of your benefactor and my hoft. It were f not honourable. Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts, claims his facrifice; on this fide honour. So far from triumphing or exulting, Hea- ven knows--if Lord S. indeed love you,. if indeed it be aught befide the natural preference which age gives to youth-Heaven knows how much I pity him. Yet, as I have either faid or written before, it is only the pity I fhould feel for a father whofe affections were unfortunately and unnaturally fixed upon his own daughter. Were I your feducer, M. and not your lover, I fhould not write thus-nor fhould I have talked or acted or written as I have. Tell it not in Gath, nor publish it in the ftreets of Afkalon, left the Philistines should be upon me. I fhould be drummed out of my regiment for a traitor to intrigue. And can you really imagine I think fo meanly of your fex! Surely you cannot imagine I think fo meanly of you. Why, then, the conclusion of your last letter but one? A word thereon. ! Take men and women in the lump, the villainy of thofe and the weakness of these -I maintain it to be lefs wonderful that an hundred or fo fhould fall in the world, than that even one should stand. Is it strange the ferpent conquered Eve? The devil against a woman is fearful odds. He has conquered men, womens' conquerors; he he has made even angels fall. Oh, then, ye parents, be merciful in your wrath. Join not the bafe betrayers of your children-drive not your children to the bottom of the precipice, because the villains have driven them half way down, where (fee, fee!) many have ftopped themfelves from falling further by catching hold of some straggling virtue or another which decks the steep-down rock. Oh, do not force force their weak hands from their holdtheir laft, laft hold! The descent from crime to crime is natural, perpendicular, headlong enough, of itself-do not increase it. "Can women, then, no way but backward fall ?" Shall I ask your pardon for all this, M.? No, there is no occasion, you say. But to-morrow-for to-morrow led me out of my ftrait path, over this fearful precipice, where I, for my part, trembled at every step I took, left I should topple down headlong. Glad am I to be once more on plain ground again with my M.! To-morrow, about eleven, I'll be with you-but, let me find you in your riding dress, and your mare ready. I have laid a plan, to which neither honour nor delicacy (and I always confult both before I propose any thing to you) can make the least objection. This once, truft to me-I'll explain all to-morrow. Pray be ready, in your riding-drefs! Need I add, in that you know I think I think becomes you moft? No-Love would have whispered that. Love fhall be of our party-He shall not fuffer the cold to approach you-he thall spread his wings over your bofom-he fhall neftle in your dear arms-he fhallWhen will to-morrow come? What torturing dreams muft I not bear to-night! I fend you fome lines which I picked up fomewhere I forget where. But I don't think them much amifs. CELIA'S PICTURE. To paint my Celia, I'd devife Two lunar orbs fhould then be laid Bright Berenice's auburn hair Should, where it ought, adorn my fair Nay all the figns in heaven should prove But tokens of my wondrous love. Her yielding waift fhould want a Zone. LETTER LETTER V. To the Same. Huntingdon, 8th Dec. 1775. THEN I releafe my dearest foul from her promife about to-day. If you do not fee that all which he can claim by gratitude, I doubly claim by love; I have done, and will for ever have done. I would purchase my happiness at any price but at the expence of your's. Look over my letters, think over my conduct, consult your own heart, and read thefe two long letters of your writing, which I return you. Then, tell me whether we love or not. And-if we love (as witness both our hearts)—shall gratitude, cold gratitude, bear away the heavenly prize that's only due to love like our's? fhall my right be acknowledged, and must he poffefs the casket? Shall I have your foul, and shall he have your hand, your eyes, your bofom, your lips, your— Gracious |