do philoſophical men complain of their fickleneſs? The ſexual attention of man particularly acts on female ſenſibility, and this ſympathy has been exerciſed from their youth up. A huſband cannot long pay thoſe attentions with the paſſion neceſſary to excite lively emotions, and the heart, accuſtomed to lively emotions, turns to a new lover, or pines in ſecret, the prey of virtue or prudence. I mean when the heart has really been rendered ſuſceptible, and the taſte formed; for I am apt to conclude, from what I have ſeen in faſhionable life, that vanity is oftener foſtered than ſenſibility by the mode of education, and the intercourſe between the ſexes, which I have reprobated; and that coquetry more frequently proceeds from vanity than from that inconſtancy, which overſtrained ſenſibility naturally produces.
Another argument that has had a great weight with me, muſt, I think, have ſome force with every conſiderate, benevolent heart. Girls who have been thus weakly educated, are often cruelly left by their parents without any proviſion; and, of courſe, are dependent on, not only the reaſon, but the bounty of their brothers. Theſe brothers are, to view the faireſt ſide of the queſtion, good ſort of men, and give as a favour, what children of the ſame parents had an equal right to. In this equivocal humiliating ſituation, a docile female may remain ſome time, with a tolerable degree of comfort. But, when the brother marries, a probable circumſtance, from being conſidered as the miſtreſs of the family, ſhe is viewed with averted looks as an intruder, an unneceſſary
