"To a small mole a mother's lips have press'd,- "I now can speak again :-my elder boy 66 "Alas! I needed such reliance more: My idiot-girl, so simply gay before, "Now wept in pain; some wretch had found a time, 66 Depraved and wicked, for that coward-crime; "I had indeed my doubt, but I suppress'd "The thought that day and night disturb'd my rest; "She and that sick-pale brother—but why strive "To keep the terrors of that time alive? "The hour arrived, the new, th' undreaded pain, "That came with violence and yet came in vain. "I saw her die: her brother too is dead; "Nor own'd such crime-what is it that I dread? "The parish-aid withdrawn, I look'd around, "And in my school a bless'd subsistence found "My winter-calm of life: to be of use "Would pleasant thoughts and heavenly hopes produce; "I loved them all; it soothed me to presage "The various trials of their riper age, "Then dwell on mine, and bless the Power who gave "Pains to correct us, and remorse to save. "Yes! these were days of peace, but they are past,—— "A trial came, I will believe, a last; "I lost my sight, and my employment gone, "Useless I live, but to the day live on ; "Those eyes, which long the light of heaven-enjoy'd, "Were not by pain, by agony destroy'd: 66 66 My senses fail not all; I speak, I pray ; By night my rest, my food I take by day; "And as my mind looks cheerful to my end, "I love mankind and call my GOD my friend." NOTES TO LETTER XX. Note 1, page 307, line 5. Where thrift and lavender, and lad's-love bloom. The lad's or boy's love of some counties is the plant southernwood, the artemisia abrotanum of botanists. Note 2, page 311, line 17. Of some vile plot, and every wo adieu ! As this incident points out the work alluded to, I wish it to be remembered, that the gloomy tenour, the querulous melancholy of the story, is all I censure. The language of the writer is often animated, and is, I believe, correct; the characters well drawn, and the manners described from real life; but the perpetual occurrence of sad events, the protracted list of teasing and perplexing mischances, joined with much waspish invective, unallayed by pleasantry or sprightliness, and these continued through many hundred pages, render publications, intended for amusement and executed with ability, heavy and displeasing :—you find your favourite persons happy in the end; but they have teased you so much with their perplexities by the way, that you were frequently disposed to quit them in their distresses. VOL. II. Y THE BOROUGH. LETTER XXI. THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH. ABEL KEENE. Cœpis meliùs quàm desines: ultima primis Ovid. Deianira Herculi. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Epistle to Timothy. |