Volume IV Part 31 (1/2)

Why was the charming youth so form'd to move?

Or why was all my soul so turn'd for love?

But virtue here a vain defence had made, Where so much worth and eloquence could plead.

For he could talk----'Twas extacy to hear, 'Twas joy! 'twas harmony to every ear.

Eternal music dwelt upon his tongue, Soft, and transporting as the Muses song; List'ning to him my cares were charm'd to rest, And love, and silent rapture fill'd my breast: Unheeded the gay moments took their flight, And time was only measur'd by delight.

I hear the lov'd, the melting accents still, And still the kind, the tender transport feel.

Again I see the sprightly pa.s.sions rise, And life and pleasure sparkle in his eyes.

My fancy paints him now with ev'ry grace, But ah! the dear delusion mocks my fond embrace; The smiling vision takes its hasty flight, And scenes of horror swim before my sight.

Grief and despair in all their terrors rise; A dying lover pale and gasping lies, Each dismal circ.u.mstance appears in view, The fatal object is for ever new.

For thee all thoughts of pleasure I forego, For thee my tears shall never cease to flow: For thee at once I from the world retire, To feed in silent shades a hopeless fire.

My bosom all thy image shall retain; The full impression there shall still remain.

As thou hast taught my constant heart to prove; The n.o.blest height and elegance of love; That sacred pa.s.sion I to thee confine; My spotless faith shall be for ever thine.

After Mr. Rowe's decease, and as soon as her affairs would permit, our auth.o.r.ess indulged her inconquerable inclination to solitude, by retiring to Froome in Somersets.h.i.+re, in the neighbourhood of which place the greatest part of her estate lay. When she forsook the town, she determined to return no more but to spend the remainder of her life in absolute retirement; yet upon some few occasions she thought it her duty to violate this resolution. In compliance with the importunate request of the honourable Mrs. Thynne, she pa.s.sed some months with her at London, after the death of her daughter the lady Brooke, and upon the decease of Mrs. Thynne herself, she could not dispute the commands of the countess of Hertford, who earnestly desired her company, to soften the severe affliction of the loss of so excellent a mother, and once or twice more, the power which this lady had over Mrs. Rowe, drew her, with an obliging kind of violence, to spend a few months with her in the country. Yet, even on these occasions she never quitted her retreat without sincere regret, and always returned to it, as soon as she could with decency disengage herself from the importunity of her n.o.ble friends. It was in this recess that she composed the most celebrated of her works, in twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living; the design of which is to impress the notion of the soul's immortality, without which all virtue and religion, with their temporal and eternal good conferences must fall to the ground.

Some who pretend to have no scruples about the being of a G.o.d, have yet doubts about their own eternal existence, though many authors have established it, both by christian and moral proofs, beyond reasonable contradiction. But since no means should be left untried, in a point of such awful importance, a virtuous endeavour to make the mind familiar with the thoughts of immortality, and contract as it were unawares, an habitual persuasion of it, by writings built on that foundation, and addressed to the affections, and imagination, cannot be thought improper, either as a doctrine or amus.e.m.e.nt: Amus.e.m.e.nt, for which the world makes so large a demand, and which generally speaking is nothing but an art of forgetting that immortality, the form, belief, and advantageous contemplation, of which this higher amus.e.m.e.nt would recommend.

In the year 1736, the importunity of some of Mrs. Rowe's acquaintance who had seen the History of Joseph in MS. prevailed on her to print it. The publication of this piece did not long precede the time of her death, to prepare for which had been the great business of her life; and it stole upon her according to her earnest wishes, in her beloved recess. She was favoured with a very uncommon strength of const.i.tution, and had pa.s.s'd a long series of years with scarce any indisposition, severe enough to confine her to bed.----But about half a year before her decease, she was attacked with a distemper, which seemed to herself as well as others, attended with danger. Tho' this disorder found her mind not quite so serene and prepared to meet death as usual; yet when by devout contemplation, she had fortified herself against that fear and diffidence, from which the most exalted piety does not always secure us in such an awful hour, she experienced such divine satisfaction and transport, that she said with tears of joy, she knew not that she ever felt the like in all her life, and she repeated on this occasion Pope's beautiful soliloquy of the dying Christian to his soul.

An ELEGY, &c.

The dying CHRISTIAN to his Soul.

I.

Vital spark of heav'nly flame!

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame; Trembling, hoping, lingr'ing, flying; Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life.

II.

Hark! they whisper; Angels say, Sister spirit, come away!

What is this absorbs me quite, Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

III.