ed to
think unjust; I mean, the greater facility of the entrance of gross and
notorious offenders into heaven than of these formalists. No! If Miss
Denham were sole heiress to Cr[oe]sus, and joined the beauty of
Cleopatra to the wit of Sappho, I never would connect myself with a
disciple of that school."

"How many ways there are of being unhappy!" said Sir John, as we
returned one day from a ride we had taken some miles out of town, to
call on a friend of his. "Mr. Stanhope, whom we have just quitted, is a
man of great elegance of mind. His early life was passed in liberal
studies, and in the best company. But his fair prospects were blasted by
a disproportionate marriage. He was drawn in by a vanity too natural to
young men, that of fancying himself preferred by a woman who had no one
recommendation but beauty. To be admired by her whom all his
acquaintance admired, gratified his _amour propre_. He was overcome by
her marked attentions so far as to declare himself, without knowing her
real disposition. It was some time before his prepossession allowed him
to discover that she was weak and ill-informed, selfish and
bad-tempered. What she wanted in understanding, she made up in spirit.
The more she exacted, the more he submitted; and her demands grew in
proportion to his sacrifices. My friend, with patient affection,
struggled for a long time to raise her character, and to enlighten her
mind; but finding that she pouted whenever he took up a book, and that
she even hid the newspaper before he had read it, complaining that he
preferred any thing to her company; the softness of his temper and his
habitual indolence at length prevailed. His better judgment sunk in the
hopeless contest. For a quiet life, he has submitted to a disgraceful
life. The compromise has not answered. He has incurred the degradation
which, by a more spirited conduct, he might have avoided, and has missed
the quiet which he sacrificed his dignity to purchase. He compassionates
her folly, and continues to translate her wearisome interruptions into
the flattering language of affection.

"In compliment to her, no less than in justification of his own choice,
he has persuaded himself that all women are pretty much alike. That in
point of capacity, disposition, and knowledge he has but drawn the
common lot, with the balance in his favor, of strong affection and
unsullied virtue. He hardly ever sees his fine library, which is the
object of her supreme av