—she is first seduced, and then driven, to declare war against society. She who has yielded herself to one man, becomes less desirable to others. Is it this feeling that Mr. Shelley would eradicate? Would he contend that delicacy on this point is entirely misplaced—that
"beauty should be kind to all who love?"
If this be his object, the sensibility of which he boasts is not very acute. But this opinion it is the less necessary to impugn; as the feelings of the great majority of the world will ever be arrayed against it; and there is no fear of such notions becoming current. Whatever gratification the most profligate father in existence might feel in endless debauchery, he would shrink from the propagation of its tenets in his own family. There is something so beautiful in decency and virtue, that the vilest wretches are anxious their children should be, what they cannot hope to be themselves.
The evils of prostitution are extreme:—and are the more to be regretted, as they certainly spring, in a great measure, from the want of laws, which man has neglected to frame, lest his gratifications should be limited;—and from certain principles, not embodied into laws, but which are inculcated in such a manner as to
