Nor disturb the repose of the brove with a sigh, For the wide-wasting horrors of war. On seeing a Wounded Hare limp by me, which a Fellow had just shot at. Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye; May never pity soothe the with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel beart! Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, The bitter little that of life remains : No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield; Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, No more of rest, but now thy dying bed! The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,, The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest OR, WEEKLY THE VISITOR FOR THE USE AND AMUSEMENT OF BOTH SEXES. Saturday, September 29,....1810. VOL. XI. AMELIA: OR THE FAITHLESS BRITON. Founded upon facts. THE revolutions of goverment, and the subversions of empire which have swelled the theme of national historians, have, likewise, in every age, furnished anecdote to the biographer, and incident to the novelist. The objects of policy or ambition are generally, indeed, accomplished at the expenc of private ease and prosperity; while the triumph of armes, like the funeral festivity of a savage tribe, serves to annotince some recent calamity-the waste of property, or the fall of families. Thus, the great events of the late war, which produced the separation of the British em pire, and established the sovereignty of America, were chequered with scenes of private sorrow, and the succss of the contending forces was alternately fatal to the peace and order of domestic life. The lamentations of the widow and or. hpan, mingled with the song of victory and the sable mantle with which the hand of friendship clothed the bier of the gallant Montgomery, cast a momentary gloom npon the trophles his valour had atchieved. [NO. 23. HORATIO BLYFIELD was a respectible inhabitant of the state of New York. Success had rewarded his industry in trade with an ample fortune, and his mind, uncontaminated by envy or ambition, frcely indulged itself in the delicibus enjoyments of the father and the friend. In the former character he superintended the education of a son and a daughter, left to his sole care by the death of their excellent mother; and in the latter his benevolence and council were uniformly exercised for the relief of the distressed, and the information of the illiterate. His mercantile intercourse with Great Britain afforded an early opportunity of observing the disposition of that kingdom with respect to her colonies; and his knowledge of the habits, tempers, and opinions of the American citi arms that frequently interrupted the silence of the neighbouring zens, furnished him with a pain-forests, and the disastrous intelli ful anticipation of anarchy and war. The texture of his mind, indeed, was naturally calm and passive, and the ordinary effects gence which his son occasionally transmitted from the standard of the union, superceded the cheerful avocations of the day, and dis of a life of sixty years duration,pelled the peaceful slumbers of had totally eradicated all those the night. passions which rouse men to op. position, and qualify them for enterprise. When, therefore, the guantlet was thrown upon the the-happiness of Horatio's family, the atre of the new world, and the spirit of discord began to rage, Horatio, like the Roman Atticus, withdrew from public clamour, to After a retirement of many months, on a morning fatal to the sound of artillery announced a bat- a sequestered cottage, in the in-action could not be remote. Amelia had then attained her seventeenth year. The delicacy of her form was in unison with the mildness of her aspect, and the exquisite harmony of her soul. was responsive to the symmetry of her person. The pride of parental attachment had graced her with every accomplishment that depends upon tuition; and it was the singular fortune of Amelia, to be at once the admiration of our sex, and the favourite of her own. From such a daughter, Horatio could not but receive every solace of which his generous feelings were susceptible in a season of national calamity; but the din of an As soon, therefore, as the tumult of hostility had subsided, Horatio advanced with his domestics, to administer comfort and assistance to the wounded, and to provide a decent interment for the mangled victims of the conflict. In traversing the deadly field, he perceived officer, whose exhausted strength just served for the articulation of a groan, and his attention was immediately directed to the preservation of this interesting object, who alone, of the number that had fallen, yielded a hope that his compassionate exertions might be crowned by success. Having bathed, and bound up his wounds, the youthful soldier was borne to the cottage; where, in a short time, a stronger pulse, and a freer respiration, afforded a flattering presage of returning life. Amelia, who had anxiously waited the arrival of her father, beheld, with a mixed sensation of horror and pity, the spectacle || which now accompanied him.-She had never before seen the semblance of death, which therefore afflicted her with all the tersors of immagination; and, notwithstanding the pallid countenance of the wounded guest, he possessed an elegance of person, which, according to the natural operations of female sensibility, added something perhaps, to her commisseration for his misfortunes. When, however, these first im pressions had passed away, the tenderness of her nature express ed itself in the most assiduous actions for his ease and accommoda'tions, and the encreasing symptoms of his recovery, filled her mind with joy and exultation. The day succeeding that on which he was introduced to the family of Horatio, his servant, who had made an ineffectual search for his body among the slain, arrived at the cottage, and discovered him to be Doliscus, the only son and heir of a noble family in England. When Doliscus had recovered from the senseless state to which he had been reduced (chiefly, indeed, by the great effusion of blood) the first exercise of his faculties was the acknowledgement of obligation, and the profession of gratitude. To Horatio he spoke in terms of reverence and respect; and to Amelia in the more animated language of admiration, which melted at length, into the gentle tone of flattery and love. But Doliscus had been reared in the school of dissipation! and, with all the qualifications which allure and captivate the female heart, he had learned to consider virtue only as an incentive to the gratification of passion.His experience soon enabled him to discover something in the solicitude of the artless Amelia beyond the dictates of compassion and hospitality; and, even before his wounds were closed, he conceived the infamous project of violating the purity and tranquillity of a family, to which he was indebted for the prolongation of his existence, and the restoration of his health. From that very innocence, however, which betrayed her feelings, while she was herself ignorant of their source, he anticipated the extremest difficulty and danger. To improve the evident predilection of her mind into a fixed and ardent attachment, required not, indeed, a very strenuous display of his talents and address; but the sacrifice of her honor (which an insurmountable antipathy to the matrimonial engagements made necessary to the accomplishment of his purpose) was a task that he justly foresaw, could be only executed by the detsstable agency of perfidy and fraud. With these views then he readily accepted the solicitations of his unsuspecting host, and even contrived to protract his cure, in order to furnish a plea for his continuance at the cottage. Amelia, when, at length, the apprehensions for his safety were removed, employed all the charms of music and conversation to dissipate the languor, which his indisposition had produced, and to prevent the melancholy, with which retirement is apt to affect a disposition accustomed to the gay and busy transactions of the world. truth and fidelity. The acknowledgement of reciprocal regard was, therefore, an easy acquisition, and Doliscus triumphed in the modest, but explicit avowal, before Amelia was apprized of its importance and extent. From that moment, however, he assumed a pensive and dejected carriage. He occasionally affected to start from the terrors of a deep reverie ; and the vivacity of his temper, which had never yielded to the anguish of his wounds, seemed sud She experienced an unusual plea-denly to have expired under the sure, indeed,in the discharge of benevolent offices; for, in the company of Doliscus she insensibly forgot the anxiety she was wont to feel for the fate of her absent brother; and the sympathy which she had hitherto extended to all the sufferers of the war, was now monopolized by a single object.- || Horatio's attachment to the solicitude of his library, afforded frequent opportunities for this infatuating intercourse, which the designing Doliscus gradually diverted from general, to particular topics-from observations upon public manners and event, to insinua tions of personal esteem and par tiality. Amelia was incapable of deceit, and unacquainted with suspicion; the energy, but at the, same time, the respect, with which Doliscus addressed her, was grateful to her feelings; his rank and fortune entitled him to consideration, and the inestimable favors that had been conferred upon him offered a specious security for his weight of secret and intolerable affliction. Amelia, distressed and astonished, implored an explanation of so mysterious a change in his deportment; but his reiterated sighs, which were, for a while. the only answers she received, tended equally to encrease her curiosity and her sorrow. At length he undertook to disclose the source of his pretended wretchedness; and, having prefaced the hypocritical tale with the most solemn protestations of his love and constancy, he told the trembling Amelia that, were it even possible to disengage himself from an alliance which had been early contracted for him with a noble heiress of London, still the pride of family and the spirit of loyalty, which governed his father's actions, would oppose a union unaccompanied by the accumulation of dignity, and formed with one whose connections were zealous in the arduous resistance |
