very late in the evening. He then told her that he had called on her mother's landlord, and had found him extremely irritated, and fully resolved to proceed against her the following day, if not paid. Having dwelt for some time on this subject, till he had sufficiently rouzed her fears, he informed her, that he had met with the greatest difficulty in procuring the money; for that, on calling at his banker's, he found he had already considerably over-drawn him. He then insinuated that the trouble he had taken demanded some recompence; but finding his insinuations not rightly comprehended, he told her, in plain language, that his assistance much be purchased by the sacrifice of her virtue. Miss Villars, at first, treated his proposals with the indignation they merited; his representations of the distressed situation to which she herself must inevitably be reduced if she persisted in her refusal, though urged with all the powers of insinuating eloquence, were insufficient to work her to his purpose: but when he changed his battery, and pressed her to have pity on a parent who would soon be houseless, deprived of every comfort, exposed to the most bitter inflictions of poverty, and reduced, perhaps, to starve in a prison, it was more than the soft bosom of sensibility could bear; she shrieked aloud, and sunk into a chair in a state of inexpressible agony. The sanctified villain took advantage of this moment of virtuous frenzy, to perpetrate a deed of complicated vice, and the wretched Louisa fell a victim to filial piety. The night was now too far advanced to return home; he therefore endeavoured to prevail on her to take some rest, but this she resolutely refused. Having succeeded in his attack on her sensibility, he next strove to sap her principles, by seducing her reason. He painted honour as a phantom that existed but in the imagination; as the child of caprice, that swayed indeed the minds of ideots, but whose dictates were scorned by the wise. Chastity he represented as a mere constitutional endowment, not worthy to be deemed a virtue; and whose excellence was only to be valued by the advantages it might be capable of producing to its possessor. He con cluded his pious dissertation by observing, that when the end to be attained was virtuous, the means of attainment could not be vicious. These attempts, however, were fruitless; Louisa's innate ideas of moral rectitude, given by nature, and confirmed by education, were proof against arguments more florid than specious. As soon as it was light she arose to depart; but he would not suffer her to leave his house at so early an hour, lest she should be seen by the neighbours, and his character be thereby injured. Strange infatuation! that they should court the shadow who contemn the substance! Whence is it, that one who is steeped to the ears in vice, should be so anxious to preserve an appearance of virtue? It is not, I fear, as some moralists, more refined than just, have observed, that the attractions of virtue are endued with the miraculous power of forcing an involuntary homage, even from the most abandoned votaries of vice; no! a knowledge of the human mind must inform us, that such an anxiety proceeds from the most base and selfish motives of wordly interest. When a profligate aims at the preservation of his fame, it is not from any respect which he bears to virtue, but with an exclusive view to the promotion of fortune or gratification of pleasure. The native charms of virtue are sufficiently splendid to scorn the aid of a borrowed lustre. The mistaken zeal of a moralist is to morality what fanaticism is to religion; though it springs from the purest source, it too often injures the cause which it meant to serve.

But, to proceed. Louisa was compelled to stay till the morning was far advanced, when he permitted her to depart. He offered her a bank. note of fifteen pounds, which she indignantly refused; till he artfully urged that, from a principle of false delicacy, to involve her mother in real distress, would form but a bad proof of filial affection. Shocked at the idea, she took the note; telling him, at the same time, that no other earthly consideration could induce her to accept the most trivial assistance from a man whom she could not but regard as a monster of iniquity; that, as it was, she only received it as a loan to her mother, who would certainly not fail to repay it, with such thanks as it merited.

It is needless to observe, that before Mrs. Villars had finished her relation, my indignation was raised to the highest pitch. I entreated her, with impassioned earnestness, to trust the task of vengeance with me; assuring her, it should be as fully compleated as the situation of the culprit and the circumstances of the case would permit. She thanked me for my zeal in the warmest terms which gratitude could dictate; but expressed her apprehension that, by yielding to the impulse of revenge, her daughter's reputation would be sacrificed to resentment. Consider, Sir,' said she, that female fame is a jewel which, once tarnished, can never recover its primitive lustre. Interest will impose silence on the perpetrator of so villainous an action: will it not, therefore, be more prudent to bear with a private injury, than to incur a public loss, in the good opinion of a world more apt to be swayed by appearances than convinced by facts?'...... Your argument, Madam,' I replied, ́ is certainly specious; and were you to pursue the dictates of worldly prudence, your conduct would be sanctioned by examples innumerable. A woman cannot, most certainly, be too sedulous to guard her reputa tion from stain or reproach. But the hand of Wisdom will ever draw the necessary line of discrimination: vice demands concealment, but virtue courts enquiry. Were the whole world acquainted with the transaction, be assured they only would condemn whose applause would be censure. There are, moreover, certain duties which every individual owes to the community, that should rise superior to all private considerations of these I know none more sacred or peremptory than that which commands us to bring a villain to justice; and yet is there no one mroe neglected. This neglect generally arises either from indolence... which shrinks from trouble, wholly regardless of the importance of the object to be obtained by it...or else from a mauvaise honte; that species of false shame which deters a man from pursuing the dictates of conscious rectitude by the fear of becoming a subject of ridicule or contempt, The good opinion of the world is justly an object of considerable magnitude in the estimation of virtue, but it must not be brought into competition with our religious or social duties: that man, surely, cannot be estimable, who courts public esteem at the expence of public justice. They who, from either of these motives, desist from the due discharge of their duty, are indisputably culpable; as their conduct tends to the promotion of vice, and the encouragement of villainy. On this subject, could conviction produce eloquence, my arguments would not fail of success; for, believe me......I speak feelingly......too often have I incurred the censure due to the indolent and the weak; to those who refuse to succour virtue, or to punish vice.'

Convinced of the justice of my observations, Mrs. Villars consented to leave the punishment of the offender to my discretion, contenting herself with earnestly recommending me to be circumspect and

moderate.

Seeing the fifty pound note still lying on the table where I had left it, I presented it, and begged her to make immediate use of it for the discharge of her landlord's demand, lest a farther delay might induce him to put his threats in execution; but she told me it was too late for that prevention, as her landlord had seized her goods the preceding evening, under pretence that he had heard she was to move them in the night; and that, in spite of her entreaties and assurances, he had left a man in the house, alone with her, to keep possession, who had insisted on chusing his bed, and his choice fell on that in which she always slept: this circumstance, with the idea of having a strange man in the house, whose looks and behaviour were not adapted to excite confidence, and the anxiety she was under on her daughter's account, had induced her to sit up all night. I enquired who her landlord was; she told me his name was Williams, and that she understood he was a merchant of repute. The name struck me as familiar to my ear: after a minute's recollection, I remembered to have seen him at my banker's a few months before, where he came to receive a draft which had been fraudulently obtained by a set of sharpers from a young man of property; payment had, consequently, been stopped. Mr. Williams blustered exceedingly when he found that the money was not forthcoming; but finding his highsounding threats treated with the contempt they merited, he changed his tone; lamenting, in terms of concern, that his name should have ap peared in so disgraceful a business; protesting that he had been grossly imposed on, and that he had received the draft in the fair way of trade. When he left the shop, my banker, in answer to my enquiries, informed me, that he had originally set up in business with a few thousands which he had obtained from a friend, who placed such a confidence in him, as to entrust him with the greatest part of his fortune. This friendship he gratefully repaid, by becoming a bankrupt in less than a twelvemonth. So infamous did his conduct appear to his creditors, that they not only refused to sign his certificate, but arrested him, and threw him into Newgate, from whence he was unfortunately released by an act of insolvency. That he then re-entered into business; and having, the succeeding winter, gained one of the capital prizes in the Lottery, his credit was restored, and he was at that time as much respected on 'Change as any merchant in the city.

With this knowledge of Mr. Williams, his conduct to Mrs. Villars did not in the least surprize me: but the complication of distress which this unfortunate woman had experienced within the last four and twenty hours, affected me most sensibly. I advised her to pay her landlord immediately, that she might be disincumbered from the presence of a wretch who, living on the distresses of his fellow-creatures, must necessarily be an object of disgust. Then begging her to pour the balm of consolation into the wounded mind of her unhappy child, I took my leave. But, as I was quitting the room, she recollected the note which her daughter had received in the morning from the wretch who had dishonoured her; and, taking it from her pocket, entreated me to return it; assuring me it had been her determination to send it back, even had not my assistance enabled her to do it without inconvenience; as she was

VOL. II.

Ff

resolved to submit to the most poignant misery, rather than owe her relief to the author of her child's dishonour. I took the note, with a proinise to return it on the ensuing day, with due thanks; and, once more exhorting her to comfort and resignation, took my leave.

Here, reader, let us pause. If in thy breast one spark of honest sympathy reside, thy reflections on the events I have been relating will be congenial with my own. If thy vices or errors call for reformation, may they operate that change in thee which in me they effectually produced. But, if thou art virtuous, undepraved by custom, uncorrupted by exam ple, let them confirm thee in thy virtues!

In the short space of four and twenty hours, by a mixture of indolence and suspicion, the first arising from unrestrained indulgence, the last from an affected knowledge of the world, I had deprived one fellowcreature of existence, and another of what is justly deemed dearer than existence......of honour. I had been too indolent to turn aside for a moment to relieve the pangs of penury and disease; but, too active in the gratification of pleasure, I could stop to insult virtue, to aggravate distress: yet had I not in the least deviated from those paths of rectitude and honour prescribed by the world as sacred and infallible. I had. forfeited no claim to worldly respect; nay, my conduct would sooner have incurred approbation than censure, imitation than abhorrence. Such is the depravity of the age, such the influence of fashion, that Vice receives the homage due to Virtue; while Ridicule, become the test of Wit, aims her successful shafts at Merit.

Had I listened to the voice of Conscience, that sure monitor given by the liberal hand of Nature to counteract the pernicious effects of evil communications, I should not have erred; I should have rejected with scorn the specious suggestions of pretended wisdom: despising so pitiful a subterfuge. I should have applied the superfluous gifts of Fortune to the use for which they are designed by Reason, Justice, and Humanity......to the relief of indigence, and the alleviation of misfortune. Such conduct would have ensured the most grateful applause, in the approbation of conscious integrity; and secured me from the keen sensations of remorse, which now oppress my mind with merited anguish.

Having thus endeavoured to impress the moral which I meant to convey, and which was my sole inducement to the present narration, I might with propriety resign the pen; but, for the gratification of the reader's curiosity, I shall proceed to a brief relation of the sequel.

When I left Mrs. Villars, as soon as the agitation of my mind had sufficiently subsided to admit of cool reflection, I resolved on the best mode of inflicting a punishment, in a small degree adequate to his crime, on the base despoiler of Louisa's honour. In pursuit of which, on the following day I repaired to his parish, in order to make some previous enquiries respecting his general character and conduct. In my way to the house of a merchant, to whom I addressed myself for that purpose, I passed by the church, at the door of which was assembled a concourse of people; and hearing a general murmur of discontent, I stopped to enquire the cause. They informed me that, the preceding evening, at the hour appointed by the rector, the corpse of a poor man, who died in the parish, had been brought thither for interment; but that, after waiting an hour and a half, no clergyman appearing, they had been compelled to re-convey the corpse to the place from whence they

brought it: that, by the rector's special appointment, they had again brought the corpse for interment, and had then been waiting an hour for his arrival. At this instant the reverend hypocrite approached. The branching curls, and other coxcomical appendages of his well-dressed head, proclaimed the cause of this fashionable delay. Curiosity induced me to follow him into the church, whither he went to put on his surplice. The book was open. He had placed himself at the head of the solemn procession, and was about to commence the service; but the clerk whispering something in his ear, the book was instantly closed, the surplice stripped off, and the worthy priest preparing to retire with indignant precipitation, when he was stopped by the people who attended the corpse. Something like a scuffle ensued. On enquiry, I found that the friends of the deceased, having been put to an additional expence by the extra attendance of the undertaker and his men, in consequence of the rector's failure to observe his appointment the preceding evening, had not sufficient to pay the fees; and though but a few shillings were wanting, he resolutely persisted in his refusal to bury the corpse. This intelligence raised my indignation too high for restraint: I made my way through the crowd, which, by this time, was considerably increased; and telling the widow of the deceased, who, in a posture of humble supplication, was entreating the obdurate priest to proceed, that I would discharge the fees, took out my pocket-book, and thus addressed him, in a voice sufficiently loud to be distinctly heard by the surrounding multitude, whose eyes were now intently fixed on me.....' As I am a stranger to you, Sir, my simple promise to discharge the fees may not be sufficient: therefore, take this note, (offering the note which I had received from Mrs. Villars:) that, I believe, will suffice to-- Here he interrupted me with an air of haughty superciliousness, to tell me that I must address myself to his clerk; who now stepped forward.Well, then, since you, Sir,' speaking to the clerk, are the rector's treasurer-though, I trust, not the pander of his guilty pleasures-take this note for fifteen pounds; and tell him, it is the note which yesterday he had the baseness to offer to a virtuous young lady, for the villainous purpose of seduction. Yes, good people,' addressing myself to the crowd, your worthy pastor may well be rigid in the exaction of fees. which custom, in despite of reason and humanity, enables him to demand alike from the poor as the rich, when the momentary gratification of his sensual enjoyments is attended with such considerable expence.' And then gave the note to the clerk, and with it a few shillings for the payment of the fees; leaving the rector petrified with astonishment, and compelled to begin the service, as the only mode of silencing the clamours of his congregation.

I next went to the merchant, to make my enquiries. From him I learnt, that Mr. Jones, the rector, had been designed by his parents for trade. With this view, he was bound apprentice to a mechanic in the city, who failed before he had served his time: that, soon after, he had set up business himself; but, from imprudence and mismanagement, followed his master's example. He, however, contrived to save something from the wreck; with which he repaired to Oxford, and entered himself a commoner; where, though his ignorance exposed him to the ridicule of his fellow-students, he remained some time, but was refused his degree. How he had obtained orders, he knew not; but he knew that he had a living in Gloucestershire, where he had so far inF f 2