how advantageous foever they may prove, in a pecuniary point of view, are little calculated either to feed and ftimulate his mind, or to improve his morals and deportment, he was early betrayed to the fottish tyranny of appetite, which damped the generous fires of his dawning ambitions, relaxed the finews of industry and refolution, which time ought ftill more firmly to have braced, and blunted in fome degree the fine feelings fo friendly at once to genius and virtue: fo that, except those who are acquainted with the former efforts of his genius, few would at prefent fufpect Appetentius of being a youth of any endowments, much above the common mass of mercantile capacity.

It is true, he ftill, among others, poffeffes an appetite for fame; but this, like the reft, is not very refined, and feems to prefer obtaining applaufe by finifter means, or from thofe whofe approbation can confer no credit, to the toil of earning a liberal admiration by facrificing fuch indulgences as are incompatible with study, or confining himself to fuch application and purfuit, as are abfolutely requifite to enfure any confiderable approximation to excellence, whatever may be the original powers and energy of the

mind.

His moral capacities are under the fame unhappy dominion of his fenfes. It is true, he ftill continues faithful to his early and difinterested attachments, with whom he once delighted to share the intellectual banquet; but revelry and debauch too often lead him to far different feafts. He has ftill all the franknefs and easy generofity of youth, and will readily fhare his purfe, either with a friend or with an object of misfortune; but money is principally regarded by him, as a minifter of fenfual enjoyment and giddy pleafure; and to purchafe thefe, he will fometimes purfue emolument with an avidity ill-fuited to his juvenile years, and count over his expected gains, with the arithmetical accuracy

fecurities; though, at the fame time, he has neither the vivacity nor the tafte with which men of genius generally decorate their pleasures, and from which the diffipations of youth feem principally to derive their strong and dangerous allurements.

So motley a character may rather be confidered as deformed by accident, than corrupted by intentional viciousness, or abandoned to fyftematic depravity. To make it every thing that can be expected of human nature, nothing more seems requifite than the addition of that acute, that delicate fympathy, which, fpurning the groffness of fei fual appetite, feeks for enjoyment in exercifing the feelings of benevolence and compaffion; or that cool and manly philofophy, which abstracts itself from the fordid idolatry of selfishness, to foar, on Reafon's wing, in fearch of the genuine loveliness and divinity of truth.

Appetentius, (who, from his infancy, has been too much confined among people, who have no idea of any diftinctions but those conferred by money, and who know of no other ufe of money but to enable its poffeffors to eat and drink expensively) has become immoderately attached to his bottle, and the luxuries of the ta ble, and can neglect without remorse, Horace and Virgil, Socrates or Antoninus, for any fottish blockhead who invites him to bear a part in these enjoyments; and though he is delighted with the fentimental ribaldry of Sterne, it is evident, that with him, as with that celebrated writer, the language of fenfibility, and the delineations of extravagant tenderness, are little other than fpices to ftimulate his defires, or apologies for the indulgence of paffions he does not choofe to be at the trouble to fubdue.

Such is the prefent, and I fear the permanent character of a youth, who, with the training of a proper education, might have been, and by the bold exertion of his judgment, may

yet become an ornament to science and human nature: for the capacities of feeling, no more than the capacities of reafon and of fancy, were withheld from the catalogue of his natural endowments, as the following narrative (at the same time that it fhews the grofs degree of degradation, to which appetite may fink the human character) will fufficiently evince.

Among other circumftances that gave hopes of the reformation of Appetentius, was an early attachment to an amiable young female, who wanted neither inclination to exert her influence in the behalf of virtue, nor, except in the present inftance, judgment to difcern where fuch exertion was required. But as it is the mind, and not appetite, that generally speaks in epiftolary correfpondence, the moral and fentimental appeals of the lover, foon gained fo entire an afcendency over the partial heart of Pathetica, that little is now to be expected from that quarter, but the flattering attentions, which have rather a disposition to feed the vanity than to correct the foibles of a headitrong youth.

To this fair one, my hero continues to be attached with all the ardour common to his tender years, and all the purity confiftent with his character. That this latter is not very eminent, the reader will naturally conclude from the sketch already given; and I blufh for the depravity of human nature, while I relate an incident which will render it still more evident.

The lover, not a very confiderable time ago, after having (as is his cuftom) circulated the glass pretty freely, in a large party at his own houfe, on a day when his Pathetica was among the number of his mother's and his fifter's vifitors, felt himself called upon, by the pleafing cuftoms of gallantry, to conduct his miftrefs home at the appointed hour; and accordingly quitted, with elated heart, his boon (that is, intoxicated) companions, for that purpose; and, for once in his life, left without regret his wine of Oporto, and his Spanish olives.

The foft reflection of the lunar beam illuminated the clean and noiseless ftreets. The ferenity of the sky seen above the lofty walls, and through the fpacious avenues toward the west end of the metropolis, together with the gentle preffure of the feeble hand, naturally, at fuch an hour, clinging to the pro ecting arm it loved, awakened all the tenderness of the heart, and prompted the ready tongue of Appetentius to pour forth all the vows which love and wine could infpire; fo that the liftering fair-one, incapable of marking the filent lapfe of time, continued walking backward and forward for more than an hour, paft the door of her parents, before he had refolution to a cend the fteps, and knock for undefired admittance; or be, with a thousand proteftations of pure and unalterable conftancy, to quit her fair and half-unwilling willing' hand, and bid her farewell.

But Love is a jeft, and vows are wind,' fays Prior.

Appetentius had not proceeded more than the length of a couple of streets, from the ipot where he left the fole object of his tender thoughts, when he was greeted by one of those unhappy victims of shame and misery, whom the pride of unfeeling relations 'precludes from the retreats of repentance, and whom the policy of British laws leaves to rove at large, to feduce the youthful and unwary.

The perfon of Victima was attractively elegant; and recent depravity had not yet deftroyed the alluring delicacy of youth; so that it was not difficult for the heated fancy of Appetentius, as there was fome correfpondence of fize and form, to trace in the unfortunate courtezan fome refemblance of the amiable mistress, from whom he had fo recently parted. Tenderness and compaffion were confequently the firft impreffions, and, under the mask of thefe, he fuffered those difloyal defires to fteal upon his heart, which, had they openly attacked him, he would perhaps with no great difficulty have refifted. In short, curiofity and fympathy were

fucceeded

fucceeded by appetite, and the fenfual youth fuffered himself to be conducted to one of thofe manfions, whofe exiftence even vice itfelf has but too many reasons to deplore.

It has been justly, or (as fome will have it) romantically obferved, that there is a charm in ferious affection which frequently operates as a prefervative of virtue; which in the prefent intance was forcibly illuftrated; for here (even in this unhallowed retreat) the ideal form of his Pathetica intruded, and damped the unhallowed fires of the youth. And when he beheld the woeful object of his incontinent defires, turn filently away to wipe off the starting tears that dimmed the over-acted vivacity of her features, the touch of fenfibility vibrated fadly at his heart, and he recalled to mind all the too-much neglected leffons of that tender monitrefs. He fat down, pensively, upon a chair; and, after fome moments of filence, You are unhappy,' faid he, with a figh, and look of unusual benignity; poor girl! you are unhappy, and bring not your heart to the pleasures to which you are compelled to administer.'

The unhappy Victima was overpowered with the nature and manner of this addrefs. The voice of fympathy had never before vibrated with in those walls, where a bloated tyrant fattened upon the vices fhe could no longer enjoy, and the fons of revelry and debauch reeled to unparticipated joy. She burst into tears.

Oh! fir-I am not used to this. I never dreamed of it. Though fufceptible, too fufceptible, of the frailties of nature, I never thought to have been dependent on indifcrimi

nate'

She could fay no more. The swelling torrents of shame and anguish ftopped her utterance. Appetentius endeavoured to confole her. Alas!' faid fhe, were not others more infenfible to the voice of nature, than I to that of virtue, I fhould not now receive the first faint gleam of confo

lation from a ftranger's pity. Would you believe - no, you, who thus feel for a flranger's fufferings, never can believe that no farther off than the village of E-, I have an unclea refpectable uncle (if opulence can create refpect, where the feelings of nature are abfent) who might, but who would not, fave me from my ruin.'

If Appetentius was interested at the mention of a place, with all the beautiful fcenery of which (to him rendered claffical by the defcriptive mufe of a friend) he was fo intimately acquainted, what was his furprife when he heard her mention, in proof of her veracity, a fchool to which his vifits had fo often been directed, and when, unconfcious to whom fhe spoke, among the teachers and scholars with whom fhe had been intimate a few years before, fhe repeated the names of his fifter and the dear object of his love, together with circumftances of the truth of which he himself was not unconscious!

Ah little did I think,' faid fhe, fobbing, 'when I fported with the innocent Serena, and warned the blooming Pathetica of those base defigns, which it was notorious to half the village that the licentious husband of her governess entertained against her honour, that I fhould ever in a few fhort years become an object from whom both would turn with indignation and contempt.'

I have already given the reader to understand that the heart of Appetentius was by no means conftitutionally hoftile to the impreffions of fenfibility, any more than his head was incompetent to the cultivation of philofophy; but as the latter was neglected, fo did the other, by its tranfient occurrence and evanefcence, but too much assume the appearance of humour and caprice; filling up, at times, the vacuum of fatiated appetite, and too often giving way to its imperious dictates. The fympathetic power, however, never more forcibly exerted itself in his bofom than during the ejaculation