HILDEBRAND.

NEW WORK, BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Preparing for Publication, in 3 vols. 8vo.,

THE OLD TEMPLE:

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF “HILDEBRAND,”
&c. &c.

“Within the Temple hall we were too loud,
The garden here is more convenient.”

Shakspeare.

LONDON:
JOHN MORTIMER, ADELAIDE STREET,
TRAFALGAR SQUARE.

LONDON: PRINTED BY HENRY RICHARDS,
BRYDGES-STREET, COVENT-GARDEN.

CONTENTS

HILDEBRAND.

CHAPTER I.

Life is subject to certain moral influences, arising from external impressions, which are no less mysterious than its elements and progress. Under the operation of these influences, we are prone to overlook them; and instead of watching their workings, and tracing them through all their wonderful and extensive ramifications, we yield unresisting to their pressure, and, without one interposition of our own will, become the passive agents of their effects.

Allowing the existence and constant presence of an overruling Providence, it is not too much to say, that there is no possible situation in which a man can be placed, in this sublunary world, that he will be wholly incompetent to sustain. There is not one influence, whether exciting or depressing, that the human mind cannot check, although it may be unable, in some instances, to reduce it to complete subjection. It is