It is my Custom to take
frequent
Opportunities of enquiring from time to time, what Success my Speculations meet with in the Town. I am glad to find in particular, that my Discourses on Marriage have been well received. A Friend of mine gives me to understand, from
Doctors-Commons
, that more Licences have been taken out there of late than usual. I am likewise informed of several pretty Fellows, who have resolved to commence Heads of Families by the first favourable Opportunity: One of them writes me word, that he is ready to enter into the Bonds of Matrimony, provided I will give it him under my Hand (as I now do) that a Man may shew his Face in good Company after he is married, and that he need not be ashamed to treat a Woman with Kindness, who puts herself into his Power for Life.
I have other Letters on this Subject, which say that I am attempting to make a Revolution in the World of Gallantry, and that the Consequence of it will be, that a great deal of the sprightliest Wit and Satyr of the last Age will be lost. That a bashful Fellow, upon changing his Condition, will be no longer puzzled how to stand the Raillery of his facetious Companions;
he need not own he married only to plunder an Heiress of her Fortune, nor pretend that he uses her ill, to avoid the
ridiculous