your letter has relieved me from a thousand apprehensions, which I suffered on your account—it is written in the true spirit of a heart at ease, which no man ever possessed that was thoroughly in love—and though you call me grave and philosophic, I am much better pleased that your present attachment should be of the frolic, than the serious kind.—Most of our young men of fortune and fashion look upon a foreign mistress as a part of their travelling equipage; and I think Margarita as well qualified to fill up the train of milord Anglois, as any other of her sister syrens—of the opera.

I have seen her often, and acknowledge her beauty, though I could gaze on her for ever, without feeling any other effect from her charms, but what might arise in my mind from contemplating her picture—yet I do not think her inanimate; on the contrary, she has great vivacity, both in her looks and manners, but alas! she is totally devoid of sensibility, that first of female charms! her eyes are taught to languish, and every graceful movement of her form has been acquired in the school of art.—Read the thirty-seventh and fiftieth letters of Ninon de l'Enclos, to the marquis de Sevig•é, and they will help you to judge more justly, both of her and yourself; they are cases exactly in point.
She lived with the marquis de Richelieu, at Turin, when I was there—I

knew him intimately; he adored Margarita, and was one of the handsomest and most amiable young men I ever met with—he died of a fever. I pitied Margarita from my soul, and about ten days after his death, went to pay her a visit of condolance, and was informed she had set out for Naples, two days before, with an English gentleman whose name was Williams.
I am much too young to set up for a stoic, or a cynic; I know, nay I feel, all the weaknesses and follies of youth; yet I cannot help thinking that an attachment to a worthless woman, is capable of debasing the noblest mind.—Virtue, I fear, is not radical in human nature; its seed must be sown by precept, cherished by example, and cultivated

by habit; but when the object of our affections has a distinct interest rather to extinguish, than inspire it, the general bias of our passions, aided by the natural indolence of dissipation and debauchery, suffer the plant to wither in its bloom, and thus obliterates the truest character of manhood.
On the contrary, let the most vicious man become truly enamoured of a virtuous