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 GO DOLPHIN. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 Sleep, 
 
 Voluptuous Caesar, and security 
 
 Seize on thy powers ! 
 
 Ben Jonso?i's Fall ofSejanus. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 
 
 (successor to henry colburn.) 
 
 1833.
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY. 
 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This Tale is woven from real events; and 
 he who gives it to the world has undertaken 
 rather the task of the compiler, than that of 
 the author. Its main tendency is apparently 
 to show the influences exercised by the great 
 world over the more intellectual, the more 
 daring, and the more imaginative of its in- 
 mates of either sex. It has some connexion 
 with the social and political History of the 
 Time; — and the Time itself, however busy
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 it be, is always egotist enough to glance at 
 every reflection of its features, and to find fault 
 with the fidelity of the mirror. 
 
 Should any of the idlers who have leisure to 
 waste on trifles, attempt to pry into so unim- 
 portant a secret as the name of the individual 
 whose humble task it has been from a Memoir 
 to construct a Romance, their ingenuity will be 
 exercised in vain : — that secret, of consequence 
 to none but himself, he trusts and believes that 
 he shall carry to a grave, which (amidst a sea 
 of infirmities and care) smiles upon him, near 
 and welcome — the Haven of Repose. 
 ***** April 23, 1833.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DEATH-BED OF JOHN VERNON. — HIS DYING WORDS. 
 — DESCRIPTION OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE HEROINE.— 
 THE OATH. 
 
 " Is the night calm, Constance ?" 
 
 " Beautiful : the moon is up." 
 
 " Open the shutters wider, there. It is a 
 beautiful night. How beautiful ! Come hither, 
 my child." 
 
 The rich moonlight that now shone through 
 the windows, streamed on little that it could 
 invest with poetical attraction. The room was 
 small, though not squalid in its character and 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 appliances. The bed-curtains, of a dull chintz, 
 were drawn back, and showed the form of a 
 man, past middle age, propped by pillows, and 
 bearing on his countenance the marks of ap- 
 proaching death. But what a countenance it 
 still was ! The broad, pale, lofty brow ; the 
 fine, straight, Grecian nose ; the short, curved 
 lip ; the full, dimpled chin ; the stamp of ge- 
 nius in every line and lineament; — these still 
 defied disease, or rather borrowed from its very 
 ghastliness a more impressive majesty. Beside 
 the bed was a table, spread with books of a 
 motley character. Here an abstruse system of 
 Calculations on Finance ; there a volume of 
 wild Bacchanalian Songs ; here the lofty aspi- 
 rations of " Plato's Phsedo ;" and there the 
 last speech of some County Paris on a Malt 
 Tax; old newspapers and dusty pamphlets 
 completed the intellectual litter ; and above 
 them rose, mournfully enough, the tall, spec-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 3 
 
 tral form of a half-emptied phial, and a cham- 
 ber-candlestick, crested by its extinguisher. 
 
 A light step approached the bed-side, and 
 opposite the dying man now stood a girl, who 
 might have seen her thirteenth year. But 
 her features — of an exceeding, and what may 
 be termed, a regal beauty — were as fully de- 
 veloped as those of one who had told twice 
 her years ; and not a trace of the bloom or 
 the undeterminate softness of girlhood could 
 be marked on her countenance. Her com- 
 plexion was pale as the whitest marble, but 
 clear and lustrous ; and her raven hair, parted 
 over her brow in a fashion then uncommon, 
 increased the statue-like and classic effect of 
 her noble features. The expression of her 
 countenance seemed cold, sedate, and some- 
 what stern : but it might, in some measure, 
 have belied her heart ; for, when turned to 
 the moonlight, you might see that her eyes 
 b2
 
 * GODOLPHIN. 
 
 were filled with tears, though she did not 
 weep ; and you might tell by the quivering 
 of her lip, that a little hesitation in replying 
 to any remark from the sufferer, arose from 
 her difficulty in commanding her emotions. 
 
 " Constance," said the invalid, after a pause, 
 in which he seemed to have been gazing with 
 a quiet heart on the soft skies, that, blue and 
 eloquent with stars, he beheld through the 
 unclosed windows : — " Constance, the hour is 
 coming; I feel it by signs which I cannot 
 mistake. I shall die this night." 
 
 "Oh! God! — my father! — my dear, dear 
 father !" broke from Constance's lips ; " do 
 not speak thus — do not — I will go to Doc- 
 tor " 
 
 " No, child, no ; I loathe, I detest the 
 thought of help. They denied it me while 
 it was yet time. They left me to starve, or 
 to rot in gaol, or to hang myself ! They left
 
 GODOLPHIN. O 
 
 me like a dog, and like a dog I will die ! 
 I would not have one iota taken from the jus- 
 tice — the deadly and dooming weight of my 
 dying curse." Here violent spasms broke on 
 the speech of the sufferer ; and when, by medi- 
 cine and his daughter's attentions, he had re- 
 covered, he said, in a lower and calmer key : — 
 " Is all quiet below, Constance ? Are all in 
 bed? The landlady — the servants — our fel- 
 low lodgers ?" 
 
 " All, my father." 
 
 " Ay ; then I shall die happy. Thank God 
 you are my only nurse and attendant. I re- 
 member the day when I was ill after one 
 of their rude debauches. Ill ! — a sick head- 
 ache — a fit of the spleen — a spoiled lap-dog's 
 illness ! Well : they wanted me that night to 
 support one of their paltry measures — their 
 Parliamentary measures ; and I had a Prince 
 feeling my pulse, and a Duke mixing my
 
 6 GODOLPHIN, 
 
 draught, and a dozen Earls sending their doc- 
 tors to me. I was of use to them then. Poor 
 me ! Read me that note, Constance ; Flam- 
 borough's note. Do you hesitate ? Read it, 
 I say." 
 
 Constance trembled, and complied. 
 
 44 I am really au desespoir to hear of your 
 melancholy state; — so sorry I cannot assist 
 you. But you know my embarrassed circum- 
 stances. By-the-by, I saw his Royal Highness 
 yesterday. 4 Poor Vernon, 1 said he, c would 
 a hundred pounds do him any good r 1 So we 
 don't forget you, mon cher. Ah ! how we 
 missed you at the Beefsteak ! Never shall 
 we know again so glorious a bon vivant. You 
 
 would laugh to hear L attempting to echo 
 
 your old jokes. But time presses : 1 must 
 be off to the House. You know what a mo-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 7 
 
 tion it is. Would to God you were to bring 
 
 it on instead of that ass T . Adieu ! I 
 
 wish I could come and see you ; but it would 
 break my heart. Can I send you any books 
 from Hookham's ? Yours ever, 
 
 " Flamborough." 
 
 " This is the man whom I made Secretary of 
 State," said Vernon. "Very well! oh, it's very 
 well, very well indeed ! Let me kiss thee, my 
 girl. Poor Constance ! You will have good 
 friends when I am dead ! they will be proud 
 enough to minister to Vernon's daughter, when 
 Death has shown them Vernon was a loss. You 
 are very handsome. Your poor mother's eyes 
 and hair — my father's splendid brow and lip; 
 and your figure, even now so stately ! They 
 will court you ; you will have lords and great 
 men enough at your feet ; but you will never 
 forget this night, or the agony of your father's
 
 8 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 death-bed face, and the brand they have burnt 
 in his heart. And now, Constance, give me the 
 Bible in which you read to me this morning : — 
 that will do : — stand away from the light and 
 fix your eyes on mine, and listen as if your 
 soul were in your ear. 
 
 " When I was a young man, toiling my way 
 to fortune through the labours of the Bar, — 
 prudent, cautious, indefatigable, confident of 
 success, — certain lords, who heard I possessed 
 genius, and thought I might become their tool, 
 came unto me, and besought me to enter Par- 
 liament. I told them I was poor — was lately 
 married — that my public ambition must not 
 be encouraged at the expense of my private 
 fortunes. They answered, that they pledged 
 themselves those fortunes should be their care. 
 I yielded : I deserted my profession : I obeyed 
 their wishes: I became famous — and, a ruined 
 man ! They could not dine without me ; they
 
 GODOLPHIN. 9 
 
 could not sup without me ; they could not get 
 drunk without me ; no pleasure was sweet but 
 in my company. What mattered it that, while 
 I ministered to their amusement, I was neces- 
 sarily heaping debt upon debt — accumulating 
 miseries for future years — laying up bankrupt- 
 cy, and care, and shame, and a broken heart, 
 and an early death ! But listen, Constance ! — 
 Are you listening? — attentively? — Well! note 
 now, I am a just man. I do not blame my 
 noble friends, my gentle patrons, for this. 
 No : if I were forgetful of my interests, if I 
 preferred their pleasure to my happiness and 
 honour, that was my crime, and I deserve the 
 punishment! But, look you! — Time went 
 by, and my constitution was broken ; debts 
 came upon me ; I could not pay ; men mis- 
 trusted my word ; my name in the country 
 fell ! With my health, my genius deserted 
 me ; I was no longer useful to my party ; and 
 B 5
 
 10 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 when I was on a sick bed — you remember it, 
 Constance — the bailiffs came, and tore me 
 away for a paltry debt — the value of one of 
 those suppers the Prince used to beg me to 
 give him. From that time my familiars for- 
 sook me ! — not a visit, not a kind act, not a 
 service for him whose day of work was over ! 
 Poor Vernon^s character was gone ! — ' Shock- 
 ingly involved — could not perform his pro- 
 mises to his creditors — always so extravagant 
 
 — quite unprincipled — must give him up ! 1 
 
 " In those sentences lies the secret of their 
 conduct. They did not remember that for 
 them, by them, the character was gone, the 
 promises broken, the ruin incurred ! They 
 thought not how I had served them ; how my 
 best years had been devoted to advance them 
 
 — to ennoble their cause in the lying page of 
 History ! All this was not thought of: my 
 life was reduced to two epochs . — that of use
 
 GODOLPHIN. 11 
 
 to them — that not. During the first I was 
 honoured; during the latter I was left to 
 starve, to rot. Who freed me from prison ? — 
 who protects me now ? One of my ' party ' — 
 my 'noble friends' — my honourable, right 
 honourable friends P 1 No ! a tradesman whom 
 I once served in my holiday, and who alone, 
 of all the world, forgets me not in my pe- 
 nance. You see gratitude, friendship, spring 
 up only in middle life ; they grow not in high 
 stations ! 
 
 " And now come nearer, for my voice fal- 
 ters, and I would have these words distinctly 
 heard. I see the time coming when the Aristo- 
 cracy of this country must fall. Men's minds 
 are bent to that purpose. There shall be 
 neither coronets, nor ermine, nor sounding 
 titles, nor laws of entail and primogeniture. 
 1 feel what I say, as surely as ever man felt 
 truth in the book I now hold. But you,
 
 12 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Constance — child, girl as you are — you I 
 consider pledged to record, to fulfil my desire 
 — my curse! Lay your hand on mine: swear 
 that through life to death ; swear ! — You 
 speak not ! repeat my words after me ! " — 
 Constance obeyed: — "through life to death; 
 through good, through ill, through weakness, 
 through power, you will devote yourself to 
 humble, to abase that order from whom your 
 father received ingratitude, mortification, and 
 death ! Swear that you will not marry a poor 
 and powerless man, who can minister not to 
 the ends of that solemn retribution I invoke ! 
 Swear that you will seek to marry from 
 amongst the great ; not through love, not 
 through ambition, but through hate, and for 
 revenge! You will seek to rise that you may 
 humble those who have betrayed me ! In the 
 social walks of life you will delight to gall 
 their vanities ; in state-intrigues, you will em-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 13 
 
 brace every measure that can bring them to 
 their eternal downfall. For this great end you 
 will pursue all means : — (What ! you hesitate ? 
 Repeat, repeat, repeat !) — You will lie, cringe, 
 fawn, and think vice not vice if it bring you 
 one jot nearer to Revenge ! With this curse 
 on my foes I entwine my blessing, dear, dear 
 Constance, on you ; you, who have nursed, 
 watched, all but saved me ! God, God bless 
 you, my child!" And Vernon burst into 
 tears. 
 
 It was two hours after this singular scene, 
 and exactly in the third hour of morning, that 
 Vernon woke from a short and troubled sleep. 
 The grey dawn (for the time was the height of 
 summer) already began to labour through the 
 shades and against the stars of night. A raw 
 and comfortless chill crept over the earth, and 
 saddened the air in the death-chamber. Con- 
 stance sat by her father's bed, her eyes fixed
 
 14 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 upon him, and her cheek more wan than ever 
 by the pale light of that crude and cheerless 
 dawn. When Vernon woke, his eyes, glazed 
 with death, rolled faintly toward her, fixing 
 and dimming in their sockets as they gazed ; 
 his throat rattled. But for one moment his 
 voice found vent ; a ray shot across his coun- 
 tenance as he uttered his last words — words 
 that sank at once and eternally to the core 
 of his daughter's heart — words that ruled her 
 life and sealed her destiny : — " Constance, re- 
 member — the Oath — Revenge ! "
 
 GODOLPHIN. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REMARK ON THE TENURE OF LIFE THE COFFINS 
 
 OF GREAT MEN SELDOM NEGLECTED CONSTANCE 
 
 TAKES REFUGE WITH LADY ERPINGHAM. — THE HE- 
 ROINE'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHARACTER THE 
 
 MANOEUVRING TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 My God, what a strange life this is ! what 
 puppets we are ! How terrible an enigma is 
 Fate ! I never set my foot without my door, 
 but what the fearful darkness that broods 
 over the next moment rushes upon me. How 
 awful an event may hang over my heart ! 
 The sword is always above us, seen or in- 
 visible. 
 
 And with this life — this scene of darkness
 
 16 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 and dread — some men would have us so con- 
 tented as to desire, to ask for no other. If 
 I were not persuaded I were immortal, I swear 
 that I would " shuffle off" this perilous and 
 weird mortality within an hour. 
 
 Constance was now without a near relation 
 in the world. But her father predicted right- 
 ly : vanity supplied the place of affection. 
 Vernon, who for eighteen months preceding 
 his death had struggled with the sharpest af- 
 flictions of want — Vernon, deserted in life by 
 all, was interred with the insulting ceremonials 
 of pomp and state. Six nobles bore his pall : 
 long trains of carriages attended his funeral : 
 the journals were filled with outlines of his 
 biography and lamentations at his decease. 
 They buried him in Westminster Abbey, and 
 they made subscriptions for a monument in the 
 very best sort of marble. Lady Erpingham, 
 a distant connexion of the deceased, invited
 
 GODOLPHIN. 17 
 
 Constance to live with her, and Constance of 
 course consented, for she had no alternative. 
 
 On the day that she arrived at Lady Erping- 
 ham's house, in Hill-street, there were several 
 persons present in the drawing-room. 
 
 " I fear, poor girl," said Lady Erpingham, 
 — for they were talking of Constance's expected 
 arrival, — " I fear that she will be quite abashed 
 by seeing so many of us, and under such un- 
 happy circumstances.'" 
 
 " How old is she ?" asked a beauty. 
 
 " About thirteen, I believe." 
 
 " Handsome ?" 
 
 " I have not seen her since she was seven 
 years old. She promised then to be very 
 beautiful : but she was a remarkably shy, 
 silent child." 
 
 " Miss Vernon," said the groom of the 
 chamber, throwing open the door of the room. 
 
 With the slow step and self-possessed air
 
 18 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 of womanhood, but with a far haughtier and 
 far colder mien than women commonly as- 
 sume, Constance Yernon walked through the 
 long apartment, and greeted her future guar- 
 dian. Though every eye was on her, she did 
 not blush ; though the Queens of the London 
 World were round her, her gait and air were 
 more royal than all. Every one present ex- 
 perienced a revulsion of feeling. They were 
 prepared for pity : this was no case in which 
 pity could be given. Even the words of pro- 
 tection died on Lady Erpingham's lip, and 
 she it was who felt bashful and disconcerted. 
 
 I intend to pass rapidly over the years that 
 elapsed till Constance became a woman. Let 
 us glance at her education. Vernon had not 
 only had her instructed in the French and 
 Italian ; but, a deep and impassioned scholar 
 himself, he had taught her the elements of 
 the two great languages of the ancient world.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 19 
 
 The treasures of those languages she after- 
 wards conquered of her own accord. 
 
 Lady Erpingham had one daughter, who 
 married when Constance had reached the age 
 of sixteen. The advantages Lady Eleanor 
 Erpingham possessed in her masters and her 
 governess, Constance shared. Miss Vernon 
 drew well, and sang divinely ; but she made 
 no very great proficiency in the science of 
 music. To say truth, her mind was somewhat 
 too stern, and somewhat too intent on other 
 subjects, to surrender to that most jealous of 
 accomplishments the exclusive devotion it re- 
 quires. 
 
 But of all her attractions, and of all the 
 evidences of her cultivated mind, none equalled 
 the extraordinary grace of her conversation. 
 Wholly disregarding the conventional leading- 
 strings in which the minds of young ladies 
 are accustomed to be held; — leading-strings,
 
 20 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 disguised by the name of " proper diffidence, 1 '' 
 and u becoming modesty," — she never scru- 
 pled to share, nay, to lead, discussions even 
 of a grave and solid nature. Still less did 
 she scruple to invest the common trifles that 
 make the sum of conversation with the fasci- 
 nations of a wit, w r hich, playful yet deep, 
 rivalled even the paternal source from which 
 it was inherited. 
 
 It seems sometimes odd enough to me, that 
 while young ladies are so sedulously taught 
 all the accomplishments that a husband dis- 
 regards, they are never taught the great one 
 he would prize. They are taught to be ex- 
 hibitors ; he wants a companion. He wants 
 neither a singing animal, nor a drawing ani- 
 mal, nor a dancing animal ; he wants a talking 
 animal. But to talk they are never taught ; 
 all they know of it is slander, and that " comes 
 by nature."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 21 
 
 But Constance did talk beautifully : not like 
 a pedant, or a blue, or a French woman. A 
 child would have been as much charmed with 
 her as a scavant ; but 6oM would have been 
 charmed. Her father's eloquence had descend- 
 ed to her ; but in him eloquence commanded ; 
 in her it won. There was another trait she 
 possessed in common with her father : Ver- 
 non, (as most disappointed men are wont,) had 
 done the world injustice by his accusations. 
 It was not his poverty and his distresses alone 
 which had induced his party to look coolly 
 on his declining day. They were not with- 
 out some apparent excuse for desertion — they 
 doubted his sincerity. It is true, that it was 
 without actual cause. No modern politician 
 had ever been more consistent. He had re- 
 fused bribes, though poor — and place, though 
 ambitious. But he was essentially — here is 
 the secret — essentially an intriguant. Bred in
 
 22 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the old school of policy, he thought manoeu- 
 vring wisdom, and duplicity the art of govern- 
 ing. Like Lysander,* he loved plotting, yet 
 neglected self-interest. There was not a man 
 less open, or more honest. This character, 
 so rare in all countries, is especially so in Eng- 
 land. Your blunt 'squires, your politicians 
 at Bellamy's, do not comprehend it. They 
 saw in Vernon the arts which deceive enemies, 
 and they dreaded lest, though his friends, they 
 themselves should be deceived. This dispo- 
 sition, so fatal to Vernon, his daughter in- 
 herited. With a dark, bold, and passionate 
 genius, that in a man would have led to the 
 highest enterprises, she linked the feminine love 
 of secrecy and scheming. To borrow again 
 from Plutarch and Lysander, " When the skin 
 of the lion fell short, she was quite of opinion 
 that it should be eked out with the fox's." 
 
 * Plutarch's Life of Lysander,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HERO INTRODUCED TO OUR READER'S NOTICE 
 
 DIALOGUE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND HIS FATHER. — 
 PERCY GODOLPHIN'S CHARACTER AS A BOY.— THE 
 CATASTROPHE OF HIS SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 " Percy, remember that it is to-morrow 
 you will return to school," said Mr. Godolphin 
 to his only son. 
 
 Percy pouted, and after a momentary si- 
 lence, replied, " No, father, I think I shall 
 go to Mr. Saville's. He has asked me to spend 
 a month with him, and he says rightly, that I 
 shall learn more with him than at Dr. Shallo- 
 weLTs, where I am already head of the sixth 
 form."
 
 24 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " Mr. Saville is a coxcomb, and you are an- 
 other !" replied the father, who dressed in an 
 old flannel dressing-gown, with a worn velvet 
 cap on his head, and cowering gloomily over a 
 wretched fire, seemed no bad personification of 
 that mixture of half hypochondriac, half miser, 
 which he was in reality : — " Don't talk to me 
 of going to town, Sir, or " 
 
 " Father,' 1 interrupted Percy, in a cool and 
 nonchalant tone, as he folded his arms, and 
 looked straight and shrewdly on the paternal 
 face ; " Father, let us understand each other. 
 My schooling, I suppose, is rather an expen- 
 sive affair ?" 
 
 " You may well say that, Sir ! Expensive ! 
 it is frightful, horrible, ruinous ! Expen- 
 sive ! Twenty pounds a-year, board and La- 
 tin ; five guineas washing ; five more writing 
 and arithmetic. Sir, if I were not resolved 
 that you should not want education, though
 
 GODOLPHIN. 25 
 
 you may want fortune, I should — yes, I 
 
 should What do you mean, Sir ? — you are 
 
 laughing ! Is this your respect, your grati- 
 tude to your father ?" 
 
 A slight shade fell over the bright and in- 
 telligent countenance of the boy. 
 
 " Don't let us talk of gratitude," said he, 
 sadly ; " God knows what either you or I have 
 to be grateful for ! Fortune has left to your 
 proud name but these bare walls and a handful 
 of barren acres ; to me she gave a father's af- 
 fection — not such as Nature had made it, but 
 cramped and soured by misfortunes.*"' 
 
 Here Percy paused, and his father seemed 
 also struck and affected. " Let us," renewed, 
 in a lighter strain, this singular boy, who 
 might have passed by some months his fif- 
 teenth year, " let us see if we cannot accom- 
 modate matters to our mutual satisfaction. 
 You can ill afford my schooling, and I am 
 vol. i. c
 
 26 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 resolved that at school I will not stay. Saville 
 is a relation of ours ; he has taken a fancy to 
 me ; he has even hinted that he may leave me 
 his fortune ; and he has promised, at least, to 
 afford me a home and his tuition as long as 
 I like. Give me free passport, hereafter, to 
 come and go as I list — and I, in turn, will en- 
 gage never to cost you another shilling. Come, 
 Sir, shall it be a compact ?" 
 
 " You wound me, Percy," said the father, 
 with a mournful pride in his tone; " I have 
 not deserved this, at least from you. You 
 know not, boy — you know not all that has 
 hardened this heart ; but to you it has not been 
 hard, and a taunt from you — yes, that is the 
 serpent's tooth ! " 
 
 Percy in an instant was at his father's feet ; 
 he seized both his hands, and burst into a 
 passionate fit of tears. " Forgive me," he said 
 in broken words ; " I — I meant not to taunt
 
 GODOLPHIN. 27 
 
 you. I am but a giddy boy! send me to 
 school ! do with me as you will ! M 
 
 " Ay," said the old man, shaking his head 
 gently, " you know not what pain a son's bitter 
 word can send to a parent's heart. But it is 
 all natural, perfectly natural ! You would re- 
 proach me with a love of money ; it is the sin 
 youth is least lenient to. But what ! can I look 
 round the world and not see its value, its neces- 
 sity ? Year after year, from my first manhood, 
 I have toiled and toiled to preserve from the 
 hammer these last remnants of my ancestors' 
 domains. Year after year fortune has slipped 
 from my grasp ; and after all my efforts, and 
 towards the close of a long life, I stand on the 
 very verge of penury. But you cannot tell — 
 no man whose heart is not seamed with many 
 years, can tell, or can appreciate the motives 
 that have formed my character. You, how- 
 ever," and his voice softened as he laid his 
 c 2
 
 28 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 hand on his son's head—" you, however, — the 
 gay, the bold, the young, — should not have 
 your brow crossed and your eye dimmed by 
 the cares that surround me. Go! I will ac- 
 company you to town ; I will see Saville my- 
 self. If he Jbe one with whom my son can, at 
 so tender an age, be safely trusted, you shall 
 pay him the visit you wish." 
 
 Percy would have replied, but his father 
 checked him ; and before the end of the even- 
 ing, the father had resolved to forget as much 
 as he pleased of the conversation. 
 
 The elder Godolphin was one of those charac- 
 ters on whom it is vain to attempt making 
 a permanent impression. The habits of his 
 mind were durably formed : like waters, they 
 yielded to any sudden intrusion, but closed 
 instantly again. Early in life he had been 
 taught that he ought to marry an heiress for 
 the benefit of his estate — his long, ancestral
 
 GODOLPHIN. 29 
 
 estate, which he had been bred to consider 
 the grand object and ambition of life. His 
 views had been strangely baffled ; but the more 
 they were thwarted, the more pertinaciously 
 he clung to them. Naturally kind, generous, 
 and social, he had sunk at length into the 
 solitary and the miser. All other speculations 
 that should retrieve his ancestral honours had 
 failed : but there is one speculation that never 
 fails — the speculation of saving! It was to 
 this that he now indissolubly attached himself. 
 At moments he was open to all his old habits ; 
 but those moments were rare and few. A cold, 
 hard, frosty penuriousness was his prevalent 
 characteristic. He had sent his son, with eigh- 
 teen-pence in his pocket, to a school of twenty 
 pounds a-year ; where, naturally enough, he 
 learnt nothing but mischief and cricket : yet 
 he conceived his son owed him the most eter- 
 nal obligations.
 
 30 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Luckily for Percy, he was an especial fa- 
 vourite with a certain not uncelebrated charac- 
 ter of the name of Saville ; and Saville claimed 
 the privilege of a relation, to supply him with 
 money and receive him at his home. Wild, 
 passionate, fond to excess of pleasure, the 
 young Godolphin caught eagerly at these oc- 
 casional visits; and at each his mind, keen 
 and penetrating as it naturally was, took new 
 flights and revelled in new views. He was 
 already the leader of his school, the torment 
 of the master, and the lover of the master's 
 daughter. He was fifteen years old, but a 
 character. A secret pride, a secret bitterness, 
 and an open wit and recklessness of bearing, 
 rendered him to all seeming a boy more endow- 
 ed with energies than affections. Yet a kind 
 word from a friend's lips was never without its 
 effect on him, and he might have been led by 
 the silk while he would have snapped the chain.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 31 
 
 But these were his boyish traits of mind : the 
 world soon altered them. 
 
 The subject of the visit to Saville was not 
 touched upon. A little reflection showed Mr. 
 Godolphin how nugatory were the promises 
 
 of a schoolboy that he should not cost his 
 
 j 
 
 father another shilling ; and he knew that 
 SavihVs house was not exactly the spot in 
 which economy was best learned. He thought 
 it, therefore, more prudent that his son should 
 return to school. 
 
 To school went Percy Godolphin ; and about 
 three weeks afterwards, Percy Godolphin was 
 condemned to expulsion for returning, with 
 considerable unction, a slap in the face that 
 he had received from Dr. Shallow ell. Instead 
 of waiting for his father's arrival, Percy made 
 up a small bundle of clothes, and let himself 
 drop, by the help of the bed-curtains, from 
 the window of the room in which he was con-
 
 6% GODOLPHIN. 
 
 fined, and towards the close of a fine summer's 
 evening, found himself on the high-road be- 
 tween and London, with independence at 
 
 his heart and (Saville's last gift) ten guineas 
 in his pocket.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Percy's first adventure as a free agent. 
 
 It was a fine, picturesque outline of road 
 on which the young outcast found himself 
 journeying, whither he nor knew nor cared. 
 His heart was full of enterprise and the un- 
 fleshed valour of inexperience. He had pro- 
 ceeded several miles, and the dusk of the even- 
 ing was setting in, when he observed a caravan 
 a little a-head of him, and a tall, well-shaped 
 man walking alongside of it, and gesticulating 
 somewhat violently. Godolphin observed him 
 with some curiosity ; and the man, turning 
 c 5
 
 34 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 abruptly round, perceived, and in his turn 
 noticed very inquisitively, the person and as- 
 pect of the young traveller. 
 
 " And how now ?" said he, presently, and 
 in an agreeable though familiar and uncere- 
 monious tone of voice ; " whither are you 
 bound this time of day ?" 
 
 "It is no business of yours, friend,' 11 said 
 the boy, with the proud petulance of his age ; 
 " mind what belongs to yourself." 
 
 " You are sharp on me, young Sir," return- 
 ed the other : " but it is our business to be 
 loquacious. Know, Sir, 11 — and the stranger 
 frowned- — " that we have ordered many a taller 
 fellow than yourself to execution, for a much 
 smaller insolence than you seem capable of." 
 
 A laugh from the caravan caused Godol- 
 phin to lift up his eyes, and he saw the door of 
 the machine open, and an arch female face 
 looking down on him. 
 
 " You are merry on me, I see, 11 said Percy ;
 
 G0D0LPH1N. 35 
 
 " come down, and I '11 be even with you, pretty 
 one." 
 
 The lady laughed yet more loudly at the 
 premature gallantry of the traveller : but the 
 man, without heeding her, and laying his hand 
 on Percy's shoulder, said : — 
 
 " Pray, Sir, do you live at ?" naming 
 
 the town they were now approaching. 
 
 " Not I," said Godolphin, freeing himself 
 from the intrusion. 
 
 " You will perhaps sleep there ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I shall." 
 
 " You are too young to travel alone." 
 
 " And you too old to make such impertinent 
 remarks," retorted Godolphin, reddening with 
 anger. 
 
 " Faith, I like this spirit, my Hotspur," 
 said the stranger, coolly : " If you are really 
 
 going to put up for the night at , suppose 
 
 we sup together." 
 
 " With your wild beasts, friend, I suppose
 
 36 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 as a part of the company. You are a show- 
 man, I presume; and you carry three snakes 
 coiled in flannel, a white bear, and some half- 
 a-dozen monkeys in that caravan, as a decoy 
 to the groundlings.'' 1 
 
 " And which of those beasts am I, Sir ?" 
 said the damsel above, very demurely. 
 
 Percy, struck (at fifteen we are easily in- 
 flammable,) with the face of the inquirer, was 
 about to reply complimentarily, when sud- 
 denly a voice from the interior of the vehicle 
 cried out : — 
 
 " Make haste ! help ! help ! the cord 's given 
 way ! — Venice is falling out of its place, and 
 the snow-storm will be in the fire in an in- 
 stant r 
 
 " The devil !" cried the tall man ; and he 
 sprang up the steps into the caravan, and dis- 
 appeared. The damsel who had before mixed 
 in the conversation remained, however, quite
 
 GODOLPHIN. 37 
 
 quiet and undisturbed at the door of the ma- 
 chine ; and Percy felt that there was an op- 
 portunity for a flirtation. 
 
 " I beg pardon," said he, after a pause ; 
 " I perceive my error ; I see now that it is 
 some theatre which you adorn." 
 
 " Some theatre ! Ah ! we are pretty im- 
 partial as to that," answered the damsel coolly ; 
 " in short, we are a party of strollers." 
 
 " And is that gentleman, so free and easy 
 in his manners, your husband ?" 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! Do you think he would 
 let me stand idle while he was busy, if he 
 were ? But, pooh ! what can you know of 
 married life ? No !" she continued, with a 
 pretty air of mock dignity ; " I am the Bel- 
 videra, the Calista, the Prima donna, of the 
 company ; — above all control, all husbanding, 
 and reaping thirty-three shillings a-week." 
 
 " But are you above lovers as well as hus-
 
 38 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 bands ?" asked Percy, with a rakish air, bor- 
 rowed from Saville. 
 
 u Bless the boy! No: but then my lovers 
 must be at least as tall, and at least as rich, 
 and I am afraid, at least as old, as myself." 
 
 " Don't frighten yourself, my dear," return- 
 ed Percy ; J was not about to make love to 
 you." 
 
 " Were you not ? Yes you were, and you 
 know it. But why won't you sup with us?" 
 
 " Why not, indeed ?" thought Percy, as the 
 idea, thus more enticingly put than it was 
 at first, pressed upon him. " If you ask me," 
 said he, " I will." 
 
 " I do ask you, then," said the actress ; and 
 here the hero of the company re-appeared. 
 
 " So, Sir," said he to Godolphin, " you 
 have not left us, then, I find." 
 
 " Not I : I am going to accept your in- 
 vitation, and sup with you,"
 
 GODOLPHIN. 39 
 
 " Very well ; I am glad to hear it. Had 
 you not better mount, and rest yourself in the 
 
 caravan ? We have two miles farther to 
 
 yet." 
 
 Percy accepted the invitation, and was soon 
 by the side of the pretty actress. And thus, 
 fast growing familiarized to his new com- 
 panions, and delighted with his adventure, the 
 son of the ascetic Godolphin, the pupil of the 
 
 courtly Saville, entered the town of , 
 
 and commenced his first independent cam- 
 paign in the great world.
 
 40 GODOLPHIN, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MUMMERS GODOLPHIN IX LOVE — THE EFFECT 
 
 OF FANNY MILLINGER'S ACTING UPON HIM THE 
 
 TWO OFFERS. — GODOLPHIN QUITS THE PLAYERS. 
 
 Our travellers stopped at the first inn in 
 the outskirts of the town. Here they were 
 shown into a large room on the ground-floor, 
 sanded, with a long table in the centre ; and 
 Percy had leisure to examine all the com- 
 panions with whom he had associated himself. 
 
 In the first place, there was an old gen- 
 tleman, of the age of sixty-three, in a bob- 
 wig, and inclined to be stout, who always 
 played the lover. He was equally excellent
 
 GODOLPHIN. 41 
 
 in the pensive Romeo and the bustling Rapid. 
 He had an ill way of talking off the stage, 
 partly because he had lost all his front teeth ; 
 a circumstance which made him avoid, in gene- 
 ral, those parts in which he had to force a 
 great deal of laughter. Next, there was a 
 little girl, of about fourteen, who played 
 angels, fairies, and at a pinch, was very ef- 
 fective as an old woman. Thirdly, there was 
 our free-and-easy cavalier, who, having a loud 
 voice and a manly presence, usually performed 
 the tyrant. He was great in " Macbeth,' 1 
 greater in " Bombastes Furioso." Fourthly, 
 came this gentleman's wife, a pretty, slattern- 
 ish woman, much painted. She usually per- 
 formed the second female — the confidant, the 
 chambermaid — the Emilia to the Desdemona. 
 And fifthly, was Percy's new inamorata, — a 
 girl of about one-and-twenty, fair, with a nez 
 retrousse; beautiful auburn hair, that was al-
 
 42 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 ways a little dishevelled ; the prettiest mouth, 
 teeth, and dimple imaginable; a natural co- 
 lour; and a person that promised to incline 
 hereafter towards that embonpoint which is 
 more dear to the sensual than the imaginative. 
 This girl, whose name was Fanny Millinger, 
 was of so frank, good-humoured, and lively 
 a turn, that she was the idol of the whole 
 company, and her superiority in acting was 
 never made a matter of jealousy. Actors may 
 believe this, or not, as they please. 
 
 "But is this all your company ?" said 
 Percy. 
 
 " All ? no ! " replied Fanny, taking off her 
 bonnet, and curling up her tresses by the help 
 of a dim glass. " The rest are at * * * * *, 
 but will join us to-night. Why won't you 
 take to the stage ? I wish you would ! you 
 would make a very respectable — page."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 43 
 
 " Upon my word ! " said Percy, exceedingly 
 offended. 
 
 " Come, come ! " cried the actress, slapping 
 her hands, and perfectly unheeding his displea- 
 sure — " Why don't you help me off with my 
 cloak ? — why don't you set me a chair ? — why 
 don't you take this great box out of my way ? 
 — why don't you — Heaven help me ! " and she 
 stamped her little foot quite seriously on the 
 floor. " A pretty person for a lover you are I 11 
 
 " Oho ! then I am a lover, you acknow- 
 ledge ?" 
 
 " Nonsense ! — get a chair next me at sup- 
 per." 
 
 The young Godolphin was perfectly fasci- 
 nated by the lively actress ; and it was with no 
 small interest that he stationed himself, the 
 following night, in the stage-box of the little 
 
 theatre at , to see how his Fanny acted. 
 
 The play was " She Stoops to Conquer." The
 
 44 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 male parts were, on the whole, respectably 
 managed ; though Percy was somewhat sur- 
 prised to observe that a man, who had joined 
 the corps that morning, blest with the most 
 solemn countenance in the world — a fine Ro- 
 man nose, and a forehead like a sage^ — was 
 now dressed in nankeen tights, and a coat 
 without skirts, splitting the sides of the gal- 
 lery in the part of Tony Lumpkin. But into 
 the heroine Fanny Millinger threw a grace, a 
 sweetness, a simple yet dignified spirit of true 
 love, that at once charmed and astonished all 
 present. The applause was unbounded; and 
 Percy Godolphin felt proud of himself fcr hav- 
 ing admired one whom every one else seemed 
 also resolved upon admiring. 
 
 When the comedy was finished, he went 
 behind the scenes, and for the first time felt 
 the rank which intellect bestows. This idle 
 girl, with whom he had before been so familiar;
 
 GODOLPHIN. 45 
 
 who had seemed to him, boy as he was, only 
 made for jesting, and coquetry, and trifling, 
 he now felt to be raised to a sudden eminence 
 that startled and abashed him. He became 
 shy and awkward, and stood at a distance, 
 stealing a glance towards her, but without the 
 courage to approach and compliment her. 
 
 The quick eye of the actress detected the 
 effect she had produced. She was naturally 
 pleased at it, and coming up to Godolphin, 
 
 she touched his shoulder, and with a smile, 
 rendered still more brilliant by the rouge yet 
 
 unwashed from the dimpled cheeks, said — 
 
 " Well, most awkward swain ! no flattery 
 
 ready for me? Go to! you won't suit me: 
 
 get yourself another empress !" 
 
 " You have pleased me into respecting you,'" 
 
 said Godolphin. 
 
 There was a delicacy in the expression that 
 
 was very characteristic of the real mind of the
 
 46 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 speaker, though that mind was not yet deve- 
 loped ; and the pretty actress was touched by 
 it at the moment, though, despite the grace of 
 her acting, she was by nature far too volatile 
 to think it at all advantageous to be respected 
 on the long run. She did not act in the after- 
 piece, and Godolphin escorted her home to the 
 inn. 
 
 So long as his ten guineas lasted — which the 
 reader will conceive was not very long — Go- 
 dolphin stayed with the gay troop, as the wel- 
 come and successful lover of its chief ornament. 
 To her he confided his name and history : she 
 laughed heartily at the latter — for she was one 
 of Venus 1 s true children, fond of striking mirth 
 out of all subjects. "But what," said she, 
 patting his cheek affectionately, " what should 
 hinder you from joining us for a little while ? 
 I could teach you to be an actor in three les- 
 sons. Come now, attend ! It is but a mere
 
 GODOLPHIN. 47 
 
 series of tricks, this art that seems to you so 
 admirable." 
 
 Godolphin grew embarrassed. There was in 
 him a sort of hidden pride, that could never 
 endure to subject itself to the censure of others. 
 He had no propensity to imitation, and he 
 had a strong susceptibility to the ridiculous. 
 These traits of mind thus early developed — 
 which in later life prevented his ever finding fit 
 scope for his natural powers — which made him 
 too proud to bustle and too philosophical to 
 shine — were of service to him on this occasion, 
 and preserved him from the danger into which 
 he had fallen. He could not be persuaded to 
 act : the fair Fanny gave up the attempt in 
 despair. " Yet stay with us," said she tender- 
 ly, " and share my poor earnings." 
 
 Godolphin started ; and in the wonderful 
 contradictions of the proud human heart, this 
 generous offer from the poor actress gave him
 
 48 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 a distaste, a displeasure, that almost reconciled 
 him to parting from her. It seemed to open 
 to him at once the equivocal mode of life he 
 had entered upon. " No, Fanny," said he, 
 after a pause : " I am here because I resolved 
 to be independent ; I cannot, therefore, choose 
 dependence." 
 
 " Miss Millinger is wanted instantly for re- 
 hearsal," said the little girl who acted fairies 
 and old women, putting her head suddenly 
 into the room. 
 
 " Bless me ! " cried Fanny, starting up, " is 
 it so late ? Well, I must go now : good-bye ! 
 look in upon us — do." 
 
 But Godolphin, moody and thoughtful, 
 walked into the street ; and lo ! the first thing 
 that greeted his eyes was a handbill on the 
 wall, describing his own person, and offering 
 twenty guineas reward for his detention. " Let 
 him return to his afflicted parent," was the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 49 
 
 conclusion of the bill, " and all shall be for- 
 given. " 
 
 Godolphin crept back to his apartment ; 
 wrote a long, affectionate letter to Fanny ; en- 
 closed her his watch, as the only keepsake in 
 his power ; gave her his address at Saville^s ; 
 and then waiting till dark, once more sallied 
 forth, and took a place on the mail for Lon- 
 don. He had no money for his passage, but 
 his appearance was such that the coachman 
 readily trusted him ; and the next morning 
 at daybreak he was under Saville's roof. 
 
 VOL.
 
 50 GODOLPHIN, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PERCY GODOLPHIN THE GUEST OF SAVILLE. — HE 
 ENTERS THE LIFE-GUARDS, AND BECOMES du boil 
 
 ton. 
 
 "And so," said Saville laughing, " you 
 really gave thein the slip : excellent ! But I 
 envy you your adventures with the player-folk. 
 Gad ! if I were some }'ears younger, I would 
 join them myself; I should act Sir Pertinax 
 Macsycophant famously ; I have a touch of the 
 mime in me. Well ! but what do you pro- 
 pose to do? — live with me? — eh ! " 
 
 " Why, I think that might be the best ; 
 and certainly it would be the pleasantest mode 
 of passing my life. But "
 
 GODOLPHIN. 51 
 
 " But what ?" 
 
 " Why, I can scarcely quarter myself on 
 your courtesy ; I should soon grow discontent- 
 ed. So I shall write to my father, whom I, 
 kindly and considerately, by the way, inform- 
 ed of my safety the very first day of my 
 arrival in . I told him to direct his let- 
 ters to your house; but I regret to find that 
 the handbill which so frightened me from my 
 propriety is the only notice he has deigned to 
 take of my whereabout. I shall write to him 
 therefore again, begging him to let me enter 
 the army. It is not a profession I much 
 fancy ; but what then ? I shall be my own 
 master." 
 
 " Very well said !" answered Saville; " and 
 here I hope I can serve you. If your father 
 will pay the lawful sum for a commission in 
 the Guards, why, I think I have interest to 
 get you in for that sum alone — no trifling 
 favour.'" d 2 
 
 LIBRARY """" — - 
 UNIVERSITY 0* lH'wnw
 
 52 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Godolphin was enchanted at this proposal, 
 and instantly wrote to his father, urging it 
 strongly upon him, Saville, in a separate epis- 
 tle, seconded the motion. " You see," wrote 
 the latter, — " you see, my dear Sir, that your 
 son is a wild, resolute scapegrace. You can do 
 nothing with him by schools and coercion : put 
 him to discipline in the King's service, and 
 condemn him to live on his pay. It is a cheap 
 mode, after all, of providing for a reprobate ; 
 and as he will have the good fortune to enter 
 the army at so early an age, by the time he 
 is thirty, he may be a colonel on full-pay. 
 Seriously, this is the best thing you can do 
 with him, unless you have a living in your 
 family." 
 
 The old gentleman was much discomposed 
 by these letters, and by his son's previous 
 elopement. He could not, however, but fore- 
 see, that if he resisted the boy's wishes, he
 
 GODOLPHIN. 53 
 
 was likely to have a troublesome time of it. 
 Scrape after serape, difficulty following diffi- 
 culty might ensue, all costing both anxiety 
 and money. The present offer furnished him 
 with a fair excuse for ridding himself, for a 
 long time to come, of farther provision for his 
 offspring; and now growing daily more and 
 more attached to the indolent routine of soli- 
 tary economies in which he moved, he was 
 glad of an opportunity to deliver himself from 
 future interruption, and surrender his whole 
 soul to his favourite occupation. 
 
 At length, after a fortnight's delay and me- 
 ditation, he wrote shortly to Saville and his 
 son; saying, after much reproach to the latter, 
 that if the commission could really be pur- 
 chased at the sum specified, he was willing to 
 make a sacrifice, for which he must pinch him- 
 self, and conclude the business. This touched 
 the son, but Saville laughed him out of the
 
 54 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 twinge of good feeling ; and very shortly after- 
 wards, Percy Godolphin was gazetted as a cor- 
 net in the Life-Guards. 
 
 The life of a soldier, in peace, is indolent 
 enough, Heaven knows ! Percy liked the new- 
 uniforms and the new horses — all of which 
 were bought on credit. He liked his new 
 companions ; he liked balls ; he liked flirting ; 
 he did not dislike Hyde Park from four o'clock 
 till six ; and he was not very much bored by 
 drills and parade. It was much to his cre- 
 dit in the world that he was the protege of a 
 man who had so great a character for profli- 
 gacy and gambling as Augustus Saville; and 
 under such auspices he found himself launched 
 at once into the full tide of " good society I 1 * — 
 so called, because all goodness is carefully ba- 
 nished from its precincts. 
 
 Young, romantic, high-spirited — with the 
 classic features of an Antinous, and a very
 
 GODOLPHIN. 55 
 
 pretty knack of complimenting and writing 
 verses — Percy Godolphin soon became, while 
 yet more fit in years for the nursery than the 
 world, " the curled darling " of that wide class 
 of high-born women who have nothing to do 
 but to hear love made to them, and who, all 
 artifice themselves, think the love sweetest 
 which springs from the most natural source. 
 They like boyhood when it is not bashful ; 
 and from fifteen to twenty, it is our own fault 
 if we all of us cannot play the Juan. 
 
 But love was not the worst danger that 
 menaced the intoxicated boy. Saville, the 
 most seductive of tutors ; Saville, who in his 
 wit, his bon-ton, his control over the great 
 world, seemed as a god to all less elevated and 
 less aspiring — Saville was Godolphin's constant 
 companion ; and Saville was worse than a pro- 
 fligate — he was a gambler! One would think 
 that gaming was the last vice that could fasci-
 
 56 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 nate the young : its avarice, its grasping, its 
 hideous selfishness, its cold, calculating mean- 
 ness, would, one might imagine, scare away 
 all who have yet other and softer duties to 
 worship. But, in fact, the fault of youth 
 is, that it can rarely resist. Gaming, in all 
 countries, is the vice of an aristocracy. The 
 young find it already established in the best 
 circles; they are enticed by the habit of 
 others, and ruined when the habit becomes 
 their own. 
 
 " You look feverish, Percy," said Saville, as 
 he met his pupil in the Park. " I don't won- 
 der at it : you lost infernally last night." 
 
 " More than I can pay," replied Percy, with 
 a quivering lip. 
 
 " No ! you shall pay it to-morrow, for you 
 shall go shares with me to-night. Observe," 
 continued Saville, lowering his voice, " I never 
 loser
 
 GODOLPHIN. 57 
 
 " How ! never?" 
 
 " Never, unless by design. I play at no 
 game where chance only presides. Whist is 
 my favourite play : it is not popular : I am 
 sorry for it. I take up with other games, I 
 am forced to do it ; but even at rouge et noir, 
 I carry about with me the rules of whist. I 
 calculate — I remember." 
 
 " But hazard?' 7 
 
 " I never play at that ! " said Saville, so- 
 lemnly. " It is the devil's game; it defies 
 skill. Forsake hazard, and let me teach you 
 tcarte ; it is coming into fashion." 
 
 Saville took great pains with Godolphin ; 
 and Godolphin, who was by nature of a con- 
 templative, not hasty mood, was no superficial 
 disciple. He became a wise, a fortunate 
 gamester ; and thus he eked out betimes the 
 slender profits of a subaltern's pay. 
 
 This vvas the first great moral deterioration 
 d5
 
 58 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 in Percy's mind — a mind which ought to have 
 made him a very different being from what he 
 became, but which no vice,, no evil example, 
 could ever entirely pervert.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SEVILLE EXCUSED FROM HAVING HUMAN AFFECTIONS. 
 — GODOLPHIN SEES ONE WHOM HE NEVER SEES 
 AGAIN. — THE NEW ACTRESS. 
 
 Saville was deemed the consummate man 
 of the world — wise and heartless. How came 
 he to take such gratuitous pains with the 
 boy Godolphin ? In the first place, Saville 
 had no legitimate children ; Godolphin was his 
 relation : in the second place, it may be ob- 
 served, that hacknied and blasts men of the 
 world are fond of the young, in whom they 
 recognise something — a better something — be- 
 longing to themselves. In Godolphin's gentle-
 
 60 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 ness and courage, Saville thought he saw the 
 mirror of his own crusted urbanity and schem- 
 ing perseverance: in Godolphin's fine imagi- 
 nation and deep intellect, he beheld his own 
 cunning and hypocrisy. The boy's popularity 
 flattered him ; the boy's conversation amused. 
 No man is so heartless but- that he is capable 
 of strong likings, when they do not put him 
 much out of his way : it was this sort of lik- 
 ing that Saville had for Godolphin. Besides, 
 there was yet another reason for attachment, 
 which might at first seem too delicate to 
 actuate the refined voluptuary ; but examined 
 closely, the delicacy vanished. Saville had 
 loved, — at least, had offered his hand to 
 Godolphin's mother: (she was supposed an 
 heiress). He thought he had just missed 
 being Godolphin's father : his vanity made 
 him like to show the boy what a much better 
 father he would have been than the one that
 
 GODOLPHIN. 61 
 
 Providence had given him. His resentment, 
 too, against the accepted suitor made him 
 love to exercise a little spiteful revenge 
 against Godolphin's father: he was glad to 
 show that the son preferred where the mother 
 rejected. All these motives combined made 
 Saville take, as it were, to the young Percy; 
 and being rich, and habitually profuse, though 
 prudent, and a shrewd speculator withal, the 
 pecuniary part of his kindness cost him no 
 pain. But Godolphin, who was not ostenta- 
 tious, did not trust himself largely to the 
 capricious fount of the worldling's generosity. 
 Fortune smiled on her boyish votary; and 
 during the short time he was obliged to cul- 
 tivate her favours, showered on him, at least, 
 a sufficiency for support, or even for display. 
 Crowded with fine people, and blazing with 
 
 light, were the rooms of the Countess of B , 
 
 as flushed from a late dinner at Saville's,
 
 62 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 young Godolphin made his appearance in the 
 scene. He was not of those numerous gentle- 
 men, the stock-flowers of the parterre, who 
 stick themselves up against walls in the pano- 
 ply of neckclothed silence. He came not to 
 balls, from the vulgar motive of being seen 
 there in the most conspicuous situation — a 
 motive so apparent among the stiff exquisites 
 of England. He came to amuse himself;. and 
 if he found no one capable of amusing him, he 
 saw no necessity in staying. He was always 
 seen, therefore, conversing, or dancing, or lis- 
 tening to music — or he was not seen at all. 
 
 In exchanging a few words with a Colonel 
 D , a noted roue and gamester, he ob- 
 served, gazing on him very intently — and as 
 Percy thought, very rudely — an old gentleman 
 in a dress of the last century. Turn where he 
 would, Godolphin could not rid himself of the 
 gaze ; so at length he met it with a look of
 
 GODOLPHIN. 63 
 
 equal scrutiny and courage. The old gentle- 
 man slowly approached. " Percy Godolphin, 
 I think ?" said he. 
 
 " That is my name. Sir," replied Percy. 
 « Your's " 
 
 " No matter ! Yet stay ! you shall know- 
 it. I am Henry Johnstone ; old Harry John- 
 stone. You have heard of him ? — your father's 
 first cousin. Well, I grieve, young sir, to 
 find that you associate with that rascal Saville. 
 — Nay, never interrupt me, Sir ! — I grieve to 
 find that you, thus young, thus unguarded, 
 are left to be ruined in heart and corrupted 
 in nature by any one who will take the trou- 
 ble ! Yet, I like your countenance ! — I like 
 your countenance! — it is open, yet thought- 
 ful ; frank, and yet it has something of melan- 
 choly. You have not Charles's coloured hair ; 
 but you are much younger — much. I am glad 
 I have seen you ; I came here on purpose :
 
 64 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Good night !" — and without waiting an an- 
 swer, the old man disappeared. 
 
 Godolphin, recovering his surprise, recol- 
 lected that he had often heard his father speak 
 of a rich and eccentric relation named John- 
 stone : this singular interview made a strong, 
 but momentary impression on him. He in- 
 tended to seek out the old man's residence ; 
 but one thing or another drove away the fulfil- 
 ment of the intention, and in this world the 
 relations never met again. 
 
 Percy, now musingly gliding through the 
 crowd, sank into a seat beside a lady of forty- 
 five, who sometimes amused herself in making 
 love to him — because there could be no harm 
 in such a mere boy! — and presently after- 
 wards, a Lord George Somebody, sauntering 
 up, asked the lady if he had not seen her at 
 the play on the previous night. 
 
 " Oh yes ! we went to see the new actress.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 65 
 
 How pretty she is ! — so unaffected too ; — how 
 well she sings ! " 
 
 "Pretty well — er!" replied Lord George, 
 passing his hand through his hair. " Very 
 nice girl — er ! — good ankles. Devilish hot — er, 
 is not it— er — er ? What a bore this is : eh ! 
 Ah ! Godolphin ! don't forget Wattier's — er ! 11 
 His Lordship er'd himself off. 
 
 " What actress is this ?" 
 
 " Oh, a very good one indeed ! — came out 
 in ' The Belle's Stratagem.' We are going 
 to see her to-morrow : will you dine with us 
 early, and be our cavalier ?" 
 
 " Nothing will please me more ! Your 
 Ladyship has dropped your handkerchief. 11 
 
 " Thank you ! ,1 said the lady, bending till 
 her hair touched Godolphin's cheek, and gen- 
 tly pressing the hand that was extended to her. 
 It was a wonder that Godolphin never became 
 a coxcomb.
 
 66 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 He dined the next day according to appoint- 
 ment : he went to the play ; and at the mo- 
 ment his eye first turned to the stage, an 
 universal burst of applause indicated the entre. 
 of the new actress — Fanny Millinger !
 
 GODOLPHIN. 67 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GODOLPHIX'S PASSION FOR THE STAGE. — THE DIFFE- 
 RENCE IT ENGENDERED IN HIS HABITS OF LIFE. 
 
 Now this event produced a great influence 
 over Godolphin's habits — and I suppose, there- 
 fore, I may add, over his character. He re- 
 newed his acquaintance with the lively actress. 
 " What a change !" cried both. 
 " The strolling player risen into celebrity !" 
 " And the runaway boy polished into fa- 
 shion!" 
 
 " You are handsomer than ever, Fanny ." 
 " I return the compliment," replied Fanny, 
 with a curtsey.
 
 68 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 And now Godolphin became a constant at- 
 tendant at the theatre. This led him into a 
 mode of life quite different from that which he 
 had lately cultivated. 
 
 There are in London two sets of dissipated 
 men : one set, the butterflies of balls ; the 
 loungers of the regular walks of society ; 
 diners-out ; the " old familiar faces," seen 
 everywhere, known to every one: the other 
 set, a more wild, irregular, careless race of 
 men, who go little into parties, and vote balls 
 a nuisance ; who live in clubs ; frequent the- 
 atres ; drive about late o'nights in mysterious- 
 looking vehicles, and enjoy a vast acquaintance 
 among the Aspasias of pleasure. These are 
 the men who are the critics of theatricals : 
 black-neckclothed and unilaterally hatted, they 
 sit in their boxes and decide on the ankles of a 
 dancer or the voice of a singer. They have a 
 smattering of literature, and use a great deal
 
 GODOLPHIN. 69 
 
 of French in their conversation : they have 
 something of romance in their composition, 
 and have been known to marry for love. In 
 short, there is in their whole nature a more 
 roving, liberal, Continental character of dissi- 
 pation than belongs to the cold, tame, dull, 
 prim, hedge-clipped debaucheries of more na- 
 tional exquisitism. Into this set, out of the 
 other set, fell young Godolphin ; and oh ! the 
 merry mornings at actresses' houses; the jovial 
 suppers after the play ; the buoyancy, the 
 brilliancy, the esprit, with which the hours, 
 from midnight to cock-crow, were often pelted 
 with rose-leaves and drowned in Rhenish. 
 
 By degrees, however, as Godolphin warmed 
 into his attendance at the playhouses, the fine 
 intellectual something that lay yet undestroy- 
 ed at his heart, stirred up emotions which he 
 felt his more vulgar associates were unfitted 
 to share.
 
 70 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 There is that in theatrical representation 
 which perpetually awakens whatever romance 
 belongs to our character. The magic lights ; 
 the pomp of scene ; the palace, the camp ; 
 the forest; the midnight wold; the imaged 
 moonlight on the water; the melody of the 
 tragic rhythm ; the grace of the comic wit ; 
 the strange art that gives such meaning to 
 the poet's lightest word; — the fair, false, ex- 
 citing life that is detailed before us— crowd- 
 ing into some three little hours all that our 
 most busy ambition could desire — love, enter- 
 prise, war, glory ! the kindling exaggeration 
 of the sentiments which belong to the stage — 
 like our own in our boldest moments : all these 
 appeals to our imaginative sense are not made 
 in vain. Our taste for castle-building and vi- 
 sions deepens upon us ; and we chew a mental 
 opium which stagnates all the other faculties, 
 but wakens that of the ideal. 
 
 Godolphin was peculiarly fascinated by the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 71 
 
 stage ; he loved to steal away from his com- 
 panions, and, alone and unheeded, to feast his 
 mind on the unreal stream of existence that 
 mirrored images so beautiful. And oh ! while 
 yet we are young — while yet the dew lingers 
 on the green leaf of spring — while all the 
 brighter, the more enterprising part of the 
 future is to come — while we know not whether 
 the true life may not be visionary and excited 
 as the false — how deep and rich a transport is 
 it to see, to feel, to hear Shakspeare's concep- 
 tions made palpable, though all imperfectly, 
 and only for an hour ! Sweet Arden ! are we 
 in thy forest ? — thy " shadowy groves and 
 unfrequented glens ?" Rosalind, Jacques, Or- 
 lando, have you indeed a being upon earth ? 
 Ah ! this is true enchantment ! and when we 
 turn back to life, we turn from the colours 
 which the Claude glass breathes over a winter's 
 landscape to the nakedness of the landscape 
 itself !
 
 72 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LEGACY. — A NEW DEFORMITY IN SAVILLE. — THE 
 NATURE OF WORLDLY UaisOHS. — GODOLPHIN LEAVES 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 But then, it is not always a sustainer of the 
 stage delusion to have an actress for a mis- 
 tress : it takes us too much behind the scenes. 
 Godolphin felt this so strongly that he liked 
 those plays least in which Fanny performed. 
 He knew so well that she was a woman, that 
 he could not deceive himself into believing 
 her more. Luckily, however, Fanny did not 
 attempt Shakspeare. She was inimitable in 
 vaudeville, in farce, and in the lighter come-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 73 
 
 dy ; but she had prudently abandoned tragedy 
 in deserting the barn. She was a girl of much 
 talent and quickness, and discovered exactly 
 the paths in which her vanity could walk with- 
 out being wounded. And there was a simpli- 
 city, a frankness, about her manner, that made 
 her a most agreeable companion. 
 
 The attachment between her and Godolphin 
 was not very violent ; it was a silken tie, which 
 opportunity could knot and snap a hundred 
 times over without doing much wrong to the 
 hearts it so lightly united. Over Godolphin 
 the attachment had no influence, while the 
 effects of the attachment had an influence so 
 great. 
 
 One night, after an absence from town of 
 two or three days, Godolphin returned home 
 from the theatre, and found among the letters 
 waiting his arrival one from his father. It was 
 edged with black ; the seal, too, was black. 
 
 VOL. 1. E
 
 74 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Godolphin , s heart misgave him : tremblingly 
 he opened it, and read as follows — 
 
 " Dear Percy : 
 " I have news for you, which I do not know 
 whether I should call good or bad. On the 
 one hand, your cousin, that old oddity, Harry 
 Johnstone, is dead, and has left you, out of his 
 immense fortune, the poor sum of twenty thou- 
 sand pounds. But mark ! on condition that 
 you leave the Guards, and either reside with 
 me, or at least leave London till your majority 
 is attained. If you refuse these conditions, 
 you lose the legacy. It is rather strange that 
 this curious character should take such pains 
 with your morals, and yet not leave me a single 
 shilling. But justice is out of fashion now- 
 a-days; your showy virtues only are the rage. 
 I beg, if you choose to come down here, that 
 you will get me twelve yards of house-flannel ;
 
 GODOLPHIN. 75 
 
 I enclose a pattern of the quality. Snugg, in 
 Oxford-street, near Tottenham-court-road, is 
 my man. It is certainly a handsome thing in 
 old Johnstone : but so odd to omit me. How 
 did you get acquainted with him ? The twen- 
 ty thousand pounds will, however, do much 
 for the poor property. Pray take care of it, 
 Percy, pray do. 
 
 " I have had a touch of the gout, for the 
 first time. I have been too luxurious : by 
 proper abstinence, I trust to bring it down. 
 Compliments to that smooth rogue Saville. 
 " Your affectionate, 
 
 " A. G." 
 
 " P. S.—Discharged Old Sally for flirting 
 with the butcher's boy : flirtations of that sort 
 make meat weigh much heavier. Bess is my 
 only she-helpmate now, besides the old crea- 
 ture wh ) shows the ruins : so much the better. 
 What an eccentric creature that Johnstone 
 was ! I hate eccentric people." 
 e 2
 
 76 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 The letter fell from Percy's hands. And 
 this, then, was the issue of his single inter- 
 view with the poor old man ! It was events 
 like these, wayward and strange, (events which 
 chequered his whole life,) that, secretly to him- 
 self, tinged Godolphin's character with super- 
 stition. He afterwards dealt con amove with 
 fatalities and influences. 
 
 You may be sure that he did not sleep 
 much that night. Early the next morning 
 he sought Saville, and imparted to him the 
 intelligence he had received. 
 
 " Droll enough !" said Saville, languidly, 
 and more than a little displeased at this gene- 
 rosity to Godolphin from another ; for, like 
 all small-hearted persons, he was jealous ; 
 u droll enough ! Hem I and you never knew 
 him but once, and then he abused me. I 
 wonder at that; I was very obliging to his 
 vulgar son."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 77 
 
 " What, he had a son, then ?" 
 
 " Some two-legged creature of that sort, 
 raw and bony, dropped into London, like a 
 ptarmigan, wild, and scared out of his wits. 
 Old Johnstone was in the country, taking care 
 of his wife, who had lost the use of her limbs 
 ever since she had been married : — caught a 
 violent — husband — the first day of wedlock. 
 The boy, sole son and heir, came up to Town 
 at the age of discretion ; got introduced to me ; 
 I patronized him ; brought him into a decent 
 degree of fashion ; played a few games at cards 
 .with him ; won some money ; would not win 
 any more; advised him to leave off; too young 
 to play ; neglected my advice ; went on, and — 
 damn the fellow ! if he did not cut his throat 
 one morning ; and the father, to my astonish- 
 ment, laid the blame upon me !" 
 
 Godolphin stood appalled in speechless dis- 
 gust. He never loved Saville from that hour.
 
 78 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " In fact," resumed Saville carelessly, " he 
 had lost very considerably. His father was 
 a stern, hard man, and the poor boy was 
 frightened at the thought of his displeasure. 
 I suppose Monsieur Papa imagines me a sort 
 of moral ogre, eating up all the little youths 
 that fall in my way ! since he leaves you 
 twenty thousand pounds, on condition that 
 you take care of yourself, and shun the castle 
 I live in. Well, well ! 'tis all very flattering ! 
 And where will you go ? To Spain ?" 
 
 This story affected Percy sensibly. He re- 
 gretted deeply that he had not sought out the 
 bereaved father, and been of some comfort to 
 his later hours. He appreciated all that warmth 
 of sympathy, that delicacy of heart, which had 
 made the old man compassionate his young 
 relation's unfriended lot, and couple his gift 
 with a condition, likely, perhaps, to moderate 
 Percy's desires to the independence thus be-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 79 
 
 stowed, and certain to remove his more tender 
 years from a scene of the most constant con- 
 tagion. Thus melancholy and thoughtful, 
 Godolphin repaired to the house of the now 
 famous, the now admired Miss Millinger. 
 
 Fanny received the good news of his fortune 
 with a smile, and the bad news of his de- 
 parture from England with a tear. There 
 are some attachments, of which we so easily 
 sound the depth, that the one never thinks of 
 exacting from the other the sacrifices that seem 
 inevitable to more earnest ties. Fanny never 
 dreamed of leaving her theatrical career, and 
 accompanying Godolphin ; Godolphin never 
 dreamed of demanding it. These are very 
 pleasant liaisons, my good reader ; — these are 
 the connexions of the great world : learn the 
 great world as you look at them ! 
 
 All was soon settled. Godolphin was easily 
 disembarrassed of his commission. Six hundred
 
 80 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 a-year from his fortune was allowed him during 
 his minority. On this he might well play a de- 
 corous part, not indeed as the English Seigneur, 
 but as the citizen of the world. At the age of 
 little more than sixteen, but with a character 
 which premature independence had half form- 
 ed, and also half enervated, the young Go- 
 dolphin saw the shores of England recede be- 
 fore him, and felt himself alone in the universe 
 — the lord of his own fate.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE EDUCATION* OF CONSTANCE'S MIND. 
 
 Meanwhile, Constance Vernon grew up 
 in womanhood and beauty. All around her 
 contributed to feed that stern remembrance 
 which her father's dying words had bequeath- 
 ed. Naturally proud, quick, susceptible, she 
 felt slights, often merely incidental, with a deep 
 and brooding resentment. The forlorn and 
 dependent girl could not, indeed, fail to meet 
 with many bitter proofs that her situation was 
 not forgotten by a world, in which prosperity 
 and station are the cardinal virtues. Many 
 a loud whisper, many an intentional " aside," 
 E 5
 
 82 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 reached her haughty ear, and coloured her 
 pale cheek. Such accidents increased her 
 early-formed asperity of thought ; chilled 
 the gushing flood of her young affections ; 
 and sharpened, with a relentless edge, her 
 bitter and caustic hatred to an aristocracy she 
 deemed at once insolent and worthless. To 
 a taste intuitively fine and noble, the essential 
 vulgarities ; — the fierceness to-day ; the cring- 
 ing to-morrow ; the veneration for power ; 
 the indifference to virtue, which characterised 
 the framers and rulers of " society," — could 
 not but bring contempt as well as anger ; and 
 amidst the brilliant circles, to which so many 
 aspirers looked up with hopeless ambition, 
 Constance moved only to ridicule, to loathe, 
 to despise. 
 
 So strong, so constantly nourished, was this 
 sentiment of contempt, that it lasted with 
 equal bitterness when Constance afterwards
 
 GODOLPHIN. 83 
 
 became the queen and presider over that great 
 world in which she now shone, to dazzle, but 
 not to rule. What at first might have seemed 
 an exaggerated and insane prayer on the part 
 of her father, grew, as her experience ripen- 
 ed, a natural and laudable command. She 
 resolved to humble the crested arrogance 
 around her, as much from her own desire, 
 as from the wish to obey and revenge her 
 father. From this contempt for rank rose 
 naturally the ambition of rank. The young 
 beauty resolved to banish love from her heart ; 
 to devote herself to one aim and object; to 
 win title and station, that she might be able 
 to give power and permanence to her disdain 
 of those qualities in others ; and in the secrecy 
 of night she repeated the vow which had con- 
 soled her father's death -bed, and solemnly 
 resolved to crush love within her heart, and 
 marry solely for station and for power.
 
 84 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 As the daughter of so celebrated a politician, 
 it was natural that Constance should take in- 
 terest in politics. She lent to every discussion 
 of state events an eager and thirsty ear. She 
 embraced with masculine ardour such senti- 
 ments as were then considered the extreme of 
 liberality ; and she looked on that career which 
 society limits to man, as the noblest, the lof- 
 tiest in the world. She secretly cursed her 
 lot that she was a woman, and prevented from 
 personally carrying into effect the sentiments 
 she passionately espoused. Meanwhile, she 
 did not neglect, or suffer to rust, the bright 
 weapon of a wit which embodied, at times, 
 all the biting energies of her contempt. To 
 insolence she retorted sarcasm ; and, early able 
 to see that society, like virtue, must be tram- 
 pled upon in order to yield forth its incense, 
 she rose into respect by the hauteur of 
 her manner, the bluntness of her satire,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 85 
 
 the independence of her mind, far more than 
 by her various accomplishments and her un- 
 rivalled beauty. 
 
 Of Lady Erpingham she had nothing to 
 complain ; kind, easy, insouciante, and charac- 
 terless, her protectress sometimes wounded her 
 by carelessness, but never through design ; on 
 the contrary, the Countess at once loved and 
 admired her, and was as anxious that her pro- 
 tege should form a brilliant alliance as if she 
 had been her own daughter. Constance, there- 
 fore, loved Lady Erpingham with sincere and 
 earnest warmth, and endeavoured to forget all 
 the common-places and littlenesses of character 
 which made up the mind of her protectress, 
 and which, otherwise, would have been pre- 
 cisely of that nature to which one, like Con- 
 stance, would have been the least indulgent.
 
 86 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONVERSATION BETWEEN LADY ERPINGHAM AND CON- 
 STANCE. — FARTHER PARTICULARS OF GODOLPHIX'? 
 FAMILY, ETC. 
 
 Lady Erpingham was a widow ; her join- 
 ture — for she had been an heiress and a duke's 
 daughter — was large ; and the noblest mansion 
 of all the various seats possessed by the wealthy 
 and powerful house of Erpingham had been 
 allotted by her late lord for her widowed re- 
 sidence. Thither she went punctually on the 
 first of every August, and quitted it punctually 
 on the eighth of every January. 
 
 It was some years after the date of Godol- 
 phin's departure from England, and the sum-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 87 
 
 mer following the spring in which Constance 
 had been " brought out :" — and after a debut of 
 such splendour that, at this day (many years 
 subsequent to that period), the sensation she 
 created is not only a matter of remembrance 
 but. of conversation, Constance — despite the 
 triumph of her vanity — was not displeased to 
 seek some refuge, even from admiration, among 
 the shades of Wendover Castle. 
 
 " When," said she one morning, as she was 
 walking with Lady Erpingham upon a terrace 
 beneath the windows of the castle, which over- 
 looked the country for miles, — " when will you 
 go with me, dear Lady Erpingham, to see 
 those ruins, of which I have heard so much 
 and so often, and which I have never been 
 able to persuade you to visit ? Look ! the day 
 is so clear that we can see their outline now — 
 there, to the right of that church ! — they can- 
 not be so very far from Wendover."
 
 88 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 u Godolphin Priory is about twelve miles 
 off," said Lady Erpingham ; "but it may seem 
 nearer, for it is situated on the highest spot 
 of the county. Poor Godolphin ! he is lately 
 dead !" Lady Erpingham sighed. 
 
 " I never heard you speak of him before." 
 
 " There might be a reason for my silence, 
 Constance. He was the person, of all whom I 
 ever saw, who appeared to me, when I was your 
 age, the most fascinating. Not, Constance, 
 that I was in love with him, or that he gave 
 me any reason to become so through gratitude 
 for any affection on his part. It was a girl's 
 fancy, idle and short-lived — nothing more !" 
 
 " And the young Godolphin — the boy who, 
 at so early an age, has made himself known 
 for his eccentric life abroad ? " 
 
 " Is his son — the present owner of those 
 ruins, and, I fear, of little more, unless it be 
 the remains of a legacy received from a rela- 
 tion ."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 89 
 
 " Was the father extravagant, then ?" 
 " Not he ! But his father had exceeded a 
 patrimony greatly involved, and greatly re- 
 duced from its ancient importance. All the 
 lands we see yonder — those villages, those 
 woods — once belonged to the Godolphins. 
 They were the most ancient and the most 
 powerful family in this part of England; 
 but the estates dwindled away with each suc- 
 cessive generation, and when Arthur Godol- 
 phin — my Godolphin — succeeded to the pro- 
 perty, nothing was left for him but the choice 
 of three evils — a profession, obscurity, or a 
 wealthy marriage. My father, who had long 
 destined me for Lord Erpingham, insinuated 
 that it was in me that Mr. Godolphin wished 
 to find the resource I have last mentioned, and 
 that in such resource was my only attraction 
 in his eyes. I have some reason to believe 
 he proposed to the Duke ; but he was silent to
 
 90 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 me, from whom, girl as I was, he might have 
 been less certain of refusal." 
 
 " What did he at last ?" 
 
 " Married a lady who was supposed to be an 
 heiress ; but he had scarcely enjoyed her for- 
 tune a year before it became the subject of a 
 lawsuit. He lost the cause and the dowry ; 
 and, what was worse, the expenses of litiga- 
 tion, and the sums he was obliged to refund 
 reduced him to what, for a man of his rank, 
 might be considered absolute poverty. He 
 was thoroughly chagrined and soured by this 
 event ; retired to those ruins, or rather to the 
 small cottage that adjoins them, and there 
 lived to the day of his death, shunning so- 
 ciety, and certainly not exceeding his income." 
 
 " I understand you : he became parsimo- 
 nious." 
 
 " To the excess which his neighbours called 
 miserly."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 91 
 
 " And his wife ?" 
 
 " Poor woman ! she was a mere fine lady, 
 and died, I believe, of the same vexation which 
 nipped, not the life, but the heart of her hus- 
 band." 
 
 " Had they only one son ?" 
 
 " Only the present owner: Percy, I think — 
 yes, Percy; it was his mother's surname — 
 Percy Godolphin." 
 
 " And how came this poor boy to be thrown 
 so early on the world ? Did he quarrel with 
 Mr. Godolphin ?" 
 
 " I believe not : but when Percy was about 
 fifteen, he left the obscure school at which he 
 was educated, and resided for some little time 
 with a relation, Augustus Saville. He stayed 
 with him in London for about a year, and 
 went everywhere with him, though so mere a 
 boy. His manners were, I well remember, 
 assured and formed. A relation left him
 
 y% GODOLPHIN. 
 
 some moderate legacy, and afterwards he 
 went abroad alone." 
 
 " But the ruins ! The late Mr. Godolphin, 
 notwithstanding his reserve, did not object to 
 indulging the curiosity of his neighbours ?" 
 
 " No ! he was proud of the interest the ruins 
 of his hereditary mansion so generally excited ; 
 proud of their celebrity in print-shops and in 
 tours ; but he himself was never seen. The 
 cottage in which he lived, though it adjoins 
 the ruins, was, of course, sacred from intru- 
 sion, and is so walled-in that that great delight 
 of English visitors at show-places — peeping-in 
 at windows — was utterly forbidden. However 
 that be, during Mr. Godolphin's life, I never 
 had courage to visit what, to me, would have 
 been a melancholy scene : now, the pain would 
 be somewhat less; and since you wish it, sup- 
 pose we drive over and visit the ruins to-mor- 
 row. It is the regular day for seeing them, by 
 the by."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 93 
 
 " Not, dear Lady Erpingham, if it give you 
 the least " 
 
 " My sweet girl," interrupted Lady Erping- 
 ham, when a servant approached to announce 
 visitors at the castle. 
 
 " Will you go into the saloon, Constance ?" 
 said the elder Lady, as, thinking still of love 
 and Arthur Godolphin, she took her way to 
 her dressing-room to renovate her rouge. 
 
 It would have been a pretty amusement to 
 one of the lesser devils, if, during the early 
 romance of Lady Erpingham's feelings to- 
 wards Arthur Godolphin, he had foretold her 
 the hour when she would tell how Arthur 
 Godolphin died a miser — just five minutes be- 
 fore she repaired to the toilette to decorate 
 the cheek of age for the heedless eyes of a 
 common acquaintance. — *Tis the world's way ! 
 For my part, I would undertake to find 
 
 a better world in that rookery opposite my 
 windows.
 
 94 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF GODOLPHIN S HOUSE. — THE FIRST 
 INTERVIEW, — ITS EFFECT ON CONSTANCE. 
 
 " But," asked Constance, as, the next day, 
 Lady Erpingham and herself were performing 
 the appointed pilgrimage to the ruins of Go- 
 dolphin Priory; " if the late Mr. Godolphin, 
 as he grew in years, acquired a turn of mind 
 so penurious, was he not enabled to leave his 
 son some addition to the pied de terre we are 
 about to visit ?" 
 
 " He must certainly have left some ready 
 money," answered Lady Erpingham. " But 
 is it, after all, likely that so young a man
 
 GODOLPHIN. 95 
 
 as Percy Godolphin could have lived in the 
 manner he has done without incurring debts ? 
 It is most probable that he had some recourse 
 to those persons so willing to encourage the 
 young and extravagant, and that repayment 
 to them will more than swallow up any savings 
 his father might have amassed." 
 
 " True enough !" said Constance ; and the 
 conversation glided into remarks on avaricious 
 fathers and prodigal sons. Constance was 
 witty on the subject, and Lady Erpingham 
 laughed herself into excellent humour. 
 
 It was considerably past noon when they 
 arrived at the ruins. The carriage stopped 
 before a small inn, at the entrance of a dis- 
 mantled park ; and, taking advantage of the 
 beauty of the day, Lady Erpingham and her 
 protege walked slowly toward the remains of 
 the Priory. 
 
 The scene, as they approached, was wild
 
 96 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 and picturesque in the extreme. A wide and 
 glassy lake lay stretched beneath them : on 
 the opposite side stood the ruins. The large 
 oriel window ; the Gothic arch ; the broken, 
 yet still majestic column, all embrowned and 
 mossed with age, were still spared, and now 
 mirrored themselves in the waveless and silent 
 tide. Fragments of stone lay around, for 
 some considerable distance, and the whole was 
 backed by hills, covered with gloomy and 
 thick woods of larch and fir. To the left, 
 they saw the stream which fed the lake, steal- 
 ing away through grassy banks, overgrown 
 with the willow and pollard oak ; and there, 
 — from one or two cottages, only caught in 
 glimpses — thin wreaths of smoke rose in spires 
 against the clear sky. To the right, the 
 ground was broken into a thousand glens and 
 hollows: the deer-loved fern, the golden broom 
 were scattered about profusely ; and here and
 
 GODOLPHIN. 97 
 
 there were dense groves of pollards ; or, at 
 very rare intervals, some single tree decaying, 
 (for all round bore the seal of vassalage to 
 time,) but mighty, and greenly venerable in 
 its decay. 
 
 As they passed over a bridge that, on either 
 side of the stream, emerged, as it were, from 
 a thick copse, they caught a view of the small 
 abode that adjoined the ruins. It seemed 
 covered entirely with ivy ; and, so far from 
 diminishing, tended rather to increase, the ro- 
 mantic and imposing effect of the crumbling 
 pile from which it grew. 
 
 They opened a little gate at the other ex- 
 tremity of the bridge, and in a few minutes 
 more, they stood at the entrance to the Pri- 
 ory. 
 
 It was an oak door, studded with nails. 
 The jessamine grew upon either side; and, 
 to descend to a common-place matter, they 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 had some difficulty in finding the bell among 
 the leaves in which it was embedded. When 
 they had found and touched it, its clear and 
 lively sound rang out in that still and lovely, 
 though desolate spot, with an effect startling 
 and impressive from its contrast. There is 
 something very fairy-like in the cheerful voice 
 of a bell sounding among the wilder scenes 
 of nature, particularly where time advances 
 his claim to the sovereignty of the landscape ; 
 for the cheerfulness is a little ghostly, and 
 might serve well enough for a tocsin to the 
 elvish hordes whom our footsteps may be 
 supposed to disturb. 
 
 An old woman, in the neat peasant dress 
 of our country, when, taking a little from 
 the fashion of the last century, (the cap and 
 the kerchief,) it assumes the semblance of no 
 ungraceful costume, — replied to their sum- 
 mons. She was the solitary cicerone of the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 99 
 
 place. She had lived there, a lone and child- 
 less widow, for thirty years ; and, of all the 
 persons I have ever seen, would furnish forth 
 the best heroine to one of those divine pictures 
 of homely (yet how intellectual !) life which 
 Wordsworth has dignified with the patriarchal 
 tenderness of his genius. 
 
 They wound a narrow passage, and came 
 to the ruins of the great hall. Its Gothic 
 arches still sprang lightly upward on either 
 side ; and, opening a large stone box that stood 
 in a recess, the old woman showed them the 
 gloves, and the helmet, and the tattered ban- 
 ners, which had belonged to that Godolphin 
 who had fought side by side with Sidney when 
 he, whose life — as the noblest of British lyrists 
 hath somewhere said — was " poetry put into 
 action,"* received his death-wound in the field 
 of Zutphen. 
 
 * Campbell. 
 F 2
 
 100 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 From thence they ascended, by the dilapi- 
 dated and crumbling staircase, to a small room, 
 in which the visitors were always expected to 
 rest themselves, and enjoy the scene in the 
 garden below. A large chasm yawned where 
 the casement once was; and round this aper- 
 ture the ivy wreathed itself in fantastic lux- 
 uriance. A sort of ladder, suspended from 
 this chasm to the ground, afforded a conve- 
 nience for those who were tempted to a short 
 excursion by the view without. 
 
 And the view was tempting ! A smooth 
 green lawn, surrounded by shrubs and flowers, 
 was ornamented in the centre by a fountain. 
 The waters were, it is true, dried up; but 
 the basin, and the " Triton with his wreathed 
 shell," still remained. A little to the right 
 was an old monkish sun-dial ; and through the 
 green vista you caught the glimpse of one of 
 those grey grotesque statues with which the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 101 
 
 taste of Elizabeth^ day shamed the classic 
 chisel. 
 
 There was something quiet and venerable 
 about the whole place ; and when the old wo- 
 man said to Constance, " Would not you like, 
 my lady, to walk down and look at the sun- 
 dial and the fountain ?" Constance felt she 
 required nothing more to yield to her incli- 
 nation. Lady Erpingham, less adventurous, 
 remained in the ruined chamber; and the old 
 woman, naturally enough, honoured the elder 
 lady with her company. 
 
 Constance, therefore, descended the rude 
 steps alone. As she paused by the fountain, 
 an indescribable and delicious feeling of repose 
 stole over a mind that seldom experienced any 
 sentiment so natural or so soft. The hour, the 
 stillness, the scene, all conspired to lull the 
 heart into that dreaming and half-unconscious 
 reverie in which poets would suppose the her-
 
 102 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 mits of elder times to have wasted a life, in- 
 dolent, and yet scarcely, after all, unwise. 
 " Methinks," she inly soliloquised, " while I 
 look around, I feel as if I could give up my 
 objects of life; renounce my hopes; forget to 
 be artificial and ambitious ; live in these ruins, 
 and," (whispered the spirit within) " loved and 
 loving, fulfil the ordinary doom of woman.' 1 
 
 Indulging a mood, the proud and restless 
 Constance, who despised love as the poorest of 
 human weaknesses, though easily susceptible 
 to all other species of romance, had scarcely 
 ever even known before, she wandered away 
 from the lawn into one of the alleys cut amidst 
 the grove around. Caught by the murmur of 
 an unseen brook, she tracked it through the 
 trees, as its sound grew louder and louder on 
 her ear, till at length it stole upon her sight. 
 The sun, only winning through the trees at 
 intervals, played capriciously upon its cold
 
 GODOLPHIN. 103 
 
 and dark waters as they glided on, and gave to 
 her, as the same effect has done to a thousand 
 poets, ample matter for a simile or a moral. 
 
 She approached the brook, and came un- 
 awares upon the figure of a young man, lean- 
 ing against a stunted tree that overhung the 
 waters, and occupied with the idle amusement 
 of dropping pebbles in the stream. She saw 
 only his profile; but that view is, in a fine 
 countenance, almost always the most striking 
 and impressive, and it was eminently so in 
 the face before her. The stranger, who was 
 scarcely removed from boyhood, was dressed 
 in deep mourning. He seemed slight, and 
 small of stature. A travelling cap of sables 
 contrasted, not hid, light auburn hair of sin- 
 gular richness and beauty. His features were 
 of that pure and severe Greek of which the 
 only fault is, that, in the very perfection of the 
 chiselling of the features, there seems some-
 
 104 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 thing hard and stern. The complexion was 
 pale, even to wanness ; and the whole cast and 
 contour of the head were full of intellect, and 
 betokening that absorption of mind which can- 
 not be marked in any one without exciting a 
 certain vague curiosity and interest. 
 
 So dark and wondrous are the workings of 
 our nature, that there are scarcely any of us, 
 however light and unthinking, who would not 
 be arrested by the countenance of one in deep 
 reflection — who would not pause, and long to 
 pierce into the mysteries that were agitating 
 that world, most illimitable by nature, but 
 often most narrowed by custom — the world 
 within. 
 
 And this interest, powerful as it is, spelled 
 and arrested Constance at once. She remained 
 for a minute gazing on the countenance of the 
 young stranger, and then she — the most self- 
 possessed and stately of human creatures —
 
 GODOLPHIN. 105 
 
 blushing deeply, and confused though unseen, 
 turned lightly away, and stopped not on her 
 road till she regained the old chamber and 
 Lady Erpingham. 
 
 The old woman was descanting upon the 
 merits of the late lord of Godolphin Priory : — 
 " For though they called him close, and so 
 forth, my lady, yet he was generous to 
 others; it was only himself he pinched. But, 
 to be sure, the present squire won't take after 
 him there." 
 
 " Has Mr. Percy Godolphin been here late- 
 ly ?" asked Lady Erpingham. 
 
 " He is at the cottage now, my lady," 
 replied the old woman. " He came two days 
 ago." 
 
 " Is he like his father ?" 
 
 " Oh ! not near so fine-looking a gentleman ! 
 much smaller, and quite pale-like. He seems 
 sickly : them foreign parts do nobody no good. 
 F 5
 
 106 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 He was as fine a lad at fifteen years old as ever 
 I seed ; but now he is not like the same thing." 
 So then, it was evidently Percy Godolphin 
 whom Constance had seen by the brook — the 
 owner of a home without coffers and estates 
 without a rent-roll — the Percy Godolphin of 
 whom, before he had yet attained the age when 
 others have left the college, or even the school, 
 every one had learned to speak — some favour- 
 ably, all with eagerness. Constance felt a vague 
 interest respecting him spring up in her mind : 
 she checked it, for it was a sin in her eyes to 
 think with interest on a man neither rich nor 
 powerful ; and as she quitted the ruins with 
 Lady Erpingham, she communicated to the 
 latter her adventure. She was, however, dis- 
 ingenuous ; for though Godolphin's beauty 
 was exactly of that cast which Constance 
 most admired, she described him just as the 
 old woman had done; and Lady Erpingham
 
 GODOLPHIN. 107 
 
 figured to herself, from the description, a little 
 yellow man, with white hair and a turned-up 
 nose. Oh Truth ! what a hard path is thine ! 
 Does any keep it for three inches together in 
 the commonest trifle? — and yet two sides of 
 my library are filled with histories !
 
 108 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A BALL ANNOUNCED GODOLPHIN's VISIT TO WEN- 
 DOVER CASTLE. — HIS MANNERS AND CONVERSATION. 
 
 Lady Erpingham (besides her daughter, 
 Lady Eleanor, married to Mr. Clare, a county 
 Member, of large fortune,) was blessed with 
 one son. 
 
 The present Earl had been for the last two 
 years abroad. He had never, since his ac- 
 cession to his title, visited Wendover Castle ; 
 and Lady Erpingham one morning experienced 
 the delight of receiving a letter from him, 
 dated Dover, and signifying his intention of 
 paying her a visit. In honour of this event,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 109 
 
 Lady Erpingham resolved to give a grand 
 ball. Cards were issued to all the families 
 in the county ; and, among others, to Mr. 
 Godolphin. 
 
 On the third day after this invitation had 
 been sent to the person I have last named, 
 as Lady Erpingham and Constance were alone 
 in the saloon, Mr. Percy Godolphin was an- 
 nounced. Constance blushed as she looked 
 up, and Lady Erpingham was struck by the 
 nobleness of his address, and the perfect self- 
 possession of his manner. And yet nothing 
 could be so different as was his deportment 
 from that which she had been accustomed to 
 admire — from that manifested by the exqui- 
 sites of the day. The calm, the nonchalance, 
 the artificial smile of languor, the evenness, so 
 insipid, yet so irreproachable, of English man- 
 ners when considered most polished ; all this 
 was the reverse of Godolphin"' s address and
 
 110 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 air, In short, in all he said or did, there 
 was something foreign, something unfamiliar. 
 He was abrupt and enthusiastic in conversa- 
 tion, and used gestures in speaking. His coun- 
 tenance lighted up at every word that broke 
 from him on the graver subjects of discussion. 
 You felt, indeed, with him, that you were with 
 a man of genius — a wayward and a spoiled 
 man, who had aco t uired his habits in solitude, 
 though his graces in the world. 
 
 They conversed about the ruins of the Pri- 
 ory, and Constance expressed her admiration 
 of their romantic and picturesque beauty. 
 " Ah !" said he, smiling, but with a slight 
 blush, in which Constance detected something 
 of pain ; " I heard of your visit to my poor 
 heaps of stone. My father took great pleasure 
 in the notice they attracted. When a proud 
 man has not riches to be proud of, he grows 
 proud of the signs of his poverty itself. This
 
 GODOLPHIN. Ill 
 
 was the case with my poor father. Had he 
 been rich, the ruins would not have existed : 
 he would have rebuilt the old mansion. As 
 he was poor, he valued himself on their ex- 
 istence, and fancied magnificence in every hand- 
 full of moss. But all life is delusion : all 
 pride, all vanity, all pomp, are equally deceit. 
 Like the Spanish hidalgo, we put on spectacles 
 when we eat our cherries, in order that they 
 may seem ten times as big as they are !" 
 
 Constance smiled ; and Lady Erpingham, 
 who had more kindness than delicacy, con- 
 tinued her praises of the Priory and the sce- 
 nery round it. 
 
 " The old park,' 1 said she, " with its wood 
 and water, is so beautiful ! It wants nothing 
 but a few deer, just tame enough to come near 
 the ruins, and wild enough to start away as 
 you approach." 
 
 " Now you would borrow an attraction from
 
 1 12 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 wealth," said Godolphin, who, unlike English 
 persons in general, seemed to love alluding to 
 his poverty : " it is not for the owner of a 
 ruined Priory to consult the aristocratic en- 
 hancements of that costly luxury, the pictur- 
 esque. Alas ! I have not even wherewithal 
 to feed a few solitary partridges ; and I hear, 
 that if I go beyond the green turf once a 
 park, I shall be warned off forthwith, and my 
 very qualification disputed." 
 
 " Are you fond of shooting?'* said Lady 
 Erpinham. 
 
 " I fancy I should be ; but I have never 
 enjoyed the sport in England." 
 
 " Do pray come, then, 11 said Lady Erping- 
 ham, kindly, " and spend your first week in 
 September here. Let me see : the first of the 
 month will be next Thursday; dine with us 
 on Wednesday. We have keepers and dogs 
 here enough, thanks to Robert ; so you need 
 only bring your gun. 11
 
 GODOLPHIN. 113 
 
 " You are very kind, dear Lady Erping- 
 ham," said Godolphin, warmly ; " I accept 
 your invitation at once. 1 ' 
 
 " Your father was a very old frier d of 
 mine," said the lady, with a sigh. 
 
 " He was an old admirer," said the gentle- 
 man, with a bow.
 
 114 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CONVERSATION BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE, 
 — THE COUNTRY LIFE AND THE TOWN LIFE. 
 
 And Godolphin came on the appointed 
 Wednesday. He was animated that day, even 
 to brilliancy. Lady Erpingham thought him 
 the most charming of men ; and even Con- 
 stance forgot that he was no match for her- 
 self. Gifted and cultivated as she was, it was 
 not without delight that she listened to his 
 glowing descriptions of scenery, and to his 
 playful, yet somewhat melancholy strain of 
 irony upon men and their pursuits. The pe- 
 culiar features of her mind made her, indeed, 
 like the latter more than she could appreciate
 
 GODOLPHIN. 115 
 
 the former ; for in her nature there was more 
 bitterness than romance. Still, his rich lan- 
 guage and fluent periods, even in description, 
 touched her ear and fancy, though they sank 
 not to her heart ; and she yielded insensibly 
 to the spells she would almost have despised 
 in another. 
 
 The next day, Constance, who was no very 
 early riser, tempted by the beauty of the noon, 
 strolled into the gardens. She was surprised 
 to hear Godolphin's voice behind her : she 
 turned round, and he joined her. 
 
 " I thought you were on your shooting ex- 
 pedition." 
 
 " I have been shooting, and I am returned. 
 I was out by daybreak, and I came back at 
 noon in the hope of being allowed to join you 
 in your ride or walk." 
 
 Constance smilingly acknowledged the com- 
 pliment ; and as they passed up the straight
 
 116 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 walks of the old-fashioned and stately gardens, 
 Godolphin turned the conversation upon the 
 varieties of garden scenery ; upon the poets 
 who had described these varieties best ; upon 
 that difference between the town life and the 
 country, on which the brothers of the minstrel 
 craft have, in all ages, so glowingly insisted. 
 In this conversation, certain points of contrast 
 between the characters of these two young 
 persons might be observed. 
 
 " I confess to you,' 1 said Godolphin, " that 
 I have little faith in the permanence of any 
 attachment professed for the country by the 
 inhabitants of cities. If we can occupy our 
 minds solely with the objects around us ; if 
 the brook, and the old tree, and the golden 
 sunset, and the summer night, and the animal 
 and homely life that we survey ; if these can 
 fill our contemplation, and take away from 
 us the feverish schemes of the future, — then,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 117 
 
 indeed, I can fully understand the reality of 
 that tranquil and happy state which our elder 
 poets have described as incident to a country 
 life. But if we carry with us to the shade 
 all the restless and perturbed desires of the 
 city ; if we only employ present leisure in 
 schemes for an agitated future— then it is in 
 vain that we affect the hermit, and fly to the 
 retreat. The moment the novelty of green 
 fields is over, and our projects are formed, 
 we wish to hurry to the city to execute them. 
 We have, in a word, made our retirement only 
 a nursery for schemes now springing up, and 
 requiring to be transplanted." 
 
 " You are right," said Constance quickly ; 
 " and who would pass life as if it were a 
 dream ? It seems to me that we put retire- 
 ment to the right use when we make it only 
 subservient to our aims in the world." 
 
 " A strange doctrine for a young beauty,"
 
 118 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 thought Godolphin, " whose head ought to 
 be full of groves and love." " Then,"" said 
 he aloud, " I must rank among those who 
 abuse the purposes of retirement; for I have 
 hitherto been flattered to think that I enjoy 
 it for itself. Despite the artificial life I have 
 led, every thing that speaks of nature has 
 a voice that I can rarely resist. What feelings 
 created in a city can compare with those that 
 rise so gently and so unbidden within us when 
 the trees and the waters are our only com- 
 panions — our only sources of excitement and 
 intoxication ? Is not contemplation better than 
 ambition ?" 
 
 " Can you believe it?" said Constance, in- 
 credulously. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 Constance smiled; and there would have 
 been contempt in that beautiful smile, had not 
 Godolphin interested her in spite of herself.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 119 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE FEELINGS OF CONSTANCE AND GODOLPHIN TO- 
 WARDS EACH OTHER. — THE DISTINCTION IN THEIR 
 CHARACTERS. — REMARKS ON THE EFFECTS PRODUCED 
 BY THE WORLD UPON GODOLPHIN. — THE RIDE. — 
 RURAL DESCRIPTIONS. — OMENS. — THE FIRST INDIS- 
 TINCT CONFESSION. 
 
 Every day, at the hour in which Constance 
 was visible, Godolphin had loaded the keeper, 
 and had returned to attend upon her move- 
 ments. They walked and rode together ; and 
 in the evening, Godolphin hung over her chair, 
 and listened to her songs; for, though she 
 had but little science in instrumental music, 
 her voice was rich and soft beyond the pathos 
 of ordinary singers.
 
 120 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Lady Erpingham saw what she believed a 
 growing attachment with secret delight. She 
 loved Constance for herself, and Godolphin for 
 his father's memory. She thought again and 
 again what a charming couple they would 
 make; — so handsome — so gifted: and if Pru- 
 dence whispered also — so poor — the kind Coun- 
 tess remembered, that she herself had saved 
 from her ample jointure, a sum which she 
 had always designed as a dowry for Constance, 
 and which, should Godolphin be the bride- 
 groom, she felt she should have a tenfold plea- 
 sure in bestowing. With this fortune, which 
 would place them, at least, in independence, 
 she united the importance which she imagined 
 Godolphin's talents must ultimately acquire, 
 and for which, in her aristocratic estimation, 
 she conceived the senate the only legitimate 
 sphere. She said, she hinted, nothing to Con- 
 stance; but she suffered nature, youth, and 
 companionship to exercise their sway.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 121 
 
 And the complexion of Godolphin's feelings 
 for Constance Vernon did indeed resemble love 
 — was love itself, though rather love in its 
 romance than its reality. What were those 
 of Constance for him ? She knew not herself 
 at that time. Had she been of a character 
 one shade less ambitious, or less powerful, 
 they would have been love, and love of no 
 common character. But within her musing, 
 and self-possessed, and singularly constituted 
 mind, there was, as yet, a limit to every sen- 
 timent, a chain to the wings of every thought, 
 save those of one order, and that order was 
 not of love. There was a marked difference, 
 in all respects, between the characters of the 
 two; and it was singular enough, that the 
 woman was the less romantic, and composed 
 of the simpler materials. 
 
 A volume of Wordsworth's most exquisite 
 poetry had then just appeared. " Is not this 
 wonderful ?" said Godolphin, reciting some of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 those lofty, but refining and subtle thoughts 
 which characterise the most pastoral, yet in- 
 tellectual of all poets. 
 
 Constance shook her head. 
 
 " What ! you do not admire it ?" 
 
 " I do not understand it." 
 
 " What poetry do you admire ?" 
 
 " This." 
 
 It was Pope's translation of the " Iliad.'" 
 
 " Yes, yes, to be sure," said Godolphin, a 
 little vexed ; " we all admire this : but what 
 else?" 
 
 Constance pointed to a passage in the " Pa- 
 lamon and Arcite" of Dryden. 
 
 Godolphin threw down his Wordsworth. — 
 " You take an ungenerous advantage of me, 11 
 said he. " Tell me something you admire, 
 which, at least, I may have the privilege of 
 disputing — something that you think generally 
 neglected."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 123 
 
 " I admire few things that are generally ne- 
 glected," answered Constance, with her bright 
 and arch smile; " Fame gives its stamp to all 
 metal that is of intrinsic value." 
 
 This answer was quite characteristic of Con- 
 stance : she worshipped fame far more than the 
 genius which won it. 
 
 " Well, then," said Godolphin, " let us see 
 now if we can come to a compromise of sen- 
 timent;" and he took up the " Comus " of 
 Milton. 
 
 No one read poetry so beautifully : his voice 
 was so deep and flexible ; and his countenance 
 answered so well to every modulation of his 
 voice. Constance was touched by the reader, 
 but not by the verse. Godolphin had great 
 penetration ; he perceived it, and turned to the 
 speeches of Satan in " Paradise Lost." The 
 noble countenance before him grew luminous 
 at once : the lip quivered, the eye sparkled ; 
 g 2
 
 124 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the enthusiasm of Godolphin was not com- 
 parable to that of Constance. The fact was, 
 that the broad and common emotions of the 
 intellectual character struck upon the right 
 key. Courage, defiance, ambition, these she 
 comprehended to their fullest extent ; but the 
 rich subtleties of thought which mark the cold 
 and bright page of the "Comus;" the noble 
 Platonism— -the high and rare love for what is 
 abstractedly good — these were not " sonorous 
 and trumpet-speaking' -1 enough for the heart of 
 one meant by Nature for a heroine or a queen, 
 not a poetess or a philosopher. 
 
 But all that in literature was delicate, and 
 half-seen, and abstruse, had its peculiar charm 
 for Godolphin. Of a reflective and refining 
 mind, he had early learned to despise the 
 common emotions of men : glory touched him 
 not, and to ambition he had shut his heart. 
 Love, with him — even though he had been
 
 GODOLPHIN. 125 
 
 deemed, nor unjustly, a profligate and a man 
 of pleasure — love was not compounded of the 
 ordinary elements of the passions. Full of 
 dreams, and refinements, and intense abstrac- 
 tions, it was a love that seemed not homely 
 enough for endurance, and of too rare a nature 
 to hope for sympathy in return. 
 
 And so it was in his intercourse with Con- 
 stance ; both were continually disappointed. 
 " You do not feel this," said Constance. — 
 " She cannot understand me," sighed Godol- 
 phin. 
 
 But we must not suppose — despite his re- 
 finements, and his reveries, and his love for 
 the intellectual and the pure — that Godolphin 
 was of a stainless character or mind. He 
 was one who, naturally full of decided and 
 marked qualities, was, by the peculiar ele- 
 ments of our society, rendered a doubtful, 
 motley, and indistinct character, tinctured by
 
 126 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the frailties that leave us in a wavering state 
 between vice and virtue. The energies that 
 had marked his boyhood were dulled and crip- 
 pled beneath the indolent life of the world. 
 His wandering habits for the last few years — 
 the soft and poetical existence of the South — 
 had fed his natural romance, and nourished 
 that passion for contemplation which the intel- 
 lectual man of pleasure so commonly forms ; 
 for pleasure has a philosophy of its own — a 
 sad, a fanciful, yet deep persuasion of the 
 vanity of all things — a craving after the bright 
 ideal— 
 
 " The desire of the moth for the star." 
 
 Solomon's thirst for pleasure was the com- 
 panion of his wisdom : satiety was the offspring 
 of the one — discontent of the other. But this 
 philosophy, though seductive, is of no whole- 
 some or useful character : it is the philosophy 
 of feelings, not principles — of the heart, not
 
 GODOLPHIN. 127 
 
 head. So with Godolphin : he was too refined 
 in his moralizing to cling to what was moral. 
 The simply good and the simply bad he left 
 for us plain folks to discover. He was un- 
 attracted by the doctrines of Socrates or Ben- 
 tham, because they will serve for all men ; but 
 he had some obscure and shadowy standard in 
 his own mind by which he compared the ac- 
 tions of others. He had imagination, genius, 
 even heart; was brilliant always, sometimes 
 profound ; graceful in society, yet seldom so- 
 cial ; a lonely man, yet a man of the world ; a 
 dreamer, yet a roue ; generous to individuals, 
 selfish to the mass. How many fine qualities 
 worse than thrown away ! 
 
 Who will not allow that he has met many 
 such men ? — and who will not follow this man 
 to his end ? 
 
 One day (it was the last of Godolphin 's pro- 
 tracted visit), as the sun was waning to its
 
 128 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 close, and the time was unusually soft and 
 tranquil, Constance and Godolphin were re- 
 turning slowly home from their customary ride. 
 They passed by a small inn, bearing the com- 
 mon sign of the " Chequers," round which a 
 crowd of peasants were assembled, listening to 
 the rude music a wandering Italian boy drew 
 from his guitar. The scene was rustic and 
 picturesque; and as Godolphin reined in his 
 horse and gazed on the group, he little dream- 
 ed of the fierce and dark emotions with which, 
 at a far distant period, he was destined to re- 
 visit that spot. 
 
 " Our peasants," said he, as they rode on, 
 " require some humanizing relaxation like that 
 we have witnessed. The music and the mor- 
 rice-dance have gone from England; and in- 
 stead of providing, as formerly, for the amuse- 
 ment of the grinded labourer, our aristocracy 
 now regard with the most watchful jealousy his
 
 GODOLPHIN. 129 
 
 most distant approach to festivity. They can- 
 not bear the rustic to be merry : disorder and 
 amusement are words for the same offence. 
 From their own gambling circles, their licen- 
 tious chamberings, their heated banquets, they 
 send forth declamations against the debauch- 
 eries of the poor ; and even an extra glass of 
 beer and a newspaper are full of democratic 
 licentiousness in their eyes." 
 
 " Oh, that aristocracy ! " said Constance, 
 bitterly ; " so mean, so sordid, so insolent ! — 
 the day must come when we shall see it morally 
 trampled down. It has lived without dignity ; 
 it will fall without valour. At present, how 
 startlingly hollow is its real power ! It has 
 no vassals — no armed force. To-day, opinion 
 supports it : — if to-morrow opinion veer round, 
 to-morrow it is weaker than an infant. It is 
 the puppet — the weathercock of every acci- 
 dent r 
 
 G 5
 
 130 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " You are right," said Godolphin ; " but 
 your sentiments surprise me. Is this from the 
 courtly and courted Miss Vernon ?" 
 
 " Believe me," said Constance, with quick- 
 ness, " it is amongst the aristocracy themselves 
 that their bitterest contemners are found. 
 Those who suffer under the system every day, 
 are more likely to loathe it than the mass, who 
 seldom palpably come in contact with it. Its 
 constant meanness is more sickening than its 
 occasional violence. 11 
 
 Godolphin smiled. " You take the course 
 of the world less smoothly than I do," said he. 
 " I perceive that small things fret you ; I 
 laugh at them. I can be offended, but not 
 galled. No man has it in his power to mortify 
 me. You have scorn for fools; I, only in- 
 difference. You waste too much feeling upon 
 stones and straws." 
 
 Thus talking, they passed a shallow ford
 
 GODOLPHIN. 131 
 
 in the stream. " We are not far from the 
 Priory," said Godolphin, pointing to its ruins, 
 that rose greyly in the evening skies from the 
 green woods around it. 
 
 Constance sighed involuntarily. She felt 
 pain in being reminded of the slender fortunes 
 of her companion. Ascending the gentle hill 
 that swelled from the stream, she now, to turn 
 the current of her thoughts, pointed admir- 
 ingly to the blue course of the waters, as they 
 wound through their shagged banks. And 
 deep, dark, rushing, even in that still hour, 
 went the stream through the boughs that 
 swept over its surface. Here and there the 
 banks suddenly shelved down, mingling with 
 the waves ; then abruptly they rose, overspread 
 with thick and tangled umbrage, several feet 
 above the level of the river. 
 
 " How strange it is," said Godolphin, " that 
 at times a feeling comes over, as we gaze upon
 
 132 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 certain places, which associates the scene either 
 with some dim-remembered and dream-like 
 images of the Past, or with a prophetic and 
 fearful omen of the Future. As I gaze now 
 upon that spot — those banks — that whirling 
 river — it seems as if my destiny claimed a mys- 
 terious sympathy with the scene: when — how 
 — wherefore — I know not — guess not : only 
 this shadowy and chilling sentiment unaccount- 
 ably creeps over me. Every one has known 
 a similar strange, indistinct feeling at certain 
 times and places, and with a similar inability 
 to trace the cause. And yet, is it not singular 
 that, in poetry, which wears most feelings to 
 an echo, I have never met with any attempt 
 to describe it ?" 
 
 " Because poetry," said Constance, " is, after 
 all, but a hackneyed imitation of the most com- 
 mon thoughts, giving them merely a gloss by 
 the music of verse. And yet how little poets
 
 GODOLPHIN. 133 
 
 know! They imagine, and they imitate: — 
 behold all their secrets !" 
 
 " Perhaps you are right," said Godolphin, 
 musingly ; " and I, who have often vainly 
 fancied I had the poetical temperament, have 
 been so chilled and sickened by the character- 
 istics of the tribe, that I have checked its 
 impulses with a sort of disdain ; and thus the 
 Ideal, having no vent in me, preys within, 
 creating a thousand undefined dreams and un- 
 willing superstitions, making me enamoured of 
 the shadowy and unknown, and dissatisfying 
 me with the petty ambitions of the world." 
 
 " You will awake hereafter," said Constance, 
 earnestly. 
 
 Godolphin shook his head, and replied not. 
 
 Their way now lay along a green lane that 
 
 gradually wound around a hill commanding a 
 
 view of great richness and beauty. Cottages, 
 
 and spires, and groves gave life — but it was
 
 134 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 a scattered and remote life — to the scene ; and 
 the broad stream, whose waves, softened in 
 the distance, did not seem to break the even 
 surface of the tide, flowed onward, glowing 
 in the sun-light, till it was lost among dark 
 and luxuriant woods. 
 
 Both once more arrested their horses by 
 a common impulse, and both became suddenly 
 silent as they gazed. Godolphin was the first 
 to speak : it brought to his memory a scene in 
 that delicious land, whose Southern loveliness 
 Claude has breathed upon the canvass, and 
 De Stael into the page. With his own im- 
 passioned and earnest language, he spoke to 
 Constance of that scene and that country. 
 Every tree before him furnished matter for 
 his illustration or his contrast ; and Constance, 
 as she heard that magic voice, and speaking, 
 too, of a country dedicated to love — Constance 
 listened with glistening eyes, and a cheek
 
 GODOLPHIN. 135 
 
 which he — consummate master of the secrets 
 of womanhood — perceived was eloquent with 
 thoughts which she knew not, but which he 
 interpreted to the letter. 
 
 " And in such a spot," said he, continuing, 
 and fixing his deep and animated gaze on her ; 
 " in such a spot I could have stayed for ever, 
 but for one recollection, one feeling — I should 
 have been too much alone. In a wild, or a 
 grand, or even a barren country, we may live 
 in solitude, and find fit food for thought ; but 
 not in one so soft, so subduing, as that which 
 I saw and see. Love comes over us then, in 
 spite of ourselves ; and I feel — I feel now — " 
 his voice trembled as he spoke — " that any 
 secret we may before have nursed, though 
 hitherto unacknowledged, makes itself at length 
 a voice. We are oppressed with the desire 
 to be loved ; we long for the courage to say 
 we love. 1 '
 
 136 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Never before had Godolphin, though con- 
 stantly verging into sentiment, spoken to Con- 
 stance in so plain a language. Eye, voice, 
 cheek — all spoke. She felt that he had con- 
 fessed he loved her ! And was she not happy 
 at that thought ? She was : it was her happi- 
 est moment. But, in that sort of vague and 
 indistinct shrinking from the subject with 
 which a woman who loves hears a disclosure 
 of love from him on whose lips it is most 
 sweet, she muttered some confused attempt to 
 change the subject, and quickened her horse's 
 pace. Godolphin did not attempt to renew 
 the topic so interesting and so dangerous; 
 only, as, with the winding of the road, the 
 landscape gradually faded from their view, he 
 said, in a low voice, and as if to himself: — 
 " How long, how fondly, shall I remember 
 this day P
 
 GODOLPHIN. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 godolphin's return home.— his SOLILOQUY. — LORD 
 
 ERPINGHAM'S ARRIVAL AT WENDOVER CASTLE. — THE 
 EARL DESCRIBED. — HIS ACCOUNT OF GODOLPHIN'S 
 LIFE AT ROME. 
 
 With a listless step, Godolphin re-entered 
 the threshold of his cottage-home. He passed 
 into a small chamber, which was yet the largest 
 in his house. The poor and scanty furniture 
 scattered around ; the old, tuneless, broken 
 harpsichord ; the worn and tattered carpet ; 
 the tenantless birdcage in the recess by the 
 window ; the book-shelves, containing some 
 dozen of worthless volumes; the sofa of the
 
 138 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 last century — (when, if people knew comfort, 
 they placed it not in lounging) — small, narrow, 
 high-backed, hard, and knotted; — these — just 
 as his father had left, just as his boyhood had 
 seen them, — greeted him with a comfortless and 
 chill, though familiar welcome. It was even- 
 ing : he ordered a fire and lights ; and, leaning 
 his face on his hand as he contemplated the 
 fitful and dusky upbreakings of the flame 
 through the bars of the niggard and contracted 
 grate, he sat himself down to hold commune 
 with his heart. 
 
 " So, I love this woman, 1 ' said he, " do I ? 
 — Have I not deceived myself ? She is poor — 
 no connexion ; she has nothing whereby to re- 
 instate my house's fortunes — to rebuild this 
 mansion, or repurchase yonder demesnes. I 
 love her ! I, who have known the value of her 
 sex so well, that I have said, again and again, 
 I would not shackle life with a princess ! Love
 
 GODOLPHIN. 139 
 
 may withstand possession — true — but not time. 
 In three years, there would be no glory in the 
 face of Constance ; and I should be — what ? — 
 My fortunes, broken as they are, can support 
 me — alone, and with my few wants. But if 
 married ! the haughty Constance my wife ! — 
 Nay, nay, nay ! this must not be thought of ! 
 
 I, the hero of Paris ! the lover of La ! 
 
 the pupil of Saville ! I, to be so beguiled as 
 even to dream of such a madness ! 
 
 " Yet I have that within me that might 
 make a stir in the world — I might rise. Pro- 
 fessions are open : the Diplomacy — the House 
 of Commons. What ! Percy Godolphin be ass 
 enough to grow ambitious ! to toil, to fret, to 
 slave, to answer fools on a first principle, and 
 die at length of a broken heart or a lost place \ 
 Pooh, pooh ! I, who despise your prime-mi- 
 nisters, can scarcely stoop to their apprentice- 
 ship. Life is too short for toil. And what
 
 140 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 do men strive for ? — to enjoy : but why not 
 enjoy without the toil ? — And relinquish Con- 
 stance ? — Ay, it is but one woman lost ! " 
 
 So ended the soliloquy of a man scarcely of 
 age. The world teaches us its last lessons be- 
 times; but then, lest we should have nothing 
 left to acquire from its wisdom, it employs the 
 rest of our life in unlearning all that it first 
 taught. 
 
 Meanwhile, the time approached when Lord 
 Erpingham was to arrive at Wendover Castle ; 
 and at length came the day itself. Naturally 
 anxious to enjoy as exclusively as possible the 
 company of her son, the first day of his return 
 from so long an absence, Lady Erpingham 
 had asked no one to meet him. The Earl's 
 heavy travelling-carriage at length rolled 
 clattering up the court-yard ; and in a few 
 minutes, a tall man in the prime of life, and 
 borrowing some favourable effect, as to person,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 141 
 
 from the large cloak of velvet and furs which 
 hung round him, entered the room, and Lady 
 Erpingham embraced her son. The kind and 
 familiar manner with which he answered her 
 inquiries and congratulations was somewhat 
 changed when he suddenly perceived Constance. 
 Lord Erpingham was a cold man, and, like 
 most cold men, ashamed of the evidence of 
 affection. He greeted Constance very quietly 
 and, as she thought, slightly : but his eyes 
 turned to her far more often than any friend of 
 Lord Erpinghanrs might ever have remarked 
 those large, round, hazel eyes turn to any one 
 before. 
 
 When the Earl withdrew to adjust his toilet 
 for dinner, Lady Erpingham, as she wiped her 
 eyes, could not help exclaiming to Constance — 
 " Is he not handsome ? — What a figure !* 
 
 Constance was a little addicted to flattery, 
 where she liked the one to be flattered, and
 
 142 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 she assented readily enough to the maternal 
 remark. Hitherto, however, she had not ob- 
 served anything more in Lord Erpingham than 
 his height and his cloak : as he re-entered and 
 led her to the dining-room, she took a better, 
 though still but a casual survey. 
 
 Lord Erpingham was of that description of 
 person of which men always say, " What a pro- 
 digiously-fine fellow ! " He was above six feet 
 high — stout in proportion : not, indeed, accu- 
 rately formed, nor graceful in bearing, but 
 quite as much so as a man of six feet high 
 need be. He had a manly complexion of 
 brown, yellow, and red. His whiskers were 
 exceedingly large, black, and well arranged. 
 His eyes, as I have before said, were round, 
 large, and hazel ; they were also unmeaning. 
 His teeth were good ; and his nose, neither 
 aquiline nor Grecian, was yet a very showy 
 nose upon the whole. All the maid-servants
 
 GODOLPHIN. 143 
 
 admired him ; and you felt, in looking at him, 
 that it was a pity to lose so good a grenadier. 
 
 Lord Erpingham was a Whig of the old 
 school : he disliked free-trade, but he thought 
 the Tory boroughs ought to be thrown open. 
 He was generally considered a sensible man. 
 He had read Blackstone, Montesquieu, Cow- 
 per's poems, and "The Rambler;" and he was 
 always heard with great attention in the House 
 of Lords. In his moral character, he was a 
 bon-vivant as far as wine is concerned — for 
 choice eating he cared nothing. He was good- 
 natured, but close ; brave enough to fight a 
 duel, if necessary, and religious enough to go 
 to church once a-week — in the country. 
 
 So far, Lord Erpingham might seem mo- 
 delled from one of Sir Walter's heroes : we 
 must reverse the medal, and show the points 
 in which he differed from those patterns of 
 propriety.
 
 144 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Like the generality of Whig noolemen, he 
 was peculiarly loose in his notions of women, 
 though not ardent in pursuit of them. His 
 amours had been among opera-dancers, " Be- 
 cause," as he was wont to say, " there was no 
 
 d d bore with them ;" though he had seen 
 
 too much of his own world not to know that 
 great ladies seldom value themselves on too 
 fastidious a prudery ; nor was his honour of 
 that description which would particularly re- 
 sent the fallen virtue either of a sister, or, had 
 he been married, of a wife. Nevertheless, he 
 was always considered a high-minded man. 
 People chose him as an umpire in quarrels ; 
 and told a story (that was not true) of his 
 having held some state office for a whole year, 
 and insisted on returning the emoluments ! 
 
 Such was Robert Lord Erpingham. During 
 dinner — at which he displayed, to his mother's 
 great delight, a most excellent appetite— he
 
 GODOLPHIN. 145 
 
 listened, as well as he might, considering the 
 more legitimate occupation of the time and sea- 
 son, to Lady Erpingham's recitals of county 
 history ; her long answers to his brief inqui- 
 ries whether old friends were dead and young 
 ones married ; and brightened up to an ex- 
 pression of interest when he was told that birds 
 were said to be plentiful. 
 
 As the servants left the room, and Lord 
 Erpingham took his first glass of claret, the 
 conversation fell upon Percy Godolphin. 
 
 " He has been staying with us a whole fort- 
 night," said Lady Erpingham ; " And, by the 
 by, he said he had met you in Italy, and men- 
 tioned your name as it deserved." 
 
 " Indeed ! And did he really condescend to 
 praise me?" said Lord Erpingham with eager- 
 ness ; for there was that about Godolphin, and 
 his reputation for fastidiousness, which gave a 
 rarity and a value to his praise, at least to 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 lordly ears. " Ah ! he 's a queer fellow : he 
 led a very singular life in Italy." 
 
 " So I have always heard," said Lady Er- 
 pingham. u But of what description? — was 
 he very wild ? w 
 
 " No, not exactly : there was a good deal 
 of mystery about him : he saw very few Eng- 
 lish, and those only men who played high. 
 He was said to have a great deal of learning, 
 and so forth. " 
 
 " Oh ! then he was surrounded, I suppose, 
 by those medallists, and picture-sellers, and 
 other impostors, who live upon such of our 
 countrymen as think themselves blessed with 
 a taste or afflicted with a genius, 1 ' said Lady 
 Erpingham ; who having lived with the wits 
 and orators of the time, had caught mecha- 
 nically their way of rounding a period. 
 
 " Far from it !" returned the Earl: " Go- 
 dolphin is much too deep a fellow for that :
 
 GODOLPHIN. 147 
 
 he 's not easily taken in, I assure you. I con- 
 fess, I don't like him the worse for that," added 
 the close noble. u But he lived with the Ita- 
 lian doctors and men of science; and encou- 
 raged, in particular, one strange fellow, who af- 
 fected sorcery, I fancy, or something very like 
 it. Godolphin resided in a very lonely spot at 
 Rome; and I believe laboratories, and cal- 
 drons, and all sorts of devilish things, were 
 always at work there — at least so people said." 
 
 " And yet," said Constance, " you thought 
 him too sensible to be easily taken in." 
 
 " Indeed I do, Miss Vernon ; and the proof 
 of it is, that no man has less fortune or is more 
 made of. He plays, it is true, but only occa- 
 sionally — though as a player at games of skill 
 he has no equal, unless it be Saville. But 
 then, Saville, entre nous, is more than suspect- 
 ed of playing unfairly." 
 
 " And you are quite sure," said the placid 
 H 2
 
 1-18 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Lady Erpingham, " that Mr. Godolphin is 
 only indebted to skill for his success?" 
 
 Constance darted a glance of fire at the 
 speaker. 
 
 " Why, faith, I believe so! No one ever 
 accused him of a single shabby, or even sus- 
 picious trick : and indeed, as I said before, no 
 one was ever more sought after in society, 
 though he shuns it ; and he 's devilish right, 
 for it 's a cursed bore ! " 
 
 " My dear Robert ! at your age !" said the 
 mother. 
 
 " But," continued the Earl, turning to Con- 
 stance — " but, Miss Vernon, a man may have 
 his weak point, and the cunning Italian may 
 have hit on Godolphin's, clever as he is in 
 general; though, for my part, I will tell you 
 frankly, I think he only encouraged him to 
 mystify and perplex people, just to get talked 
 of — vanity, in short. He's a good-looking
 
 GODOLPHIN. 149 
 
 fellow," that Godolpbin — eh ?" continued the 
 Earl, in the tone of a man who meant you 
 to deny what he asserted. 
 
 "Oh, beautiful !" said Lady Erpingham : — 
 " Such a countenance!" 
 
 " Deuced pale, though ! — eh? — and not the 
 best of figures : thin, narrow-shouldered, eh — 
 eh?" 
 
 (xodolphin's proportions were faultless ; but 
 your strapping heroes think of a moderate- 
 sized man as mathematicians define a point — 
 declare that he has no length or breadth what- 
 soever. 
 
 " What say you, Constance ?" asked Lady 
 Erpingham meaningly. 
 
 Constance felt the meaning, and replied 
 calmly, that Mr. Godolphin appeared to her 
 handsomer than any one she had seen lately. 
 
 Lord Erpingham played with his neckcloth, 
 and Lady Erpingham rose to leave the room.
 
 150 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 "D d fine girl!" said Erpingham, as he 
 
 shut the door upon Constance ; — " but d d 
 
 sharp!" added he, as he resettled himself on 
 his chair.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONSTANCE AT HER TOILET. — HER FEELINGS. — HER 
 
 ORDER OF BEAUTY DESCRIBED. — THE BALL. THE 
 
 DUCHESS OF WINSTOUN AND HER DAUGHTER. — AX 
 INDUCTION FROM THE NATURE OF FEMALE RIVAL- 
 RIES. — JEALOUSY IN A LOVER. — ARISTOCRATIC IM- 
 PERTINENCE RETORTED. — LISTENERS NEVER HE All 
 GOOD OF THEMSELVES. — REMARKS ON THE AMUSE- 
 MENTS OF A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. — THE SUPPER. — 
 THE FALSENESS OF SEEMING GAIETY. — VARIOUS RE- 
 FLECTIONS, NEW AND TRUE. — WHAT PASSES BETWEEN 
 GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 It was the evening of the ball to be given 
 in honour of Lord Erpingham's arrival. Con- 
 stance, dressed for conquest, sat alone in her 
 dressing-room. Her woman had just left her. 
 The lights still burned in profusion about the
 
 152 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 antique chamber ; (antique, for it was situated 
 in the oldest part of the castle ;) those lights 
 streamed full upon the broad brow and ex- 
 quisite features of Miss Vernon. As she lean- 
 ed back in her chair — the fairy foot upon the 
 low Gothic stool, and the hands drooping be- 
 side her despondingly — her countenance be- 
 trayed much, but not serene, thought ; and, 
 mixed with that thought, was something of 
 irresolution and of great and real sadness. 
 
 It is not, as I have before hinted, to be 
 supposed that Constance's lot had been hitherto 
 a proud one, even though she was the most 
 admired beauty of her day ; even though she 
 lived with, and received adulation from, the 
 high, and noble, and haughty of her land. 
 Often, in the glittering crowd that she attracted 
 around her, her ear, sharpened by the jealousy 
 and pride of her nature, caught words that 
 dashed the cup of pleasure and of vanity with
 
 GODOLPHIN. 153 
 
 shame and anger. — u What ! that the Vernon's 
 daughter ? Poor girl ! dependent entirely on 
 Lady Erpingham. Ah ! she 11 take in some 
 rich roturier, I hope." 
 
 Such words, from ill-tempered dowagers and 
 faded beauties, were no unfrequent interrup- 
 tion to her brief-lived and wearisome triumphs. 
 She heard manoeuvring mothers caution their 
 booby sons, whom Constance would have look- 
 ed into the dust had they dared but to touch 
 her hand, against her untitled and undowried 
 charms. She saw cautious Earls, who were 
 all courtesy one night, all coldness another, 
 as some report had reached them, accusing 
 their hearts of feeling too deeply her attrac- 
 tions, or as they themselves suspected, for the 
 first time, that a heart was not a word for 
 a poetical nothing, and that to look on so 
 beautiful and glorious a creature was sufficient 
 to convince them, even yet, of the possibility 
 H 5
 
 154 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 of emotion. She had felt to the quick the 
 condescending patronage of Duchesses and cha- 
 perons ; the oblique hint ; the nice and fine 
 distinction which, in polished circles, divides 
 each grade from the other, and allows you 
 to be galled without the pleasure of feeling 
 justified in offence. 
 
 All this, which, in the flush and heyday 
 of youth, and gaiety, and loveliness, would 
 have been unnoticed by other women, rankled 
 deep in the mind of Constance Vernon. The 
 image of her dying father, his complaints, 
 his accusations (the justice of which she 
 never for an instant questioned), rose up be- 
 fore her in the brightest hours of the dance 
 and the revel. She was not one of those 
 women whose meek and gentle nature would 
 fly what wounds them : Constance had re- 
 solved to conquer. Despising glitter, and 
 gaiety, and show, she burnt, she thirsted for
 
 GODOLPHIN. 155 
 
 power — a power which could retaliate the in- 
 sults she fancied she had received, and should 
 turn the condescension of the great into ho- 
 mage. This object, which every casual word, 
 every heedless glance from another, fixed 
 deeper and deeper in her heart, took a sort 
 of sanctity from the associations with which she 
 linked it — her father's memory, and his dying 
 breath. 
 
 At this moment in which we have pour- 
 tray ed her, all these restless, and sore, and 
 haughty feelings were busy within ; but they 
 were combated, even while the more fiercely 
 aroused, by one soft and tender thought — the 
 image of Godolphin — of Godolphin, the spend- 
 thrift heir of a broken fortune and a fallen 
 house. She felt too deeply that she loved 
 him ; and, ignorant of his worldlier qualities, 
 imagined that he loved her with all the de- 
 votion of that romance, and the ardour of that
 
 156 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 genius which appeared to her to compose his 
 character. But this persuasion gave her now 
 no delightful emotion. Convinced that she 
 ought to reject him, his image only coloured 
 with sadness those objects and that ambition 
 which she had hitherto regarded with an exult- 
 ing pride. She was not the less bent on the 
 grand dreams of her destiny ; but the glory 
 and the illusion had fallen from them. She 
 had taken an insight into futurity, and felt, 
 that to enjoy power was to lose happiness. 
 Yet, with this full conviction, she forsook the 
 happiness, and clung to the power. Alas ! for 
 our best and wisest theories, our problems, our 
 systems, our philosophy ! Human beings will 
 never cease to mistake the means for the end ; 
 and, despite the dogmas of sages, our conduct 
 does not depend on our convictions. 
 
 Carriage after carriage had rolled beneath 
 the windows of the room where Constance sat
 
 GODOLPHIN. 157 
 
 and still she moved not ; until, at length, a 
 certain composure, as if the result of some de- 
 termination, stole over her features. The bril- 
 liant and transparent hues returned to her 
 cheek ; and, as she rose and stood erect, with 
 a certain calmness and energy on her lip and 
 forehead, perhaps her beauty had never seemed 
 of so lofty and august a cast. In passing 
 through the chamber, she stopped for a mo- 
 ment opposite the mirror that reflected her 
 stately shape in its full height. Beauty is so 
 truly the weapon of woman, that it is as im- 
 possible for her, even in grief, wholly to forget 
 its effect, as it is for the dying warrior to look 
 with indifference on the sword with which he 
 has won his trophies or his fame. Nor was 
 Constance that evening disposed to be indif- 
 ferent to the effect she should produce. She 
 looked on the reflection of herself with a feel- 
 ing of triumph, not arising from vanity alone.
 
 158 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 And when did mirror ever give back a form 
 more worthy of a Pericles to worship, or an 
 Apelles to paint ? Though but little removed 
 from the common height, the impression Con- 
 stance always gave was that of a person much 
 taller than she really was. A certain majesty 
 in the turn of the head, the fall of the shoul- 
 ders, the breadth of the brow, and the exceed- 
 ing calmness of the features, invested her with 
 an air which I have never seen equalled by 
 any one, but which, had Pasta been a beauty, 
 she might have possessed. But there was 
 nothing hard or harsh in this majesty. What- 
 soever of a masculine nature Constance might 
 have inherited, nothing masculine, nothing not 
 exquisitely feminine, was visible in her person. 
 Her shape was rounded, and sufficiently full 
 to show, that in middle age its beauty would 
 be preserved by that richness and freshness 
 which a moderate increase of the proportions
 
 GODOLPHIN. 159 
 
 always gives to the sex. Her arms and hands 
 were, and are, even to this day, of a beauty 
 the more striking, because it is so rare. No- 
 thing in any European country is more un- 
 common than an arm really beautiful both 
 in hue and shape. In any assembly we go 
 to, however aristocratic, what miserable bones, 
 what angular elbows, what red skins, do we 
 see under the cover of those capacious sleeves, 
 which are only one whit less ugly. At 
 the time I speak of, those coverings were 
 not worn ; and the white, round, dazzling arm 
 of Constance, bare almost to the shoulder, was 
 girded by dazzling gems, which at once set 
 off, and were foiled by, the beauty of nature. 
 Her hair was of the most luxuriant, and of the 
 deepest, black ; and it was worn in a fashion 
 — then uncommon, without being bizarre — 
 now hacknied by the plainest faces, though 
 adapted only to suit the highest order of
 
 160 GODOLPH1N. 
 
 beauty ; — I mean, that simple and classic 
 fashion to which the French have given a 
 name borrowed from Calypso, but which ap- 
 pears to me suited as much to an intellectual 
 as a voluptuous goddess. Her long lashes, 
 and a brow delicately but darkly pencilled, 
 gave additional eloquence to an eye of the 
 deepest blue, and a classic contour to a profile 
 so slightly aquiline, that it was commonly con- 
 sidered Grecian. That necessary completion 
 to all real beauty of either sex, the short and 
 curved upper lip, terminated in the most 
 dazzling teeth, and the ripe and dewy under 
 lip added to what was noble in her beauty 
 that charm also which is exclusively feminine. 
 Her complexion was capricious ; now pale, 
 now tinged with the pink of the sea- shell, 
 or the softest shade of the rose-leaf: but in 
 either it was so transparent, that you doubted 
 which became her the most. To these attrac-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 1(31 
 
 tions, add a throat, a bust of the most 
 dazzling whiteness, and the justest and most 
 chiselled proportions; a foot, whose least 
 beauty was its smallness; and a waist nar- 
 row — not the narrowness of tenuity or con- 
 straint — but round, gradual, insensibly less 
 in its compression : — and the person of Con- 
 stance Vernon, in the bloom of her youth, is 
 before you. 
 
 She passed with her quiet and stately step 
 from her room, through one adjoining it, and 
 which we stop to notice, because it was her 
 customary sitting-room when not with Lady 
 Erpingham. There had Godolphin, with the 
 foreign but courtly freedom, the respectful and 
 chivalric ease of his manners, often sought her ; 
 there had he lingered in order to detain her yet 
 a moment and a moment longer from other 
 company — seeking a sweet excuse in some re- 
 mark on the books that strewed the tables, or
 
 162 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the music in that recess, or the forest scene 
 from those windows through which the moon of 
 autumn now stole with its own peculiar power 
 to soften and subdue. As these recollections 
 came across her, her step faltered and her 
 colour faded from its glow: she paused a mo- 
 ment, cast a mournful glance round the room, 
 and then tore herself away, descended the lofty 
 staircase, passed the stone-hall melancholy with 
 old banners and rusted crests, and bore her 
 beauty and her busy heart into the thickening 
 and gay crowd. 
 
 Her eye looked once more round for the 
 graceful form of Godolphin : but he was not 
 visible ; and she had scarcely satisfied herself 
 of this before Lord Erpingham, the hero of the 
 evening, approached and claimed her hand. 
 
 " I have just performed my duty," said he, 
 with a gallantry of speech not common to him, 
 " now for my reward. I have danced the first
 
 GODOLPHIN. 163 
 
 dance with Lady Margaret Midgecombe: I 
 come, according to your promise, to dance the 
 second with you." 
 
 There was something in these words that 
 stung one of the morbid remembrances in Miss 
 Vernon's mind. Lady Margaret Midgecombe, 
 in ordinary life, would have been thought a 
 good-looking, vulgar girl : — she was a Duke's 
 daughter, and she was termed a Hebe. Her 
 little nose, and her fresh colour, and her silly 
 but not unmalicious laugh, were called en- 
 chanting ; and all irregularities of feature, and 
 faults of shape, were absolutely turned into 
 merits by that odd commendation, so common 
 with us — " a deuced fine girl; none of your 
 regular beauties." 
 
 Not only in the county of shire, but 
 
 in London, had Lady Margaret Midgecombe 
 been set up as the rival beauty of Constance 
 Vernon. And Constance, far too lovely, too
 
 164 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 cold, too proud, not to acknowledge beauty in 
 others, where it really existed, was nevertheless 
 unaffectedly indignant at a comparison so un- 
 worthy : she even, at times, despised her own 
 claims to admiration, since claims so immea- 
 surably inferior could be put into competition 
 with them. Added to this sore feeling for 
 Lady Margaret, was one created by Lady 
 Margaret's mother. — The Duchess of Win- 
 stoun was a woman of ordinary birth — the 
 daughter of a peer of great wealth but new 
 family. She had married, however, one of the 
 most powerful dukes in the peerage ; — a stupid, 
 heavy, pompous man, with four castles, two 
 parks, a coal-mine, a tin-mine, six boroughs, 
 and about thirty livings. Inactive and re- 
 served, the Duke was seldom seen in public : 
 the care of supporting his rank devolved on 
 the Duchess; and she supported it with as 
 much solemnity of purpose as if she had been 
 a cheesemonger's daughter. Stately, insolent,
 
 GODOLPHIX. 165 
 
 and coarse ;— asked everywhere ; insulting all ; 
 hated and courted ; such was the Duchess of 
 Winstoun, and such, perhaps, have been other 
 duchesses before her. 
 
 Be it understood that, at that day, Fashion 
 had not risen to the despotism it now enjoys : 
 it took its colouring from Power, not con- 
 trolled it. I shall show, indeed, how much of 
 its present condition that Fashion owes to the 
 Heroine of these Memoirs. The Duchess of 
 Winstoun could not be now that great person 
 she was then : there is a certain good taste in 
 Fashion which repels the mere insolence of 
 Rank — which requires persons to be either 
 agreeable, or brilliant, or at least original — 
 which weighs stupid dukes in a righteous 
 balance, and finds vulgar duchesses wanting. 
 But, in lack of this new authority — this moral 
 sebastocrator between the Sovereign and the 
 dignity hitherto considered next to the Sove- 
 reign's — her Grace of Winstoun exercised with
 
 166 GODOLPKIN. 
 
 impunity the rights of insolence. She had 
 taken an especial dislike to Constance : — partly, 
 because the few good judges of beauty, who 
 care neither for rank nor report, had very un- 
 reservedly placed Miss Vernon beyond the reach 
 of all competition with her daughter ; and prin- 
 pally, because the high spirit and keen irony 
 of Constance had given more than once to the 
 Duchess's effrontery so cutting and so public 
 check, that she had felt with astonishment and 
 rage there was one woman in that world — 
 that woman too unmarried — who could retort 
 rudeness to the Duchess of Winstoun. Spite- 
 ful, however, and numerous were the things 
 she said of Miss Vernon, when Miss Vernon 
 was absent ; and haughty beyond measure were 
 the inclination of her head and the tone of 
 her voice when Miss Vernon was present. If, 
 therefore, Constance was disliked by the 
 Duchess, we may readily believe that she
 
 GODOLPHIN. 167 
 
 returned the dislike. The very name aroused 
 her spleen and her pride ; and it was with a 
 feeling all a woman's, though scarcely feminine 
 in the amiable sense of the word, that she learnt 
 to whom the honour of Lord ErpinghairTs pre- 
 cedence had been (though necessarily) given. 
 
 As Lord Erpingham led her to her place, a 
 buzz of admiration and enthusiasm followed her 
 steps. This pleased Erpingham more than, at 
 that moment, it did Constance. Already in- 
 toxicated by her beauty, he was proud of the 
 effect it produced on others — for that effect 
 was a compliment to his taste. He excited 
 himself to be agreeable ; nay, more, to be 
 fascinating : he affected a low voice ; and he 
 attempted — poor man ! — to flatter. 
 
 The Duchess of Winstoun and her daughter 
 sat behind on an elevated bench. They saw 
 with especial advantage the attentions with 
 which one of the greatest of England's Earls
 
 168 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 honoured the daughter of one of the greatest 
 of England's orators. They were shocked at 
 his want of dignity. — Constance perceived their 
 chagrin, and she lent a more pleased and at- 
 tentive notice to Lord ErpinghanVs compli- 
 ments : her eyes sparkled and her cheek 
 blushed; and the good folks around — admiring 
 Lord Erpingham\s immense whiskers — thought 
 Constance in love. 
 
 It was just at this time that Percy Go- 
 dolphin entered the room. 
 
 Although Godolphin's person was not of a 
 showy order, there was something about him 
 that always arrested attention. His air; his 
 carriage; his long, fair locks; his rich and 
 foreign habit of dress, which his high bearing 
 and intellectual countenance redeemed from 
 coxcombry ; — all, united, gave something re- 
 markable and distinguished to his appearance : 
 and the interest attached to his fortunes, and
 
 GODOLPHIN. 169 
 
 to his social reputation for genius and eccen- 
 tricity, could not fail of increasing the effect 
 he produced when his name was known. 
 
 From the throng of idlers that gathered 
 around him ; from the bows of the great and 
 the smiles of the fair; Godolphin, however, 
 directed his whole notice — his whole soul — to 
 the spot which was hallowed by Constance 
 Vernon. He saw her engaged with a man rich, 
 powerful, and handsome. He saw that she 
 listened to her partner with evident interest — 
 that he addressed her with evident admiration. 
 His heart sank within him; he felt faint and 
 sick : then came anger — mortification ; then 
 agony and despair. All his former resolutions 
 — all his prudence, his worldliness, his caution, 
 vanished at once : he felt only that he loved, 
 that he was supplanted, that he was undone. 
 The dark and fierce passions of his youth, of 
 a nature in reality wild and vehement, swept 
 
 vol. I. I
 
 170 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 away at once the projects and the fabrics of 
 that shallow and chill philosophy he had bor- 
 rowed from the world, and deemed the wisdom 
 of the closet. A cottage and a desert with 
 Constance — Constance all his, heart and hand 
 — would have been Paradise : he would have 
 nursed no other ambition, nor dreamt of a 
 reward beyond. — Such effect has jealousy upon 
 us. We confide — and we hesitate to accept a 
 boon : we are jealous — and we would lay down 
 life to attain it. 
 
 " What a handsome fellow Erpingham is P 1 
 said a young man in a cavalry regiment. 
 
 Godolphin heard, and groaned audibly. 
 
 " And what a devilish handsome girl he is 
 dancing with," answered another young man, 
 from Oxford. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Vernon ! — By Jove, he seems 
 smitten. What a capital thing it would be for 
 her !"
 
 GODOLPHIN. 171 
 
 " And for him too !" cried the more chi- 
 valrous Oxonian. 
 
 " Humph !" said the officer. 
 
 " I heard, 11 renewed the Oxonian, " that she 
 was to be married to young Godolphin. He 
 was staying here a short time ago. They rode 
 and walked together. What a lucky fellow he 
 has been ! I don't know any one I should like 
 to see so much. 11 
 
 " Hush !" said a third person, looking at 
 Godolphin. 
 
 Percy moved on. — Accomplished and self- 
 collected as he usually was, he could not 
 wholly conceal the hell within. His brow grew 
 knit and gloomy : he scarcely returned the 
 salutations he received ; and moving out of the 
 crowd, he stole to a seat behind a large pillar 
 — and, scarcely seen by any one, fixed his 
 eyes on the form and movements of Miss 
 Vernon. 
 
 I 2
 
 172 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 It so happened that he had placed himself 
 in the vicinity of the Duchess of Winstoun, 
 and within hearing of the conversation that I 
 am about to record. 
 
 The dance being over, Lord Erpingham led 
 Constance to a seat close by Lady Margaret 
 Midgecombe. The Duchess had formed her 
 plan of attack ; and, rising as she saw Constance 
 within reach, approached her with an air that 
 affected civility. 
 
 " How do you, Miss Vernon ? I am happy 
 to see you looking so well. What truth in the 
 report, eh ?" and the Duchess showed her teeth 
 — videlicet, smiled. 
 
 " What report does your grace allude to ? " 
 
 " Nay, nay ; I am sure Lord Erpingham 
 has heard it as well as myself; and I wish for 
 your sake (a slight emphasis), indeed, for both 
 your sakes, that it may be true.' 11 
 
 " To wait till the Duchess of Winstoun
 
 GODOLPHIN. 173 
 
 speaks intelligibly, would be a waste of her 
 time and my own ;" said the haughty Constance, 
 with the rudeness in which she then delighted, 
 and for which she has since become known. 
 But the Duchess was not to be offended until 
 she had completed her manoeuvre. 
 
 " Well, now, 11 said she, turning to Lord 
 Erpingham, " I appeal to you : is not Miss 
 Vernon to be married very soon to Mr. Go- 
 dolphin ? I am sure (with an affected good- 
 nature and compassion that stung Constance to 
 the quick), I am sure I hope so." 
 
 " Upon my word you amaze me," said Lord 
 Erpingham, opening to their fullest extent the 
 large, round, hazel eyes, for which he was so 
 justly celebrated. " I never heard this before. -11 
 
 " Oh ! a secret as yet," said the Duchess : 
 " very well ! I can keep a secret." 
 
 Lady Margaret looked down, and laughed 
 prettily.
 
 174 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " I thought till now," said Constance, with 
 grave composure, " that no person could be 
 more contemptible than one who collects idle 
 reports : I now find I was wrong : a person in- 
 finitely more contemptible is one who invents 
 them." 
 
 The rude Duchess, beat at her own weapons, 
 blushed with anger even through her rouge : 
 but Constance turned away, and, still leaning 
 on Lord Erpingham's arm, sought another 
 seat ; — that seat, on the opposite side of the 
 pillar behind which Godolphin sat — was still 
 within his hearing, 
 
 " Upon my word, Miss Vernon," said Erp- 
 ingham, " I admire your spirit. Nothing like 
 setting down those absurd people who try to 
 tease one, and think one dares not retort. But 
 p ra y — I hope I 'm not impertinent — pray may 
 I ask if this rumour have any truth in it?" 
 
 " Certainly not," said Constance, with great 
 effort, but in a clear tone.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 175 
 
 " No : I should have thought not ; I should 
 have thought not. Godolphin's much too poor, 
 much too poor, for you. Miss Vernon is not 
 the lady to marry for love in a cottage, is she ?" 
 
 Constance sighed. 
 
 That soft, low tone thrilled to Godolphin's 
 very heart. He bent forward : he held his 
 breath : he thirsted for her voice ; for some 
 tone, some word in answer ; it came not at that 
 moment. 
 
 " You remember," renewed the Earl, " you 
 
 remember Miss L : no : she was before 
 
 your time. Well! she married S , much 
 
 such another fellow as Godolphin. He had not 
 a shilling : but he lived well ; had a house in 
 Mayfair; gave dinners ; hunted at Melton, and 
 so forth : in short, he played high. She had 
 about ten thousand pounds. They married, 
 and lived for two years so comfortably, you 
 have no idea. Every one envied them. They 
 did not keep a close carriage, but he used to
 
 176 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 drive her out to dinners in his French cabrio- 
 let.* There was no show — no pomp : every 
 thing deuced neat, though : quite love in a 
 cottage— only the cottage was in Curzon-street. 
 
 At length, however, the cards turned : S 
 
 lost every thing: owed more than he could 
 ever pay : we were forced to cut him ; and his 
 
 relation, Lord , coming into the Ministry 
 
 a year afterwards, got him a place in the 
 Customs. They live at Pentonville : he wears 
 a pepper-and-salt coat, and she a mob-cap, 
 with pink ribbons : they have five hundred 
 a-year, and ten children. Such was the fate of 
 
 S 's wife ; such may be the fate of Godol- 
 
 phin's. Oh, Miss Vernon could not marry 
 him!'" 
 
 " You are right, my lord," said Constance, 
 with emphasis ; " but you take too much li- 
 cence in expressing your opinion."" 
 
 * Then uncommon.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 177 
 
 Before Lord Erpingham could stammer forth 
 his apology, they heard a slight noise behind : 
 they turned : Godolphin had risen. His coun- 
 tenance, always inclined to a calm severity — 
 for thought is usually severe in its outward 
 aspect — bent now on both the speakers with so 
 dark and menacing an aspect, that the stout 
 Earl felt his heart stand still for a moment : 
 and Constance was appalled as if it had been 
 the apparition, and not the living form of her 
 lover that she beheld. But scarcely had they 
 seen this expression of countenance, ere it 
 changed. With a cold and polished smile, a 
 relaxed brow, and profound inclination of his 
 form, Godolphin greeted the two ; and, passing 
 from his seat with a slow step, glided among 
 the crowd, and vanished. 
 
 What a strange thing, after all, is a great 
 assembly ! An immense mob of persons, who 
 feel for each other the profoundest indifference 
 15
 
 178 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 — met together to join in amusements, which 
 the great majority of them consider wearisome 
 beyond conception. How unintellectual, how 
 uncivilized, such a scene, and such actors ! 
 What a remnant of barbarous times, when 
 people danced because they had nothing to 
 say ! Were there nothing ridiculous in dan- 
 cing, there would be nothing ridiculous in see- 
 ing wise men dance. But that sight would be 
 ludicrous, because of the disparity between the 
 mind and the occupation. However, we have 
 some excuse ; we go to these assemblies to 
 sell our daughters, or corrupt our neigh- 
 bours 1 wives. A ball-room is nothing more or 
 less than a great market-place of beauty. For 
 my part, I like making my purchases in a less 
 public mart. 
 
 " Come, Godolphin, a glass of champaigne," 
 cried the young Lord Belvoir, as they sat near 
 each other at the splendid supper.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 179 
 
 " With all my heart ; but not from that 
 bottle i we must have a new one ; for this 
 glass is pledged to Lady Dehnour, and I 
 would not drink to her health but from the 
 first sparkle ! Nothing tame, nothing insipid, 
 nothing that has lost its first freshness, can be 
 dedicated to one so beautiful and young. 1 '' 
 
 The fresh bottle was opened, and Godolphin 
 bowed over his glass to Lord Belvoir's sister — 
 a Beauty, and a Blue. Lady Delmour ad- 
 mired Godolphin, and she was flattered by a 
 compliment that no one wholly educated in 
 England would have had the gallant courage 
 to utter across a crowded table. 
 
 " You have been dancing ?" said she. 
 
 « No r 
 
 " What then ?" 
 
 " What then ? M said Godolphin ; " Ah, Lady 
 Delmour, do not ask." — The look that accom- 
 panied the words, supplied them with a mean-
 
 180 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 ing. " Need I add," said he, in a lower voice, 
 " that I have been thinking of the most beau- 
 tiful person present ?" 
 
 " Pooh \ n said Lady Delmour, turning away 
 her head. 
 
 Now, that pooh is a very significant word. 
 On the lips of a man of business, it denotes 
 contempt for romance ; on the lips of a poli- 
 tician, it rebukes a theory. With that mono- 
 syllable, a philosopher massacres a fallacy : by 
 those four letters, a rich man gets rid of a 
 beggar. But in the rosy mouth of a woman, 
 the harshness vanishes, the disdain becomes en- 
 couragement. " Pooh I" says the lady when 
 you tell her she is handsome; but she smiles 
 when she says it. With the same reply she 
 receives your protestation of love, and blushes 
 as she receives. With men it is the sternest, 
 with women the softest, exclamation in the 
 language.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 181 
 
 " Pooh !" said Lady Delmour, turning away 
 her head : — and Godolphin was in singular 
 spirits. What a strange thing that we should 
 call such hilarity from our gloom ! The stroke 
 induces the flash ; excite the nerves by jea- 
 lousy, by despair, and with the proud, you 
 only trace the excitement by the mad mirth 
 and hysterical laughter it creates. 
 
 Godolphin was charming comme un amour, 
 and the young Countess was delighted with his 
 gallantry. 
 
 " Did you ever love ?" asked she tenderly, 
 as they sat alone after supper. 
 
 "Alas, yes !" said he. 
 
 " How often ?" 
 
 " Read Marmontel's story of the ' Three 
 Vials :' I have no other answer."" 
 
 " Oh, what a beautiful tale that is ! The 
 whole history of a man's heart is contained in 
 it. Fancy, Passion, Love ! behold the Three
 
 182 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Vials ; but, how few ever drink of the 
 third r 
 
 While Godolphin was thus talking with 
 Lady Delmour, his whole soul was with Con- 
 stance ; of her only he thought, and on her he 
 thirsted for revenge. There is a curious pheno- 
 menon in love, showing how much vanity has 
 to do with even the best species of it ; when, 
 for your mistress to prefer another, changes all 
 your affection into hatred, is it the loss of the 
 mistress, or her preference to the other ? The 
 last, to be sure : for if the former, you would 
 only grieve — but jealousy does not make you 
 grieve, it makes you rage ; it does not sadden, 
 it stings. After all, as we grow old, and look 
 back on the " master passion, 1 ' how we smile at 
 the fools it made of us — at the importance we 
 attach to it — at the millions that have been go- 
 verned by it ! When we examine the passion 
 of love, it is like examining the character of 
 some great man ; we are astonished to perceive
 
 GODOLPHIN. 183 
 
 the littlenesses that belong to it. We ask in 
 wonder, " How come such effects from such a 
 cause !" 
 
 Godolphin continued talking sentiment with 
 Lady Delmour until her lord, who was very 
 fond of his carriage-horses, came up and took 
 her away ; and then, almost glad to be re- 
 lieved, Percy sauntered into the ball-room, 
 where, though the crowd was somewhat thin- 
 ned, the dance was continued with that spirit 
 which always seems to increase as the night 
 advances. 
 
 For my own part, I now and then look late 
 in at a ball as a warning and grave memento 
 of the flight of time. No amusement belongs 
 of right so essentially to the young, in their 
 first youth, — to the unthinking, the intoxi- 
 cated, — to those whose blood is an elixir. 
 There, above all places, do I recognize the 
 vast gulf between me and my youth. 
 
 " If Constance be woman," said Godolphin
 
 184 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 to himself, as he returned to the ball-room, " I 
 will yet humble her to my will. I have not 
 learned the science so long, to be now foiled in 
 the first moment I have seriously wished to 
 triumph. 1 ' 
 
 As this thought inspired and excited him, 
 he moved along at some distance from, but 
 carefully within the sight of, Constance. He 
 paused by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. He 
 addressed her. Notwithstanding the insolence 
 and the ignorance of the Duchess of Winstoun, 
 he was well received by both mother and 
 daughter. Some persons there are, in all times 
 and in all spheres, who command a certain 
 respect, bought neither by riches, rank, nor 
 even scrupulous morality of conduct. They 
 win it by the reputation that talent alone can 
 win them, and which yet is not always the 
 reputation of talent. No man, even in the 
 frivolous societies of the great, obtains homage
 
 GODOLPHIN. 185 
 
 without certain qualities which, had they been 
 happily directed, would have conducted him to 
 fame. Had the attention of a Grammont, or 
 
 of a C , been early turned towards what 
 
 ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt 
 that, instead of the heroes of a circle, they 
 might have been worthy of becoming names 
 for posterity. Thus, the genius of Godolphin 
 had drawn around him an eclat which made 
 even the haughtiest willing to receive and to 
 repay his notice ; and Lady Margaret actually 
 blushed with pleasure when he asked her to 
 dance. A foreign dance, then only very par- 
 tially known in England, had been called for : 
 few were acquainted with it, — those only who 
 had been abroad ; and as the movements seem- 
 ed to require peculiar grace of person, some 
 even among those few declined, through mo- 
 desty, the exhibition. 
 
 To this dance Godolphin led Lady Mar-
 
 186 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 garet. All crowded round to see the per- 
 formers ; and as each went through the giddy 
 and intoxicating maze, they made remarks on 
 the awkwardness, or the singularity, or the im- 
 propriety of the dance. But when Godolphin 
 began, the murmurs changed. The slow and 
 stately measure, then adapted to the steps, was 
 one in which the grace and symmetry of his 
 person might eminently display itself. Lady 
 Margaret was at least as well acquainted with 
 the dance ; and the couple altogether so immea- 
 surably excelled all competitors, that the rest, 
 as if sensible of it, stopped one after the other ; 
 and when Godolphin, perceiving that they were 
 alone, stopped also, the spectators made their 
 approbation more audible than approbation 
 usually is in polished society. 
 
 As Godolphin paused, his eyes met those of 
 Constance. There was not there the expression 
 he had anticipated : there was neither the anger
 
 GODOLPHIN. 187 
 
 of jealousy, nor the restlessness of offended 
 vanity, nor the desire of conciliation, visible in 
 those large and speaking orbs. A deep, a pe- 
 netrating, a sad inquiry seemed to dwell in her 
 gaze, — seemed anxious to pierce into his heart, 
 and to discover whether there she possessed the 
 power to wound, or whether each had been 
 deceived : so at least seemed that fixed and 
 melancholy intenseness of look to Godolphin. 
 He left Lady Margaret abruptly : in an instant 
 he was by the side of Constance. 
 
 " You must be delighted with this evening," 
 said he bitterly : " wherever I go I hear your 
 praises : every one admires you ; and he who 
 does not admire so much as worship you, he 
 alone is beneath your notice. He — born to 
 such shattered fortunes, — he indeed might 
 never aspire to that which titled and wealthy 
 idiots deem they may command, — the hand of 
 Constance Vernon."
 
 188 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 It was with a low and calm tone that Godol- 
 phin spoke. Constance turned deadly pale : 
 her frame trembled ; but she did not answer 
 immediately. She moved to a seat retired a 
 little from the busy crowd : Godolphin follow- 
 ed, and sat himself beside her ; and then, with 
 a slight effort, Constance spoke. 
 
 " You heard what was said, Mr. Godolphin, 
 and I grieve to think you did. If I offended 
 you, however, forgive me, I pray you ; I pray 
 it sincerely, warmly. God knows I have suf- 
 fered myself enough from idle words, and from 
 the slighting opinion with which this hard 
 world visits the poor, not to feel deep regret 
 and shame if I wound, by like means, another, 
 more especially — " Constance's voice trembled 
 — " more especially you /" 
 
 As she spoke, she turned her eyes on Go- 
 dolphin, and they were full of tears. The 
 tenderness of her voice, her look, melted him
 
 GODOLPHIN. 189 
 
 at once. Was it to him, indeed, that the 
 haughty Constance addressed the words of 
 kindness and apology ? — to him whose ex- 
 trinsic circumstances she had heard described 
 as so unworthy of her, and, his reason told 
 him, with such justice ? 
 
 " Oh, Miss Vernon !" said he, passionately ; 
 " Miss Vernon — Constance — dear, dear Con- 
 stance ! dare I call you so ? hear me one 
 word. I love you with a love which leaves 
 me no words to tell it. I know my faults, 
 my poverty, my unworthiness : but — but — 
 may I — may I hope ?"" 
 
 And all the woman was in Constance's cheek, 
 as she listened. That cheek, how richly was 
 it dyed ! Her eyes drooped ; her bosom 
 heaved. How every word in those broken 
 sentences sank into her heart ! never was a 
 tone forgotten. The child may forget its 
 mother, and the mother desert the child ; but
 
 190 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 never, never from a woman's heart departs 
 the memory of the first confession of love, 
 from him whom she first loves ! She lifted 
 her eyes, and again withdrew them, and again 
 gazed. 
 
 " This must not be," at last she said ; 
 " no, no ! it is folly, madness, in both !" 
 
 " Not so ; nay, not so !" whispered Godol- 
 phin, in the softest notes of a voice that could 
 never be harsh. "It may seem folly — mad- 
 ness if you will, that the brilliant and all- 
 idolized Miss Vernon should listen to the vows 
 of so lowly an adorer : but try me — prove 
 me, and own — yes, you will own some years 
 hence, that that folly has been happy beyond 
 the happiness of prudence or ambition." 
 
 " This !" answered Constance, struggling 
 with her emotions ; " this is no spot or hour 
 for such a conference. Let us meet to-morrow 
 — the western chamber."
 
 G0D0LPH1N. 191 
 
 " And the hour ?" 
 
 " Twelve P 
 
 " And I may hope — till then ?" 
 
 Constance again grew pale ; and in a voice 
 that; though it scarcely left her lips, struck 
 coldness and dismay into his sudden and de- 
 lighted confidence, answered, 
 
 " No, Percy, there is no hope ! — none !
 
 192 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE INTERVIEW THE CRISIS OF A LIFE. 
 
 The western chamber was that I have men- 
 tioned as the one in which Constance usually 
 fixed her retreat, when neither sociability nor 
 state summoned her to the more public apart- 
 ments. I should have said that Godolphin 
 slept in the house ; for, coming from a dis- 
 tance, and through country roads, Lady Er- 
 pingham had proffered him that hospitality, 
 and he had willingly accepted it. Before the 
 appointed hour, he was at the appointed spot. 
 
 He had passed the hours till then without
 
 GODOLPHIN. 193 
 
 even seeking his pillow. In restless strides 
 across his chamber, he had revolved those 
 words with which Constance had seemed to 
 deny the hopes she herself had created. All 
 private and more selfish schemes, or reflec- 
 tions, had vanished, as by magic, from the 
 mind of a man prematurely formed, but not 
 yet wholly hardened, in the mould of worldly 
 speculation. He thought no more of what 
 he should relinquish in obtaining her hand : 
 with the ardour of boyish and real love, he 
 thought only of her. It was as if no world 
 but the little spot in which she breathed and 
 moved, existed. Poverty, privation, toil, the 
 change of the manners and habits of his whole 
 previous life, to those of professional enterprise 
 and self-denial ; — to all this he looked forward, 
 not so much with calmness as with triumph. 
 
 " Be but Constance mine !" said he again 
 and again ; and again and again those fatal 
 
 vol. i. K
 
 194 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 words knocked at his heart, " No hope — 
 none V and he gnashed his teeth in very 
 anguish, and muttered, " But mine she will 
 not — she will never be !" 
 
 Still, however, before the hour of noon, 
 something of his habitual confidence returned 
 to him. He had succeeded, though but par- 
 tially, in reasoning away the obvious mean- 
 ing of the words ; and he ascended to the 
 chamber from the gardens, in which he had 
 sought, by the air, to cool his mental fever, 
 with a sentiment ominous and doubtful indeed, 
 but still removed from despondency and de- 
 spair. 
 
 The day was sad and heavy. A low, driz- 
 zling rain, and labouring yet settled clouds, 
 which denied all glimpse to the sky, and 
 seemed cursed into stagnancy by the absence 
 of all wind or even breeze, increased by those 
 associations we endeavour in vain to resist,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 195 
 
 the dark and oppressive sadness of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 He paused, as he laid his hand on the 
 door of the chamber : he listened ; and in the 
 acute and painful life which seemed breathed 
 into all his senses, he felt as he could have 
 heard, — though without the room, — the very 
 breath of Constance ; or known, as by an 
 inspiration, the presence of her beauty. He 
 opened the door gently: all was silence and 
 desolation for him — Constance was not there ! 
 
 He felt, however, as if that absence was a 
 relief. He breathed more freely, and seemed 
 to himself more prepared for the meeting. He 
 took his station by the recess of the window: 
 in vain — he could rest in no spot : he walked 
 to and fro, pausing only for a moment as some 
 object before him reminded him of past and 
 more tranquil hours. The books he had ad- 
 mired, and which, at his departure, had been 
 K 2
 
 196 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 left in their usual receptacles at another part of 
 the house, he now discovered on the tables : 
 they opened of themselves at the passages he 
 had read aloud to Constance : those passages, 
 in his presence, she had not seemed to admire; 
 he was inexpressibly touched to perceive that, 
 in his absence, they had become dear to her. 
 As he turned with a beating heart from this 
 silent proof of affection, he was startled by the 
 sudden and almost living resemblance to Con- 
 stance, which struck upon him in a full-length 
 picture opposite — the picture of her father. 
 That picture, by one of the best of our great 
 modern masters of the art, had been taken of 
 Vernon in the proudest epoch of his prosperity 
 and fame. He was pourtrayed in the attitude 
 in which he had uttered one of the most strik- 
 ing sentences of one of his most brilliant 
 orations : the hand was raised, the foot ad- 
 vanced, the chest expanded. Life, energy,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 197 
 
 command, flashed from the dark eye, breathed 
 from the dilated nostril, broke from the in- 
 spired lip. That noble brow — those modelled 
 features — that air so full of the royalty of 
 genius — how startlingly did they resemble the 
 softer lineaments of Constance. 
 
 Arrested, in spite of himself, by the skill of 
 the limner and the characteristics of the por- 
 trait, Godolphin stood motionless and gazing, 
 till the door opened, and Constance herself 
 stood before him. She smiled faintly, but with 
 sweetness, as she approached ; and seating her- 
 self, motioned him to a chair at a little dis- 
 tance. He obeyed the gesture in silence. 
 
 " Godolphin !" said she, softly. — At the 
 sound of her voice he raised his eyes from the 
 ground, and fixed them on her countenance 
 with a look so full of an imploring and earnest 
 meaning, — so expressive of the passion, the 
 suspense, of his heart, that Constance felt her
 
 198 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 voice cease at once. But he saw, as he gazed, 
 how powerful had been his influence. Not a 
 vestige of bloom was on her cheek: her very 
 lips were colourless : her eyes were swollen 
 with weeping ; and though she seemed very 
 calm and self-possessed, all her wonted majesty 
 of mien was gone ! The form seemed to shrink 
 within itself. Humbleness and sorrow — deep, 
 passionate, but quiet sorrow, — had supplanted 
 the haughtiness and the elastic freshness of her 
 beauty. — " Godolphin," she repeated, after a 
 pause, " answer me truly and with candour : 
 not with the world's gallantry; but with a 
 sincere, a plain avowal. — Were you not in 
 your unguarded expressions last night — were 
 you not excited by the surprise, the, passion, 
 of the moment ? Were you not uttering what, 
 had you been actuated only by a calm and 
 premeditated prudence, you would at least 
 have suppressed ?"
 
 GODOLPHIN. 199 
 
 " Miss Vernon," replied Godolphin, " all 
 that I said last night, I now, in calmness and 
 with deliberate premeditation, repeat : all that 
 I can dream of happiness is in your hands." 
 
 " I would, indeed, that I could disbelieve 
 you," said Constance, sorrowfully : " I hav 
 considered deeply on your words. I am 
 touched — made grateful — proud — yes, truly 
 proud — by your confessed affection — but — " 
 
 " Oh Constance !" cried Godolphin, in a 
 sudden and agonized voice — and rising, he 
 flung himself impetuously at her feet — " Con- 
 stance ! do not reject me !" 
 
 He seized her hand : it struggled not with 
 his. He gazed on her countenance: it was 
 dyed in blushes ; and before those blushes 
 vanished, her agitation found relief in tears, 
 which flowed fast and full. 
 
 " Beloved !" said Godolphin, with a solemn 
 tenderness, " why struggle with your heart ?
 
 200 GODOLPHTN. 
 
 That heart I read at this moment : that is not 
 averse to me." — Constance wept on. — " I 
 know what you would say, and what you 
 feel ;" continued Godolphin : " you think that 
 I — that we both are poor : that you could ill 
 bear the humiliations of that haughty poverty 
 which those born to higher fortunes so irk- 
 somely endure. You tremble to link your 
 fate with one who has been imprudent — lavish 
 — selfish, if you will. You recoil before you 
 entrust your happiness to a man who, if he 
 wreck that, can offer you nothing in return : 
 no rank — no station — nothing to heal a bruised 
 heart, or cover its wound, at least, in the rich 
 disguises of power and wealth. Am I not 
 right, Constance ? — Do I not read your 
 mind ?" 
 
 " No !" said Constance, with energy. " Had 
 I been born any man's daughter, but his from 
 whom T take my name ; were I the same in
 
 GODOLPHIN. 201 
 
 al] things, mind and heart, save in one feeling, 
 one remembrance, one object — that I am now ; 
 God is my witness that I would not cast a 
 thought upon poverty — upon privation : that 
 I would — nay, I do — I do confide in your 
 vows, your affection. If you have erred, I 
 know it not. If any but you tell me you 
 have erred, I believe them not. You I trust 
 wholly and implicitly. God, I say, is my wit- 
 ness that, did I obey the voice of my selfish 
 heart, I would gladly, proudly, share and fol- 
 low your fortunes. You mistake me if you 
 think sordid and vulgar ambition can only influ- 
 ence me. No ! I could be worthy of you ! The 
 daughter of John Vernon could be a worthy 
 wife to the man of indigence and genius. In 
 your poverty I could soothe you ; in your 
 labours I could support you ; in your reverses 
 console, in your prosperity triumph. But — 
 but, it must not be. Go, Godolphin — dear 
 k 5
 
 202 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Godolphin ! There are thousands better and 
 fairer than I am, who will do for you as I 
 would have done ; but who possess the power 
 I have not — who, instead of sharing, can raise 
 your fortunes. Go ! — and if it comfort, if it 
 soothe you, believe that I have not been in- 
 sensible to your generosity, your love. My 
 best wishes, my fondest prayers, my dearest 
 hopes, are yours." 
 
 Blinded by her tears, subdued by her emo- 
 tions, Constance was still herself. She rose ; 
 she extricated her hand from Godolphin's; she 
 turned to leave the room. But Godolphin, 
 still kneeling, caught hold of her robe, and 
 gently, but effectually, detained her. 
 
 " The picture you have painted," said he, 
 " do not destroy at once. You have pour- 
 trayed yourself my soother, guide, restorer. 
 You can, indeed you can, be this. You do 
 not know me, Constance. Let me say one
 
 GODOLPHIN. 203 
 
 word for myself. Hitherto, I have shunned 
 fame and avoided ambition. Life has seemed 
 to me so short, and all that even glory wins so 
 poor, that I have thought no labour worth the 
 price of a single hour of pleasure and enjoyment. 
 For you, how joyfully will I renounce my code. 
 For myself, I could ask no honour : for you, I 
 will labour for all. No toil shall be dry to me 
 — no pleasure shall decoy. I will renounce my 
 idle and desultory pursuits. I will enter the 
 great public arena, where all who come armed 
 with patience and with energy are sure to win. 
 Constance, I am not without talents, though 
 they have slept within me ; say but the word, 
 and you know not what they can produce." 
 
 An irresolution in Constance was felt as a 
 sympathy by Godolphin ; he continued, — 
 
 " We are both desolate in the world, Con- 
 stance ; we are orphans — friendless, fortuneless. 
 Yet both have made our way without friends,
 
 204 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 and commanded our associates, though without 
 fortune. Does not this declare we have that 
 within us which, when we are united, can still 
 exalt or conquer our destiny ? And we — we — 
 alone in the noisy and contentious world with 
 which we strive — we shall turn, after each 
 effort, to our own hearts, and find there a com- 
 fort and a shelter. All things will bind us 
 closer and closer to each other. The thought 
 of our past solitude, the hope of our future 
 objects, will only feed the fountain of our pre- 
 sent love. And how much sweeter, Constance, 
 will be honours to you, if we thus win them ; 
 sanctified as they will be, by the sacrifices we 
 have made ; by the thought of the many hours 
 in which we desponded, yet took consolation 
 from each other ; by the thought how we 
 sweetened even mortifications by sympathy, 
 and made even the lowest successes noble by 
 the endearing associations with which we allied
 
 GODOLPHIN. 205 
 
 them. How much sweeter to you will be 
 such honours than those which you might com- 
 mand at once, but accompanied by a cold 
 heart ; rendered wearisome because won with 
 ease, and low because undignified by fame. 
 Oh, Constance ! am I not heard ? — Have not 
 love, nature, sense, triumphed ?" 
 
 As he spoke, he had risen gently, and wound 
 his arms around her not reluctant form : her 
 head declined upon his bosom ; her hand was 
 surrendered to his ; and his kiss stole softly 
 and unchidden to her cheek. At that instant, 
 the fate of both hung on a very hair. How 
 different might the lot, the character, of each 
 have been, had Constance's lips pronounced the 
 words that her heart already recorded ! And 
 she might have done so ; but, as she raised her 
 eyes, the same object that had before affected 
 Godolphin came vividly upon her, and changed, 
 as by an electric shock, the whole current of
 
 206 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 her thoughts. Full and immediately before 
 her was the picture of her father. The atti- 
 tude there delineated, so striking at all times, 
 seemed to Constance at that moment more than 
 ever impressive, and even awful in the living- 
 ness of its command. It was the face of Ver- 
 non in the act of speech — of warning — of re- 
 proof; such as she had seen it often in pri- 
 vate life ; such as she had seen it in his bit- 
 ter maledictions on his hollow friends at the 
 close of his existence : nay, such as she had 
 seen it, — only more fearful, and ghastly with 
 the hues of death, — in his last hours ; in 
 those hours in which he had pledged her to 
 the performance of his revenge, and bade her 
 live not for love but the memory of her sire. 
 
 With the sight of that face rushed upon her 
 the dark and solemn recollections of that time 
 and of that vow. The weakness of love va- 
 nished before the returning force of a sentiment
 
 GODOLPHIN. 207 
 
 nursed through her earliest years, fed by her 
 dreams, strengthened by her studies, and hard- 
 ened, by the daring energies of a nature lofty 
 yet fanatical, into the rule, the end, nay, the 
 very religion of life ! She tore herself away 
 from the surprised and dismayed Godolphin ; 
 she threw herself on her knees before the pic- 
 ture ; her lips moved rapidly ; the rapid and 
 brief prayer for forgiveness was over, and Con- 
 stance rose a new being. She turned to Godol- 
 phin, and, lifting her arm towards the picture, 
 as she regarded, with her bright and kindling 
 eyes, the face of her lover, she said : — 
 
 " As you think now, thought he whose voice 
 speaks to you from the canvass ; he, who pur- 
 sued the path that you would tread ; who, 
 through the same toil, the same pursuit, that 
 you would endure, used the same powers and 
 the same genius you would command ; he, who 
 won, — what you might win also at last, — the
 
 208 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 smile of princes, the trust of nobles, the shifting 
 and sandy elevation which the best, and wisest, 
 and greatest statesmen in this country, if un- 
 backed by a sordid and caballing Oligarchy, 
 can alone obtain. He warns you from that 
 hollow distinction, — from its wretched consum- 
 mation. Oh, Godolphin !" she continued, sub- 
 dued, and sinking from a high-wrought but 
 momentary paroxysm, uncommon to her col- 
 lected character, " Oh, Godolphin ! I saw that 
 man dying, deserted, lonely, cursed by his 
 genius, ruined by his prosperity. I saw him 
 dying, — die y — of a broken and trampled heart. 
 Could I doom another victim to the same 
 course, and the same perfidy, and the same 
 fate? Could I, with a silent heart, watch by 
 that victim ; could I, viewing his certain doom, 
 elate him with false hopes ? — No, no ! fly from 
 me, — from the thought of such a destiny. 
 Marry one who can bring you wealth, and
 
 GODOLPHIN. 209 
 
 support you with rank ; then be ambitious, if 
 you will. Leave me to fulfil my doom, — MY 
 vow; and to think, however wretched I may 
 be, that I have not inflicted a permanent 
 wretchedness on you."" 
 
 Godolphin sprang forward ; but the door 
 closed upon his eyes ; and he saw Constance — 
 as Constance Vernon — no more.
 
 210 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A RAKE AND EXQUISITE OF THE BEST (WORST) 
 SCHOOL.— A CONVERSATION ON A THOUSAND MAT- 
 TERS.— THE DECLENSION OF THE Sui profllSUS INTO 
 
 the alieni appetens. 
 
 There was, in the day I now refer to, a 
 certain house in Chesterfield Street, May-Fair, 
 which few young men anxious for the eclat of 
 society passed without a wish for the acquaint- 
 ance of the inmate. To that small and dingy 
 mansion, with its verandahs of dusky green, and 
 its blinds perpetually drawn, there attached an 
 interest, a consideration, and a mystery. Thi- 
 ther, at the dusk of night, were the hired car-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 211 
 
 riages of intrigue wont to repair, and dames to 
 alight, careful seemingly of concealment, yet 
 wanting, perhaps, even a reputation to conceal. 
 Few, at the early hours of morn, passed that 
 street in their way home from some glittering 
 revel without noticing some three or four cha- 
 riots in waiting; — or without hearing from 
 within the walls, the sounds of protracted festi- 
 vity. That house was the residence of a man 
 who had never done any thing in public, and 
 yet was the most noted personage in " So- 
 ciety :" in early life, the all-accomplished Love- 
 lace; in later years mingling the graces with 
 the decayed heart and the want of principle 
 of a Grammont. Feared, contemned, loved, 
 hated, ridiculed, honoured, the very genius, 
 the very personification, of a civilized and pro- 
 fligate life seemed embodied in Augustus Sa- 
 ville. Hitherto we have spoken of, let us now 
 describe, him.
 
 2\2 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Born to the poor fortunes and equivocal 
 station of cadet, in a noble but impoverished 
 house, he had passed his existence in a round 
 of lavish, but never inelegant, dissipation. Un- 
 like other men, whom youth, and money, and 
 the flush of health, and aristocratic indulgence, 
 allure to follies, which shock the taste as well 
 as the morality, of the wise, Augustus Saville 
 had never committed an error which was not 
 varnished by grace, and limited by a profound 
 and worldly discretion. A seducer, an adul- 
 terer, a systematic votary of pleasure — no 
 woman had ever through him lost her repu- 
 tation or her sphere. No separations, no di- 
 vorces, no vulgar scandal, no recurrence to 
 courts of law, had ever been the consequence 
 of his intrigues ; whether it was that he cor- 
 rupted into fortunate dissimulation, the minds 
 that he betrayed into guilt ; or whether he 
 chose his victims with so just a knowledge of
 
 GODOLPHIN. 213 
 
 their characters, and of the circumstances 
 round them, that he might be sure the se- 
 cresy maintained by himself would scarcely 
 be divulged elsewhere. All the world attri- 
 buted to Augustus Saville, the most various 
 and consummate success in that quarter which 
 the lighter part of the world most envies, and 
 in which it most jealously denies success : yet 
 no one could say exactly who, among the many 
 he addressed, had been the object of his tri- 
 umph. The same quiet, and yet victorious 
 discretion, waited upon all he did. Never had 
 he stooped to win celebrity from horses or from 
 carriages ; nothing in his equipages showed the 
 ambition to be distinguished from another ; 
 least of all, did he affect that most displeasing 
 of minor ostentations, that offensive exaggera- 
 tion of neatness, that outre simplicity, which 
 our young nobles and aspiring bankers so ridi- 
 culously think it bon ton to assume. No har-
 
 214 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 ness, industriously avoiding brass ; no liveries, 
 pretending to the tranquillity of a gentleman's 
 dress ; no pannels disdaining the armorial at- 
 tributes of which real dignity should neither 
 be ashamed nor proud — converted plain taste 
 into a display of plainness. He seldom ap- 
 peared at races, and never hunted ; though he 
 was profound master of the calculations in the 
 first ; and was, as regarded the second, allowed 
 to be one of the most perfect masters of horse- 
 manship in his time. So, in his dress, while 
 he chose even sedulously what became him 
 most, he avoided the appearance of coxcombry, 
 by a disregard to minutiae. He did not value 
 himself on the perfection of his boot ; and 
 suffered a wrinkle in his coat without a sigh : 
 yet, even the exquisites of the time allowed 
 that no one was more gentleman-like in the 
 tout -ensemble : and while he sought by other 
 means than dress to attract, he never even in
 
 GODOLPHIN. 215 
 
 dress offended. Carefully shunning the cha- 
 racter of the professed wit, or the general 
 talker, he was yet piquant, shrewd, and ani- 
 mated to the few persons whom he addressed, 
 or with whom he associated : and though he 
 had refused all offers to enter public life, he 
 was sufficiently master of the graver subjects 
 that agitated the times, to impress even those 
 best acquainted with them with a belief in his 
 information and his talents. 
 
 But he was born poor ; and yet he had lived 
 for nearly thirty years as a rich man ! What 
 was his secret ? — he had lived upon others ! 
 At all games of science, he played with a 
 masterly skill ; and in those wherein luck pre- 
 ponderates, there are always chances for a cool 
 and systematic calculation. He had been, in- 
 deed, suspected of unfair play ; but the charge 
 had never cooled the eagerness with which he 
 had been courted. With far better taste, and
 
 216 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 far more popularity and estimation than Brum- 
 mell, he obtained an equal, though a more 
 secret sway. Every one was desirous to know 
 him : without his acquaintance, the young de- 
 butant felt that he wanted the qualification 
 to social success: by his intimacy, even vul- 
 garity became the rage. It was true that, as 
 no woman's disgrace was confessedly traced to 
 him, so neither was any man's ruin — save only 
 in the doubtful instance of the unfortunate 
 Johnstone. He never won of any person, 
 however ardent, more than a certain portion 
 of his fortune — the rest of his undoing he left 
 to his satellites ; nay, even those who had in 
 reality most reason to complain of him, never 
 perceived his due share in their impoverish- 
 ment. It was common enough to hear men 
 say, " Ah ! Saville, I wish I had taken your 
 advice, and left off while I had yet half my 
 fortune !" They did not accurately heed that
 
 GODOLPHIN. 217 
 
 the other half was Saville's ; because the first 
 half had excited, not ruined them. 
 
 Besides this method of making money, so 
 strictly social, Saville had also applied his 
 keen intellect and shrewd sense to other specu- 
 lations. Cheap houses, cheap horses, fluctu- 
 ations in the funds, all descriptions of pro- 
 perty, (except perhaps stolen goods,) had pass- 
 ed under his earnest attention; and in most 
 cases, such speculations had eminently suc- 
 ceeded. He was therefore now, in his middle 
 age, and still unmarried, a man decidedly 
 wealthy; having, without ever playing the 
 miser, without ever stinting a luxury, or de- 
 nying a wish, turned nothing into something, 
 poverty into opulence. 
 
 It was noon ; and Saville was slowly finishing 
 his morning repast, and conversing with a young 
 man stretched on a sofa opposite in a listless 
 attitude. The room was in perfect keeping 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 with the owner : there was neither velvet, nor 
 gilding, nor buhl, nor marquetrie — all of which 
 would have been inconsistent with the moderate 
 size of the apartment. But the furniture was 
 new, massive, costly, and luxurious without 
 the ostentation of luxury. A few good pic- 
 tures, and several exquisite busts and figures in 
 bronze, upon marble pedestals, gave something 
 classic and graceful to the aspect of the room. 
 In the back drawing-room, looking over Lord 
 Chesterfield's gardens, a small conservatory 
 connected with the window, filled with rich 
 exotics, made the only feature in the apartment 
 that might have seemed, to a fastidious person, 
 effeminate or unduly voluptuous. 
 
 Saville himself was about forty-seven years of 
 age : of a person slight and thin, without being 
 emaciated : a not ungraceful, though habitual 
 stoop, diminished his height, which might be a 
 little above the ordinary standard. In his
 
 GODOLPHIN. 219 
 
 youth he had been handsome ; but in his per- 
 son there was now little trace of any attraction 
 beyond that of a manner remarkably soft and in- 
 sinuating : yet in his narrow though high fore- 
 head — his sharp aquiline nose, grey eye, and 
 slightly sarcastic curve of lip, something of his 
 character betrayed itself. You saw, or fancied 
 you saw in them, the shrewdness, the delicacy 
 of tact ; the consciousness of duping others ; 
 the subtle and intuitive, yet bland and noiseless 
 penetration into the characters around him, — 
 which made the prominent features of his mind. 
 And indeed, of all qualities, dissimulation is 
 that which betrays itself the most often in the 
 physiognomy. -r- A fortunate thing, that the 
 long habit of betraying should find at times the 
 index in which to betray itself. 
 
 " But you don't tell me, my dear Godolphin," 
 said Saville, as he broke the toast into his cho- 
 colate, — " you don't tell me how the world 
 l2
 
 220 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 employed itself at Rome. Were there any of 
 the true calibre there ? — steady fellows, yet 
 ardent, like myself? — men who make us feel 
 our strength and put it forth — with whom we 
 cannot dally or idle — who require our coolness 
 of head, clearness of memory, ingenuity of 
 stratagem — in a word, men of my ART — the 
 art of play : — were there any such ?" 
 
 " Not many, but enough for honour ;" said 
 Godolphin : " for myself, I have long forsworn 
 gambling for profit," 
 
 " Ah ! I always thought you wanted that 
 perseverance which belongs to strength of cha- 
 racter. And how stand your resources now ? 
 Sufficient to recommence the world here with 
 credit and eclat V 
 
 " Ay, were I so disposed, Saville. But I 
 shall return to Italy, Within a month hence, 
 I shall depart." 
 
 "What! and only just arrived in town! 
 An heir in possession !"
 
 GODOLPHIN. 221 
 
 " Of what ?" 
 
 " The reputation of having succeeded to a 
 property, the extent of which, if wise, you will 
 tell to no one ! — Are you so young, Godolphin, 
 as to imagine that it signifies one crumb of this 
 bread what be the rent-roll of your estate, so 
 long as you can obtain credit for any sum to 
 which you are pleased to extend it ? — Credit ! 
 beautiful invention ! — the moral new world to 
 which we fly when banished from the old. 
 Credit ! — the true charity of Providence, by 
 which they who otherwise would starve live in 
 plenty, and despise the indigent rich. Credit ! 
 — admirable system, alike for those who live on 
 it and the wiser few who live by it. — Will you 
 borrow some money of me, Godolphin ?" 
 
 " At what per centage ?" 
 
 " Why, let me see : Funds are low ; I'll be 
 moderate. But stay ; be it with you as I did 
 with George Sinclair. You shall have all you
 
 222 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 want, and pay me with a premium, when you 
 marry an heiress. — Why, man, you wince at the 
 very word ( marry ! ' " 
 
 " 'Tis a sore subject, Saville : one that makes 
 a man think of halters." 
 
 " You are right : — I recognize my young 
 pupil. Your old play-writers talked nonsense 
 when they said men lost liberty of person by 
 marriage. Men lose liberty, but it is the 
 liberty of the mind. We cease to be independ- 
 ent of the world's word, when we grow respect- 
 able with a wife, a fat butler, two children, and 
 a family coach.— It makes a gentleman little 
 better than a grocer or a king ! But you have 
 seen Constance Vernon. — Why, out on this 
 folly, Godolphin ! You turn away. Do you 
 fancy that I did not penetrate your weakness 
 the moment you mentioned her name ? — still 
 less, do you fancy, my dear young friend, that I, 
 who have lived through nearly half a century, 
 and know our nature, and the whole thermometer
 
 GODOLPHIN. 223 
 
 of our blood, think one jot the worse of you 
 for forming a caprice, or a passion, if you will 
 — for a woman that would set an anchoret, or, 
 what is still colder, a worn-out debauchee, on 
 fire ? Bah ! Godolphin, I am wiser than you 
 take me for. And I will tell you more. For 
 your sake, I am happy that you have incurred 
 already this, our common, folly (which we all 
 have once in a life,) and that the fit is over. 
 I do not pry into your secrets ; I know their 
 delicacy. I do not ask which of you drew 
 back ; for, to have gone forward, to have mar- 
 ried, would have been madness for both. Nay, 
 it was an impossibility : it could not have hap- 
 pened to my pupil ; the ablest, the subtlest, 
 the wisest of my pupils. But, however it was 
 broken off, I repeat that I am glad it happen- 
 ed. One is never sure of a man's wisdom, till 
 he has been really and vainly in love. You 
 know what that moralizing lump of absurdity, 
 Lord Edouard, has said in the Julie; — 'the
 
 224 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 path of the passions conducts us to philoso- 
 phy I 1 It is true, very true : and now that the 
 path has been fairly trod, the goal is at hand. 
 Now, I can confide in your steadiness : now, I 
 can feel that you will run no chance, in future, 
 of over-appreciating that bauble, Woman. You 
 will beg, borrow, steal, and exchange, or lose 
 the jewel, with the same delicious excitement; 
 coupled with the same steady indifference, with 
 which we play at a more scientific game, and 
 for a more comprehensive reward. I say more 
 comprehensive reward ; for how many women 
 may we be able to buy by a judicious bet on 
 the odd trick !" 
 
 " Your turn is sudden," said Godolphin, 
 smiling, "and there is some justice in your 
 reasoning. The fit is over ; and if ever I can 
 be wise, I have entered on wisdom now. But 
 talk of this no more." 
 
 44 1 will not," said Saville, whose unerring tact
 
 GODOLPHIN. 225 
 
 had reached just the point where to stop, and 
 who had led Godolphin through just that vein 
 of conversation, half sentimentalizing, half sen- 
 sible, all profligate, which seldom fails to win 
 the ear of a man both of imagination and of 
 the world. " I will not ; and to vary the 
 topic, I will turn egoist, and tell you my ad- 
 ventures." 
 
 With this, Saville began a light and amus- 
 ing recital of his various and singular life for 
 the last three years. Anecdote, jest, maxim, 
 remark, interspersed, gave a zest and piquancy 
 to the narration. An accomplished rout al- 
 ways affects to moralize ; it is a part of his 
 character. There is a vague and shrewd senti- 
 ment that pervades his morale and his system. 
 Frequent excitement, and its attendant relaxa- 
 tion ; the conviction of the folly of all pur- 
 suits ; the insipidity of all life ; the hollowness 
 of all love ; the faithlessness in all ties ; the 
 L 5
 
 226 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 disbelief in all worth ; these consequences of a 
 dissipated existence on a thoughtful mind, pro- 
 duce some remarkable, while they make so 
 many wretched, characters. They coloured 
 some of the most attractive prose among the 
 French, and the most fascinating verse in the 
 pages of Byron. It might be asked, by a pro- 
 fane inquirer (and I have touched on this be- 
 fore,) what effect a life nearly similar — a life 
 of luxury, indolence, lassitude, profuse, but 
 heartless love, imparted to the deep and touch- 
 ing wisdom in his page, whom we consider the 
 wisest of men, and who has left us the most 
 melancholy of doctrines ? 
 
 It was this turn of mind that made Saville's 
 conversation peculiarly agreeable to Godolphin 
 in his present humour ; and the latter invested 
 it, from his own mood, with a charm which in 
 reality it wanted. For, as I shall show, in 
 Godolphin, what deterioration the habits of
 
 GODOLPHIN. 227 
 
 aristocratic life produce on the mind of a man 
 of genius, I show only in Saville, the effect 
 they produce on a man of sense. 
 
 " Well, Godolphin," said Saville, as he saw 
 the former rise to depart ; " you will at least 
 dine with me to-day — a punctual eight. I 
 think I can promise you an agreeable evening. 
 The Linettini, and that dear little Fanny Mil- 
 linger, (your old Jiame) are coming ; and I 
 have asked old Stracey, the poet, to say botis- 
 mots for them. Poor old Stracey ! He goe> 
 about to all his former friends and fellow- 
 liberals, boasting of his favour with the Great, 
 and does not see, that we only use him as we 
 would a puppet-show or a dancing-dog. 1 ' 
 
 " What folly," said Godolphin, « it is in 
 any man of genius (not also of birth) to think 
 the Great of this country can possibly esteem 
 him. Nothing can equal the secret enmity 
 with which our lazy Aristocracy regard and
 
 228 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 intellect above their comprehension. Party 
 Politics — and the tact, the shifting, the com- 
 mon-place that Party-politics alone require ; 
 these they can appreciate ; and they feel re- 
 spect for an orator — even though he be not a 
 County member; for he can assist them in 
 their paltry ambition for place and pension; 
 but an author, or a man of science — the dull 
 dogs positively jeer at him P 1 
 
 " And yet," said Saville, " how few men of 
 letters perceive a truth so evident to us, so 
 hackneyed even in the conversations of society. 
 For a little reputation at a dinner-table, for a 
 coaxing note from some titled demirep affecting 
 the De Stael, they forget not only to be glo- 
 rious, but even to be respectable. And this, 
 too, not only for so petty a gratification, but 
 for one that rarely lasts above a London season. 
 We allow the low-born author to be the lion this 
 year; but we dub him a bore the next. We
 
 GODOLPHIN. 229 
 
 shut our doors upon his twice-told jests, and 
 send for the Prague minstrels, to sing to us 
 after dinner, instead. 11 
 
 " However, 11 said Godolphin, " it is only 
 poets you find so foolish as to be deceived by 
 you. There is not a single prose writer, of 
 real genius, so absurd. 1 ' 
 
 " And why is that? 11 
 
 " Because, 11 replied Godolphin, philoso- 
 phizing, (i poets address themselves more to 
 women than men ; and insensibly they acquire 
 the weaknesses which they are accustomed to 
 address. A poet whose verses delight the 
 women will be found, if we closely analyse his 
 character, to be very like a woman himself.' 1 
 
 " You don't love poets ?" said Saville. 
 
 " The glory of old has departed from them. 
 1 mean less from their pages than their minds. 
 We have plenty of beautiful poets, but how 
 little poetry breathing of a great soul. 11
 
 230 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 Here the door opened, and a Mr. Glosson 
 was announced. — There entered a little, smirk- 
 ing, neat-dressed man — prim as a lawyer or a 
 house-agent. 
 
 " Ah, Glosson, is that you ?" said Saville, 
 with something like animation : " sit down, my 
 good sir, sit down. Well ! well ! (rubbing his 
 hands ;) what news ? what news ?" 
 
 " Why, Mr. Saville, I think we may get the 
 
 land from old N He has the right of 
 
 the job. I have been with him all this morn- 
 ing. He asks six thousand pounds for,it" 
 
 " The unconscionable dog ! — He got it from 
 the Crown for two." 
 
 " Ah, very true, very true : but you don't 
 see, sir — you don't see — that it is well worth 
 nine. Sad times — sad times : jobs from the 
 Crown are growing scarcer every day, Mr, 
 Saville. ,, 
 
 " Humph ! that's all a chance — a specula-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 231 
 
 tion. Times are bad, indeed, as you say : no 
 money in the market : go, Glosson ; offer him 
 five; your per-eentage shall be one per-cent 
 higher than if I pay six thousand, and shall be 
 counted up to the latter sum." 
 
 " He ! he ! he ! sir !" — grinned Glosson : — 
 " you are fond of your joke, Mr. Saville." 
 
 " Well now ; — what else in the market ? — 
 never mind my friend : — Mr. Godolphin — Mr. 
 Glosson; — now all gene is over: proceed — 
 proceed." 
 
 Glosson hummed, and bowed, and hummed 
 again, and then glided on to speak of houses, 
 and Crown lands, and properties in Wales, and 
 places at Court ; (for some of the subordinate 
 posts at the Palace were then — perhaps are 
 now — regular matter of barter :) and Saville, 
 bending over the table, with his thin delicate 
 hands clasped intently, and his brow denoting 
 his interest, and his sharp shrewd eye fixed on
 
 232 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the agent, furnished to the contemplative Go- 
 dolphin a picture which he did not fail to note, 
 to moralize on, to despise ! 
 
 What a spectacle is that of the prodigal 
 rake, hardening and sharpening into the grasp- 
 ing speculator !
 
 GODOLPHIN. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FANNY MILLINGER ONCE MORE. — LOVE. — WOMAN. 
 
 BOOKS. — A HUNDRED TOPICS TOUCHED ON THE SUR- 
 FACE. — GODOLPHIN'S STATE OF MIND MORE MI- 
 NUTELY EXAMINED THE DINNER AT SAVILLE'S. 
 
 Godolphin went to see, and converse with, 
 Fanny Millinger. She was still unmarried, 
 and still the fashion. There was a sort of al- 
 legory of real life — like that which Goethe 
 would affect — in the manner in which, at cer- 
 tain epochs of his existence, our Idealist was 
 brought into contact with the fair actress of 
 ideal creations. There was, in short, some- 
 thing of a moral in the way these two 
 streams of existence — the one belonging to the
 
 234 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 actual, the other to the imaginary — flowed on, 
 crossing each other at stated times. Which 
 was the most really imaginative — the life of the 
 stage, or that of the world's stage ? 
 
 The gay Fanny was rejoiced to welcome 
 back again her early lover. She ran on, talk- 
 ing of a thousand topics, without remarking 
 the absent mind and musing eye of Godol- 
 phin, till he himself stopped her somewhat 
 abruptly : — 
 
 " Well, Fanny, well, and what do you know 
 of Saville ? You have grown intimate with 
 him, eh ? We shall meet at his house this 
 evening. 1 ' 
 
 " Oh yes, he is a charming person in his 
 little way ; and the only man who allows me to 
 be a friend without dreaming of becoming a 
 lover. Now that's what I like. We poor 
 actresses have so much would-be love in the 
 course of our lives, that a little friendship now
 
 GODOLPHIN. 235 
 
 and then is a novelty which other and soberer 
 people can never enjoy. On reading ' Gil 
 Bias' the other day — I am no great reader, as 
 you may remember — I was struck by that part 
 in which the dear Santillane assures us that 
 there was never any love between him and 
 Laura, the actress. I thought it so true to 
 nature, — so probable — that they should have 
 formed so strong an intimacy for each other — 
 lived in the same house — had every oppor- 
 tunity for love — yet never loved. And it was 
 exactly because she was an actress, and a light 
 good-for-nothing creature, that it so happened ; 
 the very multiplicity of lovers prevented her 
 falling in love : the very carelessness of her life, 
 poor girl, rendered a friend so charming to her. 
 It would have spoiled the friend to have made 
 him an adorer : it would have turned the rarity 
 into the every-day character. Now, so it is 
 with me and Saville ; — I like his wit — he likes
 
 236 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 my good temper. We see each other as often 
 as if we were in love ; and yet I do not believe 
 it even possible that he should ever kiss my 
 hand. After all," continued Fanny, laughing, 
 " love is not so necessary to us women as peo- 
 ple think. Fine writers say, ' oh, men have a 
 thousand objects — women but one!' That's 
 nonsense, dear Percy ; women have their thou- 
 sand objects too. They have not the Bar, but 
 they have the milliner's shop : they can't fight, 
 but they can sit by the window and embroider 
 a work-bag: they don't rush into politics, but 
 they plunge their souls into love for a parrot 
 or a lap-dog. Don't let men flatter themselves : 
 Providence has been just as kind in that re- 
 spect to one sex as to the other : our objects are 
 small— yours great ; but a small object may 
 occupy the mind just as much as the loftiest." 
 
 " Ours great ! psha ! " said Godolphin, who 
 was rather struck with Fanny's remarks ;
 
 GODOLPHIN. 237 
 
 " there is nothing great in those professions 
 which man is pleased to extol. Is selfishness 
 great? Is the low trickery, the organized lies, 
 of the Bar, a great calling ? Is the mechanical 
 slavery of the soldier — fighting because he is 
 in the way of fighting — without knowing the 
 cause — without an object, save a dim, foolish 
 vanity which he calls glory, and can't analyze 
 — is that a great aim and vocation ? Well : the 
 senate ! look at the outcry which wise men 
 make against the loathsome corruption of that 
 arena; then look at the dull hours, the tedious 
 talk, the empty boasts, the poor and flat re- 
 wards, and tell me where is the greatness ? — 
 No, Fanny ! the embroidered work-bag, and 
 the petted parrot, afford just as great — moral- 
 ly great — occupations, as those of the Bar, the 
 Army, the Senate. It is only the frivolous who 
 talk of frivolities : there is nothing frivolous : 
 all earthly occupations are on a par — alike
 
 238 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 important if they alike occupy ; for, to the 
 wise, all are poor and valueless." 
 
 " I fancy you are very wrong," said the 
 actress, pressing her pretty fingers to her fore- 
 head, as if to understand him ; " but I cannot 
 tell you why, and I never argue. I ramble on 
 in my odd way, casting out my shrewd things 
 without defending them, if any one chooses to 
 quarrel with them. What I do, I let others 
 do. My maxim in talk is my maxim in life. 
 I claim liberty for myself, and give indulgence 
 to others." 
 
 " I see," said Godolphin, " that you have 
 plenty of books about you, though you plead 
 not guilty to reading. Do you learn your 
 philosophy from them ? — for I think you have 
 contracted a vein of reflection, since we parted, 
 which I scarcely recognize as an old charac- 
 teristic." 
 
 " Why," answered Fanny, " though I don't
 
 GODOLPHIN. 239 
 
 read, I skim. Sometimes I canter through a 
 dozen novels in a morning. I am disappointed, 
 I confess, 'in all these works. I want to see 
 more real knowledge of the world than they 
 ever display. They tell us how Lord Arthur 
 looked, and Lady Lucy dressed, and what was 
 the colour of those curtains, and these eyes, 
 and so forth : and then the better sort, perhaps, 
 do also tell us what the heroine felt as well as 
 wore ; and try with might and main to pull 
 some string of the internal machine ; but still I 
 am not enlightened — not touched. I don't re- 
 cognize men and women: they are puppets, 
 with holiday phrases : and I tell you what, 
 Percy, these novelists make the last mistake 
 you would suppose them guilty of; — they have 
 not romance enough in them to paint the 
 truths of society. Old gentlemen say novels 
 are bad teachers of life because they make it 
 too ideal : quite the reverse : novels are too
 
 240 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 trite ! — too superficial ! their very talk about 
 love, and the fuss they make about it, show 
 how shallow real romance is with them — for 
 they say nothing new on it, and real romance is 
 for ever striking out new thoughts. Am I not 
 right, Percy? — No! life — be it worldly as it 
 may— has a vast deal of romance in it. Every 
 one of us (even poor I) have a mine of thoughts, 
 and fancies, and wishes, that books are too dull 
 and commonplace to reach : the heart is a ro- 
 mance in itself."" 
 
 " A philosophical romance, my Fanny, full 
 of mysteries, and conceits, and refinements, 
 mixed up with its deeper passages. But how 
 came you so wise ?" 
 
 " Thank you !" answered Fanny, with a 
 profound courtesy. " The fact is — though 
 you, as in duty bound, don't perceive it 
 — that I am older than I was when we last 
 met. I reflect where I then felt. Besides,
 
 GODOLPHIN. 241 
 
 the stage fills our heads with a half sort of 
 wisdom, and gives us that strange melange 
 of shrewd experience and romantic notions 
 which is, in fact, the real representation 
 of nine human hearts out of ten. Talking of 
 books, and my dear Gil Bias, I want some 
 one to write a novel, which shall be a meta- 
 physical Gil Bias ; which shall deal more with 
 the mind than Le Sage's book, and less with 
 the actions ; which shall make its hero the 
 creature of the world, but a different creation, 
 though equally true ; which shall give a faith- 
 ful picture, in the character of one man, of 
 the aspect and the effects of our social system ; 
 making that man of a better sort of clay than 
 the amusing lacquey was, and the product of 
 a more artificial grade of society. The book 
 I mean would be a sadder one than Le Sage's, 
 but equally faithful to life." 
 vol. I. M
 
 242 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " And it would have more of romance, if 
 I rightly understand what you mean ?" 
 
 iS Precisely : romance of idea as well as in- 
 cident — natural romance. By the way, how 
 few know what natural romance is : so that 
 you feel the ideas in a book or play are true 
 and faithful to the characters they are ascribed 
 to, why mind whether the incidents are pro- 
 bable ? Yet common readers only go by the 
 incidents ; as if the incidents, in three-fourths 
 of Shakspeare's plays, were even ordinarily 
 possible ! But people have so little nature in 
 them, that they don't know what is natural !" 
 
 Thus Fanny ran on, in no very connected 
 manner; stringing together those remarks 
 which, unless I am mistaken, show how much 
 better an uneducated, clever girl, whose very 
 nature is a quick perception of art, can play 
 the critic, than the pedants who assume the 
 office.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 243 
 
 But it was only for the moment that the 
 heavy heart of Godolphin could forget its load. 
 It was in vain that he sought to be amused, 
 while yet smarting under the freshness of 
 regret. A great shock had been given to his 
 nature ; he had loved against his will ; and 
 as we have seen, on his return to the Priory, 
 he had even resolved on curing himself of a 
 passion so unprofitable and unwise. But the 
 jealousy of a night had shivered into dust a pru- 
 dence, which never of right belonged to a very 
 ardent and generous nature : that jealousy was 
 soothed, allayed ; but how fierce, how stun- 
 ning, was the blow that succeeded it ! Con- 
 stance had confessed love, and yet had refused 
 him — for ever ! Clear and noble as, to her- 
 self, her motives might seem in that refusal, 
 it was impossible that they should appear in 
 the same light to Godolphin. Unable to pene- 
 trate into the effect which her father's death- 
 M 2
 
 244 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 bed, and her own oath, had produced on the 
 mind of Constance ; how indissolubly that 
 remembrance had united itself with all her 
 schemes and prospects for the future; how 
 marvellously, yet how naturally, it had con- 
 verted worldly ambition into a sacred duty ; — 
 unable, I say, to comprehend all these various, 
 and powerful, and governing motives, Godolphin 
 beheld in her refusal only the aversion to share 
 his slender income, and the desire for loftier 
 station. He considered, therefore, that sorrow 
 was a tribute to her unworthy of himself; 
 he deemed it a part of his dignity, to strive 
 to forget. That balmy and hallowed senti- 
 ment which, in some losses of the heart, makes 
 it a duty to remember, and preaches a sooth- 
 ing and soft lesson from the very text of re- 
 gret, was not for the wrung and stricken soul 
 of Godolphin. He only strove to dissipate 
 his grief, and shut out from his mental sight
 
 GODOLPHIN. 245 
 
 the charmed vision of the first, the only wo- 
 man he had deeply loved. 
 
 Godolphin felt too, that the sole impulse 
 which could have united the fast-expiring 
 energy and enterprize of his youth to the am- 
 bition of life was for ever gone. With Con- 
 stance — with the proud thoughts that belonged 
 to her — the aspirings after earthly honours were 
 linked, and with her were broken. He felt his 
 old philosophy — the love of ease, the profound 
 contempt for fame, — close, like the deep waters 
 over those glittering hosts for whose passage 
 they had been severed for a moment — whelming 
 the crested and gorgeous visions for ever be- 
 neath the wave ! Conscious of his talents—nay, 
 swayed to and fro by the unquiet stirrings of 
 no common genius — Godolphin yet foresaw that 
 he was not henceforth destined to play a shin- 
 ing part in the crowded drama of life. His ca- 
 reer was already closed : he might be contented
 
 246 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 — prosperous — happy ; but never great. He 
 had seen enough of authors, and of the thorns 
 that beset the paths of literature, to experience 
 none of those delusions which cheat the blinded 
 aspirer into the wilderness of publication — that 
 mode of obtaining fame and hatred to which 
 those who feel unfitted for more bustling con- 
 cerns are impelled. Write he might : and he 
 was fond, (as disappointment increased his pro- 
 pensities to dreaming,) of brightening his soli- 
 tude with the golden palaces and winged shapes 
 that lie glassed within the fancy — the soul's 
 fairy-land. But the vision with him was 
 only evoked one hour to be destroyed the next. 
 Happy had it been for Godolphin, and not 
 unfortunate perhaps for the world, had he 
 learned at that exact moment the true motive 
 for human action which he afterwards, and too 
 late, discovered. Happy had it been for him 
 to have learned that there is an ambition to do
 
 GODOLPHIN. 247 
 
 Hood — an ambition to raise the wretched as well 
 
 o 
 
 as to rise. 
 
 Alas ! — either in letters or in politics, how 
 utterly poor, barren, and untempting, is every 
 path that points upward to the mockery of 
 public eminence, when looked upon by a soul 
 that has any real elements of wise or noble ; 
 unless we have an impulse within, which mor- 
 tification chills not — a reward without, which 
 selfish defeat does not destroy. 
 
 But, unblest by one friend really wise or 
 good, spoilt by the world, soured by disap- 
 pointment, Godolphin's very faculties made him 
 inert, and his very wisdom taught him to be use- 
 less. Again and again, — as the spider in some 
 cell where no winged insect ever wanders, builds 
 and rebuilds its mesh, — the scheming heart of 
 the Idealist was doomed to weave net after net 
 for those visions of the Lovely and the Perfect 
 which never can descend to the gloomy regions
 
 248 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 wherein mortality is cast. The most common 
 disease to genius is nympholepsy — the sadden- 
 ing for a spirit that the world knows not. Ah ! 
 how those outward disappointments which 
 should cure, only feed the disease ! 
 
 The dinner at Saville's was gay and lively, 
 as such entertainments with such participators 
 usually are. If nothing in the world is more 
 heavy than your formal banquet, — nothing, on 
 the other hand, is more agreeable than those 
 well-chosen laissez aller feasts at which the 
 guests are as happily selected as the wines ; 
 where there is no form, no reserve, no effort ; 
 and people, having met to sit still for a few 
 hours, are willing to be as pleasant to each 
 other as if they were never to meet again. Yet 
 the conversation in all companies not literary 
 turns upon persons rather than things ; 
 and your wits learn their art only in the School 
 for Scandal.
 
 GODOLPHIX. 249 
 
 " Only think, Fanny," said Saville, " of 
 Clavers turning beau in his old age. He com- 
 menced with being a jockey ; then he became 
 an electioneerer ; then a methodist parson ; 
 then a builder of houses ; and now he has 
 dashed suddenly up to London, rushed into the 
 clubs, mounted a wig, studied an ogle, and walks 
 about the Opera-House swinging a cane, and, 
 at the age of fifty-six, punching young minors 
 in the side, and saying tremulously, ' We 
 young fellows ! 1 " 
 
 " He hires pages to come to him in the park 
 with three-cornered notes," said Fanny : " he 
 opens each with affected nonchalance; looks 
 full at the bearer ; and cries aloud — ' Tell your 
 mistress I cannot refuse her:' — then canters off, 
 with the air of a man persecuted a la mort ! n 
 
 " But did you see what an immense pair of 
 whiskers Chester has mounted ? " 
 
 44 Yes," 11 answered a Mr. De Lacy ; " A ■ 
 
 M 5
 
 250 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 says he has cultivated them in order to ' plant 
 out 1 his ugliness." 
 
 "Ha! ha! just hear De Lacy. He is so 
 ashamed of saying a good thing, that he always 
 
 fathers his own bans mots upon A . A 
 
 is, in reality, the stupidest dog in the world ; and 
 De Lacy has gone wickedly about setting him 
 
 up for a wit. Poor A is quite annoyed by 
 
 it. He can't open his silly mouth but what 
 every body stops eating to gape at him, and 
 catch the < folly as it flies. 1 " 
 
 " De man is ver hete" said the Linettini 
 gently : " but vy you no talk, Monsieur de 
 Dauphin?' 1 turning to Percy; "you ver si- 
 lent. 11 
 
 " Unhappily, I have been so long out of 
 town, that these anecdotes of the day are ca- 
 viare to me. 11 
 
 " But so," cried Saville, " would a volume 
 of French Memoirs be to any one that took it
 
 GODOLPHIN. 251 
 
 up for the first time ; yet the French Memoirs 
 amuse one exactly as much as if one had 
 lived with the persons written of. Now, that 
 ought to be the case with conversations upon 
 persons. I flatter myself, Fanny, that you 
 and I hit off characters so well by a word or 
 two, that no one who hears us wants to know 
 any thing more about them.'' 
 
 " I believe you," said Godolphin, " and 
 that is the reason you never talk of yourselves."' 
 
 " Bah ! Apropos of egoists, did you meet 
 George Barabel in Rome ?" 
 
 " Yes, writing his travels. ' Pray,"* said he 
 to me, (seizing me by the button) in the Colis- 
 seum, ' what do you think is the highest order 
 of literary composition P 1 s Why, an epic, I 
 fancy,' said I ; ' or perhaps a tragedy, or a 
 great history, or a novel like Don Quixote.' 
 1 Pooh V quoth Barabel, looking important, 
 ' there's nothing so high in literature as a good
 
 252 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 book of travels; 1 then, sinking his voice into a 
 whisper, and laying his finger wisely on his nose, 
 he hissed out, ' / have a quarto, Sir, in the 
 press V " 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" laughed Stracey, the old wit, 
 picking his teeth, and speaking for the first 
 time, "if you tell Barabel you have seen a 
 handsome woman, he says, mysteriously frown- 
 ing, ' Handsome, Sir ! has she travelled ? an- 
 swer me that V n 
 
 '' But have you seen Paulton's new equi- 
 page ? Brown carriage, brown liveries, brown 
 harness, brown horses, while Paulton and his 
 wife sit within dressed in brown, cap-a-pie. 
 The best of it is that Paulton went to his 
 coachmaker, to order his carriage, saying, 
 ' Mr. Houlditch, I am growing old, — too old to 
 be eccentric any longer ; I must have some- 
 thing remarkably plain ;' and to this hour 
 Paulton goes brown-\x\g about the town, crying
 
 GODOLPHIN. 253 
 
 out to every one, i Nothing like simplicity, 
 believe me. 1 " 
 
 " He discharged his coachman for wearing 
 white gloves instead of brown/' said Stracey. 
 " ' What do you mean, sir, 1 cried he, ' with 
 your damned showy vulgarities ? — don't you 
 see me toiling my soul out to be plain and 
 quiet, and you must spoil all, by not being 
 brown enough f " 
 
 " Ah, Godolphin, you seem pensive," whis- 
 pered Fanny ; " yet we are tolerably amusing, 
 too." 
 
 " My dear Fanny," answered Godolphin, 
 rousing himself, " the dialogue is gay, the 
 actors know their parts, the lights are bril- 
 liant; but — the scene — the scene cannot shift 
 for me ! Call it what you will, I am not de- 
 ceived. I see the paint and the canvass, but — 
 and yet, away these thoughts ! Shall I fill 
 your glass, Fanny ?
 
 254 
 
 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 AX EVENT OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO THE PRINCIPAL 
 
 ACTORS IN THIS HISTORY GODOLPHIN A SECOND 
 
 TIME LEAVES ENGLAND. 
 
 Go DOLPHIN was welcomed with enthusiasm 
 by the London world. His graces, his man- 
 ners, his genius, his bon ton, and his bonnes 
 fort unes , were the theme of every society. 
 Verses imputed to him, — some erroneously, 
 some truly, — were mysteriously circulated from 
 hand to hand ; and every one envied the fair 
 inspirers to whom they were supposed to be 
 addressed.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 255 
 
 It is not my intention to reiterate the weari- 
 some echo of novelists, who descant on fashion, 
 and term it life. No description of rose-co- 
 loured curtains and buhl cabinets, no miniature 
 paintings of boudoirs and salons, no recital of 
 conventional insipidities, interlarded with affected 
 criticisms, and honoured by the name of dra- 
 matic dialogue, shall lend their fascination to 
 these pages. Far other and far deeper aims 
 are mine in stooping to delineate the customs 
 and springs of aristocratic life. The reader 
 must give himself wholly up to me ; he must 
 prepare to go with me through the grave as 
 through the gay, and unresistingly to thread 
 the dark and subtle interest which alone I can 
 impart to these memoirs, or — let him close the 
 book at once. I promise him novelty; but it 
 is not, when duly scanned, a novelty of a light 
 and frivolous cast. 
 
 But throughout that routine of dissipation
 
 256 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 in which he chased the phantom Forgetful- 
 ness, Godolphin sighed for the time he had 
 fixed on for leaving the scenes in which it was 
 pursued. Of Constance's present existence, he 
 heard nothing; of her former triumphs and 
 conquests he heard everywhere. And when 
 did he ever meet one face, however fair, which 
 could awaken a single thought of admiration, 
 while her's was yet all faithfully glassed in his 
 remembrance ? I know nothing that so utterly 
 converts society into " the gallery of pictures, 51 
 as the recollection of one loved and lost. That 
 recollection has but two cures ; Time and the 
 Hermitage. Foreigners impute to us the turn 
 for sentiment ; alas ! there are no people who 
 have it less. We seek for ever after amuse- 
 ment ; and there is not one popular prose 
 book in our language, in which the more ten- 
 der and yearning secrets of the heart form 
 the subject matter. The " Corinne" and the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 257 
 
 "Julie" weary us, or we turn them into sorry 
 jests ! 
 
 One evening, a little before his departure 
 from England — that a lingering and vague hope 
 of which Constance was the object, had con- 
 siderably protracted beyond the allotted time, 
 Godolphin was at a house in which the hostess 
 was a relation to Lord Erpingham. 
 
 " Have you heard, 11 asked Lady G , 
 
 " that my cousin Erpingham is to be mar- 
 ried ?" 
 
 " No, indeed ; to whom ?" said Godolphin, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " To Miss Vernon." 
 
 Sudden as was the shock, Godolphin heard, 
 and changed neither hue nor muscle. 
 
 " Are you certain of this ?" asked a lady 
 present. 
 
 " Quite : Lady Erpingham is my authority ; 
 I received the news from herself this very 
 day."
 
 258 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " And does she seem pleased with the 
 match ?" 
 
 " Why, I can scarcely say, for the letter 
 contradicts itself in every passage. Now, she 
 congratulates herself on having so charming 
 a daughter-in-law ; now, she suddenly stops 
 short to observe what a pity it is that young 
 men should be so precipitate ! Now, she says 
 what a great match it will be for her dear 
 ward ! and now, what a happy one it will be 
 for Erpingham ! In short, she does not know 
 whether to be pleased or vexed : and that, pour 
 dire vrai, is my case also." 
 
 " Why, indeed," observed the former speaker, 
 " Miss Vernon has played her cards well. Lord 
 Erpingham would have been a great match in 
 himself, with his person and reputation. Ah ! 
 she was always an ambitious girl." 
 
 " And a proud one," said Lady G ; 
 
 " well, I suppose Erpingham House will be 
 the rendezvous to all the Blues, and wits, and
 
 GODOLPHIN. 259 
 
 savans. Miss Vernon is another Aspasia, I 
 hear." 
 
 " I hate girls who are so designing," said 
 the lady who spoke before, and had only one 
 daughter, very ugly, who, at the age of thirty- 
 five, was about to accept her first offer, and 
 marry a younger son in the Guards ; " I 
 think she 's rather vulgar ; for my part, I 
 doubt if — I shall patronize her.'" 
 
 <; Well, what do you think of it, Mr. Go- 
 dolphin ? — you have seen Miss Vernon ?" 
 
 Godolphin was gone. 
 
 It was about ten days after this conversation 
 that Godolphin, waiting at a Hotel in Dover, 
 the hour at which the packet set sail for Calais, 
 took up the " Morning Post ;" and the first 
 passage that met his eye, was the one which 
 I transcribe : — 
 
 " Marriage in High Life. — On Thursday 
 last, at Wendover Castle, the Earl of Erping- 
 ham to Constance, only daughter of the cele-
 
 260 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 brated Mr. Vernon. The bride was dressed, 
 &c. — " and then followed the trite, yet pom- 
 pous pageantry of words — the sounding no- 
 things — with which ladies who become Coun- 
 tesses are knelled into marriage. 
 
 "The dream is over!" said Godolphin, 
 mournfully, as the paper fell to the ground ; 
 and, burying his face within his hands, he re- 
 mained motionless till they came to announce 
 the moment of departure. 
 
 And thus Percy Godolphin left, for the se- 
 cond time, his native shores. When we return 
 to him, what changes will the feelings, now 
 awakened within him, have worked in his cha- 
 racter ! The drops that trickle within the 
 cavern harden, yet brighten into spars as they 
 indurate. Nothing is more polished, nothing 
 more cold, than that wisdom which is the 
 work of former tears, of former passions, and 
 is formed within a musing and solitary mind !
 
 GODOLPHIN. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE BRIDE ALONE. — A DIALOGUE POLITICAL AND MA- 
 TRIMONIAL. — Constance's genius for diplomacy.— 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF HER ASSEMBLIES. — HER CON- 
 QUEST OVER LADY DELVILLE. 
 
 " Bring me that book ; place that table 
 nearer ; and leave me." 
 
 The abigail obeyed the orders, and the young 
 Countess of Erpingham was alone. — Alone ! 
 what a word for a young and beautiful bride 
 in the first months of her marriage ! Alone, 
 and in the heart of that mighty city in which 
 rank and wealth — and they were her's — are the 
 idols all worship, all throng around.
 
 262 GODOLPIIIN. 
 
 It was a room fancifully and splendidly de- 
 corated. Flowers and perfumes were, however, 
 its chief luxury ; and from the open window 
 you might see the trees in the old mall deep- 
 ening into the rich verdure of June. That 
 haunt, too — a classical haunt for London — was 
 at the hour I speak of full of gay and idle life ; 
 and there was something fresh and joyous in the 
 air, the sun, .and the crowd of foot and horse 
 that swept below. 
 
 Was the glory gone from your brow, Con- 
 stance ? — or the proud gladness from your eye? 
 Alas ! are not the blessings of the world like 
 the enchanted bullets ? — that which pierces our 
 heart is united with the gift which our heart 
 desired ! 
 
 Lord Erpingham entered the room. — " Well, 
 Constance," said he, " shall you ride on horse- 
 back to-day ?" 
 
 " I think not."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 263 
 
 " Then I wish you would call on Lady 
 
 Delville You see, Delville is of my party : 
 
 we sit together. You should be very civil to 
 her, and I did not think you w r ere so the other 
 night." 
 
 " You wish Lady Delville to support your 
 political interest; and, if I mistake not, you 
 think her at present lukewarm." 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Then, my dear lord, will you place con- 
 fidence in my discretion ? I promise you, if 
 you will leave me undisturbed in my own 
 plans, that Lady Delville shall be the most 
 devoted of your party before the season is half 
 over : but then, the means will not be those you 
 advise." 
 
 " Why, I advised none.' 1 
 
 " Yes — civility; — a very poor policy — " 
 
 " D n it, Constance ! why you would not 
 
 frown a great person like Lady Delville into 
 affection for us."
 
 264 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " Leave it to me." 
 
 " Nonsense!" 
 
 " My dear lord, only try. Three months is 
 all I ask. You will leave the management of 
 politics to me ever afterwards ! I was born 
 a schemer. Am I not John Vernon's daugh- 
 ter?' 1 
 
 " Well, well, do as you will !" said Lord 
 Erpingham : — " But I see how it will end. — 
 However, you will call on Lady Delville to- 
 day ?" 
 
 " If you wish it, certainly. 1 * 
 
 " I do." 
 
 Lady Delville was a proud, great lady ; not 
 very much liked, and not so often invited by 
 her equals as if she had been agreeable and a 
 flirt. 
 
 Constance knew with whom she had to treat. 
 She called on Lady Delville that day. Lady 
 Delville was at home: a pretty and popular 
 Mrs. Trevor was with her.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 265 
 
 Lady Delville received her coolly — Con- 
 stance was haughtiness itself. 
 
 " You go to the Duchess of Daubigny's to- 
 night." said Lady Delville, in the course of their 
 broken conversation. 
 
 " Indeed I do not. I like agreeable society. 
 It shall be my object to form a circle that not 
 one displeasing person shall obtain access to. 
 Will you assist me, my dear Mrs. Trevor ?" — 
 and Constance turned, with her softest smile, 
 to the lady she addressed. 
 
 Mrs. Trevor was flattered: Lady Delville 
 drew herself up. 
 
 " It is a small party at the Duchess's/' said 
 the latter ; " merely to meet the Duke and 
 Duchess of C ." 
 
 " Ah ! few people are capable of giving a 
 suitable entertainment to the royal family." 
 
 " But surely none more so than the Duchess 
 of Daubigny : — her house so large, her rank so 
 great." 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 " These are but poor ingredients towards 
 the forming of an agreeable party," said Con- 
 stance coldly. " The mistake made by com- 
 mon minds is, to suppose titles the only rank. 
 Royal dukes love, above all other persons, to 
 be amused ; and amusement is the last thing 
 generally provided for them." 
 
 The conversation fell into other channels. 
 Constance rose to depart. She warmly pressed 
 the hand of Mrs. Trevor, whom she had only 
 seen once before. 
 
 " A few persons come to me to-morrow even- 
 ing," said she ; " do waive ceremony, and join 
 us. I can promise you that not one disagree- 
 able person shall be present ; and that the 
 Duchess of Daubigny shall write for an in- 
 vitation, and be refused." 
 
 Mrs. Trevor accepted the invitation. 
 
 Lady Delville was enraged beyond measure. 
 Never was female tongue more bitter than
 
 GODOLPHIN. 267 
 
 her's at the expense of that insolent Lady Er- 
 pingham ! Yet Lady Delville was secretly in 
 grief; for the first time in her life, she was 
 hurt at not having been asked to a party : 
 and being hurt because she was not going, 
 she longed most eagerly to go. 
 
 The next evening came. Erpingham House 
 was not large, but it was well adapted for the 
 description of assembly its beautiful owner 
 had invited. Statues, busts, pictures, books, 
 scattered or arranged about the apartments, 
 furnished matter for intellectual conversation, 
 or gave at least an intellectual air to the 
 meeting. 
 
 About a hundred persons were present. 
 They were culled from the most distinguished 
 ornaments of the time. Musicians, painters, 
 authors, orators, fine gentlemen, dukes, princes, 
 and beauties. One thing, however, was im- 
 peratively necessary in order to admit them 
 N 2
 
 268 GODOLPHIX. 
 
 — the profession of liberal opinions. No Tory, 
 however wise, eloquent, or beautiful, could 
 have obtained the sesame to those apartments. 
 
 Constance never seemed more lovely, and 
 never before was she so winning. The cold- 
 ness and the arrogance of her manner were 
 wholly vanished. To every one she spoke ; 
 and to every one her voice, her manner, were 
 kind, cordial, familiar ; but familiar with a 
 soft dignity, that heightened the charm. Am- 
 bitious not only to please but to dazzle, she 
 breathed into her conversation all the grace 
 and culture of her mind. They who admired 
 her the most, were the most accomplished 
 themselves. Now exchanging with foreign no- 
 bles that brilliant trifling of the world in which 
 there is often so much penetration, wisdom, 
 and research into character ; now with a 
 kindling eye and animated cheek, commenting 
 with poets and critics, on literature and the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 269 
 
 arts ; now, in a more remote and quiet corner, 
 seriously discussing, with hoary politicians, 
 those affairs in which even they allowed her 
 shrewdness and her grasp of intellect ; and 
 combining with every grace and every accom- 
 plishment, a rare and dazzling order of beauty 
 — we may readily imagine the sensation she 
 created, and the sudden and novel zest which 
 so splendid an Armida must have given to 
 the tameness of society. 
 
 The whole of the next week, the party at 
 Erpingham House was the theme of every 
 conversation. Each person who had been 
 there, had met the lion he had been most 
 anxious to see. The beauty had conversed 
 with the poet, who had charmed her ; the 
 young debutant in science had paid homage 
 to the great professor of its loftiest mysteries ; 
 the statesman had thanked the author who had 
 defended his measures ; the author had been
 
 270 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 delighted with the compliment of the states- 
 man. Every one then agreed that, while the 
 highest rank in the kingdom had been there, 
 rank had been the least attraction ; and those 
 who before had found Constance repellent, 
 were the very persons who now expatiated with 
 the greatest rapture on the sweetness of her 
 manners. Then, too, every one who had been 
 admitted to the coterie, dwelt on the rarity of 
 the admission ; and thus, all the world were 
 dying for an introduction to Erpingham House 
 — partly because it was agreeable — principally, 
 because it was difficult. 
 
 It soon became a compliment to the under- 
 standing to say of a person, " He goes to 
 Lady Erpingham "s !" They who valued them- 
 selves on their understandings moved Heaven 
 and earth to become popular with the beau- 
 tiful Countess. Lady Delville was not asked ; 
 Lady Delville was furious : she affected dis-
 
 GODOLPHIN. 271 
 
 dain, but no one gave her credit for it. Lord 
 Erpingham teazed Constance on this point. 
 
 " You see I was right ; for you have affront- 
 ed Lady Delville. She has made Delville look 
 coolly on me; in a few weeks lie will be a 
 Tory : think of that, Lady Erpingham !" 
 
 " One month more," answered Constance, 
 with a smile, " and you shall see." 
 
 One night, Lady Delville and Lady Erping- 
 ham met at a large party. The latter seated 
 herself by her haughty enemy : not seeming to 
 heed her coolness, Constance entered into con- 
 versation with her. She dwelt upon books, 
 pictures, music : her manner was animated, 
 and her wit playful. Pleased, in spite of her- 
 self, Lady Delville warmed from her reserve. 
 
 " My dear Lady Delville," said Constance, 
 suddenly turning her bright countenance on 
 the Whig Countess with an expression of de- 
 lighted surprise; " will you forgive me? — I
 
 272 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 never dreamt before that you were so charming 
 a person ! I never conceal my sentiments ; and 
 I own with regret and shame that, till this mo- 
 ment, I had never seen in your mind — what- 
 ever I might in your person — those claims to 
 admiration which were constantly dinned into 
 my ear." 
 
 Lady Delville actually coloured. 
 
 " Pray," continued Constance, " condescend 
 to permit me to a nearer acquaintance. Will 
 you dine with us on Thursday? — we shall have 
 only nine persons besides yourself: but they 
 are the nine persons whom I most esteem and 
 admire." 
 
 Lady Delville accepted the invitation. From 
 that hour, Lady Delville — who had at first 
 resented, from the deepest recess of her heart, 
 Constance Vernon's accession to rank and 
 wealth — who, had Constance deferred to her 
 early acquaintance, would have always found
 
 GODOLPHIN. c 21iS 
 
 something in her she could have affected to 
 despise ; — from that hour, Lady Delville was 
 the warmest advocate, and, a little time after, 
 the sincerest follower of the youthful Countess. 
 
 N 5
 
 274 GODOLPHIN 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 AN INSIGHT INTO THE HEAL Grand Monde ; — BEING A 
 SEARCH BEHIND THE ROSE-COLOURED CURTAINS — 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A CERTAIN INSTITUTION. 
 
 The time we now speak of was the most 
 brilliant the English world, during the last 
 half century, has known. Lord Byron was in 
 his brief and dazzling zenith : De Stael was in 
 London : the Peace had turned the attention of 
 rich idlers to social enjoyment and to letters. 
 There was an excitement, and a brilliancy, and 
 a spirituality, about our circles, which we do 
 not recognise now. Never had a young and 
 ambitious woman — a beauty and a genius
 
 GODOLPHIN. 275 
 
 — a finer moment for the commencement 
 of her power. It was Constance's early and 
 bold resolution to push to the utmost — even to 
 exaggeration — a power existing in all polished 
 states, but now mostly in this, — the power of 
 Fashion ! This mysterious and subtle engine 
 she was eminently skilled to move according to 
 her will. Her intuitive penetration into cha- 
 racter, her tact, and her grace, were exactly the 
 talents Fashion most demands ; and they were 
 at present devoted only to that sphere. The 
 rudeness that she mingled, at times, with the 
 bewitching softness and ease of manner she 
 could command at others, increased the effect 
 of her power. It is much to intimidate as well 
 as to win. And her rudeness in a very little 
 while grew popular ; for it was never exercised 
 but on those whom the world loves to see hum- 
 bled. Modest merit in any rank ; and even 
 insolence, if accompanied with merit, were
 
 276 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 always safe from her satire. It was the hau- 
 teur of foolish duchesses or purse-proud rotu- 
 riers that she loved, and scrupled not, to abase. 
 
 And the independence of her character was 
 mixed with extraordinary sweetness of temper. 
 Constance could not be in a passion : it was 
 out of her nature. If she was stung, she 
 could utter a sarcasm ; but she could not 
 frown, or exalt her voice. There was that 
 magic in her, that she was always feminine. 
 She did not stare young men out of counte- 
 nance ; she never addressed them by their 
 christian names ; she never flirted — never co- 
 quetted: the bloom and flush of modesty was 
 fet all virgin upon her youth. She, the founder 
 of a new dynasty, avoided what her successors 
 and contemporaries have deemed it necessary to 
 incur. She was the leader of fashion; but— it 
 is a miraculous union — she was respectable ! 
 
 At this period, some new dances were
 
 GODOLPHIN. 277 
 
 brought into England. These dances found 
 much favour in the eyes of several great ladies 
 young enough to dance them, They met at each 
 other's houses in the morning, to practise the 
 steps. Among these was Lady Erpingham ; her 
 house became the favourite rendezvous. 
 
 What singular anecdotes may be referred to 
 
 that day ! Lord Byron was wooing Lady 
 
 who was one of the coterie ; and he used some- 
 times to attend these rehearsals, for the pur- 
 pose of meeting her. One day he said to her, 
 
 " My God ! can you love this wretched 
 amusement V 
 
 " Nay, why not learn to dance yourself, 
 and shame the vulgar, who fancy you can 
 never be gay ?" 
 
 " I dance !" he said, turning white with 
 suppressed rage, and glancing to the fatal 
 foot — " I dance ! I — whom God cursed with 
 deformity—- 27"
 
 278 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 The poor lady was awed from the practice 
 from that hour. 
 
 The young Marquis of Partington was one 
 of the little knot. Celebrated for his great 
 fortune, his personal beauty, and his general 
 success, he resolved to fall in love with Lady 
 Erpingham. He devoted himself exclusively 
 to her; he joined her in the morning in her 
 rides — in the evening in her gaieties. He had 
 fallen in love with her? — yes! — did he love 
 her ? — not the least. But he was excessively 
 idle ! what else could he do ? 
 
 The humorous and shrewd author of " Say- 
 ings and Doings' 1 has contended for the good 
 morals of our Aristocracy. My dear Mr. 
 Hook, it is out of the nature of things. An 
 Aristocracy must always be immoral, so far as 
 the sexes are concerned, because it must al- 
 ways be idle. It is only when people are un- 
 employed, that they run much after their 
 neighbours'' wives.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 279 
 
 Constance early saw the attentions and de- 
 signs of Lord Partington. There is one diffi- 
 culty in repressing advances in great society 
 — one so easily becomes ridiculous by being a 
 prude. But Constance dismissed Lord Dar- 
 lington with great dexterity. This was the 
 occasion : — 
 
 One of the apartments in Erpingham House 
 communicated with a conservatory. In this 
 conservatory Constance was alone one morning, 
 when Lord Dartington, who had entered the 
 house with Lord Erpingham, joined her. He 
 was not a man who could ever become senti- 
 mental ; he was rather the gay lover — rather 
 the Don Gaolor than the Amadis ; but he was 
 a little abashed before Constance. He trusted, 
 however, to his fine eyes and his good com- 
 plexion — plucked up courage; and, picking 
 a flower from the same plant Constance was 
 tending, said, — 
 
 " I believe there is a custom in some part of
 
 280 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the world to express love by flowers. May I, 
 dear Lady Erpingham, trust to this flower to 
 express what I dare not utter ?" 
 
 Constance did not blush, nor look confused, 
 as Lord Dartington had hoped and expected. 
 One who had been loved by Godolphin was not 
 likely to feel much agitation at the gallantry of 
 Lord Dartington ; but she looked gravely in his 
 face, paused a little before she answered, and 
 then said, with a smile that abashed the suitor 
 more than severity could possibly have done: — 
 
 " My dear Lord Dartington, do not let us 
 mistake each other. I live in the world like 
 other women — but I am not altogether like 
 them. Not another word of gallantry to me 
 alone, as you value my friendship. In a 
 crowded room, pay me as many compliments 
 as you like. It will flatter my vanity to have 
 you in my train. And now, just do me the 
 favour to take these scissors, and cut the dead 
 leaves off that plant.' 1
 
 GODOLPHIN. 281 
 
 Lord Dartington, to use a common phrase, 
 " hummed and hawed." He looked, too, a 
 little angry. An artful and shrewd politician, 
 it was not Constance's wish to cool the de- 
 votion, though she might the attachment, of a 
 single member of her husband's party. With 
 a kind look — but a look so superior, so queen- 
 like, so free from the petty and coquettish con- 
 descension of the sex, that the gay lord won- 
 dered from that hour how he could ever have 
 dreamt of Constance as of other ladies of rank 
 (id est, of pleasure,) — she stretched her hand 
 to him. 
 
 "We are friends, Lord Dartington? — and 
 now we know each other, we shall be so 
 always."" 
 
 Lord Dartington bowed confusedly over the 
 beautiful hand he touched ; and Constance, 
 walking into the drawing-room, sent for Lord 
 Erpingham on business — Dartington took his 
 leave.
 
 282 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 The next day was memorable for the origin 
 of a singular institution. 
 
 It was after practising the dances we have re- 
 ferred to, that Lady started the idea of re- 
 viving a certain club, and giving balls weekly, 
 to be under the patronage of certain persons, 
 who should have the privilege of inviting the 
 guests. 
 
 " We will make the price of admission low," 
 
 cried Lady , and keep out the roturiers. 
 
 There shall be no ostentation of wealth, no 
 suppers. It will be every thing if these enter- 
 tainments, being perfectly distinct from those 
 of rich bankers, rich bankers cannot affect to 
 vie with us." 
 
 " At the same time," said Constance, " we 
 will set up a rank independent of titular rank. 
 We will not be dictated to by Mesdames les 
 Duchesses; we will refuse admission to great 
 persons as well as to wealthy ones."
 
 GODOLPHIN. 283 
 
 " In a short time," cried the Countess of 
 — , who had an amazing number of Scotch 
 
 cousins unprovided for, and had no influence 
 with Government, " in a short time we shall 
 be able to make only those whom we admit 
 the fashion : in a short time, too, only we, — 
 our relations and our friends, — will be the 
 fashion." 
 
 " We shall create," said Constance, " an 
 entire but quiet revolution in our petit grand 
 monde? 
 
 And this was the origin of .
 
 284 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE PECULIAR CONDITION OF WOMEN IN THE HIGHER 
 RANKS. — THE MARRIED STATE OF CONSTANCE. 
 
 Who does not recollect when the institution 
 we refer to was commenced? Who does not 
 recollect the ills that beset the infant state? 
 But it outgrew them rapidly : in a season it 
 was more the rage, perhaps, than it has been 
 since, certainly than it is now. 
 
 I hate vulgar scandal. I am not going to 
 write books against Lady this or Lady that : 
 I shall not, therefore, give any names to the 
 Patronesses, nor say whether Constance was
 
 GODOLPHIN. 285 
 
 one of them. Perhaps, while enjoying the 
 power of a Patroness, it is more consistent with 
 the character of our female Castruccio to sup- 
 pose that she avoided the odium. 
 
 However, every month, every day, the influ- 
 ence of the young Countess grew more exten- 
 sive. Her house, from the political character 
 she gave to it, obtained for its gaieties a more 
 solid and important reputation than if it had 
 been merely celebrated for the elegance and 
 grace of its entertainments. In her salons the 
 measures of her party were discussed : in her 
 boudoir (it was whispered that) they were ar- 
 ranged. That party, — disliked by the Church, 
 feared by the more powerful of the aristocracy, 
 and despised at that time (because mistrusted) 
 by the people, — that party were yet supported 
 by her wise address, and increased by her secret 
 power. Even this new institution, — seemingly 
 intended only for young gentlemen and ladies
 
 286 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 who were fond of bread-and-butter and qua- 
 drilles, — was made an organ of political influ- 
 ence. A liberal cast was given to it : Liberals 
 were seldom refused admission to it : day by 
 day it became more and more the fashion to be 
 liberal. These are facts ; and they are of an 
 order of facts that influence the fate of nations ; 
 yet History would overlook them. Poor His- 
 tory ! that pretends to express so much truth, 
 and grasps only the more enormous of fictions. 
 
 Constance, Countess of Erpingham, was 
 young, rich, lovely as a dream, worshipped as 
 a goddess. Was she happy ? and was her 
 whole heart occupied in the trifles that sur- 
 rounded her ? 
 
 Deep within her memory was buried one 
 fatal image, that she could not exorcise. The 
 reproaching and mournful countenance of Go- 
 dolphin rose before her at all times and seasons. 
 The charm of his presence no other human
 
 GODOLPHIN. 287 
 
 being could renew. His eloquent and noble 
 features, living and glorious with genius and 
 with passion, his sweet deep voice, his con- 
 verse, so rich with mind and imagination, and 
 the subtle delicacy with which he applied its 
 graces to some sentiment dedicated to her ; 
 (delicious flattery, of all flatteries the most at 
 tractive to a sensitive and intellectual woman !) 
 — these occurred to her again and again, and 
 rendered all she saw around her flat, wearisome, 
 insipid. Nor was this deep-seated and tender- 
 weakness the only serpent — if I may use so con- 
 fused a metaphor — in the roses of her lot. 
 
 And here I invoke the reader's graver atten- 
 tion. The fate of women in all the more po- 
 lished circles of society is eminently unnatural 
 and unhappy. The peasant and his dame are on 
 terms of equality — equality even of ambition : 
 no career is open to one and shut to the other; 
 — equality even of hardship, and hardship is
 
 288 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 employment : no labour occupies the whole 
 energies of the man, but leaves those of the 
 woman unemployed. Is this the case with the 
 wives in a higher station ? — the wives of the 
 lawyer, the merchant, the senator, the noble? 
 There, the men have their occupations ; and 
 the women (unless, like poor Fanny, work-bags 
 and parrots can employ them) none. They 
 are idle. They employ the imagination and 
 the heart. They fall in love and are wretched ; 
 or they remain virtuous, and are either wearied 
 by an eternal monotony, or they fritter away 
 intellect, mind, character, in the minutest fri- 
 volities — frivolities being their only refuge from 
 stagnation. Yes ! there is one very curious 
 curse for the sex which men don't consider ! 
 Once married, the more aspiring of them have 
 no real scope for ambition : the ambition gnaws 
 away their content, and never finds elsewhere 
 wherewithal to feed on.
 
 GODOLPHIN, 289 
 
 This was Constance's especial misfortune. 
 Her lofty, and restless, and soaring spirit pined 
 for a sphere of action, and ball-rooms and bou- 
 doirs met it on every side. One hope she did 
 indeed cherish : that hope was the source of her 
 intriguings and schemes, of her care for seem- 
 ing trifles, the waste of her energies on seeming 
 frivolities. This hope — this object—was, to di- 
 minish, to crush, the overweening power of that 
 order to which she belonged herself; which she 
 had entered only to humble ; and which, ad- 
 mitted now to its most secret springs, she 
 loathed more than ever for its hollowness — 
 despised for its self-worshipping conceit — and 
 detested for the withering and dark influence 
 which she conceived (perhaps erroneously) it 
 exercised on the lowlier classes of society. But 
 this hope was a distant and chill vision. She 
 was too rational to anticipate an early and 
 effectual improvement in our social state, and 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 290 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 too rich in the treasures of mind to be the 
 creature of one idea. Satiety — the common 
 curse of the great — crept over her day by day. 
 The great powers within her lay stagnant — the 
 keen intellect rusted in its sheath. 
 
 " How is it," said she, to the beautiful 
 
 Countess of C , " that you seem always so 
 
 gay and so animated ; that with all your viva- 
 city and tenderness, you are never at a loss 
 for occupation? You never seem weary — 
 ennuyte — why is this?" 
 
 " I will tell you," said the pretty Countess, 
 archly ; " I change my lovers every month." 
 Constance blushed, and asked no more. 
 
 Many women in her state, influenced by 
 an almost universal example, wearied by a 
 life in which the heart had no share; without 
 children, without a guide; assailed and wooed 
 on all sides, in all shapes ; — many women 
 would have ventured, if not on a grande pas-
 
 GODOLPHIN. c 2 ( .)\ 
 
 sion, at least on a petit caprice ! But Con- 
 stance remained as bright and cold as ever — 
 " the unsunned snow !" It might be, indeed, 
 that the memory of Godolphin preserved her 
 safe from all lesser dangers. The asbestos 
 once conquered by fire, can never be consumed 
 by it ; but there was also another cause in 
 Constance's very nature — it was pride ! 
 
 Oh, God ! if men could but dream of what 
 a proud woman endures in those caresses which 
 humble her, they would not wonder why proud 
 women are so difficult to subdue. This is a 
 matter on which we all ponder much, but we 
 dare not write honestly upon it. But imagine 
 a young, haughty, guileless beauty, married 
 to a man whom she neither loves nor honours ; 
 and so far from that want of love rendering 
 her likely to fall hereafter, it is more probable 
 to make her recoil from the very name of 
 love ! 
 
 o 2
 
 292 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 About this time the Dowager Lady Er- 
 pingham died ; an event sincerely mourned by 
 Constance, and which broke the strongest tie 
 that united the young Countess to her lord. 
 Lord Erpingham and Constance, indeed, now 
 saw but little of each other. Like most men 
 six feet high, with large black whiskers, he 
 was vain of his person ; and, like most rich 
 noblemen, he found plenty of ladies who as- 
 sured him he was irresistible. He had soon 
 grown angry at the unadmiring and calm ur- 
 banity of Constance ; and, living a great deal 
 with single men, he formed liaisons of the same 
 order they do — an order which easily induces 
 Monsieur to forget Madame at home. He 
 was, however, sensible that he had been fortu- 
 nate in the choice of a wife. His political im- 
 portance the wisdom of Constance had quad- 
 rupled, at the least ; his house she had ren- 
 dered the most brilliant in London, and his
 
 GODOLPHIN. 293 
 
 name the most courted in the lists of the 
 Peerage. Though munificent, she was not 
 extravagant ; though a beauty, she did not 
 intrigue ; neither, though his inconstancy was 
 open, did she appear jealous ; nor, whatever 
 the errors of his conduct, did she ever disre- 
 gard his interest, disobey his wishes, or waver 
 from the smooth and continuous sweetness of 
 her temper. Of such a wife, Lord Erping- 
 ham could not complain : he esteemed her, 
 praised her, asked her advice, and stood a 
 little in awe of her. 
 
 Ah, Constance ! had you been the daughter 
 of a noble or a peasant — had you been the 
 daughter of any man but John Vernon — 
 what a treasure beyond price, without parallel, 
 would that heart, that beauty, that genius 
 have been !
 
 294 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE PLEASURE OF RETALIATING HUMILIATION CON- 
 
 STANCES DEFENCE OF FASHION. REMARKS ON 
 
 FASHION. — GODOLPHIN*S WHEREABOUT. — FANNY MIL- 
 LINGER'S CHARACTER »F HERSELF WANT OF COU- 
 RAGE IN MORALISTS. 
 
 It was a proud moment for Constance, when 
 the Duchess of Winstoun and Lady Margaret 
 Midgecombe wrote to her, worried her, beset 
 her, for a smile, a courtesy, an invitation, or 
 a ticket to Almack's. 
 
 They had at first thought to cry her down ; 
 to declare that she was plebeian, mad, bizarre, 
 and a blue. It was all in vain. Constance 
 rose every hour. They struggled against the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 295 
 
 conviction, but it would not do. The first 
 person who confounded them with the sense 
 of their error was the late King, then Re- 
 gent ; he devoted himself to Lady Erpingham 
 for a whole evening, at a ball given by himself. 
 From that hour they were assured they had 
 been wrong : they accordingly called on her 
 the next day. Constance received them with 
 the same coldness she had always evinced ; 
 but they went away declaring they never saw 
 any one whose manners were so improved. 
 They then sent her an invitation ! she refused 
 it ; a second ! she refused ; a third, begging 
 her to fix the day ! ! ! she fixed the day, and 
 disappointed them. Lord bless us ! how sorry 
 they were ; how alarmed ; how terrified ! their 
 dear Lady Erpingham must be ill ! they sent 
 every day for the next week to know how she 
 was ! 
 
 " Why, 11 said Mrs. Trevor to Lady Erping-
 
 296 GODOLPHIN, 
 
 ham, " why do you continue? so cruel to these 
 poor people? I know they were very imper- 
 tinent, and so forth, once ; but it is surely wiser 
 and more dignified, now, to forgive ; to appear 
 unconscious of the past : people of the world 
 ought not to quarrel with each other. 1 ' 
 
 " You are right, and yet you are mistaken," 
 said Constance : "I do forgive, and I don't 
 quarrel ; but my opinion, my contempt, remain 
 the same, or are rather more disdainful than 
 ever. These people are not worth losing the 
 luxury we all experience in expressing contempt. 
 I continue, therefore, but quietly and without 
 affectation, to indulge that luxury. Besides, 
 I own to you, my dear Mrs. Trevor, I do 
 think that the mere insolence of titles, must 
 fairly and thoroughly be put down, if we 
 sincerely wish to render society agreeable ; 
 and where can we find a better example for 
 punishment than the Duchess of Winstoun ?"
 
 GODOLPHIN. 297 
 
 " But, my dear Lady Erpingham, you are 
 
 thought insolent: your friend, Lady C , 
 
 is called insolent, too : — are you sure the 
 charge is not merited ?" 
 
 " I allow the justice of the charge ; but you 
 will observe, ours is not the insolence of rank : 
 we have made it a point to protect, to the 
 utmost, the poor and unfriended of all circles. 
 Are we ever rude to governesses or companions, 
 or poor writers, or musicians ? When a man 
 marries below him, do we turn our backs on 
 the poor wife ? Do we not, on the contrary, 
 lavish our attention on her, and throw round 
 her equivocal and joyless state the protection 
 of Fashion? No, no! our insolence is JUS- 
 TICE! it is the chalice returned to the lips 
 which prepared it ; it is insolence to the in- 
 solent ; reflect, and you will allow it." 
 
 " I do : you are a sort of Ladye Chivalry." 
 
 Were there such a man living as the phi- 
 o 5
 
 298 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 losopher of observation — an Helvetius — a La 
 Bruyere — a Voltaire — I would persecute him 
 until he had written a book on the Philosophy 
 of Fashion. The stupid novels we have had 
 on the subject of Fashion, have made us sick 
 and weary, without teaching us any thing. 
 Fashion is, in fact, though a light name, a 
 great subject. It is the public opinion of the 
 lords of the social system. If it be the fashion 
 to affect the noble, as it was once in Rome, 
 there is something high and vigorous in the 
 core of the community : is it the fashion to be 
 mean, cold, superficial ? shame to the nation 
 which allows such dictators of opinion ; — there 
 is a moral disease at its heart ! The fashion 
 that Constance set and fostered was of a gene- 
 rous order ; but it was not suited to the ma- 
 jority : it was corrupted by her followers into 
 a thousand basenesses. In vain do we make 
 a law, if the general spirit is averse to the
 
 GODOLPHIN. 299 
 
 law. Constance could humble the great, could 
 loosen the links of extrinsic rank ; could un- 
 dermine the power of titles ; but that was all ! 
 She could abase the proud, but not elevate 
 the general tone : for one slavery she only sub- 
 stituted another, — people hugged the chains 
 of Fashion, as before they hugged those of 
 Titular Arrogance. 
 
 Yet Constance, if sometimes disappointed, 
 was satisfied on the whole. She saw that she 
 had sown a seed which must spring up, and, 
 overshadowing, destroy many fallacious opi- 
 nions. By the growth of one tree, she had 
 excluded the life from many weeds ; and the 
 time must come when the tree itself would 
 be cut down, the wholesome air circulated, 
 and more solid fruits planted in its stead. 
 She waited that hour in patience. 
 
 Amidst the gossip of the day, she heard 
 much of Godolphin, and all spoke of him
 
 300 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 with interest— even those who could not com- 
 prehend his very intricate and peculiar cha- 
 racter. Separated from her by lands and seas, 
 there seemed no danger in allowing herself 
 the sweet pleasure of hearing his actions and 
 his mind discussed. She fancied she did not 
 permit herself to love him ; she was too pure 
 not to start at such an idea : but her mind 
 was not so regulated, so trained and educated 
 in sacred principle, that she forbade herself 
 the luxury to remember. Of his present mode 
 of life she heard little. He was traced from 
 city to city ; from shore to shore ; from the 
 haughty noblesse of Vienna, to the gloomy 
 shrines of Memphis, by occasional report, and 
 seemed to tarry long in no place. This roving 
 and unsettled life, — which secretly assured her 
 of her power, — suffused his image in all tender 
 and remorseful dyes. Ah ! where is that one 
 person to be envied, could we read the heart ?
 
 GODOLPHIN. 301 
 
 The actress had heard incidentally from Sa- 
 ville of Godolphin's attachment to the beautiful 
 Countess. She longed to see her; and when, 
 one night at the theatre, she was informed that 
 Lady Erpingham was in the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's box, close before her, she could scarcely 
 command her self-possession sufficiently to per- 
 form with her wonted brilliancy of effect. 
 
 She was greatly struck by the singular noble- 
 ness of Lady Erpingham's face and person ; 
 and Godolphin rose in her estimation, from the 
 justice of the homage he had rendered to so 
 fair a shrine. What a curious trait, by the 
 by, that is in women ; — their exaggerated 
 anxiety to see one who has been loved by the 
 man in whom they themselves take interest ; 
 and the manner in which the said man rises 
 or falls in their estimation, according as they 
 admire, or are disappointed in, the object of 
 his love. Nothing has cured more effectually
 
 302 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 the romantic interest the female world con- 
 ceived for Byron, than a sight of the persons 
 on whose affection he prided himself. Byron 
 might have committed in their eyes a thou- 
 sand sins more excusably than the error of 
 bad taste. 
 
 " And so, 11 said Saville, supping one night 
 with the actress, " you think the world does 
 not overlaud Lady Erpingham ?"" 
 
 " No : she is what Medea would have been, 
 if innocent — full of majesty, and yet of sweet- 
 ness. It is the face of a queen of some three 
 thousand years back. I could have worshipped 
 her." 
 
 " My little Fanny, you are a strange crea- 
 ture. Methinks you have a dash of poetry 
 in you."' 1 
 
 " Nobody who has not written poetry, could 
 ever read my character," answered Fanny, with 
 naivete, yet with truth.
 
 GODOLPHIN. 303 
 
 " Yet you have not much of the ideal about 
 you, pretty one." 
 
 " No ; because I was so early thrown on 
 myself, that I was forced to make indepen- 
 dence my chief good. I soon saw that if I 
 followed my heart to and fro, wherever it 
 led me, I should be the creature of every 
 breath — the victim of every accident : I should 
 have been the very fool of romance ; lived on 
 a smile ; and died perhaps in a ditch at last. 
 Accordingly, I set to work with my feelings, 
 and pared and cut them down to a convenient 
 compass. Happy for me that I did so ! 
 What would have become of me if, years ago, 
 when I loved Godolphin, I had thrown the 
 whole world of my heart upon him ?" 
 
 " Why, he has generosity : he would not 
 have deserted you." 
 
 " But I should have wearied him," answered 
 Fanny ; " and that would have been quite
 
 304 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 enough for me. But I did love him well, 
 and purely — (ah ! you may smile !) and dis- 
 interestedly. I was only fortified in my reso- 
 lution not to love any one too much, by per- 
 ceiving that he had affection but no sympathy 
 for me. His nature was different from mine. 
 I am woman in every thing ; and Godolphin 
 is always sighing for a goddess /" 
 
 " I should like to sketch your character, 
 Fanny. It is original, though not strongly 
 marked. I never met with it in any book ; 
 yet it is true to your sex, and to the world." 
 
 " Few people could paint me exactly, 1 ' an- 
 swered Fanny. " The danger is, that they 
 would make too much or too little of me. 
 But such as I am, the world ought to know 
 what is so common, and, as you think, so 
 undescribed. ,, 
 
 Poor Fanny ! you will live to read these 
 pages. Will they satisfy you? I am sure 
 the sketch is faithful to the original. You
 
 GODOLPHIN. 305 
 
 are one of those whom the world never ac- 
 credits for much good, but you have a great 
 deal of good in you. If the prudes say I ought 
 not to have painted you, I tell the prudes 
 they lie; and it is exactly because writers 
 have been too cowardly in speaking the truth 
 when they knew they had nothing unclean in 
 their hearts; when they knew they were not 
 intending to allure, but to instruct : it is ex- 
 actly because writers have been thus cowardly 
 — have thus paltered with their high calling 
 — that poor womankind have been so thrust 
 from the true warnings of morality ; that there 
 are so many kind hearts in wretched bosoms ; 
 so many good dispositions in evil circumstance. 
 Shakspeare, Fielding, Goethe, Le Sage ! you 
 instruct, you teach, because you had the cou- 
 rage to teach the truth ! 
 
 Before I conclude this volume, I shall make 
 one remark. 
 
 There are a herd of foolish readers, who cry
 
 306 GODOLPHIN. 
 
 out against a book, by saying, " I hate the hero! 1 '' 
 or, " I cannot endure the heroine !" Did the 
 author (an author is an artist) mean that you 
 should like his hero ? or, did he mean that his 
 hero should be natural ? Are the hero and hero- 
 ine flesh and blood ? Do they waver ? do they 
 contend with opposing passions ? Are they now 
 good, now bad ? Do they now dazzle, now re- 
 volt ? If so, they are real ; but they often do 
 not arrest superficial admiration, from that very 
 inconsistency : — decided, one-idea'd heroes strike 
 the vulgar springs of interest with the greater 
 force ; — the million nice shades, the intricacies, 
 the subtleties, that form such human characters 
 as are alone worthy analysis, are lost to that 
 reader, who papercuts his way to the end, ask- 
 ing only a coarse excitement from common-place 
 materials. But I write not for such ! I may 
 fail in my objects — I most probably shall — 
 but one person in ten thousand not will know
 
 GODOLPHIN. 307 
 
 whether I have failed or no — for who will 
 take the trouble to discover what the objects 
 are ? 
 
 And now, beautiful Constance, farewell, for 
 the present ! I leave you surrounded by power, 
 and pomp, and adulation. Enjoy, as you may, 
 that for which you sacrificed affection ! 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 Dorset-street, Fleet-street.