at once controls and refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation. The love of reason and of virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence, which is not an object of corporeal appetite. As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly engages to fidelity: every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach of the first irregular wish; and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenuous and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspecting simplicity abused, and the peace even of virtue endangered by the most sordid infidelity and the breach of the strongest obligations.

But the hope of the hypocrite must perish. When the factitious beauty has laid by her smiles; when the lustre of her eyes and the bloom of her cheeks have lost their influence with their novelty; what remains but a tyrant divested of power, who will never be seen without a mixture of indignation and disdain? The only desire, which this object could gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without reluctance, but with triumph. As resentment will succeed to disappointment, a desire to mortify will succeed to a desire to please; and the husband may be urged to solicit a mistress, merely by a remembrance of the beauty of his wife, which lasted only till she was known.

Let it, therefore, be remembered, that none can be disciples of the Graces, but in the school of Virtue; and that those, who wish to be lovely, must learn early to be good. ADVENTURER.

ON GOOD NATURE.

THOUGH I devote this lucubration to the ladies, yet there are some parts of it, which I hope will not be wholly useless to the gentlemen: and, perhaps, both may expect to be addressed upon a subject, which to both is of equal importance.

It has been universally allowed, and with great reason, that between persons who marry there should be some degree of equality, with respect to age and condition. Those who violate a known truth, deserve the infelicity they incur; I shall, therefore, only labour to preserve innocence by detecting errour.

With the ladies, it is a kind of general maxim, that "the best husband is a reformed rake; a maxim, which they have probably derived from comedies and novels, in which such a husband is commonly the reward of female merit. But the belief of this maxim is an incontestible proof, that with the true character of a rake the ladies are wholly unacquainted. "They have," indeed, "heard of a wild young gentleman, who would rake about the town, and take up his lodging at a bagnio; who had told many a girl a pretty story, that was fool enough to believe him; and had a right to many a child, that did not call him father; but that, in some of these frolicks, he thought no harm, and for others he had sufficiently suffered."" But let the Adventurer be believed, these are words of dreadful import, and should always be thus understood:

"To rake-about town and lodge at a bagnio, is to associate with the vilest and most abandoned of human beings; it is to become familiar with blasphemy and lewdness, and frequently to sport with the most deplorable misery. To tell pretty stories to credulous girls, is to deceive the simplicity of innocence by cunning and falsehood. To be

the father of a nameless progeny, is to desert those, whose tears only can implore the protection, to which, of all others, they have the strongest and the tenderest claim; it is more than to be a man without affection, it is to be a brute without instinct. To think no harm in some of these frolicks, is to have worn out all sensibility of the difference between right and wrong; and to have suffered for others, is to have a body contaminated with diseases, which in some degree are certainly transmitted to posterity."

It is to be hoped, that the mere exhibition of this picture will be sufficient to deter the ladies from precluding happiness by marrying the original; and from discouraging virtue, by making vice necessary to the character which they prefer.

But they frequently act upon another principle, which, though not equally fatal and absurd, may yet produce great infelicity.

When the rake is excluded, it will be generally supposed, that superior intellectual abilities ought always to determine the choice. "A man of fine sense" is indeed a character of great dignity; and the ladies have always been advised to prefer this to every other, as it includes a capacity to bestow "that refined, exalted, and permanent felicity, which alone is worthy of a rational being." But I think it probable, that this advice, however specious, has been often given for no other reason, than because to give it flattered the vanity of the writer, who fondly believed he was drawing his own character, and exciting the envy and admiration of his readers. This advice, however, the ladies universally affect to approve, and probably for a similar reason; since every one imagines, that to hold intellectual excellence in high estimation is to demonstrate that she possesses it.

As he that would persuade should be scrupulously careful not to offend, I will not insinuate, that there are any

ladies, by whom the peculiar beauties of an exalted understanding cannot be discerned, and who have not, there fore, a capacity for half the pleasure which it can bestow, And yet, I think, there is another excellence, which is much more essential to conjugal felicity, good nature.

I know that good nature has, like Socrates, been ridiculed in the habit of folly; and that folly has been dignified: by the name of good nature. But by good nature I do not mean that flexible imbecility of mind, which complies with every request, and inclines a man at once to accompany an acquaintance to a brothel at the expense of his health, and to keep an equipage for a wife at the expense of his estate. Persons of this disposition have seldom more be, nevolence than fortitude, and frequently perpetrate deli berate cruelty.

In true good nature there is neither the acrimony of spleen, nor the sullenness of malice; it is neither clamorous nor fretful, neither easy to be offended nor impatient to revenge; it is a tender sensibility, a participation of the pains and pleasures of others; and is, therefore, a forcible and constant motive, to communicate happiness and alle, viate misery.

As human nature is, from whatever cause, in a state of great imperfection, it is surely to be desired, that a person, whom it is most our interest to please, should not see more of this imperfection than we do ourselves.

I shall, perhaps, be told, that "a man of sense can never use a woman ill." The latter part of this proposition is a phrase of very extensive and various signification: whether a man of sense can 66 use a woman ill," I will not inquire, but I shall endeavour to show, that he may make her extremely wretched.

Persons of keen penetration, and great delicacy of sentiment, as they must necessarily be more frequently, offended than others; so, as a punishment for the offence,

the father of a nameless progeny, is to desert those, whose tears only can implore the protection, to which, of all others, they have the strongest and the tenderest claim; it is more than to be a man without affection, it is to be a brute without instinct. To think no harm in some of these frolicks, is to have worn out all sensibility of the difference between right and wrong; and to have suffered for others, is to have a body contaminated with diseases, which in some degree are certainly transmitted to posterity.”

It is to be hoped, that the mere exhibition of this picture will be sufficient to deter the ladies from precluding happiness by marrying the original; and from discouraging virtue, by making vice necessary to the character which they prefer.

But they frequently act upon another principle, which, though not equally fatal and absurd, may yet produce great infelicity.

When the rake is excluded, it will be generally supposed, that superior intellectual abilities ought always to determine the choice. "A man of fine sense" is indeed a character of great dignity; and the ladies have always been advised to prefer this to every other, as it includes a capacity to bestow "that refined, exalted, and permanent felicity, which alone is worthy of a rational being.". But I think it probable, that this advice, however specious, has been often given for no other reason, than because to give it flattered the vanity of the writer, who fondly believed he was drawing his own character, and exciting the envy and admiration of his readers. This advice, however, the ladies universally affect to approve, and probably for a similar reason; since every one imagines, that to hold intellectual excellence in high estimation is to demonstrate that she possesses it.

As he that would persuade should be scrupulously careful not to offend, I will not insinuate, that there are any