than the women; That women are in
general much better beings, in the moral sense, than the men; who,
as they bustle less in life, are generally unacquainted with those
artifices and tricks, which are acquired by a knowledge of the world;
and that then their yoke-fellows need only be tender and indulgent, to
win them. But I believe it may be generally allowed, that women are
the best or worst part of the human creation: none excel them in
virtue; but when they depart from it, none exceed them in vice. In the
case of Green, we shall see by the letter he sent his wife how much
she was injured.

"The remembrance of many wrongs offered
thee, and thy unreproved virtues, add greater
sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter,
or thou conceive; neither is it lessened by consideration
of thy absence, (tho' shame would
let me hardly behold thy face) but exceedingly
aggravated, for that I cannot as I ought to thy ownself
reconcile myself, that thou might'st witness my
inward woe at this instant, that hath made thee a
woful wife for so long a time. But equal heaven has
denied that comfort, giving at my last need, like
succour as I have sought all my life, being in
this extremity as void of help, as thou hast been
of hope. Reason would that after so long waste,
I should not send thee a child to bring thee
charge; but consider he is the fruit of thy
womb, in whose face regard not the father, so
much as thy own perfections: He is yet green,
and may grow strait, if he be carefully tended,
otherwise apt enough to follow his father's folly.
That I have offended thee highly, I know;
that thou canst forget my injuries, I hardly believe;
yet I perswade myself, that if thou sawest
my wretched estate, thou couldst not but lament
it, nay certainly I know, thou wouldst. All thy
wrongs muster themselves about me, and every
evil at once plagues me; for my contempt of
God, I am contemned of men; for my swearing
and forswearing, no man will believe me;
for my gluttony, I suffer hunger; for my
drunkenness, thirst; for my adultery, ulcerous
sores. Thus God hath cast me down that I
might be humbled, and punished for example
of others; and though he suffers me in this
world to perish without succour, yet I trust in the
world to come, to find mercy by the merits of
my Saviour, to whom I commend thee, and commit
my soul."

Thy repentant husband,

for his di