ce_ was the best Partner at a Ball; yet, when a
Companion for Life was to be chose, that Mr. _Hickman's_ Goodness of
Heart rendered him in all respects more essential to Happiness; much
more eligible than all the gay, fluttering, and parading Spirit of a
_Lovelace_ could possibly have done. And your Favourite _Clarissa_, Miss
_Gibson_, says in a Letter to Miss _Howe_; 'Will you never, my Dear,
give the Weight which you, and all our Sex ought to give to the
Qualities of Sobriety and Regularity of Life and Manners in that
Sex?--Must bold Creatures and forward Spirits for ever, and by the
wisest and best of us, as well as by the indiscretest, be the most
kindly used?--be best thought of'?

Again, in her posthumous Letter--'Your Choice is fallen upon a sincere,
an honest, a virtuous, and what is more than all, a _pious Man_.--A Man
who altho' he admires your Person, is still more in love with the Graces
of your Mind; and as those Graces are improvable with every added Year
of Life, which will impair the transitory ones of Person, what a firm
Basis has Mr. _Hickman_ chosen to build his Love upon.'

The same Man cannot be every thing: A _Hickman_ in Heart, to a
_Lovelace_ in Vivacity and Address, perhaps, is almost impossible to be
met with; Time, Opportunities, and Inclinations are wanting.

Nay, Madam, says Miss _Gibson_, I do not dispute Mr. _Hickman's_ being
preferable for a Husband to Mr. _Lovelace_; the Heart is certainly the
first thing to be considered in a Man to whose Government a Woman
resigns herself; but I should not chuse either _Lovelace_ or _Hickman_.
I must confess I should desire Humour and Spirit in a Man. A married
Life, tho' it cannot be said to be miserable with an honest Husband; yet
it must be very dull, when a Man has not the Power of diversifying his
Ideas enough to display trifling Incidents in various Lights; and 'tis
impossible where this is wanting, but that a Man and his Wife must often
depend on other Company to keep them from sinking into Insipidity. And
for my part, I cannot paint to myself any thing more disagreeable, than
to sit with a Husband and wish some-body would come in and relieve us
from one another's Dulness. Trifles, Madam, become strong Entertainments
to sprightly Minds!--

Ah! Miss _Gibson_, replied the Lady, in every Word you speak, you prove
how necessary the Author's Moral is to be strongly inculcated; when even
_your_ serious and thoughtful Turn of Mind will not suffer yo