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VIRTUE AND ORNAMENT; AN ODE.
TO THE LADIES.
The diamond’s and the ruby’s rays
Shine with a milder, finer flame,
And more attract our love and praise
Than Beauty’s self, if lost to fame.
But the sweet tear in Pity’s eye,
Transcends the diamond’s brightest beams;
And the soft blush of modesty
More precious than the ruby seems.
The glowing gem, the sparkling stone,
May strike the sight with quick surprise,
But Truth and Innocence alone
Can still engage the good and wise.
No glitt’ring ornament or show
Will aught avail in grief or pain:
Only from inward worth can flow
Delight that ever shall remain.
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_On the recovery of an only Child from the Small-pox._
When sickness pal’d thy rosy cheek,
And stole the lustre from thine eye,
The minutes of each tedious hour
Were mark’d by sad anxiety.
For all thy soft endearing smiles,
Which spoke with such expressive grace,
Alas! were fled, and only pain
Was trac’d upon thy cherub face.
When near the doubtful crisis drew,
And keener anguish fill’d my breast;
In trembling hope, the fervent prayer
My agonising soul address’d.
’Twas heard--and health again restores
The sprightly look, the rosy hue:
Father of Heaven, to thee alone,
All gratitude, all praise is due.
NEW-YORK: _+Printed by JOHN BULL, No. 115, Cherry-Street+, where every
Kind of Printing work is executed with the utmost Accuracy and
Dispatch.--+Subscriptions+ for this +Magazine+ (at 2s. per month) are
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_UTILE DULCI._
THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE;
or, Miscellaneous Repository.
+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, December 21, 1796.+ [+No. 77.+
+Animated Letter from the Hon. Miss B-- to Sir Richard P---+
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[From an English Paper.]
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The various passions which agitated my distracted soul have subsided and
I now am calm. I am alone, and in no danger of interruption: the
insignificants that fluttered around me are fled; and their departure
gives me no uneasiness.
I am at leisure to consider what I have been, and what I am; admired,
applauded, courted; avoided, despised, pitied. However, when I take a
view of my own heart, the prospect is less gloomy. I have been
incautious, but not abandoned; indiscreet, but not vicious; faulty, but
not depraved. If female virtue consists, as I have sometimes been told,
in female reputation, my virtue is gone: but if, as my soberer reason
teaches, virtue is independent of human opinion, I feel myself its
ardent votary, and my heart is pregnant with its noblest principles. The
children of ignorance cannot, and the children of malevolence will not,
comprehend this; but I court not their approbation, nor fear their
censure.
My soul, it must be owned, was formed of sensibility, formed for all the
luxury of the melting passions; but it is equally true, that the
severest delicacy had ever a place there. The groves of Br-----n can
witness, that whenever the loves presided at the entertainment, the
graces were not absent: that in the very delirium of pleasure, the
rapture was chastened, and the transport restrained.
My understanding was never made the dupe to my fonder wishes; nor did I
ever call in the wretched aids of a sceptical and impious philosophy to
countenance my unhappy fall. Though nature was my goddess and my
law-giver, I never dreamt of appealing from the decisions of positive
institutions. My principles were uncorrupted, whilst my heart was warm;
and if I fell as a woman, you know at the same time that I fell, like
Caesar, with decent dignity.
I write not to justify myself to you; you deserve not, you desire not
any such justification; but whilst I open my heart, I beg of you to
examine your own. The hour of reflection seldom comes too soon; and what
must your sensations be, when you recollect that you have violated all
laws divine and human, broken through every principle of virtue, and
every tie of humanity; that you have offered an insult to the kind
genius of hospitality, the benevolent spirit of good neighbourhood, and
the sacred and dignified powers of friendship! I mean not to reproach
you, but suffer me to ask, was it not sufficient that you had added my
name to the list of your infamous triumphs (for infamous they are, in
spite of sophistry, gaiety, and the world), that you had ranked me among
the daughters of wretchedness and ignominy, deprived me of my father, my
all of comfort, and my all of hope; were not these things, I say,
sufficient, without adding to them the meanness and baseness of publicly
speaking of me, in language that a gentleman would not have used to the
vilest wanton? weak, unhappy man, I am now indeed ashamed of my defeat!
For myself, I am well aware that “the world is not my friend, nor the
world’s law.” I expect not nor desire its favour: it never forgives
offences of this kind. My own sex, in particular, is inexorable; for
never did female kindness shed a tear of genuine commiseration upon
misfortunes like mine. The insolent familiarity of some, and the
cautious reserve of others, the affected concern, the self-approving
condolence, sufficiently teach me what is the friendship of women. But I
have no anxiety on this account: the remainder of my days I give to
solitude: and if Heaven will hear my most ardent prayer, if my presaging
heart and declining strength deceive me not, this remainder will not be
long. Sister angels shall joyfully receive me into their happy choirs,
though my too virtuous sisters in this world avoid my company as
contagious. In the mean time, never shall the returning sun gild the
roof of my humble habitation, but I will drop a tear of deep repentance
to the fatal indiscretion which robbed me of my peace, and plunged a
whole family in misery: and, when the hour of my delivery comes, if an
offended parent will but take me in his arms, and pronounce me forgiven,
my heart shall again be sensible of comfort, joy shall once more sparkle
in the eyes of