nce,) lest he should take it into his head
(himself is judge) to think as lightly of other points, which she may
hold more important--but, indeed, no point so solemnly vowed can be
slight.

Thus principled, and acting accordingly, what a wretch must that husband
be, who could treat such a wife brutally!--Will Lovelace's wife be the
only person to whom he will not pay the grateful debt of civility and
good manners? He is allowed to be brave: Who ever knew a brave man, if a
brave man of sense, an universally base man? And how much the gentleness
of our sex, and the manner of our training up and education, make us
need the protection of the brave, and the countenance of the generous,
let the general approbation, which we are all so naturally inclined to
give to men of that character, testify.

At worst, will he confine me prisoner to my chamber? Will he deny me the
visits of my dearest friend, and forbid me to correspond with her? Will
he take from me the mistressly management, which I had not faultily
discharged? Will he set a servant over me, with license to insult me?
Will he, as he has not a sister, permit his cousins Montague, or would
either of those ladies accept of a permission, to insult and tyrannize
over me?--It cannot be.--Why then, think I often, do you tempt me, O my
cruel friends, to try the difference?

And then has the secret pleasure intruded itself, to be able to reclaim
such a man to the paths of virtue and honour: to be a secondary means,
if I were to be his, of saving him, and preventing the mischiefs so
enterprising a creature might otherwise be guilty of, if he be such a
one.

When I have thought of him in these lights, (and that as a man of sense
he will sooner see his errors, than another,) I own to you, that I have
had some difficulty to avoid taking the path they so violently endeavour
to make me shun: and all that command of my passions which has been
attributed to me as my greatest praise, and, in so young a creature, as
my distinction, has hardly been sufficient for me.

And let me add, that the favour of his relations (all but himself
unexceptionable) has made a good deal of additional weight, thrown in
the same scale.

But now, in his disfavour. When I have reflected upon the prohibition
of my parents; the giddy appearance, disgraceful to our sex, that such
a preference would have: that there is no manner of likelihood, enflamed
by the rencounter, and upheld by art and ambition on my