his mind to obedience. ‘In that,’ replied _Sebastian_, ‘you are wise, and I am glad all your youthful fires are blown over; and having once fixed you in the world as I design, I have resolved on an affair----’ At this again he paused----’I am,’ says he, ‘in love--I think it is love, or that which you call so: I cannot eat, nor sleep, nor even pray, but this fair stranger interposes; or, if by chance I slumber, all my dreams are of her, I see her, I touch her, I embrace her, and find a pleasure, even then, that all my waking thoughts could never procure me. If I go to the state-house, I mind nothing there, my heart’s at home with the young gentlewoman; or the change, or wheresoever I go, my restless thoughts present her still before me: and prithee tell me, is not this love, _Octavio_? ‘It may arrive to love,’ replied the blushing youth, ‘if you would fondly give way to it: but you are wise and grave, should hate all women, sir, till about forty, and then for generation only: you are above the follies of vain youth. And let me tell you, sir, without offending, already you are charged with a thousand little vanities, unsuitable to your years, and the character you have had, and the figure you have made in the world. I heard a lampoon on you the other day,--(Pardon my freedom, sir,) for keeping a beauty in your house, who they are pleased to say was my mistress before.’ And pulling out a lampoon, which his page had before given him, he gave it his uncle. But instead of making him resolve to quit _Sylvia_, it only served to incense him against _Octavio_; he railed at all wits, and swore there was not a more dangerous enemy to a civil, sober commonwealth: that a poet was to be banished as a spy, or hanged as a traitor: that it ought to be as much against the law to let them live, as to shoot with white powder; and that to write lampoons should be put into the statute against stabbing. And could he find the rogue that had the wit to write that, he would make him a warning to all the race of that damnable vermin; what! to abuse a magistrate, one of the _States_, a very monarch of the commonwealth!-- It was abominable, and not to be borne,--and looking on his nephew--and considering his face a while, he cried--’I fancy, sir, by your physiognomy, that you yourself have a hand in this libel:’ at which Octavio blushed, which he taking for guilt, flew out into terrible anger against him, not suffering him to speak for himself, or clear his innocence. And as he was going in this rage from him, having forbidden him ever to set his foot within his doors, he told him,--’If,’ said he, ‘the scandalous town, from your instructions, have such thoughts of me, I will convince it by marrying this fair stranger the first thing I do: I cannot doubt but to find a welcome, since she is a banished woman, without friends or protection; and especially, when she shall see how civilly you have handled her here, in your doggerel ballad: I will teach you to be a wit, sir; and