question of whether I would go to sea? a mode of life which I always abhorred, because I considered it as the grave of all intellect, served to restore my mind, in some measure, to its former tone; that is, a state of pride, of haughtiness, and of sullen indifference, with regard to the opinion of others; only, every now and then, a glance at my father's distressed and grief-worn countenance, would still the rising tumult, and sink me into a silent submission to the hársh speeches of my mother, who seems to me a perfect paradox: with feelings most tremblingly alive to any thing like neglect, or cruelty, or animadversion towards herself, she deals about, with the most profuse liberality, the keenest and most cuttingly sarcastic expressions for the gratification and edifying of other people. And yet I know her heart to be excellent. There is no one self-gratification which she will not forego, and deny herself, in order to promote the welfare of her children, all of whom she loves with the most ardent affection; nay, perhaps her very speeches, which something savour of cruelty, are the effects of her

maternal love. She is, without exception, one of the best domestic managers I ever beheld; is very attentive to, and relieves, the wants of her indigent neighbours; is thoroughly moral, and strictly religious; but, with all this, so abominably given to say severe and cutting things, that superficial people, who see no farther than the surface, entertain a worse opinion of her than she deserves; and hate, while they shrink from her amazing superiority of understanding, which awes all her neighbours, both male and female, into something more than mere external civility and the semblance of respect. I am confident, that, if she only possessed graciousness of manner, she would be one of the most accomplished, as she is now one of the most sensible women this day existing on the globe. I know fifty women, all of whose real and essential good qualities put together do not equal a thousandth part of her virtue, looked up to as beings much superior to her, because they abstain from saying harsh things to their acquaintance's. This general want of graciousness, this neglect of the 'suaviter in modo,' is the

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i

more to be lamented, because she can, when she pleases, as I have often seen her, be exquisitely amiable and agreeable. I believe we may safely sum up her character in the following words: that if she is seldom obliging and civil in her manner, she is still more rarely rough and unkind in her actions. And yet I could have wished, that she had, in early life, been made acquainted with his important truth, that the most valuable possessions and solid acquisitions of virtue and of understanding, avail but little in the eyes of the generality of mankind, and not so much as they would otherwise do in the sight of the chosen few, the intellectual, and the cultivated, without the varnish and the ornament of mild and gentle manners. Like the rough diamond in the mine, which, though possessing all its intrinsic worth and value, is yet liable to be overlooked and thrown aside by the unobserving and injudicious many; and even to the skilful jeweller, its charms are heightened, when the last efforts of the artist have produced the polish, the brilliancy, the lustre, the permanency of beauty."

ESSAY XXXI.

NARRATIVE CONTINUED..

"My time was not spent altogether in the most delectable manner; for, notwithstanding the very affectionate behaviour of my. two sisters, and my younger brother, yet some good natured acquaintance or other would, from time to time, very obligingly take an opportunity of asking me, whether I had heard from ..........lately or not?. say it was an unfortunate business; and then. dole out some insufferable, common-place,. canting, unmeaning pity and compassion. for my fate, and hope that the family would endeavour to bear with the disgrace as patiently as possible, and much more to the same purpose; all proceeding from the very essence of malignant triumph and exultation over a fallen fellow creature, peeping out under the flimsy disguise of awkwardly affected benevolence and commiseration. Not to mention, that my mother took very especial care to prevent me from

.....

forgetting the irksomeness of my situation, by more than the broadest hints and insinuations that since I had frustrated all my fathers fondest hopes, I must expect always to creep on in a very humble and mean condition of life, in comparison with what I should have been if I had not rebelled against lawful and just authority, and got myself expelled f These very encouraging observations were, howe ever, much compensated by my father' unremitting tenderness, and unceasing endeavours to soothe and to calm my mind, and, above all, to bring it to the paths of duty and of religion, from which it had been so deplorably warped, by a more than three years' residence at the sink of all integrity, and the very charnel-house of morals. One instance of his attentive and affectionate kindness I cannot forbear mentioning. My eldest sister was in the habit of playing and singing the well known

called?

song ........., set to music. My little brother one day, in the unreflecting innocence of his heart, asked her to play and sing this to him. My father, who happened