This necessary Passion is, indeed, of such a ticklish Nature, that either too much or too little of it is equally prejudicial, and the _Medium_ is so hard to hit, that we are apt to fall into one of the Extremes. We are naturally _furnish_’d with an extraordinary _Stock_ of Love; and, by the _Largeness_ of the Provision, it looks as if Nature had made some Allowance for _Wear and Tear_. If young Men were to live intirely chaste and sober, without blunting the Edge of their Passions, the first Fit of Love would turn their Brains Topsy-turvy, and we should have the Nation pestered with Love-Adventures and Feats of Chivalry: By the time a _Peer’s_ Son came to be Sixteen, he would be in danger of turning Knight-Errant, and might possibly take a Cobler’s Daughter for his _Dulcinea_; and who knows but a sprightly young _Taylor_ might turn an _Orlando Furioso_, and venture his Neck to carry off a Lady of Birth and Fortune. In short, there are so many Instances every day of these ruinous disproportion’d Matches, notwithstanding our present Intemperance, that we may justly conclude, if the Nation was in a State of perfect Sobriety, no Man could answer for the Conduct of his Children. It must, indeed, be confess’d, as Matters now stand, the Excess of Chastity is not so much to be fear’d as the other Extreme of Lewdness, tho’ there are Instances of both; and many Fathers, now living, would gladly have seen their Sons fifty times in a _Stew_, rather than see them so unfortunately married. The other Extreme is equally, or rather more dangerous, as it is more common; for most young Men give too great a Loose to their Passions, and either quite destroy their Inclination to Matrimony, or make their Constitutions incapable of answering the Ends of that State. To avoid therefore these two dangerous Extremes, we have erected the _Publick Stews_, which every considerate Man must allow to be that Golden Mean so much desired: For, in the first Place, we avoid the Inconvenience of too strict a Chastity. When a Man has gained some Experience by his Commerce in the _Stews_, he is able to form a pretty good comparative Judgment of what he may expect from the highest Gratifications of Love; he finds his Ideas of Beauty strangely alter’d after Enjoyment, and will not be hurry’d into an unsuitable Match by those romantick chimerical Notions of Love, which possess the Minds of unexperienced Youth, and make them fancy that Love alone can compleat the Happiness of a married State. But this will be so readily granted, that I shan’t insist upon it farther.