TRUE PHILOSOPHY. Blest as you are with the good testimony of an approving conscience, and happy in an intimate communion with the all-pure and all-merciful God, these trifling concerns ought not to molest you; nay, were the tide of adversity to turn strong against you, even were your friends to forsake you, and abject poverty to stare you in the face, you ought to be abundantly thankful to God for his mercies to you; you ought to consider yourself still as rich, yea, to look around you, and say, I am far happier than the sons of men. This is a system of philosophy which, for myself, I shall not only preach, but practise. We are here for nobler purposes than to waste the fleeting moments of our lives in lamentations and wailings over troubles which, in their widest extent, do but affect the present state, and which, perhaps, only regard our personal ease and prosperity. Make me an outcast-a beggar; place me a barefooted pilgrim on the top of the Alps or the Pyrenees; and I should have wherewithal to sustain the spirit within me, in the reflection that all this was but as for a moment, and that a period would come when wrong, and injury, and trouble should be no more. Are we to be so utterly enslaved by habit and association that we shall spend our lives in anxiety and bitter care, only that we may find a covering for our bodies, or the means of assuaging hunger? For what else is an anxiety after the world? ADVICE TO THE YOUNG. Letter to Mr. B. Maddock. I would therefore exhort you earnestly-you who are yet unskilled in the ways of the world-to beware on what object you concentrate your hopes. Pleasures may allure-pride or ambition may stimulate; but their fruits are hollow and deceitful, and they afford no sure, no solid satisfaction. You are placed on the earth in a state of probation-your continuance here will be, at the longest, a very short period; and when you are called from hence you plunge into an eternity, the completion of which will be in correspondence to your past life, unutterably happy or inconceiva bly miserable. Your fate will probably depend on your early pursuits-it will be these which will give the turn to your character and to your pleasures. I beseech you, therefore, with a meek and lowly spirit, to read the pages of that book which the wisest and best of men have acknowledged to be the word of God. You will there find a rule of moral conduct such as the world never had any idea of before its divulgation. If you covet earthly happiness, it is only to be found in the path you will find there laid down; and I can confidently promise you, in a life of simplicity and purity, a life passed in accordance with the divine word, such substantial bliss, such unruffled peace, as is nowhere else to be found. All other schemes of earthly pleasure are fleeting and unsatisfactory. They all entail upon them repentance and bitterness of thought. This alone endureth for ever; this alone embraces equally the present and the future; this alone can arm a man against every calamity can alone shed the balm of peace over that scene of life when pleasures have lost their zest, and the mind can no longer look forward to the dark and mysterious future. Above all, beware of the ignis fatuus of false philosophy: that must be a very defective system of ethics which will not bear a man through the most trying stage of his existence; and I know of none that will do it but the Christian. ANNA SEWARD, 1747-1809. ANNA SEWARD, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Seward, of Litchfield, was born in the year 1747. In her very early childhood, she showed a great passion for poetry; but her mother, who had no taste for it, and who had a dread lest her daughter should be a "literary lady," persuaded her husband to forbid Anna from pursuing the natural bent of her genius. Poetry, therefore, was prohibited; and, to her praise, she sacrificed her own strong and decided tastes to the inclination of her parents. At the age of seventeen, she lost her only sister, a bereavement which she felt most keenly, and which she subsequently made the subject of an elegy. The blank in her domestic society was, however, in a degree supplied by the attachment of Miss Honora Sneyd, then residing in her father's family, whom she often mentions in her poetry. When of age to select her own studies, she became a professed votary of the Muse, and she was known by the name of the "Swan of Litchfield." Among her first publications were "An Elegy to the Memory of Captain Cook,” and “A Monody on the Death of Major Andre." From the nature of the subjects, they enjoyed great popularity for the time, but are now very little read, though Sir Walter Scott says that "they convey a high impression of the original powers of their author." In 1799, she published a "Collection of Original Sonnets," which contain some beautiful examples of that species of composition. After this she did not publish any large poem; yet she continued to pour forth her poetical effusions upon such occasions as interested her feelings, or excited her imagination. She died on the 23d of March, 1809, having bequeathed, by will, to Sir Walter Scott, with whom for many years she had corresponded, the copyright of her poems and letters, with a request that he would superintend their publication. She was the object of Major Andre's attachment, and afterward became Mrs. Edgeworth, the mother of the distinguished novelist, Maria Edgeworth. 2 Read the Biographical Preface of Sir Walter Scott to his edition of Miss Seward's Poet cal Works, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1810. Of her character and her poetry, a distinguished critic' thus speaks: "She was endowed with considerable genius, and with an ample portion of that fine enthusiasm which sometimes may be mistaken for it; but her taste was far from good, and her numerous productions (a few excepted) are disfigured by florid ornament and elaborate magnificence." SONNET. December Morning, 1782. I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light, Winter's pale dawn; and as warm fires illume The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold Wisdom's rich page: 0 hours! more worth than gold, SONG. From thy waves, stormy Lannow, I fly; From thy rocks, that are lash'd by their tide; Yet lonely and rude as the scene, Her smile to that scene could impart A charm, that might rival the bloom of the vale- Now the blasts of the winter come on, But they rose in the days that are flown! From thy rocks, stormy Lannow, I fly! Lo! the wings of the sea-fowl are spread And these caves will afford them a gloomy retreat Like them, to the home of my youth, Like them, to its shades I retire; Rev. Alexander Dyce, in his "Specimens of British Poetesses." Receive me, and shield my vex'd spirit, ye groves, To thy rocks, stormy Lannow, adieu! THE GRAVE OF YOUTH. When life is hurried to untimely close, In the years of crystal eyes and burnish'd hair, Social, or individual!-no glad step Of welcome friend, with more intenseness listen'd In unpierced darkness and in black oblivion. CHARLOTTE SMITH, 1749-1800. MRS. CHARLOTTE SMITH, the daughter of Nicholas Turner, Esq., of Stoke House, Surrey, was born in King street, St. James' Square, London, May 4, 1749. Her father possessed another house at Bignor Park, on the banks of the Arun, where she passed many of her earliest years, of which she speaks in the following beautiful stanza : Then, from thy wildwood banks, Aruna, roving, Thy thymy downs with sportive steps I sought, "How enchanting must have been the day-dreams of a mind thus endowed, in the early season of youth and hope! Amid scenery which had nursed the fancies of Otway and of Collins, she trod on sacred ground: every charm of Nature seems to have made the most lively and distinct impression on her very vivid The Arun is a river of Sussex county, on the southern coast of England. mind; and her rich imagination must have peopled it with beings of another world." From a very early age she had an insatiable thirst for reading, and devoured almost every book that fell in her way. From her twelfth to her fifteenth year, her father resided occasionally in London, and she was, while still a child, introduced into society. She lost her mother when quite young, and, when her father was about to form a second marriage, the friends of the young poetess made efforts, most foolishly, to "establish her in life," as it is called, and induced her to accept the hand of a Mr. Smith, the son and partner of a rich West India merchant. She was then but sixteen, and her husband twenty-one years of age. It was a most ill-advised and rash union, and productive of the most unhappy results. The first years of her marriage she lived in London, which was not at all congenial to her tastes. Subsequently her father-in-law purchased for her husband, who was negligent of his business in the city, a farm in Hampshire. Here, if possible, he did worse, keeping too large an establishment, and entering into injudicious and wild speculations. She foresaw the storm that was gathering, but had no power to prevent it. In 1776, Mrs. Smith's father died. A few years after this event, her husband's affairs were brought to a crisis, and he was imprisoned for debt. With great fortitude and devoted constancy she accompanied him, and by her untiring exertions was enabled to procure his release. During his confinement, she collected her sonnets and other poems for publication. They were much admired, and passed through no less than eleven editions. In the following letter, she describes, most graphically,— HER HUSBAND'S LIBERATION. It was on the 2d day of July that we commenced our journey. For more than a month I had shared the restraint of my husband, in a prison, amidst scenes of misery, of vice, and even of terror. Two attempts had, since my last residence among them, been made by the prisoners to procure their liberation, by blowing up the walls of the house. Throughout the night appointed for this enterprise, I remained dressed, watching at the window, and expecting every moment to witness contention and bloodshed, or perhaps be overwhelmed by the projected explosion. After such scenes, and such apprehensions, how deliciously soothing to my wearied spirits was the soft, pure air of the summer's morning, breathing over the dewy grass, as (having slept one night on the road) we passed over the heaths of Surrey! My native hills at length burst upon my view! I beheld once more the fields where I had passed my happiest days, and amidst the perfumed turf with which one of those fields was strown, perceived with delight the beloved group from whom I had been so long divided, and for whose fate my affections were ever anxious. 3 Read a most genial sketch of her life in Sir Egerton Brydges' "Censura Literaria," viii. 239; and another in his "Imaginative Biography." |