This wretch with prayers and vows the Gods

adores,

Uplifts his useless hands

And aid from heav'n, from heav'n unseen

implores,

DRYDEN.

I cannot be allowed to take up your time, and to produce any more paffages; these are sufficient to shew the fuperiority of the divine poet, but I must not conclude without remarking, that the best poets, in our language, have borrowed from his description, Shakespear evidently has it in view, when he makes Othello say,

O my foul's joy,

If after every tempeft, come fuch calms,
May the winds blow, till they have weaken'd
death ;

And let the labouring bark climb hills of feas,
Olympus high and duck again as low,
As hell's from heav'n.

And Milton, in Paradise Loft, Book VII. ver. 210. draws from the fame fublime original :

Outrageous as a fea, dark, wafteful, wild,
Up from the bottom torn by furious winds
And furging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's height, and with the center mix the
pole.

If these remarks fhall be agreeable to you, and ferve at all to recommend the facred writings, it will be a pleasure to

SIR,

Your conftant reader and admirer,

T. S.

NUMBER LIII.

History of a MAGDALEN.

In a Letter to the VISITOR.

If all her former woes were not enough,
Look on her now; behold her, where she wanders,
Hunted to death, diftrefs'd on ev'ry fide,

With no one hand to help: and tell me then,
If ever mifery were known like hers!

Let my tears thank you, for I cannot speak;

And if I cou'd

ROWE.

Words were not made to vent fuch thoughts as mine.

SIR,

DRYDEN.

HOUGH an unhappy perfon, like my

Tfelf, (who, by my wilful tranfgreffions,

have forfeited all right to the regard and protec

E 4

tion

tion of society) can have no reason to expect the leaft favourable attention: yet, as I perceive, in fome former papers, you have admitted the narratives of women involved in the fame miferable guilt with myself; I am emboldened to write, though with a trembling hand, and to request you to make public what I write; not on my own account: no, alas, I am too worthlefs and inconfiderable to trouble the world with any concerns of mine; and indeed the world is nothing to me: for delivered as I am from its pollutions, and fafely landed in this happy harbour, my utmost wish, my most fervent defire is never more to enter upon its dangerous billows, but to end my life in this blessed mansion, dedicated to God, and to the best duties I am able to perform. But, gratitude, Sir, and the moft tender fenfe of the ineftimable bleffings I enjoy, engage me to wish, that you will not pafs over this my weak effay. I earnestly defire to declare my obligations, greater indeed than tongue can tell, or heart can conceive; and to give the world fome faint idea, from my particular cafe, of the excellence of the Magdalen Charity, and of the inexpreffible, the more than fatherly beneficence of its humane and generous conductors.

I have been, Sir, by the goodness of a preferving God, an happy member of this fociety, an inhabitant. of this houfe, almost from the

day;

day; the day ever to be bleffed, when the angels of mercy, by the hands of the worthy governors, first opened these doors to the daughters of penitence and distress! They had not been opened a month, before they received me; an object certainly of their proper compaffion, if distress and anguish of body and mind have any claim to compaffion and greater diftrefs, more afflictive anguish can scarce be imagined than mine: distress duly merited, the just reward of my crimes; anguifh, though great, by no means equal to the extremity of my guilt, by no means answerable to the aggravated horror of my tranfgreffions.

For I will freely confefs, that I had not been a prostitute only, but to enhance my offence, a prostitute adultrefs! Oh Sir, while I write, the fharp ftings of upbraiding confcience wound me to the quick, and the tears of fhame fall from my eyes. For adultery-fure it is the blackest crime, or at least so it appears to me,-an offence against God, whofe holy command forbids it, an offence againft the bleffed Redeemer, who confirms that command-an offence against the divine spirit—against yourself —against your husband — a double guilt, in which you partake of another's fin-how complicated a crime, and justly held fuch (as I am told) in all ages and nations! - Yet of this have I been guilty and had it not been for be comfortable promifes of

-

the inestimable Gofpel, which offers pardon to the moft heinous fins, on our fincere repentance, promises applied to the alleviation of my forrow, with so much zeal and tenderness, by a worthy clergyman,-I am fure my mind would have been utterly loft in despair! But now, through the grace of him, who accepted to pardon the denying Peter, who difmiffed the adultrefs wife with a go, and fin no more; I, who am not lefs guilty than either, have hopes, that the abundance of his goodness will be shewed alfo

unto me a finner !

But, Sir, for this unspeakable bleffing, how am I bound to return thanks for the kind provifion of this house, to which I owe, under God, my preservation from immediate and inevitable destruction. For, furely, the hand of a good providence cannot be more visible in any thing, than in my rescue. May I never be fo unwife as to forget; may I always think of it, with thankfulness and joy!

My parents left me early to the care of an aunt, and to the difficulties of the world: And very young was I introduced to an acquaintance with the greatest difficulties, as well as the vileft crimes, of this world. For old though I am in forrow and in fin, I am but young in years: I had but just seen my feventeenth year, when I was admitted into the Magdalen-Houfe! I was fcarcely fifteen, when won by the addreffes of a neighbouring