Such was the state of affairs at the period of which I write, as touching our public functions; but the condition of private life remains to be unfolded; and as the inhabitants of Glendruid were not the leaders, but the led, I will begin with causes before I proceed to effects, and describe the situation of affairs at Painesville, formerly known by the appellation of Lovett-lodge, and exhibiting a complete pandemonium at the time in which my tale may be said to commence. Looking back on Mr. Lovett's family with the sobered views of forty-five, I must own that nothing could be more preposterously absurd than the inversion of all natural order in his house.

Mr. and Mrs. Lovett were pupils of that school which directly sprang from the French revolution, though they had not drank so deeply of the poisoned chalice as to be openly professed advocates of irreligion or immorality. They were republicans; and held all the incompatible doctrines which contradict each other, and the unfortunate consequences of which are precisely as apparent under a single roof as in a nation. Of such nature were the dogmas of liberty and equality, so utterly at variance with the constitution of created things, that were they introduced by the divine fiat over the face of the whole globe in perfect balance at the moment of its formation, one generation could not pass away without witnessing the destruction of a state inconsistent with the unequal proportions of strength and intellect awarded by our Maker to his creatures, and therefore never designed to be continued amongst them.

The uproar of a democracy met the eye and ear on crossing the threshold of the door at Painesville, where eight children were permitted, from the earliest age, to exercise their several talents for disputation without the slightest restraint. Assertion passed for argument, roughness was styled sincerity, and contempt of all authority was called the light of reason. When first I became acquainted with manners so dissimilar from those to which I had been used at Glendruid, I was struck with an unfavourable impression, and felt like one who is suddenly introduced from a purer atmosphere into one that is contaminated; but the moral and physical senses become alike accustomed to vitiated air, and we learn to breathe freely where suffocation seemed to threaten. I soon imbibed enough of the popular Malaria to be quite at home; and though conscious that paradoxes were imposed upon my understanding, against which the unbiassed mind revolted, I speedily adopted the nomenclature, and learned to call things by names which were foreign to their nature; right and wrong often changed places, and I became an adept in the language of "natural justice—tyranny of the laws—folly of legislation—wickedness of power—sovereignty of reason," and the disgusting farrago of a period now gone by, but which, though its grosser errors are disclaimed by the more judicious, has left much of its leaven behind.

At Painesville there was nothing but incessant discussion, replication, rejoinder, mooting of futile questions, and disrespectful contradiction. Talents were held to be the one thing needful; and though the heads of the family did not carry matters to such lengths as to pronounce that religion and morals were of no value, yet the whole bearing of conversation tended to loosen all existing ties with either the one or the other. Every subject was tried by the test of reason; not meaning the reason of the wise, the informed, the experienced—but of the young, the pert, and superficial. The rapid conclusions of ingenuity put to flight the sober maxims of truth and knowledge. Whatever was rendered venerable by the sanction of time was litigated, and brought to the bar anew, to be tried by a self impanelled jury. At Painesville it was decreed that, "relationship was a mere accident, which ought not to infringe on the liberty of the subject, by conveying any right. Children, it was argued, were not consulted as to their choice—they did not give consent to be brought into the world; consequently there was no covenant. Nature declared for equality, in the inferior creation, as soon as animals acquired physical power to take care of themselves. Why should man be the only exception to a law thus general, and with superior endowments be excluded from the charter enjoyed by every other living creature?"

It is painful, even now, to retrace, at this distance of time, the dicta of a philosophy which has become nearly obsolete, and the very remembrance of which ought to be expunged; but I am giving the history of my own times; and facts which I must narrate require a retrospect of those modes of thinking which gave them birth. The intelligent reader, who is aware of the moral confusion which followed, upon the adoption of those principles introduced by the French revolution, will easily fill up the rough sketch which I have attempted of the Lovett family, and be enabled to anticipate, in idea, all the consequences exhibited in the minuter detail of their lives. Such a reader will easily guess, that on the part of the parents was presented a wild assumption of those destructive principles which led to the dismemberment of that country from which they were unhappily imported; while the offspring, as might naturally be expected, found too much that was gratifying both to pride and vanity, in the lessons which they were taught, not to seize them with avidity; and Painesville accordingly exhibited a saturnalia where the rulers and the ruled exchanged places.

All was chaos and usurpation; Mr. and Mrs. Lovett boasted of the equality which reigned in their family, and rejected every idea of governing their children by means of parental discipline. Fear was decided to be a slavish sentiment, which was not allowed place amongst the motives which ought to actuate rational beings. "Man was born free, and judgment was given as the only guide of action. Affections were mere instincts unworthy of swaying the conduct; and duty was an imposition on the privileges of the human race."

The young people were not long in convincing their father and mother that the relation of equal fraternity, once substituted for that of parent and child, it is no easy matter to retrace the path, and when the evils of misrule become intolerable from the numbers and the strength of those whom it influences, to exchange them for the blessings of legitimate control. The colt too long at large will not readily submit to bit and bridle; and that rider who would attempt to enforce the unwonted restraint, will soon be rendered practically sensible of his mistake.

At Painesville all the members of the family talked together, which seemed the only symptom of concert amongst them. They quoted Rousseau, D'Alembert, Gibbon, Hume, Volney, at every sentence. With these authors I was not acquainted, as they made no part of the study furniture at Glendruid; but, as I have said already, though conscience winced in the outset from doctrines so little in unison with those of home, I was an apt pupil, and speedily adopted a new system of thinking.

My two brothers, who were senior to me, had entered the University in the year that preceded that of the Irish rebellion; and though they never remained more than a few days at each examination in the metropolis, yet my father's parochial duties frequently interfering with his power of accompanying them, these short visits in Dublin were sufficient to bring them acquainted with all that was in progress, such was the activity that characterized at that juncture the republican energies in Ireland.

The elder of these youths, whose name was Harold, was particularly amiable, and became the victim of designing men, who worked successfully on his generosity to draw him into their snares. He took up the theory of Godwin, and believed, with more sincerity than his master, in the infinite perfectibility of the human race. Ascribing all the evil which he beheld under the sun to the various corruptions of administration, and the venality of governors, benevolence was in fact the destroying angel of his mind; and he would gladly have prostrated princes in the dust, and overthrown their seats of empire, in order to secure "the people" in the enjoyment of every good.

Short-sighted politicians, who, rejecting the light of experience, fell into the error of expecting universal order, out of particular derangement, and general virtue, as the result of individual crime! Harold's was a benign spirit, which wished well to every thing that breathed; but he was not proof against the seductions of the popular creed, and became completely entangled in speculations worthy of the source from which they emanated. His temper, which had been naturally sweet, and open as the morning breeze, changed to dark, sullen, and secretive. He had been, deservedly, a darling with the best of mothers, and her grief at his altered deportment may be more easily conceived than described. It was not that he designed, "as of malice prepense," to behave uncourteously, but his mind was absolutely absorbed. The amusements which had hitherto delighted, no longer afforded interest. His favourite dog—his garden—his collection of shells and minerals, were all neglected. Harold, who used to wander for miles along the sea-shore in quest of specimens with which to enrich his store, and who hastened to bring the fruits of his labour to that gentle being, the kindness of whose smile might have warmed the breast of an anchorite, and whose ready participation in whatever gave pleasure to others rendered her in better times the beloved friend as well as mother of her children—lived now immured in his bed-chamber, the door of which he kept locked while he was within it, and the key was always put into his pocket when he left the house.

How he was employed no one could tell, as no trace of book, pen, ink, or writing was discoverable at those times when old Margaret, a faithful domestic who lived in my family during several years, had access to his apartment. One day, however, in sweeping the room, she discovered a small bit of paper which had been torn from a larger piece, and escaped the flames to which it had been probably destined. "Central Committee," "Western District," "French Forces," were the only words from which any surmise could be collected; and these were enough to alarm her, to whom they bore evident testimony of league in those treasonable plots which were threatening to involve the country in civil discord, and endanger the lives and property of thousands.

Margaret, who was well acquainted with the anxious state of my mother's mind, took the fragment to her, and the latter, watching an opportunity to remark the effect which it might produce upon her son, fixed her eyes steadily upon him as he entered the room where she sat, saying, "Harold, is not this your hand-writing?"

"I am sure it is hard to tell; perhaps it may be," was my brother's reply; uttered so coldly, so carefully, as to baffle inquiry, and convince my mother that any further scrutiny would lead but to a more artful avoidance of the truth, as well as more cunning contrivance for future concealment. She therefore refrained from asking another question, but heaved a sigh as she quitted her seat to gain the sanctuary of her closet.

There had been a time when that sigh would have agonized the soul of Harold, could he have believed himself to be the cause of drawing it forth; but his affections were seared, and he saw his mother turn from him with a breaking heart, undisturbed by the slightest emotion. My second brother possessed neither Harold's talents, nor my romance. He was more phlegmatic and common-place than any of the family. Yet he, too, was infected by the distemper of the times, and had his part assigned him, in which he was more useful than if he had been considered equal to higher purposes. He had ever been fond of shooting and fishing, and as these sports were continued as usual, he was not suspected of taking much concern in political matters, and was therefore employed as a safe ambassador, frequently leaving our once peaceful abode, loaded with despatches which were to be deposited in the ivied wall of a ruined castle, at some distance from Glendruid. All who met him supposed that lines, flies, and sandwiches, constituted the entire freight of a wicker basket which, strapped upon his back, was in reality the vehicle of a correspondence, the discovery of which would have doomed its authors to inevitable destruction. The plans thus carried on were, it is true, carefully wrapped in the concealment of cypher, but a key is easily found to the most cunning contrivance of this kind; and in fact at a later period, our devices were all brought to light.

I have said that my father's circumstances were very limited, and I should not revert to a subject which involves the remembrance of privations as humiliating to pride as distasteful to sense, were it not to preserve a recollection of our real situation in the minds of such as may read my story, and furnish some excuse for the wanderings of youth, debarred as we were from the enjoyment of those advantages which depend upon wealth. Books we had, and a great many of them, but they had ceased to charm. The standard works of a former day were not in vogue; the new philosophy had extinguished the wisdom of antiquity, and reduced it to a dead letter, and the flippant apothegms of the day, whether applied to religion, morals, or politics, were accounted the only knowledge worth possessing.

I had no money to procure the modern publications, but the Talbots and Lovetts were bountifully supplied, and always ready to lend. I devoured, therefore, with famished appetite, all that I could beg or borrow, and conveyed my treasure to that rocky recess which I have described, where, with industry worthy of a better object, I used to read whatever was recommended by my evil instructors. My poor father, who was an excellent scholar, found himself at length deserted in his study, from which his sons retired one by one, leaving this affectionate parent to mourn over the shipwreck of a sanguine spirit, which had delighted to anticipate with prophetic zeal the honours of his children, and wreathe their brows with academic glory; but a "killing frost" was preparing to nip the tender germ of hope, and destroy every shoot from which the chaplet of future fame might be derived.

Those who have never been parents cannot, I believe, form an adequate conception of the sorrow reserved for those who, after having passed one half of life in expectation, are doomed to spend the other in disappointment, and reap a blighted crop in return for devoted love and unslumbering solicitude.

We were no doubt unlucky in the society which chequered the domestic sameness of our home; not that intercourse with archangels would have deterred us in all probability from joining in the general frenzy, but our course was perhaps accelerated by the want of a stronger counteracting influence than any which opposed our progress. The adjoining parishes were under the superintendence of two clergymen, both intimates at Glendruid. They frequently visited at our house, and were good men, but in no way calculated to control the spirit of insubordination which was in movement, nor stem the torrent of that voluble disaffection which was always ready to pour forth abuse upon every thing really valuable and of sound repute.

Mr. Hill, who lived within a mile of Glendruid, and had the parish adjoining ours, was a gentleman in education, descent, and manners. He was at once genteel, moral, and zealous in the performance of what he believed to be his duty; but he was a weak man, a tÊte bornÉe, a formalist. Though his age did not exceed forty years when I left home, he had a face so long-drawn that it looked as if the grand inquisitors had got hold of it, and put his features to the question. His countenance was solemn, but not from power or depth of mind, and presented the oddest mixture imaginable of gravity and imbecility. The physiognomy tallied exactly with the structure of his mind, which was a union of sounding sense, with the veriest impotence of reason which I have ever happened to witness.

Even at this distance of time, I can still fancy that I hear his long-winded harangues, and listen to his well-turned periods, unenlivened by a single ray of mental illumination, though uttered with grammatical accuracy, and the truest attention to accent and emphasis. Whether the conversation related to a mouse or a mammoth, the same laborious correctness of diction, the same flaccid sternness of expression, marked his dull observations on either the one or the other. If church matters were the subject of discussion, he would treat with equal gravity the divine right of tithes or the bleaching of a surplice; and seemed quite incapable of seeing any gradation of sin between an atheist and a dissenter from the rubric of our English Prayer-book. He would no more have altered the shape of his band, than he would have changed his creed, and would have been nearly as much shocked by seeing the pulpit of his church transplanted to the opposite side of the building, as to have encountered a denial of the thirty-nine articles.

From such a man little aid to a sinking cause was to be expected, and I well remember the uneasiness of my father whenever Mr. Hill entered the lists of theological controversy, from the unfortunate hand which he made of an argument. There was enough of importance, however, in the bearing of the man, to prevent his being summarily put down, though every topic of human inquiry withered into nothing in his nerveless grasp. In short, he was a pompous nonentity, who, like an empty cart, made more noise than a full one; and a rumbling succession of sounds supplied the place of sense, covering the deficiency of his faculties from the view of stupid people with whom he passed for an oracle. We of the new school resolved all the inflated emptiness of this good man into the absurdity of his profession, and, as is usual with the scoffing fraternity, visited on religion whatever lack of skill we discovered in her advocates.

Such was our clerical neighbour on one side, while on the other resided the Reverend Mr. Stockdale, a man in every way different from him already pourtrayed. Tall and muscular of frame, commanding in aspect, and powerful in understanding, but irritable of temper, Mr. Stockdale resented with vivacity the rapid inroads which a shallow but impetuous torrent of new fangled doctrines was daily making upon all the solid bulwarks of ancient authority. He was a person of strong intellect and great erudition; but the powers of his mind were precluded from assisting him in debate, through the impatience of his honest indignation; galled and provoked at the changes which he beheld working destruction all around, he was not calm enough to contend with a callow brood of upstarts, who offered perpetual resistance, in every word which they uttered, to that creed established in unmolested sway within his breast, during a ministry of thirty years. During this long lapse of time not a doubt had troubled his repose, not a single adversary till now, had ever disputed the grounds of his faith.

When this excellent man made his appearance occasionally at Painesville or Ferney, he was attacked on all sides with rude disregard of his sacred calling, and though primed and loaded with ammunition, a moderate dose of which would have frittered the puny opponents arrayed against him to atoms, yet unluckily it was not ready for the conflict. Long disuse had rusted over a fine piece of ordnance; the cannon missed fire, and not only required to be rubbed up, but to be set to a lower level, to make it available. Thus it unfortunately happened that a set of reasoning coxcombs, who owed their apparent triumph to pertness and audacity, often seemed for a time masters of the field; and, silenced by the presumption of these tyro combatants, the worthy pastor was frequently surprised into excitement of temper, and returned discomfited to his rectory-house, bewailing, as he regained the mountain fastness, the flood of infidelity which had burst upon the land, and his own incapacity to arrest its desolating progress.

The rebel crew were not slow to find out here again, that religion could not be of celestial origin, because Mr. Stockdale, pushed to extremity by the taunts of arrogance, was not endued with that unalterable coolness which the indifference of scepticism can assume at will. He could not always curb, as prudence dictated, the ebullitions of a holy zeal which lighted spontaneously into flame, when all that he possessed on earth, or desired in heaven, was assailed with wanton disrespect and indecency. He wore also a large cauliflower wig, a deep shovel hat, long waistcoat pockets descending to his knees, and leaned on a cane, with a head of battered gold. This costume served to sharpen our ridicule, and increase the vexation which awaited our friendly neighbour, whenever he quitted the protection of his upland dwelling.

At Glendruid I might ever behold the influence of piety in preserving the most beautiful equanimity of temper under the provocations which every hour produced; but I had been too well taught to give credit to any thing under the paternal roof. Parents in my day were held in contempt, as mere instruments by which being was conferred on another generation, and the opinion of a father or mother was so far from giving a bias to the conduct of their offspring, that their approval of any person, book, or sentiment, principle, or mode of action, was considered by us of the philosophic school as prim facie evidence against whatever was so applauded.

The restricted society of our house received occasional addition likewise from the visits of two elderly ladies, who were first cousins of my father. The Misses Cresswell were frequent members of our family circle, and served to whet my genius as well as excite my spleen. They were women of real virtue and high principle, but doggedly tenacious. They thought together upon every matter of judgment, and would not give up an iota upon any one subject of debate. I hated, and used to take delight in stirring them to opposition, by an assault on some of their favourite tenets. They piqued themselves on their orthodoxy, and were what is called high church; so high, that I detested steeples for their sakes. They lived in the "Black North," and were but slenderly provided for, yet ever employed in doing good; and nothing distressed my parents so much as to see them ill-treated.

The quaint wardrobe of these two old women, was another source of merriment. They seemed as if newly shaken out of lavender whenever they came to Glendruid, and I preferred the savour of garlick to the perfume of that fragrant herb, which was associated with the idea of my cousins Cresswell. I have been since reminded of my own unwarrantable prejudice, by hearing a friend of mine declare, that he could not endure the works of a celebrated author, because he always found a volume of them open on the table of his dentist, and the finest passages were combined in his memory with some piercing pang or awkward chasm in his jaws.

My imagination had no such train of cause and effect to urge in defence of my rude conduct towards these my harmless relations, and as they are dead and gone they will know nothing of my repentance; but their blind deference to names and forms was to be lamented. Provided that a man wore lawn sleeves, it little mattered whether he was wise or foolish, learned or unlearned: he was a Bishop, and, according to their creed, whatever he uttered must necessarily be law and gospel. "My dear, the Reverend Mr. Smiler had it from his Lordship's own mouth," was an unanswerable reply to an objector against any fact related in the presence of these good souls.

One day I ventured to retort to this invincible argument, "And what care I for the bench of Bishops, if they talk nonsense? Many of them hide asses ears under their great wigs."

Such a speech was the acme of impropriety, and was repeated with uplifted hands and eyes: my iniquity was then considered at its height, and every day furnishing new cause for animadversion, the visits of our cousins became at first less frequent, and were then discontinued.

My brother Charles and I rejoiced that we had frightened away the musty lavender bags, and should hear no more quotations from Saint Chrysostom. I have not yet mentioned my sisters, the number of whom was reduced by death from five to two. I had been deeply attached to Maria, the younger of those who remained; and till the demon of democracy chased every amiable feeling from my heart, we had lived in the most entire harmony and confidence. Notwithstanding the unceasing efforts of my brothers and me, to warp the minds of these dear girls, they resisted every evil impression. It was sufficient for them to know that their parents disapproved, to turn them from any temptation, however alluring; but their virtuous resolution obtained the character of "inflexible obstinacy, narrow bigotry," or some such equally unkind and inappropriate appellation.

Had it not been for the soothing tenderness of their daughters, I know not how my unhappy father and mother could have sustained their accumulated afflictions. The loss of their children had weighed heavily on their spirits, but these trials, distressing as they were felt to be, were sent from Heaven, and did not agonize their disconsolate hearts like the disunion of those who were spared. They bowed with resignation to the will of Him who gives and takes away, and believed that every sorrow from the Almighty came on an errand of love, to warn or wean the souls of His creatures. It was the machinations of the foolish and the bad, that subdued their minds, and bent them down to the earth. The events which they saw occurring daily, confounded their penetration, but with patient, though broken spirits, they strove to await the end, baffled as they were in every attempt to avert or restrain the tide of opinion, which had become too strong for control.