Thus _Gentlemen_, you see we observe a severe justice among us, and indeed to deliver my thoughts impartially, I must needs say, that equity is administer’d after a fairer and more compendious manner in these dominions, than either in your _Westminster-Hall_, or your palace at _Paris_, where _Astræa_ pretends to carry all before her, yet has as little to do in either of those two places, as a farrier at _Venice_. A signal instance of this we have had in a late famous tryal. A foot-soldier of the first regiment of guards, and a _Drury-lane_ whore, were summon’d to appear before judge _Minos_, who after he had, with a great deal of patience, heard the crimes that were alledg’d against them, asked them what they had to offer in favour of themselves, why sentence of damnation should not pass? the young harlot, either replying upon the merits of her face, which she foolishly imagin’d would bring her off here, as it had often done in your world, or else being naturally furnish’d with a greater stock of impudence than the soldier, broke thro’ the crowd, and thus address’d herself to the court: I hope your lordship, says she, will take no advantage of a poor woman’s ignorance, who ought to have learned counsel to plead for her; however, I depend so much upon the justice of my cause, that I will undertake it my self. The chief argument I insist upon, my lord, is this: I think it highly unreasonable that I should suffer a-new for my crimes in this world, having done sufficient penance for them in the other. By my aunt’s consent and privity, I was sold to an old libidinous lord, and debauch’d by him before I was fourteen; the noble peer kept me some four months; then took occasion to pick a quarrel with me, and set me a drift in the wide world, to steer my course as fortune should direct me. In this exigence I was forc’d to apply my self to a venerable old matron, who finding me young and handsome, took me into her service, shamm’d me upon her customers for a baronet’s daughter of the _North_, and much I was made of, and courted like a little queen; but, my lord, our profession is directly opposite to all others, for too much custom breaks us. In short, an officer in the army, whom _Pluto_ rewarded for his pains, taught me what _Fortune de la guerre_ meant, so that I was very fairly salivated before fifteen. Having got a little knowledge of the world under this old matron’s directions, who went more than halves with me in every bargain, I thought it high time to trade for my self, and told her one morning, that I was resolved to expose myself no longer in her house. What you please as for that, replies this antient gentlewoman, but first, my dear child, let us come to a fair account to see how the land lies between us. Then stepping into the next room she shew’d me a deal-board all be-scrawl’d with round o’s and cart-wheels in ungodly chalk; then clapping on her spectacles, let me see, cries she,