For my own part, I shall be bolder than the fair Author who gives this account; and I will take upon myself to decide that the Ladies were _spectators only_. Had this young fellow of fashion we are speaking of, committed an offence of no very grievous kind; had he, for instance, been guilty of some word, or even action, moderately indecent in the presence of the Ladies, or affronted them by some ill-timed jokes, or had he, like Clopinel, indulged himself in a bon-mot, or even a whole song, against the honour of the Sex, then we might suppose the Ladies arms, to have possessed sufficient vigour to have served him with a correction proportioned to the degree of his guilt. Not that I consider, however, as some Readers will perhaps do, the falsehood of the facts he had boasted of, as being any aggravation of his offence: very far from it: it is when such facts are true, that the boasting of them is really a fault of a black nature: it is such, in my humble opinion, that no possible flagellation can atone for it; the ungrateful _Tell-tale_ ought to be stitched in a bag, and thrown into the river. However, as the vain speeches of the young fellow were in themselves highly wicked, we are to suppose that the Ladies trusted the care of chastising him to more robustious hands than their own; and we must side with that part of the Public, who thought that they _ordered their Maids_ to perform for them; that is to say, a set of Maid slaves selected among the stoutest of those who composed their housholds, Maids imported from the banks of the _Palus-meotis_, or the Black Sea, and who thought it a glorious opportunity for shewing their mistresses their zeal in serving them. This supposition agrees extremely well with the ensuing part of the account, viz. that this vain-boasting Coxcomb _was obliged to keep his bed some time_: who knows? perhaps five or six weeks.