man, which many ladies of good families have found it for their
advantage to do--I say, if it be her lot, she should take care she does
not make that a curse to her, which would be her blessing, by despising
her own condition, and putting herself into a posture not to enjoy it.

In all this, I am to be understood to mean that unhappy temper, which I
find so much among the tradesman's wives at this time, of being above
taking any notice of their husband's affairs, as if nothing were before
them but a constant settled state of prosperity, and it were impossible
for them to taste any other fortune; whereas, that very hour they embark
with a tradesman, they ought to remember that they are entering a state
of life full of accidents and hazards, and that innumerable families, in
as good circumstances as theirs, fall every day into disasters and
misfortunes, and that a tradesman's condition is liable to more
casualties than any other life whatever.

How many widows of tradesmen, nay, and wives of broken and ruined
tradesmen, do we daily see recover themselves and their shattered
families, when the man has been either snatched away by death, or
demolished by misfortunes, and has been forced to fly to the East or
West Indies, and forsake his family in search of bread?

Women, when once they give themselves leave to stoop to their own
circumstances, and think fit to rouse up themselves to their own relief,
are not so helpless and shiftless creatures as some would make them
appear in the world; and we see whole families in trade frequently
recovered by their industry: but, then, they are such women as can stoop
to it, and can lay aside the particular pride of their first years; and
who, without looking back to what they have been, can be content to look
into what Providence has brought them to be, and what they must
infallibly be, if they do not vigorously apply to the affairs which
offer, and fall into the business which their husbands leave them the
introduction to, and do not level their minds to their condition. It
may, indeed, be hard to do this at first, but necessity is a spur to
industry, and will make things easy where they seem difficult; and this
necessity will humble the minds of those whom nothing else could make to
stoop; and where it does not, it is a defect of the understanding, as
well as of prudence, and must reflect upon the senses as well as the
morals of the person.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] [Most of the wives of