The General will be here presently, said Jeronymo. Do you choose to see him?

As, perhaps, he has been told I am here, it would look too particular to depart instantly. If he comes not in soon, I will take my leave of

you.

I had hardly done speaking, when the General entered, drying his eyes.

Your servant, Mr Grandison, said he. Brother, how do you? Not the better, I dare say, for the present affliction. Who the devil would have thought the girl had been so deeply affected?— Well, sir, you have a glorious triumph!-Clementina's heart is not a vulgar one. Her family

My lord, I hope I do not deserve this address-Triumph, my lord!-Not a heart in this family can be more distressed than mine. And is religion, is conscience, really of such force, chevalier?

Let me ask that question, my lord, of your own heart; let me ask it of your brother the Bishop; of the other principals of your noble family; and the answer given will be an answer for me.

He seemed displeased. Explain yourself, che valier.

If, my lord, said I, you think there is so great, so essential, a difference in the two religions, that you cannot consent that I should keep my own; what must I be, who think as highly of my own as you can of yours, to give it up, though on the highest temporal consideration? Make the case your own, my lord.

I can. And were I in your situation, such a woman as my sister; such a family as ours; such a splendid fortune as she will have; I be lieve, I should not make the scruples you do. My brother the Bishop, indeed, might not have given the same answer. He might have been

more tenacious.

The Bishop cannot be better satisfied with his religion than I am with mine. But I hope, my lord, from what you have said, that I may claim the honour of your friendship in this great article. It is proposed to me, that I renounce my religion: I make no such proposal to your family; on the contrary, I consent that Lady Clementina should keep hers; and I am ready to allow a very handsome provision for a discreet man, her confessor, to attend her, in order to secure her in it. As to residence; I will consent to reside one year in Italy, one in England; and even, if she choose not to go to England at all, I will acquiesce; and visit England myself but for three months in every year. As to the children, Mr Grandison? said Signor Jeronymo; desirous of promoting the compromise.

I will consent that daughters shall be the mother's care; the education of sons must be left to me.

What will the poor daughters have done, che

valier, sneeringly spoke the General, that they should be left to perdition?

Your lordship, without my entering into the opinion of the professors of both religions on this subject, will consider my proposal as a compromise. I would not have begun an address upon these terms with a princess. I do assure you, that mere fortune has no bias with me. Prescribe not to me in the article of religion, and I will, with all my soul, give up every ducat of your sister's fortune.

Then what will you have to support————

My lord, leave that to your sister and me. I will deal honourably with her. If she renounce me on that article, you will have reason to congratulate yourselves.

Your fortune, sir, by marriage, will be much more considerable than it can be by patrimony, if Clementina be yours; why then should you not look forward to your posterity as Italians? And in that case

He stopt there. It is easy to guess at his inference.

I would no more renounce my country than my religion: I would leave posterity free; but would not deprive them of an attachment that I value myself upon; nor yet my country, of a family that never gave it cause to be ashamed of it.

The General took snuff, and looked on me and off me, with an air too supercilious. I could not but be sensible of it.

I have no small difficulty, my lord, said I, to bear the hardships of my situation, added to the distress which that situation gives me, to be looked upon in this family as a delinquent, without having done anything to reproach myself with, either in thought, word, or deed.My lord, it is extremely hard.

It is, my lord, said Signor Jeronymo. The great misfortune in the case before us, is, that the Chevalier Grandison has merit superior to that of most men ; and that our sister, who was not to be attached by common merit, could not be insensible to his.

Whatever were my sister's attachments, Signor Jeronymo, we know yours; and generous ones they are; but we all know how handsome men may attach young ladies, without needing to say a single word. The poison once taken in at the eye, it will soon diffuse itself through the whole mass.

My honour, yet, my lord, was never called in question, either by man or woman.

Your character is well known, chevalier-Had it not been unexceptionable, we should not have entered into treaty with you on this subject, I do assure you; and it piques us not a little to have a daughter of our house refused. You don't know the consequence, I can tell you, of such an indignity offered in this country.

Refused! my lord!-To endeavour to obvi

ate this charge, would be to put an affront upon your lordship's justice, as well as an indignity offered to your truly noble house.

Ile arose in anger, and swore that he would not be treated with contempt.

I stood up too; And if I am, my lord, with indignity, it is not what I have been used to bear.

Signor Jeronymo was disturbed. He said, he had opposed our seeing each other. He knew his brother's warmth; and I, he said, from the scenes that had before passed, ought perhaps to have shewn more pity than resentment.

It was owing to my regard for the delicacy of your sister, Signor Jeronymo, said I, (for whom I have the tenderest sentiments,) as well as to do justice to my own conduct towards her, that I could not help shewing myself affected by the word refused.

Affected by the word refused! sir, said the General-Yes, you have soft words for hard meanings. But I, who have not your choice of words, make use of those that are explained by actions.

I was in hopes, my lord, that I might rather have been favoured with your weight in the proposed compromise, than to have met with your displeasure.

Consider, chevalier, coolly consider this matter:- How shall we answer it to our country, (we are public people, sir,) to the church, to which we stand related; to our own character; to marry a daughter of our house to a Protestant? You say you are concerned for her honour; what must we, what can we say in her behalf, if she be reflected upon as a love-sick girl, who, though stedfast in her religion, could refuse men of the first consideration, all of her own religion and country, and let a foreigner, an Englishman, carry her off?

Preserving, nevertheless, by stipulation, you will remember, my lord, her religion.-If you shall have so much to answer for to the world with such a stipulation in the lady's favour, what shall I be thought of, who, though I am not, nor wish to be, a public man, am not of a low or inconsiderable family, if I, against my conscience, renounce my religion and my country, for a consideration, that, though the highest in private life, is a partial and selfish consideration?

No more, no more, sir-If you can despise worldly grandeur; if you can set light by riches, honours, love; my sister has this to be said in her praise, that she is the first woman, that ever I heard of, who fell in love with a philosopher; and she must, I think, take the consequence of such a peculiarity. Her example will not have many followers.

Yes, my lord, it will, said Jeronymo, if Mr Grandison be the philosopher. If women were to be regimented, he would carry an army into the field without beat of drum.

I was vexed to find an affair that had penetrated my heart go off so lightly; but the levity shewn by the General was followed by Jeronymo, in order to make the past warmth between us forgotten.

I left the brothers together. As I passed through the saloon, I had the pleasure of hearing, by a whisper from Camilla, that her young lady was somewhat more composed for the operation she had yielded to.

In the afternoon the General made me a visit at my lodgings. He told me he had taken amiss some things that had fallen from my mouth. I owned that I was at one time warm; but excused myself by his example.

I urged him to promote my interest as to the proposed compromise. He gave me no encouragement; but took down my proposals in writing.

He asked me, if my father were as tenacious in the article of religion as I was?

I told him, that I had forborne to write anything of the affair to my father.

That, he said, was surprising. He had always apprehended, that a man who pretended to be strict in religion, be it what religion it would, should be uniform. He who could dispense with one duty, might with another.

I answered, that having no view to address Lady Clementina, I had only given my father general accounts of the favour I had met with from a family so considerable; that it was but very lately that I had entertained any hopes at all, as he must know; that those hopes were allayed by my fears that the articles of religion and residence would be an insuperable obstacle; but that it was my resolution, in the same hour that I could have any prospect of succeeding, to lay all before him; and I was sure of his approbation and consent to an alliance so answerable to the magnificence of his own spirit.

The General, at parting, with a haughty air, said, I take my leave, chevalier: I suppose you will not be in haste to leave Bologna. I am extremely sensible of the indignity you have cast upon us all. I am-and swore We shall not disgrace our sister and ourselves, by courting your acceptance of her. I understand, that Olivia is in love with you too. These contentions for you may give you consequence with yourself; but Olivia is not a Clementina. You are in a country jealous of family honour. Ours is a first family in it. You know not what you have done, sir.

What you have said, my lord, I have not deserved of you. It can not be answered, at least by me. I shall not leave Bologna till I apprize you of it, and till I have the misfortune to be assured, that I cannot have any hope of the honour once designed me. I will only add, that my principles were well known before I was written to at Vienna.

And do you reproach us with that step? It

was a base one. It had not my concurrence. He went from me in a passion.

I had enough at my heart, Dr Bartlett, had I been spared this insult from a brother of Clementina. It went very hard with me to be threatened. But, I thank God, I do not deserve the treatment.

LETTER CXI.

MISS BYRON.

[In continuation.]

London, Friday Morning, March 31. HERE, my Lucy, once more I am. We arrived yesterday in the afternoon.

Lady Betty Williams and Miss Clèments have been already to welcome me on my return. My cousin says, they are inseparable. I am glad of it, for Lady Betty's sake.

Dr Bartlett is extremely obliging. One would think, that he and his kinsman gave up all their time in transcribing for us. I send you now his seventh, eighth, and ninth letters. In reading the two latter, we were struck (for the two sisters and my lord were with us) with the nobleness of Clementina. Her motive, through her whole delirium, is so apparently owing to her concern for the soul of the man she loved, (entirely regardless of any interest of her own,) that we all forgot what had been so long our wishes, and joined in giving preference to her.

DR BARTLETT'S SEVENTH LETTER.

I HAD another visit paid me, proceeds Mr Grandison, two hours after the General left me, by the kind-hearted Camilla, disguised as before.

I come now, chevalier, said she, with the Marchioness's connivance, and, I may say, by her command; and, at the same time, by the command of Signor Jeronymo, who knows of my last attendance upon you, though no one else does, not even the Marchioness. He gave me this letter for you.

But how does the noblest young lady in Italy, Camilla? How does Lady Clementina?

More composed than we could have hoped for, from the height of her delirium. It was high; for she has but a very faint idea of having seen you this morning.

The Marchioness had bid her say, that although I had now given her despair instead of hope, yet that she owed it to my merit, and to the sense she had of the benefits they had actually received at my hands, to let me know,

that it was but too likely that resentments might be carried to an unhappy length; and that therefore she wished I would leave Bologna for the present. If happier prospects presented, she would be the first to congratulate me upon them.

I opened the letter of my kind Jeronymo. These were the contents:

I AM infinitely concerned, my dear Grandison, to find a man equally generous and brave as my brother is, hurried away by passion. You may have acted with your usual magnanimity in preferring your religion to your love, and to your glory. I, for my part, think you to be a distressed man. If you are not, you must be very insensible to the merits of an excellent woman, and very ungrateful to the distinction she honours you with. I must write in this style, and think she does honour by it even to my Grandison. But should the consequences of this affair be unhappy for either of you; if, in particular, for my brother; what cause of regret would our family have, that a younger brother was saved by the hand which deprived them of a more worthy elder? If for you, how deplorable would be the reflection, that you saved one brother, and perished by the hand of another! Would to God that his passion, and your spirit, were more moderate! But let me request this favour of you; that you retire to Florence, for a few days, at least.

How unhappy am I, that I am disabled from taking part in a more active mediation!-Yet the General admires you. But how can we blame in him a zeal for the honour of his family, in which he would be glad at his soul to include a zeal for yours?

For God's sake, quit Bologna for a few days only. Clementina is more sedate. I have carried it, that her confessor shall not at present visit her; yet he is an honest and a pious man.

What a fatality! Every one to mean well, yet every one to be miserable! And can religion be the cause of so much unhappiness? I cannot act. I can only reflect. My dear friend, let me know by a line, that you will depart from Bologna to-morrow; and you will then a little lighten the heart of your

JERONYMO.

I SENT my grateful compliments to the Marchioness by Camilla. I besought her to believe, that my conduct on this occasion should be such as should merit her approbation. I expressed my grief for the apprehended resentments. I was sure that a man so noble, so generous, so brave, as was the man from whom the resentments might be supposed to arise, would better consider of everything; but it was impossible

for me, I bid Camilla say, to be far distant from Bologna; because I still presumed to hope for a happy turn in my favour.

I wrote to Signor Jeronymo to the same effect. I assured him of my high regard for his gallant brother; I deplored the occasion which had subjected me to the General's displeasure; bid him depend upon my moderation. I referred to my known resolution, of long standing, to avoid a meditated rencounter with any man; urging, that he might, for that reason, the more securely rely upon my care to shun any acts of offence, either to or from a son of the Marquis della Porretta; a brother of my dear friend Jeronymo, and of the most excellent and beloved

of sisters!

Neither the Marchioness nor Jeronymo were satisfied with the answers I returned; but what could I do? I had promised the General that I would not leave Bologna till I had apprized him of my intention to do so; and I still was willing, as I bid Camilla tell the Marchioness, to indulge my hopes of some happy turn.

The Marquis, the Bishop, and General, went to Urbino; and there, as I learnt from my Jeronymo, it was determined, in full assembly, that Grandison, as well from difference in religion, as from inferiority in degree and fortune, was unworthy of their alliance; and it was hinted to the General, that he was equally unworthy of his resentment.

While the father and two brothers were at Urbino, Lady Clementina gave hopes of a sedate mind. She desired her mother to allow her to see me; but the Marchioness, believing there were no hopes of my complying with their terms, and being afraid of the consequences, and of incurring blame from the rest of her family, now especially that they were absent, and consult ing together on what was proper to be done, desired she would not think of it.

This refusal made Clementina the more earnest for an interview. Signor Jeronymo gave his advice in favour of it. The misfortune he had met with, had added to his weight with the family. It is a family of harmony and love. They were hardly more particularly fond of Clementina than they were of one another, throughout the several branches of it; this harmony among them added greatly to the family consequence, as well in public as private. Till the attempt that was made upon their Jeronymo, they had not known calamity.

But the confessor strengthening the Marchioness's apprehensions of what the consequences of indulging the young lady might be, all Jeronymo's weight would have failed to carry this point, had it not been for an enterprize of Clementina, which extremely alarmed them, and made them give into her wishes.

Camilla has enabled me to give the following melancholy account of it, to the only man on earth to whom I could communicate particulars,

the very recollection of which tears my heart in pieces.

The young lady's malady, after some favourable symptoms, which went off, returning in another shape, her talkativeness continued; but the hurry with which she spoke and acted, gave place to a sedateness that she seemed very fond of. They did not suffer her to go out of her chamber; which she took not well; but Camilla, being absent about an hour, on her return missed her, and alarmed the whole house upon it. Every part of it, and of the garden, was searched. From an apprehension, that they dared not so much as whisper to one another, they dreaded to find her whom they so carefully sought after.

At last, Camilla seeing, as she supposed, one of the maid-servants coming down stairs with remarkable tranquillity, as she thought, in her air and manner: Wretch! said she, how composed do you seem to be in a storm that agitates everybody else!

Don't be angry with me, Camilla, returned the supposed servant.

O my lady! my very Lady Clementina, in Laura's clothes! Whither are you going, madam?-But let the Marchioness know (said she, to one of the women-servants, who then appeared in sight,) that we have found my young lady. -What, dear madam, is the meaning of this? -Go, Martina, (to another woman-servant,) go this instant to my lady!-Dear Lady Clementina, what concern have you given us?

And thus she went on, asking questions of her young lady, and giving orders, almost in the same breath, till the Marchioness came to them in a joyful hurry, from one of the pavilions in the garden, into which she had thrown herself; tortured by her fears, and dreading the approach of every servant, with fatal tidings.

The young lady stood still, but with great composure. I will go, Camilla, said she; indeed I will. You disturb me by your frantic ways, Camilla. I wish you would be as sedate and calm as I am. What's the matter with the woman?

Her mother folding her arms about her—O, my sweet girl! said she, how could you terrify us thus? What's the meaning of this disguise? Whither were you going?

Why, madam, I was going on God's errand ; not on my own-What is come to Camilla? The poor creature is beside herself!

O my dear! said her mother, taking her hand, and leading her into her own apartment, (Camilla following, weeping with joy for having found her,) tell me, said she, tell me, has Laura furnished you with this dress?

Whyno, madam; I'll tell you the whole truth. I went and hid myself in Laura's room, while she changed her clothes: I saw where she put those she took off; and when she had left her room, I put them on.