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" of Johnson will ever be resorted to by "the lover of variety, and will claim "the appropriate commendations which " you have given it, from minds capa"ble of appreciating his real worth. " He is too profound to be the idol of "the million : and as his beauties can " only be relished by an understanding " as vigorous as his own, so his precepts " seem calculated for dispositions that "resemble him in firmness. On such "strong minds his tendency to super"stition can produce no bad effects." "My acquaintance is too limited," rejoined the countess, " for me to know a person to whom I could not fafely "recommend the works of Johnson." " I beg your pardon," interrupted Edward. " I should have many objec"tions to lady Arabella's seeing the " passage which has wrought your mind " into its present state of bigh enthusiasm.

"

" The

"The uncommon susceptibility and "delicacy of her character would make " her feel painful alarms, while I fee "you only indulge a ' fine frenzy.' In " a conversation you lately had with " her, even fome of your guarded ex" pressions have caused her the most " distressing agitation."

Lady Monteith recollected that she was talking to a lover, and determined to endure a little puerility. She acknowledged, that it was natural for Arabella to seem depressed immediately after the lofs of a friend who had acted the part of an adopted mother to her, and she promised to be very cautious in fu

ture.

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"Bur," continued she, " I must

own that the invisible agency of feparated spirits is a very favourite theme " with me; and though, contrary to "the opinion of the Abyffinian fage, I " could affirm, that we never have any " certain

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"certain evidence that the dead are permitted to become objects of our fenfes, I have long rejoiced in the "hope that our departed friends are "the agents employed by over-ruling "Providence to perform offices of care " and tenderness to their surviving con"nexions. This thought has most fre"quently occured to me, as I have "bent over my fsleeping children, and I "have fancied glorified beings watched

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our unconscious hours with fimilar "attention. When I was once threat"ened with the loss of my eldest darling, "I found sensible confolation in the idea " of its becoming a guardian cherub to "sustain the innocence of its fisters "through a dangerous world, and to " receive my parting spirit at the hour " of my diffolution."

While the countess spoke, her radiant eyes were fuffused with tears. Fitzof

borne,

lapsed into his old misfortune of want of leisure; and Fitzofborne would have found it more difficult to avoid than to select opportunities for private conversation with Geraldine.

CHAP. XXVII.

In discourse more sweet

Others apart fat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of Providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, fore-knowledge abfolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes loft.
Of good and evil much they argued, then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Paffion and apathy, glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false philofophy.

MILTON.

READING was one of Lady Monteith's conftant amusements; and among her favourite writers the moral pages of Johnson held a diftinguished pre-eminence. His instructive romance of Raffelas occupied her one morning. She stopped at the part which seemed to intimate the author's belief in the poffibility of spectral appearances. The idea strongly engroffed her imagination. She

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