26 9 In pursuance of this determination he pro ceeded immediately after breakfast to Jonathan's Coffee-house for the purpose of looking over the Weekly Courant in which the different estates for sale were generally advertised. As he ap., proached the threshold of the house, his eye was accidentally directed to a large board containing printed notices of the sales for the ensuing week, at the very head of which he distinguished the ** word Goldingham in goodly Roman capitals." At sight of this phenomenon he made a dead halt in no small surprise, but as few impressions : were sufficiently vivid to urge him to any unbecoming hurry, he took out his spectacles, wiped them very leisurely with his handkerchief, and fixing his shrewd eye upon the paper, while his lower jaw fell upon his stock, he dis d4; covered that his friend Tibbs the Scrivener had the disposal of -" That truly valuable Free hold Estate, with Mansion-house and Offices, called GOLDINGHAM Place, near Lyme in Dorsetshire, situate in the centre of a Park at a pleasant distance from the sea, environed by two thousand three hundred acres of arable, 1 CONTARE: zing Fan men honest Harry Goldingham. I question, be a lord of the manor, and to bestow his mame upon a mansion in a park. Curious It seemed doubly extraordinary to Isaac, who tion be pasture, meadow, and woodland, divided into o Joe Ebmestall and farms, partly in hand, and partly let upon lease to respectable tenants, in a healthy and beautifully picturesque part of the country, A Asbes arounded by excellent roads.” “ Goldingham Place !–Goldingham Place !" ejaculated the merchant, taking off his spectacles ad replacing them in his shagreen case." I er not that any place in England bore that capitaimppellation, nor that there existed another a det bly of the same name. I remember, indeed, » bave once read in the Mercury, that one Harry Goldingham, who was to represent Arion n a pageant before Queen Elizabeth, finding tis voice to be very hoarse and unpleasant when be came to perform it, tore off his disguise and swore he was none of Arion, not he, but orever , whether this croaking varlet ever came saygh-curious enough:-I must see Jemmy by to 101 he die Free fices Tibhs immediately." ble was always deeply affected by omens and odd coincidences, that he should at such a moment stumble upon a purchase so singularly adapted to perpetuate his name, if he wished to become the founder of a family, as from his large fortune he was well entitled to be. It was true his wife was dead-he had never had any children of his own; and it was somewhat of the latest to think of direct issue. He had a nephew, indeed, of his own name, Basil Goldingham, the only child of a deceased brother; but the youth was a moping, churlish lout,-one to whom Nature had been equally niggardly, not to say unkind, both in respect to his personal and mental qualifications; and having paid a handsome sum to have him received into the house of Sir Godfrey Kneller, that he might learn portrait-painting, the only art for which he seemed to have the smallest capacity, his uncle cared not to see much more of him, and of course never dreamt of making him the heir to his fortune and estate. He had another nephew, however, Reuben Apsley, the son of his only sister, who with her ome ren test in deserved that many of those parvenus who efect the most supreme contempt for all the odd bozband and daughter were supposed to have been heard of since. Reuben, whom he had for alva's intended to adopt as his own son, might 1 same which he could not trace beyond his he grandfather, of whom he had no great reason to . In the family, indeed, there had been may be are the foremost in securing dignities and honours. He was not himself, however, without a cerbin family pride prospectively, for it howwars of ancestry, them for their posterity, by entailing the bulk szi of their property upon an eldest son, and pur- lab chasing mansions and titles for transmission to his descendants, as if determined to constitute the root of a new family-tree, since they cannot attach themselves to any branch of an old one. Certain vague aspirations of this nature began to flit athwart the merchant's mind, as he bent his way to the office of Jemmy Tibbs, whom he fortunately found at home, and with whom he instantly proceeded to business. From his statement it appeared that Goldingham Place belonged to a nobleman whose occasion for money was so urgent, owing heavy losses at play, that he was willing to make a very considerable sacrifice, provided he could have payment in three or four days. Within this short period it was quite impossible to travel into Dorsetshire and back, and it was altogether contrary to Goldingham's habits to make a blind bargain, or buy a pig in a poke, as he expressed himself. Having, huwever, carefully examined the rent-roll, and fully inquired into all the circumstances of the estate, which his friend the |