However, my
young spark ventures upon her like a man of quality, without being
acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, until it was a
crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with
possession, and the charms of this lady soon wanted the support of
good humour and complacency of manners; upon this, my spark flies
to the bottle for relief from satiety; she disdains him for being
tired of that for which all men envied him; and he never came home
but it was, 'Was there no sot that would stay longer?' 'Would any
man living but you?' 'Did I leave all the world for this usage?' to
which he, 'Madam, split me, you're very impertinent!' In a word,
this match was wedlock in its most terrible appearances. She, at
last weary of railing to no purpose, applies to a good uncle, who
gives her a bottle he pretended he had bought of Mr. Partridge, the
conjurer. 'This,' said he, 'I gave ten guineas for. The virtue of
the enchanted liquor (said he that sold it) is such, that if the
woman you marry proves a scold (which it seems, my dear niece is
your misfortune, as it was your good mother's before you) let her
hold three spoonfuls of it in her mouth for a full half hour after
you come home.'"
But Steele says that his principal object was "to stem the torrent of
prejudice and vice.
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