A Word en-passant. to overthrow the quiet of families! Many instances could be adduced of false accusations being made by a worthless servant, who had been turned away for neglect of duty, and thus has sought revenge. The world cannot have forgot, and surely it will be handed down for centuries to come, the cruel conduct of a Naval Officer of high rank in his profession, towards a chaste and amiable wife; whom he had repeatedly treated with those indignities, which shock every mind possessed of any degree of delicacy, and her's peculiarly so: yet this woman, so pure, so refined, he scrupled not to accuse of incontinence with a black servant! And the poor wretch owned on the trial, that he had been highly bribed to accuse his mistress:-By whom bribed? The horrid conviction too plainly speaks to the astonished mind! Lord Berwick, the too highly-favour Bribery. ed lover of Mrs. Arlington, could not be on such a degree of intimacy with the family, as it appears he was, without the knowledge of Colonel Arlington; and that the Colonel had his suspicions, is but too evident, from every corroborating witness adduced by servants. We cannot think much of the disinterestedness of the Inn-keeper's wife, because she refused the munificent bribe held out to her, to make her hold her tongue: "From the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak" And she said to his lordship, 66 No; if I am silent, all the servants know it, and will not be so." She therefore felt convinced that, tempting as was Lord Berwick's offer to her, as he had not made the same to the servants, they would be sure to tell all they knew, if from motives of envy alone. It may naturally then be surmised, that she was rewarded from another quarter. Think not, reader, that adultery is 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 disDid Lord Berwick take away grace. 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; POPE |