have rather a better title to please myself, with a good fifteen hundred a year, than you who have not a shilling, I found it would not do; and that there was something more to be sought after in a wife, than a pretty face or a genius. Do you think I cared three farthings for the woman I married?—No, faith; but her thirty thousand pounds were worth having; with that I can purchase a seraglio of beauties, and indulge my taste in every kind of pleasure. And, pray, what is it to me, whether my wife has beauty, or wit, or elegance, when her money will supply me with all that in others? You, cousin, had an opportunity of being as happy as I am. The men, believe me, would not like you a bit the worse for being married; on the contrary, you would find, that for one who took notice of you as a single woman, twenty would be your admirers and humble servants, when there was no danger of being taken in: thus you might have gratified all your passions, made an elegant figure in life, and have chosen out some gentle swain, as romantic and poetical as you pleased, for your cecisbeo.
