The countenance of some of his quality friends, who arrived at Bath,
confirmed this piece of intelligence. Upon which his acquaintance
was courted and cultivated with great assiduity; and he met with
such advances from some of the fair sex, as rendered him extremely
fortunate in his amours. Nor was his friend Godfrey a stranger to
favours of the same kind; his accomplishments were exactly calculated
for the meridian of female taste; and, with certain individuals
of that sex, his muscular frame, and the robust connection of his
limbs, were more attractive than the delicate proportions of his
companion. He accordingly reigned paramount among those inamoratas
who were turned of thirty, without being under the necessity of
proceeding by tedious addresses, and was thought to have co-operated
with the waters in removing the sterility of certain ladies, who
had long undergone the reproach and disgust of their husbands;
while Peregrine set up his throne among those who laboured under
the disease of celibacy, from the pert miss of fifteen, who,
with a fluttering heart, tosses her head, bridles up, and giggles
involuntarily at sight of a handsome young man, to the staid
maid of twenty-eight, who, with a demure aspect, moralizes on the
vanity of beauty, the folly of youth, and simplicity of woman,
and expatiates on friendship, benevolence, and good sense, in the
style of a Platonic philosopher.
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