ed, or to marry him.* In other ecclesiatical jurisdictions of England, the culprit is not placed in such dismal jeopardy. The common laws of our country are however justly severe against all those, who in the accomplishment of seduction resort to foul measures; and in many other cases, award suitable damages; but in ordinary seductions, the ruined maid is too frequently left to bewail her own credulity and execrate the memory of her base delinquent: instead of applying the sword, the rope, or the ring, at the option of the injured, it is left to the choice of the injurer, in case of bastardy, whether he will give security to provide for the child, go to gaol, or prevail on the woman to marry him. Those, who are accustomed to officiate at the altar, cannot but painfully regret, that they * Vide The life of Dr. Wilson, Lord Bishop of Sodor and Mann, by Cruttwell, vol. 1.-also, Feltham's Tour through the Island of Mann, they are required to read the pure and solemn marriage service on so many disorderly and forced occasions, of what are known by the name of "Parish Weddings:" their short but true history is this: A woman, who, by appearances, is likely to become chargeable to the parish, is called apon to swear to the father: it may be, that aware of this matter, he has absconded; a warrant is issued out against him, and he is apprehended; if the culprit cannot give security, or indemnify the demands of the parish, nor consents to marry the woman, to gaol he must go! if afterward he becomes pliable in confinement, he must remain there till a license is procured; then the dismal wretch, reeking from his prison and the fumes of drink, under the vigilant eye of an overseer, or the constable, is safely guarded with his teeming partner to the sacred altar, and for what? for the purpose of holy matrimony? rather let it be said, what in reality is the fact, that it is done with the express design of ridding one parish from a probability of charge, and throwing it elsewhere! If such kind of disreputable marriages, rather of civil obligation than of voluntary act, were permitted to be ratified by some other legal contract, the intention of them would be equally answered, and what is of greater consideration, the pure and awful service of the church, so differently intended, would be rescued from that gross pollution and barefaced ridicule, to which, at present, it is so notoriously exposed, Such a distinction of ceremony in solem nizing honourable propensities, and in merely legalizing those that were otherwise, might moreover have a salutary tendency to dispose those that were concerned, to resort to church, before appearances hindered them from receiving in it, the more honourable badge of matri mony; mony; but which yet exposed them to the coercions of another form of engagement. Those of suitable condition in life, who refused to atone by wedlock, as much as possible, for the crime of seduction, ought, beyond the parochial demands, to pay a fine to the state, for the injury which its public morals had sustained. Imperfect as may be these hints, they are thrown out with much humanity and diffidence; with a view of preventing the increase of illegitimate children, who are very undeservedly the objects either of scoff or neglect, and too frequently of both. These suggestions however, are principally intended to check the licentious growth of Female Seduction! ESSAY IV. PRIDE. IN all animals that are capable of giving tokens of pride, the advances of it may be seen, nearly in regular progression, according to their utility and comeliness in the work of creation. Man, who is the most excellent of all, has consequently the greatest share: not that he is proud as a species, but only as an individual; he does not gratify himself in this passion, by making a comparison of his superiority with other orders of animals, but only as it applies to his fellow creatures. L Pride |