Shall I whisper you a secret--but publish it not in the streets of Askalon--I could almost wish my whole life had passed in the same innocent tranquil manner it has now for several weeks. No tumultuous thoughts, which, as they are too often excited by licentious excess, must be lost and drowned in wine. No cursed qualms of conscience, which will appall the most hardy of us, when nature sickens after the fatigue of a debauch. Here all is peaceful, because all is innocent: and yet what voluptuary can figure a higher joy than I at present experience in the possession of the most lovely of her sex, who thinks it her duty to contribute to my pleasure, and whose every thought I can read in her expressive countenance? Oh! that I may ever see her with the same eyes I do at this moment! Why cannot I renounce a world, the ways of which I have seen and despise from my soul? What attachments have I to it, guilty ones excepted? Ought I to continue them, when I have sworn--Oh! Christ! what is come to me now? can a virtuous connexion with the sex work miracles? but you cannot inform me--having never made such: and who the devil can, till they marry--and then it is too late: the die is cast. I hope you will thank me for making you my confidant--and, what is more, writing you so enormous a long letter. Most likely I shall enhance your obligation by continuing my correspondence, as I do not know when I shall quit, what appears to me, my earthly paradise. Whether you will congratulate me from your heart I know not, because you may possibly imagine, from some virtuous emanations which have burst forth in the course of this epistle, that you shall lose your old companion. No, no, not quite so bad neither--though I am plaguy squeamish at present, a little town air will set all to rights again, and I shall no doubt fall into my old track with redoubled alacrity from this recess. So don't despair, my old friend: you will always find me, Your lordship's devoted, W. STANLEY. LETTER II. TO THE SAME. What a restless discontented animal is man! Even in Paradise unblest. Do you know I am, though surrounded with felicity, languishing for _sin and sea-coal_ in your regions. I shall be vapoured to death if I stay here much longer. Here is nothing to exercise the bright genius with which I am endued: all one calm sunshine; "And days of peace do still succeed To nights of calm repose." How unfit to charm a soul like mine! I, who love every thing that the moderns call pleasure. I must be amongst you, and that presently. My Julia, I am certain, will make no resistance to my will. Faith! she is the wife for me. Mild, passive, duteous, and innocent: I may lead my life just as I please; and she, dear creature! will have no idea but that I am a very good husband! "And when I am weary of wandering all day, To thee, my delight, in the evening I, come."