 with a lion, let her beware of his paw, I say. At present, I wish innocently to enjoy her society; it is a luxury which I never tasted before. She is the very soul of pleasure. The gayest circle is irradiated by her presence, and the highest entertainment receives its greatest charms from her smiles. Besides, I have purchased the seat of Captain Pribble, about a mile from her mother's; and can I think of suffering her to leave the neighborhood just as I enter it? I shall exert every nerve to prevent that, and hope to meet with the usual success of

PETER SANFORD.

LETTER XXIX.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

HARTFORD.

You desire me to write to you, my friend; but if you had not, I should by no means have refrained. I tremble at the precipice on which you stand, and must echo and reëcho the seasonable admonition of the excellent Mrs. Richman, "Beware of the delusions of fancy." You are strangely infatuated by them! Let not the magic arts of that worthless Sanford lead you, like an ignis fatuus, from the path of rectitude and virtue.

I do not find, in all your conversations with him, that one word about marriage drops from his lips. This is mysterious. No, it is characteristic of the man. Suppose, however, that his views are honorable; yet what can you expect, what can you promise yourself, from such a connection? "A reformed rake," you say, "makes the best husband"—a trite, but a very erroneous maxim, as the fatal experience of thousands of our sex can testify. In the first place, I believe that rakes very seldom do reform while their fortunes and constitutions enable them to pursue their licentious pleasures. But even allowing this to happen; can a woman of refinement and delicacy enjoy the society of a man whose mind has been corrupted, whose taste has been vitiated, and who has contracted a depravity, both of sentiment and manners, which no degree of repentance can wholly efface? Besides, of true love they are absolutely incapable. Their passions have been much too hackneyed to admit so pure a flame. You cannot anticipate sincere and lasting respect from them. They have been so long accustomed to the company of those of our sex who deserve no esteem, that the greatest dignity and purity of character can never excite it in their breasts. They are naturally prone to jealousy. Habituated to an intercourse with the baser part of the sex, they level the whole, and seldom believe any to be
