'Thus I live in a state of continual persecution only because I was born ten years too soon, and cannot stop the course of nature or of time, but am unhappily a woman before my mother can willingly cease to be a girl. I believe you would contribute to the happiness of many families if by any arguments, or persuasions, you could make mothers ashamed of rivalling their children; if you could show them that though they may refuse to grow wise they must inevitably grow old, and that the proper solaces of age are not music and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and that it is, therefore, their interest to retire while there yet remain a few hours for nobler employments.—I am, &c.,
'Parthenia.'
The 'Rambler.'—Vol. I. No. 56.
Valeat res ludicra, si me
Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.—Hor.
Farewell the stage; for humbly I disclaim
Such fond pursuits of pleasure or of fame,
If I must sink in shame, or swell with pride,
As the gay psalm is granted or denied.—Francis.
'I am afraid that I may be taxed with insensibility by many of my correspondents, who believe their contributions neglected. And, indeed, when I sit before a pile of papers, of which each is the production of laborious study, and the offspring of a fond parent, I, who know the passions of an author, cannot remember how long they have been in my boxes unregarded without imagining to myself the various changes of sorrow, impatience, and resentment which the writers must have felt in this tedious interval.