inds thro' woods as wild as themselves: I see you pursuing the stately
relict of some renown'd Indian chief, some plump squaw arriv'd at the
age of sentiment, some warlike queen dowager of the Ottawas or
Tuscaroras.

And pray, _comment trouvez vous les dames sauvages?_ all pure
and genuine nature, I suppose; none of the affected coyness of Europe:
your attention there will be the more obliging, as the Indian heroes, I
am told, are not very attentive to the charms of the _beau sexe_.

You are very sentimental on the subject of friendship; no one has
more exalted notions of this species of affection than myself, yet I
deny that it gives life to the moral world; a gallant man, like you,
might have found a more animating principle:

_O Venus! O Mere de l'Amour!_

I am most gloriously indolent this morning, and would not write
another line if the empire of the world (observe I do not mean the
female world) depended on it.

Adieu!
J. Temple.

LETTER 4.

To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Quebec, July 1.

'Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for _the Misses_; for
puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and,
without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells
them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me
_a woman_; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold inanimate form,
insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the
wax baby she has just thrown away.

You will allow Prior to be no bad judge of female merit; and you may
remember his Egyptian maid, the favorite of the luxurious King
Solomon, is painted in full bloom.

By the way, Jack, there is generally a certain hoity-toity
inelegance of form and manner at seventeen, which in my opinion is not
balanc'd by freshness of complexion, the only advantage girls have to
boast of.

I have another objection to girls, which is, that they will
eternally fancy every man they converse with has designs; a coquet and
a prude _in the bud_ are equally disagreeable; the former expects
universal adoration, the latter is alarm'd even at that general
civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the
last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very
apprehensive young ladies knew, their _virtue_ is not half so
often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures
to whom they may safely shew politeness without being