have to attend to, and so presently fall to tricking, and dressing, and practising all the little engaging arts peculiar to their sex. In these they place all their hopes, as they do all their happiness in the success of them. But it is fit they should be given to understand that there are other attractions much more powerful than these; that the respect we pay them is not due to their Beauty, so much as to their Modesty, and Innocence, and unaffected Virtue; and that these are the true, the irresistible charms, such as will make the surest and most lasting conquests.

Addison.

Her Amiability.

She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested.

Shakespeare.

A Ministering Angel.

When fortune changed, and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,

Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose and set not to the last.

Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.

And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then purer spread its gentle flame,

And dash'd the darkness all away.

Thou stood'st as stands a lovely tree,
Whose branch unbroke, but gently bent,

Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

Day unto day her dainty hands

Make Life's soil'd temples clean,

And there's a wake of glory, where
Her spirit pure hath been.

At midnight through that shadow-land,
Her living face doth gleam;

The dying kiss her shadow, and

The dead smile in their dream.

Gerald Massey.

To the honour, to the eternal honour of the sex, be it stated, that in the path of duty no sacrifice is to them too high or too dear. Nothing is with them impossible, but to shrink from love, honour, innocence, and religion. The voice of pleasure or of power may pass by unheeded; but the voice

of affliction—never! The chamber of the sick-the pillow of the dying-the vigils of the dead-the altars of religion, never missed the presence or the sympathies of woman. Timid though she be, and so delicate that the "winds of heaven may not too roughly visit her," on such occasions she loses all sense of danger, and assumes a preternatural courage, which knows not, and fears not consequences. Then she

displays that undaunted spirit which neither courts difficulties nor evades them; that resignation which utters neither murmurs nor regret; and that patience in suffering which seems victorious even over death itself.

Balfour.

With lofty song we love to cheer
The hearts of daring men;
Applauded thus, they gladly hear

The trumpet's call again.

But now we sing of lowly deeds

Devoted to the brave,

When she, who stems the wound that bleeds,

A hero's life may save:

And heroes saved exulting tell

How well her voice they knew;
How sorrow near it could not dwell,
But spread its wings and flew.

Neglected, dying in despair,

They lay till woman came

To soothe them with her gentle care,

And feed life's flickering flame.