the same time with the most profound and awful respect; his conversation was so general, so lively, and so obliging, that Amelia, when she added to his agreeableness the obligations she had to him for his friendship to Booth, was certain ly as much pleased with his lordship, as any virtuous woman can possibly be with any man, besides her own husband.

CHAP. VII.

Containing various Matters.

We have already mentioned the good humour in which Booth returned home; and the reader will easily believe it was not a little increased by the good humour in which he found his company. My lord received him with the utmost marks of friendship and affection, and told him that his affairs went on as well almost as he himself could desire, and that he doubted not very soon to wish him joy of a company.

When Booth had made a proper return to all his lordship's unparalleled goodness, he whispered Amelia that the Colonel was entirely out of danger, and almost as well as himself. This made her satisfaction complete, threw her into such spirits, and gave such a lustre to her eyes, that her face, as Horace says, was too dazzling to be looked at; it was certainly too handsome to be looked at without the highest admiration. His lordship departed about ten o'clock, and left the company in raptures with him, especially the two ladies, of whom it is difficult to say which exceeded the other in his commendations. Mrs Ellison swore she believed he was the best of all human kind; and Amelia, without making any exception, declared he was the finest gentleman, and most agreeable man, she had ever seen in her life; adding, it was great pity he should remain single. "That's true indeed," cries Mrs Ellison," and I have often lamented it, nay, I am astonished at it, considering the great liking he always shews for our sex, and he may certainly have the choice of all. The real reason, I believe, is his fondness for his sister's children. I declare, madam, if you was to see his behaviour to them, you would think they were his own. Indeed, he is vastly fond of all manner of children."-" Good creature!" cries Amelia," if ever he doth me the honour of another visit, I am resolved I will shew him my little things. I think, Mrs Ellison, as you say my lord loves children, I may say, without vanity, he will not see many such."-" No, indeed, will he not," answered Mrs Ellison; "and now I think on't, madam, I wonder at my own stupidity in never making the offer before; but since you put it into my head, if you will give me leave, I'll take master and miss to wait on my lord's nephew and niece. They are very pretty behaved children; and little master and miss will be, I dare swear, very happy in their acquaintance; besides, if my lord himself should see

them, I know what will happen; for he is the most generous of all human beings."

Amelia very readily accepted the favour which Mrs Ellison offered her; but Booth expressed some reluctance. "Upon my word, my dear," said he, with a smile, "this behaviour of ours puts me in mind of the common conduct of beggars; who, whenever they receive a favou, are sure to send other objects to the same fountain of charity. Don't we, my dear, repay our obligations to my lord in the same manner, by sending our children a begging to him ?”

"O, beastly!" cries Mrs Ellison; "how could such a thought enter your brains! I protest, madam, I begin to grow ashamed of this husband of yours. How can you have so vulgar a way of thinking? Begging, indeed! the poor little dear things a begging! If my lord was capable of such a thought, though he was my own brother instead of my cousin, I should scorn him too much ever to enter his doors."-" O, dear madam," answered Amelia, "you take Mr Booth too seriously, when he was only in jest ; and the children shall wait upon you whenever you please.

Though Booth had been a little more in earnest than Amelia had represented him, and was not, perhaps, quite so much in the wrong as he was considered by Mrs Ellison, yet, seeing there were two to one against him, he wisely thought proper to recede, and let his smile go off with that air of a jest which his wife had given it.

Mrs Ellison, however, could not let it pass without paying some compliments to Amelia's understanding, nor without some obscure reflections upon Booth, with whom she was more offended than the matter required. She was indeed a woman of most profuse generosity, and could not forbear a thought which she deemed vulgar or sneaking. She afterwards launched forth the most profuse encomiums of his lordship's liberality, and concluded the evening with some instances which he had given of that virtue, which, if not the noblest, is, perhaps, one of the most useful to society, with which great and rich men can be endowed.

The next morning early, Serjeant Atkinson came to wait on Lieutenant Booth, and desired to speak with his honour in private. Upon which the lieutenant and serjeant took a walk together in the Park. Booth expected every minute when the serjeant would open his mouth, under which expectation he continued till he came to the end of the Mall, and so h emight have continued till he came to the end of the world; for though several words stood at the end of the serjeant's lips, there they were likely to remain for ever. He was indeed in the condition of a miser, whom a charitable impulse hath impelled to draw a few pence to the edge of his pocket, where they are altogether as secure as if they were in the bottom; for, as the one hath not the heart to part with a farthing, so neither had the other the heart to speak a word.

Booth at length, wondering that the serjeant

of me.

did not speak, asked him what his business was; when the latter, with a stammering voice, began the following apology: "I hope, sir, your honour will not be angry, nor take any thing amiss I do assure you it was not of my seeking; nay, I dare not proceed in the matter with out first asking your leave. Indeed, if I had taken any liberties, from the goodness you have been pleased to shew me, I should look upon myself as one of the most worthless and despicable of wretches; but nothing is farther from my thoughts. I know the distance which is between us; and because your honour hath been so kind and good as to treat me with more familiarity than any other officer ever did, if I had been base enough to take any freedoms, or to encroach upon your honour's goodness, I should deserve to be whipped through the regiment. I hope, therefore, sir, you will not suspect me of any such attempt."

"What can all this mean, Atkinson ?" cries Booth. "What mighty matter would you introduce with all this previous apology?"

"I am almost ashamed and afraid to mention it," answered the serjeant ;" and yet, I am sure your honour will believe what I have said, and not think any thing owing to my own presumption; and, at the same time, I have no reason to think you would do any thing to spoil my fortune in an honest way, when it is dropt into my lap without my own seeking. For, may I perish if it is not all the lady's own goodness; and I hope in heaven, with your honour's leave, I shall live to make her amends for it." In a word, that we may not detain the reader's curiosity quite so long as he did Booth's, he acquainted that gentleman that he had had an offer of marriage from a lady of his acquaintance, to whose company he had introduced him, and desired his permission to accept of it.

Booth must have been very dull indeed, if, after what the serjeant had said, and after what he had heard Mrs Ellison say, he had wanted any other information concerning the lady. He answered him briskly and chearfully, that he had his free consent to marry any woman whatever; "and the greater and richer she is," added he, "the more I shall be pleased with the match. I don't enquire who the lady is," said he, smiling, "but I hope she will make as good a wife as I am convinced her husband will deserve."

"Your honour hath been always too good to me," cries Atkinson; "but this I promise you, I will do all in my power to merit the kindness she is pleased to shew me. I will be bold to say, she will marry an honest man, though he is but a poor one; and she shall never want any thing which I can give her, or do for her, while my name is Joseph Atkinson."

"And so her name is a secret, Joe ;-is it?" cries Booth.

"Why, sir," answered the serjeant, "I hope your honour will not insist upon knowing that,

as I think it would be dishonourable in me to mention it."

"Not at all," replied Booth, "I am the farthest in the world from any such desire. I know thee better than to imagine thou wouldst disclose the name of a fair lady." Booth then shook Atkinson heartily by the hand, and assu red him earnestly of the joy he had in his good fortune; for which the good serjeant failed not of making all proper acknowledgments. After which, they parted, and Booth returned home.

As Mrs Ellison opened the door, Booth hastily rushed by, for he had the utmost difficulty to prevent laughing in her face. He ran directly up stairs, and, throwing himself into a chair, discharged such a fit of laughter, as greatly surprised, and at first almost frightened his wife.

Amelia, it will be supposed, presently enquired into the cause of this phenomenon, with which Booth, as soon as he was able (for that was not within a few minutes) acquainted her. The news did not affect her in the same manner it had affected her husband. On the contrary, she cried, "I protest I cannot guess what makes you see it in so ridiculous a light. I really think Mrs Ellison hath chosen very well. I am convinced Joe will make her one of the best of husbands; and, in my opinion, that is the greatest blessing a woman can be possessed of."

However, when Mrs Ellison came into her room a little while afterwards to fetch the children, Amelia became of a more risible disposition, especially when the former, turning to Booth, who was then present, said, "So, Captain, my jantee serjeant was very early here this morning. I scolded my maid heartily for letting him wait so long in the entry like a laquais, when she might have shewn him into my inner apartment." At which words Booth burst out into a very loud laugh; and Amelia herself could no more prevent laughing than she could blushing.

Heyday!" cries Mrs Ellison, "what have I said to cause all this mirth?" and at the same time blushed, and looked very silly, as is always the case with persons who suspect themselves to be the objects of laughter, without absolutely ta king what it is which makes them ridiculous.

Booth still continued laughing; but Amelia, composing her muscles, said, "I ask your par don, dear Mrs Ellison; but Mr Booth hath been in a strange giggling humour all this morning, and I really think it is infectious.”

"I ask your pardon too, madam," cries Booth. "but one is sometimes unaccountably foolish."

Nay, but seriously," said she, "what is the matter?-Something I said about the serjeant, I believe; but you may laugh as much as you please, I am not ashamed of owning I think him one of the prettiest fellows I ever saw in my life; and, I own, I scolded my maid at suffering him to wait in my entry: and where is the mighty ridiculous matter, pray ?"

what you say; you are desirous, I believe, to terrify me out of the little senses I have left. What can I have said, in the agonies of grief into which you threw me, to deserve this passion ?"

"What have you said!" answered the Colonel; "you have said that which if a man had spoken, nay, d-n me, if he had but hinted that he durst even think, I would have made him eat my sword, by all the dignity of man! I would have crumbled his soul into powder! But I consider that the words were spoken by a woman, and I am calm again. Consider, my dear, that you are my sister, and behave yourself with more spirit. I have only mentioned to you my surmise; it may not have happened as I suspect; but let what will have happened, you will have the comfort that your husband hath behaved himself with becoming dignity, and lies in the bed of honour."

"Talk not to me of such comfort," replied the lady, "it is a loss I cannot survive. But why do I sit here lamenting myself? I will go this instant and know the worst of my fate, if my trembling limbs will carry me to my coach. -Good morrow, dear brother; whatever becomes of me, I am glad to find you out of danger."-The Colonel paid her his proper compliments, and she then left the room, but returned instantly back; saying, "Brother, I must beg the favour of you to let your footman step to my mantua-maker; I am sure it is a miracle, in my present distracted condition, how it came into my head."-The footman was presently summoned, and Mrs James delivered him his message, which was, to countermand the orders which she had given that very morning, to make her up a new suit of brocade. "Heaven knows," says she, now, when I can wear brocade, or whether ever I shall wear it!" And now having repeated her message with great exactness, lest there should be any mistake, she again lamented her wretched situation, and then departed, leaving the Colonel in full expectation of hearing speedy news of the fatal issue of the battle.

But though the reader should entertain the same curiosity, we must be excused from satisfying it, till we have first accounted for an incident which we have related in this very chapter, and which, we think, deserves some solution. The critic, I am convinced, already is apprized, that I mean the friendly behaviour of James to Booth, which, from what we had before recorded, seemed so little to be expected.

It must be remembered, that the anger which the former of these gentlemen had conceived against the latter, arose entirely from the false account given by Miss Matthews of Booth, whom that lady had accused to Colonel James of having as basely as wickedly traduced his cha

racter.

Now, of all the ministers of vengeance, there

are none with whom the devil deals so treacherously, as with those whom he employs in executing the mischievous purposes of an angry mistress; for no sooner is revenge executed on an offending lover, than it is sure to be repented, and all the anger which before raged against the beloved object, returns with double fury on the head of his assassin.

Miss Matthews, therefore, no sooner heard that Booth was killed, (for so the report was at first, and by a Colonel in the army,) than she immediately concluded it to be James. She was extremely shocked with the news, and her heart instantly began to relent. All the reasons on which she had founded her love, recurred in the strongest and liveliest colours to her mind, and all the causes of her hatred sunk down and disappeared; or if the least remembrance of any thing which had disobliged her remained, her heart became his zealous advocate, and soon satisfied her that her own fates were more to be blamed than he, and that, without being a villain, he could have acted no otherwise than he had done.

In this temper of mind, she looked on herself as the murderer of an innocent man, and what, to her, was much worse, of the man she had loved, and still did love, with all the violence imaginable. She looked on James as the tool with which she had done this murder; and as it is usual for people who have rashly or inadvertently made any animate or inanimate thing the instrument of mischief, to hate the innocent means by which the mischief was effected ; (for this is a subtle method which the mind invents to excuse ourselves, the last objects on whom we would willingly wreak our vengeance:) so Miss Matthews now hated and cursed James as the efficient cause of that act which she herself had contrived, and laboured to carry into exe cution.

She sat down therefore in a furious agitation, little short of madness, and wrote the following letter:

"I hope this will find you in the hands of justice, for the murder of one of the best friends that ever man was blessed with. In one sense, indeed, he may seem to have deserved his fate, by choosing a fool for his friend; for who but a fool would have believed what the anger and rage of an injured woman suggested? a story so improbable, that I could scarce be thought in earnest when I mentioned it.

"Know then, cruel wretch, that poor Booth loved you of all men breathing, and was, I be lieve, in your commendation, guilty of as much falsehood, as I was in what I told you concerning him.

"If this knowledge makes you miserable, it is no more than you have made

"The unhappy

"F. MATTHEWS."

CHAP. VII.

Being the last Chapter of the Fifth Book.

WE shall now return to Colonel James and Mr Booth, who walked together from Colonel Bath's lodging with much more peacable intentions than that gentleman had conjectured, who dreamed of nothing but swords and guns, and implements of war.

The bird-cage walk in the Park was the scene appointed by James for unburdening his mind. Thither they came, and there James acquainted Booth with all that which the reader knows already, and gave him the letter which we have inserted at the end of the last chapter.

Booth expressed great astonishment at this relation, not without venting some detestation of the wickedness of Miss Matthews; upon which James took him up, saying, he ought not to speak with such abhorrence of faults, which love for him had occasioned.

"Can you mention love, my dear Colonel," cried Booth," and such a woman, in the same breath?"

"Yes, faith can I," says James; "for the devil take me if I know a more lovely woman in the world."-Here he began to describe her whole person; but as we cannot insert all the description, so we shall omit it all; and concluded with saying, "Curse me if I don't think her the finest creature in the universe. I would give half my estate, Booth, she loved me as well as she doth you. Though, on second consideration, I believe I should repent that bargain; for then, very possibly, I should not care a farthing for her.

"You will pardon me, dear Colonel," answered Booth; " but to me there appears somewhat very singular in your way of thinking. Beauty is indeed the object of liking, great qualities of admiration, good ones of esteem; but the devil take me if I think anything but love to be the object of love."

"Is there not something too selfish," replied James, "in that opinion? but without considering it in that light, is it not of all things the most insipid; all oil! all sugar! zounds! it is enough to cloy the sharp-set appetite of a parson. Acids surely are the most likely to quicken." "I do not love reasoning in allegories," cries Booth; "but with regard to love, I declare I never found anything cloying in it. I have lived almost alone with my wife near three years together, was never tired with her company, nor ever wished for any other: and I am sure, I never tasted of any of the acid you mention, to quicken my appetite.

"This is all very extraordinary and romantic to me," answered the Colonel. If I was to be shut up three years with the same woman, which

Heaven forbid! nothing, I think, could keep me alive, but a temper as violent as that of Miss Matthews. As to love, it would make me sick to death, in the twentieth part of that time. If I was so condemned, let me see, what would I wish the woman to be? I think no one virtue would be sufficient. With the spirit of a tigress, I would have her be a prude, a scold, a scholar, a critic, a wit, a politician, and a Jacobite; and then, perhaps, eternal opposition would keep up our spirits; and, wishing one another daily at the devil, we should make a shift to drag on a damnable state of life, without much spleen or vapours."

"And so you do not intend,” cries Booth, "to break with this woman?"

Not more than I have already, if I can help it," answered the Colonel.

"And you will be reconciled to her," said Booth.

"Yes, faith will I, if I can," answered the

Colonel. "I hope you have no objection." 66 "None, my dear friend," said Booth, unless on your account."

"I do believe you," said the Colonel; " and yet let me tell you, you are a very extraordinary man, not to desire me to quit her on your own account. Upon my soul, I begin to pity the woman who hath placed her affection perhaps on the only man in England of your age, who would not return it. But, for my part, I promise you, I like her beyond all other women; and whilst that is the case, my boy, if her mind was as full of iniquity as Pandora's box was of diseases, I'd hug her close in my arms, and only take as much care as possible to keep the lid down for fear of mischief.-But come, dear Booth," said he, "let us consider your affairs; for I am ashamed of having neglected them so long; and the only anger I have against this wench is, that she was the occasion of it."

Booth then acquainted the Colonel with the promises he had received from the noble lord: upon which James shook him by the hand, and heartily wished him much joy, crying, I do assure you, if you have his interest, you will need no other: I did not know you was acquainted with him."

To which Mr Booth answered, that he was but a new acquaintance, and that he was recommended to him by a lady.

"A lady," cries the Colonel. Well, I don't ask her name. You are a happy man, Booth, amongst the women; and I assure you you could have no stronger recommendation. The peer loves the ladies, I believe, as well as ever Mark Antony did; and it is not his fault if he hath not spent as much upon them. If he once fixes his eye upon a woman, he will stick at nothing to get her."

"Ay, indeed!" crics Booth. "Is that his character?"

"Ay, faith!" answered the Colonel," and