more reasonable faculties; that laudable emotion was bartered for an artificial interest. "My education finished-I recant that inadequate phrase-the seeds of my destruction sown, my father placed me in a mercantile situation, with many advantages of future success. My ledger awhile prevented my recourse to other books; still I resolved that a thorough knowledge of business should be succeeded by that of useful literature. An incident, let it be deemed by no means trivial, frustrated these good intentions; the daily report of a very interesting novel, awakened my former passion. I perused it with peculiar delight; my attention to the counting-house considerably lessened ; my attendance on the circulating libraries became most frequent, and Here the fire had seized the leaf in a perpendicular direction ; hence the narrative is unfortunately cut short at the most important crisis-the commencement of a love story. Anxious, however, for the information of your fair readers, whose feelings the event may more immediately occupy, I have obtained information, from the remainder of the manuscript, that the hero, like Sylvester Daggerwood, "formed a romantic attachment"-to a milliner. It also appears that he calmly braved the remonstrances of "cruel parents," and married her. "Friends forsook me; my father, exasperated at my misconduct, and unwilling that the younger branches of his family should witness the encouragement of such an example, enclosed a small sum, to supply my present necessities, and discarded me for ever. My late idleness had incensed the merchant under whom I might have retained an honourable and lucrative situation; he expelled me from his counting-house with disgrace. I hired a mean appartment, and commenced scribbler. I produced a novel, confessed to abound with sentiment and sensibility, but which, pursued upon the plan of other works of a similar description, contained the most infamous doctrines of new philosophy, was interlarded with obscenity-was charged with deadly poison. This prostitute of my brain I ushered into that brothel for the mind, a modern circulating library! My hand trembles at the self-accusation. Should this book be exhibited at the great day of account-fall on me, ye mountains; hide me from the just wrath of Heaven; let not this damning proof of guilt appear against me! "Poverty surrounded us; my wife's romantic spirit could little brook the dreary scene that daily presented itself. My last shilling I gave her to purchase food. She went, but never to return! The most diligent search was fruitless: all the night I bathed my pillow with my tears in agony for her absence. The morning cleared up the mystery-this letter arrived, to blast me with its contents: SIR, -. At "The prospects I had formed, when I consented to give you my hand, are unrealized. Destitute of the means to afford me the situation to which every woman of enlightened understanding must necessarily aspire, I have sought a refuge from poverty in the arms of Captain B- An unprejudiced mind, like yours, will easily perceive the reasons that have influenced me to take this step. the altar, it is true, I promised to love you. Can the heart be susceptible of this tender passion for a man incapable of screening it from the craving demands of hunger? I am unable to rebel against nature; she has rid me of a promise which odious custom alone sanctions.' "Adieu, "HARRIOT.' "Oh, Harriot! could I have expected this! Modern Philosophy ! to thy infernal principles I owe my wretchedness. The world grows hateful to my sight. Welcome the deadly phial! "Be thou my passport to the world unknown "It cannot use me worse than this has done. My resolution wavers; at the dismal prospect of eternity I shudder! I know that tortures endless and unutterable await me ** The following appears to have been written immediately before the writer finished his earthly career. "Reader,-The deed is done! He who now addresses thee is quitting this world for ever: soon must he appear before the awful tribunal of heaven, to receive his sentence from an all-righteous judge, and his works shall follow him. His memory will be the ridicule of this world, but the pity of those who knew him. Harriot! mistaken girl! I dread to think upon thy fate: though surrounded by the thoughtless devotees of pleasure, let thy husband's remains claim one sigh-I ask no more. The poison gives me dreadful warning! I dare not sue for mercy, and fear to meet that Providence I have so basely injured. "Which way shall I fly "Infinite wrath and infinite despair? "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell, Manchester, May 23, 1802. B. H. BERTI. FANNY MORTIMER. LIGHT and airy passed the days of the youth of Fanny Mortimer. The fine glow of innocence and health mantled on her cheek, and cheerfulness and gaiety prankt it in her roguish eye. She was as happy as the day was long, and often from the grey blush of the morning until the sun streakt the West with his fires, did the woods which embowered the cottage of her father, echo with her song. Her heart knew not what it was to sigh, and her eye was unconscious of a tear, except when the tale of real or imaginary woe called them forth from the source of sensibility. Thus in primitive simplicity did her hours glide on in happiness. She knew no pleasure greater than that of listening to the cooing of the wood pigeon, which she had saved from the talons of the kite, or of decorating with garlands the lamb she had rescued from the stream. But alas she was not long permitted to remain in the paths of innocence and peace. Her beauties caught the eye of the seducer; his blandishments prevailed, and with an aching heart the unsuspecting Fanny Mortimer was lured from the home of her parents to the haunts of infamy and vice. Fanny, simple as she was, could perceive that the gaiety which surrounded her was all hollow; she felt it so herself, and wept incessantly, and deplored her departure from the easy path of rectitude. Her seducer, cloyed with possession, and tired with her tears, abandoned her, on the point of becoming a mother, to that fate which she concluded could not no w be distant. He left her destitute, and as a last resource she was forced to set out on foot for her native place, there to throw herself at the feet of her father, and implore forgiveness. If this were denied, she saw no other alternative than that of laying herself in the parish poor house, and, there give birth to the little being, which, though it would serve to perpetuate her infamy, she could not help loving with all a mother's fondness. She travelled slowly, for her burthen was heavy, but her heart was still heavier. It was late at night as she arrived at her paternal home. A melancholy foreboding struck into her soul as she perceived the garden wicket open, and every thing going to ruin and decay. She entered; there was no light in the lower rooms; a cold chill ran through her veins; she knocked; no answer was returned; she called upon her father, and all was yet still. The dreadful certainty now could no longer be doubted; she had sent the grey hairs of her parents with sorrow to the grave. Faint, and broken hearted, she left the cottage, which had once been the abode of innocence and virtue. The night was wild and stormy; the cold rains pelted her with pitiless fury :-yet still, mindless of her situation, she walked forwards unheeding whither she went. She had crossed the common, and had taken the opposite way to that which led to the village; after proceeding for some time, unconscious where, she awakened to all the horrors of her situation; she perceived she had lost herself, and knew not in what part of the country she was. Death unto her appeared not dreadful; to her it was the minister of comfort, for she was wearied of the world, but she wished to live for the sake of the babe which she bore in her womb. She continued, therefore, walking forward, hoping to find some cottage where she might rest for the night. A light now struck her eyes, and following it up, though on the point of sinking at every step with fatigue, she came within sight of the hut from whence it proceeded. Hope now lent her vigour; she paced down the hill as quick as her weariness would permit her. She was within a hundred paces of the cottage, when her strength failed her, and she sunk on the ground. She was unable to rise. The rain rushed in torrents down the hill, and the blast whistled among the trees. Fanny moaned for some time. Mixed with the confused tones of the wind, her moans reached the ears of the cotters. 'Tis the spirit of the night which howls, said they, as fearfully they drew their chair nearer the blazing hearth; and still, at every response, did they deprecate the Demon of the storm. Fanny did not moan long, for the angel of death appeared, and bore her afflicted spirit to the regions of rest. The next day her corpse was carried to the village and buried. They did not lay her by the side of her father, for he had died sternly disowning her. She lies beneath the alder on the west side of the church, the place appointed for the burial of paupers. The village girls did not deck her grave with flowers, nor bind down the turf with oziers, yet here the wild lily and the snow-drop, emblems of her once spotless purity, love to bloom, and the love-lorn nightingale and the plaintive throstle build their nests, and warble through the foliage which shades the cold sod under which poor Fanny Mortimer once more tastes of peace in the forgetful sleep of death. Nottingham, May 20th. H. K. W. 3 D-VOL. XIII. OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDITION OF THOSE UNFORTUNATE MEN, WHO, After suffering the Punishment due to their Crimes, Are again restored to Society. NOTWITHSTANDING the great number of charitable institutions which this age of benevolence has raised and matured for almost every description of our forlorn and distressed fellow creatures, there remains one to be adopted both for the public safety, and for the reformation of the worst members of the community, namely, those who have undergone the punishment due to their crimes. The Children of criminal parents are already rescued from the paths of vice and infamy by the Philanthropic Society; but where is there an asylum for the miserable authors of their being, when let loose upon the public-for the prisoner just liberated from the bar of the Old Bailey-for him who has been released from a jail, after a long and gloomy confinement-for the poor wretches who have suffered the punishment (if it can be called such) which the law inflicts on board the hulks, or for those who have returned from transportation. Many of these have no doubt a secret and anxious wish to return to the paths of sobriety and industry; to become useful members of society; and to relinquish a life of apprehension, despair, and infamy, oftentimes ending in an ignominious death-but where is the farmer, manufacturer, artist, or housekeeper to be found, who will be hardy enough to receive into their houses or places of trust, these isolated outcasts of mankind? Deprived of friends, without money, and unworthy of credit, a prey to evil habits, strengthened by an intercourse with others more profligate and depraved than themselves, pillage and plunder are their only alternatives; to acquire which they may, in case of resistance, be urged by despair to the commission of murder. What satisfaction would it not give the feeling mind to have contributed to the reclaiming one such pest of society? How pleasing must be the reflection that useful talents and ingenuity, before applied to the ruin of individuals, have, through his means, been employed in cultivating the peaceful arts, and in benefiting society; and that they have become fathers of industrious families, who must, if left to themselves, have terminated their short and miserable career at the gallows. |