meant no more by saying he was a favourite hero of mine, I mentioned to you my letter to Dr. Moore, giving an account of my life: it is truth, every word of it; and will give you the just idea of a man whom you have honoured with your friendship. I am afraid you will hardly be able to make sense of so torn a piece.-Your verses I shall muse on deliciously, as I gaze on your image in my mind's eye, in my heart's core; they will be in time enough for a week to come. I am truly happy your head-ache is better.-O, how can pain or evil be so daringly, unfeelingly, cruelly savage as to wound so noble a mind, so lovely a form! My little fellow is all my name-sake.Write me soon. My every, strongest good wishes attend you, Clarinda! SYLVANDER. to be delivered till after my decease:" it ended thus-" I know you loved me when living, and will preserve my memory now I am dead. All the use to be made of it is that this life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life. Adieu! I leave my best wishes with you. J. LOCKE." Clarinda, may I reckon on your friendship for life? I think I may. Thou Almighty Preserver of men! thy friendship, which hitherto I have too much neglected, to secure it shall, all the future days and nights of my life, be my steady care! The idea of my Clarinda follows "Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, Where, mix'd with God's, her lov'd idea lies." But I fear that inconstancy, the consequent imperfection of human weakness. Shall I meet I know not what I have written-I am pes-with a friendship that defies years of absence, tered with people around me. No. VII. Sunday Night, 27th January. THE impertinence of fools has joined with a return of an old indisposition, to make me good for nothing to-day. The paper has lain before me all this evening, to write to my dear Clarinda, but "Fools rush'd on fools, as waves succeed to waves " I cursed them in my soul; they sacrilegiously disturbed my meditations on her who holds my heart. What a creature is man! A little alarm last night and to-day, that I am mortal, has made such a revolution on my spirits! There is no philosophy, no divinity, comes half so home to the mind. I have no idea of courage that braves heaven. "Tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero in bedlam. I can no more, Clarinda; I can scarcely hold up my head; but I am happy you do not know it, you would be so uneasy. SYLVANDER. Monday Morning, 28th January. I am, my lovely friend, much better this morning on the whole; but I have a horrid languor on my spirits. "Sick of the world, and all its joys, My soul in pining sadness mourns; The past and present in their turns." Have you ever met with a saying of the great, and likewise good, Mr. Locke, author of the famous Essay on the Human Understanding? He wrote a letter to a friend, directing it "not and the chances and changes of fortune? Perhaps "such things are ;" one honest man* I have great hopes from that way: but who, except a romance writer, would think on a love that could promise for life, in spite of distance, absence, chance, and change; and that, too, with slender hopes of fruition? For my own part, I can say to myself in both requisitions, Thou art the man!" I dare, in cool resolve Í dare, declare myself that friend, and that lover. If womankind is capable of such things, Clarinda is. I trust that she is; and feel I shall be miserable if she is not. There is not one virtue which gives worth, nor one sentiment which does honour to the sex, that she does not possess, superior to any woman I ever saw: her exalted mind, aided a little, perhaps, by her situation, is, I think, capable of that noblyromantic love-enthusiasm. May I see you on Wednesday evening, my dear angel? The next Wednesday again will, I conjecture, be a hated day to us both. I tremble for censorious remark, for your sake; but in extraordinary cases, may not usual and useful precaution be a little dispensed with? Three evenings, three swift-winged evenings, with pinions of down, are all the past; I dare not calculate the future. I shall call at Miss's to morrow evening; 'twill be a farewell call. I have written out my last sheet of paper, so I am reduced to my last half-sheet. What a strange mysterious faculty is that thing called imagination! We have no ideas almost at all of another world; but I have often amused myself with visionary schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by small alterationsalterations that we can fully enter into, in this present state of existence. For instance, sup * [Alluding to Captain Brown.] : pose you and I, just as we are at present; the same reasoning powers, sentiments, and even desires; the same fond curiosity for knowledge and remarking observation in our minds; and imagine our bodies free from pain and the necessary supplies for the wants of nature at all times, and easily within our reach imagine further, that we were set free from the laws of gravitation, which bind us to this globe, and could at pleasure fly, without inconvenience,, through all the yet unconjectured bounds of creation, what a life of bliss would we lead, in our mutual pursuit of virtue and knowledge, and our mutual enjoyment of friendship and love! adoration: He is Almighty and all-bounteous, we are weak and dependent; hence prayer and every other sort of devotion." He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life;" consequently it must be in every one's power to embrace his offer of "everlasting life;" otherwise he could not, in justice, condemn those who did not. A mind pervaded, actuated, and governed by purity, truth, and charity, though it does not merit heaven, yet is an absolutely necessary pre-requisite, without which heaven can neither be obtained nor enjoyed; and, by divine promise, such a mind shall never fail of attaining "everlasting life:" hence the impure, the deceiving, and the uncharitable, extrude themselves from eternal bliss, by their unfitness for enjoying it. The Supreme Being has put the immediate administration of all this, for wise and good ends known to himself, into the hands of Jesus Christ, a great personage, whose relation to him we cannot comprehend, but whose relation to us is a guide and Saviour; and who, except for our own obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us all, through various ways, and by various means, to bliss at last. I see you laughing at my fairy fancies, and calling me a voluptuous Mahometan; but I am certain I would be a happy creature, beyond any thing we call bliss here below; nay, it would be a paradise congenial to you too. Don't you see us, hand in hand, or rather, my arm about your lovely waist, making our remarks on Sirius, the nearest of the fixed stars; or surveying a comet, flaming innoxious by us, as we just now would mark the passing pomp of a travelling monarch; or in a shady bower of Mercury or Venus, dedicating the These are my tenets, my lovely friend; and hour to love, in mutual converse, relying which, I think, cannot be well disputed. My honour, and revelling endearment, whilst the creed is pretty nearly expressed in the last most exalted strains of poesy and harmony clause of Jamie Dean's grace, an honest weaver would be the ready spontaneous language of in Ayr-shire; "Lord, grant that we may lead a our souls! Devotion is the favourite employ-guid life! for a guid life maks a guid end, ment of your heart; so is it of mine: what incentives then to, and powers for, reverence, gratitude, faith, and hope, in all the fervours of adoration and praise to that Being, whose unsearchable wisdom, power, and goodness, so pervaded, so inspired, every sense and feeling! -By this time, I dare say, you will be blessing the neglect of the maid that leaves me destitute of paper! No. VIII.* SYLVANDER. Tuesday Night. I AM delighted, charming Clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm for religion. Those of either sex, but particularly the female, who are lukewarm in that most important of all things, "O my soul, come not thou into their secrets!" -I feel myself deeply interested in your good opinion, and will lay before you the outlines of my belief. He, who is our Author and Preserver, and will one day be our Judge, must be (not for his sake in the way of duty, but from the native impulse of our hearts) the object of our reverential awe and grateful [This appears to have been written on the 8th or 15th of January.] at least it helps weel!" One I am flattered by the entertainment you tell me you have found in my packet. You see me as I have been, you know me as I am, and may guess at what I am likely to be. I too may say, "Talk not of love," &c., for indeed he has "plunged me deep in woe!" Not that I ever saw a woman who pleased unexceptionably, as my Clarinda elegantly says, "In the companion, the friend, and the mistress." indeed I could except-One, before passion threw its mists over my discernment, I knew the first of women! Her name is indelibly written in my heart's core-but I dare not look in on it a degree of agony would be the consequence. Oh! thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who presidest over that frantic passion-thou mayest, thou dost poison my peace, but thou shalt not taint my honour-I would not, for a single moment, give an asylum to the most distant imagination that would shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratification, at the expense of her whose happiness is twisted with the threads of my existence.- -May she be as happy as she' deserves! And if my tenderest, faithfullest friendship can add to her bliss, I shall at least have one solid mine of enjoyment in my bosom! Don't guess at these ravings! I watched at our front window to-day, but was disappointed. It has been a day of disap 1 pointments. I am just risen from a two hours' bout after supper, with silly or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in common with me but the Port.- One-Tis now "witching time of night;" and whatever is out of joint in the foregoing scrawl, impute it to enchantments and spells; for I can't look over it, but will seal it up directly, as I don't care for tomorrow's criticisms on it. You are by this time fast asleep, Clarinda; may good angels attend and guard you as constantly and faithfully as my good wishes do! "Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I expect on my pillow to-night! O for a little of the cart-horse part of human nature! Good night, my dearest Clarinda! SYLVANDER. sense would loose, and which bars that happiness itself cannot give-happiness which otherwise Love and Honour would warrant! But hold-I shall make no more "hair breadth 'scapes." My friendship, Clarinda, is a life-rent business. My likings are both strong and eternal. I told you I had but one male friend: I have but two female. I should have a third, but she is surrounded by the blandishments of flattery and courtship. *** I register in my heart's core--* * Miss N can tell how divine she is. She is worthy of a place in the same bosom with my Clarinda. That is the highest compliment I can pay her. Farewell, Clarinda! Remember SYLVANDER. No. IX. Thursday Noon, 10th or 17th January. I AM certain I saw you, Clarinda; but you don't look to the proper story for a poet's lodging "Where speculation roosted near the sky." I could almost have thrown myself over for very vexation. Why didn't you look higher? It has spoiled my peace for this day. To be so near my charming Clarinda; to miss her look when it was searching for me-I am sure the soul is capable of disease, for mine has convulsed itself into an inflammatory fever. You have converted me, Clarinda. (I shall love that name while I live: there is heavenly music in it.) Booth and Amelia I know well." Your sentiments on that subject, as they are on every subject, are just and noble. feelingly alive to kindness, and to unkindness," is a charming female character. To be What I said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality only know for me. By yours, I understand my good star has been partly in my horizon, when I got wild in my reveries. Had that evil planet, which has almost all my life shed its baleful rays on my devoted head, been, as usual, in my zenith, I had certainly blabbed something that would have pointed out to you the dear object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of me, something more. Had that fatal information escaped me, and it was merely chance, or kind stars, that it did not, I had been undone! You would never have written me, except perhaps once more! O, I could curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human laws, which keep fast what common [See Fielding's novel of Amelia.] No. X. Saturday Morning, 12th or 19th January. YOUR thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be welcome. You may perhaps distrust me, when I say 'tis also my favourite topic; but mine is the religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as I firmly believe that every honest upright_man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the Deity. If your verses, as you seem to hint, contain censure, except you want an occasion to break with me, don't send them. I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where I fondly love, or highly esteem, I cannot bear reproach. "Reverence thyself" is a sacred maxim, and I wish to cherish it. I think I told you Lord Bolingbroke's saying swift-" Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy fauts I love thee entirely; make an effort to love me with all mine." A glorious sentiment, and without which there can be no friendship! I do highly, very highly esteem you indeed, Clarinda-you merit it all! Perhaps, too, I scorn dissimulation! I could fondly love you: judge then, what a maddening sting your reproach would be. "O! I have sins to Heaven, but none to you!"-With what pleasure would I meet you to-day, but I cannot walk to meet the fly. I hope to be able to see you on foot, about the middle of next week. I am interrupted-perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell me-but I wont anticipate blame. O Clarinda! did you know how dear to me is your look of kindness, your smile of approbation! you would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious remark. "Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, SYLVANDER. No. XI. Tuesday Morning, 29th January. exquisite bliss than the dearest favours that the fairest of the sex, yourself excepted, can bestow. Sunday Evening. I CANNOT go out to-day, my dearest Clarinda, without sending you half a line, by way You are the constant companion of my of a sin-offering; but, believe me, 'twas the sin thoughts. How wretched is the condition of of ignorance. Could you think that I intended one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and to hurt you by any thing I said yesternight? trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance! Nature has been too kind to you for your hap- and what a placid calm, what a charming «piness, your delicacy, your sensibility.-O why cret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the kind should such glorious qualifications be the fruit- feelings of friendship, and the fond throes of ful source of woe! You have "murdered sleep" love! Out upon the tempest of anger, the to me last night. I went to bed, impressed acrimonious gall of fretful impatience, the sulwith an idea that you were unhappy and len frost of louring resentment, or the corroding every start I closed my eyes, busy Fancy paint-poison of withered envy! They eat up the ed you in such scenes of romantic misery that immortal part of man! If they spent their fury I would almost be persuaded you were not well only on the unfortunate objects of them, it this morning. would be something in their favour; but these miserable passions, like traitor Iscariot, betray their lord and master. -" If I unweetingly have offended, Impute it not." I send you a poem to read, till I call on you this night, which will be about nine. I wish I could procure some potent spell, some fairy charm that would protect from injury, or restore to rest that bosom-chord, " tremblingly alive all o'er," on which hangs your peace of mind. I thought, vainly, I fear, thought that the devotion of love-love strong as even you can feel-love guarded, invulnerably guarded, by all the purity of virtue, and all the pride of honour; I thought such a love would make you happy-will I be mistaken ? I can no more for hurry * 串 No. XII. Sunday Morning, 3d February. I HAVE just been before the throne of my God, Clarinda; according to my association of ideas, my sentiments of love and friendship, I next devote myself to you. Yesterday night I was happy-happiness" that the world cannot give."- kindle at the recollection; but it is a flame where innocence looks smiling on, and honour stands by a sacred guard.-Your heart, your fondest wishes, your dearest thoughts, these are yours to bestow: your person is unapproachable by the laws of your country; and he loves not as I do who would make you miserable. You are an angel, Clarinda; you are surely no mortal that "the earth owns."-To kiss your hand, to live on your smile, is to me far more Thou Almighty Author of peace, and goodness, and love! do thou give me the social heart that kindly tastes of every man's cup!Is it a draught of joy?-warm and open my heart to share it with cordial unenvying re joicing! Is it the bitter potion of sorrow!melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe! Above all, do thou give me the manly mind, that resolutely exemplifies in life and manners those sentiments which I would wish to be thought to possess! The friend of my soulthere, may I never deviate from the firmest fidelity and most active kindness! Clarinda, the dear object of my fondest love; there, may the most sacred inviolate honour, the most faithful kindling constancy, ever watch and animate my every thought and imagination! spoken of Religion, your darling topic ? "'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright! Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies." I met with these verses very early in life, and was so delighted with them that I have them by me, copied at school. Good night and sound rest, my dearest Clarinda! No. XIII.* SYLVANDER. I was on the way, my Love, to meet you, (I never do things by halves) when I got your • [This letter must have been written early in February.] ment. I have been with Mr. Schetki, the mu- SYLVANDER. card. M goes out of town to-morrow morning to see a brother of his who is newly arrived from I am determined that he and I shall call on you together; so, look you, lest I should never see to-morrow, we will call on you to-night; and you may put off tea till about seven; at which time, in the Galloway phrase, an the beast be to the fore, an the branks bide hale,' expect the humblest of your humble servants, and his dearest friend. We propose staying only half an hour, for ought we ken.' I could suffer the lash of misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth to be composed of hours like yester-conscious thrilling chords of Love and Friendnight. You are the soul of my enjoyment: all else is of the stuff and stocks of stones. No. XIV. SYLVANDER. Thursday Morning, 7th February. "Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain." I HAVE been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why a woman who for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is without a peer, and whose personal charms have few, very, very few parallels among her sex; why, or how she should fall to the blessed lot of a poor hairum scairum poet, whom Fortune had kept for her particular use, to wreak her temper on whenever she was in ill humour. One time I conjectured that, as Fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, she may have taken, not a fit of remorse, but a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire, where he had so often and so conveniently served her as a stepping stone, and given him the most glorious boon she ever had in her gift, merely for the maggot's sake, to see how his fool head and his fool heart will bear it. At other times I was vain enough to think that Nature, who has a great deal to say with Fortune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint "Here as, is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal, in all my former compositions, I never was lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever doing so again; you have cast her rather in the shades of life; there is a certain Poet of my making; among your frolics it would not be amiss to attach him to this master-piece of my hand, to give her that immortality among mankind which no woman of any age ever more deserved, and which few rhymesters of this age are better able to confer." Evening, 9 o'clock. I AM here, absolutely unfit to finish my letter-pretty hearty after a bowl, which has been constantly plied since dinner till this mo No. XV. Saturday Morning, 9th February. THERE is no time, my Clarinda, when the ship give such delight as in the pensive hours of what our favourite, Thomson, calls Philosophic Melancholy.' The sportive insects who bask in the sunshine of prosperity; or the worms that luxuriant crawl amid their ample wealth of earth-they need no Clarinda: they would despise Sylvander-if they durst. The family of Misfortune, a numerous groupe of brothers and sisters! they need a resting-place to their souls: unnoticed, often condemned by the world; in some degree, perhaps, condemned ardent love, delicate tender endearments, muby themselves, they feel the full enjoyment of tual esteem, and mutual reliance. In this light I have often admired religion. In proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear. "Tis this, my Friend, that streaks our morning bright; 'Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night." What a I have been this morning taking a peep - On reason build resolve, "The "I have difficulties many to encounter," said and where is firmness of mind shewn but in exI; "but they are not absolutely insuperable: ertion? mere declamation is bombastic rant." Besides, wherever I am, or in whatever situation I may be * ["Clarinda, mistress of my soul," &c.-See page 270.] |