SONG.
For tenderness framed in life's earliest day,
A parent's soft sorrows to mine led the way;
The lesson of pity was caught from her eye,
And ere words were my own, I spoke in a sigh.
The nightingale plunder'd, the mate-widow'd dove,
The warbled complaint of the suffering grove,
To youth as it ripened gave sentiment new,
The object still changing, the sympathy true.
Soft embers of passion yet rest in the glow—
A warmth of more pain may this breast never know!
Or if too indulgent the blessing I claim,
Let reason awaken, and govern the flame.
Miss Als. I declare not amiss, Blandish: only a little too plaintive—but I dare say she can play a country dance, when the enlivening is required—So, Miss Alton, you are welcome to my protection; and indeed I wish you to stay from this hour. My toilet being nearly finished, I shall have a horrid vacation till dinner.
Miss Alton. Madam, you do me great honour, and I very readily obey you.
Mrs. Blandish. I wish you joy, Miss Alton, of the most enviable situation a young person of elegant talents could be raised to. You and I will vie with each other, to prevent our dear countess ever knowing a melancholy hour. She has but one fault to correct—the giving way to the soft effusions of a too tender heart.
Enter Servant.
Serv. Madam, a letter——
Miss Als. It's big enough for a state packet—Oh! mercy, a petition—for Heaven's sake, Miss Alton, look it over. [Miss Alton reads.] I should as soon read one of Lady Newchapel's methodist sermons—What does it contain?
Miss Alton. Madam, an uncommon series of calamities, which prudence could neither see, nor prevent: the reverse of a whole family from affluence and content to misery and imprisonment; and it adds, that the parties have the honour, remotely, to be allied to you.
Miss Als. Remote relations! ay, they always think one's made of money.
Enter another Servant.
2 Serv. A messenger, madam, from the animal repository, with the only puppy of the Peruvians, and the refusal at twenty guineas.
Miss Als. Twenty guineas! Were he to ask fifty, I must have him.
Mrs. Blandish. [Offering to run out.] I vow I'll give him the first kiss.
Miss Als. [Stopping her.] I'll swear you shan't.
Miss Alton. Madam, I was just finishing the petition.
Miss Als. It's throwing money away—But give him a crown.
[Exit with Mrs. Blandish striving which shall be first.
Miss Alton. "The soft effusions of a too tender heart." The proof is excellent. That the covetous should be deaf to the miserable, I can conceive; but I should not have believed, if I had not seen, that a taste for profusion did not find its first indulgence in benevolence.
[Exit.