the habit of bestowing them. For my passions than to support them. I own part, I may say that I bore this misfortune pretty well; indeed, having been inured to temperance and frugality from my youth, I was better prepared to encounter a change of circumstances, than those who had been habituated to luxury.

[To be continued.]

EMILIUS AND SOPHIA; OR THE
RECLUSE.

[Continued from p. 291.]

could hardly find strength sufficient to gain a small village which was about a mile off. As it was now nearly six and thirty hours since I had tasted any nourishment, I ate my supper with a strong appetite: I retired to rest, delivered from those tormenting thoughts which had hitherto pursued me, content that I dare think of Sophia, and almost happy to think that she was less culpable and more worthy of my regret than I had, at first, imagined.

I slept tranquilly till the morning. hollow and misto

IT was thus that the inclinations of my heart gradually led me to judge hours of sleep, and allow some relief her with greater lenity and indulgence. to their victim: it is only remorse I did not justify her: I only excused which tortures always. When I arose, her: without forgiving her offence II found my mind quite calm, and in approved of what was good in her a state to deliberate upon what I was conduct. I could not get rid of all to do. But this was the most me my love; and it had been too hard to morable, and, at the same time, the preserve it without esteem. As soon most wretche moment of my life. as I believed myself to esteem her All my attachments were either again, I felt an unexpected relief.Man is too weak to be able to endure violent emotions for a length of time. Even in the excess of despair Providence provides consolation for us. Notwithstanding the horror of my fate, I felt a sort of joy in representing Sophia to my imagination as estimable though unfortunate: I loved to find some foundation for that regard which I could not help entertaining for her. Instead of the pining and arid grief that before consumed me, I now had the sweet consolation of being softened even to tears. She is lost to me for ever, I know, said I to myself: but, at least, I shall dare to think of her still; I shall dare to mourn for her; I shall dare, sometimes, to sigh and weep for her without blushing.

Meanwhile, I continued my course, and, distracted with these various thoughts, I had walked all day without being aware of it; till, at length, recollecting myself, and being no longer upheld by the rage of the preceding evening, I felt myself in a state of lassitude and exhaustion which required food and repose. Thanks to the exercises of my youth, I was strong and robust;. I feared neither bunger nor fatigue: but my diseased mind had infected my body, and you had taught me rather to avoid violent

broken or corrupted: all my duties were changed: there was nothing that concerned as it once did: I be came, as it were, a new being. It was of importance that I should ma turely weigh the course which I had to pursue; and I adopted a temporary proceeding, that I might have time to reflect upon it. I finished the rest of my journey as far as the nearest town: 1 entered into terms with a master, and I began to work at my trade, waiting till the fomentation of my mind should be entirely subdued, and till I should be able to view ob jects as they really are.

I was never more sensible of the force of education than on this inelancholy occasion. Born with a weak and effeminate soul, susceptible of every impression, easily distressed, timid in iny resolves, after the first moments of emotion had been given to nature, I found myself master of my own thoughts and capable of considering my situation with as much coolness as if it were that of another person. Submissive to the law of necessity, I abstained from all vain complainings: I yielded to the inevi table yoke: I looked upon the past as upon something that was foreign to me: I fancied that I was just about to commence my existence: and, deriving from my present condition the

4

rules of my conduct, waiting till I was fully instructed in it, I sat down quietly to the work as if I had been the most contented of men.

ence can it have in a case so different from others? What connexion can it have with a despairing wretch from whom remorse alone extorted the There is nothing which I more secret of her crime, and with those thoroughly learned of you, from my perfidions beings who cover theirs infancy, than to be always wholly oc- with fraud and lies, or who supply cupied in the thing I was about, and the place of candour with effrontery never to be doing one thing and and boast of their infamy? Every musing on another; which is, in fact, vicious woman, every woman who doing nothing, and being never wholly despises her duty more than she ofattentive. During the day, therefore, fends against it, is unworthy of Jenity: I was busied only with my labour; to tolerate her infamy is to share it. in the evening I resumed my reflec- But her whom we reproach rather tions, and relieving thus the body and with a fault than with a vice, and the mind, alternately, I derived, from who expiates it by her sorrow, is each, the best that could be derived, more worthy of our pity than of our without fatiguing either. hatred: we may, without shame, pardon her and feel compassion for her: the subject of her reproach, even, is her best security for the future. Sophia, estimable even when guilty, will be respectable in her repentance: she will be the more faithful because her heart, which is formed for virtue, bas felt what it costs to have offended: she will have both the firmness which persuades, and the modesty which graces: the humiliation of remorse will soften that proud soul, and render, less tyrannic, the empire which love has given her over me: she will be more affectionate and tender, and less fiery: she will have committed one fault only to be cured of another.

From the very evening, following the thread of my ideas on the preceding one, I examined whether I had not, perhaps, taken too much to heart the crime of my wife, and whether that which appeared to be a catastrophe of my life, was not an event too common to be thus gravely thought of. It is certain, said I to myself, that wherever the moral notions of society are held in high estimation, there, the infidelity of women is a foul blot upon their husbands; but it is certain, also, that in all large towns, and every where where man, more corrupted, believes himself more enlightened, this notion is considered as ridiculous and extravagant. Does the honour of a man, they ask, depend upon his wife? Ought his misfortune to be also his shame, and can he be dishonoured by the vices of others? The other system of morality may be more severe: no matter; this appears to be more conformable to reason.

για

When the passions cannot openly subdue us, they assume the mask of wisdom to surprise; and it is by imitating the language of reason that they persuade us to renounce it. All these sophisms imposed upon my judgment only because they flattered my inclinations. I wished I could return to Besides, whatever judgment may Sophia even unfaithful as she was,and be passed upon my conduct, was it I listened, willingly, to every thing not, according to my principles, above that seemed to sanction my baseness. the public opinion? What was it to But it was in vain my reason was me what might be thought of me, less tractable than my heart, and it provided that, in my own heart, I could not adop; these follies. I could ceased not to be good, just, and not conceal that I reason'd rather to honest? Was it a crime to be com- deceive than to convince myself. I passionate? Was it a crime to pardon said to myself, with grief, but with an offence? By what line of duty, then, was I to regulate myself? Had I so long disdained the prejudices of men to sacrifice to them, now, iny happiness and welfare?

But, supposing this prejudice to have a just foundation, what influ

energy, that the maxims of the world are no law, for those who choose to live for themselves, and that prejudices weighed against prejudices, those on the side of morality would be found to preponderate: that it is with justice the irregularities of a wife are imputed

to the husband, either from having regret of having offended me.

:

chosen her badly or from having governed her badly that I, myself, was an example of the justice of this imputation and that, if Emilius had always been prudent, Sophia could never have transgressed: that it is rational to presume that she who does not respect herself will, at least, respect her husband if he is worthy of it and if he knows how to maintain his authority that the error of not preventing the aberration of a wife is aggravated by the infamy of suffering it: that the consequences of impunity are dreadful; and, that in such a case this impunity betrays, in the injured party, an indifference for morals and a degradation of soul which is disgraceful.

:

I felt, particularly, in my individual case, that what rendered Sophia more estimable was the more hopeless for me: for, a weak and indecisive mind may be upheld or stimulated, and one that fails from a forgetfulness of its duty may be brought back by reason: but now retrieve her who maintains, even in sinning, all her wonted courage, who displays virtues in the midst of guilt, and who errs only in her own manner and according to her own fancy? Yes, Sophia is guilty because she chose to be so. When that lofty soul could subdue shame, it could subdue every other passion: it would not have cost her more to have been faithful to me than to have declared her crime to me.

She

knows my heart: she has rendered me as miserable as I can be: there is nothing more that would cost her any thing.

No: I know hers also: Sophia can never love a man to whom she has given the right of despising her.......... She no longer loves me:-has not the ungrateful creature told me so herself? Perfidious! She loves me no longer! Ah! that is her greatest crime: I would have pardoned her any thing but that.

Alas! I continued, with bitterness, I talk of pardoning, without thinking that the injured often pardon, but that they who injure never pardon. No doubt, she wished me all the evil which she has inflicted. Ah! how she ought to hate me!

Emilius, you deceive yourself when you judge of the future by the past. All is changed. In vain would you live again with her: the happy days which she has given you will never return again: you will never recover thy Sophia, and thy Sophia will neve: recover thee. Situations depend much, upon the affections which we carry with us; when the heart changes all changes: it is in vain that every thing remains the same: when we have no longer the same eyes, we no longe: behold as before.

Her morals are not yet desperate! know: she may yet become worthy of esteem, may yet merit all my tenderness: she may restore to me her It was in vain that I would have heart, but she cannot be as she was, returned to my wife, she could not she cannot cease to have fallen, she have returned to me. If she who has cannot wipe out, from my memory, so tenderly, loved me, if she who was the recollection of her fault. Fidelity, so dear to me could injure me, if my virtue, love, all may return except Sophia could break the dearest ties of confidence, and, without confidence my heart, if the mother of my son there is nothing but disgust, melancould viclate her conjugal faith, yet choly, and listlessness in marriage unblemished, if the flames of a love the delicious charm of innocence has which nothing had offended, if the vanished. It is past, it is past, neither noble pride of a virtue which nothing now nor hereafter, Sophia cannot be had sullied, if all this could not pre- happy, and I cannot be happy but a vent her first fault, what is there could her welfare. That alone would inprevent a relapse which would cost fluence me: I prefer to suffer away none of these sacrifices? The first from her than with her; I would rastep towards vice is the only painful ther regret her than torment her. one, it is afterwards pursued without Yes, all our ties are broken; by thinking of it. She has no longer to her they are broken. In violating consider either love, or virtue, or her engagements she has freed me esteem: she has no longer any thing from mine. To me she is now nothing to lose in offending me, not even the has she not said so herself? She's

C

WHILE the revolutions which The ladies, from a degree of re

have during the last twenty serve and strictness of demeanour, years changed the political aspect of which procured for them the charac Europe, and convulsed the shores of ter of prudes among our gayer neighthe Atlantic, have had their com- bours on the continent, have adopted imentators, and will have their histo- a freedom of manners, a boldness of UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XIV.

look and scantiness of apparel, which their teens, and some women of very has often occasioned women of cha- high ton are said to be mistresses of racter and condition to be taken for a bottle. After coffee, the bottle is members of a body they affect to look again introduced, and a dram, under down upon with pity or contempt. the specious name of a liqueur, is Indeed, such has been the revolution swallowed. This importation from in this point, that when it was at- France ought to have been accomtempted to exclude the Cyprian corps panied with the liqueur-glasses, which from a theatre of our more expensive are mere thimbles in comparison amusements, the discernment of the with what I have seen used; for common door-keepers was acknow- though the wine-glass is again dimiledged to be insufficient to mark the nished to a moderate size, it is yet a nice distinction between those to be formidable dose for any but seasoned admitted and those to be excluded, dram-drinkers, when filled with any and resourse was had to the caterers of those deleterious compounds, in for the gibbet, who, however suc- which alcohol forms a principal cessful they may have been in detecting the grosser attempts to impose on their sagacity, were so far misled by appearances, that they were very near conveying a nude of high rank to the watch house. The remark made by one of the police-officers on his mistake, deserves to be remembered: "her ladyship was so liberal in the exposure of her other charms, that he did not mind her face."

part.

The changes which have taken place in dress, which are considerable and general enough to deserve the name of a revolution (and such only it is my intention to notice) are certainly on the whole in favour of ease and convenience, and as far as regards the men, of propriety. The female form, after an eclipse of many centuries, under one odious disguise Among the men, convivial de- or other, has reappeared. When I bauches are certainly less frequent, recollect the perpendicular figure of thanks to our legislators; for though the lady of our parish on a gala day, Messrs. Pitt and Dundas did not supported on two points, each no emulate in their individual practice larger than a sixpence, balancing the the great Founder of Ismaelism, yet gorgeous superstructure of whale. they certainly have in a great mea- bone, silk, lace, metals, minerals and sure enforced an abstinence from the eatables, as she tottered forwards to juice of the grape on their country- receive our civilities, her body screwmen; and among the middle and ed into the form of an inverted Jower classes, the additional taxes on isosceles triangle, her immense hoop distillation and brewing have consi- exhibiting another triangle standing derably affected the consumption of upon a broader base, and the comspirits and malt liquor. The poison- pound of false hair, wool, powder, ous mixtures sold under the name of grease, ribbon, gauze, &c. &c. which beer, which to the shame of the le- constituted the head of this moving gislature, are suffered to sap the machine, of which the woman form health and strength of the sons and ed the smaller half, and when I com daughters of labour, with impunity pare her with a woman of the same to the maker and vender, have age and station in life, on a present driven an immense number of people occasion, I cannot but congratulate to drink water with their meat-a my fair country-women on a change, change which the justest reasonings in every point of view, in their faof medical men had in vain before at- vour. It is indeed more than twenty tempted to produce. Among the ladies of the more opulent class, a change of an opposite nature is said to have taken place. Instead of one, two, or three glasses of wine, which used to be the ordinary stint of females at table, six, seven, and even eight glasses of Madeira have been tossed off by ladies scarcely out of

years since that absurd and preposte fous mode of disfiguring the female form was at its height, and the reformation was working by slow de grees for some years previous to the breaking out of the French revolu tion, which first inoculated the Parisi ans with the rage for the antique. We for some time ridiculed them,