give
attraction to the picture of virtue, and to put the reader on his guard
against the assault of temptation. Mr. Moore has no such apology;--he
takes care to intimate to us, in every page that the raptures which he
celebrates do not spring from the excesses of an innocent love, or the
extravagance of a romantic attachment; but are the unhallowed fruits of
cheap and vulgar prostitution, the inspiration of casual amours, and the
chorus of habitual debauchery. He is at pains to let the world know that
he is still fonder of roving, than of loving; and that all the Caras and
the Fannys, with whom he holds dalliance in these pages, have had each a
long series of preceding lovers, as highly favoured as their present
poetical paramour: that they meet without any purpose of constancy, and
do not think it necessary to grace their connexion with any professions
of esteem or permanent attachment. The greater part of the book is
filled with serious and elaborate description of the ecstasies of such
an intercourse, and with passionate exhortations to snatch the joys,
which are thus abundantly poured forth from "the fertile fount of
sense."

To us, indeed, the perpetual kissing, and twining, and panting of these
amorous persons, is rather ludicrous than seductive; and their eternal
sobbing and whining, raises no emotion in our bosoms, but those of
disgust and contempt. Even to younger men, we believe, the book will not
be very dangerous: nor is it upon their account that we feel the
indignation and alarm which we have already endeavoured to express. The
life and conversation of our sex, we are afraid is seldom so pure as to
leave them much to learn from publications of this description; and they
commonly know enough of the reality, to be aware of the absurd illusions
and exaggerations of such poetical voluptuaries. In them, therefore,
such a composition can work neither corruption nor deception; and it
will, in general, be despised and thrown aside, as a tissue of sickly
and fantastical conceits, equally remote from truth and respectability.
It is upon the other sex, that we conceive its effects may be most
pernicious; and it is chiefly as an insult upon their delicacy, and an
attack upon their purity, that we are disposed to resent its
publication.

The reserve in which women are educated; the natural vivacity of their
imaginations; and the warmth of their sensibility, renders them
peculiarly liable to be captivated by the appe