'"À Monsieur Sackville,—I have received your letter by your man, and acknowledge you have dealt nobly with me; and now I come with all possible haste to meet you.
Ed. Bruce."'
No. 140. The 'Guardian.'—Aug. 21, 1713.
A sight might thaw old Priam's frozen age,
And warm e'en Nestor into amorous rage.
'To Pope Clement VIII. Nestor Ironside, Greeting.
'I have heard, with great satisfaction, that you have forbidden your priests to confess any woman who appears before them without a tucker; in which you please me well. I do agree with you that it is impossible for a good man to discharge his office as he ought, who gives an ear to those alluring penitents that discover their hearts and necks to him at the same time. I am labouring, as much as in me lies, to stir up the same spirit of modesty among the women of this island, and should be glad we might assist one another in so good a work. In order to it, I desire that you would send me over the length of a Roman lady's neck, as it stood before your late prohibition. We have some here who have necks of one, two, and three feet in length; some that have necks which reach down to their middles; and, indeed, some who may be said to be all neck, and no body. I hope at the same time you observe the stays of your female subjects, that you have also an eye to their petticoats, which rise in this island daily. When the petticoat reaches but to the knee, and the stays fall to the fifth rib (which I hear is to be the standard of each as it has been lately settled in a junto of the sex), I will take care to send you one of either sort, which I advertise you of beforehand, that you may not compute the stature of our English women from the length of their garments. In the meantime, I have desired the master of a vessel, who tells me that he shall touch at Civita Vecchia, to present you with a certain female machine, which I believe will puzzle your infallibility to discover the use of it. Not to keep you in suspense, it is what we call, in this country, a hooped petticoat. I shall only beg of you to let me know whether you find any garment of this nature among all the relics of your female saints; and, in particular, whether it was ever worn by any of your twenty thousand virgin martyrs.
'Yours, usque ad aras,
'Nestor Ironside.'
No. 153. The 'Guardian.'—Sept. 5, 1713.