If Love be any Refinement, Conjugal Love must be certainly so in a much higher Degree.  There is no comparison between the frivolous Affectation of attracting the Eyes of Women with whom you are only captivated by Way of Amusement, and of whom perhaps you know nothing more than their Features, and a regular and uniform Endeavour to make your self valuable, both as a Friend and Lover, to one whom you have chosen to be the Companion of your Life.  The first is the Spring of a thousand Fopperies, silly Artifices, Falshoods, and perhaps Barbarities; or at best arises no higher than to a kind of Dancing-School Breeding, to give the Person a more sparkling Air.  The latter is the Parent of substantial Virtues and agreeable Qualities, and cultivates the Mind while it improves the Behaviour.  The Passion of Love to a Mistress, even where it is most sincere, resembles too much the Flame of a Fever; that to a Wife is like the Vital Heat.

I have often thought, if the Letters written by Men of Goodnature to their Wives, were to be compared with those written by Men of Gallantry to their Mistresses, the former, notwithstanding any Inequality of Style, would appear to have the Advantage.  Friendship, Tenderness and Constancy, drest in a Simplicity of Expression, recommend themselves by a more native Elegance, than passionate Raptures, extravagant Encomiums, and slavish Adoration.  If we were admitted to search the Cabinet of the beautiful Narcissa, among Heaps of Epistles from several Admirers, which are there preserv’d with equal Care, how few should we find but would make any one Sick in the Reading, except her who is flattered by them?  But in how different a Style must the wise Benevolus, who converses with that good Sense and good Humour among all his Friends, write to a Wife who is the worthy Object of his utmost Affection? Benevolus, both in Publick and Private, on all Occasions of Life, appears to have every good Quality and desirable Ornament.  Abroad he is reverenced and esteemed; at home beloved and happy.  The Satisfaction he enjoys there, settles into an habitual Complacency, which shines in his Countenance, enlivens his Wit, and seasons his Conversation:  Even those of his Acquaintance, who have never seen him in his Retirement, are Sharers in the Happiness of it; and it is very much owing to his being the best and best beloved of Husbands, that he is the most stedfast of Friends, and the most agreeable of Companions.

There is a sensible Pleasure in contemplating such beautiful Instances of Domestick Life.  The Happiness of the Conjugal State appears heighten’d to the highest degree it is capable of, when we see two Persons of accomplished Minds, not only united in the same Interests and Affections, but in their Taste of the same Improvements, Pleasures and Diversions. Pliny, one of the finest Gentlemen, and politest Writers of the Age in which he lived, has left us, in his Letter to Hispulla, his Wife’s Aunt, one of the most agreeable Family-Pieces of this Kind I have ever met with.  I shall end this Discourse with a Translation of it; and I believe the Reader will be of my opinion, that Conjugal Love is drawn in it with a Delicacy which makes it appear to be, as I have represented it, an Ornament as well as a Virtue.