“Morton,” said he, “I own to you, I myself am astounded 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 expenses of the law.”

I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus

spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent 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 something 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 condemnation 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 dishonouring 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 favour 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 interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we

said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, “This

way of terminating 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, 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 emotions 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 former 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 leaving 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 expectations. 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!--suspicions 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 regularly witnessed; suspicions,

Morton,--no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome your

uncle always was: suspicions!--no, impossible!”

“Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will

hazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, their

lives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: the

Law,--that great arbiter,--that eater of the oyster, and divider of its

shells,--the Law will decide between 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 commander. 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, and the curule car, and the emperor’s purple,--what are

these but thy playthings, alternately thy scorn and thy reward! 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 waved 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 EXCEPTED) _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 return to London. I

had previously intrusted to the _locum tenens_ of the sage Desmarais,

the royal gift, and (singular conjunction!) 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 myself to

reflection upon the strange alteration that had taken place in my

fortunes. There did not, in my own mind, rest a doubt but that some

villany had been practised with respect to the will. My uncle’s constant

and unvarying favour 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 to 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 darkest designs; the sudden and evidently concealed

appearance of the latter on the day my uncle died; the agitation and

paleness 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 difficulty I should

experience in resisting my brother’s claim. So far as my utter want of

all legal knowledge would allow me to decide, 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 uncle was known as a humourist; 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 favour 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 contesting; 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 corruptissima republica plurimoe

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, interrupted, at

times, by regrets of a purer and less selfish nature for the 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 day, on resuming my journey, and on feeling the time approach

that would bring me to Isora, something like joy became the most

prevalent feeling in my mind. So true it is that misfortunes 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 nothing _beyond_ the moment which it soothes

us to anticipate! Happiness 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 vapours, 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 endeavouring 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 lightness of the chaise gave me some alarm for the safety of the

driver; so, tying my own 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 a rather critical spot and moment. The old gentleman very soon

recovered his alarm; and, returning me many thanks for my interference,

requested 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 vexation at that time, though I afterwards

thought the petty inconvenience was amply repaid by a conference with

a very singular and once noted character, the offer was accepted.

Surrendering 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 Bob,” said the old gentleman, apostrophizing his horse; “poor Bob,

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 favourite maxim, namely,

‘The only preventive to rebellion is restraint!’”

“Your observation, Sir,” said I, rather struck by this address, “makes

very little in favour 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 something, 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 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 gentleman

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, reflecting that my

horse required a short rest, I subdued my impatience to return to town,

and accepted the invitation. We came presently to a house of moderate

size, and rather antique fashion. 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 apartment. 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 resolute gloomy

brow,--that stubborn lip,--that heavy, yet not stolid expression,--all

seem to warrant a resemblance to that singular 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 flying squirrel.

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 insincerity when at heart he himself was

deceived.”

“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 victim 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 partook 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 opinions was speedily effected by what old Barnes* quaintly

enough terms, “The gentleman-usher of all knowledge,--Sermocination!”

* In the “Gerania.”

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 at 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 principally upon books, and I observed that those which 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 cannot 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? 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 Movoetov!’ this is 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 composito securus acervo

Despiciam dites, despiciamque famem.’”*

* “Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealth, and fear not

hunger.”

“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 principle 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 probability forever:

you will then know that you have conversed with a man, perhaps more

universally neglected and contemned 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 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-gratulation. 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,

Alexander, 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 recollection, 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 distance 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 obscurity, the son of him who shook an

empire, avenged a people, and obtained a throne, only to be the victim

of his own passions and the dupe of his own reason. I repeat now the

question I before put to you,--Was the fate of the great Protector

fairer than that of the despised and forgotten

RICHARD CROMWELL?

“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, happiness is the last thing which we covet. Love and wealth

and pleasure and honour,--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 afterwards he died:* I 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!

* Richard Cromwell died in 1712--ED.

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 fortunes; 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 thou 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 of luxury and of show which

made one of my most prevailing 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 restless the poor animal is; how it refuses

all company and all comfort; 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 whispered; “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 address me only in your 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 dreamed 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?”

* Sir Philip Sydney, who, if we may judge from the number of quotations

from his works scattered in this book, seems to have been an especial

favourite with Count Devereux.--ED.

“It may be so!” said Isora, sighing; “but the splendour which surrounds

us chills and almost terrifies me. I think that every proof of your

wealth and rank puts me further 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; 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 hirelings,

through which you may pass, as through a lane, the caparisoned 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 a 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 expenditure at my uncle’s, I fell insensibly and _con amore_,

on my _debut_ in London, into all the extravagances of the age. Sir

William, pleased rather than discontented with my habits, especially

as they were attended with some _eclat_, 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

munificence; and when I had received the product and paid my debts,

I found that the whole balance in my favour, 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

humour 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 cause was hopeless;

the will was sufficient to exclude 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

practitioner. At last I chanced upon a little brisk gentleman, with a

quick eye and a sharp voice, who wore a wig that carried conviction

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

vigour, 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

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 receive

the condolence and sympathy of St. John. Notwithstanding 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 disappointment that I had neither received nor returned his

visits. Touched by the phenomenon of so much kindness in a statesman, I

paid him in return the only compliment in my power; namely, 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 professor; 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!”

“Ah, I did forget that,” replied St. John, slowly. “Heaven help me,

Count, but I am sorry your ancestors were not converted; it was a pity

they should bequeath you their religion without the estate to support

it, for papacy has become a terrible tax to its followers.”

“I wonder,” said I, “whether the earth will ever be governed 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 ‘Daemonologie’ of the Scottish Solomon, ‘burned 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 purple: 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

beloved 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? _sua

virtute involvit_. Hark ye, St. John, let us turn fools: they are the

only potentates, the only philosophers of earth. Oh, motley, ‘motley’s

your only wear!’”

“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 comfortable

and praiseworthy an end seemed to present itself. My religion 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 any more

glorious engagement than a brawl with the Mohawks, any incautious noses

appertaining to which fraternity I was fully resolved to slit whenever

they came conveniently in my way. To add to the unpromising state of my

worldly circumstances, my uncle’s death had removed 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 one’s self 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 damnably neighboured

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 giving dinners to his father, or turning his house into a palace in

order to feast his bosom friend: on the contrary, ‘tis the poor devil

of a friend who fares the worst, and starves on the family joint, while

mine host beggars himself to banquet “that disagreeable 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 intention of

revealing our marriage, I perceived in her countenance, always such a

traitor to her emotions, a very different expression from that which

I 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 unlooked 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 projects I chalked out for us to adopt. Still,

however, when I proposed a definite time for the re-celebration of our

nuptials, 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 their heads about my movements or

myself. I lived then almost wholly with Isora; and did familiarity abate

my love? Strange to say, it did not abate even the romance of it. The

reader may possibly remember a conversation with St. John recorded in

the Second Book of this history. “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, not wrath, nor

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 blessing! 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 endearment! 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 shrank into a single

want! Still was her presence to my heart as a breathing atmosphere of

poesy which circled and tinted all human things; still was my being

filled with that delicious and vague melancholy 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 common 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 difficult 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 poetry, save that of

Shakspeare, reminds us; and to this day, when I go into the world, I

never see aught of our own kind 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 whisper and a spell. The wan stars, where,

from the eldest time, man has shaped out a chart of the undiscoverable

future; the mysterious moon, to which the great ocean ministers from its

untrodden shrines; the winds, which traverse the vast air, pilgrims from

an eternal home to an unpenetrated bourne; the illimitable heavens, on

which none ever gazed without a vague craving 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 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 vapour, 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 recollection 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 forebodings? there is nothing painful or

harsh in them to me, and I interpret them thus: ‘If my life passes away

before the common 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 express

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 wily and callous diplomatist--the

companion alternately so light and so moodily reserved--little could

they tell how soft, and weak, and doting my heart was once!

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 appeared 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 purposed leaving the country within a week afterwards.

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 expressions 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 temperament

which seemed to lean so strongly towards a self-punishing superstition.

It was about a week before the day fixed for my public nuptials that I

received at last from him the following letter:--

MY 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 learned your disappointment and

your recourse to law. I am not so much surprised, though I am as

much grieved as yourself, for I will tell you now what seemed to me

unimportant before. On receiving your letter, requesting consent to your

designed marriage, my uncle seemed greatly displeased as well as vexed,

and afterwards he heard much that displeased him more; from what quarter

came his news I know not, and he only spoke of it in innuendoes and

angry insinuations. As far as I was able I endeavoured 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 considered 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 Gerald 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 inexcusable. So far,

therefore, from answering it immediately, I resolved not to reply to it

till after the solemnization of my marriage. The anecdote of my uncle

startled me a little when I coupled it with the words my uncle had used

towards myself on his death-bed; namely, in hinting that he had heard

some things unfavourable to Isora, 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 insure

to her a secure home and an honourable 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 acquisition 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

depreciation. In short, I looked upon him as possessing a characteristic

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 to vanish,

and she listened, with her usual eagerness in whatever interested me,

to my Continental schemes of enterprise. I resolved 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 marriage secret until the very day for celebrating it

arrived. I did this from a desire of 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 dressing 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 accomplished 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 honoured 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 consolations.”

“Indeed, Monsieur,” answered Desmarais, with that expression 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-colour; the colouring 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.

“‘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 had ever heard him descant on the beauties of

Fatalism. I cut him short in the midst of his harangue: too much

eloquence in any line is displeasing in one’s dependant.

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 exclaimed in a tone of surprise:

“What!--Count Devereux,--how fortunate!”

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 remember where I had

seen it: my look, I suppose, testified my want of memory, for he 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; _parbleu_, 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 may be 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 consideration 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, _s’il 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, unsatisfactory, yet sanguine conjecture.

CHAPTER VII.

THE EVENTS OF A SINGLE NIGHT.--MOMENTS MAKE THE HUES IN WHICH YEARS ARE

COLOURED.

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 precipice, while, in

their own deluded vision, they perchance believe themselves surrounded

by bowers of roses, and accompanied 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 travelled, our Reason can re-guide us over the roads of past

experience with a sure and unerring wisdom, even while it recoils,

baffled and bewildered, before the blackness of the very moment whose

boundaries we are about to enter.

The few friends I had invited to my wedding were still with me, when one

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 exceedingly 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 sending 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 perfectly

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, nothing particular. One of the two at

present shall be nameless; 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 member 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 political 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 L30,000 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 very

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 learned this she remembered

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 Jesuite_:

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 entered, 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, with 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 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 conceded to

the proposal, and gave my honour as a gentleman--Mr. Oswald obligingly

dispensed 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 purport 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 L5000: 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 Morton Devereux,--private,--and with haste.” As soon

as he had given me this precious charge, and reminded me again of my

promise, Oswald withdrew. 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 however 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 consigned 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 vulgar

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 fortune 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 me 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 Isora’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 favour the 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 favourite haunts. I brought visibly before her

glistening and eager eyes the thick copse where hour after hour, in

vague verses 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 arbour 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 window 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 consistent with your oath to our mutual enemy

than you have hitherto given me. Speak, dearest, have you not some yet

unrevealed causes for alarm?”

It 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! Yea, though I suffer hell’s

tortures forever 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 acceded 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 announcement of our wedded love had

become necessary to your honour 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 husband; 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 dispute between us could

be so dreadful as the least evil to Isora; and moreover, to appease her

fears, that I would solemnly 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 I 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, playfully, as her arm embraced me

yet more closely, “if, among yonder stars we could choose 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 upward, 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 withered

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, burned 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?”

“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 little distance from the bed, a

man wrapped in a long dark cloak and masked; but his eyes shone 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

escritoire in which I had locked the important packet, stood another

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 sprang

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 endeavoured 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 save a

mortal part, staggered me, but only for an instant. I renewed my grip

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 beheld 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. Hitherto the other man had not stirred

from his mute position; he 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 murmur 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 eyes

upon hers; and though _there_ the film was gathering dark and rapidly,

I saw, yet visible and unconquered, 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!

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 justice 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 instigator,--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 slow in hinting at the great interest I had

in forging a tale respecting 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 pocketbook 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 housebreakers. It was then discovered that a large purse of

gold, and a diamond cross, which the escritoire contained, 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. The circumstances immediately

confirmed 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 reputation, have forged this story of the packet in

order to obtain 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 important 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 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 suspicion 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 colour 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

these 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 hidden

in my room while I locked up the packet; and there was something in

the behaviour 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, namely, 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 in 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

mysteries, and will not easily forego the notion of a brother’s guilt

for that of a mere vulgar housebreaker, 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 favourable to the innocence 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 examination. 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 coxcomb can commit robbery

and murder. Howbeit Desmarais came off triumphantly; and immediately

after this examination, 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 endeavoured to clothe with the

name of justice to Isora. Suffice it to say that this resolution 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 bedside, and who, it was

natural to believe, 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 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 determination. I rode to Devereux

Court; I entered Gerald’s chamber, 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 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 passions, 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 characters

of the great; the colloquies of wit,--these are what delight the temper,

and amuse the leisure more than the solemn narrative 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 honour was publicly announced. I found

him walking to and fro 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 disturbed him.

“Well,” said he, stopping abruptly as he saw me,--“well, considering the

peacock Harley brought so bright a plume to his 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 metaphor. 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, shrank alike

in imbecility and fear, had been left exclusively to my share, an insult

in the shape of an honour to be left exclusively to my reward? You know

my disposition is not to overrate the mere baubles of ambition; you

know I care little for titles and for orders in themselves: 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 I had greater

influence than any single commoner in the kingdom,--I am given, not

this, but a miserable compromise 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 influence in the Lower House is far

greater; you know that my name in the country, nay, throughout Europe,

is far more popular; you know that the labour 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 honour: when,

therefore, this exact time is chosen for breaking a promise formerly

made to me; when a pretended honour, known to be most unpalatable to me,

is thrust upon me; when, at this very time, too, six vacant ribbons of

the garter flaunt by 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,--myself

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 dangerous 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 the _feelings_? Are they

right in doing so?”

“My friend, we are now in a polished age. What have feelings to do with

civilization?”

“Why, more than you will allow. Perhaps the greater our civilization,

the more numerous our feelings. Our animal passions 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 ancient statues. Phidias

made them, and Bubo and Bombax dressed 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 Bentley’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 countenance changed from

gayety to thought; “‘tis a melancholy thing in human nature that so

little is good and noble, both 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 ambition, 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 next two years passed, on my part, in perpetual intrigues of

diplomacy, combined with an unceasing though secret endeavour 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

posterity 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 effects 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; namely, 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

devotion 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 ecclesiastical 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 shrank from all worldly objects that my visits, and I

believe even those of Gerald, became unwelcome and distasteful.

As to my lawsuit, it went on gloriously, according to the assertions of

my brisk little lawyer, who had declared so emphatically 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 menacing 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 Talapat?” * and

Bolingbroke laughed. All men find wit in the jests broken on their

enemies!

* A thing used by the Siamese for the same purpose as we now use the

umbrella. A work descriptive of Siam, by M. de la Loubere, in which

the Talapat is somewhat minutely described, having been translated into

English, and having excited some curiosity, a few years before Count

Devereux now uses the word, the allusion was probably familiar.--ED.

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 statesman 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

ambition was never selfish,--culpable as he was when glory allured 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 actress, in the _levees_ of a court, in the boudoir

of a beauty, in the arena of the senate, in the intrigue of the

cabinet--you would not have observed a seam of the good old garment. But

directly it was wanted--in the hour of pain, in the day of peril, in

the suspense of exile, in (worst of all) the torpor of tranquillity--my

extraordinary friend unfolded it piece by piece, wrapped himself up

in it, sat down, defied the world, and uttered the most beautiful

sentiments upon the comfort and luxury 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.

* 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 error, in lauding

Oxford’s political character, and condemning Bolingbroke’s, because

the former awaited a trial and the latter shunned it. A very little

reflection might perhaps have taught the 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 far more numerously

and powerfully supported than his illustrious enemy: and there is really

no earthly cause for doubting the truth of Bolingbroke’s assertion;

namely, 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 attack a man for not placing his

head in that agreeable and most useful predicament--for preferring, 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 impeached, 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. Hungerford, uttered a single syllable in defence of the minister

disgraced.--ED.

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

Steele 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 sustained with

the most unflagging, the most unwearied, dexterity, the sinking spirits

of his associates. Without 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 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 impeachment 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 impeachment of the

late administration was decided upon. I was settling bills with my

little lawyer one morning, when Bolingbroke entered my room. He took

a chair, nodded to me not to dismiss my assistant, joined our

conversation, and when conversation 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

De 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

Gumdragon, as our friend Swift so euphoniously and elegantly says, or

swears, by Gumdragon, I think not! What altered Satan so after his fall?

what gave him horns and a tail? 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 forever. I

must fly: a packet-boat to Calais, or a room in the Tower, I 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. If 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 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 your 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

“‘Fidens animi atque in utrumque paratus.’**

“Once more I embrace you; farewell.”

* “Vainly have you banished Cassius, if you shall suffer the rivals of

the Brutuses to spread themselves and flourish.”

** “Confident of soul and prepared for either fortune.”

“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 _natale solum_; it is an honour 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 applicable, I

hope, as well to me as to yourself: to me, uncelebrated and obscure; to

you, the senator and the statesman.”

In vain Bolingbroke endeavoured 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 embraced 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 restless to be

happy, excitement can compensate for all,--compensate 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 theatre,

and I cannot break my word; and an hour afterwards 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 TO THE FALSE ONES.

IT was a brilliant night at the theatre. The boxes were crowded to

excess. Every eye was directed towards Lord Bolingbroke, 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.”