Contrast the narrow and grovelling spirit that seems to characterize this most miserably defective principle of legal justice, with that noble independence and manly defence which dictated MAGNA CHARTA and the BILL OF RIGHTS! It is far from my intention to cast the slightest shade on the memory of our ancestors, many of whom thought no price too great for liberty, often indeed purchased even with their own blood, that they might bequeath it to posterity unsullied and unfettered, the legitimate birthright and glory of their future sons. But where our forefathers have done so much for us, shall we not, in kindred spirit, attempt to do something for ourselves, or for our children? Shall we suffer the seducer to walk forth in open day, or at the midnight hour, to carry devastation into every cottage, and to ravage with impunity the sacred sanctuaries of virtue? Forbid it justice,—forbid it humanity,—forbid it Heaven! I cannot believe that one father in a thousand has ever turned his mind to the contemplation of the direful effects on society, of indulgence in this ferocious and unlawful passion; or the general voice of mankind would have been raised to hunt from their abodes the hellish tiger in human form: the hand of power, too, would surely have been lifted up to shield the innocent from his fell assault. Might not the seducer, in strict justice, be classed in malice prepense and principle with the most sanguinary murderer? On comparison, it is my firm conviction that the former is the author of more pain and misery to the great family of mankind. In the sketch of such a character my labour might be in some degree facilitated by a short account of one who, a very few years since, figured very conspicuously in the gay world; and presuming, therefore, on the idea, I venture to insert it. Would to God! that the miseries I shall have to unfold existed only in imagination; but, alas! fancy will have no place in the working of the dark picture. The detail was written by the gentleman himself, principally during a twelvemonth’s confinement from a wound received in a duel. Of this he ultimately died; but not before the hideous forms of vice and crime had been exposed to his terrified view in all their naked deformity. At the time this melancholy scene took place I was in India; and on my return a packet containing his journal, and an elegant copy of the Bible, which I had many years before advised him to peruse, was put into my hand by a friend of his. This bequest, with the following letter, was marked for me by his own hand a few days before his dissolution: “——, May 15th, 1816.