A
Gentleman, who, tho' Deaf and Dumb, writes downany Stranger's name at first Sight; with theirfuture Contingencies of Fortune.
Now Living
In Exeter Court over-against the Savoy in theStrand.
Gentem quidem nullam video neque tam humanam atque doctam; nequtamimmanem tamque barbaram, quæ non significari futura et a quiebusdam intelligi prædicique posse censeat.
Cicero de Divinatione, lib. x.
LONDON:
Printed for E. Curll: And sold by W. Mears andT. Jauncy, without Temple Bar, W. Meadows in Cornhill,A. Bettesworth in Pater-Noster-Row. W. Lewisin Covent Garden and W. Graves in St. James's Street.M.DCC.XX. (Price 5s.)
THE INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
APPENDIX.
VERSES
I am not unacquainted, that, ever since this book was firstpromised by way of advertisement to the world, it wasgreedily coveted by a great many persons of airy tempers,for the same reason that it has been condemned by those ofa more formal class, who thought it was calculated partly tointroduce a great many new and diverting curiosities in theway of superstition, and partly to divulge the secret intriguesand amours of one part of the sex, to give the other partroom to make favourite scandal the subject of their discourse;and so to make one half of the fair species very merry, overthe blushes and the mortifications of the other half. Butwhen they come to read the following sheets, they will findtheir expectations disappointed, but I hope I may say too,very agreeably disappointed. They will find a much moreelegant entertainment than they expected. Instead of makingthem a bill of fare out of patchwork romances of pollutingscandal, the good old gentleman who wrote the Adventuresof my Life, has made it his business to treat them with agreat variety of entertaining passages, which always terminatein morals that tend to the edification of all readers, of[Pg ii]whatsoever sex, age, or profession. Instead of seducingyoung, innocent, unwary minds into the vicious delight whichis too often taken in reading the gay and bewitching chimerasof the cabalists, and in perusing the enticing fables of new-inventedtricks of superstition, my ancient f