cise is to the body; but when prompted by a feeling of content and unruffled nerves, it becomes the health of the soul, and generates a grateful piety to heaven, such as I am ashamed to say the greatest seeming prosperity never produced. Can I then want society, even if I had not the few friends I value about me? No; for I now converse better with the mighty dead, than when tormented with the mighty living. What wonder, then, if I love being alone, especially as the place where I am so, prevents it from ever growing wearisome; as the moment I am saturated with it, the remedy is at hand, and the world at my door? In fact, I find the alternation of business and leisure to be the secret of happiness; useful business, and well employed leisure, or, as Rousseau calls it, judicious inaction.' My inaction, I trust, is at least not injudicious; for what more interesting, particularly to an old man who has been tossed about in the world, than to bring his experience into play for the discovery of truth? This, I can safely say, whether in the streets, or my study, is now my employment, and that

'Quid verum atque decens, curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum.'

I cogratulated him upon this, and said he was, I thought, more enviable than ever he had been; yet could not help expressing wonder that, being single, he continued in such loneliness as so vast a house must now appear to him. I ventured to ask even if he would not be more cheerful in a smaller mansion?

His answer was characteristic, though not very consistent with his new-found philosophy.

"I see your meaning," said he, at first knitting his brow; but, soon recovering, he went on. "You think I have no longer a right to a palace, not being able to fill it as usual. But why not, if it please me, and such be my humour? You will say, I ought to profit by what I cannot enjoy, and let it for a palace's rent; which, indeed, I could do. But never shall the finger of man I contemn point at me as the profligate who has been forced to quit his family mansion. To be sure, it is no longer brilliant with sunshine in the day, or lamps at night, for most of the rooms are shut up; but I can now do what I could not do before-illumine whatever place I am in with my own thoughts; thoughts for which I

am all the better, instead of those others which formerly did any thing but enlighten me. I exemplify, therefore, what is so sublimely said by Milton,

'He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun :
Himself is his own dungeon.'"

Eccentric, and perhaps inconsistent, as this conduct was, it was impossible not to respect Lord Rochfort for pursuing it. But, turn we to other matters.

CHAPTER XV.

A CHANGE IN THE PROPERTY OF MR. HASTINGS.-I HAVE

CONVERSATION WITH LADY HUNGER

AN

INTERESTING

FORD. THE MYSTERY

COUSIN NOT CLEARED.

REGARDING BERTHA AND

HER

You have seen and proved a fairer form of fortune
Than that which is to approach.

SHAKSPEARE.-Antony & Cleopatra.

Doubting things go ill, often hurts more
Than to be sure they do.-Cymbeline.

ABOUT this time an event fell out which greatly affected the fortune of Mr. Hastings. I mentioned, I believe, that much of his income, or at least of its redundancy, consisted in West India property. An old country gentleman in Yorkshire cannot well look after plantations across the Atlantic; and, accordingly, Mr. Hastings, like many other great proprietors, depended upon a great agent to manage the concern. This agent just now failed to an immense amount. It ruined many, and, as I have said, greatly affected Mr. Hastings.

But it would have been fortunate if this had been all; for, one cause of the failure was, that at this time the Island of Barbadoes, where all his fine property was situated, was des

olated by one of those hurricanes which have so often ruined the greatest West India estates. Most of the plantations were destroyed outright: few houses escaped utter destruction, and none without damage. Many persons perished under the ruins, and more were driven into the sea. Above five thousand people lost their lives during this frightful catastrophe; and the property annihilated was said to amount to a million.

So great and general a blow could not pass without involving every family connected with the island and of course Mr. Hastings, whose losses, between the hurricane and his agent's failure, were computed at above £100,000.

Thus are we sometimes visited by a mysterious and inscrutable Providence, to whose decrees, all we have to do is to submit with resignation. This Mr. Hastings did, with the same piety which made him so submissive to Heaven's will, when visited by the loss of his son.

When this was first communicated to me-which it was by Lord Castleton-(for so great a destruction, being almost national, had been the subject of special despatches to the government), my blood ran cold, my flesh creeped, and I thought of the injury to this high family, but particularly of Bertha's altered prospects, with an affliction beyond any I could have felt had it been my own.

And yet how nobly did she bear it! Her chief and almost only care, as Granville told me in a long letter, which, at my most urgent entreaty, he wrote to relieve my anxiety, was how to soften it to her father, whose rapidly declining health might make such tidings critical, and prevent all hope of recovery.

As, however, the matter could not be kept from him, it was broke to him by degrees. Indeed, the whole extent of the injury was not at first known, and Bertha herself was not acquainted with it. When it was, and post after post brought the account of fresh losses, it was then that all the charm of her character, both for firmness and softness, displayed itself with a lustre which few could imitate.

In this she was greatly supported by the presence of her beloved friend and adviser, Lady Hungerford, who luckily was on the spot to console her. Granville, too, gave himself up to his uncle, and was of essential service to him by his

advice, and assistance in business; and the prince cousin, I was told, showed himself in the most amiable light, by the warm and delicate attentions which he paid to both his relations in their distress.

My heart envied the prince for this more than for all his other advantages. Happy man! thought I, who can now shew his real worth, by proving the disinterestedness of his duty and love, and confirm all the influence which his accomplishments have enabled him to acquire.

Partly by these attentions from his friends, partly from his own frame of mind, in which there was not only an innate piety, as has been formerly noticed, but a secret vigour, which uniform prosperity had rather suspended than suppressed, Mr. Hastings was enabled to bear his reverses with dignified composure; and Bertha, except for his sake, apparently bore them with entire indifference.

"We have yet this dear place left," said she, "from which it was always unpleasant to us to stir; we have still its gardens and flowers, and the village, and the poor blessing us. Why, then, ought we to quarrel with fortune for confining us to the spot on earth where we most wish to remain? If the sun would but come out, and you, my dear father get strong enough to let me drive you abroad as usual, to enjoy it, why should storms thousands of miles off affect us ?"

Mr. Hastings, upon these occasions, would kiss Bertha, and her eyes would sparkle at it, and shed new light upon all around (for a while upon her father himself), and that would make her still more pleased. Nor would she allow her pleasure to be checked when he would observe, as he seemed sometimes forced to do, that Foljambe alone would not support the pleasures of Foljambe.

"And yet," she would reply, looking at the books and her musical instruments, "these are not expensive enjoyments; and these still less," throwing up the window, and inhaling the scent of the flowers. "But there is the sun himself coming out to reproach us for thinking we can want any thing when we have him."

"All this," said Granville, in writing this account, "would affect us, and nobody more than the prince, who would hold up his hands in ecstacy, and exclaim, 'Dieu! quelle tempe

ramment angelique!' And then he would look intently at her, and kiss her hand."

But the exertion of Bertha generally ended in a fit of lowness afterwards, when alone with Lady Hungerford, in which, however, she thought only of her father, not of herself. "If he is but spared to us," she would say, "how little shall we

feel the want of what is lost!"

"I am very well aware," said Granville, in concluding this account," of the imprudence I commit towards you, for it will certainly not contribute to your cure, which, however, is as necessary as ever. But not only it is not easy to withstand your entreaties, but in informing you of the state of things. bere under this terrible worldly calamity, I think it almost a duty (I certainly have pleasure in it) to do this justice to my admirable cousin, who, if she had not done so before, would win the hearts of everybody around her."

"As she has mine," said I, throwing the letter from me in an agony of feeling, which yet I could not define, so compounded was it at once of the most tender admiration, jealousy, and despair.

That the happy Adolphus should admire the sweet excellence he courted, and which it was plain now was to crown his wishes, could neither surprise nor distress me; but that he should kiss her hand, unopposed, as it should seem (for I carefully examined as to that point), inflicted pangs upon me which I cannot even now forget.

Such was my reasonableness, and again, though alone, I burst out once more with a passage of Rousseau, which I had become fond of :

"Femmes! Femmes ! Objets cheres et funestes! qui la Nature orna pour notre supplice; qui punissent quand on vous brave, et qu' on ni peut ni rechercher ni fuir impunement !"

It was in vain, under these impressions, that I sought to lose them, by plunging more than ever into business; for a material part of that business arose out of this very disaster at Barbadoes, and the Hastings plantation and Hastings losses so frequently occurred, that I could not, if I would, attempt oblivion of the name. In the midst of this struggle, too, the arrival of Lady Hungerford in town prevented all further endeavour, and I returned to the subject with almost greater interest than ever.