From him you come, from him accept it here,
A frank and sober, more than costly cheer."
He spoke, and bid the welcome table spread,
They talk of virtue till the time of bed;
When the grave household round his hall repair,
Warn'd by a bell, and close the hours with prayer.

At length the world, renew'd by calm repose,
Was strong for toil; the dappled morn arose;
Before the pilgrims part, the younger crept
Near the clos'd cradle where an infant slept,
And writh'd its neck; the landlord's little pride,
O strange return! grew black, and gasp'd, and died.
Horror of horrors! what! his only son!

How look'd our hermit when the fact was done;
Not hell, though hell's black jaws in sunder part,
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his heart.
Confus'd, and struck with silence at the deed,
He flies; but, trembling, fails to fly with speed;
His steps the youth pursues; the country lay
Perplex'd with roads; a servant show'd the way;
A river cross'd the path, the passage o'er
Was nice to find; the servant trod before;
Long arms of oak an oaken bridge supplied,
And deep the waves beneath the bending glide;
The youth, who seem'd to watch a time to sin,
Approach'd the careless guide and thrust him in
Plunging he falls, and rising, lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks among the dead.

1;

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;
His robe turn'd white, and flow'd upon his feet;
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odors breathe through purpled air;
And wings, whose colors glittered on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display;
The form ethereal burst upon his sight,
And moves in all the majesty of light.

Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew,
Sudden he gaz'd, and wist not what to do;
Surprise in secret chains his words suspends,
And in a calm his settling temper ends.
But silence here the beauteous angel broke
(The voice of music ravish'd as he spoke).

"Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown,
In sweet memorial rise before the throne;
These charms success in our bright region find,
And force an angel down to calm thy mind;
For this commission'd, I forsook the sky;
Nay, cease to kneel, thy fellow-servant I.

"Then know the truth of government divine,

And let these scruples be no longer thine.

"The Maker justly claims that world he made,
In this the right of Providence is laid;
Its sacred majesty through all depends
On using second means to work his ends:
'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye,
The Power exerts his attributes on high;
Your actions uses, nor controls your will,
And bids the doubting sons of men be still.

"What strange events can strike with more surprise Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes?

Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just,
And where you can't unriddle, learn to trust!

"The great, vain man, who far'd on costly food,
Whose life was too luxurious to be good,
Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine,
And forc'd his guests to morning draughts of wine,
Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost,
And still he welcomes, but with less of cost.

"The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted door 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.

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"But now had all his fortune felt a wrack,
Had that false servant sped in safety back:
This night his treasur'd heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!

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 Panure'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