I will not name who you shall avoid; but all of this sort I conjure you, wheresoever you find ‘em. But if unlucky Chance throw you in their way, hear all they say, without credit or regard, as far as Decency will suffer you; hear ‘em without approving their Foppery; and hear ‘em without giving ‘em cause to censure you. But ‘tis so much Time lost to listen to all the Novels this sort of People will perplex you with; whose Business is to be idle, and who even tire themselves with their own Impertinencies. And be assur’d after all there is nothing they can tell you that is worth your knowing. And _Damon_, a perfect Lover never asks any News but of the Maid he loves. The Enquiry. Damon, _if your Love be true_ _To the Heart that you possess,_ _Tell me what have you to do_ _Where you have no Tenderness?_ _Her Affairs who cares to learn,_ _For whom he has not some Concern?_ _If a Lover fain would know_ _If the Object lov’d be true,_ _Let her but industrious be_ _To watch his Curiosity;_ _Tho’ ne’er so cold his Questions seem,_ _They come from warmer Thoughts within._ _When I hear a Swain enquire_ _What gay_ Melinda _does to live,_ _I conclude there is some Fire_ _In a Heart inquisitive;_ _Or ‘tis, at least, the Bill that’s set_ _To shew_, The Heart is to be let. TWO o’.LOCK. _Dinner-Time._ Leave all those fond Entertainments, or you will disoblige me, and make Dinner wait for you; for my _Cupid_ tells you ‘tis that Hour. _Love_ does not pretend to make you lose that; nor is it my Province to order you your Diet. Here I give you a perfect Liberty to do what you please; and possibly, ‘tis the only Hour in the whole four and twenty that I will absolutely resign you, or dispense with your even so much as thinking on me. ‘Tis true, in seating your self at Table, I would not have you placed over-against a very beautiful Object; for in such a one there are a thousand little Graces in Speaking, Looking, and Laughing that fail not to charm, if one gives way to the Eyes, to gaze and wander that way; in which, perhaps, in spight of you, you will find a Pleasure: And while you do so, tho’ without design or concern, you give the fair Charmer a sort of Vanity, in believing you have placed your self there, only for the advantage of looking on her; and she assumes a hundred little Graces and Affectations which are not natural to her, to compleat a Conquest, which she believes so well begun already. She softens her Eyes, and sweetens her Mouth; and in fine, puts on another Air than when she had no Design, and when you did not, by your continual looking on her, rouze her Vanity, and encrease her easy Opinion of her own Charms. Perhaps she knows I have some Interest in your Heart, and prides her self, at least, with believing she has attracted the Eyes of my Lover, if not his Heart; and thinks it easy to