My resentment of her behavior has much assisted me in erasing her image from my breast.  In this exertion I have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.  The more I reflect on her temper and disposition, the more my gratitude is enlivened towards the wise Disposer of all events for enabling me to break asunder the snares of the deluder.  I am convinced that the gayety and extravagance of her taste, the frivolous levity of her manners, disqualify her for the station in which I wished to have placed her.  These considerations, together with that resignation to an overruling Providence which the religion I profess and teach requires me to cultivate, induce me cheerfully to adopt the following lines of an ingenious poet:—­

  “Since all the downward tracts of time
    God’s watchful eye surveys,
  O, who so wise to choose our lot,
    Or regulate our ways?

  “Since none can doubt his equal love,
    Unmeasurably kind,
  To his unerring, gracious will
    Be every wish, resigned.

  “Good when he gives, supremely good;
    Not less when he denies;
  E’en crosses from his sovereign hand
    Are blessings in disguise.”

I am, &c., J. BOYER.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

[Enclosed in the foregoing.]

HARTFORD.

Madam:  Fearing that my resolution may not be proof against the eloquence of those charms which has so long commanded me, I take this method of bidding you a final adieu.  I write not as a lover,—­that connection between us is forever dissolved,—­but I address you as a friend; as a friend to your happiness, to your reputation, to your temporal and eternal welfare.  I will not rehearse the innumerable instances of your imprudence and misconduct which have fallen under my observation.  Your own heart must be your monitor.  Suffice it for me to warn you against the dangerous tendency of so dissipated a life, and to tell you that I have traced (I believe aright) the cause of your dissimulation and indifference to me.  They are an aversion to the sober, rational, frugal mode of living to which my profession leads; a fondness for the parade, the gayety, not to say the licentiousness, of a station calculated to gratify such a disposition; and a prepossession for Major Sanford, infused into your giddy mind by the frippery, flattery, and artifice of that worthless and abandoned man.  Hence you preferred a connection with him, if it could be accomplished; but a doubt whether it could, together with the advice of your friends, who have kindly espoused my cause, has restrained you from the avowal of your real sentiments, and led you to continue your civilities to me.  What the result of your coquetry would have been had I waited for it, I cannot say; nor have I now any desire or interest to know.  I tear from my breast the idea which I have long cherished of future union and happiness with you in the conjugal state.  I bid a last farewell to these fond hopes, and leave you forever.