kind to me!-you will kill me!I saw not my wife die--no !--they dragged me from her-but I saw my Jacky and Nancy die--and who pitied me, but my dog? He turned his eyes to the body-I wept with him. He would then have taken some nourishment, but nature was exhausted and he expired. For the Lady's Miscellany. M.. Editor equivocal pleasure, and by no means, to be much recommended, Little habits insensibly beget a passion for them; and a passion for cards murders time, money, talents, understanding, every thing that is rational in our nature, and every thing that is divine. If experience did not convince us of the fact, one should never have imagined, that a reasonable creature would ever have been able to consume hours, days, weeks, months, years, in counting over the black and red spots upon paper and childishly to quarrel about their success-a creature who has understanding that is capable of improvement to an infinite degrec! a creature living in a world' where knowledge is immense, and every flower or shrub a subject of astonishment-who has a temper, that requires continual watchfulness: a soul that needs unremit 1 no ice with a high degree of concern that very prevalent fanion card playing. Conversation which formerly used to be so instructing and pleasant is now almost destroyed. Father, Son, and Grand son are now frequently found at the same table with Grand mother, daughter & Grand daughter Money appears as much an object of play at the private as at the public gambling house. Younging cultivation; perhaps children, ladies play with as much anxiety, that call for incessant instruction ; and as great boldness as the men, amidst objects of distress for which they think little about winning six heaven begs each superfluous penor eight dollars of an evening, and ny, and in a body, that may any tell of their success, and of sitting moment drop into the grave! up till midnight without a blush. Present the following to your readers. It is from a series of letters addressed by the rev. John Bennet, to a young lady. PRESTO. Cards, which are the inseparable concomitants of tea visits, and introduced as soon as persons are well seated in company, are a very A woman I will advert no longer, on the moral consequences. who has a wish only to please, should not be much addicted to this practice. It is very apt to muffle the temper, and discompose the features; and a sour and an angry look is more destructive to female charms, than an bigh scorbutic flush, or the small-pox. to the issue of chance. We never look at its consequences, but hui I is said in favour of cards that they prevent scandal, and are a substitute to many for the want ofry to the gaming table without reconversation. This conveys a severe stigma both on our hearts and understanding. It supposes, that flecting upon the danger that may attend such a hasty step. We thus draw a veil over its disgrace and we have few stores of entertain-reproach, and give to it a degree ment within ourselves; and that the only way to avoid a greater er ror, is to fall into a less. Our moments, I fear, will not bear the scruting of conscience or reason, much less to spend them in an innocent and useful manner, without the low resource of either scandal or play? || of plausibility, which renders the temptation irresistabic. From the Phil. Tickler. "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen, Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then em* brace.' This vice has something in it, that charms and shocks the feelings at the same instant. It af fords the gamester picasure while engaged in the play, but creates, remorse when the game is finished--when his fellow gamesters, have been more successful than hituself. This vice attacks us privately; it gradually undermines and destroys every virtue; it casis: down every barrier that is set up; to retain man within the bounds of what is laudible and becoming. and as we suppose we can in this practice unite business with plea sure we pursue it with more ar AMONGST the many vices, This is the reason why the practhat infest a large and populous tice of gaming is so successfully city, none isof a nature so spread | fatal. We first consider it mereing and malignant, as the practicely as a pleasure, then as a business of gaming; nor will it be very difficult to discover, why it has this mischievous pre-eminence, if we attend to the course of its opera-dour, than any other that engages tion and progress in the mind. Other vices have something in their very aspect and colour, which shocks the moral sense, and are at open hostility with the good principles, or habits, that have been cherished in us by education, or examples; but we, as it were, force ourselves to look upon gam. ng as a practice in which we trust mankind. It meets with less opposition than the other vices, as it appears to be more in unison with our principles. When a man becomes a gamester he is fit for no other employment whatever--hence the immortal Shakespeare observes, keep a gamester from his dice, and a good student from his books, and it is wonderful.— S His thoughts are all taken up in forming plans, by which he may be able to cheat his fellow gamesters of their money, or regain his own, which he has had the misfor tune to lose. Could we,' says an elegant writer, look in the miug of the cominon gamester, we would see it full of nothing but his trumps and matadores: slumbers are haunted with kings, with queens, and with knaves.' How many useful citizens, has this detestible, this abominable, this vile practice, deprived our city of--how many a family has it hurried into wretchedness. misery and woe-how many a tear has it caused a tender father, and an affectionate mother to shed, by ruining a child upon whom all their hopes were placed, and in whom all their pleasures were centred? SELECTED For the Lady's Miscellany. 7 UNCERTAINTY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. The following remarkable instance of the incertitude and danger of circumstantial evidence is extracted from the Gentleman's Magazine, for the year 1751. A gentleman died possessed of a very considerablę fortune, which he left to his only child a daughter, and appointed his brother to be her Guardian, and Executor of his Will. The young lady was then eighteen; and if she happened to die unmarried, or, if married without children, her fortune was eft to her guardian, and to his neirs. As the interest of the Uncle was now incompatible with the life of the Niece, several other relations hinted that it would no be proper for them to live togeth. Whether they were willing er to prevent any occasion of slander against the Uncle in case of the young lady's death; whether they had any apprehension of her being in danger; or whether they were only discontented with the father's disposition of his fortune, & therefore, propogated rumours to the prejudice of those who possessed it, cannot be known; the Uncle however, took his niece to his house near Epping Forest, & soon afterwards she disappeared. Great inquiry was made after her, and it appearing, that the day she was missing, she went out with her uncle into the forest and, that he returned without her-he was taken into custody. A few days afterwards he went through a long examination, in which he acknowledged, that he went out with her, and pretended that she found means to loiter behind him, as they were returning home; that he sought her in the Forest as soon as he missed her; and that he knew not where she was, or what was become of her. This account was thought improbable, and his apparent interest in the death of his ward, and perhaps, the petulent. zeal of other relations concurred to raise and strengthen suspicions against him. It was found that the young lady had been addressed by a neighbouring gentleman, who had, a few days before she was missing, set out upon a journey to the north; and that she had declared she would marry him when he returned :that her uncle had frequently expressed his disapprobation of the match in very strong terms: that she had often wept and reproached him with unkindness, and an abuse of his power. A woman was also produced, who swore, that on the day the young lady was missing, about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, she was coming through the forest, and heard a woman's voice expostulating with greateagerness, upon which she drew nearer the place, and, before she saw any person, heard the same voice say, don't kill me, Uncle, don't kill me; upon which she was greatly terrified, and immediately hearing the report of a gun very near, she made all the haste she could from the spot, but could not rest in her mind till she had told what had happened. Such was the general impatience to punish a man, who had murdered his niece to inherit her fortune, that upon this evidence he was condemned and executed. About ten days after the execution the young lady came home It appeared, however, that what ail the witnesses had sworn was true, and the fact was found to be thus circumstanced: The young lady declared, that having previously agreed to go off with the gentleman that courted her, he had given out that he was going a journey to the North: but that he waited concealed at a little house near the skirts of the forest, till the time appointed, which was the day she cisappeared. That he had horses ready for himself and her, and was attended by two servants also on horseback.--That as she was walking with her uncie, he reproached her with persisting in her resolution to marry a man of whom he disapproved; and after much altercation, she said with some heat, "I have set my heart upon it; if I do not marry him, it will be my death ; and don't kill me, uncle, don't kill me;" that just as she had pronounced these words, she heard a gun discharged very near her, at which she started, and immediately afterwards saw a man come forward from among the trees, with a wood-pidgeon in his hand, that he had just shot — that coming near the place appointed for their rendezvous, she formed a pretence to let her uncle go on before her, and her suitor being waiting for her with a horse, she mounted, and immediately rode off. That instead of going into the North, they retired to a house, in which he had taken lodgings, near Windsor, where they were married the same day, and in about a week went a journey of pleasure to France, from whence, when they returned, they first heard of the misfortune which they had nadvertently brought up, on their uncle. So uncertain is human testimony, even when the witnesses are sincere; and so necessary is a cool and dispassionate inquiry and determination, with respect to crimes that are culpable in the highest degree, and committed with every possible aggravation. For the Lady's Miscellany. ON MIMICRY. Unfortunately for mankind, they are sometimes endued with many talents which, when wisely used, might be singularly beneficial, but appear most lively at at a time when the judgment is weak, and the foresight imperfect. No talent can possibly be more pleasing than Mimicry, and there surely is none the intemperate use of which procures more enemies. The reason is. that it affects those parts of our character which seem most connected with our pride. I have scen a man tamely bear to be cursed for a fool, branded for an infidel and laughed at for his ignorance: and yet when afterwards he understood that a mimic had entertained a company with his manner of walking and entering a room,he conceived a degree of rancorous malice against the minic, which ། he never abated to his dying day. There are thousands to whom pride is a much more beloved pos. session than character,' and who will suffer any imputation on the latter with meanness, but who resent what wounds their pride with a zeal bordering on madness. The principal argument in favour of Mimicry is, that it may be a means of curing the foibles against which it is employed. But this can only be the case with a pertain class of men of the most impartial sense and open judgement. This class being very thin I cannot help affirming, that with the generality of mankind this tadent produces no effect but a thorough contempt for him who uses. it. Some foibles there are which, satirized in a general manner, may be perhaps cured; but if the satire is particularly pointed at one, that one individual becomes more obstinate than ever in adhering to his faibles. On these occasions the satirist must endeavour to perfect his cure with as little probing as possible; for if the patient feels the smart of the curative instrument too acutely, he will be apt to exclaim, that the "cure is worse than the disease." S FOOTE was the greatest mi mic perhaps the world ever saw. His mimicry has been thus defended: When we attempt to give advice to a friend in private, he is generally offended with the freedom; the most propable means |