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You are now wholly retired from the bufy Part of Mankind, and at leisure to reflect upon your past Atchievements; for which Reason, I look upon you as a Person very well qualified for a Dedication.

I may poffibly disappoint my Readers, and your felf too, if I do not endeavour on this Occafion to make the World acquainted with your Virtues. And here, Sir, I fhall not compliment you upon your Birth, Perfon, or Fortune; nor any other the like Perfections, which You poffefs whether You will or no: But fhall only touch upon thofe, which are of your own acquiring, and in which every one muft allow You have a real Merit.

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Your janty Air and eafy Motion, the Volubility of your Difcourse, the Suddenness of your Laugh, the Management of your Snuff-Box, with the Whitenefs of your Hands and Teeth (which have justly gained You the Envy of the most polite part of the Male World, and the Love of the greatest Beauties in the Female) are intirely to be ascribed to your own perfonal Genius and Application.

You are formed for thefe Accomplishments by a happy Turn of Nature, and have finished your felf in them by the utmost Improvements of Art. A Man that is defective in either of thefe Qualifications (whatever may be the A 3 fecret

fecret Ambition of his Heart) must never hope to make the Figure You have done, among the fashionable part of his Species. It is therefore no wonder, we fee fuch Multitudes of afpiring young Men fall fhort of You in all thefe Beauties of your Character, notwithstanding the Study and Practice of them is the whole Business of their Lives. But I need not tell You that the free and difengaged Behaviour of a fine Gentleman makes as many aukward Beaux, as the Eafinefs of your Favourite Waller hath made infipid Poets.

At prefent You are content to aim all your Charms at your own Spouse, without further Thought

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of Mischief to any others of the Sex. I know you had formerly a very great Contempt for that Pedantick Race of Mortals who call themfelves Philofophers; and yet, to your Honour be it fpoken, there is not a Sage of them all could have better acted up to their Precepts in one of the most important Points of Life: I mean in that Generous Dif-regard of Popular Opinion, which you fhowed fome Years ago, when you chofe for your Wife an obfcure young Woman, who doth not indeed pretend to an ancient Family, but has certainly as many Fore-fathers as any Lady in the Land, if fhe could but reckon up their Names. A 4

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I must own I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the Moment that you confeffed your Age, and from eight and forty (where you had stuck so many Years) very ingeniously step'd into your Grand Climacterick. Your Deportment has fince been very venerable and becoming. If I am rightly informed, You make a regular Appearance every QuarterSeffions among your Brothers of the Quorum; and if things go on as they do, stand fair for being a Colonel of the Militia. I am told that your Time paffes away as agreeably in the Amusements of a Country Life, as it ever did in the Gallantries of the Town: And that

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