door, and too seldom at theirs, gave umbrage: we were watched at public places, and quarrelled with for only being noticed by our titled friends and relations, while they had none of the same rank to notice them. It absorbed us, they said, so much as to make us neglect them. This was sad nonsense. But I was in parliament-Dalton not. This was not so easily forgiven. I made a speech which got me some credit, but it was unfairly represented, and contemptuously criticized in one of the papers, with a laboured attempt to shew how much better it might have been, if certain omissions had not been made, and certain topics had been omitted. This was noted by the duke, and in discussing it with him, I gathered that he knew the criticism was by Dalton.

But criticism did not stop here. I was romantic; and, to amuse myself, I wrote a romance which had a run. My friend turned author too, and wrote a political pamphlet, which nobody read. My romance was cut all to pieces, or thought to be so, in one of the Reviews. The Review was laughed at, and the romance went through several editions. You will hardly believe that Dalton was the reviewer. Both he and his wife professed to admire my work; but the lady, in her private circle, always thanked God that her husband did not write romances.

"Could our friendship continue? No! we came

to no explanations; but Dalton, knowing I had discovered him, saved me the trouble, by never coming near me, and we gradually cooled off without any eclat."

"This is not much encouragement," said I, seeing Mr. Manners had finished this part of his story, "for a young gentleman beginning his progress in life. You said you had been taken in both by men and women. I trust you have no more cases against the men ?"

"Few of any consequence, at least, to my happiness,” replied he; "and as to the higher criminals against the state or general morals, they belong to a higher class, and not to the category we are upon."

"I trust, then, you will come to the women, which, I own, I am curious to hear."

"If you expect a history of jilting and broken vows, you will be disappointed,” replied he; "and you will recollect I only said I had been not unfrequently deceived in the expectations I had too hastily formed as to the characters of individual females."

"This will be quite interesting enough," said I, "if you will but proceed."

"It will not be very easy," returned he, "if only from an embarras de richesses. For, though I do not agree with Pope, that

'Most women have no character at all,'

but, on the contrary, think they have so many different ones, that it is difficult to discover which prevails, it is, I dare say, from this very difficulty that my expectations have so often been disappointed."

"Are they then of so many characters?" asked I. "What says your own experience ?"

"Alas!" returned I, "I have very little; hardly any; for the only female I ever studied, had none of this variety. She was ever as uniformly good, and gracious, as she was beautiful."

"Indeed!" said my Mentor, and darted a penetrating look at me; but seeing I was embarrassed, very kindly observed, "you have been more fortunate in your study than I, for as far as I have seen, what Romeo says of love may be applied to the very nature of those who cause it

'O! any thing, of nothing first created!

O! heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Feather of lead! bright smoke! cold fire! sick health.”

"But I long for the cases," said I.

"Well," returned he, "take the wife of one of my best friends, who, it must be owned, married her rather precipitately, having only seen her a month at Bath. Never shall I forget the rapture with which he informed me that he had found a temper of the most exquisite and cheerful softness, after his own heart. His days would be all sunshine; her smile was heaven, and she always smiled.

To do him justice, this appeared no more than what she deserved, for there was an expression in her countenance and an alacrity of obligingness in her manner that made me think with him. I congratulated him sincerely, and only wished that heaven had made me such a one. In truth, she 'seemed angelic."

"And was she not?"

66

Why, yes; but her angelic nature was twofold; compounded of light, certainly, but also of darkness. For at the end of the first three months, I witnessed a quarrel that appalled me, and which, to recollect, appals me still. The dispute was not like that of Sir Charles and Lady Racket, whether a card played was a heart or a diamond,* but whether she should have an opera box, though he proved he could not afford it. To call him a poor beggar, who ought not to have married her, was the least of what he suffered. Spite of my presence, she seemed quite transformed with passion. Her eyes flashed, her brow scowled; scorn, anger, and resentment amounting to hatred, fired every feature. I could not have believed the rancour of a Fury could be so personified. Gentleness! Mercy on us! every look was changed to wrath, and those beautiful locks, which had so enchanted my friend, seemed turned to snakes. Fearing she would strike him, and unwilling to witness such * See Three Weeks after Marriage.

unseemliness, I fled the house with precipitation. They accommodated matters as well as they could, but my friend was never his own man again, and never afterwards talked of sunshine."

"I trust

"This is deplorable,” said I. not many disappointments of this sort?"

you had

"Not precisely of this spice of the devil under a fair outside," answered he; "but enough of follies in the place of expected virtues, and too many of ridiculous caprice and inconstancy, in lieu of seeming friendship."

"Par exemple?"

"The Lady Feignwell, who, from being my relation, I much studied. She was a peeress, not only of the highest fashion (which all peeresses are not), but perhaps the most accomplished woman in Europe. Highly cultivated; full of beautiful talents; music, dancing, drawing, languages; and, when she pleased, the most engaging, I may say the most fascinating manners that ever belonged to the sex. But then, with her inferiors in station at least, she pleased to be engaging only in the country. There she was affable as well as elegant, and seemingly fond of her neighbours, upon whom she showered civilities, making all her attractions tell, so as to produce a conviction in their minds that she loved their society. She would do the honours of her table, and lay herself out a whole evening to do the agreeable, as if they were