me.

“‘Oh, Mountford!’ said I, when he had overtaken me at the door.

“‘It is time,’ replied he, ‘that we should think of our appointment; young Respino and his friends are waiting us.’

“‘Damn him, damn him!’ said I.  ‘Let us leave Milan instantly; but soft - I will be calm; Mountford, your pencil.’  I wrote on a slip of paper,


“‘To Signor RESPINO.

“‘When you receive this, I am at a distance from Milan.  Accept of my thanks for the civilities I have received from you and your family.  As to the friendship with which you were pleased to honour me, the prison, which I have just left, has exhibited a scene to cancel it for ever.  You may possibly be merry with your companions at my weakness, as I suppose you will term it.  I give you leave for derision.  You may affect a triumph, I shall feel it.

“EDWARD SEDLEY.”


“‘You may send this if you will,’ said Mountford, coolly, ‘but still Respino is a man of honour; the world will continue to call him so.’

“‘It is probable,’ I answered, ‘they may; I envy not the appellation.  If this is the world’s honour, if these men are the guides of its manners - ’

“‘Tut!’ said Mountford, ‘do you eat macaroni - ’”

* * *

[At this place had the greatest depredations of the curate begun.  There were so very few connected passages of the subsequent chapters remaining, that even the partiality of an editor could not offer them to the public.  I discovered, from some scattered sentences, that they were of much the same tenor with the preceding; recitals of little adventures, in which the dispositions of a man, sensible to judge, and still more warm to feel, had room to unfold themselves.  Some instruction, and some example, I make no doubt they contained; but it is likely that many of those, whom chance has led to a perusal of what I have already presented, may have read it with little pleasure, and will feel no disappointment from the want of those parts which I have been unable to procure.  To such as may have expected the intricacies of a novel, a few incidents in a life undistinguished, except by some features of the heart, cannot have afforded much entertainment.

Harley’s own story, from the mutilated passages I have mentioned, as well as from some inquiries I was at the trouble of making in the country, I found to have been simple to excess.  His