it only seemed a moment ago-I had unthinkingly mistaken her for the likeness of her aunt, as she appeared to me before I left home, for she was then very beautiful.

"I found, upon inquiry, that nearly all my early connexions were broken. The playmates of my childhood were scattered or dead. In short, I remained with my father and mother after the young eyes of my sisters were locked by repose, talking over individual history, till the shadow of sleep fell upon my sight from the old man's closing eye, when I begged permission to retire, and my pillow was pressed, under sensations of pain instead of pleasure.

"Alas!' thought I, thus it always is with my hopes; realization comes ever so far short of what I expected, that I continually taste disappointment, when, in my heart, I think the cup of happiness at my lips. So true it is

"Were I to mount the flying wind,

And search the wide creation round,
There's nothing here to fill the mind;

On earth no solid joy is found.'

"I had returned to my dearest and nearest rela

tions, crowned with success and filled with the pleasures of hope, and yet my feelings were an alternation of joy and melancholy. When I recurred to the past, I beheld many of my most delightful associations broken; friends who had become dear to my soul were now buried in distance and absence, whilst, in the resurrection which made up my loss, I found so much to regret and fear, that really I was no object of envy.

"The next day being Sunday, we made our appearance in the country church of where

I had to stand the gaze of the fat round clergyman and his boorish-looking congregation. I saw with some pleasure (for I had still too much vanity), that my father's family made the most fashionable appearance: my sisters had paid much attention to their persons on occasion of their brother's arrival; and some little articles of Indian finery, which I had presented, were sported with exultation. I rode a handsome young horse, whilst a dashing jaunting-car conveyed the rest of the family. If we had not much wit, we had abundance of laughter, and,

what is too much characteristic of the country, a little scandal; for I soon learned that our parson's wife was too fine a lady to live in this retired spot with her husband, who

left in the comforts of solitude.

had thus been

He had quar

relled with his bishop, and not being allowed the privilege of keeping a curate, his residence could not be compromised; but it was insinuated that madam had so little of Christian meekness in her composition, that his reverence was not sorry at her expenditure of his tithes in Dublin. Like Sir Charles Grandison, he thought loss of money better than the society of a terma

gant.

"On Monday I returned to my family; and a few days after escorted them to the town of within ten miles of my father's, where he resided one-half of his time, for the transaction of professional business. In that agreeable place I soon after took and furnished a house, in the hope of being settled for life."

No. VII.

MY FATHER'S TRAVELS.

"Good heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting-day,
That call'd them from their native walks away;

When the poor exiles, ev'ry pleasure past,

Hung round the bow'rs, and fondly look'd their last;
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And, shudd'ring still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep."

GOLDSMITH.

"My anxiety to hear my father's observations on his own trials in life, was gratified on our journey from his house to the post-town, where I took coach for Dublin. Thither, a distance of ten miles, through a mountainous country, we travelled in his gig; and, with all the fondness of age for past adventure, he described his feelings: an abridgment of which I shall here offer

in his own words: