From the conversation which was mentioned as having taken place between Mr. John Martindale and his young relative in the last chapter, Mr. Philip derived a very considerable degree of satisfaction. He felt very confident that there was no danger that he should lose the property which was destined conditionally to devolve to him. He was most happy in being relieved from the claims of the money-lenders, and being able to call the property which he should receive with Miss Sampson his own.

There was still, however, some little alloy in the pleasure that he enjoyed in these thoughts. He was by his circumstances almost excluded from all notoriety, and deprived of those very pleasures for which wealth and rank were in his estimation desirable. The constitution too of Miss Sampson's mind was not such as could render retirement delightful and desirable; and even had her mind been ever so well informed, or her disposition ever so reflective and intellectual, those things would not have afforded much interest to the Hon. Philip Martindale. At the first moment, when Mr. Martindale the elder announced his designs of liberality towards the young gentleman, Philip felt much delighted; and it was indeed a great pleasure to be relieved from the demands of his creditors. All these matters Philip thought it desirable to state to Lord Martindale, knowing that they must reach his ear by some channel, and thinking it most desirable that the information should come from himself. Lord Martindale, it seemed, was not ignorant of these circumstances, so far at least as concerned his son's transactions with money-lenders, and the occasion which rendered these transactions necessary. Here was another mortification; for Philip had a feeling of regard for his parents, and was concerned at what gave them pain. Lady Martindale had long and deeply felt the unpleasantness of dependence on the caprices and whims of Mr. John Martindale; and the more frequently the subject recurred to her thoughts, the more did she regret the vanity which induced them to aspire after nobility.

In due time, the Hon. Philip Martindale led to the altar Celestina, only child of Sir Gilbert Sampson. The happy couple immediately after the marriage-ceremony set out on a tour, in which we have no intention of accompanying them. Lord Martindale, after he found that the circumstances of his son were so essentially improved, partially recovered his health and spirits; but there was yet a feeling of mortification in his lordship's mind, at the necessity which had compelled his son to avail himself of mercantile wealth to keep up his dignity: still, however, his lordship had the consolation of thinking that it was not quite so great a mortification, as if the young gentleman had been compelled to have recourse to his own talents at the bar. Wealth, it appears, is always honorable, and always honored; but there are various degrees in which it is honorable. That wealth is most honorable which has been handed down through many generations, and which has been acquired nobody knows how, and nobody knows when: that wealth is less honorable which is the obvious result of commercial diligence, skill, and activity; but in process of time, as the inheritors of that wealth grow more ignorant of the means by which it was acquired, it becomes more honorable. There is some degree of honor in possessing wealth by means of marriage with an heiress, even if that heiress inherit mercantile wealth, provided that the person marrying doing any thing to provide for himself. There is honor also in wealth acquired by commercial skill, but that honor is of a very equivocal kind; and those more highly-favored persons who have descended from a long line of ancestors who never disgraced themselves by obtaining a livelihood for themselves, ought to look down with a proper degree of contempt on such individuals as have, by using their understandings and employing their skill, acquired property for themselves. This is exceedingly appropriate and decent in a country which depends on commerce; and this feeling the Right Hon. Lord Martindale possessed, or rather was possessed by most strongly. The young gentleman also felt his share of the mortification. To such a degree was he annoyed by the thought of the origin of his wealth, that he could not bear to hear any mention of soap. We pity the young gentleman very much—we pity Lord Martindale too, and we pity all who are similarly circumstanced; and the said heiress never did, or attempted to do, or was capable, of we should be very happy to suggest a plan to keep the superfine people more distinct from the common people, but it is not in our power. So we must let the world go on as it has done, and as it will do in spite of our teeth; and we take to ourselves some credit for our modesty in that, while we are putting forth a book full of wisdom and of the fruits of wise observation, we do not anticipate that we shall thereby produce any great change in the aspect of society or the manners of mankind.

Seeing that the Hon. Philip Martindale, in whom our readers are so much interested, is now most happily married, and is set out on a tour, we may very safely dismiss him for the present; assuring the public that they need not entertain any hopes or fears that the honorable gentleman should on his return present them with a volume of travels. We warrant him quarto-proof.

There was mention made in a former part of this history of an amiable and worthy widow, Lady Woodstock, concerning whom it was reported that Mr. John Martindale would in all probability make her an offer of his hand. There was no other ground for the report than that Mr. Martindale, thinking her the most intelligent woman among his acquaintance, paid very especial attention to her, listened very patiently when she spoke, and seemed always pleased when in her company. The reports concerning Mr. John Martindale's attachment to the intelligent and amiable widow revived again, and circulated with renewed activity; when immediately, on Mr. Philip's marriage and his departure on his tour, Lady Woodstock made her appearance in town. For the most part, this worthy lady spent summer and winter, and spring and autumn, at Hollywick Priory; but by some unaccountable movement or other, it so happened that the good lady and her four daughters made their appearance in London within a week of the time when Philip set out on his tour. Lady Woodstock's acquaintance was by no means extensive; and in all probability very few of the world would ever have known any thing about her, had it not been that the very rich and eccentric old John Martindale was supposed to be paying his addresses to her. It is a certain and undeniable fact, that the old gentleman waited on the Woodstocks as soon as they arrived in town; that they were scarcely noticed by any one else, and that they only visited Mr. Martindale, and that they were almost the only company which Mr. Martindale entertained at his house. We are relating facts and not making romances, therefore we will plainly and straight-forwardly tell our readers, that as Mr. Martindale was a very great oddity and had very singular notions, he thought that no one but Lady Woodstock was a fit companion for Signora Rivolta. He had, therefore, solicited and implored her ladyship to bring her family up to London, and to remain there during the rest of the season. Mr. Martindale the elder is not the only man in the world who has a habit of fancying some one individual to be the wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best creature that ever lived or could live. On this ground, and on this only, did he seek for the society of Lady Woodstock, when and wherever it was to be had; and he had no more thoughts of marrying her than you have, gentle reader.

Now it came to pass that, soon after the arrival in London of Lady Woodstock and her family, and soon as the report was spread abroad that Mr. John Martindale was likely to marry the widow, that the charms of Lady Woodstock's daughters were most loudly blazoned forth, and multitudes began to see beauties of person and mind in these young ladies which they had never seen before. When there appeared a probability that Lady Woodstock was about to become the wife of a very opulent man, and when it was thought as a necessary and natural consequence that her daughters would be handsomely portioned, then, and not till then, was it found out that Lady Woodstock had as choice an assortment of ancestors as any body else; then it was discerned that her daughters were remarkably intelligent and unaffected young women; and then many of her ladyship's old acquaintance who had for some years nearly or totally forgotten her, began to wonder that she never had come up to town before during the season. As yet, however, it was not thought safe for any young gentleman to make formal proposals to any one of the daughters; but the young ladies were by no means neglected. They were not cut either by new or old acquaintance; they never made their appearance without most courteous recognition; and as the younger of the four had scarcely finished her education, but was even in town attended by a music-master at the special appointment of old John Martindale, some songs and some sonatas were dedicated to the young ladies. By degrees, the Woodstocks rose into a species of celebrity. The young ladies did not much affect to set themselves up as literary ladies, but they were perhaps a little proud of being thought not quite so frivolous as the generality of young ladies of the present day. Our readers, we suppose, do not need to be informed that young ladies of the present day are very frivolous; and that they have been so for centuries past, and will be for centuries to come. The times are sadly altered, and so they always will be to the end of time. The daughters of Lady Woodstock were not absolutely blue-stockings. The two eldest had read Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, and thought it was a book which every body should read. They had also read Paley's Works and Cowper's Poems. The eldest had the reputation of having read Cowper's translation of Homer, though but few gave her credit for that accomplishment. The mother and her four daughters very simultaneously and loudly rebuked the flippancy of the present generation of books. This is also an important and interesting fact which we wish to impress on the minds of our readers, that the modern publications are of a very frivolous and flimsy nature: none of them are worth reading. It is a self-evident maxim—it does not require proof; and if we were to attempt illustration, we should be absolutely overwhelmed with superabundance of materials. Modern publications always have been and always will be worthless. The very words modern and newfangled are in themselves expressions of condemnation. The modern writers merely string together a multitude of words; they have no ideas at all, or if they have by accident any thing like an idea or thought, they overwhelm it with a host of unmeaning words. If Milton's Paradise Lost, or Spenser's Fairy Queen, or Young's Night Thoughts, had been written by any of the writers of the present day, they would have spun the same materials out to a most immoderate and unreasonable length; and if Lord Byron had been the author of the Iliad, he would have made of it a poem as long as Childe Harold; or if any of our modern novel-writers had taken the subject of Clarissa Harlowe, there is every reason to suppose that they would have extended it to the dimensions of Rees's Cyclopedia. The taste of the daughters of Lady Woodstock did not much approve modern literature; and no wonder, when we consider the emptiness and wordiness of the present race of writers; and as to modern periodicals, where is there one that can for a moment compete with what the Lady's Magazine was sixty years ago? But the young ladies were not altogether ignorant of modern literature. They were generally acquainted with the names and titles of new books, and could speak very fluently concerning them at their first appearance, but afterwards they made it a rule to forget them.

Lady Woodstock and her daughters were very religious, according to the present fashion. They were not religious purely for fashion's sake, but merely according to the fashion. They certainly believed themselves to be religious, and so far they certainly were. One of the first thoughts that entered their minds on arriving in town was to engage a pew at church. Lady Woodstock herself would have been as religious, let the fashion be as it might; but we believe that the young ladies admired the popular preacher as much for his popularity as for his piety. There was to the west of Temple Bar, but how far to the west and in what street our informant has not been careful enough to inform us, a very handsome chapel of ease, answering by its comfortable internal accommodations most completely to its name; at which chapel there officiated a preacher whose discourses were as soft and beautiful as the velvet cushion on which his elbows reclined, and light as the feathers wherewith that cushion was stuffed. Lady Woodstock was so far religious as to regard the church-prayers as a matter of devotion, but the young ladies rather considered the sermon as a matter of diversion. They were most skilful sermon critics, very loudly praising zeal and seriousness, and very acute in detecting grammatical errors. It was very amusing to hear the young ladies on Sunday morning tumultuously and in concert gabbling forth the praises or dispraises of the sermon of the day, and criticising the air, tone, aspect and manner of the reverend officiating divine. "What a delightful sermon we have had this morning."—"Did you notice how solemnly he gave out the text?"—"I like to hear the words of Scripture uttered solemnly and seriously."—"But did not you very much admire that beautiful simile of the gilded bark and the rippling wavelets, there is something so very pretty in the word wavelets?"—"Yes, it is a very pretty word, but I do not think it is in Johnson."—"I should like to read that sermon, it was so accurately composed; I am sure it would read well." Such talk as this, but extended to a length which it would be tedious to narrate, established for the young ladies in their own thoughts and in the thoughts of their neighbours that they were very religious. So pleased and well satisfied were they with that kind of discourse, that they were not unfrequently led to think very lightly of the religion of such as could not or would not join them in the discussion. Old Mr. Martindale would sometimes in his peculiar way laugh at the zeal of the young ladies in discussing these matters, and they had long ago very deliberately set him down as a man of no religion. With all this, however, they were very good and amiable young women. They were benevolent,—they were affectionate—they were diligent—they were cheerful—they were decidedly decorous in their conduct and manners; and their whole character was truly respectable. They were rather confined in their notions, but that was the accident of education; and Mr. Martindale thought that they would be better companions for his grand-daughter than many others with whom an acquaintance might have been formed, and who were more extensively acquainted with that sort of stuff which people call the world.