unable to repel the dreadful shock; and a few days ago, immediately after the death of her mother, she evinced the most terrible tokens of derangement, and raved in the most violent and incoherent terms: and upon the funeral of her mother, which took place yesterday, she was more than usually phrensied. For a long time her fine form has been dwindling away, and her countenance gradually assuming an uncommon degree of wildness, which occasionally yielded to the more subdued expression of melancholy. She has lately spent most of her time in wandering about in the favourite haunts of the deceased part of her family, uttering the most heart-rending exclamations of woe. In these rambles she not unfrequently visits the church-yard, and being unknown to my old housekeeper, this circumstance accounts for her frequent mention of "the poor, strange, crazy lady," as she has been pleased to call her. She had been raving over the tombs of her family last night when seen by Mrs. Parsons, and passed from them to your apartment by the back staircase, and I am not surprised at the violence of your emotions under such apparently trying circumstances; yet how she came to be so meanly clad I am at a loss to conjecture, but it must ne cessarily have added much to the horror of her appearance. • Thus have I given you the particulars of a story that has come immediately under my knowledge, and which for the honour of human nature I hope will never again exist; but I lament that myriads of human beings are daily guilty of the very crimes which were the cause of the ruin of this excellent family. A man in the heyday of his existence, endowed with rank and fortune, and engaged in the routine of dissipation, never considers the more remote consequences of his actions, but commits what he thinks a trifling fault (if he term it a fault at all), without having the least idea of the quantity of evil it may produce; or, if he does consider it, he imagines that it does not concern himself, and consequently wholly disregards it. But men ought never to forget that the smallest dereliction from virtue is a material evil, even if not followed by a greater, which is too commonly the case. When once that safeguard is impaired, ruin and consequence.' devastation is the certain Much impressed by the recital of this pathetic tale, I thanked my excellent friend most warmly for the lesson he had read to me, deter mining to treasure the remembrance of it to the latest hour of my being, and after dining with him, and evincing my gratitude for the opportunity he had given me of forming an acquaintance with so worthy a man, and for the hospitality I had received, I took my leave, and with a sorrowful heart bent my steps towards a range of wild mountains which lay in my route to the more northern districts of Wales. "Virtue, for ever frail as fair below, "Nor touches on the world without a stain: TALE SECOND. A FASHIONABLE ADVENTURE. "I must have liberty "Withal, as large a charter as the wind, HAVING lately received the following letter from an ingenious young gentleman of my acquaintance, 1 herewith present it to the public, to whom, I hope, it will not be wholly unacceptable, as it contains a lively picture of a favourite summer's watering-place, and it may prove at least amusing if not instructing. MY DEAR FRIEND, } • After an uninteresting peregrination of some days I arrived at Chesterfield, a place possessing as few charms (at least for me) as any I have yet seen; and I will not tire your patience by a dry description of dirty walls and gloomy streets, but proceed to relate a curious adventure that has befallen me. During my stroll through the town, in search of something to amuse me, I was not a little surprised to observe an unusual number of travelling carriages passing through it, and on looking about for some person from whom I might learn the cause, I perceived a huge fellow covered with all the slavish trappings of servitude, loitering by a carriage; this man (who was much better calculated for a grenadier in his country's service than a mere machine to dance in the wake of an antique virgin), informed me that the season was then commencing at Matlock, and that the carriages I had seen contained the quality who were going thither. As I had not visited this charming place (so justly celebrated for the romantic beauty of its scenery, as well as being a summer's residence for a numerous and genteel company) for a considerable number of years, I determined upon visiting it, hoping to reap a plentiful harvest of novelty and information by my observations upon the various characters I might meet with; and it |