[17] See No. 195.
[18] The College of Physicians met in Warwick Lane, and the Royal Society at Gresham College, in Bishopsgate Street.
[No. 201. [Steele.]
From Thursday, July 20, to Saturday, July 22, 1710.
White's Chocolate-house, July 21.
It has been often asserted in these papers, that the great source of our wrong pursuits is the impertinent manner with which we treat women, both in the common and important circumstances of life. In vain do we say, the whole sex would run into England, while the privileges which are allowed them do no way balance the inconveniences arising from those very immunities. Our women have very much indulged to them in the participation of our fortunes and our liberty; but the errors they commit in the use of either, are by no means so impartially considered as the false steps which are made by men. In the commerce of lovers, the man makes the address, assails, and betrays, and yet stands in the same degree of acceptance as he was in before he committed that treachery: the woman, for no other crime but believing one whom she thought loved her, is treated with shyness and indifference at the best, and commonly with reproach and scorn. He that is past the power of beauty may talk of this matter with the same unconcern as of any other subject: therefore I shall take upon me to consider the sex, as they live within rules, and as they transgress them. The ordinary class of the good or the ill have very little influence upon the actions of others; but the eminent in either kind are those who lead the world below them. The ill are employed in communicating scandal, infamy, and disease, like furies; the good distribute benevolence, friendship, and health, like angels. The ill are damped with pain and anguish at the sight of all that is laudable, lovely, or happy. The virtuous are touched with commiseration toward the guilty, the disagreeable, and the wretched. There are those who betray the innocent of their own sex, and solicit the lewd of ours. There are those who have abandoned the very memory, not only of innocence, but shame. There are those who never forgave, nor could ever bear being forgiven. There are also who visit the beds of the sick, lull the cares of the sorrowful, and double the joys of the joyful. Such is the destroying fiend, such the guardian angel, woman.
The way to have a greater number of the amiable part of womankind, and lessen the crowd of the other sort, is to contribute what we can to the success of well-grounded passions; and therefore I comply with the request of an enamoured man in inserting the following billet:
"Madam,