tions find the same countenance and
reception in all public places, with those of the nicest virtue, who
pay, and receive visits from them without any manner of scruple? which
proceeding, as it is not very old among us, so I take it to be of most
pernicious consequence: It looks like a sort of compounding between
virtue and vice, as if a woman were allowed to be vicious, provided she
be not a profligate; as if there were a certain point, where gallantry
ends, and infamy begins, or that a hundred criminal amours were not as
pardonable as half a score.

Besides those corruptions already mentioned, it would be endless to
enumerate such as arise from the excess of play or gaming: The cheats,
the quarrels, the oaths and blasphemies among the men; among the women,
the neglect of household affairs, the unlimited freedoms, the indecent
passion; and lastly, the known inlet to all lewdness, when after an ill
run, the person must answer the defects of the purse; the rule on such
occasions holding true in play as it does in law; _quod non habet in
crumena, luat in corpore._

But all these are trifles in comparison, if we step into other scenes,
and consider the fraud and cozenage of trading men and shopkeepers; that
insatiable gulf of injustice and oppression, the law. The open traffic
for all civil and military employments, (I wish it rested there) without
the least regard to merit or qualifications; the corrupt management of
men in office; the many detestable abuses in choosing those who
represent the people, with the management of interest and factions among
the representatives. To which I must be bold to add, the ignorance of
some of the lower clergy; the mean servile temper of others; the pert
pragmatical demeanour of several young stagers in divinity, upon their
first producing themselves into the world; with many other
circumstances, needless, or rather invidious, to mention; which falling
in with the corruptions already related, have, however unjustly, almost
rendered the whole order contemptible.

This is a short view of the general depravities among us, without
entering into particulars, which would be an endless labour. Now, as
universal and deep-rooted as these appear to be, I am utterly deceived,
if an effectual remedy might not be applied to most of them; neither am
I at present upon a wild speculative project, but such a one as may be
easily put in execution.

For, while the prerogative of giving all employments