much less
invention, in their indecent plots and language, than is imagined.

I know not which is worse, to be wife to a man that is
continually changing his _loves_, or to an husband that hath
but one mistress whom he loves with a constant passion. And if
you keep some measure of civility to her, he will at least
esteem you; but he of the roving humour plays an hundred
frolics that divert the town and perplex his wife. She often
meets with her husband's mistress, and is at a loss how to
carry herself towards her. 'Tis true the constant man is ready
to sacrifice, every moment, his whole family to his love; he
hates any place where she is not, is prodigal in what concerns
his love, covetous in other respects; expects you should be
blind to all he doth, and though you can't but see, yet must
not dare to complain. And though both, he who lends his heart
to whosoever pleases it, and he that gives it entirely to one,
do both of them require the exactest devoir from their wives,
yet I know not if it be not better to be wife to an inconstant
husband (provided he be something discreet), than to a constant
fellow who is always perplexing her with his inconstant humour.
For the unconstant lovers are commonly the best humoured; but
let them be what they will, women ought not to be unfaithful
for Virtue's sake and their own, nor to offend by example. It
is one of the best bonds of charity and obedience in the wife
if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she
find him jealous.

"Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age,
and old men's nurses."

The last degrading sentence is found alas! in the Moral Essays of Bacon.
Lady Gethin, with an intellect superior to that of the women of that
day, had no conception of the dignity of the female character, the
claims of virtue, and the duties of honour. A wife was only to know
obedience and silence: however, she hints that such a husband should not
be jealous! There was a sweetness in revenge reserved for some of these
married women.

ROBINSON CRUSOE.

Robinson Crusoe, the favourite of the learned and the unlearned, of the
youth and the adult; the book that was to constitute the library of
Rousseau's Emilius, owes its secret charm to its being a new
representation of human nature, yet drawn from an existing state; t