"fhould ever have a fon, may His ingratitude 66 never make you think of Me."

TOM, indeed, took care never to have any vexation from children: He had too great a fpirit to bear the fhackles of matrimony, and lived in a state of celibacy among bagnios. Sometimes he made inroads on private life, and difturbed the peace of families by debauching the wives and daughters of his acquaintance. Among other gallant exploits he decoyed up to town the daughter of a country gentleman, where he ruined her, and then left her to linger under an infamous disease. At length the fruits of his amour appeared in a child, which foon perished with it's unhappy parent in a public hospital. By the fame magic of the fancy let us raise up this poor girl with the infant in her arms, while he is wantoning among his doxies, and lording it like a bashaw over the vaffals of his luft. What remorse must this villain have felt, could he have imagined her to have addreffed him in the following terms ! "Behold in the loathfome ❝carcafe of this babe the image of thyself; foul, "rotten, and corrupt.How could I fuffer "fo contemptible a creature to draw me from "the comfortable protection of my parents?"It was juft, indeed, that I fhould fall a victim L 2

"to

"to my folly: But was this diseased infant "quickened, only to proclaim my dishonour and thy infamy? -Why hadft thou yet "the power left to propagate misery even to "the innocent?"

TOM had often fignalized himself as a duellift : His confcience, as we have already mentioned, upbraided him at his dying moments with the murder of a particular friend. He had once ill luck at cards; and being irritated with his loffes, and fufpecting foul play on the part of his antagonist, he took him by the nofe, which consequently produced a challenge. He is haftening to the field of battle :: -but he fancies himself followed by the Manes of his friend, whom on the fame unhallowed ground he had lately facrificed to that idol HONOUR. He hears him call "Turn, madman, turn, and look on Me.

-You may remember with what reluctance "I met you-You forced me to the combat" and I was even pleased, that the victory was "yours. You deprived me of life in an idle " quarrel about a creature, whom, at your return "from the murder of your friend, you detected "in the arms of another.It was Honour, "that induced you to wound the bosom of one you loved: The fame Honour now calls

66

"you to give a fellow, whom you defpife, an " opportunity to retaliate the injury done to me. -What folly is it to put your life into the "hands of a scoundrel, who you suspect has al"ready robbed you of your fortune?-But

66

go on, and let your death rid the world of a "monfter, who is defperate enough to put his "own life on the hazard, and wicked enough to "attempt that of another."It happened, however, that Toм had no occafion for fuch a monitor, as the person whom he went to meet proved as great a coward, as he was a cheat; and our hero, after waiting a full hour in his pumps, and parrying with the air, had no other revenge for the lofs of his money, than the fatisfaction of pofting him for a fcoundrel.

THOUGH the hero of our ftory was cut off in the prime of his life, yet he may be faid, like Neftor, to have outlived three generations. All the young fellows of fpirit were proud to be enrolled in the lift of his companions; but as their conftitutions were more puny than his, three fets of them had dropt into the grave, and left him at the head of the fourth. He would often boast of the many promising geniuses, who had fallen in the vain attempt of keeping pace with him in the various fcenes of debauchery. In this L3

light

light we may confider him as an accessary to fo many wanton murders. By the operation of his confcience, at every tavern door he might have met with an acquaintance to bar his paffage; and in the midst of his jollity, like Macbeth, he might have dashed down his glass, and imagined that he faw a departed friend filling the vacant chair.

FROM the nature of the facts, which have already been recorded of Tom DARE-DEVIL, the reader will eafily conclude, that he must have been an Atheist. No creature, who believed in a SUPREME BEING, could have acted fo vilely towards] his fellow-creatures. Tom was prefident of an abominable club, who met together every Sunday night to utter the most horrid blafphemies. The members of this most scandalous fociety must have heard of the manner of their great tutor's death:Let us imagine therefore, that they could figure to themselves his ghost appearing to them, warning them of their errors, and exhorting them to repent. They might conceive him fetting forth, in the moft pathetic manner, the confequences of their folly, and declaring to them, how convinced he now was of the certainty of those doctrines, which they daily ridiculed. Such an apparition would, indeed, have an effect upon common finners: but in all probability a thorough

thorough-paced infidel would not be reclaimed, even though one rofe from the dead."

tr

creature.

WHAT I have here fuppofed might have been the cafe of one particular reprobrate, is in the power of every person to put in practice for himfelf. Nothing is a furer inftance of the goodnefs of the CREATOR, than that delicate inward feeling, fo ftrongly impreffed on every reasonable This internal fenfe, if duly attended to, and diligently cherished and kept alive, would check the finner in his career, and make him look back with horror on his crimes. An ancient is commended for wifhing, "that he had "a window in his breaft, that every one might "fee into it :" But it is certainly of more confequence to keep ourselves free from the reproach of our own hearts, than from the evil opinions of others. We should therefore confider Conscience as a Mirrour, in which every one may see himself reflected, and in which every action is represented in it's proper colours.