Page:Royal riddle book.pdf/19

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19

A never-failing Method for Women to get good Husbands,

LADIES,

I persume you will confess, that I have undertaken a very great task, it being an age that the Men set very high value on themselves, insinuating with all the assurance imaginable, that a Husband is the Summum bonum of all sublunary blessings, and the want of a Husband is the greatest affliction. They would make you believe, that a noble fortune, with all its agreeable accommodations, such as a charming dwelling, a pompous equipage, a rich furnish'd table, fine dress, a sincere and ingenious she Friend, with whom you may divide your sorrow, and double our joys, and in whose breast, as a sacred repositary you may communicate the very secrets of your soul over a Pot of milk or tea. This and more than all this, viz. Dominion over yourselves, happy Freedom and dear loved Liberty, is all nothing, it signifies nothing without a Husband.

This is the theme our sex have so well improved and so cunningly managed, that you Ladies verily believe it yourselves as you do your Creed; and so 'twould be an Herculean labour, to go about rectifying your notions; tho' by the way, if I had any hopes of doing something to the purpose in this matter, I would, in charity to the Fair Sex, spend the same time that I intend in instructing you to get Husbands, in advising you to shun mankind, as you value your Repose, at least till they make fairer Propositions.

Well, then, Ladies, to canoe to the Business. If you design to marry, you must banish from your Countenance and Favour forever, four sorts of Men, viz. a Beau, a Rattle, a Self-opinionated Fool, and one subject to the Hypo.

For admitting the Addresses of any of these will only protract Time, and come to nothing; for