Nothing can compensate the loss of a good Wife.

here palliated, or in the smallest degree defended; but it is impossible to feel much pity for the man who ameliorates his fortune by his wife's and his own disgrace. Did Lord Berwick take away money from Colonel Arlington? How then could a few thousands compensate for the loss of a once-loved, once kind and faithful wife? Could they restore her lost fidelity; would not every guinea be expended of it remind him of his present dishonour and past happiness?

When an husband, so injured, asserts his honour, he SHOULD NOBLY REFUSE the paltry damages accorded him, and shew that lucre was not his motive for exposing the adulterous parties to the eyes of the world.

Would a man wish, by obtaining this gilding for his ornamented brow, to enrich children, to whom it may be doubtful whether he has a true parental claim?

She was unskilled in Intrigue.

We are indeed concerned, when a woman of Mrs. Arlington's once fair character, has thus violated her marriage vows. A seeming stranger to vice; only one billet had she written to her illicit lover : artless, unskilled in sly intrigue, she tells him to come and see her, when her husband was from home, in the hearing of her servants. She was pleased with Lord Berwick's conversation, she liked his society; and we must repeat that, we find her frequently left to solitude: for the evidence against her says, his Lordship came very often, and always when the Colonel was from home.

These visits could not be planned on the part of Mrs. Arlington, as she never sent but one note to his Lordship.

When she had taken the last fatal step, which sunk her, and her hitherto spotless fame, into the abyss of infamy, when discovered, she uttered, that, it was the

Conclusion.

first time she had been imprudent! She gave it too gentle a term; for we really believe it was the first, (and we may be led to suppose, from circumstances that followed, the last) time she had been criminal!*

The following lines of a celebrated poet, should not be understood as a rule for married people :

Curse on all laws but those which love has made ;
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

POPE.

SIR JACOB SAMPSON,

"moriemur inultæ

"Sed moriamur, ait."

VIRGIL.

In this gentleman we behold a man, not striving by pecuniary acquisitions to insure himself that happiness, which he finds every reason to suspect his wife has for ever destroyed, but we see him sinking under the affliction, caused by his suspicions, and seeking refuge only in despair.

Sir Jacob Sampson, as his name sufficiently evinces, was of that race which were once the chosen favourites of their Maker; and if, as the liberal and well-informed mind assures its possessor, all religions are equal in the eye of OMNIPOTENCE, if mercy, justice, and integrity are the leading rules of their conduct, then we may safely say, that Sir Jacob was one who shone amongst the favourites of heaven.

His Character.

No man knew the value of money better than he did; but he knew its value only, as it served him to prop the State which protected him he had lavished it in support of government, and in affording the helping means of carrying on an arduous war he has employed it also in magnificently feasting the sons of his lawful Sovereign; and, though a merchant and citizen himself, in regaling those nobles, which he knew, how empty soever may be the mere sound of title, are yet necessary to support each proper gradation of government: while his liberal hand, ever open to succour distress, has blessed and comforted the poor in his vicinity.

But much as money may be deemed desirable, as for the pleasure it affords in dispensing it for good to others, in that delightful way Sir Jacob was ever assiduous to do; yet he well knew that the precious metal gold, is unable to