Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/366

 Acknowledgment; such is the famous B B, of wanton Fame, who married five Husbands in less than four Years; and impudently declares, the resolves never to stay above a Fortnight unmarry'd at a time. But these Examples are too mean for our mention; the telling a scandalous Story of a scandalous Person is no Novelty, there's no Instruction in it, nothing else is to be expected. But the practice of such things where Men pretend to understand themselves, to have a Sense of Reputation, of Virtue, Prudence, and, above all, of Religion; this indeed has something wonderful in it, and is worth recording.

scandalous Piece of Matrimonial Whoredom, and which I call untimely Marriages, is that of marrying Infants and Persons not of Ages fit for Marriage, or, as we say, not marriageable. This has something extreamly shocking and surfeiting in it, and, indeed, will less bear a repetition, than any thing we have spoken of yet; and I am harder put to it to express the just Detestation of it, especially in the Cases which represent themselves on the Particular before me, because the Particulars, and the Motives of them, can hardly be modestly mentioned.

J M, liv'd not twenty Miles off of Highgate, he had two young Ladies in his House, and who were bred up by him, or under him, his own Daughter, and a little Cousin his Child's Play-fellow; his Wife died, that was the first opening to his Wickedness; they were both young, his Daughter about eleven Years old, the Cousin between eleven and twelve, from his little Cousins, being his Daughter's Play-fellow, he wants to make her his own,