'

1

"Are you not fo now then?" faid I, fighing, and raifing her hand to my lips.- O madam! pardon an unhappy wretch, who is distracted, and cannot answer for what distraction may drive him to "She sunk down on the feat, and seemed ready to faint. I fupported her in my arms, forgetting every thing but her charms, and the condition fhe was in. I repeatedly preffed her to my heart, and imprinted a hundred tender kiffes on her pale cheeks.-At laft, with a mixture of pity and refentment in her looks, the pushed me from her, and burst into tears. I fell at her feet, in an agony of grief and despair."There is nothing left for me but death," faid I mournfully, fince I have offended beyond the poffibility of pardon.”—As I pronounced these words, my head funk on her lap, and for fome moments we both continued filent.-At laft, raifing my eyes with a fupplicating look, " Speak, madam," faid 1, "pronounce my doom: but remember I cannot furvive your hatred." "Ah! would to hea Then live," faid fhe, faultering.

ven I could hate you

6

Forgive me, Belmont.-Why do I fuffer myself to dwell on this guilty fcene? when, loft to religion, gratitude, and honour, I dared to attempt the feduction of the wife of my friend! Urged by my earnest follicitations, fhe at length confeffed a mutual paffion; a paffion which fhe had in vain ftruggled to fupprefs. But, ah! Belmont; had you feen with what anguish, what confufion, fhe made this criminal confeffion, even you would have pitied her!-Spare me the defcription of my guilty raptures!-O with what heart-felt remorse do I now recollect them!

But paffionately as I loved, the fentiments of religion and honour were not wholly erafed from my foul. I fhuddered at the thoughts of adultery!-yet, had heaven wholly abandoned me, I cannot, I cannot answer to what lengths my transports might have hurried me. I had already advanced too far in the flippery paths of vice, to be able, by my own ftrength, to ftop myself at the laft fatal ftep-when the noife of a perfon, who seemed haftily advancing towards us, roufed me from my fatal intoxication.I arose with precipitation, in order to see who it was. A few paces from the fummer-house I met one of the domeftics, who delivered me a letter from his mafter.-Think, Belmont, what I felt at that moment!-Struck with a fense of my bafe ingratitude, I had hardly ftrength to open it-my hands trembled; my colour changed; and, with the deepest anguifh and remorfe, I read the kind, the generous contents !My ingratitude stood before me in its moft glaring colours; I found it aggravated by its bright reverfe-What then must I have suffered, had not heaven fo feasonably interpofed !-But take a copy of his letter.

"My

"My abfence has been the lefs irksome to me, becaufe I have been engaged in doing you fervice. -I need no longer make a mystery of my journey.-The bufinefs is concluded to my fatisfaction, and I fincerely give you joy on your promotion." --I was determined you should know nothing of it till every thing was fettled. I hope it will be an agreeable furprize, when I tell you, you are appointed captain in the room of Mr." Franklin, who has left the regiment. How I contrived to keep this affair from your knowledge, though you was wrote to on the occafion, you shall be informed when we meet to that I look forward with impatience. Yes, my friend; my home has every thing I could wish to indear it to me I never leave it but with regret, and always return to it with joy. Have you followed my inftructions? Have you endeavoured to amufe Mrs. Orbe in my abfence? Prepare to give an account of the talents' intrusted to you. Adieu, my worthy young friend. I have another furprise in reserve for 'you, which I truft will be no lefs agreeable than the former.But"

1 10 %

'I could read no farther; the letter dropped from my hand; and uttering a groan, I fell almost fenfelefs to the earth.—Mrs. Orbe paffed me while in that condition; a condition which no language can defcribe. She took up the paper, and deeply fighing, without fpeaking a word, haftily left me.-After indulging for fome time a heart-felt filent anguifh, I arose, hurried to my apartment, funk into a chair, where I continued for fome moments loft in thought, unable to came to any refolution.'

T

Now for a hurricane of virtuous fentiments, remorfe, and repentance, both in the lover and the lady. Mrs. Orbe, the reader may swear, is so much affected by her ingratitude to her loving indulgent dearée, that fhe falls into an illnefs, which almoft cofts her her life. Mifs Foreft, to be fure, falls in love with the captain; and the amiable Mifs Orbe, on her arrival at her father's house, does the fame indeed, by all the laws of modern novel-writing, fhe could not do otherwife. Sir Richard Elton, a good agreeable young fellow, tho' fomewhat wild and diffipated, arrives at Mr. Orbe's, and opens honoura-" ble trenches before the gentle Mifs Eliza Orbe, to the great difappointment of the artful Mifs Foreft, who can make nothing of our captain. A fall which the latter received, discovers Eliza's paffion; and while our captain is pleading his friend Sir Richard's cause with her, and has hold of her hand in an harbour, the father, who had long marked him out for a fonin-law, furprises them, and, thinking that the captain's courtship was for himself, wishes him joy. What a dreadful dilemma was this, to a man of our captain's delicate nerves, and exqui

fite fenfibility for he continued ftill to be paffionately in love with the mother-in-law. But this was not the worft; for Mr. Orbe falls ill, and on his death-bed extorts a promise from the captain and his daughter to marry each other,

Now that Mrs. Orbe is a widow, a rich widow, a beautiful widow, a reader of plain fenfe would think, that our hero can have no great difficulty. But foft-that would be killing the hare in her feat. Sir Richard and Mifs Foreft find twenty ways to embarrass him; and the latter forges Mifs Orbe's hand to a formal discharge of his promife and addreffes. An order comes from the War-office for the captain to rejoin his regiment, and he gallops off in fight of his mistress without bidding her adieu. Another difh of fwoonings and tears from poor Mifs Orbe; but ftill the refufes to marry Sir Richard. We were at this place violently apprehenfive of a kidnapping fcene; but we are happily difappointed. Eliza's maiden aunt Deborah arrives, and takes Sir Richard's part with all the peremptory fantaftic airs of an antiquated female. All, however, will not do; and Sir Richard moves off to London, where he endeavours to perfuade the captain to renew his addreffes to Mrs. Orbe. Before this can be effected, Mifs Foreft's practices and forgery. are detected, and the captain, in vindication of himself, fends to Mrs. Orbe Eliza's forged acquittance. This discovery is aukwardly managed, but it was unavoidable, and ferves to hurry on the catastrophe; for it is eafy, by this time, to fee, that the bookfeller will not fuffer the novelift to proceed to a third volume.

个

Mrs. Orbe informs the captain by a letter, how grofsly he' had been impofed upon by Mifs Foreft, and becomes a paffionate earneft advocate for the match between him and Eliza. We imagine we over hear the author d -g his bookfeller for not fuffering him to compose to a third volume, and for forcing him to huddle fo many fine materials together.

Hervey refolves, at the earnett defire of Mrs. Orbe, who fequeftrates herself in a rural retreat, to marry Eliza; but while he is on his journey to celebrate the nuptials, he is forced to fight with Sir Richard; and receiving an unhappy ball, he is carried to his bride's house rather dead than alive. This news has a fatal effect upon poor Mrs. Orbe, who takes on fo fadly, that she even fickens and gives up the ghoft. We need not defcribe Mifs Orbe's mournful condition during the captain's illnefs. Sufficient it is we tell the reader, that the captain at last recovered, and getting the better of all his fcruples, married Eliza, grew exceffively fond of her, and for aught we know, he is now breeding like a doe-rabbit.

VIII. An

VIII. An Essay on Woman, or phyfiological and biftorical Defence of the Fair Sex. Translated from the Spanish of El Theatro Cri atico. 8vo. Pr. 3 s. Bingley."

1

OME readers may think, after perufing this performance, which is a tranflation from the Spanish of a monk call Benedict Feijoo, that the whole was undertaken and published for the fake of the title. The work from whence it is extracted, we are told, confifts of feveral volumes in large octavo, containing a great variety of discourses intended to explode vulgar errors. The author became general of the order of St. Benedict, a dignity of great confideration; and on account of his literary merits, was advanced to other honours, both academical and ecclefiaftic. The freedom he made ufe of in expofing the vulgar errors which his church had fanctified, threw him into the Inquifition, from which, however, he is said to have been delivered by the interpofition of the crown. The tranflator informs the patronefs to whom he dedicates his work, that one of the examiners of literary publications in Spain gives us the following character of his original, which (fays he) to you I will not disfigure with a translation.'Neither shall we, as we profess ourselves to be entirely ignorant of the language; we fhall therefore faithfully give the character in the editor's own orthography. " Quod enim genus difciplina eft, inquo verfatus non fit, atque ita eximie verfatus, quod ineo folo elaboraffe? efic nimirum omnia complexus, ut ne unus quidum quisquam fingula: rurfus ita ad fummum, quafi nihil aliud præteræ didiciffet."

Good father Feijoo fets out in this performance with the character of his countrymen, which deferves, if poflible, a punishment worse than that inflicted by the Inquifition. To defend women in general, (fays he) is come to be the fame thing as to affront, and confequently, offend the generality of men.' What barbarians must the Spaniards be! and what epithet must that country merit, where its learned men are forced to rank a difregard for the fair part of the creation among the vulgar errors of the age.-Our author, to fhew how much he is fuperior to vulgar errors, very gravely informs us, from one of the Fathers, that Eve reclaimed her husband Adam from his brutal ferocity. He tells us, with the fame noble difdain of false prepoffeflions, that the very name of Woman is an abomination among the Tartars; and that the great Tamerlane meeting with the word Woman in a letter to him from Bajazet, that martial prince cried out with indignation, "This mad fellow of a Turk! to mention fuch a polluted name in a letter to me !". As if these instances were not fufficient to fhew our aut author's dif regard of vulgar errors, he acquaints us with the fame fuper

cilious

cilious brow of critical severity, that Mahomet, the falfe prophet, has excluded I women from that chimerical paradife which his debauched imagination has planted for his followers, and makes all their felicity to confift in beholding from without, the men wallowing in luxury and magnificence within.-The tranflator, to fhew himself fuperior in knowledge to his great original, blames him in this paffage for having imbibed a common mistake, and (to display his own mafterly talent at criticism) proves it to be fuch, from the letters of that great and accurate voyager Lady M. W. M...

יז

With regard to the fucceeding merits of this performance, we think it all of a piece. Nothing prefents to the reader's eye or imagination but the most stupid common-place fentiments, quotations, and examples of extraordinary women, from the hiftories of France, Italy, Spain, and other countries. The only tolerable character which carries with it the leaft marks of originality, is that of Elizabeth queen of England, in whofe compofition, fays the good father, the three Graces and the three Furies had an equal hand. Some of the examples produced by our author fpring from the very hot-bed of credulity. He thinks it prefumptuous to deny, that there was in Afia a formidable tribe of martial, women, called by the name of Amazons, when the truth of it is attefted by fo many reputable and ancient writers.

To give a fresh proof of his fuperior difcernment, father Feijoo allows there are very few women capable of keeping a fecret. Some, however, he admits, and mentions Damo, the daughter of Pythagoras, who, on, his death-bed, committed to her his writings, with a charge never to make them public; which the most facredly obferved, even in her deepeft diftreffes.Whether was there most meaning in the charge of the father, or the obedience of the daughter ?

As a fpecimen of the author's argumentation and his theological abilities, we fhall give our reader part of his twentythird fection.

• Some imagine all the premises to be at once overthrown by this fingle reply: If women are equal to men in underftanding and an aptitude for fciences, and political and domestic government, how comes it that God invested man with the dominion and fuperiority over woman; which he plainly does by this decree in the third chapter of Genefis: Sub viri poteftate eris Thou fhalt be under the power of thy husband,” as unquestionably the God of infinite wisdom would confer the government on that sex whom he had created most capable of fuch a charge.