<fon Crufoe and Friday the favage, and I < am now employed in reading the controverfy in Religious Courtship.'- Very well,' cried I, that's a good girl; I 'find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and fo go help your mo<ther to make the goofeberry-pye. СНАР. 'CHAP. VIII. An amour, which promises little good fortune, yet may be productive of much. TH HE next morning we were again vifited by Mr. Burchell, though I began, for certain reasons, to be displeased with the frequency of his return; but I could not refufe him my company and fire-fide. It is true his labour more than requited his entertainment; for he wrought among us with vigour, and either in the meadow, or at the hay-rick, put himself foremost. Befides, he had always fomething amufing to fay that leffened our toil, and was at once fo out of the way, and yet fo fenfible, that I loved, laughed at, and pitied him. My only diflike arose from an attachment he discovered to my daughter: he would, in a jefting manner, call her his little mistress, and when he bought each of the girls a set of ribbands, her's was the fineft. I knew not how, but he every day feemed to become more amiable, his wit to improve, and his fimplicity to affume the fuperior airs of wisdom. Our family dined in the field, and we fate, or rather reclined, round a temperate repaft, our cloth fpread upon the hay, while Mr. Burchell gave chearfulness to the feast. To heighten our fatisfaction two black-birds answered each other from oppofite hedges, the familiar redbreaft came and pecked the crumbs from our hands, and every found feemed but the echo of tranquillity. I never fit thus," fays Sophia, but I think of the two lovers, fo fweetly described by Mr. Gay, who were ftruck dead in each other's arms. There is fomething fo pathetic in the defcription, that I have • read it an hundred times with new rapture. In my opinion,' cried my fon, the fineft ftrokes in that defcrip⚫tion are much below thofe in the Acis ⚫ and and Galatea of Ovid. The Roman poet • understands the use of contraft better, and upon that figure artfully managed all ftrength in the pathetic depends.'It is remarkable,' cried Mr. Burchell, that both the poets you mention have equally contributed to introduce a falfe tafte into their refpective countries, by loading all their lines with epithet. Men • of little genius found them most easily • imitated in their defects, and English 6 poetry, like that in the latter empire of • Rome, is nothing at prefent but a com⚫bination of luxuriant images, without plot or connexion; a ftring of epithets that improve the found without carrying 6 on the fenfe. But perhaps, Madam, while I thus reprehend others, you'll think it just that I fhould give them an opportunity to retaliate, and indeed I have made this remark only to have an opportunity of introducing to the company a ballad, which, whatever be its. • other 6. D 3 • other defects, is, I think, at least free • from thofe I have mentioned.? A BALLAD.. TURN, gentle hermit of the dale, And guide my lonely way, To where yon taper cheers the vale, • With hospitable ray. For here, forlorn and lost I tread,. With fainting fteps and flow;. • Where wilds immeasurably spread, • Seem lengthening as I go.' Forbear, my fon,' the hermit cries, Here to the houseless child of want, My door is open still; And though my portion is but scant, |