of the Fair: and the men who have pretended leaft subjection, have in fact been the greateft flaves. All the great Heroes, the most renowned in their generations, the Scripture Worthies in particular, have had their Dalilahs, to whofe bewitching charms they have one and all yielded: reluctantly fome, and fondly others: thefe proving their wisdom, and thofe their folly, fince there is no inchantment against Beauty, nor any thing which it cannot inchant. He must be fomething more, or fomething worse than a man-i. e. a God or a Devil, who hath escaped, or who can refift its power: the Gods of the Heathens could not; Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, 'Apollo, their amours are as famous as their names: So that

that sturdiness in human nature, wherever it is found, which ❝ can refift, argues plainly how much of the Devil is wrought up in the compofition: if the native power were not fo great as it is, fo many arts, fo many opportunities to footh and to perfuade, would make it impoffible.

In a point then, whereto all history fuffrageth and gives ⚫ confent; let no vain fophifms juggle you out of your fenfes; tho' gloomy pedants tell a different tale, that in wedlock you throw off your fupremacy, and undreffing for the marriagebed, diveft yourself of power; there is no fuch thing, no me 'dium, nor any inftance to prove it by: See Henry, firnamed the Great: in the cabinet, how politic and wife! in the field, how perfevering, valiant, and intrepid! was even He the fo⚫vereign of his own will? no, but the fervant of Madam Gabrielle d'Etrees: See him attending her in her accouchement, ⚫ feasoning her gruels, and warming her flannels, doing all the offices of a Valet or a Chambriere: his foul, we muft fay, was undoubtedly in her hands, the could turn it whitherfoever ⚫ the willed.

But why talk of Kings and fuch like petty and frail mortals? even the papal chair, when its power and credit were at the highest, and no one dared to difpute its infallibility, gave in this respect frequent proofs of its fubjection and weak⚫ nefs: nor did their character for holiness fuffer any impair or ⚫ diminution, having their miftrefs faluted by the title of Patri ♦ archeffe and Papiffa*.

Our gallant Divine has fome remarks on the abfurdity of the French Salic Law; fhews the impolicy of barring females the fucceffion; and to enforce his arguments, appeals to the glorious figure the English made in the reigns of the Queens Elizabeth and

As in the inftance of Heraclius, and in the little epigram.

Papa, pater patrum
Papiffe pandito partum.

BEY. Jan, 1758,

Anne,

Anne. In fhort, Madam,' fays he, in all my reading I re⚫ member but one inftance where beauty, by the tribute it paid, interpretatively acknowleged a fuperioriority in our fex; for its oddness, you will allow me to mention it; it is fo much to our honour I cannot pass it over:

In the fifteenth century it happened, there lived a man in France, Alain Chartier by name; from whofe lips fo many • Beaux mots, and fine fentences had iffued, that Margaret Stuart, then wife to the Dauphin, paffing one day with her attendants, through a chamber where the good man lay afleep, taking it, perhaps, into her head that poffibly his lips might be as fweet as the words that came out of them; gently stoop•ed and gave him a kifs.

• Whether the good man at that time was in any such reverie as might give him a sense of his felicity, as the history is filent in this point, I know not. But this I know, that had I been Alain and your Ladyfhip the Dauphinefs, though I had been Mafter of the Sentences, I was going to fay, even Author of the book of Proverbs, I would have accepted this honour in compenfatien and full payment for the whole, as of more value than the annual prizes diftributed by the acaof Infcriptions and Belles Lettres, or even those more renowned of old at the Ifthmian games.'

We must not pass over what the Doctor (for a Doctor, and of Divinity too, we understand he is, as well as Matrimonial Miffionary in our modern CYTHERA, the land of HONEYS and Joys) fubjoins upon KISSING: one of the fweeteft, and if we may be allowed the expreffion, one of the most sensible subjects in nature.

or

The Learned have diftinguished Kiffes into three kinds*, one denoting duty, or the office of friendship: another sweetnefs, or the office of love; and a third here therefore a controverfy is likely to rife among Critics, • under which of thefe predicaments the kifs given by this good Lady to the Philofopher ought to be claffed; and because the • Learned are divided about the proper idea marked out by the two last, after offering to their confideration the reason of

*Ofcula, Suavia, Bafia.

• my

The Commentator upon Apuleius infifts, that Bafium gives the idea of tweetnefs, ofculum pudicorum, and Suavium that of ofculorum impudicorum. Apuleius ufes Bafium in this fenfe I grant, and his Commentator to this adds the authority of Catullus not inconfiderable. But Petronius, as good, or, perhaps, better authority

• than

* my own perplexity. I fhall only beg in defence of the Fair, that till it is decided, the modefty of the Dauphiness may pafs < unfufpected: for whether she, at a proper opportunity, fuppofing Monfieur Chartier to have been a Cadenus, or Abelard, might have been drawn fo far into the Platonic fcheme, as to have played the Eloifa or Vaneffa, without judging from the character of her kinfwoman Mary of Scots, prefumptively, that certain qualities run in the blood, I fee no medium of proof that can lead to demonftration.'

By this time fome of our Readers have, probably, concluded this loyal fubject and Advocate of Love and Beauty, to be a young Beau Divine, or fpruce Proteftant Abbé, ambitious to establish himself in the favour of the Fair: but no fuch thing, we can affure you, on our Author's own word; for, towards the end of his Epiftle Dedicatory, he fuppofes the Lady thus to exclaim against the length of his addrefs.

"This prating old man! will he never have done?" not yet, Madam,' replies he, with infinite gallantry, for to you, • and of you, I could prate for ever. Garrulity is, indeed, the ⚫vice of old age: the highest honorary tribute that youth pays to it, is patient attention: we grow fond of prating when we are good for nothing else. It is generally the laft faculty that leaves us, a fymptom of life, when hardly any other remains : fo that it is good natured to let us live as long as we appear to live, fince barred of this we would not think we live, and thus intellectual life would go out with the animal, which feeing it doth not, is a kind of prefumptive proof, that one may be, when the other will not be.

Befides, Madam, it is, though I am forry to remind you of it, a vice I have observed common to both fexes; old wo6 men can prate as well as old men, and the fame allowance on your part, if ever you come to it, will be demanded: and alas! young, gay, and blooming as you are, to this you will come at laft: lovely as that form is, it will wrinkle and wither, that vermilion will be turned into palenefs, thofe bril⚫liant eyes grow dim and faint: in the gazing crowd, that now furrounds you, notwithstanding the blaze you make, the luftre with which you enamel and gild the spot you ftand up

than either, conftantly ufes Bafium in the latter fenfe: as any one ⚫ may fee, from many paffages in his Satyricon: It is certainly Dignas Vindice Nodus. And therefore to be hoped that fome of the Golden Affes of the age, who being initiated into the mysteries of the chaile Goddefs, often at the nocturnal affemblie of the Boa Dea, and undergone fuch metamorphofes as Apuleius did, will help us to folve it.

on: though you reanimate, give life, fenfation, appetite, a kind of rejuvenescence, a defire at least, a wish to live and be C young again, to every thing you touch and look upon, the meaneft of your admirers, even I, wizened and worn out by labour, age, nay worse, by disappointments, in the course of a few funs and moons, will be as much refpected, heeded, and liftened to. Pity, indeed, it is! but it must be so: what are you then to do? why briefly this, look as well into yourfelf as at yourself, and thence learn how to preserve and to improve the authority which beauty gives, to make it indefectible, and as I maintain it may, interminable.'

He concludes this addrefs by an anticipation of the cenfure he expects from that curfed fpirit which condemned Douglas, and cenfured the Author: from a late experiment, I have rea6 fon to know that the four leaven is working in some of the fame pious Breed here: as our Ecclefiaftical Constitutions are fome of them very ambiguously worded, and often less explicit than might be wifhed in determining what is, or is not Herefy: fome Inquifitor of the holy office, warm in the search and fagacious in detecting it, might poffibly take up both me and my Sermon, and fo effectually put an end to my prating at any time hereafter, unless I am allowed to take fhelter under your Ladyfhip's wings [petticoats he means, we suppose]; there, indeed, I fhall be fafe, there I will laugh at their refentment, and defy their malice.

6

And as a fair face is always the index of a fweet mind, and Beauty and good temper, in all the inftances I have ever obferved, go infeparably together; yours must be of the fofteft and fweeteft kind. Whence I draw this comforting affurance, that whatever fentence I may incur from others, you will not flightingly reject, but patronize and kindly accept the respects which are here tendered by,

• Madam,

Your Ladyfhip's then much obliged, now moft faithful, and for ever devoted

humble Servant,

6 The AUTHOR.'

As to the Sermon itself, it is a truly ferious difcourse, in defence of the matrimonial inftitution, against all that Monks or Libertines can object to it. Towards the conclufion we meet with a paffage or two that deferve to be felected.

The Scotch Clergy, no doubt, will think themfelves vaftly obliged to their good brother, for this pious epithet.

In bar to what he had offered in recommendation of this pleafing bondage, he obferves, that an objection may be drawn from Lord Bacon, who hath afferted, "That wives and children are "hindrances to great atchievements and enterprizes, either of "virtue or mischief; and that the beft works, and of greateft "merit to the public, have been performed by unmarried, or "childless men."

Our Author comes now to confider how far this is true, and whether there is any thing in the allegation, except the authority of the man who faid it, to give it credit or weight.

As to the enterprizes of mifchief,' fays he, I intirely agree with him, and confent to give it all the authority you will; for I own that I never fee a fingle man, who hath paffed the ⚫ current age of celibacy, where no particular fecurity arifes • from his profeffion, or character; but I think I fee an unfafe fubject, and a very dangerous inftrument for any mifchief, ⚫ that his own parts may infpire, or other mens may prompt him to: And as to atchievements of virtue, a diftinétion I infift • ought to be made, because in common acceptation there is a variety of things which pals under that name, and generally applauded, which in fair account do not deferve it. A fingle man, as he hath fewer ufes for money than a married man, may be likelier at his demile to leave a fund for building an alms-house, a church, &c. from the view, perhaps, of commuting for thofe very trespasses which his celibacy had run him into; or to leave a name at his death which he had not fenfe ⚫ or virtue enough to raife in life. Of fuch piety we have, it is true, many fair monuments in the world; but then if we confider, that it is by the vices moftly of fuch persons that fome of these foundations are at all neceflary, the merit of the at<chievement is much leffened, if not entirely destroyed; and the argument fo far lofes of its weight.

But not to infift upon this; all hiftory, I think, witneffeth against the affertion it is there undeniably plain, that most of the great Heroes of the world, Law-givers, Soldiers, Philofophers, have been all married men; a regard to pofterity hath carried arms, arts, and literature, farther than any other motive ever did or could. Who is fo likely to be influenced by this regard, as they who are to leave behind them the darlings and pledges of their affection, in whom they hope to ⚫ have their names continued, and all the fruits of their study, toil, and exploits, abiding and permanent.

On the other hand: how rare is it to fee an unmarried perfon, who carries his views farther than the fhort term of his own transitory being, and confined to the gratification of his • own

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