Part 2 — From Nell Gwin to Peg Hughes.

Sister Peg,

OF all the concubines in christendom, that ever were happy in so kind a keeper, none sure ever squandered away the fruits of her labour so indiscreetly as yourself; whoring and gaming I acknowledge are two very serviceable vices in a common-wealth, because they make money circulate; but for a woman that has enrich’d herself by the one, to impoverish herself by the other, is so great a fault, that a harlot deserves correction for. Some people may think copulation a very easy and delightful way of getting money, but they are much mistaken, for the pains, you know as well as myself, which we take to please our benefactors, destroy our own pleasure, and make it become a toil we are forc’d to sweat at. Then who, but you, that had acquired such plentiful possessions by the labour of her bum, and sweat of her brows, would have tossed away thousands in a night upon the chance of a card, or fate of a die, as if you believed your honour was an Indian mine, which would furnish you with gold to eternity for the trouble of digging: but now, Madam, you find yourself mistaken, for those crows-feet that have laid hold of the corners of your eyes, and wrinkly age, that in spight of art, supplies the places of your absent charms, fright away the amorous and the generous from your experienc’d embraces: besides, women, I hear, are so plentiful upon earth, that a lady of our quality, must be the true copy of an angel in appearance, whose favours shall be thought worth meat, drink, washing, lodging, and cloaths; so that a pretty woman now a-days may make a slave of her bumfiddle for thirty years together, and not get money enough to keep her out of an hospital, or an alms-house at the age of fifty. I, you see, thro’ the whole course of my life, maintain’d my post, and as I was mistress to a king, liv’d as great as a duchess to my last minute; and you, like an extravagant concubine, to game away an estate, in few years, large enough to have maintain’d a score of younger brothers listed into your ladyship’s service, who would have drudg’d to oblige you as much as you did to delight the good old gentleman that gave it to you; fie upon’t, I am asham’d to think, that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a prince out of so fine an estate, should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper; if that mouth could have spoke that had labour’d hard to earn the penny, and miser-like was always gaping for more riches, sure it would have scolded at your profuse hands, for flinging away that estate so fast which they had but a small share in getting of, but indeed it is not fit the silent beard should know how much it has been abus’d by the other parts of the body, for if it did, it would be enough to put it into a pouting condition, and make it open its sluice to the drowning of the low-countries in an inundation of salt-water. I would advise you, Madam, with the small remains of your squander’d fortune, to go into a nunnery, turn Roman Catholick, which is the best religion in the universe, (for ladies of your occupation, grow wonderful pious, and make a virtue of necessity) and there remain till death, as a living testimony of the truth of the old proverb, (viz) That what is got over the devil’s back, is spent under his belly: which is all the consolation you deserve from your sister in iniquity,

Nell Gwin.