if followed to all its probable effects of vice and misery, is one of the greatest crimes that can be committed; and exceeded in hurtfulness by few affecting private individuals only, except murder. But there are gradations in the one as in the other, according to the degree of intention: there is a poison which undermines and destroys the vitals of virtue; an assassination, which attacks it in its unguarded and defenceless seasons; culpable homicide, in which without _malice propense_ both parties are to blame, and chance-medley the effect of unfortunate situations and collisions of passions. From such recontres female virtue is more frequently in danger than from any other. Many persons who are peaceable enough when sober, are prone to fight when heated with liquor: such ought to abstain from too plenteous libations. There are, likewise, many extremely well disposed young women, who yet are not to be trusted with the no less intoxicating beverage of moonlight walks, or even daylight excursions through fields and woods. Though there may be no particular plot formed against innocence and happiness, yet nature and passion have contrived a general plot, which, carried on in such scenes and by such actors, rarely fails to produce the catastrophe. As, alas! all the human race is frail, the best and wisest of moral systems has strongly inculcated, that the surest means of avoiding vice is to keep from temptation. Chastity may be considered as a garrison, which may stand a very long siege, may either repulse the assailant or make terms of honourable and advantageous capitulation. But where discretionary capture is the besieger’s object, a storm will rarely answer the purpose; he tries either sap or surprize. The first of these two modes depends on the skill of the besieger; requires time for his arts to operate, and may be resisted by equal skill supported by firmness. As he mines, you may countermine, and, perhaps, finding that you will not surrender at discretion, in his eagerness to have possession, he will grant such terms as even the bravest garrison may with honour receive. In a siege of this kind the chief danger is from _mutiny_; there may be a strong party well affected to the enemy, let reason, the governor, (not crush these, for that would often be impracticable, but) win them over by demonstrating, that firm and vigorous resistance is the only way to insure to them the terms which they desire. But, perhaps, the most frequent mode of capture is surprize, the outposts are unguarded, the centinels are asleep; a reconnoitring party, which has approached the fortress without any thoughts of a capture, is invited by this obvious carelessness to make the attempt, and carries the castle before any alarm is given. Let my youthful readers of the softer sex attend to these admonitions: let them not trust too much to their own strength: their surest strength is the caution of conscious weakness. Let parents