so much awe will the character of a good
clergyman always have upon even forward spirits, where he is known
to have had an inviolable regard to it himself.--Besides, the good
gentleman has, naturally, a genteel and inoffensive vein of raillery,
and so was too hard for them at their own weapons. But after dinner,
and the servants being withdrawn, Mr. Martin singled me out, as he
loves to do, for a subject of encomium, and made some high compliments
to my dear Mr. B. upon his choice; and wished (as he often does), he
could find just such another for himself.

Lady Towers told him it was a thing as unaccountable as it was
unreasonable, that every rake who loved to destroy virtue, should
expect to be rewarded with it: and if his _brother_ B. had come off so
well, she thought no one else ought to expect it.

Lady Davers said, it was a very just observation: and she thought it
a pity there was not a law, that every man who made a harlot of an
honest woman, should be obliged to marry one of another's making.

Mr. B. said, that would be too severe; it would be punishment enough,
if he was to marry his own; and especially if he had not seduced her
under promise of marriage.

"Then you'd have a man be obliged to stand to his promise, I suppose,
Mr. B.?" replied Lady Davers. "Yes, madam."--"But," said she, "the
proof would be difficult perhaps: and the most unguilty heart of our
sex might be least able to make it out.--But what say you, my Lord D.;
will you, and my Lord Davers, join to bring a bill into the House of
Peers, for the purposes I mentioned? I fancy my brother would give it
all the assistance he could in the Lower House."

"Indeed," said Mr. B., "if I may be allowed to speak in the
plural number, _we_ must not pretend to hold an argument on this
subject.--What say you, Mr. H.? Which side are you of?"--"Every
gentleman," replied he, "who is not of the ladies' side, is deemed
a criminal; and I was always of the side that had the power of the
gallows."

"That shews," returned Lady Towers, "that Mr. H. is more afraid of
the _punishment_, than of deserving it."--"'Tis well," said Mr. B.,"
that any consideration deters a man of Mr. H.'s time of life. What may
be _fear_ now, may improve to _virtue_ in time."

"Ay," said Lady Davers, "Jackey is one of his uncle's _foxes_: he'd be
glad to snap up a straggling pullet, if he was not well looked after,
perhaps."--"Pray, my dear," said Lord Davers, "forbear: you ought not