what will not the energy of love effect-what stone walls or iron bars can keep a Jupiter from his Danäe, when he descends in a golden shower! The interview took place, several other meetings succeeded; Mrs. Titup gave up the profession of Melpomenè for that of Flora; -and Florizel was as happy as a girl would be on putting her arms into a new muff, for the first time. Perdita thought she had secured her bird in her cage, and was visited with nightly visions of ambition and avarice, but never once dreamed of inconstancy.

"Fool, not to know, that Love endures no ties,
And Jove but laughs at lover's perjuries."

But she was too soon to awake, and curse the return of envious light. The dreadful note of final separation sounded on her ears, and broke her airy visions of wealth and power."At the moment," she says, " when every thing was prepared for the Squire's establishment—when I looked impatiently for the arrival of that day, in which I might behold my adored friend, gracefully receiving the accla mations of his future tenants; when I might

enjoy the public protection of that being for whom I gave up all, I received from him a cold and unkind letter, briefly informing me, that we must meet no more!" Mrs. Titup solemnly asserted, that she was ignorant of any just cause for so sudden an alteration. Sweet innocence and simplicity! It is probably the first time, that ever the Reader heard of such assistants behind the scenes. If she knew no just cause for separation, the Squire's advisers were well aware, that the public acclamations would have been sunk into sullen contempt and disdain by this early specimen of public protec tion at the public expense. But

"Art is but Nature's ape, and plays her ill."

Mrs. Titup thought she had found out the cause in a rival, one Mrs. A; and she might have gone through the Alphabet from Alpha to Omega, and some rival might still have been found, whose name would have answered to the initial letter. For our young Squire, like Jupiter,

66

of heav'n one large seraglio made,
Each goddess turn'd a glorious punk o' th' trade;

Almighty letch'ry got his first repute,

And everlasting whoring was his chiefest attribute."

Instead of Mrs. Titup's returning to her former lucrative profession, as she ought to, and might have done, (for chastity is no more an indispensable requisite to the admission of a female into a green-room, than into one of the nunneries in King's Place,) she lived away upon the strength of the Squire's bond, till her debts increased to some thousands of pounds, and her creditors assailed her with insulting illiberality, which are the terms adopted by all these highflyers, when speaking of the visit of their creditors to receive payment of their just demands.

If such a woman's word be worthy of belief, the Squire now gave an instance of imbecility, and, we may add, cruelty, for so it certainly was, to raise hopes merely to crush them. He appointed a meeting, behaved to her with every appearance of tender attachment, and declared that he had never for one moment ceased to love her. She flattered herself, that all their differences were now accommodated; but meeting him in a public walk the very next day, he affected not to know her!

It may be, that this story was invented to defend herself from a charge of selfish interest and avarice, notwithstanding that she affected to bewail only the loss of the Squire's attachment, which she did in the following pretty lines, intended to convey to him her intention of leaving that country, which his infidelity had rendered disgusting to her:

"Thou art no more my bosom's friend;
Here must the sweet delusion end,

That charm'd my senses many a year,
Thro' smiling summers, winters drear.

"FREELAND, farewell!

"Where'er my lonely course I bend,
Thy image shall my steps attend;
Each object I am doom'd to see,
Shall bid remembrance picture Thee.
Yes; I shall view Thee in each flow'r,
That changes with the transient hour:
Thy wand'ring fancy I shall find,
Borne on the wings of ev'ry wind;
Thy wild impetuous passion trace,
O'er the white waves' tempestuous space;
In ev'ry changing season prove
An emblem of thy wav'ring love."

*

But poetry is only fiction, and Mrs. Titup's actions were ill suited to these fine words. She was determined not to leave the country emptyhanded, if possible, and she began to make a stir about her bond:

My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond!"

The business was submitted to the arbitration of Mr. Brush who, in lieu of the waste paper, for the bond was no more, decreed a handsome annuity to Mrs. Titup, and her husband's daughter for their lives. A pretty bargain for the tenantry, Mr. Brush!