The inhabitants of this country are so besotted to their idols, that they fancy they secure their favour by prostituting their wives, sisters, and daughters to strangers.

The demagogue prostitutes this power.

Even the learned men who shed lustre around his throne prostituted their talents to nurse his egotism, and did but little to elevate the national character.

When such as Dryden and Pope lavished in preface and dedication their encomiums upon wealth and power, and waited eagerly for the golden guineas the bait might bring them, we have no right to complain of the Tates and Eusdens for prostituting their neglected Muses for a splendid sum certain per annum.

This is to slander mankind first in the gross; then in retail, as occasion serveth, to asperse any man; this is the way of half-witted Machiavellians, and of desperate reprobates in wickedness, who having prostituted their consciences to vice, for their own defence and solace, would shroud themselves from blame under the shelter of common pravity and infirmity; accusing all men of that whereof they know themselves guilty.

You have given them what they want, prostituting your art to do it.

He might likewise have excepted Blackmore, who was not only chaste in his own writings, but endeavoured to correct those who prostituted the gifts of heaven, to the inglorious purposes of vice and folly, and he was, at least, as good a poet as Roscommon.

I am the more confirmed in this Opinion from my having received several Letters, wherein I am censur'd for having prostituted Learning to the Embraces of the Vulgar, and made her, as one of my Correspondents phrases it, a common Strumpet: I am charged by another with laying open the Arcana, or Secrets of Prudence, to the Eyes of every Reader.

And 'tis a general fault amongst most parents in bestowing of their children, the father wholly respects wealth, when through his folly, riot, indiscretion, he hath embezzled his estate, to recover himself, he confines and prostitutes his eldest son's love and affection to some fool, or ancient, or deformed piece for money.

No man of honour who sees a poet endowed with a large share of natural understanding, prostituting his pen to the vilest purpose of debauchery and lewdness, can think of him but with contempt; and his wit, however brilliant, ought not to screen him from the just indignation of the sober part of mankind.

There is a Charge against him among the Women, and the Case is this: It is alledged, That a certain endowed Female would have appropriated her self to and consolidated her self with a Church, which my Divine now enjoys; (or, which is the same thing, did prostitute her self to her Friends doing this for her):

Do not prostitute thy soul for gain.

Let the poet then abandon his profession, and take up some honest lawful calling, where, joining industry to his great wit, he may soon get above the complaints of poverty, so common among these ingenious men, and lie under no necessity of prostituting his wit to any such vile purposes as are here censured.

He had made himself guilty of an abominable wickedness, he had just committed an inexcusable crime, he had succumbed cowardly, ignominiously; he had betrayed his faith, abjured his priestly oaths, forgotten his duties, prostituted his dignity on the withered breast of an old corrupted maid-servant.

1. Imprimis, We accuse Lingua of high treason and sacrilege against the most honourable commonwealth of letters; for, under pretence of profiting the people with translations, she hath most vilely prostituted the hard mysteries of unknown languages to the profane ears of the vulgar.

Bearer of a great name, and inheritor of the splendours and riches of his great-uncle, the Cardinal, who was Louis XII.'s right-hand man, and, in his day, the most powerful subject in Europe, the Duc was born with the football of fortune at his feet; and probably no man who has ever lived so shamefully prostituted such magnificent opportunities and gifts.

the late transport she was in, was immediately converted into disdain and vexation at being taken, as she had all the reason in the world to suppose, for one of those common creatures who prostitute their charms for bread.

If I must prostitute the Muse, The base conditions I refuse.

Having thus prostituted his reputation, and at once ruined his hopes, he had no course left, but to shew his spite against religion in general; the false pretensions to which, had proved so destructive to his credit and fortune:

A most immoral, licentious Dominican, who for money would prostitute even the Church and Holy Scriptures.

You will not find many beasts that can afford to prostitute their ears to ornamental purposes.

He had come to understand that one may not prostitute his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a prostitute's reward.

Thou art too charitable To prostitute thy beutie to releeve me; With thy soft kisses to redeeme from fetters The stubborne fortune of thy wretched father.

Many at least (to purchase this glory, to be deemed considerable in this faculty, and enrolled among the wits) do not only make shipwreck of conscience, abandon virtue, and forfeit all pretences to wisdom; but neglect their estates, and prostitute their honour: so to the private damage of many particular persons, and with no small prejudice to the public, are our times possessed and transported with this humour.

It is this which makes prostitution a horror, and prostitutes the Ishmaels of their race.