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the palm of admiration from me? No, no, my dear girl, youth and beauty are spring flowers, and, as my admirer says,

"Il n'y a qu un tems pour vivre

Amis, passons le gaiement;"

and I am determined so to do: nay, more, it shall not be my fault if I do not make a convert of you, and if I do not prevail upon you to quit the frigid zone, where you are frozen up under a non-intercourse with the votaries of pleasure, and visit fashion's most favourite haunts; to wit, la bonne ville de Paris. But now let me treat you with an account of our last ball. I prevailed upon Mamma to give an impromptu two nights ago: our dear countess ordered the music, the decorations, the supper, &c. and I assure you all was magnifique, although Mamma grumbled at the expense, and was out of her element all the night. You would nave been astounded to see the incense which was offered to what was called my charms; to have beheld so many gay flatterers about me; such rivalry for the advantage of dancing with me; such high request as I was in amongst the elegantes. I had written a list of promises made to aspiring partners as long as my arm, and I was not able to fulfil one half of my engagements. The disappointed many claim my hand for another ball next week, at the duke de 's ambigu, a party without form or ceremony, at the duke's hotel, which is given weekly. The voice of scandal breathes a vile report respecting that house, namely, that the lady who does the honours is the duke's chere amie, that the birth of her daughter is doubtful, and that hotel is a scene of intrigue and a match-making place. Mademoiselle,

off my ringlets to the best advantage: nay, I now may be mistaken for a French woman in every article of my dress, if ever I come back-but far distant be the thought I have forgotten every thing but thee, my Prudentia: and now, whilst it is in my head, I will certainly contrive to smuggle over to you some Paris shoes and gloves, and the last mode in a bonnet. And now adieu, my dear Prudentia; ma bonne et tendre amie. I hear my lancer singing his favourite air: he is a charming rattle, and the words suit his character well. This song is a signal for me to go out a walking with the countess; one of the Gardes du Corps is her beau, and is to be one of the party-hark, I hear him again.

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INDEED, my dear Prudentia, your preaching letter is too sombre for the light and airy sphere in which I move, and for the warm climate which I inhabit. One would think that pleasure, instead of being a charming aerial spirit with gilded wings, was some haggard demon of frightful aspect, from which a young woman must fly as from deadly temptation. Surely a little flirtation with a few butterfly beaus is no such great sin. Why should I let the French fair ones bear away

conquest of one Angloise is a greater triumph to a Frenchman than a score of victims of his own country.

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the palm of admiration from me? No, no, my dear girl, youth and beauty are spring flowers, and, as my admirer says,

"Il n'y a qu un tems pour vivre
Amis, passons le gaiement;"

and I am determined so to do: nay, more, it shall not be my fault if I do not make a convert of you, and if I do not prevail upon you to quit the frigid zone, where you are frozen up under a non-intercourse with the votaries of pleasure, and visit fashion's most favourite haunts; to wit, la bonne ville de Paris. But now let me treat you with an account of our last ball. I prevailed upon Mamma to give an impromptu two nights ago: our dear countess ordered the music, the decorations, the supper, &c. and I assure you all was magnifique, although Mamma grumbled at the expense, and was out of her element all the night. You would nave been astounded to see the incense which was offered to what was called my charms; to have beheld so many gay flatterers about me; such rivalry for the advantage of dancing with me; such high request as I was in amongst the elegantes. I had written a list of promises made to aspiring partners as long as my arm, and I was not able to fulfil one half of my engagements. The disappointed many claim my hand for another ball next week, at the duke de 's ambigu, a party without form or ceremony, at the duke's hotel, which is given weekly. The voice of scandal breathes a vile report respecting that house, namely, that the lady who does the honours is the duke's chere amie, that the birth of her daughter is doubtful, and that hotel is a scene of intrigue and a match-making place. Mademoiselle,

my admirer will, doubtless, find me bien interressante as I am. What a pity it is that the fatigues of pleasure should disfigure the bloom of youth! But n'importe, I hear my admirer taking up my guitar, and playing a romance,-I must away; once more farewell-My dear girl, believe me, with all my lightheadedness, as you are pleased to call it, still

Your unalterable friend,

FLIRTILLA.

P.S. I send you the Almanac des Modes. We have here an almanack for every thing: one for the Muses, one for gluttons, &c. &c. &c. so that one runs after a new fashion, and another after a new dish or a new sauce. You will, perhaps, say that I am saucy enough without.

"Comme vous le voulez, ma bonne amie."

Encore, adieu.

Impossibility of forming an obscure Conception of a primary Cause until it be perfectly discovered. Obscure Ideas have no existence.

WHEN I first reflected on the difficulty of explaining how the same sensation should be at once pleasant and painful, I consulted several works on the subject before I discovered that Hume devoted one of his Essays to the resolution of this curious phenomenon. Du Bos, Lord Kaimes, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Blair, Knight, Lessing, Schlegel, Fontenelle, and almost all the writers who have attempted to explain it, may be more

properrly considered critics than philosophers; or, if this distinction should appear obscure, as criticism and philosophy sometimes glide into each other, they were better qualified to distinguish between impressions, and to point out the "rainbow hues" which connect them together, than to trace these impressions, and their voluble, impalpable connectives to their original source. The common observer perceives effects and impressions in the gross, but cannot ascertain their momentum, or the precise point to which they do, and beyond which they cannot, extend. This is the business of the critic: his duty is to point out where propriety ends, and where absurdity begins; and, therefore, the true critic never outsteps the modesty of nature. But the philosopher, not satisfied with marking the proper boundaries that distinguish impressions, and their immediate causes from each other, seeks to trace each of them distinctly to its primary source.

As the resolution of the present problem belongs to philosophy, and not to criticism, I was not much surprised to find the writers whom I have now mentioned, in their attempts to trace the pleasures resulting from Tragic Representation to its original cause, not only contradicting each other, but contradicting those first truths or principles of reasoning, which are admitted by themselves, and by all mankind. He who contradicts first truths, however, will frequently be found to contradict himself, because he is continually admitting these truths where they serve to support his collateral or incidental arguments. That this has been the case with the writers who have treated on the present subject, will manifestly appear from the following pages.

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