Humanity in its utmost efforts pleads their cause more powerfully than anything I can offer on the subject; and I appeal to every mind, from its own experience, if there can be greater Objects of Compassion, than poor, young, thoughtless Females, plunged into ruin by those temptations to which their very youth and personal advantages exposes them, no less than those passions implanted by nature.... and by those endowed with superior faculties, and all the advantages of Education and fotune, what virtue can be proof against such formidable Seducers, who offer too commonly, and too profusely promise to transport the thoughtless Girls from Want, Confinement and Restraint of Passions, to Luxury, Liberty, Gaiety, Joy. |
This
new convent is beyond Goodman's Fields, and I assure you would content
any Catholic alive. The chapel is small and low, but neat, hung with
Gothic paper and tablets of benefactions. At the west end were inclosed
the sisterhood, above an hundred and thirty, all in greyish brown
stuffs, broad handkerchiefs, and flat straw hats with a ribband pulled
quite over their faces. As soon as we entered the chapel, the organ
played, and the Magdalens sang a hymn in parts; you cannot imagine how
well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted
nothing but a little incense, to drive away the devil - or to invite
him. Prayers then began, psalms, and a sermon; the latter by a young
clergyman, one Dodd; who contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed
by haranging entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and
touchingly. He apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from
their souls - so did my Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham, till I believe
the City dames took them both for Jane Shores*. * Elizabeth 'Jane' Shore was one of the chief mistreses of Edward IV in the latter part of the 15th century - there was a Jane Shore Alley in Shoreditch. Is this also an early example of rhyming slang? |
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