culous fancies. She becomes discontented, irritable, and quarrelsome ;-he, on the other hand, boisterous and unmanageable. A comfortless home drives the husband to the tap-room of a neighbouring public-house, to drown and dissipate his care in the society he has been accustomed to while the wife is fretting, and meditating on the deplorable condition to which she is reduced, without the least hope of amelioration to cheer her drooping spirits. Unable to get through the drudgery of subordinate occupations, she lives in the midst of dirt, surrounded with half a dozen ragged children, under no control from the irregularity of their parents; and thus miserable, they both, when too late, repent of their folly and indiscretion!

In the conduct of Rosetta, may be traced another instance of the mischievous tendency to the evil in question. The romantic disposition of this lady, in one unlucky moment, blasted all the hopes of her parents, and placed her in a station of life, for which she was never intended, either by birth or education. Rosetta was sole heiress to the Earldom of R- and was placed in a fashionable' seminary, not many miles from á fashionable nursery ground, in the vicinity of Pn Square. Panting for liberty, and thinking she was held too tight in her leading strings, her Ladyship could not endure the ennui of a school life, nor the restriction of school discipline. The little parties given by Mrs. Teachwell to her

Y

pupils, in order to initiate them in the ceremonies of the tea table, had no charms for Rosetta ;—the bewitching pages of romance pleased her better. The young ladies, after a certain age, were allowed to enrol their names on the list of subscribers to a circulating library; and had the privilege also, of perusing the daily papers, and each, in their turn, to make choice of some new publication. Being gifted with a lively imagination, and a disposition to enjoy all the pleasures of society, her heart palpitated for liberty, as she skimmed over the paragraphs of the Morning Post, and read of the gay festivities of the fashionable world. The tales of romance too, equally accorded with her disposition, and she longed to be the heroine of some wild adventure. The opportunity was at hand and she was resolved not to let it slip. "Since I cannot be free," said she to one of her companions, "to follow the natural propensities of my heart, which is cheerful and gay, I'll at all events detach myself from this vile seminary; I'd sooner undertake the care of a nursery, than live thus secluded from the world and all its gaieties." Like a wise politician, her plan was no sooner formed than executed, lest she should be baffled in her schemes. Resolved to make her escape at all hazards, she had already courted the affections of the obliging and gallant florist, in the neighbourhood; whose grounds were a kind of public promenade, for the beauties of fashion, at the west end of the town. In these delightful gardens,

her Ladyship, with the rest of her companions, took her daily exercise: and, while they were admiring the shrubs and plantations that graced the walks, her attention was fixed on a different object. In fine, eluding the vigilant eye of her governess, while purchasing a little heart's-ease, she gave the ruddy gardener so fair a promise of her future favors, that he, enraptured with the prospect of success before him, redoubled his assiduities to please ;-plucked for her all the gayest of his stock ;-proposed a journey to the North, to which she readily assented;-and, stealing from her confinement, at midnight, threw herself into the arms of the happy Adonis, who, proud of the conquest he had gained, immediately set off with his fair prize to insure his felicity, by making her his companion for life. Thus was the offspring of a noble root transplanted from the rich soil in which it might have flourished, to waste its bloom in the plantation of an obscure plebeian.

Her mind vitiated by romantic folly, and her judgment weak, Rosetta rashly precipitated herself from the very summit of high-life, to the society of lowly individuals, even below mediocrity. Willingly excluding herself from her family and friends, as well as from the first circles of fashion, in which, by birth and education she was destined to move;-a privilege she forfeited by her folly and indiscretion, unmindful of the disgrace she brought upon herself and noble connexions.

NUMBER XXVI.

ON THE LOVE OF ADVENTURE.

Grace was in all her steps,

Heaven in her eye, in every gesture
Dignity and love.

PHILOMENA was a lady of respectable connexions in high life, remarkable in her appearance for grace and dignity. Milton's sublime description of the beauteous fair, who advanced to meet the solitary inhabitant of Eden, as he awoke from a refreshing slumber, recurred to the imagination as she gracefully skimmed over the turf, or stepped across the pavement. Her stately figure and heavenly countenance, could not but attract admiration. She played and sung divinely, and in the dance, a Hillesburg could not surpass her graceful motion. Every fine accomplishment, combined with gentle and unassuming manners, gave her a superiority in society, of which she might have been proud; and, had the qualities of her mind been in unison with the graces of her

person, she might have shone with a splendour that would have eclipsed the "fairest among the fair."

But, alas! with a disposition to enjoy every pleasure in life, she possessed neither prudence to check, nor resolution to combat against the propensities of her nature. Her extravagance kept pace with her indiscretion; and though her father subscribed most liberally to all her wants, and all her reasonable wishes, still her imprudence outstripped his generosity.

Bereaved, by the unpitying hand of death, of that maternal care so essential to the formation of the female character, just at that happy period of life when the heart is panting "to see and be seen" in every fashionable crowd; she became the director of her own conduct, without judgment to control, or prudence to guide her actions. Perfected in all the accomplishments of the day, she sickened in the society of her governess, and prevailed on her too indulgent parent to dismiss the watchful matron; knowing that she would then be free to follow the dictates of her own volatile disposition. Her father's parliamentary occupations, together with his private concerns, engaged his attention almost from morning till night, and from night till morning. Accordingly she entered the walks of dissipation alone and unprotected; and broke through every rule of decorum, to prosecute the ill-concerted schemes of a wild imagination.