binds, or could bind, parties to a cohabitation which they abhorred. No law professes to do this. Marriages are virtually dissolved, and the individuals separate, when the yoke becomes unbearable to either party; and the laws only provide, as far as they can, that society shall not suffer wrong, nor the weaker party endure more than the evils of separation, by the caprice, the inconstancy, or the guilt of man!
By love our author seems only to mean, the ungovernable emotion, which beauty first awakens in the bosom of maturing manhood. This furious impulse is of the most evanescent description. Satiety succeeds to enjoyment; and for the same person, the same maddening sensation can seldom, if ever, be again awakened. While that individual continued to be an object of the affections, the sensation could be awakened for no other; but is this furor alone worthy of the name of love? Is it to be constantly excited for some new object, that it may be continually in existence? and are fresh victims to be periodically sacrificed to this inordinate avarice of beauty? which would then become a greater curse than the avarice of gold! Suppose all men acting in this mode,
