nged to hear. Her intelligence
was such, that there never was a show, to which she did not summon me on
the second day; and as she hated a crowd, and could not go alone, I was
obliged to attend at some intermediate hour, and pay the price of a
whole company. When we passed the streets, she was often charmed with
some trinket in the toy-shops; and from moderate desires of seals and
snuff-boxes, rose, by degrees, to gold and diamonds. I now began to find
the smile of Charybdis too costly for a private purse, and added one
more to six and forty lovers, whose fortune and patience her rapacity
had exhausted.

Imperia then took possession of my affections; but kept them only for a
short time. She had newly inherited a large fortune, and having spent
the early part of her life in the perusal of romances, brought with her
into the gay world all the pride of Cleopatra; expected nothing less
than vows, altars, and sacrifices; and thought her charms dishonoured,
and her power infringed, by the softest opposition to her sentiments, or
the smallest transgression of her commands. Time might indeed cure this
species of pride in a mind not naturally undiscerning, and vitiated only
by false representations; but the operations of time are slow; and I
therefore left her to grow wise at leisure, or to continue in errour at
her own expense.

Thus I have hitherto, in spite of myself, passed my life in frozen
celibacy. My friends, indeed, often tell me, that I flatter my
imagination with higher hopes than human nature can gratify; that I
dress up an ideal charmer in all the radiance of perfection, and then
enter the world to look for the same excellence in corporeal beauty. But
surely, Mr. Rambler, it is not madness to hope for some terrestrial lady
unstained by the spots which I have been describing; at least I am
resolved to pursue my search; for I am so far from thinking meanly of
marriage, that I believe it able to afford the highest happiness decreed
to our present state; and if, after all these miscarriages, I find a
woman that fills up my expectation, you shall hear once more from,

Yours, &c.

HYMENAEUS.

[Footnote c: The arguments of the revered Sir Samuel Romilly on Criminal
Law, have almost been anticipated in this luminous paper, which would
have gained praise even for a legislator. On the correction of our
English Criminal Code, see Mr. Buxton's speech in the House of Commons,
1820. It is a fund of practical information, an