the play-going eye. Deeply
infatuated, indeed, were the Mollycoddles with their Betty.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

RALPH DESCRIBETH A RARE CHARACTER, A NOBLE AND A GOOD MAN--HE GOETH TO
FISH WITHOUT A ROD, AND SUFFERETH MORE THAN FIFTY RODS COULD INFLICT,
AND IS NOT RECONCILED TO THE HONOUR OF THE SUN RIDING HIM A PICK-A-BACK.

It is now my duty, as well as my greatest pleasure, to put on record the
true kindness, the considerate generosity, and the well-directed
munificence of a family, a parallel to which can only be found in our
soil--a superior nowhere. By the heads of this family I was honoured
with particular notice. Perhaps they never gave a thought about my
poetical talent, or the wonderful progress that my master said that I
had made in my classics, and my wooden-legged tutor in my mathematics.
Their kind patronage sprang from higher motives,--from benevolence; they
had heard that I had been forsaken--their own hearts told them that the
sunshine of kindness must be doubly grateful to the neglected, and,
indeed, to me they were very kind.

Perhaps it may be thought that I had a quick eye to the failings and the
ridiculous points of those with whom chance threw me in contact. I am
sure that I was equally susceptible to the elevation of character that
was offered to me in the person of Mr ---, the respected father of the
family of which I have just made mention. As the noble class to which
he belonged, and of which he was the first ornament, are fast
degenerating, I will endeavour to make a feeble portrait of a man, that,
at present, finds but too few imitators, and that could never have found
a superior. He was one of those few merchant princes, who are really,
in all things, princely. Whilst his comprehensive mind directed the
commerce of half a navy, and sustained in competence and happiness
hundreds at home, and thousands abroad, the circle immediately around
him felt all the fostering influence of his well-directed liberality, as
if all the energies of his powerful genius had been concentrated in the
object of making those, only about him, prosperous. He was born for the
good of the many, as much as for the elevation of the individual.
Society had need of him, and it confessed it. When its interests were
invaded by a short-sighted policy, it called upon his name to advocate
its violated rights, and splendidly did he obey the call. He understood
England's power and greatness, for he had assisted in