or his company; he cannot attend to the application: but the man who has no servants to bastile him, receives the unfortunate applicant; shares with him perhaps his last dollar, and gives him his best welcome, because he can feel for a fellow-creature from having been taught by adversity that excellent prayer of Gray, "Teach me to love, and to forgive; Exact my own defects to scan What others are to feel, and know myself a man." Wanton, I might perhaps say wicked in the extreme, is that wretch who can find pleasure in adopting the arm of the law to assist him in the annihilation of domestic peace, and the interruption of future pursuits: where there is villainy, "let the axe fall," but where there is but misfortune, “let the strong lance of justice hurtless break." I will conclude. As the feeling mind must always witness, with painful sensibilities, the neglect of talents even in their decay, so will it contemplate with delight, the generous efforts of the few who may dare, in Fashion's spite, to smooth the pillow of departing genius. We know that the declining light of a cloud-setting sun, is not contemplated with that degree of admiration, with which we welcome the aspiring beams of morn; but a soul possessed of liberality will say, this sun has dawned, has shone with its meridian warmth; his natural evening comes, and while we sorrowing feel regret for his departure, we cannot but confess that he has given us a day. Reader, farewell! I have not been sparing in the development of my faults; allow me in your heart, some credit for virtues which I have concealed. Be liberal in your censures, but be just. Yet soft ye, a word or two before you go: I have done the state some service and they know it: "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice;" speak of me, No-not" as I am," but as I have been: Then must you speak of one who felt, Not worldly wisely, but too deeply: of one who, used to the melting mood, could find at any time, a medicinal tear to shed on sufferings.— Enough: but that I have yet a few more observations to make, which justice cannot omit. I have received from thousands in the United States, the most friendly attentions; if I have now lost their acquaintance, it is my own fault, not theirs. Far be it from me to utter a thought of a delinquency of friends, because I have been unfortunate; for no one deserted me till I deserted myself; even in the adversity which Mr. Edwards so cruelly brought on me, which introduced the train of evils under which I have for more than two years laboured, and which probably will end only with my life, my old acquaintances comforted me in my affliction. But let not this remark be construed into a contradiction of what I have before observed: they who assisted me, were they whom I had never assisted; they whom I had assisted, proved the justice of Rochefaucault's remark, which I remember to have read, something similar to the following: that assistance and the consequent feelings of obligation in the assisted, create enemies where they should inspire gratitude. Exceptions must be made; sometimes indeed the tears of relieved infancy would adorn my cheek, and sometimes the sturdy grasp of maturity would wring my hand even to a painful pleasure. Though generally in pain, I have not been without those pleasures seated in the mind; those dear delicious, heavenly enjoyments, which can only emanate from an affectionate family, in "That dear hut our home." Domestic comforts, even in the midst of privations of every nature, have been my lot; the tenderest attentions of an amiable and beloved wife have soothed my hours of misery with the most consoling balm; softening, not irritating, the wounds of imprudence; chastening as with the breath of providence, the heart she knew best, and thereby occasionally procuring my emancipation from volatilities, which, indeed, were but the effluence of the moment, however eventually pernicious. Enduring almost beyond the stretch of human power, the sicknesses of herself and children, and the added weaknesses of her husband, with more than the boasted Roman fortitude; relying on her blessed Saviour and the Bible, her only comforts, she has passed in Christian patience, through a scene of misery rarely equalled in the lowest abodes of poverty. The tenderness of my children too, have been a great consolation. I write this, as I began the history, under the impression of sudden dissolution. Their affection for me has been extended to every duty a pa rent can require, or his anxieties demand. The hours which I have passed with them in conversation by the fireside, may be esteemed among the really happiest of my life, though an enforced oblivion of my own errors was necessary to reconcile the enjoyment, from a feeling that my stricter duties towards them had been aberrant from their temporary comforts: but, during these hours I have the satisfaction of thinking that their general improvement has exceeded that which they would have derived from public schools, for the instruction was generally requested by them as an amusement, not forced upon them as a task; their minds were open, and, like melted wax, they greedily received impressions not easily effaced. One blessing has Providence conferred on my endeavours; they are all Christians. Another, I trust, will favour their future energies, and make them good (but not great) unless that they shall be enabled to follow the example of Washington, and be good and great at the same time. May charity be still their practice; not because it covereth a multitude of sins, for I hope they will have no sins to cover; but because he that helpeth his fellow-creature on earth, has an advocate in the recording angel in heaven; may they be charitable in secret, liberal without ostentation, and generous without prodigality: Yet may they understand that real charity can only be bestowed on the deserving. Strong as I think they are in honesty, I would not have them trust to the stability of their present feelings; these feelings may be undermined by subtle invitations to error: Let them pray constantly to the Almighty, to preserve them from every deviation from rectitude: Let them always keep in mind, that "To be good is to be happy, Angels are happier than mankind, Because they're better; Guilt is the source of sorrow, it is the fiend, The avenging fiend That follows us behind with whips and stings; The blest know none of this, But live in everlasting peace of mind, and find And that they may continue good, is the devout prayer of a father who must soon leave them. I bequeath to them no legacy, but their father's errors; yet these are an inestimable gift, they are a chart that shows the rocks whereon their father's vessel has split, and gives a pilot to avoid them. for Yet let it be remembered that I have been guilty of no crime, no meanness that can blot the unstained paper of mine, or my wife's family. Never did an intention of deception, fraud, or even politic artifice, enter my mind. I have even disdained that most effectual mean of making money, the art of puffing; my advertisements my recitations and schools of reading and elocution, have been plainly, but in the most simple manner delivered. I have never declared that any pieces which I may have written myself, were the product of celebrated authors in England. I never could accede to Mr. Wood's plan, though the policy of it may be beneficial to the theatre, of contriving to father the productions of an American, upon an English author. But on or after the presentation of a tragedy I had written, to the managers, the scene of which was in Philadelphia, Mr. Warren informed me by letter, that no home production |
