What I imagine, replied I, a young lady ought to do, on any the least favourable impressions of this kind, is immediately to withdraw into herself, as one may say; to reflect upon what she owes to her parents, to her family, to her character, and to her sex; and to resolve to check such a random prepossession, which may much more probably, as I hinted, make her a prey to the undeserving than otherwise, as there are so many of that character to one man of real merit.

The most that I apprehend a first-sight approbation can do, is to inspire a liking; and a liking is conquerable, if the person will not brood over it, till she hatches it into love. Then every man and woman has a black and a white side; and it is easy to set the imperfections of the person against the supposed perfections, while it is only a liking. But if the busy fancy be permitted to work as it pleases, unchecked, uncontrolled; then, 'tis very likely, were the lady but to keep herself in countenance for receiving first impressions, she will see perfections in the object, which no living soul can see but herself. And it will hardly be expected but that, as a consequence of her first indiscretion, she will confirm, as an act of her judgment, what her wild and ungoverned fancy had misled her to think of with so much partial favour. And too late, as it may probably happen, she will see and lament her fatal, and perhaps undutiful error.

We are talking of the ladies only, added I (for I saw Miss Stapylton was become very grave), but I believe firstsight love often operates too powerfully in both sexes: and where it does so, it will be very lucky if either gentleman or lady find reason, on cool reflection, to approve a choice which they were so ready to make without thought.

'Tis allowed, my dear Mrs. B——, said Lady Towers, that rash and precipitate love may operate pretty much alike in the rash and precipitate of both sexes; and whichsoever loves, generally exalts the person beloved above his or her merits: but I am desirous, for the sake of us maiden ladies, since it is a science in which you are so great an

adept, to have your advice how we should watch and guard against its first encroachments; and that you will tell us what you apprehend gives the men most advantage over us. Nay, now, Lady Towers, you rally my presumption indeed!

I admire you, madam, replied she, and everything you say and do; and I won't forgive you to call what I so seriously say and think raillery. For my own part, continued she, I never was in love yet, nor, I believe, were any of these young ladies-(Miss Cope looked a little silly upon this)—and who can better instruct us to guard our hearts, than a lady who has so well defended her own?

Why then, madam, if I must speak, I think what gives the other sex the greatest advantage over even many of the most deserving of ours, is that dangerous foible, the love of praise, and the desire to be flattered and admired: a passion that I have observed to predominate, more or less, from sixteen to sixty, in most of our sex. We are too generally delighted with the company of those who extol our graces of person or mind; for will not a grateful lady study hard to return a few compliments to a gentleman who makes her so many? She is concerned to prove him a man of distinguishing sense, or a polite man at least, in regard to what she thinks of herself; and so the flatterer shall be preferred to such of the sincere and worthy, as cannot say what they do not think. And, by this means, many an excellent lady has fallen a prey to some sordid designer.

Then, I think, nothing gives gentlemen so much advantage over our sex, as to see how readily a virtuous lady can forgive the capital faults of the most abandoned of the other; and that sad, sad notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband; a notion that has done more hurt, and discredit too, to our sex (as it has given more encouragement to the profligate, and more discouragement to the sober gentlemen), than can be easily imagined. A fine thing indeed! As if the wretch who had run through a course of iniquity to the endangering of soul and body, was to be deemed the best companion for life, to an inno

cent and virtuous young lady, who is to owe the kindness of his treatment of her, to his having never before accompanied with a modest woman; nor, till his interest on one hand (to which his extravagance perhaps compels him to attend), and his impaired constitution on the other, oblige him to it, so much as wished to accompany with one; and who always made a jest of the married state, and perhaps of everything either serious or sacred!

You observe very well, my dear Mrs. B—, said Lady Towers; but people will be apt to think that you have less reason than any of our sex, to be severe against the notion you speak of: for who was a greater rake than a certain gentleman, and who is a better husband?

Madam, replied I, the gentleman you mean never was a common town-rake: he is a man of sense and fine understanding; and his reformation, secondarily, as I may say, has been the natural effect of those extraordinary qualities. But besides, madam, I will presume to say that that gentleman, as he has not many equals in the nobleness of his nature, so is not likely, I doubt, to have many followers, in a reformation begun in the bloom of youth, upon selfconviction, and altogether, humanly speaking, spontaneous. -Those young ladies who would plead his example, in support of this pernicious notion, should find out the same generous qualities in the man, before they trust to it; and it will then do less harm: though, even then, I could not wish it to be generally entertained.

It is really unaccountable, said Lady Towers, after all, as Mrs. B- I remember, said on another occasion, that our sex should not as much insist upon virtue and sobriety in the character of a man, as the man, be he ever such a rake, does in that of a lady. And 'tis certainly a great encouragement to libertinism, that a worn-out debauchee shall think himself at any time good enough for a husband, and have the confidence to imagine that a modest woman will accept of his address with a preference of him to any other.

I can account for it but one way, said the dean: and

that is, that a modest woman is apt to be diffident of her own merit and understanding, and she thinks this diffidence an imperfection. A rake never is troubled with it: so he has in perfection a quality she thinks she wants; and knowing too little of the world, imagines she mends the matter by accepting of one who knows too much.

That's well observed, Mr. Dean, said Lady Towers: but there is another fault in our sex which Mrs. B-- has not touched upon; and that is, the foolish vanity some women have, in the hopes of reforming a wild fellow: and that they shall be able to do more than any of their sex before them could do: a vanity that often costs them dear; as I know in more than one instance.

Another weakness, said I, might be produced against some of our sex; who join too readily to droll upon, and sneer at the misfortune of any poor young creature who has shown too little regard for her honour: and who (instead of speaking of it with concern, and inveighing against the seducer) too lightly sport with the unhappy person's fall; industriously spread the knowledge of it—[I would not look upon Miss Sutton, while I spoke this]-and avoid her, as one infected; and yet scruple not to admit into their company the vile aggressor; and even to smile with him, at his barbarous jests upon the poor sufferer of their

own sex.

I have known three or four instances of this in my time, said Lady Tower, that Miss Sutton might not take it to herself; for she looked down and was a little serious.

This, replied I, puts me in mind of a little humorous copy of verses, written, as I believe, by Mr. BAnd which, to the very purpose we are speaking of, he calls

BENEFIT OF MAKING OTHERS' MISFORTUNES OUR OWN.
Thou'st heard it, or read it, a million of times,
That men are made up of falsehoods and crimes :
Search all the old authors, and ransack the new,
Thou'lt find, in love stories, scarce one mortal true.

Then why this complaining? And why this wry face?
Is it 'cause thou'rt affected most with thy own case?
Hadst thou sooner made others' misfortunes thy own,
Thou never, thyself, this disaster hadst known;
Thy compassionate caution had kept thee from evil,

And thou mightst have defy'd mankind and the devil.

The ladies were pleased with the lines; but Lady Towers wanted to know, she said, at what time of Mr. B's life they could be written. Because, added she, I never suspected before, that the good gentleman ever took pains to write cautions or exhortations to our sex, to avoid the delusions of his own.

These verses, and this facetious but severe remark of Lady Towers, made every young lady look up with a cheerful countenance; because it pushed the ball from self: and the dean said to his daughter, So, my dear, you that have been so attentive, must let us know what useful inferences you can draw from what Mrs. B—— and the other ladies have so excellently said?

I observe, sir, said she, from the faults the ladies have so justly imputed to some of our sex, that the advantage the gentlemen chiefly have over us, is from our own weakness; and that it behoves a prudent woman to guard against first impressions of favour, since she will think herself obliged, in compliment to her own judgment, to find reasons, if possible, to confirm them.

But I would be glad to know, ladies, added she, if there be any way that a woman can judge whether a man means honourably or not, in his address to her?

Mrs. B can best inform you of that, Miss Lsaid Lady Towers. What say you, Mrs. B—?

There are a few signs, answered I, easy to be known, and, I think, almost infallible.

Pray let's have 'em, said Lady Arthur; and they all were very attentive.

I lay it down as an undoubted truth, said I, that true love is one of the most respectful things in the world. It strikes with awe and reverence the mind of the man who