From him you come, from him accept it here, At length the world, renew'd by calm repose, Wild sparkling rage inflame the father's eyes, He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries, "Detested wretch !"-but scarce his speech began, When the strange partner seemed no longer man ; His youthful face grew more serenely sweet; And moves in all the majesty of light. Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew, แ "Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown, In sweet memorial rise before the throne; These charms success in our bright region find, "Then know the truth of government divine, And let these scruples be no longer thine. "The Maker justly claims that world he made, "What strange events can strike with more surprise Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes? Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just, “The great, vain man, who far'd on costly food, "The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted doo 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 sullen 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. 66 "But now had all his fortune felt a wrack, 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 Ponure'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 |