A Rake despises matrimony: If still a Rake, what hold will she have of him? A Rake in Passion is not a Rake in Love. Such a one can seldom be in Love: From a laudable passion he cannot. He has no delicacy. His Love deserves a vile name: And if so, it will be strange, if in his eyes a common woman excel not his modest wife,
What he said, was openly approved by the Gentlemen: tacitly by the Ladies.
The subject changing to marriages of persons of unequal years; I knew, said Lord L. a woman of character,

and not reckoned to 〈…〉, who married at twenty a man of more than fif•y in hopes of burying him; but who lived with her •eward of twenty years; and then dying, she is now in treaty with a young Rake of twenty-two. She is rich! and, poor woman! hopes to be happy. Pity, Sir Charles, she could not see the picture you have been dra••ng.
Retribution, said Sir Charles, will frequently take its course. The Lady, keeping in view one steady purpose; which was, That she would marry a young man, whenever death removed the old one, forgot, when she lost her husband, that she had been growing older for the last twenty years; and will now very probably be the despised mate to the young husband, that her late husband was to her. Thirty years hence, the now young man will perhaps fall into the error of his predecessor, if he outlive the wife he is going to take, and be punished in the same way. These are what may be called punishments in kind. The violators of the social duties are frequently punished by the success of their own wishes. Don't you think, my Lord, that it is suitable to the divine benignity, as well as justice, to lend its sanctions and punishments in aid of those duties which bind man to man?
Lord L. said some very good things. Your Harriet was not a mute: But you know, that my point is, to let you into the character and sentiments of Sir Charles Grandison: And whenever I can do them tolerable justice, I shall keep to that point. You will promise for me, you say, Lucy—I know you will.
But one might have expected that Dr. Bartlett would have said more than he did, on some of the subjects: Yet Mr. Grandison, and he, and Miss Emily, were almost equally, and attentively, silent, till the last scene