He found them in a quarter of the house set apart for the insane of the other sex, several of whom had gathered about the female visiters, and were examining, with rather more accuracy than might have been expected, the particulars of their dress.

Separate from the rest stood one, whose appearance had something of superior dignity. Her face, though pale and wasted, was less squalid than those of the others, and showed a dejection of that decent kind, which moves our pity unmixed with horror: upon her, therefore, the eyes of all were immediately turned. The keeper, who accompanied them, observed it: "This," said he, "is a young lady, who was born to ride in her coach and six. She was beloved, if the story I have heard be true, by a young gentleman, her equal in birth, though by no means her match in fortune: but love, they say, is blind, and so she fancied him as much as he did her. Her father, it seems, would not hear of their marriage, and threatened to turn her out of doors, if ever she saw him again. Upon this, the young gentleman took a voyage to the West Indies, in hopes of bettering his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he was scarce landed, when he was seized with one of the fevers, which are common in those islands, and died in a few days, lamented by every one that knew him. This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the same time pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was old enough to be her grandfather. The death of her lover had no effect on her inhuman parent: he was only the more earnest for her marriage with the man he had provided for her; and what between her despair at the death of the one, and her aversion to the other, the poor young lady was reduced to the condition you see her in. But God would not prosper such cruelty her father's affairs soon after went to wreck, and he died almost a beggar."

:

Though this story was told in very plain language, it had particularly attracted Harley's notice; he had given it the tribute of some tears. The unfortunate young lady had, till now, seemed entranced in thought, with her eyes fixed on a little garnet ring she wore on her finger: she turned them now upon Harley. "My Billy is no more!" said she; "Do you weep for my Billy? Blessings on your tears! I would weep too, but my brain is dry; and it burns, it burns, it burns!" She drew nearer to Harley. "Be comforted, young lady," said he, "your Billy is in heaven." "Is he, indeed? and shall we meet again? and shall that frightful man (pointing to the keeper) not be there? Alas! I am grown naughty of late; I have almost forgotten to think of heaven: yet I pray sometimes; when I can, I pray, and sometimes I sing; when I am saddest, I sing. You shall hear me -hush!

"Light be the earth on Billy's breast,

And green the sod that wraps his grave."

There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood; and, except the keeper's, there was not an unmoistened eye around her. "I would not have you

"Do you weep again?" said she; weep. You are like my Billy: you are, believe me; just so he looked, when he gave me this ring; poor Billy! 'twas the last time ever we met!

""Twas when the seas were roaring❞—

"I love you for resembling my Billy; but I shall never love any man like him." She stretched out her hand to Harley; he pressed it between both of his, and bathed it with his tears. "Nay, that is Billy's ring," said she, "you cannot have it, indeed; but here is another, look here, which I plated, to-day, of some gold-thread from this bit of stuff; will you keep it for my sake? I am a strange girl; but my heart is harmless: my poor heart! it will burst some day; feel how it beats!" She pressed his hand to her bosom, then holding her head in the attitude of listening,-" Hark! one, two, three! be quiet, thou little trembler; my Billy's is cold !—but I had forgotten the ring." She put it on his finger. "Farewell! I must leave you now." She would have withdrawn her hand; Harley held it to his lips. "I dare not stay longer; my head throbs sadly: farewell!" She walked with a hurried step to a little apartment at some distance. Harley stood fixed in astonishment and pity; his friend gave money to the keeper. Harley looked on his ring. He put a couple of guineas into the man's hand :-"Be kind to that unfortunate." He burst into tears, and left them.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Misanthrope.

THE friend, who had conducted him to Moorfields, called upon him again the next evening. After some talk on the adventures of the preceding day, "I carried you yesterday," said he to Harley," to visit the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of the wise: but you must not look for any thing of the Socratic pleasantry about him; on the contrary, I warn you to expect the spirit of a Diogenes. That you may be

a little prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will let you into some particulars of his history :

"He is the elder of the two sons of a gentleman of considerable estate in the country. Their father died when they were young both were remarkable at school for quickness of parts, and extent of genius; this had been bred to no profession, because his father's fortune, which descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him above it; the other was put apprentice to an eminent attorney. In this the expectations of his friends were more consulted than his own inclination; for both his brother and he had feelings of that warm kind, that could ill brook a study so dry as the law, especially in that department of it which was allotted to him. But the difference of their tempers made the characteristical distinction between them. The younger, from the gentleness of his nature, bore, with patience, a situation entirely discordant to his genius and disposition. At times, indeed, his pride would suggest, of how little importance those talents were, which the partiality of his friends had often extolled they were now incumbrances in a walk of life where the dull and the ignorant passed him at every turn; his fancy and his feeling were invincible obstacles to eminence, in a situation where his fancy had no room for exertion, and his feeling experienced perpetual disgust. But these murmurings he never suffered to be heard; and that he might not offend the prudence of those who had been concerned in the choice of his profession, he continued to labor in it several years, till by the death of a relation, he succeeded to an estate of little better than a hundred pounds a year, with which, and the small patrimony left him, he retired into the country, and made a love-match with a young lady of a temper similar to his own, with whom the sagacious world pitied him for finding happiness.

"But his elder brother, whom you are to see at supper, if you will do us the favor of your company, was naturally impetuous, decisive, and overbearing. He entered into life with those ardent expectations, by which young men are commonly deluded in his friendships, warm to excess; and equally violent in his dislikes. He was on the brink of marriage with a young lady, when one of those friends, for whose honor he would have pawned his life, made an elopement with that very goddess, and left him besides deeply engaged for sums, which that good friend's extravagance had squandered.

"The dreams he had formerly enjoyed were now changed for ideas of a very different nature. He abjured all confidence in any thing of human form; sold his lands, which still produced him a very large reversion; came to town, and immured himself with a woman, who had been his nurse, in little better than

a garret; and has ever since applied his talents to the vilifying of his species. In one thing I must take the liberty to instruct you; however different your sentiments may be, (and different they must be,) you will suffer him to go on without contradiction, otherwise he will be silent immediately, and we shall not get a word from him all the night after." Harley promised to remember this injunction, and accepted the invitation of his friend.

When they arrived at the house, they were informed that the gentleman was come, and had been shown into the parlor. They found him sitting with a daughter of his friend's, about three years old, on his knee, whom he was teaching the alphabet from a horn-book: at a little distance stood a sister of hers, some years older. "Get you away, Miss," said he to this last; you are a pert gossip, and I will have nothing to do with you." "Nay," answered she, " Nancy is your favorite; you are quite in love with Nancy." "Take away that girl," said he to her father, whom he now observed to have entered the room," she has woman about her already." The children were accordingly dismissed.

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Between that and supper time, he did not utter a syllable. When supper came, he quarrelled with every dish at table, but eat of them all; only exempting from his censures a sallad, "which you have not spoiled," said he, "because you have not attempted to cook it."

When the wine was set upon the table, he took from his pocket a particular smoking apparatus, and filled his pipe, without taking any more notice of Harley, or his friend, than if no such persons had been in the room.

Harley could not help stealing a look of surprise at him; but his friend, who knew his humor, returned it, by annihilating his presence in the like manner, and, leaving him to his own meditations, addressed himself entirely to Harley.

In their discourse, some mention happened to be made of an amiable character, and the words honor and politeness were applied to it. Upon this, the gentleman, laying down his pipe, and changing the tone of his countenance, from an ironical grin to something more intently contemptuous Honor," said he, "Honor and Politeness! this is the coin of the world, and passes current with the fools of it. You have substituted the shadow Honor, instead of the substance Virtue; and have banished the reality of friendship for the fictitious semblance, which you have termed politeness: politeness, which consists in a certain ceremonious jargon, more ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice of a puppet. You have invented sounds, which you worship, though they tyrannize over your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which take from the honest emotions of joy.

and add to the poignancy of misfortune."-"Sir!" said Harley --His friend winked to him, to remined him of the caution he had received. He was silenced by the thought. The philosopher turned his eye upon him: he examined him from top to toe, with a sort of triumphant contempt. Harley's coat happened to be a new one; the other's was as shabby as could possibly be supposed to be on the back of a gentleman: there was much significance in his look with regard to his coat: it spoke of the sleekness of folly, and the threadbareness of wisdom.

"Truth," continued he, "the most amiable, as well as the most natural, of virtues, you are at pains to eradicate. Your very nurseries are seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in manhood, completes the system of avowed insincerity. Mankind, in the gross, is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed: nor is their vanity less fallacious to your philosophers, who adopt modes of truth to follow them through the paths of error, and defend paradoxes merely to be singular in defending them. These are they whom ye term Ingenious; 'tis a phrase of commendation I detest; it implies an attempt to impose on my judgment, by flattering my imagination; yet these are they whose works are read by the old with delight, which the young are taught to look upon as the codes of knowledge and philosophy.

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Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them; one promiscuous line of instruction is followed, without regard to genius, capacity, or probable situation in the commonwealth.

"From this bear garden of the pedagogue, a raw unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel; without any ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste by gazing on some paintings at Rome. Ask him of the manners of the people, and he will tell you, That the skirt is worn much shorter in France, and that every body eats macaroni in Italy. When he returns home, he buys a seat in parliament, and studies the constitution at Arthur's.

"Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught, by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every male visiter of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be married; and, when they are grown somewhat older, are instructed, that it is the purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pinmoney, and the expectation of a jointure.

"These indeed are the effects of luxury, which is perhaps Though the curate could not remember having shown this chapter to any body, I strongly suspect that those political observations are the work