A MODEST DEFENSE OF _PUBLICK STEWS_ Price 2_s._ 6_d._ [Illustration] THE NATURAL SECRET HISTORY OF _BOTH SEXES_: OR, A Modest Defense OF _PUBLIC STEWS_. With an Account of the Present State of WHORING in these Kingdoms. By _LUKE OGLE_, Esq; THE FOURTH EDITION. _LONDON_: Printed in the YEAR M.DCC.XL. [Illustration] TO THE SOCIETIES FOR _Reformation of Manners_. GENTLEMEN, The great Pains and Diligence You have employ’d in the Defence of Modesty and Virtue, give You an undisputed Title to the Address of this Treatise; tho’ it is with the utmost Concern that I find myself under a Necessity of writing it, and that after so much Reforming, there should be any Thing left to say upon the Subject, besides congratulating You upon Your happy Success. It is no small Addition to my Grief to observe, that Your Endeavours to suppress Lewdness have only serv’d to promote it; and that this _Branch_ of _Immorality_ has _grown_ under Your Hands, as if it was _prun’d_ instead of being _lopp’d_. But however Your ill Success may grieve, it cannot astonish me: What else could we hope for, from Your persecuting of poor strolling Damsels? From your stopping up those _Drains_ and _Sluices_ we had to let out Lewdness? From your demolishing those _Horn-works_ and _Breast-works_ of Modesty? Those _Ramparts_ and _Ditches_ within which the Virtue of our Wives and Daughters lay so conveniently _intrench’d_? An Intrenchment so much the safer, by how much the Ditches were harder to be fill’d up. Or what better could we expect from Your Carting of Bawds, than that the Great Leviathan of Leachery, for Want of these Tubs to play with, should, with one Whisk of his Tail, overset the _Vessel_ of Modesty? Which, in her best Trim, we know to be somewhat _leaky_, and to have a very unsteady _Helm_. An ancient Philosopher compares Lewdness to a wild, fiery, and headstrong young Colt, which can never be broke till he is rid into a Bog: And _Plato_, on the same Subject, has these Words; _The Gods_, says he, _have given us one disobedient and unruly Member, which, like a greedy and ravenous Animal that wants Food, grows wild and furious, till having imbib’d the Fruit of the common Thirst, he has plentifully besprinkled and bedewed the Bottom of the Womb_.