CHAPTER VII.

THE SQUIRE BREAKS FROM HIS LEADING-STRINGS, ENGAGES IN AN EXPENSIVE AMOUR WITH A MRS. TITUP AN ACTRESS, AND GIVES THE TENANTS A HOPEFUL PROOF OF WHAT THEY ARE TO EXPECT FROM HIM IN FUTURE.-AN INSTANCE OF SENTIMENTAL LOVE, AND A GREAT BARGAIN FOR THE PUBLIC.

T has been already said, that before the Squire was out of the hands of Dr. Markbottom, he evinced that he would be a slave to his passions (particularly to the fair sex), and that, devoid of gratitude, he would sacrifice his tenantry to his pleasures.-Now for the proof.

This first inauspicious augury was drawn from one of those authentic records, denominated Memoirs of the Slippery Fair, written by themselves, as if, not satisfied with infamy during their lives, they wished to perpetuate it to

Mrs.

posterity on a monument ære perennius-more durable than their own brazen faces. TITUP was one of these frail ones, although a wife, and a mother. She was one of Merryman's actresses; and the play, on the first night of the Squire's seeing her perform, was the Winter's Tale, in which she personified Perdita, who ensnares the youthful beart of Florizel, Prince of Abyssinia. She looked, without doubt, as she herself said in the play,

“A bank for love to lie and play on."

There was a warm intercourse of glances be tween the Squire and Mrs. Titup, and both paid more attention to each other, than to the business of the stage. This absence was well enough in the Squire, but in Mrs. Titup, was certainly abandoned, indecorous, and highly disrespectful to the rest of the audience. It is a very common failing with those stage heroines, and it is a pity that the audience do not oftener exert their undoubted privilege of recalling them to a sense of their duty by manifest disapprobation. But to go on with the story.

LEE, the Dramatist, observes that,

"There is a discourse in eyes, consent, denial,
All understood by looks."

At the fall of the curtain, the Squire bowed directly towards Mrs. Titup, who caught his eye, and lest he should not have understood the language of hers, she, according to her own words, blushed her gratitude. The poor husband behind the scenes scratched his forehead;-perhaps he felt his branching horns. Amongst the Squire's companions, who were present, was one Mr. Malden, whom he pitched upon to be his Sir Pandarus of Troy. Two or three days afterwards, this messenger of love brought a letter from the Squire to Mrs. Titup, when her husband happened to be from home. Mrs. Titup, at first, affected to disbelieve the reality of good fortune, but the messenger left her no room to doubt it. A kind of Platonic correspondence ensued, and in one of his letters, the Squire enclosed his picture, in the case of which was a small heart cut in paper, ( the emblem had just as much pith as the original,) on one

side of which were written these words : — Je ne change qu'en mourant; and, on the other: Unalterable to my Perdila through life. · The allusion would have been better kept up, if he had sent a picture of two doves billing, with Prince Florizel's own words :

It should be observed, (for it did not escape the penetration of the wary Mrs. Titup,) that the Squire was nearly of an age when his establishment in the world was under consideration. She was afraid of injuring him, and herself, in this business, which she conceived to be so important to the happiness of both; and she prudently recommended to him to restrain his impatience till he should become his own master. She hinted that he was young, and led away by the impetuosity of passion, and if she should consent to quit her profession and husband, she should be thrown entirely on his mercy. The hint was taken, and Mrs. Titup received a letter from the Squire, inclosing a bond for [Fill up the blank thyself,

Reader, for, by heaven! I have not patience to do it on his coming of age.

The Reader. Why this was a hopeful beginning for a school-boy.

The Author. Yes, especially for one who could have no income, but the donations of a tenantry labouring under the most heavy and increasing burthens.

Ex pede Herculem !-The Squire also offer ed to take up for her use jewels, from the trades. man whom he honoured with his custom in that branch of business; but Mrs. Titup, as she tells the story, refused all presents of the kind, except some very trifling ones, and even those were returned when the turtles had done pairing.

"

All Mrs. Titup's qualms of conscience were now cleared away, (for she did not profess to have any on account of her husband, her child, and her character,) and an interview was appointed. The meeting was attended with great difficulties, she tells us, from the restrained situation of the Squire, controlled by a rigid tutor; but