Don Quixote, in _Cervantes_, when the lovely Maritornes came during the night to his bed, and threw herself into his arms, had no thought of employing either whips or straps for dismissing the amorous Fair-one; and certainly if he had applied to an expedient of this kind, he would have had no right to complain of the boxes and kicks with which the Muleteer presently after belaboured him in the dark. But, like a gallant and exceedingly well-bred Knight, he excused himself from the nature of the anterior engagements he was under, and above all did not forget to pay proper compliments to the Lady’s beauty and great perfections. Indeed, the speech which the Knight addressed to the fair Maritornes, may be proposed as a pattern of compliment for occasions of the kind. ‘Oh! thou most lovely temptation! Oh that I now might but pay a warm acknowledgment for the mighty blessing which your great goodness would lavish on me! Yes, most beautiful Charmer, I would give an empire to purchase your more desirable embraces; but Fate has put to it an invincible obstacle; I mean my plighted faith to Dulcinea _del Toboso_, the sole mistress of my wishes, and absolute sovereign of my heart. Oh! did not this oppose my present happiness, I could never be so insensible a Knight as to lose the benefit of this extraordinary favour you now condescend to offer me.’ Nor ought the Gentleman, after delivering the above speech, or some other equally respectful, to stop there; it would be moreover extremely proper for him to desire the Lady to do him the honour to sit upon his bed, and then enter into a fuller explanation of his conduct, and of the nature of those prior engagements by which he is so fatally tied. This done, and the Lady being perfectly convinced of the propriety of his conduct, he should rise from his bed, and offer to attend her, I do not say to the bottom of the stairs, and so far as the street door, for that might be the means of discovering the secret of the affair to other persons and endangering the Lady’s reputation, but to the remotest door of his own apartment. I would moreover have him, in his passage to that door, keep the Lady’s hand tenderly squeezed in his own, and all the while manifest, by the nature of his gestures and exclamations, the grief under which he labours. And lastly, when he had reached the furthest place to which he may safely conduct her, he ought to take leave of her by a low and most respectful bow, in order completely to convince her, that the kindness she had ventured to shew him, has not, in the least, lowered her in his esteem.