The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

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CLARA IIOWARD; OR,

but wealth is only the means of every kind of happiness;
it is not happiness itself. But you have not only the
tools, but the inclination to use them. In no hands could
riches be placed so as to produce more felicity to the
possessor and to those within reach of her munificence.
Which is the most unerring touchstone of merit,poverty or riches? Ingeniously to supply the place or
gracefully to endure the want of riches is the privilege of
great minds. To retain humility and probity in spite of
riches, and to effect the highest good of ourselves and
others by the use of them, is the privilege of minds still
greater. The last privilege is Clara's; the first, vanity
has sometimes said-no matter what. It was, indeed,
vanity that said it,-vanity that is now humbled into
wisdom and self-distrust. So far from bearing poverty
with dignity, I cannot justly call my former situation by
that name, and was far from bearing even the moderate
privations of that state with fortitude.
And are, indeed, these privations forever at an end?
Is the harder test of wisdom, the true use of riches, now
to be imposed upon me? It is; Clara Howard and all
that she inherits will be mine. I ought to tremble for
the consequences of exposure to such temptations; and
if I stood alone I should tremble; but, in reality, whatever is yours, or your father's gift, is not mine. Your
power over it shall be unlimited and uncontrolled by me;
and this, not more from the equity of your claim to the
sole power, than from the absolute rectitude with which
that power will be exercised by you. Had I millions of
my own acquiring, I should deem it no more than my
duty to resign to you the employment of them.
Ah, my divine friend, I will be no more than your
agent, your almoner; one whose aid may make charity
less toilsome to you,-may free the pleasures of beneficence from some of those pains by which they are usually
attended. I will go before you, plucking up thorns and
removing asperities from the path that you choose. All
my recompense shall be the consciousness in whose service I labour and whose pleasures I enhance.
They tell us that ambition is natural to man; that no
possession is so pleasing as power and command. I do

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