Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

DEATH.

Trust me, Eliza! that elegance of person, that beautiful regularity of features, that majestic air which strikes every beholder with love and admiration, will avail thee nought against the cold ravages of death.

The gay, the wise the humble and exalted, the beautiful, and deformed must all moulder into the same native clay. Thou hast seen the sun rise in all its splendour. Nature freshens at his approach; the morning of its reign is all smiling beauty and perfection; it gains strength as it acquires its meridian height; it faints as it sinks beneath the western hills;

the glimmering prospect fades on the view and the day is closed in the dusky shade of night forever. Such is the emblem of life. Man comes into existence as the dawn bursts from the womb of darkness; his youth is beautiful as the morning all smiling innocence and perfection; his puberty is as the noon, endued with strength and vigour, open to new scenes, impregnated with new desires, animated with hope, and pleased with enjoyments: but soon the evening approaches, and all the transitory scenes of time are closed in the allotment of eternity! Man, tho' born with faculties to reach through the depth of time, and powers to flourish through the great chaos of nature, starts back with horror at the dreadful uncertainty of futurity; he becomes enamoured of his habitation, earth, and wishes to dwell on it forever: every art is tried to support his frail and tottering fabric; yet it must very soon decay, and moulder into its native earth. Yet a little while, and every breath now warm with hope and busy with design, shall sink into the cold and senseless grave: the eye that is reading these lines shall be closed in everlasting darkness, and the young hand that writes them shall, sooner or later, be crumbled into dust.