fifth heaven. Bozaldab looked earnestly, and saw the countenance of his fon, on which he had been used to behold the placid smile of simplicity and the vivid blushes of health, now distorted with rage, and now fixed in the insensibility of drunkenness: it was again animated with disdain, it became pale with apprehenfion, and appeared to be withered by intemperance; his hands were stained with blood, and he trembled by turns with fury and terror: the palace so lately shining with oriental pomp, changed suddenly into the cell of a dungeon, where his son lay stretched out on the cold pavement, gagged and bound, with his eyes put out. Soon after he perceived the favourite Sultana, who before was seated by his fide, enter with a bowl of poison, which she compelled Aboram to drink, and afterwards married the successor to his throne.

"Happy," said Caloc, " is he whom Providence " has by the angel of death snatched from guilt! from "whom that power is withheld, which, if he had pof"sessed, would have accumulated upon himself yet greater misery than it could bring upon others."

" It is enough," cried Bozaldab; "I adore the "infcrutable schemes of Omniscience!-From what " dreadful evil has my son been rescued by death, " which I rashly bewailed as unfortunate and prema"ture; a death of innocence and peace, which has " blessed his memory upon earth, and transmitted his "spirit to the skies!"

"Cast away the dagger," replied the heavenly meffenger, " which thou wast preparing to plunge into "thine own heart. Exchange complaint for filence, " and doubt for adoration. Can a mortal look down, " without giddiness and stupefaction, into the vast abyss " byss of Eternal Wisdom? Can a mind that sees not "infinitely, perfectly comprehend any thing among an " infinity of objects mutually relative? Can the chan"nels, which thou commandest to be cut to receive "the annual inundations of the Nile, contain the wa"ters of the Ocean? Remember, that perfect happi"ness cannot be conferred on a creature; for perfect " happiness is an attribute as incommunicable as per"fect power and eternity."

The Angel, while he was speaking thus, stretched out his pinions to fly back to the Empyreum; and the flutter of his wings was like the rushing of a ca. taract.

I SHALL make no apology for the trouble I am about to give you, fince I am sure the motives that induce me to give it, will have as much weight with you as they have with me: I shall therefore, without farther preface, relate to you the events of a life, which, however infignificant and unentertaining, affords a leffon of the highest importance; a lesson, the value of which I have experienced, and may, therefore, recommend.

I am the daughter of a gentleman of good family, who, as he was a younger brother, purchased with the portion that was allotted him, a genteel post under the government. My mother died when I was but twelve years old; and my father, who was excessively fond of me, determined to be himself my preceptor, and to take care that my natural genius, which his partiality

made him think above the common rank, should not want the improvements of a liberal education.

He was a man of fenfe, with a tolerable share of learning. In his youth he had been a free-liver, and perhaps for that reason took some pains to become what is called a free-thinker. But whatever fashionable frailties he might formerly have allowed in himself, he was now in advanced life, and had at least worldly wisdom enough to know, that it was necessary his daughter should be restrained from those liberties, which he had looked upon as trifling errors in his own conduct. He, therefore, laboured with great application to inculcate in me the love of order, the beauty of moral rectitude, and the happiness and self-reward of virtue; but at the same time professed it his design to free my mind from vulgar prejudices and superstition, for so he called Revealed Religion. As I was urged to choofe virtue, and reject vice, from motives which had no neceffary connexion with immortality, I was not led to confider a future ftate either with hope or fear: my father indeed, when I urged him upon that subject, always intimated that the doctrine of immortality, whether true or false, ought not at all to influence my conduct or interrupt my peace; because the virtue which secured happiness in the present state, would also secure it in a future: a future state, therefore, I wholly difregarded, and, to confess a truth, disbelieved: for I thought I could plainly discover that it was disbelieved by my father, though he had not thought fit explicitly to declare his sentiments. As I had no very turbulent pafsions, a ductile and good disposition, and the highest reverence for his understanding, as well as the tenderest affection for him, he found it an easy task to make me adopt

adopt every sentiment and opinion which he proposed to me as his own; especially, as he took care to support his principles by the authority and arguments of the best writers against Christianity. At the age of twenty, I was called upon to make use of all the philosophy I had been taught, by his death; which not only deprived me of a parent I most ardently loved, but with him all the ease and affluence to which I had been accustomed. His income was only for life, and he had rather lived beyond than within it; consequently, there was nothing left for me but the pride and help lefsness of genteel life, a taste for every thing elegant, and a delicacy and sensibility that has doubled all my fufferings. In this distress, a brother of mymother's, who was grown rich in trade, received me into his house, and declared he would take the same care of me as if I had been his own child. When the first transports of my grief were abated, I found myself in an easy situation, and from the natural cheerfulness of my temper, I was beginning once more to taste of happiness. My uncle, who was a man of a narrow understanding and illiberal education, was a little disgusted with me for em ploying so much of my time in reading; but still more so, when, happening to examine my books, he found by the titles that some of them were what he called blafphemy, and tended, as he imagined, 'to make me an Atheist. 1 endeavoured to explain my principles, which I thought it beneath the dignity of virtue to difguise or disavow; but as I never could make him conceive any difference between a Deist and an Atheist, my arguments only served to confirm him in the opinion that I was a wicked wretch, who, in his own phrafe, believed neither God nor devil. As he was really a good