An Address to the Gentlemen.
GENTLEMEN,—It is well known that many of you spare neither pains nor cost when in pursuit of a Woman you have a mind to ruin, or when attached to one already undone. But I don’t remember to have heard of any considerable benevolence conferred by any of you upon a virtuous Woman: I therefore take this method to let you know, that if there should be any among you who have a desire to assist (with a considerable present) an agreeable Woman, for no other reason than because she wants it, such Person or Persons (if such there be), may by giving their Address in this Paper, be informed of an occasion to exercise their disinterested Generosity.
There seems to have been no hurry on the part of the gentlemen to respond to this appeal, which might have stirred the heart of a knight-errant, but which had no effect on the bloods and fribbles of the middle of last century. In this year 1752, as previously noticed, the Act was passed forbidding a notification of “no questions asked” in advertising lost or stolen property.1 The Edinburgh Courant of October 28, 1758, supplies us with our next example, and also shows that the course of true love was as uneven then as now:—
Glasgow, Octob. 23, 1758.
WE Robert M‘Nair and Jean Holmes having taken into consideration the way and manner our daughter Jean acted in her Marriage, that she took none of our advice, nor advised us before she married, for which reason we discharged her from our Family, for more than Twelve Months; and being afraid that some or other of our Family may also presume to marry without duly advising us thereof, We, taking the affair into our serious consideration, hereby discharge all and every one of our