CHAPTER XLVIII.

Spectatress of the mischief I had made.

"'Wherever I go, this picture shall always be my companion. It hangs in my closet. My dear friends,' added she, with a look of infinite sweetness, 'whenever I am tempted to contract a debt, or to give in to any act of vanity or dissipation which may lead to debt, if after having looked on this picture I can pursue the project, renounce me, cast me off forever!

"'You know Lady Jane's vein of humor. One day, as we were conversing together, I confessed that at the very time I was the object of general notice, and my gayety the theme of general envy, I had never known happiness. 'I do not wonder at it,' said she. 'Those who greedily pursue admiration, would be ashamed to sit down with so quiet a thing as happiness.' 'My dear Lady Jane,' said I, 'correct me, counsel me, instruct me: you have been too lenient, too forbearing.' 'Well,' said she, with a cheerful tone, 'as you appoint me your physician, as you disclose your case, and ask relief, I will give you a prescription, which, though the simplest thing in the world, will, I am certain, go a great way toward curing you. As you are barely six-and-twenty, your disease, I trust, is not inveterate. If you will be an obedient patient, I will answer for your recovery.'

"'I assured her of my willing adoption of any remedy she might prescribe, as I was certain she would consider my weakness, and adapt her treatment, not so much to what my case absolutely required as to what my strength was able to bear.

"'Well, then,' said she—'but pray observe I am no quack. I do not undertake to restore you instantaneously. Though my medicine will work surely, it will work slowly. You know,' added she, smiling, 'the success of all alteratives depends on the punctuality with which they are taken, and the constancy with which they are followed up. Mine must be taken two or three times a day, in small quantities at first, the dose to be enlarged as you are able to bear it. I can safely assert, with the advertising doctors, that it may be used full or fasting, in all weathers, and all seasons; but I can not add with them thatit requires no confinement.'

"'I grew impatient, and begged she would come to the point.

"'Softly, Matilda,' said she, 'softly. I must first look into my receipt-book, for fear I should mistake any of my ingredients. This book,' said she, opening it, 'though written by no charlatan, contains a cure for all diseases. It exhibits not only general directions, but specified cases.' Turning over the leaves as she was speaking, she at length stopped, saying, 'here is your case, my dear, or rather your remedy.' She then read very deliberately: 'Commune with your own heart—and in your chamber—and be still.'

"'I now found her grand receipt-book was the Bible. I rose and embraced her. 'My dear aunt,' said I, 'do with me whatever you please. I will be all obedience. I pledge myself to take your alterative regularly, constantly. Do not spare me. Speak your whole mind.'

"'My dear Matilda,' said she, 'ever since your marriage, your life has been one continued opposition to your feelings. You have lived as much below your understanding as your principles. Your conduct has been a system of contradictions. You have believed in Christianity, and acted in direct violation of its precepts. You knew that there was a day of future reckoning, and yet neglected to prepare for it. With a heart full of tenderness, you have been guilty of repeated acts of cruelty. You have been faithful to your husband, without making him respectable or happy. You have been virtuous, without the reputation or the peace which belongs to virtue. You have been charitable without doing good, and affectionate without having ever made a friend. You have wasted those attentions on the worthless which the worthy would have delighted to receive, and those talents on the frivolous which would have been cherished by the enlightened. You have defeated the use of a fine understanding by the want of common prudence, and robbed society of the example of your good qualities by your total inability to resist and oppose. Inconsideration and vanity have been the joint cause of your malady. At your age I trust it is not incurable. As you have caught it by keeping infected company, there is no possible mode of cure but by avoiding the contagious air they breathe. You have performed your quarantine with admirable patience. Beware, my dearest niece, of returning to the scene where the plague rages, till your antidote has taken its full effect.'

"'I willneverreturn to it, my dear Lady Jane,' cried I, throwing myself into her arms. 'I do not mean that I will never return to town. My duty to my lord requires me to be where he is, or where he wishes me to be. My residence will be the same, but my society shall be changed.'

"'You please me entirely,' replied she. 'In resorting to religion, take care that you do not dishonor it. Never plead your piety to God as an apology for your neglect of the relative duties. If the one is soundly adopted, the others will be correctly performed. There are those who would delight to throw such a stigma on real Christianity, as to be able to report that it had extinguished your affections, and soured your temper. Disappoint them, my sweet niece: while you serve your Maker more fervently, you must be still more patient with your husband. But while you bear with his faults, you must not connive at them. If you are in earnest, you must expect some trials. He who prepares these trials for you, will support you under them, will carry you through them, will make them instruments of his glory, and of your own eternal happiness.'

"'Lord Melbury's complaisance to my wishes,' replied I, 'has been unbounded. As he never controlled my actions when they required control, I trust he will be equally indulgent now they will be less censurable. Alas! we have too little interfered with each other's concerns—we have lived too much asunder—who knows but I may recall him?' My tears would not let me go on—'nor will they now,' added she, wiping her fine eyes.

"Sir John and I were too much touched to attempt to answer her: at length she proceeded.

"'By adhering to Lady Jane's directions, I have begun to get acquainted with my own heart. Little did I suspect the evil that was in it. Yet I am led to believe that the incessant whirl in which I have lived, my total want of leisure for reflection, my excessive vanity and complete inconsiderateness, are of themselves causes adequate to any effects which the grossest vices would have produced.

"'Last week my lord made us a visit at the castle. I gave him a warm reception; but he seemed rather surprised at the cold one which I gave to a large cargo of new French novels and German plays, which he had been so good as to bring me. I did not venture to tell him that I had changed my course of study. Lady Jane charged me to avoid giving him the least disgust by any unusual gravity in my looks, or severity in my conversation. I exerted myself to such good purpose that he declared he wanted neither cards nor company. I tried to let him see, by my change of habits rather than by dry documents, or cold remonstrances, the alteration which had taken place in my sentiments. He was pleased to see me blooming and cheerful. He told Lady Jane he never saw me so pleasant. He did not know I was so agreeable a woman, and was glad he had this opportunity of getting acquainted with me. As he has great expectations from her, he was delighted at the friendship which subsisted between us.

"'He brought us up to town. As it was now empty, the terrors of the masquerade no longer hung over me, and I cheerfully complied with his wishes. I drove immediately to Mrs. Stokes's with such a portion of my debt, as my retirement had enabled me to save. I feasted all the way on the joy I should have in surprising her with this two hundred pounds. How severe, but how just was my punishment, when on knocking at the door, I found she had been dead these two months! No one could tell what was become of her daughter. This shock operated almost as powerfully on my feelings as the first had done. But if it augmented my self-reproach, it confirmed my good resolutions. My present concern is how to discover the sweet girl, whom, alas, I have helped to deprive of both her parents.'

"Here I interrupted her," continued Lady Belfield, "saying, 'You have not far to seek: Fanny Stokes is in this house. She is appointed governess to our children.'

"Poor Lady Melbury's joy was excessive at this intelligence, and she proceeded: 'That a too sudden return to the world might not weaken my better purposes, I was preparing to request my lord's permission to go back to the castle, when he prevented me, by telling me that he had had an earnest desire to make a visit to the brave patriots in Spain, and to pass the winter among them, but feared he must give it up, as the state of the continent rendered it impossible for me to accompany him.

"'This filled my heart with joy. I encouraged him to make the voyage, assured him I would live under Lady Jane's observation, and that I would pass the whole winter in the country.'

"'Then you shall pass it with us at Beechwood, my dear Lady Melbury,' cried Sir John and I, both at once; 'we will strengthen each other in every virtuous purpose. We shall rejoice in Lady Jane's company.'

"She joyfully accepted the proposal, not doubting her lord's consent; and kindly said, that she should be doubly happy in a society at once so rational and so elegant.

"It was settled that she should spend with us the three months that Fanny Stokes and little Caroline are to pass at Stanley Grove. She desired to see Fanny, to whom she behaved with great tenderness. She paid her the two hundred pounds, assuring her she had no doubt of being able to discharge the whole debt in the spring.

"I received a note from her the next day, informing me of her lord's cheerful concurrence, as well as that of Lady Jane. She added, that when she went up to dress, she had found on her toilette, her diamond necklace, which her dear aunt had redeemed and restored to her, as a proof of her confidence and affection. As Lady Melbury has forever abolished her coterie, I have the most sanguine hope of her perseverance. All her promises would have gone for nothing, without this practical pledge of her sincerity."

When Lady Belfield had finished her little tale, I expressed, in the strongest terms, the delight I felt at the happy change in this charming woman. I could not forbear observing to Sir John, that as Lady Melbury had been the "glass of fashion," while her conduct was wrong, I hoped she would not lose all her influence by its becoming right. I added with a smile, "in that case, I shall rejoice to see the fine ladies turn their talent for drawing to the same moral account with this fair penitent. Such a record of their faults as she has had the courage to make of hers, hanging in their closets, and perpetually staring them in the face, would be no unlikely means to prevent a repetition, especially if the picture is to be as visible as the fault had been."

The next morning I resumed my journey northward, and on the fourth day, I reached the seat of my ancestors. The distant view of the Priory excited strong but mingled emotions in my bosom. The tender sorrow for the loss of the beloved society I had once enjoyed under its roof, was a salutary check to the abundant joy arising from the anticipation of the blessing which awaited me there. My mind was divided between the two conflicting sentiments that I was soon to be in possession of every material for the highest happiness—and that the highest happiness is short! May I ever live under the influence of that act of devout gratitude, in which, as soon as I entered the house, I dedicated the whole of my future life to its divine Author, solemnly consecrating to his service, my time, my talents, my fortune; all I am, and all I have.

I next wrote to Lucilla; with whom I continued to maintain a regular and animated correspondence. Her letters gratify my taste, and delight my heart, while they excite me to every thing that is good. This interchange of sentiment sheds a ray of brightness on a separation which every day is diminishing.

Mr. Stanley also has the goodness to write to me frequently. In one of my letters to him, I ventured to ask him how he had managed to produce in his daughter such complete satisfaction in his sober and correct habits of life; adding, that her conformity was so cheerful that it did not look so much like acquiescence as choice.

I received from Mr. Stanley the answer which follows:

"Stanley Grove,September, 1808."My Dear Charles;"As I wish to put you in possession of whatever relates to the mind of Lucilla, I will devote this letter to answer your inquiries respecting her cheerful conformity to what you call our 'sober habits of life;' and her indifference to those pleasures which are usually thought to constitute the sole happiness of young women of a certain rank."Mrs. Stanley and I are not so unacquainted with human nature, as to have pretended to impose on her understanding, by attempting to breed her up in entire ignorance of the world, or in perfect seclusion from it. She often accompanied us to town for a short time. The occasional sight of London, and the frequent enjoyment of the best society, dissipated the illusions of fancy. The bright colors with which young imagination, inflamed by ignorance, report, and curiosity, invests unknown, and distant objects, faded under actual observation. Complete ignorance and complete seclusion form no security from the dangers incident to the world, or for correct conduct at a distance from it. Ignorance may be the safety of an idiot, and seclusion the security of a nun. Christian parents should act on a more large and liberal principle, or what is the use of observation and experience? The French women of fashion, under the old regime, were bred in convents, and what women were ever more licentious than many of them, as soon as marriage had set them at liberty?"I am persuaded that the best-intended formation of character, if founded on ignorance or deceit, will never answer. As to Lucilla, we have never attempted to blind her judgment. We have never thought it necessary to leave her understanding out of the question, while we were forming her heart. We have never told her that the world is a scene absolutely destitute of pleasure: we have never assured her that there is no amusement in the diversions which we disapprove. Even if this assurance had not been deceitful, it would have been vain and fruitless. We can not totally separate her from the society of those who frequent them, who find their happiness in them, and whom she would hear speak of them with rapture."We went upon other grounds. We accustomed her to reflect that she was an intellectual creature; that she was an immortal creature; that she was a Christian. That to an intellectual being, diversions must always be subordinate to the exercise of the mental faculties; that to an immortal being, born to higher hopes than enjoyments, the exercise of the mental faculties must be subservient to religious duties. That in the practice of a Christian, self-denial is the turning-point, the specific distinction. That as to many of the pleasures which the world pursues, Christianity requires her votaries to live above the temptations which they hold out. She requires it the more especially, because Christians in our time, not being called upon to make great and trying sacrifices, of life, of fortune, and of liberty; and having but comparatively small occasions to evidence their sincerity, should the more cheerfully make the petty but daily renunciation of those pleasures which are the very element in which worldly people exist."We have not misled her by unfair and flattering representations of the Christian life. We have not, with a view to allure her to embrace it on false pretenses, taught her that when religion is once rooted in the heart, the remainder of life is uninterrupted peace, and unbroken delight: that all shall be perpetually smooth hereafter, because it is smooth at present. This would be as unfair as to show a raw recruit the splendors of a parade day, and tell him it was actual service. We have not made her believe that the established Christian has no troubles to expect, no vexations to fear, no storms to encounter. We have not attempted to cheat her into religion, by concealing its difficulties, its trials, no, nor its unpopularity."We have been always aware, that to have enforced the most exalted Christian principles, together with the necessity of a corresponding practice, ever so often and so strongly, would have been worse than foolish, had we been impressing these truths one part of the day, and had on the other part, been living ourselves in the actual enjoyment of the very things against which we were guarding her. My dear Charles, if we would talk to young people with effect, we must, by the habits of which we set them the example, dispose them to listen, or our documents will be something worse than fruitless. It is really hard upon girls to be tantalized with religious lectures, while they are at the same time tempted to every thing against which they are warned; while the whole bent and bias of the family practice are diametrically opposite to the principles inculcated."In our own case, I think I may venture to affirm, that the plan has answered. We endeavored to establish a principle of right, instead of unprofitable invective against what was wrong. Perhaps there can scarcely be found a religious family in which so few anathemas have been denounced against this or that specific diversion, as in ours. We aimed to take another road. The turn of mind, the tendency of the employment, the force of the practice, the bent of the conversation, the spirit of amusement, have all leaned to the contrary direction, till the habits are gradually worked into a kind of nature. It would be cruel to condemn a creature to a retired life without qualifying her for retirement: next to religion, nothing can possibly do this but mental cultivation in women who are above the exercise of vulgar employments. The girl who possesses only the worldly acquirements—the singer and the dancer—when condemned to retirement, may reasonably exclaim with Milton's Adam, when looking at the constellations,Why all night long shine these?Wherefore, if nonebehold?"Now the woman who derives her principles from the Bible, and her amusements from intellectual sources, from the beauties of nature, and from active employment and exercise, will not pant forbeholders. She is no clamorous beggar for the extorted alms of admiration. She lives on her own stock. Her resources are within herself. She possesses the truest independence. She does not wait for the opinion of the world, to know if she is right; nor the applause of the world, to know if she is happy."Too many religious people fancy that the infectious air of the world is confined to the ball-room, or the play-house, and that when you have escaped from these, you are got out of the reach of its contagion. But the contagion follows wherever there is a human heart left to its own natural impulse. And though I allow that places and circumstances greatly contribute to augment or diminish the evil; and that a prudent Christian will always avoid an atmosphere which he thinks not quite wholesome; yet whoever lives in the close examination of his own heart, will still find something of the morbid mischief clinging to it, which will require constant watching, whatever be his climate or his company."I have known pious persons, who would on no account allow their children to attend places of gay resort, who were yet little solicitous to extinguish the spirit which these places are calculated to generate and nourish. This is rather a geographical than a moral distinction. It is thinking more of the place than of the temper. They restrain their persons; but are not careful to expel from their hearts the dispositions which excite the appetite, and form the very essence of danger. A young creature can not be happy who spends her time at home in amusements destined for exhibition, while she is forbidden to be exhibited."But while we are teaching them that Christianity involves a heroic self-denial; that it requires some things to be done, and others to be sacrificed, at which mere people of the world revolt; that it directs us to renounce some pursuits because they are wrong, and others because they are trifling; we should, at the same time, let them see and feel, that to a Christian the region of enjoyment is not so narrow and circumscribed, is not so barren and unproductive, nor the pleasures it produces so few and small, as the enemies of religion would insinuate. While early habits of self-denial are giving firmness to the character, strengthening the texture of the mind, and hardening it against ordinary temptations; the pleasures and employments which we substitute in the stead of those we banish, must be such as tend to raise the taste, to invigorate the intellect, to exalt the nature, and enlarge the sphere of enjoyment; to give a tone to the mind, and an elevation to the sentiments, which shall really reduce to insignificance the pleasures that are prohibited."In our own instance I humbly trust, that through the divine blessing, perseverance has been its own reward. As to Lucilla, I firmly believe that right habits are now so rooted, and the relish of superior pleasures so established in her mind, that had she the whole range of human enjoyment at her command; had she no higher consideration, no fear of God, no obedience to her mother and me, which forbade the ordinary dissipations, she would voluntarily renounce them, from a full persuasion of their empty, worthless, unsatisfying nature, and from a superinduced taste for higher gratifications."I am as far from intending to represent my daughter as a faultless creature, as she herself is from wishing to be so represented. She is deeply conscious both of the corruption of her nature, and the deficiencies of her life. This consciousness I trust will continue to stimulate her vigilance without which all religion will decline, and to maintain her humility, without which all religion is vain."My dear Charles! a rational sense of felicity lies open before you both. It is lawful to rejoice in the fair perspective, but it is safe to rejoice with trembling. Do not abandon yourself to the chimerical hope that life will be to you, what it has never yet been to any man—a scene of unmingled delight. This life, so bright in prospect, will have its sorrows. This life, which at four-and-twenty seems to stretch itself to an indefinite length, will have an end. May its sorrows correct its illusions! May its close be the entrance on a life, which shall have no sorrows and no end."I will not say how frequently we talk of you, nor how much we miss you. Need I tell you that the person who says least on the subject, is not the one that least feels your absence? She writes by this post."Adieu, my dear Charles! I am with great truth your attached friend, and hope before Christmas to subscribe myself your affectionate father,"Francis Stanley."

"Stanley Grove,September, 1808.

"My Dear Charles;

"As I wish to put you in possession of whatever relates to the mind of Lucilla, I will devote this letter to answer your inquiries respecting her cheerful conformity to what you call our 'sober habits of life;' and her indifference to those pleasures which are usually thought to constitute the sole happiness of young women of a certain rank.

"Mrs. Stanley and I are not so unacquainted with human nature, as to have pretended to impose on her understanding, by attempting to breed her up in entire ignorance of the world, or in perfect seclusion from it. She often accompanied us to town for a short time. The occasional sight of London, and the frequent enjoyment of the best society, dissipated the illusions of fancy. The bright colors with which young imagination, inflamed by ignorance, report, and curiosity, invests unknown, and distant objects, faded under actual observation. Complete ignorance and complete seclusion form no security from the dangers incident to the world, or for correct conduct at a distance from it. Ignorance may be the safety of an idiot, and seclusion the security of a nun. Christian parents should act on a more large and liberal principle, or what is the use of observation and experience? The French women of fashion, under the old regime, were bred in convents, and what women were ever more licentious than many of them, as soon as marriage had set them at liberty?

"I am persuaded that the best-intended formation of character, if founded on ignorance or deceit, will never answer. As to Lucilla, we have never attempted to blind her judgment. We have never thought it necessary to leave her understanding out of the question, while we were forming her heart. We have never told her that the world is a scene absolutely destitute of pleasure: we have never assured her that there is no amusement in the diversions which we disapprove. Even if this assurance had not been deceitful, it would have been vain and fruitless. We can not totally separate her from the society of those who frequent them, who find their happiness in them, and whom she would hear speak of them with rapture.

"We went upon other grounds. We accustomed her to reflect that she was an intellectual creature; that she was an immortal creature; that she was a Christian. That to an intellectual being, diversions must always be subordinate to the exercise of the mental faculties; that to an immortal being, born to higher hopes than enjoyments, the exercise of the mental faculties must be subservient to religious duties. That in the practice of a Christian, self-denial is the turning-point, the specific distinction. That as to many of the pleasures which the world pursues, Christianity requires her votaries to live above the temptations which they hold out. She requires it the more especially, because Christians in our time, not being called upon to make great and trying sacrifices, of life, of fortune, and of liberty; and having but comparatively small occasions to evidence their sincerity, should the more cheerfully make the petty but daily renunciation of those pleasures which are the very element in which worldly people exist.

"We have not misled her by unfair and flattering representations of the Christian life. We have not, with a view to allure her to embrace it on false pretenses, taught her that when religion is once rooted in the heart, the remainder of life is uninterrupted peace, and unbroken delight: that all shall be perpetually smooth hereafter, because it is smooth at present. This would be as unfair as to show a raw recruit the splendors of a parade day, and tell him it was actual service. We have not made her believe that the established Christian has no troubles to expect, no vexations to fear, no storms to encounter. We have not attempted to cheat her into religion, by concealing its difficulties, its trials, no, nor its unpopularity.

"We have been always aware, that to have enforced the most exalted Christian principles, together with the necessity of a corresponding practice, ever so often and so strongly, would have been worse than foolish, had we been impressing these truths one part of the day, and had on the other part, been living ourselves in the actual enjoyment of the very things against which we were guarding her. My dear Charles, if we would talk to young people with effect, we must, by the habits of which we set them the example, dispose them to listen, or our documents will be something worse than fruitless. It is really hard upon girls to be tantalized with religious lectures, while they are at the same time tempted to every thing against which they are warned; while the whole bent and bias of the family practice are diametrically opposite to the principles inculcated.

"In our own case, I think I may venture to affirm, that the plan has answered. We endeavored to establish a principle of right, instead of unprofitable invective against what was wrong. Perhaps there can scarcely be found a religious family in which so few anathemas have been denounced against this or that specific diversion, as in ours. We aimed to take another road. The turn of mind, the tendency of the employment, the force of the practice, the bent of the conversation, the spirit of amusement, have all leaned to the contrary direction, till the habits are gradually worked into a kind of nature. It would be cruel to condemn a creature to a retired life without qualifying her for retirement: next to religion, nothing can possibly do this but mental cultivation in women who are above the exercise of vulgar employments. The girl who possesses only the worldly acquirements—the singer and the dancer—when condemned to retirement, may reasonably exclaim with Milton's Adam, when looking at the constellations,

Why all night long shine these?Wherefore, if nonebehold?

"Now the woman who derives her principles from the Bible, and her amusements from intellectual sources, from the beauties of nature, and from active employment and exercise, will not pant forbeholders. She is no clamorous beggar for the extorted alms of admiration. She lives on her own stock. Her resources are within herself. She possesses the truest independence. She does not wait for the opinion of the world, to know if she is right; nor the applause of the world, to know if she is happy.

"Too many religious people fancy that the infectious air of the world is confined to the ball-room, or the play-house, and that when you have escaped from these, you are got out of the reach of its contagion. But the contagion follows wherever there is a human heart left to its own natural impulse. And though I allow that places and circumstances greatly contribute to augment or diminish the evil; and that a prudent Christian will always avoid an atmosphere which he thinks not quite wholesome; yet whoever lives in the close examination of his own heart, will still find something of the morbid mischief clinging to it, which will require constant watching, whatever be his climate or his company.

"I have known pious persons, who would on no account allow their children to attend places of gay resort, who were yet little solicitous to extinguish the spirit which these places are calculated to generate and nourish. This is rather a geographical than a moral distinction. It is thinking more of the place than of the temper. They restrain their persons; but are not careful to expel from their hearts the dispositions which excite the appetite, and form the very essence of danger. A young creature can not be happy who spends her time at home in amusements destined for exhibition, while she is forbidden to be exhibited.

"But while we are teaching them that Christianity involves a heroic self-denial; that it requires some things to be done, and others to be sacrificed, at which mere people of the world revolt; that it directs us to renounce some pursuits because they are wrong, and others because they are trifling; we should, at the same time, let them see and feel, that to a Christian the region of enjoyment is not so narrow and circumscribed, is not so barren and unproductive, nor the pleasures it produces so few and small, as the enemies of religion would insinuate. While early habits of self-denial are giving firmness to the character, strengthening the texture of the mind, and hardening it against ordinary temptations; the pleasures and employments which we substitute in the stead of those we banish, must be such as tend to raise the taste, to invigorate the intellect, to exalt the nature, and enlarge the sphere of enjoyment; to give a tone to the mind, and an elevation to the sentiments, which shall really reduce to insignificance the pleasures that are prohibited.

"In our own instance I humbly trust, that through the divine blessing, perseverance has been its own reward. As to Lucilla, I firmly believe that right habits are now so rooted, and the relish of superior pleasures so established in her mind, that had she the whole range of human enjoyment at her command; had she no higher consideration, no fear of God, no obedience to her mother and me, which forbade the ordinary dissipations, she would voluntarily renounce them, from a full persuasion of their empty, worthless, unsatisfying nature, and from a superinduced taste for higher gratifications.

"I am as far from intending to represent my daughter as a faultless creature, as she herself is from wishing to be so represented. She is deeply conscious both of the corruption of her nature, and the deficiencies of her life. This consciousness I trust will continue to stimulate her vigilance without which all religion will decline, and to maintain her humility, without which all religion is vain.

"My dear Charles! a rational sense of felicity lies open before you both. It is lawful to rejoice in the fair perspective, but it is safe to rejoice with trembling. Do not abandon yourself to the chimerical hope that life will be to you, what it has never yet been to any man—a scene of unmingled delight. This life, so bright in prospect, will have its sorrows. This life, which at four-and-twenty seems to stretch itself to an indefinite length, will have an end. May its sorrows correct its illusions! May its close be the entrance on a life, which shall have no sorrows and no end.

"I will not say how frequently we talk of you, nor how much we miss you. Need I tell you that the person who says least on the subject, is not the one that least feels your absence? She writes by this post.

"Adieu, my dear Charles! I am with great truth your attached friend, and hope before Christmas to subscribe myself your affectionate father,

"Francis Stanley."

Delightful hope! as Miss Stanley, when that blessed event takes place, will resign her name, I shall resume mine, and joyfully renounce forever that of

C[OE]LEBS.

[1]See Herbert's Country Parson, under the heads of the parson in his house, the parson praying, the parson preaching, the parson comforting, the parson's church, the parson catechizing, the parson in mirth, &c., &c. The term parson has now indeed a vulgar and disrespectful sound, but in Herbert's time it was used in its true sensepersona ecclesiæ. I would recommend to those who have not seen it, this sketch of the ancient clerical life. As Mr. Herbert was a man of quality, he knew what became the more opulent of his function; as he was eminently pious, he practiced all that he recommended. "This appellation of parson," says Judge Blackstone, "however depreciated by clownish and familiar use, is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honorable title, which a parish priest can enjoy."Vide Blackstone's Commentaries.

[2]Nil actum reputans dum quod superesset agendum.Lucan.

[3]Frederic the Great, king of Prussia.

[4]See an ingenious little treatise entitled Latium Redivivum, or the modern use of the Latin language, and the prevalence of the French.

[5]See this whole beautiful passage in Cicero de Senectute

[6]Horace, in speaking of the brevity and uncertainty of life, seldom fails to produce it as an incentive to sensual indulgence. See particularly the fourth and eleventh Odes of the first book.

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