_Which dismisses the Reader_.





DAMON

AND

DELIA.


PART the FIRST.


CHAPTER I.

_Containing introductory matter_.


The races at Southampton have, for time immemorial, constituted a scene of
rivalship, war, and envy. All the passions incident to the human frame
have here assumed as true a scope, as in the more noisy and more tragical
contentions of statesmen and warriors. Here nature has displayed her most
hidden attractions, and art has furnished out the artillery of beauty.
Here the coquet has surprised, and the love-sick nymph has sapped the
heart of the unwary swain. The scene has been equally sought by the bolder
and more haughty, as by the timid sex. Here the foxhunter has sought a new
subject of his boast in the _nonchalance_ of _dishabille_; the