AN Officer, to whom we shall give the name of Clifford, derived from his ancestors a very honourable descent, being able to trace their possession of an estate in the northern part of England thro' several centuries. That estate, however, was dissipated by the imprudence and extravagance of his parents; and Captain Clifford, who had received a very liberal education, and was brought up with the expectation of an ample inheritance, found his only remaining possession was his commission in the army. He married a beautiful young

woman, the daughter of a neighbouring family, to whom he had been long attached, and who died a few years after their marriage, leaving him one daughter. To this child he transferred the tenderness he had felt for her mother, and undertook himself the charge of her education. Dispirited by his domestic misfortune, wounded by the disappointment of his early views in life, and the mortification of seeing many raised above him in the army, because he was unable to purchase promotion, he retired in disgust, and lived upon a captain's half-pay, in a small village in the neighbourhood of London, where his father, who was far advanced in years, made a part of his family.
In this retreat Captain Clifford found consolation and employment, in devoting his time to the improvement of his daughter; and his own mind being highly cultivated, she derived greater advantages from his instructions than she could have received from the most expensive education, under a less anxious as well as a less able preceptor.

Nature had liberally bestowed upon Julia Clifford the powers of the understanding, and the virtues of the heart: her sensibility was quick, her disposition affectionate, and her taste was improved by the society of her father, till it attained an uncommon degree of elegance and refinement; but of her superiority to others she seemed intirely unconscious. Her manners were perfectly modest and unassuming; her conversation simple and unstudied; she spoke from the impulse of her heart, and she possessed the most amiable candor and frankness of disposition. Julia was above the middle size: her figure had not been much molded by the dancing-master; but nature had given it a gracefulness "beyond the reach of art." She had a madona face, and an expression of intelligence and sensibility in her countenance, infinitely engaging.
Captain Clifford's younger brother, after the paternal estate was disposed of, went in pursuit of fortune to the East Indies

—he was a man of a plain understanding and an excellent heart. Just in his principles, and generous in his disposition, he acquired wealth slowly
