the family, ran up, and accosted us in French, with all the gaiety, ease, and politeness, peculiar to that nation; her fine dark eyes sparkling with a radiance exclusively their own. I had never before seen any thing like her, and struck with astonishment, the sudden emotion she excited of surprise and admiration, not wholly unmingled with a sentiment of awe, was probably little inferior to what I should actually have felt, had she been in reality, what at that moment, she appeared to be, a being of angelic order.

It was the constant practice of her husband to entertain every stranger with complaints against his father, and to prejudice them against his eldest sister, for no other reason than that Nostel was not immediately resigned to him, on his return from Switzerland the preceding year, and that his sister still occupied her seat at the head of the table. This lady had long filled her place with extraordinary judgment and propriety; and she now showed her fortitude, filial piety, and great self-command, in patiently enduring the daily insults of her brother, without appearing to observe them. He took the opportunity of his father's being confined to his apartment, of doing every thing in his power, to provoke and put her off her guard;-she was treated by him at meal-times, especially if company was present, with the most marked contempt: and whatever she did, he attempted to ridicule. "This will be over," she said, "when my father resumes his place; I could not resent it without a quarrel, and I would much rather endure any

thing, than that he should have the pain of being made acquainted with my brother's unkind behaviour."

manner :

Such was the state of the family at Nostel, when I became an inmate in November, 1763. I was received by Sir Rowland in the kindest "Assure yourself, my dear, and tell your mother," said the honoured invalid, as he lay upon a couch in his library, on my first entrance," that I will take care of the interests of your brother:" and he lost no time in endeavouring to fulfil his promise. As soon as he was able to sit up, he wrote a long letter to archbishop Drummond, who then filled the see of York, and with whom he was in habits of great intimacy, requesting his advice respecting the course of study, which a young man intended for the Church, ought especially to pursue; adding, that he made the request in behalf of a near relation, about whose welfare he was very solicitous. The archbishop returned an answer at great length; filling many sheets of paper with a detail of the authors that should be studied, and the books consulted; adding, that he had copied it from a plan he had lately sketched out for the use of a near relation of his own.

*

Mr. W. had spent so many years at school and abroad, that although I had been many times at

* This very sketch of a course of study for the ministry, was published in 1804, by his son, the Rev. Hay Drummond, Prebendary of this Cathedral, together with a selection from the Sermons of the Archbishop.

Nostel, I had never seen him before. He began almost immediately after my first introduction, according to his usual manner with strangers, to endeavour to prejudice me against his sister, by throwing out hints and insinuations, (which was all that could possibly be in his power) to her disadvantage; being provoked almost to madness, that he had no real cause of complaint. Had she for a moment been off her guard, in any expression of resentment towards him, it is probable he would have hated her less, as he would then have had something positive to allege. Grieved beyond measure, at this cruel injustice towards a friend whom I sincerely loved, I could not join in the abuse, or refrain from showing great disapprobation, and the consequence was, an entire change in his behaviour towards myself. At first, he professed the most sincere friendship, but from the moment of my declining to join his party against his sister, I was treated by him as one proscribed, and whom it was lawful to take every opportunity of insulting. A series of sarcastic double-entendres, which it was impossible not to understand, was the warfare he chose to wage; and in proportion as the victim was distressed and put out of countenance, was his unmanly triumph. Unhappy man! I mean not by this recital, to reproach his memory, but merely to give an example of the contemptible, as well as cruel conduct, of which an indulgence of the malignant passions may be the occasion. He was at this time, aided, and abetted in his project, by an elderly lady, who was a visitor in

the family; for no other reason, I believe, than the wish of recommending herself to his favour, who was considered as the rising sun. She was the wife of a clergyman, and the sister of a baronet. Often was the hapless object of their persecution, driven from the room in tears; which however, far from disarming their malice, served only to afford them a new subject of triumph.

At length an expedient occurred of arresting the cruelty of my female tormentor; and it succeeded to a considerable degree. She frequently mentioned with great interest, some young ladies near my own age, who were her nieces; and I took an opportunity of asking her one day, when we happened to be alone, whether, if by any accident, one of these should be thrown into a difficult and embarrassing situation, which, for want of courage and experience, she might feel herself unequal to combat, her aunt would treat her with ridicule and contempt, or kindly advise her how to act, and extend a friendly hand to her aid and assistance. "I would give her my advice and assistance to be sure."-" Have the goodness then, madam, to treat me in future as if I were one of your nieces." She muttered in a kind of soliloquy, "the girl is not quite the fool I took her for ;" and she behaved to me during the remainder of her stay, with some degree of decency and humanity: but the persecution did not wholly cease, until my venerable friend was restored to his seat at the bottom of the table, and his son and daughter were gone to London.

CHAPTER 12.

The Author's mother engages a house at Bedale....Sketch of the character, and history of a young friend there....Richmond Races... Nostel on the eve of great revolutions.... Marriage of the Author's principal female friend there.... Sudden illness, and death of her beloved and honoured patron....Immediate change in her prospects and hopes.... Her excessive grief and dejected state of mind.

THE following summer, my mother having taken a small house at Bedale, a little markettown, seven miles distant from Catterick, we went thither to reside. She accommodated herself with great fortitude, to her narrow circumstances, but her daughter heaved many a secret sigh, on relinquishing the splendour of her late more elevated situation; yet not so much for the sake of the indulgences it afforded, about which she was even then sufficiently indifferent, as for the degree of consideration in the eyes of others which a certain style of living never fails to procure.

We were visited at Bedale by many of the neighbouring families, who had long known and highly esteemed my father and mother; but besides the difficulty of returning distant visits, to those who have no men-servants or horses, it was not convenient or prudent to associate frequently with persons, whose modes of life were so different from those which it was now become necessary that we should adopt; and in the town itself, with one single exception, there were not any young persons, whose ideas and manners assimi