Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

with old Morgan the blind harper, who had exhibited in it the preceding evening just by way of hansel, he said, while the housemaids and gardeners were footing it a little below for recreation, because his Honor was coming home again.

Sir William left my lady to construct ways and means for supporting the tottering edifice, and, with a deep figh and a secret murmur against new-fangled trumpery, proceeded to examine the out-door scenes. The taste of Mr. Outline for objects had induced him to remove several useful edifices to inconvenient situations, while he occupied their places with erections of no form nor likelihood, which continually drew from the impatient baronet the exclamations of "What is this for?" and "What does this mean?" The stews were all drained, and their places occu

pied by the ruins of a naval amphitheatre, while the stream that supplied them was taught to hop from pebble to pebble in diminutive imitation of old Conway's foaming flood, which roared, in proud magnificence, at a little distance. The windmill had given way to a temple dedicated to Æolus; and the pigeon-house was succeeded by an aviary of foreign birds, none of which, in fir William's opinion, were so beautiful as the goldfinch, or fung like the nightingale. As walls were unpicturesque, they, and the fruit-trees which they supported, were every where metamorphosed into haha's! A fine grove of oaks, which screened the house from the north winds, was cut down to admit the prospect of a bleak mountain; and the place of the hardy foresters was occupied by the tender magnolio and frail acacia; at least by their remains, for the beautiful exotics had been already killed by the frofts, or broken broken by vernal storms. In short, to adopt the owner's description of the house and gardens, " The former was " very tasty and very inconvenient; and "in the latter there was nothing that "you wanted; but there were ruins and "-heathen gods in abundance."

Sir William's disgust did not prevent lady Powerscourt from exhibiting herfelf to infinite advantage in the office of Ciceroni, and she continued to point out the beauties of the new improvements, till her neighbours had exhausted every topic of aduiation, and her own tongue grew weary of the pleasing tale. It is suggested, that the inconveniences I have enumerated afterwards struck her more forcibly than any one else; and that her reason for hating Powerscourt was, that no human creature could be well or comfortable in such a cold dreary wilderness fort of a place. Nor did her splendid attire afford a more permanent fatisfaction: in some articles of dress she was anticipated, in others outshone; and none excited astonishment after their first exhibition. Alas! if happiness be not feated in the mind, even the gratification of our wishes will not enfure its poffeffion.

A few months after her ladyship's return to Powerscourt, my Heroine first saw the light; and though fir William had rather it had been a boy, he received the little stranger with all the enthusiastic joy of the fondest parental tenderness. He thought the winning ways of the dear little cherub must communicate that happiness to the maternal bosom, which somehow or other (a favourite expression of fir William's) it had hitherto failed to experience. But while the exuberance of his own joy was displaying it

felf in the usual style of overflowing benevolence

nevolence and hospitality, his lady was ruminating on the possibility of being at Chester races; and, contrary to the opinion of her matronly friends, she resolved on the hazardous expedient of a too early appearance in public. A fevere cold was the immediate confequence; and the neglect of the first maternal duty, joined to inattention to her own fafety, was soon observed to have occafioned a total change in her conftitution. Years of ill health, confinement, and severe suffering, proved the melancholy forerunner of premature

death.

From the account I have already given of lady Powerscourt, the reader will not suppose that patience tempered the bitter cup of woe with its lenient sweets. Hermind was destitute of natural strength, her temper possessed no native gentleness, her education taught her rather

VOL. I.

E

to

« AnkstesnisTęsti »