man creature either high or low. I knocked at the door, but no one could I find, though the mansion did not look like an uninhabited place. I then sauntered into the grove behind, and in a winding way of three hundred yards, that had been cut through the perennial wood, and was made between banks of springing flowers, beautiful exotics, and various aromatic shrubs, crept on till I arrived at a sleeping parlour, which stood in the middle of a circular acre of ground, and was surrounded and shaded with a beautiful grove; the larix, the phonician cedar, and the upright savin. There was a little falling water near the door, that was pleasing to look at, and charmed the ear. Entering this room, I found the walls painted by some masterly hand, in baskets of flowers, and the finest rural scenes. Two handsome couches were on either side the chamber, and between these lits-de-repos was as curious a table for wood and workmanship as could be seen. Pretty stools stood near it, and a one arm-chair. It was a sweet silent place, and in every respect, far beyond the sleeping parlour in the gardens at Stow.*

On one of the couches, as it was then evening,

* Lord Cobham's, now Earl Temple's seat in Buckinghamshire, fifty-nine miles from London.

and I knew not what to do, I threw myself down, and very soon fell fast asleep. I lay the whole night without waking, and as soon as I could perceive any day, went to see what was become of O'FINN and the horses. The beasts I found feeding on very good grass in the green; and my lad still snoring under a great tree; but he was soon on his legs, and gave me the following account.

About an hour after my departure from him, he saw a poor man pass over the plain, who had come down the mountain we descended, and was going to cross the Teese in a small skiff of his own, in order to go to his cottage on the other side in Bishoprick: that he lived by fishing and fowling, and sold what he got by land and water to the quality and gentlefolk, twenty miles round him. And on asking who lived in the house before us, on the skirts of the grove, he said, it belonged to a young lady of great fortune, Miss ANTONIA CRANMER, whose father died in the house I saw, and had been dead about a year; that she was the greatest beauty in the world, and only nineteen, and for one so young, wise to an astonishing degree: that she lived mostly at this seat, with her cousin, AGNES VANE, who was almost as handsome as she: that Miss CRANMER had no relish for the world, being used to still life, and seldom stirred from home but

VOL. II.

Y

to visit an old lady, her aunt, who lived in Cumberland: that she was at present there, about twenty miles off, and would soon return: that she kept four young gentlewomen, who had no fortunes, to attend her and Miss VANE; two old men servants, a gardener, and a cook; and two boys: that whenever she went from her house, she took her whole family with her, and left every place locked up as I saw. O'FINN's account surprised me. It set me a thinking if it was possible to get this charming girl. I paused with my finger in my mouth for a few minutes, and then bid him saddle the horses.

As soon as it was possible, I went over the river to the fisherman's house, determining to wait there, till I could see the beautiful ANTONIA, and her fair kinswoman, another AGNES DE CASTRO, to be sure. My curiosity could not pass two such glorious objects without any acquaintance with them.

The poor fisherman gave me a bed very readily ford money, as he had one to spare for a traveller, and he provided for me every thing I could desire. He brought bread and ale from a village a few miles distant, and I had plenty of fish and wild-fowl for my table. Every afternoon I crossed the water, went to the sleeping parlour, and there waited for the charming ANTONIA. Twenty days I went backwards and forwards, but the beauties in that time

did not return. Still however I resolved to wait, and, to amuse myself till they came, went a little way off to see an extraordinary man.

While I resided in this cottage, CHRISTOPHER informed me, that about three miles from his habitation, there lived, in a wild and beautiful glen, a gentleman well worth my knowing, not only on account of his pretty lodge, and lone manner of spending his time, but as he was a very extraordinary man. This was enough to excite my curiosity, and on the first of May, as soon as it was light, I went to look for this solitary. I found him in a vale, romantically situated, indeed, amongst vast rocks, ill-shaped and rude, and surrounded with trees, as venerable as the forest of Fontainbleau. His little house stood on the margin of a fountain, and was encompassed with copses of different trees and greens. The pine, the oak, the ash, the chesnut tree, cypresses, and the acassia, diversified the ground, and the negligent rural air of the whole spot, had charms that could always please. Variety and agreeableness were every where to be seen. Here was an arbour of shrubs, with odoriferous, flowers and there, a copse of trees was crowned with the enamel of a meadow. There was a collection of the most beautiful vegetables in one part; and in another, an assembly of ever-greens, to form

a perpetual spring. PAN had an altar of green turf, under the shade of elms and limes: and a water-nymph stood by the spring of a murmuring stream. The whole was a fine imitation of nature; simple and rural to a charming degree.

Here lived DORICK WATSON, an English gentleman, who had been bred a catholic in France, and there married a sister of the famous Abbé le Blanc. But on returning to his own country, being inclined by good sense and curiosity, to see what the Protestants had to say in defence of their reformation, he read the best books he could get on the subject, and soon perceived, that Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Zuinglius, Bucer, and other ministers of Christ, had said more against the Romish religion than the pretended catholics had been able to give a solid answer. to. He saw, that barbarity, policy, and sophistry, were the main props of popery; and that, in doctrine and practice, it was one of the greatest visible enemies that Christ has in the world. He found that even Bellarmine's notes of his church were so far from being a clear and necessary proof that the church of Rome is the body of Christ, or true church, that they proved it to be the Great Babylon, or that great enemy of God's church, which the apostles describe....

He saw, in the first place, that there has not