་ opposition, he unhesitatingly declined it; assigning the true reason. This gave him considerable éclat ; particularly as he was known to be poor: and it was under these circumstances, that, by the death of an uncle and cousin nearly at the same time, he suddenly found himself master of an immense estate. Tremaine was now not far from thirty, and his heart beat high at the prospects before him. He resolved to be happy; and if the indulgence of a disposition boundless in generosity, and naturally kind, could confer happiness, he ought to have found it; for it were endless to recount the instances of his active bounty to all who stood in need of it. But with all this, he was more spoilt than ever. Though no longer in the heyday of youth, he might yet be called young; and all things seemed to court him. Yet his temper grew more and more delicate; and as to his natural fastidiousness, never having discovered that, he of course took no pains to correct it. At the same time, he had formed to himself strange notions (not, indeed, arising from personal vanity, but from feelings less likely to make him happy) of the power of his situation, combined with his acquirements, always to make his mind suffice to itself, without the least dependence upon the world. CHAP. III. THE AMOURETTES OF A MAN OF REFINEMENT. "Full many a lady "I have eyed with best regards, and many a time "With so full a soul, but some defect in her, "Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, SHAKSPEARE. WERE the fair, then, neglected by Mr. Tremaine, all this time? or did they neglect him?-Not so on either side. The sort of reputation he had made, even before his accession to fortune; his manners, figure, and features,-in all which there was a certain loftiness; his very finery itself (to use the term often applied to it in the world of fashion) had made him a person of no small consideration among the ladies. What must he be now, that he was one of the best matches in England? The daughters had courted him before; the mothers courted him now. At this, not only his integrity was disgusted, but his self-love was alarmed. There was nothing he dreaded so much as the chance of not being beloved for his own sake. Yet as we have said he was susceptible (and he certainly was so), one would have supposed there had been opportunity of putting this out of doubt, before his hopes were, as he said, marred by his attainment to wealth; they were marred, however, by himself; for his own nice breeding and habits prevented his inclinations, for the most part, from going beyond a certain point. a certain point. His enemies, or rather his enviers (of whom he had not a few), gave an air even of ridicule to some of what they called his amourettes: for they said he was too fine for an amour. It was said too (and in this there was some truth) that in his youth he had conceived a passion for the handsome daughter of the head of the college to which he belonged; that the inclination was even mutual, and that all expected a marriage; but that the whole affair was put an end to in a moment, by the unhappy accident of a windy walk up Headington hill. It was not that the fair one's leg was either thick or crooked: for it was even remarkably well shaped. But the scandal went on to say, that a garter, which happened to fall on the occasion, was considerably the worse for wear. Certain it is that the affair was broken off immediately; nor could all the kind and graceful looks, nor the real merit of the lady, afterwards move him! Another growing passion was reported to have been nipt in the bud, by the fair one being not sufficiently sentimental; a third, by her being too much so; a fourth, by his detecting her in reading Tom Jones; a fifth, by her having eaten her peas with a knife; and scandal added that one of his predilections for a young lady of the very first quality in France, was sickened to death, by her telling him one day qu'elle avait pris médecine! Had this sensible though fastidious heart never, then, met with an object which he thought really worthy its attachment? Yes! and the event coloured much of his life. It is rather a long story, and the reader might possibly be content to escape it; but as it developes much of the character and heart of this refined, yet romantic man, we must afford a few minutes to its relation. It was on a May evening, in the province of Auvergne in France, that Tremaine found himself on the banks of the little river Allier; which, after watering this beautiful province, falls into the Loire. It was after his accession to fortune. The sun had just set; and those who have ever known the climate of the countries adjacent to the Loire, are acquainted with the impressions made on the senses by the softest air in the world, tempering the glow of the retreating day. The rippling of the stream, a wooded bank, a thousand flowers, a thousand birds-all seemed to speak to the heart. Tremaine was alone: he had left his carriage and servants at Limoges, in the Limousin; and in a fit of musing, but not of moping melancholy-and, it may be added, in a fit of exertion not over common with him—he had resolved to explore this part of France on horseback,-where, however, the landscapes were much more beautiful than the roads were good. He took with him only a French guide for a servant. His loneliness soothed but did not oppress him; for he had lately been plunged in the very depths of French dissipation; and a solitary walk in such a scene seemed at this moment the most suited to his taste of any thing in the world. His heart expanded to the touch of nature; but yet there was a void in it. "Is it not strange," said he to himself as he surveyed the landscape, "that I should always be viewing these scenes by myself, and that, at eight and twenty, the loveliest part of the creation should to me still be as nothing?" He thought over all the fair beings to whom he had ever felt inclined, regretted none of them, and began to think (to him a strange speculation) that in the upper ranks, though there was more elegance of manner, there was less of that real feeling |