tle 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, and 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 behaviour, 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 expostulate : 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 convincing 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 can possess. That may be your misfortune, but cannot be your fault. In such a situation, you would be equally unjust to yourself and to 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 thinking 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 not 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 them

selves; sometimes by entering into a dissipated course of life unsuitable to their years, and exposing themselves to the ridicule of the girls, who might have been their grandchildren; sometimes by oppressing their acqaintances by impertinent intrusions into their private affairs; and sometimes by being the 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 talent, and accomplishing herself in 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 patriot 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 so particulat in my advice about your conduct, I own my heart beats with the

fond hope 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 gentleman 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 behaviour which I recommend to you, and your appearing 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 behaviour. 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 sel

dom 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 particular attention. Before your affections come to be in the least engaged to any man, examine your tempers, your tastes, 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 theonly friend that would never persecute you) and can support the prospect of the many inconveniences attending the state of an old maid, which I formerly pointed outthen you may indulge yourself in that kind of sentimental reading and conversation which is most correspondent to your feelings.

But if you find, on a strict self-examination, that marriage is absolutely essential to your happiness, keep the secret inviolable in your own bosoms, for the reasons I formerly mentioned: but shun, as you would the most