"But the difference between the ancients and moderns is not so great as between the different countries of the present world. A lover of Gongora, for instance, sighs for thick lips; a Chinese lover is poetical in praise of thin. In Circassia, a straight nose is thought most consistent with beauty: cross but a mountain which separates it from the Tartars, and there flat noses, tawny skins, and eyes three inches asunder, are all the fashion. In Persia, and some other countries, a man when he marries, chooses to have his bride a maid. In the Phillipine Islands, if a bridegroom happens to perceive, on the first night, that he is put off with a virgin, the marriage is declared void to all intents and purposes, and the bride sent back with disgrace. In some parts of the East, a woman of beauty, properly fed up for sale, often amounts to one hundred crowns; in the kingdom of Loango, ladies of the very best fashion are sold for a pig; queens, however, sell better, and sometimes amount to a cow. In short, turn even to England, do not I see there the beautiful part of the sex neglected; and none now marrying or making love,. but old men and old women that have saved money? Do not I see beauty from fifteen to twentyone, rendered null and void to all intents and purposes; and those six precious years of womanhood, put under a statute of virginity? What! shall I call that rancid passion love, which passes between an old bachelor of fifty-six, and a widow-lady of forty-nine? Never! never! What advantage is society to reap from an intercourse, where the big belly is oftenest on the man's side? Would any persuade me that such a passion was natural, unless the human race were more fit for love as they approached the decline, and, like silk-worms, became breeders just before they expired?".

"Whether love be natural or no," replied my friend, gravely, "it contributes to the happiness of every society into which it is introduced. All our pleasures are short, and can only charm at

intervals; love is a method of protracting our greatest pleasure; and surely that gamester who plays the greatest stake to the best advantage, will, at the end of life, rise victorious. This was the opinion of Vanini, who affirmed, that 'every hour was lost, which was not spent in love.'* His accusers were unable to comprehend his meaning; and the poor advocate for love was burned in flames; alas! no way metaphorical. But whatever advantages the individual may reap from this passion, society will certainly be refined and improved by its introduction; all laws calculated to discourage it, tend to imbrute the species and weaken the state. Though it cannot plant morals in the human breast, it cultivates them when there: pity, generosity, and honor, receive a brighter polish from its assistance; and a single amour is sufficient entirely to brush off the clown."

"But it is an exotic of the most delicate constitution; it requires the greatest art to introduce it into a state, and the smallest discouragement is sufficient to repress it again. Let us only consider with what ease it was formerly extinguished in Rome, and with what difficulty it was lately revived in Europe: it seemed to sleep for ages, and at last fought its way among us through tilts, tournaments, dragons, and all the dreams of chivalry, The rest of the world, China only excepted, are, and have ever been, utter strangers to its delights and advantages. In other countries, as men find themselves stronger than women, they lay a claim to a rigorous superiority: this is natural, and love, which gives up this natural advantage, must certainly be the effect of

*["Perdutto è tutto il tempo,

Che in amor non si spende."-Tasso, Aminta.]

[Vanini was born at Tourosano, in the kingdom of Naples, 1585. Though ordained a priest, he was mad enough to die a martyr for atheism. After preaching his doctrine in England, Germany, and Holland, he was apprehended at Toulouse and condemned to the flames. After his tongue had been torn out, he was burnt February 19th, 1619, at the age of thirty-four.]

art, an art calculated to lengthen out our happier moments, and add new graces to society."

"I entirely acquiesce in your sentiments," says the lady, "with regard to the advantages of this passion, but cannot avoid giving it a nobler origin than you have been pleased to assign. I must think, that those countries where it is rejected, are obliged to have recourse to art, to stifle so natural a production; and those nations where it is cultivated, only make nearer advances to nature. The same efforts that are used in some places to suppress pity, and other natural passions, may have been employed to extinguish love. No nation, however unpolished, is remarkable for innocence, that is not famous for passion; it has flourished in the coldest, as well as the warmest regions. Even in the sultry wilds of Southern America, the lover is not satisfied with possessing his mistress's person, without having her mind.

"In all my Enna's beauties blest,

Amidst profusion still I pine;

For though she gives me up her breast,

Its panting tenant is not mine.”*

"But the effects of love are too violent to be the result of an artificial passion. Nor is it in the power of fashion to force the constitution into those changes which we every day observe. Several have died of it. Few lovers are unacquainted with the fate of the two Italian lovers, Da Corsin and Julia Bellamano, who, after a long separation, expired with pleasure in each other's Such instances are too strong confirmations of the reality of the passion, and serve to show, that suppressing it is but opposing the natural dictates of the heart." Adieu.

arms.

* Translation of a South American Ode.

LETTER CXVII.

A CITY NIGHT-PIECE.

To the same.

The clock just struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest, and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person.

Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity, or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me, where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities.

What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam; no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the distant watch-dog. All the bustle of human pride is forgotten, an hour like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity.

There will come a time when this temporary solitude may be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room.

What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence had their victories as great; joy as just and as unbounded,

* [This paper, which presents a striking picture of the thoughts which arise in traversing a great city at an advanced hour of the night, originally appeared in the Bee,' with the motto from Martial

"Ille dolet veré, qui sine teste dolet ;"

"He grieves in earnest, who grieves unseen."]

and with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some: the sorrowful traveller wanders overs the awful ruins of others; and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession.

"Here," he cries, "stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds; there, their senate-house, but how the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen; for luxury and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of the state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished destruction."

How few appear in those streets which, but some few hours ago, were crowded! and those who appear, now no longer wear their daily mask, nor attempt to hide their lewdness or their misery.

But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness rather excites horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaciated with disease; the world has disclaimed them; society turns its back upon their distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay luxurious villain, and are now turned out to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps, now lying at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts