This change in Mr. Roscoe was produced by his intimacy with Sir Henry Wilmot, of Cleveland Hall. Sir Henry was the only son of an eminently pious mother, who died when he was seven years of age; he was thus left entirely to the care of his father, a man of superior mental attainments, but of gay and dissipated habits, and a free thinker on theological questions. When young he resisted the contagion of evil by which he was surrounded; but having finished his education, which was not favourable to the growth of religious sentiments, he paid a visit to the continent, and there he became thoroughly corrupted. On the decease of his father, he returned to take possession of the family inheritance; and brought with him all the loose opinions and dangerous principles of those with whom he had associated. Being a man of elegant manners, of sociable disposition, generous and warm in his professions of friendship, who had seen the various aspects of society, and was qualified either to debate in argument or amuse at play, he soon acquired a powerful ascendency over Mr. Roscoe, whom he often induced to prolong his visits at the Hall to a late hour. The influence of evil, like the influence of good principles, is at first imperceptible; but it is usually found that the one corrupts more rapidly than the other reforms. The erection of the building requires a skilful combination of talents and materials; but it may be demolished by the rude hand of a barbarian, who knows not how to draw an elevation, or execute a design. Cleveland Hall, which had been in former days the house of mercy and of prayer, was now become the rendezvous of the vices--the seat of licentiousness and of moral pollution; "There _many_ fell, to rise no more;" and there Mr. Roscoe lost the fine bloom that once glowed on his character; and if a sense of decency operated as a partial restraint, yet his home and his wife were comparatively forsaken.