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tain Space of Time, viz. to Number fifty, or thereabouts; and 'tis great odds but they may obtain the seeming Answer to their Request, and go barren to the Grave.
But if any doubt the Sincerity of the Ladies who make those Pretences, let the Gentlemen who has a mind to try them effectually, and who professes to love a pretty Lady's Conversation, but hates this foolish thing called Coition, as Religio Medici calls it; I say, let him put (Origin) upon himself, and then Court one of those chast Wou'd-be-barren Ladies, and see if any One of them will take him. My Word for them, and no venture neither, not one of them would care to be seen in his Company.
Sir Roger l'Estrange in his Æsop, in the Moral of one of his Fables, has this short Story very well to my Purpose: "Well! I am undone, says a certain grave Widow Lady, to another Lady of her Intimacy; I am undone, I say, for want of a good honest understanding sober Man, to look after my Affairs. Every Body cheats me, no Body will pay me; Mr. ——— has left me in good Circumstances, but 'tis all abroad in Debts and Accounts; and I am but a Woman, and every Body imposes upon me; What shall I do? I think verily, if I could but find such a Person as I really want, I should be almost tempted to Matrimony. But then that ugly nauseous Business of a Husband and a Bedfellow, and the rest of it. I profess my Stomach turns at the Thoughts of it; the very mention of it makes me Sick; it puts me quite off all my Thoughts again, so that, in short, I shall be ruin'd, I know not what to do.
Well!
