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with rapture. My father and mother adored me. They would refuse me nothing. They strove to prevent my wishes.-Good people! may Heaven grant them peace of mind, and long life to enjoy the fortune they so justly deserve!-But why, Sir, did they make me as they term it, so very accomplished? They have made me a different creature from themselves. I am apt to fancy myself of a higher order. -Forgive my presumption; and I am sure you will forgive me, when I tell you, I really wish myself lower. Indeed, Sir, and it grieves me to the soul, I am sometimes impatient of my parents, but I will not dwell upon this.

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I told you, we see a great deal of company; and all the people we see are disposed to admire me. Mighty well,' you will say: Give a young wo· man admiration, and what more can she wish for?" -Sir, I wish they loved me more, and admired me less. I am made to sing, and to play on the harpsichord; and, to oblige my father, am sometimes constrained to repeat verses; and all this to people who understand no music, and know no other poetry than the Psalms of David in metre. Indeed, till I became better acquainted with them, I found that, even in our conversation, there was a mutual misapprehension; and that they were sometimes as unintelligible to me as I was to them. I was not at all surprised to hear them call some of our acquaintance good men; but, when I heard them call our neighbour John Staytape, a great man, I could not help asking what discovery he had made in arts or science, or what eminent service he had rendered his country? I was told in return, that within these few years he had realized a plum. This phrase was also new to me; and I wished to have known something about the nature of such realization. Choosing, however, to ask but one question at a time, I

said nothing; and soon learned, that, whatever services Mr. Staytape might do his country, he had hitherto made no great discovery in arts or sciences.

I confess, indeed, that one time I fancied they might have some little notion of books; and when I heard them speak about underwriters, I thought it might perhaps be some ludicrous term for the minor poets.

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So when they spoke about policies, I fancied they were using the Scotch word for improvements in gardening; and ventured to say something in favour of clumps; Clumps,' said a gentleman, who is a frequent visitor at our house, she is to be laden with Norway fir.' I found they were speaking about the good ship Rebecca.

A grave looking man who sat near me one day at dinner, said a good deal about the fall, and of events that should have happened before and after the fall. As he also spoke about Providence, and Salem and Ebenezer; and as great deference was shewn to every thing that he said, and being as, as I told you, a grave-looking man in a black coat, I was not sure but he might be some learned theologian; and imagined he was speaking about Oriental antiquities, and the fall of Adam. But I was soon undeceived. The gentleman had lived for some time in Virginia; by Providence he meant the town of that name in Rhode-island; and by the fall he meant, not the fall of our first parents, for concerning them he had not the least idea, but as I suppose, the fall of the leaf; for the word is used, it seems, in the American dialect, for autumn.

In this situation, Sir, what shall I do? By my boasted education, I have only unlearned the language, and lost the manners, of that society in which I am to live.- -If you can put me on any

method of bringing my friends up to me, or of letting myself down to them, you will much

oblige

Yours, &c.

MARY MUSLIN.

SIR,

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

As you are very successful in delineating the manners of modern times, it might add, perhaps, to the effect of your pictures, if you sometimes gave a view of former manners. The contrast would be agreeable; and, if I may use the expression, would give a certain relief to your other delineations. I offer you a small sketch of an incident, supposed to have happened in the times of our forefathers. I flatter myself you have no objection to it on account of its being in verse. It is merely an outline; yet, I hope, it is so marked, as that concomitant circumstances, though not expressed, may readily be conceived.

MONTANUS.

The MARRIAGE of EVAL.

I.

Loud from JURA's rocky shore,
Heard ye the tumultuous roar?-

Sudden from the bridal feast,
By impetuous ire possess'd,
Fury flashing in their eyes,
Kinsmen against kinsmen rise:
And, issuing to the fatal field,
Bend the bow, the falchion wield.-
From her eyry, with dismay,
The tow'ring eagle soars away.

The wild-deer from their close retreat,
Start with terror and amaze,

Down on the furious conflict gaze,

Then to deep forests bend their nimble feet.

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My kinsmen!-cruel kinsmen, ye!

• These your kindliest deeds to me!

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Yes, the clay-cold bed prepare,

The willing bride and bridegroom there
Will tarry; will for ever dwell.-

Now, inhuman men depart :

'Go, triumph in my broken heart !'—

She said, she sigh'd, a breathless corse she fell.

SIR,

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

I AM One of a family of young ladies who read your paper, with which we have been hitherto tolerably well pleased, though we could wish it were not quite so grave, and had a little more love in it. But we have found out, of late, that it is none of your own, but mostly borrowed from other people. A cousin of ours, who is himself a fine scholar, and has a great acquaintance among the critics, shewed us many different instances of this. Your first paper, he told us, was copied from the first paper of the Spectator; and, upon looking into both, we found them exactly the same, all about the author and the work from beginning to end. Your Umphraville, he said, was just Sir Roger de Coverley; which we perfectly agreed in, except that my sister Betsy observed, Umphraville wanted the Widow, which all of us think the very best part of Sir Roger. Your Bobby Button, he assured us, was borrowed from N° 13. of the True Patriot, published by Mr. Fielding, who wrote Tom Jones; and there, indeed, we found there was a story of a young gentleman, who liked French wine better than his country, just like Sir Bobby. N° 72, which we thought a very sweet paper, he informed us was taken from the Night Thoughts; and, indeed, though we don't understand Latin, we saw plainly that the mottos were the same to a T. All this, however, we might have overlooked, had not a gen tleman, who called here this morning, who used formerly to be a great advocate for the MIRROR, confessed to us, that our cousin's intelligence was literally true; and, more than all that, he told us, that your very last Number was to be found, every word of it, in Johnson's Dictionary.

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