Tender, confiding woman is wounded by the hand that ought to have been her defence; is held up to obloquy, by the arm that ought to have been her protection! Such are the men who drive their wives, (wretched in so sad a refuge!) into the seducer's toils: such are the men who exult in guilt, and put the price of innocence with their own dishonour, into their purses. Till the bridal pair consider mind and heart of greater consequence to mutual concord, than their respective fortune and fashion, calamitous cases of matrimonial disunion will continue to stain our annals; and transmit to posterity most disgraceful doubts of their own legitimacy, and the ho nour of their ancestors..

SOLITUDE.

1.

THEY are never alone, who are accompa nied with noble thoughts..

Remark

The illustrious Scipio, whose "noble thoughts," like a thousand livery'd angels Lacquey'd him, used to say, "I never am less alone than when alone."

2.

Solitary life is prone to affections.

3.

Avoidings of company do but make the pas sions more violent when they meet with fit subjects.

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Remark.

Few objects being present to distract attention, all tends to the point that may happen to excite interest. Nothing interrupts reflection; and reflection, by repeating the image, deepens it in the heart, till to erase it is impossible. The story of Petrarch, shews the maddening effects of solitude upon lovers.

4.

Vehement love of solitariness is but a glorious title to idleness. In action, a man does not only benefit himself, but he benefits others. God would not have delivered the soul into a body which had arms and legs, the instru ments of doing, but that it were intended the mind should employ them; and that the mind should best know its own good or evil, by practice: which knowledge is the only way to increase the one, and correct the other.

Remark.

When solitude is sought out as a place for the mind to dream in, and not to arouse itself and form plans for future action, it is nothing better than a tomb loaded with lying epitaphs:

"Here rests the Great-False marble! Where? Nothing but sordid dust lies here."

Alike are the pretensions of the whimsical inhabitant of solitary places: the man is buried alive; useless to his fellow-creatures; and fit only to "vegetate and rot," the burthened earth groans to cover him.

Zimmerman has spread a specious lustre over this subject, and, by the magic of his painting, hath turned many a silly head into the affectation of solitude. His enthusiasm may be contagious; but all are not like him. fitted to walk the plain with Innocence and Contemplation joined! All are not learned who put on the doctor's gown: many assume abstraction, but few meditate; for it is an

easy matter to look grave, and a task of labour to become wise: the reputation of a thing is in general more valued than the reality.Though Zimmerman declared his love of solitude, he did not mean an ostentatious display of his own fitness to fill it: his mind was a little commonwealth in itself, always at work for the public weal, and solitude was his study; or rather, retirement; for that is the proper name of the seclusion he eulogises. His retreat was animated by the graces of connubial and filial love, and all the social endearments of friendship: these blessings are not the guests of solitude; she dwells, like the hermit of the desart, alone.

5.

Eagles we see fly alone; and they are but sheep which always herd together.

Remark.

But it is to fly that eagles leave their mates; not to immure themselves in the crannies of rocks, or bury themselves under ground,