Dost think, that old prerogative Harlowe, for example, must not, if such a law were in being, have pulled in his horns?—­So excellent a wife as he has, would never else have renewed with such a gloomy tyrant:  who, as well as all other married tyrants, must have been upon good behaviour from year to year.

A termagant wife, if such a law were to pass, would be a phoenix.

The churches would be the only market-place for the fair sex; and domestic excellence the capital recommendation.

Nor would there be an old maid in Great Britain, and all its territories.  For what an odd soul must she be who could not have her twelvemonth’s trial?

In short, a total alteration for the better, in the morals and way of life in both sexes, must, in a very few years, be the consequence of such a salutary law.

Who would have expected such a one from me!  I wish the devil owe me not a spite for it.

The would not the distinction be very pretty, Jack? as in flowers;—­such a gentleman, or such a lady, is an annual—­such a one is a Perennial.

One difficulty, however, as I remember, occurred to me, upon the probability that a wife might be enceinte, as the lawyers call it.  But thus I obviated it—­

That no man should be allowed to marry another woman without his then wife’s consent, till she were brought-to-bed, and he had defrayed all incident charges; and till it was agreed upon between them whether the child should be his, her’s, or the public’s.  The women in this case to have what I call the coercive option; for I would not have it in the man’s power to be a dog neither.

And, indeed, I gave the turn of the scale in every part of my scheme in the women’s favour:  for dearly do I love the sweet rogues.

How infinitely more preferable this my scheme to the polygamy one of the old patriarchs; who had wives and concubines without number!—­I believe David and Solomon had their hundreds at a time.  Had they not, Jack?

Let me add, that annual parliaments, and annual marriages, are the projects next my heart.  How could I expatiate upon the benefits that would arise from both!

LETTER X

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, ESQ.

Well, but now my plots thicken; and my employment of writing to thee on this subject will soon come to a conclusion.  For now, having got the license; and Mrs. Townsend with her tars, being to come to Hampstead next Wednesday or Thursday; and another letter possibly, or message from Miss Howe, to inquire how Miss Harlowe does, upon the rustic’s report of her ill health, and to express her wonder that she has not heard form her in answer to her’s on her escape; I must soon blow up the lady, or be blown up myself.  And so I am preparing, with Lady Betty and my cousin Montague, to wait upon my beloved with a coach-and-four, or a sett; for Lady Betty will not stir out with a pair for the world; though but for two or three miles.  And this is a well-known part of her character.