the criminality of indulging the malevolent propensities. Accustomed to duplicity and falsehood, the basest passions are readily gratified at the expense of honour, justice and integrity. The example of their parents justifies their conduct, and they are scarcely conscious of impropriety in allowing malevolence to reduce them to the lowest degree of moral degradation.

If parents, said Sophronia, would reflect on the ill consequences that must eventually proceed from every modification of malevolence, never would the efforts of inventive ingenuity be employed to injure the helpless, the innocent and unprotected.

Slander, said Mrs. Osbourne, may cloud with her envenomed breath the most unspotted fame : the fairest reputation may be sullied by malignity, and the brightest prospect of life be blasted by calumny; but the individual whom the arts of hypocrisy may have deprived of friends, reputation, and the means of obtaining a subsistence, is from the wise constitution of our nature enabled to acquire additional strength of mind and elevation of character-rises in the scale of being, and is furnished with an opportunity of displaying

virtues and mental energies which might never otherwise have been called into action.

'Good name, in man or woman,

Is the immediate jewel of our souls:
He that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.'

Women, said Lady Berine, in every situation in life, cannot be too scrupulously attentive to their conduct, that they may never give occasion for the invidious insinuations of malignity, envy and hypocrisy.

''Tis said of widow, maid, and wife,
That honour is a woman's life.

Unhappy sex! who only claim

A being in the breath of fame,
Which tainted not the quick'ning gales
That sweep Sabæa's spicy vales;
Nor all the healing sweets restore
That breathe along Arabia's shore.
For woman no redemption knows :
The wounds of honour never close.'

When we contemplate, said Charles, the vices and lamentable effects arising from malevolence, the philanthropic breast must glow with ardent desire for its extirpation, and consider no exertions too great to diminish the evils it occasions.

The principle of malevolence, in its existing operations, produces the most abject degradation of moral character; and as it is essential to virtue and happiness that every malevolent propensity be eradicated, and the benevolent principle permanently pervade the mind, how important is the cultivation of this principle, which alone approximates the soul to its divine origin, and constitutes its perfection and felicity! The pains of malevolence infinitely counterbalance its pleasures. The gratification of the most inveterate malice imparts only a transient satisfaction, which must be succeeded by the most humiliating conviction of moral debasement. As the contemplation of the laws of our nature enables us to discern the intimate connexion between virtue and happiness, vice and misery, the highest interest of man must be the acquisition of those principles that invariably produce happiness, and the eradication of those vicious propensities which constitute evil, and contain in themselves the seeds of pain and misery.

CONVERSATION X.

Utility the Design of Creation, and the End of Intellectual Existence.

HAVING

AVING, said Sir Edward, displayed

some of the deformities of Malevolence, we may at present contemplate the pleasures resulting from the permanent operation of the Benevolent Principle.

Oh! deemest thou indeed

No kind endearment here by Nature given,
No sweetly melting softness, which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers,
To this their proper action and their end?
AKENSIDE.

The pleasures of benevolence, said Charles, can only be enjoyed by the three higher classes in our combining scale of intellect and morality; as every modification of its operation and influence is their peculiar distinction; selfishness

being the governing principle of the fourth class.

The characteristic distinctions, said George, existing amongst mankind, doubtless arise from different degrees of the influence and operation of the benevolent and selfish principles. Benevolence must animate to the attainment of every virtue-produce family love, fraternal harmony, and domestic felicity.

The operation of this divine principle, said Mrs. Wentworth, is conspicuous in the most trivial circumstances of domestic life: to promote the comfort, happiness, and well-being of others, is its study, occupation, and delight. In the subordinate stations of society, it produces those kind and conciliating attentions which cement affection, and constitute the exquisite and refined pleasures of social intercourse. But the sphere of humble usefulness is too contracted to display this principle in all its beauty and loveliness it is only in the higher departments that it shines in resplendent lustre, when beneficence, philanthropy and generosity dispense with discriminating liberality those superfluous riches which, if treasured for selfish gratification,

: