THE Maids Complaint AGAINST THE bachelors: OR AN Easter-Offering FOR YOUNG MEN AND APPRENTICES.  
Passionately setting forth The Unkindness of Men, with their Slighting the good Old way of Matrimony, and forcing several Thousands of Ripe and Willing Virgins to Spin out Miserable Lives on Earth for want of Husbands, and led Apes in Hell after their Death.  
London, Printed for J. Coniers, at the Black-Raven in Duck-Lane, 1675.   

The Maids Complaint against the bachelors: OR, The Longing Virgins Lamentation.  
' THough Grave People tell us that Moaesly is the best Ornament of our Sex, and endeavour to silence us with an old musty Proverb, That Maids should be seen and not heard; yet we find ourselves at present obliged to dispense with these Formalities, and under a necessity of publishing our Just Complaints as loud as the Press can speak them: The insufferable Carriage of you, Barbarous bachelors! hath reduced us to this Extremity: Too long, Alas! too long have we endured your Cruelties, and born, beyond all Patience, your Neglects and Ill-usage: How often have we Sighed in private, and made Vows to Heaven in Vain for the Blessing of Husbands? The silent Language of our Blushes has sufficiently spoken our Passion; and you might( had you not been Insensible) have red our desires plainly Legible in our Languishing Eyes: As soon as we Arrived at the Long-wisht for Teens, what Arts have we not used to engage your rambling Affections? How have we made it our Business to spruce up and finifie ourselves that we might appear to the best Advantage? Witness our perpetual Washings, Combings, Curlings, Powderings and a thousand Chargeable Devices of the tailor, and the Tire-woman, our studied Behaviour, various Dresses, affencted Postures, tempting Smiles, and Amorous Glances whereby we even darted our very Souls at you, were all but so many modest Invitations for you to fall on; yet( Cowards that you are) you seem still to decline the Encounter, and view us with no more Passion, than if we were only Ivory Statues, or so many handsome Pictures. Can you think we were at all this trouble for nothing; or imagine that we would ever have trimmed up these Tenements of our Bodies so Curiously, but with an intent to let them? must you not confess yourselves inhuman, and more Uncharitable than Beasts and Savages to suffer so many plump Virgins to Languish and Pine away with the Green-Sickness, when it lies solely in your Power to Relieve them?  
Perhaps you may allege in your own defence, That you have been ready on all Occasions to offer your Assistance, but Alas! it was by such a Method of Cure as was worse than the Disease; Palliating the White fever with the more grievous Plague of a Timpany.  
We know well enough, Young-Men! what you would be at; you are willing enough to Break Bulk, but not Pay custom; and would Board us without privilege from the person; which, neither our Honour, nor Interest can admit: such Slippery Blades are not to be trusted without being tied to the good Behaviour with the Enchanted Gable of a For Better for Worse Our Prudent Mothers, from sad Experience, have often red us Lectures against that Folly of hazarding the stock of our honesty in the leaky bottom of your Insignificant promises: Come, come, we remember what you have formerly  told us, that an Amorous Perjury is but a necessary failing; and that Jupiter puts the Vows of Lovers in a bottonles Bag, never to rise up in Judgement against them: and therefore, though we would gladly be Trading in an honest civil way, yet we conceive the times somewhat hard, and have no inclination to try Peoples Charity with a Fatherless Bantling at our Backs; and therefore resolve with the Song. 
— Or mary or else forsake us,  
For having filled our Belly's and your desires,  
You'l be burned before you will take us.   
But the plain truth is, to our unspeakable grief we find you such Heathen Libertines, that the Divine and most comfortable Institution of Matrimony, is grown odious, or at least contemptible to most of you: As if the Common afforded sweeter Pasture than the enclosure, or dirty Puddle-water that every one lies dabbling in, were to be preferred before a private Spring: A Miss, a Miss, is the only thing; and there is scarce a apprentice of sixteen, but puts the choose upon his Master to help maintain some small piece of Harlotry abroad: you count Fornication but a Venial Trifle, and yet think honest Marriage an unpardonable sin. A Whore is become a necessary Appurtenance, and to keep her nobly part of the Character of a Gentleman; whilst to love a Mans own Wise is voted worfe than Cuckoldry, and an Infallible mark of a Sot and a Fop. Brisk and airy is the Word( in plain English, Rompish and Impudent) and to be honest, or modest, you count Ill-breeding in a Woman. There is scarce any of you that Court Beauty seriously, and virtue none at all: your pretences of making Love to us, are only, either baits to debauch us, or designs to get our Money: If ever you venture to mary us, we do but purchase contempt and slavery for term of Life; and sell ourselves at the Price of our Portions: Not to say of our Health and Lives too, though 'tis most seriously true, that your Bodies are generally as filthy as your Souls, and fuller of Diseases than an hospital. We will not tell you of your dissimulations and perfideousness, nor yet of your flatteries and breach of Vows, since you glory in all these, as your choicest accomplishments; and we cannot be so impertinent as to be angry with you: for sure in your present Reprobate-state you are worthy none of you passions but Horn. Hence forward therefore, when you whine and fawn on us, we will only be so kind as to Laugh at you. 'Twill be rare diversion to see you like monkeys acting your passionate Amours with a thousand ridiculous Grimaces; repeating shreds of Plays instead of Natural wit, which you are strangers to: and hiring Poets to writ most passionate Letters of dull nonsense to us. To observe what little silly tricks you use to Charm us with variety of gay Cloths, till you have either made the Confiding tailor a Bankrupt, or he has got you in Limbo for your entrusted bravery; and then at last having wasted both your Estates and Bodies: How you either are trappan'd into the dreadful Marriagc Noose by a Common Strumpet, under prettence of a Fortune, or dote in good earnest on some greasy kitchenwench, or at best are glad merely for a wretched Lively hood, to Wed some ugly deformed most abominable old widow of fourscore, who frights you out of your little wits in the day-time by her Meager looks; and in the Night with her everlasting Cough and nasty rheums.  
One of these Chances is certainly your Fate; and therefore he advised in time: leave off these silly extravagant Rambles attended with nothing but shane and Infamy, and List yourselves amongst honest drudging good Common wealths-men, who take care both for the necessities of the time present, and the Interests of Posterity, so as to People the World in the next Age with the Labours of a lawful Bed, and not a spurious Issue: Then shall you find that the embraces of a modest Wise are not only more cheap and wholesome, but much more pleasant than the treacherous Dalliances of a wanton Miss, though never so sprightly or well skilled in all the modes of Petulancy: and that the feverish heats of never-satisfied Lust are no more to be compared to the comfortable and constant warmth of a well-grounded Love, than bristol stones are to real Diamonds.  
And in this hope, that you will lay these considerations to heart, and for the future behave yourselves more kindly, and prevent us from the necessity of running into Nunneries, or leading Apes in Hell( both which are so contrary to our inclinations that we dread nothing more) we commit you to the Counsel of your Pillows, and rest if you please,  
Given at our general Assembly in Fancies Theatre, this Easter-Eve. Your very ready and most affectionate Servants.  
FINIS.