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Not any event, throughout life, can arrest the reflection of a thoughtful mind more powerfully, or leave so lasting an impression, as that of returning to a place after a few years absence, and observing an entire alteration, in respect to all the persons who once formed the neighbourhood. To find that many, who but a few years before were left in their bloom of youth and health, are dead—to find that children left at school, are married and have children of their own—that some, who were left in riches, are reduced to poverty—that others, who were in poverty are become rich—to find, those once renowned for virtue, now detested for vice—roving husbands, grown constant—constant husbands, become rovers—the firmest friends, changed to the most implacable enemies—beauty faded. In a word, every change to demonstrate, that,

Guided by a wish, that the reflecting reader may experience the sensation, which an attention to circumstances like these, must excite; he is desired to imagine seventeen years elapsed, since he has seen or heard of any of those persons who in the foregoing volumes have been introduced to his acquaintance—and then, supposing himself at the period of those seventeen years, follow the sequel of their history.

To begin with the first female object of this story. The beautiful, the beloved Miss Milner—she is no longer beautiful—no longer beloved—no longer—tremble while you read it!—no longer—virtuous.

Dorriforth, the pious, the good, the tender Dorriforth, is become a hard-hearted tyrant. The compassionate, the feeling, the just Lord Elmwood, an example of implacable rigour and injustice.

Miss Woodley is grown old, but less with years than grief.

The boy, Rushbrook, is become a man, and the apparent heir of Lord Elmwood's fortune; while his own daughter, his only child by his once adored Miss Milner, he refuses ever to see again, in vengeance to her mother's crimes.

The least wonderful change, is, the death of Mrs. Horton. Except Sandford, who remains much the same as heretofore.

We left Lady Elmwood in the last volume at the summit of human happiness; a loving and beloved bride. We begin this volume, and find her upon her death-bed.

At thirty-five, her "Course was run"—a course full of perils, of hopes, of fears, of joys, and at the end, of sorrows; all exquisite of their kind, for exquisite were the feelings of her susceptible heart.

At the commencement of this story, her father is described in the last moments of his life, with all his cares fixed upon her, his only child—how vain these cares! how vain every precaution that was taken for her welfare! She knows, she reflects upon this; and yet, impelled by that instinctive power which actuates a parent, Lady Elmwood on her dying day has no worldly thoughts, but that of the future happiness of an only child. To every other prospect in her view, "Thy will be done" is her continual exclamation; but where the misery of her daughter presents itself, the expiring penitent would there combat the will of Heaven.

To detail the progression by which vice gains a predominancy in the heart, may be a useful lesson; but it is one so little to the satisfaction of most readers, that the degrees of misconduct by which Lady Elmwood fell, are not meant to be related here; but instead of picturing every occasion of her fall, to come briefly to the events that followed.

There are, nevertheless, some articles under the former class, which ought not to be entirely omitted.

Lord Elmwood, after four years enjoyment of the most perfect happiness that marriage could give, after becoming the father of a beautiful daughter, whom he loved with a tenderness almost equal to his love of her mother, was under the indispensable necessity of leaving them both for a time, in order to rescue from the depredation of his own steward, his very large estates in the West Indies. His voyage was tedious; his residence there, from various accidents, prolonged from time to time, till near three years had at length passed away. Lady Elmwood, at first only unhappy, became at last provoked; and giving way to that irritable disposition which she had so seldom governed, resolved, in spite of his injunctions, to divert the melancholy hours caused by his absence, by mixing in the gay circles of London.

Lord Elmwood at this time, and for many months before, had been detained abroad by a severe and dangerous illness, which a too cautious fear of her uneasiness, had prompted him to conceal; and she received his frequent apologies for not returning, with a suspicion and resentment they were calculated, but not intended, to inspire.

To violent anger, succeeded a degree of indifference still more fatal—Lady Elmwood's heart was not formed for such a state—there, where all the tumultuous passions harboured by turns, one among them soon found the means to occupy all vacancies: a passion, commencing innocently, but terminating in guilt. The dear object of her fondest, her truest affections, was away; and those affections, painted the time so irksome that was past; so wearisome, that, which was still to come; that she flew from the present tedious solitude, to the dangerous society of one, whose whole mind depraved by fashionable vices, could not repay her for a moment's loss of him, whose absence he supplied. Or, if the delirium gave her a moment's recompence, what were her sufferings, her remorse, when she was awakened from the fleeting joy, by the arrival of her husband? How happy, how transporting would have been that arrival a few months before! As it would then have been felicity unbounded, it was now—language affords no word that can describe Lady Elmwood's sensations, on being told her Lord was arrived, and that necessity alone had so long delayed his return.

Guilty, but not hardened in her guilt, her pangs, her shame were the more excessive. She fled from the place at his approach; fled from his house, never again to return to a habitation where he was the master. She did not, however, elope with her paramour, but escaped to shelter herself in the most dreary retreat; where she partook of no one comfort from society, or from life, but the still unremitting friendship of Miss Woodley. Even her infant daughter she left behind, nor would allow herself the consolation of her innocent, though reproachful smiles—she left her in her father's house, that she might be under his protection; parted with her, as she thought, for ever, with all the agonies with which mothers part from their infant children: and yet, even a mother can scarce conceive how much more sharp those agonies were, on beholding—the child sent after her, as the perpetual outcast of its father.

Lord Elmwood's love to his wife had been extravagant—the effect of his hate was the same. Beholding himself separated from her by a barrier never to be removed, he vowed in the deep torments of his revenge, never to be reminded of her by one individual object; much less, by one so near to her as her child. To bestow upon that child his affections, would be, he imagined, still, in some sort, to divide them with the mother. Firm in his resolution, the beautiful Matilda, was, at the age of six years, sent out of her father's house, and received by her mother with all the tenderness, but with all the anguish, of those parents, who behold their offspring visited by the punishment due only to their own offences.

While this rigid act was executing by Lord Elmwood's agents at his command, himself was engaged in an affair of still weightier importance—that of life or death:—he determined upon his own death, or the death of the man who had wounded his honour and destroyed his happiness. A duel with his old antagonist was the result of this determination; nor was the Duke of Avon (who before the decease of his father and eldest brother, was Lord Frederick Lawnly) averse from giving him all the satisfaction he required. For it was no other than he, whose passion for Lady Elmwood had still subsisted, and whose address in gallantry left no means unattempted for the success of his designs;—no other than he, (who, next to Lord Elmwood, had been of all her lovers, the most favoured,) to whom Lady Elmwood sacrificed her own and her husband's future peace, and thus gave to his vanity a prouder triumph, than if she had never bestowed her hand in marriage on another. This triumph however was but short—a month only, after the return of Lord Elmwood, the Duke was called upon to answer for his conduct, and was left where they met, so defaced with scars, as never again to endanger the honour of a husband. As Lord Elmwood was inexorable to all accommodation, their engagement continued for a long space of time; nor could any thing but the assurance that his opponent was slain, have at last torn him from the field, though he himself was dangerously wounded.

Yet even during the period of his danger, while for days he lay in the continual expectation of his own death, not all the entreaties of his dearest, most intimate, and most respected friends, could prevail upon him to pronounce forgiveness of his wife, or to suffer them to bring his daughter to him, for his last blessing.

Lady Elmwood, who was made acquainted with the minutest circumstance as it passed, appeared to wait the news of her husband's decease with patience; but upon her brow, and in every lineament of her face was marked, that his death was an event she would not for a day survive: and she would have left her child an orphan, to have followed Lord Elmwood to the tomb. She was prevented the trial; he recovered; and from the ample vengeance he had obtained upon the irresistible person of the Duke, in a short time seemed to regain his usual tranquillity.

He recovered, but Lady Elmwood fell sick and languished—possessed of youth to struggle with her woes, she lingered on, till ten years decline brought her to that period, with which the reader is now going to be presented.