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posing on ourselves, are touched with wonderful beauty in the hundred thirty-ninth psalm. The folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set forth by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipresence, which are celebrated in as noble strains of poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred or profane. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a man deceives himself, is intimated in the last two verses, where the psalmist addresses himself to the great Searcher of hearts, in that emphatical petition, Try me, O God! and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'

IT should, methinks, preserve modesty, and its interests in the world, that the transgression of it always creates offence; and the very purposes of wantonness are defeated by a carriage which has in it so much boldness, as to intimate that fear and reluctance are quite extinguished in an object which would be otherwise desirable. It was said of a wit of the last age

Sedley has that prevailing, gentle art
Which can, with a resistless charm, impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart;
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,
That the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.

This prevailing, gentle art, was made up of complaisance, courtship, and artful conformity to the modesty of a woman's manners. Rusticity, broad expression, and forward obtrusion, offend those of education, and make the transgressors odious to all who have merit enough to attract regard.

It is in this taste that the scenery is so beautifully ordered in the description which Antony makes in the dialogue between him and Dolabella, of Cleopatra in her barge.

Her galley down the silver Cydnus row'd:

The tackling silk, the streamers waved with gold;

The gentle winds were lodged in purple sails;

Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were placed,

Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay;

She lay, and lean'd her cheek upon her hand,

And cast a look so languishingly sweet,

As if secure of all beholders' hearts,

Neglecting she could take them. Boys, like cupids,

Stood fanning with their painted wings the winds

That play'd about her face; but if she smiled,

A darting glory seem'd to blaze abroad,

That men's desiring eyes were never wearied,

But hung upon the object. To soft flutes

The silver oars kept time: and, while they play'd,

The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight;
And both to thought.-t

Sedley, Sir Chas., a writer of verses in the reign of Charles Il., with whom he was a great favourite. The nobleman's verses quoted here, allude, it has been said, not to Sir Charles Sedley's writings, but to his personal address; for we are told that, by studying human nature, he had acquired, to an eminent degree, the art of making himself agreeable, particularly to the ladies. † Dryden's All for Love, Act iii. sc. 1.

Here the imagination is warmed with all the objects presented, and yet is there nothing that is luscious, or what raises any idea more loose than that of a beautiful woman set off to advantage. The like, or a more delicate and careful spirit of modesty, appears in the following passage in one of Mr. Philips's pastorals.

Breathe soft, ye winds! ye waters, gently flow!
Shield her, ye trees! ye flowers, around her grow!
Ye swains, I beg you, pass in silence by!

My love in yonder vale asleep does lie.

Desire is corrected when there is a tenderness or admiration expressed which partakes the passion. Licentious language has something brutal in it, which disgraces humanity, and leaves us in the condition of the savages in the field. But it may be asked, To what good use can tend a discourse of this kind at all? It is to alarm chaste ears against such as have, what is above called, the prevailing, gentle art.' Masters of that talent are capable of clothing their thoughts in so soft a dress, and something so distant from the secret purpose of their heart, that the imagination of the unguarded is touched with a fondness, which grows too insensibly to be resisted. Much care and concern for the lady's welfare, to seem afraid lest she should be annoyed by the very air which surrounds her, and this uttered rather with kind looks, and expressed by an interjection, an 'ah,' or 'oh,' at some little hazard in moving, or making a step, than in any direct profession of love, are the methods of skilful admirers. They are honest arts when their purpose is such, but infamous when misapplied. It is certain that many a young woman in this town has had her heart irrecovably won by men who have not made one advance which ties

their admirers, though the females languish with the utmost anxiety. I have often, by way of admonition to my female readers, given them warning against agreeable company of the other sex, except they are well acquainted with their characters. Women may disguise it if they think fit; and the more to do it, they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they have no manner of approbation of men, without some degree of love. For this reason he is dangerous to be entertained as a friend or a visitant, who is capable of gaining any eminent esteem or observation, though it be never so remote from pretensions as a lover. If a man's heart has not the abhorrence of any treacherous design, he may easily improve approbation into kindness, and kindness into passion. There may possibly be no manner of love between them in the eyes of all their acquaintance; no, it is all friendship; and yet they may be as fond as shepherd and shepherdess in a pastoral, but still the nymph and the swain may be to each other, no other, I warrant you, than Pylades and Orestes.

When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast,
And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest;

Unable to refrain my madding mind

Nor sheep nor pasture worth my care I find.

Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclined,
Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss:
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.

Such good offices as these, and such friendly thoughts and concerns for one another, are what make up the amity, as they call it, between man and

woman.

It is the permission of such intercourse that makes

a young woman come to the arms of her husband, after the disappointment of four or five passions which she has successively had for different men, before she is prudentially given to him for whom she has neither love nor friendship. For what should a poor creature do that has lost all her friends? There's Marinet, the agreeable, has, to my knowledge, had a friendship for Lord Welford, which had like to break her heart; then she had so great a friendship for Colonel Hardy, that she could not endure any woman else should do any thing but rail at him. Many and fatal have been disasters between friends who have fallen out, and their resentments are more keen than ever those of other men can possibly be; but in this it happens unfortunately, that as there ought to be nothing concealed from one friend to another, the friends of different sexes very often find fatal effects from their unanimity.

For my part, who study to pass life in as much innocence and tranquillity as I can, I shun the company of agreeable women as much as possible; and must confess that I have, though a tolerable good philosopher, but a low opinion of Platonic love; for which reason I thought it necessary to give my fair readers a caution against it, having, to my great concern, observed the waist of a Platonist lately swell to a roundness which is inconsistent with that philosophy.

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