present View is to direct a young Lady, who, I
think, is now in doubt whom to take of many Lovers, I shall talk at this
time to my female Reader. The Advantages, as I was going to say, of
Sense, Beauty and Riches, are what are certainly the chief Motives to a
prudent young Woman of Fortune for changing her Condition; but as she is
to have her Eye upon each of these, she is to ask herself whether the
Man who has most of these Recommendations in the Lump is not the most
desirable. He that has excellent Talents, with a moderate Estate, and an
agreeable Person, is preferable to him who is only rich, if it were only
that good Faculties may purchase Riches, but Riches cannot purchase
worthy Endowments. I do not mean that Wit, and a Capacity to entertain,
is what should be highly valued, except it is founded upon Good-nature
and Humanity. There are many ingenious Men, whose Abilities do little
else but make themselves and those about them uneasy: Such are those who
are far gone in the Pleasures of the Town, who cannot support Life
without quick Sensations and gay Reflections, and are Strangers to
Tranquility, to right Reason, and a calm Motion of Spirits without
Transport or Dejection. These ingenious Men, of all Men living, are most
to be avoided by her who would be happy in [a [1]] Husband. They are
immediately sated with Possession, and must necessarily fly to new
Acquisitions of Beauty, to pass away the whiling Moments and Intervals
of Life; for with them every Hour is heavy that is not joyful. But there
is a sort of Man of Wit and Sense, that can reflect upon his own Make,
and that of his Partner, with the Eyes of Reason and Honour, and who
believes he offends against both these, if he does not look upon the
Woman (who chose him to be under his Protection in Sickness and Health)
with the utmost Gratitude, whether from that Moment she is shining or
defective in Person or Mind: I say, there are those who think themselves
bound to supply with Good-nature the Failings of those who love them,
and who always think those the Objects of Love and Pity, who came to
their Arms the Objects of Joy and Admiration.

Of this latter sort is _Lysander_, a Man of Wit, Learning, Sobriety and
Good-nature, of Birth and Estate below no Woman to accept, and of whom
it might be said, should he succeed in his present Wishes, his Mistress
rais'd his Fortune, but not that she made it. When a Woman is
deliberating with herself whom she shall chuse of