OF FRENCH SOCIETY. 65 age without penitence and a death with- out hope ; to consider talents capable ofgreat things, abused and misapplied, - a God not merely forsaken, but denied ; - all these are images from which the sober mind turns away with horror softened by compassion. May every daughter of Britain say, with the patri- arch of old, " Come not into their secret, 0 my soul ; to their assembly let not thine honour be united I" Some ladies of unimpeached morality were found in these coteries. True; yet we hope to be forgiven for saying, that they 'could have retained but little of that delicacy which should preserve the purity of society, when they made no scruple ofmixing intimately with women whose practices they would not by any means adopt. In such society virtue withers, delicacy is impaired, and prin- ciple finally extinguished. In this view it is impossible not to make a short digression, to observe with gratitude on the obligations of English
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=