in long and majestic avenues, which, stretching in different directions from the house, were terminated by lodges and gateways. These lodges, like the portals of Solomon's Temple, looked towards the four points of the compass, to wit, the east, the west, the north, and the south.

"The mansion, which was very large, was furnished altogether after the fashion of elder times, and exhibited, as might be supposed, a variety of objects abounding with entertainment to a young and inquisitive mind. Accordingly, when not engaged with the lady of the mansion, I commonly employed myself among these various grotesque objects; and soon became intimately acquainted with every tapestry hanging, ivory cabinet, embroidered quilt, filagree screen, and painted or sculptured representation of the human face divine scattered throughout the wide halls, galleries, and chambers of this ancient dwelling.

"But, among all these curiosities of art, and these representations of the noble, the beautiful, and the brave of past ages, no one object had so much power to fix my attention, and excite my lasting admiration, as a certain family picture on a large scale, which hung in a remote chamber. This picture represented a lady in all the perfection of beauty, holding an infant in her arms, and presenting him to his father, (a young man of a fine appearance,) who was in the act of advancing to receive him; his countenance being lighted up with such an expression of mingled love and joy as is seldom so happily expressed

upon canvas.

"The figure of the infant,' proceeded my old friend, 'is still impressed upon my memory in colours so lively, that I seem to behold it now before me. I still can recollect how skilfully the artist had arranged the yellow and silky hair of early infancy, in order to display to the best advantage the polished brow and glossy eyebrow beneath; and how entirely he had preserved that soft and dovelike expression of the eye, which is not seldom to be seen in babyhood, but which is never to be met with in after life, excepting perhaps in those persons who through the influence of grace are brought into that state of which infancy is the lovely and animated emblem. Thus had the art of the painter contrived to commemorate the joy and pride of these two happy parents in their bloom

ing boy. Yet, as I afterwards found, when made acquainted with the history of this family, could these parents have foreseen what was to be the future fortune of their child, they might reasonably have envied those fathers and mothers whose sad lot it has been to stretch out the tender limbs of their first-born on the cold bed of death, and to impress the parting kiss on the pale brow and dimpled hand of him who had once been the delight of their eyes and the joy of their hearts.

"My admiration of this beautiful portrait,' continued the old lady, was so strongly and constantly excited, that I could not refrain speaking of it to Lady Nand expressing the extraordinary interest which it had occasioned.

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Lady N replied, "The picture that has fixed your attention is undoubtedly the finest in the house; and the story attached to it is so curious, that I must not deny you the satisfaction of hearing it. The persons whose portraits are there presented, were known to my family; and every important particular of their lives is so perfectly familiar to me, that, with the assistance of some letters from one of the parties, which I have by me, I shall find it no difficult matter to make you acquainted with their whole disastrous and awful history."

"I eagerly,' continued the old lady, 'caught at this proposal; and, being permitted by Lady N-, I failed not to commit the whole to writing."

THE HISTORY OF THE NOBLE ALTAMONT.

"The noble family of L——," said the Countess of N——, 66 had reached the zenith of their power and splendour during the latter part of the reign of Charles the Second. James Adolphus, who was at that period Earl of L-- was one of the first wits of the day, as well as an able politician, and as perfect a gentleman as the dissipated capital could then boast; for, although the manners of an impure and dissolute society may admit a certain polish sufficient to dazzle the eyes of those who behold them only at a distance, yet truly correct and lovely manners must ever be the result of faultless morals and Christian principles. But, the Earl being not less an infidel in principle than a profligate in morals, he as

frequently laid aside his courtly manners as he did his robes of honour; making it abundantly manifest, that, as he was capable of rendering himself an acceptable companion to the most refined and elegant characters of the day, so in like manner he could accommodate his conversation, on occasion, to the taste of the lowest and most profane part of mankind.

His lady

"The Earl of L married early in life. was of a noble family, an heiress, and a woman of no common beauty, but possessing a haughty and infidel spirit too much resembling that of her husband, whose defects she looked upon with an eye of the greatest indulgence, so long as they did not interfere with her own peculiar humours, or in any degree tend to the abridgment of her satisfactions.

"Such," continued Lady N--, "were the lady and gentleman on whose portraits you have bestowed so large a share of your attention; and it must be confessed, that, had the qualities of their hearts been answerable to their external perfections, the world could seldom boast of a pair so excellent. The lovely infant, whom you see in the arms of the lady, was their only son, the noble, the misguided, and the guilty youth, whom we will call Altamont, and whose remarkable history will make up the chief part of what I am about to relate.

"This boy was still in his cradle, at the period of the death of King Charles the Second; and, as the face of public affairs then underwent an entire change, the Earl of L- withdrew from court, with his family, and from that period resided upon his estates, of which he had several in different parts of the kingdom; this ancient mansion, with its noble park and environs, in which I now dwell, being one of the number.

"The mode of life, and the state of manners, in the country at that time were very different from what we now witness. Many more servants were then kept in every noble family; and the line of separation between the superior and the inferior was much broader in those days, than the present state of society and public feeling will admit. In consequence of this, the children of the higher ranks were not only brought up in great pride, but were taught to consider their inferiors as creatures intended to be entirely subservient to their pleasures.

"The state of literature at that time was also exceedingly low and corrupt, as must appear from a perusal of the fashionable publications of the day. The poets and romance writers of that period were so ambitious of forming themselves upon the model of the ancient heathen, as indiscriminately to copy their perfections and their defects; in consequence of which, their works were filled with such images of impurity as were a reproach to the age in which they lived. But, monstrous as it may appear, gross and indelicate wit, together with the open contempt of religion and religious characters, were then not only tolerated, but considered as marks of extraordinary gentility.

"I have before said, that Lord L was a wit, as well as an infidel; and that his lady had no feelings which might induce her to counteract the evil influence of her husband's principles. It was therefore to be expected, that the utmost moral disorder should pervade the whole of their extensive household, and that their son would of course be trained up in an entire absence of all virtuous principle. This was indeed the case with the youth in question; and, though a tutor was provided for him in the person of my lord's domestic chaplain, and although this chaplain was an inoffensive well-meaning man, yet so little authority was given him over his noble pupil, that very little good could be expected to result from his instructions.

"Thus the early days of this noble youth passed with little profit to himself, his time being divided between the society of his father's gamekeepers and the conversation of his grooms-with the exception indeed of a few odd hours which were now and then given to his studies; during which however such a progress was made as plainly proved what his acquisitions might have been under the influence of a stricter discipline.

"At the accustomed period, he was removed from under the tuition of the chaplain, and entered as a nobleman in the University of Oxford. In this place, being left much to himself, and having a great command of money, his wicked habits became more rooted and diffusive; notwithstanding which, having a remarkably fine person, an easy and elegant address, together with the faculty of readily adapting his conversation to the taste

and humour of his auditors, his faults were not followed by that disgrace and entire loss of reputation which might have been expected.

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During the time that Altamont spent at Oxford, there was in the same college a young man descended from the younger branch of a noble family-a youth who had been brought up with the utmost care and tenderness by a widowed mother, in great privacy, and in habits the most pure and simple. It happened, that Altamont, on some occasion which I do not at this moment recollect, was enabled to lay this young man, whose name was Frederick Beauclerk, under an obligation, of which the grateful youth never lost the recollection. And as Altamont, while in the university, was enabled to conceal from young Beauclerk the most atrocious parts of his character, and to gloss over his more venial errors with that peculiar ease, grace, and address, by which, as I have before said, he was distinguished above all his companions, he contrived to retain the affections, and in some degree to acquire the esteem, of this young man, who, though pure and pious, had little knowledge of the world; and who, with respect to religion, had a more correct idea of its duties than of its doctrines.

"Altamont also felt more for Frederick than for any young man with whom he had ever been acquainted. The unaffected elegance of his manners had first attracted him; while his warm and pure attachment connected with his unfeigned humility were calculated to nourish as much of a sentiment of pure regard as could be supposed to exist in a breast so impure as that of Altamont.

"Frederick Beauclerk had a sister, who, with all the elegant simplicity of her brother, possessed no common share of personal beauty. Altamont became acquainted with this young lady when paying a visit to his friend during the long vacation which took place a short time before these young men left the university. It happened, that Amelia was precisely the model which Altamont had formed to himself of female loveliness; it will not therefore be wondered at, if she had power (though without design) to fix the regards of this young man so permanently as to induce him to seek her in marriage, and to make her his wife. For, as this young lady was of a noble family, and her fortune by no means contemptible,