sonably low. That revolution of manners which the unparalleled wit and genius of Don Quixote so happily effected, by abolishing extravagancies the most absurd and pernicious, was so far imperfect, that some virtues which he never meant to expose, fell into disrepute with the absurdities which he did and it is become the turn of the present taste to attach in no small degree that which is ridiculous to that which is serious and heroic. Some modern works of wit have assisted in bringing piety and some of the noblest virtues into contempt, by studiously associating them with oddity, childish simplicity, and ignorance of the world: and unnecessary pains have been taken to extinguish that zeal and ardour, which, however liable to excess and error, are yet the spring of whatever is great and excellent in the human character. The novel of Cervantes is incomparable; the Tartuffe of Moliere is unequalled; but true generosity and true religion will never loose any thing of their intrinsic value, because knight-errantry and hypoc risy are legitimate objects for satire.

But to return from this too long digression, to the subject of female influence. Those who have not watched the united operation of vanity and feeling on a youthful mind, will not conceive how much less formidable the ridicule of all his own sex will be to a very young man, than that of those women to whom he has been taught to look up as the arbitresses of elegance. Such an one I doubt not, might be able to work himself up, by the force of genuine christian principle, to such a pitch of true heroism, as to refuse a challenge, (and it requires more real courage to refuse a challenge than to accept one) who would yet be in danger of relapsing into the dreadful pusillanimity of the world, when he is told that no woman of fashion will hereafter look on him but with contempt. While we have cleared away the rubbish of the Gothic ages, it were to be wished we had not retained the most criminal of all their institutions. Why chiv alry should indicate a madman, while its leading object, the singal combat, should designate a gentleman, has not yet been explained. Nay the original motive is lost,

while the sinful practice is continued; for the fighter of the duel no longer pretends to be a glorious redresser of the wrongs of strangers; no longer considers himself as piously appealing to heaven for the justice of his cause; but from the slavish fear of unmerited reproach, often selfishly hazards the happiness of his nearest connexions, and always comes forth in direct defiance of an acknowl. edged command of the Almighty. Perhaps there are few occasions in which female influence might be exerted to a higher purpose than in this, in which laws and conscience have hitherto effected so little. But while the duellist (who perhaps becomes a duellist only because he was first a seducer) is welcomed with smiles; the more hardy youth, who, because he fears not man but God, declines a challenge; who is resolved to brave disgrace rather than commit sin, would be treated with cool contempt by those very persons to whose esteem he might reasonably look, as one of the rewards of his true and substantial fortitude.

How then is it to be reconciled with the decisions of principle, that delicate women should receive with complacency the successful libertine, who has been detected by the wretched father or the injured husband in a crim. inal commerce, the discovery of which has too justly banished the unhappy partner of his crime from virtuous society? Nay, if he happen to be very handsome, or very brave, or very fashionable, is there not sometimes a kind of dishonourable competition for his favour? But, whether his popularity be derived from birth, or parts, or person, or (what is often a substitute for all) from his having made his way into good company, women of distinction sully the sanctity of virtue by the two visible pleasure they sometimes express at the attentions of such a popular libertine, whose voluble small-talk they admire, and whose sprightly nothings they quote, and whom perhaps their very favour tends to prevent from becoming a better character, because he finds himself more acceptable as he is.

May I be allowed to introduce a new part of my subject by remarking that it is a matter of inconceivable

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importance, though not perhaps sufficiently considered, when any popular work, not on a religious topic, but on any common subject, such as politics, history, or science, has happened to be written by an author of sound Chris. tian principles? It may not have been necessary, nor prudently practicable, to have a single page in the whole work professedly religious: but still, when the living principle informs the mind of the writer, it is almost impossible but that something of its spirit will diffuse itself even into subjects with which it should seem but remotely connected. It is at least a comfort to the reader, to feel that honest confidence which results from knowing that he has put himself into safe hands; that he has committed himself to an author, whose known principles are a pledge that his reader need not be driven to watch himself at every step with anxious circumspection; that he need not be looking on the right hand and on the left, as if he knew there were pitfalls under the flowers which are delighting him. And it is no small point gained, that on subjects in which you do not look to improve your religion, it is at least secured from deterioration. If the Athenian laws were so delicate that they disgraced any one who shewed an inquiring traveller the wrong road, what disgrace, among Christians, should attach to that author, who, when a youth is inquiring the road to history or ph losophy, directs him to blasphemy and unbelief.

In animadverting farther on the reigning evils which the times more particularly demand that women of rank and influence should repress, Christianity calls upon them to bear their decided testimony against every thing which is notoriously contributing to the public corruption. It calls upon them to banish from their dressing rooms, (and oh, that their influence could banish from the li braries of their sons and husbands!) that sober and unsuspected mass of mischief, which, by assuming the plausible names of Science, of Philosophy, of Arts, of Belles Lettres, is gradually administering death to the principles of those who would be on their guard, had

the poison been labelled with its own pernicious title. Avowed attacks upon revelou are more easily resisted, because the malignity is advertised. But who suspects the destruction which lurks under the harmless or instructive names of General History, Natural History, Travels, Voyages, Lives, Encyclopedias, Criti cism, and Romance? Who will deny that many of these works contain much admirable matter; brilliant passages, important facts, just descriptions, faithful pictures of nature, and valuable illustrations of science? But while the dead fly lies at the bottom," the whole will exhale a corrupt and pestilential stench.

Novels which chiefly used to be dangerous in one respect, are now become mischievous in a thousand. They are continually shifting their ground, and enlarging their sphere, and are daily becoming vehicles of wider mischief. Sometimes they concentrate their force and are at once employed to diffuse destructive politics, deplorable profligacy, and impudent infidelity. Rousseau was the first popular dispenser of this complicated drug, in which the deleterious infusion was strong, and the effect proportionably fatal. For he does not attempt to seduce the affections but through the medium of the principles. He does not paint an innocent woman, ruined, repenting, and restored; but with a far more mischievous refinement, he annihilates the value of chastity, and with pernicious subtlety attempts to make his heroine appear almost more amiable without it. He exhibits a virtuous woman, the victim not of temptation but of reason, not of vice but of sentiment, not of passion but of conviction; and strikes at the very root of honour by elevating a crime into a principle. With a metaphysical sophistry the most plausible, he debauches the heart of woman, by cherishing her vanity in the erection of a system of male virtues, to which, with a lofty dereliction of those that are her more peculiar and characteristic praise, he tempts her to aspire; powerfully insinuating, that to this splendid system chastity does not necessarily belong: thus corrupting the judgment

and bewildering the understanding, as the most effectual way to inflame the imagination and deprave the heart.

The rare mischief of this author consists in his power. of seducing by falsehood those who love truth, but whose minds are still wavering, and whose principles are not yet formed. He allures the warm-hearted to embrace vice, not because they prefer vice, but because he gives to vice so natural an air of virtue: an ardent and enthusiastic youth, too confidently trusting in their integrity and in their teacher, will be undone, while they fancy they are indulging in the noblest feelings of their nature. Many authors will more infallibly complete the ruin of the loose and ill-disposed; but perhaps (if I may change the figure) there never was a net of such exquisite art and inextricable workmanship, spread to entangle innocence and ensnare inexperience, as the writings of Rousseau : and, unhappily, the victim does not even struggle in the toils, because part of the delusion consists in imagining that he is set at liberty.

Some of our recent popular publications have adopted and enlarged all the mischiefs of this school, and the principal evil arising from them is, that the virtues they exhibit are almost more dangerous than the vices. The chief materials out of which these delusive systems are framed, are characters who practise superfluous acts of generosity, while they are trampling on obvious and commanded duties; who combine inflated sentiments of honour with actions the most flagitious; a high tone of self-confidence, with a perpetual neglect of self-denial: pathetic apostrophes to the passions, but no attempt to resist them. They teach, that chastity is only individual attachment; that no duty exists which is not prompted by feeling, that impulse is the main spring of virtuous actions, while laws and religion are only unjust restraints; the former imposed by arbitrary men, the latter by the absurd prejudices of timorous and unenlightened conscience. Alas! they do not know that the best creature of impulse that ever lived is but a wayward, unfixed, unprincipled being! that the best natural man requires a curb; and needs that balance to the affections