Reader of sensibility, stop. Are we not detailing facts? Shall we gloss them over with false colouring? Shall we describe things as they are, or as they are not? Shall we draw with the pencil of nature, or of art? Do we indeed paint life as it is, or as it is not? Cast thine eyes, reader, over the ephemeral circle of passing and fortuitous events; view the change of contingencies; mark well the varied and shifting scenery in the great drama of time;--seriously contemplate nature in her operations; minutely examine the entrance, the action, and the exit of characters on the stage of existence--then say, if disappointment, distress, misery and calamitous woe, are not the inalienable portion of the susceptible bosom. Say, if the possession of refined feeling is enviable----the lot of _Nature's children_ covetable--whether to such, through life, the sprinklings of comfort are sufficient to give a zest to the bitter banquets of adversity--whether, indeed, sorrow, sighing, and tears, are not the inseparable attendants of all those whose hearts are the repositories of tender affections and pathetic sympathies. But what says the moralist?--"Portray life as it is. Delude not the senses by deceptive appearances. Arouse your hero? call to his aid stern philosophy and sober reason. They will dissipate the rainbow-glories of unreal pleasure, and banish the glittering meteors of unsubstantial happiness. Or if these fail, lead him to the holy fane of religion: she will regulate the fires of fancy, and assuage the tempest of the passions: she will illuminate the dark wilderness, and smooth the thorny paths of life: she will point him to joys beyond the tomb--to _another and a better world_; and pour the balm of consolation and serenity over his wounded soul." Shall we indeed arouse Alonzo? Alas! to what paths of grief and wretchedness shall we arouse him! To a world to him void and cheerless--a world desolate, sad and dreary. Alonzo revived. "Why am I, he exclaimed, recalled to this dungeon of torment? Why was not my spirit permitted to take its flight to regions where my guardian is gone? Why am I cursed with memory? O that I might be blessed with forgetfulness! But why do I talk of blessings?--Heaven never had one in store for me. Where are fled my anticipated joys? To the bosom, the dark bosom of the oblivious tomb! There lie all the graces worthy of love in life--all the virtues worthy of lamentation in death! There lies perfection; perfection has here been found. Was she not all that even Heaven could demand?--Fair, lovely, holy and virtuous. Her tender solicitudes, her enrapturing endearments, her soul-inspiring blandishments,--gone, gone for ever? That heavenly form, that discriminate mind--all lovely as light, all pure as a seraph's--a prey to worms--mingled with incorporeal shadows, regardless of former inquietudes or delights, regardless of the keen anguish which now wrings tears of blood from my despairing heart!