LETTER VIII.

FROM SYLVIA, IN THE CELESTIAL REGIONS, TO

HENRY, HER PERFIDIOUS LOVER ON EARTH.

WELL mayst thou tremble, Henry! well mayst thou shudder in dismay at these wellknown characters! She whose early bloom was nipt in the bud by thy artifices, whose tender years could not guard her from the snares of the seducer, now addresseth thee from the tomb! The lonely inhabitant of the grave, admonisheth the man to whom she owed her ruin! Yet, Henry, although the frail mansion moulders in its kindred dust, its immortal tenant has reached that peaceful shore, where resentment is lost in eter

nal felicity; where injustice and ignominy cannot enter; where the repentant and contrite sinner is made whole; but even in this abode of endless bliss, remembrance, which no longer carries with it the painful and corrosive sting of conscious guilt, turns to him, by whose perfidy I was destined in the springtime of life to an early grave. Memory fondly recals the time, when Henry was to my youthful heart dearer than existence. Alas! I ventured upon the great ocean of life in a slender bark,-a tempest arose, and I was lost! Receive, with humility and gratitude, the warning from the tomb. Once Sylvia could arrest thy haughty soul in its career, and turn the tempest of the passions to gentleness and peace; shall not the voice of the dead arouse thy faculties to attention, and awake thee to a sense of danger? Repent ere the day of grace be past, and thou

hast no longer a choice; dreadful is the precipice on which thou standest ; death already raiseth his scythe over thy head, and in the grave there is no repentance.

Reflect, what various arts, what soft persuasions, were employed to work my overthrow; too fatally they succeeded; my heart, though pure as the breath of Heaven, and chaste as the mountain snow, was not proof against them. When my only remaining parent paid the great debt of nature, and committed me to the care and guidance of his sister, he then foresaw not the evils that threatened me; he imagined only in her, the friend of the helpless orphan, the protectress of his forlorn child, and with gratitude I clung to her, as the support of my youth, and solace of my afflictions. How cruelly was I disappointed! Instead of the

tender cares of a parent, harshness and se verity chilled my hopes, and stern authority blasted my opening prospects. To this,

Henry, you owed your triumph, and the conquest of a broken heart was long before secured. You deluded me with specious promises; you dared to insult the Majesty of Heaven, by invoking Him to witness your vows of honourable love. Driven at length to despair by constant ill treatment, in an evil hour I consented to quit my unfeeling relative, and place myself under your protection. Fatal determination! Better had I perished, or been a prey to the utmost malignity of fortune; for all troubles are comparatively light, while innocence and internal rectitude retain their place.

You know the manner of my death, but are ignorant that I myself, actuated by re

morse, inflicted the fatal blow. It was supposed, when I was discovered in the wood, weltering in my blood, that I had been attacked by banditti, and as I continued speechless, my silence favoured the opinion, but could not hide from myself the consequences of a long eternity to the dreadful crime of suicide. But, ever blessed be the Creator and Ruler of all things! although I languished, time was given me to atone, by sincere and bitter repentance, for the outrage I had committed against his laws. Had I perished instantly, how dreadful now had been my condition! O Henry! could you form the most distant idea of the mental tortures I endured, in the dreadful interval from the time when I inflicted the fatal blow, to the release of my soul, you would acknowledge the power of God, and sue for mercy and forgiveness. The prospect of