tation), the generous
expanding of the heart, the increased yearning to kindly affection, the
lavish spirit throwing off its exuberance in the thousand lights and
emanations of wit,--these, which have rendered the molten grape, despite
of its excesses, not unworthy of the praises of immortal hymns,
and taken harshness from the judgment of those averse to its
enjoyment,--these never presented an inducement to the stony temperament
and dormant heart of Richard Crauford.

He looked upon the essences of things internal as the common eye upon
outward nature, and loved the many shapes of evil as the latter does the
varieties of earth, not for their graces, but their utility. His
loves, coarse and low, fed their rank fires from an unmingled and gross
depravity. His devotion to wine was either solitary and unseen--for he
loved safety better than mirth--or in company with those whose station
flattered his vanity, not whose fellowship ripened his crude and nipped
affections. Even the recklessness of vice in him had the character of
prudence; and in the most rapid and turbulent stream of his excesses,
one might detect the rocky and unmoved heart of the calculator at the
bottom.

Cool, sagacious, profound in dissimulation, and not only observant of,
but deducing sage consequences from, those human inconsistencies and
frailties by which it was his aim to profit, he cloaked his deeper vices
with a masterly hypocrisy; and for those too dear to forego and too
difficult to conceal he obtained pardon by the intercession of virtues
it cost him nothing to assume. Regular in his attendance at worship;
professing rigidness of faith beyond the tenets of the orthodox church;
subscribing to the public charities, where the common eye knoweth what
the private hand giveth; methodically constant to the forms of business;
primitively scrupulous in the proprieties of speech; hospitable, at
least to his superiors, and, being naturally smooth, both of temper and
address, popular with his inferiors,--it was no marvel that one part
of the world forgave to a man rich and young the irregularities of
dissipation, that another forgot real immorality in favour of affected
religion, or that the remainder allowed the most unexceptionable
excellence of words to atone for the unobtrusive errors of a conduct
which did not prejudice them.

"It is true," said his friends, "that he loves women too much: but he is
young; he will marry and amend."

Mr. Crauford di