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with a suitable Equipage: He made his Addresses to a wealthy Citizen, and Proposals of suitable Settlement, for his Consent to court his Daughter. Nothing appeared but what was fair and honourable; he is accepted; the young Lady, virtuous, modest, beautiful, finely bred, in the Bloom of her Youth, wheedled with his Tongue, and deceived with the appearance of a fine Gentleman, and a Lover, yields to the Proposals, and throws her self into the Arms of the worst of Monsters.
The very first Moments of his embraces fright her with something inexpressibly nauseous about him; yet Innocence and Virtue had no Power to make a Judgment of Things; but, like the chast Roman Lady, whose Husband had a stinking Breath, innocently answered, That she thought all Men were so.
In short, the Lady is ruined the first Night; the V. . . . . boasted among his viler Companions, that he had given her something that would soon dispose of her; and it was too true; in less than a Month she was in a Condition not fit to be described, in about two more the ablest Physicians shook their Heads, and voted her Incurable, in eight Months she was a deplorable Object, and, in less than a Year, lodg'd in her Grave; the Murtherer, for he can be no other, putting on Black for a shew; but when charged home by the Friends of the ruin'd Lady, answered with a kind of a laugh, that he thought he had been cured.
If this unhappy Story were a Romance, a Fiction, contrived to illustrate the Subject, I should give it you with all its abhorred Particulars, as far as decency of Language would permit; that the abuse of Matrimony, which is the
