was endeavouring to discover, though trembling with apprehension, dexterously turned the conversation. He explained a deception of the imagination to which he was peculiarly liable, viz. of reasons and circumstances and situations that actually were new to him, seeming but as the revival of what had either occurred, or been in some

way revealed to him. He described the momentary feeling on making these discoveries to be similar to what he fancied he should experience if any of his dreams were to be realized. Matilda and Mr. Langham both confessed to similar inexplicable sensations, and Guy Mannering was mentioned as the first if not the only work that had touched with any precision on so interesting a subject,-only it was unfortunately there proved, that Harry Bertram's percep tions were really reminiscences. Mr. Langham repeated some lines of Coleridge, as more applicable to the subject.

"Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll,
Which makes the present while the flash doth last,
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said
We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wove."

Mr. Cooper's reflections were thus so completely directed into another channel, that he neither thought nor spoke again of his discovered likeness in Jeannette till the ladies were quitting the dining-room, As Jeannette then passed by him she dropped her handkerchief, and on Mr. Cooper's restoring it to her, she bowed her thanks and smiled. A sudden light seemed to have gleamed on Mr. Cooper's mind, for as he was closing the door he abruptly exclaimed "By heaven! it is Isabella Cressingham herself!"

"Isabella who?" said Jeannette to Matilda, as they pursued their way to the drawing-room.

"I could not," said Matilda, "distinctly hear." But she at the same moment feared and felt that she had heard but too distinctly.

Mr. Cooper, on resuming his seat, reverted to his subject at first rather in the way of soliloquy than conversation,"the same angelic melancholy smile," the same exqui site complexion, the same soft and silver-toned voice. Good God! Hamond, that you should not have made the

discovery before ME. Why, sir," turning to Mr. Langham, "twin doves are not more like each other than Miss Cressingham and your lovely daughter!-How strange it would have been

But Mr. Langham, in anticipation, it might be, of what was to follow, here groaned audibly the hand with which he had been endeavouring to shade his brow fell like a dead weight upon his bosom: his face was pale, his eye fixed, and the muscles round his mouth so strongly in play, that they seemed convulsed,—but in a moment it was all over. By a powerful effort he arose, his glass was filled before him, he drank off its contents-paused a few seconds, then replenished and emptied it again.

Mr. Cooper had been at first alarmed; he was now distressed this violent emotion was evidently occasioned by his words, but how, he was at a loss to conjecture. He wished to apologize, but could not articulate a syllable.

Mr. Langham relieved him, as far as he could, by addressing him in the kindest and gentlest manner, but his words came slowly, sadly, and with difficulty. A modern poet has shown how grief, "lingering in its lengthened swell," may be betrayed by music. Speech, when the heart is deeply affected, has the same power: words follow each other in the slow succession of tears, and affect the hearer fully as much.

"It is not your fault, Mr. Cooper," commenced Mr. Langham, "that you have now unintentionally given me pain, for I pretend not to deny that it is pain-it Is,—and so it ought to be!"--Mr. Langham paused, and Hamond ventured to ask him, if he would not like to be left alone.

"No, Hamond. To Mr. Cooper I must now make communications which would have been made long since, had I considered it even possible for him to have been ignorant of the subject. Mr. Cooper, you must forgive this omission, and you may believe me when I add, that one unfailing consequence of the notoriety arising from bad actions is the everduring consciousness that the whole world is not only acquainted with your conduct, but has also been busy with your name. So strongly have I felt this, that until this present hour I never believed in the probability of even one human being existing who had not made me, my actions, motives, feelings, and principles, subjects of discussion.

And alas! I have felt myself and justly too-(while my life has been in some respects a sacrifice to honour) a condemned being by all honourable men."

Mr. Langham again paused; and, when he next spoke, he addressed himself to Hamond.

"But you, Hamond, need not hear this recital from my lips; in my library you will find a sealed packet addressed to yourself. I meant to have bequeathed it to you at my death, but it is better that you should receive it; it is even needful that you should read it now."

Both Hamond and Mr. Cooper would willingly have been spared the confession offered to them, and both made efforts to escape from it. But the former was in some degree compelled to receive the key from his father's hand which would put into his possession the history of that father's life; and Mr. Cooper, in the same manner, was obliged to listen, when Hamond had withdrawn, to facts which distressed and astonished him.

But as Mr. Langham had written more particulars than could be well detailed, the manuscript committed to his son shall be here inserted in preference to the conversation with Mr. Cooper. It was found by Hamond in the spot to which he had been directed.. It had originally been inscribed with this line from Dante

"Tanto è amara, che poco è più morte."

But a pencil line had been passed through it; and, above the erasure, this passage from St. Paul was written in larger characters, and bearing beneath it a recent date,—

"Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth

evil."

"Many years have now elapsed, my dear Hamond, since f first resolved to write the events of my life. Would to Heaven I could add, in order that ny conduct under them might be to you an example. Alas! Hamond, it is only as a beacon that the recital of them can be of use to you, or, even in the remotest degree, aid the cause of virtue, by exhibiting the fearful issues of vice.

"Could I indeed faithfully portray the bitter heart-burnings, the endless discontents that have accompanied me through life-could I number the gnawings of the worm that dieth not, as I have felt them in the midst of all that the world calls happiness;—could I tell how, and with what painful tenacity my proud heart long refused to acknowledge that in itself lay the source of all that was evil, all that was distressing to me,-the statement would not be in vain.

"But I cannot ; for, even if memory were faithful, language would be unequal to the task. Words cannot condense into one brief point the grief of years; they cannot paint the anguish of a mind withered in its hopes,-blasted in its ambition,-riven by remorse. Facts, barren facts, are all they accurately reveal, and it is with them we have to do.

"I will not go back to the days of childhood, further than to state, that some of my derelictions from the path of right may, I think, be traced to the unwise, because excessive, indulgence of a too fond mother. I say not this in any degree to exonerate myself, but to show how far affection, injudiciously lavished, may become injurious, when the momentary enjoyment of the individual is more seriously consulted than his distant but more permanent happiness.

"My father was not severe; but he had a seriousness of manner that made me think him so, more particularly by the side of my mother, for her smiling face on all occasions beamed with toleration and forgiveness. So, at least, I unfortunately thought; for, while I freely confessed to her whatever I did. of good or evil, to my father I was always reserved. Time and reflection, which made me alive to the different principles on which my parents acted, made me also more duly appreciate my father's views and character. Even now, Hamond, I feel a glow of shame upon my cheek, as I recollect that to that father I never urged one request which had usefulness or propriety for its object, that met with a denial.

I

Yet, how frequently, how shamelessly did I connive at his being deceived by privately receiving from my mother the means of defraying expenses which I ought not to have incurred, and which were the more encouraged by being secretly sanctioned. I grieve to cast even this one reflection on my kind mother's memory; for, in all she did she sought to promote my happiness. But, unhappily, the law in nature which causes a body in motion, when influenced by two powers, to obey neither, was morally applicable to me. swerved far indeed from my father's precepts and examples, without attaining the point of my mother's wishes. "My father thought me what he saw me, and believed me to possess principles like his own, founded on and supported by religion. How little did he imagine, that, on entering the world, hurried on by my passions, courted, caressed, and flattered by nearly all my associates, I had no better safeguard than the code of modern honour! And here I feel it but justice to myself to add, that, in the common acceptation of the word, I strictly observed its laws. Yes, while I could break through so many of its better ties, trample on the rites of hospitality and friendship, wean a woman's heart from her most sacred duties, and leave her to mourn her estrangement for ever, I was yet an enthusiastic admirer of honour in its circumscribed and worldly acceptation.

"When I now look back on my earlier years, I am shocked and astonished that such conduct, such sentiments, could ever have been mine.

"My companions were men like myself, who regarded life as a plaything, and carefully avoided the admonitions of conscience. We all, indeed, strove to silence this inward