THE next morning, the gentlemen informed the young ladies, that they had become acquainted with one of their favourite novelists, and that they hoped soon to make them acquainted. This evening she will not be there. “This evening,” said Miss Mortimer, “we could not be at the library, as my uncle is to have a party to dinner.” Nothing important happened till the hour of appointment; when our hero, repairing to the captain’s, found, to his great pleasure, that one of the guests was his new acquaintance, Mrs. Somerive. The conversation during dinner, whether the party consist of genius or no genius, generally turns on one subject; nor was the present an exception; foals, turbot, and Down mutton, being the chief topics discussed. The fruits and wines having passed the same ordeal of criticism, the conversation took a more liberal and enlarged range, and entered on such literary subjects, as were within the knowledge of the fair members of the party. Among these were included novels, which, though one of the first writers of the age was present, the Captain, more naturally benevolent, than artificially polite, introduced. “My good friend Mrs. Somerive,” said he, “though I always could see that you had great abilities, and knew much more than most young ladies of your age; but I did not think you would have been an author.” A cloud was beginning to overcast the countenance of the lady at these words; but her recollection and good sense presently dispelled it; and the Captain, who had not remarked this expression, proceeded; “I often in fine weather, at sea, read books of amusement, and sometimes on shore; I have lately read your Orphan of Pembroke, which my niece Maria here agrees with me in admiring very highly; but there is one of the characters that she likes beyond all others,--he that proves the hero of the piece; the Sea Captain. But do not you think he is rather too refined for our service? To be sure, young men are now better prepared than they were in my time, and I will honestly confess, they are as far before us in point of civilization, as----what shall I say, Hamilton? Help me out with a simile.” “Why, sir, as you are before Smollet’s Tom Bowling, Trunnion, Hatchway, and Tom Pipes; the difference, you will please to observe, is chiefly in the manners, and keeps pace with the progressive improvement of general society in Britain. The hearts of the former are equally brave and benevolent with those of the latter. The humanized and accomplished character, to which you allude, is a gallant and generous British seaman, acting from the same benignant motives, in the circumstances in which he is placed, from which the rough virtues of his predecessors would have exerted themselves. In affording his protection to the helpless infant of his unfortunate sister, he acts from benevolence, and seeks beneficence: so did Tom Bowling. In exerting himself to relieve distress,--to rescue a meritorious character from confinement, he acts