heir endeavours, they can only acquire the second rank
in that noble order, the devil having long since been in possession
of the first?

OUR barbarous manners are so well calculated for the establishment of
vice and wretchedness, which are ever inseparable, that it requires a
degree of understanding and sensibility, infinitely above the common,
to relish the felicity of a marriage, such as I have described.
Nature is so weak, and so prone to change, that it is difficult to
maintain the best grounded constancy, in the midst of those
dissipations, which our ridiculous customs have rendered unavoidable.

IT must pain an amorous husband, to see his wife take all the
fashionable liberties; it seems harsh not to allow them; and, to be
conformable, he is reduced to the necessity of letting every one take
them that will; to hear her impart the charms of her understanding to
all the world, to see her display her bosom at noon-day, to behold
her bedeck herself for the ball, and for the play, and attract a
thousand and a thousand (sic) adorers, and listen to the insipid
flattery of a thousand and a thousand coxcombs. Is it possible to
preserve an esteem for such a creature? or, at least, must not her
value be greatly diminished by such a commerce?

I MUST still resort to the maxims of the East, where the most
beautiful women are content to confine the power of their charms to
him who has a right to enjoy them; and they are too sincere, not to
confess, that they think themselves capable of exciting desires.

I RECOLLECT a conversation that I had with a lady of great quality at
Constantinople, (the most amiable woman I ever knew in my life, and
with whom I afterwards contracted the closest friendship.) She
frankly acknowledged, that she was satisfied with her husband. What
libertines, said she, you Christian ladies are! you are permitted to
receive visits from as many men as you think proper, and your laws
allow you the unlimited use of love and wine. I assured her, that
she was wrong informed, and that it was criminal to listen to, or to
love, any other than our husbands. "Your husbands are great fools,"
she replied smiling, "to be content with so precarious a fidelity.
"Your necks, your eyes, your hands, your conversation are all for the
"public, and what do you pretend to reserve for them? Pardon me,
"my pretty sultana," she added, embracing me, "I have a strong
"inclination to believe all that you tell me, but you wou