fatal. The nature of their sorrow forbade them both to impart it to the bosom of a friend, and they pined away in the solitary torture of hopeless misery Of ten would the wretched Lucinda clasp her children to her agonized and bursting bosom, and give vent to her sorrows in weeping over their unconscious heads, while the tender girls would pathetically mingle their tears with those of their broken-hearted parent, unconscious of the cause, but deeply sympa. thizing with her grief. But the period of relief was rapidly approaching, and death was hailed by both as the messenger of joy. That dreadful scourge, the yellow fever, now broke out, and began to infect the neighbourhood of their residence. In vain their friends urged them to remove to a place of security. The children were sent into the country, to the care of Lucinda's mother, who had fled thither for safety. But the force of the more tender parental affections, had been almost wholly destroyed in their breasts, by the consuming fire of more intense passions. They both sickened at the same time, of that desolating disease, and Lucinda only survived her husband, in a state of de. lirium, four and twenty hours. They were both buried in the same grave, attended only by a faithful servant; but it is said, that when the seducer of our heroine, was subsequently informed, by Rachael Mundsley, whom he attended of the same malady, of the misery he had caused Lucinda and her husband, and that his own illegitimate offspring was still alive, he became so haunted by the recollections of his guilt, that he sought refuge in suicide, by swallow. ing arsenick, Why marvel ye, if they who lose "Hath nought to dread from outward blow: THE AUTHOR'S JEWEL, NUMBER XV. ENVY OF LITERATURE. From what dire cause can Envy spring? SAVAGE. PHILOSOPHERS have reasoned, and moralists have preached in vain, against the odious and banefull passion of Envy. As an attribute of imperfect be. ings, it clings to us in defiance of precept, and often insinuates its poisonous shoots, into the hearts of those, whose wishes and judgment alike urge them to crush it; but it still flourishes, as a check upon the pride of man, and a scource of humiliation.to the most splendid powers. Always active and always potent in blasting surrounding bloom, Genius withers and dies beneath its breathings. Every intellectual flower, that sheds its lustre to illuminate, and emits its balmy fragrance, to revive the weary and exhausted sojourner through life, is liable to have its fairy charms blighted in a moment, by this consuming plague. The havoc it commits in individual happiness, we shall leave to be discussed in another place; and consider it only as it obstructs the progress, or lays waste the regions of Literary excellence. It is not necessary that Envy should reveal its active exertions, in order to be pernicious. In withholding the rewards, or denying the applause, which is due to exalted genius, or successful labour; which either achieves unknown perfection, or eclipses the performances of competitors; it commits a degree of mischief, to which we cannot calculate the limits. Minds, fired by false ambition, yet void of extraordinary powers, naturally sicken at that fame to which they cannot themselves arrive, and envy those bon. ours, which they attempt, by calumny to destroy.— Dulness is the almost invariable concomitant of malignity, as blind presumption is the companion of ignorance; and when violence of passion inflames the lust of notoriety, the judgment never pauses, to calculate, whether that glory which we arrest in its course to another, will concentrate its effulgence upon our own heads, to cover us with its splendour and magnificence. No passion is so subtle in its operation as Envy. It eludes the best feelings, and defies the most virtuous resolutions. Open defamation and avowed malignity, are not the worst consequences of its indulgence. Always disposed to ransack the very crevices of posibility, to find a fault in another which fancy may magnify into a crime, and furnish us an opportunity to pluck from his brow, an hon our that we envy, it descends to the use of insinuation for want of facts, and labours to destroy that genius, which it languishes to behold esteemed for its virtue, or celebrated for its Learning. So pitiful and base are the means, which Envy employs to blast superior fame, or eclipse the lustre of a stupendons mind. The imperceptable manner in which Envy influences the mind, to the detriment of superior excellence, and the injury of Literature, should cause us all to be vigilant, in refusing it admittance. Envy is not exclusively the tenant of little minds, or degenerate natures; nor is it from partial defamation, the offspring of a few envious tongues, that the progress of Literature is obstructed, and genius condemned to languish in obscurity and neglect. A universal disposition to detract from the merit of transcendent intellect, seems, to pervade mankind. Those who are not base enough to applaud, are still willing to give currency to slander; and thus insiduously promote its baneful diffusion, while they congratulate themselves in secret, in the possession of a character for honour and magnanimity. Justice, in every case of dubious rumour, set afloat by the tongue of Envy, should demand reasonable testimony to substantiate the assertion; and failing to do this, every man of honour should treat the calumny with scorn and disbelief: For Envy is not only a foe to individual happiness, but is the common enemy of all mankind, which the arm and the tongue of every man should be raised to quell. The sly shrug, the insinuating exclamation, the portentous shake of the M |