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have it, and long and wish for it when it can be no more obtained; the desires (of that Kind especially) are generally very impetuous; the Stream runs rapid and furious; and if she should come to be as desirous of Children as she may be now to destroy them, 'tis odds but the violence of that Desire turns a Distemper, and that to such a degree, as may be very troublesome as well as dangerous, and often proves mortal.
Solomon says of the Grave and the Barren Womb, that they are never satisfied; they never say, it is enough: And what an Object will such a Woman be, and, under such Reflections, either by her self, or by others, that torments her self, and perhaps some Body else, to be with Child, after she has already dried up the Juices, stagnated the Blood, and fettered Nature, so as that no such Powers are left by which the Operation can be performed.
The Lady I mention indeed, laughs at all these Things, and bids defiance even to God and Nature, contemns Consequences, and scorns the supposition of a change of Mind, and a return of Desires; from whence I infer only this, viz. That she knows little what Nature means; what the various Extreams are Nature is subject to; and in that abundant Ignorance she must go on till she comes to be her own Punishment, her own Tormentor, and to expose her self as much in one Extream as she does now in another; and if that should never happen, it will be only said of her as it has been of many a Criminal of a worse kind, viz. that she died impenitent.
But to go back from the Person to the Thing, for Examples import nothing, but asthey
