her estate.

It was fortunate that this gentleman was an honest man and a sincere friend, or she must have been the victim of her own folly.

She took a house in the neighbourhood of the theatres, attended the representations constantly, and associated chiefly with players. The circle in which she had chosen to move, soon drew her into a very expensive mode of living. She patronised her favourite actors with a profuse liberality, made them valuable presents on their benefits, and spared neither money nor influence in recompensing their talents. Not many years passed in this manner, before her agent was under the necessity of advising her to retrench her expences, as she was living beyond her income.

Being unaccustomed to restraint, she resented his sincerity, protested she would make no alteration, and persisted in that determination, till she received a second visit from her steward, with the information that she was on the brink of ruin. Thunderstruck at the near approach of such a serious change of circumstances, she took a sudden resolve to withdraw from her present `connexions, and for a year or two live in privacy, till her affairs should be retrieved. Accordingly, she hired a small house in a retired street, and reduced her establishment to two maids and a footman. At the end of the year she was agreeably surprised with the effects of her economy; and, that she might recover her former situation in a shorter period, determined to part with her man servant. When two years were elapsed, her relish for the theatre and the society of players was damped,

and she had bent the whole force of her mind to the art

of saving. She soon recovered the money she had overspent, but that did not hinder her from continuing to gradually retrench her expences, tilly from one step to another, she gave up housekeeping, and confined herself to one apartment, at the top of a tradesman's house in the Strand. Here she lived without a servant or attendant for many years, and was seldom better dressed than in an old bedgown. Sometimes she would creep to the baker's to buy raspings, which served her for bread; and more than once she was addressed with offers of money from benevolent persons, who from the air and manners of a gentlewoman, which her rags could not conceal, supposed that she was some unfortunate woman reduced from affluence. She always declined their bounty with thanks, and said she was not in want. She avoided going abroad as much as possible, from a wish not to be seen; but one day a friend of mine, who had business at the shop where she lived, got a view of her, as she came down to ask the people of the house permission to dip a piece of bread in the liquor of their boiled beef, for her dinner.

She kept a sort of annual festival, when she met her steward, to audit his accounts and receive her rents. On that day she dressed herself in one of the richest suits amongst the relics of the finery of her halcyon times; but as they received no alteration in shape or make, they made an antediluvian appearance. She completed her dress with rings, earrings, and other arcles of jewellery. Thus equipped, she sallied out of

her lodgings in a coach, and was driven to a tavern, where a capital dinner and a bottle of wine were provid⚫ ed for herself and her agent. When their business was transacted, she returned to her former obscurity till that day twelvemonth. In this manner she dragged out the remainder of her life, useless to herself and the community; occupied only in accumulating property for stran gers to enjoy. Her end was consistent with her life, void of the common comforts that her situation required. As she was always accustomed to keep her door locked, the family belonging to the house did not offer to intrude, till they had observed that she had not left her room for several days, when they ventured to knock at the door, but received no answer. After the stroke had been repeated several times, it was thought necessary to break open the door, when they found her stretched breathless on the bed.

On searching her apartment, vast sums of money were found concealed in the most extraordinary places. Her books were almost interleaved with bank-notes, and every cranny suited for a hiding-place was filled with them.

She had no heirs but very distant relations, who quarrelled about the division of what she had sacrificed so much to collect; and were on the brink of squandering it in a lawsuit, but were at last persuaded by the wise counsel of the agent to take equal shares.

How different would her enjoyments and respectability have been, had she pursued, with the same avidity, the course of virtue, and a judicious distribution of her

large possessions amongst the deserving and the needy. As it was, she lived despised and died unregretted; but she gratified her ruling passion, by never losing sight of the means of indulging it.

DISMAL SWAMP.

EVERY different part of the globe is characterised by some natural phenomenon. One place presents the beauties of subterranean grottos; another, the sublimity of mountains, or the tremendous fall of rushing cataracts; whilst the eye is regaled, in some other district, with the soft, peaceful vale, the tranquil lake, and the promise of abundant harvests.

The extensive continent of North America combines most of the various features of the gradations of climate, with numberless objects of admiration to the naturalist, peculiar to itself: amongst these may be classed the Dismal Swamp, a morass of an extent unequalled in any part of the world. It reaches from Albemarle Sound, in North Carolina, to the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, on the opposite side of the harbour to Norfolk. It is supposed to contain about two hundred and fifty square miles, or one hundred and fifty thousand

acres.

Some of the interior parts of this vast swampy plain is seldom explored, being full of danger; yet some ad

venturous huntsmen sometimes pursue their game within its precincts, but cannot advance far without great risk of forfeiting their lives to their temerity.

Mr. Janson, a late traveller, relates, that in one of these excursions he was often knee-deep; though, in other parts, the ground supported him firmly. In endeavouring to pass one of these fenny spots, he attempted to avail himself of a sort of bridge, formed of the body of a very large tree; when, to his surprise, he was suddenly immersed in dust, to his waist, the tree hav ing become rotten, or probably gutted by insects, though it retained its shape, and appearance of solidity. Wild beasts lurk in this impenetrable recess cattle, also, stray there, and often become wild: hogs are turned into it by their owners, to fatten upon the acorns that fall from the oaks.

Lake Drummond is situated near the centre of the swamp, and is formed by the drainings of this immense bog. It is crowded with fish of various kinds, which, living unmolested, attain a prodigious size. Its surface is generally calm, being sheltered by lofty trees, which grow on its borders. The solitude and dangers of the place have given rise to romantic stories, that may have been strengthened by the vapours that are frequently exhaled from marshy ground, and are known by the name of Will of the Wisp, or ignis fatuus. An anecdote of this kind is currently related by the inhabitants of this dreary tract, that gave occasion to a beautiful ballad, called, "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," written by Mr. Moore, the translator of Anacreon. The