tivate the one, for it is evident that it had become a habit of her mind ; and she had from youth been accustomed only to talk of the other, so that it had no real influence upon her conduct. Lady N. was mild, and amiable, and gentle, as heart could wish, yet here we see her guilty of an act of cruelty and oppression, of which a person of a less yielding disposition, and who had been actuated by steady principle, would never have been guilty.

Even for the crimes into which Mrs. Pegg was led, Lady N. was in a great measure accountable. Had she considered the influence she possessed as a trust received from God, a talent which she was bound to employ to the best advantage, she would not have deemed herself excusable in thus disposing of it. The ambition which led Mrs. Pegg from crime to crime, would

12

would have been crushed in its very birth. Her talents would have been employed in their proper sphere; and her merit judged of, not merely ac cording to the height of its artificial gloss; but by the rigid rules of truth and justice. The poor woman would by this means have escaped the misery into which she was afterwards led by the gradual but overpowering force of great temptations.

As to Lady Mary, we cannot but consider her as an object of pity. She had been told to respect truth, yet was placed in a situation where to speak truth required a degree of fortitude beyond her strength. She had never been taught the necessity of exerting it. But had religious principle been implanted in her heart, she would have felt that it was less daring to offend Mrs. Pegg, than to offend her creator and her judge. She would therefore

therefore at all events have run the risk of incurring Mrs. Pegg's displeasure, rather than soil the pure integrity of her mind, by giving utterance to a wilful falsehood. Granting that through timidity she had permitted herself to be inadvertently hurried into this grievous error; she would, upon reflection, have hastened to repair it, and by an ingenuous confestion of the truth, have wiped the stain from her conscience. Thus would the principles of honour and humanity have been upheld by the principles of religion.

Happy they who are taught the practice, while they are initiated into the precepts of virtue! Happy they who at an early period, have acquired sufficient resolution to adhere with firmness to the principles in which they have been thus instructed!

The fruits of this firmness of mind

are

are so admirably represented by a Latin poet, that I cannot better conclude this letter than by transcribing a translation.

The man whose mind on virtue bent,
Pursues some greatly good intent,
With undiverted aim,

Serene beholds the

angry crowd,

Nor can their clamours fierce and loud
His stubborn honour tame.

Not the proud tyrant's fiercest threat,
Nor storms that from their dark retreat,
The lawless surges wake;

Nor Jove's dread bolt that shakes the pole,
The firmer purpose of his soul

With all its power can shake.

LETTER X.

IN

the story of "The tame Pigeon," I have presented my dearest Lady Elizabeth with an example of injustice, produced, not by the operation of any malignant passion, but merely by a deficiency in point of firmness. I have shewn that where fortitude and resolution are wanting, the knowledge of duty will not preserve from a failure in the practice of it, and consequently will not produce those habits of thinking and acting, which, from the constancy of their operation, are termed principles.

I shall now illustrate the force of these habits from characters of a stronger