We have, you must know, in our times, a fyftem of philofophy, which makes our confciences as eafy as if we had fuddled them with opium. The leading principle is, that vice, if practifed in the true je ne fai quoi tafte, is not vice. Take the bribe with an air of eafe and freedom (it must be a genteel fum); keep your wench(fhe must be fmart) under your wife's nose; and laugh (with a fufficiency of modeft affurance) at a future ftate. The first is only a douceur; the fecond a turn to gallantry very consistent with an excellent political character; and the third mere freedom from fuperftition. Thus we do every thing with a genteel air; which immediately changes its nature. And when damnation comes at the conclufion, our politenefs will make all go off elegantly. For there will be, for aught our polite people of t'other end of the town know, electioneering, fcrambling for places, horse-racing, cards, and wenching, in the lower regions, as well as here.

quæ gratia curruum

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes
Pafcere equos, eadem fequitur tellure repoftos.

VIRG.

I would

I would wish you, my good twentiethcentury-gentlemen and ladies, either to have no order of men, whose business shall be to teach you virtue and religion; or elfe to have no order of men and women, whofe employment fhall be to teach you vice and irreligion. If you exclude either the one or the other, you will act confiftently. We, your wife ancestors, on the contrary, pay a large annual fum for maintaining our clergy; and a much larger for fupporting a debauched and debauching playhouse in every town, and several in the metropolis.

It is diverting enough to fee our players, by making what is filitious appear real, draw away all the people from our churches, while our preachers, or rather fermonreaders, make, by their awkward and cold delivery, what is real appear filitious. Our players fummon to their aid the arts of poetry, painting, mufic, action, machinery and drefs. With these advantages, what a happy afcendancy might be gained over the minds of mankind! With a very little trouble bestowed by thofe in power, what schools of virtue might the theatres be made!

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made! But our theatrical exhibitions are conducted at the pleasure of patentees; who think of nothing, but filling their houfes; and our public adminiftrators of religion neglect every help, and every allurement, they might be expected to make ufe of for rendering virtue and religion amiable and inviting. As to our statesmen, they never dream of their having any concern with the morals of the people. With fo great advantages on the fide of vice, unbalanced by any on the oppofite fide, is it to be wondered, that we eighteenth-century-folks are what we are?

Left our youth fhould not take cordially enough to debauchery, we collect a fett of painted half-naked wenches on our stages, and fet them a capering, and quivering their limbs in the air, in fuch a decent, modeft, and woman like manner, as tends naturally to excite, in the minds of the younger part of the male fpectators, a fett of moft fentimental inclinations; the immediate gratification of which we carefully provide for, by filling our streets, or fuffering them to be filled (which you know is the fame) with a greater number

of

of women, than would be fufficient for five hundred Grand Turks. At the same time, we lay every incumbrance, and every dif couragement, we can contrive, on matrimony. Our youth are therefore neceffitated to go a wenching; fo that we, of this very generation, expect to fee marriage fairly out of fashion; which will oblige your good worships and ladyfhips to content yourfelves, as well as you can, with being, vitio parentum, no. better than a genera tion of baftards.

Your good fenfe will, I doubt not, convince you, that marriage is not fo abfurd a contrivance, as our eighteenth-centurytaste perfuades us to think it; that it is as good a way of peopling a nation, as debauching of virgins, and configning them to disease, fruitleffnefs, and untimely death; and that it is as honourable for a gentleman to be the production of a legitimate cm. brace, as the fon of a wh You will therefore probably go upon ways and means for reftoring matrimony to its former credit.

of

Now I mention matrimony, let me beg you not to put your poor, weak, help, E 5 lefs,

lefs, married women, in a state of as abject flavery to their hufbands, in a land of liberty, as they are in India. Why must a married woman be prohibited complaining of her tyrant, unless the can legally prove her life to have been in actual danger from his cruelty? Is it reasonable, that a favage should have it in his power to make every bour of the existence of a woman of merit wretched; of the very woman, whofe affection for him, and her confidence in him, has brought her into fuch circumstances of mifery, that death would be matter of joy to her. To prevent this diftrefs from being, as with us, the portion of many, bring it into custom, for oppreffed matrons to complain firft to fome chofen friends; and, if their advice proves ineffectual, to a magiftrate. And let him have power to punish with imprifonment, &c. according to the attrociousness of the offence, and the circumstances of the cafe.

I hope, my good people of times to come, that you will give a little attention to thebehaviour of your vulgar. Our politeness raises us above fuch matters. Confider, the working people are the very ftrength of the na

tion.