decline. Increafing the obligations which are laid upon fuch minds, only increases their burden: they feel themfelves unable to repay the immenfity of their debt: and their bankrupt hearts are taught a latent refentment at the hand that is ftretched out with offers of fervice and relief. Gold/mith.

FLIAL PILTY.

HAVE I then no tears for thee, my father!
Can I forget thy cares, from helpless years
Thy tenderness for me? An eye still beam'd
With love? A brow that never knew a frown?
Nor a harsh word thy tongue? Shall I for thefe
Repay thy ftooping venerable age

With thame, difquiet, anguish, and dishonour?
It must not be!-Thou firit of angels, come,
Sweet Filial Piety, and firm my breaft!
Yes, let one daughter to her fate fubmit,
Be nobly wretched, but hather happy.—Thomson.
-PR'YTHEE, Trim, quoth my father,-What doft
thou mean, by "honouring thy father and thy mother?"

Allowing them, an't pleafe your honour, three half-pence a day out of my pay when they grow old.—And didst thou do that. Trim? faid Torick.He did, indeed, replied my uncle Toby -Then. Trim, faid Forick, fpringing out of his chair, and taking the Corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it, Corporal Trim, than if thou hadit had a hand in the Talmud itfelf-Sterne.

FASHION.

THERE are few enterprifes fo hopelefs as contests with the fafbion, in which the opponents are not only made confident by their numbers, and ftrong by their union, but are hardened by contempt of their antagonist, whom they always look upon as a wretch of low notions, contracted views, mean converfation, and narrow fortune; who envies the elevations which he cannot reach; who would gladly embitter the happinefs which his inelegance or indigence deny him to partake; and who has no other end in his advice, than to revenge his own mortification, by hindering thofe, whom their birth and tafle have fet above him, from the enjoyment of their fuperiority, and bringing them down to a level with himfelf.-Rambler. NOTHING exceeds in ridicule, no doubt,.

A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out;

Fair of America.

His paffion for abfurdity's fo ftrong,
He cannot bear a rival in the wrong.

Tho' wrong the mode, comply. More fenfe is fhewn
In wearing others' follies than your own.
If what is out of fashion moft you prize,
Methinks you should endeavor to be wife.-Young.
BE not the first by whom the new is tried;
Be not the laft, to lay the old afide.

FAIR of AMERICA.

YE blooming daughters of the western world,
Whofe graceful locks by artlefs hands are curl'd,
Whofe limbs of fymmetry, and fnowy breaft,
Allure to love, in fimple neatnefs dreft;
Beneath the veil of modefty, who hide
The boat of nature and of virgin pride-
(For beauty needs no meretricious art
To find a paffage to the op'ning heart)
Oh make your charms ev'n in my fong admir'd,
My fong immortal by your charms infpir'd.

Though lavish nature fheds each various grace,
That forms the figure, or that decks the face-
Though health, with innocence, and glee, the while
Dance in their eye, and wanton in their smile-
Tho' mid the lilly's white, unfolds the rofe,
As on their cheek the bud of beauty blows,
Spontaneous bloffom of the tranfient fluth,
Which glows and reddens to a fcarlet blush,
What time the maid, unread in flames and darts,
Firft feels of love the palpitating farts,
Feels from the heart, life's quicken'd currents glide,
Her bofom heaving with the bounding tide—
Though fweet their lips, their features more than fair—
Though curls luxuriant of untortur'd hair
Grow long, and add unutterable charms,
While ev'ry look enraptures and alarms;
Yet fomething ftill beyond th' exterior form,
With goodneis fraught, with animation warm,
Infpires their actions; dignifies their mien;
Gilds ev'ry hour; and beautifies each fcene.
'Tis thofe perfections of fuperior kind,
The moral beauties which adorn the mind:

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'Tis thofe enchanting founds, mellifluous, hung In words of truth and kindnefs on their tongue'Tis delicacy gives their charms new worth, And calls the loveliness of beauty forth;

'Tis the mild influence beaming from their eyes, Like vernal fun-beams, round cœrulian skies; Bright emanations of the spotlefs foul,

Which warm, and cheer, and vivify the whole.-Humphreys.

FALSE ALARMS.

THE proud fupporters of tyranny, in which they hope to partake, have always ufed falfe alarms. falfe plots, cunningly. contrived nicknames, and watchwords, to fet the unthinking people against those who were promoting their greatest good.

When Chrift began to preach, we read, in the feventh chapter of St. Luke, that the multitude and the publicans. heard him; but the fcribes and the pharifees rejected the counsel of God towards them. They, like all perfons of fimilar temper and rank, flourishing by abufes, could not bear innovation.

.

The moft powerful argument they ufed against him was this queftion: Have any of the rulers and the pharifes believed in him? In modern times, the queftion would have been, have any perfons of fashion and diftinction given countenance to him? Does my lord-or my lady-or Sir Harry go to hear him preach? Or is he fomebody whom nobody knows?Such is the language of the fpirit of defpotifm, in all times and countries.-Spirit of Defpotifm.

Y

GENTLENESS of ADDRESS.

THE fofteft and gentleft addrefs to the erroneous, is the best way to convince them of their mistake. Sometimes 'tis neceffary to reprefent to your opponent, that he is not far off from the truth, and that you would fain draw him a little nearer to it; commend and establish whatever he says that is juft and true, as our bleffed Saviour treated the young scribe, when he anfwered well concerning the two great commandments; Thou art not far," fays our Lord, "from the "kingdom of heaven," Mark xii. 34. Imitate the mildness and conduct of the bleffed Jefus.

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Come as near to your opponent as you can in all your propofitions, and yield to him as much as you dare, in a confiftence with truth and juftice.

'Tis a very great and fatal mistake in perfons who attempt to convince or reconcile others to their party, when they make

Gentleness of Addrefs.-Gallantry.-Gentleman.-Glory. 115

the difference appear as wide as poffible. This is fhocking to any person who is to be convinced. He will choose rather to keep and maintain his own opinions, if he cannot come into yours without renouncing and abandoning every thing that he believed before. Human nature must be flattered a little, as well as reafoned with, that fo the argument may be able to come at his understanding, which otherwise will be thrust off at a distance. If you charge a man with nonfenfe and abfurdities, with herefy and felf-contradiction, you take a very wrong ftep towards convincing him.

Remember, that error is not to be rooted out of the mind of man by reproachings and railings, by flashes of wit and biting jefts, by loud exclamations or sharp ridicule. Long declamations and triumphs over our neighbour's mistake, will not prove the way to convince him; thefe are figns either of a bad caufe, or of want of arguments or capacity for the defence of a good one.-Watts.

GALLANTRY.

GALLANTRY, though a fashionable crime, is a very deteftable one; and the wretch who pilfers from us in the hour of diftrefs, is an innocent character compared to the plunderer who wantonly robs us of happiness and reputation, -Kelly.

GENTLEMAN.

NOR ftand fo much on your gentility, Which is an airy, and mere borrow'd thing, From dead men's duft and bones: and none of Except you make, or hold it.-B. Johnson.

yours,

GLORY.

THERE's not a homely peafant,

If grac'd with innocence, tho' nurs'd in toil,
But boasts more glory than a tainted grandeur.-Savazė.

REAL glory Springs from the filent conqueft of ourselves; And, without that, the conqueror is nought But the first flave.-Thomfun.

GOOD BREEDING

IS not confined to externals, much lefs to any particular drefs or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleafing, or

contributing as much as poffible to the eafe and happiness of thofe with whom we converse.-Fielding.

PERHAPS the fummary of good breeding may be reduced to this rule, "behave unto all men, as you would they should behave unto you."-This will molt certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and refpect, there being nothing which we defire more, than to be treated fo by them. The ambitious, the covetous, the proud, the vain, the angry, the debauchee, the glutton, are all loft in the character of the well bred man; or if nature should now and then venture to peep forth, the withdraws in an inflant, and doth not fhew enough of herself to become ridiculous.-Idem.

GOD.

IT is not fo with him that all things knows As 'tis with us, that square our guess by fhews: But most it is prefumption in us, when

The help of Heav'n we count the act of men.-Shakespeare. THO' all the doors are fure, and all our fervants

As fure bound with their fleeps, yet there is one
That wakes above, whofe eye no fleep can bind.
He fees thro' doors, and darkness, and our thoughts;
And therefore as we should avoid with fear,

To think amifs outfelves before his fearch,
So fhould we be as cautious to fhun

All caufe, that others think not ill of us.- -Chapman.
THAT mind muft furely err, whofe narrow scope
Confines religion to a place or clime;
A power unknown, that actuates the world,

Whole eye is jut, whole ev'ry thought is wisdom,
Regards alone the tribute of the heart;

Pride in his awful fight thinks back appall'd;
Humility is eldett born of Virtue,

And claims her birth right at the throne of Heav'n.Murphy.
THOU didit. O mighty God! exist
Ere time began its race;

Before the ample elements

Fill'd up the void of space :
Before the pond'rous earthly globe
In fluid air was fray'd;
Before the ocean's nighty fprings
Their liquid ftores difplay'd;
Ere through the gloom of ancient night
The freaks of light appear`d;