Jump to content

Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/100

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.

of maternal affection to bestow; yet, perhaps, through her youthful follies and credulity, she is led away by the artifice and false pretensions of one of these mercenary men, on whom she cheerfully bestows her patrimony, whether acquired by inheritance, or the smiles of fortune upon the honest industry of her deceased parents, avails not, for her expected happiness is vanished in empty air, and she is quickly exposed to all the ills of fate.

"O thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
"Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.
"Sudden their honours shall be snatch'd away,
"And doom'd for ever this victorious day."Pope.

As leading to a further explanation, let us represent a case which very frequently happens. A gentleman's daughter, one of these well-bred young ladies, which was spoken of at the beginning of this discourse; or be it a tradesman's daughter, it matters not, they being equally trained up in the same liberal plan of female education, married to a respectable and worthy tradesman, who, we will say, according to the common run of the times, has