it. And now it was that Bonario began in earnest to love Felicia, and to devote his whole time to a pursuit of her. He inquired for her among the great, but they knew her not. He bribed the poor for intelligence, but they were strangers to her. He sought her of Knowledge, but she was ignorant of her; of Pleasure, but she misled him. Temperance knew only the path she had taken; Virtue had seen her upon the way; but Religion assured him of her retreat, and sent Constancy to conduct him to her.

It was in a village far from town that Bonario again saw his Felicia; and here was in hopes of possessing her for ever. The coyness with which she treated him in his days of folly, time and the amendment it had wrought in him began to soften. He passed whole days in her society, and was rarely denied access to her but when Passion had misguided him.

Felicia lived in this retreat, with the daughter of a simple villager called Innocence. To this amiable rustic did Bonario apply for intercession upon every new offence against Felicia; but too impatient of delay, and out of humour with his advocate, he renewed his acquaintance with a court lady, called Vice, who was there upon a visit, and engaged her to solicit for him.

This

behaviour so enraged Felicia, that she again withdrew herself; and, in the warmth of her resentment, sent up a petition to Jupiter, to be recalled to heaven.

Jupiter, upon this petition, called a council of the gods; in which it was decreed, that while Bonario continued upon earth, Felicia should not

totally depart from it; but as the nature of Bonario was fickle and imperfect, his admission to her society should be only occasional and transient. That their nuptials should be deferred till the nature of Bonario should be changed by death; and that afterwards they should be inseparably united in the regions of immortality.

E. MOORE.

THE ENCHANTED GLASSES.

I REMEMBER a friend of mine had once an excellent conceit of a cave, at the upper end of which were two enchanted glasses, with curtains drawn before them, that were to be consulted every evening in order for the forming a judgment of the actions of the day. The first glass showed what they might have been, and what effects such and such opportunities ought to have produced when the curtain was undrawn before the other, it showed tout au naturel what they had been. Were one to contemplate in these glasses, on the spending one of those great estates, which reduce our fine people to such difficulties, what a coup d'œil the first would present! A wide tract of country adorned and improved; a thousand honest families flourishing on their well cultivated farms; I cannot tell whether one should not see a church or two rising in a plain sort of majesty amidst the landscape: in another part of it would appear manufactures encouraged, poverty relieved, and multitudes of people pray. ing for the welfare of the happy master: his

tradesmen, his domestics, every body that has any connexion with him, would appear with a cheerful and a grateful air: they, in their turns, would dispense good and happiness to all with whom they had any concern. At the family seat would be seen an unassuming grandeur, and an honest hospitality, free from profuseness and intemperance. One may say, as of Hamlet's two pictures,

Such should be greatness :-Now, behold what follows: For here is Fortune, like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting each wholesome grain.

In the true historical glass what may we see Perhaps a pack of hounds, a cellar, an election ; perhaps a gaming-table, with all those hellish faces that surround it; an artful director, perhaps, and an indolent pupil. Oppression gripes every poor wretch within its grasp, and these again oppress their own inferiors and dependents all look hopeless and joyless, and every look seems to conceal a secret murmur. On the foreground, perhaps, there stands a magnificent palace, in the Italian taste; innumerable temples, obelisks, and statues, rise among the woods; and never were Flora and Pomona, Venus and Diana, more expensively honoured in Greece and Rome, than in these fairy scenes. The church, in the mean time, stands with a wooden tower, the fields are poorly cultivated, the neighbourhood discontented, and ever upon the catch to find all possible faults in those proud great ones, with whom they have no cheerful friendly inter

course.

Fine clothes and costly jewels glitter, perhaps, in some part of the glass; but how can they adorn faces grown wan with inward care, or give gracefulness to those who must always have the air of inferiority when they happen to meet the eye of their unpaid tradesmen, whose families are starving on their account?

MISS TALBOT.

TRUTH NOT TO BE TOLD AT ALL TIMES;

OR,

THE MORAL ENCHANTER.

In those days when magicians were rife on earth, doubtless very delightful times, for even now the mere relation of the wonders which were then common retains a spell, and a potent charm against the ennui of a long winter's evening,-in those days there lived an enchanter, who must himself have been bewitched, being possessed not only of the wish of curing, but by the hope of being able to cure mankind of their foibles, vanities, and follies, by means of the resources of his art. Many were the astonishing proofs which he is reported to have given of his skill; some of them, indeed, so astonishing as to be incredible even to those who are not startled at the utmost licentiousness of fiction, or all the wonders of fairy land. One instance of what he is said to have thus effected will convince the reader that his repute was not greater than it merited to be. Almaforatati-for such was the

imposingly sonorous name of our philosophic magician-almost endued of itself with necromantic power-had discovered that the female tongue generally acquires an additional and very formidable impetus after marriage; and that the musical tones of a maiden's voice frequently become shrill and discordant from the same cause: in short, he discovered that another magician, of of a very capricious temper, and named Gegamos, took a malignant pleasure in frequently transforming the most beautiful nymphs, angels, and goddesses, into shrews and scolds; a more lamentable metamorphosis than any recorded in that delightful romance, written by the Ariosto of antiquity. Against these most diabolical transformations, the benevolent Almaforatati contrived a potent talisman; but, unfortunately for posterity, the secret of this talisman was confided to a woman; and, therefore, as the sex are as little celebrated for their retention of secrets, as they are for their retention of tongue, I presume that it has long since been lost. Reader, art thou married? Should such happen to be the case, thou wilt appreciate the benevolence of Almaforatati as it deserves.-It is not my intention, however, to record all that this humane enchanter did for the improvement and amelioration of mankind; since, excellent as he was, and excellent as his history could not fail to be when written by myself, it might be somewhat prolix-I will not employ that ominous word tedious. For the present, therefore, I shall confine myself to the relation of one of those many cures which he * Ovid.