invaded her in the midst of their guilty pleasures, and embittered all
those moments they had dedicated to mutual bliss. For the seeds of
virtue are seldom destroyed at once. Even amidst the rank productions of
vice, they regerminate to a sort of imperfect vegetation, like some
scattered hyacinths shooting up among the weeds of a ruined garden, that
testify the former culture and amenity of the soil. She sighed at the
sad remembrance of that virgin dignity which she had lost; she wept at
the prospect of that disgrace, mortification, and misery she should
undergo, when abandoned by this transient lover, and severely reproached
him for the arts he had used to shipwreck her innocence and peace.

Such expostulations are extremely unseasonable, when addressed to a man
well-nigh sated with the effects of his conquest. They act like strong
blasts of wind applied to embers almost extinguished, which, instead of
reviving the flame, scatter and destroy every remaining particle of fire.
Our adventurer, in the midst of his peculiarities, had inconstancy in
common with the rest of his sex. More than half cloyed with the
possession of Celinda, he could not fail to be disgusted with her
upbraidings; and had she not been the daughter of a gentleman whose
friendship he did not think it his interest to forfeit, he would have
dropped this correspondence, without reluctance or hesitation. But, as
he had measures to keep with a family of such consequence, he constrained
his inclinations, so far as to counterfeit those raptures he no longer
felt, and found means to appease those intervening tumults of her grief.

Foreseeing, however, that it would not be always in his power to console
her on these terms, he resolved, if possible, to divide her affection,
which now glowed upon him too intensely; and, with that view, whenever
she complained of the vapours or dejection, he prescribed, and even
insisted upon her swallowing certain cordials of the most palatable
composition, without which he never travelled; and these produced such
agreeable reveries and flow of spirits, that she gradually became
enamoured of intoxication; while he encouraged the pernicious passion, by
expressing the most extravagant applause and admiration at the wild
irregular sallies it produced. Without having first made this diversion,
he would have found it impracticable to leave the house with
tranquillity; but, when this bewitching philtre grew into an habit, her