hat is there in your lot that can make you or any one envy
mine,--an outcast, as I may almost term myself, from my father's house
and favour?"

"Ay, but," answered Rashleigh, "consider the gratified sense of
independence which you must have attained by a very temporary
sacrifice,--for such I am sure yours will prove to be; consider the
power of acting as a free agent, of cultivating your own talents in the
way to which your taste determines you, and in which you are well
qualified to distinguish yourself. Fame and freedom are cheaply
purchased by a few weeks' residence in the North, even though your place
of exile be Osbaldistone Hall. A second Ovid in Thrace, you have not his
reasons for writing Tristia."

"I do not know," said I, blushing as became a young scribbler, "how you
should be so well acquainted with my truant studies."

"There was an emissary of your father's here some time since, a young
coxcomb, one Twineall, who informed me concerning your secret sacrifices
to the muses, and added, that some of your verses had been greatly
admired by the best judges."

Tresham, I believe you are guiltless of having ever essayed to build the
lofty rhyme; but you must have known in your day many an apprentice and
fellow-craft, if not some of the master-masons, in the temple of Apollo.
Vanity is their universal foible, from him who decorated the shades of
Twickenham, to the veriest scribbler whom he has lashed in his Dunciad. I
had my own share of this common failing, and without considering how
little likely this young fellow Twineall was, by taste and habits, either
to be acquainted with one or two little pieces of poetry, which I had at
times insinuated into Button's coffee-house, or to report the opinion of
the critics who frequented that resort of wit and literature, I almost
instantly gorged the bait; which Rashleigh perceiving, improved his
opportunity by a diffident, yet apparently very anxious request to be
permitted to see some of my manuscript productions.

"You shall give me an evening in my own apartment," he continued; "for I
must soon lose the charms of literary society for the drudgery of
commerce, and the coarse every-day avocations of the world. I repeat it,
that my compliance with my father's wishes for the advantage of my
family, is indeed a sacrifice, especially considering the calm and
peaceful profession to which my education destined me."

I was vain, but not a fool, and this hypocrisy was too s