ABOUT this period, Leslie received letters from his friend Villars, hinting at a subject upon which he had been forbidden to write, and to which Leslie himself never alluded, unless upon absolute compulsion. It appeared to be the only subject upon which these friends did not write freely and unreservedly nor could anything clearly appear from the dark hints which were now and then scattered over their letters, upon the only point on which Leslie seemed to be peculiarly irritable. In some of his epistles, Villars had also ridiculed the idea of Leslie's growing passion for Agnes; had taunted him with questions as to the measure of her attraction; and had desired to know what there was so peculiarly attractive to attach a heart such as his so long to one object, while the passion appeared to be any thing but mutual. Sometimes he would launch out in praise of the new beauties which he had discovered in his travels since Leslie's return to England; complain of his own want of success, which he attributed to the absence of his able coadjutor and leader; and tempt his return by his description of women. whom he knew to be particularly suitable to the inclinations of Leslie. At others, he would describe the despair of this Signora and of that Contessa; and even ventured once or twice to hint, that his sudden departure from Florence and his continued absence was attributed in the higher circles to his unsuccessful attempt on a certain Principessa, and his dread of a rencontre with the Principe marito, who was notorious as the best shot and the most expert swordsman in Italy. In his last letters, Villars again urged strongly his return to Italy; and had expressed his wonder that a woman who seemed so inaccessible, should detain him so long in cold, drear England, while the fertile plains, and blue skies, and warm-hearted women of Italy, were all ready to welcome him with open arms. To these remonstrances, Leslie replied by the following epistle : LESLIE TO VILLARS. You ask me, Fred, what in the name of wonder there is or can be in this dear delicious woman, thus to seize upon the heart and fancy (for my heart is, for this once, absolutely in the adventure) of such a capricious devil as I am; and faith, without seeing her-without conversing with herwithout knowing her, it would be difficult to tell you. You know I fell in love with Lady D for her eyesd with Mrs. S- T- for a lock of her hair, which hung so carelessly and luxuriantly on her snowy shoulders, that, if you recollect, I told her I no longer wondered at the title of Pope's famous poem: Mrs. C― attracted me by the roundness of her arm; and her cousin by the prettiest little foot in the world, which excited my curiosity by peeping so daintily under her flounced petticoat, at one of those soirées which the blind dowager use to give for the benefit of those who could see better than herself. You know one of my odd fancies-for somehow or other, I have had a great many odd fancies about women-was the mole which by contrast rendered the neck of the once charming little countess so much the whiter. In short, I have been in love with a hundred different women for a hundred different beauties, or oddities, about their persons; but here, Fred, I am in love with the whole. For all the beauties which my luxuriant imagination can think of, and you know it is luxuriant upon these subjects, seem congregated in the person of this woman. Like Shakspeare's Rosalind, she seems to combine the various beauties of various women in her precious self: 2. Heaven once sweet nature charged Sad Lucretia's modesty. Then her mind-her imagination-her feeling-her sensibility; all coinbine to render her still more charming. She feels, she lives, she breathes, in poetry: she makes a romance of real life; and gives an indescribable interest to all the nothingnesses of existence: wherever she moves, a charm seems spread around her. She is like one of those creatures in faery-story, beneath whose feet one can imagine the beauties of nature to spring up spontaneously; one whose step and presence might be supposed to clothe a desert with flowers, and whose touch would draw a living spring from a barren rock. What a being to inspire with love! what a bliss to know that such a creature centred her principal hopes of pleasure and of happiness in you! Eh, Fred, wouldn't it be real Elysium to lie in such arms as hers; to repose upon such a besom as hers; to read in her eyes your own passion reflected But I madden at the thought: I could dip my pen in lava -living, flowing lava--to give a vent to my imagination, when it dares wander this way; and when does it wander in any other direction? But I must be calm; or the mine I am laying for another, will be sprung by my own hot-headedness, and blow up myself:-as Rosseau says,— Il faut que je sois de sang froid pour penser. Is it not strange, Fred, that with all this sensibility; all this warmth of temperament; all these capabilities of loving; that she should be prudence personified :--that her delicacy should place a rubicon around her, which Cæsar himself would not have dared to pass? Is it not strange, that a creature of such passions-for that a creature of high passions she is, her eye leaves no doubt; such an eye, Fred, so dark, yet so clear; so bright, yet so soft-is it not strange, I say, that she should be ever so watchful over them, as to suffer no tell-tale devil to peep out, and designate the moment to attack her; and how to attack her, I cannot for the life of me tell. She is a perfect puzzle. There is not another woman of her feeling in the world, that by this time, either by accident or design, had not afforded a dozen opportunities which such a daring devil as myself might have turned to some account. But here, Fred, I am foiled-foiled and puzzled. There is no prudish withdrawing of hands, and no affected casting down of eyes; no coy avoidance of my society and conversation; but quite the contrary; and yet not one peg of comfort on which to hang a hope. Thou knowest how I have talked myself into the good graces of the fair Parisiennes; how I have waltzed myself into the tough hearts of the Germans, and the pudding souls of the Dutch; how I have sighed myself into the arins of the voluptuous sex in Italy and Spain; and you and all the world know that I have hitherto been any thing but unsuccessful with our fair country women here. You know, Fred, how closely I have studied the sex in all countries, and thought that I knew them thoroughly, from the slipper to the tiara; from a heart-string to a stay-lace. Yet here I am puzzled by a girl-a mere novice; with no more knowledge of the world than a cold, heartless husband could give her; and husbands are afraid to teach their wives too much. What a pity, Fred, to make such a woman a wife! What a pity, in such a soul as hers, to make love nothing but the cold performance of a duty! What a mistress has here been spoiled by the absurdity of those human ties which fetter the heart; and would convert the gratification of our most natural feelings into a crime! Did nature bestow upon us passions warm as those with which my heart is now beating; and pleasures glowing as those which my imagination is anticipating, only that we should enjoy them, as the dancing bear does the little liberty his keeper allows himin chains? But let us look to the philosophy of the thing-to the moral, the virtue : aye, laugh, Fred, if you will; but I mean to say that morality and virtue are both in favour of my argument. For instance, could there have been such a crime as adultery, if there had been no marriages? Certainly not. It is the law, Fred, that makes the crime, and not the thing itself; that, as we all know, is natural enough; and what is natural must be good; and I again leave the ergo to your own logic. Marriages, says some sage or fool, and sages and fools are very much alike, upon the same principle that two extremes generally meet, are made in heaven. Why the devil then did'nt they keep them there? and not come to trouble our earth with them; for my part, I am very willing to wait till I get there for a taste of matrimony; arn't you, Fred? It is astonishing in what different ways different people speak of this same marriage: some describe it as a banquet of never-ending enjoyment; some call it a curse, and some a blessing; but I rather think him in the right who described it as a feast, in which the grace was better than the dinner. Marriage appears to me, Fred, in the light of one of those expensive locks which teaches a thief where the treasure lies, by the very care that is taken to preserve it. It is the lock and not the treasure that forms the temptation; and every mechanic in that line sets to work to invent a picklock that shall undo it. I say, Fred, what a devilish clever fellow he would be, and what a fortune he would make, who could become a Bramah in the matrimonal lock, and invent some security against the violation of its wards. Lord, Lord, what a run such an article would have with the poor devils of husbands. Imagine a shop of this sort opened in the vicinity of St. James's, and think with what eagerness our friends, from A to Z-for the whole alphabet would scarcely furnish enough initials for the husbands that you and I know would give their ears for such an invention-would flock to purchase it. The only hope of a poor batchelor on the pavé would be, that the great demand might create a scarcity, or induce the sale of a spurious article, which, by giving the marito an imagined security, might make the way in some instances, a little easier. I wonder whether Trevor would purchase. No, no; for his Agnes is so chaste, so high up in virtue, that even all his conscious neglect of her never creates the shadow of suspicion in him; she is so much above it, that it never enters his imagination to suspect her virtue. Virtue--what a word is that; in what does it consist? As ideas are received-in |