real perfections in his imagination, and is either blind to her failings, or converts them into real beauties. Like a person conscious of guilt, he is jealous that every eye observes him; and to avoid this he shuns all the little observances of common gallantry. His heart and his character will be improved in every respect by his attachment. His manner will become more gentle; and his conversation more agreeable; but diffidènce and embarrassment will always make him appear to disadvantage in the company of his mistress. If the fascination continues long, it will totally depress his spirit, and extinguish every active, vigorous, and manly principle of his mind.

When you observe in a gentleman's behaviour these marks which I have described above, reflect seriously what you are to do. If his attachment is agreeable to you, I leave you to do as nature, good sense, and delicacy shall direct you. If you love him, let me advise you nev. er to discover to him the full extent of your love, no, not although you marry him. That sufficiently shows your preference, which is all he is entitled to know. If he has delicacy, he will ask for no stronger proof of your affection for your sake; if he has sense, he will not ask it for his own. This is an unpleasant truth, but I thought it my duty to let you know it. Violent love cannot subsist, at least cannot be expressed long together on both sides: Otherwise the certain consequence, however concealed, is satiety and disgust.

My zeal for your welfare has excited me to throw together these few thoughts, which I flatter myself will sink deep into your memory, and be of some use to you, at the time you stand most in need of assistance.

I remain, yours affectionately, &c.

LETTER 144.

From a Father to his Daughters, on Courtship and Coquetish Behaviour.

DEAR DAUGHTERS,

In my last, I laid before you my thoughts on love and friendship, and now proceed to consider some other particulars very essential to your happiness. If you see evident proofs of a gentleman's attachment, and are determined to shut your heart against him, as you ever hope to be used with generosity by the person who shall engage your own heart, treat him honorably and humanely. Do not let him linger in a miserable suspense, but be anxious to let him know your sentiments with regard to him.

However people's hearts may deceive them, there is scarcely a person that can love for any time, without at least some distant hope of success. If you really wish to undeceive a lover, you may do it in a variety of ways: there is a certain species of familiarity in your behaviour, which may satisfy him, if he has any discernment left, that he has nothing to hope for. But perhaps your par ticular temper may not permit of this-You may easily show that you want to avoid his company; but if he is a man whose friendship you wish to preserve, you may not choose this method, because then you lose him in every capacity. You may get a common friend to explain matters to him, or fall on many other devices, if you are seriously anxious to put him out of suspense.

But, if you are resolved against every such method, at least do not shun opportunities of letting him explain himself. If you do this, you act barbarously and unjust

ly. If he brings you to an explanation, give him a polite, but resolute and decisive answer. In whatever way you convey your sentiments to him, if he is a man of spirit and delicacy, he will give you no farther trouble, nor apply to your friends for their intercession. This last is a method of courtship which every man of spirit will disdain. He never will whine or sue for your pity. That would mortify almost as much as your scorn. In short, you may break such a heart, but you can never bend it. Great pride always accompanies delicacy, however concealed under the appearance of the utmost gentleness and modesty; and is the passion of all others the most difficult to conquer.

There is a case where a woman may coquette justifi. ably to the utmost verge which her conscience will allow. It is where a gentleman purposely declines to make his addresses, till such time as he thinks himself perfectly sure of her consent. This at bottom, is intended to force a woman to give up the undoubted privilege of her sex, the privilege of refusing it; it is intended to force her to explain herself, in effect, before the gentleman designs to do it, and by this means to oblige her to violate the modesty and delicacy of her sex, and to invert the clearest order of nature. All this sacrifice is proposed to be made, merely to gratify a most despicable vanity in a man, who would degrade the very woman whom he wishes to make his wife.

It is of great importance to distinguish, whether a gentleman who has the appearance of being your lover, delays to speak explicitly, from the motive I have mentioned, or from a diffidence inseparable from the attachment. In the one case you can scarcely use him too ill; in the other, you ought to use him with great kind

ness and the greatest kindness you can show him, if you are determined not to listen to his addresses, is to let him know it as soon as possible.

I know the many excuses with which women endeavor to justify themselves to the world and to their own consciences, when they act otherwise. Sometimes they plead ignorance, or at least uncertainty of the gentleman's real sentiments. That sometimes may be the case; sometimes they plead the decorum of their sex, which enjoins an equal behaviour to all men, and forbids them to consider any man as a lover until he has directly told them so. Perhaps few women carry their ideas of female delicacy and decorum so far as I do. But I must say you are not entitled to plead the obligation of these virtues, in 'opposition to the superior ones of gratitude, justice, and humanity. The man is entitled to all these who prefers you to all the rest of your sex, and perhaps whose greatest weakness is that very preference. The truth of the matter is, vanity and the love of admiration is so prevailing a passion amongst you, that you may be considered to make a very great sacrifice, whenever you give up a lover, till after the art of coquetry fails to keep him, or till he forces you to an explanation. You can be fond of the love, when you are indifferent to, or even despise the lover. But the deepest and most artful coquetry is employed by women of superior taste and sense, to engage and fix the heart of a man whom the world and whom they themselves esteem, although they are firmly determined never to marry him. But his conversation amuses them, and his attachment is the highest gratification to their vanity; nay, they can sometimes be gratified with the utter ruin of his fortune, fame and happiness. I am very certain I do not think so of all

your sex; I know many of them 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 he is a man of sense, resolution, and candour. If she explains herself to him 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 own 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. I am, &c.

LETTER 145.

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 lit