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The female Quixote; or, The adventures of Arabella
The female Quixote or The adventures of Arabella Author:Charlotte Lennox Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FEMALE QUIXOTE. VOLUME THE FIRST. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Contains a turn at court, neither new nor surprising. Some useless additions to a fine la... more »dy's education. The bad effects of a whimsical study, which, some will say, is borrowed from Cervantes. 1 HE Marquis of , for a long series of years, was the first and most distinguished favourite at court: he held the most honourable employments under the crown, disposed of all places of profit as he pleased, presided at the council, and, in a manner, governed the whole kingdom. This extensive authority could not fail of making him many enemies: he fell at last a sacrifice to the plots they were continually forming against him: and was not only removed from all his employments, but banished the court for ever. The pain his undeserved disgrace gave him, he was enabled to conceal by the natural haughtiness of his temper; and, behaving rather like a man who had resigned than been dismissed from his post, he imagined he triumphed sufficiently over the malice of his enemies, while he seemed to be- wholly insensible of the effects it produced. His secret discontent, however, was so much augmented by the opportunity he now had of observing the baseness and ingratitude of mankind, which in some degree he experienced every day, that he resolved to quit all society whatever, and devote the rest of his life to solitude and privacy. For the place of his retreat, he pitched upon a castle he had in a very remote province of the kingdom, in the neighbourhood of a small village, and several miles distant from any town. The vast extent of ground which surrounded this noble building, he had caused to be laid out in a manner peculiar to his taste : the most laborious endeavours of art had been used to- make it appear like th...« less