a series of
mischances and unfortunate results; and he appeared especially reserved
as a proper subject on whom the fickle goddess might exercise her
caprice at leisure.

Why Don Rodrigo should belong to this class, is more than can well be
resolved, for he was possessed of all those qualifications which are
calculated to render a man brilliant in society, and amiable in private
life. He enjoyed the advantages of birth and wealth; handsome in his
person, and elegant in his address. A brave soldier in war, and a
courteous cavalier in peace, it appeared natural that his fortune should
be prosperous, and yet all those endowments availed him not. On the
contrary, they only served to render the ill success of his undertakings
the more remarkable.

These anomalies cannot be accounted for on any rational principle; but
may perhaps be attributed to the absence of that requisite
qualification, which sometimes serves a man in lieu of birth or fortune,
and not unfrequently goes further than both these advantages;--it is
that most enviable requisite, known under the appropriate, though
somewhat vulgar, denomination of good-luck.

Don Rodrigo had paid his addresses to three different ladies, with the
moral and highly creditable intention of entering the holy state of
matrimony. Perhaps in strict justice it must be confessed, this idea
crossed his mind after having completely failed in his attempts to
signalize himself as _un homme a bonnes fortunes_, a sort of ambition
which, if not praise-worthy in itself, is nevertheless, when
successfully pursued, conducive to the eclat of a man of rank, as well
as gratifying to his vanity. Indeed it may be rather suspected, without
any great affectation of discernment, that the unlucky Don Rodrigo
bethought himself of marriage as a last resource, when ultimately
convinced of his inability to succeed in his career of gallantry. But
even in this instance, that unrelenting fatality which constantly
followed him, could not be persuaded to spare him even in consideration
of hymen.

Don Rodrigo had first for a rival a man whose stature was rather under
than over four feet, whose features were of the most forbidding kind;
his person distorted, and his fortune by no means superior to that of
the Don; yet with all these disadvantages, this little monster, to the
astonishment of every one, carried off the fair prize.

He next placed his affections on a lady of more humble pretensions, his
inferior