shackles and impedes their progress in knowledge, what is this (if virtue is any thing but a name, and knowledge of the least use), but saying, that it injures the well-being of every individual composing the nation?

In regard to the evils of bad government, we have only to listen to the voice of experience. To what are we to ascribe it, that some of the finest countries in the world are overrun with a ruined and miserable population, if not to the baleful operation of despotic power? Greece, beautiful Greece, is herself a lasting evidence of the evils which the few can heap upon the many; of the degradation of the moral and mental qualities of human nature, under the pestilent influence of uncontrolled domination.

Let us, then, hear no more of the doctrine, that kings and laws can have little influence on private happiness. They have an all-pervading influence. To a very large extent they determine the painful or pleasant emotions, the train of ideas, the health, the social alliances, the professional success-in a word, the destiny of the individual. No one is too high or too low to escape the grasp of their power. They determine even the existence of large numbers

of mankind. Whether a country, for instance, is thinly or densely peopled, may depend almost altogether on the acts of its government. We may rest assured, that in civil affairs, as in every other class of events, if certain causes are in operation, certain results will follow; and if mankind are supine and careless in regard to their social interests, they must expect to suffer the consequences of bad political arrangements. The doctrine against which I have been contending, evidently tends to relax their attention to evils which could not long exist, if their causes were clearly and generally Poets may be much better employed than in fomenting that negligence or despondency, with respect to improvements in government, to which men are already too prone.

seen.

Farewell,

F. R.

LETTER VI.

Feelings of the Sexes towards each other-Conversation at a Dinner-Party on Matrimony-The Bachelor's Lament, a Poem.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I have often been struck with the large share which the relative situation of the two sexes has in the feelings, passions, actions, and events of human existence. It is the source of half the interest and pleasure of life. Men and women are a sort of mystery to each other. It is impossible that the two sexes should ever enter into each other's peculiar emotions. Separated by an impassable barrier, stamped by nature with an indelible distinction, they can in many respects as little imagine the nice shades, secret peculiarities, and ineffable circumstances of each other's fears and hopes, pains and pleasures, as the blind can figure to themselves the colours and appearances of visible objects. It is a remark, I think, of the admirable author of the Plays on the Passions, that nothing is so much an object of curiosity to man as man

himself. We have always an eager desire to penetrate into the feelings of men placed in situations different from our own, and particularly situations of an extraordinary character. With what interest the bulk of a nation gaze upon their king; with what anxiety they will wait to catch the least glimpse of him as he passes in his carriage; with what eagerness they will listen to the most trivial anecdote respecting him, and to the minutest details of his words and actions! And so it is with any man of eminence or celebrity-with the poet, the orator, or the hero.

It is the same principle of the human constitution which operates to increase the interest which the sexes feel in each other. There is always this curiosity more or less at work. But there is another principle, also, as well as this principle of curiosity, which will account for some of the interest which we take in those who are in different situations from ourselves. When we look upon the hero, who returns victorious from the field, part of our gratification no doubt arises from a wish to penetrate into his emotions, but part also from his presence serving to suggest a thousand elevating asso

ciations of danger, and courage, and glory, of the peril and pomp of battle.

In the same way, the general interest which the sexes feel in each other is owing, not only to a curiosity which is never appeased, but to all those tender and endearing and stimulating associations which naturally rise up in their minds.

I do not intend, however, to enter into any metaphysical analysis: the foregoing reflections were suggested by an incident of recent occurrence. I was invited, last week, to a dinner party, at the house of a gentleman with whom you are well acquainted, Mr. T. The company consisted of about a dozen ladies and gentlemen, in addition to the family of the host. The half-hour which elapsed before the announcement of dinner, was passed in that unpleasant state of constraint usual on such occasions; and the conversation, till the cloth was drawn, was dull and insipid. At length, one of the company luckily started the subject of matrimony, which, hackneyed as it is, soon brought animation into every countenance and volubility to every tongue. The ladies in particular seemed peculiarly alive to it, and adjusted