the false sex.

Dazzled by the numerous accomplishments of Bellcour, the charming
Alathia weds him in secret. When he finds that his father has designed
to bestow his hand upon the heiress of an India merchant, he dares not
confess his fault, but lets himself be carried to Plymouth to meet his
intended bride. There he determines to escape from his father during a
hunting party, but while passing a wood, he hears cries and rescues a
fair maiden from violation. The beautiful stranger allows him to conduct
her back to Plymouth, and turns out to be Mirtamene, the woman he is to
marry. Though very much in love with this new beauty, Bellcour cannot
relinquish the thought of Alathia without a struggle. But in fatal
hesitation the time slips by, and he is finally compelled to wed a
second bride. Meanwhile the deserted Alathia hears disquieting reports
of her husband's conduct. In disguise as a boy she travels to Plymouth
to see for herself, confronts her guilty partner, and after hearing his
confession, stabs herself. Overcome by remorse and love, Bellcour
imitates her, while Mirtamene "warn'd by the example of Bellcour, that
Interest, Absence, or a new Passion, can make the most seeming constant
Lover false, took a Resolution ever to contemn and hate that betraying
Sex to which she owed her Misfortune and the Sight of such a Disaster as
she had beheld in Alathia."

Not content to retire in disgust from the world, Glicera, the victim of
fickle man in "The City Jilt" (1726) determines to retaliate upon the
lover who has ruined and abandoned her when the death of her father left
her without a fortune or a protector. To secure her revenge she
encourages the advances of a senile alderman, Grubguard by name, whom
she takes infinite delight in deceiving by the help of an ingenious
confidant. Meanwhile an unfortunate lawsuit and the extravagances of his