HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1855. 249. c. 372. THE WIFE'S TRIALS. CHAPTER I. "Should I another love, then must I have Another heart, for this is full of her, And evermore shall be: here is she drawn At length, and whole Hymen's Triumph. SEABROOKE PRIORY, the principal theatre of our tale, had, as the name indicates, originally formed part of an extensive property belonging to the Romish Church. In the reign of Henry the Eighth it was cut, and carved, and distributed as best suited the views of that libel on kings; and while its hundreds of acres were shared among those who best abetted him in his tyrannic sway, the Priory itself, and the YOL. L rich lands in its immediate vicinity, were bestowed on the especial favourite of the day, or rather hour, caprice being as much the characteristic of this monstrous blot on history's page as cruelty. Through the hands of various masters did this fair specimen of nature and art successively pass now belonging to a Papist, when matins and vespers rang out, and other ceremonies of popery prevailed-now owning the rule of a Protestant courtier, till the civil wars threw all into confusion, and the stern, uncompromising Independent, denouncing all who differed in opinion from him, as tares fit only for the burning, seized upon Seabrooke as one of the strong-holds of the scarlet abomination, or the scarcely less hateful prelatic schism, and confiscated it to the uses of the state. Afterwards came the Restoration; when, sadly shorn of its fields and pastures, its sweep of rising ground to the east, and its river to the west, it fell into the hands of a parasite of that court, whose profligacy and infamy were the disgrace of the nation which permitted them. Again and again, and each time more speedily, did it change owners, and at every change, like the bottle containing the imp, fetch less; till, when the South Sea bubble was nearly at its height, one who had specu lated fortunately, was equally fortunate in realizing before the explosion occurred; and thrice fortunate in escaping the disgorging process, which fell with ruinous effect on so many,-purchased all that remained of the Seabrooke estate for a sum which furnished its late possessor with funds for discharging a so-called debt of honour. "Cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," as were the limits of this once almost regal property, so eminently beautiful was the situation, that had it been converted into some huge and tallchimneyed factory town, its natural attractions. could scarcely have been defaced; while a fair stream, which soon swelled almost to a river, flowing through land that richly repaid the tiller's toil, seemed to defy alike distribution or disfigurement. All around was beauty and fertility, proving that if the world-denying monk knew how to select his residence so as best to draw tribute from wood, earth, and water, he looked at scenery with the eye of the painter, and often with the feeling of the poet. The Priory, though still so called, was no more the Priory of past generations than if it had actually been razed to its foundations and rebuilt-for, except the foundations, few traces of its original arrangement were left-passages along which many a holy man had glided with |