e
reproach of barrenness rest, as it now too often does, where it is least
deserved.--Nor would there possibly be such a person as a barren woman.

Moreover, what a multitude of domestic quarrels would be avoided, where
such a scheme carried into execution? Since both sexes would bear with
each other, in the view that they could help themselves in a few months.

And then what a charming subject for conversation would be the gallant
and generous last partings between man and wife! Each, perhaps, a new
mate in eye, and rejoicing secretly in the manumission, could afford to
be complaisantly sorrowful in appearance. 'He presented her with this
jewel, it will be said by the reporter, for example sake: she him with
that. How he wept! How she sobb'd! How they looked after one another!'
Yet, that's the jest of it, neither of them wishing to stand another
twelvemonth's trial.

And if giddy fellows, or giddy girls, misbehave in a first marriage,
whether from noviceship, having expected to find more in the matter than
can be found; or from perverseness on her part, or positiveness on his,
each being mistaken in the other [a mighty difference, Jack, in the same
person, an inmate or a visiter]; what a fine opportunity will each have,
by this scheme, of recovering a lost character, and of setting all right
in the next adventure?

And, O Jack! with what joy, with what rapture, would the changelings (or
changeables, if thou like that word better) number the weeks, the days,
the hours, as the annual obligation approached to its desirable period!

As for the spleen or vapours, no such malady would be known or heard of.
The physical tribe would, indeed, be the sufferers, and the only
sufferers; since fresh health and fresh spirits, the consequences of
sweet blood and sweet humours (the mind and body continually pleased with
each other) would perpetually flow in; and the joys of expectation, the
highest of all our joys, would invigorate and keep all alive.

But, that no body of men might suffer, the physicians, I thought, might
turn parsons, as there would be a great demand for parsons. Besides, as
they would be partakers in the general benefit, they must be sorry
fellows indeed if they preferred themselves to the public.

Every one would be married a dozen times at least. Both men and women
would be careful of their characters and polite in their behaviour, as
well as delicate in their persons, and elegant in their dress, [a