as she recollected her own losses and her own hopes of retrieval.

Her auditor listened attentively, and her young imagination immediately pictured these assemblies as the resort of wit, gaiety, and talent; she saw, in imagination, genius protected by wealth, and taking its rank among the more adventitious situations in society; her mind was yet untainted by the vices which poison these meetings for pleasure; she was not aware of the intrigues and "tracaseries" which made such réunions palatable to those who frequented them, or of the ennui which rendered them so necessary to such a great portion of what is called society.

She, like others of her age, looked only at the bright side of the picture; memory had as yet no power to present any other, and youthful anticipation is not very likely to picture scenes that are productive of pain. Alas! why is it that the mind and the heart must grow old as well as the person, and still more, alas! why must they grow old through a series of scenes, each one of which strips from them our ideas of the excel

lence of our kind, and adds another blot upon the escutcheon of human nature! Yet so it is, so it has ever been, and so will it ever be till the end of time. Man seems born to anticipate and to be disappointed. The future years of life are spent in unlearning the little good opinion we have imbibed of mankind in our early anticipations. We look at life as we do upon the beautiful landscape reflected upon the soft and clear bosom of the lake; we plunge into the waves, and the picture vanishes, leaving us nothing but the darkness of the water below, or the quicksands of the bottom, in lieu of the brilliant colouring which had delighted us at its surface.

But a truce with reflection. It was made for more philosophical and for graver pages than these are intended to be; and yet what pages are in reality more philosophical, or what pages can be graver than those which are devoted to the illustration of life as it is. Why cannot we adopt and act upon the French motto, of "Vive la Bagatelle!" Why should we not, like a clown in the pantomime, laugh at every thing; think

of virtue, friendship, gratitude, and the long list of excellent attributes which are said to belong to mankind but as shadows; never expect them, and never be disappointed.

CHAPTER V.

RETROSPECTIVE.

Look back! and why? at what? upon a scene
Of mingled joy and sorrow, both of which
Have left behind but melancholy thoughts;
The one, by all the anguish it has given,
The other, that it never can return.

TRAVELLER.

IN life retrospection is seldom of service, unless it is to call into action that experience which the past may have given us to guide us in some future event. To those to whom life has been unfortunate, retrospection is melancholy, as only serving to renew our sufferings by a recollection of them; and to those who have passed a life of pleasure, it but too often brings regret that those pleasures are passed, of which, age creeping upon the strength of our youth, is

quickly rendering a recurrence impossible. But in a novel, retrospection is absolutely necessary.

To create an interest in their fate, an author is obliged to plunge his readers at once into the midst of those personages with whom he is to travel through the three volumes; and it becomes necessary for him afterwards to give a slight glance at their families and connections, to show that he has not been introduced to improper characters.

Having, therefore, like a careful guardian, launched some of our young people fairly into the world, we must leave Lascelles to work his mail coach; Frank Hartley to his solitary dreams of Caroline Dormer, in his post-chaise; and Emily to her bright anticipations in Lady Orville's carriage; all rolling towards that great mart of commerce and activity, of wisdom and folly, of learning and ignorance, and of virtue and iniquity-London-while we take a cursory glance at Hartley Grove and the good family who dwell in it.

Mr. Hartley was one of those country gentlemen who are an honour and an ornament, and,