me to live? Can you wish me so ill?' Sophia, looking down on the ground, answered with some hesitation, Indeed, Mr. Jones, I do not wish you ́ ill.'—' Oh, I know too well that heavenly temper,' cries Jones, 'that divine goodness, which is beyond every other charm.'-Nay, now,' answered she, I understand you not. I can stay no longer.'I-I would not be understood!' cries he;" nay, I 'can't be understood. I know not what I say. 'Meeting you here so unexpectedly, I have been unguarded for heaven's sake pardon me, if I have 'said any thing to offend you. I did not mean it. Indeed, I would rather have died-hay, the very I thought would kill me.'-'You surprise me,' answered she. How can you possibly think you have offended me?'-Fear, madam,' says he, easily runs into madness; and there is no degree of fear like that which I feel of offending you. How can I speak then? Nay, don't look angrily at me: one frown will destroy me. I mean nothing. Blame my eyes, or blame those beauties. • What am I saying? Pardon me if I have said too 'much. My heart overflowed. I have struggled "with my love to the utmost, and have endeavoured

to conceal a fever which preys on my vitals, and 'will, I hope, soon make it impossible for me ever 'to offend you more.'

Mr. Jones now fell a trembling as if he had been shaken with the fit of an ague. Sophia, who was in a situation not very different from his, answered in these words: Mr. Jones, I will not affect to misunderstand you: indeed I understand you too well; but for heaven's sake, if you have any af ⚫fection for me, let me make the best of my way into the house. I wish I may be able to support 'myself thither.'

Jones, who was hardly able to support himself, offered her his arm, which she condescended to accept, but begged he would not mention a word

more to her of this nature at present. He promised he would not; insisting only on her forgiveness of what love, without the leave of his will, had forced from him: this, she told him, he knew how to obtain by his future behaviour; and thus this young pair tottered and trembled along, the lover not once daring to squeeze the hand of his mistress, though it was locked in his.

Sophia immediately retired to her chamber, where Mrs. Honour and the hartshorn were summoned to her assistance. As to poor Jones, the only relief to his distempered mind was an unwelcome piece of news, which, as it opens a scene of different nature from those in which the reader hath lately been conversant, will be communicated to him in the next chapter.

CHAP. VII.

In which Mr. Allworthy appears on a sick bed. MR. Western was become so fond of Jones, that he was unwilling to part with him, though his arm had been long since cured; and Jones, either from the love of sport, or from some other reason, was easily persuaded to continue at his house, which he did sometimes for a fortnight together without paying a single visit at Mr. Allworthy's; nay, without ever hearing from thence.

Mr. Allworthy had been for some days indisposed with a cold, which had been attended with a little fever. This he had, however, neglected; as it was usual with him to do all manner of disorders which did not confine him to his bed, or prevent his several faculties from performing their ordinary functions; a conduct which we would by no means be thought to approve or recommend to imitation; for surely the gentlemen of the Esculapian art are in the right in advising, that the moment the disease has

entered at one door, the physician should be introduced at the other: what else is meant by that old adage, Venienti occurrite morbo?" Oppose a distemper at its first approach." Thus the doctor and the disease meet in fair and equal conflict; whereas, by giving time to the latter, we often suffer him to fortify and entrench himself, like a French army; so that the learned gentleman finds it very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to come at the enemy. Nay sometimes, by gaining time, the disease applies to the French military politics, and corrupts nature over to his side, and then all the powers of physic must arrive too late. Agreeable to these observations was, I remember, the complaint of the great doctor Misaubin, who used very pathetically to lament the late applications which were made to his skill; saying, Bygar, me believe my pation take me for de undertaker, for dey never send for me 'till de physicion have kill dem.'

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Mr. Allworthy's distemper, by means of this neglect, gained such ground, that, when the increase of his fever obliged him to send for assistance, the doctor at his first arrival shook his head, wished he had been sent for sooner, and intimated that he thought him in very imminent danger. Mr. Allworthy, who had settled all his affairs in this world, and was as well prepared as it is possible for human nature to be for the other, received this information. with the utmost calmness and unconcern. He could indeed, whenever he laid himself down to rest, say with Cato in the tragical poem,―

Let guilt or fear

Disturb man's rest: Cato knows neither of them;
Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die.

In reality, he could say this with ten times more reason and confidence than Cato, or any other proud fellow among the ancient or modern heroes; for he was not only devoid of fear, but might be considered

as a faithful labourer when at the end of harvest he is summoned to receive his reward at the hands of a bountiful master.

The good man gave immediate orders for all his family to be summoned round him. None of these were then abroad, but Mrs. Blifil, who had been some time in London, and Mr. Jones, whom the reader hath just parted from at Mr. Western's, and who received this summons just as Sophia had left him.

The news of Mr. Allworthy's danger (for the servant told him he was dying) drove all thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly into the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to drive with all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia, I believe, once occur to him on the way.

And now the whole family, namely, Mr. Blifil, Mr. Jones, Mr. Thwackum, Mr. Square, and some of the servants (for such were Mr. Allworthy's orders) being all assembled round his bed, the good man sat up in it, and was beginning to speak, when Blifil fell to blubbering, and began to express very loud and bitter lamentations. Upon this Mr. Allworthy shook him by the hand, and said, 'Do not sorrow thus, my dear nephew, at the most ordinary of all human occurrences. When misfortunes 'befal our friends, we are justly grieved; for those are accidents which might often have been avoided, and which may seem to render the lot of one 'man more peculiarly unhappy than that of others; 'but death is certainly unavoidable, and is that 'common lot in which alone the fortunes of all men agree: nor is the time when this happens to us very material. If the wisest of men hath compared life to a span, surely we may be allowed to consi'der it as a day. It is my fate to leave it in the evening; but those who are taken away earlier, have only lost a few hours, at the best little worth

lamenting, and much oftener hours of labour and fatigue, of pain and sorrow. One of the Roman poets, I remember, likens our leaving life to our departure from a feast; a thought which hath ' often occurred to me when I have seen men struggling to protract an entertainment, and to enjoy the company of their friends a few moments longer. Alas! how short is the most protracted of such en'joyments! how immaterial the difference between him who retires the soonest, and him who stays 'the latest! This is seeing life in the best view, and this unwillingness to quit our friends is the most ' amiable motive from which we can derive the fear of death; and yet the longest enjoyment which we can hope for of this kind is of so trivial a duration, that it is to a wise man truly contemptible. 'Few men, I own, think in this manner; for indeed 'few men think of death till they are in its jaws. However gigantic and terrible an object this may appear when it approaches them, they are nevertheless incapable of seeing it at any distance; nay, though they have been ever so much alarmed and 'frightened when they have apprehended themselves in danger of dying, they are no sooner cleared from this apprehension, than even the fears of it are erased from their minds. But, alas! he who escapes from death is not pardoned; he is only reprieved, and reprieved to a short day.

Grieve therefore no more, my dear child, on this occasion: an event which may happen every ' hour; which every element, nay almost every particle of matter that surrounds us, is capable of 'producing; and which must and will most unavoidably reach us all at last; ought neither to oc'casion our surprise nor our lamentation.

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My physician having acquainted me (which I take very kindly of him) that I am în danger of leaving you all very shortly, I have determined to say a few words to you at this our parting, before