THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF Ada Nisbet ENGLISH READING ROOM 17 1986 V DEVEREUX. A TALE SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART. ' He that knows most men's manners, must of necessity Best know his own. and mend those by example. . . . . Pure and strong spirits Do, like the fire, still covet to fly upward." The Queen of Corinth, Act 2, Seftrt A. NEW YORK THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 31 EAST i7TH ST. (UNION SQUARE) THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, EAHWAV, K. i. CONTENTS. BOOK I. PAGE CHAP. I. Of the Hero's Birth and Parentage. Nothing can differ more from the End of things than their beginning - - - 1 1 CHAP. II. A Family Consultation. A Priest, and an JEr& in Life 15 CHAP. III. A Change in Conduct and in Character our evil Passions will sometimes produce good Effects ; and, on the contrary, an Alteration for the better in Manners will, not unfrequently, have amongst its Causes a little Corruption of Mind ; for the Feelings are so blended, that in suppressing those disagreeable to others, we often suppress those which are amiable in themselves - 19 CHAP. IV. A Contest of Art, and a League of Friendship Two Characters in mutual Ignorance of each other, and the reader no wiser than either of them -------- 27 CHAP. V. Royal Hospitality an extraordinary Guest. A Fine Gentleman is not necessarily a Fool 32 CHAP. VI. A Dialogue, which might be dull if it were longer - 36 CHAP. VII. A change of Prospects a new insight into the character of the Hero a Conference between two Brothers - - - 39 CHAP. VIII. First Love - - - - - - 44 CHAP. IX. A Discovery, and a Departure 54 CHAP. X. A very short Chapter containing a Valet 60 CHAP. XI. The Hero acquits himself honorably as a Coxcomb a Fine Lady of the Eighteenth Century, and a fashionable Dia- logue the Substance of fashionable Dialogue being in all Cen- turies the same -6: CHAP. XII. The Abbe's return a Sword, and a Soliloquy - - 67 CHAP. XIII. A mysterious Letter a Duel the Departure of one of the Family - - - - - - - - -69 CHAP. XIV. Being a Chapter of Trifles 78 CHAP. XV. The Mother and Son Virtue should be the Sovereign of the Feelings, not their Destroyer .... - 80 iU Jy CONTENTS. BOOK II. PAGB CHAP. I. The Hero in London Pleasure is often the shortest, as it is the earliest road to Wisdom, and we may say of the World what Zeal-of-the-Land-Busy says of the Pig- Booth, "We escape so much of the other vanities by pur early entering " - - - 84 CHAP. II. Gay Scenes and Conversations: the New Exchange and the Puppet Show: The Actor, the Sexton, and the Beauty - 88 CHAP. III. More Lions 93 CHAP. IV. An Intellectual Adventure 97 CHAP. V. The Beau in his Den, and a Philosopher discovered - 99 CHAP. VI. An Universal Genius Pericles turned Barber Names of Beauties in 171 the Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club - - ' - 107 CHAP. VII. A Dialogue of Sentiment succeeded by the Sketch of a Character, in whose eyes Sentiment was to Wise Men what Re- ligion is to Fools, viz. a subject of ridicule in CHAP. VIII. Lightly won lightly lost. ; A Dialogue of equal In- struction and Amusement. A Visit to Sir Godfrey Kneller - 116 CHAP. IX. A Development of Character, and a long Letter a Chap- ter, on the whole, more important than it seems ... 120 CHAP. X. Being a short Chapter, containing a most important Event 129 CHAP. XI. Containing more than any other Chapter in the Second Book of this History - - - - 133 BOOK III. CHAP. I. Wherein the History makes great Progress and is marked by 6ne important Event in Human Life 149 CHAP. II. Love Parting a Death Bed. After all Human Nature is a beautiful Fabric ; and even its Imperfections are not odious to him who has studied the Science of its Architecture, and formed a reverent Estimate of its Creator .... - 160 CHAP. III. A great Change of Prospects 168 CHAP. IV. An Episode The Son of the Greatest Man who (one only excepted) ever rose to a Throne, but by no means of the Greatest Man (save one) who ever existed - - - - - - - i?3 CHAP. V. In which the Hero shows decision on more points than one More of Isora's character is developed 181 CHAP. VI. An Unexpected Meeting Conjecture and Anticipation 191 VII. The Events of a Single Night Moments make the Hues in which Years are colored - - - . . .. -194 CONTENTS. V BOOK IV. PAGE CHAP. I. A Re-entrance into Life through the Ebon Gate Affliction 205 CHAP. II. Ambitious Projects - 210 CHAP. III. The real Actors Spectators of the false ones - - 218 CHAP. IV. Paris A Female Politician, and an Ecclesiastical one Sundry other Matters - ....... 220 CHAP. V. A Meeting of Wits Conversation gone out to Supper in her Dress of Velvet and Jewels - 226 CHAP. VI. A Court, Courtiers, and a King ----- 235 CHAP. VII. Reflections A Soiree The appearance of one important in the History A Conversation with Madame de Balzac highly satisfactory and cheering A Rencontre with a curious old Soldier The extinction of a once great Luminary . . . 246 CHAP. VIII. In which there is reason to fear that Princes are not in- variably free from Human Peccadillos 260 CHAP. IX. A Prince an Audience and a Secret Embassy - - 264 CHAP. X. Royal Exertions for the good of the People ... 271 CHAP. XI. An Interview 276 BOOK V. CHAP. I. A Portrait 279 CHAP. II. The entrance into Petersburgh a Rencontre with an inquisi- tive and mysterious Stranger Nothing like Travel - - - 284 CHAP. III. The Czar the Czarina a Feast at a Russian Nobleman's 289 CHAP. IV. Conversation with the Czar if Cromwell was the greatest man (Caesar excepted) who ever rose to the Supreme Power, Peter was the greatest man ever born to it 293 CHAP. V. Return to Paris Interview with B -lingbroke A gallant . Adventure Affair with Dubois Public Life is a Drama, in which private Vices generally play the part of the scene-shifters 298 CHAP. VI. A long Interval of Years a Change of Mind and its Causes .---. 308 VI CONTENTS. BOOK VI. PAGE CHAP. I. The Retreat 3*8 CHAP. II. The Victory 322 CHAP. III. The Hermit of the Well - 325 CHAP. IV. The Solution of Many Mysteries a dark View of the Life and Nature of Man 336 CHAP. V. In which the History makes a great Stride towards the final Catastrophe the Return to England, and the Visit to a Devotee - 368 CHAP. VI. The Retreat of a celebrated Man, and a Visit to a great Poet - - 375 CHAP. VII. The Plot approaches its Denouement .... 385 CHAP. VIII. The Catastrophe - - - - - - -401 DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO JOHN AULDJO, ESQ., &c. AT NAPLES. London. MY DEAR AULDJO : Permit me, as a memento of the pleasant hours we passed together, and the intimacy we formed, by the winding shores and the rosy seas of the old Parthe- nope, to dedicate to you this romance. It was written in, perhaps, the happiest period of my literary life when success began to brighten upon my labors, and it seemed to me a fine thing to make a name. Reputation, like all possessions, fairer in the hope than in the reality, shone before me, in the gloss of novelty and I had neither felt the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor (worse than all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that something between the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whose writings become known sur- rendering the grateful privacies of life to The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day. In short yet almost a boy (for, in years at least, I was little more, when "Pelham" and "The Disowned" were conceived and composed), and full of the sanguine arrogance of hope, I pictured to myself far greater triumphs lhan it will ever be mine to achieve : and never did architect of dreams build his pyra- mid upon (alas !) a narrower base, or a more crumbling soil ! . . . . Time cures us effectually of these self-conceits, and brings us, somewhat harshly, from the gay extravagance of confounding the much that we design with the little that we can accomplish. ' ' The Disowned " and ' ' Devereux " were both completed in retirement and in the midst of metaphysical studies and investigations, varied and miscellaneous enough, if not very deeply conned. At that time I was indeed engaged in pre- paring for the press a Philosophical Work, which I had afterwards the good sense to postpone to a riper age and a more sobered mind. But the effect of these studies is somewhat prejudicially visible in both the romances I have referred to ; and the external and dramatic colorings which belong to fiction are too often for- saken for the inward and subtle analysis of motives, characters, and actions. The workman was not sufficiently master of his art to forbear the vanity of parading the wheels of the mechanism, and was too fond of calling attention to the minute and tedious operations by which the movements were to be performed, and the result obtained. I believe that an author is generally pleased with his work, less in proportion as it fulfils the idea with which he commenced it. He is rarely, perhaps, an accurate judge how far the execution is in itself faulty or meri- torious but he judges with tolerable success how far it accomplishes the end and objects of the conception. He is pleased with his work, in short, according as he can say, "This has expressed what I meant to convey." But the reader, who is not in the secret of the author's original design, usually views the work through a different medium and is perhaps, in this, the wiser critic of the two ; for the Book that wanders the most from the idea which originated it, may often be better than that which is rigidly limited to the unfolding and denouement of a single conception. If we accept this solution, we may be enabled to understand why an author not unfrequently makes favorites of some of his productions most con- demned by the public. For my own part, I remember that " Devereux" pleased me better than "Pelham" or "The Disowned," because the execution more exactly corresponded with the design. It expressed with tolerable fidelity what I IV DEDICATORY EPISTLE. meant it to express. That was a happy age, my dear Auldjo, when, on finishing; a work, we could feel contented with our labor, and fancy we had done our best ! Now, alas ! I have learned enough of the wonders of the Art to recognize all the deficiencies of the Disciple ; and to know that no author, worth the reading can ever in one single work do half of which he is capable. What man ever wrote anything really good, who did not feel that he had the ability to write something better ? Writing, after all, is a cold and a coarse inter- preter of thought. How much of the imagination how much of the intellect, evaporates and is lost while we seek to embody it in words ! Man made language, and God the genius. Nothing short of an eternity could enable men who imagine, think, and feel, to express all they have imagined, thought, and felt. Immortality, the spiritual desire, is the intellectual necessity. In "Devereux," I wished to portray a man flourishing in the last century, with the train of mind and sentiment peculiar to the present ; describing a life, and not its dramatic epitome, the historical characters introduced are not closely woven with the main plot, like those in the fictions of Sir Walter Scott but are rather, like the narrative romances of an earlier school, designed to relieve the predominant interest, and give a greater air of truth and actuality to the sup- posed memoir. It is a fiction which deals less with the Picturesque than the Real. Of the principal character thus introduced (the celebrated and graceful, but charlatanic, Bolingbroke) I still think that my sketch, upon the whole, is sub- stantially just. We must not judge of the politicians of one age by the lights of another. Happily we now demand in a statesman a desire for other aims than his own advancement ; but, at that period, ambition was almost universally selfish the Statesman was yet a Courtier a man whose very destiny it was to in- trigue, to plot, to glitter, to deceive. It is in proportion as politics have ceased to be a secret science in proportion as courts are less to be flattered, and tools to be managed, that politicians have become useful and honest men : and the statesman now directs a people, where once he outwitted an antechamber. Compare Boling- broke not with the men and by the rules of this day but with the men and by the rules of the last. He will lose nothing in comparison with a Walpole, with a Marlborough on the one side with an Oxford or a Swift upon the other. And now, my dear Auldjo you have had enough of my egotisms. As our works grow up like old parents, we grow garrulous, and love to recur to the happier days of their childhood ; we talk over the pleasant pain they cost us in their rearing and memory renews the season of dreams and hopes ; we speak of their faults as of things past of their merits as of things enduring : we are proud to see them still living, and, after many a harsh ordeal and rude assault, keeping a certain station in the world ; we hoped perhaps something better for them in their cradle but, as it is, we have good cause to be contented. You, a fellow-author, and one whose spirited and charming sketches embody so much of personal adventure, and therefore so much connect themselves with associations of real life as well as of the studious closet ; you know, and roust feel, with me, that these our books are a part of us, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ! They treasure up the thoughts which stirred us the affections which warmed us, years ago they are the mirrors of how much of what we were ! To the world, they are but as a certain number of pages good or bad tedious or diverting; but to ourselves, the authors, they are as marks in the wild maze of life by which we can retrace our steps and be with our youth again. What would I not give to feel as I felt to hope as I hoped to believe as I believed when this work was first launched upon the world ! But time gives, while it takes away and, amongst its recompenses for many losses, are the memories I referred to in com- mencing this letter, and gratefully revert to at its close. From the land of cloud and the life of toil, I turn to that golden clime and the happy indolence that so well accords with it and hope once more, ere I die, with a companion whose knowledge can recall the past, and whose gayety can enliven the present, to visit the Disburied City of Pompeii and see the moonlight sparkle over the waves of, Naples. Adieu, my dear Auldjo, And believe me Your obliged and attached friend, E. B. LYTTON. DEVEREUX. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Of the Hero's Birth and Parentage. Nothing can Differ more from the End of Things than their Beginning. MY grandfather, Sir Arthur Devereux (peace be with his ashes !) was a noble old knight and cavalier, possessed of a property sufficiently large to have maintained in full dignity half a dozen peers such as peers have been since the days of the First James. Nevertheless, my grandfather loved the equestrian order better than the patrician, rejected all offers of advancement, and left his posterity no titles but those to his estate. Sir Arthur had two children by wedlock both sons : at his death, my father, the youager, bade adieu to the old hall and his only brother, prayed to the grim portraits of his ancestors to inspire him, and set out to join as a volunteer the armies of that Louis, afterwards surnamed le grand. Of him I shall say but little ; the life of a soldier has only two events worth recording, his first campaign and his last. My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II. He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by Etherege, and took a wife recom- mended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honor of the house, my uncle shared the fate of Plimneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring he ever had (that is to say, the child and 12 UEVEREUX. the play), "died as soon as they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss what to do with his wife that remaining treasure, whose readiness to oblige him had been so miracu- lously evinced. She saved him the trouble of long cogitation an exercise of intellect to which he was never too ardently inclined. There was a gentleman of the court, celebrated for his sedateness and solemnity ; my aunt was piqued into emu- lating Orpheus, and, six weeks after her confinement, she put this rock into motion they eloped. Poor gentleman ! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to trangress the very slowest of all possible walks to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the same week : scarcely had he recovered the shock of being run away with by my aunt, before, terminating for ever his vagrancies, he was run through by my uncle. The wits made an epigram upon the event, and my uncle, who was as bold as a lion at the point of a sword, was, to speak frankly, terribly disconcerted by the point of a jest. He retired to the country in a fit of disgust and gout. Here his natural goodness soon recovered the effects of the artificial atmosphere to which it had been exposed, and he solaced himself by righteously governing domains worthy of a prince, for the mortifications he had experienced in the dishonorable career of a courtier. Hitherto I have spoken somewhat slightingly of my uncle, and in his dissipation he deserved it, for lie was both too honest and too simple to shine in that galaxy of prostituted genius of which Charles II. was the centre. But in retirement he was no longer the same person ; and I do not think that the elements of human nature could have furnished forth a more amiable character than Sir William Devereux presiding at Christinas over the merriment of his great hall. Good old man ! his very defects were what we loved best in him vanity was so mingled with good nature that it became graceful, and we reverenced one the most, while we most smiled at the other. One peculiarity had he, which the age he had lived in and his domestic history rendered natural enough, viz., an exceed- ing distaste to the matrimonial state : early marriages were misery, imprudent marriages idiotism, and marriage, at the best, he was wont to say, with a kindling eye and a heightened color, marriage at the best was the devil ! Yet it must not be supposed that Sir William Devereux was an ungallant man On the contrary, never did the beau sexe have a humbler or more devoted servant. As nothing in his estimation was less DEVEREUX. 13 becoming to a wise man than matrimony, so nothing was more ornamental than flirtation. He had the old man's weakness, garrulity ; and he told the wittiest stories in the world, without omitting anything in them but the point. This omission did not arise from the want either of memory or humor ; but solely from a deficiency in the malice natural to all jesters. He could not persuade his lips to repeat a sarcasm hurting even the dead or the ungrate- ful ; and when he came to the drop of gall which should have given zest to the story, the milk of human kindness broke its barrier, despite of himself and washed it away. He was a fine wreck, a little prematurely broken by dissipation, but not perhaps the less interesting on that account ; tall, and some- what of the jovial old English girth, with a face where good nature and good living mingled their smiles and glow. He wore the garb of twenty years back, and was curiously particular in the choice of his silk stockings. Between you and me, he was not a little vain of his leg, and a compliment on that score was always sure of a gracious reception. The solitude of my uncle's household was broken by an invasion of three boys none of the quietest ; and their mother, who, the gentlest and saddest of womankind, seemed to follow them, the emblem of that primeval Silence from which all noise was born. These three boys were my two brothers and myself. My father, who had conceived a strong personal attachment for Louis Quatorze, never quitted his service, and the great King repaid him by orders and favors without number ; he died of wounds received in battle a Count and a Marshal, full of renown, and destitute of money. He had married twice : his first wife, who died without issue, was a daughter of the noble house of La Tremouille his second, our mother, was of a younger branch of the English race of Howard. Brought up in her native country, and influenced by a primitive and retired education, she never loved that gay land which her husband had adopted as his own. Upon his death, she hastened her return to England, and refusing, with somewhat of honorable pride, the magnificent pension which Louis wished to settle upon the widow of his favorite, came to throw herself and her children upon those affections which she knew they were entitled to claim. My uncle was unaffectedly rejoiced to receive us. To say nothing of his love for my father, and his pride at the honors the latter had won to their ancient house the good gentleman was very well pleased with the idea of obtaining four new lis<- 14 DEVEREUX. teners, out of whom he might select an heir, and he soon grew as fond of us as we were of him. At the time of our new set- tlement, I had attained the age of twelve; my second brother (we were twins) was born an hour after me; my third was about fifteen months younger. I had never been the favorite of the three. In the first place, my brothers (the youngest especially) were uncommonly handsome, and, at most, I was but tolerably good-looking ; in the second place, my mind was considered as much inferior to theirs as my body I was idle and dull, sullen and haughty the only wit 1 ever displayed was in sneering at my friends/and the only spirit, in quarrelling with my twin brother ; so said or so thought all who saw us in our childhood; and it follows, therefore, that I was either very unamiable or very much misunderstood. But, to the astonishment of myself and my relations, my fate was now to be reversed, and I was no sooner settled at Devereux Court, than I became evidently the object of Sir William's pre- eminent attachment. The fact was, that I really liked both the knight and his stories better than my brothers did ; and the very first time I had seen my uncle, I had commented on the beauty of his stocking, and envied the constitution of his leg ; from such trifles spring affection ! In truth, our attachment to each other so increased that we grew to be constantly together; and while my childish anticipations of the world made me love to listen to stories of courts and courtiers, my uncle returned the compliment, by declaring of my wit, as the angler declared of the River Lea, that one would find enough in it, if one would but angle sufficiently long. Nor was this all ; my uncle and myself were exceedingly like the waters of Alpheus and Arethusa nothing was thrown into the one without being seen very shortly afterwards floating upon the other. Every witticism or legend Sir William imparted to me (and some, to say truth, were a little tinged with the licen- tiousness of the times he had lived in), I took the first oppor- tunity of retailing, whatever might be the audience ; and few boys, at the age of thirteen, can boast of having so often as my- self excited the laughter of the men and the blushes of the women. This circumstance, while it aggravated my own van- ity, delighted my uncle's ; and as I was always getting into scrapes on his account, so he was perpetually bound, by duty, to defend me from the charges of which he was the cause. No man defends another long without loving him the better for it; and perhaps Sir William Devereux and his eldest nephew were the only allies in the world who had no jealousy of each other. DEVEREUX. 15 CHAPTER II. A Family Consultation. A Priest, and an Era in Life. "You are ruining the children, my dear Sir William," said my gentle mother, one day, when I had been particularly witty, "and the Abbe Montreuil declares it absolutely necessary that they should go to school." " To school !" said my uncle, who was caressing his right leg, as it lay over his left knee " to school, Madam ! you are jok- ing. What for, pray ? " " Instruction, my dear Sir William," replied my mother. " Ah, ah ; I forgot that ; true, true ! " said my uncle despond- ingly, and there was a pause. My mother counted her rosary; my uncle sank into a reverie ; my twin brother pinched my leg under the table, to which I replied by a silent kick : and my youngest fixed his large, dark, speaking eyes upon a picture of the Holy Family, which hung opposite to him. My uncle broke silence ; he did it with a start. " Od's fish, Madam," (my uncle dressed his oaths, like him- self, a little after the example of Charles II.) " od's fish, Madam. I have thought of a better plan than that ; they shall have in- struction without going to school for it." " And how, Sir William ? " " I will instruct them myself, Madam," and Sir William slapped the calf of the leg he was caressing. My mother smiled. " Ay, Madam, you may smile ; but I and my Lord Dorset were the best scholars of the age ; you shall read my play." "Do, mother," said I, "read the play. Shall I tell her some of the jests in it, uncle?" My mother shook her head in anticipative horror, and raised her finger reprovingly. My uncle said nothing, but winked at me ; I understood the signal, and was about to begin, when the door opened, and the Abbe Montreuil entered. My uncle re- leased his right leg, and my jest was cut off. Nobody ever in- spired a more dim, religious awe than the Abbe Montreuil. The priest entered with a smile. My mother hailed the entrance of an ally. "Father," said she, rising, "I have just represented to my good brother the necessity of sending my sons to school ; he has proposed an alternative w'hich I will leave you to discuss with him." l<5 DEVEREUX. " And what is it ? " said Montreuil, sliding into a chair, and patting Gerald's head with a benignant air. " To educate them himself," answered my mother, with a sort of satirical gravity. My uncle moved uneasily in his seat, as if, for the first time, he saw something ridiculous in the proposal. The smile, immediately fading from the thin lips of the priest, gave way to an expression of respectful approbation. "An ad- mirable plan," said he slowly, " but liable to some little excep- tions, which Sir William will allow me to point out." My mother called to us, and we left the room with her. The next time we saw my uncle, the priest's reasonings had pre- vailed. The following week we all three went to school. My father had been a Catholic, my mother was of the same creed, and consequently we were brought up in that unpopular faith. But my uncle, whose religion had been sadly undermined at court, was a terrible caviller at the holy mysteries of Catholicism ; and while his friends termed him a Protestant, his enemies hinted, falsely enough, that he was a sceptic. When Montreuil first followed us to Devereux Court, many and bitter were the little jests my worthy uncle had provided for his reception ; and he would shake his head with a notable archness whenever he heard our reverential description of the expected guest. But, some- how or other, no sooner had he seen the priest, than all his purposed railleries deserted him. Not a single witticism came to his assistance, and the calm, smooth face of the ecclesiastic seemed to operate upon the fierce resolves of the facetious knight in the same manner as the human eye is supposed to awe into impotence the malignant intentions of the ignobler animals. Yet nothing could be blander than the demeanor of the Abbe Montreuil nothing more worldly, in their urbanity, than his manner and address. His garb was as little clerical as possible, his conversation rather familiar than formal, and he invariably listened to every syllable the good knight uttered, with a coun- tenance and mien of the most attentive respect. What then was the charm by which this singular man never failed to obtain an ascendancy, in some measure allied with fear, over all in whose company he was thrown ? That was a secret my uncle never could solve, and which, only in later life, I myself was able to discover. It was partly by the magic of an extraordinary and powerful mind, partly by an expression of manner, if I may use such a phrase, that seemed to sneer most, when most it affected to respect ; and partly by an air like that of a man never exactly at his ease ; not that he was shy, or un- graceful, or even taciturn no! it was an indescribable er- DEVEREUX. 17 batrassnlent, resembling that of one playing a part, familiar to him, indeed, but somewhat distasteful. This embarrassment, however, was sufficient to be contagious, and to confuse that dignity in others which, strangely enough, never forsook himself. He was of low origin, but his address and appearance did not betray his birth. Pride suited his mien better than famil- iarity and his countenance, rigid, thoughtful, and cold, even through smiles, in expression was strikingly commanding. In person, he was slightly above the middle standard ; and had not the texture of his frame been remarkably hard, wiry, and muscular, the total absence of all superfluous flesh would have given the lean gauntness of his figure an appearance of almost spectral emaciation. In reality, his age did not exceed twenty- eight years ; but his high, broad forehead was already so marked with line and furrow, his hair was so staid and quiet, his figure so destitute of the roundness and elasticity of youth, that his appearance always impressed the beholder with the involuntary idea of a man more considerably advanced in life. Abstemi- ous to habitual penance, and regular to mechanical exactness in his frequent and severe devotions, he was as little inwardly ad- dicted to the pleasures and pursuits of youth, as he was exter- nally possessed of its freshness and its bloom. Nor was gravity with him that unmeaning veil to imbecility, which Rochefoucauld has so happily called " the mystery of the body." The variety and depth of his learning fully sus- tained the respect which his demeanor insensibly created. To say nothing of his lore in the dead tongues, he possessed a knowledge of the principal European languages besides his own, viz., English, Italian, German, and Spanish, not less accurate and little less fluent than that of a native ; and he had not only gained the key to these various coffers of intellectual wealth, but he had also possessed himself of their treasures. He had been educated at St. Omer ; and, young as he was, he had al- ready acquired no inconsiderable reputation among his brethren of that illustrous and celebrated Order of Jesus which has pro- duced some of the worst and some of the best men that the Christian world has ever known which has, in its successful zeal for knowledge, and the circulation of mental light, be- queathed a vast depth of gratitude to posterity ; but which, un- happily encouraging certain scholastic doctrines, that by a mind at once subtle and vicious can be easily perverted into the sanction of the most dangerous and systematized immorality, has already drawn upon its professors an almost universal odium. So highly established was the good name of Montrcuil that l8 I)EVEREUX. when, three years prior to the time of which I now speak, he had been elected to the office he held in our family, it was scarcely deemed a less fortunate occurrence for us to gain so learned and so pious a preceptor, than it was for him to acquire a situa- tion of such trust and confidence in the household of a Marshal of France, and the special favorite of Louis XIV. It was pleasant enough to mark the gradual ascendancy he gained over my uncle ; and the timorous dislike which the good knight entertained for him, yet struggled to conceal. Per- haps that was the only time in his life in which Sir William Devereux was a hypocrite. Enough of the priest at present I return to his charge. To school we went ; our parting with our uncle was quite pathetic mine in especial. "Harkye, Sir Count," whispered he (I bore my father's title), " harkye, don't mind what the old priest tells you ; your real man of wit never wants the musty lessons of schools in order to make a figure in the world. Don't cramp your genius, my boy ; read over my play, and honest George Etherege's ' Man of Mode '; they'll keep your spirits alive, after dozing over these old pages which Homer (good soul!) dozed over before. God bless you, .my child write to me no one, not even your mother, shall see your letters and and be sure, my fine fellow, that you don't fag too hard. The glass of life is the best book and one's natural wit the only diamond that can write legibly on it." Such were my uncle's parting admonitions ; it must be con- fessed that, coupled with the dramatic gifts alluded to, they were likely to be of infinite service to the debutant for academ- ical honors. In fact, Sir William Devereux was deeply im- pregnated with the notion of his time, that ability and inspira- tion were the same thing, and that, unless you were thoroughly idle, you could not be thoroughly a genius. I verily believe that he thought wisdom got its gems, as Abu Zeid al Hassan* declares some Chinese philosophers thought oysters got their pearls viz., by gaping! * In his Commentary on the account of China by two Travellers. t)EVEREUX. CHAPTER III. A Change in Conduct and in Character Our evil Passions will sometimes produce good Effects ; and, on the contrary, an Alteration for the better in Manners will, not unfrequently, have amongst its Causes a little Cor- ruption of Mind ; for the Feelings are so blended, that in suppressing those disagreeable to others, we often suppress those which are amiable in themselves. MY twin brother, Gerald, was a tall, strong, handsome boy, blessed with a great love for the orthodox academical studies, and extraordinary quickness of ability. Nevertheless, he was indolent by nature, in things which were contrary to his taste fond of pleasure and, amidst all his personal courage, ran a certain vein of irresolution, which rendered it easy for a cool and determined mind to awe or to persuade him. I cannot help thinking, too, that, clever as he was, there was something commonplace in the cleverness ; and that his talent was of that mechanical, yet quick, nature, which makes wonderful boys, but mediocre men. In any other family he would have been con- sidered the beauty in ours he was thought the genius. My youngest brother, Aubrey, was of a very different dispo- sition of mind and frame of body ; thoughtful, gentle, suscep- tible, acute ; with an uncertain bravery, like a woman's, and a taste for reading, that varied with the caprice of every hour. He was the beauty of the three, and my mother's favorite. Never, indeed, have I seen the countenance of man so perfect, so glowingly, yet delicately handsome, as that of Aubrey Dever- eux. Locks soft, glossy, and twining into ringlets, fell in dark profusion over a brow whiter than marble ; his eyes were black and tender as a Georgian girl's ; his lips, his teeth, the contour of his face, were all cast in the same feminine and faultless mould; his hands would have shamed those of Madame.de la Tisseur, whose lover offered six thousand marks to any Euro- pean who could wear her glove ; and his figure would have made Titania give up her Henchman, and the King of the Fairies be anything but pleased with the exchange. Such were my two brothers ; or, rather (so far as the internal qualities are concerned), such they seemed to me ; for it is a singular fact that we never judge of our near kindred so well as we judge of others ; and I appeal to any one, whether, of all people by whom he has been mistaken, he has not been most often mistaken by those with whom he was brought up ! I had always loved Aubrey, but they had not suffered him to love tne; and we had been so little together that we had in common 20 DEVEREUX. none of those childish remembrances which serve, more power- fully than all else in later life, to cement and soften affection. In fact, I was the scapegoat of the family. What I must have been in early childhood, I cannot tell but, before I was ten years old, I was the object of all the despondency and evil fore- bodings of my relations. My father said I laughed at la gloirc et le grand monarque, the very first time he attempted to explain to me the value of the one and the greatness of the other. The countess said I had neither my father's eye, nor her own smile that I was slow at my letters, and quick with my tongue ; and, throughout the whole house, nothing was so favorite a topic as the extent of my rudeness, and the venom of my repartee. Montreuil, on his entrance into our family, not only fell in with, but favored and fostered, the reigning humor against me ; whether from that divide etimpera system, which was so grateful to his temper, or from the mere love of meddling and intrigue, which in him, as in Alberoni, attached itself equally to petty as to large circles, was not then clearly apparent ; it was only cer- tain that he fomented the dissensions and widened the breach between my brothers and myself. Alas ! after all, I believe my sole crime was my candor. I had a spirit of frankness, which no fear could tame, and my vengeance for any infantine pun- ishment was in speaking veraciously of my punishers. Never tell me of the pang of falsehood to the slandered : nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth ! As I grew older, I saw my power, and indulged it ; and, be- ing scolded for sarcasm, I was flattered into believing I had wit ; so I punned and jested, lampooned and satirised, till I was as much a torment to others as I was tormented myself. The secret of all this was that I was unhappy. Nobody loved me I felt it to my heart of hearts. I was conscious of in- justice, and the sense of it made me bitter. Our feelings, es- pecially in youth, resemble that leaf which, in some old traveller, is described as expanding itself to warmth, but when chilled, not only shrinking and closing, but presenting to the spectator thorns, which had lain concealed upon the opposite side of it before. With my brother Gerald, I had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. He was much stouter, taller, and stronger than myself ; and, far from conceding to me that respect which I imagined my priority of birth entitled me to claim, he took every oppor- tunity to deride my pretensions, and to vindicate the cause of the superior strength and vigor which constituted his own. It DEVEREUX. 21 would have done your heart good to have seen us cuff one another, we did it with such zeal. There is nothing in human passion like a good brotherly hatred ! my mother said, with the most feeling earnestness, that she used to feel us fighting even before our birth : we certainly lost no time directly after it. Both my parents were secretly vexed that I had come into the world an hour sooner than my brother ; and Gerald himself looked upon it as a sort of juggle a kind of jockeyship by which he had lost the prerogative of birthright. This very early rankled in his heart, and he was so much a greater favor- ite than myself that, instead of rooting out so unfortunate a feeling on his part, my good parents made no scruple of openly lamenting my seniority. I believe the real cause of our being taken from the domestic instructions of the Abbe (who was an admirable teacher) and sent to school, was solely to prevent my uncle deciding everything in my favor. Montreuil, how- ever, accompanied us to our academy, and remained with us during the three years in which we were perfecting ourselves in the blessings of education. At the end of the second year, a prize was instituted for the best proficient at a very severe examination ; two months be- fore it took place we went home for a few days. After dinner my uncle asked me to walk with him in the park. I did so : we strolled along the margin of a rivulet, which ornamented the grounds. There my uncle, for the first time, broke silence. " Morton," said he, looking down at his left leg, " Morton let me see thou art now of a reasonable age fourteen at the least." " Fifteen, if it please you, sir," said I, elevating my stature as much as I was able. "Humph! my boy; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother Gerald is taller than you by two inches." " But I can beat him, for all that, uncle," said I, coloring, and .clenching my fist. My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. " 'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave fellow," said he ; " but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek, as well as in boxing. I will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old. gentleman's heart my laughter opened it still more. " Hark ye, sirrah ! " said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort of love and muscle, " hark ye, sirrah I love you 'Sdeath, I do. I love you better than both your brothers, and that crab i2 DEVEREUX. of a priest into the bargain ; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you. They tell me you are the idlest boy in the school that you are always beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother or myself." '"Who says so ? who dares say so ?" said I, with an empha- sis that would have startled a less hearty man than Sir William Devereux. "They lie, uncle, by my soul they do. Idle I am quarrelsome with my brother I confess myself ; but jesting at you or my mother never never. No, no ; you, too, who have been so kind to me the only one who ever was ! No, no ; do not think I could be such a wretch," and as I said this the tears gushed from my eyes. My good uncle was exceedingly affected. " Look ye, child," said he, "I do not believe them. 'Sdeath, not a word I would repeat to you a good jest now of Sedley's, 'Gad, I would, but I am really too much moved just at present. I tell you what, my boy, I tell you what you shall do : there is a trial coming on at school eh ? well, the Abbe tells me, Gerald is certain of being first, and you of being last. Now, Morton, you shall beat your brother, and shame the Jesuit. There my mind's spoken dry your tears, my boy, and I'll tell you the jest Sedley made : it was in the Mulberry Garden one day " And the knight told his story. I dried my tears pressed my uncle's hand escaped from him as soon as I was able hastened to my room, and surren- dered myself to reflection. When my uncle so good-naturedly proposed that I should conquer Gerald at the examination, nothing appeared to him more easy he was pleased to think I had more talent than my brother, and talent, according to his creed, was the only master- key to unlock every science. A problem in Euclid, or a phrase in Pindar, a secret in astronomy, or a knotty passage in the fathers, were all riddles, with the solution of which application had nothing to do. One's mother-wit was a precious sort of necromancy, which could pierce every mystery at first sight ; and all the gifts of knowledge, in his opinion, like reading and writing in that of the sage Dogberry, " came by nature." Alas ! I was not under the same pleasurable delusion ; I rather exaggerated than diminished the difficulty of my task, and thought, at the first glance, that nothing short of a miracle would enable me to excel my brother. Gerald, a boy of natu- ral talent, and as I said before, of great assiduity in the ortho- dox studies especially favored too by the instruction of Mon- DEVEREUX. 23 treuil had long been esteemed the first scholar of our littl world ; and though I knew that with some branches of learn- ing I was more conversant than himself, yet, as my emulation had been hitherto solely directed to bodily contention, I had never thought of contesting with him a reputation for which I cared little, and on a point in which I had been early taught that I could never hope to enter into any advantageous com- parison with the " genius " of the Devereuxs. A new spirit now passed into me I examined myself with a jealous and impartial scrutiny I weighed my acquisitions against those of my brother -I called forth, from their secret recesses, the-unexercised and almost unknown stores I had from time to time laid up in my mental armory to moulder and to rust. I surveyed them with a feeling that they might yet be polished into use : and, excited alike by the stimulus of affec- tion on one side, and hatred on the other, my mind worked it- self from despondency into doubt, and from doubt into the sanguineness of hope. I told none of my design, I exacted from my uncle a promise not to betray it I shut myself in my room I gave out that I was ill I saw no one, not even the Abbe I rejected his instructions, for I looked upon him as an enemy ; and, for the two months before my trial, I spent night and day in an unrelaxing application, of which, till then, I had not imagined myself capable. Though inattentive to the school exercises, I had never been wholly idle. I was a lover of abstruser researches than the hackneyed subjects of the school, and we had really received such extensive and judicious instructions from the Abbe during our early years that it would have been scarcely possible for any of us to have fallen into a thorough distaste for intellectual pursuits. In the examination, I foresaw that much which I had previously acquired might be profitably displayed much secret and recondite knowledge of the customs and manners of the ancients, as well as their literature, which curiosity had led me to obtain, and which I knew had never entered into the heads of those who, contented with their reputation in the customary academical routine, had rarely dreamed of wandering into less beaten paths of learning. Fortunately too for me, Gerald was so certain of success that latterly he omitted all precaution to obtain it ; and as none of our schoolfellows had the vanity to think of contesting with him, even the Abbe seemed to imagine him justified in his supineness. The day arrived. Sir William, my mother, the whole aris- tocracy of the neighborhood, were present at the trial. The 24 DEVEREUX. Abbe came to my room a few hours before it commenced ; he found the door locked. " Ungracious boy," said he, "admit me I come at the earn- est request of your brother, Aubrey, to give you some hints pre- paratory to the examination." " He has indeed come at my wish," said the soft and silver voice of Aubrey, in a supplicating tone : " do admit him, dear Morton, for my sake ! " " Go," said I, bitterly, from within, " go ye are both my foes and slanderers you come to insult my disgrace beforehand ; but perhaps you will be disappointed." "You will not open the door?" said the priest. " I will not begone." " He will indeed disgrace his family," said Montreuil, mov- ing away. " He will disgrace himself," said Aubrey, dejectedly. I laughed scornfully. If ever the consciousness of strength is pleasant, it is when we are thought most weak. The greater part of our examination consisted in the answer- ing of certain questions in writing, given to us in the three days immediately previous to the grand and final one ; for this last day was reserved the paper of composition (as it was termed) in verse and prose, and the personal examination in a few showy, but generally understood, subjects. When Gerald gave in his paper, and answered the verbal questions, a buzz of ad- miration and anxiety went round the room. His person was so handsome, his address so graceful, his voice so assured and clear, that a strong and universal sympathy was excited in his favor. The head-master publicly complimented him. He re- gretted only the deficiency of his pupil in certain minor but im- portant matters. I came next, for I stood next to Gerald in our class. As I walked up the hall, I raised my eyes to the gallery in which my uncle and his party sat. I saw that my mother was listening to the Abbe", whose eye, severe, cold, and con- temptuous, was bent upon me. But my uncle leant over the railing of the gallery, with his plumed hat in his hand, which, when he caught my look, he waved gently as if in token of encouragement, and with an air so kind and cheering, that I felt my step grow prouder as I approached the conclave of the masters. " Morton Devereux," said the president of the school in a calm, loud, austere voice, that filled the whole hall, "we have looked over your papers on the three previous days, and they have given DEVEREUX. 25 us no less surprise than pleasure. Take heed and time how you answer us now." At this speech a loud murmur was heard in my uncle's party, which gradually spread round the hall. I again looked up my mother's face was averted : that of the Abbe was impenetrable, but I saw my uncle wiping his eyes, and felt a strange emotion creeping into my own. I turned hastily away, and presented my paper the head-master received it, and, putting it aside, pro- ceeded to the verbal examination. Conscious of the parts in which Gerald was likely to fail, I had paid especial attention to the minutiae of scholarship, and my forethought stood me in good stead at the present moment. My trial ceased my last paper was read. I bowed, and retired to the other end of the hall. I was not so popular as Gerald a crowd was assembled round him, but I stood alone. As I leant against a column, with folded arms, and a countenance which I felt betrayed little of my internal emotions, my eye caught Ger- ald's. He was very pale, and I could see that his hand trem- bled. Despite of our enmity, I felt for him. The worst pas- sions are softened by triumph, and I foresaw that mine was at hand. The whole examination was over. Every boy had passed it. The masters retired for a moment they reappeared and re- seated themselves. The first sound I heard was that of my own name. I was the victor of the day I was more I was one hundred marks before my brother. My head swam round my breath forsook me. Since then I have been placed in many trials of life, and had many triumphs ; but never was I so overcome as at that moment. I left the hall I scarcely listened to the ap- plauses with which it rang. I hurried to my own chamber, and threw myself on the bed in a delirium of intoxicated feeling, which had in it more of rapture than anything but the gratifica- tion of first love or first vanity can bestow. Ah ! it would be worth stimulating our passions if it were only for the pleasure of remembering their effect ; and all violent ex- citement should be indulged less for the present joy than for future retrospection. My uncle's step was the first thing which intruded on my soli- tude. "Od's fish, my boy! " said he, crying like a child, "this is fine work 'Gad, so it is. I almost wish I were a boy myself to have a match with you faith I do see what it is to learn a little of life. If you had never read my play, do you think you would have done half so well ? no, my boy, I sharpened your wits for 26 DEVEREUX. you. Honest George Etherege and I we were the making of you ; and when you come to be a great man, and are asked what made you so, you shall say ' My uncle's play ' 'Gad, you shall. Faith, boy never smile ! Od's fish I'll tell you a story as a propos to the present occasion as if it had been made on pur- pose. Rochester, and I, and Sedley, were walking one day, and enlre nous awaiting certain appointments hem ! for my part I was a little melancholy or so, thinking of my catastrophe that is, of my play's catastrophe ; and so, said Sedley, winking at Rochester, 'Our friend is sorrowful.' 'Truly,' said I, seeing they were about to banter me for you know they were arch fellows 'truly, little Sid' (we called Sedley Sid), 'you are greatly mistaken,' you see, Morton, I was thus sharp upon him, because, when you go to Court, you will discover that it does not do to take without giving. And then Rochester said, looking roguishly towards me, the wittiest thing against Sedley that I ever heard it was the most celebrated ban mot at Court for three weeks he said No, boy, 'od's fish, it was so stinging I can't tell it thee ; faith, I can't. Poor Sid ; he was a good fellow, though malicious and he's dead now. I'm sorry I said a word about it. Nay, never look so disappointed, boy. You have all the cream of the story as it is. And now put on your hat, and come with me. I've got leave for you to take a walk with your old uncle." That night, as I was undressing, I heard a gentle rap at the door, and Aubrey entered. He approached me timidly, and then, throwing his arms round my neck, kissed me in silence. I had not for years experienced such tenderness from him ; and I sat now mute and surprised. At last I said, with the sneer which I must confess I usually assumed towards those persons whom I imagined I had a right to think ill of: "Pardon me, my gentle brother, there is something porten- tous in this sudden change. Look well round the room, and tell me at your earliest leisure what treasure it is that you are desirous should pass from my possession into your own." " Your love, Morton," said Aubrey, drawing back, but appar- ently in pride, not anger; "your love I ask nothing more." "Of a surety, kind Aubrey," said I, "the favor seems some- what slight to have caused your modesty such delay in request- ing it. I think you have been some years nerving your mind to the exertion." " Listen to me, Morton," said Aubrey, suppressing his emo- tion ; "you have always been my favorite brother. From our first childhood my heart yearned to you. Do you remember the DEVEREUX. 27 time when an enraged bull pursued me, and you, then only ten years old, placed yourself before it and defended me at the risk of your own life ? Do you think I could ever forget that child as I was? never, Morton, never!" Before I could answer, the door was thrown open, and the Abbe entered. "Children," said he, and the single light of the room shone full upon his unmoved, rigid, commanding features "children, be as Heaven intended you friends and brothers. Morton, I have wronged you, I own it here is my hand ; Aubrey, let all but early love, and the present promise of excel- lence which your brother displays, be forgotten." With these words, the priest joined our hands. I looked on my brother, and my heart melted. I flung myself into his arms and wept. That day was a new era in my boyish life. I grew hence- forth both better and worse. Application and I, having once shaken hands, became very good acquaintance. I had hitherto valued myself upon supplying the frailties of a delicate frame by an uncommon agility in all bodily exercises. I now strove rather to improve the deficiencies of my mind, and became orderly, industrious, and devoted to study. So far so well but as I grew wiser, I grew also more wary. Candor no longer seemed to me the finest of virtues. I thought before I spoke ; and second thought sometimes quite changed the nature of the intended speech ; in short, gentlemen of the next century, to tell you the exact truth, the little Count Devereux became somewhat of a hypocrite ! CHAPTER IV. A Contest of Art, and a League of Friendship Two Characters in mutual Ignorance of each other, and the reader no wiser than either of them. THE Abbe was now particularly courteous to me. He made Gerald and myself breakfast with him, and told us nothing was so amiable as friendship among brothers. We agreed to the sentiment, and, like all philosophers, did not agree a bit the better for acknowledging the same first principles. Perhaps, nothwithstanding his fine speeches, the Abbe" was the real cause of our continued want of cordiality. However, we did not fight any more we avoided each other, and at last became* as civil and as distant as those mathematical lines, which appear to be taking all possible pains to approach one another, 28 EEVEREUX. and never get a jot the nearer for it. Oh, your civility is the prettiest invention possible for dislike ! Aubrey and I were inseparable, and we both gained by the intercourse. I grew more gentle, and he more masculine ; and, for my part, the kindness of his temper so softened the satire of mine that I learned at last to smile full as often as to sneer. The Abbe" had obtained a wonderful hold over Aubrey ; he had made the poor boy think so much of the next world, that he had lost all relish for this. He lived in a perpetual fear of offence he was like a chemist of conscience, and weighed minutiae by scruples. To play, to ride, to run, to laugh at a jest, or to banquet on a melon, were ail sins to be atoned for ; and I have found (as a penance for eating twenty-three cherries instead of eighteen), the penitent of fourteen standing, bare- footed, in the coldest nights of winter, upon the hearth-stones, almost naked, and shivering like a leaf, beneath the mingled effect of frost and devotion. At first I attempted to wrestle with this exceeding holiness, but finding my admonitions re- ceived with great distaste and some horror, I suffered my brother to be happy in his own way. I only looked with a very evil and jealous eye upon the good Abbe\ and examined, while I encouraged them, the motives of his advances to myself. What doubled my suspicions of the purity of the priest was my perceiving that he appeared to hold out different inducements for trusting him, to each of us, according to his notions of our respective characters. My brother Gerald he alternately awed and persuaded, by the sole effect of superior intellect. With Aubrey he used the mechanism of superstition. To me, he, on the one hand, never spoke of religion, nor, on the other, ever used threats or persuasion, to induce me to follow any plan suggested to my adoption ; everything seemed to be left to my reason and my ambition. He would converse with me for hours upon the world and its affairs, speak of courts and kings, in an easy and unpedantic strain ; point but the advantage of intellect in acquiring power and controlling one's species ; and, whenever I was disposed to be sarcastic upon the human nature I had read of, he supported my sarcasm by illustrations of the human nature he had seen. We were both, I think (for myself I can answer), endeavoring to pierce the real nature of the other ; and perhaps the talent of diplomacy for which, years afterwards, I obtained some ap- plause, was first learned in my skirmishing warfare with the Abbe Montreuil. At last, the evening before we quitted school for good arrived. DEVEREUX. 29 Aubrey had just left me for solitary prayers, and I was sitting alone by my fire, when Montreuil entered gently. He sat himself down by me, and, after giving me the salutation of the evening, sunk into a silence which I was the first to break. "Pray, Abbe," said I, " have one's years anything to do with one's age? " The priest was accustomed to the peculiar tone of my sagacious remarks, and answered drily : " Mankind in general imagine that they have." " Faith then," said I, " mankind know very little about the matter. To-day I am at school and a boy, to-morrow I leave school if I hasten to town I am presented at court and lo ! I am a man ; and this change within half a dozen changes of the sun ! therefore, most reverend father, I humbly opine that age is measured by events not years." " And are you not happy at the idea of passing the age of thraldom, and seeing arrayed before you the numberless and dazzling pomps and pleasures of the great world?" said Montreuil abruptly, fixing his dark and keen eye upon me. " I have not yet fully made up my mind whether to be happy or not," said I carelessly. "It is a strange answer," said the priest; "but " (after a pause) " you are a strange youth a character that resembles a riddle is at your age uncommon, and, pardon me, unamiable. Age, naturally repulsive, requires a mask ; and in every wrinkle yon may behold the ambush of a scheme ; but the heart of youth should be open as its countenance ! However, I will not weary you with homilies let us change the topic. Tell me, Morton, do you repent having turned your attention of late to those graver and more systematic studies which can alone hereafter obtain you distinction?" "No, father," said I, with a courtly bow, "for the change has gained me your good opinion." A smile of peculiar and undefinable expression crossed the thin lips of the priest ; he rose, walked to the door, and saw that it was carefully closed. I expected some important com- munication, but in vain ; pacing the small room to and fro, as if in a musing mood, the Abbe remained silent, till, pausing opposite some fencing foils, which, among various matters (books, papers, quoits, etc.), were thrown idly in one corner of the room, he said : " They tell me that you are the best fencer in the school is it so?" 30 DEVEREUX. "I hope not, for fencing is an accomplishment in which Ger- ald is very nearly my equal," I replied. " You run, ride, leap, too, better than any one else, according to the votes of your comrades ?" " It is a noble reputation," said I, "in which I believe I am only excelled by our huntsman's eldest son." "You are a strange youth," repeated the priest; "no pursuit seems to give you pleasure, and no success to gratify your vanity. Can you not think of any triumph which would elate you?" I was silent. " Yes," cried Montreuil, approaching me " yes," cried he, " I read your heart, and I respect it; these are petty competitions and worthless honors. You require a nobler goal, and a more glorious reward. He who feels in his soul that Fate has reserved for him a great and exalted part in this world's drama, may reasonably look with indifference on these paltry rehearsals of common characters." I raised my eye, and as it met that of the priest, I was irre- sistibly struck with the proud and luminous expression which Montreuil's look had assumed. Perhaps something kindred to its nature was perceptible in my own; for, after surveying me with an air of more approbation than he had ever honored me with before, he grasped my arm firmly, and said: " Morton, you know me not for many years I have not known you that time is past. No sooner did your talents develop themselves than I was the first to do homage to their power let us henceforth be more to each other than we have been let us not be pupil and teacher let us be friends. Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good offices you may be the heir to wealth, and a distinguished name I may seem to you but an unknown and undignified priest but'the authority of the Al- mighty can raise up, from the sheep-fold and the cottar's shed, a power which, as the organ of His own, can trample upon sceptres, and dictate to the supremacy of kings. And / /, " the priest abruptly paused, checked the warmth of his manner, as if he thought it about to encroach on indiscretion, and, sink- ing into a calmer tone, continued: "Yes, I, Morton, insignificant as I appear to you, can, in every path through this intricate laby- rinth of life, be more useful to your desires than you can ever be to mine. I offer to you in my friendship, a fervor of zeal and energy of power, which in none of your equals, in age and station, you can hope to find. Do you accept my offer?" "Can you doubt," said I, with eagerness, "that I would avail myself of the services of any man, however displeasing to me, DEVEREUX. 3t worthless in himself ? How, then, can I avoid embracing the friendship of one so extraordinary in knowledge and intellect as yourself? I do embrace it, and with rapture." The priest pressed my hand. " But," continued he, fixing his eyes upon mine, "all alliances have their conditions I require implicit confidence; and, for some years, till time gives you ex- perience, regard for your interests induces me also to require obedience. Name any wish you may form for worldly advance- ment, opulence, honor, the smile of kings, the gifts of states, and I I will pledge myself to carry that wish into effect. Never had Eastern prince so faithful a servant among the Dives and Genii as Morton Devereux shall find in me ; but question me not of the sources of my power be satisfied when their channel wafts you the success you covet. And, more, when I in my turn (and this shall be but rarely) request a favor of you, ask me not for what end, nor hesitate to adopt the means I shall propose. You seem startled; are you content at .this understanding between us, or will you retract the bond?" " My father," said I, " there is enough to startle me in your proposal; it greatly resembles that made by the Old Man of the Mountains to his vassals, and it would not exactly suit my in- clinations to be called upon some morning to act the part of a private executioner." The priest smiled. "My young friend," said he, "those days have passed: neither religion nor friendship requires of her vo- taries sacrifices of blood. But make yourself easy ; whenever I ask of you what offends your conscience, even in a punctilio, refuse my request. With this exception what say you ?" "That I think I will agree to the bond ; but, father, I am an irresolute person I must have time to consider." " Be it so. To-morrow, having surrendered my charge to your uncle, I depart for France." " For France ! " said I; " and how ? Surely the war will pre- vent your passage." The priest smiled. Nothing ever displeased me more than that priest's smile. "The ecclesiastics," said he, "are the am- bassadors of Heaven, and have nothing to do with the wars of earth. I shall find no difficulty in crossing the Channel. I shall not return for several months, perhaps not till the expiration of a year : I leave you, till then, to decide upon the terms I have proposed to you. Meanwhile, gratify my vanity, by employing my power ; name some commission in France which you wish me to execute." " I can think of none yet, stay, " and I felt some curiosity 32 DEVEREUX. to try the power of which he boasted " I have read that kings are blest with a most accommodating memory, and perfectly for- get their favorites, when they can be no longer useful. You will see, perhaps, if my father's name has become a gothic and un- known sound at the court of the Great King. I confess myself curious to learn this, though I can have no personal interest in it." " Enough, the commission shall be done. And now, my child, Heaven bless you! and send you many such friends as the hum- ble priest, who, whatever be his failings, has at least the merit of wishing to serve those whom he loves." So saying, the priest closed the door. Sinking into a revery, as his footsteps died upon my ear, I muttered to myself: " Well, well, my sage ecclesiastic, the game is not over yet; let us see if, at sixteen, we cannot shuffle cards, and play tricks with the gamester of thirty. Yet, he may be in earnest, and faith I be- lieve he is ; but I must look well before I leap, or consign my actions into such spiritual keeping. However, if the worst come to the worst, if I do make this compact, and am deceived if, above all, I am ever seduced, or led blindfold into one of those snares which priestcraft sometimes lays to the cost of honor why I shall have a sword, which I shall never be at a loss to use, and it can find its way through a priest's gown as well as a sol- dier's corslet." Confess, that a youth, who could think so promptly of his sword, was well-fitted to wear one ! CHAPTER V. Rural Hospitality an extraordinary'Guest. A fine Gentleman is not neces- sarily a Fool. WE were all three (my brothers and myself) precocious geniuses. Our early instructions, under a man like the Abbe", at once learned and worldly, and the Society into which we had been initiated from our childhood, made us premature adepts in the manners of the world ; and I, in especial, flattered my- self that a quick habit of observation rendered me no despicable profiler by my experience. Our academy, too, had been more like a college than a school ; and we had enjoyed a license that seemed, to the superficial, more likely to benefit our manners than to strengthen our morals. I do not think, however, that DEVEREUX. 33 the latter suffered by our freedom from restraint. On the con- trary, we the earlier learnt that vice, but for the piquancy of its unlawfulness, would never be so captivating a goddess ; and our errors and crimes, in after-life, had certainly not their origin in our wanderings out of academical bounds. It is right that I should mention our prematurity of intellect, because, otherwise, much of my language and reflections, as detailed in the first book of this history, might seem ill suited to the tender age at which they occurred. However, they ap- proach, as near as possible, to my state of mind at that period ; and I have, indeed, often mortified my vanity, in later life, by thinking how little the march of time has ripened my abilities, and how petty would have been the intellectual acquisitions of manhood if they had not brought me something like content ! My uncle had always, during his retirement, seen as many people as he could assemble out of the "mob of Gentlemen who live at ease." But, on our quitting school, and becoming men, be resolved to set no bounds to his hospitality. His doors were literally thrown open ; and as he was by far the greatest person in the district to say nothing of his wines, and his French cook many of the good people of London did not think it too great an honor to confer upon the wealthy repre- sentative of the Devereuxs the distinction of their company and compliments. Heavens ! what notable samples of court breed- ing and furbelows did the crane-neck coaches, which made our own family vehicle look like a gilt tortoise, pour forth by couples and leashes into the great hall while my gallant uncle, in a new perriwig, and a pair of silver-clocked stockings ( a present from a ci-devant fine lady), stood at the far end of the picture gallery, to receive his visitors, with all the graces of the last age. My mother, who had preserved her beauty wonderfully, sat in a chair of green velvet, and astonished the courtiers by the fashion of a dress just imported. The worthy Countess (she had dropped in England the loftier distinction of Madame la Mar^chale) was, however, quite innocent of any intentional affectation of the mode : for the new stomacher, so admired in London, had been the last alteration in female garniture at Paris, a month before my father died. Is not this " Fashion " a noble divinity to possess such zealous adherents ! a pitiful, lackey-like creature, which struts through one country with the cast-off finery of another ! As for Aubrey and Gerald, they produced quite an effect and I should most certainly have been thrown irrevocably into 34 DEVEREUX. the background, had I not been born to the good fortune of an eldest son. This was far more than sufficient to atone for the comparative plainness of my person ; and when it was dis- covered that I was also Sir William's favorite, it is quite astonish- ing what a beauty I became ! Aubrey was declared too effemi- nate ; Gerald too tall. And the Duchess of Lackland one day, when she had placed a lean, sallow ghost of a daughter on either side of me, whispered my uncle in a voice, like the aside of a player, intended for none but the whole audience, that the young Count had the most imposing air and the finest eyes she had ever seen. All this inspired me with courage, as well as contempt ; and not liking to be beholden solely to my priority of birth for my priority of distinction, I resolved to become as agreeable as possible. If I had not in the vanity of my heart resolved also to be "myself alone," Fate would have furnished me at the happiest age for successful imitation with an admirable model. Time rolled on two years were flown since I had left school, and Montreuil was not yet returned. I had passed the age of eighteen, when the whole house, which, as it was summer, when none but cats and physicians were supposed gifted by Providence with the power to exist in town, was uncommonly full the whole house, I say, was thrown into a positive fever of expectation. The visit of a guest, if not of greater conse- quence, at least of greater interest, than any who had hitherto honored my uncle, was announced. Even the young Count, with the most imposing air in the world, and the finest eyes, was forgotten by everybody but the Duchess of Lackland and her daughters, who had just returned to Devereux Court, to observe how amazingly the Count had grown ! Oh, what a prodigy wisdom would be, if it were but blessed with a memory as keen and constant as that of interest ! Struck with the universal excitement, I went to my uncle to inquire the name of the expected guest. My uncle was occu- pied in fanning the Lady Hasselton, a daughter of one of King Charles's Beauties. He had only time to answer me literally, and without comment ; the guest's name was Mr. St. John. I had never conned the "Flying Post," and I knew nothing about politics. "Who is Mr. St. John?" said I; my uncle had renewed the office of a zephyr. The daughter of the Beauty heard and answered, "The most charming person in England." I bowed and turned away. "How vastly explana- tory !" said I. I met a furious politician. "Who is Mr. St. John ? " I asked. DEVEREUX. 35 "The cleverest man in England," answered the politician, hurrying off with a pamphlet in his hand. "Nothing can be more satisfactory," thought I. Stopping a coxcomb of the first water, " Who is Mr. St. John ?" I asked. " The finest gentleman in England," answered the coxcomb, settling his cravat. "Perfectly intelligible!" was my reflection on this reply ; and I forthwith arrested a Whig parson " Who is Mr. St. John ? " said I. " The greatest reprobate in England!" answered the Whig parson, and I was too stunned to inquire more. Five minutes afterwards the sound of carriage wheels was heard in the courtyard, then a slight bustle in the hall, and the door of the anteroom being thrown open, Mr. St. John entered. He was in the very prime of life, about the middle height, and of a mien and air so strikingly noble that it was some time before you recovered the general effect of his person suffic- iently to examine its peculiar claims to admiration. However, he lost nothing by a farther survey : he possessed not only an eminently handsome, but a very extraordinary countenance. Through an air of nonchalance, and even something of lassi- tude, through an ease of manners sometimes sinking into effemi- nate softness, sometimes bordering upon licentious effrontery, his eye thoughtful, yet wandering, seemed to announce that the mind partook but little of the whim of the moment, or of those levities of ordinary life over which the grace of his manner threw so peculiar a charm. His brow was, perhaps, rather too large and prominent for the exactness of perfect symmetry ; but it had an expression of great mental power and determination. His features were high, yet delicate, and his mouth, which, when closed, assumed a firm and rather severe expression, softened, when speaking, into a smile of almost magical enchantment. Richly but not extravagantly dressed, he appeared to cultivate, rather than disdain, the ornaments of outward appearance ; and whatever can fascinate or attract was so inherent in this singu- lar man that all which in others would have been most artificial was in him most natural : so that it is no exaggeration to add that to be well dressed seemed to the elegance of his person not so much the result of art as of a property innate and peculiar to himself. Such was the outward appearance of Henry St. John ; one well suited to the qualities of a mind at once more vigorous and more accomplished than that of any other other person with 36 DEVEREUX. whom the vicissitudes of my life have ever brought me into contact. I kept my eye on the new guest throughout the whole day ; I observed the mingled liveliness and softness which pervaded his attentions to women, the intellectual yet unpedantic superiority he possessed in his conversations with men ; his respectful de- meanor to age ; his careless, yet not over-familiar, ease with the young ; and, what interested me more than all, the occasional cloud which passed over his countenance at moments when he seemed sunk into a revery that had for its objects nothing in common with those around him. Just before dinner, St. John was talking to a little group, among whom curiosity seemed to have drawn the Whig parson whom I have before mentioned. He stood at a little distance, shy and uneasy ; one of the company took advantage of so favor- able a butt for jests, and alluded to the bystander in a witticism which drew laughter from all but St. John, who, turning sud- denly towards the parson, addressed an observation to him in the most respectful tone. Nor did he cease talking with him (fatiguing as the conference must have been, for never was there a duller ecclesiastic than the gentleman conversed with) until we descended to dinner. Then, for the first time, I learned that nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good nature for its foundation ; and then, too, as I was leading Lady Bar- bara Lackland to the great hall, by the tip of her forefinger, I made another observation. Passing the priest, I heard him say to a fellow-clerk : "Certainly, he is the greatest man in England"; and I men- tally remarked, " There is no policy like politeness : and a good manner is the best thing in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the want of it." CHAPTER VI. A Dialogue, which might be dull if it were longer. THREE days after the arrival of St. John, I escaped from the crowd of impertinents, seized a volume of Cowley, and, in a fit of mingled poetry and melancholy, strolled idly into the park. I came to the margin of the stream, and to the very spot on which I had stood with my uncle on the evening when he had first excited my emulation to scholastic rather than manual con- tention with my brother. I seated myself by the water-side, and, DEVEREUX. 37 feeling indisposed to read, leant ray cheek upon my hand, and surrendered my thoughts as prisoners to the reflections which I could not resist. I continued, I know not how long, in my meditation, till I was roused by a gentle touch upon my shoulder ; I looked up, and saw St. John. "Pardon me, Count," said he, smiling, "I should not have disturbed your reflections had not your neglect of an old friend emboldened me to address you upon his behalf." And St. John pointed to the volume of Cowley which he had taken up without my perceiving it. "Well," added he, seating himself on the turf beside me, "in my younger days, poetry and I were better friends than we are now. And if I had had Cowley as a companion, I should not have parted with him as you have done, even for my own reflec- tions." "You admire him, then?" said I. "Why, that is too general a question. I admire what is fine in him, as in every one else, but I do not love him the better for his points and his conceits. He reminds me of what Cardinal Pallavicine said of Seneca, that he 'perfumes his conceits with civet and ambergris.' However, Count, I have opened upon a beautiful motto for you : Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds above me flying, With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying ; Nor be myself too mute. What say you to that wish ? If you have a germ of poetry in you, such verse ought to bring it into flower." "Ay," answered I, though not exactly in accordance with the truth ; " but I have not the germ. I destroyed it four years ago. Reading the dedications of poets cured me of the love for poetry. What a pity that the Divine Inspiration should have for its oracles such mean souls ! " " Yes, and how industrious the good gentlemen are in debas- ing themselves. Their ingenuity is never half so much shown in a simile as in a compliment ; I know nothing in nature more melancholy than the discovery of any meanness in a great man. There is so little to redeem the dry mass of follies and errors from which the materials of this life are composed, that anything to love or to reverence becomes, as it were, the Sabbath for the mind. It is bitter to feel, as we grow older, how the respite is abridged, and how the few objects left to our admiration are 38 DEVEREUX. abased. What a foe not only to life, but to all that dignifies and ennobles it, is Time. Our affections and our pleasures resem- ble those fabulous trees described by St. Oderic the fruits which they bring forth are no sooner ripened into maturity than they are transformed into birds, and fly away. But these reflec- tions cannot yet be familiar to you. Let us return to Cowley. Do you feel any sympathy with his prose writings ? For some minds they have a great attraction." " They have for mine," answered I ; " but then I am naturally a dreamer ; and a contemplative egotist is always to me a mirror in which I behold myself." " The world," answered St. John, with a melancholy smile, " will soon dissolve, or for ever confirm, your humor for dreaming; in either case, Cowley will not be less a favorite. But you must, like me, have long toiled in the heat and travail of business, or of pleasure, which is more wearisome still, in order fully to sym- pathize with those beautiful panegyrics upon solitude which make, perhaps, the finest passages in Cowley. I have often thought that he whom God hath gifted with a love of retirement possesses, as it were, an extra sense. And among what our poet so eloquently calls ' the vast and noble scenes of nature,' we find the balm for the wounds we have sustained among the 'pitiful shifts of policy'; for the attachment to solitude is the surest preservative from the ills of life : and I know not if the Romans ever instilled, under allegory, a sublimer truth than when they inculcated the belief that those inspired by Feronia, the goddess of woods and forests, could walk barefoot and uninjured over burning coals." At this part of our conference, the bell swinging hoarsely through the long avenues, and over the silent water, summoned us to the grand occupation of civilized life ; we rose and walked slowly towards the house. " Does not," said I, " the regular routine of petty occur- rences this periodical solemnity of trifles weary and disgust you? For my part, I almost long for the old days of knight- errantry, and would rather be knocked on the head by a giant, or carried through the air by a flying griffin, than live in this circle of dull regularities the brute at the mill." " You may live even in these days," answered St. John, " with- out too tame a regularity. Women and politics furnish ample food for adventure, and you must not judge of all life by country life." " Nor of all conversation," said I, with a look which implied a compliment, " by the insipid idlers who fill our saloons. Be- DEVEREUX. 39 hold them now, gathered by the oriel window, yonder ; precious distillers of talk sentinels of society with certain set phrases as watchwords, which they never exceed ; sages, who follow Face's advice to Dapper ' Hum thrice, and buzz as often.' " CHAPTER VII. A Change of Prospects A new Insight into the Character of the Hero A Conference between two Brothers. A DAY or two after the conversation recorded in my last chapter, St. John, to my inexpressible regret, left us for London ; however, we had enjoyed several conferences together during his stay, and when we parted, it was with a pressing invitation on his side to visit him in London, and a most faithful promise on mine, to avail myself of the request. No sooner was he fairly gone than I went to seek my uncle ; I found him reading one of Farquhar's comedies. Despite my sorrow at interrupting him in so venerable a study, I was too full of my new plot to heed breaking off that in the comedy. In very few words I made the good knight understand that his descriptions had infected me, and that / was dying to ascertain their truth ; in a word, that his hopeful nephew was fully bent on going to town. My uncle first stared, then swore, then paused, then looked at his leg, drew up his stocking, frowned, whistled, and told me at last to talk to him about it another time. Now, for my part, I think there are only two classes of people in the world authorized to put one off to " another time," prime ministers and creditors ; accordingly, I would not take my uncle's dismissal. I had not read plays, studied philosophy, and laid snares for the Abbe" Montreuil, without deriving some little wisdom from my experience ; so I took to teasing, and a notable plan it is too ! Whoever has pursued it may guess the iresult ! My uncle yielded, and that day fortnight was fixed for my departure. Oh, with what transport did I look forward to the comple- tion of my wishes, the goal of my ambition ! I hastened forth I hurried into the woods I sang out in the gladness of my heart, like a bird released I drank in the air with a rapturous sym- pathy in its freedom ; my step scarcely touched th earth, and my whole frame seemed ethereal elated exalted by the vivifying inspiration of my hopes. I paused by a little streamlet, which, 40 DfcVEREU*. brawling over stones and through impenetrated thicknesses of wood, seemed, like confined ambition, not the less restless for its obscurity. " Wild brooklet," I cried, as my thoughts rushed into words, " fret on, our lot is no longer the same ; your wanderings and your murmurs are wasted in solitude and shade ; your voice dies and re-awakes, but without an echo ; your waves spread around their path neither fertility nor terror ; their anger is idle, and their freshness is lavished on a sterile soil ; the sun shines in vain for you, through these unvarying wastes of silence and gloom ; Fortune freights not your channel with her hoarded stores, and Pleasure ventures not her silken sails upon your tide ; not even the solitary idler roves beside you, to consecrate with human fellowship your melancholy course ; no shape of beauty bends over your turbid waters, or mirrors in your breast the love- liness that hallows earth. Lonely and sullen, through storm or sunshine, you repine along your desolate way and only catch, through the matted boughs that darken over you, the beams of the wan stars, which, like human hopes, tremble upon your breast, and are broken, even before they fade, by the very turbulence of the surface on which they fall. Rove repine murmur on ! Such was my fate, but the resemblance is no more. I shall no longer be a lonely and regretful being ; my affections will no longer waste themselves upon barrenness and stone. I go among the living and warm world of mortal energies and desires : my existence shall glide alternately through crested cities, and bowers in which Poetry worships Love ; and the clear depths of my heart shall reflect whatever its young dreams have shadowed forth the visioned form the gentle and fairy spirit the Eye of my soul's imagined and foreboded paradise." Venting, in this incoherent strain, the exultation which filled my thoughts, I wandered on, throughout the whole day, till my spirits had exhausted themselves by indulgence ; and, wearied alike by mental excitement and bodily exertion, I turned, with slow steps, towards the house. As I ascended the gentle ac- clivity on which it stood, I saw a figure approaching towards me ; the increasing shades of the evening did not allow me to recognize the shape until it was almost by my side it was Aubrey. Of late I had seen very little of him. His devotional studies and habits seemed to draw him from the idle pursuits of myself and my uncle's guests ; and Aubrey was one peculiarly suscep- tible of neglect, and sore, to morbidity, at the semblance of 4* tmkindness ; so that he required to be sought, and rarely troubled others with advances : that night, however, his greeting was unusually warm. " I was uneasy about you, Morton," said he, drawing my arm in his; "you have not been seen since morning; and, oh ! Morton, my uncle told me, with tears in his eyes, that you were going to leave us. Is it so ? " " Had he tears in his eyes ? Kind old man ! And you, Aubrey, shall you, too, grieve for my departure ? " " Can you ask it, Morton ? But why will you leave us ? Are we not all happy here, now ? Now that there is no longer any barrier or difference between us now that I may look upon you, and listen to you, and love you, and own that I love you ? Why will you leave us now ? And (continued Aubrey, as if fearful of giving me time to answer) and every one praises you so here ; and my uncle and all of us are so proud of you. Why should you desert our affections merely because they are not new ? Why plunge into that hollow and cold world which all who have tried it picture in such fearful hues ? Can you find anything there to repay you for the love you leave behind ? " " My brother," said I, mournfully, and in a tone which startled him, it was so different from that which I usually assumed, " my brother, hear, before you reproach me. Let us sit down upon this bank, and I will suffer you to see more of my restless and secret heart than any hitherto have beheld." We sat down upon a little mound how well I remember the spot ! I can see the tree which shadows it from my window at this moment. How many seasons have the sweet herb and the emerald grass been withered there and renewed ! Ah, what is this revival of all things fresh and youthful in external nature, but a mockery of the wintry spot which lies perished and irrc- neivable within ! We drew near to each other, and as my arm wound around him, I said, " Aubrey, your love has been to me a more precious gift than any who have not, like me, thirsted and longed even for the love of a dog, can conceive. Never let me lose that af- fection ! And do not think of me hereafter as of one whose heart echoed all that his lip uttered. Do not believe that irony, and sarcasm, and bitterness of tongue, flowed from a malignant or evil source. That disposition which seems to you alternately so light and gloomy had, perhaps, its origin in a mind too in- tense in its affections, and too exacting in having them returned. Till you sought my friendship, three short years ago, none but my uncle, with whom I could have nothing in common but at- 42 DEVEREUX. tachment, seemed to care for my very existence. I blame them not ; they were deceived in my nature ; but blame me not too severely if my temper suffered from their mistake. Your friend- ship came to me, not too late to save me from a premature mis- anthropy, but too late to eradicate every morbidity of mind. Something of sternness on the one hand, and of satire on the other, has mingled so long with my better feelings that the taint and the stream have become inseparable. Do not sigh, Aubrey. To be unamiable is not to be ungrateful ; and I shall not love you the less if I have but a few objects to love. You ask me my inducement to leave you. ' The World ' will be sufficient answer. I cannot share your contempt of it, nor your fear. I am, and have been of late, consumed with a thirst eager, and burning, and unquenchable it is ambition ! " " Oh, Morton ! " said Aubrey, with a second sigh, longer and deeper than the first "that evil passion! the passion which lost an angel Heaven." " Let us not now dispute, my brother, whether it be sinful in itself, or whether, if its object be virtuous, it is not a virtue. In baring my soul before you, I only speak of my motives ; and seek not to excuse them. Perhaps on this earth there is no good without a little evil. When my mind was once turned to the acquisition of mental superiority, every petty acquisition I made increased my desire to attain more, and partial emulation soon widened into universal ambition. We three, Gerald and ourselves, are the keepers of a treasure more valuable than gold the treasure of a not ignoble nor sullied name. For my part, I confess that I am impatient to increase the store of honor which our father bequeathed to us. Nor is this all : despite our birth, we are poor in the gifts of fortune. We are all de- pendents on my uncle's favor ; and, however we may deserve it, there would be something better in earning an independence for ourselves." " That," said Aubrey, " may be an argument for mine and Gerald's exertions; but not for yours. You are the eldest, and my uncle's favorite. Nature and affection both point to you as his heir." "If so, Aubrey, may many years pass before that inheritance be mine. Why should those years, that might produce so much, lie fallow ? But though I would not affect an unreal delicacy, and disown my chance of future fortune, yet you must remember that it is a matter possible, not certain. My birth- right gives me no claim over my uncle, whose estates are in his cwn gift ; and favor, even in the good, is a wind which varies DEVEREUX. 43 without power on our side to calculate the season or the cause. However this be, and I love the person on whom fortune de- pends so much that I cannot, without pain, speak of the mere chance of its passing from his possession into mine, you will own at least that I shall not hereafter deserve wealth the less for the advantages of experience." " Alas ! " said Aubrey, raising his eyes, " the worship of our Father in Heaven finds us ample cause for occupation, even in retirement ; and the more we mix with His creatures, the more, I fear, we may forget the Creator. But, if it must be so, I will pray for you, Morton ; and you will remember that the power- less and poor Aubrey can still lift up his voice in your behalf." As Aubrey thus spoke, I looked with mingled envy and ad- miration upon the countenance beside me, which the beauty of a spirit seemed at once to soften and to exalt. Since our conference had begun, the dusk of twilight had melted away ; and the moon had called into lustre living, in- deed, but unlike the common and unhallowing life of day the wood and herbage, and silent variations of hill and valley, which slept around us ; and, as the still and shadowy light fell over the upward face of my brother, it gave to his features an addi- tional, and not wholly earth-born, solemnity of expression. There was indeed in his face and air that from which the painter of a seraph might not have disdained to copy ; something re- sembling the vision of an angel in the dark eyes that swam with tears, in which emotion had so little of mortal dross in the youthful and soft cheeks,' which the earnestness of divine thought had refined by a pale but transparent hue in the high and unclouded forehead, over which the hair, parted in the centre, fell in long and wavelike curls and in the lips, silent, yet moving with internal prayer, which seemed the more fer- vent, because unheard. I did not interrupt him in the prayer, which my soul felt, though my ear caught it not, was for me. But when he had ceased, and turned towards me, I clasped him to my breast. " My brother," I said, " we shall part, it is true, but not till our hearts have annihilated the space that was between them ; not till we have felt that the love of brotherhood can pass the love of woman. Whatever await you, your devoted and holy mind will be, if not your shield from affliction, at least your balm for its wounds. Remain here. The quiet which breathes around you well becomes your tranquillity within ; and sometimes bless me in your devotions, as you have done now. For me, I shall not regret those harder and harsher qualities which you blame 44 DEVEREUX. in me, if hereafter their very sternness can afford me an op- portunity of protecting your gentleness from evil, or redressing the wrongs from which your nature may be too innocent to pre- serve you. And now let us return home, in the conviction that we have in our friendship one treasure beyond the reach pf fate." Aubrey did not answer ; but he kissed my forehead, and I felt his tears upon my cheek. We rose, and with arms still embracing each other as we walked, bent our steps to the house. Ah, earth ! what hast thou more beautiful than the love of those whose ties are knit by nature, and whose union seems or- dained to begin from the very moment of their birth ? CHAPTER VIII. First Love. WE are under very changeful influences in this world ! The night on which occurred the interview with Aubrey, that I have just narrated, I was burning to leave Devereux Court. Within one little week from that time my eagerness was wonderfully abated. The sagacious reader will readily discover the cause of this alteration. About eight miles from my uncle's house was a seaport town ; there were many and varied rides leading to it, and the town was a favorite place of visitation with all the family. Within a few hundred yards of the town was a small cottage, prettily situated in the midst of a garden, kept with singular neatness, and ornamented with several rare shrubs and exotics. I had more than once observed in the garden of this house a female in the very first blush of youth, and beautiful enough to excite within me a strong curiosity to learn the owner of the cottage. I inquired, and ascertained that its tenant was a Spaniard of high birth, and one who had acquired a melan- choly celebrity by his conduct and misfortunes in the part he had taken in a certain feeble but gallant insurrection in his na- tive country. He had only escaped with life and a very small sum of money, and now lived in the obscure seaport of , a refugee and a recluse. He was a widower, and had only one child a daughter ; and I was therefore at no loss to discover who was the beautiful female I had noted and admired. On the day after my conversation with Aubrey, detailed in the last chapter, in riding past this cottage alone, I perceived a DEVEREUX. 45 crowd assembled round the entrance ; I paused to inquire the cause. " Why, your honor," quoth a senior of the village, " I believe the tipstaves be come to take the foreigner for not paying his rent ; and he does not understand our English liberty like, and has drawn his sword, and swears, in his outlandish lingo, he will not be made prisoner alive." I required no further inducement to make me enter the house. The crowd gave way when they saw me dismount, and suffered me to penetrate into the first apartment. There I found the gallant old Spaniard with his sword drawn, keeping at bay a couple of sturdy looking men, who appeared to be only pre- vented from using violence by respect for the person, or the safety, of a young woman, who clung to her father's knees, and implored him not to resist, where resistance was so unavailing. Let me cut short this scene I dismissed the bailiffs, and paid the debt. I then endeavored to explain to the Spaniard, in French, for he scarcely understood three words of our language, the cause of a rudeness towards him which he persisted in call- ing a great insult and inhospitality manifested to a stranger and an exile. I succeeded at length in pacifying him. I remained for more than an hour at the cottage, and I left it with a heart beating at the certain persuasion that I had established therein the claim of acquaintance and visitation. Will the reader pardon me for having curtailed this scene? It is connected with a subject on which I shall better endure to dwell as my narrative proceeds. From that time I paid frequent visits to the cottage ; the Spaniard soon grew intimate with me, and I thought the daughter began to blush when I entered, and to sigh when I departed. One evening I was conversing with Don Diego D' Alvarez (such was the Spaniard's name), as he sat without his threshold, inhaling the gentle air that stole freshness from the rippling sea that spread before us, and fragrance from the earth, over which the summer now reigned in its most mellow glory. Isora (the daughter) sat at a little distance. " How comes it," said Don Diego, " that you have never met our friend Senor Bar Bar these English names are always escaping my memory. How is he called, Isora? " " Mr. Mr. Barnard," said Isora (who, brought early to England, spoke its language like a native), but with evident confusion, and looking down as she spoke " Mr. Barnard, I believe you mean." " Right, my love," rejoined the Spaniard, who was smoking (j6 DEVEREUX. a long pipe with great gravity, and did not notice his daughter's embarrassment " a fine youth, but somewhat shy and over- modest in manner." " Youth ! " thought I, and I darted a piercing look towards Isora. " How comes it, indeed," I said aloud, " that I have not met him ? Is he a friend of long standing ? " " Nay, not very perhaps of some six weeks earlier date than you, Senor Don Devereux. I pressed him, when he called this morning, to tarry your coming ; but, poor youth, he is diffi- dent, and not yet accustomed to mix freely with strangers, especially those of rank ; our own presence a little overawes him" and from Don Diego's gray mustachios issued a yet fuller cloud than was ordinarily wont to emerge thence. My eyes were still fixed on Isora ; she looked up, met them, blushed deeply, rose, and disappeared within the house. I was already susceptible of jealousy. My lip trembled, as I resumed : "And will Don Diego pardon me for inquiring how com- menced his knowledge of this ingenuous youth?" The question was a little beyond the pale of good breeding ; perhaps the Spaniard, who was tolerably punctilious in such matters, thought so, for he did not reply. I was sensible of my error, and apologizing for it, insinuated, nevertheless, the question in a more respectful and covert shape. Still Don Diego, inhaling the fragrant weed with renewed vehemence, only like Pion's tomb, recorded by Pausanias replied to the request of his petitioner by smoke. I did not venture to renew my interrogatories, and there was a long silence. My eyes fixed their gaze on the door by which Isora had disappeared. In vain ; she returned not and as the chill of the increasing evening began now to make itself felt by the frame of one accustomed to warmer skies, the Spaniard soon rose to re-enter his house, and I took my farewell for the night. There were many ways (as I before said) by which I could return home, all nearly equal in picturesque beauty ; for the county in which my uncle's estates were placed was one where stream roved and woodland flourished even to the very strand, or cliff of the sea. The shortest route, though one the least frequented by any except foot-passengers, was along the coast, and it was by this path that I rode slowly homeward. On winding a curve in the road about one mile from Devereux Court, the old building broke slowly, tower by tower, upon me. I have never yet described the house, and perhaps it will not be uninteresting to the reader if I do so now. It had anciently belonged to Ralph de Bigod. From his tJEVEREUX. 47 possession it had passed into that of the then noblest branch of the stem of Devereux, whence, without break or flaw in the direct line of heritage, it had ultimately descended to the present owner. It was a pile of vast extent, built around three quadrangular courts, the farthest of which spread to the very verge of the gray, tall cliffs that overhung the sea : in this court was a rude tower, which, according to tradition, had contained the apartments ordinarily inhabited by our ill-fated namesake and distant kinsman, Robert Devereux, the favorite and the victim of Elizabeth, whenever he had honored the mansion with a visit. There was nothing, it is true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the tradition, for it contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with each other, and by no means remarkable for size or splendor ; and every one of our household, save myself, was wont to discredit the idle rumor which would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment. But, as I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide expanse of ocean and of land which they commanded as I noted, too, that the tower was utterly separated from the rest of the house, and that the convenience of its site enabled one, on quitting it, to escape at once, and privately, either to the solitary beach or to the glades and groves of the wide park which stretched behind I could not help indulging the belief that the unceremonious, and not un- romantic noble, had himself selected his place of retirement, and that, in so doing, the gallant of a stately court was not, perhaps, undesirous of securing at well-chosen moments a brief relaxation from the heavy honors of country homage or that the patron and poetic admirer of the dreaming Spenser might have preferred, to all more gorgeous accommodation, the quiet and unseen egress to that sea and shore, which, if we may be- lieve the accomplished Roman,* are so fertile in the powers of inspiration. However this be, I had cheated myself into the belief that my conjecture was true, and I had petitioned my uncle, when, on leaving school, he assigned to each of us our several apart- ments, to grant me the exclusive right to this dilapidated tower. I gained my boon easily enough ; and so strangely is our future fate compounded from past trifles I verily believe that the strong desire which thenceforth seized me to visit courts, and mix with statesmen which afterwards hurried me into * " p mare, O litus, verura secretumque Monseion, quam multa dictatis quam multa invenitis ! " PLINIUS. " O sea, O shore, true and secret sanctuary f the Muses, how many things ye dictate, bow many things ye discover." 48 DEVEREUX. intrigue, war, the plots of London, the dissipations of Paris, the perilous schemes of Petersburg, nay, the very hardships of a Cossack tent was first formed by the imaginary honor of in- habiting the same chamber as the glittering but ill-fated courtier of my own name. Thus youth imitates, where it should avoid ; and thus that which should have been to me a warning became an example. In the oaken floor to the outer chamber of this tower was situated a trap-door, the entrance into a lower room or rather cell, fitted up as a bath ; and here a wooden door opened into a long subterranean passage that led out into a cavern by the sea-shore. This cave, partly by nature, partly by art, was hollowed into a beautiful Gothic form : and here, on moonlight evenings, when the sea crept gently over the yellow and smooth sands, and the summer tempered the air from too keen a fresh- ness, my uncle had often in his younger days, ere gout and rheum had grown familiar images, assembled his guests. It was a place which the echoes peculiarly adapted for rnusic ; and the scene was certainly not calculated to diminish the effect of "sweet sounds." Even now, though my uncle rarely joined us, we were often wont to hold our evening revels in this spot ; and the high cliffs, circling either side in the form of a bay, tolerably well concealed our meetings from the gaze of the vulgar. It is true (for these cliffs were perforated with numerous excavations), that some roving peasant, mariner, or perchance smuggler, would now and then, at low water, intrude upon us. But our London Nereids and courtly Tritons were always well pleased with the interest of what they graciously termed " an adventure ": and our assemblies were too numer- ous to think an unbroken secrecy indispensable. Hence, therefore, the cavern was almost considered a part of the house itself ; and though there was an iron door at the entrance which it gave to the passage leading to my apartments, yet so great was our confidence in our neighbors or ourselves that it was rarely secured, save as a defence against the high tides of winter. The stars were shining quietly over the old gray castle (for castle it really was), as I now came within view of it. To the left, and in the rear of the house, the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed blent into one thick mass of wood ; to the right, as I now (descending the cliff by a gradual path,) entered on the level sands, and at about the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved the wide and glassy DEVEREUX. 49 azure of the waves. The tide was out ; and passing through one of the arches worn in the bay, I came somewhat suddenly by the cavern. Seated there on a crag of stone I found Aubrey. My acquaintance with Isora and her father had so immediately succeeded the friendly meeting with Aubrey which I last re- corded, and had so utterly engrossed my time and thoughts, that I had not taken of that interview all the brotherly advan- tage which I might have done. My heart now smote me for my involuntary negligence. I dismounted, and fastening my horse to one of a long line of posts that ran into the sea, ap- proached Aubrey and accosted him. "Alone, Aubrey? and at an hour when my uncle always makes the old walls ring with revel ! Hark, can you not hear the music even now? it comes from the ball-room, I think, does it not ? " "Yes!" said Aubrey, briefly, and looking down upon a devotional book, which (as was his wont) he had made his companion. "And we are the only truants! Well, Gerald will supply our places with a lighter step, and, perhaps, a merrier heart." Aubrey sighed. I bent over him affectionately (I loved that boy with something of a father's as well as a brother's love), and as I did bend over him, I saw that his eyelids were red with weeping. "My brother my own dear brother," said I, "what grieves you? are we not friends, and more than friends? what can grieve you that grieves not me?" Suddenly raising his head, Aubrey gazed at me with a long, searching intentness of eye; his lips moved, but he did not answer. "Speak to me, Aubrey," said I, passing my arm over his shoulder; "has any one, any thing, hurt you? See, now, if I cannot remedy the evil." "Morton, "said Aubrey, speaking very slowly, "do you believe that Heaven pre-orders as well as foresees our destiny?" "It is the schoolman's question," said I, smiling, "but I know how these idle subtleties vex the mind and you, my brother, are ever too occupied with considerations of the future. If Heaven does pre-order our destiny, we know that Heaven is merciful, and we should be fearless, as we arm ourselves in that knowledge." " Morton Devereux," said Aubrey, again repeating my name, and with an evident inward effort that left his lip colorless, and yet lit his dark dilating eye with a strange and unwonted fire 6 DEVEREUX. "Morton Devereux, I feel that 1 am predestined to the power of the Evil One ! " I drew back, inexpressibly shocked. "Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "what can induce you to cherish so terrible a phan- tasy ? What can induce you to wrong so fearfully the goodness and mercy of our Creator ?" Aubrey shrunk from ray arm, which had still been round him, and covered his face with his hands. I took up the book he had been reading : it was a Latin treatise on predestination, and seemed fraught with the most gloomy and bewildering subtleties. I sat down beside him, and pointed out the various incoherencies and contradictions of the work, and the doctrine it espoused so long and so earnestly did I speak that at length Aubrey looked up, seemingly cheered and relieved. " I wish," said he timidly, "I wish that you loved me, and that you loved me only : but you love pleasure, and power, and show, and wit, and revelry ; and you know not what it is to feel for me, as I feel at times for you nay, perhaps you really dislike or despise me ! " Aubrey's voice grew bitter in its tone as he concluded these words, and I was instantly impressed with the belief that some one had insinuated distrust of my affection for him. "Why should you think thus?" I said: "has any cause occurred of late to make you deem my affection for you weaker than it was ? Has any one hinted a surmise that I do not repay your brotherly regard ? " Aubrey did not answer. "Has Gerald," I continued, '* jealous of our mutual attach- ment, uttered aught tending to diminish it ? Yes, I see that he has ! " Aubrey remained motionless, sullenly gazing downward, and still silent. "Speak," said I, "in justice to both of us speak! You know, Aubrey, how I have loved and love you : put your arms round me, and say that thing on earth which you wish me to do, and it shall be done ! " Aubrey looked up ; he met my eyes, and he threw himself upon my neck, and burst into a violent paroxysm of tears. I was greatly affected. "I see my fault," said I, soothing him ; "you are angry, and with justice, that I have neglected you of late ; and, perhaps, while I ask your confidence, you suspect that there is some subject on which I should have gran ted you mine. You are right, and, at a fitter moment, I will. Now let us turn homeward ; our uncle is never merry when we are DEVEREUX. 51 absent ; and when my mother misses your dark locks and fair cheek, I fancy that she sees little beauty in the ball. And yet, Aubrey," I added, as he now rose from my embrace, and dried his tears, " I will own to you that I love this scene better than any, however gay, within ;" and I turned to the sea, starlit as it was, and murmuring with a silver voice, and I became sud- denly silent. There was a long pause. I believe we both felt the influence of the scene around us, softening and tranquillizing our hearts ; for, at length, Aubrey put his hand in mine, and said, " You were always more generous and kind than I, Morton, though there are times when you seem different from what you are ; and I know you have already forgiven me." I drew him affectionately towards me, and we went home. But although I meant, from that night, to devote myself more to Aubrey than I had done of late, my hourly increasing love for Isora interfered greatly with my resolution. In order, how- ever, to excuse any future neglect, I, the very next morning, be- stowed upon him my confidence. Aubrey did not much encourage my passion : he represented to me Isora's situation my own youth my own worldly ambition and, more than all (remind- ing me of my uncle's aversion even to the most prosperous and well-suited marriage), he insisted upon the certainty that Sir William would never yield consent to the lawful consummation of so unequal a love. I was not too well pleased with this re- ception of my tale, and I did not much trouble my adviser with any farther communication and confidence on the subject. Day after day I renewed my visits to the Spaniard's cottage; and yet time passed on, and I had not told Isora a syllable of my love. I was inexpressibly jealous of this Barnard, whom her father often eulogized, and whom I never met. There ap- peared to be some mystery in his acquaintance with Don Diego, which that personage carefully concealed ; and once, when I was expressing my surprise to have so often missed seeing his friend, the Spaniard shook his head gravely, and said that he had now learnt the real reason for it: there were circumstances of state which made men fearful of new acquaintances, even in their own country. He drew back, as if he had said too much, and left me the conjecture that Barnard was connected with him in some intrigue, more delightful in itself than agreeable to the government. This belief was strengthened by my noting that Alvarez was frequently absent from home, and this, too, in the evening, when he was generally wont to shun the bleakness of the English air an atmosphere, by the by, which I once 52 bEVEREUX. heard a Frenchman wittily compare to Augustus placed between Horace and Virgil; viz., in the bon motoi the emperor himself between sighs and tears. But Isora herself never heard the name of this Barnard men- tioned without a visible confusion, which galled me to the heart; and at length, unable to endure any longer my suspense upon the subject, I resolved to seek from her own lips its termination. I long tarried my opportunity: it was one evening, that, coming rather unexpectedly to the cottage, I was informed by the single servant that Don Diego had gone to the neighboring town, but that Isora was in the garden. Small as it was, this garden had been cultivated with some care, and was not devoid of variety. A high and very thick fence of living boxwood, closely inter- laced with the honeysuckle and the common rose, screened a few plots of rarer flowers, a small circular fountain, and a rustic arbor, both from the sea breezes and the eyes of any passer by, to which the open and sheltered portion of the garden was ex- posed. When I passed through the opening cut in the fence, I was somewhat surprised at not immediately seeing Isora. Per- haps she was in the arbor. I approached the arbor tremblingly. What was my astonishment and my terror when I beheld her stretched lifeless on the ground. I uttered a loud cry, and sprang forwards. I raised her from the earth, and supported her in my arms ; her complexion through whose pure and transparent white the wandering blood was wont so gently, yet so glowingly, to blush, undulating while it blushed, as youngest rose-leaves which the air just stirs into trembling was blanched into the hues of death. My kisses tinged it with a momentary color not its own ; and yet as I pressed her to my heart, methought hers, which seemed still be- fore, began, as if by an involuntary sympathy, palpably and sud- denly to throb against my own. My alarm melted away as I held her thus nay, I would not, if I could, have recalled her yet to life ; I was forgetful I was unheeding I was uncon- scious of all things else a few broken and passionate words es- caped my lips, but even they ceased when I felt her breath just stirring and mingling with my own. It seemed to me as if all living kind but ourselves had, by a spell, departed from .the earth, and we were left alone with the breathless and inaudible Nature from which spring the love and the life of all things. Isora slowly recovered ; her eyes, in opening, dwelt upon mine her blood rushed at once to her cheek, and as suddenly left it hueless as before. She rose from my embrace, but I still extended my arms towards her ; and words over which I had DEVEREUJt. 5J no control, and of which now I have no remembrance, rushed from my lips. Still pale, and leaning against the side of the arbor, Isora heard me, as confused, incoherent, impetuous, but still in- telligible to her my released heart poured itself forth. And when I had ceased, she turned her face towards me, and my blood seemed frozen in its channel. Anguish, deep, ineffable anguish, was depicted upon every feature ; and when she strove at last to speak, her lips quivered so violently that, after a vain effort she ceased abruptly. I again approached I seized her hand, which I covered with my kisses. "Will you not answer me, Isora?" said I tremblingly. " Be silent then ; but give me one look, one glance of hope, of par- don, from those dear eyes, and I ask no more." Isora's whole frame seemed sinking beneath her emotions; she raised her head, and looked hurriedly and fearfully round; my eye followed hers, and I then saw upon the damp ground, the recent print of a man's footsteps, not my own; and close to the spot where I had found Isora, lay a man's glove. A pang shot through me I felt my eyes flash fire, and my brow darken, as I turned to Isora, and said, " I see it I see it all, I have a rival, who has but just left you you love me not your affections are for him ! " Isora sobbed violently, but made no reply. "You love him," said I, but in a milder and more mournful tone "you love him it is enough I will persecute you no more ; and yet " I paused a moment, for the remembrance of many a sign, which my heart had interpreted flatteringly, flashed upon me, and my voice faltered. " Well, I have no right to murmur only, Isora only tell me with your lips that you love another, and I will depart in peace." Very slowly Isora turned her eyes to me, and even through her tears they dwelt upon me with a tender and a soft reproach. " You love another ? " said I and from her lips, which scarce- ly parted, came a single word which thrilled to my heart like fire, lt No/" "No!" I repeated, "No? say that again, and again; yet who then is this that has dared so to agitate and overpower you? Who is he whom you have met, and whom, even now while I speak, you tremble to hear me recur to? Answer me one word is it this mysterious stranger whom your father honors with his friendship ? Is it Barnard ? " Alarm and fear again wholly engrossed the expression of Isora's countenance. "Barnard ! " she said, "yes yes it is Barnard ! " " Who is he ? " I cried vehemently " who or what is he ? and 54 DEVEREUX. of what nature is his influence upon you ? Confide in me " and I poured forth a long tide of inquiry and solicitation. By the time I had ended, Isora seemed to have recovered her- self. With her softness, was mingled something of spirit and of self-control, which was rare alike in her country and her sex. "Listen to me ! " said she, and her voice, which faltered a lit- tle at first, grew calm and firm as she proceeded. "You profess to love me I am not worthy your love ; and if, Count Devereux, I do not reject nor disclaim it for I am a woman and a weak and fond one I will not at least wrong you by encouraging hopes which I may not and I dare not fulfil. I cannot " here she spoke with a fearful distinctness, " I cannot, I can never, be yours ; and when you ask me to be so, you know not what you ask nor what perils you incur. Enough I am grateful to you. The poor exiled girl is grateful for your esteem and and your affection. She will never forget them, never ! But be this our last meeting our very last God bless you, Morton ! " and as she read my heart, pierced and agonized as it was, in my countenance, Isora bent over me, for I knelt beside her, and I felt her tears upon my cheek,-^-" God bless you and farewell." "You insult, you wound me," said I bitterly, "by this cold and taunting kindness ; tell me, tell me only, who it is that you love better than me." Isora had turned to leave me, for I was too proud to detain her ; but when I said this, she came back, after a moment's pause, and laid her hand upon my arm. " If it make you happy to know my unhappiness," she said, and the tone of her voice made me look full in her face, which was one deep blush, " know that I am not insensible " I heard no more my lips pressed themselves involuntarily to hers a long, long kiss, burning intense concentrating emo- tion, heart, soul, all the rays of life's light into a single focus ; and she tore herself from me and I was alone. CHAPTER IX. A Discovery, and a Departure. I HASTENED home after my eventful interview with Isora, and gave myself up to tumultuous and wild conjecture. Aubrey sought me the next morning I narrated to him all that had oc- curredhe said little, but that little enraged me, for it was con- trary to the dictates of my own wishes. The character of DEVEREUX. 55 Morose in the "Silent Woman" is by no means an uncommon one. Many men certainly many lovers would say with equal truth, always provided they had equal candor "All discourses but my own afflict me ; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irk- some." Certainly I felt that amiable sentiment most sincerely, with regard to Aubrey. I left him abruptly a resolution pos- sessed me " I will see," said I, " this Barnard. I will lie in wait for him ; I will demand and obtain, though it be by force, the secret which evidently subsists between him and this exiled family." Full of this idea, I drew my cloak round me, and repaired on foot to the neighborhood of the Spaniard's cottage. There was no place near it very commodious for accommodation both of vigil and concealment. However, I made a little hill, in a field opposite the house, my warder's station, and, lying at full length on the ground, wrapt in my cloak, I trusted to escape notice. The day passed no visitor appeared. The next morning I went from my own rooms, through the subterranean passage, into the Castle Cave, as the excavation I have before described was generally termed. On the shore I saw Gerald, by one of the small fishing-boats usually kept there. I passed him with a sneer at his amusements, which were always those of conflicts against fish or fowl. He answered me in the same strain, as he threw his nets into the boat, and pushed out to sea. "How is it, that you go alone?" said I ; "is there so much glory in the capture of mackerel and dogfish that you will allow no one to share it ?" " There are other sports besides those for men," answered Gerald, coloring indignantly ; "my taste is confined to amuse- ments in which he is but a fool who seeks companionship ; and if you could read character better, my wise brother, you would know that the bold rover is ever less idle and more fortunate than the speculative dreamer ! " As Gerald said this, which he did with a significant emphasis, he rowed vigorously across the water, and the little boat was soon half way to the opposite islet. My eyes followed it mus- ingly as it glided over the waves, and my thoughts painfully re- volved the words which Gerald had uttered. "What can he mean ? " said I, half aloud ; " yet what matters it ? perhaps some low amour, some village conquest, inspires him with that becom- ing fulness of pride and vain glory joy be with so bold a rover ! " and I strode away, along the beach, towards my place of watch; once only I turned to look at Gerald he had then just touched the islet, which was celebrated as much for the fishing it afforded as the smuggling it protected, 56 DEVEREUX. I arrived, at last, at the hillock, and resumed my station. Time passed on, till, at the dusk of evening, the Spaniard came out. He walked slowly towards the town ; I followed him at a distance. Just before he reached the town, he turned off by a path which led to the beach. As the evening was unusually fresh and chill, I felt convinced that some cause, not wholly trivial, drew the Spaniard forth to brave it. My pride a little revolted at the idea of following him ; but I persuaded myself that Isora's happiness, and perhaps her father's safety, depended on my ob- taining some knowledge of the character and designs of this Barnard, who appeared to possess so dangerous an influence over both daughter and sire nor did I doubt but that the old man was now gone forth to meet him. The times were those of mystery and intrigue the emissaries of the House of Stuart were restlessly at work, among all classes many of them, ob- scure and mean individuals, made their way, the more dan- gerously from their apparent insignificance. My uncle, a moderate Tory, was opposed, though quietly, and without vehe- mence, to the claims of the banished House. Like Sedley, who became so staunch a revolutionist, he had seen the Court of Charles II., and the character of that King's brother, too closely to feel much respect for either ; but he thought it indecorous to express opposition loudly, against a party among whom were many of his early friends ; and the good old knight was too much attached to private ties to be very much alive to public feeling. However, at his well-filled board, conversation, generally, though displeasingly to himself, turned upon politics, and I had there often listened, of late, to dark hints of the danger to which we were exposed, and of the restless machinations of the Jacob- ites. I did not, therefore, scruple to suspect this Barnard of some plot against the existing state ; and I did it the more from observing that the Spaniard often spoke bitterly of the English Court, which had rejected some claims he had imagined him- self entitled to make upon it ; and that he was naturally of a tem- per vehemently opposed to quiet, and alive to enterprise. With this impression, I deemed it fair to seize any opportunity of see- ing, at least, even if I could not question, the man whom the Spaniard himself confessed to have state reasons for conceal- ment ; and my anxiety to behold one whose very name could agitate Isora, and whose presence could occasion the state in which I had found her, sharpened this desire into the keenness of a passion. While Alvarez descended to the beach, I kept the upper path, which wound along the cliff. There was a spot where the DEVEREUX. 57 rocks were rude and broken into crags, and afforded me a place where, unseen, I could behold what passed below. The first thing I beheld was a boat, approaching rapidly towards the shore ; one man was seated in it ; he reached the shore, and I recognized Gerald. That was a dreadful moment. Alvarez now slowly joined him ; they remained together for nearly an hour. I saw Gerald give the Spaniard a letter, which appeared to make the chief subject of their conversation. At length they parted, with the signs rather of respect than familiarity. Don Diego returned homeward, and Gerald re-entered the boat. I watched its progress over the waves with feelings of a dark and almost unutterable nature. " My enemy ! my rival ! ruiner of my hopes! my brother my twin brother!" I muttered bitterly between my ground teeth. The boat did not make to the open sea it skulked along the shore, till distance and shadow scarcely allowed me to trace the outline of Gerald's figure. It then touched the beach, and I could just descry the dim shape of another man enter ; and Gerald, instead of returning homewards, pushed out towards the islet. I spent the greater part of the night in the open air. Wearied and exhausted, by the furious indulgence of my pas- sions, I gained my room, at length. There, however, as else- where, thought succeeded to thought, and scheme to scheme. Should I speak to Gerald ? Should I confide in Alvarez ? Should I renew my suit to Isora ? If the first, what could I hope to learn from mine enemy ? If the second, what could I gain from the father, while the daughter remained averse to me ? If the third there my heart pointed, and the third scheme I resolved to adopt. But was I sure that Gerald was this Barnard ? Might there not be some hope that he was not ? No, I could perceive none. Alvarez had never spoken to me of acquaintance with any other Englishman than Barnard ; I had no reason to believe that he ever held converse with any other. Would it not have been natural too, unless some powerful cause, such as love to Isora, induced silence would it not have been natural that Gerald should have mentioned his acquaintance with the Spaniard ? Unless some dark scheme, such as that which Barnard appeared to have in common with Don Diego, commanded obscurity, would it have been likely that Gerald should have met Alvarez alone at night on an unfrequented spot? What that scheme was, I guessed not I cared not. All my interest in the identity of Barnard with Gerald Devereux was that derived from the power he seemed to possess over Isora, Here, too, at once, 58 DEVEREUX. was explained the pretended Barnard's desire of concealment, and the vigilance with which it had been effected. It was so certain that Gerald, if my rival, would seek to avoid me it was so easy for him, who could watch all my motions, to secure the power of doing so. Then I remembered Gerald's character through the country, as a gallant and a general lover and I closed my eyes as if to shut out the vision when I recalled the beauty of his form, contrasting with the comparative plainness of my own. " There is no hope," I repeated and an insensibility, rather than sleep, crept over me. Dreadful and fierce dreams peopled my slumbers ; and, when I started from them at a late hour the next day, I was unable to rise from my bed my agitation and my wanderings had terminated in a burning fever. In four days, however, I recovered sufficiently to mount my horse I rode to the Spaniard's house, I found there only the woman who had been Don Diego's solitary domestic. The morning before, Alvarez and his daughter had departed, none knew for certain whither ; but it was supposed their destination was London. The woman gave me a note it was from Isora it contained only these lines : "Forget me we are now parted for ever. As you value my peace of mind of happiness I do not speak seek not to discover our next retreat. I implore you to think no more of what has been ; you are young, very young. Life has a thousand paths for you ; any one of them will lead you from the remembrance of me. Farewell, again and again ! "ISORA D'ALVAREZ." With this note was another, in French, from Don Diego ; it was colder and more formal than I could have expected it thanked me for my attentions towards him it regretted that he could not take leave of me in person, and it enclosed the sum by the loan of which our acquaintance had commenced. "It is well!" said I, calmly, to myself, " it is well ; I will forget her ;" and I rode instantly home. " But," I resumed in my soliloquy, " I will yet strive to obtain confirmation to what perhaps needs it not. I will yet strive to see if Gerald can deny the depth of his injuries towards me there will be at least some comfort in witnessing either his defiance or his confusion." Agreeably to this thought, I hastened to seek Gerald. I found him in his apartment I shut the door, and seating my- self, with a smile, thus addressed him : " Dear Gerald, I have a favor to ask of you," DEVEREUX. 59 " What is it ? " " How long have you known a certain Mr. Barnard ? " Gerald changed color his voice faltered as he repeated the name "Barnard ! " " Yes," said I, with affected composure, " Barnard, a great friend of Don Diego D'Alvarez." " I perceive," said Gerald, collecting himself, " that you are in some measure acquainted with my secret how far it is known to you I cannot guess ; but I tell you, very fairly, that from me you will not increase the sum of your knowledge." When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be ! I was certainly somewhat amazed by Gerald's hardihood and assurance, but I continued, with a smile "And Donna Isora, how long, if not very intrusive on your confidence, have you known her?" " I tell you," answered Gerald doggedly, " that I will answer no questions." " You remember the old story," returned I, " of the two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, whose very ashes refused to mingle faith, Gerald, our love seems much of the same sort. I know not if our ashes will exhibit so laudable an antipathy ; but I think our hearts and hands will do so while a spark of life animates them ; yes, though our blood," (I added, in a voice quivering with furious emotion,) "prevents our contest by the sword, it prevents not the hatred and the curses of the heart." Gerald turned pale. " I do not understand you," he faltered out " I know you abhor me ; but why, why this excess of malice ?" I cast on him a look of bitter scorn, and turned from the room. It is not pleasing to place before the reader these dark pas- sages of fraternal hatred ; but in the record of all passions there is a moral ; and it is wise to see to how vast a sum the units of childish animosity swell, when they are once brought into a heap, by some violent event, and told over by the nice accuracy of Revenge. But I long to pass from these scenes, and my history is about to glide along others of more glittering and smiling aspect. Thank Heaven, I write a tale, not only of love, but of a life ; and that vrhich I cannot avoid I can at least condense. 60 DEVEREUX. CHAPTER X. A very short Chapter containing a Valet. MY uncle for several weeks had flattered himself that I had quite forgotten or foregone the desire of leaving Devereux Court for London. Good, easy man ! he was not a little dis- tressed when I renewed the subject with redoubled firmness, and demanded an early period for that event. He managed, however, still to protract the evil day. At one time it was im- possible to part with me, because the house was so full ; at an- other time it was cruel to leave him, when the house was so empty. Meanwhile, a new change came over me. As the first shock of Isora's departure passed away, I began to suspect the purity of her feelings towards me. Might not Gerald, the beau- tiful, the stately, the glittering Gerald, have been a successful wooer under that disguised name of Barnard, and hence Isora's confusion when that name was mentioned, and hence the power which its possessor exercised over her? This idea, once admitted, soon gained ground. It is true that Isora had testified something of favorable feelings towards me ; but this might spring from coquetry or compassion. My love had been a boy's love, founded upon beauty and colored by romance. I had not investigated the character of the object ; and I had judged of the mind solely by the face. I might easily have been deceived I persuaded myself that I was ! Perhaps Gerald had provided their present retreat for sire and daughter perhaps they at this moment laughed over my rivalry and my folly. Methought Gerald's lip wore a contemptuous curve when we met. " It shall have no cause," I said, stung to the soul ; "I will indeed forget this woman, and yet, though in other ways, eclipse this rival. Pleasure ambition the brilliancy of a Court the resources of wealth invite me to a thousand joys. I will not be deaf to the call. Meanwhile I will not betray to Gerald to any one the scar of the wound I have received ; and I will mortify Gerald, by showing him that, handsome as he is, he shall be forgotten in my presence ! " Agreeably to this exquisite resolution, I paid incessant court to the numerous dames by whom my uncle's mansion was thronged ; and I resolved to prepare, among them, the reputa- tion for gallantry and for wit which I proposed to establish in town. " You are greatly altered since your love ! " said Aubrey, one DEVEREUX. 6t day to me, " but not by your love. Own that I did right in dis- suading you from its indulgence ! " " Tell me ! " said I, sinking my voice to a whisper, " do you think Gerald was my rival?" and I recounted the causes of my suspicion. Aubrey's countenance testified astonishment as he listened " It is strange very strange," said he; "and the evidence of the boat is almost conclusive; still I do not think it quite suffic- ient to leave no loophole of doubt. But what matters it ? you have conquered your love now." " Ay," I said, with a laugh, " I have conquered it, and I am now about to find some other empress of the heart. What think you of the Lady Hasselton ? a fair dame and a sprightly. I want nothing but her love to be the most enviable of men, and a French valet-de-chambre to be the most irresistible." " The former is easier to obtain than the latter, I fear," re- turned Aubrey; "all places produce light dames, but the war makes a scarcity of French valets." " True," said I, " but I never thought of instituting a com- parison between their relative value. The Lady Hasselton, no disparagement to her merits, is but one woman but a French valet who knows his mttier arms one for conquest over a thous- and " and I turned to the saloon. Fate, which had destined to me the valuable affections of the Lady Hasselton, granted me also, at a yet earlier period, the greater boon of a French valet. About two or three weeks after this sapient communication with Aubrey, the most charming person in the world presented himself a candidate pour le su- prtme bonheur de soigner Monsieur le Comte. Intelligence beamed in his eye ; a modest assurance reigned upon his brow ; respect made his step vigilant as a zephyr's ; and his ruffles were the envy of the world ! I took him at a glance ; and I presented to the admiring in- mates of the house a greater coxcomb than the Count Devereux in the ethereal person of Jean Desmarais. CHAPTER XL The Hero acquits himself honorably as a Coxcomb a Fine Lady of the Eighteenth Century, and a fashionable Dialogue the Substance of fashionable Dialogue being in all Centuries the same. " I AM thinking, Morton," said my uncle, "that if you are to go to town, you should go in a style suitable to your rank. What say you to flying along the road in my green and gold 62 DEVEREUX. chariot ? 'Sdeath, I'll make you a present of it. Nay no thanks and you may have four of my black Flanders mares to draw you." " Now, my dear Sir William," cried Lady Hasselton, who, it may be remembered, was the daughter of one of King Charles's beauties, and who alone shared the breakfast room with my uncle and myself "now, my dear Sir William, I think it would be a better plan to suffer the Count to accompany us to town. We go next week. He shall have a seat in our coach help Lovell to pay our post-horses protect us at inns scold at the drawers in the pretty oaths of the fashion, which are so inno- cent that I will teach them to his Countship myself, and unless I am much more frightful than my honored mother, whose beauties you so gallantly laud, I think you will own, Sir Wil- liam, that this is better for your nephew than doing solitary penance in your chariot of green and gold, with a handkerchief tied over his head to keep away cold, and with no more fanci- ful occupation than composing sonnets to the four Flanders mares." " 'Sdeath, madam, you inherit your mother's wit as well as beauty," cried my uncle, with an impassioned air. " And his Countship," said I, " will accept your invitation without asking his uncle's leave." " Come, that is bold for a gentleman of let me see, thirteen are you not?" "Really," answered I, "one learns to forget time so terribly in the presence of Lady Hasselton, that I do not remember even how long it has existed for me." " Bravo," cried the knight, with a moistening eye : " you see, madam, the boy has not lived with his old uncle for nothing." " I am lost in astonishment," said the lady, glancing toward the glass ; " why, you will eclipse all our beaux at your first appearance but but Sir William how green those glasses have become! bless me, there is something so' contagious in the effects of the country, that the very mirrors grow verdant. But Count Count where are you, Count ? (I was exactly opposite to the fair speaker.) Oh, there you are pray do you carry a little pocket-glass of the true quality about you ? But, of course you do lend it me." " I have not the glass you want, but I carry with me a mirror that reflects your features much more faithfully." " How ! I protest I do not understand you ! " "The mirror is here ! " said I, laying my hand to my heart " 'Gad, I must kiss the boy ! " cried my uncle, starting up. DEVEREUX. 63 " I have sworn," said I, fixing my eyes upon the lady " I have sworn never to be kissed even by women. You must pardon me, uncle." "I declare," cried the Lady Hasselton, flirting her fan, which was somewhat smaller than the screen that one puts into a .great hall, in order to take off the discomfort of too large a room " I declare, Count, there is a vast deal of originality about you. But tell me, Sir William, where did your nephew acquire, at so early an age (eleven you say he is) such a fund of agreeable assurance?" " Nay, madam, let the boy answer for himself." "Imprimis, then," said I, playing with the ribbon of my cane " imprimis, early study of the best authors Congreve and Farquhar, Etherege and Rochester. Secondly, the con- stant intercourse of company which gives one the spleen so over-poweringly that despair inspires one with boldness to get rid of them. Thirdly, the personal example of Sir William Devereux ; and, fourthly, the inspiration of hope." "Hope, sir !" said the Lady Hasselton, covering her face with her fan, so as only to leave me a glimpse of the farthest patch upon her left cheek " hope, sir ?" "Yes the hope of being pleasing to you. Suffer me to add that the hope has now become certainty." "Upon my .word, Count " " Nay, you cannot deny it if one can once succeed in im- pudence, one is irresistible." " Sir William," cried Lady Hasselton, " you may give the Count your chariot of green and gold, and your four Flanders mares, and send his mother's maid with him. He shall not go with me." " Cruel ! and why ? " said I. " You are too " the lady paused, and looked at me over her fan. She was really very handsome " you are too old, Count. You must be more than nine." " Pardon me," said I, " I am nine a very mystical number nine is too, and represents the muses, who, you know, were always attendant upon Venus or you, which is the same thing ; so you can no more dispense with my company than you can with that of the Graces." " Good-morning, Sir William ! " cried the Lady Hasselton, rising. I offered to hand her to the door with great difficulty, tor her hoop was of the very newest enormity of circumference, I effected this object. " Well, Count ! " said she, " I am glad to 64 DEVEREUX. see you have brought so much learning from school ; make the best use of it, while it lasts, for your memory will not furnish you with a single simile out of the mythology by the end of next winter." "That would be a pity !" said I, " for I intend Imping as many goddesses as the Heathens had, and I should like to worship them in a classical fashion." " Oh ! the young reprobate ! " said the beauty, tapping me with her fan. "And pray what other deities besides Venus do I resemble ? " " All ! " said I "at least all the celestial ones ! " Though half way through the door, the beauty extricated her hoop, and drew back. "Bless me, the gods as well as the goddesses ?" " Certainly." " You jest tell me how." " Nothing can be easier ; you resemble Mercury, because of your thefts." " Thefts ! " "Ay ; stolen hearts, and" (added I, in a whisper) "glances Jupiter, partly because of your lightning, which you lock up in the said glances principally because all things are subservient to you Neptune, because you are as changeable as the seas Vulcan, because you live among the flames you excite and Mars, because " " You are so destructive," cried my uncle. "Exactly so; and because," added I as I shut the door upon the beauty "because, thanks to your hoop, you cover nine acres of ground." " Od'sfish, Morton," said my uncle, " you surprise me at times one while you are so reserved, at another so assured ; to-day so brisk, to-morrow so gloomy. Why now, Lady Has- selton (she is very comely, eh ! faith, but not comparable to her mother) told me, a week ago, that she gave you up in de- spair, that you were dull, past hoping for ; and now, 'Gad, you had a life in you that Sid himself could not have surpassed. How comes it sir, eh ? " " Why, uncle, you have explained the reason ; it was exactly because she said I was dull that I was resolved to convict her in an untruth." "Well, now, there is some sense in that, boy ; always con- tradict ill report, by personal merit. But what think you of her ladyship ? 'Gad, you know what old Bellair said of Emilia. 'Make much of her she's one of the best of your acquaint- DEVEREUX. 65 ance. I like her countenance and behavior. Well, she has a modesty not i' this age, a-dad she has.' Applicable enough eh, boy ! " " ' I know her value, sir, and esteem her accordingly,' " an- swered I, out of the same play, which, by dint of long study, I had got by heart. "But, to confess the truth," added I, " I think you might have left out the passage about her modesty." " There, now you young chaps are so censorious why 'sdeath, sir, you don't think the worse of her virtue, because of her wit ?" " Humph ! " " Ah, boy when you are my age, you'll know that your demure cats are not the best ; and that reminds me of a little story shall I tell it you, child ? " " If it so please you, sir." " Zauns where's my snuff-box ? oh, here it is. Well, sir, you shall have the whole thing, from beginning to end. Sed- ley and I were one day conversing together about women. Sid was a very deep fellow in that game no passion you know no love on his own side nothing of the sort all done by rule and compass knew women as well as dice, and calculated the exact moment when his snares would catch them, according to the principles of geometry. D d clever fellow, faith but a confounded rascal : but let it go no farther mum's the word ! must not slander the dead and 'tis only my suspicion, you know, after all. Poor fellow I don't think he was such a rascal ; he gave a beggar an angel once, well, boy, have a pinch ? Well, so I said to Sir Charles, M think you will lose the widow, after all 'Gad I do.' ' Upon what principle of science, Sir William ? ' said he. ' Why, faith, man, she is so modest, you see, and has such a pretty way of blushing.' ' Harkye, friend Devereux,' said Sir Charles, smoothing his collar, and mincing his words musically, as he was wont to do ' harkye, friend Devereux, I will give you the whole experience of my life in one maxim I can answer for its being new, and I think it is profound and that maxim is ' No faith, Morton no, I can't tell thee it is villainous, and then it's so desperately against all the sex." " My dear uncle, don't tantalize me so pray tell it me it shall be a secret." " No, boy, no it will corrupt thee besides, it will do poor Sid's memory no good. But 'sdeath, it was a most wonderfully shrewd saying i' faith, it was. But zounds Morton I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from the Abbe" to-day." 66 DEVEREUX. " Ha ! and when does he return ? "- " To-morrow, God willing ! " said the knight with a sigh. " So soon, or rather after so long an absence ! Well, I arc glad of it. I wish much to see him before I leave you." " Indeed ! " quoth my uncle " you have an advantage over me, then ! But, od'sfish, Morton, how is it that you grew so friendly with the priest before his departure? He used to speak very suspiciously of thee formerly ; and, when I last saw him, he lauded thee to the skies." " Why, the clergy of his faith have a habit of defending the strong, and crushing the weak, I believe that's all. He once thought I was dull enough to damn my fortune, and then he had some strange doubts for my soul now he thinks me wise enough to become prosperous, and it is astonishing what a re- spect he has conceived for my principles." " Ha ! ha ! ha ! you have a spice of your uncle's humor in you and, 'Gad, you have no small knowledge of the world, considering you have seen so little of it." A hit at the Popish clergy was, in my good uncle's eyes, the exact acme of wit and wisdom. We are always clever with those who imagine we think as they do. To be shallow you must differ with people to be profound you must agree with them. " Why, sir," answered the sage nephew, " you for- get that I have seen more of the world than many of twice my age. Your house has been full of company ever since I have been in it, and you set me to making observations on what I saw before I was thirteen. And then, too, if one is reading books about real life, at the very time one is mixing in it, it is astonishing how naturally one remarks, and how well one remembers." " Especially if one has a genius for it, eh, boy ! And then, too, you have read my play turned Horace's Satires into a lampoon upon the boys at school been regularly to assizes during the vacation attended the county-balls, and been a most premature male coquette with the ladies. Od'sfish, boy ! it is quite curious to see how the young sparks of the present day get on with their love-making." " Especially if one has a genius for it eh, sir ? " said I. " Besides, too," said my uncle ironically, " you have had the Abbess instructions." " Ay, and if the priests would communicate to their pupils their experience in frailty, as well as in virtue, how wise they would make us ! " " Od'sfish ! Morton, you are quite oracular. How got you that fancy of priests ? by observation in life already ? " DEVEREUX. 67 " No, uncle by observation in plays, which you tell me are the mirrors of life you remember what Lee says ' ' 'Tis thought That earth is more obliged to priests for bodies Than Heaven for souls.' " And my uncle laughed, and called me a smart fellow. CHAPTER XII. The Abbe's return a Sword, and a Soliloquy. THE next evening when I was sitting alone in my room, the Abbe Montreuil suddenly entered. " Ah, is it you ? welcome ! " cried I. The priest held out his arms, and embraced me in the most paternal manner. "It is your friend," said he, "returned at last to bless and congratulate you. Behold my success in your service," and the Abbe produced a long leather case, richly inlaid with gold. " Faith, Abbey' said I, " am I to understand that this is a present for your eldest pupil ?" " You are," said Montreuil, opening the case, and producing a sword ; the light fell upon the hilt, and I drew back, dazzled with its lustre ; it was covered with stones, apparently of the most costly value. Attached to the hilt was a label of purple velvet, on which, in letters of gold, was inscribed, " To the son of Marshal Devereux, the soldier of France, and the friend of Louis XIV." Before I recovered my surprise at this sight, the Abbe said "It was from the King's own hand that I received this sword, and I have authority to inform you, that if ever you wield it in the service of France it will be accompanied by a post worthy of your name." " The service of France ! " I repeated ; " why at present, that is the service of an enemy." " An enemy only to a part of England ! " said the Abb emphatically ; " perhaps I have overtures to you from other monarchs, and the friendship of the court of France may be synonymous with the friendship of the true sovereign of England." There was no mistaking the purport of this speech, and even in the midst of my gratified vanity, I drew back alarmed. The Abbe noted the changed expression of my countenance, and artfully turned the subject to comments on the sword, on which I still gazed with a lover's ardor. Thence he veered to a 68 DEVEREUX. description of the grace and greatness of the royal donor he dwelt at length upon the flattering terms in which Louis had spoken of my father, and had inquired concerning myself ; he enumerated all the hopes that the illustrious house, into which my father had first married, expressed for a speedy introduc- tion to his son ; he lingered with an eloquence more savoring of the court than of the cloister, on the dazzling circle which surrounded the French throne ; and when my vanity, my curiosity, my love of pleasure, my ambition, all that are most susceptible, in young- minds, were fully aroused, he suddenly ceased, and wished me a good-night. " Stay," said I ; and looking at him more attentively than I had hitherto done, I perceived a change in his external appear- ance, which somewhat startled and surprised me. Montreuil had always hitherto been remarkably plain in his dress ; but he was now richly attired, and by his side hung a rapier, which had never adorned it before. Something in his aspect seemed to suit the alteration in his garb : and whether it was that long absence had effaced enough of the familiarity of his features, to allow me to be more alive than formerly to the real impression they were calculated to produce, or whether a commune with kings and nobles had of late dignified their old expression, as power was said to have clothed the soldier-mien of Cromwell with a monarch's bearing I do not affect to decide; but I thought that, in his high brow and Roman features, the com- pression of his lip, and his calm but haughty air, there was a nobleness, which I acknowledged for the first time. " Stay, my father," said I, surveying him, " arid tell me, if there be no irreverence in the question, whether brocade and a sword are compatible with the laws of the Order of Jesus ?" "Policy, Morton," answered Montreuil, "often dispenses with custom ; and the declarations of the Institute provide, with their usual wisdom, for worldly and temporary occasions. Even while the constitution ordains us to discard habits repug- nant to our professions of poverty, the following exception is made : 'Si in occurrenti aliqua occasione, vel necessitate, quis vestibus melioribus, honestis tamen, indueretur.' " * " There is now; then, some occasion for a more glittering display than ordinary ?" said I. "There is, my pupil," answered Montreuil ; "and whenever you embrace the offer of my friendship made to you more than two years ago, whenever, too, your ambition points to a lofty "'But should there chance any occasion or necessity, one may wear better, though *Hll decorous garments. ' DEVEREUX. 69 and sublime career whenever, to make and unmake kings, and, in the noblest sphere to execute the will of God, indem- nifies you for a sacrifice of petty wishes and momentary passions, I will confide to you a scheme worthy of your ances- tors and yourself." With this the priest departed. Left to myself, I revolved his hints, and marvelled at the power he seemed to possess. " Closeted with kings," said I, soliloquizing, " bearing their presents through armed men and military espionage, speaking of empires and their overthrow as of ordinary objects of ambition and he himself a low-born and undignified priest, of a poor though a wise order well, there is more in this than I can fathom ; but I will hesitate before I embark in his dan- gerous and concealed intrigues above all, I will look well ere I hazard my safe heritage of these broad lands in the service of that House which is reported to be ungrateful, and which is certainly exiled." After this prudent and notable resolution, I took up the sword re-examined it kissed the hilt once and the blade twice put it under my pillow sent for my valet undrest went to bed fell asleep and dreamt that I was teaching the Marechal de Villars the thrust en seconde. But Fate, that arch-gossip, who, like her prototypes on earth, settles all our affairs for us without our knowledge of the matter, had decreed that my friendship with the Abbe" Montreuil should be of very short continuance, and that my adventures on earth should flow through a different channel than, in all probability, they would have done under his spiritual direction. CHAPTER XIII. A mysterious Letter a Duel The Departure of one of the Family. THE next morning I communicated to the Abb my inten- tion of proceeding to London. He received it with favor. " I myself," said he, " shall soon meet you there ; my office in your family has expired, and your mother, after so long an ab- sence, will perhaps readily dispense with my spiritual advice to her. But time presses since you depart so soon, give me an audience to-night in your apartment. Perhaps our conversa- tion may be of moment." I agreed the hour was fixed, and I left the Abbe to join my uncle and his guests. While I was employing, among them, my 70 DEVEREUX. time and genius with equal dignity and profit, one of the serv- ants informed me that a man at the gate wished to see me and alone. Somewhat surprised, I followed the servant out of the room into the great hall, and desired him to bid the stranger attend me there. In a few minutes, a small, dark man, dressed between gentility and meanness, made his appearance. He greeted me with great respect, and presented a letter, which, he said, he was charged to deliver into my own hands, " with," he added in a low tone, " a special desire that none should, till I had care- fully read it, be made acquainted with its contents." I was not a little startled by this request ; and, withdrawing to one of the windows, broke the seal. A letter, inclosed in the envelope, in the Abbe's own handwriting, was the first thing that met my eyes. At that instant the Abbe himself rushed into the hall. He cast one hasty look at the messenger, whose countenance evinced something of surprise and consternation at beholding him ; and, hastening up to me, grasped my hand vehemently, and, while his eye dwelt upon the letter I held, cried, " Do not read it not a word not a word, there is poison in it ! " And, so saying, he snatched desperately at the letter. I detained it from him with one hand, and pushing him aside with the other, said " Pardon me, Father directly I have read it you shall have that pleasure not till then;" and, as I said this, my eye fall- ing upon the letter, discovered my own name written in two places my suspicions were aroused. I raised my eyes to. the spot where the messenger had stood, with the view of address- ing some question to him respecting his employer, when, to my surprise, I perceived he was already gone ; I had no time, how- ever, to follow him. "Boy," said the Abbe, gasping for breath, and still seizing me with his lean, bony hand," boy, give me that letter in- stantly. I charge you not to disobey me." " You forget yourself, sir," said I, endeavoring to shake him off, " you forget yourself : there is no longer between us the distinction of pupil and teacher ; and if you have not yet learnt the respect due to my station, suffer me to tell you that it is time you should." " Give me the letter, I beseech you," said Montreuil, chang- ing his voice from anger to supplication ; " I ask your pardon for my violence ; the letter does not concern you but me ; there is a secret in those lines which you see are in my handwriting, that implicates my personal safety. Give it me, my dear, dear DEVEfeEUK. 71 son your own honor, if not your affection for me, demands that you should." I was staggered. His violence had confirmed my suspicions, but his gentleness weakened them. " Besides," thought I, " the handwriting is Ms, and even if my life depended upon reading the letter of another, I do not think my honor would suffer me to do so against his consent-" A thought struck me " Will you swear," said I, "that this letter does not concern me?" " Solemnly," answered the Abbe", raising his eyes. " Will you swear that I am not mentioned in it ? " " Upon peril of my soul, I will." "Liar traitor perjured blasphemer ! " cried I, in an inex- pressible rage, " look here, and here ! " and I pointed out to the priest various lines in which my name legibly and frequently occurred. A change came over Montreuil's face ; he released my arm and staggered back against the wainscot ; but recover- ing his composure instantaneously, he said, " I forgot, my son, I forgot your name is mentioned, it is true, but with honor- able eulogy, that is all." " Bravo, honest Father ! " cried I, losing my fury in admiring surprise at his address "bravo ! However, if that be all, you can have no objection to allow me to read the lines in which my name occurs ; your benevolence cannot refuse me such a gratification as the sight of your written panegyric ! " "Count Devereux," said the Abb6 sternly, while his dark face worked with suppressed passion, "this is trifling with me, and I warn you not to push my patience too far. I will have that letter, or " he ceased abruptly, and touched the hilt of his sword. "Dare you threaten me?" I said, and the natural fierceness of my own disposition, deepened by vague and strong suspi- cions of some treachery designed against me, spoke in the tones of my voice. " Dare I ! " repeated Montreuil, sinking and sharpening his voice into a sort of inward screech. " Dare I ! 'ay, were your whole tribe arrayed against me. Give me the letter, or you will find me now and for ever your most deadly foe ; deadly ay deadly, deadly ! " and he shook his clenched hand at me, with an expression of countenance so malignant and menacing that I drew back involuntarily, and laid my hand on my sword. The action seemed to give Montreuil a signal for which he had hitherto waited. " Draw then," he said through his teeth, and unsheathed his rapier. ^2 DEVEREUX. Though surprised at his determination, I was not backward in meeting it. Thrusting the letter in my bosom, I drew my sword in time to parry a rapid and fierce thrust. I had expected easily to master Montreuil, for I had some skill at my weapon; I was deceived I found him far more adroit than myself in the art of offence ; and perhaps it would have fared ill for the hero of this narrative had Montreuil deemed it wise to direct against my life all the science he possessed. But the moment our swords crossed, the constitutional coolness of the man, which rage or fear had for a brief time banished, returned at once, and he probably saw that it would be as dangerous to him to take away the life of his pupil, as to forfeit the paper for which he fought. He, therefore, appeared to bend all his efforts towards disarming me. Whether or not he would have effected this it is hard to say, for my blood was up, and any neglect of my antagonist, in attaining an object very dangerous, when en- gaged with a skilful and quick swordsman, might have sent him to the place from which the prayers of his brethren have (we are bound to believe) released so many thousands of souls. But, meanwhile, the servants, who at first thought the clashing of swords was the wanton sport of some young gallants as yet new to the honor of wearing them, grew alarmed by the con- tinuance of the sound, and flocked hurriedly to the place of contest. At their intrusion, we mutually drew back. Recov- ering my presence of mind, (it was a possession I very easily lost at that time,) I saw the unseemliness of fighting with my preceptor, and a priest. I therefore burst, though awkwardly enough, into a laugh, and, affecting to treat the affair as a friendly trial of skill between the Abbe and myself, resheathed my sword and dismissed the intruders, who, evidently disbe- lieving my version of the story, retreated slowly, and exchang- ing looks. Montreuil, who had scarcely seconded my attempt to gloss over our rencontre, now approached me. " Count," he said with a collected and cool voice, "suffer me to request you to exchange three words with me, in a spot less liable than this to interruption." "Follow me then ! " said I and I led the way to a part of the grounds which lay remote and sequestered from intrusion. I then turned round, and perceived that the Abbe" had left his sword behind. " How is this ? " I said, pointing to his un- armed side " have you not come hither to renew our engage- ment ? " "No!" answered Montreuil,"! repent me of my sudden haste, and I have resolved to deny myself all further possibility DEVEREUX. 73 of unseemly warfare. That letter, young man, I still demand from you; I demand it from your own sense of honor and of right it was written by me it was not intended for your eye it contains secrets implicating the lives of others beside my- self ; now read it if you will." " You are right, sir," said I, after a short pause ; " there is the letter ; never shall it be said of Morton Devereux that he hazarded his honor to secure his safety. But the tie between us is broken now and for ever ! " So saying, I flung down the debated epistle, and strode away. I re-entered the great hall. I saw by one of the windows a sheet of paper I picked it up, and perceived that it was the envelope in which the letter had been enclosed. It contained only these lines, addressed to me in French: "A friend of the late Marshal Devereux encloses to his son a letter, the contents of which it is essential for his safety that he should know. "C. D. B." " Umph ! " said I "a very satisfactory intimation, consider- ing that the son of the late Marshal Devereux is so very well assured that he shall not know one line of the contents of the said letter. But let me see after this messenger ! " and I im- mediately hastened to institute inquiry respecting him. I found that he was already gone ; on leaving the hall he had remounted his horse, and taken his departure. One servant, however, had seen him, as he passed the front court, address a few words to my valet, Desmarais, who happened to be loitering there. I summoned Desmarais and questioned him. " The dirty fellow," said the Frenchman, pointing to his spattered stockings with a lachrymose air, "splashed me, by a prance of his horse, from head to foot, and while I was scream- ing for very anguish, he stopped and said, ' Tell the Count Devereux that I was unable to tarry, but that the letter requires no answer.'" I consoled Desmarais for his misfortune, and hastened to my uncle with a determination to reveal to him all that had oc- curred. Sir William was in his dressing-room, and his gentle- man was very busy in adorning his wig. I entreated him to dismiss the coiffeur, and then, without much preliminary detail, acquainted him with all that had passed between the Abbe and myself. The knight seemed startled when I came to the story of the sword. "'Gad, Sir Count, what have you been doing?" said 74 SEVERED*. he ; " know you not that this may be a very ticklish matter ? The king of France is a very great man, to be sure a very great man and a very fine gentleman ; but you will please to remember that we are at war with his Majesty, and I can- not guess how far the accepting such presents may be held treasonable." And Sir William shook his head with a mournful significance. "Ah," cried he, at last (when I had concluded my whole story), with a complacent look, " I have not lived at court, and studied human nature, for nothing : and I will wager my best full-bot- tom to a night-cap, that the crafty old fox is as much a Jacob- ite as he is a rogue ! The letter would have proved it, sir it would have proved it ! " " But what shall be done now ? " said I ; " will you suffer him to remain any longer in the house ? " " Why," replied the knight, suddenly recollecting his rever- ence to the fair sex, " he is your mother's guest, not mine ; we must refer the matter to her. But zauns, sir, with all deference to her ladyship, we cannot suffer our house to be a conspiracy- hatch as well as a popish chapel ; and to attempt your life too the devil ! Od'sfish, boy, I will go to the countess myself, if you will just let Nicholls finish my wig never attend the ladies en deshabille always, with them, take care of your person most, when you most want to display your mind ;" and my uncle ringing a little silver bell on his dressing-table, the sound im- mediately brought Nicholls to his toilet. Trusting the cause to the zeal of my uncle, whose hatred to the ecclesiastic would, I knew, be an efficacious adjunct to his diplomatic address, and not unwilling to avoid being myself the person to acquaint my mother with the suspected delinquency of her favorite, I hastened from the knight's apartment in search of Aubrey. He was not in the house. His attendants (for my uncle, with old-fashioned grandeur of respect, suitable to his great wealth and aristocratic temper, allotted to each of us a separate suite of servants as well as of apartments) believed he was in the park. Thither I repaired, and found him, at length, seated by an old tree, with a large book of a religious cast be- fore him, on which his eyes were intently bent. " I rejoice to have found thee, my gentle brother," said I, throwing myself on the green turf by his side : " in truth you have chosen a fitting and fair place for study." "I have chosen," said Aubrey, " a place meet for the peculiar study I am engrossed in ; for where can we better read of the power and benevolence of God than among the living testi- DEVEREUX. 75 monies of both ? Beautiful ! how very beautiful is this happy world ; but I fear,' : added Aubrey, and the glow of his count- enance died away, " I fear that we enjoy it too much." " We hold different interpretations of our creed then," said I, " for I esteem enjoyment the best proof of gratitude ; nor do I think we can pay a more acceptable duty to the Father of all Goodness than by showing ourselves sensible of the favors he bestows upon us." Aubrey shook his head gently, but replied not. "Yes," resumed I, after a pause "yes, it is indeed a glo- rious and fair world which we have for our inheritance. Look, how the sunlight sleeps yonder upon fields covered with golden corn, and seems, like the divine benevolence of which you spoke, to smile upon the luxuriance which its power created. This carpet at our feet, covered with flowers that breathe, sweet as good deeds, to Heaven the stream that breaks through that distant copse, laughing in the light of noon, and sending its voice through the hill and woodland, like a messen- ger of glad tidings the green boughs over our head, vocal with a thousand songs, all inspirations of a joy too exquisite for silence the very leaves, which seem to dance and quiver with delight think you, Aubrey, that these are so sullen as not to return thanks for the happiness they imbibe with being ; what are those thanks but the incense of their joy ? The flowers send it up to heaven in fragrance the air and the wave in music. Shall the heart of man be the only part of His creation that shall dishonor His worship with lamentation and gloom? When the inspired writers call upon us to praise our Creator, do they not say to us ' ^Q joyful in your God ?' " " How can we be joyful with the Judgment-day ever before us?" said Aubrey "how can we be joyful," (and here a dark shade crossed his countenance, and his lip trembled with emotion), while the deadly passions of this world plead and rankle at the heart? Oh, none but they who have known the full blessedness of a commune with heaven can dream of the whole anguish and agony of the conscience, when it feels itself sullied by the mire and crushed by the load of earth ! " Aubrey paused, and his words his tone his look made upon me a powerful impression. I was about to answer, when, interrupt- ing me, he said, " Let us talk not of these matters speak to me on more worldly topics." *'I sought you," said I, "that I might do so!" and I pro- ceeded to detail to Aubrey as much of my private intercourse with the Abbe as I deemed necessary in order to warn him 76 DEVEREUX. from too close a confidence in the wily ecclesiastic. Aubrey listened to me with earnest attention : the affair of the letter the gross falsehood of the priest in denying the mention of my name, in his epistle, evidently dismayed him. " But," said he, after a long silence "but it is not for us, Morton weak, ignorant, inexperienced as we are to judge prematurely of our spiritual pastors. To them also is given a far greater license of conduct than to us and ways enveloped in what to our eyes are mystery and shade ; nay, I know not whether it be much less impious to question the paths of God's chosen, than to scrutinize those of the Deity himself." "Aubrey, Aubrey, this is childish !" said I, somewhat moved to anger. "Mystery is always the trick of imposture: God's chosen should be distinguished from their flock only by superior virtue, and not by a superior privilege in deceit." "But," said Aubrey, pointing to a passage in the book before him, "see what a preacher of the word has said!" and Aubrey recited one of the most dangerous maxims in priest- craft, as reverently as if he were quoting from the Scripture itself. ' The nakedness of truth should never be too openly exposed to the eyes of the vulgar. It was wisely feigned, by the ancients, that Truth did lie concealed in a well ! " "Yes," said I, with enthusiasm, "but that well is like the holy stream at Dodona, which has the gift of enlightening those who seek it, and the power of illumining every torch which touches the surface of its water ! " Whatever answer Aubrey might have made was interrupted by my uncle, who appeared approaching towards us with unusual satisfaction depicted on his comely countenance. " Well, boys, well," said he, when he came within hearing "a holyday for you ! Od'sfish and a holier day than my old house has known since its former proprietor, Sir Hugo, of valorous memory, demolished the nunnery, of which some re- mains yet stand on yonder eminence. Morton, my man of might, the thing is done the court is purified the wicked one is departed. Look here, and be as happy as I am at our release ;" and he threw me a note in Montreuil's writing : "To SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX, KT.: "My Honored Friend : In consequence of a dispute between your eldest nephew, Count Morton Devereux, and myself, in which he desired me to remember, not only that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friend- ship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of DEVEREUX. 77 letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof, a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Surfer me to offer you my gratitude for the favors you have hitherto bestowed on me, and to bid you farewell for ever. " I have the honor to be, With the most profound respect, etc., "JULIAN MONTREUIL." "Well, sir, what say you? "cried my uncle, stamping his cane firmly on the ground, when I had finished reading the letter, and had transmitted it to Aubrey. "That the good Abbe- has displayed his usual skill in com- position. And my mother? Is she imbued with our opinion of his priestship?" " Not exactly, I fear. However, Heaven bless her, she is too soft to say ' nay.' But those Jesuits are so smooth-tongued to women. 'Gad, they threaten damnation with such an irre- sistible air, that they are as much like William the Conqueror as Edward the Confessor. Ha! Master Aubrey, have you be- come amorous of the old Jacobite, that you sigh over his crabbed writing, as if it were a billet-doux ?" " There seems a great deal of feeling in what he says, sir," said Aubrey, returning the letter to my uncle. " Feeling !" cried the knight; "ay, the reverend gentry al- ways have a marvellously tender feeling for their own interest eh, Morton ?" " Right, dear sir," said I, wishing to change a subject which I knew might hurt Aubrey ; "but should we not join yon party of dames and damsels? I see they are about to make a water excursion." " 'Sdeath, sir, with all my heart," cried the good-natured knight : "I love to see the dear creatures amuse themselves ; for, to tell you the truth, Morton," said he, sinking his voice into a knowing whisper, " the best thing to keep them from playing the devil is to encourage them in playing the fool ! " and, laughing heartily at the jest he had purloined from one of his favorite writers, Sir William led the way to the water- party. 78 DEVEREUX. CHAPTER XIV. Being a Chapter of Trifles. THE Abbe disappeared ! It is astonishing how well every- body bore his departure. My mother scarcely spoke on the subject : but, along the irrefragable smoothness of her tempera- ment, all things glided without resistance to their course, or trace where they had been. Gerald, who, occupied solely in rural sports or rustic loves, seldom mingled in the festivities of the house, was equally silent on the subject. Aubrey looked grieved for a day or two ; but his countenance soon settled into its customary and grave softness ; and, in less than a week, so little was the Abbe spoken of or missed that you would scarcely have imagined Julian Montreuil had ever passed the threshold of our gate. The oblivion of one buried is nothing to the ob- livion of one disgraced. Meanwhile, I pressed for my departure ; and, at length, the day was finally fixed. Ever since that conversation with Lady Hasselton, which has been set before the reader, that lady had lingered and lingered though the house was growing empty, and London, in all seasons, was, according to her, better than the country in any until the Count Devereux, with that ami- able modesty which so especially characterized him, began to suspect that the Lady Hasselton lingered on his account. This emboldened that bashful personage to press in earnest for the fourth seat in the beauty's carriage, which, we have seen in the conversation before mentioned, had been previously offered to him in jest. After a great affectation of horror at the proposal, the Lady Hasselton yielded. She had always, she said, been dotingly fond of children, and it was certainly very shocking to send such a chit as the little Count to London by himself. My uncle was charmed with the arrangement. The beauty was a peculiar favorite of his, and, in fact, he was sometimes pleased to hint that he had private reasons for love towards her mother's daughter. Of the truth of this insinuation I am, how- ever, more than somewhat suspicious, and believe it was only a little ruse of the good knight, in order to excuse the vent of those kindly affections with which (while the heartless tone of the company his youth had frequented made him ashamed to own it) his breast overflowed. There was in Lady Hassclton's familiarity her ease of manner a certain good-nature mingled with her affectation, and a gaiety of spirit, which never flagged DEVEREUX. 79 something greatly calculated to win favor with a man of my uncle's temper. An old gentleman who filled in her family the office of " the chevalier" in a French one ; viz., who told stories, riot too long, and did not challenge you for interrupting them who had a good air, and unexceptionable pedigree a turn for wit, litera- ture, note-writing, and the management of lap-dogs who could attend Madame to auctions, plays, court, and the puppet-show who had a right to the best company, but would, on a signal, give up his seat to any one the pretty capricieuse whom he served might select from the worst in short a very useful, charming personage, "vastly" liked by all, and "prodigiously" respected by none ; this gentleman, I say, by name Mr. Lovell, had attended her ladyship in her excursion to Devereux Court. Besides him there came also a widow lady, a distant relation, with one eye and a sharp tongue the Lady Needleham, whom the beauty carried about with her as a sort of gouvcrnante or duenna. These excellent persons made my cotnpagnons de voy- age, and filled the remaining complements of the coach. To say truth, and to say nothing of my tendressc for the Lady Has- selton, I was very anxious to escape the ridicule of crawling up to town, like a green beetle, in my uncle's verdant chariot, with the four Flanders mares trained not to exceed two miles an hour. And my Lady Hasselton's/V7vz/er was; yet if he werCj it was your own fault, who taught me to love him, and often vindicated him, in the begin- ning of your ministry, from my accusations. But 1 granted he had the greatest inequali- ties of any man alive ; and his whole scene was fifty times more a what-d'ye-call-it than yours ; for I declare yours was unie. and I wish you would so order it that the world may be as wise as I uponthat article." I have to apologize for introducing this quotation, which I have done because (and I en- treat the reader to remember this) 1 observe that Count Devereux always speaks of Lord Bolingbroke as he was spoken of by the eminent men of that day not as he is now rated by the judgment of posterity. ED. DEVEfcEUX, 117 because I admired not her monkey ; and because I broke a tea- pot with a toad for a cover." "And is not that enough ?" cried Tarleton. "Heavens! what a black bead-roll of offences ; Mrs. Merton would have discarded me for one of them. However, thy account has re- moved my surprise ; and I heard her praise thee the other day ; now, as long as she loved thee, she always abused thee like a pickpocket." "Ha ! ha ! ha ! and what said she in my favor?" "Why, that you were certainly very handsome, though you were small ; that you were certainly a great genius, though every one would not discover it ; and that you certainly had quite the air of high birth, though you were not nearly so well dressed as Beau Tippetly. But entre nous, Devereux, I think she hates you, and would play you a trick of spite revenge is too strong a word if she could find an opportunity." "Likely enough, Tarleton ; but a coquette's lover is always on his guard ; so she will not take me unawares." "So be it. But tell me, Devereux, who is to be your next mistress, Mrs. Denton or Lady Clancathcart ? the world gives them both to you." " The world is always as generous with what is worthless as the bishop in the fable was with his blessing. However, I promise thee, Tarleton, that I will not interfere with thy claims, either upon Mrs. Denton or Lady Clancathcart." " Nay," said Tarleton, "I will own that you area very Scipio ; but it must be confessed, even by you, satirist as you are, that Lady Clancathcart has a beautiful set of features." "A handsome face, but so vilely made. She would make a splendid picture if, like the goddess Laverna, she could be painted as a head without a body." " Ha ! ha ! ha ! you have a bitter tongue, Count ; but Mrs. Denton, what have you to say against her?" " Nothing ; she has no pretensions for me to contradict. She has a green eye and a sharp voice ; a mincing gait and a broad foot. What friend of Mrs. Denton's would not, therefore, coun- sel her to a prudent obscurity ?" " She never had but one lover in the world," said Tarleton, "who was old, blind, lame and poor ; she accepted him, and became Mrs. Denton." "Yes," said I, "she was like the magnet, and received her name from the very first person* sensible of her attraction." "Well, you have a shrewd way of saying sweet things/' said * Magnes. Il8 fcEVEREUX. Tarleton ; "but I must own that you rarely or never direct it towards women individually. What makes you break through your ordinary custom ?" " Because I am angry with women collectively ; and must pour my spleen through whatever channel presents itself." " Astonishing," said Tarleton ; " I despise women myself. I always did : but you were their most enthusiastic and chival- rous defender a month or two ago. What makes thee change, my Sir Amadis?" " Disappointment ! they weary, vex, disgust me ; selfish, friv- olous, mean, heartless out on them 'tis a disgrace to have their love ! " " O del ! What a sensation the news of thy misogyny will cause ; the young, gay, rich Count Devereux, whose wit, vivac- ity, splendor of appearance, in equipage and dress, in the course of one season have thrown all the most established beaux and pretty fellows into the shade ; to whom dedications, and odes, and billet-doux, are so much waste paper ; who has carried off the most general envy and dislike that any man ever was blessed with, since St. John turned politician ; what ! thou all of a sudden to become a railer against the divine sex that made thee what thou art ! Fly fly unhappy apostate, or expect the fate of Orpheus, at least ! " " None of your railleries, Tarleton, or I shall speak to thee of plebeians, and the canaille ! " " Sacre ! my teeth are on edge already ! Oh, the base base canaille, how I loathe them ! Nay, Devereux, joking apart, I love you twice as well for your humor. I despise the sex heart- ily. Indeed, sub rosa be it spoken, there are few things that breathe which I do not despise. Human nature seems to me a most pitiful bundle of rags and scraps, which the gods threw out of Heaven, as the dust and rubbish there." "A pleasant view of thy species," said I. " By my soul it is. Contempt is to me a luxury. I would not lose the privilege of loathing for all the objects which fools ever admired. What does old Persius say on the subject ? ' Hoc ridere meum tarn nil, nulla tibi vendo Iliade.' " * " And yet, Tarleton," said I, " the littlest feeling of all is a de- light in contemplating the littleness of other people. Nothing is more contemptible than habitual contempt." "Prithee, now," answered the haughty aristocrat, "let us not talk of these matters so subtly leave me my enjoyment with- * "This privilege of mine, to laugh, such a nothing as it seems, I would not barter to Uiee for an Iliad. DEVEREUX. 119 out refining upon it. What is your first pursuit for the morn- ing?" " Why, I have promised my uncle a picture of that invalua- ble countenance which Lady Hasselton finds so handsome ; and I am going to give Kneller my last sitting." " So, so, I will accompany you ; I like the vain old dog ; 'tis a pleasure to hear him admire himself so wittily." " Come, then," said I, taking up my hat and sword ; and en- tering Tarleton's carriage, we drove to the painter's abode. We found him employed in finishing a portrait of Lady Go- dolphin. " He, he ! " cried he when he beheld me approach. " By Got, I am glad to see you, Count Tevereux ; dis painting is tamned poor work by oneself, widout any one to make des grands yeux, and cry, ' O, Sir Godfrey Kneller, how fine dis is ! ' ' "Very true, indeed," said I, "no great man can be expected to waste his talents without his proper reward of praise. But, Heavens, Tarleton, did you ever see anything so wonder- ful ? that hand that arm how exquisite ! If Apollo turned painter, and borrowed colors from the rainbow, and models from the goddesses, he would not be fit to hold the pallet to Sir Godfrey Kneller." " By Got, Count Tevereux, you are von grand judge of paint- ing," cried the artist, with sparkling eyes, "and I vill paint you as von tamned handsome man ! " " Nay, my Apelles, you might as well preserve some like- ness." " Likeness, by Got ! I vill make you like and handsome both. By my shoul, you make me von Apelles, I will make you von Alexander ! " "People in general," said Tarleton, gravely, " believe that Alexander had a wry neck, and was a very plain fellow ; but no one can know about Alexander like Sir Godfrey Kneller, who has studied military tactics so accurately, and who, if he had taken up the sword instead of the pencil, would have been at least an Alexander himself." " By Got, Meester Tarleton, you are as goot a judge of de talents for de war as Count Tevereux of de genie for de paint- ing ! Meester Tarleton, I vill paint your picture, and I vill make your eyes von goot inch bigger than dey are !" " Large or small," said I (for Tarleton, who had a haughty custom of contracting his orbs till they were scarce perceptible, was so much offended, that I thought it prudent to cut off his reply), "large or small, Sir Godfrey, Mr. Tarleton's eyes an 120 DEVEREUX. capable of admiring your genius ; why, your painting is like lightning, and one flash of your brush would be sufficient to restore even a blind man to sight." " It is tamned true," said Sir Godfrey earnestly ; " and it did restore von man to sight once ! By my shoul, it did ! but sit yourself town, Count Tevereux, and look over your left shoulder ah, dat is it and now praise on, Count Tevereux ; de thought of my genius gives you vat you call it von ani- mation von fire, look you by my shoul, it does ! " And by dint of such moderate panegyric, the worthy Sir Godfrey completed my picture, with equal satisfaction to him- self and the original. See what a beautifier is flattery a few sweet words will send the Count Devereux down to posterity, with at least three times as much beauty as he could justly lay claim to.* CHAPTER IX. A Development of Character, and a long Letter a Chapter, on the whole, more important than it seems. THE scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my reader, are by no means episodical ; they illustrate far more than mere narration the career to which I was so honorably devoted. Dissipation women wine Tarleton for a friend, Lady Has- selton for a mistress. Let me now throw aside the mask. To people who have naturally very intense and very acute feelings, nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as the commonplace affections, which are the properties and offspring of the world. We have seen the birds which, with wings un- clipt, children fasten to a stake. The birds seek to fly, and are * This picture represents the Count in an undress. The face is decidedly, though by no means remarkably, handsome ; the nose is aquiline the upper lip is short and chiselled the eyes grey, and the forehead, which is by far the finest feature in the countenance, _ is peculiarly high, broad, and massive. The mouth has but little beauty ; it is severe, caustic, and rather displeasing, from the extreme compression of the lips. The great and prevalent expression of the face is energy. The eye the brow the turn of the head the erect, penetrating aspect are all strikingly bold, animated, and even daring. And this expres- sion makes a singular contrast to that in another likeness of the Count, which was taken at a much later period of life. The latter portrait represents him in a foreign uniform, decor- ated with orders. The peculiar sarcasm of the mouth is hidden beneath a very long and thick mustachio, of a much darker color than the hair (for in both portraits, as in Tervas's picture of Lord Bolingbroke the hair is left undisguised by the odious fashion of the day) Across one cheek there is a slight scar, as of a sabre cut. The whole character of this portrait is widely different from that in the earlier one. Not a trace of the fire the anima- tion which were so striking in the physiognomy of the youth of twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate, stately, yet somewhat stern expression, which seems immovably spread over the paler hue and the more prominent features of the man of about four or five and thirty. Yet, upon the whole, the face in the latter portrait is handsomer ; and, from its air of dignity and reflection, even more impressive than that in the one I have first cl. Ep. DEVEREUX. 121 pulled back before their wings are well spread ; till, at last, they either perpetually strain at the end of their short tether, exciting only ridicule by their anguish and their impotent impatience ; or, sullen and despondent, they remain on the ground, without an attempt to fly, nor creep, even to the full limit which their fetters would allow. Thus is it with feelings of the keen, wild nature I speak of ; they are either striving forever to pass the little circle of slavery to which they are condemned, and so move laughter by an excess of action, and a want of adequate power ; or they rest motionless and moody, disdaining the petty indulgence they might en- joy, till sullenness is construed into resignation, and despair seems the apathy of content. Time, however, cures what it does not kill : and both bird and beast, if they pine not to the death at first, grow tame and acquiescent at last. What to me was the companionship of Tarleton, or the at- tachment of Lady Hasselton ? I had yielded to the one, and I had half eagerly, half scornfully, sought the other. These, and the avocations they brought with them, consumed my time, and of Time murdered, there is a ghost, which we term Ennui. The hauntings of this spectre are the especial curse of the higher orders ; and hence springs a certain consequence to the passions. Persons in those ranks of society, so exposed to Ennui, are either rendered totally incapable of real love, or they love far more intensely than those in a lower station ; for the affections in them are either utterly frittered away on a thousand petty objects (poor shifts to escape the persecuting spectre), or else, early disgusted with the worthlessness of these objects, the heart turns within and languishes for something not found in the daily routine of life. When this is the case, and when the pining of the heart is once satisfied, and the object of love is found, there are two mighty reasons why the love should be most passionately cherished. The first is, the utter indolence in which aristocratic life oozes away, and which al- lows full food for that meditation which can nurse by sure de- grees the weakest desire into the strongest passion ; and the second reason is, that the insipidity and hollowness of all patric- ian pursuits and pleasures render the excitement of love more delicious and more necessary to the " ignavi terrarum domini" than it is to those orders of society more usefully, more con- stantly, and more engrossingly engaged. Wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless, my heart at last exhausted itself in pining for what was pure. I recurred with a tenderness which I struggled with at first, and 122 DEVEREUX. which, in yielding to, I blushed to acknowledge, to the memory of Isora. And in the world, surrounded by all which might be supposed to cause me to forget her, my heart clung to her far more endearingly than it had done in the rural solitudes in which she had first allured it. The truth was this : at the time I first loved her, other passions passions almost equally power- ful shared her empire. Ambition and pleasure vast whirl- pools of thought had just opened themselves a channel in my mind, and thither the tides of my desires were hurried and lost. Now those whirlpools had lost their power, and the channels, being dammed up, flowed back upon my breast. Pleasure had disgusted me, and the only ambition I had yet courted and pursued had palled upon me still more. I say, the only ambition for as yet that which is of the loftier and more lasting kind had not afforded me a temptation ; and the hope which had borne the name and rank of ambition had been the hope rather to glitter than to rise. These passions, not yet experienced when I lost Isora, had afforded me at that period a ready comfort and a sure engross- ment. And in satisfying the hasty jealousies of my temper, in deeming Isora unworthy, and Gerald my rival, I naturally aroused in my pride a dexterous orator as well as a firm ally. Pride not only strengthened my passions, it also persuaded them by its voice ; and it was not till the languid, yet deep, stillness of sated wishes and palled desires fell upon me, that the low accent of a love still surviving at my heart made itself heard in answer. I now began to take a different view of Isora's conduct. I now began to doubt where I had formerly believed ; and the doubt, first allied to fear, gradually brightened into hope. Of Gerald's rivalry, at least of his identity with Barnard, and, consequently, of his power over Isora, there was, and there could be, no feeling short of certainty. But of what nature was that power? Had not Isora assured me that it was not love ? Why should I disbelieve her ? Nay, did she not love myself ? had not her cheek blushed and her hand trembled when I addressed her ? Were these signs the counterfeits of love ? Were they not rather of that heart's dye which no skill can counterfeit ? She had declared that she could not, that she could never, be mine : she had declared so with a fearful earnestness which seemed to annihilate hope ; but had she not also, in the same meeting, confessed that I was dear to her? Had not her lip given me a sweeter and a more eloquent as- surance of that confession than words ? and could hope perish DEVEREUX. 123 while love existed ? She had left me she had bid me fare- well for ever ; but that was no proof of a want of love, or of her unvvorthiness. Gerald, or Barnard, evidently possessed an influence over father as well as child. , Their departure from might have been occasioned by him, and she might have deplored, while she could not resist it : or she might not even have deplored : nay, she might have desired, she might have advised it, for my sake as well as hers, were she thoroughly convinced that the union of our loves was impossible But, then, of what nature could be this mysterious authority which Gerald possessed over her? That which he possessed over the sire, political schemes might account for ; but these, surely, could not have much weight for the daughter. This, indeed, must still remain doubtful and unaccounted for. One presumption, that Gerald was either no favored lover, or that he was unacquainted with her retreat, might be drawn from his continued residence at Devereux Court. If he loved Isora, and knew her present abode, would he not have sought her? Could he, I thought, live away from that bright face, if once allowed to behold it? unless, indeed (terrible thought!), there hung over it the dimness of guilty familiarity, and in- difference had been the offspring of possession. But was that delicate and virgin face, where changes, with every moment, coursed each other, harmonious to the changes of the mind, as shadows in a valley reflect the clouds of heaven ! was that face, so ingenuous, so girlishly revelant of all, even of the slightest, the most transitory emotion, the face of one hardened in deceit and inured to shame? The countenance is, it is true, but a faithless mirror : but what man that has studied woman will not own that there is, at least while the down of first youth is not brushed away, in the eye and cheek of a zoned and un- tainted Innocence, that which survives not even the fruition of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a shadowed and im- perfect) likeness in the face of Guilt? Then, too, had any worldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting me, would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of the rich house of Devereux ? and would she, poor and desti- tute, the daughter of an alien and an exile, would she have spontaneously relinquished any hope of obtaining that alliance that maidens of the loftiest houses of England had not dis- dained to desire? Thus confused and incoherent, but thus yearning fondly towards her image and its imagined piirity, did my thoughts daily and hourly array themselves ; and, in proportion as I suffered common ties to drop from me S24 DEVEREUX. one by one, those thoughts clung the more tenderly to" that which, though severed from the rich argosy of former love, was still indissolubly attached to the anchor of its hope. It was during this period of revived affection that I received the following letter from my uncle : " I thank thee for thy long letter, my dear boy ; I read it over three times with great delight. Od'sfish, Morton, you are a sad Pickle, I fear, and seem to know all the ways of the town as well as your old uncle did some thirty years ago ! 'Tis a very pretty acquaintance with human nature that your letters display. You put me in mind of little Sid, who was just about your height, and who had just such a pretty, shrewd way of expressing himself in simile and point. Ah, it is easy to see that you have profited by your old uncle's conversation, and that Farquhar and Etherege were not studied for nothing. "But 1 have sad news for thee, my child, or rather it is sad for me to tell thee my tidings. It is sad for the old birds to linger in their nest when the young ones take wing and leave them ; but it is merry for the young birds to get away from the dull old tree, and frisk it in the sunshine merry for them to get mates, and have young themselves. Now, do not think, Morton, that by speaking of mates and young, I am going to tell thee thy brothers are already married ; nay, there is time enough for those things, and I am not friendly to early wed- dings, nor, to speak truly, a marvellous great admirer of that holy ceremony at any age ; for the which there may be private reasons, too long to relate to thee now. Moreover, I fear my young day was a wicked time a heinous wicked time, and we were wont to laugh at the wedded state, until, body of me, some of us found it no laughing matter. "But to return, Morton to return to thy brothers they have both left me ; and the house seems to me not the good old house it did when ye were all about me ; and, somehow or other, I look now oftener at the church-yard than I was wont to do. You are all gone now all shot up, and become men ; and when your old uncle sees you no more, and recollects that all his own contemporaries are out of the world, he cannot help saying, as William Temple, poor fellow, once prettily enough said, 'Methinks it seems an impertinence in me to be still alive.' You went first, Morton ; and I missed you more than I cared to say ; but you were always a kind boy to those you loved, and you wrote the old knight merry letters, that made him laugh, and think he was grown young again (faith, boy, that was a jolly story of the three Squires at Button's !) DEVEREUX. 125 and once a week comes your packet, well filled, as if you did not think it a task to make me happy, which your handwriting always does ; nor a shame to my grey hairs that I take pleasure in the same things that please thee ! So, thou seest, my child, that I have got through thy absence pretty well, save that I have had no one to read thy letters to ; for Gerald and thou are still jealous of each other a great sin in thee, Morton, which I prithee to reform. And Aubrey, poor lad, is a little too rigid, considering his years, and it looks not well in the dear boy to shake his head at the follies of his uncle. And as to thy mother, Morton, I read her one of thy letters, and she said thou wert a graceless reprobate to think so much of this wicked world, and to write so familiarly to thine aged relative. Now, I am not a young man, Morton, but the word aged has a sharp sound with it when it comes from a lady's mouth. " Well, after thou hadst been gone a month, Aubrey and Gerald, as I wrote thee word long since, in the last letter I wrote thee with my own hand, made a tour together for a little while, and that was a hard stroke on me. But after a week or two Gerald returned ; and I went out in my chair to see the dear boy shoot 'sdeath, Morton, he handles the gun well. And then Aubrey returned alone; but he looked pined, and moping, and shut himself up, and as thou dost love him so, I did not like to tell thee, till now, when he is quite well, that he alarmed me much for him ; he is too much addicted to his devotions, poor child, and seems to forget that the hope of the next world ought to make us happy in this. Well, Morton, at last, two months ago, Aubrey left us again, and Gerald last week set off on a tour through the sister kingdom, as it is called ; Faith, boy, if Scotland and England are sister king- doms, 'tis a thousand pities for Scotland that they are not co-heiresses ! " I should have told thee of this news before, but I have had, as thou knowest, the gout so villainously in my hand, that, till t'other day, I have not held a pen, and old Nicholls, my amanuensis, is but a poor scribe ; and I did not love to let the dog write to thee on all our family affairs especially as 1 have a secret to tell thee which makes me plaguy uneasy. Thou must know, Morton, that after thy departure Gerald asked me for thy rooms ; and though I did not like that any one else should have what belonged to thee, yet I have always had a foolish antipathy to say ' No ! ' so thy brother had them, on condition to leave them exactly as they were, and to yield them to thee whenever thou shouldst return to claim them. Well 126 DEVEREUX. Morton, when Gerald went on his tour with thy youngest brother, old Nicholls you know 'tis a garrulous fellow told me one night that his son Hugh you remember Hugh, a thin youth, and a tall lingering by the beach one evening, saw a man, wrapped in a cloak, come out of the castle cave, unmoor one of the boats, and push off to the little island opposite. Hugh swears by more than yea and nay, that the man was Father Montreuil. Now, Morton, this made me very tineas)', and I saw why thy brother Gerald wanted thy rooms, which communicate so snugly with the sea. So I told Nicholls, slily, to have the great iron gate at the mouth of the passage care- fully locked ; and when it was locked, I had an iron plate put over the whole lock, that the lean Jesuit might not creep even through the keyhole. Thy brother returned, and I told him a tale of the smugglers, who have really been too daring of late, and insisted on the door being left as I had ordered ; and I told him, moreover, though not as if I had suspected his com- munication with the priest, that I interdicted all further con- verse with that limb of the church. Thy brother heard me with an indifferently bad grace ; but I was peremptory, and the thing was agreed on. " Well, child, the day before Gerald last left us, I went to take leave of him in his own room to tell thee the truth, I had forgotten his travelling expenses when I was on the stairs of the tower, I heard by the Lord I did Montreuil's voice in the outer-room, as plainly as ever I heard it at prayers. Od'sfish, Morton, I was an angered, and I made so much haste to the door, that my foot slipped by the way ; thy brother heard me fall, and came out ; but I looked at him as I never looked at thee, Morton, and entered the room. Lo, the priest was not there ; I searched both chambers in vain ; so I made thy brother lift up the trap-door, and kindle a lamp, and I searched the room below and the passage. The priest was invisible. Thou knowest, Morton, that there is only one egress in the passage, and that was locked, as I said before, so where the devil the devil indeed could thy tutor have escaped ? He could not have passed me on the stairs without my seeing him ; he could not have leaped the window without breaking his neck ; he could not have got out of the passage without making himself a current of air. Od'sfish, Morton, this thing might puzzle a wiser man than thine uncle. Gerald affected to be mighty indignant at my suspicions ; but, God forgive him, I saw he was playing a part. A man does not write plays, my child, without being keen-lighted in these little intrigues ; and. DEVEREUX. 127 moreover, it is impossible I could have mistaken thy tutor's voice, which, to do it justice, is musical enough, and is the most singular voice I ever heard unless little Sid's be ex- cepted. "Apropos of little Sid. I remember that in the Mall, when I was walking there alone, three weeks after my marriage, De Grammont and Sid joined me. I was in a melancholic mood 'sdeath, Morton, marriage tames a man as water tames mice ! 'Aha, Sir William,' cried Sedley, ' thou hast a cloud on thee prithee now brighten it away : see, thy wife shines on thee from the other end of the Mall.' ' Ah, talk not to a dying man of his physic ! ' said Grammont (that Grammont was a shocking rogue, Morton !) ' Prithee, Sir William, what is the chief characteristic of wedlock ? is it a state of war or of peace?' 'Oh, peace to be sure!' cried Sedley, 'and Sir William and his lady carry with them the emblem.' ' How ! ' cried I ; for I do assure thee, Morton, I was of a different turn of mind. ' How ! ' said Sid, gravely, ' why, the emblem of peace is the cornucopia, which your lady and you equitably divide she carries the copia, and you the cor .' Nay, Mor- ton, nay, I cannot finish the jest ; for, after all, it was a sorry thing in little Sid, whom I had befriended like a brother, with, heart and purse, to wound me so cuttingly ; but 'tis the way with your jesters. " Od'sfish, now how I have got out of my story ! Well, I did not go back to my room, Morton, till I had looked to the outside of the iron door, and seen that the plate was as firm as ever : so now you have the whole of the matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much lest he should already be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy advice on the subject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have the trapdoor removed, and the aperture strongly boarded over. " But 'tis time for me to give over. I have been four days on this letter, for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not know when I may again write to thee with my own hand ; so I resolved I would e'en empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and blooming ; she is, at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious piece of tapestry, which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the women. " Heaven bless thee, my child ! Take care of thyself, and drink moderately. It is hurtful at thy age to drink above a gallon or so at a sitting. Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer, thou must come with thy kind looks, 128 DEVEREUX. to make me feel at home again. At present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always warm to thee. "WILLIAM DEVEREUX." " P.S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed thou gottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest red and white, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as jealous as a wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound to be vexed, so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy mother." This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simplicity, penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned me much anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Gerald and Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family. The disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons which D' Alvarez confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for concealment, and which proved, at least, that some state plot in which Gerald was engaged was known to the Spaniard, joined to those expressions of Montreuil, which did all but own a design for the restora- tion of the deposed Line, and the power which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whose mind, at once bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue, and yield to Mon- treuil's suggestions on its nature, these combined circumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply interesting to the honor of our house, and the very life of one of its members. Nothing, however, for me to do, calculated to prevent or impede the designs of Montreuil and the danger of Gerald, occurred to me. Eager alike in my hatred and my love, I said, inly, "What matters it whether one whom the ties of blood never softened towards me, with whom, from my childhood upwards, I have wrestled as with an enemy, what matters it whether he win fame or death in the perilous game he has engaged in?" And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of the subject, I began only to think whether the search or the society of Isora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a fruitless and inconclusive medita- tion on that head, my thoughts took a less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of Aubrey. What, for one so already abstracted from the enjoyments of earth, so darkened by superstitious misconceptions of the DEVEREUX. 129 true nature of God, and the true objects of his creatures what could be anticipated but wasted powers and a perverted life ? Alas ! when will men perceive the difference between religion and priestcraft ! When will they perceive that reason, so far from extinguishing religion by a more gaudy light, sheds on it all its lustre ? It is fabled that the first legislator of the Peru- vians received from the Deity a golden rod, with which in his wanderings he was to strike the earth until in some destined spot the earth entirely absorbed it, and there and there alone was he to erect a temple to the Divinity. What is this fable but the cloak of an inestimable moral ? Our reason is the rod of gold ; the vast world of truth gives the soil, which it is perpetually to sound ; and only where without resistance the soil receives the rod which guided and supported us, will our Altar be sacred and our worship be accepted. CHAPTER X. Being a short Chapter, containing a most Important Event. SIR WILLIAM'S letter was still fresh in my mind, when, for want of some less noble quarter wherein to bestow my tedious- ness, I repaired to St. John. As I crossed the hall to his apartment, two men, just dismissed from his presence, passed me rapidly ; one was unknown to me, but there was no mis- taking the other it was Montreuil. I was greatly startled ; the priest not appearing to notice me, and conversing in a whispered, yet seemingly vehement tone, with his companion, hurried on, and vanished through the street door. I entered St. John's room : he was alone, and received me with his usual gayety. " Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," said I ; " but if not a question of state, do inform me what you know respecting the taller one of those two gentlemen who have just quitted you?" " It is a question of state, my dear Devereux, so my answer must be brief ; very little." " You know who he is ? " " Yes, a Jesuit, and a marvellously shrewd one : the Abbe" Montreuil." " He was my tutor." "Ah, so I have heard." "And your acquaintance with him is positively and bond fide of a state nature?" 130 DEVEREUX. " Positively and bond fide." 11 1 could tell you something of him ; he is certainly in the service of the Court at St. Germains, and a terrible plotter on this side the channel." " Possibly ; but I wish to receive no information respecting him." One great virtue of business did St. John possess, and I have never known any statesman who possessed it so eminently : it was the discreet distinction between friends of the statesman and friends of the man. Much and intimately as I knew St. John, I could never glean from him a single secret of a state nature, until, indeed, at a later period, I leagued myself to a portion of his public schemes. Accordingly I found him, at the present moment, perfectly impregnable to my inquiries ; and it was not till I knew Montreuil's companion was the celebrated intriguant, the Abbe Gaultier, that I ascertained the exact nature of the priest's business with St. John, and the exact motives of the civilities he had received from Abigail Masham.* Being at last forced, despairingly, to give over the attempt on his discretion, I suffered St. John to turn the con- versation upon other topics, and as these were not much to the existent humor of my mind, I soon rose to depart. " Stay, Count," said St. John ; "shall you ride to-day?" "If you will bear me company." " Volontiers to say the truth, I was about to ask you to canter your bay horse with me first to Spring Gardens, f where I have a promise to make to the director ; and secondly, on a mission of charity to a poor foreigner of rank and birth, who, in his profound ignorance of this country, thought it right to enter into a plot with some wise heads, and to reveal it to some foolish tongues, who brought it to us with as much clatter as if it were a second gunpowder project. I easily brought him off that scrape, and I am now going to give him a caution for the future. Poor gentleman, I hear that he is grievously distressed in pecuniary matters, and I always had a kindness for exiles. Who knows but that a state of exile may be our own fate ! and this alien is sprung from a race as haughty as that of St. John, or of Devereux. The res angusta domi must gall him sorely ! " "True," said I slowly. "What may be the name of the foreigner?" *Viz. That Count Devereux ascertained the priest's communications and overtures from the Chevalier. The precise extent of Bolingbroke's secret negotiations with the exiled Prince is still one of the darkest portions of the history of that time. That negotiations were carried on, both by Harley and St. John,' very largely, and very closely, I ned not say that there is no doubt. ED. t Vauxhall. DEVEREUX. 131 " Why complain not hereafter that I do not trust you in state matters I will divulge D'Alvarez Don Diego an hidalgo of the best blood of Andalusia ; and not unworthy of it, I fancy, in the virtues of fighting, though he may be in those of counsel. But Heavens ! Devereux you seem ill ! " " No, no ! Have you ever seen this man ? " "Never." At this word a thrill of joy shot across me, for I knew St. John's fame for gallantry, and I was suspicious of the motives of his visit. " St. John, I know this Spaniard I know him well, and inti- mately. Could you not commission me to do your errand, and deliver your caution ? Relief from me he might accept ; from you, as a stranger, pride might forbid it ; and you would really confer on me a personal and an essential kindness, if you would give me so fair an opportunity to confer kindness upon him." "Very well, I am delighted to oblige you in any way. Take his direction ; you see his abode is in a very pitiful suburb. Tell him from me that he is quite safe at present ; but tell him also to avoid, henceforward, all imprudence, all connection with priests, plotters, et tons ces gens-la, as he values his personal safety, or at least his continuance in this most hospitable country. It is not from every wood that we make a Mercury, nor from every brain that we can carve a Mercury's genius of intrigue." " Nobody ought to be better skilled in the materials requisite for such productions than Mr. Secretary St. John ! " said I ; "and now, adieu." "Adieu, if you will not ride with me. We meet at Sir William Wyndham's to-morrow." Masking my agitation till I was alone, I rejoiced when I found myself in the open streets. I summoned a hackney coach, and drove as rapidly as the vehicle would permit, to the petty and obscure suburb to which St. John had directed me. The coach stopped at the door of a very humble, but not abso- lutely wretched, abode. I knocked at the door. A woman opened it, and, in answer to my inquiries, told me that the poor foreign gentleman was very ill very ill indeed had suffered a paralytic stroke not expected to live. His daughter was with him now would see no one even Mr. Barnard had been denied admission. At that name my feelings, shocked and stunned at first by the unexpected intelligence of the poor Spaniard's danger, felt a sudden and fierce revulsion I combated it. This is no time, I thought, for any jealous, for any selfish, emotion. If I can 132 DEVEREUX. serve her, if I can relieve her father, let me be contented. "She will see me," I said aloud, and I slipped some money in the woman's hand. "I am an old friend of the family, and I shall not be an unwelcome intruder on the sick-room of the sufferer." "Intruder, sir bless you, the poor gentleman is quite speech- less and insensible." At hearing this, I could refrain no longer. Isora's discon- solate, solitary, destitute condition, broke irresistibly upon me, and all scruple of more delicate and formal nature vanished at once. I ascended the stairs, followed by the old woman she stopped me by the threshold of a room on the second floor, and whispered " There!" I paused an instant collected breath and courage, and entered. The room was partially darkened. The curtains were drawn closely around the bed. By a table, on which stood two or three phials of medicine, I beheld Isora, listening with an eager, a most eager and intent face, to a man whose garb betrayed his healing profession, and who, laying a finger on the outstretched palm of his other hand, appeared giving his precise instructions, and uttering that oracular breath which mere human words to him was a message of fate itself a fiat on which hung all that makes life, life, to his trembling and devout listener. Monarchs of earth, ye have not so supreme a power over woe and happiness, as one village leech ! As he turned to leave her, she drew from a most slender purse a few petty coins, and I saw that she muttered some words indicative of the shame of poverty, as she tremblingly tendered them to the outstretched palm. Twice did that palm close and open on the paltry sum ; and the third time the native instinct of the heart overcame the later impulse of the profession. The limb of Galen drew back, and shaking with a gentle oscillation hiscapitalian honors, he laid the money softly on the table, and buttoning up the pouch of his nether garment, as if to resist temptation, he pressed the poor hand still extended towards him, and bowing over it with a kind respect for which I did long to approach and kiss his most withered and undainty cheek, he turned quickly round, and almost fell against me in the abstracted hurry of his exit. " Hush ! " said I softly. " What hope of your patient ?" The leech glanced at me meaningly, and I whispered to him to wait for me below. Isora had not yet seen me. It is a notable distinction in the feelings, that all but the solitary one of grief sharpen into exquisite edge the keenness of the senses, but grief blunts them to a most dull obtuseness. I hesitated DEVEREUX. 133 now to come forward ; and so I stood, hat in hand, by the door, and not knowing that the tears streamed down my cheeks as I fixed my gaze upon Isora. She too stood still, just where the leech had left her, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, and her head drooping. The right hand which the man had pressed, had sunk slowly and heavily by her side, with the small snowy fingers half closed over the palm. There is no describing the despondency which the listless position of that hand spoke, and the left hand lay with a like indolence of sorrow on the table, with one finger outstretched and pointing towards the phials, just as it had, some moments before, seconded the injunctions of the prim physician. Well, for my part, if I were a painter I would come now and then to a sick chamber for a study ! At last Isora, with a very quiet gesture of self- recovery, moved towards the bed, and the next moment I was by her side. If my life depended on it, I could not write one, no, not one sylla- ble more of this scene. CHAPTER XL Containing more than any other Chapter in the Second Book of this History. MY first proposal was to remove the patient, with all due care and gentleness, to a better lodging, and a district more conven- ient for the visits of the most eminent physicians. When I ex- pressed this wish to Isora, she looked at me long and wistfully, and then burst into tears. " You will not deceive us," said she, " and I accept your kindness at once from him I rejected the same offer." " Him ? of whom speak you ? this Barnard, or rather but I know him ! " A startling expression passed over Isora's speak- ing face. " Know him ! " she cried, interrupting me, "You do not you cannot ! " " Take courage, dearest Isora^if I may so dare to call you take courage ; it is fearful to have a rival in that quarter but I am prepared for it. This Barnard, tell me again, do you love him?" "Love Oh, God, no!" "What then: do you still fear him ? fear him, too, protected by the unsleeping eye and the vigilant hand of a love like mine? " "Yes!" she said falteringly, "I fear tor you!" "Me ! " I cried, laughing scornfully, "me ! nay, dearest, there 134 DEVEREUX. breathes not that man whom you need fear on my account. But, answer me is not " " For Heaven's sake for mercy's sake ! " cried Isora eagerly, "do not question me I am bound, by a most solemn oath, never to divulge that secret." " I care not," said I, calmly, "I want no confirmation of my knowledge this masked rival is my own brother ! " I fixed my eyes full on Isora while I said this, and she quailed, beneath my gaze: her cheek her lips were utterly without color, and an expression of sickening and keen anguish was graven upon her face. She made no answer. " Yes! " resumed I, bitterly, " it is my brother be it so I am prepared but if you can, Isora, say one word to deny it?" Isora's tongue seemed literally to cleave to her mouth; at last, with a violent effort, she muttered, " I have told you, Morton, that I am bound by oath not to divulge this secret; nor may I breathe a single syllable calculated to do so if I deny one name, you may question me on more and, therefore, to deny one is a breach of my oath. But beware ! " she added, vehe- mently, " oh ! beware how your suspicions mere vague, baseless suspicions criminate a brother : and, above all, whomsoever you believe to be the real being under this disguised name, as you value your life, and therefore mine breathe not to him a syllable of your belief." I was so struck with the energy with which this was said, that, after a short pause, I rejoined in an altered tone : " I cannot believe that I have aught against life to fear from a brother's hand but I will promise you to guard against latent danger. But is your oath so peremptory that you cannot deny even one name ? if not, and you can deny this, I swear to you that I will never question you upon another." Again a fierce convulsion wrung the lip and distorted the per- fect features of Isora. She remained silent for some moments, and then murmured, " My oath forbids me even that single an- swer tempt me no more now and forever, I am mute upon this subject." Perhaps some slight and momentary anger, or doubt, or sus- picion, betrayed itself upon my countenance, for Isora, after looking upon me long and mournfully, said in a quiet but mel- ancholy tone : " I see your thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them it is natural that you should 'think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds one too placed under such circumstan- ces of humiliation and distrust. I have lived long in your coun- try I have seen, for the last few months, much of its inhabi- DEVEREUX. 135 tants ; I have studied too the works which profess to unfold its national and peculiar character ; I know that you have a dis= trust of the people of other climates; I know that you are cau- tious and full of suspicious vigilance, even in your commerce with each other ; I know, too (and Isora's heart swelled visibly as she spoke), that poverty itself, in the eyes of your commer- cial countrymen, is a crime, and that they rarely feel confidence or place faith in those who are unhappy ; why, Count Dever- eux, why should I require more of you than of the rest of your nation ? Why should you think better of the penniless and friendless girl the degraded exile the victim of doubt, which is so often the disguise of guilt, than any other any one even among my own people would think of one so mercilessly de- prived of all the decent and appropriate barriers by which a maiden should be surrounded? No no leave me as you found me leave my poor father where you see him any place will do for us to die in." " Isora ! " I said, clasping her in my arms, "you do not know me yet ; had I found you in prosperity, and in the world's honor had I wooed you in your father's halls, and girt around with the friends and kinsmen of your race I might have pressed for more than you will now tell me I might have indulged sus- picion where I perceived mystery, and I might not have loved as I love you now ! Now, Isora, in misfortune, in destitution, I place without reserve my whole heart its trust, its zeal its de- votion in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or sunshine, I am yours, wholly, and forever. Reject me if you will, I will return to you again ; and never never save from my own eyes or your own lips will I receive a single evidence detracting from your purity, or, Isora mine own, own Isora may I not add also from your love ? " " Too, too generous ! " murmured Isora, struggling passion- ately with her tears, "may Heaven forsake me if ever I am un- grateful to thee ; and believe believe that if love, more fond, more true, more devoted than woman ever felt before, can re- pay you, you shall be repaid ! " Why, at that moment, did my heart leap so joyously within me ? why did I say inly " The treasure I have so long yearned for, is found at last : we have met, and through the waste of years, we will walk together, and never part again"? Why, at that moment of bliss, did I not rather feel a foretaste of the coming woe! Oh, blind and capricious Fate, that gives us a presentiment at one while, and withholds it at another ! Knowl- edge, and Prudence, and calculating Foresight, what are ye?* 136 DEVEREUX. warnings unto others, not ourselves. Reason is a lamp which sheddeth afar a glorious and general light, but leaveth all that is around it in darkness and in gloom. We foresee and foretell the destiny of others we march credulous and benighted to our own ; and, like Laocoon, from the very altars by which we stand as the soothsayer and the priest, creep forth, unsuspected and undreamt of, the serpents which are fated to destroy us ! That very day then, Alvarez was removed to a lodging more worthy of his birth, and more calculated to afford hope of his recovery. He bore the removal without any evident sign of fatigue ; but his dreadful malady had taken away both speech and sense, and he was already more than half the property of the grave. I sent, however, for the best medical advice which London could afford. They met prescribed and left the patient just as they found him. I know not, in the progress of science, what physicians may be to posterity, but in my time they are false witnesses subpoenaed against Death, whose testimony al- ways tells less in favor of the plaintiff than the defendant. Before we left the poor Spaniard's former lodging, and when I was on the point of giving some instructions to the landlady respecting the place to which the few articles of property be- longing to Don Diego and Isora were to be moved, Isora made me a sign to be silent, which I obeyed. " Pardon me," said she afterwards, "but I confess that I am anxious our next resi- dence should not be known should not be subject to the intru- sion of of this " "Barnard, as you call him. I understand you; be it so !" and accordingly I enjoined the goods to be sent to my own house, whence they were removed to Don Diego's new abode ; and I took especial care to leave with the good lady no clue to discover Alvarez and his daughter, otherwise than through me. The pleasure afforded me of directing Gerald's attention to myself, I could not resist. " Tell Mr. Barnard, when he call," said I, " that only through Count Morton Devereux, will he hear of Don Diego D'Alvarez, and the lady his daughter." '' twill, your honor," said the landlady ; and then, looking at me more attentively, she added: "Bless me! now when you speak, there is a very strong likeness between yourself and Mr. Barnard." I recoiled as if an adder had stung me, and hurried into the coach to support the patient, who was already placed there. Now then my daily post was by the bed of disease and suffer- ing ; in the chamber of death was my vow of love ratified ; and in sadness and in sorrow was it returned. But it is in such DEVEREUX. i37 scenes that the deepest, the most endearing, and the most holy, species of the passion is engendered. As I heard Isora's low voice tremble with the suspense of one who watches over the hourly severing of the affection of Nature and of early years : as I saw her light step flit by the pillow which she smoothed, and her cheek alternately flush and fade, in watching the wants which she relieved; as I marked her mute, her unwearying, tenderness, breaking into a thousand nameless but mighty, cares and per- vading like an angel's vigilance every yea, the minutest course into which it flowed did I not behold her in that sphere in which woman is most lovely, and in which love itself consecrates its admiration, and purifies its most ardent desires ? That was not a time for our hearts to speak audibly to each other ; but we felt that they grew closer and closer, and we asked not for the poor eloquence of words. But over this scene let me not linger. One morning, as I was proceeding on foot to Isora's, I perceived on the opposite side of the way Montreuil and Gerald ; they were conversing eagerly : they both saw me. Montreuil made a slight, quiet, and dignified inclination of the head : Gerald colored, and hesitated. I thought he was about to leave his companion and address me ; but, with a haughty and severe air, I passed on, and Gerald, as if stung by my demeanor, bit his lip vehemently, and followed my example. A few minutes after- wards I felt an inclination to regret that I had not afforded him him an opportunity of addressing me. " I might," thought I, " have then taunted him with his persecution of Isora, and defied him to execute those threats against me, 'in which it is evident, from her apprehensions for my safety, that he indulged." I had not, however, much leisure for these thoughts. When I arrived at the lodgings of Alvarez, I found that a great change had taken place in his condition ; he had recovered speech, though imperfectly, and testified a return to sense. I flew up stairs with a light step to congratulate Isora ; she met me at the door. "Hush!" she whispered : "my father sleeps!" But she did not speak with the animation I had anticipated. "What is the matter, dearest ?" said I, following her into an- other apartment : " you seem sad, and your eyes are red with tears, which are not, methinks, entirely the tears of joy at this happy change in your father?" "I am marked out for suffering," returnd Isora, more keenly than she was wont to speak. I pressed her to explain her mean- ing ; she hesitated at first, but at length confessed that her father had always been anxious for her marriage with this soi-disant 138 DEVEREUX.' Barnard, and that his first words on his recovery had been to press her to consent to his wishes. " My poor father," said she \veepingly, "speaks and thinks only for my fancied good : but his senses as yet are only recovered in part, and he cannot even understand me when I speak of you. ' I shall die,' he said, ' I shall die, and you will be left on the wide world ! ' I in vain endeavored to explain to him that I should have a protector he fell asleep muttering those words, and with tears in his eyes." " Does he know as much of this Barnard as you do ?" said I. " Heavens, no ! or he would never have pressed me to marry one so wicked." " Does he know even who he is ? " " Yes ! " said Isora, after a pause, "but he has not known it long." Here the physician joined us, and taking me aside, informed me that, as he had foreboded, sleep had been the harbinger of death, and that Don Diego was no more. I broke the news as gently as I could to Isora : but her grief was far more violent than I could have anticipated ; and nothing seemed to cut her so deeply to the heart as the thought that his last wish had been one with which she had not complied, and could never comply. I pass over the first days of mourning I come to the one after Don Diego's funeral. 1 had been with Isora in the morning ; I left her for a few hours, and returned at the first dusk of even- ing with some books and music, which I vainly hoped she might recur to for a momentary abstraction from her grief. I dismissed my carriage, with the intention of walking home, and addressing the woman-servant who admitted me, inquired, as was my wont, after Isora. "She has been very ill," replied the woman, "ever since the strange gentleman left her." " The strange gentleman?" Yes, he had forced his way upstairs, despite the denial the servant had been ordered to give to all strangers. He had entered Isora's room ; and the woman, in answer to my urgent inquiries, added that she had heard his voice raised to a loud and harsh key in the apartment ; he had stayed there about a quarter of an hour, and had then hurried out, seemingly in great disorder and agitation. " What description of man was he?" I asked. The woman answered that he was mantled from head to foot in his cloak, which was richly laced, and his hat was looped with diamonds, but slouched over that part of his face which the collar of his cloak did not hide, so that she could not further DEVEREUX. 139 describe him than as one of a haughty and abrupt bearing, and evidently belonging to the higher ranks. Convinced that Gerald had been the intruder, I hastened up the stairs to Isora. She received me with a sickly and faint smile, and endeavored to conceal the traces of her tears. "So ! " said I," this insolent persecutor of yours has discovered your abode, and again insulted or intimidated you. He shall do so no more ! 1 will seek him to-morrow and no affinity of blood shall prevent " " Morton, dear Morton ! " cried Isora, in great alarm, and yet with a certain determination stamped upon her features, "hear me ! it is true this man has been here it is true that, fearful and terrible as he is, he has agitated and alarmed me ; but it was only for you, Morton by the Holy Virgin, it was only for you! ' The moment,' said he, and his voice ran shiveringly through my heart like a dagger, ' the moment Morton Devereux discovers who is his rival, that moment his death warrant is irrevocably sealed ! " " Arrogant boaster ! " I cried, and my blood burnt with the intense rage which a much slighter cause would have kindled from the natural fierceness of my temper. "Does he think my life is at his bidding, to allow or to withhold ? Unhand me, Isora, unhand me ! I tell you I will seek him this moment, and dare him to do his worst ! " " Do so," said Isora, calmly, and releasing her hold ; " do so ; but hear me first : the moment you breathe to him your suspicions you place an eternal barrier betwixt yourself and me! Pledge me your faith that you will never, while I live at least, reveal to him to any one whom you suspect your reproach, your de- fiance, your knowledge nay, not even your lightest suspicion of his identity with my persecutor promise me this, Morton Deve- reux, or I, in my turn, before that crucifix whose sanctity we both acknowledge and adore that crucifix which has descended to my race for three unbroken centuries which, for my departed Father, in the solemn vow, and in the death agony, has still been a witness, a consolation, and a pledge, between the soul and its Creator by that crucifix which my dying mother clasped to her bosom, when she committed me, an infant, to the care of that Heaven which hears and records forever our lightest word I swear that I will never be yours ! '' " Isora ! " said I, awed and startled, yet struggling against the impression her energy made upon me, " you know not to what you pledge yourself, nor what you require of me. If I do not 140 DEVEREUX. seek out this man if I do not expose to him my knowledge of his pursuit and unhallowed persecution of you if I do not effectually prohibit and prevent their continuance think well, what security have I for your future peace of mind nay, even for the safety of your honor or your life ? A man thus bold, daring, and unbaffled in his pursuit, thus vigilant and skilful in his selection of time and occasion so that, despite my constant and anxious endeavor to meet him in your presence, I have never been able to do so from a man, I say, thus pertinacious in resolution, thus crafty in disguise, what may you not dread when you leave him utterly fearless by the license of impunity ? Think too, again, Isora, that the mystery dishonors as much as the danger menaces. Is it meet that my betrothed and my future bride should be subjected to these secret and terrible visitations visitations of a man professing himself her lover, and evincing the vehemence of his passion by that of his pursuit ? Isora Isora you have weighed not these things you know not what you demand of me." " I do ! " answered Isora, " I do know all that I demand of you I demand of you only to preserve your life." "How," said I, impatiently, "cannot my hand preserve my life ? and is it for you, the daughter of a line of warriors, to ask your lover and your husband to shrink from a single foe ? " " No, Morton," answered Isora. "Were you going to battle, I would gird on your sword myself were, too, this man other than he is, and you were about to meet him in open contest, I would not wrong you, nor degrade your betrothed, by a fear. But I know my persecutor well fierce, unrelenting dreadful in his dark and ungovernable passions as he is, he has not the courage to confront you: I fear not the open foe, but the lurk- ing and sure assassin. His very earnestness to avoid you ; the precautions he has taken are alone sufficient to convince you that he dreads personally to oppose your claim, or to vindicate himself." " Then what have I to fear ? " " Everything ! Do you not know that from men, at once fierce, crafty, and shrinking from bold violence, the stuff for assassins is always made? And if I wanted surer proof of his designs than inference, his oath it rings in my ears now is sufficient : ' The moment Morton Devereux discovers who is his rival, that moment his death-warrant is irrevocably sealed.' Morton, I demand your promise ; or, though my heart break, I will record my own vow." " Stay stay," I said, in anger, and in sorrow ; " were I to DEVEREUX. 141 promise this, and for my own safety hazard yours, what could you deem me ? " " Fear not for me, Morton," answered Isora ; "you have no cause. I tell you that this man, villain as he is, ever leaves me humbled and abased. Do not think that in all times, and all scenes, I am the foolish and weak creature you behold me now. Remember, that you said rightly I was the daughter of a line of warriors ; and I have that within me which will not shame my descent." " But, dearest, your resolution may avail you for a time ; but it cannot forever baffle the hardened nature of a man. I know my own sex, and I know my own ferocity, were it once aroused." " But, Morton, you do not know me" said Isora proudly, and her face, as she spoke, was set, and even stern, " I am only the coward when I think of you ; a word a look of mine can abash this man; or, if it could not, I am never without a weapon to defend myself, or or " Isora's voice, before firm and col- lected, now faltered, and a deep blush flowed over the marble paleness of her face. " Or what ? " said I anxiously. " Or thee, Morton ? " murmured Isora tenderly, and with- drawing her eyes from mine. The tone, the look that accompanied these words, melted me at once. I rose I clasped Isora to my heart. " You are a strange compound, my own fairy queen ; but these lips this cheek those eyes are not fit features for a heroine." " Morton, if I had less determination in my heart, I could not love you so well." "But tell me," I whispered, with a smile, "where is thiswea pon on which you rely so strongly?" " Here ! " answered Isora, blushingly ; and, extricating her- self from me, she showed me a small two-edged dagger, which she wore carefully concealed within the folds of her dress. I looked over the bright, keen blade, with surprise, and yet with pleasure, at the latent resolution of a character seemingly so soft. I say, with pleasure, for it suited well with my own fierce and wild temper. I returned the weapon to her, with a smile and a jest. "Ah!" said Isora, shrinking from my kiss,"! should not have been so bold, if I only feared danger for myself." But if for a moment we forgot, in the gushings of our affec- tion, the object of our converse and dispute, we soon returned to it again. Isora was the first to recur to it. She reminded me. of the promise she required ; and she spoke with a serious- 142 DEVEREUX. ness and a solemnity which I found myself scarcely able to resist. "But," I said, " if he ever molest you hereafter: if again I find that bright cheek blanched, and those dear eyes dimmed with tears, and I know that, in my own house, some one has dared thus to insult its queen, am I to be still torpid and inac- tive, lest a dastard and craven hand should avenge my assertion of your honor and mine ? " " No, Morton ; after our marriage, whenever that be, you will have nothing to apprehend from him on the same ground as before ; my fear for you, too, will not be what it is now ; your honor will be bound in mine, and nothing shall induce me to hazard it no, not even your safety. I have every reason to believe that, after that event, he will subject me no longer to his insults how, indeed, can he, under your perpetual pro- tection ? or for what cause should he attempt it, if he could ? I shall be then yours only and ever yours what hope could, therefore, then nerve his hardihood or instigate his intrusions? Trust to me at that time, and suffer me to nay, I repeat, pro- mise me that I may trust in you now ! " What could I do? I still combated her wish and her request ; but her steadiness and rigidity of purpose made me, though reluctantly, yield to them at last. So sincere, and so stern, indeed, appeared her resolution, that I feared, by refusal, that she would take the rash oath that would separate us for ever. Added to this, I felt, in her that confidence which, I am apt to believe, is far more akin to the latter stages of real love, than jealousy and mistrust ; and I could not believe that either now, or, still less after our nuptials, she would risk aught of honor, or the seemings of honor, from a visionary and superstitious fear. In spite, therefore, of my keen and deep interest in the thorough discovery of this mysterious persecutor; and, still more, in the prevention of all future designs from his audacity, I constrained myself to promise her that I would on no account seek out the person I suspected, or wilfully betray to him, by word or deed, my belief of his identity with Barnard. Though greatly dissatisfied with my self-compulsion, I strove to reconcile myself to its idea. Indeed, there was much in the peculiar circumstances of Isora much in the freshness of her present affliction much in the unfriended and utter destitution of her situation that while, on the one hand, it called forth her pride, and made stubborn that temper which was naturally so gentle and so soft, on the other hand made me yield even to wishes that I thought unreasonable,, and consider rather the DEVEkEUX. 1.43 delicacy and deference due to her condition, than insist upon the sacrifices which, in more fortunate circumstances, I might have imagined due to myself. Still more indisposed to resist her wish and expose myself to its penalty was I, when I con- sidered her desire was the mere excess and caution of her love, and when I felt that she spoke sincerely when she declared that it was only for me that she was the coward. Nevertheless, and despite all these considerations, it was with a secret dis- content that I took my leave of her, and departed homeward. I had just reached the end of the street where the house was situated, when I saw there, very imperfectly, for the night was extremely dark, the figure of a man entirely enveloped in a long cloak, such as was commonly worn by gallants, in affairs of secrecy or intrigue ; and, in the pale light of a single lamp near which he stood, something like the brilliance of gems glittered on the large Spanish hat which overhung his brow. I immediately recalled the description the woman had given me of Barnard's dress, and the thought flashed across me that it was he whom I beheld. "At all events," thought I, "I may confirm my doubts, if I may not communicate them, and I may watch over her safety if I may not avenge her injuries?" I therefore took advantage of my knowledge of the neighborhood, passed the stranger with a quick step, and then, running rapidly, returned by a circuitous route to the mouth of a narrow and dark street, which was exactly opposite to Isora's house. Here I concealed myself by a projecting porch, and I had not waited long before I saw the dim form of the stranger walk slowly by the house. He passed it three or four times, and each time I thought though the darkness might well deceive me that he looked up to the windows. He made, however, no attempt at admission, and appeared as if he had no other object than that of watching by the house. Wearied and impatient at last, I came from my concealment. "I may confirm my suspicions," I repeated, recurring to my oath, and I walked straight towards the stranger. "Sir!" I said, very calmly, "I am the last person in the world to interfere with the amusements of any other gentleman ; but I humbly opine that no man can parade by this house upon so very cold a night, without giving just ground for suspicion to the friends of its inhabitants. I happen to be among that happy number ; and I therefore, with all due humility and respect, venture to request you to seek some other spot for your nocturnal perambulations." J made this speech purposely prolix, in order to have time 144 DEVEREUX. fully to reconnoitre the person of the one I addressed. The dusk of the night, and the loose garb of the stranger, certainly forbade any decided success to this scrutiny ; but methought the figure seemed, despite of my prepossessions, to want the stately height and grand proportions of Gerald Devereux. I must own, however, that the necessary inexactitude of my survey rendered this idea without just foundation, and did not by any means diminish my firm impression that it was Gerald whom I beheld. While I spoke, he retreated with a quick step, but made no answer ; I pressed upon him he backed with a still quicker step; and when I had ended, he fairly turned round, and made at full speed along the dark street in which I had fixed my previous post of watch. I fled after him, with a step as fleet as his own his cloak encumbered his flight I gained upon him sensibly he turned a sharp corner threw me out, and entered into a broad thoroughfare. As I sped after him, Bacchanalian voices burst upon my ear, and presently a large band of those young men who, under the name of Mohawks, were wont to scour the town nightly, and, sword in hand, to exercise their love of riot under the disguise of party zeal, became visible in the middle of the street. Through them my fugitive dashed headlong, and, profiting by their surprise, escaped unmolested. I attempted to follow with equal speed, but was less successful. " Hallo ! " cried the foremost of the group, placing himself in my way. " No such haste ! Art Whig or Tory ? Under which king Bezonian, speak or die?" " Have a care, sir," said I fiercely, drawing my sword. "Treason, treason !" cried the speaker, confronting me with equal readiness. "Have a care, indeed have at t/iee." " Ha ! " cried another, " 'tis a Tory : 'tis the Secretary's popish friend, Devereux pike him, pike him." I had already run my opponent through the sword arm, and was in hopes that this act would intimidate the rest, and allow my escape ; but at the sound of my name and political bias, coupled with the drawn blood of their confederate, the patriots rushed upon me with that amiable fury generally characteristic of all true lovers of their country. Two swords passed through my body simultaneously, and I fell bleeding and insensible to the ground. When I recovered I was in my own apartments, whither two of the gentler Mohawks had conveyed me; the surgeons were by my bedside ; I groaned audibly when I saw them. If there is a thing in the world I hate, it is in any shape the disciples of Hermes; they always remind me of that Indian SEVERED*. 145 people (the Padaei, I think) mentioned by Herodotus, who sustained themselves by devouring the sick. "All is well," said one, when my groan was heard. " He will not die," said another. "At least not till we have had more fees," said a third, more candid than the rest. And thereupon they seized me and began torturing my wounds anew, till I fainted away with the pain. However, the next day I was declared out of immediate danger ; and the first proof I gave of my convales- cence was to make Desmarais discharge four surgeons out of five : the remaining one I thought my youth and constitution might enable me to endure. That very evening, as I was turning restlessly in my bed, and muttering, with parched lips, the name of "Isora," I saw by my side a figure covered from head to foot in a long veil, and a voice, low, soft, but thrilling through my heart like a new exist- ence, murmured, " She is here ! " I forgot my wounds, I forgot my pain and my debility I sprung upwards the stranger drew aside the veil from her countenance, and I beheld Isora ! "Yes!" said she, in her own liquid and honied accents, which fell like balm upon my wound, and my spirit, "yes, she whom j0tf have hitherto tended is come, in her turn, to render some slight, but woman's services to you. She has come to nurse, and to soothe, and to pray for you, and to be, till you yourself discard her, your handmaid and your slave ! " I would have answered, but raising her finger to her lips, she arose and vanished ; but from that hour my wound healed, my fever slaked, and whenever I beheld her flitting round my bed, or watching over me, or felt her cool fingers wiping the dew from my brow, or took from her hand my medicine or my food, in those moments the blood seemed to make a new struggle through my veins, and I felt palpably within me a fresh and delicious life a life full of youth, and passion, and hope, replace the vaguer and duller being which I had hitherto borne. There are some extraordinary incongruities in that very mysterious thing sympathy. One would imagine that, in a description of things most generally interesting to all men, the most general interest would be found ; nevertheless, I believe few persons would hang breathless over the progressive history of a sick-bed. Yet those gradual stages from danger to recovery, how delightfully interesting they are to all who have crawled from one to the other ! and who, at some time or other in his journey through that land of diseases civilized life has not taken that gentle excursion ? "I would be ill any day for the 146 DEVEREUX. pleasure of getting well," said Fontenelle to me one morning with his usual naivete ; but who would not be ill for the mere pleasure of being ill, if he could be tended by her whom he most loves? I shall not therefore dwell upon that most delicious period of my life my sick-bed, and my recovery from it. I pass on to a certain evening in which I heard from Isora's lips the whole of her history, save what related to her knowledge of the real name of one whose persecution constituted the little of romance which had yet mingled with her innocent and pure life. That evening how well I remember it ! we were alone still weak and reduced, I lay upon the sofa beside the window, which was partially open, and the still air of an evening in the first infancy of spring came fresh, and fraught, as it were, with a prediction of the glowing woods, and the reviving verdure, to my cheek. The stars, one by one, kindled, as if born of Heaven and Twilight, into their nightly being ; and, through the vapor and thick ether of the dense city, streamed their most silent light, holy and pure, and resembling that which the Divine Mercy sheds upon the gross nature of mankind. But, shadowy and calm, their rays fell full upon the face of Isora, as she lay on the ground beside my couch, and with one hand surrendered to my clasp, looked upward till, as she felt my gaze, she turned her cheek blushingly away. There was quiet around and above us ; but beneath the window we heard at times the sounds of the common earth, and then insensibly our hands knit into a closer clasp, and we felt them thrill more palpably to our hearts ; for those sounds reminded us both of our existence and of our separation from the great herd of our race ! What is love but a division from the world, and a blending of two souls, two immortalities divested of clay and ashes, into one? it is a severing of a thousand ties from whatever is harsh and selfish, in order to knit them into a single and sacred bond ! Who loves, hath attained the anchorite's secret ; and the her- mitage has become dearer than the world. O respite from the toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a little interval art thou, suspended between two eternities the Past and the Future a star that hovers between the morning and the night, sending through the vast abyss one solitary ray from heaven, but too far and faint to illumine, while it hallows the earth ! There was nothing in Isora's tale which the reader has not already learnt, or conjectured. She had left her Andalusian home in her early childhood, but she remembered it well, and Ungeringly dwelt over it in description. It was evident that DEVEREUX. 147 dttle in our colder and less genial isle had attracted her sym- pathy, or wound itself into her affection. Nevertheless, I conceive that her naturally dreamy and abstracted character had received from her residence and her trials here much of the vigor and the heroism which it now possessed. Brought up alone, music, and books few, though not ill-chosen, for Shakspeare was one, and the one which had made upon her the most permanent impression, and perhaps had colored her tem- perament with its latent, but rich hues of poetry constituted her amusement and her studies. But who knows not that a woman's heart finds its fullest occupation within itself ? There lies its real study, and within that narrow orbit the mirror of enchanted thought reflects the whole range of earth. Loneliness and meditation nursed the mood, which afterward, with Isora, became love itself. But I do not wish now so much to describe her character, as to abridge her brief history. The first English stranger, of the male sex, whom her father admitted to her acquaintance, was Barnard. This man was, as I had surmised, connected with him in certain political intrigues, the exact nature of which she did not know. I continue to call him by a name which Isora acknowledged was fictitious. He had not, at first, by actual declaration, betrayed to her his affections ; though, accom- panied by a sort of fierceness which early revolted her, they soon became visible. On the evening in which I found her stretched insensible in the garden, and had myself made my first confession of love, I learned that he had divulged to her his passion and real name : that her rejection had thrown him into a fierce despair that he had accompanied his disclosure with the most terrible threats against me, for whom he supposed himself rejected, and against the safety of her father, whom he said a word of his could betray ; that her knowledge of his power to injure us ! us yes, Isora then loved me, and then trembled for my safety ! had terrified and overcome her and that in the very moment in which my horse's hoofs were heard, and as the alternative of her non-compliance, the rude suitor swore deadly and sore vengeance against Alvarez and myself, she yielded to the oath he prescribed to her an oath that she would never revealed the secret he had betrayed to her, or suf- fer me to know who was my real rival. This was all that I could gather from her guarded confi- dence ! he heard the oath, and vanished, and she felt no more till she was in my arms ; then it was that she saw in the love and vengeance of my rival a barrier against our union ; and 148 then it was that her generous fear for me conquered her attach- ment, and she renounced me. Their departure from the cot- tage, so shortly afterwards, was at her father's choice and at the instigation of Barnard, for the furtherance of their political projects ; and it was from Barnard that the money came which repaid my loan to Alvarez. The same person, no doubt, pois- oned her father against me, for henceforth Alvarez never spoke of me with that partiality he had previously felt. They repaired to London ; her father was often absent, and often engaged with men whom she had never seen before ! he was absorbed and uncommunicative, and she was still ignorant of the nature of his schemings and designs. At length, after an absence of several weeks, Barnard reap- peared, and his visits became constant ; he renewed his suit to her father as well as herself. Then commenced that domestic persecution, so common in this very tyrannical world, which makes us sicken to bear, and which, had Isora been wholly a Spanish girl, she, in all probability, would never have resisted: so much of custom is there in the very air of a climate. But she did resist it, partly because she loved me and loved me more and more for our separation and partly because she dreaded and abhorred the ferocious and malignant passions of my rival, far beyond any other misery with which fortune could threaten her. " Your father then shall hang or starve ! " said Barnard, one day in uncontrollable frenzy, and left her. He did not appear again at the house. The Spaniard's resources, fed, probably, alone by Barnard, failed. From house to house they removed, till they were reduced to that humble one m which I had found them. There, Barnard again sought them ; there, backed by the powerful advocate of want, he again pressed his suit, and at that exact moment her father was struck with the numbing curse of his disease. " There and then," said Isora candidly, "I might have yielded at last, for my poor father's sake, if you had not saved me." Once only (I have before recorded the time), did Barnard visit her in the new abode I had provided for her, and the day after our conversation on that event Isora watched and watched for me, and I did not come. From the woman of the house she at last learned the cause. " I forgot," she said timidly and in conclusion, " I forgot womanhood, and modesty, and re- serve ; I forgot the customs of your country, the decencies of my own ; I forgot everything in this world, but you you suf- fering and in danger ; my very sense of existence seemed to pass from me, and to be supplied by a breathless, confused, and DEVEREtiX. 149 overwhelming sense of impatient agony, which ceased not till I was in your chamber, and by your side ! And and now, Morton, do not despise me for not having considered more, and loved you less." " Despise you ! " I murmured, and I threw my arms around her, and drew her to my breast. I felt her heart beat against my own ; those hearts spoke, though our lips were silent, and in their language seemed to say : " We are united now, and we will not part." The starlight, shining with a mellow and deep stillness, was the only light by which we beheld each other it shone, the witness and the sanction of that internal voice, which we owned, but heard not. Our lips drew closer and closer together, till they met ! and in that kiss was the type and promise of the after ritual which knit two spirits into one. Silence fell around us like a curtain, and the eternal Night, with her fresh dews and unclouded stars, looked alone upon the compact of our hearts an emblem of the eternity, the freshness, and the unearthly, though awful brightness of the love which it hal- lowed and beheld ! BOOK III. CHAPTER I. Wherein the History makes great Progress, and is marked by one important Event in Human Life. SPINOSA is said to have loved, above all other amusements, to put flies into a spider's web ; and the struggles of the im- prisoned insects were wont to bear, in the eyes of this grave philosopher, so facetious and hilarious an appearance, that he would stand and laugh thereat until the tears " coursed one another down his innocent nose." Now it so happeneth that Spinosa, despite the general (and, in my most meek opinion, the just) condemnation of his theoretical tenets,* was, in char- acter and in nature, according to the voices of all who knew * One ought, however, to be very cautious before one condemns a philosopher. The master's opinions are generally pure it is the conclusions and corollaries of his disciples that " draw the honey forth that drives men mad." Schlegel seems to have studied Spinosa de fonte, and vindicates him very earnestly from the charges brought against him atheism, etc. ED. 156 DEVEREtrX. him, an exceedingly kind, humane, and benevolent biped ; and it doth, therefore, seem a little strange unto us grave, sober members of the unphilosophical Many, that the struggles and terrors of these little, winged creatures should strike the good subtleist in a point of view so irresistibly ludicrous and delight- ful. But, for my part, I believe that the most imaginative and wild speculator beheld in the entangled flies nothing more than a liv- ing simile an animated illustration of his own beloved vision of Necessity ; and that he is no more to be considered cruel for the complacency with which he gazed upon those agonized types of his system than is Lucan for dwelling, with a poet's pleasure, upon the many ingenious ways with which that Grand Inquisitor of Verse has contrived to vary the simple operation of dying. To the bard, the butchered soldier was only an epic ornament ; to the philosopher, the murdered fly was only a metaphysical illustration. For, without being a Fatalist, or a disciple of Baruch de Spinosa, I must confess that I cannot conceive a greater resemblance to our human and earthly state than the penal predicament of the devoted flies. Suddenly do we find ourselves plunged into that Vast Web the World ; and even as the insect, when he first undergoeth a similar accident of necessity, standeth amazed and still, and only, by little and little, awakeneth to a full sense of his situation ; so also at the first abashed and confounded, we remain on the mesh we are urged upon, ignorant, as yet, of the toils around us, and the sly, dark, immitigable foe, that lieth in yonder nook, already feasting her imagination upon our destruction. Presently we revive we stir we flutter and Fate, that foe, the old arch- spider, that hath no moderation in her maw now fixeth one of her many eyes upon us, and giveth us a partial glimpse of her laidly and grim aspect. We pause in mute terror we gaze upon the ugly spectre, so imperfectly beheld the net ceases to tremble, and the wily enemy draws gently back into her nook. Now we begin to breathe again we sound the strange footing on which we tread we move tenderly along it, and again the grisly monster advances on us ; again we pause the foe re- tires not, but remains still, and surveyeth us, we see every step is accompanied with danger we look round and above in despair suddenly we feel within us a new impulse and a new power ! we feel a vague sympathy with that unknown region which spreads beyond this great net ; that limitless beyond hath a mystic affinity with a part of our own frame we uncon- sciously extend our wings (for the soul to us is as the wings to the fly !) we attempt to rise to soar above this perilous snare, DEVEREUX. 151 from which we are unable to crawl. The old spider watcheth us in self-hugging quiet, and, looking up to our native air, we think now shall we escape thee. Out on it ! We rise not a hair's breadth we have the wings, it is true, but the feet are fettered. We strive desperately again the whole web vibrates with the effort it will break beneath our strength. Not a jot of it ! we cease we are more entangled than ever ! wings feet frame the foul slime is over all ! where shall we turn ? every line of the web leads to the one den, we know not we care not we grow blind confused lost. The eyes of our hideous foe gloat upon us she whetteth her insatiate maw she leapeth towards us she fixeth her fangs upon us and so endeth my parallel ! But what has this to do with my tale ? Ay, Reader, that is thy question, and I will answer it by one of mine. When thou hearest a man moralize and preach of Fate, art thou not sure that he is going to tell thee of some one of his peculiar misfor- tunes ? Sorrow loves a parable as much as mirth loves a jest. And thus already, and from afar, I prepare thee, at the com- mencement of this, the third of these portions into which the history of my various and wild life will be divided, for that event with which I purpose that the said portion shall be con- cluded. It is now three months after my entire recovery from ir,y wounds, and I am married to Isora ! married yes, but pri- vately married, and the ceremony is as yet closely concealed. 1 will explain. The moment Isora's anxiety for me led her across the thresh- old of my house it became necessary for her honor that our wedding should take place immediately on my recovery so far I was decided on the measure now for the method. Dur- ing my illness, I received a long and most affectionate letter from Aubrey, who was then at Uevereux Court, so affection- ate was the heart-breathing spirit of that letter so steeped in all our old household remembrances and boyish feelings, that, coupled as it was with a certain gloom when he spoke of him- self and of worldly sins and trials, it brought tears to my eyes whenever I recurred to it ; and many and many a time after- wards, when I thought his affections seemed estranged from me, I did recur to it to convince myself that I was mistaken. Shortly afterwards I received also a brief epistle from my uncle ; it was as kind as usual, and it mentioned Aubrey's re- turn to Devereux Court : " That unhappy boy," said Sir Will- iam, u is more than ever devoted to his religious duties ; nor 152 DEVEREUX. do I believe that any priest-ridden poor devil, in the dark ages, ever made such use of the scourge and the penance." Now, I have before stated that my uncle would, I knew, be averse to my intended marriage; and on hearing that Aubrey was then with him, I resolved, in replying to his letter, to en- treat the former to sound Sir William on the subject I had most at heart, and ascertain the exact nature and extent of the op- position I should have to encounter in the step I was resolved to take. By the same post I wrote to the good old knight in as artful a strain as I was able, dwelling at some length upon my passion, upon the high birth, as well as the numerous good qualities of the object, but mentioning not her name ; and I added everything that I thought likely to enlist my uncle's kind and warm feelings on my behalf. These letters produced the following ones : FROM SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX. " 'Sdeath ! nephew Morton but I won't scold thee, though thou deserves! it. Let me see, thou art now scarce twenty, and thou talkest of marriage, which is the exclusive business of middle age, as familiarly as ' girls of thirteen do of puppy dogs.' Marry! go hang thyself rather. Marriage, my dear boy, is at the best a treacherous proceeding : and a friend a true friend will never counsel another to adopt it rashly. Look you I have had experience in these matters: and, I think, the moment a woman is wedded some terrible revolution happens in her system; all her former good qualities vanish hey presto, like eggs out of a conjuror's box, 'tis true they appear on t'other side of the box, the side turned to other people, but for the poor husband they are gone for ever. Od'sfish, Morton, go to! I tell thee again that I have had experience in these matters, which thou never hast had, clever as thou thinkest thyself. If now it were a good marriage thou wert about to make if thou wert going to wed power, and money, and place at Court, why, something might be said for thee. As it is, there is no excuse none. And I am astonished how a boy of thy sense could think of such nonsense. Birth, Morton, what the devil does that sig- nify, so long as it is birth in another country ? A foreign damsel and a Spanish girl, too, above all others! 'Sdeath, man, as if there was not quicksilver enough in the English women for you, you must make a mercurial exportation from Spain, must you! Why, Morton Morton, the ladies in that country are prover- bial. I tremble at the very thought of it. But as for my con- sent, I never will give it never; and though I threaten the.enqt DEVEREUX. 153 with disinheritance and such like, yet I do ask something in return for the great affection I have always borne thee; and I make no doubt that thou wilt readily oblige me in such a trifle as giving up a mere Spanish donna. So think of her no more. If thou wantest to make love, there are ladies in plenty whom thou needest not to marry. And for my part, I thought that thou wert all in all with the Lady Hasselton Heaven bless her pretty face ! Now don't think I want to scold thee and don't think thine old uncle harsh God knows he is not ; but my dear, dear boy, this is quite out of the question, and thou must let me hear no more about it. The gout cripples me so that I must leave off. Even thine own old uncle, " WILLIAM DEVEREUX." " P. S. Upon consideration, I think, my dear boy, that thou must want money, and thou art ever too sparing. Messrs. Child, or my goldsmiths in Aldersgate, have my orders to pay to thy hand's-writing whatever thou mayest desire ; and I do hope that thou wilt now want nothing to make thee merry withal. Why dost thou not write a comedy ? is it not the mode still?" LETTER FROM AUBREY DEVEREUX. " I have sounded my uncle, dearest Morton, according to your wishes; and I grieve to say that I have found him inexor- able. He was very much hurt by your letter to him, and declared he should write to you forthwith upon the subject. I represented to him all that you have said upon the virtues of your intended bride; and I also insisted upon your clear judgment and strong sense upon most points, being a sufficient surety for your pru- dence upon this. But you know the libertine opinions, and the depreciating judgment of women, entertained by my poor uncle ; and he would, I believe, have been less displeased with the heinous crime of an illicit connexion, than the amiable weak- ness of an imprudent marriage I might say of any marriage, until it was time to provide heirs to the estate." Here Aubrey, in the most affectionate and earnest manner, broke off to point out to me the extreme danger to my interests that it would be to disoblige my uncle; who, despite his general kindness, would, upon a disagreement on so tender a matter as his sore point, and his most cherished hobby, consider my dis- obedience as a personal affront. He also recalled to me all that my unclr had felt and done for me; and insisted, at all events, upon the absolute duty of my delaying, even though I should not break off, the intended measure. Upon these points he enlarged much and eloquently; and this part of his letter cer- 154 DEVEREUX. tainly left no cheering or comfortable impression upon my mind. Now my good uncle knew as much of love as L. Mummius did of the fine arts,* and it was impossible to persuade him that if one wanted to indulge the tender passion, one woman would not do exactly as well as another, provided she were equally pretty. I knew therefore that he was incapable, on the one hand, of understanding my love for Isora, or, on the other, of acknowledging her claims upon me. I had not, of course, mentioned to him the generous imprudence which, on the news of my wound, had brought Isora to my house: for if I had done so, my uncle, with the eye of a courtier of Charles II., would only have seen the advantage to be derived from the impropriety, not the gratitude due to the devotion; neither had I mentioned this circumstance to Aubrey, it seemed to me too delicate for any written communication; and therefore, in his advice to delay my marriage, he was unaware of the necessity which rendered the advice unavailing. Now then was I in this dilemma, either to marry, and i\iatinstanter, and so, seemingly, with the most hasty and the most insolent indecorum, incense, wound, and in his interpretation of the act, contemn one whom I loved as I loved my uncle, or.to delay the marriage,to separate from Isora,and to leave my future wife to the malignant consequences that would necessarily be drawn from a sojourn of weeks in my house. This fact there was no chance of concealing; servants have more tongues than Argus had eyes, and my youthful extravagance had filled my whole house with those pests of society. The latter measure was impossible, the former was most painful. Was there no third way ? there was that of a private marriage. This obviated not every evil; but it removed many; it satisfied my impatient love, it placed Isora under a sure protection, it secured and established her honor the moment the ceremony should be declared, and it avoided the seeming ingratitude and indelicacy of disobeying my uncle, without an effort of patience toappeas? him. I should have time and occasion then, I thought, for soothing and persuading him, and ultimately winning that con- sent which I firmly trusted I should sooner or later extract from his kindness of heart. That some objections existed to this mediatory plan was true enough : those objections related to Isora rather than to myself, and she was the first, on my hinting at the proposal, to overcome its difficulties. The leading feature in Isora's char- * A Roman consul, who, removing the most celebrated remains of Grecian antiquity to Rome, assured the persons charged with conveying them that if they injured any, th* should make others to replace them. DEVEREUX. 155 acter was generosity ; and, in truth, I know not a quality more dangerous, either to man or woman. Herself was invariably the last human being whom she seemed to consider ; and no sooner did she ascertain what measure was the most prudent for me to adopt, than it immediately became that upon which she insisted. Would it have been possible for me man of pleasure and of the world as I was thought to be no, my good uncle, though it went to my heart to wound thee so secretly it would not have been possible for me, even if I had not coined my whole nature into love : even if Isora had not been to me, what one smile of Isora's really was it would not have been possible to have sacrificed so noble and so divine a heart, and made myself, in that sacrifice, a wretch for ever. No, my good uncle I could not have made that surrender to thy reason, much less to thy prejudices. But if I have not done great injustice to the knight's character, I doubt whether even the youngest reader will not forgive him for a want of sympathy with one feeling, when they consider how susceptible that charming old man was to all others. And herewith I could discourse most excellent wisdom upon that most mysterious passion of love. I could show, by trac.- ing its causes, and its inseparable connection with the imagi- nation, that it is only in certain states of society, as well as ii> certain periods of life, that love real, pure, high love can be born. Yea, I could prove, to the nicety of a very problem, that in the court of Charles II. it would have been as impos- possible for such a feeling to find root, as it would be for myr- tle trees to effloresce from a Duvillier periwig. And we are not to expect a man, however tender and affectionate he may be, to sympathize with that sentiment in another, which, from the accidents of birth and position, nothing short of a miracle could ever have produced in himself. We were married then in private by a Catholic priest. St. John, and one old lady who had been my father's godmother for I wished for a female assistant in the ceremony, and this old lady could tell no secrets, for, being excessively deaf, no- body ever talked to her, and indeed she scarcely ever went abroad were the sole witnesses. I took a small house in the immediate neighborhood of London ; it was surrounded on all sides with a high wall which defied alike curiosity and attack. This was, indeed, the sole reason which had induced me to pre- fer it to many more gaudy or more graceful dwellings. But within I had furnished it with every luxury that wealth, the most lavish and unsp'aring, could procure. Thither, under an 156 DEVEREtX. assumed name, I brought my bride, and there was the greater part of my time spent. The people I had placed in the house believed I was a rich merchant, and this accounted for my fre- quent absences (absences which Prudence rendered neces- sary) for the wealth which I lavished, and for the precautions of bolt, bar, and wall, which they imagined the result of com- mercial caution. Oh the intoxication of that sweet Elysium, that Tadmor in life's desert the possession of the one whom we have first loved ! It is as if poetry, and music, and light, and the fresh breath of flowers, were all blent into one being, and from that being rose our existence ! It is content made rapture noth- ing to wish for, yet everything to feel ! Was that air the air which I had breathed hitherto ? that earth the earth which I had hitherto beheld? No, my heart dwelt in a new world, and all these motley and restless senses were melted into one sense deep, silent, fathomless delight ! Well, too much of this species of love is not fit for a world- ly tale, and I will turn, for the reader's relief, to worldly affec- tions. From my first reunion with Isora, I had avoided all the former objects and acquaintances in which my time had been so charmingly employed. Tarleton was the first to suffer by my new pursuit ; "What has altered you?" said he; "you drink not, neither do you play. The women say you are grown duller than a Norfolk parson, and neither the Puppet-Show, nor the Water-Theatre, the Spring Gardens, nor the Ring, Wills's, nor the Kit-Cat, the Mulberry Garden, nor the New Exchange, witness any longer your homage and devotion. What has come over you ? speak ! " " Apathy ! " " Ah ! I understand you are tired of these things ; pish, man ! go down into the country, the green fields will revive thee, and send thee back to London a new man ! One would indeed find the town intolerably dull, if the country were not, happily, a thousand times duller, go to the country, Count, or I shall drop your friendship." " Drop it ! " said I, yawning, and Tarleton took pet, and did as I desired him. Now had I got rid of my friend as easily as I had found him, a matter that would not have been so read- ily accomplished had not Mr. Tarleton owed me certain moneys, concerning which, from the moment he had " dropped my friendship," good-breeding effectually prevented his saying a single syllable to me ever after. There is no knowing the bless ings of money until one has learnt to manage it properly. DEVEREUX. 157 So much, then, for the friend ; now for the mistress. Lady Hasselton had, as Tarleton hinted before, resolved to play me a trick of spite ; the reasons of our rupture really were, as I had stated to Tarleton the, mighty effects of little things. She lived in a sea of trifles, and she was desperately angry if her lover was not always sailing a pleasure-boat in the same ocean. Now this was expecting too much from me, and, after twisting our silken strings of attachment into all manner of fantastic forms, we fell fairly out one evening and broke the little ligatures in two. No sooner had I quarrelled with Tarleton, than Lady Hasselton received him in my place, and a week afterwards I was favored with an anonymous letter, informing me of the vio- lent passion which a certain dame de la cour had conceived for me, and requesting me to meet her at an appointed place. I looked twice over the letter, and discovered in one corner of it, two g's' peculiar to the calligraphy of Lady Hasselton, though the rest of the letter (bad spelling excepted) was pretty de- cently disguised. Mr. Fielding was with me at the time ; " What disturbs you ? " said he, adjusting his knee-buckles. "Read it !" said I, handing him the letter. " Body of me, you are a lucky dog ! " cried the beau. "You will hasten thither on the wings of love." "Not a whit of it," said I ; "I suspect that it comes from a rich old widow, whom I hate mortally." " A rich old widow ! " repeated Mr. Fielding, to whose eyes there was something very piquant in a jointure, and who thought consequently that there were few virginal flowers equal to a widow's weeds. "A rich old widow you are right, Count, you are right. Don't go, don't think of it. I cannot abide those depraved creatures. Widow, indeed quite an affront to your gallantry ! " " Very true," said I. "Suppose you supply my place?" "I'd sooner be shot first," said Mr. Fielding, taking his de- parture, and begging me for the letter to wrap some sugar plums in. Need I add, that Mr. Fielding repaired to the place of as- signation, where he received, in the shape of a hearty drubbing, the kind favors intended for me? The story was now left for me to tell, not for the Lady Hasselton and that makes all the difference in the manner a story is told me narrante, it-is de tc fabula narratur te narrante, and it is de me fabula, etc. Poor Lady Hasselton ! to be laughed at, and have Tarleton for a lover ! I have gone back somewhat in the progress of my history, in 15& DEVEREUX. order to make the above honorable mention of my friend and my mistress, thinking it due to their own merits, and thinking it may also be instructive to young gentlemen, who have not yet seen the world, to testify the exact nature and the probable duration of all the loves and friendships they are likely to find in that Great Monmouth Street of glittering and of damaged affections ! I now resume the order of narration. I wrote to Aubrey, thanking him for his intercession, but con- cealing, till we met, the measure I had adopted. I wrote also to my uncle, assuring him that I would take an early oppor- tunity of hastening to Devereux Court, and conversing with him on the subject of his letter. And after an interval of some weeks, I received the two following answers from my corres- pondents : the latter arrived several days after the former. FROM AUBREY DEVEREUX. " I am glad to understand from your letter, unexplanatory as it is, that you have followed my advice. I will shortly write to you more at large ; at present I am on the eve of my departure for the North of England, and have merely time to assure you of my affection. "AUBREY DEVEREUX." " P. S. Gerald is in London have you seen him ? Oh, this world ! this world ! how it clings to us, despite our education our wishes, our conscience, our knowledge of the Dread Here- after ! " LETTER FROM SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX. " My Dear Nephew : " Thank thee for thy letter, and the new plays thou sentest me down, and that droll new paper, the Spectator : it is a pretty shallow thing enough, though it is not so racy as Rochester or little Sid would have made it ; but I thank thee for it, because it shows thou wast not angry with thine old uncle for opposing thee on thy love whimsies (in which most young men are dread- fully obstinate), since thou didst provide so kindly for his amuse- ment. Well, but, Morton, I hope thou hast got that crotchet clear out of thy mind, and prithee now don't talk of it when thou comest down to see me. I hate conversations on marriage more than a boy does flogging od'sfish, I do. So you must humor me on that point ! "Aubrey has left me again, and I am quite alone not that I was much better off when he was here, for he was wont, of late, to shun my poor room like a ' lazar house,' and when I spoke to his mother about it, she muttered something about 'example/ DEVEREUX. 159 and ' corrupting.' 'Sdeath, Morton, is your old uncle, who loves all living things, down to poor Ponto the dog, the sort of man whose example corrupts youth ? As for thy mother, she grows more solitary every day ; and I don't know how it is, but I am not so fond of strange faces as I used to be. 'Tis a new thing for me to be avoided and alone. Why, I remember even little Sid, who had as much venom as most men, once said it was im- possible to Fie now see if I was not going to preach a ser- mon from a text in favor of myself ! But come, Morton, come, I long for your face again ; it is not so soft as Aubrey's, nor so regular as Gerald's, but it is twice as kind as either. Come, before it is too late ; I feel myself going ; and, to tell thee a se- cret, the doctors tell me I may not last many months longer. Come, and laugh once more at the old knight's stories. Come, and show him that there is still some one not loo good to love him. Come, and I will tell thee a famous thing of old Rowley, which I am too ill and too sad to tell thee now. "WM. DEVEREUX." Need I say that upon receiving this letter, I resolved, without any delay, to set out for Devereux Court ? I summoned Des- marais to me ; he answered not my call : he was from home an unfrequent occurrence with the necessitarian valet. I waited his return, which was not for some hours, in order to give him sundry orders for my departure. The exquisite Desmarais hemmed thrice "Will Monsieur be so very kind as to excuse my accompanying him ?" said he, with his usual air and tone of obsequious respect. " And why ? " The valet explained. A relation of his was in England only for a few days the philosopher was most anxious to enjoy his society a pleasure which fate might not again allow him. Though I had grown accustomed to the man's services, and did not like to lose him even for a time, yet I could not refuse his request ; and I therefore ordered another of my servants to supply his place. This change, however, determined me to adopt a plan which I had before meditated, viz. the conveying of my own person to Devereux Court on horseback, and send- ing my servant with my luggage in my post-chaise. The eques- trian mode of travelling is, indeed to this day, the one most pleasing to me ; and the reader will find me pursuing it many years afterwards, and to the same spot. I might as well observe here that 1 had never entrusted Des- marais, no, nor one of my own servants, with the secret of my l6o DEVEREUX. marriage with, or my visits to, Isora. I am a very fastidious person on those matters, and of all confidants, even in the most trifling affairs, I do most eschew those by whom we have the miserable honor to be served. In order, then, to avoid having my horse brought me to Isora's house by any of these menial spies, I took the steed which I had selected for my journey, and rode to Isora's, with the intention of spending the evening there, and thence com- mencing my excursion with the morning light. CHAPTER II. Love Parting a Death Bed. After all Human Nature is a beautiful Fabric ; and even its Imperfections are not odious to him who has studied the Science of its Architecture, and formed a reverent Estimate of its Creator. IT is a noticeable thing how much fear increases love. I mean for the aphorism requires explanation how much we love, in proportion to our fear of losing (or even to our fear of injury done to) the beloved object. 'Tis an instance of the reaction of the feelings the love produces the fear, and the fear reproduces the love. This is one reason, among many, why women love so much more tenderly and anxiously than we do ; and it is also one reason among many, why frequent absences are, in all stages of love, the most keen exciters of the passion. I never breathed, away from Isora, without trembling for her safety. I trembled lest this Barnard, if so I should still continue to call her persecutor, should again discover and molest her. Whenever (and that was almost daily) I rode to the quiet and remote dwelling I had procured her, my heart beat so vehemently, and my agitation was so intense, that on arriving at the gate I have frequently been unable, for several minutes, to demand admittance. There was, therefore, in the mysterious danger which ever seemed to hang over Isora, a perpetual irritation to a love otherwise but little inclined to slumber ; and this constant excitement took away from the torpor into which domestic affection too often languishes, and increased my passion even while it diminished my happiness. On my arrival now at Isora's, I found her already stationed at the window, watching for my coming. How her dark eyes lit into lustre when they saw me ! How the rich blood mantled up under the soft cheek which feeling had refined of late into a paler hue than it was wont, when I first gazed upon it, tp DEVEREUX. l6l wear ! Then how sprung forth her light step to meet me ! How trembled her low voice to welcome me ! How spoke, from every gesture of her graceful form, the anxious, joyful, all-animating gladness of her heart ! It is a melancholy pleas- ure to the dry, harsh, after-thoughts of later life, to think one has been thus loved ; and one marvels, when one considers what one is now, how it could have ever been ! That love of ours was never made for after-years ! It could never have flowed into the common and cold channel of ordinary affairs ! It could never have been mingled with the petty cares and the low objects with which the loves of all who live long together in this sordid and earthly earth are sooner or later blended ! We could not have spared to others an atom of the great wealth of our affection. We were misers of every coin in that boundless treasury. It would have pierced me to the soul to have seen Isora smile upon another. I know not even, had we had children, if I should not have been jealous of my child ! Was this selfish love ? Yes, it was intensely, wholly selfish ; but it was a love made so only by its excess ; nothing selfish on a smaller scale polluted it. There was not on earth that which the one would not have forfeited at the lightest desire of the other. So utterly were happiness and Isora entwined together that I could form no idea of the one with which the other was not connected. Was this love made for the many and miry roads through which man must travel ? Was it made for age, or, worse than age, for those cool, ambitious, scheming years that we call mature, in which all the luxuriance and verdure of things are pared into tame shapes that mimic life, but a life that is estranged from nature, in which art is the only beauty, and regularity the only grace ? No, in my heart of hearts, I feel that our love was not meant for the stages of life through which I have already passed ; it would have made us miserable to see it fritter itself away, and to remember what it once was. Better as it is ! better to mourn over the green bough than to look upon the sapless stem. You who now glance over these pages, are you a mother ? if so, answer me one question Would you not rather that the child whom you have cherished with your soul's care, whom you have nurtured at your bosom, whose joys your eyes have sparkled to behold, whose lightest grief you have wept to witness, as you would have wept not for your own ; over whose pure and unvexed sleep you have watched and prayed, and, as it lay before you thus still and unconscious of your vigil, have shaped out, oh, such bright hopes for its future lot ; would you not rather that, 162 DEVEREUX. while thus young and innocent, not a care tasted, not a crime incurred, it went down at once into the dark grave ? Would you not rather surfer this grief, bitter though it be, than watch the predestined victim grow and ripen, and wind itself more and more around your heart, and when it is of full and mature age, and you yourself are stricken by years, and can form no new ties to replace the old that are severed, when woes have already bowed the darling of your hope, whom woe never was to touch, when sins have already darkened the bright, seraph, unclouded heart which sin never was to dim ; behold it sink day by day altered, diseased, decayed, into the tomb which its childhood had in vain escaped ? Answer me : would not the earlier fate be far gentler than the last ? And if you have known and wept over that early tomb if you have seen the infant flower fade away from the green soil of your affections if you have missed the bounding step, and the laughing eye, and the winning mirth which made this sterile world a perpetual holiday Mother of the Lost, if you have known, and you still pine for these, answer me yet again ! Is it not a comfort, even while you mourn, to think of all that that breast, now so silent, has escaped ? The cream, the sparkle, the elixir of life, it had already quaffed ; is it not sweet to think it shunned the wormwood and the dregs ? Answer me, even though the answer be in tears ! Mourner, your child was to you what my early and only love was to me ; and could you pierce down, down through a thousand fathom of ebbing thought, to the far depths of my heart, you would there behold a sorrow and a consolation, that have something in unison with your own ! When the light of the next morning broke into our room, Isora was still sleeping. Have you ever observed that the young, seen asleep and by the morning light, seem much younger even than they are ? partly because the air and the light sleep of dawn bring a fresher bloom to the cheek, and partly, because the careless negligence and the graceful postures exclusively appropriated to youth, are forbidden by custom and formality through the day, and developing themselves uncon- sciously in sleep, they strike the eye like the ease and freedom of childhood itself. There, as I looked upon Isora's tranquil and most youthful beauty, over which circled and breathed an ineffable innocence even as the finer and subtler air, which was imagined by those dreamy bards who kindled the soft creations of naiad and of nymph, to float around a goddess I eould not believe that aught evil awaited one for whom infancy DEVEREUX. 163 itself seemed to linger, linger as if no elder shape and less delicate hue were meet to be the garment of so much guileless- ness and tenderness of heart. I felt, indeed, while I bent over her, and her regular and quiet breath came upon my cheek, that feeling which is exactly the reverse to a presentiment of ill. I felt as if, secure in her own purity, she had nothing to dread, so that even the pang of parting was lost in the con- fidence which stole over me as I then gazed. I rose gently, went to the next room and dressed myself I heard my horse neighing beneath, as the servant walked him lazily to and fro. I re-entered the bed-chamber, in order to take leave of Isora ; she was already up. " What ! " said I, "it is but three minutes since I left you asleep, and I stole away as gently as time does when with you." "Ah!" said Isora, smiling and blushing too, "but for my part, I think there is an instinct to know, even if all the senses were shut up, whether the one we love is with us or not. The moment you left me, I felt it at once, even in sleep, and I woke. But you will not, no, you will not leave me yet ! " I think I see Isora now, as she stood by the window which she had opened, with a woman's minute anxiety, to survey even the aspect of the clouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I think I see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting glance her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with the attempt to smile the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue the purpureum lumen broke like an imprisoned sunbeam), straying in dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck ; the throat bent in mute despondency ; the head drooping ; the arms half extended, and dropping gradually as my steps de- parted ; the sunken, absorbed expression of face, form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection all are before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheld years ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning ! " God bless you my own, own love," I said ; and as my look lingered, I added, with a full but an assured heart ; " and He will ! " I tarried no more I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding to, and not/>w, my bride. The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I found myself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did not enter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse was thoroughly jaded ; for the distance 164 DEVEREUX. I had come was great, and I had ridden rapidly ; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and throwing the rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through a thick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walks and rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took, at a little distance before me. He was looking on the ground, and appeared wrapt in such earnest meditation that he neither saw nor heard me. But I had seen enough of him, in that brief space of time, to feel convinced that it was Montreuil whom I beheld. What brought him hither, him, whom I believed in London, immersed with Gerald in political schemes, and for whom these woods were not only interdicted ground, but to whom they must have also been but a tame field of interest, after his audiences with ministers and nobles ? I did not, however, pause to consider on his appari- tion ; I rather quickened my pace towards the house, in the ex- pectation of there ascertaining the cause of his visit. The great gates of the outer court were open as usual : I rode unheedingly through them, and was soon at the door of the hall. The porter, who unfolded to my summons the pon- derous door, uttered, when he saw me, an exclamation that seemed to my ear to have in it more of sorrow than welcome. " How is your master ?" I asked. The man shook his head, but did not hasten to answer: and impressed with a vague alarm, I hurried on without repeating the question. On the staircase I met old Nicholls, my uncle's valet : I stopped and questioned him. My uncle had been seized on the preceding day with gout in the stomach ; medical aid had been procured, but it was feared ineffectually, and the physicians had declared, about an hour before I arrived, that he could not, in human probability, outlive the night. Stifling the rising at my heart, I waited to hear no more I flew up the stairs I was at the door of my uncle's chamber I stopped there, and listened ; all was still I opened the door gently I stole in, and, creeping to the bed-side, knelt down and covered my face with my hands ; for I required a pause for self-posses- sion, before I had courage to look up. When I raised my eyes, I saw my mother on the opposite side ; she sat on a chair with a draught of medicine in one hand, and a watch in the other. She caught my eye, but did not speak ; she gave me a sign of recognition, and looked down again upon the watch. My uncle's back was turned to me, and he lay so still that, for some moments, I thought he was asleep ; at last, however, he moved restlessly. DEVEREUX. 165 " It is past noon ! " said he to my mother, " is it not ? " " It is three minutes and six seconds after four," replied my mother, looking closer at the watch. My uncle sighed. " They have sent an express for the dear boy, madam ! " said he. " Exactly at half-past nine last evening," answered my mother, glancing at me. " He could scarcely be here by this time," said my uncle, and he moved again in the bed. " Pish how the pillow frets one." " Is it too high ? " said my mother. " No," said my uncle faintly, " no no the discomfort is not in the pillow, after all 'tis a fine day is it not ? " " Very ! " said my mother ; " I wish you could go out." My uncle did not answer : there was a pause. " Od'sfish, madam, are those carriage wheels ? " " No, Sir William but ." "There are sounds in my ear my senses grow dim," said my uncle, unheeding her, " would that I might live another day I should not like to die without seeing him. 'Sdeath, madam, I do hear something behind ! Sobs, as I live ! Who sobs for the old knight ? " and my uncle turned round, and saw me. " My dear dear uncle ! " I said, and could say no more. " Ah, Morton," cried the kind old man, putting his hand affectionately upon mine. " Beshrew me, but I think I have conquered the grim enemy now that you are come. But what's this, my boy ? tears tears, why, little Sid no, nor Roches- ter either, would ever have believed this if I had sworn it ! Cheer up cheer up." But, seeing that I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause, continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader has observed he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studies had taught him. "Nay, Morton, what do you grieve for? that Age should throw off its fardel of aches and pains, and no longer groan along its weary road, meeting cold looks and unwilling wel- comes, as both host and comrade grow weary of the same face, and the spendthrift heart has no longer quip or smile where- with to pay the reckoning ? No no let the poor pedler shuffle of his dull pack, and fall asleep. But I am glad you are come : I would sooner have one of your kind looks at your uncle's stale saws or jests than all the long faces about me, saving only the presence of your mother "; and with his characteristic gallantry, my uncle turned courteously to her. l66 DEVEREUX. " Dear Sir William ! " said she, "it is time you should take your draught ; and then would it not be better that you should see the chaplain he waits without." "Od'sfish," said my uncle, turning again to me, "tisthe way with them all when the body is past hope, comes the physi- cian, and when the soul is past mending, comes the priest. No, madam, no, 'tis too late for either. Thank ye, Morton, thank ye," (as I started up took the draught from my mother's hand, and besought him to drink it) " 'tis of no use ; but if it pleases thee, I must," and he drank the medicine. My mother rose, and walked towards the door it was ajar, and, as my eye followed her figure, I perceived, through the opening, the black garb of the chaplain. " Not yet," said she quietly ; " wait." And then gliding away, she seated herself by the window in silence, and told her beads. My uncle continued : " They have been at me, Morton, as if I had been a pagan : and I believe, in their hearts, they are not a little scandalized that I don't try to win the next world, by trembling like an ague. Faith now, I never could believe that Heaven was so partial to cowards ; nor can I think, Mor- ton, that Salvation is like a soldier's muster-roll, and that we may play the devil between hours, so that, at the last moment, \ve whip in, and answer to our names. Od'sfish, Morton, I could tell thee a tale of that ; but 'tis a long one, and we have not time now. Well, well, for my part, I believe reverently and gratefully of God, and do not think He will be very wroth with our past enjoyment of life, if we have taken care that others should enjoy it too ; nor do I think, with thy good mother, and Aubrey, dear child ! that an idle word has the same weight in the Almighty's scales as a wicked deed." " Blessed, blessed are they," I cried, through my tears, " on whose souls there is as little stain as there is on yours !" " Faith, Morton, that's kindly said ; and thou knowest not how strangely it sounds, after their exhortations to repentance. I know I have had my faults, and walked on to our common goal in a very irregular line : but I never wronged the living nor slandered the dead, nor ever shut my heart to the poor 'twere a burning sin if I had ; and I have loved all men and all things, and I never bore ill-will to a creature. Poor Ponto, Morton, thou wilt take care of poor Ponto, when I'm dead nay. nay, don't grieve so. Go, my child, go compose thyself while I see the priest, for 'twill please thy poor mother ; 13EVEREUX. 167 and though she thinks harshly of me now, I should not like her to do so to-morrow! Go, ray dear boy go." I went from the room, and waited by the door, till the office of the priest was over. My mother then came out, and said Sir William had composed himself to sleep. While she was yet speaking, Gerald surprised me by his appearance. I learned that he had been in the house for the last three days, and when I heard this, I involuntarily accounted for the ap- pearance of Montreuil. I saluted him distantly, and he returned my greeting with the like pride. He seemed, however, though in a less degree, to share in my emotions ; and my heart softened to him for it. Nevertheless we stood apart, and met not as brothers should have met by the death-bed of a mutual benefactor. " Will you wait without ? " said my mother. " No," answered I, " I will watch over him." So I stole in, with a light step, and seated myself by my uncle's bed-side. He was asleep, and his sleep was as hushed and quiet as an infant's. I looked upon his face, and saw a change had come over it, and was increasing sensibly : but there was neither harshness nor darkness in the change, awful as it was. The soul, so long nurtured on benevolence, could not, in parting, leave a rude stamp on the kindly clay which had seconded its impulses so well. The evening had just set in, when my uncle woke ; he turned very gently, and smiled when he saw me. " It is late," said he, and I observed with a wrung heart, that his voice was fainter. " No, sir, not very," said I. " Late enough, my child ; the warm sun has gone down ; and 'tis a good time to close one's eyes, when all without looks gray and chill : methinks it is easier to wish thee farewell, Morton, when I see thy face indistinctly. I am glad I shall not die in the day-time. Give me thy hand, my child, and tell me that thoti art not angry with thine old uncle for thwarting the in that love business. I have heard tales of the girl, too, which make me glad, for thy sake, that it is all off, though I might not tell thee of them before. 'Tis very dark, Morton. I have had a pleasant sleep. Od'sfish, I do not think a bad man would have slept so well. The fire burns dim, Morton it is very cold. Cover me up double the counterpane over the legs, Morton. I remember once walking in the Mall little Sid said 'Devereux.' .It is colder and colder, Morton raise the blankets more over the back. ' Devereux,' said little 1 68 DEVEREUX. Sid faith, Morton, 'tis ice now where art thou ? is the fire out, that I can't see thee ? Remember thine old uncle, Mor- ton and and don't forget poor Ponto. Bless thee, my child bless you all ! " And my uncle died ! CHAPTER III. A great Change of Prospects. I SHUT myself up in the apartments prepared for me (they were not those I had formerly occupied), and refused all par- ticipation in my solitude, till, after an interval of some days, my mother came to summon me to the opening of the will. She was more moved than I had expected. " It is a pity," said she, as we descended the stairs, " that Aubrey is not here, and that we should be so unacquainted with the exact place where he is likely to be that I fear the letter I sent him may be long delayed, or, indeed, altogether miscarry." " Is not the Abbe here ? " said I, listlessly. " No ! " answered my mother, " to be sure not." " He has been here," said I, greatly surprised. " I certainly saw him on the day of my arrival." " Impossible ! " said my mother, in evident astonishment ; and seeing that, at all events, she was unacquainted with the circumstance, I said no more. The will was to be read in the little room, where my uncle had been accustomed to sit. I felt it as a sacrilege to his memory to choose that spot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother, the lawyer (a neighboring attorney, named Oswald), and myself, were the only persons present ; Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal. After a pre- liminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle's death, thought upon the chances of his will indeed, knowing myself so entirely his favorite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have entertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishment, when, couched in terms of the strongest affection, the whole bulk of the property was bequeathed to Gerald ; to Aubrey the sum of forty, to myself that of twenty, thousand pounds (a capital considerably less than the yearly income of my uncle's princely estates), was allotted. Then followed a list of minor bequests, to my mother an annuity of three thousand a year, with the privilege DEVEREtrX. 169 of apartments in the house during her life ; to each of the ser- vants legacies sufficient for independence ; to a few friends, and distant connections of the family, tokens of the testator's remembrance, even the horses to his carriage, and the dogs that fed from his menials' table, were not forgotten, but were to be set apart from work, and maintained in indolence during their remaining span of life. The will was concluded I could not believe my senses : not a word was said as a reason for giving Gerald the priority. I rose calmly enough. "Suffer me, sir," said I to the law- yer, "to satisfy my own eyes." Mr. Oswald bowed, and placed the will in my hands. I glanced at Gerald as I took it : his countenance betrayed, or feigned, an astonishment equal to my own. With a jealous, searching, scrutinizing eye, I ex- amined the words of the bequest. I examined especially (for I suspected that the names must have been exchanged) the place in which my name and Gerald's occurred. In vain : all was smooth and fair to the eye, not a vestige of possible erasure or alteration was visible. I looked next at the wording of the wilh it was evidently my uncle's no one could have feigned or imitated the peculiar turn of his expressions ; and, above all, many parts of the will : (the affectionate and personal parts) were in his own handwriting. "The date," said I "is, I perceive, of very recent period ; the will is signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?" " Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk, he is since dead, sir." " Dead ! " said I ; "and the other witness, George Davis?" " Is one of Sir William's tenants, and is below, sir, in waiting." " Let him come up," and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold, open countenance, was admitted. " Did you witness this will ? " said I. " I did, your honor ! " " And this is your handwriting?" pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl. " Yees, your honor," said the man, scratching his head. "I think it be, they are my ees, and G, and Z>, sure enough." " And do you know the purport of the will you signed ? " " Anan ! "' " I mean, do you know to whom Sir William stop, Mr. Os- wald suffer the man to answer me to whom Sir William left his property?" " Noa, to be sure, sir ; the will was a woundy long one, and 170 DEVEREUX. Maister Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to sign, as a witness to Sir William's hand- writing." "Enough ; you may retire"; and George Davis vanished. "Mr. Oswald," said I, approaching the attorney,"! may wrong you, and if so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux could never have made this devise. J give you warning, sir, that I shall bring the business immedi- ately before a court of law, and that if guilty ay, tremble, sir of what I suspect you will answer for this deed at the foot of the gallows." I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could address him, he exclaimed with evident and ex- treme agitation: " You cannot, Morton you cannot you dare not insinuate that I, your brother, have been base enough to forge, or to in- stigate the forgery of, this will ? " Gerald's agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt. " The case, sir," I answered coldly, " stands thus : my uncle could not have made this will it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practiced, how I know not ! by whom I do know." " Morton, Morton this is insufferable I cannot bear such charges, even from a brother." " Charges ! your conscience speaks, sir not I ; no one benefits by this fraud but you : pardon me if I draw an infer- ence from a fact." So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apart- ment. I ascended the stairs which led to my own : there I found my servant preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend my uncle's funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state. The room was hung with black the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin, and by the lights which made, in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly day, sat the hired watchers of the dead. I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to my room, when I encountered Gerald. " Morton," said he, " I o\vn to you. I myself am astounded DEVEREUX. 171 by my uncle's will. I do not come to make you offers you would not accept them I do not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been as brothers, and we know not their language but I do come to demand you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will join in the inquiries you institute, and the expanses of the law." I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora the fraud- ulent robber of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the blackest, of human crimes ; there was some- thing too in the reserved and yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted to do so ; and said in as calm an accent as I could command, "The case will, I trust, require no king's evidence; and at least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate con- demnation of the law.'" Gerald looked at me sternly : " Were you not my brother," said he in a low tone, " I would, for a charge so dishonoring my fair name, strike you dead at my feet." " It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with a scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more fierce than scorn, " that prevents your adding that last favor to those you have already bestowed on me." Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own rapier was instantly half drawn, when to save us from the great guilt of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery. Perhaps that interrup- tion restored both of us to our senses, for we said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, " This way of ter- minating strife is not for us" ; and, as Gerald spoke, he turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared. The funeral took place at night : a numerous procession of the tenants and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for thee but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power and majesty of his unrivalled form, 172 DEVEREUX. stood Gerald, already assuming the dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him ; my mother's face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotion which I would have hidden from those whom I loved the most; wrapped in my cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground; I leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently unmoved. But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my mantle, I resumed my for- mer attitude, and all was still. The rite was over; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel : some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, and all to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let the glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sun should be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal. The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leav- ing the house that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak, and, before I retired to rest, I went to my mother's apartments : she received me with more feeling than she had ever testified before. "Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my forehead; "believe me, I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experience on an event so contrary to your expecta- tions. I cannot conceal from you how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of us cause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers Gerald less than Aubrey so much as yourself ; nor poor man, was he in other things at all addicted to conceal his opinions." "It is true, my mother," said I ; "it is true. Have you not therefore some suspicions of the authenticity of the will ? " " Suspicions ! " cried my mother. " No ! impossible! sus- picions of whom ? You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in deception ? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William's handwriting, and the will was regu- larly witnessed ; suspicions, Morton no, impossible ! Reflect too, how eccentric and humorsome your uncle always was: sus- picions ! no, impossible ! " " Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will hazard their souls, ay, and what to some is more precious still, their lives too for the vile clay we call money. DEVEREUX. 173 But enough of this now: the Law that great arbiter that eater of the oyster, and divider of its shells the Law will decide be- tween us, and if against me, as I suppose, and fear the decision will be why I must be a suitor to Fortune, instead of her com- mander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother ; I cannot stay longer in this house: to-morrow I leave you." And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it. "Ah ! " thought I, " this blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune." I returned to my room there I saw on the table the case of the sword sent me by the French king. I had left it with my uncle, on my departure to town, and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed by me. I took out the sword, and drew it from the scabbard. "Come," said I, and I kindled with a melancholy, yet a deep, enthusiasm, as I looked along the blade, "come, my bright friend, with thee through this labyrinth which we call the world, will I carve my way ! Fairest and speediest of earth's levellers, thou makest the path from the low valley to the steep hill, and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's sceptre ! The laurel and the fasces, the curule car, and the emperor's purple what are these but thy playthings, alternately thy scorn and thy re- ward? Founder of all empires, propagator of all creeds, thou leddest the Gaul and the Goth, and the Gods of Rome and Greece crumbled upon their altars ! Beneath thee, the fires of the Gheber waxed pale, and on thy point the badge of the camel- driver blazed like a sun over the startled East ! Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable despot, while the passions of mankind exist ! Most solemn of hypocrites circling blood with glory as with a halo, and consecrating homicide and massacre with a hollow name, which the parched throat of thy votary, in the battle and the agony, shouteth out with its last breath ! Star of all human destinies ! I kneel before thee, and invoke from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile." CHAPTER IV. An Episode. The Son of the Greatest Man who (one only except ed) ever rose to a Throne, but by no means of the Greatest Man (save one) who ever existed. BEFORE sunrise the next morning, I had commenced my re- turn to London. I had previously entrusted to the locum teneru of the sage Desmarais the royal gift, and (singular conjunc- 174 DEVEREUX. tion !) poor Ponto, my uncle's dog. Here let me pause, as I shall have no other opportunity to mention him, to record the fate of the canine bequest. He accompanied me some years afterwards to France, and he died there in extreme age. I shed tears, as I saw the last relic of my poor uncle expire, and I was not consoled even though he was buried in the garden of the gallant Villars, and immortalized by an epitaph from the pen of the courtly Chaulieu. Leaving my horse to select his own pace, I surrendered my- self to reflection upon the strange alteration that had taken place in my fortunes. There did not, in my own mind, rest a doubt that some villainy had been practiced with respect to the will. My uncle's constant and unvarying favor towards me ; the unequivocal expressions he himself from time to time had dropped indicative of his future intentions on my behalf ; the easy and natural manner in which he had seemed to consider, as a thing of course, my heritage and succession of his estates ; all, coupled with his own frank and kindly character, so little disposed to raise hopes which he meant to disappoint, might alone have been sufficient to arouse my suspicions at a devise so contrary to all past experience of the testator. But when to these were linked the bold temper and the daring intellect of my brother, joined to his personal hatred to myself: his close intimacy with Montreuil, whom I believed capable of the dark- est designs ; the sudden and evidently concealed appearance of the latter on the day my uncle died ; the agitation and pale- ness of the attorney ; the enormous advantages accruing to Gerald, and to no one else, from the terms of the devise : when these were all united into one focus of evidence, they appeared to me to leave no doubt of the forgery of the testament, and the crime of Gerald. Nor was there anything in my brother's bearing and manner calculated to abate my suspicions. His agitation was real ; his surprise might have been feigned ; his offer of assistance in investigation was an unmeaning bravado ; his conduct to myself testified his continued ill-will towards me an ill-will which might possibly have instigated him in the fraud, scarcely less than the whispers of interest and cupidity. But while this was the natural and indelible impression on my mind, I could not disguise from myself the extreme diffi- culty I should experience in resisting my brother's claim. So far as my utter want of all legal knowledge would allow me to de- cide, I could perceive nothing in the will itself which would admit of a lawyer 's successful cavil : my reasons for suspicion, so conclusive to myself, would seem nugatory to a judge. My un- DEVEREUX 175 clewas known as a humorist ; and prove that a man differs from others in one thing, and the world will believe that he differs from them in a thousand. His favor to me would be, in the popular eye, only an eccentricity, and the unlooked-for disposition of his will only a caprice. Possession, too, gave Gerald a proverbial vantage-ground, which my whole life might be wasted in con- testing ; while his command of an immense wealth might, more than probably, exhaust my spirit by delay, and my fortune by expenses. Precious prerogative of law, to reverse the attribute of the Almighty ! to filL the rich with good things, but to send the poor empty away ! In corruptissimd republicd pluriiiuz leges. Legislation perplexed is synonymous with crime unpunished. A reflection, by the way, I should never have made, if I had never had a law-suit sufferers are ever reformers. Revolving, then, these anxious and unpleasing thoughts, in- terrupted, at times, by regrets of a purer and less selfish na- ture for a friend I had lost, and wandering, at others, to the brighter anticipations of rejoining Isora, and drinking from her eyes my comfort for the past, and my hope for the future, I continued and concluded my day's travel. The next daj r , on resuming my journey, and on feeling the time approach that would bring me to Isora,something like joy became the most prevalent feeling on my mind. So true is it that mis- fortunes little affect us so long as we have some ulterior object, which, by arousing hope, steals us from affliction. Alas! the pang of a moment becomes intolerable when we know of noth- ing t>eyond\.\\e moment,which it soothes us to anticipate ! Hap- piness lives in the light of the future : attack the present she defies you ! Darken the future, and you destroy her ! It was a beautiful morning : through the vapors which rolled slowly away beneath his beams, the sun broke gloriously forth ; and over wood and hill, and the low plains which, covered with golden corn, stretched immediately before me, his smile lay in stillness, but in joy. And ever from out the brake and the scattered copse, which at frequent intervals beset the road, the merry birds sent a fitful and glad music to mingle with the sweets and freshness of the air. I had accomplished the greater part of my journey, and had entered into a more wooded and garden-like description of country, when I perceived an old man, in a kind of low chaise, vainly endeavoring to hold in a little, but spirited horse, which had taken alarm at some object on the road, and was running away with its driver. The age of the gentleman, and the light- uess of the chaise, gave me some alarm for the safety of the 176 DEVEREUX. driver ; so, tying my horse to a gate, lest the sound of his hoofs might only increase the speed and fear of the fugitive, I ran with a swift and noiseless step along the other side of the hedge, and coming out into the road, just before the pony's head, I succeeded in arresting him, at rather a critical spot and moment. The old gentleman very soon recovered his alarm ; and, returning me many thanks for my interference, re- quested me to accompany him to his house, which he said was two or three miles distant. Though I had no desire to be delayed in my journey, for the mere sake of seeing an old gentleman's house, I thought my new acquaintance's safety required me, at least, to offer to act as his charioteer till we reached his house. To my secret vex- ation at that time, though I afterwards thought the petty incon- venience was amply repaid by a conference with a very singular and once noted character, the offer was accepted. Surrender- ing my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who promised to lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I entered the little car, and, keeping a firm hand and constant eye on the reins, brought the offending quadruped into a very equable and sedate pace. "Poor Fob," said the old gentleman, apostrophizing his horse; "poor Fob, like thy betters, thou knowest the weak hand from the strong ; and when thou art not held in by power, thou wilt chafe against love ; so that thou renewest in my mind the remembrance of its favorite maxim, viz., 'The only preventative to rebellion is restraint ! ' ' " Your observation, sir," said I, rather struck by this address, " makes very little in favor of the more generous feelings by which we ought to be actuated. It is a base mind which always requires the bit and bridle." " It is, sir," answered the old gentleman ; " I allow it ; but, though I have some love for human nature, I have no respect for it ; and while I pity its infirmities, I cannot but confess them." " Methinks, sir," replied I, " that you have uttered in that short speech more sound philosophy than I have heard for months. There is wisdom in not thinking too loftily of human clay, and benevolence in not judging it too harshly, and some- thing, too, of magnanimity in this moderation ; for we seldom contemn mankind till they have hurt us, and when they have hurt us, we seldom do anything but detest them for the injury." " You speak shrewdly, sir, for one so young," returned the old man, looking hard at me ; " and I will be sworn you have DEVEREiJX. 17? suffered some cares ; for we never begin to think, till we are a little afraid to hope." I sighed as I answered, " There are some men, I fancy, to whom constitution supplies the office of care ; who, naturally melancholy, become easily addicted to reflection, and reflection is a soil which soon repays us for whatever trouble we bestow upon its culture." " True, sir ! " said my companion and there was a pause. The old gentlemen resumed : " We are not far from my home now (or rather my temporary residence, for my proper and general home is at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire); and, as the day is scarcely half spent, I trust you will not object to partake of a hermit's fare. Nay, nay, no excuse : I assure you that I am not a gossip in general, or a liberal dispenser of invitations ; and I think, if you refuse me now, you will hereafter regret it." My curiosity was rather excited by this, threat ; and, reflect- ing that my horse required a short rest, I subdued my impa- tience to return to town, and accepted the invitation. We came presently to a house of moderate size, and rather antique fash- ion. This, the old man informed me, was his present abode. A servant, almost as old as his master, came to the door, and, giving his arm to my host, led him, for he was rather lame and otherwise infirm, across a small hall into a long, low apart- ment. I followed. A miniature of Oliver Cromwell, placed over the chimney- piece, forcibly arrested my attention. " It is the only portrait of the Protector, I ever saw," said I, "which impresses on me the certainty of a likeness ; that reso- lute, gloomy brow that stubborn lip that heavy, yet not stolid, expression all seem to warrant resemblance to that sin- gular and fortunate man, to whom folly appears to have been as great an instrument of success as wisdom, and who rose to the supreme power, perhaps, no less from a pitiable fanaticism than an admirable genius. So true is it that great men often soar to their height, by qualities the least obvious to the spectator, and (to stoop to a low comparison,) resemble that animal* in which a common ligament supplies the place, and possesses the property, of wings." The old man smiled very slightly, as I made this remark. "If this be true," said he, with an impressive tone, " though we may wonder less at the talents of the Protector, we must be more indulgent to his character, nor condemn him for insincer- ity, when at heart he himself was deceived." * The flying squirrel 178 DEVEREifX. " It is in that light," said I, " that I have always viewed his conduct. And though myself, by prejudice, a cavalier and a tory, I own that Cromwell (hypocrite as he is esteemed) appears to me as much to have exceeded his royal antagonist and vic- tim in the virtue of sincerity, as he did in the grandeur of his genius and the profound consistency of his ambition." "Sir," said my host, with a warmth that astonished me, "you seem to have known that man, so justly do you judge him. Yes," said he, after a pause, "yes, perhaps no one ever so varnished to his own breast his designs no one, so covetous of glory, was ever so duped by conscience no one ever rose to such a height, through so few acts that seemed to himself worthy of remorse." At this part of our conversation, the servant, entering, announced dinner. We adjourned to another room, and par- took of a homely yet not uninviting repast. When men are pleased with each other, conversation soon gets beyond the ordinary surfaces to talk ; and an exchange of deeper opin- ions is speedily effected by what old Barnes* quaintly enough terms. "The Gentleman Usher of all Knowledge Sermocina- tion ! " It was a pretty, though small room, where we dined ; and I observed that in this apartment, as in the other into which I had been first ushered, there were several books scattered about, in that confusion and number which show that they have become to their owner both the choicest luxury and the least dispensable necessary. So, during dinner time, we talked prin- cipally upon books, and I observed that those that my host seemed to know the best were of the elegant and poetical order of philosophers, who, more fascinating than deep, preach up the blessings of a solitude which is useless, and a content, which, deprived of passion, excitement, and energy, would, if it could ever exist, only be a dignified name for vegetation. " So," said he, when, the dinner being removed, we were left alone with that substitute for all society wine ! " so you are going to town : in four hours more you will be in that great focus of noise, falsehood, hollow joy, and real sorrow. Do you know that I have become so wedded to the country that I can- not but consider all those who leave it for the turbulent city, in the same light, half wondering, half compassionating, as that in which the ancients regarded the hardy adventurers who left the safe land and their happy homes, voluntarily to expose themselves in a frail vessel to the dangers of an uncertain sea. * In the Gerania. bEVEREtrx. 179 Here, when I look out on the green fields, and the blue sky, the quiet herds, basking in the sunshine, or scattered over the unpolluted plains, I cannot but exclaim with Pliny, 'This is the true Movaeiov ! ' this the source whence flow inspiration to the mind and tranquillity to the heart ! And in my love of nature more confiding and constant than ever is the love we bear to women I cry with the tender and sweet Tibullus ' Ego composite securus acervo Despiciam dites despiciamque famem.'"* " These," said I, " are the sentiments we all (perhaps the most restless of us the most passionately) at times experience. But there is in our hearts some secret, but irresistible, princi- ple, that impels us, as a rolling circle, onward, onward, in the great orbit of our destiny ; nor do we find a respite until the wheels on which we move are broken at the tomb." " Yet," said my host, " the internal principle you speak of can be arrested before the grave : at least stilled and impeded. You will smile incredulously, perhaps (for I see you do not know who I am), when I tell you that I might once have been a monarch, and that obscurity seemed to me more enviable than empire ; I resigned the occasion : the tide of fortune rolled onward, and left me safe, but solitary and forsaken, upon the dry land. If you wonder at my choice, you will wonder still more when I tell you that I have never repented it." Greatly surprised, and even startled, I heard my host make this strange avowal. " Forgive me," said I, " but you have powerfully excited my interest ; dare I inquire from whose experience I am now deriving a lesson?" " Not yet," said my host, smiling, " not till our conversation is over, and you have bid the old anchorite adieu, in all pro- bability, for ever : you will then know that you have conversed with a man, perhaps more universally neglected and con- temned than any of his contemporaries. Yes," he continued, "yes, I resigned power, and I got no praise for my moderation, but contempt for my folly ; no human being would believe that I could have relinquished that treasure through a disregard for its possession which others would only have relinquished through an incapacity to retain it ; and that which, had they seen it recorded in an ancient history, men would have regarded as the height of philosophy, they despised when acted under their eyes, as the extremest abasement of imbecility. Yet I compare my lot with that of the great man whom I was expected to equal in ambition, and to whose grandeur I might 'Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealthand fear not hunger. DEVEREUX. have succeeded ; and am convinced that in this retreat I am more to be envied than he in the plenitude of his power and the height of his renown ; yet is not happiness the aim of wisdom ? if my choice is happier than his, is it not wiser?" "Alas," thought I, " the wisest men seldom have the loftiest genius, and perhaps happiness is granted rather to mediocrity of mind than to mediocrity of circumstance"; but I did not give so uncourteous a reply to my host an audible utterance ; on the contrary : " I do not doubt," said I, as I rose to depart, " the wisdom of a choice which has brought you self-gratula- tion. And it has been said by a man both great and good, a man to whose mind was open the lore of the closet and the experience of courts that in wisdom or in folly, ' the only difference between one man and another, is whether a man governs his passions or his passions him.' According to this rule, which indeed is a classic and a golden aphorism, Alex- ander, on the throne of Persia, might have been an idiot to Diogenes in his tub. And now, sir, in wishing you farewell, let me again crave your indulgence to my curiosity." "Not yet, not yet," answered my host ; and he led me once more into the other room. While they were preparing my horse, we renewed our conversation. To the best of my recol- lection, we talked about Plato ; but I had now become so impatient to rejoin Isora that I did not accord to my worthy host the patient attention I had hitherto given him. When I took leave of him he blessed me, and placed a piece of paper in my hand ; " Do not open this," said he, " till you are at least two miles hence ; your curiosity will then be satisfied. If ever you travel this road again, or if ever you pass by Cheshunt, pause and see if the old philosopher is dead. Adieu ! " And so we parted. You may be sure that I had not passed the appointed dis- tance of two miles very far when I opened the paper and read the following words : " Perhaps, young stranger, at some future period of a life, which I venture to foretell will be adventurous and eventful, it may afford you a matter for reflection, or a resting-spot for a moral, to remember that you have seen, in old age and obscur- ity, the son of Him who shook an empire, avenged a people, ami obtained a throne, only to be the victim of his own pas- sions and the dupe of his own reason. I repeat now the ques- tion I before put to you was the fate of the great Protector fairer than that of the despised and forgotten " RICHARD CROMWELL ?" DEVEREUX. iSl " So," thought I, " it is indeed with the son of the greatest ruler England or perhaps, in modern times, Europe has ever produced, that I have held this conversation upon content ! Yes, perhaps your fate is more to be envied than that of your illustrious father ; but who would envy it more ? Strange that while we pretend that happiness is the object of all desire, hap- piness is the last thing which we covet. Love, and wealth, and pleasure, and honor, these are the roads which we take, so long that, accustomed to the mere travel, we forget that it was first undertaken, not for the course, but the goal ; and, in the common infatuation which pervades all our race, we make the toil the meed, and in following the means forsake the end." I never saw my host again ; very shortly afterward he died :* and fate, which had marked with so strong a separation the lives of the father and the son, united in that death as its greatest, so its only universal, blessing the philosopher and the recluse with the warrior and the chief \ CHAPTER V. In which the Hero shows decision on more points than one. More of Isora's character is developed. To use the fine image in the Arcadia, it was " when the sun, like a noble heart, began to show his greatest countenance in his lowest estate," that I arrived at Isora's door. I had written to her once, to announce my uncle's death, and the day of my return ; but I had not mentioned in my letter my reverse of for- tunes : I reserved that communication till it could be softened by our meeting. I saw by the countenance of the servant who admitted me that all was well ; so I asked no question I flew up the stairs I broke into Isora's chamber, and in an instant she was in my arms. Ah, Love, Love ! wherefore art them so transitory a pilgrim on the earth an evening cloud which hovers on our horizon, drinking the hues of the sun, that grows ominously brighter as it verges to the shadow and the night, and which, the moment that sun is set, wanders on in darkness or descends in tears ? "And now, my bird of Paradise," said I, as we sat alone in the apartment I had fitted up as the banqueting room, and on which, though small in its proportions, I had lavished all the love pf luxury and show which made one of my most prevailing * Richard Cromwell died in 1712. ED. i8a DEVEREUX. weaknesses, " and now, how has time passed with you since we parted ? " " Need you ask, Morton ? Ah, have you ever noted a poor dog deserted by its master, or rather not deserted, for that you know is not my case yet," added Isora playfully, "but left at home while the master went abroad ? have you noted how rest- less the poor animal is how it refuses all company and all com- fort how it goes a hundred times a day into the room which its master is wont mostly to inhabit how it creeps on the sofa or the chair which the same absent idler was accustomed to press how it selects some article of his very clothing, and curls jealously around it, and hides and watches over it, as I have hid and watched over this glove, Morton ? Have you ever noted that humble creature whose whole happiness is the smile of one being, when the smile was away ? then, Morton, you can tell how my time has passed during your absence." I answered Isora by endearments and by compliments. She turned away from the latter. " Never call me those fine names, I implore you," she whis- pered ; "call me only by those pretty pet words by which I know you will never call any one else. Bee and bird are my names, and mine only ; but beauty and angel are names you have given, or may give, to a hundred others ! Promise me, then, to ad- dress me only in our own language." "I promise, and lo, the seal to the promise. But tell me, Isora, do you not love these rare scents that make an Araby of this unmellowed clime ? Do you not love the profusion of light which reflects so dazzling a lustre on that soft cheek and those eyes which the ancient romancer* must have dreamt of when he wrote so prettily of 'eyes that seemed a temple where love and beauty were married ' ? Does not yon fruit take a more tempting hue, bedded as it is in those golden leaves? Does not sleep seem to hover with a downier wing over those sofas on which the limbs of a princess have been laid? In a word, is there not in luxury and in pomp a spell which no gentler or wiser mind would disdain?" " It may be so ! " said Isora, sighing ; "but the splendor which surrounds us chills and almost terrifies me. I think that every proof of your wealth and rank puts me farther from you ; then, too, I have some remembrance of the green sod, and the silver rill, and the trees upon which the young winds sing and play * Sir Philip Sydney, who, if we may judge from the number of quotations from his works jcattered in this book, seems to have been an especial favorite with Count Devereux. ED. DEVEREUX. 183 and I own that it is with the country, and not the town, that all my ideas of luxury are wed." " But the numerous attendants, the long row of liveried hire- lings, through which you may pass, as through a lane, the ca- parisoned steeds, the stately equipage, the jewelled tiara, the costly robe which matrons imitate and envy, the music, which lulls you to sleep, the lighted show, the gorgeous stage, all these, the attributes or gifts of wealth, all these that you have the right to hope you will one day or other command, you will own are what you could very reluctantly forego ! " " Do you think so, Morton ? Ah, I wish you were of my humble temper : the more we limit and concentre happiness the more certain, I think, we are of securing it they who widen the circle encroach upon the boundaries of danger ; and they who freight their wealth upon an hundred vessels are more liable, Morton, are they not, to the peril of the winds and the waves than they who venture it only upon one ? " " Admirably reasoned, my little sophist ; but if the one ship sink ? " " Why, I would embark myself in it as well as my wealth, and should sink with it." " Well, well, Isora, your philosophy will, perhaps, soon be put to the test. I will talk to you to-morrow of business." " And why not to-night? " " To-night, when I have just returned ! No, to-night I will only talk to you of love ! " As may be supposed, Isora was readily reconciled to my change of circumstances, and indeed that sum which seemed poverty to me appeared positive wealth to her. But perhaps few men are by nature and inclination more luxurious and costly than myself ; always accustomed to a profuse expendi- ture at my uncle's, I fell insensibly and con amore on my debut in London, into all the extravagancies of the age. Sir William, pleased, rather than discontented with my habits, especially as they were attended with some Mat, pressed upon me proofs of his generosity which, since I knew his wealth and considered myself his heir, I did not scruple to accept, and at the time of my return to London after his death, I had not only spent to the full the princely allowance I had received from him, but was above half my whole fortune in debt. However, I had horses and equipages, jewels and plate, and I did not long wrestle with my pride before I obtained the victory, and sent all my valuables to the hammer. They sold pretty well, all things considered, for I had a certain reputation in the world for taste and mu- 184 DEVEREUX/ nificence ; and when I had received the product and paid my debts, I found that the whole balance in my favor, including, of course, my uncle's legacy, was fifteen thousand pounds. . It was no bad younger brother's portion, perhaps, but I was in no humor to be made a younger brother without a struggle. So I went to the lawyers ; they looked at the will, considered the case, and took their fees. Then the honestest of them, with the coolest air in the world, told me to content myself with my legacy, for the case was hopeless ; the will was sufficient to ex- clude a wilderness of elder sons. I need not add that I left this lawyer with a very contemptible opinion of his understanding. I went to another, he told me the same thing, only in a different manner, and I thought him as great a fool as his fellow prac- tioner. At last I chanced upon a little brisk gentleman, with a quick eye and a sharp voice, who wore a wig that carried con- viction in every curl ; had an independent, upright mien, and such a logical, emphatic way of expressing himself, that I was quite charmed with him. This gentleman scarce heard me out before he assured me that I had a famous case of it, that he liked making quick work, and proceeding with vigor, that he hated rogues, and delay which was the sign of a rogue, but not the necessary sign of law, that I was the most fortunate man imaginable in coming to him, and, in short, that I had nothing to do but to commence proceedings, and leave all the rest to him. I was very soon talked into this proposal, and very soon embarked in the luxurious ocean of litigation. Having settled this business so satisfactorily, I went to re- ceive the condolence and sympathy of St. John. Notwithstand- ing the arduous occupations both of pleasure and of power, in which he was constantly engaged, he had found time to call upon me very often, and to express by letter great disappoint- ment that I had neither received nor returned his visits. Touched by the phenomenon of so much kindness in a states- man, I paid him in return the only compliment in my power, viz., I asked his advice with a view of taking it. " Politics politics, my dear Count," said he, in answer to that request, " nothing like it ; I will get you a seat in the House by next week, you are just of age, I think, Heavens ! a man like you, who has learning enough for a German profes- sor assurance that would almost abash a Milesian a very pretty choice of words, and a pointed way of consummating a jest why, with you by my side, my dear Count, I will soon " " St. John," said I, interrupting him, " you forget I am a Catholic!" DEVEREUX. 185 "Ah, I did forget that," replied St. John slowly. "Heaven help me, Count, but I am sorry your ancestors were not con- verted ; it was a pity they should bequeath you their religion without the estate to support it, for papacy has become a terri- ble tax to its followers." " I wonder," said I, " whether the earth will ever be gov- erned by Christians, not cavillers ; by followers of our Saviour, not by co-operators of the devil ; by men who obey the former, and ' love one another/ not by men who walk about with the latter (that roaring lion), ' seeking whom they may devour.' Intolerance makes us acquainted with strange nonsense, and folly is never so ludicrous as when associated with something sacred ; it is then like Punch and his wife in Powell's puppet- show, dancing in the Ark. For example, to tell those who differ from us that they are in a delusion, and yet to persecute them for that delusion, is to equal the wisdom of our forefathers, who, we are told, in the Dsemonologie of the Scottish Solomon, ' burnt a whole monasterie of nunnes for being misled, not by men, but dreames ! ' ' And being somewhat moved, I ran on for a long time in a very eloquent strain, upon the disadvantages of intolerance ; which, I would have it, was a policy as familiar to Protestantism now as it had been to Popery in the dark ages ; quite forgetting that it is not the vice of a peculiar sect, but of a ruling party. St. John, who thought, or affected to think, very differently from me on these subjects, shook his head gently, but, with his usual good breeding, deemed it rather too sore a subject for discussion. " I will tell you a discovery I have made," said I. "And what is it?" " Listen : that man is wisest who is happiest granted. What does happiness consist in ? Power, wealth, popularity, and, above all, content ! Well, then, no man ever obtains so much power, so much money, so much popularity, and, above all, such thorough self-content as a fool ; a fool, therefore (this is no paradox), is the wisest of men. Fools govern the world in pur- ple the wise laugh at them but they laugh in rags. Fools thrive at court fools thrive in state chambers fools thrive in boudoirs fools thrive in rich men's legacies. Who is so be- loved as a fool ? Every man seeks him, laughs at him, and hugs him. Who is so secure in his own opinion so high in complacency, as a fool ? suavirtuteinvolvit. Hark ye, St. John, let us turn fools they are the only potentates the only phil osophers of earth. Qh, motley, ' motley's your only wear ! ' '" l86 DEVEREUX. " Ha ! ha ! " laughed St. John ; and, rising, he insisted upon carrying me with him to the rehearsal of a new play, in order, as he said, to dispel my spleen, and prepare me for ripe decision upon the plans to be adopted for bettering my fortune. But, in good truth, nothing calculated to advance so comfort- able and praiseworthy an end seemed to present itself. My re- ligion was an effectual bar to any hope of rising in the state. Europe now began to wear an aspect that promised universal peace, and the sword which I had so poetically apostrophized was not likely to be drawn upon anymore glorious engagement than a brawl with the Mohawks, any incautious noses apper- taining to which fraternity I was fully resolved to slit whenever they came conveniently in my way. To add to the unpromis- ing state of my worldly circumstances, my uncle's death had re- moved the only legitimate barrier to the acknowledgment of my marriage with Isora, and it became due to her to proclaim and publish that event. Now, if there be any time in the world when a man's friends look upon him most coldly, when they speak of his capacities of rising the most despondingly, when they are most inclined, in short, to set him down as a silly sort of fellow, whom it is no use inconveniencing oneself to assist, it is at that moment when he has made what the said friends are pleased to term an imprudent marriage ! It was, therefore, no remarkable instance of good luck that the express time for announcing that I had contracted that species of marriage, was the express time for my wanting the assistance of those kind- hearted friends. Then, too, by the pleasing sympathies in worldly opinion, the neglect of one's friends is always so damn- ably neighbored by the exultation of one's foes ! Never was there a man who, without being very handsome, very rude, or very much in public life, had made unto himself more enemies than it had been my lot to make. How the rascals would all sneer and coin dull jests when they saw me so down in the world ! The very old maids, who, so long as they thought me single, would have declared that the will was a fraud, would, directly they heard I was married, ask if Gerald was handsome, and assert, with a wise look, that my uncle knew well what he was about. Then the joy of the Lady Hasselton, and the curled lip of the haughty Tarleton ! It is a very odd circumstance, but it is very true, that the people we most despise have the most influence over our actions : a man never ruins himself by giv- ing dinners to hi c father, or turning his house into a palace in order to feast his bosom friend : on the contrary, 'tis the poor devil pf a friend who fares the worst, and starves on the family DEVEREUX. 187 joint, while mine host beggars himself to banquet "that dis- agreeable Mr. A., who is such an insufferable ass," and mine hostess sends her husband to the Fleet by vying with " that odious Mrs. B., who was always her aversion ! " Just in the same manner, no thought disturbed me, in the step I was about to take, half so sorely as the recollection of Lady Hasselton the coquette, and Mr. Tarleton the gambler. However, I have said somewhere or other that nothing selfish on a small scale polluted my love for Isora nor did there. I had resolved to render her speedy and full justice ; and if I sometimes recurred to the disadvantages to myself, I always had pleasure in thinking that they were sacrifices to her. But to my great surprise, when I first announced to Isora my inten- tion of revealing our marriage, I perceived in her countenance, always such a traitor to her emotions, a very different expres- sion from that which 1 had anticipated. A deadly paleness spread over her whole face, and a shudder seemed to creep through her frame. She attempted, however, to smile away the alarm she had created in me ; nor was I able to penetrate the cause of an emotion so unlocked for. But I continued to speak of the public announcement of our union as of a thing decided ; and at length she listened to me while I arranged the method of making it, and sympathized in the future pro- jects I chalked out for us to adopt. Still, however, when I proposed a definite time for the re-celebration of our nup- tials, she ever drew back, and hinted the wish for a longer delay. " Not so soon, dear Morton," she would say tearfully, " not so soon ; we are happy now, and perhaps when you are with me always, you will not love me so well ! " I reasoned against this notion, and this reluctance, but in vain ; and day passed on day, and even week on week, and our marriage was still undeclared. I now lived, however, almost wholly with Isora, for busy tongues could no longer carry my secret to my uncle ; and, indeed, since I had lost the fortune which I was expected to inherit, it is astonishing how little people troubled themselves about my movements or my- self. I lived then almost wholly with Isora and did familiar- ity abate my love ? Strange to say, it did not abate even the romance of it. The reader may possibly remember a conver- sation with St. John recorded in the Second Book of this his- tory. " The deadliest foe to love," said he, (he who had known all love that of the senses and that also of the soul), "is not change, nor misfortune, nor jealousy, nor wrath, nor i88 DEVEREUX. anything that flows from passion, or emanates from fortune. The deadliest foe to love is CUSTOM ! " Was St. John right ? I believe that in most instances he was ; and perhaps the custom was not continued in my case long enough for me to refute the maxim. But as yet, the very gloss upon the god's wings was fresh as on the first day when I had acknowledged his power. Still was Isora to me the light and the music of existence ! still did my heart thrill and leap within me when her silver and fond voice made the air a bless- ing. Still would I hang over her, when her beautiful features lay hushed in sleep, and watch the varying hues of her cheek ; and fancy, while she slept, that in each low, sweet breath that my lips drew from hers, was a whisper of tenderness and en- dearment ! Still when I was absent from her, my soul seemed to mourn a separation from its better and dearer part, and the joyous senses of existence saddened and shrunk into a single want ! Still was her presence to my heart as a breathing at- mosphere of poesy which circled and tinted all human things ; still was my being filled with that delicious and vague melan- choly which the very excess of rapture alone produces the knowledge we dare not breathe to ourselves that the treasure in which our heart is stored is not above the casualties of fate. The sigh that mingles with the kiss, the tear that glistens in the impassioned and yearning gaze, the deep tide in our spirit, over which the moon and the stars have power ; the chain of harmony within the thought, which has a mysterious link with all that is fair, and pure, and bright in Nature, knitting as it were loveliness with love ! all this, all that I cannot express all that to the young for whom the real world has had few spells, and the world of visions has been a home, who love at last and for the first time, all that to them are known were still mine. In truth, Isora was one well calculated to sustain and to rivet romance. The cast of her beauty was so dreamlike, and yet so varying her temper was so little mingled with the com- mon characteristics of woman ; it had so little of caprice, so little of vanity, so utter an absence of all jealous and all angry feeling ; it was so made up of tenderness and devotion, and yet so imaginative and fairy-like in its fondness, that it was dif- ficult to bear only the sentiments of earth, for one who had so little of earth's clay. She was more like the women whom one imagines are the creations of poetry, and yet of whom no poe- try, save that of Shakspeare's, reminds us ; and to this day, when I go into the world, I never see aught of our own kind DEVEfcEUX. 189 which recalls her, or even one of her features, to my memory. But when I am alone with Nature, methinks a sweet sound or a new-born flower has something of familiar power over those stored and deep impressions which do make her image, and it brings her more vividly before my eyes than any shape or face of her own sex, however beautiful it may be. There was also another trait in her character which, though arising in her weakness, not her virtues, yet perpetuated the more dreamlike and imaginary qualities of our passion ; this was a melancholy superstition, developing itself in forebodings and omens which interested, because they were steeped at once in the poetry and in the deep sincerity of her nature. She was impressed with a strong and uncontrollable feeling that her fate was predestined to a dark course and an early end ; and she drew from all things around her something to feed the pensive character of her thoughts. The stillness of noon the holy and eloquent repose of twilight, its rosy sky, and its soft air, its shadows and its dews, had equally for her heart a whis- per and a spell. The wan stars, where, from the eldest time, man has shaped out a chart of the undiscoverable future ; the mys- terious moon, to which the great ocean ministers from its untrodden shrines ; the winds, which traverse the vast air, pil- grims from an eternal home to an impenetrated bourne; the illim- itable Heavens, on which none ever gazed without a vague crav- ing for something that the earth cannot give, and a vague sense of a former existence in which that something was enjoyed ; the holy night that solemn and circling sleep, which seems, in its repose, to image our death, and in its living worlds to shadow forth the immortal realms which only through that death we can survey, all had, for the deep heart of Isora, a language of omen and of doom. Often would we wander alone, and for hours together, by the quiet and wild woods and streams that surrounded her retreat, and which we both loved so well ; and often, when the night closed over us, with my arm around her, and our lips so near that our atmosphere was our mutual breath, would she utter, in that voice which "made the soul plant itself in the ears," the predictions which had nursed themselves at her heart. I remember one evening, in especial ! The rich twilight had gathered over us, and we sat by a slender and soft rivulet, overshadowed by some stunted yet aged trees. We had both, before she spoke, been silent for several minutes ; and only when, at rare intervals, the birds sent from the copse that backed us a solitary and vesper note of music, was the stillness around 106 DEVEREUX. us broken. Before us, on the opposite bank of the stream, lay a valley, in which shadow and wood concealed all trace of man's dwellings, save at one far spot, where, from a single hut, rose a curling and thin vapor, like a spirit released from earth, and losing gradually its earthier particles, as it blends itself with the loftier atmosphere of Heaven. It was then that Isora, clinging closer to me, whispered her forebodings of death. "You will remember," said she, smiling faintly, "you will remember me, in the lofty and bright career which yet awaits you, and I scarcely know whether I would not sooner have that memory free as it will be from all recol- lection of my failings and faults, and all that I have cost you, than incur the chance of your future coldness or decrease of love." And when Isora turned, and saw that the tears stood in my eyes, she kissed them away, and said, after a pause: " It matters not, my own guardian angel, what becomes of me : and now that I am near you, it is wicked to let my folly cost you a single pang. But why should you grieve at my fore- bodings ? there is nothing painful or harsh in them to me, and I interpret them thus : ' if my life passes away before the com- mon date, perhaps it will be a sacrifice to yours." And it will, Morton it will. The love I bear to you I can but feebly ex- press now ; all of us wish to prove our feelings, and I would give one proof of mine for you. It seems to me that I was made only for one purpose to love you ; and I would fain hope that my death may be some sort of sacrifice to you some token of the ruling passion and the whole object of my life." As Isora said this, the light of the moon, which had just risen, shone full upon her cheek, flushed as it was with a deeper tint than it usually wore ; and in her eye her features her forehead the lofty nature of her love seemed to have stamped the divine expression of itself. Have I lingered too long on these passages of life, they draw near to a close and a more adventurous and stirring period of manhood will succeed. Ah, little could they, who in after years beheld in me but the careless yet stern soldier the companion alternately so light and so moodily reserved little could they tell how soft, and weak, and doting my heart was once! DEVEREUX. ipl CHAPTER VI. An Unexpected Meeting. Conjecture and Anticipation. THE day for the public solemnization of our marriage was at length appointed. In fact, the plan for the future that ap- peared to me most promising was to proffer my services to some foreign Court, and that of Russia held out to me the greatest temptation. I was therefore anxious, as soon as possible, to conclude the rite of a second or public nuptials, and I pur- posed leaving the country within a week afterward. My little lawyer assured me that my suit would go on quite as well in my absence, and whenever my presence was necessary he would be sure to inform me of it. I did not doubt him in the least it is a charming thing to have confidence in one's man of business. Of Montreuil I now saw nothing ; but I accidentally heard that he was on a visit to Gerald, and that the latter had already made the old walls ring with premature hospitality. As for Aubrey, I was in perfect ignorance of his movements ; and the unsatisfactory shortness of his last letter, and the wild expres- sions so breathing of fanaticism in the postscript, had given me much anxiety and alarm on his account. I longed above all to see him, to talk with him over old times and our future plans, and to learn whether no new bias could be given to a tempera- ment which seemed to lean so strongly towards a self-punishing superstition. It was about a week before the day fixed for my pub- lic nuptials, that I received at last from him the following letter: '* Mv DEAREST BROTHER : " I have been long absent from home absent on affairs on which we will talk hereafter. I have not forgotten you, though I have been silent, and the news of my poor uncle's death has shocked me greatly. On my arrival here I learnt your disap- pointment and your recourse to law. I am not so much sur- prised, though I am as much grieved, as yourself, for I will tell you now what seemed to me unimportant before. On receiv- ing your letter, requesting consent to your designed marriage, my uncle seemed greatly displeased as well as vexed, and after- wards he heard much that displeased him more ; from what quarter came his news I know not, and he only spoke of it in innuendos and angry insinuations. As far as I was able, I en- deavored to learn his meaning, but could not, and to my praises of you I thought latterly he seemed to lend but a cold ear ; he told me at last, when I was about to leave him, that you had acted ungratefully to him, and that he should alter his will. I scarcely thought of this speech at the time, or rather I consid- 192 DEVEREUX. ered it as the threat of a momentary anger. Possibly, however, it was the prelude to that disposition of property which has so wounded you, I observe too that the will bears date about that period. I mention this fact to you you can draw from it what inference you will ; but I do solemnly believe that Ger- ald is innocent of any fraud towards you. "I am all anxiety to hear whether your love continues. I beseech you to write to me instantly and inform me on that head as on all others. We shall meet soon. " Your ever affectionate Brother, " AUBREY DEVEREUX." There was something in this letter that vexed and displeased me: I thought it breathed a tone of unkindness and indifference which my present circumstances rendered peculiarly inexcus- able. So far, therefore, from answering it immediately, I re- solved not to reply to it till after the solemnization of my mar- riage. The anecdote of my uncle startled me a little when I coupled it with the words my uncle had used toward myself on his death-bed; viz, in hinting that he had heard some things unfavorable to Ishra, unnecessary then to repeat; but still if my uncle had altered his intentions towards me, would he not have mentioned the change and its reasons ? Would he have written to me with such kindness, or received me with such affection ? I could not believe that he would : and my opinions of the fraud and the perpetrator were not a whit changed by Aubrey's epistle. It was clear, however, that he had joined the party against me: and as my love for him was exceedingly great, I was much wounded by the idea. " All leave me," said I, " upon this reverse, all but Isora ! " and I thought with renewed satisfaction on the step which was about to ensure to her a secure home and an honorable station. My fears lest Isora should again be molested by her persecutor were now pretty well at rest; having no doubt in my own mind as to that persecutor's identity, I imagined that in his new ac- quisition of wealth and pomp, a boyish and unreturned love would easily be relinquished; and that, perhaps, he would scarcely regret my obtaining the prize himself had sought for, when in my altered fortunes it would be followed by such worldly de- preciation. In short, I looked upon him as possessing a char- acteristic common to most bad men, who are never so influenced by love as they are by hatred ; and imagined therefore, that if he had lost the object of the love, he could console himself by exulting over any decline of prosperity in the object of the hate As the appointed day drew near, Isora's despondency seemed DEVEREUX. 193 to vanish, and she listened, with her usual eagerness in whatever interested me, to my continental schemes of enterprise. I re- solved that our second wedding, though public, should be modest and unostentatious, suitable rather to our fortunes than our birth. St. John, and a few old friends of the family, constituted all the party I invited, and I requested them to keep my mar- riage secret until the very day of celebrating it arrived. I did this from adesireof avoiding compliments intended as sarcasms and visits rather of curiosity, than friendship. On flew the days, and it was now the one preceding my wedding. I was dress- ing to go out upon a matter of business connected with the ceremony, and I then, as I received my hat from Desmarais, for the first time thought it requisite to acquaint that accom- plished gentleman with the rite of the morrow. Too well bred was Monsieur Desmarais to testify any other sentiment than pleasure at the news; and he received my orders and directions for the next day with more than the graceful urbanity which made one always feel quite honored by his attentions. " And how goes on the philosophy ? " said I, " faith, since I am about to be married, I shall be likely to require its conso- lations." " Indeed, Monsieur," answered Desmarais, with that expres- sion of self-conceit which was so curiously interwoven with the obsequiousness of his address, " indeed, Monsieur, I have been so occupied of late in preparing a little powder very essential to dress, that I have not had time for any graver, though not perhaps more important, avocations." " Powder and what is it?" "Will Monsieur condescend to notice its effect ?" answered Desmarais, producing a pair of gloves which were tinted of the most delicate flesh-color; the coloring was so nice that, when the gloves were on, it would have been scarcely possible, at any distance, to distinguish them from the naked flesh. 1 'Tis a rare invention," said I. "Monsieur is very good, but I flatter myself it is so," rejoined Desmarais; and he forthwith ran on far more earnestly on the merits of his powder than I have ever heard him descant on the beauties of Fatalism. I cut him short in the midst of his har- angue; too much eloquence in any line is displeasing in one's dependent. I had just concluded my business abroad, and was returning homeward with downcast eyes, and in a very abstracted mood, when I was suddenly startled by a loud voice that exqlaimed in a tone of surprise: " What! Count Devereux how fortunate! " 194 DEVEREUX. I looked up, and saw a little, dark man, shabbily dressed; his face did not seem unfamiliar to me, but I could not at first re- member where I had seen it my look, I suppose, testified my want of memory, for lie said, with a low bow "You have forgotten me, Count, and I don't wonder at it; so please you, I am the person who once brought you a letter from France to Devereux Court." At this, I recognized the bearer of that epistle which had embroiled me with the Abbe* Montreuil. I was too glad of the meeting to show any coolness in my reception of the gentleman, and, to speak candidly, I never saw a gentleman less troubled with mauvaise honte. " Sir! " said he, lowering his voice to a whisper, " it is most fortunate that I should thus have met you; I only came to town this morning, and for the sole purpose of seeking you out. I am charged with a packet, which I believe will be of the greatest importance to your interests. But," he added, looking round, "the streets are no proper place for my communication; par- bleu, there are those about who hear whispers through stone walls suffer me to call upon you to-morrow." " To-morrow ! it is a day of great business with me, but I can possibly spare you a few moments, if that will suffice; or, on the day after, your own pleasure maybe the sole limit of our interview." " Parbleu, Monsieur, you are very obliging very; but I will tell you in one word who I am, and what is my business. My name is Marie Oswald; I was born in France, and I am the half-brother of that Oswald who drew up your uncle's will." " Good Heavens ! " I exclaimed, " is it possible that you know anything of that affair?" "Hush yes, all! my poor brother is just dead ; and, in a word, I am charged with a packet given me by him on his death- bed. Now, will you see me if I bring it to-morrow ? " " Certainly; can I not see you to-night ?" " To-night ? No, not well; parbleu ! I want a little consider- ation as to the reward due to me for my eminent services to your lordship. No: let it be to-morrow." "Well! at what hour ! I fear it must be in the evening." " Seven, sil vous plait, Monsieur." " Enough ! be it so." And Mr. Marie Oswald, who seemed, during the whole of this short conference, to have been under some great apprehension of being seen or overheard, bowed, and vanished in an instant, leaving my mind in a most motley state of incoherent, unsatis- factory, yet sanguine conjecture. DEVEREUX. 195 CHAPTER VII. The Events of a Single Night. Moments make the Hues in which Years are colored. MEN of the old age ! what wonder that in the fondness of a dim faith, and in the vague guesses which, from the frail ark of reason, we send to hover over a dark and unfathomable abyss, what wonder that ye should have wasted hope and life in striving to penetrate the future ! What wonder that ye should have given a language to the stars, and to the night a spell, and gleaned from the uncomprehended earth an answer to the enigmas of Fate ! We are like the sleepers who, walking under the influence of a dream, wander by the verge of a pre- cipice, while, in their own deluded vision, they perchance be- lieve themselves surrounded by bowers of roses, and accom- panied by those they love. Or rather like the blind man, who can retrace every step of the path he has once trodden, but who can guess not a single inch of that which he has not yet tra- velled, our reason can re-guide us over the roads of past experi- ence with a sure and unerring wisdom, even while it recoils, baffled and bewildered, before the blackness of the very mo- ment whose boundaries we are about to enter. The few friends I had invited to my wedding were still with me, when otic of my servants, not Desmarais, informed me that Mr. Oswald waited for me. I went out to him. " Parbleu! " said he, rubbing his hands, " I perceive it is a joyous time with you, and I don't wonder you can only spare me a few moments." The estates of Devereux were not to be risked for a trifle, but I thought Mr. Marie Oswald exceeding impertinent. " Sir," said I very gravely, " pray be seated : and now to business. In the first place, may I ask to whom I am beholden for send- ing you with that letter you gave me at Devereux Court? and secondly, what that letter contained ? for I never read it." " Sir," answered the man, " the history of the letter is per- fectly distinct from that of the will, and the former (to discuss the least important first) is briefly this. You have heard, sir, of the quarrels between Jesuit and Jansenist ?" "I have." " Well but first, Count, let me speak of myself. There were three young men of the same age, born in the same village in France, of obscure birth each,and each desirous of getting on in the world. Two were deuced clever fellows : the third noth- ing particular. One of the two at present shall be nameless ; 196 DEVEREUX. the third, 'who was nothing particular' (in his own opinion, at least, though his friends may think differently), was Marie Oswald. We soon separated : I went to Paris, was employed in different occupations, and at last became secretary, and (why should I disavow it ?) valet to a lady of quality, and a violent politician. She was a furious Jansenist ; of course I adopted her opinions. About this time, there was much talk among the Jesuits, of the great genius and deep learning of a young mem- ber of the order Julian Montreuil. Though not residing in the country, he had sent one or two books to France, which had been published and had created a great sensation. Well, sir, my mistress was the greatest intriguante of her party : she was very rich, and tolerably liberal ; and, among other packets of which a messenger from England was carefully robbed, between Calais and Abbeville (you understand me, sir, carefully robbed: parbleu ! I wish I were robbed in the same manner every day in my life !) was one from the said Julian Montreuil to a politi- cal friend of his. Among other letters in this packet all of importance was one descriptive of the English family with whom he resided. It hit them all, I am told, off to a hair ; and it described, in particular, one, the supposed inheritor of the estates, a certain Morton, Count Devereux. Since you say you did not read the letter, I spare your blushes, sir, and I don't dwell upon what he said of your talent, energy, ambition, etc. I will only tell you that he dilated far more upon your prospects than your powers ; and that he expressly stated what was his object in staying in your family and cultivating your friendship he expressly stated that ^30,000 a year would be particularly serviceable to a certain political cause which he had strongly at heart." " I understand you," said I ; "the Chevalier's ?" " Exactly. ' This sponge,' said Montreuil, I remember the yery phrase ' this sponge will be well filled, and I am handling it softly now, in order to squeeze its juices hereafter according to the uses of the party we have so strongly at heart." " " It was not a metaphor very flattering to my understanding," said I. '* True, sir. Well, as soon as my mistress learnt this, she re- membered that your father, the Marshal, had been one of her plus chers amis in a word, if scandal says true, he had been the cher ami. However, she was instantly resolved to open your eyes, and ruin the maudit ftfsui/e : she enclosed the letter in an envelope, and sent me to England with it. I came I gave it you and I discovered, in that moment, when the Abbe" en- DEVEREUX. 197 tered, that this Julian Montreuil was an old acquaintance of my own was one of the two young men who I told you were such deuced clever fellows. Like many other adventurers, he had changed his name on entering the world, and I had never till now suspected that Julian Montreuil was Bertrand Collinot. Well, when I saw what I had done, I was exceedingly sorry, for I had liked my companion well enough not to wish to hurt him; besides, I was a little afraid of him. I took horse, and went about some other business I had to execute, nor did I visit that part of the country again, till a week ago (now I come to the other business), when I was summoned to the death-bed of my half-brother, the attorney, peace be with him ! He suffered much from hypochondria in his dying moments I believe it is the way with people of his profession and he gave me a sealed packet, with a last injunction to place it in your hands, and your hands only. Scarce was he dead (do not think I am unfeeling, sir, I had seen very little of him, and he was only my half-brother, my father having married for a second wife a foreign lady, who kept an inn, by whom he was blessed with myself) scarce, I say, was he dead when I hurried up to town ; Providence threw you in my way, and you shall have the document upon two conditions." " Which are, first to reward you ; secondly, to " " To promise you will not open the packet for seven days." " The devil ! and why ? " "I will tell you candidly : one of the papers in the .packet I believe to be my brother's written confession nay, I know it is and it will criminate one I have a love for, and who, I am resolved, shall have a chance of escape." " Who is that one? Montreuil?" " No I do not refer to him ; but I cannot tell you more. I require the promise, Count it is indispensable. If you don't give it me, parbleu, you shall not have the packet." There was something so cool, so confident, and so impudent about this man that I did not well know whether to give way to laughter or to indignation. Neither, however, would have been politic in my situation ; and, as I said before, the estates of Devereux were not to be risked for a trifle. " Pray," said I, however, Avith a shrewdness which I think did me credit " pray, Mr. Marie Oswald, do you expect the reward before the packet is opened ? " "By no means," answered the gentleman who in his own opinion was nothing particular; "by no means; nor until you and your lawyers are satisfied that the papers enclosed in the 198 DEVEREUX. packet are sufficient fully to restore you to the heritage of Devereux Court and its demesnes." There was something fair in this ; and as the only penalty to me, incurred by the stipulated condition, seemed to be the granting escape to the criminals, I did not think it incumbent upon me to lose my cause from the desire of a prosecution. Besides, at that time, I felt too happy to be revengeful ; and so, after a moment's consideration. I acceded to the proposal, and gave my honor as a gentleman, Mr. Oswald obligingly dis- pensed with an oath that I would not open the packet till the end of the seventh day. Mr. Oswald then drew forth a piece of paper, on which sundry characters were inscribed, the pur- port of which was that if, through the papers given me by Marie Oswald, my lawyers were convinced that I could become master of my uncle's property, now enjoyed by Gerald Devereux, I should bestow on the said Marie ^5000 : half on obtaining this legal opinion, half on obtaining possession of the property. I could not resist a smile, when I observed that the word of a gentleman was enough surety for the safety of the man he had a love for, but that Mr. Oswald required a written bond for the safety of his reward. One is ready enough to trust one's friends to the conscience of another, but as long as a law can be had instead, one is rarely so credulous in respect to one's money. " The reward shall be doubled if I succeed," said I, signing the paper ; and Oswald then produced a packet, on which was writ, in a trembling hand " For Count Devereux private and with haste." As soon as he had given me this precious charge, and reminded me again of my promise, Oswald with- drew. I placed the packet in my bosom, and returned to my guests. Never had my spirit been so light as it was that evening. Indeed the good people I had assembled thought matrimony never made a man so little serious before. They did not how- ever stay long, and the moment they were gone, I hastened to my own sleeping apartment, to secure the treasure I had acquired. A small escritoire stood in this room, and in it I was accustomed to keep whatever I considered most precious. With many a wistful look and murmur at my promise, I con- signed the packet to one of the drawers of this escritoire. As I was locking the drawer, the sweet voice of Desmarais accosted me. Would, Monsieur, he asked, suffer him to visit a friend that evening in order to celebrate so joyful an event in Monsieur's destiny? It was not often that he was addicted to DEVEREUX. 199 vitigar merriment, but on such an occasion he owned that he was tempted to transgress his customary habits, and he felt that Monsieur, with his usual good taste, would feel offended if his servant, within Monsieur's own house, suffered joy to pass the limits of discretion, and enter the confines of noise and inebriety, especially as Monsieur had so positively interdicted all outward sign of extra hilarity. He implored mille pardons for the presumption of his request. " It is made with your usual discretion there are five guineas for you : go and get drunk with your friend, and be merry instead of wise. But, tell me, is it not beneath a philosopher to be moved by anything, especially anything that Occurs to another much less to get drunk upon it ?" " Pardon me, Monsieur," answered Desmarais, bowing to the ground ; " one ought to get drunk sometimes, because the next morning one is sure to be thoughtful ; and, moreover, the practical philosopher ought to indulge every emotion in order to judge how that emotion would affect another; at least, this is my opinion." " Well, go." " My most grateful thanks be with Monsieur ; Monsieur's nightly toilet is entirely prepared." And away went Desmarais, with- the light, yet slow, step with which he was accustomed to combine elegance with dignity. I now passed into the room I had prepared for Isora's boudoir. I found her leaning by the window, and I perceived that she had been in tears. As I paused to contemplate her figure, so touchingly, yet so unconsciously mournful in its beautiful and still posture, a more joyous sensation than was wont to mingle with my tenderness for her swelled at my heart. " Yes," thought I, " you are no longer the solitary exile, or the persecuted daughter of a noble but ruined race ; you are not even the bride of a man who must seek in foreign climes, through danger and through hardship, to repair a broken for- tune and establish an adventurer's name ! At last the clouds have rolled from the bright star of your fate wealth, and pomp, and all that awaits the haughtiest of England's matrons shall be yours." And at these thoughts, Fortune seemed to be a gift a thousand times more precious than much as my luxuries prized it it had ever seemed to me before. I drew near and laid my hand upon Jsora's shoulder and kissed her cheek. She did not turn round, but strove, by bending over my hand and pressing it to her lips, to conceal that she had been weeping. I thought it kinder to favor the sco OEVEREUX. artifice than to complain of it. I remained silent for some moments, and I then gave vent to the sanguine expectations for the future which my new treasure entitled me to form. I had already narrated to her the adventure of the day before I now repeated the purport of my last interview with Oswald ; and, growing more and more elated as I proceeded, I dwelt at last upon the description of my inheritance, as glowingly as if I had already recovered it. I painted to her imagination its rich woods and its glassy lake, and the fitful and wandering brook that, through brake and shade, went bounding on its wild way ; I told her of my early roamings, and dilated with a boy's rapture upon my favorite haunts. I brought visibly before her glistening and eager eyes the thick copse where, hour after hour, in vague verse and still vaguer dreams, I had so often whiled away the day ; the old tree which I had climbed to watch the birds in their glad mirth, or to listen unseen to the melancholy sound of the forest deer ; the antique gallery and the vast hall which, by the dim twilights, I had paced with a religious awe, and looked upon the pictured forms of my bold fathers, and mused high and ardently upon my destiny to be ; the old gray tower which I had consecrated to myself, and the unwitnessed path which led to the yellow beach, and the wide gladness of the solitary sea ; the little arbor which my earliest ambition had reared, that looked out upon the joyous flowers and the merry fountain, and, through the ivy and the jessamine, wooed the voice of the bird, and the murmur of the summer bee ; and, when I had exhausted my description, I turned to Isora, and said in a lower tone, " And I shall visit these once more, and with you." Isora sighed faintly, and it was not till I had pressed her to speak that she said : " I wish I could deceive myself, Morton, but I cannot I cannot root from my heart an impression that I shall never again quit this dull city, with its gloomy walls and its heavy air. A voice within me seems to say ' Behold from this very win- dow the boundaries of your living wanderings ! ' ' Isora's words froze all my previous exaltation. " It is in vain," said I, after chiding her for her despondency, " it is in vain to tell me that you have for this gloomy notion no other reason than that of a vague presentiment. It is time now that I should press you to a greater confidence upon all points con- sistent with your oath to our mutual enemy than you have hitherto given me. Speak, dearest, have you not some yet un- Tevealed causes for alarm ? " DEVEREUX. 201 Jt was but for a moment that Isora hesitated before she answered with that quick tone which indicates that we force words against the will. " Yes, Morton, I will tell you now, though I would not before the event of this day. On the last day that I saw that fearful man, he said, ' I warn you, Isora D'Alvarez, that my love is far fiercer than hatred ; I warn you that your bridals with Morton Devereux shall be stained with blood. Become his wife, and you perish ! Yes, though I suffer hell's tortures for- ever and forever from that hour, my own hand shall strike you to the heart !' Morton, these words have thrilled through me again and again, as if again they were breathed in my very ear; and I have often started at night and thought the very knife glittered at my breast. So long as our wedding was concealed, and concealed so closely, I was enabled to quiet my fears till they scarcely seemed to exist. But when our nuptials were to be made public, when I knew that they were to reach the ears of that fierce and unaccountable being, I thought I heard my doom pronounced. This, mine own love, must excuse your Isora, if she seemed ungrateful for your generous eagerness to announce our union. And perhaps she would not have ac- ceded to it so easily as she has done were it not that, in the first place, she felt it was beneath your wife to suffer any terror so purely selfish to make her shrink from the proud happiness of being yours in the light of day ; and if she had not felt (here Isora hid her blushing face in my bosom) that she was fated to give birth to another, and that the announce- ment of our wedded love had become necessary to your honor as to mine !" Though I was in reality awed even to terror by learning from Isora's lip so just a cause for her forebodings though I shuddered with a horror surpassing even my wrath, when I heard a threat so breathing of deadly and determined passions yet I concealed my emotions, and only thought of cheering and comforting Isora. I represented to her how guarded and vigilant should ever henceforth be the protection of her hus- band ; that nothing should again separate him from her side ; that the extreme malice and fierce persecution of this man were sufficient even to absolve her conscience from the oath of concealment she had taken ; that I would procure from the sacred head of our church her own absolution from that vow; that the moment concealment was over, I could take steps to prevent the execution of my rival's threats ; that, however near to me he might be in blood, no consequences arising from a 202 DEVEREUX. dispute between us could be so dreadful as the least evil to Isora ; and, moreover, to appease her fears, that I would sol- emnly promise he should never sustain personal assault or harm from my hand ; in short, I said all that my anxiety could dictate, and at last I succeeded in quieting her fears, and she smiled as brightly as the first time 1 had seen her in the little cottage of her father. She seemed, however, averse to an absolution from her oath, for she was especially scrupulous as to the sanctity of those religious obligations; but I secretly resolved that her safety absolutely required it, and that at all events I would procure absolution from my own promise to her. At last Isora, turning from that topic, so darkly interesting, pointed to the heavens, which, with their thousand eyes of light, looked down upon us. " Tell me, love," said she play- fully, as her arm embraced me yet more closely, " if, among yonder stars we could chose a home, which should we select ?" I pointed to one which lay to the left of the moon, and which, though not larger, seemed to burn with an intenser lustre than the rest. Since that night it has ever been to me a fountain of deep and passionate thought, a well wherein fears and hopes are buried, a mirror in which, in stormy times, I have fancied to read my destiny, and to find some mysterious omen of my intended deeds, a haven which I believe others have reached before me, and a home immortal and unchanging, where, when my wearied and fettered soul is escaped, as a bird, it shall flee away, and have its rest at last. "What think you of my choice ?" said I. Isora looked up- ward, but did not answer ; and as I gazed upon her (while the pale light of heaven streamed quietly upon her face) with her dark eyes, where the tear yet lingered, though rather to soften than to dim, with her noble, yet tender features, over which hung a melancholy calm, with her lips apart, and her rich locks wreathing over her marble brow, and contrasted by a single white rose (that rose I have now I would not lose one with- ered leaf of it for a kingdom !) her beauty never seemed to me of so rare an order, nor did my soul ever yearn towards her with so deep a love. It was past midnight. All was hushed in our bridal chamber. The single lamp, which hung above, burnt still and clear ; and through the half-closed curtains of the window the moonlight looked in upon our couch, quiet, and pure, and holy, as if it were charged with blessings. "Hush!" said Isora gently; "do you not hear a noise below ! " DEVEREUX. 203 "Not a breath," said I ; "I hear not a breath, save yours." " It was my fancy, then ! " said Isora, " and it has ceased now"; and she clung closer to my breast and fell asleep. I looked on her peaceful and childish countenance, with that concentrated and full delight with which we clasp all that the universe holds dear to us, and feel as if the universe held nought beside and thus sleep also crept upon me. I awoke suddenly ; I felt Isora trembling palpably by my side. Before I could speak to her, I saw standing at a liltle distance from the bed, a man wrapt in a long dark cloak and masked ; but his eyes shown through the mask, and they glared full upon me. He stood with his arms folded, and perfectly motionless ; but at the other end of the room, before the escri- toire in which I had locked the important packet, stood an- other man, also masked, and wrapped in a disguising cloak of similar hue and fashion. This man, as if alarmed, turned suddenly, and I perceived then that the escritoire was already opened, and that the packet was in his hand. I tore myself from Isora's clasp I stretched my hand to the table by my bedside, upon which I had left my sword, it was gone ! No matter ! I was young, strong, fierce, and the stake at hazard was great. I sprung from the bed, I precipitated myself upon the man who held the packet. With one hand I grasped at the important document, with the other I strove to tear the mask from the robber's face. He endeavored rather to shake me off than to attack me ; and it was not till I had nearly succeeded in unmasking him that he drew forth a short poniard, and stabbed me in the side. The blow, which seemed purposely aimed to avoid a mortal part, staggered me, but only for an instant. I renewed my gripe at the packet I tore it from the robber's hand, and collecting my strength, now fast ebbing away, for one effort, I bore my assailant to the ground, and fell struggling with him. But my blood flowed fast from my wound, and my antagonist, if less sinewy than myself, had greatly the advantage in weight and size. Now for one moment I was uppermost, but in the next his knee was upon my chest, and his blade gleamed on high in the pale light of the lamp and moon. I thought I be- held my death would to God that I had ! With a piercing cry, Isora sprang from the bed, flung herself before the lifted blade of the robber, and arrested his arm. This man had, in the whole contest, acted with a singular forbearance, he did so now ; he paused for a moment and dropped his hand. Hither- to the other man had not stirred from his mute position ; he 2O4 DEVEREUX. now moved one step towards us, brandishing a poniard like his comrade's. Isora raised her hand supplicatingly towards him, and cried out, " Spare him, spare him! Oh, mercy, mercy ! ' With one stride the murderer was by my side ; he muttered some words which passion seemed to render inarticulate ; and, half pushing aside his comrade, his raised weapon flashed before my eyes, now dim and reeling. I made a vain effort to rise the blade descended Isora, unable to arrest it, threw herself before it her blood, her heart's blood gushed over me I saw and felt no more. When I recovered my senses, my servants were round me; a deep red, wet stain upon the sofa on which I was laid brought the whole scene I had witnessed again before me terrible and distinct. I sprang to my feet and asked for Isora; a low mur- mur caught my ear I turned, and beheld a dark form stretched on the bed, and surrounded, like myself, by gazers and menials ; I tottered towards that bed my bridal bed with a fierce gesture motioned the crowd away I heard my name breathed audibly the next moment I was by Isora's side. All pain, all weakness, all consciousness of my wound, of my very self, were gone life seemed curdled into a single agonizing and fearful thought. I fixed my eye upon hers ; and though there the film was gathering dark and rapidly, I saw yet visible and tmconquered the deep love of that faithful and warm heart which had lavished its life for mine. I threw my arms around her I pressed my lips wildly to hers. " Speak speak ! " I cried, and my blood gushed over her with the effort ; " in mercy speak ? " Even in death and agony, the gentle being who had been as wax unto my lightest wish struggled to obey me. " Do not grieve for me," she said, in a tremulous and broken voice ; " it is dearer to die for you than to live ! " Those were her last words. I felt her breath abruptly cease. The heart, pressed to mine, was still ! I started up in dismay the light shone full upon her face. O God ! that I should live to write that Isora was no more ! DEVEREUX 20iJ BOOK IV. CHAPTER I. A Re-entrance into Life through the Ebon Gate. Affliction. MONTHS passed away before my senses returned to me. I rose from the bed of suffering and of madness, calm, collected, immovable altered, but tranquil. All the vigilance of jus- tice had been employed to discover the murderers, but in vain. The packet was gone ; and directly I, who alone was able to do so, recovered enough to state the loss of that document, suspicion naturally rested on Gerald, as on one whom that loss essentially benefited. He came publicly forward to anticipate inquiry. He proved that he had not stirred from home during the whole week in which the event had occurred. That seemed likely enough to others; it is the tools that work, not the insti- gator the bravo, not the employer ; but I, who saw in him not only the robber, but that fearful rival who had long threatened Isora that my bridals should be stained with blood, was somewhat staggered by the undeniable proofs of his absence from the scene of that night ; and I was still more bewildered in conjecture by remembering that, so far as their disguises and my own hurried and confused observation could allow me to judge, the person of neither villain, still less that of Isora's murderer, corresponded with the proportions and height of Gerald. Still, however, whether mediately or immediately whether as the executor or the designer not a doubt remained on my mind that against his head was justice due. I directed inquiry towards Montreuil he was abroad at the time of my recovery ; but, immediately on his return, he came forward boldly and at once to meet and even to court the inquiry I had instituted ; he did more he demanded on what ground, besides my own word, it rested that this packet had ever been in my possession ; and to my surprise and perplexity, it was utterly impossible to produce the smallest trace of Mr. Marie Oswald. His half-brother, the attorney, had died, it is true, just before the event of that night ; and it was also true that he had seen Marie on his death-bed ; but no other corroboration of my story could be substantiated, and no other information of the man obtained ; and the partisans of Gerald were not 206 DEVEREUX. slow in hinting at the great interest I had in forging a tale res- pecting a will, about the authenticity of which I was at law. The robbers had entered the house by a back-door, which was found open. No one had perceived their entrance or exit, except Desmarais, who stated that he heard a cry that he, having spent the greater part of the night abroad, had not been in bed above an hour before he heard it that he rose and hurried towards my room, whence the cry came that he met two men masked on the stairs that he seized one, who struck him in the breast with a poniard, dashed him to the ground, and escaped that he then immediately alarmed the house, and, the servants accompanying him, he proceeded, despite his wound, to my apartment, where he found Isora and myself bleeding and lifeless, with the escritoire broken open. The only contradiction to this tale was, that the officers of justice found the escritoire not broken open, but unlocked ; and yet the key which belonged to it was found in a pocket- book in my clothes, where Desmarais said, rightly, I always kept it. How, then, had the escritoire been unlocked? it was supposed by the master-keys peculiar to experienced burglars ; this diverted suspicion into a new channel, and it was suggested that the robbery and the murder had really been committed by common house-breakers. It was then discovered that a large purse of gold, and a diamond cross, which the escritoire con- tained, were gone. And a few articles of ornamental bijouterie, which I had retained from the wreck of my former profusion in such baubles, and which were kept in a room below stairs, were also missing. These circumstances immediately con- firmed the opinion of those who threw the guilt upon vulgar and mercenary villains, and a very probable and plausible supposition was built on this hypothesis. Might not this Oswald, at best an adventurer with an indifferent reputa- tion, have forged this story of the packet in order to ob- tain admission into the house, and reconnoitre, during the confusion of a wedding, in what places the most portable articles of value were stowed ? a thousand opportunities, in the opening and shutting of the house-doors, would have allowed an ingenious villain to glide in ; nay, he might have secreted himself in my own room, and seen the place where I had put the packet certain would he then be that I had selected for the repository of a document I believed so impor- tant, that place where all that I most valued was secured ; and hence he would naturally resolve to break open the escritoire, above all other places, which, to an uninformed robber, might MVEkEUX. 20? have seemed not only less exposed to danger, but equally likely to contain articles of value. The same confusion which enabled him to enter and conceal himself would have also enabled him to withdraw and introduce his accomplice. This notion was rendered probable by his insisting so strongly on my not opening the packet within a certain time ; had I opened it immediately, I might have perceived that a deceit had been practised, and not have hoarded it in that place of security which it was the villain's object to discover. Hence, too, in opening the escritoire, he would naturally retake the packet (which other plunderers might not have cared to steal), as well as things of more real price naturally retake it, in order that his previous imposition might not be detected, and that sus- picion might be cast upon those who would appear to have an interest in stealing a packet which I believed to be so inestimably important. What gave a still greater color to this supposition was the fact that none of the servants had seen Oswald leave the house, though many had seen him enter. And what put his guilt beyond a doubt in the opinion of many, was his sudden and mysterious disappearance. To my mind, all those circumstances were not conclusive. Both the men seemed taller than Oswald ; and I knew that that confusion, which was so much insisted upon, had not thanks to my singular fastidiousness in those matters existed. I was also perfectly convinced that Oswald could not have been hid in my room while I locked up the packet ; and there was something in the behavior of the murderer utterly unlike that of a common robber, actuated by common motives. All these opposing arguments were, however, of a nature to be deemed nugatory by the world, and on the only one of any importance, in their estimation, viz., the height of Oswald being different from that of the robbers, it was certainly very probable that, in a scene so dreadful, so brief, so confused, I should easily be mistaken. Having therefore once flowed into this direction, public opinion soon settled into the full conviction that Oswald was the real criminal, and against Oswald was the whole strength of inquiry ultimately, but still vainly, bent. Some few, it is true, of that kind class who love family mys- teries, and will not easily forego the notion of a brother's guilt, for that of a mere vulgar house-breaker t still shook their heads, and talked of Gerald ; but the suspicion was vague and partial, and it was only in the close gossip of private circles that it was audibly vented. I had formed an opinion by no means favorable to the inno- 208 DEVEREUX. cence of Mr. Jean Desmarais ; and I took especial care that the Necessitarian, who would only have thought robbery and murder pieces of ill-luck, should undergo a most rigorous ex- amination. I remembered that he had seen me put the packet into the escritoire ; and this circumstance was alone sufficient to arouse my suspicion. Desmarais bared his breast gracefully to the magistrate. "Would a man, sir," he said, "a man of my youth, suffer such a scar as that, if he could help it ? " The magistrate laughed : frivolity is often a rogue's best policy, if he did but know it. One finds it very difficult to think a cox- comb can commit robbery and murder. Howbeit Desmarais came off triumphantly : and, immediately after this examina- tion, which had been his second one, and instigated solely at my desire, he came to me with a blush of virtuous indignation on his thin cheeks. " He did not presume," he said, with a bow profounder than ever, " to find fault with Monsieur le Comte ; it was his fate to be the victim of ungrateful suspicion ; but philosophical truths could not always conquer the feelings of the man, and he came to request his dismissal." I gave it him with pleasure. I must now state my own feelings on the matter : but I shall do so briefly. In my own mind, I repeat, I was fully impressed with the conviction that Gerald was the real, and the head criminal ; and thrice did I resolve to repair to Devereux Court, where he still resided, to lie in wait for him, to reproach him with his guilt, and at the sword's point in deadly combat to seek its earthly expiation. I spare the reader a narration of the terrible struggles which nature, conscience, all scruples and prepossessions of education and of blood, held with this resolution, the unholiness of which I endeavored to clothe with the name of justice to Isora. Suffice it to say that this resolu- tion I forewent at last : and I did so more from a feeling that, despite my own conviction of Gerald's guilt, one rational doubt rested upon the circumstance that the murderer seemed to my eyes of an inferior height to Gerald, and that the person whom I had pursued on the night I had received that wound which brought Isora to my bed-side, and who, it was natural to be- lieve, was my rival, appeared to me not only also slighter and shorter than Gerald, but of a size that.seemed to tally with the murderer's. This solitary circumstance, which contradicted my other impressions, was, I say, more effectual in making me dismiss the thought of personal revenge on Gerald, than the motives which virtue and religion should have dictated. The deep 200 desire of vengeance is the calmest of all the passions, and it is the one which most demands certainty to the reason, before it releases its emotions, and obeys their dictates. The blow which was to do justice to Isora, I had resolved should not be dealt, till I had obtained the most utter certainty that it fell upon the true criminal. And thus, though I cherished through all time, and through all change, the burning wish for retribution, I was doomed to cherish it in secret, and not for years and years to behold a hope of attaining it. Once only I vented my feelings upon Gerald. I could not rest, or sleep, or execute the world's objects, till I had done so; but when they were thus once vented methought I could wait the will of time with a more settled patience, and I re-entered upon the common career of life more externally fitted to fulfil its duties and its aims. That single indulgence of emotion followed immediately after my resolution of not forcing Gerald into bodily contest. I left my sword, lest I might be tempted to forget my deter- mination. I rode to Devereux Court I entered Gerald's cham- ber, while my horse stood unstalled at the gate. I said but few words, but each word was a volume. I told him to enjoy the fortune he had acquired by fraud, and the conscience he had stained with murder. " Enjoy them while you may," I said, " but know that sooner or later shall come a day, when the blood that cries from earth shall be heard in Heaven and your blood shall appease it. Know, if I seem to disobey the voice at my heart, I hear it night and day and I only live to fulfil at one time its commands." I left him stunned and horror-stricken. I flung myself on my horse, and cast not a look behind as I rode from the towers and domains of which I had been despoiled. Never from that time would I trust myself to meet or see the despoiler. Once, directly after I had thus braved him in his usurped hall, he wrote to me. I returned the letter unopened. Enough of this ; the reader will now perceive what was the real nature of my feelings of revenge ; and will appreciate the reasons which, throughout this history, will cause me never or rarely to recur to those feelings again, until at least he will perceive a just hope of their consummation. I went with a quiet air and a set brow into the world. It was a time of great political excitement. Though my creed forbade me the open senate, it could not deprive me of the veiled intrigue. St. John found ample employment for my ambition, and I entered into the toils and objects of my race with a seeming avidity, more eager and engrossing than their 2io DEVEREUX. own. In what ensues, you will perceive a great change in the character of my memoirs. Hitherto, I chiefly portrayed to you myself. I bared open to you my heart and temper my pas- sions, and the thoughts which belong to our passions. I shall now rather bring before you the natures and the minds of others. The lover and the dreamer are no more ! The satirist and the observer the derider of human follies, participating while he derides the worldly and keen actor in the human drama, these are what the district of my history on which you enter will portray me. From whatever pangs to me the change may have been wrought, you will be the gainer by that change. The gaudy dissipation of courts ; the vicissitudes and the vanities of those who haunt them ; the glittering jest, and the light strain ; the passing irony, or the close reflection ; the charac- ters of the great ; the colloquies of wit ; these are what delight the temper and amuse the leisure more than the solemn narra- tive of fated love. As the monster of the Nile is found beneath the sunniest banks, and in the most freshening wave, the stream may seem to wander on in melody and mirth the ripple and the beam ; but who shall tell what lurks, dark, and fearful, and ever vigilant, below ! CHAPTER II. Ambitious Projects. IT is not my intention to write a political history, instead of a private biography. No doubt, in the next century, there will be volumes enough written in celebration of that era which my contemporaries are pleased to term the greatest that in modern times has ever existed. Besides, in the private and more concealed intrigues with which I was engaged with St. John, there was something which regard for others would compel me to preserve in silence. I shall therefore briefly state that, in 1712, St. John dignified the peerage by that title which his exile and his genius have rendered so illustrious. I was with him on the day this honor was publicly announced. I found him walking to and fro in his room, with his arms folded, and with a very peculiar compression of his nether lip, which was a custom he had when anything greatly irritated or dis- turbed him. "Well," said he, stopping abruptly as he saw me, "well, con- sidering the peacock Harley brought so. bright a plume to his DEVEREUX. 2lt own nest, we must admire the generosity which spared this gay dunghill feather to mine!" " How ! " said I, though I knew the cause of his angry meta- phor. St. John used metaphors in speech scarcely less than in writing. " How ! " cried the new peer, eagerly, and with one of those flashing looks which made his expression of indignation the most powerful I ever saw. " How ! Was the sacred promise granted to me of my own collateral earldom, to be violated ; and while the weight the toil the difficulty the odium, of affairs, from which Harley, the despotic dullard, shrunk alike in imbecility and fear, had been left exclusively to my share, an insult in the shape of an honor, to be left exclusively to my reward ? You know my disposition is not to over-rate the mere baubles of am- bition you know I care little for titles and for orders in them- selves ; but the most worthless thing becomes of consequence, if made a symbol of what is of value, or designed as the token of an affront. Listen : a collateral earldom falls vacant it is partly promised me. Suddenly I am dragged from the House of Commons where I am all powerful ; I am given not this earldom, which, as belonging to my house, would alone have induced me to consent to a removal from a sphere where my enemies allow 1 had greater influence than any single commoner in the kingdom I am given, not this, but a miserable compro- mise of distinction a new and an inferior rank given it against my will thrust into the Upper House, to defend what this pompous driveller, Oxford, is forced to forsake ; and not only exposed to all the obloquy of a most infuriate party, opposed to me, but mortified by an intentional affront from the party which, heart and soul, I have supported. You know that my birth is to the full as noble as Harley's you know that my in- fluence in the Lower House is far greater you know that my name in the country, nay, throughout Europe, is far more pop- ular you know that the labor allotted to me has been far more weighty you know that the late Peace of Utrecht is entirely my framing that the foes to the measure direct all their venom against me that the friends of the measure heap upon me all the honor : when, therefore, this exact time is chosen for break- ing a promise formerly made to me when a pretended honor, known to be most unpalatable to me, is thrust upon me when, at this very time, too, six vacant ribbons of the garter flaunt me one resting on the knee of this Harley, who was able to obtain an earldom for himself the others given to men of far inferior pretensions, though not inferior rank, to my own my- 212 DEVEREIJX, self markedly, glaringly passed by, how can I avoid feeling that things, despicable in themselves, are become of a vital power, from the evident intention that they should be insults to me ! the insects we despise as they buzz around us become danger- ous when they settle on ourselves and we feel their sting ! But," added Bolingbroke, suddenly relapsing into a smile, " I have long wanted a nickname, I have now found one for myself. You know Oxford is called 'The Dragon'; well, henceforth call me ' St. George '; for, as sure as I live, will I overthrow the Dragon. I say this in jest, but I mean it in earnest. And now that I have discharged my bile, let us talk of this wonderful poem, which, though I have read it a hundred times, I am never wearied of admiring." "Ah the Rape of the Lock ! It is indeed beautiful, but I am not fond of poetry now. By the way, how is it that all our modern poets speak to the taste, the mind, the judgment, and never to \\\z feelings ? Are they right in doing so?" " My friend, we are now in a polished age. What have feel- ings to do with civilization ?" " Why, more than you will allow. Perhaps the greater our civilization, the more numerous our feelings. Our animal pas- sions lose in excess, but our mental gain ; and it is to the mental that poetry should speak. Our English muse, even in this wonderful poem, seems to me to be growing, like our English beauties, too glitteringly artificial it wears rouge and a hoop." " Ha ! ha ! yes, they ornament now, rather than create cut drapery, rather than marble. Our poems remind me of the an- cient statues. Phidias made them, and Bubo and Bombax dre~sed them in purple. But this does not apply to young Pope, who has shown in this very poem that he can work the quarry as well as choose the gems. But see, the carriage awaits us. I have worlds to do, first there is Swift to see next, there is some exquisite Burgundy to taste then, too, there is the new actress; and, by the by, you must tell me what you think of Bent- ley's Horace : we will drive first to my bookseller's to see it Swift shall wait Heavens ! how he would rage if he heard me. I was going to say what a pity it is that that man should have so much littleness of vanity ; but I should have uttered a very foolish sentiment if I had ! " "And why? " "Because, if he had not so much littleness perhaps he would not be so great : what, but vanity, makes a man write and speak and slave, and become famous ? Alas ! " and here St. John's C9untenance changed from gaiety to thought ; " 'tis a melan- DEVEREUX. 213 choly thing in human nature that so little is good and noble, Loth in itself and in its source ! Our very worst passions will often produce sublimer effects than our best. Phidias (we will apply to him for another illustration,) made the wonderful statue of Minerva for his country ; but, in order to avenge himself on that country, he eclipsed it in the far more wonderful statue of the Jupiter Olympius. Thus, from a vicious feeling emanated a greater glory than from an exalted principle ; and the artist was less celebrated for the monument of his patriotism than for that of his revenge ! But allons, mon cher, we grow wise and dull. Let us go to choose our Burgundy and our comrades to share it." However, with his characteristic affectation of bounding am- bition, and consequently hope, to no one object in particular, and of mingling affairs of light importance with those of the most weighty, Lord Bolingbroke might pretend not to recur to, or to dwell upon, his causes of resentment from that time they never ceased to influence him to a great, and for a statesman an unpardonable, degree. We cannot, however, blame politicians for their hatred, until, without hating anybody, we have for a long time been politicians ourselves ; strong minds have strong passions, and men of strong passions must hate as well as love. The two years passed, on my part, in perpetual intrigues of diplomacy, combined with an unceasing, though secret, en- deavour to penetrate the mystery which hung over the events of that dreadful night. All, however, was in vain. I know not what the English police may be hereafter, but in my time its officers seem to be chosen, like honest Dogberry's companions, among "the most senseless and fit men." They are, however, to the full, as much knaves as fools ; and perhaps a wiser pos- terity will scarcely believe that, when things of the greatest value are stolen, the owners, on applying to the chief magistrate, will often be told that no redress can be given there, while one of the officers will engage to get back the goods, upon paying the thieves a certain sum in exchange if this is refused your ef- fects are gone forever ! A pretty state of internal government. It was about a year after the murder that my mother informed me of an event which tore from my heart its last private tie, viz., the death of Aubrey. The last letter I had received from him has been placed before the reader ; it was written at Devereux Court, just before he left it forever. Montreuil had been with him during the illness which proved fatal, and which occurred in Ireland. He died of consumption ; and when I heard from my mother that Montreuil dwelt most glowingly upon the de 2i4 DEVEkEtlX. votion he had manifested during the last months of his life, I could not help fearing that the morbidity of his superstition had done the work of physical disease. On this fatal news, my mother retired from Devereux Court to a company of ladies of our faith, who resided together, and practised the most ascetic rules of a nunnery, though they gave not to their house that ec- clesiastical name. My mother had long meditated this project, and it was now a melancholy pleasure to put it into execution. From that period I rarely heard from her, and by little and little she so shrunk from all worldly objects that my visits, and I believe even those of Gerald, became unwelcome and dis- tasteful. As to my lawsuit, it went on gloriously, according to the as- sertions of my brisk little lawyer, who had declared so emphat- ically that he liked making quick work of a suit. And, at last, what with bribery and feeing, and pushing, a day was fixed for the final adjustment of my claim it came the cause was heard and lost. I should have been ruined, but for one circumstance; the old lady, my father's godmother, who had witnessed my first and concealed marriage, left me a pretty estate near Epsom. I turned it into gold, and it was fortunate that I did so soon, as the reader is about to see. The Queen died and a cloud already began to look menac- ing to the eyes of the Viscount Bolingbroke, and therefore to those of the Count Devereux. "We will weather out the shower," said Bolingbroke. " Could not you," said I, "make our friend Oxford the Tala- pat ? "* and Bolingbroke laughed. All men find wit in the jests broken on their enemies ! One morning, however, I received a laconic note from him, which, notwithstanding its shortness and seeming gayety, I knew well signified that something, not calculated for laughter, had occurred. I went, and found that his new majesty had deprived him of the seals and secured his papers. We looked very blank at each other. At last, Bolingbroke smiled. I must say that, culpable as he was in some points as a politician culpable, not from being ambitious (for I would not give much for the states- man who is otherwise), but from not having inseparably linked his ambition to the welfare of his country, rather than to that of a party for, despite of what has been said of him, his am- bition was never selfish culpable as he was when glory allured DEVEREUX. 215 him, he was most admirable when danger assailed him ! * and, by the shade of that Tully whom he so idolized, his philosophy was the most conveniently worn of any person's I ever met. When it would have been in the way at the supper of an act- tress in the levees of a court in the boudoir of a beauty in the arena of a senate in the intrigue of the cabinet, you would not have observed a seam of the good old garment. But di- rectly it was wanted in the hour of pain in the day of peril in the suspense of exile in (worst of al!) the torpor of tran- quility, my extraordinary friend unfolded it piece by piece wrapped himself up in it sat down defied the world, and ut- tered the most beautiful sentiments upon the comfort and lux- ury of his raiment, that can possibly be imagined. It used to remind me, that same philosophy of his, of the enchanted tent in the Arabian Tale, which one moment lay wrapped in a nut- shell, and the next covered an army. Bolingbroke smiled, and quoted Cicero, and after an hour's conversation, which on his part was by no means like that of a person whose very head was in no enviable state of safety, he slid at once from a sarcasm upon Sieele into a discussion as to the best measures to be adopted. Let me be brief on this point ! Throughout the whole of that short session, he behaved in a manner more delicately and profoundly wise than, I think, the whole of his previous administration can equal. He sus- tained with the most unflagging, the most unwearied, dexterity, the sinking spirits of his associates. AVithout an act, or the shadow of an act, that could be called time-serving, he laid himself out to conciliate the King, and to propitiate Parliament; with a dignified prudence which, while it seemed above petty * I know well that it has been said otherwise, and that Bolingbroke has been accused of timidity for not staying in England, and making Mr. Robert Walpole a present of his head. The elegant author of " De Vere," has fallen into a very great, though a very hackneyed er- ror, in lauding Oxford's political character, and condemning Bolingbroke's, because the for- mer awaited a trial and the latter shunned it. A very little reflection might, perhaps, have taught th accomplished novelist that there could be no comparison between the two cases, because there was no comparison between the relative danger of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Oxford, as their subsequent impeachment proved, was f:ir more numerously and power- fully supported than his illustrious enemy ; and there is really no earthly cause for doubt- ing the truth of Bolingbroke's assertion, viz., that " He had received repeated and certain information that a resolution was taken, by those who had power to execute it, to pursue him to the scaffold." There are certain situations in which a brave and a good man should willingly surrender life ; but I humbly opine that there may sometimes exist a situation in which he should preserve it : and if ever man was placed in that latter situation, it was Lord Bolingbroke. To choose unnecessarily to put one's head under the axe, without benefiting any but one's enemies by the act, is, in my eyes, the proof of a fool, not a hero ; and to at- tack a man for not placing his head in that agreeable and most useful predicament for pre- ferring, in short, to live for a world, rather than to perish by a faction, appears to be a mode of arguing that has a wonderful resemblance to nonsense. When Lord Bolingbroke was im- peached, two men only out of those numerous retainers in the Lower House who had been wont so loudly to applaud the secretary of state, in his prosecution of those very measures for which he was now to be condemned two men only (General Ross and Mr. HungrfordJ uttered a single syllable in defence of the minister disgraced, Ep. 2l6 DEVEREUX. pique, was well calculated to remove the appearance of that disaffection with which he was charged, and discriminated justly between the King and the new administration, he lent his talents to the assistance of the monarch, by whom his impeach- ment was already resolved on, and aided in the settlement of the civil list, while he was in full expectation of a criminal accusation. The new Parliament met, and all doubt was over. An im- peachment of the late administration was decided upon. I was settling bills with my little lawyer one morning, when Boling- broke entered my room. He took a chair, nodded to me not to dismiss my assistant, joined our conversation, and when con- versation was merged in accounts, he took up a book of songs, and amused himself with it till my business was over and my disciple of Coke retired. He then said, very slowly, and with a slight yawn " You have never been at Paris, I think ? " "Never you are enchanted with that gay city." "Yes, but when I was last there, the good people flattered my vanity enough to bribe my taste. I shall be able to form a more unbiased and impartial judgment in a few days." " A few days ! " " Ay, my dear Count : does it startle you ? I wonder whether the pretty Dt Tencin will be as kind to me as she was, and whether tout le monde (that most exquisite phrase for five hundred people,) will rise now at the Opera on my entrance. Do you think that a banished minister can have any, the smallest, resemblance to what he was when in power ? By gum- dragon, as our friend Swift so euphoniously and elegantly says, or swears, by gumdragon, I think not ! What altered Satan so after his fall ? whatgavehim hornsand atail ? nothing but his disgrace. Oh ! years, and disease, plague, pestilence, and famine, never alter a man so much as the loss of power." " You say wisely ; but what am I to gather from your words ? is it all over with us in real earnest? " "Us ! with me it is indeed all over you may stay here for ever. / must fly a packet boat to Calais, or a room in the Tower 1 must choose between the two. I had some thoughts of remaining, and confronting my trial, but it would be folly there is a difference between Oxford and me. He has friends, though out of power ; I have none. Jf they impeach him he will escape ; if they impeach me, they will either shut me up like a rat in a cage, for twenty years, till, old and forgotten, I tear my heart out with my confinement, or they will bring me at once to the block. NO, no I must keep myself for another DEVEREUX. 217 day ; and, while they banish me, I will leave the seeds of the true cause to grow up till my return. Wise and exquisite policy of my foes ' Frustra Cassium amovisti, si gliscere et vigere Brutorum emulos passurus es.' * But I have no time to lose farewell, my friend God bless you you are saved from these storms ; and even intolerance, which prevented the exercise of youj genius, preserves you now from the danger of having applied that genius to the welfare of your country : Heaven knows, whatever my faults, I have sacrificed what I loved better than all things study and pleasure to her cause. In her wars I served even my enemy Marlborough, in order to serve her ; her peace I effected, and I suffer for it. Be it so, I am 4 Fidens animi atque in utrumque paratus.' f Once more I embrace you farewell." " Nay," said I, " listen to me, you shall not go alone. France is already, in reality, my native country ; there did I receive my birth, it is no hardship to return to my natalc solum it is an honor to return in the company of Henry St. John. I will have no refusal ; my law case is over, my papers are few, my money I will manage to transfer. Remember the anecdote you told me, yesterday, of Anaxagoras, who, when asked where his country was, pointed with his finger to heaven. It is applica- ble, I hope, as well to me as to yourself; to me, uncelebrated and obscure, to you, the senator and the statesman." In vain Bolingbroke endeavored to dissuade me from this resolution ; he was the only friend fate had left me, and I was resolved that misfortune should not part us. At last he em- braced me tenderly, and consented to what he could not resist. "But you cannot," he said, "quit England to-morrow night, as I must." " Pardon me," I answered, " the briefer the preparation, the greater the excitement, and what in life is equal to that? " " True," answered Bolingbroke ; " To some natures, too rest- less to be happy, excitement can compensate for all ; compen- sate for years wasted, and hopes scattered compensate for bitter regret at talents perverted and passions unrestrained. But we will talk philosophically when we have more leisure. You will dine with me to-morrow ; we will go to the play together I promised poor Lucy that I would see her at the theater, and I cannot break my word and an hour afterwards * Vainly have you banished Cassius, if you shall suffer the rivals of the Brutuses Jo spread themselves and flourish. t Confident of soul and prepared for either fortune, 2lS DEVERKUX. we will commence our excursion to Paris. And now I will explain to you the plan I have arranged for our escape." CHAPTER III. The real Actors Spectators of the false ones. IT was a brilliant night at the theatre. The boxes were crowd- ed to excess. Every eye was directed towards Lord Boling- broke, who, with his usual dignified and consummate grace of manner, conversed with the various loiterers with whom, from time to time, his box was filled. " Look yonder," said a very young man, of singular personal beauty, "look yonder, my lord, what a panoply of smiles the Duchess wears to-night, and how triumphantly she directs those eyes, which they say were once so beautiful, to your box." " Ah," said Bolingbroke, " her grace does me too much honor ; I must not neglect to acknowledge her courtesy "; and, leaning over the box, Bolingbroke watched his opportunity till the Duchess of Marlborough, who sat opposite him, and who was talking with great and evidently joyous vivacity to a tall, thin man beside her, directed her attention, and that of her whole party, in a fixed and concentrated stare, to the imperilled min- ister. With a dignified smile Lord Bolingbroke then put his hand to his heart, and bowed profoundly ; the Duchess looked a little abashed, but returned the courtesy quickly and slightly, and renewed her conversation. " Faith, my lord," cried the young gentleman who had before spoken, " you managed that well ! No reproach is like that which we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow." " I am happy," said Lord Bolingbroke, "that my conduct re- ceives the grave support of a son of my political opponent." " Grave support, my Lord ! you are mistaken never apply the epithet grave to anything belonging to Philip Wharton. But, in sober earnest, I have sat fong enough with you to terrify all my friends, and must now show my worshipful face in another part of the house. Count Devereux, will you come with me to the Duchess's?" " What ! the Duchess's immediately after Lord Boling- broke's ! the Whig after the Tory it would be as trying to one's assurance as a change from the cold bath to the hot to one's constitution." " Well, and what so delightful as a trial in which one triumphs ? DEVEREUX. 219 and a change in which one does not lose even one's counte- nance?" "Take care, my lord," said Bolingbroke, laughing; "those are dangerous sentiments for a man like you, to whom the hopes of two great parties are directed, to express so openly, even on a trifle, and in a jest." "'Tis for that reason I utter them. I like being the object of hope and fear to men, since my miserable fortune made me marry at fourteen, and cease to be aught but a wedded thing to the women. But, sup with me at the Bedford you, my lord, and the Count." " And you will ask Walpole, Addison, and Steele * to join us ; eh ? " said Bolingbroke, " No, we have other engagements for to-night ; but we shall meet again soon." And the eccentric youth nodded his adieu, disappeared, and a minute afterwards was seated by the side of the Duchess of Marlborough. " There goes a boy," said Bolingbroke, " who, at the age of fifteen, has in him the power to be the greatest man of his day, and in all probability will only be the most singular. An ob- stinate man is sure of doing well ; a wavering or a whimsical one (which is the same thing) is as uncertain, even in his elevation, as a shuttlecock. But look to the box at the right do you see the beautiful Lady Mary?" "Yes," said Mr. Trefusis, who was with us, "she has only just come to town. 'Tis said she and Ned Montague live like doves." " How !" said Lord Bolingbroke ; "that quick, restless eye seems to have very little of the dove in it." " But how beautiful she is ! " said Trefusis, admiringly. " What a pity that those exquisite hands should be so dirty ! Jt reminds me" (Trefusis loved a coarse anecdote) "of her answer to old Madame de Noailles, who made exactly the same remark to her. ' Do you call my hands dirty ? ' cried Lady Mary, hold- ing them up with the most innocent naiveti, 'Ah, Madame, si vous pouviez voir mes pieds ! " " Fi done!" said I, turning away ; " but who is that very de- formed man behind her, he with the bright black eye ? " " Know you not ? " said Bolingbroke ; " Tell it not in Gath ! 'tis a rising sun, whom I have already learned to worship the young author of the ' Essay on Criticism,' and the ' Rape of the Lock.' Egad, the little poet seems to eclipse us with the women as much as with the men. Do you mark how eagerly * All political opponents of Lord Bolingbroke. 220 DEVEREUX. Lady Mary listens to him, even though the tall gentleman in black, who in vain attempts to win her attentions, is thought the handsomest gallant in London? Ah, Genius is paid by smiles from all females but Fortune ; little, methinks, does that young poet, in his first intoxication of flattery and fame, guess what a lot of contest and strife is in store for him. The very breath which a literary man respires is hot with hatred, and the youthful proselyte enters that career which seems to him so glittering, even as Dame Pliant's brother in the Alchemist en- tered town not to be fed with luxury, and diet on pleasure, but ' to learn to quarrel and live by his wits.' " The play was now nearly over. With great gravity Lord Bolingbroke summoned one of the principal actors to his box, and bespoke a play for the next week ; leaning then on my arm, he left the theatre. We hastened to his home, put on our dis- guises, and, without any adventure worth recounting, effected our escape, and landed safely at Calais. CHAPTER IV. Paris. A Female Politician, and an Ecclesiastical One. Sundry other Matters. THE ex-minister was received both at Calais and at Paris with the most gratifying honors he was then entirely the man to captivate the French. The beauty of his person, the grace of his manner, his consummate taste in all things, the exceed- ing variety and sparkling vivacity of his conversation, enchanted them. In later life he has grown more reserved and profound, even in habitual intercourse, and attention is now fixed to the solidity of the diamond, as at that time one was too dazzled to think of anything but its brilliancy. While Bolingbroke was receiving visits of state, I busied myself in inquiring after a certain Madame de Balzac. The reader will remember that the envelope of that letter which Oswald had brought to me .at Devereux Court was signed by the letters C. de B. Now, when Oswald disappeared, after that dreadful night to which even now I can scarcely bring myself to allude, these initials occurred to my remembrance, and Oswald having said they belonged to a lady formerly intimate with my father, I inquired of my mother if she could guess to what French lady such initials would apply. She, with an evident pang of jealousy, mentioned a Madame de Balzac ; and to this DEVEREUX. 221 lady I now resolved to address myself, with the faint hope of learning from her some intelligence respecting Oswald. It was not difficult to find out the abode of one who in her day had played no inconsiderable rdle in that Comedy of Errors, the Great World. She was still living at Paris ; what French- woman would, if she could help it, live any where else ? " There are a hundred gates," said the witty Madame de Choisi to me, "which lead into Paris, but only two roads out of it, the convent, or (odious word !) the grave." I hastened to Madame Balzac's hotel. I was ushered through three magnificent apartments into one, which to my eyes seemed to contain a throne: upon a nearer inspection I discovered it was a bed. Upon a large chair, by a very bad fire it was in the month of March sat a tall, handsome woman, excessively painted, and dressed in a manner which to my taste, accustomed to English finery, seemed singularly plain. I had sent in the morning to request permission to wait on her, so that she was prepared for my visit. She rose, offered me her cheek, kissed mine, shed several tears, and in short testified a great deal of kindness towards me. Old ladies, who have flirted with our fathers, always seem to claim a sort of property in the sons ! Before she resumed her seat she held me out at arm's length. "You have a family likeness to your brave father," said she, with a little disappointment ; "but " " Madame de Balzac would add," interrupted I, filling up the sentence which I saw her bienveillance had made her break off, " Madame de Balzac would add that I am not so good-look- ing. It is true ; the likeness is transmitted to me within rather than without ; and if I have not my father's privilege to be admired, I have at least his capacities to admire," and I bowed. Madame de Balzac took three large pinches of snuff. "That is very well said," said she gravely : "very well indeed ! not at all like your father, though, who never paid a compliment in his life. Your clothes, by the by, are in exquisite taste : I had no idea that English people had arrived at such perfection in the fine arts. Your face is a little too long ! You admire Racine, of course? How do you like Paris?" All this was not said gayly or quickly : Madame de Balzac was by no means a gay or a quick person. She belonged to a peculiar school of Frenchwomen, who affected a little languor, a great deal of stiffness, an indifference to forms when forms were to be used by themselves, and an unrelaxing demand of forms when forms were to be observed to them by others. Added to this, they talked plainly upon all matters, without 222 DEVEREUX. everenteringupon sentiment. This was the school she belonged to ; but she possessed the traits of the individual as well as of the species. She was keen, ambitious, worldly, not unaffec' tionate, nor unkind ; veryproud, a little of the devotee because it was the fashion to be so an enthusiastic admirer of military glory, and a most prying, searching, intriguing schemer of politics without the slightest talent for the science. "Like Paris! " said I, answering only the last question, and that not with the most scrupulous regard to truth. "Can Madame de Balzac think of Paris, and not conceive the trans- port which must inspire a person entering it for the first time? But I had something more endearing than a stranger's interest to attach me to it ; I longed to express to my father's friend my gratitude for the interest which I venture to believe she on one occasion manifested towards me." "Ah ! you mean my caution to you against that terrible De Montreuil. Yes, I trust I was of service to you there" And Madame de Balzac then proceeded to favor me with the whole history of the manner in which she had obtained the letter she had sent me, accompanied by a thosand anathemas against those atroces J/suites, and a thousand eulogies on her own genius and virtues. I brought her from this subject, so interesting to herself, as soon as decorum would allow me : and I then made inquiry if she knew aught of Oswald, or could suggest any mode of obtaining intelligence respecting him. Madame de Balzac hated plain, blunt, blank questions, and she always travelled through a wilderness of parentheses, before she answered them. But at last I did ascertain her answer, and found it utterly unsatisfactory. She had never seen nor heard anything of Oswald since he had left her charged with her commission to me. I then questioned her respecting the character of the man, and found Mr. Marie Oswald had little to plume himself upon in that respect. He seemed, however, from her account of him, to be more a rogue than a villain ; and, from two or three stories of his cowardice, which Madame de Balzac related, he appeared to me utterly incapable of a design so daring and systematic as that of which it pleased all persons who troubled themselves about my affairs, to suspect him. Finding, at last, that no further information was to be gained on this point, I turned the conversation to Montreuil. I found, from Madame de Balzac's very abuse of him, that he enjoyed a great reputation in the country, and a great favor at court He had been early befriended by Father la Chaise, and he was DEVEREUX. 223 now especially trusted and esteemed by the successor of that Jesuit, Le Tellier ; Le Tellier, that rigid and bigoted servant of Loyola the sovereign of the king himself the destroyer of the Port Royal, and the mock and terror of the be-devilled and persecuted Jansenists. Besides this, I learnt what has been before pretty clearly evident viz., that Montreuil was greatly in the confidence of the Chevalier, and that he was supposed already to have rendered essential service to the Stuart cause. His reputation had increased with every year, and was as great for private sanctity as for political talent. When this information, given in a very different spirit from that in which I retail it, was over, Madame de Balzac ob- served : " Doubtless you will obtain a private audience with the King?" " Is it possible, in his present age and infirmities ?" " It ought to be, to the son of the brave Marshal Devereux." " I shall be happy to receive Madame's instructions how to obtain the honor : her name would, I feel, be a greater pass- port to the royal presence than that of a deceased soldier ; and Venus's cestus may obtain that grace which would never be accorded to the truncheon of Mars ! " Was there ever so natural and so easy a compliment ? My Venus of fifty smiled. "You are mistaken, Count," said she; "I have no interest at court : the Jesuits forbid that to a Jansenist : but I will speak this very day to the Bishop of Frejus : he is related to me, and will obtain so slight a boon for you with ease. He has just left his bishopric : you know how he hated it. Noth- ing could be pleasanter than his signing himself, in a letter to Cardinal Quirini ' Fleuri, e'vfyue 4e Frejus par rindignaiion divine.' The King does not like him much ; but he is a good man on the whole, though Jesuitical ; he shall introduce you." I expressed my gratitude for the favor, and hinted that pos- sibly the relations of my father's first wife, the haughty and ancient house of La Tremouille, might save the Bishop of Frejus from the pain of exerting himself on my behalf. " You are very much mistaken," answered Madame de Bal- zac : " priests point the road to court, as well as to heaven ; and warriors and nobles have as little to do with the former as they have with the latter, the unlucky Due de Villars only excepted a man whose ill fortune is enough to destroy all the laurels of France. Ma foi ! I believe the poor Duke might rival in luck that Italian poet who said, in a fit of despair, that 224 DEVEREUX. if he had been bred a hatter, men would have been born with- out heads." And Madame de Balzac chuckled over this joke till, seeing that no farther news was to be gleaned from her, I made my adieu, and my departure. Nothing could exceed the kindness manifested towards me by my father's early connections. The circumstance of my accompanying Bolingbroke, joined to my age, and an address which, if not animated nor gay, had not been acquired without some youthful cultivation of the graces, gave me a sort of eclat as well as consideration. And Bolingbroke, who was only jealous of superiors in power, and who had no equals in any- thing else, added greatly to my reputation by his panegyrics. Every one sought me and the attention of society at Paris would, to most, be worth a little trouble to repay. Perhaps, if I had liked it, I might have been the rage ; but that vanity was over. I contented myself with being admitted into society as an observer, without a single wish to become the observed. When one has once outlived the ambition of fashion I know not a greater affliction than an over-attention ; and the Spectator did just what I should have done in a similar case, when he left his lodgings " because he was asked every morning how he had slept." In the immediate vicinity of the court, the King's devotion, age, and misfortunes threw a damp over society ; but there were still some sparkling circles, who put the King out of the mode, and declared that the defeats of his generals made capital subjects for epigrams. What a delicate and subtle air did hang over those soirtfes, where all that were bright and lovely, and noble and gay, and witty and wise, were assembled in one brilliant cluster ! Imperfect as my rehearsals must be, I think the few pages I shall devote to a description of these glittering conversations must still retain something of that origi- nal piquancy which the soirees of no other capital could rival or appreciate. One morning, about a week after my interview with Madame de Balzac, I received a note from her, requesting me to visit her that day, and appointing the hour. Accordingly I repaired to the house of the fair politician. I found her with a man in a clerical garb, and of a benevolent and prepossessing countenance. She introduced him to me as the Bishop of Frejus, and he received me with an air very uncommon to his countrymen, viz., with an ease that seemed to result from real good nature, rather than artificial grace. "I shall feel," said he, quietly, and without the least appear- DEVEREUX. 225 ance of paying a compliment, " very glad to mention your wish to his Majesty ; and I have not the least doubt but that he will admit to his presence one who had such hereditary claims on his notice. Madame de Maintenon, by the way, has charged me to present you to her, whenever you will give me the oppor- tunity. She knew your admirable mother well, and, for her sake, wishes once to see you. You know, perhaps, Monsieur, that the extreme retirement of her life renders this message from Madame de Maintenon an unusual and rare honor." I expressed my thanks ; the bishop received them with a paternal rather than a courtier-like air, and appointed a day for me to attend him to the palace. We then conversed a short time upon indifferent matters, which, I observed, the good bishop took especial pains to preserve clear from French poli- tics. He asked me, however, two or three questions about the state of parties in England about finance and the national debt about Ormond and Oxford ; and appeared to give the most close attention to my replies. He smiled once or twice, when his relation, Madame de Balzac, broke out into sarcasms against the Jesuits, which had nothing to do with the subjects in question. " Aji, ma chere cousine" said he, "you flatter me by showing that you like me not as the politician, but the private relation not as the Bishop of Frejus, but as Andre de Fleuri." Madame de Balzac smiled, and answered by a compliment. She was a politician for the kingdom, it is true, but she was also a politician for herself. She was far from exclaiming with Pin- dar, " Thy business, O my city, I prefer willingly to my own." Ah, there is a nice distinction between politics and policy, and Madame de Balzac knew it. The distinction is this : Politics is the art of being wise for others ! Policy is the art of being wise for oneself. From Madame de Balzac's I went to Bolingbroke. "I have just been offered the place of Secretary of State, by the Eng- lish king on this side of the water," said he ; " I do not, how- ever, yet like to commit myself so fully. And, indeed, I am not unwilling to have a little relaxation of pleasure, after all these dull and dusty travails of state. What say you to Boulainvil- liers to-night you are asked?" " Yes ! all the wits are to be there Anthony Hamilton and Fontenelle young Arouet Chaulieu, that charming old man. Let us go and polish away the wrinkles of our hearts. What cosmetics are to the face, wit is to the temper ; and, after all, there is no wisdom like that which teaches us to forget." 22 DEVEREUX. "Come then," said Bolingbroke, rising, "we will lock up these papers, and take a melancholy drive, in order that we may enjoy mirth the better by and by." CHAPTER V. A Meeting of Wits. Conversation gone out to Supper in her Dress of Velvet and Jewels. BOULAINVILLIERS! Comte de St. Saire ! What will our great grandchildren think of that name ! Fame is indeed a riddle ! At the time I refer to, wit learning grace all things that charm and enlighten were supposed to center in one word Boulainvilliers ! The good count had many rivals, it is true, but he had that exquisite tact peculiar to his countrymen, of making the very reputation of those rivals contribute to his own. And while he assembled them around him, the lustre of their bans mots, though it emanated from themselves, was re- flected upon him. It was a pleasant, though not a costly, apartment, in which we found our host. The room was sufficiently full of people to allow scope and variety to one group of talkers, without being full enough to permit those little knots and coteries which are the destruction of literary society. An old man of about seventy, of a sharp, shrewd, yet polished and courtly expression of countenance, of a great gayety of manner, which was now and then rather displeasingly contrasted by an abrupt affecta- tion of dignity, that, however, rarely lasted above a minute, and never withstood the shock of a bon mot, was the first person who accosted us. This old man was the wreck of the once celebrated Anthony, Count Hamilton ! "Well, my lord," said he to Bolingbroke, "how do you like the weather at Paris ? it is a little better than the merciless air of London is it not? 'Slife ! even in June one could not go open-breasted in those regions of cold and catarrh a very great misfortune, let me tell you, my lord, if one's cambric happened to be of a very delicate and brilliant texture, and one wished to penetrate the inward folds of a lady's heart, by developing to the best advantage the exterior folds that cov- ered his own." "It is the first time," answered Bolingbroke, "that I ever heard so accomplished a courtier as Count Hamilton repine, with sincerity, that he could not bare his bosom to inspection." DEVEREUX. 227 " Ah ! " cried Boulainvilliers, " but vanity makes a man show much that discretion would conceal." "Au diable with your discretion ! " said Hamilton, " 'tis a vul- gar virtue. Vanity is a truly aristocratic quality, and every way fitted to a gentleman. Should I ever have been renowned for my exquisite lace and web-like cambric, if 1 had not been vain ? Never, mon cher ! I should have gone into a convent and worn sackcloth, and, from Count Antoine, I should have thickened into Saint Anthony." " Nay," cried Lord Bolingbroke, " there is as much scope for vanity in sackcloth as there is in cambric ; for vanity is like the Irish ogling master in the Spectator, and if it teaches the playhouse to ogle by candle-light, it also teaches the church to ogle by day ! But, pardon me, Monsieur Chaulieu, how well you look ! I see that the myrtle sheds its verdure, not only over your poetry, but the poet. And it is right that, to the modern Anacreon, who has bequeathed to Time a treasure it will never forego, Time itself should be gentle in return." " Milord," answered Chaulieu, an old man who, though con- siderably past seventy, was animated, in appearance and man- ner, with a vivacity and life that would have done honor to a youth " Milord, it was beautifully said by the Emperor Julian, that Justice retained the Graces in her vestibule. I see, now, that he should have substituted the word Wisdom for that of Justice." " Come," cried Anthony Hamilton, " this will never do. Compliments are the dullest things imaginable. For Heaven's sake, let us leave panegyric to blockheads, and say something bitter to one another, or we shall die of ennui," '' Right," said Boulainvilliers : " Let us pick out some poor devil to begin with. Absent or present ? Decide which." "Oh, absent," cried Chaulieu ; " 'tis a thousand times more piquant to slander than to rally ! Let us commence with his Majesty : Count Devereux, have you seen Madame Maintenon and her devout infant since your arrival ? " " No ! the priests must be petitioned before the miracle is made public." " What ! " cried Chaulieu, " would you insinuate that his Majesty's piety is really nothing less than a miracle?" "Impossible!" said Boulainvilliers, gravely, "piety is as natural to kings as flattery to their courtiers : are we not told that they are made in God's own image ? " " If that were true," said Count Hamilton, somewhat pro 228 DEVEREUX. fanely "if that were true, I should no longer defy the impos- sibility of Atheism ! " " Fie, Count Hamilton," said an old gentleman, in whom I recognized the great Huet, " fie wit should beware how it uses wings its province is earth, not heaven." "Nobody can better tell what wit is not than the learned Abbe" Huet ! " answered Hamilton with a mock air of respect. " Psha ! " cried Chaulieu, " I thought when we once gave the rein to satire it would carry us pele-ntele against one another. But, in order to sweeten that drop of lemon-juice for you my dear Huet, let me turn to Milord Bolingbroke, and ask him whether England can produce a scholar equal to Peter Huet, who in twenty years wrote notes to sixty-two volumes of Class- ics,* for the sake of a prince who never read a line in one of them ?" "We have some scholars," answered Bolingbroke ; "but we certainly have no Huet. It is strange enough, but learning seems to me like a circle ; it grows weaker the more it spreads. We now see many people capable of reading commentaries, but very few indeed capable of writing them." " True," answered Huet ; and in his reply he introduced the celebrated illustration which is at this day mentioned among his most felicitous Ions mots. " Scholarship, formerly the most difficult and unaided enterprise of Genius, has now been made, by the very toils of the first mariners, but an easy and common- place voyage of leisure. .But who would compare the great men, whose very difficulties not only proved their ardor, but brought them the patience and the courage which alone are the parents of a genuine triumph, to the indolent loiterers of the present day, who, having little of difficulty to conquer, have nothing of glory to attain ? For my part, there seems to me the same difference between a scholar of our days and one of the past as there is between Christopher Columbus and the master of a packet-boat from Calais to Dover ! " "But," cried Anthony Hamilton, taking a pinch of snuff with the air of a man about to utter a witty thing "but what have we we spirits of the world, not imps of the closet," and he glanced at Huet-" to do with scholarship ? All the waters of Castaly, which we want to pour into our brain, are such as will flow the readiest to our tongue." " In short, then," said I, " you would assert that all a friend cares for in one's head is the quantity of talk in it ? " " Precisely my dear Count," said Hamilton seriously ; " and * The Delphin Classics. DEVEREUX. 229 to that maxim I will add another, applicable to the opposite sex. All that a mistress cares for in one's heart is the quantity of love in it." " What ! are generosity, courage, honor, to go for nothing with our mistress, then?" cried Chaulieu. " No ; for she will believe, if you are a passionate lover, that you have all those virtues ; and if not, she will never believe that you have one." " An ! it was a pretty court of love in which the friend and biographer of Count Grammont learned the art ! " said Boling- broke. " We believed so at the time, my lord ; but there are as many changes in the fashion of making love as there are in that of making dresses. Honor me, Count Devereux, by using my snuff-box, and then looking at the lid." " It is the picture of Charles the Second, which adorns it is it not ? " " No, Count Devereux, it is the diamonds which adorn it. His Majesty's face I thought very beautiful while he was living ; but now, on my conscience, I consider it the ugliest phiz I ever beheld. But I directed your notice to the picture because we were talking of love ; and Old Rowley believed that he could make it better than any one else. All his courtiers had the same opinion of themselves ; and I dare say the beaux g at fons of Queen Anne's reign would say that not one of King Charley's gang knew what love was. Oh ! 'tis a strange circle of revolu- tions, that love ! Like the earth, it always changes, and yet always has the same materials." " L' Amour V amour toujours ratnour, with Count Anthony Hamilton !" said Boulainvilliers. " He is always on that sub- ject ; and sacrc bleu ! when he was younger, I am told he was like Cacus, the son of Vulcan, and breathed nothing but flames." " You flatter me," said Hamilton. "Solve me now a knotty riddle, niy Lord Bolingbroke. Why does a young man think it the greatest compliment to be thought wise, while an old man thinks it the greatest compliment to be told he has been foolish?" "Is love foolish, then ? " said Lord Bolingbroke. " Can you doubt it ?" answered Hamilton ; "it makes a man think more of another than himself! I know not a greater proof of folly ! " "Ah mon aimable ami" cried Chaulieu; "you are the wickedest witty person I know. I cannot help loving your language, while I hate your sentiments." " My language is my own my sentiments are those of all 230 DEVEREUX. men," answered Hamilton ; "but are we not, by the by, to have young Arouet here to-night ? What a charming person he is ! " "Yes," said Boulainvilliers. "He said he should be late and I expect Fontenelle, too, but he will not come before sup- per. I found Fontenelle this morning conversing with my cook on the best manner of dressing asparagus. I asked him, the other day, what writer, ancient or modern, had ever given him the most sensible pleasure ? After a little pause, the excellent old man said ' Daphnus ' ' Uaphnus ! ' repeated I, ' who the devil is he ? ' ' Why,' answered Fontenelle, with tears of grati- tude in his benevolent eyes, ' I had some hypochondriacal ideas that suppers were unwholesome ; and Daphnus is an ancient physician, who asserts the contrary ; and declares, think, my friend what a charming theory ! that the moon is a great assistant of the digestion ! ' " " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the Abbe de Chaulieu. " How like Fontenelle ! what an anomalous creature 'tis ! He has the most kindness and the least feeling of any man I ever knew. Let Hamilton find a pithier description for him if he can !" Whatever reply the friend ofthe preux Grammont might have made was prevented by the entrance of a young man of about twenty-one. In person he was tall, slight, and very thin. There was a certain affectation of polite address in his manner and mien which did not quite become him ; and though he was received by the old wits with great cordiality, and on a footing of per- fect equality, yet the inexpressible air which denotes birth was both pretended to and wanting. This, perhaps, was however owing to the ordinary inexperience of youth; which, if not awkwardly bashful, is generally awkward in its assurance. Whatever its cause, the impression vanished directly he entered into conversation. I do not think I ever encountered a man so brilliantly, yet so easily, witty. He had but little of the studied allusion the antithetical point the classic metaphor, which chiefly characterize the wits of my day. On the contrary, it was an exceeding and naive simplicity, which gave such un- rivalled charm and piquancy to his conversation. And while I have not scrupled to stamp on my pages some faint imitation of the peculiar dialogue of other eminent characters, I must confess myself utterly unable to convey the smallest idea of his method of making "words irresistible. Contenting my efforts, therefore, with describing his personal appearance interesting, because that of the most striking literary character it has been my lot to meet I shall omit his share in the remainder of the DEVEREUX. 2;$t conversation I am rehearsing, and beg the reader to recall that passage in Tacitus, in which the great historian says, that in the funeral of Junia, "the images of Brutus and Cassias out- shone all the rest, from the very circumstance of their being the sole ones excluded from the rite." The countenance, then, of Marie Frangois Arouet (since so celebrated under the name of Voltaire) was plain in feature, but singularly striking in effect ; its vivacity was the very per- fection of what Steele once happily called "physiognomical eloquence." His eyes were blue, fiery rather than bright, and so restless that they never dwelt in the same place for a moment ; * his mouth was at once the worst and the most peculiar feature of his face : it betokened humor, it is true ; but it also betrayed malignancy nor did it ever smile without sarcasm. Though flattering to those present, his words against the absent, uttered by that bitter and curling lip, mingled with your pleasure at their wit a little fear at their causticity. I believe no one, be he as bold, as callous, or as faultless as human nature can be, could be one hour with that man and not feel apprehension. Ridicule, so lavish, yet so true to the mark so wanton, yet so seemingly just so bright, that while it wan- dered round its target, in apparent, though terrible playfulness, it burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand and a token indelible and perpetual, this no man could witness, when darted towards another, and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a systematic principle of bit- terness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him, not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter's bolts, and who makes use of those bolts in sport, which a God would only have used in wrath. Arouet's forehead was not remarkable for height, but it was nobly and grandly formed, and, contradicting that of the mouth, wore a benevolent expression. Though so young, there was already a wrinkle on the surface of the front, and a prominence on the eyebrow, which showed that the wit and the fancy of his conversation were, if not regulated, at least contrasted, by more thoughtful and lofty characteristics of mind. At the time I write, this man has obtained a high throne among the powers of the lettered world. What he may yet be, it is in vain to guess : he *The reader -vill remember that this is a description of Voltaire As a very young man. I do not know any where a more impressive, almost a more ghastly, contrast, than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown olil, present to Largilliere's picture of him at the age of twenty-four ; and he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count now speaks. ED. 232 DEVEREUX. may be all that is great and good, or the reverse ; but I cannot but believe that his career is only begun. Such men are born monarchs of the mind ; they may be benefactors or tyrants : in either case, they are greater than the kings of the physical empire, because they defy armies and laugh at the intrigues of state. From themselves only come the balance of their power, thelav.'s of their government, and the boundaries of their realm. We sat down to supper. " Count Hamilton," said Boulain- rilliers, " are we not a merry set for such old fellows ? Why, excepting Arouet, Milord Bolingbroke, and Count Dcvereux, there is scarcely one of us under seventy. Where, but at Paris, would you see bans vivants of our age ? Vivent lajuie la baga- telle ! r amour ! " " Et le vin de Champagne" cried Chaulieu, filling his glass; " but what is there strange in our merriment ? Philemon, the comic poet, laughed at ninety-seven. May we all do the same ! " "You forget," cried Bolingbroke "that Philemon died of the laughing." " Yes," said Hamilton ; " but, if I remember right, it was at seeing an ass eat figs. Let us vow, therefore, never to keep company with asses ! " " Bravo, Count," said Boulainvilliers, "you have put the true moral on the story. Let us swear, by the ghost of Philemon, that we will never laugh at an ass's jokes practical or verbal." " Then we must always be serious, except when we are with each other," cried Chaulieu. "Oh, I would sooner take my chance of dying prematurely at ninety-seven than consent to such a vow ! " " Fontenelle," cried our host " you are melancholy. What is the matter?" " I mourn for the weakness of human nature," answered Fontenelle, with an air of patriarchal philanthropy. " I told your cook three times about the asparagus : and now taste it. I told him not to put too much sugar, and he has put none. Thus it is with mankind ever in extremes and consequently ever in error ! Thus it was that Luther said, so felicitously and so truly, that the human mind was like a drunken peasant on horseback prop it on one side, and it falls on the other." " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " cried Chaulieu, " who would have thought one could have found so much morality in a plate of asparagus \ Taste this salsifis." " Pray, Hamilton," said Hnet, " whaty> de mot was that you made yesterday at Madame d'Epernonville's which gained you such applause ? " DEVEREUX. 233 " Ah, repeat it, Count," cried Boukiinvilliers; " 'twas the most classical thing I have heard for a long time." ''Why," said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing himself by a large draught of the champagne "why Madame d'Epernonville appeared without her tour j you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that tour is the polite name for false hair. ' Ah, sacre ! ' cried her brother, courteously, ' ma saur, que vous etes laide aujounfhui vous navezpas votretourT 'Voild, pourquoi die nest pas si-bdle (Cybele)? " answered I. " Excellent ! famous ! " cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard the punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. " You do not think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these jeux de mots perhaps you do not admire wit at all?" " Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees, it is fine ; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over flowers, it is enchanting ; but when, Monsieur Hamil- ton, it whistles through the key-hole, it is unpleasant." " The very worst illustration I ever heard," said Hamilton, coolly. " Keep to your classics, my dear Abbe. When Jupiter edited t' e work of Peter Huet, he did with wit as Peter Huet did with Lucan, when he edited the classics he was afraid it might do mischief, and so left it out altogether." " Let us drink ! " cried Chaulieu ; " let us drink ! " and the conversation was turned again. " What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet ? " said Boulainvilliers. " That his wisdom arose from his malignancy," answered Huet. " He is. a perfect penetrator * into human vices ; but knows nothing of human virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what is evil ? Believe me no ! A man cannot write much and well upon virtue without being virtuous, nor enter minutely and profoundly into the causes of vice without being vicious himself." ''It is true," said Hamilton: "and your remark, which affects to be so deep, is but a natural corollary from the hackneyed maxim that from experience comes wisdom." " But, for my part," said Boulainvilliers, " I think Tacitus is not so invariably the analyzer of vice as you would make him. Look at the Agricola and the Germania." " Ah ! the Germany, above all things ! " cried Hamilton, dropping a delicious morsel of sartglier in its way from hand to mouth, in his hurry to speak. "Of course, the historian, Bou- lainvilliers, advocates the Germany, from its mention of the * A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the Huetiana, and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and untrue. ED. 234 DEVEREUX. origin of the feudal system that incomparable bundle of excel- lences, which Le Cointe de Boulainvilliers has declared to be le chef d' on uv re de I'espiit humain : and which the same gentleman regrets, in the most pathetic terms, no longer exists in order that the seigneur may feed upon des gros morceaux de bxuf demi- cru, may hang up half his peasants pour encourager les autres, and ravish the daughters of thedefunct^wr leur donner qudque consolation." " Seriously, though," said the old Abbe de Chaulieu, with a twinkling eye, " the last mentioned evil, my dear Hamilton, was not without a little alloy of good." "Yes," said Hamilton, " if it was only the daughters; but perhaps the seigneur was not too scrupulous with regard to the wives." " Ah! shocking, shocking! " cried Chaulieu, solemnly. " Adul- tery is, indeed, an atrocious crime. I am sure I would most conscientiously cry out with the honest preacher 'Adultery, my children, is the blackest of sins.' I do declare that I would rather have ten virgins in love with me than one married woman ! " We all laughed at this enthusiastic burst of virtue from the chaste Chaulieu. And Arouet turned our conversation towards the ecclesiastical dissensions between Jesuits and Jansenists, that then agitated the kingdom. " Those priests," said Boling- broke, " remind me of the nurses of Jupiter they make a great clamor, in order to drown the voice of their God." " Bravissimo ! " cried Hamilton. " Is it not a pity, messieurs, that my Lord Bolingbroke was not a Frenchman ? He is almost clever enough to be one." " If he would drink a little more, he would be," cried Chau- lieu, who was now setting us all a glorious example. "What say you, Morton?" exclaimed Bolingbroke; "must we not drink these gentlemen under the table for the honor of our country." " A challenge ! a challenge ! " cried Chaulieu. " I march first to the field !" " Conquest or death ! " shouted Bolingbroke. And the rites of Minerva were forsaken for those of Bacchus. DEVEREUX. 235 CHAPTER VI. A Court, Courtiers, and a King. I THINK it was the second day after this " feast of reason " that Lord Bolingbroke deemed it advisable to retire to Lyons till his plans of conduct were ripened into decision. We took an affectionate leave of each other ; but before we parted, and after he had discussed his own projects of ambition, we talked a little upon mine. Although I was a Catholic and a pupil of Montreuil, although I had fled from England, and had nothing to expect from the House of Hanover, I was by no means favorably disposed towards the Chevalier and his cause. I wonder if this avowal will seem odd to Englishmen of the next century. To Englishmen of the present one, a Roman Catholic, and a lover of priestcraft and tyranny, are two words for the same thing ; as if we could not murmur at tithes and taxes insecurity of property or arbitrary legislation, just as sourly as any other Christian community. No ! I never loved the cause of the Stuarts unfortunate, and therefore interesting, as the Stuarts were ; by a very stupid, and yet uneffaceable confusion of ideas, I confounded it with the cause of Montreuil, and I hated the latter enough to dislike the former : I fancy all party principles are formed much in the same manner. I frankly told Bolingbroke my disinclination to the Chevalier. "Between ourselves be it spoken," said he, " there is but little to induce a wise man, \t\yonr circumstances, to join James the Third. I would advise you rather to take advantage of your father's reputation at the French court, and enter into the same service he did. Things wear a dark face in England for you, and a bright one everywhere else." " I have already," said I, " in my own mind, perceived and weighed the advantages of entering into the service of Louis. But he is old he cannot live long. People now pay court to parties not to the king. Which party, think you, is the best that of Madame de Maintenon ? " " Nay, I think not ; she is a cold friend, and never asks favors of Louis for any of her family. A bold game might be played by attaching yourself to the Duchesse d'Orleans (the Duke's mother). She is at daggers-drawn with Maintenon, it is true, and she is a violent, haughty, and coarse woman ; but she has wit, talent, strength of mind, and will zealously serve any per- son of high birth, who pays her respect. But she can do noth- ing for you till the King's death, and then only on the chance 236 DEVEREUX. of her son's power. But let me see you say Fleuri, the Bishop of Frejus, is to introduce you to Madame de Maintenon ? " " Yes ; and has appointed the day after to-morrow for that purpose." "Well, then, make close friends with him you will not find it difficult; he has a delightful address, and if you get hold of his weak points, you may win his confidence. Mark me Fleuri has no fau-x-btillant, no genius, indeed, of very prominent order ; but he is one of those soft and smooth minds, which, in a crisis like the present, when parties are contending, and princes wrangling, always slip silently and unobtrusively into one of the best places. Keep in with Frejus you cannot do wrong by it although you must remember that at present he is in ill odor with the King, and you need not go with him twice to Ver- sailles. But, above all, when you are introduced to Louis, do not forget that you cannot please him better than by appearing awe-stricken." Such was Bolingbroke's parting advice. The Bishop of Frejus carried me with him (on the morning we had appointed) to Versailles. What a magnificent work of royal imagination is that palace ! I know not in any epic a grander idea than terming the avenues which lead to it the roads "to Spain, to Holland" etc. In London, they would have been the roads to Chelsea and Pentonville ! As we were driving slowly along in the bishop's carriage, I had ample time for conversation with that personage, who has since, as the Cardinal de Fleuri, risen to so high a pitch of power. He certainly has in him very little of the great man ; nor do I know any where so striking an instance of this truth that in that game of honors which is played at courts, we obtain success less by our talents than our tempers. He laughed, with a graceful turn of badinage, at the political peculiarities of Madame de Balzac : and said that it was not for the uppermost party to feel resentment at the chafings of the under one. Sliding from this topic, he then questioned me as to the gayeties I had witnessed. I gave him a description of the party at Boulain- villiers's. He seemed much interested in this, and showed more shrewdness than I should have given him credit for, in discuss- ing the various characters of the literati of the day. After some general conversation on works of fiction, he artfully glided into treating on those of statistics and politics, and I then caught a sudden, but thorough, insight into the depths of his policy. I saw that, while lie affected to be indifferent to the difficulties and puzzles of state, he lost no opportunity of gain- DEVEREUX. 237 ing every particle of information respecting them ; and that he made conversation, in which he was skilled, a vehicle for acquiring that knowledge which he had not the force of mind to create from his o\vn intellect, or to work out from the written labors of others. If this made him a superficial statesman, it made him a prompt one ; and there was never so lucky a minister with so little trouble to himself.* As we approached the end of our destination, we talked of the King. On this subject he was jealously cautious. But I gleaned from him, despite of his sagacity, that it was high time to make all use of one's acquaintance with Madame de Main- tenon that one could be enabled to do ; and that it was so difficult to guess the exact places in which power would rest after the death of the old King, 'that supineness and silence made at present the most profound policy. As we alighted from the carriage, and I first set my foot within the palace, I could not but feel involuntarily, yet power- fully, impressed with the sense of the spirit of the place. I was in the precincts of that mighty court that had gathered into one dazzling focus all the rays of genius which half a century had emitted ; the court at which time had passed at once from the morn of civilization into its full noon and glory ; the court of Conde and Turenne of Villars and of Tourville ; the court where, over the wit of Grammont, the profusion of Fouquet, the fatal genius of Louvois (fatal to humanity and to France), Love, real. Love, had not disdained to shed its pathos and its truth, and to consecrate the hollow pageantries of royal pomp with the tenderness, the beauty, and the repentance of La Val- liere. Still over that scene hung the spells of a genius which, if artificial and cold, was also vast, stately, and magnificent a genius which had swelled in the rich music of Racine which had raised the nobler spirit and the freer thought of Pierre Corneille,f which had given edge to the polished weapon of Boi'leau which had lavished over the bright page of Moliere Moliere, more wonderful than all a knowledge of the humors and the hearts of men, which no dramatist, save Shakspeare, has surpassed. Within those walls still glowed, though now waxing faint and dim, the fame of that monarch who had en- joyed, at least till his later day, the fortune of Augustus, un- sullied by the crimes of Octavius. Nine times, since the sun * At his death appeared the following punning epigram : " Floruit sine fructu ; " Dejloruit sine luctu." He flowered without fruit, and faded without regret. ED. t Rigidly speaking, Corneille belongs to a period earlier than that of Louis XIV t though he has been included in the era formed by that reign. Ep. 238 DEYERKUX. of that monarch rose, had the Papal Chair received a new occu- pant ! Six sovereigns had reigned over the Ottoman hordes ! The fourth emperor, since the birth of the same era, bore sway over Germany ! Five czars, from Michael Romanoff to the Great Peter, had held, over their enormous territory, the pre- carious tenure of their iron power ! Six kings had borne the painful cincture of the English crown ; * two of those kings had been fugitives to that court to the son of the last it was an asylum at that moment. What wonderful changes had passed over the face of Europe during that single reign ! In England only, what a vast leap in the waste of events, from the reign of the first Charles to that of George the First ! I still lingered I still gazed, as these thoughts, linked to one another in an electric chain, flashed over me ! I still paused on the threshold of those stately halls which Nature herself had been conquered lo rear! Where, through the whole earth, could I find so meet a symbol for the character and the name which that sovereign would leave to posterity, as this place itself afforded ? A gorgeous monument of regal state raised from a desert crowded alike with empty pageantries and illustrious names a prodigy of elaborate artifice, grand in its whole effect, petty in its small details ; a solitary oblat-ion to a splendid selfishness, and most remarkable for the revenues which it exhausted, and the poverty by which it is surrounded ! Fleuri, with his usual urbanity an urbanity that, on a great scale, would have been benevolence had hitherto indulged me in my emotions ; he now laid his hand upon my arm, and recalled me to myself. Before I could apologize for my ab- straction, the bishop was accosted by an old man of evident rank, but of a countenance more strikingly demonstrative of the little cares of a mere courtier than any I ever beheld. "What news, Monsieur le Marquis ?" said Fleuri, smiling. "Oh! the greatest imaginable! the king talks of receiving the Danish minister on Thursday, which, you know, is his day of domestic business ! What can this portend? Besides," and here the speaker's voice lowered into a whisper, "I am told by the Due de la Rochefoucault that the King intends, out of all ordinary rule and practice, to take physic to-morrow I can't believe it no, I positively can't; but don't let this go farther! " " Heaven forbid ! " answered Fleuri, bowing, and the cour- * Besides Cromwell ; vi*., Charles I., Charles II., Tames II.. William and Mary, Anne, Ceorge I. DEVEREUX. 239 tier passed on to whisper his intelligence to others. "Who's that gentleman," I asked. " The Marquis de Dangeau," answered Fleuri ; "a noble- man of great quality, who keeps a diary of all the King says and does. It will perhaps be a posthumous publication, and will show the world of what importance nothings can be made. I dare say, Count, you have already, in England, seen enough of a court to know that there are some people who are as human echoes, and have no existence except in the noise occasioned by another." I took care that my answer should not be a witticism, lest Fleuri should think I was attempting to rival him ; and so we passed on in an excellent humor with each other. We mounted the grand staircase, and came to an ante-cham- ber, which, though costly and rich, was not remarkably con- spicuous for splendor. Here the bishop requested me to wait for a moment. Accordingly, I amused myself with looking over some engravings of different saints. Meanwhile, my com- panion passed through another door, and I was alone. After an absence of nearly ten minutes, he returned. " Ma- dame de Maintenon," said he, in a whisper, "is but poorly to- day. However, she has eagerly consented to see you follow me ! " So saying, the ecclesiastical courtier passed on, with myself at his heels. We came to the door of a second chamber, at which Fleuri scraped gently. We were admitted, and found therein three ladies, one of whom was reading, a second laugh- ing, and a third yawning, and entered into another chamber, where, alone, and seated by the window, in a large chair, with one foot on a stool, in an attitude that rather reminded me of my mother, and which seems to me a favorite position with all devotees, we found an old woman without rouge, plainly dressed, with spectacles on her nose r and a large book on a little table before her. With a most profound salutation, Fre"jus approached, and taking me by the hand, said, " Will Madame suffer me to present to her the Count Dever- eux ?" Madame de Maintenon, with an air of great meekness and humility, bowed a return to the salutation. " The son of Ma- dame la Mare"chale de Devereux will always be most welcome to me ! " Then, turning towards us, she pointed to two stools, and, while we were seating ourselves, said "And how did you leave my excellent friend ?" " When, Madame, I last saw my mother, which is now nearly 24 DEVEREUJi. a year ago, she was in health, and consoling herself for the ad- vance of years by that tendency to wean the thoughts from this world which (in her own language) is the divinest comfort of old age ! " "Admirable woman ! " said Madame de Maintenon, casting down her eyes; "such are, indeed, the sentiments in which I recognize the Marechale. And how does her beauty wear? Those golden locks, and blue eyes, and that snowy skin, are not yet, I suppose, wholly changed for an adequate compensation of the beauties within ! " "Time, Madame, has been gentle with her ; and I have often thought, though never, perhaps, more strongly than at this mo- ment, that there is in those divine studies, which bring calm and light to the mind, something which preserves and embalms, as it were, the beauty of the body." A faint blush passed over the face of the devotee. No, no-^- not even at eighty years of age is a compliment to a woman's beauty misplaced ! There was a slight pause. I thought that respect forbade me to break it. " His Majesty," said the bishop, in the tone of one who is sensible that he encroaches a little, and does it with consequent reverence " his Majesty, I hope, is well." "God be thanked, yes, as well as we can expect. It is now nearly the hour in which his Majesty awaits your personal in- quiries." Fleuri bowed as he answered " The King then, will receive us to-day ? My young compan- ion is very desirous to see the greatest monarch, and conse- quently the greatest man, of the age." " The desire is natural," said Madame de Maintenon : and then, turning to me, she asked if I had yet seen King James the Third. I took care, in my answer, to express that even if I had re- solved to make that stay in Paris which allowed me to pay my respects to him at all, I should have deemed that both duty and inclination led me, in the first instance, to offer my homage to one who was both the benefactor of my father, and the monarch whose realms afforded me protection. "You have not, then," said Madame de Maintenon, "decided on the length of your stay in France?" "No," said I and my answer was regulated by my desire to see ho\v far I might rely on the services of one who expressed herself so warm a friend of that excellent woman, Madame la Marechale " No, Madame. France is the country of my birth, DEVEREUX. S4I if England is that of my parentage ; and could I hope for some portion of that royal favor which my father enjoyed, I would rather claim it as the home of my hopes than the refuge of my exile. But" and I stopped short purposely. The old lady looked at me very earnestly through her specta- cles for one moment, and then, hemming twice with a little em- barrassment, again remarked to the bishop, that the time for seeing the King was nearly arrived. Fleuri, whose policy at that period was very like that of the concealed queen, and who was, besides, far from desirous of introducing any new claimants on Madame de Maintenon's official favor, though he might not ob- ject to introduce them to her private friendship, was not slow in taking the hint. He rose, and I was forced to follow his example. Madame de Maintenon thought she might safely indulge in a little cordiality when I was just on the point of leaving her, and accordingly,blest me and gave me her hand, which I kissed very devoutly. An extremely pretty hand it was, too, notwith- standing the good queen's age. We then retired, and, repassing the three ladies who were now all yawning, repaired to the King's apartments. "What think you of Madame ?" asked Fleuri. "What can I think of her," said Incautiously, "but that great- ness seems in her to take its noblest form that of simplicity ? " " True," rejoined Fleuri, " never was there so meek a mind joined to so lowly a carriage ? Do you remark any trace of former beauty?" "Yes, indeed, there is much that is soft in her countenance, and much that is still regular in her features ; but what struck me most was the pensive and even sad tranquillity that rests upon her face when she is silent." "The expression betrays the mind," answered Fleuri; "and the curse of the great is ennui." " Of the great in station," said I, " but not necessarily of the great in mind. I have heard that the Bishop of Frejus, not- withstanding his rank and celebrity, employs every hour to the advantage of others, and consequently without tedium to himself." " Aha ! " said Fleuri, smiling. gently, and patting my cheek : " see, now, if the air of palaces is not absolutely prolific of pretty speeches." And, before I could answer, we were in the apartments of the King. Leaving me awhile to cool my heels in a gallery, filled with the butterflies who bask in the royal sunshine, Fre"jus then dis- 242 DEVEREUX. appeared among the crowd ; he was scarcely gone when I agreeably surprised by seeing Count Hamilton approach to- wards me. " Mort diable ! " said he, shaking me by the hand, ^ V Anglaise; " I am really delighted to see any one here who does not insult my sins with his superior excellence. Eh, now, look round this apartment for a moment ! Whether would you believe yourself at the court of a great king, or the levee of a Roman cardinal? Whom see you chiefly ? Gallant soldiers, with worn brows and glittering weeds ; wise statesmen, with ruin to Austria and defiance to Rome in every wrinkle ; gay nobles in costly robes, and with the bearing that so nicely teaches mirth to be dignified and dignity to be merry ? No ! cassock and hat, rosary and gown, decking sly, demure, hypocritical faces, flit, and stalk, and sadden round us. It seems to me," continued the witty Count, in a lower whisper, "as if the old King, having fairly buried his glory at Ramilies and Blenheim, had sum- moned all these good gentry to sing psalms over it ! But are you waiting for a private audience ? " "Yes, under the auspices of the Bishop of Frejus." " You might have chosen a better guide the King has been too much teased about him," rejoined Hamilton, "and now that we are talking of him, I will show you a singular instance of what good manners can do at court, in preference to good abilities. You observe yon quiet, modest-looking man, with a sensible countenance, and a clerical garb ; you observe how he edges away when any one approaches to accost him ; and how, trom his extreme dis-esteem of himself, he seems to inspire every one with the same sentiment. Well, that man is a name- sake of Fleuri's, the Prior of Argenteuil ; he has come here, I suppose, for some particular and temporary purpose, since, in reality, he has left the court. Well, that worthy priest do re- mark his bow ; did you ever see anything so awkward ? is one of the most learned divines that the church can boast of ; he is as immeasurably superior to the smooth-faced Bishop of Frejus as Louis the Fourteenth is to my old friend Charles the Second. He has had equal opportunities with the said bishop ; been preceptor to the princes of Conti, and the Count de Verman- dois ; and yet, I. will wager that he lives and dies a tutor a bookworm and a prior ; while t'other Fleuri, without a par- ticle of merit, but of the most superficial order, governs already kings through their mistresses, kingdoms through the kings, and rnay, for aught I know, expand into a prime minister, and ripen into a cardinal." DEVEREUX. 243 "Nay," said I, smiling, "there is little chance of so exalted a lot for the worthy bishop." "Pardon me," interrupted Flamilton, "I am an old courtier, and look steadily on the game I no longer play. Suppleness, united with art, may do anything in a court like this ; and the smooth and unelevated craft of a Fleuri may win even to the same height as the deep wiles of the glittering Mazarin, or the superb genius of the imperious Richelieu." "Hist !" said I, "the bishop has reappeared. Who is that old priest, with a fine countenance, and an address that will, at least, please you better than that of the Prior of Argenteuil, who has just stopped our episcopal courtier?" "What! do you not know ? It is the most celebrated preacher of the day the great Massillon. It is said that that handsome person goes a great way towards winning converts among the court ladies ; it is certain, at least, that when Massillon first entered the profession, he was to the soul something like the spear of Achilles to the body ; and though very efficacious in healing the wounds of conscience, was equally ready, in the first instance, to inflict them." " Ah ! " said I, " see the malice of wit ; and see, above all, how much more ready one is to mention a man's frailties than to enlarge upon his virtues." "To be sure," answered Hamilton coolly, and patting his snuff-box " to be sure, we old people like history better than fiction ; and frailty is certain, while virtue is always doubtful." " Don't judge of all people," said I, " by your experience among the courtiers of Charles the Second." " Right," said Hamilton. " Providence never assembled so many rascals together before, without hanging them. And he would indeed be a bad judge of human nature who estimated the characters of men in general by the heroes of Newgate and the victims of Tyburn. Butyour bishop approaches. Adieu!" "What!" said Fleuri, joining me and saluting Hamilton, who had just turned to depart, "what, Count Antoine ! Does anything but whim bring you here to-day ?" " No," answered Hamilton ; " I am only here for the same purpose as the poor go to the temples of Caitan to inhale the steam of those good things which I see the priests devour." " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the good-natured bishop, not in the least disconcerted ; and Count Hamilton, congratulating himself on his ban mot, turned away. " I have spoken to his Most Christian Majesty," said the bishop ; " he is willing, as he before ordained, to admit you to 244 DEVEREUX. his presence. The Due de Maine is with the King, as also some other members of the royal family ; but you will consider this a private audience." I expressed my gratitude we moved on the doors of an apartment were thrown open and I saw myself in the presence of Louis XIV. The room was partially darkened. In the centre of it, on a large sofa, reclined the King ; he was dressed (although this, if I may so speak, I rather remembered than noted) in a coat of black velvet, slightly embroidered ; his vest was of white satin ; he wore no jewels nor orders, for it was only on grand or gala days that he displayed personal pomp. At some little distance from him stood three members of the royal family them I never regarded all my attention was bent upon the King. My temperament is not that on which greatness, or indeed any ex- ternal circumstances, makes much impression, but, as following, at a little distance, the Bishop of Frejus, I approached the royal person, I must confess that Bolingbroke had scarcely need to have cautioned me not to appear too self-possessed. Perhaps, had I seen that great monarch in his beaux jours in the plenitude of his power his glory the dazzling and meri- dian splendor of his person, his court, and his renown, pride might have made me more on my guard against too deep, or at least too apparent, an impression ; but the many reverses of that magnificent sovereign reverses in which he had shown himself more great than in all his p'revious triumphs and earlier successes ; his age his infirmities the very clouds round the setting sun the very howls of joy at the expiring lion all were calculated, in my mind, to deepen respect into reverence, and tincture reverence itself with awe. I saw before me not only the majesty of Louis-le-Grand, but that of misfortune, of weak- ness, of infirmity, and of age ; and I forgot at once, in that re- flection, what otherwise w'ould have blunted my sentiments of deference, viz., the crimes of his ministers, and the exactions of his reign ! Endeavoring to collect my mind from an embarrass- ment which surprised myself, I lifted my eyes towards the King, and saw a countenance where the trace of the superb beauty, for which his manhood had been celebrated, still lingered, broken, not destroyed, and borrowing a dignity even more im- posing from the marks of encroaching years, and from the evi- dent exhaustion of suffering and disease. Fleuri said, in a low tone, something which my ear did not catch. There was a pause only a moment's pause ; and then, in a voice, the music of which I had hitherto deemed exagger. DEVEREtfX. 245 ated, the King spoke; and in that voice there was something so kind and encouraging that I felt reassured at once. Perhaps its tone was not the least conciliating from the evident effect which the royal presence had produced upon me. " You have given us, Count Devereux," said the King, "a pleasure which we are glad, in person, to acknowledge to you. And it has seemed to us fitting that the country in which your brave father acquired his fame should also be the asylum of his son." " Sire," answered I, " Sire, it shall not be my fault if that country is not henceforth my own ; and, in inheriting my father's name, I inherit also his gratitude and his ambition." " It is well said, sir," said the King ; and I once more raised my eyes, and perceived that his were bent upon me. " It is well said," he repeated, after a short pause ; "and in granting to you this audience, we were not unwilling to hope that you were de- sirous to attach yourself to our court. The times do not require " (here I thought the old King's voice was not quite so firm as before) " the manifestation of your zeal in the same career as that in which your father gained laurels to France and to himself. But we will not neglect to find employment for your abilities, if not for your sword." " That sword which was given to me, Sire," said I, "by your Majesty, shall be ever drawn (against all nations but one) at your command ; and, in being your Majesty's petitioner for future favors, I only seek some channel through which to evince my gratitude for the past." " We do not doubt," said Louis, " that whatever be the num- ber of the ungrateful we may make by testifying our good plea- sure o.n your behalf, jw/ will not be among the number." The king here made a slight, but courteous inclination, and turned round. The observant Bishop of Frjus, who had retired to a little distance, and who knew that the King never liked talking more than he could help it, gave me a signal. I obeyed, and backed, with all due deference, out of the royal presence. So closed my interview with Louis XIV. Although his Majesty did not indulge in prolixity, I spoke of him for a long time afterwards as the most eloquent of men. Believe me, there is no orator like a king ; one word from a royal mouth stirs the heart more than Demosthenes could have done. There was a deep moral in that custom of the ancients, by which the God- dess of Persuasion was always represented with a diadem onhef head. 246 DfcVEREttX. CHAPTER VII. Reflections A Soiree The appearance of one important in the History" A Conversation with Madame de Balzac highly satisfactory and cheer- ing A Rencontre with a curious old Soldier The extinction of a once great Luminary. I HAD now been several weeks at Paris ; I had neither eagerly sought, nor sedulously avoided, its gayeties. It is not that one violent sorrow leaves us without power of enjoyment- it only lessens the power, and deadens the enjoyment ; it does not take away from us the objects of life it only forestalls the more indifferent calmness of age. The blood no longer flows in an irregular, but delicious, course of vivid and wild emotion ; the step no longer spurns the earth ; nor does the ambition wander, insatiable, yet undefined, over the million paths of existence ; but we lose not our old capacities they are quieted, not extinct. The heart can never utterly and long be dormant ; trifles may not charm it any more, nor levities delight ; but its pulse has not yet ceased to beat. We survey the scene that moves around, with a gaze no longer distracted by every hope that flutters by ; and it is therefore that we find ourselves more calculated than before for the graver occupations of our race. The overflowing temperament is checked to its proper level, the ambition bounded to its prudent and lawful goal. The earth is no longer so green, nor the heaven so blue, nor the fancy that stirs within us so rich in its creations ; but we look more narrowly on the living crowd, and more rationally on the aims of men. The misfortune which has changed us has only adapted us the better to a climate in which misfortune is a portion of the air. The grief, that has thralled our spirit to a more narrow and dark cell, has also been a chain that has linked us to mankind with a strength of which we dreamt not in the day of a wilder freedom and more luxuriant aspirings. In later life, a new spirit, partaking of that which was our ear- liest, returns to us. The solitude which delighte'd us in youth, but which, when the thoughts that make solitude a fairy-land are darkened by affliction, becomes a fearful and sombre void, resumes its old spell, as the more morbid and urgent memory of that affliction crumbles away by time. Content is a hermit ; but so also is Apathy. Youth love the solitary couch, which it surrounds with dreams. Age, or Experience (which is the mind's age) loves the same couch for the rest which it affords ; but the wide interval between is that of exertion, of labor, and DEVEREUX. 247 labor among"men. The woe which makesour//EVEREUX. 265 "True, true! I have heard much of you : you are intimate with Milord Bolingbroke. Would that I had fifty friends like him." " Monseigneur would have little trouble in his regency if his wish were realized," said Chatran. " Tantmieux, so long as I had little odium, as well as little trouble a happiness which, thanks to you and Dubois, I am not likely to enjoy But there is the carriage ! " And the Duke pointed to a dark, plain carriage, which we had suddenly come upon. " Count Devereux," said the merry Regent, "you will enter ; my duty requires that, at this seductive hour, I should see a young gentleman of your dangerous age safely lodged at his hotel ! " We entered, Chatran gave the orders, and we drove off rapidly. The Regent hummed a tune, and his two companions listened to it in respectful silence. " Well, well, Messieurs," said he, bursting out at last into open voice, " I will ever believe in future, that the gods rf^look benignantly on us worshippers of the Alma Venus ! Do you know much of Tibullus, Monsieur Devereux ? And can you assist my memory with the continuation of the line " ' Quisquis amore tenetur, eat ' " " ' tutusque sacerque Qualibet, insidias non timuisse decet. ' " * answered I. "Bon!" cried the duke. " I love a gentleman from my very soul, when he can both fight well and read Latin ! I hate a man who is merely a wine-bibber and blade-drawer. By St. Louis, though it is an excellent thing to fill the stomach, especially with Tokay, yet there is no reason in the world why we should not fill the head too. But here we are. Adieu, Monsieur Devereux we shall see you at the Palace." I expressed my thanks briefly at the Regent's condescension, descended from the carriage (which instantly drove off with renewed celerity), and once more entered my hotel. Two or three days after my adventure with the Regent, I thought it expedient to favor that eccentric prince with a visit. During the early part of his regency, it is well known how suc- cessfully he combated with his natural indolence, and how devotedly his mornings were surrendered to the toils of his new office ; but when pleasure has grown habit, it requires a * Whoever is possessed by Love may go safe and holy whithersoever he likes. It become* not him to fear snares. 266 DEVEREUX. stronger mind than that of Philippe Debonnalr to give it a permanent successor in business. Pleasure is, indeed, like the genius of the fable, the most useful of slaves, while you subdue it : the most intolerable of tyrants the moment your negligence suffers it to subdue you. The hours in which the Prince gave audience to the com- rades of his lighter, rather than grave occupations, were those immediately before and after his levee. I thought that this would be the best season for me to present myself. Accord- ingly, one morning after the levee, I repaired to his palace. The ante-chamber was already crowded. I sat myself quietly down in one corner of the room, and looked upon the motley groups around. I smiled inly as they reminded me of the scenes my own anle-room, in my younger days of folly and fortune was wont to exhibit ; the same heterogeneous assem- blage (only upon a grander scale) of the ministers to the physi- cal appetites and the mental tastes. There was the fretting and impudent mountebank, side by side with the gentle and and patient scholar the harlot's envoy and the priest's mes- senger the agent of the police, and the licensed breaker of its laws there; but what boots a more prolix description? What is the ante-room of a great man, who has many wants and many tastes, but a panorama of the blended disparities of this compounded world.) While I was moralizing, a gentleman suddenly thrust his head out of a door, and appeared to reconnoitre us. Instantly the crowd swept up to him. I thought I might as well follow the general example, and pushing aside some of my fellow loit- erers, I presented myself and my name to the gentleman, with the most ingratiating air I could command. The gentleman, who was tolerably civil for a great man's great man, promised that my visit should be immediately an- nounced to the Prince ; and then, with the politest bow imagi- nable, slapped the door in my face. After I had waited about seven or eight minutes longer, the gentleman reappeared, singled me from the crowd, and desired me to follow him ; I passed through another room, and was presently in the Regent's presence. I was rather startled when I saw, by the morning light, and in deshabille, the person of that royal martyr to dissipation. His countenance was red, but bloated, and a weakness in his eyes added considerably to the jaded and haggard expression of his features. A proportion of stomach rather inclined to corpulency seemed to betray the taste for the pleasures of the DEVEREUX. 267 table, which the most radically coarse, and yet (strange to say) the most generally accomplished and really good-natured of royal profligates, combined with his other qualifications. He was yawning very elaborately over a great heap of papers, when I entered. He finished his yawn (as if it were too brief and too precious a recreation to lose), and then said, " Good morn- ing, Monsieur Devereux ; I am glad that you have found me out at last." " I was afraid, Monseigneur, of appearing an intruder on your presence, by offering my homage to you before." "So like my good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow indicated at once the ability and vice which com- posed his character. "So like my good fortune, is it not Du- bois ? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is always so terribly afraid of intruding ! and whenever I pick up a respectable personage without wit, or a wit without respecta- bility, he attaches himself to me like a burr, and can't live a day without inquiring after my health." Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was bent darkly and keenly upon me. " Well," said the Prince, " what think you of our opera, Count Devereux ? It beats your English one eh ?" "Ah, certainly, Monseigneur; ours is but a reflection of yours." " So says your friend, Milord Bolingbroke, a person who knows about operas almost as much as I do, which, vanity apart, is saying a great deal. I should like very well to visit England what should I learn best there ? In Spain (I shall always love Spain), I learnt to cook." " Monseigneur, I fear," answered I, smiling, " could obtain but little additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years astonished the cultivators of the science ; but the night of ignorance rests still upon its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would find best worth studying in England would be the women." "Ah, the women all over the world ! " cried the Duke, laugh- ing ; "but I hear your belles Anglaiscs are sentimental, and love blArcadienne" " It is true at present : but who shall say how far Monseign- eur's example might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous ? " 268 DEVEREUX. " True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois ? What would Philip of Orleans have been but for thee?" 4 ' ' L'exemple souvent n'est qu'un miroir trompeur ; Quelquefoib 1'un se brise ou 1'autre s'est sauve, Et par ou 1'un peril, un autre est conserve,' " * answered Dubois out of Cinna. "Corneille is right," rejoined the Regent. "After all, to do thee justice, mon petit Abb^ example has little to do with cor- rupting us. Nature pleads the cause of Pleasure, as Hype- rides pleaded that of Phyrne. She has no need of eloquence : she unveils the bosom of her client, and her client is acquitted." " Monseigneur shows at least that he has learnt to profit by my humble instructions in the classics," said Dubois. The Duke did not answer. I turned my eyes to some draw- ings on the table I expressed my admiration of them. " They are mine," said the Regent. "Ah ! I should have been much more accomplished as a private gentleman than I fear I ever shall be as a public man of toil and business. Business bah ! But Necessity is the only real sovereign in the world, the only despot for whom there is no law. What ! are you going already, Count Devereux?" " Monseigneur's anti-room is crowded with less fortunate persons than myself, whose sins of envy and covetousness I am now answerable for." " Ah well ! I must hear the poor devils ; the only pleasure I have is in seeing how easily I can make them happy. Would to heaven, Dubois, that one could govern a great kingdom only by fair words ! Count Devereux, you have seen me to-day as my acquaintance ; see me again as my petitioner. Bon jour, Monsieur." And I retired, very well pleased with my reception : from that time, indeed, during the rest of my short stay at Paris, the Prince honored me with his especial favor. But I have dwelt too long on my sojourn at the French court. The persons whom I have described, and who alone made that sojourn memora- ble, must be my apology. One day I was honored by a visit from the Abbe Dubois. After a short conversation upon indifferent things, he accosted me thus : " You are aware, Count Devereux, of the partiality which the Regent has conceived towards you. Fortunate would it be * Example is often but a deceitful mirror ; where sometimes one destroys himself, while another comes off safe ; and where one perishes, another is preserved, DEVEREUX. 269 for that Prince" (here Dubois elevated his brows with an iron- ical and arch expression), "so good by disposition, so injured by example, if his partiality had been more frequently testified towards gentlemen of your merit. A mission of considerable importance, and one demanding great personal address, gives his Royal Highness an opportunity of testifying his esteem for you. He honored me with a conference on the subject yester- day, and has now commissioned me to explain to you the tech- nical objects of this mission, and to offer to you the honor of undertaking it. Should you accept the proposals, you will wait upon his highness before his levee to-morrow." Dubois then proceeded, in the clear, rapid manner peculiar to him, to comment on the state of Europe. "For France," said he, in concluding his sketch, " peace is absolutely neces- sary. A drained treasury, an exhausted country, require it. You see, from what I have said, that Spain and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread hostilities. Spain we must guard against England we must propitiate ; the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad. The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear the ambition of the Queen of Spain, and the turbulent genius of her minion Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at various courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our enemies. We wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a secret mission to Russia will you be that person ? Your absence from Paris will be but short you will see a very droll country, and a very droll sovereign ; you will return hither, doubly the rage and with a just claim to more important em- ployment hereafter. What say you to the proposal ?" "I must hear more," said I, "before I decide." The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particu- lars of the commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that after a brief consideration, I accepted the honor proposed to me. The Abbe wished me joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few minutes, and then reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle and crafty ecclesias- tic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were always blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to banish me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose favor the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment ex- 2JTO DEVEREUX. clusively to monopolize. Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his aims upon the Prince ; mere men of busi- ness still less : but a man who was thought to combine the ca- pacities of both, and who was moreover distinguished by the Regent, he deemed a more dangerous rival than the inestima- ble person thus suspected really was. However, I cared little for the honest man's motives. Ad- venture to me had always greater charms than dissipation, and it was far more agreeable to the nature of my ambition, to win distinction by any honorable method, than by favoritism at a court, so hollow, so unprincipled, and so grossly licentious as that of the Regent. There to be the most successful courtier was to be the most amusing profligate. Alas, when the heart is away from its objects, and the taste revolts at its excess, Pleasure is worse than palling it is a torture ! and the devil in Jonson's play did not perhaps greatly belie the truth when he averred " that the pains in his native country were pastimes to the life of a person of Fashion." The Duke of Orleans received me the next morning with more than his wonted bonhomie. What a pity that so good- natured a prince should have been so bad a man ! He enlarged more easily and carelessly than his worthy preceptor had done upon the several points to be observed in my mission then condescendingly told me he was very sorry to lose me from his court, and asked me, at all events, before I left Paris, to be a guest at one of his select suppers. I appreciated this honor at its just value. To these suppers none were asked but the Prince's chums, or roue's* as he was pleased to call them. As, entre nous, these chums were for the most part the most good- for-nothing people in the kingdom, I could not but feel highly flattered at being deemed, by so deep a judge of character as the Regent, worthy to join them. I need not say that the in- vitation was eagerly accepted, nor that I left PJtilippe le Dtbon- naire impressed with the idea of his being the most admirable per- son in Europe. What a fool a great man is if he does not study to be affable weigh a prince's condescension in one scale, and all the cardinal virtues in the other, and the condescension will outweigh them all ! The Regent of France ruined his country as much as he well could do, and there was not a dry eye when he died ! A day had now effected a change a great change in my fate. * The term raieS, now so comprehensive, was first given by the Regent to a select num- ber of his friends ; according to them, because they would be broken on the wheel for his sake ; according to himself, because they deserved to be so broken, ED, J3EVEREUX. 27 1 A new court a new theatre of action a new walk of ambition, were suddenly opened to me. Nothing could be more promis- ing than my first employment nothing could be more pleas- ing, than the anticipation of change. " I must force myself, to be agreeable to-night," said J, as I dressed for the Regent's sup- per. " I must leave behind me the remembrance of a bon mot, or I shall be forgotten." And I was right. In that whirlpool, the capital of France, everything sinks but wit that is always on the surface, and we must cling to it with a firm grasp, if we would not go down to "the deep oblivion." CHAPTER X. Royal Exertions for the Good of the People. WHAT a singular scene was that private supper with the Regent of France and his routs! The party consisted of twenty : nine gentlemen of the court besides myself, four men of low rank and character but admirable buffoons and six ladies, such ladies as the Duke loved best witty, lively, sar- castic, and good for nothing. De Chatran accosted me. " Je sttis ran', mon (her Monsieur Devereux" said he gravely, " to see you in such excellent company you must be a little surprised to find yourself here ! " " Not at all ! every scene is worth one visit. He, my good Monsieur Chatran, who goes to the House of Correction once is a philosopher he who goes twice is a rogue ! " " Thank you, Count, what am I then I have been here twenty times? " " Why, I will answer you with a story. The soul of a Jesuit one night, when its body was asleep, wandered down to the lower regions ; Satan caught it, and was about to consign it to some appropriate place ; the soul tried hard to excuse itself : you know what a cunning thing a Jesuit's soul is ! ' Monsieur Satan,' said the spirit ; 'no king should punish a traveller as he would a native. Upon my honor, I am merely here en voyageur.' 'Go, then,' said Satan, and the soul flew back to its body. But the Jesuit died, and came to the lower regions a second time. He was brought before his Satanic ma jest}', and made the same excuse. ' No, no,' cried Beelzebub ; ' once here is to be only le diable voyageur twice here, and you are le diable tout de bon' " 272 DEVERElJJC. "Ha! ha! ha!" said Chatran, laughing : "I then am the diable tout de ban ! 'tis well I am no worse; for we reckon the rou/s a devilish deal worse than the very worst of the devils but see, the Regent approaches us." And, leaving a very pretty and gay-looking lady, the Regent sauntered towards us. It was in walking, by the by, that he lost all the grace of his mien. I don't know, however, that one wishes a great man to be graceful, so long as he's familiar. " Ah, Monsieur Devereux ! " said he, " we will give you some lessons in cooking to-night we shall show you how to provide for yourself in that barbarous country which you are about to visit. Tout voyageur doit tout savoir ! " 11 A very admirable saying ; which leads me to understand that Monseigneur has been a great traveller," said I. " Ay, in all things and all places eh, Count ! " answered the Regent, smiling ; " but," here he lowered his voice a little, '' 1 have never yet learned how you came so opportunely to our assistance that night. Dieu me damne ! but it reminds me of the old story of the two sisters meeting at a gallant's house. 'Oh, sister, how camejw* here?' said one, in virtuous amaze- ment, ''del! ma sceur /' cries the other; 'what brought you ? ' " * " Monseigneur is pleasant," said I, laughing ; " but a man does now and then (though I own it is very seldom) do a good action, without having previously resolved to commit a bad one ! " " I like your parenthesis," cried the Regent, " it reminds me of my friend St. Simon, who thinks so ill of mankind, that I asked him one day, whether it was possible for him to despise anything more than men? 'Yes,' said he, with a low bow, ' women ! ' " " His experience," said I, glancing at the female part of the coterie, "was, I must own, likely to lead him to that opinion." " None of your sarcasms, Monsieur," cried the Regent. " L amusement est un des besoins des thomme as I hear young Arouet very pithily said the other day ; and we owe gratitude to whomsoever it may be that supplies that want. Now, you will agree with me that none supply it like women ; therefore we owe them gratitude therefore we must not hear them abused. Logically proved, 1 think ! " "Yes, indeed," said I, " it is a pleasure to find they have so able an advocate ; and that your Highness can so well apply * The reader will remember a better version of this anecdote in one of the most popular of the English comedies. ED. DEVEREUX. 273 to yourself both the assertions in the motto of the great master of fortification, Vauban 'I destroy, but I defend.' " " Enough," said the duke gayly, " now to our fortifications" ; and he moved away towards the women ; I followed the royal example ; and soon found myself seated next to a pretty, and very small woman. We entered into conversation ; and, when once begun, my fair companion took care that it should not cease, without a miracle. By the goddess Facundia, what volumes of words issued from that little mouth ! and on all subjects too ! church state law politics play-houses lampoons lace liveries kings queens roturiers beggars you would have thought, had you heard her, so vast was her confusion of all things, that chaos had come again. Our royal host did not escape her. " You never before supped here en famille" said she, " Mon Dieu ! it will do your heart good to see how much the Regent will eat. He has such an appetite you know he never eats any dinner, in order to eat the more at supper. You see that little dark woman he is talking to ? well, she is Madame de Parabere he calls her his little black crow was there ever such a pet name ? Can you guess why he likes her ? Nay, never take the trouble of think- ing I will tell you at once simply because she eats and drinks so much. Parole d"honneur, 'tis true. The Regent says he likes sympathy in all things ! is it not droll ? What a hideous old man is that Noce his face looks as if it had caught the rainbow. That impudent fellow Dubois scolded him for squeezing so many louis out of the good Regent. The yellow creature attempted to deny the fact. ' Nay,' cried Dubois, ' you cannot contradict me ; I see their very ghosts in your face.' " While my companion was thus amusing herself, Noce, uncon- scious of her panegyric on his personal attractions, joined us. "Ah! my dear Noce"," said the lady, most affectionately, " how well you are looking ! I am delighted to see you." " I do not doubt it," said Noce, "for I have to inform you that your petition is granted ; your husband will have the place." " Oh, how eternally grateful I am to you ! " cried the lady in an extasy ; "my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had wings to fly to him ! " The gallant Noce uttered a compliment I thought myself de trop, and moved away. I again encountered Chatran. " I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise," said he, smiling ; " she lias a bitter tongue has she not ? " 274 DEVEREUX. " Very ! how she abused the poor rogue Noce ! " " Yes, and yet he is her lover ! " " Her lover ! you astonish me ; why, she seemed almost fond of her husband the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him." "She is fond of him ! " said Chatran drily. " She loves the ground he treads on it is precisely for that reason she favors Noce; she is never happy but when she is procuring something pour son cher bon man. She goes to spend a week at Noce's country-house, and writes to her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, ' My heart is with thee ! " "Certainly," said I, "France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must have been a Parisienne. And when Jupiter made man, he made two natures utterly distinct from one another. One was Human nature, and the other French nature ! " At this moment supper was announced. We all adjourned to another apartment, where, to my great surprise, I observed the cloth laid the sideboard loaded the wines ready, but nothing to eat on the table ! A Madame de Savori, who was next me, noted my surprise. "What astonishes you, Monsieur?" said she. "'Nothing, Madame !" said I, "that is, the absence of alt things." "What ! you expected to see supper?" "I own my delusion I did." "It is not cooked yet !" " Oh ! well, I can wait ! " " And officiate too ! " said the lady ; " in a word, this is one of the Regent's cooking nights." Scarcely had I received this explanation, before there was a general adjournment to an inner apartment, where all the nec- essary articles for cooking were ready to our hand. " The Regent led the way, To light us to our prey," and, with an irresistible gravity and importance of demeanor, entered upon the duties of chef. In a very short time we were all engaged. Nothing could exceed the Zest with which every one seemed to enter into the rites of the kitchen. You would have imagined they had been born scullions, they handled the batterie de cuisine so naturally. As for me, I sought protection with Madame de Savori ; and as, fortunately, she was very deeply skilled in the science, she had occasion to employ me in many minor avocations which her experience taught her would not be above my comprehension. After we had spent a certain time in this dignified occupa- tion, we returned to the sallea manger. The attendants placed the dishes on the table, and we all fell to. Whether out of self-love to their own performances, or complaisance to the per- formances of others, I cannot exactly say, but certain it is that all the guests acquitted themselves a mcrvcille ; you would not have imagined the Regent the only one who had gone without dinner to eat the more at supper. Even that devoted wife to her cher ban Man', who had so severely dwelt upon the good Regent's infirmity, occupied herself with an earnestness that would have seemed almost wolf-like in a famished grenadier. Very silent indeed was the conversation till the supper was nearly over; then the effects of the wine became more percep- tible The Regent was the first person who evinced that he had ate sufficiently to be able to talk. Utterly dispensing with the slightest veil of reserve or royalty, he leant over the table, and poured forth a whole tide of jests. The guests then began to think it was indecorous to stuff themselves any more, and, as well as they were able, they followed their host's example. But the most amusing personages were the buffoons; they mim- icked, and joked, and lampooned, and lied as if by inspiration. As the bottle circulated, and the talk grew louder, the lampoon- ing and the lying were not, however, confined to the buffoons. On the the contrary, the best-born and best-bred people seemed to excel the most in those polite arts. Every person who boasted'a fair name, or a decent reputation at court, was seized, condemned, and mangled in an instant. And how elaborately the good folks slandered ! It was no hasty word and flippant repartee which did the business of the absent there was a precision, a polish, a labor of malice, which showed that each person had brought so many reputations already cut up. The good-natured convivialists differed from all other backbiters that I have ever met, in the same manner as the toads of Suri- nam differ from all other toads, viz.: their venomous offspring were not half-formed, misshapen tadpoles of slander, but sprung at once into life well shaped and fully developed. " Chantons ! " cried the Regent, whose eyes, winking and rolling, gave token of his approaching that state which equals the beggar to the king, "let us have a song. Noce, lift up thy voice, and let us hear what the tokay has put into thy head ! " Noce obeyed, and sang as men half drunk generally do sing. 276 DEVEREUX. " del!" whispered the malicious Savori, "what a hideous screech one would think he had turned his face into a voice! " " Bravissimo !" cried the duke, when his guest had ceased, " what happy people we are ! Our doors are locked not a soul can disturb us we have plenty of wine we are going to get drunk and we have all Paris to abuse ! what were you saying of Marshal Villars, my little Parabere? " And pounce went the little Parabere upon the unfortunate marshal. At last, slander had a respite nonsense began its reign the full inspiration descended upon the orgies the good people lost the use of their faculties. Noise clamor, uproar, broken bottles, falling chairs, and (I grieve to say) their occupants falling too conclude the scene of the royal supper. Let us drop the curtain. CHAPTER XI. An Interview. I WENT a little out of my way, on departing from Paris, to visit Lord Bolingbroke, who at that time was in the country. There are some men whom one never really sees in capitals ; one sees their masks, not themselves ; Bolingbroke was one. It was in retirement, however brief it might be, that his true nature expanded itself, and, weary of being admired, he al- lowed one to love, and even in the wildest course of his earlier excesses, to respect him. My visit was limited to a few hours, but it made an indelible impression upon me. " Once more," I said, as we walked to and fro in the garden of his temporary retreat, "once more you are in your element ; minister and statesman of a prince, and chief supporter of the great plans which are to restore him to his throne." A slight shade passed over Bolingbroke's fine brow. " To you my constant friend," said he, "to you who of all my friends alone remained true in exile, and unshaken by misfor- tune to you I will confide a secret that I would entrust to no other. I repent me already of having espoused this cause. I did so while yet the disgrace of an unmerited attainder tin- gled in my veins ; while I was in the full tide of those warm passions which have so often misled me. Myself attainted the best beloved of my associates in danger my party deserted, and seemingly lost but for some bold measure such as then of- fered ; these were all that I saw. I listened eagerly to repre- bEVEREUX. 277 sentations I now find untrue ; and I accepted that rank and power from one prince which were so rudely and gallingly torn from me by another. I perceive that I have acted imprudently, but what is done, is done ; no private scruples, no private in- terest, shall make me waver in a cause that I have once pledged myself to serve ; and if I can do aught to make a weak cause powerful, and a divided party successful, I will ; but, Devereux, you are wrong, this is not my element. Ever in the paths of strife I have sighed for quiet ; and, while most eager in the pursuit of ambition, I have languished the most fondly for content. The littleness of intrigue disgusts me, and while the branches of my power soared the highest, and spread with the most luxuriance, it galled me to think of the miry soil in which that power was condemned to strike the roots* upon which it stood, and by which it must be nourished." I answered Bolingbrokeas men are wont to answer statesmen who complain of their calling half in compliment, half in contradiction, but he replied with unusual seriousness : " Do not think I affect to speak thus : you know how eagerly I snatch any respite from state, and how unmovedly I have borne the loss of prosperity and of power. You are now about to enter those perilous paths which I have trod for years. Your passions, like mine, are strong ! Beware, oh, beware, how you indulge them without restraint ! They are the fires which should warm ; let them not be the fires which destroy." Bolingbroke paused in evident and great agitation he re- sumed : "I speak strongly, for I speak in bitterness; I was thrown early into the world ; my whole education had been framed to make me ambitious ; it succeeded in its end. I was ambitious and of all success success in pleasure, suc- cess in fame. To wean me from the former, my friends per- suaded me to marry ; they chose my wife for her connections and her fortune, and I gained those advantages at the expense of what was better than either happiness ! You know how unfortunate has been that marriage, and how young I was when it was contracted. Can you wonder that it failed in the desired effect ? Every one courted me, every temptation as- sailed me ; pleasure even became more alluring abroad, when at home I had no longer the hope of peace : the indulgence of one passion begat the indulgence of another ; and though my better sense prompted all my actions, it never restrained them to a * Occasional Writer. No. I. The Editor lias, throughout this work, usually, but not in- variably, noted the passages in Bolingbroke's writings, in which there occur similes, illus- trations, or striking thoughts, correspondent with those in the text. 2j& DEVEREtrX. proper limit. Thus the commencement of my actions has been generally prudent, and their continuation has deviated into rashness, or plunged into excess. Devereux, I have paid the forfeit of my errors with a terrible interest when my motives have been pure, men have seen a fault in the conduct, and calum- niated the motives ; when my conduct has been blameless, men have remembered its former errors, and asserted that its pres- ent goodness only arose from some sinister intention thus I have been termed crafty, when I was in reality rash, and that was called the inconsistency of interest which in reality was the inconstancy of passion.* I have reason, therefore, to warn you how you surfer your subjects to become your tyrants ; and believe me no experience is so deep as that of one who has committed faults, and who has discovered their causes." " Apply, my dear lord, that experience to your future career. You remember what the most sagacious of all pedants,! even though he was an emperor, has so happily expressed 'Repen- tance is a goddess, and the preserver of those who have erred.' " " May I find her so ! " answered Bolingbroke ; "but as Mon- taigne or Charron would sayj .... 'Everyman is at once his own sharper and his own bubble.' We make vast prom- ises to ourselves, and a passion, an example, sweeps even the remembrance of those promises from our minds. One is too apt to believe men hypocrite?, if their conduct squares not with their sentiments; but perhaps no vice is more rare, for no task is more difficult, than systematic hypocrisy: and the same susceptibility which exposes men to be easily impressed by the allurements of vice, renders them at heart most struck by the loveliness of virtue. Thus their language and their hearts worship the divinity of the latter, while their conduct strays the most erringly towards the false shrines over which the for- mer presides. Yes ! I have never been blind to the surpassing excellence of GOOD. The still, sweet whispers of virtue have been heard, even when the storm has been loudest, and the * This T do believe to be the real (though perhaps it is a nerw) light in which Lord Bol- ingbroke's life and character are to be viewed. The same writers who tell us of his ungov- ernable passions, always prefix to his name the epithets " designing, cunning, crafty," etc. Now I will venture to tell these historians that, if they had studied human nature instead of party_ pamphlets, they would have discovered that there are certain incompati- ble qualities which can never be united in one character that no man can have violent pas- sions to which he is in the habit of yielding, and be systematically crafty and designing. No man can be all heat, and at the same time all coolness; but opposite causes not unoften produce like effects. Passion usually makes men changeable, so sometimes does craft ; hence the mistake of the uninquiring or the shallow; and hence while' writes, and _ compiles, will thf characters of great men be transmitted to posterity misstated and belied. KD. t The Emperor Julian. The original expression is paraphrased in the text. $" Spirit of Patriotism." DEVEREUX. 279 bark of Reason been driven the most impetuously over the waves: and, at this moment, I am impressed with a foreboding that sooner or later, the whispers will not only be heard, but their suggestions be obeyed ; and that, far from courts and in- trigue, from dissipation and ambition, I shall learn, in retire- ment, the true principles of wisdom, and the real objects of life." Thus did Bolingbroke converse, and thus did I listen, till it was time to depart. I left him impressed with a melancholy that was rather soothing than distasteful. Whatever were the faults of that most extraordinary and most dazzling genius, no one was ever more candid* in confessing his own errors. A systematically bad man either ridicules what is good, or disbe- lieves in its existence ; but no man can be hardened in vice whose heart is still sensible of the excellence and the glory of virtue. BOOK V. CHAPTER I. A Portrait. MYSTERIOUS impulse at the heart, which never suffers us to be at rest, which urges us onward as by an unseen, yet irresist- ible law human planets in a petty orbit, hurried forever and forever, till our course is run and our light is quenched through the circle of a dark and impenetrable destiny ! art thou not some faint forecast and type of our wanderings here- after ? of the unslumbering nature of the soul ? of the everlast- ing progress which we are pre-doomed to make through the * It is impossible to read the letter to Sir W. Windham, without being remarkably struck with the dignified and yet open candor which it displays. The same candor is equally visible in whatever relates to himself, in all Lord Bolingbroke's writings and correspond- ence, and yet candor is the last attribute usually conceded to him. But never was there a writer whom people have talked of more and read less ; and I do not know a greate< proof of this than the ever-repeated assertion (echoed from a most incompetent authority) of the said letter to Sir W. Windham being the finest of all Lord Bolingbroke's writings. It is an article of great value to the history of the times ; but, as to all the higher graces and quali- ties of composition, it is one of the least striking (and on the other hand it is one of the most verbally incorrect) which he has bequeathed to us (the posthumous works always ex- cepted). I am not sure whether the most brilliant passages the most noble illustrations the most profound reflections, and most useful truths to be found in all his writings, are not to be gathered from the least popular of them such at shat volume entitled " Political Tracts." Ep, 280 DEVEREUX. countless steps, and realms, and harmonies in the infinite crea- tion ? Oh, often in my rovings have I dared to dream so often have I soared on the wild wings of thought above the " smoke and stir " of this dim earth, and wrought, from the rest- less visions of my mind, a chart of the glories and the won- ders which the released spirit may hereafter visit and behold ! What a glad awakening from self, what a sparkling and fresh draught from a new source of being, what a wheel within wheel, animating, impelling, arousing all the rest of this animal machine, is the first excitement of Travel ! The first free escape from the bonds of the linked and tame life of cities and social vices, the jaded pleasure and the hollow love, the mo- notonous round of sordid objects and dull desires, the eternal chain that binds us to things and beings, mockeries of our- selves, alike, but oh, how different ! the shock that brings us nearer to men only to make us strive against them, and learn, from the harsh contest of veiled deceit and open force, that the more we share the aims of others, the more deeply and basely rooted we grow to the littleness of self. I passed more lingeringly through France than I did through the other portions of my route. I had dwelt long enough in the capital to be anxious to survey the country. It was then that the last scale which the magic of Louis Quatorze and the memory of his gorgeous court had left upon the moral eye, fell off, and I saw the real essence of that monarch's greatness, and the true relics of his reign. I saw the poor, and the de- graded, and the racked, and the priest-ridden, tillers and peo- plers of the soil, which made the substance beneath the glitter- ing and false surface the body of that vast empire, of which I had hitherto beheld only the face, and THAT darkly, and for the most part covered by a mask ! No man can look upon France, beautiful France, her rich soil, her temperate yet maturing clime, the gallant and bold spirits which she produces, her boundaries so indicated and protected by nature itself, her advantages of ocean and land, of commerce and igriculture, and not wonder that her prosperity should be so bloated, and her real state so wretched and dis- eased. Let England draw the moral, and beware not only of wars which exhaust, but of governments which impoverish. A waste of the public wealth is the most lasting of public afflic- tions; and "the treasury which is drained by extravagance must be refilled by crime."* * Tacitus, DEVEREUX. 28l I remember one beautiful evening an accident to my car- riage occasioned my sojourn for a whole afternoon in a small village. The Curt? honored me with a visit, and we strolled, after a slight repast, into the hamlet. The priest was com- plaisant, quiet in manner, and not ill informed, for his obscure station and scanty opportunities of knowledge ; he did not seem, however, to possess the vivacity of his countrymen, but was rather melancholy and pensive, not only in his expression of countenance, but his cast of thought. " You have a charming scene here ; I almost feel as if it were a sin to leave it so soon." We were, indeed, in a pleasant and alluring spot at the time I addressed this observation to the good Cure. A little rivulet emerged from a copse to the left and ran sparkling and dimp- ling beneath our feet, to deck with a more living verdure the village green, which it intersected with a winding, nor unmelo- dious stream. We had paused, and I was leaning against an old and solitary chestnut tree, which commanded the whole scene. The village was a little in the rear, and the smoke from its few chimneys rose slowly to the silent and deep skies, not wholly unlike the human wishes, which, though they spring from the grossness and the fumes of earth, purify themselves as they as- cend to Heaven. And from the village ( when other sounds, which I shall note presently, were for an instant still), came the whoop of children, mellowed, by distance, into a confused, yet thrilling sound, which fell upon the heart like a voice of our gone childhood itself. Before, in the far expanse, stretched a chain of hills on which the autumn sun sunk slowly, pouring its yellow beams over groups of peasantry, which, on the op- posite side of the rivulet, and at some interval from us, were scattered, partly over the green, and partly gathered beneath the shade of a little grove. The former were of the young, and those to whom youth's sports are dear, and were dancing to the merry music, which (ever and anon blended with the laugh and the tone of a louder jest) floated joyously on our ears. The fathers and matrons of the hamlet were in- haling a more quiet joy beneath the trees, and I involuntarily gave a tenderer interest to their converse by supposing them to sanction to each other the rustic loves which they might survey among their children. "Will not Monsieur draw nearer to the dancers," said the Cure* ; " there is a plank thrown over the rivulet a little lower down ?" " No ! " said I, " perhaps they are seen to better advantage 282 DEYEREUX. where we are what mirth will bear too close an inspec- tion?" " True, sir," remarked the priest, and he sighed. "Yet," I resumed musingly, and I spoke rather to myself than to my companion, "yet, how happy do they seem ! what a revival of our Arcadian dreams are the flute and the dance, the glossy trees all glowing in the autumn sunset, the green sod, and the murmuring rill, and the buoyant laugh startling the satyr in his leafy haunts ; and the rural loves which will grow sweeter still than the sun has set, and the twilight has made the sigh more tender, and the blush of a mellower hue ! Ah, why is it only the revival of a dream ? why must it be only an in- terval of labor and woe the brief saturnalia of slaves the green resting spot in a dreary and long road of travail and toil ? " "You are the first stranger I have met," said the Cure, "who seems to pierce beneath the thin veil of our Gallic gayety ; the first to whom the scene we now survey is fraught with other feel- ings than a belief in the happiness of our peasantry, and an envy at its imagined exuberance. But as it is not the happiest individ- uals, so I fear it is not the happiest nations, that are the gayest." I looked at the Cure with some surprise. " Your remark is deeper than the ordinary wisdom of your tribe, my father," said I. " I have travelled over three parts of the globe," answered the Cure; "I was not always intended for what I am"; and the priest's mild eyes flashed with a sudden light that as sud- denly died away. " Yes, I have travelled over the greater part of the known world," he repeated, in a more quiet tone, "and I have noted that where a man has many comforts to guard, and many rights to defend, he necessarily shares the thought and the seriousness of those who feel the value of a treasure which they possess, and whose most earnest meditations are intent upon providing against its loss. I have noted, too, that the joy produced by a momentary suspense of labor is naturally great, in proportion to the toil ; hence it is that no European mirth is so wild as that of the Indian slave, when a brief holi- day releases him from his task. Alas! that very mirth is the strongest evidence of the weight of the previous chains ; even as, in ourselves, we find the happiest moment we enjoy is that immediately succeeding the cessation of deep sorrow to the mind, or violent torture to the body."* *. This reflection, if true, may console us for the loss of those village dances and peasant holidays for which "merry England" was once celebrated. The loss of them has been ascribed to the gloomy influence of the Puritans ; but it has never occurred to the good poets, who have so mourned over that loss, that it is also to be ascribed to the liberty Which those Puritans generalized, if they did not introduce. Eu. DfcVEREtiX. 283 I was struck by this observation of the priest. "I see now," said I, "that, as an Englishman, I have no rea- son to repine at the proverbial gravity of my countrymen, or to envy the lighter spirit of the sons of Italy and France." "No," said the Cure, "the happiest nations are those in whose people you witness the least sensible reverses from gayety to dejection ; and that thought, which is the noblest characteristic of the isolated man, is also that of a people. Freemen are seri- ous, they have objects at their heart worthy to engross atten- tion. It is reserved for slaves to indulge in groans at one mo- ment, and laughter at another." "At that rate," said I, "the best sign for France will be when the gayety of her sons is no longer a just proverb, and the laugh- ing lip is succeeded by the thoughtful brow." We remained silent for several minutes ; our conversation had shed a gloom over the light scene before us, and the voice of the flute no longer sounded musically on my ear. I pro- posed to the Cure to return to my inn. As we walked slowly in that direction, I surveyed my companion more attentively than I had hitherto done. He was a model of masculine vigor and grace of form ; and, had I not looked earnestly upon his cheek, I should have thought him likely to outlive the very oaks around the hamlet church where he presided. But the cheek was worn and hectic, and seemed to indicate that the keen fire which burns at the deep heart, unseen, but unslaking, would consume the mortal fuel, long before Time should even have commenced his gradual decay. " You have travelled then, much, sir," said I, and the tone of my voice was that of curiosity. The good Cure penetrated into my desire to hear something of his adventures ; and few are the recluses who are not grati- fied by the interest of others, or who are unwilling to reward it by recalling those portionsof life most cherished by themselves. Before we parted that night, he told me his little history. He had been educated for the army ; and before he entered the profession he had seen the daughter of a neighbor loved her and the old story she loved him again, and died before the love passed the ordeal of marriage. He had no longer a desire for glory, but he had for excitement. He sold his little property and travelled, as he had said, for nearly fourteen years, equally over the polished lands of Europe, and the far climates, where Truth seems fable, and Fiction finds her own legends realized or excelled. He returned home, poor in pocket, and wearied in spirit. 284 DEVEREUX. He became what I beheld him. " My lot is fixed now," said he in conclusion ; "but I find there is all the difference between quiet and content ; my heart eats itself away here ; it is the moth fretting the garment laid by, more than the storm or the fray would have worn it." I said something, common-place enough, about solitude, and the blessings of competence, and the country. The Cure" shook his head gently, but made no answer ; perhaps he did wisely in thinking the feelings are ever beyond the reach of a stranger's rea- soning. We parted more affectionately than acquaintances of so short a time usually do; and when I returned from Russia, I stopped at the village on purpose to inquire after him. A few months had done the work: the moth had already fretted away the human garment ; and I walked to his lowly and nameless grave, and felt that it contained the only quiet in which monotony is not blended with regret ! CHAPTER II. The entrance into Petersburgh a Rencontre with an inquisitive and mys- terious Stranger. Nothing like Travel. IT was certainly like entering a new world when I had the frigid felicity of entering Russia. I expected to have found Petersburgh a wonderful city, and I was disappointed ; it was a wonderful beginning of a city, and that was all I ought to have expected. But never, I believe, was there a place which there was so much difficulty in arriving at : such winds such climate such police arrangements arranged, too, by such fellows ! six feet high, with nothing human about them, but their uncleanliness and ferocity ! Such vexatious delays, dif- ficulties, ordeals, through which it was necessary to pass, and to pass, too, with an air of the most perfect satisfaction and con- tent. By the Lord ! one would have imagined, at all events, it must be an earthly paradise, to be so arduous of access, in- stead of a Dutch-looking town, with comfortless canals, and the most terrible climate in which a civilized creature was ever frozen to death. "It is just the city a nation of bears would build, if bears ever became architects," said I to myself, as I entered the northern capital, with my teeth chattering, and my limbs in a state of perfect insensibility. My vehicle stopped at last, at a hotel to which I had been directed. It was a circumstance, I believe, peculiar to Peters- burgh, that, at the time I speak of, none of its streets had a BEVEREUX. 285 name ; and if one wanted to find out a house, one was forced to do so by oral description. A pleasant thing it was, too, to stop in the middle of a street to listen to such descriptions at full length, and find oneself rapidly becoming ice as the detail pro- gressed. After I was lodged, thawed, and fed, I fell fast asleep, and slept for eighteen hours, without waking once ; to my mind it was a miracle that I ever woke again. I then dressed myself, and, taking my interpreter, who was a Livonian, a great rascal, but clever, who washed twice a week, and did not wear a beard above eight inches long, I put my- self into my carriage, and went to deliver my letters of intro- duction. I had one in particular to the Admiral Apraxin ; and it was with him that I was directed to confer, previous to seek- ing an interview with the Emperor. Accordingly I repaired to his hotel, which was situated on a sort of quay, and was really, for Petersburgh, very magnificent. In this quarter, then, or a little later, lived about thirty officers of the court, General Jagoyinsky, General Cyernichoff, etc. ; and appropriately enough, the most remarkable public building in the vicinity is the great slaughter-house a fine specimen that of practical satire ! On endeavoring to pass through the Admiral's hall, I had the mortification of finding myself rejected by his domestics. As two men in military attire were instantly admitted, I thought this a little hard upon a man who had travelled so far to see his admiralship, and accordingly hinted my indignation to Mr. Muscotofsky, my interpreter. " You are not so richly dressed as those gentlemen," said he. " That is the reason, is it ? " " If it so please St. Nicholas, it is ; and, besides, those gen- tlemen have two men running before them, to cry, ' Clear the way ! ' ' " I had better, then, dress myself better, and take two avant couriers." " If it so please St. Nicholas." Upon this I returned, robed myself in scarlet and gold, took a couple of lacqueys, returned to Admiral Apraxin's, and was admitted in an instant. Who would have thought these sav- ages so like us ? Appearances, you see, produce realities all over the world ? The Admiral, who was a very great man at court though he narrowly escaped Siberia, or the knout, some time after was civil enough to me : but I soon saw that, favorite as he was with the Czar, that great man left but petty moves in the grand chess-board of politics to be played by any but himself : and 286 my proper plan in this court appeared evidently to be unlike that pursued in most others, where it is better to win the favor- ite than the prince. Accordingly, I lost no time in seeking an interview with the Czar himself, and readily obtained an ap- pointment to that effect. On the day before the interview took place, I amused my- self with walking over the city, gazing upon its growing grand- eur, and casting, in especial, a wistful eye upon the fortress or citadel, which is situated in an island, surrounded by the city ; and upon the building of which more than one hundred thous- and men are supposed to have perished. So great a sacrifice does it require to conquer nature. While I was thus amusing myself, I observed a man in a small chaise with one horse pass me twice, and look at me very earnestly. Like most of my countrymen, I do not love to be stared at ; however, I thought it better in that unknown country to change my intended frown for a good-natured ex- pression of countenance, and turned away. A singular sight now struck my attention ; a couple of men with beards that would have hidden a cassowary were walking slowly along in their curious long garments, and certainly ( I say it reverently) disgracing the semblance of humanity, when, just as they came by a gate, two other men of astonishing height started forth, each armed with a pair of shears. Before a second was over, off went the beards of the first two passengers ; and before an- other second expired, off went the skirts of their garments too I never saw excrescences so expeditiously lopped. The two operators, who preserved a profound silence during this brief affair, then retired a little, and the mutilated wanderers pursued their way with an air of extreme discomfiture. "Nothing like travel, certainly ! " said I unconsciously aloud. " True ! " said a voice in English behind me. I turned, and saw the man who had noticed me so earnestly in the one-horse chaise. He was a tall, robust man, dressed very plainly, and even shabbily, in a green uniform, with a narrow tarnished gold lace ; and I judged him to be a foreigner, like myself, though his accent ind pronunciation evidently showed that he was not a native of the country in the language of which he accosted me. "It is very true," said he again ; "there is nothing like travel ! " "And travel," I rejoined courteously, "in those places where travel seldom extends. T Vive only been six days at Peters- burgh, and, till I came hither. I knew nothing of the variety of human nature or the power of human genius. But will you DEVEREUX. 287 vllow me to ask the meaning of the very singular occurrence \VQ have just witnessed ?" "Oh, nothing," rejoined the man with a broad, strong smile, "nothing but an attempt to make men out of brutes. This custom of shaving is not, thank Heaven, much wanted now some years ago it was requisite to have several stations for barbers and tailors to perform their duties in. Now this is very seldom necessary : those gentlemen were especially marked out for the operation. By (and here the man swore a hearty English and somewhat seafaring oath, which a little astonished me in the streets of Petersburgh), I wish it were as easy to lop off all old customs ! that it were as easy to clip the beard of the mind, sir ! Ha ha ! " '' But the Czar must have found a little difficulty in effecting even this outward amendment, and to say truth, I see so many beards about still that I think the reform has been more par- tial than universal." " Ah, those are the beards of the common people ; the Czar leaves those for the present. Have you seen the docks yet?" '' No : I am not sufficiently a sailor to take much interest in them." " Humph ! humph ! you are a soldier, perhaps?" " I hope to be so one day or other I am not yet ? " " Not yet ! humph ! there are opportunities in plenty for those who wish it what is your profession then, and what do you know best ? " I was certainly not charmed with the honest inquisitiveness of the stranger. " Sir," said I, " sir, my profession is to answer no questions ; and what I know best is to hold my tongue ! " The stranger laughed out. " Well, well, that is what all Englishmen know best !" said he; "but don't be offended- if you will come home with me I will give you a glass of brandy ! " " I am very much obliged for the offer, but business obliges me to decline it good-morning, sir." " Good-morning ! " answered the man, slightly moving his hat, in answer to my salutation. We separated, as I thought, but T was mistaken. As ill-luck would have it, I lost my way in endeavoring to return home. While I was interrogating a French artisan, who seemed in a prodigious hurry, up comes my inquisitive friend in green again. " Ha ! you have lost your way I can put you into it better than any man in Petersburgh ! " I thought it right to accept the offer ; and we moved on, side by side. I now looked pretty attentively at my gentleman. 1 288 DEVEREUX. have said that he was tall and stout he was also remarkably well-built, and had a kind of seaman's ease and freedom of gait and manner. His countenance was very peculiar ; short, firm, and strongly marked ; a small, but thick mustachio cov- ered his upper lip the rest of his face was shaved. His mouth was wide, but closed, when silent, with that expression of iron resolution which no feature but the mouth can convey. His eyes were large, well-opened, and rather stern ; and when, which was often in the course of conversation, he pushed back his hat from his forehead, the motion developed two strong deep wrinkles between the eyebrows, which might be indica- tive either of thought or of irascibility perhaps of both. He spoke quick, and with a little occasional embarrassment of voice, which, however, never communicated itself to his man- ner. He seemed, indeed, to have a perfect acquaintance with the mazes of the growing city ; and, every now and then, stopped to say when such a house was built whither such a street was to lead. etc. As each of these details betrayed some ;reat triumph over natural obstacles, and sometimes over na- tional prejudice. I could not help dropping a few enthusiastic expressions in praise of the genius of the Czar. The man's *yes sparkled as he heard them. " ft is easy to see," said I, " that you sympathize with me, md that the admiration of this great man is not confined to Englishmen. How little in comparison seem all other mon- irchs : they ruin kingdoms the Czar creates one. The whole history of the world does not afford an instance of triumphs so vast so important so glorious as his have been. How his subjects should adore him ! " " No," said the stranger, with an altered and thoughtful manner, " it is not his subjects, but their posterity, that will appreciate his motives, arid forgive him for wishing Russia to be an empire of MEN. The present generation may sometimes be laughed, sometimes forced, out of their more barbarous habits and brute-like customs, but they cannot be reasoned out of them ; and they don't love the man who attempts to do it. Why, sir, I question whether Ivan IV., who used to butcher the flogs between prayers for an occupation, and between meals for an appetite, I question whether his memory is not to the full as much loved as the living Czar. I know, at least, that whenever the latter attempts a reform, the good Muscovites shrug up their shoulders, and mutter, ' We did not do these things in the good old days of Ivan IV.' " "Ah ! the people of all nations are wonderfully attached to DEVEREUX. 289 their ancient customs ; and it is not unfrequently that the most stubborn enemies to living men are their ancestors." " Ha, ha ! true good ! " cried the stranger ; and then, after a short pause, he said in a tone of deep feeling which had not hitherto seemed at all a part of his character, "We should do that which is good to the human race, from some principle within, and should not therefore abate our efforts for the oppo- sition, the rancor, or the ingratitude that we experience with- out. It will be enough reward for Peter I., if hereafter, when (in that circulation of knowledge throughout the world which I can compare to nothing better than the circulation of the blood in the human body) the glory of Russia shall rest, not upon the extent of her dominions, but that of her civilization not upon the number of inhabitants, embruted and besotted, but the number of enlightened, prosperous, and free men ; it will be enough for him, if he be considered to have laid the first stone of that great change if his labors be fairly weighed against the obstacles which opposed them if, for his honest and unceasing endeavor to improve millions, he be not too severely judged for offences in a more limited circle and if, in consideration of having fought the great battle against cus- tom, circumstances, and opposing nature, he be sometimes for- given for not having invariably conquered himself." As the stranger broke off abruptly, I could not but feel a little oppressed by his words and the energy with which they were spoken. We were now in sight of my lodging. I asked my guide to enter it ; but the change in our conversation seemed to have unfitted him a little for my companionship. " No," said he, " I have business now : we shall meet again ; what's your name ? " "Certainly," thought I, "no man ever scrupled so little to ask plain questions": however, I answered him truly and freely. " Devereux ! " said he, as if surprised : " Ha ! well we shall meet again. Good-day." CHAPTER III. The Czar the Czarina. A Feast at a Russian Nobleman's. THE next day I dressed myself in my richest attire ; and, according to my appointment, went with as much state as I could command to the Czar's palace (if an exceedingly humble 2QO DEVEREUX. abode can deserve so proud an appellation). Although my mission was private, I was a little surprised by the extreme sim- plicity and absence from pomp which the royal residence pre- sented. I was ushered for a few moments into a paltry ante- chamber, in which were several models of ships, cannon, and houses ; two or three indifferent portraits one of King Wil- liam III., another of Lord Caermarthen. I was then at once admitted into the royal presence. There were only two persons in the room one a female, the other a man ; no officers, no courtiers, no attendants, none of the insignia nor the witnesses of majesty. The female was Catharine, the Czarina ; the man was the stranger I had met the day before and Peter the Great. I was a little startled at the identity of the Czar with my inquisitive acquaintance. However, I put on as assured a countenance as I could. Indeed, I had spoken sufficiently well of the royal person to feel very little apprehension at having unconsciously paid so slight a respect to the royal dignity. " Ho ho ! " cried the Czar, as I reverently approached him ; " I told you we should meet soon ! " and, turning round, he presented me to her majesty. That extraordinary woman received me very graciously ; and, though I had been a spec- tator of the most artificial and magnificent court in Europe, I must confess that I could detect nothing in the Czarina's air calculated to betray her having been the servant of a Lutheran minister and the wife of a Swedish dragoon. Whether it was that greatness was natural to her, or whether (which was more probable) she was an instance of the truth of Suckling's hack- neyed thought, in Brennoralt " Success is a rare paint hides all the ugliness." While I was making my salutations, the Czarina rose very quietly, and presently, to my no small astonishment, brought me with her own hand, a tolerably large glass of raw brandy. There is nothing in the world I hate so much as brandy ; how- ever, I swallowed the potation as if it had been nectar, and made some fine speech about it, which the good Czarina did not seem perfectly to understand. I then, after a few preliminary obser- vations, entered upon my main business with the Czar. Her Majesty sat at a little distance, but evidently listened very attentively to the conversation. I could not but be struck with the singularly bold and strong sense of my royal host. There was no hope of deluding or misleading him by diplomatic sub- terfuge. The only way by which that wonderful man was ever misled was through his passions. His reason conquered ail DEVEREUX. 291 trrors but those of temperament. I turned the conversation as artfully as I could upon Sweden and Charles XII. " Hatred to one power," thought I, "may produce love to another ; and if it does, the child will spring from a very vigorous parent." While I was on this subject, I observed a most fearful convul- sion come over the face of the Czar one so fearful that I involuntarily looked away. Fortunate was it that I did so. Nothing ever enraged him more than being observed in those constitutional contortions of countenance to which from his youth he had been subjected. After I had conversed with the Czar as long as I thought decorum permitted, I rose to depart. He dismissed me very complaisantly. I re-entered my fine equipage, and took the best of my way home. Two or three days afterwards, the Czar ordered me to be invited to a large dinner at Apraxin's. I went there, and soon found myself in conversation with a droll little man, a Dutch minister, and a great favorite with the Czar. The Admiral and his wife, before we sat down to eat, handed round to each of their company a glass of brandy on a plate. "What an odious custom ! " whispered the little Dutch min- ister, smacking his lips, however, with an air of tolerable con- tent. " Why, said I prudently, " all countries have their customs. Some centuries ago, a French traveller thought it horrible in us Englishmen to eat raw oysters. But the English were in the right to eat oysters ; and perhaps, by and by, so much does civilization increase, we shall think the Russians in the right to drink brandy. But really (we had now sat down to the enter- tainment), I am agreeably surprised here. All the guests are dressed like my own countrymen ; a great decorum reigns around. If it were a little less cold, I might fancy myself in London or in Paris." " Wait," quoth the little Dutchman, with his mouth full of jelly broth " wait till you hear them talk. What think you, now, that lady next to me is saying ? " " I cannot guess but she has the prettiest smile in the world ; and there is something at once so kind and so respect- ful in her manner that I should say she was either asking some great favor, or returning thanks for one." " Right," cried the little minister. " I will interpret for you. She is saying to that old gentleman ' Sir, I am extremely grateful (and may St. Nicholas bless you for it) for your very great kindness in having, the day before yesterday, 392 DEVEREUX. at your sumptuous entertainment, made me so deliciously drunk ! ' " " You are witty, monsieur," said I, smiling. " Se non evero ben trovato" " By my soul, it is true," cried the Dutchman ; " but, hush ! see, they are going to cut up that great pie." I turned my eyes to the center of the table, which was orna- mented with a huge pasty. Presently it was cut open, and out walked a hideous little dwarf. " Are they going to eat him ? " said I. " Ha ha ! " laughed the Dutchman. " No ! this is a fashion of the Czar's, which the Admiral thinks it good policy to fol- low. See, it tickles the hebete Russians. They are quite merry on it." " To be sure," said I ; " practical jokes are the only witti- cisms savages understand." "Ay, and if it were not for such jokes now and then, the Czar would be odious beyond measure ; but dwarf pies and mock processions make his subjects almost forgive him for having shortened their clothes and clipped their beards." "The Czar is very fond of those mock processions? " " Fond ! " and the little man sunk his voice into a whisper ; " he is the sublimest buffoon that ever existed. I will tell you an instance (do you like these Hungary wines, by the by ?) : On the pth of last June, the Czar carried me, and half-a-dozen more of his foreign ministers to his pleasure-house (Peterhoff). Dinner, as usual, all drunk with tokay, and finished by a quart of brandy each, from her Majesty's own hand. Carried off to sleep, some in the garden, some in the wood. Woke at four, still in the clouds. Carried back to the pleasure-house, found the Czar there, made us a low bow, and gave us a hatchet apiece, with orders to follow him. Off we trudged, rolling about like ships in the Zuyder Zee, entered a wood, and were immedi- ately set to work at cutting a road through it. Nice work for us of the corps diplomatique ! And, by my soul, sir, you see that I am by no means a thin man ! We had three hours of it were carried back made drunk again sent to bed roused again in an hour made drunk a third time ; and, because we could not be waked again, left in peace till eight the next morning. Invited to court to breakfast such headaches we had longed for coffee found nothing but brandy forced to drink sick as dogs sent to take an airing upon the most damnable little horses not worth a guilder no bridles noi saddles bump bump bump we go up and down before th^ DEVEREUX. 293 Czar's window he and the Czarina looking at us. I do assure you I lost two stone by that ride two stone, sir ! taken to dinner drunk again, by the Lord all bundled on board a torrenschute devil of a storm came on Czar took the rud- der Czarina on high benches in the cabin, which was full of water waves beating winds blowing certain of being drowned charming prospect ! tossed about for seven hours driven into the Port of Cronsflot. Czar leaves us, saying, ' Too much of a jest, eh, gentlemen ! ' All got ashore wet as dog-fishes, made a fire, stripped stark naked (a Dutch ambas- sador stark naked think of it, sir !), crept into some covers of sledges, and rose next morning with the ague positive fact, sir. Had the ague for two months. Saw the Czar in August ' A charming excursion to my pleasure-house,' said his majesty ' we must make another party there soon.' " As the Dutchman delivered himself of this little history he was by no means forgetful of the Hungary wines ; and as Bac- chus and Venus have old affinity, he now began to grow elo- quent on the women. " What think you of them yourself?" said he, " they have a rolling look, eh ! " " They have so," I answered, " but they all have black teeth what's the reason ? " " They think it a beauty, and say white teeth are the sign of a blackamoor." Here the Dutchman was accosted by some one else, and there was a pause. Dinner at last ceased ; the guests did not sit long after dinner, and for a very good reason : the brandy bowl is a great enforcer of a prostrate position ! I had the satisfaction of seeing the company safely under the table. The Dutchman went first, and, having dexterously manoeuvred an escape from utter oblivion for myself, I managed to find my way home, more edified than delighted by the character of a Russian entertainment. CHAPTER IV. Conversations with the Czar if Cromwell was the greatest man (Caesar excepted) who ever rose to the Supreme Power, Peter was the greatest man ever born to it. IT was singular enough that my introduction to the notice of Peter the Great, and Philip the Debonnair, should have taken place under circumstances so far similar that both those 294 DEVEREUX. illustrious personages were playing the part rather of subjects than of princes. I cannot, however, conceive a greater mark of the contrast between their characters than the different motives and manners of the incognitos severally assumed. Philip, in a scene of low riot and debauch, hiding the Jupiter under the Silenus wearing the mask only for the licentiousness it veiled, and foregoing the prerogative of power, solely for indulgence in the grossest immunities of vice. Peter, on the contrary, parting with the selfishness of state, in order to watch the more keenly over the interests of his people only omitting to preside in order to examine and affecting the subject only to learn the better the duties of the prince. Had I leisure, I might here pause to point out a nota- ble contrast, not between the Czar and the Regent, but between Peter the Great and Louis le Grand ; both creators of a new era, both associated with a vast change in the condition of two mighty empires. There ceases the likeness, and begins the contrast ; the blunt simplicity of Peter, the gorgeous magni- ficence of Louis ; the sternness of a legislator for barbarians, the clemency of an idol of courtiers. One the victorious defender of his country a victory solid, durable, and just ; the other the conquering devastator of a neighboring people a victory glittering, evanescent, and dishonorable. The one, in peace, rejecting parade, pomp, individual honors, and trans- forming a wilderness into an empire : the other involved in ceremony, and throned on pomp : and exhausting the produce of millions to pamper the bloated vanity of an individual. The one a fire that burns without enlightening beyond a most narrow circle, and whose lustre is tracked by what it ruins, and fed by what it consumes : the other a luminary, whose light, not so dazzling in its rays, spreads over a world, and is noted, not for what it destroys, but for what it vivifies and creates. I cannot say that it was much to my credit that, while I thought the Regent's condescension towards me natural enough, I was a little surprised by the favor shown me by the Czar. At Paris, I had seemed to be the man of pleasure ; that alone was enough to charm Philip of Orleans. But in Russia, what could I seem in any way calculated to charm the Czar? I could neither make ships, nor could sail them when they were made ; I neither knew, nor, what was worse, cared to know, the stern from the rudder. Mechanics were a mystery to me ; road-making was an incomprehensible science. Brandy I could not endure a blunt bearing, and familiar manner, I could not 295 assume. What was it then that made the Czar call upon me at least twice a week in private, shut himself up with me by the hour together, and endeavor to make me drunk with tokay, in order (as he very incautiously let out one night), "to learn the secrets of my heart"? I thought, at first, that the nature of my mission was enough to solve the riddle : but we talked so little about it that, with all my diplomatic vanities fresh about me, I could not help feeling I owed the honor I received less to my qualities as a minister, than to those as an indi- vidual. At last, however, I found that the secret attraction was what the Czar termed the philosophical channel into which our con- ferences flowed. I never saw a man so partial to moral pro- blems and metaphysical inquiries, especially to those connected with what ought to be the beginning or the end of all moral sciences politics. Sometimes we would wander out in disguise, and select some object from the customs, or things around us. as the theme of reflection and discussion ; nor in these moments would the Czar ever allow me to yield to his rank what I might not feel disposed to concede to his arguments. One day, I remember that he arrested me in the streets, and made me accompany him to look upon two men undergoing the fearful punishment of the battaog ; * one was a German, the other a Russian; the former shrieked violently struggled in the hands of his punishers and, with the utmost difficulty, was subjected to his penalty ; the latter bore it patiently, and in silence ; he only spoke once, and it was to say, " God bless the Czar ! " " Can your Majesty hear the man," said I warmly, when the Czar interpreted these words to me, " and not pardon him ?" Peter frowned, but I was not silenced. " You don't know the Russians ! " said he sharply, and turned aside. The punishment was now over. "Ask the German," said the. Czar to an officer, " what was his offence ? " The German, who was writhing and howling horribly, uttered some violent words against the disgrace of the punishment, and the pettiness of his fault ; what the fault was I forget. " Now ask the Russian," said Peter. " My punishment was just ! " said the Russian, coolly, putting on his clothes as if nothing had happened ; "God and the Czar were angry with me ! " " Come away, Count," said the Czar ; " and now solve me a problem. I know both those men ; and the German, in a battle, would be the braver of the two. How comes it that he * A terrible U^id of flogging, but less severe than the knout. 296 DEVEfcfcUX. weeps and writhes like a girl, while the Russian bears the same pain without a murmur?" "Will your Majesty forgive me," said I, "but I cannot help wishing that the Russian had complained more bitterly ; insensi- bility to punishment is the sign of a brute, not a hero. Do you not see that the German felt the indignity, the Russian did not ; and do you not see that that very pride, which betrays agony under the disgrace of the battaog, is exactly the very feeling that would have produced courage in the glory of the battle. A sense of honor makes better soldiers and better men than indifference to pain." " But had I ordered the Russian to death, he would have gone with the same apathy, and the same speech, ' It is just ! I have offended God and the Czar ! ' " "Dare I observe, Sire, that that fact would be a strong proof of the dangerous falsity of the old maxims which extol indiffer- ence to death as a virtue. In some individuals it may be a sign of virtue, I allow ; but, as a national trait, it is the strongest sign of national misery. Look round the great globe. What countries are those where the inhabitants bear death with cheerfulness, or, at least, with apathy ? Are they the most civil- ized the most free the most prosperous? Pardon me no ! They are the half-starved, half clothed, half-human, sons of the forest and the waste; or, when gathered in states, they are slaves without enjoyment or sense beyond the hour : and the reason that they do not recoil from the pangs of death is because they have never known the real pleasures or the true objects of life." " Yet," said the Czar musingly, "the contempt of death was the great characteristic of the Spartans." " And, therefore," said I, "the great token that the Spar- tans were a miserable horde. Your majesty admires England and the English ; you have, beyond doubt, witnessed an execu- tion in that country; you have noted, even where the criminal is consoled by religion, how he trembles and shrinks how de- jected how prostrate of heart he is before the doom is com- pleted. Take now the vilest slave, either of the Emperor of Morocco, or the great Czar of Russia. He changes neither tint nor muscle : he requires no consolation : he shrinks from no torture. What is the inference ? That slaves dread death less than the free. And it should be so. The end of legislation is not to make death, but life, a blessing." " You have put the matter in a new light," said the Czar ; " but you allow that, in individuals, contempt of death is some- times a virtue." BEVEREUX. 297 u Yes, when it springs from mental reasonings, not physical indifference. But your Majesty has already put in action one vast spring of a system, which will ultimately open to your sub- jects so many paths of existence that they will preserve con- tempt for its proper objects, and not lavish it solely as they do now, on the degradation which sullies life, and the axe that ends it. You have already begun the conquest of another and a most vital error in the philosophy of the ancients; that philosophy taught that man should have few wants, and made it a crime to increase, and a virtue to reduce, them. A legislator should teach, on the contrary, that man should have many wants : for wants are not only the sources of enjoyment they are the sources of improvement ; and that nation will be the most enlightened among whose populace they are found the most numerous. You, Sire, by circulating the arts, the graces, create a vast herd of moral wants hitherto unknown, and in those wants will hereafter be found the prosperity of your people, the fountain of your re- sources, and the strength of your empire." In conversation on these topics we often passed hours to- gether, and from such conferences the Czar passed only to those on other topics more immediately useful to him. No man, per- haps, had a larger share of the mere human frailties than Peter the Great ; yet I do confess that when I saw the nobleness of mind with which he flung aside his rank as a robe, and repaired from man to man, the humblest or the highest, the artisan or the prince, the prosperity of his subjects his only object, and the acquisi- tion of knowledge his only means to obtain it, I do confess that my mental sight refused even to perceive his frailties, and that I could almost have bent the knee in worship to a being whose benevolence was so pervading a spirit, and whose power was so glorious a minister to utility. Towards the end of January, I completed my mission, and took my leave of the court of Russia. " Tell the Regent," said Peter, " that I shall visit him in France soon, and shall expect to see his drawings, if I show him my models." In effect, the next month (February 16), the Czar com- menced his second course of travels. He was pleased to tes- tify some regard for me on my departure. " If ever you quit the service of the French court, and your own does not require you, I implore you to come to me ; I will give you carteblanehe as to the nature and appointments of your office." I need not say that 1 expressed my gratitude for the royal con- 298 DEVEREUX. descension ; nor that, in leaving Russia, I brought, from the ex- ample of its sovereign, a greater desire to be useful to mankind than I had known before. Pattern and Teacher of kings, if each country, in each century, had produced one such ruler as you, either all mankind would noiv be contented with despotism, or all mankind would be free! Oh ! when kings have only to be good, to be kept forever in our hearts and souls as the gods and benefactors of the earth, by what monstrous fatality have they been so blind to their fame? When we remember the millions, the generations, they can degrade, destroy, elevate or save, we might almost think (even if the other riddles of the present existence did not require a future existence to solve them), we might almost think a hereafter necessary, were it but for the sole purpose of requiting the virtues of princes, or their SINS.* CHAPTER V. Return to Paris. Interview with Bolingbroke. A gallant Adventure. Affair with Dubois. Public Life is a Drama, in which private Vices generally play the part of the Scene-shifters. IT is a strange feeling we experience on entering a great city by night a strange mixture of social and solitary impressions. I say by night, because at that time we are most inclined to feel ; and the mind, less distracted than in the day by external objects, dwells the more intensely upon its own hopes and thoughts, remembrances and associations and sheds over them from that one feeling which it cherishes the most, a blending and a mellowing hue. It was at night that I re-entered Paris. I did not tarry long at my hotel, before (though it was near upon midnight) I con- veyed myself to Lord Bolingbroke's lodgings. Knowing his engagements at St. Germains, where the Chevalier (who had but a very few weeks before returned to France, after the crude and unfortunate affair of 1715) chiefly resided, I was not very san- guine in my hopes of finding him at Paris. I was, however, agreeably surprised. His servant would have ushered me into his study, but I was willing to introduce myself. I withheld the servant, and entered the room alone. The door was ajar, and Bolingbroke neither heard nor saw * Upon his death-bed Peter is reported to have said, " God, I dare trust, will look mer- cifully upon my faults in consideration of the good I have done my country." These are worthy to be the last words of a king ! Rarely has there been a monarch who more required the forgiveness of the Creator ; yet seldom perhaps has there been a human bei ig who more deserved it. ED. DEVEREUX. 299 me. There was something in his attitude and aspect which made me pause to survey him, before I made myself known. He was sitting by a table covered with books. A large folio (it was the Cas.uibon edition of Polybius) was lying open before him. I recognized the work at once it was a favorite book with Bolingbroke, and we had often discussed the merits of its author. I smiled as I saw that that book, which has to states- men so peculiar an attraction, made still the study from which the busy, restless, ardent, and exalted spirit of the statesman before me drew its intellectual food. But at the moment in which I entered, his eye was absent from the page, and turned abstractedly in an opposite, though still downcast, direction. His countenance was extremely pale his lips were tightly compressed, and an air of deep thought, mingled, as it seemed to me, with sadness made the ruling expression of his lordly and noble features. "It is the torpor of ambition after one of its storms," said I, inly and I approached, and laid my hand on his shoulder. After our mutual greetings, I said : " Have the dead so strong an attraction that at this hour they detain the courted and courtly Bolingbroke from the admiration and converse of the living ? " The statesman looked at me earnestly. " Have you heard the news of the day? " said he. " How is it possible? I have but just arrived at Paris." " You do not know, then, that I have resigned my office under the Chevalier ! " " Resigned your office ! " "Resigned is a wrong word I received a dismissal. Imme- diately on his return the Chevalier sent for me embraced me desired me to prepare to follow him to Lorraine ; and three days afterwards came the Duke of Ormond to me, to ask me to deliver up the seals and papers. I put the latter very carefully in a little letter-case, and behold an end to the administration of Lord Bolingbroke ! The Jacobites abuse me terribly their king accuses me of neglect, incapacity, and treachery and Fortune pulls down the fabric she had built for me, in order to pelt me with the stones ! " * " My dear, dear friend, I am indeed grieved for you ; but I am more incensed at the infatuation of the Chevalier. Surely, surely he must already have seen his error, and solicited your return." " Return ! " cried Bolingbroke, and his eyes flashed fire * tetter to Sir \V. Windham, Ep, 00 DEVEREUX. " return ! Hear what I said to the queen mother who came to me to attempt a reconciliation : ' Madam,' said I, in a tone as calm as I could command, 'if ever this hand draws the sword, or employs the pen, in behalf of that prince, may it rot ! ' Return ! not if my head were the price of refusal ! Yet, Dev- ereux," and here Bolingbroke's voice and manner changed "yet it is not at these tricks of fate that a wise man will repine. We do right to cultivate honors ; they are sources of gratifica- tion to ourselves ; they are more they are incentives to the conduct which works benefit to others ; but we do wrong to afflict ourselves at their loss. Nee querere nee spernere honores oportet* It is good to enjoy the blessings of fortune ; it is better to submit without a pang to their loss. You remember, when you left me, I was preparing myself for this stroke believe me, I am now prepared." And in truth Bolingbroke bore the ingratitude of the Cheva- lier well. Soon afterwards he carried his long cherished wishes for retirement into effect ; and Fate, who delights in reversing her disk, leaving in darkness what she had just illumined, and illumining what she had hitherto left in obscurity and gloom, for a long interval separated us from each other, no less by his seclusion than by the publicity to which she condemned myself. Lord Bolingbroke's dismissal was not the only event affect- ing me that had occurred during my absence from France. Among the most active partisans of the Chevalier, in the expe- dition of Lord Mar, had been Montreuil. So great, indeed, had been either his services, or the idea entertained of their value, that a reward of extraordinary amount was offered for his head. Hitherto he had escaped, and was supposed to be still in Scotland. But what affected me more nearly was the condition of Gerald's circumstances. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he had been suddenly seized, and detained in prison; and it was only upon the escape of the Chevalier that he was released ; apparently, however, nothing had been proved against him ; and my absence from the headquarters of intelligence left me in ignorance both of the grounds of his imprisonment, and the circumstances of his release. I heard, however, from Bolingbroke, who seemed to possess some of that information which the ecclesiastical intriguants of the day so curiously transmitted from court to court, and corner to corner, that Gerald had retired to Devereux Court in great disgust at his confinement. However, when I considered * It becomes us neither to court, nor to despise honors. DEVEREUX. 301 his bold character, his close intimacy with Montreuil, and the genius for intrigue which that priest so eminently possessed, I was not much inclined to censure the government for unneces- sary precaution in his imprisonment. There was another circumstance connected with the rebellion which possessed for me an individual and deep interest. A man of the name of Barnard had been executed in England for seditious and treasonable practices. I took especial pains to ascertain every particular respecting him. I learned that he was young, of inconsiderable note, but esteemed clever ; and had, long previously to the death of the queen, been secretly employed by the friends of the Chevalier. This circumstance occasioned me much internal emotion, though there could be no doubt that the Barnard whom I had such cause to execrate, had only borrowed from this minion the disguise of his name. The Regent received me with all the graciousness and com- plaisance for which he was so remarkable. To say the truth my mission had been extremely fortunate in its results ; the only cause in which the Regent was concerned, the interests of which Peter the Great appeared to disregard, was that of the Chevalier ; but I had been fully instructed on that head anterior to my legation. There appears very often to be a sort of moral fitness between the beginning and the end of certain alliances or acquaintances. This sentiment is not very clearly expressed. I am about to illustrate it by an important event in my political life. During my absence Dubois had made rapid steps towards being a great man. He was daily growing into power, and those courtiers who were neither too haughty nor too honest to bend the knee to so vicious, yet able a minion, had already singled him out as a fit person to flatter and to rise by. For me, I neither sought nor avoided him ; but he was as civil towards me as \\\s brusque temper permitted him to be towards most persons; and as our careers were not likely to cross one another, I thought I might reckon on his neutrality, if not on his friendship. Chance turned the scale against me. One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such an hour, at a certain house in the Rue . It occurred to me as no improbable supposition, that the appointment might relate to my individual circumstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour prescribed I appeared at the place of assignation. My mind misgave me when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry 301 UEVEREUX. descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels in this apartment for about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman, of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed thY lady sighed. An tclaircisftment ensued and I found that I had the good fortune to be the object of a. caprice, in the favorite mis- tress of the Abbe Dubois. Nothing was farther from my wishes ! What a pity it is that one cannot always tell a woman one's mind ! I attempted a flourish about friendship, honor, and the respect due to the amante of the most intimate ami I had in the world. " Pooh ! " said the tawny Calypso, a little pettishly " pooh ! one does not talk of those things here." " Madame," said I, very energetically, " I implore you to refrain. Do not excite too severe a contest between passion and duty ! I feel that I must fly you you are already too bewitching." Just as I rose to depart, in rushes the femmede chambre, and announces, not Monsieur, the Abbe, but Monseigneur,the Regent. Of course (the old resort in such cases) I was thrust into a closet; in marches his royal highness, and is received very cavalierly. It is quite astonishing to me what airs those women give them- selves when they have princes to manage ! However, my con- finement was notlong the closet had another door the/emwe de chambre slips round, opens it, and I congratulate myself on my escape. When a Frenchwoman is piqued, she passes all understand- ing. The next day I am very quietly employed at breakfast, when my valet ushers in a masked personage, and, behold my gentlewoman again ! Human endurance will not go too far, and this was a case which required one to be in a passion one way or the other; so I feigned anger, and talked with exceeding dignity about the predicament I had been placed in the day before. " Such must always be the case," said I, " when one is weak enough to form an attachment to a lady who encourages so many others !" " For your sake," said the tender dame, " for your sake, then, I will discard them all ! " There was something grand in this : it might have elicited a few strokes of pathos, when never was there anything so strange- ly provoking the Abbe Dubois himself was heard in my anti- room. I thought this chance, but it was more ; the good Abbe", I afterwards found, had traced cause for suspicion, and had come , v o pay me a visit of amatory police, I opened my dressing bEVEREUX. 303 room door, and thrust in the lady. " There," said I, " are the back-stairs, and at the bottom of the back-stairs is a door." Would not any one have thought this hint enough ? By no means ; this very tall lady stooped to the littleness of listening, and, instead of departing, stationed herself by the keyhole. I never exactly learned whether Dubois suspected the visit his mistress had paid me, or whether he merely surmised, from his spies or her escritoire, that she harbored an inclination to- wards me ; in either case his policy was natural, and like himself. He sat himself down talked of the Regent, of pleasure, of women, and, at last of his very tall lady in question. " Le pauvre diablesse" said he contemptuously, " I had once compassion on her ; I have repented it ever since. You have no idea what a terrible creature she is has such a wen in her neck quite a goitre. Mortdiable ! " (and the Abbe spat in his handkerchief). " I would sooner have a liaison with the witch of Endor ! " Not content with this he went on in his usual gross and dis- pleasing manner to enumerate or to forge those various par- ticulars of her personal charms, which he thought most likely to steel me against her attractions. "Thank Heaven, at least," thought I ' that she has gone ! " Scarcely had this pious gratulation flowed from my heart, be- fore the door was burst open, and pale trembling eyes on fire hands clenched forth stalked the lady in question. A wonderful proof how much sooner a woman would lose her character than allow it to be called not worth the losing. She entered, and had all the furies of Hades lent her their tongues she could not have been more eloquent. It would have been a very pleasant scene if one had not been a partner in it. The old Abbe, with his keen, astute, marked face, struggling between surprise, fear, the sense of the ridiculous, and the certainty of losing his mistress ; the lady, foaming at the mouth, and shaking her clenched hand most menacingly at her traducer myself en- deavoring to pacify, and acting, as one does at such moments, mechanically though one flatters one-self afterwards that one acted solely from wisdom. But the Abbe's mistress was by no means content with vin- dicating herself she retaliated and gave so minute a descrip- tion of the Abbe's own qualities and graces, coupled with so many pleasing illustrations, that in a very little time his coolness forsook him, and he grew in as great a rage as herself. At last she flew out of the room. The Abbe", trembling with passion, shook me most cordially by the hand, grinned from ear to ear, 304 DEVEREUX. said it was a capital joke, wished me good-by, as if he loved me better than his eyes, and left the house, my most irreconcilable and bitter foe ! How could it be otherwise ? The rivalship the Abbe" might have forgiven such things happened every day to him but the having been made so egregiously ridiculous, the Abbe could not forgive ; and the Abbe's was a critical age for jesting on these matters, sixty or so. And then such unpalatable sarcasms on his appearance! " ' 1'is all over in that quarter," said I to myself, "but we may find another," and. I drove out that very day to pay my respects to the Regent. What a pity it is that one's pride should so often be the bane of one's wisdom ! Ah ! that one could be as good a man of the world in practice as one is in theory ! my master-stroke of policy at that moment would evidently have been this : I should have gone to the Regent and made out a story a little similar to the real one, but with this difference, all the ridicule of the situation should have fallen upon me, and the little Dubois should have been elevated on a pinnacle of respectable appear- ances ! This, as the Regent told the Abbe everything, would have saved me. I saw the plan ; but was too proud to adopt it ; I followed another course in my game : I threw away the knave and played with the king, i. e., with the Regent. After a little preliminary conversation, I turned the conversation on the Abbe. " Ah, the sctte'rat ! " said Philip, smiling, " 'tis a sad dog, but very clever and loves me; he would be incomparable, if he were but decently honest." " At least," said I, " he is no hypocrite, and that is some praise." " Hem ! " ejaculated the Duke very slowly, and then, after a pause, he said, " Count, I have a real kindness for you, and I will therefore give you a piece of advice : think as well of Dubois as you can, and address him as if he were all you en- deavored to fancy him." After this hint, which in the mouth of any prince but Philip of Orleans would have been not a little remarkable for its want of dignity, my prospects did not seem much brighter : however, I was not discouraged. "The Abbe"," said I respectfully, "is a choleric man : one may displease him ; but dare I hope that so long as I preserve inviolate my zeal and my attachment to the interests and the person of your highness, no " The Regent interrupted me. " You mean nobody shall sue- >EVEltEUX. 505 cessfully misrepresent you to me ? No, Count " (and here the Regent spoke with the earnestness and dignity which, when he did assume, few wore with a nobler grace), "no, Count, I make a distinction between those who minister to the state, and those who minister to me. I consider your services too valuable to the former to put them at the mercy of the latter. And now that the conversation has turned upon business, I wish to speak to you about this scheme of Gortz.'' After a prolonged conference with the Regent upon matters of business, in which his deep penetration into human nature not a little surprised me, I went away, thoroughly satisfied with my visit. I should not have been so had I added to my other accomplishments the gift of prophecy. Above five days after this interview, I thought it would be but prudent to pay the Abbe Dubois one of those visits of homage which it was already become policy to pay him. " If I go," thought I, " it will seem as if nothing had happened ; if I stay away, it will seem as if I attached importance to a scene I should appear to have forgotten." Jt so happened that the Abbe had a very unusual visitor that morning, in the person of the austere but admirable Due deSt. Simon. There was a singular, and almost invariable, distinc- tion in the Regent's mind between one kind of regard and another. His regard for one order of persons always arose either out of his vices or his indolence ; his regard for another, out of his good qualities and his strong sense. The Due deSt. Simon held the same place in the latter species of affection that Dubois did in the former. The Due was just coming out of the Abbe's closet as I entered the ante-room. He paused to speak to me, while Dubois, who had followed the Due out, stopped for one moment, and surveyed me with a look like a thunder-cloud. I did not appear to notice it, but St. Simon did. ''That look," said he, as Dubois, beckoning to a gentleman to accompany him to his closet, once more disappeared, " that look bodes you no good, Count." Pride is an elevation which is a spring-board at one time, and a stumbling-block at another. It was witli me more often the stumbling-block than the spring-board. " Monseigneur le Due," said I haughtily enough, and rather in too loud a tone considering the chamber was pretty full, " in no court to which Morton Devereux proffers his services shall his fortune de- pend upon the looks of a low-born, insolent, or profligate priest." St. Simon smiled sardonically. "Monsieur le Comte," said 306 DEVEREUX. he, rather civilly, "I honor your sentiments, and I wish you suc- cess in the world and a lower voice." I was going to say something by way of retort, for I was in a very bad humor, but I checked myself ; " I need not," thought I, " make two enemies if I can help it." " I shall never," I replied gravely, " I shall never despair, so long as the Due de St. Simon lives, of winning by the same arts the favor of princes and the esteem of good men." The Due was flattered, and replied suitably, but he very soon afterwards went away. I was resolved that I would not go till I had fairly seen what sort of reception the Abbe would give me. I did not wait long he came out of his closet, and standing in his usual rude manner with his back to the fireplace, received the addresses and compliments of his visitors. I was not in a hurry to present myself, but I did so at last with a familiar, yet rather respectful, air. Dubois looked at me from head to foot, and abruptly turning his back upon me, said with an oath, to a courtier who stood next to him, " The plagues of Pharaoh are come again only instead of Egyptian frogs in our cham- bers, we have the still more troublesome guests English ad- venturers ! " Somehow or other my compliments rarely tell ; I am lavish enough of them, but they generally have the air of sarcasms ; thank Heaven, however, no one can accuse me of ever wanting a rude answer to a rude speech. " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " said I now, in answer to Dubois, with a courteous laugh, " you have an ex- cellent wit, Abbe. Apropos of adventurers, I met a Monsieur St. Laurent, Principal of the Institution of St. Michael, the other day, 'Count,' said he, hearing I was going to Paris, 'you can do me an especial favor ! ' ' What is it ? ' said I. ' Why a cast-off valet of mine is living at Paris he would have gone long since to the galleys, if he had not taken sanctuary in the Church if ever you meet him give him a good horsewhipping on my account: his name is William Dubois.' 'Depend upon it,' answered I to Monsieur St. Laurent, 'that if he is servant to anyone not belonging to the royal family, I will fulfil your errand, and horsewhip him soundly ; if /// the service of the royal family, why respect for his masters must oblige me to content myself with putting all persons on their guard against a little rascal, who retains, in all situations, the manners of the apothecary's son, and the roguery of the director's valet.' " All the time I was relating this charming little anecdote, it would have been amusing to the last degree to note the horri- 36? fied countenances of the surrounding gentlemen. Dubois was too confoundtd, too aghast, to interrupt me, and I left the room before a single syllable was uttered. Had Dubois at that time been what he was afterwards, cardinal and prime minister, I should in all probability have had permanent lodgings in the Bastile, in return for my story. Even as it was, the Abbe was not so grateful as he ought to have been, for my taking so much pains to amuse him ! In spite of my anger on leaving the favor- ite, I did not forget my prudence, and accordingly I hastened to the Prince. When the Regent admitted me, I flung myself on my knee, and told him, verbatim, all that had happened. The Regent, who seems to have had very little real liking for Dubois, could not help laughing when I ludicrously described to him the universal consternation my anecdote had excited.* " Courage, my dear Count," said he kindly, " you have noth- ing to fear; return home and count upon an embassy ! " I relied on the royal word, returned to my lodgings, and spent the evening with Chaulieu and Fontenelle. The next day the Due de St. Simon paid me a visit. After a little preliminary conversation, he unburthened the secret with which he was charged. I was desired to leave Paris in forty-eight hours. "Believe me," said St. Simon, "that this message was not en- trusted to me by the Regent, without great reluctance. He sends you many condescending and kind messages ; says he shall always both esteem and like you, and hopes to see you again, some time or other, at the Palais Royal. Moreover, he desires the message to be private, and has entrusted it tome in especial, because hearing that I had a kindness for you, and knowing I had a hatred for Dubois, he thought I should be the least unwelcome messenger of such disagreeable tidings. ' To tell you the truth, St. Simon,' said the Regent laughing, ' I only consent to have him banished, from a firm conviction that, if I do not, Dubois will take some opportunity of having him be- headed.'" " Pray," said T, smiling with a tolerable good grace, " pray give my most grateful and humble thanks to his highness, for his very considerate and kind foresight. I could not have chosen better for myself than his highness has chosen for me : my only regret on quitting France is at leaving a prince so af- fable as Philip, and a courtier so virtuous as St. Simon." Though the good Due went every year to the Abbey de la * On the death of Duhois, the Regent wrote to die Count de Noce\ whom he had ban- ist the favorite, uttered at < :pect you to-night to suppe ished for an indiscreet expression against the favorite, uttered at one of his private suppers ; " With the beast dies the venom : 1 expect you to-night to supper at the Palais RoyaL" 3oS 15EVEREUX. Trappe, for the purpose of mortifying his sins and preserving his religion, in so impious an atmosphere as the Palais Royal, he was not above flattery ; and he expressed himself towards me with particular kindness after my speech. At court, one becomes a sort of human ant-bear, and learns to catch one's prey by one's tongue. After we had eased ourselves a little by abusing Dubois, the Due took his leave in order to allow me time to prepare for my " journey," as he politely called it. Before he left, he how- ever asked me whither my course would be bent. I told him that I should take my chance with the Czar Peter, and see if his czarship thought the same esteem was due to the disgraced courtier, as to the favored diplomatist. That night I received a letter from St. Simon, enclosing one addressed with all due form to the Czar. " You will consider the enclosed," wrote St. Simon, l< a fresh proof of the Regent's kindness to you ; it is a most flattering testimonial in your favor, and cannot fail to make the Czar anxious to secure your ser- vices." I was not a little touched by a kindness, so unusual in princes to their discarded courtiers, and this entirely reconciled me to a change of scene which, indeed, under any other circumstan- ces, my somewhat morbid love for action and variety would have induced me rather to relish than dislike. Within thirty-six hours from the time of dismissal, I had turned my back upon the French capital. CHAPTER VI. A long Interval of Years. A Change of Mind and its Causes. THE last accounts received of the Czar reported him to be at Dantzic. He had, however, quitted that place when I ar- rived there. I lost no time in following him, and presented myself to his Majesty one day after his dinner, when he was sitting with one leg in the Czarina's lap, and a bottle of the best eau de -vie before him. I had chosen my time well ; he received me most graciously, read my letter from the Regent about which, remembering the fate of Bellerophon, I had had certain apprehensions, but which proved to be in the highest degree complimentary and then declared himself extremely happy to see me again. However parsimonious Peter gener- ally was towards foreigners, I never had ground for personal DEVEREUX. 309 domplaint on that score. The very next day I was appointed to a post of honor and profit about the royal person ; from this I was transferred to a military station, in which I rose with great rapidity ; and I was only occasionally calied from my warlike duties, to be entrusted with diplomatic missions of the highest confidence and importance. It is this portion of my life a portion of nine years, to the time of the Czar's death that I shall, in this history, the most concentrate and condense. In truth, were I to dwell upon it at length, I should make little more than a mere record of political events differing, in some respects, it is true, from the received histories of the time^ but containing nothing to com- pensate in utility for the want of interest. That this was the exact age for adventurers, Alberoni and Dubo ; s are sufficient proofs. Never was there a more stirring, active, restless period ; never one in which the genius of intrigue was so pervading- ly at work. I was not less fortunate than my brethren. Al- though scarcely four and twenty when I entered the Czar's service, my habits of intimacy with men much older my cus- tomary gravity, reserve, and thought "my freedom, since Isora's death, from youthful levity or excess my early entrance into the world and a countenance prematurely marked with lines of reflection, and sobered by its hue made me appear consid- erably older than I was. I kept my own counsel, and affected to be so ; youth is a great enemy to one's success ; and more esteem is often bestowed upon a wrinkled brow than a plod- ding brain. All the private intelligence which, during this space of time, I had received from England was far from voluminous. My mother still enjoyed the quiet of her religious retreat. A fire, arising from the negligence of a servant, had consumed nearly the whole of Devereux Court (the fine old house ! till that went, I thought even England held one friend). Upon this accident, Gerald had gone to London ; and though there was now no doubt of his being concerned in the Rebellion of ly^j he had been favorably received at court, and was already renowned throughout London, for his pleasures, his excesses, and his munificent profusion. Montreuil, whose lot seemed to be always to lose, by intrigue, what he gained by the real solidity of his genius, had embarked very largely in the rash but gigantic schemes of Gortz and Alber- oni ; schemes which, had they succeeded, would not only have placed a new king upon the English throne, but wrought an Utter change over the whole face of Europe. With Alberoni and with Gortz fell Montreuil. He was banished France and Spain ; the penalty of death awaited him in Britain ; and he was supposed to have tin-own himself into some convent in Italy, where his name and his character were unknown. In this brief intelligence was condensed all my information of the actors in my first scenes of life. I return to that scene on which I had now entered. At the age of thirty-three, I had acquired a reputation suffi- cient to content my ambition my fortune was larger than my wants I was a favorite in courts I had been successful in camps I had already obtained all that would have rewarded the whole lives of many men superior to myself in merit more ardent than myself in desires. I was still young my appearance, though greatly altered, manhood had rather im- proved than impaired. I had not forestalled my constitution by excesses, nor worn dry the sources of pleasure by too large a demand upon their capacities; why was it then, at that gold- en age in the very prime and glory of manhood in the very zenith and summer of success that a deep, dark, pervading mel- ancholy fell upon me ? A melancholy so gloomy that it seemed to be as a thick and impenetrable curtain drawn gradually be- tween myself and the blessed light of human enjoyment. A torpor crept upon me an indolent, heavy, clinging languor, gathered over my whole frame the physical and the mental : I sat for hours without book, paper, object, thought, gazing on vacancy stirring not feeling not yes, feeling, but feeling only one sensation, a sick, sad, drooping despondency a sink- ing in of the heart a sort of gnawing within, as if some- thing living were twisted round my vitals, and, finding no other food, preyed, though with a sickly and dull maw, upon them. This disease came upon me slowly : it was not till the beginning of a second year, from its obvious and palpable commencement, that it grew to the height that I have described. It began with a distaste to all that I had been accustomed to enjoy, or to pursue. Music, which I had always passionately loved, though from some defect in the organs of hearing I was incapable of attaining the smallest knowledge of the science, music lost all its diviner spells, all its properties of creating a new existence, a life of dreaming and vague luxuries, within the mind it be- came only a monotonous soundness grateful to the languor of my faculties than utter and dead stillness. I had never been what is generally termed a boon companion, but I had had the social vanities, if not the social tastes : I had insensibly loved the board which echoed with applause at my sallies, and the DEVEREUX. 311 comrades who, while they deprecated my satire, had been com- plaisant enough to hail it as wit. One of my weaknesses is a love of show, and I had gratified a feeling not the less cherished because it arose from a petty source, in obtaining for my equipages, my mansion, my banquets, the celebrity which is given no less to magnificence than to fame ; now I grew in- different alike to the signs of pomp, and to the baubles of taste ; praise fell upon a listless ear, and (rare pitch of satiety !) the pleasures that are the offspring of our foibles delighted me no more. I had early learned from Bolingbroke a love for the converse of men, eminent, whether for wisdom or for wit ; the graceful badinage, or the keen critique the sparkling flight of the winged words which encircled and rebounded from lip to lip, or the deep speculation upon the mysterious and unravelled wonders of man, of nature and the world the light maxim upon manners, or the sage inquiry into the mines of learn- ing; all and each had possessed a link to bind my temper and my tastes to the graces and fascination of social life. Now a new spirit entered within me : the smile faded from my lip, and the jest departed from my tongue ; memory seemed no less treacherous than fancy, and deserted me the instant I at- tempted to enter into those contests of knowledge in which I had been not undistinguished before. I grew confused and embarrassed in speech my words expressed a sense utterly different to that which I had intended to convey, and at last, as my apathy increased, I sat at my own board, silent and lifeless, freezing into ice the very powers and streams of converse which I had once been the foremost to circulate and to warm. At the time I refer to, I was minister at one of the small con- tinental courts, where life is a round of unmeaning etiquette and wearisome ceremonials, a daily labor of trifles a ceaseless pageantry of nothings I had been sent there upon one impor- tant event, the business resulting from it had soon ceased, and all the duties that remained for me to discharge were or a nega- tive and passive nature. Nothing that could arouse nothing that could occupy faculties that had for years been so perpetu- ally wound up to a restless excitement was left for me in this terrible reservoir of ennui. I had come thither at once from the skirmishing and wild warfare of a Tartar foe ; a war in which, though the glory was obscure, the action was perpetual and exciting. I had come thither, and the change was as if I had passed from a mountain stream to a stagnant pool. Society at this court reminded me of a state funeral, everything was pompous and lugubrious, even to the drapery even to the 312 DEVEREUX. feathers which, in other scenes, would have been consecrated to associations of levity or of grace ; the hourly pageant swept on, slow, tedious, mournful, and the object of the attendants was only to entomb the Pleasure which they affected to celebrate. What a change for the wild, the strange, the novel, the intrigu- ing, the varying life, which, whether in courts or camps, I had hitherto led. The internal change that came over myself is scarcely to be wondered at ; the winds stood still, and the straw they had blown from quarter to quarter, whether in anger or in sport, began to moulder upon the spot where they had left it. From this cessation of the aims, hopes, and thoughts of life, I was awakened by the spreading, as it were, of another dis- ease the dead, dull, aching pain at my heart, was succeeded by one acute and intense ; the absence of thought gave way to one thought more terrible more dark more despairing than any which had haunted me since the first year of Isora's death; and from a numbness and pause, as it were, of existence, exis- tence became too keen and intolerable a sense. I will enter into an explanation. At the Court of , there was an Italian, not uncelebrated for his wisdom, nor unbeloved for an innocence and integrity of life, rarely indeed to be met with among his countrymen. The acquaintance of this man, who was about fifty years of age, and who was devoted, almost exclusively, to the pursuit of philo- sophical science I had sedulously cultivated. His conversa- tion pleased me ; his wisdom improved ; and his benevolence, which reminded me of the traits of La Fontaine, it was so in- fantine, made me incline to love him. Upon the growth of the fearful malady of mind which seized me, I had discontinued my visits and my invitations to the Italian : and Bezoni (so was he called) felt a little offended by my neglect. As soon, how- ever, as he discovered my state of mind, the good man's resent- ment left him. He forced himself upon my solitude, and would sit by me whole evenings sometimes without exchanging a word sometimes with vain attempts to interest, to arouse, or to amuse me. At last one evening, it was the era of a fearful suffering to me, our conversation turned upon those subjects which are at once the most important, and the most rarely discussed. We spoke of religion. We first talked upon the theology of revealed religion. As Bezoni warmed into candor, I perceived that his doctrines differed from my own, and that he inly disbelieved that divine creed which Christians profess to adore. From a dispute on the ground of faith, we came to one upon the more DEVEREUX. 313 debatable ground of reason. We turned from the subject of revealed, to that of natural, religion ; and we entered long and earnestly into that grandest of all earthly speculations the metaphysical proofs of the immortality of the soul. Again the sentiments of Bezoni were opposed to mine. He was a believer in the dark doctrine which teaches that man is dust, and that all things are forgotten in the grave. He expressed his opinions with a clearness and precision the more impressive because totally devoid of cavil and of rhetoric. I listened in silence, but with a deep and most chilling dismay. Even now I think I see the man as he sat before me, the light of the lamp falling on his high forehead and dark features; even now I think I hear his calm, low voice the silver voice of his country stealing to my heart, and withering the only pure and unsullied hope which I yet cherished there. Bezoni left me, unconscious of the anguish he bequeathed me, to think over all he had said. I did not sleep, nor even re- tire to bed. I laid my head upon my hands, and surrendered myself to turbulent, yet intense, reflection. Every man who has lived much in the world, and conversed with its various tribes, has, I fear, met with many who, on this momentous subject, pro- fess the same tenets as Bezoni. But he was the first person I had met of that sect who had evidently thought long and deep- ly upon the creed he had embraced. He was not a voluptuary, nor a boaster, nor a wit. He had not been misled by the de- lusions either of vanity or of the senses. He was a man, pure, innocent, modest, full of all tender charities, and meek dis- positions towards mankind ; it was evidently his interest to be- lieve in a future state: he could have had nothing to fear from it. Not a single passion did he cherish which the laws of an- other world would have condemned. Add to this, what I have observed before, that he was not a man fond of the display of intellect, nor one that brought to the discussions of wisdom the artillery of wit. He was grave, humble, and self-diffident, be- yond all beings. I would have given a kingdom to have found something in the advocate by which I could have condemned the cause. I could not, and I was wretched. I spent the whole of the next week among my books. I ran- sacked whatever in my scanty library the theologians had writ- ten, or the philosophers had bequeathed upon that mighty secret. I arranged their arguments in my mind. I armed myself with their weapons. I felt my heart spring joyously within me as I felt the strength I had acquired, and I sent to the philosopher to visit me, that I might conquer and confute him. He came: 314 DEVEREUX. but he spoke with pain and reluctance. He saw that I had taken the matter far more deeply to heart than he could have supposed it possible in a courtier, and a man of fortune and the world. Little did he know of me or my secret soul. I broke down his reserve at last. I unrolled my arguments. I answered his, and we spent the whole night in a controversy. He left me, and I was more bewildered than ever. To speak truth, he had devoted years to the subject : I had devoted only a week. He had come to his conclusions step by step ; he had reached the great ultimatum with slowness, with care, and, he confessed, with anguish and with reluctance. What a match was I, who brought a hasty temper, and a limited reflection, on that subject, to a reasonerlike this ? His candor staggered and chilled me even more than his logic. Arguments that occurred not to me, upon my side of the question, /^stated at length, and with force ; I heard, and, till he replied to them, I deemed they were unanswerable the reply came, and I had no counter- word. A meeting of this nature was often repeated ; and when he left me, tears crept into my wild eyes, my heart melted within me, and I wept ! I must now enter more precisely than I have yet done into my state of mind upon religious matters at the time this dispute with the Italian occurred. To speak candidly, I had been far less shocked with his opposition to me upon matters of doctri- nal faith, than with that upon matters of abstract reasoning. Bred a Roman Catholic, though pride, consistency, custom, made me externally adhere to the Papal Church, I inly perceived its errors, and smiled at its superstitions. And in the busy world, where so little but present objects, or human anticipa- tions of the future, engross the attention, I had never given the subject that consideration which would have enabled me (as it has since) to separate the dogmas of the priest from the pre- cepts of the Saviour, and thus confirmed my belief as the Chris- tian, by the very means which would have loosened it as the Sectarian. So that at the time Bezoni knew me, a certain in- difference to perhaps arising from an ignorance of doctrinal points, rendered me little hurt by arguments against opinions which I embraced indeed, but Avith a lukewarm and imperfect affection. But it was far otherwise upon abstract points of rea- soning ; far otherwise, when the hope of surviving this frail and most unhallowed being was to be destroyed. I might have been indifferent to cavil upon what was the word of God, but never to question of the justice of God himself. In the whole world, there was not a more ardent believer in our imperishable nature, DEVEREUX. 315 nor one more deeply interested in the belief. Do not let it be supposed that because I have not often recurred to Isora's death (or because I have continued my history in a jesting and light tone), that that event ever passed from the memory which it had turned to bitterness and gall. Never, in the mazes of intrigue, in the festivals of pleasure, in the tumults of ambition, in the blaze of a licentious court, or by the rude tents of a barbarous host, never, my buried love, had I forgotten thee ! That re- membrance, had no other cause existed, would have led me to God. Every night in whatever toils or objects, whatever fail- ures or triumphs, the day had been consumed every night, be- fore I laid my head upon my widowed and lonely pillow, I had knelt down, and lifted my heart to Heaven, blending the hopes of that heaven with the memory and the vision of Isora. Prayer had seemed to me a commune not only with the living God, but with the dead by whom His dwelling is surrounded. Pleasant and soft was it to turn to one thought, to which all the holiest portions of my nature clung, between the wearying acts of this hard and harsh drama of existence. Even the bitterness of Isora's early and unavenged death passed away, when I thought of the heaven to which she was gone, and in which, though I journeyed now through sin and travail, and recked little if the paths of others differed from my own, I yet trusted, with a solemn trust, that I should meet her at last. There was I to merit her with a love as undying, and at length as pure, as her own. It was this that at the stated hour in which, after my prayer for our reunion, I surrendered my spirit to the bright and wild visions of her far, but not impassable home, it was this which for that single hour made all around me a paradise of delighted thoughts ! It was not the little earth, nor the cold sky, nor the changing wave, nor the perishable turf no, nor the dead wall, and the narrow chamber which were round me then ! No dreamer ever was so far from the localities of flesh and life as I was in that enchanted hour : a light seemed to settle upon all things round me ; her voice murmured on my ear, her kisses melted on my brow ; I shut my eyes, and I fancied that I beheld her ! Wherefore was this comfort ? whence came the spell which admitted me to this fairy land ? What was the source of the hope, and the rapture, and the delusion ? Was it not the deep certainty that Isora yet existed that her spirit, her nature, her love were preserved, were inviolate, were the same ? That they watched over me yet, that she knew that in that hour I was with her that she felt my prayer that even then she anticipated 316 BEVEREUX. the moment when my soul should burst the human prison- house, and be once more blended with her own ? What ! and was this to be no more ? Were those mystic and sweet revealings to be mute to me for ever? Were my thoughts of Isora to be henceforth bounded to the charnel house and the worm ? Was she indeed no more ? No more O, intolerable despair ! Why, there was not a thing I had once known, not a dog that I had caressed, not a book that I had read, which I could know that I should see no more, and, knowing, not feel something of regret. No more ! were we, indeed, parted for- ever and forever ? Had she gone in her young years, with her warm affections, her new hopes, all green and unwithered at her heart, at once into dust, stillness, ice? And had I known her only for one year, one little year, to see her torn from me by a violent and bloody death, and to be left a mourner in this vast and eternal charnel, without a solitary consolation, or a gleam of hope ? Was the earth to be henceforth a mere mass con- jured from the bones and fattened by the clay of our dead sires ? were the stars and the moon to be mere atoms and specks of a chill light, no longer worlds, which the ardent spirit might hereafter reach, and be fitted to enjoy ? Was the heaven the tender, blue, loving heaven, in whose far regions I had dreamt was Isora's home, and had, therefore, grown bet- ter and happier when I gazed upon it, to be nothing but cloud and air ? and had the love, which had seemed so immortal, and so springing from that which had not blent itself with mortality, been but a gross lamp fed only by the properties of a brute nature, and placed in a dark cell of clay, to glimmer, to burn, and to expire with the frail walls which it had illumined ? Dust, death, worms, were these the heritage of love and hope, of thought, of passion, of all that breathed, and kindled, and exalted, and created within ? Could I contemplate this idea, could I believe it possible ? I could not. But against the abstract, the logical arguments for that idea had I a reply ? I shudder as I write that at///#/ time I had not ! I endeavored to fix my whole thoughts to the study of those subtile reasonings which I had hitherto so im- perfectly conned ; but my mind was jarring, irresolute, bewild- ered, confused ; my stake seemed too vast to allow me coolness for the game. Whoever has had cause for some refined and deep study in the midst of the noisy and loud world, may perhaps readily comprehend that feeling which now possessed me ; a feeling that it was utterly impossible to abstract and concentrate one's DEVEREUX, 317 thoughts, while at the mercy of every intruder, and fevered and fretful by every disturbance. Men, early and long accustomed to mingle such reflections with the avocations of courts and cities, have grown callous to these interruptions, and it has been in the very heart of the multitude that the profoundest specu- lations have been cherished and produced ; but I was not of this mould. The world, which before had been distasteful, now grew insufferable ; I longed for some seclusion, some utter solitude, some quiet and unpenetrated nook, that I might give my undivided mind to the knowledge of these things, and build the tower of divine reasonings by which I might ascend to heaven. It was at this time, and in the midst of my fiercest internal conflict, that the great Czar died, and I was suddenly recalled to Russia. " Now," I said, when I heard of my release, " now shall my wishes be fulfilled." I sent to Bezoni. He came, but he refused, as indeed he had for some time done, to speak to me further upon the question which so wildly engrossed me. " I forgive you," said I, when we parted, " I forgive you for all that you have cost me ; I feel that the moment is now at hand when my faith shall frame a weapon wherewith to triumph over yours ! " Father in Heaven ! thanks be to thee that my doubts were at last removed, and the cloud rolled away from my soul. Bezoni embraced me, and wept over me. " All good men," said he, " have a mighty interest in your success ; for me there is nothing dark, even in the mute grave, if it covers the ashes of one who has loved and served his brethren, and done, with a wilful heart, no living creature wrong." Soon afterwards the Italian lost his life in attending the victims of a fearful and contagious disease, whom even the regular practitioners of the healing art hesitated to visit. At this moment I am, in the strictest acceptation of the words, a believer and a Christian. I have neither anxiety nor doubt upon the noblest and the most comforting of all creeds, and I am grateful, among the other blessings which faith has brought me I am grateful that it has brought me CHARITY ! Dark to all human beings was Bezoni's doctrine dark, above all, to those who have mourned on earth ; so withering to all the hopes which cling the most enduringly to the heart, was his unhappy creed that he who knows how inseparably, though insensibly, our moral legislation is woven with our supposed self-interest, will scarcely marvel at, even while he condemns, the unwise and unholy persecution which that creed univers- 3lS DEVEREUX. ally sustains ! Many a most wretched hour, many a pang of agony and despair, did those doctrines inflict upon myself ; but I know that the intention of Bezoni was benevolence, and that the practice of his life was virtue : and while my reason tells me that God will not punish the reluctant and involuntary error of one to whom all God's creatures were so dear, my re- ligion bids me hope that I shall meet him in that world where no error is, and where the Great Spirit, to whom all human passions are unknown, avenges the momentary doubt of His justice by a proof of the infinity of His mercy. BOOK VI. CHAPTER I. The Retreat. I ARRIVED at St. Petersburgh, and found the Czarina, whose conjugal perfidy was more than suspected, tolerably resigned to the extinction of that dazzling life, whose incalculable and god- like utility it is reserved for posterity to appreciate ! I have observed, by the way, that, in general, men are the less mourned by their families in proportion as they are the more mourned by the community. The great are seldom amiable ; and those who are the least lenient to our errors are invariably our relations ! Many circumstances at that time conspired to make my re- quest to quit the imperial service appear natural and appropri- ate. The death of the Czar, joined to a growing jealousy and suspicion between the English monarch and Russia, which, though long existing, was now become more evident and notor- ious than heretofore, gave me full opportunity to observe that my pardon had been obtained from King George three years since, and that private as well as national ties rendered my return to England a measure not only of expediency but neces- sity. The imperial Catherine granted me my dismissal in the most flattering terms, and added the high distinction of the order founded in honor of the memorable feat by which she had DEVEREUX. 319 Saved her royal consort and the Russian army, to the order of St. Andrew, which I had already received. I transferred my wealth, now immense, to England, and, with the pomp which became the rank and reputation Fortune had bestowed upon me, I commenced the long land journey I had chalked out to myself. Although I had alleged my wish to revisit England as the main reason for my retirement from Russia, I had also expressed an intention of visiting Italy pre- vious to my return to England. The physicians, indeed, had recommended to me that delicious climate as an antidote to the ills my constitution had sustained in the freezing skies of the north ; and in my own heart I had secretly appointed some more solitary part of the Divine Land for the scene of my pur- posed hermitage and seclusion. It is indeed astonishing how those who have lived much in cold climates yearn for lands of mellow light and summer luxuriance ; and I felt for a southern sky the same resistless longing which sailors, in the midst of the yast ocean, have felt for the green fields and various landscape of the shore. I traversed, then, the immense tracts of Russia passed through Hungary entered Turkey, which I had wished to visit, where I remained a short time ; and, crossing the Adri- atic, hailed, for the first time, the Ausonian shore. It was the month of May that month, of whose lustrous beauty none in a northern clime can dream that I entered Italy. It may serve as an instance of the power with which a thought, that, however important, is deemed of too abstract and metaphysical a nature deeply to engross the mind, possessed me then, that I no cold nor unenthusiastic votary of the classic Muse made no pilgrimage to city or ruin, but, after a brief sojourn at Ravenna, where I dismissed all my train, set out alone to find the solitary cell for which I now sickened with a hermit's love. It was in a small village at the foot of the Apennines that I found the object of my search. Strangely enough, there blended with my philosophical ardor a deep mixture of my old romance. Nature, to whose voice the dweller in cities, and struggler with mankind, had been so long obtuse, now pleaded audibly at my heart, and called me to her embraces, as a mother calls unto her wearied child. My eye, as with a new vision, became opened to the mute yet eloquent loveliness of this most fairy earth : and hill and valley the mirror of silent waters the sunny stillness of woods, and the old haunts of satyr and nymph revived in me the fountains of past poetry, 320 DEVEREUX. and became the receptacles of a thousand spells, mightier than the charms of any enchanter save Love which was departed Youth, which was nearly gone and Nature, which (more viv- idly than ever) existed for me still. I chose, then, my retreat. As I was fastidious in its choice, I cannot refrain from the luxury of describing it. Ah, little did I dream that I had come thither, not only to find a divine comfort, but the sources of a human and most passionate woe ! Mightiest of the Roman bards ! in whom tenderness and reason were so entwined, and who didst sanctify even thine unholy errors with so beautiful and so rare a genius ! what an invari- able truth one line of thine has expressed : " Even in the fair- est fountain of delight there is a secret and evil spring eternally bubbling up and scattering its bitter waters over the very flowers which surround its margin ! " In the midst of a lovely and tranquil vale was a small cot- tage ; that was my home. The good people there performed for me all the hospitable offices I required. At a neighboring monastery I had taken the precaution to make myself known to the superior. Not all Italians no, nor all monks belong to either of the two great tribes into which they are generally divided knaves or fools. The Abbot Anselmo was a man of rather a liberal and enlarged mind ; he not only kept my secret, which was necessary to my peace, but he took my part, which was, perhaps, necessary to my safety. A philosopher, who de- sires only to convince himself, and upon one subject, does not require many books. Truth lies in a small compass ; and for my part, in considering any speculative subject, I would sooner have with me one book of Euclid, as a model, than all the library of the Vatican, as authorities. But then I am not fond of drawing upon any resources but those of reason for reason- ings ; wiser men than I am are not so strict. The few books that I did require were, however, of a nature very illicit in Italy ; the good father passed them to me from Ravenna, under his own protection. " I was a holy man," he said, " who wished to render the Catholic church a great service, by writing a vast book against certain atrocious opinions ; and the works I read were, for the most part, works that I was about to confute." This report gained me protection and respect ; and, after I had ordered my agent at Ravenna to forward to the excellent Abbot a piece of plate, and a huge cargo of a rare Hungary wine, it was not the Abbot's fault if I was not the most popular person in the neighborhood. But to my description : my home was a cottage the valley DEVEREUX. 3?I in which it lay was divided by a mountain stream, which came from the forest Apennine, a sparkling and wild stranger, and softened into quiet and calm as it proceeded through its green margin in the vale. And that margin, how dazzlingly green it was ! At the distance of about a mile from my hut, the stream was broken into a slight waterfall, whose sound was heard dis- tinct and deep in that still place : and often I paused, from my midnight thoughts, to listen to its enchanted and wild melody. The fall was unseen by the ordinary wanderer, for there the stream passed through a thick copse ; and even when you pierced the grove, and gained the water-side, dark trees hung over the turbulent wave, and the silver spray was thrown upward through the leaves, and fell in diamonds upon the deep green sod. This was a most favored haunt with me ; the sun glancing through the idle leaves the music of the water the solemn absence of all other sounds, except the songs of birds, to which the ear grew accustomed, and, at last, in the abstraction of thought, scarcely distinguished from the silence the fragrant herbs and the unnumbered and nameless flowers which formed my couch were all calculated to make me pursue uninterrupt- edly the thread of contemplation which I had, in the less volup- tuous and harsher solitude of the closet, first woven from the web of austerest thought. I say pursue, for it was too luxuri- ous and sensual a retirement for the conception of a rigid and severe train of reflection ; at least it would have been so to me. But, when the thought is once born, such scenes seem to me the most fit to cradle and to rear it. The torpor of the physical, appears to leave to the mental, frame a full scope and power ; the absence of human cares, sounds, and intrusions, becomes the best nurse to contemplation ; and even that delicious and vague sense of enjoyment which would seem, at first, more genial to the fancy than the mind, preserves the thought undisturbed, because contented ; so that all but the scheming mind becomes lapped in sleep, and the mind itself lives distinct and active as a dream ; a dream, not vague, nor confused, nor unsatisfying, but endowed with more than the clearness, the precision, the vigor of waking life. A little way from this waterfall was a fountain, a remnant of a classic and golden age. Never did Naiad gaze on a more glassy mirror, or dwell in a more divine retreat. Through a crevice in an overhanging mound of the emerald earth, the father stream of the fountain crept out, born, like Love, among flowers, and in the most sunny smiles ; it then fell, broadening 322 DEVEREUX. and glowing, into a marble basin, at whose bottom, in the shining noon, you might see a soil which mocked the very hues of gold, and the water insects, in their quaint shapes, and unknown sports, grouping or gliding in the midmost wave. A small temple, of the lightest architecture, stood before the fountain ; and, in a niche therein, a mutilated statue possibly of the Spirit of the Place. By this fountain, my evening walk would linger till the short twilight melted away, and the silver wave trembled in the light of the western star. Oh ! then, what feelings gathered over me as I turned slowly homeward ; the air still, breathless, shining the stars, gleaming over the woods of the far Apennine the hills, growing huger in the shade the small insects humming on the wing and, ever and anon, the swift bat, wheeling round and amidst them the music of the waterfall deepening on the ear ; and the light and hour lending even a mysterious charm to the cry of the weird owl, flitting after its prey, all this had a harmony in my thoughts, and a food for the meditations in which my days and nights were consumed. The World moulders away the fabric of our early nature, and Solitude rebuilds it on a firmer base. CHAPTER II. The Victory. O EARTH ! Reservoir of life, over whose deep bosom brood the wings of the Universal Spirit, shaking upon thee a blessing and a power a blessing and power to produce and reproduce the living from the dead, so that our flesh is woven from the same atoms which were once the atoms of our sires, and the inexhaustible nutriment of Existence is Decay ! O eldest and most solemn Earth, blending even thy loveliness and joy with a terror and an awe ! thy sunshine is girt with clouds, and cir- cled with storm and tempest : thy day cometh from the womb of darkness, and returneth unto darkness, as man returns unto thy bosom. The green herb that laughs in the valley, the water that sings merrily along the wood ; the many-winged and all- searching air, which garners life as a harvest, and scatters it as a seed ; all are pregnant with corruption and carry the cradled death within them, as an oak banqueteth the destroying worm. But who that looks upon thee, and loves thee, and inhales thy blessings, will ever mingle too deep a moral with his joy? Let us not ask whence come the garlands that we wreathe around DEVEREUX. 323 our altars, or shower upon our feasts : will they not bloom as brightly, and breathe with as rich a fragrance, whether they be plucked from the garden or the grave ? O Earth, my Mother Earth ! dark Sepulchre that closes upon all which the Flesh bears, but Vestibule of the vast regions which the Soul shall pass, ho\v leapt my heart within me when I first fathomed thy real spell ! Yes ! never shall I forget the rapture with which I hailed the light that dawned upon me at last ! Never shall I forget the suffocating the full the ecstatic joy, with which I saw the mightiest of all human hopes accomplished ; arid felt, as if an angel spoke, that there is a life beyond the grave ! Tell me not of the pride of ambition tell me not of the triumphs of science : never had ambition so lofty an end as the search after immortality ! never had science so sublime a triumph as the conviction that immortality will be gained ! I had been at my task the whole night, pale alchemist, seeking from meaner truths to extract the greatest of all ! At the first hour of day, lo ! the gold was there : tlie labor for which I would have relinquished life, was accomplished ; the dove descended upon the waters of my soul. I fled from the house. I was possessed as with a spirit. I ascended a hill, which looked for leagues over the sleeping valley. A gray mist hung around me like a veil ; 1 paused, and the great Sun broke slowly forth ; I gazed upon its majesty, and my heart swelled. " So rises the soul," I said, " from the vapors of this dull being ; but the soul waneth riot, neither setteth it, nor knoweth it any night, save that from which it dawneth ! " The mists rolled gradually away, the sun- shine deepened, and the face of nature lay in smiles, yet silently, before me. It lay before me, a scene that I had often witnessed, and hailed, and worshipped ; but it was not the same : a glory had passed over it ; it was steeped in a beauty and a holiness, in which neither youth, nor poetry, nor even love, had ever robed it before ! The change which the earth had undergone was like that of some being we have loved when death is past, and from a mortal it becomes an angel ! I uttered a cry of joy, and was then as silent as all around me. I felt as if henceforth there was a new compact between nature and myself. I felt as if every tree, and blade of grass, were henceforth to be eloquent with a voice, and instinct with a spell. . I felt as if a religion had entered into the earth, and made oracles of all that the earth bears ; the old fables of Dodona were to become realized, and the very leaves to be hal- lowed by a sanctity, and to murmur with a truth. I was no 324 DEVEREUX. longer only a part of that which withers and decays ; I was no longer a machine of clay, moved by a spring, and to be trodden into the mire which I had trod ; I was no longer tied to human- ity by links which could never be broken, and which, if broken, would avail me not. I was become, as by a miracle, a part of a vast, though unseen, spirit. It was not to the matter, but to the essence of things, that I bore kindred and alliance ; the stars and the heavens resumed over me their ancient influence ; and, as I looked along the far hills and the silent landscape, a voice seemed to swell from the stillness, and to say, " I am the life of these things, a spirit distinct from the things themselves. It is to me that you belong forever and forever ; separate, but equally indissoluble ; apart, but equally eternal ! " I spent the day upon the hills. It was evening when I re- turned. I lingered by the old fountain, and saw the stars rise, and tremble, one by one, upon the wave. The hour was that which Isora had loved the best, and that which the love of her had consecrated the most to me. And never, oh, never did it sink into my heart with a deeper sweetness, or a more soothing balm. I had once more knit my soul to Isora's : I could once more look from the toiling and the dim earth, and forget that Isora had left me, in dreaming of our reunion. Blame me not, you who indulge in a religious hope more severe and more sublime you who miss no footsteps from the earth, nor pine for a voice that your .human wanderings can hear no more blame me not, you whose pulses beat not for the wild love of the created, but whose spirit languishes only for a nearer com- mune with the Creator blame me not too harshly for my mor- tal wishes, nor think that my faith was the less sincere because it was tinted in the most unchanging dyes of the human heart, and indissolubly woven with the memory of the dead ! Often from our weaknesses our strongest principles of conduct are born ; and from the acorn, which a breeze has wafted, springs the oak which defies the storm. The first intoxication and rapture consequent upon the re- ward of my labor passed away ; but, unlike other excitement, it was followed not by languor, or a sated and torpid calm ; a soothing and delicious sensation possessed me my turbulent senses slept ; and Memory, recalling the world, rejoiced at the retreat which Hope had acquired. I now surrendered myself to a nobler philosophy than in crowds and cities I had hitherto known. I no longer satirized I inquired ; I no longer derided I examined. I looked from the natural proofs, of immortality to the written promise of our DEVEREUX. 325 Father I sought not to baffle men, but to worship Truth I applied myself more to the knowledge of good and evil I bowed my soul before the loveliness of Virtue ; and though scenes of wrath and passion yet lowered in the future, and I was again speedily called forth to act to madden to con- tend perchance to sin the Image is still unbroken, and the Votary has still an offering for its Altar ! CHAPTER III. The Hermit of the Well. THE thorough and deep investigation of those principles from which we learn the immortality of the soul, and the nature of its proper ends, leads the mind through such a course of reflection and of study it is attended with so many exalting, purifying, and, if I may so say, etherealizing thoughts, that I do believe no man has ever pursued it, and not gone back to the world a better and a nobler man than he was before. Nay, so deeply must these elevating and refining studies be conned, so largely and sensibly must they enter the intellectual system, that I firmly think that even a sensualist who has only consid- ered the subject with a view to convince himself that he is clay, and has therefore an excuse to the curious conscience for his grosser desires ; nay, should he come to his wished for, yet desolate confusion, from which the abhorrent nature shrinks and recoils, I do nevertheless firmly think, should the study have been long and deep, that he would wonder to find his de- sires had lost .their poignancy, and his objects their charm. He would descend from the Alp he had climbed to the low level on which he formerly deemed it a bliss to dwell, with the feeling of one who, having long drawn in high places an empy- real air, has become unable to inhale the smoke and the thick vapor he inhaled of yore. His soul once aroused would stir within him, though he felt it not, and though he grew not a believer, he would cease to be only the voluptuary. I meant at one time to have here stated the arguments which had perplexed me on one side, and those which afterwards convinced me on the other. I do not do so for many reasons, one of which will suffice, viz., the evident and palpable circum- stance that a dissertation of that nature would, in a biography like the present, be utterly out of place and season. Perhaps, however, at a later period of life, I may collect my own opin- 326 DEVEREUX. ions on the subject into a separate work, and bequeath that work to future generations, upon the same_conditions as the present memoir. One day I was favored by a visit from one of the monks at the neighboring abbey. After some general conversation he asked me if I had yet encountered the Hermit of the Well ! "No," said I, and I was going to add, that I had not even heard of him, "but I now remember that the good people of the house have more than once spoken to me of him as a rigid and self-mortifying recluse." " Yes," said the holy friar ; " Heaven forbid that I should say aught against the practice of the saints and pious men to deny unto themselves the lusts of the flesh, but such penances may be carried too far. However, it is an excellent custom, and the Hermit of the Well is an excellent creature. Santa Maria ! what delicious stuff is that Hungary wine your schol- arship was pleased to bestow upon our father Abbot. He suf- fered me to taste it the eve before last. I had been suffering with a pain in the reins, and the wine acted powerfully upon me as an efficacious and inestimable medicine. Do you find, my son, that it bore the journey to your lodging here, as well as to the convent cellars ? " " Why, really, my father, I have none of it here ; but the people of the house have a few flasks of a better wine than ordi- nary, if you will deign to taste it in lieu of the Hungary wine." "Oh oh ! " said the monk, groaning, " my reins trouble me much perhaps the wine may comfort me ! " and the wine was brought. " It is not of so rare a flavor as that which you sent to our reverend father," said the monk, wiping his mouth with his long sleeve. " Hungary must be a charming place is it far from hence ? It joins the heretical I pray your pardon it joins the continent of England, I believe ? " " Not exactly, father ; but whatever its topography, it is a rare country for those who like it ! But tell me of this Her- mit of the Well. How long has he lived here and how came he by his appellation ? Of what country is he and of what birth?" " You ask me too many questions at once, my son. The country of the holy man is a mystery to us all. He speaks the Tuscan dialect well, but with a foreign accent. Nevertheless, though the wine is not of Hungary, it has a pleasant flavor. I wonder how the rogues kept it so snugly from the knowledge and comfort of their pious brethren of the monastery." DEVEREUX. 327 "And how long has the hermit lived in your vicinity ? " " Nearly eight years, my son. It was one winter's evening that he came to our convent in the dress of a worldly traveller, to seek our hospitality, and a shelter for the night, which was inclement and stormy. He stayed with us a few days, and held some conversation with our father Abbot ; and one morning, after roaming in the neighborhood to look at the old stones and ruins, which is the custom of travellers, he returned, put into our box some certain alms, and two days afterwards he ap- peared in the place he now inhabits, and in the dress he assumes." " And of what nature, my father, is the place, and of what fashion the dress ? " " Holy St. Francis ! " exclaimed the father, with a surprise so great that I thought at first it related to the wine, " Holy St. Francis have you not seen the well yet ? " " No, father, unless you speak of the fountain about a mile and a quarter distant." " Tush tush ! " said the good man, " what ignoramuses you travellers are ; you affect to know what kind of slippers Pres- ter John wears and to have been admitted to the bed-chamber of the Pagoda of China ; and yet when one comes to sound you, you are as ignorant of everything a man of real learning knows as an Englishman is of his missal. Why, I thought that every fool in every country had heard of the Holy Well of St. Francis, situated exactly two miles from our famous convent, and that every fool in the neighborhood had seen it." " What the fools, my father, whether in this neighborhood or any other may have heard or seen, I, who profess not ostensi- bly to belong to so goodly an order, cannot pretend to know ; but be assured that the Holy Well of St. Francis is as unfa- miliar to me as the Pagoda of China Heaven bless, him- is to you." Upon this the learned monk, after expressing due astonish- ment, offered to show it to me ; and as I thought I might by acquiescence get rid of him sooner, and as, moreover, I wished to see the Abbot, to whom some books for me had been lately sent, I agreed to the offer. The well, said the monk, lay not a mile out of the custom- ary way to the monastery ; and after we had finished the flask of wine, we sallied out on our excursion, the monk upon a stately and strong ass myself on foot. The Abbot, on granting me his friendship and protection, had observed that I was not the only stranger and recluse on 328 DEVEREUX. whom his favor was bestowed. He had then mentioned the Hermit of the Well as an eccentric and strange being, who lived an existence of rigid penance, harmless to others, painful only to himself. This story had been confirmed in the few conver- sations I had ever interchanged with my host and hostess, who seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in talking of the Solitary ; and from them I heard also many anecdotes of his charity to- wards the poor, and his attention to the sick. All these circum- stances came into my mind as the good monk indulged his loquacity upon the subject, and my curiosity became, at last, somewhat excited respecting my fellow recluse. I now learned from the monk that the post of Hermit of the Well was an office of which the present anchorite was by no means the first tenant. The well was one of those springs fre- quent in Catholic countries, to which a legend and a sanctity are attached ; and twice a year, once in the spring, once in the autumn, the neighboring peasants flocked thither, on a stated day, to drink, and lose their diseases. As the spring most probably did possess some medicinal qualities, a few extraordinary cures had occurred ; especially among those pious persons who took not biennial, but constant draughts ; and to doubt its holiness was downright heresy. Now, hard by this well was a cavern, which, whether first formed by nature or art, was now, upon the whole, constructed into a very commodious abode ; and here, for years beyond the memory of man, some solitary person had fixed his abode to dispense and to bless the water, to be exceedingly well fed by the surrounding peasants, to wear a long gown of serge or sack- cloth, and to be called the Hermit of the Well. So fast as each succeeding anchorite died there were enough candidates eager to supply his place ; for it was no bad mdtier to some penniless impostor to become the quack and patentee of a holy specific. The choice of these candidates always rested with the superior of the neighboring monastery ; and it is not impossible that he made an indifferently good percentage upon the annual advan- tages of his protection and choice. At the time the traveller appeared, the former hermit had just departed this life, and it was, therefore, to the vacancy thus occasioned, that he had procured himself to be elected. The incumbent appeared quite of a different mould from the former occupants of the hermitage. He accepted, it is true, the gifts laid at regular periods upon a huge stone between the hermitage and the well, but he distributed among the donors alms far more profitable than their gifts. He entered no village, borne upon DEVEREUX. 329 an ass laden with twin sacks, for the purpose of sanctimoniously robbing the inhabitants ; no profane songs were ever heard re- sounding from his dwelling by the peasant incautiously linger- ing at a late hour too near its vicinity ; my guide, the monk, complained bitterly of his unsociability, and no scandalous legend of nymph-like comforters and damsel visitants haunting the sacred dwelling, escaped from the garrulous friar's well-loaded budget. "Does he study much?" said I with the interest of a student. " I fear me not," quoth the monk. " I have had occasion often to enter his abode, and I have examined all things with a close eye; for, praised be the Lord, I have faculties more than ordi- narily clear and observant but I have seen no books therein, excepting a missal, and a Latin or Greek Testament, I know not well which ; nay, so incurious or unlearned is the holy man that he rejected even a loan of the 'Life of St. Francis,' not- withstanding it has many and rare pictures, to say nothing of its most interesting and amazing tales." More might the monk have said, had we not now suddenly entered a thick and sombre wood. A path cut through it was narrow, and only capable of admitting a traveller on foot or horseback; and the boughs overhead were so darkly interlaced that the light scarcely, and only in broken and erratic glimmer- ings, pierced the canopy. " It is the wood," said the monk, crossing himself, "wherein the wonderful adventure happened to St. Francis, which I will one day narrate at length to you." " And we are near the well, I suppose ? " said I. " It is close at hand," answered the monk. In effect we had not proceeded above fifty yards before the path brought us into a circular space of green sod, in the midst of which was a small, square, stone building, of plain, but not inelegant, shape, and evidently of great antiquity. At one side of this building was an iron handle, for the purpose of raising water, that cast itself into a stone basin, to which was affixed, by a strong chain, an iron cup. An inscription, in monkish Latin, was engraved over the basin, requesting the traveller to pause and drink, and importing that what that water was to the body, faith was to the soul ; near the cistern was a rude seat, formed by the trunk of a tree. The door of the well-house was of iron, and secured by a chain and lock ; per- haps the pump was so contrived that only a certain quantum of the snnctifie'l beverage could be drawn up at a time, without 336 application to some mechanism within : and wayfarers were thereby prevented from helping themselves ad libitum, and thus depriving the anchorite of the profit and the necessity of his office. It was certainly a strange, lonely, and wild place ; and the green sward, round as a fairy ring, in the midst of trees, which black, close, and huge, circled it like a wall : and the solitary gray building in the centre, gaunt and cold, and startling the eye with the abruptness of its appearance, and the strong con- trast made by its wan hues to the dark verdure and forest gloom around it. I took a draught of the water, which was very cold and taste- less, and reminded the monk of his disorder in the reins, to which a similar potation might possibly be efficacious. To this suggestion the monk answered that he would certainly try the water some other time ; but that at present the wine he had drunk might pullute its divine properties. So saying, he turned off the conversation by inviting me to follow him to the hermitage. In our way. thither he pointed out a large fragment of stone, and observed that the water would do me evil instead of good if I forgot to remunerate its guardian. I took the hint and laid a piece of silver on the fragment. A short journey through the wood brought us to the foot of a hill covered with trees, and having at its base a strong stone door, the entrance to the excavated home of the anchorite. The monk gently tapped thrice at this door, but no answer came. ' The holy man is from home," said he, " let us return." We did so ; and the monk, keeping behind me, managed, as he thought unseen, to leave the stone as naked as we had found it ! We now struck through another path in the wood, and were soon at the convent. I did not lose the opportunity to ques- tion the Abbot respecting his tenant : I learnt from him little more than the particulars I have already narrated, save that, in concluding his details, he said : " I can scarcely doubt but that the hermit is, like yourself, a person of rank ; his bearing and his mien appear to denote it. He has given, and gives yearly, large sums to the uses of the convent : and, though he takes the customary gifts of the pious villagers, it is only by my advice, and for the purpose of avoiding suspicion. Should he be considered rich, it might attract cupidity ; and there are enough bold hands and sharp knives in the country to place the wealthy and the unguarded in some peril. Whoever he may be, for he has not confided DEVEREUX. 331 his secret to me I do not doubt but that he is doing penance for some great crime ; and, whatever be the crime, I suspect that its earthly punishment is nearly over. The hermit is naturally of a delicate and weak frame, and year after year I have marked him sensibly wearing away ; so that when I last saw him, three days since, I was shocked at the visible ravages which disease or penance had engraven upon him. If ever Death wrote legibly, its characters are in that brow and cheek." " Poor man ! Know you not even whom to apprise of his decease when he is no more ? " "I do not yet ; but the last time I saw him he told me that he found himself drawing near his end, and that he should not quit life without troubling me with one request." After this the Abbot spoke of other matters, and my visit expired. Interested in the recluse more deeply than I acknowledged to myself, I found my steps insensibly leading me homeward by the more circuitous road which wound first by the holy well. I did not resist the impulse, but walked musingly onward by the waning twilight, for the day was now over, until I came to the well. As I emerged from the wood, I started involuntarily and drew back. A figure, robed from head to foot in a long sable robe, sate upon the rude seat beside the well ; sate so still, so motionless, that coming upon it abruptly in that strange place, the heart beat irregularly at an apparition so dark in hue, and so death-like in its repose. The hat, large, broad, and overhanging, which suited the costume, was lying on the ground : and the face, which inclined upward, seemed to woo the gentle air of the quiet and soft skies. I approached a few steps, and saw the profile of the countenance more distinctly than I had done before. It was of a marble whiteness ; the features, though sharpened and attenuated by disease, were of surpassing beauty ; the hair was exceedingly, almost effemi- nately, long, and hung in waves of perfect jet on either side ; the mouth was closed firmly, and deep lines or rather furrows, were traced from its corners to either nostril. The stranger's beard, of a hue equally black as the hair, was dishevelled and neglected, but not very long; and one hand, which lay on the sable robe, was so thin and wan you might have deemed the very starlight could have shone through it. I did not doubt that it was the recluse whom I saw ; I drew near and accosted him. "Your blessing, holy father, and your permission to taste the healing of your well," 332 DEVEREUX. Sudden as was my appearance, and abrupt my voice, the hermit evinced by no startled gesture a token of surprise. He turned very slowly round, cast upon me an indifferent glance, and said, in a sweet and very low tone : "You have my blessing, stranger; there is water in the cistern drink, and be healed." I dipped the bowl in the basin, and took sparingly of the water. In the accent and tone of the stranger, my ear, accus- tomed to the dialects of many nations, recognized something English ; I resolved, therefore, to address him in my native tongue, rather than the indifferent Italian in which I had first accosted him : " The water is fresh and cooling ; would, holy father, that it could penetrate to a deeper malady than the ills of flesh : that it could assuage the fever of the heart, or lave from the wearied mind the dust which it gathers from the mire and travail of the world." Now the hermit testified surprise ; but it was slight and momentary. He gazed upon me more attentively than he had done before, and said, after a pause : " My countryman ! and in this spot ! It is not often that the English penetrate into places where no ostentatious celebrity dwells to sate curiosity and flatter pride. My countryman ! it is well, and perhaps fortunate. Yes," he said, after a second pause, "yes ; it were indeed a boon, had the earth a fountain for the wounds which fester, and the disease which consumes the heart." " The earth has oblivion, father, if not a cure." " It is false ! " cried the hermit passionately, and starting wildly from his seat; "the earth has no oblivion. The grave is that forgetfulness? No, no there is no grave for the soul ! The deeds pass the flesh corrupts but the memory passes not, and withers not. From age to age, from world to world, through eternity, throughout creation, it is perpetuated an immortality a curse a hell /" Surprised by the vehemence of the hermit, I was still more startled by the agonizing and ghastly expression of his face. " My father," said I, "pardon me, if I have pressed upon a sore. I also have that within, which, did a stranger touch it, would thrill my whole frame with torture, and I would fain ask from your holy soothing, and pious comfort, something of alleviation or of fortitude." The hermit drew near to me ; he laid his thin hand upon my arm, and looked long and wistfully in my face. It was then DEVEREUX. 333 that a suspicion crept through me which after-observation proved to be true, that the wandering of those dark eyes, and the meaning of that blanched brow were tinctured with insanity. " Brother, and fellow-man," said he mournfully, " hast thou in truth suffered ? and dost thou still smart at the remembrance ? We are friends then. If thou hast suffered as much as I have, I will fall down and do homage to thee as a superior; for pain has its ranks, and I think, at times, that none ever climbed the height that I have done. Yet you look not like one who has had nights of delirium, and days in which the heart lay in the breast, as a corpse endowed with consciousness might lie in the grave, feeling the worm gnaw it, and the decay corrupt, and yet incapable of resistance or of motion. Your cheek is thin, but firm ; your eye is haughty and bright ; you have the air of one who has lived with men, and struggled and not been vanquished in the struggle. Suffered ! No, man, no -you have not suffered ! " " My father, it is not in the countenance that Fate graves her records. I have it is true, contended with my fellows ; and if wealth and honor be the premium, not in vain : but I have not contended against Sorrow with a like success ; and I stand before you, a being who, if passion be a tormentor, and the death of the loved a loss, has borne that which the most wretched will not envy." Again a fearful change came over the face of the recluse he grasped my arm more vehemently, "You speak my own sor- rows you utter my own curse I will see you again you may do my last will better than yon monks. Can I trust you? If you have in truth known misfortune, I will ! I will yea, even to the outpouring Merciful, merciful God, what would I say what would I reveal ! " Suddenly changing his voice, he released me, and said, touch- ing his forehead with a meaning gesture, and a quiet smile, "You say you are my rival in pain ? Have you ever known the rage and despair of the heart mount here ? It is a wonderful thing to be calm as I am now, when that rising makes itself felt in fire and torture ! " "If there be aught, father, which a man who cares not what country he visit, or what deed so it be not of guilt or shame he commit, can do toward the quiet of your soul, say it, and I will attempt your will." " You are kind, my son," said the hermit, resuming his first melancholy and dignified composure of mien and bearing, " and 334 DEVEREUX. there is something in your voice, which seems to me like a tone that I have heard in youth. Do you live near at hand ?" " In the valley, about four miles hence ; I am, like yourself a fugitive from the world." "Come to me then to-morrow at eve ; to-morrow ! No, that is a holy eve, and I must keep it with scourge and prayer. The next at sunset. I shall be collected then, and I would fain know more of you than I do. Bless you my son- adieu." " Yet stay, father, may I not conduct you home?" "No my limbs are weak, but I trust they can carry me to that home, till I be borne thence to my last. Farewell ! the night grows, and man fills even these shades with peril. The eve after next, at sunset, we meet again." So saying, the hermit waved his hand, and I stood apart, watching his receding figure, until the trees cloaked the last glimpse from my view. I then turned homeward, and reached my cottage in safety, despite of the hermit's caution. But I did not retire to rest : a powerful foreboding, rather than sus- picion, that, in the worn and wasted form which I had beheld, there was identity with one whom I had not met for years, and whom I had believed to be no more, thrillingly possessed me. "Can can it be?" thought I "Can grief have a desolation, or remembrance an agony, sufficient to create so awful a change ? And of all human beings, for that one to be singled out ; that one in whom passion and sin were, if they existed, nipped in their earliest germ, and seemingly rendered barren of all fruit ! If too, almost against the evidence of sight and sense, an innate feeling has marked in that most altered form the traces of a dread recognition, would not his memory have been yet more vigilant than mine? Am I so changed that he should have looked me in the face so wistfully, and found there nought save the lineaments of a stranger?" And, actuated by this thought, I placed the light by the small mirror which graced my chamber. I recalled, as I gazed, my features as they had been in earliest youth. <( No," I said, with a sigh, "there is nothing here. that he should recognize." And I said aright ; my features, originally small and delicate, had grown enlarged and prominent. The long locks of my youth (for only upon state occasions did my early vanity con- sent to the fashion of the day) were succeeded by curls, short and crisped ; the hues, alternately pale and hectic, that the dreams of romance had once spread over my cheek, had settled into the unchanging bronze of manhood ; the smooth lip and unshaven chin were clothed with a thick hair ; the once un* DEVEREUX. 335 furrowed brow was habitually knit in thought ; and the ardent, restless expression that boyhood wore had yielded to the quiet, unmoved countenance of one in whom long custom has sub- dued all outward sign of emotion, and many and various events left no prevalent token of the mind, save that of an habitual, but latent resolution. My frame, too, once scarcely less slight than a woman's, was become knit and muscular, and nothing was left by which, in the foreign air, the quiet brow, and the athletic form, my very mother could have recognized the slen- der figure and changeful face of the boy she had last beheld. The very sarcasm of the eye was gone : and I had learnt the world's easy lesson the dissimulation of composure. I have noted one thing in others, and it was particularly noticeable in me, viz., that few who mix very largely with men, and with the courtier's or the citizen's design, ever retain the key and tone of their original voice. The voice of a young man is as yet modulated by nature, and expresses the passion of the moment : that of the matured pupil of art expresses rather the customary occupation of his life : whether he aims at persuading, convincing, or commanding others, his voice irrevocably settles into the key he ordinarily employs ; and, as persuasion is the means men chiefly employ in their commerce with each other, especially in the regions of a court, so a tone of artificial blandness and subdued insinuation is chiefly that in which the accents of worldly men are clothed ; the artificial intonation, long continued, grows into nature, and the very pith and basis of the original sound fritter themselves away. The change was great in me, for, at that time which I brought in comparison with the present, my age was one in which the voice is yet confused and undecided, struggling between the accents of youth and boyhood ; so that even this most power- ful and unchanging of all claims upon the memory was in a great measure absent in me ; and nothing but an occasional and rare tone could have produced even that faint and uncon- scious recognition which the hermit had confessed. I must be pardoned these egotisms, which the nature of my story renders necessary. With what eager impatience did I watch the hours to the appointed interview with the hermit languish themselves away ! However, before that time arrived, and towards the evening of the next day, I was surprised by the rare honor of a visit from Anselmo himself. He came attended by two of the mendicant friars of his order, and they carried between them a basket of tolerable size, which, as mine hostess afterwards informed rrje, 336 DEVEREUX. with many a tear, went back somewhat heavier than it came, from the load of certain receptacula of that rarer wine which she had had, the evening before, the indiscreet hospitality to produce. The Abbot came to inform me that the hermit had been with him that morning, making many inquiries respecting me. " I told him," said he, "that I was acquainted with your name and birth, but that I was under a solemn promise not to reveal them, without your consent ; and I am now here, my son, to learn from you whether that consent may be obtained ? " "Assuredly not, holy father!" said I hastily; nor was I contented until I had obtained a renewal of his promise to that effect. This seemed to give the Abbot some little chagrin : perhaps the hermit had offered a reward for my discovery. However, I knew that Anselmo, though a griping, was a trust- worthy man, and I felt safe in his renewed promise. I saw him depart with great satisfaction, and gave myself once more to conjectures respecting the strange recluse. As, the next evening, I prepared to depart towards the her- mitage, I took peculiar pains to give my person a foreign and disguised appearance. A loose dress, of rude and simple ma- terial, and a high cap of fur, were pretty successful in accom- plishing this purpose. And, as I gave the last look at the glass before I left the house, I said, inly, " If there be any truth in my wild and improbable conjecture respecting the identity of the anchorite, I think time and this dress are suffi- cient wizards to secure me from a chance of discovery. I will keep a guard upon my words and tones, until, if my thought be verified, a moment fit for unmasking myself arrives. But would to God that the thought be groundless ! In such cir- cumstances, and after such an absence, to meet him! No ; and yet Well, this meeting will decide." CHAPTER IV. The Solution of many Mysteries a dark View of the Life and Nature of Man. POWERFUL, though not clearly developed in my own mind, was the motive which made me so strongly desire to preserve the incognito during my interview with the hermit. I have before said that I could not resist a vague, but intense belief that he was a person whom I had long believed in the grave ; DEVEREUX. 337 and I had more than once struggled, against a dark, but pass- ing, suspicion that that person was in some measure mediate- ly, though not directly connected with the mysteries of my former life. If both these conjectures were true, I thought it possible that the communication the hermit wished to make might be made yet more willingly to me as a stranger than if he knew who was in reality his confidant. And, at all events, if I could curb the impetuous gushingsof my own heart, which yearned for immediate disclosure, I might, by hint and prelude, ascertain the advantages and disadvantages of revealing myself. I arrived at the well ; the hermit was already at the place of rendezvous, seated in the same posture in which I had before seen him. I made my reverence, and accosted him. " I have not failed you, father." " That is rarely a true boast with men," said the hermit, smiling mournfully, but without sarcasm; "and were the prom- ise of greater avail, it might not have been so rigidly kept." " The promise, father, seemed to me of greater weight than, you would intimate," answered I. " How mean you ? " said the hermit, hastily. " Why, that we may perhaps serve each other by our meet- ing : you father, may comfort me by your counsels ; I, you by my readiness to obey your request." The hermit looked at me for some moments, and, as well as I could, I turned away my face from his gaze. I might have spared myself the effort. He seemed to recognize nothing familiar in my countenance ; perhaps his mental malady as- sisted my own alteration. " I have inquired respecting you," he said, after a pause, " and I hear that you are a learned and wise man, who have seen much of the world, and played the part both of soldier and of scholar, in its various theatres : is my information true ? " " Not true with respect to the learning, father, but true with regard to the experience. I have been a pilgrim in many countries of Europe." " Indeed ! " said the hermit eagerly. " Come with me to my home, and tell me of the wonders you have seen." I assisted the hermit to rise, and he walked slowly towards the cavern, leaning upon my arm. Oh, how that light touch thrilled through my frame ! How I longed to cry, " Are you not the one whom I have loved, and mourned, and believed buried in the tomb ? " But I checked myself. We moved on in silence. The hermit's hand was on the door of the cavern, 338 DEVEREUX. when he said, in a calm tone, but with evident effort, and turn- ing his face from me while he spoke : " And did your wanderings ever carry you into the farther regions of the north ? Did the fame of the great Czar ever lead you to the city he has founded ? " " I am right I am right ! " thought I, as I answered, " In truth, holy father, I spent not a long time at Petersburg!! ; but I am not a stranger either to its wonders, or its inhabitants." " Possibly, then, you may have met with the English favorite of the Czar of whom I hear in my retreat that men have lately spoken somewhat largely ? " The hermit paused again. We were now in a long, low passage, almost in darkness. I scarcely saw him, yet I heard a convulsed movement in his throat, be- fore he uttered the remainder of the sentence. " He is called the Count Devereux." " Father," said I calmly, " I have both seen and known the man." " Ha ! " said the hermit, and he leant for a moment against the wall ; " known him and how how I mean, where is he at this present time ?" "That, father, is a difficult question, respecting one who has led so active a life. He was ambassador at the court of , just before I left it." We had now passed the passage, and gained a room of tol- erable size ; an iron lamp burnt within, and afforded a suffi- cient, but somewhat dim, light. The hermit, as I concluded my reply, sunk down on a long stone bench, beside a table of the same substance, and leaning his face on his hand, so that the long, large sleeve he wore perfectly concealed his features, said, " Pardon me, my breath is short, and my frame weak I am quite exhausted but will speak to you more, anon." I uttered a short answer, and drew a small wooden stool within a few feet of the hermit's seat. After a brief silence he rose, placed wine, bread, and preserved fruits, before me, and bade me eat. I seemed to comply with his request, and the apparent diversion of my attention from himself somewhat re- lieved the embarrassment tinder which he evidently labored. " May I hope," he said, " that were my commission to this to the Count Devereux you would execute it faithfully and with speed ? Yet stay you have a high mien, as of one above fortune, but your garb is rude and poor ; and if aught of gold could compensate your trouble, the hermit has other treasuries beside this cell." v "I will do your bidding, father, without robbing the poor. DEVEkEUX. 339 You wish then that I should seek Morton Devereux you wish that I should summon him hither you wish to see, and to confer with him ! " " God of mercy forbid ! " cried the hermit, and with such vehemence that I was startled from the design of revealing my- self, which I was on the point of executing. " I would rather that these walls would crush me into dust, or that this solid stone would crumble beneath my feet ay, even into a bottom- less pit, than meet the glance of Morton Devereux ! " " Is it even so ?" said I, stooping over the wine-cup ; " ye have been foes then, I suspect. Well, it matters not tell me your errand, and it shall be done." " Done ! " cried the hermit, and a new, and certainly a most natural, suspicion darted within him, "done ! and fool that I am ! who, or what are you, that I should believe you take so keen an interest in the wishes of a man utterly unknown to you ? I tell you that my wish is that you should cross seas and trav- erse lands until you find the man I have named to you. Will a stranger do this, and without hire no no I was a fool, and will trust the monks, and give gold, and then my errand will be sped." " Father, o.r rather, brother," said I, with a slow and firm voice, " for you are of mine own age, and you have the passion and the infirmity which make brethren of all mankind, I am one to whom all places are alike : it matters not whether I visit a northern or a southern clime I have wealth, which is suffi- cient to smooth toil I have leisure, which makes occupation an enjoyment. More than this, I am one, who in his gayest and wildest moments has ever loved mankind, and would have renounced at any time his own pleasure for the advantage of another. But at this time, above all others, I am most dis- posed to forget myself , and there is a passion in your words which leads me to hope that it may be a great benefit which I can confer upon you." " You speak well," said the hermit musingly, " and I may trust you ; I will consider yet a little longer, and to-morrow at this hour, you shall have my final answer. If you execute the charge I entrust to you, may the blessing of a dying and most wretched man cleave to you forever ! But hush the clock strikes it is my hour of prayer." And, pointing to a huge black clock that hung opposite the door, and indicated the hour of nine (according to our English mode of numbering the hours), the hermit fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands tightly, bent his face over them in the 340 DEVEREUX. attitude of humiliation and devotion. I followed his ex- ample. After a few minutes he rose "Once in every three hours," said he, with a ghastly expression, "for the last twelve years have I bowed my soul in anguish before God, and risen to feel that it was in vain I am cursed with- out and within ! " " My father, my father, is this your faith in the mercies of the Redeemer who died for Man ?" " Talk not to me of faith ! " cried the hermit wildly. "Ye laymen and worldlings know nothing of its mysteries and its powers. But begone ! the dread hour is upon me, when my tongue is loosed, and my brain darkened, and I know not my words, and shudder at my own thoughts. Begone ! no human being shall witness those moments they are only for Heaven and my own soul." So saying, this unhappy and strange being seized me by the arm and dragged me towards the passage we had entered. I was in doubt whether to yield to, or contend with him ; but there was a glare in his eye, and a flush upon his brow, which, while it betrayed the dreadful disease of his mind, made me fear that resistance to his wishes might operate dangerously upon a frame so feeble and reduced. I therefore mechanically obeyed him. He opened again the entrance to his rugged home, and the moonlight streamed wanly over his dark robes and spectral figure. " Go," said he, more mildly than before " go, and forgive the vehemence of one whose mind and heart alike are broken within him. Go, but return to-morrow at sunset. Your air disposes me to trust you." So saying, he closed the door upon me, and I stood without the cavern alone. But did I return home ? Did I hasten to press my couch in sleep and sweet forgetfulness, while he was in that gloomy se- pulture of the living, a prey to anguish, and torn by the fangs of madness and a fierce disease ? No on the damp grass, be- neath the silent skies, I passed a night which could scarcely have been less wretched than his own. My conjecture was now, and in full, confirmed. Heavens ! how I loved that man how, from my youngest years, had my soul's fondest affections interlaced themselves with him ! with what anguish had I wept his imagined death ? and now to know that he lay within those walls, smitten from brain to heart with so fearful and mysterious a curse to know, too, that he dreaded the sight of me of me who would have laid down rav life for his! the DEVEREUX. 341 grave, which I imagined his home r had been a mercy to a doom like this. " He fears," I murmured, and I wept as I said it, " to look on one who would watch over, and soothe, and bear with him, with more than a woman's love ! By what awful fate has this calamity fallen on one so holy and so pure ? or by what pre- orded destiny did I come to these solitudes, to find at the same time a new charm for the earth, and a spell to change it again into a desert and a place of woe ? " All night I kept vigil by the cave, and listened if I could catch moan or sound ; but everything was silent; the thick walls of the rock kept even the voice of despair from my ear. The day dawned, and I retired among the trees, lest the hermit might come out unawares and see me. At sunrise I saw him appear for a few moments, and again retire, and I then hastened home, exhausted and wearied by the internal conflicts of the night, to gather coolness and composure for the ensuing inter- view, which I contemplated at once with eagerness and dread. At the appointed hour, I repaired to the cavern : the door was partially closed ; I opened it, hearing no answer to my knock, and walked gently along the passage ; but I now heard shrieks, and groans, and wild laughter as I neared the rude chamber. I paused for a moment, and then in terror and dis- may entered the apartment. It was empty ; but I saw near the clock a small door, from within which the sounds that alarmed me proceeded. I had no scruple in opening it, and found my- self in the hermit's sleeping-chamber ; a small, dark room, where, upon a straw pallet, lay the wretched occupant in a state of frantic delirium. I stood mute and horror-struck, while his exclamations of frenzy burst upon my ear. " There there ! " he cried, " I have struck thee to the heart, and now I will kneel and kiss those white lips, and bathe my hands in that blood. Ha ! do I hate thee ? hate ay hate, abhor, detest ! Have you the beads there? let me tell them. Yes, I will go to the confessional confess? No, no all the priests in the world could not lift up a soul so heavy with guilt. Help help help ! I am falling falling there is the pit, and the fire, and the devils ! Do you hear them laugh ? I can laugh too ! ha ha ha ! Hush, I have written it all out in a fair hand he shall read it and then, O God ! what curses he will heap upon my head ! Blessed St. Francis, hear me .' Lazarus, Lazarus, speak for me ! " Thus did the hermit rave, while my flesh crept to hear him. 342 DEVEREUX. I stood by his bedside, and called on him, but he neither heard nor saw me. Upon the ground, by the bed's head, as if it had dropt from under the pillow, was a packet sealed and directed to myself ; I knew the handwriting at a glance, even though the letters were blotted and irregular, and possibly traced in the first moment that his present curse fell upon the writer. I placed the packet in my bosom ; the hermit saw not the motion, he lay back on the bed, seemingly in utter exhaus- tion. I turned away, and hastened to the monastery for assist- ance. As I hurried through the passage, the hermit's shrieks again broke upon me, with a fiercer vehemence than before. I flew from them, as if they were sounds from the abyss of Hades. I flew till, breathless, and half-senseless myself, 1 fell down exhausted by the gate of the monastery. The two most skilled in physic of the brethren were immedi- ately summoned, and they lost not a moment in accompanying me to the cavern. All that evening, until midnight, the frenzy of the maniac seemed rather to increase than abate. But at that hour, indeed, exactly, as the clock struck twelve, he fell at once into a deep sleep. Then for the first time, but not till the wearied brethren had, at this favorable symptom, permitted themselves to return for a brief interval to the monastery, to seek refreshment for themselves, and to bring down new medicines for the patient, then for the first time, I rose from the hermit's couch by which I had hitherto kept watch, and, repairing to the outer chamber, took forth the packet superscribed with my name. There, alone, in that gray vault, and by the sepulchral light of the single lamp, I read what follows. THE HERMIT'S MANUSCRIPT. " Morton Devereux, if ever this reach you, read it, shudder, and whatever your afflictions, bless God that you are not as I am. Do you remember my prevailing characteristics as a boy ? No, you do not. You will say ' Devotion ! ' It was not ! 'Gentleness.' It was not it was JEALOUSY! Now does the truth flash on you ? Yes, that was the disease that was in my blood, and in my heart, and through whose ghastly medium every living object was beheld. Did I love you ? Yes, I loved you ay, almost with a love equal to your own. I loved my mother I loved Gerald- I loved Montreuil. It was a part of my nature to love, and I did not resist the impulse. You I loved better than all ; but I was jealous of each. If my mother DEVEREUX. 343 caressed you or Gerald if you opened your heart to either, it stung me to the quick. I it was who said to my mother, ' Caress him not, or I shall think you love him better than me.' I it was who widened, from my veriest childhood, the breach between Gerald and yourself. I it was who gave to the child- ish reproach a venom, and to the childish quarrel a barb. Was this love ? Yes, it was love; but I could not endure that ye should love one another as ye loved me. It delighted me when one confided to my ear a complaint against the other, and said, 'Aubrey, this blow could not have come from thee ! ' " Montreuil early perceived my bias of temper ; he might have corrected it, and with ease. I was not evil in disposition ; I was insensible of my own vice. Had its malignity been re- vealed to me, I should have recoiled in horror. Montreuil had a vast power over me ; he could mould me at his will. Mon- treuil, I repeat, might have saved me, and thyself, and a third being, better and purer than either of us was, even in our cra- dles. Montreuil did not ; he had an object to serve, and he sacrificed our whole house to it. He found me one day weep- ing over a dog that I had killed. ' Why did you destroy it ? ' he said ; and I answered, 'Because it loved Morton betterthan me ! ' And the priest said, ' Thou didst right, Aubrey !' Yes, from that time he took advantage of my infirmity, and could rouse or calm all my passions in proportion as he irritated or soothed it. "You know this man's object during the latter period of his residence with us : it was the restoration of thehouse of Stuart- He was alternately the spy and the agitator in that cause. Among more comprehensive plans for effecting this object was that of securing the heirs to the great wealth and popular name of Sir William Devereux. This was only a minor mesh in the intricate web of his schemes ; but it is the character of the man to take ex- actly the same pains, and pursue the same laborious intrigues, for a small object as for a great one. His first impression, on en- tering our house, was in favor of Gerald : and I believe he really likes him to this day better than either of us. Partly your sar- casms, partly Gerald's disputes with you, partly my representa- tions for I was jealous eVen of the love of Montreuil pre- possessed him against you. He thought too, that Gerald had more talent to serve his purposes than yourself, and more fa- cility in being moulded to them ; and he believed our uncle's partiality to you far from being unalienable. I have said that, at the latter period of his residence with us, he was an agent of the exiled cause, At the time I now speak of, he had not 344 DEVEREUX. entered into the great political scheme which engrossed him af- terwards. He was merely a restless and aspiring priest, whose whole hope, object, ambition, was the advancement of his or- der. He knew that whoever inherited, or whoever shared my uncle's wealth, could, under legitimate regulation, promote any end which the heads of that order might select ; and he wished therefore to gain the mastery over us all. Intrigue was essen- tially woven with his genius, and by intrigue only did he ever seek to arrive at any end he had in view.* He soon obtained a mysterious and pervading power over Gerald and myself. Your temper at once irritated him, and made him despair of obtaining an ascendant over one who, though he testified in childhood none of the talents for which he has since been noted, testified, nevertheless, a shrewd, penetrating and sarcastic power of observation and detection. You, therefore, he resolved to leave to the irregularities of your own nature, confident that they would yield him the opportunity of detaching your uncle from you, and ultimately securing to Gerald his estates. " The trial at school first altered his intentions. He imagined that he then saw in you powers which might be rendered avail- ing to him : he conquered his pride a great feature in his character and he resolved to seek your affection. Your sub- sequent regularity of habits, and success in study, confirmed him in his resolution ; and when he learnt, from my uncle's own lips, that the Devereux estates would devolve on you, he thought that it would be easier to secure your affection to him than to divert that affection which my uncle had conceived for you. At this time I repeat, he had no particular object in view ; none, at least, beyond that of obtaining, for the interest of his order, the direction of great wealth and some political influence. Some time after I know not exactly when, but before we re- turned to take our permanent abode at Devereux Court a share in the grand political intrigue which was then in so many branches carried on throughout England, and even Europe, was confided to Montreuil. " In this I believe he was the servant of his order, rather than immediately of the exiled house ; and I have since heard that even at that day he had acquired a great reputation among the professors of the former. You, Morton, he decoyed not into this scheme before he left England : he had not acquired a sufficient influence over you to trust you with the disclosure. To Gerald and myself he was more confidential. Gerald * It will be observed that Aubrey frequently repeats former assertions ; this is one of th? most customary traits of insanity. Ep, DEVEREUX. 345 eagerly embraced his projects through a spirit of enterprise I through a spirit of awe and of religion. RELIGION ! Yes, then, long after, now, when my heart was and is the home of all withering and evil passions, Religion reigned reigns, over me a despot and a tyrant. Its terrors haunt meat this hour they people the earth and the air with shapes of ghastly menace ! They Heaven pardon me ! what would my madness utter ? Madness ? madness ? Ay that is the real scourge, the real fire, the real torture, the real hell, of this fair earth ! " Montreuil, then, by different pleas, won over Gerald and myself. He left us, but engaged us in constant correspond- ence. ' Aubrey,' he said, before he departed, and when he saw that I was wounded by his apparent cordiality towards you and Gerald 'Aubrey,' he said, soothing me on this point, 'think not that I trust Gerald or the arrogant Morton as I trust you. You have my real heart and my real trust. It is necessary to the execution of this project, so important to the interests of religion, and so agreeable to the will of Heaven, thatwe should secure all co-operators ; but they, your brothers, Aubrey, are the tools of that mighty design you are its friend.' Thus it was that, at all times when he irritated too sorely the vice of my nature, he flattered it into seconding his views ; and thus, instead of conquering my evil passions, he conquered by them. Curses No, no, no ! I will be calm. " We returned to Devereux Court, and we grew from boy- hood into youth. I loved youthen, Morton. Ah! what would I not give now for one pure feeling, such as I felt in your love ? Do you remember the day on which you had extorted from my uncle his consent to your leaving us for the pleasures and pomps of London ? Do you remember the evening of that day, when I came to seek you, and we sat down on a little mound, and talked over your projects, and you spoke then to me of my devotion, and my purer and colder feelings ? Morton, at that very moment my veins burnt with passion ! at that very moment my heart was feeding the vulture fated to live and prey within it forever! Thrice did I resolve to confide in you, as we then sat together, and thrice did my evil genius forbid it. You seemed, even in your affection to me, so wholly engrossed with your own hopes you seemed so little to regret leaving me you stung, so often and so deeply, in our short conference, that feeling which made me desire to monopolize all things in those I loved, that I said inly ' Why should I bare my heart to one who can so little understand it ? ' And so we turned 346 DEVEREUX. home, and you dreamt not of that which was then within me, and which was destined to be your curse and mine. " Not many weeks previous to that night, I had seen one whom to see was to love ! Love ! I tell you, Morton, that that word is expressive of soft and fond emotions, and there should be another expressive of all that is fierce, and dark, and unrelenting in the human heart ! all that seems most like the deadliest and the blackest hate, and yet is not hate ! I saw this being, and from that moment my real nature, which had slept hitherto, awoke ! I remember well, it was one evening in the beginning of summer that I first saw her. She sat alone in the little garden beside the cottage door, and 1 paused, and, unseen, looked over the slight fence that separated us, and fed my eyes with a loveliness that I thought till then, only twilight or the stars could wear ! From that evening I came, night after night, to watch her from the same spot ; and every time I beheld her, the poison entered deeper and deeper into my system. At length I had an opportunity of being known to her of speaking to her of hearing her speak of touching the ground she had hallowed of entering the home where she dwelt ! " I must explain ; I said that both Gerald and myself corre- sponded privately with Montreuil we were both bound over to secrecy with regard to you and this, my temper, and Gerald's coolness with you, rendered an easy obligation to both; I say my temper for I loved to think I had a secret not known to an- other ; and I carried this reserve even to the degree of conceal- ing from Gerald himself the greater part of the correspondence between me and the Abbe. In his correspondence with each of us, Montreuil acted with his usual skill ; to Gerald, as the elder in years, the more prone to enterprise, and the manlier in aspect and in character, was allotted whatever object was of real trust or importance. Gerald it was who, under pretence of pursuing his accustomed sports, conferred with the various agents of intrigue who from time to time visited our coast ; and to me the Abbe gave words of endearment, and affected the language of more entire trust. ' Whatever,' he would say ' in our present half-mellowed projects, is exposed to danger, but does not prom- ise reward, I entrust to Gerald ; hereafter, far higher employ- ment, under far safer and surer auspices, will be yours. We are the heads be ours the nobler occupation to plan and let us leave to inferior natures the vain and perilous triumph to exe- cute what we design.' "All this I readily assented to ; for, despite my acquiescence fcEVEREUX. 347 in Montreuil's wishes, I loved not enterprise, or rather I hated whatever roused me from the dreamy and abstracted indolence which was most dear to my temperament. Sometimes, how- ever, with a great show of confidence, Montreuil would request me to execute some quiet and unimportant commission ; and of this nature was one I received while I was thus, unknown even to the object, steeping my soul in the first intoxication of love. The plots then carried on by certain ecclesiastics, I need not say extended, in one linked chain, over the greater part of the con- tinent. Spain, in especial, was the theatre of these intrigues; and among the tools employed in executing them were some, who, though banished from that country, still, by the rank they had held in it, carried a certain importance in their very names. Foremost of these was the father of the woman I loved' and foremost, in whatever promised occupation to a restless mind, he was always certain to be. " Montreuil now commissioned me to seek out a certain Bar- nard (an underling in those secret practices or services, for which he afterwards suffered, and who was then in that part of the country), and to communicate to him some messages, of which he was to be the bearer to this Spaniard. A thought flashed upon me Montreuil's letter mentioned, accidently, that the Spaniard had never hitherto seen Barnard : could I not personate the latter deliver the messages myself, and thus win that introduc- tion to the daughter which I so burningly desired, and which, from the close reserve of the father's habits, I might not other- wise effect ? The plan was open to two objections : one that I was known personally in the town in the environs of which the Spaniard lived, and he might therefore very soon discover who I really was ; the other, that I was not in possession of all the information which Barnard might possess, and which the Spaniard might wish to learn ; but these objections had not much weight with me. To the first, I said inly, ' I will oppose the most constant caution, I will go always on foot, and alone I will never be seen in the town itself and even should the Spaniard, who seems rarely to stir abroad, and who, possibly, does not speak our language even should he learn, by acci- dent, that Barnard is only another name for Aubrey Devereux, it will not be before I have gained my object ; nor, perhaps, before the time when I myself may wish to acknowledge my identity.' To the second objection I saw a yet more ready an- swer. ' I will acquaint Montreuil at once,' I said, 'with my intention ; I will claim his connivance as a proof of his confi- dence, and as an essay of my own genius of intrigue.' I did so; 348 DEVEREUX. the priest, perhaps delighted to involve me so deeply, and to find me so ardent in his project, consented. Fortunately, as I before said, Barnard was an underling young unknown and obscure. My youth, therefore, was not so great a foe to my assumed disguise as it might otherwise have been. Montreuil supplied all requisite information. I tried (for the first time, with a beating heart and a tremulous voice) the imposition ; it succeeded I continued it. Yes, Morton, yes ! pour forth upon me your bitterest execration in me in your brother in the brother so dear to you in the brother whom you imag- ined so passionless so pure so sinless behold that Barnard the lover the idolatrous lover the foe the deadly foe of Isora d'Alvarez ! " Here the manuscript was defaced for some pages, by incoher- ent and meaningless ravings. It seemed as if one of his dark fits of frenzy had at that time come over the writer. At length, in a more firm and clear character than that immediately pre- ceding it, the manuscript continued as follows : " I loved her, but even then it was with a fierce and ominous love (ominous of what it became). Often in the still evenings, when we stood together watching the sun set when my tongue trembled but did not dare to speak when all soft and sweet thoughts filled the heart and glistened in the eye of that most sensitive and fairy being when my own brow, perhaps, seemed to reflect the same emotions feelings, which I even shuddered to conceive, raged within me. Had we stood together, in those moments, upon the brink of a precipice, I could have wound my arms around her, and leapt with her into the abyss. Every thing but one nursed my passion ; nature solitude early dreams all kindled and fed that fire : Religion only combated it ; I knew it was a crime to love any of earth's creatures as I loved. I used the scourge and the fast * I wept hot burn- ing tears I prayed and the intensity of my prayer appalled even myself, as it rose from my maddened heart, in the depth and stillness of the lone night: but the flame burnt higher and more scorchingly from the opposition ; nay, it was the very knowledge that my love was criminal that made it assume so fearful and dark a shape. ' Thou art the cause of my downfall from Heaven ! ' I muttered, when I looked upon Isora's calm * I need not point out to the Novel-reader how completely the character of Aubrey has been stolen in a certain celebrated French Romance But the writer I allude to is not so unmerciful as M. de Balzac, who has pillaged scenes in the Disowned, with a most gratify- ing politeness. DEVEREUX. 34 face thou feelest it not, and I could destroy thee and myself myself the criminal thee the cause of the crime ! ' "It must have been that my eyes betrayed my feelings, that Isora loved me not that she shrunk from me even at the first why else should I not have called forth the same sentiments which she gave to you ? Was not my form cast in a mould as fair as yours ? did not my voice whisper in as sweet a tone ? did I not love her with as wild a love ? Why should she not have loved me? I was the first whom she beheld she would ay, perhaps she would have loved me, if you had not come and marred all. Curse yourself, then that you were my rival ! curse yourself that you made my heart as a furnace, and smote my brain with frenzy curse Oh, sweet Virgin for- give me ! I know not I know not what my tongue titters or my hand traces ! " You came, then, Morton, you came you knew her you loved her she loved you. I learned that you had gained ad- mittance to the cottage, and the moment I learned it, I looked on Isora, and felt my fate, as by intuition : I saw at once that she was prepared to love you I saw the very moment when that love kindled from conception into form I saw and at that moment my eyes reeled and my ears rung as with the sound of a rushing sea, and I thought I felt a chord snap within my brain, which has never been united again. " Once only, after your introduction to the cottage, did I think of confiding to you my love and rivalship ; you remem- ber one night when we met by the castle cave, and when your kindness touched and softened me, despite of myself. The day after that night I sought you, with the intention of communi- cating to you all ; and while I was yet struggling with my em- barrassment, and the suffocating tide of my emotions, you pre- meditated me, by giving me your confidence. Engrossed with your own feelings, you were not observant of mine ; and as you dwelt and dilated upon your love for Isora, all emotions, save those of agony and of fury, vanished from my breast. I did not answer you then at any length, for I was too agitated to trust to prolix speech ; but by the next day I had recovered myself, and I resolved, as far as I was able, to play the hypo- crite. ' He cannot love her as I do ! ' I said ; 'perhaps I may, without disclosure of my rivalship, and without sin in the at- tempt, detach him from her by reason.' Fraught with this idea, I collected myself sought you remonstrated with you repre- sented the worldlyjolly of your love, and uttered all that pru- dence preaches in vain, where it preaches against passion ! 350 DEVEREUX. "Let me be brief. I saw that it made no impression on you I stifled my wrath I continued to visit and watch Isora. I timed my opportunities well my constant knowledge of your motions allowed me to do that ; besides, I represented to the Spaniard the necessity, through political motives, of concealing myself from you ; hence, we never encountered each other. One evening, Alvarez had gone out to meet one of his coun- trymen and confederates. J found Isora alone, in the most sequestered part of the garden, her loveliness, and her ex- ceeding gentleness of manner, melted me. For the first time audibly, my heart spoke out, and I told her of my idolatry. Idolatry ! ay, that is the only word, since it signifies both wor- ship and guilt ! She heard me timidly, gently, coldly. She spoke and I found confirmed, from her own lips, what my reason had before told me that there was no hope for me. The iron that entered, also roused, my heart. ' Enough ! ' I cried fiercely, 'you love this Morton Devereux, and for him I am scorned.' Isora blushed and trembled, and all my senses fled from me. I scarcely know in what words my rage and my despair clothed themselves ; but I know that I divulged myself to her I know that I told her I was the brother the rival the enemy of the man she loved, I know that I uttered the fiercest and the wildest menaces and execrations I know that my vehemence so overpowered and terrified her that her mind was scarcely less clouded less lost, rather than my own. At that moment the sound of your horse's hoofs was heard ; Isora's eye brightened, and her mien grew firm. ' He comes,' she said, ' and he will protect me ! ' ' Hark ! ' I said, sinking my voice, and, as my drawn sword flashed in one hand, the other grasped her arm with a savage force ' hark, woman ! ' I said and an oath of the blackest fury accompanied my threats ' swear that you will never divulge to Morton Deve- reux who is his real rival that you will never declare to him nor to anyone else, that the false Barnard and the true Aubrey Devereux are the same swear this, or I swear (and I repeated with a solemn vehemence, that dread oath) that I will stay here that I will confront my rival that, the moment he be- holds me, I will plunge this sword into his bosom and that, before I perish myself, I will hasten to the town, and will utter there a secret which will send your father to the gallows now, your choice ? ' " Morton, you have often praised, my uncle has often jested at, the womanish softness of my face. There have been mo- ments when I have seen that face in the glass, and known it DEVEREUX. 351 not, but started in wild affright, and fancied that I beheld a a demon ; perhaps in that moment this change was over it. Slowly Isora gazed upon me slowly blanched into .the hues of death grew her cheek and lip slowly that lip uttered the oath I enjoined. I released my gripe, and she fell to the earth, sud- den and stunned as if struck by lightning. I stayed not to look on what I had done I heard your step advance I fled by a path that led from the garden to the beach and I reached my home without retaining a single recollection of the space I had traversed to attain it. " Despite the .night I passed a night which I will leave you to imagine I rose the next morning with a burning interest to learn from you what had passed after my flight, and with a power, peculiar to the stormiest passions, of an outward composure while I listened to the recital. I saw that I was safe, and I heard, with a joy so rapturous, that I question whether even Isora's assent to my love would have given me an equal trans- port, that she had rejected you. I uttered some advice to you commonplace enough it displeased you, and we separated. " That evening, to my surprise, I was privately visited by Montreuil. He had some designs in hand which brought him from France into the neighborhood, but which made him de- sirous of concealment. He soon drew from me my secret ; it is marvellous, indeed, what power he had of penetrating, ruling, moulding my feelings and my thoughts. He wished, at that time, a communication to be made, and a letter to be given, to Alvarez. I could not execute this commission personally, for you had informed me of your intention of watching if you could not discover or meet with Barnard, and I knew you were absent from home on that very purpose. Nor was Montreuil himself desirous of incurring the risk of being seen by you you over whom, sooner or later, he then trusted to obtain a power equal to that which he held over your brothers. Gerald then was chosen to execute the commission. He did so he met Alvarez for the first and the only time on the beach, by the town of ; . You saw him, and imagined you beheld the real Barnard. " But I anticipate for you did not inform me of that occur- rence, nor the inference you drew from it, till afterwards. You returned, however, after witnessing that meeting, and for two days your passions (passions which, intense and fierce as mine, show that, under similar circumstances, .you might have been equally guilty) terminated in fever. You were confined to your bed for three or four days ; meanwhile I took advantage of the 352 DEVEREUX. event. Montreuil suggested a plan which I readily embraced. I sought [the Spaniard, and told him in confidence that you were a suitor but a suitor upon the most dishonorable terms to his daughter. I told him, moreover, that you had detected his schemes, and in order to deprive Isora of protec- tion, and abate any obstacles resulting from her pride, to betray him to the government. I told him that his best and most pru- dent, nay, his only, chance of safety for Isora and himself was to leave his present home, and take refuge in the vast mazes of the metropolis. I told him not to betray to you his knowl- edge of your criminal intentions, lest it might needlessly exas- perate you. I furnished him wherewithal to repay you the sum which you had lent him, and by which you had commenced his acquaintance : and I dictated to him the very terms of the note in which the sum was to be enclosed. After this I felt happy. You were separated from Isora she might forget you you might forget her. I was possessed of the secret of her father's present retreat I might seek it at my pleasure, and ultimately so hope whispered prosper in my love. " Some time afterwards you mentioned your suspicions of Gerald ; I did not corroborate, but I did not seek to destroy, them. ' They already hate each other,' I said : ' can the hate be greater ? meanwhile, let it divert suspicion from me ! ' Ger- ald knew of the agency of the real Barnard, though he did not know that I had assumed the name of that person. When you taxed him with his knowledge of the man, he was naturally con- fused. You interpreted that confusion into the fact of his being your rival, while in truth it arose from his belief that you had possessed yourself of his political schemes. Montreuil, who had lurked chiefly in the islet opposite ' the Castle Cave,' had returned to France on the same day that Alvarez repaired to London. Previous to this, we had held some conferences to- gether upon my love. At first he had opposed and reasoned with it, but, startled and astonished by the intensity with which it possessed me, he gave way to my vehemence at last. I have said that I had adopted his advice in one instance. The fact of having received his advice the advice of one so pious so free from human passion so devoted to one object, which ap- peared to him the cause of Religion advice, too, in a love so fiery and overwhelming, that fact made me think myself less criminal than I had done before. He advised me yet further. ' Do not seek Isora,' he said, ' till some time has elapsed till her new-born love for your brother has died away till the im- pression of fear you have caused in her is somewhat effaced ^ DEVEREUX. 353 till time and absence too have done their work in the mind of Morton, and you will no longer have for your rival one who is not only a brother, but a man of a fierce, resolute, and unre- lenting temper.' "1 yielded to this advice partly because it promised so fair ; partly because I was not systematically vicious, and I wished, if possible, to do away with our rivalship ; and principally be- cause I knew, in the mean while, that if I was deprived of her presence, so also were you ; and jealousy with me was a far more intolerable and engrossing passion than the very love from which it sprung. So time passed on you affected to have conquered your attachment ; you affected to take pleas- ure in levity, and the idlest pursuits of worldly men. I saw deeper into your heart. For the moment I entertained the passion of love in my awn breast, my eyes became gifted with a second vision to penetrate the most mysterious and hoarded secrets in the love of others. " Two circumstances of importance happened before you left Devereux Court for London ; the one was the introduc- tion to your service of Jean Desmarais, the second was your breach with Montreuil. I speak now of the first. A very early friend did the priest possess, born in the same village as him- self, and in the same rank of life ; he had received a good edu- cation, and possessed natural genius. At a time when, from some fraud in a situation of trust which he had held in a French nobleman's family, he was in destitute and desperate circum- stances, it occurred to Montreuil to provide for him by plac- ing him in our family. Some accidental and frivolous remark of yours, which I had repeated in my correspondence with Mon- treuil, as illustrative of your manner, and your affected pur- suits at that time, presented an opportunity to a plan before conceived. Desmarais came to England in a smuggler's ves- sel, presented himself to you as a servant, and was accepted. In this plan Montreuil had two views first, that of securing Desmarais a place in England, tolerably profitable to himself, and convenient for any plot or scheme which Montreuil might require of him in this country ; secondly, that of setting a per- petual and most adroit spy upon all your motions. "As to the second occurrence to which I have referred, viz., your breach with Montreuil " Here Aubrey, with the same terrible distinctness which had characterized his previous details, and which shed a double horror over the contrast of the darker and more frantic pas- sages in the manuscript, related what the reader will remember 354 DEVEREUX. Oswald had narrated before, respecting the letter he had brought from Madame de Balzac. It seems that Montreuil's abrupt appearance in the hall had been caused by Desmarais, who had recognized Oswald, on his dismounting at the gate, and had previously known that he was in the employment of the Jan- senistical intriguante, Madame de Balzac. Aubrey proceeded then to say that Montreuil, invested with far more direct authority and power than he had been hitherto, in the projects of that wise order whose doctrines he had so darkly perverted, repaired to London ; and that, soon after my departure for the same place, Gerald and Aubrey left Devereux Court in company with each other; but Gerald, whom very trifling things diverted from any project, however important, returned to Devereux Court, to accomplish the prosecution of some rustic amour, without even reaching London. Aubrey, on the contrary, had proceeded to the metropolis, sought the suburb in which Alvarez lived, procured, in order to avoid any probable chance of meeting me, a lodging in the same obscure quarter, and had renewed his suit to Isora. The reader is already in possession of the ill success which attended it. Au- brey had at last confessed his real name to the father. The Spaniard was dazzled by the prospect of so honorable an alli- ance for his daughter. From both came Isora's persecution, but in both was it resisted. Passing over passages in the man- uscript of the most stormy incoherence and the most gloomy passion, I come to what follows : " I learned then, from Desmarais, that you had taken away her and the dying father ; that you had placed them in a safe and honorable home. That man, so implicitly the creature of Montreuil, or rather of his own interest, with which Montreuil was identified, was easily induced to betray you also to me me whom he imagined, moreover, utterly the tool of the priest, and of whose torturing interest in this peculiar disclosure he was not at that time aware. I visited Isora in her new abode, and again and again she trembled beneath my rage. Then, for the second time, I attempted force. Ha ! ha ! Morton ! I think I see you now ! I think I hear your muttered curse ! Curse on ! When you read this I shall be beyond your ven- geance beyond human power. And yet I think if I were mere clay if I were the mere senseless heap of ashes that the grave covers if I were not the thing that must live forever and forever, far away in unimagined worlds, where nought that has earth's life can come I should tremble beneath the sod as your foot pressed, and your execration rung over it. A DEVEREUX. 355 second time I attempted force a second time I was repulsed by the same means by a woman's hand and a woman's dagger. But I knew that I had one hold ^ver Isora from which, while she loved you, I could never be driven : I knew that by threat- ening your life, I could command her will, and terrify her into compliance with my own. I made her reiterate her vow of concealment ; and I discovered, by some words dropping from her fear, that she believed you already suspected me, and had been withheld, by her entreaties^ from seeking me out. I questioned her more, and soon perceived that it was (as indeed I knew before) Gerald whom you suspected, not me ; but I did not tell this to Isora. I suffered her to cherish a mistake profi- table to my disguise ; but I saw at once that it might betray me, if you ever met and conferred at length with Gerald upon this point ; and I exacted from Isora a pledge that she would effectually and forever bind you not to breathe a single sus- picion to him. When I had left the room, I returned once more to warn her against uniting herself with you. Wretch, selfish, accursed wretch that you were, why did you suffer her to transgress that warning ? "I fled from the house, as a fiend flies from a being whom he has possessed. I returned at night to look up at the win- dow, and linger by the door, and keep watch beside the home which held Isora. Such, in her former abode, had been my nightly wont. I had no evil thought nor foul intent in this customary vigil no, not one ! Strangely enough, with the tempestuous and overwhelming emotions which constituted the greater part of my love, was mingled, though subdued and latent a stream of the softest, yea, I might add, almost of the holiest tenderness. Often after one of those outpourings of rage, and menace, and despair, I would fly to some quiet spot, and weep, till all the hardness of my heart was wept away. And often in those nightly vigils I would pause by the door and murmur, ' This shelter, denied not to the beggar and the beggar's child, this would you deny to me, if you could dream that I was so near you. And yet, had you loved me, instead of lavishing upon me all your hatred and your contempt had you loved me, I would have served and worshipped you as man knows not worship or service. You shudder at my vehemence now I could not then have breathed a whisper to wound you. You tremble now at the fierceness of my breast you would then rather have marvelled at its softness.' " I was already at my old watch when you encountered me you addressed me, I answered not you approached me, and I 356 DEVEREUX. fled. Fled there there was the shame, and the sting of my sentiments towards you. I am not naturally afraid of danger, though my nerves are sometimes weak, and have sometimes shrunk from it. I have known something of peril in late years, when my frame has been bowed and broken peril by storms at sea, and the knives of robbers upon land and I have looked upon 'it with a quiet eye. But you, Morton Devereux, you I always feared. I had seen from your childhood others, whose nature was far stronger than mine, yield and recoil at yours I had seen the giant and bold strength of Gerald quail before your bent brow I had s.een even the hardy pride of Montreuil baffled by your curled lip, and the stern sarcasm of your glance I had seen you, too, in your wild moments of ungOverned rage, and I knew that if earth held one whose passions were fiercer than my own, it was you. But your passions were sus- tained even in their fiercest excess your passions were the mere weapons of your mind my passions were the torturers and the tyrants of mine. Your passions seconded your will mine blinded and overwhelmed it. From my infancy, even while I loved you most, you awed me ; and years, in deepening the impression, had made it indelible. I could not confront the thought of your knowing all, and of meeting you after that knowledge. And this fear, while it unnerved me at some mo- ments, at others only maddened my ferocity the more by the stings of shame and self-contempt. " I fled from you you pursued you gained upon me you remember now : how 1 was preserved. I dashed through the inebriated revellers who obstructed your path, and reached my own lodging, which was close at hand ; for the same day on which I learned Isora's change of residence I changed my own in order to be near it. Did I feel joy for my escape ? No I could have gnawed the very flesh from my bones in the agony of my shame. ' I could brave,' I said ; ' I could threat I could offer violence to the woman who rejected me, and yet I could not face the rival for whom I am scorned ! ' At that moment a resolution flashed across my mind, exactly as if a train of living fire had been driven before it. Morton, I resolved to murder you, and in that very hour ! A pistol lay on my table I took it, concealed it about my person, and repaired to the shelter of a large portico, beside which I knew that you must pass to your own home in the same street. Scarcely three minutes had elapsed between the reaching my house and the leaving it on this errand. I knew, for I had heard swords clash, that you would be detained some time in the street by the rioters I DEVEREUX. 357 thought it probable also that you might still continue the search for me ; and I knew even that, had you hastened at once to your home, you could scarcely have reached it before I reached my shelter. I hurried on I arrived at the spot I screened myself and awaited your coming. You came, borne in the arms of two men others followed in the rear I saw your face destitute of the hue and aspect of life, and your clothes stream- ing with blood. I was horror-stricken. I joined the crowd I learnt that you had been stabbed, and it was feared mortally. " I did not return home no, I went into the fields, and lay out all night, and lifted up my heart to God, and wept aloud, and peace fell upon me at least, what was peace compared to the tempestuous darkness which had before reigned in my breast. The sight of you, bleeding and insensible you, against whom I had harbored a fratricide's purpose had stricken, as it were, the weapon from my hand, and the madness from my mind. I shuddered at what I had escaped I blessed God for my deliverance and with the gratitude and the awe came repentance and repentance brought a resolution to fly, since I could not wrestle with my mighty and dread temptation : the moment that resolution was formed, it was as if an incubus were taken from my breast. Even the next morning I did not return home my anxiety for you was such that I forgot all caution I went to your house myself I saw one of your ser- vants to whom I was personally unknown. I inquired respect- ing you, and learnt that your wound had not been mortal, and that the servant had overheard one of the medical attendants say you were not even in danger. . "At this news I felt the serpent stir again within me, but I resolved to crush it at the first I would not even expose myself to the temptation of passing by Isora's house I went straight in search of my horse I mounted, and fled resolutely from the scene of my soul's peril. ' I will go,' I said, ' to the home of our childhood I will surround myself by the mute tokens of the early love which my brother bore me I will think while penance and prayer cleanse my soul from its black guilt I will think that I am also making a sacrifice to that brother.' " I returned then to Devereux Court, and I resolved to forego all hope all persecution of Isora ! My brother my brother, my heart yearns to you at this moment, even though years and distance, and above all, my own crimes, place a gulf between us which I may never pass it yearns to you when I think of those quiet shades, and the scenes where, pure and unsullied, we wandered together, when life was all verdure and freshness, and 358 DEVEREUX. we dreamt not of what was to come ! If even now my heart yearns to you, Morton, when I think of that home and those days, believe that it had some softness and some mercy for you then. Yes, I repeat, I resolved to subdue my own emotions, and interpose no longer between Isora and yourself. Full of this determination, and utterly melted towards you, I wrote you a long letter ; such as we would have written to each other in our first youth. Two days after that letter, all my new purposes were swept away, and the whole soil of evil thoughts which they had covered, not destroyed, rose again as the tide flowed from it, black and rugged as before. " The very night on which I had writ that letter, came Mon- treuil secretly to my chamber. He had been accustomed to visit Gerald by stealth, and at sudden moments ; and there was something almost supernatural in the manner in which he seemed to pass from place to place, unmolested and unseen. He had now conceived a villainous project ; and he had visited Devereux Court in order to ascertain the likelihood of its success ; he there found that it was necessary to involve me in his scheme. My uncle's physician had said privately that Sir William could not live many months longer. Either from Gerald, or my mother, Montreuil learned this fact ; and he was resolved, if possible, the family estates should not glide from all chance of his in- fluence over them into your possession. Montreuil was literally as poor as the rigid law of his order enjoins its disciples to be ; all his schemes required the disposal of large sums, and in no private source could he hope for such pecuniary power as he was likely to find in the coffers of any member of our family yourself only excepted. It was this man's boast, to want, and yet to command, all things ; and he was now determined that if any craft, resolution, or guilt could occasion the transfer of my uncle's wealth from you to Gerald, or to myself, it should not be wanting. " Now, then, he found the advantage of the dissensions with each other, which he had either sown or mellowed in our breasts. He came to turn those wrathful thoughts which, when he last saw me, I' had expressed towards you, to the favor and success of his design. He found my mind strangely altered, but he affected to applaud the change. He questioned me re- specting my uncle's health, and I told him what had really occurred, viz., that my uncle had, on the preceding day, read over to me some part of a will which he had just made, and in which the vast bulk of his property was bequeathed to you. At this news Montreuil must have perceived at once the necessity DEVEREUX. 35<) of winning my consent to his project ; for, since I had seen the actual testament, no fraudulent transfer of the property therein bequeathed could take place without my knowledge that some fraud had been recurred to. Montreuil knew me well he knew that avarice, that pleasure, that ambition, were powerless words with me, producing no effect and affording no temptation ; but he knew that passion, jealousy, spiritual terrors, were the springs that moved every part and nerve of my moral being. The two former then he now put into action the last he held back in reserve. He spoke to me no further upon the subject he had then at heart ; not a word further on the disposition of the estates he spoke to me only of Isora and of you ; he aroused, by hint and insinuation, the new sleep into which all those emotions the furies of the heart had been for a moment lulled. He told me he had lately seen Isora -he dwelt glowingly on her beauty he commended my heroism in resigning her to a brother whose love for her was little in comparison to mine who had, in reality, neverloved me whose jests and irony had been levelled no less at myself than at others. He painted your person and your mind, in contrast to my own, in colors so covertly depreciating as to irritate, more and more, that vanity with which jealousy is so woven, and from which, perhaps (a Titan son of so feeble a parent), it is born. He hung lingeringly over all the treasure that you would enjoy, and that I I, the first discoverer, had so nobly and so generously relinquished. " ' Relinquished ! ' I cried, ' no, I was driven from it. I left it not while a hope of possessing it remained.' The priest affected astonishment. ' How ! was I sure of that ? I had, it is true, wooed Isora; but would she, even if she had felt no preference for Morton, would she have surrendered the heir to a princely wealth for the humble love of the younger son ? I did not know women ; with them all love was either wantonness, custom, or pride it was the last principle that swayed Isora. Had I sought to enlist it on my side? Not at all. Again, I had only striven to detach Isora trom Morton ; had I ever attempted the much easier task of detaching Morton from Isora? No, never'; and Montreuil repeated his panegyric on my gene- rous surrender of my rights. I interrupted him : ' I had not surrendered I never would surrender while a hope remained. But where was that hope, and how was it to be realized ?' After much artful prelude, the priest explained. He proposed to use every means to array against your union with Isora, all motives of ambition, interest, and aggrandizement. ' I know .Morton's character,' said he, ' to its very depths. His chief 366 virtue honor his chief principle is ambition. He will not attempt to win this girl otherwise than by marriage, for the very reasons that would induce most men to attempt it, viz., her un- friended state, her poverty, her confidence in him, and her love, or that semblance of love which he believes to be the passion itself. This virtue I call it so, though it is none, for there is no virtue out of religion this virtue, then, will place before him only two plans of conduct, either to marry her or to forsake her. Now, then if we can bring his ambition, that great lever of his conduct, in opposition to the first alternative, only the last remains ; I say that we can employ that engine in your be- half leave it to me, and I will do so. Then, Aubrey, in the moment of her pique, her resentment, her outraged vanity, at being thus left, you shall appear ; not as you have hitherto done, in menace and terror, but soft, subdued, with looks all love with vows all penitence vindicating all your past vehe- mence, by the excess of your passion, and promising all future tenderness by the influence of the same motive, the motive which to a woman pardons every error, and hallows every crime. Then will she contrast your love with your brother's then will the scale fall from her eyes then will she see what hitherto she has been blinded to, that your brother, to yourself, is a satyr to Hyperion then will she blush and falter, and hide her cheek in your bosom.' 'Hold, hold ! ' I cried ; 'do with me what you will, counsel, and I will act !' ' Here again the manuscript was defaced by a sudden burst of execration upon Montreuil, followed by ravings that gradually blackened into the most gloomy and incoherent outpourings of madness ; at length, the history proceeded : "You wrote to ask me to sound our uncle on the subject of your intended marriage. Montreuil drew up my answer, and I constrained myself, despite my revived hatred to you, to transcribe its expressions of affection. My uncle wrote to you also ; and we strengthened his dislike to the step you had pro- posed, by hints from myself, disrespectful to Isora, and an anonymous communication dated from London, and to the same purport. All this while I knew not that Isora had been in your house ; your answer to my letter seemed to imply that you would not disobey my uncle. Montreuil, who was still lurking in the neighborhood, and who at night privately met or sought me, affected exultation at the incipient success of his advice. He pretended to receive perpetual intelligence of your motions and conduct, and he informed me now that Isora had come to your house on hearing of your wound ; that you DEVEfcEUX. 361 had not (agreeably, Montreuil added to his view of your cha- racter) taken advantage of her indiscretion ; that immediately onreceivingyour uncle's and my own letters, you had separated yourself from her; and that, though you still visited her, it was apparently with a view of breaking off all connection by gradual and gentle steps ; at all events, you had taken no measures towards marriage. ' Now, then,' said Montreuil, 'for one finishing stroke, and the prize is yours. Your uncle can- not, you find, live long : could he but be persuaded to leave his property to Gerald or to you, with only a trifling legacy (comparatively speaking) to Morton, that worldly-minded and enterprising person would be utterly prevented from marrying a penniless and unknown foreigner. Nothing but his own high prospects, so utterly above the necessity of fortune in a wife, can excuse such a measure now, even to his own mind ; if, therefore, we can effect this transfer of property, and in the mean while prevent Morton from marrying, your rival is gone forever, and with his brilliant advantages of wealth will also vanish his merits in the eyes of Isora. . Do not be startled at this thought ; there is no crime in it; I, your confessor, your tutor, the servant of the church, am the last person to counsel, to hint, even, at what is criminal ; but the end sanctifies all means. By transferring this vast property, you do not only ensure your object, but you advance the great cause of Kings, the Church, and of the Religion which presides over both. Wealth, in Morton's possession, will be useless to this cause, perhaps pernicious : in your hands, or in Gerald's, it will be of inestimable service. Wealth produced from the public should be applied to the uses of the public, yea, even though a petty injury to one individual be the price.' "Thus, and in this manner, did Montreuil prepare my mind for the step he meditated ; but I was not yet ripe for it. So inconsistent is guilt, that I could commit murder wrong almost all villainy that passion dictated, but I was struck aghast by the thought of fraud. Montreuil perceived that I was not yet wholly his, and his next plan was to remove me from a spot where I might check his measures. He persuaded me to travel for a few weeks. 'On. your return,' said he, 'consider Isora yours ; meanwhile, let change of scene beguile suspense.' I was passive in his hands, and I went whither he directed. "Let me be brief here on the black fraud that ensued. Among the other arts of Jean Desmarais, was that of copying exactly, any handwriting. He was then in London, in your service : Montreuil sent for him to come to the neighborhood 362 DEVEREUX. of Devereux Court. Meanwhile, the priest had procured from the notary who had drawn up, and who now possessed, the will of my unsuspecting uncle, that document. The notary had been long known to, and sometimes politically employed by, Montreuil, for he was half-brother to that Oswald, whom I have before mentioned as the early comrade of the priest and Des- marais. This circumstance, it is probable, first induced Mon- treuil to contemplate the plan of a substituted will. Before Desmarais arrived in order to copy those parts of the will which my uncle's humor had led him to write in his own hand, you, alarmed by a letter from my uncle, came to the Court, and on the same day Sir William (taken ill the preceding even- ing) died. Between that day and the one on which the funeral occurred, the will was copied by Desmarais ; only Gerald's name was substituted for yours, and the forty thousand pounds left to him a sum equal to that bestowed on myself was cut down into a legacy of twenty thousand pounds to you. Less than this, Montreuil dared not insert as the bequest to you ; and it is possible that the same regard to probabilities prevented all mention of himself in the substituted will. This was all the alteration made. My uncle's writing was copied exactly ; and, save the departure from his apparent intentions in your favor, I believe not a particle in the effected fraud was calculated to excite suspicion. Immediately on the reading of the will, Montreuil repaired to me, and confessed what had taken place. "Aubrey,' he said, ' I have done this for your sake partly ; but I have had a much higher end in view than even your hap- piness, or my affectionate wishes to promote it. I live solely for one object the aggrandizement of that holy order to \vhich I belong ; the schemes of that order are devoted only to the interests of Heaven, and by serving them, I serve Heaven itself. Aubrey, child of my adoption and of my earthly hopes, those schemes require carnal instruments, and work, even through Mammon, unto the goal of righteousness. What I have done is just before God and man. I have wrested a weapon from the hand of an enemy, and placed it in the hand of an ally. I have not touched one atom of this wealth, though, with the same ease with which I have trans- ferred it from Morton to Gerald, I might have made my own private fortune. I have not touched one atom of it ; nor for you, whom I love more than any living being, have I done what my heart dictated. I might have caused the inheritance to pass to you. I have not done so. Why ? Because, then, I should have consulted a selfish desire at the expense of the in- DEVEREUX. 363 terests of mankind. Gerald is fitter to be the tool those interests require than you are. Gerald I have made that tool. You, too, I have spared the pangs which your conscience, so peculiarly, so morbidly acute, might surfer at being selected as the instru- ment of a seeming wrong to Morton. All required of you is silence. If your wants ever ask more than your legacy, you have as I have, a claim to that wealth which your pleasure al- lows Gerald to possess. Meanwhile, let us secure to you that treasure dearer to you than gold.' " If Montreuil did not quite blind me by speeches of this nature, my engrossing, absorbing passion required little to make it cling to any hope of its fruition. I assented, therefore, though not without many previous struggles, to Montreuil's- project, or rather to its concealment ; nay, I wrote some time after, at his desire, and his dictation, a letter to you, stating feigned reasons for my uncle's alteration of former inten- tions, and exonerating Gerald from all connivance at that al- teration, or abetment in the fraud you professed that it was your open belief had been committed. This was due to Gerald ; for that time, and for aught I know, at the present, he was per- fectly unconscious by what means he had attained his fortune ; he believed that your love for Isora had given my uncle offence, and hence your disinheritance ; and Montreuil took effectual care to exasperate him against you, by dwelling on the malice which your suspicions and your proceedings against him so glaringly testified. Whether Montreuil really thought you would give over all intention of marrying Isora upon your reverse of fortune, which is likely enough, from his estimate of your character, or whether he only wished by any means, to obtain my acquiescence in a measure important to his views, I know not, but he never left me, nor ever ceased to sustain my fevered and unhallowed hopes, from the hour in which he first communicated to me the fraudulent substitution of the will, till we repaired to London. This we did not do so long as he could detain me in the country, by assurances that I should ruin all by appearing before Isora until you had entirely deserted her. " Morton, hitherto I have written as if my veins were filled with water, instead of the raging fire that flows through them until it reaches my brain, and there it stops, and eats away all things even memory, that once seemed eternal ! Now I feel as I approach the consummation of Ha of what ay, of what ? Brother did you ever, when you thought yourself quite alone at night not a breath stirring did you ever raise your 364 DEVEREUX. eyes and see, exactly opposite to you, a devil ! a dread tiling, that moves not, speaks not, but glares upon you with a fixed, dead, unrelenting eye? that thing is before me now, and wit- nesses every word I write. But it deters me not ! no, nor terri- fies me. I have said that I would fulfil this task, and I have nearly done it ; though at times the gray cavern yawned, and I saw its rugged walls stretch stretch away, on either side, until they reached hell ; and there I beheld but I will not tell you, till we meet there ! Now I am calm again read on ! " We could not discover Isora, nor her home ; perhaps the priest took care that it should be so ; for, at that time, what with his devilish whispers and my own heart, I often scarcely knew what I was or what I desired ; and I sat for hours and gazed upon the air, and it seemed so soft and still that I longed to make an opening in my forehead that it might enter there, and so cool and quiet the dull, throbbing anguish that lay like molten lead in my brain ; at length we found the house. 'To-morrow,' said the Abbe, and he shed tears over me for there were times when that hard man did feel, ' to-morrow, my child, thou shalt see her but be soft and calm.' The morrow came ; but Montreuil was pale, paler than I had ever seen him, and he gazed upon me and said, ' Not to-day, my son, not to-day ; she has gone out, and will not return till nightfall.' My brother, the evening came, and with it came Desmarais ; he came in terror and alarm. ' The villain Oswald,' he said, 'has betrayed all'; he drew me aside and told me so. ' Harkye, Jean,' he whispered, ' harkye your master has my brother's written confession, and the real will ; but I have provided for your safety, and if he pleases it, for Montreuil's. The packet is not to be opened till the seventh day fly before then.' ' But I know,' added Desmarais, 'where the packet is placed'; and he took Montreuil aside, and for awhile I heard not what they said ; but I did overhear Desmarais at last, and learnt that it was your bridal night. "What felt I then ? The same tempestuous fury the same whirlwind and storm of heart that I had felt before, at the mere anticipation of such an event ? No ; I felt a bright ray of joy flash through me. Yes, joy : but it was that joy which a conqueror feels when he knows his mortal foe is in his power, and when he dooms that enemy to death. 'They shall perish and on this night,' I said inly. ' I have sworn it I swore to Isora that the bridal couch should be stained with blood, and I will keep the oath ! ' I approached the pair- they were discussing the means for obtaining the packet. Montreuil urged Desman- DEVEREUX. 365 ais to purloin it from the place where you had deposited it, and then toabscond ; buttothis plan Desmarais was vehemently op- posed. He insisted that there would be no possible chance of his escape from a search so scrutinizing as that which would nec- essarily ensue, and he was evidently resolved not alone to incur the danger of the theft. ' The Count,' said he, ' saw that I was present when he put away the packet. Suspicion will fall sole- ly on me. Whither should I fly ? No I will serve you with my talents, but not with my life.' ' Wretch ! ' said Montreuil, 'if that packet is opened, thy life is already gone.' ' Yes,' said Desmarais ; ' but we may yet purloin the papers, and throw the guilt upon some other quarter. What if I admit you when the Count is abroad ? What if you steal the packet, and carry away other articles of more seeming value ? What, too, if you wound me in the arm or the breast, and I coin some terrible tale of robbers, and of my resistance, could we not manage then to throw suspicion upon common housebreakers nay, could we not throw it upon Oswald himself ? Let us silence that traitor by death, and who shall contradict our tale ? No danger shall attend this plan. I will give you the key of the escritoire the theft will not be the work of a moment.' Montreuil at first demurred to this proposal, but Desmarais was, I repeat, resolved not to incur the danger of the theft alone ; the stake was great, and it was not Montreuil's nature to shrink from peril, when once it became necessary to confront it. ' Be it so,' he said at last, ' though the scheme is full of difficulty and dan- ger : be it so. We have not a day to lose. To-morrow the Count will place the document in some place of greater safety, and unknown to us the deed shall be done to-night. Procure the key of the escritoire admit me this night 1 will steal dis- guised into the chamber I will commit the act from which you, who alone could commit it with safety, shrink. Instruct me exactly as to the place where the articles you speak of are placed : I will abstract them also. See that, if the Count wake, he has no weapon at hand. Wound yourself, as you say, in some place not dangerous to life, and to-morrow, or within an hour after my escape, tell what tale you will. I will go, meanwhile, at once to Oswald ; I will either bribe his silence ay, and his immediate absence from England or he shall die. A death that secures our own self-preservation is excusable in the reading of all law, divine, or human ! ' "I heard, but they deemed me insensible: they had already begun to grow unheeding of my presence. Montreuil saw me, and his countenance grew soft. ' J know all,' I said, as J caught 366 DEVEREUX. his eye which looked on me in pity, ' I know all they are married. Enough ! with all my hope ceases my love : care not for me.' " Montreuil embraced and spoke to me in kindness and in praise. He assured me that you had kept your wedding so close a secret that he knew it not, nor did even Desmarais, till the evening before till after he had proposed that I should visit Isora that very day. I know not, I care not, whether he was sincere in this. In whatever way one line in the dread scroll of his conduct be read, the scroll was written in guile, and in blood was it sealed. I appeared not to notice Montreuil or his accomplice any more. The latter left the house first. Mon- treuil stole forth, as he thought, unobserved ; he was masked, and in complete disguise. I, too, went forth. I hastened to a shop where such things were procured ; I purchased a mask and cloak similar to the priest's. I had heard Montreuil agree with Desmarais that the door of the house should be left ajar, in order to give greater facility to the escape of the former ; I repaired to the house in time to see Montreuil enter it. A strange, sharp sort of cunning, which I had never known before, ran through the dark confusion of my mind. I waited for a minute, till it was likely that Montreuil had gained your cham- ber ; I then pushed open the door, and ascended the stairs. I met no one the moonlight fell around me, and its rays seemed to me like ghosts, pale and shrouded, and gazing upon me with wan and lustreless eyes. I know not how I found your cham- ber, but it was the only one I entered. I stood in the same room with Isora and yourself ye lay in sleep Isora's face Oh, God ! I know no more no more of that night of horror save that I fled from the house reeking with blood a murderer and the murderer of Isora ! "Then came a long, long dream. I was in a sea of blood blood-red was the sky, and one still, solitary star that gleamed far away with a sickly and wan light, was the only spot, above and around, which was not of the same intolerable dye. And I thought my eyelids were cut off, as those of the Roman consul are said to have been, and I had nothing to shield my eyes from that crimson light, and the rolling waters of that unnatural sea. And the red air burnt through my eyes into my brain, and then that also, methought, became blood ; and all memory all images of memory all idea 1 wore a material shape, and a material color, and were blood, too. Everything was unutterably silent, except when my own shrieks rang over the shoreless ocean, as I drifted on. At last I fixed my eyes the eyes which I might DEVEREUX. 367 never close upon that pale and single star ; and after I had gazed a little while, the star seemed to change slowly until it grew like the pale face of that murdered girl, and then it van- ished utterly, and all was blood ! "This vision was sometimes broken sometimes varied by others but it always returned ; and when at last I completely woke from it, I was in Italy, in a convent. Montreuil had lost no time in removing me from England. But once, shortly after my recovery, for I was mad for many months, he visited me, and he saw what a wreck I had become. He pitied me ; and when I told him I longed above all things for liberty for the green earth and the fresh air, and a removal from that gloomy abode, he opened the convent gates, and blessed me and bade me go forth. 'All I require of you,' said he, 'is a promise. If it be understood that you live, you will be persecuted by in- quiries and questions, which will terminate in a conviction of your crime : let it therefore be reported in England that you are dead. Consent to the report, and promise never to quit Italy, nor to see Morton Devereux.' "I promised and that promise I have kept ; but I promised not that I would never reveal to you, in writing, the black tale which I have now recorded. May it reach you. There is one in this vicinity who has undertaken to bear it to you ; he says he has known misery and when he said so, his voice sounded in my ear like yours ; and I looked upon him, and thought his features were cast somewhat in the same mould as your own so I have trusted him. I have now told all. I have wrenched the secret from my heart in agony and with fear. I have told all though things which I believe are fiends, have started forth from the grim walls around to forbid it though dark wings have swept by me, and talons, as of a bird, have attempted to tear away the paper on which I write though eyes, whose light was never drunk from earth, have glared on me and mocking voices and horrible laughter have made my flesh creep, and thrilled through the marrow of my bones I have told all I have finished my last labor in this world, and I will now lie down and die. "AUBREY DEVEREUX." The paper dropped from my hands. Whatever I had felt in reading it, I had not flinched once from the task. From the first word even to the last, I had gone through the dreadful tale, nor uttered a syllable, nor moved a limb. And now as I rose, though I had found the being who to me had withered 368 DEVEfcEUX. this world into one impassable desert though I had found the unrelenting foe and the escaped murderer of Isora the object of the execration and vindictiveness of years not one single throb of wrath not one single sentiment of vengeance, was in my breast. I passed at once to the bedside of my brother ; he was awake, but still and calm the calm and stillness of ex* hausted nature. I knelt down quietly beside him. I took his hand, and I shrank not from the touch, though by that hand the only woman I ever loved had perished. "Look up, Aubrey !" said I, struggling with tears which, despite of my most earnest effort, came over me ; " look up, all is forgiven. Who on earth shall withhold pardon from a crime which on earth has been so awfully punished ? Look up Au- brey ; I am your brother, and I forgive you. You are right my childhood was harsh and fierce ; and had you feared me less you might have confided in me, and you would not have sinned and suffered as you have done now. Fear me no longer. Look up, Aubrey, it is Morton who calls you. Why do you not speak ? My brother, my brother a word, a single word, I im- plore you." For one moment did Aubrey raise his eyes one moment did he meet mine. His lips quivered wildly I heard the death-rattle he sunk back, and his hand dropped from my clasp. My words had snapped asunder the last chord of life. Merciful Heaven ! I thank thee that those words were the words of pardon ! CHAPTER V. In which the Histoiy makes a great Stride towards the final Catastrophe. The Return to England, and the Visit to a Devotee. AT night, and in the thrilling forms of the Catholic ritual, was Aubrey Devereux consigned to earth. After that ceremony I could linger no longer in the vicinity of the hermitage. I took leave of the Abbot and richly endowed his convent in return for the protection it had afforded to the anchorite and the masses which had been said for his soul. Before I left Anselmo, I questioned him if any friend to the hermit had ever, during his seclusion, held any communication with the Abbot respecting him. Anselmo, after a little hesitation, confessed that a man, a Frenchman, seemingly of no high rank, had several times visited the convent, as if to scrutinize the habits andlifeofthe anchorite; he had declared himselfcommissioned MVEREUX. 369 by the hermits relations to make inquiry of him from time to time ; but he had given the Abbot no clue to discover himself, though Anselmo had especially hinted at the expediency of being acquainted with some quarter to which he could direct any information of change in the hermit's habits or health. Thismanhad been last at the convent about two months before the present date ; but one of the brothers declared that he had seen him in the vicinity of the well on the very day on which the hermit died. The description of this stranger was essentially different from that which would have been given of Montreuil, but I imagined that, if not the Abbe himself, the stranger was one in his confidence or his employ. I now repaired to Rome, where I made the most extensive, though guarded, inquiries after Montreuil, and at length I learned that he was lying concealed, or rather unnoticed, in England, under a disguised name ; having, by friends or by money, obtained therein a tacit connivance, though not an open pardon. No sooner did I learn this intelligence, than I resolved forthwith to depart to that country. I crossed the Alps- traversed France and took ship at Calais for Dover. Behold me then upon the swift seas bent upon a double purpose reconciliation with a brother whom I had wronged, and vengeance no not vengeance, but justice against the criminal I had discovered ! No ! it was not revenge it was no infuriate, no unholy desire of inflicting punishment upon a personal foe, which possessed me it was a steady, calm, unwavering resolution, to obtain justice against the profound and systematized guilt of a villain who had been the bane of all who had come within his contact, that nerved my arm and engrossed my heart. Bear witaess, Heaven, I am not a vindic- tive man ! I have, it is true, .been extreme in hatred as in love ; but I have ever had the power to control myself from yielding to its impulse. When the full persuasion of Gerald's crime reigned within me, I had thralled my emotion, I had curbed it within the circle of my own heart, though there, thus pent and self-consuming, it was an agony and a torture ; I had resisted the voice of that blood which cried from the earth against a murderer, and which had consigned the solemn charge of justice to my hands. Year after year I had nursed an unap- peased desire; nor ever, when it stung the most, suffered it to become an actual revenge. I had knelt in tears and in softness by Aubrey's bed I had poured forth my pardon over him I had felt, while I did so, no, not so much sternness as would have slain a worm. By his hand had the murtherous stroke 37 DEVEkEUX. been dealt on his soul was the crimson stain of that blood which had flowed through the veins of the gentlest and the most innocent of God's creatures and yet the blow was un- avenged and the crime forgiven. For him there was a palliative, or even a gloomy but an unanswerable excuse. In the con- fession which had so terribly solved the mystery of my life, the seeds of that curse, which had grown at last into MADNESS, might be discovered even in the first dawn of Aubrey's existence. The latent poison might be detected in the morbid fever of his young devotion in his jealous cravings of affection in the first flush of his ill-omened love, even before rivalship and wrath began. Then, too, his guilt had not been regularly organized into one cold and deliberate system it broke forth in impetuous starts, in frantic paroxysms it was often wrestled with, though by a feeble mind it was often conquered by a tender, though a fitful temper it might not have rushed into the last and most awful crime, but for the damning instigation and the atrocious craft of one, who (Aubrey rightly said) could wield and mould the unhappy victim at his will. Might not, did I say? Nay, but for Montreuil's accursed influence, had I not Aubrey's own word that that crime never would have been committed? He had resolved to stifle his love his heart had already melted to Isora and to me he had already tasted the sweets of a virtuous resolution, and conquered the first bitter- ness of opposition to his passion. Why should not the resolu- tion thus auspiciously begun have been mellowed into effect ? Why should not the grateful and awful remembrance of the crime he had escaped continue to preserve him from meditat- ing crime anew? And (O, thought, which, while I now write, steals over me and brings with it an unutterable horde of emo- tions !) but for that all-tainting, all-withering, influence, Aubrey's soul might at this moment have been pure from murder, and Isora the living Isora by my side ! What wonder, as these thoughts came over me, that sense, feeling, reason, gradually shrunk and hardened into one stern resolve ? I looked as from a height over the whole conduct of Montreuil : I saw him in our early infancy with no definite motive (beyond the general policy of intrigue), no fixed design, which might somewhat have lessened the callousness of the crime, not only fomenting dissensions in the hearts of brothers not only turning the season of warm affections, and yet of unopened passion, into strife and rancor but seizing upon the inherent and reigning vice of our bosoms, which he should have seized to crush in order only by that master-vice tQ 37 f weave our characters and sway our conduct to his will, when- ever a cool-blooded and merciless policy required us to be of that will the minions and the tools. Thus had he taken hold of the diseased jealousy of Aubrey, and by that handle, joined to the latent spring of superstition, guided him on his wretched course of misery and guilt. Thus by a moral irresolution in Gerald had he bowed him also to his purposes, and, by an infantine animosity between that brother and myself, held us both in a state of mutual hatred which I shuddered to recall. Readily could I now perceive that my charges or my suspicions against Gerald, which, in ordinary circumstances, he might have dispassionately come forward to disprove, had been repre- sented to him by Montreuil in the light of groundless and wilful insults ; and thus he had been led to scorn that full and cool explanation which, if it had not elucidated the mystery of my afflictions, would have removed the false suspicion of guilt from himself, and the real guilt of wrath and animosity from me. The crime of the forged will, and the outrage to the dead and to myself, was a link in his woven guilt which I regarded the least. I looked rather to the black and the consummate craft by which Aubrey had been implicated in that sin ; and my indignation became mixed with horror when I saw Mon- treuil working to that end of fraud by the instigation not only of a guilty and unlawful passion, but of the yet more unnatural and terrific engine of frenzy, of a maniac's despair. Over the peace the happiness the honor the virtue of a whole family, through fraud and through blood, this priest had marched onward to the goal of his icy and heartless ambition, unrelent- ing and unrepenting ; "but not," I said, as I clenched my hand till the nails met in the flesh, "not forever unchecked and un- requited ! " But in what manner was justice to be obtained ? A public court of law ? What ! drag forward the deep dishonor of my house the gloomy and convulsive history of my departed brother his crime and his insanity ? What! bring that history, connected as it was with the fate of Isora, before the curious and the insolent gaze of the babbling world ? Bare that awful record to the jests, to the scrutiny, the marvel and the pity, of that most coarse of all tribunals an English court of law ? and that most torturing of all exposures the vulgar comments of an English public ? Could I do this? Yea, in the sternness of my soul, I felt that I could submit even to that humiliation, if no other way presented itself by which I could arrive at justice. Was there no other way? at that question conjee- tf2 MVEREUX. ture paused I formed no scheme, or rather, I formed a hundred and rejected them all ; my mind settled, at last, into an indis- tinct, unquestioned, but prophetic, resolution, that, whenever my path crossed Montreuil's, it should be to his destruction. I asked not how, nor when, the blow was to be dealt ; I felt only a solemn and exultant certainty that, whether it borrowed the sword of the law, or the weapon of private justice, mine should be the hand which brought retribution to the ashes of the dead and the agony of the survivor. So soon as my mind had subsided into this determination, I suffered my thoughts to dwell upon subjects less sternly agitat- ing. Fondly did I look forward to a meeting with Gerald, and a reconciliation of all our early and most frivolous disputes. As an atonement for the injustice my suspicions had done him, I resolved not to reclaim my inheritance. My fortune was already ample, and all that I cared to possess of the hereditary estates were the ruins of the old house and the copses of the surrounding park ; these Gerald would in all likelihood easily yield to me : and with the natural sanguineness of my tempera- ment, I already planned the reconstruction of the ancient building, and the method of that solitary life in which I resolved that the remainder of my years should be spent. Turning from this train of thought, I recurred to the mysteri- ous and sudden disappearance of Oswald : that I was now easily able to account for. There could be no doubt but that Montreuil had (immediately after the murder), as he declared he would, induced Oswald to quit England, and preserve silence, either by bribery or by threats. And when I recalled the impression which the man had made upon me an impres- sion certainly not favorable to the elevation or the rigid honesty of his mind I could not but imagine that one or the other of these means Montreuil found far from difficult of success. The delirious fever into which the wounds and the scene of that night had thrown me, and the long interval that conse- quently elapsed before inquiry was directed to Oswald, gave him every opportunity and indulgence in absenting himself from the country, and it was not improbable that he had accompanied Aubrey to Italy. Here I paused, in deep acknowledgment of the truth of Aubrey's assertion, that "under similar circumstances, I might perhaps have been equally guilty." My passions had indeed been "intense and fierce as his own"; and there was a dread coin- cidence in the state of mind into which each of us had been thrown by the event of that night, which made the epoch of a 373 desolated existence to both of us ; if mine had been but a pass- ing delirium, and his a confirmed and lasting disease of the in- tellect, the causes of our malady had been widely different. He had been the criminal /only the sufferer. Thus as I leant over the deck, and the waves bore me home- wards, after so many years and vicissitudes, did the shadows of tiiought and memory flit across me. How seemingly apart, yet how closely linked, had been the great events in my wandering and wild life. My early acquaintance with Bolingbroke, whom for more than nine years I had not seen, and who, at a superficial glance, would seem to have exercised influence over my public rather than my private life, how secretly, yet how powerfully had that circumstance led even to the very thoughts which now pos- sessed me, and to the very object on which I was now bound. But for that circumstance, I might not have learnt of the retreat of Don Diego D' Alvarez in his last illness ; I might never have renewed my love to Isora ; and whatever had been her fate, destitution and poverty would have been a less misfortune than her union with me. But for my friendship for Bolingbroke, I might not have visited France, nor gained the favor of the Regent, nor the ill offices of Dubois, nor the protection and kindness of the Czar. I might never have been ambassador at the Court of , nor met with Bezoni, nor sought an asylum for a spirit sated with pomp and thirsting for truth, at the foot of the Apennines, nor read that history (which, indeed, might then never have occurred), that now rankled at my heart, urging my movements and coloring my desires. Thus, by the finest, but the strongest, meshes, had the thread of my political honors been woven with that of my private afflictions. And thus, even at the licentious festivals of the Regent of France, or the lifeless parade of the Court of , the dark stream of events had flowed onward beneath my feet, bearing me insensibly to that very spot of time from which I now surveyed the past and looked upon the mist and shadows of the future. Adverse winds made the little voyage across the Channel a business of four days. On the evening of the last we landed at Dover. Within thirty miles of that town was my mother's retreat; and I resolved, before I sought a reconciliation with Gerald, or justice against Montreuil, to visit her seclusion. Accordingly, the next day, I repaired to her abode. What a contrast is there between the lives of human beings ! Considering the beginning and the end of all mortal careers are the same, how wonderfully is the interval varied ! Some, the weeds of the world, dashed from shore to shore all vicissitude 374 DEVEfcEUX. enterprise strife disquiet ; others, the world's lichens rooted to some peaceful rock growing flourishing withering on the same spot, scarce a feeling expressed scarce a sentiment called forth scarce a tithe of the properties of their very nature ex- panded into action. There was an air of quiet and stillness in the red quadrangular building, as my carriage stopped at its porch, which struck upon me, like a breathing reproach to those who sought the abode of peace with feelings opposed to the spirit of the place. A small projecting porch was covered with ivy, and thence issued an aged portress in answer to my summons. " The Countess Devereux," said she, "is now the superior of this society" (convent they called it not), " and rarely admits any stranger." I gave in my claim to admission, and was ushered into a small parlor : all there, too, was still the brown oak wainscoting the huge chairs the few antique portraits the uninhabited aspect of the chamber all were silently eloquent of quietude but a quietude comfortless and sombre. At length, my mother appeared, I sprung forward my childhood was before me years care change were forgotten 1 was a boy again I sprung forward, and was in my mother's embrace ! It was long before, recovering myself, I noted how lifeless and chill was that embrace, but I did so at last, and my enthusiasm withered at once. We sate down together, and conversed long and uninterrupt- edly, but our conversation was like that of acquaintances, not the fondest and closest of all relations (for I need scarcely add that I told her not of my meeting with Aubrey, nor undeceived her with respect to the date of his death). Every monastic recluse that I had hitherto seen, even in the most seeming content with retirement, had loved to converse of the exterior world, and had betrayed an interest in its events for my mother only, worldly objects and interests seemed utterly dead. She expressed little surprise to see me little surprise at my altera- tion ; she only said that my mien was improved, and that I reminded her of my father; she testified no anxiety to hear of my travels or my adventures she testified even no willingness to speak of herself she described to me the life of one day, and then said that the history of ten years was told. A close cap con- fined all the locks for whose rich luxuriance and.golden hue she had once been noted for here they were not the victim of a vow, as in a nunnery they would have been and her dress was plain, simple, and unadorned: save these alterations of attire, none DEVEREUX. 375 were visible in her exterior the torpor of her life seemed to have paralyzed even time the bloom yet dwelt in her unwrinkled cheek the mouth had not fallen the faultless features were faultless still. But there was a deeper stillness than ever breath- ing through this frame : it was as if the soul Ji ad been lulled to sleep her mien was lifeless her voice was lifeless her gesture was lifeless the impression she produced was like that of enter- ing some chamber which has not been entered before for a century. She consented to my request to stay with her all the day a bed was prepared for me, and at sunrise the next morning I was folded once more in the chilling mechanism of her em- brace and dismissed on my journey to the metropolis. CHAPTER VI. The Retreat of a celebrated Man, and a Visit to a great Poet. I ARRIVED in town, and drove at once to Gerald's house ; it was not difficult to find it, for in my young day it had been the residence of the Duke of ; and wealthy as I knew was the owner of the Devereux lands, I was somewhat startled at the extent and the magnificence of his palace. To my inexpressi- ble disappointment, I found that Gerald had left London a day or two before my arrival on a visit to a nobleman nearly con- nected with our family, and residing in the same county as that in which Devereux Court was situated. Since the fire, which had destroyed all of the old house but the one tower which I had considered as peculiarly my own, Gerald, I heard, had always, in visiting his estates, taken up his abode at the mansion of one or other of his neighbors ; and to Lord 's house I now re- solved to repair. My journey was delayed for a day or two, by accidentally seeing at the door of the hotel, to which I drove from Gerald's house, the favorite servant of Lord Bolingbroke. This circumstance revived in me, at once, all my attachment to that personage, and hearing he was at his country house, within a few miles from town, I resolved the next morning to visit him. It was not only that I contemplated with an eager, yet a melan- choly interest, an interview with one whose blazing career I had long watched, and whose letters (for during the years we had been parted, he wrote to me often) seemed to testify the same satiety of the triumphs and gauds of ambition which had brought something of wisdom to myself ; it was not only that I wished to commune with that Bolingbroke in retirement whom 1 had 370 DEVEREUX. known the oracle of statesmen, and the pride of courts ; nor even that I loved the man, and was eager once more to embrace him ; a fiercer and more active motive urged me to visit one whose knowledge of all men, and application of their various utilities, were so remarkable, and who, even in his present peace and retirement, would not improbably be acquainted with the abode of that unquiet and plotting ecclesiastic whom I now panted to discover, and whom Bolingbroke had of old often guided or employed. When my carriage stopped at the statesman's door, I was in- formed that Lord Bolingbroke was at his farm. Farm ! how oddly did that word sound in my ear, coupled as it was with the name of one so brilliant and so restless. I asked the ser- vant to direct me where 1 should find him, and, following the directions, I proceeded to the search alone. It was a day to- wards the close of autumn, bright, soft, clear, and calm as the decline of a vigorous and genial age. I walked slowly through a field robbed of its golden grain, and as I entered another, I saw the object of my search. He had seemingly just given orders to a person in a laborer's dress, who was quitting him, and with downcast eyes he was approaching towards me. I noted how slow and even was the pace which, once stately, yet rapid and irregular, had betrayed the haughty, but wild, char- acter of his mind. He paused often, as if in thought, and I ob- served that'once he stopped longer than usual, and seemed to gaze wistfully on the ground. Afterwards (when I had joined him) we passed that spot, and I remarked, with a secret smile, that it contained one of those little mounds in which that busy and herded tribe of the insect race, which have been held out to man's social state at once as a mockery and a model, held their populous home. There seemed a latent moral in the pause and watch of the disappointed statesman by that mound, which afforded a clue to the nature of his reflections. He did not see me till I was close before him, and had called him by his name, nor did he at first recognize me, for my garb was foreign, and my upper lip unshaven ; and, as I said before, years had strangely altered me : but when he did, he testified all the cordiality I had anticipated. I linked my arm in his, and we walked to and fro for hours, talking of all that had passed since and before our parting, and feeling our hearts warm to each other as we talked. "The last time I saw you," said he, "how widely did our hopes and objects differ ! yours from my own-r-you seemingly had the vantage-ground, but it was an artificial eminence, DEVEREUX. 377 my level state, though it appeared less tempting, was more se- cure. I had just been disgraced by a misguided and ungrate- ful prince. 1 had already gone into a retirement, where my only honors were proportioned to my fortitude in bearing con- demnation and my only flatterer was the hope of finding a companion and a Mentor in myself. You, my friend, parted with life before you ; and you only relinquished the pursuit of Fortune at one court, to meet her advances at another. Nearly ten years have flown since that. time my situation is but little changed I am returned, it is true, to my native soil, but not to a soil more indulgent to ambition and exertion than the scene of my exile. My sphere of action is still shut from me my mind is still banished* You return young in years, but full of successes. Have they brought you happiness, Devereux? or have you yet a temper to envy my content?" . "Alas!" said I, "who can bear too close a search beneath the mask and robe ? Talk not of me now. It is ungracious for the fortunate to repine and I reserve whatever may dis- quiet me within for your future consolation and advice. At present speak to me of yourself you are happy, then?" "I am !" said Bolingbroke emphatically. "Life seems to me to possess two treasures one glittering and precarious, the other of less rich a show, but of more solid value. The one is Power, the other Virtue ; and there is the main difference be- tween the two Power is entrusted to us as a loan ever required again, and with a terrible arrear of interest Virtue obtained by us as a boon which we can only lose through our own folly, when once it is acquired. In my youth I was caught by the for- mer hence my errors and my misfortunes ! In my declining years I have sought the latter ; hence my palliatives and my consolation. But you have not seen my home and all its attrac- tions," added Bolingbroke, with a smile, which reminded me of his former self. " I will show them to you." And we turned our steps to the house. As we walked thither, I wondered to find how little melan- choly was the change Bolingbroke had undergone. Ten years, which bring man from his prime to his decay, had indeed left their trace upon his stately form, and the still unrivalled beauty of his noble features ; but the manner gained all that the form had lost. In his days of more noisy greatness, there had been something artificial and unquiet in the sparkling alternations he had loved to adopt. He had been too fond of changing wis- * I need scarcely remind the reader that Lord Bolingbroke, though he had received 9 full pardon, was forbidden to resume his seat in the Hoqse of Lords En. 378 DEVEREUX. dom by a quick turn into wit too fond of the affectation of bordering the serious with the gay business with pleasure. If this had not taken from the polish of his manner, it had dimin- ished its dignity and given it the air of being assumed and in- sincere. Now all was quiet, earnest, and impressive ; there was tenderness even in what was melancholy : and if there lingered the affectation of blending the classic character with his own, the character was more noble, and the affectation more unseen. But this manner was only the faint mirror of a mind which, retaining much of its former mould, had been embellished and exalted by adversity, and which, if it banished not its former frailties, had acquired a thousand new virtues to redeem them. "You see," said my companion, pointing to the walls of the hall, which we had now entered, "the subject which at present occupies the greater part of my attention. I am meditating how to make the hall most illustrative of its owner's pursuits. You see the desire of improving, of creating, and of associating the improvement and the creation with ourselves, follows us banished men even to our seclusion. I think of having those walls painted with the implements of husbandry, and through pictures of spades and ploughshares, to express my employ- ments, and testify my content in them." "Cincinnatus is a better model than Aristippus, confess it," said I, smiling. "But if the senators come hither to summon you to power, will you resemble the Roman, not only in being found at your plough, but in your reluctance to leave it, and your eagerness to return?" "What shall I say to you?" replied Bolingbroke. "Will you play the cynic if I answer no? We should not boast of despising power, when of use to others, but of being contented to live without it. This is the end of my philosophy ! But let me present you to one whom I value more now than I valued power at any time." As he said this, Bolingbroke threw open the door of an apartment, and introduced me to a lady with whom he had found that domestic happiness denied him in his first marriage. The niece of Madame de Maintenon, this most charming woman possessed all her aunt's wit, and far more than all her aunt's beauty.* She was in weak health ; but her vivacity was ex- * " I am not ashamed to say to you that I admire her more every hour of my life." Letter from Lord Kolingfrroke to Sivi ft. Bolingbroke loved her to the last ; and perhaps it is just to a man so celebrated for his gallantries, to add that this beautiful and accomplished woman seems to have admired and esteemed as much as she Ipved him, Ep, DEVEREUX. 379 treme, and her conversation just what should be the conversa- tion of a woman who shines without striving for it. The business on which I was bound only allowed me to stay two days with Bolingbroke, and this I stated at first, lest he should have dragged me over his farm. " Well," said my host, after vainly endeavoring to induce me to promise a longer stay, "if you can only give us two days, I must write and excuse myself to a great man with whom I was to dine to-day : yet, if it were not so inhospitable, I should like much to carry you with me to his house ; for I own that I wish you to see my companions, and to learn that if I still consult the oracles, they are less for the predictions of fortune than as the inspirations of the god." "Ah!" said Lady Bolingbroke, who spoke in French, "I know whom you allude to. Give him my homage, and assure him, when he next visits us, we will appoint six dames du palais to receive and pet him." Upon this I insisted upon accompanying Bolingbroke to the house of so fortunate a being, and he consented to my wish with feigned reluctance, but evident pleasure. "And who," said I to Lady Bolingbroke, "is the happy ob- ject of so much respect?" Lady Bolingbroke answered laughing, that nothing was so pleasant as suspense, and that it would be cruel in her to de- prive me of it ; and we conversed with so much zest, that it was not till Bolingbroke had left the room for some moments, that I observed he was not present. I took the opportunity to remark that I was rejoiced to find him so happy, and with so much cause for happiness. " He is happy, though, at times, he is restless. How, chained to this oar, can he be otherwise?" answered Lady Boling- broke, with a sigh ; "but his friends," she added, "who most enjoy his retirement, must yet lament it. His genius is not wasted here, it is true; where could it be wasted? But who does not feel that it is employed in too confined a sphere? And yet " and I saw a tear start to her eye " I, at least, ought not to repine. I should lose the best part of my happi- ness if there was nothing I could console him for." "Believe me, " said I, " I have known Bolingbroke in the zenith of his success ; but never knew him so worthy of con- gratulation as now!" " Is that flattery to him or to me ? " said Lady Bolingbroke, smiling archly, for her smiles were quick successors to her tears. 380 DEVEREUX. " Detur digniori!" answered I ; "but you must allow that, though it is a fine thing to have all that the world can give, it is still better to gain something that the world cannot take away ! " " And you are also a Philosopher ! " cried Lady Bolingbroke gayly. "Ah, poor me ! In my youth my portion was the cloister ;* in my later years I am banished to the porch! You have no conception, Monsieur Devereux, what wise faces and profound maxims we have here ; especially as all who come to visit my lord think it necessary to quote Tully, and talk of solitude as if it were a heaven! Les pauvres bons gens ! \\\zy seem a little surprised when Henry receives them smilingly begs them to construe the Latin gives them good wine, and sends them back to London with faces half the length they were on their arrival. Mais void Monsieur le fermier phil- osophe ! " And Bolingbroke entering, I took my leave of this lively and interesting lady, and entered his carriage. As soon as we were seated, he pressed me for my reasons for refusing to prolong my visit. As I thought they would be more opportune after the excursion of the day was over, and as, in truth, I was not eager to relate them, I begged to defer the narration till our return to his house at night, and then I directed the conversation into a new channel. " My chief companion," said Bolingbroke, after describing to me his course of life, "is the man you are about to visit ; he has his frailties and infirmities and in saying that, I only imply that he is human but he is wise, reflective, generous, and affectionate ; add these qualities to a dazzling wit, and a genius deep, if not sublime, and what wonder that we forget something of vanity and something of fretfulness effects j rather of the frame than of the mind ; the wonder only is that, with a body the victim to every disease, crippled and imbecile from the cradle, his frailties should not be more numerous, and his care, his thoughts, and attentions not wholly limited to his own complaints for the sickly are almost of necessity selfish and that mind must have a vast share of benevolence which can always retain the softness of charity and love for others, when pain and disease constitute the morbid links that per- petually bind it to self. If this great character is my chief companion, my chief correspondent is not less distinguished ; in a word, no longer to keep you in suspense, Pope is my com- panion, and Swift my correspondent." * She was brought up at St. Cyr. ED. DEVEREUX. 381 "You are fortunate but so also are they. Your letter in- formed me of Swift's honorable exile in Ireland how does he bear it?" "Too feelingly his disappointments turn his blood to acid. He said, characteristically enough, in one of his letters, that in fishing once when he was a little boy, he felt a great fish at the end of his line, which he drew up almost to the ground, but it dropt in, and the disappointment, he adds, vexes him to this day, and he believes it to be the type of all his future dis- appointments :* it is wonderful how reluctantly a very active mind sinks into rest." "Yet why should retirement be rest? Do you recollect in the first conversation we ever had together, we talked of Cowley ? Do you recollect how justly, and even sublimely, he has said, 'Cogitation is that which distinguishes the solitude of a God from that of a wild beast ? ' ' " It is finely said," answered Bolingbroke, " but Swift was born not for .cogitation, but action -for turbulent times, not for calm. He ceases to be great directly he is still ; and his bitterness at every vexation is so great that I have often thought, in listening to him, of the Abbe de Cyran, who,attempt- ing to throw nutshells out of the bars of his window, and con- stantly failing in the attempt, exclaimed in a paroxysm of rage, 'Thus does Providence delight in frustrating my designs ! ' ' * In this letter Swift adds, " I should be ashamed to say this if you (Lord Bolingbroke) had not a spirit fitter to bear your own misfortunes than I have to think oi them "; and this is true. Nothing can be more striking, or more honorable to Lord Bolingbroke, than the contrast between Swift's letters and that nobleman's upon the subject of their mutual disappointments. I especially note the contrast, because it has been so grievously the cant of Lord Bolingbroke's decriers to represent his affection for retirement as hollow, and his resignation in adversity as a boast rather than a fact. Now I will challenge any one thor- oughly and dispassionately to examine what is left to us of the life of this great man, and nfter having done so, to select from all modern history an example of one who, in the prims if life and height of ambition, ever passed from a very active and exciting career into in proportion as- it is the less passive that hibit exertions for others ; that it is only ment is only a morbid selfishness if it pro in covei or commena. j. ne very pnnosopny wnicn maKes sucn a man seeK tne quiet, nakes him eschew the inutility of the hermitage. Very little praiseworthy to me would lave seemed Lord Bolingbroke among his haymakers and ploughmen, if among haymakers md ploughmen he had looked with an indifferent eye upon a profligate minister and a venal 382 DEVEREUX. "But you are fallen from a far greater height of hope than Swift could ever have attained you bear this change well, but not, I hope, without a struggle." "You are right not without a struggle; while corruption thrives, I will not be silent ; while bad men govern, I will not be still." In conversation of this sort passed the time, till we arrived at Pope's villa. We found the poet in his study indued, as some of his pictures represent him, in a long gown and a velvet cap. He received Bolingbroke with great tenderness, and being, as he said, in robuster health than he had enjoyed for months, he insisted on carrying us to his grotto. I know nothing more common to poets than a pride in what belongs to their houses, and perhaps, to a man not ill-natured, there are few things more pleasant than indulging the little weaknesses of those we admire. We sat down in a small temple made entirely of shells; and whether it was that the Creative Genius gave an undue charm to the place, I know not : but as the murmur of a rill, glassy as the Blandusian fountain, was caught, and re-given from side to side by a perpetual echo, and through an arcade of trees, whose leaves, ever and anon, fell startlingly to the ground beneath the light touch of the autumn air, you saw the sails on the river pass and vanish, like the cares which breathe over the smooth glass of wisdom, but may not linger to dim it, it was not difficult to invest the place, humble as it was, with a classic interest, or to recall the loved retreats of the Roman bards, without smiling too fastidiously at the" contrast. " Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen, Within thy airy shell, By slow Meander's margin green. Or by the violet-embroidered vale, Where the lovelorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well ; Sweet Echo, dost thou shun those haunts of yore, And in the dim caves of a northern shore Delight to dwell ! " *' Let the compliment to you, Pope," said Bolingbroce, "atone for the profanation of weaving three wretched lines of mine with those most musical notes of Milton." "Ah," said Pope, "would that you could give me a fitting inscription for my fount and grotto ! The only one I re- member is hackneyed, and yet it has spoilt me, I fear, for all others : DEVEREUX. 38? " Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis Dormio dum blandse sentio murmur aquae ; Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora, somnurn Rumpere ; sive bibas, sive lavere, lace."* "We cannot hope to match it," said Bolingbroke, "though you know I value myself on these things. But tell me your news of Gay is he growing wiser ? " " Not a whit ; he is forever a dupe to the spes credula ; al- ways talking of buying an annuity that he may be independent, and always spending as fast as he earns, that he may appear munificent." " Poor Gay ! but he is a common example of the improv- idence of his tribe, while you are an exception. Yet mark, Devereux, the inconsistency of Pope's thrift and carefulness : he sends a parcel of fruit to some ladies with this note, 'Take care of the papers that wrap the apples, and return them safely ; they are the only copies I have of one part of the Iliad.' Thus, you see, our economist saves his paper, and hazards his epic ! " Pope, who is always flattered by an allusion to his negligence of fame, smiled slightly and answered, "What man, alas, ever profits by the lessons of his friends? How many exact rules has our good Dean of St. Patrick laid down for both of us how angrily still does he chide us for our want of prudence and our love of good living. I intend, in answer to his charges on the latter score, though I vouch, as I well may, for our temperance, to give him the reply of the sage to the foolish courtier " " What was that?" asked Bolingbroke. " Why, the courtier saw the sage picking out the best dishes at table. 'How,' said he, with a sneer, 'are sages such epi- cures?" 'Do you think, sir,' replied the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, 'do you think, sir, that the Creator made the good things of this world only for fools?" " How the dean will pish and pull his wig when he reads your illustration," said Bolingbroke, laughing. " We shall never agree in our reasonings on that part of philosophy. Swift loves to go out of his way to find privation or distress, * Thus very inadequately translated by Pope (see his Letter to Edward Blount, Esq w descriptive of his grotto) : " Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep, And to the murmur of these waters sleep : Ah, spare my slumbers ; gently tread the cave, And drink in silence, or in silence lave." And drink in silence, or in silence lave." It is, however, quite impossible to convey to an unlearned reader the exquisite Spirit-like beauty of the Latin verses. ED. and 384 PEVEREUX. and has no notion of epicurean wisdom ; for my part, I think the use of knowledge is to make us happier. I would compare the mind to the beautiful statue of Love by Praxiteles when its eyes were bandaged the countenance seemed grave and sad, but the moment you removed the bandage, the most serene and enchanting smile diffused itself over the whole face." So passed the morning till the hour of dinner, and this repast was served with an elegance and luxury which the sons of Apollo seldom command.* As the evening closed our con- versation fell upon friendship, and the increasing disposition towards it, which comes with increasing years. " Whilst my mind," said Bolingbroke, "shrinks inore and more from the world, and feels in its independence less yearning to external objects, the ideas of friendship return oftener, they busy me, they warm me more. Is it that we grow more tender as the moment of our great separation approaches? or is it that they who are to live together in another state (for friendship exists not but for the good) begin to feel more strongly that divine sympathy which is to be the great bond of their future society?" f While Bolingbroke was thus speaking, and Pope listened with all the love and reverence which he evidently bore to his friend stamped upon his worn but expressive countenance, I inly said, " Surely the love between minds like these should live and last without the changes that ordinary affections feel ! Who would not mourn for the strength of all human ties, if hereafter these are broken, and asperity succeed to friendship, or aversion to esteem ? /, a wanderer, without heir to my memory and wealth, shall pass away and my hasty and un- mellowed fame will moulder with my clay ; but will the names of those whom I now behold ever fall languidly on the ears of a future race, and will there not forever be some sympathy with their friendship, softer and warmer than admiration for their fame ?" We left our celebrated host about two hours before midnight, and returned to Dawley. On our road thither I questioned Bolingbroke respecting Montreuil, and I found that, as I had surmised, he was able to give me some information of that arch-schemer. Gerald's money and hereditary influence had procured, tacit connivance * Pope seems to have been rather capricious in this respect ; but in general he must be considered open to the sarcasm of displaying the bounteous host to those who did not want a dinner, and the niggard to those who did. ED. t This beautiful sentiment is to be found, with very slight alteration, in a letter from Bolingbroke to Swift. ED. DEVEREUX. 385 at the Jesuit's residence in England, and Montreuil had for some years led a quiet and unoffending life in close retirement. " Lately, however," said Bolingbroke, " I have learned that the old spirit has revived, and I accidentally heard, three days ago, when conversing with one well informed on state matters, that this most pure administration have discovered some plot or plots with which Montreuil is connected ; I believe he will be apprehended in a few days." "And where lurks he?" "He was, I heard, last seen in the neighborhood of your brother's property at Devereux Court, and I imagine it probable that he is still in that neighborhood." This intelligence made me resolve to leave Dawley even earlier than I had intended, and I signified to Lord Boling- broke my intention of quitting him by sunrise the next morning. He endeavored in vain to combat my resolution. I was too fearful lest Montreuil, hearing of his danger from the state, might baffle my vengeance by seeking some impenetrable asylum, to wish to subject my meeting with him, and with Gerald, whose co-operation I desired, to any unnecessary delay. I took leave of my host therefore that night, and ordered my carriage to be in readiness by the first dawn of morning. CHAPTER VIII. The Plot approaches its Denouement. ' ALTHOUGH the details of my last chapter have somewhat retarded the progress of that denouement with which this volume is destined to close, yet I do not think the destined reader will regret lingering over a scene in which, after years of restless enterprise and exile, he beholds the asylum which fortune had prepared for the most extraordinary character with which I have adorned these pages. It was before daybreak that I commenced my journey. The shutters of the house were as yet closed ; the gray mists rising slowly from the earth, and the cattle couched beneath the trees, the cold, but breezeless freshness of the morning, the silence of the unwakened birds, all gave an inexpressible stillness and quiet to the scene. The horses slowly ascended a little emi- nence, and I looked from the window of the carriage on the peaceful retreat I had left. I sighed as I did so, and a sick sensation, coupled with the thought of Isora, came chill upon 386 DEVEREUX. my heart. No man happily placed in this social world can guess the feelings of envy with which a wanderer like me, with- out tie or home, and for whom the roving eagerness of youth is over, surveys those sheltered spots in which the breast garners up all domestic bonds, its household and holiest delights; the companioned hearth, the smile of infancy, and, dearer than all, the eye that glasses our purest, our tenderest, our most secret thoughts; these, oh, none who enjoy them know how they for whom they are not have pined and mourned for them ! I had not travelled many hours, when, upon the loneliest part of the road, my carriage, which had borne me without an accident from Rome to London, broke down. The postillions said there was a small inn about a mile from the spot ; thither I repaired : a blacksmith was sent for, and I found the ac* cident to the carriage would require several hours to repair. No solitary chaise did the inn afford; but the landlord, who was a freeholder and a huntsman, boasted one valuable and swift horse, which he declared was fit for an emperor or a high- wayman. I was too impatient of delay not to grasp at this in- telligence. I gave mine host whatever he demanded for the loan of his steed, transferred my pistols to an immense pair of holsters, which adorned a high demipique saddle, wherewith he obliged me, and, within an hour from the date of the acci- cident, recommenced my journey. The evening closed, as I became aware of the presence of a fellow traveller. He was, like myself, on horseback. He wore a short, dark gray cloak, a long wig of raven hue, and a large hat, which, napping over his face, conspired, with the increasing darkness, to allow me a very imperfect survey of his features. Twice or thrice he had passed me, and always with some salu- tation, indicative of a desire for further acquaintance; but my mood is not naturally too much inclined to miscellaneous society, and I was at that time peculiarly covetous of my own companionship. I had, therefore, given but a brief answer to the horseman's courtesy, and had ridden away from him with a very unceremonious abruptness. At length, when he had come up to me for the fourth time, and for the fourth time had ac- costed me, my ear caught something in the tones of his voice which did not seem to me wholly unfamiliar. I regarded him with more attention than I had as yet done, and replied to him more civilly and at length. Apparently encouraged by this relaxation from my reserve, the man speedily resumed : "Your horse, sir," said he, "is a fine animal, but he seems jaded: you have ridden far to-day, I'll venture to guess." DEVEREUX. 387 " I have, sir; but the town where I shall pass the night is not above four miles distant, I believe." "Hum ha ! you sleep at D , then ? " said the horseman inquisitively. A suspicion came across me we were then entering a very lonely road, one notoriously infested with highwaymen. My fellow equestrian's company might have some sinister meaning in it. I looked to my holsters, and leisurely taking out one of my pistols, saw to its priming, and returned it to its depository. The horseman noted the motion, and he moved his horse rather uneasily, and I thought timidly, to the other side of the road. "You travel well armed, sir," said he, *er a pause. " It is a necessary precaution, sir," answered I composedly, " in a road one is not familiar with, and with companions one has never had the happiness to meet before." " Ahem ! ahem ! Parbleu, Monsieur le Comte, you allude to me; but I warrant this is not the first time we have met." " Ha ! " said I, riding closer to my fellow-traveller, " you know me then and we have met before. I thought I recognized your voice, but I cannot remember when or where I last heard it." " Oh, Count, I believe it was only by accident that we com- menced acquaintanceship, and only by accident, you see, do we now resume it. But I perceive that I intrude on your soli- tude. Farewell, Count, and a pleasant night at your inn." " Not so fast, sir," said I, laying firm hand on my companion's shoulder,*' I know you now, and I thank Providence that I have found you. Marie Oswald, it is not lightly that I will part with you ! " " With all my heart, sir, with all my heart. But morbleu, Monsieur le Comie, do take your hand from my shoulder I am a nervous man, and your pistols are loaded and perhaps you are choleric and hasty. I assure you I am far from wishing to part with you abruptly, for I have watched you for the last two days, in order to enjoy the honor of this interview." "Indeed ! your wish will save both of us a world of trouble. I believe you may serve me effectually if so, you will find me more desirous and more able than ever to show my gratitude." " Sir, you are too good," quoth Mr. Oswald, with an air far more respectful than he had yet shown me. " Let us make to your inn, and there I shall be most happy to receive your com- mands." So saying, Marie pushed on his horse, and I urged my own to the same expedition. " But tell me," said I, as we rode on, " why you have wished 388 DEVEREUX. to meet me? me whom you so cruelly deserted and for- sook ? " " Qh,parblcu spare me there ! it was not I who deserted you I was compelled to fly death murder on one side; safety, money, and a snug place in Italy, as a lay-brother of the Institute, on the other ! What could I do ! You were ill in bed not likely to recover not able to protect me from my present peril in a state that in all probability never would re- quire my services for the future. Oh, Monsieur le Comte, it was not desertion that is a cruel word it was self-preserva- tion, and common prudence." "Well," said I, complaisantly, "you apply words better than I applied them. And how long have you been returned to England ?" " Some few weeks, Count, not more. I was in London when you arrived I heard of that event I immediately repaired to your hotel you were gone to my Lord Bolingbroke's I fol- lowed you thither you had left Dawley when I arrived there I learnt your route and followed you. Parbleu and morbleu, I find you, and you take me for a highwayman ! " " Pardon my mistake : the clearest-sighted men are subject to commit such errors, and the most innocent to suffer by them. So Montreuil persuaded you to leave England did he also per- suade you to return ? " " No I was charged by the Institute with messages to him and others. But we are near the town, Count, let us defer our conversation till then." We entered D , put up our horses, called for an apart- ment to which summons Oswald added another for wine and then the virtuous Marie commenced his explanations. I was deeply anxious to ascertain whether Gerald had ever been made acquainted with the fraud by which he had obtained possession of the estates of Devereux ; and I found that, from Desmarais, Oswald had learned all that had occurred to Gerald since Marie had left England. From Oswald's prolix com- munication, I ascertained that Gerald was, during the whole of the interval between my uncle's death and my departure from England, utterly unacquainted with the fraud of the will. He readily believed that my uncle had found good reason for altering his intentions with respect to me; and my law pro- ceedings, and violent conduct towards himself, only excited his indignation, not aroused his suspicions. During this time, he lived entirely in the country, indulging the rural hospitality and the rustic sports which he especially affected, and secretly, DEVEREUX. 389 but deeply, involved with Montreuil in political intrigues. All this time the Abbe made no farther use of him than to borrow whatever sums he required for his purposes. Isora's death, and the confused story of the document given me by Oswald, Mon- treuil had interpreted to Gerald according to the interpretation of the world ; viz., he had thrown the suspicion upon Oswald, as a common villain, who had taken advantage of my credulity about the will introduced himself into the house on that pre- tence attempted the robbery of the most valuable articles therein which, indeed, he had succeeded in abstracting and who, on my awaking and contesting with him and his accom- plice, had, in self-defence, inflicted the wounds which had ended in my delirium, and Isora's death. This part of my tale Montreuil never contradicted, and Gerald believed it to the present day. The affair of 1715 occurred; the government, aware of Gerald's practices, had anticipated his design of join- ing the rebels he was imprisoned no act of overt guilt on his part was proved, or at least brought forward and the govern- ment not being willing, perhaps, to proceed to violent measures against a very young man, and the head of a very powerful house, connected with more than thirty branches of the English hereditary nobility, he received his acquittal just before Sir William Wyndham, and some other suspected tories, received their own. Prior to the breaking out of that rebellion, and on the eve of Montreuil's departure for Scotland, the priest summoned Des- marais, whom, it will be remembered, I had previously dis- missed, and whom Montreuil had since employed in various errands, and informed him that he had obtained, for his services, the same post under Gerald which the Fatalist had filled under me. Soon after the failure of the rebellion, Devereux Court was destroyed by accidental fire ; and Montreuil, who had come over in disguise, in order to renew his attacks on my brother's coffers (attacks to which Gerald yielded very sullenly, and with many assurances that he would no more incur the danger of political and seditious projects), now advised Gerald to go up to London, and, in order to avoid the suspicion of the government, to mix freely in the gayeties of the court. Gerald readily consented ; for, though internally convinced that the charms of the metropolis were not equal to those of the country, yet he liked change, and Devereux Court being destroyed, he shuddered a little at the idea of rebuilding so enormous a pile. Before Gerald left the old tower (my tower), which was alone spared by the flames, and at which he had resided, though 390 DEVEREUX. without his household, rather than quit a place where there was such "excellent shooting," Montreuil said to Desmarais, "This ungrateful seigneur de village already shows himself the niggard ; he must know what we know that is our only sure hold of him but he must not know it yet," and he proceeded to observe that it was for the hot-beds of courtly luxury to mellow and hasten an opportunity for the disclosure. He instructed Des- marais to see that Gerald (whom even a valet, at least one so artful as Desmarais, might easily influence) partook to excess of every pleasure, at least of every pleasure which a gentleman might, without derogation to his dignity, enjoy. Gerald went to town, and very soon became all that Montreuil desired. Montreuil came again to England ; his great project, Al- beroni's project, had failed. Banished France and Spain, and excluded Italy, he was desirous of obtaining an asylum in Eng- land, until he could negotiate a return to Paris. For the first of these purposes (the asylum) interest was requisite ; for the latter (the negotiation) money was desirable. He came to seek both necessaries in Gerald Devereux. Gerald had already ar- rived at that prosperous state when money is not lightly given away. A dispute arose ; and Montreuil raised the veil, and showed the heir on what terms his estates were held. Rightly Montreuil had read the human heart. So long as Gerald lived in the country, and tasted not the full enjoyments of his great wealth, it would have been highly perilous to have made this disclosure ; for, though Gerald had no great love for me, and was bold enough to run any danger, yet he was neither a Desmarais nor a Montreuil. He was that most capricious thing, a man of honor ; and at that day, he would instantly have given up the estate to me, and Montreuil and the philoso- pher to the hangman. But, after two or three years of every luxury that wealth could purchase after living in those circles, too, where wealth is the highest possible merit, and public opinion, therefore, only honors the rich, fortune became far more valuable, and the conscience far less nice. Living at Devereux Court, Gerald had only ^"30,000 a year ; living in London, he had all that ^30,000 a year can purchase ; a very great differ- ence this indeed ! Honor is a fine bulwark against a small force ; but, unbacked by other principle, it is seldom well manned enough to resist a large one. When, therefore, Mon- treuil showed Gerald that he could lose his estate in an instant that the world would never give him credit for innocence, when guilt would have conferred on him such advantages that he would therefore part with all those et ccetera which, now in the DEVEfcEUX. 391 very prime of life, made his whole idea of human enjoyments that he would no longer be the rich, the powerful, the honored, the magnificent, the envied, the idolized lord of thousands, but would sink at once into a younger brother, dependent on the man he most hated for his very subsistence since his debts would greatly exceed his portion and an object through life of contemptuous pity, or of covert suspicion that all this change could happen at a word of Montreuil's, what wonder that he should be staggered, should hesitate and yield ? Montreuil obtained, then, whatever sums he required ; and, through Gerald's influence, pecuniary and political, procured from the minister a tacit permission for him to remain in England, under an assumed name, and in close retirement. Since then, Mon- treuil (though secretly involved in treasonable practices) had appeared to busy himself solely in negotiating a pardon at Paris. Gerald had lived the life of a man who, if he has parted with peace of conscience, will make the best of the bargain, by procuring every kind of pleasure in exchange ; and le petit Jean Desmarais, useful to both priest and spendthrift, had passed his time very agreeably laughing at his employers, studying philosophy, and filling his pockets ; for I need scarcely add that Gerald forgave him without much difficulty for his share in the forgery. A man, as Oswald shrewdly observed, is sel- dom inexorable to those crimes by which he has profited. " And where lurks Montreuil now ? " I asked ; " in the neighborhood of Devereux Court ? " Oswald looked at me with some surprise. " How learned you that, sir? It is true. He lives quietly and privately in the vicinity. The woods around the house, the caves in the beach, and the little isle opposite the castle afforded him in turn an asylum ; and the convenience with which correspondence with France can be there carried on makes the scene of his retire- ment peculiarly adapted to his purposes." I now began to question Oswald respecting himself ; for I was not warmly inclined to place implicit trust in the services of a man who had before shown himself at once mercenary and timid. There was little cant or disguise about that gentle- man ; he made few pretences to virtues which he did not possess ; and he seemed now, both by wine and familiarity, peculiarly disposed to be frank. It was he who in Italy (among various other and less private commissions) had been appointed by Montreuil to watch over Aubrey ; on my brother's death, he had hastened to England, not only to ap- prise Montreuil of that event, but charged with some especial 39* DEVEREUX. orders to him from certain members of the Institute. He had found Montreuil busy, restless, intriguing, even in seclusion, and cheered by a recent promise from Fleuri himself that he should speedily obtain pardon and recall. It was at this part of Oswald's story easy to perceive the causes of his renewed confidence in me. Montreuil, engaged in new plans and schemes, at once complicated and vast, paid but slight attention to the wrecks of his past projects. Aubrey dead myself abroad Gerald at his command, he perceived, in our house, no cause for caution or alarm. This apparently rendered him less care- ful of retaining the venal services of Oswald, than his knowl- edge of character should have made him ; and when that gentleman, then in London, accidentally heard of my sudden arrival in this country, he at once perceived how much more to his interest it would be to serve me than to maintain an ill- remunerated fidelity to Montreuil. In fact, as I have since learned, the priest's discretion was less to blame than I then imagined ; for Oswald was of a remarkably imprudent, profli- gate, and spendthrift turn, and his demands for money were considerably greater than the value of his services ; or perhaps, as Montreuil thought, when Aubrey no longer lived, than the consequences of his silence. When, therefore, I spoke seri- ously to my new ally of my desire of wreaking ultimate justice on the crimes of Montreuil, I found that his zeal was far from being chilled by my determination nay, the very cowardice of the man made him ferocious ; and the moment he resolved to betray Montreuil, his fears of the priest's vengeance made him eager to destroy where he betrayed. I am not addicted to un- necessary procrastination. Of the unexpected evidence I had found I was most eager to avail myself. I saw at once how considerably Oswald's testimony would lessen any difficulty I might have in an explanation with Gerald, as well as in bring- ing Montreuil to justice ; and the former measure seemed to me necessary to ensure or at least expedite the latter. I proposed, therefore, to Oswald that he should immediately ac- company me to the house in which Gerald was then a visitor ; the honest Marie, conditioning only for another bottle, which he termed a travelling comforter, readily acceded to my wish. I immediately procured a chaise and horses, and in less than two hours from the time we entered the inn, we were on the road to Gerald. What an impulse to the wheel of destiny had the event of that one day given ! At another time I might have gleaned amusement from the shrewd roguery of my companion, but he found me then but a DEVEfeEUX. 393 dull listener. I served him in truth as men of his stamp are ordinarily served ; so soon as I had extracted from him what- ever was meet for present use, I favored him with little farther attention. He had exhausted all the communications it was necessary for me to know; so, in the midst of a long story about Italy, Jesuits, and the wisdom of Marie Oswald, I affected to fall asleep ; my companion soon followed my example in earnest, and left me to meditate undisturbed over all that I had heard, and over the schemes now the most promising of success. I soon taught myself to look with a lenient eye on Gerald's after-connivance in Montreuil's forgery ; and I felt that I owed to my surviving brother so large an arrear of af- fection for the long injustice I had rendered him, that I was almost pleased to find something set upon the opposite score. All men, perhaps, would rather forgive than be forgiven. I resolved, therefore, to affect ignorance of Gerald's knowledge of the forgery, and even should he confess it, to exert all my art to steal from the confession its shame. From this train of reflection my mind soon directed itself to one far fiercer and more intense ; and I felt my heart pause, as if congealing into marble, when I thought of Montreuil and anticipated justice. It was nearly noon the following day when we arrived at Lord 's house. We found that Gerald had left it the day before for the enjoyment of the field-sports at Devereux Court, and thither we instantly proceeded. It has often seemed to me that if there be, as certain ancient philosophers fabled, one certain figure pervading all nature, human and universal, it is the circle. Round in one vast mo- notony, one eternal gyration, roll the orbs of space. Thus moves the spirit of creative life, kindling, progressing, ma- turing, decaying, perishing, reviving and rolling again, and so on forever through the same course ; and thus even would seem to revolve the mysterious mechanism of human events and actions. Age, ere it returns to "the second childishness, the mere oblivion " from which it passes to the grave, returns also to the memories and the thoughts of youth ; its buried loves arise its past friendships rekindle. The wheels of the tired machine are past the meridian, and the arch through which th'ey now decline has a correspondent likeness to the opposing segment through which they had borne upward in eager- ness and triumph. Thus it is, too, that we bear within us an irresistible attraction to our earliest home. Thus it is that we say, " It matters not where our mid-course is run, but we will die in the place where we were born ; in the point of space. 394 DEVEREtiX. whence began the circle, there also shall it end!" This is the grand orbit through which Mortality passes only once ; but the same figure may pervade all through which it moves on its journey to the grave. * Thus one peculiar day of the round year has been to some an era, always coloring life with an event. Thus to others some peculiar place has been the theatre of strange action, influencing all existence whenever in the re- currence of destiny that place has been revisited. Thus was it said by an arch-sorcerer of old, whose labors yet exist, though perhaps at the moment I write there are not three living beings who know of their existence that there breathes not that man who would not find, did he minutely investigate the events of life, that in some fixed and distinct spot, or hour, or person, there lived, though shrouded and obscure, the per- vading demon of his fate ; and- whenever in their several paths the two circles of being touched, that moment made, the un- noticed epoch of coming prosperity or evil. I remember well that this bewildering, yet not unsolemn reflection, or rather fancy, was in my mind, as after the absence of many years I saw myself hastening to the home of my boyhood, and cherishing the fiery hope of there avenging the doom of that love which I had there conceived. Deeply and in silence did I brood over the dark shapes which my thoughts engendered ; and I woke not from my reverie till, as the gray of the evening closed around us, we entered the domains of Devereux Court. The road was rough and stony, and the horses moved slowly on. How familiar was everything before me ! the old pollards which lay scattered in dense groups on either side, and which had lived on from heir to heir, secure in the little temptation they afforded to cupidity, seemed to greet me with a silent but intelligible welcome. Their leaves fell around us in the autumn air, and the branches as they waved towards me seemed to say, " Thou art returned, and thy change is like our own ; the green leaves of thy heart have fallen from thee one by one like usthou sur- vivest, but thou art desolate !" The hoarse cry of the rooks gathering to their rest came fraught with the music of young associations on my ear. Many a time in the laughing spring had I lain in these groves watching, in the young brood of those citizens of air, a mark for my childish skill and careless disre- * I have not assumed the editorial license to omit these incoherent observations, notwith- standing their close approximation \.ojj.rgon, not only because they seem to occur with a sort of dramatic propriety in the winding up of the count's narrative. the reappearance of Oswald the return to Devereux Court, and the scene that happens there ; but also because they appear to be strikingly characteristic of the vague aspirings, the restless and half- analyzed longings after something " beyond the visible diurnal sphere," which are so inti- mately blended with the worldlier traits of the Count's peculiar organization of mind, .!>, DEVEREUX. 395 gard of life. We acquire mercy as we acquire thought. I would not now have harmed one of those sable creatures for a king's ransom ! As we cleared the more wooded belt of the park, and entered the smooth space, on which the trees stood alone and at rarer intervals, while the red clouds, still tinged with the hues of the departed sun, hovered on the far and upland landscape like Hope flushing over Futurity a mellowed, yet rapid murmur, distinct from the more distant dashing of the sea, broke abrupt- ly upon my ear. It was the voice of the brook whose banks had been the dearest haunt of my childhood ; and now, as it burst thus suddenly upon me, I longed to be alone, that I might have bowed down my head and wept as if it had been the wel- come of a living thing ! At once, and as by a word, the hard- ened lava, the congealed stream of the soul's Etna, was up- lifted from my memory, and the bowers and palaces of old, the world of a gone day, lay before me ! With how wild an enthu' siasm had 1 apostrophized that stream on the day in which I first resolved to leave its tranquil regions and fragrant margin for the tempest and tumult of the world. On that same eve, too, had Aubrey and I taken sweet counsel together on that same eve had we sworn to protect, to love, and to cherish one another ! AND NOW ! I saw the very mound on which we had sat a solitary deer made it his couch, and as the carriage ap- proached, the deer rose, and I then saw that he had been wounded, perhaps in some contest with his tribe, and that he could scarcely stir from the spot. I turned my face away, and the remains of my ancestral house rose gradually in view. That house was indeed changed ; a wide and black heap of ruins spread around ; the vast hall, with its oaken rafters and huge hearth, was no more I missed t/iat, and I cared not for the rest. The long galleries, the superb chambers, the scenes of revel- ry or of pomp, were like the court companions who amuse, yet attach us not; but the hall the old hall the old hospitable hall had been as a friend in all seasons, and to all comers, and its mirth had been as open to all as the heart of its last owner ! My eyes wandered from the place where it had been, and the tall, lone, gray tower, consecrated to my ill-fated namesake, and in which my own apartments had been situated, rose, like the last of a warrior band, stern, gaunt, and solitary, over the ruins around. The carriage now passed more rapidly over the neglected road, and wound where the ruins, cleared on either side, per- mitted access to the tower. In two minutes more I was in the 396 DEVEREUX. same chamber with my only surviving brother. Oh, why why can I not dwell upon that scene that embrace, that reconcilia- tion ? alas ! the wound is not yet scarred over. I found Gerald, at first, haughty and sullen ; he expected my reproaches and defiance against them he was hardened ; he was not prepared for my prayers for our future friendship, and my grief for our past enmity, and he melted at once ! But let me hasten over this. I had well-nigh forgot that at the close of my history I should find one remembrance so en- dearing, and one pang so keen. Rapidly I sketched to Gerald the ill fate of Aubrey ; but lingeringly did I dwell upon Mon- treuil's organized and most baneful influence over him, and over us all ; and I endeavored to arouse in Gerald some sympa- thy with my own indignation against that villain. I succeeded so far as to make him declare that he was scarcely less desir- ous of justice than myself ; but there was an embarrassment in his tone of which I was at no loss to perceive the cause. To accuse Montreuil publicly of his forgery might ultimately bring to light Gerald's latter knowledge of the fraud. I hastened to say that there was now no necessity to submit to a court of justice a scrutiny into our private, gloomy, and eventful records. No, from Oswald's communications I had learned enough to prove that Bolingbroke had been truly informed, and that Mon- treuil had still, and within the few last weeks, been deeply in- volved in schemes of treason full proof of which could be ad- duced, far more than sufficient to ensure his death by the pub- lic executioner. Upon this charge I proposed at the nearest town (the memorable sea-port of ) to accuse him, and to obtain a warrant for his immediate apprehension upon this charge I proposed alone to proceed against him, and by it alone to take justice upon his more domestic crimes. My brother yielded at last his consent to my suggestions. " I understand," said I, " that Montreuil lurks in the neighbor- hood of these ruins, or in the opposite islet. Know you if he has made his asylum in either at this present time ? " "No, my brother," answered Gerald, "but I have reason to believe that he is in our immediate vicinity, for I received a letter from him three days ago, when at Lord 's, urging a request that I would give him a meeting here, at my earliest leisure, previous to his leaving England." " Has he really then obtained permission to return to France ? " "Yes," replied Gerald, "he informed me in this letter that he had just received intelligence of his pardon." " May it fit him the better," said I, with a stern smile, " for DEVEREUX. 397 a more lasting condemnation. But if this be true we have not a moment to lose : a man so habitually vigilant and astute will speedily learn my visit hither, and forfeit even his appointment with you, should he, which is likely enough, entertain any sus- picion of our reconciliation with each other moreover, he may hear that the government have discovered his designs, and may instantly secure the means of flight. Let me, therefore, im- mediately repair to , and obtain a warrant against him, as well as officers to assist our search. In the mean while you shall remain here, and detain him, should he visit you : but where is the accomplice? let us seize him instantly, for I con- clude he is with you ! " " What, Desmarais ?" rejoined Gerald. " Yes, he is the only servant, beside the old portress, which these poor ruins will allow me to entertain in the same dwelling with myself : the rest of my suite are left behind at Lord 's. But Desmarais is not now within ; he went out about two hours ago." " Ha ! " said I, " in all likelihood to meet the priest shall we wait his return, and extort some information of Montreuil's lurking-hole ? " Before Gerald could answer, we heard a noise without, and presently I distinguished the bland tones of the hypocritical Fatalist, in soft expostulation with the triumphant voice of Mr. Marie Oswald. I hastened out, and discovered that the lay- brother, whom I had left in the chaise, having caught a glimpse of the valet gliding among the ruins, had recognized, seized, and by the help of the postillions, dragged him to the door of the tower. The moment Desmarais saw me, he ceased to struggle : he met my eye with a steady, but not disrespectful, firmness ; he changed not even the habitual hue of his coun- tenance he remained perfectly still in the hands of his arrest- ers ; and if there was any vestige of his mind discoverable in his sallow features and glittering eye, it was not the sign of fear, or confusion, or even surprise ; but a ready promptness to meet danger, coupled, perhaps, with a little doubt whether to defy or to seek first to diminish it. Long did I gaze upon him struggling with internal rage and loathing the mingled contempt and desire of destruction with which we gaze upon the erect aspect of some small, but venom- ous and courageous reptile long did I gaze upon him before I calmed and collected my voice to speak : " So I have thee at last ! First comes the base tool, and that will I first break, before I lop off the guiding hand." " So please Monsieur my Lord the Count," answered Des- 398 DEVEREUX. marais, bowing to the ground ; " the tool is a file, and it would be useless to bite against it." "We will see that," said I, drawing my sword : "prepare to die ! " and I pointed the blade to his throat with so sudden and menacing a gesture that his eyes closed involuntarily, and the blood left his thin cheek as white as ashes : but he shrank not. " If Monsieur," said he, with a sort of smile, "'/// kill his poor old, faithful servant, let him strike. Fate is not to be re- sisted ; and prayers are useless ! " " Oswald," said I, " release your prisoner ; wait here, and keep strict watch. Jean Desmarais, follow me ! " I ascended the stairs, and Desmarais followed. " Now," I said, when he was alone with Gerald and myself, " your days are numbered : you will fall, not by my hand, but by that of the executioner. Not only your forgery, but your robbery, your abetment of murder, are known to me ; your present lord, with an indignation equal to my own, surrenders you to justice. Have you aught to urge, not in defence for to that I will not listen but in atonement ? Can you now commit any act which will cause me to forego justice on those which you have com- mitted ? " Desmarais hesitated. " Speak," said I. He raised his eyes to mine with an inquisitive and wistful look. II Monsieur," said the wretch, with his obsequious smile, " Monsieur has travelled has shone has succeeded Monsieur must have made enemies : let him name them, and his poor old faithful servant will do his best to become the humble instru- ment of their fate!" Gerald drew himself aside, and shuddered. Perhaps till then he had not been fully aware how slyly murder, as well as fraud, can lurk beneath urbane tones and laced ruffles. "I have no enemy," said I, "but one ; and the hangman will do my office upon him ; but point out to me the exact spot where at this moment he is concealed, and you shall have full leave to quit this country forever. That enemy is Julian Mon- treuil ! " "Ah, ah!" said Desmarais musingly, and in -a tone very different from that in which he usually spoke ; "must it be so, indeed ? For twenty years of youth and manhood, I have clung to that man, and woven my destiny with his, because I believed him born under the star which shines on statesmen and on pontiffs. Does dread Necessity now impel me to betray him? Him, the only man I ever loved. So so so ! Count Dever- but one moment before the creator of a world of wonders, the master spirit of shapes glorious and majestical beyond the shapes of men dashed down from his momentary height, and despoiled both of his sorcery and his throne. It was Justin such a moment that Warner, starting up, saw Linden (who had silently entered his room) standing motion- less before him. "Oh, Linden!" said the artist, "I have had so superb a dream a dream which, though I have before snatched some such vision by fits and glimpses, I never beheld so realized, so perfect as now ; and but you shall see, you shall judge for yourself; I will sketch out the design for you"; and with a piece of chalk, and a rapid hand, Warner conveyed to Linden the outline of his conception. His young friend was eager in his praise and his predictions of renown, and Warner listened to him with a fondness, which spread over his pale cheek a richer flush than lover ever caught from the whispers of his beloved. "Yes," said he, as he rose, and his sunken and small eye flashed out with a feverish brightness, "yes, if my hand does not fail my thought, it shall rival even " Here the young painter stopped short, abashed at that indiscretion of enthu- siasm about to utter to another the hoarded vanities hitherto locked in his heart of hearts as a sealed secret, almost from himself. "But come," said Clarence affectionately, "your hand is feverish and dry, and of late you have seemed more languid than you were wont come, Warner, you want exercise : it is a beautiful evening, and you shall explain your picture still farther to me as we walk." Accustomed to yield to Clarence, Warner mechanically and abstractedly obeyed ; they walked out into the open streets. "Look around us," said Warner, pausing, "look among this toiling, and busy, and sordid mass of beings, who claim with us the fellowship of clay. The poor labor, the rich feast ; the only distinction between them is that of the insect and the brute ; like them they fulfil the same end, and share the same oblivion ; they die, a new race springs up, and the very grass upon their graves fades not so soon as their memory. Who, that is con- scious of a higher nature, would not pine and fret himself away to be confounded with these ? Who would not burn, and sicken, and parch, with a delirious longing to divorce himself from so vile a herd ? What have their petty pleasures, and >JT2 THE DISOWNED. their mean aims to atone for the abasement of grinding down our spirits to their level ? Is not the distinction from their blended and common name a sufficient recompense for all that ambition suffers or foregoes ? Oh, for one brief hour (I ask no more) of living honor, one feeling of conscious, unfearing cer- tainty, that Fame has conquered Death ; and then for this humble and impotent clay, this drag on the spirit which it does not assist but fetter, this wretched machine of pains and aches, and feverish throbbings, and vexed inquietudes, why, let the worms consume it, and the grave hide for Fame there is no grave." At that moment one of those unfortunate women, who earn their polluted sustenance by becoming the hypocrites of pas- sion, abruptly accosted them. "Miserable wretch ! " said Warner loathingly, as he pushed her aside ; but Clarence, with a kindlier feeling, noticed that her haggard cheek was wet with tears, and that her frame, weak and trembling, could scarcely support itself; he, therefore, with that promptitude of charity, which gives ere it discrimi- nates, put some pecuniary assistance in her hand, and joined his comrade. " You would not have spoken so tauntingly to the poor girl had you remarked her distress," said Clarence. " And why," said Warner mournfully, " why be so cruel as to prolong, even for a few hours, an existence which mercy would only seek to bring nearer to the tomb? That unfor- tunate is but one of the herd, one of the victims to pleasures which debase by their progress, and ruin by their end. Yet perhaps she is not worse than the usual followers of love ; of love that passion the most worshipped, yet the least 'divine, selfish and exacting, drawing its aliment from destruction, and its very nature from tears." "Nay," said Clarence, "you confound the two loves, the Eros and the Anteros, gods whom my good tutor was wont so sedulously to distinguish : you surely do not inveigh thus against all love? " " I cry you mercy," said Warner, with something of sarcasm in his pensiveness of tone. "We must not dispute, so I will hold my peace ; but make love all you will, what are the false smiles of a lip which a few years can blight as an autumn leaf ? what the homage of a heart as feeble and mortal as your own ? Why, I with a few strokes of a little hair, and an idle mixture of worthless colors, will create a beauty in whose mouth there shall be no hollowness in whose lip there shall be no fading THE DISOWNED. 73 there, in your admiration you shall have no need of flattery, and no fear of falsehood ; you shall not be stung with jealousy, nor maddened with treachery ; nor watch with a breaking heart over waning bloom, and departing health, till the grave open, and your perishable paradise is not. No the mimic work is mightier than the original, for it outlasts it : your love cannot wither it, or your desertion destroy your very death, as the being who called it into life, only stamps it with a holier value." "And so then," said Clarence, " you would seriously relin- quish, for the mute copy of the mere features, those affections which no painting can express ? " "Ay," said the painter, with an energy unusual to his quiet manner, and slightly wandering in his answer from Clarence's remark, "Ay, one serves not two mistresses mine is the glory of my art. Oh ! what are the cold shapes of this tame earth, where the footsteps of the gods have vanished, and left no trace, the blemished forms, the debased brows, and the jarring features, to the glorious and gorgeous images which I can conjure up at my will ? Away with human beauties, to him whose nights are haunted with the forms of angels and wan- derers from the stars, the spirits of all things lovely and exalted in the universe : the universe as it was when to fountain, and stream, and hill, and to every tree which the summer clothed, was allotted the vigil of a Nymph ! when through glade, and by waterfall, at glossy noontide, or under the silver stars, the forms of Godhead and Spirit were seen to walk ; when the sculptor modeled his mighty work from the beauty and strength of Heaven, and the poet lay in the shade to dream of the Naiad and the Faun, and the Olympian dwellers whom he waked in rapture to behold ; and the painter, not as now, shaping from shadow and in solitude the dim glories of his heart, caught at once his inspiration from the glow of earth and its living wanderers, and, lo, the canvas breathed ! Oh ! what are the dull realities and the abortive offspring of this altered and humbled world the world of meaner and dwarfish men to him whose realms are peopled with visions like these ?." And the artist, whose ardor, long excited, and pent within, had at last thus audibly, and to Clarence's astonishment, burst forth, paused, as if to recall himself from his wandering enthu- siasm. Such moments of excitement were, indeed, rare with him, except when utterly alone, and even then, were almost invariably followed by that depression of spirit by which all 74 THE DISOWNED. overwrought susceptibility is succeeded. A change came over his face, like that of a cloud when the sunbeam, which gilded, leaves it, and with a slight sigh, and a subdued tone, he re- sumed : " So, my friend, you see what our art can do even for the humblest professor, when I, a poor, friendless, patronless artist, can thus indulge myself by forgetting the present. But I have not yet explained to you the attitude of my principal figure "; and Warner proceeded once more to detail the particulars of his intended picture. It must be confessed that he had chosen a fine, though an arduous, subject : it was the Trial of Charles the First ; and as the painter, with the enthusiasm of his pro- fession and the eloquence peculiar to himself, dwelt upon the various expressions of the various forms which that extraordinary judgment court afforded, no wonder that Clarence forgot, with the artist himself, the disadvantages Warner had to encounter, in the inexperience of an unregulated taste, and an imperfect professional education. CHAPTER XIV. "All manners take a tincture from our own, Or come discolored through our passions shown." POPE. " What ! give up liberty, property, and, as the Gazetteer says, lie down to be saddled with wooden shoes ? " Vicar of Wakefield. THERE was something in the melancholy and reflective char- acter of Warner resembling that of Mordaunt ; had they lived in these days, perhaps both the artist and the philosopher had been poets. But (with regard to the latter) at that time poetry was not the customary vent for deep thought, or passionate feeling. Gray, it is true, though unjustly condemned as artificial and meretricious in his style, had infused into the scanty works which he has bequeathed to immortality a pathos and a rich- ness foreign to the literature of the age ; and, subsequently, Goldsmith, in the affecting yet somewhat enervate simplicity of his verse, had obtained for Poetry a brief respite from a school at once declamatory and powerless, and led her forth for a "Sunshine Holiday," into the village green, and under the hawthorn shade. But though the softer and meeker feelings had struggled into a partial and occasional vent, those which partook more of passion and of thought, the deep, the wild, the fervid, were still without " the music of a voice." For the THE DISOWNED. 75 after-century it was reserved to restore what we may be permitted to call the spirit of our national literature ; to forsake the clinquant of the French mimickers of classic gold ; to exchange a thrice-adulterated Hippocrene for the pure well of Shakspeare and of nature ; to clothe philosophy in the gorgeous and solemn majesty of appropriate music ; and to invest passion with a language as burning as its thought, and rapid as its impulse. At that time reflection found its natural channel in metaphysical inquiry, or political speculation : both valuable, perhaps, but neither profound. It was a bold, and a free, and an inquisitive age, but not one in which thought ran over its set and stationary banks, and watered even the common flowers of verse: not one in which Lucretius could have embodied the dreams of Epicurus ; Shakspeare lavished the mines of a superhuman wisdom upon his fairy palaces and enchanted islea ; or the Beautifier * of this common earth have called forth " The motion of the spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought " ; or Disappointment and Satiety have hallowed their human griefs by a pathos wrought from whatever is magnificent, and grand, and lovely in the unknown universe ; or the specula- tions of a great but visionary f mind have raised, upon subtlety and doubt, a vast and irregular pile of verse, full of dim-lighted cells and winding galleries, in which what treasures lie concealed ! That was an age in which poetry took one path, and contemplation another ; those who were addicted to the latter pursued it in its orthodox roads ; and many whom Nature, perhaps, intended for poets, the wizard Custom con- verted into speculators or critics. It was this which gave to Algernon's studies their peculiar hue ; while, on the other hand, the taste for the fine arts which then universally prevailed, directed to the creations of paint- ing, rather than those, of poetry, more really congenial to his powers, the intense imagination and passion for glory which marked and pervaded the character of the artist. But as we have seen that that passion for glory made the great characteristic difference between Clarence and Warner, so also did that passion terminate any resemblance which War- ner bore to Algernon Mordaunt. With the former, a rank and unwholesome plant, it grew up to the exclusion of all else : with the latter, subdued and regulated, it sheltered, not withered, * Wordsworth. t Shelley. 76 THE DISOWNED. the virtues by which it was surrounded. With Warner, ambi- tion was a passionate desire to separate himself by fame from the herd of other men ; with Mordaunt, to bind himself by charity yet closer to his kind : with the one it produced a dis- gust to his species ; with the other, a pity and a love : with the one, power was the badge of distinction ; with the other, the means to bless ! But our story lingers. It was now the custom of Warner to spend the whole day at his work, and wander out with Clarence, when the evening darkened, to snatch a brief respite of exercise and air. Often, along the lighted and populous streets, would the two young and unfriended competitors for this world's high places roam with the various crowd, moralizing as they went, or holding dim conjecture upon their destinies to be. And often would they linger beneath the portico of some house where, " haunted with great resort," Pleasure and Pomp held their nightly revels, to listen to the music that, through the open windows, stole over the rare exotics with which wealth mimics the southern scents, and floated, mellowing by distance, along the unworthy streets, and while they stood together, silent, and each feeding upon separate thoughts, the artist's pale lip would curl with scorn, as he heard the laugh and the sounds of a frivolous and hollow mirth ring from the crowd within, and startle the air from the silver spell which music had laid upon it. "These," would he say to Clarence, " these are the dupes of the same fever as ourselves : like us, they strive, and toil, and vex their little lives for a distinction from their race. Ambition comes to them, as to all ; but they throw for a different prize than we do ; theirs is the honor of a day, ours is immortality ; yet they take the same labor, and are consumed by the same care. And, fools that they are, with their gilded names and their gaudy trappings, they would shrink in disdain from that comparison with us which we, with a juster fastidiousness, blush at this moment to acknowledge. From these scenes they would rove on, and, both delighting in contrast, enter some squalid and obscure quarter of the city. There, one night, quiet observers of their kind, they paused beside a group congregated together by some common cause of obscene merriment or unholy fellowship a group on which low vice had set her sordid and hideous stamp to gaze and draw strange humors or a motley moral from that depth and ferment of human nature, into whose sink the thousand streams of civi- lization had poured their dregs and offal. "You survey these," said the painter, marking each with the THE DISOWNED. 77 curious eye of his profession : " they are a base horde, it is true, but they have their thirst of fame, their aspirations even in the abyss of crime, or the loathsomeness of famished want. Down in yon cellar, where a farthing rushlight glimmers upon haggard cheeks, distorted with the idiotcy of drink there, in that foul attic, from whose casement you see the beggar's rags hang to dry, or rather to crumble in the reeking and filthy air farther on, within those walls which, -black and heavy as the hearts they hide, close our miserable prospect, there, even there, in the mildewed dungeon, in the felon's cell, on the very scaffold shelf Ambition hugs her own hope, or scowls upon her own despair. Yes ! the inmates of those walls had their perilous game of honor, their 'hazard of the die," in which vice was triumph and infamy success. We do but share their pas- sion, though we direct it to a better object." Pausing for a moment, as his thoughts flowed into a some- what different channel of his character, Warner continued "We have now caught a glimpse of the two great divisions of mankind ; they who riot in palaces, and they who make mirth hideous in rags and hovels : own that it is but a poor survey in either. Can we be contemptible with these, or loathsome with those ? Or rather have we not a nobler spark within us, which we have but to fan into a flame, that shall burn forever, when these miserable meteors sink into the corruption from which they rise ?" " But," observed Clarence, " these are the two extremes ; the pinnacle of civilization too worn and bare for any more noble and vigorous fruit, and the base upon which the cloud descends in rain and storm. Look to the central portion of society ; there the soil is more genial, and its produce more rich." "Is it so, in truth?" answered Warner; "pardon me, I believe not : the middling classes are as human as the rest. There is the region, the heart of Avarice, systematized, spreading, rotting, the very fungus and leprosy of social states- suspicion, craft, hypocrisy, servility to the great, oppression to the low, the wax-like mimicry of courtly vices, the hardness of flint to humble woes ; thought, feeling, the faculties and impulses of man, all ulcered into one great canker Gain ; these make the general character of the middling class, the unleavened mass of that mediocrity which it has been the wis- dom of the shallow to applaud. Pah ! we too are of this class, this potter's earth, this paltry mixture of mud and stone ; but we, my friend, we will knead gold into our clay." " But look," said Clarence, pointing to the group before f 8 THE DISOWNED. them ; "look, yon wretched mother, whose voice an instant ago uttered the coarsest accents of maudlin and intoxicated prosti- tution, is now fostering her infant, with a fondness stamped upon her worn cheek and hollow eye, which might shame the nice maternity of nobles ; and there too, yon wretch whom, in the reckless effrontery of hardened abandonment, we our- selves heard a few minutes since boast of his dexterity in theft, and openly exhibiuts token look, he is now, with a Samaritan's own charity, giving the very goods for which his miserable life was risked, to that attenuated and starving stripling ! No^ Warner, no ! even this mass is not unleavened. The vilest infamy is not too deep for the Seraph Virtue to descend and illumine its abyss ! " " Out on the weak fools ! " said the artist, bitterly : " it would be something, if they could be consistent even in crime ! " and, placing his arm in Linden's, he drew him away. As the picture grew beneath the painter's hand, Clarence was much struck with the outline and expression of counte- nance given to the regicide Bradshaw. " They are but an imperfect copy of the living original from whom I have borrowed them," said Warner, in answer to Clarence's remark upon the sternness of the features. " But that original, a relation of mine, is coming here to-day you shall see him." While Warner was yet speaking, the person in question entered. His were, indeed, the form and face worthy to be seized by the painter. The peculiarity of his character made him affect a plainness of dress unusual to the day* and approach- ing to the simplicity, but not the neatness, of Quakerism. His hair, then, with all the better ranks, a principal object of cultivation, was wild, dishevelled, and, in wiry flakes of the sablest hue, rose abruptly from a forehead on which either thought or passion had written its annals with an iron pen ; the lower part of the brow, which overhung the eye, was singularly sharp and prominent ; while the lines, or rather furrows, traced under the eyes and nostrils, spoke somewhat of exhaustion and internal fatigue. But this expression was contrasted and con- tradicted by the firmly compressed lip ; the lighted, steady, stern eye ; the resolute and even stubborn front, joined to proportions strikingly athletic, and a stature of uncommon height. "Well, Wolfe," said the young painter to the person we have described, " it is indeed a kindness to give me a second sitting." " Tush, boy ! " answered Wolfe : " all men have their vain THE DISOWNED. 79 points, and I own that I am not ill pleased that these rugged features should be assigned, even in fancy, to one of the noblest of those men who judged the mightiest cause in which a country was ever plaintiff, a tyrant criminal, and a world witness ! " While Wolfe was yet speaking, his countenance, so naturally harsh, took a yet sterner aspect, and the artist, by a happy touch, succeeded in transferring it to the canvas. " But, after all," continued Wolfe, "it shames me to lend aid to an art frivolous in itself, and almost culpable in times when Freedom wants the head to design, and, perhaps, the hand to execute, far other and nobler works than the blazoning of her past deeds upon perishable canvas." A momentary anger at the slight put upon his art crossed the pale brow of the artist ; but he remembered the character of the man, and continued his work in silence. " You consider then, sir, that these are times in which liberty is attacked ? " said Clarence. "Attacked ! " repeated Wolfe " attacked ! " and then sud- denly sinking his voice into a sort of sneer " why, since the event which this painting is designed to commemorate I know not if we have ever had one solitary gleam of liberty break along the great chaos of jarring prejudice and barbarous law which we term, forsooth, a glorious constitution. Liberty attacked ! no, boy but it is a time when Liberty may be gained." Perfectly unacquainted with the excited politics of the day, or the growing and mighty spirit which then stirred through the minds of men, Clarence remained silent ; but his evident attention flattered the fierce republican, and he proceeded. " Ay," he said slowly, and as if drinking in a deep and stern joy from his conviction in the truth of the words he uttered "Ay, I have wandered over the face of the earth, and I have warmed my soul at the fires which lay hidden under its quiet surface ; I have been in the city and the desert the herded and banded crimes of the Old World, and the scattered, but bold, hearts which are found among the savannahs of the New ; and in either I have beheld that seed sown which, from a mustard grain, too scanty for a bird's beak, shall grow up to be a shelter and a home for the whole family of man. I have looked upon the thrones of kings, and lo, the anointed ones were in purple and festive pomp ; and I looked beneath the thrones, and I saw Want and Hunger and despairing Wrath gnawing the foundations away. I have stood in the streets of that great city where Mirth seems to hold an eternal jubilee, 8o THE DISOWNED. and beheld the noble riot while the peasant starved ; and the priest build altars to Mammon piled from the earnings of groaning Labor, and cemented with blood and tears. But I looked farther, and saw, in the rear, chains sharpened into swords, misery ripening into justice, and famine darkening into revenge ; and I laughed as I beheld, for I knew that the day of the oppressed was at hand." Somewhat awed by the prophetic tone, though revolted by what seemed to him the novelty and the fierceness, of the sentiments of the republican, Clarence after a brief pause said : "And what of our own country?" Wolfe's brow darkened. " The oppression here," said he, "has not been so weighty, therefore the reaction will be less strong; the parties are more blended, therefore their separation will be more arduous ; the extortion is less strained, therefore the endurance will be mora meek ; but, soon or late, the struggle must come ; bloody will it be if the strife be even ; gentle and lasting, if the people predominate." "And if the rulers be the strongest?" said Clarence. " The struggle will be renewed," replied Wolfe doggedly. " You still attend those oratorical meetings, cousin, I think," said Warner. " I do," said Wolfe; "and if you are not so utterly absorbed in your vain and idle art as to be indifferent to all things nobler, you will learn yourself to take interest in what con- cerns I will not say your country but mankind. For you, young man (and the republican turned to Clarence), I would fain hope that life has not already been diverted from the greatest of human objects ; if so, come to-morrow night to our assembly, and learn from worthier lips than mine the pre- cepts and the hopes for which good men live or die." "I will come at all events to listen, if not to learn," said Clar- ence eagerly, for his curiosity was excited. And the republican, having now fulfilled the end of his visit, rose and departed. CHAPTER XV. " Bound to suffer persecution And martyrdom with resolution, T'oppose himself against the hate And vengeance of ttie incensed state." Hudibras. BORN of respectable, though not wealthy, parents, John Wolfe was one of those fiery and daring spirits which, previous to THE DISOWNED. 8l some mighty revolution, Fate seems to scatter over various parts of the earth, even those removed from the predestined explo- sion ; heralds of the events in which they are fitted, though not fated, to be actors. The period at which he is presented to the reader was one considerably prior to that French Revolu- tion so much debated, and so little understood. But some such event, though not foreseen by the common, had been al- ready foreboded by the more enlightened, eye; and Wolfe, from a protracted residence in France, among the most discontented of its freer spirits, had brought hope to that burning enthusi- asm which had long made the pervading passion of his existence. Bold to ferocity, generous in devotion to folly in self-sacri- fice, unflinching in his tenets to a degree which rendered their ardor ineffectual to all times, because utterly inapplicable to the present, Wolfe was one of those zealots whose very virtues have the semblance of vice, and whose very capacities for dan- ger become harmless from the rashness of their excess. It was not among the philosophers and reasoners of France that Wolfe had drawn strength to his opinions : whatever such companions might have done to his tenets, they would at least have moderated his actions. The philosopher may aid, or ex- pedite, a change ; but never does the philosopher in any age, or of any sect, countenance a crime. But of philosophers Wolfe knew little, and probably despised them for their temper- ance : it was among fanatics ignorant, but imaginative that he had strengthened the love, without comprehending the nature, of republicanism. Like Lucian's painter, whose flattery portrayed the one-eyed prince in profile, he viewed only that side of the question in which there was no defect, and gave beauty to the whole by concealing the half. Thus, though on his return to England herding with the common class of his reforming brethren, Wolfe possessed many peculiarities and distinctions of character which in rendering him strikingly adapted to the purpose of the novelist, must serve as a caution to the reader not to judge of the class by the individual. With a class of republicans in England there was a strong tendency to support their cause by reasoning. With Wolfe, whose mind was little wedded to logic, all was the offspring of turbulent feelings, which, in rejecting arguments, substituted declamation for syllogism. This effected a powerful and irrec- oncilable distinction between Wolfe and the better part of his comrades ; for the habits of cool reasoning, whether true or false, are little likely to bias the mind towards those crimes to which Wolfe's irregulated emotions might possibly urge him, 82 THE DISOWNED. and give to the characters, to which they are a sort of common denominator, something of method and much of similarity. But the feelings those orators which allow no calculation, and baffle the tameness of comparison rendered Wolfe alone, unique, eccentric in opinion or action, whether of vice or vinue. Private ties frequently moderate the ardor of our public en- thusiasm. Wolfe had none. His nearest relation was Warner, and it may readily be supposed that with the pensive and con- templative artist he had very little in common. He had never married, nor had ever seemed to wander from his stern and sterile path, in the most transient pursuit of the pleasures of sense. Inflexibly honest, rigidly austere in his moral char- acter his bitterest enemies could detect no flaw poor, even to indigence, he had invariably refuged all overtures of the govern- ment thrice imprisoned and heavily fined for his doctrines, no fear of a future, no remembrance of the past, punishment could ever silence his bitter eloquence or moderate the passion of his distempered zeal kindly, though rude, his scanty means were ever shared by the less honest and disinterested followers of his faith ; and he had been known for days to deprive himself of food, and for nights of shelter, for the purpose of yielding food and shelter to another. Such was the man doomed to forsake, through a long and wasted life, every substantial blessing, in pursuit of a shadowy good ; with the warmest benevolence in his heart, to relinquish private affections, and to brood even to madness over public offences to sacrifice everything in a generous, though erring, devotion for that freedom whose cause, instead of promoting, he was calculated to retard ; and, while he believed himself the martyr of a high and uncompromising virtue, to close his ca- reer with the greatest of human crimes. CHAPTER XVI. 1 ' Faith, methinks his humor is good, and his purse will buy good company." The Parson s Wedding. WHEN Clarence returned home, after the conversation re- corded in our last chapter, he found a note from Talbot, invit- ing him to meet some friends of the latter at supper that even- ing. It was the first time Clarence had been asked, and he looked forward with some curiosity and impatience to the hour appointed in the note. THE DISOWNED. 83 It is impossible to convey any idea of the jealous rancor felt by Mr. and Mrs. Copperas on hearing of this distinction a distinction which " the perfect courtier " had never once be- stowed upon themselves. Mrs. Copperas tossed her head, too indignant for words ; and the stock-jobber, in the bitterness of his soul, affirmed, with a meaning air, " that he dared say, after all, that the old gentle- man was not so rich as he gave out." On entering Talbot's drawing-room, Clarence found about seven or eight people assembled : their names, in proclaiming the nature of the party, indicated that the aim of the host was to combine aristocracy and talent. The literary acquirements and worldly tact of Talbot, joined to the adventitious circum- stances of birth and fortune, enabled him to effect this object, so desirable in polished society, far better than we generally find it effected now. The conversation of these guests was light and various. The last bon mot of Chesterfield, the last sarcasm of Horace Walpole, Goldsmith's " Traveller," Shen- stone's " Pastorals," and the attempt of Mrs. Montagu to bring Shakespeare into fashion in all these subjects the graceful wit and exquisite taste of Talbot shone pre-eminent ; and he had almost succeeded in convincing a profound critic that Gray was a poet more likely to live than Mason, when the servant announced supper. That was the age of suppers ! Happy age ! Meal of ease and mirth ; when Wine and Night lit the lamp of Wit ! O, what precious things were said and looked at those banquets of the soul ! There epicurism was in the lip as well as the palate, and one had humor for a hors d'oeuvre, and repartee for an entremet. In dinner there is something too pompous, too formal, for the true ease of Table Talk. One's intellectual appetite, uke the physical, is coarse but dull. At dinner one is fit only for eating ; after dinner only for politics. But supper was a glorious relic of the ancients. The bustle of the day had thor- oughly wound up the spirit, and every stroke upon the dial- plate of wit was true to the genius of the hour. The wallet of diurnal anecdote was full, and craved unloading. The great meal that vulgar first love of the appetite was over, and one now only flattered it into coquetting with another. The mind, disengaged and free, was no longer absorbed in a cutlet or bur- thened with a joint. The gourmand carried the nicety of his physical perception to his moral, and applauded a bon mot instead of a bonne bouche. Then too one had no necessity to keep a reserve of thought 84 THE DISOWNED. for the after-evening ; supper was the final consummation, the glorious funeral pyre of day. One could be merry till bed- time without an interregnum. Nay, if in the ardor of con- vivialism one did I merely hint of the possibility of such an event if one did exceed the narrow limits of strict ebriety, and open the heart with a ruby key, one had nothing to dread from the cold, or, what is worse, the warm looks of ladies in the drawing-room ; no fear that an imprudent word, in the amatory fondness of the fermented blood, might expose one to matrimony and settlements. There was no tame, trite medium of propriety and suppressed confidence, no bridge from board to bed, over which a false step (and your wine cup is a mar- vellous corruptor of ambulatory rectitude) might precipitate into an irrecoverable abyss of perilous communication or un- wholesome truth. One's pillow became at once the legitimate and natural bourne to "the overheated brain"; and the gen- erous rashness of the ccenatorial reveller was not damped by untimeous caution or ignoble calculation. But " we have changed all that now"; Sobriety has become the successor of suppers ; the great ocean of moral encroach- ment has not left us one little island of refuge. Miserable sup- per-lovers that we are, like the native Indians of America, a scattered and daily disappearing race, we wander among strange customs, and behold the innovating and invading Din- ner spread gradually over the very space of time in which the majesty of Supper once reigned undisputed and supreme ! " O, ye heavens, be kind. And feel, them earth, for this afflicted race." WORDSWORTH. As he was sitting down to the table Clarence's notice was arrested by a somewhat suspicious and unpleasing occurrence. The supper room was on the ground floor, and, owing to the heat of the weather, one of the windows, facing the small gar- den, was left open. Through this window Clarence distinctly saw the face of a man look into the room for one instant, with a prying and curious gaze, and then as instantly disappear. As no one else seemed to remark this incident, and the general attention was somewhat noisily engrossed by the subject of conversation, Clarence thought it not worth while to mention a circumstance for which the impertinence of any neighboring servant, or drunken passer-by, might easily account. An apprehension, however, of a more unpleasant nature shot across him, as his eye fell upon the costly plate which Talbot rather ostentatiously displayed, and then glanced to the single THE DISOWNED. 85 and aged servant, who was, beside his master, ihe only male inmate of the house. Nor could he help saying to Talbot, in the course of the evening, that he wondered he was not afraid of hoarding so many articles of value in a house at once lonely and ill guarded. "Ill guarded !" said Talbot, rather affronted, "why, I and my servant always sleep here ! " To this Clarence thought it neither prudent nor well-bred to offer further remark. CHAPTER XVII. " Meetings, or public calls he never miss'd, To dictate often, always to assist. * * ' * * * To his experience and his native sense, He joined a bold, imperious eloquence : The grave, stern look of men inform'd and wise, A full command of feature, heart and eyes, An awe-compelling frown, and fear-inspiring size." CRABBE. THE next evening Clarence, mindful of Wolfe's invitation, inquired from Warner (who repaid the contempt of the repub- lican for the painter's calling by a similar feeling for the zeal- ot's) the direction of the oratorical meeting, and repaired there alone. It was the most celebrated club (of that description) of the day, and well worth attending, as a gratification to thi curiosity, if not an improvement to the mind. On entering, he found himself in a long room, tolerably well lighted, and still better filled. The sleepy countenances of the audience, the whispered conversation carried on at scattered intervals, the listless attitudes of some, the frequent yawns of others, the eagerness with which attention was attracted to the opening door, when it admitted some new object of interest, the desperate resolution with which some of the more energetic turned themselves towards the orator, and then, with a faint shake of the head, turned themselves again hopelessly away were all signs that denoted that no very eloquent declaimer was in possession of the " house." It was, indeed, a singularly dull, monotonous voice which, arising from the upper end of the room, dragged itself on towards the middle, and expired with' a sighing sound before it reached the end. The face of the speaker suited his vocal powers ; it was small, mean, and of a round stupidity, without anything even in fault that could 86 THE DISOWNED. possibly command attention, or even the excitement of disap- probation : the very garments of the orator seemed dull and heavy, and, like the Melancholy of Milton, had a " leaden look." Now and then some words, more emphatic than oth- ers stones breaking, as it were, with a momentary splash, the stagnation of the heavy stream produced from three very quiet, unhappy-looking persons, seated next to the speaker, his immediate friends, three single isolated " hears ! " " The force of friendship could no farther go." At last the orator, having spoken through, suddenly stopped ; the whole meeting seemed as if a weight had been taken from it ; there was a general bu^i of awakened energy, each stretched his limbs, and resettled himself in his place, " And turning to his neighbor, said, ' Rejoice ! ' " A pause ensued the chairman looked round the eyes of the meeting followed those of their president, with an universal and palpable impatience, towards an obscure corner of the room : the pause deepened for one moment, and then was broken ; a voice cried "Wolfe ! " and at that signal the whole room shook with the name. The place which Clarence had taken did not allow him to see the object of these cries, till he rose from his situation, and, passing two rows of benches, stood forth in the middle space of the room ; then, from one to one, went round the general roar of applause ; feet stamped, hands clapped, umbrellas set their sharp points to the ground, and walking-sticks thumped themselves out of shape in the uni- versal clamor. Tall, gaunt, and erect, the speaker possessed, even in the mere proportions of his frame, that physical power which never fails, in a popular assembly, to gain attention to mediocrity, and to throw dignity over faults. He looked very slowly round the room, remaining perfectly still and motion- less, till the clamor of applause had entirely subsided, and every ear, Clarence's no less eagerly than the rest, was strained, and thirsting to catch the first syllables of his voice. It was then with alow, very deep, and somewhat hoarse tone, that he began ; and it was not till he had spoken for several minutes that the iron expression of his face altered, that the drooping hand was raised, and that the suppressed, yet power- ful, voice began to expand and vary in its volume. He had then entered upon a new department of his subject. The question was connected with the English constitution, and THE DISOWNED. 7 Wolfe was now preparing to put forth, in long and blackened array, the alleged evils of an aristocratical form of government. Then it was as if the bile and bitterness of years were poured forth in a terrible and stormy wrath then his action became vehement, and his eye flashed forth unutterable fire ; his voice, solemn, swelling and increasing with each tone in its height and depth, filled, as with something palpable and perceptible, the shaking walls. The listeners a various and unconnected group, bound by no tie of faith or of party, many attracted by curiosity, many by the hope of ridicule, some abhorring the tenets expressed, and nearly all disapproving their principles, or doubting their wisdom the listeners, certainly not a group previously formed or molded into enthusiam, became rapt and earnest, their very breath forsook them. Linden had never before that night heard a public speaker ; but he was of a thoughtful and rather calculating mind, and his early habits of decision, and the premature cultivation of his intellect, rendered him little susceptible, in genera}, to the impressions of the vulgar ; nevertheless, in spite of himself, he was hurried away by the stream, and found that the force and rapidity of the speaker did not allow him even time for the dis- sent and disapprobation which his republican maxims and fiery denunciations perpetually excited in a mind aristocratic both by creed and education. At length, after a peroration of impetuous and magnificent invective, the orator ceased. In the midst of the applause that followed, Clarence left the assembly ; he could not endure the thought that any duller or more commonplace speaker should fritter away the spell which yet bound and engrossed his spirit. CHAPTER XVIII. "At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel, as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action, a cocked pistol in one hand, etc." Fortunes of Nigel. THE night, though not utterly dark, was rendered capricious and dim by alternate wind and rain ; and Clarence was delayed in his return homeward by seeking occasional shelter from the rapid and heavy showers which hurried by. It was during one of the temporary cessations of the rain that he reached Copperas Bower, and while he was searching in his pockets for the key which was to admit him, he observed two men loitering about 88 THE DISOWNED. his neighbor's house. The light was not sufficient to give him more than a scattered and imperfect view of their motions. Somewhat alarmed, he stood for several moments at the door, watching them as well as he was able ; nor did he enter the house till the loiterers had left their suspicious position, and, walking onwards, were hid entirely from him by the distance and darkness. " It really is a dangerous thing for Talbot," thought Clarence, as he ascended to his apartment, " to keep so many valuables, and only one servant, and that one as old as himself too. How- ever, as I am by no means sleepy, and my room is by no means cool, I may as well open my window, and see if those idle fellows make their reappearance." Suiting the action to the thought, Clarence opened his little casement, and leant wist- fully out. He had no light in his room, for none was ever left for him. This circumstance, however, of course enabled him the better to penetrate the dimness and haze of the night, and, by the help of the fluttering lamps, he was enabled to take a general, though not minute, survey of the scene below. I think I have before said that there was a gard.cn between Talbot's house and Copperas Bower ; this was bounded by a wall, which confined Talbot's peculiar territory of garden, and this wall, describing a parallelogram, faced also the road. It contained two entrances one the principal adytus, in the shape of a comely iron gate, the other a wooden door, which, being a private pass, fronted the intermediate garden before mentioned, and was exactly opposite to Clarence's window. Linden had been more than ten minutes at his post, and had just begun to think his suspicions without foundation, and his vigil in vain, when he observed the same figures he had seen before advance slowly from the distance, and pause by the front gate of Talbot's mansion. Alarmed and anxious, he redoubled his attention ; he stretched himself, as far as his safety would permit, out of the window ; the lamps, agitated by the wind, which swept by in occasional gusts, refused to grant to his straining sight more than an in- accurate and unsatisfying survey. Presently a blast, more violent than ordinary, suspended as it were the falling columns of rain, and left Clarence in almost total darkness ; it rolled away, and the momentary calm which ensued enabled him to see that one of the men was stooping by the gate, and the other standing apparently on the watch at a little distance. Another gust shook the lamps, and again obscured his view : and when THE DISOWNED. 8$ it had passed onward in its rapid course, the men had left the gate, and were in the garden beneath his window. They crept cautiously, but swiftly, along the opposite wall, till they came to the small door we have before mentioned ; here they halted, and one of them appeared to occupy himself in opening the door. Now, then, fear was changed into certainty, and it seemed, without doubt, that the men, having found some difficulty or danger in forcing the stronger or more public entrance, had changed their quarter of attack. No more time was to be lost ; Clarence shouted aloud, but the high wind probably prevented the sound reaching the ears of the burglars, or at least rendered it dubious and confused. The next moment, and before Clarence could repeat his alarm, they had opened the door, and were within the neighboring garden, beyond his view. Very young men, unless their experience has outstripped their youth, seldom have much presence of mind ; that quality, which is the opposite to surprise, comes to us in those years when nothing seems to us strange or unexpected. But a much older man than Clarence might have well been at a loss to know what conduct to adopt in the situation in which our hero was placed. The visits of the watchman to that (then) obscure and ill- inhabited neighborhood, were more regulated by his indolence than his duty, and Clarence knew that it would be in vain to listen for his cry, or tarry for his assistance. He himself was utterly unarmed, but the stock-jobber had a pair of horse pistols, and, as this recollection flashed upon him, the pause of delibera- tion ceased. With a swift step he descended the first flight of stairs, and, pausing at the chamber door of the faithful couple, knocked upon its panels with a loud and hasty summons. The second repetition of the noise produced the sentence, uttered in a very trembling voice, of "Who's there?" " It is I, Clarence Linden," replied our hero ; " lose no time in opening the door." This answer seemed to reassure the valorous stock-jobber. He slowly undid the bolt, and turned the key. "In Heaven's name, what do you want, Mr. Linden?" said he. " Ay," cried a sharp voice from the more internal recesses of the chamber, " what do you want, sir, disturbing us in the bosom of our family, and at the dead of night ? " With a rapid voice, Clarence repeated what he had seen, and requested the broker to accompany him to Talbot's house, of at least to lend him his pistols. 90 THE DISOWNED. " He shall do no such thing," cried Mrs. Copperas. " Come here, Mr. C., and shut the door directly." "Stop, my love," said the stock-jobber, " stop a moment." " For God's sake," cried Clarence, " make no delay ; the poor old man may be murdered by this time." "It's no business of mine," said the stock-jobber. " If Adolphus "had not broken the rattle I would not have minded the trouble of springing it ; but you are very much mistaken if you think I am going to leave my warm bed, in order to have my throat cut." "Then give me your pistols," cried Clarence; "I will go alone." "I shall commit no such folly," said the stock-jobber ; "if you are murdered, I may have to answer it to your friends, and pay for your burial. Besides, you owe us for your lodgings go to your bed, young man, as I shall to mine." And so say- ing, Mr. Copperas proceeded to close the door. But enraged at the brutality of the man, and excited by the urgency of the case, Clarence did not allow him so peaceable a retreat. With a strong and fierce grasp, he seized the astonished Copperas by the throat, and shaking him violently, forced his own entrance into the sacred nuptial chamber. " By Heaven," cried Linden, in a savage and stern tone, for his blood was up, " I will twist your coward's throat, and save the murderer his labor, if you do not instantly give me up your pistols." The stock-jobber was panic-stricken. "Take them," he cried in the extremest terror ; "there they are on the chimney- piece, close by." " Are they primed and loaded ? " said Linden, not relaxing his gripe. "Yes, yes ! " said the stock-jobber, " loose my throat, or you will choke me ! " and, at that instant, Clarence felt himself clasped by the invading hands of Mrs. Copperas. " Call off your wife," said he, " or I will choke you ! " and he tightened his hold, " and tell her to give me the pistols." The next moment Mrs. Copperas extended the debated weapons towards Clarence. He seized them, flung the poor stock-jobber against the bed-post, hurried downstairs, opened the back door which led into the garden, flew across the intervening space, arrived at the door, and entering Talbot's garden, paused to consider what was the next step to be taken. A person equally brave as Clarence, but more cautious, would not have left the house without alarming Mr. de Warens, even THE DISOWNED. 91 in spite of the failure with his master ; but Linden only thought of the pressure of time, and the necessity of expedition, and he would have been a very unworthy hero of romance had he felt fear for two antagonists, with a brace of pistols at his command, and a high and good action in view. After a brief, but decisive, halt, he proceeded rapidly round the house, in order to ascertain at which part the ruffians had admitted themselves, should they (as indeed there was little doubt) have already effected their entrance. He found the shutters of one of the principal rooms on the ground floor had been opened, and through the aperture he caught the glimpse of a moving light, which was suddenly obscured. As he was about to enter, the light again flashed out : he drew back just in time, carefully screened himself behind the shutter, and, through one of the chinks, observed what passed within. Opposite to the window was a door which conducted to the hall and principal staircase ; this door was open, and in the hall, at the foot of the stairs, Clarence saw- two men ; one carried a dark lantern, from which the light proceeded, and some tools of the nature of which Clarence was naturally ignorant : this was a middle-sized, muscular man, dressed in the rudest garb of an ordinary laborer ; the other was much taller and younger, and his dress was of rather a less ignoble fashion. " Hist ! hist ! " said the taller one, in a low tone, " did you not hear a noise, Ben? " " Not a pin fall ; but stow your whids, man ! " This was all that Clarence heard in a connected form ; but as the wretches paused, in evident doubt how to proceed, he caught two or three detached words, which his ingenuity rapidly formed into sentences. " No, no ! sleeps to the left old man above plate chest we must have the blunt too. Come, track up the dancers, and dowse the glim." And at the last words the light was extinguished, and Clarence's quick and thirsting ears caught their first steps on the stairs as they died away and all was hushed. It had several times occurred to Clarence to rush from his hiding-place, and fire at the ruffians, and perhaps that measure would have been the wisest he could have taken ; but Clarence had never discharged a pistol in his life, and he felt, therefore, that his aim must be uncertain enough to render a favorable position and a short distance essential requisites. Both these were, at present, denied to him ; and although he saw no weapons about the persons of the villains, yet he imagined 92 THE DISOWNED. they would not have ventured on so dangerous an expedition without firearms ; and if he failed, as would have been most probable, in his two shots, he concluded that, though the alarm would be given, his own fate would be inevitable. If this was reasoning upon false premises, for housebreakers seldom or never carry loaded fire-arms, and never stay for revenge, when their safety demands escape, Clarence may be forgiven for not knowing the customs of housebreakers, and for not making the very best of an extremely novel and dan- gerous situation. No sooner did he find himself in total darkness, than he bitterly reproached himself for his late backwardness, and, inwardly resolving not again to miss any opportunity which presented itself, he entered the window, groped along the room into the hall, and found his way very slowly, and after much circumlocution, to the staircase. He had just gained the summit, when a loud cry broke upon the stillness : it came from a distance, and was instantly hushed ; but he caught, at brief intervals, the sound of angry and threatening voices. Clarence bent down anxiously, in the hope that some solitary ray would escape through the crevice of the door within which the robbers were engaged. But though the sounds came from the same floor as that on which he now trod, they seemed far and remote, and not a gleam of light broke the darkness. He continued, however, to feel his way in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and soon found himself in a narrow gallery ; the voices seemed more loud and near as he advanced ; at last he distinctly heard the words : "Will you not confess where it is placed ?" " Indeed, indeed," replied an eager and earnest voice, which Clarence recognized as Talbot's, "This is all the money I have in the house the plate is above my servant has the key take it take all but save his life and mine." "None of your gammon," said another and rougher voice than that of the first speaker : "we know you have more blunt than this a paltry sum of fifty pounds, indeed ! " " Hold ! " cried the other ruffian, "here is a picture set with diamonds, that will do, Ben. Let go the old man." Clarence was now just at hand, and probably from a sudden change in the position of the dark lantern within, a light abruptly broke from beneath the door and streamed along the passage, "No, no, no ! " cried the old man, in a loud yet tremulous THE DISOWNED. $3 voice " No, not that, anything else, but I will defend that with my life." " Ben, my lad," said the ruffian, " twist the old fool's neck : we have no more time to lose." At that very moment the door was flung violently open, and Clarence Linden stood within three paces of the reprobates and their prey. The taller villain had a miniature in his hand, and the old man clung to his legs with a convulsive but impotent clasp: the other fellow had already his gripe upon Talbot's neck, and his right hand grasped a long case-knife. With a fierce and flashing eye, and a cheek deadly pale with internal and resolute excitement, Clarence confronted the robbers. " Thank Heaven," cried he, " I am not too late ! " And advancing yet another step toward the shorter ruffian, who struck mute with the suddenness of the apparition, still retained his grasp of the old man, he fired his pistol, with a steady and close aim ; the ball penetrated the wretch's brain, and without sound or sigh he fell down dead, at the very feet of his just destroyer. The remaining robber had alre-dy medi- tated, and a second more sufficed to accomplish his escape. He sprang towards the door : the ball whizzed beside him, but touched him not. With a safe and swift step, long inured to darkness, he fled along the passage ; and Linden, satisfied with the vengeance he had taken upon his comrade, did not harass him with an unavailing pursuit. Clarence turned to assist Talbot. The old man was stretched upon the floor insensible, but his hand grasped the miniature which the plunderer had dropped in his flight and tenor, and his white and ashen lip was pressed convulsively upon the recovered treasure. Linden raised and placed him on his bed, and while employed in attempting to revive him, the ancient domestic, alarmed by the report of the pistol, came, poker in hand, to his assistance. By little and little they recovered the object of their attention. His eyes rolled wildly round the room, and he muttered : "Off, off ! ye shall not rob me of my only relic of her where is it ? have you got it ? the picture, the picture ? " "It is here, sir, it is here," said the old servant, "it is in your own hand." Talbot's eye fell upon it ; he gazed at it for same moments, pressed it to his lips, and then, sitting erect, and looking wildly round, he seemed to awaken to the sense of his late danger and his present deliverance. 94 THE DISOWNED. CHAPTER XIX. * Ah, fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, Or the death they bear, The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove, With the wings of care ! In the battle in the darkness in the need, Shall mine cling to thee! Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, It may bring to thee ! " SHELLEY. LETTER FROM ALGERNON MORDAUNT TO ISABEL ST. LEGER. " You told me not to write to you. You know how long, but not how uselessly, Ihave obeyed you. Did you think, Isabel, that my love was of that worldly and common order which re- quires a perpetual aliment to support it ? Did you think that, if you forbade the stream to flow visibly, its sources would be exhausted, and its channels dried up? This may be the pas- sion of others ; it is not mine. Months have passed since we parted, and since then you have not seen me : this letter is the first token you have received from a remembrance which can- not die. But do you think that I have not watched, and tended upon you, and gladdened my eyes with gazing on your beauty, when you have not dreamed that I was by? Ah, Isa- bel, your heart should have told you of it mine would, had you been so near me ! " " You receive no letters from me, it is true think you that my hand and heart are therefore idle ? No. I write to you a thousand burning lines ; I pour out my soul to you : I tell you of all I suffer: my thoughts, my actions, my very dreams, are all traced upon paper. I send them not to you, but I read them over and over, and when I come to your name, I pause, and shut my eyes, and then ' Fancy has her power,' and lo ! ' you are by my side ! ' " Isabel, our love has not been a holiday and joyous senti- ment ; but I feel a solemn and unalterable conviction that our union is ordained. "Others have many objects to distract and occupy the thoughts which are once forbidden a single direction, but we have none. At least, to me you are everything. Pleasure, splendor, am'bition, all are merged into one great and eternal thought, and that is you ! "Others have told me, and I believed them, that I was hard, and cold, and stern so perhaps I was before I knew you, buv THE DISOWNED. 95 now I am weaker and softer than a child. There is a stone which is of all the hardest and the chillest, but when once set on fire it is unquenchable. You smile at my image, perhaps, and I should smile if I saw it in the writing of another ; for all that I have ridiculed in romance, as exaggerated, seems now to me too cool and too commonplace for reality. "But this is not what I meant to write to you ; you are ill, dearest and noblest Isabel, you are ill ! I am the cause, and you conceal it from me ; and you would rather pine away and die than suffer me to lose one of those worldly advantages which are in my eyes but as dust in the balance, it is in vain to deny it. I heard from others of your impaired health ; I have wit- nessed it myself. Do you remember last night when you were in the room with your relations, and they made you sing a song too which you used to sing to me, and when you came to the second stanza your voice failed you and you burst into tears, and they instead of soothing reproached and chid you, and you answered not, but wept on ? Isabel, do you remember that a sound was heard at the window and a groan ? Even they were startled, but they thought it was the wind, for the night was dark and stormy, and they saw not it was / yes, my devoted, my generous love, it was I who gazed upon you, and from whose heart that voice of anguish was wrung ; and I saw your cheek was pale and thin, and that the canker at the core had preyed upon the blossom. " Think you, after this, that I could keep silence or obey your request? No, dearest, no ! Is not my happiness your object? I have the vanity to believe so ; and am I not the best judge how that happiness is to be secured ? I tell you I say it calmly, coldly, dispassionately not from the imagination, not even from the heart, but solely from the reason that I can bear everything rather that the loss of you ; and that if the evil of my love scathe and destroy you, I shall consider and curse my- self as your murderer! Save me from this extreme of misery, my yes, my Isabel ! I shall be at the copse where we have so often met before, to-morrow at noon. You will meet me ; and if I cannot convince you, I will not ask you to be persuaded. "A. M." And Isabel read this letter, and placed it at her heart, and felt less miserable than she had done for months ; for, though she wept, there was sweetness in the tears which the assurance of his love, and the tenderness of his remonstrance, had called forth. She met him how could she refuse ? and the struggle 96 THE DISOWNED. was past. Though not "convinced " she was "persuaded"; for her heart, which refused his reasonings, melted at his re- proaches and his grief. But she would not consent to unite her fate with him at once, for the evils of that step to his interests were immediate and near; she was only persuaded to permit their correspondence and occasional meetings, in which, how- ever imprudent they might be for herself, the disadvantages to her lover were distant and remote. It was of him only that she thought : for him she trembled ; for him she was the coward and the woman : for herself she had no fears and no forethought. And Algernon was worthy of this devoted love, and returned it as it was given. Man's love, in general, is a selfish and ex- acting sentiment : it demands every sacrifice, and refuses all. But the nature of Mordaunt was essentially high and disinter- ested, and his honor, like his love, was not that of the world : it was the ethereal and spotless honor of a lofty and generous mind, the honor which custom can neither give nor take away; and, however impatiently he bore the deferring of an union, in which he deemed that he was the only sufferer, he would not have uttered a sigh or urged a prayer for that union, could it, in the minutest or remotest degree, have injured or degrad- ed her. These are the hearts and natures which make life beautiful : these are the shrines which sanctify love : these are the divi- ner spirits for whom there is kindred and commune with every- thing exalted and holy in heaven and earth. For them Nature unfolds her hoarded poetry, and her hidden spells : for their steps are the lonely mountains, and the still woods have a mur- mur for their ears : for them there is strange music in the wave, and in the whispers of the light leaves, and rapture in the voices of the birds : their souls drink, and are saturated with the mys- teries of the Universal Spirit, which the philosophy of old times believed to be God himself. They look upon the sky with a gifted vision, and its dove-like quiet descends and overshadows their hearts : the Moon and the Night are to them wells of Castalian inspiration and golden dreams ; and it was one of them, who, gazing upon the Evening Star, felt in the inmost sanctuary of his soul, its mysterious harmonies with his most worshipped hope, his most passionate desire, and dedicated it to LOVE. THE DISOWNED. 97 CHAPTER XX. Maria. Here's the brave old man's love, Bianca. That loves the young man. The Woman s Prize : or, the Tamer Tame protege, and eager for the suc- cess of one whose honors would reflect credit on himself. But there was one part of Clarence's account of the last night to which the philosopher paid a still deeper attention, and on which he was more minute in his advice ; what this was, I cannot, as yet, reveal to the Reader. The conversation then turned on light and general matters. The scandals, the literature, the politics, the on dits of the day; and lastly upon women ; thence Talbot dropped into his office of Mentor. " A celebrated cardinal said, very wisely, that few ever did anything among men until women were no longer an object to them. That is the reason, by the bye, why I never succeeded with the former, and why people seldom acquire any reputation except for a hat, or a horse, till they marry. Look round at the various occupations of life. How few bachelors are emi- nent in any of them ! So you see, Clarence, you will have my leave to marry Lady Flora as soon as you please." Clarence colored, and rose to depart. Talbot followed him to the door, and then said, in a careless way, " By the bye. I had almost forgotten to tell you that, as you have now many new expenses, you will find the yearly sum you have hitherto received doubled. To give you this information is the chief reason why I sent for you this morning. God bless you, my dear boy." And Talbot shut the door, despite his politeness, in the face and thanks of his adopted son. TttE DISOWNED. 145 CHAPTER XXXI. " There is a great difference between seeking to raise a laugh from every- thing, and seeking in everything what may justly be laughed at. " LORD SHAFFESBURY. BEHOLD our hero, now in the zenith of distinguished dissi- pations ! Courteous, attentive, and animated, the women did not esteem him the less for admiring them rather than himself ; while by the gravity of his demeanor to men the eloquent, yet unpretending flow of his conversation, whenever topics of intellectual interest were discussed the plain and solid sense which he threw into his remarks, and the avidity with which he courted the society of all distinguished for literary or political eminence, he was silently, but surely, establishing himself in esteem as well as popularity, and laying the certain foundation of future honor and success. Thus, although he had only been four months returned to England, he was already known and courted in every circle, and universally spoken of as among " the most rising young gentlemen " whom fortune and the administration had marked for their own. His history, during the four years in which we have lost sight of him, is briefly told. He soon won his way into the good graces of Lord Aspeden ; became his private secretary, and occasionally his confidant. Universally admired for his attraction of form and manner, and, though aiming at reputation, not averse to pleasure, he had that position which fashion confers at the Court of , when Lady Westborough and her beautiful daughter, then only seventeen, came to , in the progress of a continental tour, about a year before her return to England. Clarence and Lady Flora were naturally brought much together in the restricted circle of a small court, and intimacy soon ripened into attachment. Lord Aspeden being recalled, Clarence accompanied him to England ; and the ex-minister, really liking much one who was so useful to him, had faithfully promised to procure him the office and honor of secretary whenever his lordship should be reap- pointed Minister. Three intimate acquaintances had Clarence Linden. The one was the Honorable Henry Trollolop, the second Mr. Cally- thorpe, and the third Sir Christopher Findlater. We will sketch them to you in an instant. Mr. Trollolop was a short, I4& THE DISOWNED. stout gentleman, with a very thoughtful countenance. that Is to say, he wore spectacles, and took snuff. Mr. Trollolop we delight in pronouncing that soft, liquid name was eminently distinguished by a love of metaphysics metaphysics were in a great measure the order of the day ; but fate had endowed Mr. Trollolop with a singular and felicitous confusion of ideas. Reid, Berkeley, Cudworth, Hobbes, all lay jumbled together in most edifying chaos at the bottom of Mr. Trollolop's capacious mind ; and whenever he opened his mouth, the imprisoned enemies came rushing and scrambling out, overturning and contradicting each other, in a manner quite astonishing to the ignorant spectator. Mr. Callythorpe was meagre, thin, sharp, and yellow. Whether from having a great propensity for nail- ing stray acquaintances, or being particularly heavy company, or from any other cause better known to the wits of the period than to us, he was occasionally termed by his friends the " yellow-hammer." The peculiar characteristics of this gen- tleman were his sincerity and friendship. These qualities led him into saying things the most disagreeable, with the civilest and coolest manner in the world always prefacing them with, " You know, my dear so and so, / am your true friend." If this proof of amity was now and then productive of altercation, Mr. Callythorpe, who was a great patriot, had another and a nobler plea : " Sir," he wouid say, putting his hand to his heart " sir, I'm an Englishman I know not what it is to feign." Of a very different stamp was Sir Christopher Find- later. Little cared he for the subtleties of the human mind, and not much more more for the disagreeable duties of " an Englishman." Honest and jovial red in the cheeks empty in the head born to twelve thousand a year educated in the country, and heir to an earldom, Sir Christopher Findlater piqued himself, notwithstanding his worldly ad vantages, usually so destructive to the kindlier affections, on having the best heart in the world, and this good heart, having a very bad head to regulate and support it, was the perpetual cause of error to the owner and evil to the public. One evening, when Clarence was alone in his rooms, Mr. Trollolop entered. " My dear Linden," said the visitor, " how are you ? " "I am, as I hope you are, very well," answered Clarence. "The human mind," said Trollolop, taking off his great coat " Sir Christopher Findlater, and Mr. Callythorpe, sir," said the valet. THE DISOWNED. 147 " Pshaw ! What has Sir Christopher Findlater to do with the human mind ? " muttered Mr. Trollolop. Sir Christopher entered with a swagger and a laugh. "Well, old fellow, how do you do ? Deuced cold this evening." " Though it is an evening in May," observed Clarence ; "but then, this cursed climate." "Climate ! " interrupted Mr. Callythorpe, " it is the best cli- mate in the world : I'm an Englishman, and I never abuse my country. ' England, with all thy faults, I love thee still ! ' " " As to climate," said Trollolop, "there is no climate, neither here nor elsewhere : the climate is in your mind, the chair is in your mind, and the table too, though I dare say you are stu- pid enough to think the two latter are in the room ; the human mind, my dear Findlater " "Don't mind me, Trollolop," cried the baronet, "I can't bear your clever heads ; give me a good heart that's worth all the heads in the world, d n me if it is not ! Eh, Lin- den ! " " Your good heart," cried Trollolop, in a passion (for all your self-called philosophers are a little choleric) " your good heart is all cant and nonsense there is no heart at all we are all mind." " I'll be hanged if I'm all mind," said the baronet. "At least," quoth Linden gravely, "no one ever accused you. of it before." " We are all mind," pursued the reasoner ; " we are all mind, un mouhn a raisonnement. Our ideas are derived from two sources, sensation or memory. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, everybody will allow;* therefore, you see, the human mind is in short, there is nothing in the world but the human mind ! " " Nothing could be better demonstrated," said Clarence. " I don't believe it," quoth the baronet. "But you do believe it, .and you must believe it," cried Trollolop; "for 'the Supreme Being has implanted within us the principle of credulity.' and therefore you do believe it." "But I don't," cried Sir Christopher. " You are mistaken," replied the metaphysician calmly ; " because I must speak truth." " Why must you, pray ? " said the baronet. * Perkeley ; Sect. iii. " Principles of Human Knowledge." 148 THE DISOWNED. "Because," answered Trollolop, taking snuff, "there is a principle of veracity implanted in our nature." "I wish I were a metaphysician," said Clarence, with a sigh. " I am glad to hear you say so, for you know, my dear Lin- den," said Callythorpe, "that I am your true friend, and I must therefore tell you that you are shamefully ignorant. You are not offended ?" " Not at all ! " said Clarence, trying to smile. "And you, my dear Findlater" (turning to the baronet), " you know that I wish you well you know that I never flatter, I'm your real friend, so you must not be angry ; but you really are not considered a Solomon." " Mr. Callythorpe ! " exclaimed the baronet, in a rage (the best-hearted people can't always bear truth), " what do you mean ! " " You must not be angry, my good sir you must not, really. I can't help telling you of your faults, for I am a true Briton, sir, a true Briton, and leave lying to slaves and Frenchmen." "You are in an error," said Trollolop; "Frenchmen don't lie, at least not naturally, for in the human mind, as I before said, the Divine Author has implanted a principle of veracity which " " My dear sir," interrupted Callythorpe, very affectionately, "you remind me of what people say of you" " Memory may be reduced to sensation, since it is only a weaker sensation," quoth Trollolop ; but proceed." "You know, Trollolop," said Callythorpe, in a singularly endearing intonation of voice, " you know that I never flatter : flattery is unbecoming a true friend nay, more, it is unbecom- ing a native of our happy isles, and people do say of you that you know nothing whatsoever, no, not an iota, of all the nonsen- sical, worthless philosophy of which you are always talking. Lord St. George said the other day, that you were very con- ceited* ' No, not conceited,' replied Dr. , ' only ignorant,' so if I were you, Trollolop, I would cut metaphysics you're not offended?" "By no means," cried Trollolop, foaming at the mouth. "For my part," said the good-hearted Sir Christopher, whose wrath had now subsided, rubbing his hands "for my part, I see no good in any of those things : I never read never and I don't see how I'm a bit the worse for it. A good man, Lin- den, in my opinion, only wants to do his duty, and that is very easily done." " A good man ! and what is good ? " cried the metaphysi- THE DISOWNED. 149 cian triumphantly. "Is it implanted within us? Hobbes, according to Reid, who is our last, and consequently best, philosopher, endeavors to demonstrate that there is no differ- ence between right and wrong." "I have no idea of what you mean," cried Sir Christopher. " Idea ! " exclaimed the pious philosopher. " Sir, give me leave to tell you that no solid proof has ever been advanced of the existence of ideas; they are a mere fiction and hypothesis. Nay, sir, 'hence arises that skepticism which disgraces our phi- losophy of the mind.' Ideas ! Findlater, you are a skeptic and an idealist." "I?" cried the affrighted baronet ;" upon my honor I am no such a thing. Everybody knows that I am a Christian, and " "Ah ! " interrupted Callythorpe, with a solemn look, "every- body knows that you are not one of those horrid persons those atrocious deists, and atheists, and skeptics, from whom the church and freedom of old England have suffered such danger. I am a true Briton of the good old school ; and I con- fess, Mr. Trollolop, that I do not like to hear any opinions but the right ones." "Right ones being only those which Mr. Callythorpe pro- fesses," said Clarence. " Exactly so ! " rejoined Mr. Callythorpe. " The human mind," commenced Mr. Trollolop, stirring the fire ; when Clarence, who began to be somewhat tired of this conversation, rose. "You will excuse me," said he, " but I am particularly engaged, and it is time to dress. Harrison will get you tea, or whatever else you are inclined for." "The human mind," renewed Trollolop, not heeding the interruption ; and Clarence forthwith left the room. CHAPTER XXXII. "You blame Marciusfor being proud." Coriolanut. " Here is another fellow, a marvellous pretty hand at fashioning a compli- ment." The Tanner of Tyburn. THERE was a brilliant ball at Lady T 's, a personage who, every one knows, did, in the year 17 , give the best balls, and have the best-dressed people at them, in London. It was about half-past twelve, when Clarence, released from his three friends, prrived at the countess's. When he entered, the first thing 150 THE DISOWNED. which struck him was Lord Borodaile in close conversation with Lady Flora. Clarence paused for a few moments, and then, sauntering towards them, caught Flora's eye colored, and advanced. Now, if there was a haughty man in Europe, it was Lord Bor- odaile. He was not proud of his birth, nor fortune, but he was proud of himself ; and, next to that pride, he was proud of being a gentleman. He had an exceeding horror of all com- mon people ; a Claverhouse-sort of supreme contempt to " pud- dle blood "; his lip seemed to wear scorn as a garment ; a lofty and stern self-admiration, rather than self-love, sat upon his forehead as on a throne. He had, as it were, an awe of him- self ; his thoughts were so many mirrors of Viscount Borodaile, dressed en dieu. His mind was a little Versailles, in which self sate like Louis XIV., and saw nothing but pictures of its self, sometimes as Jupiter, and sometimes as Apollo. What marvel, then, that Lord Borodaile was a very unpleasant companion : for every human being he had " something of contempt." His eye was always eloquent in disdaining : to the plebeian it said, "You are not a gentleman"; to the prince, "You are not Lord Borodaile." Yet, with all this, he had his good points. He was brave as a lion ; strictly honorable ; and though very ignorant, and very self-sufficient, had that sort of dogged good sense which one very often finds in men of stern hearts, who, if they have many prejudices, have little feeling, to overcome. Very stiffly, and very haughtily, did Lord Borodaile draw up, when Clarence approached, and addressed Lady Flora ; much more stiffly, and much more haughtily, did he return, though with old-fashioned precision of courtesy, Clarence's bow, when Lady Westborough introduced them to each other. Not that this hauteur was intended as a particular affront ; it was only the agreeability of his lordship's general manner. "Are you engaged?" said Clarence to Flora. " I am, at present, to Lord Borodaile." "After him, may I hope?" Lady Flora nodded assent, and disappeared with Lord Boro- daile. His Royal Highness the Duke of cameup to Lady West- borough ; and Clarence, with a smiling countenance and an absent heart, plunged into the crowd. There he met Lord Aspeden, in conversation with the Earl of Holdenworth, one of the administration. "Ah, Linden!" said the diplomatist, "let me introduce you to Lord Holdenworth a clever young man, my dear lord, and plays the flute beautifully." With this eulogium, Lord Aspe- den glided away ; and Lord Holdenworth, after some conver- sation with Linden, honored him by an invitation to dinner the next day. CHAPTER XXXIII. * Tis true his nature may with faults abound ; But who will cavil when the heart is sound ? " STEPHEN MONTAGUE. " Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt." * HOR. THE next day Sir Christopher Findlater called on Clarence. "Let us lounge into the park," said he. " With pleasure," replied Clarence ; and into the park they lounged. By the way they met a crowd, who were hurrying a man to prison. The good-hearted Sir Christopher stopped : " Who is that poor fellow ? " said he. "It is the celebrated" (in England all criminals are cele- brated. Thurtell was a hero, Thistlewood a patriot, and Faunt- leroy was discovered to be exactly like Bonaparte!) " it is the celebrated robber, John Jefferies, who broke into Mrs. Wilson's house, and cut the throats of herself and her husband, wounded the maid-servant, and split the child's skull with the poker." Clarence pressed forward: "I have seen that man before," thought he. He looked again, and recognized the face of the robber who had escaped from Talbot's house, on the eventful night which had made Clarence's fortune. Jt was a strongly marked and rather handsome countenance, which would not be easily forgotten ; and a single circumstance of excitement will stamp features on the memory as deeply as the common- place intercourse of years. " John Jeffries!" exclaimed the baronet, " let uscomeaway.'' "Linden," continued Sir Christopher, "that fellow was my servant once. He robbed me to some considerable extent. I caught him. He appealed to my heart, and you know, my dear fellow, that was irresistible, so I let him off. Who could have thought he would have turned out so?" And the baronet pro- ceeded to to eulogize his own good nature, by which it is just necessary to remark that one miscreant had been saved for a few years from transportation, in order to rob and murder ad libi- * The foolish while avoiding vice run into the opposite extreme*. 152 THE DISOWNED. turn, and having fulfilled the office of a common pest, to suffer on the gallows at last. What a fine thing it is to have a good heart! Both our gentlemen now sunk into a reverie, from which they were awakened, at the entrance of the park, by a young man in rags, who, with a piteous tone, supplicated charity. Clarence, who, to his honor be it spoken, spent an allotted and considerable part of his income in judicious and laborious be- nevolence, had read a little of political morals, then beginning to be understood, and walked on. The good-hearted baronet put his hand in his pocket, and gave the beggar half a guinea, by which a young, strong man, who had only just commenced the trade, was confirmed in his imposition for the rest of his life ; and, instead of the useful support, became the pernicious incumbrance, of society. Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits. "What's like a good action?" said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast. The park was crowded to excess ; our loungers were joined by Lord St. George. His lordship was a staunch Tory. He could not endure Wilkes, liberty, or general education. He launched out against the enlightenment of domestics.* "What has made you so bitter ?" said Sir Christopher. " My valet," cried Lord St. George, "he has invented a new toasting fork, is going to take out a patent, make his fortune, and leave me ; that's what I call ingratitude, Sir Christopher; for I ordered his wages to be raised five pounds but last year." "It was very ungrateful," said the ironical Clarence. "Very !" reiterated the good-hearted Sir Christopher. " You cannot recommend me a valet, Findlater," renewed his lordship, "a good, honest, sensible fellow, who can neither read nor write ? " " N-o-o that is to say, yes ! I can ; my old servant Col- lard, is out of place, and is as ignorant as as " "I or you are ?" said Lord St. George, with a laugh. "Precisely," replied the baronet. " Well, then, I take your recommendation : send him to me to-morrow at twelve." " I will," said Sir Christopher. "My dear Findlater," cried Clarence, when Lord St. George * The ancestors of our present footmen, if we may believe Sir William Temple, seem tr> have been to the full as intellectual as their descendants. " I have had," observes the philo- sophic statesman, " several servants far gone in divinity, others in poetry ; have known in the families of some friends, a keeper deep in the Rosicrucian mysteries, and a laundress firm in those of Epicurus." DlSOWNEb. . j^ was gone, " did you not tell me, some time ago, that Collard was a great rascal, and very intimate with Jefferies? and now you recommend him to Lord St. George ! " "Hush, hush, hush !" said the baronet; "he was a great rogue to be sure ; but poor fellow, he came to me yesterday with tears in his eyes, and said he should starve if I would not give him a character ; so what could I do?" "At least, tell Lord St. George the truth," observed Clarence. " But then Lord St. George would not take him ! " rejoined the good-hearted Sir Christopher, with forcible naivete. " No, no, Linden, we must not be so hard-hearted ; we must forgive and forget " ; and so saying, the baronet threw out his chest, with the conscious exultation of a man who has uttered a noble sentiment. The moral of this little history is that Lord St. George, having been pillaged " through thick and thin," as the proverb has it, for two years, at last missed a gold watch, and Monsieur Collard finished his career as his exemplary tutor, Mr. John Jefferies, had done before him. Ah, what a fine thing it is to have a good heart ! But to return, just as our wanderers had arrived at the far- ther end of the park, Lady Westborough and her daughter passed them. Clarence, excusing himself to his friends, hastened towards them, and was soon occupied in saying the prettiest things in the world to the prettiest person, at least in his eyes; while Sir Christopher, having done as much mischief as a good heart well can do in a walk of an hour, returned home to write a long letter to his mother, against "learning, and all such non- sense, which only served to blunt the affections and harden the heart." "Admirable young man !" cried the mother, with tears in her eyes. "A good heart is better than all the heads in the world." Amen CHAPTER XXXIV. " Make way, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, or you will compel me to do that I may be sorry for ! " " You shall make no way here but at your peril," said Sir Geoffrey ; is my ground." Peveril of the Peak. ONE night on returning home from a party at Lady West- borough's in Hanover Square, Clarence observed a man before him walking with an uneven and agitated step. His right hand was clenched, and he frequently raised it as with a sudden im- pulse, and struck fiercely as if at some imagined enemy. 154 THE DISOWNED. The stranger slackened his pace. Clarence passed him, and, turning round to satisfy the idle curiosity which the man's ec- centric gestures had provoked, his eye met a dark, lowering, iron countenance, which, despite the lapse of four years, he rec- ognized on the moment it was Wolfe, the republican. Clarence moved, involuntarily, with a quicker step ; but in a few minutes, Wolfe, who was vehemently talking to himself, once more passed him : the direction he took was also Clar- ence's way homeward, and he therefore followed the republican, though at some slight distance, and on the opposite side of the way. A gentleman on foot, apparently returning from a party, met Wolfe, and, with an air half haughty, half unconscious, took the wall; though, according to old-fashioned rules of street courtesy, he was on the wrong side for asserting the claim. The stern republican started, drew himself up to his full height, and sturdily and doggedly placed himself directly in the way of the unjust claimant. Clarence was now nearly opposite to the two, and saw all that was going on. With a motion, a little rude- and very contemptuous, the pass- enger attempted to put Wolfe aside, and win his path. Little did he know of the unyielding nature he had to do with ; the next instant the republican, with a strong hand, forced him from the pavement into the very kennel, and silently and cold- ly continued his way. The wrath of the discomfited passenger was vehemently kindled. " Insolent dog ! " cried he, in a loud and arrogant tone, " your baseness is your protection." Wolfe turned rapidly, and made but two strides before he was once more by the side of his de- feated opponent. "What did you say?" he asked, in his low, deep, hoarse voice. Clarence stopped. " There will be mischief done here," thought he, as he called to mind the stern temper of the repub- lican. " Merely," said the other, struggling with his rage, " that it is not for men of my rank to avenge the insults offered us by those of yours ! " "Your rank," said Wolfe, bitterly retorting the contempt of the stranger, in a tone of the loftiest disdain ; "your rank, poor changeling ! And what are you that you should lord it over me ? Are your limbs stronger? your muscles firmer? your pro- portions juster? your mind acuter? your conscience clearer ? Fool fool go home, and measure yourself with lackeys ! " ItiE DISOWNED. .155 The republican ceased, and pushing the stranger aside, turned slowly away. But this last insult enraged the passenger beyond all prudence. Before Wolfe had proceeded two paces, he muttered a desperate but brief oath, and struck the reformer with a strength so much beyond what his figure (which was small and slight) appeared to possess, that the powerful and gaunt frame of Wolfe recoiled backward several steps, and, had it not been for the iron railing of the neighboring area, would have fallen to the ground. Clarence pressed forward ; the face of the rash aggressor was turned towards him ; the features were Lord Borodaile's. He had scarcely time to make this discovery, before Wolfe had recovered himself. With a wild and savage cry, rather than exclamation, he threw himself upon his antagonist, twined his sinewy arms around the frame of the struggling, but powerless, nobleman, raised him in the air, with the easy strength of a man lifting a child, held him aloft for one moment, with a bitter and scornful laugh of wrathful derision, and then dashed him to the ground, and, planting his foot upon Borodaile's breast said : " So shall it be with all of you : there shall be but one in- stant between your last offence and your first but final debase- ment. Lie there ! it is your proper place ! By the only law which you yourself acknowledge, the law which gives the right divine to the strongest ; if you stir limb or muscle, I will crush the breath from your body." But Clarence was now by the side of Wolfe, a new and more powerful opponent. " Look you," said he : " you have received an insult, and you have done justice yourself. I condemn the offence, and quarrel not with you for the punishment ; but that punishment is now past : remove your foot, or " "What?" shouted Wolfe fiercely, his lurid and vindictive eye flashing with the released fire of long-pent and cherished passions. "Or," answered Clarence calmly, " I will hinder you from committing murder." At that instant the watchman's voice was heard, and the night's guardian himself was seen hastening from the far end of the street towards the place of contest. Whether this cir- cumstance, or Clarence's answer, somewhat changed the current of the republican's thoughts, or whether his anger, suddenly raised, was now as suddenly subsiding, it is not easy to decide ; but he slowly and deliberately moved his foot from the breast 156 THE DISOWNED. of his baffled foe, and, bending down, seemed endeavoring to as- certain the mischief he had done. Lord Borodaile was perfectly insensible. " You have killed him ! " cried Clarence, in a voice of horror, "but you shall not escape" ; and he placed a desperate and nervous hand on the republican. "Stand off," said Wolfe, "my blood is up ! I would not do more violence to-night than I have done. Stand off ! the man moves ; see ! " And Lord Borodaile, uttering a long sigh, and attempting to rise, Clarence released his hold of the republican, and bent down to assist the fallen nobleman. Meanwhile, Wolfe, mut- tering to himself, turned from the spot, and strode haughtily away. The watchman now came up, and, with his aid, Clarence raised Lord Borodaile. Bruised, stunned, half insensible as he was, that personage lost none of his characteristic stateliness ; he shook off the watchman's arm, as if there was contamination in the touch ; and his countenance, still menacing and defying in its expression, turned abruptly towards Clarence, as if he yet expected to meet, and struggle with, a foe. " How are you, my lord ? " said Linden ; " not severely hurt, I trust ? " " Well, quite well," cried Borodaile. " Mr. Linden, I think? I thank you cordially for your assistance; but the dog the rascal where is he ? " " Gone," said Clarence. "Gone! Where where?" cried Borodaile; "that living man should insult me, and yet escape ! " " Which way did the fellow go ? " said the watchman, antici- pative of half-a-crown. " I will run after him in a trice, your honor / warrant I nab him." " No no " said Borodaile haughtily ; " I leave my quar- rels to no man ; if I could not master him myself, no one else shall do it for me. Mr. Linden, excuse me, but I am perfectly recovered, and can walk very well without your polite assis- tance. Mr. Watchman, I am obliged to you : there is a guinea to reward your trouble." With these words, intended as a farewell, the proud patrician, smothering his pain, bowed with extreme courtesy to Clar- ence again thanked him, and walked on unaided, and alone. " He is a game blood," said the watchman, pocketing the guinea. " He is worthy his name," thought Clarence ; " though he was in the wrong, my heart yearns to him." THE DISOWNED. '157 CHAPTER XXXV. *' Things wear a vizard which I think to like not." Tanner of Tyburn, CLARENCE, from that night, appeared to have formed a sud- den attachment to Lord Borodaile. He took every oppor- tunity of cultivating his intimacy, and invariably treated him with a degree of consideration which his knowledge of the world told him was well calculated to gain the good will of his haughty and arrogant acquaintance ; but all this was ineffectual in conquering Borodaile's coldness and reserve. To have been once seen in a humiliating and degrading situation is quite sufficient to make a proud man hate the spectator, and, with the confusion of all prejudiced minds, to transfer the sore remembrance of the event to the association of the witness. Lord Borodaile, though always ceremoniously civil, was im- movably distant ; and avoided, as well as he was able, Clar- ence's insinuating approaches and address. To add to his indisposition to increase his acquaintance with Linden, a friend of his, a captain in the Guards, once asked him who that Mr. Linden was ? and, on his lordship's replying that he did not know, Mr. Percy Bobus, the son of a wine-merchant, though the nephew of a duke, rejoined, " Nobody does know." "Insolent intruder!" thought Lord Borodaile: " A man whom nobody knows to make such advances to me /" A still greater cause of dislike to Clarence arose from jealousy. Ever since the first night of his acquaintance with Lady Flora, Lord Borodaile had paid her unceasing attention. In good earnest, he was greatly struck by her beauty, and had for the last year meditated the necessity of presenting the world with a Lady Borodaile. Now, though his lordship did look upon himself in as favorable alight as a man well can do, yet he could not but own that Clarence was very handsome had a devilish gentlemanlike air talked with a better grace than the generality of young men, and danced to perfection, detest that fellow ! " said Lord Borodaile, involuntarily and aloud, as these unwilling truths forced themselves upon his mind. "Whom do you detest?" asked Mr. Percy Bobus, who was lying on the sofa in Lord Borodaile's drawing-room, and ad- miring a pair of red-heeled shoes which decorated his feet. "That puppy, Linden !" said Lord Borodaile, adjusting his cravat. "He is a deuced puppy, certainly !" rejoined Mr. Percy I5& THE DISOWNED. Bobus, turning round to contemplate more exactly the shap6 of his right shoe. " I can't bear conceit, Borodaile." " Nor I I abhor it it is so d d disgusting ! " replied Lord Borodaile, leaning his chin upon his two hands, and look- ing fully into the glass. " Do you use MacNeile's divine pomatum ? " " No, it's too hard ; I get mine from Paris : shall I send you some?" " Do," said Lord Borodaile. " Mr. Linden, my lord," said the servant, throwing open the door ; and Clarence entered. " I am very fortunate," said he, with that smile which so few ever resisted, "to find you at home, Lord Borodaile; but as the day was wet, I thought I should have some chance of that pleasure ; I therefore wrapped myself up in my roquelaure, and here I am ! " Now, nothing could be more diplomatic than the compli- ment of choosing a wet day for a visit, and exposing one's self to "the pitiless shower," for the greater probability of finding the person visited at home. Not so thought Lord Borodaile ; he drew himself up, bowed very solemnly, and said with cold gravity : " You are very obliging, Mr. Linden." Clarence colored, and bit his lip as he seated himself. Mr. Percy Bobus, with true insular breeding, took up the newspaper. " I think I saw you at Lady C.'s last night," said Clarence ; "did you stay there long?" " No, indeed," answered Borodaile ; " I hate her parties." " One does meet such odd people there," observed Mr. Percy Bobus ; "creatures one never sees anywhere else." "I hear," said Clarence, who never abused any one, even the givers of stupid parties, if he could help it, and therefore thought it best to change the conversation "I hear, Lord Borodatle, that some hunters of yours are to be sold. I pur- pose being a bidder for Thunderbolt." "I have a horse to sell you, Mr. Linden," cried Mr. Percy Bobus, springing from the sofa into civility; "a superb creature." "Thank you," said Clarence, laughing; "but I can only afford to buy one, and I have taken a great fancy to Thunder- bolt." Lord Borodaile, whose manners were very antiquated in their affability, bowed. Mr. Bobus sank back into his sofa, and resumed the paper. THE DISOWNED. 159 A pause ensued. Clarence was chilled in spite of himself. Lord Borodaile played with a paper-cutter. "Have you been to Lady Westborough's lately?" said Clar- ence, breaking silence. " I was there last night," replied Lord Borodaile. "Indeed!" cried Clarence. "I wonder I did not see you there, for I dined with them." Lord Borodaile's hair curled itself. "He dined there, and I only asked in the evening," thought he ; but his sarcastic temper suggested a very different reply "Ah," said he, elevating his eyebrows, "Lady Westborough told me she had had some people to dinner, whom she had been obliged to ask. Bobus, is that the 'Public Advertiser'? See whether that d d fellow Junius has been writing any more of his venomous letters." Clarence was not a man apt to take offence, but he felt his bile rise. "It will not do to show it," thought he ; so he made some further remark in a jesting vein ; and, after a very ill- sustained conversation of some minutes longer, rose, appar- ently in the best humor possible, and departed, with a solemn intention never again to enter the house. Thence he went to Lady Westborough's. The marchioness was in her boudoir ; Clarence was, as usual, admitted, for Lady Westborough loved amusement above all things in the world, and Clarence had the art of affording it better than any young man of her acquaintance. On entering, he saw Lady Flora hastily retreating through an opposite door. She turned her face towards him for one mo- ment that moment was sufficient to freeze his blood : the large tears were rolling down her cheeks, which were as white as death, and the expression of those features, usually so laughing and joyous, was that t>f utter and ineffable despair. Lady Westborough was as lively, as bland, and as agreeable as ever ; but Clarence thought he detected something re- strained and embarrassed lurking beneath all the graces of her exterior manner ; and the single glance he had caught of the pale and altered face of Lady Flora was not calculated to re- assure his mind or animate his spirits. His visit was short ; when he left the room, he lingered for a few moments in the ante-charnber, in the hope of again seeing Lady Flora. While thus loitering, his ear caught the sound of Lady Westborough's voice : " When Mr. Linden calls again, you have my orders never to admit him into this room ; he will be shown into the drawing-room," I60 THE DISOWNED. With a hasty step and a burning cheek Clarence quitted the house, and hurried, first to his solitary apartments, and thence, impatient of loneliness, to the peaceful retreat of his bene- factor. CHAPTER XXXVI. " A maiden's thoughts do check my trembling hand." DRAYTON. THERE is something very delightful in turning from the unquietness and agitation, the fever, the ambition, the harsh and worldly realities of man's character to the gentle and deep recesses of woman's more secret heart. Within her musings is a realm of haunted and fairy thought, to which the things of this turbid and troubled life have no entrance. What to her are the changes of state, the rivalries and contentions which form the staple of our existence ? For her there is an intense and fond philosophy, before whose eye substances flit and fade like shadows, and shadows grow glowingly into truth. Her soul's creations are not as the moving and mortal images seen in the common day ; they are things, like spirits steeped in the dim moonlight, heard when all else are still, and busy when earth's laborers are at rest ! They are " Such stuff As dreams are made of, and their little life Is rounded by a sleep." Hers is the real and uncentred poetry of being, which pervades and surrounds her as with an air, which peoples her visions and animates her love, which shrinks from earth into itself, and finds marvel and meditation in all that it beholds within, and which spreads even over the heaven in whose faith she so ardently believes, the mystery and the tenderness of romance. LETTER I. FROM LADY FLORA ARDENNE TO MISS ELEANOR TREVANION. " You say that I have not written to you so punctually of late as I used to do before I came to London, and you impute my negligence to the gaieties and pleasures by which I am sur- rounded. Eh bien ! my dear Eleanor, could you have thought of a better excuse for me ? You know how fond we ay, dearest, you as well as I used to be of dancing, and how earnestly we were wont to anticipate those children's balls at my uncle's, which were the only ones we were ever permitted THE DISOWNED. j6i to attend. I found a stick the other day, on which I had cut seven notches, significant of seven days more to the next ball we reckoned time by balls then, and danced chronologically. Well, my dear Eleanor, here I am now, brought out, tolerably well-behaved, only not dignified enough, according to mamma as fond of laughing, talking, and dancing as ever; and yet, dc you know, a ball, though still very delightful, is far from being the most important event in creation ; its anticipation does not keep me awake of a night ; and, what is more to the purpose, its recollection does not make me lock up my writing-desk, burn my portefeuille, and forget you, all of which you seem to imagine it has been able to effect. "No, dearest Eleanor, you are mistaken ; for were she twice as giddy, and ten times as volatile as she is, your own Flora could never, never forget you, nor the happy hours we have spent together, nor the pretty goldfinches we had in common, nor the little Scotch duets we used to sing together, nor our longings to change them into Italian, nor our disappointment when we did so, nor our laughter at Signior Shrikalini, nor our tears when poor darling Bijou died. And do you remember, dearest, the charming green lawn where we used to play to- gether, and plan tricks for your governess? She was very, very cross ; though, I think, we were a little to blame, too. How- ever, I was much the worst ! And pray, Eleanor, don't you remember how we used to like being called pretty, and told of the conquests we should make! Do you like all that now ? For my part, I am tired of it, at least from the generality of one's flatterers. " Ah ! Eleanor, or ' heigho ! ' as the young ladies in novels write, do you remember how jealous I was of you at , and how spiteful I was, and how you were an angel, and bore with me, and kissed me, and told me that that I had nothing to fear ? Well, Clar , I mean Mr. Linden, is now in town, and so popular, and so admired ! I wish we were at again, for there we saw him every day, and now we don't meet more than three times a week : and though I like hearing him praised above all things, yet I feel very uncomfortable when that praise comes from very, very pretty women. 1 wish we were at again ! Mamma, who is looking more beautiful than ever, is very kind ! she says nothing, to be sure, but she must see how that is to say she must know that that I I mean that Clarence is very attentive to me, and that I blush and look ex- ceedingly silly whenever he is ; and therefore I suppose that whenever Clarence thinks fit to ask me, I shall not be und 162 THE DISOWNED. the necessity of getting up at six o'clock, and travelling to Gretna Green, through that odious North-road, up the High- gate-hill, and over Finchley-common. "'But when will he ask you ?' My dearest Eleanor, that is more than I can say. To tell you the truth, there is something about Linden which I cannot thoroughly understand. They say he is a nephew and heir to the Mr. Talbot whom you may have heard papa talk of ; but if so, why the hints, the insinuations, of not being what he seems, which Clarence perpetually throws out, and which only excite my interest without gratifying my curiosity? 'It is not,' he has said, more than once, 'as an obscure adventurer that I will claim your love': and if I venture, which is very seldom (for I am a little afraid of him), to question his meaning, he either sinks into utter silence, for which, if I had loved according to book, and not so naturally, I should be very angry with him, or twist his words into another signification, such as that he would not claim me till he had become something higher and nobler than he is now. Alas, my dear Eleanor, it takes a long time to make an ambassador out of an attach^. " See now if you reproached me justly with scanty corre- spondences. If I write a line more, I must begin a new sheet, and that will be beyond the power of a frank a thing which would, I know, break the heart of your dear, good, generous, but a little too prudent aunt, and irrevocably ruin me in her esteem. So God bless you, dearest Eleanor, and believe me most affectionately yours, FLORA ARDENNE." LETTER II. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. "Pray, dearest Eleanor, does that good aunt of yours now, don't frown, I am not going to speak disrespectfully of her ever take a liking to young gentlemen whom you detest, and insist upon the fallacy of your opinion, and the unerring rec- titude of hers? If so, you can pity and comprehend my grief. Mamma has formed quite an attachment to a very disagreeable person ! He is Lord Borodaile, the eldest, and, I believe, the only son of Lord Ulswater. Perhaps you may have met him abroad, for he has been a great traveller ; his family is among the most ancient in England, and his father's estate covers half a county. All this mamma tells me, with the most earnest air in the world, whenever I declaim upon his impertinence or disagreeability (is there such a word ? there ought to be). THE DISOWNED. l6: \J 'Weil,' said I to-day, 'what's that to me ?' ' It may be a great deal to you,' replied mamma significantly, and the blood rushed from my face to my heart. She could not, Eleanor, she could not mean, after all her kindness to Clarence, and in spite of all her penetration into my heart oh, no, no she could not. Ho\v terribly suspicious this love makes one ! "But if 1 disliked Lord Borodaile at first, I have hated -him of late ; for, somehow or other, he is always in the way. If I see Clarence hastening through the crowd to ask me to dance, at that very instant up steps Lord Borodaile with his cold, changeless face, and his haughty, old-fashioned bow, and his abominable dark complexion and mamma smiles and he hopes he finds me disengaged and I am hurried off and poor Clarence looks so disappointed and so wretched ! You have no idea how ill-tempered this makes me. I could not help asking Lord Borodaile, yesterday, if he was never going abroad again, and the hateful creature played with his cravat, and answered 'Never ! ' I was in hopes that my sullenness would drive his lordship away ; tout au contraire, ' Nothing,' said he to me the other day, when he was in full pout, ' Nothing is so plebeian as good-humor ! ' " I wish, then, Eleanor, that he could see your governess; she must be majesty in his eyes ! " " Ah, dearest, how we belie ourselves. At this moment, when you might think, from the idle, rattling, silly flow of my letter, that my heart was as light and as free as when we used to play on the green lawn, and under the sunny trees, in the merry days of our childhood, the tears are running down my cheeks ; see where they have fallen on the page, and my head throbs as if my thoughts were too dull and heavy for it to con- tain. It is past one ! I am alone, and in my own room. Mamma is gone to a rout at H House ; but I knew I should not meet Clarence there, and so said I was ill, and re- mained at home. I have done so often of late, whenever I have learned from him that he was not going to the same place as mamma. Indeed, I love much better to sit alone and think over his words and looks : and I have drawn, after repeated attempts, a profile likeness of him ; and oh, Eleanor, I cannot tell you how dear it is to me ; and yet there is not a line, not a look of his countenance which I have not learned by heart, without such useless aids to my memory. But I am ashamed of telling you all this, and my eyes ache so, that I can write no more. " Ever, as ever, dearest Eleanor, your affectionate friend." 164 THE DISOWNED. LETTER III. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. " Eleanor, I am undone ! My mother has been so cruel ; but she cannot, she cannot intend it, or she knows very little of my heart. With some, ties may be as easily broken as formed ; with others they are twined around life itself. " Clarence dined with us yesterday and was unusually ani- mated and agreeable. He was engaged on business with Lord Aspeden afterwards, and left us early. We had a few people in the evening ; Lord Borodaile among the rest ; and my mother spoke of Clarence, and his relationship to, and expecta- tions from, Mr. Talbot. Lord Borodaile sneered: 'You are mis- taken,' said he, sarcastically ; ' Mr. Linden may feel it conven- ient to give out that he is related to so old a family as the Tal- bots ; and since Heaven only knows who or what he is, he may as well claim alliance with one person as another ; but he is certainly not the nephew of Mr. Talbot of Searsdale Park, for that gentleman had no sisters and but one brother, who left an only daughter; that daughter had also but one child, cer- tainly no relation to Mr. Linden. I can vouch for the truth of this statement ; for the Talbots are related to, or at least nearly connected with, myself ; and I thank Heaven that I have a pedigree, even in its collateral branches,worth learning by heart.' And then Lord Borodaile I little though, when I railed against him, what serious cause I should have to hate him turned to me, and harassed me with his tedious atten- tions the whole of the evening. " This morning mamma sent for me into her boudoir. ' I have observed,' said she, with the greatest indifference, ' that Mr. Linden has, of late, been much too particular in manner towards you your foolish and undue familiarity with every one has perhaps given him encouragement. ' After the gross imposition which Lord Borodaile exposed to us last night, I cannot but consider the young man as a mere adventurer, and must not only insist upon your total termination to civilities which we must henceforth consider presumption, but I myself shall consider it incumbent upon me greatly to limit the ad- vances he has thought proper to make towards my acquaint- ance.' " You may guess how thunderstruck I was by this speech. I could not answer ; my tongue literally clove to my mouth, and I was only relieved by a sudden and violent burst of tears. Mamma looked exceedingly displeased, and was just going to THE DISOWNED. 165 Speak, when the servant threw open the door and announced Mr. Linden. I rose hastily, and had only just time to escape, as he entered ; but when 1 heard that dear, dear voice, I could not resist turning for one moment. He saw me and was struck mute, for the agony of my soul was stamped visibly on my countenance. That moment was over with a violent effort I tore myself away. " Eleanor, I can write no more. God bless you ! and me too for I am very, very unhappy. F. A." CHAPTER XXXVII. "What a charming character is a kind old man." STEPHEN MON- TAGUE. " CHEER up, my dear boy," said Talbot kindly, " we must never despair. What though Lady Westborough has forbidden you the boudoir, a boudoir is a very different thing from a daughter, and you have no right to suppose that the veto ex- tends to both. But now that we are on this subject, do let me reason with you seriously. Have you not already tasted all the pleasures, and been sufficiently annoyed by some of the pains, of acting the 'Incognito'? Be ruled by me ; resume your proper name ; it is at least one which the proudest might acknowledge ; and its discovery will remove the greatest obsta- cle to the success you so ardently desire." Clarence, who was laboring under strong excitement, paused for some moments, as if to collect himself, before he replied : " I have been thrust from my father's home I have been made the victim of another's crime I have been denied the rights and name of son ; perhaps (and I say this bitterly) justly denied them, despite my own innocence. What would you have me do ? Resume a name never conceded to me perhaps not righteously mine thrust myself upon the unwill- ing and shrinking hands which disowned and rejected me blazon my virtues by pretensions which I myself have prom- ised to forego, and foist myself on the notice of strangers by the very claims which my nearest relations dispute ? Never never never ! With the simple name I have assumed the friend I myself have won you, my generous benefactor, my real father, who never forsook, nor insulted, me for my mis- fortunes with these, I have gained some steps in the ladder ; with these, and those gifts of nature, a stout heart and a will* j66 THE DISOWNED. ing hand, of which none can rob me, I will either ascend the rest, even to the summit, or fall to the dust, unknown, but no/ contemned ; unlamented, but not despised." " Well, well," said Talbot, brushing away a tear which he could not deny to the feeling, even while he disputed the judg- ment, of the young adventurer "well, this is all very fine and very foolish ; but you shall never want friend or father while - ; I live, or when I have ceased to live ; but come sit down, ' share my dinner, which is not very good, and my dessert, which is : help me to entertain two or three guests who are coming to me in the evening, to talk on literature, sup, and sleep ; and to-morrow you shall return home, and see Lady Flora in the drawing-room, if you cannot in the boudoir." And Clarence was easily persuaded to accept the invitation. Talbot was not one of those men who are forced to exert themselves to be entertaining. He had the pleasant and easy way of imparting his great general and curious information, that a man, partly humorist, partly philosopher, who values himself on being a man of letters, and is in spite of himself a man of the world, always ought to possess. Clarence was soon beguiled from the remembrance of his mortifications, and, by little and little, entirely yielded to the airy and happy flow of Talbot's conversation. In the evening three or four men of literary eminence (as many as Talbot's small Tusculum would accommodate with beds) arrived, and in a conversation, free alike from the jargon of pedants and the insipidities of fashion, the night fled away swiftly and happily, even to the lover. CHAPTER XXXVIII. l! We are here (in the country) among the vast and noble scenes of nature ; \ve are there (in the town) among the pitiful shifts of policy. We walk here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinths of human malice ; our senses arc here feasted with all the clear and genuine taste of their objects, wh.ch are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries : here pleasure, methinks, looks like a beautiful, cr>ns'ait, a;;d modest wife : it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted harlot." Cowi.EY. DRAW up the curtain ! The scene is the Opera. The pit is crowded ; the connoisseurs in the front row are in a very ill-humor. It must be confessed that extreme heat is a little trying to the temper of a critic. The Opera then was not what it is now, nor even what it had THE DISOWNED. 167 been in a former time. It is somewhat amusing to find Gold- smith questioning, in one of his essays, whether the Opera could ever become popular in England ? But on the night on which the reader is summoned to that " theatre of sweet sounds," a celebrated singer from the continent made his first appearance in London, and all the world thronged to "that odious Opera-house," to hear or to say they had heard the famous Sopranicllo. With a nervous step, Clarence proceeded to Lady West- borough's box ; and it was many minutes that he lingered by the door before he summoned courage to obtain ad- mission. He entered ; the box was crowded ; but Lady Flora was not there. Lord Borodaile was sitting next to Lady Westborough. As Clarence entered, Lord Borodaile raised his eyebrows, and Lady Westborough her glass. However disposed a great person may be to drop a lesser one, no one of real birth or breeding ever cuts another. Lady Westborough, therefore, though much colder, was no less civil than usual ; and Lord Borodaile bowed lower than ever to Mr. Linden, as he punctil- iously called him. But Clarence's quick eye discovered instantly that he was no welcome intruder, and that his day with the beautiful marchioness was over. His visit, conse- quently, was short and embarrassed. When he left the box, he heard Lord Borodaile's short, slow, sneering laugh, followed by Lady Westborough's " hush" of reproof. His blood boiled. He hurried along the passage, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, and his hand clenched. "What ho ! Linden, my good fellow ; why, you look as if all the ferocity of the great Figg were in your veins," cried a good-humored voice. Clarence started, and saw the young and high-spirited Duke of Haverfield. "Are you going behind the scenes? "said his grace. "I have just come thence ; and you had much better drop into La Meronville's box with me. You sup with her to-night, do you not ?" "No, indeed!" replied Clarence ; "I scarcely know her, except by sight." " Well, and what think you of her? " " That she is the prettiest Frenchwoman I ever saw." "Commend me to secret sympathies! " cried the duke. " She has asked me three times who you were, and told me three times that you were the handsomest man in London, and had quite a foreign air ; the latter recommendation bein^ of course l68 THE DISOWNED. far greater than the former. So, after this, you cannot refuse to accompany me to her box, and make her acquaintance." "Nay," answered Clarence, " I shall be too happy to profit by the taste of so discerning a person: but it is cruel in you, duke, not to feign a little jealousy a little reluctance to intro- duce so formidable a rival." "Oh, as to me," said the duke, " I only like her for her men- tal, not her personal attractions. She is very agreeable, and a little witty ; sufficient attractions for one in her situation." ' But do tell me a little of her history," said Clarence ; "for. in spite of her renown, I only know her as La Belle Meronville. Is she not living en ami with some one of our acquaintance?" " To be sure," replied the duke, " with Lord Borodaile. She is prodigiously extravagant ; and Borodaile affects to be pro- digiously fond ; but as there is only a certain fund of affection in the human heart, and all in Lord Borodaile's is centered in Lord Borodaile, that cannot really be the case." " Is he jealous of her ? " said Clarence. "Not in the least! nor, indeed, does she give him any cause. She is very gay, very talkative, gives excellent suppers, and always has her box at the Opera crowded with admirers ; but that is all. She encourages many, and favors but one. Happy Boro- daile ! My lot is less fortunate ! You know, I suppose, that Julia has deserted me ? " " You astonish me and for what ? " "Oh, she told me, with a vehement burst of tears, that she was convinced I did not love her, and that a hundred pounds a month was not sufficient to maintain a milliner's apprentice. I answered the first assertion by an assurance that I adored her ; but I preserved a total silence with regard to the latter: and so I found Trevanion tete-b-tete with her the next day." " What did you ? " said Clarence. " Sent my valet to Trevanion with an old coat of mine, my compliments, and my hopes that, as Mr. Trevanion was so fond of my cast-off conveniences, he would honor me by accepting the accompanying trifle." " He challanged you, without doubt ? " " Challenged me ! No : he tells all his friends that I am the wittiest man in Europe." " A fool can speak the truth, you see," said Clarence, laughing. "Thank you, Linden; you shall have my good word with La Meronville for that ; mats allons" Mademoiselle de la Meronville, as she pointedly entitled her- self, was one of those charming adventuresses, who, making the THE DISOWNED. 169 most of a good education and a prepossessing person, a delicate turn for letter-writing, and a lively vein of conversation, come to England for a year or two, as Spaniards were wont to go to Mexico, and who return to their native country with a pro* found contempt for the barbarians whom they have so egre- giously despoiled. Mademoiselle de la Meronville was small, beautifully formed, had the prettiest hands and feet in the world, and laughed musically. By-the-by, how difficult it is to laugh, or even to smile, at once, naturally and gracefully. It is one of Steele's finest touches of character, where he says of Will Honeycomb, " He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily." In a word, the pretty Frenchwoman was precisely formed to turn the head of a man like Lord Borodaile, who loved to be courted and who required to be amused. Mademoiselle de la Meronville received Clarence with a great deal of grace, and a little reserve, the first chiefly natural, the last wholly artificial. "Well," said the duke (in French), " you have not told me who are to be of your party this evening Borodaile, I suppose, of course ? " " No, he cannot come to-night." " Ah, quel malheur! then the hock will not be iced enough Borodaile's looks are the best wine-coolers in the world." " Fie ! " cried La Meronville, glancing towards Clarence : "I cannot endure your malevolence ; wit makes you very bitter." "And that is exactly the reason why la belle Meronville loves me so: nothing is so sweet to one person as bitterness upon another ; it is human nature and French nature (which is a very different thing) into the bargain." " Bah! my lord duke, you judge of others by yourself." "To be sure I do," cried the duke ; "and that is the best way of forming a right judgment. Ah ! what a foot that little figurante has you don't admire her, Linden ?" " No, duke ; my admiration is like the bird in the cage- chained here, and cannot fly away ! " answered Clarence, with a smile at the frippery of his compliment. "Ah, Monsieur," cried the pretty Frenchwoman, leaning back, " you have been at Paris, I see one does not learn those graces of language in England. I have been five months in your country brought over the prettiest dresses imaginable, and have only received three compliments, and (pity me!) two out of the three were upon my pronunciation of ' How do you do ? " " Well," said Clarence, " I should have imagined that in Eng- land, above all other countries, your vanity would have been 170 THE DISOWNED. gratified, for you know we pique ourselves On our sincerity, and say all we think." " Yes! then you always think very unpleasantly ; what an al- ternative ! which is the best, to speak ill, or to think ill of one ?" "Pour r amour de Dieu!" cried 4 the duke, ''don't ask such puzzling questions ; you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which I suppose you learn from Borodaile. He is a wonderful metaphysician, I hear I can answer for his chem- ical powers ; the moment he enters a room the very walls grow damp : as for me, I dissolve ; I should flow into a foun- tain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze one again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw." " Fi done!" cried La Meronville. " I should be very angry, had you not taught me to be very indifferent " " To him ! " said the duke drily. " I am glad to hear it. He is not worth une grande passion, believe me but tell me, ma belle, who else sups with you ? " " D'abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust," answered Meronville, with a look of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent, "Milord D , and Mons. Trevanion, Mademoi- selle Caumartin, and Le Prince Pietro del Ordino." " Nothing can be better arranged," said the duke. " But see, they are just going to drop the curtain. Let me call your car- riage." "You are too good, milord," replied La Meronville, with a bow, which said, "of course"; and the duke, who would not have stirred three paces for the first princess of the blood, hur- ried out of the box (despite of Clarence's offer to undertake the commission) to inquire after the carriage of the most no- torious adventuress of the day. Clarence was alone in the box with the beautiful French- woman. To say truth, Linden was far too much in love with Lady Flora, and too occupied, as to his other thoughts, with the projects of ambition to be easily led into any disreputable or criminal liaison j he therefore conversed with his usual ease, though with rather more than his usual gallantry, without feeling the least touched by the charms of La Meronville, or the least desirous of supplanting Lord Borodaile in her favor. The duke reappeared, and announced the carriage. As, with La Meronville leaning on his arm, Clarence hurried out, he ac- cidentally looked up, and saw on the head of the stairs Lady Westborough with her party (Lord Borodaile among the rest) in waiting for her carriage. For almost the first time in his life, Clarence felt ashamed of himself; his cheek burned like THE DISOWNED. jfj fire, and he involuntarily let go the fair hand which was lean- ing upon his arm. However, the weaker our cause the better face we should put upon it, and Clarence, recovering his pres- ence of mind, and vainly hoping he had not been perceived, buried his face as well as he was able in the fur collar of his cloak, and hurried on. "You saw Lord Borodaile?" said the duke to La Meronville, as he handed her into her carriage. "Yes, I accidentally looked back after we had passed him, and then I saw him." " Looked back?" said the duke ; I wonder he did not turn you into a pillar of salt." " Fi done!" cried La Belle Meronville, tapping his grace playfully on the arm, in order to do which she was forced to lean a little harder upon Clarence's, which she had not yet relin- quished " Fi done ! Francois, chez moi! " " My carriage is just behind," said the duke. " You will go with me to La Meronville's, of course." " Really, my dear duke," said Clarence, " I wish I could ex- cuse myself from this party. I have another engagement." "Excuse yourself? and leave me to the mercy of Mademoi- selle Caumartin, who has the face of an ostrich, and talks me out of breath ! Never, my dear Linden, never ! Besides, I want you to see how well I shall behave to Trevanion. Here is the carriage. Entrez, mon cher" And Clarence, weakly and foolishly (but he was very young and very unhappy, and so, longing for an escape from his own thoughts), entered the carriage, and drove to the supper party, in order to prevent the Duke of Haverfield being talked out of breath by Mademoiselle Caumartin, who had the face of an ostrich. CHAPTER XXXIX. " Yet truth is keenly sought for, and the wind, Charged with rich words, pour'd out in thought's defence ; Whether the church inspire that eloquence, Or a Platonic piety, confined To the sole temple of the inward mind ; And one there is who builds immortal lays, Though doom':! to tread in solitary ways ; Darkness before, and danger's voice behind I Yet not alone " WORDSWORTH. LONDON thou Niobe, who sittest in stone, amidst thy stricken and fated children ; nurse of the desolate, who hidest in thy IJ2 THE DISOWNED. bosom the shame, the sorrows, the sins of many sons ; in whose arms the fallen and the outcast shroud their distresses, and shelter from the proud man's contumely ; Epitome and Focus of the disparities and maddening contrasts of this wrong world, that assemblest together in one great heap the woes, the joys, the elevations, the debasements of the various tribes of man; mightiest of levellers, confounding in thy whirlpool all ranks, all minds, the graven labors of knowledge, the straws of the maniac, purple and rags, the regalities and the loathsomeness of earth palace and lazar-house combined ! Grave of the liv- ing, where, mingled and massed together, we couch, but rest not "for in that sleep of ///if what dreams do come" each vexed with a separate vision "shadows" which "grieve the heart," unreal in their substance, but faithful in their warnings, flitting from the eye, but graving unfleeting memories on the mind, which reproduce new dreams over and over, until the phantasm ceases, and the pall of a heavier torpor falls upon the brain, and all is still, and dark, and hushed ! " From the stir of thy great Babel," and the fixed tinsel glare in which sits Pleasure like a star, " which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays," we turn to thy deeper and more secret haunts. Thy wilderness is all before us where to choose our place of rest ; and, to our eyes, thy hidden recesses are revealed. The clock of St. Paul's had tolled the second hour of morning. Within a small and humble apartment in the very heart of the city, there sat a writer, whose lucubrations, then obscure and unknown, were destined, years afterwards, to ex- cite the vague admiration of the crowd, and the deeper homage of the wise. They were of that nature which is slow in win- ning its way to popular esteem ; the result of the hived and hoarded knowledge of years the produce of deep thought and. sublime aspirations, influencing, in its bearings, the interests of the many, yet only capable of analysis by the judgment of the few. But the stream broke forth at last from the cavern to the daylight, although the source was never traced ; or, to change the image albeit none know the hand which executed, and the head which designed the monument of a mighty intellect has been at length dug up, as it were, from the envious earth, the brighter for its past obscurity, and the more certain of immor- tality from the temporary neglect it has sustained. The room was, as we before said, very small and meanly fur- nished ; yet were there a few articles of costliness and luxury scattered about, which told that the tastes of its owner had not been quite humbled to the level of his fortunes, One side of THE DISOWNED. 173 the narrow chamber was covered with shelves, which supported books, in various languages ; and, though chiefly on scientific subjects, not utterly confined to them. Among the doctrines of the philosopher, and the golden rules of the moralist, were also seen the pleasant dreams of poets, the legends of Spenser, the refining moralities of Pope, the lofty errors of Lucretius, and the sublime relics of our "dead kings of melody." * And over the hearth was a picture, taken in more prosperous days, of one who had been, and was yet, to the tenant of that abode, better than fretted roofs, and glittering banquets, the objects of ambition, or even the immortality of fame. It was the face of one very young and beautiful, and the deep, tender eyes looked down, as with a watchful fondness, upon the lucubrator and his labors. While beneath the window, which was left unclosed, for it was scarcely June, were simple, yet not inelegant, vases, filled with flowers : " Those lovely leaves, where we May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave." f The writer was alone, and had just paused from his employ- ment : he was leaning his face upon one hand, in thoughtful and earnest mood, and the air which came chill, but gentle, from the window, slightly stirred the locks from the broad and marked brow, over which they fell in thin but graceful waves. Partly owing perhaps to the waning light of the single lamp, and the lateness of the hour, his cheek seemed very pale, and the Complete, though contemplative, rest of the features par- took greatly of the quiet of habitual sadness, and a little of the languor of shaken health : yet the expression, despite the proud cast of the brow and profile, was rather benevolent than stern or dark in its pensiveness, and the lines spoke more of the wear and harrow of deep thought, than the inroads of ill-regulated passion. There was a slight tap at the door, the latch was raised, and the original of the picture I have described entered the apart- ment. Time had not been idle with her since that portrait had been taken : the round, elastic figure had lost much of its youth and freshness ; the step, though light, was languid, and in the centre of the fair, smooth cheek, which was a little sunken, burned one deep, bright spot fatal sign to those who have watched the progress of the most deadly and deceitful of our national * Shakespeare and Milton. t Herrick. 174 THE DISOWNED. maladies ; yet still the form and countenance were eminently interesting and lovely; and though the bloom was gone for ever, the beauty, which not even death could wholly have de- spoiled, remained to triumph over debility, misfortune, and disease. She approached the student, and laid her hand upon his shoulder " Dearest ! " said he tenderly yet reproachfully, " yet up, and the hour so late, and yourself so weak ? Fie, I must learn to scold you." " And how," answered the intruder, " how could I sleep or rest while you are consuming your very life in those thankless labors ?" " By which," interrupted the writer, with a faint smile, " we glean our scanty subsistence." " Yes," said the wife (for she held that relation to the student), and the tears stood in her eyes, " I know well that every morsel of bread, every drop of water, is wrung from your very heart's blood, and I I am the cause of all ; but surely you exert yourself too much, more than can be requisite. These night damps, this sickly and chilling air, heavy with the rank vapors of the coming morning, are not suited to thoughts and toils which are alone sufficient to sear your mind and exhaust your strength. Come, my own love, to bed : and yet, first, come and look upon our child, how sound she sleeps ! I have leant over her for the last hour, and tried to fancy it was you whom I watched, for she has learned already your smile, and has it even when she sleeps." " She has cause to smile," said the husband, bitterly. " She has, for she is yours ! and even in poverty and humble hopes, that is an inheritance which may well teach her pride and joy. Come, love, the air is keen, and the damp rises to your forehead yet stay, till I have kissed it away." " Mine own love," said the student, as he rose and wound his arm around the slender waist of his wife, "wrap your shawl closer over your bosom, and let us look for one instant upon the night. I cannot sleep till I have slaked the fever of my blood : the air has nothing of coldness in its breath to me." And they walked to the window, and looked forth. All was hushed and still, in the narrow street ; the cold gray clouds were hurrying fast along the sky, and the stars, weak and wan- ing in their light, gleamed forth at rare intervals upon the mute city, like the expiring watch-lamps of the dead. THE DISOWNED. 175 They leaned out, and spoke not ; but when they looked above upon the melancholy heavens, they drew nearer to each other, as if it were their natural instinct to do so, whenever the world without seemed discouraging and sad. At length the student broke the silence ; but his thoughts, which w-ere wandering and disjointed, were breathed less to her than vaguely and unconsciously to himself. " Morn breaks another and another ! day upon day ! while we drag on our load like the blind beast which knows not when the burden shall be cast off, and the hour of rest be come." The woman pressed his hand to her bosom, but made no rejoinder she knew his mood and the student continued: " And so life frets itself away ! Four years have passed over our seclusion four years ! a great segment in the little circle of our mortality ; and of those years what day has pleasure won from labor, or what night has sleep snatched wholly from the lamp ? Weaker than the miser, the insatiable and restless mind traverses from east to west ; and from the nooks, and corners, and crevices of earth collects, fragment by fragment, grain by grain, atom by atom, the riches which it gathers to its coffers for what ? to starve amidst the plenty ! The fantasies of the imagination bring a ready and substantial return : not so the treasures of thought. Better that I had renounced the soul's labor for that of its hardier frame better that I had ' sweated in the eye of Phoebus,' than 'eat my heart with .crosses and with cares,' seeking truth and wanting bread adding to the in- digence of poverty its humiliation ; wroth with the arrogance of men, who weigh in the shallow scales of their meagre knowl- edge the product of lavish thought, and of the hard hours for which health, and sleep, and spirit have been exchanged ; sharing the lot of those who would enchant the old serpent of evil, which refuses the voice of the charmer; struggling against the prejudice and bigoted delusion of the bandaged and fettered herd to whom, in our fond hopes and aspirations, we trusted to give light and freedom ; seeing the slavish judgments we would have redeemed from error clashing their chains at us in ire ; made criminal by our very benevolence the martyrs whose zeal is rewarded with persecution, whose prophecies are crowned with contempt ! Better, oh, better that I had not listened to the vanity of a heated brain better that I had made my home with the lark and the wild bee, among the fields and the quiet hills, where life, if obscurer, is less debased, and hope, if less eagerly indulged, is less bitterly disappointed. The frame, it is true, might have been bowed to a harsher 176 THE DISOWNED. labor, but the heart would at least have had its rest from anxiety, and the mind its relaxation from thought." The wife's tears fell upon the hand she clasped. The stu- dent turned, and his heart smote him for the selfishness of his complaints. He drew her closer and closer to his bosom ; and, gazing fondly upon those eyes which years of indigence and care might have robbed of their young lustre, but not of their undy- ing tenderness, he kissed away her tears, and addressed her in a voice which never failed to charm her grief into forgetfulness. " Dearest and kindest," he said, " was I not to blame for accusing those privations or regrets which have only made us love each other the more ! Trust me, mine own treasure, that it is only in the peevishness of an inconstant and fretful humor, that I have murmured against my fortune. For in the midst of all, I look upon you, my angel, my comforter, my young dream of love which God, in his mercy, breathed into waking life I look upon you, and am blest and grateful. Nor in my juster moments do I accuse even the nature of these studies, though they bring us so scanty a reward. Have I not hours of secret and overflowing delight, the triumphs of gratified research flashes of sudden light, which reward the darkness of thought, and light up my solitude as a revel ? These feel- ings of rapture, which nought but Science can afford, amply repay her disciples for worse evils and severer hardships than it has been my destiny to endure. Look along the sky, how the vapors struggle with the still yet feeble stars: even so have the mists of error been pierced, though not scattered, by the dim but holy lights of past wisdom, and now the morning is at hand, and in that hope we journey on, doubtful, but not utterly in darkness. Nor is this all my hope ; there is a loftier and more steady comfort than that which mere philosophy can be- stow. If the certainty of future fame bore Milton rejoicing through his blindness, or cheered Galileo in his dungeon, what stronger and holier support shall not be given to him who has loved mankind as his brothers, and devoted his labors to their cause ? who has not sought, but relinquished, his own re- nown ? who has braved the present censures of men for their future benefit, and trampled upon glory in the energy of benev- olence ? Will there not be for him something more powerful than fame to comfort his sufferings and to sustain his hopes ? If the wish of mere posthumous honor be a feeling rather vain than exalted, the love of our race affords us a more rational and noble desire of remembrance. Come what will, that love, if it animates our toils and directs our studies, shall, when we 'fHE DISOWNEB. fj-j. are dust, make our relics of value, our efforts of avail, and con- secrate the desire of fame, which were else a passion selfish and impure, by connecting it with the welfare of ages, and the eter- nal interests of the world and its Creator ! Come, we will to bed." CHAPTER XL. " A man may be formed by nature for an admirable citizen, and yet, from the purest motives, be a dangerous one to the State in which the accident of birth has placed him." STEPHEN MONTAGUE. THE night again closed, and the student once more resumed his labors. The spirit of his hope and comforter of his toils sat by him, ever and anon lifting her fond eyes from her work to gaze upon his countenance, to sigh, and to return sadly and quietly to her employment. A heavy step ascended the stairs, the door opened, and the tall figure of Wolfe, the republican, presented itself. The female rose, pushed a chair towards him with a smile and grace suited to better fortunes, and, retiring from the table, reseated herself silent and apart. " It is a fine night," said the student, when the mutual greet- ings were over. "Whence come you ? " "From contemplating human misery and worse than human degradation," replied Wolfe, slowly seating himself. "Those words specify no place they apply universally," said the student, with a sigh. " Ay, Glendower, for misgovernment is universal," rejoined Wolfe. Glendower made no answer. "Oh!" said Wolfe, in the low, suppressed tone of intense passion which was customary to him, "it maddens me to look upon the willingness with which men hug their trappings of slavery, bears, proud of the rags which deck, and the monkeys which ride them. But it frets me yet niore when some lordling' sweeps along, lifting his dull eyes above the fools whose only crime and debasement are what ? their subjection to ////// .' Such an one I encountered a few nights since ; and he^ will remember the meeting longer than I shall. I taught that 'god to tremble.' " The female rose, glanced towards her husband, and silently withdrew. Wolfe paused for a few moments, looked curiously and prymgly 178 THE DISOWNED. round, and then rising, went forth into the passage to see that no loiterer or listener was near returned, and, drawing his chair close to Glendower, fixed his dark eye upon him and said : "You are poor, and your spirit rises against your lot ; you are just, and your heart swells against the general oppression you behold ; can you not dare to remedy your ills and those of mankind ?" *' I can dare," said Glendower calmly, though haughtily, " all things but crime." " And which is crime ? the rising against, or the submission to, evil government? Which is crime, I ask you?" " That which is the most imprudent," answered Glendower. " We may sport in ordinary cases with our own safeties, but only in rare cases with the safety of others." Wolfe rose, and paced the narrow room impatiently to and fro. He paused by the window, and threw it open. "Come here," he cried "come, and look out." Glendower did so all was still and quiet. " Why did you call me ? " said he ; " I see nothing." " Nothing ! " exclaimed Wolfe ; " look again look on yon sordid and squalid huts look at yon court, that from this wretched street leads to abodes to which these are as palaces : look at yon victims of vice and famine, plying beneath the mid- night skies their filthy and infectious trade. Wherever you turn your eyes, what see you ? Misery, loathsomeness, sin ! Are you a man, and call you these nothing ! And now lean forth still more see afar off, by yonder lamp, the mansion of illgot- ten and griping wealth. He who owns those buildings, what did he that he should riot while we starve ? He wrung from the negro's tears and bloody sweat the luxuries of a pampered and vitiated taste : he pandered to the excesses of the rich : he heaped their tables with the product of a nation's groans. Lo ! his reward ! He is rich prosperous honored ! He sits in the legislative assembly ; he declaims against immorality ; he contends for the safety of property, and the equilibrium of ranks. Transport yourself from this spot for an instant imagine that you survey the gorgeous homes of aristocracy and power the palaces of the west. What see you there ? The few sucking, draining, exhausting the blood, the treasure, the very existence of the many. Are we, who are of the many, wise to suffer it?" " Are we of the many ? " said Glendower. " We could be," said Wolfe hastily. THE DISOWNED. 179 " I doubt it," replied Glendow.er. "Listen," said the republican, laying his hand upon Glen- dower's shoulder, " listen to me. There are in this country men whose spirits not years of delayed hope, wearisome perse- cution, and, bitterer than all, misrepresentation from some and contempt from others, have yet quelled and tamed. We watch our opportunity ; the growing distress of the country, the increasing severity and misrule of the administration will soon afford it us. Your talents, your benevolence, render you worthy to join us. Do so, and " " Hush ! " interrupted the student ; " you know not what you say : you weigh not the folly, the madness of your design ! I am a man more fallen, more sunken, more disappointed than you. I, too, have had at my heart the burning and lonely hope which, through years of misfortune and want, has comforted me with the thought of serving and enlightening mankind I, too, have devoted to the fulfilment of that hope, days and nights, in which the brain grew dizzy, and the heart heavy and clogged with the intensity of my pursuits. Were the dungeon and the scaffold my reward, Heaven knows that I would not flinch eye nor hand, or abate a jot of heart and hope in the thankless prosecution of my toils. Know me, then, as one of fortunes more desperate than your own ; of an ambition more unquenchable ; of a philanthropy no less ardent ; and I will add, of a courage no less firm : and behold the utter hopeless- ness of your projects with others, when to me they only appear the visions of an enthusiast." Wolfe sunk down in the chair. " Is it even so ? " said he, slowly and musingly. " Are my hopes but delusions ? Has my life been but one idle, though convulsive dream ? is the goddess of our religion banished from this great and populous earth, to the seared and barren hearts of a few solitary worshippers, whom all else despise as madmen or persecute as idolaters ? And if so, shall we adore her the less ? No ! though we perish in her cause, it is around her altar that our corpses shall be found ! " " My friend," said Glendower kindly, for he was touched by the sincerity, though opposed to the opinions, of the repub- lican, " the night is yet early : we will sit down to discuss our several doctrines calmly, and in the spirit of truth and investi- gation." " Away ! " cried Wolfe, rising and slouching his hat over his bent and lowering brows ; " away ! I will not listen to you I dread your reasonings I would not have a particle of my faith l8o THE DISOWNED. shaken. If I err, I have erred from my birth : erred with Brutus and Tell, Hampden and Milton, and all whom the thousand tribes and parties of earth consecrate with their common gratitude and eternal reverence. In that error I will die ! If our party can struggle not with hosts, there may yet arise some minister with the ambition of Caesar, if not his genius of whom a single dagger can rid the earth ! " " And if not ? " said Glendower. " I have the same dagger for myself," replied Wolfe, as he closed the door. CHAPTER XLI. " Bolingbroke has said that ' Man is his own sharper and his own bubble '; and certainly he who is acutest in duping others is ever the most ingenious in outwitting himself. The criminal is always a sophist ; and finds in his own reason a special pleader to twist laws human and divine into a sanction of his crime. The rogue is so much in the habit of cheating, that he packs the cards even when playing at Patience with himself." STEPHEN MONTAGUE. THE only two acquaintances in this populous city whom Glendower possessed, who were aware that in a former time he had known a better fortune, were Wolfe, and a person of far higher worldly estimation, of the name of Crauford. With the former the student had become acquainted by the favor of chance, which had for a short time made them lodgers in the same house. Of the particulars of Glendower's earliest history, Wolfe was utterly ignorant ; but the addresses upon some old letters, which he had accidentally seen, had informed him that Glendower had formerly borne another name ; and it was easy to glean from the student's conversation that something of greater distinction and prosperity than he now enjoyed was coupled with the appellation he had renounced. Proud, melan- choly, austere brooding upon thoughts whose very loftiness received somewhat of additional grandeur from the gloom which encircled it Glendower found, in the ruined hopes and the solitary lot of the republican, that congeniality which neither Wolfe's habits, nor the excess of his political fervor, might have afforded to a nature which philosophy had rendered moderate and early circumstances refined. Crauford was far better acquainted than Wolfe with the reverses Glendower had undergone. Many years ago, he had known, and indeed travelled with, him upon the continent ; since then, they had not met until about six months prior to the time in which THE DISOWNED. iSl Glendower is presented to the reader. It was in an obscure street of the city, that Crauford had then encountered Glen- dower, whose haunts were so little frequented by the higher orders of society that Crauford was the first, and the only one, of his former acquaintance with whom for years he had been brought into contact. That person recognized him at once, accosted him, followed him home, and three days afterwards surprised him with a visit. Of manners which, in their dis- simulation, extended far beyond the ordinary ease and breeding of the world, Crauford readily appeared not to notice the altered circumstances of his old acquaintance ; and, by a tone of conversation artfully respectful, he endeavored to remove from Glendo\ver's mind that soreness which his knowledge of human nature told him that his visit was calculated to create. There is a certain species of pride which contradicts the ordi- nary symptoms of the feeling, and appears most elevated when it would be reasonable to expect it should be most depressed. Of this sort was Glendower's. When he received the guest who had known him in his former prosperity, some natural sen- timent of emotion called, it is true, to his pale cheek a momen- tary flush, as he looked round his humble apartment, and the evident signs of poverty it contained ; but his address was calm and self-possessed, and whatever mortification he might have felt, no intonation of his voice, no tell-tale embarrassment of manner, revealed it. Encouraged by this air, even while he was secretly vexed by it, and perfectly unable to do justice to the dignity of mind which gave something of majesty, rather than humiliation, to misfortune, Crauford resolved to repeat his visit, and by intervals, gradually lessening, renewed it, till ac- quaintance seemed, though little tinctured, at least on Glen- dower's side, by friendship, to assume the semblance of intimacy. It was true, however, that he had something to struggle against in Glendower's manner, which certainly grew colder in propor- tion to the repetition of the visits; and, at length, Glendower said, with an ease and quiet which abashed, for a moment, an ef- frontery both of mind and manner, which was almost parallel, " Believe me, Mr. Crauford, I feel fully sensible of your attentions; but as circumstances at present are such as to render an inter- course between us little congenial to the habits and sentiments of either, you will probably understand and forgive my motives in wishing no longer to receive civilities which, however I may feel them, I am unable to return." Crauford colored, and hesitated, before he replied : " Forgive l82 THE DISOWNED. me then," said he, "for my fault. I did venture to hope that no circumstances would break off an acquaintance to me so valuable. Forgive me if I did imagine that an intercourse be- tween mind and mind could be equally carried on, whether the mere body were lodged in a palace or a hovel "; and then sud- denly changing his tone into that of affectionate warmth, Crau- ford continued : " My dear Glendower, my dear friend, I would say, if I durst, is not your pride rather to blame here? Believe me, in my turn, I fully comprehend and bow to it ; but it wounds me beyond expression. Were you in your proper station, a sta- tion much higher than my own, I would come to you at once, and proffer my friendship as it is, I cannot ; but your pride wrongs me, Glendower indeed it does." And Crauford turned away, apparently in the bitterness of wounded feeling. Glendower was touched : and his nature, as kind as it was proud, immediately smote him for conduct certainly ungracious, and perhaps ungrateful. He held out his hand to Crauford ; with the most respectful warmth, that personage seized and pressed it : and from that time Crauford's visits appeared to receive a license which, if not perfectly welcome, was at least never again questioned^ "I shall have this man now," muttered Crauford, between his ground teeth, as he left the house, and took his way to his counting-house. There, cool, bland, fawning, and weaving in his close and dark mind various speculations of guilt and craft, he sat among his bills and gold, like the very gnome and per- sonification of that Mammon of gain to which he was the most supple, though concealed, adherent. Richard Crauford was of a new but not unimportant family. His father had entered into commerce, and left a flourishing firm, and a name of great respectability in his profession, to his son. That son was a man whom many and opposite qualities rendered a character of very singular and uncommon stamp. Fond of the laborious acquisition of money, he was equally attached to the ostentatious pageantries of expense. Profound- ly skilled in the calculating business of his profession, he was devoted equally to the luxuries of pleasure ; but the pleasure was suited well to the mind which pursued it. The divine in- toxication of that love where the delicacies and purities of af- fection consecrate the humanity of passion, was to him a thing of which not even his youngest imagination had ever dreamed. The social concomitants of the wine cup (which have for the lenient an excuse, for the austere a temptation) the generous tHE DISOWNED. 183 expanding of the heart the increased yearning to kindly af- fectionthe lavish spirit throwing off its exuberance in the thousand lights and emanations of wit these, which have ren- dered the molten grape, despite of its excesses, not unworthy of the praise of immortal hymns, and taken harshness from the judgment of those averse to its enjoyment these never pre- sented an inducement to the stony temperament and dormant heart of Richard Crauford. He looked upon the essences of things internal as the com- mon eye upon outward nature, and loved the many shapes of evil as the latter does the varieties of earth, not for their graces, but their utility. His loves, coarse and low, fed their rank fires from an unmingled and gross depravity. His devotion to wine was either solitary and unseen for he loved safety better than mirth or in company with those whose station flattered his vanity, not whose fellowship ripened his crude and nipped af- fections. Even the recklessness of vice in him had the char- acter of prudence ; and, in the most rapid and turbulent stream of his excesses, one might detect the rocky and unmoved heart of the calculator at the bottom. Cool, sagacious, profound in dissimulation, and not only ob- servant of, but deducing sage consequences from, those human inconsistencies and frailities by which it was his aim to profit, he cloaked his deeper vices with a masterly hypocrisy and for those too dear to forego and too difficult to conceal, he obtained pardon by the intercession of virtues it cost him nothing to assume. Regular in his attendance at worship professing rigidness of faith, beyond the tenets of the orthodox church subscribing to the public charities, where the common eye knoweth what the private hand giveth methodically constant to the forms of business primitively scrupulous in the pro- prieties of speech hospitable, at least to his superiors and, being naturally smooth, both of temper and address, popular with his inferiors it was no marvel that one part of the world forgave, to a man rich and young, the irregularities of dissipa- tionthat another forgot real immorality in favor of affected religion or that the remainder allowed the most unexception- able excellence of words to atone for the unobtrusive errors of a conduct which did not prejudice them. " It is true," said his friends, " that he loves women too much; but he is young he will marry and amend." Mr. Crauford did marry and, strange as it may seem, for love at least for that brute-like love of which alone he was capable. After a few years of ill-usage on his side, and endurance of his 184 THE DISOWNED, wife's, they parted. Tired of her person, and profiting by her gentleness of temper, he sent her to an obscure corner of the country, to starve upon the miserable pittance which was all he allowed her from his superfluities. Even then such is the effect of the showy proprieties of form and word Mr. Crauford sank not in the estimation of the world. "It was easy to see," said the spectators of his domestic drama, " that a man in temper so mild in his business so honorable so civil of speech so attentive to the stocks and the sermon could not have been the party to blame. One never knew the rights of matrimonial disagreements, nor could sufficiently estimate the provoking disparities of temper. Certainly Mrs. Crauford never did look in good humor, and had not the open countenance of her husband ; and certainly the very excesses of Mr. Crauford betokened a generous warmth of heart, which the sullennessof his conjugal partner might easily chill and revolt." And thus, unquestioned and unblamed, Mr. Crauford walked onward in his beaten way ; and secretly laughing at the tolera- tion of the crowd, continued, at his luxurious villa, the orgies of a passionless, yet brutal, sensuality. So far might the character of Richard Crauford find parallels in hypocrisy and its success. Dive we now deeper into his soul. Possessed of talents which, though of a secondary rank, were in that rank consummate, Mr. Crauford could not be a villain by intuition, or the irregular bias of his nature ; he was a villain upon a grander scale : he was a villain upon system. Having little learning and less knowledge, out of his profession, his reflection expended itself upon apparently obvious deduc- tions from the great and mysterious book of life. He saw vice prosperous in externals, and from this sight his conclusion was drawn. "Vice," said 'he, " is not an obstacle to success; and if so, it is at least a pleasanter road to it than your narrow and thorny ways of virtue." But there are certain vices which re- quire the mask of virtue, and Crauford thought it easier to wear the mask than to school his soul to the reality. So to the villain he added the hypocrite. He found the success equalled his hopes, for he had both craft and genius ; nor was he, natu- rally, without the minor amiabilities which, to the ignorance of the herd, seem more valuable than coin of a more important amount. Blinded as we are by prejudice, we not only mistakt \>\A prefer decencies to moralities ; and, like the inhabitants o! Cos, when offered the choice of two statues of the same god dess, we choose, not that which is the most beautiful, but tha%' which is the most dressed. THE DISOWNED. 185 Accustomed easily to dupe mankind, Crauford soon grew to despise them ; and from justifying roguery by his own interest, he now justified it by the folly of others ; and as no wretch is so unredeemed as to be without excuse to himself, Crauford actually persuaded his reason that he was vicious upon prin- ciple, and a rascal on a system of morality. But why the desire of this man, so consummately worldly and heartless, for an in- timacy with the impoverished and powerless student ? This question is easily answered. In the first place, during Crau- ford's acquaintance with Glendower abroad, the latter had often, though innocently, galled the vanity and self-pride of the parvenu affecting the aristocrat, and in poverty the parvenu was anxious to retaliate. But this desire would probably have passed away after he had satisfied his curiosity, or gloated his spite, by one or two insights into Glendower's home for Crauford, though at times a malicious, was not a vindictive, man had it not been for a much more powerful object which afterwards occurred to him. In an extensive scheme of fraud, which for many years this man had carried on, and which for secresy and boldness was almost unequalled, it had of late be- come necessary to his safety to have a partner, or rather tool. A man of education, talent, and courage was indispensable, and Crauford had resolved that Glendower should be that man. With the supreme confidence in his own powers which long success had given him with a sovereign contempt for, or rather disbelief in, human integrity and with a thorough con- viction that the bribe to him was the bribe with all, and that none could on any account be poor if they had the offer to be rich, Crauford did not bestow a moment's consideration upon the difficulty of his task, or conceive that in the nature and mind of Glendower there could exist any obstacle to his design. Men addicted to calculation are accustomed to suppose those employed in the same mental pursuit arrive, or ought to arrive, at the same final conclusion. Now looking upon Glendower as a philosopher, Crauford looked upon him as a man who, however he might conceal his real opinions, secretly laughed, like Crauford's self, not only at the established customs, but at the established moralities of the world. Ill-acquainted with books, the worthy Richard was, like all men similarly situated, somewhat infected by the very prejudices he affected to despise ; and he shared the vulgar disposition to doubt the hearts of those who cultivate the head. Glendower himself had con- firmed this opinion by lauding, though he did not entirety sub' lS6 THE DISOWNED. scribe to, those moralists who have made an enlightened self- interest the proper measure of all human conduct ; and Crau- ford, utterly unable to comprehend this system in its grand, naturally interpreted it in a partial, sense. Espousing self-in- terest as his own code, he deemed that in reality Glendower's principles did not differ greatly from his ; and as there is no pleasure to a hypocrite like that of finding a fit opportunity to unburden some of his real sentiments, Crauford was occasion- ally wont to hold some conference and argument with the student, in which his opinions were not utterly cloaked in their usual disguise ; but cautious even in his candor, he always forbore stating such opinions as his own : he merely mentioned them as those which a roan, beholding the villainies and follies of his kind, might be tempted to form ; and thus Glendower, though not greatly esteeming his acquaintance, looked upon him as one ignorant in his opinions but not likely to err in his conduct. These conversations did, however, it is true, increase Crau- ford's estimate of Glendower's integrity, but they by no means diminished his confidence of subduing it. Honor, a deep and pure sense of the divinity of good, the steady desire of rectitude, and the supporting aid of a sincere religion these he did not deny to his intended tool ; he rather rejoiced that he possessed them. With the profound arrogance, the sense of immeasurable superiority which men of no principle invariably feel for those who have it, Crauford said to himself: " Those very virtues will be my best dupes they cannot resist the temptations I shall offer, but they can resist any offer to betray me afterwards, for no man can resist hunger ; but your fine feelings, your nice honor, your precise religion he ! he ! he ! these can teach a man very well to resist a common in- ducement : they cannot make him submit to be his own exe- cutioner ; but they can prevent his turning king's evidence, and being executioner to another. No, no it is not to your com- mon rogue that I may dare trust my secret my secret, which is my life ! It is precisely of such a fine, Athenian, moral rogue as I shall make my proud friend, that I am in want. But he has some silly scruples ; we must beat them away we must not be too rash ; and above all, we must leave the best argument to poverty. Want is your finest orator ; a starving wife a famished brat he ! he ! these are your true tempters your true fathers of crime, and fillers of gaols and gibbets. Let me see ; he has no money I know, but what he gets from that bookseller. What bookseller, by-the-by ? Ah, rare thought J THE DISOWNED. i 7 I'll find out, and cut off that supply. My lady wife's check will look somewhat thinner next month, I fancy he ! he ! But 'tis a pity, for she is a glorious creature ! Who knows but I may serve two purposes ? However, one at present ! business first, and pleasure afterwards and faith, the business is damnably like that of life and death." Muttering such thoughts as these, Crauford took his way one evening to Glendower's house. CHAPTER XLII. " lago Virtue; a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus." OTHELLO. " So so, my little one, don't let me disturb you. Madam, dare I venture to hope your acceptance of this fruit ? I chose it myself, and I am somewhat of a judge. Oh ! Glendower, here is the pamphlet you wished to see." With this salutation, Crauford drew his chair to the table by which Glendower sate, and entered into conversation with his purposed victim. A comely and a pleasing countenance had Richard Crauford ! the lonely light of the room fell upon a face which, though forty years of guile had gone over it, was as fair and unwrinkled as a boy's. Small, well-cut features a blooming complexion eyes of lightest blue a forehead high, though narrow, and a mouth from which the smile was never absent : these, joined to a manner at once soft and con- fident, and an elegant, though unaffected, study of dress, gave to Crauford a personal appearance well suited to aid the effect of his hypocritical and dissembling mind. " Well, my friend," said he, " always at your books eh ! Ah ! it is a happy taste ; would that I had cultivated it more ; but we who are condemned to business have little leisure to follow our own inclinations. It is only on Sundays that I have time to read ; and then (to say truth, I am an old-fash- ioned man, whom the gayer part of the world laughs at), and then I am too occupied with the Book of Books to think of any less important study." Not deeming that a peculiar reply was required to this pious speech, Glendower did not take that advantage of Crauford's pause which it was evidently intended that he should. With a glance towards the student's wife, our mercantile friend con- tinued : " I did once once, in my young dreams, intend i#8 THE DISOWNED. that whenever I married I would relinquish a profession for which, after all, I am but little calculated. I pictured to my- self a country retreat, well stored with books ; and having con- centrated in one home all the attractions which could have tempted my thoughts abroad, I had designed to surrender my- self solely to those studies which, I lament to say, were but ill attended to in my earlier education. But but," (here Mr. Crauford sighed deeply, and averted his face) "fate willed it otherwise ! " Whatever reply of sympathetic admiration or condolence Glendower might have made, was interrupted by one of those sudden and overpowering attacks of faintness which had of late seized the delicate and declining health of his wife. He rose, and leant over her with a fondness and alarm which curled the lip of his visitor. "Thus it is," said Crauford to himself, "with weak minds under the influence of habit. The love of lust becomes the love of custom, and the last is as strong as the first." When she had recovered, she rose, and (with her child) re- tired to rest, the only restorative she ever found effectual for her complaint. Glendower went with her, and, after having seen her eyes, which swam with tears of gratitude at his love, close in the seeming slumber she affected in order to release him from his watch, he returned to Crauford. He found that gentleman leaning against the chimney-piece with folded arms, and apparently immersed in thought. A very good opportun- ity had Giendower's absence afforded to a man whose boast it was never to lose one. Looking over the papers on the table, he had seen and possessed himself of the address of the book- seller the student dealt with. " So much for business now for philanthropy," said Mr. Crauford, in his favorite antithet- ical phrase, throwing himself in his attitude against the chim- ney-piece. As Glendower entered, Crauford started from his reverie, and with a melancholy air and pensive voice, said : "Alas, my friend, when I look upon this humble apartment, the weak health of your unequalled wife your obscurity your misfortunes; when I look upon these, and contrast them with your mind, your talents, all that you were born and fitted for, I cannot but feel tempted to believe with those who imagine the pursuit of virtue a chimera, and who justify their own worldly policy by the example of all their kind." "Virtue," said Glendower, "would indeed be a chimera, did it require support from those whom you have cited." TttE DISOWNED. l8g "True most true," answered Crauford, somewhat discon- certed in reality, though not in appearance; "and yet, strange as it may seem, I have known some of those persons very good, admirably good men. They were extremely moral and relig- ous ; they only played the great game for worldly advantages upon the same terms as the other players ; nay, they never made a move in it without most fervently and sincerely pray- ing for divine assistance." " I readily believe you," said Glendower, who always, if possible, avoided a controversy " the easiest person to deceive is one's own self." "Admirably said," answered Crauford, who thought it, nev- ertheless, one of the most foolish observations he had ever heard : "admirably said ! and yet my heart does grieve bit- terly for the trials and distresses it surveys. One must make excuses for poor human frailty ; and one is often placed in such circumstances as to render it scarcely possible, without the grace of God " (here Crauford lifted up his eyes) " not to be urged, as it were, into the reasonings and actions of the world." Not exactly comprehending this observation, and not very closely attending to it, Glendower merely bowed, as in assent, and Crauford continued : " I remember a remarkable instance of this truth. One of my partner's clerks had, through misfortune or imprudence, fallen into the greatest distress. His wife, his children (he had a numerous family) were on the literal and absolute verge of starvation. Another clerk, taking advantage of these cir- cumstances, communicated to the distressed man a plan for defrauding his employer. The poor fellow yielded to the temp- tation, and was at last discovered. I spoke to him myself, for I was interested in his fate, and had always esteemed him. ' What, 1 said I, ' was your motive for this fraud ? ' ' My duty ! ' answered the man fervently ; ' My duty ! Was I to suffer my wife, my children to starve before my face, when I could save them at a little personal risk ? No my duty forbade it ! ' and in truth, Glendower, there was something very plausibk in this manner of putting the question." "You might, in answering it," said Glendower, " have put the point in a manner equally plausible, and more true ; was he to commit a great crime against the millions connected by social order, for the sake of serving a single family and that his own.' " Quite right," answered Crauford ; " that was just the point ic)6 THE DISOWNED. of view in which I did put it ; but the man, who was something of a reasoner, replied, ' Public law is instituted for public hap- piness. Now if mine and my children's happiness is infinitely and immeasurably more served by this comparatively petty fraud than my employer's is advanced by my abstaining from, or injured by my committing, it, why, the origin of law itself allows me to do it.' What say you to that, Glendower ? It is something in your Utilitarian, or, as you term it, Epicurean* principle; is it not?" and Crauford, shading his eyes, as if from the light, watched narrowly Glendower's countenance, while he concealed his own. " Poor fool !" said Glendower; "the man was ignorant of the first lesson in his moral primer. Did he not know that no rule is to be applied to a peculiar instance, but extended to its most general bearings ? Is it necessary even to observe that the particular consequence of fraud in this man might, it is true, be but the ridding his employer of superfluities, scarcely missed, for the relief of most urgent want in two or three indi- viduals ; but the general consequences of fraud and treachery would be the disorganization of all society? Do not think, therefore, that this man was a disciple of my, or of any, system of morality." " It is very just, very," said Mr. Crauford, with a benevolent sigh ; " but you will own that want seldom allows great nicety in moral distinctions, and that, when those whom you love most in the world are starving, you may be pitied, if not for- given, for losing sight of the after laws of nature, and recurring to her first ordinance, self-preservation." " We should be harsh, indeed," answered Glendower, "if we did not pity ; or, even while the law condemned, if the indi- vidual did not forgive." " So I said, so I said," cried Crauford ; "and in interceding for the poor fellow, whose pardon I am happy to say I pro- cured, I could not help declaring that, if I were placed in the same circumstances, I am not sure that my crime would not have been the same." "No man could {QQ\ sure !" said Glendower dejectedly. Delighted and surprised at this confession, Crauford con- tinued : "I believe I fear not; thank God, our virtue can never be so tried : but even you, Glendower, even you, philos- opher, moralist as you are just, good, wise, religious even * See the article on Mr. Moore's Epicurean in the " Westminster Review." Though the strictures on that work are harsh and unjust, yet the part relating to the real philu.su. phy of Epicurus is one of the most masterly things in criticism. THE DISOWNED. 191 you might be tempted, if you saw your 'angel wife dying for want of the aid, the very sustenance, necessary to existence, and your innocent and beautiful daughter stretch her little hands to you, and cry in the accents of famine for bread." The student made no reply fora few moments, but averted his countenance, and then in a slov/ tone said, " Let us drop this subject; none know their strength until they are tried; self-confidence should accompany virtue, but not precede it." A momentary flash broke from the usually calm, cold eye of Richard Crauford. " He is mine," thought he ; "the very name of want abases his pride ; what will the reality do ? O human nature, how I know and mock thee ! " " You are right," said Crauford, aloud ; " let us talk of the pamphlet.". And after a short conversation upon indifferent subjects, the visitor departed. Early the next morning was Mr. Crauford seen on foot, tak- ing his way to the bookseller, whose address he had learnt. The bookseller was known as a man of a strongly evangelical bias. " We must insinuate a lie or two," said Crauford inly, " about Glendower's principles. He I he ! it will be a fine stroke of genius to make the upright tradesman suffer Glen- dower to starve, out of' a principle of religion. But who would have thought my prey had been so easily snared ? why, if I had proposed the matter last night, I verily think he would have agreed to it." Amusing himself with these thoughts, Crauford arrived at the bookseller's. There he found Fate had saved him from one crime at least. The whole house was in confusion the bookseller had that morning died of an apoplectic fit. " Good God ! how shocking ! " said Crauford to the foreman; "but he was a most worthy man, and Providence could no longer spare him. The ways of Heaven are inscrutable ! Oblige me with three copies of that precious tract termed the 'Divine Call.' I should like to be allowed to attend the funeral of so excellent a man. Good-morning, sir. Alas ! alas ! " and shaking his head piteously, Mr. Crauford left the shop. " Hurra ! " said he, almost audibly, when he was once more in the street, " hurra ! my victim is made, my game is won death or the devil fights for me. But, hold there are other booksellers in this monstrous city ! ay, but not above two or three in our philosopher's way. I must forestall him there so, so that is soon settled. 'Now, then, I must leave him a IQ2 THE DISOWNED. little while undisturbed, to his fate. Perhaps my next visit may be to him in jail ; your debtor's side of the Fleet is almost as good a pleader as an empty stomach he ! he ! he ! but the stroke must be made soon, for time presses, and this d d business spreads so fast that if I don't have a speedy help; it will be too much for my hands, griping as they are. However, if it holds on a year longer, I will change my seat in the lower House for one in the upper ; twenty thousand pounds to the minister may make a merchant a very pretty peer. O brave Richard Crauford, wise Richard Crauford, fortunate Richard Crauford, noble Richard Crauford ! Why, if thou art ever hanged, it will be by a jury of peers. Gad, the rope would then have a dignity in it, instead of disgrace. But stay, here comes the Dean of ; not orthodox, it is said rigid Calvinist ! out with the ' Divine Call ! ' " When Mr. Richard Crauford repaired next to Glendower, what was his astonishment and dismay at hearing he had left his home, none knew whither, nor could give the inquirer the slightest clue. " How long has he left ? " said Crauford to the landlady. "Five days, sir." " And will he not return to settle any little debts he may have incurred?" said Crauford. " Oh, no, sir he paid them all before he went. Poor gentleman for though he was poor, he was the finest and most thorough gentleman I ever saw ! my heart bled for him. They parted with all their valuables to discharge their debts : the books, and instruments, and busts all went ; and what I saw, though he spoke so indifferently about it, hurt him the most he sold even the lady's picture. 'Mrs. Croftson,' said he, " Mr. , the painter, will send for that picture the day after I leave you. See that he has it, and that the greatest care is taken of it in delivery." " And you cannot even guess where he has gone to ? " " No, sir ; -a single porter was sufficient to convey his re- maining goods, and he took him from some distant part of the town." " Ten thousand devils ! " muttered Crauford, as he turned away, " I should have foreseen this ! He is lost now. Of course he will again change his name ; and in the d d holes and corners of this gigantic puzzle of houses, how shall I ever find him out ? and time presses too ? Well, well, well ! there is a fine prize for being cleverer, or, as fools would say, more rascally than others ; but there is a world of trouble in winning THE DISOWNED. 193 it. But come I will go home, lock myself up, and get drunk ! I am as melancholy as a cat in love, and about as stupid : and, faith, one must get spirits in order to hit on a new invention! But if there be consistency in fortune, or success in per- severance, or wit in Richard Crauford, that man shall yet be my victim and preserver ! " CHAPTER XLIII. " Revenge is now the cud That I do chew. I'll challenge him." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. WE return to " the world of fashion," as the admirers of the polite novel of would say. The noon-day sun broke hot and sultry through half-closed curtains of roseate silk, playing in broken beams upon rare and fragrant exotics, which cast the perfumes of southern summers over a chamber, moderate, indeed, as to its dimensions, but decorated with a splendor rather gaudy than graceful, and indicating much more a passion for luxury than a refinement of taste. At a small writing-table sat the beautiful La Meronville. She had just finished a note, written (how Jean Jacques would have been enchanted !) upon paper touleur de rose, with a mother-of-pearl pen, formed as one of Cupid's darts, dipped into an inkstand of the same material, which was shaped as a quiver, and placed at the back of a little Love, exquisitely wrought. She was folding this billet when a page, fantastically dressed, entered, and, announcing Lord Borodaile, was imme- diately followed by that nobleman. Eagerly and almost blush- ingly did La Meronville thrust the note into her bosom, and hasten to greet and to embrace her adorer. Lord Borodaile flung himself on one of the sofas with a listless and discontented air. The experienced Frenchwoman saw that there was a cloud on his brow : " My dear friend," said she, in her own tongue, " you seem vexed has anything annoyed you ? " " No, Cecile, no. By-the-by, who supped with you last night?" "Oh ! the Duke of Haverfield your friend." " My friend !" interrupted Borodaile haughtily " he's no friend of mine a vulgar, talkative fellow my friend, in' deed!" 194 THE DISOWNED. " Well, I beg your pardon : then there was Mademoiselle Caumartin, and the prince Pietro del Orbino, and Mr. Tre- vanion, and Mr. Lin Lin Linten, or Linden." " And, pray, will you allow me to ask how you became acquainted with Mr. Lin Lin Linten, or Linden?" " Assuredly through the Duke of Haverfield." " Humph Cecile, my love, that young man is not fit to be the acquaintance of my friend allow me to strike him from your list." " Certainly, certainly ! " said La Meronville hastily : and stooping as if to pick up a fallen glove, though, in reality, to hide her face from Lord Borodaile's searching eye, the letter she had written fell from her bosom. Lord Borodaile's glance detected the superscription, and before La Meronville could regain the note, he had possessed himself of it. "A Monsieur, Monsieur Linden !" said he coldly, reading the address ; " and, pray, how long have you corresponded with that gentleman ? " Now La Meronville's situation at that moment was by no means agreeable. She saw at one glance that no falsehood or artifice could avail her ; for Lord Borodaile might deem him- self fully justified in reading the note, which would contradict any glossing statement she might make. She saw this. She was a woman of independence cared not a straw for Lord Borodaile at present, though she had had a caprice for him knew that she might choose her bon ami out of all London, and replied : " That is the first letter I ever wrote to him ; but I own that it will not be the last." Lord Borodaile turned pale. "And will you suffer me to read it?" said he; for even in these cases he was punctiliously honorable. La Meronville hesitated. She did not know him. "If I do not consent," thought she, " he will do it without the consent: better submit with a good grace." "Certainly!" she answered, with an air of indifference. Borodaile opened and read the note ; it was as follows : " You have inspired me with a feeling for you which astonishes myself. Ah, why should that love be the strongest which is the swiftest in its growth ? I used to love Lord Borodaile I now only esteem him the love has flown to you. If I judge rightly from your words and your eyes, this avowal will not be unwel- come to you. Come and assure me, in person, of a persuasion 50 dear to my heart, L. M," THE DISOWNED. 195 "A very pretty effusion !" said Lord Borodaile sarcastically, and only showing his inward rage by the increasing paleness of his complexion, and a slight compression of his lip. "I thank you for your confidence in me. All I ask is, that you will not send this note till to-morrow. Allow me to take my leave of you first, and to find in Mr. Linden a successor rather than a rival." "Your request, my friend," said La Meronville, adjusting her hair, " is but reasonable. I see that you understand these ar- rangements ; and, for my part, I think that the end of love should always be the beginning of friendship let it be so with us ! " " You do me too much honor," said Borodaile, bowing pro- foundly. " Meanwhile I depend upon your promise, and bid you, as a lover, farewell for ever." With his usual slow step Lord Borodaile descended the stairs, and walked towards the central quartier of the town. His meditations were of no soothing nature. "To be seen by that man in a ridiculous and degrading situation to be pestered with his d d civility to be rivalled by him with Lady Flora to be duped and outdone by him with my mistress! Ay, all this have I been ; but vengeance shall come yet. As for La Meronville, the loss is again ; and, thank Heaven, I did not be- tray myself by venting my passion and making a scene. But it was I who ought to have discarded her not the reverse and death and confusion for that upstart, above all men ! And she talked in her letter about his eyes and words. Insolent coxcomb, to dare to have eyes and words for one who belonged tome. Well, well, he shall smart for this. But letmeconsider I must not play the jealous fool must not fight fora ; must not show the world that a man, nobody knows who, could really outwit and outdo me me Francis Borodaile ! No, no I must throw the insult upon him must myself be the aggressor, and the challenged ; then, too, I shall have the choice of weapons pistols of course. Where shall I hit him, by-the-by ? I wish I shot as well as I used to do at Naples. I was in full practice then. Cursed place, where there was nothing else to do but to practice ! " Immersed in these, or somewhat similar reflections, did Lord Borodaile enter Pall Mall. "Ah, Borodaile!" said Lord St. George, suddenly emerging from a shop. " This is really fortunate you are going my way exactly allow me to join you." Now Lord Borodaile, to say nothing of his happening at that time to be in a mood more than usually unsocial, could never at if)6 THE DISOWNED. any time bear the thought of being made an instrument of con- venience, pleasure, or good fortune to another. He' therefore, with a little resentment at Lord St. George's familiarity, coldly replied, " I am sorry that I cannot avail myself of your offer. I am sure my way is not the same as yours." " Then," replied Lord St. George, who was a good-natured, indolent man, who imagined everybody was as averse to walking alone as he was "then I will make mine the same as yours." Borodaile colored : though always uncivil, he did not like to be excelled in good manners ; and therefore replied, that nothing but extreme business at White's could have induced him to prefer his own way to that of Lord St. George. The good-natured peer took Lord Borodaile's arm. It was a natural incident, but it vexed the punctilious viscount, that any any man should take, not offer, the support. "So, they say," observed Lord St. George, "that young Linden is to marry Lady Flora Ardenne." " Les on-dits font la gazette des fous" rejoined Borodaile with a sneer. " I believe that Lady Flora is little likely to contract such a mesalliance." "Mesalliance!" replied Lord St. George. "I thought Linden was of a very old family, which you know the Westboroughs are not, and he has great expectations " "Which are never to be realized," interrupted Borodaile, laughing scornfully. " Ah, indeed ! " said Lord St. George seriously. " Well, at all events, he is a very agreeable, unaffected young man and, by- the bye, Borodaile, you will meet him cfoz-moi to-day you know you dine with me?" "Meet Mr. Linden ! I shall be proud to have that honor," said Borodaile, with sparkling eyes ; " will Lady Westborough be also of the party ? " " No, poor Lady St. George is very ill, and I have taken the opportunity to ask only men." " You have done wisely, my lord," said Borodaile, secum multa revolvens ; "and I assure you I wanted no hint to remind me of your invitation." Here the Duke of Haverfield joined them. The duke never bowed to any one of the male sex ; he therefore nodded to Borodaile, who, with a very supercilious formality, took off his hat in returning the salutation. The viscount had at least this merit in his pride, that if it was reserved to thehumble, it was contemptuous to the high : his inferiors he wished to remain where they were ; his enuals he longed to lower. THE DISOWNED. 197 " So I dine with you, Lord St. George, to-day," said the duke ; ''whom shall I meet?" "Lord Borodaile, for one," answered St. George; "my brother, Aspeden, Findlater, Orbino and Linden." " Linden ! " cried the duke ; " I'm very glad to hear it, c'est un homme fait exprfc pour moi. He is very clever, and not above playing the fool ; has humor without setting up for a wit, and is a good fellow without being a bad man. I like him excessively." *' Lord St. George," said Borodaile, who seemed that day to be the very martyr of the unconscious Clarence, "I wish you good morning. I have only just remembered an engagement which I ;//#.$/ keep before I goto White's." And, with a bow to the duke, and a remonstrance from Lord St. George, Borodaile effected his escape. His complexion was, in- sensibly to himself, more raised than usual, his step more stately ; his mind, for the first time for years, was fully excited and en- grossed. Ah, what a delightful thing it is for an idle man, who has been dying of ennui, to find an enemy. CHAPTER XLIV. " You must challenge him ; There's no avoiding one or both must drop." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. " HA ha, ha bravo Linden ! " cried Lord St. George, from the head of his splendid board, in approbation of some witticism of Clarence's ; and ha, ha, ha! or he, he, he ! according to the cachinnatory intonations of the guests, rung around. " Your lordship seems unwell," said Lord Aspeden to Boro- daile ; " allow me to take wine with you." Lord Borodaile bowed his assent. "Pray," said Mr. St. George to Clarence, "have you seen my friend Talbot lately?" "This very morning," replied Linden : "indeed, I generally visit him three or four times a week he often asks after you." "Indeed ! " said Mr. St. George, rather flattered; " he does me much honor; but he is a distant .connection of mine, and I suppose I must attribute his recollection of me to that cause. He is a near relation of yours, too, I think is he not?" " I am related to him," answered Clarence, coloring. Lord Borodaile leant forward, and his lip curled. Though, in some respects, a very unamiable man, he had, as we have 198 THE DISOWNED. said, his good points. He hated a lie as much as Achilles did ; and he believed in his heart of hearts that Clarence had just uttered one. "Why," observed Lord Aspeden, "why, Lord Borodaile, the Talbots, of Scarsdale, are branches of your genealogical tree ; therefore your lordship must be related to Linden ; you are ' two cherries on one stalk ! ' ' " We are by no means related," said Lord Borodaile, with a distinct and clear voice, intended expressly for Clarence ; " that is an honor which I must beg leave most positively to disclaim." There was a dead silence the eyes of all who heard a remark so intentionally rude were turned immediately towards Clarence. His cheek burnt like fire ; he hesitated a moment, and then said, in the same key, though with a little trembling in his intonation " Lord Borodaile cannot be more anxious to disclaim it than I am." " And yet," returned the viscount, stung to the soul, " they who advance false pretensions ought at least to support them !" " I do not understand you, my lord," said Clarence. " Possibly not," answered Borodaile, carelessly : " there is a maxim which says that people not accustomed to speak truth cannot comprehend it in others." Unlike the generality of modern heroes, who are always in a passion off-hand, dashing fellows, in whom irascibility is a virtue Clarence was peculiarly sweet-tempered by nature, and had, by habit, acquired a command over all his passions to a degree very uncommon in so young a man. He made no reply to the inexcusable affront he had received. His lip quivered a little, and the flush of his countenance was succeeded by an extreme paleness this was all : he did not even leave the room immediately, but waited till the silence was broken by some well-bred member of the party ; and then, pleading an early engagement as an excuse for his retiring so soon, he rose, and departed. There was throughout the room an universal feeling of sympa- thy with the affront, and indignation against the offender ; for, to say nothing of Clarence's popularity, and the extreme dis- like in which Lord Borodaile was held, there could be no doubt as to the wantonness of the outrage, or the moderation of the aggrieved party. Lord Borodaile already felt the punishment of his offence : his very pride, while it rendered him indif- ferent to the spirit, had hitherto kept him scrupulous as to the THE DISOWNED. Igp formalities, of social politeness ; and he could not but see the grossness with which he had suffered himself to violate them, and the light in which his conduct was regarded. However, this internal discomfort only rendered him the more embittered against Clarence, and the more confirmed in his revenge. Resuming, by a strong effort, all the external indifference habitual to his manner, he attempted to enter into a conversa- tion with those of the party who were next to him ; but his remarks produced answers brief and cold : even Lord Aspeden forgot his diplomacy and his smile ; Lord St. George replied to his observations by a monosyllable ; and the Duke of Haver- field, for the first time in his life, asserted the prerogative which his rank gave him of setting the example his grace did not reply to Lord Borodaile at all. In truth, every one present was seriously displeased. All civilized societies have a para- mount interest in repressing the rude. Nevertheless, Lord Borodaile bore the brunt of his unpopularity with a steadiness and unembarrassed composure worthy of a better cause; and finding, at last, a companion disposed to be loquacious in the person of Sir Christopher Findlater (whose good heart, though its first impulse resented more violently than that of any heart present the discourtesy of the viscount, yet soon warmed to the desagrdrnens of his situation, and hastened to adopt its favor- ite maxim of forgive and forget), Lord Borodaile sat the meet- ing out ; and if he did not leave the latest, he was, at least, not the first to follow Clarence. " L'orgueil ou donne le courage, ou il y suppUe"* Meanwhile Linden had returned to his solitary home. He hastened to his room locked the door flung himself on his sofa, and burst into a violent and almost feminine paroxysm of tears. This fit lasted for more than an hour ; and when Clarence at length stilled the indignant swellings of his heart, and rose from his supine position, he started, as his eye fell upon the opposite mirror, so haggard and exhausted seemed the forced and fearful calmness of his countenance. With a hurried step with arms now folded on his bosom now wildly tossed from him, and the hand so firmly clenched that the very bones seemed working through the skin with a brow now fierce, now only dejected and a complexion which one while burnt as with the crimson flush of a fever, and at another was wan and colorless, like his whose cheek a spectre has blanched Clarence paced his apartment, the victim not only of shame the bitterest of tortures to a young and high mind but of other contending * Pride either gives courage or supplies the place of iu 200 THE DISOWNED. feelings, which alternately exasperated and palsied his wrath, and gave to his resolves at one moment an almost savage ferocity, and at the next an almost cowardly vacillation. The clock had just struck the hour of twelve, when a knock at the door announced a visitor. Steps were heard on the stairs, and presently a tap at Clarence's room door. He unlocked it, and the Duke of Haverfield entered. "I am charmed to find you at home," cried the duke, with his usual half kind, half careless address. " I was determined to call upon you, and be the first to offer my services in this unpleasant affair." Clarence pressed the duke's hand, but made no answer. " Nothing could be so unhandsome as Lord Borodaile's con- duct," continued the duke. " I hope you both fence and shoot well. I shall never forgive you, if you do not put an end to that piece of rigidity." Clarence continued to walk about the room in great agita- tion ; the duke looked at him with some surprise. At last Lin- den paused by the window, and said, half unconsciously " It must be so I cannot avoid fighting ! " " Avoid fighting ! " cried his grace, in undisguised astonish- ment. " No indeed but that is the least part of the matter you must kill as well as fight him." "Kill him!" cried Clarence, wildly, "whom!" and then sinking into a chair, he covered his face with his hands for a few moments, and seemed to struggle with his emotions. " Well," thought the duke," I never was more mistaken in my life. I could have bet my black horse against Trevanion's Julia, which is certainly the most worthless thing I know, that Linden had been a brave fellow : but these English heroes always go into fits at a duel : one manages such things, as Sterne says, better in France." Clarence now rose, calm and collected. He sat down wrote a brief note to Borodaile, demanding the fullest apology, or the earliest meeting put it into the duke's hands and said, with a faint smile, " My dear duke, dare I ask you to be second to a man who has been so grievously affronted, and whose gen- ealogy has been so disputed ? " "My dear Linden," said the duke warmly, "I have always been grateful to my station in life for this advantage, the free- dom with which it has enabled me to select my own acquaint- ance, and to follow my own pursuits. I am now more grateful to it than ever, because it has given me a better opportunity than I should otherwise have had of serving one whom I have THE DISOWNED. 2OI always esteemed. In entering into your quarrel, I shall at least show the world that there are some men, not inferior in pretensions to Lord Borodaile, who despise arrogance and resent overbearance even to others. Your cause I consider the common cause of society ; but I shall take it up, if you will allow me, with the distinguishing zeal of a friend." Clarence, who was much affected by the kindness of his speech, replied in a similar vein ; and the duke, having read and approved the letter, rose. "There is, in my opinion," said he, " no time to be lost. I will go to Borodaile this very even- ing adieu, man cher : you shall kill the Argus, and then carry off the lo. I feel in a double passion with that ambulating poker, who is only malleable when he is red-hot, when I think how honorably scupulous you were with La Meronville last night, notwithstanding all her advances ; but I go to bury Caesar, not to scold him. Au revoir." CHAPTER XLV. Conon. You're well met, Crates. Crates. If we part so, Conon. Queen of Corinth. IT was as might be expected from the character of the aggressor. Lord Borodaile refused all apology, and agreed with avidity to a speedy rendezvous. He chose pistols (choice, then, was not merely nominal), and selected Mr. Percy Bobus for his second, a gentleman who was much fonder of acting in that capacity, than in the more honorable one of a principal. The author of " Lacon " says, "that if all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, there would be very little blood spilt in that way"; and it was certainly astonishing to compare the zeal with which Mr. Bobus busied himself about this "affair," with that testified by him on another occasion, when he himself was more immediately concerned. The morning came. Bobus breakfasted with his friend. " Damn it, Borodaile," said he, as the latter was receiving the ultimate polish of the hair-dresser, " I never saw you look bet- ter in my life. It will be a great pity if that fellow shoots you." " Shoots me ! " said Lord Borodaile, very quietly me no ! that is quite out of the question ; but joking apart^Bobus, I will not kill the young man. Where shall I hit him ? " " In the cap of the knee," said Mr. Percy, breaking an egg. 202 THE DISOWNED. " Nay, that will lame him for life," said Lord Borodaile, put- ting on his cravat with peculiar exactitude. " Serve him right," said Mr. Bobus. " Hang him, I never got up so early in my life it is quite impossible to eat at this hour. Oh apropos, Borodaile, have you left any little memor- anda for me to execute ? " " Memoranda ! for what ?" said Borodaile, who had now just finished his toilet. "Oh ! " rejoined Mr. Percy Bobus, "in case of accident, you know : the man may shoot well, though I never saw him in the gallery." " Pray," said Lord Borodaile, in a great, though suppressed passion, "pray, Mr. Bobus, how often have I to tell you, that it is not by Mr. Linden that my days are to terminate : you are sure that Carabine saw to that trigger?" " Certain," said Mr. Percy, with his mouth full, " certain Bless me, here's the carriage, and breakfast not half done yet." "Come, come," cried Borodaile, impatiently, "we must breakfast afterwards. Here, Roberts, see that we have fresh chocolate, and some more cutlets, when we return." " I would rather have them now," sighed Mr. Bobus, fore- seeing the possibility of the return being single "Ibis! rcdibis?" etc. " Come, we have not a moment to lose," exclaimed Borodaile, hastening down the stairs ; and Mr. Percy Bobus followed, with a strange mixture of various regrets, partly for the breakfast that was lost, and partly for the friend that might be. When they arrived at the ground, Clarence and the duke were already there : the latter, who was a dead shot, had fully per- suaded himself that Clarence was equally adroit, and had, in his providence for Borodaile, brought a surgeon. This was a cir- cumstance of which the viscount, in the plenitude of his con- fidence for himself and indifference for his opponent, had never once dreamt. The ground was measured the parties were about to take the ground. All Linden's former agitation was vanished his mien was firm, grave, and determined, but he showed none of the careless and fierce hardihood which characterized his ad- versary ; on the contrary, a close observer might have re- marked something sad and dejected amidst all the tranquillity and steadiness of his brow and air. " For Heaven's sake," whispered the duke, as he withdrew from the spot, " square your body a little more to your left, THE DISOWNED. 303 and remember your exact level. Borodaile is much shorter than you." There was a brief, dead pause the signal was given Boro- daile fired his ball pierced Clarence's side ; the wounded man staggered one step, but fell not. He raised his pistol ; the duke bent eagerly forward ; an expression of disappointment and surprise passed his lips ; Clarence had fired in the air. The next moment Linden felt a deadly sickness come over him he fell into the arms of the surgeon. Borodaile, touched by a forbearance which he had so little right to expect, has- tened to the spot. He leaned over his adversary in greater remorse and pity than he would have readily confessed to him- self. Clarence unclosed his eyes ; they dwelt for one moment upon the subdued and earnest countenance of Borodaile. " Thank God," he said faintly, " that you were not the vic- tim," and with those words he fell back insensible. They car- ried him to his lodgings. His wound was accurately examined. Though not mortal, it was of a dangerous nature ; and the sur- geons ended a very painful operation, by promising a very lin- gering recovery. What a charming satisfaction for being insulted ! CHAPTER XLVI. "Je me contente de ce qui peut s'ecrire, et je reve tout ce qui petit se rever.* DE SEVIGNE. ABOUT a week after his wound, and the second morning of his return to sense and consciousness, when Clarence opened his eyes, they fell upon a female form seated watchfully and anx- iously by his bedside. He raised himself in mute surprise, and the figure, startled by the motion, rose, drew the curtain, and vanished. With great difficulty he rang his bell. His valet, Harrison, on whose mind, though it was of no very exalted order, the kindness and suavity of his master had made a great impression, instantly appeared. " Who was that lady ? " asked Linden. " How came she here ? " Harrison smiled " Oh, sir, pray please to lie down, and make yourself easy : the lady knows you very well, and wotted come here ; she insists upon staying in the house, so we made up a bed in the drawing-room, and she has watched by you * I content myself with writing what I am able, and I dream all I possibly can dream 204 THE DISOWNED. night and day. She speaks very little English to be sure, but your honor knows, begging your pardon, how well I speak French." "French ! " said Clarence faintly " French ? In Heaven's name, who is she ? " " A Madame Madame La Melonveal, or some such name, sir," said the valet. Clarence fell back. At that moment his hand was pressed. He turned and saw Talbot by his side. The kind old man had not suffered La Meronville to be Linden's only nurse notwith- standing his age and peculiarity of habits, he had fixed his abode all the day in Clarence's house, and at night, instead of returning to his own home, had taken up his lodgings at the nearest hotel. With a jealous and anxious eye to the real interest and re- spectability of his adopted son, Talbot had exerted all his address, and even all his power, to induce La Meronville, who had made her settlement previous to Talbot's, to quit the house, but in vain. With that obstinacy which a French- woman, when she is sentimental, mistakes for nobility of heart, the ci-devant amantc of Lord Borodaile insisted upon watching and tending one of whose sufferings, she said and believed, she was the unhappy, though innocent cause ; and whenever more urgent means of removal were hinted at, La. Meronville flew to the chamber of her beloved, apostrophized him in a strain worthy of one of D'Arlincourt's heroines, and, in short, was so unreasonably outrageous, that the doctors, trembling for the safety of their patient, obtained from Talbot a forced and reluctant acquiescence in the settlement she had obtained. Ah ! what a terrible creature a Frenchwoman is, when, in- stead of coquetting with a caprice, she insists upon conceiving a grande passion. Little, however, did Clarence, despite his vex- ation when he learnt of the bienveillance of La Meronville, foresee the whole extent of the consequences it would entail upon him ; still less did Talbot, who in his seclusion knew not the celebrity of the handsome adventuress, calculate upon the notoriety of her motions, or the ill effect her ostentatious attachment would have upon Clarence's prosperity as a lover to Lady Flora. In order to explain these consequences more fully, let us, for the present, leave our hero to the care of the surgeon, his friends, and his would-be mistress ; and while he is more rapidly recovering than the doctors either hoped or presaged, let us renew our acquaintance with a certain fair correspondent THE DISOWNED. 205 LETTER FROM THE LADY FLORA ARDENNE, TO MISS ELEANOR TREVANION. " MY DEAREST ELEANOR : " I have been very ill, or you would sooner have received an answer to your kind too kind and consoling letter. Indeed, I have only just left my bed : they say that I have been de- lirious, and I believe it ; for you cannot conceive what terrible dreams I have had. But these are all over now, and every one is so kind to me my poor mother above all ! It is a pleasant thing to be ill when we have those who love us to watch our recovery. " I have only been in bed a few days ; yet it seems to me as if a long portion of my existence were past as if I had stepped into a new era. You remember that my last letter attempted to express my feelings at mamma's speech about Clarence, and at my seeing him so suddenly. Now, dearest, I cannot but look on that day, on these sensations, as on a distant dream. Every one is so kind to me, mamma caresses and soothes me so fondly, that I fancy I must have been under some illusion. I am sure they could not seriously have meant to forbid his ad- dresses. No, no : I feel that all will yet be well so well, that even you, who are of so contented a temper, will own, that if you were not Eleanor you would be Flora. " I wonder whether Clarence knows that I have been ill. I wish you knew him. Well, dearest, this letter a very unhand- some return, I own, for yours must content you at present, for they will not let me write more though, so far as I am con- cerned, I am never so weak, in frame I mean, but what I could scribble to you about him. Addio carissima. F. A. " I have prevailed on mamma, who wished to sit by me and amuse me, to go to the Opera to-night, the only amusement of which she is particularly fond. Heaven forgive me for my insincerity, but he always comes into our box, and I long to hear some news of him." LETTER II. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. "ELEANOR, dearest Eleanor, I am again very ill, but not as I was before, ill from a foolish vexation of mind : no, I am now calm, and even happy. It was from an increase of cold only that I have suffered a relapse. You may believe thi assure you, in spite of your well-meant but bitter jests upon my infatuation, as you very rightly call it, for Mr. Linden. You 206 THE DISOWNED. ask me what news from the Opera ? Silly girl that I was, to lie awake hour after hour, and refuse even to take my draught, lest I should be surprised into sleep, till mamma returned. I sent Jermyn down directly I heard her knock at the door (oh, how anxiously I had listened for it !), to say that I was still awake and longed to see her. So, of course, mamma came up, and felt my pulse, and said it was very feverish, and wondered the draught had not composed me with a great deal more to the same purpose, which I bore as patiently as I could till it was my turn to talk ; and then I admired her dress and her coiffure, and asked if it was a full house, and whether \\\Qprima donna was in voice, etc., etc. : till, at last, I won my way to the inquiry of who were her visitors. ' Lord Borodaile," said she, ' and the Duke of , and Mr. St. George, and Captain Les- lie, and Mr. De Retz, and many others.' I felt so disappointed, Eleanor, but did not dare ask whether he was not of the list ; till at last, my mother, observing me narrowly, said ' And, by- the-by, Mr. Linden looked in for a few minutes. I am glad, my dearest Flora, that I spoke to you so decidedly about him the other day.' 'Why, mamma?' said I, hiding my face under the clothes. ' Because,' said she, in rather a raised voice, 'he is quite unworthy of you ! but it is late now, and you should go to sleep to-morrow I will tell you more." I would have given worlds to press the question then, but could not venture. Mamma kissed and left me. I tried to twist her words into a hundred meanings, but in each I only thought that they were dictated by some worldly information some new doubts as to his birth or fortune ; and, though that supposition distressed me greatly, yet it could not alter my love, or deprive me of hope ; and so I cried, and guessed, and guessed, and cried, till at last I cried myself to sleep. "When I awoke, mamma was already up, and sitting beside me : she talked to me for more than an hour upon ordinary subjects, till, at last, perceiving how absent or rather impatient I appeared, she dismissed Jermyn, and spoke to me thus : 4 You know, Flora, that I have always loved you, more per- haps than 1 ought to have done, more certainly than I have loved your brothers and sisters ; but you were my eldest child, my first-born, and all the earliest associations of a mother are blent and entwined with you. You may be sure, therefore, that I have ever had only your happiness in view, and that it is only with a regard to that end that I now speak to you.' "I was a little frightened, Eleanor, by this opening, but I was much more touched, so I took mamma's hand and kissed, and THE DISOWNED. 207 wept silently over it ; she continued : 'I observed Mr. Lin- den's attention to you, at ; I knew nothing more of his rank and birth then, than I do at present : but his situation in the embassy, and his personal appearance, naturally induced me to suppose him a gentleman of family, and, therefore, if not a great, at least not an inferior match for you, so far as worldly distinctions are concerned. Added to this, he was uncommonly handsome, and had that general reputation for talent which is often better than actual wealth or hereditary titles. I therefore did not check, though I would not encourage, any attachment you might form for him ; and nothing being declared or de- cisive on either side when we left , I imagined that if your flirtation with him did even amount to a momentary and girlish phantasy, absence and change of scene would easily and rapidly efface the impression. I believe that in a great measure it was effaced, when Lord Aspeden returned to England, and with him Mr. Linden. You again met the latter in society almost as constantly as before ; a caprice nearly conquered was once more renewed ; and in my anxiety that you should marry, not for aggrandizement, but happiness, I own to my sorrow that I rather favored than forbade his addresses. The young man remember Flora appeared in society as the nephew and heir of a gentleman of ancient family and considerable property ; he was rising in diplomacy, popular in the world, and, so far as we could see, of irreproachable character ; this must plead my excuse for tolerating his visits, without instituting further in- quiries respecting him, and allowing your attachment to pro- ceed without ascertaining how far it had yet extended. I was awakened to a sense of my indiscretion, by an inquiry, which Mr. Linden's popularity rendered general, viz : if Mr. Talbot was his uncle who was his father who his more immediate relations? and at that time Lord Borodaile informed us of the falsehood he had either asserted or allowed to be spread, in claiming Mr. Talbot as his relation. This you will observe en- tirely altered the situation of Mr. Linden with respect to you. Not only his rank in life became uncertain, but suspicious. Nor was this all : his very personal respectability was nolonger unimpeachable. Was this dubious and intrusive person, without a name, and with a sullied honor, to be your suitor ? No, Flora ; and it was from this indignant conviction that I spoke to you some days since. Forgive me, my child, if I was less cautious, less confidential than I am now. I did not imagine the wound was so deep, and thought that I should best cure you by seeming unconscious of your danger. The case is now changed ; your 20$ THIS DISOWNED. illness has convinced me of my fault, and the extent of you? unhappy attachment ; but will my own dear child pardon me if I still continue, if I even confirm, my disapproval of her choice ? Last night at the Opera Mr. Linden entered my box. I own that I was cooler to him than usual. He soon left us, and after the Opera I saw him with the Duke of Haverfield, one of the most incorrigible roue's of the day, leading out a woman of notoriously bad character, and of the most ostenta- tious profligacy. He might have had some propriety, some decency, some concealment at least, but he passed just before me before the mother of the woman to whom his vows of honorable attachment were due, and who at that very instant was suffering from her infatuation for him. Now Flora, for this man, an obscure and possibly a plebeian adventurer whose only claim to notice has been founded on falsehood whose only merit, a love of you, has been, if not utterly de- stroyed, at least polluted and debased for this man, poor alike in fortune, character, and honor, can you any longer profess affection or esteem ! ' " ' Never, never, never ! ' cried I, springing from the bed, and throwing myself upon my mother's neck. ' Never ; I am your own Flora once more. I will never suffer any one again to make me forget you,' and then I sobbed so violently that mamma was frightened, and made me lie down, and left me to sleep. Several hours have passed since then, and I could not sleep nor think, and I would not cry, for he is no longer wor- thy of my tears ; so I have written to you. "Oh how I despise and hate myself for having so utterly, in my vanity and folly, forgotten my mother, that dear, kind, constant friend, who never cost me a single tear, but for my own ingratitude. Think, Eleanor, what an affront to me to me, who, he so often said, had made all other women worthless in his eyes. Do I hate him ? No, I cannot hate. Do I de- spise ? No, I will not despise, but I will forget him, and keep my contempt and hatred for myself. "God bless you I am worn out. Write soon, or rather come, if possible, to your affectionate but unworthy friend, "F. A. "Good Heavens ! Eleanor, he is wounded. He has fought with Lord Borodaile. I have just heard it ; Jermyn told me. Can it, can it be true ? What what have I said against him ? Hate ! forget? No, no : I never loved him till now." THE DISOWNED. *0<) LETTER III. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. (After an interval of several weeks.) "TIME has flown, my Eleanor, since you left me, after your short but kind visit, with a heavy but healing wing. I do not think I shall ever again be the giddy girl I have been ; but my head will change, not my heart ; that was never giddy, and that shall still be as much yours as ever. You are wrong in thinking I have not forgotten, at least renounced al laffection for, Mr. Linden. I have, though with a long and bitter effort. The woman for whom he fought went, you know, to his house, immediately on hearing of his wound. She has continued with him ever since. He had the audacity to write to me once; my mother brought me the note, and said nothing. She read my heart aright. I returned it unopened. He has even called since his convalescence. Mamma was not at home to him. I hear that he looks pale and altered. I hope not at least I cannot resist praying for his recovery. I stay within entirely ; the season is now over, and there are no parties : but I trem- ble at the thought of meeting him even in the Park or the Gardens. Papa talks of going into the country next week. I cannot tell you how eagerly I look forward to it ; and you will then come and see me will you not, dearest Eleanor? " Ah ! what happy days we will have yet ; we will read Ital- ian together, as we used to do ; you shall teach me your songs, and I will instruct you in mine ; we will keep birds as we did let me see eight years ago. You will never talk to me of my folly : let that be as if it had never been ; but I will wonder with you about your future choice, and grow happy in antici- pating your happiness. Oh, how selfish I was some weeks ago then I could only overwhelm you with my egotisms ; now, Eleanor, it is your turn, and you shall see how patiently I will listen to yours. Never fear that you can be too prolix ; the diffuser you are, the easier I shall forgive myself. "Are you fond of poetry, Eleanor? I used to say so, but 1 never felt that I was till lately. I will show you my favorite passages in my favorite poets when you come to see me. You shall see if yours correspond with mine. I am so impatient to leave this horrid town, where everything seems dull, yet fever- ishinsipid, yet false. Shall we not be happy when we meet? 2K> THE DISOWNED. If your dear aunt will come with you, she shall see how I (that is, my mind) am improved. " Farewell. "Ever your most affectionate, "F. A." CHAPTER XLVII. " Brave Talbot, we will follow thee." Henry the Sixth. " My letter insultingly returned myself refused admittance not a single inquiry made during my illness indifference joined to positive contempt. By Heaven, it is insupportable !" " My dear Clarence," said Talbot, to his young friend, who, fretful from pain, and writhing beneath his mortification, walked to and fro his chamber with an impatient stride ; " my dear Clarence, do sit down, and not irritate your wound by such violent exercise. I am as much enraged as yourself at the treatment you have received, and no less at a loss to account for it. Your duel, however unfortunate the event, must have done you credit, and obtained you a reputation both for gener- osity and spirit ; so that it cannot be to that occurrence that you are to attribute the change. Let us rather suppose that Lady Flora's attachment to you has become evident to her father and mother that they naturally think it would be very undesirable to marry their daughter to a man whose family nobody knows, and whose respectability he is forced into fighting in order to support. Suffer me then to call on Lady Westborough, whom I knew many years ago, and explain your origin, as well as your relationship to me." Linden paused irresolutely. " Were I sure that Lady Flora was not utterly influenced by her mother's worldly views, I would gladly consent to your proposal but " " Forgive me, Clarence," cried Talbot ; " but you really ar- gue much more like a very young man than I ever heard you do before even four years ago. To be sure Lady Flora is influ- enced by her mother's views. Would you have her otherwise ? Would you have her, in defiance of all propriety, modesty, obedience to her parents, and right feeling for herself, encour- age an attachment to a person not only unknown, but who does not even condescend to throw off the incognito to the woman he addresses ? Come, Clarence, give me my instructions, and let me act as your ambassador to-morrow." THE DISOWNED. 211 Clarence was silent. "I may consider it settled then," replied Talbot: "mean- while you shall come home and stay with me : the pure air of the country, even so near town, will do you more good than all the doctors in London ; and, besides, you will thus be enabled to escape from that persecuting Frenchwoman." " In what manner ? " said Clarence. " Why, when you are in my house, she cannot well take up her abode with you ; and you shall, while I am forwarding your suit with Lady Flora, write a very flattering, very grateful letter of excuses to Madame la Meronville. But leave me alone to draw it up for you ; meanwhile, let Harrison pack up your clothes and medicines, and we will effect our escape while Madame la Meronville yet sleeps." Clarence rung the bell ; the orders were given, executed, and in less than an hour he and his friend were on their road to Talbot's villa. As they drove slowly through the grounds to the house, Clar- ence was sensibly struck with the quiet and stillness which breathed around. On either side of the road the honeysuckle and the rose cast their sweet scents to the summer wind, which, though it was scarcely noon, stirred freshly among the trees, and waved, as if it breathed a second youth over the wan cheek of the convalescent. The old servant's ear had caught the sound of wheels, and he came to the door, with an expression of quiet delight on his dry countenance, to welcome in hismas- ter. They had lived together for so many years, that they were grown like one another. Indeed, the veteran valet prided him- self on his happy adoption of his master's dress and manner. A proud man, we ween, was that domestic, whenever he had time and listeners for the indulgence of his honest loquacity ; many an ancient tale of his master's former glories was then poured from his unburthening remembrance. With what a glow, with what a racy enjoyment did he expand upon the triumphs of the past; how eloquently did he particularize the exact grace with which young Mr. Talbot was wont to enter the room, in which he instantly became the cynosure of ladies' eyes; how faithfully did he minute the courtly dress, the exquisite choice of color, the costly splendor of material, which were the envy of gentles, and the despairing wonder of their valets ; and then the zest with which the good old man would cry " I dressed the boy ! " Even still, this modern Scipio (Le Sage's Scipio, not Rome's) would not believe that his master's sun was utterly set : he was only in a temporary retire- 812 THE DISOWNED. ment, and would, one day or other, reappear and reastonish the London world. " I would give my right arm," Jasper was wont to say, " to see master at court. How fond the king would be of him. Ah ! well, well ; I wish he was not so mel- ancholy like with his books, but would go out like other people ! " Poor Jasper ! Time is, in general, a harsh wizard in his transformations ; but the change which thou didst lament so bitterly, was happier for thy master than all his former "palmy state" of admiration and homage. "Nous avons recherche le p/aisir," says Rousseau, in one of his own inimitable antitheses, "ct/e bonheur a fui loin de nous."* But in the pursuit of Pleasure we sometimes chance on Wisdom, and Wisdom leads us to the right track, which, if it takes us not so far as Happi- ness, is sure at least of the shelter of Content. Talbot leant kindly upon Jasper's arm as he descended from the carriage, and inquired into his servant's rheumatism with the anxiety of a friend. The old housekeeper, waiting in the hall, next received his attention ; and in entering the drawing- room, with that consideration, even to animals, which his worldly benevolence had taught him, he paused to notice and caress a large gray cat which rubbed herself against his legs. Doubtless there is some pleasure in making even a gray cat happy ! Clarence having patiently undergone all the shrugs, and sighs, and exclamations of compassion at his reduced and wan appearance, which are the especial prerogatives of ancient do- mestics, followed the old man into the room. Papers and books, though carefully dusted, were left scrupulously in the places in which Talbot had last deposited them (incompara- ble good fortune ! what would we not give for such chamber hand-maidens !) fresh flowers were in the stands and vases ; the large library chair was jealously set in its accustomed place, and all wore, to Talbot's eyes, that cheerful yet sober look of welcome and familiarity which makes a friend of out house. The old man was in high spirits : " I know not how it is," said he, " but I feel younger than ever ! You have often expressed a wish to see my family seat at Scarsdale ; it is certainly a great distance hence ; but as you will be my travelling companion, I think I will try and crawl there before the summer is over ; or, what say you, Clarence, shall I lend it to you and Lady Flora for the honeymoon ? You blush ! A diplomatist blush ! Ah, how the world has * \Ye have pursued pleasure, and happiness has fled far from our reach. THE DISOWNED. changed since my time ! But come, Clarence, suppose you write to La Meronville?" " Not to-day, sir, if you please," said Linden, " I feel so very weak." "As you please, Clarence ; but some years hence you will learn the value of the present. Youth is always a procrasti- nator, and, consequently, always penitent." And thus Talbot ran on into a strain of conversation, half serious, half gay, which lasted till Clarence went upstairs to lie down and muse on Lady Flora Ardenne. CHAPTER XLVIII. " La vie est un sommeil. Les vieillards sont ceux dont le sommeila et^ plus long : ils ne commencent a se reveiller que quand il faut mourir." * LA BRUYERE. "You wonder why I have never turned author, with my con- stant love of literature, and my former desire of fame," said Talbot, as he and Clarence sate alone after dinner, " discussing many things " : " the fact is, that I have often intended it, and as often been frightened from my design. Those terrible feuds those vehement disputes those recriminations of abuse, so inseparable from literary life, appear to me too dreadful for a man not utterly hardened or malevolent voluntarily to encounter. Good heavens ! what acerbity sours the blood of an author ! The manifestoes of opposing generals, advancing to pillage, to burn, to destroy, contain not a tithe of the ferocity which animates the pages of literary controversialists ! No term of reproach is too severe, no vituperation too excessive ! the blackest passions, the bitterest, the meanest malice, pour caustic and poison upon every page ! It seems as if the greatest talent, the most elaborate knowledge, only sprung from the weakest and worst regulated mind, as exotics from dung. The private records, the public works of men of letters, teem with an immitigable fury ! Their histories might all be reduced into these sentences they were born they quarrelled they died ! " " But," said Clarence, " it would matter little to the world i these quarrels were confined merely to poets and men of imaginative literature, in whom irritability is perhaps almost * Life is a sleep the aged are those whose sleep has been the longest ; they begin to awaken themselves just as they are obliged to die. 214 THE DISOWNED. necessarily allied to the keen and quick susceptibilities which constitute their genius. These are more to be lamented and wondered at among philosophers, theologians, and men of science ; the coolness, the patience, the benevolence, which ought to characterize their works, should at least moderate their jealousy and soften their disputes." " Ah ! " said Talbot, "but the vanity of discovery is no less acute than that of creation : the self-love of a philospher is no less self-love than that of a poet. Besides, those sects the most sure of their opinions, whether in religion or science, are always the most bigoted and persecuting. Moreover, nearly all men deceive themselves in disputes, and imagine that they are intolerant, not through private jealousy, but public benevo- lence ; they never declaim against the injustice done to themselves no, it is the terrible injury done to society which grieves and inflames them. It is not the bitter expressions against their dogmas which give them pain : by no means ; it is the atrocious doctrines so prejudicial to the country, if in politics so pernicious to the world, if in philosophy which their duty, not their vanity, induces them to denounce and anathematize." " There seems," said Clarence, " to be a sort of reaction in sophistry and hypocrisy ; there has, perhaps, never been a deceiver who was not, by his own passions, himself the deceived." " Very true," said Talbot, " and it is a pity that historians have not kept that fact in view ; we should then have had a better notion of the Cromwells and Mahomets of the past than we have now, nor judged those as utter impostors who were probably half dupes. But to return to myself. I think you will be already able to answer your own question, why did I not turn author, now that we have given a momentary considera- tion to the penalties consequent on such a profession. But in truth, as I near the close of my life, I often regret that I had not more courage, for there is in us all a certain restlessness in the persuasion, whether true or false, of superior knowledge or intellect, and this urges us on to the proof ; or, if we resist its impulse, renders us discontented with our idleness, and dis- appointed with the past. I have everything now in my possession which it has been the desire of my later years to enjoy : health, retirement, successful study, and the affection of one in whose breast, when I am gone, my memory will not utterly pass away. With these advantages, added to the gifts of fortune, and an habitual elasticity of spirit, I confess that THE DISOWNED. 2 15 rny happiness is not free from a biting and frequent regret : I would fain have been a better citizen ; I would fain have died in the consciousness, not only that I had improved my mind to the utmost, but that I had turned that improvement to the benefit of my fellow-creatures. As it is, in living wholly for myself, I feel that my philosophy has wanted generosity ; and my indifference to glory has proceeded from a weakness, not, as I once persuaded myself, from a virtue ; but the fruitless- ness of my existence has been the consequence of the arduous frivolities and the petty objects in which my early years were consumed ; and my mind, in losing the enjoyments which it formerly possessed, had no longer the vigor to create for itself a new soil, from which labor it could only hope for more valuable fruits. It is no contradiction to see those who eagerly courted society in their youth shrink from it the most sensi- tively in their age ; for they who possess certain advantages, and are morbidly vain of them, will naturally be disposed to seek that sphere for which those advantages are best calculated ; and when youth and its concomitants depart, the vanity so long fed still remains, and perpetually mortifies them by recalling not so much the qualities they have lost, as the esteem which those qualities conferred ; and by contrasting not so much their own present alteration, as the change they experience in the respect and consideration of others. What wonder, then, that they eagerly fly from the world, which has only mortification for their self-love, or that we find, in biography, how often the most assiduous votaries of pleasure have become the most rigid of recluses? For my part, I think that that love of soli- tude which the ancients so eminently possessed, and which, to this day, is considered by some as the sign of a great mind, nearly always arises from a tenderness of vanity, easily wounded in the commerce of the rough world ; and that it is under the shadow of Disappointment that we must look for the hermitage. Diderot did well, even at the risk of offending Rousseau, to write against solitude. The more a moralist binds man to man, and forbids us to divorce our interest from our kind, the more effectually is the end of morality obtained. They only are justifiable in seclusion who, like the Greek philos- ophers, make that very seclusion the means of serving and enlightening their race who from their retreats send forth their oracles of wisdom, and render the desert which surrounds them eloquent with the voice of truth. But remember, Clarence (and let my life, useless in itself, have at least this moral), that for him who in no wise cultivates his tnlent for the 4l6 THE DISOWNED. benefit of others ; who is contented with being a good hermit at the expense of being a bad citizen ; who looks from his retreat upon a life wasted in the diffiriles nuga of the most frivolous part of the world, nor redeems in the closet the time he has spent in the saloon, remember, that for him seclusion loses its dignity, philosophy its comfort, benevolence its hope, and even religion its balm. Knowledge unemployed may preserve us from vice but knowledge beneficently employed is virtue. Perfect happiness, in our present state, is impossible ; for Hobbes says justly, that our nature is inseparable from desires, and that the very word desire (the craving for some- thing not possessed) implies that our present felicity is not complete. But there is one way of attaining what we may term, if not utter, at least mortal happiness ; it is this a sincere and unrelaxing activity for the happiness of others. In that one maxim is concentrated whatever is noble in morality, sublime in religion, or unanswerable in truth. In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever is excellent in our hearts, and none for the petty passions which our nature is heir to. Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will be nobility, not weakness, in our remorse ; whatever our failure, virtue, not selfishness, in our regret ; and, in success, vanity itself will become holy and triumph eternal. As astrologers were wont to receive upon metals ' the benign aspect of the stars, so as to detain and fix, as it were, the felicity of that hour which would otherwise be volatile and fugitive,' * even so will that success leave imprinted upon our memory a blessing which cannot pass away preserve for ever upon our names, as on a signet, the hallowed influence of the hour in which our great end was effected, and treasure up 'the relics of heaven ' in the sanctuary of a human fame." As the old man ceased, there was a faint and hectic flush over his face, an enthusiasm on his features, which age made almost holy, and which Clarence had never observed there be- fore. In truth, his young listener was deeply affected, and the advice of his adopted parent was afterwards impressed with more awful solemnity upon his remembrance. Already he had acquired much worldly lore from Talbot's precepts and con- versation. He had obtained even something better than world- ly lore a kindly and indulgent disposition to his fellow creat- ures : for he had seen that foibles were not inconsistent with generous and great qualities, and that we judge wrongly of hu- inan. nature when we ridicule its littleness. The very circum- * Bacon. THE DISOWNED. $17 Stances which make the shallow misanthropical, incline the wise to be benevolent. Fools discover that frailty is not incompati- ble with great men, they wonder and despise ; but the discern- ing find that greatness is not incompatible with frailty, and they admire and indulge. But a still greater benefit than this of toleration did Clarence derive from the commune of that night. He became strength- ened in his honorable ambition, and nerved to unrelaxing exer- tion. The recollection of Talbot's last words, on that night, occurred to him often and often, when sick at heart, and languid with baffled hope ! it roused him from that gloom and des- pondency which are always unfavorable to virtue, and in- cited him once more to that labor in the vineyard which, whether our hour be late or early, will, if earnest, obtain a blessing and reward. The hour was now waxing late, and Talbot, mindful of his companion's health, rose to retire. As he pressed Clarence's hand and bade him farewell for the night, Linden thought there was something more than usually impressive in his manner and affectionate in his words. Perhaps this was the natural result of their conversation. The next morning, Clarence was awakened by a noise. He listened, and heard distinctly an alarmed cry proceeding from the room in which Talbot slept, and which was opposite to his own. He rose hastily and hurried to the chamber. The door was open, the old servant was bending over the bed : Clarence approached, and saw that he supported his master in his arms. " Good God ! " he cried, " what is the matter ? " The faithful old man lifted up his face to Clarence, and the big tears rolled fast from eyes in which the sources of such emotion were well- nigh dried up. "He loved you well, sir! " he said, and could say no more. He dropped the body gently, and, throwing himself on the floor, sobbed aloud. With a foreboding and chilled heart, Clar- ence bent forward; the face of his benefactor lay directly be- fore him, and the hand of death was upon it. The soul had passed to its account hours since, in the hush of night : passed apparently, without a struggle or a pang, like the wind, which animates the harp one moment, and the next is gone. Linden seized his hand it was heavy and cold; his eye rested upon the miniature of the unfortunate Lady Merton, which, since the night of the attempted robbery, Talbot had worn constantly round his neck. Strange and powerful was the contrast of the pictured face, in which not a color had yet faded, and where the 2l8 THE DISOWNED. hues, and fulness, and prime of youth dwelt, unconscious of the lapse of years, with the aged and shrunken countenance of the deceased. In that contrast was a sad and mighty moral ; it wrought, as it were, a contract between youth and age, and conveyed a rapid but full history of our passions and our life. The servant looked up once more on the countenance ; he pointed toward it and muttered " See see ! how awfully it is changed ! " " But there is a smile upon it ! " said Clarence, as he flung himself beside the body and burst into tears. CHAPTER XLIX. "Virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." BACON. IT is somewhat remarkable, that while Talbot was bequeath- ing to Clarence, as the most valuable of legacies, the doctrines of a philosophy he had acquired, perhaps too late to practice, Glendower was carrying those very doctrines, so far as his limited sphere would allow, into the rule and exercise of his life. Since the death of the bookseller, which we have before re- corded, Glendower had been left utterly without resource. The others to whom he applied were indisposed to avail themselves of an unknown ability. The trade of book-making was not then as it is now, and if it had been, it would not have sug- gested itself to the high-spirited and unworldly student. Some publishers offered, it is true, a reward tempting enough for an immoral tale ; others spoke of the value of an attack upon the Americans ; one suggested an ode to the minister, and another hinted that a pension might possibly be granted to one who would prove extortion not tyranny. But these insinuations fell upon a dull ear, and the tribe of Barabbas were astonished to find that an author could imagine interest and principle not synonymous. Struggling with want, which hourly grew more imperious and urgent ; wasting his heart on studies which brought fever to his pulse, and disappointment to his ambition ; gnawed to the very soul by the mortifications which his poverty gave to his pride ; and watching with tearless eyes, but a maddening DISOWNED. 210 brain, the slender form of his wife, now waxing weaker and fainter, as the canker of disease fastened upon the core of her young but blighted life, there was yet a high, though, alas ! not constant consolation within him, whenever from the troubles of this dim spot his thoughts could escape, like birds released from their cage, and lose themselves in the lustre and freedorn of their native heaven. " If," thought he, as he looked upon his secret and treasured work, " if the wind scatter, or the rock receive these seeds, they were at least dispersed by a hand which asked no selfish return, and a heart which would have lavished the harvest of its labors upon those who know not the husbandman, and trample his hopes into the dust." But by degrees, this comfort of a noble and generous nature, these whispers of a vanity rather to be termed holy than ex- cusable, began to grow unfrequent and low. The cravings of a more engrossing and heavy want than those of the mind came eagerly and rapidly upon him ; the fair cheek of his in- fant became pinched and hollow ; his wife conquered nature itself by love, and starved herself in silence, and set bread be- fore him with a smile, and bade him eat. " But you you ? " he would ask inquiringly, and then pause. " I have dined, dearest ; I want nothing; eat, love, eat." But he ate not. The food robbed from her seemed to him more deadly than poison ; and he would rise, and dash his hand to his brow, and go forth alone, with nature unsatisfied to look upon this luxurious world, and learn content. It was after such a scene that, one day, he wandered forth into the streets, desperate and confused in mind, and fainting with hunger, and half insane with fiery and wrong thoughts, which dashed over his barren and gloomy soul, and desolated, but conquered not! It was evening: he stood (for he had strode on so rapidly, at first, that his strength was now ex- hausted and he was forced to pause), leaning against the railed area of a house, in a lone and unfrequented street. No pas- senger shared the dull and obscure thoroughfare. He stood, literally, in scene as in heart, solitary amidst the great city, and wherever he looked lo ! there were none ! " Two days," said he, slowly and faintly, " two days, and bread has only once passed my lips : and that was snatched from her from those lips which I have fed with sweet and holy kisses, and whence my sole comfort in this weary life has been drawn. And she ay, she starves and my child, too. They complain not they murmur not but they lift up their 22O THE DISOWNED. eyes to me and ask for Merciful God, thou didst make man in benevolence ; thou dost survey this world with a pity- ing and paternal eye save, comfort, cherish them, and crush me if thou wilt ! " At that moment a man darted suddenly from an obscure alley, and passed Glendower at full speed ; presently came a cry and a shout, and the rapid trampling of feet, and, in an- other moment, an eager and breathless crowd rushed upon the solitude of the street. "Where is he?" cried a hundred voices to Glendower "where which road did the robber take ?" but Glendower could not answer ; his nerves were unstrung, and his dizzy brain swam and reeled : and the faces which peered upon him. and the voices which shrieked and yelled in his ear, were to him as the forms and sounds of a ghastly and phantasmal world. His head drooped upon his bosom he clung to the area for support the crowd passed on they were in pursuit of guilt they were thirsting after blood they were going to fill the dungeon and feed the gibbet what to them was the virtue they could have supported, or the famine they could have relieved? But they knew not his distress, nor the extent of his weakness, or some would have tarried and aided, for there is, after all, as much kindness as cruelty in our nature ; perhaps they thought it was only some intoxicated and maud- lin idler or, perhaps, in the heat of their pursuit, they thought not at all. So they rolled on, and their voices died away, and their steps were hushed, and Glendower, insensible and cold as the iron he clung to, was once more alone. Slowly he revived ; he opened his dim and glazing eyes, and saw the evening star break from its chamber, and, though sullied by the thick and foggy air, scatter its holy smiles upon the polluted city. He looked quietly on the still night, and its first watcher among the hosts of heaven, and felt something of balm sink into his soul ; not, indeed, that vague and delicious calm which, in his boyhood of poesy and romance, he had drunk in, by green solitudes, from the mellow twilight, but a quiet, sad and sober, circling gradually over his mind, and bringing it back from its confused and disordered visions and darkness, to the recollection and reality of his bitter life. By degrees the scene he had so imperfectly witnessed, the flight of the robber, and the eager pursuit of the mob, grew over him : a dark and guilty thought burst upon his mind. " I am a man like that criminal," said he fiercely. " I have THE DISOWNED. 32 1 nerves, sinews, muscles, flesh ; I feel hunger, thirst, pain, as acutely ; why should I endure more than he can ? Perhaps he had a wife a child and he saw them starving inch by inch, and he felt that he ought to be their protector and so he sinned. And I I can I not sin too for mine? can I not dare what the wild beast and the vulture, and the fierce hearts of my brethren dare for their mates and young? One gripe of this hand one cry from this voice and my board might be heaped with plenty, and my child fed, and s/ie smile as she was wont to smile for one night at least." And as these thoughts broke upon him, Glendower rose, and with a step firm, even in weakness, he strode unconsciously onward. A figure appeared ; Glendower's heart beat thick. He slouched his hat over his brows, and for one moment wrestled with his pride and his stern virtue ; the virtue conquered, but not the pride ; the virtue forbade him to be the robber the pride submitted to be the suppliant. He sprang forward, ex- tended his hands toward the stranger, and cried in a sharp voice, the agony of which rung through the long, dull street with a sudden and echoless sound, "Charity food ! " The stranger paused one of the boldest of men in his own line, he was as timid as a woman in any other ; mistaking the meaning of the petitioner, and terrified by the vehemence of his gesture, he said, in a trembling tone, as he hastily pulled out his purse : "There, there ! do not hurt me take it take all !" Glendower knew the voice, as a sound not unfamiliar to him ; his pride returned in full force. " None," thought he, " who know me, shall know my full degradation also." And he turned away ; but the stranger, mistaking the motion, extended his hand to him, saying, "Take this, my friend you will have no need of violence!" and as he advanced nearer to his sup- posed assailant, he beheld, by the pale lamp-light, and instantly recognized, his features : "Ah !" cried he, in astonishment, but with internal rejoic- ing "ah ! is it you who are thus reduced ! " "You say right, Crauford," said Glendower sullenly, and drawing himself up to his full height, "it is // but you are mistaken, I am a beggar, not a ruffian ! " " Good Heavens ! " answered Crauford ; " how fortunate that we should meet ! Providence watches over us unceasingly ! I have long sought you in vain. But" (and here the wayward malignity, sometimes, though not always, the characteristic of 423 THE DISOV/NfiC. Crauford's nature, irresistibly broke out) " but that you, of all men, should suffer so you, proud, susceptible, virtuous beyond human virtue you, whose fibres are as acute as the naked eye thatjv# should bear this, and wince not! " "You do my humanity wrong!" said Glendower, with a bitter and almost ghastly smile ; "I do worse than wince ! " "Ay, is it so ! " said Crauford : " have you awakened at last? Has your philosophy taken a more impassioned dye?" " Mock me not ! " cried Glendower, and his eye, usually soft in its deep thoughtfulness, glared wild and savage upon the hypocrite, who stood trembling, yet half sneering, at the storm he had raised " my passions are even now beyond my mas- tery loose them not upon you ! " " Nay," said Crauford gently, " I meant not to vex or wound you. I have sought you several times since the last night we met, but in vain ; you had left your lodgings, and none knew whither. I would fain talk with you. I have a scheme to pro- pose to you which will make you rich forever rich literally rich ! not merely above poverty, but high in affluence ! " Glendower looked incredulously at the speaker, who con- tinued : " The scheme has danger that you can dare ! " Glendower was still silent ; but his set and stern counte- nance was sufficient reply. " Some sacrifice of your pride," con- tinued Crauford " that also you can bear ? " and the tempter almost grinned with pleasure as he asked the question. "He who is poor," said Glendower, speaking at last, "has a right to pride. He who starves has it too ; but he who sees those whom he loves famish, and cannot aid, has it not ! " " Come home with me, then," said Crauford ; " you seem faint and weak : nature craves food come and partake of mine we will then talk over this scheme, and arrange its com- pletion." " I cannot," answered Glendower quietly. "And why?" " Because they starve at home ! " " Heavens ! " said Crauford, affected for a moment into sincerity " it is indeed fortunate that business should have led me here ; but, meanwhile, you will not refuse this trifle as a loan merely. By and by our scheme will make you so rich, that I must be the borrower." Glendower did hesitate for a moment he did swallow a bitter rising of the heart ; but he thought of those at home, and the struggle was over. THE DISOWNED. 223 " I thank you." said he ; " I thank you for their sake : the time may come," and the proud gentleman stopped short, for his desolate fortunes rose before him, and forbade all hope of the future. "Yes," cried Crauford, " the time may come when you will repay me this money a hundred-fold. But where do you live ? You are silent. Well you will not inform me I understand you. Meet me, then, here, on this very spot, three nights hence you will not fail ?" " I will not," said Glendowef ; and pressing Crauford's hand with a generous and grateful warmth, which might have soft- ened a heart less obdurate, he turned away. Folding his arms, while a bitter yet joyous expression crossed his countenance, Crauford stood still, gazing upon the retreat- ing form of the noble and unfortunate man whom he had marked for destruction. " Now," said he, " this virtue is a fine thing, a very fine thing to talk so loftily about. A little craving of the gastric juices, a little pinching of this vile body, as your philosophers and saints call our better part, and lo ! virtue oozes out like water through a leaky vessel, and the vessel sinks ! No, no ; virtue is a weak game, and a poor game, and a losing game. Why, there is that man, the very pink of integrity and recti- tude, he is now only wanting temptation to fall and he will fall, in a fine phrase, too, I'll be sworn ! And then, having once fallen, there will be no medium he will become utterly corrupt ; while 7, honest Dick Crauford, doing as other wise men do, cheat a trick or two, in playing with fortune, without being a whit the worse for it. Do I not subscribe to charities ; am 1 not constant at church, ay, and meeting to boot ; kind to my servants, obliging to my friends, loyal to my king? 'Gad, if I were less loving to myself, I should have been far less use- ful to my country ! And, now, now, let me see what has brought me to these filthy suburbs ! Ah, Madam H Woman, incomparable woman ! On, Richard Crauford, thou hast made a good night's work of it hitherto ! business seasons pleasure ! " and the villain upon, system moved away. Glendower hastened to his home ; it was miserably changed, even from the humble abode in which we last saw him. The unfortunate pair had chosen their present residence from a mel- ancholy refinement in luxury ; they had chosen it because none else shared it with them, and their famine, and pride, and struggles, and despair, were without witness or pity. With a heavy step Glendower entered the chamber where 224 THE DISOWNED. his wife sat. When at a distance he had heard a faint moan, but as he had approached, it ceased ; for she from whom it came knew his step, and hushed her grief and pain, that they might not add to his own. The peevishness, the querulous and stinging irritations of want, came not to that affectionate and kindly heart ; nor could all those biting and bitter evils of fate, which turn the love that is born of luxury into rancour and gall, scathe the beautiful and holy passion which had knit into one those two unearthly natures. They rather clung the closer to each other, as all things in heaven and earth spoke in tempest or in gloom around them, and coined their sorrows into endearment, and their looks into smiles, and strove, each from the depth of despair, to pluck hope and comfort for the other. This, it is true, was more striking and constant in her than in Glendower ! for in love, man, be he ever so generous, is always outdone. Yet even when, in moments of extreme pas- sion and conflict, the strife broke from his breast into words, never once was his discontent vented upon her, nor his re- proaches lavished on any but fortune or himself, nor his mur- murs mingled with a single breath wounding to her tenderness, or detracting from his love. He threw open the door ; the wretched light cast its sickly beams over the squalid walls, foul with green damps, and the miserable yet clean bed, and the fireless hearth, and the empty board, and the pale cheek of the wife, ns she rose and flung her arms round his neck, and murmured out her joy and wel- come. " There," said he, as he extricated himself from her, and flung the money upon the table, " there, love, pine no more, feed yourself and our daughter, and then let us sleep and be happy. in our dreams." A writer, one of the most gifted of the present day, has told the narrator of this history, that no interest of a high nature can be given to extreme poverty. I know not if this be true ; yet, if I mistake not our human feelings, there is nothing so exalted, or so divine, as a great and brave spirit working out its end through every earthly obstacle and evil ; watching through the utter darkness, and steadily defying the phantoms which crowd around it ; wrestling with the mighty allurements and re- jecting the fearful voices of that WANT which is the deadliest and surest of human tempters ; nursing through all calamity the love of species, and the warmer and closer affections of private ties ; sacrificing no duty, resisting all sin ; and amidst every horror and every humiliation, feeding the still and bright light THE DISOWNED. 325 of that genius which, like the lamp of the fabulist, though it may waste itself for years amidst the depths of solitude and the silence of the tomb, shall live and burn immortal and un- dimmed, when all around it is rottenness and decay ! And yet I confess thatit'is a painful and bitter task to record the humiliations, the wearing, petty, stinging humiliations, of Poverty ; to count the drops as they slowly fall, one by one, upon the fretted and indignant heart; to particularize, with the scrupulous and nice hand of indifference, the fractional and divided movements in the dial-plate of Misery ; to behold the refinement of birth, the masculine pride of blood, the dignities of intellect, the wealth of knowledge, the delicacy and graces of womanhood all that ennoble and soften the stony mass of commonplaces which is our life, frittered into atoms, trampled into the dust and mire of the meanest thoroughfares of dis- tress ; life and soul, the energies and aims of man, ground into one prostrating want, cramped into one levelling sympathy with the dregs and refuse of his kind, blistered into a single galling and festering sore : this is, I own, a painful and a bit- ter task ; but it hath its redemption : a pride even in debase- ment, a pleasure even in woe : and it is therefore that while I have abridged, I have not shunned it. There are some whom the lightning of fortune blasts, only to render holy. Amidst all that humbles and scathes amidst all that shatters from their life its verdure, smites to the dust the pomp and summit of their pride, and in the very heart of existence wiiteth a sud- den and " strange defeature," they stand erect, riven, not up- rooted, a monument less of pity than of awe ! There are some who pass through the Lazar-House of Misery with a step more august than a Caesar's in his hall. The very things which, seen alone, are despicable and vile, associated with them become almost venerable and divine ; and one ray, how- ever dim and feeble, of that intense holiness which, in the INFANT GOD, shed majesty over the manger and the straw, not denied to those who, in the depth of affliction, cherish His pa- tient image, flings over the meanest localities of earth an emanation from the glory of Heaven J 226 THE DISOWNED. CHAPTER L. * Letters from divers hands, which will absolve Ourselves from long narration." Tanner of Tyburn. ONE morning about a fortnight after Talbot's death, Clarence was sitting alone, thoughtful and melancholy, when the three following letters were put into his hand : LETTER I. FROM THE DUKE OF HAVERFIELD. " LET me, my dear Linden, be the first to congratulate you upon your accession, of fortune : five thousand a year, Scars- dale, and eighty thousand pounds in the funds, are very pretty foes to starvation ! Ah, my dear fellow, if you had but shot that frosty Caucasus of humanity, that pillar of the state, made not to bend, that but you know already whom I mean, and so I will spare you more of my lamentable metaphors : had you shot Lord Borodaile, your happiness would now be complete ! Everybody talks of your luck. La Meronville tending on you with her white hands, the prettiest hands in the world who would not be wounded, even by Lord Borodaile, for such a nurse ? And then Talbot's yet, I will not speak of that, for you are very unlike the present generation ; and who knows but you may have some gratitude, some affection, some natural feeling in you. I had once ; but that was before I went to France those Parisians, with their fine sentiments, and witty philosophy, play the devil with one's good old-fashioned feel- ings. So Lord Aspeden is to have an Italian ministry. By- the-by, shall you go with him, or will you not rather stay at home, and enjoy your new fortunes hunt race dine out dance vote in the House of Commons, and, in short, do all that an Englishman and a gentleman should do? Ornamento e splendor del secol nostro. Write me a line whenever you have nothing better to do. " And believe me, " Most truly yours, " HAVERFIELD. " Will you sell your black mare, or will you buy my brown one ? Utrum horum mans accif>e> the only piece of Latin J remember." THE DISOWNED. 227 LETTER FROM LORD ASPEDEN. "My DEAR LINDEN: " Suffer me to enter most fully into your feeling. Death, my friend, is common to all: we must submit to its dispensations. I heard accidentally of the great fortune left you by Mr. Talbot (your father, I suppose I may venture to call him). Indeed, though there is a silly prejudice against illegitimacy, yet, as our immortal bard says : ' Wherefore base ? When thy dimensions are as well compact, . Thy mind as generous and thy shape as true As honest madam's issue ! ' For my part, my dear Linden, I say, on your behalf, that it is very likely that you are a natural son, for such are always the luckiest and the best. " You have probably heard of the honor his Majesty has con- ferred on me, in appointing to my administration the city of . As the choice of a secretary has been left to me, I need not say how happy I shall be to keep my promise to you. Indeed, as I told Lord yesterday morning, I do not know anywhere a young man who has more talent, or who plays better on the flute. " Adieu, my dear young friend ; "And believe me, " Very truly yours, "ASPEDEN." LETTER FROM MADAME DE LA MERONVILLE. (Translated.) :i You have done me wrong great wrong. I loved you I waited on you tended you nursed you gave all up for you ; and you forsook me forsook me without a word. True, that you have been engaged in a melancholy duty, but, at least, you had time to write a line, to cast a thought, to one who had shown for you the love that I have done. But we will pass over all this ; I will not reproach you it is beneath me. The vicious upbraid the virtuous forgive ! I have for several days left your house. I should never have come to it, had you not been wounded, and, as I fondly imagined, for my sake. Return when you will, I shal 1 no longer be there to persecute and torment you. " Pardor this letter. I have said too much for myself a hundred times too much to you ; but I shall not sin again. This intrusion is my last. CECILE DE LA MERONVILLE." 428 THE These letters will, probably, suffice to clear up that part of Clarence's history which had not hitherto been touched upon ; they will show that Talbot's will ( after several legacies to his old servants, his nearest connections, and two charitable insti- tutions, which he had founded, and for some years supported ) had bequeathed the bulk of his property to Clarence. The words in which the bequest was made were kind and somewhat remarkable. " To my relation and friend, commonly known by the name of Clarence Linden, to whom I am bound alike by blood and affection," etc. These expressions, joined to the magnitude of the bequest, the apparently unaccountable attach- ment of the old man to his heir, and the mystery which wrapt the origin of the latter, all concurred to give rise to an opinion, easily received, and soon universally accredited, that Clarence was a natural son of the deceased ; and so strong in England is the aristocratic aversion to an unknown lineage, that this belief, unflattering as it was, procured for Linden a much higher consideration, on the score of birth, than he might otherwise have enjoyed. Furthermore will the above correspondence testify the general Mat of Madam La Meronville's attach- ment, and the construction naturally put upon it. Nor do we see much left for us to explain, with regard to the Frenchwoman herself, which cannot equally well be gleaned by any judicious and intelligent reader from the epistle last honored by his perusal. Clarence's sense of gallantry did, indeed, smite him severely, for his negligence and ill-requital to one, who, what- ever her faults or follies, had at least done nothing with which he had a right to reproach her. It must, however, be considered, in his defence, that the fatal event which had so lately occurred, the relapse which Clarence had suffered in consequence, and the melancholy confusion and bustle in which the last week or ten days had been passed, were quite sufficient to banish her from his remembrance. Still she was a woman, and had loved, or seemed to love ; and Clarence, as he wrote to her a long, kind, and almost brotherly letter, in return for her own, felt that, in giving pain to another, one often suffers almost as much for avoiding as for committing a sin. We have said his letter was kind it was also frank, and yet prudent. In in he said that he had long loved another which love alone could have rendered him insensible to her attach- ment : that he, nevertheless, should always recall her memory with equal interest and admiration ; and then, with a tact of flattery which the nature of the correspondence and the sex of the person addressed rendered excusable, he endeavored, as THE DISOWNED. 629 far as he was able, to soothe and please the vanity which the candor of his avowal was calculated to wound. When he had finished this letter he despatched another to Lord Aspeden, claiming a reprieve of some days before he an- swered the proposal of the diplomatist. After these epistolary efforts, he summoned his valet, and told him, apparently in a careless tone, to find out if Lady Westborough was still in town. Then throwing himself on the couch, he wrestled with the grief and melancholy which the death of a friend, and more than a father, might well cause in a mind less susceptible than his, and counted the dull hours crawl onward until his servant re- turned. " Lady Westborough and all the family had been gone a week to their seat in ." " Well," thought Clarence, "had 7/er well a very beautiful young gentleman, who had a letter di- rected to be left here, addressed to him by the letters C. L., and who was afterwards kicked, and who admired your cap. mother, and whose name was Clarence Linden. You remember it well enough, mother, surely ?" " I think I do, Lizzy,"said the landlady, slowly ; for her mem- ory, not so much occupied as her daughter's by beautiful young gentlemen, struggled slowly amidst dim ideas of the various travellers and visitors with whom her house had been honored, before she came, at last, to the reminiscence of Clarence Lin- den " I think I do and Squire Mordaunt was very attentive to him and he broke one of the panes of glass in No. Eight, and gave me half a guinea to pay for it. I do remember, per- fectly Lizzy. So that is Mr. Linden now here ! only think ! " ''I should not have known him, certainly," said Miss Eliza- beth ; " he is grown so much taller, and his hair looks quite dark now, and his face is much thinner than it was ; but he is very handsome still is he not, sir?" turning to the valet. "Ah! ah! well enough," said Mr, Harrison, stretching out THE DISOWNED. 279 his right leg and falling away a little to the left, in the manner adopted by the renowned Gil Bias, in his address to the fair Laura " well enough ; but he's a little too tall and thin, 1 think." Mr. Harrison's faults in shape were certainly not those of being too tall and thin. " Perhaps so ! " said Miss Elizabeth, who scented the vanity by a kindred instinct, and had her own reasons for pampering it " Perhaps so ! " " But he is a great favorite with the ladies all the same ; how- ever, he only loves one lady. Ah, but I must not say who, though I know. However, she is so handsome ; such eyes, they would go through you like a skewer, but not like yours, yours miss, which, I vow and protest, are as bright as a service of plate." " Oh, sir ! " And amidst these graceful compliments the time slipped away, till Clarence's dinner, and his valet's supper, being fairly over, Mr. Harrison presented himself to his master, a perfectly dif- ferent being in attendance to what he was in companionship flippancy, impertinence, forwardness, all merged in the steady, sober, serious demeanor which characterizes the respectful and well-bred domestic. Clarence's orders were soon given. They were limited to the appurtenances of writing ; and as soon as Harrison reappeared with his master's writing-desk, he was dismissed for the night. Very slowly did Clarence settle himself to his task, and at- tempt to escape the ennui of his solitude, or the restlessness of thought feeding upon itself, by inditing the following epistle : "TO THE DUKE OF HAVERFIELD. " I WAS very unfortunate, my dear Duke, to miss seeing you, when I called in Arlington Street, the evening before last, for I had a great deal to say to you something upon public and a little upon private affairs. I will reserve trie latter, since I only am the person concerned, for a future opportunity. With respect to the former, "And now, having finished the political part of my letter, let me congratulate you most sincerely upon your approaching marriage with Miss Trevanion. I do not know her myself; but I remember that she was the bosom friend of Lady Flora Ardenne, whom I have often heard speak of her in the highest and most affectionate terms, so that 1 imagine her brother, could not better atone to you for dishonestly carrying off the fair Julia JfSo THE DISOWNED. some three years ago, than by giving you his sister in honor, able and orthodox exchange the gold armor for the brazen. "As for my lot, though I ought not, at this moment, to dim yours by dwelling upon it, you know how long, how constantly, how ardently I have loved Lady Flora Ardenne how, for her sake, I have refused opportunities of alliance which might have gratified, to the utmost, that worldliness of heart which so many who saw me only in the crowd have been pleased to im- pute to me. You know that neither pleasure, nor change, nor the insult I received from her parents, nor the sudden indiffer- ence which I so little deserved from herself, have been able to obliterate her image. You will therefore sympathize with me, when I inform you that there is no longer any doubt of her marriage with Borodaile (or rather Lord Ulswater, since his father's death), as soon as the sixth month of his mourning ex- pires ; to this period only two months remain. " Heavens ! when one thinks over the past, how incredulous one could become to the future : when I recall all the tokens of love I received from that woman, I cannot persuade myself that they are now all forgotten, or rather, all lavished upon another. "But I do not blame her may she be happier with him than she could have been with me ! and that hope shall whisper peace to regrets which I have been foolish to indulge so long, and it is perhaps well for me that they are about to be rendered for- ever unavailing. " I am staying at an inn, without books, companions, or any thing to beguile time and thought, but this pen, ink, and paper. You will see, therefore, a reason and an excuse for my scribbling on to you, till my two sheets are filled, and the hour of ten (one can't well go to bed earlier) arrived. "You remember having often heard me speak of a very ex- traordinary man whom I met in Italy, and with whom 1 became intimate. He returned to England some months ago ; and on hearing it my desire of renewing our acquaintance was so great that I wrote to invite myself to his house. He gave me what is termed a very obliging answer, and left the choice of time to myself. You see now, most noble Festus, the reason of my journey hitherwards. " His house, a fine old mansion, is situated about five or six miles from this town : and, as I arrived here late in the even- ing, and knew that his habits were reserved and peculiar, I thought it better to take 'mine ease in my inn' for this night, And defer my visit to Mordaunt Court till to-morrow morning. 1'HE DISOWNED. 2$I In truth, I -was not averse to renewing an old acquaintance not, as you in your malice would suspect, with my hostess, but with her house. Some years ago, when I was eighteen, I first made a slight acquaintance with Mordaunt at this very inn, and now, at twenty-six, I am glad to have one evening to myself on the same spot, and retrace here all that has since happened to me. " Now, do not be alarmed ; 1 am not going to inflict upon you the unquiet retrospect with which I have just been vexing myself; no, I will rather speak to you of my acquaintance and host to be. I have said that I first met Mordaunt some years since at this inn an accident, for which his horse was to blame, brought us acquainted I spent a day at his house, and was much interested in his conversation ; since then, we did not meet till about two years and a half ago^ when we were in Italy together. During the intermediate interval Mordaunt had married lost his property by a lawsuit disappeared from the world (whither none knew) for some years recovered the estate he had lost by the death of his kinsman's heir, and shortly afterwards by that of the kinsman himself, and had become a widower, with one only child, a beautiful little girl of about four years old. He lived in perfect seclusion, avoided all inter- course with society, and seemed so perfectly unconscious of having ever seen me before, whenever in our rides or walks we met, that I could not venture to intrude myself on a reserve so rigid and unbroken as that which characterized his habits and life. "The gloom and loneliness, however, in which Mordaunt's days were spent, were far from partaking of that selfishness so common, almost so necessarily common, to recluses. Wherever he had gone in his travels through Italy, he had left light and rejoicing behind him. In his residence at , while unknown to the great and gay, he was familiar with the outcast and the destitute. The prison, the hospital, the sordid cabins of want, the abodes (so frequent in Italy, that emporium of artists and poets) where genius struggled against poverty and its own improvidence all these were the spots to which his visits were paid, and in which 'the very stones prated of his whereabout.' It was a strange and striking contrast to compare the sickly enthusiasm of those who flocked to Italy, to lavish their senti- ments on statues, and their wealth on the modern impositions palmed upon their taste as the masterpieces of ancient art it was a noble contrast, I say, to compare that ludicrous and idle enthusiasm with the quiet and wholesome energy of mind and 2&2 THE DISOWNED. heart which led Mordaunt, not to pour forth worship and homage to the unconscious monuments of the dead, but to console, to relieve, and to sustain the woes, the wants, the feebleness, of the living. "Yet, while he was thus employed in reducing the miseries and enlarging the happiness of others, the most settled melan- choly seemed to mark himself ' as her own.' Clad in the deepest mourning, a stern and unbroken gloom sat for ever upon his countenance. I have observed, that if in his walks or rides any one, especially of the better classes, appeared to approach, he would strike into a new path. He could not bear even the scrutiny of a glance or the fellowship of a moment : and his mien, high and haughty, seemed not only to repel others, but to contradict the meekness and charity which his own actions so invariably and unequivocally displayed. It must, indeed, have been a powerful exertion of principle over feeling, which induced him voluntarily to seek the abodes and intercourse of the rude beings he blessed and relieved. "We met at two or three places to which my weak and imper- fect charity had led me, especially at the house of a sickly and distressed artist ; for in former life 1 had intimately known one of that profession ; and I have since attempted to transfer to his brethren that debt of kindness which an early death for- bade me to discharge to himself. It was thus that I first became acquainted with Mordaunt' s occupations and pursuits : for what ennobled his benevolence was the remarkable obscurity in which it was veiled. It was in disguise and in secret that his generosity flowed ; and so studiously did he conceal his name, and hide even his features, during his brief visits to 'the house of mourning," that only one, like myself, a close and minute investigator of whatever has once become an object of interest, could have traced his hand in the various works of happiness it had aided or created. " One day, among some old ruins, I met him with his young daughter. By great good fortune I preserved the latter, who had wandered away from her father, from a fall of loose stones, which would inevitably have crushed her. I was myself much hurt by my effort, having received upon my shoulder a frag- ment of the falling stones; and thus our old acquaintance was renewed, and gradually ripened into intimacy; not, I must own, without great patience and constant endeavor on my part : for his gloom and lonely habits rendered him utterly impracticable of access to any (as Lord Aspeden would say) but a diplo- matist. I saw a great deal of him during the six months I THE DISOWNED. 283 remained in Italy, and but you know already how warmly I admire his extraordinary powers, and venerate his character. Lord Aspeden's recall to England separated us. "A general election ensued. I was returned for . I entered eagerly into domestic politics your friendship, Lord Aspeden's kindness, my own wealth and industry, made my success almost unprecedentedly rapid. Engaged, heart and hand, in those minute yet engrossing labors for which the aspirant in parliamentary and state intrigue must unhappily forego the more enlarged though abstruser speculations of general philosophy, and of that morality which .may be termed universal politics, I have necessarily been employed in very different pursuits from those to which Mordaunt's contempla- tions are devoted, yet have I often recalled his maxims, with admiration at their depth, and obtained applause for opinions which were only imperfectly filtered from the pure springs of his own. " It is about six months since he has returned to England, and he has very lately obtained a seat in Parliament so that we may trust soon to see his talents displayed upon a more public and enlarged theatre than they hitherto have been ; and, though I fear his politics will be opposed to ours, I anti- cipate his public debut with that interest which genius, even when adverse to one's self, always inspires. Yet I confess that I am desirous to see and converse with him once more in the familiarity and kindness of private intercourse. The rage of party, the narrowness of sectarian zeal, soon exclude from oirr friendshipall those who differ from our opinions; and it islike sailors holding commune for the last time with each other, before their several vessels are divided by the perilous and uncertain sea, to confer in peace and retirement for a little while with those who are about to be launched with us on that same unquiet ocean, where any momentary caprice of the winds may disjoin us forever, and where our very union is only a sympathy in toil, and a fellowship in danger. " Adieu, my dear Duke ! it is fortunate for me that our public opinions are so closely allied, and that I may so reason- ably calculate in private upon the happiness and honor of subscribing myself your affectionate friend, C. L." Such was the letter to which we shall leave the explanation of much that has taken place within the last three years of our tale, and which, in its tone, will serve to show the kindness and generosity of heart and feeling that mingled (rather in- 284 THE DISOWNED. creased than abated by the time which brought wisdom) with the hardy activity and resolute ambition that characterized the mind of our "Disowned." We now consign him to such repose as the best bed-room in the Golden Fleece can afford, and conclude the chapter. CHAPTER LX. " Though the wilds of enchantment all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit, for Wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore ; Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore ! " CAMPBELL. " SHALL I order the carriage round, sir ? " said Harrison ; " it is past one." "Yes; yet stay ; the day is fine ; I will ride. Let the car- riage come on in the evening ; see that my horse is saddled ; you looked to his mash last night?" " I did, sir. He seems wonderfully fresh ; would you please to have me stay here with the carriage, sir, till the groom comes on with the other horse ?" " Ay ; do I don't know yet how far strange servants may be welcome where I am going." "Now, that's lucky!" said Harrison to himself as he shut the door ; " I shall have a good five hours' opportunity of making my court here. Miss Elizabeth is really a very pretty girl, and might not be a bad match. I don't see any brothers; who knows but she may succeed to the inn hem ! A servant may be ambitious as well as his master, I suppose?" So meditating, Harrison sauntered to the stables saw (for he was an admirable servant, and could, at a pinch, dress a horse as well as its master) that Clarence's beautiful steed re- ceived the utmost nicety of grooming which the ostler could bestow led it himself to the doorheld the stirrup for his master, with the mingled humility and grace of his profession, and then strutted away, " pride on his brow and glory in his eye," to be the cynosure and oracle of the tap-room. Meanwhile, Linden rode slowly onwards. As he passed that turn of the town by which he had for the first time entered it, THE DISOWNED. 485 the recollection of the eccentric and would-be gipsy flashed upon him. "I wonder," thought he, "where that singular man is now whether he still preserves his itinerant and woodland tastes : " ' Si flumina sylvasque inglorius amet.' * or whether, as his family increased in age or number, he has turned from his wanderings, and at length found out 'the peaceful hermitage.' How glowingly the whole scene of that night comes across me the wild tents, their wilder habitants, the mingled bluntness, poetry, honest good nature, and spirit of enterprise which constituted the chief's nature the jovial meal and mirth round the wood fire, and beneath the quiet stars, and the eagerness and zest with which I then mingled in the merriment. Alas ! how ill the fastidiousness and refine- ment of after-days repay us for the elastic, buoyant, ready zeal with which our first youth enters into whatever is joyous, with- out pausing to ask if its cause and nature be congenial to our habits or kindred to our tastes. After all, there really was something philosophical in the romance of the jovial gypsy, childish as it seemed; and I should like much to know if the philosophy has got the better of the romance, or the romance, growing into habit, become commonplace, and lost both its philosophy and its enthusiasm. Well, after I leave Mordaunt, I will try and find out my old friend." With this resolution, Clarence's thoughts took a new channel, and he soon entered upon Morclaunt's domain. As he rode through the park, where brake and tree were glowing in the yellow tints which Autumn, like Ambition, gilds ere it withers, he paused for a moment to recall the scene as he last beheld it. It was then Spring Spring in its first and flushest glory when not a blade of grass but sent a perfume to the air the happy air, " Making sweet music while the young leaves danced ":. when every cluster of the brown fern, that now lay dull and motionless around him, and amidst which the melancholy deer stood afar off, gazing upon the intruder, was vocal with the blithe melodies of the infant year the sharp, yet sweet, voices of birds and (heard at intervals) the chirp of the merry grasshopper, or the hum of the awakened bee. He sighed, as he now looked around, and recalled the change, both of time and season : and with that fondness of heart which causes man to knit his own little life to the varieties of Time, the signs * If, unknown to fame, he love the streams and the vroodt. 28d THE DISOWNEi). of Heaven, or the revolutions of Nature, he recognized something kindred in the change of scene to the change of thought and feeling which years had wrought in the beholder. Awaking from his reverie, he hastened his horse's pace, and was soon within sight of the house. Vavasour, during the few years he had possessed the place, had conducted and carried through improvements and additions to the old man- sion, upon a scale equally costly and judicious. The heavy and motley magnificence of the architecture in which the house had been built remained unaltered ; but a wing on either side, though exactly corresponding in style with the intermediate building, gave, by the long colonnade which ran across the one, and the stately windows which adorned the other, an air not only of grander extent, but more cheerful lightness to the massy and antiquated pile. It was, assuredly, in the point of view by which Clarence now approached it, a structure which possessed few superiors in point of size and effect ; and harmonized so well with the noble extent of the park, the ancient woods, and the venerable avenues, that a very slight effort of imagination might have poured from the massive portals the pageantries of old days, and the gay gal- liard of chivalric romance with which the scene was in such accordance, and which in a former age it had so often witnessed. Ah, little could any one who looked upon that gorgeous pile, and the broad lands which, beyond the boundaries of the park, swelled on the hills of the distant landscape, studded at frequent intervals with the spires and villages which adorned the wide baronies of Mordaunt little could he who thus gazed around have imagined that the owner of all he surveyed had passed the glory and verdure of his manhood in the bitterest struggles with gnawing want, and rebellious pride, and urgent passion, without friend or aid but his own haughty and supporting virtue, sentenced to bear yet in his wasted and barren heart the sign of the storm he had resisted, and the scathed token of the lightning he had braved. None but Crauford, who had his own reasons for taciturnity, and the itinerant broker, easily bribed into silence, had ever known of the extreme poverty from which Mordaunt had passed to his rightful possessions. It was whispered, indeed, that he had been reduced to narrow and straitened circumstances ; but the whisper had been only the breath of rumor, and the imag- ined poverty far short of the reality : for the pride of Mor- daunt (the great, almost the sole failing in his character) could THE DISOWNED. 287 not endure that all he had borne and baffled should be bared to the vulgar eye ; and by a rare anomaly of mind, indifferent as he was to renown, he was morbidly susceptible of shame. When Clarence rung at the ivy-covered porch, and made inquiry for Mordaunt, he was informed that the latter was in the park, by the river, where most of his hours, during the daytime, were spent. "Shall I send to acquaint him that you are come, sir?" said the servant. "No," answered Clarence, "I will leave my horse to one of the grooms, and stroll down to the river in search of your master." Suiting the action to the word, he dismounted, consigned his steed to the groom, and, following the direction indicated to him, bent his way to the "river." As he descended the hill, the brook (for it did not deserve, though it received, a higher name) opened enchantingly upon his view. Amidst the fragrant reed and the wild flower, still sweet, though fading, and tufts of tedded grass, all of which, when crushed beneath the foot, sent a mingled tribute to its sparkling waves, the wild stream took its gladsome course, now contracted by gloomy firs, which, bending over the water, cast somewhat of their own sadness upon its surface now glancing forth from the shade, as it "broke into dimples and laughed in the sun," now washing the gnarled and spreading roots of some lonely ash, which, hanging over it, still and droopingly, seemed, the hermit of the scene, to moralize on its noisy and various wanderings now winding round the hill, and losing itself at last amidst thick copses, where day did never more than wink and glimmer, and where, at night, its waters, brawl- ing through their stony channel, seemed like a spirit's wail, and harmonized well with the scream of the gray owl, wheeling from her dim retreat, or the moaning and rare sound of some solitary deer. As Clarence's eyes roved admiringly over the scene before him, it dwelt at last upon a small building situated on the wildest part of the opposite bank : it was entirely overgrown with ivy, and the outline only remained to show the gothic antiquity of the architecture. It was a single square tower, built none knew when or wherefore, and, consequently, the spot of many vagrant guesses and wild legends among the surrounding gossips. On approaching yet nearer, he per- ceived, alone and seated on a little mound beside the tower, the object of his search. 288 THE DISOWNED. Mordaunt was gazing with vacant yet earnest eye upon the waters beneath ; and so intent was either his mood or look, that he was unaware of Clarence's approach. Tears fast and large were rolling from those haughty eyes, which men who shrunk from their indifferent glance little deemed were capable of such weak and feminine emotion. Far, far through the aching void of time were the thoughts of the reft and solitary mourner ; they were dwelling, in all the vivid and keen inten- sity of grief which dies not, upon the day when, about that hour and on that spot, he sate, with Isabel's young cheek upon his bosom, and listened to a voice now only heard in dreams. He recalled the moment when the fatal letter, charged with change and poverty, was given to him, and the pang which had rent his heart as he looked around upon a scene over which spring had just then breathed, and which he was about to leave to a fresh summer and a new lord ; and then that deep, fond, half-fearful gaze with which Isabel had met his eye, and the feeling, proud even in its melancholy, with which he had drawn towards his breast all that earth had left to him, and thanked God in his heart of hearts that she was spared. "And I am once more master," (thought he) "not only of all I then held, but all which my wealthier forefathers possessed. But she who was the sharer of my sorrows and want oh, where is she ? Rather, ah ! rather a hundredfold that her hand was still clasped in mine, and her spirit supporting me through poverty and trial, and her soft voice murmuring the comfort that steals away care, than to be thus heaped with wealth and honor, and alone alone, where never more can come love, or hope, or the yearnings of affection, or the sweet fulness of a heart that seems fathomless in its tenderness, yet overflows ! Had my lot. when she left me, been still the steepings of bitter- ness, the stings of penury, the moody silence of hope, the damp and chill of sunless and aidless years, which rust the very iron of the soul away : had my lot been thus, as it had been, I could have borne her death, I could have looked upon her grave, and wept not nay, I could have comforted my own struggles with the memory of her escape ; but thus, at the very moment of prosperity, to leave the altered and promising earth, ' to house with darkness and with death '; no little gleam of sunshine, no brief recompense for the agonizing past, no momentary res- pite between tears and the tomb. Oh, Heaven ! what what avail is a wealth which comes too late, when she, who could alone have made wealth bliss, is dust ; and the light that should THE DISOWNED. 289 have gilded many and happy days, flings only a ghastly glare upon the tomb ? " Starting from these reflections, Mordaunt half-unconsciously rose, and, dashing the tears from his eyes, was about to plunge into the neighboring thicket, when looking up, he beheld Clarence, now within a few paces of him. He started, and seemed for one moment irresolute whether to meet or shun his advance, but probably deeming it too late for the latter, he banished, by one of those violent efforts with which men of proud and strong minds vanquish emotion, all outward sign of the past agony ; and hastening towards his guest, greeted him with a welcome which, though from ordinary hosts it might have seemed cold, appeared to Clarence, who knew his temper, more cordial than he had ventured to anticipate. CHAPTER LXI. * My father urged me sair, But my mither did na speak, Though she looked into my face, Till my heart war like to break." Auld Robin Gray. " IT is rather singular," said Lady Westborough to her daughter, as they sate alone one afternoon in the music-room at Westborough Park, " it is rather singular that Lord Ulswater should not have come yet. He said he should certainly be here before three o'clock." " You know, mamma, that he has some military duties to detain him at W ," answered Lady Flora, bending over a drawing, in which she appeared to be earnestly engaged. " True, my dear, and it was very kind in Lord to quarter the troop he commands in his native county ; and very fortu- nate that W , being his headquarters, should also be so near us. But I cannot conceive that any duty can be sufficiently strong to detain him from you," added Lady Westborough, who had been accustomed all her life to a devotion unparalleled in this age. "You seem very indulgent, Flora." " Alas ! she should rather say very indifferent," thought Lady Flora ; but she did not give her thought utterance she only looked up at her mother for a moment, and smiled faintly. Whether there was something in that smile, or in the pale cheek of her daughter, that touched her, we know not, but Lady Westborough was touched ; she threw her arms round 290 THE DISOWNED. Lady Flora's neck, kissed her fondly, and said, "You do not seem well to-day, my love are you ? " "Oh ! very very well," answered Lady Flora, returning her mother's caress, and hiding her eyes, to which the tears had started. "My child," said Lady Westborough, "you know that both myself and your father are very desirous to see you married to Lord Ulswater of high and ancient birth, of great wealth, young, unexceptional in person and character, and warmly attached to you it would be impossible even for the sanguine heart of a parent to ask for you a more eligible match. But if the thought really does make you wretched and yet, how can it ?" " I have consented, "said Flora gently : " all I ask is, do not speak to me more of the the event than you can avoid." Lady Weslborough pressed her hand, sighed, and replied not. The door opened, and the marquis, who had within the last year become a cripple, with the great man's malady, dira podagra, was wheeled in on his easy-chair : close behind him followed Lord Ulswater. " I have brought you," said the marquis, who piqued himself on a vein of dry humor, " I have brought you, young lady, a consolation for my ill humors. Few gouty old fathers make themselves as welcome as I do eh, Ulswater ! " "Dare I apply to myself Lord Westborough's compliment?" said the young nobleman, advancing towards Lady Flora ; and drawing his seat near her, he entered into that whispered con- versation so significant of courtship. But there was little in Lady Flora's manner, by which an experienced eye would have detected the bride elect : no sudden blush, no downcast yet sidelong look, no trembling of the hand, no indistinct confusion of the voice, struggling with unanalyzed emotions. No all was calm, cold, listless ; her cheek changed not tint nor hue, and her words, clear and collected, seemed to contradict what- ever the low murmurs of her betrothed might well be supposed to insinuate. But, even in his behavior, there was something which, had Lady Westborough been less contented than she was with the externals and surface of manner, would have alarmed her for her daughter. A cloud, sullen and gloomy, sate upon his brow, and his lip alternately quivered with some- thing like scorn, or was compressed with a kind of stifled passion. Even in the exultation that sparkled in his eye, when he alluded to their approaching marriage, there was an expression that almost might have been termed fierce, and certainly was THE DISOWNED. 2Q1 as little like the true orthodox ardor of " gentle swain," as Lady Flora's sad and half unconscious coldness resembled the diffident passion of the " blushing maiden." "You have considerably passed the time in which we expected you, my lord," said Lady Westborough, who, as a beauty her- self, was a little jealous of the deference due to the beauty of her daughter. " It is true," said Lord Ulswater, glancing towards the op- posite glass and smoothing his right eyebrow with his fore- finger "it is true, but I could not help it. I had a great deal of business to do with my troop I have put them, into a new manoeuvre. Do you know, my Lord (turning to the marquis) I think it very likely the soldiers may have some work on the of this month." " Where, and wherefore ? " asked Lord Westborough, whom a sudden twinge forced into the laconic. " At W . Some idle fellows hold a meeting there jon that day; and if I may judge by bills and advertisements, chalkings on the walls, and, more than all, popular rumor, I have no doubt but what riot and sedition are intended the magistrates are terribly frightened. I hope we shall have some cutting and hewing I have no patience with the rebellious dogs." " Foi shame for shame!" cried Lady Westborough, who, though a worldly, was by no means an unfeeling, woman; "the people are misguided they mean no harm." Lord Ulswater smiled scornfully. " I never dispute upon politics, but at the head of my men," said he, and turned the conversation. Shortly afterwards Lady Flora, complaining of indisposition, rose, left the apartment, and retired to her own room. There she sat, motionless and white as death, for more than an hour. A day or two afterwards Miss Trevanion received the following letter from her : " Most heartily, most truly do I congratulate you, my dearest Eleanor, upon your approaching marriage. You may reason- ably hope for all that happiness can afford : and though you do affect (for I do not think you feel) a fear lest you should not be able to fix a character, volatile and light, like your lover's; yet when I recollect his warmth of heart, and high sense, and your beauty, gentleness, charms of conversation, and purely disinterested love for one whose great worldly advantages might so easily bias or adulterate affection, I own that I have no dread for your future fate ; no feeling that can at all darken 2Q2 THE DISOWNED. the brightness of anticipation. Thank you, dearest, for the delicate kindness with which you allude to my destiny me, indeed, you cannot congratulate as I can you. But do not grieve for me, my own generous Eleanor : if not happy, I shall, I trust, be at least contented. My poor father implored me with tears in his eyes my mother pressed my hand, but spoke not ; and I I whose affections were withered, and hopes strewn, should I not have been hard-hearted indeed, if they had not wrung from me a consent ? And, oh ! should I not be utterly lost if, in that consent which blessed them, I did not find something of peace and consolation ? " Yes, dearest, in two months, only two months, I shall be Lord Ulswater's wife ; and when we meet, you shall look narrowly at me, and see if he or you have any right to complain of me. " Have you seen Mr. Linden lately ? Yet, do not answer the question ; I ought not to cherish still that fatal clinging interest for one who has so utterly forgotten me. But I do rejoice in his prosperity : and when I hear his praises, and watch his career, I feel proud that I should once have loved him ! Oh, how could he be so false, so cruel, in the very midst of his professions of undying, unswerving faith to me, at the very moment when I was ill, miserable, wasting my very heart, for anxiety on his account and such a woman too ! And had he loved me, even though his letter was returned, would not his conscience have told him he deserved it, and would he not have sought me out in person, and endeavored to win from my folly his forgiveness. But without attempting to see me, or speak to me, or soothe a displeasure so natural, to leave the country in silence, almost in disdain ; and when we met again, to greet me with coldness, and hauteur, and never betray by word, sign, or look, that he had ever been to me more than the merest stranger ! Fool, fool, that I am, to waste another thought upon him ; but I will not, and ought not to do so. In two months I shall not even have the privilege of remem- brance. "I wish, Eleanor for I assure you that I have tried and tried that I could find anything to like and esteem (since love is out of the question) in this man, who seems so great, and, to me, so unaccountable a favorite with my parents. His coun- tenance and voice are so harsh and stern ; his manner at once so self-complacent and gloomy ; his sentiments so narrow, even in their notions of honor ; his very courage so savage, and his pride so constant and offensive, that I in vain endeavor to persuade myself of his virtues, and recur, at least, to the THE DISOWNED, 2<)$ unwearying affection for me which he professes. It is true that he has been three times refused ; that I have told him that I cannot love him ; that I have even owned former love to another : he still continues his suit, and by dint of long hope has at length succeeded. But at times I could almost think that he married me from very hate, rather than love, there is such an artificial smoothness in his stern voice, such a latent meaning in his eye ; and when he thinks I have not noticed him, I have, on suddenly turning towards him, perceived so dark and lowering an expression upon his countenance that my heart has died within me for very fear. " Had my mother been the least less kind, my father the least less urgent, I think, nay, I know, I could not have gained such a victory over myself as I have done in consenting to the day. But enough of this. I did not think I should have run on so long and so foolishly ; but we, dearest, have been children, and girls, and women together : we have loved each other with such fondness and unreserve that opening my heart to you seems, only another phrase for thinking aloud. "However, in two months I shall have no right even to thoughts perhaps I may not even love you. Till then, dearest Eleanor, I am, as ever, your affectionate and faithful friend, "F. A." Had Lord Westborough, indeed, been " less urgent," or her mother "less kind," nothing could ever have wrung from Lady Flora her consent to a marriage so ungenial and ill- omened. Thrice had Lord Ulswater (then Lord Borodaile) been re- fused, before finally accepted ; and those who judge only from the ordinary effects of pride, would be astonished that he should have still persevered. But his pride was that deep-rooted feeling which, so far from being repelled by a single blow, fights stubbornly and doggedly onward, till the battle is over and its object gained. From the moment he had resolved to address Lady Flora Ardenne, he had also resolved to win her. For three years, despite of a refusal, first gently, then more peremptorily, urged, he fixed himself in her train. He gave out that he was her affianced. In all parties, in all places, he forced himself near her, unheeded alike of her frowns or indif- ference ; and his rank, his hauteur, his fierceness of mien, and ac- knowledged courage, kept aloof all the less arrogant and hardy pretenders to Lady Flora's favor. For this, indeed, she rather thanked than blamed him ; and it was the only thing which in 294 THE DISOWNED. the least reconciled her modesty to his advances or her pride to his presumption. He had been prudent as well as bold. The father he had served, and the mother he had won. Lord Westborough, ad- dicted a little to politics, a good deal to show, and devotedly to gaming, was often greatly and seriously embarrassed. Lord Ulswater, even during the life of his father (who was lavishly generous to him), was provided with the means of relieving his intended father-in-law's necessities ; and caring little for money in comparison to a desired object, he was willing enough, we do not say to bribe, but to influence Lord Westborough's consent. These matters of arrangement were by no means concealed from the marchioness, who, herself ostentatious and profuse, was in no small degree benefited by them ; and though they did not solely procure, yet they certainly contri- buted, to conciliate her favor. Few people are designedly and systematically wicked ; even the worst find good motives for bad deeds ; and are as intent upon discovering glosses for conduct, to deceive themselves as to delude others. What wonder, then, that poor Lady West- borough, never too rigidly addicted to self-examination, and viewing all things through a very worldly medium, saw only in the alternate art and urgency employed against her daughter's real happiness, the various praiseworthy motives of permanently disentangling Lady Flora from an unworthy attachment, of procuring for her an establishment proportioned to her rank, and a husband whose attachment, already shown by such singular perseverance, was so likely to afford her everything which, in Lady Westborough's eyes, constituted felicity. All our friends, perhaps, desire our happiness ; but, then, it must invariably be in their own way. What a pity that they do not employ the same zeal in making us happy in ours! CHAPTER LXII. " If thou criest after Knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding ; If thou seekest her as silver , : and searchest for her as for hid treasures ; Then shall thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." Proz't-rbs, ch. ii., ver. 3,4, 5. WHILE Clarence was thus misjudged by one whose af- fections and conduct he, in turn, naturally misinterpreted while Lady Flora was alternately struggling against arid sub- THE DISOWNED. 295 milling to the fate which Lady Westborough saw approach with gladness the father with indifference, and the bridegroom with a pride that partook less of rapture than. revenge, our un- fortunate .lover was endeavoring to glean, from Mordaunt's conversation and example, somewhat of that philosophy so rare except in the theories of the civilized and the occasional practice of the barbarian, which though it cannot give us a charm against misfortune, bestows at least upon us the energy to support it. We have said already, that when the first impression pro- duced by Mordaunt's apparent pride and coldness, wore away, it required little penetration to discover the benevolence and warmth of .his mind. But none ignorant of his original dispo- sition, or the misfortunes of his life, could ever have pierced the depth of his self-sacrificing nature, or measured the height of his lofty and devoted virtue. Many men may, perhaps, be found, who will give up to duty ,a cherished wish, or even a darling vice, but few will ever renounce to it their rooted tastes, or .the indulgence of those habits which have almost become, by long use, their happiness itself. Naturally melancholy and thoughtful, feeding the sensibilities of his heart upon fiction, and though addicted to the cultivation of reason rather than fancy, having perhaps more of the deeper and acuter charac- teristics of the poet, than those calm and half-callous proper- ties of nature supposed to belong to the metaphysician and the calculating moralist, Mordaunt was above all men fondly addicted to solitude, and inclined to contemplations less use- ful than profound. The untimely death of Isabel, whom he had loved with that love which is the vent of hoarded and passionate musings, long nourished upon romance, and lavishing the wealth of a soul that overflows with secreted tenderness upon the first object that can bring reality to fiction -that event had not only darkened melancholy into gloom, but had made loneliness still more dear to his habits by all the ties of memory, and all the consecrations of regret. The companionless wanderings the midnight closet the thoughts which, as Hume said of his own, could not exist in the world, but were all busy with life in ser elusion : these were, rendered sweeter than ever to a mind for which the ordinary objects of the world were now utterly love- less ; and the musings of solitude had become, as it were, a rightful homage and offering to the dead ! We may form, then, some idea of the extent to which, in Mordaunt's character, principle predominated over inclination, and regard for others 296 THE DISOWNED. over the love of self, when we see him tearing his spirit from its beloved retreats and abstracted contemplations, and devot- ing it to duties from which its fastidious and refined character- istics were particularly calculated to revolt. When we have considered his attachment to the hermitage, we can appreciate the virtue which made him among the most active citizens in the great world ; when we have considered the natural selfish- ness of grief, the pride of philosophy, the indolence of medi- tation, the eloquence of wealth, which says, "rest and toil not," and the temptation within, which says, "obey the voice"; when we have considered these, we can perhaps do justice to the man who, sometimes on foot and in the coarsest attire, travelled from inn to inn, and from hut to hut ; who made human misery the object of his search, and human happiness of his desire ; who, breaking aside an aversion to rude contact, almost feminine in its extreme, voluntarily sought the meanest companions, and subjected himself to the coarsest infusions ; for whom the wail of affliction, or the moan of hunger was as a summons which allowed neither hesitation nor appeal ; who seemed possessed of an ubiquity for the purposes of good, al- most resembling that attributed to the wanderer in the magni- ficent fable of " Melmoth," for the temptations to evil ; who, by a zeal and labor that brought to habit and inclination a thousand martyrdoms, made his life a very hour-glass, in which each sand was a good deed or a virtuous design. Many plunge into public affairs, to which they have had a previous distaste, from the desire of losing the memory of a pri- vate affliction ; but so far from wishing to heal the wounds of remembrance by the anodynes which society can afford, it was only in retirement that Mordaunt found the flowers from which balm could be distilled. Many are through vanity magnani- mous, and benevolent from the selfishness of fame ; but, so far from seeking applause, where he bestowed favor, Mordaunt had sedulously shrouded himself in darkness and disguise. And by that increasing propensity to quiet, so often found among those addicted to lofty or abstruse contemplation, he had conquered the ambition of youth with the philosophy of a manhood that had forestalled the affections of age. Many, in short, have become great or good to the community by individ- ual motives easily resolved into common and earthly elements of desire ; but they who inquire diligently into human nature have not often the exalted happiness to record a character like Mordaunt's, actuated purely by a systematic principle of love, which covered mankind, as heaven does earth, with an atmos- THE DISOWNED. 297 phere of light extending to the remotest corners, and penetrat- ing the darkest recesses. It was one of those violent and gusty evenings, which give to an English autumn something rude, rather than gentle, in its characteristics, that Mordaunt and Clarence sate together, " And sowed the hoars with various seeds of talk." The young Isabel, the only living relic of the departed one, sat by her father's side, upon the floor ; and, though their dis- course was far beyond the comprehension of her years, yet did she seem to listen with a quiet and absorbed attention. In truth, child as she was, she so loved, and almost wor- shipped, her father, that the very tones of his voice had in them a charm, which could always vibrate, as it were, to her heart, and hush her into silence ; and that melancholy and deep, though somewhat low voice, when it swelled or trembled with thought which in Mordaunt was feeling made her sad, she knew not why ; and when she heard it, she would creep to his side, and put her little hand on his, and look up at him with eyes in whose tender and glistening blue the spirit of her mother seemed to float. She was serious, and thoughtful, and loving, beyond the usual capacities of childhood ; perhaps her solitary condition, and habits of constant intercourse with one so grave as Mordaunt, and who always, when not absent on his excursions of charity, loved her to be with him, had given to her mind a precocity of feeling, and tinctured the sim- plicity of infancy with what ought to have been the colors of after-years. She was not inclined to the sports of her age she loved, rather, and above all else, to sit by Mordaunt'sside, and silently pore over some book, or feminine task, and to steal her eyes every now and then away from her employment, in order to watch his motions, or provide for whatever her vigi- lant kindness of heart imagined he desired. And often, when he saw her fairy form hovering about him, and attending on his wants, or her beautiful countenance glow with pleasure, when she fancied she supplied them, he almost believed that Isabel yet lived, though in another form, and that a love so intense and holy as hers had been might transmigrate, but could not perish. The young Isabel had displayed a passion for music so early, that it almost seemed innate ; and as, from the mild and wise education she received, her ardor had never been repelled on the one hand or overstrained on the other, so, though she had but just passed her seventh year, she had attained to a singular 298 THE DISOWNED. .proficiency in the art an art that suited well with her lovely face, and fond feelings, and innocent heart ; and it was almost heavenly, in the literal acceptation of the word, to hear her sweet, though childish voice swell along the still pure airs of summer, and her angelic countenance all rapt and brilliant with the enthusiasm which her own melodies created. Never had she borne the bitter breath of unkindness, nor writhed beneath that customary injustice which punishes in others the sins of our own temper, and the varied fretfulness of caprice ; and so she had none of the fears and meannesses, and acted untruths which so usually pollute and debase the in- nocence of childhood. But the promise of her ingenuous brow (over which the silken hair flowed, parted into two streams of gold) and of the fearless but tender eyes, and of the quiet smile which sat for ever upon the rosy mouth, like Joy watching Love, was kept in its fullest extent by the mind, from which all thoughts, pure, kind, and guileless flowed, like waters from a well, which a spirit has made holy for its own dwell- ing. On this evening, we have said that she sat by her father's side, and listened, though she only in part drank in its sense, to his conversation with his guest. The room was of great extent, and surrounded with books, over which, at close intervals, the busts of the departed Great and the immortal Wise looked down. There was the sublime beauty of Plato, the harsher and more earthly countenance of Tully, the only Roman (except Lucretius) who might have been a Greek. There the mute marble gave the broad front of Bacon (itself a world) and there the features of Locke showed how the mind wears away the links of flesh with the file of thought. And over other departments of those works which remind us that man is made a little lower than the angels, the stern face of the Florentine who sung of hell, contrasted with the quiet grandeur enthroned on the fair brow of the English poet " blind but bold," and there the glorious, but genial countenance of him who has found in all humanity a friend, conspicuous among sages and minstrels, claimed brotherhood with all. The fire burned clear and high, casting a rich twilight (for there was no other light in the room) over that gothic chamber, and shining cheerily upon the varying countenance of Clar- ence, and the more contemplative features of his host. In the latter might you see that care and thought had been harsh, but not unhallowed companions. In the linesjwhich crossed his ex- THE DISOWNED. 299 panse of brow, time seemed to have buried many nopes ; but his mien and air, if loftier, were gentler than in younger days ; and though they had gained somewhat in dignity, had lost greatly in reserve. There was in the old chamber, with its fretted roof and ancient "garniture," the various books which surrounded it, walls that the learned built to serve themselves, and in the marble likeness of those for whom thought had won eternity, joined to the hour, the breathing quiet, and the hearth-light, by whose solitary rays we love best in the eves of autumn to discourse on graver or subtler themes there was in all this a spell which seemed particularly to invite and to harmonize with that tone of conversation, some portions of which we are now about to relate. " How loudly," said Clarence, " that last gust swept by you remember that beautiful couplet in Tibullus : " ' Quam juvat immites ventds audire cubantem, Et dominam tenero detinuisse sinu.' " * "Ay," answered Mordaunt, with a scarcely audible sigh, " that is the feeling of the lover at the ' immites ventos,' but we sages of the lamp make our mistress Wisdom, and when the winds rage without, it is to her that we cling. See how from the same object different conclusions are drawn ! the most common externals of nature, the wind and the wave, the stars and the heavens, the very earth on which we tread, never excite in different bosoms the same ideas ; and it is from our own hearts, and not from an outward source, that we draw the hues which color the web of our existence." "It is true," answered Clarence. "You remember that in two specks of the moon the enamored maiden perceived two unfortunate lovers, while the ambitious curate conjectured that they were the spires of a cathedral ? But it is not only to our feelings, but also to our reasonings, that we give the colors which they wear. The moral, for instance, which to one man seems atrocious, to another is divine. On the tendency of the same work what three people will agree ? And how shall the most sanguine moralist hope to benefit mankind when he finds that, by the multitude, his wisest endeavors to instruct are often considered but as instruments to pervert ?" " I believe," answered Mordaunt, " that it is from our ignor- ance that our contentions flow ; we debate with strife and with * Sweet on our couch to hear the winds above, And cling with closer heart to her we love. 3OO THE DISOWNED. wrath, with bickering and with hatred, but of the thing debated upon we remain in the profoundest darkness. Like the laborers of Babel, while we endeavor in vain to express our meaning to each other, the fabric by which, for a common end, we would have ascended to heaven from the ills of earth remains for ever unadvanced and incomplete. Let us hope that knowledge is the universal language which shall reunite us. As, in their sublime allegory, the Ancients signified that only through virtue we arrive at honor, so let us believe that only through knowledge can we arrive at virtue ! " "And yet," said Clarence, " that seems a melancholy truth for the mass of the people who have no time for the researches of wisdom."