[ 350 ]
more and the Woman marry'd again the next Day after she heard of it.
The Man was always (before this Step) lov'd and esteem'd among his Friends; he pass'd till that time for a Man of Virtue and Sobriety; and, had he thought fit to have subdued his vitious Appetite but one Year, or perhaps half a Year, he had preserved that Character, and might have had his Choice of a Wife among the Ladies in his Neighbourhood; very few would have refus'd him. And this he acknowledged in the hearing of the Person from whom I had the Relation.
But overjoy'd with the Liberty he had upon the change of his Circumstances; quitting a sick Companion, and left to range the World for another, he sacrificed his Fame to his Sensuality, and could not prevail with himself to stay, no not a Week, which Precipitation made him the scorn of all about him; and, as I said, in less than a Month he could have hang'd himself with the same satisfaction, compar'd to what he had in the preposterous Step he had taken: But it was too late to look back, he could never retrieve it. He was indeed a Penitent, as to the Folly of it, and own'd to me personally, that it was nothing but meer Matrimonial Whoredom. I use his own Words; and it was the very first Case that put the Purpose of reproving it in this manner, into my Thoughts.
The Tragedy of this poor Gentleman was enough to fill any Man's Mind with a just Indignation at the Practice; and though we see it often done, where perhaps the Consequence is not so fatal, yet the particular Scandal of it is not at all lessen'd: Had he not found that fa-vourable
