Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/199

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merely advanced paradoxes for the sake of displaying ingenuity; that he himself was convinced, as much as any other, endowed with reason must be, of the total incompatibility of such ravings with any thing that could actually exist. But he followed his speculation by a practical model, and exhibited as a pattern of perfection a real character, who, according to his account, systematically deviated from the chief virtues of her sex. This singular example of female perfection, whom the writer exhorted her sex throughout the world to imitate, was a concubine. But of her various qualifications, a few specimens may serve—First we have her chastity; Miss resorted to France, and became a kept-mistress; this, according to her panegyrist, was a species of connection for which her heart secretly panted, and which had the effect of diffusing an im-