with men who were skilled, by a mere act of the memory, in all the sophisms which voluptuaries have framed to justify the unbounded pursuit of pleasure; and those who had not learning to argue, had assurance

to laugh. Yet Annesly's conviction was not changed; but the edge of his abhorrence to vice was blunted; and though his virtue kept her post, she found herself galled in maintaining it.
It was not till some time after, that they ventured to solicit his participation of their pleasures; and it was not till after many solicitations that his innocence was overcome. But the progress of their victories was rapid after his first defeat. And he shortly attained the station of experienced vice, and began to assume a superiority from the undauntedness with which he practised it.
But it was necessary, the while, to deceive that relation under whose inspection his father had placed him; in truth it was no very hard matter to deceive him. He was a man of that abstracted disposition, that it seldom conversant with any thing around it. Simplicity of manners was, in him, the effect of an apathy in his constitution (encreased by constant study) that was proof against all violence of passion or desire; and he thought, if he thought of the matter at all, that all men were like himself, whose indolence could never be overcome by the pleasure of pursuit, or the joys of attainment.
Besides all this, Mr. Lumley, that tutor of Sindall's whom we have formerly mentioned, was a man the best calculated in the world for lulling his suspicions asleep, if his nature had ever allowed them to arise. This man, whose parts were of that pliable kind that easily acquire a superficial knowlege of every thing, possessed the talent of hypocrisy as deeply as the desire of pleasure; and while in reality he was the most profligate of men, he had that command of passion, which never suffered it to intrude where he could wish it concealed; he preserved in the opinion of Mr. Jephson, the gravity of a studious and contemplative character which was so congenial to his own: and he would often rise from a metaphysical discussion with the old gentleman, leaving him in admiration of the depth of his reading, and the acuteness of his parts, to join the debauch of Sindall and his dissolute companions.
By his assistance therefore Annesly's dissipation was effectually screened from the notice of his kinsman; Jephson was even prevailed on by false suggestions to write to the country continued encomiums on his sobriety and application to study; and the father, who was