violence of temptation, required but the moment of remorse to expand and once more fully regain its influence over his actions.
What misery my sister and I endured from the melancholy narration, and the tears we shed over it, you, my Sophia, when you have perused the packet transcribed by Mr. Howard, which accompanies this, may be almost enabled to conceive: a tedious and severe illness, from which I am still but feebly recovered,

was the natural and inevitable consequence of such a conflict of emotions.
It is not, I own, without a sensation of repugnance, that I prevail with myself to send you this dismal tale; but alas! so public has been every circumstance of my father's misfortunes (those which greatly extenuate his errors excepted) that I have reason to believe even you, my dear, have often heard of the miserable fate of Lord Linrose, as a remarkable event that took place in a family of distinction, and made much noise in the world some time previous to your birth; but that my father was the unhappy source or such a train of calamities, oh! who could have conceived possible!— that astonishing fact never, never could you have divined.
I consider this confidence, therefore, as a justification of his memory; and though the sad relation itself is a sacred trust to be reposed only in the faithful

bosom of friendship, would to heaven all the world were as well acquainted with his remorse as with his faults; and that the knowledge of his sufferings could wholly obliterate the recollection of his errors. Adieu, my dearest friend.
Yours affectionately, H. SEYMOUR.
TO MY DAUGHTERS.
WHEN this packet is delivered to my dear girls, I shall not have, to blush for its contents: I shall be then no more: and as it is essentially requisite that they should one day be made acquainted with their real situation in life, I have for two reasons preferred that awful period for this painful communication: in the first place, the information I am about to disclose, is attended with circumstances of a

nature so mortifying, humiliating, and severe, that at that solemn period only can I support the idea of presenting myself to the astonished view of my children, in a light so different from that in which they have ever been accustomed to regard me; and secondly, when their soft and affectionate hearts are subdued by affliction at their recent loss, only can I flatter myself they will look with candour and indulgence on errors—nay crimes—of which, till that instant, they had believed me incapable.
Be not overwhelmed with horror