Mrs. C. Ah, no foundation in the world, I dare swear; no more, probably, than for the story circulated last month of Mrs. Festino's affair with Colonel Cassino; though, to be sure, that matter was never rightly cleared up.

Joseph S. The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed.

Maria. 'Tis so-but, in my opinion, those who report such things are equally culpable.

Mrs. C. To be sure they are; tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers-'tis an old observation, and a very' true one. But what's to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking? To-day, Mrs. Clackitt assured me Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. No, no! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers. Joseph S. Ah, Mrs. Candour, if everybody had your forbearance and good-nature!

Mrs. C. I confess, Mr. Surface, I cannot bear to hear people attacked behind their backs; and when ugly circumstances come out against our acquaintance, I own I always love to think the best. By the bye, I hope 'tis not sure that your brother is absolutely ruined?

Joseph S. I am afraid his circumstances are very bad indeed, ma'am.

Mrs. C. Ah! I heard so-but you must tell him to keep up his spirits; everybody almost is in the same way-Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas Splint, Captain Quinze, and Mr. Nickit-all up, I hear, within this week; so, if Charles is undone, he'll find half his acquaintance ruined too; and that, you know, is a consolation.

Joseph S. Doubtless, ma'am-a very great one.

Enter SERVANT.

Serv. Mr. Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. [Exit Servant. Lady S. So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you; positively you shan't escape.

Enter CRABTREE and SIR BENJAMIN BACKBITE. Crabtree. Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand.-Mrs. Candour, I don't believe you are acquainted with my nephew, Sir Benjamin Backbite. Egad! ma'am, he has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet too.-Isn't he, Lady Sneerwell?

Sir Benjamin. O fie, uncle!

Crab. Nay, egad! it's true; I back him at a rebus or a charade against the best rhymer in the kingdom. Has your ladyship heard the epigram he wrote.last week on Lady Frizzle's feather catching fire?—Do, Benjamin, repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore at Mrs. Drowzie's conversazione. Come now: your first is the name of a fish, your second a great naval commander, and—

Sir B. Uncle, now-prithee—

Crab. I' faith, ma'am, 'twould surprise you to hear how ready he is at all these sort of things.

Lady S. I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything.

Sir B. To say truth, ma'am, 'tis very vulgar to print; and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady's smiles, I mean to give the public. [Pointing to Maria.]

Crab. 'Fore heaven, ma'am, they'll immortalise you! You will be handed down to posterity, like Petrarch's Laura, or Waller's Sacharissa.

Sir B. [To Maria.] Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall murmur through a meadow of margin. 'Fore gad, they will be the most elegant things of their kind!

Crab. But, ladies, that's true-have you heard the

Sir B. 'Tis very true, ma'am; everything is fixed, and the wedding liveries bespoke,

Crab. Yes; and they do say there were pressing reasons for it.

Lady S. Why, I have heard something of this before.

Mrs. C. It can't be; and I wonder any one should believe such a story of so prudent a lady as Miss Nicely.

Sir B. O lud! ma'am, that's the very reason 'twas believed at once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody was sure there was some reason for it at bottom.

Mrs. C. Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady of her stamp as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of a puny sickly reputation that is always ailing, yet will outlive the robuster characters of a hundred prudes.

Sir B. True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution; who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection.

Mrs. C. Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know, Sir Benjamin, very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious tales.

sure; but I hope no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform.

Sir B. To be sure he may; for my part, I never believed him to be so utterly void of principle as people say: and though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews.

Crab. That's true, egad! nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that, whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues.

Sir B. Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me, when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest's chair. Joseph S. This may be entertainment to you, gentlemen; but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother.

Maria [Aside.] Their malice is intolerable. [Aloud] Lady Sneerwell, I must wish you a good-morning: I'm not very well. [Exit Maria. Mrs. C. O dear! she changes colour very much. Lady S. Do, Mrs. Candour, follow her: she may want your assistance.

Mrs. C. That I will, with all my soul, ma'am. Poor dear girl, who knows what her situation may be! [Exit Mrs. Candour.

THE BROKEN HEART.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

It is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me, that however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it?-I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave.

Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affec

tions. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire-it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless-for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.

To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness-it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being; he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation; or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can "fly to the uppermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and a meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and 'eft desolate.

How many bright eyes grow dim-how many soft cheeks grow pale-how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals-so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has failed-the great charm of existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulse, and send the tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is brokenthe sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melan. choly dreams—“dry sorrow drinks her blood,” until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest exter. nal injury. Look for her, after a while, and you find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low-but no one knows the mental malady that previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler.

She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove: graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf; until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the

forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.

I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied, that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related.

Everyone must recollect the tragical story of young E, the Irish patriot: it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young-so intelligent-so generous-so brave-so everything that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country-the eloquent vindication of his name— and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation-all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.

When

But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul was occupied by his image? Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth-who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely ana loving had departed.

But then the horrors of such a grave!-so frightul, so dishonored! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation, none of those tender, though melancholy circumstances, that endear the parting scene-nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish.

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked

and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her, by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her love. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul-that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness—and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as much alone there, as in the depths of solitude. She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."

The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of fargone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay— to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the gairish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching-it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness-that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her, and melted everyone into tears.

The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrecoverably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that her heart was unalterably another's.

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She

wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart.

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines:

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps
And lovers around her are sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying.

She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,
Every note which he loved awaking-
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!

He had lived for his love-for his country he died, They were all that to life had entwined himNor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, Nor long will his love stay behind him!

Oh! make ner a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow;
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west,
From her own loved island of sorrow!

THE GREAT PLAGUE IN LONDON.

DANIEL DEFOE.

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking

water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked awhile also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man. First I asked him how people did thereabouts. "Alas! sir," says he, "almost desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in this part, or in that village,"-pointing at Poplar-"where half of them are dead already, and the rest sick." Then he, pointing to one house: "There they are all dead,” said he, "and the house stands open; nobody dares go into it. A poor thief," says he, "ventured in to steal something, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard toc, last night." Then he pointed to several other houses. "There," says he, "they are all dead-the man and his wife and five children. There," says he, "they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door; and so of other houses." "Why," says I, "what do you here all

alone?" "Why," says he, "I am a poor desolate man: it has pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of my children dead." "How do you mean, then," said I, "that you are not visited?" "Why," says he, "that is my house"pointing to a very little low-boarded house-" and there my poor wife and two children live," said he, if they may be said to live; for my wife and one of the children are visited, but I do not come at them." And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

"But," said I, "why do you not come at them? How can you abandon your own flesh and blood?" "O, sir," says he, "the Lord forbid. I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want." And with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want. 66 Well," says I, "honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?” "Why, sir," says he, "I am a waterman, and there is my boat," says he; "and the boat serves me for a house: I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night; and what I get I lay it down upon that stone," says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; "and then," says he, "I halloo, and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it." "Well, friend," says I, "but how can you get money as a waterman? Does anybody go by water these times?"

"Yes, sir," says he, " in the way I am employed, there does. Do you see there," says he, " five ships lie at anchor?"-pointing down the river a good way below the town-" and do you see," says he, "eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder?"-pointing above the town. "All those ships have families on board, of their merchants and owners, and such like, who have locked themselves up, and live on board, close shut in, for fear of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is absolutely neces sary, that they may not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ship's boats, and there I sleep by myself; and blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto."

"Well," said I, "friend, but will they let you come on board after you have been on shore here, when this has been such a terrible place, and so infected as it is?"

Why, as to that," said he, " I yery seldom go up the ship-side, but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side, and they hoist it on board. If I

did, I think they are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for them."

Nay," says I, "but that may be worse, for you must have those provisions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the town is so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with anybody; for the village," said I, "is, as it were, the beginning of London, though it be at some distance from it."

"That is true," added he, "but you do not under. stand me right. I do not buy provisions for them here; I row up to Greenwich, and buy fresh meat there, and sometimes I row down the river to Woolwich, and buy there; then I go to single, farmhouses on the Kentish side, where I am known, and buy fowls, and eggs, and butter, and bring to the ships, as they direct me, sometimes one, sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore here; and I came only now to call my wife, and hear how my little family do, and give them a little money which I received last night."

"Poor man!" said I, "and how much hast thou gotten for them?"

"I have gotten four shillings," said he, " which is a great sum, as things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too, and a salt fish, and some flesh; so all helps out."

"Well," said I," and have you given it them yet?" "No," said he, "but I have called, and my wife has answered that she cannot come out yet; but in half an hour she hopes to come, and I am waiting for her. Poor woman!" says he, "she is brought sadly down; she has had a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but I fear the child will die; but it is the Lord." Here he stopped, and wept very much. "Well, honest friend," said I, "thou hast a sure comforter, if thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; He is dealing with us all in judgment."

"O sir," says he, "it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared; and who am I to repine!"

"Say'st thou so," said I, "and how much less is my faith than thine!" And here my heart smote me, suggesting how much better this poor man's foundation was, on which he staid in the danger, than mine; that he had nowhere to fly; that he had a family to bind him to attendance, which I had not; and mine was mere presumption, his a true dependence and a courage resting on God; and yet, that he used all possible caution for his safety.

I turned a little way from the man while these thoughts engaged me; for indeed I could no more refrain from tears than he.

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the door, and called "Robert, Robert;" he answered, and bid her stay a few moments and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs to his boat, and fetched up a sack in which was the provisions he had brought from the ships; and when

he returned, he hallooed again; then he went to the great stone which he showed me, and emptied the sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and then retired; and his wife came with a little boy to fetch them away; and he called, and said, such a captain had sent such a thing, and such a captain such a thing; and at the end adds: “God has sent it all; give thanks to Him." When the poor woman had taken up all, she was so weak, she could not carry it at once in, though the weight was not much neither; so she left the biscuit, which was in a little bag, and left a little boy to watch it till she came again.

“Well, but,” says I to him, “did you leave her the four shillings too, which you said was your week's pay?"

"Yes, yes," says he; "you shall hear her own it." So he calls again: "Rachel, Rachel"-which it seems was her name--" did you take up the money?" "Yes," said she. "How much was it?" said he. "Four shillings and a groat," said she. 'Well, well," says he, "the Lord keep you all;" and so he turned to go away.

As I could not refrain contributing tears to this man's story, so neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance; so I called him. "Hark thee, friend," said I, "come hither, for I believe thou art in health, that I may venture thee;" so I pulled out my hand, which was in my pocket before. "Here," says I, "go and call thy Rachel once more, and give her a little more comfort from me; God will never forsake a family that trust in Him as thou dost:" so I gave him four other shillings, and bid him go lay them on the stone, and call his wife.

I have not words to express the poor man's thankfulness, neither could he express it himself, but by tears running down his face. He called his wife, and told her God had moved the heart of a stranger, upon hearing their condition, to give them all that money; and a great deal more such as that he said to her. The woman, too, made signs of the like thankfulness, as well to Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up; and I parted with no money ali that year that I thought better bestowed.

ON DEATH.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

Nature calls us to meditate of death, by those things which are the instruments of acting it; and God, by all the variety of his providence, makes us see death everywhere in all variety of circumstances, and dressed up for all the fancies and the expectation of every single person. Nature hath given us one harvest every year, but death hath two; and the spring and the autumn send throngs of men and women to charnel-houses; and all the summer long, men are recovering from their evils of the spring, till the dog-days come, and then the Sirian star