0 the deluded daughter of the man to whom he was indebted for the preservation of his life, stood trembling at his door. A gentle rap, added to the terrors of a guilty conscience, and, for a moment, Doliscus thought the visitation supernatural. Bnt Amelia's wrong's after an awful pause of some min- || having inspired her with courage, utes, procured her admission.- she boldly reproached with his Her memory recognized the fea-baseness and perfidy, and demandtures of the servant that opened the door; but it was not the valet who had attended Doliscus at the cottage--she remembered not where or when she had seen him. After considerable solicitation the porter consented to call Doliscus from his company, and conducted Amelia into an anti-chamber to wait his arrival. A roar of laughter succeeded the delivery of her message, and the word assignation, which was repeated on all sides, seemed to renovate the wit and hilarity of the table. The gay and gallant host, inflamed with Campagne, was not displeased at the imputation, but observed that as a lady was in the case, it was' unnecessary to apologize for a shout desertion of his friends and wine. At the sight of that lady, however, Doliscus started. Amelia's countenance was pale and haggard with fatigue and sorrow, her person was oppressed with the bur. then which she now bare in its last stage, and her eye, fixed steadfastly upon him, as he entered the ed a public and unequivocal acknowledgement of their marriage. In vain he endeavoured to soothe and divert her from her purpose, in vain to pursuade her tc silence and delay, his arts had lost their wonted influence, while the restoration of her injured fame and honour absorbed every faculty of her mind. - At length he assumed a different tone, a more, authoritative manner. "Madam," exclaimed he, "I am not to be thus duped or controuled. I have the sense of pity, indeed, for your indiscretion, but none for your passion : I would alleviate your afflictions, but I will not submit to your frenzy." "Wretch !" retorted Amelia, "but that I owe something to a father's peace, I should despise to call thee husband."-" Husband" why truly, I remember a rural masquerade, at which an honest soldier, now my humble porter, played the parson, and you the blushing bride-but, pr'ythee, do not talk of husband. This discovery only was want room, before the complicated an-ing for the consumption of Ame guish and indignation of her feelings. Her aspect so changed, and her appearance so unexpected, lia's misery. It was sudden and e fatal as the lightning's blast-she sunk beneath the stroke; A deaci Ty stupor seized upon her senses, which was sometimes interrupted with a boisterous laugh, and sometimes with a nervous ejaculation. Doliscus, unaffected with passion or remorse, was fictitious only to employ this opportunity for Amelia's removal, and having conveyed her into a coach, a servant was directed to procure lodgings for her, in some obscure quarter of the city. She spoke not a word during the transaction, but gazing with apparent indifference upon the objects that surrounded her, she submitted to be transported whither soever they pleased to Gonduct hor. After winding through a drear and dirty passage in the neighbourhood of St. Giles's, the carriage stopped at a hovel, which belonged to a relation of the servant that accompanied her, and, he having communicated in a short whisper the object of this visit, an old and decrepid beldame led Amelia into a damp and nar row room, whose scant and tattered furniture proved the wretchedness of its inhabitants. she had resolved to terminate her woes. A phial of laudanum left by a charitable apothecary, who had visited her in her sickness presented the means, and she wanted not the fortitude to employ them. Deliberately, then, pour ing the baneful draught into a glass, she looked wistfully for a while upon the infant corpse that lay ex: tended on the bed, then bending on her knee, uttered, in a firm and solemn voice, the melancholy effusions of her soul-"Gracious Father! when thy justice shall pronounce upon the deed which extricates me from the calamities of the world, let thy mercy cons template the cause that urged me to the perpetration. I have been deluded into error; but am free from guilt; I have been solicitous to preserve my innocence and honor; but am exposed to infamy and shame. The treachery of him to whom I entrusted my fate, has reduced me to despair the declining day of him whom I received my being has been clouded with my indiscretions, and there is no cure left for the sorrows that consume, but the dark and silent grave. Visit me not then, in thy wrath, oh! Father, but let the excess of my sufferings in this world, expiate the crime which Amelia cast her eyes towards heaven as the breath deserted the body of her babe ;-it was not a look of supplication, for what had she to hope, or what to dread?neither did it indicate dissatisfac-wafts me into the world to come-tion or reproach, for she had early learned the duty of reverence and resignation-but it was an awful appeal to the throne of grace, för the vindication of the act by which may thy mercy yield comfort to Horatio's heart, and teach Doliscus the virtue of repentance." She rose and lifted the glass.. For the Lady's Miscellany. To LAURETTA. I did expect that my last to you, had brought our differance of opinion to a close, and being somewhat employed in different pursuits, other than speculative writing, I did not calculate very soon of being under the necessity of appearing before the public; but when I again behold the dignified and courteous manner, in which you have addressed me, I could not forego the pleasure of reciprocating the compliment, by a suitable reply. It is in my mind, and I believe you will not hesitate to acknowledge, that it is almost utterly impossible, to arrive at any fixed standard, or to establish any certain criterion concerning the subject of what constitutes our happiness and misery in this life, upon which we shall be enabled to agree, But as I perceive, from the tenor of your observations, that you have already subscribed to many of my ideas and axioms upon the subject, it now becomes me, to find the only remaining point upon which we differ, and endeavour with a few pertinent remarks, accompanied with self-evident principles of reason, to dissipate the dark and heavy vapour that hangs over your mind, in order to bring you to a perfect concordance with the sen timents that I have heretofore suggested. In my former communications, it may be, that you have in some degree mistaken the idea that I intended to have conveyed, and I am inclined to think you have, from your remarks; I did not intend to say that life was naught but one continual scene of misery and woe without ever being chequered with the softening rays of hope and momentary pleasure. No, Lauretta, that was foreign from my inten tion; but my object, was to show, and which I shall still endeavour to maintain, not without some reason and experience on my side, that the happiness we enjoy, and which ameliorates and softens the varied scenes of life, is much more transient than the innumerable ills, with which we are constantly surrounded; and, in unison with my opinion, I have the beautiful lines of the inimitable Shakespeare, where he says, O happiness enjoy'd but of a few! And if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done! As is the morning's silver melting dew, Against the golden splendour of the sun: A date expir'd and cancell'd ere begun. You again observe, that you cannot perfectly acquiesce in the definition I have given of happiness, and with a degree of subtility and refinement of argument, I scarcely expected from a female pen, endeavour to draw a line of distinction between the signification 1 of the words Happiness and Joy; which I have ever been taught to consider as nearly synonymous, and therefore think. I may with the same propriety say, that a perpetuity of happiness, is happiness, as the famous Dr. Young has said that "A perpetuity of bliss, is bliss." and that the measure of happiness or joy with which we are occasionally blessed, is incomparably small to the ills that we daily experience, is very fully illustrated and proved by the language of the same author, when he compares our calculations to mere dreams, only dreamt when awake; and from our very nature, being mortal, we must not look for -joys perpetual, in perpetual change! Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave Eternal sunshine in the storm of life, as The spider's most attenuated thread, And in calling to mind childhood's endearing hours, a season, when the mind and heart are the least corrupted by the baleful influence of the world and her imaginary enjoyments, it has afforded me a secret pleasure retrospectively to survey those scenes, and while Even the sad vicissitude amus'd my soul, --a sigh wou'd sometimes intervene, And down my cheek, a tear of pity roll; A sigh, a tear, so sweet I wish'd not to control." Yes! the cheat was pleasing and the delirium sweet; but my reflections and imaginations incorrect; the ills I in youth knew, had long been effaced from the tablet of my memory, while the joys calculated to leave an indelible impression upon my tender mind, still remained; and therefore left me without any sure guide by which I was enabled to make any just comparison of the evils and the joys, I experienced. at that period of my life. In my soliloquy that appeared in a former number of this Miscel lany, were merely expressed the fears I entertained on embarking in the matrimonial state, and wherein I intended only to suggest, the consequences that would naturally succeede in making a good or bad choice of a companion, and as from my sentiments therein portrayed, it may be imagined that I prefered a state of celibacy to matrimony; which, I presume, has been the foundation of the many uncharitable inferences drawn by yourself, and many others from the subject. Another point you seem entirely. to have misapprehended, and supposed that my writings were the productions of a mind sinking under despair, and enervated by the momentary pleasures of dissipation, or, not being able to obtain those things which fancy in her airy flights had pictured in my imagination, that I was now indulging a & train of reflection which must ultimately prove neither beneficial to myself nor to the world. However, as my object in my last to you, was to correct some errors of opinion you have imbibed, and portray to you my ideas of happiness, and shew that a much greater part of our lives are attended with pain and woe, than with true felicity and happinesss; i. e, in a greater or less degree, not being able to satisfy then, with my observations upon the subject, inasmuch as you have thought proper again to address me; I have at last endeavoured to reduce our differance of opinion to some fixed point, and with the language aud sentiments of the most distinguished writers, together with my own I hope have been able to convince you of the rectitude and propriety of the sentiments I have heretofore advanced and endeavoured to maintain. While I remain yours, most respectfully, MORDEN. From my own apartment. There is not half so much danger in the desperate sword of a known foe, as in the smooth insinuations of a pretended friend. Women and wine, game and deceit, make the wealth small and the want great, For the Lady's Miscellany. VARIETY. ... ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. ........ "Care to our Coffin, adds a Nail, no doubt: But ev'ry Grin, so merry, draws one out." A respectable farmer having employed a laborer to work on his plantation, observed that the Monday morning antecedent to commencing work, that the man devoured his meal with the utmost voraciousness. The employer remarked it to him, and enquired the reason. 'Why,' observed the man, it is written in the scriptures, Whatever thy hands undertaketh to do, do it with all thy might. Very well,' said the farmer, I admire your principles.' The avocations of the day commenced, but the mighty man was found extremely remiss; how is this?' asked the husbandman, your actions do not accord with your scriptural words; true, returned the son of earth; but I just this inoment remember another passage, which says 'Let thy moderation be known unto all men.' ་ |