: vourites by her costliest endowments; in vain has she bestowed her orders of merit, her titles of nobility she gives nothing that is negotiable on the Exchange, where the commerce of love is at present transacted;-her funds supply no interest that is marketable, no dividend that can be transferred. Shame on the pedlar system of life! her handwriting has less credit than that of a jobbing Jew; and her promissory notes, whatever their amount, are of less value than a Liverpool penny. In former days, a true and virtuous love was the source of dignity and confidence, and prowess and magnanimity; it lent intelligence to the simple and grace to the rustic; it was the ornament of youth, and the attribute of a gentleman; no man feared to avow it, or dared to despise it; the eyes that confessed it were the brighter for it, and it bloomed on the lips and on the cheeks;-but that was when the dispositions of life made it paramount over the sordid passions, and placed it in its just elevation. Alas! what a reverse has succeeded! Is Pamphilus in love, and is he fortuneless? Adieu the confidence of his carriage, and comeliness of his looks! Adieu the manliness of his mind, and vigour of his understanding! Lost is his activity, and lost are his hopes; defoliated is his mind, in the very spring of its advancement; and the promises of his intellect are cankered in the blossom. A gradual dereliction of his powers sinks him lower and lower in the scale of society; every one remarks the change, and Envy is gratified with contemplating his fall; till at length even Envy loses sight of him, and Pamphilus is heard of no more. This is the fate of the genuine passion without portion. I have nothing to do with that mockery of it which subsists at present-it is a subject for bargainers and for calculators. What woes arous'd Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed, 'Tis nought but gloom around: the darken'd sun I am an ancient man, gray-headed, and fettered to principle; not illuminated by the lights of the new philosophy in morality or metaphysics; and tenacious of the maxims of my forefathers; and yet I freely declare myself to regard with more favourable eyes a clandestine amour, nay the grossest prostitution by which the temple of the Holy Ghost can be defiled, than the basis on which modern marriages are founded-in which some of my countrywomen sell themselves, not for a transitory bliss, not for the fleeting raptures of the moment, but for the whole of human life, for the whole of that life on which heaven depends; and in a manner stipulate to pollute that life with one lengthened series of perjury and legal prostitution, one continued course of sanctified abomination, for the sake of a paltry eminence, and a spurious grandeur. I look upon it as one of the unhappiest consequences that flow from ill-sorted matches, or those in which the true passion has no place, that they induce a constant habit of feigning, where any sense of decency prevails, and perpetuate a lie through a course of years. The best feelings and the strongest principles are not able to contend against such a stress of circumstances; necessarily then, such feelings and such principles as those women must have, who can marry without love, must be without much contest overborne. Clarina was married to the most affectionate of husbands; and as it appeared to the world, the love which she felt in return had never been equalled in any tale or romance. Four months had not elapsed since their marriage, before the husband fell dangerously ill; yet the poor Clarina was the object of the greatest compassion. It was judged impossible for her to survive him; and so unbounded was her affliction, that no one thought she could live to close even the eyes of her dying husband. "O Death! Death!" she cried, as she leaned weeping over his emaciated body, "O Death! if you are not altogether a stranger to pity, make me your prey instead of my dear husband." Death heard, and presenting himself at the door, demanded, Who called? "The gentleman who lies in that bed," replied Clarina. I shall conclude this paper with something on the other side, that the ladies may not quarrel with my severity, or suppose that it is a pleasure to me to heap censures on that sex to which life is indebted for its sincerest delights. In the year 1594, a young Norman gentleman entered at the university of Angers, to study the civil law. Renée Corbeau was the daughter of a tradesman in the same town. She was young, prudent, and handsome, and possessed an extraordinary share of understanding and wit. But these brilliant qualities were tarnished by a fault, of which philosophers make but little account, but which, in the eyes of the world, was deemed unpardonable-Renée Corbeau was poor. The young student no sooner beheld this amiable lady, than he became enamoured, and had the good fortune to inspire her with an equal passion. So rapid was the progress of their mutual flame, that in a few weeks he made her an offer of marriage, and, in the transports of his affec tion, gave her a promise in his hand-writing. It was too in one of these transporting intervals that the poor young lady forgot her prudence; so mighty and sudden is the success of love in overthrowing that structure of modesty, which whole years of admonition and discipline have been spent in erecting. The effect of this amour could not long be con. cealed; and the unhappy girl was obliged to tell the sad tale to her mother, who disclosed it to her father. It was now past the season for reproaches: all that was left them, was to lay their heads together to discover the best remedy which the case admitted. After a reasonable consultation, it was agreed that the parents should feign a design of going into the country that same evening, while the daughter, in the mean time, was to give an interview to her lover at their own house, so that thus they might be surprized together. The contrivance succeeded entirely; the lover was surprized, and, in the first emotions of his fear, confessed himself ready to enter into any engagement that would be deemed most satisfactory. Not to lose this opportunity, they pressed him upon his word, and forced him to sign a contract of marriage. This business was scarcely transacted in a regular form by a notary, before the young gentleman felt his passion unaccountably chilled, and a sense of compulsion gave the engagement into which he had entered the colour of an odious obligation. He quitted his mistress in two or three days after this transaction with very little ceremony, and repaired to his father, to whom he related his story from beginning to end. This father was, as fathers often are, a stranger to the true interests of his child, and determined against any match for his son that was not brilliant in point of fortune and connexion. In this difficulty, the only means of escaping was by entering immediately into holy orders; a proposition to which the son readily agreed. Renée Corbeau received the intelligence of this cruel transaction with such grief and indignation as was natural in her situation. Her parents determined to avenge her infamy, and entered into a prosecution of the perjured seducer. The affair was referred to commissioners from the parliament of Paris, of which Mons. de Villeray was president. Here the whole proceeding being traced and laid open, its iniquity appeared so flagrant in the eyes of the judges, that the culprit was condemned to lose his head, unless he chose to fulfil his engagement; and as this was rendered impossible by his entrance into holy orders, it was decreed that the sentence of decapitation should be executed. He had only a short time given him to prepare himself, with the aid of his confessor, for his approaching dissolution. In the mean time the heart of Renée Corbeau was cruelly torn, when she considered what a lamentable end her excessive love was on the point of bringing upon its object. She was unable to support this idea; and, in a distracted state of mind, rushed into the hall where the judges were yet assembled. Here, with such eloquence as grief inspired, she thus addressed them:"Gentlemen, I come to present before you a lover, the most wretched that the cruelties of fortune have ever afflicted. In condemning to death that dear person, you pronounce the same sentence upon me upon me, whom you have judged more unfortunate than culpable. Nay, the very infamy of his death will rebound to me; and I shall die, alas! as dishonoured as I have lived. You have done this to repair the wound my honour has received: but in doing it you have doubled my dis |