cence maligned, without vindicating it; falsehood afferted, without contradicting it; or religion prophaned, without refenting it, is not gentle, but wicked.

Meeknefs is imperfect if it be not both active and paffive; if it will not enable us to fubdue our own paffions and refentments, as well as qualify us to bear patiently the paffions and refentment of others. If it were only for mere human reafons, it would turn to a profitable account to be patient; nothing defeats the malice of an enemy like the fpirit of forbearance; the return of rage for rage cannot be fo effectually provoking.

True gentleness, like an impenetrable armour, repels the most pointed fhafts of malice: they cannot pierce through this invulnerable fhield, but fall hurtlefs to the ground, or return to wound the hand that shot them.

A meek spirit will not look out of itself for happiness, becaufe it finds a conftant banquet at home; yet, by a fort of divine alchemy, it will convert all external events to its own profit, and be able to deduce fome good even from the most unpromifing: it will extract comfort and fatisfaction from the most barren circumstances: "It will

fuck

fuck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock."

Meeknefs may be called the pioneer of all the other virtues, which levels every obftruction, and fmooths every difficulty that might impede their entrance, or retard their progrefs. Honours and dignities are tranfient; beauty and riches frail and fugacious; but this amiable virtue is permanent. And furely the truly wife would wifh to have fome one poffeffion which they may call their own in the fevereft exigencies. This can only be accomplished by acquiring and maintaining that calm and abfolute felf-poffeffion, which as the world had no hand in giving, so it cannot, by the most malicious exertion of its power, take away.

THE TOILET LOOKING-GLASS.

T is my earneft wifh to make a strong impref

IT

fion on the minds of my fair readers, because men have always found the influence of their conduct great and irresistible.

Frail daughter of Eve! that vice which renders the most beautiful among you disgusting, which debales the moft exalted, is

GAMING.

It is this vice that poifons your minds, and makes you forget all the amiable obligations of wife, mother, daughter, fifter, and friend.

It is this vice obliterates the gratitude you owe the Deity.

It is this vice destroys your taste for intellectual elegance.

This vice is the fource of continual unhappiness.

Read the following example:

THE STORY OF MISS BRADDOCK.

Mifs Frances Braddock was the admiration of every polite circle.-Her perfon was elegant, her face beautiful, and her mind accomplished.

She unhappily spent a feafon at Bath. The whole beau monde courted her acquaintance.-She gave the ton not only to the fashion but to the fentiments of every affembly. Her taste was admirable, her wit was brilliant.

Her father, at his death, bequeathed twelve thousand pounds between her and her fifter, befides

a con

a confiderable fum to her brother, the late General Braddock. ho was cut off with a whole party, on an American expedition against the Cherokee Indians.

Four years after the death of her father, fhe loft her filter, by which her fortune was doubled,but alas in the course of a month, by a constant application to cards, fhe loft the whole.

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She fell under the infatuation of her own opinion-She conceived that judgment was fufficient, being totally ignorant of unfair practice.

Her misfortune preyed upon her mind, nor did fhe communicate the cause even to her moft confidential friends for a confiderable time, till at last her mind being unequal to ftruggle with accumulating adverfity, fhe declared to an intimate female, that the world fhould never be fenfible of her neceffities, however extreme they might be.

Notwithstanding her caution, her poverty became known, and her fenfibility was daily injured by the real and fictitious condolence of her acquaintance, which ftimulated her to the rafh resolve of terminating her anxicty, by putting an end to her existence.

On

On the night of perpetrating the act of suicide, fhe retired to her chamber in apparent good health, and in full poffeffion of her fenfes.-Her attendants left her in bed with a candle lighted, as was ufual, and having locked the door, put the key under it.

Mifs Braddock always opened her chamber door in the morning to admit her attendants, but the next morning the maid coming as ufual, and not hearing her miftrefs ftir, retired till near two o'clock in the afternoon, when being alarmed at receiving no answer to her calling, fhe employed a man to climb in at the window, when the horrid catastrophe of her miftrefs was discovered; and the following facts appeared in the evidence upon the view of the Coroner's inqueft.

After the departure of the maid on this night, fhe got out of bed again, and, it is fuppofed, employed fome time in reading, as a book was difcovered lying open upon her dreffing table. She put on a white night-gown, and pinned it over her breast; tied a gold and filver girdle together, and hanged herself on a clofet door in the following manner: at one end of the girdle the tied three knots, each about an inch afunder, that if one flipped, another might hold; opening the