able to your wishes:-Lucilius is engaged for this evening with company, who, I know, will keep him late; but as I am under fome apprehenfions of being known at the place mentioned in your's, defire our rendezvous may be at the bagnio in LongAcre, where you may depend I fhall come to you about fix:yet, dear Miramount, be affured that nothing less than the prefervation of a life fo valuable to the world as your's is, should make me injure a h fband who adores me to distraction. I rely on your honour as to an inviolable fecrecy, and every thing elfe that can render me perfectly happy in being

"Your's,

AURELIA.”

Had Lucilius really loved, how wretched muft fuch a difcovery of her levity, perfidy and deceit, have made him!—All indifferent as he was to her charms, the confideration of his own honour was too dear to him not to take all poffible methods to put it out of her power to facrifice it.

After giving fome moments to reflection, he examined the fellow as to what he knew of his lady's acquaintance with Miramount, when and where it began, and how long there had been a correfpondence between them.

Thefe enquiries were enforced by fuch terrible menaces, mingled with affurances of protection and rewards, if he revealed the whole truth, that a perfon of more resolution and courage than could be expected in one of his ftation, would have been won to answer every thing demanded of him.

He informed Lucilius, that he believed his lady first saw the gentleman in queftion at the houfe of Clelia, where the fre quently went to play at cards;-and this, to the best of his remembrance, was about three weeks paft ;-that they afterwards had met, either by chance or appointment, in the Mall, and that he had carried no more than one letter to him, in anfwer, as he fuppofed, to one fhe had received from him; that when The delivered to him the foregoing, and that which his honour had now intercepted, he had given him money, and a strict charge never to mention that there was any intercourse between her and Miramount; and promised him, if he was found faithful in this affair, he fhould be taken out of livery, and handfomely provided for.

Lucilius liftened to all with agitations which it is eafy for any one to conceive; but recovering himself as foon as he could, he called for pen and paper, and imitating his wife's hand tolerably well, he copied her letter word for word, only changed the place of affignation, from the bagnio in Long-Acre, to the Swan at Chelsea,

Chellea, and having fealed it, ordered the fellow to carry that to Miramount, and bring what answer he should send to him, who would wait his return at the tavern where they now were.

The footman had now no inducement to be infincere to his master; for as the affair was difcovered, he had nothing to expect from Miramont, in cafe he should let him know what had happened; but was fure to fuffer all that the rage of Lucilius could inflict on him, if he was found to have acted contrary to the orders he had given him.

The answer which Miramount returned, was fuch as might be expected, full of acknowledgements and proteftations of an everlafting conftancy and love.This Lucilius put into his pocket, and bid the man tell his lady that her lover had a great deal of company with him, and could have no opportunity to write without being taken notice of, but that the might be furè of his obeying her with the utmoft punctuality.

Lucilius then went home, breakfafted as ufual with his lady, and fo well concealed his difcontent, that he had no caufe to fufpect any thing of what had happened:-he flaid with her, however, as fhort a time as poffible :-he dreffed, and having foon determined within himself what courfe to take, went directly to her uncle, and acquainted him with the discovery he had made, and produced the letter Aurelia had wrote to Miramount, with his anfwer to it.

"Tis hard to fay, whether the old gentleman's furprize or ragé was most predominant: he was truly a worthy, honeft perfon; and though he had thought his niece's conduct not altogether fo prudent as he could have wifhed before marriage, yet he never fufpected fhe would have gone fuch lengths after being a wife: he was for going with Lucilius, and joining with him in those reproaches her guilt thus plainly proved might juftify; but this injured husband would by no means confent to that :-he thought all they could fay would have lefs force, and the fhock of being detected lofe half its weight, if not given her in the very place where the intended to perpetrate her crime :-he therefore propofed that they should go together to the bagnio, fomewhat before the hour in which the had promised Miramount to come; and when expecting to be received with open arms by a fond lover, the fhould be falated with the frowns and upbraidings of a wronged husband and incensed uncle..

This the uncle agreed to; and after dinner was over at home, Lucilius performed his laft act of diffimulation towards his wife, by embracing her in the moft feeming tender manner; when he took leave of her, in order to go, as the imagined, to thofe friends, with whom, as he had wrote to Miramount, he had

promifed

promifed to pass that evening:-he behaved to him with no lefs foftness, and conjured him not to leave her too long alone, but to return as foon as he could poffibly difengage himself with decency.

How wretched, how contemptible a figure, did fhe now make in his eyes! But he concealed the difdain of his heart under a fervent kifs; feeling, however, a kind of gloomy fatisfaction in his mind at the thoughts that now there would be an end of all constraint, and he should no more be under the neceffity of feigning ardours to which his nature had ever been repugnant.

Both, though from very different motives, were impatient enough for the appointed hour; which being arrived, and the uncle and husband waiting her approach, the clock had but just. Atruck when a hackney-chair brought the too punctual fair into the entry, whence the was fhewed up ftairs by a waiter, who had orders what to do:-how fhe was confounded, when, tripping gaily into the room, the found who were there to receive her, any one may judge.

All her natural affurance, of which few women had a greater fhare, was too little to enable her to bear up against a fight more dreadful, more alarming to her guilty mind, than had a meffenger from the other world appeared to admonish her of her crime.

In the first emotions of her fright he was about to run out of the room, and with one jump had got as far as the door, when Lacilius took hold of her arm, and obliged her to come back.: "Though, Madam," faid he, with the moft ftabbing fneer, "the agreeable Miramount is not here, and you are difap-. pointed of the entertainment you expected, fuch as a husband and an uncle, who have both of them a due fenfe of your merit, can afford, you may be fure to find."

She made no answer to these words, but threw herself into a chair with a look that shewed an inward rancour, and would. have made her pafs, with any one who had been prefent, and unacquainted with her crime, rather for the perfon injured than the guilty one; fo true is this fentiment of the poet:

Forgiveness to the injur'd does belong,

But they pe'er pardon who have done the wrong.

But, however the greatness of her fpirit might have fupported her against the reproaches of a hufband, thofe her uncle loaded her with, and the fight of her own letter, wholly fubdued her ; and finding there was no evafion, nor poffibility either of denying or excufing what fhe had done, fhe fell on her knees, and,

with a fhower of undiffembled tears, confeffed her fault, and begged to be forgiven.

After having endeavoured to make her fenfible of her fault, they acquainted her with the refolution they had mutually agreed to purfue, which was, that in confideration of her family, no public noife fhould be made of it; but that, to prevent her taking any future fteps to the prejudice of her reputation, and confequently to the honour of her husband, the muft pafs fome time with an old relation, who lived at a great diftance from London, nor hope to return 'till fhe had given evident proofs of her converfionthis, her uncle told her, it would become her not only to confent to, but alfo to go with a chearfulnets which fhould make every body think it an act of choice.

It was to no purpose the entreated, in the most fubmiffive terms, a remiffion of a fentence fhe acknowledged the had bot too justly incurred in vain fhe made the most folemn vows, and paffionate imprecations, never to be guilty of any future mifcarriage in conduct :- Lucilius was inexorable, nor did her uncle attempt to render him more pliable :-she was that night carefully watched, and early the next morning fent down into the country with a perfon whofe integrity her husband could confide in, to attend her, and at the fame time to keep a ftrict eye over her behaviour.

It must be confeffed, that the precautions taken to keep this affair a fecret, were perfectly prudent; for as the crime of Arrelia had been only in intention, the law would not have a lowed of a divorce; yet that intention was fufficient to have rendered both of them the fuhject of ridicule: nor indeed was there any poffibility of their living together in any harmony af ter fuch a difcovery, even though there had been a certainty of her becoming a real penitent.

Whether he were fo or not, heaven only can determine; but I am informed, that the had not been many weeks in that retirement to which the was banished, before the grief and fhame either of being guilty, or of having been detected in it, threw her into a violent fever, of which he died, and left Lucilius no inconfolable widower.

The truth of this affair had however remained a fecret, had her lover been endued with the fame difcretion as her husband; but that vain man finding the came not to the Swan, as he expected, and, on fending the next day to her houfe, being told fhe was gone into the country, made him not doubt but fome accident had difcovered their correfpondence to Lucilius, and that he had taken this method to prevent their meeting on which, partly infligated by revenge against the husband, and partly by

the

the vanity of being thought to be too well with the wife, he made a jeft, among his companions, of the jealoufy of the one, and the levity of the other, and even fcrupled not to expofe the letters of that unfortunate lady, as a proof of what he said.

He had fo little circumfpection as to whom he talked in this manner, that it foon reached the ears of Lucilius; who, unable to endure with patience this aggravation of the infult offered to his honour, fent him a challenge, which the other was too gallant a man not to accept.-They met and fought both were very much hurt, efpecially Miramount, whofe wounds at first were reckoned dangerous, but he recovered of them as well as Lucilius, and had honour enough, after he did fo, to confefs himself every way the aggreffor, and afk pardon for the injury he had intended him, as well as for his foolish boalling of it af terwards.As all this happened before the death of Aurelia, 'tis poffible fhe might, fome way or other, be informed of it, and that might be one great means of hattening on her fate.She was a woman of understanding; and being fuch, and in a place where the had no enchantments to lull afleep reflection, could not be without a lively fenfe of that fhame which fhe had brought on her felf and family; for, as Mr. Waller elegantly expreffes it,

Our paffions gone, and reafon on the throne,
Amaz'd we fee the mischiefs we have done.
After a tempeft, when the winds are laid,

The calm fea wonders at the wrecks it made.

On the FOLLY and WICKEDNESS of neglecting a FAMILY and CHILDREN, for the PLEASURES of DISSIPATION.

TH

[From KNOX's ESSAYS, Moral and Literary. ]

HOUGH it may be true, as it has been afferted, that one age is not better than another, yet it is obvious to remark that the modes, if not the degrees, of vice, have varied at different periods; and that, of modes equally criminal in themfelves, fome are particularly deftructive.

Whatever have been the manners of preceding times, in our own country, I believe it will be readily allowed that the middle ranks were never univerfally infected with the love of a diffipating life, 'till the prefent age. Domeftic industry and conomy, or the qualities diftinguished by the homely titles of thrif tinefs and good housewifery, were always, 'till the prefent century, deemed honourable. They are now, however, difcarded VOL. II. 34.

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