tion; and would check (disguise) this vicious and dangerous propensity!" This is little more than saying, that a harlot would be extremely civil, lest she should not be sufficiently rewarded. It is somewhat curious too, that even in his "recreated world," the scene of "absolute perfection," when every natural evil should have vanished; he does not expect to get rid even of "habitual ill temper;"—his only hope is to disguise it lest it should be punished! The fancies of this brilliant dreamer are not made of more substanstial stuff, than the dreams of less favoured mortals.
As he proceeds, he gets bolder:—and he has reason for it. Being so deeply entangled in the web of sophistry, his only hope of effect, is to wrap fold on fold, in the desperate chance of entangling his readers. He tells us, that "prostitution is the legitimate offspring of marriage, and its accompanying errors!" One would have thought, from his hypothesis, that prostitution should be hailed as the natural means by which the political evils of marriage were to be remedied. Instead of speaking of prostitution as an evil, he should have contended for it as a comparative good, as far as it extends;—and lamented that it was not a universal practice, instead of a partial one.
