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Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just,
And where you can't unriddle, learn to trust!

"The great, vain man, who far'd on costly food,
Whose life was too luxurious to be good,
Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine,
And forc'd his guests to morning draughts of wine,
Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost,
And still he welcomes, but with less of cost.

"The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted door Ne'er mov'd in duty to the wandering poor ; With him I left the cup, to teach his mind That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind. Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl, And feels compassion touch his grateful soul. Thus artists melt the sulfen ore of lead, With heaping coals of fire upon its head; In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow, And, loose from dross, the silver runs below.

"Long had our pious friend in virtue trod, But now the child half wean'd his heart from God; Child of his age, for him he liv'd in pain, And measured back his steps to earth again. To what excesses had his dotage run? But God, to save the father, took the son. To all, but thee, in fits he seemed to go, And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow: The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust, Now owns, in tears, the punishment was just. "But now had all his fortune felt a wrack, Had that false servant sped in safety back: This night his treasur'd heaps he meant to steal, And what a fund of charity would fail!

Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er, Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more."

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew, The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew. Thus look'd Elisha, when, to mount on high, His master took the chariot of the sky; The fiery pomp ascending left to view; The prophet gaz'd, and wish'd to follow too.

The bending hermit here a prayer begun, Lord! as in heaven, on earth thy will be done: Then, gladly turning, sought his ancient place, And pass'd a life of piety and peace.

Peter Pounce's Dialogue with Parson Adams.

FROM FIELDING'S " JOSEPH ANDREWS."

THERE was once in great vogue a book called Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, the object of which was to show how a servant-maid might be very virtuous, in the heavenly sense of the word, and very prosperous, in the worldly; a combination which, in the author's opinion, was effected by making her resist all the efforts of a vicious master to ruin her, and then accept his hand in marriage when he found he could obtain her in no other way. Society is so much advanced in reflection since the writing of that book, that a moral so bad would now meet with contempt from critics of all classes, even though recommended by as rare and affecting a genius as his who taught it, and who was no less a person than Samuel Richardson, author of Clarissa Harlowe. With much that is admirable and noble, there is a great deal of false morality even in Clarissa; a dangerous exaltation of the formal, and literal, and self-worshipping, above the heartier dictates of prudence itself. But the moral in Pamela (with leave of a great name, be it said), was a pure vulgar mistake. The master was a scoundrel to whom an honest girl ought not to have been given in marriage at all; and the heroine was a prig and a schemer, with no real respect for the virtues she professed, otherwise she would not have jumped at the first "honorable" offer from one who had done all he could to destroy her.

The healthier genius of Fielding saw the folly of these ethics; and, seasoning his wish to counteract them with a spice of no ill-natured malice against the author (who was in the habit of making another

vulgar mistake, and applying that epithet to all who wrote of humble life not in his own manner, particularly Fielding himself), produced the exquisite novel of Joseph Andrews. In this, not his greatest, but in our opinion most delightful work, he has contrived, with a most unexpected, successful, and (to Richardson, we fear) most provoking admission of the value of his moral when put into right action, to make Joseph Andrews Pamela's own brother, both in blood and virtue; to maintain his manly character nevertheless, in spite of conventional jests and prejudices; and, at the same time, to show how little of her pretended purity and humility was in the sister, who in admirable keeping with the spirit of her matrimonial virtue, objects to her brother's marrying a girl in her own former condition of society, because it was lowering the family which her "dear Mr. B." had "raised." As a pleasant instance of Fielding's quickness and vivacity in small matters as well as great, this “Mr. B.” of Richardson (for his name never appears in that author except as an initial) is assumed by Fielding to have been a Mr. "Booby." Mr. Booby's fine town-lady aunt, Lady B., thus becomes Lady Booby. She and her nephew enable us to see, that people of no real heart and goodness, whatever be their rank, riches, or gaiety, may deserve the appellation of fool, as well as humbler or more solemn pretenders; and this is one of the many instances, we think, in which an exception should be made in favor of those characteristical names of persons in works of fiction, to which critics make wholesale objection. Names of the kind often occur in real life, sometimes with ludicrous propriety; and if similar ones could be taken away from the novels in which we have been used to them, people would reasonably miss the Boobies palmed upon Richardson, the Pickles and Bowlings of Smollett, the Snakes and Sir Anthony Absolutes of Sheridan, and the Marplots and Aimwells of Centlivre and Farquhar. We confess we should be loth to lose even the Dryasdusts of Sir Walter, excessive as they may appear. Fortune herself, (not to say Nature) seems to take pleasure in these whims of cognomination. Who has not met with stout gentlemen of the name of Onslow and Heaviside; lively Miss Quicks, and languishing Mrs. Sweets?

Joseph Andrews is a footman who marries a maid-servant. They are excellent persons, and have a delicious friend in Mr. Abraham Adams, a country curate, who prefers his Æschylus to everything but his duty. He is one of the simplest but at the same time manliest

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of men; is anxious to read a man of the world his sermon on vanity;" preaches patience under affliction, and is ready to lose his senses on the death of his little boy; in short, has "every virtue under heaven," except that of superiority to the common failings of humanv, or of being able to resist knocking a rascal down when he insults innocent. He is very poor; and, agreeably to the notions of reLnement in those days, is treated by the rich as if he were little better than a servant himself. Even their stewards think it a condescension to treat him on equal terms. In the following scene, which is one of the most exquisite in all novel-writing, the reader experiences a delightful triumph in seeing how a vulgar upstart of this class is led to betray his baseness while he thinks he is most exalting himself— Adams, on the other hand, rising and becoming glorious out of the depths of his humble honesty. The picture gives you such a vivid idea of the two men, that not having read it for some years, we had fancied, in the interval, that when Pounce throws the curate's hat after him out of the window, Fielding had represented Adams as clapping it triumphantly on his head, and snapping his fingers at him. But this is the way with fine writers. In suggesting more than they say, they write more than they do.

PETER

ETER POUNCE, being desirous of having some one to whom he might communicate his grandeur, told the parson he would convey him home in his chariot. This favor was, by Adams, with many bows and acknowledgments, accepted, though he afterwards said he ascended the chariot rather that he might not offend, than from any desire of riding in it, for that in his heart he preferred the pedestrian even to the vehicular expedition.

The chariot had not proceeded far before Mr Adams observed it was a very fine day.

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Aye, and a very fine country, too," answered Pounce. "I should think so more," returned Adams, " if I had not lately travelled over the Downs, which I take to exceed this, and all other prospects in the universe."

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