THE prætor had given uned for a capital crime, to

up to the triumvir a woman

of fome rank, condemned

be executed in the prifon. He who had the charge of her execution, in confideration of her birth, did not immediately put her to death. He even ventured to let her daughter have access to her in prifon; carefully fearching her, however, as fhe went in, left fhe fhould carry with her any fuftenante; concluding, that, in a few days, the mother muft of courfe perish for want, and that the feverity of putting a woman of family to a violent death, by the hand of the executioner, might thus be avoided. Some days paffing in this manner, the triumvir began to wonder that the daughter ftill came to visit the mother, and could by no means comprehend how the latter fhould live fo long. Watching, therefore, carefully, what paffed in the interview between them, he found, to his great aftonishment, that the life of the mother had been, all this while, fupported by the milk of the daughter, who came to the prifon every day to give her mother her breafts to fuck.

T 3

The

The ftrange contrivance between them was reprefented to the judges, and procured a pardon for the mother. Nor was it thought fufficient to give to fo dutiful a daughter the forfeited life of her condemned mother, but they were both maintained afterwards by a penfion fettled on them for life. And the ground upon which the prison ftood was confecrated, and a temple to filial piety built upon it.

What will not filial duty contrive, or what hazards. will it not run, if it will put a daughter upon ventur ing, at the peril of her own life, to maintain her imprifoned and condemned mother in fo unusual a manner! For what was ever heard of more ftrange, than a mother fucking the breafts of her own daughter? It might even feem fo unnatural, as to render it doubtful whether it might not be, in fome fort, wrong, if it were. not that duty to parents is the firft law of nature.

On the Importance of governing the Temper.

NOTWITHSTANDING the many complaints of

the calamities of human life, it is certain that more conftant uneafinefs arifes from ill temper than from ill fortune: In vain has Providence bestowed every external bleffing, if care has not been taken by ourfelves to smooth the afperities of the temper. A bad temper embitters every fweet, and converts a paradife into a place of torment.

The government of the temper then, on which the happiness of the human race fo greatly depends, can never be too frequently or too forcibly recommended.. But as it was found by fome of the ancients one of the moft efficacious methods of deterring young perfons from any disagreeable or vicious conduct, to point out a living character in which it appeared in all its deformity, I fhall exhibit a picture, in which I hope a bad temper will appear, as it really is, a moft unamiable object.

It is by no means uncommon to obferve thofe, who have been flattered for fuperficial qualities at a very early age, and engaged in fo conftant a series of diffipating pleasure as to leave no time for the culture of the mind, becoming, in the middle and advanced periods of life, melancholy inftances of the miferable effects refulting from an ungoverned temper. A certain lady, whom I fhall diftinguish by the name of Hifpulla, was celebrated from her infancy for a fine complexion. She had, indeed, no very amiable expreffion in her eyes, but the vermilion of her cheeks did not fail to attract admiration, and she was convinced by her glafs, and by the affeverations of the young men, that she was another and a fairer Helen. She had every opportunity of improving her mind; but as we naturally beftow our first care on the quality which we moft value, the could never give her attention either to books or to oral inftruction,

ftruction, and at the age of fifteen or fixteen could scarcely write her name legibly, or read a sentence without hesitation. Her perfonal charms were, however, powerful enough to captivate the heart of a thoughtless heir, very little older than herself. Her vanity, rather than her love, was gratified by the alliance; and when the found the affiduities of promifcuous fuitors at an end, the found herself gradually finking in the dead calm of infipidity. When love was no more, other paffions fprung up with all the luxuriancy of rank weeds, in a foil where no falutary herb had been planted in the vernal season. Pride, that fruitful plant, which bears every kind of odious quality in abundance, took root in her heart, and flourished like the nettle or the hemlock on the banks of the ftagnant pool.

Her husband was the first to feel its baneful effects. Though the match was greatly to her advantage, she perfuaded herself that she might have done better; and that her good fortune was by no means adequate to the prize which her beauty and merit might have juftly claimed. With this conviction, and without any habits or abilities which might lead her to feek amusement in books, she found no diversion so congenial to her heart, as the tormenting a good-natured, young, and agreeable husband, who, by marrying, had excluded her from the probability of a title. As a small compenfation for the injury received, fhe affumed an abfolute dominion over him, his fortune, and his family. He durft not differ in opinion from her; for on the flightest oppofition, her eyes dart fire, her cheeks glow with indignation, and her tongue utters every bitter word which rage and malice can dictate. The comfort of every meal is poifoned by a quarrel; and an angry vociferation is reechoed from the parlour to the kitchen, from the cellar to the garret, by night and by day, except in the awful and ominous pause of a fullen filence.

The poor husband, who, with every amiable difpofition, poffeffed alfo the virtue of patience, bore the evil as long as human nature could bear it; but as years

advanced,

advanced, and her fury increased, he fought a refuge at the tavern, and in the compofing juice of the grape.Excess and vexation foon laid him in the only fecure afylum from the ftings and arrows of an outrageous temper, the filent tomb.

The children, after fuffering every fpecies of perfecution which an angry though foolishly fond mother could inflict, no fooner arrived at maturity, than they began to look for happiness in an escape from home, where neither peace nor eafe could find a place. The daughters married meanly, unworthily, and wretchedly, contented to take refuge from the rage of a furious mother in the arms of footmen and hair-dreffers; the fons ran away, and became vagrant and wretched debauchees ; till, in mere despair, one of them entered as a foldier in the Eaft-India fervice, and the other put an end to his own existence.

The mother, after shedding a few natural tears, and wiping them foon, began to feel her pride and paffion amply gratified in an abfolute dominion over an eftate, a manfion-house, and a tribe of fervants, whofe de pendent fituation made them bear her fury with little refiftance. But the enjoyed her reign but a short time, for as her mind was incapable of refting on itself for fupport, the fought relief from the bottle of cordial and, heated one day with a large draught, and a violent paffion with one of the maids, fhe burft a blood-veffel, and expired in a fcolding fit, her tongue ftill quivering after her heart had ceafed its pulfation.

I believe the originals of fuch a picture as this are much less common in the prefent age than they were in the last century. Ladies were then fecluded from the world till marriage, and as they were very fuperficially educated in every thing but potting and preferving, it is no wonder if they became termagants, threws, or viragos. They had no right ideas of themfelves or the world around them, and yielded, without oppofition, to thofe violent emotions, which arife perhaps in every mind when it is totally uncultivated.

Culture