REPAIR GUS. No. y ! 92 '09 TO CORRESPONDENTS. The Tale entitled the Fleet Prison, or a Cure for Extravagance, is received, and sha appear in our next. Mr. Witham Farrow's note has been received:-we are certainly sorry for any occurrence which deprives us of his ingenious communications, and, with many thanks for the pieces he has already favored us with, still hope we may hear from him again. We are much obliged to the writer of Augustus and Rosabelle for the continuation and conclusion of that piece: it shall be at tended to. Alfred and Fanny is received, and may expect insertion. We return many thanks to S. A. for her polite compliments: the biographical notices she recommends, if they should be procured, will probably be inserted. With respect to her inquiry, it is now pretty generally known that the Anna Matilda, and Laura Maria, of the Poetry of the World, were the late Mrs. Cowley and Mrs. Robinson, and Della Crusca Mr. Robert Merry; the real names of writers still living, who may have written under assumed ones, it might not be so proper to disclose. The emulative poetry of two sisters, on the same subject, certainly displays some ingenuity, but requires revision. In our next we shall present our readers with an elegant Portrait (engraved by J. HEATH, Esq.) of the Empress JOSEPHINE, the repudiated Consort of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ADDRESS ΤΟ THE PUBLIC. THE revolving year has again imposed on us the truly pleasing duty, of expressing our most grateful acknowlegements to the Public in general, and our FAIR PATRONESSES in particular, for the very liberal, and constantly-increasing encouragement, with which our Miscellany has, for so long a series of years, continued to be honored. To obtain their approbation we have unremittingly made every exertion, and we have received the most satisfactory and pleasing proofs that our endeavours have been most favorably received. The LADY'S MAGAZINE has been invariably conducted on the same plan on which it was originally established. It was to be, and we trust has been, a repository for the productions of genius, and especially of female genius, whether dawning or mature, and a vehicle for useful instruction and innocent amusement - equally avoiding what might be too abstruse or formal, on the one hand, or too trivial and frivolous, on the othercarefully abstaining, on all occasions, from entering into those political disputes of parties, which can only tend to irritate and embitter the mind; and still more carefully excluding whatever might have the most remote tendency to that licentiousness which must equally disgrace the author and the reader. To this plan we have studiously adhered. To our Correspondents, to whose invaluable assistance much of the praise we have received is certainly due, we owe the most sincere and grateful acknowlegements: and we earnestly solicit the continuance of their numerous favors. And here we think it proper to repeat what we have observed in some former addresses to them-that if we are sometimes under the necessity of suppressing some of the contributions of the younger and less experienced among them, to give them an opportunity to revise and reproduce them in a more correct form, that ought rather to stimulate them to make new exertions for improvement, than to discourage them from future attempts. We now commence the FORTY-FIRST VOLUME of our Miscellany, fully confiding that we shall experience the same candor and liberal encouragement to which we have been so long accustomed and we request permission to assure our Fair Readers and valuable Correspondents, that the same exertions shall be unceasingly made, to render the LADY'S MAGAZINE still equally worthy their attention and patronage. THE LADY'S MAGAZINE. FOR JANUARY, 1810. MORAL ESSAY ON THE NEW-YEAR'S DAY. BY A DESCENDANT OF EZEKEL HOPKINS, BISHOP OF LONDONDERRY. TO a religious, or reflecting mind, there is something peculi arly impressive in the annual return of this day! How many strik-. ing events have occurred since we last celebrated this memorable period! How many gratifying or afflicting circumstances have taken place; and, according to the nature of these, our hearts either glow with gratitude towards the Great Disposer of all earthly good, or our depressed spirits sink under the retrospective survey of those calamities we have been doomed to sustain. Whilst the earth which we inbabit revolves round that glorious luminary which vivifies it's productions, and cheers all nature, by it's effulgent rays, what wonderful, what unexpected transitions occur within that short period of time! how many of our fellow-creatures have unexpectedly been exalted upon the pinnacle of earthly grandeur? How many, alas! born to fill elevated stations, have as unexpectedly been burled from that pinnacle, and doomed to wander in obscurity's dreary vale! If such is the unstable fate of mortal creatures-if to-day we bask in the sun-shine of prospes rity, and to-morrow we are liable to be overtaken by adversity's darkest cloud, the question naturally occurs, where, or on whom shall we place our dependence; or where find support in the day of trouble and affiction, which seems so likely to overtake us? Where, indeed, but in that Great Disposer of all human events shall we either find a shield against that presumptuous vanity which prosperity is so apt to excite, or a suppoit under those calamities which are invariably intended to promote some benevolent design. • The Lord gave, and the Lord has a right to take from me,' said the righteous Job; and blessed be the name of the Lord.' Thus resigned and submissive to the hand of Providence ought we all to feel whenever it is his will and pleasure to deprive us of those gratifications we have been accustomed to enjoy; and if, in his beneficent goodness, he showers down unmerited blessings, we ought to receive them with grateful and unostentatious hearts. But to revert to the subject of this discourse-how many of our fellow-creatures, have had reason to bless how many more to deplore the events which have occurred, within the last twelve months! Children lost to their parents, parents bereaved of their children; husbands of their wives, wives of their husbands; and friends, those dear and tender connexions, torn asunder by the inexorable hand of death! These are trials, and God knows severe ones! yet religion holds out a soothing, a balsamic relief; for the longest period of man's life, when compared to eternity, is but as a grain of sand upon the seashore. Death can divide, but cannot prevent the reunion of those dear connexions, which seemed but to have lived for each other in this transitory world, and jų realms of everlasting happiness they will meet to part no more! What a reviving, what a consoling reflection! and with what transport does it inspire the believer's mind! a retrospect of past years seems but as yesterday, and comparatively short in the longest life; how delightfully gratifying, therefore, is the reflection that we shall rejoin those kindred spirits who were dear to us in this life! This pleasing, this gratifying reflection, however, can only be enjoyed by those who lead a religious and moral life; for it is only to such that the joys of immortality are promised, and for those it was that our blessed Redeemer sacrificed his spotless life. The present period of time not only calls forth our serious reflections, but inspires us with a mixture of gratitude and delight. We have lately solemnised the birth of our great Redeemer, and, I trust, felt the force of his mercy and loving-kindness with religious joy. Well may we rejoice-well may our hearts glow with gratitude for such an unprecedented testimony of affection as that displayed, towards us by the Son of God! who not only took our nature upon him, but patiently submitted to the grossest insults and the most degrading taunts. What an example did the Messiah set us, not only in a religious but a moral point of view. • How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him,' inquired one of the disciples; until seven. times? Not until seven times only,' replied our generous Instructor, but until seventy times seven.' What a volume of precept is contained in that sentence; and yet vain man presumes to establish those baneful laws of honor, which for the most trifling and frivolous offence thinks himself authorised to take away a fellow-creature's life! It is true, he does it not with the dark intention of an assassin, because he equally hazards his own existence; yet how a real Christian can reconcile this false notion of supporting wounded honor (as it is fashionably termed) 1 confess myself unable to account; or how a man, who has thus wantonly, and in defiance of the express commands of his Maker, can lay his head comfortably upon his pillow, after having deprived a fellow-creature of that boon heaven bestowed upon him, is one of those problems my uninstructed mind has never yet been able to solve. The last year has actually teemed with instances of the na ture to which I allude; yet they, have not been occasioned by those ungovernable instances of passion which precipitates the being under |