scenes of "The Wanderer."

While he was thus cultivating his genius, his father, the Earl
Rivers, was seized with a distemper, which in a short time put an
end to his life. He had frequently inquired after his son, and had
always been amused with fallacious and evasive answers; but being
now in his own opinion on his death-bed, he thought it his duty to
provide for him among his other natural children, and therefore
demanded a positive account of him, with an importunity not to be
diverted or denied. His mother, who could no longer refuse an
answer, determined at least to give such as should cut him off for
ever from that happiness which competence affords, and therefore
declared that he was dead; which is perhaps the first instance of a
lie invented by a mother to deprive her son of a provision which was
designed him by another, and which she could not expect herself,
though he should lose it. This was therefore an act of wickedness
which could not be defeated, because it could not be suspected; the
earl did not imagine that there could exist in a human form a mother
that would ruin her son without enriching herself, and therefore
bestowed upon some other person six thousand pounds which he had in
his will bequeathed to Savage.

The same cruelty which incited his mother to intercept this
provision which had been intended him, prompted her in a short time
to another project, a project worthy of such a disposition. She
endeavoured to rid herself from the danger of being at any time made
known to him, by sending him secretly to the American Plantations.
By whose kindness this scheme was counteracted, or by whose
interposition she was induced to lay aside her design, I know not;
it is not improbable that the Lady Mason might persuade or compel