Mr. William Rosin, of the parish of St. Katherine, is somewhat stricken in years, and married to a young widow, who has very much the ascendant over him: this degenerate age being so perverted in all things, that even in the state of matrimony the young pretend to govern their elders. The musician is extremely fond of her; but is often obliged to lay by his fiddle to hear louder notes of hers, when she is pleased to be angry with him: for you are to know, Will is not of consequence enough to enjoy her conversation but when she chides him, or makes use of him to carry on her amours. For she is a woman of stratagem; and even in that part of the world where one would expect but very little gallantry, by the force of natural genius, she can be sullen, sick, out of humour, splenetic, want new clothes, and more money, as well as if she had been bred in Cheapside or Cornhill. She was lately under a secret discontent upon account of a lover she was like to lose by his marriage: for her gallant, Mr. Ezekiel Boniface, had been twice asked in church, in order to be joined in matrimony with Mrs. Winifred Dimple, spinster, of the same parish. Hereupon Mrs. Rosin was far gone in that distemper which well-governed husbands know by the description of, "I am I know not how;" and Will soon understood, that it was his part to inquire into the occasion of her melancholy, or suffer as the cause of it himself. After much importunity, all he could get out of her, was, that she was the most unhappy and the most wicked of all women, and had no friend in the world to tell her grief to. Upon this, Will doubled his importunities; but she said that she should break her poor heart, if he did not take a solemn oath upon a Book, that he would not be angry; and that he would expose the person who had wronged her to all the world, for the ease of her mind, which was no way else to be quieted. The fiddler was so melted, that he immediately kissed her, and afterwards the Book. When his oath was taken, she began to lament herself, and revealed to him, that (miserable woman as she was) she had been false to his bed. Will was glad to hear it was no worse; but before he could reply, "Nay," said she, "I will make you all the atonement I can, and take shame upon me by proclaiming it to all the world, which is the only thing that can remove my present terrors of mind." This was indeed too true; for her design was to prevent Mr. Boniface's marriage, which was all she apprehended. Will was thoroughly angry, and began to curse and swear, the ordinary expressions of passion in persons of his condition. Upon which his wife--"Ah William! how well you mind the oath you have taken, and the distress of your poor wife, who can keep nothing from you; I hope you won't be such a perjured wretch as to forswear yourself." The fiddler answered, that his oath obliged him only not to be angry at what was past; "but I find you intend to make me laughed at all over Wapping." "No, no," replied Mrs. Rosin, "I see well enough what you would be at, you poor-spirited cuckold--you are afraid to expose Boniface, who has abused your poor wife, and would fain persuade me still to suffer the stings of conscience; but I assure you, sirrah, I won't go to the devil for you." Poor Will was not made for contention, and beseeching her to be pacified, desired she would consult the good of her soul her own way, for he would not say her nay in anything.