fexes, univerfal efteem and her own, repay her, without ceafing, glory, as a tribute for the ftruggles of a few moments. The felf-denials are tranfient, but their reward is lasting. What a fatisfaction to a noble foul is the pride of virtue, joined to beauty! It realizes the heroine of a romance! She will tafte more exquifite pleasure than Lais or Cleopatra; and, when her beauty is no more, her glory and pleasure will ftill remain, and fhe alone will enjoy the past. Purity is maintained by itfelf: the defires, always curbed, are accustomed to spring no more; and temptations are multiplied only by the cuftom of giving way to them. The strength of mind, which produces all the vir tues, depends on purity, which nourishes them. Nothing is defpicable, that tends to preferve purity, and little precautions preferve great virtues. 3 The defires, mafqued by fhame, become more fe ducing thereby by restraint, modesty inflames them ; fears, referves, evafions, timid avowals, its tender and genuine delicacy, speaks plainer what it means to conceal, than paffion could have dictated without: it is that which gives a value to favours, and fweetness to refufals. True love poffeffes, in reality, what modefty alone difputes with it. This mixture of weakness and modefty renders it more effectual and tender: the lefs it obtains, the more the value of what is obtained is encreased; and it is thus that it enjoys at once its wants and its pleasures. E 2 Vice Vice does well to conceal itself in obscurity; its ftamp is on guilty foreheads. Boldness in a woman is a certain mark of her fhame: it is becaufe fhe has too much to blush at, that the blushes not at all; and if modefty Sometimes furvives chastity, what opinion can we enter tain of a woman's chastity, when her modefty is extinct? Supreme modefty! Supreme pleasure of love! How mary charms does a woman lofe, when fhe lofes thee! How many, if they knew the power of thy empire, would be careful to preserve thee; if not through shame, at lcaft through coquetry! but modefty is not to be counterfeited; there is no artifice whatever more ridiculous than attempting at its imitation. ON CHASTITY. FROM MILTON'S COMUS. She that has that, is clad in complete teel; And, like a quiver'd nymph, with arrows keen, • Infamous hills, and fandy perilous wilds; Where, through the facred rays of chastity, No favage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer, • Will dare to foil her virgin purity: Yea there, where very defolation dwells, By grots and caverns fhagg'd with horrid fhades, Be it not done in pride or in prefumption So dear to heav'n is faintly chastity, • Tell her of things that no grofs ear can hear; And turn it by degrees to the foul's effence, But when vile luft, By unchafte looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 'But most by lewd and lavish act of fin, • Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The foul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till fhe quite lafe The divine property of her firft being. NARRATIVES. FILIAL AFFECTION. VALERIUS MAXIMUS relates a very fingular fact upon this fubject. A woman of illuftrious birth had been condemned to be ftrangled. The Roman prætor delivered her up to the triumvir, who caufed her to be carried to prifon, in order to her being put to death. The goaler, who was ordered to execute her, was ftruck with compaffion, and could not refolve to kill her. He chofe therefore to let her die of hunger. Befides which, he fuffered her daughter to fee her in prifon; taking care, however, fhe brought her nothing to eat. As this continued many days, he was furprised that the prifoner lived fo long without eating, and fufpecting the daughter, upon watching her, he discovered that she nourished her mother with her own milk. Amazed at fo pious, and, at the fame time, fo ingenious an inven tion, he told the fact to the triumvir, and the triumvir to the prætor, who believed the thing merited relating in the affembly of the people. The criminal was pardoned; a decree was paffed that the mother and daughter fhould be fubfifted for the reft of their lives at the expence of the public, and that a temple facred to piety should be erected near the prifon. in PLIN. HIST. The fame author gives a fimilar inftance of filial piety a young woman named Xantippe, to her aged father Cimonus, who was likewife confined in prison, and which is univerfally known by the name of the Roman Charity. Both thefe inftances appeared fo very extraordinary and uncommon to that people, that they could only account for them, by fuppofing that the love of Children to their parents was the first law of nature. ON THE SAME SUBJECT. HAVE I then no tears for thee, my father? Can I forget thy cares, from helpless years, Thy tenderness for me? an eye ftill beam'd With love a brow that never knew a frown, Nor a harsh word thy tongue? Shall I for thefe Repay thy ftooping venerable age With fhame, difquiet, anguish, and dishonour? |