Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/92

84 he saw her, had deeply slumbered. Happy would it have been for him had he met a Rosilia during the earlier period of his youth; he then might have been formed into everything good and noble. But, alas! his principles, originally good, had been soon shaken, and he became more and more exposed to those temptations which assail the young, and are so difficult to resist in the vortex of a voluptuous city, where luxury and pleasure, like the fatal syrens, charm only to deceive.

Had the passion of Douglas been crowned by success, had he obtained possession of Rosilia, intoxicated with bliss, he would probably not have been roused to that state of deep compunction in which we now behold him. Reformation, deferred, might never have taken place; and the awful hour of dissolution might have arrived, and have found him still impenitent.