great
matte each of these, let me tell thee, to keep passion alive,] either to
induce a renewal with the old love, or to recommend themselves to a new.
While the newspapers would be crowded with paragraphs; all the world
their readers, as all the world would be concerned to see who and who's
together--

'Yesterday, for instance, entered into the holy state of matrimony,' [we
should all speak reverently of matrimony, then,] 'the right Honourable
Robert Earl Lovelace' [I shall be an earl by that time,] 'with her Grace
the Duchess Dowager of Fifty-manors; his Lordship's one-and-thirtieth
wife.'--I shall then be contented, perhaps, to take up, as it is called,
with a widow. But she must not have had more than one husband neither.
Thou knowest that I am nice in these particulars.

I know, Jack, that thou for thy part, wilt approve of my scheme.

As Lord M. and I, between us, have three or four boroughs at command, I
think I will get into parliament, in order to bring in a bill for this
good purpose.

Neither will the house of parliament, nor the houses of convocation, have
reason to object it. And all the courts, whether spiritual or sensual,
civil or uncivil, will find their account in it when passed into a law.

By my soul, Jack, I should be apprehensive of a general insurrection, and
that incited by the women, were such a bill to be thrown out.--For here
is the excellency of the scheme: the women will have equal reason with
the men to be pleased with it.

Dost think, that old prerogative Harlowe, for example, must not, if such
a law were in being, have pulled in his horns?--So excellent a wife as he
has, would never else have renewed with such a gloomy tyrant: who, as
well as all other married tyrants, must have been upon good behaviour
from year to year.

A termagant wife, if such a law were to pass, would be a phoenix.

The churches would be the only market-place for the fair sex; and
domestic excellence the capital recommendation.

Nor would there be an old maid in Great Britain, and all its territories.
For what an odd soul must she be who could not have her twelvemonth's
trial?

In short, a total alteration for the better, in the morals and way of
life in both sexes, must, in a very few years, be the consequence of such
a salutary law.

Who would have expected such a one from me! I wish the devil owe me not
a spite for it.

The would not the distinction be very pretty, Jack? as in flowers;--such
a