“Presumption is generally the companion of youth and beauty. Hilas fancied that his wit and the comeliness of his person would soon gain him a heart of nice sentiments; who content with what he had remaining, would love him for himself, and soon restore to him what he had lost. He first addrest himself to the lady, who had been the innocent cause of his misfortune. She was young, brisk, voluptuous and a coquet. Hilas adored her, and obtained a meeting; where by a train of allurements he was drawn into the road leading to a place which it was impossible for him to reach. In vain did he torment himself, and in the arms of his mistress seek the accomplishment of the oracle: nothing appeared. When the lady was tired of waiting, she set herself to rights in a moment, and quitted him. The worst of the affair was, that the foolish girl told it in confidence to one of her female friends, who, out of her great discretion, related it but to three or four of hers, who did the same to as many others: so that Hilas, two days before the darling of all the sex, was despised, pointed at, and looked on as a monster.