The eye of love shot forth the electric flash
which animates the heart of young desire, lip met lip, and the soft
cheek of violet beauty pressed the stubble down of manliness. Then,
while the snowy orbs of nature undisguised heaved like old ocean with a
circling swell, the amorous lover palmed the melting fair, and led her
forth to where shame-faced Aurora, with her virgin gray, the blue-eyed
herald of the golden morn, might hope in vain to draw aside the curtain
and penetrate the mysteries of Cytherea. And now, gentle reader, be ye
of the hardy sex, who dare the glories of the healthful chase and haunt
the peopled stream of gay delight--or of that lovely race, from
which alone man's earthly joys arise, the soft-skinned conquerors of
hearts--be ye prudes or stoics, chaste as virgin gold, or cold as alpine
snow--confess that I have strictly kept my promise here, nor strayed
aside in all my wanderings among the daughters of pleasure, to give
pain to worthy bosoms or offend the ear of nicest modesty. Pity for
the unfortunate, and respect for the feelings of the relatives of
the vicious and the dissolute, has prevented the insertion of many
anecdotes, with which Crony illustrated his sketches of character.
Enough, it is presumed, has been done to show vice in all its native
deformity, without wounding the ear by one immoral or indelicate
expression.
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