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-that all had gone wrong since the day he forsook his father's house.

Leave the story: it will be told more concisely. "When he was yet afar off, his father saw him,"-compassion told it in three words," he fell upon his neck and kissed him.”

Great is the power of eloquence, but never is it so great as when it pleads along with nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from his duty, and returned to it again with tears. Casuists may settle the point as they will; but what could a parent see more in the account than the natural one of an ingenuous heart too open for the world, smitten with strong sensations of pleasure, and suffered to sally forth unarmed into the midst of enemies stronger than himself?

Generosity sorrows as much for the overmatched as pity herself does.

The idea of a son so ruined would double the father's caresses. Every effusion of his tenderness would add bitterness to his son's remorse. "Gracious heaven! what a father have I rendered miserable!"

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"And he said, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." "But the father said, Bring forth the best robeO ye affections! How fondly do you play at cross-purposes with each other! 'Tis the natural dialogue of true transport. Joy is not methodical; and where an offender, beloved, overcharges himself in the offence, words are too cold, and a conciliated heart replies by tokens of esteem.

"And he said unto his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat and drink and be merry."

When the affections so kindly break loose, joy is another name for religion.

We look up as we taste it. The cold stoic without, when

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he hears the dancing and the music, may ask sullenly (with the elder brother) what it means, and refuse to enter; but the humane and compassionate all fly impetuously to the banquet given "for a son who was dead and is alive again; who was lost and is found." Gentle spirits light up the pavilion with a sacred fire, and parental love and filial piety lead in the masque with riot and wild festivity! Was it not for this that God gave man music to strike upon the kindly passions; that nature taught the feet to dance to its movements, and as chief governess of the feast, poured forth wine into the goblet to crown it with gladness?

DR DODD.

WILLIAM DODD, son of the Vicar of Bourne, in Lincolnshire, was born there in 1729. At Clare Hall, Cambridge, he gave proofs of superior ability, and commenced a somewhat precocious authorship, most of his publications being poems, on subjects grave or gay. On receiving orders he came out a clever and attractive preacher; and whilst, by the adroit use of his talents, he succeeded in obtaining various popular appointments, such as the preachership at the Magdalene Hospital, and several city lectureships, by a system of flattery and subserviency he secured a large amount of episcopal and aristocratic patronage. But during all this interval he was leading a life of the wildest profusion and most extravagant self-indulgence, and in order to extricate himself had recourse to expedients which betrayed his entire want of principle. When the rectory of St George's, Hanover Square, fell vacant, he offered Lady Apsley a bribe of three thousand pounds if she could obtain for him the presentation, but the only result was exposure and disgrace. His name was struck out of the list of chaplains to the king, and, overwhelmed with public obloquy, he took refuge on the Continent. Here, however, his expensive habits did not cease, and, on his return to London, he

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raised a large sum on the credit of a bond, bearing the signature of his former pupil, the Earl of Chesterfield. The signature was soon found to be a fabrication; and under the act then newly passed, and which rendered forgery a capital offence, Dr Dodd was tried at the Old Bailey, and convicted. Great but unavailing efforts were made to procure a mitigation of his sentence, and he was executed at Tyburn, June 27, 1777.

Read in the light of his melancholy end, we are apt to regard the sermons of Dr Dodd as the effusions of a mere clerical fop or charlatan, but it would be an error to deny their intrinsic merits. Their author was a man of extensive information, and his discourses are enlivened by interesting anecdotes, and opportune poetical quotations, which must have gone far to keep the hearers awake, and which almost bring them within the range of our lighter literature. They have too much of the smoothness of the courtier, and too little of the solemnity of Heaven's ambassador, and they entirely lack the light and unction of the Christian evangelist; but were they divested of their homiletic form, with their worldly wisdom and practical tendency, they would take a respectable place among our later British Essayists.

Each of his "Sermons to Young Men" is followed by a collection of illustrative anecdotes-a method of which the following sample may give some idea:

Rules for Conversation.

Your great endeavour should be so to supply your own mind with the proper materials for conversation, that you may be able, like the rich householder, to bring out of your plenteous treasury, things new and old, for the entertainment and instruction of your friends and companions. We have before observed, that as it is "from the abundance of the heart the

RULES FOR CONVERSATION.

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mouth speaketh," so men's words and conversation necessarily flow from the ruling principle within; and, therefore, if by reading and reflection your mind is occupied upon wise and sensible objects, and your thoughts filled with them, you will be naturally led to communicate from your store; and your discourse, to the great emolument of those with whom you converse, will take the same useful and improving turn with your thoughts.

However, one thing is carefully to be avoided-“ a monopoly of the conversation." Though your topic is most instructive; though you understand it completely, and can treat of it in the most masterly manner, nothing can excuse your assuming to yourself the principal part of the discourse, and not allowing to others their due share and portion of it. For conversation, founded upon equality, by no means allows of engrossing every man has a right to claim his part, and expects to be heard. But this is not the only evil or offence of garrulity; it betrays a weak and an arrogant mind: and if it be accompanied, as too frequently happens, with an insolent and dogmatical air, with an over-bearing, presumptuous, and pedantic manner, it defeats the ends of conversation, and infallibly brands the intemperate prater with the stigma of contempt.

Pythagoras, my young friends, well convinced of the great wisdom and utility of knowing how to restrain the tongue, enjoined all his disciples a three years' silence: and be assured, there is more good sense and advantage in knowing how to keep silence properly, than you are aware of. "Silence in company, if not dulness or sheepishness, is observation or discretion." An attention to others conciliates their regard and attention to you; and a modest question thrown in, now and then, a kind of inquiring observation, never fails to conciliate to young men the esteem of all with whom they converse. Always to be more knowing than you appear to be, never

forwardly to obtrude yourself, or to wish to outshine others in company, but on all occasions to wear the garb of diffident modesty, is the infallible road to gain in conversation both knowledge and respect.

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Besides engrossing the conversation, we must note another defect, the consequence generally of a love of talking-that fertile source of innumerable evils. Never, my young friends, on any account, unless immediately called upon, and urged by self-defence," make yourselves the topic of your discourse." Nothing so nauseous, so offensive as egotism: it bespeaks the empty, vain, and insignificant mind. Men, conscious of the source from whence this error springs, will suspect whatever you say, and withhold from you all the praise you propose to gain by holding forth your own perfections to view and should you, with some, absurdly affect to condemn yourself in sober sadness, for some vice or evil (to which you unfortunately are addicted!) your hearers will have discernment enough, be sure, to see of what virtue you thus mean to claim the excess; and will ridicule the weakness which you alone are too blind to overlook. To please and to be instructed, you will act wisely to "annihilate yourself," as it were, in conversation nothing is so disgusting as a man "too big" for his company; and nothing so despicable and tedious, as the insipid retailer of dull stories and circumstantial narratives—the miserable, minute, self-important historian of uninteresting details, which lull even sweet patience herself to sleep, and make good sense run mad!

But let me caution you, my young friends, as against the excess of talking on one hand, so against the defect on the other. A modest and respectful silence is doubtless most wise and amiable; but a dull and morose one is hateful and disgusting. And I know not, whether the eternal shallow prater may not be the better companion of the two, than the man who in solemn silence hears, and speaks not; or only, perhaps,

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