beneath their veils, and indulged in all the wailing accents of regret. By noon they reached the foot of a ftupendous mountain, over which they were obliged to pass: the weary mules began to mount the toilfome afcent, every moment endangering the lives of the travellers, by falling on the rugged pathway. By painful and repeated exertions, they arrived at a small hovel, about half-way up the mountain, where an old fhepherd prefented them dried fruits, and wine of the pooreft quality. They readily partook of his coarfe fare, and, after gratefully requiting him, proceeded.

-

After furmounting innumerable impediments, they reached the fummit, and stopping their mules to reft, they observed a venerable man- clad in a pilgrim's weeds.' His ftaff fupported his weary limbs, and his fcrip feemed fcantily fupplied with bread and water. His countenance was the picture of meek fufferance; his white hair hung like threads of filver upon his ftooping fhoulders, except when the rude blaft compelled it to fhade his wrinkled cheek. His hat was worn and tattered; the fcallop shell placed in the front, as the badge of penitential humility. He refembled the withered oak, majestic even in ruin! He raised his eyes, which meditation had bent toward the ground; he bowed refpectfully, then, croffing his aching breaft, purfued his weary way in penfive forrow!

Elvira, lifting up her veil with eager folicitude, exclaimed, Poor pilgrim! thou art journeying through a vale of forrow, unnoticed and unfriended if there is an heart hard enough to pass by thee, without beftowing the tribute of a figh, may it experience thy pangs, without thy refignation!'

He waa fhortly overtaken by the travellers; they ordered their domeftics to stop the mules, and, in the language the feeling heart never fails to dictate to the tongue, when it addreffes the unhappy, they politely requested to be informed, whether they

could be of fervice to him, or render the progrefs of his journey less irkfome by fociety. My fervant,' faid the marchionefs, can feat himself behind the carriage, during the remainder of this poft ; perhaps his mule will be of ufe to you.' Madam,' replied the venerable man, I am bound to blefs you for your generous attention; but, alas! I cannot profit by your kindness: the humiliation of penitential mifery does not afpire to tafte the balm of comfort; I am grown familiar with affliction, and fhould fcarcely be able to endure a ceffation of my forrows: I have no friend to lament my abfence, no kindred to mourn for my difgrace; the warm paffions of earlier days are settled in the froft of age; penury has long fince denied the comforts of life, and eternal penitence alone can expiate its errors.' Here he turned afide, to wipe away the involuntary tear, wrung from his bursting heart by the hard grafp of unrelenting confcience; then requesting their pardon for having detained them fo long, he poured out his foul in fervent benedictions, and rested on his staff: they paffed, and foon loft fight of him by the winding of the road.

Elvira's fpeaking eye paid the tribute of fenfibility to the pilgrim's artlefs narrative. Is it poffible,' faid the, that a fingle crime fhould harbour its dark purpose in a mind that appears fo exquifitely enlightened? Can a countenance fo marked with complacency and candour, prove the fpecious mask to cover a base defigning heart?-Impoffible!-I am certain this hopeless penitent is lefs criminal than his own fcrupulous severity will fuffer him to believe. The auf terity with which he condemns himfelf is the strongest proof that his crime is venial; for the practice of hardened and abandoned villany never fails to fteel the foul against compunction.I wish I could learn the ftory, and participate the fufferings of this poor old man; age, affailed by poverty, and toiling toward the grave, requires

the

He foon came up with them; the marchionefs, whofe mind wanted little preparation for the exercise of gentlenefs and pity, informed the pilgrim, that if his route lay toward the foreft of Vancenza, he would confer a pleafure on them by fojourning a few days at the castle. He thanked them, and promised to accept their hofpitable invitation; though his ftay, he faid, must be circumfcribed to a few hours only.

The feverity of the weather rendering their road tedious and difficult, the fecond evening terminated in accomplishing only half their journey.

Nothing interefting occurred the following day. On the fourth, the melancholy party reached the gloomy manfion of domeftic forrow.

It was midnight when they arrived at Vancenza; the old porter opened the ponderous gate, that clofed the outward walls, in fullen filence. At the inner door the steward, in the deepest mourning, greeted their return, with a profound figh. The ancient apartments appeared cold and dreary, ftripped of every attraction. The table was prepared for fupper; but be, whofe engaging converfation once enlivened every repaft, was there no longer.

Elvira's heart throbbed with agony; the trembled left her eye should meet the marchionefs'; Carline hid her face upon her folded aims on the

corner of the table, and an awful. filence prevailed throughout the apartment.

After the fervants had waited for fome minutes in dumb affliction, the marchionefs informed them they might withdraw. Elvira drew her chair toward the fire; her companions foon followed her. Every breaft was burfting with anguish; every eye suffased with tears.

The marchionefs broke the melancholy filence :

We are now, my lovely girls,' faid fhe, deprived of our only comfort, our only protector. I need not picture to you the dangers and calamities to which our fex are exposed, or the extreme caution neceffary to be obferved by young perfons entering into the tempeftuous fcenes of tranfitory life. The various examples you have witnessed of the depravity of human nature, during your refidence at Madrid, muft be indelibly imprinted on your minds. The fordid duplicity of one fex, and the disgusting infignificance of the other, form a ftriking contrafted portrait, wherein you may trace the lineaments of half mankind. The virtuous retirement in which you were educated, under the careful inspection of my lamented brother, almost taught you to believe that perfection belonged to the human heart. -Experience has convinced you of the contrary.

The mind of man is a mixture of incomprehenfible propenfities; virtue is often its natural inmate; but, there is scarcely an inftance wherein either vanity, avarice, ambition, inordinate paffions, or frivolous purfuits, do not, in fome degree, contaminate its purity, and tarnish its most brilliant attributes.

In youth the warmth of a vigorous imagination leads the giddy mortal through the flowery paths of prodiga, lity, till diffipation plunges him in a gulph of hopeless mifery. In vain does the finking victim, ftruggling in the whirlpool of deftruction, fupplicate the commiferating hand of

friend

Friendship, to fnatch him from the torrent that overwhelms him; he that falls by his own imprudence, falls unpitied; for age forgets the errors of its earlier years, and avarice deadens the foul to every exquifite fenfation of philanthropy. The mifer fhrinking under the gripe of mifery, craving for that, which in fact he poffeffes, without knowing how to enjoy, fhivers in voluntary anguifh over maffes of treasure, and poffeffing the means of every gratification, pines out an irkfome existence in poverty and forrow, till he finks into the grave, abhorred and unlamented! The pretended philofopher pompously inftructs the afflicted with his fpecious theory, and affects to contemn the repining spirit that meets the frowns of fortune with an unwelcome eye. Let the hand of heaven deprive him of its smallest blefling, he finks beneath the ftroke, and becomes the victim of defpair! The atheist, vauntingly profane, revelling in the plenitude of health, and bafking in the funny fplendours of profperity, laughs to fcorn the devout enthufiaft; behold him on the bed of death, fhook by convulfive agonies; he renounces his former temerity, and his last figh, is an appeal to his Creator!

Let the eye of reason take an accurate furvey of the general purfuits of mankind, and their pernicious tendencies. The father, whole years fcraping together the means of gratifying the short-lived prodigality of the fon; the fond mother, adorning the darling of her heart with all the graces of education, and embellishing her form with every tasteful and becoming appendage-perhaps to fafcinate the eye of fome artful feducer, whofe fpells fhall tarnish her fair fame, and bend her beauties to an untimely fepulchre. The lover, ardently pursuing the coquette that abhors him, while the fond bofom that throbs with affection, is fuffered to languifh in obfcurity, deferted and forgotten,

Little and contracted minds are

apt to envy the poffeffors of exalted titles and empty diftinctions; the parade of oftentatious pride, and the lavifa distribution of ill-bestowed riches, cannot fail to provoke the indignation of difcerning and unprejudiced minds. Wealth, profufely fquandered in fel. fifh and unworthy gratifications, ferves only as the degraded means of blazoning the depravity of its poffeffors, while the heart, that generously participates the fcanty pittance of fortune with the unhappy; that calls forth the buds of genius, froft-nipped by the biting blafts of poverty; that fhelters modeft merit from the taunts of overbearing ignorance; presents a fublime picture of that perfection, which exalts mankind to the likeness. of divinity.

The pooreft peafant, fatigued with the exertions of laborious exercise, enjoys the balmy influence of fleep upon the rufhy pallet of honeft indigence; while the downy couch suftains the pampered frame, reftless, and a prey to feverish inquietude: thus the hind may fmile contemptuoufly on the boafted fuperiority of his lord; and, in the full enjoyment of repofe and health, look down with pity on the imbecility of mind and body, the wretched affociate of luxury and indolence. So capricious are the fluctuations of fortune, and fo uncertain the decrees of fate, that we fcarcely know what may be termed real happiness. The infolent triumphs of vice over virtue; the misfortunes frequently pursuing the efforts of honeft induftry, while profufion overflows the lap of infamy, ought to convince us, that fome undefinable caufe actuates every principle of the grand fyftem by which the foul is governed; and that some beneficial end is the object of thofe unaccountable events, which we prefume to repine at, and to mifname the injuftice of heaven.

• If reflection takes a flattering retrofpect of the empty round of fancied pleafures you fometimes participated at Madrid; and if the prefent pro

spect