ence the
sensation, which an attention to circumstances like these, must excite;
he is desired to imagine seventeen years elapsed, since he has seen or
heard of any of those persons who in the foregoing volumes have been
introduced to his acquaintance--and then, supposing himself at the period
of those seventeen years, follow the sequel of their history.

To begin with the first female object of this story. The beautiful, the
beloved Miss Milner--she is no longer beautiful--no longer beloved--no
longer--tremble while you read it!--no longer--virtuous.

Dorriforth, the pious, the good, the tender Dorriforth, is become a
hard-hearted tyrant. The compassionate, the feeling, the just Lord
Elmwood, an example of implacable rigour and injustice.

Miss Woodley is grown old, but less with years than grief.

The boy, Rushbrook, is become a man, and the apparent heir of Lord
Elmwood's fortune; while his own daughter, his only child by his once
adored Miss Milner, he refuses ever to see again, in vengeance to her
mother's crimes.

The least wonderful change, is, the death of Mrs. Horton. Except
Sandford, who remains much the same as heretofore.

We left Lady Elmwood in the last volume at the summit of human
happiness; a loving and beloved bride. We begin this volume, and find
her upon her death-bed.

At thirty-five, her "Course was run"--a course full of perils, of hopes,
of fears, of joys, and at the end, of sorrows; all exquisite of their
kind, for exquisite were the feelings of her susceptible heart.

At the commencement of this story, her father is described in the last
moments of his life, with all his cares fixed upon her, his only
child--how vain these cares! how vain every precaution that was taken for
her welfare! She knows, she reflects upon this; and yet, impelled by
that instinctive power which actuates a parent, Lady Elmwood on _her_
dying day has no worldly thoughts, but that of the future happiness of
an only child. To every other prospect in her view, "Thy will be done"
is her continual exclamation; but where the misery of her daughter
presents itself, the expiring penitent would there combat the will of
Heaven.

To detail the progression by which vice gains a predominancy in the
heart, may be a useful lesson; but it is one so little to the
satisfaction of most readers, that the degrees of misconduct by which
Lady Elmwood fell, are not meant to be related here; but instead of
picturing every occasion of