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TO QUEEN MAB.
19

joyed her—his palled appetite wanders after more tempting, because more novel, charms;—and in this new code of morals, he may say—"I am no longer happy in your society,—happiness was my object in the union. I must now seek it in disunion, and fresh engagements. I am extremely sorry:—my comfort requires a separation. Adieu!" What must he be, who could hold this language to an affectionate, astonished, deceived, and brokenhearted woman? Men may be often false;—may often forget the vows sworn at the altar, and venture to taste "forbidden fruits:" but to make falsehood a creed, villainy a profession, and injustice a moral duty, is a measure of guilt, for which language has no adequate expression.

An affection cannot be supposed to expire at the same moment, between individuals of opposite sexes. We have a thousand instances, in which the love of woman has survived coldness, treachery, desertion, insult, and privation—where it still clung to the father of the children, when it could no longer be felt for the husband of the wife:—and suppose the fondness of woman undiminished, at the moment when man finds it a "moral duty" to abandon her, in search of "happiness," and