132 "Your taftes will be mine; I'll indulge no other.”

Amelia, I will not be excelled in generosity; leave me a virtue, which can make me perpetually agreeable to you; how fhall I pleafey Amelia if I have no merit to plead in my favour? You must trust the gratification of your tafes to my tendernefs, and not conceal frome the leaft defire you may form whether reafon or fancy dictates, let it be thy husband's care to fatisfy their wants. Reflect on the obligations I fhall have to acquit."

"Is not your love a compenfation

for mine?"

"Love is not a fatisfactory return; I must pay for each virtue, each grace, each beauty, each talent thou art endowed with. Wert thou net fo completely amiable, my happinefs would be imperfect. You exceed, Amelia, the enchanting picture my imagination has often drawn of a lovely woman: my heart was created for your's-your's for mine. You know how to pleafe I know how to love. In thee, dear Amelia, will be centered my thoughts, feelings, and pride."

The fire of my expreffion warmed Mrs. Guery's foul. Yielding to a forcible tranfport of gratitude, the paffed her arms round my neck, and engraved upon my lips the fenfation fhe could not defcribe. I made use, Francis, of her enthufiafin, and endeavoured with fighs and carefiles to work it up to a forgetfu.nefs of virtue. The crimfon hue of voluptuoufnefs glanced on her

cheeks for one minute the want of raptures enlivened her eyes, and gave its motion to her breaft-fhe breathed love and defire-twice called me her dear, dear husband, and yet checked the firit indifcretion of my hand. "Rambler!"

"Name it, and I'll renounce it." "You will not, Amelia." "You wrong me -What is the fault?"

"That of liftening to virtue, when you thould liften but to me." Mrs. Guery fmiled.

"Rambler, I will not mend it." "Forfake that fault, Amelia: you cannot justify your indulgence of it.'

"I doubt neither your love nor honour: I am 'perfectly fenfible of both : did I not deny the lover, the hufband, I believe, would not blame me for it; but would your generofity ennoble my foible, or filence remorfe in my heart? No, dear Rambler. Your wife muft come to your arms innocent, fpotlefs, worthy of your esteem. God forbid, you fhould have the thought of difgracing the woman you intend to take to wife! Had you fuch a contempt for yourfelt, I would prefer death to an union with you.'

"You fee with the eyes of virtue--I with thofe of Love, Amelia. You are too fevere---perhaps, I am too indulgent. I do not perceive a caufe for remorfe in pleafures fanctified by a mutual paffion, and enjoyed by a husband under the form of a lover."

"You are indeed very indulgent, Rambler."

"Not fo much as you are fevere, Amelia. No woman would think herfelf guilty for favouring the man she is to marry. Such delicacy Love abjures ---he delights to give freely what Hymen is obliged to grant."

"This is your opinion, Rambler? It is not mine. I hope you will forgive me for differing from you."

And the dropped a low courtefy. "To my forgiveness, Amelia, you might substitute my praises. These are more honourable than a pardon."

"I am not fond of praifes."

And the tript to the window, warbling an Italian fong. "I must alarm her pride, faid I to myself, and I followed her.

"The more I behold you, charming Amelia, the less I can account for your not being of my opinion."

"Your reafon "

"Because I have always fancied that the woman only, who had a defect in,

that"

I stopped, and smiled.

133

"That you intend, Rambler, to profit by their experience, and not join in their lamentations: your prudence is really commendable."

"That prudence I need not with Amelia."

"You are immensely generous." "The beauties I fee answer for those I do not."

"Hold your tongue."

"Truth cannot offend. If you impofe me filence, I'll be tempted to think I am wrong."

"Will you, Impertinent?" "Yes, unless you purchase my credulity--one kifs only."

"Only !---You are too dear."
And the refumed her fong.

All are we respect and adır iration for the grave and auftere manners of the ancients.

MIDST all the prefent frivolities

The Greeks, and chiefly the Athenians, to whom we are fo fond of comparing ourselves, have left many initances, which fhew, how very far our manners and customs differ from those of that fo celebrated people. The Romans, in the primitive ages of the republic went even beyond the aufterity of the Greeks. The private corruption of morals did not, among them, affect the public manners, nor fo much as break in on external decency. The kifs alone will difplay a wide contrariety between the Romans, and the civilized nations of Europe.

Whilft Rome had no law against adultery, a public kifs was never heard of; that familiarity made part only of the fecret careffes of conjugal affection. A young citizen of fome rank is known to have fuffered death for fnatching a kifs from a matron in public.

The first relaxation of the primitive difcipline was, when husbands began to think kiffing their wives before their acquaintance no offence against modefty, though, for a long time, it feemed fo

flowed no finall pains in laying open the origin of it. Pliny finds it in the fondnels of the Roman women for wine; and he fuppofes that husbands meant by that custom, on their coming home, to find out whether their wives had drank any of that forbidden liquor. If this be the real derivation, the women might thank Cato the Elder for it, he having advised the hufbands to bring the difcretion of their wives to that teft. The former feverity was kept up, and Cato the Cenfor ftruck a fenator off the lift for giving his wife fome warm kisses, his daughters being prefent.

fingular, that feveral writers have be

The kifs, among that truly moral people was accounted a serious and for lemn action to kifs the lips was allowed only among husbands and wives, a couple betrothed, or very near relations. The emperors gave into a cuftom of kiffing fenators in that manner on their leaving Rome, and on their return thither. This was, doubtless, meant as expreffive of the intimacy and confidence becoming perfons, who alone might give each other fuch familiar kiffes; and Suetonius blames Nero very much for not conforming to that cuf tom.

The

134

The

The Romans fometimes kiffed the hand, but this was an extraordinary mark of deference and refpect. Accordingly it was not to all emperors that this veneration was paid. moft fervile adulation could not overcome the repugnancy which the idea annexed to fuch a kifs excited. Bad emperors, in honour of whom incenfe was fometimes burnt, filenced religion and the veneration due to the deities, but never could they filence prepoffeffions and inbred manners.

Plutarch obferves, that when Cato was on leaving the provinces under his government, the women thronged about him to kifs his hand, and a more real homage did the virtue of that great man never receive. It was certainly well done to make that action a demonftration of efteem and refpect, inftead of looking on it as an empty ceremony or the procedure of an unmeaning politeness.

A cuftom likewife obtained under the emperors of kifling the knees, and even the feet; and the Romans came more easily into this mark of fubmiffion, though certainly greater than kiffing the hand, but to which their manners did not annex the fame humiliating ideas. All emperors, however, did not admit of this falutation. Caligula, Domitian, and the elder Maximinius, are known to have declined it from an affected moderation, whereas the younger Maximinius delighted in fuch homages, as gratifying his loftinefs: and the modern fovereigns of Rome have retained in their ceremonial the honours which were paid to their ancient predeceffors.

The Romans confidered the kifs not only as a fingular pledge, characteristic of refpect, fidelity, and conjugal affection, but even in their jurifprudence affigned to it effects, which very fenfibly prove what a ferious and facred meaning they annexed to it. In the code is a law, attributing to it a prerogative, which the civilians afterwards termed jus ofculi. That law likewife fpeaks of the mutual prefents of the two parties at the time of the efpoufals; and of the reftitution to be made,

fhould one of them die before the cele bration of the marriage.

This law enjoined, that when fuch prefents had been accompanied with a kifs, half of them is to go to the bride or her heirs. Some refined civilians have imagined, that this disposition was meant as a compenfation for the offence done to virginal pudicity by the kifs.

But to this explanation may be offer. ed two peremptory objections. 1. How could the bride's modeity fuffer if the died first, and can any compenfation be thought due to her heirs? 2. The Roman laws, though very unfavourable to fecond marriages extended this difpofi tion to widows. Thefe two cafes, in which that reafon of the law is quite out of the question, evidently fhew that it muft have had a very different motive; and a motive which, or I am much mistaken, rofe from the very opinion entertained by the Romans concerning thekifs. They looked on it as the pledge, the appurtenance of conjugal fidelity, and thus inferred, that the bride, in allowing the bridegroom to kifs her, fulfilled, as far as decency and the law permitted, fuch conditions of the donation which related to that matrimonial ftate. Conftantine, the author of this law, was therefore in the right to inveft the bride or her heirs with half of thofe prelents, when, by her death, or that of the bridegroom, the total fulfilment of thofe conditions was prevented. Let it not be objected, that the law fhould have placed the betrothed couple on an equal footing; for who is to be told that the inftitutions of all ftates, and poffibly natural reaton, have enjoined modeity to the fair fex much more strictly than to men. Rome especially diftinguished itself by a molt extraordinary refpect to the chastity and even bafhfulness both of virgins and married women. It was a capital article of the national manners; and thus the balance of compliance with these mutual kiffes was naturally allowed to be in favour of that party, to whom it was held to give the most pain.

The celebrated Azon holds a contrary opinion, grounding himself on

the