; and I really believe if he
could get the better of those vulgar chimerical apprehensions, of being
what is vulgarly called a cuckold, the good man would marry you, and you
would be his representative in his little government, where you might
merrily pass your days in casting up the weekly bills of housekeeping,
and in darning old napkins. What a glory would it be to have a Cato for
a husband, whose speeches are as many lectures, and whose lectures are
composed of nothing but ill-nature and censure!

"Lord Rochester is, without contradiction, the most witty man in all
England; but then he is likewise the most unprincipled, and devoid even
of the least tincture of honour; he is dangerous to our sex alone; and
that to such a degree that there is not a woman who gives ear to him
three times, but she irretrievably loses her reputation. No woman can
escape him, for he has her in his writings, though his other attacks be
ineffectual; and in the age we live in, the one is as bad as the other
in the eye of the public. In the mean time nothing is more dangerous
than the artful insinuating manner with which he gains possession of
the mind: he applauds your taste, submits to your sentiments, and at the
very instant that he himself does not believe a single word of what he
is saying, he makes you believe it all. I dare lay a wager, that from
the conversation you have had with him, you thought him one of the most
honourable and sincerest men living; for my part I cannot imagine what
he means by the assiduity he pays you not but your accomplishments are
sufficient to excite the adoration and praise of the whole world; but
had he even been so fortunate as to have gained your affections, he
would not know what to do with the loveliest creature at court: for it
is a long time since his debauches have brought him to order, with the
assistance of the favours of all the common street-walkers. See then, my
dear Temple, what horrid malice possesses him, to the ruin and confusion
of innocence! A wretch! to have no other design in his addresses and
assiduities to Miss Temple, but to give a greater air of probability
to the calumnies with which he has loaded her. You look upon me with
astonishment, and seem to doubt the truth of what I advance; but I do
not desire you to believe me without evidence: 'Here,' said she, drawing
a paper out of her pocket, 'see what a copy of verses he has made
in your praise, while he lulls your credulity to rest,