When my friend was alone with me there, "Isaac," said he, "I know you came abroad only to moralise and make observations, and I will carry you hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persons and proper mechanisms. The Graces, the Muses, the Fates, all the beings which have a good or evil influence upon human life, are, you'll say, very justly figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you'll see enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as will make them be respectively called Deities or Furies, as their labour shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries." Without waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the Banqueting House, where there were placed at two long tables a large company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up tickets for the lottery appointed by the Government. There walked between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman seemed an emblem of Fortune, she commanded as if unconcerned in their business; and though everything was performed by her direction, she did not visibly interpose in particulars. She seemed in pain at our near approach to her, and most to approve us, when we made her no advances. Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had something that spoke both familiarity and dignity. She therefore appeared to me not only a picture of Fortune, but of Fortune as I liked her; which made me break out in the following words:
"Madam,
"I am very glad to see the fate of the many who now languish in expectation of what will be the event of your labours in the hands of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me, that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your sex, repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and the humble. I know you fly the importunate, but smile no more on the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer, but give the power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants who cannot enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can bear it with more ease than he can see it in another."
ADVERTISEMENT.
Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda by letter bearing date Thursday 12 o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the evening at Rosamond's Pond,[260] faithfully protesting, that in case she would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said Philander the next day floating on the said lake of Love, and that he desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: it is desired, if he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda, being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.
FOOTNOTES:
[259] Now Whitehall Gardens, between Parliament Street and the Thames. There Pepys had the pleasure of seeing Lady Castlemaine in 1662: "In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom; and did me good to look at them."
[260] See No. 60.