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50 excelled in all its various branches; her imitations of nature were portrayed with infinite judgement, patience, and skill.

Having paid some appropriate compliments to Oriana on her performance, Sir Howard with an obsequious politeness approached Rosilia, who, by the affability and obligingness of her manners, wishing to make him some amends for the disappointment he had expressed in her so soon retiring with him from the dance the preceding evening, so charmed his attention, that he seemed apparently to forget that any other object was present than herself.

Sir Howard was somewhat low in stature, but of pleasing exterior; his manners, words, and actions were so studiously specious and polished as always to discover a certain finesse: having pretensions to learning, his phrases were ever most correctly appropriate, and his pronunciation exact almost to pedantry; wishing to shine, and to make a figure in the world, no one sported a more elegant equipage; he was not opulent, but he was desirous of being thought so; the love of riches was his ruling passion: ambitious to insinuate himself into the good graces of the wealthy, he lost no opportunity of doing so; nevertheless his heart was ever ready to receive impressions from beauty, and