The SCHOOL for LIBERTINES,
A STORY, FOUNDED ON FACTS.
If the heart hitherto satisfied and happy in the long-preserved ideas of rectitude and honour, rational enjoyment, and the sweets of domestic felicity, should now, strongly tempted by the fatal fascinations of vice, be meditating a departure from virtue, and this relation prove the means of preserving its owner from error and delusion, the wishes of the writer will be accomplished: or if those already engaged in pursuits that, however brilliant and alluring to the giddy votaries of false enjoyment, must eventually terminate in confusion, and the loss of every thing that ought to be held dear, become, from this story convinced of the necessity of an altered conduct, well repaid, indeed, will be the recorder of scenes, which, for the sake of society at large, he hopes will be found less and less frequent in the present age of true refinement and unaffected sensibility.
Mr. Alton, once amply possessed of the gifts of fortune, and surrounded with every earthly blessing, suddenly left his weeping lady, then pregnant, and an infant son, and fled from the pursuit of justice.
He had violated the laws of religion, honour and his country, by seducing from her duty the wife of his friend; a duel was the consequence, and the injured husband lost his life in the fatal rencounter.
Immediate flight was Mr. Alton’s only resource; therefore, regardless of every feeling but such as arose for his own safety, he precipitately left his native country, completely wretched, and loaded with all the horrors of guilt and dismay.
A short time after his arrival in Italy, his means of support failed; extravagance and dissipation had ruined his fortunes, and he must soon have fled from importunate creditors, had not this still more dreadful cause forced him from his wretched family.
As he had acquired the art of becoming fortunate at play, his talents that way were now brought forward, and an uncommon run of success soon enabled him to shine forth again in a foreign country with the same splendour he once displayed in his own.
Again engaged in frivolous pursuits of expence and pleasure, his light and worthless heart soon dismissed every trace of remorse for the distress and anguish he had occasioned in the family of his murdered friend, and the utter ruin brought on his deserted wife and children.
Possessing every art of genteel address, an elegant person, assisted with all the powers of soft persuasion, he soon (under the name of Freeman, not daring to use his real one) won upon the heart of a young lady of exalted birth, whom he privately married.
Her friends at first forbade them their presence, but the young and beautiful Italian being a much-loved and only child, they soon yielded to excuses and professions which he too well knew how to frame, and at length received them to favour and protection.
Many years passed on without a returning thought of former connections he had heard long since, by private means, that his first lady had fallen a victim to a broken heart, leaving the care of a son and daughter to her afflicted father, who had little remaining to support them, the necessities of the unprincipled and unfeeling Alton having almost drained his once ample fortune.
And here it is necessary to inform the reader, that the poor old gentleman did not long survive the loss of his child. But heaven raised up a friend to her offspring: this friend, who delighted in acts of mercy, adopted the two innocents, as his own, making over to them his estate and his name.
A young gentleman of the name of Easton, often visited at Mr. Freeman’s, whose house was always open to people of fashion; and though their years did not correspond, yet the former still carried an appearance of youth and gaiety, assisted by an uncommon share of health, and a heart feelingly alive to every call of pleasure.
Alike dissolute in manners and inclination, an intimacy soon commenced between them. The present Mrs. Freeman, who, before her marriage, experienced every indulgence and attention from parents who adored her, had too early an occasion to lament her misplaced love, and unhappy choice.
Never, but in the hours of inebriation, did she experience any thing like attention and kindness from the man who owed every thing to her. Then, indeed, he would utter rhapsodies of affection, alike destitute of sincerity as of reason.
And now, their only child (a beautiful young lady who had just attained her 13th year, the only companion of her pensive mother, to whom she was indeed a real comfort, dutiful affection and endearing sensibility having lightened many a painful day) was visited by a fever, which robbed her afflicted parent of her sole remaining blessing. This calamity deeply affected them both. The impression made on Mrs. Freeman brought on a decline, which proved fatal—bereft of every earthly happiness, she looked up to that heaven she had been long preparing for, and in a short time obtained dismission from a world, from which she had been weaned by trouble, and the unkind neglect of a husband she had loved but too well.
Mr. Freeman put on the outward “trappings and the suits of woe”—but wanted “that within,” which goes beyond every external appearance.
Pomp and parade, indeed, attended her remains to the silent tomb; but these were not accompanied with the husband’s tear. The monument was raised on which his sorrows were recorded, but, cold and senseless as the marble which received that record, his heart was a stranger to those feelings that dignify the husband, the father, and the man.
(To be concluded in our next.)
The following two articles are shown as printed, with occasional == (double line) for — (dash).