man parents! The misery of these victims has been painted with great
force by some benevolent writers of France.

In most of those pathetic histories that are founded on the abuse of
convents, the misery originates from the parent, and falls upon the
child. The reverse has sometime happened; and there are examples of
unhappy parents, who have been rendered miserable by the religious
perversity of a daughter. In the fourteenth volume of that very amusing
work, _Les Causes Celebres_, a work which is said to have been the
favorite reading of Voltaire, there is a striking history of a girl
under age, who was tempted by pious artifice to settle herself in a
convent, in express opposition to parental authority. Her parents, who
had in vain tried the most tender persuasion, endeavored at last to
redeem their lost child, by a legal process against the nunnery in which
she was imprisoned. The pleadings on this remarkable trial may, perhaps,
be justly reckoned amongst the finest pieces of eloquence that the
lawyers of France have produced. Monsieur Gillet, the advocate for the
parents, represented, in the boldest and most affecting language, the
extreme baseness of this religious seduction. His eloquence appeared to
have fixed the sentiments of the judges; but the cause of superstition
was pleaded by an advocate of equal power, and it finally prevailed. The
unfortunate parents of Maria Vernal (for this was the name of the
unfortunate girl) were condemned to resign her forever, and to make a
considerable payment to those artful devotees who had piously robbed
them of their child.

When we reflect on the various evils that have arisen in convents, we
have the strongest reason to rejoice and glory in that reformation by
which the nunneries of England were abolished. Yet it would not be
candid or just to consider all these as the mere harbors of
licentiousness; since we are told that, at the time of their
suppression, some of our religious houses were very honorably
distinguished by the purity of their inhabitants. "The visitors," says
Bishop Burnet, "interceded earnestly for one nunnery in Oxfordshire,
where there was great strictness of life, and to which most of the young
gentlewomen of the country were sent to be bred; so that the gentry of
the country desired the king would spare the house: yet all was
ineffectual."

DEGREES OF SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENT AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.

In the earlier ages, sentiment in love does not ap