Leant:
Speak low sweet Mother; you are able to spoil as many
As come within the hearing: If it be not
Your fortune to mar all, I have much marvel.
I pray do not you teach her to rebel,
When she's in a good way to obedience,
To rise with other women in commotion
Against their husbands, for six Gowns a year,
And so maintain their cause, when they'r once up,
In all things else that require cost enough.
They are all of 'em a kinde of spirits soon rais'd,
But not so soon laid (Mother) As for example,
A womans belly is got up in a trice,
A simple charge ere it be laid down again:
So ever in all their quarrels, and their courses,
And I'm a proud man, I hear nothing of 'em,
They'r very still, I thank my happiness,
And sound asleep; pray let not your tongue wake 'em.
If you can but rest quiet, she's contented
With all conditions, that my fortunes bring her to;
To keep close as a wise that loves her husband;
To go after the rate of my ability,
Not the licentious swindg of her own will,
Like some of her old school-fellows, she intends
To take out other works in a new Sampler,
And frame the fashion of an honest love,
Which knows no wants; but mocking poverty
Brings forth more children, to make rich men wonder
At divine Providence, that feeds mouths of Infants,
And sends them none to feed, but stuffs their rooms
With fruitful bags, their beds with barren wombs.
Good Mother, make not you things worse then they are,
Out of your too much openness; pray take heed on't;