University of Virginia Library

12. CHAP. XII.

Old Scotch Song.

For several weeks, our young friends kept the
“noiseless tenor of their way,” without meeting any
other danger than that of frequent and delightful intercourse.
Grace visited less and less frequently at
Lucretia's lodgings, but the visits she received from
Somerville were far too numerous to please her affectionate
and judicious connexions. Perfectly aware of
this, and sometimes chilled by the fastidious reserve of
the little beauty, Somerville became more absent, irritable,
and negligent than Lucretia had ever seen him.
The inattention which originated entirely in thoughtlessness,
seemed to her to be peculiarly pointed; and she
began to fear that the gayety and frankness of her nature
had been mistaken for undue levity. Painful as this
idea might be, it was the medicine her diseased mind
required. Pride took possession of a heart transparent
as it was susceptible, and it was soon evident that she
was exerting all her good sense to overcome the fascination
to which she had so foolishly yielded. But when
we have long allowed our feelings to spurn at restraint,
it requires a giant's hand to curb them; and though

Lucretia possessed great purity and rectitude of purpose,
the important lesson of self-control was one she
had never learned. The materials for a delightful and
highly-finished character were rich and ample,—but
want of judgment in the artist had marred the original
design; and the mind that might have been a noble
Corinthian pillar, now only displayed a few beautiful
specimens, which, like the Elgin marbles, served to betray
the perfection of the column.

It has been well observed that there is a time in the
lives of most people, when character fearfully fluctuates
in the balance; and when circumstances, apparently
accidental, may do much to decide it, either to good or
evil. Henry Osborne was aware that the present period
was a very important one to Miss Fitzherbert; and
he feared that the influence of Somerville was any thing
but beneficial. The fearless reasoning, the contempt of
quiet virtues, the restlessness under the salutary shackles
of society, against which a vigorous understanding and
a glowing imagination ought to be peculiarly guarded,
were all increased by his bold and brilliant conversation.
Perhaps a long-cherished attachment to Lucretia had
made Mr. Osborne particularly keen-sighted to the faults
of his rival; but so wise, so prudent had he been while
under the dominion of that blind boy, who is wont to writhe
and stamp so furiously in the chains of reason, that the
state of his affections had never been suspected by their
object. However, it had long been sufficiently obvious to
Miss Sandford; and she could not so far overcome her
established prejudices as to prefer his simple manners

and unpretending good sense, to the elegance and genius
of the high-born Englishman. With constrained politeness,
therefore, she received him as he entered, according
to his usual custom, just as the ladies had retired
from the tea-table to the drawing-room. Governor
Hutchinson was engaged in his library, and Mr. Osborne
was too frequent a guest to disturb his arrangements.
Somerville laid down the paper he was busily reading,
and gave him a hearty welcome; and Lucretia, piqued
at the silence and absent manner of her companion,
received him with uncommon frankness and cordiality.
He brought with him the spirited paper at that time
edited by Edes and Gill; and smiled with much significance
as he pointed out to Somerville the bold resolutions
that had been passed in most of the Colonies.

“The spirit of New England may break, but you
perceive that it will never bend,” observed Osborne.

“I should despise them if it did, after having gone
thus far,” rejoined Somerville. “Indeed there is little
danger of it as long as you have such writers as this,”
pointing to the signature of Hyperion.

“Whom do you suppose it to be?”

“No one can hesitate to decide,” said Somerville.
“Otis pours forth his eloquence like the streaming lava
of Vesuvius, melting and scorching as it runs; Mayhew
writes with the readiness of a scholar, and with a fiery
and vehement zeal, strangely at variance with his mild,
dispassionate character; but whose pages burn with a
flame so strong, bright, and fervent as Quincy's? His

style is lucid as a waveless lake; and it has the muscle
of a Hercules.”

“Perhaps you have altered your opinion that it is
not worth while for England to search for talents in so
poor a market as her Colonies,” said Henry, smiling at
his enthusiastic manner.

Lucretia gave an incredulous and significant look, as
if she would say, “He does not always talk thus.”

“That I have found more wealth, intellect, and refinement
in America, than my English education taught
me to expect, is certainly most true,” replied Somerville;
“and whatsoever I believe, I frankly confess; notwithstanding
Miss Fitzherbert expresses by her looks that I
am guilty of double-dealing.”

“These are sad times,” observed Miss Sandford.
“The king condescends too much, for the sake of
pleasing his refractory subjects. It is a pity the good
old days of Richard the First could not be restored, when
the eastles of the boldest barons belonged to the monarch,
from the corner-stone to the topmost turret.”

“Nay, Madam Sandford, the world is too old for such
leading-strings,” replied Henry Osborne. “You yourself
would hardly wish for the return of old times with
all their appendages. I query whether the preaching
of Doctor Byles would not be more acceptable to you,
than Hugh Latimer, when he proclaimed to the female
part of his audience, “Ye are underlings! underlings,
—and must be obedient.”

“For the love of quiet,” said Lucretia, “do not set
that ball a rolling; for do but name the words `female

inferiority' before Aunt Sandford, and it will go like a
bullet on an inclined plane, every step accelerating its
motion.”

“In my youth, children were not in the habit of dictating
what should be said to their elders,” rejoined
Miss Sandford.

Lucretia whispered something that seemed to conciliate
the offended maiden; and Somerville resumed the
conversation by saying, “One must be difficult to please,
if they are not satisfied with the preaching of Doctor
Byles. His style unites the elegance of Addison with
the fervent piety of Flavel.”

“Of his warm and genuine devotion I have no doubt,”
replied Henry; “though most of his audience remember
his jests better than they do his religious advice;
but I must confess that his style is too florid to meet my
ideas of pulpit eloquence. So rich an imagination is
singular in a man of his years and deep learning. In
his sermons it shows itself in language fanciful and brilliant;
and in his conversation it bursts forth in the boldest
and most eccentric comparisons. To this we owe
the continual flashing of his wit; and though I know
him to possess uncommon erudition, sincere piety, and
the most unyielding integrity, I cannot but think this
sparkling trait of character is too luxuriantly overgrown.
I never see any one quality of the mind standing forth
so prominently, without thinking of one of the finest
passages in Bacon's philosophy: `In forming the human
character,' says he, `we must not proceed as a statuary
does in forming a statue, who works sometimes on the

face, sometimes on the limbs, sometimes on the folds of
the drapery; but we must proceed (and it is certainly
in our power) as nature does in forming a flower, or any
other of her productions; she throws out, altogether,
and at once, the whole system of being, and the rudiments
of all the parts.”'

“It is a beautiful passage, indeed,” rejoined Somerville;
“but a character formed on such a plan must be
intolerably flat. In good truth, I dislike a character
formed at all. Give me nature, bold, impetuous, and
unrestrained. It is as much preferable to all your artificial
modes, as the foaming cataracts and towering
mountains of Switzerland are to the well-built dikes
and the dead level of the Netherlands.”

“If it were possible for nature to pursue an unbiassed
course,” replied Osborne, “to give her the reins would
be a hazardous experiment, though in some instances it
might prove a fortunate one; but the fact is, we are so
much the creatures of adventitious circumstance, that it
is utterly impossible. She is always receiving impulses
from surrounding objects; and if the impetus is violent,
it is two-fold; for it gives the tendency to rebound to
the other extreme. I admire an harmonious, well-adjusted
character, be it formed as it may. He who gives
himself up to the absorbing power of any one single
passion, may draw the eyes of all mankind toward him;
but qualities of a milder and more consistent cast constitute
the chief charm of domestic life.”

“I repeat that I dislike every thing like made-up
goodness,” said Somerville. “It is apt to be like brass

plated with silver—in the long run it will show its materials.”

“You are very right, Captain Somerville,” answered
Miss Sandford. “Your over-righteous ones generally
prove to be the most consummate hypocrites.”

“Perhaps hypocrisy is the real name of what the
world generally calls virtue,” rejoined the young sceptic.

“It is too much the case in these days, to be sure,”
answered the maiden.

Henry was about to enter into a vindication of aspersed
humanity; but he well knew Lucretia's disdain of all
beaten tracks; and he feared the effect of new and bold
ideas elicited from the daring mind of Somerville.

“Doctor Franklin is a good example of the system
I have supported,” said he. “Such a character, instead
of plated brass, is solid silver taken from the mine, and
skilfully fashioned into useful forms. Never was there
a man who owed so much to self-exerted discipline as
he does. I remember in the long conversation I had
with him the night before he sailed to England, he minutely
detailed the process by which he had attained so
much self-control. He made a list of the thirteen virtues
he thought most necessary, and to each one he paid
particular and undivided attention for one week. Thus
one week he would refrain from speaking evil of others;
another, he would abstain from every thing not absolutely
necessary to life and comfort; and so on. At the
end of every quarter, the circle commenced anew.
There was sound philosophy in this,—for as each virtue
was successively impressed upon the mind at succeeding

intervals, no one had a chance to attain a giant growth
at the expense of others.

“If I found any virtue peculiarly stinted, I would
give it a double portion of cultivation. Those who are
prone to do heedless things, would do well to appropriate
two weeks in every quarter to the very necessary
virtue called prudence.”

“You look as if you wished that remark should be
individually appropriated,” said Lucretia; “and perhaps
you would tell the same person to foster judgment
as if it were a hot-house plant, and trust imagination to
its own wild, spontaneous growth.”

“Since you understand me so well,” replied Osborne,
smiling, “I will add, that whatever point of character
we find the weakest, should be the most sedulously fortified;
and for this purpose, the choice of friends and of
books is equally important.

“Ah, well!” said Lucretia, in the careless gayety of
her heart, “you must bear with me just as I am, a few
years longer; and then I will promise to be so collected,
so prudent— My feelings shall be just as calm as the
river in summer's moonlight. I will choose my friends
among the Quakers, and read nothing but `The Saint's
Rest,' or `Universal Love Established on a Right
Foundation.”'

With much emphasis, Mr. Osborne replied, “I should
rather see particular love established on a right foundation.”

Fearing he had trusted himself too far, he rose, and
opening Thomson's Seasons, which lay on the worktable

of the ladies, he carelessly looked over its contents,
and then observed he must return home to write
a letter, before the evening was far advanced. Somerville
immediately proposed to Miss Fitzherbert that they
should both accompany him. Lucretia coldly declined,
pretending she feared the effects of evening dampness;
and the young men, having expressed their regret, took
their hats, and bade good evening. None of us are to
blame for having selfish and evil thoughts; for imperfections
will cling to our fallen nature; but when we
cherish them for a moment,—more especially when we
give utterance to them,—we are guilty of giving form
and permanence to what would otherwise be fleeting
and shadowy.

Miss Sandford was too apt to do this; and scarcely
had the door closed, before she exclaimed, “I do not
like that Grace Osborne, with all the sweetness and
modesty she chooses to put on.”

Lucretia had unconsciously been tying knot after knot
in her thread, little aware that her friend suspected all
that was passing in her mind. The tears started to her
eyes, as she replied, “I am sure, dear aunt, she is every
thing that is amiable and lovely.”

“Nevertheless, with all her pretty diffidence, I do not
doubt she tries her best to get Somerville away from
you.”

“Away from me!” said Lucretia, with a look of
extreme surprise.

“I mean,” answered Miss Sandford, laying down the
screen she had been working, and sweeping up the

hearth in a great flurry, “I mean that Somerville respects
you very much, and would marry you, if those deuced
Osbornes were out of the way.”

Lucretia smiled at the good old lady's perturbation.
“Captain Somerville's heart,” said she, “is like the
waves cut by a passing vessel—a moment after, you
can find no traces of an impression. Grace Osborne
can never be in my way. I have always loved her;—
and if Somerville can win her heart, and she can keep
his, I shall surely be rejoiced to see a man I value so
much united to a being so pure and lovely.”

“The whole family are over good, and very prodigal
of their advice,” rejoined the matron. “I wonder what
right Henry has to direct the books you shall read, and
the friends you shall choose.”

“He did not mean to direct, dear madam; but I am
so much with Grace, that he feels the same freedom in
talking to me that he does to her. I am sure I thank
him for his friendship and candour.”

“It is more than I do,” retorted the maiden, whose
fretfulness was not to be speedily appeased. “Grace,
with all her perfections, is the veriest little coquette.
Don't look me in the face with as much wonder as if I
had said you had not common sense! I know they are
all your oracles; and I dare say you will finish the
business by marrying the prosing young man, who has
given you so sage a lecture to-night.”

“There seems very little chance for it,” replied
Lucretia,—“since such a thought probably never entered
the young gentleman's brain.”

“You need not tell me that. I have seen this thing
coming on for more than three years. He would have
made proposals before now, if he had known of the
large fortune you are to have.”

The attempt to vindicate her friends from such unfounded
charges would have been, just at that time,
entirely useless. Lucretia, who well understood the
avenues to her heart, gave a more pleasant turn to the
conversation, by acknowledging the old lady's experience
in the affairs of the heart, and thus leading her
to dwell, for the thousandth time, on the rejected addresses
of her youth.

When Miss Fitzherbert retired to her chamber, she
took with her the book which Mr. Osborne had opened,
intending to search for a passage particularly admired
by Somerville. The volume opened of itself, and displayed
a note neatly folded, and directed to herself.
She opened it, and read as follows:

“Umph,” said Lucretia, as she folded the letter,
“I say with Cowley,

With a promptitude, for which she did not stop to
account to her own heart, she thanked Mr. Osborne
for the confidence he had placed in her, and expressed
an affectionate interest in his welfare and happiness;
but declared that it was utterly impossible for her ever
to reciprocate his attachment.