little tho they are giving us never so much but commands us not to rail and jeer at them that jeer and rail at us but to pray for our Enemies and to do good to those that spitefully use us God having instituted it as a Fundamental Law to Mankind not to do our Neighbours any harm in Body Goods or good Name but to do them all the good we can in every of them In short this is the sad and unequal deportment of most vain handsom Ladies both as to themselves and others which is to be angry with their Neighbours without a Cause and never to be angry at themselves tho they have one many of the vain Ladies esteeming it a sufficient ground of quarrel and anger at other young Ladies for being more handsom than they but forget at the same time to be offended at themselves for being less pious than them in not loving their Neighbours as themselves for if they did they would never offer what they would not take But so vain and wicked is our Age as common Custom and little Consideration makes many of the vain witty Ladies to fancy that Romantick Lies and detracting Jeers are but Wind which if granted yet it cannot be denied but the often repetition may unite them into a storm of sins for does not experience teach us that light flakes of Snow that singly scarce weigh any thing being but a kind of half congealed Atoms yet do often by their long united Confluence swell into an ability of destroying Houses and Families in spite of their greatest resistance Solomon says Prov. 16.27 That an ungodly Mans lips is as a burning fire and in the very next Verse seems to explain what he means by a burning fire a froward Man soweth strife and a whisperer separateth chief Friends as I said before how common is it among the vain Ladies of the times to lessen their handsom Neighbours beauty meerly on design that by Eclipsing it they might make their own shine out the Clearer and often to raise scandalous Reports to blemish her Reputation among her Friends and Lovers it being indeed too common a practice among them to whisper about ill Reports of their Neighbours as told them abroad from others when really they were Coin'd at home by themselves O vain Ladies if you will not for your own and shame sake at least for vertue and honour sake abandon raising all wicked scandals on your Neighbours and banish from your practice all impertinent senseless strifes all censuring twatles and sharp offensive scoffs which tho a mode vice is so great a Crime as it truly requires a strict Repentance and a high Reparation for the offence to the Persons so injured and that such scandalous Jeerers would for the future as David says Keep a Bridle in their Mouth that they offend not with their Tongue and so new mould and well regulate it as instead of using it as an Engine to rack their Neighbours Reputation with they may henceforward employ and consecrate it to the setting out and stretching forth their vertue and good name and let all your strife be in a pious Emulation of vertue and holiness and in religious endeavors who shall excel and take place in the true and constant practice of them in their lives and conversation for in them consists not only the greatest wisdom highest wit but also the best breeding and most sublime and splended beauty being the everlasting one of holiness besides that of pure honour indeed for Gospel Heraldry must ever be the very best for the greatest Monarch in this World must live a sinner but the meanest Woman in it by her living a godly and vertuous life may die a Saint and therefore it must certainly be much better to live well and so die happily than to be born great left rich or look handsom for the beauty of a fair delicate Complexion may be a Womans own purchase not Natures gift and her high Title and great Estate may be left her by her friends without being in the least merited by her self but to be highly pious and truly vertuous must most certainly be the true and lawful Issue of a Womans own Religious inclinations Therefore I shall conclude this Discourse with this undeniable Truth That true goodness is true greatness and that Lady will be the greatest in the other World that lives the best in this THE TWELFTH DISCOURSE Of French Fashions and Dresses now used in England by the modish Ladies and young Sparks DIvines tell us that perfect life may be seen in short measures Painters assure us that exact beauty may be drawn in small proportions and experience shews us that an infinity of words is made of a few letters and 't is approv'd by the great Wits and Poets of the Stage that a short Prologue may suit well with a long Play and since I do not here pretend nor indeed so much as ambition to keep company with their great Wit I hope they will admit me to follow their short measures and by their example justifie this my small discourse from appearing very unsuitable to this large Theme Solomon in his Character of a Covetous Person says He is one whom God hath given riches and honour to so that he wanteth nothing of all that he desires but God giveth him not the power to eat thereof which is an evil Disease because such a Man wanteth even what he hath what can such a miserable be call'd better than a sad wretch that makes himself a voluntary Slave to labour in the Mines of his own wealth and Vassal-like only to enjoy the drudgery part for his own share making his wealth a burden without reaping any true pleasure or advantage by it so that such a Man tho' he be never so rich must die in debt to himself for he strips himself of necessaries during his own life to make his Children a Wardrobe after his death I am sure the prodigality of our London Gallants is after a quite different Manner for so they can but make a Wardrobe for themselves and Misses during their own lives many of them care not tho' they leave their Children in a condition to want necessaries after their death which too many of them can justifie by woful experience several of their Fathers Estates that did belong to them as their Birth-right by their Parents luxury pride and folly have been made a sacrifice to the extravagant expences and vain profuseness of their Mistrisses pride and their own sottishnefs as that they have left nothing to their Heirs of Inheritance but the wind as Solomon expresses it Prov. 11.29 The certain loss of their fathers Estate and the uncertain getting another for themselves if they can I have read of a Philosopher that was perswaded by his friends to leave his retirement for a little time to see a fine Shop plentifully stor'd with all manner of rich things and fine knacks and being asked what he thought of all
DISCOURSES Useful for the Vain Modish Ladies AND THEIR GALLANTS Under these following Heads viz. I. Of some of the Common Ways many Vertuous Women take to lose their Reputation c. II. Of meer Beauty-Love c. III. Of young Mens Folly in adoring young handsom Ladies c. IV. Of the Power Womens Beauty exercises over most young Men. V. Of the Inconstancy of most Ladies especially such as are cry'd-up Beauties c. VI. Of Marriage and of Wives who usurp a Governing Power over their Husbands VII Of the Inequality of many Marriages with the sad End that usually attend such Matches VIII Against Maids marrying for meer Love c. IX Against Widows marrying X. Against keeping of Misses XI Of the Folly of such Women as think to shew their Wit by Censuring of their Neighbours XII Of the French Fashions and Dresses c. XIII Of Worldly Praises which all Ladies love to receive but few strive to deserve XIV Useful Advices to the vain modish Ladies for the well regulating their Beauty and Lives By the Right Honourable FRANCIS Lord Viscount Shannon Printed for J. Taylor at the Ship in S. Paul's Church-yard 1696 The Epistle Dedicatory To the Right Honourable ELIZABETH Countess of Northumberland MADAM MY Lady P. acquainted me 't was your Desire which is still to me a Command that I should send you this small Book of Discourses and Essays And tho' I know many of the Subjects they treat of to be light and trivial yet I immediately concluded tho' none of these Discourses are worthy your reading yet all your Commands are worthy my obeying and I had much rather the World should know I write ill than you Madam should have the least thought I obey you so And I humbly beg you to believe Madam that I do not present you this Book upon any dependency I have of it's merit but meerly to publish the obligations I owe you which I must ever want ability to requite but shall never lack justice to acknowledge And I hope Madam you will be the more easily perswaded to pardon this great confidence when you consider that self-interest now governs this World and since a a King can raise and illustrate one of his meanest Subjects and render him Honourable by declaring him such so Madam tho' this is one of the meanest Books Dedicated to you yet if you will be pleased to raise and honour it with your countenance it cannot but thrive under so great noble a Patronage And pray Madam do not think I write this Book out of any hope to shew some Wit when really I never so much as thought of it but meerly to publish the great honour I have for you and how humble a Servant I am to you And you know Madam 't is as well a Mark of Sovereignty to have one's Image stampt upon a Penny as a Guinea the meanness of it's value nor the smallness of it's Image not at all lessening the great power of the Prince it represents No more can I Madam by placing your great Name to this small Book in which your Virtues being only meanly set off and painted but in Dead colours can lessen and eclipse your high worth and splendid merits I know Madam there are many great Ladies that keep alive in the Root the Title of their noble and ancient Families but indeed there are very few that now-a-days bring any addition of Honour to their House But all know Madam that you not only keep alive in the Root but your Merits spring and flourish in all your Actions both to your own and Families Great Honour and Reputation for you not only live to the height of greatness that any of the English Nobility now do but to the height of Piety that any of the Primitive Christians ever did for you make it your great delight to read God's Laws and your main concern to keep his Commandments never striving to procure a high place in Court but to secure a good one in Heaven still courting the good not the great never flattering the powerful always praising the Virtuous being only a Servant to the Servants of God and not Courtier-like an humble Servant in Words to all scarce in deed a true Friend to any who seldom speak what they think and rarely perform what they promise their words being commonly not the Interpreters but Disguisers of their Thoughts But Madam you still kept your self in a kind of religious retirement out of the false and glittering Scenes of the Court and not only from the common Vices and Vanities of England but from the Foppish Modes high Extravagances of France which were just upon being naturaliz'd here in England And indeed you differ from most Ladies for they love much to receive Praises but strive little to deserve them but you Madam strive to deserve them but love not to receive them your great Humility adding a lustre to your high Quality and your high Quality adding a lustre to your true Humility and a blessing too for God still gives Grace to the humble I shall not here trouble you much Madam with a Character of the vain idle Vitioso Fopps of our time nor here make it my business to set out the vain modish Ladies of our age since both make it their main concern to set out themselves tho' in a very bad Figure but my design here is that because I did in my Youth perswade some young Wives to do what they ought not I would now in my old age perswade all young Wives and Women to do what they ought which is To remember their Creator in the Days of their Youth and to strive more for the true lasting Beauty of Holiness than the slight fading one of a fine Face which is only a meer out-side Beauty but the Beauty of Holiness is like the King's Daughter all glorious within which will bring one an agreeable satisfaction whilst one lives and a sweet peace of Conscience when one Dies The other but high and proud vain thoughts whilst her Beauty lives and sad Frettings and Discontents when she finds it dies for usually as the Mistresses Beauty leaves her so her Lovers Love leaves him for Effects will follow their Cause And tho' many of the vain Modish Ladies are guilty of Pride Vanity and perhaps what 's worse than both yet most of them are so self-conceited of their own merit as they had rather judg the World Censorious than themselves faulty like the Philosopher that lost his sight and yet would not believe himself blind but that the Room was Dark And now Madam being towards the end of my Letter I shall speak as all Christians do or at least ought to do at the ending of their Lives which is to speak the truth from the bottom of their Heart as I am sure I now do by saying your Virtuous Life exemplary Piety and your extraordinary Charity which is not like that of most great Ladies whose bounty extends no
farther than to that great Friend or this near Kinsman and that perhaps more to inlarge their own fame than to relieve his wants and so savours more of Vain Glory than true Charity But Madam your Charity is so generally good and bountifully great as none need a better Title to it than that of having a great need of it In a word Madam your whole Life has been a continued Series of noble and Pious Actions which has render'd your Fame so compleatly excellent as you are not only an honour to your Name but a credit to your Sex and a comfort to both rich and poor about you for you oblige the great by your extraordinary Civility and relieve the poor by your abundant Charity Madam your trouble of reading this Letter being now near at an end 't is full time that my Apology for giving it you should now begin and because 't is a good saying I much like and follow That plain dealing is still the best Policy Truth being ever pictur'd naked I shall tell you here Madam the plain and naked Truth how your Name came to be plac'd in the Front of this little Book When my Lady P acquainted me you desired to see it she in a Rallying manner bid me send it you with a fine Epistle Dedicatory and I in a like Rallying manner told her I would and presently writ thus far of this Letter But upon my word Madam without any thought or design that it should ever come to your sight much less to publick view For assoon as I had writ it I resolved never to shew it or look on it more But being to buy the second part of this Book to send a Friend whose Servant stay'd purposely for it after I had given it him and he was gone talking with the Book-Binder he told me he had very near sold all my Books upon which I promised him one but it seems I had unfortunately forgot that I had left this Letter in the Book which I ordered to be carried to him and he finding this Letter dedicated to your Ladyship knowing the high Honour and great Esteem all have for you concluded That your Name in the Front of this Book must needs stamp a Value on it and breed a Curiosity in many for it and so Printed this Letter and placed my Name to it considering only his own profit by Printing it not your trouble in reading it or my discredit in owning it Assoon as I heard of it I went immediately much troubled and surpris'd to the Book-binder who desired me not to be so much concern'd for there were very few if any of the Books were sold that had this Letter Dedicatory to your Ladyship Printed to them they being but just come out of the Press and that for paying his Charges for Printing them he would deliver me them all which I readily consented to and came a few days after to receive them but this Book-binder was gone out of the World and by his Death my Book was dispersed in it past all possibility of recalling This is Madam the plain truth how your Name comes to be placed now in the Front of this little Book when it was Printed some few Years before without any Name to it at all and that your Name is now I am much asham'd of and humbly beg your Pardon for it I have Madam in writing these Discourses made it my great concern to avoid all Roads and Paths that Essays usually Travel in and treat of but really Virgin-Themes and fresh Provision of Wit is now so fearce to find that many of our best Writers and greatest Scholars are often forc'd to use cold Repetition Meats to furnish out their Books as well as good House-keepers are cold Meats to set out their Tables And tho' good Cooks can make several sorts of Dishes out of one kind of Meat yet they cannot with all their skill make one Dish to please all Palats like the delightful Manna in the Wilderness that gave a pleasant Gusto answerable to every Israelite's differing Taste No more can one sort of Writing suit the Fancy of all kinds of Readers I am sure I do not expect these Discourses should please any one they being Dull and most of the Subjects they write of Light almost as very Light as the airy Ladies they treat of and are designed for and therefore I am so far from pretending in the least to any of my readers Praises as I expect none from any but beg pardon of all And I truly wish this Book may perswade the vain young Ladies to beg God's And that as I desire my Readers excuse for my dull Writing they may their Maker's Pardon for their vain living I am sure I am doubly bound to beg your Ladyship's both for giving you the trouble of reading this Book and assuming the Confidence of placing your Name tho' undesignedly to it But I will add no Excuses knowing a Conclusion to a dull long Letter is still the best Complement I am sure Madam 't is the only one I can ever justly pretend to make you your Merits being much above all my Praises I wish I could as truly say That your whole Life were above all sorts of Troubles that your reading this might not prove one to you but as 't is foolish to fear what 's unavoidable so 't is to wish for Impossibilities since the most great the most virtuous and the most happy in this World are not free from Troubles because they cannot be free'd from Sin we are all unavoidable Tributaries to it being all born in an original servitude to Sin without any certain measure or exact number But tho' the misery of Sinning is unavoidable yet we ought to make our selves as Spiritually wise and Worldly happy as we are able that is make our Sins as few and all our Troubles except for our Sins as little as we can and therefore Madam to make your Trouble the less in looking this over I shall desire you to read it but just after the rate I writ it which was when I had nothing else to do And for all my other Readers I only desire they will use these Discourses no worse than most do maim'd Beggars that is though they want the Charity to relieve their Wants yet not so to abound in ill Nature as to jeer at their Defects This is all I expect from them and this is all Madam I humbly beg of you That you will please to pardon this poor Book 's Faults and not jeer at its Defects which shall ever be an Obligation placed on Madam Your most Obedient and ever Faithful Humble Servant SHANNON The CONTENTS of The First Part. The First Discourse OF some of the common ways many vertuous Women take to lose their Reputation though they keep their Chastity being vertuous in their inward Intentions but indiscreet in their outward Carriage and Men judg by what they see not by what Women say they mean Page i.
as the worst tho' not so much and with this great difference That a pious Woman Sins against her Will a wicked Woman with it in the first 't is but the effects of the Frailty of humane Nature in the second 't is the foul Issue of vicious Inclinations and habitual Practice Therefore 't is worth such Womens still carrying in their Mind this useful Memorandum That 't is always a bad Act to commit an ill Thing but never an ill thing to repent a bad Act the first being the Disease the other the Remedy 'T is a certain Truth That all bad Women deserve Censure and 't is as great a Truth that many good Women undergo bad Censures tho' they do not deserve them many young Men dealing with handsom Women's Reputation as Pilate did with our blessed Saviour condemn him tho' he ownd ' be found no Fault in him Indeed the very Air of this Kingdom is so infected with the Nauseous Distemper of Censuring as I fancy 't will be as impossible to stop all ill natur'd Tongues from Censuring as to stop all handsom Women's Eyes from stirring in their Head or their Blood from running in their Veins for as long as they move busy Censurers Tongues will stir Therefore the best and most likely way I know to prevent others speaking ill of them is for them not to speak ill of others for if they do what they ought you are unjust to Censure them and if they do what they ought not you are unkind to do it since none can do an ill Act without being punish'd by the very Act of doing it and therefore by the Rule of God Nature and true Charity pious vertuous Women ought rather to be troubled than pleased for the Faults of others since she that is not doth in some degree make others Faults her own As on the other Hand she that shews Charity to a Man doth good to her self by doing good to him for Charity to another is Charity to ones self A vertuous Wife may certainly say she her self is vertuous but she cannot truly say such a Man's Wife is unvertuous except she certainly knows she is so and all know that most Reports are false But I am sure this is a great Truth That tho' a Wife be never so vertuous yet she ought to be most strictly careful to prevent all others from thinking her the contrary and to shun provoking ill Tongues as well as committing bad Deeds since many a good vertuous Woman's Reputation has been by others false Tongues sadly blasted and render'd unfortunate tho' her Life and Carriage has been truly far from being Scandalous or undeserving so that no Woman ought to be so over-puff'd up with the inward knowledg of her Vertue as to slight the outward Care she ought to take and the prudent Means she is oblig'd to use to make all think her vertuous for tho' she be never truly such yet she ought to take the same care and use the same means and method to plant a good Reputation in the World as good Gardners do in setting their Trees in Earth let the Ground be never so good and rich which is not to plant them too deep for then they 'l rot nor yet too shallow for then they 'l burn so that a mean between both is to be us'd in the very best Ground So a Woman tho' never so vertuous ought not to place so deep a value on her own Reputation as thereby to undervalue that of others nor so debase herself and lessen her own Character as to plant too shallow an Esteem on her own Worth for then all others will be sure to do the like by her own Example very reasonably concluding That she ought best to know her self This is a way many a vertuous Woman takes to injure her good Reputation for she that will despise and censure others must expect and will find that others will despise and censure her There are another sort of Wives tho' inwardly vertuous yet outwardly so overflow with Pride Vanity and Ambition as they are so very malicious as to despise all below them and hate all Persons above them which is a wicked Humour as to others and an uneasy one as to themselves These Women because some of their Neighbours Beauty is perhaps greater or their Quality higher or their Estate larger or their Equipage richer or their Wit quicker or their House-keeping nobler and the like these because they cannot reach to their high rate of Life condemn and censure their way of living as very bad vain and extravagant and because they cannot live as splendidly as they do give out they do not livers prudent as they ought to do And because these envious Women are themselves too proud give out that their Neighbours are so too and by their unjustly and enviously cersuring their Pride meerly upon the account of their own it often inflames and causes or rather forces their great Neighbours to condemn their Folly in so doing and perhaps their Chastity to boot and so to occasion many others to speak ill of them by their Example For Persons of high Quality and great Reputation their Censures like Bullets shot out of great Guns they carry farther and pierce deeper than out of a lesser size tho' of a much better Mettle the lesser must submit to the greater Fertil Plains are not the worse tho' they are commonly overtopt by barren Hills This is a usual way that many good Women make others censure their Vertue meerly out of Revenge a Fountain many ill and scandalous Streams flow out of and thus by their indiscreet Carriage and malicious Reports and censuring others good Name they lose their own by causing others to condemn and censure them by which vain practice they are still like to come by the worst which made Solomon rank among worldly Vanities That a Man should not contend with one that is mightier than himself Eccles 6.10 There are another kind of vertuous Wives that occasion their being ill talk'd of and Sacrifice their Reputation because they will not follow the Manners and Fashions of the Country they live in and those of Quality they are Neighbours to being so vain proud and foolishly Self-conceited that because they cannot be allow'd a Pattern to all scorn to follow the Examples of any tho' of higher Degree larger Fortunes and much better Reputation and Esteem than themselves I shall here name but one Example of the many I could give you in order to convince you That all Persons are oblig'd by the Rules and Order of civil Society Prudence and well and easy living to follow the Manners Customs and Dresses of the Country they live in and of the best and most esteem'd Families they accompany with and are Neighbours to and this one Example I shall take out of France because it shall be stampt with the best at least most currant and modish Authority in the World And in that Kingdom 'T was in my time
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
that indeed the best and most prudent Course is that of persons you cannot speak well of be silent and rather make their Faults the subject of your Trouble than that of your Discourse or the exercise of your Wit which is in truth but the practice of your Malice And as Cheating can never make a part of true Wisdom so ill Nature can never make a part of good Wit and indeed Women may rely upon this as almost an infallible Rule that those that delight in Censuring others before you will as well delight in censuring you before others assoon as your back is turned In a word those that take pleasure in scandalizing others whether it be to make Discourse or to shew Wit or to vent Malice 't is not only Unjust and Unhandsom but 't is what 's worse than both irreligious and deceitful if you will take St James's word for it for he says If any among you seemeth Religious and bridleth not his Tongue he deceiveth his own Heart and his Religion is vain James 1.26 Lastly give me leave to mind you again that she that will censure others must expect others will censure her and you know that one that fights many must needs fight upon great disadvantage so in matter of Censures and Scandals she that provokes many Tongues to Shoot at her own single Reputation those many are much likelier to wound her than she to wound those many since she that shoots at the Reputation of great numbers of Women 't is improbable she should hit all but if great numbers shoot all at one 't is very improbable that one should be missed by all so that 't is unfafe as well as unreasonable and imprudent for any one Woman to provoke many Women Certainly to cast sharp Censures on her meerly out of her uncertain hopes to cast Scandals on them And Censurer disguise your malicious ill nature with the purest Gloss and the best Wit you can You shall never make it pass for true Wisdom and good Policy to forfeit your Judgment to exercise your Wit Therefore if your Prudence and Discretion cannot hinder you from ingaging in such an unequal Cambat as one Tongue must be to fight against many pray let Self-interest upon the account of self-preservation dissuade you from it and remember to be worsted in fight is still disgraceful as well as to be victorious is ever glorious Therefore rather follow Prudence than practise Malice and rather conceal your Wit than divulge your Envy or exercise your ill Nature and since foul censuring is ever bad still remember you can never shew good Wit by doing an ill thing And now Reader to conclude all in one word for I know I have reason to believe that I have already writ too many to tire your Patience tho' perhaps not to convince your opinion that a virtuous Woman ought to avoid publick Censures as well as private Sins and to shun as much getting an ill Name as committing a bad Act. Now to prevent both let all your Thoughts be good and all your Words and Actions discreet and Un-censorious that tho' the Beauty of your Person may cause some that are unvirtuous to wish you so yet let the Piety of your Life and the Prudence of your Carriage cause all such that are truly Religious and strictly Virtuous to report you to be the like and make it always your great care and constant concern that you never scandalize any and your great trouble that any should ever scandalize you for let a Woman be never so purely virtuous and free from deserving bad Censures yet she must be unfortunate in receiving them for scandalous Reports must hurt a good Womans Reputation tho' she does not deserve them as well as wound a wicked Womans Conscience that does THE THIRD DISCOURSE Of young Mens great folly in adoring and over-praising all young handsome Ladies and their greater folly in receiving it and believing them 'T IS not more natural for heat to attend Fire nor more common for the Sun to exhale vapours from the Earth than 't is for great Beauty to attract high Praises from young Men and truly such of them as have wit to spare time to lose favour to hope for and no other world to think of are fittest to Court their Beauty in this which is but modish breeding and suitable to most mens practice and all handsom Ladies expectation I do not say merit And such Men as are pretenders to raillying wit and French breeding may shew both by entertaining them with Courtly Harangs all set out with high Praises and great Complements which few Men speak as their belief but most Ladies receive as their desert and with such Idolizing postures and Dying expresons as if they design'd their fellow Creatures to be perfect Goddesses who were made like Nebuchadnezzar's golden Image only to be worshipped so naturally agreeable are such sinful adorations to vain Ladies as the first temptation we read of in Scripture that ever prevail'd on Woman was that of being made like to God and that Woman then compriz'd in her self the whole species of Women kind and indeed 't is very probable that her aspiring presumption then to more knowledge than she ought does still punish most of her Sex with less Wisdom than they need Really if handsom Ladies had but that share of Prudence which they ought to have as good Christians and to use in the practical part of Christianity to which all Women are called though few strive to be chosen they would never endure much less countenance such young Men to Court and magnifie them at such an extravagant rate as to present them with that Composition of Praises meerly for vain pastime or what 's worse evil ends which ought to be attributed to divine Worship only nor can there be a more clear and plainer Argument to prove Womens want of wisdom then that many of them will receive such profane Praises not as the vain Effects of young Mens wicked folly but as the deserved Trophies of their own conquering beauty and merit All I shall say is that such courtly Incense suits well with such a vain false Deity and that such young Women are as foolishly guilty in receiving such vain Attributes as such young Men are highly profane in offering them Thus Men by the deceitful reflexes of high praises divert young Women from remembring their Creator in the days of their Youth and possibly all the time of their Life by Charming them with their own Charms and disguising themselves to themselves and by telling them so often what they are not makes them forget what they really are and by these means they advance their minds so far above any dismal thoughts of their own mortality that truly few of our young cry'd up beauties now adays scarce hears any thing of Death but what they are Romanticly told their own killing beauty does occasion though in truth if we read the Weekly Bills of Mortality we shall
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
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