swer to this, I shall only observe, that if motives of interest or vanity have had any share in your resolutions to marry none of these chimerical notions will give you any pain; nay they will very quickly appear as ridiculous in your own eyes as they probably always do in the eyes of your husbands They have been sentiments which floated in your imaginations, but have never reached your hearts. But, if these sentiments have been truly genuine, and if you have had the singular happy fate to attach those who understand them, you have no reason to be afraid.

Marriage, indeed, will not at once dispel the enchantment raised by an external beauty; but the virtues and graces that first warmed the heart, the reserve and delicacy which always left the lover something farther to wish, and often made him doubtful of your sensibility or attachment, may and ought ever to remain. The tumult of passion will necessarily subside; but it will be succeeded by an endearment that affects the heart in a more equal, more sensible, and tender manner. But I must check myself, and not indulge in descriptions that may mislead you, and that too sensibly awake the remembrance of my happier days, which perhaps it were better for me to forget for ever.

I have thus given you my opinion on some of the most important articles of your future life, chiefly calculated for that period, when you are just entering the world. I have endeavored to avoid some peculiarities of opinion, which, from their contradiction to the general practice of the world, I might reasonably have suspected were not so well founded. But, in writing to you, I am afraid my heart has been too full, and too warmly interested, to allow me to keep this resolution. This may have produced some embarrassment, and some seeming contradiction. What I have written has been the amusement of some solitary hours, and has served to divert some melancholy reflections. You will at least be pleased with it, as the last mark of your father's love and affection. I am, &c.

LETTER XXVI.-From a Gentleman to a Lady, professing an aversion to tedious formality in Courtship. Dear Madam,

I REMEMBER that one of the ancients, in describing a youth in love, says, " he has neither wisdom enough to speak, nor to hold his tongue." If this be a just description, the sinceri y of my passion will admit of no dispute: and whenever in

your company I behave like a fool, forget not that you are answerable for my incapacity. Having made bold to declare this much, I must presume to say, that a favorable reception of this, will I am certain, make me more worthy of your notice; but your disdain would be what I believe myself incapable ever to surmount. To try by idle fallacies, and airy compliments, to prevail on your judgment, is a folly for any man to attempt who knows you. No, Madam, your good sense and endowments have raised you far above the necessity of practising the mean artifices which prevail upon the less deserving of your sex: you are not to be so lightly deceived; and, if you were, give me leave to say, I should not think you deserving of the trouble that would attend such an attempt.

This, I must own, is no fashionable letter from one who, I am sure, loves up to the greatest hero of romance; but as 1 would hope that the happiness I sue for, should be lasting, it is certainly most eligible to take no step to procure it but what will bear reflection; for I should be happy to see you mine, even when both have outlived the taste of every thing that has not virtue and reason to support it. I am, Madam, notwithstanding this unpolished address,

Your most respectful admirer,

And obedient humble servant.

LETTER XXVII.-The Lady's Answer, encouraging a further declaration.

Sir,

I AM very little in love with the fashionable methods of courtship sincerity, with me, is preferable to compliments. Yet I see no reason why common decency should be discarded. There is something so odd in your style, that when I know whether you are in jest or earnest, I shall be less at a loss to answer you. Mean time, as there is abundant room for rising, rather than sinking, in your complaisance, you may possibly have chosen wisely, to begin first at the lower. If this be the case, I know not what your succeeding addresses may produce: but I tell you fairly, that your present makes no great impression, yet perhaps as much as you intend, on Your humble servart.

LETTER XXVIII.-From the Gentleman to the Lady, more openly declaring his passion.

Dear Madam,

Now I have the hope of not being despised for my sc

knowledged affection, I declare to you, with the utmost sin. cerity, that I have long had a most sincere passion for you, but I have seen gentlemen led such dances, when they have given up their affections to the lovely tyrants of their hearts, and could not help themselves, that I had no courage to begin an address in the usual forms, even to you, of whose good sense and generosity I nevertheless had a good opinion. You have favored me with a few lines, which I most kindly thank you for. And I do assure you, Madam, if you will be pleased to encourage my honorable suit, you shall have so just an ac count of my circumstances and pretensions, as I hope wil entitle me to your favor in the honorable light in which I pro fess myself, dear Madam,

Your most obliged and faithful admirer.

LETTER XXIX.-The Lady in Reply, putting the matter to a sudden issue.

Sir, As we are both so well inclined to avoid unnecessary trouble, as well as unnecessary compliments, I think proper to acquaint you, that Mr. Dunford, of Baltimore, has the management of all my affairs, and is a man of such probity and honor, that I do nothing, in any matters of consequence, without him. I have no dislike to your person; and if you ap prove of what Mr. Dunford can acquaint you with, in relation

to me, and I approve of his report in your favor, I shall be

far from showing any gentleman, that I have either an inso lent or a sordid spirit, especially to such as do me the honor of their good opinion.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant.

LETTER XXX.-From an Aunt to her Niece, who had given her a ludicrous account of a sober lover.

Dear Niece,

I AM Sorry you think Mr. Richards so unsuitable a lover. He is a serious, sober, good man; and surely, when seriousness and sobriety make a necessary part of the duty of a good husband, a good father, and a good master of a family, those characters should not be the subject of ridicule, in persons of our sex especially, who would reap advantages from them. But he talks of the weather when he first sees you, it seems and would you have had him directly fall upon the subject o love, the moment he beheld you?

He gave you to understand, that if he liked your character on inquiry, as well as your person and behavior, he should think himself very happy in such a wife; for that, I dare say. was more like his language, than what you put in his mouth; and let me tell you, it would have been a much stranger speech, had so cautious and serious a man said, without a thorough knowledge of your character, that at the first sight he was over head and ears in love with you.

I think, allowing for the ridiculous turn your airy wit gives to the first visit, that, by your own account, he acted like a prudent, serious, and worthy man, as he is, and like one who thought flashy compliments beneath him, in so serious an affair as this.

I think, dear niece, this is not only a mighty safe way, as you call it, of travelling towards the land of matrimony, but also to the land of happiness, with respect as well to the next world as to this. And it is to be hoped, that the better entertainment you so much wish for on your journey, may not lead you too much out of the way, and divert your mind from the principal view which you ought to have at your journey's end.

In short, I should rather have wished, that you could bring your mind nearer to his standard, than that he should bring down his to your level. And you would have found more satisfaction in it than you imagine, could you have brought yourself to a little more of that solemn appearance, which you treat so lightly, and which, I think, in him, is much more than mere appearance.

Upon the whole, dear niece, I am sorry that a woman of virtue and morals, as you are, should treat so ludicrously a serious and pious frame of mind, in an age, wherein good examples are so rare, and so much wanted; though, at the same time, I am far from offering to prescribe to you in so arduous an affair, as a husband; and wish you and Mr. Richards too, since you are so differently disposed, matched more suitably to each other's minds, than you are likely to be together.

I am your truly affectionate aunt.

LETTER XXXI.-A letter from Lady Wortley Montagu, against a Maxim of Mons. Rochefoucalt's, "That Mar riages are convenient, but never delightful.”

It appears very bold in me to attempt to destroy a max. im established by so celebrated a genius as Mons. Rochefou calt, and implicit y received by a nation, which calls itsell

.he only perfectly polite nation in the world, and which has. for so long a time, given laws of gallantry to all Europe.

But, full of the ardor which the truth inspires, I dare to ad vise the contrary; and assert boldly, that it is marriage-love only which can be delightful to a good mind.

We cannot taste the sweets of perfect love, but in a well. suited marriage. Nothing so much distinguishes a little mind as to stop at words. What signifies that custom, (for which we see very good reasons,) of making the name of husband and wife ridiculous? A husband signifies, in the general interpretation, a jealous mortal, a quarrelsome tyrant, or a good sort of fool, on whom we may impose anything; a wife is a domestic demon, given to this poor man to deceive and torment him. The conduct of the generality of people justifies these two characters. But I say again, what signify words? A well-regulated marriage is not like those of ambition and interest. It is two lovers who live together. Let a priest pronounce certain words, let an attorney sign certain papers, I look upon these preparations as a lover does on a ladder of cords, that he fixes to the window of his mistress.

I know there are some people of false delicacy, who maintain that the pleasures of love are only due to difficulties and dangers. They say, very wittingly, the rose would not be the rose without thorns, and a thousand other trifles of that nature, which make so little impression on my mind, that I am persuaded, was I a lover, the fear of hurting her I loved would make me unhappy, if the possession was accompanied with dangers to her. The life of married lovers is very dif ferent: they pass it in a change of mutual obligations and marks of benevolence, and have the pleasure of forming the entire happiness of the object beloved; in which point I have placed perfect enjoyment.

The most trifling cares of economy become noble and delicate, when they are heightened by sentiments of tenderness. To furnish a room is no longer furnishing a room, it is ornamenting a place where I expect my lover: to order a supper is not simply giving orders to a cook, it is amusing myself in regaling him I love. These necessary occupations, regarded n this light by a lover, are pleasures infinitely more sensible and lively, than cards, and public places, which make the happiness of the multitude incapable of true pleasure. A passion, happy and contented, softens every movement of the soul, and guds each object that we look on.

To a happy lover, (I mean one married to his mistress,) if ne has any employment, every thing becomes agreeable, wher