I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barb'rous multitudes.
Shakspeare.
About the commencement of the reign of King Charles the First, a
stranger came to reside in a populous village in Lancashire, under
circumstances of considerable interest and mystery. He was young, and
elegant in his person; his language not only evinced the cultivated
chasteness of education, but the nicer polish of refined society. When
drawn into conversation (to which he seemed averse), he discovered
classical learning enlivened by brilliant wit, and seasoned by deep
reflection. He was versed in the history of foreign courts; and if he
forbore to speak of our own, it seemed more from caution than from
ignorance. He excelled in fashionable exercises, rode the great horse
with a military air, and alarmed the rustics by his skill in fencing,
as much as he delighted them by the till then unheard tones which he
drew from the viola-de-gamba. It was impossible that, with these
accomplishments, a sad-coloured cloak and plain beaver could conceal the
gentleman. In vain did he report himself to be a Blackwell-hall factor,
whom an unfortunate venture had reduced to ruin.--Every one discovered
that his manners did not correspond with this description, and they
would have at once determined him to be some gay gallant, whose
wantonness of expense had outstripped his ability, had not his purse
contained good store of broad pieces, which his hand liberally bestowed,
as often as poverty appealed to his benevolence.
A Lancashire gentleman in those times had less intercourse with the
metropolis of the British empire, than one of the present day, has with
Canton. No London correspondent, therefore, could whisper the sudden
disappearance of a sparkling blade, who, after blazing awhile at
Whitehall, had unaccountably vanished like a meteor from its horizon;
nor had the depredation of swindlers, or the frequent intrusion of
impertinent hangers-on compelled the owners of manorial houses to shut
their doors on uninvited guests. The jovial coarse hospitality of those
times delighted in a crowded board; the extensive household daily
required ample provision, and refinement was too little advanced from
its earliest stage to make nice arrangement or rare delicacies necessary
to an esquire's table. Such a guest therefore as Evellin, was eagerly
sought and warmly welcomed. He joined with the joyous hunters in the
morning, he relieved the sameness of their repasts with his diversified
information; and in the evening he was equally gratifying to the ladies,
who being then generally confined to the uniform routine of domestic
privacy, loved to hear of what was passing in the great world. He could
describe the jewels which bound the hair of the Queen of Bohemia, and he
had seen the hood in which Anne of Austria ensnared the aspiring heart
of the Duke of Buckingham; beside, he led off the dance with matchless
grace, and to their native hornpipe enabled them to add the travelled
accomplishments of the galliard and saraband. What a concentration of
agreeable qualities! It must be owing to the invincible pressure of
secret uneasiness, and not to a suspicion of the cordiality with which
his entertainers welcomed him, if Evellin ever passed a day in solitude.
Yet he came into society with the air of one who sought it as a
temporary relief from anxiety, rather than as a source of real
enjoyment. A visible dissatisfaction, constraint, and unsubdued aversion
to the present, arising from regret at the past, sometimes interrupted
his graceful courtesy, and oftener made him indifferent to the passing
scene, or unconscious of it. This humour increased whenever he received
a dispatch from London, and at one time the mortification which his
letters excited, threw him into such a mental agony, that the cottagers
with whom he lodged, recurring to what was then deemed a specific for
troubled minds, called in the aid of Dr. Eusebius Beaumont to give him
ghostly consolation. I am not going to bring a mortified Franciscan
friar on the scene: his reverence was the village pastor, happy and
respectable as a husband and father, and largely endowed with those
which have signalized the Church of England, whenever she has been
called to any conspicuous trial. Learning and piety were in him two
neighbouring stars that reflected radiance on each other, and were
rather brightened than obscured by his humility. His manners and habits
of life retained the simplicity of the primitive ages, yet were they so
blended with courtesy, nobleness of mind, and superiority to every mean
selfish consideration, that the most travelled cavalier of the times
could not more winningly display the true gentleman. His example shewed
that the superiority which distinguishes that character consists not in
adopting the reigning mode (that poor ambition of a copyist), but in the
refined suavity which defies imitation, and is an inborn sentiment,
rather than an assumed costume. The most powerful peer in England had
not a more independent mind than Dr. Beaumont. His fortune was
sufficiently ample to supply his modest wants and large benevolence;
they who envied his popularity knew not how to weaken it except by
imitating the virtues in which it originated. Placed in that respectable
mediocrity which was the wish of Agar--too exalted to fear an oppressor
or to invite insult; too humble to make ambition look like virtue, or to
fall into that forgetfulness of his Maker, which is often the damning
sin of prosperity; accustomed to those habits of wise self-control that
fit the mind and body for their respective functions; and perfectly
possessed with a most conscientious resignation and confidence
respecting future events--he was free from those cares which corrode the
temper and contract the understanding. Next to his church, his study was
his earthly paradise; but the same calm principle of self-discipline
attended him there, and regulated his enjoyment of lettered ease. He
left his beloved authors without a sigh, as often as active duty called
him to attend the sick cottager, to heal contention between his
parishioners, to admonish the backsliding, or to defend the cause of the
oppressed.
Such was the man who presented himself to the agonized Evellin; nor was
the latter surprized at the visit, or at the serious admonition which he
received. Parochial care was not then regarded as a novelty, when it
extended beyond the altar or the pulpit; and the graceful stranger felt
himself reproved by one who had a right to exercise the functions of
spiritual authority. He bowed to the pastor's instructions, with a
respect which characterized those times, when the power of the church
was supported by superior holiness, and acknowledged even by those who
in their lives disobeyed her precepts. His subsequent behaviour made Dr.
Beaumont not only pardon the infirmities of a wounded spirit, but also
apply the balm of friendship to them, by giving the stranger a most
cordial invitation to the glebe-house, where he promised him a friendly
welcome as often as he was disposed to relish the quiet habits of his
family.
It so happened, that after Evellin had twice or thrice passed the little
wicket that separated the parson's garden from the village green, he
disliked taking any other road. Yet though Mrs. Beaumont's person was of
that description which subjects Lancashire ladies to the imputation of
witchcraft, (a charge too clearly proved against them to be denied,) it
was not the fascination of her eyes which drew the loitering step, fixed
the unconscious gaze, and almost charmed to repose the stranger's untold
sorrows. The wife of his friend excited only the respect and esteem of
this antique courtier; but a young unaffianced Arachne sat spinning by
her side, discreet and ingenious as Minerva, rosy and playful as Hebe.
This was Isabel, the younger sister of his reverence, who, not inwardly
displeased that the family party was enlarged by such an agreeable
guest, nor wholly unconscious of the power of her own charms, strove
with all the unsuspecting confidence of youth to amuse a visitor whom
her honoured brother pronounced worthy of esteem and pity, and willingly
exerted her arch vivacity to divert a melancholy of which no one knew
the cause. Evellin soon discovered that he interested the fair recluse,
and though she was not the first lady who viewed him with favour, he was
flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic
qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed he, on perceiving an
unnoticed tear steal down her cheek, when with unguarded confidence,
momentarily excited by the benign manners and calm happiness of his
host, he inveighed against the treachery of courts and the weakness of
Kings. "Can she love me?" was his next thought; "or why this lively
interest in my sorrows?" This doubt, or rather hope, was suggested by
hearing Isabel sob aloud while he told Dr. Beaumont not to look for any
earthly return for the kindness he shewed him. "Were my fortunes," said
he one day to his hospitable friends, "equal to my birth, you should
find me a prodigal in my gratitude, but my own folly in 'believing
integrity of manners and innocence of life are a guard strong enough to
secure any man in his voyage through the world in what company soever he
travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pass[1],' furnished my
enemies with weapons which have been used to my undoing. For this last
year I have suffered alternate hopes and fears. Whether my heart is sick
of suspence, or the clouds of mischance really thicken around me, I can
scarcely ascertain, but my meditations grow more gloomy, and I believe
myself doomed to an obscure life of little usefulness to others, and
less enjoyment to myself. Among my privations I must rank that of
spending my days in unconnected solitude. Who will willingly share the
scant portion of bare sufficiency, or interweave their destiny with the
tangled web of my intricate fortunes? Would you plant a flourishing
eglantine under the blasted oak? Remove it from such a neighbourhood, or
the blessed rain passing through the blighted branches, will affect its
verdure with pestilent mildew, instead of cherishing it with wholesome
shade."
Some short time after this conversation, Mrs. Beaumont observed to her
husband that an extraordinary change had taken place in Isabel's manners
since Evellin had become a frequent visitor. "She very rarely laughs,"
said she; "but that I do not wonder at, for the infection of his
melancholy has made us all grave; but she often, weeps. Then she is so
absent, that she cut out the frieze gowns for the alms-women too short,
and spoiled Mrs. Mellicent's eye-water. The tapestry chairs are thrown
aside, and she steals from us to the bower in the yew-tree that
overlooks the green, where she devotes her mornings to reading Sydney's
Arcadia. My dear Eusebius, I see her disease, for I recollect my own
behaviour when I was doubtful whether you preferred me; but surely, if a
connection with Evellin would involve our dear Isabel in distress, ought
I not to warn her of her danger in so disposing of her heart?"
"I fear," replied the Doctor, "if your observations are correct, that
the caution would now come too late. Isabel is of an age to judge for
herself, and if she prefers a partner in whom high degrees of desert and
suffering seem united, ought her friends to interfere? If her own
feelings tell her that she considers personal merit as an equipoise to
adversity, shall we tell her that outward splendour constitutes
intrinsic greatness? I marvel not that Evellin interests my sister; he
engages most of my thoughts, and I have employed myself in collecting
instances of good men suffering wrongfully, and of the piety, humility,
and patience with which they endured chastening. These may be useful to
Evellin; if not, they will be so to ourselves whenever sorrow visits our
abode, as she is sure some time to do while she is travelling to and fro
on the earth."
Mrs. Beaumont acquiesced in her husband's opinion, and determined that
love should take its course, but it met with an opponent in the person
of Mrs. Mellicent Beaumont, who perhaps was not free from those
objections which elder sisters often entertain to the engagements of the
younger branches of the family, while they themselves write spinster.
She had now, however, a more colourable plea; the beauty of Mrs. Isabel
had attracted the notice of Sir William Waverly, and to see her sister
the lady of Waverly Park, roused that desire of pre-eminence which,
though absolutely foreign to the principles of Dr. Beaumont, was not
overlooked by all his family. She thought it became her to lecture
Isabel on her preference, and unwittingly confirmed it by exhibiting, in
opposition, two men of most dissimilar characters and endowments; the
one, brave, generous, enlightened, accomplished, but unhappy; the other,
lord of a vast demesne, but selfish, ignorant, scant of courtesy, and
proud of wealth. "Tell me not of Waverly Park," said Mrs. Isabel, "I
would sooner gather cresses by his lakes as a beggar, than sail over
them under a silken awning with him by my side as my companion for life.
His language, his ideas, his manners, differ from those of our meanest
rustics in no other way than that theirs is the native simplicity which
had no means of improvement, and his the wilful grossness which rejected
it when offered, resting satisfied in what he received from his
ancestors, without adding to it attainments that would properly have
been his own. I know not what Evellin has been: clouds and storms hover
over his future prospects. I see him only as he is the chief among ten
thousand, and one who suffers no diminution even while conversing with
our honoured brother; and I should be prouder of allying him to our
house than of changing this silken braid for a golden coronet." Mrs.
Mellicent, after some remarks on the inconsiderate obstinacy of three
and twenty, and the sure repentance of head-strong people, withdrew her
opposition, to be renewed when the event should justify her predictions.
The lovers did not long rest in that unavowed consciousness which left a
shadow of doubt as to their reciprocal attachment. To Evellin's
declaration of unalterable love, Isabella answered, that she knew too
little of his situation to say whether she ought to be his, but her
heart told her she never could be another's. The lover poured forth
protestations of gratitude. "No," answered she, "I deserve no thanks;
for, to tell you the truth, I have endeavoured to see you with
indifference, but find it is impossible. You have lived in courts, Mr.
Evellin, where women are hardly won and quickly lost; but do not
therefore despise a Lancashire girl who dares not play with Cupid's
arrows, but loves in sad sincerity, or rejects with steady courtesy; yet
if you suspect that you cannot meet my devoted constancy with equal
singleness of heart, leave me now, good Evellin, ere yet my life is so
bound up in your sincerity, that I shall want strength of mind to
dissolve the bond. At present I am so much more disposed to respect you
than myself, that I may think what you have said was only meant for
gallantry, which my ignorance of the world has misconstrued. If after
this warning you still persist in your suit, you must either be, till
death, my faithful lover, or virtually my murderer."
"My own betrothed Isabel," answered Evellin, "to love, pourtrayed with
such chaste simplicity, I owe a confidence as unbounded as thy own. I
will put my life in thy keeping, by disclosing the bosom-secret I have
concealed even from thy saint-like brother. 'Tis the pledge of my
constancy. Mark me, dearest maiden, though a proscribed wanderer wooes
thy love, thy hand may be claimed by a peer of England, and those graces
which adorn thy native village may ornament the palace of our King."
He paused to see if the glow of ambition supplanted the virgin blushes
of acknowledged love; but Isabel's cheek displayed the same meek roseate
hue. No hurried exclamation, no gaspings of concealed delight, no lively
flashings of an exulting eye, proclaimed that he was dearer to her now
than before he acknowledged his high descent. Her objections to a speedy
marriage were even confirmed by this discovery. "I must know," said she,
"that there is no one who possesses a natural or acquired right to
control your choice. People in eminent stations owe many duties to the
state, and must not soil their honours by unworthy alliances. Perhaps
under your tuition I might so deport myself as not to shame your choice,
but I must be well assured that I shall be no obstacle to your moving in
your proper sphere, or I will die Isabel Beaumont, praying that you may
be happier than my love could make you."
Evellin rewarded this generous attachment by telling her his assumed
name was an anagram of his real one, Allan Neville, presumptive heir to
the earldom of Bellingham, the honours of which were now possessed by an
elder brother, whose declining state of health made it probable that
Allan would soon be called from the obscurity in which he lived, and
compelled to clear his slandered fame or sink under the malice of his
foes. As a younger brother, he was expected to be the founder of his own
fortune. His education, therefore, had been most carefully conducted; he
had had the best tutors in every branch of learning; and he had
travelled under the guidance of an enlightened friend. The pacific
character of King James furnishing no employment in arms, he had sought
the court as his sphere of action; but while he was displaying the
accomplishments he possessed, and acquiring the knowledge of mankind
which is necessary to a statesman, he at once attracted the notice of
Princes and the envy of their favourites. That fearless candour, and
that self-depending integrity which generally attends the finest
qualities and noblest dispositions, rendered him careless of the frowns
of those whom he discovered to be rather crafty rivals than generous
competitors, and determined him rather to despise opposition than to
conciliate esteem.
The haughty Duke of Buckingham was then in the zenith of his power. By
bringing Prince Charles back from Spain he had relieved the national
anxiety; and the short-sighted multitude, forgetting who had endangered
the heir-apparent's safety, heaped on him undeserved popularity. Hence
his extraordinary good fortune in pleasing all parties so elated him as
to make him shew in his conduct that contempt for his benefactor, King
James, which he had long secretly entertained. By the impeachment of the
Earl of Middlesex, a confidential adviser and personal favourite of the
King's, from motives of private pique, and by hurrying the nation into a
war with Spain, for which the Parliament had not provided resources, he
laid the foundation of the pecuniary difficulties, and created those
evil precedents which ultimately contributed to overthrow the regal
authority. These fatal results of his pernicious measures formed an
awful lesson to Kings on the mischiefs incident to favouritism, and on
the folly of erecting a pile of ill-constructed greatness, which, in its
fall, often endangers the stability of the throne.
To this vain, ambitious man, practised in all the smooth graces and
insidious arts of a court, the aspiring, but frank and honourable
Neville, more enlightened, equally engaging, and animated by purer
motives, was an object both of envy and of fear. He scrupled not to
lament the indignities which the declining King suffered from his former
cup-bearer, who had danced himself into the highest honours England
could bestow, and now basely turned from the setting orb from which he
derived his borrowed splendour, to worship the rising sun; nay worse,
who attempted to alienate the duty of an amiable Prince from his sick
and aged father. Neville was earnest in his expressions of disgust at
such baseness; and the minions of the Duke did not suffer these hasty
ebullitions of virtue to die unreported. The sarcasms soon reached his
ear with magnified severity; and the ruin, or at least the removal of
his growing rival became necessary to his own security.
Chance favoured the Duke's designs. A gentleman in his suite was
assassinated in the streets of London when returning from a masquerade,
and the murderer was seen in the act of escaping, not so near the body
as that his person could be identified, but plain enough for the
beholders to ascertain that he wore the very dress in which Neville
appeared that evening. The implacable enemy he had indiscreetly provoked
possessed the royal ear; and though a jury could not have found in such
a coincidence sufficient grounds to indict Neville, the Duke easily
procured a royal warrant for his immediate arrest. "My own heart," here
observed Allan, "and my confidence in the justice and good sense of my
country, prompted me to brave my accusers; but I had now a convincing
proof that with all my acquirements I still wanted knowledge of the
world. I, however, possessed the invaluable blessing of a sincere, wise,
and prudent friend, one who reads man in his true characters, and deals
with him cautiously, instead of believing him to be the ingenuous
offspring of simplicity. In early youth this friend saved me from a
watery grave, and he is now the guardian of my fame and fortune. In
conformity to the advice of the kind Walter de Vallance (for that is his
name), I yielded to the storm; instead of resisting its fury, I chose
this retreat; and since my innocence as well as my guilt admitted not of
proof, I offered to submit the dubious question to the arbitration of
the sword, and called on Buckingham to meet me in single combat, or, if
he declined a personal engagement, to select any one of noble birth and
breeding for his proxy, who should accuse me as the author of Saville's
death. Walter de Vallance carried my proposal to the young King, who at
first yielded to my suit, but, on consulting his chaplains, judged this
to be an unlawful manner of deciding disputes in a Christian country. I
am now informed that by my flight I have erased those impressions which
my former behaviour had made in my favour. Many think I was the
murderer; and the vast power my adversary possesses at court is rendered
still more dangerous to my life and fame, by the pains that have been
taken to prepossess those who would have to decide upon my fate. But
should the death of my declining brother call me to act in the same
sphere with my proud oppressor, and put my life into safer guardianship,
I will burst from the retreat which I sometimes fear was unadvisedly
chosen, and either fall by an unjust sentence, or vindicate my
innocence. I will no longer, like the mountain-boar, owe a precarious
existence to the untrodden wilds in which I hide from my pursuers."
Even now, when the universal passion for luxury and self-enjoyment
renders prosperity so alluring, subdues our native energies, and makes
us the puppets and slaves of fortune, there are some lovely young
martyrs who immolate prudence on the shrine of love. It may easily be
imagined, therefore, that this heroine of a simpler age, instead of
being discouraged by the difficulties her Allan had to encounter, loved
him with more intense affection. He an assassin!--the eye that flamed
defiance on an ungrateful vicegerent of the King, when every knee but
his bent in homage, could never pursue a court-butterfly, or guide a
murderous dagger to a page's breast, while indignant virtue pointed the
sword of justice to a public delinquent. Isabel agreed that it was wrong
in Evellin to fly; but when, on her lonely pillow, she cast her thoughts
on the alternative, and contemplated her beloved, in the hands of him
before whom a potent peer had recently fallen; in the power of a man
armed with the confidence of two successive monarchs, and now the idol
of the people; when she saw Evellin arraigned before a packed jury, no
evidence to prove him innocent, and scarce an advocate sufficiently
courageous to defend him; female softness shrunk at the image of such
perils. She blessed the prudent De Vallance who had snatched him from
sure destruction, and rejoiced at an event which afforded her the means
of seeing human nature in its most captivating form.
When Evellin found that her constancy was proof to this trial, he
unfolded the brighter prospects which the letters he received from De
Vallance occasionally afforded. This invaluable friend had, to the great
joy of Evellin, allied himself to their house by marrying the Lady
Eleanor Neville, his only sister. Though Buckingham never stood firmer
in the King's favour, he had already experienced that popular esteem is
a quicksand, fair to the eye, but fallacious and destructive to all who
build their greatness on it. Two parliaments that were called, in
succession, to grant the supplies which the favourite's profusion, and
the war in which he had unwisely engaged, rendered necessary, had been
angrily dissolved for presenting petitions for redress of grievances
instead of passing money-bills. The King was still deservedly popular.
The odium of these acts, therefore, rested on the minister. He had,
besides, a potent enemy in the palace, no less a person than the
beautiful queen, who complained that the Duke, not content with
directing state affairs, intruded into the domestic privacies of
royalty, and left her without the power, which as a wife and Princess
she ought to exercise, that of choosing her servants and rewarding her
friends. Nor did this presumptuous servant rest here. The spotless
purity of the King shrunk from conjugal infidelity; but Buckingham found
means, during the hours of easy confidence, to insinuate such
reflections against the religion, the foreign manners, and the native
country of Henrietta Maria, that the affection which once bade fair to
cement the union of a virtuous and amiable Prince with the lady of his
choice, was weakened by reserve, doubt, distaste, and all the sentiments
hostile to conjugal peace.
The Lady Eleanor De Vallance held a situation in the household of the
Queen, and possessed a secure place in her affection. She knew the
secret discontent of her royal mistress, and the pique she felt against
Buckingham, who, she also knew, sought the ruin of the house of Neville.
Evellin did not enlarge on the amiable features of his sister's
character. He spoke of her as one who panted for aggrandisement, and
possessed the means of attaining her object; adding also, that she was
pledged to the ruin of the favourite by those strong inducements,
interest and revenge. He dwelt with pleasure on the valuable and useful
qualities of her husband, who, he said, united to the talents which
generally achieve success, the circumspection and foresight that secure
it. While such able assistants advocated his cause, despair would have
been weakness.
Months, nay years, rolled away. Evellin was liberally supplied with
remittances, and the hearts of the lovers became more firmly united. Dr.
Beaumont, assured that his sister knew the circumstances of her lover,
though neither chose to intrust them, to him, confided implicitly in her
discretion and his honour. As a man, there was little to blame and much
to revere in the character of Evellin. He was open, impetuous, brave,
generous, and placable, with a noble simplicity of soul, untainted by
the mean alloy of selfishness. He was a Christian too. In Dr. Beaumont's
eye, that was an indispensable requisite. Yet more, he steadily adhered
to the established church with enlightened affection; and in an age when
the Puritans grew more open and confident in their attempts to overthrow
it, love for the most venerable support of the protestant cause was a
sacred bond of union. Sometimes a deep feeling of his wrongs induced
Evellin to inveigh against courts and kings with great animosity; but
this was the ebullition of a warm temper, not the cold enmity of a
corroded heart. Immovable to harsh reproof, he was pliant as the bending
ozier to persuasive kindness. Looking at the qualities of the man,
rather than the accidents of his situation, Dr. Beaumont felt proud in
thinking that his Isabel deserved the conquest she had gained.
Evellin deferred his marriage till some event should happen which must
hasten the crisis of his fate. The same dispatch which brought
intelligence of the death of his elder brother, announced the fall of
his adversary by the hand of Felton. Concealment could now no longer be
deemed wisdom; he determined to burst from obscurity, lay claim to his
honours, and require to be relieved from a long pending accusation
contrived by malice and believed by credulity. But could he quit the
banks of the Ribble, leaving his Isabel to suffer the pangs of suspense,
and to pine under those limes and alders that had sheltered him from
persecution? Her behaviour told him she would conduct herself with
propriety in every situation. Her society had been his chief consolation
in sorrow, and he saw that her fortitude would support him in the hour
of trial, her wisdom guide him in difficulty, and her participation give
the fairest colouring to success. Whether he sat in the senate as a
peer, or stood at the bar as a criminal, Isabel should be his wedded
associate. What pleasure would he feel in presenting to his vain and
beautiful sister, the lily he had gathered and placed in his bosom,
while he lay concealed in the woodlands! Or, when he embraced Walter as
his brother and friend, how would he rejoice to hear the fair
Lancastrian, with all the eloquent energy of unsophisticated nature,
bless the services which had preserved and restored her husband.
Isabel entered into all these happy anticipations. He thought her worthy
to share his fortunes, and though she doubted, she now forbore to urge
the plea of insufficiency. Of one point she was certain, I mean her
willingness to suffer with him. She wanted little; she could endure
much; she had many resources in her own mind; she considered no evil as
insupportable but the unworthiness of those she loved; and when she
looked on Evellin, she did not fear that trial. She smiled and blushed
her full consent, and her lover informed Dr. Beaumont, that the time for
claiming his sister was arrived. "My affairs," continued he, "require my
immediate presence in London, and the woman of my heart must accompany
me as my wife. You have long placed implicit confidence in my honour. We
have now known each other till affection has lost the gloss of novelty;
and instead of depending on hope and imagination, it assumes the fixed
character of experience. If I perceived the germ of avarice, or lurking
yearnings after aggrandizement in your heart, I would point to stalls
and mitres; for such endowments have originated from fortunate
alliances. But I will only say to the Christian pastor who is content
with feeding his few sheep in a wilderness, that I came not as a
ravenous wolf to steal his favourite lamb. It is from well-weighed
preference that I select your sister as the partner of my fortunes. You
bestow on me a pure and inestimable pearl, but you give it to one who
knows its worth. And rest assured, worthy Beaumont, I will neither
burden your generosity nor disgrace your family."
When Evellin signed the certificate of his marriage, he left a blank
after the name of Allan, "Observe me well," said he to the witnesses of
the ceremony; "note the time, place, and every circumstance; this is an
important contract." Mrs. Mellicent, to whom this remark was
particularly addressed, unbent her stiff features from that aspect of
disapprobation with which she had silently condemned her brother's
precipitation, and saluted the bride with great cordiality, telling her,
that dames of quality, like the wives of the Patriarchs, always called
their husbands lords. She added, that even those of the younger brothers
of peers took place of baronets' ladies.
[1] These, according to Clarendon, were the errors of Archbishop
Laud.