Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/251

[ 237 ], I think I must, Cousin: He is a handsome, jolly, brisk Fellow' says my Lady; I cannot say but I like him.

, if you want a brisk young Fellow, says the Cousin.

I don't say, I want him for that. But what would you have me take, a Skeleton?

is a long Part of the Dialogue still behind, in which the old Lady confess'd some Things, in Confidence to her Cousin, which, though extraordinary well to my Purpose, will not so well bear reading; and therefore I omit them. But, in a word, the Lady took this young Fellow, and she was as Unhappy with him as could be imagined; she settled Two hundred Pounds a Year upon him for his Life; and, in a word, he broke her Heart; and he lived upon it afterward, till he anticipated the Income of it, sold his Life in it, spent the Money, and died in Jail; all which he richly deserved, for he was a Brute to her, however brutal her marrying of him was.

what was all this but Matrimonial Whoredom? she married him for nothing more or less but the meer Thing called a Bedfellow; and he took her to be her Servant, to give it no worse a Name, and to have a Settlement of Two hundred Pounds a Year for his Pains.

we have grosser Examples than this, and that near our own Days, and within our own Knowledge. A certain Lady, and of a great Fortune too, at the Age of sixty-four, not many Days ago, took into her Service, as I may very justly call it, a young Clergyman of four and twenty, a handsom, jolly Gentleman, who might have had Wives enough, and suit-