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apostrophized, "Verily I am guilty concerning "these brethren, and therefore is this evil now "come upon me."

Mrs. More recommends her pupils! the ladies of the British empire,

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"Never gratify your own humour, by hazarding what you suspect may wound any present in their persons, con"nections, professions in life, or religious opinions; and do "not forget to examine whether the laugh your wit has "raised be never bought at this expence."

There are some clergymen whom H. More, with the deliberate purpose of injuring, has called Socinian in religion, and Jacobin in politics!.

The chapter on Sensibility (p. 106) I began with much expectation, not of edification indeed, but of pleasure and delight. I have, however, met with but cold common-place receipts for some of the fantastic, affected, nervous, vain, singular, hysterical oddities and peculiarities, of delirious or sick-minded women. Although she has furnished the ladies with a chapter on Definitions, she, however, does not even attempt to define the subject of the present chapter. Instead of her own mystical and cold-hearted philosophy, which but too often represents the amiable sensibilities of the sex as a foolish tenderness, she might have adopted the elegant one of Sterne. "Dear Sensibility! Source of all that is precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!" But Sterne she had already mentioned with disrespect. He was no mystical divine, his sermons are rational and possess more merit than many such works as hers.

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Sterne will live; but H. More is dead. Besides Sterne, there were many other sources: it was sensibility paralysed the finger of the Indian on the banks of the Missippi, when his piece was levelled at Mr. Rotherham (pugg-puggy) so as that he could not pull the trigger for the destruction of a fellow creature; it was sensibility compelled the African damsel and her mother, when Mr. Park, wet and wearied, in a deluge of rain, sought shelter under a tree, to sing the improvisatore,

"Let us pity the white man under our tree, he has no "wife to grind him corn, no mother to bring him milk; "wet and weary, let us pity the white man."

And it was sensibility, when they saw a respectable and honest man, Mr. Bere, with an amiable companion, on the brink of degradation, about to be hurled, from credit and rank, to the most deplorable state of wretchedness and want, to which H. More and her friends and co-adjutors had devoted him, induced certain individuals to write in his favour, to administer the balm of consolation, to mingle their tears with theirs, when perhaps a tear, a good wish, or a prayer, was all some of them could bestow. But on whatever subject Mrs. More may be competent to write, she ought not to meddle with sensibility. She is too selfish to feel for another; the alms-deeds of her right are seen by her left hand; she casts her bread on the waters to take it up immediately; a trumpet always goes before her; and her tears, if she can shed any, like the crocodiles, have their reward in full view; for her maxim is, " Quis enim

virtutem amplectitur ipsam, præmia si tollas." Mrs. Yearsley was allowed no merit, unless she took a ticket from H. More; and Mrs. Cowley, Mr. Bere, and some others, must have their literary property, as well as their good name, filched from them, for no other reason than because they would not stoop to burn incense to her, nor besmear her talents with " oil of fool."

She, however, tells us that

"Ungoverned sensibility is apt to give a wrong direc❝tion to its anxieties; and its affection often falls short of "the true end of friendship. If the object of its regard

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happen to be sick, what enquiries! what prescriptions! "Yet is this sensibility equally alive to the immortal inte"rests of the sufferer? Is it not silent and at ease when it

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contemplates the dearest friend persisting in opinions "essentially dangerous; in practices unquestionably wrong? "What a want of real sensibility, to feel for the pain, but "not for the danger of those we love? Now see what sort "of sensibility the Bible teaches! Thou shalt not hate "thy brother in thine heart, but thou shalt in any wise "rebuke him, and shalt not suffer sin upon him.' But let sensibility" figure to itself the bare possibility that the "familiar friend is going down to the gates of death, unrepenting, unprepared, and yet unwarned !”

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Let me here observe, what my, as well as my author's reader, must have long ago perceived, that this lady is sure to make a transition from every subject to a religious application. Of this I do not disapprove; but to have his religion always on his tongue, and to "spiritualize" every subject, looks somewhat suspicious. It serves here to put me in mind of 2001. a year, Mrs. Cowley, Mrs. Yearsley, bible plays and tragedies, the poem of

Sabrina, Mr. Jay's communion and quarrel, “ pri"vate accusations," "he is a Socinian ;"" he is a

Jacobin." But that I may for once discharge my duty, let me here exhort Mrs. H. More to be late and early at the throne of grace, and let her ask pardon of the individuals she has so irreparably injured, and implore forgiveness from God. Let her come candidly before the public, which she has abused, and make her apology for the strife she has artfully and wickedly fomented, and the divisions she perpetuates, by means, as mean and disgraceful, as they are sinful. Few sinners have more heinous sins to repent of than the list above enumerated; they are in their own nature of a very black dye, and they are much aggravated by her attainments, and great profession of superior sanctity; and as I am in duty bound, I will not cease to pray that God may open her eyes, while it is "the accepted time and day of salvation."

As instances of mistaken sensibility are quoted, observations made by open-hearted, indiscreet girls such as

“That warm friends must make warm enemies ;"—that "the generous love and hate with all their hearts;"-that "a reformed rake makes the best husband;"-that "there " is no medium in marriage, but that it is a state of exqui"site happiness or exquisite misery.”

Against these injudicious and hastily received aphorisms of indiscreet young girls (for Mrs More herself took care to have more discretion than to believe these maxims) she warns her readers, and illustrates the success of these evil sayings on

young women, by the manner in which comedies in general end. Here the lady was at home; for as she wished to monopolize the education of the public to herself, it was necessary all women should be deterred from entering into the holy of holies, from going behind the scenes, attending the representation or reading of dramatic works, but herself. For all but herself, holy priestess, are in danger of being defiled thereby.

But however the author may act or think, I will prove my readiness to give her credit whenever I think she deserves it. I therefore transcribe the following short paragraph, p. 138, vol. 8, which, whatever the heart may be, discovers observation and judgment.

"When feeling stimulates only to self-indulgence; when "the more exquisite affections of sympathy and pity eva66 porate in sentiment, instead of flowing out in active cha"rity, and affording assistance, protection, or consolation "to every species of distress within its reach; it is an evi"dence that the feeling is of a spurious kind; and instead "of being nourished as an amiable tenderness, it should be "subdued as a fond and base self-love."

In p. 141, we meet the following passage, to which the public is indebted for that admirable poem, from the pen of a man of real genius, Peter Pindar's Nil Admirari.

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The poets again, who to do them justice, are always ready to lend a helping hand when any mischief is to be done, "have contributed their full share towards confirming these "feminine follies: they have strengthened by adulatory "maxims, sung in seducing strains, those faults which "their talents and their influence should have been employed " in correcting."

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