"A young gentleman of great estate fell desperately in love with a great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. 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." He did not limit himself to making amusement out of the affectation of the day; he often directed his humour to higher ends. He deprecated inconstancy, observing that a gentleman who presumed to pay attention to a lady, should bring with him a character from the one he had lately left. He must be especially commended for having been one of the first to advocate consideration for the lower animals, and to condemn swearing and duelling. The latter, as he said, owed its continuance to the force of custom, and he supposes that if a duellist "wrote the truth of his heart," he would express himself to his lady-love in the following manner:-- "Madam,--I have so tender a regard for you and your interests that I will knock any man on the head that I observe to be of my mind, and to like you. Mr. Truman, the other day, looked at you in so languishing a manner that I am resolved to run him through to-morrow morning. This, I think, he deserves for his guilt in adoring you, than which I cannot have a greater reason for murdering him, except it be that, you also approve him. Whoever says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill him, "I am, Madam, "Your most obedient humble servant."