whom he was occasionally visited, it required considerable
care to prevent their exposing, by their own depravity, the gross and
iniquitous life which their master led. It is seldom that a uniform
hypocrite is found among the uneducated; a more than ordinary degree of
talent and prudence being necessary to sustain a character that is but
assumed. Nature may be suppressed by habitual caution; but the meaner,
though not the baser, villain, finds appetite too strong for even
interest to control. The household of Sir Willmott Burrell was
ill-governed, and the lessons which the master sometimes taught, but
never practised, the servants neglected or--despised. The butler, the
housekeeper, the steward, and the numerous insubordinate subordinates
were evermore in a state of riot and debauchery: the evil had at length
grown to such a pitch, that Burrell saw its danger, and more than once
resolved to adopt the only remedy, and discharge them altogether; but
upon such occasions, he overlooked one very important circumstance,
namely, that he was in their power, and was consequently any thing but a
free agent in his own house. Burrell knew himself in their toils, and at
their mercy. Large sums of money might, perhaps, have purchased their
silence, but such a mode of procuring safety was now beyond his reach;
and although deeply desirous to rid himself of them before his marriage
with Constantia Cecil, he scarcely conceived it possible to escape from
their trammels, without subtracting from the fortune that was to
accompany her hand. He dreaded the danger of confiding his difficulties
to Sir Robert Cecil, by whom they were unsuspected; and his fine
property was so considerably mortgaged, as to render an appeal to his
ancient friends, the usurers, a matter of much difficulty, if not
totally useless. Manasseh Ben Israel, indeed, he knew had an
inexhaustible store, and a not unready hand, as he had upon more than
one occasion, experienced; but, villain as he was, he shrank from the
idea of applying to him for assistance, at the very moment when he was
thrusting the iron into his soul.

Burrell was seated alone in his library, musing over the labyrinth from
which he saw no immediate prospect of escape; plan succeeding plan, as,
unnoticed by him, the twilight had deepened into the night. His doors
were ordered to be locked at an early hour--a command which, it is to be
supposed, the servants obeyed or disobeyed according to their own
plea