Of my Adventure with Madam Taffetas the Widow, I am not disposed to say much. Indeed, until my being finally settled, and made the Happiest Man upon earth by my union with the departed Saint who was the mother of my Lilias, it must be admitted that my commerce with the Sex was mostly of the unluckiest description. I have been used most shamefully by women; but it behoves me not to complain, seeing how much felicity I was permitted to enjoy in my latter days. This much, however, I will discreetly set down. That meeting Madam Taffetas in a side box at Drury Lane play-house, She was pleased to accept my Addresses, and to inform me that my conversation was in the highest degree tasteful to her. I entertained her very handsomely--indeed much beyond my means, for I was very heavily in debt for necessaries, and I could scarcely walk the streets without apprehensions of the grim Sergeant with his capias. Madam Taffetas was an exceedingly comely person, amazingly well dressed, and, as I was given to understand, in very prosperous circumstances. She kept an Italian Warehouse by the Sign of The two Olive Posts, in the broad part of the Strand, almost opposite to Exeter Change, and sold all sorts of Italian Silks, Lustrings, Satins, Paduasoys, Velvets, Damasks, Fans, Leghorn Hats, Flowers, Violin Strings, Books of Essences, Venice Treacle, Balsams, Florence Cordials, Oil, Olives, Anchovies, Capers, Vermicelli, Bologna Sausages, Parmesan Cheese, Naples Soap, and similar delicate cates from foreign parts. All her friends put her down as a forty-thousand-pounder. In Brief, she professed to be satisfied with my gentility and Ancient Lineage, though worldly goods I had none to offer her. All congratulated me on my Good Fortune; and not wanting to make any unnecessary bustle about the affair, we took coach one fine Monday morning down to Fleet Market, and were married by a Fleet parson--none other, indeed, than my old friend Chaplain Hodge, who had taken to this way of life and found it very profitable, marrying his twenty or thirty couple a week, when Business was brisk, at fees varying from five guineas to seven-and-sixpence, and from a dozen of Burgundy to half a pint of Geneva. But 'twas a rascally business, the venerable man said, and he sorely longed for the good old days when he, and I, and Squire Pinchin, made the Grand Tour together. Alas, for that poor little man! His Reverence told me that he had gone from bad to worse; that his Mamma had married a knavish lawyer, who so bewildered Mr. Pinchin with Mortgages, and Deeds of Gift, and Loans at usurious interest, that he got at last the whole of his property from him, brought him in many thousands in debt besides, and, after keeping him for three years locked up and half-starved in the Compter, was only forced to consent to his enlargement when the unhappy little man--whose head was never of the strongest, and his wits always going a wool-gathering--went