"Ye gods, I grow a talker!"[637] Let us prate.

The next of perils, though I place it sternest,

Is when, without regard to Church or State,

A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest.

Abroad, such things decide few women's fate—

(Such, early Traveller! is the truth thou learnest)—

But in old England, when a young bride errs,

Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to hers.