Well, but the lady refers my destiny to the letter she has written, actually written, to Miss Howe; to whom it seems she has given her reasons why she will not have me.  I long to know the contents of this letter:  but am in great hopes that she has so expressed her denials, as shall give room to think she only wants to be persuaded to the contrary, in order to reconcile herself to herself.

I could make some pretty observations upon one or two places of the lady’s mediation:  but, wicked as I am thought to be, I never was so abandoned as to turn into ridicule, or even to treat with levity, things sacred.  I think it the highest degree of ill manners to jest upon those subjects which the world in general look upon with veneration, and call divine.  I would not even treat the mythology of the heathen to a heathen, with the ridicule that perhaps would fairly lie from some of the absurdities that strike every common observer.  Nor, when at Rome, and in other popish countries, did I ever behave indecently at those ceremonies which I thought very extraordinary:  for I saw some people affected, and seemingly edified, by them; and I contented myself to think, though they were any good end to the many, there was religion enough in them, or civil policy at least, to exempt them from the ridicule of even a bad man who had common sense and good manners.

For the like reason I have never given noisy or tumultuous instances of dislike to a new play, if I thought it ever so indifferent:  for I concluded, first, that every one was entitled to see quietly what he paid for:  and, next, as the theatre (the epitome of the world) consisted of pit, boxes, and gallery, it was hard, I thought, if there could be such a performance exhibited as would not please somebody in that mixed multitude:  and, if it did, those somebodies had as much right to enjoy their own judgments, undisturbedly, as I had to enjoy mine.

This was my way of showing my disapprobation; I never went again.  And as a man is at his option, whether he will go to a play or not, he has not the same excuse for expressing his dislike clamorously as if he were compelled to see it.

I have ever, thou knowest, declared against those shallow libertines, who could not make out their pretensions to wit, but on two subjects, to which every man of true wit will scorn to be beholden:  Profaneness and obscenity, I mean; which must shock the ears of every man or woman of sense, without answering any end, but of showing a very low and abandoned nature.  And, till I came acquainted with the brutal Mowbray, [no great praise to myself from such a tutor,] I was far from making so free as I do now, with oaths and curses; for then I was forced to out-swear him sometimes in order to keep him in his allegiance to me his general:  nay, I often check myself to myself, for this empty unprofitable liberty of speech; in which we are outdone by the sons of the common-sewer.