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their first acquaintance, it was matured by that modest famil iarity and intercourse which are the dictates of prudence.Philos, in his addresses, discovered no sickening fondness, no licentious passion, no rapturous, adulating flattery; nor did he attempt to try the affection of Philena by seeming to slight her, and pretending that another had a better place in his heart. This, though so often practiced by others, he justly concluded unworthy of a lover, and a man of honor. She shewed a friendship, unmixed with the raptures of fancy, unembittered by feigned jealousy; bounded by a firm and discreet moderation; ripening into maturity; under the just and consistent returns of complacent affection.

Neither coquetry, prudery, nor coyness, formed any part of Philena's character. She thought it unworthy of her sex, and a lie upon the feelings of her heart, to win upon her suitor, either by immodest amours, or repay a generous and manly friendship by a pretended shyness. While she, therefore, spake and acted without hypocricy, she showed herself capable of subduing every irregular passion, and of imposing on herself that kind of modesty which is the glory of her sex. To a confidential friend she sometimes spake of Philos, in a manner which at once indicated reserve,female delicacy,and a pure and firm attachment. But in company she never put her friends to the blush, by an indelicate disclosure of the feelings of her heart: or by lavishing praise on one she had set up as the idol of her soul; nor did she think proper to tell fifty lies, to conceal the growing friendship of her heart; or to make it believed, that she had neither thought nor wish, of entering into the married state with the man who had the exclusive liberty of addressing her on that subject.

After their nuptials were celebrated, a part of that restraint was thrown off, which prudence had before enjoined. Their tide of love continued to flow, but never ebbed, and Philos will be able to say, that "twenty years experience has learned him to prefer the wife to the bride." For their friendship, which began as the light of the morning, continued to shine with increasing lustre. There was a sort of speaking silence in it, which, though it did not stun with its noisy clamor, yet persuaded all who saw them, by its irresistible eloquence, to believe they loved sincerely. There was a ready, mutual interchange of sorrow and joy-an effort of kindness which fed the friendship of the heart; and made the relative duties delightful, and the sufferings of life easy.

the world. If art finds a good foundation on the natural powers of the mind, and the superstructure be reared by a skilful hand; and if the building so reared, be furnished and adorned by the graces of the spirit; there is little reason to fear, but it will stand unshaken, amidst the storms of vice and winds of empty fashion; and the furniture, we know, is durable, and suited to the usefulness and convenience of life. Where all is nature, the mind resembles a rough, unshapen block of marble; though capable of the finest shape and polish, yet is fit for no place in the building, till it has passed under the hand of the artist. Where all is art, there may be the tint and adorning of a wax figure, or the artful movements of a puppet, but real vitality will be wanting. And when there is a want of all these, and a wife has no other dignity but what she derives from her husband; his task of preserving his own dignity, and of giving dignity to one who naturally inherits none, must exceed the bounds of an ordinary capacity. If a man be deceived into this condition, by circumstances not to be avoided by human foresight, he is greatly to be pitied; but if he is taken by mere inattention, or with his eyes open, it must be said, he has justly incurred his own wretchedness.

Prudentia is heiress to a great estate--educated according to her rank. Her parents are sensible, prudent, and pious. She became religious in the early part of life. Being neither enthusiastic nor formal, she knows how to unite the most constant attendance on the means of grace, with the power of godliness. Her daily conduct is a pleasing exhibition of the medium between that bigotry, which condemns all systems and modes not her own; and that levity of faith and practice, which would make her unstable in doctrines and loose in morals. In her can be seen cheerfulness without levity; solemnity without melancholly; charity without licentiousness; and strictness of life united with a pleasing and pious sociability. Liberal without ostentation, and prudent in the use of all the money with which she is entrusted by her father, for charity and other purposes.

In dress, she knows the art of being neat without the gewgans of vanity, and always appears in the happy medium between the singularities of remote antiquity, and the butterflyfashions of modern depravity and pride. No idolatry is paid to the color and form of a garment,-comfort and decency are always studied: nor is every prudent or accidental dif

ference of dress, hastily and rashly censured. Extravagant or superfluous dress, will not coincide with her established plan of liberality to the poor; contented to forego the use of every thing which may be spared, and even things she might use with Christian decency and charity, she is enabled to dry the orphan's tear, and make the widow's heart sing for joy. It is an adopted maxim, that those who have money to spare, had better feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, than expend it in needless ornaments; and, that those who have the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, have as little need to set it off by superfluous ornaments of dress, as to light tapers, to assist the sun at noon day.

Prudentia never was at a dancing school, and yet is able to conduct herself with ease and propriety in the best company! Her polite education was received from her mother; and when she becomes a mother of daughters, will be able to teach the same to them. Here is an example worthy of all mothers and daughters. But if mothers, from a defect of education, are incapable of teaching their own daughters, they have no need of calling dancing masters to their aid; because others, more suitable may be employed to teach them; especially till this class of men possess more of morality and religion. If the gentleness of the gospel be the soul of politeness, it is in vain to expect that strangers to this gentleness should make others acquainted with it. And the case before us, with others which might be named, form sufficient evidence that a sweet, obliging, pious temper, urbanity of manBers, graceful address, cultivated sense, a knowledge of books and things, proportioned to age and advantages; may be attained by other means than those usually employed by the gay and trifling part of mankind.

Musick and painting, though not absolutely necessary accomplishments, have been studied with success; as contributing to rational and innocent amusement; and as an employment of future resort, should she experience a reverse of fortune. Needle work, and the oversight of the kitchen, have been learned to perfection. Her mother required her to oversee the kitchen every other week, and keep a regular account of the expenditures, and produce it at the end of the week for examination. During this time, if there was any failure in the arrangement of the furniture, or in the flavor or state of the food brought to table, which was justly chargeable to inattention in cooking, she was obliged to bear the

ed of lofty trees, whose spreading branches, woven together; and covered with rich foliage, spread a thick canopy over his head. The merry birds, perched upon the branches, warbled their elfeerful, but not unharmonious lays; the echo. of their notes was heard afar off. Though Charles had a hundred times heard the like, yet it never had the same effect. The sadness of his soul was dissipated; cheerfulness, with her pleasant train, was about to re-enter; when the jaysqualled her harsh dissonance at a distance; the raven croaked despair; the mournful turtle dove poured on the undulating air a melancholy note; and the plaintive philo-mela mingled her melting strains. The harsh and the sweetly plaintive, the hopeless and the mournful, were so strangely mingled with the cheerful and the gay, that his bosom was the seat of conflicting passions. One moment he felt the thrill of delight, and resolved to pursue; the next he was seized with a strange horror, and thought of returning. He fancied a thousand things. In the philomela's strains he heard his little sister weep ;-a mother's lamentation was heard in the turtle's mournful notes. He soon changed this, for a scene less mixed with the mournful and the harsh.-Coming to a cultivated tract of country, he gradually resumed, a calm state of mind. Industry and skill were stamped on the face of the fields and gardens. Fences in good repair, ranged round the pleasant meadows, the fruitful pastures, and the cultivated fields. On yonder swelling ridge, were seem the shorn ewe, and by her the playful lamb; there was the laborious ox, the milk-giving cow, the swiftly moving horse, that treads stately at his master's will.. These overspread: the hill, and regaled themselves with nature's simple, but sweet repast. They cropped the herbage with appetite, and slaked their thirst at the brook, that ran murmuring by. The treble bleat of the tender lamb, the coarser answer of the fleecy mother, the shrill neighing of the majestic horse, and the bass-like bellow of the patient ox, composed the homely musiek of the hill; a musick to which Charles was not a stranger, and almost made him forget he was from home.

Just by was seen long rows, of young fruit trees, with no useless. limbs. The tender fruit began to appear. The springing corn sent up a tender but promising blade; fields: of young wheat, and the growing meadows waved gently be fore the wind. The early flowers sent out their perfume,. and nature seemed to have put on her gayest, though not

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Der richest attire. The meadow "lark mounted up with un ambitious song;" the spotted blackbird whistled her sycingle notes; the mimic thrush sung every song of the field and grove. All seemed cheerfulness and harmony; except some short interruptions of the plough-boy's sterner voice, or the loud barking of the angry dog.

Here was seen the sward, which had long lain quietly, though sometimes trodden by the foot of man and beast, buț now disturbed and torn up by the drawn plough; there the noxious weeds lay withering in the rays of the scorching sun; a little further the right angled wall grew beneath the hardy laborer's hand.

It was a small country village. Neatness, frugality, and industry seemed to reign through the whole. There were no broken windows, stuffed with old hats and rags; not a shingle absent, nor a perpendicular clapboard hanging by a single nail, and knocking like a hideous ghost, with every breeze, to terrify the lazy inhabitants. No bottles of brandy were seen on the mechanic's board; nor staggering, noisy drunkards about the neat little inn. A long list of varieties and dittos, could not be found on the merchant's book, nor were his pages EVER polluted with gills and half pints.

Miss was not put into the papered room to fold her hands, or do a little vanity needle work; nor did she stroll about the street in plaid silk, or white cambric; nor yet idle away her time in tea parties, to retail scandal, and stab the envied innocent. Some sentimental song, or pious hymn, sung to the buzz of the wheel, and beat by the stroke of the loom, might be heard in every house. The young ladies had the honor of reviving the manners of Greece and Rome, which prevailed in the days of their prosperity. Comfortably clad with the work of their own hands; blooming with health, the effect of temperance and exercise; they presented no pictures of moping melancholy, nor were they everlastingly dying with the hysterics, and fainting at the sight of a worm, and running distracted with terror at the squeaking of a mouse; these were misfortunes unknown to these young, industrious females.

Not a drone lived in the village hive. No lordly master lived to eat, and drink, and sport, and ride, while the enslaved African tilled the soil; and the winds of heaven carried upward to the throne of justice the sighs of a broken heart; true lovers of liberty, they wept for the misfortunes of a slave,

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