L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVER.SITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 82,3 
 L99dii 
 
 V.I
 
 the U„I,;„i,/ "'"" "•"" """ ■■""" '" -i.n,is.ol fr.„ 
 T. renew „„ Telephen, Center, 333-8400 
 
 M22\mi 
 
 L161— O-1096
 
 7 
 
 THE DISOWNED 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PELHAM.' 
 
 " Corb. — I disclaim in him ! 
 Avoc. \st — Bui for what cause V^ 
 
 Volpone, Act 4, Sceiie 5. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1829.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SHACKELLAND BAYLIS, JOHNSON's-COURT.FLEKT-STREET.
 
 V. I 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO 
 WILLIAM LYTTON BULWER, Esq. 
 
 or 
 HEYDON HALL, NORFOLK. 
 
 l"^ I DEDICATE to jou that work, completed and 
 
 n 
 
 5 
 
 H published, some part of which, when in manu- 
 script, and but rudely sketched, you flattered 
 me by approving. In it there are many faults, 
 ^ which I m yself lament ; there are many others 
 r. which, in escaping my observation, will meet 
 ^ your own : but the eastern proverb tells us, 
 that a bad cause is safer than a good ; for in 
 J VOL. 1. a 
 
 k
 
 11 DEDICATION. 
 
 the latter we trust to justice, in the former we 
 bribe the judge. And, in presenting to you 
 these volumes, I know well that Criticism, how- 
 ever austere, is but a corrupt arbiter when 
 tempted by Affection. Of all writings, perhaps 
 a dedication is the dullest : let me in some 
 measure redeem the dullness of this by the 
 sanctity of good wishes. An ancient name, and 
 estates which derive additional importance from 
 the county wherein they are situated — a county 
 in which character obtains from general en- 
 lightment an impartial estimate, and merit 
 derives from public opinion the most grateful 
 of all rewards — are an inheritance that, in plac- 
 ing you amidst that great landed aristocracy 
 which exerts over the interests of this country 
 so influential a sway, offers to your ambition 
 a ready opening and a not unelevated career. 
 May it not be long before the hostages you 
 have given us in private life shall be redeemed
 
 DEDICATION. Ill 
 
 in public, and the talents, which are now only 
 ornaments to yourself, be ripened into utility to 
 the world. In that hope how many are in- 
 cluded ! and in wishing your path to tend to 
 the happiness of others, have I not wished you, 
 not only the noblest, but the shortest road to 
 your own ? 
 
 In other years, when the work which I in- 
 scribe to you may be forgotten by every one 
 else, these lines will preserve it fresh in una- 
 bated interest to you. Nor will you hereafter 
 judge of me less charitably in the capacity of 
 the man, because in that of the author I have 
 asked you to pardon many errors and much 
 deficiency, for the sake of some affection. 
 
 November Sth, 1828. 
 
 a
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scene. — A dressing-room, splendidly Jurnished 
 — violet-coloured curtains, chairs and ottomans 
 of the same hue. Two Jidl-length mirrors 
 are placed, one on each side of a table which 
 supports the luxuries of the toilet. Several 
 bottles of perfumes, arranged in a peculiar 
 fashion, stand upcm a smaller table of mother 
 of pearl ; opposite to them are pluced the 
 appurtenances of lavation, richly zvrcnight in 
 frosted silver. A wardrobe of buhl is on the 
 left, the doors of which being partly open.
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 discover a profusion of clothes^ Spc-^shoes, of 
 a singularly small size, ^nonopolize the lower 
 shelves. Fronting the wardrobe, a door a-jar 
 gives a slight glimpse of a bath-room. Fold- 
 ing doors in the back-ground. 
 Enter the author, obsequiaiLsly preceded 
 by a French valet, in a white silk jacket, 
 and a cambric apron beaiotifully brode. 
 Author. — So, Bedos, it will not be very long, 
 I hope, before your master gives me the plea- 
 sure of his company ? 
 
 Bedos. ~(in French) — No, Monsieur, no — 
 my master will be here immediately. He says 
 you will find two very amusing books on 
 the toilette, but that he hopes you will have 
 scarcely time to read their title-pages before he 
 is with you. 
 
 Bedos draws an arm-chair near the table, 
 into which the aitthor abstractedly throws 
 himself 
 
 Exit Bedos.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 Autlwr. — Yes ! I long to vent my anger 
 upon this coxcomb, who, with his usual dexte- 
 rity, has cast all his faults, moral as well as 
 literary, upon me ! Well, wz/ time has now 
 arrived ! I will assert my individual ex- 
 istence — I will no longer walk about, incorpo- 
 rated with a literary twin — I will give notice of 
 lawful separation, and be henceforth answerable 
 for no sins but my own — (clock strikes three). — 
 So late! — I wonder he yet .delays; perhaps he 
 is nerving himself to meet the brunt of my just 
 indignation. Humph ! what books are these 
 which that thing of silk and cambric spoke 
 of? — (takes up two hooks on the toilet-tahle ) — 
 'Essay on the Human Understanding' — very 
 amusing, indeed ! What 's the other ? — ' Essay 
 on the Human Hair.' Pish ! — hark — I hear 
 steps — 'tis he ! 
 
 Tlie Jhld'ing doors in the back-ground are 
 thrown open^ and the voice of one approacfi- 
 mg is heard.
 
 VIU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " And, Bedos, you will see that the great 
 folio and the essence-bottle are not forgotten. 
 And be sure that the poodle's face is washed in 
 milk of roses — ^'tis shamefully freckled ; and 
 send, or rather go yourself, to the man at 
 Astley's, to know if it could not be taught to 
 carry a parasol ! And, BedoSy order the hock to 
 be sent to Lord Guloseton ; and tell Mr. 
 Bubbletome that he must get me the Lucian, 
 
 and that copy of Ricardo, with Mr. M 's 
 
 manuscript notes, by nine this evening. And 
 ask Walters what he means by burning wax- 
 candles in the stables ? I will countenance no 
 such extravagance : let him lose no time in 
 changing them to spermaceti. And, harkye, 
 Bedos, you begin to look fat, you rascal ; 
 beware — ^if you eat a grain of meat I discharge 
 you. A valet, Sir, is an ethereal beiri^, and is 
 only to be nourished upon chicken !" 
 
 And^uttering these words, enters , through the 
 folding doo7'S, Henry Pelham. His hair.
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 naturally curled, and of the darkest ches- 
 nut, waves carelessly above a countenance 
 pale, and somewhat long. Grecian fea- 
 tures, hazel eyes, a remarkably handsome 
 mouth, small favoris, where only through- 
 out the whole person les petits soins of the 
 toilet are apparent ; an expression which, 
 upon the brow, betokens resolution, in the 
 lip aiui eye, an extreme good nature, 
 mingled with shrewdness ; a tall and slight 
 figure, betraying effeminacy only in the 
 hands and feet, which are small to a fault ; 
 and an easy, quiet, and aristocratic air, 
 complete the description of the illustrious ad- 
 venturer. Contrary to the opinion usually 
 formed of him, there is neither in Ms dress 
 nor his manner any token of singularity 
 or affectation. In the former the super- 
 ficial observer zvould rather detect no fault 
 than discover excellence, {m^gh extra vitia 
 a3
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 quam cum virtutibus) ; and ii is re- 
 servedfor the eocperience of the connoisseur 
 to appreciate the profound study by which 
 alone that very simplicity could have been 
 created. 
 Mr. Pelharn. — My dear friend, I am de- 
 lighted to see you — pray pardon my want of 
 punctuality ! 
 
 The Author. — {With a severe look). — I wish, 
 Mr. Pelham, that in your conduct there was 
 nothing else to pardon ! 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — (seating himself on an otto- 
 man.) — What, angry?— is it possible! — ah, 
 how I envy you ! You colour — your eyes 
 sparkle ! — how very becoming ! I wish that I 
 could get into a passion myself now and then. It 
 has been my curse through life to be so con- 
 foundedly good tempered ! — nothing vexes me ! 
 Oh ! your philosophical equanimity • — your 
 ' sunshine of the breast"" is the most terribly 
 dull state of mind one can imagine ; besides — a
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 little excitement is so good for the complexion ! 
 I intend, next shooting season, when I shall 
 have plenty of time on my hands, to take some 
 lessons in the art of getting angry. Will you 
 be my master — you seem a tolerable proficient 
 — nay, I'm serious ! 
 
 Author. (rehuMngly.) Mr. Pelham ! 
 
 Mr. Pelham. (with a soft smile,) — Well ! 
 
 Author. — Do oblige me — lay aside an affecta- 
 tion which every body says disgraces you, and 
 endeavour t© speak like a man of sense. 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — But, my dear Sir, would not 
 that be taking an unfair advantage of you ? — 
 {then suddenly changing his manner, and reset- 
 tling himself on the ottoman, with a resigned 
 air) — However, proceed ; my wishes shall 
 yield to your's : the philosopher of Geneva said 
 rightly, " that there is no virtue without self- 
 sacritice" — proceed. 
 
 Author. — I trust to your practising so sub- 
 lime a morality. And now, Sir, tell me how
 
 Xll INTEODUCTION. 
 
 am I to be remunerated for all that you have 
 cost me ? What, Sir, can repay me for the 
 provoking and specious charges brought against 
 me upon your account ? Did I not — mark me, 
 Mr. Pelham — did I not, when I agreed to em- 
 body your confounded adventures, say to myself, 
 ' My hero is a terrible coxcomb — it suits me 
 that he should be so : I have seen something of 
 the various grades of society ; the experience 
 has not been acquired without pain— let it not 
 pass without profit : the scenes I have witnessed 
 I will describe ; upon the manners I have noted 
 1 will comment, hut 7iot in my own person. The 
 peculiar turn of my individual mind would be 
 very little calculated to execute such a task with 
 success ; and scenes on the surface of society, 
 which could only be redeemed from insipidity 
 by an extreme gaiety, would become utterly dis- 
 tasteful, if tinctured in the least by a tempera- 
 ment to which my friends are pleased maliciously 
 to insinuate that gaiety is the last thing congenial.
 
 INTEODUCTION. Xill 
 
 In the first place, therefore, my hero shall have 
 little in common with his author ; in the second, 
 he shall be suited in outward temper to the 
 sparkling varieties of life, though he shall have 
 sufficient latent observation to draw from the 
 follies which he surveys, or even shares, the uses 
 of reflection. His very faults shall afford amuse- 
 ment, and under them he may, without the 
 formality of a preceptor, inculcate instruction : 
 Philosophy, when couched beneath the gay robes 
 of an apparently unconverted Polemon, ma}* find 
 some listeners who would turn in aversion from 
 the austerities of a professed Xenocrates. It is 
 true that I shall have, in the vices and virtues 
 of this hero, no channel for an egotistical embel- 
 hshment of my own, but on that point I am 
 easily consoled. I have never wished to favour 
 the world with my character, its eccentricities, 
 or its secrets ; nor should I ever be disposed, in 
 the person of any hero of romance, to embody,
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 or delineate myself; yet the world cannot know 
 this, and it has long become a popular vice in 
 criticism to confound and amalgamate the hero 
 with the author. However, this confusion I will 
 carefully avoid — never once, from the first sen- 
 tence to the last, shall the author appear.'' Mr. 
 Pelham, did I not adhere inflexibly to this reso- 
 lution ? Did I ever once intrude even in the 
 vestibule of a preface, or the modesl and obscure 
 corner of a marginal note ? — that I might not, 
 for an instant, be implicated in 2/mir existence, 
 did T not absolutely forego my own ? And what 
 has been my reward — Mr. Pelham, I ask you 
 what? Have they not all, with one voice, 
 critics and readers, praisers and impugners, 
 fathered your impertinences and follies upon me.^ 
 Have they not with one finger pointed at my 
 unfortunate person, as at that of the man who 
 breakfasts in a bath, and eschews the lavatory 
 properties of Windsor soap ? And have not I —
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 I, who in the progress of your adventures was in- 
 visible, inaudible — a cipher, a nonentity — have 
 not I, who took such especial pains to avoid the 
 pleasure even of the most minute, or momentary 
 egotism, been set down as the most consummate 
 of all egotists ? Answer me that, Mr. Pelham ? 
 Mr. Pelham, — Have you done, my dear 
 Sir ? Now, let me slip in a word. That you 
 have been taken for me, it is much easier to 
 assert than to prove — ehem ! And those who 
 have once seen you, and dreamt of me, would, 
 I flatter myself, soon be undeceived in so griev- 
 ous an error. However, if you wish hereafter 
 to avoid a confusion, which you say rightly is a 
 common error in criticism, draw all your heroes 
 without a fault. Not a critical soul of the whole 
 tribe will ever then suspect you of copying from 
 yourself. You ask me what is to atone to you 
 for bearing the burthen of ray faults. ? Mon 
 Dieu! is the honour nothing? Consider your
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 internal satisfaction at being thought to resemble 
 me ! Besides, my friend, your censurers, hke 
 the offspring of Cadmus, employ all their fero- 
 city in destroying each other. There is not a 
 part of my memoirs, which one critic has select- 
 ed for blame, which another, no doubt, equally 
 judicious, has not especially singled out for 
 praise. That which some declare the most fri- 
 volous portion, some also declare the most pro- 
 found. One praises the gay scenes, and con- 
 demns the serious — another lauds the serious, 
 and vituperates the gay. One beseeches you 
 to forsake the tragic, and anticipates bright 
 things from your cultivation of the comic — 
 another recommends you never again to jest as 
 long as you live, but to devote yourself solely 
 to " agitating the passions, and moving the 
 heart." In short, your antagonists are like the 
 tiger and crocodile which attacked the illus- 
 trious Munchausen : one leaps into the mouth
 
 INTRODUCTION. XVll 
 
 of the other : your tiger chokes your crocodile, 
 your crocodile suifocates your tiger — while you, 
 my friend, remain safe and uninjured, to make 
 your bow to the spectators, and receive their 
 congratulations on your escape. Nor is this all : 
 the flattering confusion which identified you 
 with me, was inseparably connected with my 
 existence ; and you will suffer me to enumerate 
 to you some of the distinguished compliments 
 which, but for that existence, you would never 
 have enjoyed. To begin then: Did not the 
 essayist of the London Magazine conjecture 
 that two persons must have written my adven- 
 tures, and that no single individual could have 
 blended so much wit and vivacity as I possess, 
 (I know not if these are the exact words of 
 the critic), with the passion and gravity dis- 
 played in certain passages in the third volume, 
 indicative of a less facetious and delight- 
 ful bias of intellect ? Did not another critic
 
 XVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 roundly declaim against the stupidity of the 
 public in not discovering that you were also the 
 author of " Vivian Grey," a book which, with 
 all its faults, is, you yourself allow, exceedingly 
 clever ? Did not the Morning Post, in a charm- 
 ing little anecdote, assert that you were no less 
 a personage than the immortal Ude? — and did 
 not the French journalist affirm, so naturally 
 did you delineate pickpockets, that you 
 could be nothing short of a pickpocket your- 
 self? 
 
 AtitJior — {evidently miicli softened). — I 
 must own that these are flattering circumstances, 
 Mr. Pelham, but— 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — Flattering — ay, indeed ! And 
 do you ask me now what is to atone to you 
 for being supposed guilty of some delicate and 
 graceful embroideries, which are occasionally 
 worked upon the rich velvet of my character ? 
 Atone to you ! — say, rather, what is to atone to
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 me for ever being mistaken for ? Pardon 
 
 me, Sir, I cannot conclude the sentence ! 
 
 Author. — Well, well, let us say no more upon 
 the subject, especially as, in the Preface which I 
 have been driven to place before the Second Edition 
 of your memoirs, and which I regret that I omitted 
 in the first, I have already vindicated you from 
 the calumniating, and myself ivom. the flattering, 
 aspersion ; and, besides, it has given me a pride 
 and a pleasure, which do more than compensate 
 for the little mortifications incident to all who 
 write, to find that, by some whose praise is 
 better than fame, ray object, in imparting to your 
 adventures so light a tone, has been neither 
 undiscovered nor disapproved. When I was 
 somewhat younger — in mind as well as years — 
 I imagined it a finer thing to be lauded for 
 mental powers than for moral utility. Now my 
 ambition is of a different order ; and I would 
 rather be thought of some service to others than
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 only an illustrious torment to myself. And 
 now, Mr. Pelham, that we have sufficiently 
 discussed your " Adventures," suffer me to 
 solicit your opinion of the new work which I 
 offer to the world. 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — Why, really, I don't dislike it. 
 I dare say many people may think it better than 
 your last. Perhaps, however, they may miss 
 me a little now and then ; for, such an endearer is 
 absence, that acquaintances, but half-liked when 
 present, become our best friends when gone. 
 At all events, you must prepare the public for a 
 work very dissimilar to your last, and one whose 
 faults and merits (if of the latter it has any), 
 are alike on another scale, and disguised in a 
 different dress. 
 
 Author. — Yes ; I own frankly that mere 
 amusement, though I have culled it as an ingre- 
 dient, has not been made so pervadingly the 
 property of these volumes as of those honoured
 
 INTEODUCTION. XXI 
 
 by your name ; and a literary friend of mine, 
 with a very menacing equivoque, has insinuated 
 that, though " The Disowned" may be hkely to 
 succeed as well as " Pelham," it will not be with 
 the same class of readers. — (Here Mr. Pelham 
 smiles significantly.) — However, I venture to 
 trust that, even for the hghter readers, as well 
 as for those more patient and analizing, any 
 greater gravities of style will be amply atoned for 
 by a far deeper and more novel delineation of 
 character — scenes of more exciting interest and 
 vivid colouring — thoughts less superficially ex- 
 pressed — passions more energetically called 
 forth — and, I think, (though I say this with 
 much more diffidence,) if not a greater, at least 
 a more pervading and sensible moral tendency, 
 than would have been compatible with the 
 scheme and design of your Adventures, 
 
 Mr, Pelham. (drawling affectedly).— Bray o ! 
 — nothing like a modest choice of epithets! —
 
 XXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 * deeper delineation,"' ' more exciting interest 
 and vivid colouring,' ' thoughts,' ' passions !' 
 Bravo, my friend, I see you begin to imitate me, 
 and abjure self-conceit: believe me, few things are 
 so displeasing as that same conceit — all my po- 
 pularity arises from my bashfulness ! But now, 
 as you have asked my opinion, let me give it 
 you as a friend, (the duty of an English friend, 
 you know, is to be as disagreeable as possible ;) 
 it is quite the hazard of the die whether your 
 work takes or not. I have paid great attention 
 to the art of popular novel- writing, and will 
 favour you with some hints. Imprimis :-^A. 
 first volume is like the first debut of a beauty ; 
 you must sacrifice every thing to give it eclat I 
 In the second volume, and half the third, you may 
 be as dull as you like : you please from the plea- 
 sure you have already given ; but in the last, 
 your work must (like the beauty still) make 
 every exertion to secure a glittering termination
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXUl 
 
 to its career, and end, amidst a blaze of literary 
 gems and diamonds, in a fortunate marriage ! 
 — I see what you are about to say — your last vo- 
 lume does close with a fortunate marriage. True 
 — but your first, my dear friend, wants show — 
 
 it is too quiet — not imposing enough and, entre 
 
 nous, your beauty (to return to our metaphor) 
 is introduced into a very suburban set — gipsies, 
 and brokers, and stock-jobbers — respectable 
 people in their way — but, you will allow, more 
 respectable than interesting. Then, too, the 
 history ' of a vain man,' and that of the ambi- 
 tious painter, are mere episodes, and episodes 
 are quite gone by — obsolete beyond the elasticity 
 of remembrance. An author, now-a-days, is to 
 mind nothing but his story ! You talk, too, 
 of delineations of character : what are these to 
 the story, my dear Sir ? Passion — the story ! 
 Thought — the story, the story ! Moral ten- 
 dency — the story, the story, the story I The
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 situation of yourself and reader is exactly like 
 that of a certain tourist to the Lakes and his 
 guide. The tourist inquired diligently who 
 was the best conducteur — evinced the greatest 
 anxiety on the subject — would not take an 
 inferior one for the world — chose one at last — 
 set him on the box — and told the coachman 
 to obey his instructions. The guide, in his 
 desire to please so fastidious a gentleman, stops 
 every moment : " Sir, observe this view — see 
 how majestically the lake winds — contemplate 
 that wood — you catch that distant hill !" " Oh, 
 the devil take your interruptions !" cries the tra- 
 veller; " drive on as fast as you can, and don't 
 wake me till we are safe at the journey's end !'' 
 I dare say, my dear friend, that, in con- 
 ning the criticism of the day, you have ob- 
 served how much, when reviewing a novel, it is 
 the mode to use the terms of a drama : — ' plot, 
 developement, dramatis personae, catastrophe' —
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 These are not only the phrases metaphorically 
 applied to you, but, in reality, are significant of 
 the canons by which you are judged. What can 
 be juster ? Think, if we had the reviewing of 
 ' Gil Bias' now, what fine work we should make 
 of it : we should soon send Monsieur Le 
 Sage to the Olympic or the Adelphi to study 
 plots, and learn the art of composition : Now, 
 I will give you an admirable recipe for the 
 future, whenever you attempt any thing but 
 a fashionable novel. A fashionable novel (that 
 intellectual libertine of literature), requires 
 no rules. It bursts on the admiring world, as 
 did the accomplished Lady Blarney on the be- 
 wildered circle of the Vicar of Wakefield, carry- 
 ing every earthly perfection in its title, and 
 bearing in the ^'living jingos''' of its phraseology 
 only additional proofs of its superior breed- 
 ing. IVIy recipe is, therefore, worthless for 
 writings of this order — for all others it is a 
 
 VOL. I. h
 
 XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 specific. Adopt it, and you will be even more sage 
 than your prescriber ; for, though Hesiod says 
 that he who counsels wisely for others, is the wisest 
 of men, I perfectly agree with Zeno in believing 
 that he v/ho follows the advice is still wiser. 
 First get your story — prepare it — cut it up into 
 a play in three acts ; then spin out the scenes 
 into chapters, and the acts into volumes — in a 
 word, make your novel nothing more than a 
 long melodrame. Have bustle, black ringlets, 
 fighting, moonlight, a waste moor, a ruin, 
 two or three witty fellows in low life, a fas- 
 cinating villain, who is very pale — no villain has 
 a colour- -all dialogue, even if it be, " How do 
 you .'*" and " Pretty well," firing, if possible, 
 in the last " «r^," and your novel will be 
 declared thrillingly interesting ! But no epi- 
 sodes, my friend — no reflections — no metaphy- 
 sical clock-work of character. What the deuce 
 have these to do with a melodrame ? 
 Author, (with the air of an author.) — Well, well ;
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXVU 
 
 but surely I have excitement enough, as well as 
 reflection, and plot as well as episode, in that 
 work of which you are pleased to speak so 
 slightingly. 
 
 Mr, Pelham. — Slightingly, my friend ; by 
 no means. I am not talking about the merit of 
 your book, but its chance of popularity. Now, 
 you must confess that many of the characters 
 you have introduced have no more to do with 
 your catastrophe than violets with AVindsor 
 soap ; yet you have taken as much pains with 
 them as if they had — a very absurd waste of 
 time, both to yourself and your reader. You 
 have a very pretty little mystery in its way, but 
 all the characters you introduce ought to have 
 contributed to the solution of the said mystery, 
 and they should all have marched upon the stage 
 in the last " scene^'' as they do in a comedy ; be- 
 cause a novel is the delineation of life, and every 
 one will allow that no striking evejit, such as 
 h 2
 
 XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 would terminate a novel, ever happens to him, 
 without all the people he has at any time met 
 in the course of his life^ being implicated in it. 
 That is nature, my dear Sir. Nature, grandeur, 
 and simplicity, as exemplified in the best models. 
 Author. — Seriously — though I have thought 
 it both convenient and orthodox to use occasion- 
 ally in my work the very phrases which you 
 have mentioned as employed by the critics — 
 yet I have used them more in accordance with 
 custom than from a conviction of their pro- 
 priety. It seems to me that a novel may very 
 easily bear too close a resemblance to a dra- 
 matic composition ; may I venture to add, 
 that I think it should possess the scenic 
 painting — the energy — the animation, but not 
 the conduct of a drama. A drama must, neces- 
 sarily, from its length, be a very condensed 
 picture of human nature — a novel, in three or 
 four volumes, may be a very enlarged one. A
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 novel, embracing time, character, place, almost 
 ad libitum^ is the delineation of life in general ; 
 a drama is only that of some extraordinary event 
 in it. Unity — an unity which allows little or no 
 wandering from the main design — is both neces- 
 sary and natural in a play. It is necessary, 
 (among many other and more classical reasons), 
 because the characters are to be individualized, 
 and the story evolved within the limits of a very 
 brief space — it is natural, (among many other 
 and more classical reasons), because, as we have 
 said, the author is not describing life in general, 
 but narrating some single and extraordinary 
 event in it, in which the introduction of matter 
 not immediately relevant to the narration, is 
 obviously impertinent and superfluous. Hence 
 it is, that in a play, all the scenes, and all the 
 dramatis personam, should conduce to the de- 
 velopement or the catastrophe. But in a novel, 
 not professing to be a mere tale, (with which it 
 is often confounded, but from which, I think.
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it should be carefully distinguished), the mate- 
 rials for interest are not, I apprehend, to be 
 solely derived from a plot; for, it must be 
 allowed, that a plot, however dehghtful, is one 
 of the least ordinary occurrences in that human 
 life which a novel is to portray ; but also from 
 the more daily things of this motley world — 
 from its common places, as well as its events — 
 from our employments, as well as our passions — 
 from our conversations, as well as our actions — 
 from our humours, as well as our objects. And 
 as, (contrary, Mr. Pelham, to your opinion), 
 every person we meet in life does not exercise 
 an influence over our fate, so, neither, I think, 
 should every character in a novel conduce to 
 the catastrophe. Nor, perhaps, will the main 
 story have a less resemblance to probability, if 
 the reader be led through many scenes, which 
 amuse or interest in themselves, but are not es- 
 sential to the unfolding of the plot. Plot, 
 indeed, though the first requisite in a drama, I
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 am tempted to consider, (shall I confess it ?) one 
 of the last in a novel ; and only so far of ad- 
 vantage, as it heightens interest or increases 
 attention. If, however, the interest and the 
 attention can be secured by other means, as in 
 the incomparable novels of Hope, Le Sage, 
 Fielding, and Goldsmith — whether by the wit 
 or the spirit of recital — by the admission into 
 character, that show which delights the shallow 
 no less than the wise — by the animation of 
 dialogue — ^by the spells of language — of thought 
 — of humour, or of passion, so much the greater, 
 in my opinion, is the merit of the author, and so 
 much the juster his conception of the true nature 
 of the novel. I own that I say this disinterest- 
 edly, for I myself have not had the temerity 
 to tnjst, solely, or indeed chiefly, to other 
 sources than the developement of a plot for 
 interest Non cuivis adire Corinthum ! that 
 which may be despised in the first ranks of 
 authorship may be essential to those who aspire
 
 XXXU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 only to the inferior grades. It might sound 
 very wise in Hobbes to thank Heaven " that 
 he had read so few books ;" but the same thanks- 
 giving might seem any thing but wise in the 
 mouth of a captain in the Blues ! For my 
 part, therefore I have bestowed no little 
 pains on the conception, the progress, and 
 the denouement of my story. Nevertheless, I 
 must frankly confess, that I have not scrupled 
 to wander from the exact line of narration^ 
 whenever my excursions seemed likely to obtain 
 a new insight into character, or a new deduction 
 from life. Hence the episodes and the number 
 of characters which you are pleased to condemn 
 in me : and hence, too, a variety of style, as 
 well as of character, which you may possibly 
 condemn too. It seems to me not enough to 
 individualize the persons introduced, but also, 
 in some measure, to modulate the tone of our 
 own description into a harmony, asitwere^ with 
 the character we describe.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 
 
 Mr. PelJiam. — In short, my dear Sir, you 
 would make a novelist, in the present day, like 
 a justice of peace in a former one, viz., in the 
 words of the old play writer, *' Talk of a thou- 
 sand matters, and all to no purpose." But 
 passing over the episodes, which I do the more 
 easily, first, because the reader may, if he so 
 please, pass them over too ; secondly, because 
 they are principally or wholly confined to the first 
 volume, thsiX. premiere jeunesse of a book which 
 may always go a little astray, let me call your 
 attention to another point. Why did you not 
 give your work a more historical colouring .^ 
 Thrown as it is into the last century, you might 
 have made it quite a book for an antiquary ! Do 
 you not know that every writer who puts his story 
 fifty years back, talks as learnedly and empha- 
 tically of" that day,''' " the customs of that age^'' 
 " the manners of that distant period^''' as if he 
 were describing the court of King Canute ? 
 b 3
 
 XXXIV INTRODUCTION* 
 
 Now this is interesting in the highest degree ; if 
 not only throws a vague romance over the inci- 
 dents of the story, but it makes people think 
 they are improving themselves ; for of course all 
 moral improvement is centred in knowing what 
 clothes our grandfathers wore, and what oaths 
 they made use of ! Nobody can deny that ! 
 Why there is little or nothing to distinguish 
 your men of the last century from the men of the 
 present. And were it not for one or two allu^ 
 sions in your dialogues, the introduction of Mr, 
 Boswell and his illustrious friend, and the Duke 
 of Haverfield's accidental use (in a very ducal 
 display of knowledge and wit) of Lavoisier's 
 modern word oxygen, which, after all, might, 
 perhaps pardonably enough, be merely a little 
 anachronism, one would not know in what 
 part of the century your people lived and 
 died. How much more accurate, how much 
 more particularizing, how much more instruc-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 tive are those authors who tell us at once, *' It 
 was on the 1st of April, 1774-5, or 6 (as it best 
 pleaseth them) when the hands of the old Dutch 
 clock, with a black face and red figures, pointed 
 to twenty-one minutes before twelve, that the 
 youthful Anabotomas Micklethwayte mounted 
 his bay gelding ; his courser's tail was cut, not 
 as now, in a square, but according to the fashion 
 of those days, in a triangle, and the young cava- 
 lier w^s attired in the following quaint and sin- 
 gular costume,'' &c. &c. There ! that shews 
 research and reading ! besides, what eloquent 
 colouring it is ! I fancy I see Mr. Anabotomas 
 Micklethwayte with his gelding, bay in hue, and 
 triangular in tail, before me at this moment ! 
 
 Autlwr. Why, jesting apart, the period I have 
 chosen is peculiarly ill adapted for much or 
 prolix delineation of manners ; it is not suffici- 
 ently remote for the interest of antiquity, nor 
 sufficiently near for that of familiarity. In these
 
 XXXVl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 volumes, therefore, contrary to those in which 
 your memoirs are embodied, I have chiefly, 
 though not altogether, (witness my sublime 
 creation of the Copperases, and a few chapters 
 in the second volume) had in view the writers 
 who treat less upon the pecuharities of the 
 manners than upon those of the mind. 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — Suffer me^ my friend, to tell you 
 a fable, which ends one of the Emperor Julian's 
 letters. " The kite could originally sing hke 
 other birds, but was desirous to neigh like a 
 blood horse ; not being able to effect the neigh, 
 he lost the song, and his voice became that 
 motley and mellifluous scream which it is at 
 present I" • 
 
 Author,— \Ne\\ ! 
 
 Mr. Pelham — Oh ! I leave the application to 
 your discernment ; you have abandoned one 
 style — you have aimed at another ; beware — 
 but enough of this. I turn, in my capacity of
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXVll 
 
 friend, to select another of your errors for ani- 
 madversion ; this is, indeed, a grievous fault, 
 and alone sufficient to — to — I am seeking for 
 a soft expression, but I mean to say — to — to — 
 Author. — To damn the book. 
 Mr. Pelham. — Why, that xvas the significa- 
 tion I wished to convey. The error is this : 
 you have attempted to give the greatest interest 
 in your work — next to that attached to the 
 fortunes of the hero himself — to a virtuous cha- 
 racter, in whom you have portrayed few faults 
 and still fewer foibles — an attempt certain of 
 failure ; men never forgive those in whom there 
 is nothing to pardon. — '\^Here Mr. Pelham 
 stretched his right leg and glanced towards the 
 glass.'] —While, on the contrary, your villain, 
 whom, according to all orthodox rules, you 
 ought to have made the most charming person 
 in the book, is really any thing but prepossess- 
 ing. This too, in spite of all the shewy quali-
 
 XXXVlll IMTRODUCTION. 
 
 ties usually lavished upon villains — in spite of 
 your having attributed to him gaiety, wit, talent, 
 devotion to the heau sexe^ moral daring, and 
 even personal beauty. 
 
 Author, {very self-complacently) — Ay ; I ra- 
 ther value myself upon that ! 
 
 Mr. Pelham.— Do you indeed ? Vincent 
 would furnish you with a motto then — 
 
 " Valui poenas fortis in ipsa meas." 
 
 However, a good opinion of oneself is like Bishop 
 Berkley's system, and dispenses with all the 
 rest of the world. You will confess, at least, 
 that if your villain may be pardoned, your 
 virtuous man is perfectly inexcusable ? 
 
 AutJwr, — Nay, I cannot condemn myself — 
 you are the accuser, I the defendant ; let the 
 reader be judge. For my own part, I believe 
 that if we draw equally from nature, in one as 
 in the other, we may render Virtue no less
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXlX 
 
 attractive than glory or love : for I hold with 
 Plato, that " She hath so divine a beauty, that 
 could she be presented corporeally to our eyes, 
 she would instantly and for ever engage the 
 adoration of our souls." And how then can I 
 think that where there is so much loveliness in 
 the original, it "will be impossible to impart any 
 thing of interest to the copy ? One other word 
 upon the character you refer to. It has seemed 
 to me that a literary error of the age is to link 
 with the romantic and sensitive feelings which 
 interest and engage us, a misanthropical and dis- 
 dainful spirit — as if they were naturally and 
 necessarily alhed. With this error in the 
 formation of the character we speak of, I 
 have attempted to contend. I have attri- 
 buted to Algernon Mordaunt all the feel- 
 ings usually supposed to belong to the mis- 
 anthrope. Pride, reserve, unsociability, a 
 temper addicted to solitude as to a pas-
 
 Xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sion ; and unable, from its romance, its refine- 
 ment, and its melancholy, to amalgamate easily 
 with others. To these peculiarities of character 
 (which I beg particularly to state I do not 
 consider ornaments but blemishes) are added 
 the peculiarities of circumstance calculated 
 to deepen them, and to separate still far- 
 ther the individual from his species by the 
 barriers with which misfortune always loves to 
 surround itself. Yet I have not only painted 
 this man as a warm and universal philanthropist, 
 but I have endeavoured to shew in his person, 
 how far, by benevolence, in the widest and 
 noblest interpretation of the word, error itself 
 may be elevated into virtue, and temptation 
 brightened into triumph. And if I have not 
 failed in this attempt, I venture to believe that, 
 from materials of character somewhat hacknied, 
 I have wrought out a character which, in 
 itself, is almost new. For the rest, morals
 
 INTHODUCTION. xli 
 
 are a very difficult and debated science — 
 though every writer who has never read one 
 line upon them, nor indeed too many lines upon 
 any thing else, fancies, with a self-delusion 
 almost incredible, that nothing is so easy, both 
 to understand and to teach ; it is, therefore, 
 with diffidence and misgiving, that, after a long 
 and intense study of the first principles of this 
 science, I begin to think that I know a single 
 particle about them. But, if a difficult science, 
 morals are at least one in which the several 
 rules and truths are inseparably linked with each 
 other ; and a writer cannot write a book 
 which inculcates one just and real moral, with- 
 out inculcating many. I shall, therefore, leave 
 it to the judicious reader to discover the various 
 aims which this work has been written to pro- 
 mote ; but in which, after what I have just said, 
 it would be to the highest degree arrogant, 
 not to entertain great doubt whether I have in
 
 Xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the least succeeded. I only comfort myself 
 with the belief, that he who descends as it were 
 from the usual self-confidence upon which 
 science is examined, may often discover bright 
 things in the Heaven of Truth, which, from a 
 more elevated ascent, a keener eye might be 
 unable to behold ; even as from the bottom of 
 a deep pit men may clearly perceive at noon 
 the shining and still stars, invisible to those who 
 are placed upon the eminence or the plain. 
 
 Mr. Pelham. (turning aside to conceal an in- 
 voluntary yaxvn) — Very fine, all this, my dear 
 friend, I make no doubt ; and, indeed, I per- 
 fectly agree with you as to the propriety of your 
 attempts, and still more in your diffidence as tX) 
 their results. But in truth these long evenings, 
 when, while one's faculties are sharpened by the 
 frost, one'*s spirits are sentimentally dampened by 
 the fogs, one can read a duller book than one 
 could in the heat of the season. If people open
 
 INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 your present work with the firm expectation of 
 finding it like the last, they will be disappointed, 
 and you, perchance, unread ; but if prepared by 
 this Introduction, they will resolutely make up 
 their minds to read what does not profess merely 
 to amuse — if they will consent to move along the 
 road of narrative in a sober, quiet pace, and put 
 up with a duller companion now and then, for 
 the sake of a finer view than their journey with 
 me afforded — if, in the course of a varied tour, 
 after idling an hour at the theatre, they will loiter 
 a moment with the lecturer, they will perhaps 
 arrive at the end of their journey with less fa- 
 tigue than this exordium might seem to indicate ; 
 and (to drop the metaphor) by the time your 
 reader finishes your book, which, for your sake, 
 I hope he will do, since the last volume is more 
 exciting and imaginative than all the rest put 
 together, he will be inclined at least to acknowr 
 ledge, that although, if you had professed to
 
 xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inculcate nothing by way of instruction, you 
 might have been infinitely more agreeable ; yet 
 since you have resolved to be a little philoso- 
 phical and moral, you might very easily, without 
 being a whit more edifying, have been somewhat 
 more dull. But a word with you, my friend — 
 though this work may be received into society 
 somewhat in the highly respectable and honour- 
 able light of a private tutor, who does not bore 
 one more than he can help it ; yet remember, that 
 like all private tutors, it must be condemned to 
 uniqueness and celibacy ; it cannot aiford to 
 multiply its image, and, like Hobson''s money- 
 bag, be 
 
 " The fruitful parent of a hundred more.'* 
 
 On this head, however, I know it will be need- 
 less to caution you, nor can any one reasonably 
 imagine that you would give us repetitions of 
 " The Disowned," since you have not thought
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 fit to copy from a much finer original, and fa- 
 vour the expecting world with repetitions of 
 Henry Pelham. 
 
 Author. — If I ever write again, my next book 
 shall be as different from the present, as the pre- 
 sent from the last ; and if I know aught of my- 
 self, it shall combine whatever amusement of a 
 lighter nature your adventures may yield, with 
 whatever interest of a higher order may be 
 found in " The Disowned." And when in either 
 work the reader finds a fault glare a little too 
 strongly in his eyes, let him charitably believe, 
 at least, that it will serve the author as a 
 beacon, should he ever attempt another voyage 
 through the perilous but pleasant seas of fiction. 
 
 Mr, Pelham. — Ehem ! and now, my friend, 
 having prepared the public for something very 
 different from what, after my adventures, they 
 in all probability expected ; having told them 
 — (for if we have not yet done it, we will do it
 
 Xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 now) — as a prudential and crafty lure — that 
 your first volume is more dull — I beg your 
 pardon, I mean less attractive than the second, 
 the second than the third, and the third than 
 the fourth — having, like a true criminal, made 
 your defence before your accusation ; and hav- 
 ing also, like a dextrous pleader, gently insi- 
 nuated, with the sagacious Tatler, " that if any 
 part of your production appears dull, they may 
 be sure there is a design in it" — suppose we 
 suffer your readers to proceed at once to the 
 judgment. The world — even the Avorld of novel 
 lovers — is wiser and kinder than we think for ; 
 if it can sometimes get what is light, it 
 will not be averse, occasionally, to meet with 
 what is serious; if you appear provident for 
 its tastes at one while, it will yield a little 
 to your'*s at another. And, after all, and not to 
 flatter it any longer, it is like tlie horses 
 of the Prince of Conti, and must be satisfied
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 not so much with what it hkes, as with what it 
 can get. 
 
 Author. — The liorses of the Prince of 
 Conti ? 
 
 Mr. Pelham. — You have not then heard the 
 anecdote ? I will tell it you. The Prince of 
 Conti was embarrassed for want of money — 
 would to Heaven that the want were confined to 
 the Princes of Conti ! People refused any 
 longer to trust him. His coachman came to his 
 highness one morning, 
 
 *' The horses, my lord, want hay and corn !'' 
 
 " Give them hay and corn, then I" said the 
 prince. 
 
 " But, my lord, the farmer and the corn- 
 chandler refuse to supply me any more till their 
 accounts are discharged." 
 
 " Ah, that alters the matter!'' quoth the 
 prince, very sensibly. 
 
 " But, your highness, what shall the horses 
 have ?''
 
 xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 *' Have ! — call my steward." 
 
 The steward appears. 
 
 " So, the cornchandler and farmer refuse us 
 credit — the rascals — do they ?" said the prince. 
 
 '* Yes, my lord.'* 
 
 " Humph ! Who does give us credit then?" 
 
 " No one, your highness." 
 
 " No one !" 
 
 " Yes — now I think of it, my lord — the 
 pastry-cook does."" 
 
 '* Honest fellow — we must encourage him !" 
 cries the prince. " Coachman, your affair is 
 settled — give the horses cheesecakes and cus- 
 tards r— My dear Puhlic, you are the horses, 
 
 this gentleman is the Prince of Conti ; and as 
 he cannot give you hay and corn any longer, he 
 has been endeavouring, in this Introduction, to 
 persuade you that cheesecakes and custards are 
 much better food for you I 
 
 November^ 1828.
 
 xlix 
 
 Note. — The author has occasionally, throughout these 
 volumes, varied the more critical and important we by 
 the use of the first person singular. It appears to him 
 that the objections to this want of consistency are ijaore than 
 counterbalanced by a relief, in the general instance, from the 
 monotony of one perpetual phrase, and a greater appearance, 
 in particular places, of force, simplicity, or personal acquaint- 
 ance, as it were, with the characters or scenes described. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I'll tell you a story if you please to attend." 
 
 Limbo, by G, Knight. 
 
 It was the evening of a soft, warm day, in 
 the May of 1 7 — . The sun had already set, 
 and the twilight was gathering slowly over the 
 large, still masses of wood which lay on either 
 side of one of those green lanes so peculiar to 
 England. Here and there, the outline of the 
 trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ^ THE DISOWNED. 
 
 leaving broad patches of waste land, covered 
 with fern — that wild offspring of the forest — 
 and the yellow blossoms of the dwarf furze, and, 
 at more distant intervals, thick clusters of rushes, 
 from which came the small hum of gnats— those 
 " evening revellers" — alternately rising and sink- 
 ing in the customary manner of their unknown 
 sports — till, as the shadows grew darker and 
 darker, their thin and airy shapes were no longer 
 distinguishable, and no solitary token of life or 
 motion broke the voiceless monotony of the sur- 
 rounding woods. 
 
 The first sound which invaded the silence 
 came from the light, quick footsteps of a person, 
 whose youth betrayed itself in its elastic and 
 unmeasured tread, and in the gay, free carol, 
 which broke out by fits and starts upon the 
 gentle stillness of the evening. 
 
 There was something rather indicative of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 8 
 
 poetical taste than musical science in the selec- 
 tion of this vesper hymn, which always com- 
 menced with — 
 
 *' 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood," 
 
 and never proceeded a syllable farther than the 
 end of the second line, 
 
 " When birds are about and singing;" 
 
 from the last word of which, after a brief 
 pause, it invariably started forth into joyous 
 " iteration." 
 
 Presently a heavier, yet still more rapid step 
 than that of the youth, was heard behind ; and, 
 as it overtook the latter, a loud, clear, good- 
 humoured voice gave the salutation of the even- 
 ing. The tone in which this courtesy was 
 returned, was frank, distinct, and peculiarly 
 harmonious. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 '* Good evening, my friend. How far is it 
 
 to W ? I hope I am not out of the 
 
 direct road ?" 
 
 " To W 5 Sir?" said the man, touching 
 
 his hat, as he perceived, in spite of the dusk, 
 something in the air and voice of his new 
 acquaintance, which called for a greater degree 
 of respect than he was at first disposed to accord 
 
 to a pedestrian traveller — " To W , Sir ? 
 
 why, you will not surely go there to-night : it 
 is more than eight miles distant, and the roads 
 none of the best ?" 
 
 ''Now, a curse on all rogues !'* quoth the 
 youth, with a serious sort of vivacity. " Why, 
 the miller, at the foot of the hill, assured me I 
 should be at my journey's end in less than an 
 hour." 
 
 '' He may have said right. Sir,**' returned the 
 
 man, " yet you will not reach W in 
 
 twice that time."
 
 THE DISOWNED. § 
 
 " How do you mean ?" said the younger 
 stranger. 
 
 " Why, that you may for once force a miller 
 to speak truth in spite of himself, and make a 
 public house, about three miles hence, the end 
 of your day's journey." 
 
 " Thank you for the hint," said the youth. 
 '' Does the house you speak of lie on the road- 
 side?'' 
 
 "No, Sir: the lane branches off about two 
 miles hence, and you must then turn to the 
 right ; but, till then, our way is the same, and 
 if you would not prefer your own company to 
 mine, we can trudge on together." 
 
 *' With all my heart,"" rejoined the younger 
 stranger ; " and not the less willingly from the 
 brisk pace you walk. I thought I had few 
 equals in pedestrianism ; but it should not be 
 for a small wager that I would undertake to 
 keep up with you.*'
 
 6 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Perhaps, Sir," said the man, laughing, ** I 
 have had in the course of my life a better usage 
 and a longer experience of my heels than you 
 have." 
 
 Somewhat startled by a speech of so equivocal 
 a meaning, the youth, for the first time, turned 
 round to examine as well as the increasing dark- 
 ness would permit, the size and appearance of 
 his companion. He was not, perhaps, too well 
 satisfied with his survey. His fellow pedestrian 
 was about six feet high, and of a correspondent 
 girth of limb and frame, which would have made 
 him fearful odds in any encounter where bodily 
 strength was the best means of conquest. Not- 
 withstanding the mildness of the weather, he was 
 closely buttoned in a rough great coat, which 
 was well calculated to give all due effect to the 
 athletic proportions of the wearer. 
 
 There was a pause of some moments. 
 
 " This is but a wild, savage sort of scene for
 
 THE DISOWNBD. 7 
 
 England, Sir, in this day of new fashioned 
 ploughs and farming improvements," said the 
 tall stranger, looking round at the ragged wastes 
 and grim woods which lay steeped in the shade 
 beside and before them. 
 
 " True," answered the youth ; " and in a few 
 years agricultural innovation will scarcely leave, 
 even in these wastes, a single furze-blossom for 
 the bee, or a tuft of greensward for the grass- 
 hopper ; but, however unpleasant the change 
 may be for us foot travellers, we must not 
 repine at what they tell us is so sure a witness of 
 the prosperity of the country." 
 
 " They tell us ! who tell us ?" exclaimed the 
 stranger, with great vivacity. " Is it the puny 
 and spiritless artisan, or the debased and crippled 
 slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow 
 speculator on morals, who would mete us out 
 our liberty — our happiness — our very feelings, 
 by the yard, and inch, and fraction ? No, ne.
 
 8 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 let them follow what the books and precepts of 
 their own wisdom teach them : let them cul- 
 tivate more highly the lands they have already 
 parcelled out by dykes and fences, and leave, 
 though at scanty intervals, some green patches 
 of unpolluted land for the poor man's beast, and 
 the free man's foot." 
 
 " You are an enthusiast on this subject," said 
 the younger traveller, not a little surprised at 
 the tone and words of the last speech ; " and if 
 I were not just about to commence the world 
 with a firm persuasion that enthusiasm on any 
 matter is a great obstacle to success, I could be 
 as warm, though not so eloquent, as yourself." 
 
 " Ah, Sir," said the stranger, sinking into a 
 more natural and careless tone, " I have a better 
 right than I imagine you can lay a claim to, to 
 repine or even to inveigh against the boundaries 
 which are day by day, and hour by hour en- 
 proaching upon what I have learnt to look upon
 
 I 
 
 THE DISOWNED. 9 
 
 as my own territory. You were, just before I 
 joined you, singing an old song ; I honour you 
 for your taste : and no offence, Sir, but a sort of 
 fellowship in feeling made me take the liberty 
 to accost you. I am no very great scholar in 
 other things; but I owe my present circumstances 
 of life solely to my fondness for those old songs 
 and quaint madrigals. And I believe no per- 
 son can better apply to himself Will Shakspeare's 
 invitation : — 
 
 " ' Under the green wood tree, 
 
 Who loves to lie with me, 
 
 And tune his merry note 
 
 Unto the sweet bird's throat. 
 
 Come hither, come hither, come hither ; 
 
 Here shall he see 
 
 No enemy 
 
 But winta: and rough weather.' " 
 
 Relieved from his former fear, but with in- 
 creased curiosity at this quotation, which was 
 half said, half sung, in a tone which seemed to 
 
 B S
 
 10 TlIE DISOWNED. 
 
 evince a hearty relish for the sense of the words, 
 the youth replied — 
 
 ** Truly, I did not expect to meet among the 
 travellers of this wild country, with so well stored 
 a memory. And, indeed, I should have ima- 
 gined that the only persons to whom your verses 
 could exactly have applied, were those honour- 
 able vagrants from the Nile, whom in vulgar 
 language we term gipsies." 
 
 '' Precisely so, Sir," answered the tall stran- 
 ger, indifferently ; *' precisely so. It is to that 
 antient body that I belong." 
 
 ''The devil you do!" quoth the youth, in 
 unsophisticated surprise; " the progress of educa- 
 tion is, indeed, astonishing !" 
 
 " Why," answered the stranger, laughing, 
 '* to tell you the truth, Sir, I am a gipsy by 
 inclination, not birth. The illustrious Bamfylde 
 Moore Carew, was not the only example of one
 
 THE UISOWNEU, 11 
 
 of gentle blood and honourable education, pre- 
 ferring a merry life and an universal home, to a 
 sad one in a rented cabin." 
 
 " I congratulate myself," quoth the youth, 
 in a tone that might have been in jest, " upon 
 becoming acquainted with a character at once 
 so respectable and so novel ; and to return your 
 quotation in the way of a compliment, I cry 
 out with the most fashionable author of Eliza- 
 beth's days — 
 
 " O for a bowl of fat Canary, 
 Rich Palermo — sparkling Sherry," 
 
 in order to drink to our better acquaintance." 
 
 "Thank you, Sir, — thank you," cried the 
 strange gipsy, evidently delighted with the 
 spirit with which his young acquaintance 
 seemed to enter into his character, and his quo- 
 tation from a class of authors at that time much 
 less known and appreciated than at present; 
 " and if you have seen already enough of the
 
 12 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 ■world, to take up with ale when neither Canary, 
 Palermo, nor Sherry are forthcoming, I will pro- 
 mise, at least, to pledge you in large draughts 
 of that homely beverage. What say you to pass- 
 ing a night with us ? our tents are yet more at 
 hand than the public house of which I spoke to 
 you." 
 
 The young man hesitated a moment, before 
 he replied — 
 
 " I will answer you frankly, my friend, even 
 though I repent my confidence. I have a few 
 guineas about me, which though not a large 
 sum, are my all. Now, however antient and 
 honourable your fraternity may be, they labour 
 under a sad confusion, I fear, in their ideas of 
 meum and tuumr 
 
 " Faith, Sir, I believe you are right ; and 
 were you some years older, I think you would 
 not have favoured me with the same disclosure 
 you have done now ; but you may be quite
 
 THE DISOWNED. 13 
 
 easy on that score. If you were made of gold, 
 the rascals would not break off the corner of 
 your garment as long as you were under my 
 protection. Does this assurance satisfy you V 
 
 ." Perfectly," said the youth ; "and now how 
 far are we from your encampment ? I assure 
 you I am all eagerness to be among a set of 
 which I have witnessed such a specimen.'' 
 
 " Nay, nay," returned the gipsy, " you 
 must not judge of all my brethren by me : I 
 confess that they are but a rough tribe. How- 
 ever, I love them dearly; and am only the 
 more inclined to think them honest to each 
 other, because they are rogues to all the rest of 
 the world." 
 
 By this time, our travellers had advanced 
 nearly two miles since they had commenced 
 companionship ; and at a turn in the lane, about 
 three hundred yards further on, they caught 
 a glimpse of a distant fire buniing brightly
 
 14 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 through the dim trees. They quickened their 
 pace, and striking a little out of their path into 
 a common, soon approached two tents, the 
 Arab homes of the vagrant and singular people 
 with whom the gipsy claimed brotherhood and 
 alliance.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Here we secxirely live, and eat 
 
 The cream of meat ; 
 And keep eternal fires 
 By which we sit, and do divined 
 
 Herrick— Oc/^ to Sir Clipsehy Crew. 
 
 Around a fire which blazed and crackled 
 beneath the large seething pot, that seemed 
 an emblem of the mystery, and a promise of 
 the good cheer which are the supposed cha- 
 racteristics of the gipsy race, were grouped 
 seven or eight persons, upon whose swarthy and 
 strong countenances the irregular and fitful 
 flame cast a picturesque and not unbecoming 
 glow. All of these, with the exception of an
 
 16 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 old crone who was tending the pot, and a little 
 boy who was feeding the fire with sundry frag- 
 ments of stolen wood, started to their feet upon 
 the entrance of the stranger. 
 
 " What ho, my bob cuffins," cried the gipsy 
 guide, " I have brought you a gentry cove, 
 to whom you will shew all possible respect ; and 
 hark ye, my maunders, if ye dare beg, borrow, 
 or steal a single croker — ay — but a bawbee of 
 him, I'll — but ye know me." The gipsy stopped 
 abruptly, and turned an eye, in which menace 
 vainly struggled with good humour, upon each 
 of his brethren, as they submissively bowed to 
 him and his 'protege^ and poured forth a pro- 
 fusion of promises, to which their admonitor did 
 not even condescend to listen. He threw off his 
 great coat, doubled it down by the best place 
 near the lire, and made the youth forthwith 
 possess himself of the seat it afforded. He then 
 lifted the cover of the mysterious cauldron.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 17 
 
 " Well, Mort," cried he to the old woman, as he 
 bent wistfully down, *' what have we here ?" 
 
 " Two ducks, three chickens, and a rabbit, 
 with some potatoes," growled the old hag, who 
 claimed the usual privilege of her culinary 
 office, to be as ill tempered as she pleased. 
 
 " Good !" said the gipsy ; " and now, Mim, 
 ray cull, go to the other tent, and ask its inha- 
 bitants, in my name, to come here and sup ; 
 bid them bring tlieir cauldron to eke out ours — 
 I'll find the lush." 
 
 "With these words (which Mim, a short, 
 m-axthy member of the gang, with a counte- 
 pance too astute to be pleasing, instantly started 
 forth to obey) the gipsy stretched himself at 
 full length by the youth's side, and began re- 
 minding him, with some jocularity, and at some 
 length, of his promise to drink to their better 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Something there was in the scene, the fire,
 
 18 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the cauldron, the intent figure and withered 
 countenance of the old woman, the grouping 
 of the other forms, the rude but not unpic- 
 turesque tent, the dark still woods on either side, 
 with the deep and cloudless skies above, as the 
 stars broke forth one by one upon the silent air, 
 which (to use the orthodox phrase of the novehst) 
 would not have been wholly unworthy the bold 
 pencil of Salvator himself. 
 
 The youth eyed with that involuntary respect 
 which personal advantages always command, the 
 large, yet symmetrical proportions of his wild 
 companion ; nor was the face which belonged to 
 that frame much less deserving than the latter 
 of attention. Though not handsome, it was sin- 
 gular, shrewd, and prepossessing in its expres- 
 sion ; the forehead was prominent, the brows 
 overhung the eyes, which were large, dark, and 
 unlike those of the tribe in general, rather calm 
 than brilliant; the complexion, though sun-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 19 
 
 burnt, was not swarthy, and the face was care- 
 fully and cleanly shaved, so as to give all due 
 advantage of contrast to the brown luxuriant 
 locks which fell, rather in flakes than curls, on 
 either side of his smooth and glowing cheeks. In 
 age, he was about thirty-five, and though his 
 air and mien were assuredly not lofty nor aris- 
 tocratic, yet they were essentially and strikingly 
 above the bearing of his vagabond companions : 
 those companions were in all respects of the 
 ordinary race of gipsies ; the cunning and flash- 
 ing eye, the raven locks, the dazzling teeth, the 
 bronzed colour, and the low, slight, active form, 
 were as strongly their distinguishing charac- 
 teristics as the token of all their horde. 
 
 But to these, the appearance of the youth 
 presented a striking and beautiful contrast. 
 
 He had only just past the stage of boyhood, 
 perhaps he might have seen eighteen summers, 
 probably not so many. He had, in imitation of
 
 ^20 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 his companion, and perhaps from mistaken 
 courtesy to his new society, doffed his hat ; and 
 the attitude which he had chosen, fully de- 
 veloped the noble and intellectual turn of his 
 head and throat. His hair, as yet preserved 
 from the disfiguring fashions of the day, was of 
 a deep auburn, which was rapidly becoming of 
 a more chesnut hue, and curled in short close 
 curls from the nape of the neck to the com- 
 mencement of a forehead singularly white and 
 high. His brows finely and lightly penciled, 
 and his long lashes of the darkest dye, gave a 
 deeper and perhaps softer shade than they other- 
 wise would have worn, to eyes quick and 
 observant in their expression, and of a light 
 hazel in their colour. His cheek was very fair, 
 and the red light of the fire cast an artificial 
 tint of increased glow upon a complexion that had 
 naturally rather bloom than colour ; while a dark 
 riding frock set off in their full beauty, the fine
 
 THE DISOWNED. 21 
 
 outline of his chest, and the slender symmetry 
 of his frame. 
 
 But it was neither his features, nor his form, 
 eminently handsome as they were, which gave 
 the principal charm to the young stranger's 
 appearance — it was the strikingly bold, buoyant, 
 frank, and almost joyous expression, which pre- 
 sided over all. There seemed to dwell the 
 first glow and life of youth, undimmed by a 
 single fear, and unbaffled in a single hope. 
 There were the elastic spring, the inexhaustible 
 wealth of energies, which defied, in their exulting 
 pride, the heaviness of sorrow and the harass- 
 ments of time. It was a face, that while it filled 
 you with some melancholy foreboding of the 
 changes and chances which must, in the inevitable 
 course of fate, cloud the openness of the un- 
 wrinkled brow, and soberize the fire of the 
 daring and restless eye, instilled also within you 
 some assurance of triumph, and some omen of
 
 22 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 success : — a vague but powerful sympathy with 
 the adventurous and cheerful spirit, which 
 appeared literally to speak in its expression. It 
 was a face you might imagine in one born under 
 a prosperous star, and you felt, as you gazed, a 
 confidence in that bright countenance, which, 
 like the shield of the British Prince,* seemed 
 possessed with the power to charm into impo- 
 tence the evil spirits who menaced its possessor. 
 
 " Well, Sir," said his friend, the gipsy, who 
 had in his turn been surveying with admiration 
 the sinewy and agile frame of his young guest, 
 *' Well, Sir, how fares your appetite ? Old 
 Dame Bingo will be mortally offended if you 
 do not do ample justice to her good cheer." 
 
 " If so," answered our traveller, who, young as 
 he was, had learnt already the grand secret 
 of making, in every situation, a female friend, 
 
 ♦ Prince Arthur. — See The Fairy Queen.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 23 
 
 " if SO, I shall be likely to offend her still 
 more." 
 
 "And how, my pretty master?" said the old 
 crone, with an iron smile. 
 
 ** Why, I shall be bold enough to reconcile 
 matters with a kiss, Mrs. Bingo," answered the 
 youth. 
 
 "Ha! ha!" shouted the tall gipsy; "it is 
 many a long day since my old Mort slapped 
 a gallant's face for such an affront. But here 
 come our messmates. Good evening, my 
 mumpers — make your bows to this gentleman, 
 who has come to bowse with us to-night. 'Gad, 
 we'll shew him that old ale's none the worse for 
 keeping company with the moon's darlings. — 
 Come, sit down, sit down. Where''s the cloth, 
 ye ill-mannered loons, and the knives and plat- 
 ters ? Have we no holiday customs for strangers, 
 think ye ? — Mim, my cove, o^ to mi/ caravan — 
 bring out the knives, and all other rattletraps^
 
 24 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and harkye, my cuffin, this small key opens the 
 inner hole, where you'll find two barrels ; bring 
 one of them. I'll warrant it of the best, for the 
 brewer himself drank some of the same sort 
 but two hours before I nimrrCd them. Come, 
 Stump, my cull, make yourself wings. Ho, 
 Dame Bingo, is not that pot of thine seething 
 yet ? — Ah, my young gentleman, you commence 
 betimes ; so much the better ; if love's a sum- 
 mer's day, we all know how early a summer 
 morning begins," added the jovial Egyptian, in 
 a lower voice (feeling perhaps that he was only 
 understood by himself), as he gazed complacently 
 on the youth, who, with that happy facility of 
 making himself everywhere at home, so uncom- 
 mon to his countrymen, was already paying 
 compliments, suited to their understanding, to 
 two fair daughters of the tribe, who had entered 
 with the new comers. Yet had he too much 
 craft or delicacy, call it which you will, to con-
 
 THE DISOWNED. S5 
 
 tinue his addresses to that Hmit where ridicule or 
 jealousy, from the male part of the assemblage, 
 might commence ; on the contrary, he soon 
 turned to the men, and addressed them with a 
 familiarity so frank, and so suited to their taste, 
 that he grew no less rapidly in their favour than 
 he had already done in that of the women, and. 
 when the contents of the two cauldrons were at 
 length set upon the coarse, but clean, cloth, 
 which, in honour of his arrival, covered the sod, 
 it was in the midst of a loud and universal peal 
 of laughter, which some broad witticism of the 
 young stranger had produced, that the party 
 sat down to their repast. 
 
 Bright were the eyes, and sleek the tresses of 
 the damsel who placed herself by the side of the 
 stranger, and many were the alluring glances 
 and insinuated compliments which replied to his 
 open admiration and profuse flattery ; but still 
 was there nothing exclusive in his attentions : 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 S6 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 perhaps an ignorance of the customs of his enter- 
 tainers, and a consequent discreet fear of offend- 
 ing them, restrained him ; or perhaps he found 
 ample food for occupation in the plentiful 
 dainties which his host heaped before him. 
 
 " Now tell me," said the gipsy chief (for 
 chief he appeared to be), "if we lead not a 
 merrier life than you dreamt of? or would you 
 have us change our coarse fare and our simple 
 tents, our vigorous limbs and free hearts, for the 
 meagre board, the monotonous chamber, the 
 diseased frame, and the toiling, careful, and 
 withered spirit of some miserable mechanic ?'■ 
 
 " Change !" cried the youth, with an earnest- 
 ness, which, if affected, was an exquisite coun- 
 terfeit — " By Heaven, I would change with you 
 myself." 
 
 " Bravo, my fine cove !" cried the host, and 
 all the gang echoed their sympathy with liis 
 applause.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 27 
 
 The youth continued : " Meat, and that 
 plentiful ; ale, and that strong ; women, and 
 those pretty ones ; what can man desire more ?" 
 
 " Aye," cried the host, " and all for nothing, 
 —no, not even a tax ; who else in this kingdom 
 can say that ? Come, Mim, push round the ale." 
 
 And theale was pushed round, and if coarse the 
 merriment, loud at least was the laugh that rung 
 ever and anon from the old tent ; and though, 
 at moments, something in the guest's eye and 
 iip might have seemed, to a very shrewd ob- 
 server, a little wandering and distrait, yet, upon 
 the whole, he was almost as much at ease as the 
 rest, and if he was not quite as talkative, he was 
 to the full as noisy. 
 
 By degrees, as the hour grew later, and the 
 barrel less heavy, the conversation changed into 
 one universal clatter. Some told their feats in 
 beggary ; others, their achievements in theft ; 
 not a viand they had fed on but had its appro - 
 c 2
 
 28 THE DISOWNEIi. 
 
 priate legend ; even the old rabbit, which had 
 been as tough as old rabbit can well be, had 
 not been honestly taken from his burrow ; no 
 less a person than Mim himself had purloined it 
 from a widow's footman, who was carrying it to 
 an old maid as a hon houche. 
 
 " Silence !" cried the host, who loved talking 
 as well as the rest, and who, for the last ten 
 minutes, had been vainly endeavouring to obtain 
 attention. " Silence ! my maunders, it's late, 
 and we shall have the queer cuffins* upon us if 
 we keep it up much longer. What, ho, Mim, 
 are you still gabbling at the foot of the table, 
 when your betters are talking? As sure as my 
 name's King Cole, Fll choke you with your own 
 rabbit skin, if you don't hush your prating 
 cheat — nay, never look so abashed — if you will 
 make a noise, come forward, and sing us a gipsy 
 song. You see, my young Sir, (turning to his 
 
 * Magistrates.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 29 
 
 guest,) that we are not without our pretensions to 
 the fine arts." 
 
 At this order, Mim started forth, and taking 
 his station at the right hand of the soi disa/nt 
 King Cole, began the following song, the chorus 
 of which was chaunted in full diapason by the 
 whole groupe, with the additional force of em- 
 phasis that knives, feet, and fists could bestow. 
 
 " The king to his hall, and the steed to his stall, 
 And the cit to his bilking board ; 
 But we are not bound to an acre of ground, 
 For oiur home is the houseless sward. 
 
 " We sow not, nor toil ; yet we glean from the soil 
 As much as its reapers do ; 
 And wherever we rove, we feed on the cove 
 Who gibes at the mumping crew. 
 
 Choru8 — So the king to his haD, &c. 
 
 " We care not a straw for the limbs of the law. 
 Nor a fig for the cuffiyi queer ; 
 While Hodge and his neighbour shall lavish and labour, 
 Our tent is as sure of its cheer. 
 
 Chorus— So the king to his hall, &c
 
 30 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " The worst have an awe of the harman's* claw, 
 The best will shun the trap ;-f 
 But our wealth is as free of the bailiff's see^ 
 As our necks of the twisting crap.^ 
 
 Chorus — So the king to his hall, &c. 
 
 " Tliey say it is sweet to win the meat, 
 For which one has sorely wrought ; 
 But I never could find that we lack'd the mind 
 To the food that has cost us nought ! 
 
 Chorus. — So the king to his hall, &c. 
 
 " And when we have ceas'd from our fearless feast, 
 Ouv jigger\\ will need no bars ; 
 Our watch shall be the owlit's tree. 
 And our lamps the glorious stars. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 " So the king to his hall, and the steed to his staU, 
 And the cit to his bilking board ; 
 But we are not bound to an acre of ground. 
 For our home is the houseless sward." 
 
 Rude as was this lawless stave, which I 
 should perhaps apologize for introducing, the 
 spirit with which it was sung atoned to the 
 young stranger for its obscurity and quaintness ; 
 
 • Constable. f Bailiff. :|: Gallows. || Door.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 31 
 
 as for his host, that curious personage took a 
 lusty and prominent part in the chorus — nor 
 did the old woods refuse their share of the 
 burthen, but sent back a merry echo to the 
 chief's deep voice, and the harsher notes of his 
 jovial brethren. 
 
 When the glee had ceased, King Cole rose, 
 the whole band followed his example, the cloth 
 was cleared in a trice, the barrel — oh ! what a 
 falling off was there ! — was rolled into a corner 
 of the tent, and the crew, to whom the awning 
 belonged, began to settle themselves to rest ; 
 while those who owned the other encampment 
 marched forth, with King Cole at their head. 
 Leaning with no light weight upon his guest's 
 arm, the lover of ancient minstrelsy poured into 
 the youth's ear a train of eulogy, rather elo- 
 quent than coherent, upon the scene they had 
 just witnessed. 
 
 " What," cried his majesty, in an enthusiastic 
 tone, " what can be so truly regal as our state ?
 
 32 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Can any man control us ? Are we not above all 
 laws ? Are we not the most despotic of kings ? 
 Nay, more than the kings of earth — are we not 
 the kings of Fairy-land itself ? Do we not realize 
 the golden dreams of the old rhimers — luxurious 
 dogs that they were ? Who would not cry out — 
 
 ** * Blest silent groves ! O may ye be 
 For ever Mirth's best nursery ! 
 May pure Contents 
 For ever pitch their tents 
 Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these moxmtains.' " 
 
 Uttering this notable extract from the thrice 
 honoured Sir Henry Wotton, King Cole turned 
 abruptly from the common, entered the wood which 
 skirted it, and only attended by his guest and his 
 minister, Mim, came suddenly, by an unexpected 
 and picturesque opening in the trees, upon one 
 of those itinerant vehicles termed caravans ; he 
 ascended the few steps which led to the entrance, 
 opened the door, and was instantly in the arms 
 of a pretty and young woman. On seeing our 
 hero, (for such we fear the youth is likely to
 
 THE DISOWNED. 33 
 
 become,) she drew back with a blush not often 
 found upon regal cheeks. 
 
 «' Pooh," said King Cole, half tauntingly, half 
 fondly, "pooh, Lucy, blushes are garden flowers, 
 and ought never to be found wild in the woods :" 
 then changing his tone, he said, " Come, put 
 some fresh straw in the corner, this stranger 
 honours our palace to -night. — Mim, unload 
 thyself of our royal treasures — watch without, 
 and vanish from within !" 
 
 Depositing on his majesty's floor the appurte- 
 nances of the regal supper-table, Mim made his 
 respectful adieus, and disappeared ; meanwhile 
 the Queen scattered some fresh straw over a 
 mattrass in the narrow chamber, and laying over 
 all a sheet of singularly snowy hue, made her 
 guest some apology for the badness of his lodg- 
 ing ; this King Cole interrupted, by a most 
 elaborately noisy yawn, and a declaration of 
 extreme sleepiness. " Now, Lucy, let us leave 
 c 3
 
 34 
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the gentleman to what he will like better 
 than soft words even from a Queen. Good 
 night, Sir, we shall be stirring at day-break C 
 and with this farewell King Cole took the 
 lady's arm, and retired with her into an inner 
 department of the caravan. 
 
 Left to himself, our hero looked round witli 
 surprise at the exceeding neatness which reigned 
 over the whole apartment. But what chiefly 
 engrossed the attention of one, to whose early 
 habits they had always been treasures, were 
 several books ranged in comely shelves fenced 
 with wire-work on either side of the fire-place. 
 " Courage,'" thought he, as he stretched himself 
 on his humble couch, '•• my adventures have com- 
 menced well ; a gipsy tent, to be sure, is nothing 
 very new, but a gipsy who quotes poetry, and 
 enjoys a modest wife, speaks better than books 
 do for the improvement of the world. "'
 
 THE DISOWNED. 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
 Than that of painted pomp ?" 
 
 As yon Like it. 
 
 The sun broke cheerfully through the small 
 lattice of the caravan, as the youth opened his 
 eyes, and saw the good-humoured countenance 
 of his gipsy host bending over him compla- 
 cently. 
 
 '' You slept so soundly, Sir, that I did not 
 like to disturb you ; but my good wife only waits 
 your rising to have all ready for breakfast." 
 
 " It were a thousand pities," cried the guest.
 
 36 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 leaping from his bed, " that so pretty a face 
 should look cross on my account, so I will not 
 keep her waiting an instant."" 
 
 The gipsy smiled, as he answered, *' I require 
 no professional help from the devil. Sir, to fore- 
 tell your fortune." 
 
 <' No !— and what is it ?" 
 
 " Honour, reputation, success, all that are 
 ever won by a soft tongue, if it be backed by a 
 bold heart." 
 
 Bright and keen was the flash which shot over 
 the countenance of the one, for whom this pre- 
 diction was made, as he listened to it with a 
 fondness for which his reason rebuked him. He 
 turned aside with a sigh, which did not escape 
 the gipsy, and bathed his face in the water which 
 the provident hand of the good "woman had set 
 out for his lavations. 
 
 " Well," said his host, when the youth had 
 finished his brief toilet, ** suppose we breathe the
 
 •THE DISOWNED. 37 
 
 fresh air, while Lucy smooths your bed, and 
 prepares the breakfast. " 
 
 " With all my heart/' repUed the youth, and 
 they descended the steps which led into the 
 wood. It was a beautiful fresh morning, the air 
 was like a draught from a Spirit's fountain, and 
 filled the heart with new youth, and the blood 
 with a rapturous dehght ; the leaves — the green, 
 green leaves of spring — were quivering on the 
 trees ; among which, the happy birds fluttered 
 and breathed the gladness of their souls in song. 
 While the dew-drops that 
 
 " strewed 
 " A baptism o'er the flowers," 
 
 gave back, in their million mirrors, the reflected 
 smiles of the cloudless and rejoicing sun. 
 
 " Nature," said the gipsy, " has given her chil- 
 dren a gorgeous present in such a morning." 
 
 " True,'' said the youth ; " and you, of us two, 
 perhaps, only deserve it : as for me, when I think
 
 38 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 of the long road of dust, heat, and toil that lies 
 before me, I could almost wish to stop here and 
 ask an admission into the gipsy's tents." 
 
 " You could not do a wiser thing,'' said the 
 gipsy, gravely. 
 
 " But fate leaves me no choice," continued the 
 youth, as seriously as if he were in earnest ; " and 
 I must quit you immediately after I have a 
 second time tasted of your hospitable fare." 
 
 " If it must be so," answered the gipsy, *' I 
 will see you, at least, a mile or two on your road." 
 The youth thanked him for a promise, which his 
 curiosity made acceptable, and they turned once 
 more to the caravan. 
 
 The meal, however come by, met with as 
 much honour as it could possibly have re- 
 ceived from the farmer, from whoYn its materials 
 were borrowed. 
 
 It was not without complacency that the 
 worthy pair beheld the notice their guest lavished
 
 THE DISOWNED. 39 
 
 upon a fair, curly-headed boy of about three 
 years old, the sole child and idol of the gipsy 
 potentates. But they did not perceive, when 
 the youth rose to depart, that he slipped into 
 the folds of the child's dress, a ring of some 
 value, the only piece of foppery he possessed. 
 
 " And now," said he, after having thanked 
 the not uninteresting couple for their hospitality, 
 *' I must say good-bye to your flock, and set out 
 upon my day's journey." 
 
 Lucy, despite her bashfulness, shook hands 
 with her handsome guest, and the latter, accom- 
 panied by the gipsy chief, strolled down to the 
 encampments. 
 
 Open and free was his parting farewell to 
 their inmates of the two tents, and liberal was 
 the hand which showered upon all — especially 
 on the damsel who had been his Thais of the 
 evening feast — the silver coins which made no 
 inconsiderable portion of his present property.
 
 40 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 It was amidst the oracular wishes and favour- 
 able predictions of the whole crew that he recom- 
 menced his journey with the gipsy chief. 
 
 When the^ tents were fairly out of sight, and 
 not till then, King Cole broke the silence which 
 had as yet subsisted between them. 
 
 " I suppose, my young gentleman, that you 
 expect to meet some of y«ur friends or relations 
 
 at W . I know not what they will say when 
 
 they hear where you have spent the night." 
 
 *' Indeed !" said the youth ; " whoever hears 
 my adventure, relation or not, will be delighted 
 with my description ; but, in sober earnest, I 
 
 expect to find no one at W , more, my friend, 
 
 than a surly innkeeper, unless it be his dog.*" 
 
 " Why, they surely do not suffer a stripling 
 of your youth, and evident quality, to wander 
 alone !'' cried King Cole, in undisguised surprise. 
 
 The young traveller made no prompt answer, 
 but bent down as if to pluck a wild flower
 
 THE DISOWNED. 41 
 
 which grew by the road side : after a pause, he 
 said — 
 
 " Nay, Master Cole, you must not set me the 
 example of playing the inquisitor ; or you can- 
 not guess how troublesome I shall be. To tell 
 you the truth, I am dying with curiosity, to 
 know something more about you than you may 
 be disposed to tell me : you have already con- 
 fessed that, however boon companions your 
 gipsies may be, they are not those with whom 
 you were born and bred." 
 
 King Cole laughed; perhaps he was not ill 
 pleased at the curiosity of his guest, nor at the 
 opportunity it afforded him of being his own 
 hero. 
 
 " My story, Sir," said he, " would be soon 
 told, if you thought it worth the hearing, nor 
 does it contain anything which should prevent 
 my telling it." 
 
 " If so,'' quoth the youth, " I shall conceive
 
 42 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 your satisfying my request the greatest favour 
 you have yet bestowed upon me." 
 
 The gipsy relaxed his pace into an indolent 
 saunter, as he commenced. 
 
 " The first scene that I remember, was similar 
 to that which you witnessed last night. The 
 savage tent, and the green moor — the faggot 
 blaze — the eternal pot, with its hissing note of 
 preparation — the old dame who tended it, and 
 the ragged urchins who learnt from its contents 
 the first reward of, and the earliest temptation 
 to theft — all these are blended into agreeable 
 confusion as the primal impressions of my child- 
 hood. The woman who nurtured me as my 
 mother was rather capricious than kind, and my 
 infancy passed away, like that of more favoured 
 scions of fortune, in alternate chastisement and 
 caresses. In good truth, Kinching Meg had the 
 shrillest voice and the heaviest hand of the 
 whole crew, and I cannot complain of injustice,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 43 
 
 since she treated me no worse than the rest. 
 Notwithstanding the irregularity of my educa- 
 tion, I grew up strong and healthy, and my 
 reputed mother had taught me so much fear for 
 herself, that she left me none for any thing else ; 
 accordingly, I became bold, reckless, and adven- 
 turous, and at the age of thirteen was as thorough 
 a reprobate as the tribe could desire. At that 
 time a singular change befell me : we (that is, 
 my mother and myself) w^ere begging, not many 
 miles from hence, at the door of a rich man's 
 house, in which the mistress lay on her death- 
 bed. That mistress was my real mother, from 
 whom Meg had stolen me in my first year of 
 existence. Whether it was through the fear oi 
 conscience, or the hope of reward, no sooner 
 had Meg learnt the dangerous state of my poor 
 mother, the constant grief which they said had 
 been the sole, though slow cause of her disease, 
 and the large sums which had been repeatedly
 
 44 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 offered for my recovery ; no sooner, I say, did 
 Meg ascertain all these particulars, than she 
 fought her way up to the sick chamber, fell on 
 her knees before the bed, owned her crime, and 
 produced myself. Various little proofs of time, 
 place, circumstance ; the clothing I had worn 
 when stolen, and which was still preserved, 
 joined to the striking likeness I bore to both 
 my parents, especially to my father, silenced all 
 doubt and incredulity ; I was welcomed home 
 with a joy which it is in vain to describe ; my 
 return seemed to recall my mother from the 
 grave ; she lingered on for many months longer 
 than her physicians thought it possible, and 
 when she died, her last words commended me 
 to my father's protection. 
 
 " My surviving parent needed no such re- 
 quest. He lavished upon me all that super- 
 fluity of fondness and food, of which those good 
 people who are resolved to spoil their children,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 45 
 
 are so prodigal. He could not bear the idea of 
 sending me to school ; accordingly he took a 
 tutor for me, a simple-hearted, gentle, kind 
 man^ who possessed a vast store of learning 
 rather curious than useful. He was a toler- 
 able, and at least an enthusiastic, antiquarian 
 — a more than tolerable poetaster ; and he 
 had a prodigious budget full of old ballads and 
 songs which he loved better to teach and / to 
 learn, than all the " Latin, Greek, geography, 
 astronomy, and the use of the globes," which 
 my poor father had so sedulously bargained for. 
 " Accordingly I became exceedingly well-in- 
 formed in all the " precious conceits" and 
 " golden garlands" of our British antients, and 
 continued exceedingly ignorant of every thing 
 else, save and except a few of the most fashion- 
 able novels of the Fielding and Smollett school, 
 and the contents of six lying volumes of voyages 
 and travels which flattered both my appetite for
 
 46 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the wonderful, and my love of the adventurous. 
 My studies, such as they were, were not by any 
 means suited to curb or direct the vagrant tastes 
 my childhood had acquired : on the contrary, 
 the old poets, with their luxurious description 
 of the " green wood," and the forest life ; the 
 fashionable novelists, with their spirited accounts 
 of the wanderings of some fortunate rogue, and 
 the ingenious travellers, with their wild fables so 
 dear to the imagination of every boy, only fo- 
 mented within me a strong though secret regret 
 at my change of life, and a restless disgust to the 
 tame home and bounded roamings to which I 
 was condemned. When I was about seventeen, 
 my father sold his property which he had be- 
 come possessed of in right of my mother, and 
 transformed the purchase money to the security 
 of the funds. Shortly afterwards he died ; the 
 bulk of his fortune became mine ; the remainder 
 was settled upon a sister many years older than a
 
 THE DISOWNED. 47 
 
 myself, who, in consequence of her marriage 
 and residence in a remote part of Wales, I had 
 never yet seen. 
 
 " Now, then, I was perfectly free and unfet- 
 tered ; my guardian lived m Scotland, and left 
 me entirely to the guidance of my tutor, who was 
 both too simple and too indolent to resist my 
 inclinations. I went to London, became ac- 
 quainted with a set of most royal scamps, fre- 
 quented the theatres, the taverns, the various 
 resorts which constitute the gaieties of a blood 
 just above the middle class, and was one of the 
 noisiest and wildest *' blades" that ever heard 
 " the chimes by midnight," and the magistrate's 
 lecture for matins. I was a sort of leader 
 among the jolly dogs I consorted with. My 
 earlier education gave a raciness and nature 
 to my delineations of " life," which de- 
 lighted them. But somehow or other I grew 
 wearied of this sort of existence. About a
 
 48 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 year after I was of age ray fortune was more than 
 three parts spent ; I fell ill with drinking, and 
 grew dull with remorse ; need I add that my 
 comrades left me to myself. A fit of the spleen, 
 especially if accompanied with duns, makes one 
 wofully misanthropic ; so when I recovered 
 from my illness, I set out on a tour through 
 Great Britain and France — alone, and princi- 
 pally on foot. Oh, the rapture of shaking oflP 
 the half friends and cold formalities of society, 
 and finding oneself all unfettered, with no com- 
 panion but nature, no guide but youth, and no 
 flatterer but hope 1 
 
 " Well, my young friend ; I travelled for two 
 years, and saw even in that short time, enough 
 of this busy world to weary and disgust me 
 with its ordinary customs. I was not made to 
 be polite, still less to be ambitious. I sighed 
 after the coarse comrades and the free tents of 
 my first associates, and a thousand remembrances
 
 THE DISOWNED. 4^ 
 
 of the gipsy wanderings, steeped in all the 
 green and exhilarating colours of childhood, 
 perpetually haunted my mind. On my return 
 from my wanderings, I found a letter from my 
 sister, who, having become a widow, had left 
 Wales, and had now fixed her I'esidence in a 
 well visited watering place in the west of Eng- 
 land. I had never yet seen her, and her letter 
 was a fine lady-like sort of epistle, with a great 
 deal of romance and a very little sense, written in 
 an extremely pretty hand, and ending with a 
 quotation from Pope. (I never could endure 
 Pope, nor indeed any of the poets of the days 
 of Anne and her successors.) It was a beauti- 
 ful season of the year ; I had been inured to 
 pedestrian excursions, so I set off on foot to see 
 my nearest surviving relative. On the way, I 
 fell in (though on a very different spot) with 
 the very encampment you saw last night. By 
 Heavens, that was a merry meeting to me ; I 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 joined, and journeyed with them for several 
 days — never do I remember a happier time. 
 Then, after many years of bondage and stiff- 
 ness, and accordance with the world, I found 
 myself at ease, like a released bird : with what 
 zest did I join in the rude jokes and the knavish 
 tricks, the stolen feasts and the roofless nights 
 of those careless vagabonds. Ah, Sir, may you 
 never — for the sake of what the world calls 
 honest men — know the happiness of being a 
 rogue ! 
 
 " I left ray fellow-travellers at the entrance 
 of the town, where mj sister lived. Now came 
 the contrast. Somewhat hot, rather plebeianishl^ 
 clad, and covered with the dust of a long sum- 
 mer''s day, I was ushered into a little drawing- 
 room, eighteen feet by twelve, as I was after- 
 wards somewhat pompously informed. A flaunt- 
 ing carpet, green, red, and yellow, covered the 
 floor. A full length picture of a thin woman.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 51 
 
 looking most agreeably ill-tempered, stared 
 down at me from the chimney-piece ; three 
 stuffed birds — how emblematic of domestic life 
 — stood stiff and imprisoned, even after death, 
 in a glass cage. A fire-screen, and a bright 
 fire-place ; chairs covered with holland, to 
 preserve them from the atmosphere, and long 
 mirrors wrapped, as to the frame work, in yellow 
 muslin, to keep off the flies, finish the pano- 
 rama of this watering-place mansion. The door 
 opened — silks rustled — voice shrieked, ' My 
 Brother 1^ and a figure — a thin figure — the 
 original of the picture over the chimney-piece — 
 rushed in." 
 
 " I can well fancy her joy," said the youth. 
 
 " You can do no such thing, begging your 
 pardon. Sir," resumed King Cole. " She had 
 no joy at all : — she was exceedingly surprised 
 and disappointed. In spite of my early adven- 
 ture, I had nothing picturesque or romantic 
 D 2
 
 52 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 about me at all. I was very thirsty, and I 
 called for beer ; I was very tired, and I laid 
 down on the sofa ; I wore thick shoes and small 
 buckles ; and my clothes were made, God knows 
 where, and were certainly put on, God knows 
 how. My sister was miserably ashamed of me : 
 she had not even the manners to disguise it. In 
 a higher rank of life than that which she held, 
 she would have suffered far less mortification; for 
 I fancy great people pay but little real attention 
 to externals. Even if a man of rank is vulgar, it 
 makes no difference in the orbit in which he 
 moves; but your ' genteel gentlewomen ' are so 
 terribly dependent upon what Mrs. Tomkyns 
 will say — so very uneasy about their relations, 
 and the opinion they are held in — and above all, 
 so made up of appearances and clothes— so 
 undone, if they do not eat, drink, and talk 
 a-la-mode^ that I can fancy no shame like that of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 53 
 
 my poor sister's, at having found, and being 
 found with, a vulgar brother. 
 
 " I saw how unwelcome I was, and I did not 
 punish myself by a long visit. With a proud 
 face, but a heart full of bitter and crushed affec- 
 tions, I left her house, and returned towards 
 London. On my road, I again met with my 
 gipsy friends; the warmth of their welcome 
 enchanted me — you may guess the rest. I 
 stayed with them so long, that I could not bear 
 to leave them ; I re-entered their crew. I am 
 one among them, not that I have become alto- 
 gether and solely of the tribe. I still leave 
 them, whenever the whim seizes me, and repair 
 to the great cities and tlioroughfares of man. 
 There I am soon driven back again, to my 
 favourite and fresh fields, even as a reed upon a 
 wild stream is dashed back upon the green 
 rushes from which it has been torn. You perceive 
 that I have many comforts and distinctions
 
 54 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 above the rest ; for, alas, Sir, there is no society, 
 however free and democratic, where wealth will 
 not create an aristocracy ; the remnants of my 
 fortune provide me with my unostentatious 
 equipage, and the few luxuries it contains ; it 
 relieves the necessities of the poor, whether of 
 mine or another tribe, among which my vagran- 
 cies cast me ; it allows me to curb among the 
 crew, all the grosser and heavier offences 
 against the law, to which want might compel 
 them ; and it serves to keep up that sway and 
 ascendancy among them, which my superior 
 education and fluent spirits enabled me at first 
 to attain. Though not legally their king, I 
 assume that title over the few encampments with 
 which I am accustomed to travel, and you per- 
 ceive that I have given my simple name, both 
 the jocular and kingly dignity of which the old 
 song will often remind you. My story is 
 done.'^
 
 THE DISOWNED. 55 
 
 " Not quite," said his companion : " your 
 wife ? How came you by that blessing ?" 
 
 " Ah ! thereby hangs a pretty and a lovesick 
 tale, which would not sound ill in an ancient 
 ballad ; but I will content myself with briefly 
 sketching it. Lucy is the daughter of a gentle- 
 man farmer: about four years ago I fell in 
 love with her. I wooed her clandestinely, 
 and at last I owned I was a gipsy ; I did not 
 add my birth nor fortune — no, I was full of the 
 romance of the Nut-brown Maid's lover, and 
 attempted a trial of woman's affection, which 
 even in these days was not disappointed. She 
 eloped with me — I leave you to imagine her 
 father's anger — but you must also imagine my 
 revenge for his noisy hatred and active persecu- 
 tion of me. A year after our marriage, things 
 went bad with him ; corn, crops, cattle — the 
 deuce was in them all ! an execution was on his 
 house and a writ out against his person. I sent
 
 56 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Lucy to comfort and restore him ; we procured 
 him a better farm and a prettier house, and we 
 are now the best friends in the world. Poor 
 Lucy is perfectly reconciled to her caravan, and 
 her wandering husband, and has never, I be- 
 lieve, once repented the day on which she became 
 the gipsy's wife l' 
 
 " I thank you heartily for your history," said 
 the youth, who had listened very attentively to 
 this detail ; " and though my happiness and 
 pursuits are centred in that world which you 
 despise, yet I confess that I feel a sensation 
 very like envy at your singular choice ; and I 
 would not dare to ask of my heart, whether 
 that choice is not happier, as it is certainly more 
 philosophical, than mine."" 
 
 They had now reached a part of the road 
 where the country assumed a totally different 
 character ; the woods and moors were no longer 
 visible, but a broad and somewhat bleak extent
 
 THE DISOWNED. 57 
 
 of country lay before them. Here and there 
 only, a few solitary trees broke the uniformity 
 of the wide fields and scanty hedge-rows, and 
 at distant intervals the thin spires of the scat- 
 tered churches rose like the prayers, of which 
 they were perhaps the symbol, to mingle them- 
 selves with heaven. 
 
 The gipsy paused : " I will accompany 
 you," said he, " no farther : your way lies 
 
 straight onwards, and you will reach W 
 
 before noon ; farewell, and may God watch 
 over you !" 
 
 " Farewell !" said the youth, warmly press- 
 ing the hand which was extended to him. " If 
 we ever meet again, it will probably solve a 
 curious riddle, viz. whether you are not dis- 
 gusted with the caravan, and / with the 
 world !" 
 
 " The latter is more likely than the former," 
 said the gipsy, ** for one stands a much greater 
 p 3
 
 58 - THK DISOWNED. 
 
 change of being disgusted with others than with 
 oneself; so changing a little the old lines, I will 
 wish you adieu after my own fashion, viz. in 
 verse — 
 
 " Go, set thy heart on winged wealth, 
 
 Or unto honour's towers aspire ; 
 But give me freedom and my health. 
 
 And there's the sum of my desire !"
 
 THE DISOWNED. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " The letter, Madam — have you none for me ?" 
 
 The Rendezvous. 
 " Provide surgeons." 
 
 The Lover's Progress. 
 
 How little, when we read the work, do we 
 care for the author ! How little do we reck of 
 the sorrow from which a jest has been forced, 
 or the weariness that an incident has beguiled ! 
 But the power to fly from feeling, the recom- 
 pence of literature for its heart-burnings and 
 cares, the disappointment and the anxiety, the 
 cavil and the " censure sharp^' — even this 
 passes away, and custom drags on the dull chain
 
 60 IHE DISOWNED. 
 
 which enthusiasm once so passionately wore ! 
 Alas, for the age when, in the creation of fiction, 
 we could lose the bitterness and barrenness of 
 truth ! The sorrows of youth, if not wholly 
 ideal, borrow, at least, from the imagination 
 their colour and their shape. What marvel 
 then that from the imagination come also their 
 consolation and their hope. But now, in man- 
 hood, our fancy constitutes but little of our 
 afflictions, and presents to us no avenues for 
 escape. In the toil, the fret, the hot, the 
 unquiet, the exhausting engrossments of maturer 
 years, how soon the midnight lamp loses its 
 enchantment, and the noon-day visions their 
 spell I We are bound by a thousand galling 
 and grinding ties to this hard and unholy earth . 
 We become helots of the soil of dust and clay ; 
 denizens of the polluted smoke, the cabined 
 walls, and the stony footing of the inhospitable 
 world. What now have our griefs with the
 
 THE DISOWNED. 61 
 
 " moonlit melancholy," the gentle tenderness of 
 our young years. Can we tell them any more 
 to the woods and waterfalls ? Can we make for 
 them a witness of the answering sea, or the 
 sympathizing stars ? Alas I they have now 
 neither commune nor consolation in the voices of 
 Nature, or the mysteries of Romance ; they 
 have become the petty stings, and the faUing 
 drops, the irritating and vexing littlenesses of 
 life ; they have neither dignity on the one hand, 
 nor delusion on the other. One by one they 
 cling around us, like bonds of iron ; they mul- 
 tiply their links ; they grow over our hearts; and 
 the feelings, once too wild for the very earth, 
 fold their broken wings within the soul. Dull 
 and heavy thoughts, like dead walls, close 
 around the laughing flowers and fields that so 
 enchanted us of yore ; the sins, the habits, the 
 reasonings of the world, like rank and gloomy 
 fogs, shut out the exulting heavens from our
 
 62 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 view ; the limit of our wandering becomes the 
 length of our chain ; the height of our soarings, 
 the summit of our cell. Fools-fools that we 
 are then, to imagine that the works of our later 
 years shall savour of the freedom and aspirations 
 of our youth ; or that amidst all which hourly 
 and momently recalls and binds our hearts and 
 spirits to the eternal " self,^^ we can give life, 
 and zest, and vigour, to the imaginary actions 
 and sentiments of another ! 
 
 Of a very different cast from these melancholy 
 reflections were the thoughts of our young 
 traveller as he hastened, with a rapid step, upon 
 his solitary way. The fresh air and the exu- 
 berance of health gave him that exhilaration of 
 spirit which is so rarely found after a certain 
 age ; and every now and then he broke forth 
 into abrupt sentences, which, in betraying the 
 sanguineness of his meditations, disclosed also 
 the character of his mind.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 63 
 
 " Turn gipsy, indeed ! There is something 
 better in store for me than such a choice. Ay, 
 I have all the world before me where to choose 
 — not my place of rest. No, many a long year 
 will pass away ere any place of rest will be my 
 choice ! Action ! Action ! Action I as Demos- 
 thenes said. I wonder whether I shall find the 
 
 letter at W ; the letter, the last letter I 
 
 shall ever have from home ; but it is no home to 
 me now ; and / — / — insulted, reviled, trampled 
 upon, without even a name ! Well, well, I will 
 earn a still fairer one than that of my forefathers. 
 They shall be proud to own me yet." And 
 with these words the speaker broke off abruptly, 
 with a swelling chest, and a flashing eye ; and, 
 as an unknown and friendless adventurer, he 
 gazed on the expanded and silent country around 
 him, he felt, like Castruccio Castrucani, that 
 he could stretch his hands to the east and the 
 west, and exclaim, '' Oh, that my power kept
 
 64 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 pace with my spirit, then sliould it grasp the 
 corners of the earth." 
 
 The road wound at last from the champaign 
 country, through which it had for some miles 
 extended itself, into a narrow lane girded on 
 either side by a dead fence. As the youth 
 entered this lane, he was somewhat startled by 
 the abrupt appearance of a horseman, whose 
 steed leaped the hedge so close to our hero as 
 almost to endanger his safety. The rider, a 
 gentleman of about five-and -twenty, pulled up, 
 and in a tone of great courtesy, apologized for 
 his inadvertency ; the apology was readily ad- 
 mitted, and the horseman rode onwards in the 
 direction of W . 
 
 Trifling as this incident was, the air and 
 mien of the stranger were sufficient to arrest, 
 irresistibly, the thoughts of the young traveller ; 
 and before they had flowed into a fresh channel 
 he found himself in the town, and at the door
 
 THE DISOWNED. 65 
 
 of the inn to which his expedition was bound. 
 He entered the bar ; a buxom landlady, and a 
 still more buxom daughter, were presiding over 
 the spirits of the place. 
 
 " You have some boxes and a letter for me, 
 I believe,'* said the young gentleman to the 
 comely hostess. 
 
 " To 2/ou, Sir ! the name, if you please ?^' 
 
 " To— to— to C— li— ,'' said the youth ; 
 " the initials C. L., to be left till called for." 
 
 " Yes, Sir, we have some luggage — came last 
 night by the van, — and a letter besides, Sir, to 
 C. L. also." 
 
 The daughter lifted her large dark eyes at 
 the handsome stranger, and felt a wonderful 
 curiosity to know what the letter to C. L. could 
 possibly be about ; meanwhile mine hostess 
 raising her hand to a shelf on which stood an 
 Indian slop basin, the great ornament of the
 
 66 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 bar at the Golden Fleece, brought from its 
 cavity a well folded and well sealed epistle. 
 
 '^ That is it," cried the youth ; '' shew me a 
 private room instantly." 
 
 " What can he want a private room for ?" 
 thought the landlady's daughter. 
 
 " Shew the gentleman to the Griffin, No. 4, 
 John Merrylack," said the landlady herself. 
 
 With an impatient step the owner of the let- 
 ter followed a slipshod and marvellously un« 
 washed waiter into No. 4 — a small square 
 asylum for town travellers, country yeomen, 
 and " single gentlemen ;" presenting, on the one 
 side, an admirable engraving of the Marquis of 
 Granby, and on the other an equally delightful 
 view of the stable yard. 
 
 Mr. C. L. flung himself on a chair, (there 
 were only four chairs in No. 4,) watched the 
 waiter out of the room, seized his letter, broke
 
 THE DISOWNED. 67 
 
 open the seal, and read — yes, reader, you shall 
 read it too — as follows: — 
 
 "Inclosed is the sum to which you are entitled; 
 remember, that it is all which you can ever 
 claim at my hands ; remember also, that you 
 have made the choice which, now, nothing can 
 persuade me to alter. Be the name you have 
 so long iniquitously borne, henceforth and 
 always forgotten ; upon that condition, you 
 may yet hope, from my generosity, the future 
 assistance which you must want, but which you 
 could ask not from my affection. Equally, by 
 my heart and my reason, you are for ever dis- 
 omned,'^ 
 
 The letter fell from the reader's hands. He 
 took up the enclosure, it was an order payable 
 somewhere in London for £1000 ; to him it 
 seemed like the rental of the Indies.
 
 68 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Be it so !'" he said aloud, and slowly ; "be 
 it so ! With this will I carve my way ; many a 
 name in history was built upon a worse foun- 
 dation !" 
 
 With these words he carefully put up the 
 money, re-read the brief note which enclosed it, 
 tore the latter into pieces, and then going to- 
 wards the aforesaid view of the stable-yard, 
 threw open the window and leant out, appa- 
 rently in earnest admiration of two pigs, which 
 marched, gruntingly, towards him, one goat 
 regaling himself upon a cabbage, and a broken- 
 winded, emaciated horse, which having just 
 been, what the ostler called, " rubbed down," 
 was just going to be, what the ostler called, 
 "fed;' 
 
 While engaged in this interesting survey, the 
 clatter of hoofs became suddenly heard upon 
 the rough pavement — a bell rung — a dog 
 barked — the pigs grunted — the ostler ran out,
 
 THE DISOWNED. Oy 
 
 and the stranger, whom our hero had before 
 m6t on the road, trotted into the yard. 
 
 It was evident from the obsequiousness of the 
 attendants, that the horseman was a personage 
 of no mean importance ; and indeed, an air, 
 which might almost have been called princely, 
 (not that princes really have the noblest air in 
 the world,) seemed alone sufficient to stamp 
 upon the stranger's brow and figure the patent 
 of aristocracy. 
 
 " Who can that be ?" said the youth, as the 
 equestrian, having dismounted, turned towards 
 the door of the inn : the question was readily 
 answered — " There goes pride and poverty," 
 said the ostler — "Here comes Squire Mor- 
 daunt," said the landlady. 
 
 At the further end of the stable-yard, through 
 a narrow gate, the youth caught a glimpse of 
 the green sward and springing flowers of a
 
 70 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 small garden. Wearied with the sameness of 
 No. 4, rather than with his journey, he saun- 
 tered towards the said gate, and seating himself 
 in a small arbour within the garden, surrendered 
 himself to reflection. 
 
 The result of this self-conference, was a 
 determination to leave the Golden Fleece by the 
 earliest conveyance which went to that great ob- 
 ject and emporium of all his plans and thoughts, 
 London. As, full of this resolution, and buried 
 in the dreams which it conjured up, he was 
 returning with downcast eyes and unheeding 
 steps through the stable-yard, to the delights of 
 No. 4, he was suddenly accosted by a loud and 
 alarmed voice. 
 
 " For God's sake, Sir, look out, or " 
 
 The sentence was broken off, the intended 
 warning came too late, our hero staggered back 
 a few steps, and fell stunned and motionless.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 71 
 
 against the stable door. Unconsciously he had 
 passed just behind the heels of the stranger's 
 horse, which, being by no means in good humour 
 with the clumsy manoeuvres of his Shampooer, 
 the ostler, had taken advantage of the op- 
 portunity presented to him of working off 
 his irritability, and had consequently inflicted 
 a severe kick upon the right shoulder of 
 Mr. C. L. 
 
 The stranger, honoured by the landlady with 
 the name and title of Squire Mordaunt, was in 
 the yard at the moment. He hastened towards 
 the sufferer, who, as yet, was scarcely sensible, 
 and led him into the house. The surgeon of the 
 village was sent for, and appeared : this disciple 
 of Galen, commonly known by the name of 
 Jeremiah Bossolton, was a gentleman consi- 
 derably more inclined to breadth than length. 
 He was exactly five feet one inch in height, but
 
 72 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 thick and solid as a mile-stone ; a wig of modern 
 cut, carefully curled and powdered, gave some- 
 what of a modish, and therefore unseemly grace, 
 to a solemn eye ; a mouth drawn down at the 
 corners ; a nose that had something in it exceed- 
 ingly consequential ; eye-brows, as sage and 
 shaggy as those of my Lord Eldon ; ears large 
 and fiery, and a chin that would have done 
 honour to a Mandarin. Now Mr. Jeremiah 
 Bossolton had a certain peculiarity of speech, to 
 which I fear I shall find it difficult to do justice. 
 Nature had impressed upon his mind a pro- 
 digious love of the grandiloquent; Mr. Bossolton, 
 therefore, disdained the exact language of the 
 vulgar, and built unto himself a lofty fabric of 
 words in which his sense managed very fre- 
 quently to lose itself. Moreover, upon begin- 
 ning a sentence of peculiar dignity, Mr. Bossolton 
 was, it must be confessed, sometimes at a loss to
 
 THE DISOWNED. 73 
 
 conclude it in a period, worthy of the commence- 
 ment, and this caprice of nature, which had 
 endowed him with more words than thoughts, 
 (necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention,) 
 drove him into a very ingenious method of reme- 
 dying the deficiency ; this was simply the plan of 
 repeatingthe sense,by inverting the sentence, after 
 the fashion, which, for our reader's better under- 
 standing, the first time it occurs, we will desig- 
 nate by italics. 
 
 " How long a period of time," said Mr. Bos- 
 solton, " has elapsed since this deeply to be 
 regretted and seriously to be investigated acci- 
 dent occurred ?""' 
 
 " Not many minutes," said Mordaunt; " make 
 no farther delay, I beseech you, but examine the 
 arm : it is not broken, I trust ?" 
 
 " In this world, Mr. Mordaunt," said the 
 practitioner, bowing very low, for the person he 
 addressed was of the most antient lineage in the 
 
 VOL. T. E
 
 74 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 county — " in this world, Mr. Mordaunt, even at 
 the earliest period of civilization, delay in matters 
 of judgment has ever been considered of such 
 vital importance, and — and such important 
 vitality, that we find it inculcated in the pro- 
 verbs of the Greeks, and the sayings of the 
 Chaldeans, as a principle of the most expedient 
 utility, and — and the most useful expediency !"" 
 
 '* Mr. Bossolton," said Mordaunt, in a tone of 
 remarkable, and even artificial softness and 
 civility, *' have the kindness im.mediately to 
 examine this gentleman's bruises." 
 
 Mr. Bossolton looked up in the calm, quiet, 
 but haughty face of the speaker, and, without a 
 moment's hesitation, proceeded to handle the 
 arm, which was already stripped for his survey. 
 
 "It frequently occurs," said Mr. Bossolton, 
 " in the course of my profession, that the forcible, 
 sudden, and vehement application of any hard 
 ubstance, hke the hoof of a quadruped to the
 
 THE DISOWNED. 75 
 
 soft, tender, and carniferous parts of the human 
 frame, such as the arm, occasions a pain, a pang, 
 I should rather say, of the intensest acuteness^ 
 and — and of the acutest intensity.''' 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Bossolton, is the bone broken ?" 
 asked Mordaunt. 
 
 By this time the patient, who had been hitherto 
 in that languor, which extreme pain always 
 produces at first, especially on young frames, 
 was sufficiently recovered to mark and reply to 
 the kind solicitude of the last speaker; " I thank 
 you. Sir," said he, with a smile, " for your 
 anxiety, but I feel that the bone is not broken, 
 the muscles are a little hurt — that is all." 
 
 '^ Young gentleman," said IVIr. Bossolton, 
 " you must permit me to say that thev who 
 have all their lives been employed in the pursuit, 
 and the investigation, and the analysis of certain 
 studies, are, in general, better acquainted with 
 those studies than they who have neither given 
 E 2
 
 76 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 them any importance of consideration ; nor — 
 nor any consideration of importance. Establish- 
 ing this as my hypothesis, I shall now proceed 
 to " 
 
 *•' Apply immediate remedies, if you please, 
 Mr. Bossolton," interrupted Mordaunt in that 
 sweet and honied tone which somehow or other 
 always silenced even the garrulous practitioner. 
 
 Driven into taciturnity, Mr. Bossolton again 
 inspected the arm ; and having given it as his 
 opinion that the arm was bruised in consequence 
 of a violent blow which might have been in- 
 flicted by any other concussion of equal force 
 with that produced by the hoof of a horse, he 
 proceeded to urge the application of liniments 
 and bandages, which he promised to prepare 
 with the most solicitudinous dispatch, and the 
 most dispatchful solicitude.
 
 THE DISOWNED 77 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ** Yoiir name, Sir ? 
 
 Ha ! my name, you say — ^my name ? 
 'Tis well— my name — is — nay — I must consider.'* 
 
 Pedeillo. 
 
 This accident occasioned a delay of some 
 days in the plans of the young gentleman, for 
 whom we trust, very soon, both for our own 
 convenience, and that of our reader, to find a 
 fitting appellation. 
 
 Mr. Mordaunt, after seeing every attention 
 paid to him, both surgical and hospitable, took 
 his departure with a promise to call the next 
 day ; leaving behind him a strong impression of
 
 78 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 curiosity and interest to serve our hero as some 
 mental occupation until his return. The bonny 
 landlady came up in a new cap, with blue rib- 
 bons, in the course of the evening, to pay a visit 
 of inquiry to the handsome patient, who was 
 removed from the Griffin, No. 4, to the Dragon, 
 No. 8 — a room whose merits were exactly in 
 proportion to its number, viz. twice as great 
 as those of No. 4. 
 
 '' Well, Sir," said Mrs. Taptape, with a cour- 
 tesy, " I trust you find yourself better." 
 
 " At this moment I do," said the gallant 
 youth, with a significant air. 
 
 " Hem !'* quoth the landlady. 
 
 A pause ensued. In spite of the compliment, 
 a certain suspicion suddenly darted across the 
 mind of the hostess. Strong as are the prepos- 
 sessions of the sex, those of the profession are 
 much stronger. 
 
 " Honest folk," thought the landlady, " don't
 
 THE DISOWNED. 79 
 
 travel with their initials only ; the last * White- 
 hall Evening' was full of shocking accounts of 
 swindlers and cheats ; and I gave fourteen 
 pounds odd shillings for the silver tea-pot John 
 has brought him up — as if the china one was 
 not good enough for a foot traveller." 
 
 Pursuing these ideas, Mrs. Taptape, looking 
 bashfully down, said, 
 
 "By-the-bye, Sir, Mr. Bossolton asked me 
 what name he should put down in his book for 
 the medicines ; what would you please me to say, 
 Sir?'' 
 
 " Mr. who ?" said the youth, elevating his 
 eye-brows. 
 
 " Mr. Bossolton, Sir, the apothecary." 
 
 " Oh ! Bossolton ! very odd name that — not 
 near so pretty as — dear me — what a beautiful 
 cap that is of yours !" said the young gentleman. 
 
 " Lord, Sir, do you think so ; the ribbon is- 
 very pretty ; but — but as I was saying what
 
 80 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 name shall T tell Mr. Bossolton to put in his 
 books ?" This, thought Mrs. Taptape, is coming 
 to the point. 
 
 " Well !'' said the youth, slowly, and as if in 
 a profound reverie, " well, Bossolton is cer- 
 tainly the most singular name I ever heard ; he 
 does right to put it in a book — it is quite a curi- 
 osity — is he clever ?" 
 
 " Very, Sir," said the landlady, somewhat 
 sharply ; " but it is your name, not 7m, that he 
 wishes to put into his book.*' 
 
 " Mine !" said the youth — who appeared to 
 have been seeking to gain time in order to answer 
 a query which most men find requires very little 
 deliberation — '' Mine, you say; my name is 
 Linden — Clarence Linden — you understand !'*'' 
 
 " What a pretty name!'' thought the land- 
 lady's daughter, who was listening at the key- 
 hole ; *' but how could he admire that odious 
 cap of Ma's P
 
 THE DISOWNED. 81 
 
 " And now, landlady, I wish you would send 
 up my boxes ; and get me a newspaper, if you 
 please." 
 
 '^ Yes, Sir,'' said the landlady — and she rose 
 to retire. 
 
 " I do not think," said the youth to himself, 
 " that I could have hit on a prettier name— and 
 so novel a one too — Clarence Linden — why, if I 
 were that pretty girl at the bar I could fall in 
 love with the very words — Shakspeare was quite 
 wrong when he said — 
 
 * A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' 
 
 A rose by any name would not smell as 
 sweet ; if a rose's name was Jeremiah Bossolton, 
 for instance, it would not, to my nerves, at least, 
 smell of anything but an apothecary's shop." 
 
 When Mordaunt called the next morning, he 
 found Clarence much better, and carelessly 
 turning over various books, part of the contents 
 E 3
 
 8^ THE DISOWNED. 
 
 of the luggage superscribed C. L. A book of 
 whatever description was among the few com- 
 panions for whom Mordaunt had neither fasti- 
 diousness nor reserve; and the sympathy of 
 taste between him and the sufferer, gave rise to 
 a conversation less cold and common-place than 
 it might otherwise have been. And when Mor- 
 daunt, after a stay of some length, rose to de- 
 part, he pressed Linden to return his visit before 
 he left that part of the country ; his place, he 
 added, was only about five miles distant from 
 
 W . Linden, greatly interested in his visitor, 
 
 was not slow in accepting the invitation, and, 
 perhaps, for the first time in his life, Mordaunt 
 found himself shaking hands with a stranger he 
 had only known two days.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " While yet a child, and long before his time, 
 He had perceived the presence and the power 
 
 Of greatness. 
 
 « * * « » 
 
 But eagerly he read, and read again. 
 
 * « « » « 
 
 Yet still uppermost 
 Nature was at his heart, as if he felt, 
 Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power 
 In all things that from her sweet influence 
 Might seek to wean him. Therefore with her hues. 
 Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms. 
 He clothed the nakedness of austere truth." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Algernon Mordaunt was the last son of 
 an old and honourable race, which had centuries 
 back numbered princes in its line. His parents 
 had had many children, but all (save Algernon
 
 84 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the youngest) died in their infancy. His mother 
 perished in giving him birth. Constitutional 
 infirmity, and the care of mercenary nurses, 
 contributed to render Algernon a weakly and 
 delicate child ; hence came a taste for loneliness 
 and a passion for study, and from these sprung on 
 the one hand the fastidiousness and reserve, which 
 render us unamiable, and on the other the lofti- 
 ness of spirit and the kindness of heart, which 
 are the best and earliest gifts of literature, and 
 more than counterbalance our deficiencies in the 
 ' minor morals' due to society by their tendency 
 to increase our attention to the greater ones 
 belonging to mankind. Mr. Mordaunt was a 
 man of luxurious habits and gambling propen- 
 sities : wedded to London, he left the house of 
 his ancestors to moulder in desertion and decay ; 
 but to this home, Algernon was constantly con- 
 signed during his vacations from school ; and its 
 solitude and cheerlessness, joined to a disposi-
 
 THE DISOWNED 85 
 
 tion naturally melancholy and thoughtful, ^ave 
 those colours to his temper which subsequent 
 events were calculated to deepen, not efface. 
 
 Truth obliges us to state, despite our par- 
 tiality to Mordaunt, that when he left his school, 
 after a residence of six years, it was with the 
 bitter distinction of having been the most un- 
 popular boy in it. Why, nobody could exactly 
 explain, for his severest enemies could not ac- 
 cuse him of ill-nature, cowardice, or avarice, 
 and these make the three capital offences of a 
 school-boy ; but Algernon Mordaunt had al- 
 ready acquired the knowledge of himself, and 
 could explain the cause, though with a bitter 
 and swelling heart. His ill health, his long 
 residence at home, his unfriended and almost 
 orphan situation, his early habits of solitude 
 and reserve, all these so calculated to make the 
 spirit shrink within itself, made him, on his en- 
 trance at school, if not unsocial, appear so : this
 
 86 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 was the primary reason of his unpopularity ; the 
 second was, that he perceived, for he was sen- 
 sitive (and consequently acute) to the extreme, 
 the misfortune of his manner, and in his wish 
 to rectify it, it became doubly unprepossessing ; 
 to reserve, it now added embarrassment, to cold- 
 ness, gloom : and the pain he felt in addressing 
 or being addressed by another, was naturally 
 and necessarily reciprocal, for the effects of sym- 
 pathy are no where so wonderful, yet so invisible, 
 as in the manners. 
 
 By degrees he shunned the intercourse which 
 had for him nothing but distress, and his vola- 
 tile acquaintance were perhaps the first to set 
 him the example. Often in his solitary walks 
 he stopped afar off to gaze upon the sports, 
 which none ever solicited him to share ; and as 
 the shout of laughter and of happy hearts came, 
 peal after peal, upon his ear, he turned enviously, 
 yet not malignantly away, with tears, which not
 
 THfE DISOWNED. 87 
 
 all his pride could curb, and muttered to him- 
 self, *' And these, these bate me !" 
 
 There are two feelings common to all 
 high or affectionate natures, that of extreme 
 susceptibility to opinion, and that of extreme 
 bitterness at its injustice. These feelings were 
 Mordaunt's ; but the keen edge which one blow 
 injures, the repetition blunts ; and, by little and 
 little, Algernon became not only accustomed, 
 but, as he persuaded himself, indifferent to his 
 want of popularity ; his step grew more lofty, 
 and his address more collected, and that which 
 was once diffidence, gradually hardened into 
 pride. 
 
 His residence at the university was neither 
 •without honour nor profit. A college life was 
 then, as now, either the most retired or the 
 most social of all others ; I need scarcely say 
 which it was to Mordaunt, but his was the age 
 when solitude is desirable, and when the closet
 
 88 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 forms the mind better than the world. Driven 
 upon itself, his intellect became inquiring, and 
 its resources profound ; admitted to their inmost 
 recesses, he revelled among the treasures of 
 ancient lore, and in his dreams of the Nymph 
 and Naiad, or his researches after truth in the 
 deep wells of the Stagy rite or the golden foun- 
 tains of Plato, he forgot the loneliness of his 
 lot, and exhausted the hoarded enthusiasm of 
 his soul. 
 
 But his mind, rather thoughtful than imagi- 
 native, found no idol like " divine philo- 
 sophy." It delighted to plunge itself into the 
 mazes of metaphysical investigation — to trace 
 the springs of the intellect — to connect the 
 arcana of the universe — to descend into the 
 darkest caverns, or to wind through the minu- 
 test mysteries of nature, and rise, step by step, to 
 that arduous elevation on which Thought stands 
 dizzy and confused, looking beneath upon a
 
 THE DISOWNED. 89 
 
 clouded earth, and above, upon an unfathom- 
 able heaven. 
 
 Rarely wandering from his chamber, known 
 personally to few, and intimately to none, 
 Algernon yet left behind him at the university 
 the most remarkable reputation of his day. 
 He had obtained some of the highest of acade- 
 mical honours, and by that proverbial process 
 of vulgar minds which ever frames the magni- 
 ficent from the unknown, — the seclusion in 
 which he hved, and the recondite nature of his 
 favourite pursuits, attached to his name a still 
 greater celebrity and interest, than all the 
 orthodox and regular dignities he had acquii'ed. 
 There are few men who do not console them- 
 selves for not being generally loved, if they can 
 reasonably hope that they are generally es- 
 teemed. Mordaunt had now grown reconciled 
 to himself and to his kind. He had opened to 
 his interest a world in his own breast, and it
 
 90 THK DISOWNED. 
 
 consoled him for his mortification in the world 
 without. But, better than this, his habits as 
 well as studies had strengthened the principles 
 and confirmed the nobility of his mind. He 
 was not, it is true, more kind, more benevolent, 
 more upright than before ; but those virtues now 
 emanated from principle— not emotion. 
 
 We have often thought that principle to 
 the mind is what a free constitution is to a peo- 
 ple: without that principle, or that free con- 
 stitution, the one may be for the moment 
 as good — the other as happy, but we cannot 
 tell how long the goodness and the happiness 
 will continue. 
 
 On leaving the university, his father sent for 
 him to town. He staid there a short time, and 
 mingled partially in its festivities ; but the plea- 
 sures of English dissipation have for a century 
 been the same, heartless without gaiety, and dull
 
 THE DISOWNED. 91 
 
 without refinement. Nor could Mordaunt, the 
 most fastidious, yet warm-hearted of human 
 beings, reconcile to the cold insipidities of patri- 
 cian society either his tastes or his affections. 
 His father's habits and evident distresses 
 deepened his disgust to his situation ; for the 
 habits were incurable, and the distresses in- 
 creasing ; and nothing but a circumstance, which 
 Mordaunt did not then understand, prevented 
 the final sale of an estate, already little better 
 than a pompous incumbrance. 
 
 It was therefore with that half painful, half 
 pleasurable sensation, with which we avoid con- 
 templating a ruin we cannot prevent, that 
 Mordaunt set out upon that continental tour 
 deemed then so necessary a part of education. 
 His father, on taking leave of him, seemed deeply 
 affected. " Go, my son,"" said he, " may God 
 bless you, and not punish me too severely. I
 
 92 THE DTSOWXED. 
 
 have wronged you deeply, and I cannot bear to 
 look upon your face." 
 
 To these words Algernon attached a gene- 
 ral, but they cloaked a peculiar meaning* in 
 three years, he returned to England — his father 
 had been dead some months, and the significa- 
 tion of his parting address was already deci- 
 phered — but of this hereafter. 
 
 In his travels, he encountered an English- 
 man, whose name we will not yet mention, 
 a person of great reputed wealth — a mer- 
 chant — yet a man of pleasure — a voluptu- 
 ary in life, yet a saint in reputation — or, to 
 abstain from the antithetical analysis of a 
 character, which will not be corporeally present- 
 ed to the reader, till our tale is considerably 
 advanced — one who drew from nature a singular 
 combination of shrewd, but false conclusions, 
 and a peculiar philosophy destined hereafter to
 
 THE DISOWNED. 93 
 
 contrast the colours, and prove the practical 
 utility of that which was espoused by Mor- 
 daunt. 
 
 There can be no education without the lessons 
 of the world form a share. Experience in ex- 
 panding Algernon's powers had ripened his 
 virtues. Nor had the years which had converted 
 knowledge into wisdom, failed in imparting 
 polish to refinement. His person had ac- 
 quired a greater grace, and his manners 
 an easier dignity than before. His noble 
 and generous mind had worked its impress 
 upon his features, and his mien, and those 
 who could overcome the first coldness and 
 shrinking hauteur of his address, found it 
 required no minute examination to discover the 
 real expression of the eloquent eye, and of 
 the chiselled and classic features. 
 
 He had not been long returned, before he 
 found two enemies to his tranquillity — the one 
 was love, the other appeared in the more for-
 
 94 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 midable guise of a claimant to his estate. 
 Before Algernon was aware of the nature of the 
 latter, he went to consult with his lawyer. 
 
 '*If the claim be just, I shall not of course 
 proceed to law," said Mordaunt. 
 
 " But without the estate. Sir, you have 
 nothing !" 
 
 *' True," said Algernon, calmly. 
 
 But the claim was not just, and to law he 
 went. 
 
 In this law-suit, however, he had one assis- 
 tant in an old relation, who had seen, indeed, but 
 very little of him, but who compassionated his 
 circumstances, and, above all, hated his opponent. 
 This relation was rich and childless ; and there 
 were not wanting those who predicted that his 
 money would ultimately discharge the mort- 
 gages, and repair the house of the young repre- 
 sentative of the Mordaunt honours. But the 
 old kinsman was obstinate — self-willed — and 
 under the absolute dominion of patrician pride ;
 
 THE DISOWNED. 9-5 
 
 and it was by no means improbable, that the 
 independence of Mordaunt's character would 
 soon create a disunion between them, by clashing 
 against the peculiarities of his relation's temper. 
 
 It was a clear and sunny morning when Lin- 
 den, tolerably recovered of his hurt, set out upon 
 a sober and aged pony, which, after some 
 natural pangs of shame, he had hired of his 
 landlord, to Mordaunt Court. 
 
 Mordaunt's house was situated in the midst 
 of a wild and extensive park, surrounded with 
 woods, and interspersed with trees of the state- 
 liest growth, now scattered into irregular 
 groups, now marshalled into sweeping avenues ; 
 while, ever and anon. Linden caught glimpses of 
 a rapid and brav/ling rivulet, which, in many a 
 slight but sounding waterfall, gave a music 
 strange and spirit-like to the thick copses and 
 forest-glades, through which it went exulting 
 on its way. The deer lay half concealed by the
 
 96 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 fern among which they couched, turning their 
 stately crests towards the stranger, but not stirring 
 from their rest; while from the summit of beeches, 
 which would have shamed the pavilion of Tity- 
 rus, the rooks — those monks of the feathered 
 people — were loud in their confused, but, to the 
 ear of an aristocrat, not displeasing confabula- 
 tions. 
 
 As Linden approached the house, he was 
 struck with the melancholy air of desolation 
 which spread over and around it : fragments of 
 stone, above which clombe the rank w^eed, inso- 
 lently proclaiming the triumph of nature's 
 meanest offspring over the wrecks of art ; a moat 
 dried up, a railing once of massy gilding, in- 
 tended to fence a lofty terrace on the right from 
 the incursions of the deer, but which, shattered 
 and decayed, now seemed to ask, with the 
 satirist — 
 
 ** To what end did out lavish ancestors 
 Erect of old these stately piles of ours ?"
 
 THE DISOWNED. 97 
 
 A chapel on the left, perfectly in ruins, all ap- 
 peared strikingly to denote that time had out- 
 stript fortune, and that the years, which alike 
 hallow and destroy, had broken the consequence 
 in deepening the antiquity of the house of Mor- 
 daunt. 
 
 The building itself agreed but too well witli 
 the tokens of decay around it ; most of the win- 
 dows were shut up, and the shutters of dark 
 oak, richly gilt, contrasted forcibly with the 
 shattered panes and mouldered framing of the 
 glass. It was a house of irregular architecture ; 
 originally built in the thirteenth century it 
 had received its last improvement, with the most 
 lavish expence, during the reign of Anne ; and it 
 united the Gallic magnificence of the latter period 
 with the strength and grandeur of the former ; 
 it was in a great part overgrown with ivy, and 
 where that insidious ornament had not reached, 
 the signs of decay, and even ruin, were fully 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 visible. The sun itself, bright and cheering as 
 it shone over nature, making the green sod glow 
 like emeralds, and the rivulet flash in its beam, 
 like one of those streams of real light, imagined 
 by Swedenbourg in his visions of heaven ; and 
 clothing tree, and fell, brake, and hillock, with 
 the lavish hues of the infant summer ; the sun 
 itself only made more desolate, because more 
 conspicuous — the venerable fabric, which the 
 youthful traveller frequently paused more 
 accurately to survey, and its laughing and 
 sportive beams, playing over chink and crevice, 
 seemed almost as insolent and untimeous as the 
 mirth of the young mocking the silent grief of 
 some grey-headed and solitary mourner. 
 
 Clarence had now reached the porch, and the 
 sound of the shrill bell he touched rung with a 
 strange note, through the general stillness of 
 the place. A single servant appeared, and 
 ushered Clarence through a screen hall of stone,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 99 
 
 hunof round with relics of armour, and orna- 
 raented on the side opposite the music gallery, 
 with a solitary picture of gigantic size, exhibiting 
 the full length of the gaunt person and sable 
 steed of Sir Piers de Mordaunt, returning from 
 the Holy Land. Through this hall, Clarence was 
 led to a small chamber, hung with uncouth and 
 tattered arras, in which, seemingly immersed in 
 papers, he found the owner of the domain. 
 
 " Your studies," said Linden, after the salu- 
 tations of the day, " seem to harmonize with 
 the venerable antiquity of your home;'* and he 
 pointed to the crabbed characters and faded ink 
 of the papers on the table. 
 
 " So they ought," answered Mordaunt, 
 with a faint smile ; " for they are called from 
 their quiet archives in order to support ray 
 struggle for that home. But I fear the struggle 
 is in vain, and that the quibbles of law will 
 transfer into other hands a possession I am 
 t2
 
 100 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 foolish enough to value the more from my in- 
 ability to maintain it.*" 
 
 Something of this Clarence had before learnt 
 from the communicative gossip of his landlady ; 
 and less desirous to satisfy his curiosity than to 
 lead the conversation from a topic which he felt 
 must be so unwelcome to Mordaunt, he ex- 
 pressed a wish to see the state apartments of the 
 house. With something of shame at the 
 neglect they had necessarily experienced, and 
 something of pride at the splendour which no 
 neglect could efface, Mordaunt yielded to the 
 request, and led the way up a staircase of black 
 oak, the walls and ceiling of which were covered 
 with frescos of Italian art, to a suite of apart- 
 ments in which time and dust seemed the only 
 tenants. Lingeringly did Clarence gaze upon 
 the rich velvet, the costly mirrors, the motley 
 paintings of a hundred ancestors, and the 
 antique cabinets, containing, among the most
 
 THE DISOWNED. 101 
 
 hoarded relics of the Mordaunt race, curiosities 
 which the hereditary enthusiasm of a line of 
 cavaliers had treasured as the most sacred of 
 heir-looms, and which even to the philosophical 
 mind of Mordaunt possessed a value he did not 
 seek too minutely to analyse. Here was the 
 goblet from which the first prince of Tudor had 
 drank after the field of Bosworth. Here the 
 ring with which the chivalrous Francis the First 
 had rewarded a signal feat of that famous 
 Robert de Mordaunt, who, as a poor but adven- 
 turous cadet of the house, had brought to the 
 " first gentleman of France" the assistance of 
 his sword. Here was the glove which Sir Walter 
 had received from the royal hand of Elizabeth, 
 and worn in the lists upon a crest which the lance 
 of no antagonist in that knightly court could 
 abase. And here, more sacred than all, because 
 connected with the memory of misfortune, was a 
 smaU box of silver which the last king of an
 
 102 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 evil and imbecile, but fated line, had placed in 
 the hands of the grey-headed descendant of that 
 Sir Walter after the battle of the Boyne, in 
 saying with that happy turn of expression, in 
 which all the Stuarts excelled, " Keep this, 
 Sir Everard Mordaunt, for the sake of one who 
 has purchased the luxury of gratitude at the 
 price of a throne !" 
 
 As Clarence glanced from these relics to the 
 figure of Mordaunt, who stood at a little dis- 
 tance leaning against the window, with arras 
 folded on his breast, and with eyes abstractedly 
 wandering over the noble woods and extended 
 park, which spread below, he could not but 
 feel that if birth has indeed the power of setting 
 its seal upon the form, it was never more con- 
 spicuous than in the broad front and lofty air 
 of the last descendant of the race by whose me- 
 morials he was surrounded. Touched by the 
 fallen fortunes of Mordaunt, and interested by
 
 THE DISOWNED. lOS 
 
 the uncertainty which the chances of law threw 
 over his future fate, Clarence could not resist 
 exclaiming, with some warmth and abruptness — 
 
 " And by what subterfuge or cavil does the 
 present claimant of these estates hope to dislodge 
 their rightful possessor ?'* 
 
 " Why," answered Mordaunt, " it is a long 
 story in detail, but briefly told in epitome. My 
 father was an extravagant and dissipated man, 
 and a few months after his death, Mr. Vavasour, 
 a distant relation, produced a paper, by which 
 it appeared that my father had for a certain 
 sum of ready money disposed of his estates to 
 this Mr. Vavasour, upon condition that they 
 should not be claimed, nor the treaty divulged, 
 till after his death ; the reason for this proviso 
 seems to have been the shame my father felt for 
 his exchange, and his fear of the censures of 
 that world to which he was always devoted."
 
 104 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " But how unjust to you !'' said Clarence, 
 indignantly. 
 
 " Not so much so as it seems," said Mordaunt, 
 deprecatingly ; "for I was then but a sickly boy, 
 and according to the physicians, and, I sincerely 
 believe, according also to my poor father's be- 
 lief, almost certain of a premature death. In 
 that case. Vavasour would have been the nearest 
 heir ; and this expectancy, by the by, joined to 
 the mortgages on the property, made the sum 
 given ridiculously disproportioned to the value 
 of the estate. I must confess that the news 
 came upon me like a thunderbolt. I should 
 have yielded up possession immediately, but was 
 informed by my lawyers, that my father had no 
 legal right to dispose of the property ; the dis- 
 cussion of that right forms the ground of the 
 present law-suit. For me, I have but little 
 hope, and even were I to be successful, the ex-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 105 
 
 pences of law would leave me like Pyrrhus, lost 
 by ray very success. No," continued Mordaunt, 
 proudly, yet mournfully, " I am prepared for 
 the worst, and, thank heaven, even in that worstj 
 there is a spot which affliction can indeed blight, 
 but which fortune, so far from destroying cannot 
 even diminish." 
 
 Clarence was silent, and Mordaunt, after a 
 brief pause, once more resumed his guidance. 
 Their tour ended in a large library filled with 
 books, and this, IMordaunt informed his guest, 
 was his chosen and ordinary room. 
 
 An old carved table was covered with works 
 which for the most part possessed for the young 
 mind of Clarence, more accustomed to imagine 
 than reflect, but a very feeble attraction ; on 
 looking them over, he, however, found, half hid 
 by a huge folio of Hobbes, and another of 
 Locke, a volume of Milton's poems : this paved 
 the way to a conversation, in which both had an 
 f3
 
 106 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 equal interest, for both were enthusiastic in 
 the character and genius of that wonderful man, 
 for whom ' the divine and solemn countenance 
 of Freedom' was dearer than the hght of day, 
 and whose solitary spell, accomplishing what the 
 whole family of earth once vainly began upon 
 the Plain of Shinar, has built of materials more 
 imperishable than ' slime and brick,' " a city and 
 a tower whose summit has reached to Heaven.'' 
 It was with mutual satisfaction that Mordaunt 
 and his guest continued their commune, till the 
 hour of dinner was announced to them by a bell, 
 which, formerly intended as an alarum, now 
 served the more peaceful purpose of a more 
 agreeable summons. 
 
 The same servant who had admitted Clarence 
 ushered them through the great hall into the 
 dining-room, and was their solitary attendant 
 during their repast. 
 
 The temper of Mordaunt was essentially
 
 THE DISOWNED. 107 
 
 grave and earnest, and his conversation almost 
 invariably took the tone of his mind ; this made 
 their conference turn upon less minute and com- 
 mon-place topics than one between such new 
 acquaintances, especially of different ages, usually 
 does. 
 
 " You will positively go to London to-morrow, 
 then ?" said Mordaunt, as the servant removing 
 the appurtenances of dinner left them alone. 
 
 *' Positively," answered Clarence. " I go 
 there to carve my own fortunes, and, to say truth, 
 I am impatient to begin." 
 
 Mordaunt looked earnestly at the frank face 
 of the speaker, and wondered that one so young, 
 so well educated, and from his air and manner, 
 evidently of gentle blood, should appear so 
 utterly thrown upon his own resources. 
 
 " I wish you success," said he, after a pause ; 
 " and it is a noble part of the organization of 
 this world, that by increasing those riches which
 
 108 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 are beyond fortune, we do in general take the 
 surest method of obtaining those which are in 
 its reach." 
 
 Clarence looked inquiringly at Mordaunt, 
 who perceiving it, continued, "I see that I 
 should explain myself farther. I will do so by 
 using the thoughts of a mind perhaps the most 
 beautiful and accomplished which this country 
 ever produced. ' Of all which belongs to us," 
 said Bolingbroke, * the least valuable parts can 
 alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is 
 best is safest ; lies out of the reach of human 
 power \ can neither be given nor taken away. 
 Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, 
 the world. Such is the mind of man which con- 
 templates and admires the world whereof it 
 makes the noblest part. These are inseparably 
 ours, and as long as we remain in one we shall 
 enjoy the other !^ " 
 
 " Beautiful, indeed !**' exclaimed Clarence,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 109 
 
 with the enthusiasm of a young and pure heart, 
 to which every loftier sentiment is always beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 " And true as beautiful i" said Mordaunt. 
 " Nor is this all, for the mind can even dispense 
 with that world, ' of which it forms a part,' if 
 we can create within it a world still more inac- 
 cessible to chance. But (and I now return to 
 and explain my former observation) the means by 
 which we can effect this peculiar world, can be 
 rendered equally subservient to our advancement 
 and prosperity in that which we share in com- 
 mon with our race ; for the riches, which by the 
 aid of wisdom we heap up in the storehouses of 
 the mind, are, though not the only, the most 
 customary coin by which external prosperity 
 is bought. So that the philosophy which can 
 alone give independence to ourselves, becomes, 
 under the name of honesty, the best policy in 
 commerce with our kind." 
 
 In conversation of this nature, which the sin-
 
 110 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 cerity and lofty enthusiasm of Mordaunt ren- 
 dered interesting to Clarence, despite of the 
 distaste to the serious so ordinary to youth, the 
 hours passed on, till the increasing evening 
 warned Linden to depart. 
 
 "Adieu!" said he to Mordaunt. "I know 
 not when we shall meet again, but if we ever 
 do, I will make it my boast, whether in prospe- 
 rity or misfortune, not to have forgotten the 
 pleasure I have this day enjoyed !" 
 
 Returning his guest's farewell with a warmth 
 unusual to his manner, Mordaunt followed 
 him to the door, and saw him depart. 
 
 Fate ordained that they should pursue in very 
 different paths, their several destinies ; nor did 
 it afford them an opportunity of meeting again, 
 till years and events had severely tried the vir- 
 tue of one, and materially altered the prospects 
 of the other. 
 
 The next morning, Clarence Linden was on 
 his road to London.
 
 THE DISOWNED. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Upon my word," cries Jones, " thou art a very odd fellow, 
 and I like thy humour extremely." 
 
 Fielding. 
 
 The rumbling and jolting vehicle which con- 
 veyed Clarence to the metropolis, stopped at tlie 
 door of a tavern in Hoi born. Linden was 
 ushered into a close coffee-room, and presented 
 with a bill of fare. While he was deliberating 
 between the merits of mutton-chops and beef- 
 steaks, a man with a brown coat, brown breeches, 
 and a brown wig, walked into the room ; he 
 cast a curious glance at Clarence, and then 
 turned to the waiter.
 
 112 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " A pair of slippers !" 
 
 '^ Yes, Sir," and the waiter disappeared. 
 
 *' I suppose," said the brown gentleman to 
 Clarence, " I suppose, Sir, you are the gentle- 
 man just come to town ?" 
 
 " You are right. Sir," said Clarence. 
 
 " Very well, very well, indeed," resumed the 
 stranger, musingly. " I took the liberty of look- 
 ing at your boxes in the passage ; I knew a lady, 
 Sir, a relation of yours, I think." 
 
 " Sir !" exclaimed Linden, colouring vio- 
 lently. 
 
 " At least I suppose so, for her name was 
 just the same as yours, only, at least, one letter 
 difference between them . your's is Linden, I 
 see. Sir ; her's was Minden : am I right in my 
 conjecture, that you are related to- her?" 
 
 *• Sir," answered Clarence, gravely, " notwith- 
 standing the similarity of our names, we are 
 not related."
 
 THE DISOWNED- 113 
 
 '' Very extraordinary," replied the stranger. 
 
 " Very," repeated Linden. 
 
 ** I had the honour. Sir," said the brown 
 gentleman, " to make Mrs. Minden many pre- 
 sents of value, and I should have been very 
 happy to have obliged you in the same manner, 
 had you been any way connected with that 
 worthy gentlewoman." 
 
 " You are very kind,"*"* said Linden, " you 
 are very kind ; and since such were your inten- 
 tions, I believe I must have been connected with 
 Mrs. Minden. At all events, as you justly ob- 
 serve, there is only the difference of a letter 
 between our names, a discrepancy too shght, I 
 am sure, to alter your benevolent intentions." 
 
 Here the waiter returned with the slippers. 
 
 The stranger slowly unbuttoned his gaiters. 
 " Sir," said he to Linden, " we will renew our 
 conversation presently." 
 
 No sooner had the generous friend of Mrs.
 
 114 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Minden deposited his feet into their easy tene- 
 ments, than he quitted the room. 
 
 " Pray," said Linden to the waiter, "when he 
 had ordered his simple repast, " who is that gen- 
 tleman in brown ?" 
 
 " J/r. Brown !" replied the waiter. 
 
 " And who, or what is Mr. Brown ?'' asked 
 our hero. 
 
 Before the waiter could reply, Mr. Brown 
 returned, with a large bandbox carefully enve- 
 loped in a blue handkerchief. *' You come 
 from , Sir ?'' said the latter, quietly seat- 
 
 ing himself at the same table as Linden. 
 
 « No, Sir, I do not." 
 
 « From , then ?" 
 
 " No, Sir !~from W ." 
 
 " W ? — ay — well, I knew a lady with a 
 
 name very like W— (the late Lady Waddi- 
 love) extremely well. I made her some valua- 
 ble presents — her ladyship was very sensible 
 of it."
 
 THE DISOWNED. 115 
 
 " I don't doubt it. Sir," replied Clarence ; 
 "such instances of general beneficence rarely 
 occur !" 
 
 " I have some magnificent relics of her lady- 
 ship in this box,^^ returned Mr. Brown. 
 
 " Really ! then she was no less generous than 
 yourself, I presume.''" 
 
 '^ Yes, her ladyship was remarkably gener- 
 ous. About a week before she died, (the late 
 Lady Waddilove was quite sensible of her dan- 
 ger,) she called me to her — ' Brown,* said she, 
 * you are a good creature ; I have had my most 
 valuable things from you. I am not ungrate- 
 ful ; I will leave you — my lady's maid ! She is 
 as clever as you are, and as good.' I took the 
 hint. Sir, and married. It was an excellent 
 bargain. — My wife is a charming woman ; she 
 entirely fitted up Mrs. Minden's wardrobe, and 
 I furnished the house. Mrs. Minden was 
 greatly indebted to us."
 
 116 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " God help me !" thought Clarence, " the 
 man is certainly mad." 
 
 The waiter entered with the dinner ; and 
 Mr. Brown, who seemed to have a delicate 
 aversion to any conversation in the presence of 
 the Ganymede of the Holborn tavern, immedi- 
 ately ceased his communications : meanwhile, 
 Clarence took the opportunity to survey him 
 more minutely than he had hitherto done. 
 
 His new acquaintance was in age about 
 forty-eight ; in stature, rather under the middle 
 height ; and thin, dried, withered, yet muscular 
 withal, like a man, who, in stinting his stomach 
 for the sake of economy, does not the less enjoy 
 the power of undergoing any fatigue or exertion 
 that an object of adequate importance may 
 demand. We have said already that he was 
 attired, like twilight, " in a suit of sober brown ;" 
 and there was a formality, a precision, and a 
 cat-like sort of cleanliness in his garb, which
 
 THE DISOWNED. 117 
 
 savoured strongly of the respectable coxcombry 
 of the counting-house, or the till His face was 
 lean, it is true, but not emaciated ; and his 
 complexion, sallow and adust, harmonized well 
 with the colours of his clothing. An eye of the 
 darkest hazel, sharp, shrewd, and flashing at 
 times, especially at the mention of the euphonious 
 name of Lady Waddilove — a name frequently 
 upon the lips of the inheritor of her Abigail — 
 with a fire that might be called brilliant, was 
 of that modest species which can seldom en- 
 counter the straightforward glance of another ; 
 on the contrary, it seemed restlessly uneasy in 
 any settled place, and wandered from ceiling to 
 floor, and comer to corner, with an inquisitive, 
 though apparently careless glance, as if seeking 
 for something to admire or haply to appro- 
 priate ; it also seemed to be the especial care of 
 Mr. Brown to veil, as far as he was able, the 
 vivacity of his looks beneath an expression of
 
 118 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 open and unheeding good nature, an expression 
 strangely enough contrasting with the close- 
 ness and sagacity which nature had indehbly 
 stamped upon features pointed, aquiline, and 
 impressed with a strong mixture of the Judaical 
 physiognomy. The manner and bearing of this 
 gentleman partook of the same undecided cha- 
 racter as his countenance; they seemed to be 
 struggling between civiHty and importance ; a 
 real eagerness to make the acquaintance of the 
 person he addressed, and an assumed recklessness 
 of the advantages which that acquaintance could 
 bestow — it was like the behaviour of a man who 
 is desirous of having the best possible motives 
 imputed to him, but is fearful lest that desire 
 should not be utterly fulfilled. At the first glance, 
 you would have pledged yourself for his respecta- 
 bility ; at the second, you might have half sus- 
 pected him to be a rogue ; and after you had 
 been half an hour in his company, you would
 
 THE DISOWNED. 119 
 
 confess yourself in the obscurest doubt which 
 was the better guess, the first or the last. A 
 \'ery experienced judge of outward signs would 
 probably have decided on this peculiar instance, 
 according to the general character of mankind, 
 and have set down Mr. Brown in the tablets of his 
 mind as a man neither good nor bad — the latter, 
 perhaps, with temptation, the former without — 
 viz. a bit of a knave in his profession, what- 
 ever that might be, but an admirably honest 
 man, when it was not the interest of his vocation 
 to be the reverse. 
 
 " Waiter !" said Mr. Brown, looking en- 
 viously at the viands upon which Linden, 
 having satisfied his curiosity, was now, with 
 all the appetite of youth, regaJing himself. 
 '' Waiter r 
 
 " Yes, Sir !" 
 
 " Bring me a sandwich — and — and, waiter, 
 see that I have plenty of — plenty of "
 
 120 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " What ; Sir ?" 
 
 " Plenty of mustard, waiter! *' 
 
 *' Mustard " (and here Mr. Brown addressed 
 himself to Clarence) " is a very wonderful assist- 
 ance to the digestion. By the by, Sir, if 
 you want any curiously fine mustard, I can 
 procure you some pots quite capital — a great 
 favour, though — they were smuggled from 
 France especially for the use of the late Lady 
 Waddilove." 
 
 " Thank you," said Linden, drily; " I shall 
 be very happy to accept any thing you may 
 wish to offer me." 
 
 Mr. Brown took a pocket-book from his 
 pouch. " Six pots of mustard. Sir — shall I say 
 six?" . . - 
 
 " As many as you please," replied Clarence ; 
 and Mr. Brown wrote down " Six pots of 
 French mustard." 
 
 " You are a very young gentleman, Sir/' said
 
 THE DISOWNED. 121 
 
 Mr. Brown, " probably intended for some pro- 
 fession — I don't mean to be impertinent, but if 
 I can be of any assistance — " 
 
 " You can, Sir," replied Linden, " and imme- 
 diately — have the kindness to ring the bell." 
 
 Mr. Brown, with a grave smile, did as he 
 was desired ; the waiter re-entered, and receiving 
 a whispered order from Clarence, again dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 " What profession did you say, Sir?" renewed 
 Mr. Brown, artfully. 
 
 " None !" replied Linden. 
 
 " Oh, very well — very well indeed. Then as 
 an idle, independent gentleman, you will of 
 course be a bit of a beau — want some shirts, 
 possibly — fine cravats too — gentlemen wear a 
 particular pattern now — gloves, gold, or shall I 
 say gilt chain, watch and seals, a ring or two, 
 and a snuff-box.?" 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Sir, you are vastly obliging," said Clarence, 
 in undisguised surprise. 
 
 " Not at all, I would do any thing for a rela- 
 tion of Mrs. Minden." The waiter re-entered ; 
 '* Sir," said he to Linden, " your room is quite 
 ready." 
 
 '' I am glad to hear it," said Clarence, rising. 
 " Mr. Brown, I have the honour of wishing you 
 a good evening." 
 
 *' Stay, Sir — stay; you have not looked into 
 these things belonging to the late Lady Waddi- 
 love." 
 
 *' Another time," said Clarence, hastily. 
 ** To-morrow at ten o'clock," muttered Mr. 
 Brown. 
 
 " I am exceedingly glad I have got rid of 
 that fellow," said Linden to himself, as he 
 stretched his limbs in his easy chair, and drank 
 off the last glass of his pint of port. " If I have 
 not already seen, I have already guessed enough
 
 THE DISOWNED. 123 
 
 of the world, to know that you are to look to 
 your pockets, when a man offers you a present ; 
 they who ' give,' also ' take away.' So here 
 I am in London, with an order for £1000 in my 
 purse, the wisdom of Dr. Latinas in my head, 
 and the health of eighteen in my veins ; will 
 it not be my ovrn fault if I do not both enjoy, 
 
 and make myself '' 
 
 And then yielding to meditations of future 
 success, partaking strongly of the young, inex- 
 perienced, and sanguine temperament of the 
 soliloquist, Clarence passed the hours, till his 
 pillow summoned him to dreams no less ardent, 
 and perhaps no less unreal.
 
 124 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " O ! how I long to be employed." 
 
 Every Man in his Humour. 
 
 Clarence was sitting the next morning over 
 the very unsatisfactory breakfast which tea made 
 out of broomsticks, and cream out of chalk, 
 (adulteration thrived even in 17 — ) afforded, 
 when the waiter threw open the door, and 
 announced Mr. Brown. 
 
 " Just in time. Sir, you perceive," said Mr. 
 Brown; "I am punctuality itself: exactly a 
 quarter of a minute to ten. I have brought
 
 THE DISOWNED. 125 
 
 you the pots of French mustard, and I have 
 some very valuable articles which you must 
 want, besides.'** 
 
 " Thank you, Sir," said Linden, not well 
 knowing what to say ; and Mr. Brown, untieing 
 a silk handkerchief, produced three shirts, two 
 pots of pomatum, a tobacco canister, with a 
 German pipe, four pair of silk stockings, two 
 gold seals, three rings, and a stuffed parrot ! 
 
 " Beautiful articles these. Sir," said Mr. 
 Brown, with a snuffle " of inward sweetness 
 long drawn out," and expressive of great admi- 
 ration of his offered treasures ; " beautiful 
 articles. Sir, ar'nt they ?"" 
 
 ^' Very, the parrot in particular," said Cla- 
 rence. 
 
 " Yes, Sir," returned Mr. Brown, '' the 
 parrot is indeed quite a jewel ; it belonged to 
 the late Lady Waddilove ; I offer it to you with 
 considerable regret, for "
 
 126 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Oh !" interrupted Clarence, " pray do not 
 rob yourself of such a jewel, it really is of no use 
 to me." 
 
 " I know that, Sir — I know that," replied 
 Mr. Brown ; " but it will be of use to your 
 friends, it will be inestimable to any old aunt, 
 Sir, any maiden lady living at Hackney, any 
 curious elderly gentleman fond of a nick-nack. 
 I knew you would know some one to send it to 
 as a present, even though you should not want 
 it yourself." 
 
 " Bless me !" thought Linden, " was there 
 ever such generosity.? not content with pro- 
 viding for my wants, he extends his liberality 
 even to any possible relations I may possess." 
 
 Mr. Brown now retied ' the beautiful articles' 
 in his handkerchief. " Shall I leave them. Sir .?" 
 said he. 
 
 " Why, really," said Clarence, " I thought 
 yesterday that you were in jest ; but you must
 
 THE DISOWNED. 127 
 
 be aware, that I cannot accept presents from 
 any gentleman so much — so much a stranger to 
 me as you are." 
 
 " No, Sir, I am aware of that," replied Mr. 
 Brown; *' and in order to remove the unpleasant- 
 ness of such a feeling. Sir, on your part — merely 
 in order to do that, I assure you with no other 
 view. Sir, in the world — I have just noted down 
 the articles on this piece of paper ; but, as you 
 will perceive, at a price so low, as still to ra^ake 
 them actually presents in every thing but the 
 name. Oh, Sir, I perfectly understand your 
 delicacy, and would not, for the world, violate 
 it." 
 
 So saying, Mr. Brown put a paper into Lin- 
 den's hands, the substance of which a very little 
 more experience of the world would have enabled 
 Clarence to foresee : it ran thus :
 
 128 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Clarence Linden, Esq., Dr. 
 
 To Mr. Morris Brown. 
 
 To Six Pots of French Mustard £1 4 
 
 To Three Superfine Holland Shirts, with Cambric 
 
 Bosoms, complete 4 1 
 
 To Two Pots of Superior French Pomatum 10 
 
 To a Tobacco Canister of enamelled Tin, with a 
 finely executed head of the Pretender : slight 
 
 flaw in the same 12 6 
 
 To a German Pipe, second hand, as good as new, 
 
 belonging to the late Lady Waddilove 1 18 
 
 To Four Pair of Black SUk Hose, ditto, belonging 
 
 to her Ladyship's husband 2 8 
 
 To Two Superfine Embossed Grold Watch Seals, 
 with a Classical Motto and Device to each, viz.. 
 Mouse Trap and " Prenez Garde," to one, and 
 " Who the devil can this be from ?"* to the 
 
 other 1 1 
 
 To a remarkably fine antique Ring, having the head 
 
 of a Monkey 16 6 
 
 A ditto, with blue stones 12 6 
 
 A ditto, with green ditto 12 6 
 
 A Stuffed Green Parrot, a remarkable favourite of the 
 
 late Lady W 2 2 
 
 Sura Total £15 18 
 
 Deduction for Ready Money 13 6 
 
 15 4 6 
 
 Mr. Brown's Profits for Brokerage . . 1 10 
 
 Sum Total .' £16 14 6 
 
 Received of Clarence Linden, Esq. this day of 17— 
 
 * One would not have thought these ingenious devices had 
 been of so ancient a date as the year 17 — .
 
 THE DISOWNED. 129 
 
 It would have been no unamusing study to 
 watch the expression of Clarence's face as it 
 lengthened over each article until he had reached 
 the final conclusion. He then carefully folded 
 up the paper, restored it to Mr. Brown, with a 
 low bow, and said, " Excuse me, Sir, I will not 
 take advantage of your generosity ; keep your 
 parrot and other treasures for some more worthy 
 person. I cannot accept what you are pleased 
 to term your very valuable presents /"" 
 
 " Oh, it's well, very well," said Mr. Brown, 
 pocketing the paper, and seeming perfectly un- 
 concerned at the termination of his proposals ; 
 '* perhaps I can serve you in some other way ?"" 
 
 "In none, I thank you," replied Linden. 
 
 " Just consider. Sir ! — you will want lodgings ; 
 
 I can find them for you, cheaper than you can 
 
 yourself; or perhaps you would prefer going 
 
 into a nice, quiet, genteel family, where you can 
 
 g3
 
 130 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 have both board and lodging, and be treated in 
 every way as the pet child of the master ?'* 
 
 A thought crossed Linden's mind. He was 
 going to stay in town some time ; he was igno- 
 rant of its ways ; he had neither friends nor 
 relations, at least none to visit and consult ; 
 moreover, hotels he knew were expensive ; 
 lodgings, though cheaper, might, if tolerably 
 comfortable, greatly exceed the sum prudence 
 would allow him to expend ; would not this 
 plan proposed by Mr. Brown of going into a 
 'nice, quiet, genteel family,' be the most advisable 
 one he could adopt ? The generous benefactor 
 of the late and ever to be lamented Lady 
 Waddilove perceived his advantage, and making 
 the most of Clarence'^s hesitation, continued — 
 
 " I know of a charming little abode, Sir, 
 situated in the suburbs of London, quite rus in 
 tirhe, as the scholars say ; you can have a
 
 THE DISOWNED. 131 
 
 delightful little back parlour, looking out upon 
 the garden, and all to yourself, I dare say." 
 
 '' And pray, Mr. Brown," interrupted Linden, 
 " what price do you think would be demanded 
 for such enviable accommodations ? — if you offer 
 me them as ' a present,' I shall have nothing to 
 say to them." 
 
 " Oh, Sir," answered Mr. Brown, " the price 
 will be a trifle — a mere trifle ; but I will inquire, 
 and let you know the exact sum in the course of 
 the day — all they want is a respectable, gentle- 
 man-like lodger ; and I am sure so near a rela- 
 tion of Mrs. Minden will, upon my recommen- 
 dation, be received with avidity. Then you 
 won't have any of these very valuable articles, 
 Sir ? You'll repent it, Sir — take my word for it, 
 hem !' 
 
 " Since, " replied Clarence drily, '' your word 
 appears so much more valuable than your
 
 13S THE DISOWNED. 
 
 articles, pardon me if I prefer taking the former 
 instead of the latter." 
 
 Mr. Brown forced a smile — " Well, Sir, it's 
 very well, very well indeed. You will not go 
 out before two o'clock ? and at that time I 
 shall call upon you respecting the commission 
 you have favoured me with."" 
 
 " I will await you," said Clarence ; and he 
 bowed Mr. Brown out of the room. 
 
 " Now, really," said Lindea to himself, as he 
 paced the narrow limits of his apartment, I do 
 not well see what better plan I can pursue — 
 but let me well consider what is my ultimate 
 object. A high step in the world's ladder ! — 
 how is this to be obtained ? First, by the regu- 
 lar method of professions — but what profession 
 should I adopt.? — the church .is incompatible 
 with my object — the army and navy with my 
 means. Next come the irregular methods of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 1S3 
 
 adventure and enterprize — such as marriage 
 with a fortune" — here he paused, and looked at 
 the glass — "the speculation of a political 
 pamphlet, or an ode to the minister — attendance 
 on some dyin^ miser of my own name, widiout 
 a relation in the world — or, in short, any other 
 mode of making money, that may decently offer 
 itself. Now, situated as I am, without a friend 
 in this great city, I might as well purchase my 
 experience at as cheap a rate, and in as brief a 
 time as possible, nor do I see any plan of 
 doing so more promising than that proposed by 
 Mr. Brown." 
 
 These and such like reflectioiis, joined to the 
 inspiriting pages of the " Newgate Calendar," 
 and " The Covent Garden Magazine," two 
 works which Clarence dragged from their con- 
 cealment under a black tea-tray, afforded him 
 ample occupation till the hour of two, punctual 
 to which time Mr. Morris Brown returned.
 
 134 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Well, Sir," said Clarence, " what is your 
 report ?'' 
 
 The friend of the late Lady W. wiped his 
 brow and gave three long sighs before he re- 
 plied. " A long walk. Sir — a very long walk I 
 have had ; but I have succeeded. No thanks, 
 Sir — no thanks — the lady, a most charming, 
 delightful, amiable woman, will receive you 
 with pleasure — you will have the use of a back 
 parlour (as I said) all the morning, and a beau- 
 tiful little bed-room entirely to yourself — think 
 of that, Sir. You will have an egg for break- 
 fast, and you will dine with the family at three 
 o'clock : quite fashionable hours you see. Sir." 
 
 " And the terms ?" said Linden, impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " Why, Sir," replied Mr. Brown, " the lady 
 was too genteel to talk to me about them — ^you 
 had better walk with me to her house and see 
 if you cannot yourself agree with her."
 
 THE DISOWNED. 135 
 
 " I will," said Clarence. " Will you wait 
 here till I have dressed ?" 
 Mr. Brown bowed his assent. 
 " I might as well," thought Clarence, as he 
 ascended to his bed-room, '' inquire into the 
 character of this gentleman, to whose good 
 offices I am so rashly entrusting myself." He 
 rang his bell — the chambermaid appeared, and 
 was dismissed for the waiter. The character 
 was soon asked, and soon given. For our 
 reader'^s sake we will somewhat enlarge upon it. 
 Mr. Morris Brown originally came into the 
 world with the simple appellation of Moses — a 
 name which his father — honest man — had, as 
 the Minories can still testify, honourably borne 
 before him. Scarcely, however, had the little 
 Moses obtained the age of five, when his father, 
 for causes best known to himself, became a 
 Christian. Somehow or other there is a most 
 potent connection between the purse and the
 
 J 36 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 conscience, and accordingly the blessings of 
 heaven descended in golden showers upon the 
 proselyte. " I shall die worth a plum," said 
 Moses the elder, (who had taken unto himself 
 the Christian cognomen of Brown,) " I shall 
 die worth a plum," repeated he, as he went one 
 fine morning to speculate at the Exchange. A 
 change of news, sharp and unexpected as a 
 change of wind, lowered the stocks and blighted 
 the plum. Mr. Brown was in the Gazette that 
 week, and his wife in weeds for him the next. 
 He left behind him, besides the said wife, several 
 debts, and his son Moses. Beggared by the 
 former, our widow took a small shop in War- 
 dour-street to support the latter. Patient, but 
 enterprising— cautious of risking pounds— inde- 
 fatigable in raising pence, the little Moses in- 
 herited the propensities of his Hebrew ancestors ; 
 and though not so capable as his immediate pro- 
 genitor of making a fortune, he was at least far
 
 THE DISOWNED. 137 
 
 less likely to lose one. In spite, however, of all 
 the industry, both of mother and son, the gains 
 of the shop were but scanty: to increase them 
 capital was required, and ail Mr. Moses Brown's 
 capital lay in his brain. " It is a bad founda- 
 tion," said the mother, with a sigh. "Not at 
 all!" said the son, and leaving the shop he 
 turned broker. Now a broker is a man who 
 makes an income out of other people's funds — 
 a gleaner of stray extravagances ; and by doing 
 the public the honour of living upon them, may 
 fairly be termed a little sort of state minister in 
 his way. What with haunting sales, hawking 
 china, selling the curiosities of one old lady, and 
 purchasing the same for another, Mr. Brown 
 managed to enjoy a very comfortable existence. 
 Great pains and small gains will at last invert 
 their antitheses, and make little trouble and great 
 profit: so that by the time Mr. Brown had 
 attained his fortieth year, the petty shop had
 
 138 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 become a large warehouse ; and if the worthy 
 Moses, now christianized into Morris, was not 
 so sanguine as his father in the gathering of 
 plums, he had been at least as fortunate in the 
 collecting of windfalls. To say truth, the Abi- 
 gail of the defunct Lady Waddilove had been 
 no unprofitable helpmate to our broker. As 
 ingenious as benevolent, she was the owner of 
 certain rooms of great resort in the neighbour- 
 hood of St. James's — rooms where caps and ap- 
 pointments were made better than any where 
 else — and where credit was given, and character 
 lost, upon terms equally advantageous to the 
 accommodating Mr. Brown, 
 
 Meanwhile her husband, continuing through 
 liking what he had begun through necessity, 
 slackened not his industry in augmenting his 
 fortune; on the contrary, the latter was but 
 a keener incentive to the former — as the glut- 
 ton only sharpened by luncheon his appetite for
 
 THE DISOWNED. 139 
 
 dinner. Still was Mr. Brown the very Alci- 
 biades of brokers — the universal genius— suiting 
 every man to his humour. Business, of what- 
 ever description, from the purchase of a borough 
 to that of a brooch, was alike the object of Mr, 
 Brown's most zealous pursuit: taverns, where 
 country cousins put up — rustic habitations, 
 where ancient maidens resided — auction, or 
 barter — city, or hamlet — all were the same to 
 that enterprising spirit, which made out of every 
 acquaintance a commission, and by ministering 
 to the wants of others, satisfied its own. Saga- 
 cious and acute, he perceived the value of 
 eccentricity in covering design ; and found, by 
 experience, that whatever can be laughed at as 
 odd, will be gravely considered as harmless. 
 Several of the broker's peculiarities were, there- 
 fore, more artificial than natural; and many 
 were the sly bargains which he smuggled into 
 effect, under the comfortable cloak of singu-
 
 140 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 larity. No wopder then that the crafty Morris 
 grew gradually in repute as a person of infi- 
 nite utility and excellent qualifications ; or that 
 the penetrating friends of his deceased sire 
 bowed to the thriving itinerant, with a respect 
 which they denied to many in loftier professions 
 and more general esteem.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 141 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Trust me you have an exceeding fine lodging here — very 
 neat and private." 
 
 Ben JoNSON. 
 
 It was a tolerably long walk to the abode of 
 which the worthy broker spoke in such high 
 terms of commendation. At length, at the 
 suburbs towards Paddington, Mr. Brown stopped 
 at a very small house : it stood rather retired 
 from its surrounding neighbours, which were of 
 a loftier and more pretending aspect than itself, 
 and in its awkward shape and pitiful bashful- 
 ness, looked exceedingly like a schoolboy find-
 
 142 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 ing himself for the first time in a grown-up 
 party, and shrinking with all possible expedition 
 into the obscurest corner he can discover. Pass- 
 ing through a sort of garden, in which a spot of 
 grass lay in the embraces of a stripe of gravel, 
 Mr. Brown knocked upon a very bright knocker 
 at a very new door. The latter was opened, 
 and a footboy appeared. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Copperas within .^^ asked the 
 broker. 
 
 " Yees !" said the boy. 
 
 " Shew this gentleman and myself up stairs," 
 resumed Brown. 
 
 " Yees I" reiterated the lackey. 
 
 Up a singularly narrow staircase, into a sin- 
 gularly diminutive drawing-rooin, Clarence and 
 his guide were ushered. There, seated on a 
 little chair by a little work-table, with one foot 
 on a little stool, and one hand on a little book, 
 was a little— very Httle lady.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 143 
 
 ** This is the young gentleman," said Mr. 
 Brown ; and Clarence bowed low, in token of 
 the introduction. 
 
 The lady returned the salutation with an 
 affected bend, and said, in a mincing and gro- 
 tesquely subdued tone — " You are desirous, 
 Sir, of entering into the bosom of ray family ? 
 We possess accommodations of a most elegant 
 description — accustomed to the genteelest circles 
 — enjoying the pure breezes of the Highgate 
 hills — and presenting to any guest we may 
 receive, the attractions of a home rather than of 
 a lodging, you will find our retreat no less 
 eligible than unique. You are, I presume, 
 Sir, in some profession — some city avocation — 
 or — or trade ?" 
 
 Clarence's cheek burnt — but he checked the 
 haughty reply rising to his lips. 
 
 '* I have the misfortune," said he, smiling, 
 " to belong to no profession.^'
 
 144 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 The lady looked hard at the speaker, and 
 then at the broker. With common people, to 
 belong to no profession, is for a poor man to be 
 of no respectability. 
 
 " The most unexceptionable references will 
 be given — and required,^'' resumed Mrs. Cop- 
 peras. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Brown, " certainly, 
 the gentleman is a relation of Mrs. Minden, a 
 very old customer of mine." 
 
 " In that case," said Mrs. Copperas, " the 
 affair is settled :" and rising, she rung the bell, 
 and ordered the footboy, whom she addressed 
 by the grandiloquent name of De Warens, to 
 shew the gentleman the apartments. While 
 Clarence was occupied in surveying the luxuries 
 of a box at the top of the house, called a bed- 
 chamber, which seemed just large and just hot 
 enough for a chrysalis, and a corresponding box
 
 THE DISOWNED. 145 
 
 below, termed the back parlour, which would 
 certainly not have been large enough for the 
 said chrysalis, when turned into a butterfly. 
 Mr. Morris Brown, after duly expatiating on 
 the merits of Clarence, proceeded to speak of 
 the terras ; these were soon settled, for Clarence 
 was yielding, and the lady not above three 
 times as extortionate as she ought to have 
 been. 
 
 Before Linden left the house, the bargain was 
 concluded. That night his trunks were re- 
 moved to his new abode, and having with 
 incredible difficulty been squeezed into the bed- 
 room, Clarence surveyed them with the same 
 astonishment with which the virtuoso beheld 
 the flies in amber — 
 
 '' Not that the things were either rich or rare, 
 He wondered how the devil they got there /" 
 
 VOL. t.
 
 146 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 '* Such scenes had tempered with a pensive grace, 
 
 The maiden lustre of that faultless face ; 
 
 Had hung a sad and dreamhke spell upon 
 
 The gliding music of her silver tone, 
 
 And shaded the soft soul which loved to lie 
 
 In the deep pathos of that volumed eye." 
 
 The Rebel 
 " The love thus kindled between them was of no common or 
 calculating nature ; it was vigorous and delicious, and at times 
 so suddenly intense as to appear to their young hearts for a 
 moment or so, with almost an awflil character." 
 
 Inesilla. 
 
 We have now to wave our wand of office, and 
 conjure up new scenes and new persons. Figure 
 to yourself a small chamber, in a remote wing 
 of a large and noble mansion — the walls were 
 covered with sketches, whose extreme delicacy
 
 THE DISOWNED. 147 
 
 of outline and colouring told that it was from 
 a female hand that they derived their existence ; 
 a few shelves filled with books supported vases 
 of flowers, whose bright hues and fragrant 
 odour gratefully repaid, while they testified, the 
 attention daily lavished upon them. A harp 
 stood neglected at the farther end of the room, 
 and just above hung the slender prison of one 
 of those golden wanderers from the Canary 
 Isles, which bear to our colder land some of the 
 gentlest music of their skies and zephyrs. The 
 window, reaching to the ground, was open, and 
 looked through the clusters of jessamine and 
 honeysuckle which surrounded the low veranda 
 beyond, upon thick and frequent copses of 
 blossoming shrubs, redolent of spring, and 
 sparkling in the sunny tears of a May shower, 
 which had only just wept itself away. Embo- 
 somed in these little groves lay plots of " pro- 
 digal flowers," contrasted and girdled with the 
 H 2
 
 148 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 freshest and greenest turf which ever wooed 
 the nightly dances of the fairies ; and afar off, 
 through one artful opening, the eye caught the 
 glittering wanderings of water, on whose light 
 and smiles the universal happiness of the young 
 year seemed reflected. 
 
 But in that chamber, heedless of all around, 
 and cold to the joy with which every thing 
 else, equally youthful, beautiful, and innocent, 
 seemed breathing and inspired, sat a very young 
 and lovely female. Her cheek leant upon her 
 hand, and large tears flowed fast and burningly 
 over the small and delicate fingers. The comb 
 that had confined her tresses lay at her feet, 
 and the high dress which concealed her swelling 
 breast had been loosened, to give vent to the 
 suffocating and indignant throbbings which had 
 rebelled against its cincture — all appeared to 
 announce that bitterness of grief when the mind, 
 as it were, wreaks its scorn upon the body in
 
 THE DISOWNED. 149 
 
 its contempt for external seemings, and to pro- 
 claim that the present more subdued and soft- 
 ened sorrow had only succeeded to a burst far 
 less quiet and controuled. Woe to those who 
 eat the bread of dependance — their tears are 
 wrung from the inmost sources of the heart ! 
 
 Isabel St. Leger was the only child of a cap- 
 tain in the army, who died in her infancy ; her 
 mother had survived him only a few months : 
 and to the reluctant care and cold affections of 
 a distant and wealthy relation of the same 
 name, the warm-hearted and pennyless orphan 
 was consigned. Major- General Cornelius St. 
 Leger, whose riches had been purchased in 
 India at the price of his constitution, was of a 
 temper as hot as his curries, and he wreaked it 
 the more unsparingly on his ward, because the 
 superior ill-temper of his maiden sister had 
 prevented his giving vent to it upon her. 
 That sister, Miss Diana St. Leger, was a meagre
 
 150 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 gentlewoman of about six feet high ; and her 
 voice was as high and as sharp as herself. 
 Long in awe of her brother, she rejoiced at 
 heart to find some one whom she had such 
 right and reason to make in awe of herself; and 
 from the age of four to that of seventeen, 
 Isabel suffered every insult and every degrada- 
 tion which could be inflicted upon her by the 
 tyranny of her two protectors. Her spirit, how- 
 ever, was far from being broken by the rude 
 shocks it received ; on the contrary, her mind, 
 gentleness itself to the kind, rose indignantly 
 against the unjust. It was true that the sense 
 of wrong broke not forth audibly ; for, though 
 susceptible, Isabel was meek, and her pride 
 was concealed by the outward softness and 
 feminacy of her temper; but she stole away 
 from those who had wounded her heart, or 
 trampled upon its feelings, and nourished with 
 secret but passionate tears the memory of the
 
 THE DISOWNED. 151 
 
 harshness or injustice she had endured. Yet 
 was she not vindictive — her resentment was a 
 noble, not a debasing feeling : once, when 
 she was yet a child. Miss Diana was at- 
 tacked with a fever of the most malignant 
 and infectious kind ; her brother — what East 
 Indian general would not have done the same ?*— 
 loved himself far too well to risk his safety by 
 attending his sister ; the servants were too happy 
 to wreak their hatred under the pretence of 
 obeying their fears : they consequently followed 
 the example of their master ; and Miss Diana St. 
 Leger might have gone down to her ancestors, 
 " unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," if Isabel 
 had not volunteered and enforced her attendance. 
 Hour after hour, her fairy form flitted around 
 the sick chamber, or sate mute and breathless by 
 the feverish bed ; she had neither fear for con- 
 tagion nor bitterness for past oppression ; every 
 thing vanished beneath the one hope of serving,
 
 152 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the one gratification of feeling herself, in the 
 wide waste of creation, not utterly without use, 
 as she had been hitherto without friends. 
 
 Miss St. Leger recovered. " For your re- 
 covery, in the first place," said the doctor, " you 
 will thank Heaven ; in the second, you will thank 
 your young relation," and for several days the 
 convalescent did overwhelm the happy Isabel 
 with her praises and caresses. But this change, 
 lasted not long : the chaste Diana had been too 
 spoiled by the prosperity of many years, for the 
 sickness of a single month to effect much good 
 in her '-^loposition. Her old habits were soon 
 resumed, snd though it is probable that her 
 heart was in rta^vty softened towards the poor 
 Isabel, that softenmg by no means extended to 
 her temper. In truth, perhaps the brother and 
 sister were not without affection for one so 
 beautiful and good, but they had been torturing 
 slaves all their lives, and their affection was, and
 
 THE DISOWNED. 153 
 
 could be, but that of a taskmaster or a 
 planter. 
 
 But Isabel was the only relation that ever 
 appeared within tlieir walls, and among the 
 guests, with whom the luxurious mansion was 
 crowded, she passed no less for the heiress than 
 the dependant ; to her, therefore, was offered 
 the homage of many lips and hearts, and if her 
 pride was perpetually galled, and her feelings 
 insulted in private, her vanity (had that equalled 
 her pride, and her feelings in its susceptibility) 
 would in no slight measure have recompenced 
 her in public. Unhappily, however, her vanity 
 was the least prominent quality she possessed ; 
 and she turned with scorn, rather than pleasure, 
 from the compliments and adulation which her 
 penetration detected, while her heart despised. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, she found some gratifica- 
 tion in indulging that pride to strangers which 
 was checked all proper and dignified exercise 
 h3
 
 154 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 to relations ; and the indifference of her manners, 
 (graceful as they were,) the coldness of her bril- 
 liant eye, and the disdainful expression of her 
 young lips, repelled at last the admiration her 
 beauty had attracted, and excited rather pity 
 towards her guardians for the supposed severity 
 of her temper, than towards herself for the acer- 
 bity of theirs. Yet did she bear within her a 
 deep fund of buried tenderness, and a mine of 
 girlish and enthusiastic romance ; dangerous 
 gifts to one so situated, which, while they gave 
 to her secret moments of solitude, a powerful, 
 but vague attraction, probably only prepared 
 for her future years, the snare which might 
 betray them into error, or the delusion which 
 would colour them with regret. 
 
 Among those whom the ostentatious hospi- 
 tality of General St. Leger attracted to his 
 house, was one of very different character and 
 pretensions to the rest. Formed to be unpopular
 
 THE DISOWNED. 155 
 
 with the generality of men, the very qualities 
 that made him so, were those which principally 
 fascinate the higher description of women : of an- 
 cient birth, which rendered still more displeasing 
 the pride and coldness of his mien ; of talents 
 peculiarly framed to attract interest as well as 
 esteem ; of a deep and somewhat morbid melan- 
 choly, which, while it turned from ordinary ties, 
 inclined yearningly towards passionate affections ; 
 of a temper, where romance was only concealed 
 from the many, to become more seducing to the 
 few ; unsocial, but benevolent ; disliked, but 
 respected ; of the austerest demeanour, but 
 of passions the most fervid, though the most 
 carefully concealed : — this man united within 
 himself all that repels the common mass of his 
 species, and all that irresistibly wins and fasci- 
 nates the rare and romantic few. To these 
 qualities were added, an external mien and per- 
 son of that high and commanding order, which
 
 156 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 men mistake for arrogance and pretension, and 
 women overrate in proportion to its contrast to 
 their own. Something of mystery there was in 
 the commencement of the deep and eventful 
 love which took place between this person and, 
 Isabel, which I have never been able to learn : 
 whatever it was, it seemed to expedite and 
 heighten the ordinary progress of love ; and 
 when in the dim twilight, beneath the first me- 
 lancholy smile of the earliest star, their hearts 
 opened audibly to each other, that confession 
 had been made silently long since, and registered 
 in the inmost recesses of the soul. 
 
 But their passion, which began in prosperity, 
 was soon darkened. Whether from the hauteur 
 of Isabel's lover, always so displeasing in men 
 of birth to those who do not possess it, or from 
 the desire of retaining about him an object 
 which he could torment and tyrannize over, nc 
 . sooner did the general discover the attachment
 
 THE DISOWNED. 157 
 
 of his young relation, than he peremptorily 
 forbade its indulgence, and assumed so insolent 
 and overbearing an air towards the lover, that 
 the latter felt he could no longer repeat his 
 visits to, or even continue his acquaintance with 
 the nabob. 
 
 To add to these adverse circumstances, a 
 relation of the lover, from whom his expecta- 
 tions had been large, was so enraged, not only at 
 the insult his cousin had received, but at the 
 very idea of his forming an alliance with one 
 in so dependent a situation, and connected with 
 such new blood, as Isabel St. Leger, that with 
 that arrogance which relations, however distant, 
 think themselves authorized to assume, he for- 
 bade his cousin, upon pain of forfeiture of 
 favour and fortune, ever to renew his overtures 
 . of attachment. The one thus addressed was 
 not of a temper patientl}? to submit to such 
 threats; he answered them with disdain, and
 
 158 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the breach, so dangerous to his pecuniary in- 
 terest, was already begun. 
 
 So far had the history of our lover proceeded 
 at the time in which I have introduced Isabel 
 to the reader, and described to him the chamber 
 to which, in all her troubles and humiliations, 
 she was accustomed to fly, as to a sad but still 
 unviolated sanctuary of retreat. 
 
 The quiet of this asylum was first broken by 
 a slight rustling among the leaves ; but Isabel's 
 back was turned towards the window, and in 
 the engrossment of her feelings she heard it not. 
 The thick copse that darkened the left side of 
 the veranda was pierced, and a man passed 
 within the covered space, and stood still and 
 silent before the window, intently gazing upon 
 the figure which (though the face was turned 
 from him,) betrayed in its proportions, that 
 beauty which, in his eyes, had neither an equal 
 nor a fault.
 
 THE DISOWiiED. 159 
 
 The figure of the stranger, though not very 
 tall, was above the ordinary height, and grace- 
 fully rather than robustly formed. He was 
 dressed in the darkest colours and the simplest 
 fashion, which rendered yet more striking the 
 nobleness of his mien, as well as the clear and 
 almost delicate paleness of his complexion ; his 
 features were finely and accurately chiselled ; 
 and had not ill health, long travel, or severe 
 thought deepened too much the lines of the 
 countenance, and sharpened its contour, the 
 classic perfection of those features would have 
 rendered him undeniably and even eminently 
 handsome : as it was, the paleness, and the some- 
 what worn character of his face, joined to an ex- 
 pression, at first glance, rather haughty and 
 repellant, made him lose in physical what he 
 certainly gained in intellectual beauty. His 
 eyes were large, deep, and melancholy, and had 
 the hat which now hung over his brow been
 
 160 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 removed, it would have displayed a forehead of 
 remarkable boldness and power ; not perhaps 
 so observable for its height as for its breadth, 
 and for that advancing and grand formation, so 
 seldom seen in modern countenances, but which 
 formed perhaps the noblest secret of antient 
 sculpture. 
 
 Altogether, the face was cast in a rare and 
 intellectual mould, and if wanting in those 
 more luxuriant attractions common to the age of 
 the stranger, who could scarcely have attained 
 his twenty-sixth year, it betokened, at least, 
 that predominance of mind over body, which, 
 in some eyes, is the most requisite charac- 
 teristic of masculine beauty. 
 
 With a soft and noiseless step, the stranger 
 moved from his station without the window, 
 and entering the room, stole towards the spot 
 on which Isabel was sitting. He leant over her 
 chair, and his eye rested upon his own picture,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 161 
 
 and a letter in his own writing, over which the 
 tears of the young orphan flowed fast. One 
 fair small hand hung listless by her side ; its 
 slender fingers were girded by no ornaments 
 but a single and simple ring of hair — it had been 
 given to her by him. 
 
 One moment of agitated happiness for one — 
 of unconscious and continued sadness for the 
 other — 
 
 " 'Tis past — her lover's at her feet." 
 
 And what indeed " was to them the world 
 beside, with all its changes of time and tide ?** 
 Joy — hope — all blissful and bright sensations, 
 lay mingled, like meeting waters, in one sunny 
 stream of heartfelt and unfathomable enjoyment 
 — but this passed away, and the remembrance 
 of bitterness and evil succeeded. 
 
 " Oh, Algernon !" said Isabel, in a low 
 voice, " is this your promise ?"
 
 162 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Believe me," said Mordaunt, for it was 
 indeed he, " I struggled long with my feelings, 
 but in vain ; and, for both our sakes, I rejoice 
 at the conquest they obtained. I listened only 
 to a deceitful delusion when I imagined I was 
 obeying the dictates of reason. Ah, dearest, 
 why should we part for the sake of dubious 
 and distant evils, when the misery of absence is 
 the most certain, the most unceasing evil we can 
 endure ?" 
 
 " For your sake, and therefore for mine!" 
 interrupted Isabel, struggling with her tears. 
 " I am a beggar, and an outcast. You must 
 not link your fate with mine. I could bear, 
 Grod knows how willingly, poverty and all its 
 evils for you and with you ; but I cannot hring 
 them upon you.*" 
 
 " Nor will you," said Mordaunt, passionately, 
 as he covered the hand he held with his burning 
 kisses. " Have I not enough for both of us "i
 
 THE DISOWNED. 163 
 
 It is my love, not poverty, that I beseech you 
 to share." 
 
 " No ! Algernon, you cannot deceive me : 
 your own estate will be torn from you by the 
 law : if you marry me, your cousin will not as- 
 sist you : I, you know too well, can command 
 nothing ; and I shall see you, for whom in my 
 fond and bright dreams I have presaged every 
 thing great and exalted, buried in an obscurity 
 from which your talents can never rise, and suf- 
 fering the pangs of poverty, and dependance, 
 and humiliation like my own — and— and — I — 
 should be the wretch who caused you all. 
 Never, Algernon, never ! — I love you too — too 
 
 well r 
 
 But the effort which wrung forth the determi- 
 nation of the tone in which these words were ut- 
 tered, was too strong to endure ; and as the full 
 desolation of her despair crowded fast and dark 
 upon the orphan's mind, she sunk back upon
 
 164 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 her chair in very sickness of soul, nor heeded, 
 in her unconscious misery, that her hand was 
 yet clasped by her lover, and that her head 
 drooped upon his bosom. 
 
 " Isabel," he said, in the low, sweet tone 
 which, to her ear, seemed the concentration of all 
 earthly music — " Isabel — look up — my own — 
 ray beloved — look up and hear me. Perhaps you 
 say truly when you tell me that the possessions 
 of my house shall melt away from me, and that 
 my relation will not offer to me the precarious 
 bounty, which, even if he did, I would reject ; 
 but, dearest, are there not a thousand paths open 
 to me — the law — the state — the army? — You 
 are silent, Isabel — speak !" 
 
 Isabel did not reply, but the soft eyes which 
 rested upon his, told, in their despondency, how 
 little she was excited by the arguments he 
 urged. 
 
 " Besides," he continued, " we know not yet
 
 THE DISOWNED. 165 
 
 whether the law may not decide in my favour — 
 at all events years may pass before the judgment 
 is given — those years make the prime and ver- 
 dure of our Hves — let us not waste them in 
 mourning over blighted hopes and severed hearts 
 — ^let us snatch what happiness is yet in our 
 power, nor anticipate, while the heavens are still 
 bright above us, the burthen of the thunder or 
 the cloud." 
 
 Isabel was one of the least selfish, and most 
 devoted of human beings, yet she must be for- 
 given if at that moment her resolution faltered, 
 and the overpowering thought of being in reality 
 his for ever, flashed upon her mind. It passed 
 from her the moment it was formed, and rising 
 from a situation in which the touch of that dear 
 hand, and the breath of those wooing lips en- 
 dangered the virtue, and weakened the strength 
 of her resolves, she withdrew herself from his 
 grasp, and while she averted her eyes, which
 
 166 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 dared not encounter his, she said in a low but 
 firm voice — 
 
 " It is in vain, Algernon ; it is in vain. I 
 can be to you nothing but a blight or burthen, 
 nothing but a source of privation and bitterness. 
 Think you that I will be this ? — no, I will not 
 darken your fair hopes, and impede your rea- 
 sonable ambition. Go, (and here her voice fal- 
 tered for a moment, but soon recovered its tone,) 
 go, Algernon, dear Algernon ; and if my foolish 
 heart will not ask you to think of me no more, 
 I can at least implore you to think of me only 
 as one who would die, rather than cost you a 
 moment of that poverty and debasement whose 
 bitterness §he has felt herself, and who for that 
 very reason, tears herself away from you for 
 ever." 
 
 *' Stay, Isabel, stay {"^ cried Mordaunt, as he 
 caught hold of her robe, ere she had yet left 
 the room, " give me but one word more, and
 
 THE DISOWNED. 167 
 
 you shall leave me. Say, that if I can create 
 for myself a new source of independence ; if I 
 can carve out a road where the ambition you 
 erroneously impute to me can be gratified, as 
 well as the more moderate wishes our station 
 has made natural to us to form — say, that if I 
 do this, I may permit myself to hope — say, 
 that when I have done it, I may claim you as 
 my own !" 
 
 Isabel paused, and turned once more her 
 face towards his own. Her lips moved, and 
 though the words died within her heart, yet 
 Mordaunt read vvell their import in the blushing 
 cheek and the heaving bosom, and the lips 
 which one ray of hope and comfort was suffi- 
 cient to kindle into smiles. He gazed, and all 
 obstacles, all difficulties disappeared ; the gulf 
 of time seemed passed, and he felt as if already 
 he had earned and won his reward. 
 
 He approached her yet nearer ; one kiss on
 
 168 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 those lips, one pressure of that thrilling hand, 
 one long, last, yearning embrace of that shrink- 
 ing and trembling form — and then, as the door 
 closed upon his view, he felt that the sunshine of 
 nature had passed away, and that in the midst of 
 the laughing and peopled earth, he stood in 
 darkness and alone.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 169 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 " The middle classes are of all the most free from the vices of 
 conduct, and the most degraded by the mearmesses of character.'' 
 Lettees of Stephen Montague. 
 
 We return to Clarence, nor shall we make 
 any excuse for portraying, though in a brief 
 and single sketch, the manners of his host and 
 hostess. Despite the imbecile cant of the day, 
 which affects disdain for the description of man- 
 kind as they are, which censures the delineation 
 of society, when polished, as flippant, and when 
 coarse, as revolting ; we shall in each, as the 
 vicissitudes of our story bring them before our 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 I'J'X) THE DISOWNED. 
 
 view, follow experience in the pursuit of truth. 
 The manners of the time, the characters which, 
 from peculiar constitutions of society, derive 
 peculiarities of distinction, become the natural 
 though, we confess, not the noblest prqvince of 
 the novelist. The noblest sphere of his art, is 
 to add to exterior circumstances, which vary 
 with every age, a painting of that internal 
 world which in every age is the same; and 
 besides describing the fashion and the vestment, 
 to stamp upon his portraits something of the 
 character of the soul. 
 
 We then left Clarence safely deposited in his 
 little lodgings. Whether from the heat of his 
 apartment, or the restlessness a migration of beds 
 produces in certain constitutions, his sleep that 
 night was as little as his couch. He rose early and 
 descended to the drawing-room ; Mr. de Wa- 
 rens, the nobly appeliatived footboy, was laying 
 the breakfast cloth. From three painted shelves
 
 THE DISOWNED. 171 
 
 which constituted the library of " Copperas 
 Bower," as its owners gracefully called it, Cla- 
 rence took down a book very prettily bound ; 
 it was " Poems, by a Nobleman." No sooner 
 had he read two pages, than he did exactly what 
 the reader would have done, and restored the 
 volume to its place again. He then drew his chair 
 towards the window, and wistfully eyed sundry 
 antient nursery maids, who were leading their 
 infant charges to the " fresh fields, and pastures 
 new," of what is now the Regent's Park. 
 
 In about an hour, Mrs. Copperas descended, 
 and mutual compliments were exchanged ; to 
 her succeeded Mr. Copperas, who was well 
 scolded for his laziness ; and to them, Master 
 Adolphus Copperas, who was also chidingly 
 termed, a naughty darling, for the same offence. 
 Now then Mrs. Copperas prepared the tea, 
 which she did in the approved method, adopted 
 by all ladies to whom economy is dearer than 
 I 2
 
 173 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 renown — viz. the least possible quantity of the 
 soi-disant Chinese plant was first sprinkled by 
 the least possible quantity of hot water ; after 
 this mixture had become as black and as bitter 
 as it could possibly be, without any adjunct 
 from the apothecary's skill, it was suddenly 
 drenched with a copious diffusion, and as sud- 
 denly poured forth, weak, washy, and abomi- 
 nable, into four cups, severally appertaining unto 
 the four partakers of the matutinal nectar. 
 
 Then the conversation began to flow. Mrs. 
 Copperas was a fine lady, and a sentimentalist — 
 very observant of the little niceties of phrase 
 and manner. Mr. Copperas was a stock-jobber, 
 and a wit, loved a good hit in each capacity, 
 was very round, very short, and very much like 
 a John Dory, and saw in the features and mind 
 of the little Copperas, the exact representative of 
 himself. 
 
 " Adolphus, my love," said Mrs. Copperas,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 173 
 
 " mind what I told you, and sit upright. — Mr. 
 Linden, will you allow me to cut you a leetU 
 piece of this roll ?" 
 
 " Thank you/' said Clarence, "I will trouble 
 you rather for the whole of it." 
 
 Conceive Mrs. Copperas's dismay ! from that 
 moment she saw herself eaten out of house 
 and home ; besides, as she afterwards observed 
 to her friend Miss Barbara York, '* the vulga- 
 rity of such an amazing appetite !" 
 
 " Any commands in the city, Mr. Linden ?" 
 asked the husband : *' a coach will pass by our 
 door in a few minutes — must be on 'Change in 
 half-an-hour. Come, my love, another cup of 
 tea — make haste — I have scarcely a moment to 
 take my Jure for the inside, before coachee 
 takes Ms for the outside. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Mr 
 Linden." 
 
 " Lord, Mr. Copperas," said his helpmate, 
 *' how can you be so silly ? setting such an ex- 
 ample to your son, too — never mind him, Adol-
 
 1T4 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 phiis, my love — fie, child, a'n't you ashamed of 
 yourself? — never put the spoon in your cup till 
 you have done tea : I must really send you to 
 school, to learn manners. — We have a very pretty 
 little collection of books here, Mr. Linden, if you 
 would like to read an hour or two after break- 
 fast — child, take your hands out of your 
 pockets — all the best English classics, I believe — 
 Telemachus, and Young's Night Thoughts, 
 and Joseph Andrews, and The Spectator, and 
 Pope's Iliad, and Creech^'s Lucretius; but you 
 will look over them yourself ! This is Liberty 
 Hall, as well as Copperas Bower, Mr. Linden !" 
 
 " WeU, my love," said the stock-jobber, " I 
 believe I must be off. Here, Tom — Tom — (Mr. 
 de Warens had just entered the room with some 
 more hot water, to weaken still farther " the poor 
 remains of what was once" the tea) — Tom, just 
 run out and stop the coach, it will be by in five 
 minutes.'' 
 
 "Have not I prayed, and besought you, many
 
 THE DISOWNED. 175 
 
 and many a time, Mr. Copperas," said the lady 
 rebukingly, "not to call De Warens by his 
 christian name ? Don't you know, that all 
 people in genteel life, who only keep one 
 servant, invariably call him by his surname, as if 
 he were the butler you know ?" 
 
 *' Now, that is too good, my love," said Cop- 
 peras. " I will call poor Tom by any surname 
 you please, but I really can't pass him off for a 
 butler ! Ha — ha — ^ha — ^you must excuse me there, 
 my love " 
 
 " And pray, why not, Mr. Copperas ? I have 
 known many a butler bungle more at a cork 
 than he does ; and pray tell me, who did you 
 ever see wait better at dinner?*' 
 
 " He wait at dinner, my love ! it is not he who 
 waits.'* 
 
 " Who then, Mr. Copperas .?" 
 
 '« Why we, my love — ^it's we who wait at 
 dinner — but that's the cook's fault, not his."
 
 176 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Pshaw, Mr. Copperas — Adolphus, my love, 
 sit upright, darling.*' 
 
 Here De Warens cried from the bottom of the 
 stairs — 
 
 '* Measter, the coach be coming up." 
 
 " There won't be room for it to turn then," 
 said the facetious Mr. Copperas, looking round 
 the apartment, as if he took the words literally. 
 " What coach is it, boy ?" 
 
 Now that was not the age in which coaches 
 scoured the city every half-hour, and Mr. 
 Copperas knew the name of the coach, as well as 
 he knew his own, 
 
 " It be the Swallow coach. Sir." 
 
 " Oh ! very well : then since I have swallowed 
 in the roll, I will now roll in the Swallow — ha — 
 ha — ha ! — Good by, Mr. Linden.*" 
 
 No sooner had the witty stock-jobber left the 
 room, than Mrs. Copperas seemed to expand 
 into a new existence. " My husband, Sir,''
 
 THE DISOWNED. 177 
 
 said she, apologetically, " is so odd, but he's an 
 excellent sterling character ; and that, you know, 
 Mr. Linden, tells more in domestic life, than 
 all the shining qualities which captivate the 
 fancy. I am sure, Mr. Linden, that the moralist 
 is right in admonishing us to prefer the gold to 
 the tinseL I have now been married some years, 
 and every year seems happier than the last ; but 
 then, Mr. Linden, it is such pleasure to con- 
 template the growing graces of the sweet pledge 
 of our mutual love — Adolphus, my dear, keep 
 your feet still, and take your hands out of your 
 pockets!" 
 
 A short pause ensued. 
 
 " We see a great deal of company," said 
 Mrs. Copperas, pompously, " and of the very 
 best description. Sometimes we are favoured by 
 the society of the great Mr, Talbot, a gentleman 
 of immense fortune, and quite the courtier ; he 
 is, it is true, a little eccentric in his dress ; but 
 I 3
 
 178 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 then he was a celebrated beau in his young days. 
 He is our next neighbour : you can see his house 
 out of the window, just across the garden — 
 there ! We have also, sometimes, our humble 
 board graced by a very elegant friend of mine, 
 Miss Barbara York, a lady of very high con- 
 nexions, her first cousin was a lord mayor — Adol- 
 phus, my dear, what are you about ! Well, Mr. 
 Linden, you will find your retreat quite undis- 
 turbed ; I must go about the household affairs ; 
 not that I do any thing more than superintend, 
 you know, Sir ; but I think no lady should be 
 above consulting her husband's interests — that's 
 what I call true old English conjugal aff'ection. 
 Come, Adolphus, my dear." 
 
 And Clarence was now alone. " I fear," 
 thought he, " that I shall get oh very indiffer- 
 ently with these people. Taught by books, not 
 experience, I fondly imagined that there were 
 very few to whom I could not suit myself; but
 
 THE DISOWNED. 179 
 
 I have yet to learn that there are certain vul- 
 garities, which ask long familiarity with their 
 cause and effect, rightly to understand and 
 patiently to endure. The outward coarseness of 
 the lowest orders, the mental grossierete of the 
 highest, I can readily suppose it easy to forgive, 
 for the former does not offend one's feelings, nor 
 the latter one's habits ; but this base, pretending, 
 noisy, scarlet vulgarity of the middle ranks, 
 which has all the rudeness of its inferiors, with 
 all the arrogance and heartlessness of its betters — 
 this pounds and pence patchwork, of the worst 
 and most tawdry shreds and rags of manners, 
 is alike sickening to one's love of human nature, 
 and one's refinement of taste. But it will not do 
 for me to be misanthropical, and (as Dr. Latinas 
 was wont to say,) the great merit of philosophy, 
 when it cannot command circumstances, is to 
 recmmle us to them."
 
 180 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " A retired beau is one of the most instructive spectacles in 
 the world." 
 
 Stephen Montague. 
 
 It was quite true that Mrs. Copperas saw a 
 great deal of company, for, at a certain charge, 
 upon certain days, any individual might have 
 the honour of sharing her family repast ; and 
 many of various calhngs. though chiefly in com- 
 mercial life, met at her miscellaneous board. 
 Clarence must, indeed, have been difficult to 
 please, or obtuse of observation, if in the variety 
 of her guests, he had not found something either
 
 THE DISOWNED. 181 
 
 to interest or amuse him. Heavens ! what a 
 motley group were accustomed, twice in the 
 week, to assemble there ! the little dining parlour 
 seemed a human oven ; and it must be owned 
 that Clarence was no slight magnet of attraction 
 to the female part of the guests. Mrs. Cop- 
 peras's bosom friend in especial, the accomplished 
 Miss Barbara York, darted the most tender 
 glances on the handsome young stranger ; but 
 whether or no a nose remarkably prominent and 
 long, prevented the glances from taking full 
 effect, it is certain that Clarence seldom repaid 
 them with that affectionate ardour, which Miss 
 Barbara York had ventured to anticipate. The 
 only persons indeed, for whom he felt any sympa- 
 thetic attraction, were of the same sex as himself ; 
 the one was Mr. Talbot, the old gentleman whom 
 Mrs. Copperas had described as the perfect cour- 
 tier, the other, a young artist of the name of War- 
 ner. Talbot, to Clarence's great astonishment.
 
 182 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 (for Mrs. Copperas's eulogy had prepared him for 
 something eminently displeasing,) was a man of 
 birth, fortune, and manners peculiarly graceful 
 and attractive. It is true, however, that 
 despite of his vicinity, and Mrs. Copperas's 
 urgent solicitations, he very seldom honoured 
 her with his company, and he always cautiously 
 sent over his servant in the morning, to inquire 
 the names and number of her expected guests : 
 nor was he ever known to share the plenteous 
 board of the stock-jobber's lady, whenever any 
 other partaker of its dainties, save Clarence and 
 the young artist, were present. The latter, the 
 old gentleman really liked : and as for one truly 
 well born, and well bred, there is no vulgarity 
 except in the mind, the slender means, obscure 
 birth, and struggling profession of Warner, 
 were circumstances which, as they increased the 
 merit of a gentle manner and a fine mind, spake 
 rather in his favour than the reverse. As for
 
 THE DISOWNED. 18S 
 
 Clarence, no sooner had Talbot seen him, than 
 he expressed the highest prepossession in his 
 conversation and appearance ; and indeed, there 
 was in Talbot's tastes so strong a bias to 
 aristocratic externals, that Clarence's air alone 
 would have been sufficient to win the good 
 graces of a man who had, perhaps, more than 
 any courtier of his time, cultivated the arts of 
 manner, and the secrets of address. 
 
 *' You will call upon me soon ?" said he to 
 Clarence, when after dining one day alone with 
 the Copperases and their inmate, he rose to re- 
 turn home. And Clarence, delighted with the 
 urbanity and liveliness of his new acquaintance, 
 readily promised that he would. 
 
 Accordingly the next day, Clarence called 
 upon Mr. Talbot. The house, as Mrs. Cop- 
 peras had befcre said, adjoined her own, and 
 was only separated from it by a garden. It was 
 a dull mansion of brick, which had disdained
 
 J 84 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the frippery of paint and white-washing, and 
 had indeed been built many years previous to 
 the erection of the modern habitations which 
 surrounded it. It was, therefore, as a conse- 
 quence of this priority of birth, more sombre 
 than the rest, and had a pecuharly forlorn and 
 solitary look. As Clarence approached the 
 door, he was struck with the size of the house — 
 it was of very considerable extent, and in the 
 more favourable situations of London, would 
 have passed for a very desirable and spacious 
 tenement. An old man, whose accurate pre- 
 cision of dress bespoke the tastes of the master, 
 opened the door, and after ushering Clarence 
 through two long, and to his surprise, almost 
 splendidly furnished rooms, led him into a 
 third, where, seated at a small writing-table, he 
 found Mr. Talbot. That person, one whom 
 Clarence then little thought would hereafter 
 exercise no small influence over his fate, was of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 185 
 
 a figure and countenance well worthy the notice 
 of a description. 
 
 His own hair, quite white, was carefully and 
 artificially curled, and gave a Grecian cast to 
 features, whose original delicacy, and exact, 
 though small proportions, not even age could 
 destroy. His eyes were large, black, and 
 sparkled with a vivacity which would have been 
 brilliant even in the youngest orbs ; and his 
 mouth, which was the best feature he possessed, 
 developed teeth, white and even as rows of 
 ivory. Small and very slender in stature, 
 nothing could exceed the elegance and ease of 
 his motions and air ; and his dress, though sin- 
 gularly rich in its materials, eccentric in its 
 fashion, and, from its evident study, unseemly to 
 his years, served nevertheless to render rather 
 venerable than ridiculous, a mien which could 
 almost have carried off any absurdity, and 
 which the fashion of the garb peculiarly became.
 
 186 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 The tout ensemble was certainly that of a man 
 who was still vain of his exterior, and conscious 
 of its effect ; and it was as certainly impossible 
 to converse with Mr. Talbot for five minutes, 
 without merging every less respectful association 
 in the magical fascination of his manner. 
 
 "I thank you, Mr. Linden," said Talbot, 
 rising, ''for your accepting so readily an old 
 man^s invitation. If I have felt pleasure at 
 discovering that we were to be neighbours, you 
 may judge what that pleasure is to-day at find- 
 ing you my visitor." 
 
 Clarence, who, to do him justice, was always 
 ready at returning a fine speech, replied in a 
 similar strain, and the conversation flowed on 
 agreeably enough. There was more than a 
 moderate collection of books in the room, and 
 this circumstance led Clarence to allude to lite- 
 rary subjects ; these Mr. Talbot took up with 
 avidity, and touched with a light but graceful
 
 THE DISOWNED. 187 
 
 criticism upon many of the then modern, and 
 some of the older writers. He seemed delighted 
 to find himself understood and appreciated by 
 Clarence, and every moment of Linden's visit 
 served to ripen their acquaintance into intimacy. 
 At length they talked upon Copperas Bower 
 and its inmates. 
 
 " You will find your host and hostess," said 
 the old gentleman, " certainly of a different 
 order to the persons with whom it is easy to see 
 you have associated ; but, at your happy age, a 
 year or two may be very well thrown away 
 upon observing the manners and customs of 
 those whom, in later life, you may often be 
 called upon to conciliate, or perhaps to control. 
 Believe the word of an old beau, that that man 
 will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only 
 with gentlemen. To be a man of the world, we 
 must view that world in every grade, and in 
 every perspective. In short, the most practical
 
 188 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 art of wisdom, is that which extracts from things 
 the very quality they least appear to possess ; 
 and the actor in the world, like the actor on the 
 stage, should find ' a basket hilted sword very 
 convenient to carry milk in.'^ As for me, I 
 have survived my relations and friends. I 
 cannot keep late hours, nor adhere to the 
 unhealthy customs of good society ; nor do I 
 think that, to a man of my age and habits, any 
 remuneration would adequately repay the sacri- 
 fice of health or comfort. I am, therefore, well 
 content to sink into a hermitage in an obscure 
 corner of this great town, and only occasionally 
 to revive my ' past remembrances of higher 
 state,"* by admitting a few old acquaintances to 
 drink my bachelor's tea, and talk over the news 
 of the day. Hence, you see, Mr. Linden, I 
 pick up two or three novel anecdotes of state 
 and scandal, and maintain my importance at 
 
 * See the witty inventory of a player's goods, in the Tatler.
 
 THE DISOWXED. 189 
 
 Copperas Bower, by retailing them second hand. 
 Now that you are one of the inmates of that 
 abode, I shall be more frequently its guest. 
 By-the-by, I will let you into a secret : know 
 that I am somewhat a lover of the marvellous, 
 and like to indulge a little embeUishing exagge- 
 ration in any place where there is no chance of 
 finding me out. Mind, therefore, my dear Mr. 
 Linden, that you take no ungenerous advantage 
 of this confession ; but suffer me, now and then, 
 to tell my stories my own way, even when you 
 think truth would require me to tell them in 
 another." 
 
 " Certainly," said Clarence, laughing ; " let 
 us make an agreement : you shall tell your 
 stories as you please, if you will grant me the 
 same liberty in paying my compliments ; and if 
 I laugh aloud at the stories, you shall pro- 
 mise me not to laugh aloud at the compli- 
 ments." 
 
 " It is a bond ;" said Talbot ; " and a very
 
 1^ THE DISOWNED. 
 
 fit exchange of service it is. By-the-by, it will 
 be no bad problem in human nature to see 
 who has the best of it: you shall pay your 
 court by flattering the people present, and I 
 mine, by abusing those absent. Now, in spite 
 of your youth and curling locks, I will wager 
 that I succeed the best ; for in vanity there is so 
 great a mixture of envy, that no compliment is 
 like a judicious abuse — to enchant your acquaint- 
 ance, ridicule his friends." 
 
 " Ah, Sir," said CUrence, " this opinion of 
 yours is, I trust, a little in the French school, 
 where brilliancy is more studied than truth, and 
 where an ill opinion of our species always has 
 the merit of passing for profound." 
 
 Talbot smiled, and shook his head. " My 
 dear young friend," said he, " it is quite right 
 that you who are coming into the world, should 
 think well of it ; and it is also quite right that 
 I, who am going out of it, should console my- 
 self by trying to despise it. However, let me
 
 THE DISOWNED. 1^1 
 
 tell you, my young friend, that he, whose 
 opinion of mankind is not too elevated, will 
 always be the most benevolent, because the 
 most indulgent, to those errors incidental to 
 human imperfection : to place our nature in 
 too flattering a view, is only to court disap- 
 pointment, and end in misanthropy. The 
 man who sets out with expecting to find all his 
 fellow creatures heroes of virtue, will conclude 
 by condemning them as monsters of vice ; and, 
 on the contrary, the least exacting judge of 
 actions will be the most lenient. If God, in his 
 own perfection, did not see so many frailties in 
 us, think you he would be so gracious to our 
 virtues .'" 
 
 " And yet," said Clarence, " we remark 
 every day examples of the highest excellence.*" 
 
 " Yes," replied Talbot, " of the highest, but 
 not of the most constant, excellence. He knows 
 very little of the coeur humain, who imagines we 
 cannot do a good action ; but, alas ! he knows
 
 192 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Still less of it who supposes we can be always 
 doing good actions. In exactly the same ratio 
 we see every day the greatest crimes are com- 
 mitted ; but we find no wretch so depraved as 
 to be always committing crimes. Man cannot 
 be perfect even in guilt. It has been beautifully 
 observed, that the greatest proof of Shak- 
 speare's wonderful knowledge of nature is, in 
 the circumstance of his never having drawn a 
 thoroughly unredeemed villain ; they all have 
 some touches of human feeling — even Lady 
 Macbeth could not murder one who resembled 
 her father .''^ 
 
 In this manner Talbot and his young visitor 
 conversed, till the latter, after a stay of unwar- 
 rantable length, rose to depart. 
 
 « Well," said Talbot, " if we now righdy 
 understand each other, we shall be the best 
 friends in the world- As we shall expect great 
 things from each other sometimes, we will have 
 no scruple of exacting a heroic sacrifice every now
 
 THE DISOWNED. 193 
 
 and then : par exemple — I will ask you to punish 
 yourself by an occasional tete-a-tete with an 
 antient gentleman ; and as we can also, by the 
 same reasoning, pardon great faults in each 
 other, if they are not often committed, so I will 
 forgive you, with all my heart, whenever you 
 refuse my invitations, if you do not refuse them 
 often. And now farewell till we meet again.'' 
 
 It seemed singular, and almost unnatural to 
 Linden, that a man like Talbot, of birth, fortune, 
 and great fastidiousness of taste and temper, 
 should have formed any sort of acquaintance, 
 however slight and distant, with the facetious 
 stock-jobber and his wife ; but the fact is easily 
 explained by a reference to that vanity which we 
 shall see hereafter made the ruling passion of 
 . Talbot's nature. This vanity, which branching 
 forth into a thousand eccentricities, displayed 
 itself in the singularity of his dress, the studied 
 yet graceful warmth of his manner, his attention 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 to the minutiae of life, his desire craving and 
 insatiate to receive from every one, however in- 
 significant, his oholum of admiration ; — this va- 
 nity once flattered by the obsequious homage it 
 met from the wonder and reverence of the Cop- 
 perases, reconciled his taste to the disgust it so 
 frequently and necessarily conceived ; and having 
 in great measure resigned his former acquaint- 
 ance, and wholly outlived his friends, he sought 
 even in petty and polluted channels that vent for 
 the desire of creating effect which was cut oiF 
 from any more brilliant and enlarged egress. 
 
 There is no dilemma in which vanity cannot 
 find an expedient to develope its form — no stream 
 of circumstances in which its buoyant and light 
 nature will not rise to float upon the surface. And 
 its ingenuity is as fertile as that of the player 
 who (his wardrobe allowing him no other me- 
 thod of playing the fop) could still exhibit the 
 prevalent passion for distinction, by wearing 
 stockings of different colours.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " "STTio dares 
 Interpret then my life for me, as 'twere 
 One of the undistinguishable many ?" 
 
 Coleridge's Wallenstein, 
 
 The first time Clarence had observed the 
 young artist, he had taken a deep interest in his 
 appearance. Pale, thin, undersized, and slightly- 
 deformed, the sanctifying mind still shed over 
 the humble frame a spell more powerful than 
 beauty. Absent in manner, melancholy in air, 
 and never conversing except upon subjects upon 
 which his imagination was excited, there was yet 
 K 2
 
 196 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 a gentleness about him which could not fail to 
 conciliate and prepossess ; nor did Clarence omit 
 any opportunity to soften his reserve, and wind 
 himself into his more intimate acquaintance. 
 Warner, the only support of an aged and infirm 
 grandmother, (who had survived her immediate 
 children,) was distantly related to Mrs. Coppe- 
 ras ; and that lady, kind, though selfish, extended 
 to him, with ostentatious benevolence, her favour 
 and support. It is true, that she did not impo- 
 verish the young Adolphus to enrich her kins- 
 man, but she allowed him a seat at her hospi- 
 table board, whenever it was not otherwise filled ; 
 and all that she demanded in return was a pic- 
 ture of herself, another of Mr. Copperas, a 
 third of Master Adolphus, a fourth of the black 
 cat, and from time to time sundry other lesser 
 productions of his genius, of which, through the 
 agency of Mr. Brown, she secretly disposed at a 
 price that sufficiently remunerated her for what-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 197 
 
 ever havoc the slender appetite of the young 
 painter was able to effect. 
 
 By this arrangement, Clarence had many op- 
 portunities of gaining chat intimacy with War- 
 ner which had become to him an object ; and 
 though the painter, naturally diffident and shy, 
 was at first averse to, and even awed by, the 
 ease, boldness, fluent speech and confident ad- 
 dress of a man much younger than himself, yet 
 at last he could not resist the being decoyed into 
 familiarity, and the youthful pair gradually 
 progressed from companionship into friendship. 
 There was a striking, and perhaps a fine con- 
 trast between the two : Clarence was bold, frank, 
 thoughtful, but thoughtful on objects of the world 
 — not imaginative creations. Warner was timid, 
 close, and abstractedly wrapped in ideal mus- 
 ings. Clarence, despite his great personal beauty, 
 was the most simple and unaffected of human 
 beings ; the very defects of Warner, on the
 
 198 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 score of person, produced an anxiety and uneasi- 
 ness as to their effect, which gave a tinge of cox- 
 combry to his reserve. Both had great natural, 
 and, for their age, uncommonly cultivated ta- 
 lents ; but those of Clarence were of a sturdy and 
 healthful kind, well fitted to buflPet with this 
 rude world — those of the poor artist sickly and 
 premature plants, which were ill suited to the 
 atmosphere in which they were placed ; the abi- 
 lities of Clarence were chiefly such as find their 
 best sphere in action ; those of Warner perfectly 
 useless in such fields of living encounter, were at 
 once the offspring and the denizens of imagina- 
 tion. In a word, if we can suppose their powers 
 to be equal in degree, there was this advantage 
 on the side of Clarence, all of his were exactly of 
 an order that could be brought to bear in the 
 world, and all those of Warner were not only 
 precisely unfitted for the world themselves, but 
 especially calculated to unfit their possessor.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 199 
 
 But the trait between them, at once the most 
 in common, and the most differing, was ambi- 
 tion. The ambition of Clarence was that of cir- 
 cumstances rather than character ; the certainty 
 of having to carve out his own fortunes without 
 sympathy or aid, joined to those whispers of 
 indignant pride which naturally urged him, if 
 disowned by those who should have protected 
 him, to allow no breath of shame to justify the 
 reproach : these gave an irresistible desire of 
 distinction to a mind naturally too gay for the 
 devotedness, too susceptible for the pangs, and 
 too benevolent for the selfishness of ordinary 
 ambition. But the very essence and spirit of 
 Warner's nature, was the burning and feverish 
 desire of fame ; it poured through his veins like 
 lava ; it preyed even as a worm upon his cheek ; 
 it corroded his natural sleep ; it blackened the 
 colour of his thoughts ; it shut out, as with an 
 impenetrable wall, the wholesome energies and
 
 200 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 enjoyments and objects of living men ; and tak- 
 ing from him all the vividness of the present, all 
 the tenderness of the past, constrained his heart 
 to dwell for ever and for ever upon the dim and 
 shadowy chimeras of a future he was fated 
 never to enjoy. 
 
 But these differences of character, so far from 
 disturbing rather cemented their friendship ; and 
 while Warner (notwithstanding his advantage 
 of age) paid involuntary deference to the stronger 
 character of Clarence, he, in his turn, derived 
 that species of pleasure by which he was most 
 gratified, from the affectionate and unenvious 
 interest Clarence took in his speculations of 
 future distinction, and the unwearying admira- 
 tion with which he would sit by his side, and 
 watch the colours start from the canvass, beneath 
 the real though uncultured genius of the youth- 
 ful painter. Hitherto, Warner had bounded 
 his attempts to some of the lesser efforts of the
 
 THE DISOWNED. ^l 
 
 art ; he had now yielded to the urgent enthu- 
 siasm of his nature, and conceived the plan of an 
 historical picture. Oh ! what sleepless nights, 
 what struggles of the teeming fancy with the 
 dense brain, what labours of the untiring 
 thought, wearing and intense as disease itself, 
 did it cost the ambitious artist to work out in the 
 stillness of his soul, and from its confused and 
 conflicting images, the design of this long medi- 
 tated and idolized performance. But when it 
 was designed ; when shape upon shape grew and 
 swelled, and glowed from the darkness of pre- 
 vious thought upon the painter's mind ; when 
 shutting his eyes in the very credulity of de- 
 light, the whole work arose before him, glossy 
 with its fresh hues, bright, completed, faultless, 
 arrayed as it were, and decked out for immor- 
 tahty — oh ! then what a full and gushing 
 moment of rapture broke like a released stream 
 upon his soul ! What a recompense for wasted 
 K 3
 
 202 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 years, health, and hope ! What a coronal to 
 the visions and transports of Genius ; brief, it 
 is true, but how steeped in the very halo of a 
 light that might well be deemed the glory of 
 heaven ! 
 
 But the vision fades, the gorgeous shapes 
 sweep on into darkness, and waking from his 
 reverie, the artist sees before him only the dull 
 walls of his narrow chamber ; the canvass 
 stretched a blank upon its frame ; the works, 
 maimed, crude, unfinished, of an inexperienced 
 hand, lying idly around; and feels himself — MrH" 
 self but one moment before the creator of a 
 world of wonders, the master spirit of shapes 
 gorgeous and majestical beyond the shapes of 
 men — dashed down from his momentary height, 
 and despoiled both of his sorcery and his 
 throne. 
 
 It was just in such a moment that Warner, 
 starting up, saw Linden (who had silently
 
 THE DISOWNEI). ^03 
 
 entered his room,) standing motionless before 
 him. 
 
 " Oh ! Linden," said the artist, " I have had 
 so glorious a dream — a dream which, though 1 
 have before snatched some such vision by fits 
 and glimpses, I never beheld so realized, so 
 perfect as now ; and — but you shall see, you shall 
 judge for yourself, I will sketch out the design 
 for you ;" and with a piece of chalk, and a rapid 
 hand, Warner conveyed to Linden the outline 
 of his conception. His young friend was eager 
 in his praise and his predictions of renown, and 
 Warner listened to him with a fondness, which 
 spread over his pale cheek a richer flush than 
 lover ever caught from the whispers of his be- 
 loved. 
 
 " Yes," said he, as he rose, and his sunken 
 and small eye flashed out with a feverish bright- 
 ness, " yes, if my hand does not fail my thought, 
 it shall rival even — " Here the young painter
 
 204 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Stopped short, abashed at that indiscretion of 
 enthusiasm about to utter to another the hoarded 
 vanities hitherto locked in his heart of hearts as 
 a sealed secret, almost from himself. 
 
 *' But come," said Clarence, affectionately, 
 " your hand is feverish and dry, and of late you 
 have seemed more languid than you were wont 
 — come, Warner, you want exercise : it is a 
 beautiful evening, and you shall explain your 
 picture still farther to me as we walk." 
 
 Accustomed to yield to Clarence, Warner 
 mechanically and abstractedly obeyed ; they 
 walked out into the open streets. 
 
 " Look around us," said Warner, pausing, 
 " look among this toiling, and busy, and sordid 
 mass of beings, who claim with us the fellowship 
 of clay. The poor labour, the rich feast, the 
 only distinction between them is that of the 
 insect and the brute ; like them they fulfil the 
 same end, and share the same oblivion ; they
 
 THE DISOWNED. 205 
 
 die, a new race springs up, and the very grass 
 upon their graves fades not so soon as their 
 memory. AVho, that was conscious of a higher 
 nature, would not pine and fret himself away 
 to be confounded with these ? Who would not 
 burn, and sicken, and parch, with a dehrious 
 longing to divorce himself from so vile a herd ? 
 What have their petty pleasures, and their mean 
 aims, to atone for the abasement of grinding 
 down our spirits to their level? Is not the 
 distinction from their blended and common 
 name, a sufficient recompense for all that ambi- 
 tion suffers or foregoes ? Oh, for one brief 
 hour (I ask no more) of living honour, one 
 feeling of conscious, unfearing certainty, that 
 Fame has conquered Death, and then for this 
 humble and impotent clay, this drag on the 
 spirit which it does not assist but fetter, this 
 wretched machine of pains and aches, and 
 feverish throbbings, and vexed inquietudes,
 
 206 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 why, let the worms consume it, and the grave 
 hide — for Fame there is no grave !"" 
 
 At that moment one of those unfortunate 
 women, who earn their polluted sustenance by 
 becoming the hypocrites of passion, passed, and 
 judging by the youth of the friends of their 
 proneness to temptation, accosted them. 
 
 " Miserable wretch !"" said Warner, loath- 
 ingly, as he pushed her aside; but Clarence, 
 with a kindlier feeling, noticed that her haggard 
 cheek was wet with tears, and that her frame, 
 weak and trembling, could scarcely support 
 itself; he, therefore, with that promptitude of 
 charity, which gives ere it discriminates, put 
 some pecuniary assistance in her hand, and 
 joined his comrade. 
 
 " You would not have spoken so tauntingly 
 to the poor girl had you remarked her distress,'' 
 said Clarence. 
 
 " And why," said Warner, mournfully, '' why
 
 THE DISOWNED. 207 
 
 be so cruel as to prolong, even for a few hours, 
 an existence, which mercy would only seek to 
 bring nearer to the tomb ? That unfortunate is 
 but one of the herd, one of the victims to 
 pleasures, which debase by their progress, and 
 ruin by their end. Yet perhaps she is not worse 
 than the usual followers of love — of love — that 
 passion the most worshipped, yet the least 
 divine, selfish and exacting, drawing its aliment 
 from destruction, and its very nature from 
 tears.'' 
 
 " Nay," said Clarence, " you confound the 
 two loves, the Eros and the Anteros, gods whom 
 my good tutor was wont so sedulously to distin- 
 guish : you surely do not inveigh thus against 
 all love r 
 
 " I cry you mercy," said Warner, with some- 
 thing of sarcasm in his pensiveness of tone. " We 
 must not dispute, so I will hold my peace ; but 
 make love all you will, what are the false smiles
 
 208 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 of a lip which a few years can blight as an au- 
 tumn leaf ? what the homage of a heart as feeble 
 and mortal as your own ? Why, I with a few 
 strokes of a little hair, and an idle mixture of 
 worthless colours, will create a beauty in whose 
 mouth there shall be no hollowness — in whose 
 lip there shall be no fading — there in your 
 admiration you shall have no need of flattery, no 
 desire of falsehood ; you shall not be stung with 
 jealousy, nor maddened with treachery ; nor 
 watch with a breaking heart over waning bloom, 
 and departing health, till the grave open, and 
 your perishable paradise is not. No — the mimic 
 work is mightier than the original, for it out- 
 lasts" it ; your love cannot wither it, or your de- 
 sertion destroy — your very death, as the being 
 who called it into life, only stamps it with a 
 holier value." 
 
 " And so then," said Clarence, " you would 
 seriously rehnquish, for the mute copy of the
 
 THE DISOWNED. 209 
 
 mere features, those affections which no painting 
 can express ?'' 
 
 " Ay,'* said the painter, with an energy un- 
 usual to his quiet manner, and slightly wander- 
 ing in his answer from Clarence's remark, " Ay, 
 one serves not two mistresses — mine is the glory 
 of my art. Oh ! what are the cold shapes of 
 this tame earth, where the footsteps of the gods 
 have vanished, and left no trace, the blemished 
 forms, the debased brows, and the jarring fea- 
 tures, to the glorious and gorgeous images 
 which I can conjure up at my will? Away 
 with human beauties, to him whose nights are 
 haunted with the forms of angels and wanderers 
 from the stars, the spirits of all things lovely 
 and exalted in the universe — the universe as it 
 was — when fountain, and stream, and hill, and 
 every tree which the summer clothed, was 
 made lovely as in heaven, by the guardian cy of 
 its nymph ! — when through glade, and by
 
 210 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 water-fall, at glossy noon-tide, or under the 
 silver stars, the forms of Godhead and Spirit 
 were seen to walk ; when the sculptor modelled 
 his mighty work from the beauty and strength 
 of Heaven, and the poet lay in the shade to 
 dream of the Naiad and the Fawn, and the 
 Olympian dwellers whom he waked in rapture 
 to behold ; and the painter, not as now, shaping 
 from shadow and in solitude the dim glories of 
 his art, caught at once his inspiration from the 
 glow of earth and its living wanderers, and, lo, 
 the canvass breathed ! Oh i what are the dull 
 realities and the abortive offspring of this altered 
 and humbled world — the world of meaner and 
 dwarfish men— to him whose realms are peopled 
 with visions like these ?" 
 
 And the artist, whose ardour, long excited, 
 and pent within, had at last thus audibly, and 
 to Clarence's astonishment, burst forth, paused, 
 as if to recal himself from his wandering en-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 211 
 
 thusiasm. Such moments of excitement were, 
 indeed, rare with him, except when utterly 
 alone, and even then, were almost invariably 
 followed by that depression of -spirit by which 
 all over-wrought susceptibility is succeeded. A 
 change came over his face, like that of a cloud, 
 when the sun-beam which gilded leaves it, and 
 with a slight sigh, and a subdued tone, he 
 resumed : 
 
 " So, my friend, you see what our art can 
 do even for the humblest professor, when I, 
 a poor friendless, patronless artist, can thus in- 
 dulge myself by forgetting the present. But I 
 have not yet explained to you the attitude of 
 my principal figure ;" and Warner proceeded 
 once more to detail the particulars of liis in- 
 tended picture. It must be confessed that he 
 had chosen a fine, though an arduous subject : 
 it was the Trial of Charles the First in West- 
 minster Hall ; and as the painter, with the
 
 212 THR DISOWNED. 
 
 enthusiasm of his profession, and the eloquence 
 pecuhar to himself, dwelt upon the various ex- 
 pressions of the various forms which that ex- 
 traordinary judgment court afforded, no wonder 
 that Clarence forgot, with the artist himself, the 
 disadvantages Warner had to encounter, in the 
 inexperience of an unregulated taste, and an 
 imperfect professional education.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 213 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " All manners take a tincture from our own, 
 
 Or come discoloured through our passions shown." 
 
 Pope. 
 " What ! give up Hberty, property, and, as the Gazetteer 
 says, lie down to be saddled with wooden shoes ?" 
 
 Vicar of Wakefield. 
 
 There was something in the melancholy and 
 reflective character of Warner, resembling that 
 of Mordaunt ; had they lived in these days, 
 perhaps both the artist and the philosopher had 
 been poets. But (with regard to the latter) at 
 that time poetry was not the customary vent 
 for deep thought, or passionate feeling. Gray, 
 it is true, though unjustly condemned as arti-
 
 214 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 ficial and meretricious in his style, had infused 
 into the scanty works which he has bequeathed 
 to immortality, a pathos and a richness foreign 
 to the literature of the age ; and, subsequently, 
 Goldsmith, in the affecting, yet somewhat ener- 
 vate simplicity of his verse, had obtained for 
 Poesy a brief respite from a school at once 
 declamatory and powerless, and led her forth 
 for a " Sunshine Holiday," into the village 
 green, and under the hawthorn shade. But, 
 though the softer and meeker feelings had strug- 
 gled into a partial and occasional vent, those 
 which partook more of passion and of thought, 
 the deep, the wild, the fervid, were still without 
 " the music of a voice."" For the after century 
 it was reserved to restore what* we may be per- 
 mitted to call the spirit of our national litera- 
 ture ; to forsake the clinquant of the French 
 mimickers of classic gold ; to exchange a thrice 
 adulterated Hippocrene, for the pure well of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 215 
 
 Shakspeare and of nature ; to clothe philosophy 
 in the gorgeous and solemn majesty of appro- 
 priate music ; and to invest passion with a lan- 
 guage as burning as its thought, and rapid as 
 its impulse. At that time reflection found its 
 natural channel in metaphysical inquiry, or 
 political speculation : both valuable, perhaps, 
 but neither profound. It was a bold, and a free, 
 and a curious age, but not one in which thought 
 run over its set and stationary banks, and 
 watered even the common flowers of verse : not 
 one in which Lucretius could have embodied the 
 dreams of Epicurus; Shakspeare lavished the 
 mines of a superhuman wisdom upon his fairy 
 palaces and enchanted isles ; or the Beautifier* 
 of this common earth have called forth — 
 
 " The motion of the spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought 
 
 * "Wordsworth.
 
 216 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 or Disappointment and Satiety have hallowed 
 their human griefs by a pathos, wrought from 
 whatever is magnificent, and grand, and lovely in 
 the unknown universe ; or the speculations of an 
 unfathomed and unhappy mind* have raised 
 upon subtlety and doubt, a vast and irregular 
 pile of verse, full of dim-lighted cells, and wind- 
 ing galleries, in which, what treasures lie con- 
 cealed ! That was an age, in which poetry took 
 one path, and contemplation another ; those 
 who were addicted to the latter, pursued it in 
 its orthodox roads ; and many whom Nature, 
 perhaps, intended for poets, the wizard Custom 
 converted into speculators or critics. 
 
 It was this which gave to Algernon's studies 
 their peculiar hue ; while, on the other hand, the 
 taste for the fine arts which then universally, 
 and rather cantingly prevailed, directed to the 
 
 * Shelley.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 217 
 
 creations of painting, rather than those of poetry, 
 more really congenial to his powers ; the intense 
 imagination and passion for glory which marked 
 and pervaded the character of the artist. 
 
 But as we have seen that that passion for 
 glory made the great characteristic difference 
 between Clarence and Warner ; so also did that 
 passion terminate any resemblance which War- 
 ner bore to Algernon Mordaunt. Witli the 
 foniier, a rank and unwholesome plant, it grew 
 up to the exclusion of all else : with the latter, 
 subdued and regulated, it sheltered, not mitheredy 
 the virtues by which it was surrounded. With 
 Warner, ambition was a passionate desire to 
 separate himself by fame, from the herd of 
 other men ; with Mordaunt, to bind himself by 
 charity yet closer to his kind : with the one it 
 produced a disgust to his species ; with the 
 other, a pity and a love : with the one, power 
 was the badge of distinction ; with the other, the 
 
 VOL. 1. L
 
 S18 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 means to bless ! - Contented with this brief, but 
 perhaps sufficient discrimination of characters 
 never cast into collision, proceed we in our story. 
 It was now the custom of Warner to spend 
 the whole day at his work, and wander out with 
 Clarence, when the evening darkened, to snatch 
 a brief respite of exercise and air. Often along 
 the lighted and populous streets, would the 
 two young and unfriended competitors for this 
 world's high places, roam with the various crowd, 
 moralizing as they went, or holding dim con- 
 jecture upon their destinies to be. And often 
 would they linger beneath the portico of some 
 house where, " haunted with great resort," Plea- 
 sure and Pomp held their nightly revels, to 
 listen to the music that through the open win- 
 dows stole over the rare exotics with which 
 wealth mimics the southern scents, and floated, 
 mellowing by distance, along the unworthy 
 streets ; and while they stood together, silent,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 219 
 
 and each feeding upon separate thoughts, the 
 artist's pale hp would curl with scorn, as he 
 heard the laugh and the sounds of a frivolous 
 and hollow mirth ring from the crowd within, 
 and startle the air from the silver spell which 
 music had laid upon it. " These," would he 
 say to Clarence, " these are the dupes of the 
 same fever as ourselves: like us, they strive, 
 and toil, and vex their little lives for a distinction 
 from their race. Ambition comes to them, as 
 to all ; but they throw for a different prize than 
 we do: theirs is the honour of a day, ours 
 is immortality ; yet they take the same labour, 
 and are consumed by the same care. And, fools 
 that they are, with their gilded names and their 
 gaudy trappings, they would shrink in disdain 
 from that comparison with us, which we, with a 
 juster fastidiousness, blush at this moment to 
 acknowledge." 
 
 From these scenes they would rove on, and,
 
 220 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 both delighting in contrast, pause next in a 
 squalid and obscure quarter of the city. There, 
 one night, quiet observers of their kind, they 
 paused beside a group congregated together by 
 some common cause of obscure merriment or 
 unholy fellowship — a group on which low 
 Vice had set her sordid and hideous stamp — to 
 gaze and draw strange humour or a motley 
 moral from that depth and ferment of human 
 nature, into whose sink the thousand streams of 
 civilization had poured their dregs and offal. 
 
 " You survey these," said the painter, mark- 
 ing each with the curious eye of his profession : 
 " they are a base horde, it is true ; but they 
 have their thirst of fame, their aspirations even 
 in the abyss of crime, or the loathsomeness of 
 famished want. Down in yon cellar, where a 
 farthing rushlight glimmers upon haggard 
 cheeks, distorted with the idiotcy of drink — 
 there, in that foul attic, from whose casement
 
 THE DISOWNED. 221 
 
 you see the beggar's rags hang to dry, or rather 
 to crumble in the reeking and filthy air — farther 
 on, within those walls which, black and heavy 
 as the hearts they hide, close our miserable 
 prospect, — there, even there, in the mildewed 
 dungeon, in the felon's cell, on the scaffold's self 
 — Ambition hugs ner hope, or scowls upon her 
 despair. Yes ! the inmates of those walls had 
 their perilous game of honour, their ' hazard of 
 the die,' in which vice was triumph and infamy 
 success. We do but share their passion, though 
 we direct it to a better object." 
 
 Pausing for a moment, as his thoughts flowed 
 into a somewhat different channel of his cha- 
 racter, Warner continued — " We have now 
 caught a glimpse of the two great divisions of 
 mankind : they who riot in palaces, and they 
 who make mirth hideous in rags and hovels : 
 own that it is but a poor survey in either. Can 
 we be contemptible with these, or loathsome
 
 222 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 with those ? Or rather have we not a nobler 
 spark within us, which we have but to fan into 
 a flame, that shall burn for ever, when these 
 miserable meteors sink into the corruption from 
 which they rise ?" 
 
 " But,"^ observed Clarence, " these are the 
 two extremes ; the pinnacle of civilization too 
 worn and bare for any more noble and vigorous 
 fruit, and the base upon which the cloud de- 
 scends in rain and storm. Look to the central 
 portion of society; there the soil is more 
 genial, and its produce more rich." 
 
 " Is it so, in truth .?" answered Warner ; 
 *' pardon me, I believe not : the middling classes 
 are as human as the rest. There is the region, the 
 heart of Avarice systematized, spreading, rotting, 
 the very fungus and leprosy of social states — 
 suspicion, craft, hypocrisy, servility to the great, 
 oppression to the low, the wax-like mimicry of 
 courtly vices, the hardness of flint to humble
 
 THE DISOWNED. 223 
 
 woes, thought, feeling, the faculties and impulses 
 of man, all ulcered into one great canker — Gain. 
 — These make the general character of the mid- 
 dling class, the unleavened mass of that mediocrity 
 which it has been the wisdom of the shallow to 
 applaud. Pah ! we are of this class, this potter's 
 earth, this paltry mixture of mud and stone ; 
 but we, my friend, we will knead gold into our 
 clay." 
 
 " But look," said Clarence, pointing to the 
 group before them ; " look, yon wretched 
 mother, whose voice an instant ago uttered the 
 coarsest accents of maudlin and intoxicated 
 prostitution, is now fostering her infant, with a 
 fondness stamped upon her worn cheek and 
 hollow eye, which might shame the nice 
 maternity of nobles ; — and there too, yon 
 wretch whom, in the reckless effrontery of 
 hardened abandonment, we ourselves heard a 
 few minutes since boast of his dexterity in theft,
 
 J224 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and openly exhibit its token — look, he is now, 
 with a Samaritan's own charity, giving the very 
 goods for which his miserable life was risked, to 
 that attenuated and starving stripling! No, 
 Warner, no ! even this mass is not unleavened. 
 The vilest infamy is not too deep for the 
 seraph Virtue to descend and illuminate its 
 abyss !'' 
 
 '* Out on the vveak fools !" said the artist, 
 bitterly : " it would be something if they could 
 be consistent even in crime !" and placing his 
 arm in Linden''s, he drew him away. 
 
 As the picture grew beneath the painter's 
 hand, Clarence was much struck with the out- 
 line and expression of countenance given to the 
 regicide Bradshaw. 
 
 " They are but an imperfect copy of the 
 living original from whom I have borrowed 
 them," said Warner, in answer to Clarence's 
 remark upon the sternness of the features. "But
 
 THE DISOWNED. 225 
 
 that original — a relation of mine, is coming 
 here to-day — you shall see him." 
 
 While AVarner was yet speaking, the person 
 in question entered. His were, indeed, the 
 form and face worthy to be seized by the 
 painter. The peculiarity of his character, which 
 we shall presently describe, made him affect a 
 plainness of dress unusual to the day, and 
 approaching to the simpHcity. but not the neat- 
 ness of Quakerism. His hair, then, with all 
 the better ranks, a principal object of cultiva- 
 tion, was \\ild, dishevelled, and in wiry flakes 
 of the sablest hue, rose abruptly from a fore- 
 head on which either thought or passion had 
 written its annals with an iron pen ; the lower 
 part of the brow, which overhung the eye, was 
 singularly sharp and prominent ; while the lines, 
 or rather furrows, traced under the eyes and 
 nostrils, spoke somewhat of exhaustion and in- 
 ternal fatigue. But this expression was con- 
 L 3
 
 226 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 trasted and contradicted by the firmly com- 
 pressed lip ; the lighted, steady, stern eye ; 
 the resolute and even stubborn front, joined to 
 proportions strikingly athletic, and a stature of 
 uncommon height. 
 
 "Well, Wolfe," said the young painter to 
 the person we have described, " it is, indeed, a 
 kindness to give me a second sitting." 
 
 " Tush, boy !"" answered Wolfe : " all men 
 have their vain points, and I own that I am not 
 ill pleased that these rugged features should 
 be assigned, even in fancy, to one of the noblest 
 of those men who judged the mightiest cause in 
 which a country was ever plaintiff, a tyrant 
 criminal, and a world witness !" 
 
 While Wolfe was yet speaking, his counte- 
 nance, so naturally harsh, took a yet sterner 
 aspect, and the artist, by a happy touch, suc- 
 ceeded in transferring it to the canvass. 
 
 " But, after all," continued Wolfe, " it
 
 THE DISOWNED. 227 
 
 shames me to lend aid to an art frivolous in 
 itself, and almost culpable in times when Free- 
 dom wants the head to design, and, perchance, 
 the hand to execute far other and nobler works 
 than the blazoning of her past deeds upon 
 perishable canvass." 
 
 A momentary anger at the shght put upon 
 his art crossed the pale brow of the artist ; 
 but he remembered the character of the man, 
 and continued his work in silence. 
 
 " You consider then, Sir, that these are times 
 in which liberty is attacked,'" said Clarence. 
 
 " Attacked !" repeated Wolfe—*' attacked !'' 
 and then suddenly sinking his voice into a sort 
 of sneer — " why, since the event which this 
 painting is designed to commemorate — I know 
 not if we have ever had one solitary gleam of 
 liberty break along the great chaos of jarring 
 prejudice and barbarous law which we term, 
 forsooth, a glorious constitution. Liberty at-
 
 228 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 tacked ! no, boy — ^but it is a time when liberty 
 may be gained." 
 
 Perfectly unacquainted with the excited poli- 
 tics of the day, or the growing and mighty 
 spirit which then stirred through the minds of 
 men, Clarence remained silent ; but his evident 
 attention flattered the fierce republican, and he 
 proceeded. 
 
 *' Ay,'' he said slowly, and as if drinking in a 
 deep and stern joy from his conviction in the 
 truth of the words he uttered — " Ay — I have 
 wandered over the face of the earth, and I have 
 warmed my soul at the fires which lay hidden 
 under its quiet surface ; I have been in the city 
 and the desert — the herded and banded crimes of 
 the old world, and the scattered, but bold hearts 
 which are found among the mountains and mo- 
 rasses of the new ; and in either I have beheld 
 that seed sown, which, from a mustard grain, too 
 scanty for a bird's beak, shall grow up to be a
 
 THE DISOWNED. 229 
 
 shelter and a home for the whole family of man. 
 I have looked upon the thrones of kings, and 
 lo, the anointed ones were in purple and festive 
 pomp ; and I looked beneath the thrones, and I 
 saw Want and Hunger, and despairing Wrath 
 gnawing the foundations, away. I have stood 
 in the streets of that great city, where Mirth 
 seems to hold an eternal jubilee, and beheld the 
 noble riot, while the peasant starved ; and the 
 priest build altars to Mammon, piled from the 
 earnings of groaning Labour, and cemented with 
 blood and tears. But I looked farther, and 
 saw in the rear, chains sharpened into swords, 
 misery ripening into justice, and famine dark- 
 ening into revenge ; and I laughed as I beheld, 
 for I knew that the day of the oppressed was at 
 hand.'^ 
 
 Somewhat awed by the prophetic tone, though 
 revolted by what seemed to him the novelty and
 
 230 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the fierceness of the sentiments of the republi- 
 can, Clarence, after a brief pause, said — 
 
 " And what of our own country ?" 
 
 Wolfe's brow darkened. " The oppression 
 here," said he, '* has not been so weighty, there- 
 fore the re-action will be less strong ; the par- 
 ties are more blended, therefore their separation 
 will be more arduous ; the extortion is less 
 strained, therefore the endurance will be more 
 meek ; but soon or late the struggle must come : 
 bloody will it be, if the strife be even ; gentle 
 and lasting, if the people predominate." 
 
 " And if the rulers be the strongest .'''' said 
 Clarence. 
 
 " The struggle will be renewed ,'' replied 
 Wolfe, doggedly, 
 
 " You still attend those oratorical meetings, 
 cousin, I think '^ said Warner. 
 
 *'I do," said Wolfe; "and if you are not so
 
 THE DISOWNED. 231 
 
 utterly absorbed in your vain and idle art, as 
 to be indifferent to all things nobler, you will 
 learn yourself to take interest in what concerns 
 — I will not say your country — ^but mankind. 
 For you, young man," (and the republican 
 turned to Clarence,) " I would fain hope that 
 life has not already been directed from the 
 greatest of human objects ; if so, come to-mor- 
 row night to our assembly, and learn from 
 worthier lips than mine, the precepts and the 
 hopes for which good men live or die." 
 
 " I will come at all events to listen, if not to 
 leiu'n," said Clarence, eagerly, for his curiosity 
 was excited. And the republican having now 
 fulfilled the end of his visit, rose and departed.
 
 232 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " Bound to suffer persecution 
 And martyrdom with resolution, 
 T' oppose himself against the hate 
 And vengeance of the incensed state." 
 
 Hudibras. 
 
 Born of respectable, though not aristocratic 
 parents, John Wolfe was one of those fiery and 
 daring spirits, which, previous to some mighty 
 revolution, fate seems to scatter over various 
 parts of the earth, even those removed from the 
 predestined explosion, heralds of the events 
 in which they are fitted, though not fated to be 
 actors. The period at which he is presented to
 
 THE DISOWi^ED. 23t^ 
 
 the reader, was one considerably prior to that 
 French Revolution so much debated, so little 
 understood, and which, too hacknied for interest 
 to the novel reader, the author is truly rejoiced 
 was so long anterior to the occurrences of his 
 history. But some such event, though not 
 foreseen by the common, had been already fore- 
 boded by the more enlightened eye ; and Wolfe, 
 from a protracted residence in France, among the 
 most discontented of its freer spirits, had brought 
 hope to that burning enthusiasm, which had 
 long made the pervading passion of his exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Bold to ferocity, generous in devotion to 
 folly in self-sacrifice, unflinching in his tenets 
 to a degree which rendered their ardour ineffec- 
 tual to all times, because utterly inapplicable to 
 the present, Wolfe was one of those zealots 
 whose very virtues have the semblance of vice,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and whose very capacities for danger become 
 harmless from the rashness of their excess. 
 
 It was not among the philosophers and rea- 
 soners of France, that Wolfe had drawn strength 
 to his opinions: whatever such companions 
 might have done to his tenets, they would at 
 least have moderated his actions. The philo- 
 sopher may aid, or expedite (though not, as it 
 has foolishly been said, a-eate) a change ; but 
 never does the philosopher in any age or of any 
 sect, countenance a crime.* But of philoso- 
 phers Wolfe knew little, and probably despised 
 them for their temperance : it was among fana- 
 tics — ignorant, but imaginative ; powerful, per- 
 haps, in talent, but weak in mind — that he had 
 
 * The motto prefixed to the edition of Helvetius in 1792, 
 seems to me strikingly applicable to this remark : — 
 
 *' Ce sont les fanatiques, les pretres et les ignorans qui font 
 les revolutions ; les personnes e'clair^s desinte'ressees et sense'es 
 sont toujours amies du repos." — Boulanger.
 
 THE DISOWNED. S35 
 
 Strengthened the love without comprehending the 
 nature of republicanism. Like Lucian's painter, 
 whose flattery portrayed the one-eyed prince in 
 profile, he viewed only that side of the ques- 
 tion in which there was no defect, and gave 
 beauty to the whole by concealing the half. 
 Thus, though on his return to England, herd- 
 ing with the common class of his reforming bre- 
 thren, Wolfe possessed many peculiarities and 
 disfmctions of character, which in rendering 
 him strikingly adapted to the purpose of the 
 dramatic or philosophic novelist, must serve as 
 a caution to the reader, not to judge of the 
 class by the individual. 
 
 With the class of Republicans in England, 
 there was a strong tendency to support their 
 cause by reasoning. With Wolfe, whose mind 
 was little wedded to logic, all was the offspring 
 of turbulent feelings, which in rejecting argu- 
 ment substituted declamation for syllogism.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 This effected a powerful and irreconcileable dis- 
 tinction between Wolfe and the better part of 
 his comrades ; for the habits of cool reasoning, 
 whether true or false, are httle likely to bias the 
 mind towards those crimes to which Wolfe's irre- 
 gulated emotions might possibly urge him, and 
 give to the characters, to which they are a sort 
 of common denominator, something of method, 
 and much of similarity. But the feelings — those 
 orators which allow no calculation, and ba'ffle 
 the tameness of comparison — rendered Wolfe 
 alone, unique, eccentric in opinion or action, 
 whether of vice or virtue, and consequently well 
 calculated for those strong lights and shadows 
 which dramatic fiction loves to single from the 
 common-places of ordinary life. 
 
 Private ties frequently moderate the ardour 
 of our public enthusiasm- Wolfe had none. 
 His nearest relation was Warner, and it may 
 readily be supposed that with the pensive and
 
 THE DISOWNED. 237 
 
 contemplative artist he had very little in com- 
 mon. He had never married, nor had even 
 seemed to wander from his stern and sterile 
 path, in the most momentary pursuit of the 
 pleasures of sense. Inflexibly honest, rigidly 
 austere — in his moral character his bitterest 
 enemies could detect no flaw — poor, even to in- 
 digence, he had invariably refused all overtures 
 of the government — thrice imprisoned and 
 heavily fined for his doctrines, no fear of a 
 future, no remembrance of the past, punishment 
 could ever silence his bitter eloquence, or mode- 
 rate the passion of his untempered zeal — kindly, 
 though rude, his scanty means were ever shared 
 by the less honest and disinterested followers of 
 his faith ; and he has been known for days to 
 deprive himself of food, and for nights of 
 shelter, for the purpose of yielding them to 
 another. 
 
 Such was the man doomed to forsake, through
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 a long and wasted life, every substantial bless- 
 ing, in pursuit of a shadowy good ; with the 
 warmest benevolence in his heart, to relinquish 
 private affections, and to brood even to madness 
 over public offences — to sacrifice every thing in 
 a generous, though erring devotion, for that 
 freedom, whose cause instead of promoting, he 
 was calculated to retard ; and while he believed 
 himself the martyr of a high and uncompro- 
 mising virtue, to close his career with the greatest 
 of human crimes. 
 
 Upon persons of this class, rather to be 
 pitied than condemned, public indignation has, 
 however, lavished more odium than they de- 
 serve : they are instances, not of malevolence, 
 but of an ill-directed philanthropy ; and those 
 who seek to extend and generalize our happi- 
 ness or freedom, even by imprudent and im- 
 practicable theories, are at least more worthy of 
 our forgiveness than the bigots of the opposite
 
 THE DISOWNED. 239 
 
 extreme, who froQi motives less honest, and 
 principles more permanently dangerous, would 
 confine prosperity to the few, and restriction to 
 the many.
 
 5i>40 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " Nul n'aura de I'esprit hors nous et nos amis." 
 
 MOLIERE. 
 
 When Clarence returned home, after the con- 
 versation recorded in our last chapter, he found 
 a note from Talbot inviting him to meet some 
 friends of the latter at supper that evening. It 
 was the first time Clarence had been asked, and 
 he looked forward with some curiosity and im- 
 patience to the hour appointed in the note for 
 personally accepting the invitation. 
 
 It is impossible to convey any idea of the
 
 THE DISOWNED. 241 
 
 jealous rancour felt by Mr. and Mrs. Copperas 
 on hearing of this distinction —a distinction which 
 " the perfect courtier^' had never once bestowed 
 upon themselves. 
 
 Mrs. Copperas tossed her head, too indignant 
 for words ; and the stock-jobber, in the bitterness 
 of his soul, affirmed with a meaning air, " that 
 he dared say, after all, that the old gentleman was 
 not so rich as he gave out."" In England, not to 
 be rich is not to be virtuous. Poverty is a 
 crime, and " a poor beggarly fellow," the apex 
 of abuse. 
 
 On entering Talbot's drawdng-room Clarence 
 found about seven or eight people assembled : 
 their names, in proclaiming the nature of the 
 party, indicated that the aim of the host was (like 
 that of a modern club-house, ycleped the Athe- 
 naeum), to combine aristocracy and talent. The 
 literary acquirements, and worldly tact of Tal- 
 bot, joined to the adventitious circumstances of 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 birth and fortune, enabled him to effect this 
 object, so desirable in polished society, far better 
 than we generally find it effected now ; yet still 
 in seeking to unite two opposite essences, the 
 spirit of both will frequently evaporate, and in- 
 stead of an exchange of intellect on the one hand 
 and refinement on the other, the wit becomes 
 aristocratically dull, and the aristocrat flippantly 
 jocose: however, time hallows insipidity, and 
 the literary chit-chat of a former day, is always 
 received with more pleasure than that of the 
 present. 
 
 '« Well," said Lord Welwyn, a little talkative 
 nobleman, a great critic, a small poet, and 
 prouder of some certain verses in Dodsley's Mis- 
 cellany than of all his ancestors and acres — 
 " Well, I hope at last that we shall have a good 
 and true life of Pope. Poor Spence's papers 
 are, I understand, to be published. "* * 
 
 • They were supposed to be more valuable than their recent 
 publication has proved them to be.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 243 
 
 " Ah, ahj poor Spence !'' said Mr. Desbo- 
 rough, the author of a Treatise upon Gardening 
 and Ornamental Farming, at that time two of the 
 most fashionable studies — " Poor Spence! 
 drowned, was he not ? in his own garden too. 
 Suppose you make an ode about it, my lord ; 
 say he was turned into a river god — fine image. 
 Humph, ha I — your snuff-box, if you please, my 
 lord." 
 
 " He was found upon the edge of the water," 
 said George Perrivale, a great wit of the day? viz. 
 one of the most ill-natured people — for the envy 
 of mankind is an alchymy which always trans 
 mutes ill-nature into wit — "he was found upon 
 the edge of the water, with his face as flat as his 
 own books ; they said the water was too shallow 
 to cover his head, emblematic of his knowledge, 
 poor fellow, which had the same deficiency I — 
 You may say of him what was said of his own 
 m2
 
 244 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Polymetis, ' he sunk by his own weight, and 
 will never rise again.' " 
 
 " An impartial life of Pope will indeed be a 
 most desirable work," said Talbot. " What a 
 noble mind he had I His poetry is the least 
 ornament of his character — brave in despite of 
 his constitution — generous in despite of his eco- 
 nomy — kind in despite of his satire — and philo- 
 sophical in despite of his fancy." 
 
 " There were never two minds, in modern 
 times,*" said Clarence, modestly, " so cast upon 
 a classic and ancient model, as those of Boling- 
 broke and Pope ; there was something so beau- 
 tiful too in their friendship. I have always 
 thought one of the most touching anecdotes 
 recorded, is that of Lord Bolingbroke leaning 
 over Pope's chair, in his last illness, and weeping 
 hkeachild." 
 
 *' True,"" said Talbot,* " and mingling his 
 
 • See Spence's Anecdotes, page 320, 321 ; in which this and
 
 THE DISOWNED. 245 
 
 fine reflections even with his tears : you are right 
 in calling them classic minds : it was a classic 
 age, and they were of that age the noblest 
 spirits. Bolingbroke, in his turn of mind, Fis 
 eloquence, his philosophy, his enthusiastic love 
 of virtue, his veneration for friendship, which he 
 termed virtue, perhaps in his lofty vanity and 
 magnificence of egotism, has no parallel but in 
 Tully : he excelled, however, the Roman in the 
 moral of public courage, and fell far short of 
 him in the morals of private life." 
 
 " You knew Bolingbroke well, I think,"* 
 said Mr. Desborough, " he was fond of farming 
 — what a great man !" 
 
 " Yes : I knew him in his latter days when 
 he was at Battersea ; he was at once the most 
 courtly, and profoundly intellectual person I 
 
 other anecdotes of Pope's death and Bolingbroke's affection, 
 then the traditional on-dits of conversation, have since been 
 recorded.
 
 246 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 ever met ; quite the man you could imagine 
 calculated to win, both from Swift, and our 
 living Chesterfield, the praise of being the 
 greatest man they ever met ; a wonderful praise 
 when you consider how contrary to each other the 
 praisers were, and that we rarely praise people 
 who excel in any other faculties than our own. 
 I remember also having seen Pope twice at 
 Twickenham." 
 
 '' And did he not enchant you with his wit ?'^ 
 said Lord Welwyn, who valued himself upon 
 writing precisely in the true Pope style. 
 
 "Not exactly,'^ said Talbot, smiling; ''he 
 was very grave and philosophical in conver- 
 sation, and did not utter a single sentence that 
 could be called witty." 
 
 *' Ah,*" said, conceitedly, the wit by profes- 
 sion, '* there is all the difference in the world 
 between saying a good thing impromptu, and 
 having the whole morning to make it in one's
 
 THE DISOWNED. J^47 
 
 closet. It is the difference indeed of a rich 
 man and an embarrassed one ; of a man spending 
 his income daily, and with ease, or of one raising 
 a mortgage on his property in order to pay off* a 
 bill by a certain time. But tell me, gentlemen, 
 would Pope ever have been worshipped by one 
 half his contemporaries if he had not abused the 
 other half." 
 
 "^ Why," answered Talbot, " the question is 
 difficult enough to answer : I confess that I do 
 not know a surer proof of the malice of man- 
 kind, than the rank which is accorded to a 
 satirist. Satire is a dwarf, which stands upon 
 the shoulders of the giant Ill-Nature; and the 
 kingdom of verse, like that of Epirus, is often 
 left not to him who has the noblest genius, but 
 ' the sharpest sword.' '' 
 
 " Ah I" cried Mr. Perrivale, " the wit of a 
 satirist is like invisible writing : look at it with 
 an indifferent eye, and, lo ! there is none : hold
 
 248 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 it up to the light, and you can't perceive it ; but 
 rub it over with your own spirit qfacid^ and see 
 how plain and striking it becomes."' 
 
 Talbot smiled at an allusion so unconsciously 
 applicable to the merit of the speaker ; but the 
 little Lord Welwyn lifted up his hands and 
 eyes. To doubt the excellence of one's model, 
 is indeed the bitterest sarcasm upon one's self. 
 
 " What profanation !" cried his lordship. " I 
 thought since the days of Curll and Cibber, no 
 man could be found to dispute the unrivalled 
 pre-eminence of Pope. No, no, let ZoUuses be 
 ever so plenty, there will never be such another 
 Homer !'' and as he uttered the word Zoilus, his 
 lordship tapped his snufF-box, and glanced at 
 the critic. , 
 
 The wit looked angry, and prepared for a 
 reply : he was interrupted — " Pray," squeaked 
 out a pert looking gentleman, short and laconic 
 as a conjunction, but, like a conjunction, also
 
 THE DISOWNED. 3849 
 
 very useful in uniting differences — " pray, 
 what does your lordship think of the poet 
 Gray ?" 
 
 " Oh !'' quoth his lordship, in a tone of true 
 literary contempt, " a terrible innovator — a 
 republican in verse, affecting to be original. 
 Shallow dog ! Good Heavens, to think of calling 
 such barbarous alliterations, such lawless metres, 
 such confused epithets, poetry ! Where do 
 you ever find them in Pope, or Tickell, or Duck. 
 No, let him imitate his friend Mason, and learn 
 chasteness of expression. Magnificent work, 
 Elfrida !" 
 
 " The fruit trees of Parnassus are certainly 
 in their decline,*" said the author of a Treatise 
 upon Ornamental Gardening. 
 
 " And all we can do," quoth his poetical 
 lordship, pursuing the metaphor, " is to pick 
 up the few windfalls which have hitherto escaped 
 attention.*" 
 
 M 3
 
 S50 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " And what think you/' asked some one,' 
 " of the fashionable Dr. Goldsmith ? You ad- 
 mire the ' Traveller ?' " 
 
 " Paltry stuff, indeed !" replied the critic. 
 *' Low— vulgar — no art in the verses — all so 
 d — d natural ; why, any body could write them. 
 Let him take pattern from Tickell, and learn 
 majesty. I hate this new school : a sure sign of 
 decay in true taste, all these innovations. There 
 was Gilbert West, some time ago, writing a long 
 poem, in the metre of the Faery Queen — thank 
 Heaven, we were not quite sunk so utterly in 
 criticism as to approve it — but I foresee, mark 
 my words, I foresee that in the progress of de- 
 generacy, we shall have all the critics praising, 
 and all the town buying, some poem in the same 
 barbarous stanza, and perhaps four times as 
 long; or, still worse, some future poet may 
 become the rage, by spinning out those gothic
 
 THE DISOWNED. 251 
 
 old ballads Dr. Percy admires so much, into 
 tales as long as an epic."" 
 
 " No, no," cried two or three of the company, 
 simultaneously; " you are too severe now, my 
 lord !" 
 
 His lordship took breath and snufF. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Talbot, " the future poets 
 will be more indebted to Gray and Goldsmith 
 than we think, or they themselves will perceive : 
 from the former they may borrow richness, from 
 the latter simplicity. And that taste for our old 
 songs lately introduced, and which I hear Dr. 
 Johnson agrees with Lord ^V^elwyn in dis- 
 countenancing, may be, more than any living 
 author, beneficial to the literature of the after 
 age." 
 
 " How .^" asked Clarence. 
 
 *" By giving," answered Talbot, " a chivalrous 
 and romantic tone to a muse at present enervate
 
 252 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and *unnational, and which, if it does not 
 receive an utterly new impulse, will soon dege- 
 nerate into the most mawkish imbecility." 
 
 " There is a poet of the present age,"" said one 
 of the company, " whose prose works evince 
 what he might have become; and, though he 
 
 * Criticisms introduced into the light dialogues of a novel 
 must necessarily be short ; and the authority of another is pecu- 
 liarly desirable when it serves to strengthen those less common 
 opinions which require a more elaborate explanation than oppor- 
 tunity can give. Long after we had attributed to Talbot a sort 
 of prophecy on the future value of Dr. Percy's Reliques in 
 restoring and purifying public taste, we found a passage in the 
 supplement to the preface of Mr. Wordsworth's collected Poems, 
 vo]. ii., page 381, which, as a remarkable sanction to our own 
 opinion, (an opinion we had never before seen expressed in any 
 inquiry into the spirit of our present poetry,) we have great plea- 
 sure in transcribing " I have already stated how much Ger- 
 many is indebted to this latter work;* and for our own coun- 
 try, its poetry has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not 
 think that there is an able writer in verse of the present day who 
 would not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the Re- 
 liques ; I know that it is so with my friends : and for myself, I 
 am happy, on this occasion, to make a pubhc avowal of my 
 own." 
 
 • Percy's Reliques.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 253 
 
 has incurred Lord Welwyn's displeasure, by 
 writing a poem in Spencer's stanza, I own he 
 is a great favourite with me — poor Shenstone." 
 
 " Ah, the author of the Leasowes ; a charming 
 place /" said the writer of a Treatise upon Orna- 
 mental Gardening. " He must, indeed, have been 
 a great man !" 
 
 " What !" cried the wit, " the pastoral poet .'* 
 Pardon me. Sir : but his verses are like his 
 brooks; *' their murmurs invite me to sleep." 
 There is something overpoweringly somniferous 
 in the following stanza — 
 
 " * Ye shepherds give ear to my lay, 
 And take no more heed of my sheep, 
 
 They have nothing to do but to stray, 
 I have nothing to do but to weep.' 
 
 What think you of the amendment I pro- 
 pose — 
 
 '• My readers, we're losing our time, 
 My sheep are escap'd from the lawn ; 
 
 I have nothing to do but to rhyme, 
 
 You have nothing to do but to yawn ?"
 
 254 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 " Pooh," said the author of a Treatise on 
 Gardening, far too literal a sort of person to take 
 a jest — " Pooh, a parody is no criticism : one 
 might make a duck-pond out of a fountain. A 
 man who made the Leasowes is above travesty.*" 
 
 " Most true," answered the wit ; " you have 
 convinced me. In Shenstone's own splendid 
 diction — 
 
 " ' My breast is too kind to remain 
 Unmov'd when my Corydon sighs ; 
 His verses are soft as his brain, 
 
 And as sweet as his gooseberry pies.' " 
 
 As, with a sentimental and lacrymose air, 
 which gave to the burlesque a drollery its own 
 merit could not bestow, Mr. Perrivale recited 
 these lines, the servant entering, announced 
 supper. 
 
 That was the age of suppers ! Happy age ! 
 Meal of ease and mirth ; when Wine and Night 
 lit the lamp of Wit ! O, what precious things 
 were said and looked at those banquets of the
 
 THE DISOWNED. ^55 
 
 soul ! There epicurism was in the lip as well 
 as the palate, and one had humour for a 
 Jwrs (Tceuvre and repartee for an entremet. 
 In dinner, there is something too pompous, too 
 formal, too exigent of attention, for the deli- 
 cacies and levites of peisiflage. One's intellec- 
 tual appetite, like the physical, is coarse, but 
 dull. At dinner one is fit only for eating, qfte7' 
 dinner only for politics. But supper was- a glo- 
 rious relic of the antients. The bustle of the 
 day had thoroughly wound up the spirit, and 
 every stroke upon the dial plate of wit, was 
 true to the genius of the hour. The wallet of 
 diurnal anecdote was full, and craved unloading. 
 The great meal — that vulgar first love of the 
 appetite — was over, and one now only flattered 
 it into coquetting with another. The mind, 
 disengaged and free, was no longer absorbed in 
 a salmi, or burthened with a joint. The gour- 
 mand carried the nicety of his physical percep-
 
 ^56 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 tion to his moral, and applauded a bon mot in- 
 stead of a bonne bouche. 
 
 Then too one had no necessity to keep a re- 
 serve of thought for the after evening : supper 
 was the final consummation, the glorious fune- 
 ral pyre of day. One could be merry till bed- 
 time without an interregnum. Nay, if in the 
 ardour of convivialism, one did — we merely hint 
 at the possibility of such an event — if one did 
 exceed the narrow limits of strict ebriety, and 
 open the heart with a ruby key, one had nothing 
 to dread from the cold, or what is worse, the 
 warm looks of ladies in the drawing-room ; 
 no fear that an imprudent word, in the amatory 
 fondness of the fermented blood, might expose 
 one to matrimony and settlements. There 
 was no tame, trite medium of propriety and sup- 
 pressed confidence, no bridge from board to 
 bed, over which a false step (and your wine cup 
 is a marvellous corruptor of ambulatory recti-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 257 
 
 tude) might precipitate into an irrecoverable 
 abyss of perilous communication or unwhole- 
 some truth. One's pillow became at once the 
 legitimate and natural bourne to " the over- 
 heated brain ;" and the generous rashness of 
 the coenatorial reveller was not damped by 
 untimeous caution or ignoble calculation. 
 
 But "we have changed all that now:'' So- 
 briety has become the successor of suppers ; 
 the great ocean of moral encroachment has not 
 left us one little island of refuge. Miserable 
 supper lovers that we are, like the native In- 
 dians of America, a scattered and daily disap- 
 pearing race, we wander among strange customs, 
 and behold the innovating and invading Dinner, 
 spread gradually over the very space of time, 
 in which the majesty of Supper once reigned 
 undisputed and supreme ! 
 
 " O, ye heavens, be kind, 
 And feel, thou earth, for this afflicted race !" 
 
 WORDSWOETH.
 
 258 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 As he was sitting down to the table, 
 Clarence's notice was arrested by a somewhat 
 suspicious and unpleasing occurrence. The 
 supper room was on the ground floor, and 
 owing to the heat of the weather, one of the 
 windows, facing the small garden, was left open. 
 Through this window Clarence distinctly saw 
 the face of a man look into the room for one 
 instant with a prying and curious gaze, and 
 then as instantly disappear. As no one else 
 seemed to remark this incident, and the general 
 attention was somewhat noisily engrossed by the 
 subject of conversation, Clarence thought it not 
 worth while to mention a circumstance for 
 which the impertinence of any neighbouring 
 servant, or drunken passer-by, might easily 
 account. An apprehension, however, of a more 
 unpleasant nature shot across him, as his eye 
 fell upon the costly plate which Talbot ra- 
 ther ostentatiously displayed, and then glanced
 
 THE DISOWNED. 259 
 
 to the single and aged servant, who was, besides 
 his master, the only male inmate of the house. 
 Nor could he help saying to Talbot in the 
 course of the evening, that he wondered he was 
 not afraid of hoarding so many articles of value 
 in a house at once lonely and ill guarded. 
 
 " 111 guarded," said Talbot, rather affronted, 
 " why, I and my servant always sleep here !" 
 
 To this Clarence thought it neither prudent 
 nor well-bred to offer further remark. 
 
 No sooner was our party fairly seated than a 
 wonderful change for the better seemed to 
 operate upon them. The formahties of criti- 
 cism, the professional tinge of literature melted 
 away. Anecdotes of men succeeded strictures on 
 books ; Lord Welwyn forgot Pope and poetrv, 
 relapsed into his proper character, and became 
 the best butt in the world. Mr. Desborough, 
 (author of the Treatise upon Gardening,) a tall, 
 lank, singularly ugly man, forgot one branch of
 
 260 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 his character for another, boasted of favours 
 from two-hps rather than success in roses, and, 
 laying down the spade, received astonishing 
 applause for his dexterity in taking up the 
 rake. Lord St. George, a thin, well-dressed, 
 gentleman-like personage, who had hitherto been 
 reverentially silent, felt at last in his element, 
 and seasoned the first glass of Burgundy with 
 a pun. Talbot suffered his philosophy to glide 
 into jest, and his good breeding to become the 
 father of mirth ; while the wit, whose eyes soon 
 emulated the sparkle of the sherry, kept up 
 the hilarity of all, by sly insinuations against 
 each.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 ^1 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Meetings, or public calls, he never miss'd, 
 To dictate often, always to assist. 
 
 * • * * 
 
 To his experience and his native sense. 
 He joined a bold, imperious, eloquence ; 
 The grave, stem look of men inform' d and wise, 
 A full command of feature, heart, and eyes. 
 An awe-compelling frown, and fear-inspiring size." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 The next evening Clarence, mindful of 
 Wolfe's invitation, inquired from Warner (who 
 repaid the contempt of the republican for the 
 painter's calling by a similar feeling for tlie 
 zealot's) the direction of the oratorical meeting, 
 and repaired there alone. It was the most
 
 262 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 celebrated club of that description of the day, 
 and well worth attending, as a gratification to 
 the curiosity, if not an improvement to the 
 mind. 
 
 On entering, he found himself in a long room, 
 -olerably well lighted, and still better filled. 
 The sleepy countenances of the audience, the 
 whispered conversation carried on at scattered 
 intervals, the listless attitudes of some, the fre- 
 quent yawns of others, the eagerness with 
 which attention was attracted to the opening 
 door, when it admitted some new object of 
 interest, the desperate resolution with which 
 some of the more energetic turned themselves 
 tov/ards the orator, and then, with a faint 
 shake of the head, turned themselves again 
 hopelessly away — were all signs that denoted 
 that no very eloquent declaimer was in pos- 
 session of the '' house." It was, indeed, a 
 singularly dull, monotonous didactic poem-like
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 sort of voice which, arising from the upper end 
 of the room, dragged itself on towards the 
 middle, and expired with a sighing sound before 
 it reached the end. The face of the speaker 
 suited his vocal powers ; it was small, mean, 
 and of a round stupidity, without any thing 
 even in fault that could possibly command at- 
 tention, or even the excitement of disapproba- 
 tion : the very garments of the orator seemed 
 dull and heavy, and, like the melancholy of 
 Milton, had a " leaden look/' Now and then 
 some words, more emphatic than others — stones 
 breaking, as it were, with a momentary splash, 
 the stagnation of the heavy stream — produced 
 from three very quiet, unhappy looking persons, 
 .seated next to the speaker, his immediate 
 friends, three single isolated " hears !" 
 
 " The force of friendship could no farther go." 
 
 At last, the orator having spoken through^
 
 264 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 suddenly stopped ; the whole meeting seemed as 
 if a weight had been taken from them, there 
 was a general buzz of awakened energy, each 
 stretched his limbs, and re-settled himself in his 
 place, 
 
 " And turning to his neighbour, said, ' Rejoice !' " 
 
 A pause ensued — the chairman looked round 
 — the eyes of the meeting followed those of their 
 president, with an universal and palpable im- 
 patience, towards an obscure corner of the room ; 
 the pause deepened for one moment, and then 
 was broken ; a voice cried " Wolfe," and at 
 that signal the whole room shook with the name. 
 The place which Clarence had taken did not 
 allow him to see the object of these cries, till he 
 rose from his situation, and passing two rows of 
 benches, stood forth in the middle space of the 
 room; then went round from one to one, the 
 general roar of applause, feet stamped, hands 
 clapped, umbrellas set their sharp points to the
 
 THE DISOWNED. ^5 
 
 ground, and walking-sticks thumped themselves 
 out of shape in the universal clamour. Tall, 
 gaunt, and erect, the speaker possessed, even in 
 the mere proportions of his frame, that physical 
 power which never fails, in a popular assembly, 
 to gain attention to mediocrity, and to throw 
 dignity over faults. He looked very slowly 
 round the room, remaining perfectly still and 
 motionless, till the clamour of applause had en- 
 tirely subsided, and every ear, Clarence's no less 
 eagerly than the rest, was strained, and thirst- 
 ing to catch the first syllables of his voice. 
 
 It was then with a low, very deep, and some, 
 what hoarse tone, that he began ; and it was not 
 till he had spoken for several minutes that the 
 iron expression of his face altered, that the droop- 
 ing hand was raised, and that the suppressed, yet 
 powerful voice began to expand and vary in its 
 volume. He had then entered upon a new de- 
 partment of his subject. The question was con- 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 nected with the English constitution, and Wolfe 
 was now preparing to put forth, in long and 
 blackened array, the evils of an aristocratical 
 form of government. Then it was as if the bile 
 and bitterness of years were poured forth in a 
 terrible and stormy wrath — then his action be- 
 came vehement, and his eye flashed forth unut- 
 terable fire, his voice solemn, swelling and in- 
 creasing with each tone in its height and depth, 
 filled, as with something palpable and perceptible, 
 the shaking walls. The listeners — a various and 
 unconnected group, bound by no tie of faith or 
 of party, many attracted by Curiosity, many by 
 the hope of ridicule, some abhorring the tenets 
 expressed, and nearly all disapproving their 
 principles, or doubting their wisdom — the listen- 
 ers, certainly not a group previously formed or 
 moulded into enthusiasm, became rapt and ear- 
 nest, their very breath forsook them ; a child of 
 six years old, who could comprehend nothing of
 
 THE DISO^V^'ED. 267 
 
 the discourse but the gestures and voice of the 
 orator, sat with his hands tightly clasped, his 
 hps dropping apart, and his cheek white and 
 chilhng with fear. 
 
 Linden had never before that night heard a 
 public speaker ; but he was of a thoughtful and 
 rather calculating mind, and his early habits of 
 decision, and the premature cultivation of his 
 intellect, rendered him little susceptible, in gene- 
 ral, to the impressions of the vulgar : neverthe- 
 less, in spite of himself, he was hurried away by 
 the stream, and found that the force and rapi- 
 dity of the speaker did not allow him even time 
 for the dissent and disapprobation which his 
 republican maxims and fiery denunciations per- 
 petually excited in a mind aristocratic by pre- 
 judice as well as education. At length, after a 
 peroration of impetuous and magnificent invec- 
 tive, the orator ceased. 
 
 In the midst of the applause that followed, 
 N 2
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Clarence left the assembly ; he could not endure 
 the thought that any duller or more common- 
 place speaker should fritter away the spell which 
 yet bound and engrossed his spirit.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave 
 way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of 
 action, a cocked pistol in one hand," &c. 
 
 Fortunes of Nigel. 
 
 The night though not utterly dark, was 
 rendered capricious and dim, by alternate wind 
 and rain ; and Clarence was delayed in his return 
 homeward by seeking occasional shelter from 
 the rapid and heavy showers which hurried by. 
 It was during one of the temporary cessations of 
 the rain, that he reached Copperas Bower, and 
 while he was searching in his pockets for the
 
 270 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 key which was to admit him, he observed two 
 men loitering about his neighbour's house. The 
 light was not sufficient to give him more than a 
 scattered and imperfect view of their motions. 
 Somewhat alarmed, he stood for several moments 
 at the door, watching them as well as he was 
 able; nor did he enter the house, till the loiterers 
 had left their suspicious position, and walking 
 onwards, were hid entirely from him by the 
 distance and darkness. 
 
 " It really is a dangerous thing for Talbot," 
 thought Clarence, as he ascended to his apart- 
 ment, " to keep so many valuables, and only 
 one servant, and that one as old as himself too ; 
 but how coldly he looked on me, when I ven- 
 tured to remonstrate. However, as I am by no 
 means sleepy, and my room is by no means 
 cool, I may as well open my windows, and see if 
 those idle fellows make their re-appearance." 
 Suiting the action to the thought, Clarence
 
 THE DISOWNED. 271 
 
 opened his little casement, and leant wistfully 
 out. 
 
 He had no light in his room, for none was 
 ever left for him, and he, like ourselves, was 
 peculiarly unhappy at a flint and tinder-box, 
 the only means of procuring a light which the 
 house afforded. This circumstance, however, 
 of course enabled him the better to penetrate 
 the dimness and haze of the night, and by the 
 help of the fluttering lamps, he was enabled to 
 take a general though not minute survey of the 
 scene below. 
 
 We think we have before said, somewhere or 
 other, that there was a small garden between 
 Talbot's House, and Copperas Bower ; this was 
 bounded by a wall, which confined Talbot's 
 peculiar territory of garden, and this wall, de- 
 scribing a parallelogram, faced also the road. 
 It contained two entrances — one the principal 
 adytus, in the shape of a comely iron gate, the
 
 272 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 other a wooden door, which, being a private 
 pass, fronted the intermediate garden before 
 mentioned, and was exactly opposite to 
 Clarence's window. 
 
 Linden had been more than ten minutes at his 
 post, and had just begun to think his suspicions 
 without foundation, and his vigil in vain, when 
 he observed the same figures he had seen before 
 advance slowly from the distance, and pause by 
 the front gate of Talbot'^s mansion. 
 
 Alarmed and anxious, he redoubled his atten- 
 tion ; he stretched himself as far as his safety 
 would permit, out of the window ; the lamps, 
 agitated by the wind, which swept by in occa- 
 sional gusts, refused to grant to his straining 
 sight more than an inaccurate and unsatisfying 
 survey. Presently a blast, more violent than 
 ordinary, suspended as it were the falling co- 
 lumns of rain, and left Clarence in almost total 
 darkness ; it rolled away, and the momentary
 
 THE DISOWNED. 273 
 
 calm which ensued, enabled him to see that one 
 of the men was stooping by the gate, and the 
 other standing apparently on the watch at a 
 little distance. Another gust shook the lamps 
 and again obscured his view : and when it had 
 passed onward in its rapid course, the men had 
 left the gate, and were in the garden beneath 
 his window. They crept cautiously, but swiftly 
 along the opposite wall, till they came to the 
 small door we have before mentioned ; here they 
 halted, and one of them appeared to occupy 
 himself in opening the door. Now then, fear 
 was changed into certainty, and it seemed with- 
 out doubt that the men having found some 
 difficulty or danger in forcing the stronger or 
 more public entrance, had changed their quarter 
 of attack. No more time was to be lost ; Clarence 
 shouted aloud, but the high wind probably pre- 
 vented the sound reaching the ears of the burg- 
 lars, or at least rendered it dubious and confused. 
 
 N 3
 
 ^74 THE DT&OWKED. 
 
 The next moment, and before Clarence could re- 
 peat his alarm, they had opened the door, and 
 were within the neighbouring garden, beyond 
 his view. 
 
 Very young men, unless their experience has 
 outstripped their youth, seldom have much pre- 
 sence of mind ; that quality, which is the oppo- 
 site to surprise, comes to us in those years when 
 nothing seems to us strange or unexpected. 
 But a much older man than Clarence might 
 have well been at a loss to know what conduct 
 to adopt in the situation in which our hero was 
 placed. The visits of the watchman to that 
 (then) obscure and ill inhabited neighbour- 
 hood, were more regulated by his indolence than 
 his duty, and Clarence knew that it would be 
 in vain to hsten for his cry, or tarry for his 
 assistance. He himself was utterly unarmed, 
 but the stock-jobber had a pair of horse pistols,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 275 
 
 and as this recollection flashed upon him, the 
 pause of deliberation ceased. 
 
 With a swift step he descended the first flight 
 of stairs, and pausing at the chamber door of 
 the faithful couple, knocked upon its pannels 
 with a loud and hasty summons. The second 
 repetition of the noise, produced the sentence, 
 uttered in a very trembling voice, of '^ Who's 
 there r 
 
 " It's I, Clarence Linden," replied our hero ; 
 " lose no time in opening the door." 
 
 This answer seemed to re-assure the valorous 
 stock-jobber. He slowly undid the bolt, and 
 turned the key. 
 
 *' In Heaven's name, what do you want, 
 Mr. Linden .?*" said he. 
 
 "Ay," cried a sharp voice from the more 
 internal recesses of the chamber, " what do 
 you want. Sir, disturbing us in the bosom of 
 our family, and at the dead of night ?"
 
 276 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 With a rapid voice, Clarence repeated what 
 he had seen, and requested the broker to ac- 
 company him to Talbot's house, or at least to 
 lend him his pistols. 
 
 " He shall do no such thing," cried Mrs. 
 Copperas. " Come here, Mr. C, and shut the 
 door directly." 
 
 " Stop, my love,*" said the stock-jobber, *' stop 
 a moment." 
 
 " For God's sake," cried Clarence, *' make no 
 delay, the poor old man may be murdered by 
 this time." 
 
 "It's no business of mine," said the stock- 
 jobber. ••' If Adolphus had not broken the rattle, 
 I would not have minded the trouble of spring- 
 ing it ; but you are very much mistaken, if you 
 think I am going to leave my warm bed, in 
 order to have my throat cut." 
 
 " Then give me your pistols," cried Clarence, 
 " I will go alone."
 
 THE DISOWNED. 2^7 
 
 " I shall commit no such folly,'' said the 
 stock-jobber; "if you are murdered, I may have 
 to answer it to your friends, and pay for your bu- 
 rial. Besides, you owe us for your lodgings — 
 go to your bed, young man, as I shall to mine." 
 And so saying, Mr. Copperas proceeded to close 
 the door. 
 
 But, enraged at the brutality of the man, and 
 excited by the urgency of the case, Clarence 
 did not allow him so peaceable a retreat. With 
 a strong and fierce grasp, he seized the as- 
 tonished Copperas by the throat, and shaking 
 him violently, forced his own entrance into the 
 sacred nuptial chamber. 
 
 " By the God that made me," cried Linden, 
 in a savage and stern tone, for his blood was up, 
 " I will twist your coward's throat, and save the 
 murderer his labour, if you do not instantly 
 give me up your pistols."
 
 278 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 The stock-jobber was panic stricken. " Take 
 them,"" he cried, in the extremest terror, " there 
 they are on the chimney-piece, close by." 
 
 " Are they primed and loaded ?" said Lin- 
 den, not relaxing his gripe. 
 
 " Yes, yes !'' said the stock-jobber, " loose my 
 throat, or you will choke me !" and at that 
 instant Clarence felt himself clasped by the 
 invading hands of Mrs. Copperas. 
 
 " Call off your wife," said he, " or I will choke 
 you !" and he tightened his hold, " and tell her 
 to give me the pistols." 
 
 The next moment Mrs. Copperas extended 
 the debated weapons towards Clarence. He 
 seized them, flung, in his haste, the poor stock- 
 jobber against the bed-post, hurried down 
 stairs, opened the back door which led into the 
 garden, flew across the intervening space, arrived 
 at the door, and entering Talbot's garden,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 279 
 
 paused to consider what was the next step to 
 be taken. 
 
 A person equally brave, but more cautious 
 than Clarence, would not have left the house 
 without alarming Mr. De Warens, even in spite 
 of the failure with his master ; but Linden only 
 thought of the pressure of time, and the neces- 
 sity of expedition, and he would have been a 
 very unworthy hero of romance had he felt fear 
 for two antagonists, with a brace of pistols at 
 his command, and a high and good action in 
 view. 
 
 After a brief but decisive lialt, he proceeded 
 rapidly round the house, in order to ascertain at 
 which part the ruffians had admitted themselves, 
 should they (as, indeed, there was little doubt,) 
 have already effected their entrance. 
 
 When he came to the supper-room windows, 
 which, as we have before had occasion to remark.
 
 280 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 were on the ground-floor, he perceived that the 
 shutters had been opened, and through the 
 aperture he caught the glimpse of a moving 
 hght which was suddenly obscured. As he was 
 about to enter, the light again flashed out : he 
 drew back just in time, carefully screened him- 
 self behind the shutter, and through one of the 
 chinks observed what passed within. Opposite 
 to the window was a door which conducted to 
 the hall and principal staircase ; this door was 
 open, and in the hall, at the foot of the stairs, 
 Clarence saw two men, one carried a dark 
 lanthorn, from which the light proceeded, and 
 some tools, of the nature of which Clarence was 
 naturally ignorant : this was a middle sized, 
 muscular man, dressed in the rudest garb of an 
 ordinary labourer ; the other was much taller 
 and younger, and his dress was of rather a less 
 ignoble fashion.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 281 
 
 " Hist ! hist !" said the taller one, in a low 
 tone, " did you not hear a noise, Ben ?"" 
 
 '' Not a pin fall ; but stow your whids, man !" 
 
 This was all that Clarence heard in a con- 
 nected form; but as the wretches paused, in 
 evident doubt how to proceed, he caught two or 
 three detached words, which his ingenuity 
 readily, formed into sentences. " No, no ! 
 sleeps to the left — old man above — plate chest 
 — we must have the blunt too. Come, track up 
 the dancers, and dowse the glim.'' And at the 
 last words, the light was extinguished, and 
 Clarence's quick and thirsting ear just caught 
 their first steps on the stairs — they died away — 
 and all was hushed. 
 
 It had several times occurred to Clarence to 
 rush from his hiding-place, and fire at the 
 ruffians : and perhaps that measure would have 
 been the wisest he could have taken ; but Cla- 
 rence had never discharged a pistol in his life,
 
 282 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and he felt, therefore, that his aim must be 
 uncertain enough to render a favourable position 
 and a short distance essential requisites. Both 
 of these were, at present, denied to him ; and 
 although he saw no weapons about the persons 
 of the villains, yet he imagined they would not 
 have ventured on so dangerous an expedition 
 without preparing for the worst ; and if he 
 failed, as would have been most probable, in his 
 two shots, he concluded that though the alarm 
 would be given, his own fate would be in- 
 evitable. 
 
 All this was reasoning upon false premises, 
 for housebreakers seldom or never carry fire- 
 arms, and never stay for revenge, when their 
 safety demands escape. But Clarence may be 
 forgiven for not knowing the customs of house- 
 breakers, and for not making the very best of an 
 extremely novel and dangerous situation. 
 
 No sooner did he find himself in total
 
 THE DISOWNED. 283 
 
 darkness, than he bitterly reproached himself for 
 his late backwardness, and in wardly resolving not 
 again to miss any opportunity which presented 
 itself, he entered the window, groped along 
 the room into the hall, and found his way very 
 slowly, and after much circumlocution, to the 
 staircase. 
 
 He had just gained the summit, when a 
 loud cry broke upon the stillness : it came from 
 a distance, and was instantly hushed ; but he 
 caught, at brief intei'vals, the sound of angry 
 and threatening voices. No single gleam of 
 light broke the darkness. Clarence bent down 
 anxiously, in the hope that some solitary ray 
 would escape through the crevice of the door 
 within whose precincts the robbers were at their 
 unholy work. But though the sounds came 
 from the same floor as that on which he now 
 trod, they seemed far and remote, and no other
 
 284 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 sense but that of hearing assisted him in investi- 
 gating their source. 
 
 He continued, however, to feel his way in the 
 direction from which they proceeded, and soon 
 found himself in a narrow gallery ; the voices 
 seemed more loud and near as he advanced ; at 
 last he distinctly heard the words, — 
 
 " Will you not confess where it is placed ?'' 
 
 " Indeed, indeed,"" replied an eager and ear- 
 nest voice which Clarence recognized as Talbot's, 
 " this is all the money I have in the house — 
 the plate is above — my servant has the key — 
 take it — take all — but save his life and mine." 
 
 " None of your gammon," said another and 
 rougher voice than that of the first speaker ; 
 " we know you have more blunt than this — a 
 paltry sum of fifty pounds, indeed." 
 
 " Hold !" cried the other ruffian, " here is 
 a picture set with diamonds, that will do, Ben. 
 Let go the old man.*"
 
 THE DISOWNED. 285 
 
 Clarence was now just at hand, and probably 
 from a sudden change in the position of the 
 dark lantern within, a light abruptly broke 
 from beneath the door, and streamed along the 
 passage. 
 
 ** No, no, no !" cried the old man, in a loud 
 yet tremulous voice — '' No, not that, any thing 
 else, but I will defend that with my life. " 
 
 " Ben, my lad," said the ruffian, " twist the old 
 fool's colquarren : we have no more time to lose.'"* 
 
 At that very moment the door was flung vio- 
 lently open, and Clarence Linden stood within 
 three paces of the reprobates and their prey. The 
 taller villain had a miniature in his hand, and 
 the old man clung to his legs with a convulsive 
 but impotent clasp ; the other fellow had already 
 his gripe upon Talbot's neck, and his right 
 hand grasped a long case-knife. 
 
 With a fierce and flashing eye, and a cheek
 
 286 TilE DISOWNED. 
 
 deadly pale with internal and determinate excita- 
 tion, Clarence confronted the robbers. 
 
 " I thank Heaven," said he, very slowly, 
 " that I am not too late !" And advancing yet 
 another step towards the shorter ruffian, who, 
 struck mute with the suddenness of the appari- 
 tion, still retained his grasp of the old man, he 
 fired his pistol with a steady and close aim ; the 
 ball penetrated the wretch's brain, and, without 
 sound or sigh, he fell down dead, at the very 
 feet of his just destroyer. The remaining rob- 
 ber had already meditated, and a second more 
 sufficed to accomplish his escape. He sprang 
 towards the door : the ball whizzed beside him, 
 but touched him not. With a safe and swift 
 step, long inured to darkness, he fled along the 
 passage ; and Linden, satisfied with the ven- 
 geance he had taken upon his comrade, did not 
 harass him with an unavailing pursuit.
 
 THE DISOWNED, 287 
 
 Clarence turned to assist Talbot. The old 
 man was stretched upon the floor insensible, but 
 his hand grasped the miniature which the plun- 
 derer had dropped in his flight and terror, and 
 his white and ashen lip was pressed convulsively 
 upon the recovered treasure. 
 
 Linden raised and placed him on his bed, and 
 while employed in attempting to revive him, the 
 antient domestic, alarmed by the report of the 
 pistol, came, poker in hand, to his assistance. 
 
 By little and little they recovered the object 
 of their attention. 
 
 His eyes rolled wildly round the room, and 
 he muttered — 
 
 " Off", ofi* ! ye shall not rob me of my only 
 relic of her — where is it ? have you got it ? — my 
 miniature !" 
 
 '« It is here. Sir, it is here,'' said the old ser- 
 vant, '* it is in your own hand." 
 
 Talbot's eye fell upon it ; he gazed at it for
 
 288 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 some moments, pressed it to his lips, and then, 
 sitting erect, and looking wildly round, he seem- 
 ed to awaken to his late danger and his present 
 deliverance. 
 
 Why should we go on ? the event and excita- 
 tion of this chapter is past, and we will conclude 
 it here.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " Ah, fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed. 
 
 Or the death they bear, 
 The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove, 
 
 With the wings of care ! 
 In the battle — in the darkness — in the need, 
 
 Shall mine cling to thee ! 
 Nor claim one smile for aU the comfort, love, 
 
 It may bring to thee." 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 LETTER FROM ALGERNON MORDAUNT TO ISABEL 
 ST. LEGER. 
 
 " You told me not to write to you. You 
 
 know how long, but not how uselessly I have 
 
 obeyed you. Did you think, Isabel, that my 
 
 love was of that worldly and common prder 
 
 i 
 which requires a perpetual aliment to support it ? 
 
 VOL. I. o V
 
 S90 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Did you think that if you forbade the stream to 
 flow visibly, its sources would be exhausted, and 
 its channel dried up ? This may be the passion 
 of others, it is not mine. Months have passed 
 since we parted, and since then you have not seen 
 me : this letter is the first token you have re- 
 ceived from a remembrance which cannot die. 
 But do you think that I have not watched, and 
 tended upon you, and gladdened my eyes with 
 gazing at your beauty, when you have not dreamt 
 that I was by ? Ah, Isabel, your heart should 
 iiave told you of it — mine Avould, had t/oii been 
 so near me. 
 
 " You receive no letters from me, it is true — 
 think you that my hand and heart are therefore 
 idle.-^ No. I write to you a thousand burning 
 lines : I pour out my soul to you : I tell you 
 of all I suffer : my thoughts, my actions, my 
 very dreams, are all traced upon the paper. I 
 send them not to you, but I read them over and
 
 THE DISOWNED, 29 1 
 
 over, and when I come to your name, I pause, 
 and shut my eyes, and then ' Fancy has her 
 power,' and lo ! ' you are by my side !' 
 
 " Isabel, our love has not been a holidav and 
 joyous sentiment. We nursed it in secresy, and 
 it grew the stronger for concealment. We have 
 had few glimpses of sunshine, and but brief in- 
 tervals of hope, but as a mother cherishes the 
 child whom others despise, so in all our sorrows 
 we turned to our only treasure, and while we 
 nurtured it with hidden tears, we found in the 
 very cause of our sadness the very strength of 
 our consolation. It has often seemed to me a 
 fatality, that of all men you should have loved 
 m^, for you were surrounded with many younger 
 and fairer, and richer in earth's graces, and in 
 all the honied tones and smiles 
 
 *^ ' Which maidens dream of when they muse on love.' 
 
 " But now that you have loved me, it comes to 
 o 2
 
 292 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 me with the force of truth that our fates cannot 
 be dissevered, that our vows are registered, and 
 our union ordained — for others have many ob- 
 jects to distract and occupy the thoughts which 
 are once forbidden a single direction, but we 
 have none. The world to you has only cold 
 hearts .and distant ties ; and every thing around 
 you repels and points your affections, your feel- 
 ipgs, your hopes, your recollections within ; and 
 / am not what men love, nor for whom men's 
 common object have interest and charm. You 
 are to me every thing. Pleasure, splendour, 
 ambition, all are merged into one great and eter- 
 nal thought, and that is z/ow. 
 
 "Others have told me, and I believed them, 
 that I was hard, and cold, and stern — so perhaps 
 I was before I knew you, but now I am weaker 
 and softer than a child. There is a stone whichis 
 of all the hardest and the chillest, but when once 
 set on fire it is unquenchable. You smile at my
 
 THE DISOWNED. 298 
 
 image, perhaps, and I should, if I saw it in the 
 writing of another ; for all that I have ridiculed 
 in romance, as exaggerated, seems now to me too 
 cool and too common place for reality. 
 
 " But this is not what I meant to write to you ; 
 you are ill, dearest and noblest Isabel, you 
 are ill ! I am the cause, and you conceal it from 
 me ; and you would rather pine away and die, 
 than suffer me to lose one of those worldly ad- 
 vantages which are in wiy eyes but as dust in 
 the balance — it is in vain to deny it. I heard 
 from others of your impaired health ; I have 
 witnessed it myself. Do you remember last 
 night, when you were in the room with your — 
 (but I will not curse them, for they are your's) 
 relations, and they made you sing — a song too 
 which you used to sing to me, and when you came 
 to the second stanza your voice failed you, and 
 you burst into tears, and they^ instead of soothing, 
 reproached and chid you, and you answered
 
 294 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 not, but wept on? Isabel, do you remember 
 that a sound was heard at the window, and a 
 groan ? Even they were startled, but they thought 
 it was the wind, for the night was dark and 
 stormy, and they saw not that it was / — yes, my 
 devoted, my generous love, it was I who gazed 
 upon you, and from whose heart that voice of 
 anguish was wrung ; and I saw your cheek was 
 pale and thin, and that the canker at the core 
 had preyed upon the blossom. 
 
 " Think you, after this, that I could keep 
 silence or obey your request ? No, dearest, no ! Is 
 not my happiness your object ? I have the vanity 
 to believe so ; and am / not the best judge 
 liow that happiness is to be secured ? I tell you, 
 I say it calmly, coldly, dispassionately — not 
 from the imagination, not even from the heart, 
 but solely from the reason — that I can bear 
 every thing rather than the loss of you ; and 
 that if the evil of my love scathe and destroy
 
 THE DISOWNED. 295 
 
 you, I shall consider and curse myself as your 
 murderer ! Save me from this extreme of misery, 
 my — yes, my Isabel ! I shall be at the copse 
 where we have so often met before, to-morrow, 
 at noon. You will meet me ; and if I cannot 
 convince you, I will not ask you to be persuaded. 
 
 «' A. M." 
 
 And Isabel read this letter, and placed it at 
 her heart, and felt less miserable than she had 
 done for months ; for though she wept, there was 
 sweetness in the tears which the assurance of 
 his love, and the tenderness of his remonstrance, 
 had called forth. She met him — how could she 
 refuse .'* and the struggle was past. Though not 
 *' convinced," she icas " persuaded ;"' for her 
 heart, which refused his reasonings, melted at his 
 reproaches and his grief. But she would not con- 
 sent to unite her fate with him at once, for the 
 evils of that step to his interests were immediate
 
 296 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and near; she only suffered herself to permit 
 their correspondence and occasional meetings, 
 in which, however imprudent for herself, the dis- 
 advantages to her lover were distant and remote. 
 She thought not of herself, nor of her dangers ; 
 she thought only of him : for him she trembled ; 
 for him she was the coward and the woman ; for 
 herself she had no fears, and no forethought. 
 
 And Algernon was worthy of this devoted 
 love, and returned it as it was given. Man's love, 
 in general, is a selfish and exacting sentiment : 
 it demands every sacrifice, and refuses all. But 
 the nature of Mordaunt was essentially high and 
 disinterested, and his honour, like his love, was 
 not that of the world : it was the ethereal and 
 spotless honour of a lofty and generous mind, the 
 honour which custom can neither give nor take 
 away ; and, however impatiently he bore the 
 deferring of an union, in which he deemed 
 himself could be the only sufferer, he would not
 
 THE DISOWNED. 297 
 
 have uttered a sigh or urged a prayer for that 
 union, could it in the minutest or remotest de- 
 gree have injured or degraded her. 
 
 These are the hearts and natures which make 
 Hfe beautiful : these are the shrines which sanc- 
 tify love : these are the diviner spirits for whom 
 there is kindred and commune with every thing 
 exalted and holy in heaven and earth. For 
 them, Nature unfolds her hoarded poetry, and 
 her hidden spells : for their steps are the lonely 
 mountains, and the still woods have a murmur 
 for their ears : for them there is strange music in 
 the wave, and in the whispers of the light leaves, 
 and rapture in the voices of the birds : their 
 souls drink, and are saturated with the mysteries 
 of the Universal Spirit, which the philosophy of 
 old times believed to be God himself. They 
 look upon the sky with a gifted vision, and its 
 dove-like quiet descends and overshadows their 
 hearts : the Moon and tlie Night are to them 
 o 3
 
 298 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 v/ells of Castalian inspiration and golden dreams ; 
 and it was one of them, who, gazing upon the 
 evening star, felt in the inmost sanctuary of his 
 soul, its mysterious harmonies with his most 
 worshipped hope, his most passionate desire, and 
 dedicated it to — Love,
 
 THE DISOWXED. 299 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " Maria. — Here's the brave old man's love, 
 Bianca — That loves the young man." 
 
 The Womari's Prize ; or, Uie Tamer Tamed^ 
 
 " No, my dear Clarence, you have placed 
 confidence in me, and it is now my duty lo 
 return it ; you have told me your history and 
 origin, and I will inform you of mine, but not 
 yet. At present we will talk of you. You have 
 conferred upon me what jur universal love of 
 life, makes us regard as the greatest of human 
 obligations ; and though I can bear alarge burthen 
 of gratitude, yet I must throw off an atom or 
 two, in using my little power in i/our behalf.
 
 I 
 
 SOO THE DISOWNED. 
 
 Nor is this all : your history has also given you 
 another tie upon my heart, and in granting you 
 a legitimate title to my good offices, removes 
 any scruple you might otherwise have had 
 in accepting them. 
 
 *' I have just received this letter from 
 
 Lord , the minister for foreign affairs : you 
 
 will see that he has appointed you to the office 
 of attache at — — . You will also oblige me by 
 looking over this other letter at your earliest 
 convenience ; the trifling sum which it contains, 
 will be repeated every quarter : it will do very 
 well for an attache : when you are an ambas- 
 sador, why, we must equip you by a mortgage 
 on Scarsdale ; and now, my dear Clarence, tell 
 me all about the Copperases." 
 
 We need not say who was the speaker of the 
 above sentences : sentences, according to our 
 opinion, of a very agreeable nature ; neverthe- 
 less, Clarence seemed to think otherwise, for
 
 THE DISOWNED. 301 
 
 the tears gushed into his eyes, and he was unable 
 for several moments to reply. 
 
 " Come, my young friend,'' said Talbot, 
 kindly ; " I have no near relations among 
 whom I can choose a son I like better than you, 
 nor you any at present from whom you might 
 select a more desirable father : consequently, you 
 must let me look upon you as my own flesh and 
 blood ; and, as I intend to be a very strict and 
 peremptory father, I expect the most silent and 
 scrupulous obedience to my commands. My 
 first parental order to you is to put up those 
 papers, and to say nothing more about them ; 
 for I have a great deal to talk to you about 
 upon other subjects." 
 
 And by these and similar kind hearted and 
 delicate remonstrances, the old man gained his 
 point. From that moment Clarence looked upon 
 him with the grateful and venerating love of a 
 son ; and we question very much if Talbot had
 
 302 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 really been the father of our hero, whether he 
 would have liked so handsome a successor half 
 so well. 
 
 The day after this arrangement, Clarence paid 
 his debt to the Copperases, and removed to Tal- 
 bot's house. With this event commenced a new 
 era in his existence : he was no longer an outcast 
 and a wanderer: out of alien ties he had wrought 
 the link of a close and even paternal friendship : 
 life, brilliant in its prospects, and elevated in its 
 ascent, opened flatteringly before him ; and the 
 fortune and courage which had so well provided 
 for the present, were the best omens and auguries 
 for the future. 
 
 It remains to see how far he profited by the 
 advantages he had won. We believe that Fate is 
 less capricious than is imagined ; that nearly all 
 men (though this is a singular assertion) have 
 through life, in their several grades, the same 
 average of opportunities : it is he who can seize
 
 THE DISOWNED. 303 
 
 and connect them, and by keen sight and ready 
 experience, calculate on their recurrence, for 
 whom men have their applause and Fortune her 
 garland. 
 
 One evening, when the opening autumn had 
 made its approaches felt, and Linden and his 
 new parent were seated alone by a blazing fire, 
 and had come to a full pause in their conversa- 
 tion, Talbot, shading his face with the friendly 
 pages of the " AVhitehall Evening Paper," as if 
 to protect it from the heat, said — 
 
 " I told you, the other day, that I would give 
 you at some early opportunity a brief sketch of 
 my life. This confidence is due to you in return 
 for yours ; and since you will soon leave me, and 
 I am an old man whose life no prudent calcula- 
 tion can fix, I may as well choose the present 
 time to favour you with my confessions." 
 
 Clarence expressed and looked his interest, 
 and the old man thus commenced.
 
 304 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF A VAIN MAN. 
 
 " Man is placed between two magnets, — ambition, which at- 
 tracts him upwards, and vanity, which impels him to the earth. 
 If the latter preponderate, virtue and talents are as idle instru- 
 ments of ascent, as wings attached to those bodies which the 
 laws of gravitation render impossible to soar.'' 
 
 Anox. 
 
 " I WAS the favourite of my parents, for I 
 was quick at my lessons, and my father said I 
 inherited my genius from him ; and comely in 
 my person, and my good looks, said my mother, 
 came from her. So the honest pair saw in their 
 eldest son the union of their own attractions, 
 and thought they were making much of them- 
 selves when they lavished their caresses upon 
 me. They had another son, poor Arthur — I 
 think I see him now. He was a shy, quiet,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 305 
 
 subdued boy, of a very plain personal appear- 
 ance. My father and mother were vain, shewy, 
 ambitious people of the world, and they were as 
 ashamed of my brother as they were proud of 
 myself. However, he afterwards entered the 
 army, and distinguished himself highly. He 
 died in battle, leaving an only daughter, who 
 married, as you Icnow, a nobleman of high rank. 
 Her subsequent fate it is now needless to 
 relate. 
 
 " Petted and pampered from my childhood, I 
 grew up with a profound belief in my own 
 excellencies, and a feverish and irritating desire 
 to impress every one who came in my way with 
 the same idea. There is a sentence in Sir 
 William Temple, which I have often thought of 
 with a painful conviction in its truth : ' A rest- 
 lessness in men's minds to be something they are 
 not, and have something they have not, is the 
 root of all immorality.' At school, I was con-
 
 305 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 fessedly the cleverest boy in my remove ; and 
 what I valued equally as much, I was the best 
 cricketer of the best eleven. Here, then, you 
 will say my vanity was satisfied — no such thing ! 
 There was a boy who shared my room, and was 
 next me in the school ; we were, therefore, always 
 thrown together. He was a great, stupid, lub- 
 berly cub, equally ridiculed by the masters, and 
 disliked by the boys : will you believe that this 
 individual was the express and almost sole 
 object of my envy.? He was more than my 
 rival, he was my superior ; and I hated him 
 with all the unleavened bitterness of my soul. 
 
 " I have said he was my superior — it was in 
 one thing. He could balance a stick, nay, a 
 cricket bat, a poker, upon his chin, and I could 
 not ; you laugh, and so can I now, but it was 
 no subject of laughter to me then. This cir- 
 cumstance, trifling as it may appear to you, 
 poisoned my enjoyment. The boy saw my
 
 THE DISOWNED. 307 
 
 envy, for I could not conceal it; and as all fools 
 are malicious, and most fools ostentatious, he 
 took a particular pride and pleasure in display- 
 ing his dexterity, and ' shewing off' ray dis- 
 content. You can form no idea of the extent to 
 which this petty insolence vexed and disquieted 
 me. Even in my sleep, the clumsy and grinning 
 features of this tormenting imp haunted me like 
 a spectre ; my visions were nothing but chins 
 and cricket bats, walking-sticks, sustaining them- 
 selves upon human excrescences, and pokers 
 dancing a hornpipe upon the tip of a nose. I 
 assure you, that I have spent hours in secret 
 seclusion, practising to rival my hated comrade, 
 and my face — see how one vanity quarrels with 
 another — was little better than a map of bruises 
 and discolorations. 
 
 " I actually became so uncomfortable as to 
 write home, and request to leave the school. I 
 was then about sixteen, and my indulgent father.
 
 308 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 in granting my desire, told me, that I was too 
 old and too advanced in my learning to go 
 to any other academic estabhshment than the 
 University. The day before I left the school I 
 gave, as was usually the custom, a breakfast to 
 all my friends; the circumstance of my tor- 
 mentor's sharing my room, obliged me to invite 
 him among the rest. However, I was in high 
 spirits, and being an universal favourite with 
 my schoolfellows, I succeeded in what was 
 always to me an object of social ambition, and 
 set the table on a roar ; yet, when our festival 
 was nearly expired, and I begun to allude more 
 particularly to my approaching departure, my 
 vanity was far more gratified, for my feelings 
 were far more touched, by observing the regret, 
 and receiving the good wishes of all my com- 
 panions. I still recal that hour as one of the 
 proudest and happiest of my life : but it had 
 its immediate reverse. My evil demon put it
 
 THE DISOWNED. 309 
 
 into my tormentor's head to give me one last 
 parting pang of jealousy. A large umbrella 
 happened accidentally to be in my room ; Cromp- 
 ton, such was my schoolfellow's name, saw and 
 seized it — ' Look, Talbot,' said he, with his 
 taunting and hideous sneer, ' you can't do this ;" 
 and placing the point of the umbrella upon his 
 forehead, just above the eyebrow, he performed 
 various antics round the room. 
 
 " At that moment I was standing by the fire- 
 place, and conversing with two boys upon 
 whom, above all others, I wished to leave a 
 favourable impression. My foolish soreness on 
 this one subject, had been often remarked, and 
 as I turned, in abrupt and awkward discom- 
 posure, from the exhibition, I observed my two 
 schoolfellows smile, and exchange looks. I am 
 not naturally passionate, and even at that age I 
 had, in ordinary cases, great self-command ; but 
 this observation, and the cause which led to it,
 
 310 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 threw me off my guard. Whenever we are 
 utterly under the command of one feeling, we 
 cannot be said to have our reason • at that instant 
 I literally believe I was beside myself. What ! in 
 the very flush of the last triumph that that scene 
 would ever afford me ; amidst the last regrets 
 of my early friends, to whom I fondly hoped to 
 bequeath a long and brilliant remembrance, to 
 be thus bearded by a contemptible rival, and 
 triumphed over by a pitiful, yet insulting supe- 
 riority ; to close my condolences with laughter ; 
 to have the final solemnity of my career, thus 
 terminating in mockery ; and ridicule substituted 
 as an ultimate reminiscence in the place of an 
 admiring regret ; all this, too, to be effected by 
 one so long hated, one whom I was the only 
 being forbidden the comparative ^happiness of 
 despising ? I could not brook it ; the insult — 
 the insulter were too revolting. As the unhappy 
 buffoon approached me, thrusting his distorted
 
 THE DISOWNED. 311 
 
 face towards mine, I seized and pushed him 
 aside, with a brief curse, and a violent hand. The 
 sharp point of tlie umbrella slipped ; my action 
 gave it impetus and weight ; it penetrated his 
 eye, and — spare me, spare me the rest." 
 
 The old man bent down, and paused for a few 
 moments before he resumed. 
 
 " Crompton lost his eye, but my punishment 
 was as severe as his. People who are very vain, 
 are usually equally susceptible, and they who 
 feel one thing acutely, will so feel another. 
 For years, ay, for many years afterwards, the 
 recollection of my folly goaded me with the 
 bitterest and most unceasing remorse. Had I 
 committed murder, my conscience could scarce 
 have afflicted me more severely. I did not 
 regain my self-esteem, till I had repaired the 
 injury I had done. Long after that time, 
 Crompton was in prison, in great and over- 
 whelming distress. I impoverished myself to
 
 
 312 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 release him ; I sustained him and his family 
 till fortune rendered my assistance no longer 
 necessary ; and no triumphs were ever more 
 sweet to me, than the sacrifices I was forced to 
 submit to, in order to restore him to prosperity. 
 
 " It is natural to hope, that this accident had 
 at least the effect of curing me of my fault ; but 
 it requires philosophy in yourself, or your advi- 
 sers, to render remorse of future avail. How 
 could I amend my fault, when I was not even 
 aware of it.'' — Smarting under the effects, I in- 
 vestigated not the cause, and I attributed to 
 irascibility, and vindictiveness, what had a 
 deeper and more dangerous origin. 
 
 " At college, in spite of all my advantages of 
 birth, fortune, health, and intellectual acquire- 
 ments, I had many things besides the one enemy 
 of remorse, to corrode my tranquillity of mind. 
 I was sure to find some one to excel me in some- 
 thing, and this was enough to embitter my
 
 THE DISOWNED. 513 
 
 peace. Our living Goldsmith is my favourite 
 poet, and I perhaps insensibly venerate the 
 genius the more, because I find something con- 
 genial to me in the infirmities of the man. /can 
 fully credit the anecdotes recorded of him. / 
 too could once have been jealous of a puppet 
 handling a spontoon ; / too could once have been 
 miserable, if two ladies at the theatre were more 
 the objects of attention than myself. You, 
 Clarence, will not despise me for this confession ; 
 those who knew me less would. Fools ! there is 
 no man so great as not to have some littleness 
 more predominant than all his greatness. Our 
 virtues are the dupes, and often only the play- 
 things of our follies. 
 
 *' I entered the world — with what advantages, 
 and what avidity ! — I smile, but it is mourn- 
 fully, in looking back to that day. Thouoh 
 rich, high-born, and good looking, I possessed not 
 one of these three qualities in that eminence which 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 314 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 could alone satisfy my love of superiority, and 
 desire of effect. I knew this somewhat humi- 
 liating truth, for though vain, I was not conceited. 
 Vanity, indeed, is the very antidote to conceit ; 
 for while the former makes us all nerve to the 
 opinion of others, the latter is perfectly satisfied 
 with its opinion of itself. 
 
 " I knew this truth, and as Pope, if he could 
 not be the greatest of poets, resolved to be the 
 most correct, so I strove, since I could not be 
 the handsomest, the wealthiest, and the noblest of 
 my cotemporaries, to excel them, at least, in the 
 grace and consummateness of manner ; and in 
 this, after incredible pains, after diligent ap- 
 prenticeship in the world, and intense study in 
 the closet, I at last flattered myself that I had 
 succeeded. Of all success, while we are yet in 
 the flush of youth, and its capacities of enjoy- 
 ment, I can imagine none more intoxicating, or 
 gratifying, than the success of society, and I had
 
 THE DISOWNED. 315 
 
 certainly some years of its triumph and eddt. I 
 was courted, followed, flattered, and sought by 
 the most envied and fastidious circles in 
 England, and even in Paris : for society, so 
 indifferent to those who disdain it, overwhelms 
 with its gratitude — profuse though brief — those 
 who devote themselves to its amusement. The 
 victim to sameness and enmd, it offers, like the 
 palled and luxurious Roman, a reward for a new 
 pleasure, and as long as our industry or talent 
 can afford it, the reward is ours. At that time, 
 then, I reaped the full harvest of my exertions : 
 the disappointment and vexation were of later 
 date. 
 
 "I now come to the great era of my life — 
 
 Love. Among my acquaintance, was Lady 
 
 Mary Walden, a widow of high birth, and noble, 
 
 though not powerful connexions. She lived 
 
 about twenty miles from London, in a beautiful 
 
 retreat ; and though not rich, her jointure, ren- 
 
 p 2
 
 316 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 dered ample by economy, enabled her to indulge 
 her love of society. Her house was always as 
 full as its size would permit, and I was among 
 the most welcome of its visitors. She had an 
 only daughter — even now, through the dim mists 
 of years, that beautiful and fairy form rises still 
 and shining before me, undimmed by sorrow, 
 unfaded by time. Caroline Walden was the ob- 
 ject of general admiration, and her mother, who 
 attributed the avidity with which her invitations 
 were accepted by all the wits and elegants 
 of the day to the charms of her own con- 
 versation, little suspected the face and wit of her 
 daughter to be the magnet of attraction. I had 
 no idea at that time of marriage, still less could 
 I have entertained such a notion, unless the step 
 had greatly exalted my rank and prospects. 
 
 " The poor and powerless Caroline Walden 
 was therefore the last person for whom I had what 
 the jargon des meres terms ' serious intentions.'
 
 THE DISOWNED. 317 
 
 However, I was struck with her exceeding love- 
 liness, and amused by the vivacity of her man- 
 ners : moreover, my vanity was excited by the 
 hope of distancing all my competitors for the 
 smiles of the young beauty. Accordingly I laid 
 myself out to please, and neglected none of those 
 subtle and almost secret attentions which, of all 
 flatteries, are the most delicate and successful : 
 and I succeeded. Caroline loved me with all 
 the earnestness and devotion which charac- 
 terize the love of woman. It never oc- 
 curred to her that I was only trifling with 
 those alBPections which it seemed so ardently 
 my intention to win. She knew that my 
 fortune was large enough to dispense with 
 the necessity of fortune with my wife, and in 
 birth she would have equalled men of greater 
 pretensions to myself; added to this, long adu- 
 lation had made her sensible, though not vain, 
 of her attractions, and she listened with a credu-
 
 318 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 lous ear to the insinuated flatteries I was so well 
 accustomed to instil. 
 
 " Never shall I forget — no, though I double 
 my present years — the shock, the wildness of de- 
 spair with which she first detected the selfishness 
 of my homage ; with which she saw that 1 had 
 only mocked her trusting simplicity ; and that 
 while she had been lavishing the richest treasures 
 of her heart before the burning altars of Love, 
 my idol had been Vanity, and my offerings 
 deceit. She tore herself from the profanation of 
 my grasp ; she shrouded herself from my pre- 
 sence. All interviews with me were rejected ; 
 all my letters returned to me unopened ; and 
 though, in the repentance of my heart, I entreat- 
 ed, I urged her to accept vows that were no 
 longer insincere, her pride became her punish- 
 ment, as well as my own. In a moment of bit- 
 ter and desperate feeling, she accepted the offers 
 of another, and made the marriage bond a fatal
 
 THE DISOWNED. 319 
 
 and irrevocable barrier to our reconciliation and 
 union. 
 
 *' Oh ! how I now cursed my infatuation ! how 
 passionately I recalled the past ! how coldly I 
 turned from the hollow and false world, to whose 
 service I had sacrificed my happiness, to muse 
 and madden over the prospects I had destroyed, 
 and the loving and noble heart I had rejected ! 
 Alas ! after all, v/hat is so ungrateful as that 
 world for which we renounce so much ? Its vo- 
 taries resemble the Gymnosophistas of old, and 
 while they profess to make their chief end plea- 
 sure, we can only learn that they expose them- 
 selves to every torture and every pain I 
 
 " Lord Merton, the man whom Caroline now 
 called husband, was among the wealthiest and 
 most dissipated of his order ; and two years after 
 our separation I met once more the victim of my 
 un worthiness, blazing in ' the full front' of courtly 
 splendour ! the leader of its gaieties, and the
 
 320 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 cynosure of her followers. Intimate with the 
 same society, we were perpetually cast together, 
 and Caroline was proud of displaying the indif- 
 ference towards me, which if she felt not, she had 
 at least learnt artfully to assume. This indiffer- 
 ence was her ruin. The depths of my evil pas- 
 sion were again sounded and aroused, and I 
 resolved yet to humble the pride and conquer 
 the coldness which galled to the very quick the 
 morbid acuteness of my self-love. I again at- 
 tached myself to her train — I bowed myself to 
 the very dust before her. What to me were her 
 chilling reply and disdainful civilities? — only 
 still stronger excitements to persevere. 
 
 "I spare you and myself the gradual progress 
 of my schemes. A woman may recover her 
 first passion, it is true ; but then she must 
 replace it with another. That other was denied 
 to Caroline : she had not even children to en- 
 gross her thoughts and to occupy her ' prodi-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 321 
 
 gaP affections ; and the gay world, which to 
 many become an object, was to her only an 
 escape. 
 
 " Clarence, ray triumph came ! Lady Walden 
 (who had never known our secret) invited me 
 to her house : Caroline was there. In the same 
 spot where we had so often stood before, and in 
 which her earliest affections were insensibly 
 breathed away, in that same spot, my arm 
 encircled her, and T drew from her colourless and 
 trembling lips the confession of her weakness, 
 the restored and pervading power of my re- 
 membrance. 
 
 " But Carohne was a proud and virtuous 
 woman : even while her heart betrayed her, 
 her mind resisted ; and in the very avowal of 
 her unconquered attachment, she renounced and 
 discarded me for ever. I was not an ungener- 
 ous though a vain man ; but my generosity 
 was wayward, tainted and imperfect. I could 
 p 3
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 have borne a separation ; I could have severed 
 myself from her ; I could have flown to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth ; I could have 
 hoarded there my secret, yet unextinguished 
 love, and never disturbed her quiet by a mur- 
 mur ; but then the fiat of separation must have 
 come from me. My vanity could not bear that 
 her lips should reject me; that my part was 
 not to be the nobility of sacrifice, but the submis- 
 sion of resignation. However, my better feelings 
 were aroused, and though I could not stifle, I 
 concealed my selfish repinings. We parted: she 
 returned to town, I buried myself in the coun- 
 try ; and amidst the literary studies to which, 
 though by fits and starts, I was passionately 
 devoted, I endeavoured to forget my ominous 
 and guilty love. 
 
 ''But I was then too bound to the world not 
 to be perpetually reminded of its events. My 
 retreat was thronged with occasional migrators 
 from London ; my books were mingled with
 
 THE DISOWNED. 323 
 
 the news and scandal of the day. All spoke to 
 me of Lady Merton ; not as I loved to picture 
 her to myself, pale and sorrowful, and brooding 
 over my image ; but gay, dissipated, the dis- 
 penser of smiles, the prototype and deity of 
 joy. I contrasted this account of her, with the 
 melancholy and gloom of my own feelings, and 
 I resented as an insult to myself, that which I 
 ought to have rejoiced at, as an engrossment of 
 reflection, for her. 
 
 '^In this angry and fretful mood, I returned 
 to London. My empire was soon resumed ; 
 and now. Linden, comes the most sickening 
 part of my confessions. Vanity is a growing 
 and insatiable disease : what seems to its de- 
 sires as wealth to-day, to-morrow it rejects as 
 poverty. I was at first contented to know 
 that T was beloved ; by degrees, slow, yet sure, 
 I desired that others should know it also. I 
 longed to display my power over the cele-
 
 324 THE DISOVVI\^ED. 
 
 brated and courted Lady Merton ; and to put 
 the last crown to my reputation and impor- 
 tance. The envy of others, is the food of our 
 own self-love. Oh, you know not, you dream 
 not, of the galling mortifications to which a 
 proud woman, whose love commands her pride, 
 is subjected. I imposed upon Caroline the 
 most humiliating, the most painful tasks ; I 
 would allow her to see none but those I pleased ; 
 to go to no place, where I withheld my con- 
 sent ; and I hesitated not to exert and testify 
 my power over her affections, in proportion to 
 the publicity of the opportunity. 
 
 " Yet, with all this littleness, would you 
 believe that I loved Caroline with the most ardent 
 and engrossing passion ? I have paused behind 
 her, in order to kiss the ground she trod on ; I 
 have staid whole nights beneath her window, 
 to catch one glimpse of her passing form, even 
 though I had spent hours of the day time in
 
 THE DISOWNED. 325 
 
 her society ; and though my love burned and 
 consumed me, hke a fire, I would not breathe 
 a single wish against her innocence, or take ad- 
 vantage of my power to accomplish w4iat I knew, 
 from her virtue and pride, no atonement could 
 possibly repay. Such are the inconsistencies of 
 the heart, and such, while they prevent our per- 
 fection, redeem us from the utterness of vice. 
 Never, even in my wildest days, was I blind 
 to the glory of virtue, yet never, till my latest 
 years, have I enjoyed the faculty to avail my- 
 self of my perception. I reseuibled the mole, 
 which by Boyle is supposed to possess the idea 
 of light, but to be unable to comprehend the 
 objects on which it shines. 
 
 " Among the varieties of my prevailing sin, 
 was a weakness, common enough to worldly men. 
 While I ostentatiously played off the love I 
 had excited, I could not bear to show the love 
 Ifelt. In our country, and perhaps, though in 
 a less degree, in all other highly artificial states,
 
 326 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 enthusiasm, or even feeling of any kind, is ridi- 
 culous ; and I could not endure the thought 
 that my treasured and secret affections should 
 be dragged from their retreat, to be cavilled and 
 carped at by 
 
 " * Every beardless, vain comparative.' 
 
 " This weakness brought on the catastrophe 
 of my love ; for, mark me, Clarence, it is 
 through our weaknesses that our vices are 
 punished. One night I went to a masquerade ; 
 and while I was sitting in a remote corner, 
 three of my acquaintances, whom I recog- 
 nized, though they knew it not, approached 
 and rallied me upon my romantic attachment to 
 Lady Merton. One of them was a woman of a 
 malicious and sarcastic wit ; the other two were 
 men whom I disliked, because their pretensions 
 interfered with mine ; they were diners out, 
 and anecdote-mongers. Stung to the quick by 
 their sarcasms and laughter, I replied in a train 
 of mingled arrogance, and jest ; at last I spoke
 
 THE DISOWNED. 327 
 
 slightingly of the person in question ; and these 
 profane and false lips dared not only to disown 
 the remotest love to that being who was more to 
 me than heaven and earth, but even to speak of 
 herself with ridicule, and her affection with 
 disdain. 
 
 *' In the midst of this, I turned and beheld, 
 within hearing, a figure which I knew upon 
 the moment. O God ! the burning shame and 
 agony of that glance ! — It raised its mask — I 
 saw that blanched cheek, and that trembling 
 lip ; and I knew that the iron had indeed en- 
 tered into her soul. 
 
 " Clarence, I never beheld her again alive. 
 Within a week from that time she was a corpse. 
 She had borne much, suffered much, and mur- 
 mured not ; but this shock pressed too hard, 
 came too home, and from the hand of him for 
 whom she would have sacrificed all ! I stood 
 by her in death ; I beheld my work ; and I
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 turned away, a wanderer and a pilgrim upon 
 the face of the earth. Verily, I have had my 
 reward." 
 
 The old man paused, violently aflpected ; and 
 Clarence, who could offer him no consolation, 
 did riot break the silence. In a few minutes 
 Talbot continued — 
 
 " From that time, the smile of woman was 
 nothing to me ; I seemed to grow old in a single 
 day. Life lost to me all its objects. A dreary 
 and desert blank stretched itself before me, 
 the sounds of creation had only in my ears one 
 voice — the past, the future, one image. I left 
 my country for twenty years, and lived an idle 
 and hopeless man in the various courts of the 
 continent. 
 
 *' At the age of fifty I returned to England ; 
 the wounds of the past had not disappeared, 
 but they were scarred over ; and I longed, like 
 the rest of my species, to have an object in view.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 329 
 
 At that age, if we have seen much of man- 
 kind, and possess the talents to profit by our 
 knowledge, we must be one of two sects : a poli- 
 tician, or a philosopher. My time was not yet 
 arrived for the latter, so I resolved to become 
 the former ; but this was denied me, for my 
 vanity had assumed a different shape. It is 
 true that I cared no longer for the reputation 
 women can bestow ; but I was eager for the 
 applause of men, and I did not like the long 
 labour necessary to attain it. I wished to make 
 a short road to my object, and I eagerly fol- 
 lowed every turn but the right one, in the hopes 
 of its leading me sooner to my goal. 
 
 "The great characteristic of a vain man, in 
 contradistinction to an ambitious man, and his 
 eternal obstacle to a high and honourable fame, 
 is this: he requires for any expenditure of 
 trouble too speedy a reward ; he cannot wait 
 for years, and climb, step by step, to a lofty
 
 830 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 object : whatever he attempts, he must seize 
 at a single grasp. Added to this, he is incapa- 
 ble of an exclusive attention to one end ; the 
 universality of his cravings is not contented, 
 unless it devours all ; and thus he is perpetually 
 doomed to fritter away his energies by grasping 
 at the trifling baubles within his reach, and in 
 gathering the worthless fruit, which a single 
 sun can mature. 
 
 " This, then, was my fault, and the cause 
 of my failure. I could no tgive myself up to 
 finance, nor puzzle through the intricacies of 
 commerce : even the common parliamentary 
 drudgeries of constant attendance and late 
 hours, were insupportable to me ; and so after 
 two or three ' splendid orations,' as my friends 
 termed them, I was satisfied with the puffs of 
 the pamphleteers, and closed my political career. 
 I was now then the wit and the conversationalist. 
 With my fluency of speech and variety of infor-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 331 
 
 mation these were easy distinctions ; and the 
 popularity of a dinner table, or the approbation 
 of a hterary coterie, consoled me for the more 
 public and more durable applause I had re- 
 signed. 
 
 " But even this gratification did not last long. 
 I fell ill ; and the friends who gathered round 
 the wit fled from the valetudinarian. This 
 disgusted me, and when I was sufficiently re- 
 covered, I again returned to the continent. But 
 I had a fit of misanthropy and solitude upon 
 me, and so it was not to courts and cities, the 
 scenes of former gaieties, that I repaired ; on the 
 contrary, I hired a house on one of the most 
 sequestered of the Swiss lakes, and avoiding the 
 living, I surrendered myself, without interrup- 
 tion or control, to commune with the dead. I 
 surrounded myself with books, and pored with a 
 curious and searching eye into those works which 
 treat particularly upon ^ man.' My passions were
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 over, my love of pleasure and society was dried 
 up, and I had now no longer the obstacles which 
 forbid us to be wise ; I unlearnt the precepts my 
 manhood had acquired, and in my old age I 
 commenced philosopher ; Religion lent me her 
 aid, and by her holy lamp my studies were 
 conned and my hermitage illumined. 
 
 ** There are certain characters which, in the 
 world, are evil, and in seclusion are good : 
 Rousseau, whom I know well, is one of them. 
 These persons are of a morbid sensitiveness, 
 which is perpetually galled by collision with 
 others. In short, thev are under the dominion 
 of VANITY ; and that vanity, never satisfied, 
 and always restless in the various competitions 
 of society, produces ' envy,. malice, hatred, and 
 all uncharitableness ;' but, in solitude, the good 
 and benevolent dispositions with which our self- 
 love no longer interferes, have room to expand and 
 ripen, without being cramped hy opposing inte-
 
 THE DTSOVVNED. 
 
 rests : this will account for many seeming discre- 
 pancies in character. There are also some men, 
 in whom old age supplies the place of solitude, 
 and Rousseau's antagonist and mental antipodes, 
 Voltaire, is of this order. The pert, the malig- 
 nant, the arrogant, the lampooning author, in 
 his youth and manhood, has become, in his old 
 age, the mild, the benevolent, and the venerable 
 philosopher. Nothing is more absurd than 
 to receive the characters of great men so im- 
 plicitly upon the v>ord of a biographer; and 
 nothing can be less surprising than our eternal 
 disputes upon individuals; fornoman throughout 
 life is the same being, and each season of our 
 existence contradicts the characteristics of the 
 last. 
 
 " And now, in my solitude and my old age, a 
 new spirit entered within me : the game in which 
 I had engaged so vehemently was over for me ;
 
 334 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and I joined to my experience as a player, my 
 coolness as a spectator ; I no longer struggled 
 with my species, and I began insensibly to love 
 them. I established schools, and founded cha- 
 rities ; and, in secret, but active services to man- 
 kind, 1 employed my exertions, and lavished my 
 desires. 
 
 " From this amendment I date the peace of 
 mind and elasticity of spirit which I now enjoy ; 
 and in my later years, the happiness which I 
 pursued in my youth and maturity so hotly, yet 
 so ineffectually, has flown unsolicited to my 
 breast. 
 
 " About five years ago, I came again to 
 England, with the intention of breathing my last 
 in the country which gave me birth. I retired 
 to my family home, I endeavoured to divert 
 myself in agricultural improvements, and my 
 rental was consumed in speculation ; this did
 
 THE DISOWNED. 335 
 
 not please me long, I sought society — society in 
 Yorkshire I You may imagine the result : 1 was 
 out of my element, the mere distance from the 
 metropolis, from all genial companionship, 
 sickened me with a vague feeling of desertion 
 and solitude ; for the first time in my life I felt 
 my age and my celibacy. Once more I returned 
 to town, a complaint attacked my lungs, the 
 physicians recommended the air of this neigh- 
 bourhood, and I chose the residence I now in- 
 habit. Without being exactly in London, I can 
 command its advantages, and obtain society as a 
 recreation, without buying it by restraint. I am 
 not fond of new faces, nor any longer covetous 
 of show ; my old servant therefore contented me : 
 for the future, I shall, however, satisfy your 
 fears, remove to a safer habitation, and obtain a 
 more numerous guard. It is, at all events, a 
 happiness to me, that fate, in casting me here,
 
 336 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and exposing me to something of danger, has 
 raised up, in you, a friend for my old age, and 
 selected from this great universe of strangers, 
 one being to convince my heart that it has not 
 outlived affection. My tale is done ; may you 
 profit by its moral." 
 
 When Talbot said that our characters were 
 undergoing a perpetual change, he should have 
 made this reservation ; the one ruling passion 
 remains to the last : it modifies, it is true, but it 
 never departs ; and it is these modifications 
 which do, for the most part, shape out the 
 channels of our change. As Helvetius has 
 beautifully expressed it, we resemble those ves- 
 sels which the waves still carry towards the 
 south, when the north wind has ceased to blow;
 
 THE DISOWNED. 337 
 
 but in our old age, this passion having little to 
 feed on, becomes sometimes dormant and inert, 
 and then our good qualities rise, as it were from 
 an incubus, and have their sway. 
 
 Yet these cases are not common, and Talbot 
 was a remarkable instance, for he was a remark- 
 able man. His mind had not slept while the age 
 advanced, and thus it had swelled as it were 
 from the bondage of its earlier passions and 
 prejudices. But little did he think, in the blind- 
 ness of self-delusion — though it was so obvious 
 to Clarence, that he could have smiled if he had 
 not rather inclined to weep at the frailties of 
 human nature — little did he think that the 
 vanity which had cost him so much, remained 
 " a monarch still," undeposed ahke by his phi- 
 losophy, his religion, or his remorse ; and that, 
 debarred by circumstances from all wider and 
 more dangerous field, it still lavished itself upon 
 trifles unworthy of his powers, and puerilities 
 
 VOL. I. ft
 
 338 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 dislionouring his age. Folly is a courtezan 
 whom we ourselves seek, whose favours we 
 solicit at an enormous price ; and who, like Lais, 
 finds philosophers at her door, scarcely less 
 frequently than the rest of mankind !
 
 THE DISOWNED. 339 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " Mrs. Trinket.— ^Vh^^t d'ye buy — what d'ye lack, Gentle- 
 men ? Gloves, ribbons, and essences — ribbons, gloves, and 
 
 Etherege. 
 
 " And so, my love," said Mr. Copperas, one 
 morning at breakfast, to his wife, his right 
 leg being turned over his left, and his dexter 
 hand conveying to his mouth a huge morsel of 
 buttered cake, " and so, my love, they say that 
 the old fool is going to leave the jackanapes all 
 his fortune ?'' 
 
 " They do say so, Mr. C. ; for my part I 
 am quite out of patience with the art of the
 
 S40 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 young man ; I dare say he is no better than he 
 should be ; he always had a sharp look, and, 
 for aught I know, there may be more in that 
 robbery than you or I dreamt of, Mr. Copperas. 
 It was a pity," continued Mrs. Copperas, 
 upbraiding her lord with true matrimonial 
 tenderness and justice, for the consequences of 
 his having acted from her advice — " it was a pity, 
 Mr. C, that you should have refused to lend 
 him the pistols to go to the old fellow's assist- 
 ance, for then who knows but " 
 
 " I might have converted them into pocTcet 
 pistols," interrupted Mr. C, '' and not have 
 over-shot the mark, my dear — ha, ha, ha !" 
 
 " Lord, Mr. Copperas, you are always making 
 a joke of every thing." 
 
 " No, my dear, for once I'm making a joke of 
 nothing." 
 
 " Well, I declare it's shameful," cried Mrs. 
 Copperas, still following up her own indignant
 
 THE DISOWNED. 341 
 
 meditations, " and after taking such notice of 
 Adolphus, too, and all [" 
 
 " Notice, my dear ! mere words," returned 
 Mr. Copperas, " mere words, like ventilators, 
 which make a great deal of air, but 7iever raise 
 the wind ; but don't put yourself in a stew^ my 
 love, for the doctors say that copperas in a stew 
 is poison." 
 
 At this moment, Mr. De Warens, throwing 
 open the door, announced Mr. Brown ; that 
 gentleman entered, with a sedate, but cheerful 
 air. " Well, Mrs. Copperas, your servant ; any 
 table linen wanted ? Mr. Copperas, how do you 
 do? I can give you a hint about the stocks. 
 Master Copperas, you are looking bravely ; 
 don't you think he wants some new pinbefores. 
 Ma'am ? But Mr. Clarence Linden, where is 
 he ? not up yet, I dare say ? Ah, the present 
 generation is a generation of sluggards, as his 
 worthy aunt, Mrs. Minden, used to say."
 
 342 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 '' I am sure," said Mrs. Copperas, with a 
 disdainful toss of the head, " I know nothing 
 about the young man. He has left us : a very 
 mysterious piece of business indeed, Mr. Brown ; 
 and now I think of it, I can't help saying that 
 we were by no means pleased with your intro- 
 duction ; and by the by, the chairs you bought 
 for us at the sale were a mere take in, so slight, 
 that Mr. Walruss broke two of them by only 
 sitting down." 
 
 '* Indeed, Ma'am !" said Mr. Brown, with 
 expostulating gravity ; " but then Mr. Walruss 
 is so very corpulent. But the young gentleman, 
 what of him .f^' continued the broker, artfully 
 turning from the point in dispute. 
 
 *' Lord, Mr. Brown, don't ask me : it was the 
 unluckiest step we ever made to admit him into 
 the bosom of our family ; quite a viper, I assure 
 you ; absolutely robbed poor Adolphus." 
 
 " Lord help us ! ' said Mr. Brown, with a
 
 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 look which " cast a hroxvner horror," o'er the 
 room, '* who would have thought it ; and such 
 a pretty young man !" 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Copperas, who, occupied in 
 finishing the buttered cake, had hitherto kept 
 silence, " I must be off, Tom—I mean De 
 Warens — have you stopped the coach ?''' 
 
 « Yees, Sir." 
 
 " And what coach is it T'' 
 
 " It be the Swallow, Sir." 
 
 " Oh, very well ; and now, Mr. Brown, 
 having swallowed in the roll, I will e''en roll in 
 the Swallow — Ha, ha, ha !" — " At any rate," 
 thought Mr. Copperas, as he descended the stairs, 
 " he has not heard that before." 
 
 " Ha, ha !" gravely chuckled Mr. Brown ; 
 *' what a very facetious, lively gentleman Mr. 
 Copperas is. But touching this ungrateful young 
 man, Mr. Linden, Ma'am.?" 
 
 *' Oh, don't teaze me, Mr. Brown, I must sec 
 fter my domestics : ask Mr. Talbot, the old
 
 344 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 miser, in the next house, the liavarr, as the 
 French say." 
 
 " Well, now," said Mr. Brown, following 
 the good lady down stairs — " how distressing 
 for me — and to say that he was Mrs. Minden's 
 nephew, too !" 
 
 But Mr. Brown's curiosity was not so easily 
 satisfied, and finding Mr. De Warens leaning 
 over the ' front' gate, and- ' pursuing with 
 wistful eyes' the departing ' Swallow,' he 
 stopped, and accosting him, soon possessed him- 
 self of the facts that "old Talbot had been 
 robbed and murdered, but that Mr. Linden had 
 brought him to life again ; and that old Talbot 
 had given him a hundred thousand pounds, and 
 adopted him as his son ; and that how Mr. Lin- 
 den was going to be sent to foreign parts, as an 
 ambassador, or governor, or great person ; and 
 that how meester and meesess were quite ' cut 
 up' about it." 
 
 All these particulars having been duly depo-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 345 
 
 sited in the mind of Mr. Brown, they produced 
 an immediate desire to call upon the young gen- 
 tleman, who, to say nothing of his being so very 
 nearly related to his old customer, Mrs. Minden, 
 viSLS always so very great a favourite with hwiy 
 Mr. Brown, 
 
 Accordingly, as Clarence was musing over 
 his approaching departure, which was now very 
 shortly to take place, he was somewhat startled 
 by the apparition of Mr. Brown — " Charming 
 day, Sir — charming day," said the friend of 
 Mrs. Minden — "just called in to congratulate 
 you. I have a few articles, Sir, to present you 
 with— quite rarities, I assure you — quite pre 
 sents I may say. I picked them up at a sale of 
 the late Lady Waddilove's most valuable ejBPects. 
 They are just the things, Sir, for a gentleman 
 going on a foreign mission. A most curious 
 ivory chest, with an Indian padlock, to hold 
 confidential letters — belonged formerly. Sir, to 
 Q 3
 
 346 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the Great Mogul ; and a beautiful diamond 
 snufF-box, Sir, with a picture of Louis XIV. 
 on it, prodigiously fine, and will look so loyal 
 too ; and. Sir, if you have any old aunts in the 
 country to send a farewell present to, I have 
 some charmingly fine cambric, a superb Dresden 
 tea set, and a lovely little ' ape,' stuffed by the 
 late Lady W. herself." 
 
 " My good Sir," began Clarence. 
 
 " Oh, no thanks, Sir — none at all — too happy 
 to serve a relation of Mrs. Minden — always 
 proud to keep up family connections. You will 
 be at home to-morrow, Sir, at eleven — I will 
 look in — your most humble servant, Mr. Lin- 
 den." And almost upsetting Talbot, who 
 had just entered, Mr. Browu bowed himself 
 out.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 347 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " We talked with open heart and tongue, 
 
 Affectionate and true ; 
 A pair of friends, though I was young 
 
 And Matthew seventy-two." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Meanwhile the young artist proceeded 
 rapidly with his picture. Devoured by his en- 
 thusiasm, and utterly engrossed by the sanguine 
 anticipation of a fame which appeared to him 
 already won, he allowed himself no momentary 
 interval of relaxation; his food was eaten by 
 starts, and without stirring from his easil ; his 
 sleep was broken and brief by feverish dreams ;
 
 348 THK DISOWNED. 
 
 he no longer roved with Clarence, when the 
 evening threw her shade over his labours ; all 
 air and exercise he utterly relinquished ; shut 
 up in his narrow chamber he passed the hours 
 in a fervid and passionate self-commune, which 
 even in suspense from his work, riveted his 
 thoughts the closer to its object. All com- 
 panionship, all intrusion, he bore with an irrita- 
 bility and impatience that had hitherto seemed 
 perfectly opposite to his gentle and pensive 
 nature. Even Clarence found himself excluded 
 from the presence of his friend ; even his nearest 
 relation, who doated on the very ground which 
 he hallowed with his footstep, was banished 
 from the haunted sanctuary of the painter ; 
 from the most placid of human beings, Warner 
 seemed to have grown the most morose. Alas ! 
 there is a fever of the soul to which that of the 
 frame is ice. A fever which resembles the 
 burning stream of a volcano, that, arising when
 
 THE DISOWNED. 349 
 
 least suspected from the bosom of the quiet soil, 
 creates even in destroying, and hardens over a 
 new stratum utterly opposite to the nature of 
 the first. 
 
 Want of rest, abstinence from food, the 
 impatience of the strained spirit and jaded 
 nerves, all contributed to waste the health, while 
 they excited the genius of the artist. A crim- 
 son spot never before seen there, burnt in the 
 centre of his pale cheek ; his eye glowed with a 
 brilliant but unnatural fire ; his features grew 
 sharp and attenuated; his bones worked from 
 his whitening and transparent skin ; and the soul 
 and frame turned from their proper and kindly 
 union, seemed contesting, with fierce struggles, 
 which should obtain the mastery and the 
 triumph. 
 
 But neither his new prospects, nor the cold- 
 ness of his friend, diverted the warm heart of 
 Clarence from meditating how he could most
 
 350 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 effectually serve the artist, before he departed 
 from the country. It was a peculiar object of 
 desire to Warner, that the most celebrated 
 painter of the day, who was in terms of intimacy 
 with Talbot, and who with the benevolence of 
 real superiority was known to take a keen 
 interest in the success of more youthful and in- 
 experienced genius; — it was an object of peculiar 
 desire to Warner, that Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 should see his picture before it was completed ; 
 and Clarence, aware of this wish, easily obtained 
 from Talbot a promise that it should be effected. 
 That was the least service of his zeal : touched 
 by the earnestness of Linden's friendship, 
 anxious to oblige in any way his preserver, and 
 well pleased himself to be the patron of merit, 
 Talbot readily engaged to obtain for Warner 
 whatever the attention and favour of high rank 
 or literary distinction could bestow. " As for 
 his picture," said Talbot, (when, the evening
 
 THE DISOWNED. 351 
 
 before Clarence's departure, the latter was re- 
 newing the subject,) " I shall myself become 
 the purchaser, and at a price which will enable 
 our fiiend to afford leisure and study for the 
 completion of his next attempt ; but even at the 
 risk of offending your friendship, and disap- 
 pointing your expectations, I will frankly tell 
 you, that I think Warner overrates, perhaps not 
 his talents, but his powers; not his ability of 
 doing something great hereafter, but his capacity 
 of doing it at present. In the pride of his art, 
 he has shewn me many of his designs, and I am 
 somewhat of a judge: they want experience, cul- 
 tivation, taste, and above all, a deeper study of 
 the Ifalian masters. They all have the defects of 
 a feverish colouring, an ambitious desire of 
 effect, a wavering and imperfect outline, an 
 ostentatious and unnatural strength of light and 
 shadow ; they shew, it is true, a genius of no 
 ordinary stamp, but one ill regulated, inex-
 
 352 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 perienced, and utterly left to its own suggestions 
 for a model. However, I am glad he wishes for 
 the opinion of one necessarily the best judge ; 
 let him bring the picture here by Thursday, on 
 that day my friend has promised to visit me ; 
 and now let us talk of you and your de- 
 parture." 
 
 The intercourse of men of different ages is 
 essentially unequal : it must always partake more 
 or less of advice on one side and deference on 
 the other ; and although the easy and unpe- 
 dantic turn of Talbot's conversation made his 
 remarks rather entertaining, than obviously ad- 
 monitory, yet they were necessarily tinged by his 
 experience, and regulated by his interest in the 
 fortunes of his young friend. 
 
 " My dearest Clarence," said he, affection- 
 ately, " we are about to bid each other a long 
 farewell. I will not damp your hopes and anti- 
 cipations by insisting on the little chance there
 
 THE DISOWNED. 353 
 
 is that you should ever see rae again. You are 
 about to enter upon the great world, and have 
 within you the desire and the power of success ; 
 let me flatter myself that you can profit by my 
 experience. Among the colloquia of Erasmus, 
 there is a very entertaining dialogue between 
 Apicius and a man, who, desirous of giving a 
 feast to a very large and miscellaneous party, 
 comes to consult the epicure what will be the 
 best means to give satisfaction to all. Now you 
 shall be this Spudceus (so, I think, he is called,) 
 and I will be Apicius ; for the world, after all, 
 is nothing more than a great feast of different 
 strangers with different tastes, and of different 
 ages, and we must learn to adapt ourselves to 
 their minds, and our temptations to their pas- 
 sions, if we wish to fascinate or even to content 
 them. It seems strange enough that a free country 
 like ours, where it is important to please every 
 class, should, of all modern nations, appear the
 
 S54< THE DISOWNED. 
 
 most rather zealously to condemn, than merely 
 to neglect the manners and address which, like 
 learning, are so often better than house and 
 land. Very different was it in that ancient 
 Athens, now so much the object of cant and 
 emulation: there the most celebrated citizens 
 were the finest gentlemen. But, to return : as 
 the sea of manners is so unexplored, and I 
 (with the exception of my friend Lord Chester- 
 field, and, some years ago, of the courtly Boling- 
 broke) am the only Englishman who, to my 
 knowledge, ever attempted a chart of those un- 
 known deeps, suffer me to call your attention 
 to the hints and maxims which I have in this 
 paper amused myself with drawing up for your 
 instruction : take, and look over .them at your 
 leisure. Write to me from time to time, and I 
 will, in replying to your letters, give you the 
 best advice in my power. For the rest, my 
 dear boy, I have only to request that you will
 
 THE BISOWXED. 355 
 
 be frank, and I, in my turn, will promise that, 
 when I cannot assist I will never reprove. And 
 now, Clarence, as the hour is late, and you 
 leave us early to-morrow, I will no longer detain 
 you. God bless, and keep you. You are 
 going to enjoy life — I to anticipate death : so 
 that you can find in me little congenial to your- 
 self; but, as the good Pope said to our protes- 
 tant countryman, ' whatever the difference 
 between us, I know well that an old man's 
 blessing is never without its value.' " 
 
 As Clarence clasped his benefactor's hand, 
 the tears gushed from his eyes. Is there one 
 being, stubborn as the rock to misfortune, whom 
 kindness does not affect ? For our part, it seems 
 to us to come with a double grace and tender- 
 ness from the old ; it seems in them the hoarded 
 and long purified benevolence of years ; as if it 
 had survived and conquered the baseness and 
 selfishness of the ordeal it had passed ; as if
 
 B56 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 the winds which had broken the form, had 
 swept in vain across the heart, and the frost 
 which had chilled the blood and whitened the 
 thin locks, had possessed no power over the warm 
 tide of the affections. It is the triumph of 
 nature over art : it is the voice of the angel 
 which is yet within us. Nor is this all; the 
 tenderness of age is twice blessed — blessed in 
 its trophies over the obduracy of encrusting and 
 withering years, blessed because it is tinged 
 with the sanctity of the grave ; because it tells 
 us that the heart will blossom even upon the 
 precincts of the tomb, and flatters us with the 
 inviolacy and immortality of love.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " Cannot I create, 
 Cannot I form, cannot I fashion forth 
 Another world, another universe ?" 
 
 Keates. 
 
 The next morning Clarence, in his way out of 
 town, directed his carriage (the last and not the 
 least acceptable present from Talbot) to stop at 
 Warner's door. Although it was scarcely sun- 
 rise, the aged grandmother of the artist was stir- 
 ring and opened the door to the early visitor. 
 Clarence passed her with a brief salutation — 
 hurried up the narrow stairs, and found himself 
 in the artist's chamber. The windows were closed.
 
 358 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 and the air of the room was confined and hot. 
 A few books, chiefly of history and poetry, stood 
 in confused disorder upon some shelves opposite 
 the window. Upon a table beneath them lay a 
 flute, once the cherished recreation of the young 
 painter, but now long neglected and disused. 
 His dressing gown (the only garb he had worn 
 for weeks) lay upon a chair beside the bed; 
 and placed exactly opposite to Warner, so that 
 his eyes might open upon his v>^ork, was the high 
 prized and already more than half-finished 
 picture. 
 
 Clarence bent over the bed ; the cheek of the 
 artist rested upon his arm in an attitude uncon- 
 sciously picturesque ; the other arm was tossed 
 over the coverlid, and Clarence was shocked to 
 see how wan and emaciated it had become. But 
 ever and anon the lips of the sleeper moved rest- 
 lessly, and words, low and inarticulate, broke out. 
 Sometimes he started abruptly, and a bright.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 359 
 
 but evanescent flush darted over his faded and 
 hollow cheek ; and once the fingers of the thin 
 hand, which lay upon the bed, expanded, and 
 suddenly closed in a firm and almost painful 
 grasp ; it was then that, for the first time, the 
 words of the artist became distinct. 
 
 " Ay, ay,'' said he, *' I have thee, I have 
 thee at last. Long, very long, thou hast burnt 
 up my heart like fuel, and mocked me, and 
 laughed at my idle efforts ; but now, now I have 
 thee. Fame, Honour, Immortality, whatever 
 thou art called, I have thee, and thou canst not 
 escape ; but it is almost too late !" And as if 
 wrung by some sudden pain, the sleeper turned 
 heavily round, groaned audibly, and awoke. 
 
 " My friend," said Clarence, soothingly, and 
 taking his hand, " I have come to bid you fare- 
 well. I am just setting off for the continent, but 
 I could not leave England without once more 
 seeing you. I have good news too, for you."
 
 360 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 And Clarence proceeded to repeat Talbot's wish 
 that Warner should bring the picture to his house 
 on the following Thursday, that Sir Joshua 
 might inspect it. He added also, in terms the 
 flattery of which his friendship could not resist 
 exaggerating, Talbot's desire to become the 
 purchaser of the picture. 
 
 " Yes," said the artist, as his eye glanced de- 
 lightedly over his labour ; " yes, I believe when 
 it is once seen there will be many candidates." 
 
 *' No doubt," answered Clarence ; " and for 
 that reason you cannot blame Talbot for wishing 
 to forestall all other competitors for the prize ;'^ 
 and then continuing the encouraging nature of 
 the conversation, Clarence enlarged upon the 
 new hopes of his friend, besought him to take 
 time, to spare his health, and not to injure both 
 himself and his performance by over anxiety and 
 hurry. Clarence concluded, by retailing Tal- 
 bot''s assurance, that in all cases and circum-
 
 THE DISOWNED. 361 
 
 Stances he (Talbot) considered himself pledged 
 to be Warner's supporter and friend. 
 
 With something of impatience, mingled with 
 pleasure, the painter listened to all these details 
 of the warm hearted and affectionate Clarence ; 
 nor was it to Linden's zeal, or to Talbot's gene- 
 rosity, but rather to the excess of his own merit, 
 that he secretly attributed the brightening pro- 
 spect afforded him. 
 
 The indifference Warner's naturally kind dis- 
 position evinced at parting with a friend who 
 had always taken so strong an interest in his be- 
 half, and whose tears at that moment contrasted 
 forcibly enough with the apathetic coldness of 
 his own farewell, was a remarkable instance how 
 acute vividness on one point will deaden feeling 
 on all others. Occupied solely and burningly 
 with one intense thought, which was to him — 
 love, friendship, health, peace, wealth, Warner 
 could not excite feelings, languid and exhausted 
 
 VOL. I R
 
 362 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 with many and fiery conflicts, to objects of minor 
 interest, and perhaps he inwardly rejoiced that 
 his musings and his study would henceforth be 
 sacred even from friendship. 
 
 Deeply affected, for his nature was exceed- 
 ingly unselfish, generous and susceptible, Cla- 
 rence tore himself away, placed in the grand- 
 mother's hand a considerable portion of the sum 
 he had received from Talbot, hurried into his 
 carriage, and found himself on the high road to 
 fortune, pleasure, distinction, and the continent. 
 From him we will for some time part : when he 
 next appears, it will be upon a new stage, in 
 which ambition will be more open to energy, 
 and honour to desert. 
 
 But while Clarence, despite of every advan- 
 tage before him, hastened to a court of dissipa- 
 tion and pleasure, with feelings, in which regret- 
 ful affection for those he had left, darkened his 
 •worldly hopes, and mingled with the sanguine
 
 THE DISOWNED. 363 
 
 anticipations of youth, Warner, poor, low-born, 
 wasted with sickness, destitute of friends, shut 
 out by his temperament from the pleasures of 
 his age, burned with hopes far less alloyed than 
 those of Clarence, and found in them for the 
 sacrifice of all else, not only a recompense but a 
 triumph. 
 
 Thursday came. Warner had made one re- 
 quest of Talbot, which had with difficulty been 
 granted : it was that he himself might, unseen, 
 be the auditor of the great painter's criticisms, 
 and that Sir Joshua should be perfectly una- 
 ware of his presence. It had been granted with 
 difficulty, because Talbot wished to spare War- 
 ner the pain of hearing remarks, which he felt 
 would be likely to fall far short of the sanguine 
 self-elation of the young artist ; and it had been 
 granted, because Talbot imagined, that even 
 should this be the case, the pain would be more 
 than counterbalanced by the salutary effect it 
 R 2
 
 364 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 might produce. Alas! vanity calculates but 
 poorly upon the vanity of others ! What a virtue 
 we should distil from frailty, what a world of 
 pain we should save our brethren, if we would 
 
 suffer our own weaknesses to be the measure of 
 theirs ! 
 
 Thursday came ; the painting was placed by 
 the artist's own hand in the most favourable 
 light; a curtain, hung behind it, served as a 
 screen for Warner, who, retiring to his hiding- 
 place, surrendered his heart to delicious fore- 
 bodings of the critic's wonder, and golden anti- 
 cipations of the future destiny of his darling 
 work. Not a fear dashed the full and smooth 
 cup of his self-enjoyment ; he had lain awake 
 the whole of the night, in restless and joyous 
 impatience for the morrow. At day-break he had 
 started from his bed, he had unclosed his shutters, 
 he had hung over his picture with a fondness, 
 greater, if possible, than he had ever known
 
 THE DISOWNED. f565 
 
 before ; like a mother, he felt as if his own par- 
 tiality was but a part of an universal tribute : 
 and as his aged relative turned her dim eyes to 
 the painting, and in her innocent idolatry, 
 rather of the artist than his work, praised, and 
 expatiated, and foretold, his heart whispered — 
 '' If it wring this worship from ignorance, what 
 
 will be the homage of science ?"' 
 
 He who first laid down the now hacknied 
 maxim, that diffidence is the companion of 
 genius, knew very little of the workings of the 
 human heart. True, there may have been a few 
 such instances, and it is probable that in this 
 maxim, as in most, the exception made the rule. 
 But what could ever reconcile Genius to its 
 sufferings, its sacrifices, its fevered inquietudes, 
 the intense labour which can alone produce what 
 the shallow world deems the giant offspring of a 
 momentary inspiration ; what could ever recon- 
 cile it to these, but the haughty and imquench-
 
 366 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 able consciousness of internal power ; the hope 
 which has the fulness of certainty, that in pro- 
 portion to the toil is the reward ; the sanguine 
 and impetuous anticipation of glory, which 
 bursts the boundaries of time and space, and 
 ranges with a prophet's rapture the immea- 
 surable regions of immortality? Rob Genius of 
 its confidence, of its lofty self-esteem, and you 
 clip the wings of the eagle : you domesticate, it 
 is true, the wanderer you could not hitherto 
 comprehend, in the narrow bounds of your 
 household affections; you abase and tame it 
 more to the level of your ordinary judgments — 
 the walled in and petty circumference of your 
 little and common-place moralities — but you 
 take from it the power to soar ; the hardihood 
 which was content to brave the thunder cloud 
 and build its eyrie on the rock, for the proud 
 triumph of rising above its kind, and contem- 
 plating with a closer eye the majesty of heaven.
 
 THE DISOWNED. 367 
 
 But if something of presumption is a part of 
 the very essence of genius, in Warner it was 
 doubly natural, for he was still in the heat and 
 flush of a design, whose defects he had not yet 
 had the leisure to examine ; and his talents, self- 
 taught, and self-modelled, had never received 
 either the excitement of emulation or the chill 
 of discouragement from the study of the master- 
 pieces of his art. 
 
 The painter had not been long alone in his 
 concealment before he heard steps, his heart beat 
 violently, the door opened, and he saw through 
 a small hole which he had purposely made in 
 the curtain, a man with a benevolent and pre- 
 possessing countenance, whom he instantly re- 
 cognized as Sir Joshua Reynolds^ enter the 
 room, accompanied by Talbot. They walked up 
 to the picture ; the painter examined it closely, 
 and in perfect silence. " Silence," thought 
 Warner, " is the best homage of admiration ;"
 
 368 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 but he trembled with impatience to hear the 
 admiration confirmed by words, — >those words 
 came too soon. 
 
 " It is the work of a clever man, certainly,'* 
 said Sir Joshua ; " 6w^," (terrible monosyllable,) 
 '* of one utterly unskilled in the grand principles 
 of his art : look here, and here, and here, for 
 instance ;" and the critic, perfectly unconscious 
 of the torture he inflicted, proceeded to point 
 out the errors of the work. Oh ! the agony, the 
 withering agony of that moment to the ambitious 
 Artist \f — ^In vain he endeavoured to bear up 
 against the judgment — in vain he endeavoured 
 to persuade himself that it was the voice of envy 
 which in those cold, measured, definmg accents, 
 fell like drops of poison upon his heart. He 
 felt at once, and, as if by a magical inspiration, 
 the truth of the verdict; the scales of self-delusion 
 fell from his eyes; by a hideous mockery, a 
 kind of terrible pantomime, his goddess seemed
 
 THE DISOWNED, ^9 
 
 at a word, a breath, transformed into a monster: 
 life which had been so lately concentred into a 
 single hope, seemed now, at once and for ever, 
 cramped, curdled, blistered into a single dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " But," said Talbot, who had in vain at- 
 tempted to arrest the criticisms of the painter, 
 (who, very deaf at all times, was at that time 
 in particular engrossed by the self-satisfaction 
 always enjoyed by one expatiating on his favour- 
 ite topic), '' but," said Talbot, in a louder 
 voice, " you own there is great genius in the 
 design ?" 
 
 " Certainly, there is genius," replied Sir 
 Joshua, in a tone of calm and complacent good 
 nature. '' But what is genius without culture.'* 
 You say the artist is young, very young ; let hira 
 take time — I do not say let him attempt a hum- 
 bler walk, let him persevere in the lofty one he 
 has chosen — but let him first retrace every step 
 E 3
 
 370 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 he has taken; let him devote days, months, 
 years, to the most diligent study of the immor- 
 tal masters of the divine art, before he attempts 
 (to exhibit, at least,) another historical picture. 
 He has mistaken altogether the nature of inven- 
 tion : a fine invention is nothing more than a line 
 deviation from, or enlargement on a fine model ; 
 imitation, if noble and general, ensures the best 
 hope of originality. Above all, let your young 
 friend, if he can afford it, visit Italy, and copy 
 in Rome those works which have given to Rome 
 a mightier empire than the first — the empire of 
 the soul !" 
 
 " He shall afford it," said Talbot, kindly, 
 " for he shall have whatever advantages I can 
 procure him ; but you see the picture is only 
 half completed — he could alter it !" 
 
 " He had better hum it^'' replied the painter, 
 with a gentle smile. 
 
 And Talbot, in benevolent despair, hurried
 
 THE DISOWNED. 871 
 
 his visitor out of the room. He soon returned 
 to seek and console the artist, but the artist 
 was gone; the despised, the fatal picture, the 
 blessing and curse of so many anxious and 
 wasted hours, had vanished also with its creator.
 
 372 THE DISOWNEi). 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " What is this soul, then ? Whence 
 Came it ? — It does not seem my own, and I 
 Have no self passion or identity ! 
 Some fearful end must be. 
 
 * « m * m 
 
 There never lived a mortal man, who bent 
 His appetite beyond his natural sphere, 
 But starved and died." 
 
 Keate's Endymion. 
 
 On entering his homej Warner pushed aside, 
 for the first time in his life with disrespect, his 
 aged and kindly relation, who, as if in mockery 
 of the unfortunate artist, stood prepared to 
 welcome and congratulate his return. Bearing 
 his picture in his arms, he rushed up stairs,
 
 THE DISOWNED. $7^ 
 
 hurried into his room, and locked the door. 
 Hastily he tore aside the cloth which had been 
 drawn over the picture ; hastily and tremblingly 
 he placed it upon the frame accustomed to 
 support it, and then, with a long, long, eager, 
 searching, scrutinizing glance, he surveyed the 
 once beloved mistress of his worship. Pre- 
 sumption, vanity, exaggerated self-esteem, are, 
 in their punishment, supposed to excite ludi- 
 crous, not sympathetic emotion ; but there is 
 an excess of feeling, produced by whatever 
 cause it may be, into which we are, in despite of 
 ourselves, forced to enter. Even fear, the most 
 contemptible of the passions, becomes tragic 
 directly it becomes an agony. 
 
 " Well, well !" said Warner at last, speaking 
 very slowly, " it is over — it was a pleasant 
 dream — but it is over — I ought to be thankful 
 for the lesson." Then suddenly changing his 
 mood and tone, he repeated, " Thankful ! for
 
 374 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 what ? that I am a wretch — a wretch more utterly 
 hopeless, and miserable, and abandoned, than a 
 man who freights with all his wealth, his chil- 
 dren, his wife, the hoarded treasures and bless- 
 ings of an existence, one ship, one little, frail, 
 worthless ship, and, standing himself on the 
 shore, sees it suddenly go down ! Oh, was I 
 not a fool — a right noble fool — a vain fool — an 
 arrogant fool — a very essence and concentration 
 of all things that make a fool, to believe such 
 delicious marvels of myself ! What, man ! — (here 
 his eye saw in the opposite glass his features, 
 livid and haggard with disease, and the exhaust- 
 ing feelings which preyed within him) — what, 
 man! would nothing serve thee but to be a 
 genius — theey whom Nature stamped with her 
 curse ! Dwarf-like and distorted, mean in stature 
 and in lineament, thou wert, indeed, a glorious 
 being to perpetuate grace and beauty, the 
 majesties and dreams of art ! Fame for thee,
 
 THE DISOWNED. 375 
 
 indeed — ha — ha ! Glory — ha — ha ! a place 
 with Titian, Corregio, Raphael — ha — ha — 
 ha ! O, thrice modest, thrice reasonable fool ! 
 But this vile daub ; this disfigurement of can- 
 vass ; this loathed and wretched monument of 
 disgrace ; this notable candidate for — ha — ha — 
 immortality ! — this I have, at least, in my 
 power." And seizing the picture, he dashed it 
 to the ground, and trampled it with his feet 
 upon the dusty boards, till the moist colours 
 presented nothing but one confused and dingy 
 stain. 
 
 This sight seemed to recal him for a moment. 
 He paused, lifted up the picture once more, 
 and placed it on the table. " But,'* he mut- 
 tered, " might not this critic be envious ? am 
 I sure that he judged rightly — fairly ? The 
 greatest masters have looked askant and jealous 
 at their pupils' works. And then, how slow, 
 how cold, how damned cold, how indifferently
 
 376 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 he spoke ; why, the very art should have 
 
 warmed him more. Could he have No, no, 
 
 no : it was true, it was ! I felt the convic- 
 tion thrill through me like a barb — a barb of 
 searing iron. Burn it — did he say — ay — ^burn 
 it — it shall be done this instant." 
 
 And hastening to the door, he undid the 
 bolt. He staggered back as he beheld his old 
 and nearest surviving relative, the mother of his 
 father, seated upon the ground beside the door, 
 and listening with terror to the broken excla- 
 mations of the solitude she durst not interrupt. 
 She rose slowly, and with difficulty, as she saw 
 him ; and throwing around him the withered 
 arms which had nursed his infancy, exclaimed, 
 " My child ! my poor — poor child ! what has 
 come to you of late ? you, who were so gentle, 
 so mild, so quiet — ^you are no longer the same — 
 and, oh, my son, how ill you look : your father 
 looked so just before he died !''
 
 THE DISOWNED. 877 
 
 ** 111 !" said he, with a sort of fearful gaiety, 
 " 111 — no — I never was so well — I have been 
 in a dream till now — but I have woke at last. 
 Why, it is true that I have been silent and 
 shy, but I will be so no more. I will laugh, 
 and talk, and walk, and make love, and drink 
 wine, and be all that other men are. Oh, we 
 will be so merry. But stay here, while I fetch 
 a light." 
 
 " A light, my child, for what .?*" 
 
 " For a funeral !" shouted Warner, and 
 rushing past her, he descended the stairs, and 
 returned almost in an instant with a light. 
 
 Alarmed and terrified, the poor old woman 
 had remained motionless, and weeping violently. 
 Her tears Warner did not seem to notice ; he 
 pushed her gently into the room, and began 
 deliberately, and without uttering a syllable, to 
 cut the picture into shreds. 
 
 '* What are you about, my child ?^ cried the
 
 378 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 old woman ; *' you are mad, it is your beautiful 
 picture that you are destroying r"* 
 
 Warner did not reply, but going to the hearth, 
 piled togetheYy with nice and scrupulous care, 
 several pieces of paper, and stick, and matches, 
 into a sort of pyre; then placing the shreds 
 of the picture upon it, he applied the light, and 
 the whole was instantly in a blaze. 
 
 " Look, look!" cried he, in an hysterical tone, 
 " how it burns, and crackles, and blazes ! What 
 master ever equalled it now ? — no fault now in 
 those colours — no false tints in that light and 
 shade ! See how that flame darts up and soars ! 
 — that flame is my spirit! Look — is it not restless ? 
 — does it not aspire bravely ? — why, all its brother 
 flames are grovellers to it ! — and now — why don't 
 you look ! — it falters — fades— droops — and — ha 
 — ha — ha ! — poor idler, the fuel is consumed — 
 and— it is darkness !" 
 
 As Warner uttered these words, his eyes
 
 THE DISOWNED. 379 
 
 reeled ; the room swam before him ; the excite- 
 ment of his feeble frame had reached its highest 
 pitch ; the disease of many weeks had attained 
 its crisis ; and tottering back a few paces, he 
 fell upon the floor, the victim of a delirious and 
 raging fever. 
 
 But it was not thus that the young artist was 
 to die. He was reserved for a death, that, like 
 his real nature, had in it more of gentleness 
 and poesy. He recovered by slow degrees, and 
 his mind, almost in despite of himself, returned 
 to that profession from which it was impossible 
 to divert the thoughts and musings of many 
 years. Not that he resumed the pencil and the 
 easil : on the contrary, he could not endure them 
 in his sight : they appeared to a mind festered 
 and sore, Hke a memorial and monument of 
 shame. But he nursed within him a strong 
 and ardent desire to become a pilgrim to that
 
 380 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 beautiful land of which he had so often dreamt, 
 and which the innocent destroyer of his peace 
 had pointed out as the theatre of inspiration, 
 and the nursery of future fame. 
 
 The physicians who at Talbot's instigation 
 attended him, looked at his hectic cheek and 
 consumptive frame, and readily flattered his 
 desire ; and Talbot, no less interested in War- 
 ner's behalf on his own account, than bound by 
 his promise to Clarence, generously extended 
 to the Artist that bounty which is the most 
 precious prerogative of the rich. Notwithstand- 
 ing her extreme age, his grandmother insisted 
 upon attending him : there is in the heart of 
 woman so deep a well of love, that no age can 
 freeze it. They made the voyage : they reached 
 the shore of the myrtle and the vine, and entered 
 the imperial city. The air of Rome seemed at 
 first to operate favourably upon the health of
 
 THE DISOWNED. 381 
 
 the English Artist. His strength appeared to 
 increase, his spirit to expand ; and though he 
 had relapsed into more than his original silence 
 and reserve, he resumed, with apparent energy 
 the labours of the easil. Those who looked no 
 deeper than the surface, might have imagined 
 the scar healed, and the real foundation of fu- 
 ture excellence began. 
 
 But while Warner most humbled himself 
 before the gods of the pictured world; while 
 the true principles of the mighty art opened in 
 their fullest glory on his soul ; precisely at that 
 very moment, shame and despondency were 
 most bitter at his heart ; and while the enthu- 
 siasm of the painter kindled, the ambition of the 
 man despaired. But still he wenf on, trans- 
 fusing into his canvass the grandeur and sim- 
 plicity of the Roman school ; still, though he 
 felt palpably within him the creeping advance
 
 382 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 of the deadliest and surest enemy to fame, he 
 pursued, with an unwearied ardour, the me- 
 chanical completion of his task ; still, the 
 morning found him bending before the easil, 
 and the night brought to his solitary couch, 
 meditation, rather than sleep. The fire, the irri- 
 tability which he had evinced before his illness, 
 had vanished, and the original sweetness of his 
 temper had returned ; he uttered no complaint, 
 he dwelt upon no anticipation of success, hope 
 and regret seemed equally dead within him ; 
 and it was only when he caught the fond, glad 
 eyes of his aged attendant, that his own filled with 
 tears, or that the serenity of his brow darkened 
 into sadness. 
 
 This went on for some months : till one even- 
 ing they found the painter by his window, 
 seated opposite to an unfinished picture, the 
 pencil was still in his hand : the quiet of settled
 
 THE DISOWNED. 383 
 
 thought was still upon his countenance ; the 
 soft breeze of a southern twilight waved the hair 
 livingly from his forehead — the earliest star of a 
 southern sky lent to his cheek something of that 
 subdued lustre which, when enthusiasm touched 
 it, it had been accustomed to wear, but these 
 were only the mockeries of life : life itself was no 
 more ! In the divine land which he had so yearn- 
 ed to tread — in the consecrated city where the 
 majesty of his sublime art reigned as on a throne 
 — in the purple air in which poesy and inspira- 
 tion mingled with the common breath and atmo- 
 sphere of life — his restless and unworldly spirit 
 sighed itself away ; and the heart, which in si- 
 lence and concealment had been long breaking, 
 broke at last ! 
 
 There are two tombs close to each other in 
 the stranger's burial-place at ^ome : they cover 
 those for whom life, unequally long, terminated 
 in the same month. The one is of a woman.
 
 884 THE DISOWNED. 
 
 bowed with the burthen of many years ; the 
 other darkens over the humble dust of the 
 Ambitious Artist. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDC ' : 
 SHACKELL AND BAYLIS, JOHNSO" S-COVRT, FLEET-STRUT.