyes that stared as if he was strangled; and out-mouth from

two more properly tusks than teeth, livid-lips, and breath

like a jake's: then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin

that made him perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women

with child; yet, made as he was thus in mock of man, he was

so blind to his own staring deformities as to think himself

born for pleasing, and that no woman could see him with im-

punity: in consequence of which idea, he had lavish'd great

sums on such wretches as could gain upon themselves to pre-

tend love to his person, whilst to those who had not art or

patience to dissemble the horror it inspir'd, he behaved

even brutally.  Impotence, more than necessity, made him

seek in variety the provocative that was wanting to raise

him to the pitch of enjoyment, which too he often saw him-

self baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this

always threw him into a fit of rage, which he wreak'd, as

far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of

momentary desire.

 

     This then was the monster to which my conscientious

benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way,

had doom'd me, and sent for me down purposely for his ex-

amination.  Accordingly she made me stand up before him,

turn'd me round, unpinn'd my handkerchief, remark'd to him

the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just

beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took even a han-

dle from the rusticity of my gait, to inflame the inventory

of my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship;

to which he only answer'd by gracious nods of approbation,

whilst he look'd goats and monkies at me: for I sometimes

stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his fiery,

eager stare, looked another way from pure horror and af-

fright, which he, doubtless in character, attributed to

nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affec-

tation of it.

 

     However, I was soon dismiss'd, and reconducted to my

room by Phoebe, who stuck close to me, not leaving me alone

and at leisure to make such reflections as might naturally

rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just

gone through; but to my shame be it confess'd, such was my

invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that

I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown's designs, and saw

nothing in this titular cousin of hers but a shocking hide-

ous person which did not at all concern me, unless that my

respect to all her cousinhood.

 

     Phoebe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of

my heart towards this monster, asking me how I should approve

of such a fine gentleman for a husband?  (fine gentleman, I

suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace).  I

answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a hus-

band, but that if I was to choose one, it should be among my

own degree, sure!  So much had my aversion to that wretch's

hideous figure indisposed me to all "fine gentlemen," and

confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been neces-

sarily cast in the same mould that he was!  But Phoebe was

not to be beat off so, but went on with her endeavours to

melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception into that

hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in general,

she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than

one reason shewed her would be easily enough obtained of me;

but then she had too much experience not to discover that my

particular fix'd aversion to that frightful cousin would be a

block not so readily to be removed, as suited the consum-

mation of their bargain, and sale of me.

 

     Mother Brown had in the mean time agreed the terms with

this liquorish old goat, which I afterwards understood were

to be fifty guineas peremptory for the liberty of attempting

me, and a hundred more at the compleat gratification of his

desires, in the triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I

was to be left entirely at the discretion of his liking and

generosity.  This unrighteous contract being thus settled,

he was so eager to be put in possession, that he insisted

on being introduc'd to drink tea with me that afternoon,

when we were to be left alone; nor would he hearken to the

procuress's remonstrances, that I was not sufficiently pre-

pared and ripened for such an attack; that I was too green

and untam'd, having been scarce twenty-four hours in the

house: it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his

vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the

common  resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him

reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was

thus fix'd, unknown to me, for that very evening.

 

     At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run

riot in praises of this wonderful cousin, and how happy

that woman would be that he would favour with his addresses;

in short my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to

persuade me to accept them: "that the gentleman was violently

smitten with me at first sight . . . that he would make my

fortune if I would be a good girl and not stand in my own

light . . . that I should trust his honour . . . that I

should be made for ever, and have a chariot to go abroad in

. . . ," with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of

such a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here

my aversion had taken already such deep root in me, my heart

was so strongly defended from him by my senses, that wanting

the art to mask my sentiments, I gave them no hopes of their

employer's succeeding, at least very easily, with me.  The

glass too march'd pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to

make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the

minutes of the imminent attack.

 

     Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six

in the evening, after I was retired to my own apartment, and

the tea board was set, enters my venerable mistress, follow'd

close by that satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar

to him, and by his odious presence confirm'd me in all the

sentiments of detestation which his first appearance had

given birth to.

 

     He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling

me in a manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion,

all the marks of which he still explained to be my bash-

fulness, and not being used to see company.

 

     Tea over, the commoding old lady pleaded urgent busi-

ness (which indeed was true) to go out, and earnestly desir'd

me to entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both

for my own sake and her's; and then with a "Pray, sir, be

very good, be very tender of the sweet child," she went out

of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and un-

prepar'd, by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.

 

     We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of

trembling seiz'd me.  I was so afraid, without a precise

notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I sat on the

settee, by the fire-side, motionless, and petrified, with-

out life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir.

 

     But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of

stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee,

and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms

about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him,

oblig'd me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage

from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me.

Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears

off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there to his

eyes and hands: still I endur'd all without flinching, till

embolden'd by my sufferance and silence, for I had not the

power to speak or cry out, he attempted to lay me down on

the settee, and I felt his hand on the lower part of my

naked thighs, which were cross'd, and which he endeavoured

to unlock . . . Oh then!  I was roused out of my passive

endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was

not prepar'd for, threw myself at his feet, and begg'd him,

in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would

not hurt me:--"Hurt you, my dear?" says the brute; "I intend

you no harm . . . has not the old lady told you that I love

you? . . . that I shall do handsomely by you?"  "She has

indeed, sir," said I; "but I cannot love you, indeed I can

not! . . . pray let me alone . . .  yes! I will love you

dearly if you will let me alone, and go away . . . "  But I

was talking to the wind; for whether my tears, my attitude,

or the disorder of my dress prov'd fresh incentives, or

whether he was not under the dominion of desires he could

not bridle, but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he

renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts to extend

and fix me on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to

lay me along, and even to toss my petticoats over my head,

and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept close, nor

could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them

open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the

main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches,

yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay

struggling with indignation, and dying with terror; but he

stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, curs-

ing, and repeating "old and ugly!" for so I had very natur-

ally called him in the heat of my defence.

 

     The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood,

brought on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate

period of his hot fit of lust, which his power was too short

liv'd to carry him through the full execution of; of which

my thighs and linen received the effusion.

 

     When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure,

get up, saying that he would not do me the honour to think

of me any more . . . that the old bitch might look out for

another cully . . . that he would not be fool'd so by e'er

a country mock modesty in England . . . that he supposed I

had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country,

and was come to dispose of my skin-milk in town, with a

volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more

pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love

from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of re-

ceiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to

him, I look'd on this railing as my security against his

renewing his most odious caresses.

 

     Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I

had not the heart or spirit to open my eyes to them: still

I could not part with my dependence on that beldam, so

much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I

sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good

opinion of her, and chose to wait the worst at her hands

sooner than be turn'd out to starve in the streets, with-

out a penny of money or a friend to apply to: these fears

were my folly.

 

     Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head,

and I sat pensive by the fire, with my eyes brimming with

tears, my neck still bare, and my cap fall'n off in the

struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess,

the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at

the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself

to his view, a bloom yet unenjoy'd, and of course not yet

indifferent to him.

 

     After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice

mightily softened, whether I would make it up with him

before the old lady returned and all should be well; he

would restore me his affections, at the same time offering

to kiss me and feel my breasts.  But now my extreme aver-

sion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me

a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him,

I ran to the bell and rang it, before he was aware, with

such violence and effect as brought up the maid to know what

was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted any thing;

and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she

bounc'd into the room, and seeing me stretch'd on the floor,

my hair all dishevell'd, my nose gushing out blood, which

did not a little tragedize the scene, and my odious per-

secutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved by

all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and

did not know what to say.

 

     As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and

hardened to transactions of this sort, all womanhood must

have been out of her heart, could she have seen this un-

mov'd.  Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined

that matters had gone greater lengths than they really

had, and that the courtesy of the house had been actually

consummated on me, and flung me into the condition I was

in: in this notion she instantly took my part, and advis'd

the gentleman to go down and leave me to recover myself,

and "that all would be soon over with me . . . that when

Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were return'd,

they would take order for every thing to his satisfaction

. . . that nothing would be lost by a little patience with

the poor tender thing . . . that for her part she was . . .

frighten'd . . . she could not tell what to say to such

doings . . . but that she would stay by me till my mistress

came home."  As the wench said all this in a resolute tone,

and the monster himself began to perceive that things would

not mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of

the room, murmuring, and pleating his brows like an old ape,

so that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable

presence.

 

     As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered

me her assistance in any thing, and would have got me some

hartshorn drops, and put me to bed; which last, I at first

positively refused, in the fear that the monster might re-

turn and take me at that advantage.  However, with much

persuasion, and assurances that I should not be molested

that night, she prevailed on me to lie down; and indeed I

was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful

apprehensions, so terror-struck, that I had not power to

sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions with

which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd me.

 

     Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded

the sight of Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal

and she the person injur'd; a mistake which you will not

think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue

nor principles had the least share in the defence I had

made, but only the particular aversion I had conceiv'd

against the first brutal and frightful invader of my

tender innocence.

 

     I pass'd then the time till Mrs. Brown's return home,

under all the agitations of fear and despair that may

easily be guessed.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

PART 2

About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and hav-
ing receiv'd rather a favourable account from Martha, who
had run down to let them in, for Mr. Crofts (that was the
name of my brute) was gone out of the house, after waiting
till he had tired his patience for Mrs. Brown's return, they
came thundering up-stairs, and seeing me pale, my face
bloody, and all the marks of the most thorough dejection,
they employed themselves more to comfort and re-inspirit me,
than in making me the reproaches I was weak enough to fear,
I who had so many juster and stronger to retort upon them.

Mrs. Brown withdrawn, Phoebe came presently to bed to
me, and what with the answers she drew from me, what with
her own method of palpably satisfying herself, she soon dis-
covered that I had been more frighted than hurt; upon which
I suppose, being herself seiz'd with sleep, and reserving
her lectures and instructions till the next morning, she
left me, properly speaking, to my unrest; for, after tossing
and turning the greatest part of the night, and tormenting
myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things,
I fell, through mere fatigue, into a kind of delirious doze,
out of which I waded late in the morning, in a violent fever:
a circumstance which was extremely critical to reprieve me,
at least for a time, from the attacks of a wretch infinitely
more terrible to me than death itself.

The interested care that was taken of me during my ill-
ness, in order to restore me to a condition of making good
the bawd's engagements, or of enduring further trials, and
however such an effect on my grateful disposition, that I
even thought myself oblig'd to my undoers for their atten-
tion to promote my recovery; and, above all, for the keeping
out of my sight of that brutal ravisher, the author of my
disorder, on their finding I was too strongly mov'd at the
bare mention of his name.

Youth is soon raised, and a few days were sufficient to
conquer the fury of my fever: but, what contributed most to
my perfect recovery and to my reconciliation with life, was
the timely news that Mr. Crofts, who was a merchant of con-
siderable dealings, was arrested at the King's suit, for
nearly forty thousand pounds, on account of his driving a
certain contraband trade, and that his affairs were so des-
perate that even were it in his inclination, it would not
be in his power to renew his designs upon me: for he was
instantly thrown into a prison, which it was not likely he
would get out of in haste.

Mrs. Brown, who had touched his fifty guineas, advanc'd
to so little purpose, and lost all hopes of the remaining
hundred, began to look upon my treatment of him with a more
favourable eye; and as they had observ'd my temper to be
perfectly tractable and conformable to their views, all the
girls that compos'd her flock were suffered to visit me, and
had their cue to dispose me, by their conversation, to a
perfect resignation of myself to Mrs. Brown's direction.

Accordingly they were let in upon me, and all that
frolic and thoughtless gaiety in which those giddy creatures
consume their leisure made me envy a condition of which I
only saw the fair side; insomuch, that the being one of them
became even my ambitionP a disposition which they all care-
fully cultivated; and I wanted now nothing but to restore my
health, that I might be able to undergo the ceremony of the
initiation.

Conversation, example, all, in short, contributed, in
that house, to corrupt my native purity, which had taken no
root in education; whilst not the inflammable principal of
pleasure, so easily fired at my age, made strange work
within me, and all the modesty I was brought up in the
habit, not the instruction of, began to melt away like dew
before the sun's heat; not to mention that I made a vice of
necessity, from the constant fears I had of being turn'd
out to starve.

I was soon pretty well recover'd, and at certain hours
allow'd to range all over the house, but cautiously kept
from seeing any company till the arrival of Lord B . . .,
from Bath, to whom Mrs. Brown, in respect to his experi-
enced generosity on such occasions, proposed to offer the
perusal ot that trinket of mine, which bears so great an
imaginary value; and his lordship being expected in town
in less than a fortnight, Mrs. Brown judged I would be
entirely renewed in beauty and freshness by that time, and
afford her the chance of a better bargain than she had
driven with Mr. Crofts.

In the meantime, I was so thoroughly, as they call it,
brought over, so tame to their whistle, that, had my cage
door been set open, I had no idea that I ought to fly any-
where, sooner than stay where I was; nor had I the least
sense of regretting my condition, but waited very quietly
for whatever Mrs. Brown should order concerning me; who on
her side, by herself and her agents, took more than the
necessary precautions to lull and lay asleep all just re-
flections on my destination.

Preachments of morality over the left shoulder; a life
of joy painted in the gayest colours; caresses, promises,
indulgent treatment: nothing, in short, was wanting to do-
mesticate me entirely and to prevent my going out anywhere
to get better advice. Alas! I dream'd of no such thing.

Hitherto I had been indebted only to the girls of the
house for the corruption of my innocence: their luscious
talk, in which modesty was far from respected, their des-
cription of their engagements with men, had given me a
tolerable insight into the nature and mysteries of their
profession, at the same time that they highly provok'd an
itch of florid warm-spirited blood through every vein: but
above all, my bed-fellow Phoebe, whose pupil I more immedi-
ately was, exerted her talents in giving me the first
tinctures of pleasure: whilst nature, now warm'd and wan-
toned with discoveries so interesting, piqu'd a curiosity
which Phoebe artfully whetted, and leading me from question
to question of her own suggestion, explain'd to me all the
mysteries of Venus. But I could not long remain in such a
house as that, without being an eye-witness of more than I
could conceive from her descriptions.

One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly re-
cover'd of my fever, I happen'd to be in Mrs. Brown's dark
closet, where I had not been half an hour, resting upon the
maid's settle-bed, before I heard a rustling in the bed-
chamber, separated from the closet only by two sash-doors,
before the glasses of which were drawn two yellow damask
curtains, but not so close as to exclude the full view of
the room form any person in the closet.

I instantly crept softly, and posted myself so, that
seeing every thing minutely, I could not myself be seen;
and who should come in but the venerable mother Abbess
herself! handed in by a tall, brawny young Horse-grenadier,
moulded in the Hercules style: in fine, the choice of the
most experienced dame, in those affairs, in all London.

Oh! how still and hush did I keep at my stand, lest
any noise should baulk my curiosity, of bring Madam into
the closet!

But I had not much reason to fear either, for she was
so entirely taken up with her present great concern, that
she had no sense of attention to spare to any thing else.

Droll was it to see that clumsy fat figure of hers flop
down on the foot of the bed, opposite to the closet-door, so
that I had a full front-view of all her charms.

Her paramour sat down by her: he seemed to be a man of
very few words, and a great stomach; for proceeding instant-
ly to essentials, he gave her some hearty smacks, and thrust-
ing his hands into her breasts, disengag'd them from her
stays, in scorn of whose confinement they broke loose, and
swagged down, navel-low at least. A more enormous pair did
my eyes never behold, nor of a worse colour, flagging-soft,
and most lovingly contiguous: yet such as they were, this
neck-beef eater seem'd to paw them with a most uninvitable
gust, seeking in vain to confine or cover one of them with a
hand scarce less than a shoulder of mutton. After toying
with them thus some time, as if they had been worth it, he
laid her down pretty briskly, and canting up her petticoats,
made barely a mask of them to her broad red face, that
blush'd with nothing but brandy.

As he stood on one side, for a minute or so, unbutton-
ing his waist-coat and breeches, her fat, brawny thighs hung
down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly open to my
view; a wide open-mouth'd gap, overshaded with a grizzly
bush, seemed held out like a beggar's wallet for its pro-
vision.

But I soon had my eyes called off by a more striking
object, that entirely engross'd them.

Her sturdy stallion had now unbutton'd, and produced
naked, stiff, and erect, that wonderful machine, which I
had never seen before, and which, for the interest my own
seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I star'd at
with all the eyes I had: however, my senses were too much
flurried, too much concenter'd in that now burning spot of
mine, to observe any thing more than in general the make
and turn of that instrument, from which the instinct of
nature, yet more than all I had heard of it, now strongly
informed me I was to expect that supreme pleasure which she
had placed in the meeting of those parts so admirably fitted
for each other.

Long, however, the young spark did not remain before
giving it two or three shakes, by way of brandishing it; he
threw himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I
could only take his being ingulph'd for granted, by the di-
rections he mov'd in, and the impossibility of missing so
staring a mark; and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled
so, that I could scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the
heaves and pantings that accompanied the action, from the
beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrill'd
to the very soul of me, and made every vein of my body cir-
culate liquid fires: the emotion grew so violent that it
almost intercepted my respiration.

Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse
of my companions, and Phoebe's minute detail of everything,
no wonder that such a sight gave the last dying blow to my
native innocence.

Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by
nature only, I stole my hand up my petticoats, and with
fingers all on fire, seized, and yet more inflamed that
center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as if it
would force its way through my bosom; I breath'd with pain;
I twisted my thighs, squeezed, and compressed the lips of
that virgin slit, and following mechanically the example of
Phoebe's manual operation on it, as far as I could find
admission, brought on at last the critical extasy, the
melting flow, into which nature, spent with excess of
pleasure, dissolves and dies away.

After which, my senses recover'd coolness enough to
observe the rest of the transaction between this happy
pair.

The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old
lady immediately sprung up, with all the vigour of youth,
derived, no doubt, from her late refreshment; and making
him sit down, began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and
pinch his cheeks, and play with his hair: all which he
receiv'd with an air of indifference and coolness, that
shew'd him to me much altered from what he was when he
first went on to the breach.

My pious governess, however, not being above calling
in auxiliaries, unlocks a little case of cordials that
stood near the bed, and made him pledge her in a very
plentiful dram: after which, and a little amorous parley,
Madam sat herself down upon the same place, at the bed's
foot; and the young fellow standing sideway by her, she,
with the greatest effrontery imaginable, unbuttons his
breeches, and removing his shirt, draws out his affair, so
shrunk and diminish'd, that I could not but remember the
difference, now crestfallen, or just faintly lifting its
head: but our experienc'd matron very soon, by chafing it
with her hands, brought it to swell to that size and erec-
tion I had before seen it up to.

I admired then, upon a fresh account, and with a nicer
survey, the texture of that capital part of man: the flam-
ing red head as it stood uncapt, the whiteness of the
shaft, and the shrub growth of curling hair that embrowned
the roots of it, the roundish bag that dangled down from
it, all exacted my eager attention, and renewed my flame.
But, as the main affair was now at the point the industrious
dame had laboured to bring it to, she was not in the humour
to put off the payment of her pains, but laying herself
down, drew him gently upon her, and thus they finish'd in
the same manner as before, the old last act.

This over, they both went out lovingly together, the
old lady having first made him a present, as near as I
could observe, of three or four pieces; he being not only
her particular favourite on account of his performances,
but a retainer to the house; from whose sight she had taken
great care hitherto to secrete me, lest he might not have
had patience to wait for my lord's arrival, but have in-
sisted on being his taster, which the old lady was under
too much subjection to him to dare dispute with him; for
every girl of the house fell to him in course, and the old
lady only now and then got her turn, in consideration of
the maintenance he had, and which he could scarce be
accused of not earning from her.

As soon as I heard them go down-stairs, I stole up
softly to my own room, out of which I had luckily not been
miss'd; there I began to breathe freer, and to give a loose
to those warm emotions which the sight of such an encounter
had raised in me. I laid me down on the bed, stretched
myself out, joining and ardently wishing, and requiring any
means to divert or allay the rekindled rage and tumult of
my desires, which all pointed strongly to their pole: man.
I felt about the bed as if I sought for something that I
grasp'd in my waking dream, and not finding it, could have
cry'd for vexation; every part of me glowing with stimul-
ating fires. At length, I resorted to the only present
remedy, that of vain attempts at digitation, where the
smallness of the theatre did not yet afford room enough for
action, and where the pain my fingers gave me, in striving
for admission, tho' they procured me a slight satisfaction
for the present, started an apprehension, which I could not
be easy till I had communicated to Phoebe, and received her
explanations upon it.

The opportunity, however, did not offer till next
morning, for Phoebe did not come to bed till long after
I was gone to sleep. As soon then as we were both awake,
it was but in course to bring our ly-a-bed chat to land on
the subject of my uneasiness: to which a recital of the
love scene I had thus, by chance, been spectatress of,
serv'd for a preface.

Phoebe could not hear it to the end without more than
one interruption by peals of laughter, and my ingenuous way
of relating matters did not a little heighten the joke to
her.

But, on her sounding me how the sight had affected me,
without mincing or hiding the pleasurable emotions it had
inspir'd me with, I told her at the same time that one re-
mark had perplex'd me, and that very considerably.
---"Aye!" say she, "what was that?" --- "Why," replied I,
"having very curiously and attentively compared the size of
that enormous machine, which did not appear, at least to my
fearful imagination, less than my wrist, and at least three
of my handfuls long, to that of the tender small part of me
which was framed to receive it, I can not conceive its being
possible to afford it entrance without dying, perhaps in the
greatest pain, since you well know that even a finger thrust
in there hurts me beyond bearing . . . As to my mistress's
and yours, I can plainly distinguish the different dimen-
sions of them from mine, palpable to the touch, and visible
to the eye; so that, in short, great as the promis'd plea-
sure may be, I am afraid of the pain of the experiment."

Phoebe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I ex-
pected a very serious solution of my doubts and apprehen-
sions in this matter, only told me that she never heard of
a mortal wound being given in those parts by that terrible
weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately
made as myself, had outlived the operation; that she be-
lieved, at the worst, I should take a great deal of kill-
ing; that true it was, there was a great diversity of sizes
in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing, frequent
over-stretching with unmerciful machines, but that at a
certain age and habit of body, even the most experienc'd in
those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid
and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice,
and things in their natural situation: but that since
chance had thrown in my way one sight of that sort, she
would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more
delicately, and go a great way in the cure of my fears from
that imaginary disproportion.

On this she asked me if I knew Polly Philips. "Un-
doubtedly," says I, "the fair girl which was so tender of
me when I was sick, and has been, as you told me, but two
months in the house.": "The same," says Phoebe. "You must
know then, she is kept by a young Genoese merchant, whom
his uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he is,
sent over here with an English merchant, his friend, on a
pretext of settling some accounts, but in reality to humour
his inclinations for travelling, and seeing the world. He
met casually with this Polly once in company, and taking a
liking to her, makes it worth her while to keep entirely to
him. He comes to her here twice or thrice a week, and she
receives him in her light closet up one pair of stairs,
where he enjoys her in a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the
heat, or perhaps the caprices of his own country. I say no
more, but to-morrow being his day, you shall see what passes
between them, from a place only known to your mistress and
myself."

You may be sure, in the ply I was now taking, I had no
objection to the proposal, and was rather a tip-toe for its
accomplishment.

At five in the evening, next day, Phoebe, punctual to
her promise, came to me as I sat alone in my own room, and
beckon'd me to follow her.

We went down the back-stairs very softly, and opening
the door of a dark closet, where there was some old furni-
ture kept, and some cases of liquor, she drew me in after
her, and fastening the door upon us, we had no light but
what came through a long crevice in the partition between
ours and the light closet, where the scene of action lay;
so that sitting on those low cases, we could, with the
greatest ease, as well as clearness, see all objects (our-
selves unseen), only by applying our eyes close to the cre-
vice, where the moulding of a panel had warped, or started
a little on the other side.

The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with
his back directly towards me, looking at a print. Polly
was not yet come: in less than a minute tho', the door
opened, and she came in; and at the noise the door made he
turned about, and came to meet her, with an air of the
greatest tenderness and satisfaction.

After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted
us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese help'd
her to a glass of wine, with some Naples bisket on a salver.

Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and
questions in broken English on one side, he began to un-
button, and, in fine, stript to his shirt.

As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling
off all their cloaths, a scheme which the heat of the season
perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she
had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant's
officious assistance, undress'd to all but her shift.

When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loos-
en'd, waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles,
clean off; his shirt collar was unbuttoned too: then, first
giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the
shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and fami-
liariz'd to this humour, blush'd indeed, but less than I
did at the apparition of her, now standing stark-naked,
just as she came out of the hands of pure nature, with her
black hair loose and a-float down her dazzling white neck
and shoulders, whilst the deepen'd carnation of her cheeks
went off gradually into the hue of glaz'd snow: for such
were the blended tints and polish of her skin.

This girl could not be above eighteen: her face re-
gular and sweet-featur'd, her shape exquisite; nor could I
help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plump'd
out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sus-
tain'd themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples,
pointing different ways, mark'd their pleasing separation;
beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which
terminated in a parting or rift scarce discernible, that
modesty seem'd to retire downwards, and seek shelter be-
tween two plump fleshy thighs: the curling hair that over-
spread its delightful front, cloathed it with the richest
sable fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a
subject for the painters to court her sitting to them for
a pattern of female beauty, in all the true price and pomp
of nakedness.

The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing
and transported at the sight of beauties that might have
fir'd a dying hermit; his eager eyes devour'd her, as she
shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither were his hands
excluded their share of the high feast, but wander'd, on
the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of her body,
so qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it.

In the mean time, one could not help observing the
swell of his shirt before, that bolster'd out, and shewed
the condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon
remov'd it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now,
as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.

The young gentleman, by Phoebe's guess, was about two
and twenty; tall and well limb'd. His body was finely
form'd and of a most vigorous make, square-shoulder'd, and
broad-chested: his face was not remarkable in any way, but
for a nose inclining to the Roman, eyes large, black, and
sparkling, and a ruddiness in his cheeks that was the more
a grace, for his complexion was of the brownest, not of that
dusky dun colour which excludes the idea of freshness, but
of that clear, olive gloss which, glowing with life, dazzles
perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases more, when it
pleases at all. His hair, being too short to tie, fell no
lower than his neck, in short easy curls; and he had a few
sprigs about his paps, that garnish'd his chest in a style
of strength and manliness. Then his grand movement, which
seem'd to rise out of a thicket of curling hair that spread
from the root all round thighs and belly up to the navel,
stood stiff and upright, but of a size to frighten me, by
sympathy, for the small tender part which was the object of
its fury, and which now lay expos'd to my fairest view; for
he had, immediately on stripping off his shirt, gently
push'd her down on the couch, which stood conveniently to
break her willing fall. Her thighs were spread out to their
utmost extension, and discovered between them the mark of
the sex, the red-center'd cleft of flesh, whose lips, ver-
milioning inwards, exprest a small rubid line in sweet
miniature, such as Guido's touch of colouring could never
attain to the life or delicacy of.

Phoebe, at this gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for
a whispered question: whether I thought my little maidenhead
was much less? But my attention was too much engross'd, too
much enwrapp'd with all I saw, to be able to give her any
answer.

By this time the young gentleman had changed her pos-
ture from lying breadth to length-wise on the couch: but her
thighs were still spread, and the mark lay fair for him, who
now kneeling between them, display'd to us a side-view of
that fierce erect machine of his, which threaten'd no less
than splitting the tender victim, who lay smiling at the up-
lifted stroke, nor seem'd to decline it. He looked upon his
weapon himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with his
hand to the inviting slit, drew aside the lips, and lodg'd
it (after some thrusts, which Polly seem'd even to assist)
about half way; but there it stuck, I suppose from its grow-
ing thickness: he draws it again, and just wetting it with
spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheath'd it now up to the
hilt, at which Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite
another tone than one of pain; he thrusts, she heaves, at
first gently, and in a regular cadence; but presently the
transport began to be too violent ot observe any order or
measure; their motions were too rapid, their kisses too
fierce and fervent for nature to support such fury long:
both seem'd to me out of themselves: their eyes darted
fires: "Oh! . . . oh! . . . I can't bear it . . . It is
too much . . . I die . . . I am going . . ." were Polly's
expressions of extasy: his joys were more silent; but soon
broken murmurs, sighs heart-fetch'd, and at length a dis-
patching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her
body, and then motionless languor of all his limbs, all
shewed that the die-away moment was come upon him; which
she gave signs of joining with, by the wild throwing of her
hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep sob, in
which she seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.

When he had finish'd his stroke, and got from off her,
she lay still without the least motion, breathless, as it
should seem, with pleasure. He replaced her again breadth-
wise on the couch, unable to sit up, with her thighs open,
between which I could observe a kind of white liquid, like
froth, hanging about the outward lips of that recently
opened wound, which now glowed with a deeper red. Pre-
sently she gets up, and throwing her arms round him, seemed
far from undelighted with the trial he had put her to, to
judge at least by the fondness with which she ey'd and hung
upon him.

For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I
felt all over me during this scene; but from that instant,
adieu all fears of what man could do unto me; they were now
changed into such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings,
that I could have pull'd the first of that sex that should
present himself, by the sleeve, and offered him the bauble,
which I now imagined the loss of would be a gain I could not
too soon procure myself.

Phoebe, who had more experience, and to whom such
sights were not so new, could not however be unmoved at so
warm a scene; and drawing me away softly from the peep-hole,
for fear of being over-heard, guided me as near the door as
possible, all passive and obedient to her least signals.

Here was no room either to sit or lie, but making me
stand with my back towards the door, she lifted up my
petticoats, and with her busy fingers fell to visit and
explore that part of me where now the heat and irritations
were so violent that I was perfectly sick and ready to die
with desire; that the bare touch of her finger, in that
critical place, had the effect of a fire to a train, and
her hand instantly made her sensible to what a pitch I was
wound up, and melted by the sight she had thus procured me.
Satisfied then with her success in allaying a heat that
would have made me impatient of seeing the continuation of
the transactions between our amourous couple, she brought me
again to the crevice so favourable to our curiosity.

We had certainly been but a few instants away from it,
and yet on our return we saw every thing in good forwardness
for recommencing the tender hostilities.

The young foreigner was sitting down, fronting us, on
the couch, with Polly upon one knee, who had her arms round
his neck, whilst the extreme whiteness of her skin was not
undelightfully contrasted by the smooth glossy brown of her
lover's.

But who could count the fierce, unnumber's kisses given
and taken? in which I could of ten discover their exchanging
the velvet thrust, when both their mouths were double ton-
gued, and seemed to favour the mutual insertion with the
greatest gust and delight.

In the mean time, his red-headed champion, that has so
lately fled the pit, quell'd and abash'd, was now recover'd
to the top of his condition, perk'd and crested up between
Polly's thighs, who was not wanting, on her part, to coax
and deep it in good humour, stroking it, with her head down,
and received even its velvet tip between the lips of not its
proper mouth: whether she did this out of any particular
pleasure, or whether it was to render it more glib and easy
of entrance, I could not tell; but it had such an effect,
that the young gentleman seem'd by his eyes, that sparkled
with more excited lustre, and his inflamed countenance, to
receive increase of pleasure. He got up, and taking Polly
in his arms, embraced her, and said something too softly for
me to hear, leading her withal to the foot of the couch, and
taking delight to slap her thighs and posteriors with that
stiff sinew of his, which hit them with a spring that he
gave it with his hand, and made them resound again, but hurt
her about as much as he meant to hurt her, for she seemed to
have as frolic a taste as himself.

But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue
lie down on his back, and gently pull down Polly upon him,
who giving way to his humour, straddled, and with her hands
conducted her blind favourite to the right place; and fol-
lowing her impulse, ran directly upon the flaming point of
this weapon of pleasure, which she stak'd herself upon, up
pierc'd and infix'd to the extremest hair-breadth of it:
thus she sat on him a few instants, enjoying and relishing
her situation, whilst he toyed with her provoking breasts.
Sometimes she would stoop to meet his kiss: but presently
the sting of pleasure spurr'd them up to fiercer action;
then began the storm of heaves, which, form the undermost
combatant, were thrusts at the same time, he crossing his
hands over her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet
violence: the inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon
brought on the critical period, in which all the signs of a
close conspiring extasy informed us of the point they were
at.

For me, I could bear to see no more; I was so overcome,
so inflamed at the second part of the same play, that, mad
to an intolerable degree, I hugg'd, I clasped Phoebe, as if
she had wherewithal to relieve me. Pleased however with, and
pitying the taking she could feel me in, she drew me towards
the door, and opening it as softly as she could, we both got
off undiscover'd, and she reconducted me to my own room,
where, unable to keep my legs, in the agitation I was in, I
instantly threw myself down on the bed, where I lay trans-
ported, though asham'd at what I felt.

Phoebe lay down by me, and ask'd me archly if, now that
I had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still
afraid of him? or did I think I could venture to come to a
close engagement with him? To all which, not a word on my
side; I sigh'd, and could scarce breathe. She takes hold of
my hand, and having roll'd up her own petticoats, forced it
half strivingly towards those parts, where, now grown more
knowing, I miss'd the main object of my wishes; and finding
not even the shadow of what I wanted, where every thing was
so flat, or so hollow, in the vexation I was in at it, I
should have withdrawn my hand but for fear of disobliging
her. Abandoning it then entirely to her management, she
made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself
rather the shadow than the substance of any pleasure. For
my part, I now pin'd for more solid food, and promis'd
tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much longer
with this foolery from woman to woman, if Mrs. Brown did
not soon provide me with the essential specific. In short,
I had all the air of not being able to wait the arrival of
my lord B . . . tho' he was now expected in a very few days:
nor did I wait for him, for love itself took charge of the
disposal of me, in spite of interest, or gross lust.

It was now two days after the closet-scene, that I got
up about six in the morning, and leaving my bed-fellow fast
asleep, stole down, with no other thought than of taking a
little fresh air in a small garden, which our back-parlour
open'd into, and from which my confinement debarr'd me at
the times company came to the house; but now sleep and
silence reign'd all over it.

I open'd the parlour door, and well surpriz'd was I at
seeing, by the side of a fire half-our, a young gentleman in
the old lady's elbow chair, with his legs laid upon another,
fast asleep, and left there by his thoughtless companions,
who had drank him down, and then went off with every one his
mistress, whilst he stay'd behind by the courtesy of the old
matron, who would not disturb of turn him out in that con-
dition, at one in the morning; and beds, it is more than
probable, there were none to spare. On the table still re-
main'd the punch bowl and glasses, strew's about in their
usual disorder after a drunken revel.

But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping one,
heavens! what a sight! No! no term of years, no turn of
fortune could ever erase the lightning-like impression
his form made on me . . . Yes! dearest object of my ear-
liest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of thy
first appearance to my ravish'd eyes . . . it calls thee
up, present; and I see thee now!

Figure to yourself, Madam, a fair stripling, between
eighteen and nineteen, with his head reclin'd on one of the
sides of the chair, his hair in disorder'd curls, irregular-
ly shading a face on which all the roseate bloom of youth
and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eyes and heart.
Even the languor and paleness of his face, in which the
momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing to the
excesses of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to
the finest features imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep,
displayed the meeting edges of their lids beautifully bor-
dered with long eyelashes; over which no pencil could have
described two more regular arches than those that grac'd his
forehead, which was high, prefectly white and smooth. Then
a pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch,
as if a bee had freshly stung them, seem'd to challenge me
to get the gloves off this lovely sleeper, had not the mod-
esty and respect, which in both sexes are inseparable from
a true passion, check'd my impulses.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     But on seeing his shirt-collar unbutton'd, and a bosom

whiter than a drift of snow, the pleasure of considering it

could not bribe me to lengthen it, at the hazard of a health

that began to be my life's concern.  Love, that made me

timid, taught me to be tender too.  With a trembling hand I

took hold of one of his, and waking his as gently as possi-

ble, he started, and looking, at first a little wildly, said

with a voice that sent its harmonious sound to my heart:

"Pray, child, what o'clock is it?"  I told him, and added

that he might catch cold if he slept longer with his breast

open in the cool of the morning air.  On this he thanked me

with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with that of his fea-

tures and eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly sur-

veying me, carried the sprightly fires they sparkled with

directly to my heart.

     It seems that having drank too freely before he came

upon the rake with some of his young companions, he had put

himself out of a condition to go through all the weapons

with them, and crown the night with getting a mistress; so

that seeing me in a loose undress, he did not doubt but I

was one of the misses of the house, sent in to repair his

loss of time; but though he seiz'd that notion, and a very

obvious one it was, without hesitation, yet, whether my

figure made a more than ordinary impression on him, or

whether it was natural politeness, he address'd me in a

manner far from rude, tho' still on the foot of one of the

house pliers, come to amuse him; and giving me the first

kiss that I ever relish'd from man in my life, ask'd me it

I could favour him with my company, assuring me that he

would make it worth my while: but had not even new-born

love, that true refiner of lust, oppos'd so sudden a sur-

render, the fear of being surpriz'd by the house was a

sufficient bar to my compliance.

 

     I told him then, in a tone set me by love itself, that

for reasons I had not time to explain to him, I could not

stay with him, and might not even ever see him again: with

a sigh at these last words, which broke from the bottom of

my heart.  My conqueror, who, as he afterwards told me, had

been struck with my appearance, and lik'd me as much as he

could think of liking any one in my suppos'd way of life,

ask'd me briskly at once if I would be kept by him, and that

he would take a lodging for me directly, and relieve me from

any engagements he presum'd I might be under to the house.

Rash, sudden, undigested, and even dangerous as this offer

might be from a perfect stranger, and that stranger a giddy

boy, the prodigious love I was struck with for him had put a

charm into his voice there was no resisting, and blinded me

to every objection; I could, at that instant, have died for

him: think if I could resist an invitation to live with him!

Thus my heart, beating strong to the proposal, dictated my

answer, after scarce a minute's pause, that I would accept

of his offer, and make my escape to him in what way he

pleased, and that I would be entirely at his disposal, let

it be good or bad.  I have often since wondered that so

great an easiness did not disgust him, or make me too cheap

in his eyes, but my fate had so appointed it, that in his

fears of the hazard of the town, he had been some time

looking out for a girl to take into keeping, and my person

happening to hit his fancy, it was by one of those miracles

reserved to love that we struck the bargain in the instant,

which we sealed by an exchange of kisses, that the hopes of

a more uninterrupted enjoyment engaged him to content him-

self with.

 

     Never, however, did dear youth carry in his person,

more wherewith to justify the turning of a girl's head, and

making her set all consequences at defiance for the sake of

following a gallant.

 

     For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which

were assembled in his form, he had an air of neatness and

gentility, a certain smartness in the carriage and port of

his head, that yet more distinguish'd him; his eyes were

sprightly and full of meaning; his looks had in them some-

thing at once sweet and commanding.  His complexion out-

bloom'd the lovely-colour'd rose, whilst its inimitable

tender vivid glow clearly sav'd from the reproach of want-

ing life, of raw and dough-like, which is commonly made to

those so extremely fair as he was.

 

     Our little plan was that I should get out about seven

the next morning (which I could readily promise, as I knew

where to get the key of the street-door), and he would wait

at the end of the street with a coach to convey me safe off;

after which, he would send, and clear any debt incurr'd by

my stay at Mrs. Brown's, who, he only judged, in gross,

might not care to part with one he thought so fit to draw

custom to the house.

 

     I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house

his having seen such a person as me, for reasons I would

explain to him more at leisure.  And then, for fear of

miscarrying, by being seen together, I tore myself from

him with a bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my room,

where I found Phoebe still fast asleep, and hurrying off my

few cloaths, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and

anxiety that may be easier conceived than express'd. 

 

     The risks of Mrs. Brown's discovering my purpose, of

disappointments, misery, ruin, all vanish'd before this new-

kindl'd flame.  The seeing, the touching, the being, if but

for a night, with this idol of my fond virgin-heart, appeared

to me a happiness above the purchase of my liberty or life.

He might use me ill, let him! he was the master; happy, too

happy, even to receive death at so dear a hand.

 

     To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day,

of which every minute seem'd to me a little eternity.  How

often did I visit the clock! nay, was tempted to advance

the tedious hand, as if that would have advanc'd the time

with it!  Had those of the house made the least observations

on me, they must have remark'd something extraordinary from

the discomposure I could not help betraying; especially when

at dinner mention was made of the charmingest youth having

been there, and stay'd breakfast.  "Oh! he was such a beauty!

. . . I should have died for him! . . . they would pull caps

for him! . . ." and the like fooleries, which, however, was

throwing oil on a fire I was sorely put to it to smother the

blaze of.

 

     The fluctuations of my mind, the whole day, produc'd

one good effect: which was, that, through mere fatigue, I

slept tolerably well till five in the morning, when I got up,

and having dress'd myself, waited, under the double tortures

of fear and impatience, for the appointed hour.  It came at

last, the dear, critical, dangerous hour came; and now, sup-

ported only by the courage love lent me, I ventured, a tip-

toe, down-stairs, leaving my box behind, for fear of being

surpriz'd with it in going out.

 

     I got to the street-door, the key whereof was always

laid on the chair by our bed-side, in trust with Phoebe, who

having not the least suspicion of my entertaining any design

to go from them (nor indeed had I but the day before), made

no reserve or concealment of it from me.  I open'd the door

with great ease; love, that embolden'd, protected me too:

and now, got safe into the street, I saw my new guardian-

angel waiting at a coach-door, ready open.  How I got to him

I know not: I suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a

trice, and he by the side of me, with his arms clasp'd round

me, and giving me the kiss of welcome.  The coachman had his

orders, and drove to them.

 

     My eyes were instantly fill'd with tears, but tears of

the most delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of

that beauteous youth was a rapture that my little heart swam

in.  Past or future were equally out of the question with

me.  The present was as much as all my powers of life were

sufficient to bear the transport of, without fainting.  Nor

were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions

wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of never

giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken, in

throwing myself thus entirely upon his honour and generosity.

But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I was drove to it by

a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and I did what I

did because I could not help it.

 

     In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we

landed at a public house in Chelsea, hosipitably commodious

for the reception of duet-parties of pleasure, where a break-

fast of chocolate was prepared for us.

 

     An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life

perfectly well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at

me, gave us both joy, and said we were well paired, i' faith!

that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he

had never seen a handsomer couple . . . he was sure I was a

fresh piece . . . I look'd so country, so innocent! well my

spouse was a lucky man! . . . all which common landlord's

cant not only pleas'd and sooth'd me, but help'd to divert

my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, now the

minute approach'd, I began to fear to be alone with: a

timidity which true love had a greater share in than even

maiden bashfulness.

 

     I wish'd, I doted, I could have died for him; and yet,

I know not how, or why, I dreaded the point which had been

the object of my fiercest wishes; my pulses beat fears,

amidst a flush of the warmest desires.  This struggle of the

passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty and love-

sick longings, made me burst again into tears; which he took,

as he had done before, only for the remains of concern and

emotion at the suddenness of my change of condition, in com-

mitting myself to his care; and, in consequence of that idea,

did and said all that he thought would most comfort and re-

inspirit me.

 

     After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must

take the liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by),

with a smile full of meaning, took me gently by the hand, and

said:  "Come, my dear, I will show you a room that commands a

fine prospect over some gardens"; and without waiting for an

answer, in which he relieved me extremely, he led me up into

a chamber, airy and light-some, where all seeing of prospects

was out of the question, except that of a bed, which had all

the air of having recommended the room to him.

 

     Charles had just slipp'd the bolt of the door, and run-

ning, caught me in his arms, and lifting me from the ground,

with his lips glew'd to mine, bore me, trembling, panting,

dying, with soft fears and tender wishes, to the bed; where

his impatience would not suffer him to undress me, more than

just unpinning my handkerchief and gown, and unlacing my

stays.

 

     My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs,

presented to his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a

pair of young breasts, such as may be imagin'd of a girl not

sixteen, fresh out of the country, and never before handled;

but even their pride, whiteness, fashion, pleasing resistance

to the touch, could not bribe his restless hands from roving;

but giving them the loose, my petticoats and shift were soon

taken up, and their stronger center of attraction laid open

to their tender invasion.  My fears, however, made me mechan-

ically close my thighs; but the very touch of his hand insin-

uated between them, disclosed them and opened a way for the

main attack.

 

     In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examina-

tion of his eyes and hands, quiet and unresisting; which

confirm'd him the opinion he proceeded so cavalierly upon,

that I was no novice in these matters, since he had taken

me out of a common bawdy-house, nor had I said one thing to

prepossess him of my virginity; and if I had, he would

sooner have believ'd that I took him for a cully that would

swallow such an improbability, than that I was still mis-

tress of that darling treasure, that hidden mine, so eagerly

sought after by the men, and which they never dig for, but

to destroy.

 

     Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he un-

button'd, and drawing out the engine of love-assaults, drove

it currently, as at a ready-made breach . . . Then! then!

for the first time, did I feel that stiff horn-hard gristle,

battering against the tender part; but imagine to yourself

his surprize when he found, after several vigorous pushes

which hurt me extremely, that he made not the least im-

pression.

 

     I complain'd but tenderly complain'd that I could not

bear it . . . indeed he hurt me! . . . Still he thought no

more than that being so young, the largeness of his machine

(for few men could dispute size with him) made all the dif-

iculty; and that possible I had not been enjoy'd by any so

advantageously made in that part as himself: for still,

that my virgin flower was yet uncrop'd, never enter'd into

his head, and he would have thought it idling with time and

words to have question'd me upon it.

 

     He tries again, still no admittance, still no penetra-

tion; but he had hurt me yet more, whilst my extreme love

made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan.  At

length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting

by me, kiss'd my falling tears, and asked me tenderly what

was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not

borne it better from others than I did from him? I answered,

with a simplicity fram'd to persuade, that he was the first

man that ever serv'd me so.  Truth is powerful, and it is

not always that we do not believe what we eagerly wish.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Part 3

 

     Charles, already dispos'd by the evidence of his senses

to think my pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal,

smothers me with kisses, begs me, in the name of love, to

have a little patience, and that he will be as tender of

hurting me as he would be of himself.

 

     Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joy-

fully to him, whatever pain I foresaw it would cost me.

 

     He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put

one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a

more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in

ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself

standing between them, made them rest upon his hips; apply-

ing then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he

sought entrance: it was so small, he could scarce assure

himself of its being rightly pointed.  He looks, he feels,

and satisfies himself: the driving forward with fury, its

prodigious stiffness, thus impacted, wedgelike, breaks the

union of those parts, and gain'd him just the insertion of

the tip of it, lip-deep; which being sensible of, he improv-

ed his advantage, and following well his stroke, in a

straight line, forcibly deepens his penetration; but put me

to such intolerable pain, from the separation of the sides

of that soft passage by a hard thick body, I could have

scream'd out; but, as I was unwilling to alarm the house, I

held in my breath, and cramm'd my petticoat, which was

turn'd up over my face, into my mouth, and bit it through

in the agony.  At length, the tender texture of that tract

giving way to such fierce tearing and rending, he pierc'd

something further into me: and now, outrageous and no longer

his own master, but borne headlong away by the fury and

over-mettle of that member, now exerting itself with a kind

of native rage, he breaks in, carries all before him, and

one violent merciless lunge sent it, imbrew'd, and reeking

with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me . . . Then!

then all my resolution deserted me: I scream'd out, and

fainted away with the sharpness of the pain; and, as he told

me afterwards, on his drawing out, when emission was over

with him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood

that flow'd from the wounded torn passage.

 

     When I recover'd my senses, I found myself undress'd,

and a-bed, in the arms of the sweet relenting murderer of my

virginity, who hung mourning tenderly over me, and holding

in his hand a cordial, which, coming from the still dear

author of so much pain, I could not refuse; my eyes, however,

moisten'd with tears, and languishingly turn'd upon him,

seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and ask him if such

were the rewards of love.  But Charles, to whom I was now

infinitely endear'd by this complete triumph over a maiden-

head, where he so little expected to find one, in tenderness

to that pain which he had put me to, in procuring himself

the height of pleasure, smother'd his exultation, and em-

ploy'd himself with so much sweetness, so much warmth, to

sooth, to caress, and comfort me in my soft complainings,

which breath'd, indeed, more love than resentment, that I

presently drown'd all sense of pain in the pleasure of seeing

him, of thinking that I belong'd to him: he who was now the

absolute disposer of my happiness, and, in one word, my fate.

 

     The sore was, however, too tender, the wound too bleed-

ing fresh, for Charles's good-nature to put my patience pre-

sently to another trial; but as I could not stir, or walk

across the room, he order'd the dinner to be brought to the

bed-side, where it could not be otherwise than my getting

down the wing of a fowl, and two or three glasses of wine,

since it was my ador'd youth who both serv'd, and urged them

on me, with that sweet irresistible authority with which love

had invested him over me.

 

     After dinner, and as everything but the wine was taken

away, Charles very impudently asks a leave, he might read the

grant of in my eyes, to come to bed to me, and accordingly

falls to undressing; which I could not see the progress of

without strange emotions of fear and pleasure.

 

     He is now in bed with me the first time, and in broad

day; but when thrusting up his own shirt and my shift, he

laid his naked glowing body to mine . . . oh! insupportable

delight! oh! superhuman rapture! what pain could stand be-

fore a pleasure so transporting?  I felt no more the smart

of my wounds below; but, curling round him like the tendril

of a vine, as if I fear'd any part of him should be un-

touch'd or unpress'd by me, I return'd his strenuous em-

braces and kisses with a fervour and gust only known to true

love, and which mere lust could never rise to.

 

     Yes, even at this time, when all the tyranny of the

passions is fully over and my veins roll no longer but a

cold tranquil stream, the remembrance of those passages

that most affected me in my youth, still cheers and re-

freshes me.  Let me proceed then.  My beauteous youth was

now glew'd to me in all the folds and twists that we could

make our bodies meet in; when, no longer able to rein in the

fierceness of refresh'd desires, he gives his steed the head

and gently insinuating his thighs between mine, stopping my

mouth with kisses of humid fire, makes a fresh irruption,

and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and forces his way

up the torn tender folds that yielded him admission with a

smart little less severe that when the breach was first made.

I stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with the passive

fortitude of a heroine; soon his thrusts, more and more fur-

ious, cheeks flush'd with a deeper scarlet, his eyes turn'd

up in the fervent fit, some dying sighs, and an agonizing

shudder, announced the approaches of that extatic pleasure,

I was yet in too much pain to come in for my share of it.

 

     Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numb'd and

blunted the sense of the smart, and given me to feel the

titillating inspersion of balsamic sweets, drew from me the

delicious return, and brought down all my passion, that I

arrived at excess of pleasure through excess of pain.  But,

when successive engagements had broke and inur'd me, I began

to enter into the true unallay'd relish of that pleasure of

pleasures, when the warm gush darts through all the ravish'd

inwards; what floods of bliss! what melting transports! what

agonies of delight! too fierce, too mighty for nature to

sustain; well has she therefore, no doubt, provided the re-

lief of a delicious momentary dissolution, the approaches of

which are intimated by a dear delirium, a sweet thrill on the

point of emitting those liquid sweets, in which enjoyment

itself is drown'd, when one gives the languishing stretch-out,

and dies at the discharge.

 

     How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had

subsided after the melting flow, have I, in a tender medi-

tation ask'd myself coolly the question, if it was in nature

for any of its creatures to be so happy as I was?  Or, what

were all fears of the consequence, put in the scale of one

night's enjoyment of any thing so transcendently the taste

of my eyes and heart, as that delicious, fond, matchless

youth?

 

     Thus we spent the whole afternoon till supper time in

a continued circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing,

toying, and all the rest of the feast.  At length, supper

was serv'd in, before which Charles had, for I do not know

what reason, slipt his cloaths on; and sitting down by the

bed-side, we made table and table-cloth of the bed and sheets,

whilst he suffer'd nobody to attend or serve but himself.  He

ate with a very good appetite, and seem'd charm'd to see me

eat.  For my part, I was so enchanted with my fortune, so

transported with the comparison of the delights I now swam

in, with the insipidity of all my past scenes of life, that

I thought them sufficiently cheap at even the price of my

ruin, or the risk of their not lasting.  The present pos-

session was all my little head could find room for.

 

     We lay together that night, when, after playing re-

peated prizes of pleasure, nature, overspent and satisfy'd,

gave us up to the arms of sleep: those of my dear youth en-

circled me, the consciousness of which made even that sleep

more delicious.

 

     Late in the morning I wak'd first; and observing my

lover slept profoundly, softly disengag'd myself from his

arms, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of shortening his

repose; my cap, my hair, my shift, were all in disorder from

the rufflings I had undergone; and I took this opportunity

to adjust and set them as well as I could: whilst, every now

and then, looking at the sleeping youth with inconceivable

fondness and delight, and reflecting on all the pain he had

put me to, tacitly own'd that the pleasure had overpaid me

for my sufferings.

 

     It was then broad day.  I was sitting up in the bed,

the cloaths of which were all tossed, or rolled off, by the

unquietness of our motions, from the sultry heat of the

weather; nor could I refuse myself a pleasure that solicited

me so irresistibly, as this fair occasion of feasting my

sight with all those treasures of youthful beauty I had en-

joy'd, and which lay now almost entirely naked, his shirt

being truss'd up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the

room and season made me easy about the consequence of.  I

hung over him enamour'd indeed! and devoured all his naked

charms with only two eyes, when I could have wish'd them at

least a hundred, for the fuller enjoyment of the gaze.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still

present to my transported imagination! a whole length of an

allperfect, manly beauty in full view.  Think of a face

without a fault, glowing with all the opening bloom and

vernal freshness of an age in which beauty is of either sex,

and which the first down over his upper lip scarce began to

distinguish.

 

     The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seem'd

to exhale an air sweeter and purer than what it drew in: ah!

what violence did it not cost me to refrain the so tempted

kiss!

 

     Then a neck exquisitely turn'd, grac'd behind and on

the sides with his hair, playing freely in natural ringlets,

connected his head to a body of the most perfect form, and

of the most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength

of manhood was conceal'd and soften'd to appearance by the

delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and

the plumpness of his flesh.

 

     The platform of his snow-white bosom, that was laid out

in a manly proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of

each pap, the idea of a rose about to blow.

 

     Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing that symmetry

of his limbs, that exactness of shape, in the fall of it to-

wards the loins, where the waist ends and the rounding swell

of the hips commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth, and

dazzling white, burnishes on the stretch over firm, plump,

ripe flesh, that crimp'd and ran into dimples at the least

pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid

over as on the surface of the most polished ivory.

 

     His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy

roundness, gradually tapering away to the knees, seem'd

pillars worthy to support that beauteous frame; at the

bottom of which I could not, without some remains of terror,

some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible mac-

hine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke into,

torn, and almost ruin'd those soft, tender parts of mine

that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage;

but behold it now! crest fall'n, reclining its half-capt

vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to

all appearance incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had

committed.  Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short

and soft curls round its root, its whiteness, branch'd veins,

the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshort'd,

roll'd and shrunk up into a squab thickness, languid, and

borne up from between his thighs by its globular appendage,

that wondrous treasure-bag of nature's sweets, which,

rivell'd round, and purs'd up in the only wrinkles that are

known to please, perfected the prospect, and all together

formed the most interesting moving picture in nature, and

surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnish'd by

]the painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchas'd

at immense prices; whilst the sight of them in actual life

is scarce sovereignly tasted by any but the few whom nature

has endowed with a fire of imagination, warmly pointed by a

truth of judgment to the spring-head, the originals of

beauty, of nature's unequall'd composition, above all the

imitation of art, or the reach of wealth to pay their price.

 

     But every thing must have an end.  A motion made by

this angelic youth, in the listlessness of going off sleep,

replac'd his shirt and the bed-cloaths in a posture that

shut up that treasure from longer view.

 

     I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of

me in which the objects just seen had begun to raise a

mutiny that prevail'd over the smart of them, my fingers now

open'd themselves an easy passage; but long I had not time

to consider the wide difference there, between the maid and

the now finish'd woman, before Charles wak'd, and turning

towards me, kindly enquir'd how I had rested? and, scarce

giving me time to answer, imprinted on my lips one of his

burning rapture-kisses, which darted a flame to my heart,

that from thence radiated to every part of me; and present-

ly, as if he had proudly meant revenge for the survey I had

smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the bed-

cloaths, and trussing up my shift as high as it would go,

took his turn to feast his eyes on all the gifts nature had

bestow'd on my person; his busy hands, too, rang'd intemper-

ately over every part of me.  The delicious austerity and

hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the whiteness

and firmness of my flesh, the freshness and regularity of my

features, the harmony of my limbs, all seem'd to confirm him

in his satisfaction with his bargain; but when curious to

explore the havoc he had made in the centre of his over-

fierce attack, he not only directed his hands there, but

with a pillow put under, placed me favourably for his wanton

purpose of inspection.  Then, who can express the fire his

eyes glisten'd, his hands glow'd with! whilst sighs of plea-

sure, and tender broken exclamations, were all the praises

he could utter.  By this time his machine, stiffly risen at

me, gave me to see it in its highest state and bravery.  He

feels it himself, seems pleas'd at its condition, and, smil-

ing loves and graces, seizes one of my hands, and carries

it, with a gentle compulsion, to his pride of nature, and

its richest masterpiece.

 

     I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I

could not grasp, a column of the whitest ivory, beautifully

streak'd with blue veins, and carrying, fully uncapt, a

head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn could be harder or

stiffer; yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to the touch.

Presently he guided my hand lower, to that part in which

nature and pleasure keep their stores in concert, so aptly

fasten'd and hung on to the root of their first instrument

and minister, that not improperly he might be styl'd their

purse-bearer too: there he made me feel distinctly, through

their soft cover, the contents, a pair of roundish balls,

that seem'd to play within, and elude all pressure but the

tenderest, from without.

 

     But now this visit of my soft warm hand in those so

sensible parts had put every thing into such ungovernable

fury that, disdaining all further preluding, and taking ad-

vantage of my commodious posture, he made the storm fall

where I scarce patiently expected, and where he was sure to

lay it: presently, then, I felt the stiff insertion between

the yielding, divided lips of the wound, now open for life;

where the narrowness no longer put me to intolerable pain,

and afforded my lover no more difficulty than what height-

en'd his pleasure, in the strict embrace of that tender,

warm sheath, round the instrument it was so delicately ad-

justed to, and which, now cased home, so gorged me with

pleasure that it perfectly suffocated me and took away my

breath; then the killing thrusts! the unnumber'd kisses!

every one of which was a joy inexpressible; and that joy

lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses!  But this was a

disorder too violent in nature to last long: the vessels,

so stirr'd and intensely heated, soon boil'd over, and for

that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance

and disport had so far consum'd the morning, that it became

a kind of necessity to lay breakfast and dinner into one.

 

     In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following

account of himself, every word of which was true.  He was

the only son of a father who, having a small post in the

revenue, rather over-liv'd his income, and had given this

young gentleman a very slender education: no profession had

he bred him up to, but design'd to provide for him in the

army, by purchasing him an ensign's commission, that is to

say, provided he could raise the money, or procure it by

interest, either of which clauses was rather to be wish'd

than hoped for by him.  On no better a plan, however, had

this improvident father suffer'd this youth, a youth of

great promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it

at least, in next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no

sort of pains to give him even the common premonitions

against the vices of the town, and the dangers of all sorts,

which wait the unexperienc'd and unwary in it.  He liv'd at

home, and at discretion, with his father, who himself kept a

mistress; and for the rest, provided Charles did not ask him

for money, he was indolently kind to him: he might lie out

when he pleas'd; any excuse would serve, and even his repri-

mands were so slight that they carried with them rather an

air of connivance at the fault than any serious control or

constraint.  But, to supply his calls for money, Charles,

whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a grandmother who

doted upon him.  She had a considerable annuity to live on,

and very regularly parted with every shilling she could spare

to this darling of hers, to the no little heart-burn of his

father; who was vex'd, not that she by this means fed his

son's extravagance, but that she preferr'd Charles to him-

self; and we shall too soon see what a fatal turn such a

mercenary jealousy could operate in the breast of a father.

 

     Charles was, however, by the means of his grand-

mother's lavish fondness, very sufficiently enabled to keep

a mistress so easily contented as my love made me; and my

good fortune, for such I must ever call it, threw me in his

way, in the manner above related, just as he was on the

look-out for one.

 

     As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem

born for domestic happiness: tender, naturally polite, and

gentle-manner'd; it could never be his fault if ever jars

or animosities ruffled a calm he was so qualified in every

way to maintain or restore.  Without those great or shining

qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a

noise in the world, he had all those humble ones that com-

pose the softer social merit: plain common sense, set off

with every grace of modesty and good nature, made him, if

not admir'd, what is much happier, universally belov'd and

esteem'd.  But, as nothing but the beauties of his person

had at first attracted my regard and fix'd my passion,

neither was I then a judge of that internal merit, which I

had afterward full occasion to discover, and which perhaps,

in that season of giddiness and levity, would have touch'd

my heart very little, had it been lodg'd in a person less

the delight of my eyes and idol of my senses.  But to re-

turn to our situation.

 

     After dinner, which we ate a-bed in a most voluptuous

disorder, Charles got up, and taking a passionate leave of

me for a few hours, he went to town where, concerting mat-

ters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together to my

late venerable mistress's, from whence I had, but the day

before, made my elopement, and with whom he was determin'd

to settle accounts in a manner that should cut off all after

reckonings from that quarter.

 

     Accordingly they went; but on the way, the Templar,

his friend, on thinking over Charles's information, saw

reason to give their visit another turn, and, instead of

offering satisfaction, to demand it.

 

     On being let in, the girls of the house flock'd round

Charles, whom they knew, and from the earliness of my

escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so

much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his

being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way,

making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him

probably for a fresh cully.  But the Templar soon check'd

their forwardness, by enquiring for the old lady, with whom,

he said, with a grave judge-like countenance, that he had

some business to settle.

 

     Madam was immediately sent down for, and the ladies

being desir'd to clear the room, the lawyer ask'd her,

severely, if she did know, or had not decoy'd, under pre-

tence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just come out

of the country, called FRANCES or FANNY HILL, describing

me withal as particularly as he could from Charles's des-

cription.

 

     It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of

justice; and Mrs. Brown, whose conscience was not entirely

clear upon my account, as knowing as she was of the town,

as hackney's as she was in bluffing through all the dangers

of her vocation, could not help being alarm'd at the ques-

tion, especially when he went on to talk of a Justice of

peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for keeping a

disorderly house, pillory, carting, and the whole process

of that nature.  She, who, it is likely, imagin'd I had

lodg'd an information against her house, look'd extremely

blank, and began to make a thousand protestations and

excuses.  However, to abridge, they brought away trium-

phantly my box of things, which, had she not been under an

awe, she might have disputed with them; and not only that;

but a clearance and discharge of any demands on the house,

at the expense of no more than a bowl of arrack-punch, the

treat of which, together with the choice of the house con-

veniences, was offer'd and not accepted.  Charles all the

time acted the chance-companion of the lawyer, who had

brought him there, as he knew the house, and appear'd in

no wise interested in the issue; but he had the collateral

pleasure of hearing all that I had told him verified, so

far as the bawd's fears would give her leave to enter into

my history, which, if one may guess by the composition she

so readily came into, were not small.

 

     Phoebe, my kind tutoress Phoebe, was at that time gone

out, perhaps in search of me, or their cook'd-up story had

not, it is probable, pass'd so smoothly.

 

     This negotiation had, however, taken up some time,

which would have appear'd much longer to me, left as I was,

in a strange house, if the landlady, a motherly sort of a

woman, to whom Charles had liberally recommended me, had

not come up and borne me company.  We drank tea, and her

chat help'd to pass away the time very agreeably, since he

was our theme; but as the evening deepened, and the hour

set for his return was elaps'd, I could not dispel the

gloom of impatience and tender fears which gathered upon

me, and which our timid sex are apt to feel in proportion

to their love.

 

     Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him

over-paid me; and the soft reproach I had prepar'd for him

expired before it reach'd my lips.

 

     I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise

than awkwardly, and Charles flew to me, catched me in his

arms, rais'd and extending mine to meet his dear embrace,

and gives me an account, interrupted by many a sweet paren-

thesis of kisses, of the success of his measures.

 

     I could not help laughing at the fright the old woman

had been put into, which my ignorance, and indeed my want

of innocence, had far from prepar'd me for bespeaking.  She

had, it seems, apprehended that I fled for shelter to some

relation I had recollected in town, on my dislike of their

ways and proceeding towards me, and that this application

came from thence; for, as Charles had rightly judg'd not

one neighbour had, at that still hour, seen the circum-

stance of my escape into the coach, or, at least, notic'd

him; neither had any in the house the least hint or clue of

suspicion of my having spoke to him, much less of my having

clapt up such a sudden bargain with a perfect stranger:

thus the greatest improbability is not always what we

should most mistrust.

 

     We supped with all the gaiety of two young giddy crea-

tures at the top of their desires; and as I had most joy-

fully given up to Charles the whole charge of my future

happiness, I thought of nothing beyond the exquisite plea-

sure of possessing him.

 

     He came to bed in due time; and this second night,

the pain being pretty well over, I tasted, in full draughts,

all the transports of perfect enjoyment: I swam, I bathed in

bliss, till both fell fast asleep, through the natural con-

sequences of satisfied desires, and appeas'd flames; nor did

we wake but to renew'd raptures.

 

     Thus, making the most of love and life, did we stay in

this lodging in Chelsea about ten days; in which time Charles

took care to give his excursions from home a favourable gloss,

and to keep his footing with his fond indulgent grandmother,

from whom he drew constant and sufficient supplies for the

charge I was to him, and which was very trifling, in compari-

sion with his former less regular course of pleasures.

 

     Charles remov'd me then to a private ready furnish'd

lodging in D . . . street, St. James's, where he paid half

a guinea a week for two rooms and a closet on the second

floor, which he had been some time looking out for, and was

more convenient for the frequency of his visits than where

he had at first plac'd me, in a house which I cannot say but

I left with regret, as it was infinitely endear'd to me by

the first possession of my Charles, and the circumstance of

losing, there, that jewel which can never be twice lost.

The landlord, however, had no reason to complain of any

thing, but of a procedure in Charles too liberal not to make

him regret the loss of us.

 

     Arrived at our new lodgings, I remember I thought them

extremely fine, though ordinary enough, even at that price;

but, had it been a dungeon that Charles had brought me to,

his presence would have made it a little Versailles.

 

     The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apart-

ment, and with great volubility of tongue explain'd to us

all its conveniences--that her own maid should wait on us

. . . that the best of quality had lodg'd at her house . . .

that her first floor was let to a foreign secretary of an

embassy, and his lady . . . that I looked like a very good-

natur'd lady. . . .  At the word lady, I blush'd out of

flatter'd vanity: this was too strong for a girl of my con-

dition; for though Charles had had the precaution of dressing

me in a less tawdry flaunting style than were the cloaths I

escap'd to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that he

had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on

account of his friends, I dare swear this appear'd extremely

apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so well as she did;

but that was the least of her concern.  It was impossible to

be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the advantage of

letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself

would have far from scandaliz'd her, or broke her bargain.

 

     A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dis-

pose you to account for the part she is to act in my concerns.

 

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     She was about forty-six years old, tall, meagre, red-

hair'd, with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet

with everywhere, and go about unheeded and unmentioned.  In

her youth she had been kept by a gentleman who, dying, left

her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of

a daughter he had by her; which daughter, at the age of

seven-teen, she sold, for not a very considerable sum nei-

ther, to a gentleman who was going on Envoy abroad, and took

his purchase with him, where he us'd her with the utmost

tenderness, and it is thought, was secretly married to her:

but had constantly made a point of her not keeping up the

least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a

market of her own flesh and blood.  However, as she had no

nature, nor, indeed, any passion but that of money, this

gave her no further uneasiness, than, as she thereby lost a

handle of squeezing presents, or other after-advantages, out

of the bargain.  Indifferent then, by nature of constitution,

to every other pleasure but that of increasing the lump by

any means whatever, she commenc'd a kind of private procur-

ess, for which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave decent

appearance, and sometimes did a job in the match-making way;

in short, there was nothing that appear'd to her under the

shape of gain that she would not have undertaken.  She knew

most of the ways of the town, having not only herself been

upon, but kept up constant intelligences in it, dealing, be-

sides her practice in promoting a harmony between the two

sexes, in private pawn-broking and other profitable secrets.

She rented the house she liv'd in, and made the most of it

by letting it out in lodgings; though she was worth, at

least, near three or four thousand pounds, she would not

allow herself even the necessaries of life, and pinn'd her

subsistence entirely on what she could squeeze out of her

lodgers.

 

     When she saw such a young pair come under her roof,

her immediate notions, doubtless, were how she should make

the most money of us, by every means that money might be

made, and which, she rightly judged, our situation and

inexperience would soon beget her occasions of.

 

     In this hopeful sanctuary, and under the clutches of

this harpy, did we pitch our residence.  It will not be

mighty material to you, or very pleasant to me, to enter

into a detail of all the petty cut-throat ways and means

with which she used to fleece us; all which Charles indol-

ently chose to bear with, rather than take the trouble of

removing, the difference of expense being scarce attended

to by a young gentleman who had no idea of stint, or even

of economy, and a raw country girl who knew nothing of the

matter.

 

     Here, however, under the wings of my sovereignly

belov'd, did I flow the most delicious hours of my life;

my Charles I had, and, in him, everything my fond heart

could wish or desire.  He carried me to plays, operas,

masquerades, and every diversion of the town; all of which

pleas'd me indeed, but pleas'd me infinitely the more for

his being with me, and explaining everything to me, and

enjoying, perhaps, the natural impressions of surprize and

admiration, which such sights, at the first, never fail to

excite in a country girl, new to the delights of them; but

to me, they sensibly prov'd the power and full dominion of

the sole passion of my heart over me, a passion in which

soul and body were concentre'd, and left me no room for any

other relish of life but love.

 

     As to the men I saw at those places, or at any other,

they suffer'd so much in the comparison my eyes made of

them with my all-perfect Adonis, that I had not the infidel-

ity even of one wandering thought to reproach myself with

upon his account.  He was the universe to me, and all that

was not him was nothing to me.

 

     My love, in fine, was so excessive, that it arriv'd at

annihilating every suggestion or kindling spark of jealousy;

for, one idea only tending that way, gave me such exquisite

torment that my self-love, and dread of worse than death,

made me for ever renounce and defy it: nor had I, indeed,

occasion; for, were I to enter here on the recital of sev-

eral instances wherein Charles sacrific'd to me women of

greater importance than I dare hint (which, considering his

form, was no such wonder), I might, indeed, give you full

proof of his unshaken constancy to me; but would not you

accuse me of warming up again a feast that my vanity ought

long ago to have been satisfy'd with?

 

     In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles fram'd

himself one, in instructing me, as far as his own lights

reach'd, in a great many points of life that I was, in con-

sequence of my no-education, perfectly ignorant of: nor did

I suffer one word to fall in vain from the mouth of my love-

ly teacher:  I hung on every syllable he utter'd, and re-

ceiv'd as oracles, all he said; whilst kisses were all the

interruption I could not refuse myself the pleasure of ad-

mitting, from lips that breath'd more than Arabian sweetness.

 

     I was in a little time enabled, by the progress I had

made, to prove the deep regard I had paid to all that he

had said to me: repeating it to him almost word for word;

and to shew that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I

reflected upon, that I enter'd into it, I join'd my own

comments, and ask'd him questions of explanation.

 

     My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, man-

ners, and deportment, began now sensibly to wear off, so

quick was my observation, and so efficacious my desire of

growing every day worthier of his heart.

 

     As to money, though he brought me constantly all he

receiv'd, it was with difficulty he even got me to give it

room in my bureau; and what clothes I had, he could prevail

on me to accept of on no other foot than that of pleasing

him by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond which I had

no ambition.  I could have made a pleasure of the greatest

toil, and worked my fingers to the bone, with joy, to have

supported him: guess, then, if I could harbour any idea of

being burdensome to him, and this disinterested turn in me

was so unaffected, so much the dictate of my heart, that

Charles could not but feel it: and if he did not love me as

I did him (which was the constant and only matter of sweet

contention between us), he manag'd so, at least, as to give

me the satisfaction of believing it impossible for man to

be more tender, more true, more faithful than he was.

 

     Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my

apartment, from whence I never stirr'd on any pretext with-

out Charles; nor was it long before she worm'd out, without

much art, the secret of our having cheated the church of a

ceremony, and, in course, of the terms we liv'd together

upon; a circumstance which far from displeas'd her, con-

sidering the designs she had upon me, and which, alas! she

will, too soon, have room to carry into execution.  But in

the mean time, her own experience of life let her see that

any attempt, however indirect or disguis'd to divert or

break, at least presently, so strong a cement of hearts as

ours was, could only end in losing two lodgers, of whom

she made very competent advantages, if either of us came

to smoke her commission; for a commission she had from one

of her customers, either to debauch, or get me away from

my keeper at any rate.

 

     But the barbarity of my fate soon sav'd her the task

of disuniting us.  I had now been eleven months with this

life of my life, which had passed in one continu'd rapid

stream of delight: but nothing so violent was ever made to

last.  I was about three months gone with child by him, a

circumstance which would have added to his tenderness had

he ever left me room to believe it could receive an addi-

tion, when the mortal, the unexpected blow of separation

fell upon us.  I shall gallop post over the particulars,

which I shudder yet to think of, and cannot to this instant

reconcile myself how, or by what means, I could out-live it.

 

     Two life-long days had I linger'd through without

hearing from him, I who breath'd, who existed but in him,

and had never yet seen twenty-four hours pass without seeing

or hearing from him.  The third day my impatience was so

strong, my alarms had been so severe, that I perfectly

sicken'd with them; and being unable to support the shock

longer, I sunk upon the bed and ringing for Mrs. Jones, who

had far from comforted me under my anxieties, she came up.

I had scarce breath and spirit enough to find words to beg

of her, if she would save my life, to fall upon some means

of finding out, instantly, what was become of its only prop

and comfort.  She pity'd me in a way that rather sharpen'd

my affliction than suspended it, and went out upon this

commission.

 

     Far she had not to go: Charles's father lived but at

an easy distance, in one of the streets that run into Covent

Garden.  There she went into a publick house, and from

thence sent for a maid-servant, whose name I had given her,

as the properest to inform her.

 

     The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones

enquir'd of her what was become of Mr. Charles, or whether

he was gone out of town, acquainted her with the disposal of

her master's son, which, the very day after, was no secret

to the servants.  Such sure measures had he taken, for the

most cruel punishment of his child for having more interest

with his grandmother than he had, though he made use of a

pretense, plausible enough, to get rid of him in this secret

and abrupt manner, for fear her fondness should have inter-

pos'd a bar to his leaving England, and proceeding on a

voyage he had concerted for him; which pretext was, that it

was indispensably necessary to secure a considerable inheri-

tance that devolv'd to him by the death of a rich merchant

(his own brother) at one of the factories in the South-Seas,

of which he had lately receiv'd advice, together with a copy

of the will.

 

     In consequence of which resolution to send away his son,

he had, unknown to him, made the necessary preparations for

fitting him out, struck a bargain with the captain of a ship,

whose punctual execution of his orders he had secured, by his

interest with his principal owner and patron; and, in short,

concerted his measures so secretly and effectually that whilst

his son thought he was going down the river for a few hours,

he was stopt on board of a ship, debar'd from writing, and

more strictly watch'd than a State criminal.

 

     Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forc'd on

a long voyage, without taking of one friend, or receiving one

line of comfort, except a dry explanation and instructions,

from his father, how to proceed when he should arrive at his

destin'd port, enclosing, withal, some letters of recommenda-

tion to a factor there: all these particulars I did not learn

minutely till some time after.

 

     The maid, at the same time, added that she was sure this

usage of her sweet young master would be the death of his

grand-mama, as indeed it prov'd true; for the old lady, on

hearing it, did not survive the news a whole month; and as

her fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which she had

laid up no reserves, she left nothing worth mentioning to her

so fatally envied darling, but absolutely refus'd to see his

father before she died.

 

     When Mrs. Jones return'd and I observ'd her looks, they

seem'd so unconcern'd, and even near to pleas'd, that I half

flatter'd myself she was going to set my tortur'd heart at

ease by bringing me good news; but this, indeed, was a cruel

delusion of hope: the barbarian, with all the coolness imag-

inable, stab'd me to the heart, in telling me, succinctly,

that he was sent away at least on a four years' voyage (here

she stretch'd maliciously), and that I could not expect, in

reason, ever to see him again: and all this with such pre-

nant circumstances that I could not help giving them credit,

as in general they were, indeed, too true!

 

     She had hardly finish'd her report before I fainted

away and after several successive fits, all the while wild

and senseless, I miscarried of the dear pledge of my

Charles's love: but the wretched never die when it is

fittest they should die, and women are hard-liv'd to a

proverb.

 

     The cruel and interested care taken to recover me sav'd

an odious life: which, instead of the happiness and joys it

had overflow'd in, all of a sudden presented no view before

me of any thing but the depth of misery, horror, and the

sharpest affliction.

 

     Thus I lay six weeks, in the struggles of youth and

constitution, against the friendly efforts of death, which I

constantly invoked to my relief and deliverance, but which

proving too weak for my wish, I recovered at length, tho'

into a state of stupefaction and despair that threatened me

with the loss of my senses, and a mad-house.

 

     Time, however, that great comforter in ordinary, began

to assuage the violence of my sufferings, and to numb my

feeling of them.  My health return'd to me, though I still

retain'd an air of grief, dejection, and languor, which

taking off the ruddiness of my country complexion, render'd

it rather more delicate and affecting.

 

     The landlady had all this while officiously provided,

and taken care that I wanted for nothing: and as soon as she

saw me retriev'd into a condition of answering her purpose,

one day, after we had dined together, she congratulated me

on my recovery, the merit of which she took entirely to her-

self, and all this by way of introduction to a most terrible

and scurvy epilogue:  "You are now," says she,  "Miss Fanny,

tolerably well, and you are very welcome to stay in the lodg-

ings as long as you please; you see I have ask'd you for

nothing this long time, but truly I have a call to make up a

sum of money, which must be answer'd."  And, with that, pre-

sents me with a bill of arrears for rent, diet, apothecary's

charges, nurse, etc., sum total twenty-three pounds, seven-

teen and six-pence: towards discharging of which, I had not

in the world (which she well knew) more than seven guineas,

left by chance, of my dear Charles's common stock with me.

At the same time, she desir'd me to tell her what course I

would take for payment.  I burst out into a flood of tears

and told her my condition; adding that I would sell what few

cloaths I had, and that, for the rest, I would pay her as

soon as possible.  But my distress, being favourable to her

views, only stiffen'd her the more.

 

     She told me, very coolly, that "she was indeed sorry for

my misfortunes, but that she must do herself justice, though

it would go to the very heart of her to send such a tender

young creature to prison . . ."  At the word "prison!" every

drop of my blood chill'd, and my fright acted so strongly

upon me, that, turning as pale and faint as a criminal at

the first sight of his place of execution, I was on the

point of swooning.  My landlady, who wanted only to terrify

me to a certain point, and not to throw me into a state of

body inconsistent with her designs upon it, began to soothe

me again, and told me, in a tone compos'd to more pity and

gentleness, that it would be my own fault, if she was forc'd

to proceed to such extremities; but she believ'd there was

a friend to be found in the world who would make up matters

to both our satisfactions, and that she would bring him to

drink tea with us that very afternoon, when she hoped we

would come to a right understanding in our affairs.  To all

this, not a word of answer; I sat mute, confounded, terrify'd.

 

     Mrs. Jones however, judging rightly that it was time to

strike while the impressions were so strong upon me, left me

to my self and to all the terrors of an imagination, wounded

to death by the idea of going to a prison, and, from a prin-

ciple of self-preservation, snatching at every glimpse of

redemption from it.

 

     In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallow'd up

in grief and despair, when my landlady came in, and obser-

ving a death-like dejection in my countenance and still in

pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity, and bidding me

be of a good heart:  Things, she said, would not be so bad

as I imagined if I would be but my own friend; and closed

with telling me she had brought a very honourable gentleman

to drink tea with me, who would give me the best advice how

to get rid of all my troubles.  Upon which, without waiting

for a reply, she goes out, and returns with this very hon-

ourable gentleman, whose very honourable procuress she had

been, on this as well as other occasions.

 

     The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very

civil bow, which I had scarce strength, or presence of mind

enough to return a curtsy to; when the landlady, taking upon

her to do all the honours of the first interview (for I had

never, that I remember'd, seen the gentleman before), sets a

chair for him, and another for herself.  All this while not

a word on either side; a stupid stare was all the face I

could put on this strange visit.

 

     The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I sup-

pose, to lose any time, observing my silence and shyness

before this entire stranger:  "Come, Miss Fanny," says she,

in a coarse familiar style, and tone of authority, "hold up

your head, child, and do not let sorrow spoil that pretty

face of yours.  What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be

free, here is a worthy gentleman who has heard of your mis-

fortunes and is willing to serve you; you must be better

acquainted with him; do not you now stand upon your punc-

tilio's, and this and that, but make your market while you

may."

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

 

     At this so delicate and eloquent harangue, the gentle-

man, who saw I look'd frighted and amaz'd, and indeed, in-

capable of answering, took her up for breaking things in so

abrupt a manner, as rather to shock than incline me to an

acceptance of the good he intended me; then, addressing

himself to me, told me he was perfectly acquainted with my

whole story and every circumstance of my distress, which he

own'd was a cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to

fall into; that he had long taken a liking to my person,

for which he appeal'd to Mrs. Jones, there present, but

finding me so absolutely engag'd to another, he had lost all

hopes of succeeding till he had heard the sudden reverse of

fortune that had happen'd to me, on which he had given par-

ticular orders to my landlady to see that I should want for

nothing; and that, had he not been forc'd abroad to The

Hague, on affairs he could not refuse himself to, he would

himself have attended me during my sickness; that on his

return, which was but the day before, he had, on learning

my recovery, desir'd my landlady's good offices to introduce

him to me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shock'd, at

the manner in which she had conducted herself towards ob-

taining him that happiness; but, that to shew me how much he

disown'd her procedure, and how far he was from taking any

ungenerous advantage of my situation, and from exacting any

security for my gratitude, he would before my face, that

instant, discharge my debt entirely to my landlady and give

me her receipt in full; after which I should be at liberty

either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above

putting any force upon my inclinations.

 

     Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventur'd

just to look up to him, and observed his figure, which was

that of a very sightly gentleman, well made, about forty,

drest in a suit of plain cloaths, with a large diamond ring

on one of his fingers, the lustre of which play'd in my eyes

as he wav'd his hand in talking, and rais'd my notions of his

importance.  In short, he might pass for what is commonly

call'd a comely black man, with an air of distinction natural

to his birth and condition.

 

     To all his speeches, however, I answer'd only in tears

that flow'd plentifully to my relief, and choking up my

voice, excus'd me from speaking, very luckily, for I should

not have known what to say.

 

     The sight, however, mov'd him, as he afterwards told me,

irresistibly, and by way of giving me some reason to be less

powerfully afflicted, he drew out his purse, and calling for

pen and ink, which the landlady was prepar'd for, paid her

every farthing of her demand, independent of a liberal gra-

tification which was to follow unknown to me; and taking a

receipt in full, very tenderly forc'd me to secure it, by

guiding my hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make

me passively put it into my pocket.

 

     Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melan-

choly despair, as my spirits could not yet recover from the

violent shocks they had receiv'd; and the accommodating

landlady had actually left the room, and me alone with this

strange gentleman, before I observ'd it, and then I observ'd

it without alarm, for I was now lifeless and indifferent to

everything.

 

     The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this

sort, drew near me; and under the pretence of comforting me,

first with his handkerchief dried my tears as they ran down

my cheeks: presently he ventur'd to kiss me: on my part,

neither resistance nor compliance.  I sat stock-still; and

now looking on myself as bought by the payment that had been

transacted before me, I did not care what became of my

wretched body: and, wanting life, spirits, or courage to

oppose the least struggle, even that of the modesty of my

sex, I suffer'd, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased; who

proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuated

his hand between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled

at discretion: finding thus no repulse, and that every thing

favour'd, beyond expectation, the completion of his desires,

he took me in his arms, and bore me, without life or motion,

to the bed, on which laying me gently down, and having me at

what advantage he pleas'd, I did not so much as know what he

was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless insen-

sibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and

innocent of the least sensation of pleasure: a death-cold

corpse could scarce have less life or sense in it.  As soon

as he had thus pacified a passion which had too little re-

spected the condition I was in, he got off, and after re-

composing the disorder of my cloaths, employ'd himself with

the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and

madness at myself with which I was seized, too late, I con-

fess, for having suffer'd on that bed the embraces of an

utter stranger.  I tore my hair, wrung my hands, and beat

my breast like a mad-woman.  But when my new master, for in

that light I then view'd him, applied himself to appease me,

as my whole rage was levell'd at myself, no part of which I

thought myself permitted to aim at him, I begged of him,

with more submission than anger, to leave me alone that I

might, at least, enjoy my affliction in quiet.  This he

positively refused, for fear, as he pretended, I should do

myself a mischief.

 

     Violent passions seldom last long, and those of women

least of any.  A dead still calm succeeded this storm, which

ended in a profuse shower of tears.

 

     Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I

should have ever known any man but Charles, I would have

spit in his face; or had I been offer'd infinitely a greater

sum of money than that I saw paid for me, I had spurn'd the

proposal in cold blood.  But our virtues and our vices

depend too much on our circumstances; unexpectedly beset as

I was, betray'd by a mind weakened by a long severe afflic-

tion, and stunn'd with the terrors of a jail, my defeat

will appear the more excusable, since I certainly was not

present at, or a party in any sense, to it.  However, as the

first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now over the bar, I

thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of

one that had got that advantage over me, no matter how ob-

tain'd; conforming myself then to this maxim, I consider'd

myself as so much in his power that I endur'd his kisses and

embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not that they,

as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevail'd over the aversion

of my soul to give myself up to any sensation of that sort;

what I suffer'd, I suffer'd out of a kind of gratitude, and

as a matter of course after what had pass'd.

 

     He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the re-

newal of those extremities which had thrown me, just before,

into such violent agitations; but, now secure of possession,

contented himself with bringing me to temper by degrees, and

waiting at the hand of time for those fruits of generosity

and courtship which he since often reproach'd himself with

having gather'd much too green, when, yielding to the invi-

tations of my inability to resist him, and overborne by

desires, he had wreak'd his passion on a mere lifeless,

spiritless body dead to all purposes of joy, since, taking

none, it ought to be suppos'd incapable of giving any.  This

is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly forgave him

the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point

of interest, I had reason to be pleas'd that he found, in my

person, wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as easily as

he had gained me.

 

     The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanc'd, that

the maid came in to lay the cloth for supper, when I under-

stood, with joy, that my landlady, whose sight was present

poison to me, was not to be with us.

 

     Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduc'd, and

a bottle of Burgundy, with the other necessaries, were set on

a dumb-waiter.

 

     The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with

a tender warmth, that I should sit up in the elbow chair by

the fire, and see him eat if I could not be prevailed on to

eat myself.  I obey'd with a heart full of affliction, at the

comparison it made between those delicious tete-a-tetes with

my ever dear youth, and this forc'd situation, this new

awkward scene, impos'd and obtruded on me by cruel necessity.

 

     At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort

and reconcile me to my fate, he told me that his name was

H . . . , brother to the Earl of L . . . and that having, by

the suggestions of my landlady, been led to see me, he had

found me perfectly to his taste and given her a commission

to procure me at any rate, and that he had at length suc-

ceeded, as much to his satisfaction as he passionately

wished it might be to mine; adding, withal, some flattering

assurances that I should have no cause to repent my know-

ledge of him.

 

     I had now got down at most half a partridge, and three

or four glasses of wine, which he compelled me to drink by

way of restoring nature; but whether there was anything ex-

traordinary put into the wine, or whether there wanted no

more to revive the natural warmth of my constitution and

give fire to the old train, I began no longer to look with

that constraint, not to say disgust, on Mr. H . . ., which

I had hitherto done; but, withal, there was not the least

grain of love mix'd with this softening of my sentiments:

any other man would have been just the same to me as Mr.

H . . ., that stood in the same circumstances and had done

for me, and with me, what he had done.

 

     There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine

were, if not at an end, at least suspended: my heart, which

had been so long overloaded with anguish and vexation, began

to dilate and open to the least gleam of diversion or amuse-

ment.  I wept a little, and my tears reliev'd me; I sigh'd,

and my sighs seem'd to lighten me of a load that oppress'd

me; my countenance grew, if not cheerful, at least more

compos'd and free.

 

     Mr. H . . ., who had watched, perhaps brought on this

change, knew too well not to seize it; he thrust the table

imperceptibly from between us, and bringing his chair to

face me, he soon began, after preparing me by all the en-

dearments of assurances and protestations, to lay hold of

my hands, to kiss me, and once more to make free with my

bosom, which, being at full liberty from the disorder of a

loose dishabille, now panted and throbb'd, less with in-

dignation than with fear and bashfulness at being used so

familiarly by still a stranger.  But he soon gave me

greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping

his hand above my garters: thence he strove to regain the

pass, which he had before found so open, and unguarded: but

not he could not unlock the twist of my thighs; I gently

complained, and begg'd him to let me alone; told him I was

now well.  However, as he saw there was more form and cere-

mony in my resistance than good earnest, he made his condi-

tions for desisting from pursuing his point that I should

be put instantly to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to

the landlady, and that he would return in an hour, when he

hoped to find me more recondil'd to his passion for me

than I seem'd at present.  I neither assented nor deny'd,

but my air and manner of receiving this proposal gave him

to see that I did not think myself enough my own mistress

to refuse it.

 

     Accordingly he went out and left me, when, a minute or

two after, before I could recover myself into any composure

for thinking, the maid came in with her mistress's service,

and a small silver porringer of what she called a bridal

posset, and desir'd me to eat it as I went to bed, which

consequently I did, and felt immediately a heat, a fire run

like a hue-and-cry thro' every part of my body; I burnt,

I glow'd, and wanted even little of wishing for any man.

 

     The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle

away, and wishing me a good night, went out of the room

and shut the door after her.

 

     She had hardly time to get down-stairs before Mr. H .

. . open'd my room-door softly, and came in, now undress'd

in his night-gown and cap, with two lighted wax candles,

and bolting the door, gave me, tho' I expected him, some

sort of alarm.  He came a tip-toe to the bed-side, and

said with a gentle whisper:  "Pray, my dear, do not be

startled . . . I will be very tender and kind to you."  He

then hurry'd off his cloaths, and leap'd into bed, having

given me openings enough, whilst he was stripping, to ob-

serve his brawny structure, strong-made limbs, and rough

shaggy breast.

 

     The bed shook again when it receiv'd this new load.

He lay on the outside, where he kept the candles burning,

no doubt for the satisfaction of ev'ry sense; for as soon

as he had kiss'd me, he rolled down the bed-cloaths, and

seemed transported with the view of all my person at full

length, which he cover'd with a profusion of kisses, spar-

ing no part of me.  Then, being on his knees between my

legs, he drew up his shirt and bared all his hairy thighs,

and stiff staring truncheon, red-topt and rooted into a

thicket of curls, which covered his belly to the navel and

gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon I felt it join-

ing close to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the

head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on

both sides.

 

 

                         Part 4

 

     I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive,

he soon gave nature such a powerful summons down to her

favourite quarters, that she could no longer refuse repair-

ing thither; all my animal spirits then rush'd mechanically

to that center of attraction, and presently, inly warmed,

and stirr'd as I was beyond bearing, I lost all restraint,

and yielding to the force of the emotion, gave down, as

mere woman, those effusions of pleasure, which, in the

strictness of still faithful love, I could have wished to

have held up.

 

     Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between

this impression of a pleasure merely animal, and struck out

of the collision of the sexes by a passive bodily effect,

from that sweet fury, that rage of active delight which

crowns the enjoyments of a mutual love-passion, where two

hearts, tenderly and truly united, club to exalt the joy,

and give it a spirit and soul that bids defiance to that

end which mere momentary desires generally terminate in,

when they die of a surfeit of satisfaction!

 

     Mr. H . . ., whom no distinctions of that sort seemed

to disturb, scarce gave himself or me breathing time from

the last encounter, but, as if he had task'd himself to

prove that the appearances of his vigour were not signs

hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition

for renewing the onset; to which, preluding with a storm

of kisses, he drove the same course as before, with

unabated fervour; and thus, in repeated engagements, kept

me constantly in exercise till dawn of morning; in all

which time he made me fully sensible of the virtues of his

firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest,

compact hard muscles, in short a system of namliness that

might pass for no bad image of our ancient sturdy barons,

when they wielded the battle-ax: whose race is now so

thoroughly refin'd and frittered away into the more deli-

cate and modern-built frame of our pap-nerv'd softlings,

who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as

their sisters.

 

     Mr. H . . ., content, however, with having the day

break upon his triumphs, delivered me up to the refresh-

ment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon dropped into a

profound sleep.

 

     Tho' he was some time awake before me, yet did he not

offer to disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion

for; but on my first stirring, which was not till past ten

o'clock, I was oblig'd to endure one more trial of his

manhood.

 

     About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of

the richest soup, which her experience in these matters had

mov'd her to prepare.  I pass over the fulsome compliments,

the cant of the decent procuress, with which she saluted us

both; but tho' my blood rose at the sight of her, I supprest

my emotions, and gave all my concern to reflections on what

would be the consequence of this new engagement.

 

     But Mr. H . . ., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not

long suffer me to languish under it.  He acquainted me that,

having taken a solid sincere affection to me, he would begin

by giving me one leading mark of it by removing me out of a

house which must, for many reasons, be irksome and disagree-

able to me, into convenient lodgings, where he would take

all imaginable care of me; and desiring me not to have any

explanations with my landlady, or be impatient till he re-

turned, he dress'd and went out, having left me a purse

with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he had about

him, as he expresst it, to keep my pocket till further sup-

plies.

 

     As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence

of the first launch into vice (for my love-attachment to

Charles never appear'd to me in that light).  I was instant-

ly borne away down the stream, without making back to the

shore.  My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and above

all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion

I began to find, in this new acquaintance, from the black

corroding thoughts my heart had been a prey to ever since

the absence of my dear Charles, concurr'd to stun all con-

trary reflections.  If I now thought of my first, my only

charmer, it was still with the tenderness and regret of

the fondest love, embitter'd with the consciousness that I

was no longer worthy of him.  I could have begg'd my bread

with him all over the world, but wretch that I was, I had

neither the virtue nor courage requisite not to outlive my

separation from him!

 

     Yet, had not my heart been thus pre-ingaged, Mr. H .

. . might probably have been the sole master of it; but

the place was full, and the force of conjunctures alone had

made him the possessor of my person; the charms of which

had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and

were, of course, no foundation for a love either very deli-

cate or very durable.

 

     He did not return till six in the evening to take me

away to my new lodgings; and my moveables being soon pack'd,

and convey'd into a hackney-coach, it cost me but little

regret to take my leave of a landlady whom I thought I had

so much reason not to be overpleas'd with; and as for her

part, she made no other difference to my staying or going,

but what that of the profit created.

 

     We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was

that of a plain tradesman who, on the score of interest,

was entirely at Mr. H . . .'s devotion, and who let him the

first floor, very genteelly furnish'd, for two guineas a

week, of which I was instated mistress, with a maid to

attend me.

 

     He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper

from a neighbouring tavern, after which, and a gay glass

or two, the maid put me to bed.  Mr. H . . . soon follow'd,

and notwithstanding the fatigues of the preceding night, I

found no quarter nor remission from him: he piqued himself,

as he told me, on doing the honours of my new apartment.

 

     The morning being pretty well advanc'd, we got to

breakfast; and the ice now broke, my heart, no longer en-

gross'd by love, began to take ease, and to please itself

with such trifles as Mr. H . . .'s liberal liking led him

to make his court to the usual vanity of our sex.  Silks,

laces, ear-rings, pearl-necklace, gold watch, in short, all

the trinkets and articles of dress were lavishly heap'd

upon me; the sense of which, if it did not create returns

of love, forc'd a kind of grateful fondness something like

love; a distinction it would be spoiling the pleasure of

nine tenths of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I

suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do

make it.

 

     I was now establish'd the kept mistress in form, well

lodg'd, with a very sufficient allowance, and lighted up

with all the lustre of dress.

 

     Mr. H . . . continu'd kind and tender to me; yet, with

all this, I was far from happy; for, besides my regret for

my dear youth, which, though often suspended or diverted,

still return'd upon me in certain melancholic, moments with

redoubled violences, I wanted more society, more dissipation.

 

     As to Mr. H . . ., he was so much my superior in every

sense, that I felt it too much to the disadvantage of the

gratitude I ow'd him.  Thus he gain'd my esteem, though he

could not raise my taste;  I was qualify'd for no sort of

conversation with him except one sort, and that is a satis-

faction which leaves tiresome intervals, if not fill'd up

by love, or other amusements.

 

     Mr. H . . ., so experienc'd, so learned in the ways of

women, numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubt-

less soon perceiv'd this uneasiness, and without approving

or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance to in-

dulge me.

 

     He made suppers at my lodgings, where he brought sev-

eral companions of his pleasures, with their mistresses;

and by this means I got into a circle of acquaintance that

soo strip'd me of all the remains of bashfulness and modesty

which might be yet left of my country education, and were,

to a just taste, perhaps the greatest of my charms.

 

     We visited one another in form, and mimic'd, as near

as we could, all the miseries, the follies, and imperti-

nences of the women of quality, in the round of which they

trifle away their time, without its ever entering into their

little heads that on earth there cannot subsist any thing

more silly, more flat, more insipid and worthless, than,

generally consider'd, their system of life is: they ought

to treat the men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to

condemn them to it.

 

     But tho', amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now

acquainted with a good many, besides some useful matrons,

who live by their connexions with them), I hardly knew one

that did not perfectly detest her keeper, and, of course,

made little or no scruple of any infidelity she could safely

accomplish, I had still no notion of wronging mine; for,

besides that no mark of jealousy on his side induced in me

the desire or gave me the provocation to play him a trick

of that sort, and that his constant generosity, politeness,

and tender attentions to please me forc'd a regard to him,

that without affecting my heart, insur'd him my fidelity, no

object had yet presented that could overcome the habitual

liking I had contracted for him; and I was on the eve of

obtaining, from the movements of his own voluntary generosity,

a modest provision for life, when an accident happen'd which

broke all the measures he had resolv'd upon in my favor.

 

     I had now liv'd near seven months with Mr. H . . .,

when one day returning to my lodgings from a visit in the

neighbourhood, where I us'd to stay longer, I found the

street door open, and the maid of the house standing at it,

talking with some of her acquaintances, so that I came in

without knocking; and, as I passed by, she told me Mr. H .

. . was above.  I stept up-stairs into my own bed-chamber,

with no other thought than of pulling off my hat, etc., and

then to wait upon him in the dining room, into which my

bed-chamber had a door, as is common enough.  Whilst I was

untying my hat-strings, I fancied I heard my maid Hannah's

voice and a sort of tussle, which raising my curiosity, I

stole softly to the door, where a knot in the wood had been

slipt out and afforded a very commanding peep-hole to the

scene then in agitation, the actors of which had been too

earnestly employ'd to hear my opening my own door, from the

landing-place of the stairs, into my bed-chamber.

 

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     The first sight that struck me was Mr. H . . . pulling

and hauling this coarse country strammel towards a couch

that stood in a corner of the dining room; to which the girl

made only a sort of awkward boidening resistance, crying out

so loud, that I, who listened at the door, could scarce hear

her:  "Pray sir, don't . . . , let me alone . . . I am not

for your turn . . . You cannot, sure, demean yourself with

such a poor body as I . . . Lord!  Sir, my mistress may come

home . . . I must not indeed . . . I will cry out . . ." 

All of which did not hinder her from insensibly suffering

herself to be brought to the foot of the couch, upon which

a push of no mighty violence serv'd to give her a very easy

fall, and my gentleman having got up his hands to the

strong-hold of her VIRTUE, she, no doubt, thought it was

time to  give up the argument, and that all further de-

fense would be in vain: and he, throwing her petticoats over

her face, which was now as red as scarlet, discover'd a pair

of stout, plump, substantial thighs, and tolerably white; he

mounted them round his hips, and coming out with his drawn

weapon, stuck it in the cloven spot, where he seem'd to find

a less difficult entrance than perhaps he had flatter'd him-

self with (for, by the way, this blouze had left her place

in the country, for a bastard), and, indeed, all his motions

shew'd he was lodg'd pretty much at large.  After he had

done, his DEAREE gets up, drops her petticoats down, and

smooths her apron and handkerchief.  Mr. H . . . look'd a

little silly, and taking out some money, gave it her, with

an air indifferent enough, bidding her be a good girl, and

say nothing.

 

     Had I lov'd this man, it was not in nature for me to

have had patience to see the whole scene through: I should

have broke in and play'd the jealous princess with a ven-

geance.  But that was not the case, my pride alone was hurt,

my heart not, and I could easier win upon myself to see how

far he would go, till I had no uncertainty upon my conscience.

 

     The least delicate of all affairs of this sort being

now over, I retir'd softly into my closet, where I began to

consider what I should do.  My first scheme, naturally, was

to rush in and upbraid them; this, indeed, flatter'd my

present emotions and vexations, as it would have given im-

mediate vent to them; but, on second thoughts, not being so

clear as to the consequences to be apprehended from such a

step, I began to doubt whether it was not better to dissemble

my discovery till a safer season, when Mr. H . . . should

have perfected the settlement he had made overtures to me of,

and which I was not to think such a violent explanation, as

I was indeed not equal to the management of, could possibly

forward, and might destroy.  On the other hand, the provo-

cation seem'd too gross, too flagrant, not to give me some

thoughts of revenge; the very start of which idea restor'd

me to perfect composure; and delighted as I was with the

confus'd plan of it in my head, I was easily mistress enough

of myself to support the part of ignorance I had prescrib'd

to myself; and as all this circle of reflections was in-

stantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage door, and

opening it with a noise, pass'd for having that moment come

home; and after a short pause, as if to pull off my things,

I opened the door into the dining room, where I found the

dowdy blowing the fire, and my faithful shepherd walking

about the room and whistling, as cool and unconcern'd as if

nothing had happened.  I think, however, he had not much to

brag of having out-dissembled me: for I kept up, nobly, the

character of our sex for art, and went up to him with the

same air of frankness as I had ever receiv'd him.  He stayed

but a little while, made some excuse for not being able to

stay the evening with me, and went out.

 

     As for the wench, she was now spoil'd, at least for my

servant; and scarce eight and forty hours were gone round,

before her insolence, on what had pass'd between Mr. H . . .

and her, gave me so fair an occasion to turn her away, at a

minute's warning, that not to have done it would have been

the wonder: so that he could neither disapprove it nor find

in it the least reason to suspect my original motive.  What

became of her afterwards, I know not; but generous as Mr.

H . . . was, he undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare

answer, that he kept up no farther commerce with her of that

sort; as his stooping to such a coarse morsel was only a

sudden sally of lust, on seeing a wholesome-looking, buxom

country-wench, and no more strange than hunger, or even a

whimsical appetite's making a fling meal of neck-beef, for

change of diet.

 

     Had I consider'd this escapade of Mr. H . . . in no

more than that light and contented myself with turning away

the wench, I had thought and acted right; but, flush'd as I

was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H . . .

to have been cheaply off, if I had not push'd my revenge

farther, and repaid him, as exactly as I could for the soul

of me, in the same coin.

 

     Nor was this worthy act of justice long delay'd: I had

it too much at heart.  Mr. H . . . had, about a fortnight

before, taken into his service a tenant's son, just come out

of the country, a very handsome young lad scarce turn'd of

nineteen, fresh as a rose, well shap'd and clever limb'd: in

short, a very good excuse for any woman's liking, even tho'

revenge had been out of the question; any woman, I say, who

was disprejudic'd, and had wit and spirit enough to prefer a

point of pleasure to a point of pride.

 

     Mr. H . . . had clap'd a livery upon him; and his chief

employ was, after being shewn my lodgings, to bring and

carry letters or messages between his master and me; and as

the situation of all kept ladies is not the fittest to

inspire respect, even to the meanest of mankind, and, perhaps,

less of it from the most ignorant, I could not help observing

that this lad, who was, I suppose, acquainted with my relation

to his master by his fellow-servants, used to eye me in that

bashful confus'd way, more expressive, more moving and readier

catch'd at by our sex, than any other declarations whatever:

my figure had, it seems, struck him, and modest and innocent

as he was, he did not himself know that the pleasure he took

in looking at me was love, or desire; but his eyes, naturally

wanton, and now enflam'd with passion, spoke a great deal

more than he durst have imagin'd they did.  Hitherto, indeed,

I had only taken notice of the comeliness of the youth, but

without the least design: my pride alone would have guarded

me from a thought that way, had not Mr. H . . .'s condescen-

sion with my maid, where there was not half the temptation in

point of person, set me a dangerous example; but now I began

to look on this stripling as every way a delicious instrument

of my design'd retaliation upon Mr. H . . . of an obligation

for which I should have made a conscience to die in his debt.

 

     In order then to pave the way for the accomplishment of

my scheme, for two or three times that the young fellow came

to me with messages, I manag'd so, as without affectation to

have him admitted to my bed-side, or brought to me at my

toilet, where I was dressing; and by carelessly shewing or

letting him see, as if without meaning or design, sometimes

my bosom rather more bare than it should be; sometimes my

hair, of which I had a very fine head, in the natural flow

of it while combing; sometimes a neat leg, that had unfor-

tunately slipt its garter, which I made no scruple of tying

before him, easily gave him the impressions favourable to

my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in his eyes,

and glow in his cheeks: then certain slight squeezes by the

hand, as I took letters from him, did his business compleatly.

 

     When I saw him thus mov'd, and fired for my purpose, I

inflam'd him yet more, by asking him several leading ques-

tions, such as had he a mistress? . . . was she prettier than

me? . . . could he love such a one as I was? . . . and the

like; to all which the blushing simpleton answer'd to my wish,

in a strain of perfect nature, perfect undebauch'd innocence,

but with all the awkwardness and simplicity of country-

breeding.

 

     When I thought I had sufficiently ripen'd him for the

laudable point I had in view, one day that I expected him

at a particular hour, I took care to have the coast clear

for the reception I design'd him; and, as I laid it, he

came to the dining-room door, tapped at it, and, on my bid-

ding him come in, he did so, and shut the door after him.

I desir'd him, then, to bolt it on the inside, pretending

it would not otherwise keep shut.

 

     I was then lying at length upon that very couch, the

scene of Mr. H . . .'s polite joys, in an undress which

was with all the art of negligence flowing loose, and in a

most tempting disorder: no stay, no hoop . . . no incum-

brance whatever.  On the other hand, he stood at a little

distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featur'd,

shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh

blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining

black, play'd to his face in natural side-curls, and was set

out with a smart tuck-up behind; new buckskin breeches, that,

clipping close, shew'd the shape of a plump, well made thigh;

white stockings, garter-lac'd livery, shoulder knot, alto-

gether compos'd a figure in which the beauties of pure flesh

and blood appeared under no disgrace form the lowness of a

dress, to which a certain spruce neatness seems peculiarly

fitted.

 

     I bid him come towards me and give me his letter, at

the same time throwing down, carelessly, a book I had in my

hands.  He colour'd, and came within reach of delivering me

the letter, which he held out, awkwardly enough, for me to

take, with his eyes riveted on my bosom, which was, through

the design'd disorder of my handkerchief, sufficiently bare,

and rather shaded than hid.

 

     I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immedi-

ately catching gently hold of his shirt sleeve, drew him

towards me, blushing, and almost trembling; for surely his

extreme bashfulness, and utter inexperience, call'd for, at

least, all the advances to encourage him: his body was now

conveniently inclin'd towards me, and just softly chucking

his smooth beardless chin, I asked him if he was afraid of

a lady? . . ., and, with that took, and carrying his hand

to my breasts, I prest it tenderly to them.  They were now

finely furnish'd, and rais'd in flesh, so that, panting

with desire, they rose and fell, in quick heaves, under his

touch: at this, the boy's eyes began to lighten with all

the fires of inflam'd nature, and his cheeks flush'd with a

deep scarlet: tongue-tied with joy, rapture, and bashful-

ness, he could not speak, but then his looks, his emotion,

sufficiently satisfy'd me that my train had taken, and that

I had no disappointment to fear.

 

     My lips, which I threw in his way, so as that he could

not escape kissing them, fix'd, fired, and embolden'd him:

and now, glancing my eyes towards that part of his dress

which cover'd the essential object of enjoyment, I plainly

discover'd the swell and commotion there; and as I was now

too far advanc'd to stop in so fair a way, and was indeed no

longer able to contain myself, or wait the slower progress

of his maiden bashfulness (for such it seem'd, and really

was), I stole my hand upon his thighs, down one of which I

could both see and feel a stiff hard body, confin'd by his

breeches, that my fingers could discover no end to.  Curious

then, and eager to unfold so alarming a mystery, playing, as

it were, with his buttons, which were bursting ripe from the

active force within, those of his waistband and fore-flap

flew open at a touch, when out IT started; and now, dis-

engag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise,

what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man,

but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had propor-

tions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant.

Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not,

without pleasure, behold, and even ventur'd to feel, such a

length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well

turn'd and fashion'd, the proud stiffness of which distended

its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie

with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose exqui-

site whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black

curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of

which the fair skin shew'd as in a fine evening you may have

remark'd the clear light ether throught the branchwork of

distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the

broad and blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue

serpentines of its veins, altogether compos'd the most

striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature.  In

short, it stood an object of terror and delight.

 

     But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this

natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the

strictness of his home-breeding, and the little time he had

been in town not having afforded him one, was hitherto an

absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all

that manhood he was so nobly stock'd with; and it now fell

to my lot ot stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve

to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part

of me, which such an oversiz'd machine was very fit to lay

in ruins.

 

     But it was now of the latest to deliberate; for, by

this time, the young fellow, overheated with the present

objects, and too high mettled to be longer curb'd in by

that modesty and awe which had hitherto restrain'd him,

ventur'd, under the stronger impulse and instructive promp-

tership of nature alone, to slip his hands, trembling with

eager impetuous desires, under my petticoats; and seeing,

I suppose, nothing extremely severe in my looks to stop or

dash him, he feels out, and seizes, gently, the center-spot

of his ardours.  Oh then! the fiery touch of his fingers

determines me, and my fears melting away before the glowing

intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and

yield all liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable move-

ment giving my petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair,

too open to be miss'd.  He is now upon me:  I had placed

myself with a jet under him, as commodious and open as

possible to his attempts, which were untoward enough, for

his machine, meeting with no inlet, bore and batter'd

stiffly against me in random pushes, now above, now below,

now beside his point; till, burning with impatience from

its irritating touches, I guided gently, with my hand,

this furious engine to where my young novice was now to be

taught his first lesson of pleasure.  Thus he nick'd, at

length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made

to find no breach impracticable, and mine, tho' so often

enter'd, was still far from wide enough to take him easily

in.

 

     By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy

machine was so critically pointed that, feeling him fore-

right against the tender opening, a favourable motion from

me met his timely thrust, by which the lips of it, strenu-

ously dilated, gave way to his thus assisted impetuosity,

so that we might both feel that he had gain'd a lodgement.

Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent, and, to me,

most painful piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so

far in, as to be now tolerably secure of his entrance: here

he stuck, and I now felt such a mixture of pleasure and

pain, as there is no giving a definition of.  I dreaded

alike his splitting me farther up, or his withdrawing;  I

could not bear either to keep or part with him.  The sense

of pain however prevailing, from his prodigious size and

stiffness, acting upon me in those continued rapid thrusts,

with which he furiously pursu'd his penetration, made me

cry out gently:  "Oh! my dear, you hurt me!"  This was

enough to check the tender respectful boy even in his mid-

career; and he immediately drew out the sweet cause of my

complaint, whilst his eyes eloquently express'd, at once,

his grief for hurting me, and his reluctance at dislodging

from quarters of which the warmth and closeness had given

him a gust of pleasure that he was now desire-mad to satisfy,

and yet too much a novice not to be afraid of my withholding

his relief, on account ot the pain he had put me to.

 

     But I was, myself, far from being pleas'd with his

having too much regarded my tender exclaims; for now, more

and more fired with the object before me, as it still stood

with the fiercest erection, unbonnetted, and displaying its

broad bermilion head, I first gave the youth a re-encourag-

ing kiss, which he repaid me with a fervour that seem'd at

once to thank me, and bribe my farther compliance; and soon

replac'd myself in a posture to receive, at all risks, the

renew'd invasion, which he did not delay an instant: for,

being presently remounted, I once more felt the smooth hard

gristle forcing an entrance, which he achiev'd rather easier

than before.  Pain'd, however, as I was, with his efforts of

gaining a complete admission, which he was so regardful as

to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to complain. 

In the meantime, the soft strait passage gradually loosens,

yields, and, stretch'd to its utmost bearing, by the stiff,

thick, indriven engine, sensible, at once, to the ravishing

pleasure of the feel and the pain of the distension, let him

in about half way, when all the most nervous activity he now

exerted, to further his penetration, gain'd him not an inch

of his purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis

of pleasure overtook him, and the close compressure of the

warm surrounding fold drew from him the extatic gush, even

before mine was ready to meet it, kept up by the pain I had

endur'd in the course ot the engagement, from the insuffer-

able size of his weapon, tho' it was not as yet in above

half its length.

 

     I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would

draw, but was pleasantly disappointed: for he was not to be

let off so.  The well breath'd youth, hot-mettled, and

flush with genial juices, was now fairly in for making me

know my driver.  As soon, then, as he had made a short

pause, waking, as it were, out of the trance of pleasure

(in which every sense seem'd lost for a while, whilst, with

his eyes shut, and short quick breathing, he had yielded

down his maiden tribute), he still kept his post, yet unsated

with enjoyment, and solacing in these so new delights; till

his stiffness, which had scarce perceptibly remitted, being

thoroughly recovered to him, who had not once unsheath'd, he

proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself an entire

entry into me, which was not a little made easy to him by

the balsamic injection with which he had just plentifully

moisten'd the whole internals of the passage.  Redoubling,

then, the active energy of his thrusts, favoured by the

fervid appetite of my motions, the soft oiled wards can no

longer stand so effectual a picklock, but yield, and open

him an entrance.  And now, with conspiring nature, and my

industry, strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates, and at

length, winning his way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and

finally mighty thrust sheaths it up to the guard; on the in-

formation of which, from the close jointure of our bodies

(insomuch that the hair on both sides perfectly interweav'd

and incircl'd together), the eyes of the transported youth

sparkl'd with more joyous fires, and all his looks and mo-

tions acknowledged excess of pleasure, which I now began to

share, for I felt him in my very vitals!  I was quite sick

with delight! stir'd beyond bearing with its furious agita-

tions within me, and gorged and cramm'd, even to surfeit.

Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken

breathings, faltering accents, eyes twinkling with humid

fires, lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness,

gave me to hail the approaches of the second period: it came

. . . and the sweet youth, overpower'd with the extasy, died

away in my arms, melting in a flood that shot in genial

warmth into the innermost recesses of my body; every conduit

of which, dedicated to that pleasure, was on flow to mix with

it.  Thus we continued for some instants, lost, breathless,

senseless of every thing, and in every part but those fav-

ourite ones of nature, in which all that we enjoyed of life

and sensation was now totally concentre'd.

 

     When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young

fellow had withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he

had most plentifully drowned all thoughts of revenge in the

sense of actual pleasure, the widen'd wounded passage refunded

a stream of pearly liquids, which flowed down my thighs, mixed

with streaks of blood, the marks of the ravage of that montrous

machine of his, which had now triumph'd over a kind of second

maidenhead.  I stole, however, my handkerchief to those parts,

and wip'd them as dry as I could, whilst he was re-adjusting

and buttoning up.

 

     I made him now sit down by me, and as he had gather'd

courage from such extreme intimacy, he gave me an after-

course of pleasure, in a natural burst of tender gratitude

and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had opened to him:

scenes positively new, as he had never before had the least

acquaintance with that mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of

female distinction, tho' nobody better qualify'd than he to

penetrate into its deepest recesses, or do it nobler justice.

But when, by certain motions, certain unquietnesses of his

hands, that wandered not without design, I found he lan-

guish'd for satisfying a curiosity, natural enough, to view

and handle those parts which attract and concentre the

warmest force of imagination, charmed as I was to have any

occasion of obliging and humouring his young desires, I

suffer'd him to proceed as he pleased, without check or

control, to the satisfaction of them.

 

     Easily, then, reading in my eyes the full permission of

myself to all his wishes, he scarce pleased himself more

than me when, having insinuated his hand under my petticoat

and shift, he presently removed those bars to the sight by

slyly lifting them upwards, under favour of a thousand

kisses, which he thought, perhaps, necessary to divert my

attention from what he was about.  All my drapery being now

roll'd up to my waist, I threw myself into such a posture

upon the couch, as gave up to him, in full view, the whole

region of delight, and all the luxurious landscape round it.

The transported youth devour'd every thing with his eyes,

and try'd, with his fingers, to lay more open to his sight

the secrets of that dark and delicious deep: he opens the

folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any

thing of a hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight:

and feeling further, meets with, and wonders at, a soft

fleshy excrescence, which, limber and relaxed after the late

enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and examination of his

fiery fingers, more and more stiff and considerable, till

the titillating ardours of that so sensible part made me

sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which he withdrew his curious

probing fingers, asking me pardon, as it were, in a kiss

that rather increased the flame there.

 

     Novelty ever makes the strongest impressions, and in

pleasures, especially; no wonder, then, that he was swallowed

up in raptures of admiration of things so interesting by

their nature, and now seen and handled for the first time.

On my part, I was richly overpaid for the pleasure I gave

him, in that of examining the power of those objects thus

abandon'd to him, naked and free to his loosest wish, over

the artless, natural stripling: his eyes streaming fire, his

cheeks glowing with a florid red, his fervid frequent sighs,

whilst his hands convulsively squeez'd, opened, pressed to-

gether again the lips and sides of that deep flesh wound, or

gently twitched the overgrowing moss; and all proclaimed the

excess, the riot of joys, in having his wantonness thus

humour'd.  But he did not long abuse my patience, for the

objects before him had now put him by all his, and, coming

out with that formidable machine of his, he lets the fury

loose, and pointing it directly to the pouting-lipt mouth,

that bid him sweet defiance in dumb-shew, squeezes in the

head, and, driving with refreshed rage, breaks in, and plugs

up the whole passage of that soft pleasure-conduit, where

he makes all shake again, and put, once more, all within me

into such an uproar, as nothing could still but a fresh in-

undation from the very engine of those flames, as well as

from all the springs with which nature floats that reservoir

of joy, when risen to its flood-mark.

 

     I was now so bruised, so batter'd, so spent with this

over-match, that I could hardly stir, or raise myself, but

lay palpitating, till the ferment of my sense subsiding by

degrees, and the hour striking at which I was oblig'd to

dispatch my young man, I tenderly advised him of the neces-

sity there was for parting; which I felt as much displeasure

at as he could do, who seemed eagerly disposed to keep the

field, and to enter on a fresh action.  But the danger was

too great, and after some hearty kisses of leave, and recom-

mendations of secrecy and discretion, I forc'd myself to

send him away, not without assurances of seeing him again,

to the same purpose, as soon as possible, and thrust a guinea

into his hands: not more, lest, being too flush of money, a

suspicion or discovery might arise from thence, having every

thing to fear from the dangerous indiscretion of that age in

which young fellows would be too irresistible, too charming,

if we had not that terrible fault to guard against.

 

     Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating

draughts of pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely

stretched out, in a delicious languor diffus'd over all my

limbs, hugging myself for being thus revenged to my heart's

content, and that in a manner so precisely alike, and on the

identical spot in which I had received the supposed injury.

No reflections on the consequences ever once perplex'd me,

nor did I make myself one single reproach for having, by

this step, completely entered myself of a profession more

decry'd than disused.  I should have held it ingratitude to

the pleasure I had received to have repented of it; and

since I was now over the bar, I thought, by plunging over

head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to

drown all sense of shame or reflection.

 

     Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions,

and whispering to myself a kind of tacit vow of inconti-

nency, enters Mr. H . . .  The consciousness of what I had

been doing deepen'd yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed

with the warmth of the late action, which, joined to the

piquant air of my dishabille, drew from Mr. H . . . a com-

pliment on my looks, which he was proceeding to back the

sincerity of with proofs, and that with so brisk an action

as made me tremble for fear of a discovery from the condi-

tion of those parts were left in from their late severe

handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen

with their uncommon distension, the ringlets press down,

crushed and uncurl'd with the over-flowing moisture that

had wet every thing round it; in short, the different feel

and state of things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr.

H . . .'s nicety and experience unaccounted for but by the

real cause.  But here the woman saved me: I pretended a

violent disorder of my head, and a feverish heat, that in-

disposed me too much to receive his embraces.  He gave in to

this, and good-naturedly desisted.  Soon after, an old lady

coming in made a third, very a-propos for the confusion I

was in, and Mr. H . . ., after bidding me take care of my-

self, and recommending me to my repose, left me much at ease

and reliev'd by his absence.

 

     In the close of the evening, I took care to have pre-

par'd for me a warm bath of aromatick and sweet herbs; in

which having fully laved and solaced myself, I came out

voluptuously refresh'd in body and spirit.

 

     The next morning, waking pretty early, after a night's

perfect rest and composure, it was not without some dread

and uneasiness that I thought of what innovation that ten-

der, soft system of mine might have sustained from the shock

of a machine so sized for its destruction.

 

     Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry

my hand thither, to inform myself of the state and posture

of things.

 

     But I was soon agreeably cur'd of my fears.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     The silky hair that covered round the borders, now

smooth'd and re-pruned, had resumed its wonted curl and

trimness; the fleshy pouting lips that had stood the brunt

of the engagement, were no longer swollen or moisture-

drenched; and neither they, nor the passage into which they

opened, that suffered so great a dilatation, betray'd any

the least alteration, outward or inwardly, to the most

curious research, notwithstanding also the laxity that

naturally follows the warm bath.

 

     This continuation of that grateful stricture which is

in us, to the men, the very jet of their pleasure, I ow'd,

it seems, to a happy habit of body, juicy, plump and fur-

nished towards the texture of those parts, with a fullness

of soft springy flesh, that yielding sufficiently, as it

does, to almost any distension soon recovers itself so as

to retighten that strict compression of its mantlings and

folds, which form the sides of the passage, wherewith it so

tenderly embraces and closely clips any foreign body intro-

duc'd into it, such as my exploring finger then was.

 

     Finding then every thing in due tone and order, I

remember'd my fears, only to make a jest of them to myself.

and now, palpably mistress of nay size of man, and tri-

umphing in my double achievement of pleasure and revenge, I

abandon'd myself entirely to the ideas of all the delight I

had swam in.  I lay stretching out, glowingly alive all over,

and tossing with burning impatience for the renewal of joys

that had sinned but in a sweet excess; now did I loose my

longing, for about ten in the morning, according to expect-

ation, Will, my new humble sweetheart, came with a message

from his master, Mr. H . . ., to know how I did.  I had taken

care to send my maid on an errand into the city, that I was

sure would take up time enough; and, from the people of the

house, I had nothing to fear, as they were plain good sorts

of folks, and wise enough to mind no more other people's

business than they could well help.

 

     All dispositions then made, not forgetting that of

lying in bed to receive him, when he was entered the door

of my bed-chamber, a latch, that I governed by a wire, des-

cended and secur'd it.

 

     I could not but observe that my young minion was as

much spruced out as could be expected from one in his con-

dition: a desire of pleasing that could not be indifferent

to me, since it prov'd that I pleased him; which, I assure

you, was now a point I was not above having in view.

 

     His hair trimly dressed, clean linen, and, above all,

a hale, ruddy, wholesome country look, made him out as

pretty a piece of woman's meat as you could see, and I

should have thought nay one much out of taste that could

not have made a hearty meal of such a morsel as nature

seemed to have  design'd for the highest diet of pleasure.

 

 

                         Part 5

 

     And why should I here suppress the delight I received

from this amiable creature, in remarking each artless look,

each motion of pure undissembled nature, betrayed by his

wanton eyes; or shewing, transparently, the glow and suf-

fusion of blood through his fresh, clear skin, whilst even

his sturdy rustic pressures wanted not their peculiar

charm?  Oh! but, say you, this was a young fellow of too

low a rank of life to deserve so great a display.  May be

so: but was my condition, strictly consider'd one jot more

exalted? or, had I really been much above him, did not his

capacity of giving such exquisite pleasure sufficiently

raise and ennoble him, to me, at least?  Let who would,

for me, cherish, respect, and reward the painter's, the

statuary's, the musician's arts, in proportion to delight

taken in them: but at my age, and with my taste for plea-

sure, a taste strongly constitutional to me, the talent of

pleasing, with which nature has endowed a handsome person,

form'd to me the greatest of all merits; compared to which,

the vulgar prejudices in favour of titles, dignities,

honours, and the like, held a very low rank indeed.  Nor

perhaps would the beauties of the body be so much affected

to be held cheap, were they, in their nature, to be bought

and delivered.  But for me, whose natural philosophy all

resided in the favourite center of sense, and who was rul'd

by its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right

handle, I could scarce have made a choice more to my purpose.

 

     Mr. H . . .'s loftier qualifications of birth, fortune

and sense laid me under a sort of subjection and constraint

that were far from making harmony in the concert of love,

nor had he, perhaps, thought me worth softening that superi-

ority to; but, with this lad, I was more on that level which

love delights in.

 

     We may say what we please, but those we can be the easi-

est and freest with are ever those we like, not to say love,

the best.

 

     With this stripling, all whose art of love was the

action of it, I could, without check of awe or restraint,

give a loose to joy, and execute every scheme of dalliance

my fond fancy might put me on, in which he was, in every

sense, a most exquisite companion.  And now my great plea-

sure lay in humouring all the petulances, all the wanton

frolic of a raw novice just fleshed, and keen on the burning

scent of his game, but unbroken to the sport: and, to carry

on the figure, who could better TREAD THE WOOD than he, or

stand fairer for the HEART OF THE HUNT?

 

     He advanc'd then to my bed-side, and whilst he fal-

tered out his message, I could observe his colour rise, and

his eyes lighten with joy, in seeing me in a situation as

favourable to his loosest wishes as if he had bespoke the

play.

 

     I smiled, and put out my hand towards him, which he

kneeled down to (a politeness taught him by love alone,

that great master of it) and greedily kiss'd.  After

exchanging a few confused questions and answers, I ask'd

him if he would come to bed to me, for the little time I

could venture to detain him.  This was just asking a person,

dying with hunger, to feast upon the dish on earth the most

to his palate.  Accordingly, without further reflection,

his cloaths were off in an instant; when, blushing still

more at his new liberty, he got under the bed-cloaths I held

up to receive him, and was now in bed with a woman for the

first time in his life.

 

     Here began the usual tender preliminaries, as delicious,

perhaps, as the crowning act of enjoyment itself; which they

often beget an impatience of, that makes pleasure destruc-

tive of itself, by hurrying on the final period, and closing

that scene of bliss, in which the actors are generally too

well pleas'd with their parts not to wish them an eternity

of duration.

 

     When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards

the main point, by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my

breasts, now round and plump, feeling that part of me I might

call a furnace-mouth, from the prodigious intense heat his

fiery touches had rekindled there, my young sportsman, em-

bolden'd by every freedom he could wish, wantonly takes my

hand, and carries it to that enormous machine of his, that

stood with a stiffness! a hardness! an upward bent of erec-

tion! and which, together with its bottom dependence, the

inestimable bulge of lady's jewels, formed a grand show out

of goods indeed!  Then its dimensions, mocking either grasp

or span, almost renew'd my terrors.

 

     I could not conceive how, or by what means I could

take, or put such a bulk out of sight.  I stroked it gently,

on which the mutinous rogue seemed to swell, and gather a

new degree of fierceness and insolence; so that finding it

grew not to be trifled with any longer, I prepar'd for rub-

bers in good earnest.

 

     Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give him

the fairest play, I guided officiously with my hand this

furious battering ram, whose ruby head, presenting nearest

the resemblance of a heart, I applied to its proper mark,

which lay as finely elevated as we could wish; my hips

being borne up, and my thighs at their utmost extension,

the gleamy warmth that shot from it made him feel that he

was at the mouth of the indraught, and driving foreright,

the powerfully divided lips of that pleasure-thirsty

channel receiv'd him.  He hesitated a little; then, set-

tled well in the passage, he makes his way up the straits

of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing, widen-

ing as he went, so as to distend and smooth each soft fur-

row: our pleasure increasing deliciously, in proportion as

our points of mutual touch increas'd in that so vital part

of me in which I had now taken him, all indriven, and com-

pletely sheathed; and which, crammed as it was, stretched,

splitting ripe, gave it so gratefully strait an accommoda-

tion! so strict a fold! a suction so fierce! that gave and

took unutterable delight.  We had now reach'd the closest

point of union; but when he backened to come on the fiercer,

as if I had been actuated by a fear of losing him, in the

height of my fury I twisted my legs round his naked loins,

the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to the touch,

quiver'd again under the pressure; and now I had him every

way encircled and begirt; and having drawn him home to me,

I kept him fast there, as if I had sought to unite bodies

with him at that point.  This bred a pause of action, a

pleasure stop, whilst that delicate glutton, my nether-

mouth, as full as it could hold, kept palating, with ex-

quisite relish, the morsel that so deliciously ingorged it.

But nature could not long endure a pleasure that so highly

provoked without satisfying it: pursuing then its darling

end, the battery recommenc'd with redoubled exertion; nor

lay I inactive on my side, but encountering him with all

the impetuosity of motion but encountering him with all

the impetuosity of motion I was mistress of.  The downy

cloth of our meeting mounts was now of real use to break

the violence of the tilt; and soon, too soon indeed! the

highwrought agitation, the sweet urgency of this to-and-fro

friction, raised the titillation on me to its height; so

that finding myself on the point of going, and loath to

leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I employed

all the forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested

to me, to promote his keeping me company to our journey's

end.  I not only then tighten'd the pleasure-girth round my

restless inmate by a secret spring of friction and compres-

sion that obeys the will in those parts, but stole my hand

softly to that store bag of nature's prime sweets, which is

so pleasingly attach'd to its conduit pipe, from which we

receive them; there feeling, and most gently indeed, squeez-

ing those tender globular reservoirs; the magic touch took

instant effect, quicken'd, and brought on upon the spur the

symptoms of that sweet agony, the melting moment of dissolu-

tion, when pleasure dies by pleasure, and the mysterious

engine of it overcomes the titillation it has rais'd in

those parts, by plying them with the stream of a warm li-

quid that is itself the highest of all titillations, and

which they thirstily express and draw in like the hot-

natured leach, which to cool itself, tenaciously attracts

all the moisture within its sphere of exsuction.  Chiming

then to me, with exquisite consent, as I melted away, his

oily balsamic injection, mixing deliciously with the sluices

in flow from me, sheath'd and blunted all the stings of

pleasure, it flung us into an extasy that extended us faint-

ing, breathless, entranced.  Thus we lay, whilst a voluptuous

languor possest, and still maintain'd us motionless and fast

locked in one another's arms.  Alas! that these delights

should be no longer-lived! for now the point of pleasure,

unedged by enjoyment, and all the brisk sensations flat-

ten'd upon us, resigned us up to the cool cares of insipid

life.  Disengaging myself then from his embrace, I made him

sensible of the reasons there were for his present leaving

me; on which, though reluctantly, he put on his cloaths with

as little expedition, however, as he could help, wantonly

interrupting himself, between whiles, with kisses, touches

and embraces I could not refuse myself to.  Yet he happily

return'd to his master before he was missed; but, at taking

leave, I forc'd him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse

it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that

great article of subaltern finery, which he at length ac-

cepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully to preserve of

my affections.

 

     And here, Madam, I ought, perhaps, to make you an apol-

ogy for this minute detail of things, that dwelt so strongly

upon my memory, after so deep an impression: but, besides

that this intrigue bred one great revolution in my life,

which historical truth requires I should not sink from you,

may I not presume that so exalted a pleasure ought not to be

ungratefully forgotten, or suppress'd by me, because I found

it in a character in low life; where, by the bye, it is of-

tener met with, purer, and more unsophisticate, that among

the false, ridiculous refinements with which the great suf-

fer themselves to be so grossly cheated by their pride: the

great! than whom there exist few amongst those they call

the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who cultivate less,

the art of living than they do; they, I say, who for ever

mistake things the most foreign of the nature of pleasure

itself; whose capital favourite object is enjoyment of

beauty, wherever that rare invaluable gift is found, without

distinction of birth, or station.

 

     As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any

share in my commerce with this handsome youth.  The sole

pleasures of enjoyment were now the link I held to him by:

for though nature had done such great matters for him in

his outward form, and especially in that superb piece of

furniture she had so liberally enrich'd him with; though he

was thus qualify'd to give the senses their richest feast,

still there was something more wanting to create in me, and

constitute the passion of love.  Yet Will had very good

qualities too; gentle, tractable, and, above all, grateful;

close, and secret, even to a fault: he spoke, at any time,

very little, but made it up emphatically with action; and,

to do him justice, he never gave me the least reason to

complain, either of any tendency to encroach upon me for

the liberties I allow'd him, or of his indiscretion in

blabbing them.  There is, then, a fatality in love, or have

loved him I must; for he was really a treasure, a bit for

the BONNE BOUCHE of a duchess; and, to say the truth, my

liking for him was so extreme, that it was distinguishing

very nicely to deny that I loved him.

 

     My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but

found an end from my own imprudent neglect.  After having

taken even superfluous precautions against a discovery, our

success in repeated meetings embolden'd me to omit the barely

necessary ones.  About a month after our first intercourse,

one fatal morning (the season Mr. H . . . rarely or never

visited me in) I was in my closet, where my toilet stood, in

nothing but my shift, a bed gown and under-petticoat.  Will

was with me, and both ever too well disposed to baulk an

opportunity.  For my part, a warm whim, a wanton toy had

just taken me, and I had challeng'd my man to execute it on

the spot, who hesitated not to comply with my humour: I was

set in the arm-chair, my shift and petticoat up, my thighs

wide spread and mounted over the arms of the chair, present-

ing the fairest mark to Will's drawn weapon, which he stood

in act to plunge into me; when, having neglected to secure

the chamber door, and that of the closet standing a-jar, Mr.

H . . . stole in upon us before either of us was aware, and

saw us precisely in these convicting attitudes.

 

     I gave a great scream, and drop'd my petticoat: the

thunder-struck lad stood trembling and pale, waiting his

sentence of death.  Mr. H . . . looked sometimes at one,

sometimes at the other, with a mixture of indignation and

scorn; and, without saying a word, turn'd upon his heel and

went out.

 

     As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn

the key, and lock the chamber-door upon us, so that there

was no escape but through the dining-room, where he himself

was walking about with distempered strides, stamping in a

great chafe, and doubtless debating what he would do with

us.

 

     In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of

his senses, and, as much need as I had of spirits to sup-

port myself, I was obliged to employ them all to keep his

a little up.  The misfortune I had now brought upon him,

endear'd him the more to me, and I could have joyfully suf-

fered any punishment he had not shared in.  I water'd,

plentifully, with my tears, the face of the frightened youth,

who sat, not having strength to stand, as cold and as life-

less as a statue.

 

     Presently Mr. H . . . comes in to us again, and made

us go before him into the dining-room, trembling and dread-

ing the issue.  Mr. H . . . sat down on a chair whilst we

stood like criminals under examination; and beginning with

me, ask'd me, with an even firm tone of voice, neither soft

nor severe, but cruelly indifferent, what I could say for

myself, for having abused him in so unworthy a manner, with

his own servant too, and how he had deserv'd this of me?

 

     Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity that of

an audacious defence of it, in the old style of a common

kept Miss, my answer was modest, and often interrupted by my

tears, in substance as follows: that I never had a single

thought of wronging him (which was true), till I had seen

him taking the last liberties with my servant-wench (here he

colour'd prodigiously), and that my resentment at that,

which I was over-awed from giving vent to by complaints, or

explanations with him, had driven me to a course that I did

not pretend to justify; but that as to the young man, he was

entirely faultless; for that, in the view of making him the

instrument of my revenge, I had down-right seduced him to

what he had done; and therefore hoped, whatever he deter-

mined about me, he would distinguish between the guilty and

the innocent; and that, for the rest, I was entirely at his

mercy.

 

     Mr. H . . ., on hearing what I said, hung his head a

little; but instantly recovering himself, he said to me,

as near as I can retain, to the following purpose:

 

     "Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have

fairly turn'd the tables upon me.  It is not with one of

your cast of breeding and sentiments that I should enter

into a discussion of the very great difference of the pro-

vocations: be it sufficient that I allow you so much

reason on your side, as to have changed my resolutions, in

consideration of what you reproach me with; and I own, too,

that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest in

you.  Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross.  I

give you a week's warning to go out of these lodgings;

whatever I have given you, remains to you; and as I never

intend to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty

pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I

hope you will own I do not leave you in a worse condition

than what I took you up in, or than you deserve of me.

Blame yourself only that it is no better."

 

     Then, without giving me time to reply, he address'd

himself to the young fellow:

 

     "For you, spark, I shall, for your father's sake, take

care of you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as

thou art; and to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge

of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to your

father, not to let you return and be spoil'd here."

 

     At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting

to stop him by throwing myself at his feet.  He shook me off,

though he seemed greatly mov'd too, and took Will away with

him, who,  I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off.

 

     I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands,

by a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve.  And all the

letters, arts, friends' entreaties that I employed within the

week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much

as to see me again.  He had irrevocably pornounc'd my doom,

and submission to it was my only part.  Soon after he married

a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard, he prov'd

an irreproachable husband.

 

     As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the

country to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was

not four months before and inn-keeper's buxom young widow,

with a very good stock, both in money and trade, fancy'd,

and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies,

marry'd him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good

foundation for their living happily together.

 

     Though I should have been charm'd to see him before

he went, such measures were taken, by Mr. H . . .'s orders,

that it was impossible; otherwise I should certainly have

endeavour'd to detain him in town, and would have spared

neither offers nor expence to have procured myself the

satisfaction of keeping him with me.  He had such powerful

holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be shaken

off, or replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the

question: glad, however, I was from my soul, that nothing

worse, and as things turn'd out, probably nothing better

could have happened to him.

 

     As to Mr. H . . ., though views of conveniency made

me, at first, exert myself to regain his affection, I was

giddy and thoughtless enough to be much easier reconcil'd

to my failure than I ought to have been; but as I never had

lov'd him, and his leaving me gave me a sort of liberty that

I had often long'd for, I was soon comforted; and flattering

myself that the stock of youth and beauty I was going into

trade with could hardly fail of procuring me a maintenance,

I saw myself under a necessity of trying my fortune with

them, rather, with pleasure and gaiety, than with the least

idea of despondency.

 

     In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among

the sisterhood, who had soon got wind of my misfortune,

flocked to insult me with their malicious consolations.

Most of them had long envied me the affluence and splendour

I had been maintain'd in; and though there was scarce one

of them that did not at least deserve to be in my case, and

would probably, sooner or later, come to it, it was equally

easy to remark, even in their affected pity, their secret

pleasure at seeing me thus disgrac'd and discarded, and

their secret grief that it was no worse with me.  Unaccount-

able malice of the human heart! and which is not confin'd

to the class of life they were of.

 

     But as the time approached for me to come to some

resolution how to dispose of myself, and I was considering

round where to shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle-

aged discreet sort of woman, who had been brought into my

acquaintance by one ot the Misses that visited me, upon

learning my situation, came to offer her cordial advice and

service to me; and as I had always taken to her more than

to any of my female acquaintances, I listened the easier to

her proposals.  And, as it happened, I could not have put

myself into worse, or into better hands in all London: into

worse, because keeping a house of conveniency, there were

no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to go, in

compliance with her customers; no schemes of pleasure, or

even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight

in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more

experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was

fitter to advise and guard one against the worst dangers of

our profession; and what was rare to be met with in those

of her's, she contented herself with a moderate living pro-

fit upon her industry and good offices, and had nothing of

their greedy rapacious turn.  She was really too a gentle-

woman born and bred, but through a train of accidents

reduc'd to this course, which she pursued, partly through

necessity, partly through choice, as never woman delighted

more in encouraging a brisk circulation of trade for the

sake of the trade itself, or better understood all the my-

steries and refinements of it, than she did; so that she

was consummately at the top of her profession, and dealt

only with customers of distinction: to answer the demands

of whom she kept a competent number of her daughters in

constant recruit (so she call'd those whom by her means,

and through her tuition and instructions, succeeded very

well in the world).

 

     This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now

threw myself, having her reasons of state, respecting Mr.

H . . ., for not appearing too much in the thing herself,

sent a friend of her's, on the day appointed for my removal,

to conduct me to my new lodgings at a brushmaker's in R***

street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her own house,

where she had no conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings

that, by having been for several successions tenanted by

ladies of pleasure, the landlord of them was familiarized

to their ways; and provided the rent was duly paid, every

thing else was as easy and commodious as one could desire.

 

     The fifty guineas promis'd me by Mr. H . . ., at his

parting with me, having been duly paid me, all my cloaths

and moveables chested up, which were at least of two

hundred pound's value, I had them convey'd into a coach,

where I soon followed them, after taking a civil leave of

the landlord and his family, with whom I had never liv'd in

a degree of familiarity enough to regret the removal; but

still, the very circumstance of its being a removal drew

tears from me.  I left, too, a letter of thanks for Mr.

H . . ., from whom I concluded myself, as I really was,

irretrievably separated.

 

     My maid I had discharged the day before, not only

because I had her of Mr. H . . ., but that I suspected her

of having some how or other been the occasion of his dis-

covering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not having trusted

her with him.

 

     We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so hand-

somely furnish'd nor so showy as those I left, were to the

full as convenient, and at half price, though on the first

floor.  My trunks were safely landed, and stow'd in my

apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante, Mrs.

Cole, was ready with my landlord to receive me, to whom she

took care to set me out in the most favourable light, that

of one from whom there was the clearest reason to expect

the regular payment of his rent: all the cardinal virtues

attributed to me would not have had half the weight of that

recommendation alone.

 

     I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandon'd to

my own conduct, and turned loose upon the town, to sink or

swim, as I could manage with the current of it; and what

were the consequences, together with the number of adven-

tures which befell me in the exercise of my new profession,

will compose the matter of another letter: for surely it is

high time to put a period to this.

 

                 I am,

                      MADAM

                        Yours, etc., etc., etc.

                     

                 THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER

 

 

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Part 6

 

LETTER THE SECOND

 

     Madam,

 

     If I have delay'd the sequel of my history, it has been

purely to allow myself a little breathing time not without

some hopes that, instead of pressing me to a continuation,

you would have acquitted me of the task of pursuing a con-

fession, in the course of which my self-esteem has so many

wounds to sustain.

 

     I imagined, indeed, that you would have been cloy'd and

tired with uniformity of adventures and expressions, insep-

arable from a subject of this sort, whose bottom, or ground-

work being, in the nature of things, eternally one and the

same, whatever variety of forms and modes the situations are

susceptible of, there is no escaping a repetition of near

the same images, the same figures, the same expressions,

with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it cre-

ates, that the words JOYS, ARDOURS, TRANSPORTS, EXTASIES,

and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so

received in the PRACTICE OF PLEASURE, flatten and lose much

of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indis-

pensably recur with, in a narrative of which that PRACTICE

professedly composes the whole basis.  I must therefore

trust to the candour of your judgement, for your allowing

for the disadvantage I am necessarily under in that respect,

and to your imagination and sensibility, the pleasing task

of repairing it by their supplements, where my descriptions

flag or fail: the one will readily place the pictures I

present before your eyes; the other give life to the colours

where they are dull, or worn with too frequent handling.

 

     What you say besides, by way of encouragement, con-

cerning the extreme difficulty of continuing so long in one

strain, in a mean temper'd with taste, between the revolt-

ingness of gross, rank and vulgar expressions, and the ridi-

cule of mincing metaphors and affected circumlocutions, is

so sensible, as well as good-natur'd, that you greatly

justify me to myself for my compliance with a curiosity that

is to be satisfied so extremely at my expense.

 

     Resuming now where I broke off in my last, I am in my

way to remark to you that it was late in the evening before

I arriv'd at my new lodgings, and Mrs. Cole, after helping

me to range and secure my things, spent the whole evening

with me in my apartment, where we supped together, in giving

me the best advice and instruction with regard to this new

stage of my profession I was now to enter upon; and passing

thus from a private devotee to pleasure into a public one,

to become a more general good, with all the advantages re-

quisite to put my person out to use, either for interest or

pleasure, or both.  But then, she observ'd, as I was a kind

of new face upon the town, that it was an established rule,

and part of trade, for me to pass for a maid, and dispose of

myself as such on the first good occasion, without prejudice,

however, to such diversions as I might have a mind to in the

interim; for that nobody could be a greater enemy than she

was to the losing of time.  That she would, in the mean time,

do her best to find out a proper person, and would undertake

to manage this nice point for me, if I would accept of her

aid and advice to such good purpose that, in the loss of a

fictitious maidenhead, I should reap all the advantages of a

native one.

 

     Though such a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely

belong to my character at that time, I confess, against my-

self, that I perhaps too readily closed with a proposal which

my candor and ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not

enough to contradict the intention of one to whom I had now

thoroughly abandoned the direction of all my steps.  For Mrs.

Cole had, I do not know how unless by one of those unaccount-

able invincible sympathies that, nevertheless, form the

strongest links, especially of female friendship, won and

got entire possession of me.  On her side, she pretended

that a strict resemblance she fancied she saw in me to an

only daughter whom she had lost at my age, was the first

motive of her taking to me so affectionately as she did.  It

might be so: there exist as slender motives of attachment

that, gathering force from habit and liking, have proved

often more solid and durable than those founded on much

stronger reasons; but this I know, that tho' I had no other

acquaintance with her than seeing her at my lodgings when I

lived with Mr. H . . ., where she had made errands to sell

me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated her-

self so far into my confidence that I threw myself blindly

into her hands, and came, at length, to regard, love, and

obey her implicitly; and, to do her justice, I never experi-

enc'd at her hands other than a sincerity of tenderness, and

care for my interest, hardly heard of in those of her pro-

fession.  We parted that night, after having settled a per-

fect unreserv'd agreement; and the next morning Mrs. Cole

came, and took me with her to her house for the first time.

 

     Here, at the first sight of things, I found everything

breath'd an air of decency, modesty and order.

 

     In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young

women, very demurely employ'd on millinery work, which was

the cover of a traffic in more precious commodities; but

three beautifuller creatures could hardly be seen.  Two of

them were extremely fair, the eldest not above nineteen;

and the third, much about that age, was a piquant brunette,

whose black sparkling eyes, and perfect harmony of features

and shape, left her nothing to envy in her fairer companions.

Their dress too had the more design in it, the less it ap-

peared to have, being in a taste of uniform correct neatness,

and elegant simplicity.  These were the girls that compos'd

the small domestick flock, which my governess train'd up with

surprising order and management, considering the giddy wild-

ness of young girls once got upon the loose.  But then she

never continued any in her house, whom, after a due novitiate,

she found untractable, or unwilling to comply with the rules

of it.  Thus had she insensibly formed a little family of

love, in which the members found so sensibly their account,

in a rare alliance of pleasure with interest, and of a

necessary outward decency with unbounded secret liberty,

that Mrs. Cole, who had pick'd them as much for their temper

as their beauty, govern'd them with ease to herself and them

too.

 

     To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepar'd,

she presented me as a new boarder, and one that was to be

immediately admitted to all the intimacies of the house; upon

which these charming girls gave me all the marks of a welcome

reception, and indeed of being perfectly pleased with my

figure, that I could possibly expect from any of my own sex:

but they had been effectually brought to sacrifice all jeal-

ousy, or competition of charms, to a common interest, and

consider'd me a partner that was bringing no despicable stock

of goods into the trade of the house.  They gathered round

me, view'd me on all sides; and as my admission into this

joyous troop made a little holiday, the shew of work was

laid aside; and Mrs. Cole giving me up, with special recom-

mendation, to their caresses and entertainment, went about

her ordinary business of the house.

 

     The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views

soon created as unreserv'd a freedom and intimacy as if we

had been for years acquainted.  They took and shew'd me the

house, their respective apartments, which were furnished

with every article of conveniency and luxury; and above all,

a spacious drawing-room, where a select revelling band usu-

ally met, in general parties of pleasure; the girls supping

with their sparks, and acting their wanton pranks with un-

bounded licentiousness; whilst a defiance of awe, modesty or

jealousy were their standing rules, by which, according to

the principles of their society, whatever pleasure was lost

on the side of sentiment was abundantly made up to the

senses in the poignancy of variety, and the charms of ease

and luxury.  The authors and supporters of this secret in-

stitution would, in the height of their humours style them-

selves the restorers of the golden age and its simplicity

of pleasures, before their innocence became so injustly

branded with the names of guilt and shame.

 

     As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a

shop was shut, the academy open'd; the mask of mock-modesty

was completely taken off, and all the girls deliver'd over

to their respective calls of pleasure or interest with

their men; and none of that sex was promiscuously admitted,

but only such as Mrs. Cole was previously satisfied with

their character and discretion.  In short, this was the

safest, politest, and, at the same time, the most thorough

house of accommodation in town: every thing being conducted

so that decency made no intrenchment upon the most libertine

pleasures, in the practice of which too, the choice familiars

of the house had found the secret so rare and difficult, of

reconciling even all the refinements of taste and delicacy

with the most gross and determinate gratifications of senu-

ality.

 

     After having consum'd the morning in the endearments

and instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner,

when Mrs. Cole, presiding at the head of her club, gave me

the first idea of her management and address, in inspiring

these girls with so sensible a love and respect for her.

There was no stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or

little jealousies, but all was unaffectedly gay, cheerful

and easy.

 

     After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies,

acquainted me that there was a chapter to be held that night

in form, for the ceremony of my reception into the sister-

hood; and in which, with all due reserve to my maidenhead,

that was to be occasionally cook'd up for the first proper

chapman, I was to undergo a ceremonial of initiation they

were sure I should not be displeased with.

 

     Embark'd as I was, and moreover captivated with the

charms of my new companions, I was too much prejudic'd in

favour of any proposal they could make, to much as hesitate

an assent; which, therefore, readily giving in the style of

a carte blanche, I receiv'd fresh kisses of compliment from

them all, in approval of my docility and good nature.  Now

I was "a sweet girl . . ."  I came into things with a "good

grace . . ."  I was not "affectedly coy . . ."  I should be

"the pride of the house . . ." and the like.

 

     This point thus adjusted, the young women left Mrs.

Cole to talk and concert matters with me: she explained to

me that I should be introduc'd, that very evening, to four

of her best friends, one of whom she had, according to the

custom of the house, favoured with the preference of engag-

ing me in the first party of pleasure; assuring me, at the

same time, that they were all young gentlemen agreeable in

their persons, and unexceptionable in every respect; that

united, and holding together by the band of common pleasures,

they composed the chief support of her house, and made very

liberal presents to the girls that pleas'd and humour'd

them, so that they were, properly speaking, the founders

and patrons of this little seraglio.  Not but that she had,

at proper seasons, other customers to deal with, whom she

stood less upon punctilio with than with these; for instance,

it was not on one of them she could attempt to pass me for

a maid; they were not only too knowing, too much town-bred

to bite at such a bait, but they were such generous bene-

factors to her that it would be unpardonable to think of it.

 

     Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise

of pleasure, for such I conceiv'd it, stirr'd up in me, I

preserved so much of the woman as to feign just reluctance

enough to make some merit of sacrificing it to the influence

of my patroness, whom I likewise, still in character, re-

minded of it perhaps being right for me to go home and dress,

in favour of my first impressions.

 

     But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me that

the gentlemen I should be presented to were, by their rank

and taste of things, infinitely superior to the being touched

with any glare of dress or ornaments, such as silly women

rather confound and overlay than set off their beauty with;

that these veteran voluptuaries knew better than not to hold

them in the highest contempt: they with whom the pure native

charms alone could pass current, and who would at any time

leave a sallow, washy, painted duchess on her own hands, for

a ruddy, healthy, firm-flesh'd country maid; and as for my

part, that nature had done enough for me, to set me above

owing the least favour to art; concluding withal, that for

the instant occasion, there was no dress like an undress.   

 

     I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters

not to be easily over-ruled by her: after which she went on

preaching very pathetically the doctrine of passive obedience

and not-resistance to all those arbitrary tastes of pleasure,

which are by some styl'd the refinements, and by others the

depravations of it; between whom it was not the business of

a simple girl, who was to profit by pleasing, to decide, but

to conform to.  Whilst I was edifying by these wholesome

lessons, tea was brought in, and the young ladies, returning,

joined company with us.

 

     After a great deal of mix'd chat, frolic and humour,

one of them, observing that there would be a good deal of

time on hand before the assembly-hour, proposed that each

girl should entertain the company with that critical period

of her personal history in which she first exchanged the

maiden state for womanhood.  The proposal was approv'd, with

only one restriction of Mrs. Cole, that she, on account of

her age, and I, on account of my titular maidenhead, should

be excused, at least till I had undergone the forms of the

house.  This obtain'd me a dispensation, and the promotress

of this amusement was desired to begin.

 

     Her name was Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose

limbs were, if possible, too well made, since their plump

fullness was rather to the prejudice of that delicate slimness

requir'd by the nicer judges of beauty; her eyes were blue,

and streamed inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be

prettier than her mouth and lips, which clos'd over a range

of the evenest and whitest teeth.  Thus she began:

 

     "Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure

of my life, is sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in

the advancement of the proposal you have approv'd of.  My

father and mother were, and for aught I know, are still,

farmers in the country, not above forty miles from town:

their barbarity to me, in favour of a son, on whom only they

vouchsafed to bestow their tenderness, had a thousand times

determined me to fly their house, and throw myself on the

wide world; but, at length, an accident forc'd me on this

desperate attempt at the age of fifteen.  I had broken a

china bowl, the pride and idol of both their hearts; and as

an unmerciful beating was the least I had to depend on at

their hands, in the silliness of those tender years I left

the house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London.

How my loss was resented I do not know, for till this instant

I have not heard a syllable about them.  My whole stock was

too broad pieces of my grandmother's, a few shillings, silver

shoe-buckles and a silver thimble.  Thus equipp'd, with no

more cloaths than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and

frighten'd at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I

hurried on; and I dare swear, walked a dozen miles before I

stopped, through mere weariness and fatigue.  At length I

sat down on a stile, wept bitterly, and yet was still rather

under increased impressions of fear on the account of my

escape; which made dread, worse than death, the going back

to face my unnatural parents.  Refresh'd by this little

repose, and relieved by my tears, I was proceeding onward,

when I was overtaken by a sturdy country lad who was going to

London to see what he could do for himself there, and, like

me, had given his friends the slip.  He could not be above

seventeen, was ruddy, well featur'd enough, with uncombed

flaxen hair, a little flapp'd hat, kersey frock, yarn stock-

ings, in short, a perfect plough-boy.  I saw him come whist-

ling behind me, with a bundle tied to the end of a stick,

his travelling equipage.  We walk'd by one another for some

time without speaking; at length we join'd company, and

agreed to keep together till we got to our journey's end.

What his designs or ideas were, I know not: the innocence of

mine I can solemnly protest.

 

     "As night drew on, it became us to look out for some

inn or shelter; to which perplexity another was added, and

that was, what we should say for ourselves, if we were

question'd.  After some puzzle, the young fellow started a

proposal, which I thought the finest that could be; and

what was that? why, that we should pass for husband and wife:

I never once dream'd of consequences.  We came presently,

after having agreed on this notable expedient, to one of

those hedge-accommodations for foot passengers, at the door

do which stood an old crazy beldam, who seeing us trudge by,

invited us to lodge there.  Glad of any cover, we went in,

and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him, call'd for what

the house afforded, and we supped together as man and wife;

which, considering our figures and ages, could not have

passed on any one but such as any thing could pass on.  But

when bedtime came on, we had neither of us the courage to

contradict out first account of ourselves; and what was ex-

tremely pleasant, the young lad seem'd as perplex'd as I was,

how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the

state we had pretenced to.  Whilst we were in this quandary,

the landlady takes the candle and lights us to our apartment,

through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate

from the body of the house.  Thus we suffer'd ourselves to

be conducted, without saying a word in opposition to it; and

there, in a wretched room, with a bed answerable, we were

left to pass the night together, as a thing quite of course.

For my part, I was so incredibly innocent as not even then to

think much more harm of going to bed with the young man than

with one of our dairy-wenches; nor had he, perhaps, any other

notions than those of innocence, till such a fair occasion

put them into his head.

 

     "Before either of us undressed, however, he put out

the candle; and the bitterness of the weather made it a kind

of necessity for me to go into bed: slipping then my cloaths

off, I crept under the bed-cloaths, where I found the young

stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh

rather pleas'd than alarm'd me.  I was indeed too much dis-

turbed with the novelty of my condition to be able to sleep;

but then I had not the least thought of harm.  But, oh! how

powerful are the instincts of nature! how little is there

wanting to set them in action!  The young man, sliding his

arm under my body, drew me gently towards him, as if to keep

himself and me warmer; and the heat I felt from joining our

breasts, kindled another that I had hitherto never felt, and

was, even then, a stranger to the nature of.  Emboldened, I

suppose, by my easiness, he ventur'd to kiss me, and I insen-

sibly returned it, without knowing the consequence of return-

ing it; for, on this encouragement, he slipped his hand all

down from my breast to that part of me where the sense of

feeling is so exquisitely critical, as I then experienc'd by

its instant taking fire upon the touch, and glowing with a

strange tickling heat: there he pleas'd himself and me, by

feeling, till, growing a little too bold, he hurt me, and

made me complain.  Then he took my hand, which he guided,

not unwillingly on my side, between the twist of his closed

thighs, which were extremely warm; there he lodged and

pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me feel the

proud distinction of his sex from mine.  I was frighten'd

at the novelty, and drew back my hand; yet, pressed and

spurred on by sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not

help asking him what that was for?  He told me he would

show me if I would let him; and, without waiting for my

answer, which he prevented by stopping my mouth with kisses

I was far from disrelishing, he got upon me, and inserting

one of his thighs between mine, opened them so as to make

way for himself, and fixed me to his purpose; whilst I was

so much out of my usual sense, so subdu'd by the present

power of a new one, that, between fear and desire, I lay

utterly passive, till the piercing pain rous'd and made me

cry out.  But it was too late: he was too firm fix'd in the

saddle for me to compass flinging him, with all the strug-

gles I could use, some of which only served to further his

point, and at length an irresistible thrust murdered at once

my maidenhead, and almost me.  I now lay a bleeding witness

of the necessity impos'd on our sex, to gather the first

honey off the thorns.

 

     "But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was

soon reconciled to fresh trials, and before morning, nothing

on earth could be dearer to me than this rifler of my virgin

sweets: he was every thing to me now.  How we agreed to join

fortunes; how we came up to town together, where we lived

some time, till necessity parted us, and drove me into this

course of life, in which I had been long ago battered and

torn to pieces before I came to this age, as much through

my easiness, as through my inclination, had it not been for

my finding refuge in this house: these are all circumstances

which pass the mark I proposed, so that here my narrative

ends."

 

     In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet's turn to

go on.  Amongst all the beauties of our sex that I had be-

fore or have since seen, few indeed were the forms that

could dispute excellence with her's; it was not delicate,

but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of her

small but exactly fashion'd limbs.  Her complexion, fair as

it was, appeared yet more fair from the effect of two black

eyes, the brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity

than belonged to the colour of it, which was only defended

from paleness by a sweetly pleasing blush in her cheeks,

that grew fainter and fainter, till at length it died away

insensibly into the overbearing white.  Then her miniature

features join'd to finish the extreme sweetness of it,

which was not belied by that of temper turned to indolence,

languor, and the pleasures of love.  Press'd to subscribe

her contingent, she smiled, blushed a little, and thus

complied with our desires:

 

     "My father was neither better nor worse than a miller

near the city of York; and both he and my mother dying

whilst I was an infant, I fell under the care of a widow

and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord N . . ., at his

seat in the county of . . ., where she brought me up with

all imaginable tenderness.  I was not seventeen, as I am

not now eighteen, before I had, on account of my person

purely (for fortune I had notoriously none), several advan-

tageous proposals; but whether nature was slow in making me

sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had not seen

any of the other sex who had stirr'd up the least emotion

or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till

that age, preserv'd a perfect innocence, even of thought:

whilst my fears of I did not well know what, made me no

more desirous of marrying than of dying.  My aunt, good

woman, favoured my timorousness, which she look'd on as

childish affection, that her own experience might probably

assure her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors

proper answers for me.

 

     "The family had not been down at that seat for years,

so that it was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt,

and two old domestics to take care of it.  Thus I had the

full range of a spacious lonely house and gardens, situate

at about half a mile distance form any other habitation,

except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.

 

     "Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up with-

out any memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I

had often done before, left my aunt fast asleep, and secure

for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a kind of

ancient summer-house, at some distance from the house, I

carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its

door and window fac'd upon.  Here I fell into a gentle

breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses, as they

fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that hour;

a cane couch, with my work-basket for a pillow, were all

the conveniencies of my short repose; for I was soon awaked

and alarmed by a flounce, and the noise of splashing in the

water.  I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed

should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I

afterwards found (for I had never seen him before), who had

strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and

the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness

of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jump'd

into it on the other side, which bordered on a wood, some

trees whereof, inclined down to the water, form'd a pleasing

shady recess, commodious to undress and leave his clothes

under.

 

     "My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in

the water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those

of surprise and fear; and, in course, I should immediately

have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, inter-

posed the objection of the door and window being so situated

that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way

along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I

could not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and con-

founded was I at having seen him.  Condemn'd then to stay

till his departure should release me, I was greatly embar-

rassed how to dispose of myself:  I kept some time betwixt

terror and modesty, even from looking through the window,

which being an old-fashinon'd casement, without any light

behind me, could hardly betray any one's being there to

him from within; then the door was so secure, that without

violence, or my own consent, there was no opening it from

without.

 

     "But now, by my own experience, I found it too true

that objects which affright us, when we cannot get from

them, draw out eyes as forcibly as those that please us.

I could not long withstand that nameless impulse, which,

without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me to-

wards it; embolden'd too by my certainty of being at once

unseen and safe, I ventur'd by degrees to cast my eyes on an

object so terrible and alarming to my virgin modesty as a

naked man.  But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that

struck me was in general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin

imaginable, which the sun playing upon made the reflection

of it perfectly beamy.  His face, in the confusion I was in,

I could not well distinguish the lineaments of, any farther

than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in

it.  The frolic and various play of all his polish'd limbs,

as they appeared above the surface, in the course of his

swimming or wantoning with the water, amus'd and insensibly

delighted me: sometimes he lay motionless, on his back,

waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head of hair,

that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls.

Then the over-flowing water would make a separation between

his breast and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I

could not escape observing so remarkable a distinction as a

black mossy tuft, out of which appeared to emerge a round,

softish, limber, white something, that played every way,

with ever the least motion or whirling eddy.  I cannot say

but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct,

attracted, detain'd, captivated my attention: it was out of

the power of all my modesty to command my eye away from it;

and seeing nothing so very dreadful in its appearance, I

insensibly lock'd away all my fears: but as fast as they

gave way, new desires and strange wishes took place, and I

melted as I gazed.  The fire of nature, that had so long

lain dormant or conceal'd, began to break out, and made me

feel my sex the first time.  He had now changed his pos-

ture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out with his

legs and arms, finer modell'd than which could not have

been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a neck and

shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off.  Then

the luxuriant swell of flesh that rose form the small of

his back, and terminated its double cope at where the

thighs are sent off, perfectly dazzled one with its watery

glistening gloss.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     "By this time I was so affected by this inward involu-

tion of sentiments, so soften'd by this sight, that now,

betrayed into a sudden transition from extreme fears to ex-

treme desires, I found these last so strong upon me, the

heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt their

rage, that nature almost fainted under them.  Not that I so

much as knew precisely what was wanting to me: my only

thought was that so sweet a creature as this youth seemed

to me could only make me happy; but then, the little like-

lihood there was of compassing an acquaintance with him, or

perhaps of ever seeing him again, dash'd my desires, and

turn'd them into torments.  I was still gazing, with all

the powers of my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in

an instant, down he went.  I had heard of such things as a

cramp seizing on even the best swimmers, and occasioning

their being drowned; and imagining this so sudden eclipse

to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this unknown

lad had given birth to distracted me with the most killing

terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I flew

to the door, open'd it, ran down to the canal, guided

thither by the madness of my fears for him, and the intense

desire of being an instrument to save him, though I was

ignorant how, or by what means to effect it: but was it for

fears, and a passion so sudden as mine, to reason? All this

took up scarce the space of a few moments.  I had then just

life enough to reach the green borders of the waterpiece,

where wildly looking round for the young man, and missing

him still, my fright and concern sunk me down in a deep

swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for I did not

come to myself till I was rous'd out of it by a  sense of

pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked me to the

most surprising circumstance of finding myself not only in

the arms of this very same young gentleman I had been so

solicitous to save, but taken at such an advantage in my

unresisting condition that he had actually completed his

entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all the

preceding conflicts of mind I had suffer'd, and struck dumb

by the violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to

cry out nor the strength to disengage myself from his stren-

uous embraces, before, urging his point, he had forced his

way and completely triumphed over my virginity, as he might

now as well see by the streams of blood that follow'd his

drawing out, as he had felt by the difficulties he had met

with consummating his penetration.  But the sight of the

blood, and the sense of my condition, had (as he told me

afterwards), since the ungovernable rage of his passion was

somewhat appeas'd, now wrought so far on him that at all

risks, even of the worst consequences, he could not find in

his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily

have done.  I still lay all descompos'd in bleeding ruin,

palpitating, speechless, unable to get off, and frightened,

and fluttering like a poor wounded partridge, and ready to

faint away again at the sense of what had befallen me.  The

young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing my hand, and

with tears in his eyes beseeching me to forgive him, and

offering all the reparation in his power.  It is certain

that could I, at the instant of regaining my senses, have

called out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would not have

stuck at it: the violation was attended too with such aggra-

vating circumstances, though he was ignorant of them, since

it was to my concern for the preservation of his life that I

owed my ruin.

 

     "But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme

to another! and how little are they acquainted with the human

heart who dispute it!  I could not see this amiable criminal,

so suddenly the first object of my love, and as suddenly of

my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my hand with his tears,

without relenting.  He was still stark-naked, but my modesty

had been already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so

much shocked as I should have otherwise been with appearances

only; in short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love

return'd so strong upon me, that I felt it a point of my own

happiness to forgive him.  The reproaches I made him were

murmur'd in so soft a tone, my eyes met his with such glances,

expressing more languor than resentment, that he could not

but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate distance;

but still he would not quit his posture of submission, till

I had pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most

fervent entreaties, protestations, and promises, I had not

the power to withhold.  On which, with the utmost marks of a

fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss my lips, which

I neither declined nor resented; but on my mild expostula-

tions with him upon the barbarity of his treatment, he

explain'd the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the

clearance, at least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in

the eyes of a judge so partial in his favour as I was grown.

 

     "Its seems that the circumstance of his going down, or

sinking, which in my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for

something very fatal, was no other than a trick of diving

which I had not ever heard, or at least attended to, the

mention of: and he was so long-breath'd at it, that in the

few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet

emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose,

seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was that some

young woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with

him, for he knew I could not have fallen a-sleep there with-

out his having seen me before: agreeably to which notion he

had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign of life,

and still perplex'd as he was what to think of the adventure,

he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into

the summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there

he laid me down on the couch, and tried, as he protested in

good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again,

till fired, as he said, beyond all bearing by the sight and

touch of several parts of me which were unguardedly exposed

to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and the less,

as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon

being a feint was not the very truth of the case: seduced

then by this flattering notion, and overcome by the present,

as he styled them, superhuman temptations, combined with the

solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was not

enough his own master not to make it.  Leaving me then just

only whilst he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled

eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced, he

ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more

than the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to

roused me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I

was not able to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he

talked, the tone of his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly

in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and interesting

an object to me wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the

rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I

lost all sense of the past injury.  The young gentleman soon

discern'd the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened

looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips,

press'd them tenderly to pass his pardon in the return of a

kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it being car-

ried to my heart, and thence to my new-discover'd sphere of

Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him

nothing.  When now he managed his caresses and endearments

so artfully as to insinuate the most soothing consolations

for the past pain and the most pleasing expectations of

future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept my eyes from

seeing his and rather declined them,  I had a glimpse of

that instrument of the mischief which was now, obviously

even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a comparative

observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and

grew greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore

it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one of my

hands carelessly dropt; but then he employ'd such tender

prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning

passion of desire being now so strongly prompted by the

engaging circumstances of the sight and incendiary touch of

his naked glowing beauties, I yielded at length at the

force of the present impressions, and he obtained of my

tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure

left in the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had

cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life and

abilities to guard it.

 

     "Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop;

but I am so much in motion, that I could not if I would.  I

shall only add, however, that I got home without the least

discovery, or suspicion of what had happened.  I met my

young ravisher several times after, whom I now passionately

lov'd and who, tho' not of age to claim a small but indepen-

dent fortune, would have married me; but as the accidents

that prevented it, and their consequences which threw me on

the publick, contain matters too moving and serious to in-

troduce at present, I cut short here."

 

     Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now

took her turn to treat the company with her history.  I have

already hinted to you the graces of her person, than which

nothing could be more exquisitely touching; I repeat touch-

ing, as a just distinction from striking, which is ever a

less lasting effect, and more generally belongs to the fair

complexions: but leaving that decision to every one's taste,

I proceed to give you Louisa's narrative as follows:

 

     "According to practical maxims of life, I ought to

boast of my birth, since I owe it to pure love, without

marriage; but this I know, it was scarce possible to inherit

a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did.

I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman

cabinet-maker on his master's maid: the consequence of which

was a big belly, and the loss of a place.  He was not in

circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this

blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen

and disposed of me to a poor relation's in the country, to

repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London, in

thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the

complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for

a child she had by her first husband.  I had, on that foot-

ing, been taken home, and was not six years old when this

step-father died and left my mother in tolerable circum-

stances, and without any children by him.  As to my natural

father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the

truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not

immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than a

common sailor.  As I grew up, under the eyes of my mother,

who kept on the business, I could not but see, in her

severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip which she did not

care should be hereditary, but we no more choose our pas-

sions than our features or complexion, and the bent of

mine was so strong to the forbidden pleasure, that it got

the better, at length, of all her care and precaution.  I

was scarce twelve years old before that part which she

wanted so much to keep out of harm's way made me feel its

impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play: al-

ready had it put forth the signs of forwardness in the

sprout of a soft down over it, which had often flatter'd,

and I might also say, grown under my constant touch and

visitation, so pleas'd was I with what I took to be a kind

of title to womanhood, that state I pin'd to be entr'd of,

for the pleasures I conceiv'd were annexed to it; and now

the growing importance of that part to me, and the new sen-

sations in it, demolish'd at once all my girlish playthings

and amusements.  Nature now pointed me strongly to more

solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so

fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not

mistake the spot I wanted a playfellow in.

 

     "I now shunn'd all company in which there was no hopes

of coming at the object of my longings, and used to shut

myself up, to indulge in solitude some tender meditation on

the pleasures I strongly perceiv'd the overture of, in feel-

ing and examining what nature assur'd me must be the chosen

avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I

panted after.

 

     "But these meditations only increas'd my disorder, and

blew the fire that consumed me.  I was yet worse when, yield-

ing at length to the insupportable irritations of the little

fairy charm that tormented me, I seiz'd it with my fingers,

teasing it to no end.  Sometimes, in the furious excitations

of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my thighs

abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief,

till finding my illusion, I shut and squeez'd them together

again, burning and fretting.  In short, this dev'lish thing,

with its impetuous girds and itching fires, led me such a

life that I could neither night nor day be at peace with it

or myself.  In time, however, I thought I had gained a pro-

digious prize, when figuring to myself that my fingers were

something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way

in for one of them with great agitation and delight; yet

not without pain too did I deflower myself as far as it

could reach; proceeding with such a fury of passion, in

this solitary and last shift of pleasure, as extended me at

length breathless on the bed in an amorous melting trance.

 

     "But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon

began to perceive that this work was but a paltry shallow

expedient that went but a little way to relieve me, and

rather rais'd more flame than its dry and insignificant

titillation could rightly appease.

 

     "Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by

what I had industriously picked up at weddings and christen-

ings, was possess'd of the only remedy that could reduce this

rebellious disorder; but watch'd and overlook'd as I was, how

to come at it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an

invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains and inven-

tion how at once to elude my mother's vigilance, and procure

myself the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity and long-

ings for this mighty and untasted pleasure.  At length, how-

ever, a singular chance did at once the work of a long course

of alertness.  One day that we had dined at an acquaintance's

over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occu-

pied the first floor of our house, there started an indis-

pensable necessity for my mother's going down to Greenwich

to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know

what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I cer-

tainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I

had not the least relish for.  The pretext however passed,

and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself

to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe

home, where she consign'd me into the hands of an old

trusty maid-servant, who served in the shop, for we had not

a male creature in the house.

 

     "As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up

and lie down on our lodger's bed, mine not being made, with

a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it

was only rest I wanted.  This injunction probably prov'd of

eminent service to me.  As soon as I was got into the bed-

chamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside

of the bed-cloaths, in all the loosest undress.  Here I gave

myself up to the old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing,

self-touching, self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of

self-knowledge I could devise, in search of the pleasure that

fled before me, and tantalized with that unknown something

that was out of my reach; thus all only serv'd to enflame

myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst the one

thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I

could have bit my fingers, for representing it so ill.  After

then wearying and fatiguing myself with grasping shadows,

whilst that most sensible part of me disdain'd to content

itself with less than realities, the strong yearnings, the

urgent struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and

the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it, had

wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if

I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the dis-

traction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a

bystander could not have help'd seeing all for love.  And

one there was it seems; for waking out of my very short

slumber, I found my hand lock'd in that of a young man, who

was kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his

boldness: but that being a son to the lady to whom this bed-

chamber, he knew, belonged, he had slipp'd by the servant of

the shop, as he supposed, unperceiv'd, when finding me asleep,

his first ideas were to withdraw; but that he had been fix'd

and detain'd there by a power he could better account for

than resist.

 

     "What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprize

were instantly subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke

in great presence of mind from the turn this adventure might

take.  He seem'd to me no other than a pitying angel, dropt

out of the clouds: for he was young and perfectly handsome,

which was more than even I had asked for; man, in general,

being all that my utmost desires had pointed at.  I thought

then I could not put too much encouragement into my eyes and

voice; I regretted no leading advances; no matter for his

after-opinion of my forwardness, so it might bring him to

the point of answering my pressing demands of present case;

it was not now with his thoughts, but his actions, that my

business immediately lay.  I rais'd then my head, and told

him, in a soft tone that tended to prescribe the same key to

him, that his mamma was gone out and would not return till

late at night: which I thought no bad hint; but as it prov'd,

I had nothing of a novice to deal with.  The impressions I

had made on him from the discoveries I had betrayed of my

person in the disordered motions of it, during his view of

me asleep, had, as he afterwards told me, so fix'd and charm-

ingly prepar'd him, that, had I known his dispositions, I

had more to hope from his violence than to fear from his

respect; and even less than the extreme tenderness which I

threw into my voice and eyes, would have served to encourage

him to make the most of the opportunity.  Finding then that

his kisses, imprinted on my hand, were taken as tamely as he

could wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his to them, made

me so faint with over-coming joy and pleasure that I fell

back, and he with me, in course, on the bed, upon which I

had, by insensibly shifting from the side to near the middle,

invitingly made room for him.  He is now lain down by me,

and the minutes being too precious to consume in untimely

ceremony, or dalliance, my youth proceeds immediately to

those extremities, which all my looks, flushing and palpi-

tations had assured him he might attempt without the fear of

repulse: those rogues, the men, read us admirably on these

occasions.  I lay then at length panting for the imminent

attack, with wishes far beyond my fears, and for which it

was scarce possible for a girl, barely thirteen, but all and

well grown, to have better dispositions.  He threw up my

petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an instinct

of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so

thoroughly destroy'd all modesty in me, that even their

being now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the

prelude that pleasure deepen'd my blushes at, more than

shame.  But when his hand, and touches, naturally attracted

to their centre, made me feel all their wantonness and

warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a

sense of things did I perceive there, than when under my

own insipid handling!  And now his waistcoat was unbuttoned,

and the confinement of the breeches burst through, when out

started to view the amazing, pleasing object of all my

wishes, all my dreams, all my love, the king member indeed!

I gaz'd at, I devoured it, at length and breadth, with my

eyes intently directed to it, till his getting upon me, and

placing it between my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of

its sight, to give me a far more grateful one in its touch,

in that part where its touch is so exquisitely affecting.

Applying it then to the minute opening, for such at that age

it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt with

too great a rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it,

to heed much the pain that followed: I thought nothing too

dear to pay for this the richest treat of the senses; so

that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled, I was still supe-

riorly pleas'd, and hugg'd the author of all this delicious

ruin.  But when, soon after, he made his second attack, sore

as every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sove-

reign cordial; all my soft complainings were silenc'd, and

the pain melting fast away into pleasure.  I abandon'd myself

over to all its transports, and gave it the full possession

of my whole body and soul; for now all thought was at an end

with me; I lived but in what I felt only.  And who could

describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by

the charm of their novelty and surprize? when that part of

me which had so long hunger'd for the dear morsel that now

so delightfully crammed it, forc'd all my vital sensations

to fix their home there, during the stay of my beloved guest;

who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome in a dissolvent,

richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating her

paramour with, in liquify'd pearl, and ravishingly pour'd

into me, where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry

reception, I hail'd it with the warmest confluence on my

side, amidst all those extatic raptures, not unfamiliar I

presume to this good company!  Thus, however, I arrived at

the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected

indeed, but not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was

just arriv'd in town from college, and came familiarly to

his mother at her apartment, where he had once before been,

though by mere chance.  I had not seen him: so that we knew

one another by hear-say only; and finding me stretched on

his mother's bed, he readily concluded, from her descrip-

tion who it was.  The rest you know.

 

     "This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the

young gentleman escaping then, and many more times undis-

cover'd.  But the warmth of my constitution, that made the

pleasures of love a kind of necessary of life to me, having

betray'd me into indiscretions fatal to my private fortune,

I fell at length to the publick; from which, it is probable,

I might have met with the worst of ruin if my better fate

had not thrown me into this safe and agreeable refuge."

 

     Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having

brought the time for the girls to retire, and to prepare

for the revels of the evening, I staid with Mrs. Cole till

Emily came and told us the company was met, and waited for

us.

 

 

                            Part 7

 

     On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we

were met by a young gentleman, extremely well dress'd, and a

very pretty figure, to whom I was to be indebted for the

first essay of the pleasures of the house.  He saluted me

with great gallantry, and handed me into the drawing room,

the floor of which was overspread with a Turkey carpet, and

all its furniture voluptuously adapted to every demand of

the most study'd luxury; now too it was, by means of a pro-

fuse illumination, enliven'd by a light scarce inferior, and

perhaps more favourable to joy, more tenderly pleasing, than

that of broad sun-shine.

 

     On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction to

hear a buzz of approbation run through the whole company

which now consisted of four gentlemen, including my parti-

cular (this was the cant-term of the house for one's gallant

for the time), the three young women, in a neat flowing

dishabille, the mistress of the academy, and myself.  I was

welcomed and saluted by a kiss all round, in which, however,

it was easy to discover, in the superior warmth of that of

the men, the distinction of the sexes.

 

     Aw'd and confounded as I was at seeing myself sur-

rounded, caress'd, and made court to by so many strangers,

I could not immediately familiarize myself to all that air

of gaiety and joy which dictated their compliments, and

animated their caresses.

 

     They assur'd me that I was so perfectly to their taste

as to have but one fault against me, which I might easily be

cur'd of, and that was my modesty: this, they observ'd, might

pass for a beauty the more with those who wanted it for a

heightener; but their maxim was, that it was an impertinent

mixture, and dash'd the cup so as to spoil the sincere draught

of pleasure; they consider'd it accordingly as their mortal

enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met with it.

This was a prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensu'd.

 

     In the midst of all the frolic and wantonnesses, which

this joyous band had presently, and all naturally, run into,

an elegant supper was serv'd in, and we sat down to it, my

spark-elect placing himself next to me, and the other couples

without order or ceremony.  The delicate cheer and good wine

soon banish'd all reserve; the conversation grew as lively

as could be wished, without taking too loose a turn: these

professors of pleasure knew too well, to stale impressions

of it, or evaporate the imagination in words, before the time

of action.  Kisses however were snatch'd at times, or where a

handkerchief round the neck interpos'd its feeble barrier, it

was not extremely respected: the hands of the men went to

work with their usual petulance, till the provocations on

both sides rose to such a pitch that my particular's proposal

for beginning the country-dances was received with instant

assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instru-

ments were in tune.  This was a signal for preparation, that

the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood life, took for her

cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for personal service

herself, and content with having settled the order of battle,

she left us the field, to fight it out at discretion.

 

     As soon as she was gone, the table was remov'd form the

middle, and became a side-board; a couch was brought into

its place, of which when I whisperingly inquired the reason,

of my particular, he told me that as it was chiefly on my

account that this convention was met, the parties intended

at once to humour their taste of variety in pleasures, and

by an open publick enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint

of reserve or modesty, which they look'd on as the poison

of joy; that though they occasionally preached pleasure,

and lived up to the text, they did not enthusiastically set

up for missionaries, and only indulg'd themselves in the

delights of a practical instruction of all the pretty women

they lik'd well enough to bestow it upon, and who fell pro-

perly in the way of it; but that as such a proposal might

be too violent, too shocking for a young beginner, the old

standers were to set an example, which he hoped I would not

be averse to follow, since it was to him I was devolv'd in

favour of the first experiment; but that still I was per-

fectly at my liberty to refuse the party, which being in its

nature one of pleasure, suppos'd an exclusion of all force

or constraint.

 

     My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my

silence did my acquiescence.  I was now embarked, and

thoroughly determined on any voyage the company would take

me on.

 

     The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cor-

net of horse, and that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft

and amorous Louisa.  He led her to the couch "nothing loth,"

on which he gave her the fall, and extended her at her

length with an air of roughness and vigour, relishing high

of amorous eagerness and impatience.  The girl, spreading

herself to the best advantage, with her head upon the pillow,

was so concentred in what she was about, that our presence

seemed the least of her care and concern.  Her petticoats,

thrown up with her shift, discovered to the company the

finest turn'd legs and thighs that could be imagined, and in

broad display, that gave us a full view of that delicious

cleft of flesh into which the pleasing hair-grown mount over

it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance between

two close-hedges, delicately soft and pouting.  Her gallant

was now ready, having disencumber'd himself from his cloaths,

overloaded with lace, and presently, his shirt removed, shew'd

us his forces in high plight, bandied and ready for action.

But giving us no time to consider the dimensions, he threw

himself instantly over his charming antagonist, who receiv'd

him as he pushed at once dead at mark like a heroine, without

flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally truer

to the taste of joy, or sincerer in the expressions of its

sensations, than she was: we could observe pleasure lighten

in her eyes, as he introduc'd his plenipotentiary instrument

into her; till, at length, having indulg'd her to its utmost

reach, its irritations grew so violent, and gave her the

spurs so furiously, that collected within herself, and lost

to everything but the enjoyment of her favourite feelings,

she retorted his thrusts with a just concert of springy

heaves, keeping time so exactly with the most pathetic sighs,

that one might have number'd the strokes in agitation by

their distinct murmurs, whilst her active limbs kept wreath-

ing and intertwisting with his, in convulsive folds: then

the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant painless love-

bites, which they both exchang'd in a rage of delight, all

conspiring towards the melting period.  It soon came on when

Louisa, in the ravings of her pleasure-frenzy, impotent of

all restraint, cried out:  "Oh Sir! . . . Good Sir! . . .

pray do not spare me! ah! ah! . . ."  All her accents now

faltering into heart-fetched sighs, she clos'd her eyes in

the sweet death, in the instant of which she was embalm'd by

an injection, of which we could easily see the signs in the

quiet, dying, languid posture of her late so furious driver,

who was stopp'd of a sudden, breathing short, panting, and,

for the time, giving up the spirit of pleasure.  As soon as

he was dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats,

and running up to me, gave me a kiss and drew me to the

side-board, to which she was herself handed by her gallant,

where they made me pledge them in a glass of wine, and toast

a droll health of Louisa's proposal in high frolic.

 

     By this time the second couple was ready to enter the

lists: which were a young baronet, and that delicatest of

charmers, the winning, tender Harriet.  My gentle esquire

came to acquaint me with it, and brought me back to the

scene of action.

 

     And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany

her dispositions for the bare-faced part she was engaged to

play with such a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty and

yielding coyness, as she did.  All her air and motions

breath'd only unreserv'd, unlimited complaisance without the

least mixture of impudence, or prostitution.  But what was

yet more surprising, her spark-elect, in the midst of the

dissolution of a publick open enjoyment, doted on her to dis-

traction, and had, by dint of love and sentiments, touched

her heart, tho' for a while the restraint of their engagement

to the house laid him under a kind of necessity of complying

with an institution which himself had had the greatest share

in establishing.

 

     Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant,

blushing as she look'd at me, and with eyes made to justify

any thing, tenderly bespeaking of me the most favourable

construction of the step she was thus irresistibly drawn

into.

 

     Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of

the couch, and passing his arm round her neck, preluded with

a kiss fervently applied to her lips, that visibly gave her

life and spirit to go thro' with the scene; and as he kiss'd,

he gently inclined her head, till it fell back on a pillow

disposed to receive it, and leaning himself down  all the way

with her, at once countenanc'd and endear'd her fall to her.

There, as if he had guess'd our wishes, or meant to gratify

at once his pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by

the title of present possession, of beauties delicate beyond

imagination, he discovered her breasts to his own touch, and

our common view; but oh! what delicious manuals of love

devotion! how inimitable fine moulded! small, round, firm,

and excellently white: the grain of their skin, so soothing,

so flattering to the touch! and their nipples, that crown'd

them, the sweetest buds of beauty.  When he had feasted his

eyes with the touch and perusal, feasted his lips with kisses

of the highest relish, imprinted on those all-delicious twin

orbs, the proceeded downwards.

 

     Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the ten-

derest attention not to shock or alarm her too suddenly, he,

by degrees, rather stole than rolled up her petticoats; at

which, as if a signal had been given, Louisa and Emily took

hold of her legs, in pure wantonness, and, in ease to her,

kept them stretched wide abroad.  Then lay exposed, or, to

speak more properly, display'd the greatest parade in nature

of female charms.  The whole company, who, except myself,

had often seen them, seemed as much dazzled, surpriz'd and

delighted, as any one could be who had now beheld them for

the first time.  Beauties so excessive could not but enjoy

the privileges of eternal novelty.  Her thighs were so ex-

quisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of

flesh than they were, they would have declined from that

point of perfection they presented.  But what infinitely

enrich'd and adorn'd them, was the sweet intersection formed,

where they met, at the bottom of the smoothest, roundest,

whitest belly, by that central furrow which nature had sunk

there, between, the soft relieve of two pouting ridges, and

which in this was in perfect symmetry of delicacy and minia-

ture with the rest of her frame.  No! nothing in nature could

be of a beautifuller cut; then, the dark umbrage of the downy

spring-moss that over-arched it bestowed, on the luxury of

the landscape, a touching warmth, a tender finishing, beyond

the expression of words, or even the paint of thought.

 

 

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     Her truly enamour'd gallant, who had stood absorbed and

engrossed by the pleasure of the sight long enough to afford

us time to feast ours (no fear of glutting!) addressed him-

self at length to the materials of enjoyment, and lifting

the linen veil that hung between us and his master member of

the revels, exhibited one whose eminent size proclaimed the

owner a true woman's hero.  He was, besides, in every other

respect an accomplish'd gentleman, and in the bloom and

vigour of youth.  Standing then between Harriet's legs, which

were supported by her two companions at their widest exten-

sion, with one hand he gently disclosed the lips of that

luscious mouth of nature, whilst with the other, he  stooped

his mighty machine to its lure, from the height of his stiff

stand-up towards his belly; the lips, kept open by his fin-

gers, received its broad shelving head of coral hue: and

when he had nestled it in, he hovered there a little, and

the girls then deliver'd over to his hips the agreeable

office of supporting her thighs; and now, as if meant to spin

out his pleasure, and give it the more play for its life, he

passed up his instrument so slow that we lost sight of it

inch by inch, till at length it was wholly taken into the

soft laboratory of love, and the mossy mounts of each fairly

met together.  In the mean time, we could plainly mark the

prodigious effect the progressions of this delightful energy

wrought in this delicious girl, gradually heightening her

beauty as they heightened her pleasure.  Her countenance and

whole frame grew more animated; the faint blush of her cheeks,

gaining ground on the white, deepened into a florid vivid

vermilion glow, her naturally brilliant eyes now sparkled

with ten-fold lustre; her languor was vanish'd, and she

appeared, quick spirited, and alive all over.  He now fixed,

nailed, this tender creature with his home-driven wedge, so

that she lay passive by force, and unable to stir, till

beginning to play a strain of arms against this vein of

delicacy, as he urged the to-and-fro confriction, he awaken'd,

rous'd, and touch'd her so to the heart, that unable to

contain herself, she could not but reply to his motions as

briskly as her nicety of frame would admit of, till the

raging stings of the pleasure rising towards the point, made

her wild with the intolerable sensations of it, and she now

threw her legs and arms about at random, as she lay lost in

the sweet transport; which on his side declared itself by

quicker, eager thrusts, convulsive gasps, burning sighs,

swift laborious breathings, eyes darting humid fires: all

faithful tokens of the imminent approaches of the last gasp

of joy.  It came on at length: the baronet led the extasy,

which she critically joined in, as she felt the melting

symptoms from him, in the nick of which glewing more ardently

than ever his lips to hers, he shewed all the signs of that

agony of bliss being strong upon him, in which he gave her

the finishing titillation; inly thrill'd with which, we saw

plainly that she answered it down with all effusion of spirit

and matter she was mistress of, whilst a general soft shudder

ran through all her limbs, which she gave a stretch-out of,

and lay motionless, breathless, dying with dear delight; and

in the height of its expression, shewing, through the nearly

closed lids of her eyes, just the edges of their black, the

rest being rolled strongly upwards in their extasy; then her

sweet mouth appear'd languishingly open, with the tip of her

tongue leaning negligently towards the lower range of her

white teeth, whilst the natural ruby colour of her lips

glowed with heightened life.  Was not this a subject to

dwell upon?  And accordingly her lover still kept on her,

with an abiding delectation, till compressed, squeezed and

distilled to the last drop, he took leave with one fervent

kiss, expressing satisfy'd desires, but unextinguish'd love.

 

     As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down

on the couch by her, rais'd her head, which she declin'd

gently, and hung on my bosom, to hide her blushes and con-

fusion at what had pass'd, till by degrees she recomposed

herself and accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my

spark, who had left me to fetch it her, whilst her own was

re-adjusting his affairs and buttoning up; after which he

led her, leaning languishingly upon him, to our stand of

view round the couch.

 

     And now Emily's partner had taken her out for her

share in the dance, when this transcendently fair and sweet

tempered creature readily stood up; and if a complexion to

put the rose and lily out of countenance, extreme pretty

features, and that florid health and bloom for which the

country-girls are so lovely, might pass her for a beauty,

this she certainly was, and one ot the most striking of the

fair ones.

 

     Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disengage her

breasts, and restore them to the liberty of nature, from the

easy confinement of no more than a pair of jumps; but on

their coming out to view, we thought a new light was added

to the room, so superiourly shining was their whiteness;

then they rose in so happy a swell as to compose her a well-

formed fulness of bosom, that had such an effect on the eye

as to seem flesh hardening into marble, of which it emulated

the polished gloss, and far surpassed even the whitest, in

the life and lustre of its colours, white veined with blue.

Refrain who could from such provoking enticements to it in

reach?  He touched her breasts, first lightly, when the

glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his hand, and made it

slip along the surface; he press'd them, and the springy

flesh that filled them thus pitted by force, rose again

reboundingly with his hand, and on the instant effac'd the

pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of all those

parts of her body throughout, where the fulness of flesh

compacts and constitutes all that fine firmness which the

touch is so highly attach'd to.  When he had thus largely

pleased himself with this branch of dalliance and delight,

he truss'd up her petticoat and shift in a wisp to her waist,

where being tuck'd in, she stood fairly naked on every side;

a blush at this overspread her lovely face, and her eyes down

cast to the ground seemed to be for quarter, when she had so

great a right to triumph in all the treasures of youth and

beauty that she now so victoriously display'd.  Her legs were

perfectly well shaped and her thighs, which she kept pretty

close, shewed so white, so round, so substantial and abound-

ing in firm flesh, that nothing could offer a stronger recom-

mendation to the luxury of the touch, which he accordingly

did not fail to indulge himself in.  Then gently removing her

hand, which in the first emotion of natural modesty she had

carried thither, he gave us rather a glimpse than a view of

that soft narrow chink running its little length downwards

and hiding the remains of it between her thighs; but plain

was to be seen the fringe of light-brown curls, in beauteous

growth over it, that with their silky gloss created a pleas-

ing variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too,

their gentle embrowning shade, considerably raised.  Her

spark then endeavoured, as she stood, by disclosing her

thighs, to gain us a completer sight of that central charm

of attraction, but not obtaining it so conveniently in that

attitude, he led her to the foot of the couch, and bringing

to it one of the pillows, gently inclin'd her head down, so

that as she leaned with it over her crossed hands, strad-

dling with her thighs wide spread, and jutting her body out,

she presented a full back view of her person, naked to the

waist.  Her posteriours, plump, smooth, and prominent,

form'd luxuriant tracts of animated snow, that splendidly

filled the eye, till it was commanded down the parting or

separation of those exquisitely white cliffs, by their

narrow vale, and was there stopt, and attracted by the em-

bowered bottom-cavity, that terminated this delightful

vista and stood moderately gaping from the influence of her

bended posture, so that the agreeable, interior red of the

sides of the orifice came into view, and with respect to

the white that dazzled round it, gave somewhat the idea of

a pink slash in the glossiest white satin.  Her gallant,

who was a gentleman about thirty, somewhat inclin'd to a

fatness that was in no sort displeasing, improving the hint

thus tendered him of this mode of enjoyment, after settling

her well in this posture, and encouraging her with kisses

and caresses to stand him through, drew out his affair ready

erected, and whose extreme length, rather disproportion'd to

its breadth, was the more surprizing, as that excess is not

often the case with those of his corpulent habit; making

then the right and direct application, he drove it up to the

guard, whilst the round bulge of those Turkish beauties of

her's tallying with the hollow made with the bent of his

belly and thighs, as they curved inwards, brought all those

parts, surely not undelightfully, into warm touch, and close

conjunction; his hands he kept passing round her body, and

employed in toying with her enchanting breasts.  As soon too

as she felt him at home as he could reach, she lifted her

head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck, without

much straining, but her cheeks glowing with the deepest scar-

let, and a smile of the tenderest satisfaction, met the kiss

he press'd forward to give her as they were thus close joined

together: when leaving him to pursue his delights, she hid

again her face and blushes with her hands and pillow, and

thus stood passively and as favourably too as she could,

whilst he kept laying at her with repeated thrusts and making

the meeting flesh on both sides resound again with the vio-

lence of them; then ever as he backen'd from her, we could

see between them part of his long whitestaff foamingly in

motion, till, as he went on again and closed with her, the

interposing hillocks took it out of sight.  Sometimes he took

his hands from the semi-globes of her bosoms, and transferred

the pressure of them to those larger ones, the present sub-

jects of his soft blockade, which he squeez'd, grasp'd and

play'd with, till at length a pursuit of driving, so hotly

urged, brought on the height of the fit, with such overpower-

ing pleasure, that his fair partner became, now necessary to

support him, panting, fainting and dying as he discharged;

which she no sooner felt the killing sweetness of, than un-

able to keep her legs, and yielding to the mighty intoxica-

tion, she reeled, and falling forward on the couch, made it

a necessity for him, if he would preserve the warm pleasure-

hold, to fall upon her, where they perfected, in a continued

conjunction of body and extatic flow, their scheme of joys

for that time.

 

     As soon as he had disengag'd, the charming Emily got up,

and we crowded round her with congratulations and other offi-

cious little services; for it is to be noted, that though all

modesty and reserve were banished from the transaction of

these pleasures, good manners and politeness were inviolably

observ'd: here was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude

behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their

compliance with the humours and desires of the men.  On the

contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and

soften the sense of their condition to them.  Men know not

in general how much they destroy of their own pleasure, when

they break through the respect and tenderness due to our sex,

and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them.  And

this was a maxim perfectly well understood by these polite

voluptuaries, these profound adepts in the great art and sci-

ence of pleasure, who never shew'd these votaries of theirs a

more tender respect than at the time of those exercises of

their complaisance, when they unlock'd their treasures of

concealed beauty, and shewed out in the pride of their native

charms, ever-more touching surely than when they paraded it

in the artificial ones of dress and ornament.

 

     The frolick was now come round to me, and it being my

turn of subscription to the will and pleasure of my particu-

lar elect, as well as to that of the company, he came to me,

and saluting me very tenderly, with a flattering eagerness,

put me in mind of the compliances my presence there author-

iz'd the hopes of, and at the same time repeated to me that

if all this force of example had not surmounted any repug-

nance I might have to concur with the humours and desires of

the company, that though the play was bespoke for my benefit,

and great as his own private disappointment might be, he

would suffer any thing, sooner than be the instrument of im-

posing a disagreeable task on me.

 

     To this I answered, without the least hesitation or

mincing grimace, that had I not even contracted a kind of

engagement to be at his disposal without the least reserve,

the example of such agreeable companions would alone deter-

mine me and that I was in no pain about any thing but my

appearing to so great a disadvantage after such superior

beauties.  And take notice that I thought as I spoke.  The

frankness of the answer pleas'd them all; my particular was

complimented on his acquisition, and, by way of indirect

flattery to me, openly envied.

 

     Mrs. Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater

mark of her regard than in managing for me the choice of this

young gentleman for my master of the ceremonies: for, inde-

pendent of his noble birth and the great fortune he was heir

to, his person was even uncommonly pleasing, well shaped and

tall; his face mark'd with the small-pox, but no more than

what added a grace of more manliness to features rather turn-

ed to softness and delicacy, was marvellously enliven'd by

eyes which were of the clearest sparkling black; in short, he

was one whom any woman would, in the familiar style, readily

call a very pretty fellow.

 

     I was now handed by him to the cock-pit of our match,

where, as I was dressed in nothing but a white morning gown,

he vouchsafed to play the male-Abigail on this occasion, and

spared me the confusion that would have attended the forward-

ness of undressing myself: my gown then was loosen'd in a

trice, and I divested of it; my stay next offered an obstacle

which readily gave way, Louisa very readily furnishing a pair

of scissors to cut the lace; off went that shell and dropping

my upper-coat, I was reduced to my under one and my shift,

the open bosom of which gave the hands and eyes all the lib-

erty they could wish.  Here I imagin'd the stripping was to

stop, but I reckoned short: my spark, at the desire of the

rest, tenderly begged that I would not suffer the small re-

mains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole

person; and for me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dis-

pute any point with them, and who considered the little more

that remain'd as very immaterial, I readily assented to what-

ever he pleased.  In an instant, then, my under-petticoat was

untied and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so

that my cap, slightly fasten'd, came off with it, and brought

all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered without

vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly ring-

lets, over my neck and shoulders, to the not unfavourable

set-off of my skin.

 

     I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature,

to whom I could not appear a very disagreeable figure, if you

please to recollect what I have before said of my person,

which time, that at certain periods of life robs us every

instant of our charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly

improved into full and open bloom, for I wanted some months

of eighteen.  My breasts, which in the state of nudity are

ever capital points, now in no more than in graceful pleni-

tude, maintained a firmness and steady independence of any

stay or support that dared and invited the test of the touch.

Then I was as tall, as slim-shaped as could be consistent

with all that juicy plumpness of flesh, ever the most grate-

ful to the senses of sight and touch, which I owed to the

health and youth of my constitution.  I had not, however, so

thoroughly renounc'd all innate shame as not to suffer great

confusion at the state I saw myself in; but the whole troop

round me, men and women, relieved me with every mark of ap-

plause and satisfaction, every flattering attention to raise

and inspire me with even sentiments of pride on the figure I

made, which, my friend gallantly protested, infinitely out-

shone all other birthday finery whatever; so that had I leave

to set down, for sincere, all the compliments these connois-

seurs overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter

myself with having pass'd my examination with the approbation

of the learned.

 

     My friend however, who for this time had alone the dis-

posal of me, humoured their curiosity, and perhaps his own,

so far that he placed me in all the variety of postures and

lights imaginable, pointing out every beauty under every as-

pect of it, not without such parentheses of kisses, such in-

flammatory liberties of his roving hands, as made all shame

fly before them, and a blushing glow give place to a warmer

one of desire, which led me even to find some relish in the

present scene.

 

     But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most

material spot of me was not excus'd the strictest visitation;

nor was it but agreed, that I had not the least reason to be

diffident of passing even for a maid, on occasion: so incon-

siderable a flaw had my preceding adventures created there,

and so soon had the blemish of an over-stretch been repaired

and worn out at my age, and in my naturally small make in

that part.

 

     Now, whether my partner had exhausted all the modes of

regaling the touch or sight, or whether he was now ungovern-

ably wound up to strike, I know not; but briskly throwing off

his clothes, the prodigious heat bred by a close room, a

great fire, numerous candles, and even the inflammatory

warmth of these scenes, induced him to lay aside his shirt

too, when his breeches, before loosen'd, now gave up their

contents to view, and shew'd in front the enemy I had to en-

gage with, stiffly bearing up the port of its head unhooded,

and glowing red.  Then I plainly saw what I had to trust to:

it was one of those just true-siz'd instruments, of which

the masters have a better command than the more unwieldy,

inordinate siz'd ones are generally under.  Straining me

then close to his bosom, as he stood up fore-right against

me and applying to the obvious niche its peculiar idol, he

aimed at inserting it, which, as I forwardly favoured, he

effected at once by canting up my thighs over his naked hips,

and made me receive every inch, and close home; so that stuck

upon the pleasure-pivot, and clinging round his neck, in

which and in his hair I hid my face, burningly flushing with

my present feelings as much as with shame, my bosom glew'd to

his; he carried me once round the couch, on which he then,

without quitting the middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid

me down, and began the pleasure-grist.  But so provokingly

predisposed and primed as we were, by all the moving sights

of the night, our imagination was too much heated not to melt

us of the soonest: and accordingly, I no sooner felt the warm

spray darted up my inwards from him, but I was punctually on

flow, to share the momentary extasy; but I had yet greater

reason to boast of out harmony: for finding that all the

flames of desire were not yet quench'd within me, but that

rather, like wetted coals, I glowed the fiercer for this

sprinkling, my hot-mettled spark, sympathizing with me, and

loaded for a double fire, recontinu'd the sweet battery with

undying vigour; greatly pleas'd at which I gratefully endea-

voured to accommodate all my motions to his best advantage

and delight; kisses, squeezes, tender murmurs, all came into

play, till our joys, growing more turbulent and riotous,

threw us into a fond disorder, and as they raged to a point,

bore us far from ourselves into an ocean of boundless plea-

sures, into which we both plunged together in a transport of

taste.  Now all the impressions of burning desire, from the

lively scenes I had been spectatress of, ripened by the heat

of this exercise, and collecting to a head, throbb'd and agi-

tated me with insupportable irritations: I did not now enjoy

a calm of reason enough to perceive, but I extatically, in-

deed, felt the power of such rare and exquisite provocatives,

as the examples of the night had proved towards thus exalting

our pleasures: which, with great joy, I sensibly found my

gallant shared in, by his nervous and home expressions of it:

his eyes flashing eloquent flames, his action infuriated with

the stings of it, all conspiring to rise my delight by assur-

ing me of his.  Lifted then to the utmost pitch of joy that

human life can bear,undestroyed by excess, I touch'd that

sweetly critical point, whence scarce prevented by the injec-

tion from my partner, I dissolved, and breaking out into a

deep drawn sigh, sent my whole sensitive soul down to that

passage where escape was denied it, by its being so delici-

ously plugged and chok'd up.  Thus we lay a few blissful in-

stants, overpowered, still, and languid; till, as the sense

of pleasure stagnated, we recover'd from out trance, and he

slipt out of me, not however before he had protested his ex-

treme satisfaction by the tenderest kiss and embrace, as well

as by the most cordial expressions.

 

     The company, who had stood round us in a profound

silence, when all was over, help'd me to hurry on my cloaths

in an instant, and complimented me on the sincere homage

they could not escape observing had been done (as they

termed it) to the sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving

a double payment of tribute at one juncture.  But my partner,

now dress'd again, signaliz'd, above all, a fondness unbated

by the circumstance of recent enjoyment; the girls too kiss'd

and embraced me, assuring me that for that time, or indeed

any other, unless I pleased, I was to go thro' no farther

publick trials, and that I was now consummatedly initiated,

and one of them.

 

     As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to

his partner, for the night especially, and even till he

relinquish'd possession over to the community, in order to

preserve a pleasing property and to avoid the disgusts and

indelicacy of another arrangement, the company, after a short

refection of biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served in

at now about one in the morning, broke up, and went off in

pairs.  Mrs. Cole had prepared my spark and me an occasional

field-bed, to which we retir'd, and there ended the night in

one continued strain of pleasure, sprightly and uncloy'd

enough for us not to have formed one wish for its ever knowing

an end.  In the morning, after a restorative breakfast in bed,

he got up, and with very tender assurances of a particular

regard for me, left me to the composure and refreshment of a

sweet slumber; waking out of which, and getting up to dress

before Mrs. Cole should come in, I found in one of my pockets

a purse of guineas, which he had slipt there; and just as I

was musing on a liberality I had certainly not expected, Mrs.

Cole came in, to whom I immediately communicated the present,

and naturally offered her whatever share she pleas'd: but

assuring me that the gentleman had very nobly rewarded her,

she would on no terms, no entreaties, no shape I could put it

in, receive any part of it.  Her denial, she observed, was

not affectation of grimace, and proceeded to read me such

admirable lessons on the economy of my person and my purse as

I became amply paid for my general attention and conformity

to in the course of my acquaintance with the town.  After

which, changing the discourse, she fell on the pleasures of

the preceding night, where I learn'd, without much surprize,

as I began to enter on her character, that she had seen every

thing that had passed, from a convenient place managed solely

for that purpose, and of which she readily made me the

confidante.

 

     She had scarce finish'd this, when the little troop of

love, the girls my companions, broke in and renewed their

compliments and caresses.  I observed with pleasure that the

fatigues and exercises of the night had not usurped in the

least on the life of their complexion, or the freshness of

their bloom: this I found, by their confession, was owing to

the management and advice of our rare directress.  They went

down then to figure it, as usual, in the shop, whilst I

repair'd to my lodgings, where I employed myself till I

returned to dinner at Mrs. Cole's.

 

     Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other

of these charming girls, till about five in the evening; when

seiz'd with a sudden drowsy fit, I was prevailed on to go up

and doze it off on Harriet's bed, who left me on it to my

repose.  There then I lay down in my cloaths and fell fast

asleep, and had now enjoyed, by guess, about an hour's rest,

when I was pleasingly disturbed by my new and favourite gal-

lant, who, enquiring for me, was readily directed where to

find me.  Coming then into my chamber, and seeing me lie

alone, with my face turn'd from the light towards the inside

of the bed, he, without more ado, just slipped off his

breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment of the naked

touch; and softly turning up my petticoat and shift behind,

opened the prospect of the back avenue to the genial seat of

pleasure; where, as I lay at my side length, inclining rather

face downward, I appeared full fair, and liable to be entered.

/Laying himself then gently down by me, he invested me behind,

and giving me to feel the warmth of his body as he applied

his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of that

machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in

it, to make its way good into me.  I wak'd pretty much star-

tled at first, but seeing who it was, disposed myself to turn

to him, when he gave me a kiss, and desiring me to keep my

posture, just lifted up my upper thigh, and ascertaining the

right opening, soon drove it up to the farthest: satisfied

with which, and solacing himself with lying so close in those

parts, he suspended motion, and thus steeped in pleasure,

kept me lying on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he

term'd it, from the snug indent of the back part of my thighs,

and all upwards, into the space of the bending between his

thighs and belly; till, after some time, that restless and

turbulent inmate, impatient by nature of longer quiet, urg'd

him to action, which now prosecuting with all the usual train

of toying, kissing, and the like, ended at length in the

liquid proof on both sides, that we had not exhausted, or at

least were quickly recruited of last night's draughts of

pleasure in us.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

     With this noble and agreeable youth liv'd I in perfect

joy and constancy.  He was full bent on keeping me to himself,

for the honey-month at least; but his stay in London was not

even so long, his father, who had a post in Ireland, taking

him abruptly with him on his repairing thither.  Yet even then

I was near keeping hold of his affection and person, as he had

propos'd, and I had consented to follow him in order to go to

Ireland after him, as soon as he could be settled there; but

meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in that king-

dom, he chose the wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but

at the same time took care that I should receive a very magni-

ficent present, which did not however compensate for all my

deep regret on my loss of him.

 

     This event also created a chasm in our little society,

which Mrs. Cole, on the foot of her usual caution, was in no

haste to fill up; but then it redoubled her attention to pro-

cure me, in the advantages of a traffic for a counterfeit

maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of widowhood I had

been left in; and this was a scheme she had never lost pro-

spect of, and only waited for a proper person to bring it to

bear with.

 

     But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this,

as I had been in my first trial of the market.

 

     I had now pass'd near a month in the enjoyment of all

the pleasures of familiarity and society with my companions,

whose particular favourites (the baronet excepted, who soon

after took Harriet home) had all, on the terms of community

establish'd in the house, solicited the gratification of

their taste for variety in my embraces; but I had with the

utmost art and address, on various pretexts, eluded their

pursuit, without giving them cause to complain; and this

reserve I used neither out of dislike of them, or disgust of

the thing, but my true reason was my attachment to my own,

and my tenderness of invading the choice of my companions,

who outwardly exempt, as they seem'd, from jealousy, could

not but in secret like me the better for the regard I had

for, without making a merit of it to them.  Thus easy, and

beloved by the whole family, did I go on; when one day, that,

about five in the afternoon, I stepped over to a fruiterer's

shop in Covent Garden, to pick some table fruit for myself

and the young women, I met with the following adventure.

 

     Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I ob-

serv'd myself follow'd by a young gentleman, whose rich

dress first attracted my notice; for the rest, he had no-

thing remarkable in his person, except that he was pale,

thin-made, and ventur'd himself upon legs rather of the

slenderest.  Easy was it to perceive, without seeming to

perceive it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping

his eyes fixed on me, till he came to the same basket that

I stood at, and cheapening, or rather giving the first

price ask'd for the fruit, began his approaches.  Now most

certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a modest

girl.  I had neither the feathers nor fumet of a taudry town-

miss: a straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all,

a certain natural and easy air of modesty (which the appear-

ances of never forsook me, even on those occasions that I

most broke in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave

him no opening to conjecture my condition.  He spoke to me;

and this address from a stranger throwing a blush into my

cheeks that still set him wider off the truth, I answered

him with an aukwardness and confusion the more apt to impose,

as there was really a mixture of the genuine in them.  But

when proceeding, on the foot of having broken the ice, to

join discourse, he went into other leading questions, I put

so much innocence, simplicity, and even childishness into my

answers that on no better foundation, liking my person as he

did, I will answer for it, he would have been sworn for my

modesty.  There is, in short, in the men, when once they are

caught, by the eye especially, a fund of cullibility that

their lordly wisdom little dreams of, and in virtue of which

the most sagacious of them are seen so often our dupes.

Amongst other queries he put to me, one was whether I was

married.  I replied that I was too young to think of that

this many a year.  To that of my age, I answered, and sunk

a year upon him, passing myself for not seventeen.  As to my

way of life, I told him I had serv'd an apprenticeship to a

milliner in Preston, and was come to town after a relation,

that I had found, on my arrival, was dead, and now liv'd

journey-woman to a milliner in town.  That last article,

indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass

for; but it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I

had inspir'd him with.  After he had next got out of me,

very dextrously as he thought, what I had no sort of design

to make reserve of, my own, my mistress's name, and place of

abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the rarest and dearest

he could pick out, and sent me home, pondering on what might

be the consequence of this adventure.

 

     As soon then as I came to Mrs. Cole's, I related to her

all that passed, on which she very judiciously concluded

that if he did not come after me there was no harm done, and

that, if he did, as her presage suggested to her he would,

his character and his views should be well sifted, so as to

know whether the game was worth the springs; that in the mean

time nothing was easier than my part in it, since no more

rested on me than to follow her cue and promptership through-

out, to the last act.

 

     The next morning, after an evening spent on his side, as

we afterwards learnt, in perquisitions into Mrs. Cole's char-

acter in the neighbourhood (than which nothing could be more

favourable to her design upon him), my gentleman came in his

chariot to the shop, where Mrs. Cole alone had an inkling of

his errand.  Asking then for her, he easily made a beginning

of acquaintance by be-speaking some millinery ware: when, as

I sat without lifting up my eyes, and pursuing the hem of a

ruffle with the utmost composure and simplicity of industry,

Mrs. Cole took notice that the first impressions I made on

him ran no risk of being destroyed by those of Louisa and

Emily, who were then sitting at work by me.  After vainly

endeavouring to catch my eyes in re-encounter with his (as I

held my head down, affecting a kind of consciousness of guilt

for having, by speaking to him, given him encouragement and

means of following me), and after giving Mrs. Cole direction

when to bring the things home herself, and the time he should

expect them, he went out, taking with him some goods that he

paid for liberally, for the better grace of his introduction.

 

 

                          Part 8

 

     The girls all this time did not in the least smoke the

mystery of this new customer; but Mrs. Cole, as soon as we

were conveniently alone, insur'd me, in virtue of her long

experience in these matters, that for this bout my charms had

not miss'd fire; for that by his eagerness, his manner and

looks, she was sure he had it: the only point now in doubt

was his character and circumstances, which her knowledge of

the town would soon gain her sufficient acquaintance with, to

take her measures upon.

 

     And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence serv'd

her so well that she learn'd that this conquest of mine was

no other than Mr. Norbert, a gentleman originally of great

fortune, which, with a constitution naturally not the best,

he had vastly impaired by his over-violent pursuit of the

vices of the town; in the course of which, having worn out

and stal'd all the more common modes of debauchery, he had

fallen into a taste of maiden-hunting; in which chase he had

ruin'd a number of girls, sparing no expence to compass his

ends, and generally using them well till tired, or cool'd by

enjoyment, or springing a new face, he could with more ease

disembarrass himself of the old ones, and resign them to

their fate, as his sphere of achievements of that sort lay

only amongst such as he could proceed with by way of bargain

and sale.

 

     Concluding from these premises, Mrs. Cole observ'd that

a character of this sort was ever a lawful prize; that the

sin would be, not to make the best of our market of him; and

that she thought such a girl as I only too good for him at

any rate, and on any terms.

 

     She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in

one of our inns of court, which were furnished in a taste of

grandeur that had a special eye to all the conveniences of

luxury and pleasure.  Here she found him in ready waiting;

and after finishing her pretence of business, and a long

circuit of discussions concerning her trade, which she said

was very bad, the qualities of her servants, 'prentices,

journey-women, the discourse naturally landed at length on

me, when Mrs. Cole, acting admirably the good old prating

gossip, who lets every thing escape her when her tongue is

set in motion, cooked him up a story so plausible of me,

throwing in every now and then such strokes of art, with all

the simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and tem-

per, as finished him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing

could be better counterfeited than her innocence of his.  But

when now fired and on edge, he proceeded to drop hints of his

design and views upon me, after he had with much confusion

and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long aloof

from as she thought proper) of understanding him, without now

affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying out

into those violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck

with the better grace and effect to the character of a plain,

good sort of a woman, that knew no harm, and that getting her

bread in an honest way, was made of stuff easy and flexible

enough to be wrought upon to his ends, by his superior skill

and address; but, however, she managed so artfully that three

or four meetings took place before he could obtain the least

favourable hope of her assistance; without which, he had, by

a number of fruitless messages, letters, and other direct

trials of my disposition, convinced himself there was no

coming at me, all which too rais'd at once my character and

price with him.

 

     Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties

to such a length as might afford time for starting discov-

eries, or incidents, unfavourable to her plan, she at last

pretended to be won over by mere dint of entreaties, pro-

mises, and, above all, by the dazzling sum she took care to

wind him up to the specification of, when it was now even a

piece of art to feign, at once, a yielding to the allurements

of a great interest, as a pretext for her yielding at all,

and the manner of it such as might persuade him she had never

dipp'd her virtuous fingers in an affair of that sort.

 

     Thus she led him through all the gradations of diffi-

culty, and obstacles, necessary to enhance the balue of the

prize he aim'd at; and in conclusion, he was so struck with

the little beauty I was mistress of, and so eagerly bent on

gaining his ends of me, that he left her even no room to

boast of her management in bringing him up to her mark, he

drove so plum of himself into every thing tending to make him

swallow the bait.  Not but, in other respects, Mr. Norbert

was not clear sighted enough, or that he did not perfectly

know the town, and even by experience, the very branch of

imposition now in practice upon him: but we had his passion

our friend so much, he was so blinded and hurried on by it,

that he would have thought any undeception a very ill office

done to his pleasure.  Thus concurring, even precipitately,

to the point she wanted him at, Mrs. Cole brought him at last

to hug himself on the cheap bargain he consider'd the pur-

chase of my imaginary jewel was to him, at no more than three

hundred guineas to myself, and a hundred to the brokeress:

being a slender recompense for all her pains, and all the

scruples of conscience she had now sacrificed to him for this

the first time of her life; which sums were to be paid down

on the nail, upon livery of my person, exclusive of some no

inconsiderable presents that had been made in the course of

the negotiation: during which I had occasionally, but spar-

ingly been introduc'd inbto his company, at proper times and

hours; in which it is incredible how little it seem'd neces-

sary to strain my natural disposition to modesty higher, in

order to pass it upon him for that of a very maid: all my

looks and gestures ever breathing nothing but that innocence

which the men so ardently require in us, for no other end

than to feast themselves with the pleasures of destroying it,

and which they are so grievously, with all their skill, sub-

ject to mistakes in.

 

     When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed

on, the stipulated payments duly secur'd, and nothing now

remained but the execution of the main point, which center'd

in the surrender of my person up to his free disposal and

use, Mrs. Cole managed her objections, especially to his

lodgings, and insinuations so nicely, that it became his own

mere notion and urgent request that this copy of a wedding

should be finish'd at her house:  At first, indeed, she did

not care, said she, to have such doings in it . . . she

would not for a thousand pounds have any of the servants or

'prentices know it . . . her precious good name would be gone

forever--with the like excuses.  However, on superior objec-

tions to all other expedients, whilst she took care to start

none but those which were most liable to them, it came round

at last to the necessity of her obliging him in that conveni-

ency, and of doing a little more where she had already done

so much.

 

     The night then was fix'd, with all possible respect to

the eagerness of his impatience, and in the mean time Mrs.

Cole had omitted no instructions, nor even neglected any

preparation, that might enable me to come off with honour,

in regard to the appearance of my virginity, except that,

favour'd as I was by nature with all the narrowness of

stricture in that part requisite to conduct my designs, I

had no occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that

create a momentary one, easily discover'd by the test of a

warm bath; and as to the usual sanguinary symptoms of de-

floration, which, if not always, are generally attendants on

it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of her

own which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in

its place.

 

     Everything then being disposed and fix'd for Mr. Nor-

bert's reception, he was, at the hour of eleven at night,

with all the mysteries of silence and secrecy, let in by Mrs.

Cole herself, and introduced into her bed-chamber, where, in

an old-fashioned bed of her's, I lay, fully undressed, and

panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least with

those perhaps greater of a dissembled one which gave me an

air of confusion and bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all

the honour of, and was indeed scarce distinguishable from

it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover: so let

me call him, for I ever thought the term "cully" too cruel a

reproach to the men for their abused weakness for us.

 

     As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these

occasions, us'd to young women abandoned for the first time

to the will of man, had left us alone in her room, which, by-

the-bye, was well lighted up, at his previous desire, that

seemed to bode a stricter examination that he afterwards

made, Mr. Norbert, still dressed, sprung towards the bed,

where I got my head under the cloaths, and defended them a

good while before he could even get at my lips, to kiss them:

so true it is, that a false virtue, on this occasion, even

makes a greater rout and resistance than a true one.  From

thence he descended to my breasts, the feel I disputed tooth

and nail with him till, tired with my resistance, and think-

ing probably to give a better account of me, when got into

bed to me, the hurry'd his cloaths off in an instant, and

came into bed.

 

     Mean while, by the glimpse I stole of him, I could

easily discover a person far from promising any such doughty

performances as the storming of maidenheads generally re-

quires, and whose flimsy consumptive texture gave him more

the air of an invalid that was pressed, than of a volunteer,

on such hot service.

 

     At scarce thirty, he had already reduced his strength of

appetite down to a wretched dependence on forc'd provocatives,

very little seconded by the natural power of a body jaded and

racked off to the lees by constant repeated over-draughts of

pleasure, which had done the work of sixty winters on his

springs of life: leaving him at the same time all the fire

and heat of youth in his imagination, which served at once to

torment and spur him down the precipice.

 

     As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bed-cloaths,

which I suffered him to force from my hold, and I now lay as

expos'd as he could wish, not only to his attacks, but his

visitation of the sheets; where in the various agitations of

the body, through my endeavours to defend myself, he could

easily assure himself there was no preparation: though, to do

him justice, he seem'd a less strict examinant than I had

apprehended from so experienc'd a practitioner.  My shift

then he fairly tore open, finding I made too much use of it

to barricade my breasts, as well as the more important

avenue: yet in every thing else he proceeded with all the

marks of tenderness and regard to me, whilst the art of my

play was to shew none for him.  I acted then all the nice-

ties, apprehensions, and terrors supposable for a girl per-

fectly innocent to feel at so great a novelty as a naked man

in bed with her for the first time.  He scarce even obtained

a kiss but what he ravished; I put his hand away twenty times

from my breasts, where he had satisfied himself of their

hardness and consistence, with passing for hitherto unhandled

goods.  But when grown impatient for the main point, he now

threw himself upon me, and first trying to examine me with

his finger, sought to make himself further way, I complained

of his usage bitterly:  I thought he would not have serv'd a

body so . . . I was ruin'd . . . I did not know what I had

done . . . I would get up, so I would . . .; and at the same

time kept my thighs so fast locked, that it was not for

strength like his to force them open, or do any good.  Find-

ing thus my advantages, and that I had both my own and his

motions at command, the deceiving him came so easy that it

was perfectly playing upon velvet.  In the mean time his

machine, which was one of those sizes that slip in and out

without being minded, kept pretty stiffly bearing against

that part, which the shutting my thighs barr'd access to; but

finding, at length, he could do no good by mere dint of

bodily strength, he resorted to entreaties and arguments: to

which I only answer'd with a tone of shame and timidity, that

I was afraid he would kill me . . . Lord! . . ., I would not

be served so . . . I was never so used in all my born days .

. . I wondered he was not ashamed of himself, so I did . . .,

with such silly infantile moods of repulse and complaint as I

judged best adapted to the express the character of innocence

and affright.  Pretending, however, to yield at length to the

vehemence of his insistence, in action and words, I sparingly

disclosed my thighs, so that he could just touch the cloven

inlet with the tip of his instrument: but as he fatigued and

toil'd to get it in, a twist of my body, so as to receive it

obliquely, not only thwarted his admission, but giving a

scream, as if he had pierced me to the heart, I shook him off

me with such violence that he could not with all his might to

it, keep the saddle: vex'd indeed at this he seemed, but not

in the style of any displeasure with me for my skittishness;

on the contrary, I dare swear he held me the dearer, and

hugged himself for the difficulties that even hurt his

instant pleasure.  Fired, however, now beyond all bearance of

delay, he remounts and begg'd of me to have patience, strok-

ing and soothing me to it by all the tenderest endearments

and protestations of what he would moreover do for me; at

which, feigning to be something softened, and abating of the

anger that I had shewn at his hurting me so prodigiously, I

suffered him to lay my thighs aside, and make way for a new

trial; but I watched the directions and management of his

point so well, that no sooner was the orifice in the least

open to it, but I gave such a timely jerk as seemed to pro-

ceed not from the evasion of his entry, but from the pain his

efforts at it put me to: a circumstance too that I did not

fail to accompany with proper gestures, sighs and cries of

complaint, of which that he had hurt me . . . he kill'd me .

. . I should die . . ., were the most frequent interjections.

But now, after repeated attempts, in which he had not made

the least impression towards gaining his point, at least for

that time, the pleasure rose so fast upon him that he could

not check or delay it, and in the vigour and fury which the

approaches of the height of it inspir'd him, he made one

fierce thrust, that had almost put me by my guard, and

lodged it so far that I could feel the warm inspersion just

within the exterior orifice, which I had the cruelty not to

let him finish there, but threw him out again, not without a

most piercing loud exclamation, as if the pain had put me

beyond all regard of being overheard.  It was easy then to

observe that he was more satisfy'd, more highly pleased with

the supposed motives of his baulk of consummation, than he

would have been at the full attainment of it.  It was on

this foot that I solved to myself all the falsity I employed

to procure him that blissful pleasure in it, which most

certainly he would not have tasted in the truth of things.

Eas'd however, and relieved by one discharge, he now apply'd

himself to sooth, encourage and to put me into humour and

patience to bear his next attempt, which he began to prepare

and gather force for, from all the incentives of the touch

and sight which he could think of, by examining every indi-

vidual part of my whole body, which he declared his satis-

faction with in raptures of applauses, kisses universally

imprinted, and sparing no part of me, in all the eagerest

wantonness  of feeling, seeing, and toying.  His vigour how-

ever did not return so soon, and I felt him more than once

pushing at the door, but so little in a condition to break

in, that I question whether he had the power to enter, had I

held it ever so open; but this he then thought me too little

acquainted with the nature of things to have any regret or

confusion about, and he kept fatiguing himself and me for a

long time, before he was in any state to resume his attacks

with any prospect of success; and then I breath'd him so

warmly, and kept him so at bay, that before he had made any

sensible progress in point of penetration, he was deliciously

sweated, and weary'd out indeed: so that it was deep in the

morning before he achieved his second let-go, about half way

of entrance, I all the while crying and complaining of his

prodigious vigour, and the immensity of what I appear'd to

suffer splitting up with.  Tired, however, at length, with

such athletic drudgery, my champion began now to give out,

and to gladly embrace the refreshment of some rest.  Kissing

me then with much affection, and recommending me to my

repose, he presently fell fast asleep: which, as soon as I

had well satisfy'd myself of, I with much composure of body,

so as not to wake him by any motion, with much ease and

safety too, played of Mrs. Cole's advice for perfecting the

signs of my virginity.

 

     In each of the head bed-posts, just above where the bed-

steads are inserted into them, there was a small drawer, so

artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it

might have escap'd even the most curious search: which

drawers were easily open'd or shut by the touch of a spring,

and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a

prepared fluid blood, in which lay soak'd, for ready use, a

sponge that required no more than gently reaching the hand to

it, taking it out and properly squeezing between the thighs,

when it yielded a great deal more of the red liquid than

would save a girl's honour; after which, replacing it, and

touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of

suspicion, was taken away; and all this was not the work of

the fourth part of a minute, and on which ever side one lay,

the thing was equally easy and practicable, by the double

care taken to have each bed-post provided alike.  True it is,

that had he waked and caught me in the act, it would at least

have covered me with shame and confusion; but then, that he

did not, was, with the precautions I took, a risk of a thou-

sand to one in my favour.

 

     At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or sus-

picion on his side, I address'd myself in good earnest to my

repose, but could obtain none; and in about half an hour's

time my gentleman waked again, and turning towards me, I

feigned a sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but

girding himself again to renew the onset, he began to kiss

and caress me, when now making as if I just wak'd, I com-

plained of the disturbance, and of the cruel pain that this

little rest had stole my senses from.  Eager, however, for

the pleasure, as well of consummating an entire triumph over

my virginity, he said everything that could overcome my

resistance, and bribe my patience to the end, which not I was

ready to listen to, from being secure of the bloody proofs I

had prepared of his victorious violence, though I still

thought it good policy not to let him in yet a while.  I

answered then only to his importunities in sighs and moans

that I was so hurt, I could not bear it . . . I was sure he

had done me a mischief; that he had . . . he was such a sad

man!  At this, turning down the cloaths and viewing the field

of battle by the glimmer of a dying taper, he saw plainly my

thighs, shift, and sheets, all stained with what he readily

took for a virgin effusion, proceeding from his last half-

penetration: convinc'd, and transported at which, nothing

could equal his joy and exultation.  The illusion was com-

plete, no other conception entered his head but that of his

having been at work upon an unopen'd mine; which idea, upon

so strong an evidence, redoubled at once his tenderness for

me, and his ardour for breaking it wholly up.  Kissing me

then with the utmost rapture, he comforted me, and begg'd my

pardon for the pain he had put me to: observing withal, that

it was only a thing in course: but the worst was certainly

past, and that with a little courage and constancy, I should

get it once well over, and never after experience any thing

but the greatest pleasure.  By little and little I suffer'd

myself to be prevailed on, and giving, as it were, up the

point to him, I made my thighs, insensibly spreading them,

yield him liberty of access, which improving, he got a

little within me, when by a well managed reception I work'd

the female screw so nicely, that I kept him from the easy

mid-channel direction, and by dextrous wreathing and contor-

tions, creating an artificial difficulty of entrance, made

him win it inch by inch, with the most laborious struggles,

I all the while sorely complaining: till at length, with

might and main, winding his way in, he got it completely

home, and giving my virginity, as he thought, the coup de

grace, furnished me with the cue of setting up a terrible

outcry, whilst he, triumphant and like a cock clapping his

wings over his down-trod mistress, pursu'd his pleasure:

which presently rose, in virtue of this idea of a complete

victory, to a pitch that made me soon sensible of his melt-

ing period; whilst I now lay acting the deep wounded,breath-

less, frighten'd, undone, no longer maid.

 

     You would ask me, perhaps, whether all this time I

enjoy'd any perception of pleasure?  I assure you, little or

none, till just towards the latter end, a faintish sense of

it came on mechanically, from so long a struggle and frequent

fret in that ever sensible part; but, in the first place, I

had no taste for the person I was suffering the embraces of,

on a pure mercenary account; and then, I was not entirely

delighted with myself for the jade's part I was playing,

whatever excuses I might have to plead for my being brought

into it; but then this insensibility kept me so much the

mistress of my mind and motions, that I could the better

manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole scene of

deception.

 

     Recover'd at length to a more shew of life, by his ten-

der condolences, kisses and embraces, I upbraided him, and

reproach'd him with my ruin, in such natural terms as added

to his satisfaction with himself for having accomplish'd it;

and guessing, by certain observations of mine, that it would

be rather favourable to him, to spare him, when he some time

after, feebly enough, came on again to the assault, I reso-

lutely withstood any further endeavours, on a pretext that

flattered his prowess, of my being so violently hurt and sore

that I could not possibly endure a fresh trial.  He then gra-

ciously granted me a respite, and the next morning soon after

advancing, I got rid of further importunity, till Mrs. Cole,

being rang for by him, came in and was made acquainted, in

terms of the utmost joy and rapture, with his triumphant cer-

tainty of my virtue, and the finishing stroke he had given it

in the course of the night: of which, he added, she would see

proof enough in bloody characters on the sheets.