though it was full of unsuspected leaven of selfrighteousness.

All my good and evil moods and fits, however, were soon swallowed up in the master passion of love; and of a very refined and exalted kind of love, when considered in a mere natural and moral light.

*

As my conduct in the course of my idolatry (for all my affections were idolatrous at that time) was quite correspondent to the general. romanticity of my character, I apprehend it, will be best to say very little on the subject. Being now persuaded (in 1794) that it happened, and was overruled by a good Providence for my good, so it was of such a singular nature on my part, as not to induce any permanent connexion; but only to purify my heart for a little season, previous to my launching into, the world and its various dangers; and to make me feel by the most lively contrast, which also left me without excuse, how superior were the attractions of a pure, innocent, and genuine love (however romantic and platonic), to those vile attachments which I was afterwards to form.

My affection for this young lady had the character of the most tender friendship, heightened no doubt by the difference of sex, but completely that of knight, errantry, or Quixotic romance. During the three years that I adored her, I do not believe that I once ventured

*

upon the profanation of pressing her hand; neither did I ever descend to any thing so gross and indelicate (as I esteemed it) as to make a declaration of love. But my most animated attentions, my readiness to do or suffer any thing for her sake, were so obvious, and so obsequiously, so idolatrously devoted, that it was impossible for her not to see and understand them. In short, I then considered an amiable virgin, as an image of divinity, and her favourable and enchanting smiles as my heaven.

Beyond this, which I actually possessed, I thought of nothing! I desired nothing! Marriage, in any other view than that of perpetuating the bliss I did then enjoy, I cared not about. My soul doated upon her soul, as I saw it through the medium of her body! But in the course of time, I found that all her family, herself not excepted, supposed that matrimony was my object. This was a mistake; but yet, when it was brought under my consideration, I found that it was necessary that I should examine the subject.

*

The more I reflected the more I was confounded. How could a young fellow just come from school, and expecting to go out a cadet to India, think of marrying? Besides, her mother had forbid me the house. We had no fortune,

either she or I. A stolen marriage would be

madness; and what was to become of my military ambition? Could I thus begin my career at the point where it ought to end? How could I maintain a wife, who had no maintenance for myself? How could we offend all our friends? In short, the more I debated the matter, the more impossible it appeared to be.

I was relieved from these very troublesome and overwhelming thoughts by the absence of my idol, who, with her whole family, went to visit some relations in a distant county. In the mean time my sister returned from abroad, with her husband, a post captain in the royal navy; and the joy of meeting and residing some time with her, whom I had not seen for many years, tended greatly to banish the image of my idol. This passion, however, was much weakened by my discovering that she had no respect for romance, or platonic love; and it received a fatal shock during my residence in London. There I formed new acquaintances, who introduced me to the theatres, and, before long, to some of their female friends in Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

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These dangerous connexions defiled my mind immediately, and, like a filthy garment, soiled and spotted the clean linen, in which religious affections had for a little while clothed and purified my spirit...

But I return to my sister and her husband.

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They both declared that I was a young fellow of too much spirit to be made a writer of, and that I ought to be nothing but a soldier or a sailor. They advised me to say boldly to my old guardian, that I would be a soldier, and nothing else. Much persuasion was not necessary to induce me to do what was so accordant to my own wishes; and therefore when I returned to my guardian's house, and he called upon me as formerly, to attend him in his circuits of solicitation on my behalf, I told him very plainly, coolly, and firmly, that I was determined to be a soldier, and therefore that all this trouble was useless, and that I must decline going any

more.

At first he appeared to be as thunderstruck at this unexpected opposition, the first I believe that he had ever openly experienced from me; he then tried to overawe me; but in vain, for his day was passed. He was then unable to flog or cane me as formerly; and he had ex"hibited the foibles of his character to me in such strong lights, that I considered him as nothing more than the most weak, inconsistent, and ridiculous creature in the world. Perceiving, therefore, that he could not shake my resolution, he gave up the point, observing, that I was certainly destined to be food for powder; and that if a person was resolved to be a fool, there was no preventing it. But he was from

the above-mentioned circumstance, and many others, so convinced him that his plans for me were impracticable, that he went directly to town, and got me nominated a cadet for India that very day; and also brought me home Muller's Works, and some other military authors, among whom Marshal Saxe and the King of Prussia were of course my favourites.

When on his return he informed me what he had done, and gave me the precious volumes, which to me appeared to be inestimable treasures, I then almost for the first time beheld him with much pleasure. Great and sincere thanks I gave him upon this occasion, and received his exhortations to study the books, with compla-" cency, and a desire to comply with them; a circumstance altogether novel and singular between us.

The above seems to show clearly, how important it is to consider the particular turn and inclination of boys, in the line of study which we propose to them, with a view to a profession. Gold, iron, lead, silver, &c. must not all be worked and purified precisely in the same way*.

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I beg my Reader's pardon for being so often figurative, but it is a habit contracted from the study of the Holy Scriptures. Thus St. Paul says, 1 Cor. iii. Ye are God's "husbandry, ye are God's building." Again, other... "foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is "Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this founda

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