TO THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SOCIETIES FOR REFORMATION OF MANNERS.
Gentlemen,
THE great pains and diligence you have employed, in the defence of modesty and virtue, give you an undisputed title to the address of this treatise; though 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 anything left to say upon the subject, besides congratulating you upon happy success. It is no small addition to my grief to observe, that your endeavours to suppress lewdness, have only served to promote it; and that this branch of immorality has grown under your hands, as if it was pruned instead of being lopped. 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 entrenched? An entrenchment so much the safer, by how much the ditches were harder to be filled up. Or what better could we expel, from your carting of bawds, than that the great leviathan of lechery, 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 head-strong 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 imbibed the fruit of the common thirst he has plentifully besprinkled and bedewed the bottom of the womb.
And now I have mentioned the philosophers, I must beg your patience for a moment, to hear a short account of their amours: for nothing will convince us of the irresistible force of love, and the folly of hoping to suppress it, sooner than reflecting, that those venerable sages, those standards of morality, those great reformers of the world, were so sensibly touched with this tender passion.
Socrates confessed, that, in his old age, he felt a strange tickling all over him for five days, only by a girl's touching his shoulder.
Xenophon made open profession of his passionate love to Clineas.
Aristippus, of Cyrene, writ a lewd book of ancient delights; he compared a woman to a house or a ship, that was the better for being used: he asserted, that there was no crime in pleasure, but only in being a slave to it: and often used to say, I enjoy Lais, but Lais does not enjoy me.
Theodorus openly maintained, that a wise man might, without shame or scandal, keep company with common harlots.
Plato, our great pattern for chaste love, proposes, as the greatest reward for public service, that he who has performed a signal exploit, should not be denied any amorous favour. He writ a description of the loves of his time, and several amorous sonnets upon his own minions: his chief favourites were Asterus, Dio, Phaedrus, and Agatho; but he had, for variety, his female darling Archeanassa; and was so noted for wantonness, that Antisthenes gave him the nickname of Satho, i.e. well furnished.
Polemo was prosecuted by his wife for male venery.
Crantor made no secret of his love to his pupil Arcesilaus.
Arcesilaus made love to Demetrius and Leocharus; the last, he said, he would fain have opened: besides, he openly frequented the two Elean courtesans, Theodota and Philaeta, and was himself enjoyed by Demochares and Pythocles: he suffered the last, he said, for patience' sake.
Bion was noted for debauching his own scholars.
Aristotle, the first Peripatetic, had a son called Nicomacus, by his concubine Herpilis: he loved her so well, that he left her in his will a talent of silver, and the choice of his country houses, that, as he says, the damsel might have no reason to complain: he enjoyed, besides the eunuch Hermias, others say, only his concubine Pythais, upon whom he writ a hymn, called, The Infide.
Demetrius Phalereus, who had 360 statues in Athens, kept Lamia for his concubine, and at the same time was himself enjoyed by Cleo: he writ a treatise, called, The Lover, and was nicknamed by the courtesans, Charito Blespharus, i.e. A Charmer of Ladies; and Lampetes, i.e A Great Boaster of his Abilities.
Diogenes, the Cynic, used to say, that women ought to be in common, and that marriage was nothing but a man's getting a woman in the mind to be lain with: he often used manual venery in the public market-place, with this saying, Oh! I that I [could] assuage my hunger thus with rubbing of my stomach!
But what wonder if the old Academics, the Cyrenaics and Peripatetics, were so lewdly wanton, when the very Stoics, who prided themselves in the conquest of all their other passions, were forced to submit to this?
Zeno, indeed, the founder of that sect, was remarkable for his modesty, because he rarely made use of boys, and took but once an ordinary maid servant to bed, that he might not be thought to hate the sex; yet, in his commonwealth, he was for a community of women; and writ a treatise, wherein he regulated the motions in getting a maidenhead, and philosophically proved action and reaction to be equal.
Chrysippus and Appollodorus agree with Zeno in a community of women, and say, that a wise man may be in love with handsome boys.
Erillus, a scholar of Zeno's, was notorious debauchee.
I need not mention the Epicureans that were remarkable for their obscenity.
Epicurus used to make a pander of his own brother; and his scholar, the great Metrodorus, visited all the noted courtesans in Athens, and publicly kept the famous Leontium, his matter's quondam mistress. Yet, if you will believe Laertius, he was every way a good man.
But what shall we say of our favourite Seneca, who, with all his morals, could never acquire the reputation of chastity? He was indeed somewhat nice in his amours, like the famous Flora, who was never enjoyed by anything less than a dictator or a consul; for he scorned to intrigue with anything less than the Empress.
Now, if those reverend schoolmasters, of antiquity, were so loose in their seminals, shall we, of this age, set up for chastity? Have our Oxford students more command of their passions than the Stoics? Are our young Templars less amorous than Plato? Or, is an officer of the army less ticklish in the shoulder than Socrates?
But I need not waste any rhetoric upon so evident a truth; for plain and clear propositions, like windows painted, are only the more obscure the more they are adorned.
I will now suppose, that you have given up the men as incorrigible; since you are convinced, by experience, that even matrimony is not able to reclaim them. Marriage, indeed, is just such a cure for lewdness, as a surfeit is for gluttony; it gives a man's fancy a distaste to the particular dish, but leaves his palate as luxurious as ever; for this reason we find so many married men that, like Sampson's foxes, only do more mischief for having their tails tied. But the women, you say, are weaker vessels, and you are resolved to make them submit; rightly judging, if you could make all the females modest, it would put a considerable stop to fornication. It is great pity, no doubt, so fine a project should miscarry: and I would willingly entertain hopes of seeing one of these Bridewell converts. In the meantime it would not be amiss, if you changed somewhat your present method of conversion, especially in the article of whipping. It is very possible, indeed, that leaving a poor girl penniless, may put her in a way of living honestly, though the want of money was the only reason of her living otherwise; and the stripping of her naked, may, for ought I know, contribute to her modesty, and put her in a state of innocence; but surely, gentlemen you must all know, that flogging has a quite contrary effect. This project of pulling down bawdy-houses to prevent uncleanness, puts me in mind of a certain over-nice gentleman, who could never fancy his garden looked sweet, till he had demolished a bog-house that offended his eye, in one corner of it; but it was not long before every nose in the family was convinced of his mistake. If reason fails to convince, let us profit by example: observe the policy of a modern butcher, persecuted with a swarm of carnivorous flies; when all his engines and fly-traps have proved ineffectual to defend his stall against the greedy assiduity of those carnal insects, he very judiciously cuts off a fragment already blown, which serves to hang up for a cure; and thus, by sacrificing a small part, already tainted, and not worth keeping, he wisely secures the safety of the rest. Or, let us go higher for instruction, and take example by the grazier, who far from denying his herd the accustomed privilege of rubbing, when their sides are stimulated with sharp humours, very industriously fixes a stake in the centre of the field; not so much, you may imagine, to regale the salacious hides of his cattle, as to preserve his young trees from suffering by the violence of their friction.
I could give you more examples of this kind, equally full of instruction, but that I'm loth to detain you from the perusal of the following treatise; and at the same time impatient to have the honour of subscribing myself
Your fellow-reformer,
and devoted servant
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