be the ground-work that a woman fees in a lover, her imagination aggrandizes and embroiders it moft furiouly: and hence the neceffity, that my letter may finish with a moral, of turning girls minds early to appreciate real merit in men; of making them fee that a state of love is the only happy state this fide the grave; that that love alone is fure and lafting which is fixed upon esteem ; that cfteem comes only from virtue; and that virtue in characters is rarely folid but when it is accompanied by good fenfe. The more virtues a man has, the better is Madam's chance for happiness If he be brave, generous, fincere, humane, and fenfible, he can fearce make a bad father to her children; or be want

ing

ing in the great duties he owes her as a wife, or in thofe daily leffer attentions, which conftitute, fo confiderable a part of the happiness of women

Conclufion

that women ought to

look chiefly for fenfe and virtue in hufbands; provided always, as an indifpenfible claufe, that there be nothing in the formation of the faid husband, difagreeable to the fight, the hearing, or the touch.

P. S. Many people fall in love from vanity. Mifs wifhes to poffefs Mifter, because he is admired in the world for his wit, his perfon, or for his graceful dancing. She reafons upon her husband as fhe does upon her ear-rings and her equipage. She thinks fhe partakes the

praise bestowed upon them,

This is

one reafon and then it is fuch a delightful thing to be envied! What I

have faid here is almoft as true of young men, as it is of women. But the great general fource of this paffion is Self-love z and is very happily expreffed in a line of a fweet old fong;

"And I love my Love, because I know my Love "loves me"

LET

LETTER III

T

HERE was no mediocrity in Shakfpeare. All he has writ is enchanting or execrable. Pope fays, in the bes ginning of his Preface to his edition of this poet's works: "It is not my defign "to enter into a criticifm upon this au"thor; though to do it effectually, and

not fuperficially, would be the best oc"cafion that any juft writer could take "to form the judgement and taste of "C our nation."

Pope's idea is certainly a juft one; but it is not practicable. Faults and beauties are fo thickly fown in Shak VOL. II. fpeare,

C

I

fpeare, and fo intermixed, it would take twenty volumes to feparate them. think I conceive how it might be done, and I fhall here attempt a specimen.

"Nothing is to be faid of the plans of his pieces. They are, properly speaking, no plans at all. I don't believe he ever formed one, except that of the 'Merry Wives of Windfor. The rest are all taken from hiftories, novels, and romances, which he took as he found them, and rendered them fit for dramatic representation. His plans then, confidered in the whole, are not his own; and confequently neither entitle him to cenfure or praife. He took, for example, Plutarch's Life of Brutus, and threw it into dialogue. If this fable be good,