Landscape with Figures.-Elizabeth suites of other apartments under vaMarchioness of Stafford. MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S BED-ROOM. A School.-Barney. rious denominations, containing a variety of capital portraits. Among them will be found works of the following masters: Jansen, Sir Peter The Holiday Feast.-Miss M. Spils- Lely, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hogarth, bury. Danaë, after Titian. Christ.-Craig. A young Man. Phillips, Edridge, Downman, and some by Angelica Kauffman. Attached to the back of the man A View of the New Gallery, Cleve- sion is the parish church, the vaults land-House.-J. C. Smith. Heraclitus.-Spagnoletto. Portrait of Sir Archibald Macdonald. THE STAIRCASE CONTAINS A fine Holy Family.-Rubens. The Holy Family.-Venetian School. A Hunting Piece, containing Portraits of the Earl of Cardigan and John Earl of Gower.-Wootton. This staircase leads to a series of bed-rooms and dressing-rooms, with A of which and the burial-ground are from the high-road, from which our THE NOVICIATE. GREAT BRITAIN has been called ||quent years of her life. Perhaps he the Paradise of Woman; and compared to other times and other regions, our isle in the 19th century is indeed a land of bliss for the gentler sex. There will indeed not unfrequently be found among us a father impenetrable to the arts of a handsome dashing fortune-hunter, and resolutely obdurate to the tearful, elegantly sentimental woe of an inexperienced girl; while he insists that a honey-moon of rapture affords no adequate compensation for the sacrifice of happiness in all the subse is even so sordid and ungracious as to recommend a suitor endowed with no higher attractions than sound morals, sound sense, established character, respectable birth, liberal education, and unincumbered estates. There may be brothers so quizzically particular as to discourage levity in their sisters, however freely they amuse themselves with the frivolous allurements of coquettes, to whose welfare they are regardless. Nor is it incredible that in our day there are guardians unremittingly vigilant to guise, not to amend their failings. In our day, thanks to the progress of intellectual improvement, the inclinations or demeanour of young women undergo no constraint, which a virtuous and honourable mind would not voluntarily assign to itself; and therefore the lovelier counterpart of man is the companion of his erect principles and cultivated understands ing. extend to their wards all the restraints decrees of fashion, and the arbitrary derived from parental superintend-requisitions of fashion will be obeyed ence. Yet let our modern belle im- to the letter, if not always to the partially compare her own exemp- spirit. Many young ladies lost their tion from oppression with the thral- health through inanition, which indom imposed upon young women in duced some mothers, less rigid than other countries, or in Britain previous their contemporaries, to connive at to the 17th century, and she must satisfying their daughters' appetite dearly prize her own immunities. In in secret. But how execrable a systhe days of our ancestors the male tem of tyranny on the one hand, and population often shed their dearest deceit on the other, prevailed over blood in the cause of liberty; but the parent and child! They were liberty was denied to the weaker sex. strangers to each other, though dwelDaughters were subjected to the ling under the same roof; and chilmost severe and unrelaxing controul;dren were trained to conceal or disthey were never allowed to sit in presence of their father or mother; they never spoke unless timidly to answer a question, or on their knees to crave pardon for some involuntary offence, which now would scarcely incur an angry rebuke, but which then was visited with the harshest invective and pitiless.castigation. Fans with a very long handle formed a necessary appendage of dress for the superior orders, and these were employed to punish their daughters. The lower classes used walking-sticks for the same purpose; and though grown up, and of the highest rank, they were daily liable to manual discipline. Girls of all stations had a certain task of needle-work to perform, and be assured they were early at this occupation; their bower or bed-chamber was directly over the apartment of their parents. Young females were besides expected to subsist, cameleon-like, on atmospheric nutriment. To eat so much as to us should seem a very slender repast for the most delicate fine lady would have been condemned as an act of vulgarity, that must be expiated by corporal chastenings and floods of weeping penitentials. Such were the In the Repository for January 1823, and succeeding Numbers, were inserted several sketches of the con dition to which woman has been reduced in Asia, Africa, America, and some kingdoms of Europe. We are now slightly to depict the state in which our great-grandmothers and their fair progenitors passed their monotonous and sometimes woful youth. In warlike spirit, and in multiplied years, Gavin Douglas, Lord of Bal veny, was the Henry Dandolo of Scotland. The Doge of Venice took Constantinople in his ninety-seventh year, and died a few months after this victory, which was principally achieved by his valour, for he was among the first who rushed within the walls of the city. The Lord of marriage predominated in his soul. His daughter had been many years the wife of Lord Glammis; his sons were estranged from him by political variance. They seldom came to Balveny Castle, except for a few days during the hunting season; but should they obtain a sight of Wilmina, her charms would engage their frequent return. They were, he believed, too ambitious to think of an alliance with a portionless girl: however, Sholto was a passionate admirer of female beauty; and Sylvester, the beloved offspring of his latter years, was universally admired by the fair Wilmina's happiness, perhaps Balveny was almost a year older than Henry Dandolo when he fell manfully wielding his sword to suppress a feud, which threatened to lay the south of Scotland in blood and devastation. He had seen more than seventy winters before the demise of Lady Home left her daughter unprotected; as, by the attainder of Lord Home, she was bereaved of fortune and friends. Lord Balveny had been the guardian of Home's minority, and did not forsake him, though he acted in opposition to the counsels that guided his youth in honour and prosperity, and ruin ensued from his temerity and violence.sex. His offences were flagrant. Sentence her reputation, was at hazard, and of banishment could not be averted he who received her in trust from a by all Lord Balveny's influence; he dying mother was bound to preserve could only assist the exile with his her from all possible dangers: he purse, and furnish Lady Home with should and he would make her his an establishment properly adjusted bride. Thus pondered the good lord to her rank and circumstances. On of Balveny; and, like most men, he her deathbed, Lady Home com- was easily convinced, that reason and mitted Wilmina to his paternal care, duty sanctioned the indulgence of a and Lord Balveny engaged a matron fond inclination. of good family to reside in his castle with the beautiful orphan. Her pen-pect the offer of his hand, nor was sive loveliness might have softened and warmed the feelings of a heart less generous and susceptible than the heart of her noble guardian; and when she recovered her usual flow of spirits, her vivacity was so amusing, so tempered by grateful affiance and respectful assiduity in attending to the kind and polite advices he bestowed on her, that he soon felt it a sacrifice to leave his castle on the most urgent business. He became impatient for the time when at morn he could with due decorum enter the bower allotted for Wilmina and her grave companion; and spring had not chased away the grim aspect of winter, ere the idea of a second His behaviour led Wilmina to ex the prospect repugnant to her wishes, since a taste for magnificence had grown with her growth. Her infantine imagination had been powerfully excited by descriptions of the grandeur maintained by her grandsire Lindsay, Duke of Montrose; and as Lady Balveny, she could enjoy the gorgeous distinctions that in early life pertained to her mother. Yet another image rose in vivid portraiture to her memory: a tall graceful youth, with brilliant dark eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a most fascinating smile, threw personal vanity and feudal pride into the shade; and her struggles to forget him only recalled more circumstantially the impression of |