cutting sarcasms when separated. Happily, patronage of a woman whom we, in our the more we see of these communications, plain language, should call infamous. He is the more we are convinced that nothing but grateful to receive his imprimatur and his sound principle, godly sincerity,' a con- crown of laurel from fair and fashionable, quest over vanity, a triumph over egotism, but impure hands; and Paris resounds, next an habitual struggle against selfishness-morning, with the immortality assigned him can establish an honourable, virtuous and du-by the decision of this coterie. rable friendship, or shed a benign lustre on All this might be very well, or at least the most polished society. would not be so very bad, if there were no We repeat, that these reports are not in-future reckoning; but to see old age withdustriously gleaned from rival parties, ill-out consolation, dreading solitude as only less informed journalists, nor even from virtuous terrible than death; to contemplate loss of writers, eager to expose the vices they de-sight as only augmenting spiritual blindness, tested; but from the principal performers yet to see the afflicted sufferer clinging to in the scene-from a woman whose uncon- this miserable existence, and closing a life trollable openness prevents her concealing of sin with a death without penitence and

her own vices,

without hope; to consider talents capable We see, not without pain, her exposure of great things, abused and misapplied; a of the faults of some of the associates whom God not merely forsaken, but denied; all she so sedulously courts, and so constantly these are images from which the sober mind abuses; we see the malignity which forces turns away with horror softened by comitself through all her endeavours to appear passion. May every daughter of Britain say, amiable in the eyes of the distinguished per- with the patriarch of old, Come not into son to whom she writes; we see the corro- their secret, O my soul; to their assembly ding envy, the grawing jealousy, and some-let not thine honour be united!' times the obvious aversion to the individu- Some ladies of unimpeached morality als of a society, without which she cannot were found in these coteries. True: yet exist; which society probably entertained a we hope to be forgiven for saying, that they reciprocal hatred of their flattering hostess, could have retained but little of that delicaand yet could not exist without her. All cy which should preserve the purity of sothis exhibits a scene, from which an unsociety, when they make no scruple of mixing phisticated English heart turns away, sick-intimately with women whose practises they ening with disgust. would not by any means adopt. In such so

This unhappy woman, old, deaf, blind,ciety virtue withers, delicacy is impaired, repining, and impious, yet drew this accom- and principle finally extinguished. plished society about her by their mutual In this view it is impossible not to make a fondness for conversation. They met with-short digression, to observe with gratitude out affection, they parted without regret; on the obligations of English society to our yet meet they must-they were necessary late venerated queen. Not to insist on the to each other, not for comfort, for they knew neither the name nor the thing; but society being an article of the first necessity for the support of existence, it must be had with companions hating, and hated by, each other. Under such circumstances, the fondness for society seems not so much a taste, as a ra-She raised, as it were, a rampart between ging appetite.

It is, however, a cheerless, heartless society, where persons of talents and breeding meet, not so much to enjoy each other, as to get rid of themselves. Intimacy without confidence, and intercourse without esteem, add little to the genuine delights of social life. Competition, while it inflames vanity, is no improver of kindness.

In a city like Paris, where men were wits and authors by profession, and ladies judges and critics by courtesy, nothing was considered as an exclusion from these societies but want of talents to amuse, or taste to decide. The poet produced his work, not, however, so much to be corrected as applauded; not so much to be counselled as flattered; he, in return, paying usuriously, in the same counterfeit coin, the honour conferred on him, and the benefit done him, by their proclamation of the beauty of his work; his fame, perhaps, suspended on the avowed

admirable example she set in her exact performance of all the domestic duties; her public conduct, in one important instance, will ever reflect honour on her memorywe mean her solicitude to prevent the impure mixtures to which we are now alluding.

vice and virtue; and her strictness in ex-
cluding from the royal presence all who had
forfeited their claim to be introduced to it,
had a general moral effect, by excluding
them also from the virtuous society of others
of their own rank. Discriminations of this
nature are of incalculable value in preser-
ving the distinctions between correctness
and impurity, when no offender, though of
the highest rank, can preserve the public
dignity of the station she has dishonoured.

"Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif,
Desirous to return, and not received;
But was a wholesome rigour in the main,
And taught th' unblemish'd to preserve with care
That purity, whose loss was loss of all.'
COWPER.

London also has had its select assemblies for conversation. They were neither trifling, dull, nor pedantic. If there were less display of wit, less pains to be easy, less study to be natural, less affectation of being

unaffected, less effort to be unconstrained, for having spent the hours of their absence there was more sincerity, integrity, and in scenes of bloody warfare or perilous adkindness. If there was a less perpetual aim venture, in mournful solitude, cheating the at being ingenious, ingenuity was never time in simple occupations, yet such as cerwanting. If there were less persiflage and sarcasm, there was more affection, truth, and nature. Religion, though not discussed, was always venerated, and no degree of rank or talent would have procured an introduction when there was any taint on the reputation.

ved to keep up the memory of their beloved heroes; in one, by contriving decorations for a living lord, or, in the other, honouring the memory of the dead one, by preparing funeral honours for his father, ingeniously deferring the detested second muptials by nightly unravelling the daily labour, and thus keepThe tone of social intercourse is at pre-ing her promise of consent when the work sent, perhaps, likely to be raised by the recent adoption of more direct religious improvement in the private parties of some persons of rank and talents. But to return to Paris..

should be finished, and preserving her fidelity to her lord by never finishing it.

What manly English heart would not prefer the fond anxiety of the Trojan wife, which led her in secret to the watch-tower

plore her husband so soon to bleed,-to all the Aspasias of Greece, to all the Du Deffands, the De l'Espinasses, the D'Epinays, to all the beau ideal of the fancy, and all the practical pollutions of the life, of the bonnes societies' of the metropolis of France,

One instance more of the substitution of to mark the battle, and tenderly seek to extalent for virtue, and of the little regard paid to the absence of the one where the other abounded; one instance more, and we will relieve our readers, and carry them to breathe a purer atmosphere in better company. The celebrated Madame d'Epinay is described by one of her admirers,* who But, happily, we need not go back to rancame in the order of succession next after sack antiquity for examples in the finely imaRousseau, not only as the most attractive, gined females of Troy or Ithica, nor for but most discreet of women! This discre- warnings to the polished, but profligate tion, which is his rather than hers, appears courtezans of Athens, nor to the criminal in his making her indulgence in forbidden countesse of Paris ;—we may find instances gratifications, consistent with her constant of the one, and a complete contrast to the regard for public opinion, and the desire of other, nearer home. We need go no further reputation. He records, intentionally to her for the highest examples of female dignity, honour, that being above all prejudices her- talent, and worth, than are to be found in the self, (that is, above the weakness of Chris-private biography of our own country. tianity,) yet no one knew better what was due to the prejudices of others. She conformed, he observes, as scrupulously to old usages, as to new opinions, and kept up the outward observances of the church as much as a woman of an ordinary mind could have done; that is, she was at once an infidel and a hypocrite. He proclaims to her glory, that, without believing in any catechism but that of good sense, she never failed to receive the sacraments, painful as the stupid ceremony was, with the best grace imaginable, as often as decency, or the scruples of her friends, made it becoming. Perhaps,' adds her profane panegyrist, there was as much greatness in receiving them with her notion of them, as there would have been in refusing them. Is it any wonder that, with such a conformity of principles, she obtained the prize of the academy, as well as the homage of the academician?

We could produce no inconsiderable number in the highest rank of women, who, if their names are not blazoned in the book of fame, will be recorded in more lasting characters in the book of life-who, if their memoirs are not spangled with their bons mots, have yet had their good actions and holy principles embalmed in the writings of their faithful Christian friends. But we shall confine ourselves to a very few.

The Lady Mary Armyne, descended from the ancient Earls of Shrewsbury, was eminently skilled in human, but especially in divine learning. But the remembrance of her talents, which appear to have been of the first order, is lost in that of her Christian virtues. Among numerous other instances of her pious exertions, she contributed largely to the support of a society for converting the Indians in New-England, long before missions were thought of by her tardy We are amused to think with what a con- countrymen. On hearing of the fatal mastemptuous smile of pity these ladies, with sacre of St. Bartholomew, she instantly deall their allowed taste and learning, must, if voted a large sum to those exiled and destithey were consistent, have beheld the pic- tute clergymen who had fled hither for pretures of these obsolete wives, Andromache tection. Her piety was as exemplary as and Penelope, as delineated by the Grecian that extensive benevolence of which it was bard-pictures of female excellence and do- the source. mestic virtue, which have drawn the tear of admiring sympathy.from many a British eye. The poet has omitted to mention whether their valiant lords loved them the less

• Le Baron de Grimm.

In Birch's Life of the Hon. Robert Boyle, there is a most interesting account of Mary, Countess of Warwick, of whom it is saying every thing to say that she was entirely worthy of being sister to that illustrious Chris

496

tian philosopher. Of the eminently pious wisdom and truth in her sentiments. Many Lady Frances Hobart, the ornament of the specimens of epistolary writing might be court of James the First, Dr. Collins has produced, which excel these in the graces preserved an interesting memorial. A long of composition, but few which surpass them and unwearied attention, for many years to in that strong sense, solid judgment, and the bodily sufferings of her lord, could only those discriminating powers which were be surpassed by her anxiety for his spiritual the characteristics of her intellectual attain interests. Through the blessing of God she ments, as heroic fortitude, Christian humibecame the honoured instrument of a totallity, unshaken trust in God, and submission change in his character, who never named her by any other appellation but that of his 'dear saint.' This term had not then fallen into reproach.

to his dispensations, were of her religious character. Such a combination of tenderness the most exquisite, magnanimity the most unaffected, and Christian piety the most practical, have not often met in the same mind.

Of Susanna, Countess of Suffolk, it is impossible to say too much. For brevity's sake, An acute, but sceptical French writer, however, we must restrict ourselves to one or two particulars in speaking of a life which calls Magnanimity the good sense of pride, was a constant series of secret piety and ac- and the noblest way of obtaining praise.'tive benevolence. When near her end, How well has the prince of pagan philosowhich happened in her twenty-second year, phers, by anticipation, corrected this tinsel she implored her lord, that whatever pro- phrase! If thou art not good, thy magnavision might be made for the fortunes or ac-nimity is ridiculous, and worthy of no hoHow did our sublime Christian sufquirements of her children, that they might be educated in the strictest principles of ferer practically improve upon both! Seek Christianity, in comparison of which she es- not the honour which cometh from men, but teemed all worldly accomplishments as no- that which cometh from God.' thing. To her dying father, who had been inattentive to Christian duties, she administered such spiritual supports, that in rapture he praised God that he should live to receive his best religious consolations from his

own child!

To the memory of the Lady Cutts, the incomparable wife of the gallant Lord Cutts, so distinguished at the siege of Namur, noble justice has been done in an admirable funeral sermon of Bishop Atterbury, which we would recommend to every reader who has a taste for exalted piety or fine writing.

nour.'

Whether we view this ilustrious daughter of the virtuous Southampten taking notes on the public trial of her noble consort, concealing the tender anguish of the wife under the assumed composure of the secretary; whether we behold her, after his condemnation, prostrate at the feet of the unfeeling monarch, imploring a short reprieve for her adored husband, while the iron-hearted king heard the petition without emotion, and refused it without regret; whether we behold her sublime composure at their final separation, which drew from her dying lord the confession, the bitterness of death is past,' The Lady Elizabeth Hastings was not less whether we behold her heroic resolution distinguished for superior talents than for rather to see him die, than to persuade him to any dishonourable means to preserve his eminence in every Christian attainment.She has been celebrated for both in the Tat-life; whether we see her superiority to reler, under the very inappropriate appellation sentment afterwards towards the promoters of Aspasia. No two characters could form of his execution,-no expression of an unforgiving spirit; no hard sentence escaping a more perfect contrast. But the time would fail to enumerate all her, even against the savage Jeffries, who the English ladies who have conferred ho- pronounced his condemnation, adding insult nour on their country. Of those already to cruelty; no triumph when that infamous mentioned all possessed considerable ta- judge was afterwards disgraced and imprilents. Some were eminent for their skill insoned; if we view her in that more than ten the dead languages; others for their know-perate letter to the King a few days after ledge of philosophy and the sciences; all for her dear lord's execution, declaring that, if their high religious attainments. All were she were capable of consolation, it would practical Christians-all adorned their pro-only be that her lord's fame might be prefession by the strictest attention to the do-served in the King's more favourable op mestic, the relative, and the social du

ties.*

nion :-had long habits of voluptuousness.ft any sense of pity in this corrupt king: T But what shall we say to Rachel, Lady rather, if a heart had not been forgotten in Russell? Many daughters have done virtu- his anatomy, it must have been touched at ously, but thou excellest them all! She has her humble intreaty that he would gran unintentionally bequeathed us her character his pardon to a woman amazed with grief, te in her letters. Though there is little ele-the daughter of a man who had served gance in her style, there is all the dignity of

•For a full account of these, and many other equally

eminent ladies, see Memoirs of Pious Women.'

father in his greatest extremities, and b Majesty in his greatest perils:-if we view this extraordinary sufferer under all these I trials, while we admire the woman, we must

adore the divine grace which alone could sustain her under them.

serve subordination, the knowledge of their duty would impede the performance of it. After this imperfect sketch, may we not This last we did not perhaps say in so many say, that, for an example of conjugal tender- words, but was it not the principle of our ness, we need not go out of our own coun- conduct? We put off the instruction of the try for a perfect model? Portia swallowing poor till the growth of crime made the rich fire because she would not survive her Bru-tremble. We refused to make them better tus, the Pæte, non dolet of the faithful Ar-till they grew so much worse as to augment raia, as she stabbed herself, and then pre- the difficulty, as to lessen the probability of sented the sword to her husband, to set him their reform. The alarm came home to the an example of dying bravely; these heroic instances of conjugal affection, which have been the admiration of ages, are surpassed by the conduct of Lady Russell: they died a voluntary death rather than outlive their husbands; Christianity imposed on her the severer duty of surviving hers-of living to suffer calamities scarcely less trying, and to perform duties scarcely less heroic. After weeping herself blind, after the loss of her only son the Duke of Bedford, let us view her called to witness the death of her daughter, the Duchess of Rutland. After seeing her dead corpse, let us behold her going to the chamber of her other daughter, the Duchess of Devonshire, then confined in child-bed, of which the other had just died. When her only surviving daughter inquired after her sister, the mother cheerfully replied, I have just seen her out of bed!'-It was in her coffin.

opulent. They were afraid for their property, for their lives; they were driven to do what had long been their duty not to have left undone. But they did it not, till the overflowings of ungodliness made them afraid.' They discovered at length, that ignorance had not made better subjects, better servants, better men. This lesson they might have condescended to learn sooner from the Irish rebels, from the French revolutionists. We have at length done well, though we have done it reluctantly. We have begun to instruct the poor in the knowledge of religion.

But there is another class, a class surely of no minor importance, from whom too many still withhold the same blessing. If, as is the public opinion, it is the force of temptation which has produced so much crime among the poor, are not the rich, and especially the children of the rich, exposed to at In whatever attitude, then, we consider least as strong temptations, not indeed to the portrait of this illustrious lady it is with steal, but to violate other commandments of fresh admiration. Each lineament derives equal authority? Laws, without manners, additional beauty from its harmony with the will not do all we expect from them: manrest, the symmetry of the features corres-ners, without religion, will be but imperfectponding with the just proportions of the whole figure.

England's Best Hope.

ly reformed. And who will say that religious reformation will be complete, whilst it is confined to a single class, or deemed at least a work of supererogation by some among the higher ranks? There are, however, many honourable exceptions, the number of which is, we trust, increasing.

We have dwelt on the present and the past, as well with reference to our neighbours as ourselves. If we have shown that Why should the poor monopolize our bewe have little regret in any still remaining nevolence? Why should the rich in this difference between the inhabitants of the op- one instance, be so disinterested? Why posite shore, and much to fear from a grow-should not the same charity be extended to ing resemblance between them; if we have the children of the opulent and the great? successfully hinted at the grounds of our own Why should the son of the nobleman, not real superiority, and the possibility of main-share the advantage now bestowed on the taining, and even increasing our greatness, children of his servant, of his workman, of to any extent consistent with human imper- the poorest of his neighbours? Why should fection; if we have, in the two preceding not Christian instruction be made a promichapters, anticipated what might be our ul-nent article in the education of those who timate degradation, whilst in the first we are to govern and to legislate, as well as of had pointed at the heights to which we may those who are to work and to serve? Why reasonably aspire; let us not think it unwor- are these most important beings, the very thy our attention to inquire how we can alone answer our high destination, revive what we have lost, attain what more is within our reach, or having attained it, how we may perpetuate the inestimable blessing, We have at length, though with a slow and reluctant movement, begun to provide a national education for the children of the poor. Prejudice held out against it with its accustomed pertinacity,-knowledge would only make them idle, ignorance would pre- If we have begun to instruct the poor

beings in this enlightened country whose immortal interests are the most neglected?

The Apostle tells us, that he who provides not for his own house has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' If this be true of temporal, what shall be said of him who neglects to make for his own' a spiritual provision? Does not he far more emphatically deny that faith' which is violated even in the other inferior case?

with a view to check the spirit of insubordi- likely to produce a character not unqualifination, that spirit requires little less suppres-ed for the best services to society; for adsion in our own families. In all ranks it is vancement in life, for fitness for the most the prevailing evil of the present day. The useful employments, for adorning the most diminished obedience of children to parents, honourable situations; for we do not recomof servants to masters, of subjects to sove- mend such a religion as would make Ascereigns, all spring from one common root-tics, as would abstract men from the busian abatement of the reverence to the autho-ness or the duties of life, or from the true enrity of God. Fathers should therefore keep joyments of society. There seems, indeed, up in their offspring, as long as possible, a little necessity for guarding against evils of dependence on themselves, without which which we see no great danger. they will gradually shake off their depen- Gentlemen should be scholars; liberal dence on their Maker. Independence of learning need not interfere with religious every kind, as it is the prevailing wish, so it acquirements, unless it be so conducted as is the most alarming.danger. With filial to leave no time for its cultivation, unless it obedience, obedience to Divine authority cause them to consider religion as an object will become connected; but the muzzle of of inferior regard. But no human learning domestic restraint shaken off, there will be ought to keep religious instruction in the no controul of any kind left. Might not a back ground, so as to render it an incidenmore exact Christian institution help to ar- tal, a subordinate part in the education of a rest the same spirit which has, within a few Christian gentleman. years, so frequently broken out in our, in Some apology might be made for the namany respects, excellent public schools? tives of a neighbouring kingdom for their We mean not altogether, to censure the ho- contempt of religion, from the load of absurd nourable seminaries. Do not the youth car- and superstitious observances which degrade ry thither, rather than acquire there, this it. Though even they might have discovewant of subordination? Is it not too often red, under these disadvantages, much that previously fostered at home by the habits of is good; for they have had writers who luxury, the taste for expense, the unrestrained indulgences, the unsubdued tempers, which so ill prepare them to submit to moral discipline? Laxity of manners and of principles act reciprocally: they are alternately cause and effect.

yield to none in elevation of sentiment, in loftiness of genius, and sublimity of devotion.* Yet the labours of these excellent men have left the character of their religion unaltered. But we have no such excuse to plead for the contempt or neglect of religion. Here, Tender parents are, indeed grieved at the Christianity presents herself to us neither indications of evil dispositions in their childishonoured, degraded, nor disfigured. Here dren; but even worthy people do not always she is set before us in all her original purity; study the human character: they are too we see her in her whole consistent characmuch disposed to believe this budding vice ter, in all her fair and just proportions, as but accidental defect-a failing which time will cure. Time cures nothing; time only inveterates, only exasperates, where religion is not called in as a corrective. It is in vain to hope to tame the headstrong violence of the passions by a few moral sentences; the curb is too weak for the natural ferocity of the animal. If the most religious educa- If every English gentleman did but seri tion does not always answer the end, what ously reflect, how much the future moral end is an education, in which religion does prosperity of his country depends on the not predominate, likely to produce? How is education he may at this moment-be giving the Christian character likely to be formed to his son, even if his paternal feelings did without the strict inculcation of religious not stimulate his zealous endeavours, his principles, without the powerful discipline patriotic would. of religious and moral habits?

she came from the hands of her Divine Author. We see her as she has been completely rescued from that encumbering load under which she had so long groaned; delivered from her long bondage, by the labours of our blessed reformers, and handed down to us unmutilated and undefaced.

May the unworthy writer, who loves her country with an ardour which the superior worth of that country justifies; who, during • What has been said here and elsewhere of France,"

Parents are naturally and honourably anxious about advancing the interest of their sons; but they do not always extend this anxiety to their best interests. They pre- and of the religion of France, has been said 'more in pare them for the world, but neglect to pre-sorrow than in anger,' and with the single view of caupare them for eternity. We recal our tion to our own country. However we deprecate the words; they do not even make the best pre- past, we shall still cherish the hope, that having witnessparation for the world. Their affection is ed the horrors of a political, we may one day hail the warm, but is short-sighted; for surely that dawn of a moral revolution. A virtuous King, and an principle which is the root of all virtuous ac-improving government, leave us not without hope that tion, of all the great qualities of the heart, of integrity, of sober-mindedness, of patience, of self-denial, of veracity, of fortitude, of perseverance in a right pursuit, is

this fair part of the globe may yet rise in those essentials without which a country can never be truly great. May they eventually improve, in that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation!'