S»^ CiC \;5r?/l ',^m^ ^, ^i^>^ ^^. ^ -^^ Tl, m^ ) mm^ 14'%^--:^:, nr: '.¥•',• 74 ## / .^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2009 witlrfunding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/rosanneorfathers01hawk ROSANNE; OR, A FATHER'S LABOUR LOST. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY LiETITIA-MATILDA HAWKINS. Oh ! quanto erra colui che'l mondo in g^ida Prendesi ! Ed a che strazio ed a quai pene Ed a qual morte va che a lui si fida ! Filicaja. VOLUME I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, NO. 62, ST. Paul's church-tabd. 1814. A gftod mind easily amalgamates with Religion ; but one soured by discontent, or agitated by turbulent passions, will admit nothing exhilarating. Bidlake's Bampton Lectures. There is no virtue more amiable in the softer sex, than that mild and quiescent spirit of devotion, which, without entan- gling itself in the dogmas of religion, is melted by its charities and exhilarated by its hopes. Cowper. ^. Gosnell, Priaisr, Liflle Queen Street) London. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ELIZABETH-LAURA, COUNTESS OF WALDEGRAVE, cjese aolumes;, HUMBLY DESIGNED TO POINT OUT, THOUGH BETTER ILLUSTRATED BY HER LADYSHIP'S EXAMPLE, THE INESTIMABLE ADVANTAGES ATTENDANT ON THE PRACTICE OP PURE CHRISTIANITY, ARS .RESPECTFULLY, AND wtTH EVERY SENTIMENT OP ESTEEM, INSCRIBED, BY HER LADYSHIFS MOST OBLIGED AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT^ L^TITIA-MATILDA HAWKINS. A 2 ADVERTISEMENT. It must appear very presuming and very obsti- nate, and whatever it ought not to be — to perse- vere in an error which has not escaped detec- tion, discussion, or reproof— and an error so easily corrected as that of using characteristic, or, as they are otherwise called, ' caricature' names, for the personages of a work of moral fiction. The practice has been stigmatized as ' vulgar' by one friend ; — by lips of softer ex- pression — but in phrase of nearly similar import, — as ^ diminishing elegance.' Disposed to profit by even negative instruc- tion, there are yet some doubts to be remov- ed ; — and presuming, which will hardly be denied, that the poor creatures — the actors and interlocutors of a drama — must have some names, it would be kind in those who may object, to state from what source, not liable to objection, they might be chosen. Perhaps some readers might suggest a regular march through the alphabet, on the initial and A 3 VI ADVERTISEMENT. blank-and-dash system, with reduplications as required, such as are the pointers to niultitudir nous notes. Blanks are confessedly of great use in pressing human inquisitiveness into the service of virtue, where attention is to be awak- ened; but, as Mrs. most admirably re- marked of a work where this practice is very predominant, * It is impossible to feel any in- terest in a narrative, when one is told only that R has cut his finger, or P has got a sore throat' The options, in a search of this kind, appear to be — Real family-names — Invented names — Characteristic names. Now, against using the first of these, many are the objections. A work designed to correct, must be, in some measure, a work of reprehen- sion ; — and if we calculate the danger and the cruelty of an unfortunate dispensation, and the probability that some or other Mr. or Mrs. Smith or Johnson might possess precisely the failing aimed at, no considerate person — no one tender towards his own fallible species, would advise the bold adventure. — If the chances of escaping are thought in favour of the trial, let experience be heard, and it will be found that ADVERTISEMENT. VU pain has been inflicted, and subsequent caution taught. Invented names must be creations or combi^ nations. — Creations want usage to reconcile the ear to them— combinations may, through ignorance, turn out family-names. Of names invented, there is another subdivision, — into sucji as, giving a hint of character, are nearly syn- onymous with those decried, and such as con- sult only the tender ear of the reader : — the for- mer may offend by rough associations of conso- nants, which distress in pronouncing, or excite ridicule by improbable sounds, which surprise in listening. But in consulting the ear, it must be con- fessed, that there is a better chance of pleasing than is offered by any otlier mode of selection ; and fev\^ would, perhaps, find fault with pretty names, elegant names, noble names, grand names, even did these qualities exist only in the fancy of the eye or ear : here, indeed, ano- ther regard interposes — a regard challenged by the writer, and arising out of a contempt that cannot be disguised, for all the meretricious arts of literature. — Where religion, common sense, firm principle, incontrovertible truth, and real VI 11 ADYERTISEMENT. example, form the source from which instruc- tion is conveyed, the recommendations to be borrowed from sounds are as little thought on as the colour of an orator's robe, or the frame of a first-rate picture — let each of these be but proper, nothing more is asked; and, where to do good is the sole aim, the mind disdains low praise for minute attentions — it cannot wander from its purpose even for the length of a word. But the attractions of a corrupt species of literature — the impassioned love-story, and the unprofitable imitation of inanities of polite life, are, however a better taste may be assumed, still in force : the censure itself proves it ; and, making the practice of such writers the stand- ard, conformity to it is demanded of those whose humble endeavours are rather calculated to make their fellow-creatures feel the moment- ous importance of an hour, than to help them to pass it insensibly. It is surely unfair to impose on such as would guard the inexperienced, the trappings of those who would allure them. In every other un- dertaking, something is allowed to harmony of style, and something to the taste of the artist ; and to the style here adopted, which is nothing 3 ADVERTISEMENT. ix above the familiar — and the taste of the writer, which is of the plainest description — similar concession is humbly requested. In works where refinement extends to syllables, the story is the principal — in this it is the subordinate part, and of use only to take off the dry di- dactic appearance that might alarm the patience of those for whose advantage it is chiefly de- signed — without it, indeed, it is to be feared, the precept might be addressed to the winds, or submitted merely to the criticism of the reader. The sketches are exemplifications, and serve to give animation to truth ; and it is in them that the names objected to, find their pro- per use and place — they are in harmony with the subject, and the slight colouring bestowed on it — they cost no labour in the search — they present themselves with the object — whereas, were prettinesses sought for, an hour might be spent in deciding, and then a week in waver- ing ; and by placing, displacing, and replacing, the reader midit find his favourites begin their existence in one family, and end it in another. But this point has been settled, long ago, by an authority that cannot be disputed ; and the admission of it requires only an adjustment of X ADVERTISEMENT. the species of literature in which a work likef this may be classed. Every one acquainted with criticism, will place it in the rank of * Comedy/ We may subdivide it, and consider part of it as entitled to the appellation of * Genteel co- medy,' part to that of Farce — still it is of the class of Comedy ; and speaking of that sort of composition, Donatus, the learned commentator on Terence, says expressly, that the names used in it, ought to have a reason and an etymo-* logy*. If a comic writer of another sort be an au- thority, we have Cervantes; and as defence against the heaviest part of the censure, it is to be observed, that till the sentimental comedy took place of the more humourous, character- istic names were always adopted. Every per* sonage in Ben Jonson's inimitable * Volpone,' has its appropriate designation; the Vulture, the Raven, the Crow, the Fly, hover round the Fox; * Nomina personarum in Comcfidiis duntaxat, habere debent rationem et etymologiam. Etenim absurdura est, Comicum aperte argumenta confingere, vel nomen personae incongruum dare, vel officium quod sit a nomine diversum. Hinc servus fidelis ParmenO) infidelis vel Si/rus vel Geta, nules ThrasQ, vel Polmon, juvenis PamphUus, &c. Teeent. Adelphi, Not* L ADVERTISEMENT. ^l and even the young g-entleman has his character*- istic name: and whatever may be objected to hi$ lower performances, in this, at least, without any diminution of the classic elegance of the drama. And if modern refinement is pleaded against the practice here justified, it should be remembered, that Miss Allscrip, in a comedy which was extolled, quite as much as it could merit, by the world of fashion, is a compound of the cant name of two of the public funds. But, however firmly a stand may be made against imposed obedience to a denied authority in a matter of form, the confidence extends no farther. It is with a very contrary feeling that this work is offered to the public — it is in the dejecting consciousness that a subject has been chosen demanding far greater powers, more ex- tensive information, more continuity of thought — in every way more intellect than w^ill be fpund in it. The discovery was made too late to retract; the mortification attending on it can only be consoled by seeing some abler writer undertake that which has been, in spite of every deficiency, an employment of exquisite delight — the recommendation of the fear and Xll ADVERTISEMENT. love of God, as an interwoven principle of hu- man actions — as the best guide through the cares of this life, and the noblest incentive to seek the happiness of that which shall suc- ceed it rosanne: CHAPTER I, Colonel Eugene died, having bequeathed to his widow the guardianship and care of their only child, a boy ^ of great promise ;' but who, not having completed his eighth year, promise what he might, was not, even by his admiring mother, judged quite equal to the guidance of himself, though his father had, indeed, spared no pains in making him ' a manly boy,' by intro- ducing him amongst those of his convivial asso- ciates who were best qualified to efface the cha- racteristics of childhood. He w^as now what devouring sisters call a * nice boy,' — what grandmammas call ' a fine boy,' — what their maiden daughters call ' a gen- teel boy,' and the married ones * a darling boy,' — while fathers have their comfort that * the young dog' has a little of ' the pickle' in him ; — for, according as the various hues of natural character appeared to various by-standers, he was judged; and the mode of education under w^hich he was rearing, w^as admirably suited, like the plumage of a dove's neck, to make beholders VOL. T. B « liOSANNE. doubt the testimony of their own eyes, — a puzzfef easily contrived, where one parent says to a son, * You must rough it through the world,' and the other recommends whatever can render the journey smooth and pleasant. The colonel had seldom, when not in a rage,- used any severer admonition to his son than 'Please yourself.' — It would, perhaps, have been too much to have added, * and you will please me ;' — for it has seldom been found that chil- dren on whom the first part of the injunction has devolved, have been able to accomplish the second. — * Please me, and you will please your- self,' an experienced parent would say; — and the trial is worth making : but the inversion of a moral axiom, like that of a pyramid, is not the best position for keeping things in their right places. On this insulated system of self-pleasing, Frank Eugene had enjoyed many indulgences as a child, which, though perhaps contribut- ing as little to his happiness as they did after- wards to his comfort, were of importance, by sparing him the vexation of contradiction, and the trouble of overcoming it. But whatever these effects or advantages, they served towards the formation of a character; and, like a dutiful son, he never lost from his memory the recollec- tion of his father's standing order, ^ Please your- self.' Nor was the colonel backward in affording ROSANNE. t Frank such assistance as might make his duty to his parent a pleasure to himself. He would, with those contortions of delight which accom- pany the success of a new and daring project, tell Frank in his babyhood to send away his ' nasty beef,' and bid his mother give him some nice white chicken, intimating that she was saving it for herself, and that such had been the way, more or less, of all women, ever since he knew them; — and, dear good man ! so consistent was he, that but a few months before his death, on Frank's spirited refusal to sit at a side-table, he had settled the matter by saying, ' Then you must put on a good face, and shove yourself in amongst us (l).' Such a plan, forwarded by Mrs. Eugene's oc- casionally entreating guests not to eat of certain dishes, ' because they were bad for Frank, and if he saw them eaten without his partaking he would cry,' might have already produced striking effects, had they not been counteracted by the ebullitions of insane anger which the young gentleman had to endure from his father. Not recollecting, probably, that a child never con- tradicted, can seldom be justly punished, the least inadvertence would, at times, draw down on Master Eugene expressions little short of execrations. The cane, the horsewhip, the any thing at hand, were reason, argument, repre- (1) See the Note at the end of the Chapter. 4 ROSANNE. hension ; and the spoiled boy experienced seve- rities unknown in more efficient discipline. Again, however, with equilibrium as nice as that of water, the matter adjusted itself: the co- lonel never failed, with humility almost amount- ing to a confession of error, to ask Frank's par- don, and to beg a reconciliation, after every in- fliction of corporal punishment (2). Why did he do this ? Did he think himself wrong ? — no : but he was fearful of exasperat- ing his son, and losing what he had seen other parents gain by filial affection. And to this cowardly selfish fear is to be referred not a little of the prodigious solicitude just now in fashion to preserve the love of children. What will be the harvest reaped from this mode of culture may easily be computed, by those who will take the trouble to observe what conduct most certainly wins the respectful affec- tion of young persons, and who are the instruc- tors most esteemed by them. — Not the too in- dulgent — not those who are the most lavish of praise — not those who seek popularity in the nursery or the school-room; but those who, listening to the dictate of an upright conscience, do their duty, fearlessly towards their fellow- creatures, fearfully towards a higher Power, de- ferring all hope of gratitude till their benefits have made themselves felt, and they themselves are out of hearing of all acknowledgment. ' 'T is not,' said Priscilla to Hebe, ' what you think of me 7wwy that I regard ; it is, my child, what ROSANNE. 5 you shall think of me, if you recollect me, in the last hour of your life : then, and then only, you will estimate justly tny care/ And it is no hazarded observation to remark — it is the voice of experience that sanctions the remark,— that in the government of children, and the management of servants, nothing suc- ceeds so well as a fair intelligible plan of jus- tice, not submitted to their criticism, but ope- ratinsr to their advantas^e. Of this the son and the hireling can, with equal acuteness, judge ; and the return from the mind of eithei' is the same : but wherever, to save the trouble of learn- ing to do right, we are content to be indiscreet —wherever indulgence is substituted for strict- ness, and a false balance is adjusted by a bribe, respect, esteem, deference are gone: — every motive becomes suspected — every obligation comes as ' tribute to whom tribute is due ;' and the countenance will scarcely conceal contempt, while the hand is stretched out to receive (3). The * poor dear colonel,* when he had, as he said, half ruined himself to please Frank, was not a step nearer success : he wondered how he could have failed ; he was, ^ by all that was sa- cred, most extremely astonished, and much sur- prised, that his boy was not as affectionate as the young Gunbys ; for he was sure he had ten times more bestowed on him : — he must inquire a little how the Gunbys were managed ; for he began to think he could not get on much longer 1 3 6 R O S A N N E. on his own plan, or rather Mrs. Eugene's plan, for if Frank was spoiled, and he began to think he would be, he should always say it was her fault; This was a little hard upon ' poor Mrs. Eu- gene ;' for though she had had her notions as to education, ' she was perfectly satisfied they were the best that could be adopted,' and ' were they more general,' she was convinced ' we should not hear of so many men who were bad hus- bands, bad fathers, bad sons.' She had always thought * our passions and our feelings were what we ought to be guided by;' — na}', if they were not given us for this purpose, for Heaven's sake, what were they for ?' She doted on feeling ; and now that the ' poor dear colonel's untimely death had left her a forlorn widow, she should act so by dear Frank, as to lead him by his feel- ings ; and by engaging them on her side, ' make herself his confidante in the more formidable reign of the passions.' Mrs. Eugene, * poor wo- man!' did not suspect that she meant only to be her son's prime minister for life. She thought herself at least a second Cornelia. Perceiving, to her great encouragement, that the feelings of her son were more than ordina- rily or controlably strong, she had, in the short space of her widowhood, done all that suggested itself, by which she could add to their force. ' Quick feelings,' ' strong feelings,' ' impetuous feelings,' ' natural feelings,' and ' gentlemanly ROSANNE. 7 feelings/ were, as occasion offered, themes of her eloquence and applause. Rewards and indul- gences attended every proof her own Frank's good heart gave her of his possessing ' those ti^easiires of life, vvithout which existence was a desert/ Lest the direction how to go right should not be clear enough without another how not to go wrong, she was equally forcible in expressing her disapprobation and contempt of those whom she named ' the whole corps of oysters/ — into which unsocial band she enlisted all * the people of bread-and-cheese notions, who lived by clocks and bells,' — all • the vulgar herd who lived in dread of death and the devil,' — all ' the com- mon-place characters who were content with be- ing content,' — and * all the pusillanimous oeco- nomists who, in fear of Christmas bills, gave neither balls nor suppers (4).' But Mrs. Eugene, now called out to anxious cares, rested not her son's success on one class of recommendations. She had distinguished him, even in his nankins, from other boys of his age and pretensions. She intended him to take the lead in * all that distinguishes the man of for- tune and of talent/ and stirring up, to the best of her abilities, whatever emulation, envy, pride, covetousness, and selfishness, ' flesh is heir to,' she had the satisfaction of seeing him all she could hope, considering his years and a little opposition she had not been able to overcome in B 4 ^ ROSANNE. her mother, who was Frank's godmother, and who had insisted on the dear boy's being taken to church, and brought up ' not quite like a heathen.' Perceiving too, at the end of the year of wi- dowhood, that ' poor Mrs. Eugene' was hurrying into every folly that could lead her to an early grave, the old lady had likewise insisted ou Frank's being removed from the irregularities of London and a consumptive mother's embraces, to the discipline and more salubrious air of a preparatory school in the country, from which he might be, in due time, transplanted to the higher institutions of the kingdom. Mamma tried to compromise, by an ofier of taking him into the closet of the chapel-royal whenever it happened that she was well enough to go her- self, and ordering the Bible to be read in the open air of a street-garden, thirty paces in length ; but it would not do : — the old lady was a very Mrs. Shylock, and had her money in her own power ; and Mrs. Eugene had no other resource than obedience, palliated by every excuse she could find for detaining * her beau' from his studies (5). Delighted with being amongst boys, and with the novelty of stimulations, Eugene made all his tasks amusements ; and regarding the precepts of the drill-serjeant and the manoeuvres of the catechist, as affording equal opportu- nities of exhibiting his pro\yess, he soon gained ROSANNE. -9 applause for his precision of movement and his promptitude of reply. The drilling required no commentary ; but the usher's business was not finished when the verdict * Good boys' exempt- ed the catechumens from pains and penalties. An amplification of a commandment, or an impres- sive reference to the summary of Christian du- ties, as the rule for our action, was a part of the teacher's spontaneous labour; and Eugene's quick perceptions were gratified by the seeming discovery of latent evil in things accounted in- different. He was convinced that the usher was ' a capital clever fellow,' and in his first visit at home, felt at once disposed to inform his mo- ther of what he reasonably imagined new to her, and to bring her practice to the test with which he was so recently become acquainted. Mrs. Eugene listened eagerly to the speaker if not to the subject, and suffered ' the dear boy to amuse himself his own Vv'ay, and to fancy him- self vastly wise.' In his hearing she uttered his witty speeches, even wheil' they were not com- pliments to herself; and on his asking when she had taken pains to inform him of the motives to playing games of chance, whether this was not, after alU ' coveting your neighbour's goods,' she was convinced she had * a second Daniel' for a son. She protested that he would cure her of saying naughty words, and writing letters on a Sunday : but she was mistaken : the only effect produced, was the excitation of a question in 10 R O S A N N E. Frank^s mind, whetlier there were any ^ capital clever fellows in girls' schools.' Grandmamma died, and Mrs. Eugene, convin- ced that she had made every effort in her power, could part with Frank no more. Bribed to be quiet at home, he soon began to doubt whether the usher was indeed such ' a very capital clever fellow' as he had thought him. The matter was soon settled by his mamma's undertaking to prove that what he had taught him, ' any old woman in the parish knew long before.' Nothing is so much to be relied on for pro- ducing shame, as the mention of an old woman ; and, once brought into use, it was applied with the happiest effect, whenever ' Frank was wise/ till he left off wishing to be so. He now reigned with perfect influence and no pusillanimous moderation over his feverish mo- ther. The last of a numerous family, and inhe- riting the too common inheritance, alas! of heiresses, the maladies of many generations, she had been herself reared by care ; and her pecu- niary importance, and some clauses in her mar- riage-settlement, had made her husband conti- nue that care. Freed at twcnty-eiglit years of age from re- strictions which she thought unnecessary, and were always inconvenient, she got round her a set of flattering friends, who, without any se- rious intention of murder, but merely urged by the ordinary motives of society, prevailed on ROSANNE. u lier to ascribe her previous ill health to the re- straint that had preserved her, and persuaded her to do what they might see she only wanted a pretext for doing. Under this guidance, she was, as she said, ' dragged out,' when she would not stay at home : she carried her sorrows to the card-table, and her cares to the theatre ; recol- lected ' the poor colonel,' wlien the luck was against her, or the house thin ; and comparing herself to Lady Randolph, led her young Nerval down the dance, with the flushing conscious- ness that all eyes were upon tlie interesting couple. ' Lord! lordl' cried old Mrs. Crabtree, * what is it people w^ould not do, if they were but sure of being looked at?' In these exertions, Mrs. Eugene closed her life ; and if she had any consolation in leaving the world, beyond that of her uncle Mr. Bellarmine's accepting the charge of Frank, it was derived from the sensation her early death w^ould excite^ If she had n,ot this, poor woman! it is difficult to find any she could have. NOTES. (1)^1 hope,* said the father of five children, * my friend Muzzy's sons will bleed him of a few of his thousands.' The auditors of this wish were two young men just entering on the world, and whom it behoved to be prudent. (2) It is earnestly requested that no compliment may be supposed due to invention in portraying Master Eugene's costume ; he is dressed in nothing which has not been worn before. 12 ROSANNE. (3) * Now, I protest solemnly,' said little Harry's mother to him, * as you are not up this morning by our breakfast, to- morrow you shall have none.' — * I commend you,' said her hus- band — * it is painful rigour, but it is necessary.' The good father, to support his wife's authority or her spirits, made a point of entering the breakfast-room, at the decisive moment as he expected to find it : when the first object that grieved him, was Master Harry embracing his bowl of milk with his left arm, and wielding his spoon with his right. — * My dear 1* said the more judicious parent. — * Nay, do not scold me/ said mantma aloud — * it is such a dangerous thing to baulk children of their regular meals,' — * Should you not have re- collected this before you protested solemnly?* — ' Ah! I knew you would scold ; but my Harry will be a good boy, and love his dear own mother — won't you, Harry ? Come, let me kiss your dear pig's face, you little beastikin.' — Harry nodded a sneer to his mother ; and his countenance said, * I defy you^ Don/ as soon as it was prudent to be brave, (4) If ever a restitution of expressions is proposed, similar to that of the daw's borrowed feathers, some of these will be claimed by a celebrated parliamentary orator, who, invited with his bride to the house of an old friend, and, after great want of punctuality, being requested to name any hour of the day or night, when he should be at leisure to dine, re- plied, ' My dear Sir, it is impossible fae can be tied down to such bread-and-cheese notions.' It is difficult to find a terra by which to describe ' un-bread-and-cheese notions ;' — but of these lawless professors of that which cannot be defined, it might fairly be asked, What fruit have ye now of those things whereof ye were then not ashamed? Does society forge any such shackles as such people rivet on themselves ? (5) It is to be hoped that the useful appellation borrowed from our exemplary neighbours on the other side the water, and designating a character not very analogous to that of this country, will never be dropped. There is but one lady amongst ROSANNE. 1^ us, and she, we may boast, is not English, who is privileged in saying, * I must have men about me ;* but we all can say, * We must have heaux^ and this is, in many other instances, one of the great recommendations of the Gallic language- Things may be said, and are said in it, which, without this wrapping cobweb, would not be tolerated in good society. The convenience of the term here alluded to, was forcibly ex- perienced by an excellent mother, who, careful to preserve a little girl of the best dispositions from the mischief of play- fellows, kept neighbours and friends aloof, and at last yielded only to the admission of two little cousins, from whom no- thing was to be apprehended. * They were such nice girls I brought up under such a pattern-mother!' Visiting-day came ; the delights of it commenced, but the city-mice were not interested in their country-cousin's sports and pastimes ; they eyed mamma, and, under a pretence suggested bj puerile craft, drew their Httle hostess behind a screen, scarcely reaching a situation of safety, before, in an audible whisper and ludicrous imperfection of speech, the elder said, * Av you dot a beau? My ma' thaith we rautht all av beauth.'— ' Come to me^ my dear,' said mamma. U ROSANNEi CHAPTER ir. Young Eugene, now more than ten years old, was not insensible to his loss; but none of the feelings his mother had cultivated in his mind, applied to it : little, therefore, of his great-uncle's eloquence was called out to convince him that it was folly to grieve : he merely asked him ^ if sorrow for his mother would bring her to life again ;' and when the boy showed his know- ledge of physics by answering in the negative, his relation commended his discernment, and drew the onlyjust conclusion from the premises, * that sorrow was useless ;' to which, with the promise of a famous poney, and an observa- tion, that, ' had his mother lived, she would have made a fool of him,' the young gentleman assented. With his great-uncle, now become his guar- dian, Frank Eugene removed to Mr. Bellarmine's estate in one of the midland counties, where he was then living in all the enjoyments of which he was, by nature, taste, or education, capable, surrounded by a neighbourhood of field-sports- men and * excellent shots,' whist-players, duck- hunters, hard drinkers, and fastidious eaters. In his family he insulted all decency, by placing a housekeeper at the head of his table, a natural son at the bottom of it, and a daughter, very ROSANNE; ij slenderly related to her brother, at his own right hand; and this, not from any anxiety to lessen the disgrace his vices and follies had inflicted^ but from thorough shameless insensibility, and with a view of getting rid of his illegitimate pro- geny on better terms, by showing that he con- sidered them himself The housekeeper ruled in more situations than at table : the young lady was indulged in dress and frivolous accomplish- ments, as a lure to such men as frequented his house: the son, shame to say! had been be- stowed on the church, because there was a small advowson on the estate, for the vacancy of which he was waiting, in a pitiable state of de- pendence on a temper formed out of the dregs of all sorts of passions. The ill humour of an old libertine is the only fragment of a ruined mind that can claim re- spect : it is the only proof of a rational judgment that has survived his practice. Self-compla- cency, whatever his natural endowments, would rank him with the lowest order of fools ; whereas a good, hearty, consistent, never-failing quarrel with himself, shows that he has not made his elec- tion ' nemine dissentiente,' and that, of counsel against himself, he is of opinion with the better part of the world. So far, therefore, Mr. Bellar- mine was a respectable man ; but as the means he pursued to abate this self-hostility were ex- actly those most calculated to increase it, he was apparently and to common observ^ation, ra- ther wiser in theory than in practice. 16 ROSANNE* At the time when his young relative became a part of liis family, this illegitimate son, who had been just ordained, was enduring all that the jealousy of the housekeeper and the insolence of her sub-lover, the butler, who acted as 'maitre d'hotel,' could inflict on a feeling mind : no- thing could be more precarious than his pro- spects; nothing could be oftener threatened than bis future provision, and even his abode in the house; and had not the young man beerr early inured to hardships, his situation must have been intolerable ; but he was useful, and he was endured ; and he had been taught to know, that to be endured was the highest good fortune to which he could aspire. To get rid of him during the age of boyhood, and to lit him, at the least possible expense, to be provided for in the cheapest way, he had been transplanted from his mother's lodging in the market-place of the next town, to one of those frugal schools in the north of England, whither parents seem allured to send their children, by the diliiculty of seeing them, and the chance of their never returning (l). The science and prac- tice of poverty were here taught to perfection, but without anv blame attaching: to the con- tractor. Parents were informed what could 7iot be afforded, and all was afforded for which they stipulated. The discipline was of a veiy whole- some description ; but time was not lost, pupils were not neglected, and it was altogether a 3 ROSANNE. «i7 very proper place for boys circumstanced as was poor little Enos Lithe, who, designated f^'om his mother, had been fairly registered in the squire's parish for what he was, and, as his father wit- tily observed, ' must make the best of it.' Perhaps he owed much to the repetition of words, importing that he was to rely on nothing; for to no other species of exhortation could be traced a spirit of exertion and industry, which soon distinguished him, and in the course of a few years made him rather the assistant than the pupil of his master, who, kindly disposed towards him, was liberal of such advice as he thought most likely to be serviceable in his dependent situation. If it was advice rather suited to the bondman than to the free, the error originated in the small tract of observation allowed his in- structor: he had seldom in those who ' went on the plan' of Mr. Bellarmine, seen any character but the oppressor ; wherefore, and to do him justice, ' without making any extra charge,' he taught, on principle and with great success, the accomplishment * submission.' There were not trees enough near his dwelling to allow of his pointing to the oak and the willow; and the fable is not in Ph^drus ; but he could, with- out the aid of allegory, and even without recol- lecting Prior's Merry Andrew, impress on hi3 pupil's mind that admirable counsel, * Eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue/ VOL. I. ,C 18 ROSANNE. Poor Lithe's usefulness was his fortune. Ih assisting others, he far more assisted himself; and though he could not, as in greater schools, sell his wits, — for here were none able to buy,— he lait them willingly, and, without usury, made large interest. — Removed to the university on terms of frugality that disgraced him, he felt the full value of his acquired habits of application, which stood to him in the stead of all expensive modes of passing his time, and when understood, conferred on him a credit even with those least like him, which he could not have purchased : he crossed no man's path ; he came in no man's way : he made pretensions to nothing but what he saw, with few exceptions, under-rated ; and submissive to all, and again useful to some, he was ' endured.' All this had very duly and opportunely pre- pared the mind of poor Lithe to accommodate itself to Mr, Bellarmine's modes of life, without sharing in the vice of tliem, or showing oifence at them, and to undertake, for no emolument but a continued endurance of him, the educa- tion of young Eugene, but it was undertaken under restrictions that ought not to have be(3u imposed : he was to interfere with nothing but * his books.- Such a fine boy was not to have his genius and spirit cramped by ' parsons' cant — his morals his guardian would take care of him- self, and manners were not to be iearnt of one R O S A N N E. 19 \vho had been kept cheap at college, and had seen nothing of life. With the power to do much and ably, Mr. Lithe was the slave of ignorance and ineffici- ency ; and the subjugation could not have been carried further, without destroying those claims to respect which gave him the power to serve. JBnt even from such situations, a sense of right antl a free spirit will rouse a man ; and he was not to be commended for his acquiescence, when, in relinquishing the care of his pupil's mind, he virtually agreed to see Christianity insulted, and to take no part in her cause. But the injury to his feelings was greater than to his taste ; and he still hoped his unwill- ing forbearance might be atoned for. He strove to under-rate his powers, and to per- suade himself that, where he must not attempt, he could not have accomplished : he felt him- self a slave, and he acted like one. To a mind like this, the occupation of teach- ing a very well endowed boy was far from bur- densome. Young Eugene soon did his tutor ctedit, and made him bless anew the master who had„ by never sparing him, saved him from all the paltry necessities of sparing himself. His pupil was quick, sceptical, and shrewd, and any one detection of insufficiency would have for- feited for ever his respect, and freed him from all obligation to submit; but he had not yet been so fortunate as to find himself better in* € 3 «0 ROSANNE. formed than his instructor ; therefore he was content to proceed; and the gratification of his guardian's pride by his attainments, was another buttress to Mr. Lithe's confidence. But when the 3^oung gentleman had completed his four- teenth year, and Mr. Lithe began to hope he might be sent with him to the university in which he himself had gained applause, the pre- dominance of the guardian's example, the com- pany to which Eugene had been already intro- duced, and his ungoverned inclinations, though he looked with contempt on the coarse manners of the house, had rendered him scarcely a desi- rable charge to any man who had conscience : and Mr. Lithe had already prepared himself with terms on which alone he could accept the dis- tinction, when circumstances taught him a new lesson — the folly of providing against that which may never happen. The incumbent of the living on Mr. Bellar- mine's estate died, and the patron being at that time absent from home on a sliooting and con- vivial party, the pleasures of which Frank was to share, Mr. Lithe, having written a respectful letter announcing the event, was perfectly at leisure to build castles in the air, and to project his comfortable establishment in the parsonage- house, with a very deserving young woman, the grand-daughter of his old master, between whom and himself there was an understanding, tacit at present, — and, as they at least hoped, 5 ROSANNE. 21 suspected by no one : he had mused in the house, unconscious of the close of evening, till the ser- vants had warned him of the hour of repose : he had worn the grass under a row of old elms till the earth was bare, deliberating how he should break to the several parties concerned, the secret of his love : he had fancied all obstacles remov- ed : he had heard himself preaching from the now-vacant pulpit : he had warmed himself with the prospect of emancipation, of domestic enjoyment, respect, and applause; and perhaps all this had given an air of novel happiness to his features, when the old gentleman returned ; — for he seemed to have particular pleasure in telHng him of the insubordination of Eugene, which he laid entirely to his charge, and of the revenge he had taken by selling the presentation which otherwise he had, as he said, ' bona fide' intended for him. The insubordination of the pupil had pro- ceeded to the violent length of quitting a dull drinking party, whose low excesses every day disgusted him, with a dissipated young man, son to one of the members of it, and betaking him- self w^hen it was spring-tide with his purse, to London, under the guidance of his new friend ; and in London he now was, irreclaimable by any of the menaces of his guardian, who, resenting instead of soothing, was beginning to reconcile himself to his absence, and to his going his own way to the dominions of Satan. But Lithe had c 3 22 R O S A N N E. better feeling ; and he, at his own ri^sk, niaile a journey to London, — found out the truant, — 'and induced him to return. * I will tell you what, Lithe,' said the old gentleman, when Eugene and he had shaken hands : — ^ you put me in mind of a thing I re- member in London when I was a bo v. A tvuer had got loose at the Tower, and was running about on the tiles. — The officers on guard were told of it, and were humming and hawing in their wise way — for soldiers, you know, are al- ways fools, — to think how it should be got back again ; and lo and behold ! in came the keeper's daughter, a nice cherry-cheeked young girl, and she says, " Now, gentlemen, only let me go up upon the tiles, and I '11 fetch him down ;" — and verily so she did : for fche took a bit of meat to him, and he followed her like a lamb.' In the humour poor Lithe was in, this was as acceptable an expression of gratitude as any otlier he could expect. Eugene, in his little travels, had picked up ^ wish to attempt greater ; and he now made it a condition of his good behaviour that he shoulc^ be allowed to accompany the friend from whom he had been separated, to one of the thenfashiou^ able universities of Germany. To this, as his uncle knew, if possible, still less of German universities than of those of his own country, ho made no objection, provided Lithe, would R O S A N N E. «3 make one of the party.— This was arranged ; and Eugene felt encouraged in stating his wishes, or rather his demands. NOTE. ( 1 ) * Sir,* said a celebrated professor of one of the fine arts, to a friend who asked after the health of his family, * I have lost two out of three boys— very fine boys—that I sent to a school where they take them at twelve pounds a year one with another,— Sir, they fed them with corrupt food.' Was the contractor the only aggressor in this instance? c 4 U ROSANNE. CHAPTER III. Arrived at that seat of learning, bearing the now mirth-exciting title of the U — niversity of Gottingen(l), Mr. Lithe was comforted under his secret sorrow by perceiving a pride which he was disposed to call manly and English, in- fluence his pupil to distinguish himself. Per- haps he too precipitately concluded that a young man disposed to apply to his studies where the majority were idle, must be equall}'^ unlike them in other points of principle and practice. Lithe knew nothing of the world — how should he?^ — it is a knowledge that does not reside in the houses of those who fancy themselves the mo- nopolizers of it merely because they dare run counter to all experience. — 'T is not Anacreon's boast that he and he alone knows how to dispel the cares of life, enjoy its pleasures, and defy its pains, that can make Anacreon a guide to any good the world has to offer : — the means he discloses are not those which lead to the end proposed ; and the lore of Mr. Bellarmine was no more informing, and something less elegant. Lithe was therefore easily duped, and persuaded that, while Eugene did him credit in the schools, he could nowhere discredit himself. Finding in the then state of his mind, no gra- tification in the search for or participation of ROSANNE. t^ amusement, he, as soon as the hours of study were over, committed the youth to his owa keeping, or that of persons still less to be trust- ed, satisfied with telling him that * he relied ou his honourable conduct ;' and happy when the door was shut with this disturbance to his bit- ter meditations on the wrong side of it, he spent in solitude and sadness those hours which if he had been capable of thinking on more subjects than one, he might have guessed were not the most profitable of his pupifs valuable time. Eu- gene had only at his return to find fault with the past evening, and Lithe's next dispatch home added this ' nice attachment to moral virtue' to his other excellent qualities. In the track of German studies, Eugene could distinguish himself without effort : quick of in- tellect, rapid in committing to memory; pre- sumptuous in conclusions, bold in assumptions, and stiff in opinions, he distanced all those who brought only common abilities, even if joined to industry, and needed but the vanity he pos- sessed, to be talked of as a prodigy. To his fellow-students it appeared incredible that he should have time for pleasures such as he pur- sued; — the companions of his hours of relaxation wondered how he found leisure for study : he would have lost some credit had he boasted of what Nature had done for him — so he only smiled at their astonishment. ■*■ Taught by the power to please, the import- 56 ROSANNE. ance of pleasing, he wore his distinctions with all the graces of condescension ; and manners, naturally good, joined to a figure of no common character of elegance, and improved by all that his own taste and the profession of refinement could do, gave him every recommendation to favour that constitutes popularity. Flattery fixed him in this agreeable humour ; and he was called ' the amiable Englishman,' till he learned that to seem amiable and to be English M'^ere means to some enjoyments from which those, even with superior claims, were sometimes ex- cluded. At the end of two years, he obtained, on his tutor's good report of him, his guardian's per- mission to visit not only France and Italy, but the higher classic ground of Europe and Asia, with his young friend and a favourite Cicerone. Lithe, now no longer wanted, was glad to be excused from rousing out of his increasing de- jection, and fixed himself for life, by accept- ing a situation which afforded a subsistence where he was, and fortunately spared him the pain of returning to his dependence, and to that, country where were now recently buried the re- mains of her with whom he had hoped to share ian English parsonage, and who in silence and suf- fering had withered under disappointment (2). It was as little in Mr. Bellarmine's ' way,' as he himself confessed, to direct his ward's con- duct in his travels, as it had been to guide him ROSANNE. 07 in his learninp- : his advice to him had always been of an indefinite description ; and if it had any meaning, it meant that he should return home all that all persons had ever returned. His letters had begun about Locke and Newton, Bo- lingbroke and Fielding, Churchill and Pope, as objects of emulation: they had then diverged into hints for the character of ' a fine fellow;' tlieu recommended respect for ' the old Dons ;' — then perhaps prescribed good hours and healthy exer- cise, and inquired how he was mounted : — the whole concluding with an account of some mon- strous excess, or of the changes in the studs or the inhabitants of the circumjacent country. But once out of school, though he could not track his route, he was disposed to give his ho- nest Frank what he called ' a little of his expe- rience :' — and to do this, he had begun an af- fectionate epistle, when recollecting that ' his honest Frank's beat,' and that which had been his, probably lay a different w^ay, he thought it prudent to consult a London friend, as to ' what was the mode just then ;' and with only the ^rouble of transcribing the reply to his queries, he could then name that intellectual posture-. master, the late Earl of C , and the female^ sex in general, as the only guides to this worlcfj^ good things. Against any error in what he did not fully comprehend, he secured himself by adding affectionately, that he had only to refer to bis own judgment, and he would learn what 28 R O S A N N E. would please him^ — he did not want him to be * an old woman :' — he would have him * think for himself,' and ' not led by the nose by priests and book-worms ; — every man had a right to his opinions, and an Englishman most of all : — he would have him believe in nothing till he understood it, and was satisfied it was true^ and on this principle, as he should be very sorry to see him return from foreign parts a papist, he thought he had better let the churches alone, and lay them aside till he was settled at home; for he was sure it was better to have no church than a bad one ; and he did not think there was any good to be found in that line where he was.' Assisted by this luminous guide, his own strong powers, a spirit of victory, and a con- scious superiority, young Eugene availed him- self of the authority of travel, which stamped him of the world, and its highest departments ; and he returned to England to take possession of his own property, which, with the habits he had formed, some debts he contracted, and the scheme of life he had intended to pursue, was not large enougli to make him forget the relation in which he stood to Mr. Bellarmine. He had in his absence done nothing to offend him, and he presented himself before him, what- ever could gratify his pride in general; for of the detail of his pretensions the old gentleman was but an indifferent judge ; but his friends ROSAMNE. 59 ^nd associates admired the young man, and hearing that ' he ought' to be proud of him, and being propitiated by his exterior, his satisfac- tion was not disturbed. Presuming, as indeed he might, that the world was a very different thing at that time from what he knew it when at Frank's age, and not choosing, as he said to his confidential friends, to appear * snuffy,' and ' be left behind in the basket,' he, as soon as he could catch the tone of his nephew's opinions, whipt before them, and tried to lead a trump higher than any in the hands of the tutors whom he had quitted, by advancing scepticism and infidelity into abso- lute bravado, and a disregard of the opinions of the w^orld, into a contempt for that of every individual (3).' The ale of the country had, on Frank's arrival, retreated before the French wines of the recondite cellar ; and not to dis- grace his polished nephew, was a new and anxious solicitude; in like manner the coarse wit, the roaring jokes, and the unveiled immo- desty of his table, now were banished for a more jefined ridicule of whatever restrains the de- cent, or is prized by the judicious ; and though some of the veterans of his chosen band showed themselves shy of ' Monsieur,' and declared their aversion to ' a thing neither French nor English,* their places were soon better filled by persons of the travelled man's society, who did more Ijonour to the taste, if not to the morals, of the ^0 ilOSANNE. host. Their encomiums on the liberality of a great-uncle increased the folly they flattered ; and Mv. Bellarmine, at the head of his table, and at his years, was not ashamed to recommend as duty, the indulgence of vicious inclination, or to refer to the spite and envy of ' the black jiheep' of his country, the party made against the great charter of mankind which gave them per- fect freedom of sentiment, conversation, and action. If it be true, that ' conscience makes cowardg of us all,' there must bo' a large part of the world doubly cowards ; for there is about certain per- sons, who perhaps are not aware of it, a power of control over others, against which nothing but virtue itself will stand. The man who storms abroad, shall at home be under awe of one who ought to fear him : — a querulous wife, a spoiled child, an ill-ruled servant, nay perhaps the peevish temper of something raised by ca- price from penury, shall condemn to silence and servility, the Thersites of a neighbourhood ; and were the ruler of a family to be sought, in many houses it would be found of a fir lower rank and importance than * the little boy in the cradle/ iVIr. Bellarmine, who in his neighbourhood as g, magistrate, a landlord, a master, was sufficiently tyrannical, seemed subservient to his nephew : l^e was all eyes, all ears towards him : in private and in public he was sure of his approbation, hU ROSANNE. 31 coiYimendatiDii, Ins concurrence — why so? Why, Mr. Bellarmine knew that in Frank's absence he had married his kousekeeper, and he was afraid Frank would be angry. And, in truth, he was not absurd in his apprehensions ; for as soon as he had discU:)sed the mighty secret, which was of itself coming out, and notwithstanding some expressions of contrition and remorse which he hoped would weigh with liis rekition, Mr. Eu- gene, shocked at the disgrace which now^ so pe- culiarly affected his rising reputation, betook himself to the oblivious pleasures of the metro- polis, with a resolution, delivered in a very * be- coming' tone, to ^ cut the connexion.' It wasr in vain that friends attempted to expostulate- there w'as nothing risked by it, for the increase of family was daily expected, NOTES. ( I ) See the incomparable parody of a thorough-German tragedy in the * Anti-Jacobin,' one of those invaluable pro- ductions, which, while they made us laugh, contributed to save us as a nation from revolution, and as accountable crea- tures from the worst delusion. It is to be hoped that no- thing will ever again recommend into fashion the corrupt part of German literature. There is enough that is innocent, if not very informing, in the language, without resorting to th* luscious lore of a heated imagination; but we must not listen to those who, agreeing in the just condemnation of that which the Anti-Jacobin holds up to ridicule, make an excep- tion for the writer of * The Sorrows of Werter,* or even of * Oberon,' The author who has once written licentiously, can St ROSANNE. cl^m no confidence when he writes otherwise, therefore he can have no credit. And where there is even no intention of doing harm, tliere is in the works of some German writers a consequent mischief, which perhaps they did not suspect. The Idylls of Gesner will not lessen a parent's trouble, or promote a daughter's happiness. (2) In portraying the catastrophe of poor Lithe's honest love, it is impossible not to call to mind the many instances tjf similar fate. It is undoubtedly the duty of a moral writer to lean to the side of parental authority ; and the happiness of young persons is not disregarded in this tendency; but no authority can deserve support when it ceases to be merciful ; And whoever has witnessed the arbitrary disposition of pa- rents, when pride, ambition, a spirit of hostility, or perhaps Only caprice, has made them oppose the wishes of a son or a daughter, will be cautious of deciding that gray hairs must give wisdom. Few sights are more melancholy than that too often to be seen, a young woman, worn out in attendance on peevish old age, and refused permission to marry, till at length, youth, beauty, and health will stay no longer, and she is, by a hard-earned victory over obstinacy, or the more merciful interposition of a death she still bewails, allowed to enter on the duties of a station requiring the prime of life, the skeleton of departed charms, without spirits to enjoy her emancipation, or vigour of constitution to rear a family. A daughter has, after an unreasonable father has reduced her and a worthy man almost to the grave, relinquished all hope of ample fortune, and eloped at forty, to live on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. And the forgiveness of an union which unfounded prejudice alone had opposed, has been made to depend on an heir to an estate ! — Do not such pa- rents create the disobedience of children? (3) In an age certainly not deficient in the great duties of beneficence, it is matter of regret to see what may be called a Birmingham-imitation of charity obtruding, and, tliough ROSANNE. S3 not intentionally, obstructing the operation of what is good by denying the existence of what is evil : those who have no other desire than to assist the diffusion of the only solid hap- piness this world can afford — the hope of obtaining the appro- bation of God — are considered as the gloomy spies of human nature : what they assert as fact, and subscribe with their name, is denied and questioned by anonymous censors ; and it is supposed that they read the record of frailties with a mag- nifying-glass. The consequence of this will be, if any conse- quence is allowed it, the lessening the authority of exhorta- tion. That we may not be deemed liarsy we shall be content to be triflers ; and that must pass as, at best, but agreeable fiction, which is plain matter of fact. Mr. Bellarmine would speak to much more purpose, if he spoke his own language, or even that but last week uttered by a descendant of a man who, as far as finite judgment can decide such a point, was * meet to be called an apostle.' 3i R OS ANNE- CHAPTER IV. In London, Mi\ Eugene found the importance of all that nature — for we must not talk of Provi- dence—rand education, and himself, had done for him. He had visited Paris, indeed, at a period too early for the advantages it afterwards had to communicate ; but still it was at no bad sea- son. Voltaire's apotheosis had taken place, and he and the other legislators of infidelity had laid trains, of which they had calculated the explo-. sions; and in waiting for which there were amuse- ments well suited to a mind formed or biassed like that of Frank Eugene (1). Every thing; was, even then, tending to what we have wit- nessed, and it had his best wishes; and the inti-. macies in which h^ had lived, and the opinions he had had opportunity of establishing on the closest observation, though the former were with persons of the most dangerous principles, and the latter utterly unfit for an Englishman to pro-r fess, gave him a high reception amongst those who, like sparks flying off from a central heat, are distinguished only by their efforts to abanr don the source of their existence (2). To introduce himself to general favour and particular attention, Eugene had every mean that vanity and ambition could covet : he bore about him, with all the external recommenda« R O S A N N E. 1^ tions of a man of high fashion, and the advan- tages of youth, a character of good fortune, a sort of luckiness that made many decline com- petition, and leave him to walk over the course, in pursuit of pleasure, or the gratification of pride. To symmetry of person, powerful agi- lity, adroitness in what is useful, and taste in whatever can adorn, he added ardour and confi- dence ; and fluency of speech attending on his wish to stand well with the world, he obtained, amongst his own sex, the distinguishing appel- lation of * the accomplished,' and with the other sex the more significant title of ' the irresistible' Eugene : he bowed to the former ; he smiled at the latter. The first impressions which his mind had re- ceived were not yet effaced : Mrs. Eugene might have recognised her dear, interesting, attaching Frank, in the accomplished and irresistible Eu- gene. She had intended, indeed, in referring him to his own feelings for his guidance, to teach him, or at least to give him a hint, to con- sider those of others; and fancying herself se- curing his tenderness if she could render his af- fections very susceptible, she concluded he must be amiable if she laid him open to all those weapons which are directed against an amiablQ character. But it is one thing to feel, another to feel ia the right place, and still another to feel in a proper degree ; and as her directions were ge- S6 R O S A N N E. neral, they were, in these two latter points, some- times defective. When once those feelings took a wrono; incUnation, or became diseased, all their enersrv was converted into evil. On this system, therefore, Mrs. Eugene's dear Frank was, notwithstanding his natural endowments and finished polish of manners, still a humoursome child, who set his heart, at best, on comparative trifles, and listening unconsciously to the echo of his mother's injunctions, would go further than a wise man to buy— -that very undesirable commodity — repentance. His associations with his own sex were of the most elegant kind : the politics, the diplomacy, the literature, the arts and sciences, the amuse- ments, the follies, and vices of European capi- tals, furnished his ideas, and rendered his con- versation briUiant and attractive ; and conse- quently, or of course, in the season of engage- ments no one was so deeply bespoken as * the accomplished, irresistible Eugene.' Open to all, easy to all, putting every one in good humour with himself, he attracted good humour to him; and sufficiently versatile to leave every one something new and almost paradoxical to say of him, he was compared to a dish seasoned to the palate of every guest ; and his company was sought as the ' bocca dolce' of the day. But in his female friendships he was less fa- cile : here he had a style from which he never R O S A N N E. 37 departed; and though he received with grate-" ful humiHty, the incense whose vapour floated round him, it could never intoxicate his senses or warp his feelings, which, still true to their first direction, allowed not a moment's regard to any principle but that of pleasi«ng himself. There have been travelled men, who, return- ing to their country after a long suspension of its domestic comforts, have seen again, with very favourable dispositions, the females of Great Bri- tain ; but Eugene had not yet learned to prize domestic comfort. He talked of love, he sung of love; but he meant to be understood as mean- ing passion existing for a time without a deter- minate object, seeking, hovering, and at last alighting, yet still wayv/ard, fickle, and prone to new pursuit. It was l3aic love : he hoped in sapphics, he desponded in alcaics, he resented and flew off in iambics ; and with a bias that had corrupted even his studies, Greece in its subju- gation and effeminacy became the fancied arena of his delights. He wooed an ideal Aspasia, lan- guid, delicate, soft, accomplished, learned — de- voted to the consolation of man, of one man, and that man Frank Eugene : he painted her to his vi- ijion in rainbow-colours on a cloud, and he gazed on this variegated phantom of a heated imagina- tion, till the harmonious colouring of the Di- vine Artist, and the blended tints of his hand- maid Nature, were dead shades to his sight : he D 3 5S ROSANNE. had, in truth, spoiled his taste when he fancied himself refining it: he talked of sublimated effervescence, and did not recollect what subli* mation will bring out, or that, with regard to the world into which he must descend from his sub- limation, he w^as talkingthe most puerile but not the most harmless nonsense. The search for an Aspasia was not so intense as to leave no leisure or destroy inclination for minor pursuits, bearing the same proportion of worth to legitimate attachments, as does the factitious bijou of the lapidary to the production of the earth ; but they served to keep life from stagnation ; and as they were not impeded by the fetters of human or divine laws, they were, of course, pleasant. * But come,' said good old Dr, Justamond, when Prank Eugene was severely discussed in his hear- hig, by two ladies who had intended to be his uncle's heirs, * I demand mercy, though I offer no palliation, for Eugene. If you can prove that any body ever took the pains to put him in the right w^ay, I leave him to your plucking ; but if you cannot, excuse me, if I save my unqualified censure for those who have had every thing done for them, and yet are of no higher a rank in worthiness. I should turn your indignation on myself, were I to name your favourite young iMalpas as a man whom I see with less pity. Do not tell me of his good heart ; 't is filled with popular aifectation — he knows the will of God, nOSANNE. S$) and takes care we should know that he does — more pains could not be bestowed on a lad*s moral and religious education than Were on his ; and though they were somewhat counteracted by the unfortunate death of his worthy father, and the pitiable state into which his mother sunk, there is no excuse for Malpas : he had had eighteen years of information and example^ and he chose to become blind and ignorant, or rather to sin with his eyes open. Now, for Frank Eu- gene there is this to be said : he had a fool for a father, a sentimentalist for his mother, a brute for a guardian, and a slave for a tutor ; and ex- cepting the short period you allude to, when he was at a baby-school, I know no opportu- nity that he has ever had of hearing by chance who made him. If ever he did get so far in ethics as to learn that robbery and murder are sins, I should think he must have made good use of opportunity : he will never be avowedly atrocious, because there is in his mind an equi- poise of false notions ; but yet, I think, there is that in Frank, which might, under very^ but it must be ^ver^y judicious management, bring him right. It must be female influence: much rests with the woman whom he marries.' Eugene had indeed formed his opinions in a great measure for himself: his mother could not add to the ^ Please yourself of the colonel, any other axiom than the * Consult your own J> 4 40 R O S A N N E. feelings' of her sensitive school; and what- ever the contempt he entertained for his great- uncle's experience of tlie world while training in his house, that sentiment was harmony com- pared with the decided aversion he had nourish- ed ever since he knew of Mr. Bellarmine's foolish match. Even poor Lithe's tuition had but a small share in leading his mind; — despising Mr. Bellarmine, he questioned the soundness of his judgment in the limitation he had imposed on his dependent, and he undervalued the dependent for his obedience to the limitation. Tliey were only vague principles which he eould pick up in foreign countries : to be use- ful, they must apply to all others, and the ge- neral application destroyed again their indivi- dual usefulness : he was therefore in very good ])reparation to receive the documents of his ad- miring friends ; and listening most readily to those whose natural situation gave them prece-, dence, he soon adopted those artificial distinc- tions which have since been current in * a certain world,' and convinced himself that life without folly is existence without animation ; that there is one code of morals for the aristocracy, and another for their tradesmen ; that the refined edu- cation of the higher classes intends them to break certain commandments; and that no man ought to wish to live exempt from the practice, be it what it may, of the society into which his 5 ROSANNE. 41 rank or talents, or any cause less to be traced, may throw him. His select friendships had led him i»to situa- tk)ns of what is called delicacy, that is to say, where, having no rule of guidance but the always capricious and often corrupt opinion of the world, the chances are in favour of the worst consequences succeeding to endeavours of ima- ginary correctness. He w^as the last appeal in all the etiquette of a duel — he was a powerful ne- gotiator where some breach in the low fence of common honour and honesty was to be made good by commutation; he kindly spent a whole morning with his friend Sir Adonis Feverly, to support him under the deep affliction of having his wife and ins mistress weeping in two oppo- site closets, while he made his election between them ; and he undertook the hot service of standing between him and the public cry of shame, and pertinaciouly contended that Sir Adonis was a most pitiable being, — till his voice was drowned by that of ' the seven thousand who had not bent the knee to Baal,' but still con- tended, that a man with a wife and seven chil- dren has no right to moot such a point. Another useful service he meant to have ren- dered, but for this he was a quarter of an hour too late: he intended to have been the by-stander to whom Lord Granite might have laugh^;d while writing the order on his banker for t\v^ payment of large damages of a nature that needi 4^ ROSANNE* not to be particularized; but being detained by a question between a friend and a jockey, his lordship's groom had the job. Three spring-winters elapsed, and the world bad not learned from its favourite what to seek in the choice of a wife; other arrangements it could not profit by. Every possible hint had been given to him in every possible way by every possible description of persons. If he talk- ed of going abroad, Mrs. Promptly regretted how ill her daughter Julia looked, and thought nothing but a foreign climate or a voyage would save her. If he made inquiries of a rural nature, Miss Ambient wondered how people could live in London; and if he decorated his town-resi^ dence, old Colonel Underhand jocosely oifered one of his girls to do the honours of it. His intimate friends saw the vanity of these at- tempts : his taste was known, and he was said to be Aspasia-hunting* But as a couple of barn-door fowls hare some- times been brought home by an unlucky spor-ts-* man in default of partridges, so turned out Mr* Eugene's Aspasia-hunting ; for with every dis- position and every furtherance to the pleasing himself; — after leading many a simple girl into a mistake, and many a more simple mother into egregious folly — after saying to one every thing short of * Will you marry me?' to an^ other something yet more tender, and to a third something^ yet more cruel, he suffered himself^ no S ANNE. 43 in contradiction to all his axioms, all his fan- cies, all his reveries, and all his preferences, to be enchained by the un-Grecian, un-Aspasian, and very every-day accomplishments and beauty of a lady whom the world might have called the interesting and the fascinating Mrs. Lotus, but who having been only shown the town by her husband, and hurried into retirement before she was known, even by name or sight, seemed to court him to fulfil the injunctions of both his parents. This lady, who at the time of his being caught, was the wife of his friend ! he married, after paying a few thousand pounds into the sheriff's court, and going through a slight ceremony in the house of peers, pending which ' Mrs. Eugene's* visiting-tickets were en- «:ravin2:. In this connexion he set out in life a married man. NOTES. ( 1 ) As the attentions now bestowed on persons deserving of no confidence, prove that nothing is implied by them, there can be no danger of doing mischief in indulging the curiosity excited equally by bad and good people, by giving some parti- culars in the manners and habits of Voltaire, as detailed in the circumstances of a visit made to him at Ferney, in the year 1763, by a French nobleman of distinguished consideration. The Count de — having a wish to see this extraordinary man, and being stationed with his regiment at Schlestat in Al- sace, sent a message to him, requesting permission to wait on him. The overture being accepted with many acknowledg- ments of the hvnour conferred, the count, attended by the 4i ROSANNE. officer next in command to him, and another friend, repaired on the appointed day to Forney, and arriving about noon, ibund Vohaire, notwithstanding it was July, and very hot weather, sitting by a great fire, dressed in a Jarge wig, over which was a cap of blue veWet embroidered; he wore a night- gown of rich brocade, a superb waistcoat, rolled-up stockings, and slippers : his reception of the visit indicated great satis- faction. At half past one, he begged the patience of his guests while he retired to dress, which he intimated was not his daily custom, but a mark of respect to them : he lamented the fashion of late hours, which obliged him to postpone his di- ning till two o'clock. At dinner, the four gentlemen were joined by Madame Denys, Voltaire's niece, and a young lady of the name of Comeille, whom he professed to worship for being of the poet's family. She had nothing to distinguish her in conversation, or to take off attention from Madame Denys, who, homely in her person, seemed to seek a share of literary fame, by associating herself with Voltaire in speaking of his w'orks — thus, ' When we were writing Zaire* — * When we had finished Mahomet.' In conversation, Vol- taire's manner was iadescribably singular : his voice w^as a continued howl, and his action w^as that of raising his elbows even with his shoulders, w ith a motion like that of horizontal sawing ; and on whatever subject he spoke, he perpetually interrupted himself by howling out, in the most piteous ac- cents, * Ah je suis le vieux malade !* ' vous voyez le vieux ma- lade r The dinner was good, the fish the * Ombre chevalier' of the lake of Geneva. Vvhen they rose from table, he led his company round his kitchen-garden to the place he had pre-, pared for his interment, which was a pyramidal sarcophagus, . with tablets containing inscriptions dedicating it to God and its purpose, with his name and style, and blanks for dates. The ground underneath, was dug away to adniit the body. But while descanting on this preparation, he could not for- bear showing that he hoped it was in vain ; for he repeated many times, and in a tone of exultation, * Ah! ah! but they wiil not let me lie here : I know it — I know it.' R O S A N N E. 4S (2) If being cheated, gulled, imposed on, mis-led, made a fool, or a stalking-horse — if being any thing that is pro- verbially contemptible, can inflict disgrace, what must be felt by those, in this "and other countries, who were so desti- tute of common lense as ever to fancy one of the leaders in French philosophy a proper teacher in families? Thiebault, in his entertaining details of his twenty years' residence at the court of Berlin, says, that the father of six sons happening to read the ' Emile,' in time to educate his youngest son by it, adopted all its precepts ; and finding the lad turn out, as he styled him himself, *a monster,' he in a rage wrote to the philo- sophical quack, abusing his prescription. Rousseau, with an ef- frontery that ought to make his admirers blush, replied, that he had indeed expected his book to be read, but that * he had not flattered himself there could be a man so inconsiderate as to follow the advice contained in it.' Prince Dolgorucki, from whomThiebault had the anecdote, had seen the repl}^ * Incon- siderate' is a fair term of reproof on this occasion; but it would have been far too lenient had the * Nouvelle Heloi'se* been the work in question — a work of which the very beauties are impure; for they are only the decorations of a licentious wo- man, who must, or she would be hooted, resemble the chaste in some of her habiliments. Yet this book has been given by mothers to young men going into the world, and by fathers to young women when about to enter on its duties; and though the character of it may now have made it rather matter of re- proach than triumph to relish it, there is no security against the secret absorption of its juices, unless Avhere abetter taste than that for amusement is cultivated. As long as young women read by stealth, subscribe to libraries without Pa's knowledge, falsify the truth when questioned as to their em- ployments, and can like nothing better than the ' Gertrudes' and ' Rosannes' of the day, they are still in an unwholesome climate of the mind. But let them once, honestly and with- out enthusiasm, make the pleasing God their aim, his will their law, his commandments their delight, history their in- formation, and their duties their employments, they are safe ; but with nothing short of this, if they are to have all the ad- vantages of a modern education. 46 E O S A N N E. CHAPTER V. If such a marriage as Mr. Eugene's is to be spoken of in a work intended not to do mis- chief, it must be with all the infamy it deserves, and not at all accommodated to a rev^olution of opinions attempted in a quarter that, next to the church, was unsuspected. Nobody wonders at a French woman's telling us, with an imposing authority, what daily experience proves to be false, that works of genius descriptive of cen- surable manners can do no harm, because they make only a slight impression, or at Baron de Grimm's assertion, that books produce no effects; but it is very reasonable to do more than won- der, when an English judge, in his legal seat, becomes the apologist of the titled adulterer, and admits that the breach of a vow made be- fore God, is a venial oifence. If it ever could be, the instance under consideration was most unfortunate. The epithets, however strong, bestowed by a deceased legal sage, on a de- faulter of this kind, would quite as well; have fitted the client who had a judge for his advo- cate. Mr. Eugene must wait while an attempt is made to prevent the most fatal mischief conse- quent on so unauthorized a dispensation with the law of God. The sensation occasioned R O S A N N E. 47 amongst good people — who, after all, are tliQ majority — in hearing this opinion, deserves re- cording.— The newspapers of the day were read with disgust and alarm; — parents looked at one another, and felt themselves betrayed into the contempt of their children ; — recent wives fan- cied themselves cut off from the protection that is the price of obedience ; — daughters inquired as to the fact; and the worthiest of the superior sex found confidence in them abated. — Those about to enter on society, sought for an explana- tion of this new opinion, — and those about tQ quit it, felt, that * Nunc dimittis' was no can- ticle for their last moments. But it was not long that the public mind re-- mained stunned : it soon felt and proclaimed, that where the watch deserts or sleeps on his post, every master of a house must watch for himself, and for those intrusted to his charge : — and indignantly it rejected * the traditions of men,' when hostile to the law of God. Is it taking too great a liberty,^— for to speak evil of dignities — to abate the respect due to them, is not, like adultery, * a venial fault,' — is it going beyond the boundary of decorum to ask whether this license to sin was granted us because we were not wicked enough already ? — Did the splendidly licentious — did the common people — did the disgusting old men, who craAvl the earth, adding sin to sin, till it opens to re- ceive them — did the young, the weak, the pie-r. 4S R O S A N N E. thoric, tlie sceptical, the daring, want to be told either that a future life is a fable, or impu- rity no forfeiture of its blessings, — ^no fore- runner of its torments? — Was it a time to take tip the cause of ennobled atrocities ? — or was the common sense of the people of this country rated so very low as to make their applause the re- ward expected (1)? ]\luch might be said of the lofty eminence from which, and the circumstances under which, this new doctrine was promulgate.d. A little might be said — not a thousandth part of what was felt — on the unjust insinuation concerning him who, for half a century, ^ in an honest and good heart,' and with the veneration of all just men, ' ruled' us 'prudently with all his power '(2). Mrs. Eugene shall speak to facts. Here it may suffice to remind those not yet corrupted by legal authority, that if experience, or the information of the best accredited book exist- ing, is to be believed, it is at the risk of living under the sharp goad of conscience — of dying under horrors that, it is too little to say, cannot be described — and of awaking from the grave to the sensation of a fire that never ceases to burn, and a worm that never ceases to gnaw — that we shall listen to this bold license to sin. Let any oiie, of either sex, about to deliberate, thrust a hand into the fire, or sit bareheaded under the dropping of water; — the colonel and his assignation — Mrs. Lotus and all her blandish- ROSANNE. 49 nients would be gone in an instant — they would * make themselves air/ and if the pitiable sub- ject of temptation had only fortitude enough to enter into the closet, and there, thrown on the floor, could honestly exclaim, * My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me r' — an advo- cate even more mighty and more considerate than this dispenser, not of, but with, the law, might harangue and license in vain — and adul- terers and adul tresses, and all the shades of the infernal regions, might betake themselves to their own proper home, without adding one to the number (3). If this doctrine be thought too severe — if it be regarded as very vulgar to name without cir- cumlocution or qualification, the pains and pe- nalties of delinquency, nothing is proved but that the mischief has taken root. The better principled will perceive, that warnings and ex- tenuations cannot be issued in the same breath ; that, however we may pit}^ human frailt}-, our pity must not betray our trust. There is, per- haps, no story of illicit passion, nor, perhaps, is there any biography of a thief, that does not afford some pathetic appeal to ill-regulated feel- ing. Mr. Eugene's and Mrs. Lotus's tender- nesses for each other — their * hair-breadth 'scapes' — their virtuous struggles— their fated fall, might be made vastly pretty, and so con- trived as to turn all the blame on God Al- mighty — for why, as Frank's mother asked, does VOL, I* E ,50 R O S A ^' N E. He give passions, if not to be indulged? — But our ability to mislead is no impeachment of truth: — the case is as it was — the fire and the worm stand where they did — we all know the penalty, and no law of this or any other country, can abrogate it. The foolish question — for none but a fool ever asked it — Why are passions given us but to be indulged ? — must not go unanswered : — we must speak for ourselves if our teachers desert us. — We are — and this we all challenge — free agents : supposing, therefore, that inclinations entirely good were given us at our original formation, but that sin crept in and corrupted some of them — it will be granted that the corruption must bq resisted, and our free agency exerted, in the choice and rejection of the good and evil, on certain conditions placed before us. Or, sup- posing that, in the outset, three different species of inclination were bestowed on mankind, the first perfectly good, and therefore to be in- dulged ; — the second good to a certain poin,t, and beyond that, vicious ;— the third entirely bad, and therefore to be overcome : in the one of these latter cases, it is not unreasonable that we should have powers given us not safely to be used to their extent, or in the other even to any extent — and if the resistance is to be ac- counted to us 'for righteousness,' is there an ho- liest professor of Christianity, who would hesi- tate as to the course to be pursued (4)? ROSANNE. 51 Now, away with all cant about passioii, and .Sensibility, and delicate situations — as little ad- mission will be granted to any appeal from the low tribunal of this censure, or any insinuation that those so arguing know not the force and domination of the favourite passion of the poet$ ^—poetry has nothing to do with Christianity-— but it is a knowledge of the impulse that ex- cites the resistance; and all that the foolish plead as excuse for falling, the wise turn into defence against it. There is nothing so insinuating a$ the voice of the soft affections — and if it might be safely acknowledged, it may truly be said* nothing so pitiable as their effects : but let not this pity be understood as justification — let it be added, that there is nothing attended with cir- cumstanced so scandalous, so contemptible, so forlorn, — and all the pity that can be asked shaU be granted (5). But there are cases, where, whatever we may feel, we must not own that we have any feeling except that of horror and disgust. Should the words * venial' and * palliation pass our lips, they may sound, in ears that are open to listen t6 them, like * Go thou, and do likewise.'— Our au- ditors may not need twice bidding, and we may be called to account for bidding them. Not a syllable of this eloquence would ever have any effect, if it went as far as it ought to go, and, cither in the spirit of prophecy, or as E 2 5S ROSANNE. matter of authentic history, gave the cata- strophe of the tale it is exerted to adorn. There have been lives of emperors and empresses — lives of admirals — lives of dogs;— do pray let us have a few genuine and unvarnished lives of adultresses. Let them be pursued into their mi- serable haunts, or their more miserable splen- dour: let their employments, their amusements, their comforts, be investigated, as indexes of the mind within ; for from themselves not a word will be gotten:— let the resort to ardent spirits, the silent extinguisher of intolerable thought, be taken into the account — and let the world, if it must be injured by their crimes, be admonished by their punishment. Nothing is asked, nothing is needed, but the truth. There have been instances where shame and the absence of God's favour were not compa- tible with life. There was a countess, ages ago indeed, who, wasted by remorse, expired on hearing that the earl who had freed himself from her, was passing under her window (6) ; and there are, perhaps even now, some proofs that exile from the world is considered as worse than death ; but this is not the wholesome feeling of repentance (7). Let us see how much of this applies to * poor Mrs. Eugene ;' for as soon as her a fair was talked of, she was poor and pitiable in theJ estimation or the cant of a few. Frank Euvife to have afforded her. Mr. Lotus'S acquaintance never having Iain amongst the vicious, he was not inclined to sus- pect monstrosities of wickedness ; and if any one, by way of awakening his caution, had asked him his opinion of his friend Eugene, he would have answered, that Frank was the last man jn the world to do an unhandsome action, and he the last man upon earth against whom Frank would suffer one to be committed. Be this as it nmy, before even the sights of London had half satisfied the cravings of IMrs, Lotus's iriordinate appetite for them, and before lier name had begun to adorn the registers of R O S A N N E. 5a fashion, her husband found London did not agree with his cough, and with a want of attention which nothing could excuse, took liis wife into the country, without any invitation to Mv. Eu- gene. The omission was not unremarked, and it defeated its own purpose; for not doubting that it was intentional, and not daring to disregard it, a middle course was agreed on between the no\ir confidential friends, and Mr. Eugene was ad- mitted privately by the ladv— which conde- scension ended on his part as has been related. The consciousness that he had acted very unwisely in marrying thus, made i\Ir. Lotus conduct the business of releasing himself with as little publicity as possible; and in this un- ostentatious plan, Mr. Eugene p'. dently ac- quiesced- — The distribution of some hundred pounds, properly bestowed, and making a pretty article in a family account-book, kept the detail out of the newspapers : certain feelings on the ' part of the gentlemen, very different, yet not wholly unlike, robbed the lady of her celebrity; and the silence of the world showxd that a wo- man may be very infamous without being noto- rious. Mr. Lotus did not wish to obtrude him- self on notice as the dupe of a girl ; and Eu- gene's Aspasian taste had not been sufficiently consulted when he was inthrallcd, to leave him proud of his chains (9). m nosANXE. NOTES. (1) The Jisgraceful circumstance here recorded, may — ■' and it can no otherwise do any good — serve as a foil to make appear with greater lustre the deportment of another of our judges. * Mr. Justice ,' said a lady who saw him at- tending divine service on the circuit, ' seemed, during the whole time, to have no consciousness but that he was before his Maker.' — But for still more than ceremonial example the world is indebted to him : — the pressure of business has, iA his management of it, left time for literary pursuits of the most important kind; and the poor and the ignorant may reap advantage from his labours. — And, to quote another instance .^-in the extreme occupation of the bar, one of our first pleaders has compiled an admirable persuasive to a regular attendance at the Sacrament. It can be no mean view to po- pularity that makes a man publish, without his name, a tract that sells for half a crown a dozen ; and it is only the hope of having in some measure succeeded, that can make the sa!e of three thousand in nine months a matter of importance. (2) It was hinted in the course of this exertion of elo- quence, that our excellent monarch, — who will ever be, to those who fear God, an object of the highest honour and re- verence that can be paid to a human being, had not been as scrupulous as he might have been in his selections* Has it never yet been asserted that black is while ? or that two and two make six ^ because, with such assertions may this rank ; — if fifty years* experience is of any weight, or the directly contrary opinion of all who know any thing on the subject is of any value. To those who have not the feeling of loyalty, such mistakes, to call them by the gentlest name, may seem little important ; but in the eye of every person blest with this taste, it must appear matter of conscience to correct it. The private character of the king is not suffi- ciently known, nor will it ever be duly appreciated, till he is called to his * exceeding great reward.' But this may be 2 ROSANNE. 61 fKfrly proplieslecl, that whenever the day arrives which shaU release him, and deprive us of that which, God only know*, may have been our Palladium — a righteous man, for whose aake this kingdom has been spared — the mourning will, in* deed, be general : — those who have loved and honoured him will mourn with the deepest, sincerest grief: — those who have, in the hardness of their heart, been insensible to his Value, will mourn their late conviction — for all will love him when he is dead — * extinctus amabitur idem/ — We shall then hear of his generous deeds, his charities, his benevolence, his feeling heart, his humid eye, his wish that he could so rule his people as to fit them and himself to meet in a higher kingdom. We shall be told of the firmness of his conduct, the character of good sense in his observations, the rectitude of his opinions, the kindness, the humanity, the politeness of his expressions. It will be remembered that he never lost Aa opportunity of inculcating on young minds, the duty of industry in that situation of life in which God had placed them — that he said to the boys of his good friend B L , when he stopped at their father's gate, — * Remember, I work, and every body must work in some way or other, either with their head or hands.* — And it cannot be denied that he set the most perfect example possible, of the use of time : — when business pressed, he often ate his dinner standing —and that dinner was, not unfrequently, a plate of vege- tables only. Of his preparation for death— it would be degrading to call it his contempt of death— we have had the most striking conviction — of his participation in the sorrows of others the most honourable testimonials— of his deep sense of religion and his regulation of his actions by its precepts, no one ever presumed to speak with doubt. In the late publication of Mrs, Montagu's letters, his behaviour at his coronation is invaluably recorded ; and in that and other memoirs of the time, we have his dignified reproof of the sycophant-preachers, who treated him as Louis the Fourteenth submitted to be treated. Perhaps it i^ not generally known, that there sub- m R O S A N N E. filsts at this moment, a proof of his pious hiimility, whictl ought to make those blush who have thought to raise money or mirth out of exaggerated peculiarities. At the house at Kewj there remains his Common-Prayer book, in which, with his own hand, he has erased all expressions inscribing importance or merit to him, and interlined such as he could, in the deli* cacy of his conscience, more satisfactorily join in. Truly may \ve say, ' If God is for us, who can be against us ?* nnd very justifiably may we disdain all communication with those who would depreciate a man upon whom we have every reason to hope and believe, the Almighty looks down with complacency, and whom he will, in his own good time, trans-* late to the highest possible felicity • (3) This reference to experiment is sanctioned by the example of a judicious homely mother, who having a daughter disposed to lying, dropped lighted brimstone from the end of a match on her tongue, that she might have some idea of everlasting burning. — Pity we are not oftener thus weaned from our vices 1 (4) A much happier illustration than any here offered^ was used by a very sensible father, who, seemg a little girl inclined to scratch a gnat-bite on her arm, said, ' Caroline, my child, forbear, or you will Increase your suffering. And remember,' added he, * this is one proof that there are na- tural inclinations which cannot be indulged without cause for repentance.' (5) It was once to be hoped, that the disgusting recitals of the newspapers, whose conductors certainly have little regard to feelmgs or to decency, might operate to shame per- sons of birth and high pretensions, from the miry paths of in- trigue. A gentleman — nay, a peer of the realm, does not make a very advantageous figure emerging from a closet, or crawling up a back staircase with his shoes in his hand. One of the most unprincipled of our aristocratic gallants has said in print, that men of fashion are not proiid of tlieir vices Pt O S A N N E, m and the following very well authenticated st&ry, which the late General Oglethorpe used to tell, will show, that there are situations in which they may be made ashamed of them. The nobleman above alluded to, had insulted the wife of an- other, by a declaration of what is mis-called love. — The lady communicated to her lord what had passed, and his lordship immediately decided on publicly exposing the miscreant. Knowing that the earl was to be at art entertainment given at the then fashionable place of resort, Cuper's Gardens, he went thither in quest of him, concealing two swords of equal length. Having found Lord , he addressed him by ac- cusing him, and concluded by saying, * My lord, as I know you call yourself a man of honour, I cannot doubt your giv^ ing me the satisfaction I demand, before we quit this spot. You have insulted my wife, for which I intend to give you a hearty caning — this 50U must resent ; and to give you the means, I have here two swords.' — He then, in the face of all present, put his threat into execution, by caning his lordship severely — but the beaten peer called for his carriage without applying for the sword.— So notorious a disgrace it is not tha good fortune of every transgressor to find ; but it is much to be questioned whether a gentleman would proceed in combat- ing * the illiberal scruples' of his friend's wife, if he knew that the carpenter or the painter, in the next room, liad a lad- der up against a hole in the partition. We have lately lost a venerable subject of the kingdom of Cupid, who had a» few regards of ceremony as most men ; but he would hate blushed once for his deafness, had he known that the dean of ■; , whose waste of exhortation on him he had no cause to fear, was on the road-side of his fruit-wall. It is worthy of remark, that in the pretty romances * founded on fact,* witli which lords, ladies, and gentlemen, furnish the town, we dd not now see the servants of a family made accessaries. Is it that they are more, or are they less, to be trusted ?— Perhaps the deraatid for secret-service money is too high ;— it cannot surely be compassion for the souls of their dependents, thst sjakes the principals spare ihem. 64 R O S A X N E. (6) She had an apple in her hand, which she broke in two, saying to her attendant, v/ho had inadvertently named the carl, < That word has broke my heart, as I break this apple/ (7) The propriety and necessity of doing all that can be imagined to counteract the vice of our time, hardly admits of making any allowances ; but one may be made safely, if properly understood. There have been dreadful instances of men leading their wives into error : there is on record one, which no term is strong enough to characterize — of a defiance —an undertaking — and a wager. Compassion for human na- ture will not here admit of severity — but the example can af- ford no excuse. The late Earl of , indeed, was turned headlong out of a house he went to view, and which was in the charge of a soldier's wife. And the sequel of the sad story above alluded to, must be considered, if the laws of this world, and the hopes of the next, are insufficient. Let the wretch- ed victim of folly and atrocity, be contemplated on her knees to the infernal agent who had deluded her. Is not thig enough I (8) The fashion of terms changes: — stveet is now a fa- vourite adjective. Lady Monologue, when asked how her ©Id uncle did, answered, that he was * quite sweet' — she meant only that he was perfectly placid. We hear of ' sweet, letters' and * sweet actions' as commonly as of * sweet-wiU liams' and * svveet-meats.' (9) As it is often useful to young housekeepers to know the incidental expences of a family, they may be glad to learn tbat in the year 18 — it cost about six hundred pounds t© keep a foolish story out of the public prints. This may not be the ' maKimum' of the market ; but it is surely enough to warn some ceconomists. It cannot be supposed that every body can get off so cheap ; because, in the case alluded to, there was neitiier rank, situation, nor atrocity — there was only a want of credit sufficient to refute an exaggeration — ergOj 'tis.a point of thrift to keep a good character. R O S A N N E. 65 CHAPTER VI. The affair over, and the actors settled again in proper places, Mr. Lotus having recalled to the management of his house his sister, whom his wife had of course supplanted, and Mr. and Mrs. Eugene having, by keeping out of the way, waved those testimonials of respect which a bridegroom and bride, in the ordinary mode of proceeding, look for. Fortune, ever Eugene's friend, seemed to confer the most valuable favour in her power, by removing his great- uncle, Mr. Bellarmine, who, though not a little displeased at his young relation's being, as he said, * taken in,' had not dared to tell what he thought, or presumed to alter his will, or even to erase that clause of it which made Mr. Eugene's assuming his name and relinquishing his own, the condition of his enjoying his pro- perty ( 1). A more fortunate expedient could not liave been devised for throwing out all those whose curiosity mio;ht have followed Mr. and Mrs. Eugene. Genealogists were soon puzzled — old ladies were * in a wood' — young ladies knew nothing about it; — and whatever recollec- tions, suspicions, or surmises might arise, the attractions, the fascinations, the accomplish- ments, the style, and 'the great propriety' of Mrs. Bellarmine, together with her husband's taking VOL. 1. F 66 ROSANNE. a cook from one of the first subscription-houses^ promised to overcome. But even if the promise were made good, Mr. Eugene, henceforth Bellarmine, had not that en- tire feehng of victory necessary to his perfect sa- tisfaction : he had a large share of very sensitive pride : he had enjoyed a flattering fame till he could not brook any diminution of it : he had possessed the intimacy of persons whose ac- quaintance it was creditable to cultivate ; and the use he had been accustomed to make of hours not devoted to vice or pleasure, prevented his admitting into his mind the vulgar conso- lations of the ignorant. He was yet indeed, and perhaps even more than heretofore, the fashion : — he was still ap- pealed to by those who wished to shine: — his tastes w^ere followed: — his watchmaker and his upholsterer, his bootmaker, tailor, and mercer, quoted him ; — and he decided knotty points in the regions of bibliomania and chance : — every wish of his heart seemed to meet its instant gra- tification, on escaping from his lips ; and, even to himself, there appeared wanting to his supe- rior felicity, only two blessings, — not showy in their aspect — not missed by the eye of the by- stander — but sadly wanting to liis own percep- tions, and for which he could find no substitu- tion, and most untowardly retained the keenest relish; — the one, a fair honourable estimation amongst tlie worthy ; the other^ almost necessa- ROSANNE. 67 rily connected with it — bis own private appro- bation. Beyond these, his wishes did not soar; he had not that in his mind which gives ^ higher ambition, and can teach us, whenever misunderstood and misappreciated by the good, and not entitled to the acquittal of our owii partial judgment, to cast ourselves in humble confidence before that throne where our inten- tions will stand in lieu of merits. But neither of these ^ sine quibus non' could he procure ; nor could his judgment, when cool> presume to undervalue the privation. He could bear the sarcasm of the Duchess of X -, who had ' ambitioned' him for her deformed daugh- ter, and the pettishness of the Marchioness of Z — — , who fancied the marquis could not sur- vive the next attack of his gout or his gout- medicine : he did not condescend to justify himself, when it was hinted, that the widow Simpleton thought herself ill used : nor did he feel disgraced by the rudenesses of Miss Gawkey Tolskethly, who had depended on his poetry and some pretty presents as * avant-couriers' of a better name : — but such men as Professor M , the C of L , and Mr. Justice B , had been sorry they were ^ prevented by prior engagements from accepting his obliging invitation to dinner;' — and the Earl of M— , though he had been returned from Scotland ^ fortnight, had not, so unlike himself! found time to return his call ; — and the Dean of C^ ^ F^2 6S KOSANNE, had only moved his hat on meeting him — and Archdeacon , with all his humility — and the veteran Colonel H — , and alas ! the General had looked shy — and that honest Welsh baronet, Sir TaiFy Dignum, had said, almost in his hearing, that ' such persons,' by whom it was supposed he meant Mr. and Mrs. Eugene, ought not to be visited — and Peregrine M , he was told again, had, with bis unglossing in- tegrity and merry reproof, given his opinion of this match — and even George B , who would gladly have hidden his neighbours' faults, because he had so few of his own which needed a eloak^ somehow seemed to ask, when he spoke to him, whether any body was in sight. In vain Bel- larmine told himself that these v/ere individuals, but that he had numbers on his side — that they had their own notions, which were not liberal-— that they were not men ' of fashion' — * of the world'—-' of style"— he would have said, ' nor of importance;' — but he had not quite per- verted his judgment, though he had injured his credit; they were, he knew, men of the best fashion, of the best world, and of the best style •—and it would not do. And with regard to Mrs. Bellarmine, the good, mild, compassionate Dowager Countess of Loch- lay, replying to something he had said, had, with a look of mortifying regret, and a shake of her head, which added every thing, said : * Nay, don't ye talk to me : I cannot — only consider R O S A N N E. 69 nry daughters — an I had no childer, 'twould b® vastly different.' And Lady Christiana Santar mor was at home when Mrs. Bellarmine was ad- anitted with a party to see her house, and though an old friend of the admiral's, and Mrs. B. had taken care she should hear her name, did not show herself — And Lady Purefoy had looked at Mrs. Bellarmine over her shoulder, and snift- ing and snuffing, had declared she never would -admit ladies of a ' certain description :' and above all — O tell it not ye zephyrs! — the Duchess of , and the Countess of , who had, in a way unheard of since the time of Eliza- beth, changed their partners, had presumed to leave their visiting tickets!! Could any thing, * under Heaven,' be ^o humiliating (2)? He now, poor soul ! began to imagine affronts where they were not meant, and to pay some friends, who could claim no higher praise than that of being capricious, the compliment of supposing them nice in their associations : — the notion was absurd. It was not necessary that Mr. or Mrs. Beliar- mine should show themselves at St. James's, or at that time the mistress of the house — Heaven send the decent such another friend ! — might, with- out departing from dignity or the mercy of her station, have made that visit suffice (3) : while they kept themselves out of certain situa- tions, they might have gone on very well, had they nojt worried tliemselves with fancies. But f3 ■70 SQSANNE. the unhappy man, in the midst of crowds and plans for crowds, in the ocular demonstration of his wife's success in drawing crowds, and the hearing of all the pretty things said by these crowds, was still fidgetty — he thought that the dozen who had slighted him, must betray him ; and whether they did or not, still these dozen — thtse dozen — they were more in his enumeration, and in effect, than the three hundred at Thermo- pylae, or the ten thousand of Xenophon. There ■were distinctions which all his distinctions did not give him — there were satisfactions denied him even in a plethora of good — there were men, wanting almost all he possessed, yet rich in vir- tue; — character alone had done what he had failed in ; his ambition was checked by a sort of panic cowardice ; he quitted the ground to those who knew not that they were his competitors: Mil- tiades had his trophies, and Bellarmine could not sleep. While he was deliberating on the best means of getting again into his own good graces, or out of the ill graces of those who perhaps thought very little on him, his lady settled the matter by very unadvisedly resenting what she took as an aifront, and reported to him as not to he endured. She did not pretend, indeed, to any right of advising how it should be resented ; but she knew the common course of such things; and she waited a day or two, relying on the pro- mised information of her husband's valet, to as- 5 ROSANNE. 71 certain whether Bellarmine's silent Jiearing of her piteous tale was apathy or delicate conceal- ment of his intention to seek proper redress — that is to say, to learn her own value. But Mr. Bellarmine, whatever he might have <:]one before he ' set himself down' in his own estimation, and whatever other gentlemen may do to assert the respect due to a lady in passing from the back boxes through the lobbies, was now to be compared to a beaten bull ; and, lan- guid and subdued, he could only suggest what then occurred to his conjugal anxiety, that it might be better for his wife to expect her con- finement in the country. She heard him, it is true, but she thought him mad ; and using the privilege of her situation, she told him little short of her opinion. But the next evening, on returning from Lady Omnigena Pampollen's grand assembly, where the grinning amorosities of his Grace of had drawn the smiles of part of the company on her, she at length felt herself degraded, and thought the proposal worth a consideration. Waking next morning with a head-ache, she aloud wished herself in the coun- try, and in a few days was disencumbered of her town -house and establishment, a,nd settled on her husband's mother's estate, and in the house in which he was born. f4 ROS AXNE. NOTES. (1 ) How great is the obligation occasionally conferred on the foolish by those who, still more foolish, make them ap- pear comparatively wise ! When Mrs. Capsicum married, her choice made her daughter's match quite a respectable bu- siness. O! what a glorious groupe of Cupids and Cupidesses made the ' cortege' of that famous wedding !-^were it but lawful to tell ! (2) * Rather too bad,' exclaimed the celebrated Perdita as she threw out of window the visiting-ticket of Lady W , just then freed from the shackles, and setting out on a new- tack. It is therefore to be supposed there are ranks and gra- dations amongst those who have no place in society ; but they need ' a herald particular.' It must have been some great mistake somewhere that made Mrs. A , alias B , alias C 's first rout so thin of ladies as to give occasion to the report that there was there * all the world, but very little of his wife.' * I will go and reconnoitre for you,' said Harry Scout to his sister, * if you are afraid of going to Mrs. RiskalPs music-party.' — * Well, Harry, who was there ?' — ' A great crowd of odd men, such as I am not used to meet, only four ladies, and the Star of Piccadilly.* Surely here too was some error, or people were nice ! It is not often that Fashion can give so good a reason for her proceedings as she might, for ordering the repositories for the tickets left by visitors, to show their contents. It complies with the dictate * Tell me your company, and I will tell you who you are.' There are collections of this kind, where a name, too egotising to be written, has been that the least reflecting credit; but notwithstanding the want of nicety in the world, there are ladies, and married ladies too, and married to men who seem to have, at times, the world in their hands, who do not ' get on* well ; — and in the show- rooms of one of those, where letters from crowned heads were framed, and presents from the antipodes set forth to view. ROSANNE. ^3 the whole stock of capd-paper exhibited only the engraved pretensions of hair-dressers, corset-makers, milliners, den- tists, plumassiers, perfumers, and various other makers or re- pairers of beauty. To the credit of the country, not a gen- tlewoman! though on the other hand it may be said, there was not an idle person of the party. (3) If the time should ever come, God grant it never may ! when the first drawing-room in the kingdom refuses to shut its doors on vice in the female sex, from that day may b« dated not only the disgrace, but the danger, and, unless rescued by the inflictions of Providence, the downfal of this country. It is bad enough to be insulted at public places and private houses of miscellaneous reception, by those witk whom St. Paul forbade all intercourse; but if received at that place which should give the law, there will be no defence for the decent, no encouragement for the weak. Let it never be said they cannot be excluded — they have been, when the matter has been pushed as far as possible ; and ' No' is a yery short word to utter. In many points we already too much resemble the license of Paris before its inhabitants re- ceived their severe chastisement ; and we have, within the last year, made some large strides of iniquity. We must go no farther. Our public burdens have been cheerfully borne ; and even those who sacrifice greatly to the purpose, are disposed to think our enemy cheaply kept out while we are spared the sight of blood : but we must have good ex- ample in those above us ; and every possible reason must not be given us to say, what the feelings of all hearts sufficiently pjTompt — 'Long iive the King!* ^ R O S xi N N E, CHAPTER VII. The comfort of having withdrawn from au irritating situation, made the family-mansion appear a paradise, and the wounded feehngs of the wedded pair began to heal under the balmy influence of an unquestioned superiority. Pre- ferring this place as a residence, Bellarmine, whose property had been injured by what had occurred before his marriage, had sold his great- uncle's estate to replace what he had drawn from his capital, and to free himself from his own and his unfortuned wife's debts, and now seemed a stationary being. But in settling himself in the county where his mother's family had for ages been objects of regard, he was wrong : he should have betaken liimself to his other estate, and there, by com- parison, he might have appeared to advantage. The great radical error, indeed, was quitting London: a thick population is a fence; but in the country, where the gentry are objects of attention, and some fashional^le vices are left to the peasantry, every arrow reaches ; and curiosity being more at leisure, facts get abroad, and if not quite in their correct shape, yet seldom im- proved. This discovery was to come. Mrs. Bellarmine, in arranging her household, ftxncied she was ROSANNE. 7o condescending very law, to propose to the shepr herd to take his daughter as a nursery-servant whom she expected to need. The man threv/ down his hat and crook, and knelt to beg to be excused — but he and his dame could not * except madam's goodness :' he ' begged ten thousand pardons, but he was sure it was of no use to speak to his dame; for he knew she would not let her Bett take the place, on account as the people said madam had gived her company to the squire, whiles, as one mought say, she were married afore (l).' The shepherd's rent of his cottage was more sharply looked after, and his lease was not re- newed; but Mrs. Bellarraine beginning to un- derstand the situation of her own affairs, contented herself with setting her husband against a faithful servant; .and, assuming haugh- tier airs towards the. rustics, swallowed the affront in choking silence. The expectation of an heir varied a little the monotony of ideas into which Mr. and Mrs, Bellarmine were sinking, but it could not remove the gloom which was thickening over the mind of the latter; and the two months of waiting afforded to all, not out of the reach of admoni- tion, a lesson which, alas! it seems the business of every day to render of none effect. Yet it must be repeated, even without an audience, and even without hope. It was autumn, and nothing was wanting to 76 R O S A N X E. the beautiful character of that season in Eng* land. If they had not a neighbourhood, it was because their own possessions were too exten-» sive to admit of approximation ; and they had, in their affluence and their taste, every mean of facilitating intercourse: their soil was good; their views were cheerful, and included small habitations, which might have been springs of the purest satisfaction under the control of vir- tue and benevolence ; or have contributed to furnish the amusement of a varying society ; but now they were the haunts of invidious curiosity, where gossips met to agree that their new neighbours were no better than themselves, or the shelter for tliose, who, by the power of re- crimination, maintained a right to defy the laws. ]\Irs. Bellarmine could protect the modesty of no female; her husband had nothing to say to those who assailed it (2). The tongues of both were paralyzed if they attempted to enforce their own interests by moral or religious regards. Had they recommended the church as the pro- per place of resort on Sunday, in preference to ' the Cow and Snuffers,' they might have been requested with a bumpkin-archness to lead the way; and the blacksmith, if threatened with a representation to the squire, of his ' going after* the wife of a jealous man, would have snapped liis fingers, and defied the impeaching virago. Thu wass their internal influence obstructed; and on their domestics it had as little power of R O S A N N E. 77 exertion. Mrs. Bellarmine's female-servants were neither vestals, Lucretias, nor Penelopes ; and Air. Bellarmine's men-servants had their ar- rangements on both sides the walls. The wait- ing-woman was pert if a ribband escaped her grasp; and the valet was jocose if his master asked what pretty girl it was that crossed the lawn. When young women in long cloaks ap- plied * just to speak a word' to the next magis- trate, they were asked if they came from * the hall;' and if any goody had a rambling daugh- ter, ' the hair was the first place of her in- quiry. Still there might have been, in the best apart- ments, something to atone for these defalcations. Saucy tenants and licentious servants are. not our companions; and if an amiable woman ha.s the love of an affectionate husband, she may be happy with many privations — Granted. But open the doors that inclose Mr. and Mrs. Bcl- larmine, and what is the character of the lov^e that should form their felicity? On his part, a melancholy habit of domestication, that made his wife seem tlie painfully reminding shade of something he once had loved : — on hers, a sus- picious watchfulness lest his affections should itray. She dreamt of her father and mother; the one gone to the grave without granting liis forgiveness — the other obeying his last injunc- tion to leave her unregarded : — of her former husband slie was too callous to dream. She 78 ROSANNE. awoke languid and alarmed, endeavouring to comfort herself that ' it was, after all, but sL dream,' but conscious of its resemblance to truth. Bellarmine took the newspaper at break- fast : she felt it neglect of her. She inquired his plans; he was going over his fields: — siie would accompany him. ^ It would fatigue her: — it was damp.' — 'No: she wanted exer- cise — she had boots — she had coats.' Did any thing induce them to go together in a carriage? if they did not bicker, they slept — dinner was tasteless — evenings were long — he called his bailiif — he talked to his groom — he settled ac- counts. Sl>e altered her laces — improved some article of dress — asked her maid's opinion — took up a book — v/ould write to know how it could happen that a young friend was so long silent; a sigh seemed to say, ' Better not ask (3).' Still for persons able to do so much, thfere were resources : four horses will go a great way with those who want company; but no one called — no one invited. The architect was ' had down' for a week : he was asked — ' for, Lord in Heaven, what was to be done in such an ex- tremity?' — he was asked, or rather permitted, to bring his wii'e. 'Twas relief: but Mrs. Bellar- mine was obliged to wake her spirits to make any advantage of it : at every interval of silence she was 'distrait' and lost; and the silly young woman of a visitor, unacquainted with circum- stances, and wishing to amuse, told a strange KOSANNE. - 7^ history of 'a Mr. and Mrs. Lotus, that her cousin Mary had heard of; and ohligingly offered to read Mrs. Bellarmine cousin Mary's interesting letter about Mrs. Lotus's going off with a Mr, Eugene.' Mrs. Bellarmine rang for her salts, and was sorry she could not bear to hear any body read aloud. O ! what a contrast is all this to that which should be the description of a family so blessed, and living in a country every individual of which has such cause for thankfulness ! Let us contemplate the horrors of tlie continent, the seat of war— -let us recollect the destruction of villages, towns, cities — let us ask of those who have witnessed sieges, what ihey had to en- dure — let us learn of the \ew survivors of con- flagration and massacre what they did not en- dure — let us think of the capital of an immense empire destroyed— of a whole regiment at one moment turned into ice, and then ask how we, who have yet escaped, dare be what we are. If this is not sufficiently known for the purpose of reformation, take off at this moment the roofs of a few dwellings easily found, and you shall see worse, Avorse, than can be depicted; for after all — be as bad as we please — ' there is no peace for the wicked, saith my God.' Now turn to the parsonage-house of Mr. Eel- larmine's parish. You will there indeed find nothing particularly interesting or singularly romantic, for nothino- more is to be said than so n O S A N N E. that a respectable parson marrierl, perhapsy rather earlier than was prudent. The young people Avere left to struggle, and considered as having forfeited their claims by their precipi- tancy. But the little vessel, freighted with talents by the hand of industry, and steered by discretion, will weather manv storms in wdiich the aro:osies of greedy projectors are lost. Not the worse will it fare, probably, if some recollection of superior guidance — some motto like ' In te. Do- mine, speravi,' accompany its launch — true : it could be no merit in our parson, if such sounds rang in Jus ears — they were ' tlie jargon' of his trade; and 'he may w^ell trust in the Lord, w4io has nought else to trust to.' His confidence did not, however, betray liim; liis industry did not relax. His wife was his fellows-labourer in undertakings, where the cre- dit he obtained was dearer to her than any her powers could have procured her. Their diffi- culties now over, she was equally assiduous in the duties of a mother. The house was the re- sidence of pious industry and affectionate exer- tions; and it cost Bellarminc a sigh and his wife a sneer, when the poor Spintexts, as they had U'ittili/ named them, excused the infrequency of their morning-calls at the hall, by having, poor souls ! incessant occupation at home — ' as if a parson had any thing upon earth to do but to ROSANNE. 81 read his ready-made sermons ; or parsons' wives any concern beyond fancying they set the fa- sln'on to the parish. NOTES. ( 1 ) Have the great no pride ? or have they so much a* to set at nought the contempt of the body of a nation ? Are these times to bring authorities into disgrace ? or are they deaf to the warnings which they daily receive ? Of the vicious it is sometimes said, * they are no one's enemies but their own :' — their situation in life then must be very low ; for those who set a bad example are the enemies of all who see it ; and let the owner of the following fact consider well what his ac- count in this way will be. — A carriage that could not be mis- taken, was waiting at a house in one of the fashionable streets: a crowd was round it — a gentleman passing, in- quired what caused the mob : * Why, Sir,' said a boy, * they are looking at the carriage, because the of is gone a-courting to my lord's wife there, and so they want to see him come out.' This was in broad daylight, and on a Sun- day !! The feeling most commendable in the populace, was certainly that the least flattering to the object of their cu- riosity: had they hissed him as he made his escape, their want of manners might, indeed, have been blamed, but the sentiment would have been correct. Let the effects of such discoveries be added together, and the sum-total considered in time. (2) Bellarmine was here the slave of a false delicacy. But perhaps he had not witnessed the honest disgust with which his uncle's friend. Wormwood, spoke of his female-servants, who were not always to be found where they were looked for. He had married off those whom he had himself corrupted —what then was to check his virtuous indignation.? VOL. I. G S2 ROSANNE. (3) This is na fictian. Much mare might be told. A life recently extinct, would afford many additions to these features of connubial happiness. This is liberty f This is choosing and re-choosing for ourselves ! There have been instances where, after clearing hedge and ditch in following that miry Wili-a-wisp *' Monsiedr Cupidon,'' a father has not been able to endure the sight of his own beautiful children— where he has, with every expression of hatred, ordered then* away — where the wife has not been admitted to his presence for many days in succession — and, when, in distress for mo^ ney, she has written a request, has been insulted by a silent guinea ; and where, at last, the means to pursue a vicious habit, have been borrowed from her nearest relation. — More, more might be given — 't is not half the worst — there is no hatred like that of companiooi in guilt. Those inclined to use the moral of the classics in aid of Christian virtue, will see, in the expressions of disappointment which Ovid assigns to Tullia, a sentiment which we, the happier disciples of revelation, may translate Ah ! what avails it — partners in one crime. Me— Heaven to forfeit, and all hope of grace — Thee — to brave Hell and all its threatened woes. If thus in passive quiet we must sit, And, daring nought beyond the vulgar reach. Seem virtuous, yet receive not virtue's pay ! Poor unemployed, discarded slaves of sin! (4') Among the varieties allowed to tastes, one, belonging to the female character, may find admittance — the taste for the utmost possible exertion of industry, with no other view of recompense th?.n the happiness of being useful to those whom the will of our Maker has made the superiors of wo- men, and intended for their best friends. History gives us some instances of females who have been resplendent help- mates to their husbands and fathers ; and the arts and sciences of this and anterior ages have produced specimens that might justify envy. Pity it is to pass by Madame Daciery ROSANNE. S5 Claudia Stella, the indefatigable Mrs. Pearson, or Mrs. S ; and culpable it seems to arrest the attention at the portrait of a woman avowedly of no pretensions : but the less correct the engine, the more extraordinary the effect achieved ; and in a good cause, and free from the discouragement of obloquy, the respectable may, by something similar, obtain far more than the praise due to those for whom, alas ! not even good deeds can obtain a good reputation. The memoirs of one of those wretched victims of false sen- sibility, who live in delusion and die in despair, have omitted to inform us fully of some of the brightest circumstances of her life. Compiled by herself, the disgraceful has been ob- triided on the public eye as the * interesting'— the honest has been omitted, perhaps as derogatory from the claims of a high rank in infamy. But it is matter of fact, that before the lovely meteor alluded to, had reached her zenith, when she was only emerging from the horizon of common life, and perhaps had scarcely proposed to herself the galaxy of * stars and garters' as her path to sublimity, she was v/ith her reck- less husband in the King's Bench prison, where she per- formed all the offices of their wretched ceconomy, nursed her child, and even scrubbed the stairs of their apartment. To relieve their distress, a former employer of her husband would have furnished him with work for his pen ; but, as he was too lazy to undertake it, the benefit of the kindness would have been lost, had she not possessed a better spirit, and after her discharge of the duties of nurse, housemaid, laundress, and cook, sate down for hours together to the transcribing law-proceedings. Such a woman deserved a better protector; and such a husband did not merit even such a wife. It is in the power of women to do much more for the com- fort of men and the service of a family, than it is yet common to see practised. Such exertions indeed pre-suppose somfe degree of leisure; but how seldom is that leisure ampbved as advantageously as it might be ! What can be more unprofitable than the entire application of some v/omen, who sit in thetr G 2 84 ROSANNE. drawing-rooms to receive visitors, till it is time to be visitors in the drawing-rooms of others, to some elaborate piece of work — for needle-work is now again the fashion — not in any way useful, but requiring the patience of a time-consuming nun, and the eyes of a hawk to perform it, and which is either to be their pride in their own wear, or the decoration of some friend as much disposed to value exquisite trifles ; or, taking a more excusable bias, a child is to carry on its head six weeks' morning-tasks. When men of business come home, and, seeking to unbend without sinking into inertness, ask the common question, * Well, my dear, what have you to say to me:' — ' I have done Emma's veil/ or, * I have finished little Alfred's cap,' is, if all that can be said, a very slender answer. Would it not be well to have now^ and then to add something like, * Do let me read to you Dr. Clarke's interesting- account of the first sight of Jerusalem ;' or, * I have marked for you here some fine lines in Mr. Tighe's poem of * The Plants ;* or, * Do you know how beautifully de- vout the poetry of Filicaja is I* And even sliould the spirit now awakening, proceed, and gentlewomen prefer the foun- Xain-he-^ ^ to the pitcher — and should a daughter, with the sportivt duty of Lady Thomasina, greet her father on his re- turn home with her opinion that Cyrus the Great, when a boy, as depicted by Xenophon, must have been a complete little quiz— or should she, in the beautiful contrast of her mind, throw her admiration on the near approach of Marcus Antoninus to Christianity ; it might, if she wore her learning like Lady Thomasina, be * quite as well in the end' as ten rows of veining, — yet Lady Thomasina is an elegant work- woman, and needlework is not to be despised or given up — there is room on the table for the nice work-box as well as for the book and the inkstand. But painting, music, any thing is better than the destruction of sight and the injury of the powers of respiration in personal ornament. We look with pity and astonishment on the elaborate works of our grand- mothers, who were employed, for years, on that which was often out of use before it was completed. Was it more idle R O S A N N E. b3 than what Is done now with an apparent intention of saving expense, and often incurring much more than that of a Hberal purchase ? Nothing can be more respectable, nothing can be more pleasant, than the employment of the needle to use- ful purposes ; and women obliged or inclined to exert powers of thought, feel it a soothing relaxation ; but it must be re- membered that there is nothing communicable in the plea- sure, and that it should not form a Christian lady's highest intellectual exertion, eS 86 R O S A N N E. CHAPTER VIII. While Mrs. Beliarmine was seeking in her ca- binets and wardrobes for amusements, or admir- ing the order in which they were prepared for the expected claimant of their delicate contents: while in retiring from them, satiated with repe- tition, she asked the passing moments if they could do nothing for her comfort; her husband, in a deeper tone, asked himself what all his years had afforded ; and in his proneness to me- ditation, w^as often driven to contemplate the sad power he possessed of converting advantages into misfortunes. His feelings had been the objects of his mother's early cultivation, and they had been her pride : his tastes and preten- sions to favour and distinction had given him his rank in intellectual society ; and he felt their powder to add to the weight of his discontent; for on no other principle could he account for his being so much more an aimoyance to him- self than hundreds who had done more to offend the world, and who had fared w^orse under its displeasure. But a remedy seemed at hand. That which brings joy to most parents, is supposed to bring it to all; and an heir to an English gentleman? in Bellarmine's natural situation, was an expect- ation of stimulating importance; but he had ROSANNE. 87 contrived so that he cared little about this ; and, indeed, his apathy was justifiable ; for how could be train a son conveniently in any path but that which he had pursued ? and what liad it led to? * I can't make him a bishop or a hermit,' said he; * and if be be not one or the other, he must be what I am, and be — wretched V Any body will acknowledge and lament that there can be no medium found between these extremes. In this state of mind, therefore, his lady had nothing to fear when Ije was informed tliat she had a daughter; and as a great deal might very justly be said in praise of tl>e infant's appear- ance, the sex was rather, on the whole, an agreeable circumstance. Mamma's first anxiety was to know if it promised to be pretty — papa had none : mamma supposed he would be pleased to hear it was thought like her; perhaps he did not wish tl>e resemblance to go farther than person.; ami had it not gone so far, he might not have repined. The first 'day of Mrs. Bellarmine's liberty paid lier for every thing she had forfeited or foregone. An innocent pleasure was a new feeling; and though, by good management, she tocT had ren- dered it rather a diiSculty to find one, yet the indulgence of maternal love was never yet, even by the severest maralists, considered as cul- pable. It was so delightful to have something to be proud of, of which there was no occa- g4 88 ROSANNE. sion to be ashamed ! and the baby was * such a dear love !' — ' O ! now the world was nothing to her — it had nothing to give.' The want of all other occupation made Mrs. Bellarmine a most assiduous mother. She at- tended her baby's toilette, that she might con- template its beauty; all her ingenuity and taste were called forth in its dress; and to change it, was the frequent business of the day. She sent to London for advertised eiigravings of * Dear mammas,' and * Pretty darlings ;' and almost for- got herself in solicitudes for her infant. Who- ever has seen an unmeasured fondness for a new toy, will understand this sort of maternal affec-. tion, and can guess how long it would last. The circle of the parents' friendships oft'ering no assistance in the choice of sponsors or of a name for the child, and the father avowing his dislike to that by which his lady had been christened, Miss Bellarmine was obliged to go on the ' fancy list' of Christians, and thus, almost accidentally, received the name of Rosaxne — any thing will do with ^ A)ine tacked to it. For the first three months, Bellarmine's share in this pleasure consisted in the relief which the occupation of his wife afforded him. He was well bred, and he did not wish to be otherwise, but he was low-spirited and hypochondriac, and too thoroughly tired of his connexion, to be always in good humour with one who every day, by the simple operation of rational causes, lost in his R O S A N N E. 8§ regard. But from this inanity, as from the fer- mentation of stagnant water, arose something active. ^Irs. Bellarmine began to be wearied of apathy, and to feel offended that any thing for which he was indebted to her, should be so little valued. Little Miss was, as soon as most children, able to make an independent use of her feet ; and they carried her frequently where she seemed the least wished for, into the apartments of her father. To get rid of her without exer- tion, he would give her what she cried for, or "some substitute ; and she came again, but with- out gaining any farther ground. Vexed at this stoicism, and perhaps conclud- ing chat female decorations were sometimes baits for male affections, Mrs. Bellarmine took Ro- sanne to her dressing-room, and decked her in odours and colours, heightening the tint of her infant cheek, b}^ that addition which was now become indispensably necessary to her own : but Rosanne — sadly wanting in discernment, as well as in gratitude, — whenever the attempt was made, regarded her decorations as fetters, the scented waters as physic, and that which was put on her cheeks, as dirt. Insisting on being made clean, the operation and her im- petuosity under it, increased her native beauty; and Bellarmine at length condescended to say, her mamma might do what she would, since the attempt to resist was productive of so much improvement. 9a> ROSANNE. Perseverance in what was at first teazing, pro- duced at length a pleasure to the father. The child began to talk, and showed that her ideas flowed too fast for her small vocabulary to give them utterance. Bellarmine began to listen. She asked questions, and he took an interest in replying to the repeated ' What 's this ? — Whose is that? — Who made this? — of curiosity in the egg-shell. Her nurse, perhaps scarcely know- ing why, had taught her to express something like thanks when her questions were answered, and hence it appeared as if she was grateful for the communication of knowledge. This struck her father : he did not see that it was a habit easily fixed, and as applicable to any thing else ; he took it to himself — a human being owned obligation to him ! — it stirred his drowsy feel- ings, — he made his little girl an engrossing con- cern — and the mamma grew jealous. Each had now separate indulgences for Ro- sanne : from each she had injunctions not t6 tell the other — each had a different view in rearing their daughter. Papa looked to her as probably the only interesting comfort of his future years, and had an inclination to adopt a mode of rearing, that should repay his care. Mamma anticipated a time when the increasing moroseness of Bellarmine would render a con- fidante and a second a consolation and a sup- port, and determined to spare nothing that could attach Rosanne to her party. Still, however, R O S A N N E. 91 as they agreed in the object of their love, no great dissensions could arise ; and many little clouds of ill-humour on the brow of either, were dispelled by the transient cheerfulness which a child brings, wherever it is at liberty to be what nature intended it. With this amusement, and with little variety, they got on till it ceased to be newy that is to say, for the first three years of Rosanne's existence. If industry and regularity, the decencies of life, and the decorum of Christianity needed any thing not yet discovered, to recommend them, those who in the present age would point out their comparative frugality or cheapness of in- dulgence, might deserve the thanks of the well- disposed. To be perpetually on the hunt for some occupation, something to soothe, and then something else to stimulate, some absurdity, some inconsistency, or some disgrace, is of all the many * quests' of this ' questing' age, the most expensive : but to this expense, Mr. and Mrs. Bellarmine, again sinking into irritation of mind, now found themselves compelled, not indeed, by the action of any force on them, but by the privation of all impulse. Their home could do nothing for them, and they could do nothing for their home. To abandon it, there- fore, seemed the only way to render it tenable, and this plan was carried into execution as 92 ROSANNE. that alone on which they could agree, for the next three years, during which, a comfortable well-appointed mansion which wanted only worth in its inhabitants to make it cheerful, was sustaining every species of injury, v/hile they became wanderers on the face of the earth, drag- ging about with them, through all the pleasant chances of inns and lodging-houses, a set of un- attached servants and the little Rosanne : they seemed to have a dwelling only to avoid it ; for though they could not describe themselves as livi?7g any wliere else, they were at all places, excepting home. None of these places afford- ino' that satisfaction which makes us content with something short of the indulgence of every fancy, they found it exj>edient to take short leases of amusements for which they paid all the accumulated price and compound interest of retail-purchasers, with large premiums and heavy fines, not so much for admission to plea- sure, as redemption from pain. Not willing entirely to forego London, but having no situation in it, they stole into it, and out of it, in a way that, dispensing with inter- course, excused them from mortification. At superb hotels, subscribing to the immense wealth of those keeping them : — in ready-furnished houses, where the rent of a few weeks paid that of a year, — at Bears, Lions, Bulls, Ships, anel White Harts, on roads in ail directions— paying for post-horses, while their own were lagging 9 ROSANNE. S3 after them, or waiting to be overtaken : — keeping one set of good-for-nothing domestics at home, in the fear of being driven thither by sickness, of which Bellarmine seemed every day to con- ceive a greater dread, and another, set of less lazy, but more rapacious followers, to be waited on upon the road : — cheated at all ends — buying bubbles, and contracting for moonshine — pay- ing, ten times over, for that in which they never could have any property — -flattered and bullied into submission to every extortion — it is not to be w^cndered at, that, before their appetite for home revived, they Vv^ere poor — and so poor as to admit of their persuading themselves that they could not afford to live in a house for which they had no rent to pay (l). Travelling was now oeconomizing; and the latter part of this period afforded the novel vi- cissitude of occupying occasional cottages, wdiich, but for fashion, had been disgraceful resi- dences : but obloquy was avoided by incessant change ; and like persons running about w^itli their clothes on fire, they, in a small space, in- cluded abundance of mischief. Mrs. Bellarmine's amiable qualities not appear- ing to particular advantage under an impeuding cloud, her husband soon confined his confidence and his communications to himself, and made the question ' What is to be done?' matter rather of soliloquy than of dialogue. But a fortunate stay of six weeks at Bath altered, if it did not remove, 94 ROSANNE. his inquietude, and he found the burden which had galled him, might be made tolerable by shifting his position: his mornings were amused: he was distinguished amongst men : his even- ings were devoted to the parties of the other sex, and it was matter of contention who should secure him; till the friendships of the day and the flatteries of the night, had involved him in that animated resource of palsied minds, which, when excused, is called ' high play,' and when censured, * deep play.' After experiencing some of the vicissitudes of chance, he was at last fortunate, and so greatly or so peculiarly, that, with the ability now to return to his mansion, he lost no time in resolving — but on what ? on quitting England for ever, and going, w^ith his wife and child, to reside in Paris. NOTE. (1) Tliere is not less money spent on tJie Jiigitive planp than on one more respectable, but it is spent capriciously^- and in the vocabularies of some persons, caprice is a synonym with liberty. On this scheme of life, responsibilities are cast off— hospitality is exchanged for waste : the class of wander- ing servants is increased ; and still more serious conse- quences are involved in it. Those who take the awful cure of souls, in the western parishes of the metropolis, are not admitted to connexion with, or interest in, their flock : they have a new congregation every Sunday — for nobody is settled *— nobody is staid ; and when the book for that composition for tithes called Easter-offerings is sent round, more than half the parish are defaulters, because the houses are hotels or ROSANNE. 95 lodging-houses. It would surprise those who level their wit at the plethoric and pluralist clergy, did they know how far under vulgar calculation, the net profits of some of the most elegant London livings are. — The wine-cellars under churches and chapels must not be reckoned on, since, in the former at least, the arrangement of the emolument does not affect the value of the benefice— and for the sake of decency. It is greatly to be wished that such appendages to ecclesias- tical buildings were removed. The * Diable Boiteux,* had he treated Don Cleofas with the Panorama of London instead of Madrid, would certainly have bestowed five minutes on Whitehall chapel and the polite and noble church of Su George, Hanover Square. 96 ROSANNE. CHAPTER IX. For the waywardness of human hein^'s who shall pretend to account? or who, even with Bellar- mine's speculative powers, can predict what will be the next hour's feeling of a sensation-hunting mind? He now made serious arrangements for alienating all his landed property, that he might clear himself of incumbrances which were every- day accumulating, and carry into an enemy's country — for France can never be the friend of England until gratitude shall stifle political feeling — that which would have diffused, as the halo of his own enjoyments, life and comfort to a large circle of natural dependents. But, strange to say! when he had thus resolved, he could not think of the subsequent preparations neces- sary for quitting England for ever, without feeling that he had dormant affections which were most perversely w^aking to his torment : yet at the same time that he almost repented of the resolution which he had formed, he was hastening on the consequences of it, and was angry that a purchaser for his property did not come forward at the moment when he sio-nified his design of offering it to sale: he had many axioms of other people's experience ready to express his disappointment ; but yet when a pur- chaser appeared, and a bargain on his own terms was offered, by accepting which he must re- ROSANNE. Oi iiounce — for ever! — for himself* and his child, the only inheritance that gave her an interest in her country, every classic writer that had been the study of his younger days, or the re- source of his niaturer years, furnished his me- mory with some opposing sentiment : he paused — he hesitated — he almost retracted :• — he felt that he could have loved home under any other circumstances than those of which he h^d made his election; and at last, in a way that sub- jected him to hear the word ' dishonourable,' he pleaded change of mind, and declared his purpose now to be, a settled residence in his own house, to w^hich he immediately betook himself Mrs. Bellarmine, trusting to that which it was no folly to trust to — his caprice, declined accompanying him in his experimental journey : he therefore left her at Bath, and rejoicing to descry his own chimney-tops, allowed the bells to ring, and those who hoped to profit from it, to congratulate themselves on his return. And now every gap between two trees on a level was a prospect ; every gravel-pit was a fine inequa- lity of ground; all he saw was, or was capable of being made, whatever he could wish it: the house improved, on comparison with half the dwellings he had seen since he quitted it ; and, * on the whole, he mio-ht certainlv as well re- main there, as make a remove, the expense of which would be felt for the next seven years.' He liad forgotten, in the relapse of his feel- VOL. I. ij &8 ROSANNE. ings, and the pleasure of following them, the original cause of his voluntary exile : perhaps he expected that absence would have removed pre- judices, or that the grace of his return would incline all around him to take him up as a new object of attention : but he was mistaken — re- turning without his wife or child, was more dis- creditable than returning with them : some new vagary of vice or folly was supposed ; and he ^hd Mrs. Bellarmine were spoken of as each setting out on a separate capital to increase their powers of making themselves contemptible by dividing. He was soon satisfied as to the comfort which his experiment promised : he saw he should be an insulated individual while alone; and his fa- mily, when united, would be stigmatized afresh by pointed neglect. Again, he made known his disposition to part from his estate, and again a treaty was opened, pending which, an anony- mous letter from Bath, hinting at the friend- ship his lady manifested for a fascinating ' West Briton,' gave a new bias to his ideas, and made him prefer prompt payment from one who had his purse in his hand, to the necessity of settling an account with another where xke balance might ultimately be against him. Paris, never deficient in allurements to the restless and frivolous, at that time held out a new species in great political experiments, and the succession of fancied blessings these ROSANNE. gg Wer^ said to promise; but neither the attrac- tion of place^ nor the repellency of vexatious occurrences, could entirely overcome Bellar- niine's habitual masters — his feelings. In the definitive ceremonies of renouncing his patri- mony, he signed his name with an aching heart, and * delivered as his act and deed' that which he would gladly have given to the flames : he quitted his house, disposed to cling to its door- posts, and wished he had known its value sooner. In his road from it, he called up every recollec- tion that could embitter his feelings; and on reaching Bath, was compelled to think of France that he might not think of England. He settled his plans so as to allow his preparations to fol- low him, and ordered post-horses for the next morning. But scarcely had he done so, and look- ed round for the means of not thinking till he w^a§ to think of setting off, when an express re- vived Mrs. Bellarmine's recollection that she once had a mother, by informing her that she lay at the point of death, and desired to see her grandchild, and would endure to see its parents. If there could be any reluctance to comply with this summons, it must have been on the part of Bellarmine ; for his wife was too sensible to the neglect which she had for some years experienced from the only society, * after all/ worth having, to undervalue even her mother's notice. Mr. and Mrs. Bellarmine appeared to agree in the performance of a duty, when they.,. H 2 aoo RaSANNE. at the sariit moment, ordered all possible mean^ of dispatch to be used in forwarding them on their important journey, which occupying half a day, gave time for explaining to Rosanne what a grandmother was, for informing her that she possessed one whom she was going to lose, and for initiating her a little into the ceremonies of lier introduction. The prospect of death was not an unconnected motive with the old lady to call round her those who in a process, not unlike the operation of chyt mical action on some vegetable juices, had made themselves, of nutritive powers, poisonous in^ jQuences. Her obedience to her husband's in- junctions might have held good, had not tidings of the intended embarkation added disturb- ance to despair, and reviving the scarcely^ stifled affection of a tender-hearted parent, in duced a belief that it was matter of conscience t-o dissuade her daughter and Bellarmine from their purpose. But dissuaded, thus circumstanced, they could not be. The good lady must have bid far higher than the utmost of all she possessed, to have induced her son-in-law to oblige her. There- fore, after one of those agonizing scenes of for- giveness bestowed for the relief of the innocent^ before it is entreated by the guilty, she could pr-evail only in some points respecting the little Rosanne. She conjured Bellai'rauie and be?. ROSANNE. foi daughter to bring her up as an English wortian, not as one of a nation * Avho must ever remember, and might revenge on her, the discomfiture of their naval power by her grandfather.' Above all things, she dreaded her being educated in the religion of the country to which they were go- ing ; and she tried to make Bellarmine promise that Rosanne should beinternally and externally reared a Protestant. The poor simple-minded grandmother thought she had all that she asked, when Bellarmine assured her she should not be a Catholic : she thought that all who were not Ca- tholics were Protestants ; and not aware that it; iViis hardly probable that such a woman as her daughter, and such a man as Bellarmine, should have any religion, she did not find out that Ro- sanne had never vet been in a church, not that it was very unlikely she should, in as mari}^ more years as she liad already lived, increase her acquaintance with buildings of such a nature. With a mind much eased, and a spirit very willins: to be freed from rts sCarelv tenan tabic' habitation, she gave her last directions for se- curing' to Rosanne, on her attaining the age of twenty-one, all that she had power to bestow/ and bequeathed the interest of this fortune for her, to her father during her minority ; but on the expressly specified condition, that in every point, particularly in religion and language, though resident in France, she should be edu- cated as an: English girl. H 3 . 10? ROSANNE. Just enough acquainted with business to know, or else informed by some one, that trus- tees would make ' assurance double sure,' she named as persons she preferred for this dis- tinguished confidence, two of her few surviv- ing friends, making her choice of those to whom years might be supposed to give knowledge, ex- perience, and caution. The poor soul was not in a state to make computations, or she might have asked herself how great was the probabi- lity that persons more than co-eval with herself, would live long enough to see her grand- daughter twenty-one. The old lady resigned her breath in the course of the day; and nothing farther requiring pre- sent attention, the party delayed their journey only twenty-four hours — Rosanne very imper- fectly informed on the subject of grandmothers, and inclined to resent, as if defrauded of a pro- mised pleasure, the arbitrary authority by which she had been consigned to the company of her ofrandmarnma's servants, with no other indul- gence than going to her bedside, where she saw only — and she was sure that could not be her grandmamma — an old woman in an ugly night- cap, crying. It was well, as far as regarded the future plans of Bellarmine for his daughter, that there was no opportunity for better acquaintance with her grandmother. The young lady was not, at present, sufficiently disciplined to accept th^ ROSANNE. kJ3 tender fondness of the dying woman with placi- dity : the cadaverous hue of her skin was ap- paUing, her emaciated hand was held out in vain, and the unstudied nightcap completed the repulsion. When grandmamma wept in agony, Rosanne roared in fury ; and, for the ease of all, being suffered to depart, she received the last blessing of her newly-found relation by proxy, and escaped the * prejudice' which she might have imbibed, had her curiosity been roused to ask. What does she mean by saying, * Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace?' — She might have wanted to be told whether grand- mamma was any lord's maid — and we all know, too well how teazing and unanswerable are th« questions of children. u 4 104 ROSANNE. CHAPTER X. XHE English being at that time very welcome visitors in Paris, Bellarmine settled himself and his family there, much to his satisfaction ; and wisely preferring the public funds of his own country for the trust of his monied property, he felt no cause for anxiety. ^ Mrs. Bellarmine never having been out of England, and seeing with the most inconsiderate delight, novelty, which, if she had thought at all, would have made her regret that she had quitted it, was a new creature. Her husband, therefore, had no reason to suppose that she had formed any connexion that would not imme- diately give way to the vivid pleasure which she expressed in visiting the gay metropolis of the civilized world. Their friends were chiefly amongst those who were blowing the kindling coals that were to produce the glorious gas-light of liberty. Mrs. Bellarmine heard with rap- ture little fanciful romances of patriotic virtue, and made a very profitable acquaintance with one of her own countrywomen, who could di- rect her when ' to clap ;' her husband was looked to as an oracle on the subject of English go- vernment, and was almost idolized for the happy fshance of having been born under it. Thus occupied, Rosanne had sunk m her imr ROSANNE. m portance to them: she was reduced to their plaything; and that she was ever to be any thing else, was a consideration reserved for that time when they should want a new form of happi- ness. Various horrible events came in^ very for- tunately, to vary the scene of minor excita- tions; and Mrs. Bellarmine enjoyed them as she would have done the * spectacle' of an opera (l)i But horrible events do not occur every day; and as, when we have been sitting in a profu«* sion of chandeliers, a couple of candles seem only to exhibit * darkness visible,' every pause was dejecting; and her felicity ended, before the year expired, in her seeking new excitations by with- drawing herself from her husband's house, and departing for Berlin with her Bath-admirer, leaving a conjugal epistle, very much in the dic- tion of some lately given to the public, and ad- mirably calculated, by its pathos, its sentiments of high honour and delicate feeling, its confes- sions of delinquency, and its concern for her dear Frank's peace, and the welfare of her child, whom she recommended to his care as if from her death-bed, to show that though we call our- selves rational creatures and Christians, our af- fections are not under our own or any other control; that we may be unfortunate, but can- Jiot be culpable when led astray by them, and that a man may be very ill used by his profligate wife, without a right of appealing from her de- 106 ROSANNE. cisions on her own conduct. Nothing could be more interesting than this letter — nothing could appear more candid, more amiable than the writer. By heaping on herself condemnation which she could not be supposed to deserve, she disarmed censure ; while by endeavouring to con- vince him that she was not worth recalling, slie seemed to claim a right to depart unmolest- ed (2). The GaUic atmosphere was not, at this crisis, particularly favourable to the growth of the so- cial affections ; and fashion did not demand in- tense feelings on any but public events. Bellar- mine, in his general weariness of ' existing circumstances,' had not made any partial excep- tion in favour of his wife ; but yet his occupations on a new theatre had kept him free from any decided wish to be rid of her. Where there is no prospect, there is no room for speculation; and considering his disgrace as in some measure implicated with hers, he was not impatient for her doing any thing preposterously violent, but rather acquiesced in effects the causes of which he could not trace without seeing interwoven his own errors. But this calm of mind continued only while there was no conflict of elements. It was dis- turbed at the moment when Mrs. Bellarmine was not to be found, and by the manner in which her letter accounted for her absence; and he meditated deeply on the event in all the relation^ ROSANNE. 107 it would bear, and thought hhnself as ill-used as if he had deserved happiness. ' What were the times? what were morals? what was confidence? what would now ensure a man domestic com- fort ?' He believed really ' the homely age of wo- man was tiie best for society ; for though they might then be no companions — men did not Avant companions — they only wanted quiet.' As the lady set out on her journey late in the day, Bellarmine's feelings were in full vivacity at the time Avhen his little girl was retired to r^st; and thinking on the mother, he recollect- ed the child with pungent concern : he went to her bedside, and made no scruple of disturb- ing her — but too far gone in sleep to be quite rpused, she only awaked enough to ask for * Mamma,' and then, in happy insensibility to the importance of her question, sunk into a slum- ber that was proof against his incautious endear- ments. To a disciple of ' the feelings/ even those which are deprecated by the more rational, may be luxurious; and Bellarmine, never having since the death of his mother, felt any thing that de- served the name of sorrow, did not shun the ex- periment. His, at the present moment, was rather grief ' of course,' than sterling affliction ; and, if he had had no child, it would have been forgotten in two days ; but Rosanne was a pretty interest to keep alive, without distuibance, that |vhich it was new and not very painful to feel; arid being at hand, and vdry well suiteid to Tif^ apathy and indisposition to reach fur fd^.'' ::fei* little slight aliment liis ideas called for, she wii rendered in a moment of increased consequence. Whenever obliged to part from her, he could not dismiss the train of thought into which sh^ had led him : he excused himself from some en- gagements, and dismissing all obtruding recol- lection of his v/ife, he endeavoured to concen* trate his ruminations on the plan he had to de- vise for rearing his daughter. His first intention was— and wiser parents would, in this instance, do well to follow hiiti-^^ to study the disposition and natural endowments of his subject. Having attained a knowledge of these, he meant to constitute himself her tutor, with such assistance from female-talents as might be necessary to the making her equally distinguished for external and internal attain- ments. To any system of education resembling either that of an English boarding-school or a foreign convent, he had an equal dislike, result- ins: from his observations on the women with whom his habits of life had connected him; and as he meant the period of Rosanne's tutelage to he as agreeable to him as her years of discretion, he felt that he should part from an amusement if he transferred tlie charge of her. There is no plan of proceeding so expedi- tious as that of separating decidedly, arguments HgWiist and arguments- /(^/'—-^ascertaining prer RQSANNE.' IGj^ i^isefy wliat we mean, and adhering steadily to the resolution coolly formed. Bellarmine hav- ing studied and thought, had this power; and he used it on the present occasion. In a few hours he had told himself, that his first business was to get into his family some lady who should take the important care of his daughter under his superintendence ; — and for such a person h^ began to inquire. A few of his friends, who could steal time from ' the duties of insurrection,' rallied round him with their advice and their offers : he heard them vvith attention, politeness, and expressions of gratitude when they came from male-friends; and with the addition of a smile that had a la- tent meaning, when uttered by the lips of fe- males aspiring to lead, or alread}^ leading the parties and opinions of a frantic nation; for, however fascinating he had found the various superiorities of our enemies in early years, or when received as a visitor amongst them, he now:, in the maturity of his judgment, and ad- mitted as on^ of themselves, discovered much,^ particularly in the female world, into which he* did not wish to initiate a daughter, more especially as he meant to obey the will of her grandmother,, while it did not thwart his own ; nor was his. confidence in the stability of newly-established. French politics, sufficiently firm, to make him. sure he should himself choose to die a subject, of France. He had already begun to think, 110 ROSANNE. of the reduction of establishment which Mm Bellarmine's departure admitted ; and this, with consistent occonomy, would eventually leave his dauohter heiress to considerable wealth. He might indeed, on this basis, have calculated on a period not very remote when he should have it in his power to return home; but the acquisi- tion of that money which he owed to the be- nign atmosphere of Bath, had a circumstance attendii.!git, which conquered the faint struggles of patriotic affection. He saw with fond feeling, how liberal Nature had been in her favours, and was in her pro- mises, to his daughter. She was now nearly seven years old, a lovely sylph-like creature, lively, impetuous, quick in comprehension, ar- dent in pursuit, self-confident and haughty, yet manageable by her feelings, and not deficient in returns of affection, or the gentle sympathies of her sex. It required, for two or three days after the departure of her mother, some exertions of ino-enious falsehood to detach her heart from its natural object ; but when duly informed that * naughty mamma' was not to be loved, and never to be mentioned, and convinced by the loss of some pleasure that transgression would bring punishment, she had prudence or selfishness enough in her composition to make her obedient; and no subsequent excitation of displeasure interrupted her father's ruminations for her ad- vantage. rosanne: ul Having, for a few days, attentively consi- dered what nature had done and seemed able to bear, he resolved to devote himself to his child, and to exercise for her that ambition which for himself he had extinguished : his vanity was^ already gratified by encomiums suited to her age ; and he meant, as she advanced, to make her pretensions as conducive to his pride. In this process he had worked up his feelings to enthusiasm, and had decided that Rosanne Bel- larmine should be, if not a tenth or eleventh muse, a fourth grace, and an eighth wonder of the world. It, even thus early, entered into his intentions to rear her solely for himself, and with a particular view to her care of him in his old age, or in that accelerated state of infirmity, which a very reasonable, justifiable, and almost laudable disposition to hypochondria, made him fancy he perceived in his horizon. He was not living amongst persons at all in- clined, or in circumstances at all calculated to make him deliberate long on some points, * such as pious fathers' think of importance, and her o-randmother had hinted at. Had he ever, in- deed, in his own country, seen much benefit de- rived by parents from the religious education of children, he might, however silent, have recol- lected its use, but he had never made any ob- servation of this kind : the subject was seldom started where he led the convei sation ; and by the same sort of accidental ignorance which any lis ROSANNE. of OS may acquire, even in sight of our object, only by shutting our e^es, he had escaped the Jeayen of this doubt. In Paris, at this time, there was no question of Hugonot or Cathohc, for there was not a vestige of religion, unless their frantic goddess, Liberty, could be styled, by any profanation of language, a deity, and orgies worse than those of Bacchus, constituted worship. Had Beiiarmine remained in his own country, some friend or other might have whispered to him that men, however lax in their opinions for themselves, on religion, virtue, and morals, ge- nerally choose, that those of the inferior sex with whom it is their lot to pass their livesj should entertain more precise sentiments. Many of them, he might have learnt, confessed readily, that the forms of religion, a reverence for its precepts, and observance of its laws, are in them- selves good things; and, as assisting in the con* trol of a set of beings to v/hom great endow- ments of reason were not granted, so far useful in the oeconomy of life. Perhaps, had he been the father of a large family, necessity would have made him think on this subject; but, with only one lovely little ' fancy-thing of a girl to bring up, he certainly could not need to adopt popular means. The continent at this time had furnished some illustrious examples on ^ a liberal plan,' and if he conceded any thing, it was, that k was time enough to think of this. ROSANNE. 113 At present, therefore, all question on this liead was asleep ; and he proceeded so far in se- curing its nap, as to figure to his imagination liis daughter educated to a state of perfection yet unatlained — young, beautiful, free from all prejudices, disdaining all the shackles of esta- blished opinion, and with no hazard of her grand- mother's property ; in short, as unprejudiced and as unfettered as he was. What this amounted to, indeed, should be stated. And perhaps the best way of stating it, would be to refer to some persons of the same standard who are well known; but yet all could not be benefited even by this reference ; for it may not be the ill fortune of many of us to be obliged to ad- mit into our houses his archetypes — men, who merely seeing the ' Sacraments of Poussin,' or * Raifaelle's Transfiguration,' as the ornaments of our walls, would thence take a hint, and preach, to theh' own scandal and the horror of their audience, on the text, * I believe in NO God.' The preachers are not many; and it would be honourhig them beyond their de- serts, to tell in what class they may be found, or to relate their ingenious devices for affronting the Church of their country, and for dishonour- ing the Sabbath. They may go on very safely, no one will offer to disturb them ; they can do no harm to others that will not recoil on them- selves. They may live in their own fashion, and 'die after it, in all the various forms of buffoons VOL. I. I 114 ROSANNE. and bravc5 ; and as to any good they can dcr, unless they would let any body see them with a broken shm, or confined to the house with a cold, it is so little, that it is hardly worth at- tempting (3). Bellarmine being a polite man in mind and manners, had not suffered himself, indeed, to obtrude his notions on his friends and acquaint- ance ; nor was he, perhaps, when he quitted Eng- land, sufficiently settled in his opinions to explain them : he had, under the impulse of curiosity, and complying with a habit of informing himself, attended to whatever was the fashionable study of the day or the hour ; and, facilitated in the gratification of his vanity by natural acumen, he was looked up to, by the less well endowed and the idle, as a spring whose waters might bij drawn without pumping. — From being the con* duit of knowledge, to setting up for a source, is an easy transition to those who can forget whence they are themselves supplied ; and the well-seasoned flattery of some who were emulous of being acquainted with ' talent* exclusively^ easily fastened on Bellarmine the fancied neces- sity of thinking for himself, that is, of thinking with nobody else. If, as says a luminous preacher of a celebrated lecture, * vanity intrudes into the sanctity of the study,' and thence ' becomes the parent of infidelity,' those whose studies have no jsanctity, who read in a lantern, and would be hq students in solitude, come out of doors to learij ROSANNE. lU sophistry. To be distinguished even for being wrong, may, in their estimation, be a happier lot than to be right with the multitude ; and if it be possible to teach a new fashion of being wrongs great is the reward, in the anticipated applause of such as think that to be stared at, is to be ad- mired. He had astonished iii calculation and de- monstration — he had elaborated statistics- he had geologised and mineralogised — he had given authenticity to theory by chemical expe- riment — he had struck out combinations in^ me- chanics ; in short, he had collected in his mind a pattern-book of systems and opinions; and with the aid of the classical part of his early educa- tion, and his continental perceptions, he hadj ia his brilliant career^ run up, for the present pur- pose, a flimsy result of dogmatical inferences, which, requiring only to be expressed by ne- gatives, did not disturb that natural and ac- quired apathy, and habitual indolence, which, however counteracted by the stimulants of his yoiith, or the goad of vanity, v/aited only the •withdrawing these impulses, to show that they still were parts of his character. But now, having attained the radiating centre of opinions that were striving for precedence, as their promulgators gave out, in illuminating the whole civilized world, — and regarded as a Solon in a vacant project of legislatiou, it was not only necessary that he should think for I 2 ii6 1^0 S ANNE. himself, but that he should know what he- thought : he had candour enough to read for the purpose ; but it was rather to confirm and to arrange his ideas, than to seek the most cor- rect; and from them he made up a mongrel "code of infidehty, ingrafting what suited him of the philosophy of the heathens on the moral of the times. He had now got as far as dispensing with any notion of a Supreme Being, either as governing or creating the world; but as there were ocular •proofs that the latter had been, somehow or i>ther, effected, he informed himself * that matter is infinitely divisible into atoms ; that atoms were, from eternity, always in motion ; that their meeting is fortuitous, and the produce what wfe every day see. With regard to that form intd which they are so apt to throw themselves, i. e. human beings, that this is temporary accident, as they and all other substances must, after a certain lapse of years, crumble again into atoms, which will serve, as well as new ones, to make more shapes : and as for those fancies with which people would be plaguing the world, about the soul, and things connected with it, the answer was very short : if there was such a thing as a soul, why, it must go with the partner it was tied to. As to laws and commandments, re- wards and punishments, this was the mummery of priests. As to sin, which was so much thought on by the superstitious; and as to thtt IIOSANNE. n?f jargon of revelation and redemption ; it was all a mere notion. There might be errors — faults —weaknesses in the atoms, and mistakes in their configurations; but they could not be respon- sible for their own misfortunes, when those mis- fortunes resulted from the nature of things. A future life was therefore a mere illusion, an en- gine of government for the vulgar, and its tei^ rors the n;iost cruel exercise of the power of the crafty/ There can, it is presumed, be no man born aft atheist, because the question must be proposed to his judgment before he can assert his dissent ; but the early tuition of such a mother, the sub* sequent example of libertinism in his uncle, th^ preclusion of all counteraction in which his tutor had timidly and culpably acquiesced ; a foreign university, at that time no * Alma Mater' to her sons ; an uncontrolled choice of good and evil, in countries where the latter had far more en- courag-ement than the former : and the subse- quent adoption of habits of life which made it prudent to be sceptical, had, all together, led Bel- larmine to this seeming dismisssion of preju- dices, and in reality to the acceptance of the ab- surdest of all necessities, that of taking up an opinion as the result of thought, and the exer- cise of free option, because we have made it con- venient to ourselves. What would be said of any of us, who, because we had broken a leg^ insisted on it that crutches were of general uti- U% ROSANNE. lity ? or because we had weak eyes, chose that all our friends should prefer a darkened room ? Yet these would be rational exertions of ego- tism, absurdity, and prejudice, if compared with those of atheism or deism : and well indeed might the Psalmist confine to the fool the say- ing, ' There is no God,' if he classed, as he seems to do, the knaves and the fools in one lot. NOTES, ( 1 ) There were English ladies, and living in England, at this period, who made no scruple of avowedly wishing for a revolution. It is a pity they were not indulged with a privates exhibition, to which none but themselves and their party should have been admitted. They must all have been born since the year 1780, or the remembrance of the distress of that period might have taught them, by very imperfect ana- logy, the folly of their wish. (2) lathe many questions now agitating for the advan- tage of society and the good of our country, it were to be wished that the licentiousness, not the liberty of the press, were considered. Can it do any good, equivalent to the infi- nite mischief it must produce, to publish in the newspapers, which it is impossible to keep froni young persons and ser- vants, the most indecent details and the most seductive com- positions that the vilest actions and the most corrupt- minds can furnish ? Is it worse to do some things for which the law inflicts pains and levies penalties, than to describe, as far as words can, scenes of the lowest seduction? to teach boys of fifteen, the data on which damages are adjudged, and girls to repeat interesting passages from unrepenting confessions of guilt ? Were such letters as those above alluded to, fit for publication ? A very good friend to virtue, a woman of atj- ROSANNE. 119 mirable intellectual powers, used to say, that even medical cases ought to be veiled in Latin, and she was right ; for she did not live to see the publication of some famous prescrip- tions, or she would have made an exception for practitioners who must have been starved in their studies by her regulation. But on the question of indecent communications of that which tfie less known the better, there can be no doubt. Let it but be considered how important it appears to an indi- vidual who has the care of even one child, to keep its mind a stranger to the language of vice, till love of virtue is fairly planted ; and the cruelty of thus infecting thousands at once, will be evident. All the nonsense that is talked on the secu- rity of innocence, or all the sneers bestowed on those who would preserve it, will not alter the matter of fact, that, what- ever we were intended by our Maker to have been, we are by the transgression of our first parents, rendered of a na- ture, in which the brute and the angel alternately predomi- nate — every relaxation in favour of the former, makes the task of the latter harder; and there is nothing which our nobler part has to deplore so much, as the moment when, perhaps, only by half a dozen words, that lovely sacred enamel with which the young mind is shielded, is broken through, and vice is to be fought on our hearth, instead of being excluded by our doors. Let it not be said this is al^ notional. Let the effect be observed— hear the principal per- formers in some sentimental adultery, discussed by lads and their sisters.^ The lady has always an advocate — the gentle- man always finds one wl)o \rill devise an excuse ; while of any husband and wife, who are the innocent and the pitiable suf- ferers, you hear every little failing that can be picked up. The Jiorror cf novel vice is gone ; the fear of the world's universal ireproach is done away ; and hoping that the commandments are in their observance optional, and treating the Gospel as allegory, the conflicting elements of the world are, more than any established principle, trusted to, for the esc^e of those dear to us, from eternal perdition. I i 120 ROSANNE. (3) It is a consoling fact, that one of these preachers having occasion to send for an apothecary, appeared so terrified while the extent of a wound was examining, that it was hardly possible to support his spirits. The greatest charity they can ask is, the prayers of others that this sense may never be quite extinguished in them. When they grow brave, we shall have every thing to fear for them. U O S AN N Er ^ai CHAPTER XL 1 HIS was the state of Bellarmiiie's mind ; and cold and comfortless it was as heart could wisli : cheerfulness is soon burnt out in a life of plea- sure ; and now, when he ought to have been vi- gorous and active, he was graver, or rather more dull, than most men of his age, and inclined to claim the privileges due to those much his se- niors : he had lived on impulses; and when these were most frequent, he was least unhappy ; but the invariable action of impulses destroys their character; and when, as in France, he saw them melting into one, the tendency of which was, to his acuteness, very suspicious, he could not enjoy all the relief he had expected from a change of climate. He was, therefore, at tin's time, very willing to take up a new employment. The next business was to procure the co-ad~ jutrix whom he needed — and her he might have found without search, and engaged without even an interview, would he but have listened to re- commending friends and extolling patronesses ; but he chose to look a little round for himself in so important a choice, and was satis-fied that he was acting spontaneously, when in truth hh thoughts were confined to the identical lady, whoin it was the intention of the ' coterie' under KS ROSANKE. whose influence he unconsciously acted, to im- pose upon him. This lady was Mademoiselle Cossart, who re* taining the style of a single woman, was, never- theless, a wife. A thorough understanding ai^d usage of the English language, and her not being of the Romish church — indispensable requisites in the person whom he must trust — left him hardly the power to hesitate ; they were circum- stances, he candidly confessed to himself, per- haps not to be met with in any other French wo- man ; for he had not yet discovered, nor had any one had the goodness to inform him, that this lady was by birth an American subject of Great Britain. He, in the reserve which was now- enveloping his mind, had not chosen to say pre- cisely what he wanted ; and those who wished themselves fairly rid of the burdensome duty of protection, were fearful of marring their own in- terests in telling the truth. She had been brought up by an eccentric fa- ther, who, with acute intellects, united a spirit of roving discontent, and who had quitted the exercise of the clerical profession, and its cha- racter, for a speculation on a savannah in tlie new world, from whence he continued to write false accounts and selfish invitations to his friends, till his death and his creditors told the truth. His daughter, who had shared his spe- culative endeavours with the savannah, had made as ill a requital; for, disgusted by poverty 4 R O S A N N E. 123 and the claims made on her powers of alleviat- mg it, she had gladly hstened to the splendid offer of a Parisian lady, who liad crossed the Atlantic in quest of a little property bequeathed to her, and who offered to remove her from this scene, ' so beneath her talents,' without dis- tressing her by painful adieus to her parent. A hint of the celebrity which she might acquire iu the fiist city of the world, and under the first patronage, was sufficient: her wardrobe was soon packed and easily conveyed ; — and in this protection, her pride and ambition v/ere grati- fied to the utmost, by an introduction to tiie highest circles, and a marriage with a man of rank, so far descended into the vale of dotage, as to be angry and surprised when lie fancied his property in her affections ideal. — He had abandoned her to extreme indigence, a burden on those, whom a certain ' esprit de corps' call- ed on to support one in some measure adopted by them. As the low state of her finances was no bar to her being seen in the best company, ]\Iademoi- gelie Cossart had been admitted at the ' petits soLspers' of female wits and freethinkers, where every thing was, in turn, the subject of conversa-. tion and discussion ; and where, by blending tlie deep designs of men with the frivolous in- consideration of women, abundance of moral corruption was facilitated : where statesmen, scholars, priests, men of first-rate endowments, ie4 rosanne: were not ashamed to show, at least to the woild around them, that public business and the weigh- tiest affairs, extensive learning, and deep science, admitted of the paltry interference of unprin- cipled females — where the irascible as well as the grosser affections, were features of intrigue — and where the alternations of love and hatred, neither worth a moment's regard, and peace and strife, alike selfish and alike artificial, gave em- ployment to all the passions that were not en- gaged by illicit connexions, and rendered wo- men, while they appeared to govern, the sub- servient tools of their male-associates (l). Mademoiselle Cossart added to the distin- guishing advantages of a commanding figure and characteristic countenance, the acquired *•' air dc la bonne societe/ which neither doubt, dilfidence, nor sense of inferiorit}^ ever injured. Ne\'er distrusting hei'self, she never felt cause of self-distrust; and though she did not always see the two sides of a question, and now and then was mistaken in a precipitate opinion, she al- ways found a way out of one error, if it was only into another ; and did not add to the casual circumstance of being wrong, the less pardon- nble aukwardness of being out of countenance. Her father, having a wild luxuriant range of desultory knowledge, and no son to whom he could bequeath it, hung as much of it as there was surface to receive, on her, as the only ob- ject within his reach ; and thus she had, almost ROSANNE. X^^ insensibly, acquired such a variety ^f superficial knowledge, as, under her management of it, raised her to a high rank of estimation with those whp do not ask what proportion a sample bears to a gross quantity. She was best characterized by that expressive term borrowed from the country she adorned, ' imposing;' and of this sum-total, Bellarmine was wxll aware, in the course of a short acquaintance with her; but it did not hinder her exactly suiting his views, nor lessen her reputa- tion in the world of literary taste and intellec- tual fashion. She had, it was supposed, formed the mind, finished the manners, and given grace to the person of the young i\Iadame de ****"**, who at this moment, in the capricious favour of a changeable multitude, reflected lustre on her teachers ; and it required more time than could now be spared, to find\)ut that the great quali- ties of Mademoiselle Cossarf s mind had some counteractions which, on an inferior plan, w^ould liave been more regarded. She did not herself tell, nor would any body else, when so much was at stake, that her extreme self-confidence was rendered abortive by indolence ; that the more than feminine independence of her lan- Q-uao-e, could chansje into the meanest blandish- nients when her indulgences were threatened — that the most paltry puerile cowardice w^ould ' occasion the most culpable desertion of all care but for herself, and prompt every resource of 126 R OS ANNE. (lisingenuoUsness tliat eould save her from dis- paragement. What this lady might have become, under any other tuition than her father's, cannot be guess- ed; but opinionated as she was, though liberally gifted by nature, it might not have been any thing very different from the partly presbyte- rian, partly deistical, partly catholic, partly atheistical, but at this moment, entirely facile candidate for an establishment hi IMonsieur Bel- larmine's family. The arrangement seemed almost out of the power of the fates. Every day brought fresh tes- timonials to the merits of Mademoiselle Cossart ; and every evening afforded Bellarmine opportu- nity of judging of her estimation among the most esteemed. But there was an obstacle, neither to be seen nor described : it was only felt in its effects ; —and this consisted in an unaccountable antipa- thy, which Monsieur Bellarmine had conceived against the lady — why, he could not tell himself, nor did he attempt to tell any one ; he dared not avow it, though he felt it increase with the ad- vancement of the treaty: he could only procrasti- nate, and deplore his own want of decision in an affair of so much importance. Her kind friends were in despair, when, had they better known Bellarmine, they would have been the most con* fideut; but an old she-rat of the council guessed the truth— that they had only to be quiet — or, if ROSANNE. nil H^t were not in their nature, vigorously to bring forward and propose some one else. The waywardness of Bellarmine, while not opposed, proceeded regularly, and produced its natural result. When Mademoiselle Cossart was not obtruded on his attention, he thought her most deserving of it : when her shrewd friends spoke lightly of that in her, which others were instructed to hint as merit, he was her champion : — when he did not meet her, he in- quired for her — and when left to indulge his aversion, it died away with his other exploding feelings ; and his opinion settled into conviction that she was, though not quite his choice, the person whom he needed. — This favourable senti- ment wanted a prop, perhaps still more than his dislike ; but it was his feeling at the moment on the subject, and this was always ground suffi- cient for any proceeding of Frank Bellarmine's : and though it vv^as sarcastically said once, that feelings taken for guides, might lead us into a hornet's nest, or, suffered to govern, might make us need a nurse and a backstring, — ^}'et it cannot he denied that fine feelings are particularly to be desired by those who can do nothing but on ike »pur of the occasion. ^ He is fond of the spur,* said a horse-dealer, recommending a lazy animal to a purchaser : had he had Bellarmine to sell, he might have said this with truth. That tliere were objections to be made to her «s the guide even of a cliild, and ^till more as les ROSA N N E. the superintendent of a young female who might not possess one of the qualities to which Mademoiselle Cossart's could be useful, did not escape liim ; but when he recollected the num- ber of persons in England, who took catholics into their families as teachers of their children, and foreigners for domestic servants, he conclud- ed it mattered little whether the selection were exactly prudent : a few young people might, to be sure, turn out papists in consequence of early prejudices instilled into them, and there certainly were, now and then, reasons to wish that the Protestant English could be content to be serv- ed by those of their own church and nation; hut he did not think the mischief occurred often enough to come within calculation; and as to any thing that he had heard of Mademoiselle Cos- sart, it was not likely that she should ever reveal what must lower her in the estimation of her pupil. — This was not very false reasoning in ]Mr. Eellarmine : he only gave more credit to parents and heacls of families than was their due, and he had nev^er had an opportunity of judging what those will do who must betray a higher trust than that committed to them by their employer, if they will not ' compass sea and land to make one proselyte (2).' To return to the governess-elect. Her adven- tures had been, in most circumstances, so com- mon, that they left little to censure that might not be justified by precedent, and nothing to 4 HOSANNE. Ift^ remark, as novel. She had had her little ' ba- dinage' of tender friendship with philosophers, academicians, and ' encyclopedists' — but who could say whether these were affairs of the heart or of the head ? intrigues of gallantry, or the contribution of female genius to the ameliora- tion of the state of human nature ? since many Avomen of this distinguished period of history, might be thought to be forfeiting their best re- putation, while only seeking glory; and many preserved a fair external by seeming to be thus employed. All these circumstances were duly weighed by Bellarmine — for he was by no means a hasty inconsiderate creature-— he bestowed as much wear and tear of thought on what he did, as if he had done wisely (3)--and the result of his deliberation was an agreement with Made- moiselle Cossart, to take on herself the super- intendence of his house, which he wished to es- tablish on an English plan of comfort, and the care of his daughter's person and education, for as lang a time as he should judge fit to retain her. The terms were extremely liberal: the reputation of Monsieur Bellarmine's style of living was high : it was in effect an invitation to her to share in all the satisfaction she could enjoy ; and she had no reluctance to bind her- self. But no sooner was the decision irrevocable, than Bellarmine repented, and, could he have instantly rescinded the treaty, Mademoiselle roL. L K ISO R O S A N N E. Cossart's prospects had vanished ; but «he was out of Paris two days, which gave time for an^ other change ; and the treaty remained in force. For the sake of a maintenance, and on such terms, she would have promised much more than Bellarmine asked, which was only that his little girl might be educated as well as possible, and free from all ' superstition and nonsense.' Made- moiselle Cossart replied, that on no other con- dition would she undertake such a charge. She was convinced, by her own observation, that ia the common modes of forming the mind, time and labour were mispent — that what should hav© been bestowed on the height of the column, wa» buried in its foundation ; and that the reason why females had not yet their proper rank ia society was, that so many years were wasted m teaching them error. Bellarmine might have expressed some appre- hension lest a very tall column without a found- ation, might totter with the first blast — but h% meant to take this care on himself; at any rato he wished an end to a flojid declamation from a monstrous tall woman. The party soon settled together in mutual sa* tisfaction ; and either Bellarmine's restlessness, or his reasonable anxieties^ inducing him to re- move to a little distance out of Paris as quickly ^s he could. Mademoiselle Cossart's usefulness was rendered very apparent by the exertion of her influence in drawing towards hei' the attcB- ROSANNE. 131 tions of those teachers, without whose assist- ance Rosanne's education would have been defi- cient. NOTES. ( 1 ) It is not possible to mention this coalition of faction and profligacy, without adverting to the characters of some who, a Httle previous to this period, distinguished themselves in it ; and amongst the females must be recollected Madame du Deftand, now so well kno^vn in this country, through the medium of her published correspondence with the celebrated, Horace Walpole. 'T is needless to record her life — it may be useful to remark brieSy on her character. At the time of her influence, women of high fashion in Paris, trod, with very few exceptions, but with some, the same path in their pas- gage to old age— the phrase, * another world,' hardly applies to them any more than it would to hordes. When gallantry ceased, they took their choice of gaming or wit. Madame du Deffand led a party in the latter class, and her house received, and her correspondence included, almost all the genius of the time. Her letters declare her principles, and portray her character : but to the great features of the latter ehould be added the most disgusting gluttony — a very com- mon resource of infidel inanity even among the schismatics of our own country ;— but in her, who, as being blind, had fewer enjoyments than her neighbours, this was carried to «uch an excess, that having shrewdly connected the protrac- tion of her existence with the interests of her servants, by settling on them annuities, increasing in a progressive ratio, during her life, she would follow the dishes with her hand, when, in their care for her and for themselves, they took them away, lest she should suffer by repletion. Her manners, or rather relaxations of manners, were too grossly indelicate to be detailed ; though she was extraordinarily neat in her ap- pearance. \Vliat construction it is fairest to put on her pas- WQHfttQ language to our countryman, is matter of question. K 2 132 ROSANNE. Her conduct in early days does not claim ao acquitUl ; and those who reason on the presumption that a woman of se- venty-five could not be serious in arty sentiment of love to a man of fifty, are entitled rather to respect than to credit. No light will be afforded us by referring to the general accepta- tion of such expressions in the country whose language was hers-it is, after all, problematical, and therefore there is something wrong either as to example or conscience. Admitting Madame du Deffand to have possessed a most powerful attraction in her brilliant talents for conversation,, and to have obtained by them that applause and that « cortege' which could best exhilarate the pitiable state of blindness, let us see what they produced ; and then let us compare, or ra- ther contrast her with a lady of our own country, whose lif« began perhaps nearly at the same time, and ended much within the long period allowed the French marquise. Madame du Deffand's natural temper, far from good, seems never to have received any benefit from culture; and th« vexations to which a vain woman is always subject, did not mend it. She grew more peevish, more selfish, more hard- hearted, as she grew older— a probability which ought al- ways to be reckoned on, and guarded against, in time;— and her expressions on the subject of religion are little «hort of blasphemous. She calls the Almighty to answer the ques- tions- for no one else could pretend to do it— « Why are we fient into the wprld?— Why do we grow old?'— Poor forlorn wretch .'—she received as an injury the mercy of our Maker, and died, it is to he feared, as ignorant on these points as she was born. The Psalmist thought himself * brutish and ignorant' when tke dealings of God towards the wicked puzzled him— what then are we, when we cannot understand his views for our happiness ? The eye of the young and well-disposed must not be shock- ed by submitting to it the several passages in her letters which call for severity :— it is enough to say that the least of- fensive of them are those where she complains of her wretched incap:^city to enjoy any thing— of « ennui '—of « the taedium of life,' and of * having been subjected to its cala- ftiitie*.* ROSANNE. 153 In a letter to Voltaire, she almost implores him to assure her that there is no life beyond that which she so heartily curses. She died 1780, at the age of eighty-three, of weak- ness and fever, the last eight days of which she passed in le- thargic insensibility. Frances Countess of Hartford, afterwards Dutchess of So- merset, the lady with whom Madame du Defland may be con- trasted, seems, tl^om her earliest years, to have had a taste for virtue — she was married to a worthy man, to whom she was a most amiable wife. The degree of talent she pos- sessed, though perhaps far inferior to the endowments of 'the French marchioness, drew around her the wits of the time ; yet her letters, published and unpublished, testify to her deep sense of religion, and the most grateful acknowledgment of the goodness of God even under the most trying affliction ; for in the death of her only son, the exemplary Lord Beau- champ, a wound was given to her heart, which never closed; and she had to bear the cruel reflection of her father-in- law's malignant pride, when he intimated that she had sent the young man abroad to kill him, because he was not inocu- lated for the small-pox before he went. A slanderj less de- served was never cast on any one. Inoculation was then matter of trial — it had not received the sanction of time, ex- perience, and success. Lord Beauchamp was of an age to decide for himself; he was consulted on it, and he did not choose to submit to it. What Madame du DefFand would have said or thought, under so pungent, so inconsolable an affliction, can only be guessed. Perhaps she could not have said any thing worse than she did when all Paris seemed to be the guarantee of as much comfort as her situation ad- mitted her to know— but in our countrywoman we see the best effects of the chastising rod, and her letter describing her own feelings a year after, and another recounting the par- ticulars of Queen Caroline's death, make her almost an ob- ject of envy rather than of pity. Those in which she relates the death of her husband, and her modes of life afler it, show a spirit repining for the possession of a better inheritance than k3 154 R OS ANNE. this world has to give or withhold. St. Paul might have visited her in her retirement, and have found no cause for any thing but encouragement. She had the usual fate of such personj^ — to be ridiculed and abused, and ungratefully treated by those who did not understand her or the doctrine that guided her ; but this was of little importance. The simplicity of the Gospel always runs the same risk ; and well may we endure to be accounted fools here, may we but be found hereafter * wise unto salvation !' To point out women who have done honour to Christianity, and who are now, we may humbly hope, receiving their * exi, ceeding great reward,* w^ould be a delightful task ; but the selection might convert eulogium on some, into censure ott others. It can, however, do no injury to any one, to name, as an illustrious female professor of Christianity, the late Mrs. Montagu, and to recommend, with a grateful feeling towards, the editor, her letters after twenty-three years of age, as con- taining, notwithstanding some frivolities, the best opinions. on religion and moral duty, that can guide young women. Of the well-known IJorace Walpole, the correspondent and favourite of the French marquise, leave is entreated to say a few words. He was a problematical character, whose cause it is not wished w^holly to take up, since his writings certainly show at times a bad taste— but he has been censured where he did and w^here he did not deserve censure ; and little rnention has been ever made of that which was commendable. A recollection of him from earliest infancy, gratitude for much condescension of kindness, and pride in being one of the few exceptions he made to excluding children from the sight of his 'bfjou' habitation on the banks of the Thames, perhaps have a share in bringing forward some good traits, to set at least against the anger excited by his merely com- mitting to paper what we have no ground to suppose any thing less than fact, and the right to record which, no one would have questioned had it flattered. It was Horace Walpole who first suggested the idea of' A ROSANNU. 135 History of the Science and Practice of Music ;' and an inti- macy, begun, before that time, with the author, was uninter- rupted till death broke the bond. Nothing that was neigh- bourly or friendly was ever wanting on the part of Mr. Wal- pole; and, in one instance, his sacrifice of his own passion to the pleasure of obliging can be asserted — probably in many taore. Lady H visiting the house with a party of friends, saw there a new purchase — two small pictures which she re- collected as having been her father's property, and subjects of her contemplation in her infancy. Inadvertently giving way to the feeling consequent on such a recognition, by bursting into tears, Mr. Walpole, who was showing the curiosities of his mansion himself, immediately took down the pictures, and urged her accepting them. It was declined frankly and firmly ; and, as if imagining that though she would not indulge herself in receiving them, it might again be pain- ful to see them, he removed the pictures, and they were not to be found in any of her future visits. His conduct as to his patent-place and its profits, is cer- tainly entitled to the praise of high honour; and some expres- sions in his letters to Madame duDeffand, leave room to hope that these sentiments were founded at least on an admission of the existence of a Deity, * whose goodness and mercy ought to be our pattern, and whom we ought on no consideration to offend.'— In these expressions he is explicit. Truth, honour, compassion, justice, and integrity, seem virtues congenial to his mind— he was an excellent son, and kindly-affeetioned towards his relatives. He would not have hurt any thing human or brute ; aad in the abuse bestowed on him in one instance, his greatest crime seems to have been that he saw through the imposture. He was the last man who would have depressed genius, had it come in any other garb than that of a knave ;• and of his benevolence, the fairest proof was given in a letter he wrote, but a few hours after a dreadful catastrophe to a life of folly and dissipation. In it, in affectionate language, and with the fervour of a Christian, anxious to put out a beacon for fchd inexperienced, he entreated his friend, by- K 4 136 R O S A N N E. every consideration that could have weight, to preserve his sons from the dangers which had shipwrecked his too facile relation: he distressed himself by repeating what was pain- ful, lest he might hide that which could be made useful ; and nothing was omitted that a father or a brother would have urged. Thus much justice demands. Let it not be understood •SiS palliating any thing questionable. The consternation ac- companying the threat, as it might be called, of bringing forward his tragedy, is well remembered ; and it required no common adroitness to avert the danger without mooting the point personally or by letter with the author ; but it was done, and Horace Walpole never showed the least resent- ment, though he must have known who it was that was most active in thwarting him, (2) The prospects opening before us, and which afford a consoling hope that it is the will of the Ahiiighty Disposer of all things, to continue, some years longer, our existence as a nation, should, like recovery from long and severe illness, induce reflections on what have been our former errors, and resolutions to correct them. We shall naturally be led to consider, as of the nearest importance to our worldly interests, those mistakes which, in any way, have drawn us into impru- dence or danger, and one must occur to every thinking mind as particularly connected with it — the preference it is always fashionable to give to French manners and manufactures. Did common sense or decent consistency influence us, we should, now that we have obtained, with more certainty than heretofore, an insight into the real Gallic character, and seen that, whatever it may be in the scale of morals, it does not agree with our perceptions of good and bad, convert our blind boasted Antigallican spirit into a cool, rational, conscien- tious resistance to the introduction of any imitations of them, or any thing that can render us dependent on them. We should bear it in mind, that it is no greater a distance between the confines of the two kingdoms than from London to R O S A N N E. 137 Windsor, and ask ourselves, whether Hannibal would havt retreated from the three-mile stone, had he hoped the city of Kome had swarmed with admiring students of the Punic language, or with importers of Carthaginian manufactures ! Had the wife of a Roman senator declared, like Lady — — , that she would wear no ornaments but what came from an inveterate enemy's country; had she bribed the needy to procure them at the risk of forfeiting all tliey possessed in the world, and boasted of her address in gratifying herself, would she not have merited a deportation into the camp of her chosen friends? Yet this is but what we do daily, and now perhaps to a greater excess than ever. (3) It is much to be wished that none better instructed than Bellarmine, would involve themselves in the censure cast by the Apostle on the * double-minded man ;'— for, if the consequences of a double mind are traced to their extent, it will be found that they tend to destroying all the good which others might derive from our profession or even practice of Christianity. The bad and the thoughtless may be as foolish and as inconsistent as they please, with impu- nity, as far as regards the interest any one takes in their proceedings ; but those who look higher, ought to be consist- ent, not to be pernicious to others as well as to themselves. When the amiable exemplary Waverley stood the * objurga- tions' of a deceased morahst, because he deferred till the morrow quitting London to vidt a sick parent, the by- standers might have supposed Waverley an ungracious son- far from it, he was studiously duteous and sincerely affec- tionate ; butWaverley was, in all things, a double-minded man, and the effects of his double-mindedness might fill a volume; and if that were the v/orst of their uses, it would be well ; but an accurate observer can see in the ill-regulated minds of his children, the fault of the parent, and will apologize for the Jesuitical self deception of the young Waverleys by re- ferring to the less censurable ' shall I, or shall I not?' of the old man. When Lady Ignitia Ardent orders a poor young 15S ROSANNE. woman to work night and day, to make needle-books and pincushions, for her booth for the poor at the next fair, and she in the interim has been enh'ghtened by the conversation of Mrs. Wisely, who thinks * such exercises of charity on the whole do harm,' Lady Ignitia has no right to send a note the evening before the delivery of the goods, to tell the ma- nufacturer that she does not want them — this is being double- minded to a ruinous degree — little short of murder; yet it is a sort of double-mindedness wofully in fashion ; and to a far more important extent instances without number might be adduced : but it ought to be more efficacious to recommend stability of mind — deciding coolly — acting considerately-^ and abiding by what we have decided on or done, * even though it be to ' our * own hindrance.* In cases where it is necessary to change, the truth will always be evident, and no one ought to be made to submit to a disappointment without «very compensation in our power — even if it be only a common servant who is baulked by our accepting the humiliation of one at present in our service, or by another, * strongly re- commended,' a little money ought to go with the * put-off.' — - In 9, higher rank of sufferers more should be done. ROSANNE. 139 CHAPTER XIL The first year and half of Rosanne's tuition dif- fered from that of other cliildren, brought up on the liberal system of reason, only in the al- most entire concentration of her flither's thouo-hts on her improvement. She was still uncom- xnonly pretty, and, when not displeased, equally engaging : her intellects were keen, and in pro- portion as her mind was active, her feelings were impetuous : the least delay to her gratifications, called up the resentment of an untutored selfish- ness, and no motive being brought forward that was strong enough to control her impetuosity, it gained ground daily, till her father perceiving the error of a plan of reason, as pursued with an unreasonable being, was compelled, against his inclination, to make use of the powerful aid of intimidation. But in looking round for sonie- thing which, without introducing what he wish- ed to avoid, might awe the lovely rebel, he could find nothing but himself adaptable to the pur- pose. He was therefore obliged to forego part of his parental enjoyment, to maintain his autho- rity : dread of him was to deter her from evil — dependence on him alone, was to actuate her egotism — and the hope of his approbation was to lead her to whatever he thought right. — There was, indeed, a shorter way of proceeding; but HO ROSANNE. that was the old-fashioned way. That wliich he pursued, might, by some people, be thought rather in the teeth of the first commandment — but Bellarmine had nothing to do with com- mandments. He could not be expected to teach what he chose to disbelieve ; and therefoie poor Rosanne was obliged to take up with an arbi- trary instead of a benign government — with a limited view of an endless prospect — and with learning to submit, only because it was in vain to resist. Perpetually thwarted in particulars, because no general system was adopted, the hap- piness of the child and the comfort of the pa- rent were imperfect — but any thing was better than that slavish superstition of referring to * Nobody knows who/ and looking for punish- ments and rewards ' Nobody knows where.' — *How much better it was,' as Mademoiselle Cos- sart very politely observed, ' to have a child im- mediately dependent on its parent, when that parent was always at hand — and especially such a devoted parent as Monsieur! — For children who had lost their parents, or whose parents were not so judicious as Monsieur, it might be a very good proceeding to ])ring them up to superstition — for somethingchikhen must have to overawe them — but Monsieur was every thing to his daughter.' It must be confessed, nothing was wanting on the part of Rosanne's governess to merit fa- vour and comfort by a disposition to exert her talents in the service of her pupil. As she was ROSANNE. Ul not a French woman, she was content to live without the consolation of Mr. Bellarmine*s ten- dernesses ; and her * giant mould/ and uninte- resting superiorities, not diminishing that feel- ing of dislike which, strange to say 1 was fixed in his mind, excited in him nothing that he might not fairly avow: — but he who had, perhaps, sometimes had more of the good opinion of the world than he could quite claim, was now en- titled to complain of its capricious injustice; for he certainly, whatever the rectitude of his conduct, had no credit in this point. In Paris it was not of consequence : and his daughter w^as not of an age to feel it. The little Rosanne did not discredit the me- thods pursued in her various instruction. With very imperfect assistance, she had learnt, in her earliest infancy, to read, and had read, with avi- dity and interest, whatever was put into her hands, which being peremptorily under the cen- sorship of her father, even when he seemed the least to heed her, had saved her from the dread- ful danger of * low prejudices' and ' slavish im- positions.' Consequently, if Miss Rosanne Bel- larmine had been asked the antediluvian ques- tion, ' Who made your' she might have replied in French idiom, and in the idiom of some, not French girls, who ought to know better, ' Me.' —She readily comprehended what was explain- ed to her; and her memory had a circumstantial fidelity, that made it not safe to deceive her : 142 II O S A N N E. her vivacity and vehemence would often antici- pate a conclusion before the premises were stated : she would guess when she could not dis- cover : she would cut when she could not untie t -^in short, she was a quick, shrewd, impetuous little girl, such as, and nothing more in intel- lect than, may be found in most families of half a dozen children — and such as may be com- pared to twenty in every body's circle of so- ciety ; but rendered something more difficult to manage than most children of her age, by hav- ing, till the Cossart dynasty, been very ill ma- naged, even as to external compliances. What change that effected is to be told. As nothing had ever taught her to doubt her ability to judge, she was unhesitating and confi- dent ; and, not accustomed to compare herself with others, she was uniformly, in her own opi- nion, right, and therefore very reasonably averse from giving up ; while the extreme volatility of her powers of attention, threatened, if not cor- rected, to leave her as superficial as she was obsti- nate. To ^^vert this probable evil, Bellarmine could devise nothing more efficacious than the exercise of curiosity and observation, nor any higher motive for their action, than that thestr t\vo qualities would be useful to her own en- joyments; and that to see her cultivate them would be pleasing to him. — Beyond this, on his plan, he had nothing * to bid.* In her babyhood, her anger had been muttef R O S A N N E. 143 of amusement to lier parents. She had been ir- ritated to make her father smile, and her mother Jaugh ; and it was not her fault if she knew not when that which had been productive of mirtlv and caresses, became matter of reprehension. Her mother had, without any caution, made it her practice to put Rosanne in a passion, when- ever she wanted, as she said, * to show her off/ till it became a pastime that ranked with that of making a pug-dog beg and catch — and prac- tice will, in both cases, produce expertness. To her father, who considered females in what some philosophers think their proper light, her rapid growth and the promise of great powers of attraction were fearful contemplations : he could not, on his knowledge of mankind, think any individual among them worthy to be, trusted with the custody of this casket-jewel : but this. was a point he meant never to hear discussed, as, fully aware of its value to himself, and the. impossibility of replacing it, he had decided on retaining it for his own use. It was his inten- tion to give it the finest setting that could adorn its brilliancy, and, in short, to make himself the most enviable father in the world. He lis- tened with perfect complacency to Mademoiselle Cossart, when she hinted that the only secu- rity against a young person's looking abroad for happiness, was to render that of home as com- plete as possible — that is to say, Rosanne was to be humoured, that she might be cheated. 144 R O S A N N E. On such a plan of rearing, the chances were much in favour of the young lady's turning out, not the prodigy of every thing superlatively ex- cellent that Bellarmine fancied, but a very com- mon character, such as neither wealth nor situa- tion can raise from the class of vulgar. There could be no moderation in her factitious compo- sition — there could be no forbearance in prefer- ence of elegant to coarse gratifications : — her fa- ther had lived upon sensations, and his daughter was to be guided by a blind wilfulness. But where there is a deficiency of some one innate virtue, we often see that two vices will produce a very near resemblance of it. Ro- sanne's pride and obstinacy made her disinte- rested — she would not be enslaved by bribery, to those whom she opposed : she would not be spoiled, and she felt no gratitude towards any one who attempted it by indulgence. She would have been conceited, if vanity had not been counteracted by a stronger disposition towards discontent ; but this, keeping her in a perpetual state of peevishness, rendered her rebellious spirit, which otherwise might have shown its head only when called for, almost her natural mode of acting, and produced an incessant con- flict in herself and with her teachers. But however gifted with acuteness of intel- lect, its employment, when voluntary, indi- cated little beyond a taste for the ornamental pursuits of a female born to the luxurious labours ROSANNE. m of an indulged rank in society. She danced with elegance : she sung with pathos. The form of her hand and the natural grace with which she used her fingers, had coaxed Bellar- mine, even when he most wished for something of a higher class of occupation, into encou- raging that nice dexterity which produces the minute excellencies of the scissars and the needle. She could cut in paper a troop of horse or a pack of hounds and their attendants : men should seem to march, to charge, to advance, and to pursue; a horse should throw its rider, and thehridle, as fine as a human hair, should en- tangle its hoofs : her scissars could imitate the most indented foliage, and the most delicate flowers, or represent a groupe of children, such as she saw them at a distance, engaged in merry sports : proud of the use of a needle, as an im-- plement ohviously useful and helonging to a superior age, she astonished hy the neatness of her work, w^hile, in defect of names for things, her pencil was taught, by ignorance and neces- $ity, to assist her in description. Bellarmine had, when he resolved on taking the care of his daughter, resumed some care of himself: that is to say, he collected all the books that he hoped to make useful to his plan; he studied their contents : he conversed w^ith those best infoimed on the subject of infant in- struction ; and in addition to his own well-ob- tained^ Well-possessed, and w^ell- retained ac* VOL. U L U6 ROSANNE. quirements, be adopted all modern improve- iiients in arts, sciences, and literature. With such of these as he could bring to bear on her mind, he fed her curiosity sufficiently to keep it in full vigour, as the department of intellect in which he hoped to establish his empire and her perfection. He showed her, when she would not have understood words, what could be done by the hand, and by tangible substances, till he had caught her iuquisitiveness in the traps of experimental philosophy, and made her feel the necessity of a shortened method in calculations. While Mademoiselle Cossart and her coadjutors gave the correct practice of music, the inflexions of the voice, and the touches of the pencil, it was from her father that she learnt the theory of harmony, the construction of the organs of sound, and those minor branches of optics which she could be made to comprehend. She had soon a system of procedure, in every thino- she learnt : she wearied the occasional teacher with questions, which must be solved be- fore she would proceed. She next carried these questions, dilated in their progress, to iNIademoi- selle Cossart, and then, raising herself to a new level on this fresh acquisition, she made what she had just obtained only the foundation of a new set of queries to her father; and he was de- lighted to resolve them. Society, for wliich Bellarmine seemed to have quitted his own invaluable country, was now ROSANNE. 147 neither safe in the search nor desirable in the at- tainment: there was then no tie to the country which he had chosen for his residence, but the want of motive for removing ; and, perhaps, some curiosity to see how a chaotic restoration of matter to its original confusion, w^ould ter- minate, served the purpose of attachment. Be- ing persuaded by Mademoiselle Cossart that no other air in the world would agree with Ro- sanne, as did that of Paris or its neighbour- hood, he very willingly gave up pleasures for the sake of quiet, and to secure his daughter from impertinent acquaintance, who might in- advertently let out that which should inform her of the disgraceful conduct of her mother, or the merciful dispensations of her Maker — two beings of whom he w^ished her to remain as ig- norant as possible. In the existing state of men's minds, it was not difficult to be as savage as was agreeable or convenient. Little disposed to be satisfied himself with any attainments but the best he could procure for this centre-point of his hopes and his pride, he could notforego his earnest desire to lead her to learned as well as elegant pursuits ; but still, even when, to stimulate her, he talked of women dis- tinguished in the country she inhabited, or in that which he had assiduously taught her to call her own, the little skittish creature disappointed his hopes, and perhaps was unravelling a bit of $ilk to see why, with the same colours, a varia- 148 ROSANNE. tion of form was produced in the pattern. Ro- sanne was elegantly feniinine; and even under male ttiition, she went not beyond the boundary of that character: good sense, penetration, quick- ness, were aided by fair strength of intellect; but it was female strength — it was the strength of perfect conformation and sound health of mind — it was neither muscular nor gigantic : and when her father perceived, as her ideas expand- ed, hovv^ agreeable she was as a companion, when to be agreeable was her pleasure, how various were her thoughts, how new her combinations, how accurate were even her untutored percep- tions, he began to fear inducing constipation by too great weight, and no longer tried to turn her out of the path which Nature seemed to have strewed with flowers for her, and, as he trusted, at the same time not unmindful of him. She was therefore permitted, as her relaxations could not be varied without society, and society was dangerous, to exercise her pretty fingers in the many works of ingenuity which her never- sleeping invention devised ; and to see her thus employed was still a source of admiration to Bellarmine. His health had become, as it is with most of those who have no reliance on the * Physician of our souls,' matter of fearful observation — every head-ache was an approaching fever — every at- tack of bile was a desperate liver-case — if his foot went to sleep, it was a symptom of palsy — ROSANNE. U9 if fee could not recollect a name or a date, his hand was applied ai^xioiisly to his forehead, as if conscious that his faculties were decaying, or sinking into the confusion of threatening apo- plexy : he had liis me<:}icineH:heJ5t, and his me- dical library, and after a few ^niart experiments, having learnt his doses, lie found some excita- tion of nihid in his real or fancied ailments, when he rose from his studies, convinced — O ! ha she had 5 ROSANNE. 183 so rapidly obtained, she had lost with equal ce- lerity. The Latin and Greek were therefore * staved off,' but with an address that concealed the opposing hand entirely from Bellarniine, and did not allow his daughter to ascertain it with sufficient precision to betray it. History had, since the removal to Chateau- Vicq, seized en Rosanne's fancy; and that cu- riosity which had been excited by the house itself, extended to times, and events, and per- sons ever so remotely connected with it or with one another. In all this, she was easily and securely gratified. The history of the world is the record of active exertion, not speculative opinions; and wars, battles, sieges, may be car- ried on by the aggressors, without any danger of diffusing superstition, and on the part of the aggrieved with a reliance on personal exertion that needs no other recognitions but of valour and conduct. — And when, soon wearied with details of violence, she wished rather to hear of persons than of deeds, a very little garbling made biography fit for her perusal; and if any relaxation of care had left the phrase * odour of sanctity,' to meet her eye, it was easily ex- plained to the satisfaction and merriment of all parties. It was not Bellarmine's intention to keep her ignorant of what he simultaneously called my- thology : he meant to inform her of every spe- cies of it — Christianity and all — at a proper n4 1S4 ROSANNE. time, and when her mind was properly pre- pared: — but when this season was to arrive, or what this preparation was to be, he had not yet decided. Till the one was at hand, and the other accomplished, he could not trust her with any extensive knowledge even of poetry, as poetry seemed to recognise at least a sort of presiding influence; and he knew he should be asked what was meant by this ; — and if he said, inspiration— there was no boundary to such in- quisitiveness as that— it was quite in the wrong track. He tried parts indeed of Lucretius-^but Lucretius did not catch her fancy; and Made- moiselle Cossart was, by chance, right, when, finding the poet rather cramp, she thought him a very unfit companion for ladies---and laughed with Mr. Bellarmine at the beautiful consistency of people calling themselves Chris- tians, who were endeavouring to make him a popular author (3). NOTES. (1) Our admiration at what others have gained, might sometimes be very advantageously lowered into astonishment ^t our own omissions. How some people contrive not to know common things, or things that seem forced on their knowledge, must ever be matter of question to those pos- sessing the ordinary faculties ©f attention and retentioi^. Gibbon was certainly right in asserting that the power of application is the poipt which settles the difference of intel- lectual attainment. Much reading, it is proved, does not answer any good purpose, where the digestive ability of the mind is weak. — We all now read too much. — Few women, 3 ROSANNE. 185 f>assing their time in the common occupations of persons of rank, read more than the dowager, who, refreshing her me- mory with Hume's History of England, had proceeded, on her own statement, as far as tlie reign of King John the second ! And it was a very pains-taking son of the church Vfho quoted * the creed of Saint Nicenius I' It cannot be expected that all persons who visit tlie works of painters and sculptors, should have a technical knowledge of the arts ; and the affectation of it is insupportable : but it was certainly very surprising to hear a lady whose appearance and accom* paniments bespoke a superior situation in life, defend a re» presentation of our Saviour, which was thought too young, by bidding her friend recollect * how much longer people lived in those times, and therefore how much younger they must look.' — It is literal fact. On the other hand, how did a girl not more than sevei^ years old, of the lowest order — for she was carrying a basket of greens on her head — acquire an idea so correct as that impHed in her saying, * And it projected, so much that it was impossible it could stand?' — And where had a dirty boy, at play in one of the streets near St. James's, learnt to say to one of his companions, that some person had not * calculatecj on the mechanical arrangement of another ?' (2) To those who rejoice in all the improvements for which we are beholden to the science, the talents, and the labours of the present age, and who really wish to be in good humour with their fellow-creatures, it is very unpleasant to remark on the increase of this difficulty which Bellarmine would have found, had his care been postponed till now. The difficulty has raised in importance, those writers who have little to boast but that their productions cannot pos- sibly do any harm. But that even this negative merit is not general, may be inferred from the acknowledgments of a very sensible woman of fashion to whom such a work had been recommended. * At a time,' said she, * when the busy circulation of so much continental Hterature, and some pf similar kind from our native soil, makes me fear as much 186 ROSANNE. as desire to read, it is a delightful holiday to caution t« take up an author in whom we may place confidence.*— The reproving allusion was to the recent publication of the correspondence of Baron de Grimm, purveyor of nonsense in Paris to the Duke of Saxe Gotha — a work as well cal- culated to smooth down all the asperities of moral virtue, and make decency appear * an outre* thing, as any we have for some time been favoured with. The baron is ona o£ those who think firebrands thrown in sport cannot do mischief — a. candid declaration of an unfounded opinion, which ought to be translated into a public warning. — Those who cannot subscribe to it, will feel some reluctance in putting his volumes, entertaining as they are, into the hands of young persons. — We certainly do not want any more such works as Baron de Grimm's correspondence. We have learnt sufficiently from him and his predecessors, that the French Academy was made the Heaven of a Gallic phi- losopher — that actresses, and women of forfeited character, were the ladies most to be envied for the incense offered them — that it is not worth while to be of decent life and conversation in a place where no credit can be obtained for either — and that the arrangement of the Opera is an imme- diate care of God Almighty. This is quite enough as to matter of fact, — Let the metaphysicians take charge of our opinions f and we shall be complete. — When peace comes, and the destroying angel is commanded to sheathe his sword, there will be leisure for all this corruption to germinate. Its fruit will be more alluring and its seeds more poisonous than heretofore, for it will be supposed not liable to effervesce with the neutralized properties of Christianity* (3) Can any one explain this enigma? — At a pastry- cook's at the west end of the town, entered a porter heavily laden with large bundles of paper. — He begged to be as- sisted in lowering the board to which they were leashed — * O i' said one of the ladies, rinsing ice-glasses, * you have brought our Lucretius — we are to have two copies.* — Two copies were left Query, for the shop or the library ? — for all ladies now have libraries ;~ and some in polite life have ROSANNE. 187 higher indulgences. The speculation of educating the daughters of butchers and bakers, and even lower traders, for the situations of governesses, excuses a vast deal that would otherwise be ludicrous. Whether such persons are more eligible than the daughters of clerg5rmeB, and artists, and men of professions, is a question not to be discussed on this page, which shall be rather used to record a proof of modern refinement in the wife of a vender of tripe, &c. who, with the lofty view above mentioned, * knocked up,' as she said, * a bit of a place a-top of the house, where her Augusta might have her Mounseer.' — Of a lower description of emu- lation, perhaps, was the dealer in vegetables, who threat- ened her Sophy, that * if she did not carry them there tur- nips directly, she should not go to the parlez-vous school.' 188 H O S A N N E= CHAPTER XV. Circumscribed as was Rosanne'^s mind in its field of action, always recoiling on itself, and with no higher occupation than that of finding amusement for her senses, it could not claim the praise often justly bestowed on the promising qualities of children younger than herself; but that which her father depended on, under hia own guidance, to repay his labours, had been the strong and rapid perception, with which she re- ceived whatever was presented to her judgment. Seeing a fact in common life or in history, she quickly understood its probable effect, and it* bearing on those whom it regarded. Imbecility, inconsistency, the petty dishonesty of selfish-* ness, the craft of the ambitious, the weakness of good intentions not well followed up, all struck her correctly; but her own conduct did not now, even as frequently as heretofore, agree with those perceptions. Without temptation to do wrong, she would do right: but she was open to every impulse of inchnation-^^* ^^hy,' said her father, astonished, ' the good that was in her is wearing out!' — -There was no one at liand to ask him whether it was not expressly against such contingencies, that Christianity provided, or whether he could expect a stronger ROSANNE. 189 growth of even moral virtue, from the sandy soil he had made for his experiment. The * ve- getable mould' was exhausting without renew- ing. The avidity with which she had begun to read, in a few months deserted her; and her father perceiving the change, and endeavouring to trace it to its cause, judiciously gave way. He fancied her mind was growing oppressed by the accumulation of ideas, and feared that, if urged further, it would waste itself in speculative ima- gination. He did not suspect that it was by his parsimony that she suffered, while he was so lavish — but he observed the increase of her fretful impatience, and saw, with some anxiety, that one idea implanted in her mind, some- times led to another which he had endeavoured to exclude, and that from two propositions which he had laboured to keep distinct, she would, at times, draw a connecting conclusion not easily to be denied. He had cultivated a disposition to scepticism, with a view to produce infidelity on the subject of what he termed * imposed systems ;' but this scepticism, knowing no distinction of objects, threatened to involve new doctrines which it was not permitted to question, with old ones which it was as little permitted to adopt. He saw her inclined to dismiss, as unworthy of her attention, that which, he told her, was above the level of her understanding ; and submitting 190 ROSANNE. too early to an immature judgment, what should have been reserved for a season of maturity, in a rash confidence that he could lead that judg- ment, he found that he was making an obstinate wrangler, instead of a submissive disciple, or even a fair arguer: a consequence that might have been foreseen, where no principles of duty and obedience had been previously established — when she had been accustomed to hear subordi^ nation depreciated, and knew no reason why her father or any being, in or out of the world, was entitled to more deference than herself. Under these circumstances, he felt it neces- sary again to alter his mode of proceeding, and, though to the increase of his labour, to make himself almost the sole organ of her instruction. This took her still more out of the hands of Ma- demoiselle Cossart; for she was to live nearly the whole day in her father's study — she was ta carry on there, even those occupations that were unconnected with literature, that she might at all times be ready to receive his oral instruc- tion. Every thing now became a thesis. The pass- ing events led back to ancient precedent, and forward into a speculative futurity, seldom of a very cheering aspect ; and in connection with these, the natural operation by which causes and effects tread the same dull round, and come again to the point from which they set out — evincing a melancholy necessity and fruitless^ ROSANNE. 191 toil — was a speculation that accompanied Ro* sanne's manual labours, and interwove itself with them in her mind, till she felt industry almost childish. * From nothing to nothing,' the favourite axiom of Bellarmine, was a discovery that placed the utmost she could do, in a very discouraging light for contemplation. Moral obligations he considered as to be sought from the alembic of human interests ; and arithmetic and chemistry, -the balance and the result, in all cases took the decisive authority. Such a train of thought, affecting to seek justice, passed over equity, and in its way annihilated all those beautiful -embellishments of character, all that fine tact of moral taste, all those exquisite touches of celes- tial resemblance, which, even to mankind in its fallen state, give comparative dignity and con- doling importance. He communicated his information in an agree- able manner. He had made charts and abstracts suited to the lesson of the day. He deduced with her the stages of decadence, which from a certain point, he told her, formed the progress of this world in all its modes and fashions : he Tolled a ball up a slope : he bade her mark the impulse required to make it rise to the top, and the accelerating velocity with which it returned to the bottom ; — * Just so,' said he, has it fared with the great states and empires of the world; the utmost ability was needed to raise them to 192 ROSANNE. their height : their own natural tendency — thd tendency of all things to annihilation — serves, without impulse, to roll them in the dust; and if any thing stops them, as some little rough- ness in the ground stopped, you saw, thrs ball, still they proceed again, and perhaps with in- creased velocity. Of animated beings he supposed an immense chain comprehending every possible species and form of existence, combined fortuitously, and fortuitously separating. Good and ill, there- fore, — though of temporary importance^ as af- fecting the peace of mankind and the common and individual well-being of society, were not to be regarded as abstract properties. Virtue was an ideal estate, that every man must leave be- hind him : vice — in his vocabulary called im- prudence, was an annuity, from the payment of which he was exonerated by his own decompo- sition. To defer the period of annihilation be- ing the natural wish of all human creatures, whatever could injure vitality was to be shunned; consequently, temperance was a virtue to be cultivated, and laws, which made crimes affect life, were to be obeyed : but still to enjoy the good things of this state of existence, as far as was safe, and consistent with general utility, was a point of self-concern, as the maintenance of a right which it was contemptible to give up, and some counterbalance to the wretchedness with which life is fraught. Liberty of action ROSAISINE* 193 \vas to be jealously preserved, as the necessary mean of procuring gratification ; and liberty of tiiought was the privilege of every human being. The patriotism of which she read, was the enthu- siasm of individuals; and enthusiasm she would isee existing in all possible forms, from the natural instincts up to the vain efforts of insanity. Loy- alty he described as the mad preference of one worthless individual to another ; and submission to authority, the utility of which might be ques- tioned, as little less than the weakness of those "who knew not the game of the world. Of female virtues, he was so polite, or so po- litic, as to speak in terms of great respect : they were necessary to the existence of society, and were to be practised on abstract considerations. • — They were part of that law from which there ■was no appeal — the common cousent of mankind, in return for this obedience, women were pro- tected, and informed, and allowed to influence the affairs of men. *Itis strange," thought Rosanne in her mo^ ments of lively meditation, * that there should be so much done for a set of creatures, who are to live for so short a time— and if good and evil are such trifles, I wonder people who are not selfish, should ever be good.' Inquiring for sa- tisfaction on this point, her father opened to her view, that code of imaginary obligation called honour, and explained to her that gratuitous feel-^ tOL. I. e 104 ROSA N N E. ing of tlie human nriiid, which makes irpeit ' seek the bubble reputation, even at the cannon^s mouth.' On this principle, to be sure, much was to be accounted for, Avhich would otherwise have slept with the obsolete doctrine of ' occult qualities;' and he felt very much obliged to some of the moralists and education-mongers of his and our time, w4io, by a similar substitu- tion, have admirably contrived to do without God Almighty, in his own creation. Bcllarmine had no difficulty in procuring all these publications: — they were, more or less, suited to the climate- of France : he purchased with avidity, and he read — till he almost thought he must be right wlien so ably supported. Bellarmine, as a man, as a scholar, and still more as a father, bore about him, in colloquial didactic, a power, which the instructor, speaking only by the lettered page, could not assume. Tone, manner, look, would, if not enforce con- viction, silence objection, and prevent discus- sion ; and a thousand petty artifices, almost un- consciously "used, will make a specious verbal teacher appear an oracle. — Rosanne listened in silence, and endeavoured to remember, if not to believe, that * general utility is the only ground of great actions;' that * universal liberty is the pursuit, and the justifiable pursuit, of the human race' — that * the tyranny of the great forms the sufferings of the little' — that ^ the turpitude of all governments occasions- the hiiis-use of all government' — that the non-obli- gation to any species of obedience, as produc- tive of infinite good, is to be insisted on; and that the never-failing certainty of physio- gnomy, the powers of calculation, the respect due to metaphysical reasoning, and the close connexion of moral with physical evil, were points she would betray her ignorance by dis^ puting — all which axioms were to find their final use, and the consummation of their wisdom, in the verified establishment of that grand disco- very, the dissolution, decomposition, and total annihilation consequent on death. Mademoiselle Cossart, left very much to the free use of her time, and not of a disposi- tion to let her talents rust for want of use, had now engaged heartily in the views of some of her former friends in Paris, and present neigh- bourSj in the town nearest Chateau-Vicq, who^ having got little by one party, but that without which they would have been as happy, as rich, iand as respectable, were lending their aid to other schemes then in great forwardness, the success of Avhich might indeed lessen their indi^ vidual importance^ but would secure to them that provision for the necessities of life which they had formerly, in their zeal for * public uti- lity,' seemed very much to undervalue. Her •ready powers were employed in trying tlie e 9( 196 R O S A N N E. ground on which others were to march; and she had, according to the orders she received, to recommend with her pen new experiments in pohtics, and to attack by her wit those to which she had heretofore been friendly. With these ideas, which she was compelled to keep to herself, ever uppermost in her mind- just fresh from weighing considerations of oppo- site tendencies, and led by interest, if not by conviction, to a certain determination, it was admitting sounds discordant to her train of thought, when Rosanne brought for discussion those doctrines which, a short time before, were to all appearance as much IMademoiselle Cos- sart's as Mr. Bellarmine's; and in her wish to resume her chain of interrupted reasoning, and not easily turned from the then bias of her opi- nions, her answers were very different, even from those sentiments which Rosanne remembered to have been hers. Puzzled still more than when she had begun to state her questions, Rosanne grew importunate, and her instructor peevish ; and the conversation would end, on the part of the latter, in a sort of petulant betraying a grand secret in the art of life-^the concentration of our wishes and views on our own individual and indivisible personal advantage. * I thought,' said Rosanne, ^ my father had told me that the general good — the good of every body — was to be our concern.* ' True,' said MudempisQllg G.oss.arj;i; * hut ho\^ ROSANNE. W is the good of others to be procured, if we neglect our own good ? Look at that elm— if you wished to take the best care you could of it in a dry season, would you think watering every leaf necessary ? — would you risk breaking your neck in climbino- the trunk, or beino^ dashed on the ground in crawling on hands and knees along each bough ? Would you not rather water the root ? — Certainly you would ; — well then, only consider yourself as the root, and depend on it, the boughs, branches, twigs, and foliage of others will derive nourishment sufficient from you.' Rosanne was pleased with the exemplification — she thought it perfectly correct — and she be- came convinced that to take care of her own comforts and enjoyments was proper, and what her father meant by ' general utility.' Her sense of right now became sadly vi- tiated : — herself increased in importance, and formed a centre, the tendency to which arrew every day stronger. — ' But why, then,' said she to herself, * w^as I told I was wrong, when I used to say that things were good if I liked them, and bad if I did not? I re- member being laughed at about the rose-bush ; but I suppose, I was, after all, right; for this is just the same way of thinking, — I certainly had no occasion to alter that opinion. Vv ell 1 I ima- giuje, then, all my other childish notions were: light/ o 3 198 JIOSANNE. CHAPTER XVL To 'give her exercise, and to keep up her pracr tice of dancing, a little troop of children from the hamlet and village were occasionally ad- mitted, under great restrictions, at Chateau- Vicq, and trained to what was required from them ; and Rosanne's manners, and the liberality she was allowed to indulge, had made it matter of pretension, to be included in her groupe. Hev father's good sense had pointed out to him the necessity of supplying the want of society to the formation of her manners, by the scrupu- lous practice of ^ etiquette ;' and under this habit,, her behaviour was ready for her introduction to the world. Nothing was dispensed with in the forms of politeness, in the arrangement of his table, or in attention to her dress ; and whenever she went, even to the town, she was matter of curiosity and respect. But in a short time, it was perceptible, tliat on B.onie principle, not immediately to be traced, she w^as, though still attentive to forms, grow- ing arbitrary amongst these children. She would take from any of them, a pebble or a shell that she discovered in their possession ; and her go- verness having, for very prudential reasons, used infinite pains, rather against the natural disposi- tion of Miss Bellarmine, to land all tlie tender- nesses she perceived sprouting, on dogs, birds, R O S A N N E. 199 insects, ami every thing that was in no danger of returning them, a lory, of which one of the village- train was the happy and incautiously- cxnlting owner, became the object of her pas- sionate covetousness. She ordered it, as if merely gratifying her curiosity, to be brought to her; and the sight of it made that a resolu- tion, which before liad been but a wish. Dis- daining to beg it, she offered extravagant pay- ment; she was not astonished that it was re- fused, because, even' in her eye*, the bird was a better thing than money; but she was en- raged at a refusal to herself. Using a little craft, she now seemed disposed to a compro- mise, and requested that the bird might be left with her till the next day : — the reluctance of the owner was affronting, but it gave way to her whispered threats; the bird was left, but on terms not at all understood between the par- ties : — the least of Miss Bellarmine's intentions was to return it. Not conscious that she was doing that which it was prudent to conceal, the design was be- trayed, and the bird restored to its owner; but, fortified as she was with reasoning, her father had no method of counteracting this new error, but by pointing out the probability and dangev of revenge where injury was offered — ' I should have been told this,' said she, muttering to her- self, ' when Mademoiselle Cossart talked about wateiing the root of the elm — well ! I shall not o 4 too R O S A N N E. do so again — I should be afraid — yet I wish I had the bird — I never saw such I sautiful colours T—I was obliged to Iqt it go back — but I zihH get it.' She succeeded in her attempt. A servant fetched her the bird ; and the little owner of it came no more. She kept her new piaything out of sight, and began to enjoy the pleasure of the triumph, when the mother of the injured child came with an humble complaint, and Mr. Bellarmine, perhaps more angry at being out-? witted, than at the offence itself, used a higher tone than usual with his daughter : but she could now defend herself, and refusing to yield to any arguments, he had to seek for a new method of arguing — he could restore tlie lory again to the proprietor, but he could not restore Rosanne to her obedience. Mademoiselle Cossart, on being consulted, hit on the happy expedient of retaliation. Rosanne's last new obligation to her father's indulgence was seized on : it was an atlas ; and having been on purpose refused it, till her wish for it became very ardent, and then kept in suspense, as an expedient for reducing her from her height of independence, the possession had been doubly and trebly dear. But even under this impending danger, she he- sitated; for though the ^tlas was unquestionably more valuable and more gratifying to her than ROSANNE. 201 a bird, whose plumage was its only recommend- ation, yet there was now superadded to covet- ousnoss, a degree of obstinacy that she could not, with no ether impulses than were allowed for bei' assistance in such conflicts, easily over- come. She held out four-and-twenty hours, and then capitulated. Her father, too indignant to see her, referred her to Mademoiselle Cossart for reprehension ; and from Uer she received it. But how vv^as she to be so reprehended as to apply the experience purchased in this instance, to any future case? Duty to God, there was none to infringe, because none had ever been taught her —duty to a fellow-creatuie could hardly be named, without bringing to her recollection the justification of man in his savage state — the law of nature — the lamb and the lion — the right to use natural power — the principle of self-love given us by nature for our preservation-^of which she had 30 frequently heard from her fa- ther, with Mademoiselle Cossart"s own gos- samer commentaries and wild analogies. What had general utility to do between two persons, the one so far below the other in rank ? — Laws and commandments could not be quoted — that a paltry desire to j)Ossess a thing neither of use nor of real value, had led to a degree of co- vetousness manifesting itself by theft and rapine, was nothing to Rosanne, who had scarcely any jdea of tlie sacredness of property. «02 ROSANNE. There were then but two perceptions in her mind that could be addressed ; the one was pride dressed up as honour, the other com pas-- sion. Mademoiselle Cossart preferred the for- mer, as a helm by \vhich she could always guide — the latter, as she could seldom find means of exciting it herself, might be dangerous in the hands of others, and was, moreover, ra-^ ther inconsistent with that firm tone of mind which Mr. Beilarmine's system recommended. She therefore spoke energetically to that feeling which, in a more common mode of education, would have appeared in Rosanne already su- perabundant, but w^hich, if it was to be the re- gulating principle of her actions, must, at any cost and hazard, be kept in its highest perfec- tion; and she had the satisfaction of finding herself successful. — Rosanne changed colour — she put her hands before her face, and begged that nothing more might be said to her, ^as she should never now take any thing from anybody again.' In a few days all remembrance of the affair seemed losr — the individual point was carried, and tills suliiced, as Rosannc's discipline was, of iiecessit\% made up of individualities. In her father's bribing attention to her pleasures, and almost toiler humours, yit escaped his recollec- tion, that for some time Rosanne, who had been fond of pas^jing through the village, and had ROSANNE. 20$ been eager for the dances, in which the little troop were practised to exercise her, contrived uniformly to avoid the former, and had been - indisposed on the stated days of the latter. The paiiifid recollection of that which had been made to wound her pride, however, w^ore off, and becoming negligent, , she found herself one day, when in her father's carriage with only Mademoiselle Cossart, opposite the door of the pottage from which she had so forcibly taken the bird. ' ^lon Dieu I' said her companion — Rosanne turned her head at the new expression which surprise had forced out — and then directing* her eyes to that spot which seemed to have excited the sudden emotion, she saw the unfortunate lory, — She threw herself back in the carriage, \yhile Mademoiselle Cossart, repeating her ex- clamation, added — * The lory is stuffed — poor soul! — 'tis dead.' Rosanne was thunderstruck — she begged they jnight stop. This, as expressly forbidden- in all cases, was opposed ; and she \ras reminded of her pride, and the prudence of keeping aloof, where there might be cause of complaint : — but Rosanne w^as deaf to admonition; she herself ordered the carriage to b^ stopped ; and choos- ing to alight, her guide was, by virtue of her ©ffice, obliged to follow her, because she could 110 way restrain her. Entering the cottage, wdth a character about her that would have excited pityfor the violence 04 ROSANNE. offered, by a cruel system, to a generous nature, which might have given hopes of any thing good, to those who had judiciously loved her, Rosanne inquired after the bird, and was told by the mother of the owner-i— without resent- ment or reproach, but with respect and gen- tleness — that it had died the day after it was brought home, ' owing,' as she observed, * per- haps to having something given it to eat at the chateau, which it was not used to.'-^ ' Such things,' the woman said, * would hap- pen' — ' there was no help for it' — * she had told her little boy so, w^hen he grieved about it' — * she had bid him think what she and his poor dead father had suffered themselves, and not think about lories. She was very sorry sh^ had ever been persuaded to ask |br the bird again 2 she saw now it was very w^rong.' The boy, at the moment, entered at the back door of the cottage, and Rosanne perceived the effect of her presence on his countenance — he bowed—- there was no insolence in his look ; he seemed, even now, to respect her, and wiped away, with the back of his hand, his starting tears, as if fearful they should w^ound her. But she was already deeply wounded ; she sate down, not- withstanding all Mademoiselle Cossart's remon- strances, and wept without restraint: the bird was forgotten in the attention to her; the boy began to excuse her to herself; and the mother, as if nothing else would do, took the lory out IROSANNE. 90i of sight: but this had no effect. Rosaline's tears, when they had exhausted their source, only gave place to words not at all according with the hints of ' politeness' — 'dignity' — * pride' — * what was due to hei'self and to her*- father' — and others of the same nature, which- her governess, by speaking in English, prevent- ed from being understood, and used as styptics. Nothing appeased Rosanne, till the boy, on her request, assured her he forgave her, and kissed her hand ; and till the mother begged her * to think no more of the lory, for they nevei? should, without recollecting her good heart :' her purse was in her hand) to afford them the means of buying another bird; but its contents were far beyond the purpose, and when it was emptied into the woman's lap — ' O mother!' exclaimed the boy, * sister Jannette may now marry Guillot, for here 's more than enough, I 'm sure, to buy all they want; and as for the lory, I can get another given me, I know, if Ma.- demoiselle can't be happy if I have not one.' Rosanne was now agonized by different feeU ings — she was becoming the source of good in- stead of evil ; but she could not give way to such a hope ; she would have departed ; but a voice of sobbing caught her ear, and, by th^ movement of a closet-door, she saw some one concealed. — The woman, watching suspiciously the direction of her eyes, opened the door, and taking her head with a deep sigh, discovered ^06 HOSANNE. poor Janiiette, who had, for powerful reasonSj coticealed herself. Mademoiselle Cossart soon understood how acceptable and how opportune was her piipiFs liberality; and withdrawing her to her carriage, without explaining to her Jannette's particular cause for gratitude, she gave her, with part of the commendation due to her, a lesson on * the fit and becoming,' which did not very well ac- cord with the present high state of the young- lady's feelings, or with her settling opinions of the judgment of her teachers* Whatever opposition there had hitherto been- in Rosanne's mind to the will or opinions of others, had been founded only on her own ; and having had no one to confirm her in them, they had taken their chance for being maintained or dismissed ; but now she felt herself opposed^ where others, and something beyond the opinion of others, told her she was right; and theadven* ture of the lory had effects which, as he was not let into it, puzzled her father. She seemed less satisfied than ever— -she did not give, even in external manners, or in the degree she had here- tofore, the implicit credit demanded of her. Bellarmine complained to his co-adjutrix— the second complaint was more firm than the first. ' Rosanne,' he said, ' was little short of disputing his right to govern her:' — the third complaint hinted at Mademoiselle Cossart*s w^ant of autho^ R o s A N N ^. my rity ; and had the sentence been finished, she saw how it would have concluded: she therefore was obliged to undertake for * a thorough reform/ and tliis she soon was made to feel she must purchase; for she could not command it. A little pretend- ed confidence with her pupil served to interest her : she told Rosanne how much dissatisfied her father was — that he did not blame his daughter, but her: — and that, in short, her dismission would very soon follow, unless the politeness of Miss Bellarmine would avert that which she scrupled not to own would, * after such an exclu- sion from the world, and the sacrifice of her friends to the sacred charge she had undertaken,' be nothing short of ruin to her. Rosanne, whose feelings had been once called into action, was more easily worked on by an appcalto them; and making some complaint of her father's arbitrary compulsions, she yet pro-^ mised to forbear, where the want of forbearance might injure another. She kept her word, as long as the impulse remained on her memory; but the season of liberty was returned, and she felt it as a hard- ship, that her father, who was grown again hy- pochondriac, and anxious for the evejit of poli- tical circumstances which were rising in a dis- tant horizon, was less disposed to exertions that contributed to her pleasure and amuse- ment. Any ailment, fancied or real, that ob- structed the little vari^tigns of his similar days, ^OS ROSAN'NE. or made him fail in his system of bribes, had more effect than ever on bis temper; and that strengthening state of mind, ^vhich in a better education would ha\e given force to good ha- bits, v/as wasting itself in confirming bad ones^ Again the governess was driven to expe- dients ; and Rosanne now beginning to express openly to her, her dissatisfaction svhen any thing thwarted her or was denied her, it seemed the fortunate moment for entering with her into a private scheme, in which a division of the ad- vantages might secure each party from the treachery of the other. Mademoiselle Gossart's covert use of her ta- lents had been sufhciently repaid on various oc-» tasions of exertion, to interest her in the suc- cess of her party ; and in the chief town near them, there had arrived persons whom it was particularly shackling to her not to be allowed ,to receive. The novelty of society, she kn^w, wduld be a bait to the curiosity of Rosanne, and would induce her to think less of her father's demands on her. She therefore opened to her a plan she had devised for occasional evening-meetings with these friends, in her own apartments, which be- ingat a great distance from the part of the cha- teau Mr. Bellarmine occupied, and there being ©ne evening in a week when he was engaged with persons employed on his estate, might be con- ilucted very privately i and as his extreme cslt€ ROSANNE. 209 for his health confined him to stated hours of being abroad, there was no danger of detection, if the servants knew that secrecy was the injunc- tion of Miss Bellarmine. Nothing could be more delightful toRosanne than this scheme when carried into effect. It in- cluded a pleasure to which she had, till now, never been introduced — that of the palate; for the ' petits soupers' were admirably calculated to whet any inclination to * gourmandise,' and a bribe to the cook brought out a great deal of talent in this way. Beside this, Rosanne had the delight of meeting, occasionally, five or six per- sons of various pretensions: she heard of foreign countries and foreign affairs, of pictures and statues, of arts and sciences, of literature, and of the exertion of intellect, in language new to her. Bellarmine had talked of means to rule the world : these carried no captivation with them ; but now she heard of means to w^in its favour, and share its enjoyments ; and the interesting, the touching, the dazzling, the fascinating, were terms substituted for the cold calculations of a benumbing philosophy. Glory, fame, pub- lic opinion, took place of selfishness and cautious distrust ; and though she was not, even now, allow^ed to see a better prospect — for her go- verness vv^as, perhaps through fear of detection, faithful in this part of her undertaking— she seemed carried along the road that led to no- VOL. r. p 210 ROSANNE. thing, on a much smoother surface, and in a far pleasanter vehicle. Some of the persons admitted to this * coterie' had accomphshments which they were not un- wilhrig to make serviceable to the amusement of a young lady so situated, and recommended so forcibly to their attention. She was gra* tuitously improved in her knowledge of musie and painting: her style of dress, and the manage- ment of her person, became the care of one or two females who had intercourse wdth Paris ; new tastes were awakened, and a winter w^as passed most agreeably — Bellarmine confining himself to his wing of the chateau, and not at all aware of the personages whom his house oc- casionally harboured. Rosanne became an adept in caution ; but naw it was difficult to her to endure detention in her father's study, if Mademoiselle Cossart's apartments lodged any one of her visiting friends. The irksomeness was perceptible; and when Bellarmine mentioned it as a new cause of disquiet, and as afflicting him, by the convic- tion that all his hopes from his labours would be disappointed if his daughter detached her affections from him, it became matter of exer- tion perpetually renewed, to prevail on Rosanne to submit with any sort of pTace. In vain Mademoiselle Cossart endeavoured to persuade her that the time of tuition was nearly at an end. Rosanne, weary of proceeding, for 3 ROSANNE. 211 no purpose, in that which now had not the charm of novelty, but was comparatively dull, and beginning to question her father's opinions, had converted her pleasures into tasks ; and he with grief, and almost with tears, confessed his error, in imagining her abilities what he had thought them, or her disposition such as would do credit to his toil : — ' I ought to have foreseen,' said he, * that a girl w^ith no higher a taste than for feminine amusements, could never answer my expectations : she wants a classic mind — what could distinguish her from the common charac- ters of her sex, but the track of the few celebrated women in Europe? 'T is Latin and Greek she wants — I ought to have made her, even against her will, a classical scholar : she will now be no- thing that I wished her; for, as to common attainments, I feel that they will not satisfy me. I hoped I might have seen her able to take a high station in society, like the Duchess de C , influencing a ministry by her sound judgment and strong sense ; or, like Madame " , assembling all the wit and genius of the time at my house. I know the importance of women, in times of strong party in this country; and it would have been my pride, after showing her to foreign countries, to have had an English girl celebrated, as she might soon now^ be, in Paris, for her beauty, her accomplishments, her manners, and her power to lead in the arrange- ment of opinions. I have models before my eyes p ^ 212 ROSANNE. which I wished her to resemble — she might have be€n any thing, and she would have been my pride and the consolation of my old age — if old age can be consoled; but now what is she? a lovely creature, I confess, and so adorned by nature, that the mortification comes much heavier : she has learnt what we have taught her, with ra- pidity and alacrity; but she already seems at a stand : her temper, though generous, is unma- nageable, and I fear that very soon she will strike out some eccentric path for herself, which may overthrow all I have done, and at last break my heart by showing her undeserving and un- grateful. She will marry herself, sink into an ordinary routine of life, and I shall be wretched. Are you sure, Mademoiselle Cossart, that none of the servants ever speak to her, and put ideas into' her mind, such as you know I most detest? This servant whom you have recom- mended to me, to take care of the expenditure, seems, I think, by my accounts, not quite so thrifty as the one you advised me to discharge. Tliis, you know, I do not greatly regard, if my table is well kept; but are you certain there is no understanding between my daughter and these people ? I fear every thing/ The positive assurances returned to these que- ries were very satisfactory ; and poor Bellarmine went still ' farther a-field' in quest of the origin of that, which, if he had known the voice of ROSANNE. 213 Common sense, was very easily to be traced up to its cause. Mademoiselle Cossarfs integrity in represent- ing to Rosanne the uneasiness of her father, was unimpeachable; and her pupil had only to hear his countenance described, and his words re- peated, to feel the cruelty of afflicting him. Na- tural tenderness on one hand, and bribes and hopes on the other, did much, for another short period; and Bellarmine was surprised at his daughter's amendment in docility, and improve- ment in various pursuits in which he supposed her governess and himself her sole teachers; yet there Avere circumstances which puzzled him ; he seemed to have a blind notion that somebody cheated him ; but the fear of disturbing himself still farther, niade him passive in the develope- ment of a mystery that might be fanciful. The little * coterie,' at first so productive of pleasure to Rosanne, after a time began to of- fend her. She heard rejoicing over bloodshed, and hints of schemes that led to it: massacres and assassinations were the news of the meeting, and their conversations expressed approba- tion of rapine and treachery. ' If,' said she, ' I was wrong in taking the lory, and so much was said to me about it, why does ]\Iade- moiselle Cossart seem so pleased with the ef- fects of war, which, as far as I can understand, has no other purpose, but to kill people, or take p 3 214 R OS ANNE. away what belongs to them ?' She had an in- clination to ask questions on this subject ; but the fear of affronting those who formed her new pleasure, kept her silent. Completely disgusted, and finding that every thing proposed by herself as an enjoyment, ended in doubt and misery, she determined to avoid, as often as she could, these * soirees du cha- teau/ which at first had so delighted her. Ma- demoiselle Cossart, who might reasonably fear her betraying her, as soon as she was displeased, tried to bring her back, but in vain ; and the matter might have produced some inconveni- ence to one or the other, but for a catastrophe that taught Rosamie the danger she had run. Her preceptress, excessively agitated, one day, replied to her anxious inquiry, by informing her that the existing government had laid hold on her friends, that some had paid the forfeit of their lives for their endeavours to promote the cause of general utility, and the rest, and those dependent on them, were dispersed. If Rosanne felt any regret, it was counterbalanced by some repose of mind from feelings hardly to be de- fined ; and she began to experience comfort in the security of her mode of life, even if its mo- notony wearied her still more, after this taste of society. ROSANNE. 215 CHAPTER XVII. Ihe space of time which brought Rosanne near the age of fourteen, was productive of httle change, though somewhat varied by her father's seeking relief from the 'ennui' that devoured him in occasional excursions, which the state of the country did not now render unsafe to private individuals. In these absences from home, Miss Bellarmine was as closely guarded as ever ; and a character of importance was given to her, by the sedulity with which she was attended to. Mr. Bellarmine had friends remaining in distant parts of France ; these he had at intervals received, and these in his jour- neys he visited. There could be no dano-er in admitting his daughter to this society; for they were all of the enlightened school; and though their ixligious politics were now osten- sibly out of fashion, or perhaps too general to require discussion, there was, in these old mem- bers of the Pandaemonium, a relish for past dis- tinctions, which made them bring forward the recollection of opinions, defend the promulgation of them, and deliver their sentiments on con- sequent events. In the presence of her father and their host for the time being, Rosanne heard much that she had never before heard, of the p 4 215 ROSANNE. history co-eval with her younger years; and when Bell arm ine v/ould turn to her, and point out such and such deeds as entitled to admira- tion, she, with seeming perverseness, disappoint- ed him, if the achievement went at all beyond what she termed defence ; and by her use of the argumentative powers, she maintained her opi- nions as long as she dared, and occasionally, as she was told, against proof. When silenced by a tone or look which she understood, she with- drew into the fastnesses of that which she had been taught to call ' her obstinacy;' and some- times mutteiing to herself, that such proceedings and such effects were not at all better than * the lor}^' she, though defeated, never gave ground. All but those who had taught her, were delighted with her uncommonly formed mind, which yet retained a childish simplicity; and her father re- ceived his tribute of applause for the wonderful effects of ' his rational plan.' But if, withdrawn from the male society of these families, any female dared so far trans- gress against the habit of the day, as to describe with horror, proscriptions, conscriptions, ' noy- ades,' the miseries of exiles, or the sorrows of widows and orphans, then Rosanne's eloquence was dumb; she listened — she devoured — she be- lieved ; — and if the §tory was detailed, rivers of sympathy poured do\yn her lovely cheeks. —Mademoiselle Cossart then gave a hint, that i\Ionsieur did not wish his amiable daughter \o ROSANNE. 217 be too tender for a great character : — the bint was the drum of Santerre— and she was called on to think of the rising glory of France, its probable universality of empire, and the ' per- fectibility of the human species.' Notwithstandino- it was Bellarmine's inten- tion to rear his daughter as free from vice as from religion, it was not to be supposed that he should, if he introduced her at all into such society as accorded with his principles, present her only to the correct in morals, though his nice sense still required decency of appearances. Hence it sometimes, in their progress, occurred to her, to be the guest of a lady who had set out in life with one husband, and proceeded with another, without the melancholy interpo- sition of the sexton's good offices ; and families were ' mixt medleys' that surprised and puzzled her. Sometimes these enlightened patriots had used the liberty they had purchased for them- selves and others, in a way which it was ^ as weir §he should not hear commended ; and when the length of time during which Bellarmine had withdrawn himself from the busy world, had kept him ignorant of arrangements and con- nexions, into which he would not have initia- ted his daughter, but on which he stumbled, it cost him a lecture to set her head right. On the subject of caprice in marriage, however, he \y^s very liberal, — * If a woman at all consulted her happiness, she would remain single — mea ^18 KOSANNE. had a right to do as they liked — many causes- existed that justified separation — if a woman dreaded it, she must look well to the regulation of her conduct and the government of her tem- per, and even then, it was her duty to suhmit to it, if it was her husband's choice. — As for modes of life that appeared worse, the hei- nousness of, at least, that want of publicity which had entrapped him into a visit to a man thus circumstanced, would have exasperated him beyond all bearing. After one experiment, which induced him to depart on a sudden, he was wary. Yet it was very observable, had there been any body at hand to observe, that in such so- ciety as that to which he did not scruple to introduce Rosanne, he was not quite at ease. While conversing on one set of topics, he was listening to those which engaged her attention at a little distance from him : if absent from him, slie was recalled. His visits were often shorter than the period he had assigned for them ; and it seemed his first care, on quitting houses which she had thought very delightful, and the ladies in which had appeared to her very amiable, to convince her of her want of discernment. From visits of this description, paid in the autumn of her fourteenth year, she returned to Chateau-Vicq, to celebrate that birthday which was, as Mademoiselle Cossart assured her, to invest her with increased privileges, and to call R OS ANNE. -219 her out "to new duties. — The former originated in her governess's disposition to relax in her attentions, in order to gain more leisure for the labours of her pen — now decidedly employed in inculcating and promoting that grand scheme of aerial philosophers, ' the perfectibility of the -human species.' To increase her opportunities of advancing this useful and sensible doctrine, one of the privileges conferred on her pupil was, the removal of that authority which regu- lated their hours of study. To comply with this relaxation, Bellarmine was easily induced by a little of Mademoiselle Cossart's rhetoric, or his impatience of it; only conditioning for a regular return, under his daughter's hand, of the manner in which she employed those hours not spent with him. The specimen of new duties which Rosanne was to assume, had no less its origin in her governess's convenience. The management of the family was no enviable concern; and, in the hands of Rosanne, Mademoiselle Cossart flattered herself it would be quite as advan- tageous to her, without involving her in what was disagreeable. It was very easy to make Bellarmine even admire and commend such a proposition as this; and Rosanne was to keep two accounts — one, of her time — the other, of her father's money. It would have been hard indeed if poor Ro- ;sanne had been denied her views, when those SCO R O S A N N E. about her were thus catering for themselves out of her. She did not shrink from duties, nor was she deaf to privileges : to those now of- fered her, she added the demands of her own inclination; and rose on the morning after her birthday, determined not to forego them. Nothing, in the discipline hitherto endured, had been so grievous to her, as the inconsist- ency of her father's inundating her mind with knowledge, on every point that he chose to nmke part of his information to her, and check- ing her whenever she wished for the least satis- faction on, what she called, her ' own things.' She had, in her very earliest years, remarked the peculiarly deterring countenance and man- r^er with which he stopther inquiries ; and she had felt equally the hardship and the necessity of yielding; but now arrived, as she was told, at an age of liberty, she was resolved that she would not be frowned down by any one ; she would recollect all the questions she had so often ill vain asked ; and she would not be con- tent with such answers as had heretofore put her off. In another particular she would re- lieve herself She would fearlessly tell the truth in all things ; for, though she had seldom been detected in her frequent contradiction to it, the practice of deceiving was so troublesome, that she was convinced ' the other way' was best, and she would abide by it. But in tl;is resolution it was impossible to ROSANNE, «21 maintain her ground. A novice in the affairs of a family, she had to hide her own errors: and not knowing how to control the domestics, she had also to veil their delinquencies, for her own sake and that of her father's quiet. Her go- verness's increasing spirit of self-indulgence re- quired, at times, a little management of ac- counts; and the interrogatories as to the disposal of her hours were nearly as much a claim on her ingenuity ; for every day she felt more inclined to give way to idle meditation, which left no trace of employment: and, however occupied, it was seldom entirely to the exclusion of a set of wandering speculative ideas, such as it had been her father's care to repress while she was immediately under control. Mademoiselle Cossart had, in private, a few books, not at all dangerous to the disciple of Bellarmine's school, yet still such as he did not permit her to see, lest they might lead farther: and while the owner, whose versatile pen was again at work, was absorbed in the ' perfecti- bility of human nature,' Rosanne was, in every possible way, adding to the bewildering of her ideas ; and every thing was fuel to a fire in her mind, which waited only opportunity of burst- ing out to blaze. Few such anomalies, it is to be hoped, ap- pear in civilized society as Rosanne Bellarmine. She was, on the report of her preceptress, * erai- ^22 K O S A N N E. neiitly gifted/ ' bigl^^ly accomplished,' ' wonder- fully informed ;' and, 'at little more than four- teen, a companion for any one whom feminine graces, extensive reading, a knowledge of Eu- ropean languages, talents for music and paint- ing, promptitude of diction in writing and conversation, and an insight into every art and science that could be explained to her, and the most recommending manners, could induce to attention/ But, with all this. Miss Bellarmine was not only ignorant of the world, but of Him who made it — of her own destination — of her duties — of iier interests. That her ignorance was in- voluntary, was her excuse — that she struggled under it, was commendable — that she was dis- posed to end it, was rational — that she despaired of success, was pitiable — and that her despair was precipitate, remains to be shown. The necessitous will make somethino; out of any thing : — Rosanne made arguments and de- ductions out of circumstances in which, as they were barren and she w^as insulated, she was thought safe. Fond of her garden, for which a chosen spot was allotted her, and disposed to owe its pleasures as much as pos- sible to herself, she indulged her curiosity in watching every process of vegetation. She remembered, in her first attempts in horticul- ture, her father's having told her ' to bury' that which was to produce a new plant — and how ROSANNE. 223 deep was she * to bury' seeds, stones, or bulbs ? had been her frequent question : — in the present disposition of her mind to cast off its acqui- escence, she recollected having heard of * bu- rying' a dead body, and remembered the pee- vish negative she had received, when she said to her father, * Will the man come up agahi, like the seeds in my garden?' — It struck her like an al^ most forgotten grudge, and she was determined to bring it forward again, now that she was ^ more than fourteen/ Consistently with Bellarmine's scheme of ex- cluding from her mind not only Christianity, bnt the knowledge of any mode of worship, it was a secret not revealed to Rosanne, that she v/as, even by baptism, a member of the Chris- tian church; but she was so. The christening- robe and cap had been sent down from the London warehouse with her infant-wardrobe, and their beauty would have been unreported, had they not been worn. Poor ' Spintext,' therefore, and his ' pattern-wife,' — tlie eldest * Miss Spintextj'— ' Doctor Coddle' and his ' poodle of a daughter,' were all invited to the christening at the hall — made particularly use- ful by standing as pro.vks for absentees, dubbed without their own privity, by the pai^nts — and repaid by a supper that distaiiced all pretensions of the sort, and risqued the neck of tlie doctor by the variety of wines, and the bones of tlie rest 524. ROSANNE. of the party by the darkness of tlie night.—* The remembrance of Miss Bellarmine's christen- ing was thus ' burnt in' on the minds of some of those invited to it; and the superb robe and cap were equally strong circumstances of recol- lection to the others. No harm could be done by the mere passive sufferance of a ceremony ; and, to the perfect neglect of Mrs. Bellarmine, who never went to church herself, but, as she said to her maid, ' to quiz the natives' now and then, was, in time to prevent all mischief, added the decided estrangement of Bellarmine himself, Rosanne, therefore, had never been in a place 'A' divin© worship, nor perhaps heard the name of ' God,* but in IMademoiselle Cossart's exclamation ; and whenever, in her reading, any expression bear- ing a construction that might lead to the re- cognition of a Deity, or a general or particular Providence, caught her attention and called up her curiosity, she was taught to consider it as an embellishment of style. In her occupations she toiled or she relaxed, without any consciousness that the world, by the fiat of its Creator, was entitled to one part of the time in seven, for repose from labour and adoration of Him. Sunday was ' Di- manche' with her as with native French girls, though attended by no ceremonies ; and it was named in her ' bijou' almanac, which her father R O S A N N E. 205 yearly gave her, and in which the names of saints whose feasts were to be observed, had amused her, by the legends which they had call- ed up to her father's recollection. She liad laughed at St. Denys, walking, after his deca- pitation, with his head under his arm, and, as is jocularly added, kissing it in his way. The eleven thousand virgins, the House of Loretto^ and many other of Father Ribadeneyra's amu- sing stories, had been trusted to her judgment without producing any resemblance of super-' stition ; and everv thino- more danoerous had been, by assiduous care and a perfect svstem of ' espionnage,' withhold from her. She had remarked the gayer dresses of some of the villagers whom she chanced to see on Sundays; and her little troop of dancing com- panions had appeared always with most pride on that day. She knew too, that the lower classes had some sort of * slavery' to endure at times — she had heard of priests and mass — of' the suspension and intended restoration of b.oth- — of the once enormous power of the Pope, his tyranny over tyrants — and of ceremonies * not at all more reasonable than the sacrifices of the Peruvians and Mexicans.' But of the ob- ject towards which all these errors tended, she w^as effectually kept ignorant by the jargon in which she had been reared. — ' How odd it is,' said she, ' that people should be at the trouble of saying things only to be contradicted V VOL. I. Q ^ -/ 226 R O S A N N E. Naturally adopting her father's opmions where her reason and judgment could not con- tradict them, she had never felt any sentiment towards these ' weaknesses of human nature' hut contempt; and if ever she could ask a ques- tion of any of the children, by which she hoped for information as to their ' imposed be- lief,' the answer never raised in her any feeling more allied to credulity than pity for the low scale of being allotted by — she knew not what, but she supposed it Necessity — to those so governed and mis-led. Once, when Mademoi- selle Cossart had a little relaxed in her vigi- lance, by quitting for a few minutes the lawn on which her dominical exercise in summer evenings was practised, she attempted to lead ' le jeune berger,' who was dextrously to crown her with flowers as she passed, into a very dif- ferent train of thought, by inquiring into the claim he made on the day as his 'jour de fete;' but his account only confirmed her in ' her con- tempt' Yet, however inclined to value herself on the ^superior light of reason in which she had been reared — however bound to give credit to what her father had avouched ; — and however new hopes of undefined gratifications were buoyed up by promises as indefinite, and predictions that bore in them an alluring species of mys- tery, she was still, but she knew not why, dis- satisfied. R O S A N N E. 2V The natural tendency of lier temper of mind to a restless discontent, even when a child, her father had never ceased to remark ; and Made- moiselle Cossart had made use of it as a mode of complimenting him through his daughter, by tracing it to her inherited eagerness of attain- ment. To the operation of this discontent, she ascribed all iier pupil's exertions; and she en- deavoured to make Bellarmine, as she professed herself to be, ' enchanted with it,' because it would, in time, produce miracles. She reasoned, she argued, she quoted ; she talked well, and he was inclined to listen to whatever offered to soothe anxiety. His imagination indeed was dazzled— he thought himself convinced — but, when hi^ adviser left him, he had the whole subject to go over again in his meditations; and he had not the power of deceiving himself that she had of deceiving him: he was suspi- cious. With her mind in this fermenting state, and feeling, without knowing it, that the bound- ary prescribed to its energies inclosed less than the space to which they were disposed to ex- pand, Rosanne passed through another winter, taking the shortest methods of avoiding her father's displeasure when a knowledge of the truth would have risked incurring it, and doing ungraciously just as much of what w^as the, then object of her employment,, as would acquit he« q2 228 R O S A N N E. with him; but without interest or pleasure. He had prepared her garden for the reception of a regular system of botanical experiments — he had procured for her a choice cabinet of minerals — she had casts and sulphurs, and a fine collection of engravings — he had purchased for her the best musical instruments — he still joined in their domestic ^ trio :' she had modelled his head, and produced a likeness — she had painted Mademoiselle Cossart in the character of the Sibyl — she had succeeded in attempts of poetry:— in short, she had done all that such a father could reasonably ask; and she had the power of ruling the most indulgent father pos- sible; yet neither the father nor the daughter was happy individually, nor were they consoled in each other. When he flattered himself most, it was because he had bribed with most judg- ment — when he fancied his daughter improving, she was in fact onlv ^lowino; more cunningf. If a recognition of obsolete superstitions was. inevitable, her father overwhelmed her with a crushing variety ; and, by parallelisms and analo- gies, which have the multifold advantages of gaining time, distracting attention, confound- ing things in themselves dissimilar, and at last making the inquirer answer tlie inquiry, he taught her to teach herself, that, if one set of absurdities had outlived its credit, all opi- nions of this kind were absurd, and would meet the same fate. If ' the Divine Being' must be R O S A N N E. 229 mentioned, and if her questions grew too point- ed to be shunned, she was treated with a re- ference to the equal authority of Jupiter To- nans, Stator, Feretrius, Victor, Capitolinus, Optinius Maximus, to the * great Pelasgic Do- doneaa Jove,' to the bull that bore away Eu- ropa, and to the golden shower that addressed itself to the covetousness of Danae. If she heard of ' worship,' and would know what worship was, she was now referred to the re- presentations of * Bramah and his suite,' and to the corruptions of the Egyptians. Did Miss Bellarniine, after the education she had re- ceived, wish to become a disciple of any of these personages? She might be assured, that the machinery of literature was the natural abode of these beings, and she might have her choice between them and the harder-named deities of the north and south poles. Mahomet had offered himself, most conve- niently, to choke notions that might arise, should any carelessness bring to her knowledge the most important mission ever vouchsafed to the world. — Inspiration was to be found in company with the oracles; — and Deucalion and Pyrrha seized on the ground allotted to Noah. In short, there was little more necessary, in any of these or the like cases, than to take the sha- dow for the substance. The inquirer was silenced or made merry, and no greater harm ensued q3 eso ROSANNE. than robbing a fellow- creature of its birthriglit; Bellarmine grew encouraged by the success of his own adroitness. The toughest questions that Rosanne put, — and which she repeated as long as she dared, — began with, Who? What? and Why? She had, very early in her little life, discovered, that no- thing about the house was destitute of an origin easy to get at ; every thing had a maker and a use, excepting all the things that prompt- ed her inquiry. She could even now, as to these, get no Answer but ' Nature' and ' Neces- sity ;' and when she asked. Who is Nature ? ami What is Necessity ? both her father and Made- inoiselle Cossart seemed teased by her inquisi- tiveness. She was intimidated from repeating that which she was weary of hearing so imper- fectly answered; but she felt that the curiosity and observation formerly demanded of her were now discouraged. But no power brought to bear upon her mind, however silencing, could obtain what might be called adoption or admission : she onl}^ postponed, and the work of her mind proceed- ed as before. Her inquisitiveness now ramifying, required to know the origin and the framer of more than the world she stood on — and then contracting to a single point, wondered how she came into the world — for what end — and why she was so much an object of care and at- ROSANNE. 231 tention. ' I suppose,' said she, in concluding, ' it is all the work of Nature and Necessity. But who is this Nature? and what is this Ne- cessity ?— How do I move?— How do I choose? —What makes me think ?— Why does not the dog speak ?'. q4 kst ROSANNE. CHAPTER XVIII. Between two persons so situated, there coukl be none of that frank explanation, that mutual receding from points of right, which tends to the concihation of estranged friends. Bellarmine grew too proud to seek the affection of his daughter, and she too shy to offer it. Ahena- tion produced ahcnation ; and all Rosanne's in- tentions of enforcing the claims of her curio- sity respecting those which she considered as her peculiar subjects, sunk in silence. ]\Iademoi- selle Cossart saw that there must soon be an op- tion offered her as to party : and her prudence would have led her to that which she could most influence ; but the power rested with the other side, and she dared proceed no farther in encouraging Miss Bellarmine"s complaints, than joining in her general dissatisfaction with her father's conduct towards her. But when Ro» sanne, mis-led by these expressions of sympathy, entered more into the detail of her grievances, and stated the difficulty which she found to get an}'^ of he?^ questions answered, Mademoiselle Cossart, aware that the next step would cross •the Rubicon, retracted her censure, and took part with her employer. — What she could say on this new tack, could not gain credit with ROSAXNE. 233 any one — It diminished her pupil's little confi- dence. The injury which Rosanne was in silence sustaining, made itself visible in her person : she lost her colour, her flesh, her vivacity — and w^ith them all that could depart of her beauty. Bellarmine, imputing this to perverse- ness of temper, felt hurt in his pride still more than in his love, when he told himself that his daughter, thus early, was passing the meridian of her beauty. — He pitied himself sincerely— he told himself how much he had done, and how ill he had sped:— he did not recollect, when he looked for figs, that he had been planting thistles, nor that, probably, his daughter was more than himself pitiable. Her walks were become dejected : her rides had now seldom the addition of her father's company : he prescribed daily the route the la- dies should take, and minuted them by his watch : a servant, whom there was reason to believe he questioned, attended them ; and Ma- demoiselle Cossart did not fail to remark this to Rosanne. Every thing served to make the breach, though not yet visible, something wider. The attention which her father demanded from her to the subjects on which he had taken pains to instruct her, made her day still a system of occupation ; and the care that her health began to require, drove her from them to relax- SS4 KOSANNE. atioiis as insipid as themselves : she visited her garden, as she would have done a ' hortus siccus,' only that the unvegetative character of the plants seemed transferred to her mind : the most blooming flowers were all, she felt, a * hortus siccus' to her; for she sought in them what she could not obtain, the satisfaction of a hungry appetite for the only species of knowledge that seemed denied her. Her father, she remember- ed, had pressed on her, some branches of study that she had rejected, but she did not yet re- pent her rejection. — ' Why should I,' said she, ' labour through a dead language, to learn that which 1 know is vague and changeable ?' — Slie had turned sick when he wished her to make herself acquainted with that ' niere piece of in- genious mechanism,' the human frame. — ^ What can I ever gain,' said she, ' by studying a thing that has been put together only to struggle through life, and then to be pulverized?' — He- raldry had appeared to her the idle distinction of a set of beings, whose fancied pre-eminencej were but means of oppression. All these, she knew, he had considered as part of the mind's proper furniture and conducive to her accom- plishments, and had urged them on her atten- tion : but what she wanted most, the mere simple information connected with the exist- ence of sensible objects — the resolution of ques- tions which every moment and every use of her eyes suggested — these she could not obtain ; and ROSxYNN E, iOO the subject seemed to be mysteriously guarded ; — perhaps there was no ans\7er to such questions — perhaps it was really, as she had been told, very absurd to inquire into things that exist in any way, every wa}-, and in the way in which they present themselves to our eyes, only by the laws of nature and necessity — yet nature seemed to afford the greatest stimulus to in- quiry. From her garden she went to her cabinet of mi- nerals — still all arrd ! — her aviary — a little ' me- nagerie' — the * basse cour,' where she had do- mestic and foreign fowls for interest and observa- tion — ^all were dumb, or loquacious to irritation! She turned homewards in deep dull musing, and felt something so like despondency, and so pain- ful, that the company of Mademoiselle Cossart, or the hour for attending her father, wds a wel- come interruption of her thoughts. In these musing retrogradations, she was one morning disturbed by the voices of two men at a little distance, but out of her sight. The one she recognised as that of the man who super- hitended the concerns of the farm which supplied the family : the other she knew not; but it soon- appeared to be that of some servant employ- ed under him. It was Sunday. The viceo-e- rent was demanding of the subaltern some im- mediate exercise of labour, which, in gentle but. firm, — in humble but yet manly terms, was re- fused. o3d ROSANNE. The refusal drew on reproofs and threats mix- ed with taunt and sarcasm. The inferior had to defend himself against a charge of that which Rosaline had so often heard treated with ridi- cule — SUPERSTITION ; and she eagerly listened, in hopes it might be defined. — He denied the justice of the reproach, and adverted to a time when his accuser had been more open to it. In- temperance increasing on one side, diminished forbearance on the other ; and unsparing lan- guage ensuing, Rosanne learnt from it that the man in power had been ' of the Church of Rome,' — that he had, as a member of it, ' worshipped images and idols — -stocks and stones,' — that he had ' trusted to the back of a saint to carry him to Heaven,' — that he * prayed to St. Peter to open the door for him,' — that he and all of his churcli * might be as wicked as they pleased, if they had but money to pay for indulgences ;' — and, in short, she heard much of the scurrility that is usually bestowed, right or wrong, on Catho- lics. To this was added a personal postscript, accusing him of having cast off even this obe- dience, and now * fearing neither God, nor man, nor devil ;' and the comfortable prophecy, that he would, after all, ' come to some bad end, like old Antoine, who hanged himself because he was afraid to face his Maker, and that wick- ed Pierrot, who was struck all down one side, when he was taking God's name in vain,' — with half a dozen other such flattering resemblances R O S A N N E. 237 of himself — for that, as the uncontradicted orator asserted, ' God Almighty always brought it home, at last, to those who fancied they could do w^ithout him ; — and the day of judgment, W'hen every body was to give an account of liis w^ords and works, would prove all this.' The man thus attacked, though stunned at first, recovered the power of reply; but he was not so fluent of speech as his adversary : he could only repeat his orders, and assert his au- thority, and threaten the displeasure of * IMon- sieurf the orders met with no promptitude of obedience — the authority was set at nought — the displeasure of IMonsieur was not defied — but the terms in wdiich it was recognised were pecu- liar: — ^ I,' said the labourer, ' eat my bread under the o'oodncss of IMonsieur, therefore I sav nothing — I only wish Monsieur thought as I do — it would be happier for him and for that pretty creature, his daughter; — but that is no- thing to you or me.' The bailiif was probably afraid any thing mio-ht be said which Monsieur or his dauQ-hter might overhear, or which might be reported to them ; for wliCn the defendant proceeded, he en- deavoured to stop and to soothe him : but it was too late — the sluice was open, and the stream was brisk — and he was forced to listen, or pro- ceed to extremities, which, as the man seemed worth courting, he might not be warranted i?i doing, especially when openr'himself to re- 28 ROSANNE. proach in various ways; — his discarding super- stition could not indeed risk his favour with his employer; but with his superstition he had, in truth, dismissed what would have been deemed of more importance by those who confided in him : and he had now no means so ready of al- laying the torrent he had let loose, as awaiting the discharge of its fury in silence. The defendant, not inclined to forego his ad- vantage, proceeded to clear himself, at least to his own satisfaction, by a statement of his consistent practice. — ' He was now,' he said, ' near seventy ; he had served God all the days of his life, and had thriven under his favour and his blessing : he had buried his wife the week before, in the certainty that they should meet in a better woild than this, which, though a very good world, when it came out of the hand of God, was made by wicked men a very bad one : — he had a large family of children, who were the comfort of his age — all good, all dutiful, because they feared God — and Lord have mercy on parents now ! when children were set free from their obedience which God had or- dained. And though he was a labouring man,, he was as happy as a prince — and happier too than they now-a-days — and though he was called one of the pretended refornyed, he called himself one of the real reformed, and he would never give up his religion for the liberty to cut throats and do murdeiv to get people's power and property,' R O S A N N E. 239 nor * would he exchange his pretended reformed religion for all the fooleries of the papists : — they might go to their dancing, and their theatres, and their plays, and their cards and revellings, on Sundays ; but, for his part, he thought no- thing so comfortable as a well-spent Sabbath ; and his father and mother, he had often heard them say, always spent it so, before they were enticed from their native place in Scot- land, and he would, to his dying day, spend it as it was intended to be spent, in serving his Creator, and in resting from daily labour, as God had commanded all his creatures ; and if they could worship him no better, they could say their prayers, read their Bible, and sing a psalm. — How, otherwise, were they to expect God Almighty to continue his care of them (l)?' — He ' had told master bailiff so, when he hired him, and then he did not object ;' — so, in short, ' he would not work on a Sunday ;' and, as for being turned oiF, he was still a hearty man, and he was sure God Almighty would find another place for him, or take him to a better world — for, had he not told us that the hairs of our head were all numbered ?' Either the natural eloquence or the incontro- vertible conviction of the old man's reply, had made Rosanne, very early in the debate, his decided adherent, and she was well inclined to take his part; but considering that she had al- ready listened longer than she could excuse, she 5 1240 R O S A N N E. returned to the house, repeating, as she went, the most prominent of the strange things she had heard. They sunk with unresisted force, and very deeply, into her mind, though they VvOre not all intelhgihle to lier. She had now, for the first time, heard who made the world and its inhabit- ants — she had learnt that protection was afford- ed and duty demanded — that there were helps ordained for the performance of duty, an account to he rendered, and punishments and rewards to be looked to; and having neither prejudice against what she had heard, nor any interest in contesting its truth, she was disposed to admit it, and to extract from it, the necessary result, ^)Oth as matter of opinion and of practice. NOTES, (1) However general the corruption of manners, the in- habitants of Scotland still preserve a spirit of moral and reli- j^ious decency, which, though greatly diminished when com- pared with what it was, is still worthy of our imitation. We quote their practice in our endeavours to diffuse some degree of learning among the lower classes ; and, if not coun-. teracted by the evil of home, and the relaxations of play- hours, it is to, be hoped, good effects may be produced : but it is very much to be wished, that, instead of exciting the vanity of children publicly educated, by popular exhibi- tions and crowded examinations, their progress were stimu- lated on better motives, and their behaviaur, when not vinder immediate control, so far attended to^ as to impress them with the idea that they can never be safe in doin^ ROSANNE. 241 v/rong. — A very sensible observer of human nature used tq say, that he always knew a boy belonging to a. charity-school, when at play, by his frequent use of the name of our Sa-. viour; and it is melancholy to perceive that the offensive practice is not corrected by any part of the infinite and most laudable pains bestowed now on parish-childrenj That such children * cannot know they are wrong,' might be pleaded with some probability when they were worse instructed ; but a very little girl, when reproved severely for using the name, of Christ, showed at least that her information was better than her practice, by the childish subterfuge of saying that the words she used were only * O cry.' — Of what is neces- sary still to be done to further the good attempted, the following dialogue, verbatimy may give a hint. — Scene, a churchyard. — The interlocutors were boys educating in a national school. A. — What do you think of the day of judgment ? B, — Why, I think we shall all be called up at the world's €nd: don't the Bible say so ? — We shall all be called up with our bodies, to give an account of our works. A. — I don't think any such thing — It 's a lie — and be — to you. C. — WTiy, / 've seen the World's-end. B, — Not you indeed — it was the sign of the World's-end in Cornwall that you saw 1 The strong expressions must be supplied— they must not be written. Would not the presence of something like a monitor in th© play-ground be of use in checking such discussions i* Deviations from right, still worse in their tendency, occur where boys and girls are allowed to pursue their pastimes to- gether ; and there subsists in some places a custom, which even those who benefit by it, wish to see abolished ; as they trace back to it much of that disregard for the Sabbath, which is the foundation of the most abandoned contempt of laws. This custom originates with parents, who make it a practice to give their children pence and halfpence on Sa- VOL, I. ^ Jl 242 R O S A N N E. turd^y evening, to lay out on Sunday ; and duly as Sunday comes, the village toyshop or pastry-cook's shop is thronged for marbles and stale tarts. Were it made a condition of a child's being educated free of expense, that this weekly al- lowance should be withheld till Monday morning, or even Sunday night, it would teach both parents and children the pause of traffic that is due to the Sabbath. The idea was suggested by a little country shopkeeper, who perhaps took more money from this source, than she received all the week beside. ROSANNE. 243 CHAPTER XIX. RosANNE reached the house in a state little short of nervous fever. Her father was indis- posed, and Mademoiselle Cossart was winding- up the perfectibility of human nature. — Bel- larraine's indispositions were too frequent to be surprises, and too easily removed by any occur- rence that gave him pleasure, to call out anxiety; and Rosanne rejoiced in the liberty of pacing a long gallery, without control or observa- tion. She could not rest. Nothing that she had ever heard, had been so awakening to her attention, as the old man's words. She had lent a willing ear to the many lectures in which her father had un- folded to her the theories of things delightful to know; but all, all seemed to fade into uninterest- ing flatness, compared with the illimitable sub- ject she had thus imperfectly heard argued. How could she get farther information about this sys- tem ? What could be her father's motive for keeping her in ignorance of it? — Was it possible that a man of such learning, and so much thought, could resemble in principles and opi- nions that cruel creature the bailiff? — Who was there in the world that she could ask ? — She wished she could talk to the old man a little ; for, in speaking to her father, or Mademoiselle r2 244 R O S A N N E. Cossart, she was persuaded she should gain no- thing. Equally unable to resolve the perplexing ques- tions she was putting to herself, and to dismiss the doubts, the fears, the almost conscientious tenors that were rising . to distress her, her mind began, through the force of the oppres- sion, to exert again its elastic force. Its exter- nal commotion, and its power of internal re- sistance, made a violent struggle : the wish to do rig-ht — the fear of being mis- led — the forlorn feeling of a creature conscious of what seem- ed culpable ignorance, yet committed to its own guidance — the awful responsibility in which she fancied, and perhaps only fancied, herself placed, to something unseen, unknown — the sus- picion, that to attempt hushing the throbbing of her bosom was scarcely innocent — that it was base — that it was acting like the persons whom she had heard described — the conflicting recol- lection of her father's uniform opposition — the fear that he might have good reasons which she could not penetrate — combined to distress her, and almost to stop the power of breathing : — choked — strangling — in an universal tremor — her' teeth chattering — at one moment frozen — at the next parched — she rushed into the middle of her sitting-room, on which the noon-day sun, in all its radiance, was pouring its rays of liquid gold: — she advanced to the large win- dow which overlooked a terrace, and thence the park — a great piece of water — the forest ROSANNE. 245 — and a sparkling distance : — she cast her eyes to Heaven — she gazed for the thousandth part of a moment on the sun — it seemed to claim her adoration : — she was going to drop on her knees, when recollecting ' Tliis too might have a maker' — she reeled away in agony, and falling on her face on a sofa, there poured out her over- flowing mind in tears. Her spirits thus relieved, she felt hetter able to think and to resolve: her father's instructions to her on other points, were now of use to her. ' Consider what you are going to do,' he had often said to her, when she was suffering the liveliness of her imagination to lead her into error. — * Ascertain the thing you want,' was a precept that had often made her more precise in her exertions — and ^ remember, a straight path is the shortest,' was an injunction that applied equally to moral conduct and to labours of in- dustry. She ' considered what she was going to do ;' and her mind w^ould bear the consideration ; for it had no feeling that could make it difficult to retract, if she were wrong:— she ' wanted' in- struction to guide her, and * the straight path* was to declare to those who governed her, what, she had heard, and the crisis to which it had brought the previous disorder of her mind. She was alone two hours. Mademoiselle Cos- sart was in a room separated from hers only by that in which she slept; but the perfectibility of human nature — the mechanism of intellect R 3 246 K O S A N N E. — tli^ classification of various relations — things consil^- '^M', r- "^m--^. 1 ^^^ ^^•%. \^oyy> \l^^'9^^^^^ \ yf "T/ 1 ^^^^(