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pled exertions, or by appeals to stone walls for mercy, as woman attempt to resist man's tyranny, when he chooses to exercise it.

"When I think of these things, I fear that you must almost hate our whole sex, for the sake of one. And I scarcely have courage to offer you a friendship, which time and circumstances alone can convince you is as pure, as warm, and as generous as your own heart at present.

"I feel that it's only test must be negatives; that it will be evinced, not by what I do, but by what I ab stain from doing. And oh! should that blessed time ever come, when you may demand more active and substantial proofs of it, you shall find that the word impossible does not exist for me.

"Who can tell when the hidden and fragile threads that hold our destinies may break? Should mine snap first, you and your child will inherit all I possess. If we may not share it now, it will still be a bond between us, to think that what is mine will be yours.

"I was told last night, by that young bear Charles Dinely, that my poor uncle Cheveley was going fast. He was in every respect the antipodes of my mother -being gloomy, misanthropical, and morose. I have not seen him since I was fourteen, when unfortunately I offended him mortally; for while playing battledore in the library, the shuttlecock happened to fall upon his nose, when he was hear-hearing over one of Lord Grey's speeches. That very night saw me safely returned to my mother, with many dark prophecies concerning my future state, which were anything but flattering to her hopes or my vanity.

"Disgusted, as I am, with the profligate, personal, and pyretic tone of politics in the present day, I shall not be sorry to be removed from the Commons" House; which, instead of representing the people, as they profess to do, in reality only represent the minister, whose tools they are; for were they the faithful stewards of the interests of their country, the careful checks on the administration of its finance, and the honest and incorruptible advisers of the executive branch of its legislature, I doubt whether they would dabble in or countenance that political alchemy, which can transmute the same measure that was vituperated as destruction to the country when brought Vol. II. D.

forward by one minister, into its salvation when resorted to as a pis aller by his successor.

"To conquer this corruption is next to impossible, as long as the people delegate legislative power to pauper representatives, who, though they make their interests the stepping-stone, have in reality only their own individual advancement in view; and though no one can deny that occasionally bright and glorious characters have arisen from out the people themselves, who, in spite of the general corruption and depravity of the times in which they lived, have manifested the superior influence of integrity and wisdom, yet it would be, or rather it is, unwise for the people of England to trust their fate to the chance of such luminaries often arising, instead of establishing their liberties and properties on the only sure foundation, which was the original intention of the constitution to create, namely, a strict relation between themselves and the House of Commons, and then they would not be the dupes of those splendid legislative clap-traps, bated with popular fallacies, which enable their leaders so successfully to betray the public interest, while they appear to succumb to and be actuated by public opinion. However, I foresee that the Repeal of the Union will soon supersede, as a matter of dispute, excitement, and tergiversation, the Catholic Question and the Reform Bill; and upon this question, it is most likely the present ministry will totter to their fall. But enough of politics-though the happiness of writing to you, next to that of conversing with you, gives an interest to any subject which may be the means of prolonging that happiness. Forgive me, then, if I have in this instance been selfish enough to gratify myself at your expense. Knowing, as I do, the unselfishness of your nature, I cannot but pro phesy much happiness to you in your sister's fate; for a more amiable, honourable, or high-minded fellow than Saville does not exist; and there is a suffieient difference in their characters, and unity in their principles and opinions, to insure their mutual welfare; for while too great a sameness of disposition invariably produces ennui in married life, yet opposite principles and opinions, as invariably produce dissensions or something worse: and principles being things with very deep and tenacious roots, no one possessing them cares to eradicate them; so the uttermost a woman

can do, (whose part it is always to yield,) is to suppress or control them: and at even this is not to be done per saltum, but by degrees, the danger is that she may retrograde often, and weary eventually in the task.

"As friends, Saville's and my sympathy ceases. Hitherto, every thought of my heart has been bared to his inspection; but now that I have but one thought, and that thought is you, it must be veiled from all beholders; besides, out of small things, there is no such thing as sympathy; for even though people know all that you do, they do not know it as you do: and even though they feel for you, they cannot feel with you. As well might a chameleon expect the eyes that looked upon it to change their colour every time it changed its hues, as expect any other heart to sympathize with all the shades of feeling that checker our own.

"But in our case-ah, Julia! how I love that little word, which, in spite of fate itself, unites us-in our case, what could we hope from friends but frowning displeasure-liberal donations of advice rendered formidable by a chevaux de frise of prudence, to which we never could hope to attain ?

"With regard to your dear, dear self, individually, I cannot think, without torture, and it is not to oppress and disturb you more than you already are, but to nerve and prepare you, that in this letter I have so often urged you to turn your thoughts to the future, which, impossible as it now seems to you, may be worse than the present. For what cannot want of feeling, and want of principle, when combined with power, craft, and hypocrisy, accomplish? Indeed, when exercised against a wife, power is sufficient. 'For,' as Sir Thomas Baker says, speaking of Anne Bullen, 'who knows not that nature is not more able of an acorn to make an oak, than authority is able of the least surmise to make a certainty? Whenever this, by me much-dreaded crisis should arrive-O then, Julia, remember that in me you will have a staunch, a devoted, a considerate friend; and objectionable and unavailing as such friendship may now appear, it may yet be able to fulfil its whole and sole end, your welfare. God, the disposer of all things, alone knows what the ever-changing and shifting scenes of life may next bring forth; but I do think, that even in this world, He does not suffer wrong always to prevail; nor those whom He chasteneth to

be tried beyond their strength; 'but will, with the temptation, also make a way of escape.'

"In Him then, in whom you have all along trusted, still trust. I dread ending this letter; for in sealing it, I shall feel as if I were sealing our fate-that all is ended-that our last words are spoken. But what are words? They are but the body of thought, which is the soul. Many may have loved as deeply, (though I doubt it,) but none ever loved as purely as I do. Could it be otherwise, when it is you I love? O Julia! my heart has become a well of deep, deep love for you: and thoughts of you, like stars above it, are the only images it reflects, What, then, can sully the purity of its waters, or dim the hope, the fervency, and the sincerity, with which I shall now and ever say,

"God bless you!

"AUGUSTUS MOWBRAY."

As soon as Mowbray had enclosed and sealed this letter, he placed it within the leaves of that most exquisite little volume, M. de Saintine's "Picciola," which he had promised to lend Lady de Clifford; and again carefully sealing that up, he rang for Sanford, and ordered him to give it to her maid, with his compliments, to know how she was.

No sooner was it fairly gone, than he paced the room restless and dissatisfied with all he had said, and still more with all he had left unsaid. Alternately he reproached himself with not having more improved the only opportunity that might ever occur of writing to Julia, by wasting so many words upon indifferent subjects-and immediately after, felicitated himself upon having resorted to the only expedient by which he could have ventured to prolong his letter, But who ever yet wrote such a letter, and was satisfied with what they had written? for is not love

"all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance ;

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,

All purity, all trial, all observance;"

in short, all contradictions?

At length, exhausted with fatigue, both of mind and body, Mowbray flung himself upon the bed, but was too feverish and dispirited to sleep.

CHAPTER III.

"Patience, unmoved, no marvel though she pause;
They can be meek that have no other cause.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;

But were we burden'd with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain."
SHAKSPEARE

"Though you have tried that nothing's borne
With greater ease than public scorne,
That all affronts do still give place

To your impenetrable face;

That makes your way through all affairs,
As pigs through hedges creep with theirs;
Yet as 'tis counterfeit and brass,

You must not think 'twill always pass."

HUDIERAS.

"No thread of candour woofs her web of wiles."

BYRON.

THE morning after Madame d'A.'s ball, the dowager Lady de Clifford was sitting before her toilet-table, upon which were ranged, not indeed

"Twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt,"

but a pile of war-novels-a species of literature in which her ladyship much delighted and often indulged. At the other side of the table were two sets of teeth, the Elizabethan ruff she had worn on the preceding night, and a green fan. Frump was busily employed brushing her mistress's hair, who was as busily employed reading "The Star of Fashion," by Anthony Frederick Holstein, when a knock came to

the door.

"Frump, Frump! see who's there," said her ladyship, throwing her handkerchief over the false teeth. Frump opened the door, at first cautiously, but seeing that it was Lord de Clifford, opened it widely as she said, "It's Lord de Clifford, my lady."

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