University of Virginia Library

Marginal note, by the editors of the
Gentleman's Magazine.

“We think we discover in `a school“`fellow,'
an old and valued corres
“pondent: we hope to be favoured with
“further communications from his in
“valuable pen. It is researches like these
“which add to the solid stock of English
“literature, and will enable us to preserve,
“in the eyes of foreigners, that proud pre
“eminence to which we are so justly en
“titled, as the first nation in arts, arms,
“and letters.”

Now, my dear Frank, how edifying
must all this be to the learned; and what
rich consolation to the family of the deceased.—As
I write from memory, I will
not say that the above extracts are correctly
made, but, you may be assured, you

will find the substance of them in the
obituaries of the English magazines.—
But there is a species of biography still
more reprehensible than those which I
have noticed. I allude to the lives of
celebrated prostitutes, published generally
under the specious title of “APOLOGIES,”
in which these lewd women display their
illicit amours with matchless effrontery,
and confirm the maxim, that when their
sex have abandoned their chastity they
are capable of greater daring than ours.
The notorious Constantia Philips may be
considered as the mistress of this school,
but her more modern disciples have so far
exceeded her in fascination of style, vividness
of description, and bold exposure of
meretricious intrigue, that her infamous
memoirs may be considered, in a comparative
view, as an ethical work written expressly
for the promotion of virtue. The
avidity with which these base and seductive
works are purchased and read by
what are called modest women, in England,
is a gross evidence of the corruption of
national taste and morals. The English
writers on the rise and fall of the Roman
empire, with great propriety, point to the
corruption of female manners as one of
the certain indiciæ of its decline. I can
see but little difference, in point of delicacy,
between the English lady who reads
openly these polluted memoirs, and the
Roman matron who exposed herself unrobed
on the Arena.

If the British parliament were as vigilant
to regulate morals as commerce,
they would long ere this have interdicted
such publications by fine or imprisonment.
And the prosecution and punishment
of a printer of one of these apologies
for pollution, would have adorned the national
annals much more than the prosecution
of some wretched pamphleteer
against the ministry, whose offence, in
the next administration, may be considered
a virtue—for the support of any
administration will at best procure an

equivocal, temporary, and partial approbation;
but to support morals will secure
the applause of the wise and good of
all parties in all ages. Let us, my friend,
endeavour so to live that we may at all
times secure the response of a good conscience;—and
God preserve us from
English biographers!