Une proposition sérieuse aux dames, pour l'avancement de leur véritable et plus grand…

Enemy from without, has drawn over to his Party these Traytors within, he has the Poor unhappy Person, at his Mercy, who now very glibly swallows down his Poyson, because ’tis Presented in a Golden Cup, and credulously hearkens to the most disadvantageous Proposals, because they come attended with a seeming esteem. She whose Vanity makes her swallow praises by the wholesale, without examining whether she deserves them, or from what hand they come, will reckon it but gratitude to think well of him who values her so much, and think she must needs be merciful to the poor despairing Lover whom her Charms have reduc’d to die at her feet. Love and Honour are what every one of us naturally esteem, they are excellent things in themselves and very worthy our regard, and by how much the readier we are to embrace what ever resembles them, by so much the more dangerous it is that these venerable Names should be wretchedly abus’d and affixt to their direct contraries, yet this is the Custom of the World: And how can she possibly detect the fallacy, who has no better Notion of either than what she derives from Plays and Romances? How can she be furnished with any solid Principles whose very Instructors are Froth and emptiness? Whereas Women were they rightly Educated, had they obtain’d a well inform’d and discerning Mind, they would be proof against all those Batteries, see through and scorn those little silly Artifices which are us’d to ensnare and deceive them. Such an one would value her self only on her Vertue, and consequently be most chary of what she esteems so much.…