Puslapio vaizdai
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borne, checking fome unsubdued struggles of confcience, which almost tempted him to wish he could enjoy such visionary delights, coolly replied to her energetic fpeech: I should be very forry, madam, to interrupt those agreeable re"veries which in minds of your temperature can rarely be prejudicial. I " shall only state the dangerous confequences of fuch illufions becoming general. What a tremendous super" structure of imposition might priest"craft erect upon such a visionary bafis! "You do not pretend, madam, to fay, " that your hopes rest upon any real foundation. The nature of the foul " has hitherto eluded inquiry. It may " in time become capable of abfolute definition; and though the age is not at present sufficiently enlightened to afford abfolute proof of this fuppofed " immaterial fubftance being only a

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" moreexquifite configuration of perish"able atoms, incapable of distinct exist"ence, the glorious epocha of truth and " reason is too near to allow us to believe "the possibility of spectral appearances, " or even of spiritual agency, in the " manner your imagination prompts you " to with."

Though lady Monteith was no deep theologian, she had heard of the millenium, and the suspension of confciousness in the disembodied foul; and she concluded that Fitzosborne was a convert to those doctrines. She was by no means aware of the deeper tendency of his views; yet, as the thought there was something peculiar in his opinions, she wished to fathom him upon these fubjects. She knew enough of the world to be convinced, that divinity was not the favourite study of young men of fashion; but she knew too, that deep learning learning was equally excluded from polite circles. Fitzofborne had been announced to her as the "mirror of information;" and she faw nothing ridiculous in the idea, that a man of reading should devote a part of his attention to the study of the noblest truths. Indifference on serious subjects was, as far as her ob. servations extended, combined with ignorance and a general relaxation of mind. Fitzofborne's manner evinced energy and attention. She had often felt indignant at hearing the witling attempt to ridicule what he did not understand, or the libertine seek to invalidate what he feared to believe. But Fitzofborne poffeffed too much real talent to envy the wreath that fades upon the coxcomb's brow, and his conduct seemed too correct to supply him with a motive for taking shelter in infidelity. His sentiments on every subject were moral and liberal. His felf-command was exemplary; his information general; his reasoning, though flowery, ingenious, and, in lady Monteith's opinion, judicious. I have already observed, that her parts were rather brilliant than profound. It will not therefore be surprising, that she should be easily entangled in the snare of a fyllogifm, or that the unsuspecting fincerity of her heart should render her a dupe to any one who took the trouble to play the specious confummate hypocrite.

In forming her opinion of the dangerous character which was now exposed to her observation, she had fallen into the fame error of precipitate judgment which the had been guilty of in the cafe of Lord Monteith. She now fupplied talents with as much liberality as the formerly created virtues. Experience had convinced her, that love is

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the situation of a professed writer, she maintained that large allowances ought to be made for the sensibility of unpatronized merit, conscious of defert and struggling under calamity. She added, that the situation of the moralist in his early years precluded him from entering into those more refined classes of society, whose amiable polish might have foftened the asperities of his natural character. But since the world already possessed many elegant instructors, who knew how to aim the lighter shafts of fatire, and to blend improvement with amusement, perhaps the lover of literature would not regret the circumstances that gave him one less urbane moralist, whose austere sense exhibited the noblest model of energetic composition and exalted principle.

"Your justification, madam," faid Fitzofborne, " is conclusive. The page

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