The world has nothing to bestow, From our own felves our joys must flow, And that dear hut, our home. Of reft was Noah's dove bereft, Tho' fools fpurn Hymen's gentle pow'rs, That marriage rightly understood, Our babes fhall richest comforts bring, While they our wifeft hours engage, They'll grow in virtue ev'ry day, No borrow'd joys! they're all our own, Our portion is not large indeed, In this the art of living lies, To want no more than may fuffice, We'll therefore relifh with content To be refign'd, when ills betide, And pleas'd with favours given : Dear Chloe, this is wifdom's part, Whose fragrance smells to heaven. We'll afk no long protracted treat, (Since winter life is feldom fweet ;) But when our feaft is o'er, Grateful from table we'll arife, Nor grudge our fons with envious eyes, The relicks of our store. Thus hand in hand thro' life we'll go, With cautious fteps we'll tread; And mingle with the dead. While Confcience, like a faithful friend, And fmooth the bed of death. NUMBER VII. Nor quit for life what gives to life its worth. HISTORY OF FIDELIA. I AM the daughter of a gentleman of good family, who, as he was a younger brother, purchafed with the portion that was allotted him, a genteel poft under the government. My mother died when I was but twelve years old; and my father, who was exceffively fond of me, determined to be himself my preceptor, and to take care that my natural genius, which his partiality made him think above the common rank, fhould not want the improvements of a liberal education. He was a man of fenfe, with a tolerable fhare of learning. In his youth he had been a free-liver, and perhaps for that reason took fome pains to become what is called a freethinker. But whatever fashionable frailties he might formerly have allowed in himself, he was now in advanced life, and had at least worldly wisdom enough to know, that it was neceffary his daughter fhould be restrained from thofe liberties, which he had looked upon as trifling errors in his own conduct. He therefore laboured with great application to inculcate in me the love of order, the beauty of moral rectitude, and the happiness and self-reward of virtue; but at the fame time professed it his design to free my mind from vulgar prejudices and superstition, for fo he called REVEALED RELIGION. As I was urged to chufe virtue, and reject vice, from motives which had no neceffary connection with immortality, I was not led to confider a future ftate either with hope or fear my father indeed, when I urged him upon that subject, always intimated that the doctrine of immortality, whether true or false, ought not at all to influence my conduct or interrupt my peace; because the virtue which fecured happiness in the present state, would also secure it in a future: a future ftate, therefore, I wholly difregarded, and, to confefs a truth, disbelieved: for I thought I could plainly discover that it was disbelieved by my father, though he had not thought fit explicitly to declare his fentiments. As I had no very turbulent paffions, a ductile and good difpofition, and the highest reverence for his understanding, as well as the tendereft affection for him, he found it an easy task to make me adopt every sentiment F |