so justly admire The Defence of Beauty tho it needs no Champion My subject I feel is too big for me and now only I repent my accepting your Challenge Not that I fear any Antagonist but that so weighty a cause has not a more equal strength to support it It staggers me at once and dazles me and if Sappho or Behn her self were alive they must undergo the same misfortune Yet if I must fall it shall be Honourably I 'll wish I could do more and will at least attempt it and perhaps might succeed had I but all the Beautys in the World before me that out of 'em like the Painter I might make one Venus What art thou thou strange Vnaccountable Every thing Or by what Names or Titles shall we salute thee We see thee every where and yet none can define thee Thou art the same and yet infinitely diversify'd Harmony is most like thee and thou art the Concord or rather the Virtue of all that 's visible The Almighty Artist has seatter'd thee through all his work A Flower a Blade of Grass a Fly a Mite possesses thee We see thee in all shapes and dresses we admire thee in the Picture of a Storm or a Battle and discover a Beauty even in Horror Light it self is thy near Relation or rather Lightning could we separate it from the fatal effects it carrys with it Thy Darts are all peaceful and innocent yet we feel 'em trill through our Hearts and bless the wound that makes us Mad with Pleasure 'T is in a humane Face thy Throne 's erected There dost thou Triumph with a Peaceful sway Thy Scepter makes the trembling World obey See the little Monarchs the puny Princes and Conquerors all the Greats and the Immortals and Invincibles How they creep and cover about thy Throne Yet there 's one that dares meet thy Beams and that deserves 'em He has lately lost a Beauty would have disputed Empires even with thee Try if thou canst make it up tho that could scarce be done shou'dst thou thy self descend into his Arms Whither O Beauty VVhither hast thou drawn me VVhy O ye Peaceful Plains are you forsaken For noisy Camps and Courts and glittring Thrones I 'll home again Hail all ye happy shades Where untaught Nature beautiful and young Displays unborrow'd charms where thou and I My Damon Lifes unenvy'd sweets may prove And all the Luxury of Virtuous Love Where we may see a thousand diverting objects a thousand Beautys on every side and bewilder our Eyes in the pleasing variety and return to Living Beaatys when they are tired with insensible objects I know where my Eyes can meet their Acquaintance and find as much Love as they bring with ' em Such unaffected Gracefulness such a manly Noble Air such Eyes such very Lovely speaking Eyes Such modesty such softness such firmness such a happy mixture just such as I wou'd wish in him I Love And while he Loves I have no more to wish Who can think or talk or write temporately when Beauty is the Subject Nothing could now be cold that had a Spark of Life or motion The pleasure it gives is more refin'd and more remov'd from sence even then that of Musick Brute Creatures seem in some Instances to be mov'd by the latter but only what has Reason by the former That is too Spiritual a pleasure for their inferior Natures I can't therefore think they have Reason because they have no Choice in these matters Their Appetites hurry 'em on for the preservation of their Kind but Beauty never strikes 'em and the Herd knows no more Distinction then it does Propriety And if there shou'd be any Creatures in humane shape who had the same Tempers and Inclinations who could remain insensible before such an object as commands reverence and respect from the greatest Barbarians they ought rather to be rankt with those Inferior Animals with whom they Sympathize or at least among the Mimicry and Sports of Nature who may seem to have taken pleasure in making a Figure so like a Man which yet might puzzle the Philosophers to describe him or to know what Species they ought to rank him under Had Beauty only Barbarians to deal with it would civilize 'em had it the worst of Men so they are but Men it might work upon them refine the Oar smooth the rugged'st Temper cultivate the most barren soil and every day produce New wonders But then it must keep company with Virtue for if once that leaves it how soon will it Pine and Languish 'T is like the Vine without the Elm the Jessamine without its Support It tumbles to Earth and is Trodden into the Mire by every one that passes by it The more difficulty there is in preserving Beauty unblemisht the more glorious are those who do so It 's possible to be done for it has been and still is in many instances Heaven is not so envious or malicious as Earth but can give Beauty and Virtue to the same Person and they agree so well together 't is pity they should ever be parted It is the envy and wicked Revenge of disappointed Wickedness which often endeavours to sully what it cannot ruine and the rest of mankind is so ill-natur'd and so very partial that any of this Kind is greedily receiv'd and easily believ'd Yet after all if there are really so many ill Women in the World as some would perswade us who pretend to be very well acquainted with 'em 't is easily Demonstrable that Beauty is not the cause on 't nay that the smaller part of those who deserve that Character are really Beautiful because homely Faces make up the most of the World And it is still more likely on some Accounts that a fine Woman shou'd be Virtuous then one who is more indifferent because she is naturally and justly conscious of her own worth There is a decent Pride which will not let her have such cheap thoughts of her self as other People If 't is objected that she values her self for it and why shou'd she not so she does it Soberly and Moderately What Man is there who has more Strength or Wealth or Wit or Prudence then his Neighbours who does not find his mind Proportionably to his Endowments and expect a just deference from such as come behind him in any of those Qualifications Beauty 't is true decays and so does every thing that 's Mortal but 't is better to be happy some part of Life then none at all and the Ruines of a good Face must be better then those of a bad one Nay more agreeable in Age then the other when it had the Freshest Youth to recommend it Deformity strikes the mind with Horror as Beauty with Love 'T is I confess a deep Piece of Policy to Marry such a Person as a Man cannot Love himself for fear any body else shou'd Love her Nor is he always so sure of that neither since a mishaped body oftentimes covers a
double barrelled Invention and let off a whole File by one Touch-hole This however must be granted that Eccho will repeat the sound almost incredibly and the Female Head being generally not too full there 's the advantage of the hollow place for the Reverberation which may return the Sound oftner than that of Tibbalds or Woodstock and like the famous Whispering Wall render that or a Speaking Trumpet as loud as Thunder which was in it self but a gentle whisper hardly audible from one Ear to the other Yet if your Discourse were but worth the hearing we might bear a little better with the vehemence of the Expression but such perfect Froth such unsufferable Impertinence who can endure unless another VVoman For among your selves there is seldom any Nonsense lost you talk to each others Capacities and all is well enough Eâ—ther what an extraordinary pretty Gown you have Madam pray who made it Or how do's little Master and Miss do this Evening well they are the prettiest Creatures and then a long Narration of their Childish Follies which their Age renders excusable if not diverting at first hand though nothing more nauseous than when repeated by a Mother's fondness a hundred times over And well if they scape with bare Folly which can only be for want of substantial Scandal to work upon This Railing at their Neighbours is a more necessary and gentile part of the Entertainment than Tea or Chocolate 'T is true Dulness may in a great measure force 'em on such a Practice they Rail at others as many Swear meerly for want of Discourse and to stop Gaps in Conversation and this wou'd but even this can't excuse 'em since this Dulness is so visibly affected They ne'er desire to be better imploy'd they are wonderfully taken with this mischievous apish sort of pleasure they 'll not be abridg'd of it for the sake of their dearest Friends or their own Mothers Yet still you 'd be more tolerable wou'd you keep your Conversation to your selves and not break out upon us and even infect us with your Follies Whom are we to thank that all ingenious and profitable discourse is almost utterly banish'd out of the World but only the Women who taking the advantage of the fondness of the English Customs will be every where intruding amongst us and having the odds both in swiftness and loudness will either talk all themselves or soon drown any other who offers to talk Sense because 't is to them an unknown Language And when once they begin who should stop 'em any more than a Bowl rolling down a Hill which is only set forwards by the Rubs it meets with which it easily leaps over and descends with greater Fury I value my Sense of Hearing too much to venture in amongst a Hive of 'em when they are just Swarming at a Gossiping I have often wondred how 't is possible for their Mind to keep pace with their Tongue believing they spoke Rationally like other People till at last the thing was easie since 't is plain their Speech is only a sort of a Mechanical Motion and they can't afford to think with it Travellers describe the Chattering of a whole Neighbourhood of Monkeys in the Woods in the East-Indies as one of the most Importunate and Vngrateful sound imaginable and therefore the most like that of the Tatling Sex who wou'd fain be accounted Humane The Fable of Midas had a good Moral in 't The Woman cou'd no more forbear Tatling of her Husband 's long Ears than all the rest of her Sex in the same condition nay I believe there 's no doubt if he had Horns as long as his Ears but she 'd have publish'd one as freely as the other Answer to LETTER XXIX Concerning the Garrulity Impertinence and-Unquietness of Women By Madam Haithorn DID Women ever plead Causes or pull Quoifs in Westminster-Hall Or have there not been Times far enough within our Memory when Billingsgate it self might have learnt from the Bench and a Judge would have made nothing at fair Scolding to have run down an Oyster-Wife Do we ever write Books against one another and scold in Mode and Figure and Greek and Latin Did you ever hear of a Council of Women that hang'd and damn'd and burnt one another for what 〈◊〉 one of us understood after so many hundred Years jangling Is it we that make Wars and usurp upon the Territories of our Neighbours and cause Confederacies and Taxes and so many Hundred Thousand Lives to set all right again If you dare not say we are guilty of one of all these Accusations it will be easie to answer who is and from thence it will as easily appear who are the great Disturbers of the World If you did not tell your Tale to your selves how could you expect to gain Belief when your Malice is so ill contriv'd and so unlikely That ever a Creature made for Love her Mind and her Body and even her Voice so much more softly turn'd than that of rough and bruitish Man should yet be accus'd of those very Crimes whereof our Accusers are so notoriously guilty You accuse us that a great part of our Conversation is made up of Scandal against our Neighbours Sometimes indeed we are no better employ'd than in talking of you And then how should we mention you without hearing something ill or scandalous concerning you since such sort of Actions you boast of and make 'em the great Employment of your Lives And if the Subject be one of our own Sex Of what can we discourse more beneficially than our own Faults that we may learn to amend ' em But you 'll say we don't so much trouble our selves about those as the Miscarriages of others But in them we see our selves Every Woman is her Neighbour's Glass and if any of us are Criminal Frâ—edom of Speech in Censuring our Crimes among our selves one would think should be the likeliest way to amend them Besides you forget that this Method of Conversation were it so general as you would have it believ'd has this one good Effect That it often puts the innocent in a way to clear themselves which they could never do should we mutter about Scandal as you do in Corners and by Inuendo's stab the fairest Reputation with a smile and a side-blow in such a manner as 't is impossible to be arm'd against you And after all let us manage our Discourses how we will you cannot deny but the subject of 'em is for the most part more Noble than yours When the Cloath's remov'd and we retire to our Tea-Table and leave our Masters at their Claret pray is not our Loss extreamly great in being depriv'd of their beneficial Converse Dogs and Foxes and Hares and Horses are the Top of your Entertainment or else a little grumbling at Taxes and banning the confounded Bankers but that must be after the third Bottle when the Spirit of Politicks begins to come upon ye But then what a Harmony is
they say has not been without President How sweetly how innocently wou'd he live amongst ' em And if he shou'd happen to die there like the She-Monk already mention'd how many Ehs and squeeks wou'd the poor Nuns make when they went to lay him out and made the Discovery ' Twou'd be well if Mother Abbess her self did not come running in as once before with the Fryar's Breeches about her Shoulders to see what was the matter What caution soever is us'd in these concerns something or other will now and then break out to the Scandal of Mother Church and Diversion of us Hereticks whence we can't help concluding that how Angelical soever their Profession may be their Practice is just like that of other pieces of Flesh and Blood that other French Nuns may be like those who have bin discover'd to be no better then they shou'd be and that the Nuns of France may be of a piece with those throughout all the World If this be thought too Uncharitable a Censure we 'll find out another way for Nature to work for it self for it can't be perfectly unactive as long as there 's Heat and Motion We 'll believe then that all their Fish-ponds are not stock'd at the same rate and that they don't all kill their Children because they han't occasion for 't But then they often kill themselves and one can scarce tell which is worse They see Visions and Revelations are fill'd with new Light and Prophecy commence all Pazzis and Julians and Bridgets and Kates are Canoniz'd and Pray'd to and their Lives enter'd in their glorious Legends to the encouragement of Catholicks and confusion of Infidels and all this because the Blast works upward Progenies coeli est conscia Flammina futuri I ask your Pardon Ladies for that scrap of that Beastly Language which slipt from me before I was aware but as big as it sounds your learned Advocate Anonyma who yoaked me so hard in defence of your Topknots can easily tell you the meaning on 't which on the word of an honourable Enemy is no manner of hurt and nothing else but an end of Hudibras before recited though dress'd so fine that he himself would hardly know it Once more pardon for this digression which if you do not give me presently I must be forced to make another as long to excuse it But I think we were talking of Enthusiasm which if any of your Sex inclines to Devotion will be sure to have a large share in it It Commands in you all but it Reigns it Triumphs in a Cloister where either Guilt or Weakness makes People Superstitious gives 'em false Notions of Religion and wild and extravagant Fancies making 'em all Spiritual Then perpetual poring on their Lives of Saints and old musty Legends gives 'em a strong Byass that way makes 'em all Spiritual Don Quixots and sets 'em agog for some redoubted Adventure in their Religious sort of Knight Errantry which they themselves confess have been the Original of several of their Orders particularly of good St. Loyola's whose Peaceable and disinterested Society have been ever since they were first cubb'd so great a Blessing to the World But what 's all this you 'll perhaps answer to the English Ladies You know we are good Protestants and renounce Nunneries and all their works except their Point and pretty Pictures and shou'd not care to be of any Order amongst 'em except we might either be Gallopping Nuns or But 't would be enough to reply that impartial Justice falls without respect on all your Sex of whatever Age or Countrey or Religion and these Nunneries being what you so much boast of to shew you can live without us they deserved that particular notice which I have taken of ' em Nor is that all for you your selves you Protestant Ladies who have renounced all venial Sins and Confessions and no more believe Virginity the most excellent state of Life than you believe Transubstantiation even you have lately had a serious proposal to make a Schism among your Sex set up Protestant Nunneries and exclude your selves from the World The surest way I must confess to procure you Husbands But if you design any thing else 't is easie to shew how widely you 'd be mistaken To say nothing of the pleasantness of the Proposal how seriously soever it might be intended and not to enquire whether or no 't would be practicable to set up a new Society of St. Cyr here in England or what Discipline could possibly be observed amongst 'em or if they did voluntarily enter into a mutual compact how many Moons 't would be before their Minds would change and they 'd be all dispatch'd again and ranging the Commons of Nature as wildly as ever not to trouble you I say with any thing of this nature there 's one or two Reasons which I shall ingenuously acknowledge prevails most with me and determines me to perswade you against such a course of life one is for your own sake and the other for ours As for your selves you know the Customs of your Countrey won't allow you such comfortable Confessors in those melancholy places as you might have in foreign Countries As for our Sex I am only concerned as in the case before-mentioned lest your abused Patience should be turned into Madness and we should be all in danger if like some new Goths and Vandals you made an Irruption into our Territories but least our own Sex too when you kept your selves thus charily should be tempted to think there was something precious in you and meerly from the natural desire after what 's forbidden should relapse from our Original Reason and again learn to esteem and value that Trifle Woman JOHN PRESTON Answer to LETTER XXVIII In Defence of Nunneries By Madam Lake I Wonder what Fit of Ingenuity has lately possess'd our angry Antagonist that he so fairly confesses in this Letter that the very Reason of his being against our inclosing our selves in Nunneries is least for that very Cause he should be more passionately enamour'd of us It is not only Women then I perceive who are eagerly desirous of what is forbidden them and that for no other Reason But yet we would be so civil to this Gentleman altho' our declar'd Enemy that we are willing to own his Ingenuity has had a resembling Effect upon us we are not wholly proof against so much Good-nature and we must acknowledge if any thing could make us out of Love with Nunneries it would be the very same Reason that he brings against 'em For fear they should make him too violently in Love with us For what Pity would it be that a hopeful Gentleman in the Flower of his Manhood the Ripeness of his Experience and the sedatest Years of his Life should be seiz'd with all those inexcusable Tricks of Youth that he talks of and fall a scaling the Hesperian Gardens to rob them of their golden Fruit while the old Dragonist lay snoring
you have an Art beyond Transubstantiation and can swallow a greater bulk than your selves as the Serpents in Africa a whole Calf while their Bodies give way to make room for 't And if the Whim runs o' tother side and you are rather for Liquids you 'll make no more to fuddle your Husbands with Drinking with you than you wou'd if they were to eat with you to burst 'em By which you gain a double Advantage and satisfie the Canine Appetite of your Mind as well as Body for when you have once ' turn'd your Masters into Brutes who so fit as you to ride ' em It may be you 'll pretend there 's a necessity of Nature in these Infirmities and that we our selves occasion it This would be something if you never long'd till you were marry'd but alas you began it a great while before you were in a Longing Condition from your Infancy nay from your very Creation You begin it in your Hanging-Sleeves there 's a sort of oddness in your Palate that you always had and which will never be reform'd You begin with Chalk and Wall and Oatmeal you eat your Dirt-Pies as soon as ever you have made ' em You show your Judgment in your Choice Trash is your Delight and will be so In this only you are of a Thread and you as surely doat on Trifles from the beginning as you 'll afterwards flight a Man of Sense and throw your selves away on a Blockhead If you had but so much as a Chance to be in the right and were but upon even Ground you might as well sometimes light on a Prize as otherwise But where there 's but any possibility of erring you have a Million to One against you You are false within you have a Jaundice in your Minds that discolours every thing you do but think on Neither can you cast the blame on your Sex only for no She-Creature ever longs but a Woman especially for what 's forbidden and as an infallible Proof on 't let but any when you are walking in a Garden forbid you any one Tree tho' the veriest Crabs in Nature and your Grandmother will certainly work in you and you 'll fall upon that without mercy tho' you had a Paradice round about you Gabriel Hollis Answer to LETTER XXX In Defence of Womens Longing By Madam Radford I Can't tell whether you 'll be so Charitable to give me Credit if I shou'd assure you I am not yet in a Longing Condition and probably never may be and therefore mayn't perhaps sufficiently understand the Subject to give you a compleat Answer But when you fall thus fouly on our Sex only for being Women when you are so disingenuous and so unnatural to accuse 'em for what 's no more in their own power than those other Miseries of Life which but for you they cou'd never know 't is then a Common Cause and we are all engag'd in 't and must try according to the best of our knowledge to defend one another And in the first place then how much soever you pretend to hedge your Betts 't is a clear Case that if this be a mischief it is to your selves that its Original is owing 'T is the perverseness of your own Sex wherewith you have infected ours all other Longing is but trifling some little Qualms which we owe to our Fathers and brought with us from them into the World Most of the Instances you bring do evidently relate to your own handy-work Much in the same manner you deal with those of our Sex who without something surer than your own Oaths and Honours have no more Wit or Vertue than to believe you first ruine 'em and then insult over ' em And when we have you as fast as the Laws of Heaven and Earth together can hold ye what strange Creatures do you quickly make us Our Beauty vanishes almost as soon as you blow upon it our Complexion our Shape our Health is utterly ruin'd we contract a Hundred Diseases which we owe either to your Vice or at least to your Pleasure we undergo the most terrible Pains and the greatest Hazards and often more than die for every Child is born you and these are your Thanks this your Kindness these the Generous Returns you make for all we endure for your Satisfaction Wou'd any be in pain unless they cou'd help it or mortally tormented and run the imminent hazard of their Lives if they knew how to avoid it What Pleasure is it to Long any more than to be Hungry We are forc'd for the sake of Decency to put a constant Violence upon our Nature on these Occasions Are your Minds indeed as you boast so much stronger than ours Has your Reason so absolute a Command over your Appetites Let us then see you refuse a Glass of Delicious Wine sparkling before ye when you are just ready to die for Thirst We do this and more and for you and often repeat these and greater pieces of Self-denial and thus it is you Reward us If 't is so painful as you seem to acknowledge to be despis'd and ridicul'd why do you treat us in that manner your selves when you have first expos'd us to all that know us If we Long sometimes for such things as are nauseous and frightful by the common Rule of Taste this is a demonstration that from the very beginning 't is not in our power to avoid it Were it only for the best Viands and most Delicious Dainties you wou'd have some Pretence to think ours was no more but when you acknowledge the contrary one wou'd think you might be contented with your own Answer You had pleaded enough for us already but you still extend your Kindness farther and alledge another Argument which proves as strongly as the last that this troublesome Affection of many of our Sex when in that Condition is perfectly involuntary And that is that it often injures our Children which are parts of our own Bodies Well and are we so unnatural to do this out of Delight and Choice Wou'd any Mother choose to have a Child deform'd and monstrous But there 's more than this in the case for both Child and Mother not rarely lose their Lives on these Occasions It may be you 'll say they were desperate Yes it may be the ill Usage of the Brute their Husband made the miserables desirous to leave the World and not leave any of their unhappy Race behind ' em But you cannot say it is always so for we must be so just to Mankind to acknowledge there are some few who know better how to value us who have a juster tenderness for us and from whom we meet with fairer Vsage And I 'm mistaken if such as these think much of every Glass of Wine that goes besides their own Insatiable Weasand or are so extreamly Thrifty as not to allow their t'other self what a Friend nay a Servant has every day at his Command But if you are of
that Mind good Mr. H. never spoil two Families let the Widow you wot of alone and disturb her no further Be contented that you have turn'd one Wife over and got rid of her by one means or another But if you think to make your Court to a Second in this manner certainly unless she Longs already and that for some such odd things you were lately discoursing of she 'll never take you to save her from Miscarrying for all Women don't doat on such as you speak of tho' sometimes the Proverb helps ' em If we have this Discase from our Cradles which on my word if it be true is a rare Discovery in Nature why then are you so unjust as to bear so hard upon us for what for that further Reason we cannot alter Why don't you chide your selves or your Friends for bringing the Gout or Stone or other Hereditary Distempers with 'em into the World Which if it be true never blame 'em as if their own Extravagancy had pull'd 'em on them But no Creature Longs but Woman The more unhappy she then and the more pity does she deserve But are you in earnest Mr. H Did you never hear of Men that long'd too and that as passionately and violently as any of those whom they despise and reproach for the same Reason Nay even for those very Persons at least their Fortunes and had Infallibly miscarry'd had hang'd or stabb'd themselves or else they are lustily Perjur'd if they had not obtain'd ' em But more than this Men have long'd for some of those silly things for which they make such loud out-cries on the poor Women for Fruit for a Dish of Meat and twenty other things after which their depraved Appetites have rambled to that degree that they have swoon'd away when disappointed And when they 'll assign us a Reason of such an odd Effect as well as of those ridiculous Antipathies which disturb many Men all their Lives then we Promise to give 'em another and a better why Teeming Women are so often afflicted with Longing contrary to their own desires Prudence Radford LETTER XXXI Of the Remedies of Love By Sir Thomas AFter the innumerable Mischiefs whereof your vexations Sex are the Causes and Authors some of which I have endeavour'd to set in a just light that the World may beware both of them and you I shall end as I began with Love the most dangerous and fatal of 'em all and take my leave of that and you together And that I may not only discover this Epidemical Distemper but like a good Physician apply some Remedies to those who are visited with it I intend to conclude my present Address to your most egregious Vanities with a few choice Receipts for the Cure of this Fatal Passion which if taken time enough is not perhaps so impossible as you wou'd have us imagine And in order to this desirable Alteration on all such as are not yet quite past hope I must first advise 'em to remove the Cause which I cou'd never find was any other than an Idle and wretchless disposition Laziness is as near a-kin to Love as a Fever is to an Ague and I verily believe that hard Working wou'd be as good a Cure for one as 't is for t'other Chambers and Couches and Alcoves and Beds of Moss or Roses are the dear delight of that Jack a-napes of a God that Coelestial Bastard the Son of Venus and she scarce her self knew whom There he lolls and stretches himself and swaggers and domineers and is wonderful Valiant on his own Dunghil Where you wou'd almost mistake him for Mars himself his Mothers Gallant he looks so big and terrible on all those who are tame enough and Fools enough to be his Vassals who lie groaning and cry 't is impossible to break their Chain or rise from under so many Pelions and Ossa's of Flowers and Billet-deuxs which Oppress and Fetter 'em because they han't the Resolution to make one brave Effort to recover their Freedom It must be then a full Tyde of Business their Hands and Heads full of some Honest and Brave and Useful Employment which is one of the most proper and probable means to effect a Cure on such as have a mind to be rid of their Distemper and who for the most part fell in Love at first for no better Reason than because they had nothing else to do As is evident from the Character and Quality of those who make up the greatest number of Lovers among whom you rarely or never find Men of Age or Business or confirm'd and ripen'd Judgments but loose Young Men dissolv'd in Riot and Idleness either not capable of any more Noble and Manly Employments or rendring themselves actually unfit for it by affecting to remain unbent and useless to themselves and all Mankind meer Cyphers and Blanks in the Creation But I talk on this Subject like a Lover who is commending his Mistress and scarce know when I 've done Let 's leave this therefore which I look on as the most Effectual Remedy of any other and proceed to enquire what further helps may be found against so dangerous a Distemper There was an honest old rough Fellow among the Grecians who being ask'd what Remedies shou'd be us'd for one in Love He bluntly assign'd only these three following Either says he let 'em Fast it out or let Time Cure it or if both these fail there 's no Cure but one and that 's a Halter The two first will be thought too gross for the nice Pallats of our Silken Gallants yet if they are wise they 'll rather make use of 'em than come to the last which however must be confess'd that many of their Tribe have found Infallible If they wou'd stop short of this last let 'em use others less violent e're the Disease be arriv'd to too great an height Let 'em fly from the fair Cockatrice shut their Eyes their very Souls their Memories their Imaginations Turn her out never so much as Dream of her at least without chiding themselves afterward Never talk of her nor let others do it in their hearing or fly such Discourse and even all those who are themselves in Love and be as careful to weather 'em as you wou'd one that was newly come out of a Pest-house and scatter'd Infection Plague and certain Fate around ' em Fly your Country as you wou'd for any other Tyrant or if it were infected with continual Pestilence For change of Air is sometimes as wholesome to the Mind as 't is to the Body Don't think of her tho' you can't help it that is resolve you will not tho' you do and must at present for in time at least you 'll get some Ground and if it be never so little at first your Heart will by degrees be all your own If she intrude never so often tell her she has nothing to do there her Reign 's at an end and drive her out as you wou'd