Note 46 — ON THE SPIRIT OF MONARCHY
Reading edition
A lady of quality abroad, in allusion to the gallantries of the reigning Prince, being told, ‘I suppose it will be your turn next?’ said, ‘No, I hope not; for you know it is impossible to refuse!’ What a satire on the court and fashionables! If this be true, female virtue in the blaze of royalty is no more than the moth in the candle, or ice in the sun’s ray. What will the great themselves say to it, in whom at this rate,
——‘the same luck holds,
They all are subjects, courtiers, and cuckolds!’
Out upon it! We’ll not believe it. Alas! poor virtue, what is to become of the very idea of it, if we are to be told that every man within the precincts of a palace is an hypothetical cuckold, or holds his wife’s virtue in trust for the Prince? We entertain no doubt that many ladies of quality have resisted the importunities of a throne, and that many more would do so in private life, if they had the desired opportunity: nay, we have been assured by several that a king would no more be able to prevail with them than any other man! If however there is any foundation for the above insinuation, it throws no small light on the Spirit of Monarchy, which by the supposition implies in it the virtual surrender of the whole sex at discretion; and at the same time accounts perhaps for the indifference shown by some monarchs in availing themselves of so mechanical a privilege.