, that I
yielded my consent to waive the remonstrance I did not fail of making strongly
to him, against his degrading himself, and incurring the reflection, however
unjust, of having, for respects of fortune, barter'd his honour for infamy and
prostitution, in making one his wife, who thought herself too much honour'd in
being but his mistress.
    The plea of love then over-ruling all objections, Charles, entirely won with
the merit of my sentiments for him, which he could not but read the sincerity of
in a heart ever open to him, oblig'd me to receive his hand, by which means I
was in pass, among other innumerable blessings, to bestow a legal parentage on
those fine children you have seen by this happiest of matches.
    Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of virtue, I
gather'd the only uncorrupt sweets: where, looking back on the course of vice I
had run, and comparing its infamous blandishments with the infinitely superior
joys of innocence, I could not help pitying, even in point of taste, those who,
immers'd in gross sensuality, are insensible to the so delicate charms of
VIRTUE, than which even PLEASURE has not a greater friend, nor than VICE a
greater enemy. Thus temperance makes men lords over those pleasures that
intemperance enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour, fertility,
cheerfulness, and every other desirable good of life; the other, of diseases,
debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil incident to human
nature.
    You laugh, perhaps, at this tail-piece of morality, extracted from me by the
force of truth, resulting from compar'd experiences: you think it, no doubt, out
of place, out of character; possibly too you may look on it as the paltry
finesse of one who seeks to mask a devotee to Vice under a rag of a veil,
impudently smuggled from the shrine of Virtue: just as if one was to fancy one's
self compleatly disguised at a masquerade, with no other change of dress than
turning one's shoes into slippers; or, as if a writer should think to shield a
treasonable libel, by concluding it with a formal prayer for the King. But,
independent of my flattering myself that you have a juster opinion of my sense
and sincerity, give me leave to represent to you, that such a supposition is
even more injurious to Virtue than to me: since, consistently with candour and
good-nature
