In the bloom of youth, he possessed one of the finest forms I ever beheld, with a countenance animated and interesting in the highest degree. Perhaps the little adventure which introduced him to us, disposed me to view him at that moment with a partial eye. Little accustomed as I was to conceal the emotions of my mind, he must have been blind indeed if he did not perceive that I was pleased at finding he was going to the same house where my mother and I intended to pay a visit. If the first appearance of the stranger pleased me, his address and manner, and conversation charmed me still more. In a word, Sir, I found in him all the graces of a Lovelace, all the virtues and accomplishments of a Grandison, all the sentiments and tenderness of a Lord Ossory. Sir W. Denham (for that was his name) appeared to me the most amiable man I had ever seen. I need not trouble you with a recital of the progress of our acquaintance. Suffice it to say, that he made a complete conquest of my heart, and that I consented to give him my hand.

Immediately after our marriage we went to his fa mily-seat in the country. There the tenderness and the attachment of my husband seemed daily to increase. He lived but to gratify my wishes, and I fondly fancied myself the happiest of woman-kind. Alas, Sir! what a cruel thing it is to have known felicity, and then to be plunged in wretchedness; I, Sir, am now as miserable as once I was happy. Not to keep you in suspense, I have lost the affections of my husband. Of this I have hourly the most mortifying and the most unequivocal proofs. The first symptom I discovered of an alteration in his sentiments, was the pleasure I found he took in other society, and amusements of which I could not partake. When his country neighbours come to visit him, he will sit a whole evening over his bottle with them,

while I languish alone, neglected and forlorn. Nay Sir, before we were many months married he had the barbarity to leave me for a whole fortnight, which he spent in the Highlands, on a shooting party, as he called it. Not only does he prefer those frivolous amusements to me, but he even abandons my society, on a pretence that the management of his affairs requires it. At this moment he is at an estate he has in a distant county, where he says he will be detained by business for several weeks. What is business or affairs to me, who would with pleasure have descended from a throne to make him happy!

I am persuaded, Sir, you will enter into my distress, and feel the justice of my complaints. As my husband is a constant reader of your paper, I hope that the picture of my situation may strike him, and lead him to alter a conduct which I own I am unable longer to endure. Yours, &c.

LOUISA DENHAM.

I had hardly done reading this letter, when I reéeived the following:

SIR,

AT the age of twenty-two, I succeeded to a paternal estate of 2000l. Soon after the death of my father to whom I was indebted for an excellent edu cation, I set out on my travels; and after making the Grand Tour, I returned to my native country at the age of twenty-six, and found myself possessed of a fortune more than sufficient for my wishes, with a sound constitution, a disposition to enjoy all the pleasures of society, and a heart susceptible of friendship and attachment. Soon after my return, a fortunate accident introduced me to the acquaintance of Miss Louisa M. Although accustomed to see and to admire beauty, yet I could not help being

forcibly struck with that of Miss M. Beauty, however, though it may dazzle for a moment, seldom makes a lasting impression on one who had seen so much of the world as I had. But there was something at once interesting in the looks and engaging in the manners of Louisa, that attracted me with an irresistible charm. Even her artless simplicity, and her ignorance of the world, rather pleased from its novelty; accustomed to the coteries of Paris and the society of women whose conversation, ideas, and manners differed little from that of the men with whom they lived, I was charmed with the naïveté of Louisa. In her observations there was a remarkable delicacy and justness of thought, often, it is true, accompanied with a degree of romantic wildness and enthusiasm, which, so far from displeasing, served rather to throw an additional charm around her.

I soon found that I was not indifferent to Miss M- ; and having paid my addresses to her, was honoured with her hand. For some time after our marriage, I was completely happy; and would have continued so, were it not for one single weakness in my Louisa, which has occasioned much uneasiness to us both, and will, I fear, if not correeted, embitter all our future days. 'Tis of such a sort, Mr. Lounger, that I have no term by which to blame it ; I can only describe it by instances. When I went home after my marriage, my neighbours naturally came to pay their compliments on the occasion. AÍ. though I sometimes would rather have dispensed with their presence, which I could not help feeling as an interruption to that happiness which I experi enced in the conversation of my Louisa; yet com mon civility required that I should receive them with politeness. One day Sir George Hearty, an old friend of my father's and ever warmly attached to the interest of our family, came to dine with me.

As I knew that Sir George liked his bottle, I, though naturally averse to any approach to excess in the way of drinking, could not help indulging the good old man in a glass extraordinary. When we rose from table. I found my wife in her apartment dissolved in tears. Astonished and affected to the last degree, I enquired the cause with all the impatience of the most anxious solicitude. At length she, with a look of melancholy that distressed me to the soul, said that she found no happiness in any society but mine; and that if I loved like her, I could find no pleasure but in her's.

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Not long after, I received a letter from the son an English nobleman, with whom I had been educated at school and at college, and with whom I had ever after lived in habits of the strictest friendship, putting me in mind of an engagement I had come under when last in London, to shew him some parts of the Highlands in Scotland, and to pass some time with him there in growse-shooting. I immediately made the necessary preparations for this excursion, and not doubting that my wife would be happy to show every mark of attention to the chosen friend of my youth, I wrote to him to hasten his journey to Scotland. When he arrived, it was with pain that I observed that my Louisa, so far from participating the joy I felt at the sight of my friend, seemed to sink in spirits in proportion as I was overjoyed on the occasion.

I left her in a situation which distressed me at the time, and the reflection of which damped all the joy I should otherwise have found in the society of my friend. I shortened our excursion, although I saw it rather disappointed him, in order to get home as soon as possible. Instead of being received by my Louisa with that pleasure which I experienced in seeing her after this short absence, I found her still

her.

oppressed with that melancholy in which I had left It is needless, Sir, to detain you with a detail of further particulars. In a word, I find that my wife considers my partaking in any amusement, joining in any society, or engaging in the most necessary and essential business, as a mark of want of attachment and affection to her. That romantic turn of mind, which at first charmed me so much, and which her natural good sense has not enabled her to restrain within due bounds, leads her to see every object through a medium very remote from the occurrences of ordinary life. As she is a reader of the Lounger, I beg you will favour us with a paper on the danger of encouraging this engaging sort of delusion, so apt to captivate a young and a virtuous mind, but which I find from fatal experience, leads to much misery and distress.Yours, &c.

W. DENHAM.

It might be supposed, that the Lounger, who has somehow been led to confess himself a bachelor, would not be much dissatisfied at receiving, in such letters as the above and Mr. Easy's, a sort of testimony of the inconveniences of marriage. He must however declare, that they afford him no kind of satisfaction; nor indeed do the complaints of those correspondents induce him to think at all unfavora bly of that state in which they have found the embarrassments they describe. Want of judgment in our choice, or ridicuously sanguine expectations from what we possess, will, in every article of life, produce disappointment and chagrin and the situation from which the greatest felicity may be drawn, must necessarily be that from which most uneasiness