find that the effects of Anger kill many more than the passion of Love Men being often Angry with many Men at once but never in Love with more than one Woman at a time and that one it self is too many by one But my design being not to Court the young Ladies with high Complements but to serve them with great reality I must assure them that these high praises the more they are trusted the more they 'll betray and the more you Ladies confide in their worth the more you 'll be deceiv'd in their value so that it follows by the plain Rule of common reason that so much as you deduct of Mens overpraises so much you lessen of your own self deceivings Indeed these poysoned Darts of praises have got such a predominant power over most young handsom Women and the most handsom are most subject to them that most of them are in danger of being wounded by them because the peril of flattery still mounts with the degrees of beauty as the Suns heat still increases proportionable as it rises Flattery and vain-glorious praises are both insinuating Devils two Twins begot by the father of Lies and these not only attempt all but possess most vain handsom Ladies and therefore they ought above all to be very strict and diligently active to shun such tempting discourse and avoid such dangerous Company or at least when with them to be sure still to carry about them S. James his good direction and antidote resist the Devil and he will flie from you Really if young Ladies would but take a steddy resolution to resist and slight all young Mens vain Courtships and place no such high estimation on their own beauty they would easily do the like on mens praises and by this means young Gallants would slacken in their Courtships proportionable to the young Ladies cooling in their receptions of it and so make Men despise Womens beauty suitable to their slighting Mens Love and thus Womens prudence would become Mens wisdom for in real truth 't is hope of gain makes love Merchants as well as others none watch Bees but for their Hony and few Court fair Ladies but for some hopes of a return and therefore you never hear of any of the young Sparks that plant their Love Batteries against Nunneries not because they think the young Women in them have too little beauty but because they believe they shall meet there with too great a resistance by the care they take and strictness they use to prevent Mens making any Addresses and near approaches to them for as Mr. Cowley says a well govern'd heart like rich China admits Men only to the Frontier part for a strict vertue sets certain bounds to young handsom Womens carriage and behaviour towards Men which they are not to exceed as the Almighty gave to the Sea so far you shall go and no farther And though I know there 's no such thing now adays in practice among our young Men as Angel Love which is the pure Commerce of the Souls yet I believe Venus Love does not rage so very much nor is its infection so very strong and rife as Censurers would fain have it making our Age much worse than 't is when God knows 't is but too bad at best as if the youth of both Sexes were now so corrupt as that a young Gentleman cannot visit a young Lady nor a young Lady receive visits from a young Gentleman without imputation of scandal or the censure of ill and vicious designs on both sides tho I verily believe some young Men I do not say all nor yet many love Womens company and Women Mens on no other account than for their great wit good humor and agreeable Conversation without any farther ends And now I am beginning to enter into that part of this Discourse which principally addresses it self to the handsom young Maiden Ladies and chiefly among them to such as are innocently and modestly bred for such sort of young Women often entertain discourses and make acquaintances with young Men without the least thought of love or design of ill many of them looking civilly and talking freely to them on no other account than to shew and exercise their wit and that may be more to please their own fancy than on design to take that of others but yet I must advise such young Women to consider that meer civil looks often tempt and refusals may be given after such a manner as may rather embolden one to ask more than to beg pardon for having asked too much for as one well observes of strict vertuous Women That Man comes too near to them that comes to be denied by them Indeed 't is not very rare now a days for civil looks in young Women to breed Adulterous thoughts in young Men for the Gospel tells us that there is an Adultery of the Eye and I am sure we ought all to remember with grief of mind that assoon as the Serpent had perswaded that the forbidden fruit was pleasant to the Eye it soon follow'd that it became delightful to the Tast if Mens Vows of Love and Oaths of Constancy can but once tempt young Maids appetites to taste 't will soon make them anticipate their fears to eat Therefore Ladies have a care of receiving Mens praises and flatteries and though you believe your own Vertue never so strong and yours Lovers Courtship never so innocent as possibly they may be at first received by you and design'd by him only as the effects of pure civility and not of any ill intention yet praises are so naturally agreeable to vain handsom Ladies as they often unperceiv'd insinuate and wind themselves so about their hearts as to kindle there by degrees Love likings though perhaps they do not feel so much as the least slight atome Love to creep on the superficies of their heart Love sometimes like a Tortoise makes its way though it does not seem to stir or like the hand of a Watch which though you cannot perceive to move yet you may plainly see its hourly advances Love often growing in young Womens minds as Diseases do in their bodies without ever giving the least Alarm or Advertisement of its approach till it breaks out into a dangerous fit of Sickness Solomon says a soft word breaks the Bone therefore no wonder if smooth praises and complements should charm a young Ladies tender heart for sure 't is no wonderful operation in our times for small freedoms like little Thieves to open the Doors to great Liberties and venial wantonness to turn to modish wickedness Therefore let me advise the vain Ladies not to deceive themselves in fancying that they are more invincible in their Love railleries in receiving praises from young Men than King Solomon was with dallying with strange Women which drew him into the Sin of Idolatry This example may serve as a Caution to young Ladies not to relie too much on their own strength for many Maids
friendly Caution that it might appear as publick as young Womens inconstancy or young Mens folly who pretend to a perfect knowledge and sole possession of a young beauties heart you that propound to your selves propriety in Love know Womens hearts like straws do move and that which you vainly think is Sympathy with you is really but Love to Jet in general Indeed the most experienc'd Venus Philosophers and enlightned Inspectors into the humors of most Womens hearts and affections are apt to make as gross oversights in their guesses and fancies of their making good Wives or true Lovers as the ablest Seamen do often commit mistakes in their sight at Sea sometimes taking Land for Clouds other times Clouds for Land Really the very best and most able Masters of Art and most Critical Enquirers with their greatest observations and pretences of knowledge as to the Motions of Ladies hearts can only make such imperfect guesses and speculations as Astronomers do of the Operation of the Stars which is but by the great they can give an account of the general order of Providence in their Stations and Motions but can give no certain Rule or true Measure to discern their Influences upon particular actions or bodies no more than they can give a reason other than Gods Will why constant success attends this Mans undertakings and a continued ill fortune waits on another Mans endeavors or why a wicked cursed Tyrant should live out his Natural Life prosperously among his abused Vassals and our highly excellent and truly pious Martyr King Charles the first of ever Blessed Memory should be barbarously Murder'd by his own free Subjects which is a most clear and plain Lesson of instruction not to Judg the true right of Causes by the false light of successes and therefore sober religious Men freely own their ignorance as to the certain Causes of the divers effects of Gods providence as to the event of things in this world there being such an infinity of Causes that depend on one another that good and wise Christians esteem it their best and safest way to live in a state of Neutrality as to a pretending knowledge of the effects of Gods providence in the Issues either of his Mercies or Judgments And truly if our young Gallants were as wise as they ought to be they would also live in a State of Neutrality as to their Judgment of the motions of young Ladies fancies and be satisfied with these general notions that their minds and inclinations are generally bent towards men who are young handsom rich witty high born well bred and the like but how to discern special Causes for particular Occurrences and to be able to tell the true reasons and give the just measures for Womens so often differing and varying in their Love fancies is I believe beyond the power of Man to Judge some Women esteeming the black before the fair others the fair before the black in which few agree or this handsom Man before t'other and sometimes an ugly Man before them both Womens likings to Men being like their mode of governing who tho the power be still the same and certain yet the manner of it is always changeable and inconstant I say in all these changes or rovings of fancy the most knowing and experienc'd Lovers can make at very best but imperfect Guesses almost as very uncertain as Womens Constancy or young Mens Love which indeed is much of the nature of common Hay and Stubble which a little spark lights and a small time consumes young Men being more inconstant in their addresses than very beauty in its duration most of our young Gallants Love being not able to keep up to the same degree of Elevation as the short space wherein their Mistrisses beauty does In a word I think the best Wit and most knowing Lover cannot say better of the nature of Womens Love than what S. Austin said of the nature of the Times I fancy I know it when no body bids me describe it but find I am ignorant of it when any does Truly few of our 〈◊〉 Lâ—â—â—es guide themselves in their Love choices by the clear Light and true Rule of Reason which occasions their being so often misled by the vain Love flashes of their present Airy fancy And indeed when a young Mans alluring beauty or what else you please to call it attracts a young Womans sight and thereby moves her fickle fancy and inconstant likings and so stamps a fierce but hasty impression of Love on her tender slippery heart which commonly makes the newest object the richest prize for indeed most of our modish Ladies Gallants are to them like the Fashions where usually the last Commer is best lik'd and most us'd And the Jest of it is that many of these changeable Ladies being so smitten are apt to believe that this their last Love is the only true one and that all their former Loves were but a kind of Mushrom Love which sprung up in a Night as Mushroms do without any Root but that this their present Love is built on good reason and true consideration and therefore shall be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians unalterable being so deeply engraven in their marble hearts as 't is never to be altered or worn out but by death forgetting all the Changes they formerly made and by the same Rule of Inconstancy they may hereafter make according to the taking objects which new conversation may present and that 't is possible if not probable that their present passion of Love that is so newly kindled and fully lighted may in some farther time be swallow'd up and extinguished by a more inviting beauty that may present more charming and agreeable and 't is most certain that the Love which possesses and inflames a young Ladies heart last Eclipses all former fancies as the Suns appearance darkens all other Lights the Sun being to be seen by no other light but his own In short most Womens hearts and Love vows of Constancy are to be read but like strange Prophecies which are to be understood not by their Words but by their Events Indeed most of our airy Ladies are so volatile and fickle in their Amours as not only their Eyes hearts and inclinations but their whole nature is so addicted to change and variety as one might as easily fix Mercury or make brickle Glass malleable as to fix a young Womans humor and love-fancy so as not to break out into change and inconstancy they being more fickle and changable than the very Wind it self for there are Trade Winds that blow still certainly one way all the Year without ever altering from the same Point and Place but a vain Ladies Constancy is not certainly to be found at any time or in any place their Love-humors being like the Camelions Colours whose property is to have no certain one So that 't is no wonder to find a young Woman that is inconstant but a greater one to find one
satisfaction in the thoughts that others believe they enjoy their Mistrisses than they themselves do in the actual enjoyment of them our young Men retaining still so much of the old Roman pride as to love the Triumph more than the Conquest and indeed I am of opinion that on the bragging account of enjoying Mistrisses now so much in fashion among the late Debauchees those Men that boast they do though they do it not are not so bad as those that boast of it in so vain-glorious a manner as to act a real Sin Then the young Gallant can tell their enjoy'd Mistrisses that meer love of beauty is but a meer amorous desire and that none but fools desire what they possess possession being the full end and accomplishment of all desire and consequently of all beauty Love and so laugh at the simplicity of those that will endure long the scorching flames of a violent Love passion fancying none but the foolish barbarous Persians can long adore that Sun which burns them And our young Gallants are now generally grown so very nice that they cannot feed on any thing but sweet variety which makes them rant in the Hectoring Language of the Times and say that 't is as unmodish to have but one Mistris as to have none at all and therefore Swear that Mistrisses enjoy'd though never so young and beautiful are but like Romances read and Plays once seen and indeed methinks enjoy'd Mistrisses ought not to wonder at their Gallants sickleness it being not at all strange that an unvertuous Love should make an inconstant Lover And now I must beg leave to glance my discourse a little on a Fault which some young Ladies commit without ever considering 't is one which is sometimes to exercise their wit shew their pride and vanity or gaity of humor or what else you please to call it to make themselves sport and entertainment spread abroad their fine silken nets of inticing arts and attracting allurements to incourage and invite some young Fop to become fond of one of their Company as his dearly beloved and highly admir'd Mistris only that they may have thereby the better means and occasion to railly and make pastime with him never considering that by making him thus to fall in love with one of them he is obliged by the general Rules and common practices of our Modern refin'd Lovers to magnify and extoll her beauty and never to be sparing of his Oaths and Lies in praising her perfections and his own overflowing passion and so cause him to sin in earnest though probably design'd by the Lady as a Jest but 't will be no sufficient excuse in this bad kind of raillery to say your intention was innocent since its effect is culpable for we are not to do ill that good may come of it and sure much less to do ill where no good can come of it and I am sure this is an undeniable truth That she who makes another do an ill thing does an ill thing her self by her making another to do it Therefore Ladies whether in Jest or Earnest if you are truly vertuous and desire really to continue so and that the world should esteem you such as designing to admit men only to admire your Persons but never to ruin your vertue the best way to effect it is never to let them Court your beauty for remember that the Fire of Love is like that of Anger a short but fierce madness for a Man that 's in Love during the raging fit of his enflam'd lustful passion talks light and idly for a Lovers heart rises and falls is happy and unhappy according as his Mistris is kind or unkind it being indeed but very suitable to the folly of being in Love that such a Lovers heart should never move according to the dictates of his own reason but the vain motions of his Mistrisses fickle fancy and therefore because such Men know not what the do their Mistrisses ought not to mind what they say nor admit their Addresses though they pretend them in jest or for meer pastime and not to kindle their hopes when they mean never to feed their desires but avoid conversing with them and entertaining of them for surely all persons ought to avoid mad Bedlam acquaintances and young Men during their distracted Love passion value not what Praises they present what Offers they make nor indeed what price they give to purchase the enjoyment of their dear Mistrisses though it be at the damnable rate of long continued Idolatry and often repeated Perjury O strange and wicked madness that these kind of Lovers cannot be content to give their Mistrisses their heart for a little time without giving their Souls to the Devil for ever and fancy he is as very obliging as they are foolish and inconstant and that the Devil will as easily forget the Oaths they made to him as they do theirs they made to their Mistrisses which were intended but as meer Courtiers Complements which are meant no longer than they are speaking and therefore ought to be thought on no longer than they are hearing but though such Lovers fancy they give their Souls to the Devil but in jest yet he will be careful to keep them in earnest for if they will commit the sin of making such Oaths let them have a care the Devil be not permitted to make them endure the Hellish Penance of keeping them God will not be mocked I have enlarged this Discourse on the folly of Mens overpraising and Courting Women with great Confidence because I fancy with much Experience though I am sure with little Prudence for I confess such experience was bought too dear yet I have this satisfaction that the fault of committing a vice do's not consist in the confession of it but in the yeilding to it and therefore I own I have served much more than a thrice seven years Prenticeship in the Trade of Love and its foolish appendant Train of Fopperies which was I confess a great fault against the well spending of my time which might have been much better employ'd in the duties of Religion than in the pastimes and vain company of modish Women but I have now serv'd out my Time in that foolish Trade and am become a perfect freeman as to that folly of Courting all modish Ladies not that I am at all grown a Woman hater or a precise Puritan or such a true Disciple of Job as to make a Covenant with mine Eyes not to behold a handsom Woman for I shall still own I look upon all beautiful Women to come nearest of all Creatures in brightness and splendor to the glorious Angels and am very much pleased when I can pass away an hour or two in an afternoon among such of them as are not irreligious but of a vertuous reputation and are good Wits free humor'd and of pleasant Converse for 't is not keeping company with but paying an adoration to Ladies beauty that makes the crime
experience tells us there 's only Labour Infirmity and Sorrow young Husbands and old Wives being but meer names things of form not use only made to torment one another Living in one House but Lying in two Beds for the old Wife would have what the young Husband will not give and the old Wife cannot give what the young Husband would have in short a bad Wife at Land is like a Storm at Sea which because a Man is so unhappy to be engaged in and cannot be rid of it must be suffer'd out with patience And so I have done with old Wives for I am certain the Reader must be weary of them as well as I am sure the Writer is and therefore I will leave this extream of old Age and treat on that of young beauty and the folly of them that Marry meerly for it and here set you down in a few Lines the common degrees usual accesses and woful events of such hot rash hasty meer beauty Marriages as are now in fashion among many of our young Gallants who choose Wives as the silly Indians do our Merchants Tynsel and Bawbles who value their real worth only by their glittering show The first steps and degrees of a young Gallants growing love and fancy to his Mistris are generally these first he likes the Woman as we say in a Lump or by whole-sale then he admires her beauties apart courts her person loves her humor thinks all she says is witty and all she does is graceful and becoming and all her actions agreeable and excellent though possibly not one of them are so for you must know that beauty in Love is like Charity in Religion it covereth a multitude of faults Then he presents his heart and she becomes the sole Mistris of it and as his passion increases so he fancies her beauty does till at last he believes the scorching flames of her beauty to be more insupportable than a Midsummers Sun in its full meridian heat and strength and therefore resolves to follow S. Paul's advice 'T is better to Marry than Burn but then pray take this Caution with you that tho of two evils 't is best to choose the least yet that argues neither to be good as indeed it was not when S. Paul first spoke those words and in some sense may not be so now yet however our fierce Lovers heart being all a fire his mind thereby grows restless and as very much out of order as his reason if a Man in Love has any for to say a passionate Lover that has lost his heart and can yet keep his reason is the greatest of follies next to that of being so in Love But since our Amorous Gallant is so furiously smitten rather than not quench the Amorous scorching flames of his lustful passion she resolving not to admit him to her Bed in any other shape than that of a Husband not confiding at all in his Vows of speedily Marrying her possibly because she had tried anothers word before and he broke it and deceiv'd her and therefore she resolv'd not to be cozened so a second time by a second Tryal our hot Politick Lover to enjoy the momentary delight of embracing her beauty does with much desperatness and little consideration cast himself down that dangerous Precipice of Matrimony and long-liv'd trouble of a Wife tho he buy her at the dearest rate of Purchasing and it may be worse sort of sooling an ill Marriage a very sad bottom to Insure the content and happiness of a Mans life upon since he who only Trades to get the Merchandise of beauty may become a sad looser tho he gets his whole Adventure since such a sort of Matrimony does usually bring the Husband and often the Wife Springs of misery and inconveniencies but seldom so much as any drops of the Oyl of pure gladness and true satisfaction And indeed one of the great reasons why Men that Marry for mere beauty are commonly so unhappy in their Choice is That as their Mistrisses beauty is but a mixture of flashy and glaring colours so is in a manner their reason for not considering that beauty Love is but like Gunpowder which as it flames at the first Spark so it sets forth all its strength and fierceness at its first firing and then soon expires into meer smoak and air The first falling in Love of an amorous Man being just like the first surprize of Anger in a Cholerick Person it runs on so violently as it stays not to attend reason nor consult discretion or conveniency and so strips it self of true understanding and therefore assoon as such a Husband has cloy'd his sensual Appetite on that surfeiting Dish of a meer beauty Marriage his stomack being used to feast on sweet variety longs for other food and then first Love grows indifferent his passion soon cools his eager fiery fancy grows quickly dull and his mind suddenly changes so that he presently forms a new desire or passion of love and loaths his former beauty Companion as the most irksom deformity and she whom he was so lately fond of as the most pleasing Charm and Converse of his life who was a kind of Elixir salutis to his very heart and soul and the Center point where all the Lines of his happiness did meet She in whom he could find no discontent with or content without She whose presence made a Village as agreeable as London and her absence London as doleful as a Village In short this very She whose Company he esteem'd his Heaven upon Earth no sooner was the flower of her fair and youthful beauty worn off but his fickle passion assoon decays and grows languid and this late Soul of his soul and Joy of his heart turns to be the very clog and burden of his life and from all Mistris becomes all Wife that is she falls from the top of all admiration to the depth of meer misery and from an extraordinary charming delight to an ordinary necessary evil called a Wife And such Husbands commonly call such Wives and so do Wives such Husbands the Yoaks of Liberty and the Stocks of Love and all know that neither of them can be easie or pleasing in such a bondage being an enemy and destroyer of sweet variety so that the Husbands love being decay'd with his Wives beauty he grows weary of her she of him and both of one another And as to a young Mans Marrying an old ugly Wife meerly for her Mony all I shall need say of it is that often such young Men fancy such Mony Wives to be of the same Nature of Mony it self whose vertue consists not in keeping of it but in parting with it and so commonly use such Wives accordingly and thus this wild passionate Love or meer Mony Marriages like wild-fire soon devours and consumes it self in its own flame and Torrent like instead of refreshing it destroys and by over-pressing too violently the course and streams of its Waters soon
whose mind is truly sanctified will extract uses of vertue out of such extravagant Womens vanities like the Bee that sucks Hony out of all sorts of venomous Herbs and like Fire that turns all things within its compass to its self and such a Ladies holy course of Life will be steady and certain in its progress like the Sun in his daily motion nothing of Storms or changable weather can ever hasten or retard its regular course for a Lady that 's in the holy state of true Mortification her constant Piety will so purifie and draw off her inclinations from all vain pastimes and modish vanities and from those foul dregs of impurity that are the usual attendants of a vain idle London Life that by this Transfiguration of Mind and pious habit of Life her Conversation will be as the Apostle says fixed up in Heaven and we all know that the upper Region of the Air it self will admit of no Storms or Thunder for they are all formed below it And farther that Lady who is so blessed as to have her heart touch'd with this Magnetic vertue of true godliness her thoughts will be elevated to such a heavenly pitch of spiritual vertue and religion as she will despise all the young Gallants fine words deep sighs and languishing looks with all their high Praises and showers of Complements which will work no more on her sanctified Mind than showers of Hail on the tops of well covered Houses which fall off as soon as it falls on without ever touching any of the inward part And whereas our vain Ladies receive the extravagant encomiums and flatteries I might have almost said Adorations of their vain Gallants as the Lawful Issue of their own applauded Merit a truly pious Lady will only hearken to all the Airy Praises young Men ascribe to her beauty to be but the Bastard brood of their own abundant sin and folly and she will make such pious reflections on such young Mens overmuch praises grounded on a sense of her own unworthiness of them as she will not only despise their extravagant speeches but themselves for speaking of them which doubtless cannot but be very acceptable to God the searcher of all hearts who still giveth grace to the humble Therefore Ladies if you really desire true piety and humility I must advise you again and again never to hearken with delight or hear with belief or indeed suffer with patience but shun with diligence young Mens airy praises and Complements nor yet countenance their flatteries for multitude of Praises cannot but perplex young Ladies Minds as many Lights still confound the Sight and therefore when you hear young Men give their Tongues such loose liberties and over large ranges in magnifying your beauty remember such high Complemental expressions are to be trusted no more than the Christian Flag of a Turkish Pyrat which he only hangs out that you might esteem him your friend that thereby he may make you become his Slave Therefore Ladies keep still about you this preservative of your vertue that you look upon on all the vain Gallants that Court you with high Complements and great praises to be but so many Judas's that come to betray you with a kiss and do not believe their Oaths either on the account of what they swear as to your great beauty or their own true Love for really flattery and vain praises are now grown such common Arts among fond Lovers as well as great States-men and Complemental Courtiers as we often meet the truth of their meaning in the contradiction of their words 7. My last concluding advise to the vain modish Ladies is when one of you is curiously beholding and admiring your fine Face in your Glass and find that the great beauty of it raises proud thoughts in your heart which is almost as common among handsom Ladies as 't is for them to look in their Glass which nothing can be more common humble your pride with these mortifying reflections that this very fine Face of yours that you like so much love so well and are so taken with and fond of must unavoidably in a little time become loathsom rottenness stink and corruption turn odious either to be seen or smelt which is as very certain as mortality it self and death you know is not only sure to meet you but your are exposed by a thousand accidents to meet it whilst you are travelling in this Earthly Pilgrimage for the spritely gaiety of your blossom youth can only let you know how long you may possibly live but can give no advance security how long you certainly will therefore young Ladies as well as old Men ought still to march under the safe Conduct of a vertuous Life and not to trust to the temptation of a long Life but to rely only on the blessed security of a good one I shall conclude this Discourse and Book with the good saying of an excellent religious person That the vainest beauty on Earth cannot justly deny this great Truth that beauty is not absolutely necessary to the good of this Life but that Piety is essentially necessary both to the good of this Life and the next too since one may live well without beauty but one can neither live or die well without Piety FINIS
The Second Discourse 〈◊〉 meer Beauty-Love with some of the vile Arts and wicked Deceits many Gallants use to ruin their Mistresses Reputation under a false pretence of true Friendship And of the great folly of such VVomen who delight in censuring others but slight all others censuring them because they fancy they do not deserve it with some useful Advices thereon p. xxxii The Third Discourse Of young Mens great folly in adoring and over-praising all young handsom Ladies and their greater vanity in receiving it and believing them p. 1 The Fourth Discourse Of the extraordinary governing power VVomens Beauty now exercises over most young Men. p. 21 The Fifth Discourse Of the Inconstancy most Ladies especially such as are cry'd up Beauties and the folly of any Man that believes he 's fully acquainted with and soley possess'd of a vain Beauties Heart and can give good reasons for the various Motions of her Love-changes p. 42 The Sixth Discourse Of Marriage and of VVives who usurp a Govering Power over their Husbands which is now so common as 't is almost become the general Grievance of the Nation p. 5â— The Seventh Discourse Of the inequality of many Marriages awd of the Inconstancy of most VVives that Men Marâ—â—â— for meer Beauty or their Parents Match forbaâ— Mony with the sad end that usually attends suâ— Matches p. 6â— The Eighth Discourse Against Maids Marrying for meer Love or only 〈◊〉 please their Parents Inclinations tho' quite contrary to their own p. 8â— The Ninth Discourse Against VVIDOVVS Marrying p. 9â— The Tenth Discourse Against keeping of MISSES p. 11â— The Eleventh Discourse Of the vain Folly of such VVomen as think to sheâ— their VVit by Jeering at and Censuring of their Neighbours p. 12â— The Twelfth Discourse Of the French Fassions and Dresses lately us'd 〈◊〉 England by the modish Ladies and your sparks p. 13â— The Thirteenth Discourse Of VVorldly Praises which all Ladies love to receive but few strive to deserve and the sad eâ— of it and them when they come to Die p. 15â— The Fourteenth Discourse Vseful advices in order to the vain modish Ladies we Regulating their Beauty and Lives p. 17â— THE FIRST DISCOURSE Of some of the common ways many vertuous Wives take to lose their Reputation tho' they keep their Chastity being vertuous in their inward Intentions but indiscreet in their Talk and outward Actions and Men judge by what they see not by what Women say they mean I Shall not here Reader pretend to present you with the Sum Total of the numerous and various Ways many handsom Women take to be ill talk'd of for that I am sure would be a Task as much above my Power to write as I fancy 't would be above your Patience to read and he that can perform that great work must need at least a Prophet's Knowledge and a Job's Patience and truly I pretend to neither Nor have I so much as a Thought of undertaking singly to tell you all the Faults Arts Deceits and Indiscretions of all Wives much less of all Women since I fancy if all the Husbands in the whole World were assembled in one general Council they could no more sum up all their Wive's Faults than cure all their Vices for Miracles are ceas'd to the whole World but the Papist of whose Faith I thank God I am not of But of this opinion I am that 't is sufficient for every Married Man to carry his own Burden and Proportion in the Matrimonial Yoke with Discretion and Patience which latter is a Vertue their Wives will be sure to make them practise if they be not more fortunate than the generality of Husbands are and I think ever will be if one may judge of the future by the present I shall name but few and write but little of the many and several ways diverse virtuous I do not say discreet Wives take to be ill talked of and shall here skip troubling you with a Character of a vile sort of scandalous Wives that are commonly known and publickly branded for such who have by their wicked Lives render'd themselves so contemptible as they are to be us'd by all vertuous Women as we do persons infected with the Plague We are not bound to go see how they do but we are oblig'd to avoid coming where they are both for our own sake and the sake of others and to remember to observe Solomon's good Advice as to a vertuous Woman's carriage towards an ill scandalous Woman Remove thy way far from her and come not near the door of her House These are a sort of beastly Women that take upon them the vile employment of common censuring and publick rayling at all strict Vertuous Women arming themselves with downright Impudence having lost all their shame with their Vertue for they that part with the one soon casts off the other And because they have render'd themselves contemptible by their ill Lives they strive to make good Women appear bad by their foul Tongues scandalizing the Vertues by all the ill Reports they can invent being like those Solomon names Who cannot sleep without having done some mischief being so abominably bad as their very Parents for Friends they have none want Confidence to excuse them and they Impudence to justify themselves These Herd of beastly Women the Vertuous are bound in Charity to pity their bad Condition but in Prudence to shun their ill Company and so I 'll leave them with a red Cross on their Door and a Lord have mercy on their bad lives The first sort of Wives I shall here name and but name are a kind of Wives that have the Happiness to be thought vertuous by many but the Unhappiness to be esteem'd vain and indiscreet by most they are careful to keep themselves Chast but careless of what others say against their being so and because they think they do no ill value not what ill others say they do which is but a sad sort of Logick and an ill way of managing their Reputation since tho' a Wive's Innocency may satisfy her own Conscience yet it cannot protect her Husband's Honour nor secure her own since publick Censure may blemish both if an outward discreet carriage doth not prevent Therefore doubtless a Wife who is truly vertuous and truly desires to be esteem'd such is as much concern'd in Honour to keep a good Name as she is bound in Conscience to lead a good Life and the Wife which in point of Reputation values little what others say seldom care much what she her self doth for what bad Censures she casts on others or others cast on her and a Wife or Woman of that ill Temper usually loves more to commit a hundred faults than to repent of one or be told of any never considering that a handsom Woman's leaving a Vice argues no defect in her Body but a vertuous inclination in her Mind For the very best Women in the World are subject to Faults and Errors as well
conclude That he has either spoke ill of her Reputation or has acted some rudeness to her Person already or that she hath reason to fear he will do it hereafter and therefore has for bid him her Company either upon the account of revenge for what 's past or by the way of prevention for the time to come therefore I am clear of opinion a Woman ought not to forbid an old Friend and Acquaintance visiting her except it be upon one of these two nam'd Accounts or else upon the score that she has reason to believe her Husband does not well rellish his coming so often to her and if that be the Business if this her Friend be what he really pretends to be and she seems to believe he is he cannot justly take it ill that she freely tells him That his visiting her so constantly tho' their Converse be never so Vertuous and Innocent yet she has some cause to fear it has or may if long continued raise her Husbands Dislike and the Worlds Censure therefore to prevent both and secure her own Quiet and good Reputation she friendly desires him for the future to make his Visits shorter and seldomer to stop all busy ill-natured Censurers Tongues and any Jealousies their malicious Twatlings might raise in her Husbands Mind And sure if this her dear esteemed Friend truly deserves that Title he must value her Honour as part of his own and make her Content his Satisfaction since she freely and heartily assures him 't is not at all upon the account of her lessening her true Esteem and Friendship for him but meerly to secure her Husbands Love and Kindness to her that she desires this of him Next I shall advise that Woman who stands so much on her inward Vertue as to slight her Friends Advice and the Worlds Censure for keeping her Friend so much company seriously to consider That 't is above the power of any Mortal to dive into a Womans inward Thoughts and that Men can only behold her outward Actions not inward Intentions For tho' Men can see her Lips move when she whispers yet they cannot tell what she speaks when she does so Much less are they able to dive into either of their Meanings for that 's so great a secret as one of them may deceive the other with for all their Vows and Oaths of an open Heart a true Love and an unalterable Friendship I could name a thousand Arts Slights and Deceits that many Gallants use to their Mistresses but I am sure I should sooner tire my Readers Patience with their great numbers than by their great numbers to confirm his belief of their great Truth except it be the Truth of their great Folly and vile Falsity for indeed most of the young Gallants of our present sober and Vertuous Age do commonly in their Courtship to their present Mistresses carry little Truth in their Heart but many more Romantick Lies on their Tongues than Teeth in their Mouth And now Reader pray give me leave to change a little the Scene of my Discourse of the great Beauty of the Mistresses to add a word of the great and wicked actings of some of their Gallants who having tried all arts and means they could invent to gain their Mistresses Heart I still except Marriage and after all their Essays find it so strongly fortified and fully Garrison'd with Vertue and Piety as they see it impregnable against all their Batteries and Assaults so as to cast themselves into an utter despair of ever gaining their wicked ends on them I say can any Man of common Sense not think it full time for him to found a Retreat as to following their Persons tho' he cannot leave admiring their Beauty Indeed I have ever observed that Importunity still breeds Trouble but I never heard it ever created Love in a Mistress Yet this sort of wicked foolish Gallants are so indefatigable in the folly of their endless Pursuit after their Mistress as they will not believe they hate them tho' their Words and Actions declare their scorn and aversion to them but they will tell you what 's three Kicks of denial to a Lover that has read the Patience of Job or the sober Temper of Seneca or has often experimented the Inconstancy and Fickleness of an ill humored Mistress which perhaps exceeds both And therefore by way of Revenge he quickly resolves rather than be publickly ridiculed for missing his aim losing his time and not gaining his Mistress since he cannot enjoy her fair Person he will endeavour blasting her good Name and make the World believe she 's kind to him tho' she 's only really so to her own Virtue and Reputation by despising him and all his Courtship and the better to accomplish his base and treacherous Design on her he alters his Course changes his Battery and comes and throws himself at his Virtuous Mistresses Feet with the greatest seeming Joy imaginable That God has so blessed him as he is now become an intire religious Convert who has abandoned all the vain Pleasures of this World to contemplate the pure and endless Felicities of Heaven and that now instead of being a Slave to the Beauty of her Body he is become a devout well-wisher to the good of her Soul And intends to be so vile an Hypocrite and wicked a Sinner that since he could not gain her Body by all earthly means he resolves to flie to Heaven it self for a religious disguise to ruin her Reputation and satisfy his Revenge since he could not his Love and therefore he now only pretends to pure Piety strict Virtue true Humility much Gravity and great Penitency in all his Discourses and Actions I mean before her only and seriously and devoutly protesteth to her for in this Disguise he dares not Swear that he highly rejoyceth that all the Courtship he made and Perswasions he used served only to try her Humour not tempt her Virtue which he now highly rejoyces to find proof against all Temptations Vowing to her he is now more delighted with the true Virtue of her Mind than ever he was formerly taken with the great Beauty of her Face for the first is pure and Heavenly the last meer sensual the first relisheth of Angel-Love the second may and often does savour of meer brutal Lust And thus whilst he makes up all his Discourses in praising and magnifying her great Virtue to her self he uses all base oblique and subtle Endeavours and underhand Arts of Defamation to brand and blemish her good Name to all others and thus hopes to obtain his base revengful Ends by a Holy and Heavenly means And in pursuit of this his base wicked and Treacherous Design he entertains her with how highly he is delighted that he has quite stript himself of the Fools-Coat of a vain amorous Lover to Cloath himself with the pious sober Dress of a holy Convert and a Devout Christian and that he now does and ever will make it
hearts like strong Fortresses have been lost by too great a dependency upon their own strength and too mean an undervaluing of others attempts against them I shall therefore advise all young Ladies especially Virgins by no means on any account to suffer their beauty to lie under the pressing temptations of young Mens high praises and constant Courtship which often enflames them beyond their own natural temper and strength for continual blowing is able to kindle in time a great Fire out of a little Spark And also young handsom Women ought to avoid giving or receiving any favourable attracting looks from young Men for the Eye is as well the Pulse of the Mind as the Door of the Heart and no Love flames can enter into the heart but it must first enter the Eye as we see the Sun it self still sends his light before he brings his heat Next Ladies remember that the Scripture couples with the lust of the Eye the pride of Life as a lesson to teach you that you ought as much to well order your looks as to regulate your lives which you may perform much the easier and better if you will but seriously reflect on the ways and means young Gallants use in making their approaches towards gaining their Mistrisses I do not here intend as to the making them Mistrisses in order to being Wives but Misses which is usually after this kind of manner first they present them with swarms of Praises and Complements thick garnished with great Oaths and repeated Vows of a never dying love and a never failing constancy and all attended with sad looks deep sighs and humble postures no matter though there be not one grain of reality among them all and if these Counterfits can but work so powerful an Operation on their Mistrisses soft good nature as to make them receive the constant repeated Oaths of their highly adoring them with some kind of delight they are then in a sad yielding condition for such Womens hearts cannot pretend to be stronger than fortified Towns which when they once come to admit of frequent parlies seldom hold out after long Sieges but yeild to a Surrender Certainly if young Gallants can by their eager courting their Mistrisses but gain of them some returns of compassion and esteem next of course follows a favourable liking of them and then there 's no very great difficulty after such prosperous advances to create in them the beginnings of a Love fondness and fondness in a young Womans heart like a weighty body down a steep Hill it seldom stops till it runs to the very bottom and when a Gallant has work'd his Mistris into such a yielding temper as to credit his Oaths and be pleas'd with his Company as believing he truly loves her and highly admires her and so grows delighted with the Repetition of them esteeming all his Courtship real then surely they cannot on the account of good Nature and pure Civility forbear presenting their Gallants though to their own ruin this new Article of their Faith that they believe their Oathes and love their Persons and when once they declare that common experience may soon teach them this that 't is no great rarity in young Maids by liking of young Men to stray into vicious actings with them and thus by these kinds of degrees and steps Gallants commonly mount to their Mistrisses ruin for as the Poet says Long waiting Love doth still a passage find to the most unbelieving mind at least to the blasting her Reputation if not the utter undoing of her vertue fortune and freedom for when once a Gallant is become Master of his Mistrisses heart he commonly swells to a Monster and governs like a Tyrant and instead of treating you like an ador'd Mistris he uses you like a conquer'd Captive Now I have told the young Ladies some of the common ways their Gallants use to gain them by give me leave here in a word or two to tell you their usual manner of treating them after they have gain'd an entire Conquest over their hearts which is very bad and sinful in then to suffer Therefore let me advise you to carry still this Memorandum about you That all your Gallants dying expressions Love-Oaths Idolizing postures and often repeated Vows that their admiration and love for you shall be as lasting as their Lives which translated out of the Lovers Language into true plain English is no more but just as long as they shall fancy your Beauty for usually as fast as their Mistrisses beauty breaks so do their Oaths of Love and Constancy which they think they are bound to keep no longer than their Mistrisses keep their beauty as being but the meer effects of that cause and the cause being remou'd the effect must of course cease and besides there 's nothing more certain than that skin deep beauty seldom creates better than meer sensual love which never contains reality or long duration But Ladies if this were all it would not be so very bad or indeed this is only the least part of it and when your Gallant has enjoy'd you methinks you ought not to wonder that he honours you no longer as his Mistris when you dishonour your self by becoming his Miss for fancy what you please an enjoy'd Mistris is no better let her Quality be never so good and her beauty never so great and there 's no Woman ought to think it strange that her Gallant after enjoyment undervalues her when by it she shews him the way by fiirst undervaluing her self and so ought to expect little Love and less Courtship but rather much slighting if not aversion for this is most certain Ladies that though your Gallants use all flattering means and arts not sparing their Oaths or Money Soul or Purse to purchase your good Nature I should have said sinful folly to bless them as they call it with the enjoyment of you that is to curse your selves by admitting it which when your Gallants have obtain'd on any terms Swearing and forswearing not excepted they presently like greedy Hawks who assoon as they have fully gorg'd themselves on their Quarry slight and turn Tail to the very same Game which just before they flew so eagerly after and grow soon as weary of an enjoy'd Mistris as most eldest Sons are of their long long liv'd Fathers or their ugly monied Wives in a word our Amorous Age is so very wicked and unchast that really most of our young Mens fiery Love to the thing call'd a Mistris is by our present mode become of the same nature of Fire it self which all know cannot subsist long if not often recruited with fresh matter And I have yet Ladies something more to add which is of a much worse consequence than all before which is this that after your Gallants have enjoy'd you though never so much in private they will not be satisfied unless they may boast of it in Publick so vain are our young Sparks as to take more
sinful as 't is not making Images to adorn Churches but building Churches to worship Images that makes the Idolatry And since Recreation for the mind is as well necessary as Exercise for the body I see no reason why it may not be lawful for me to recreate my self now and then in an afternoon in such good young Womens company and conversation to hear their opinions and discourses which the rude sort of Men call Twatlings on the Stories of the place and their several fancies and judgments on the divers Fashions then worn who are the Women most talk'd of for whom and what beauties are highest cried up and which of them loves most and carries on an Intrigue best lives highest wears the richest Clothes keeps the finest Equipage and has most Gallants and this Gentlewoman is to be Married to that Gentleman who in a little time will find her Debts much greater than her Beauty or Portion either and such a pretty Maid is to be Married by a Match of her Parents making to such a one in whom she will be very unhappy her heart being prepossessed by another and such an old Man is jealous of his young Wife without a Cause and such a young Man is not jealous of his handsom Wife with one and the like Subjects which I grant in severe strictness may be truly call'd an omission in not spending our time so well as we ought which I look upon to be more a venial vice than an unpardonable sin and therefore do not believe that the knowledge of my infirmity ought to be the despair of my Recovery but I am truly pleas'd that all unlawful designs and unchast desires as to Women are banished from my heart and that Vertue has made me quite leave them before Age has made them quite leave me But 't is more than time to finish this Discourse for I have dwelt longer on it than I intended but the trouble of it I hope the Ladies will the more easily pardon since 't is not only a fault but a habit that I have been much subject to and long infected with which is to be loth to part with young Womens Company when I am once got into it and therefore I will conclude this Discourse with this Complement to the Ladies that I heartily wish it may prove as satisfactory and advantagious to them as to make them all now as fond of piety as I was once of beauty and that they may continue to love it as many years as I did them and then I dare assure them this double blessing That they shall neither live ill nor die young THE FOURTH DISCOURSE Of the extraordinary governing Power that Womens Beauty now exercises over most Men. BLess me and deliver me What a strange Subject do I now fall on and into what a vast Sea am I now Imbarking The Bay of Biskay with all its proud swelling waves is but as a calm pond to it for that only tosses Ships into the Air and presently brings them down again but this Subject elevates my Pen above the Skie and there leaves it for Womens governing Power has no certain Top nor Bottom but Circle-like is without beginning or end How can it possibly be then describ'd it being a meer Maze of difficulties and a Labyrinth of Confusions in which it has made so many cross Paths of pride and folly vanity and power as I know not which to take or which to leave where to advance or how to retreat And yet I find in my self an earnest inclination to venture on it though I am sure to be lost in it for I must expect that this dull and short Discourse on the voluminous Subject of beauties mighty power can have no other fate than that of Rivers which still run with an eager haste though it be only to plunge themselves into the Sea in which they are presently lost Story tells us of some English Frigats that sail'd up to Constantinople and were there so generally admir'd that the great Turk himself went to see them and was very much taken with their beauty shape and strength and being told there were hundreds finer in England he commanded that the Map of the World should be presently brought him that he might see that brave Kingdom which produced such gallant effects the Map being come he laid his finger carelesly on it and ask'd whereabouts England was but the person that was to shew it him told him he could not do it till he took off his finger for it quite cover'd that Kingdom Thus one Inch of the Worlds Map serves to set out all Englands Confines but a hundred sheets of Paper cannot half describe the extraordinary bounds of Womens usurping power If I look up towards the height of it I am confounded at the sight of so bright and clear a Scene of meer sanciful Splendor and if I look downwards on it I meet in my Compass crowds of Adorers and Suitors thick prostrate at their feet some courting their great beauty others admiring their high power some begging their favour but most bribing their interest But though their beauty cannot at all dazle my sight yet this Subject do's indeed puzzle my Pen for really I am so far from knowing how to end this Discourse as I profess I know not yet where to begin it and indeed when I have writ all I can on it I fancy I can make no other than this whole sale judgment of it That beauties universal governing Power is of a miraculous nature like that of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea every body may daily see its strange effects but none can give a good reason for the true cause therefore I am sure my weakness ought not to attempt what the strength of wit and Philosophy could never perform So that I am resolv'd to venture on this Subject but as little Boys do on a great River not hazard far on it for fear of being lost in it but content themselves with wading a little on the Brink of it and there to dable and wash them out of the reach of its great depth and fierce stream And though I know that the cause of Mens so enslaving themselves to handsom Womens power cannot spring but from a mean slavish nature and so ought not to be look'd upon better by any considering Men than a kind of Kingdom in the Moon or Fairy Land only hatch'd by the fiery amorous Love of a high lustful and enflam'd distemper'd passion seated in the vain Aiery Region of meer foolish imagination being not grounded on any foundation of true reason or good consideration Yet I cannot imitate the Map makers who still leave a blank for their Terra Incognita but I must fill up my Paper and rather than not write more of it I will leave of scratching my head and breaking my brain any longer about it to find out how and where to begin this desperate Subject it being like a Coal all over red
in my Retreat this farther Consideration That Wives over governing Power runs its Course quite contrary to the overflowing streams of the River Nilus for that by it produces great advantage where e'er it goes without letting any know from whence it comes but all Men and in a most especial manner the Married can tell by woful experience that Womens overflowing power in governing their Husbands must and does produce sad effects and shameful disorder where e're it goes And do but ask one of these mean-spirited Husbands from whence his Wives governing power comes and he cannot deny but it flows from the same spring his mean effeminate humor does in allowing it usurpation and I am sure our father Adam for being rul'd by his Wife did justly receive as well as truly deserve Gods wrath and punishment for it and therefore surely all such mean tame pittiful govern'd Husbands well deserve all sober Mens contempt and scorn as the just demerit of so shameful a condescension which argues either their want of wit or manhood And now the only hope of Reformation that appears to me on this particular is that Solomon tells us there 's a time for all things a time to mourn and a time to rejoyce so that there may be yet a time hereafter for Wives to obey as well as they have now to command and when they will submit as they ought to their Husbands Government then they will certainly deserve that praise and respect that is due to the honour of their Sex and receive the admiration of all Mens just courtship and esteem then may be presented on the Stage again the old-fashion Play so very long out of date as few Husbands remember it was ever Acted call'd Rule a Wife and have a Wife which indeed very few Husbands dare say they do I mean before their Wives and few would be believ'd if they really did so rare and strange a thing is this thing call'd Wife obedience as many believe 't is only to be found at John Tredeskins among his Collections of Antiquities So that I must be forc'd to yield that this rare Woman temper of Wife obedience is a thing only to be hoped not expected and therefore I will not vainly strive as Xerxes did to level Mountains nor with Nero attempt to alter the Course of the Sea but instead of endeavouring such impossibilities I will now wisely resolve neither to trouble my self nor ruling Wives to disswade them to lessen their governing power which I am sure would be a Task as hard for me to obtain as that of Xerxes or Nero was to perform Womens governing power being so long and deep rooted an usurpation possessed by so many Wives and yielded to by so many Husbands as long Custom has made it a Disease in most Husbands minds incident like the infirmities of sickness or age to their bodies which commonly has such distempers that attend it that they are worthy of all Mens pity tho' past all Mens cure Therefore I will imitate your good Physitians who esteem it unsafe to stir up those humors they cannot possibly purge away and upon this consideration I shall now muzle my Pen and found a Retreat esteeming it more wise and safe to think much rather than write more on this extensive and dangerous Subject THE FIFTH DISCOURSE Of the inconstancy of most young Ladies especially that are cry'd up beauties and the folly of any one that believes he is fully acquainted and solely possessed of a vain Ladies heart and can give good reasons for the various motions of her Love-Changes I Cannot deny but that young Womens Company may be very advantageous as well as agreeable to young Men as being very useful to whet their Wit to civilize their behaviour and to polish their Discourses but yet they ought still to remember that the Conversation of these vain young gay Ladies is to be us'd but like Sawce to Meat good to quicken the Stomack but bad to make a Meal on being to be taken like strong Cordials not too much nor too often and therefore to make their visits so moderate as not to keep longer in their Company than just to refresh and fit their minds for better employment and by these means young Men may relish young Ladies Conversation with great gusto and return to them with a no less vertuous than agreeable inclination But instead of observing these wise measures most of our young Gallants make Courting of handsom Women not only their pastime but their business so as to wast all their Time and use all their endeavors in the pursuit and attempts of gaining every new handsom face they see and if it be but new it must be handsom and taking if 't were only for being new on the modish account of sweet variety And truly most of our vain Ladies fall not at all short of them in the same act of Inconstancy but are as extravagantly foolish and as little real as they and therefore if 't were possible to perswade young Gallants and Ladies but to allow themselves time seriously to consider this matter I am apt to think first that Men would be asham'd of their folly to rely on the airy fickle and inconstant humors of most of our vain modish Ladies especially that are the cried up beauties and these our fickle Ladies no less blush I mean if their Peeter would give them leave at their indiscretion in receiving those high praises and believing those great Complements and often repeated Oaths their young Gallants make them when in real Truth these Gallants are as much inconstant to their Mistrisses as their Mistrisses can be to them and their perjured Vows of constancy on both sides weigh as little in themselves as the breath that speaks them which immediatly vanishes into meer Air without ever making the least return their Tongues and Hearts being so great strangers as there 's seldom any correspondence between them so that 't is most certain that such Men may very rationally extract out of Womens fickleness this true Conclusion that the more they confide either on Chance Fortune or handsom Womens Constancy which are all three now a days much alike the more folly as well as falsehood they entertain in their relyance and depending on them Sir John Sucklin was a person of great Wit and Parts and not only highly esteem'd of by the applauded witty Men but by the handsom Ladies of his age and was one who had made many Philosophical Essays on the wavering nature and various windings of many of the Ladies humors and inclinations as far as an extraordinary Wit a plentiful Fortune a liberal Mind an open Purse and a Venus heart could carry him and after having employ'd all these with all the care and industry imaginable he found most young Womens hearts so volatile and inconstant and to come so far short of real Truth as nothing can be farther which occasion'd this noble Knight-Errant to leave behind him in Print this
she 'll tell you she has heard a story which if as true as strange is a rare one That the reason that Stags live so very long is that when they find themselves to decay they swallow a live Serpent and as it consumes in their body they revive in their strength and Spirits So possibly a young Woman will say That she did not Marry an old Man for being rich in Years but Mony and because she found her Fortune decaying and almost quite decayed therefore she swallowed a Marriage with an old Man as the Stag does a Serpent in hopes that as her Husband consumes and dies in her bosom so she may revive in her sprightly gay humor and please her self with the delightful thoughts of the wealth he will leave her and the ways she will Intrigue to spend it in the fanciful hopes she has of suddenly gaining a young Husband suitable both to her Youth and aiery Inclinations There is another sort of Women but indeed their number is very small who being not handsom in their own opinion and therefore may besafely concluded very ugly in that of all others who to supply the defects of nature and age give out they are very rich and that they hope will make amends for all Gold being always young handsom and taking to all sorts of Men and Ages for Mony answers all things and by these reports of their Wealth tho often false they decoy young Fops who have lost their Annuity at Play or spent it in Debauchery to Court them for their fame of having much Mony and too eagerly press the Marrying them for it Swearing that they Love their persons more than their Mony valuing them a thousand times before it and no wonder that they that swear so commonly for nothing should now lye for much Mony for in real truth they only put the Widow before the Mony as we do in common speaking the Box before the Jewels which though first is altogether inconsiderable to the latter as only containing that Riches which it self makes no part of And many of these old rich Widows are so doatingly senseless that because their Mony Courters swear they are handsom they verily believe they are so and credit others words before their own eyes tho their spectacles are on which renders some so sottishly impudent as to tell their Gallants that tho their beauty is in the fall of the Leaf yet Autumn can breed Lovers as well as the Spring does when in truth an old withered Autumn face does but Chill the blood and dispirit the vigour of the most active and resolute Courtier and therefore a Spring beauty can only enflame the heart and tho possibly a young Man may be sometimes foolishly taken with an old Womans great wit good humor or rather greater riches yet 't is I think impossible he can be really in Love with her deform'd face person or age which must quench the fire of any amorous flames in a youthful or vigorous heart Therefore I shall advise all such Women to be so prudent as to yield to the seasons of Age as they must to that of the Year and not hope to turn Winter into Summer or Autumn into Spring but instead of striving for what 's impossible yield to what 's reasonable and submit to these true Measures That Eighteen is the gay sprightly blossom age that a young Womans Life shines out in its brightest splendor and beauty That Thirty is the stale year of a Maid and the worst age of a Wife I mean that 's an ill one because a Wife at Thirty is old enough to be ugly and young enough to live long but a Woman that is so far advanced in years as the frigid Zone of Sixty ought in all reason to banish all vain Love thoughts as to the youthful pleasures of this world and to fix them on the other so as to live only in order to die imitating the good old Woman named in the Gospel Luke 2.37 Who kept in the Temple who fasted and prayed to God night and day Indeed it becomes old Women much better to frequent the Church with the good old Godly Matrons so renown'd for gravity and religion in former days than to visit the Park or the Play with their vain young Gallants lest their old Dress and Antick Faces should make Men say such a one is more fit to be a Spectacle than a Spectator wants good Mens Prayers rather than young Mens Praises and is more apt to create thoughts of Mortality than to raise motions of Love really I am of opinion that if 't were possible to turn beauty into the same nature of content that the little Kingdom of England would swarm now more with handsom Women than the Country of Palestine did ever with fighting Men of which Scripture makes mention of many hundred thousands for than every ugly Woman young or old as thought her self handsom as most do must be really handsom only for think it as well as all those that believe themselves Content must be Content or else they could not believe themselves so therefore all old and ugly Women that are not past all years of discretion tho they are of beauty should never strive for impossibilities for youth will assoon come to the aged as beauty to the ugly but since beauty will not come to content you be you content without it and strive for that you may obtain which is the beauty of holiness which infinitely excels all others it being much better to live well than look so and to have a good soul than a fine face that being earthly and ever fading but a pure soul is heavenly and never decays being everlasting In short that Man who is so simple to Marry great Age for meer Mony when that 's spent and you know that Mony like Love cannot always last all the use of consolation I can think of is to send for a Minister to give him some spiritual advice of which he may perchance receive some to ease the trouble of his mind but as to the bodily distemper or plague of his broken infirmity I am sure there can be no remedy but that of death for indeed it may be fitly said of a young Mans Marrying an old ugly Woman what the Apostle said of a greater folly in another sense be that doth so offends against his own body and truly such a one hath in my opinion no other plea left him to excuse his folly than Adam had to excuse his first Sin The Woman beguiled me I say in Cases like this possibly S. Paul might have thought it equal for so indeed it is things rightly considered for such men to suffer or rather indeed conquer the disturbance of a lustful burning than endure the plague and continual misery of an ill old ugly Wife that can neither please the fancy nor satisfie the appetite and therefore coming to such a sad Marriage is like coming to the age of fourscore after which
thoughts must both perish with you for it may be truly said of great beauties what the Psalmist said of great Princes Though you are stiled Gods yet you must die like Men so though you may be called Goddesses yet you must die like Women and though your beauty could make as great a Conquest of hearts as ever Alexander did of Kingdoms who had no more to subdue yet as death has certainly put a period to his success and life so he will certainly do the like to your beauty and days For indeed the greatest beauty is but like the finest Glass the more clear the more frail and easily broken for alas take beauty in its very highest Altitude and greatest vigour 't is a fabrick composed and made up of so many tender pieces of such brittle ware and delicate Contexture as the least spot or flaw in any one part spoils or at least blemishes the lustre of the whole and as the Poet says One that is all over Heart Every place proves a Mortal part Now Ladies if you resolve to be all over vertuous and discreet in Reputation so as to live Shot-free from all the wounding Darts of censure you must arm your selves with a clear and innocent complexion of vertue to procure which you must not only abstain from evil but the very appearance of it not only from doing bad Actions and keeping ill Company but even the hearing much less receiving vain praises and as you ought to shew a general civility to all so you ought not to give a particular freedom to any In a word you must manage all your actions with a strict prudence a perfect modesty a real humility a vertuous behaviour and a constant fear of God in all you say and do and these will gain you praises and make you well deserve to be admired for Solomon says Prov. 31.30 'T is the Woman that feareth God shall be praised and by such a blessed and holy kind of life you will secure your self against all the Censorious talk of envious bablers against the venom of those lying malicious Tongues who are not fit to be believed nor worthy to be feared Indeed Ladies the best way to make your earthly beauty continue good and lasting is to be humble in your own thoughts and not to pride or value your selves more than you ought since 't is so vain and uncertain in its most lovely colours and complexion for this will give Men a just admiration of your prudence and modesty and preserve the vertue of it Immortal beyond the duration of this fair and naked substance which some sudden accident or disease can soon blast and rob of all its blooming and youthful vigour strip it of all its gay attirement and you of that vain delight in your own self-admiration so then beauty is only less commendable in her who makes it her only pride and concern to set it off and such a Lady thus trigg'd up and furnished out by great art and invention by glittering apparel and proud ostentation is but like a fire of Straw it may blaze much but it cannot last long and whilst it lights others it consumes it self But a handsom Lady that 's free from affectation and pride and is blessed with great Piety and true Humility is like the Heavenly fire in Moses Bush which burnt and lighted others and yet never consum'd it self A handsom woman that is very proud does but enjoy her beauty as the Miser does his Wealth who does not so much possess it as it possesses him and therefore your truly pious Ladies do but use their worldly beauty as the Apostle says we are to use this World that is as if we used it not by a godly habit of mind consuming all the usual vanity affected by others in the pious reflection that there 's no true vertue or durable satisfaction in it We read in Genesis that good old Abraham made no other use of all his wealth than to purchase him a Grave O why should not all proud Women imitate him and though they be never so rich in beauty employ it all in Purchasing a Grave of Humility to bury the dust of their Pride in and by so doing they will certainly find a Resurrection of true Glory out of it which will raise to them Garlands of perpetual Praises of so Heavenly a nature and vast an extent as they will as much excel all the false vain glittering splendor of this World as the noon day brightness of a Summers Sun does the small glimmering light of a little Glow-worm which cannot be seen but by the help of darkness 6. I shall next advise the vain Ladies to resolve to new mould their Lives in this Spiritual frame of Reformation and to square out all their actions by the Golden Rules of Piety and Vertue I heard of a Gentleman that being dangerously ill of a Dropsie went to a famous Physician for his Advice who bid him abstain from all Drink for a Twelve Month and it would Cure him I am confident the like kind of Remedy would cure the fine Ladies let them but abstain from all vain thoughts on themselves and not hearken to the vain flatteries and praises of others but for one Year and 't will certainly cure them of that Devilish distemper of Pride for by one Twelve Months banishing it and conversing only with vertue and humility which are inseparable friends they will certainly make them so religiously prudent and happily vertuous as to hate and shun all proud desires and flatterers Praises and cause them to love only those that Court them in the holy Language of Truth to the Love of Godliness which is the very best way they can express their Love to you or you your Love to your selves and truly Ladies I cannot see the least reason why you should be against this holy change since it will not be a parting with nor so much as a Retrenching of your love delights but rather be a better means to enlarge and improve them by placing and fixing your mind on a much more noble object and a far finer entertainment by transplanting your affections into a far richer soil from Earth to Heaven from the fading vanities of this World to the never decaying felicities of the next and when once a young Ladies Inclinations are firmly rooted in a real desire and hearty endeavour for this blessed Change she will soon find that her Love will become so piously purified that instead of her fixing it on mortal Man she will only dedicate it to the service of the ever living God whose service is still true happiness and perfect freedom Then such a Lady will be happy above the low Region of all worldly flatterers and the more vain concerns of a fading beauty she 'll not value the rallying scoffs and contempts of those who deride her humble and strict deportment now so much out of fashion among the vain Ladies of our times for such a reformed Lady