"But if certain individuals have not discharged that duty, if they have planted no schools where the habits of virtue may be induced, stretched forth no hand to extirpate the germs of vicethey have kept open other schools where vice is taught with neverfailing success-used both hands incessantly to stifle the seeds of virtue ere yet they had time to sprout-laid down many a hot-bed where the growth of crime in all its rank luxuriance is assiduously forced. The Infant School languishes, which a paternal government would have cherished; but Newgate flourishes-Newgate, with her thousand cells to corrupt their youthful inmates; seducing the guiltless, confirming the depraved. The Infant School is closed, which a paternal government would have opened wide to all its children. But the Penitentiary day and night yawns to engulph the victims of our step-mother system; the Penitentiary where repentance and penance should rather be performed by the real authors of their fall. The Infant School receives no innocents whom it might train or hold fast to natural virtue; but the utterly execra ble, the altogether abominable Hulk, lies moored in the face of the day which it darkens, within sight of the land which it insults, riding on the waters which it stains with every unnatural excess of infernal pollution, triumphant over all morals! And shall civilised, shall free, shall Christian rulers, any longer pause, any more hesitate, before they amend their ways, and attempt, though late yet seriously, to discharge the first of their duties?) Or shall we, calling ourselves the friends to human improvement balance any longer, upon some party interest, some sectarian punctilio, or even some refined scruple, when the means are within our reach to redeem the time, and to do that which is most blessed in the sight of God, most beneficial to man? Or shall it be said, that between the claims of contending factions in Church or in State, the Legislature stands paralysed, and puts not forth its hand to save the people placed by Providence under its care, lest offence be given to some of the knots of theologians who bewilder its ears with their noise, as they have bewildered their own brains with their controversies? Lawgivers of England! I charge ye, have a care! Be well assured, that the contempt lavished for centuries upon the cabals of Constantinople, where the Council disputed on a text, while the enemy, the derider of all their texts, was thundering at the gate, will be as a token of respect compared with the loud shout of universal scorn which all mankind in all ages will send up against you, if you stand still and suffer a far deadlier foe than the Turcoman; suffer the parent of all evil, all falsehood, all hypocrisy, all discharity, all self-seeking, him who covers over with pretexts of conscience the pitfalls that he digs for the souls on which he preys, to stalk about the fold and lay waste its inmates-stand still and make no head against him, upon the vain pretext, to soothe your indolence, that your action is obstructed by religious cabalsupon the far more guilty speculation, that, by playing a partygame, you can turn the hatred of conflicting professors to your selfish purposes !

"Let us hope for better things. Let us hope it through His

might and under his blessing, who commanded the little children to be brought unto Him, and that none of any family of mankind should be forbidden: of Him who has promised the choicest gifts of His Father's kingdom to those who, in good earnest, love their neighbours as themselves!"

REMEMBRANCES OF A MONTHLY NURSE.

SECOND SERIES.

NO.VIII-CECILIA ALFORD.

I AM not over-fond of love-stories-they have a sickly and unwholesome flavour, so it seems to me, except indeed to very young ladies, who are also, no doubt, partial to every sort of sweet and luscious thing, from barley-sugar, French bons-bons, and English macaroons, up to French romances, Moore's "Love-songs," and Pope's "Epistle from Heloise to Abelard;" yet have there some few simple and affecting details fallen in my path, under my own eye, of sincere and constant affection-one that has stood the ordeal of time, change, and circumstance, and has come out of all these so pure and holy a thing—that I cannot resist the pleasure of copying, and giving them a place amongst my "Remembrances," believing them to be of so sacred and salutary a character, that they are fit for the perusal of both young and old.

I was requested by Lady Pelham, a most sincere friend and wellwisher of mine, to give my services to a young and fair creature, for whom she was much interested, who shortly expected to become a mother, though only in her eighteenth year; but who had unfortunately married a man totally devoid of principle-a professed rake—a notorious gambler-and a cold heartless spendthrift.

I found the youthful Mrs. Alford in a very small, elegant cottage, at Richmond, provided for her accommodation by her distant relative, the aforesaid humane Lady Pelham; who had furnished me with the abstract of her protegée's history, and had taken upon herself all the expenses of her accouchement, including the amount to be paid to myself, for my attendance on her.

The carriage of this kind, considerate lady, was actually crammed with necessaries and comforts from her own infants' wardrobe, and her store closet, as she took me herself, and left me with her friend-every thing she could think of for her use, was put in-every pocket in the carriage was full. "Poor Cecil !" said this excellent lady, when we reached Richmond-" So young! so indulged by an idolising father! so accustomed to every luxury! to be abandoned thus in her hour of trial, by the cruel profligate for whom she has sacrificed every thing valuable to her in life; even the sanity and very existence of her doting father! Be careful of this dear, unfortunate, but misguided girl, I beseech you," added my conductress," and do not let her feel, if you can help it, the sting of dependence-let her want for nothing; and pray try to keep up her spirits let her hope for better days. I shall soon pay you both a

N. S.-VOL II.

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visit; but I do not mean to alight from the carriage to-day." I saw the motive for this omission: she was too delicate to go into the presence of Mrs. Alford, accompanied by such a host of presents as she had brought her, fearing it might wound her feelings. She left me to make use of them when they were needed, without the parade and ostentation of mentioning them at all to herself.

Inexpressibly touching was the melancholy look, not to say anguish, imprinted on the pale beautiful features of the young forsaken one. There was a hopeless dejection about her clear hazel eyes, which went straight to the heart and caused the tenderest pity. Blighted in her very earliest bloom! abandoned by him she had trusted, at the hour when she needed every support and sympathy-left destitute by the father of her unborn child; by him who only a twelve-month back, had, all ardour and full of protestations, stolen her from her parent's protection, hurried her to Scotland, and become, to all appearance, her most affectionate husband. From my very heart I pitied her!

There is not room enough in a small cottage for much ceremony, so I sat entirely with Mrs. Alford, in her little parlour, whilst the only servant (one hired by Lady Pelham) waited on us. The young lady saw no doubt the deep interest I felt for her, and she told me herself the story of her ill-fated marriage with Captain Alford; who, hearing that she was an only child and an heiress, had, without any previous introduction, obtruded himself upon her notice in her walks about her father's house; had bribed the servants to convey letters to her; and had, by mea is of a fine person, and a most insinuating tongue, at length, child as she was, prevailed upon her to elope with him; assuring her "that her father was certain to pardon them both when once the knot was tied."

"I do assure you," said the lovely penitent, "that I never should have taken this most imprudent step, so contrary to woman's delicacy (although I confess my girlish fancy was then set upon Captain Alford), never could I have consented to have abandoned my beloved father so ungratefully, and throw myself into the arms of a handsome stranger, had it not been out of contradiction, and a kind of spite to my cousin Walter, who lived with us, and haunted Capt. Alford and myself in all our clandestine interviews. He had the hardihood to warn me against the man I thought was becoming attached to me, and he even threatened, that he should disclose to his uncle and guardian, my father, our secret meetings."

"Do so, sir;' I answered with ineffable scorn, and incur my everlasting hatred! Yet think not to profit by your treachery! Hope not that I will take you, a shapeless hunch-back, for my husband-much as my father wishes it-should you dare to interfere between me and my adored Alford! No! sooner would I wed the grave.' These were the words I used, and I blush to own them.

"O Cecil!' cried my poor cousin, who had loved me from a boy, be not so cruel and unjust! I am not a selfish being: you know I am not. I am conscious of my own imperfections, and your (he was pleased to say) dazzling beauty! It is not for myself I plead; but let me conjure you, Cecil, by our relationship, and your father's grey hairs, throw not your precious self away upon a cold-blooded libertine! a fortune-hunter-an adventurer! I know his character.'

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'Anger sparkled in my eyes, as Walter named the man I imagined that I loved," a libertine and fortune-hunter. Detractor!" Cowardly asperser!' I exclaimed, 'I will inform Captain Alford of attack upon his character. He shall chastise you as you merit.'

your

"And I will confront him, Cecil,' answered poor Walter, with a courage I knew not before that he possessed. This form of mine is warped by the caprice of nature; but I have a heart - that you knew its worth! Be not offended my sweet cousin ; but if your lover had its counterpart, I would not thus oppose your union with him. Cecil, I DO and will oppose your union with that man; you may hate me, but I will interpose myself, feeble as I am, between you; I will be a constant spy upon all your clandestine meetings; I will watch all your steps; steal like a feline animal upon your private haunts; break in upon your stolen interviews, and upbraid this dishonorable adventurer with the base part he is acting! Why does he not openly come forward? Why not bring his pretensions, whatever they may be, before your natural protector; and not, like a cowardly dastard as he is, seek to steal away an old man's darling child!'

"Mrs. Griffiths," continued the unhappy lady, "this resolution of his, spirited, kind, and convincing as it was, sealed my fate. The more assured I felt of the truth and nobleness displayed by my cousin ; though in my secret soul, I could not refuse him this justice, so by far the more my anger was kindled against him; the more I was resolved to outwit his avowed watchfulness, and brotherly care of me; and, wayward fool as I was! try to out-general him also, although the stake was my own happiness!

My cousin Walter had promised me, some ti me after, from a false notion of honor, that he would not betray me to his uncle; therefore the fearful game was confined between himself and me. We had many skirmishes, and a long battle; repeatedly he burst in upon our assignations, and insisted on it that Captain Alford should instantly depart; nor did Walter seem in the least moved by my bitter reproaches and cruel taunts, as he led me home, after these interruptions: congratulating both himself and me, that, for this time at least, he had saved me from my insidious enemy.

"What infatuated beings are we, Mrs. Griffiths, when we allow the worst part of our nature to have the ascendancy over us! I actually roused every faculty within me to action, as if I had been engaged in a work of the purest heroism; yet did the inward voice of conscience constantly remind me, that the course in which I acted, was totally unworthy of the energies I brought into the field against my kind-hearted and most candid opponent. When I had actually achieved my purpose, and in the dead of night (for his vigilance throughout the day was not to be evaded), when I found myself seated in a post-chariot, drawn by four horses, by the side of Captain Alford, on our route to Scotland, my first and keenest delight was, that I had out-manoeuvred my poor cousin Walter, and proved to him that he was no match for me in stratagems and schemes. Well has Dr. Uwins written, That insanity prompts more than half of our words and actions! That it requires one half of our lives, to repair the follies and entanglements committed by us in the other half;'-but mine, alas! are irreparable."

"And did the delight you speak of, Madam, last long?" I enquired of Mrs. Alford. "Did you not think of your father?"

"Most bitterly," answered the lady,, weeping: "before I had proceeded many miles, I found that guilt (and guilty surely was I), although 'sweet in the mouth,' is like gall when swallowed. All my poor father's doting fondness for me, came like the shadows of death over my mind! I pictured his agony when he should be informed of my flight with an utter stranger; his desolation at losing thus suddenly, and with such base ingratitude, his only child! I forgot my momentary triumph over poor Walter, in my pangs of remorse for my father's misery, and with streaming eyes, implored Captain Alford to restore me again, a penitent, to the arms of my only parent. His answer shocked both my delicacy and my tenderness: he only laughed at my change of humour,' as he called my awakening sense of duty; and by bribes to the postillions, caused them to drive the faster, jocosely saying, that the increased velocity of travelling would drive such nonsense out of my head.' At that moment I had an insight into his real character, and I revolted at the view.

"After we had been married by the functionary blacksmith, who in reality rivetted the fetters that bound us together, as he would have manacled a felon, and with a coarse and begrimed hand; we proceeded at a slower rate to London, where the forms of a second and more legalised union were gone through; when Captain Alford immediately demanded, as my husband, the £20,000 left me without restriction by my maternal grandmother; half of which went at once to pay some debts of honor of his, as they are called, and other claims on him that, alas! shocked me still more; for I heard, not a fortnight after my ill-starred marriage, that my husband had a mistress whom he doted on, and three children her offspring. Then it was that I awoke to the full sense of my imprudence and shameful conduct to the best of fathers, and to the warnings of Walter Deerhurst, my most affectionate cousin.

"Overwhelmed with miserable convictions, I wrote a penitential letter to my wronged father; but it came too late. The knowledge of his child's elopement broke that tender heart; and although he still lived, he was sunk, they wrote me word, into a helpless state of fatuity, for ever calling on his Cecil,' and without any memory left of her cruel abandonment of his old age. In the first agony of his bereavement, and before this utter childishness came to blunt the edge of it, he had sent for his solicitor, and as a matter of precaution, to save his property the hands of the harpy with whom I had connected myself, had settled every shilling of his wealth upon his nephew Walter; the estates he knew must go to him, as the next heir-male. And it is well he did so, for the fortune of Croesus would not have been sufficient to supply the ever-craving wants of a professed gambler; for such is Captain Alford."

from

"I am glad to hear," said I, "that at any rate Mr. Walter Deerhurst is in possession of such vast property; for Lady Pelham told me, your father died very rich. He will never suffer his beloved cousin to want any portion of that wealth, which would have been her own but for the unfortunate step she took when little better than a child."

"No" said Mrs. Alford, "never! my spirit cannot brook, after what has passed, being under obligations to my cousin Walter. I have