manner of Conscience in the Disparity, when she has a Mind to impose
a poor Rogue for one of an Estate, she has no Remorse in adding to it,
that he is illiterate, ignorant, and unfashioned; but makes those
Imperfections Arguments of the Truth of his Wealth, and will, on such an
Occasion, with a very grave Face, charge the People of Condition with
Negligence in the Education of their Children. Exception being made
t'other Day against an ignorant Booby of her own Cloathing, whom she was
putting off for a rich Heir, _Madam_, said she, _you know there is no
making Children who know they have Estates attend their Books._

_Sempronia,_ by these Arts, is loaded with Presents, importuned for her
Acquaintance, and admired by those who do not know the first Taste of
Life, as a Woman of exemplary good Breeding. But sure, to murder and to
rob are less Iniquities, than to raise Profit by Abuses, as irreparable
as taking away Life; but more grievous, as making it lastingly unhappy.
To rob a Lady at Play of Half her Fortune, is not so ill, as giving the
whole and her self to an unworthy Husband. But _Sempronia_ can
administer Consolation to an unhappy Fair at Home, by leading her to an
agreeable Gallant elsewhere. She can then preach the general Condition
of all the Married World, and tell an unexperienced young Woman the
Methods of softning her Affliction, and laugh at her Simplicity and Want
of Knowledge, with an _Oh! my Dear, you will know better._

The Wickedness of _Sempronia,_ one would think, should be superlative;
but I cannot but esteem that of some Parents equal to it; I mean such as
sacrifice the greatest Endowments and Qualifications to base Bargains. A
Parent who forces a Child of a liberal and ingenious Spirit into the
Arms of a Clown or a Blockhead, obliges her to a Crime too odious for a
Name. It is in a Degree the unnatural Conjunction of rational and brutal
Beings. Yet what is there so common, as the bestowing an accomplished
Woman with such a Disparity. And I could name Crowds who lead miserable
Lives, or want of Knowledge in their Parents, of this Maxim, that good
Sense and good Nature always go together. That which is attributed to
Fools, and called good Nature, is only an Inability of observing what is
faulty, which turns in Marriage, into a Suspicion of every thing as
such, from a Consciousness of that Inability.

Mr. Spectator,

'I am entirely of your Opinion with Relation to the Equestrian
Females,