covered them (that would have tempted any sober man living of my own
age, to have been a little loose in his thoughts, and to have enjoyed a
painful pleasure amidst his impotency) lose all their virtue, all their
force and efficacy, by having an ugly cast of boldness very discernibly
spread out at large over all those alluring features.

5. At the same time modesty will fill up the wrinkles of old age with
glory; make sixty blush itself into sixteen; and help a green sick girl
to defeat the satyr of a false waggish lover, who might compare her
colour, when she looked like a ghost, to the blowing of the rose-bud, by
blushing herself into a bloom of beauty; and might make what he meant a
reflection, a real compliment, at any hour of the day, in spite of his
teeth. It has a prevailing power with me, whenever I find it in the sex.

6. I who have the common fault of old men, to be very sour and
humoursome, when I drink my water-gruel in a morning, fell into a more
than ordinary pet with a maid whom I call my nurse, from a constant
tenderness, that I have observed her to exercise towards me beyond all
my other servants; I perceived her flush and glow in the face, in a
manner which I could plainly discern proceeded not from anger or
resentment of my correction, but from a good natured regret, upon a fear
that she had offended her grave old master.

7. I was so heartily pleased, that I eased her of the honest trouble she
underwent inwardly far my sake; and giving her half a crown, I told her
it was a forfeit due to her because I was out of humour with her without
any reason at all. And as she is so gentle-hearted, I have diligently
avoided giving her one harsh word ever since: and I find my own reward
in it: for not being so testy as I used, has made me much haler and
stronger than I was before.