would make it a conscience to allow themselves the liberty of affections which the chastest Women reserve to themselves in other places, without any regard to their obligations or dependance. Here the least liberties pass for Infidelity; and Infidelity, which passes for a genteel merit in agreeable Courts, is reckon’d the foulest of all vices with this honest Nation, which is very wise as to the conduct of its Government, but unexperienc’d as to refined Pleasures, and a polite way of living. The Husbands reward the fidelity of their Wives, by a great subjection; and if contrary to this receiv’d custom, a Man should affect to be lord and master in his own house, the Wife wou’d be pitied by all her neighbours, as the most unfortunate of her sex; and the Husband exclaim’d against as a very ill-natur’d fellow.
A wretched experience has given me judgment enough, at my own expence, to distinguish between these things, and makes me regret that time wherein we receive more satisfaction from sense than knowledge. Sometimes I call to mind what I have been, to re-animate what I am at present; and from this remembrance of my former sentiments, is form’d a certain disposition to tenderness, or at least a removal from indolence. A happy tyranny that of our Passions, which make up all the pleasures of our lives! An irksome empire that of Reason, if it robs us of all our agreeable thoughts, and keeps us in an unprofitable idleness, instead of establishing a true repose!
I will not trouble you with a long account of the Hague : ’tis enough to tell you, that Travellers are charm’d with it, after they have seen the magnificence of Paris, and the rarities of Italy. On one side you see a Walk to the Sea, worthy of the grandeur of the old Romans : on the other you enter a Wood, which is the most agreeable
