I take the gaining of this lady to be essential to my happiness: and is
it not natural for all men to aim at obtaining whatever they think will
make them happy, be the object more or less considerable in the eyes of
others?

As to the manner of endeavouring to obtain her, by falsification of
oaths, vows, and the like--do not the poets of two thousand years and
upwards tell us, that Jupiter laughs at the perjuries of lovers? And let
me add, to what I have heretofore mentioned on that head, a question or
two.

Do not the mothers, the aunts, the grandmothers, the governesses of the
pretty innocents, always, from their very cradles to riper years, preach
to them the deceitfulness of men?--That they are not to regard their
oaths, vows, promises?--What a parcel of fibbers would all these reverend
matrons be, if there were not now and then a pretty credulous rogue taken
in for a justification of their preachments, and to serve as a beacon
lighted up for the benefit of the rest?

Do we not then see, that an honest prowling fellow is a necessary evil on
many accounts? Do we not see that it is highly requisite that a sweet
girl should be now-and-then drawn aside by him?--And the more eminent the
girl, in the graces of person, mind, and fortune, is not the example
likely to be the more efficacious?

If these postulata be granted me, who, I pray, can equal my charmer in
all these? Who therefore so fit for an example to the rest of her sex?
--At worst, I am entirely within my worthy friend Mandeville's assertion,
that private vices are public benefits.