Page images
PDF
EPUB

now, I am going to a large party to spend the evening." The cottage mother, pressing her crying infant to her breast, exclaims, "My dear child, I'd help you if I could." Draw still another distinction: the one is the result of choice, the other of necessity; then ask our God in whose favour the balance will turn hereafter.

And now, reader, I will positively tell you what you have to expect: a book of shreds and patches, sowed together to make a covering for declining years; it will be just what its author has been in conduct, a compilation of nondescript characters of style, a mingled heap of nothingnesses in general; and you know very well that ex nihilo nil fit is a common adage; but still as madness admits the intervals of sense, some truths, some sound doctrine may be found that may induce you to say, "There's something good, and I'll search for more."

But, my gentle reader, if you will leave the cultiyated gardens of science which are every day presented for your inspection, and wander through a wilderness in search of unknown flowers or herbs, you cannot expect to find them every where; then may I presume that you will experience the greater delight in finding. them any where. If, therefore, you are determined in your search, I must stimulate your perseverance and patience through a barren tract till I can lead you to a spot where I propose remuneration for your labour.

The fancies of men vary as much in literature, as those of the ladies in their admiration of caps, bonnets, and laces; I shall, therefore, endeavour to manufacture the following pages in such a variety of style, of different patterns, of colour, of fineness, in short, of every thing that induces a delicate female to look at this, to

toss about that, and to feel the other, in a merchant's store, that from my stock I hope there may be found something to suit all tastes. Let the ladies then but turn over my pages in the evening as often as they shall have turned over the merchant's goods in the morning, and I will engage that they shall find something to suit them: but ladies, my prices are great, and I shall require payment on the instant. I demand for my higher prized goods-a smile or a tear.

Yet, to the female reader I am almost dumb. I remember that the celebrated Bruce, once, on a remark I made, that a part of his manuscript which I had been reading in the morning, had the air of a novel, observed, you could not have pleased me more than by saying so; for if it has the properties of a novel the ladies will read it, and if the ladies read it, the gentlemen must purchase it and read it also.

Well then, to accommodate the work to the ladies' taste, I will act accordingly to my opinion, formed on no trifling experience; to meet their smiling eyes, there shall be truth; to reach their generous hearts there shall be congenial virtue; proudly disdaining the metaphysic rhapsody of Pope, that

"Every woman is at heart a rake."

If ever ingratitude was exhibited by man (a proposition easily demonstrated) Pope's remarks in prejudice of the fair sex were surely the most inexcusable. Who attended him in his weaknesses? who kept in existence his feeble and incompetent frame? was it Dr. Arbuthnot, to whom he says,

"Friend of my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song!"

No. A physician may prescribe; but delicate attentions must administer. It was to you, feeling, susceptible, and adorable woman, who are in our hours of sorrow the compassionate angels of our distresses; it was to you, and not to Bolingbroke, and all his tribe of infidelity, to whom Pope owed his hours of peace and sweet repose. St. John smoothed not his pillow; Arbuthnot spread not his couch of ease or relaxation. The flattering swarm of sycophants may have soothed his dormant faculties, and awakened an excitative imagination; but woman, woman only prepared for him his down of roses, and invigorated his frame with the reviving essence of balmy attention.

Sweet restorative of wounded minds! blest cordial to the drooping frame! I hallow thee.

But whither am I wandering, and what am I engaged with? Am I not launching again into "a sea of troubles?" If so, is my bark stout, well fitted, and well ballasted? Had I not better pause ere I begin my voyage, lest I be sent into the "slimy bottom of the deep, only to contemplate

"Wedges of gold, large anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,"

with none of which I can ever ascend to the surface, and redeem myself? What is this infatuation that enthrals me now; that bids me tell a tale of folly; that threatens torture to my refusal of confession? 'Tis, not "the pleasing hope, the fond desire, the longing after" praise. No, no. 'Tis obstinacy, that former bane of all my hopes and prospects. I have once said I would confess my errors for the benefit of mankind, and right or wrong it must be done; so

Va mon enfant;

Get thee into the world, my book, child of my dotage, and see how it will treat thee. Ha! who is that who cries" that mine enemy would write a book?" No matter. Go, and be another testimony of the follies of your parent. But, if a tear, perchance, from widowed or from orphaned eye, should ornament one page of thine, close on it with instinctive motion, and keep it as the richest pearl your father would esteem. Farewell! My cares for you, depart with my attentions. You are sold as a slave, and as a slave you must expect to be treated; but drudge on; work your own passage over the Atlan tic, on the eastern shores of which perhaps some kindred soul may heave a sigh of pity on your parent's fate, and clasp you to a feeling breast, while others, with affected virtue, cry out "Raca”—take your own chance. If any one should pluck from you one wing, give him the other also; for scribes and pharisees exist still; and if you wont give freely, they will take forcibly.

If you enter the world in Baltimore, you will bear with you on your journey to the north and east a load of recent imprudences; but you will meet with Friends in Philadelphia; there may you spread your leaves with freedom, and hope for mercy. The enemies of human slavery are friends to God;

"The God the Father of us all."

They pity the unfortunate; and enemies equally to the dominion of vice, they will cherish the instrument of its prevention; they are adelphians and phil-anthropic; they will say to you, you are the offspring of a parent who has been frequently weary and heavy laden, but

с

we have given him rest heretofore, and will welcome his last effort to amuse us.

In passing through New-York, you will leave some testimony of gratitude, but more of painful regret. You will salute the Irvings for me: for in them generosity keeps pace with science; but crisped be your leaves when you unwillingly unite the names of Hamilton and Burr, whose children were my patrons; bow to the shrine of almost unexampled benevolence, when you visit the family of my young friend Payne, for I was sick and they nursed and comforted me, till I almost persuaded myself that I was in the bosom of my own family; leave with them my gratitude for their affectionate attentions and warmest prayers to Heaven for their welfare.

While passing by New-London, should you make no stay there on dry land, dip yourself in the waters of the ocean; they will welcome even the last remnant of that man's property they so cruelly devoured. But beware of the cedars of Lebanon; they will shrink at your approach; for their kindred trees fell beneath my axe, and descended from "Pelion to the main," though they returned not with the golden fleece.

I wish you to be a resident in Boston, at least partially so: for there parents and children will give you welcome; lawyers will find in you some gospel, merchants some arithmetic, friends some acknowledgements, and foes some censure, the unfortunate some pitying reflections, and the deaf and the dumb will smile with recollection of the name on the title page. But you must travel to Vermont: there with avidibe read by one who ornaments her sex; she

ty will

you

« EelmineJätka »