a man formed for the most important concerns, like you, exhaust a precious life only in ogling his miftrefs, playing upon his pipe, or fhearing his fheep? While the reft of mankind, bleffed with affluence, confecrate all their hours to rapture: improved with art, fhall you remain in a cottage, perhaps, fhuddering at the winter's breeze! Alas! little doit thou know of the pleasures attending the great What sumptuous palaces they live in how, every time they leave them, feems a triumphal proceffion; how every word they pronounce is echoed with applaufe. Without fortune, what is life but mifery? What is virtue but fullen fatisfaction? Money, money is the grand mover of the univerfe; without it, life is infipid, and talents contemptible."

The unhappy fhepherd was no longer able to refift fuch powerful perfuafions: His miftrefs, his flock are at once banifhed from his thoughts, or contemptible in his eye.---His rural retreat becomes taftelefs, and ambition fills up every chafm in his breaft.----In vain did the faithful partner of all his pleafures and cares folicit his ftay; in vain expofe the numberlefs dangers he muft neceffarily encounter; nothing could perfuade a youthful mind bent on glory, and whofe heart felt every paffion in extreme.---However, uncertain what courfe to follow, by chance he fixed upon the mufes, and began by fhewing the world fome amazing inftances of the fublimity of his genius.---He inftantly found admittance among the men of wit, and gave leffons to thofe who were candidates for the public favour.---He publifhed criticisms to fhew that fome were not born poets, and apologies in vindication of himself.-But foon fatire attacked him with all its virulence; he found in every brotherwit a rival, and in every rival, one rea dy to depreciate what he had written. ---Soon, therefore, he thought proper to quit this feducing train that offer beds of rofes, but fupply only a couch of thorns.

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He next took the field in quality of a foldier; he was foremost in revenging the affronts of his country, and fixing his monarch on the throne; he was foremott in braving every danger, and in mounting every breach. With a few fucceffes more, and a few limbs lefs, our fhepherd would have equalled Cæfar himfelf; but foon envy began to pluck the hardened laurel from his brow. His conquefts were attributed, not to his fuperior fkill, but the ignorance of his rivals; his patriotifm was judged to proceed from avarice, and his fortitude from unfeeling affurance.

Again, therefore, the fhepherd chan ges, and in his own defence, retired from the field to the cabinet.---Here he became a thorough-bred minifter of state; he copies out conventions, minds treaties, raifes fubfidies, levies, difpofes, fells, buys, and lofes his own peace in procuring the peace of Europe; he even, with the industry of a minifter, adopts his vices, and becomes flow, timid fufpicious and auftere.---Drunk with power, and involved in fyftem, he fees, confults, and likes none but himself.---He is no longer the fimple fhepherd, whose thoughts were all honeft, and who (poke nothing but what he thought; he now is taught to fpeak what he never intends to perform.His faults difgufted fome, his few remaining virtues more.

At length, however, his fyftem fails; and his projects are blown up; what was the caufe of misfortune was attributed to corruption and ignorance; he is arraigned by the people, and fcarcely efcapes being condemned to fuffer an ignominious death. Now, too late, he finds the folly of having attended to the voice of Avarice, or the call of Ambition: he flies back to his long-forfaken cottage again; affumes the ruftic-robe of innocence and fimplicity, and in the arms of his faithful Sylvana paffes the remainder of his life in happiness and undisturbed repose.

and fave them from thofe misfortunes into which want of experience, and the heat of youth, would plunge them; indulgence is not to be hearkened to in times of fuch dangers; their prerogative

must be exerted.

But thefe duties and prerogatives are not without limits; they vary according to circumstances; a generous heart may fometimes balance betwixt filial duty and gratitude on which fide then should the fcale turn? On that where moft has been received, and confequently where the greatest obligations lie; that any perfon can ftand in competition with the father for the fon's gratitude, ought to be held a paradox; 'tis he that ought to blufh for his fon's faults.

St. Paul's injunction to children to obey their parents, is followed with an admonition to the latter, not to be bitter against them. Let me not be thought by this, to be lifting up the ftandard of rebellion for children against parents; all I mean is to refcuc the fentiments of the former from the tyranny, the imprudent tyranny of the latter.

:

Floridor was of a hafty difpofition; his heart was tempered for the foft impreffions He was just entering upon that dangerous age, when pleasures wear a feductive appearance, and prudence is wanting to direct the choice; he felt defires, intimating a happiness, which at first he could not clearly comprehend; but the vivacity of his genius foon explained to him, that the langours of his heart were the motions of a powerful attraction towards the fex, and which runs through all fenfitive beings. This difcovery of the object encreafed the intoxication; his fenfations became fo vivid, that, to feed his flame only with ideal amours and romantic fancies, appeared to him a ftate of intolerable mifery. Determining to launch beyond imaginary gratifications, he fell in love, and with the whole fex too; however contracting himself gradually, he had fo much felf-government, as to bring himfelf within the compafs of the firit law; and, with the moit pure intentions, fettled his thoughts on marriage. Would one imagine that, when in the most respectful manner, he imparted them to his father, they thould meet with no other anfwer than a laugh; that even his mo

ther fhould make it the joke of the table among her goffips? The refult of whofe deliberations was to threaten him with the lafh for ten years to come. Nature kept on its courfe; obitacles only ferving to animate its violence; and Floridor, to forward matters by bringing thein to a confiftency, paid his addrelles to a young lady of an unexceptionable difpofition, and of a family, both in character and rank, on a level with his own. He broke the matter to his father, who again treated it with infult, and intereft fuggefted to him an evafion, from the difparity of fortunes. Eafily is the heart opened, but to close the wound is extremely difficult. This drove him to juvenile fallies, and even to licentioufnefs; yet, amidfi a continual whirl of pleasure, he preferved his opinion of marriage; fo full was he of it, that he fquared his intrigues by it: every thing was managed as between the fondeft couple: there was complacency without retraint, affection without folly, refpect without meannefs; in point of conftancy and fidelity, fo delicate, that he would have been fhocked at a bare thought to the contrary.

Thus completely qualified to give and receive conjugal happiness, he renewed his inftances to his father; but the more he entreated, the more harfhly was he denied. After roving ten years from paffion to paflion, lefs guilty than unhappy; licentious as a man, but never departing from his innate regard to the law of order; turned out of his father's houfe by the advice of fools or knaves; on the brink of running lengths, againft which his heart relucted, a propitious hand fnatched him from the mire of vice, and brought him out of the foul darkness of error: No fooner were his eyes open, than they were ftruck with the image of virtue, difplaying its native lovelinefs in Zara, without caprice or affectation; to virtue he becomes zealously devoted, from the engaging example of the fair one. It was not paffion, but the cooleft examination, which brought him to own the lovely Zara to be what the is, and to offer her the pureft veneration.

With fewer deauties than qualities, without dignity of birth, or the magic of fortune, this valuable young woman has fixed his heart by her charms, and

re

einated his reafon by the influence of her own intellects; with this curb has he checked the bounds of a temper which was taking head with fuch precipitancy: She has fo mollified his impemofity, given fuch a gentlenefs to his deportment, and fet fuch decent bounds to his profufenefs, that he is quite another man; and all these benefits the has crowned with the hopes of her hand.

Either a man is loft to all reafon, or the woman whom he loves may reclaim him from the extremity of even habitual diffolutenefs, only by giving him fuch foothing hopes.

It is women who make us what we are; with all our boafts of freedom we are little better than copies of that fex. Are they wife, how eafily do they make us worthy men! Zara has great goodnefs, and see how readily Floridor renounces his errors at her feet the neceffity of fuch a facrifice removed all the difficulty.

And here let me appeal to fathers, to thofe who have nature in them, what Floridor is to do? With what grace can he refuse a hand offered to him; and where the most important benefits already received are a fure earnest of the fweeteft felicity? Would not fubmiffion to his father's humours be a weakness I know it goes hard with Floridor to difobey Into what painful plunges is many a worthy man brought by the caprice of others! One virtue clashes with another, and a compliance with either has the nature of a vice; a difobedient fon, or an ungrateful lover, one or other he must be Difpaffionately to weigh thefe oppofite obligations, and afterwards to err, is ufing the means to act right.

The first of all laws, enjoined by God himself in the terreftrial paradife, as the bafis of nature, and the only one dicated in the ftate of innocence was this: "Man fhall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they fhall be one flesh." Let this law be but Ferally obferved, and, amidst all do pcftic incumbrances, not a few of our

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marriages would refemble that of the terreftrial paradife. By this law bounds are fet to the power of fathers, and the fubmiflion of fons. God does not fay only, thou shalt not hearken to thy father and mother; " but thou shalt forfake them, and cleave to thy wife; and you fhall both be but one flesh."

The duties of gratitude take the lead of thofe of birth, and very juftly, as arifing from voluntary, free and determinate benefits; whereas the others are grounded only on fortuitous and independent circunftances; often on fuch as are involuntary, unexpected and even againft the grain.---Walking by the feafide, the form cafts at my feet a cafket of immenfe value, which I apply to my own ufe Is there, in this, any ingratitude towards the lofer It is to chance, or providence, I owe my riches, not to him I never was in his thoughts: He knew nothing of me: The will is the effence of a kindnefs, and the tie of gratitude. Life is no further a good, than parents attend to the welfare of their children; and furely an evil can lay no claim to gratitude.

Obedience stands in its full force it is commanded; but it reaches not to marriage; the inclinations are without its jurifdiction.

The choice of Floridor lies betwixt a hard-hearted father, who has forfaken him, and the tender Zara, who has been as a fond parent, and a friend to him. Let him call to mind the rights of those endearing appellations which he has acted up to with fuch Affection; that will fhew him the vait debt he owes her; let him accept her hand, and 'tis difcharged; nor can he fail of being happy.

Harmonizing difpofitions, correfpondent inclinations, fimilar fentiments, a noble difinterestedness, a reciprocal efteem, of which friendship lays the Warp, and love guides the Woof; these are the blifsful ties which unite Zara and Floridor; they want nothing but their parents confent to afcertain their happinefs.

M

ANY Effays have lately appeared in the News-papers upon this fabject; by which it appears to me, that the writers are not well informed of the true ftate of the Africans in their own country, or in our colonies. Every native of the former is fubject to the abfolute will of their Kings and great men, not only as to their labour and fervice, but even with refpect to life and death. Moft of them are born flaves to their fathers, who fell them, as husbands do their wives, and multitudes by conqueft, who only change their home condition of fiavery, to that of being flaves to their

It has been obferved, that we have little knowledge of Africa, and much lefs of the interior parts of it; the most we learn of it is from the traders upon the tea-coast, who are generally incompetent Aittorians, and learn nothing either by travel or view of the upper countries.

The beit hiftory of Guinea and the flave-trade I have feen, was published in 1736, by Capt. William Snelgrave, whom I perfonally knew to be a fenfible man of good character, and who travelled to the camp of the King of Dahome, about forty miles into the country of Arfra, after his General had conquered the Whidaws, who inhabited a great and populous country near the fea-coaft, with an handful of men, and little or no refitance, becaufe the Whidaws were more afraid of being eaten by their enemies, than of death; for the Dahomes were men-eaters, as appears by the history, to which I refer the curious Reader, for an account of the flavery to which the negroes are subject; and to the wretched itate of cruel flaughter made of their enemies by facrificing them, their heads to the Kings, their blood to their God, and their bodies to be eaten.

From this bloody tyranny are the Africans redeemed by the European traders

and fold at the English colonies, where their lives, eftates, and properties are fafe under protection of the laws of each country: and furely, if existence and fafety are bleflings, this may properly be called redemption: but this is not all; for, befides being fed and cloathed at a great expence by their mafters, they are allowed to raife hogs, goats, and poultry, and have small plats of lands, from whence they reap many kinds of roots, pulfe, fruits and viands, very wholefome not only for their own ufe but to fell, and of which they make a considerable profit.

In poffeffion of all this property they are carefully protected by the Magiftrates who are generally perfons, of the bett characters in the several countries, and from whofe judgment they receive lefs punishments in criminal cafes than the laws of England inflict for felonies or other inferior crimes. As to private punishment, which the negroes receive from the hands of their masters, both hu manity and felf-intereft render very moderate, notwithstanding they are moft grofly mifreprefented by the civil-lawlecturers of Oxford and Scotland, who must know the influence of felf-intereft, if they know any thing of their own hearts or mankind: but thofe unjust reproaches upon the inhabitants of our colonies are not the refult of ferious inquiries into the affair, but of ill nature, and a vanity in the difplay of their eloquence.---As to the labour of the negroes in our colonies, it is much more moderate than is endured by the common labourers of England, who are more real flaves to neceflity, than to Egyptian tafk-masters; for neceffity makes no allowance for ficknefs, but fuffers the fick labourer's wife and children to farve, when he is unable to work for their fupport; and they receive only the pittance allowed by the parifh, which is by no means equal to their wants; and even that fcanty provifion is not made in Irland. What liberty have thefe poor labourers to boast of The liberty of changing their mafters for the fame wages.---A mighty boaft indeed! to change

their