Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/221

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DUTY AND INCLINATION.
219

discern and deeply to feel and acknowledge the transcendant beauty of moral wisdom.

"Will jou, my dear Doctor," said the General, "when Colonel Douglas visits you, tell him how happy I shall feel myself to renew my acquaintance with him, and to shake him cordially by the hand. For my own part, I am free to confess it, I ever felt a predilection for Douglas; the ingenuousness of his manners, so wholly opposed to art or dissimulation, the honourable and candid manner in which he confided in me upon a domestic and family affair, left, I can assure you, its due impressions upon me: but this we need not dwell upon."

The Doctor having promised to recall the General to the recollection of Douglas, set off on his walk back to the Hermitage, where Colonel Douglas duly arrived, according to the invitation he had received, for the purpose of spending a day or two.

Not wishing to delay the pleasure of seeing him, the General took an early occasion of paying his respects. Returning to his little family, highly gratified by his visit, the first address which broke from him was,

"This gallant which thou seest,
Was in the wreck; and, but he's something stain'd
"With grief, (that beauty's canker,) thou mightst call him
A goodly person.
"I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble."

Such was the language of Miranda, and to which