Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A26096
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Six familiar essays upon marriage, crosses in love, sickness, death, loyalty and friendship written by a lady.
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Astell, Mary, 1668-1731.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing A4066; ESTC R16320
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41,222
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124
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SIX Familiar Essays UPON Marriage Crosses in Love Sickness Death Loyalty and Friendship Written by a Lady LONDON Printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1696. AN EPISTLE TO THE BOOKSELLER SIR I Am very sensible that when a woman appears in Print she must certainly run the Gauntlet and therefore ought to be well armed but if Mrs. Philips's sense and Mrs. Behn's wit Joyned with her assurance was not sufficient to protect them from the Critick's strokes it may very well discourage me from venturing my name in the front of this small trifle knowing it to fall infinitely short of what has been performed by others of my Sex and that the Censurers of our age are much more refined then they were formerly but I perceive Novelty generally takes bow deformed soever it is and the Bantam Ambassadours had as many followers as King Solomon could have had upon his arrival therefore I hope this book may sell if it be but for the rarity of its dress and if it does it may turn to your advantage whether they can say any thing to mine or not But perhaps Sir you will desire me to find some Patron under whose shadow I may shelter my failings from too strict a scrutiny in that case I must flatter them first that they may excuse me after which it might trouble both our consciences and for that reason if you please I will let it alone tho at the same time I confess no paper ever came out that had more need of a Second but I suffer it to be made publick at the request of some few friends who must blush for me since I live in such a retirement that no reflections can reach my ears However because I would not be thought high minded I will humbly address my self to the Reader You Gentlemen that are tollerably young and good natured will kindly overlook a womans Errors tho I have not express'd my self by the Rules of Grammar false English being particularly intailed upon the Sex I hope my Essay of Marriage will plead for me and I assure you I am one that never promotes Rebellion against your Arbitrary sway whensoever any of you make use of it towards your wives tho I own I think the mildest way is best therefore as I am for condescention without making them uneasy whom we permit to be our Lords and Masters in gratitude you must not be satyrical upon your advocate lest after that you find never another woman that will advise her friends to so great obedience in the bonds of wedlock But for the old surly Sages who will scarce allow a wife to write or read or understand any thing further then spreading Plaisters dressing Issues c. I expect they will condemn me unheard as a publick Neusance and a breaker of Evil customs in writing this book I have only one thing to offer to them in my excuse which is to intreat them to consider that when I am writing I am neither dressing nor going abroad and they esteem both to be as unlawful imployments as scribling unless I made a Journal of their Lives besides I hope I have obliged them by giving them an opportunity of railing that being the chief thing they delight in And now for the Ladies into whose hands I shall fall I beseech them to be merciful for their own sakes as well as mine and all woman-kinds to clear us from the aspersion of being always the quickest sighted into one anothers infirmities and to prevent the suspition of their being piqu'd at Patience I recomcommend in the Essay of Marriage which would perhaps obstruct the preferment of the Maids and Widows if they owned it Some sort of Wives I know will make open War with me I mean those who pretend to an Imperious management of their Husbands but they are such Monsters in nature they deserve no Apology nor do I value their opinion This treatise was the product of a Meditation designed for the good of my self and others if my expressions has not fully explained my sense of the matter it is in vain to inlarge now therefore I will conclude with the ingenious Hudibras's Rule that Brevity is very good When we are or are not understood ERRATA P. 21. l. last r. How little then p. 24. l. 3 f. then r. the p. 37. l. 2. f. mistake r. not take p. 58. l. 17. r. without touching Pitch p. 60. l. 6. r. his Grace lb. l. 17. f. disease r. decease p. 68. l. 16. f. proportion r. promotion p. 69. l. 15. dele Never continueth in one stay p. 74. l. 6. f. now swearing r. Non-swearing Ib. l. 12. f. and after his r. in hopes to p. 83. l. 19. after Were not add As often c. p. 86. l. 15. r. in me p. 100. l. 18. r. condescention p. 102. l. 20. r. is an AN ESSAY OF Marriage c MArriage is Despised by some and by others too much Coveted the first sin against the Laws of Nature and Divine Ordination the last against their own Quiet for those that are in extraordinary hast for a Settlement as they call it do commonly Advance their Expectation of Happiness much beyond what they have Possessed in a Single Life and many times the imaginary Heaven proves a Hell And though your changing your Condition Dear Madam had an extraordinary Prospect yet I hear my last Letter which was to wish you joy found you in Sorrow but I know you are too well Principl'd not to remember the time will come when the wicked cease from Troubling the Weary will be at Rest and if your Husband continues so Industrious to Torment you as the World represents him I believe you can expect little Rest till that time is come unless it is by the inward Peace of a good Conscience which no one can take from you a Consolation which clamorous gain-saying Wives always loose and which I am sure cannot be recompensed by any Point they gain and since the Laws of God and Nations have given Man the Supream Authority in Marriage we ought not first to accept them upon those Terms and then Mutiny upon all Occasions as often as the Terms are uneasy to us for though some Men are so kind as to make our Yoke sit light upon us yet we take them for better or worse and experience shews us that the Odds are on the Worser side All this we should consider before we engage our selves in those strict Ties which obliges us to deny our own Inclinations if They require it and to make it our Study to comply with Theirs This Lesson even Human Policy will Teach us for if we make a Man's Home less agreeable to him than any other place we furnish him with a good Excuse to go abroad which can never be to the advantage of the Family for those men whom business does not call out to get money are sure to spend it and he that is driven from home by a