Change and time take together their flight.--Golden Violet.
One evening in autumn, about three years after the date of our last
chapter, a stranger on horseback, in deep mourning, dismounted at the
door of the Golden Fleece, in the memorable town of W----. He walked
into the taproom, and asked for a private apartment and accommodation
for the night. The landlady, grown considerably plumper than when we
first made her acquaintance, just lifted up her eyes to the stranger’s
face, and summoning a short stout man (formerly the waiter, now the
second helpmate of the comely hostess), desired him, in a tone which
partook somewhat more of the authority indicative of their former
relative situations than of the obedience which should have
characterized their present, “to show the gentleman to the Griffin, No.
4.”
The stranger smiled as the sound greeted his ears, and he followed
not so much the host as the hostess’s spouse into the apartment thus
designated. A young lady, who some eight years ago little thought that
she should still be in a state of single blessedness, and who always
honoured with an attentive eye the stray travellers who, from their
youth, loneliness, or that ineffable air which usually designates the
unmarried man, might be in the same solitary state of life, turned to
the landlady and said,--
“Mother, did you observe what a handsome gentleman that was?”
“No,” replied the landlady; “I only observed that he brought no servant”
“I wonder,” said the daughter, “if he is in the army? he has a military
air!”
“I suppose he has dined,” muttered the landlady to herself, looking
towards the larder.
“Have you seen Squire Mordaunt within a short period of time?” asked,
somewhat abruptly, a little thick-set man, who was enjoying his pipe and
negus in a sociable way at the window-seat. The characteristics of this
personage were, a spruce wig, a bottle nose, an elevated eyebrow,
a snuff-coloured skin and coat, and an air of that consequential
self-respect which distinguishes the philosopher who agrees with the
French sage, and sees “no reason in the world why a man should not
esteem himself.”
“No, indeed, Mr. Bossolton,” returned the landlady; “but I suppose that,
as he is now in the Parliament House, he will live less retired. It is
a pity that the inside of that noble old Hall of his should not be more
seen; and after all the old gentleman’s improvements too! They say
that the estate now, since the mortgages were paid off, is above 10,000
pounds a year, clear!”
“And if I am not induced into an error,” rejoined Mr. Bossolton,
refilling his pipe, “old Vavasour left a great sum of ready money
besides, which must have been an aid, and an assistance, and an
advantage, mark me, Mistress Merrylack, to the owner of Mordaunt
Hall, that has escaped the calculation of your faculty,--and the--and
the--faculty of your calculation!”
“You mistake, Mr. Boss,” as, in the friendliness of diminutives, Mrs.
Merrylack sometimes styled the grandiloquent practitioner, “you mistake:
the old gentleman left all his ready money in two bequests,--the one to
the College of ----, in the University of Cambridge, and the other to
an hospital in London. I remember the very words of the will; they ran
thus, Mr. Boss. ‘And whereas my beloved son, had he lived, would have
been a member of the College of ---- in the University of Cambridge,
which he would have adorned by his genius, learning, youthful virtue,
and the various qualities which did equal honour to his head and heart,
and would have rendered him alike distinguished as the scholar and the
Christian, I do devise and bequeath the sum of thirty-seven thousand
pounds sterling, now in the English Funds,’ etc; and then follows the
manner in which he will have his charity vested and bestowed, and
all about the prize which shall be forever designated and termed ‘The
Vavasour Prize,’ and what shall be the words of the Latin speech which
shall be spoken when the said prize be delivered, and a great deal more
to that effect: so, then, he passes to the other legacy, of exactly the
same sum, to the hospital, usually called and styled ----, in the city
of London, and says, ‘And whereas we are assured by the Holy Scriptures,
which, in these days of blasphemy and sedition, it becomes every true
Briton and member of the Established Church to support, that “charity
doth cover a multitude of sins,” so I do give and devise,’ etc., ‘to be
forever termed in the deeds,’ etc., ‘of the said hospital, “The Vavasour
Charity;” and always provided that on the anniversary of the day of
my death a sermon shall be preached in the chapel attached to the
said hospital by a clergyman of the Established Church, on any text
appropriate to the day and deed so commemorated.’ But the conclusion is
most beautiful, Mr. Bossolton: ‘And now having discharged my duties, to
the best of my humble ability, to my God, my king, and my country,
and dying in the full belief of the Protestant Church, as by law
established, I do set my hand and seal,’ etc.”
“A very pleasing and charitable and devout and virtuous testament or
will, Mistress Merrylack,” said Mr. Bossolton; “and in a time when
anarchy with gigantic strides does devastate and devour and harm the
good old customs of our ancestors and forefathers, and tramples with
its poisonous breath the Magna Charta and the glorious revolution, it
is beautiful, ay, and sweet, mark you, Mrs. Merrylack, to behold
a gentleman of the aristocratic classes or grades supporting the
institutions of his country with such remarkable energy of sentiments
and with--and with, Mistress Merrylack, with sentiments of such
remarkable energy.”
“Pray,” said the daughter, adjusting her ringlets by a little glass
which hung over the tap, “how long has Mr. Mordaunt’s lady been dead?”
“Oh! she died just before the squire came to the property,” quoth the
mother. “Poor thing! she was so pretty! I am sure I cried for a whole
hour when I heard it! I think it was three years last month when it
happened. Old Mr. Vavasour died about two months afterwards.”
“The afflicted husband” (said Mr. Bossolton, who was the victim of a
most fiery Mrs. Boss at home) “went into foreign lands or parts, or,
as it is vulgarly termed, the Continent, immediately after an event or
occurrence so fatal to the cup of his prosperity and the sunshine of his
enjoyment, did he not, Mrs. Merrylack?”
“He did. And you know, Mr. Boss, he only returned about six months ago.”
“And of what borough or burgh or town or city is he the member and
representative?” asked Mr. Jeremiah Bossolton, putting another lump of
sugar into his negus. “I have heard, it is true, but my memory is
short; and, in the multitude and multifariousness of my professional
engagements, I am often led into a forgetfulness of matters less
important in their variety, and less--less various in their importance.”
“Why,” answered Mrs. Merrylack, “somehow or other, I quite forget too;
but it is some distant borough. The gentleman wanted him to stand for
the county, but he would not hear of it; perhaps he did not like the
publicity of the thing, for he is mighty reserved.”
“Proud, haughty, arrogant, and assumptious!” said Mr. Bossolton, with a
puff of unusual length.
“Nay, nay,” said the daughter (young people are always the first to
defend), “I’m sure he’s not proud: he does a mort of good, and has the
sweetest smile possible! I wonder if he’ll marry again! He is very young
yet, not above two or three and thirty.” (The kind damsel would not have
thought two or three and thirty very young some years ago; but we
grow wonderfully indulgent to the age of other people as we grow older
ourselves!)
“And what an eye he has!” said the landlady. “Well, for my part,--but,
bless me. Here, John, John, John, waiter, husband I mean,--here’s a
carriage and four at the door. Lizzy, dear, is my cap right?”
And mother, daughter, and husband all flocked, charged with
simper, courtesy, and bow, to receive their expected guests. With a
disappointment which we who keep not inns can but very imperfectly
conceive, the trio beheld a single personage,--a valet, descend from the
box, open the carriage door, and take out--a desk! Of all things human,
male or female, the said carriage was utterly empty.
The valet bustled up to the landlady: “My master’s here, ma’am, I think;
rode on before!”
“And who is your master?” asked Mrs. Merrylack, a thrill of alarm, and
the thought of No. 4, coming across her at the same time.
“Who!” said the valet, rubbing his hands; “who!--why, Clarence Talbot
Linden, Esq., of Scarsdale Park, county of York, late Secretary of
Legation at the court of ----, now M.P., and one of his Majesty’s Under
Secretaries of State.”
“Mercy upon us!” cried the astounded landlady, “and No. 4! only think of
it. Run, John,--John,--run, light a fire (the night’s cold, I think) in
the Elephant, No. 16; beg the gentleman’s pardon; say it was occupied
till now; ask what he’ll have for dinner,--fish, flesh, fowl, steaks,
joints, chops, tarts; or, if it’s too late (but it’s quite early yet;
you may put back the day an hour or so), ask what he’ll have for supper;
run, John, run: what’s the oaf staying for? run, I tell you! Pray, sir,
walk in (to the valet, our old friend Mr. Harrison)--you’ll be hungry
after your journey, I think; no ceremony, I beg.”
“He’s not so handsome as his master,” said Miss Elizabeth, glancing
at Harrison discontentedly; “but he does not look like a married man,
somehow. I’ll just step up stairs and change my cap: it would be but
civil if the gentleman’s gentleman sups with us.”
Meanwhile Clarence, having been left alone in the quiet enjoyment of
No. 4, had examined the little apartment with an interest not altogether
unmingled with painful reflections. There are few persons, however
fortunate, who can look back to eight years of their life, and not
feel somewhat of disappointment in the retrospect; few persons, whose
fortunes the world envy, to whom the token of past time suddenly
obtruded on their remembrance does not awaken hopes destroyed and wishes
deceived which that world has never known. We tell our triumphs to
the crowd, but our own hearts are the sole confidants of our sorrows.
“Twice,” said Clarence to himself, “twice before have I been in this
humble room; the first was when, at the age of eighteen, I was just
launched into the world,--a vessel which had for its only hope the motto
of the chivalrous Sidney,--
‘Aut viam inveniam, aut--faciam;’
[“I will either find my way, or--make it.]
yet, humble and nameless as I was, how well I can recall the exaggerated
ambition, nay, the certainty of success, as well as its desire, which
then burned within me. I smile now at the overweening vanity of those
hopes,--some, indeed, realized, but how many nipped and withered
forever! seeds, of which a few fell upon rich ground and prospered,
but of which how far the greater number were scattered: some upon the
wayside, and were devoured by immediate cares; some on stony places, and
when the sun of manhood was up they were scorched, and because they had
no root withered away; and some among thorns, and the thorns sprang up
and choked them. I am now rich, honoured, high in the favour of courts,
and not altogether unknown or unesteemed arbitrio popularis aurae:
and yet I almost think I was happier when, in that flush of youth and
inexperience, I looked forth into the wide world, and imagined that from
every corner would spring up a triumph for my vanity or an object for my
affections. The next time I stood in this little spot, I was no longer
the dependant of a precarious charity, or the idle adventurer who had
no stepping-stone but his ambition. I was then just declared the heir of
wealth, which I could not rationally have hoped for five years before,
and which was in itself sufficient to satisfy the aspirings of ordinary
men. But I was corroded with anxieties for the object of my love, and
regret for the friend whom I had lost: perhaps the eagerness of my
heart for the one rendered me, for the moment, too little mindful of
the other; but, in after years, memory took ample atonement for that
temporary suspension of her duties. How often have I recalled, in this
world of cold ties and false hearts, that true and generous friend, from
whose lessons my mind took improvement, and from whose warnings example;
who was to me, living, a father, and from whose generosity whatever
worldly advantages I have enjoyed or distinctions I have gained are
derived! Then I was going, with a torn yet credulous heart, to pour
forth my secret and my passion to her, and, within one little week
thence, how shipwrecked of all hope, object, and future happiness I was!
Perhaps, at that time, I did not sufficiently consider the excusable
cautions of the world: I should not have taken such umbrage at her
father’s letter; I should have revealed to him my birth and accession of
fortune; nor bartered the truth of certain happiness for the trials and
manoeuvres of romance. But it is too late to repent now. By this time my
image must be wholly obliterated from her heart: she has seen me in the
crowd, and passed me coldly by; her cheek is pale, but not for me;
and in a little, little while, she will be another’s, and lost to me
forever! Yet have I never forgotten her through change or time, the
hard and harsh projects of ambition, the labours of business, or the
engrossing schemes of political intrigue. Never! but this is a vain and
foolish subject of reflection now.”
And not the less reflecting upon it for that sage and veracious
recollection, Clarence turned from the window, against which he had been
leaning, and drawing one of the four chairs to the solitary table, he
sat down, moody and disconsolate, and leaning his face upon his hands,
pursued the confused yet not disconnected thread of his meditations.
The door abruptly opened, and Mr. Merrylack appeared.
“Dear me, sir!” cried he, “a thousand pities you should have been put
here, sir! Pray step upstairs, sir; the front drawing-room is just
vacant, sir; what will you please to have for dinner, sir?” etc.,
according to the instructions of his wife. To Mr. Merrylack’s
great dismay, Clarence, however, resolutely refused all attempts at
locomotion, and contenting himself with entrusting the dinner to
the discretion of the landlady, desired to be left alone till it was
prepared.
Now, when Mr. John Merrylack returned to the taproom, and communicated
the stubborn adherence to No. 4 manifested by its occupier, our good
hostess felt exceedingly discomposed. “You are so stupid, John,” said
she: “I’ll go and expostulate like with him;” and she was rising for
that purpose when Harrison, who was taking particularly good care of
himself, drew her back; “I know my master’s temper better than you do,
ma’am,” said he; “and when he is in the humour to be stubborn, the very
devil himself could not get him out of it. I dare say he wants to be
left to himself: he is very fond of being alone now and then; state
affairs, you know” (added the valet, mysteriously touching his
forehead), “and even I dare not disturb him for the world; so make
yourself easy, and I’ll go to him when he has dined, and I supped. There
is time enough for No. 4 when we have taken care of number one. Miss,
your health!”
The landlady, reluctantly overruled in her design, reseated herself.
“Mr. Clarence Linden, M. P., did you say, sir?” said the learned
Jeremiah: “surely, I have had that name or appellation in my books, but
I cannot, at this instant of time, recall to my recollection the exact
date and circumstance of my professional services to the gentleman so
designated, styled, or, I may say, termed.”
“Can’t say, I am sure, sir,” said Harrison; “lived with my master many
years; never had the pleasure of seeing you before, nor of travelling
this road,--a very hilly road it is, sir. Miss, this negus is as bright
as your eyes and as warm as my admiration.”
“Oh, sir!”
“Pray,” said Mr. Merrylack, who like most of his tribe was a bit of a
politician; “is it the Mr. Linden who made that long speech in the House
the other day?”
“Precisely, sir. He is a very eloquent gentleman, indeed: pity he speaks
so little; never made but that one long speech since he has been in
the House, and a capital one it was too. You saw how the prime minister
complimented him upon it. ‘A speech,’ said his lordship, ‘which had
united the graces of youthful genius with the sound calculations of
matured experience.”’
“Did the prime minister really so speak?” said Jeremiah “what a
beautiful, and noble, and sensible compliment! I will examine my
books when I go home,--‘the graces of youthful genius with the sound
calculations of matured experience’!”
“If he is in the Parliament House,” quoth the landlady, “I suppose he
will know our Mr. Mordaunt, when the squire takes his seat next--what do
you call it--sessions?”
“Know Mr. Mordaunt!” said the valet. “It is to see him that we have come
down here. We intended to have gone there to-night, but Master thought
it too late, and I saw he was in a melancholy humour: we therefore
resolved to come here; and so Master took one of the horses from the
groom, whom we have left behind with the other, and came on alone. I
take it, he must have been in this town before, for he described the inn
so well.--Capital cheese this! as mild,--as mild as your sweet smile,
miss.”
“Oh, sir!”
“Pray, Mistress Merrylack,” said Mr. Jeremiah Bossolton, depositing his
pipe on the table, and awakening from a profound revery, in which
for the last five minutes his senses had been buried, “pray, Mistress
Merrylack, do you not call to your mind or your reminiscence or
your--your recollection, a young gentleman, equally comely in his aspect
and blandiloquent (ehem!) in his address, who had the misfortune to
have his arm severely contused and afflicted by a violent kick from Mr.
Mordaunt’s horse, even in the yard in which your stables are situated,
and who remained for two or three days in your house or tavern or hotel?
I do remember that you were grievously perplexed because of his name,
the initials of which only he gave or entrusted or communicated to you,
until you did exam--”
“I remember,” interrupted Miss Elizabeth, “I remember well,--a very
beautiful young gentleman, who had a letter directed 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 memory, 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 honoured, before she came, at last, to the
reminiscence of Clarence Linden, “I think I do; and Squire Mordaunt was
very attentive to him; and he broke one of the panes of glass in No. 8
and gave me half a guinea to pay for it. I do remember perfectly, Lizzy.
So that is the Mr. Linden now here?--only think!”
“I should not have known him, certainly,” said Miss Elizabeth; “he is
grown so much taller, and his hair looks quite dark now, and his face is
much thinner than it was; but he’s very handsome still; is he not, sir?”
turning to the valet.
“Ah! ah! well enough,” said Mr. Harrison, stretching out his right leg,
and falling away a little to the left, in the manner adopted by the
renowned Gil Blas, in his address to the fair Laura, “well enough; but
he’s a little too tall and thin, I 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 favourite with the ladies all the same; however, 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 different being
in attendance to what he was in companionship: flippancy, impertinence,
forwardness, all merged in the steady, sober, serious demeanour which
characterize 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 attempt 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 the 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 I imagine her
brother could not better atone to you for dishonestly carrying off
the fair Julia some three years ago, than by giving you his sister in
honourable and orthodox exchange,--the gold amour 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 impute to me. You know that neither pleasure, nor
change, nor the insult I received from her parents, nor the sudden
indifference which I so little deserved from herself, has 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 expires; 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 forever unavailing.
I am staying at an inn, without books, companions, or anything 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 extraordinary man
whom I met in Italy, and with whom I 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 evening, 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. 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: I 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 intercourse
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 sentiments 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 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 melancholy seemed to mark
himself “as her own.” Clad in the deepest mourning, a stern and un
broken gloom sat forever 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 imperfect charity had
led me, especially at the house of a sickly and distressed artist: for
in former life I 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 forbade 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 fragment 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 endeavour on my part; for
his gloom and lonely habits rendered him utterly impracticable of access
to any (as Lord Aspeden would say) but a diplomatist. I saw a great
deal of him during the six months I 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 labours 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 contemplations 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 anticipate 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 our friendship all those who differ
from our opinions; and it is like 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 reasonably calculate in private
upon the happiness and honour 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 increased 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 bedroom in the Golden Fleece can afford, and conclude
the chapter.