tention. However, my dear girl, consider that men are deceitful, und always put the best side outwards. It may possibly, on the strict Inqui ry which the nature and importance of the case demands, come out far otherwise than it at present appears. Let me, therefore, advise you to act in this matter with great prudence, and that you make not yourself too cheap, for men are apt to slight what is too easily obtained. In the mean time he may be told, that you are entirely resolved to abide by my determination in an affair of this great importance. This will put him on applying to me, who, you need not doubt, will in this case, ns in all others, study your good. Your mother gives her blessing to you, and joins in the advice you here receive from Your affectionate father. LETTER 189.

From Mr. Smith to the young Lady's Father.

HONORED SIR,

Though personally unknown to you, I take the liberty to deck re the great value and affection I have for your amiable daughter, whom I have had the honor to see at my friend's house. I should think myself entirely unworthy of her favor and your approbation, if I could have thought of influencing her resolution but in obedience to your pleasure, as I should, on such a supposition, offer an injury likewise to that prudence in herself which I flatter myself is not the least of her amiable perfections. If I might have the honor of your countenance, sir, on this occasion, I would open myself and circumstances to you in that frank and honest manner, which should convince you of the sincerity of my affection for your daughter, and at the same time of the honorableness of my intentions. In the mear time, I will in general say, that I have been set up in business, in the linen drapery way, upwards of three years; that I have a very good trade for the time; and that I had a thousand dollars to begin with, which I have improved to fifteen hundred, as I am ready to make appear to your satisfaction; that I am descended of a creditable family, have done nothing to stain my character, and that my trade is still further improveable, as I shall, I hope, enlarge my capital. This, sir, I thought but honest and fair to acquaint you with, that you might know something of a person who sues to you for your countenance, and that of your good lady, in an affair that I hope may one day prove the greatest happiness of my life, as it must be, if I can be blessed with that and your daughter's approbation. In hopes of which, and the favor of a line, I take the liberty to subscribe myself good sir, Your obedient and humble servant.

LETTER 140.

From a Gentleman to a Lady whom he accuses of inconstancy. MADAM,

You will not, I presume, be surprised at a letter in the place of a vis it from one who cannot but have reason to believe that it may find as ready a welcome as he would himself.

You should not supppose, if lovers have lost their sight, that thei senses are all banished: and if I refuse to believe my eyes when that

show me your inconstancy, you must not wonder that I cannot stop my ears against the accounts of it. Pray let us understand one another properly; for I am afraid we are deceiving ourselves all this while.Am I a person whom you esteem, whose fortune you do not despise, and whose pretensions you encourage? Or am I a troublesome coxcomb, who fancy myself particularly received by a woman who only laughs at me? If I am the latter you treat me as I deserve, and I ought to join with you in saying I deserve it. But if it be otherwise, and you receive me, as I think you do, as a person you intend to marry, for it is best to be plain on these occasions, pray tell me what is the occasion of that universal coquetry in public, where every fool flatters you, and you are pleased with the meanest of them? And what can be the meaning of your showing so much attention to Mr. Marlow, which I am told you always do when I am not in company? Both of us, madam, you cannot think of; and I should be sorry to imagine, that when I had given you my heart so entirely, I shared yours with any other man.

I have said a great deal too much to you, and yet I am tempted to say more; but I shall be silent. I beg you wil answer this, and I think I have a right to expect that you will do it g nerously and fairly. Do not mistake what is the distraction of my heart for want of respect towards you. While I am writing thus, I dote on ou, but I cannot bear to be deceived where all my happiness is centred Your most unhappy.

SIR,

LETTER 141.

The Lady's Answer.

Did I make all the allowance you desire in the end of your letter, I should not answer you at all. But although I am really unhappy to find you are so, and the more so to find myself to be the occasion, I can hardly impute the unkindness and incivility of your letter to the single cause you would have me. However, as I would not be suspected of any thing that should justify such treatment from you, I think it necessary to inform you that what you have heard has no more foundation than what you have seen; however, I wonde that others' eyes should not be as easily alarmed as yours; for instead of being blind, believe me, sir, you see more than there is to be seen. Perhaps, however, their sight is much sharpened by their unprovoked malice, as yours by, undeserved suspicion.

Whatever may be the end of this dispute, for I do not think so lightly of lovers' quarrels as many do, I think it proper to inform you, that I never thought favorably of any one but yourself; and I shall add, that if the faults of your temper, which I once little suspected, should make ine fear you too much to marry, you will not see me in that state with any other, nor courted by any in the world.

I did not know that the gaiety of my temper gave you uneasiness; and you ought to have told me of it with less severity. If I am particular in it, I am afraid it is a fault in my natural disposition; but I would have taken some pains to have got the better of that, if I had known it was disagreeable to you. T ought to resent this treatment more than I do, but do not insult my weakness on that head; for a fault of that kind

have principles, have generosity and dignity of soul, that elevates them above the worthless vanity I have been speaking of.

Such a woman, I am persuaded, may always convert a lover, if she cannot give him her affections, into a warm and steady friend, provided ne is a man of sense, resolution and candor. If she explains herself to nim with a generous openness and freedom, he must feel the stroke as a man; but he will likewise bear it as a man; what he suffers he will suffer in silence. Every sentiment of esteem will remain; but love, though it requires very little food, and is easily surfeited with too much, yet it requires some. He will view her in the light of a married woman; and though passion subsides, yet a man of a candid and generous heart always retains a tenderness for a woman he has once loved, and who has used him well, beyond what he feels for any other of her sex.

If he has not confided his secret to any body, he has an undoubted title to ask you not to divulge it. If a woman chooses to trust any of her companions with her own unfortunate attachments, she may, as it is her affair alone; but, if she has any generosity or gratitude, she will not betray a secret which does not belong to her.

LETTER 145.

I am, &c.

From the same to the same, on the foregoing subject.

DEAR DAUGHTERS,

I have insisted the more particularly on the subject of courtship because it may most readily happen to you at that early period of life, when you can have little experience or knowledge of the world, when your passions are warm, and your judgments not arrived at such full maturity as to be able to correct them. I wish you to possess such high principles of honor and generosity as will render you incapable of deceiving, and at the same time to possess that acute discernment which may secure you against being deceived.

Male coquetry is much more inexcusable than female, as well as more pernicious; but it is rare in this country. Very few men will give themselves the trouble to gain or retain any woman's affections unless they have views in them either of an honorable or dishonorable kind. Men employed in the pursuits of business, ambition, or pleasure, will not give themselves the trouble to engage a woman's affections, merely from the vanity of conquest, and of triumphing over the heart of an innocent and defenceless girl. Besides, people never value much what is entirely in their power. A man of parts, sentiment, and address, if he lays aside all regard to truth and humanity, may engage the hearts of fifty women at the same time, and may likewise conduct his coquetry with so much art as to put it out of the power of any of them to specify a single expression that could be said to be directly expressive of love This ambiguity of behavior, this art of keeping one in suspense, is the great art of coquetry in both sexes. It is the more cruel in us, because we can carry it to what length we please, and continue it as long as we please, without your being so much at liberty as to complain or expos tulate whereas we can break our chain, and force you to explain whenever we become impatient of our situation.

A woman. in this country, may easily prevent the first impressions of

love, and every motive of prudence and delicacy should make her guard her heart against them, till such time as she has received the most cou vincing proofs of the attachment of a man of such merit as will justify a reciprocal regard. Your hearts indeed may be shut inflexibly and permanently against all the merit a man may possess. That may be your misfortune, but cannot be your fault. In such a situation, you would be equally unjust to yourself and your lover, if you gave him your hand when your heart revolted against him. But miserable will be your fate if you allow an attachment to steal on you before you are sure of a return; or what is infinitely worse, where are wanting those qualities which alone can insure happiness in a married state.

I know nothing that renders a woman more despicable than her think. ing it essential to happiness to be married! Besides the gross indelicacy of the sentiment, it is a false one, as thousands of women have experienced. But, if it was true, the belief that it was so, and the consequent impatience to be married, is the most effectual way to prevent it.

You must think from this that I do not wish you to marry. On the contrary, I am of opinion that you may attain a superior degree of happiness in a married state to what you may perhaps find in any other. I know the forlorn and unprotected state of an old maid, the chagrin and peevishness which are apt to infect their tempers, and the great difficulty of making a transition with dignity and cheerfulness, from the period of youth, beauty, admiration, and respect, into the calm, silent, unnoticed retreat of declining years.

I see some unmarried women, of active, vigorous minds, and of great vivacity of spirits, degrading themselves; sometimes by entering into a dissipated course of life unsuitable to their years, and exposing them. selves to the ridicule of the girls, who might have been their granchildren; sometimes by oppressing their acquaintances by impertinent intrusions into their private affairs; and sometimes by being propagators of scandal and defamation. All this is owing to an exuberant activity of spirits, which, if it had found employment at home, would have rendered them respectable and useful members of society.

I see other women in the same situation, gentle, modest, blessed with sense, taste, delicacy, and every milder feminine virtue of the heart, but of weak spirits, bashful and timid; I see such women sinking into obscurity and insignificance, and gradually losing every elegant accomplishment, for this evident reason, that they are not with a partner who has sense, worth, and taste, to know their value; one who is able to draw forth their concealed qualities, and show them to advantage; who can give that support to their feeble spirits, which they stand in so much need of; and who by his affection and tenderness might make such a woman happy in exerting every elegant art, that could contribute to his amusement.

In short, I am of opinion, that a married state, if entered into from proper motives of esteem and affection, will be the happiest for yourselves, make you most respectable in the eyes of the world, and the most useful members of society. But I confess I am not enough of a atriot to wish you to marry for the good of the public. I wish you to

marry for no other reason but to make yourselves happier. When I am s particular in ny advice about your conduct, I own my heart beats with the fond hopes of making you worthy the attachment of men who will deserve you, and be sensible of your merit. But I sincerely hope you will never relinquish the ease and independence of a single life, to become the slaves of a fool or tyrant's caprice.

As these have always been my sentiments, I shall do you but justice, when I wish you in such independent circumstances as may lay you under no temptation to do from necessity what you will never do from choice. This will likewise save you from that cruel mortification to a woman of spirit, the suspicion that a gentlman thinks he does you an honor or a favor when he asks you for his wife. I am, &c

LETTER 146.

From a Father to his Daughters, on Marriage

DEAR DAUGHTERS,

You may perhaps imagine that the reserved behavior which I recomnend to you, and your appearing but seldom at public places, must cut off all opportunities of your being acquainted with gentlemen. I am very far from intending this; I advise you to no reserve but what will render you more respected and beloved by our sex. I do not think public places suited to make people acquainted together. They can only be distinguished there by their looks and external behavior. But it is in private companies alone where you can expect easy and agreeable conversation, which I shall never wish you to decline. If you do not allow gentlemen to become acquainted with you, you never can expect to marry with attachment on either side. Love is very seldom produced at first sight; at least it must have, in that case, a very unjustifiable foundation. True love is founded on esteem, in a correspondence of tastes and sentiments, and steals on the heart imperceptibly.

There is one piece of advice I shall leave you, to which I beg your particlar attention. Before your affections come to be in the least engaged to any man, examine your tempers, your taste, and your hearts very severely; and settle in your own minds, what are the requisites to your happiness in a married state; and as it is almost impossible that you should get every thing to your wish, come to a steady determination what you are to consider as essential, and what may be sacrificed.

If you have hearts disposed by nature for love and friendship, and possess those feelings which enable you to enter into all the refinements and delicacies of these attachments, consider well, for your own sake, and as you value your future happiness, before you give them any indulgence. If you have the misfortune (for a very great misfortune it commonly is to your sex) to have such a temper and such sentiments deeply rooted in you; if you have spirit and resolution to resist the solicitations of vanity, the persecution of friends, (you will have lost the only friend that would never persecute you) and can support the prospect of the na ny inconveniencies attending the state of an old maid, which I formerly pointed out-then you may indulge yourself in that kind of sentimental reading and conversation which is most correspondent to your felings, But if you find, on a strict self-examination, that mariage is abso