Nature sometimes kindly shields us from a sense of evil, even by means of the feelings which render it too acute to be borne. This was Mary's case; the remembrance of her sorrows, was lost in insensibility; a burning fever raged through her veins, the langour of disease suspended the acuteness of grief, and it was long doubtful whether she would recover to a consciousness of suffering. The worthy Mr. Barlowe, transferred to her the cares which he had found useless for his pupil. He watched over her with holy patience; soothed her hours of affliction, cheered those of convalescence, and invited the poor penitent back to life, bidding her depend on him for every worldly comfort, and in teaching her true repentance of her errors, he was enabled also to console her with the well grounded hope of merciful forgiveness.

Leaving him to watch the bed of sick

ness,

ness, sufficiently rewarded for his exertions by the gradual, though lingering recovery of their object; we will again return to Lord Drelincourt and his family.

CHAP. XXXIII.

"Tho' flowers embroider Barca's faithless coast,
Yet there deceitful rocks and quicksands lie,
Tho' richest gems Golconda's mountains boast,
There blasting pestilence pervades the sky.

'Tis thus does Heav'n its various gifts impart,
Mingling alternate, ills and blessings flow;
And sometimes rapture fills the lighten'd heart,
Which disappointment soon absorbs in woe."

THE revolving seasons had again brought round the period, when the tranquil pleasures of retirement are made to yield to the hurry of business, or whirl of dissipation; and the Earl had now left the shades of Castle Drelincourt to resume his residence in Berkeley Square.

Edmund continued to observe with the impartial eye of truth, aided by the steady

steady light of unclouded reason, the real character, not only of the English, but of the individuals of numerous nations, who are constantly to be met with in the capital.

Every day's experience exalted the former yet higher in his estimation; and taught him more readily to acknowledge their virtues, and excuse their foibles.

He had heard their roughness condemned, but he thought of them, as Goldsmith admirably expressed himself of the great Johnson, that they had nothing of the bear but the coat. He had heard the superior politeness of the French much boasted of; yet he would not yield the palm even where the English themselves acknowledge it to be due. He maintained with Lord Chesterfield, that they evinced their superiority by disclaiming it; and, in an argument which he held with Mr. Fletcher on the subject, he thus gave the result of his observations, and the opinion that he had formed from

from them: "I believe it is generally allowed, that true politeness may be more easily felt than taught, and that it must necessarily be felt, in order to be practised in perfection. It does not consist in a certain set of phrases, or a regular number of bows; if it did, even the French must yield to the Chinese, who value each other according to their facility in making obeisances; denote their respect for a person by the number which they make to him; and think that guest the best bred, who returns from the greatest distance after his departure, to make another bow to his host; who, perhaps, expected that he had long before arrived at home.

"True politeness springs from the heart, of which it expresses the wishes in a variety of agreeable ways, as poetry decorates and improves the ideas of the mind; both may receive additional value by being pleasingly communicated; but both must possess intrinsic worth, to be

really