deserve her. Ceremony drove her from court, Avarice from the city, and Want from the cottage. Her delight, however, was in the last of these places, and there it was that she was most frequently to be found.

Jupiter saw with pity the wanderings of Felicia, and in a fortunate hour caused a mortal to be born, whose name was Bonario, or Goodness. He endowed him with all the graces of mind and body; and at an age when the soul becomes sensible of desires, he breathed into him a passion for the beautiful Felicia. Bonario had frequently seen her in his early visits to Wisdom and Devotion; but as lightness of belief, and an overfondness of mankind were failings inseparable to him, he often suffered himself to be led astray from Felicia, till Reflection, the common friend of both, would set him right, and reconduct him to her company.

Though Felicia was a virgin of some thousand years old, her coyness was rather found to increase than to diminish. This, perhaps, to mortal old maids may be matter of wonder; but the true reason was, that the beauty of Felicia was incapable of decay. From hence it was that the fickleness of Bonario made her less and less easy of access. Yet such was his frailty, that he continually suffered himself to be enticed from her, till at last she totally withdrew herself. Reflection came now only to upbraid him. Her words, however, were of service, as by showing how he had lost Felicia, they gave him hopes that a contrary behaviour might, in time, regain her.

The loss of happiness instructs us how to value

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 praying 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