For the Lady's Miscellany. SKETCHES FROM LIFE. Take then O world! thy much indebted tear. How sad a sight is human happiness an hour! Young. WHEN I look back upon my past life,and reflect upon the many days that have been spent in the most supine idleness, which might otherwise have been devoted to the acquirement of some useful science, and of that knowledge, which has for its aim, the teaching of men the better how to live;' and,that those hours are irretrieveably swallowed up in the boundless ocean of eternity; my mind is harrowed up with the keenest poignancy of self reproach, and sickens at the gloominess of retrospection. When I look back to the nights of debauch--the hours of dissipation, and the scenes of vice which I have passed over, to the impairment of my health, and the subvertment of those reflcctions which must ever arise in the bosom of him who is couscious of nothing but a well spent life; the compunctions of that internal monitor of my soul is ever on the alert to invent the most excrutiating torments and pours them with a merciless fury upon a head conscious of its guilt. The mid night revel, the splendid ball, the once basked in the warmest sunshine of prosperity, unmindful of the passing day; and who at the cheering festival. could ever set the table in a roar.' Alas! some now lie in the cold embrace of death and those who remain, like spectres haunt up my imagination and fill it with the sharpest daggers! But ah, the measure of retrospection is not yet filled up. Its gall and bitterness flows yet faster; and can I blasphemously ask for a retrenchment when I think of thee Evelina. Methinks I now see thee enter the gay and thoughtless Assembly. Methinks I again hear the whisper of admiration, and as light as fancy, see thee lead down the airy Cotillion. With serpentine eye I watched thy light fantastic movement' and the grace of motion. How did my soul thrill with the most extatic impulse, when thy hand came in contact with mine! Beauteous Eve 6 lina, your angelic face then glow ed with the strongest liniments of health and innocence; but my mechanisms found too easy an avenue to an heart inexperienced in wily guile. Thou wast a flower just opening thy various sweets to the morning sun-I like the deathly night-shade entwined thee, and thou sunk polluted to the ground. A father and tender mother fell with thee! Yes, their grey hairs could not brook thy disgrace-they are now happy! But thou-oh soon may thy head too be senseless to the pelting of the storms of life. Am I not then a murderer and a villain? Oh memory! memory ! Thus spoke the once gay and libertine Lothario, whilst large drops of tears rolled down his cheeks, and thick and clammy sweat bedew'd his manly face. Lothario, you are yet young-you have conquered yourself: and, in doing this, you have done more than him who is known by the universal name of GREAT. The time that you have sacrificed at the shrine of dissipation, can be retrieved. I nightly see the midnight vigil, glimmering in your chamber-Industry will recall the hours that have flown; and, although reflection upon the past may, for a season, harrow up your soul, a consciousness of Contrition, will pour a sweetning balm into your bleeding bosom. G. The tediousness and expense of lawsuits are the price of Liberty. lately occurred at Boston. A From a New-Hampshire paper. When Liberty Poles were in fashion, the following lines were inscribed on one in a certain town: 'True Liberty we all do prize, For which our fathers lost their lives; All Popish plots we do defy, But being criticised upon as ungrammatical by a young gentleman of a poetic turn, which gave offence to the good people, who ordered him to compose something that would bear the test, or they would inflict upon him a Tory punishment; upon which he wrote the following, and read them the people were so pleased, that they inscribed them in the room of the before mentioned: Ye yanking lads of our town, ye Are brave fellows all, I vowne. See your great banging freedom pole, It is a gent one, 'tis by jole; And when we look on 'pon this tree, We all must dreadful mindful be, That we must fight for liberty, And vum we'll find it if we died. Our fathers come from 'way out yonder, And 'cross the swish swash seas did wander, Until they 'rived at Plymouth shore, Which we will 'fend for ever more. The following anecdote 395 ow! If, on a strict scrutiny of the soul, we cannot discover any thing | which could offend our fellow creatures, then sleep is almost a celestial reverie. It is never so delicious or so tranquil, as after a day on which we have performed some good act, or when we are conscious of having spent it in some useful or substantial employment. The person that accompanied Baron de Kolli in Quiberoon, to rescue Ferdinand VII. is returned in the Implacable. It is strange that nothing further has ever appeared in the French papers relative to the fate of de Kolli. The above gentleman states, that Dupont had not been shot; but that he is now residing within a few leagues of Paris. LADY'S MISCELLANY. NEW-YORK, October 13, 1810. The City Inspector reports the death of 33 persons in this city and suburbs during the last week. FIRE. On Thursday evening last, at half past o'clock, a fire broke out in a Pottery on the premises of Mr Joshua Sands, at Brooklyn, and raged for an hour and an half with almost unconquerable fury, consuming in its course seven buildings, chiefly stores, and a shed, with the most of their contents.The buildings were the property f Mr. Sands, and the goods, principally cotton and hides, owned in New-York and stored in them.The whole damage is estimated at 30,000 dollars. The floating engine from this city, arrived in season to be of essential service in finally terminating the ravages of the destructive element. Singular combat with a Bear. On Friday the 21st instant, [September] two lads by the name of David and Samuel Morse, of Concord, Vt. one of whom was aged 13 years, the other 16, went for the purpose of helping to kill a bear, which was caught in a trap. When within a short distance of the bear, it extricated itself from the trap, and closed in with the oldest lad, who brought the bear under him as he fell. The other youth with that true courage which characterises the "Green Mountain Boys," willing to share the danger with his brother, caught the bear's head and confined it to the ground with his hands, having no weopon about him. This alarming scene being in sight of Mr. Morse's house, the mother of the lads flew to their assistance, caught the trap, which in her cool moments she would have been totally unable to manage, and with the first blow beat out the bear's eye, and then drove the spring of the trap into his mouth, and held it in that position until Mr. Carruth and Mr. Hamilton arrived and dispatched him. In the wrestle with the bear, he caught the youth's right hand in his mouth, which very considerably wounded The following definitions of Spanish words, lately frequent in the newspapers, are taken from the Spanish Dictionary of the Royal Academy : Merino, s. m.-The chief judge of a sheep-walk invested with an ample power. Latin, Merinos. Merino-He who superintends the sheep and pastures. Merino, adj.-Applied to the sheep driven to other pas tures. Merindad--The territory in which the judge of the sheepwalks superintends. Trasbumante-Sheep driven from a sheep walk, or pasture to another. Emigrating sheep. Cabana-A flock of ewes,. or breeding sheep. Mayoral The head Shepherd, or principal herd. Paular-The proper name of a place in Estremadura. |