with that enthufiaftic fentiment and refined fenfibility, which, in the Sorrows of Werter, he has fo warmly indulged; and in point of immoral effect, the drama is equally reprehenfible with the novel. Its conclufion is in the boldeft ftyle of this fentimental refinement; fince it gives to the hero two wives, with whom he is to fhare that heart, to which the incidents of the play have fhewn the claims of both. Extract from Maxims adárelled to Young Ladies, by the Countess Dowager of Carlille.. H Abituate yourself to that way of life moft agreeable to the perfon to whom you are united: be content in retirement, or with fociety, with the town or the country. If he fhould prefer the country during your earlier years, a period when diverfions are most attractive, it may at firit be painful; you may be fenfible of the privation;-but your chance for durable happiness is infinitely greater there, than where each fide is surrounded with continual dangers to domeftic tranquillitv. Make choice of fuch amufements as will attach him to your company: ftudy fuch occupations as will render you of confequence to him; fuch as the management of his fortune, and the conduct of his houfe; yet, without affuming a fuperiority unbecoming your fex. If his turn of mind leads him to the infpection and care of his eftate, avoid to interfere with a branch of government, not properly your Sphere. Should he be neglectful of his fa mily interefts, fupply his place with redoubled attention. If public employment demand frequent abfences from home, make his fuppofed intentions there to be as much refpected as if he were prefent, by your own deference to them. If the contagion of example gain too ftrong an empire over him, if mifled by pleasures, or hurried by paffion, let not your impatience prevent his return to reafon. Let an early examination of his temper, prepare you to bear with inequalities, to which all are more or lefs fubject. Do not attempt to destroy his innocent pleasures by pretexts of œconomy; retrench rather your own expences to promote them. Should he fometimes delight in trivial occupations, treat fuch with complaifance; as few but the idle have leifure to be very ill-tempered. Disturb not the hours he may have allotted for amufement, with the recital of domestic grievances. Watch for, and profit of fuch moments of his leifure, as will allow him, without pain or chagrin, te redress them. Let your attentions be fo continued, accompanied by no affectation; yet fo eafy, as may prove they flow from the heart. The leaft appearance of flattery, mingled with affiduity, conveys a fufpicion of intereft. If abfolute neceflity, or free choice, call him often from home (fuppofe it to be too often) when he fhall revifit that home, make it fo agreeable, as it fhall finally acquire the preference. Show the greatest refpect to his near relations; obferve a conftant civility civility towards the more diftant; let there be no marked diftinction between those, on either fide, in your own breaft: natural affection may, nay, ought to prevail. During the education of men in fchools, colleges, and academies, friendships are formed, perhaps too early fometimes to be judicious, but equally hard to diffolve: if, in confequence, you behold fuch with pain, do not attempt to break them with precipitation. When a perfon fhall fee his friends coolly received in his own house, he will naturally feck occafions to meet them abroad: maintain, therefore, your intereft with him, by a polite behaviour to thofe he fo prefers, although you may not. Jealoufy is oft ideal; it is capricious, its dictates inconfiderate, its fuggeftions fatal to mutual repofe. The delicate, but firm counfels of a friend, of religion, and, if poffible, a speedy retreat for a while, are the fafeft remedies against the artful, but foothing attentions of real, or feeming admirers, at moments when the mind is irritated by reproach, or the severities inflicted by unjust fufpicions. Should your union be attended with greater felicity than is the ufual lot of our fex, govern your juft affections to preferve it by too much anxiety you may deftroy it. Sufficient are the real difficulties we have each to encounter, in the courfe of our lives; create none therefore use your reafon in combating the former; and be filent if the weakness of your frame prevent an entire fuppreffion of fictitious ones. If afflicted with bad health, ftudy to avoid complaint; it is an encreafing-habit, affording no effential relief to the fufferer, and apt to make the lives of others as irksome as your own. You will contract indelicacy by a defcription of your infirmities: you may perhaps excite compaffion from a humane difpofition, but you rifque a diminution of affection. Whatever diffentions may arife (how much foever your conduct and understanding may justify the part you take in them) fuffer the interference of no third person; but more efpecially if you fuppofe their partiality would lead them to decide in your favour. Thofe friendships which are early produced between two very young women, in the theatre of the great world, and where both are equally engaged in all the frivolities of fafhion, are ufually very flightly cemented, and are as briefly diffolved. If your fortune be moderate, aconomy is abfolutely neceflary. If confiderable, method and pru dence will render it doubly beneficial. Obferve the utmost regularity in the keeping of your household accounts; it is tranquillity to you, juftice to your dependents. The luxury of this age exacts from the mistress of a great house, or indeed a smaller, fome attention to a table; difdain not therefore to give a proper application to that Atudy. With regard to drefs, do not afpire to be a leader in fafhions, nor exceffive in point of ornament. Follow fashions at a moderate diftance, nor blindly adopt fuch as may expofe you to ridicule; for fervile imitation makes no diftinctions. 1 4 Should Should a plentiful fortune enable you to indulge a difpofition to give, compleat the happiness of the receivers by the manner of beftowing. If naturally bleffed with a good memory, exercise it continually. Reft not contented with the plea of a bad memory; it is but another name for negligence among young perfons. There are certainly degrees of memory; fome more feeble, fome more perfect than others: for the one, there are many helps; the other must be fupported properly. Refolution and perfeverance are correctives to an indolent memory. Repeat to yourself, or transcribe what is neceflary to retain for your inftruction. Materials which memory fhall collect, ought to be of the benevolent kind; and when re-pr duced, let difcretion and charity distribute them. Employ the powers of memory in the recollection of the favours of Providence, of the bleffings and efcapes we have received from that all-giving hand. If the love of admiration, in your youthful days, shall bear no part in your attachment to the amufements of the theatre, there are none more iuftructive, nor more eligible for relaxation. When you can fix your mind on the fcenes before you, when the eye fhall not wander to, nor the heart flutter at, the furrounding objects of the fpectacle, you will return home inftructed and improved. The great utilities you may reap from well-acted Tragedy are, the exciting your compaffion to real fufferings, the fuppreffion of your vanity in profperity, and the infpir ing you with heroic patience in adversity. In Comedy, you will receive continual correction, delicately applied to your errors and foibles; be im partial in the application, and divide it humbly with your acquaintance and friends, and even with your enemies. A very few precepts, and much good example, to perfons deftitute of education, are the fureft methods of encouraging virtue among them. Profit by others' misfortunes, or mistakes, as a correction to your pride, and as a guard to your fleps. Extend your kindness, and continue your affections to all that shall 1emain of those you loved, if wor thy; it is the only fure mode of confolation you can have recourse to. In grief, fickness, and danger, make your first and conftant fupplication to that Power, who alone can relieve and fave. Let your conduct be fuch to all around you, as fhall lead them to the fame path without affright. If your ftrength of mind fubfifts during your malady, if it gives you time for the exertion of rational power, let it check, as much as poffible, thofe encroaching indulgencies which fickness is prone to exact. Be affured, that when able to exert your chearfulness, it is nowife contrary to the precepts of religion. Fix your eye habitually on immortality, to pass more lightly thio' the pangs of mortality. A continued and humble refignation will fecure your peace in the moft aweful of moments-that of your diffolution. Hylory Hiftory of Walter Wormwood, an envious Defamer. From the Obferver, vol. v. To the OBSERVER. SI have lived lo g enough to repent of a fatal propenfity, that has led me to commit many offences, not the lefs irkfome to my prefent feelings for the fecrecy, with which I contrived to execute them; and as thefe can now be no -otherwife atoned for than by a frank confeffion, I have refolved upon this mode of addreffing myfelf to you Few people chufe to difplay their own characters to the world in fuch colours as I fhall give to mine, but as I have mangled fo many reputations in my me without mercy, I thould be the meanest of mankind if I fpared my own; and being now about to speak of a perfon, whom no man loves, I may give vent to an acrimony, at which no man can take offence. If I have been troublesome to others, I am no lefs uncomfortable to myself, and amidst vexations without number the greateft of all is, that there is not one, which does not originate from my felf.. I entered upon life with many advantages natural and acquired; I am indebted to my parents for a liberal education, and to nature for no contemptible fhare of talents: my propenfities were not fuch as betrayed me into diffipation and extravagance; my mind was habitually of a ftudious caft; I had a paffion for books, and began to collect them at an early period of my life: to them I devoted the greateít portion of my time, and had my vanity been of a fort to be contented with the literary credit I had now acquired, I had been happy; but I was ambitious of convincing the world I was not the idle owner of weapons, which I did not know the ufe of; I feized every fafe opportunity of making my, pretenfions refpected by fuch dabblers in the belles lettres, who paid court to me, and as I was ever cautious of stepping an inch beyond my tether on thefe occafions, I foon found myfelf credited for more learning, than my real stock amounted to. I received all vifitors in my library, affected a ftudious air, and took care to furnish my table with volumes of a felect fort; upon these I was prepared to defcant, if by chance a curious friend took up any one of them; and as there is little fame to be got by treading in the beaten track of popular opinion, I fometimes took the liberty to be eccentric and paradoxical in my criticifms and cavils, which gained me great refpect from the ignorant, (for upon fuch only I took care to practife this chicanery) fo that in a fhort time I became a fovereign dictator within a certain fet, who looked up to me for fecond-hand opinions in all matters of literary tafte, and faw myfelfinaugurated by my flatterers cenfor of all new pub. lications. My trumpeters had now made fuch a noife in the world, that I began to be in great requel, and men of real literature laid out for my acquaintance; but here I acted with a coldness, that was in me conftitutional as well as prudential: I was refolved not to risk my laurels, and throw away the fruits of a triumph fo cheaply purchafed: folicitations that would have flattered others, only alarmed me ; fuch was was not the fociety I delighted in; against fuch attacks I entrenched myfelf with the most jealous caution: If however by accident I was drawn out of my faftneffes, and trapped unawares into an ambufcade of wicked wits, I armed my self to meet them with a triple tier of fmiles; I primed my lips with fuch a ready charge of flattery, that when I had once engaged them in the pleafing, contemplation of their own merits, they were feldom difpofed to fcrutinize into mine, and thus in general I contrived to escape undetected. Though it was no eafy matter to extort an opinion from me in fuch companies, yet fometimes I was unavoidably entangled in converfation, and then I was forced to have recourfe to all my addrefs; happily my features were habituated to a smile of the moft convertible fort, for it would anfwer the purposes of affected humility as well as thofe of actual contempt, to which in truth it was more congenial: my opinion, therefore, upon any point of controverfy, flattered both parties and befriended neither; it was calculated to imprefs the company with an idea that I knew much more than I profeft to know; it was in fhort fo infinuating, fo fubmitted, fo hefitating, that a man must have had the heart of Nero to have perfecuted a being fo abfolutely inoffenfive: but thefe facrifices coft me dear, for they were foreign to my nature, and, as I hated my fuperiors, I avoided their fociety. Having fufficiently diftinguished myfelf as a critic, I now begin to meditate fome fecret attempts as an author; but in these the fame caution attended me, and my performances did not rife above a little fonnet, or a parody, which I circulated through a few hands without a name, prepared to-difavow it, if it was not applauded to my wishes: I alfo wrote occafional effays and paragraphs for the public prints, by way of trying my talents in various kinds of ftile; by thefe experiments I acquired a certain facility of imitating other people's manner and difguifing my own, and fo far my point was gained; but as for the fecret fatisfaction I had promifed myself in hearing my productions applauded, of that I was altogether difappointed; for though I tried both praise and difpraise for the purpose of bringing them into notice, I never had the pleasure to be contradicted by any man in the latter cafe, or feconded by a living foul in the former I had circulated a little poem, which coft me fome pains, and as I had been flattered with the applause it gained from feveral of its readers, I put it one evening in my pocket, and went to the house of a certain perfon, who was much reforted to by men of genius: an opportunity luckily offered for producing my manufcript, which I was prepared to avow as foon as the company prefent had given fentence in its favour: it was put into the hands of a dramatic author of fome celebrity, who read it aloud, and in a manner as I thought that clearly anticipated his difguft: as foon therefore as he had finished it and demanded of me if I knew the author, I had no hefitation to declare that I did notThen I prefume, rejoined he, it is no offence to fay I think it the mereft trash I ever read-None in life, I replied, and from that moment held him in everlasting hatred. Difgufted with the world, I now began |