Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam; Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella. VIRG. As we were at the club last night, I observed that my friend Sir Roger, contrary to his usual custom, sat very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the company, was whistling to himself in a very thoughtful mood, and playing with a cork. I jogged Sir Andrew Freeport (15) who sat between us; and as we were both observing him, we saw the knight shake his head and heard him say to himself, "A foolish woman! I can't believe it." Sir Andrew gave him a gentle pat upon the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend started, and, recovering out of his brown study, told Sir Andrew that once in his life he had been in the right. In short, after some little hesitation, Sir Roger told us, in the fullness of his heart, (201: 5) that he had just received a letter from his steward, which acquainted him that his old rival and antagonist in the county, Sir David Dundrum, had been making a visit to the widow. "However," says Sir Roger, "I can never think that she'll have a man that's half a year older than (10) I am, and a noted Republican into the bargain." Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh, "I thought, knight," says he, "thou hadst lived long enough in the world not to pin thy happiness upon one that is a (15) woman and a widow. I think that without vanity I may pretend to know as much of the female world as any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my knowledge consists in this,--that they are not to be known." Will immediately, with his usual fluency, rambled into an (20) account of his own amours. "I am now," says he, "upon the verge of fifty" (though, by the way, we all knew he was turned of threescore). "You may easily guess," continued Will, "that I have not lived so long in the world without having had some thoughts of settling (25) in it, as the phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune that way, though I can't much boast of my success. "I made my first addresses to a young lady in the country; but when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put[150] forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daughter to a fox hunter in the neighbourhood. (202: 5) [150] Rustic, clown.