As to the latter, my frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge, have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and want of caution in contracting them.

My general fault has been the folly of chusing my friends for some striking and agreable accomplishment, instead of giving to solid merit the preference which most certainly is its due.

My inconstancy in love has been meerly from vanity.

There is something so flattering in the general favor of women, that it requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantry which indulges it, though absolutely destructive to real happiness.

I blush to say, that when I first married I have more than once been in danger, from the mere boyish desire of conquest, notwithstanding my adoration for your lovely sister:  such is the force of habit, for I must have been infinitely a loser by changing.

I am now perfectly safe; my vanity has taken another turn:  I pique myself on keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed, as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred coquets, who would be equally flattered by the attention of any other man, at least any other man who had the good fortune to be as fashionable.

Every thing conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness:  the manner of life I am engaged in, your friendship, your example, and society; and the very fear I am in of losing your esteem.

That I have the seeds of constancy in my nature, I call on you and your lovely sister to witness; I have been your friend from almost infancy, and am every hour more her lover.

She is my friend, my companion, as well as mistress; her wit, her sprightliness, her pleasing kind of knowledge, fill with delight those hours which are so tedious with a fool, however lovely.

With my Lucy, possession can never cure the wounded heart.

Her modesty, her angel purity of mind and person, render her literally,

  “My ever-new delight.”

She has convinced me, that if beauty is the mother, delicacy is the nurse of love.

Venus has lent her her cestus, and shares with her the attendance of the Graces.

My vagrant passions, like the rays of the sun collected in a burning glass, are now united in one point.

Lucy is here.  Adieu!  I must not let her know her power.

You spend to-morrow with us; we have a little ball, and are to have a masquerade next week.

Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress; you and I are not to be in the secret:  we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade; I will send Lucy’s post coach for them the day before, or perhaps fetch them myself.

    Adieu! 
      Your affectionate
          J. Temple.

LETTER 211.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Nov. 1.