A Simple Story | Page 7

of the audience, that this little part, independent of the other characters, drew immense houses whenever the play was performed. The manager in consequence, thought it but justice to advance the actor's salary; on which the poor man (who, like the character he represented, had been half starved before) began to live so comfortably, he became too plump for the part; and being of no importance in any thing else, the manager of course now wholly discharged him--and thus, actually reducing him to the want of a piece of bread, in a short time he became a proper figure for the part again."
Welcome, then, thou all-powerful principle, NECESSITY! THOU, who art the instigator of so many bad authors and actors--THOU, who from my infancy seldom hast forsaken me, still abide with me. I will not complain of any hardship thy commands require, so thou dost not urge my pen to prostitution. In all thy rigour, oh! do not force my toil to libels--or what is equally pernicious--panegyric on the unworthy!

A SIMPLE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
Dorriforth, bred at St. Omer's in all the scholastic rigour of that college, was, by education, and the solemn vows of his order, a Roman Catholic priest--but nicely discriminating between the philosophical and the superstitious part of that character, and adopting the former only, he possessed qualities not unworthy the first professors of Christianity. Every virtue which it was his vocation to preach, it was his care to practise; nor was he in the class of those of the religious, who, by secluding themselves from the world, fly the merit they might have in reforming mankind. He refused to shelter himself from the temptations of the layman by the walls of a cloister, but sought for, and found that shelter in the centre of London, where he dwelt, in his own prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
He was about thirty, and had lived in the metropolis near five years, when a gentleman above his own age, but with whom he had from his youth contracted a most sincere friendship, died, and left him the sole guardian of his daughter, who was then eighteen.
The deceased Mr. Milner, on his approaching dissolution, perfectly sensible of his state, thus reasoned with himself before he made the nomination:--"I have formed no intimate friendship during my whole life, except one--I can be said to know the heart of no man, except the heart of Dorriforth. After knowing his, I never sought acquaintance with another--I did not wish to lessen the exalted estimation of human nature which he had inspired. In this moment of trembling apprehension for every thought which darts across my mind, and more for every action which I must soon be called to answer for; all worldly views here thrown aside, I act as if that tribunal, before which I every moment expect to appear, were now sitting in judgment upon my purpose. The care of an only child is the great charge that in this tremendous crisis I have to execute. These earthly affections that bind me to her by custom, sympathy, or what I fondly call parental love, would direct me to study her present happiness, and leave her to the care of those whom she thinks her dearest friends; but they are friends only in the sunshine of fortune; in the cold nipping frost of disappointment, sickness, or connubial strife, they will forsake the house of care, although the very house which they may have themselves built."
Here the excruciating anguish of the father, overcame that of the dying man.
"In the moment of desertion," continued he, "which I now picture to myself, where will my child find comfort? That heavenly aid which religion gives, and which now, amidst these agonizing tortures, cheers with humbler hope my afflicted soul; that, she will be denied."
It is in this place proper to remark, that Mr. Milner was a member of the church of Rome, but on his marriage with a lady of Protestant tenets, they mutually agreed their sons should be educated in the religious opinion of their father, and their daughters in that of their mother. One child only was the result of their union, the child whose future welfare now occupied the anxious thoughts of her expiring father. From him the care of her education had been with-held, as he kept inviolate his promise to her departed mother on the article of religion, and therefore consigned his daughter to a boarding-school for Protestants, whence she returned with merely such ideas of religion as ladies of fashion at her age mostly imbibe. Her little heart employed in all the endless pursuits of personal accomplishments, had left her mind without one ornament, except such as nature gave; and even they were not wholly preserved from the ravages made by its rival, Art.
While her