goodness itself, and as it is now seven in the evening, too late to proceed any farther in this part of the world, you had better walk up to her, and pay her your respects. Great was my surprize at what I heard. A little female republic among those hills was news indeed; and when I came near Azora, my astonishment encreased.

She was attended by ten young women, straight, clean, handsome girls, and surpassed them in tallness. Her countenance was masculine, but not austere: her fine blue eyes discovered an excellence of temper, while they shewed the penetration of her mind. Her hair was brown, bright and charming; and nature had stamped upon her cheeks a colour, that exceeded the most beautiful red of the finest flower. It was continually as the maiden blush of a modest innocence. She was drest in a fine woollen stuff, made in the manner shepherdesses are painted, and on her head had a band or fillet like what the ladies now wear, with a bunch of artificial flowers in her hair. She had a very small straw hat on. In her hand, she held a long and pretty crook; and as her coats were short, her feet were seen, in black silk shoes, and the finest white stockings, and appeared vastly pretty. She struck me greatly. She was a charming, and uncommon figure. When I came up to AzoRA, I could hardly forbear addres

sing her, as the son of Ulysses did the supernal; "O vous, qui que vous soiez, mortelle ou deesse, quoiqu'a vous voir on ne puisse vous prendre que pour une divinité, seriez-vous insensible au malheur d'un fils, &c." Whoever you are, a mortal or a goddess, though sure your aspect speaks you all divine, can you, unmoved, behold a hapless son, by fate expelled, and urged by unrelenting rage, to wander through the world, exposed to winds and seas, and all the strokes of adverse fortune, till he arrived in this land of felicity and peace? But on better thoughts, I only said, I am your most humble servant, madam, and told her I believed I had lost my way, and knew not where to go. To which she replied," you are welcome, sir, to our hamlet, and to the best entertainment it affords, only tell me," she added with a smile, " what could induce you to travel this unbeaten road, and how did you pass the precipices and rivers you must have met with in the way?" "Curiosity, madam," I answered, "was one cause; that I might see a country no traveller had been in; and my next inducement, to find a valuable friend; who lives somewhere upon the northern border of this county, or Yorkshire, or on the adjoining limits of Cumberland or Durham; but on which I know not; and as I came from Brugh under Stanemore, I judged it the shortest way by a great

many miles, and the likeliest to succeed in my enquiry after my friend, then as to hills and waters, many dangerous ones I have gone over, and with great toil and fatigue have got thus far." “This,”

AZORA said, “is a rational account of your journey, and as there are many difficulties still before you, you are welcome to rest with us till you are refreshed, and able to proceed.

By this time we reached the grotto door, and upon entering the first apartment, I saw another lady, drest in the same manner, and seemed to be of the same age, that is, about six and twenty, as I was told. This was AZORA's companion and friend. She was a very pretty woman, though inferior to AZORA in charms; but her mind was equally luminous and good. Neither she nor AZORA were learned women, that is, they understood no other language than the English tongue, and in that they had but a small collection of the best books; but those few they had read well, and they had capacities to think. In reason, philosophy, and mathematics, they were excellent, and in the most agreeable manner, discovered in conversation the finest conceptions of the most excellent things. AZORA, of the two, was by much the best speaker. Her voice was delightful, and her pronunciation just, strong, clear, and various. With unspeakable plea

sure did I listen to her, during three days that I happily passed with her and her companion, and received from both many valuable informations. I thought I understood algebra very well, but I was their inferior, and they instructed me; and on the fundamental points of religion, they not only out-talked me, but out-reasoned me. It is very strange, I confess. It is very, true, however.

AZORA, in particular, had an amazing collection of the most rational philosophical ideas, and she delivered them in the most pleasing dress, with as much ease as she breathed. She asked me, after I had feasted on an excellent supper, how religion went on in the world; and what was the condition of that which came from supernatural communication, as she phrased it? and when I told her, that our excellent divines did all that was possible for men to do, to turn the world from superstition of every kind, to that express revelation which restores the dictates of uncorrupted reason to their force and authority; which teaches the knowledge of one supreme Spirit or God, and the nature of that worship which is due to a Being not confined to, or dependent upon particular places, or circumstances; but always and every where present with us; she answered, that such clergymen are glorious, and cannot be enough admired; and great is the un

reasonableness of the men who opposed them, and forced them into the field of disputation, from their holy labour of instructing the people in penitential piety and sanctification; I mean the infidels and the bigots.

“What can be more unjust and impious,” Azora continued, “than for men to declaim against a revelation which displays the paternal regard of God for his creatures, by doing more than was strictly necessary for their happiness, as they had his original law of reason before he gave them the gospel; and which enables us to extend our knowledge even as to those things which we are by nature capable of knowing; which awakens us to duty, and advises us how to walk in the ways of prudence and safety. To reject such an extraordinary method of saving us, is senseless and culpable indeed. Surely, when superstition and enthusiasm has led mankind into errors, we ought to adore the divine goodness for re-communicating a knowledge of true religion; of duty in this life, and of what we are to expect in that which is to come. We can never be thankful enough for a revelation, that has a tendency to promote the happiness of mankind both here and hereafter. The opposition, in my opinion, is without excuse; as the external evidence of history, miracles, and prophesy for the gospel, is incontestably strong, when fairly