LETTER 96.

To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.

Pall Mall, January 3.

I have but a moment, my dear Ned, to tell you, that without so much as asking your leave, and in spite of all your wise admonitions, your lovely sister has this morning consented to make me the happiest of mankind:  to-morrow gives me all that is excellent and charming in woman.

You are to look on my writing this letter as the strongest proof I ever did, or ever can give you of my friendship.  I must love you with no common affection to remember at this moment that there is such a man in being:  perhaps you owe this recollection only to your being brother to the loveliest woman nature ever formed; whose charms in a month have done more towards my conversion than seven years of your preaching would have done.  I am going back to Clarges Street.  Adieu!

      Yours, &c. 
          John Temple.

LETTER 97.

To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.

Clarges Street, January 3.

I am afraid you knew very little of the sex, my dear brother, when you cautioned me so strongly against loving Mr. Temple:  I should perhaps, with all his merit, have never thought of him but for that caution.

There is something very interesting to female curiosity in the idea of these very formidable men, whom no woman can see without danger; we gaze on the terrible creature at a distance, see nothing in him so very alarming; he approaches, our little hearts palpitate with fear, he is gentle, attentive, respectful; we are surprized at this respect, we are sure the world wrongs the dear civil creature; he flatters, we are pleased with his flattery; our little hearts still palpitate—­but not with fear.

In short, my dear brother, if you wish to serve a friend with us, describe him as the most dangerous of his sex; the very idea that he is so, makes us think resistance vain, and we throw down our defensive arms in absolute despair.

I am not sure this is the reason of my discovering Mr. Temple to be the most amiable of men; but of this I am certain, that I love him with the most lively affection, and that I am convinced, notwithstanding all you have said, that he deserves all my tenderness.

Indeed, my dear prudent brother, you men fancy yourselves extremely wise and penetrating, but you don’t know each other half so well as we know you:  I shall make Temple in a few weeks as tame a domestic animal as you can possibly be, even with your Emily.

I hope you won’t be very angry with me for accepting an agreable fellow, and a coach and six:  if you are, I can only say, that finding the dear man steal every day upon my heart, and recollecting how very dangerous a creature he was,

      “I held it both safest and best
  To marry, for fear you should chide.”