regarded than in this. Lewis was first attracted by the extraordinary spirit and elegance of her letters; and then abolutely fixed by her sentiments, her attention, and her submission. These were a balm to his soul, tormented by domestic, personal, and political chagrins. In these he obtained a relief from that weariness and wretchedness, which the pomps and pleasures of the world had served only to increase, while they promised to prevent or cure them. We do not find that this illustrious lady was fond of fashionable diversions: her books and her work were the principal amusements of her leisure.

But it is time to proceed to our last point, namely, the usefulness of Mental Acquisitions to your comfort and felicity. And here it is worthy your observation, that the Most High, having formed his rational offspring for a happiness more refined and noble than the indulgence of the senses alone, has wisely made the gratifications thence arising in a great measure momentary. To prolong these inferior enjoyments, is the laborious task of the slaves of appetite and fancy, in league with each other. But as it is undertaken in opposition to the design of the Almighty, aud prosecuted in defiance of his laws, it must ever be vain. They only fatigue themselves in the attempt. From efforts beyond her scope and powers, Nature will always recoil. Satiated with external pleasures, she turns inward. Experiencing there a void, which the whole system of matter cannot fill, she is prompted by an innate ambition to aspire after higher objects. Her spiritual faculties, and divine extraction, point her to the world of ideas. From that, and from what may be called the Commerce of Minds, she wishes to derive her chief satisfaction. But you will easily conceive that such commerce cannot be carried on to any extent, nor with any variety, without a

competent store of the goods proper to it; those, I mean, which experience and reflexion, genius and reasoning, discourse and memory, have accumulated and laid up in the writings of different ages, as in so many convenient repositories, for the use of all who are willing to avail themselves of this better wealth. They who are not, must necessarily labour under much internal poverty. Accordingly, how do they strain to supply the needful demands of conversation, when in company; and when alone, how do they struggle to elude, because they cannot content, the cravings of the immortal mind! To the want of this provision, and the incapacity of sustaining the weight of their own spirits pressing upon them in solitude, must we not principally impute their impatience for all manner of entertainments, that may help to fill up the painful blanks of time, without any considerable expense of that which they can least afford-thought? But this expedient is merely temporary, and extremely imperfect. Diversion long continued is drudgery; and still the soul falls back upon herself.

Now, if in the intervals of leisure you can with relish repair to books, you need never be at a loss. You may happily avoid, if you will, the toils of restless amusement, and the sighs of immoderate mirth. Excuse this last expression. Have you

not sometimes proved the truth of Solomon's remark, that " even in laughter the heart is sorrow"ful?" Have you not now and then perceived a sigh to steal from you when oppressed and exhausted by frequent bursts of merriment ?-If she who is in love with reading should, on particular occa❤ sions, be led into scenes of that kind, with what redoubled ardour will she return to silence and

study! From the noise, bustle, and barrenness of modern conversation, with what exalted pleasure will she betake herself to the society of the celebrated dead, or of admired authors yet alive, where all is still, serene and delightful! After being disgusted with the nauseous or the meagre diet, served up in most companies, where low scandal, or mere town-talk, supplies the place of urbanity and sense, how rich and regaling will she find that repast which her library is always ready to furnish!

There she will not fail of meeting with food of every different flavour, whether of a lighter or more solid substance, agreeable to her present inclination; at the same time that nothing is forced upon her, and she is left at liberty, not only to vary the entertainment as often and as much as she pleases, but also to rise from it whenever she will. Historians, Philosophers, Orators, and Poets, the best writers of every class, within her compass, are ever prepared to gratify without constraint or ceremony her intellectual taste. Nor will they take offence at any preference, which at any time she may be disposed to make. She can never intrude upon them at an improper season, nor appear to leave them with abruptness: And when she does leave them, instead of room for uneasy retrospect, the manner in which she has been employed will be productive of self-approbation. She will feel her soul nourished and strengthened; her spirits cheered and elevated, or collected and composed.

The

duties of life she will go about with fresh resolution, and a quicker comprehension of what becomes her. To congenial minds her attachment will be increased. With them she will enjoy, as often as she has opportunity, sentimental and friendly de

light, the circulation of thought, and reciprocation of confidence,

"The feast of reason, and the flow of soul"

And these, my friends, are satisfactions which depend not on youth, nor on the advantages peculiar to it satisfactions which, in some respects at least, will grow with your growing years; and which, in every case, will survive the transient flower of beauty. Let me again remind you of the period of its decay. Of that period you cannot be reminded too often.

When it arrives, those hollow-hearted men, that for their own ends now swarm about you with every semblance of love or admiration, will disperse like flies at the approach of winter. In a little time they will forget you, as if you had never been; or remember you only to say to every one they meet, how much you are altered. But what words can paint the desolation of her who finds herself thus forsaken and despised, without any resource in her own breast?

I think I see her flying to her glass, day after day, to observe whether that flatterer will prove more constant. At first she is astonished, she is shocked, at the stupidity of those men who can become insensible to a face or a form like her's? But in a little that once soothing glass, which was wont to transport her with the reflected image of herself, begins to withdraw its flatteries too. She is alarmed and depressed. She seeks consolation from some low dependant, who, with a grave face and glozing accent, assures her she is handsomer than ever; while the mercenary wretch secretly laughs her to scorn. Every artifice of dress, all

the seduction of ornament, is studied and practised with more exquisite solicitude. She views herself on every side the waste seems repaired.

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spirits rise; she is overjoyed. With renewed expectation she sallies forth: she dances her usual round: some one in pity tells her how well she looks the evening is past in triumph. She returns home exhausted with the flutter. morning the mirror is consulted again. She is pale, sickly, faint; her eyes are sunk; the wrinkles appear more than ever. Again she is startled, terrified, falls into a rage. The storm bursts on her domestics, spends itself, subsides. The usualmethods are tortured, to make her up; and if some new expedient is suggested, that can better disguise nature, and deceive the beholder-what a discovery! Thus between the vicissitudes of hope and fear, of exultation and despondence, on a subject to her weak unfurnished mind the most interesting of all others, she is miserably tossed; till by such repeated and violent perturbation, conspiring with the addition of years, she is consigned over to despair, the heart-overwhelming despair, of being ever praised more for those unhappy charms, which she at length perceives are beyond recovery lost. What young woman of reflexion would not prevent such ridiculous distress? think of any way to prevent it, so efficacious as turning betimes your principal attention to your better part? That even in this way you shall become wholly indifferent about the decline of an appearance which used to give your friends as well as yourselves pleasure, I will not affirm. But if so high a strain of philosophy be hardly practicable, still however I think you must acknowledge that the advances of age will be supported much the

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