voured the subversion of my principles and my morals.-To accomplish this scheme, more actors were necessary: he therefore introduced, and warmly recommended me to his associates, who had before received a proper account of me to direct their behaviour in my presence.-These all united to initiate me in the gay amusements of the town, to intoxicate me with pleasure, and to accustom me to folly and dissipation.— Company, and good company, they told me, was absolutely necessary

self in his proper colours, I should start back with terror at the hideous appearance, he made his approaches slow, but sure; imperceptible, but effectual. Sometimes he would largely descant (and oh! how ingenuously) on the excellence and dignity of human nature. Sometimes he chose for his topic the native beauty and subliinity of virtue, the natural odiousness and deformity of vice, and the little necessity there was that one should be enforced, or the other prohibited by an external law, since they were for him who would know the world; such in their own nature, that no obligation could be superadded duly to and a constant attendance upon the respect them, superior to the natural theatres was indispensable for him sense of every unprejudiced mind. who would acquire the justness of Sometimes he would vehemently de- pronunciation, a taste for fine writclaim on the superstitions and the ing, elegance of language, and the With specious prejudices of mankind-the irrational beauties of poetry. absurdities of the enthusiast-the illi- pretences, and with plausible reasonberal tenaciousness of the dogmatist-ings, they prevailed on me to accom the narrow and confined ideas of the pany them to all places of public revarious sects and parties of mankind, sort; and by degrees, by impercepand then with what applause would tible degrees, they fully prepared me he crown the present philosophic for every species of vice. While they were thus conducting me in the flowage, in which men had dared to spurn the ignominious claim of authority, ery paths of pleasure, they allowed me no time for reflection, but tortured and assert their native liberty and freedom of enquiry.-On these, and their invention to entertain me with a constant succession of amusements, similar topics, his reasonings were new to me, nor was I capable of dis- leading me from the assembly to the cerning the pernicious tendency of theatre, from the theatre to the opera house, and from thence to every his harangues.-His discourses were ingenious; they carried the appear- place which afforded the least proance of sublimity, and liberality of spect of entertainment.-When l'entered the assembly, or took my seat thought; nor did he make any open attack on the received doctrines of at the opera, what language can describe the sensations I experienced? religion; he left them to consequences. Can it then be a subject of The smiling fair, the splendid habits, admiration that I, an unexperienced the sparkling lustres, the harmony of and an unguarded youth, innocent music, the motion of the dance, reand unsuspecting, fell a victim to his laxed the nerves of virtue, and dissuperior and watchful power and ad- solved me in a soft effeminate inabidress? More effectually to debauch lity to exercise the severer powers my principles, he directed me to of my mind.-Tuned to harmony, many of those writers, who were in my soul felt the efficacy of music, the same interests, and whose works and became totally obedient to its were calculated to promote the same softest and most melting strains: design.-I began with the elegant, wholly enervated, passive, and unrethe engaging Shaftesbury, and termi- sisting, I sunk supine, and resigned nated my studies of this kind, with myself to the impetus of every awakened passion. Oh! could I Hobbes and Spinoza -That all his hopes of success might not depend speak loud as an archangel's trump, my voice should echo through the on my want of penetration, he now nations of the world:-Fly, ye young, called in dissipation and pleasure to for ever fly these fatal shores, nor his assistance, and at once endeaever listen to the syren's song But not to be tedious, I found myself inseparably attached to my companions, who at length laid aside re4 H

*The above was written thirty years since, or some modern philosophers would, doubtless, have been added to the list.

VOL. I.

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י!

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to believe that you was then sincere, differ in these respects, it cannot bễ that you spoke the real dictates of a subject for surprise, that I decline your mind at that time, though you renewing those professious, with which have since withdrawn your affec- I prematurely troubled you. I tion. Yes, you love no more!-My frankly acknowledge that there was own fond heart laments your incon- a time when you were not indifferstancy for its own sake; but my whole ent to me; but at that time my soul joins in the mournful lamenta- powers were contracted, my ideas tion on your account, since you vio- were few, imperfect, and confined, late so many sacred engagements, agreeable to the limited sphere in break so many solemn vows, and in- which I ranged in the pursuit of volve yourself in so much guilt. knowledge.-Swayed by the prejuNear as your peace and happiness dices of education, and influenced by Jie to my heart, how shall I rejoice if all that the priest and the nurse had you can discover any method to ex-taught,' I trod in the same narrow culpate, or at least to extenuate, your path with the uncultivated vulgar, fault. For my own part, all I shall nor ever thought it lawful to take say is, that I have entirely resigned one step out of the common road.myself to bitter reflection, and un- While such were my sentiments and hoping sorrow. As I do not purpose my conduct, it was little astonishing to trouble you in future, may I now that I regarded you with some sort be permitted to expostulate with you of admiration; as it is, now I view on your present conduct? I am not things in a very different light, that led by conjecture, or by uncertain re- I wonder at my weakness in so doport, when I say, I know you cannot ing-I own, I blush to think, that I justify it to your own conscience: so long continued sunk in the depths how then can you act in opposition of superstition, although at the same to the dictates of that faithful moni- time I cannot but express my satisfactor, to the remonstrances of that tion at finding myself placed in a new guardian of your virtue? Once you world, and in being capable of viewtrod and delighted in the paths of re- ing things in a different point of ligion, and surely nothing but a fatal light. I rejoice in being capable of delusion can have prevailed on you discerning, that the terrors of an to forsake them.-I need not inform hereafter, the Acheron and the Styx you that happiness is inseparably con- of the poets, the paradise of Mahonected with innocence, and that, if met, and the future state of the Chrisyou forfeit the latter, you cannot tians, are equally the children of imahope in treading the giddy maze of gination, and the illusive chimeras voluptuous pleasure to possess the of a disordered brain; and that they former.--Oh! let me entreat you to are all the offspring of enthusiasm, or consider from whence you are fallen, the instruments of priestcraft, to keep and repent.-Possibly I may never the world in subjection.-While my see you more; perhaps I shall never ideas of things are thus different more be favoured with the least in- from your's, it is by no means strange stance of your esteem; yet I shall that an intimate connection can no ever be concerned for your happiness, longer subsist between us; and this I and it will engage my warmest wishes, apprehended to be a full answer to even in preference to my own. In your complaints.-But really I must fluenced by this sincere regard, I say, that no professions I ever made must once more earnestly entreat afford a just foundation for the freeyou to reflect on the inevitable con- doms you take, in pretending to resequences of your present conduct.prove my present, or to direct my Adieu." p. 84-88. future conduct.-Such liberties, I must own, appear unwarrantable, and as little becoming you as they are agreeable to me; for I now inform you I stand in no need of a tutor, but esteem myself perfectly capable of directing my own conduct-1 nevertheles remain your well-wisher, PHILARIO.' p. 89-92.

To which Philario replied.

"MADAM,

"I am persuaded you are entirely of my opinion, in thinking that a similarity of sentiment, as well as of disposition, ought to lead the way to every matrimonial connection; and therefore as you and I very widely

6

tives influenced the writer of this epistle thus to trouble you, know that at the moment in which you will

tant of earth.-Such measures has she 'taken, that it will not reach your hands till by your unkindness, inconstancy, and apostacy from the paths of virtue, she is descended to the silent mansions of the grave.'

"When I had read these lines, unable longer to sustain the weight of such accumulated miseries, my senses forsook me, and I instantly sunk down in a swoon: nor was it till after a considerable time that the assiduities of my surrounding and astonished friends re-called my fitting spirits, and retrieved me from the arms of death. By their sedulous care I was restored, but a delirium immediately seized my brain, and without intermission retained its seat for the space of several days.-At length nature, exhausted by such strong and long continued agitations, became too weak any longer, in so violent a manner, to exert herself, and I recovered the exercise of my rational faculties: my reason returned; but alas! it only returned to render me more sensible of my misery.

Philario is represented to have continued to tread in the same destructive paths for about six months after he had written the above-men-peruse it, she is no longer an inhabitioned letter, till, in consequence of a midnight debauch, he says, "I was seized with a violent fever, which in a few days brought me to the gates of death, and presented to my astonished view the terrors of an offended Deity, and the dreadful punishment prepared for such sinners as myself. Instantly conscience, arrayed in all its horrors, flew in my face, and pierced my despairing soul with inconceivable agonies. In a moment I forgot all my sophisms, and all those specious arguments against the immortality of the soul, the existence and the justice of the Deity, of which I had so vainly boasted in the day of health and prosperity.-Too deeply were these doctrines imprinted on my breast; too strong was the evidence arising from my present sensations to permit me for a moment to doubt their truth.-Oh! with what pangs did they now rend my bosom! How often did I wish they were not realities; but ah! I wished in vain.I could not presume to look up to the Most High; nor dared I offer up one petition to his throne, but in the utmost agony lay tossing on my bed.Sometimes my ingratitude to Clarinda, and my breach of so many solemn vows and protestations, distressed my soul: and sometimes my apostacy, my profanity, and notoriously flagitious conduct, filled me with anguish. Reflections, sometimes, on the felicity I had once enjoyed, at other times on the happiness of which I might now and for ever have been the possessor, had it not been for my own folly, drove me to distraction. Frequently was I tempted by some violent means to put an end to my existence, but the dread of the eternal punishment which awaited me in the world of spirits restrained my hands: and now, as if my misery was not complete, or as if there was something yet wanting to render me exquisitely wretched, a letter was brought me in one of the intervals of my disorder, which, on casting my eye on the superscription, I knew to be from Clarinda.-Breaking the seal with apprehension, yet with eagerness, I read these words:

To 'convince you that no interested mo

A bitter change, severer for severe !' When I recollected what had happened, I earnestly requested to be permitted to read the remainder of the letter, which had been productive of such consequences, to which my friends at length, but not without reluctance, consented. It thus proceeded.

"Yes, Philario, from the borders of the grave I now address you! and surely that solemn circumstance may be expected to add wait to my exhortations. When you peruse these lines (if, indeed, you will think them worthy your perusal) I shall be totally divested of all that care and solicitude which now possess, or rather prey on my heart, and shall for ever be delivered from every thing that might interrupt celestial bliss.-No more will anxious sorrow; no more will piercing grief disturb my repose; but ineffable joy and satisfaction will for ever reign in my breast. Yet while I continue an inhabitant of this globe, I cannot forbear attempting your recovery, or expressing my auxious wishes for your restoration. I