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Untitled Article
delight in such sacred reports , and , in consequence , it soon spread from one to another , till at length it reached the mother-country , where it offered a desirable article to many of the religious periodical papers of the day . In this manner , though unknown till a long time afterwards b y the person himself , the name of James Eliot became celebrated in the religious world ; and he was particularly commended for his conduct , at a time when his people were visited with a severe and dangerous fever , during which he hazarded his own life by visiting the miserable huts of the sick . "
Meantime , this good man himself , quite unconscious that his name and deeds have been sounded so far , goes on quietly working among the natives of his retired jungle . At length a severe illness attacks him , and he is ordered , as his only remaining chance of life , to return to England . On his arrival in his native land , it occurs to him that , having two cousins , elderly single ladies , residing in a small town in one of the inland counties , ' he cannot do better than fix his residence near them for the present , and
accordingly he writes to them requesting their assistance in procuring him lodgings . Now , it happens that these two ladies , the Misses Clinton , have very recently , in consequence of the example and admonitions of a certain fashionable religious neighbour , a Mrs . Essington , become very desirous of establishing their own character for attention to these subjects ; they " declared that they begun to see things in a new light , spoke of their past lives as a dream of sin and folly , lamented the wickedness of their hearts , and
gave notice that they should thenceforward give up dancing and renounce whist : and , in accordance with these professions , they were observed to take the artificial roses from their bonnets . " On the receipt of Mr . Eliot ' s letter , two causes of satisfaction were opened to these ladies : the one , that they might supply certain deductions which unforeseen circumstances had made in their own regular incomes , by letting apartments to their cousin ; the
other , that they should obtain some portion of eclat from the circumstance of having such a well-known religious character as Mr . James Eliot beneath their roof , " It was marvellous what pains they took to state the high character which he bore in the Missionary world ; the great benefits he had rendered to the Church in India ; his exalted piety , '' &c .: and , to crown all , they took care to have the before-mentioned publication , relating to Mr , Eliot's exertions , always lying open on their parlour-table , by which means ,
and with the assistance of Mrs . Essington , whose energies were presently all excited on the occasion , they raised such a commotion among the religious professors in the town , before Mr . James Eliot could arrive from London , that every window of the street through which he must pass , might have been expected to overflow with young and old , had the hour of his arrival been exactly known . In the meantime , the good old gentleman , who was
altogether a plain , unpresuming man , with as little pretensions as possibly could be to any thing out of the common way , or in the heroic line , was travelling down from town in the inside of a heavy coach , perfectl y uncon- ^ scious of all the expectations he was likely to excite , and occupied with some schemes of his own for making himself of use in the plaice of his , future residence . We hope there are none of our readers so entirely sceptical about the existence of characters who ** do grood by stealth , then blush
to find ijt fame , " as to regard the confusion , and almost ludicrous vexation , of the worthy man , at the first discovery of his own notoriety > as exaggerated or unnatural . We cannot make room for the scene ,- —and , besides , it is a good deal spoiled , as almost all Mrs . Sherwood ' s best scenes are , by a very laboured and learned doctrinal larangue , which , besides wandering egrcgi-
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20 £ Review . —Mr $ . Sherwood's Lady of the Manor *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/42/
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