For maids forsaken, and suspected wives, Against whose peace some foe his plot contrives; With all the hidden schemes that none can clear 360 Till the last book, and then the ghosts appear. “‘I read all plays that on the boards succeed, } And all the works that ladies ever read-- } Shakspeare, and all the rest--I did, indeed,-- } Ay! you may stare; but, sir, believe it true That we can read and learn, as well as you. “‘I would not boast,--but I could act a scene In any play, before I was fifteen. “‘Nor is this all; for many are the times I read in Pope and Milton, prose and rhymes; 370 They were our lessons, and, at ten years old, I could repeat----but now enough is told. Sir, I can tell you I my mind applied } To all my studies, and was not denied } Praise for my progress----Are you satisfied?’ } “‘Entirely, madam! else were I possess’d By a strong spirit who could never rest. Yes! yes, no more I question--here I close The theme for ever--let us to repose.’” TALES OF THE HALL. BOOK X. _THE OLD BACHELOR._ A Friend arrives at the Hall--Old Bachelors and Maids--Relation of one--His Parents--The first Courtship--The second--The third--Long Interval--Travel--Decline of Life--The fourth Lady--Conclusion. TALES OF THE HALL. BOOK X. _THE OLD BACHELOR._ Save their kind friend the rector, Richard yet Had not a favourite of his brother met; Now at the Hall that welcome guest appear’d, By trust, by trials, and by time endear’d; Of him the grateful ’squire his love profess’d, And full regard--he was of friends the best; “Yet not to him alone this good I owe, This social pleasure that our friends bestow; The sex that wrought in earlier life my woes, With loss of time who murder’d my repose, 10 They to my joys administer, nor vex Me more; and now I venerate the sex; And boast the friendship of a spinster kind, Cheerful and pleasant, to her fate resign’d; Then by her side my bachelor I place, And hold them honours to the human race. Yet these are they in tale and song display’d, The peevish man, and the repining maid; Creatures made up of misery and spite, Who taste no pleasures, except those they blight; 20 From whom th’ affrighten’d niece and nephew fly-- Fear’d while they live, and useless till they die. “Not such these friends of mine; they never meant That youth should so be lost, or life be spent. They had warm passions, tender hopes, desires That youth indulges, and that love inspires; But fortune frown’d on their designs, displaced The views of hope, and love’s gay dreams disgraced; Took from the soul her sunny views, and spread A cloud of dark but varying gloom instead. 30