It is by no means the best method to keep a secret to endeavour to find out how many others are in possession of the same. Many a secret has been thus revealed, which might otherwise have been inviolably and safely kept. On the subject of keeping secrets, a great deal may be said; and the matter is surrounded with more difficulties than superficial observers are apt to imagine. For what is the use or benefit of knowing any thing, if we cannot let that knowledge be known. If a secret be confided to us, an honour is thereby conferred; but if that secret be not by us again talked about, directly or indirectly, how can the world know how much we are honoured? Who would give a fig to receive the honour of knighthood, if he were under an obligation to let no one know it? or who would give fifteen pence (pounds some say it costs) for a doctor’s degree, if he could never blazon the honour to the world? We check ourselves in the discussion with the consoling consideration that our business is with facts not with philosophy. Suffice it then to say, that before the day closed, every inhabitant of Brigland who had any care for other’s business, knew that old Richard Smith was mysteriously wealthy, that bailiffs were in possession at the Abbey, that the Hon. Philip Martindale was gone to London to borrow money, and that old Mr. Martindale would never speak to the young gentleman again. Then every body began to think that the Hon. Philip Martindale was the most profligate young man that ever lived; then all his follies became vices, and his irregularities most horrible enormities; then the talk was very loud concerning his pride and his overbearing manners; then Mrs. Dickinson, the landlady of the Red Lion, began to fear that she should not be paid for her chaise.