Whatever romantic notions you may hear or read of, depend upon it, those matches are the happiest which are made on rational grounds--on suitableness of character, degree, and fortune--on mutual esteem, and the prospect of a real and permanent friendship. Far be it from me to advise you to marry where you do not love;--a mercenary marriage is a detestable prostitution. But, on the other hand, an union formed upon mere personal liking, without the requisite foundation of esteem, without the sanction of parental approbation, and, consequently, without the blessing of God, can be productive of nothing but misery and shame. The passion, to which every consideration of duty and prudence is sacrificed, instead of supplying the loss of all other advantages, will soon itself be changed into mutual distrust--repentance--reproaches--and, finally, perhaps into hatred. The distresses it brings will be void of every consolation; you will have disgusted the friends who should be your support--debased yourself in the eyes of the world--and, what is much worse, in your own eyes, and even in those of your husband: above all, you will have offended that God, who alone can shield you from calamity. From an act like this, I trust, your duty and gratitude to your kind parents--the first of dudes next to that we owe to God, and inseparably connected with it--will effectually preserve you. But most young people think they have fulfilled their duty, if they refrain from actually marrying against prohibition: they suffer their affections, and even perhaps their word of honour, to be engaged, without consulting their parents; yet satisfy themselves with resolving not to marry without their consent: not considering, that, besides the wretched, useless, uncomfortable state they plunge _themselves_ into, when they contract an hopeless engagement, they must likewise involve a _parent_ in the miserable dilemma of either giving a forced consent against his judgment, or of seeing his beloved child pine away her prime of life in fruitless anxiety--seeing her accuse him of tyranny, because he restrains her from certain ruin--seeing her affections alienated from her family--and all her thoughts engrossed by one object, to the destruction of her health and spirits, and of all improvements and occupations. What a cruel alternative for parents, whose happiness is bound up with that of their child! The time to consult them is before you have given a lover the least encouragement; nor ought you to listen a moment to the man who would wish you to keep his addresses secret; since he thereby shows himself conscious that they are not fit to be encouraged.