danger, - that another slip of the kind would precipitate you into ruin; and that you would be lost, shunned in society, and avoided by every friend to subordination, to politeness, to good manners, and, above all, to gratitude for attention and indulgences? O, my boy! think of the value of character, and do not rashly dash it to the ground; for if once you lose it, it never can be recovered again! Think of my injunctions those of a father's recommendation. Truth and obedience are the materials on which the substructure of your future happiness depends: the first is the foundation of honour, integrity, and every gentlemanly principle; and the latter, the machinery by which it is brought into action. Truth will lead you on in the path of religion, and obedience to your God, to your parents, and superiors. Never suffer yourself to be led from the road of right by the artful insinuations of wicked and designing persons: you have now sense enough to know right from wrong; you cannot surely hesitate which to choose; and remember what I have often told you, that it is as easy to do right as wrong: the one is amiable, the other odious, disgraceful, wicked, and mischievous. It is now twelve o'clock; and with the sincerity with which I have always written to you, I wish you a good night. Monday Morning. IN In your letter to Lucy, how comes it that you state Master Peppys to have gone home for the Whitsuntide holidays, and Master Scott to the Brick-field? Was this done as a sly hint that you should have the same indulgence; and to obtain which, you sacrifice your character by a barefaced untruth? O for shame, Richard! how can you expect that I should love you, or any body respect you? Why, the lowest bred boy, in the lowest common school, could not have descended lower! I saw the young gentlemen above named, come in at Mr. Leggett's gate yesterday; and yet, by your account, they were gone home for the holidays!! Your dear departed brother, my ever dear Benjamin, never told an untruth: his manly disposition was superior to the uttering a falsehood; and whenever he had the misfortune to incur my displeasure, or the displeasure of any other and found himself in the wrong, he person, had the manliness to acknowledge it, and properly thought it honourable to do so. Imitate, my dear Richard, his bright example: think how I mourn for the loss of so valuable a boy! and let it be your study to imitate his virtues: then, should it be my lot to lose you, your memory will live in my esteem like his! I can say no more. B. O. To THOMAS NOWLAN, ESQ. HENRIETTA STREET, MY DEAR SIR, I THINK Tavistock Place, July 3, 1820. not calling upon me. a particular friend of his from America, Colonel Perkins; both very opulent merchants, who are to dine with me on that day. If you are ashamed or afraid to come alone (which I do not wish), pray bring our mutual friend Thompson along with you; and if you think one friend not sufficient to protect you, carry in your train Mr. Power (who I understand is in town), and before whom I will not hesitate to denounce you as one deserving a very severe castigation. This challenge if you choose to accept, well; if not, I shall expose you to such of your friends to whom I am known whenever occasion offers. Your Friend, at present, B. O. To MRS. WILLIAMS, YORK PLACE. MY DEAR MARY, Tavistock Place, August 13, 1820. I BEG you to accept my congratulation upon the birth of your little girl, and with it an offer of my very sincere wishes for her health and your happiness. You are now become a mother, and now begin to feel the anxious solicitude of a parent. Bred up yourself in the path of virtue, you will, as you appreciate that bright gem, endeavour to infuse into the bosom of your child (as time shall ripen its intellectual faculties), that most valuable treasure, -Virtue. "Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, Is the best gift of Heaven: a wealth That ne'er encumbers, nor to baser hands Can be transferred.". Remember too, that Virtue is the offspring of Truth, and allied to Honour and Integrity. Instil this principle into your child, as you wish her to be amiable and respectable in society: for, be assured of this, that mental endowments, engrafted upon these principles, are beyond all the riches in the world. As you wade through the rugged stream of life, your infant will be a solace to you; but do not expect an uninterrupted flow of comfort: you will have many anxieties to encounter, and not the least of them will be your solicitude for the welfare of this young stranger, and, most probably, other branches from the same parent stock. Economy should be the order of the day; and you must not forget that those you bring into the world have claims which can only be satisfied by the most prudent frugality; and also, that it is an obligation and a duty you are bound to exercise, as you value your present comforts and their future happiness. To you these observations, as they are dictated by a feeling for your tranquillity, need only that I should say, are from Your Father, B. O. To EDMUND KEAN, Esq. CLARGES STREET. DEAR SIR, Tavistock Place, September 17, 1820. IMPRESSED with your parting words last night, I cannot suppress my feelings in offering (with the most painful regret,) my parting words; which may be better conveyed (with the exception of one dissyllable,) in the tribute paid by Garrick to the immortal Hogarth : "Farewell! great Actor of mankind ! And through the eye correct the heart." "The uncertainty of life," so pathetically expressed in your address, gives rise to the painful sentiment that it may be the last time I may ever see you again: but, "while memory holds her seat in this distracted globe," I never can forget, nor can time ever efface from the "tablet of my memory" your first and last appearance at Drury Lane Theatre. Yet let me hope, that that "special Providence" which has protected the "Wanderer," will still continue to shield him from the "shafts of calumny;" and that, when he returns from "another clime," he may bring with him a cargo of health, with an enriched freight of mental talent to barter with, for the warm return of British gratitude. Farewell! a short "farewell to all thy greatness." "Thine evermore," B. O. To SAMUEL THOMASON, Esq. WEOBLY. DEAR SIR, Tavistock Place, October 10, 1820. I RECEIVED your letter this morning, conveying to me the melancholy event, which the previous one of yesterday prepared me to expect. In the death of my dear and honoured parent, I have lost a father, the most kind, the most affectionate, the most benevolent, and the purest, of human beings. His strict integrity, and his honourable dealings, were of a marked character; and his punctuality in all his engage S |