endeavour to excel: But as this ought never to be made the incitement
to any Vertue but in the earliest Childhood of our Reason, so also at
no time should Glory (which is the Reward only of Actions
transcendently Good, either in kind, or degree) be represented as the
purchase of barely not meriting Infamy: The apprehension of which, is
a much stronger perswasive to most People not to do amiss, than that
of Glory, which cannot consist with it: For no Body can rationally
think that Glory can be due to them for doing that, which it would be
shameful in them not to do. But there is yet a farther Folly and ill
Consequence in Men's intitling Ladies to Glory on account of Chastity
which is, that the conceit hereof (especially in those who are
Beautiful) does ordinarily produce in them a Pride and Imperiousness,
that is very troublesome to such as are the most concern'd in them.

One whose business it was to remark the Humours of the Age, and of
Mankind in general, has, I remember, made a Husband on this occasion
to say,


_Such Vertue is the Plague of Human Life,
A Vertuous Woman, but a Cursed Wife._


And he adds,


_In Unchaste Wives,
There's yet a kind of recompencing Ease,
Vice keeps 'em Humble, gives 'em care to please.
But against clamorous Vertue, what Defence?_