"You force my approbation of your conduct," answered the hermit; "but why did you destroy that innocent child, who feemed fo eager to render us a fervice? why deprive of its only comfort the old age of that refpectable man, whose benevolence we experienced?" "That old man, by whom we were received only because I took the shape of one whom he knew, had for thirty years been employed in acts of charity. Never did the poor prefent themselves in vain at his door; he even stinted himself to fupply them. But fince he has had a son, and particularly fince that son has begun to grow up, his blind fondnefs urging him to amass a large patrimony for the youth to inherit, he has become auftere and avaricious.Day and night his thoughts have been engaged on profit; and foon he would have laid afide all fenfe of fhame, and turned ufurer. The child, dying in innocence, has been received in heaven; the father having no longer any motive for avarice, will recur to his old praifeworthy maxims; both will be faved; and without what you called an atrocious crime both of them had perished. Such are the fecret defigns of God, fince you wish to know them. But remember that you called them in question; repair to your cell and repent. For my part, I muft return to heaven.

In saying these last words, the Angel threw off his earthly disguife, and difappeared. The hermit, proftrating his face upon the earth, thanked the Almighty for his paternal reprimand. He then returned to his hermitage; where he paffed the remainder of his days in fo much fanctity, that he merited not only forgiveness of his error, but also the recompence promised to a virtuous life.

ODE TO REFLECTION.

'TWA

WAS when Nature's darling child,
Flora, fann'd by zephyrs mild,

The gorgeous canopy outspread
O'er the fun's declining head,
Winding from the buz of day,
Thus a bard attun'd his lay:
Nobleft gifts to mortals given,
Bright reflection! child of Heav'n,
Goddess of the fpeaking eye,
Glancing thro' eternity,

Rob'd in intellectual light,

Come, with all thy charms bedight:
Tho' nor fame nor fplendid worth
Mark thy humble vot'ry's birth,
Snatch'd by thee from cank'ring care,
I defy the fiend Despair;

All

All the joys that Bacchus loves,
All inglorious pleasure proves;
All the fleeting modifh toys
Buoy'd by Folly's frantic noife,
All, except the facred lore,
Flowing from thy boundless ftore!
For when thy bright form appears,
Even wild Confufion hears;
Chaos glows, impervious Night
Shrinks from thy all-piercing fight.
Yet! alas! what vain extremes
Mortals prove in Error's fchemes,
Sunk profound in torpor's trance,
Or with levity they dance;
Or in murmurs deep, the foul
Thinks it's blifs beyond the pole,
Bounding fwift o'er time and place,
Vacant ftill thro' boundless space,
Leaving happiness at home;
Thus the mental vagrants roam.
But when thou, with fober mien,
Deign'ft to blefs this wayward fcene,
Like Aurora fhining clear,

O'er th' ideal hemisphere;
Who but hears a foothing ftrain
Warbling "Heav'n's ways are plain?
Who but hears the charmer fay,
"Thefe obfcure the living ray?"

Self-love, the fouleft imp of night,
That ever ftain'd the virgin light;
Coward wretch, who fhuns to fhare,
Or foothe the woes which others bear;
Envy, with an eagle's eye,
Scandal's tales that never die;

Int'reft vile with countless tongues,

Trembling for ideal wrongs;

Flatt'ry base, with fupple knee,
Cringing low fervility;

Prejudice, with eyes afkew,

Still fufpecting aught that's new;
Would but men from these refrain,

Eden's bowers would bloom again;
Doubts in embryo melt away,

Truth's eternal fun-beams play.

WHAT HAVE YE DONE?

HEN the Philofophers of the last age were

WE

first congregrated into the Royal Society, great expectations were raised of the fudden progrefs of useful arts; the time was fuppofed to be near when engines fhould turn by a perpetual motion, and health be fecured by the univerfal medicine; when learning fhould be facilitated by a real character, and commerce extended by ships which

which could reach their ports in defiance of the tempeft.

But improvement is naturally flow. The Society met and parted without any visible diminution of the miseries of life. The gout and ftone were ftill painful, the ground that was not ploughed brought no harveft, and neither oranges nor grapes would grow upon the hawthorn. At laft, those who were disappointed began to be angry; those likewife who hated innovation were glad to gain an opportunity of ridiculing men who had depreciated, perhaps with too much arrogance, the knowledge of antiquity. And it appears, from fome of their earlieft apologies, that the Philofophers felt, with great fenfibility, the unwelcome importunities of thofe who were daily afking "What have ye done?"

The truth is, that little had been done compared with what fame had been fuffered to promife; and the queftion could only be answered by general apologies, and by new hopes, which, when they were fruftrated, gave a new occafion to the fame vexatious enquiry.

This fatal queftion has difturbed the quiet of many other minds. He that in the latter part of