24 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



which would be productive of unfpeakable mif- 

 chief, were they more clearly united among them- 

 felves, and unlefs they were counterbalanced by 

 Oppofite confederacies. Almoft all our general 

 affociations, accordingly, iflue in inteftine wars. 

 On the other hand, I do not fpeak of the incon- 

 veniencies which refult from particular unions, 

 rather too intimate. The moft celebrated friend- 

 fhips of Antiquity have not been, in this refpect, 

 wholly exempt from fufpicion, though, I am per- 

 fuaded, they were as virtuous as the perfons who 

 were the objects of them. 



The Author of Nature has given to each of 

 us, in our own fpecies, a natural friend, com- 

 pletely adapted to all the demands of human life, 

 capable of fupplyingall the affections of the heart, 

 and all the reftleflhefs of temperament. He fays, 

 from the beginning of the World : " It is not 

 *' good that the man fhould be alone: I will make 

 " him an help meet for him ; — and the Lord- 

 * c God made Woman, and brought her unto the 

 *' Man f." Woman pleafes all our fenfes by her 

 form and by her graces. She has, in her charac- 

 ter, every thing that can intereft the heart of Man, 

 and at every ftage of human life. She merits, by 

 the long and painful folicitudes which (he exercifes 



* Genefis, chap. ii. ver. i8, 22. 



over 



