the servant-maid of the house where he
lodged, and kept her privately at a great expense, had above L600 of his
stock already wasted and sunk, before he began for himself; the
consequence of which was, that going in partner with another young man,
who had likewise L2000 to begin with, he was, instead of half of the
profits, obliged to make a private article to accept of a third of the
trade; and the beggar-wife proving more expensive, by far, than the
partner's wife (who married afterwards, and doubled his fortune), the
first young man was obliged to quit the trade, and with his remaining
stock set up by himself; in which case his expenses continuing, and his
stock being insufficient, he sank gradually, and then broke, and died
poor. In a word, he broke the heart of his father, wasted what he had,
and could never recover it, and at last it broke his own heart too.

But I shall bring it a little farther. Suppose the youth not to act so
grossly neither; not to marry in his apprenticeship, not to be forced to
keep a wife privately, and eat the bread he never got; but suppose him
to be entered upon the world, that he has set up, opened shop, or fitted
up his warehouse, and is ready to trade, the next thing, in the ordinary
course of the world, at this time is _a wife_; nay, I have met with some
parents, who have been indiscreet enough themselves to prompt their sons
to marry as soon as they are set up; and the reason they give for it is,
the wickedness of the age, that youth are drawn in a hundred ways to
ruinous matches or debaucheries, and are so easily ruined by the mere
looseness of their circumstances, that it is needful to marry them to
keep them at home, and to preserve them diligent, and bind them close to
their business.

This, be it just or not, is a bad cure of an ill disease; it is ruining
the young man to make him sober, and making him a slave for life to make
him diligent. Be it that the wife he shall marry is a sober, frugal,
housewifely woman, and that nothing is to be laid to her charge but the
mere necessary addition of a family expense, and that with the utmost
moderation, yet, at the best, he cripples his fortune, stock-starves his
business, and brings a great expense upon himself at first, before, by
his success in trade, he had laid up stock enough to support the charge.

First, it is reasonable to suppose, that at his beginning in the world
he cannot expect to get so good a portion with a wife, as he