public opinion was well known, and the Glenvornes believed that the eclat which attended Paulina had rendered him more vulnerable to her blandishments; they therefore hoped that if the meteor's splendors were involved in mist, the same weakness which had seduced him might serve to recall him to the contemplation of love's chaste star, With this view, they exerted themselves to diminish the consequence of the bewitching Italian, absolutely refusing to be seen in any circle she frequented, or, if they met by accident, adopting that cold proud civility with which even effrontery cannot long contend. Fashion and fame are alike mutable in their favours, and generally immolate their former idols on the shrine of some new divinity. Paulina discovered, that as she had owed much of her celebrity to novelty, her popu larity was decreased by a host of imi

tators, who, though in their style of acting they "marred her greatness,' by dividing public attention, obscured her fame. Numbers too who had not that solid judgment which distinguished the Glenvornes, endeavoured to outgo them in the loudness of their censures, and took exceptions against the general style of her impromptus as well as against the freedom of her manners and the looseness of her attire. These condemned her not merely as a vain, artful, treacherous coquette, but as a woman who outraged every law of virtue, and abandoned herself to general licentiousness. It was inferred from various suspicious circumstances that she would be as ready to act the Bona-roba with Norbury, as the Lady Baronness with Avondel, and like Pope's Psyche, whether she addressed a Mounseer, a Signor, or a Mynheer,

always replied in the language of as

sent.

Paulina had not yet proceeded so far down the declivity of vice as to avoid feeling shocked at these undeserved imputations, which were be come too public to escape her penetration. Yet, when we consider that she was so far infatuated by her passion for Lord Avondel, and elated by her triumph over his supposed invulnerable heart, as to contemplate the death of his countess from neglect, and her own adulterous connection, with complacence, as the means of dissolving her own marriage and uniting her to ler paramour, we must not wonder at any degree of licentiousness of which she might hereafter be guilty. Nor was slander so very erroneous in judging that the seeds of that effrontery, which could glory in the notoriety of an indecorum, and that cruelty which

could exult in the misery of innocence, would in time produce a prolific crop of profligacy. Nor do I hesitate to pronounce the venal wanton, chaste in comparison of her, who, unseduced by any temptation but her own passions, indulged, till they became inordinate, pauses on the abyss of vice, calculates what advantages may result from the infamy which she is going to incur, palters with the devil, and strikes a bargain of worldly advantage against that dreadful hazard of eternal punishment which pre-concerted guilt ever braves. For, be it remembered, adultery is a premeditated crime. The inclination to offend must often be subdued before it is indulged; the plan of seduction and deceit must be arranged, methodized, suspended, and resumed. The husband must be blinded, the monitor removed, the assignation formed, and the attendants cor

rupted, before the culprits can find it convenient to consummate their guilt. But women of Paulina's stamp seldom extend their views beyond the things that are temporal; and amid all the characters which she assumed, and all the virtues which she affected, she was too much a stranger to its feelings to attempt that of religion.

Her method of parrying public odium was not by pretending to correct her conduct, but by more openly displaying her superiority. She considered envy as the source of much of the sarcasm and insult which she now experienced, and perhaps she was not erroneous in this conclusion. The doors of so many houses of fashion were now shut against her, that she could no longer preserve that nice selection of society which only admitted high ton and literary celebrity on her visiting list. She was even glad to