A gay party were strolling by this retreat their laughter and voices preceded them. "Yes," said a sharp, dry voice, which Nugent recognised as belonging to ore of the wits of the day-" Yes, I saw you, Lady Lennox, talking sentiment to Nugent-fie! how could you waste your time so unprofitably !"

"Ah! poor young man! he is certainly bien bête, with his fine phrases and so forth: but 'tis a good creature on the whole, and exceedingly useful!"

"Useful!"

"Yes; fills up a vacant place at one's table, at a day's warning; lends me his carriage-horses when mine have caught cold; subscribes to my charities for me; and supplies the drawing-room with flowers. In a word, if he were more sensible, he would be less agreeable: his sole charm is his foibles."

Proh, Jupiter! what a description from the most sentimental of mothers of the most talented, the most interesting of young men. Nugent was thunderstruck; the party swept by; he was undiscovered.

He raved, he swore, he was furious. He go to the dinner to-day! No, he would write such a letter to the lady-it should speak daggers! But the daughter: Charlotte was not of the party. Charlotte-oh! Charlotte was quite a different creature from her mother-the most natural, the most simple of human beings, and evidently loved him. He could not be mistaken, there. Yes, for her sake he would go to the dinner; he would smother his just resentment.

He went to Lady Lennox's. It was a large party. The young Marquis of Austerly had just returned from his travels. He was sitting next to the most lovely of daughters. Nugent was forgotten.

After dinner, however, he found an opportunity to say a few words in a whisper to Charlotte. He hinted a tender reproach, and he begged her to sing "We met; 'twas in a crowd." Charlotte was hoarse-had caught cold. Charlotte could not sing. Nugent left the room. When he got to the end of the street, he discovered that he had left his cane behind. He went back for it, glad (for he was really in love) of an excuse for darting an angry glance at the most simple, the most natural of human beings, that should prevent her sleeping the whole night. He ascended the drawing-room; and Charlotte was delighting the Marquis of Austerly, who leaned over her chair, with "We met; 'twas in a crowd."

Charlotte Lennox was young, lovely, and artful. Lord Austerly was young, inexperienced, and vain. In less than a month, he proposed, and was accepted.

"Well, well!" said poor Nugent one morning, breaking from a reverie; "betrayed in my friendship, deceived in my love, the pleasure of doing good is still left to me. Friendship quits us at the first stage of life, Love at the second, Benevolence lasts till death! Poor Gilpin how grateful he is: I must see if I can get him that place abroad." To amuse his thoughts, he took up a new magazine. He opened the page at a violent attack on himself-on his beautiful tale in the "Keepsake." The satire was not confined to the work; it extended to the author. He was a fop, a coxcomb, a ninny, an intellectual dwarf, a miserable creature, and an abortion. These are pleasant studies for a man out of spirits, especially before he is used

to them. Nugent had just flung the magazine to the other end of the room, when his lawyer came to arrange matters about a mortgage, which the generous Nugent had already been forced to raise on his estates. The lawyer was a pleasant, entertaining man of the world, accustomed to the society, for he was accustomed to the wants of young men. He perceived Nugent was a little out of humour. He attributed the cause, naturally enough, to the mortgage; and to divert his thoughts, he entered first on a general conversation.

"What rogues there are in the world!" said he. Nugent groaned. "This morning, for instance, before I came to you, I was engaged in a curious piece of business enough. A gentleman gave his son-inlaw a qualification to stand for a borough; the son-in-law kept the deed, and so cheated the good gentleman out of more than 3007. a-year. Yesterday I was employed against a fraudulent bankrupt— such an instance of long, premeditated, cold-hearted, deliberate rascality! And when I leave you, I must see what is to be done with a literary swindler, who, on the strength of a consumptive cough, and a suit of black, has been respectably living on compassion for the last two years."

"Ha!"

"He has just committed the most nefarious fraud—a forgery, in short, on his own uncle, who has twice seriously distressed himself to save the rogue of a nephew, and who must now submit to this loss, or proclaim, by a criminal prosecution, the disgrace of his own family. The nephew proceeded, of course, on his knowledge of my client's goodness of heart; and thus a man suffers in proportion to his amiability."

"Is his name Gil-Gil-Gilpin !" stammered Nugent.

"The same! O-ho! have you been bit, too, Mr. Nugent?"

Before our hero could answer, a letter was brought to him. Nugent tore the seal: it was from the editor of the magazine in which he has just read his own condemnation. It ran thus :

"Sir,-Having been absent from London on unavoidable business for the last month, and the care of the Magazine having thereby devolved on another, who has very ill discharged its duties, I had the surprise and mortification of perceiving, on my return this day, that a most unwarrantable and personal attack upon you has been admitted in the number for this month. I cannot sufficiently express my regret, the more especially on finding that the article in question was written by a mere mercenary in letters. To convince you of my concern, and my resolution to guard against such unworthy proceedings in future, I enclose you another, and yet severer attack, which was sent to us for our next number, and for which, I grieve to say, the unprincipled author has already succeeded in obtaining from the proprietors—a remuneration," &c. &c. &c.

Nugent's eyes fell on the enclosed paper: it was in the hand-writing of Mr. Gregory Gilpin, the most grateful of distressed literary men.

"You seem melancholy to-day, my dear Nugent," said Colonel Nelmore, as he met his young friend walking with downcast eyes on the old mall of St. James's Park.

"I am unhappy, I am discontented; the gloss is faded from life," answered Nugent, sighing.

"I love meeting with a pensive man," said the Colonel: "let me

join you, and let us dine together, tête-à-tête, at my bachelor's house. You refused me some time ago; may I be more fortunate now ?"

"I shall be but poor company," rejoined Nugent; "but I am very much obliged to you, and I accept your invitation with pleasure."

Colonel Nelmore was a man who had told some fifty years. He had known misfortune in his day, and he had seen a great deal of the harsh realities of life. But he had not suffered nor lived in vain. He was no theorist, and did not affect the philosopher; but he was contented with a small fortune, popular with retired habits, observant with a love for study, and, above all, he did a great deal of general good, exactly because he embraced no particular system.

"Yes," said Nugent, as they sat together after dinner, and the younger man had unbosomed to the elder, who had been his father's most intimate friend, all that had seemed to him the most unexampled of misfortunes-after he had repeated the perfidies of Balfour, the faithlessness of Charlotte, and the rascalities of Gilpin"Yes," said he, “I now see my error; I no longer love my species; I no longer place reliance in the love, friendship, sincerity, or virtue of the world; I will no longer trust myself open-hearted in this vast community of knaves; I will not fly mankind, but I will despise them."

The Colonel smiled. "You shall put on your hat, my young friend, and pay a little visit with me:-nay, no excuse; it is only an old lady, who has given me permission to drink tea with her." Nugent demurred, but consented. The two gentlemen walked to a small house in the Regent's Park. They were admitted to a drawing-room, where they found a blind old lady, of a cheerful countenance and prepossessing manners.

"And how does your son do?" asked the Colonel, after the first salutations were over," have you seen him lately?”

"Seen' him lately! why you know he rarely lets a day pass without calling on or writing to me. Since the affliction which visited me with blindness, though he has nothing to hope from me, though from my jointure I must necessarily be a burthen to one of his limited income and mixing so much with the world as he does; yet had I been the richest mother in England, and every thing at my own disposal, he could not have been more attentive, more kind to me. He will cheerfully give up the gayest party to come and read to me, if I am the least unwell, or the least out of spirits; and he sold his horses to pay Miss Blandly, since I could not afford from my own income to pay the salary, so accomplished a musician asked to become my companion. Music, you know, is now my chief luxury. Oh, he is a paragon of sons-the world think him dissipated and heartless; but if they could see how tender he is to me!" exclaimed the mother, clasping her hands, as the tears gushed from her eyes. Nugent was charmed: the Colonel encouraged the lady to proceed; and Nugent thought he had never passed a more agreeable hour than in listening to her maternal praises of her affectionate son.

“Ah, Colonel!" said he, as they left the house," how much wiser have you been than myself; you have selected your friends with discretion. What would not I give to possess such a friend as that good son must be! But you never told me the lady's name."

Nov.-VOL. XXXII. NO. CXXXI.

2 F

"Patience," said the Colonel, taking snuff, " I have another visit to pay."

Nelmore turned down a little alley, and knocked at a small cottage. A woman with a child at her breast opened the door; and Nugent stood in one of those scenes of cheerful poverty which it so satisfies the complacency of the rich to behold.

"Aha!" said Nelmore, looking round, " you seem comfortable enough now; your benefactor has not done his work by halves."

"Blessings on his heart, no! Oh, Sir, when I think how distressed he is himself, how often he has been put to it for money, how calumniated he is by the world, I cannot express how grateful I am, how grateful I ought to be. He has robbed himself to feed us, and merely because he knew my husband in youth."

The Colonel permitted the woman to run on. Nugent wiped his eyes, and left his purse behind him. "Who is this admirable, this self-denying man?" cried he, when they were once more in the street. "He is in distress himself-would I could relieve him! Ah, you already reconcile me to the world. I acknowledge your motive, in leading me hither; there are good men as well as bad. All are not Balfours and Gilpins! But the name-the name of these poor people's benefactor!"

Stay," said the Colonel, as they now entered Oxford-street; "this is lucky indeed, I see a good lady whom I wish to accost.' "Well, Mrs. Johnson," addressing a stout, comely, middle-aged woman of respectable appearance, who, with a basket on her arm, was coming out of an oil-shop; "so you have been labouring in your vocation I see-making household purchases. And how is your young lady?"

"Very well, Sir, I am happy to say," replied the woman, curtsey ing." And you are well too, I hope, Sir."

"Yes, considering the dissipation of the long season, pretty well, thank you. But I suppose your young mistress is as gay and heartless as ever-a mere fashionable wife, eh!"

"Sir!" said the woman, bridling up, "there is not a better lady in the world than my young lady; I have known her since she was that high!"

"What, she's good-tempered, I suppose?" said the Colonel sneering.

"Good-tempered-I believe it is impossible for her to say a harsh word to any one. There never was so mild, so even-like a temper." "What, and not heartless, eh! this is too good!"

"Heartless! she nursed me herself when I broke my leg coming up-stairs; and every night before she went to bed would come into my room with her sweet smile, and see if I wanted anything."

"And you fancy, Mrs. Johnson, that she'll make a good wife: why she was not much in love when she married."

"I don't know as to that, Sir, whether she was or not; but I'm sure she is always studying my Lord's wishes, and I heard him myself say this very morning to his brother Arthur, if you knew what a treasure I possess.'

"You are very right," said the Colonel, resuming his natural man

ner; " and I only spoke for the pleasure of seeing how well and how justly you could defend your mistress: she is, truly, an excellent lady good evening to you."

"I have seen that woman before," said Nugent, "but I can't think where; she has the appearance of being a housekeeper in some family."

"She is so."

"How pleasant it is to hear of female excellence in the great world," continued Nugent, sighing; "it was evident to see the honest servant was sincere in her praise. Happy husband, whoever he may be !"

They were now at the Colonel's house. "Just let me read this passage," said Nelmore, opening the pages of a French Philosopher, and as I do not pronounce French like a native, I will translate as I proceed.

"In order to love mankind-expect but little from them; in order to view their faults, without bitterness, we must accustom ourselves to pardon them, and to perceive that indulgence is a justice which frail humanity has a right to demand from wisdom. Now nothing tends more to dispose us to indulgence, to close our hearts against hatred, to open them to the principles of a humane and soft morality, than a profound knowledge of the human heart-that knowledge which La Rochefoucault possessed. Accordingly, the wisest men have always been the most indulgent," &c.

And now prepare to be surprised. That good son whom you admired so much-whom you wished you could obtain as a friend, is Captain Balfour-that generous, self-denying man, whom you desired yourself so nobly to relieve, is Mr. Gilpin-that young lady who in the flush of health, beauty, dissipation, and conquest, could attend the sick chamber of her servant, and whom her husband discovers to be a treasure, is Charlotte Lennox!”

"Good Heavens !" cried Nugent," what then am I to believe? has some juggling been practised on my understanding, and are Balfour, Gilpin, and Miss Lennox, after all, patterns of perfection?"

"No, indeed, very far from it: Balfour is a dissipated, reckless man-of loose morality and a low standard of honour; he saw you were destined to purchase experience-he saw you were destined to be plundered by some one-he thought he might as well be a candidate for the profit. He laughed afterwards at your expense-not because he despised you; on the contrary, I believe that he liked you very much in his way, but because in the world he lives in, every man enjoys a laugh at his acquaintance. Charlotte Lennox saw in you a desirable match; nay, I believe she had a positive regard for you; but she had been taught all her life to think equipage, wealth, and station better than love. She could not resist the temptation of being Marchioness of Austerly-not one girl in twenty could; yet she is not on that account the less good-tempered, goodnatured, or less likely to be a good mistress and a tolerable wife. Gilpin is the worst instance of the three. Gilpin is an evident scoundrel; but Gilpin is in evident distress. He was in all probability very sorry to attack you who had benefited him so largely; but perhaps, as he is a dull dog, the only thing the Magazines would buy of him