This the youth politely declines, his affections being irrevocably engaged to another; and, in consequence of this, the lady being piqued by his refusal, enters into a plot against him in concert with one of the players (a veteran in the corps, who was offended that the part of Romeo, which he had played _for fifty years_, should be taken from him, and given to Alwyn). His pocket-book is searched; the name of the lady’s rival is discovered; and a letter is dispatched to old Stamford, informing him of the liberties which Mr Alwyn is said to have taken with his daughter’s name, and the equal presumption he had shewn in paying his addresses to the anonymous writer of the epistle. This letter, which is believed, gives a death-blow to his hopes. Maria Stamford, who had secretly returned his passion, is ashamed of her folly; the father is shocked; and the brother is incensed at the baseness and ingratitude of his friend. Another lover is now provided for Alwyn’s mistress, the son of a Mr Maitland, a rattling, thoughtless young fellow, who is not half sentimental enough for the young lady; and is accordingly rejected by her. The father of young Maitland is represented as an odd character, a half-crazy humourist, who, like the people of Laputa, makes every thing a subject of mathematical demonstration. He calculates the height and size of meteors, and is made to follow every _ignis fatuus_ that he sees, through bog and briar. His graceless son ties a lantern to the house-dog’s tail, and sends his father on a bootless chase after it: the dog escapes from his keeper, gets in at the library window with his meteorological apparatus about him, and sets fire to the house. Maitland-Hall is converted into a heap of ruins; and what is worse, Mr Maitland’s strong-box, containing nearly all his property, is lost. Mr Stamford, his son, and daughter, are on a visit there at the time; and Maria Stamford must have perished in the flames, but that Alwyn, the ungrateful, the supposed worthless Alwyn, who had left the Kendal company, and was travelling homeward, happens, at that instant, to be passing by, and comes in time to rescue his lovely mistress from the flames. He however remains unknown, and pursues his journey. Tom Maitland’s fortune being thus dissipated by his frolic, it becomes a point of honour that Maria should give up her scruples, and join her hand to his; when this, now almost inevitable event, is put a stop to by a discovery,—that it was not the dog Pompey that had set fire to the house, but a gang of thieves, who had committed this flagrant act in order to carry off old Maitland’s strong box: that they had been detected, and their prize secured by the vigilance and activity of Alwyn’s friend, Hilkirk, who now appears to be the son of his former master, Seldon, and who is rewarded with the hand of his old sweet-heart, Julia Gowland, for the difficulties he has had to encounter, and to which he was purposely exposed by his father to enable