know, have produced some event more distressing than death, the common lot of all: and although the Providence that created us, can doubtless prevent calamities to individuals, yet we are to consider allnature as dear to him, and the order of all things must not be disturbed to accommodate the tenderness of individuals to their own connections. The Ways of heaven are intricate; but question not they are ultimately just; and I am sure, our conception is very inadequate to the forming a just idea of the blessings reserved for those that do right. What that right is, I shall no otherwise define than by recommending you never to do an act which your own mind dictates to you to be wrong; nor omit that which the like conviction tells you is fit to be done.

I have submitted these reflections to your consideration, aş hints which your own good sense will, no doubt, apply; and although I would do the duty of a friend, with as little violence to your feelings as possible, to discharge it properly I must not pass over some little duties which the Almighty will expect of you. He gave to you two children, and will, in all probability, bless you with a third; you owe to each an equal duty; and although grief is not a matter of choice, yet much may be done by cool reflection; every effect to be produced by the exercise of reason, it is your duty to hope for by the exercise of reason; and I think you will obey its dictates. By indulging grief in your present situation, the most fatal effects may befal an infant who has not yet seen the light; and although I would not join the superstitious herd in calling such events judgments of the Divinity, yet I may presume them to be lessons, which it becomes the prudent to avert by every possible caution. Heaven having been pleased to call back a part of what was given, consider it as a providential display to seme future good end; and then turn your eyes to your remaining boy; for should heaven spare you but one, he will need all the protection a parent can afford. Desirous as we are of life, take but a prospective view of the affairs of men, and reflect upon the many perils a child must undergo ere he can provide for himself: it must be so from the very nature of things. The grief which is now so poignant for your lost boy will subside, and fresh impressions be the effect of new images and future occurrences; but the tears you will shed, in the common course of events, for your surviving child, will exceed calculation. The mischievous habits of infancy will be succeeded by the refractory disposition of boyish playfulness: in its season, these will give place to the obstinacy of the earlier years of maturity; all common sources of parental discontent, but the intervening calamities are in the womb of time; many must fall to the lot of all our children; those only that sleep in death are beyond the reach of every unhappy event: bless, then, the hand of that Providence whose ways are good, and do your duty by educating your child in a manner that may form the man of integrity; teach him, as the rule of all his actions, never to do that to another, which, being done to him, he would consider an injury. I know of no better rule to ensure a contented mind; and he that possesses this blessing has little to fear.

I trust you will hardly consider me to have used any unwarrantable freedom: indeed, I am sure you will not attribute to me any thing but a good purpose, ill as it may be executed. I shall write to you soon on other subjects; at present 1 chuse to avoid any other than that which gave occasion to the present letter. Let me recommend to your first attention that omnipotent power I have so often mentioned, submitting yourself, with a becoming resignation, to every event of human life, and to his providential care. I lament I have no power to serve you, but the feeble efforts of my reasoning for your welfare; but should you need a friendship within the compass of my ability, by making the experiment you will prove the sincerity of it.

WHILE others are deeply engaged in the business of corruption and party, in circulating scandal, or in defaming the innocent, permit me to be the historian of benevolence and virtue.— -While our nobility and gentry, affecting the wretched levity of France, exhaust their time in an eternal round of frivolous amusements, which are at once mischievous and insignificant; let me be the recorder of other deeds and other characters-scenes which acquire importance from being true, and which are truly splendid because they are truly good. When royalty becomes the patron of humanity, they reflect a lustre upon each other, and we are called upon by double obligations to imitate the bright example.

Her late royal highness the princess dowager of Wales possessed many extraordinary virtues. A soft heart, a sympathetic soul, and exalted sentiments, were qualities natural to her. Early trained in the school of misfortune, she had a quick and lively conception of distress in others; and she was equally expeditious in administering comfort to it. This was her ruling principle; this was the fertile fountain of her other virtues, and these virtues were the more amiable, as they bloomed always in private and unseen, and yielded their immortal fruit in silence and retirement. Let those wretches blush, who levelled their scandal at large at her reputation and her peace, and who have so often denied the existence of those virtues which they were unacquainted with.

Her royal highness, soon after her first arrival in these dominions, derived great pleasure from perusing the newspapers; a custom VOL. IV.

which she discontinued the last ten years of her life, but which first taught her the genius and manners of the English people. In the month of December, 1742, her royal highness read in one of these papers, the following advertisement:

"DISTRESS.

"A man who has served his country bravely, is, by a peculiar circumstance of misfortune, reduced to the extremest distress. He has a family too, who are deeply involved in his fate. This intelligence will be sufficient to those who can feel, and who can relieve. Such persons may be more particularly informed of his past misfortunes, and may be witnesses of his present, by calling at *********

I have observed already, that this amiable lady was experienced in distress; and there was an air of truth, of candour, of superiority to deceit, through the whole of this advertisement which greatly bespoke her sympathy, and roused her humanity. She resolved to see the miserable man who advertised.

Her highness had in her house a lady of German extraction, who accompanied her from Germany to England, and who was her favourite and companion till the lady's death. With this companion she resolved to visit the scene of distress. In a common morning dress, and in a common chair, to avoid the public eye, she sat off about noon, the lady walking slowly behind her: they eluded all observation, and arrived at the appointed place.

The direction led them up two pair of stairs, into a little apartment, (in one of the streets behind Golden-square) which they entered. A woman, whose ghastly features were pale with poverty and sickness, lay stretched on a comfortless bed, without curtains, and circled in her arms a female child, whose closed eye seemed sealed up with death, and whose face out-did her mother's in marks of want and despair. A tall and graceful man sat before a cold fire, having on his knee a boy wrapped round in a flannel petticoat; over whom he hung his head, and gazed upon him with eyes of affection and anguish.-All this was seen in the twinkling of an eye. Her highness stopped short, drew close to her companion, and clasped her in her arms, as if she had suddenly entered into the mansion of horror and despair. The man, starting from his chair, placed the child by the side of his helpless mother, advanced gracefully towards the ladies, and begged of them to sit down. Her highness, opening her lips for the first time, said, With all my heart.

Need I describe to the reader the scene that ensued? Need I inform him, that hope and expectation sat panting in the father's eye; that sensibility and pity wandered o'er the royal features, and diffused over all her countenance a graceful sorrow and dejection? This scene would have afforded the most luxurious feast to a feeling soul: as such I will not injure it by my pen, but resign it to be conceived by the imagination.

-The attending lady first broke silence, by disclosing their business. She said, that they had read his advertisement, and that they were desirous of receiving the information which it promised. The man

thanked them for their humanity, and proceeded to relate his story. His voice was good, and his stile was simple; and he spoke with precision, fluency and grace. But as I am not now writing his history, but an anecdote of the Princes Dowager of Wales, I will not relate his history after him. The reader must be contented at present with knowing, that he had been an ensign in a marching regiment, which was then in Germany; that a knot of those military coxcombs, with which every regiment is crowded, had conceived a pique against him, for being braver, and more sensible than themselves; that one of these hot-headed youths had sent him a challenge on a very frivolous pretence, which he refused to accept, from motives of duty and honour; that pretences were drawn from this circunstance, and combinations formed to insult and ruin him; that they represented him to the chief commander as a coward, a slanderer, and a bad officer; that his conduct was enquired into, and overpowered by numbers; he was broke for crimes which he never committed: that he set out immediately with his little family for England, to lay his case before the secretary at war, and to implore justice that having no powerful friend to introduce him into the War Office, the secretary was too deeply engaged in business to listen to the complaints of a friendless ensign; that this put a period to his hopes; that his wife was then seized with sickness, but being destitute of money to procure the necessary remedies, her distemper was soon communicated to the two children; and, that having spent his last six-pence, in a fit of agony and dispair, he sent the above-mentioned advertisement, to the” news-papers, as the last resource which a gentleman's honour could stoop to.Though many pathetic circumstances are suppressed, this is the leading line of the story. He related it with a firm and manly countenance, and was a fine contrast to the soft and amiable sensibility, which the ladies displayed in the course of it.

It was a case of unfeigned distress, and even despair; and the princess thought, that in his present desperate situation, she could not yield him sincerer comfort, than by informing him into what safe and powerful hands he had fallen. Putting ten guineas into his hand, she told him, "that the Princess of Wales, to whom he had now related his story, felt for him, and pitied him; and that she would procure justice to himself, his wife, and his infants." The astonished ensign had already dropt on one knee, to acknowledge her rank, her condescension, and her goodness; but rushing to the door, she hurried down the stairs, and returned into her chair, leaving the ensign wrapt in wonder and gratitude.>>

Let those enjoy these moments who can feel them. The officer made his little mansion echo with her name: he repeated it with rapture, and recommended it to heaven; and never were prayers more sincere.While the princess returned to her house, satisfied that she had begun a good work, which she was resolved to bring to a happy conclusion.

The issue of this is so obvious, that every one may guess it. The princess applied to the duke of Cumberland in the officer's behalf; and after a week had passed, she sent for him to receive a lieutenant's commission, in a regiment which was soon to embark for Flanders. Thus

provided for, she enjoined him to prepare for his expedition, and to leave his little family under her protection till his return. Though this charge was dear to him, he willingly resigned it to so faithful a guardian, and sat off to join a regiment were he was recommended by royal patronage itself. He behaved with his usual bravery and prudence, and after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, returned to England, to his wife and to his children, with a major's commission. He lived at home happy and beloved; the same benevolent lady who first snatched him from ruin still patronizing him. He afterwards sacrificed his life to his country on the plains of Minden;-a field which proved disgraceful to many people, but covered his grey hairs with honour and laurels.

More is not necessary. I have related enough of the old ensign's life, to display the tenderness, the benevolence, the generosity of the greatand amiable lady, whose memory I shall ever revere. It remains now only to inform the reader, that the son of the old ensign-who languished upon his knee, whom he gazed upon with despair when the princess first entered his wretched habitation-is now the writer of this little stary; and he dedicates this sincere tribute to her memory, as a MONUMENT OF HER VIRTUES.

THE French novelist, though wonderfully alembicated in his manner of writing, was not so in his character. When he was once accosted by a very stout beggar to give him alms, he said, “My good friend, I wonder you beg; why don't you work, as you appear to be able?" "Alas, Sir," replied the beggar, "If you did but know how idle I am." "Well," replied Mariveaux, giving him half a crown, “Go your way; you are an honest fellow."

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IN his personal economy the late king was very exact about trifles. He had all his shirts, cravats, handkerchiefs, &c. regularly numbered and it was sufficient to put him into a very great passion to give him anyo of those articles that did not exactly correspond in number with the other. The same exactness went to other circumstances. One day, as the page was carrying a bag of money after him to be deposited in a small iron chest, which he constantly kept in a closet near his bed-chamber the bag burst, and one guinea in the fall rolled under the door of another closet, where some piles of wood lay Have you picked up all the money?" (says the king) "All but one guinea, Sire, which has rolled in amongst the wood, and which I shall look for presently.” “Nopnog —we shall look for that guinea now; set down that bag there, and assist me in removing this wood." The page obeyed, and to work they both went; when, after toiling for about a quarter of an hour, the guinea was found, Well (says the king, pleased with his discovery), I think