- tercourse with the most polished societies,
but is more frequently the gift of nature, and, if it be not the constant attendant upon nobility of blood, is very rarely found in those who are not distinguished by that adventitious and accidental circumstance.
Mrs. Seymour had many of the excellent qualities, but none of the rare endowments possessed by the Duchess; she was a strict follower of the paths of custom and authority; in the steps which had been marked by others, she studiously walked, nor thought it allowable to turn aside for any object however praise-*worthy and desirable. She might be said to delight in prejudice—to enjoy herself in the obscure and narrow prison to which she had voluntarily confined her intellects—to look upon the impenetrable walls around her as bulwarks against the hostile attacks by which so many had been overcome. The daughters were strictly trained in the opinions of their mother.
