burst of national partiality), we are worse than degraded--we are depraved, by that which is intended to cherish and exalt every social virtue. Our corrupters, our mortal enemies, are religion and government. To set the practical proofs of this bold position in a striking light is, undoubtedly, beyond my abilities. Yet such, I must say, is the force of the proofs I possess on this melancholy topic, that they nearly overcome my mind with intuitive evidence. Let me, then, take leave of the subject into which my feelings have hurried me, by assuring you, that wherever the slightest aid is afforded to the female mind in this country, it exhibits the most astonishing quickness and capacity; and that, probably, no other nation in the world can present more lovely instances of a glowing and susceptible heart preserving unspotted purity, not from the dread of public opinion, but in spite of its encouragements. LETTER III. _Seville, ---- 1799._ Fortune has favoured me with an acquaintance--a young clergyman of this town--for whom, since our first introduction, I have felt a growing esteem, such as must soon ripen into the warmest affection. Common danger, and common suffering, especially of the mind, prove often the readiest and most indissoluble bonds of human friendship: and when to this influence is added the blending power of an intercommunity of thoughts and sentiments, no less unbounded than the confidence with which two men put thereby their liberty, their fortune, and their life into the hands of each other--imagination can hardly measure the warmth and devotedness of honest hearts thus united.