rout; that is to say, an entertainment, where a vast number of rational, wise, and well informed votaries of immortality, meet together, not to converse, but to look at each other, and to turn over the bits of painted paper, called cards! After receiving this mark of her Ladyship's attention, we took our leave and retired.

I was curious to know some further particulars of a family whose manners appeared to me so peculiar; and Doctor Severan, whom I have the happiness of seeing every day, has had the goodness amply to gratify my curiosity. He began with observing, that "to those who take pleasure in investigating the phænomena that fall under their observation, either mental or material, it is not sufficient to say that things are so, they must develope the causes in which they have originated. As there are few substances found in a natural state, whose constituent parts cannot be separated from each other by the methods used in chemistry, so there are few predominant

dispositions of the mind which may not be analyzed and traced through their origin and progress by any one who will give himself the trouble to pursue the necessary pro

cess.

"This investigation, if accurately followed," continued my friend, "will invariably lead us to the early education of the object of it. In it we will commonly find an explanation of the manner in which the peculiar combination of ideas that ultimately forms character, has been produced; to it, therefore, we must always recur in our analization of the propensities and conduct of any individual.

"The father of Sir Caprice was three times married.-His first wife, who was the heiress of a wealthy family, died soon after the birth of a daughter, in whom the fortunes of her family are at present centered. -His second wife, the mother of Sir Caprice, brought him no other dower besides beauty and good temper. Her premature death overwhelmed him in affliction; but, VOL. II. 7*

happily, just as he was erecting a monument to her memory, in the inscription of which he gave notice to the world that his affections were for ever buried in her tomb, a consoling angel appeared to comfort him in the shape of Lady Caroline Beaumont.

"This Lady, who brought him only one daughter, proved an excellent wife, and would have been one of the best of mothers to his children, but for a certain timidity of temper, which restrained her from exerting authority over the children of another. From her, therefore, they met with unlimited indulgence, that most powerful inflamer of the passions, in whose high temperature fortitude is lost, and selfishness, arrogance, and pride, are inseparably united.

"Their father having a dislike to publick schools, and resolving that his daughter should share the advantages of a classical education with his son, provided them with a tutor at home-the reverend Mr. Ergo. Well do I remember him. He afterwards got the living of our parish, and used to

stuff his sermons with Greek and Hebrew in such a manner as to make the poor people stare at the depth of his knowledge. In truth, he was a most profound linguist, a complete walking vocabulary ;-but of every virtue that dilates the heart, of every science that expands the soul while it enlarges the understanding, he was completely ignorant. The highest idea he could form of the efforts of human intellect, was confined to an accurate knowledge of nouns, verbs, cases, and tenses; and to commit these to the memory of his pupils was the chief object of his solicitude. Unqualified to fix the generous principle in the ductile bosom, he attended not to the development of mind, but, on the contrary, extoled as marks of genius the early whims and caprices of his pupil, which were, in reality, the ebullitions of an unregulated imagination.

"It is, perhaps, to this want of judgment in the tutor, that the extraordinary degree of ardour and unsteadiness, which has distinguished the baronet, may, in some degree,

be attributed. A recital of the various and opposite pursuits, in which he has been at different times engaged, will be the best illustration I can give you of his character, which is such an one as, I suppose, your eastern world has never produced. He is, however, by no means an unique in this part of the world, where the liberty of committing every folly that suggests itself to the fancy is considered as the most glorious privilege.

"The ardour of Sir Caprice's mind," continued my friend, was, for the first two years after his father's death, expended upon running horses; at length, finding himself taken in by his compeers of the turf, cheated by his grooms, and most frequently distanced at the post, he sold his racers, and foreswore Newmarket for ever."

Here I was obliged to beg an explanation from the philosopher, and found that it is customary for the great men in this kingdom, in their exertion of the privilege hinted at above, to expend immense sums of