■^* 
 
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 LI B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLR^SITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 vJ '
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/premier01mudf
 
 THE 
 
 PREMIER 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1831.
 
 825 
 
 V. I 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 The volumes now delivered to the Public 
 have one circumstance in their favour. They 
 cannot share the fate of works of fiction, by 
 being condemned as improbable. Fiction they 
 undoubtedly contain ; but in so small a propor- 
 tion, that they who may be able to recognise 
 where the truth begins, will hardly detect where 
 it ends. The originals of every character in- 
 troduced are still livings with the exception of 
 -^ two, and the grave has closed over them only a 
 Vv very few years. Many of the scenes in which 
 T^they are brought forward as actors are tran- 
 .. scripts from reality ; but with what fidelity 
 c they have been made, others must determine. 
 
 March, 1831. 
 
 vv
 
 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " This is too bad!" exclaimed the Earl of 
 Villopoer, tossing from him an official paper, 
 tied with green ribbon, which he had been read- 
 ing. " I cannot, in conscience, sanction such a 
 demand; especially," he added with a smile, 
 " when, if conscience were out of the question, 
 there are considerations of another kind which 
 would make it extremely inconvenient." 
 
 His Lordship's servant entered, and announced 
 Mr. Cranstoun. 
 
 " My dear Cranstoun," said the Earl, " I 
 have been half put out of humour by reading 
 the paper you sent me along with the last des- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ^Z THE PREMIER. 
 
 patches from Paris : I mean the memorial of 
 Sir Frederick Beauchamp." 
 
 " It is an impudent business/' replied Mr. 
 Cranstoun ; " but we must amuse Sir Frederick 
 with urbanities for a while, because it would 
 very much embarrass the present negociations 
 if they had to be carried on through a fresh 
 minister ; and I suppose a flat negative would 
 make him solicit his recall." 
 
 " Not it;' said the Earl of Villopoer ; " Sir 
 Frederick Beauchamp loves three things which 
 he now enjoys, too well to resign them in a pet 
 — parade, patronage, and twelve thousand a- 
 year. However, I agree with you, it will be 
 convenient not even to ruffle his temper, and 
 therefore, when you write to him, you can say 
 his application is under consideration, or that 
 it will be taken into consideration at the ear- 
 liest moment, when the attention of his Majes- 
 ty's government can be drawn to it." 
 
 " I '11 take care and write something civil 
 and satisfactory," answered Mr. Cranstoun, as 
 he put the memorial of Sir Frederick into his 
 pocket.
 
 THE PREMIER. 3 
 
 " Is there any thing before the House to- 
 night P" inquired Lord Villopoer. 
 
 " Yes ; but I have not heard yet whether 
 they have made a House. Wilmot is to send 
 up a messenger, if they do ; and I expect they 
 will ; for poor Crichton, who is quite big with a 
 speech about economy, has a motion for redu- 
 cing the estimate upon stationery in the public 
 offices, to-night. He asked me yesterday if I 
 meant to oppose it. I told him he should have 
 my support for the saving of half-a-yard of red 
 tape, provided he showed that the other half 
 was sufficient. ' That 's all I require,' said 
 he ; ' / pledge myself to prove extravagance, 
 you to put an end to it when proved ;' and so 
 we parted; having come to a mutual under- 
 standing of each other'^s intentions, like Hotspur 
 and Glendower. ' Why, I can teach thee, coz, 
 to command the devil." — ' And if thou have 
 power to raise the devil, bring him hither ; and 
 I 11 be sworn I have power to shame him 
 hence."" 
 
 " Crichton,'*" observed Lord Villopoer, " is a 
 singular instance of what a man may effect by 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE PREMIER. 
 
 dint of incessant talking, unrestrained by any 
 misgivings about talking to the purpose. I 
 suppose there never sat in the House of Com- 
 mons, since the existence of parliament, a mem- 
 ber who committed so many and such signal 
 blunders upon every subject as he has ; yet — 
 
 ' Destroy his blunders of to-night — in vain ! 
 The blockhead 's at his blundering work again.' 
 
 And, to say the truth, he has forced himself 
 into a sort of notoriety."" 
 
 " His notoriety is easily explained,"''' observed 
 Cranstoun. " He who cries out upon abuses, 
 and seems to weep over his country's wrongs, 
 soon gets to the top of popular preferment. 
 But Crichton is not at the top, nor ever will be, 
 because his blunders have made him ridiculous, 
 and ridicule, when it adheres justly to a man, 
 constitutes an impassable barrier in the pursuit 
 of moral or political influence. I do not hold, 
 with Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the test of 
 truth : but I always feel, when I have an adver- 
 sary to deal with who has any point about him 
 which can be rendered plausibly ridiculous, I 
 have a weapon in my hand worth a dozen 
 syllogisms. Now, Crichton has hardly a point
 
 THE PREMIER. 5 
 
 about him Avhich is jiot honestly ridiculous; 
 so that I am sometimes absolutely oppressed 
 with the abundance of my materials in that 
 way. But his head is of adamant, his face of 
 brass; you may knock at the one till dooms- 
 day, without making an impression, and look at 
 the other, as a hopeless lover gazes in the coun- 
 tenance of an imperious mistress, without see- 
 ing the feeling you think you have excited.'' 
 
 '* Our friend the Secretary set him down 
 neatly enough, the other night, I thought, upon 
 the question of the Marines," remarked his 
 Lordship. 
 
 " Yes, Wilson has the knack of drawing out, 
 into full-length absurdity, the lurking nonsense 
 of a brain addled by overweening vanity. Be- 
 sides, a fool is a fool, in whatever vocation he 
 shows his folly; and Wilson is incomparable in 
 the tact he possesses for scratching the long 
 ears of an asinine author. The transition is 
 easy, from braying on paper to braying for the 
 papers." 
 
 ••' Ay, — that braying for the papers, as you 
 call it, has silently worked a great revolution in 
 this country."
 
 6, THE PREMIER. 
 
 '^ And practically accomplished a great evil,*"* 
 added Cranstoun ; " the evil of speaking to 
 the country, instead of deliberating and acting 
 for it. What is the consequence ? We spend 
 days and nights in gladiatorial exhibitions of 
 contentious debate, or premeditated displays 
 of mere declamation, while the business of the 
 State languishes on from week to week, to be at 
 last postponed till another session ; or, what is 
 worse, disposed of with the crude, undignified 
 despatch of a parish vestry."" 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by the ar- 
 rival of Mr. Wilmot, who came to announce 
 that they had made a House. 
 
 " I think the Speaker was determined to 
 have one,"' said he, (swinging his arms about 
 like a Dutch toy, which gesticulates so ve- 
 hemently by the aid of a piece of pack- 
 thread), " for he stuck at thirty-five, when it 
 did not want five seconds to four; then looking 
 behind his chair, where he saw that dried eel- 
 skin of a senator, General Thornby, curled up 
 in a corner reading a petition twice his own 
 size, which he had to present, ' I believe I
 
 THE PREMIER. 7 
 
 have miscounted — honourable members will be 
 pleased to take their places and come forward,' 
 said he ; — began again, — ' one — two — three," — 
 like minute guns, and before he got to twenty, 
 in came Crichton, with half-a-dozen more, from 
 the Committee upon Irish lunatics above-stairs; 
 — so, there was a full-grown House. — Crichton 
 asked me if I knew what time you would likely 
 be down there," continued Wilmot, addressing 
 Cranstoun, " for he says you are to support 
 his motion to-night, for beginning to pay oft* 
 the national debt by saving a thousand a-year 
 in stationery." 
 
 Cranstoun smiled at the small wit of his 
 friend Wilmot, and begged he would return to 
 the House with a message from himself to the 
 Speaker, requesting him to call Crichton's mo- 
 tion on as early as the usual preliminary busi- 
 ness would permit; "for," added he, "he 
 commonly talks an hour about things in gene- 
 ral, before he begins upon the particular thing 
 of which he has given notice ; and among the 
 enjoyments of this life which I am content to 
 resign, is that of watching the desultory move-
 
 8 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ments of his fore-finger, always so emphatically 
 employed as an emblem of the discursive cha- 
 racter of his oratory." 
 
 Wilmot posted back upon his errand, (and 
 to his seat upon the Treasury bench, which offi- 
 cial subalterns are permitted to grace with their 
 presence, before five in the afternoon,) while 
 Cranstoun and Lord Villopoer continued in 
 earnest discourse. 
 
 The subject of their conversation related to 
 a matter of domestic policy ; but their mode of 
 discussing it forcibly illustrated the different 
 characters of these two ministers, or rather, 
 the striking difference in the qualities of their 
 minds. In principle, there was a perfect agree- 
 ment between them ; they both sought the 
 same ends, and were animated by the same 
 reverence for existing institutions. But the 
 bold and comprehensive views of Cranstoun 
 led him to suggest and approve measures, 
 which the timid anxiety of his noble friend to 
 avoid possible hazard, made him reluctant to 
 sanction. Indeed, it could hardly be said he 
 always clearly discerned the whole extent of 
 Cranstoun's plans ; and such was his inflexible
 
 THE PREMIER. 9 
 
 integrity in the discharge of solemnly respon- 
 sible duties, that no confidence in the wisdom 
 or ofood intentions of another could induce him to 
 give his assent, where he did not see, or believed 
 he saw, the precise boundaries and probable 
 workings of the thing to which he assented. 
 
 Lord Villopoer was essentially an honest 
 man, and therefore he was, of necessity, a nega- 
 tive minister, unless he could have found a world 
 as honest as himself. Perhaps, too, as there 
 is no such world to be found, his honesty 
 sometimes stood in the way of his efficiency ; 
 for, melancholy as the paradoxical confession 
 may sound, it is more than an even chance 
 he would have been a better minister had he 
 been a worse man. In fact, being a knavish 
 world, how can it be expected that honesty 
 should govern it? It is misplaced. Instead 
 of being called to rule, it should be appoint- 
 ed to instruct and reform ; consequently, in- 
 stead of standing at the foot of the throne, or 
 sitting in cabinets and councils, its place should 
 be in pulpits, colleges, and episcopal stalls. The 
 Earl of Villopoer, as Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, would have cultivated his many virtues, 
 B 5
 
 10 THE PREMIER. 
 
 and made their rich harvest a blessing to those 
 who were poor in such husbandry ; but as First 
 Lord of the Treasury, they were in constant 
 collision with the stronger vices of the time, 
 which they could not subdue, and would not 
 deign to cozen a little ; so, like family papers, 
 or treasured things of imaginary value, they 
 were of no use to any one but the owner. 
 
 Cranstoun was an honest man, too ; but he 
 wore his honesty as men wear their garments, 
 with an eye to convenience and the custom of 
 others. He relinquished purely speculative for 
 slightly alloyed practical virtue. Rather than 
 be foiled by duplicity, he would borrow from 
 duplicity her own cloak, and throwing it loosely 
 round him, as if worn less for use than from 
 custom, employ it as it might seem needful. 
 He understood human nature too well, to build 
 upon its sandy foundations as if they were of 
 solid rock. But there was, notwithstanding 
 a noble frankness, a lofty feeling of confiding 
 honour in his composition, which, when he 
 knew he could give them play, it was at once 
 the pride and joy of his manly spirit to do. On 
 such occasions, and how few such there were !
 
 THE PREMIER. 11 
 
 he was emphatically himself, — on all others, he 
 was more or less the creature of his situation, 
 moulded by, and under the direct influence of, 
 the circumstances by which he was surrounded. 
 
 In early life, his native frankness of cha- 
 racter exposed him to the machinations of 
 those who deal with political novices as cer- 
 tain worthy matrons do with innocence of an- 
 other kind; and smarting under the sting of 
 having been betrayed, he ever after kept so 
 strict a guard upon the treacherous virtue, that 
 he might almost be said to err in the contrary 
 extreme, by making suspicion the sentinel over 
 each avenue to his confidence. How painfully 
 irksome such a system of constrained vigilance 
 must have been to a man of Cranstoun's natu- 
 turally candid and open disposition may be 
 easily imagined ; and it may as easily be ima- 
 gined how ardent and impetuous were the ad- 
 vances of his heart, whenever it was released 
 from its fetters. 
 
 The intellectual character of Cranstoun was 
 of the highest order. Classical attainments, 
 learning, in its best sense, and knowledge in its 
 most comprehensive utility, had been the fruits
 
 12 THE PREMIER. 
 
 of his scholastic studies. There was that keen 
 relish of Greek and Roman literature in him, 
 that unsated and insatiable appetite for the 
 sterling literature of all nations, that passion 
 for reading, and that vigorous grasp of mind, 
 by which he seized and held every thing which 
 a disciplined taste at once selected as alone 
 worthy of being sought or retained, that had it 
 not been his fortune, like another great man, 
 " to give up to party what was meant for man- 
 kind," there is no doubt he would have achieved 
 signal glory as one of that class to whom John- 
 son ascribes the distinction of '' constituting 
 the chief glory of every country." He had wit, 
 fancy, imagination ; a quick conception, a re- 
 tentive memory ; a singularly acute perception 
 of the ridiculous, dextrous powers of reasoning, 
 a diction at once simple, copious, and forcible, 
 rising, when the occasion demanded it, into 
 poetical fervour ; and an enlarged perception of 
 the remotest ramifications into which an argu- 
 ment legitimately branched. 
 
 All these rare qualifications he brought into 
 public life ; and united, as they were, to a fine 
 person, a sonorous voice, a graceful elocution.
 
 THE PREMIER. 13 
 
 an animated cast of features, and varied powers 
 of oratory, embracing with equal facility the 
 logical, the declamatory, the sarcastic, the vi- 
 tuperative, the sophistical, and the impas- 
 sioned, as each was deemed suitable to his 
 purpose, it is no wonder that Mr. Cranstoun 
 was early distinguished in the House of Com- 
 mons, or that, being there, his progress to po- 
 litical power was rapid. It was natural, too, 
 that a man so gifted should exercise an influ- 
 ence upon any administration to which he 
 might belong, beyond the recognised influence 
 of the official rank which attached to his station 
 in the government. This would necessarily 
 happen, unless there were any one among his 
 colleagues who overtopped him in these gifts ; 
 a rare contingency, — and which certainly was 
 not the case at the period we are describing. 
 Hence, though Mr. Cranstoun was only a 
 member of the Earl of Villopoer's government, 
 the country and the parliament considered him, 
 and not unjustly, as the presiding mind which 
 imparted vigour, dignity, and efficiency to its 
 measures. 
 
 He was proud of this influence, and he had a
 
 14? THE PREMIER. 
 
 right to be so ; for he had acquired and main- 
 tained it, with no other claims than those of 
 character, unaccredited by patrician descent, or 
 patrician patronage. He had sprung from the 
 people,— and on more than one occasion it had 
 been his public boast that he was one of the 
 people. In this free country, where, in every 
 walk of life, the same honourable success is open 
 to every individual, it could be no reproach to 
 him that he had started in the common race, 
 and won the prize. There is, it is true, a poli- 
 tical creed professed by some, which assigns to 
 a certain combination of great families a right 
 to dictate to the sovereign and to influence the 
 nation ; and this doctrine of hereditary aptitude 
 for administration is, ridiculously enough, most 
 prevalent among those who find nothing more 
 laughable than the principle of legitimacy in 
 the crown. But to depend directly upon the 
 people, to lean on no other support than that of 
 public confidence, as a minister, and to surround 
 yourself with the only just pretensions to pre- 
 side over the welfare of your fellow-citizens, the 
 pretensions of your own fitness, not your trans- 
 mitted title or wealth, are advantages which no
 
 THE PREMIER. 15 
 
 truly great mind would exchange for an ances- 
 try of a hundred generations. 
 
 " I see all the advantages of the plan you 
 propose," said Lord Villopoer, after having 
 attentively listened to its details from his right 
 honourable colleague ; "but indeed, my dear 
 Cranstoun, I do not think this a favourable 
 juncture for the experiment. If we make the 
 attempt, and fail, the consequences would be 
 most embarrassing. Besides, the necessity for 
 it is neither urgent, or created by any new 
 position of public affairs; and under these cir- 
 cumstances, I cannot avoid coming to the conclu- 
 sion that it would be unwise to risk a possible 
 evil in the pursuit of a certain good — that good, 
 (though desirable, I admit,) not presenting 
 itself to our consideration as an essential ingre- 
 dient in the actual welfare of the country." 
 
 " True," replied Cranstoun, " and therefore 
 I would seize the occasion for doing it ; and not 
 wait, till it becomes a necessity of so compul- 
 sory a character, that we shall have to con- 
 sider it perhaps in a crisis of public agitation, 
 when passions and interests which now slumber 
 would be roused to a state of formidable ex-
 
 16 THE PREMIER. 
 
 citement. Serum est cavendi tempus in mediis 
 malisy 
 
 '* But don't you see, my dear Cranstoun," re- 
 joined his Lordship placidly — " don't you per- 
 ceive, that the moment you breathed a whisper 
 of such a measure being in the contemplation 
 of his Majesty's government, you would at once 
 excite those very interests and passions ?" 
 
 '' Granted," said Cranstoun ; " but as the 
 measure never can be brought forward without 
 exciting those interests and passions, if \\\efear 
 of exciting them is to be the restraining mo- 
 tive, it m.ust operate as a perpetual impediment. 
 /, however, look at the means^ merely as a 
 choice of evils, (for the measure itself must 
 sooner or later be adopted,) and then I ask 
 myself, shall I choose my own eviU and, by so 
 doing, be prepared to control and direct it ; or 
 shall I wait till it bursts upon me in a shape, and 
 with a magnitude, neither of which I can dis- 
 tinctly anticipate, and so be left to grapple with 
 the danger (like a man in the dark, or sudden- 
 ly awoke from sleep,) when I am least able to 
 discern clearly where it most threatens, or 
 comprehend what is its exact character H — The
 
 THE PREMIER. 17 
 
 fact is," added Cranstoun, smiling, " I am for 
 at once inoculating the nation, as a milder 
 form of the disease ; while you are willing to 
 run the risk of its taking it naturally ; pretty 
 well determined, however, if the child should 
 be lucky enough to escape a little longer, to 
 think seriously of inoculation."" 
 
 " It is at all times a difficult problem to de- 
 termine, whether positive perils should be in- 
 voked as the instruments of contingent secu- 
 rity," observed Lord Villopoer. 
 
 '* No problem," rejoined Cranstoun, " is 
 more easy of solution, in the majority of those 
 cases in which it really presents itself. The 
 difficulty exists, only when the peril and the se- 
 curity are equally balanced ; but let the beam in- 
 cline either way — let there be more peril than 
 security, or more security than peril, and it 
 rarely happens that the decision to be taken is 
 not as clearly indicated, as the preponderance 
 of the interests which are at issue." 
 
 " That seems to be an incontrovertible pro- 
 position, thus abstractedly enunciated," said 
 Lord Villopoer ; " yet, in the first step we took to 
 reduce it to practice, in the question now under
 
 18 THE PREMIER. 
 
 consideration, we should be met by difficulties 
 that would go on increasing as we advanced.''' 
 
 " I would fain see them !" interrupted Cran- 
 stoun. 
 
 " So would not I,^' added his Lordship, shak- 
 ing his head. 
 
 " I mean," continued Cranstoun, " I would 
 fain see the difficulties which would be greater 
 than the advantages, or greater than we should 
 have the means to subdue. Do you fear the 
 country.? I would stake my existence, we 
 should neither hear nor see any movement in 
 the country, beyond a few public meetings, a 
 few vehement petitions, a war of pamphlets, 
 and some half-score of stormy debates in both 
 houses. Do you fear our friends ? There will 
 be defections — there must be some — but they 
 will bear no proportion to the menaces of de- 
 sertion, — mark that ; besides which, we may 
 reckon upon new adherents. Is it the cabinet 
 itself that will present obstacles ? I have con- 
 sidered those obstacles in every shape. They 
 are not insuperable. They only require a union 
 of firmness and delicacy ; firmness towards party 
 scruples, delicacy towards conscientious ones,
 
 THE PREMIER. 19 
 
 and they will disappear. There remains the last 
 and greatest consideration — his Majesty. You 
 know as well as I do, that the royal mind on 
 this question has a secret bias which is kept in 
 check partly by the influence of filial recollec- 
 tions and family persuasions, and partly by the 
 love of ease ; the former, a passive indisposi- 
 tion ; the latter, a positive reluctance to be in- 
 volved in the strife of parties. You remember 
 the explicit and remarkable declaration made 
 at the council table, not two years ago, upon 
 this subject. But were it otherwise, it would 
 be affectation to disguise from ourselves that 
 the power is in our own hands ; for ^" 
 
 At this moment the conversation was inter- 
 rupted by the entrance of Mr. Oxford, a right 
 honourable colleague, and one of those members 
 of the cabinet to whom Cranstoun more parti- 
 cularly alluded, when he spoke of the delicacy 
 which it would be desirable to observe towards 
 conscientious scruples. 
 
 The Right Hon. Sydney Oxford had, like 
 Cranstoun, sprung from the people ; but, un- 
 like Cranstoun, he wanted manliness of charac- 
 ter to regard that circumstance in its true light
 
 20 THE PREMIER. 
 
 They who knew him best, knew that he wished 
 it were a task for his arithmetic to count the 
 lords he could call cousin ; that he would fain 
 have been able to say his family came in with 
 the Conqueror, or that he was the proud slip or 
 scion of some honourable tree. It was not 
 enough for his ambition that he was the son 
 of an honourable father, because that father 
 was the son of obscure parents; though he 
 had risen by industry and talent to a station 
 in society which enabled him to form al- 
 liances for his children among the nobility, 
 and to place his eldest son, Sydney, in the 
 path which had conducted him to his present 
 elevation. 
 
 Sydney Oxford was one of those clever, pru- 
 dent, persevering, sensible, judicious, well-edu- 
 cated men who swarm in the middle and upper 
 ranks of life, but of whom nothing is either 
 heard or known beyond the circle in which 
 they happen to move, unless fortune lifts them 
 out of it and places them on a vacant pe- 
 destal in church or state. Then they attract 
 notice, invite admiration, and receive homage. 
 They who can discern nothing remarkable in
 
 THE PREMIER. 21 
 
 them while they move along in the general 
 crowd, discover a multitude of extraordinary 
 qualities, which they wonder they never saw 
 before, the moment they are exalted above 
 their heads; while some, who are candid 
 enough to give them credit for a fair allowance 
 of moderate talent in their comparative obscu- 
 rity, finding their sagacity sharpened by per- 
 ceiving they have been unaccountably passed 
 over themselves, when there is a vacant pedes- 
 tal to fill, are suddenly struck with the excess 
 of their candour, and acknowledge how strange- 
 ly they have been deceived as to the extent of 
 Mr. Such-a-one''s abilities. 
 
 Sydney Oxford had received his full share of 
 both these effects of his advancement. There 
 were those who thought him a distinguished 
 statesman ; and there were those who thought 
 him the mere made-up man of business, which 
 long training in official habits will make of any 
 man of decent parts. The truth of his charac- 
 ter lay between these extreme points. He cer- 
 tainly was not a great statesman, or a states- 
 man of any degree ; and as certainly he was 
 something more, than walking the offices be-
 
 22 THE PREMIER. 
 
 tween the Horse Guards and Downing Street 
 could of itself produce. 
 
 When contrasted with the splendour and bril- 
 liancy of Cranstoun, he was as a torch burning 
 pale and dimly in the meridian blaze of the 
 solar beams; but, that great luminary with- 
 drawn, he flared as brightly as any, and threw 
 a steadier light than some by whom he was 
 surrounded. To a plain and unambitious style 
 of oratory, he added a homely, laborious, and 
 rather common-place mode of argument. Wit, 
 repartee, eloquence, poetical reaches of diction 
 or poetical combinations of ideas, felicitous illus- 
 trations, and those vigorous onsets of logical 
 demonstration, which flash conviction with irre- 
 sistible power upon the mind, were all utterly 
 beyond the intellectual grasp of Oxford. He 
 knew this, and he had too much good sense to 
 expose himself to the derision of failure, by at- 
 tempting them. He preferred to substitute 
 that which he did possess, a level, quiet, respect- 
 able manner of address, set off* by great urba- 
 nity of deportment, and supported by a careful 
 endeavour to be always thoroughly conversant 
 with the essential facts and circumstances of
 
 THE PREMIER. 23 
 
 whatever he discussed. These qualities, united 
 with a plausible air of sincerity and candour, 
 and wholly free from any of those " biting 
 jests,"" which, as Lord Capel says, " the more 
 truth they carry with them, the broader scarred 
 memory they leave behind them ; many times 
 being like the wounds of chewed bullets, where 
 the ruggedness causeth almost incurable hurts,'"' 
 — obtained for Sydney Oxford a degree of con- 
 sideration and respect which does not always wait 
 upon the possessor of loftier pretensions. 
 
 He had now called upon Lord Villopoer in 
 his way down to the House of Commons, hear- 
 ing that Cranstoun was there, to whom he had 
 some communication to make touching the ex- 
 pected business of the evening. He was of 
 course informed of what had been the tenor of 
 the conversation between Cranstoun and the 
 Earl, which he had momentarily interrupted, 
 and which was resumed, for a short time, before 
 the three ministers repaired to their respective 
 parliamentary duties. Cranstoun urged, with 
 unabated earnestness, his desire to see the mea- 
 sure deliberately brought forward, convinced as 
 he was of its justice in all times, and satisfied
 
 24 THE PREMIER. 
 
 moreover of its expediency and safety at that 
 particular period. The Earl of Villopoer con- 
 ceded the first ground, with some limitations, 
 but persisted in his doubts as to its then expe- 
 diency and safety ; while Oxford, who was the 
 recognised champion of its opponents both in 
 and out of parliament, contented himself with 
 remarking that his sentiments upon the subject 
 were well known. 
 
 " They are unchanged,"* said he, " and I feel 
 that they are unchangeable. I say this, because 
 I have never, as you will do me the justice to 
 acknowledge, rested my opposition to the ques- 
 tion upon any other principle than that of a 
 solemn, rooted, and profound conviction of its 
 danger. At no period of my public life has it 
 been with me^ as with some most eminent states- 
 men now living, and others who are dead, a con- 
 sideration of time, or of circumstances, or of 
 persons. There is no time, there are no circum- 
 stances, there are no persons, when, or under 
 which, or in deference to whose authority, I 
 could lay my hand upon my heart, and, as an 
 honest man, as a responsible minister of the
 
 THE PREMIER. 25 
 
 crown, or, as a conscientious legislator, gtue my 
 consent to the carrying of that measure. At the 
 same time, if ever it should be thought neces- 
 sary, by a majority of his Majesty's confidential 
 advisers, to propose it in that quarter, with a 
 view to bringing it forward in Parliament, I 
 shall be prepared to bow with submission to a 
 decision thus expressed, and, taking my station 
 as a private individual, content myself with doing 
 the best I may be able, to avert what I should 
 unfeignedly regard as a signal calamity to the 
 country." 
 
 " It is impossible, my dear Oxford,'"* said 
 Cranstoun with unaffected warmth and cor- 
 diality, " not to honour the consistency of your 
 principles, and the manliness with which, on all 
 occasions, you avow them. Unfortunately, I 
 can only give you the tribute of my admiration : 
 I cannot adopt your principles. Still, I am not 
 without hope, and I believe our friend here, 
 (pointing to Lord Villopoer) cherishes the same 
 hope, that when the time comes in which it 
 shall be determined to set this embarrassing 
 cjuestion at rest, it will be possible to satisfy 
 
 VOF.. 1. C
 
 26 THE PREMIER. 
 
 your mind of the perfect propriety with which 
 you may consent to remain a member of the go- 
 vernment by whom it shall be so determined."" 
 
 " Most impossible !" exclaimed Oxford ; " for 
 all personal considerations, all individual attach- 
 ments, all individual feelings, would merge in 
 my sense of public duty ; and I should look to 
 measures, not men, as the governing motives of 
 my political adhesion." 
 
 " Come, come,*' said Cranstoun, " don't let 
 me hear you echoing the cant of that abominable 
 fallacy which has so often been made the pretext 
 for adhesions and defections ; both equally fac- 
 tious and unworthy. You are, I know, above 
 its influence ; you must not, therefore, allow 
 yourself to employ its vocabulary. If the com- 
 parison must be made, if the distinction must 
 be taken, men are every thing, and measures are 
 comparatively nothing." 
 
 " That doctrine, pushed to its extreme conse- 
 quences," observed Oxford, "would be tanta- 
 mount to declaring that men are infallible. You 
 have only to set out with the condition that your 
 men shall be picked men, 'good men and true,' 
 and then they may do what they please, for
 
 THE PREMIER. 27 
 
 their measures are nothing compared to them- 
 selves." 
 
 " No, no, you misunderstand me," rejoined 
 Cranstoun, " or rather, I should say you are 
 dextrously putting a sophism into my mouth, 
 and then running away with a prepared victory. 
 I speak, of course, of times of difficulty and 
 danger, when systems are shaken, when prece- 
 dents, and general rules of conduct, fail. Then 
 it is that, not to that or to this measure, how- 
 ever prudently devised, however blameless in 
 execution, but to the energy and character of 
 individuals, a state must be indebted for its sal- 
 vation. Then it is that kingdoms rise or fall, 
 in proportion as they are upheld, not by well- 
 meant endeavours, laudable though they may 
 be, but by commanding, overawing talents — 
 in short, by able men." 
 
 " But after all," interrupted Lord Villopoer, 
 " it appears to me that your * prudently de- 
 vised"* and ' blamelessly executed measures,' 
 and your ' commanding, overawing talents,' and 
 your ' able men,' are convertible terms, which 
 mean pretty nearly the same thing. At least, 
 I, for one, should be content with such mea- 
 C2
 
 28 THE PREMIER. 
 
 sures as you describe ; and certainly should not 
 expect to find them emanating from any other 
 than individuals of that energy and character 
 you mention." 
 
 *' I am exactly of your opinion," added Ox- 
 ford ; " but is it not time to recollect," he con- 
 tinued, laughing, " that there are both men and 
 measures, of various kinds and quahties, de- 
 manding our presence just now in another 
 place ?" 
 
 The hint was seasonable. In five minutes 
 after, the Earl of Villopoer, Cranstoun, and 
 Sydney Oxford were on their way, arm in arm, 
 towards the two Houses of Parliament. The 
 decorous habits of the body to which the first 
 belonged, allowed his Lordship to return to his 
 home in about an hour ; but Cranstoun and 
 Oxford did not go to a division upon the prin- 
 cipal question of the evening, till three o''clock 
 the following morning.
 
 THE PREMIER. " 29 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It was Cranstoun's delight and solace to 
 relax from the toils of office, in the society of a 
 few chosen friends, some of whom were the sur- 
 viving connexions of his college days, and others, 
 selected from the mingled mass which clustered 
 round his public life. His opportunities for 
 indulging in this pleasure were rare ; but there- 
 fore, like all enjoyments, the more prized when 
 possessed. 
 
 Among the former class was Sir George 
 Ardent. They were nearly of the same age ; 
 had commenced their studies at Eton, in the 
 same year ; quitted that classic seminary toge- 
 ther, for the University; and when Cranstoun 
 entered the world, an eager candidate for its 
 dazzling triumphs, his mild and sensitive friend 
 withdrew from it, a timid worshipper of the
 
 30 THE PREMIER. 
 
 calm joys of retirement. Heir to an ample pro- 
 perty, which had been considerably augmented 
 by the circumstance of his father dying when he 
 was only fifteen, he found himself, at one-and- 
 twenty, master of himself and ten thousand a- 
 year, — two of the most dangerous companions 
 which can welcome us, as we shake hands with 
 restraint, and say to the coming hours, " I am 
 for you !"" 
 
 But Sir George Ardent had nothing to fear 
 from their fascinations. Of studious habits, of 
 delicate, rather than robust health, with a ro- 
 mantic turn of mind which made him no seeker 
 of society, and with a morbid sensibility of cha- 
 racter, which engendered proudly fastidious 
 feelings with regard to all that concerned the 
 motives and actions of his fellow-creatures, he 
 was more formed to waste the noble qualities of 
 his nature (for many noble ones he possessed, 
 and in rare perfection,) as a recluse, than to par- 
 take, even moderately, of those pleasures which 
 his rank, his fortune, and his time of life spread 
 before him. 
 
 He did not become a recluse, however ; still 
 less an ascetic or a misanthrope ; but, when he
 
 THE PREMIER. 31 
 
 had travelled over the greater part of Europe, 
 making princely purchases in works of litera- 
 ture and art, bowing before the majesty of 
 nature in some of her most sublime as well as of 
 her most lovely forms, and feeding his appetite 
 for knowledge from the living stores of man 
 under the manifold modifications of his political 
 condition (the mould in vi^hich his moral one is 
 cast), which present themselves between the 
 Tagus and the Borysthenes, he returned to his 
 native country, united himself to an incompara- 
 ble woman, and in the bosom of his family, in 
 the circle, occasionally, of Lady Ardent's friends 
 or acquaintance, and in the fellowship, daily, 
 with the master-spirits of every age, which re- 
 posed upon his library shelves, he passed his 
 life. 
 
 Cranstoun, who well knew the treasures of 
 Sir George Ardent's mind and character, had 
 often striven, though in vain, to draw him from 
 his retirement, that the world might benefit 
 from endowments which did not yield a tithe 
 of their real value while circumscribed by the 
 domestic circle, of which they were the grace 
 and ornaments. The first time he tried to
 
 iyj THE PREMIER. 
 
 persuade him to this purpose, he was met by 
 a proposition in reply, which denoted, at once, 
 the depth of his attachment to his friend, and 
 the steadiness of his own determination, even 
 at that early period, for it was before he went 
 on his travels. Cranstoun had just taken his 
 seat in Parliament, under the auspices of a 
 high political leader, and had distinguished 
 himself by a speech which gave abundant pro- 
 mise of all that afterwards followed. He was 
 flushed with success ; a thousand nameless 
 hopes were kindling into energy within him — 
 the dreams of young ambition were already 
 half realities to him ; and he wished to see his 
 friend in the same path, because from the bottom 
 of his soul he believed, whatever his own career 
 might be, there was that in the composition of 
 Sir George which would lead him to a far 
 brighter goal. 
 
 " No, Cranstoun,"" was the answer ; " you 
 are wrong — quite wrong. The world is not 
 for me, nor I for the world. I have felt 
 this, from the first moment I was capable of 
 looking into myself; and I feel it more and 
 more every hour I live. It seems a paradox ;
 
 THE PREMIER. 33 
 
 but I am convinced the only thing necessary to 
 make me a man-hater, would be to compel me 
 to mingle with man. Aloof from his haunts, 
 released from the necessity of reading him, 
 come what page may in the soiled, and too 
 often filthy, volume — his guest, not his com- 
 panion ; his far-oft' observer, not his close in- 
 spector — I shall have the same advantage that 
 distance gives me in beholding a landscape, 
 where all the dirty lanes and miry pools, all 
 the squalid nooks, and all the barren, un weeded 
 spots, are lost in the wide survey. 
 
 It is in vain you tell me of the qualities I 
 have to do him service, wanting, as I am, in the 
 one great quality to make them serviceable — 
 the inclination. In my solitude, I can render 
 him better service than in the world ; for there, 
 knowing nothing of individuals, unchecked, 
 unchilled by their vices, and my feelings ex- 
 panding freely towards the species, the good I 
 may do will quickly diffuse itself through 
 many unseen channels. If you value my hap- 
 piness, I do not think you will try to turn me 
 from this path. And when you would tempt 
 me, by pointing to that which you have just 
 c 5
 
 34 THE PREMIER. 
 
 entered yourself, let me meet temptation 
 by temptation. Abandon your own, dear 
 Cranstoun, and come into mine ; you will profit 
 by the change. I am rich : far — very far be- 
 yond my wants : friendship like ours may 
 sanctify what else it might be an offence to 
 name ; but — " he paused for a moment ; then 
 taking hold of Cranstoun's hand, his voice 
 slightly faltered as he continued — "• You know 
 me, Cranstoun — you know of what I am capable, 
 and of what I am incapable : at once, then, I 
 say, half my fortune is yours, as absolutely 
 yours as though it had descended to you from 
 your father, if you will forego the means by 
 which you look to build yourself a greater, and 
 join me in a plan which should realize the 
 golden visions of our boyhood, and make us 
 worthy, in our deaths, of such an epitaph as 
 might be borrowed from our favourite author : 
 
 ' For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill ; 
 Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd 
 Under the opening eyelids of the morn, 
 We drove a-field, and both together heard 
 What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn,
 
 THE PREMIER. 35 
 
 Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, 
 
 Oft till the star that rose at evening bright, 
 
 Tow'rd heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
 
 Meanwhile, the rural ditties were not mute : 
 
 Temper'd to the oaten flute, 
 
 Hough satyrs danced, and fawns with cloven heel 
 
 From the glad sound would not be absent long; 
 
 And old Damaetas loved to hear our song.' 
 
 " By Heavens !" he exclaimed, in the same im- 
 passioned tone that he had repeated these lines, 
 " we would banish ourselves to some sequester- 
 ed spot of lone magnificence and loveliness, — 
 some wilderness of beauty, the poet's paradise, 
 and scholar's academic grove, — where we would 
 woo Philosophy with such a pure devotion, that 
 she should descend from her starry sphere once 
 more, and hold us in divine discourse !" 
 
 Cranstoun could not help smiling at this 
 burst of romantic enthusiasm ; but the smile 
 played through tears excited by the generous 
 offer, whose imagined acceptance awakened 
 the dream that had inspired it. On many 
 subsequent occasions, and when his friend was 
 less susceptible of such fanciful impulses, he 
 urged the same advice, but always without the
 
 36 THE PREMIER. 
 
 power to induce him to resign his beloved re- 
 tirement. 
 
 Sir George Ardent had two sons and one 
 daughter. Of the former, the elder, Frederick 
 Ardent, inherited many of his father's peculiar 
 qualities, without his repugnance to mix with 
 the world. He had been carefully educated ; 
 and when, in after years, Cranstoun became a 
 cabinet minister, it was eminently gratifying to 
 his feelings to have about his person, as his pri- 
 vate and confidential secretary, the son of the 
 man whom he most loved and honoured. It 
 seemed a new link of attachment between him 
 and the father ; and though he could not live 
 back the time when they, like this young man, 
 were standing on the threshold of their journey, 
 his strong resemblance in many points to what 
 Sir George was at that period, would frequent- 
 ly bring the memory of the past to his mind, 
 with the momentary freshness of reality. 
 
 Charles, the younger son, was gay and vola- 
 tile, committing a thousand foolish acts every 
 day he lived, from sheer exuberance of animal 
 spirits. Unstained by a single vice, but prone 
 to innumerable follies ; a mass of seeming con-
 
 THE PREMIER. 37 
 
 tradictions, but consistent with himself in all 
 things, when deciphered by the key which a 
 mind not yet strong enough to wrestle with its 
 passions supplied ; a creature of hourly resolves 
 to reform, followed in each succeeding half 
 hour by lamentable infractions ; his conduct 
 had so far alienated from him the paternal 
 affections of Sir George, that he rarely ad- 
 mitted him to his presence. Charles, who felt 
 this exclusion bitterly, would sometimes de- 
 plore it as the just consequence of his wild 
 career ; but there were other moments when he 
 would half persuade himself the penalty pro- 
 duced the offence, and not the offence the pe- 
 nalty. 
 
 " What can I do ?'' he would exclaim, when 
 meditating upon his situation over the last bot- 
 tle of Burgundy in a tavern, between candle- 
 light and daylight, after his riotous compa- 
 nions had either staggered home to bed, or, be- 
 ing unable to stagger, had made themselves 
 couches of repose upon chairs, sofas, and the 
 carpet. — " What can I do ? My father is un- 
 reasonable : for look you — he never tries me, to 
 see whether I am reformed or not. Now, that
 
 38 THE PREMIER. 
 
 is injustice. How does he know, till he gives 
 me a fair trial, what I am ? I suppose he ex- 
 pects me to begin first, — and so I would ; but 
 how could he know that^ even if I did begin ? 
 He won't see me, — so I might go on for months 
 as I ought to do, and at the end of the time, he 
 none the wiser, and I none the better. It is a 
 melancholy thing to feel that we are punished 
 at the wrong end ; to know that a door is shut 
 and barred against us, while we are blamed for 
 not opening it and walking in." 
 
 Soliloquies like these would sometimes form 
 the moral reflections of Charles, in those peni- 
 tential moments which touch the hardest hearts 
 previously softened by wine; or when the; 
 mortal spirits of man flag under the drowsy 
 influence of revelling protracted till the grey 
 East summons the lark to " sing at heaven's 
 gates." 
 
 But Louisa Ardent, — how shall I describe 
 her ? In the jargon of metaphysics, which 
 gives us unintelligible abstractions, and words 
 for ideas ? or in the language of a voluptuary, 
 expatiating upon the grosser charms of finely- 
 rounded limbs, love -darting eyes, and lips of
 
 THE PREMIER. 39 
 
 provocation which might fling hot blood into 
 the austere cheek of an anchorite ? or, shall I 
 play the sculptor, and talk of finely-chiselled 
 features, a brow of alabaster, and a flowing 
 outline of Grecian beauty ? I abjure each and 
 all of these severally approved and universally 
 adopted methods ; and for. these reasons. 
 
 In the first place, it would be as easy for a 
 limner to catch the likeness of a flash of light- 
 ning, as for metaphysics to fix the changing 
 qualities of any woman's mind, (that is of wo- 
 men who have minds, for the angels of creation, 
 like the lords of creation, are not necessarily so 
 provided,) and absolutely easier, than to confine 
 within a definition those of Louisa Ardent. In 
 the second place, she did not possess a single 
 feature, no, nor as far as I know, a single 
 limb, which, taken separately, could lay claim 
 to the epithet of beautiful, and therefore there 
 was nothing about her which a statuary would 
 have selected as his model. Let the reader 
 j udge for himself. 
 
 Louisa Ardent was rather below than above 
 what is considered the middle height in fe- 
 males ; that is, she could hardly exceed five
 
 40 THE PREMIER. 
 
 feet five, and probably was three quarters of 
 an inch under that standard. She was more- 
 over, — what shall I call it, — corpulent ? By no 
 means. — Stout ? No. — Inclined to embonpoint? 
 No, not exactly that either. — Plump? Ay, 
 that is the word ; but then, I hate to employ 
 it, when speaking of the fairest and loveliest 
 of God's works ; it is so like describing a 
 partridge, or a sucking-pig. I would rather 
 say she was not slender, and leave the imagi- 
 nation to fill up the picture. 
 
 Her hair was raven black, profuse and glossy, 
 without the aid of Macassar oil, or of that mira- 
 culous unguent prepared by the well-known 
 benefactor of bald beaux and lying-in-ladies. 
 Her eyes were as jetty as her locks, and more 
 lustrous, for they sparkled incessantly with the 
 scintillations of a mind that was as restless as 
 the ocean; but they were neither large, nor 
 languishing, nor laughing eyes; they were 
 simply such eyes as you could not look upon 
 without feeling that they must belong to a 
 tongue whose " lightest word" would not " har- 
 row up the soul," but reach it, (according as
 
 THE PREMIER. 41 
 
 the mood of the speaker might incline) in the 
 language of deep passion, nimble repartee, 
 sharp irony, or overwhelming ridicule. Her 
 nose was neither Roman nor Grecian. Indeed, 
 it partook of no decidedly national character, 
 and could hardly be said to have a distinctive 
 appellation in the nomenclature of noses; it 
 was essentially an anonymous nose ; and yet it 
 had been impossible to look at it where it was, 
 without calling it a pretty nose ; though, dis- 
 joined from the rest of the features, it might 
 have been doubtful, at first sight, whether it 
 were a nose at all. Her mouth was small, with 
 a curl of the lips when she smiled, that had 
 something half scornful, half mocking, in the 
 expression. Her teeth were regular and white ; 
 her complexion rather pale ; the general cast of 
 her countenance pensive and thoughtful ; her 
 forehead, so much of it as was visible through 
 clustering ringlets, fair, and intellectual in its 
 character : her mien eminently graceful, because 
 simple, natural, and moulded by her mind, in- 
 stead of the grotesque hand of fashion; and 
 lastly, her manners were attractive without be-
 
 42 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ing obtrusive, the result of constant self-posses- 
 sion, free from the broad, coarse, masculine 
 assurance of vulgar self-opinion. 
 
 Such was Louisa Ardent, to the eye. What 
 she was to the imagination, to the feelings, to 
 the head and heart of those who approached 
 her, it would be somewhat more difficult to 
 describe. 
 
 From her childhood, she had been the trea- 
 sured gem of her father's love. He soon dis- 
 covered what rich materials there were to work 
 with ; what dangerous ones, too, if they fell into 
 the hands of an unskilful artificer. He took her 
 to himself, therefore. He formed her mind ; he 
 moulded her heart. He drew forth from the 
 former, all its latent energies, and assigned to 
 them the tasks which would make them wax in 
 strength and beauty, as she herself ripened with 
 years. He watched, with feverish anxiety, the 
 unfolding passions of the latter; surrounded 
 them with safeguards, where they were exposed 
 to assaults ; enforced a severe discipline, where 
 there was a proneness to run into wild luxu- 
 riance ; reared, with a delicate hand, those timid 
 impulses which sneaping winds would have
 
 THE PREMIER, 43 
 
 blighted for ever, but which, thus gently en- 
 couraged, thus tenderly cultivated, blossomed 
 into virtues of exquisite grace and loveliness ; 
 and he uprooted, fearlessly, the few rank and 
 idle weeds which such a soil might be expected 
 to nourish. 
 
 She was now in her eighteenth year ; and so 
 fearful was Sir George lest a contaminating 
 world should mar the excellence he had wrought, 
 so sensitive was he to the possibility of society 
 deranging the structure of the fine and delicate 
 character he had formed in solitude, that never, 
 except as the companion of Lady Ardent, had 
 he once suffered Louisa to be absent from the 
 parental roof. " There are pernicious blights in 
 the atmosphere of the world," he would exclaim, 
 " which infect unseen ; — which do their mis- 
 chief through the silent agency of every sense, 
 and which insinuate, in a moment, the pestilent 
 corruption that eats its way, like a canker, to 
 the core, and withers the hope of years." 
 
 Louisa herself had become so identified, as 
 it were, with her father ; she was so much a part 
 of him, receiving her own will from his, and ever 
 best pleased when she was most assured that all
 
 44 THE PREMIER. 
 
 her thoughts, words, and actions were in per- 
 fect harmony with that will, that no sense of 
 irksome thraldom had ever grown upon her 
 mind during this whole period. On the con- 
 trarj, her happiest hours were those she passed 
 with Sir George; and next to those were the 
 moments when she was engaged in any task at 
 the completion of which she could look forward 
 to his approbation. 
 
 If the father loved the daughter with a 
 feeling approaching to idolatry, the daughter 
 reverenced the father with one that almost 
 partook of sanctity. Hence, though, at the 
 period we are describing, she was gradually 
 emerging from that comparatively cloistered 
 seclusion in which she had hitherto dwelt, and 
 taking her station in society, (more especially 
 the society that usually frequented Sir George's 
 house,) it was with no reliance upon herself, 
 and without any desire to participate in the 
 pleasures that surrounded her. She still leaned 
 timidly on her father for support ; still made 
 him her world ; and rejoiced more in the smile 
 she knew so well how to read, in the approving 
 pressure of the hand, which had so often been
 
 THE PREMIER. 45 
 
 the silent token to her glad spirit of having done 
 well, than would some young ladies at her age, 
 in listening to deep-breathed vows from lips 
 that murmured to a heart whose every pulse was 
 the throbbing of pure love's unutterable de- 
 votion. 
 
 Such, then, was the c^aroc^erof Louisa Ardent. 
 And yet there was one, who sometimes wished 
 that character other than it was, because there 
 was a fear, the parent of that wish, which fore- 
 boded it might not bring its possessor happiness, 
 in the mixed and jarring scenes of an uneven 
 world. This was her mother, Lady Ardent, who 
 almost shared with her daughter the sanctity 
 of feeling which hallowed her affection for Sir 
 George, — who admired his principles even to 
 enthusiasm, — who believed him faultless, beyond 
 what had fallen to the lot of the most irreproach- 
 able of the sons of men, and who proudly confess- 
 ed the debt her own nature ov/ed to its long inter- 
 course with the nobler elements which composed 
 that of her husband. Yet, she was too well 
 aware of the sacrifices he had made at the shrine 
 of his morbid temperament, not to tremble for 
 those which might be demanded from Louisa,
 
 46 THE PREMIER. 
 
 in whom he had created a subdued yet glowing 
 image of himself. These forebodings, and the 
 vexation, rather than any serious anxiety, occa- 
 sioned by the wild conduct of his younger son 
 Charles, (for she never doubted it would find 
 its own cure in maturer age,) constituted the 
 only drawbacks upon a felicity as unexampled 
 in itself as. were the rare beings whose path was 
 shaded by its halcyon wings.
 
 THE PREMIER. 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was in the autumn of the year 18 — , after 
 a parliamentary session of unusual length and 
 fatigue, and when the political aspect of affairs, 
 both foreign and domestic, had imposed severe 
 duties upon all the ministers, and more espe- 
 cially upon Cranstoun, that the latter, harassed 
 with intrigues, exhausted by incessant labour, 
 and sinking in his health, from the united in- 
 fluence of all these causes, resolutely tore him- 
 self away from business, and set out to pass a 
 few weeks of comparative idleness and tran- 
 quillity at Deddington Park, the seat of Sir 
 George Ardent. He had been expected for 
 several days before he arrived ; his intention of 
 leaving London having been repeatedly frustra- 
 ted by occurrences of public moment which 
 required his presence in the cabinet, or at his
 
 48 THE PREMIER. 
 
 office. At length he came, accompanied by 
 his young friend and confidential secretary, 
 Frederick ; and if the delight of receiving him 
 was not quite unalloyed, it was only because 
 the pallid traces of sickness which were but 
 too evident in his fine countenance, seemed to 
 be ominous of the fatal ravages which a mind 
 overwrought was making upon the vital func- 
 tions of his frame. 
 
 No two men could be more unlike each 
 other than Cranstoun, the unbending Uiinister 
 of state, the powerful leader of the House of 
 Commons, the dignified organ of his sovereign's 
 sentiments to the representatives of foreign 
 potentates, and Cranstoun, the simple, unaf- 
 fected, gentle, and even playful companion of 
 the friendly hearth, when he felt he could safely 
 divest himself of all the solemn plausibilities of 
 ceremonious rank. It was not that he sought 
 this change as a needful relaxation, or deli- 
 berately employed it as a medicament which 
 his reason told him he must use. It was simply 
 the re-action of a spring relieved from external 
 pressure; the upright bearing of a man who 
 throws from his shoulders the grievous burden
 
 THE PREMIER. 49 
 
 under which he has long bent ; the joyous 
 return to himself of one who has sustained a 
 part in the drama of life, and at the falling of 
 the curtain, or between the acts, lays aside his 
 sword and truncheon, and removes the helmet 
 from his brow. 
 
 It was impossible to annoy Cranstoun more, 
 at such moments, than to persist in treating 
 him as the minister and statesman, instead 
 of the social friend; and the benignity of 
 his disposition, as well as the habitual re- 
 finement of his manners, were hardly sufficient 
 to restrain him from showing symptoms of 
 irritation, should any guest, admitted to the 
 honour of his society by the family whom he 
 was visiting, unfortunately take it into his 
 head, that finance, the state of the nation, or 
 the policy of foreign governments, were the 
 only legitimate subjects of discourse in the 
 company of a cabinet minister. But if no 
 awkward blunder of this kind intervened, it 
 was delightful to see him mingling cheerfully 
 in all the common-place occurrences of every- 
 day life ; still more delightful to hear him 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE PREMIER. 
 
 taking his share, and never more than his share, 
 in the passing conversation of the hour, but 
 shedding even upon that all the grace, and 
 brilliancy, and elegance of his master-mind. 
 
 Among the persons invited to meet Cranstoun 
 at this visit to Deddington Park, were Lord 
 Rysdale, Sir Andrew Percival, and Captain 
 Erskine. 
 
 " Do you know," said Cranstoun, one morn- 
 ing while sitting with Sir George in his magni- 
 ficent library, (magnificent from the intrinsic 
 value of the works it contained, rather than 
 from the architectural grandeur of the room 
 which contained them, or their own gorgeous 
 bindings,) " do you know, I have had Lord 
 Rysdale for a correspondent since I met him 
 here last summer ?''' 
 
 " Have you ?" replied Sir George, smiling ; 
 " he is a miracle." 
 
 " How do you mean .?" 
 
 " You say you have had him for a corre- 
 spondent. Did you ever see such letters as he 
 writes .?" 
 
 " They are curious specimens of caligraphy, 
 I confess," said Cranstoun ; " and I have
 
 THE PREMIER. 51 
 
 sometimes been puzzled to determine in my 
 own mind whether he was above a pen, or the 
 pen was above him." 
 
 " It is the hand of a coal-heaver," rejoined 
 Sir George Ardent, " and the expression, at 
 best, not beyond that of a cook. Yet, with- 
 out any one exception, in my judgment, he 
 is the most gifted scholar, the most powerful 
 reasoner, the most accomplished gentleman, 
 and the most fascinating companion of this 
 age ; but he is whimsical and singular." 
 
 " I am told he is one of the best chess-play- 
 ers now in Europe," observed Cranstoun. 
 
 *' His talents are universal," added Sir George. 
 " When he was at Eton, some twenty or five- 
 and-twenty years before we vv^ent there, he wrote, 
 at sixteen years of age, verses that might now 
 be taken for the best manner of the Augustan 
 age. He adds to genius an affectionate and 
 benevolent spirit." 
 
 " Does he still reside in the Isle of Wight ?" 
 inquired Cranstoun. 
 
 " Yes, and lives there very much alone." 
 
 " And of course, upon the best of terms with 
 all his neighbours," interrupted Cranstoun. 
 D 2 
 
 tjWIVt^l^Y OF
 
 52 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " Among his other peculiarities," continued 
 Sir George, " it is believed of him that he is as 
 chaste as Hippolitus, though Flato and he were 
 inseparable, at one time, from the celebrated Mrs. 
 Norton, now the Peeress of that name ; but with 
 no tache upon either. He is between seventy 
 and eighty ; and I have heard, was the hand- 
 somest youth till thirty, that the empire of 
 fashion, in his days, could boast. He might 
 have commanded the world; but he has pre- 
 ferred a contemplative and philosophical indo- 
 lence.*" 
 
 " Talking of skewer hands," said Cranstoun, 
 " there is a friend of mine still living, though 
 upwards of ninety, (and for his age an absolute 
 wonder of animal spirits,) who, while he despises 
 all pedantries or eccentric whims, has one to 
 which I can give no becoming name, so I will 
 merely describe it. Except in some very few 
 cases, he does not allow the existence of w as 
 a letter, but substitutes v ; upon what principle 
 he does this, I know not; unless it is that in 
 his early days the lu often superseded v. I 
 could not believe this, till a lady, whose name 
 was Woodgate, made the evidence jump out of
 
 THE PREMIER. m 
 
 the canvass before my eyes. She showed me a 
 letter written by him, and the direction was 
 Mrs. Foodgate — with tt?enty-five, for the day 
 of the month." 
 
 " My own hand is none of the best," re- 
 marked Sir George ; " but I have a niece who 
 would puzzle all the decipherers in Europe, 
 except myself. It is a cruel privation to those 
 who would read her with passion if they could, 
 for in her style she is inspired." 
 
 There was a pause in the conversation. 
 Cranstoun looked round upon the well-filled 
 shelves of his friend's library. 
 
 " I never survey a scene like this," said he, 
 " without a strong feeling of that noble passage 
 in Lord Bacon, where he enumerates all the un- 
 worthy motives which prompt us to the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, and concludes with the 
 glorious description, in a few emphatic words, 
 of what should be our true one. ' Men,' says 
 
 he, but why should I tax my memory, 
 
 which may be unfaithful, when I can turn to 
 the page ?" 
 
 Sir George pointed out the shelf upon which 
 stood the works of Bacon ; and Cranstoun, tak-
 
 54 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ing down a volume, read, with a deep feeling 
 of its sublime wisdom, the following passage : 
 " Men have entered into a desire of learning 
 and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curi- 
 osity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to en- 
 tertain their minds with variety and delight; 
 sometimes, for ornament and reputation ; and 
 sometimes, to enable them to victory of wit and 
 contradiction; and most times for lucre and 
 profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true 
 account of their gift of reason to the benefit 
 and use of man : as if there were sought, in 
 knowledge, a couch whereupon to rest a search- 
 ing and restless spirit ; or a terrace, for a wan- 
 dering and variable mind to walk up and down 
 with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a 
 proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or 
 commanding ground for strife and contention ; 
 or a shop, for profit or sale ; and not a rich 
 storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the 
 relief of 711071" s estate T 
 
 " What a profound stream of thought runs 
 through these lines !" exclaimed Cranstoun, as 
 he closed the volume; "and in what simple 
 majesty of expression that thought is convey-
 
 THE PREMIER. 55 
 
 ed ! I may be wrong, but, to my apprehension. 
 Bacon was the most purely intellectual being 
 that ever existed. In all his writings, there is 
 one continued emanation of mind, flowing from 
 its own inexhaustible source, and the source 
 itself lying deep in the hidden mysteries of our 
 nature. Other men, like the clouds which at- 
 tract from the earth those vapours which they 
 return again in fertilizing showers, gather know- 
 ledge from the rest of mankind, and re-produce 
 it in more valuable forms after it has passed 
 through the rich alchemy of their own minds ; 
 but Bacon, like the sun, shines with no borrow- 
 ed light, and, like that luminary too, he scat- 
 tered before him the darkness, mists, and sha- 
 dows of our benighted reason." 
 
 At this moment Frederick Ardent entered 
 the room with a red box in his hand. A mes- 
 senger had just arrived from London, bringing 
 despatches to Cranstoun, who immediately re- 
 tired to his apartment accompanied by his 
 young secretary, where he remained for several 
 hours engaged in official business. 
 
 That day at dinner. Lord Rystdale, Sir An- 
 drew Percival, and Captain Erskine were pre-
 
 BQ THE PREMIER. 
 
 sent. The first, who had outlived a generation 
 of great men whose names and actions were al- 
 ready part of our national history, was over- 
 flowing with anecdotes ; the second, a plain 
 country gentleman, but a gentleman of the true 
 quality, with high aristocratic feeling, and a 
 mind fitted to adorn his station in society, gave 
 a zest to the conversation by the raciness and 
 unsophisticated character of his opinions ; while 
 the third, who though but a captain in the 
 navy, had seen service that might have blazon- 
 ed the escutcheon of an admiral, threw in, every 
 now and then, those refreshing touches which 
 only a professional life, and especially a life so 
 foreign to all our ordinary habits as that of a 
 sailor, can supply. Lord Rysdale, perceiving 
 that Captain Erskine had an eye and an arm 
 less than the rest of the company, inquired in 
 what actions he had lost them ; whether at the 
 Nile, Copenhagen, or Trafalgar ? 
 
 " Neither, my Lord,'' said Erskine. " It 
 was in a little affair of my own. I never had 
 the honour of serving under Nelson. Would 
 to God I had ! I loved the man, though I 
 never saw him in my life."
 
 THE PREMIER. 57 
 
 " It must have been a desperate affair," ob- 
 served Cranstoun, wishing to draw from the 
 hero some account of his exploit. 
 
 "Not a bit of it, Sir," replied Erskine; 
 " but it was as gallant and as brave a one as 
 ever divided glory equally between the con- 
 querors and the conquered." 
 
 " Were the latter Frenchmen ?" interro- 
 gated Cranstoun. 
 
 " No, Dutchmen ; but they fought as well as 
 Englishmen could do." 
 
 " Not quite, my friend," observed Sir George 
 Ardent, " or you would not have brought sixty 
 of them to the Nore, in your own ship, as well 
 as the brig you captured." 
 
 " By God ! they almost deserved to have 
 carried us home," exclaimed Erskine ; "though 
 I don't think, if fortune had ordered it so, / 
 would have been of the number." 
 
 " It was off Vlie, was it not," continued Sir 
 George, who saw the drift of Cranstoun's ques- 
 tions, " that you made prize of the Atlante ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Erskine, " off Vlie — I was or- 
 dered to reconnoitre, and perceiving a couple of 
 brigs at anchor, I thought something might be 
 D 5
 
 58 THE PREMIER. 
 
 done. I knew I could not reach them with my 
 ship, on account of the shoals that surrounded 
 the entrance ; so I determined upon a dash at 
 the outermost one in the boats. Just as we 
 were embarking, we were joined by the Bea- 
 ver, who offered us her boats, which I accepted, 
 as I reckoned it would spare lives on both sides, 
 and shorten the contest. At half-past nine in 
 the evening, in the month of April, we began. 
 There were about sixty of us, including officers, 
 in three boats, headed by your humble servant 
 in the first boat. As we rowed with a flood- 
 tide, we got alongside the enemy at half-past 
 eleven. I had the good fortune to be the first 
 man who boarded her. She was prepared for 
 us, with her board netting up, and all the other 
 usual implements of defence. The decks were 
 slippery in consequence of the rain, so that 
 grappling with my first opponent, a mate of the 
 watch, I fell, but recovered my position, fought 
 hiih upon equal terms, killed him, and received 
 a cut from his knife, as we closed, over my left 
 eye, which destroyed the, sight in a twinkling. 
 
 I was next engaged with the captain, as 
 brave a man as any service ever boasted: he
 
 THE PREMIER. 59 
 
 had almost killed one of my seamen, and, to 
 my shame be it spoken, he disarmed me, and 
 was upon the point of killing wie, when a sea- 
 man of mine came up, rescued me at the peril 
 of his own life, and enabled me to recover my 
 sword. At this time, all the men were come 
 from the boats, and were in possession of the 
 deck. Two of them were going to fall upon the 
 captain at once. I ran up — held them back — 
 and then adjured him to accept quarter. With 
 inflexible heroism, he disdained the gift, kept 
 us at bay, and compelled us to kill him. He 
 fell, covered with honourable wounds. The 
 vessel was ours. To the end of my existence, 
 I shall regret the captain. He was a perfect 
 hero. Had all his crew been like him, critical 
 indeed would have been our peril. But they 
 fought nobly, nevertheless. Two days after his 
 death, we buried him with naval honours, fired 
 three volleys over him as he descended into the 
 deep, and during the ceremony hauled down the 
 English colours, letting the Dutch flag fly at 
 the mast-head in honour of a brave man." 
 
 " That was a noble tribute to the valour of 
 your enemy," exclaimed Cranstoun, '' and wor-
 
 60 THE PREMIER. 
 
 thy of the days of ancient chivalry. It is 
 such feelings that rob war of its bloodiest 
 features, and give it the character of a generous 
 strife." 
 
 "When the vessel was ours,'"* continued 
 Erskine, not noticing the eulogium of Crans- 
 toun, " we secured the hatches, which they at- 
 tempted repeatedly to force. It was just before 
 doing this, that one cowardly rascal came be- 
 hind me with a hatchet, and gave me a blow on 
 the left arm, so violent, that I was in the end 
 forced to have it cut off. I turned round and 
 shot him dead ; and I wished at the moment — 
 God forgive me ! — that he had had half-a-dozen 
 lives to pay the penalty of such an unmanly 
 action. Thus far, however, we had been for- 
 tunate. But we had now another enemy to 
 fight — the elements. A sudden gale, which 
 shifted right against us, impeded all our efforts. 
 As we had made the capture, however, we deter- 
 mined to keep it, or perish. We compelled the 
 Dutch below to surrender ; put forty of them 
 into their oivn irons ; and stationed our men to 
 their guns ; brought up the powder, and made 
 all the necessary preparations to attack the other
 
 THE PREMIER. 61 
 
 brig. But when the day broke, she was off, and 
 at such a distance, and in such a position, that 
 we had no chance to reach her. In this situa- 
 tion, — and a devilish dangerous one it was, I can 
 tell you, — we remained eight-and-forty hours, 
 without any abatement of the wind. Two of 
 the boats had broken adrift from us ; two had 
 swamped alongside. The wind shifted again. 
 We made a push to extricate ourselves, but 
 the navigation was too difficult ; and it required 
 the intense labour of three days to accomplish 
 it, which we did at last, and brought away our 
 prize." 
 
 " Was she a large vessel ?" asked Lord Rys- 
 dale. 
 
 " A little bigger than any brig we have in 
 the service, '^ replied Erskine drily, " carrying 
 sixteen long twelve-pounders, with an intended 
 complement of two hundred men ; but she had 
 only seventy-six actually on board." 
 
 " Only !" repeated Sir George Ardent. " I 
 suppose you would have liked it better, if there 
 had been the full complement to receive your 
 visit." 
 
 " I took my chance for such a reception,"
 
 62 THE PREMIER. 
 
 observed Erskine, " when I set out ; but if it 
 had happened so, they could only have had 
 our lives, thank God! for my ship was safe 
 enough." 
 
 Many a man has made his way in the world, 
 by being a good story-teller ; and Othello, as 
 we all know, won his wife by recounting his 
 own exploits. Erskine, as some would think, 
 though I am not of the number, was still more 
 fortunate than the Moor; for Cranstoun, who 
 took a silent note of his modest recital of a most 
 gallant deed, gratified himself about six months 
 after by announcing, through his friend Sir 
 George Ardent, that his Majesty had been 
 pleased not only to grant him promotion, but 
 to give him the command of a ship. 
 
 " I see by the papers,*' observed Lord Rys- 
 dale, throwing himself into a breach in the con- 
 versation, "that Joshua Darley, who some years 
 since obtained such general notoriety under the 
 soubriquet of the ' Philanthropist,' for distribu- 
 ting, like a fool, above fifty thousand pounds a- 
 year, not in charity, but in purchasing the fame 
 of giving, is returned to a state of tutelage and 
 nonage."
 
 THE PREMIER. 63 
 
 *' It appears,'' said Sir Andrew Percival, 
 " that his friends have prevailed upon him to 
 vest all the residue of his property in the hands 
 of trustees, who are to manage his concerns." 
 
 '*Yes,'' continued his Lordship, "and Joshua 
 is now domesticated with two old ladies, liaving 
 no partiality for the impertinent prattle of 
 young ones." 
 
 " The title of Philanthropist," observed Cran- 
 stoun, " seems to have been as misapplied in his 
 case, as was the ironical name of Philadelphus 
 to Ptolemy King of Egypt, who killed all his 
 brethren. Sheer self-\ovQ induced Darley to 
 give away his money." 
 
 '* I knew him and his father," added Lord 
 Rysdale. " He is the eldest of three sons of a 
 concubine of the late Sir John Darley, who 
 rescued them from the legal character oi Jilii 
 populi, by acknowledging them as his sons, and 
 unnaturally left his whole property to these 
 young men, disinheriting his legitimate daugh- 
 ter. Another of these illegitimate sons, who 
 lives in the upper part of a trunk-maker's house, 
 in order to be quiet from the noise of his chil- 
 dren, is a great collector of curiosities. Being
 
 64 THE PREMIER. 
 
 a Papist, he has in his rare museum a wonder- 
 ful assortment of relics. He boasts the posses- 
 sion of a bit of the true cross ; the point of one 
 of the nails of martyrdom ; and a piece, about 
 an inch and a quarter square, of the under- 
 garment of the Virgin Mary. This is in high 
 preservation, and set in gold, under a crystal. 
 He also boasts some curious miniatures of the 
 Fathers of the Church, with an agate rosary of 
 St. Katherine of Sienna. The younger brother, 
 Frederick, has been many years in Italy.'' 
 
 " I think I have heard you mention," said 
 Sir George Ardent, addressing Lord Rysdale, 
 " that the father, Sir John Darley, entertained 
 some odd notions about the duality of certain 
 circumstances connected with his birth." 
 
 " Not with his birth only," replied his Lord- 
 ship, laughing, " but with the whole tenor of 
 his life. I cannot recollect one half of the ex- 
 traordinary coincidences, as he used to call 
 them, which arose from this duplicate fatality. 
 I know he always represented that he was not 
 only a twin child, but that he was the second 
 son of his father's second wife, and was born at 
 two o'clock in the morning on the second of
 
 THE PREMIER. 65 
 
 February, in the double-bedded room of a 
 double house, which happened, oddly enough, 
 he would add, to be No. 2, and kept by Mr. 
 Doubleday .^"^ 
 
 " I hope he was double-pointed^'' said Crans- 
 toun, " and had a double voice, or the faculty 
 of ventriloquism."" 
 
 " I don't know how that may have been," 
 replied Lord Rysdale, " but he had certainly 
 lost two joints of his second finger ; and he never 
 hesitated to declare it was by the bursting of a 
 double-hdivx^ed gun, in bringing down a brace 
 of partridges." 
 
 " Pray, did he ever happen to mention what 
 was the first play he read ?" inquired Sir 
 George Ardent. " It must surely have been 
 the Two Gentlemen of Verona.'''' 
 
 " Pooh !" exclaimed Cranstoun. " The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona! No, no! — The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen, written by the two authors, 
 Beaumont and Fletcher." 
 
 " One of the earliest lessons inculcated by 
 his father, was, no doubt, that he should always 
 have two strings to his bow," observed Sir 
 Andrew Percival.
 
 bb THE PREMIER. 
 
 " And I '11 warrant," said Cranstoun, " if he 
 ever stood for a seat in Parliament, the High 
 Sheriff had to make a double return." 
 
 " He assured me very gravely one day," con- 
 tinued Lord Rysdale — 
 
 "" Did he not endeavour to make ' assurance 
 double sure,' " interrupted Cranstoun, " by 
 giving you proof?" 
 
 " He would have done so, I dare say, had I 
 required it ; but he did, with the utmost 
 gravity, assure me, that three of his ancestors, 
 who had risen to be dignitaries of the church, 
 had all held double sees. ' It is very extra- 
 ordinary,' he observed, ' but my grandfather 
 was Bishop of Bath and Wells — my maternal 
 great uncle was Bishop of Lichfield and Coven- 
 try ; and I had a third cousin who died Bishop 
 of Sodor and Man.'" 
 
 " And to what end was all this bifurcation 
 employed .'^" asked Cranstoun. " Unless he 
 possessed a thorough duplicity of heart, — a 
 bipartite head, having two ways of looking at 
 every thing, and a binary object in all his 
 dealings with the world, it was merely ' double, 
 double, toil and trouble,' to accumulate upon 
 him such a mass of inseparable accidents."
 
 THE PREMIER. 67 
 
 " Had he been an author," said Sir Andrew 
 Percival, " he would certainly have written 
 in conjunction with another, as some of our 
 elder dramatists used to do." 
 
 " And some of our modern ones," added Sir 
 George Ardent significantly, looking at Lord 
 Rysdale, and then repeating the following 
 lines : 
 
 ' When Beaumont's judgment guided Fletcher's wit, 
 Each was, by turns, the hero of the pit : 
 The one had credit for the rules of art. 
 The other claim'd the passions and the heart ; 
 But no divided claim the conflict urges 
 In Sternholdy Hopkins, Cumberland, and Burgess.' " 
 
 " You have a dangerous memory, my 
 friend," said Lord Rysdale, smiling ; then ad- 
 dressing the rest of the table, — " Sir George," 
 he continued, " has recited a banter of mine, 
 written some years ago, upon the Exodiad of 
 Cumberland and Sir James Bland Burgess. 
 Of the Baronet I knew little ; but with Cum- 
 berland I was intimate. The poem was a 
 ponderous abortion." 
 
 " Belonging to the class of monsters, rather," 
 observed Sir Andrew Percival, " for it was 
 bicipital."
 
 68 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " Your banter," remarked Cranstoun, 'Svould 
 have cost poor Cumberland a fit of the spleen, 
 had it reached his ears. He was the most irri- 
 table under censure or ridicule^ of any man 
 that ever existed." 
 
 " And consequently," continued Lord Rys- 
 dale, " the most accessible to flattery. He 
 caught at feathers in praise, whether genuine 
 or counterfeited, with a simplicity of self-love 
 unexampled. But of all the sensitive plants I 
 ever knew in a human form, he was, as you 
 have said, the most irritable to ridicule if 
 unequivocally expressed. I have seen him, in 
 the midst of pathetic gentleness, and the most 
 gracefully endearing philanthropies, changed in 
 a moment by a retort courteous, but a little 
 too keen for his nerves, into the most ill-bred 
 and captious of all spoiled children; just like 
 a peevish girl. And unfortunately for his 
 quiet, he was, though a very ingenious man, 
 the most open to ridicule of any human creature. 
 He had few friends ; for he went upon the Ca- 
 talinarian principle in selecting them, idem velle 
 atqiie idem nolle, ea demum firma, amicitia est. 
 But his only notion of the idem velle, or the idem
 
 THE PREMIER. 69 
 
 nolle^ consisted in thinking of him as he thought 
 of himself, and of course thinking of everybody 
 else by the same rule." 
 
 " Cataline's maxim was a wise and shrewd one 
 for his purpose," said Cranstoun, "and it 
 might be the motto of our modern patricians or 
 tribunes, who are represented by their nominees 
 in Parliament. It was excellent friendship for 
 a conspirator ; but it is not mine ; and if there 
 be one line of godlike Homer, which I could 
 say I prefer to the rest, it would be that of 
 Achilles, when he says that he hates a man who 
 says one thing, and conceals another. The 
 equivocation of Horace's beggar, and the mental 
 reservation of the Jesuit, have degraded, into the 
 dust, what I consider as the high-born dignity of 
 the human character. What, for example, can 
 be more odious than the bitter and deadly feuds 
 of critics, who would kill one another for a dif- 
 ference of opinion — armati nugis V 
 
 " And yet," observed Lord Rysdale, " how 
 few, even of those we call great men, can endure 
 any independence but their own. I remember, 
 Edmund Burke once made love to me, but short 
 indeed was our honey-moon ; for the moment I
 
 70 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ventured to vote and speak against one of his 
 objects, he trampled upon me. Take the case of 
 another great man, Dr. Johnson — who could 
 less bear contradiction ? And what was the con- 
 sequence ? He was the dupe of slaves to his 
 humour, while fools, and men of no principle, 
 were an indispensable part of his court. I recol- 
 lect hearing Bennet Langton, one of his most 
 bigoted slaves, and one whom he admired and 
 loved, as his pathetic aspiration, engraved on 
 Langton^s tomb, testifies, — sit anima mea cum 
 Langtotio ! — whisper to his neighbour in a box 
 at the theatre, ' there are very few things which 
 Dr. Johnson will suffer me to like or even to 
 see.' Thus it is, that in predilections of taste, 
 or in spleen of it, a thousand little accidents 
 operate ; above all, the company we have kept. 
 It was an admirable stroke of humour (which 
 is not his forte, by the by,) in D"*Alembert, 
 where he describes a pupil asking his tutor if 
 he, the pupil, had liked a certain comedy which 
 they had both attended." 
 
 '' Docility against conviction^'' said Sir George 
 Ardent, *' is another word for a servile and a
 
 THE PREMIER. 71 
 
 mean spirit ; but he who demands it is meaner 
 stili;^ 
 
 " You have mentioned the weakness of a great 
 mind," observed Cranstoun, addressing Lord 
 Rysdale, "in the conduct of Burke. I will 
 give you an instance of its opposite in an ho- 
 nourable mind, whose whole existence, however, 
 did not display as much of that which is mind, 
 as Burke would have manifested under the gate- 
 way in which he might have taken shelter from 
 a shower of rain, — to use Johnson'^s noble illustra- 
 tion of that extraordinary man. One of my 
 early patrons, when he negotiated with me for 
 coming into Parliament, said, ' I give you the 
 seat upon conditions !' — ' My Lord,' I replied, ' I 
 will accept of none, or of the seat fettered by 
 them.' — ' Hear me out,' said he ; 'my conditions 
 are, that you shall be as free as air, as indepen- 
 dent of all the world, as of me.' "
 
 72 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast, the same 
 party were assembled in Sir George's library, 
 debarred, by a wet day, from enjoying an in- 
 tended ride to the seat of Lord Beaulieu, about 
 ten miles off. 
 
 Captain Erskine, who had been busily en- 
 gaged with a book in a corner by himself, while 
 the rest were alternately reading and talking, 
 suddenly attracted their attention by a loud 
 laugh, and the exclamation, " Pretty sailors 
 they must have been in those days !" 
 
 The book spread before him was Mickle's 
 translation of Camoens"* Lusiad, and the " Chart 
 of the Voyage of Gama" was in one hand, while 
 with the other he held open the page from 
 which his eye glanced every moment to trace the 
 route of the Portuguese navigator.
 
 THE PREMIER. 73 
 
 " Pretty sailors they must have been in those 
 days," slowly repeated the Captain, " to be 
 frightened at a black cloud !" 
 
 " What's the matter, Erskine ?" said Sir 
 George Ardent, advancing towards him, when 
 he perceived that his gallant friend, better ac- 
 quainted with practical navigation than with 
 poetical fictions, had ' fallen four (as he termed 
 it) of that magnificent conception of the Lusian 
 Bard, in the fifth book, the apparition of the 
 Cape of Tempests. He was reading the fol- 
 lowing lines : — 
 
 " Now prosperous gales the bending canvas swell'd, 
 From these rude shores our fearless, course we held : 
 Beneath the glistening waves, the God of day 
 Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray, 
 When o'er the prow a sudden darkness spread, 
 And slowly floating o'er the mast's tall head 
 A black cloud hover'd ; nor appear'd from far 
 The moon's pale glimpse, nor faintly twinkling star ; 
 So deep a gloom the lowering vapour cast, 
 Transfix'd with awe, the bravest stood aghast. 
 Meanwhile, a hollow bursting roar resounds, 
 As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds ; 
 Nor had the blackening waves nor frowning Heav'n 
 The wonted signs of gathering tempest giv'n. 
 Amazed we stood." 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Some good-humoured raillery was played off 
 upon Erskine for his naval criticism, and the 
 conversation insensibly glided into a discussion 
 upon the merits of the Lusiad. 
 
 " I have often regretted," said Cranstoun, 
 " that my imperfect knowledge of the Portu- 
 guese language prevents me from enjoying this 
 fine poem in its original beauty." 
 
 " I can assure you," replied Lord Rysdale, 
 " you have nothing to regret. I read the Por- 
 tuguese with perfect ease, and have made ray- 
 self (I believe I may venture to say so much) 
 master not only of its idioms, but of those shades 
 of meaning, as well as combinations of words, 
 in which the strength and copiousness of every 
 language consist with respect to poetical ex- 
 pression. Yet Camoens delights me more in 
 the translation of Mickle than in the original. 
 I always seem to feel, while reading it, that had 
 Camoens been an Englishman, he would have 
 used the very words that Mickle gives him." 
 
 " Just as we feel," observed Sir George Ar- 
 dent, " that had Homer been an Englishman, 
 he would have disdained the mellifluous effe- 
 minacy and balanced couplets of Pope."
 
 THE PREMIER. 75 
 
 " Then Mickle must have caught all his in- 
 spiration from Camoens," said Cranstoun; "for 
 he is the least poetical in his own poetry of any 
 of our minor poets."' 
 
 " You are right," replied Sir George ; " and 
 it has always appeared to me there were two 
 mysteries connected with this work : the one, 
 that such a man as Mickle should have per- 
 formed such a labour ; the other, that a book 
 of such transcendent merits should have attain- 
 ed, comparatively, to so little fame." 
 
 " Listen,"' interrupted Lord Rysdale, " and 
 tell me if you think there is any thing which 
 mere language can give, that could heigbten 
 the grandeur of this description of the appari- 
 tion of the Cape of Tempests?"'' And his Lord- 
 ship read with a graceful elocution the follow- 
 ing lines : — 
 
 " I spoke, when rising through the darken'd air, 
 Appaird, we saw a hideous phantom glare : 
 High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd, 
 And thwart our way with sullen aspect lour'd. 
 Unearthly paleness o'er his cheeks was spread, 
 Erect uprose his hair of wither'd red ; 
 Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose, 
 Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeths' blue rows;
 
 76 THE PREMIER. 
 
 His haggard beard flow'd quivering on the wind, 
 Revenge and horror in his mien combined ; 
 His clouded front by withering lightnings scared, 
 The inward anguish of his soul declared. 
 His red eyes glowing from their dusky caves 
 Shot livid fires : far echoing o'er the waves 
 His voice resounded, as the cavern'd shore 
 With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar. 
 Cold, gliding horrors thrill'd each hero's breast ; 
 Our bristling hair and tottering knees confest 
 Wild dread : the while, with visage ghastly wan. 
 His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began." 
 
 " The whole fiction," continued his Lordship, 
 " is wonderfully conceived and nobly executed ; 
 though I cannot go quite so far as his transla- 
 tor, in thinking it unsurpassed in human com- 
 positioti.'* 
 
 " May I be allowed,'' said Sir George, taking 
 the volume out of Lord Rysdale's hand, " to 
 point out a passage which I think unsurpassed 
 in English poetry for the melody of the versi- 
 fication ? It is this : — 
 
 " Give way, ye lofty billows, low subside, 
 Smooth as the level plains, your swelling pride. 
 Lo, Venus comes ! Oh, soft ye surges, sleep ! 
 Smooth be the bosom of the azure deep
 
 THE PREMIER. 77 
 
 Lo, Venus comes ! and in her vigorous train 
 She brings the healing balm of love-sick pain." 
 
 *' I may add, that the whole description of 
 the Island of Love, the empire of the ' Goddess 
 of the soft alarms,' is voluptuously conceived, 
 without one impure taint from a licentious 
 imagination." 
 
 " Yet the obscene Frenchman,"" observed 
 Cranstoun, " whose polluted pen wrote the 
 Pucelle d"" Orleans, lifted up his eyes in all the 
 horror of offended modesty, at an episode which 
 he pronounced so lascivious, that no nation in 
 Europe, except the Portuguese and Italians, 
 could bear it." 
 
 Thus the conversation was carried on for some 
 time, and there was a whimsical air of surprise 
 and perplexity in the countenance of Captain 
 Erskine, as he listened to it. He had not given 
 himself the trouble to doubt that the Lusiad 
 was merely an account of the " Voyage of Gama, 
 and of the Portuguese Discoveries," according 
 to the tablet of the chart prefixed ; or that " the 
 heroes who, from Lisbon"'s shore," had navigated 
 seas " where sail was never spread before," were 
 the crew of the ship employed in the expedition.
 
 78 THE PREMIER. 
 
 There are few things more curious in what I 
 suppose I must call the philosophy of the hu- 
 man mind, than the changes which take place 
 in a discourse carried on between two or three 
 persons. How often are we tempted to ask, 
 " What led to this subject ?"— (I have a thou- 
 sand times asked such a question,) — when we 
 find ourselves deep in a controversy upon ne- 
 cessity and free-will, and only remember, per- 
 haps, that we began with talking about the 
 last new novel, or the state of the weather. But 
 if we are at the trouble to tread back, to gather 
 up all the links of our conversation, Jiow regu- 
 larly, how naturally (in most cases,) we find 
 that we have descended, or ascended, (as it may 
 happen,) step by step, without a single leap to 
 the right or left, without one jump over inter- 
 vening foot-places, from the point at which we 
 set out, to that where we have paused to trace 
 our path. A connecting thread (sometimes as 
 fine as a hair, indeed, but still touching at both 
 ends,) pervades the whole. 
 
 It would be the easiest thing imaginable to 
 pursue this synthetic process here, and show 
 how Sir George Cranstoun, Lord Rysdale
 
 THE PREMIER. 79 
 
 and Sir Andrew Percival had contrived to con- 
 catenate a critical disquisition upon Camoens, 
 Homer, Virgil, Tasso, and Milton, (for all 
 those mighty masters of the epic lyre were cited 
 before their tribunal,) with a newspaper printed 
 in the year 1737 : but it may possibly please 
 the reader better to know what they said, than 
 to accompany me through a demonstration, how- 
 ever ingenious, of the colloquial gradations by 
 which they arrived at the conversation. 
 
 " It is related of the author of Hermes," said 
 Cranstoun, who had been looking over the di- 
 minutive columns of one of the progenitors of 
 the modern " broad sheet," — " that he once 
 amused himself by reading to a querulous 
 friend, whose humour it was to find every thing 
 wrong in church and state, a violent invective 
 against both. It accused the government of 
 producing all those grievous calamities which 
 constitute the legitimate and orthodox catalogue 
 of a genuine patriot's national miseries. His 
 friend eagerly inquired the name of the work. 
 Mr. Harris lianded it to him. It was a black- 
 letter pamphlet, published in the reign of Eliza- 
 beth : but, mutatis mutandis, it would have
 
 80 THE PREMIER. 
 
 done for a letter of Junius, or a speech of Home 
 Tooke. So with regard to this paper. The 
 title is somewhat heteroclitical, I confess, (for I 
 see it is called the Old Whig, or the consistent 
 Protestant,) but with that exception, I think I 
 might read it through, and by substituting a 
 few modern names, make you believe you were 
 listening to yesterday's Morning Chronicle. — 
 Alas, in what are we improved !" continued 
 Cranstoun, with an air of ironical solemnity. 
 " Here we have fires, executions, robberies ; 
 foreign intelligence of th-e most alarming, do- 
 mestic news of the most gloomy, character ; pri- 
 vate scandal of the most authentic kind, fugi- 
 tive poetry of the most innocent description, 
 and editorial wisdom of the most startling pro- 
 fundity ! And our ancestors had all these, in 
 the same perfection as ourselves !'' 
 
 "It is a great comfort," observed Sir An- 
 drew Percival, " to find that, though we have 
 been getting worse ever since the beginning of 
 the world, every generation has confessed that 
 its own age was the worst of all. Ben Jonson 
 acknowledges this as a right of custom, though 
 he would dissuade us from the exercise of it.
 
 THE PREMIER. 81 
 
 ' Oh, let us pluck this evil seed 
 Out of our spirits, 
 And give to every noble deed 
 The name it merits !' 
 
 " Of course he would rail against the noble 
 right of abusing our betters," said Cranstoun, 
 in the same tone of irony, " for he was a poet 
 laureate, and therefore a base apostate, hired 
 by government to slander the advocates of 
 reform under the character of Catiline, whose 
 pretended conspiracy, manufactured out of 
 Cicero's Green Bag, was made the pretext for 
 suspending the habeas corpus act at Rome. 
 Placemen and pensioners are panders to power, 
 ex necessitate, as well as excellent allitera- 
 tives." 
 
 *• It is said that every age has its character- 
 istics,'' observed Lord Rysdale ; " but it may 
 be more truly said, I think, that the disposition 
 to rail at mankind, and especially those whom 
 birth, fortune, or station elevates above us, is 
 the characteristic of every age." 
 
 " Were I called upon," replied Cranstoun, 
 " to name the characteristics of the present 
 age, though they are so numerous that they 
 E 5
 
 82 THE PREMIER. 
 
 almost cease to answer their implied purpose, 
 (that of designating its character,) I should be 
 inclined to trace them all to one and the same 
 root — a restless, overweening conceit of rights 
 independent of duties.'''' 
 
 " Yes," observed his Lordship ; " and judg- 
 ing by the comparative frequency with which 
 the words are employed, instead of being inter- 
 dependent correlatives, we might almost take 
 them as symptoms of two contrary states of 
 mind — the less regard an individual pays to 
 his duties, the more parade he is sure to make 
 about his personal and political rights. He 
 is none of your sneaking church-goers, — not he ! 
 None of your fire-side amiables — oh no ! He 
 won't be pinned to a wife's (at least to'his oivn 
 wife''s) apron, forsooth ! But these are the 
 men who never miss a meeting in Palace-Yard 
 or Spa Fields." 
 
 " Never,"" interrupted Cranstoun, '* unless 
 when the rights of man are outraged in their 
 own persons, by the sheriff's officer, or when 
 they are sympathizing with some fair friend in 
 a mishap too incident to the free exercise of the 
 rights of woman."
 
 THE PREMIER. 83 
 
 " This same predilection for rights, how- 
 ever," observed Sir Andrew Percival, " as we 
 have recently seen, so far from blinding them 
 to the non-performance of duties in others, (of 
 all at least who are above them,) renders them 
 not only remarkably quick-sighted to them, 
 but even creative, the inrush of the inventive 
 faculty filling up any aching void in the per- 
 ceptive. Nay, it imparts a surprisingly re- 
 tentive faculty to the memory, so that error or 
 misconduct shall appear as fresh and lovely 
 after an interval of twenty or thirty years, as 
 if it had happened but yesterday." 
 
 Sir George Ardent had been silent during 
 this conversation. He now addressed himself 
 to Cranstoun. 
 
 " There was more philosophy in your irony, 
 my dear friend," said he, " than you aimed at, 
 when you exclaimed, ' Alas ! in what are we 
 improved !' In bitter derision of our transitory 
 condition, the poet has said, tauntingly, ' Man ! 
 and for ever f In profound conviction of our 
 finite nature, of our essentially limited and 
 identical works, 1 would say, ' Man, and still 
 the same !' A few wars, a few great crimes, a
 
 84 THE PREMIER. 
 
 very few great virtues, a few philosophers, a few 
 mighty minds, a few discoveries (as they are 
 called) in science, (though only resuscitations 
 of lost knowledge, or the practical application 
 of existing principles,) and a few repetitions 
 of old wonders to wonder at afresh, comprise 
 the history of man from age to age. The 
 actors alone are changed, — the things are the 
 same. The order of the seasons has not been 
 more unvarying since the beginning of time ; 
 spring and summer, autumn and winter, have 
 not followed each other with more certain succes- 
 sion, than the little circumscribed round of 
 human affairs has produced and re-produced, 
 from century to century, the same events; 
 distinguished, as I have said, from their 
 predecessors only by the revolving changes 
 of time, of place, and of persons. We ima- 
 gine we are advancing along a wide and 
 boundless path, when in truth we are only 
 moving within a narrow circle, which hides 
 from us alike the past and the future, re- 
 vealing to our eyes but the petty present of 
 our brief being." 
 
 " And how finely," added Cranstoun, " has
 
 THE PREMIER. 85 
 
 Burke described our perpetuity as a whole, 
 with our fleeting and perishable state as indi- 
 viduals ! ' Such,' says he, ' is the mode of ex- 
 istence decreed to a permanent body com- 
 posed of transitory parts ; wherein, by the dis- 
 position of a stupendous wisdom, moulding to- 
 gether the great mysterious incorporation of 
 the human race, the whole, at one time, is never 
 old, or middle-aged, or young ; but, in a con- 
 dition of unchangeable constancy, moves on 
 through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, 
 fall, renovation, and progression.'"
 
 86 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Cranstoun was compelled to return to 
 London much sooner than he intended, in con- 
 sequence of information he received touching 
 a vexatious delay that had taken place, in bring- 
 ing to a conclusion several important matters 
 which had been agreed upon previously to his 
 departure. He was evidently chagrined at this 
 want of energy among his colleagues ; so much 
 so, indeed, that, contrary to his usual practice, 
 he suffered the expression of his displeasure to 
 intrude upon the conversation between himself, 
 Sir George, and Lord Rysdale, as they were 
 sauntering, after dinner, through the shady 
 walks of Deddington Park. 
 
 " It is the curse of this country,*" said he, 
 " and sooner or later must be its ruin, that the 
 spirit of party, (or, I should rather say, the
 
 THE PREMIER. 87 
 
 factious interests of party,) impedes, more or 
 less, every movement of the political machine. 
 It is felt, in a proportionate degree, through 
 each link of the vast chain, which extends, from 
 the throne, to the licensing of that humble ale- 
 house, whose sign we see swinging on the top of 
 yonder hill ; its influence is alike demonstrable 
 in the conge d'elire, in the patent of creation, 
 in the delivery of the seals of office, and in the 
 appointment of an exciseman with a salary of 
 seventy pounds a-year. The cabinet itself is 
 but a nicely-adjusted balance of conflicting pre- 
 tensions ; and the consequence is, that being 
 without the governing principle, which one pre- 
 dominant mind would necessarily exercise over 
 a homogeneous body, each department becomes 
 a little executive of its own, whose motions are 
 dependent upon those of the remainder, and 
 liable, of course, to be sometimes unduly acce- 
 lerated, or at others injuriously retarded. In 
 fact, it is less a government per se, than a go- 
 vernment of departments, the very worst of all 
 possible governments for consistent and vigor- 
 ous efficiency. For myself, I have all my life 
 striven, whenever it has pleased his Majesty to
 
 88 THE PREMIER. 
 
 call me to his councils, to give to my own de- 
 partment that character of uniform decision, 
 and of systematic action, which should belong 
 to the whole ; but — " Cranstoun paused for a 
 moment, as if conscious that he was growing 
 querulous where he felt complaining was a 
 meanness, because in the absence of those of 
 whom he complained, and then added playfully, 
 — " but I am like the rest of the world, I see, 
 thoroughly persuaded of my own merits, and 
 benevolently inclined to lament there are so few 
 who resemble me." 
 
 " Come, come," said Sir George, smiling, " be 
 honest, though you are a minister, and a politic 
 one to boot. Confess that this detached system 
 of government has its advantages ; particularly 
 in this, that impartial judges may exercise dis- 
 crimination in their opinions concerning you, 
 and instead of passing sentence upon you as a 
 body, one and indivisible, make honourable ex- 
 ceptions. Now this could not happen, if, like 
 a band of fiddlers, you all took your time from 
 the leader. The world might say, indeed, you 
 fiddled extremely well ; but he who played first- 
 fiddle would run away with the merit."
 
 THE PREMIER. 8^ 
 
 "Ay, but he would also be made to bear 
 the burden of failure, if they fiddled execrably," 
 observed Lord Rysdale. 
 
 " When I spoke of a government of depart- 
 ments," said Cranstoun, " it was without any 
 reference to the convenience or inconvenience 
 which might hence result to the heads of de- 
 partments. It is sometimes agreeable enough, 
 I am free to confess, to be able to insulate one's 
 position, and stand or fall by individual pre- 
 tensions ; but I hope I have sufficient honesty, 
 minister though I be, and a politic one to boot, 
 as my friend tells me, to rate the individual 
 very low indeed, compared with the aggregate 
 of individuals — the people. I remember it was 
 one of the earliest and one of the most frequent 
 lessons I imbibed from the great man whose 
 memory I venerate, (I need hardly add the 
 name, William Pitt,) that no ministry can 
 work well for a country which has more than 
 one mind. Wherever there is diversity of 
 opinion, he would say, there is diminution of 
 strength ; and wherever there is a minister, 
 instead of a cabinet of ministers, nothing can 
 deprive you of the advantage of uniform ener-
 
 90 THE PREMIER. 
 
 gy, save want of principle. His own career 
 was a glorious, and in some parts of it, I might 
 almost say, a sublime exemplification of his pre- 
 cept. There were periods during the revolu- 
 tionary war when, if we had had a cabinet of 
 ministers instead of a great minister, this coun- 
 try must have gone to pieces. Our necessities 
 required not only a mighty mind, but that 
 mind absolute master of itself; as free and 
 powerful to act, as it was vast and unerring in 
 its plans. Pitt's was too haughty a spirit to 
 trammel itself; but if we can suppose it possi- 
 ble that he had to negotiate with his colleagues 
 the conditions of their support, to adulterate 
 the original quality of his designs, by mixing 
 with them a little of one man's caution, and a 
 little of another's prejudices, where should we 
 find that singleness and grandeur of purpose 
 which, first and last, governed his policy T'' 
 
 " You will not kill me,"" observed Lord Rys- 
 dale, " if I acknowledge my admiration of Pitt's 
 character to be inferior to yours, though I 
 think I should quarrel with any one who pre- 
 tended to have a jot less admiration for him 
 than myself. Burke once said to me, and I
 
 THE PREMIER. 91 
 
 am persuaded with perfect sincerity, ' How 
 extraordinary it is that I and Lord Chatham 
 and Lord Holland should each have a son so 
 superior to ourselves !' Alas, for parental blind- 
 ness ! That son, had he lived, would never 
 have won the honour which a father^s broken 
 heart, in the unquestioned sanctity of its grief, 
 has bestowed upon his memory. With regard 
 to Lord Holland, he was right. There was as 
 much difference between Charles James Fox, 
 and Henry, the first Lord Holland, as between 
 William Shakspeare, and honest Master John 
 Shakspeare, wool-driver or glover, and some- 
 time bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon. I doubt, 
 however, — have mercy upon me,'' (continued his 
 Lordship, turning with a smile to Cranstoun,) 
 " whether William Pitt was so superior to Lord 
 Chatham as Burke the more willingly asserted, 
 perhaps, for the sake of completing his trio." 
 
 " I do not think," said Cranstoun, " they 
 can be compared upon a sufficient number of 
 corresponding points, to deduce a just supe- 
 riority in either. What Chatham might have 
 been, placed in the exact situation of his illus- 
 trious son, we can only conjecture with a grea-
 
 92 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ter or less approximation to plausible facts ; 
 but what the son loas we know. Chatham 
 never had such stirring events to grapple with 
 as distinguished the last twelve or fifteen years 
 of Pitt''s administration. Yet I can believe he 
 would have proved himself equal to them, had 
 they fallen within his time."" 
 
 " Ml/ estimate of Chatham is so large," ob- 
 served Sir George Ardent, " that I find no 
 difficulty in assuming a capacity for the utmost 
 trial to which he could have been put." 
 
 " One point in which the father and son 
 differed essentially from each other," said Cran- 
 stoun, " was in unyielding firmness. Pitt was 
 a proud man, and relied upon himself in peri- 
 lous crises with singular firmness ; but Chat- 
 ham was stern and authoritative. He would 
 have laid his commands upon the sovereign 
 himself, in a case which he thought required it, 
 ■with the same despotic air that he would have 
 announced his will to an official subaltern. Mr. 
 Pitt has frequently said to me, ' My father 
 would not have done this,' or, ' My father would 
 have done so and so,' when he had conceded 
 some comparatively unimportant matter, or
 
 THE PREMIER. 93 
 
 abstained from peremptorily insisting upon its 
 execution.""* 
 
 " The late Lord Orford, that mirror of lite- 
 rary coxcombs,""* said Lord Rysdale, " with 
 whom I had the honour of living upon terms 
 of great intimacy for many years, used to re- 
 late, in his inimitable way, (for both with pen 
 and tongue he was the best teller of an anec- 
 dote I ever knew,) a story of Lord Chatham, 
 strikingly illustrative of the quality you have 
 ust mentioned.""* 
 
 '' Let us have it,"" observed Sir George. 
 
 " I am not sure but his Lordship gave it to 
 the world himself, or else that it has been given 
 since his death, in some of the posthumous 
 gossip which the press has sent forth," replied 
 Lord Rysdale. " However, you shall have 
 it ; but it will lose greatly in my hands. Pre- 
 parations were making for a secret expedition, 
 and orders had been given to the respective 
 heads of the naval, military, and ordnance de- 
 partments for certain stores, ships, and regi- 
 ments to be ready by a specified day. ' It is 
 impossible !" was the answer ; and late at night, 
 this answer was communicated to Mr. Pitt,
 
 •94 THE PREMIER. 
 
 who was not then raised to the peerage. He 
 sent for his secretary. * I desire you, Mr. 
 Wood/ said he with an indignant air, ' to go 
 instantly to Lord Anson. You need not 
 trouble yourself to search the Admiralty : he 
 is not to be found there, — you must pursue him 
 to the gaming-house. Tell him from me, that 
 if he does not obey the orders he has received, 
 I will assuredly impeach him. From him, pro- 
 ceed to Lord Ligonier, and though he should 
 be bolstered with harlots, undraw his curtains 
 and repeat the same message. Then take your 
 course to Sir Charles Frederick. Assure him, 
 if His Majesty's commands are neglected, they 
 are the last he shall receive.' The secretary 
 departed. At White's, he found Lord Anson, 
 who insisted Mr. Pitt was out of his senses, for 
 it was utterly impossible to comply v^'ith his 
 wishes. ' However,' he added, ' madmen must 
 be answered, so say I will do my utmost.' 
 The Commander-in-Chief declared it was an 
 impracticable business ; and Mr. Pitt knew it. 
 ' But,' added old Ligonier, ' he is in the right 
 to make us do all we can ; so inform him that 
 what is possible shall be done.' Sir Charles
 
 THE PREMIER. 95 
 
 Frederick was next apprised of the minister's 
 resolution. After a little hesitation, ' I think 
 the orders may be completed within the time 
 prescribed,'' said he. The upshot was, that in 
 spite of impossibilities, army, navy, ordnance, 
 and military stores were all ready by the ap- 
 pointed day." 
 
 " In all probability," observed Cranstoun, 
 laughing, '' there is an extremely slender 
 basis of truth for this story ; perhaps, even, 
 it is a pure invention ; but in either case its 
 currency denotes the character of the man of 
 whom it is related. A professed wit does not 
 say half the good things ascribed to him ; yet 
 he is known to be capable of saying good things 
 long before he arrives at the honour of being 
 the common father of every joke that floats 
 upon the breath of conversation. Even I, who 
 am no professed wit, nor ever professed to be a 
 wit of any kind, find myself now and then pro- 
 claimed in the newspapers as the parent of 
 vastly clever things, which if I ever said or 
 wrote, it must have been in my sleep." 
 
 " I could not endure those freedoms with my 
 name, by the myrmidons of the press," said
 
 96 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Sir George Ardent somewhat indignantly. 
 " They might commit what robberies they 
 chose, and give to a hundred others that which 
 was mine ; but to be gibbeted in their vulgar 
 columns, to be the ass laden with the rubbish of 
 every garretteer's muddy brains, would griev- 
 ously anger me. I am intolerably disgusted 
 with the profligacy, ignorance, and sordid vena- 
 lity of newspapers, and never read any portion 
 of them, save that where public transactions, 
 or political events, are recorded."' 
 
 " And they are so distorted," replied Cran- 
 stoun, " according to the party whose interests 
 may happen to be advocated, — so coloured, 
 docked, and garbled, under the influence of 
 purse or patron, that, except in mere documen- 
 tary matters, they are nearly as apocryphal as 
 the Arabian Nights.'' 
 
 " You call party-spirit the curse of this 
 country," continued Sir George, " and predict 
 that, sooner or later, it must be our ruin. A 
 more deadly curse is an engine like the press, 
 wielded by unprincipled men — men whose 
 living it is to supply, every four-and-twenty
 
 THE PREMIER. 97 
 
 liours, a nauseous compound of ribaldry, false- 
 hood, and faction.'" 
 
 " Oh for the good old times of nose-slitting 
 and ear-cropping !" exclaimed Lord Rysdale ; 
 " the lovely days of the Star Chamber, with 
 its brandings, pilloryings, and gentle finings ! 
 Yet I am afraid the evil is incurable ! Men 
 ivill think ; and since the invention of printing, 
 they have been able to think aloud. At no 
 period of our liistory did the hand of power 
 lay more heavily upon the press, than during 
 the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and the first 
 Charles : and at no period do we find a bolder 
 defiance of that power. Thus it will ever be ; 
 for, as Lord Bacon observed in his pathetic but 
 unworthy letter to the House of Peers, depre- 
 cating their severity, there are vitia temporis 
 as well as vitia hominis. Now, the vitia tem- 
 poris are those defiances which it is in our na- 
 ture to hurl at authority when too giant-like in 
 its bearing — if indeed they may be called vitia 
 under such circumstances. The press, as the 
 proverb says of fire, * is a good servant, but a 
 very bad master," " 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " And therefore," interrupted Sir George, 
 " when we cannot keep it under, what remains 
 but to put it out altogether ?"" 
 
 "There is no man living," said Cranstoun, 
 " who utterly disdains to plead to the tribunal 
 of the public press, more than I do ; and I am 
 as deeply sensible as any man, I think, of all its 
 practical mischief ; but were it in my power by 
 a word to destroy its existence, with the cer- 
 tainty of not producing any one of those evils 
 which I know must follow, I would sooner lay 
 my head upon the block, than pronounce that 
 word. It has great and noble elements in its 
 composition ; mighty energies, which neither 
 are nor can be always the ministers of evil. 
 When however they are so, confront them, 
 master them, or be mastered by them, even as 
 is our destiny with all the other evils of this 
 world ; but it were as wise to desire that man 
 should be blotted out of creation, because of 
 the vices of men, and thus renpunce a Newton 
 to escape a Thurtell, as to wish the destruction 
 of a privilege capable, in its right use, of 
 arresting the desolating progress of religious, 
 moral, and political error, or of redeeming
 
 THE PREMIER. 99 
 
 from it nations now groaning beneath the tri- 
 ple bondage, because, in the necessarily irregu- 
 lar motions of so vast an agent, we are in con- 
 stant peril of violent collision." 
 
 " The collision," said Sir George, " is per- 
 petual.""* 
 
 " And for this obvious reason," added Cran- 
 stoun. "The opportunities for performing sig- 
 nal services are rare ; the inclination, I am 
 afraid, still more rare ; but the indulgence of 
 paltry feelings, the triumphs of rancorous ones, 
 the base longings of a degenerate nature, are 
 things which he who covets, may enjoy when 
 he pleases. We may wish it were otherwise — " 
 
 " As it might be,'"* interrupted Sir George, 
 " if the laws were more vigorously enforced." 
 
 " Ay,"" said Cranstoun, "and surround the 
 insignificance of a hired libeller with the dig- 
 nity of a state martyr; or drag from its ob- 
 scurity a lampoon, by inviting the whole coun- 
 try to read it at our expense. Burghley, the 
 most subtle of all Elizabeth's subtle ministers, 
 shrewdly adopted a different course. He sent 
 for a needy poetaster who had been vitupera- 
 ting him, and after a little angry expostulation, 
 F 2
 
 100 THE PREMIER. 
 
 beo-an to commiserate his necessities; then gave 
 him money, and finally promised to take the 
 first opportunity of advancing him. 'This/ 
 says old Osborne, who relates the anecdote in 
 his Luther Vindicated, ' did so work with one 
 who would wilhngly have given his right ear 
 to save his left, that till the Treasurer's death 
 he never wrote another libel upon him.'" 
 
 " I would have improved upon Burghley's 
 practice,'' observed Sir George, " by giving pro- 
 mises only. Money is always a suspicious, 
 very often a dirty, agent : but I would pro- 
 mise like a courtier." 
 
 " And like a courtier, keep your promise, 
 I suppose," interrupted Lord Rysdale. 
 
 '' No," replied Sir George ; " if it suited my 
 interest, I would have kept my promise, like an 
 honest man." 
 
 " I can imagine an admirable scene of state 
 craft and literary simplicity," observed Crans- 
 toun, " founded upon the wily stratagem of 
 Burghley ; and I know ojie man pre-eminently 
 qu ah fled to exhibit the former." 
 
 "In my opinion," said Lord Rysdale, " every 
 libeller should be made to eat his words, lite-
 
 THE PREMIER. 101 
 
 rally compelled to ' digest the venom of his 
 spleen, though it do split him.' " 
 
 " As it infallibly would do," added Crans- 
 toun, " if he wrote in folio." 
 
 " Such a penalty (or travellers lie) did 
 once prevail in Russia," continued Lord Rys- 
 dale. " Each leaf was rolled up into small 
 round pellets, and the libeller was fed with 
 them till he had swallowed the whole book. If 
 he grumbled, or refused, he had the bastinado ; 
 and if the work was too bulky, in the opinion 
 of the physician who attended, for a single meal, 
 the process of deglutition was spread over 
 several days." 
 
 " Were a similar penalty inflicted in this 
 country," said Cranstoun, '' a man would 
 consider well what he could swallow himself, 
 before he wrote any thing for other people 
 to swallow ; and they who now find it pleasant 
 enough to live bi/ libels would soon grow sick 
 of living upon them ; unless they confined 
 themselves to epigrams or distichs." 
 
 " A Richelieu libel would be the safest," 
 observed Sir George. " The Cardinal used to 
 boast that he could extract matter to send any
 
 102 THE PREMIER. 
 
 man to a dungeon out of four or five ordinary 
 words. One of his attendants immediately 
 wrote upon a card, ' One and two make three.* 
 ' Three make only owe/ exclaimed the Cardi- 
 nal ; ' it is blasphemy against our Holy Trinity ; 
 to the Bastille with him !' "
 
 THE PREMIER. 103 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The next morning Cranstoun, attended by 
 Frederick Ardent, left Deddington Park. 
 About an hour before his departure, a mes- 
 senger arrived from London with despatches, 
 and during the journey the minister was busily 
 engaged in reading them ; making on the 
 margin of some, pencil memoranda of observa- 
 tions which their perusal suggested, and hand- 
 ing over others to his secretary with verbal 
 instructions as to the answers they were to 
 receive. 
 
 They had proceeded thus about twenty 
 miles, when in descending a steep hill, rugged 
 with ruts and loose stones, a sudden jolt 
 snapped one of the springs of the travelling 
 chariot. In this dilemma, the only thing that 
 could be done was to send the servant back to
 
 104 THE PREMIER. 
 
 the last town they had passed through, (be- 
 tween four and five miles off) for assistance to 
 repair the damage ; while Cranstoun ; accom- 
 panied by his young friend, walked leisurely 
 onwards till the carriage overtook them. 
 
 Neither the general habits of Cranstoun, 
 nor the then state of his health, qualified him 
 for an active pedestrian ; and as the day was 
 sultry, he had scarcely walked three miles be- 
 fore he became sensible of fatigue. Frederick 
 suggested that he had better hasten on to the 
 nearest town or village, and procure, if he could, 
 a postchaise or any other tolerable convey- 
 ance ; but Cranstoun, who knew that the ser- 
 vants would use all possible diligence in getting 
 the carriage repaired, and following him, con- 
 sidered the proposal of his secretary unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 " Let us see," said he, " what the next 
 turning of the road may do for us. Who 
 knows, but the infirm body of a young old man 
 may find a resting-place in this barbarous and 
 inhospitable region, after a weary pilgrimage of 
 three long miles ! Ah me ! Here is your supe- 
 riority of mind over matter!" he continued,
 
 THE PREMIER. 105 
 
 smiling ; "as we saw this morning, just after 
 leaving your father's grounds, the superiority 
 of matter over mind, in that fine, tall, upright, 
 ruddy-cheeked, and nimble-footed peasant, who 
 could give me a week's start, and walk me 
 down before dinner, though he wore a beard** 
 many a year ere I was in my cradle. But 
 he never cared for the state of the nation, so 
 long as the state of the crops was favourable ; 
 never troubled his head about any church, but 
 that of his own parish ; and though he has had 
 his full share of the primeval curse, the toil of 
 sinews has not shaken him, as the toil of brain 
 has shattered me." , 
 
 The turning of the road was propitious. At 
 the distance of two or three hundred yards 
 stood a neat, clean, and substantial brick house, 
 with a majestic oak in front, within whose 
 spreading arms, as they perceived upon a 
 nearer approach, a comfortable apartment was 
 contrived, where a dozen persons might sit, on 
 seats duly arranged round a table, which was 
 fixed in the middle. From one of the gigantic 
 limbs of this noble tree depended a red lion 
 rampant, with a gilt tail and claws newly bur- 
 F 5
 
 106 THE PREMIER. 
 
 nished. He looked prodigiously fierce, and as 
 a specimen of heraldic blazonry, glittering in 
 the bright rays of a meridian sun, would have 
 done no discredit to the panels of that splen- 
 did piece of civic lumber, my Lord Mayor's 
 coach. 
 
 Frederick was curiously perplexed at this 
 moment. He could not venture to congratu- 
 late Cranstoun upon the vicinity of the Red 
 Lion, for it was beyond the range of his possi- 
 ble conceptions to picture a cabinet minister 
 walking into it for a rest, like a tired pedlar. 
 Added to this, there was the still greater per- 
 plexity, would he walk into it ? 
 
 " Well," said Cranstoun, taking hold of his 
 secretary's arm, while he supported his steps 
 with a stick in his other hand, "here is a 
 house." 
 
 "Yes, Sir — there is a house,"" replied Fre- 
 derick hesitatingly. 
 
 " The Red Lion," continued Cranstoun, look- 
 ing at the sign ; " and upon my word, as spruce 
 and gentlemanly a lion as I would wish to see, 
 with clean nails and a copper-coloured tail.^' 
 Frederick laughed ; but still thought of the
 
 THE PREMIER. 107 
 
 tale which hung at the end of his own reflec- 
 tions,— wow /c? one of his Majesty's ministers 
 call at the Red Lion ? And if he did, what 
 would he call for when there ?" 
 
 " Such a lion as this," pursued Cranstoun, 
 turning from the path towards the house, 
 "would have been a fine study for Snug the 
 joiner. Does he not look as if he were ' aggra- 
 vating his voice,' and ' roaring as if 'twere any 
 nightingale ?' And now for the proof of the 
 poet's melancholy confession, if his own experi- 
 ence dictated it," he added, seeing the landlord 
 come bustling to the door — 
 
 • * Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, 
 Whatever his stages may have been, 
 Must sigh to think he still has found 
 The warmest welcome at an inn !' " 
 
 "By Heavens!" exclaimed Frederick to him- 
 self, "we are going to the Red Lion /" and he 
 was at least as much pleased, as surprised at 
 the novelty of the thing. 
 
 Mr. Owen Tudor, mine host of the Red 
 Lion, a tidy little man, in drab kerseymere 
 breeches, leggings of the same material, no coat, 
 and a brown wig, with that instinctive sagacity
 
 108 THE PREMIER. 
 
 which distinguishes his craft, saw at once that 
 his guests, though pedestrians, were not com- 
 mon, every-day travellers. His reception of 
 them, therefore, corresponded with this convic- 
 tion. Bowing, and rubbing his hands, he threw 
 open the door of the best parlour, entered first 
 himself, dusted two shining high-backed wooden 
 chairs, which did not require it, performed the 
 same act of superfluous housewifery upon a 
 small round table, which he placed opposite to 
 the chairs, and stood smirking, with a merry 
 twinkling eye, at a respectful distance, while 
 Cranstoun and Frederick took their seats. 
 
 The scene that followed, when, the next mo- 
 ment, Mr. Owen Tudor, with a sort of half 
 bow, between a nod and a complete obeisance, 
 still smirking, still rubbing his hands, and 
 advancing a step nearer at each movement 
 of his head, inquired, " What they would 
 be pleased to take," might have exercised 
 the pencil of Hogarth in its most inspired 
 touches. 
 
 Frederick bit his lip violently, to restrain 
 the laugh with which he was bursting. Crans- 
 toun drew his hand across his mouth, and for
 
 THE PREMIER. 109 
 
 the first time in his life found himself embar- 
 rassed at a reply. Mr. Owen Tudor, with a 
 view to assist them in their choice, recounted 
 volubly the treasures of his cellar. 
 
 " I have some prime Herefordshire cider in 
 bottle, and capital perry — capital, I assure you ; 
 excellent draught ale, superior stout, and better 
 London porter than is to be got in London it- 
 self : I am choice in my spirits too.'"* 
 
 " You will find the ale very good, Gentlemen, 
 if you try it ; it is my friend Owen's own 
 brewing; and a purer ale, I'll venture to say, 
 is not to be drunk in this or any other county." 
 
 " Well then," said Cranstoun, suiting his 
 manner to the occasion, " let it be ale C and 
 the landlord departed to obey the order. 
 
 Cranstoun and Frederick now looked round 
 to see to whom they were indebted for the ad- 
 vice which the former had adopted. In one 
 corner of the room sat a person reading the 
 newspaper, whom they had not before noticed. 
 He was a tall, thin, atrabilious-looking man, 
 apparently between fifty and sixty, dressed in 
 a suit of black, which denoted, by its appear- 
 ance, a long and faithful service. His hat was
 
 110 THE PREMIER. 
 
 off, and the character of his head, which was 
 quite bald on the top, had in it something 
 striking and intellectual. His features were 
 large, and rather coarsely moulded, reminding 
 the beholder at once of the ponderous gravity 
 of Johnson''s face, and the hard sarcastic lines 
 of George Cooke''s, the celebrated tragedian. 
 He had the heavily contracted brow of the 
 one, with the hooked nose, and full-developed, 
 almost phallic, mouth of the other. He ap- 
 peared so intent upon the motley diurnal page 
 which he held in his hand, that it seemed sur- 
 prising he should have had a ear for what 
 was passing between mine host and his guests. 
 
 The landlord soon returned with a mug of 
 ale and glasses, which he had no sooner placed 
 upon the table, than he hospitably inquired 
 whether he should bring a slice of cold ham, or 
 a crust of bread and cheese. 
 
 " If you have a biscuit in the house,*" said 
 Frederick, " you can bring it."" 
 
 " I have some of the finest biscuits in Eng- 
 land," replied Owen Tudor, and darted out of 
 the room to fetch them.
 
 THE PREMIER. Ill 
 
 *' I shall be happy to pledge you, Gentle- 
 men," said the stranger, frothing up a glass of 
 his own ale as he poured it out. 
 
 Cranstoun bowed, gently ; followed the 
 stranger's example, but was far behind him in 
 the dexterity of making the ale mantle ; passed 
 the beverage to Frederick, — and, putting 
 their glasses to their lips, the challenge was 
 accepted. 
 
 " ' Shall I not take mine ease in mine 
 inn?'"" said Cranstoun in a half whisper to 
 Frederick ; accompanying the words with an 
 indescribable look of arch drollery, as he drew 
 towards him a vacant chair on which he stretch- 
 ed his legs. 
 
 Frederick could only smile. At no time did 
 the urbane kindness of Cranstoun betray him 
 into familiarity with him ; and at the present 
 moment, they were so oddly situated that he 
 feared to speak, lest he should cause some 
 awkward embarrassment, especially as there 
 had been no opportunity for Cranstoun to 
 express his own view of their situation. 
 
 " Ministers have got themselves into a tick-
 
 112 THE PREMIER. 
 
 lisli business, I think,*" said the stranger, ad- 
 dressing Cranstoun, as he laid down the paper, 
 " with the French Government."" 
 
 " Indeed !"" responded Cranstoun, directing a 
 look towards Frederick which enjoined him to 
 be discreet. 
 
 " Yes," continued the stranger, " a very 
 ticklish business — and so I said it would prove 
 from the first. But, God help us ! The only 
 sense that is of any use to a man,— common 
 sense, — which, as Dean Swift says, though ' no 
 science is fairly worth the seven,' is just that 
 sense which our wise ministers want. They are 
 so profound, and so subtle, and so ' about it, 
 and about it,"* as Pope says, in all they do, that 
 you would think the art of government were a 
 solemn mystery, instead of being as plain and 
 straight-forward a thing, as settling the price 
 of a flock of sheep." 
 
 " Ay, that is too much the way with them, 
 I do believe," replied Cranstoun quietly, keep- 
 ing down his remarks to the level of his inter- 
 locutor. 
 
 " God bless you, Sir !"" pursued the stranger, 
 rising with his subject into increased energy
 
 THE PREMIER. 113 
 
 of voice and manner, — " could any man who 
 had common sense, have entertained a doubt 
 as to the real designs of France ?"" 
 
 " I should think not," answered Cranstoun. 
 
 " Think not !" echoed the stranger, "why — 
 but perhaps you don't attend much to political 
 matter?."" 
 
 " Only so far, I confess, as they may happen 
 to concern my own affairs,"" replied Cranstoun. 
 
 " Ay, there it is, every man for himself, and 
 God for us all, as the saying is. But the fact 
 is, in this same business with the French cabi- 
 net, our own have been cajoled by finesse, by 
 palaver, by double-refined talking; or, as Dr. 
 South says, they have been 'injured in good 
 language, ruined in caresses, and kissed while 
 they were struck under the fifth rib."* Had / 
 been at the head of His Majesty's government, 
 what would / have done do you think ?" 
 
 " Really," said Cranstoun, " I cannot tell." 
 
 " Why this — but if youll allow me. Gentle- 
 men, 111 join you;" and so saying, without 
 waiting for any other invitation than his own, 
 he brought his chair in one hand, his glass of 
 ale in the other, and seated himself by the side
 
 114 THE PREMIER. 
 
 of Cranstoun, who evidently began to relish 
 the scene. 
 
 '' I would have done this, Sir,'' he continued. 
 '' I would have said to France, in as few words 
 as possible, and those words the plainest I could 
 pick out, ' my determination is so and so ; I have 
 no second purpose behind ; and I won't stir an 
 inch from the one I have stated. Now, if you 
 choose to agree to it, there is an end of all far- 
 ther negotiation — the thing is settled ; but if 
 you do not, I know it is for our interest that 
 you should, and so I must find out a way to 
 make you."* " 
 
 " Would it not be an improvement,'** replied 
 Cranstoun, '' to begin with finding out your 
 way of making France comply, and thus be 
 ready with it before you tendered such peremp- 
 tory conditions ?'' 
 
 " Pooh ! nonsense ! France would take it 
 for granted that I wen ready.*" 
 
 " She might not, perhaps," said Cranstoun. 
 
 " Ah, but I would make her — " 
 
 " Oh, I see ; you would begin with making 
 her take for granted, that you meant to be as 
 good as your word.'"* 
 
 "To be sure!''
 
 THE PREMIER. 115 
 
 "Ay, ay; that alters the case," said Crans- 
 toun. 
 
 " I fancy it does, indeed," replied the stran- 
 ger. ** And how do you think I would pro- 
 ceed, in order to produce that preliminary con- 
 viction in the mind of the French Government ?"'"' 
 
 "I have not the least notion^" observed 
 Cranstoun. 
 
 " Why, by always carrying my point ; by 
 never saying one thing and doing another ; or, 
 as the old proverb has it, by taking care to 
 show my teeth only when I meant to bite ; for 
 though, as Hume says, ' notliing can be more 
 unphilosophical, than to be positive or dogma- 
 tical on any subject,' yet, as Bruyere says, 
 ' Cunning leads to knavery ; it is but a step 
 from one to the other, and that very slippery : 
 lying only makes the difference; add that to 
 cunning, and it is knavery.' Depend upon it, 
 my dear Sir, honesty is the best policy in all 
 things. Why should politicians work back- 
 wards, merely to prevent their intentions being 
 known by their actings ? Why should their 
 eyes point one way, while the path they tread 
 leads another ?" 
 
 " I suppose," said Cranstoun, playing covert-
 
 116 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ly upon the stranger's frequency of quotation, 
 " because, as Cowley says, ' One would think 
 all mankind had bound themselves by an oath 
 to do all the wickedness they can ;"* or, as Pascal 
 says, because man is ' a chimera, a confused 
 chaos, a contradiction, a mere puddle of un- 
 certainty, the glory and the scandal of the uni- 
 verse.' If none of these will suffice for a reason, 
 I am afraid it is beyond philosophy to find one." 
 
 '" There is to be a change of ministers, I 
 hear," said the stranger abruptly ; '' that is 
 positively settled, but I don't know who are 
 coming in. That 's the cleverest fellow among 
 them," he continued, pointing to the opposite 
 side of the room. 
 
 Cranstoun cast his eyes in the direction of 
 the stranger's hand. Frederick did the same. 
 To the utter dismay of the former, he recog- 
 nised an engraved portrait of himself. He 
 drew his hat lower upon his brow. It was not 
 a very formidable likeness, and moreover it was 
 from a painting executed many years since, 
 when he was a younger man both in age and 
 appearance : it was not probable, therefore, it 
 would be identified with the original. But the
 
 THE PREMIFR. 117 
 
 annoying thought crossed his mind, for a mo- 
 ment, that perhaps the stranger knew, from the 
 first, whom he was addressing, and that he had 
 been amusing himself at his expense; and 
 Cranstoun was too sensitive to ridicule, as well 
 as too jealous of personal dignity, not to wince 
 under such a conjecture. Exactly the same 
 suspicion had taken possession of Frederick ; 
 but he, with all the warmth and indiscretion 
 natural to youth, was kindling into resentment 
 at the supposed insult offered to his superior, 
 and one whom he no less idolized than respect- 
 ed, when Cranstoun, observing the angry flush 
 of his cheek, and sparkling ire of his eye, ad- 
 dressed the stranger. 
 
 " I seem to know that face,"" said he, look- 
 ing at the portrait, " but my sight is bad, and 
 at this distance I could not take upon myself 
 to name the person for whom it is meant.""* 
 
 " That,'" replied the stranger, with an honest 
 warmth of manner which almost banished the 
 misgivings previously excited, — " that is George 
 Cranstoun, a first-rate man; the only public 
 man worth naming, now that Pitt, and Fox, 
 and Burke, and Sheridan are gone. God
 
 118 THE PREMIER. 
 
 knows whether it is at all like what he now is, 
 for I have not seen George Cranstoun — how 
 many years shall I say ? I' faith, I don't think 
 I have seen him, by any chance, since he and 
 I were at Eton together." 
 
 A benignant, placid smile spread itself over 
 the features of the Minister. The ire and the 
 flush departed from the eye and cheek of Fre- 
 derick, to be succeeded by an expression of 
 generous delight at the homage which had been 
 rendered to his master. 
 
 " You are an Etonian, then ?" said Crans- 
 toun. 
 
 "A bit of a one," answered the stranger; 
 " but family embarrassments compelled my 
 father to send for me home before I had hard- 
 ly ' tasted," much less ' drunk deep of the Pie- 
 rian spring,' as Pope says." 
 
 " And Cranstoun was contemporary with 
 you, at Eton ?'' 
 
 " Ay, he and I were in the same — no, no, I 
 am wrong, — if my memory does not deceive me, 
 George Cranstoun was not an Oppidan. Sure- 
 ly he was on the foundation, and wore his 
 black cloth gown — be that as it may, however.
 
 THE PREMIER. 119 
 
 I know he beat us all hollow ; yet there were 
 some clever ones too at that time, who turned 
 out bright characters afterwards : there was 
 Charles Winchester, who died a bishop the 
 other day ; and Frank Wainfleet, who will be 
 Lord Chancellor sooner or later ; and poor 
 Chamberlayne, who lives upon his fine estate 
 in the next county, under the care of two 
 keepers, mad as a March hare, and made so by 
 learning, if ever too much learning turned a 
 brain topsy turvy ; and young Grey, now Lord 
 Langley, and many, many others ; but not one 
 of them, in my mind, was either then or since to 
 be compared with that man, who seems to be 
 looking at us with such a noble consciousness 
 of what he is. Did you read his speech last 
 session, upon Sir Benjamin's motion for a com- 
 mittee of the whole house to take into conside- 
 ration the state of the nation ? It had all the 
 fire of Demosthenes, and all the elegance of 
 Cicero, all — *" 
 
 " It may seem a strange thing to say," in- 
 terrupted Cranstoun, who was growing some- 
 what nervous under this extravagant panegy- 
 ric, " that though I by no means undervalue
 
 120 THE PREMIER. 
 
 his merits, I don't think I ever read a speech 
 of his in my life — certainly not, unless it was a 
 very short one." 
 
 "And I,"* rejoined the stranger, "don't think 
 I ever missed one — so that 's the difference be- 
 tween us." 
 
 Cranstoun was now anxious to learn, if possi- 
 ble, the name and calling of his companion, but 
 knew not how to bring it about. All his sus- 
 picions as to being known were at an end ; and 
 he was pretty well satisfied from the manner of 
 the stranger, and from the various circum- 
 stances he had mentioned, that he was a fellow 
 Etonian. The sound of carriage- wheels, how- 
 ever, put an end to the conversation. Frede- 
 rick hastened to the door to stop the travelling 
 chariot, as it was whirling rapidly past, neither 
 the postilion nor servants deeming it neces- 
 sary to draw up at the Red Lion for their 
 master ; and great was their astonishment when 
 they saw Cranstoun coming out of it. But 
 greater still was the astonishment of Mr. Owen 
 Tudor ; and equally great was his mortification, 
 to find that there was not even one convenient 
 moment for him to sift the domestics as to the
 
 THE PREMIER. 121 
 
 names and quality of the guests he had been 
 entertaining. Most profound was the bow, 
 and most becomingly grave was the face, with 
 which he saluted them as the carriage drove 
 off; and most immoveable was his position, by 
 the side of the great oak already mentioned, 
 till the carriage was out of sight. 
 
 " I wonder who they can be !" exclaimed Mr. 
 Owen Tudor. 
 
 " I have not the least idea," replied the stran- 
 ger, who had followed Cranstoun out of the 
 room. 
 
 " I should like to find out,*" quoth mine host. 
 
 " So should I," responded the stranger. 
 
 " I don't know the liveries," said Mr. Owen 
 Tudor. 
 
 " Perhaps, a West-Indian planter and his 
 son,"** continued the stranger. " The old gen- 
 tleman looked very sallow, as if his liver had 
 been touched by a hot climate." 
 
 While they were thus conjecturing, the miller 
 rode up to the Red Lion, on his shuffling Welsh 
 pony. He was on his return from market ; 
 had passed the carriage on the road before the 
 repair of the broken spring was completed ; and 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 THE PREMIER. 
 
 had been passed by it, before he arrived at the 
 Red Lion ; where, as was his " custom in the 
 afternoon" every market day, he refreshed him- 
 self with a pipe, and a draught of Mr. Owen 
 Tudor's home-brewed. Being a man of an in- 
 quisitive turn of mind, he had stopped long 
 enough chatting with the servants and the 
 wheelwright, to obtain that very information, 
 the want of which was perplexing to mine host 
 and the stranger, at the moment of his arrival. 
 What followed we need not relate, except that 
 the stranger, of whom more perhaps will be 
 known hereafter, indulged in a very natural 
 soliloquy upon the " singular coincidence," and 
 upon " the lucky circumstance that he happen- 
 ed to speak his real mind concerning Cranstoun, 
 though he did not know him ;"*' winding up the 
 whole with observing, " as Pope says," that 
 
 " The thing he knew was neither strange nor rare ;" 
 though he could not help wondering 
 " How the Devil he came there !"
 
 THE PREMIER. 123 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 We ended the last chapter with descrip- 
 tion, " in little/' of one soliloquy ; we shall 
 begin this with the recital, at full, of another ; 
 but spoken more than two months afterwards, 
 and by a very different sort of personage. 
 
 There sits Sir George Ardent, in his library — 
 alone — and reading. The book he holds in his 
 hand is a volume of Young's works, containing 
 his Night Thoughts. The morning is cold, 
 dull, and gusty ; such a morning as fitly 
 ushers in the miserable, misanthropic, spirit- 
 depressing month of November. The sun is 
 pursuing his glorious path in the heavens, but 
 his cheerful beams cannot pierce the spongy 
 canopy of grey, wet clouds that hover low and 
 misty, over the fair earth. Fitfully, as the 
 G 2
 
 124 THE PREMIER. 
 
 wind sweeps in flaws round the house, large 
 drops of rain come plashing against the win- 
 dow, precursors of the heavier storm that is to 
 follow. Any one might be forgiven who, in 
 such a day, should " hate and detest that 
 animal called man, although he heartily love 
 John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth."' And in 
 such a day, any one who, like Sir George, had 
 at all times a fretful impatience of the world, 
 might be expected to feel that impatience deepen 
 into absolute disgust. 
 
 Sir George has thrown the volume from him, 
 while repeating these lines : — 
 
 *' Poor is thefriendless master of the world ! 
 A world, in purchase of a friend, is gain." 
 
 And walking up and down the room with a 
 slow, meditative step, he thus moralizes the in- 
 flated nonsense : — 
 
 " So sings the poet ; but poetry is fiction, and 
 such is theme ! A friend ! a miracle I Heaven 
 never cast two human hearts in the same mould ; 
 and where there is one discordant atom, perfect 
 union is impossible. It is the self-martyrdom 
 of the soul, to brood over delights of which we
 
 THE PREMIER. 125 
 
 persuade ourselves that we are susceptible, and 
 to know we cannot taste them. Give me that 
 philosophy, rather— that wholesome, though 
 barren, philosophy which robs it of all its 
 dearest hopes and sympathies, and schools it 
 to a cynical acquiescence with this seeming 
 world. I have dreamed too long. Age is 
 stealing on me, ere my youthful fancies, the 
 visions of my boyhood, are quenched. And 
 shall I slip, at last, into the grave, a discon- 
 tented guest at life's common feast ? It is the 
 dotage of the mind. Men are round me. I am 
 of human composition, yet the species give me 
 no delight. My heart is solitary ; it cleaves to 
 none save by the impulse of blood ; and in- 
 stinct does as much for the gaunt wolf and the 
 fierce hyena. I am not churlish, either. 
 What, then, is the spell that hangs upon me ? 
 — A proud sophistry, an idolatrous worship of 
 that impure idol — self! Ay, this it is that 
 holds me captive. I have adorned the chains 
 which shackle me with fancy wreaths, so long, 
 that now I view them as my decoration, 
 and wink at the thraldom that dishonours me. 
 Well, then, I'll henceforth smile upon the
 
 126 THE PREMIER. 
 
 world, entertain it as a friend, and when we 
 part for good, it shall speak kindly of me in 
 mine epitaph." 
 
 There is a gentle tap at the door, — Sir George 
 answers it : the next moment it opens, and 
 Louisa enters. It is a marvellous thing to 
 write, in this age, — but she has come to consult 
 lier father upon a passage in — what ? The 
 C2<i of Corneille ? — The Athalie of Racine.? — 
 The Gerusalemme Liberata of Tasso ? — The 
 Divina Comedia of Dante ? — No, not one of 
 these. 
 
 The volume she has brought with her, is the 
 same which old Roger Ascham tells us, he found 
 the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey reading in her own 
 apartment, while her father and mother and 
 their whole household, were hunting in the park 
 at the mansion of Broadgate, in Leicestershire. 
 It was the Phaedon of Plato ! 
 
 Enough. The future biographer of Louisa 
 Ardent — some Ascham, or Chaloner, or Fuller 
 yet unborn, may celebrate her learning : for my 
 own part, I shall not even inform the reader what 
 the passage was which had puzzled her, in spite 
 of the various scholia by which it was explained
 
 THE PREMIER. 127 
 
 or interpreted. But when Sir George, whom 
 Porson, nay Parr himself, would have allowed 
 to be a first-rate Greek scholar, had satisfied 
 her doubts, and when a conversation, much too 
 erudite for these pages, which arose out of this 
 reference, had ended, there followed a dialogue 
 between them which I do not feel myself at 
 liberty to pass over, because, like a prelude by 
 a skilful composer, it will be found, I hope, to 
 lead up to some of the principal movements in 
 the piece that is to follow. 
 
 Sir George has seated himself by the fire : 
 Louisa is by his side, and he is holding her 
 hand, and playing with her fingers as he 
 speaks. 
 
 " Have you thought more of what we talked 
 about last night ?'* said he. 
 
 " Indeed, indeed,^' replied Louisa with a 
 feigned sigh, " I could not sleep for thinking 
 of it." 
 
 " 'Tis well : midnight meditations are pre- 
 cious. Say, then, are you with me in opinion ?" 
 
 Louisa hesitated. 
 
 " Will you be angry, if I tell you truly ?" 
 
 " Angry at truth !" exclaimed Sir George;
 
 128 THE PREMIER. 
 
 and then, with ironical gravity, added — *' He 
 were a slave to the most debasing love of error, 
 who did not reverence even an unwelcome truth. 
 So, tell me." 
 
 *' Well, then — I do — really— and positively, 
 think—" 
 
 Again Louisa paused. 
 
 " What r 
 
 "That love is—" 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 « Is, what ?" 
 
 " Very, very natural ! Indeed I do — and Fm 
 sure I am right." 
 
 " Pish !" exclaimed Sir George, a little 
 peevishly. 
 
 Louisa was silent. 
 
 " The fantastic delusion of youth," continued 
 Sir George, "which dignifies its idlest wishes 
 with the name of nature." 
 
 " Nay, you promised me you would not be 
 angry." 
 
 " Nor am I, dear child," replied her father 
 quickly ; " but I did not expect to find my 
 Louisa, who has been tutored in a different 
 lore, falling into such vulgar judgment. What
 
 THE PREMIER. 129 
 
 is love ? — The vagrant phantasy of empty minds, 
 which having nothing inward to fix them, seek 
 for external objects. Where Wisdom is, severe 
 and solemn mistress ! Love shows not his dimpled 
 face. He builds his throne in light, inconstant 
 bosoms. From thought and contemplation, the 
 baby-god flies far away." 
 
 " If you deny love," said Louisa, with a ten- 
 der emphasis of manner, which showed her heart 
 was upon her lips, " you do deny that yon are 
 most dear to me ! Tell me, my father — how 
 shall I call that sacred sentiment I feel towards 
 yourself, my mother, my brothers, if I may 
 not say it is love ?" 
 
 Sir George could have exclaimed, " Sweet 
 angel ! such eloquence might plead a stoic 
 dumb !*" But he did not, because he was pur- 
 suing what he denominated a " moral experi- 
 ment ;""' and what he was pleased to consider a 
 very philosophical inquiry into the true sources 
 of human passion. He wished to discover that 
 profound mystery of our nature, whether men 
 and women were really made to love one an- 
 other in spite of themselves, or whether, like a 
 taste for botany and numismatics, it was entirely 
 G 5
 
 130 THE PREMIER. 
 
 an affair of chance that people came together, 
 for the better security of keeping up the neces- 
 sary supplies of population. After this, the 
 reader will no doubt think he was quite right, 
 when he said in his soliloquy, " I have dreamed 
 too long !"" 
 
 " Oh ! there are many causes," was his re- 
 ply, " for the sentiment you mention ; but the 
 imperfection of language supplies us only with 
 one name for it, be its origin what it may. The 
 force of custom — early habits — gratitude, have 
 a powerful influence in p^-oducing it."" 
 
 " No, no, no !" interrupted Louisa, passion- 
 ately. " Place me in a desert, where sight of 
 human form might never bless me, and be there 
 but one solitary shrub that met my view each 
 time I wandered from my lonely habitation, 
 and I should love it I Nature would teach me 
 the spontaneous lesson, to cherish affection 
 for inanimate things, all nobler objects being 
 absent !" 
 
 The " moral experiment" was pretty nearly 
 at an end; the "philosophical inquiry" seemed 
 hardly worth pursuing any farther, after this 
 declaration in favour of stocks and stones. It
 
 THE PREMIER. 131 
 
 was impossible to deny, that if love, like hunger, 
 would find something to feed on, it would fol- 
 low the example of hunger, and prefer what 
 was most agreeable to the palate, when it could 
 be got. Shrubs and sand-hills might serve as 
 substitutes in a desert ; but in society, un- 
 questionably, flesh and blood would carry the 
 day. Sir George, therefore, changed his course. 
 
 "Well, well,'^ said he, "we will talk no more 
 of this. You are romantic, I see. Years will 
 cool the fervour of your ideas. But beware, 
 my child, how you carry this glowing philan- 
 thropy into the world : man is a subtle dis- 
 putant, when woman's heart is the prize. He'll 
 flatter the weakness that undoes you, and mock 
 you when you are his prey. Beware !*" 
 
 " You have taught me self-reverence," re- 
 plied Louisa with a meek humility of voice and 
 look, " and, till that forsake me, what have I 
 to fear ?" 
 
 " It is a noble confidence," answered Sir 
 George emphatically, proudly conscious it was 
 his daughter, the pupil oi his training, that 
 had thus spoken. Then, suddenly assuming 
 a gayer tone and manner, he added, "but
 
 132 THE PREMIER. 
 
 pry thee, tell me one thing, which has just 
 occurred to me. Have you been an unpreju- 
 diced inquirer after truth, in this business ? 
 Has your heart slept, while your reason ex- 
 amined ?" 
 
 " You are my father," replied Louisa archly, 
 " not my father confessor. I '11 whisper an 
 answer to that question to my pillow, where 
 we say many things we dare not speak aloud." 
 
 " It will be a faithful guardian of your 
 secrets."" 
 
 " Then,"" rejoined Louisa, smiling, " it shall 
 teach me to perform a miracle. They say, it 
 is a wonder when a woman keeps a secret ; but 
 I will learn from it to disprove the audacious 
 falsehood, and be my sex's champion." 
 
 " Your ambition," replied Sir George, " mis- 
 takes its aim. The satire is levelled at the 
 babblers who betray the entrusted secret. Do 
 we require to be told, that women are excellent 
 privy counsellors, when a breach of honour 
 would be treason against themselves .?" 
 
 " It is a sort of axiom, I suppose, that a 
 woman always keeps her own secret .?" said 
 Louisa. 
 
 " Absolutely an intuitive truth, my dear.''
 
 THE PREMIER. 133 
 
 *' Indeed ! Well, as that is the case, and as 
 I should blush to stand an utter exception to 
 my sex, I will sit, the very statue of Harpo- 
 crates ;"*' and she placed her fore-finger upon her 
 lips, looking at her father with a bewitching air 
 of playful malice. 
 
 " Skilfully evaded !" exclaimed Sir George, 
 laughing, " but there are more ways than one 
 of extracting truth from a reluctant witness. 
 Now, Madam, look me in the face, and answer 
 my question. Have you regarded with equal 
 indifference every friend or acquaintance who 
 visits us ?" 
 
 " Indeed," said Louisa, playing carelessly 
 with one of her ringlets, as she leaned her head 
 upon her hand, " I believe my heart is enclosed 
 in a marble case, or walled round with adamant. 
 Nothing touches it, in the way you imagine. 
 It promises to be an impregnable fortress, un- 
 less it should be betrayed by the treachery of 
 the governor, which I do not fear, for I have a 
 perfect reliance upon his wisdom and integrity." 
 
 " So perchance have not I," replied her 
 father. " But are you quite sure it is so im- 
 pregnable ?" 
 
 " Quite !"
 
 134i THE PREMIER. 
 
 " And not the smallest breach has yet been 
 effected by any assailant ?"" 
 
 " Not a crack the size of a bee's knee." 
 
 " Let me inspect its condition," continued 
 Sir George. 
 
 " But how shall you be able to do so .^" 
 
 " As thus," he answered. " What do you 
 think of Mr. Lumley .?" 
 
 " Must I tell you ?'' 
 
 " Certainly;* 
 
 Louisa paused for a moment, as a painter 
 might do, to consider what colours he would 
 employ. 
 
 " What do I think of Mr. Lumley ?" said 
 she, repeating her father's question. '■'Why, 
 I think he loves himself too well to love any 
 one else. I saw him in the sun, the other day, 
 worshipping his shadow, and heard him dis- 
 course to it, as to a mistress. Shut him up in 
 a room where there is no mirror, and you kill 
 him. Yet I can forgive him this homage, be- 
 cause it is the only self-reflection of which he 
 is capable. Oh ! he is the abstract and com- 
 pendium of all egotism ; so inseparably wedded 
 to his own person, that he would surely forget 
 his wife, the day after he married her."
 
 THE PREMIER. 136 
 
 *' If you quarrel with Mr. Lumley for being 
 independent of the world's opinion, which every 
 self-satisfied man necessarily is," observed Sir 
 George, *' you will of course be the more in- 
 clined to think favourably of Sir Stephen Har- 
 court, who is never so happy as when he is 
 neglecting his own affairs to attend to those of 
 other people." 
 
 " He is an excellent timepiece," replied Lou- 
 isa; " for always having something to do where 
 he is not, and nothing to do where he is, he 
 carries his watch in his hand, and is going 
 away every moment he stays."" 
 
 " Then there is his nephew," continued the 
 Baronet, " the handsome Mr. Fitz-George, (as 
 I am told he is called,) who looks as if he 
 thought thinking became him, — what do you say 
 to him ?" 
 
 " If to speak well of one who never speaks 
 himself, were not flattery," said Louisa, " I 
 should say, Mr. Fitz-George would have been 
 a great treasure to a certain king of Arragon 
 we read of." 
 
 " In what manner, pray ?" 
 
 " After a very quiet manner, — his Majesty 
 preferred dumb counsellors.""
 
 136 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " It is well he does not hear you ; it might 
 chance to break the spell of his silence.*" 
 
 " And if it did," rejoined Louisa, " he would 
 only be frightened at the sound of his own 
 voice, and think it some one chiding him. I 
 am assured he never produced an echo but once 
 in his life, and that was when he happened to 
 sneeze in the whispering gallery of St. Paul's. 
 The disciples of Pythagoras, with their pro- 
 bationary discipline of five years, must have 
 resembled a rookery compared with this owl of 
 the human race." 
 
 " Come, now," said Sir George, " be serious 
 and not satirical ; for I am going to ask your 
 opinion of one whom your general admiration 
 of intellectual endowments must entitle to a 
 better fate at your hands ; Mr. Mc Swinn : 
 ' the pride of Scotland,"* as somebody called him 
 the other day, in an ode beginning ' Son of the 
 North r and so forth." 
 
 " Well, then, to be serious and not satirical, 
 though it is very possible to be both, in my 
 mind, at one and the same time, I confess 1 
 could admire Mr. Mc Swinn for his know- 
 ledge, if Nature had given him modesty to
 
 THE PREMIER. 137 
 
 enjoy it ; but Vanity sits in mockery upon him, 
 like my ' lady' upon the wife of a citizen, who, 
 sheriff for a year, is be-knighted, perchance, to 
 play the fool of quality all the rest of his life. 
 Mr. Mc Swinn will quarrel with his best 
 friend, who does not praise his last work, and 
 forgive his bitterest enemy who does." 
 
 *' These are blemishes," observed Sir George, 
 " which his moral qualities amply redeem."" 
 
 " Perhaps so : I have heard, indeed, that he 
 is liberal, and that he lends his money freely ; 
 but I have also heard, that he never asks for 
 what he lends, till the friend he has assisted is 
 unable to return it. Interest he disdains, as 
 an ignoble species of traffic, preferring to trust 
 to the gratitude and honour of his debtor, be- 
 cause he knows a man commonly pays double 
 when honour unties his purse-strings. Mr. 
 Mc Swinn may bank with the heart ; but he 
 carries his check-book in his pocket." 
 
 " You are intolerably severe. Your very 
 praise is censure. I cannot acquit myself, in 
 foro conscientice, to cite any more of our friends 
 before you, for their character. Indeed, I know 
 but one other who has fallen much within your
 
 138 THE PREMIER. 
 
 observation, and he, of course, you would deal 
 just as hardly by — I mean Colonel Asper." 
 
 " I have done drawing characters for this 
 morning,*" interrupted Louisa ; while one of the 
 " thousand blushing apparitions," which the 
 Friar noted on the cheek of Hero, started 
 into her pale face. But before Sir George could 
 reply, the conversation was interrupted by the 
 entrance of Lady Ardent ; and Louisa soon 
 after retired to her own room.
 
 THE PREMIER. 139 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Lady Ardent had come to announce the 
 arrival of Dr. Groanandsigh. He had been 
 expected at Deddington Park all the spring, 
 all the summer, all the autumn : and now made 
 his appearance with the first bad day that 
 ushered in the winter, dripping like the eaves 
 of a thatched barn, and his horse reeking like 
 a seething cauldron. He resided about fifteen 
 miles from the mansion of Sir George, with a 
 maiden sister, who being crossed in her first 
 love, just at that age when men are said to 
 be either fools or physicians, she renounced 
 matrimony, and resolved to die as she had 
 lived — a virgin. Her brother, too, was a bache- 
 lor : a rigid, unquestionable bachelor ; for 
 though, like Sir Thomas Brown, (from whom, 
 by the by, he boasted his descent,) he was
 
 140 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " not averse from that sweet sex, but naturally 
 amorous of all that is beautiful,*" and could 
 " look a whole day with delight upon a hand- 
 some picture, though it were but of a horse ;" 
 yet, in further resemblance of the whimsical 
 author of the Religio Medici, (at least at the 
 time of writing his book,) he " was never once, 
 and commended their resolutions who never 
 married twice." 
 
 In early life, Dr. Groanandsigh had practised 
 in London, as a physician ; but being naturally 
 the most miserable of men, with no cause, or 
 certainly with very little cause, to be so, he 
 persuaded himself he was not born to succeed 
 in any thing, when, by one of those freaks 
 of fortune which sometimes occur, he succeed- 
 ed to an estate worth fifteen hundred a-year. 
 
 He was now supremely happy, having no- 
 thing to do but to be unhappy ; for, in the 
 strictest sense of the word, he became the hap- 
 piest of men from the moment he could wholly 
 resign himself to brooding over his misfortunes. 
 He took possession of the estate; lamented it 
 had not fallen into better hands, as it would
 
 THE PREMIER. 141 
 
 only go to rack and ruin in his, and wished it 
 less ; for what did he want with fifteen hundred 
 a-year ? 
 
 " I might let a surplus accumulate," he 
 would sometimes say to Miss Groanandsigh, 
 " till there is enough to build an hospital, 
 enlarge the county infirmary, or add a new 
 ward to Bedlam ; but what would be the use, 
 when an hospital the size of London, an in- 
 firmary that covered Salisbury Plain, or a lu- 
 natic asylum equal to the whole Isle of Mann, 
 would not suffice for a tithe of the misery that 
 desolates the country? It would be a mere 
 bucket of water cast into the Thames.'* 
 
 Not being metaphysicians, we must content 
 ourselves with describing it as among the ano- 
 malies of Sir George's character, that he was 
 patient of Dr. Groanandsigh's. Perhaps he 
 regarded it in the same light as a hunch-back, 
 a club-foot, or any other bodily deformity ; 
 and as he never quarrelled with the dispensa- 
 tions of Providence, in whatever shape they 
 might come across him, so he did not consider 
 himself warranted to grow angry with the
 
 142 THE PREMIER. 
 
 perennial melancholy of the Doctor, which was 
 a constitutional disease of the mind. 
 
 But he could not help growing tired, some- 
 times, of a particular story, which the Doctor 
 used to tell, called the " Black Friday:' This 
 story he would relate ten times a-day, if there 
 were as many opportunities for him to explain 
 the series of calamities which had given, as he 
 said, the colour to his after-life. Over this 
 Black Friday/ he gloated with a lugubrious re- 
 lish, an ecstasy of self-torment, a gust of retro- 
 spective misery, which it was delightful to wit- 
 ness, till frequent repetition diminished the plea- 
 sure. When that was the case, and the history 
 of his Black Friday had lost all its charms ex- 
 cept to the Doctor himself, it required particular 
 caution to avoid sympathizing with him, or ex- 
 pressing any thing like astonishment that he 
 should be so utterly wretched. Either of these 
 temptations would be immediately followed by 
 a paviour's sigh, a puckering of the features, a 
 gentle clasping of the hands, an upward cast of 
 the half-closed eyes, and the exclamation — 
 *' You shall hear whether I am not more to be 
 pitied than condemned ! Thirty-five years ago,
 
 THE PREMIER. 143 
 
 I arose one Friday morning — Black Friday as 
 I have ever since called it," — and then came the 
 whole story. 
 
 Reader ! Would you like to hear this tale 
 of Black Friday^ once ? If so, fancy Dr. 
 Groanandsigh at your elbow, — fancy you have 
 been so indiscreet as to pity him, — fancy the 
 consequences of such indiscretion, as they have 
 just been described, and then, fancy you hear 
 the Doctor, speaking in whatever tone of voice, 
 and with whatever other accessories of look and 
 manner, you know to be sufficient to give you 
 a (jonfirmed fit of blue devils. 
 
 " Ah, Sir ! I was once so covetous of misfor- 
 tune, that I amassed a store of it within the 
 compass of a single day. Thirty-five years 
 ago, I arose one Friday morning, — Black Friday 
 as I have called it ever since, — cheerful and 
 happy ; for I anticipated nothing but felicity 
 and good fortune. Many were the visions of 
 future opulence which I expected to realize 
 from the events of that fatal day ; but I re- 
 turned to my pillow, from which I had sprung 
 with so lightsome a heart, despairing, melan- 
 choly, almost mad !
 
 144 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " Having accumulated a little money, I had 
 been advised by a friend to vest it in a specula- 
 tion for growing water-cresses, which he de- 
 scribed in the most flattering colours, and as 
 certain of being attended with success. Our 
 rights were to be secured by a patent, and we 
 were to have a monopoly, for ninety-nine years, 
 of the supply of water-cresses not only to the 
 population of the metropolis, but, by establish- 
 ing branch depots, of the whole of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland. I listened to his ad- 
 vice. I sunk a thousand pounds, for which, 
 as I was assured, I should certainly receive ten, 
 if not fifteen per cent, the very first year. I 
 looked forward, therefore, with the most plea- 
 sing expectations to the declaration of a divi- 
 dend. The day arrived — that very Black 
 Friday, — when the proprietors were summoned 
 to meet, by public advertisement, to receive a 
 report from the Committee. I own I was a 
 little surprised that no mention was made of 
 the dividend in this advertisement ; but I con- 
 cluded the omission was purely accidental, and 
 I went to receive whatever was coming to me 
 upon the capital I had advanced.
 
 THE PREMIER. 145 
 
 " When we were all assembled, the chair- 
 man opened the business in a long speech, 
 which for a time I did not comprehend. By 
 degrees, however, he became more intelligible. 
 He told us the concern was in a most flourish- 
 ing condition, — that the value of the shares was 
 daily rising, and that they would ultimately 
 become an ample provision for ourselves and 
 heirs for ever. As I had no heirs, nor ever in- 
 tended to have any, I was satisfied with the 
 prospect of obtaining a provision for myself. 
 But the conclusion of his speech chilled my 
 very soul. After expatiating upon the various 
 difficulties incident to an ii^fant undertaking, 
 upon unforeseen expenses, for which no fund 
 had been appropriated, — upon improvements, 
 which had suggested themselves, and were of 
 the utmost importance to the ultimate prosperi- 
 ty of the scheme, he announced that, instead of 
 a dividend of ten per cent., we had accumulated 
 a debt of fifty thousand pounds ! 
 
 " 'This, gentlemen," said he, -it will require all 
 our economy, for the next three years, to pay off. 
 But, gentlemen, after that period, supposing no 
 fresh difficulties to occur, we may look forward 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 THE phemier. 
 
 to at least one and a half per cent, upon our 
 capital ; and in less than twenty years, there is 
 every reason to calculate that we shall divide five 
 per cent. And now, gentlemen, let me earnestly 
 entreat you to take a dispassionate view of your 
 situation. It is true, you do not receive any 
 thing now ; but you will, some day or other ; 
 and meanwhile, remember the intrinsic value 
 of your property is progressively augmenting. 
 In fact, it may be said, by an allowable figure 
 of speech, that you are actually getting your 
 ten per cent, at the present moment ; only, you 
 don''t receive it at the present moment ; that is 
 all the difference, which in reality amounts to 
 nothing.' 
 
 " ' I see it does, tam the Tevil ! I wish my 
 money vash in my pocket !"* exclaimed a Jew 
 who sat next me. 
 
 " For my own part, I could not utter a word. 
 I did not stay to hear a report read by the 
 secretary, in which it was to be demonstrated 
 that we were going on prosperously. It was 
 enough for me, that, instead of receiving a hun- 
 dred pounds for my thousand, I had got only 
 moonshine. I should have found no conso-
 
 THE PREMIER. 147 
 
 lation in learning how the change had been 
 brought about. 
 
 " ' Well !' said I to myself, as I regained the 
 street, ' here is one dream of wealth dissipated ; 
 and I am saved the trouble of going on to the 
 Bank, to invest my hundred pounds in the 
 funds. But hold, it is time to repair to the 
 meeting of Diddlem's creditors. There I have 
 a claim for three hundred pounds ; and, thank 
 Heaven ! that affair is not so bad as it was re- 
 presented. We are to have twenty shillings in 
 the pound, I hear, which is all I require.' 
 
 " The matter therefore stood thus with me. 
 I expected to receive a hundred-pound dividend 
 from the water-cresses, which had vanished, 
 but I did not expect to receive a hundred shil- 
 lings from Diddlem's estate, — instead of which, I 
 should get my whole three hundred. So, de- 
 ducting one from three, there remained two, 
 and I considered myself, after all, two hundred 
 pounds in pocket. 
 
 "This calculation revived me. I stepped 
 cheerily along, and arrived at Diddlem's just 
 as they were proceeding to business. Alas ! 
 H 2
 
 148 THE PREMIER. 
 
 the statement which was laid before us, divest- 
 ed of items and explanations, amounted simply 
 to this, that Mr. Diddlem had concealed no- 
 thing, had kept nothing, had nothing, and we 
 could get nothing. I rushed out of the room, 
 half frantic. As I was hurrying along, to for- 
 get, if possible, myself and my miseries, a fel- 
 low thrust a printed paper into my hand. I 
 looked at it ; it was a lottery scheme. A sud- 
 den ray of hope darted across my mind. My 
 lottery ticket : a whole ticket, which I had 
 bought a fortnight before ! Good God ! It 
 might be — it was possible — it was probable — it 
 grew into a certainty — that it had been drawn 
 the 30,000Z. prfee. 
 
 " I was sinking into despair. This reed saved 
 me. I caught hold of it. I stood once more 
 upon my feet. I flew to the lucky office 
 where I had bought my ticket. With a trem- 
 bling hand, (for, after all, it was not impossible 
 I might be wrong,) I unclasped my pocket- 
 book, and presented the mystic- type of perhaps 
 30,000/. ! They referred to their books ; and 
 an interesting young man informed me, with a
 
 THE PREMIER. 149 
 
 smile, it ivas drawn a prize ! 1 danced about 
 the shop Hke a madman. 
 
 " ' Pray,"* said I, as soon as I grew a little 
 calm, "• when will it be convenient to pay it ? 
 I shall make you a handsome present ; yours 
 may well be called the Lucky Office ; and I'll 
 recommend it to all my friends.' 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon,' he replied — 
 
 " ' Oh,' I interrupted, ' no apology ; a month, 
 two months, will be quite time enough ; there 
 is no danger; yours is a respectable and well 
 established house.' 
 
 " ' I beg you ten thousand pardons ; I am 
 very sorry ; I have made a slight mistake — 
 i/our ticket is a blank."* 
 
 " Oh, Sir ! I have heard of situations where 
 a man might be knocked down with a feather. 
 I believe, had the impudent coxcomb flung but 
 a hair from one of his eyebrows at me, it would 
 have ended my miseries with my life, at that 
 moment. God forgive me ! but I could not 
 
 help exclaiming — ' It's a d d lie, Sir !' (My 
 
 situation must plead my excuse.) I have been 
 cheated by a water-cress company ; I have been
 
 150 THE PREMIER. 
 
 defrauded by a creditor ; but, by G — d, I will 
 not be bamboozled by a lottery-office keeper. 
 Let me look at your book. Sir !"* He did so ; 
 and I had the tremendous satisfaction of find- 
 ing that he was right, and that I was once more 
 the sport of fortune ! 
 
 " I need not tell you with what feelings I 
 darted out of the lucky office, nearly upsetting 
 a Lord Mayor elect, who happened to be pass- 
 ing at the moment. I did not stop to make 
 apologies, but strode along, like one pursued 
 by the foul fiend, till, out of breath, I found 
 myself in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel. 
 ' Surely,' thought I, when at length I stopped 
 to look about me, ' the hand of an overruling 
 Providence is visible here. I have unconscious- 
 ly fled from despair to hope : I have left be- 
 hind me the region of disappointment, and I 
 approach the confines of better fortune. 
 
 " My uncle, who had died the preceding 
 week, lived hereabouts. He was rich, and al- 
 ways promised he would remember me in his 
 will. Who could tell, therefore, what wealth 
 might yet await me? I determined to call 
 upon his son and heir. I did so. I found the
 
 THE PREMIER. 151 
 
 family in deep affliction. As they had just re- 
 turned from burying the old man, they were 
 sustaining their dejected spirits with pound- 
 cake and Madeira. They received me very 
 politely, and insisted that I should partake of 
 the funeral viands. 
 
 " ' Cousin," said the heir, ' my poor father 
 always expressed a strong regard, I may say, 
 affection for you; indeed, he has shown both 
 in his will ; for when he was even in the agonies 
 of death, he v^^rote your name, and — ' 
 
 " ' Good soul !' I involuntarily exclaimed, 
 putting my handkerchief to my eyes. — ' Good 
 soul! there was no love lost — I doated on him V 
 
 " ' See," added my cousin, unfolding the 
 will, — ' see what he wrote, — / give and bequeath 
 to my dear nepheWy Adolphus Groanandsigh 
 — but alas ! he could get no farther ; at that 
 moment the hand of death stopped his; the 
 pen dropped ; and what he ineant to bequeath 
 Heaven only knows !' 
 
 " My wine-glass dropped ; a piece of pound- 
 cake, which I was in the act of swallowing, stuck 
 in my throat, like amen in Macbeth^s, and I ac- 
 tually blubbered in good earnest, with sheer, in-
 
 152 THE PREMIER. 
 
 tolerable vexation. My cousin endeavoured 
 to console me. He declared it was his earnest 
 wish to fulfil whatever he could suppose to 
 have been his dear departed parent's intentions; 
 and he must therefore insist upon my not re- 
 fusing a mourning ring, which he immediate- 
 ly clapped on the little finger of my left hand. 
 I groaned aloud — complained of sudden illness, 
 — and hastily took my leave. 
 
 " And ill enough I was, Sir, — for never did 
 mortal man undergo such a series of trials in 
 the compass of one little day. But I had not 
 yet exhausted them. When I got home, I 
 found a letter for me, with a broad official seal. 
 I had, at the suggestion of a particular friend, 
 applied to an under secretary of state, for a 
 vacant place, and this letter, I knew, contained 
 the answer. I was still to be the fool of hope ; 
 for, in spite of all that had occurred, I fondly 
 imagined a snug appointment might yet linger 
 behind, (like the last inhabitant of Pandora's 
 box,) to comfort, console, and compensate me. 
 I broke the seal with impatience, and read as 
 follows :
 
 THE PREMIER. 153 
 
 " ' Mr. Lessiiigton presents his compliments 
 to Mr. Groanandsigh, (I had not then received 
 my diploma) and regrets exceedingly that the 
 appointment for which he applied, and which 
 he would certainly have received^ was filled up 
 only the day before the receipt of his letter.' 
 
 " I sat three hours holding this letter in my 
 hand, in a state of passive meditation, brood- 
 ing, not because I would, but because I could 
 not help it, upon the water-cress monopoly, 
 upon Diddlem's moonshine, upon the unlucky 
 mistake at the lucky office, upon the sinfulness 
 of persons not making their wills before they 
 are in the agonies of death, and upon the over 
 scrupulous regard to promises, in giving to one 
 man what another would certainly have had, 
 if he had asked for it on Tuesday instead of 
 Wednesday. I was roused from this reverie 
 by the watchman calling the hour of midnight. 
 I went to bed. I fell asleep. I was dreaming 
 of water-cresses, moonshine, lottery tickets, 
 wills, and promises. I was roused from my 
 dreams, as 1 had been from my reverie, by the 
 watchman. He was thundering at the street- 
 H 5
 
 154 THE PREMIER. 
 
 door. I threw my head out of window. The 
 house was on fire ! I threw myself oiit of 
 window. Luckily, (the only lucky thing that 
 had ever happened to me) I slept on the first- 
 floor. I alighted on the leads, and from the 
 leads dropped into the street, without a frac- 
 ture, or even a bruise. There I had the sa- 
 tisfaction of standing in my shirt to see the 
 flames, which had begun in the kitchen, walk 
 up-stairs into tlie parlours, and make a bonfire 
 of every stick of furniture they contained, be- 
 fore the engines arrived, when their farther 
 progress was arrested. Of course, I was not 
 insured. Oh, no! that would have destroyed 
 the happy uniformity of the day's adventure. 
 
 " Such, Sir, were the events of one four- 
 and-twenty hours of my life; and they are the 
 epitome of all the rest of it. I have survived 
 them, as you see; but only to groan under the 
 afflicted spirit they produced. I have never 
 since built one airy scheme of happiness. I am 
 content to be miserable ; I am miserable ; and 
 I am contented."
 
 THE PREMIER. 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Sir George entered the room where Dr. 
 Groanandsigh was conversing with Lady Ar- 
 dent and Louisa. He shook him cordially by 
 the hand, and reminded him how long an in- 
 terval had elapsed since last he saw him. 
 
 " Alas !" said the doctor, " I go no where.""* 
 
 " That is your offence," observed Lady Ar- 
 dent, " not its excuse.'" 
 
 " I am a miserable man, Lady Ardent," he 
 exclaimed, presenting in his looks a perfect 
 picture of his words. 
 
 *' That is your fancy, my good friend, which 
 is diseased," replied Sir George. 
 
 " Yes,*" responded Groanandsigh, " I am 
 diseased, body and mind, mind and body. I 
 am care-eaten ; it consumes my flesh (survey- 
 ing a tolerably plump hand) ; — I m as withered
 
 156 THE PREMIER. 
 
 as a dried eel-skin (stretching forth a stout 
 booted leg) ; — I 'm as sapless as a withered 
 bough ; my marrow wastes daily, (and he tried 
 to button a coat which had grown too small 
 for him.) Every part of my body has its na- 
 tural malady. In my head, vertigo — my chest, 
 incipient dropsy — my loins, a flying lumbago — 
 my legs, cramp, when I am asleep — on my 
 toes, corns when I walk; and yesterday, I per- 
 ceived symptoms of gout in my right hand." 
 
 " And do you physic for all these com- 
 plaints, my dear Doctor ?"" inquired Lady Ar- 
 dent, laughing. 
 
 " Don't jest with me,'' said he, in a tone of 
 ludicrous solemnity ; " I had rather hear an 
 undertaker's hammer than a joke, or see a 
 church-yard than a smile. Pray, don't laugh 
 at me." 
 
 "But if laughing were your best medicine — " 
 observed Sir George. 
 
 "Ah, my friend!' interrupted the Doctor, 
 " who prescribes elixir of vitriol for the 
 colic?" 
 
 *' But why this excessive melancholy ?" ask-
 
 THE PREMIER. 157 
 
 ed Lady Ardent, smiling ; '•' has any new cala- 
 mity befallen you P*" 
 
 " Neiv calamity, Lady Ardent !" 
 
 " Ay,'' said Sir George ; " has Fortune been 
 playing you any fresh prank?" 
 
 " Fresh prank ! neiv calamity ! The Per- 
 sian monarch who offered a reward for a new 
 pleasure, was doomed to disappointment. Had 
 I his wealth, I should in vain hope to purchase 
 a ?ieio misfortune."" 
 
 This climax set all well-bred gravity at de- 
 fiance. Sir George, Lady Ardent, and Louisa 
 strove in vain to repress their laughter ; while 
 the Doctor, so far from seeming to feel it as 
 ridicule, only groaned the louder, and assumed 
 an increased elongation of face, as if scoffing 
 and jeering were a part of his appointed suf- 
 ferings, from Avhat he would sometimes call 
 " the robust gaiety of iron-nerved people." 
 
 " You little know my miseries," said he, 
 when his friends had ceased laughing at them ; 
 " this world is to me a blank, and has been so 
 ev.er since that Black Fridai/, which I believe 
 you have heard me mention, when — "
 
 158 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense !" exclaimed Louisa, 
 who dreaded the consequences of once naming 
 the Black Friday ; " the world is full of prizes, 
 if you would but seize them." 
 
 " Ay," responded Groanandsigh, " such 
 prizes as I seized on that Black Friday^ thirty- 
 five years ago, when I arose in the morning — " 
 
 " Pooh, pooh !" interrupted Louisa, for the 
 danger was increasing ; " never mind what hap- 
 pened thirty-five years ago ; but tell us some- 
 thing or other that has happened since we last 
 had the pleasure of seeing you." 
 
 " Right," added Lady Ardent ; " you used 
 to pick up a good deal of fashionable tittle- 
 tattle." 
 
 " Alas !" exclaimed the Doctor, " that was 
 in happier times, when I could find a little lei- 
 sure from my own troubles to enjoy those of 
 other people." 
 
 " Well, but have you nothing to tell .P" said 
 Sir George, who was willing to compound with 
 the trash of polite scandal, for an escape from 
 the terrible Black Friday, 
 
 " Nothing — absolutely nothing," he replied, 
 " except indeed that there was a great smash
 
 THE PREMIER. 159 
 
 in the city last week ; that Lady Betty Tom- 
 boy has actually married her own footman ; 
 that Major Bridges was caught on Michaelmas- 
 day with the grocer's wife, the pretty quaker ; 
 that Lord Bloater drives his own barouche, 
 and all his friends declare it would be a pity 
 he should ever hire a coachman ; that Colonel 
 Bidborough has returned his bribe, because it 
 Avas five hundred pounds less than he bargain- 
 ed for ; that—'' 
 
 " Colonel Bidborough was a bungler," inter- 
 rupted Sir George ; " he should have taken 
 what was given, and threatened to turn patriot 
 unless the rest was made up to him. There is 
 precedent, political and parliamentary, for such 
 a course.'" 
 
 " Oh, I must tell you one thing," continued 
 the Doctor, " which I heard only yesterday. 
 A certain Viscountess, who shall be nameless, 
 though she does not live a hundred miles from 
 Park Lane, when in town, is ill of a gall fever, 
 brought on, it is said, by a circumstance which 
 took place at a late fete, where a celebrated 
 Marchioness succeeded in engaging the atten- 
 tion of the young Duke of Fitz-Heirland, (both
 
 160 THE PREMIER. 
 
 the ladies have full-grown daughters,) though 
 the Viscountess purposely dropped her dia- 
 mond bracelet as she passed him, that he might 
 pick it up, and present it to her. And the best 
 of the joke was, that Mrs. Sharpus, the rich 
 banker's wife, whose eyes were quicker than 
 his Grace's, dexterously let fall her own hand- 
 kerchief upon the glittering bauble, and in re- 
 gaining the one, it is whispered, the other dis- 
 appeared. Mr. Wadd, who says all the good 
 things that appear in the newspapers, hearing of 
 the affair, remarked, that her Ladyship, while 
 angling for a gudgeon, had her bait swallowed 
 by a shark. I never laugh myself; but I have 
 made a great many people laugh by repeating 
 what Mr. Wadd said." 
 
 " Why, Doctor,'' replied Lady Ardent, '* here 
 is as much small-talk as would serve a dowager's 
 tea-table for a whole evening. How do you 
 contrive to collect it .?" 
 
 '' I do not collect it ; as it floats along, some 
 of it sticks to my memory, like gossamer upon a 
 bramble bush." 
 
 Doctor Groanandsigh was come to pay his 
 annual visit of a week at Deddington Park.
 
 THE PREMIER. 161 
 
 This he had been accustomed to do for several 
 years past, exclusively of sundry intercalar}^ 
 calls which he made whenever it pleased him. 
 On these latter occasions, like other friends who 
 come only for a morning gossip, or to stay, as it 
 might happen, to dinner, he received the usual 
 attentions, and either Lady Ardent, or Louisa, 
 or Sir George, made it a point to be his compa- 
 nion. But when he took up his quarters as an 
 hebdomadary guest, this was out of the question. 
 Nor, indeed, would it have conduced to the 
 Doctor's comfort ; for he delighted to devote a 
 portion of every day to the solitary enjoyment 
 of his distresses, and more especially to the re- 
 cording, in a thick quarto memorandum-book, 
 which he always carried about him, either the 
 various disasters he had encountered, or the re- 
 flections they suggested. 
 
 His favourite spot for this occupation, when at 
 Deddington Park, was a hermitage, which stood 
 in a distant part of the grounds, so entirely hid- 
 den by luxuriant trees, that it was impossible 
 to see it till you had threaded the thicket which 
 led to the entrance, and almost equally impos- 
 sible to see any thing when you were inside.
 
 162 THE PREMIER. 
 
 The inside, however, had peculiar attractions 
 for our melancholy doctor. There were two 
 small apartments, fitted up with an exact obser- 
 vance of all the rude conveniencies which were 
 supposed to characterise those secluded habita- 
 tions, when hermits were in fashion ; and in one 
 of the apartments, seated at a table, roughly 
 hewn out of the trunk of an oak, sat the vene- 
 rable figure of a mimic hermit, with a flow- 
 ing silver beard, a large volume spread before 
 him, an hour-glass by the side of it, and at a 
 little distance a skull, cross-bones, and other 
 solemn emblems of mortality. The imitation 
 was admirable ; too admirable, indeed, for a per- 
 son of weak nerves to encounter suddenly, or 
 wdthout previous notice; for the head being 
 hung upon flexible wires, which communicated 
 with a board that was necessarily trod upon in 
 entering the narrow cell, the seeming anchorite 
 bowed gently to the intruder, while he fixed 
 upon him a pair of large, dull, glassy grey eyes 
 of a most sepulchral character. 
 
 Here, as we have said, did Doctor Groanand- 
 sigh delight to retire, carrying with him a small 
 reading-lamp, which he took care to lower to a
 
 THE PREMIER. 163 
 
 proper degree of dimness, and, seated opposite 
 his s^ilent companion, write his sorrows in his 
 register of ideal griefs ; and here, on the fifth 
 morning after his arrival at Deddington Park, 
 dismal as usual, with a brow of cloud and an 
 eye of rain, did he make this entry : 
 
 " Hermitage — Deddington Park, 
 Nov. 4, 18—. 
 " (Mem. The family comfortably afflicted 
 on account of the sudden indisposition of Miss 
 Ardent ; but I don't think she is in any danger.) 
 
 " What a disagreeably happy world this is to 
 all, save myself ! I look around me — there 's 
 nothino^ but smiling faces. I look within — there 's 
 nothing but gloom ; dark as a dungeon, horrible 
 as a charnel-house ! I wake, only to weep over 
 my miseries, and I sleep only to dream of them. 
 Heraclitus, who mourned over the follies and 
 misfortunes of others, was a happy dog compared 
 to me ; for I can find no time to enjoy the cala- 
 mities of even my best friends. I'd travel over 
 half the globe to see the face that never smiled, 
 and undertake a pilgrimage to the world's end.
 
 164 THE PREMIER. 
 
 to kiss its fellow. I was never so happy as when 
 I once lived opposite the Middlesex Hospital. 
 There was generally a broken leg, or a fractured 
 skull, carried in once or twice a-v;eek, to remind 
 me of the consoling fact, that / alone am not 
 miserable. But now — faugh! the world is 
 turned to villainy, and all against me. I 
 reckoned up this morning, while lying in bed, 
 seven-and-twenty troubles since the 11th of last 
 month, and yet, not one of them can I describe 
 in such a way as to make them look like troubles 
 to any body else. This is itself one of my 
 greatest troubles; for I know what I feel, 
 though no -other person can comprehend it. 
 
 " Mem. To investigate the analogy between 
 corporeal and mental suffering, and to show 
 that a pain of the mind is as real, though as 
 incommunicable, by words, as a pain in the 
 joints." 
 
 When he had finished this entry, he extin- 
 guished his lamp, and, shrouded in the " dark- 
 ness visible" of his retreat, resigned himself to 
 the luxury of meditation. At the expiration of 
 an hour, he emerged into daylight, and meet- 
 ing one of the servants, a slim, active, ruddy
 
 THE PREMIER. 165 
 
 young fellow, about two-and-twenty, who was 
 singing like a lark, and bounding forwards 
 like a greyhound, — "See," he exclaimed, "how 
 merrily that knave trips along ! He looks as 
 sleek, and smiles as gaily, as if he never cried 
 oh ! with the tooth-ache. This is the way I 
 am eternally racked in the paradise of other 
 men's felicity .*" The unconscious offender ap- 
 proached. Dr. Groanandsigh inquired after 
 Lady Ardent and Louisa. 
 
 " They are both very ill. Sir," said he. 
 
 " Very ill ! — and bothV he repeated eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, Sir, both ; and very, very ill." 
 
 " Give my compliments, and I am sincerely 
 glad." 
 
 " Sir !" 
 
 " I mean extremely sorry, young man." 
 
 " Yes, Sir." 
 
 " Are they quite knocked up .?" 
 
 " Quite, Sir." 
 
 " Bless me, 'tis very sudden."*' 
 
 " Very sudden indeed. Sir." 
 
 " Have they sent for a physician .?"
 
 166 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " No, Sir. Not bad enough for that/' 
 
 " Did you ever take any physic, young 
 man P"" 
 
 " Never, Sir, thank Heaven !" 
 
 " Do you sleep well o'nights ?" 
 
 " As sound as a top, Sir." 
 
 '' Is your appetite good ?" 
 
 " As keen as a razor, Sir."" 
 
 " Are you very happy ?"' 
 
 ** Always as merry as a grig." 
 
 " Good morning!" 
 
 " Your servant. Sir," and away he ran, 
 light-hearted as a schoolboy chasing a but- 
 terfly. 
 
 *' I would not keep that varlet," muttered 
 the Doctor, as he paced along with a funeral 
 step, " if he would live with me for nothing. 
 My man Judas is twice as happy as he ought 
 to be, though the fellow has only one eye, and 
 is in the last stage of a consumption. But that 
 rascal would throw me into a fever, every time 
 I looked at his jolly unthinking face, or heard 
 the contented chuckle of his voice. There is 
 a fascinating misery in the countenance and
 
 THE PREMIER. 167 
 
 withered smile of Judas, which enchants me ; 
 and sometimes, so sweet an expression of de- 
 spair when his cough almost strangles him, that 
 I cannot find in my heart to turn him away, 
 though he is hardly able to do his work. I 
 don't know how it is, but I always feel as if 
 every trouble endured by another, lifted one 
 off my own shoulders ; as if the misfortunes of 
 mankind were so many links that bind me to 
 the world. Well, I quarrel with no man's 
 taste — not I — but as for myself, if I knew 
 where half-a-dozen children of sorrow were 
 assembled in some dungeon, I would sooner 
 have one peep through the key-hole at their 
 dear melancholy faces, than sit a whole day in 
 a farmer's kitchen at harvest home." 
 
 With these meditations for his solace, he 
 reached the house, and sought Sir George, 
 whom he expected to find more miserable than 
 he appeared to be. His daughter's indisposi- 
 tion, though severe, was not alarming ; and it 
 was no part of Sir George's character to build 
 up affliction out of his fears. The illness of 
 Lady Ardent was nothing more than anxiety
 
 168 THE PREMIER. 
 
 for Louisa ; for with the favourable symptoms 
 of amendment in the latter, the slight derange- 
 ment of the former's health quickly disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The departure of Dr. Groanandsigh from 
 Deddington Park was hastened by learning 
 that his friend Rufus Higgles, a celebrated 
 fox-hunter, had been thrown from his horse, 
 and broken his collar-bone. This was an irre- 
 sistible temptation to pay a visit at Scut Hall ; 
 especially as he could call in his way thither 
 upon poor Mrs. Gandy, the sexton's wife, whose 
 seven children lav ill of the measles.
 
 THE PREMIER. 169 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Sir George always passed a portion of the 
 winter in London ; but as he made it a rule to 
 spend his Christmas in the country, keeping up 
 among his numerous tenantry all those good 
 old customs, which knit the hearts of the lords 
 of the soil and the tillers of it, in kindlier 
 bonds than an occasional remission of five or 
 ten per cent, in the rent wdien times or seasons 
 are bad, will ever do, it rarely happened that 
 he took his departure for the metropolis earlier 
 than the second week in January. 
 
 Charles Ardent was just finishing his last cup 
 of coffee, and his first muffin, as the clock struck 
 twelve, when he read the following paragraph 
 in the Morning Post : — 
 
 '' Sir George and Lady Ardent, with their 
 lovely and accomplished daughter, arrived yes- 
 
 VOL. I I
 
 ITO THE PREMIER. 
 
 terday at their house in Cavendish Square. 
 Mr. Frederick Ardent, the eldest son of Sir 
 George, and private secretary to Mr. Cranstoun, 
 visited them in the evening. We are sorry to 
 hear that Miss Ardent has been severely indis- 
 posed at Deddington Park ; but we are happy 
 to add, that she is now convalescent." 
 
 We are not to suppose that Charles was 
 indebted to the celebrated functionary of the 
 Morning Post, the historian of fashionable 
 movements and doings, for his knowledge of 
 the arrival of his family. Though too much an 
 alien from its circle, he was no alien from the 
 hearts of Lady Ardent, of Louisa, or of Fre- 
 derick, with all of whom he maintained a con- 
 stant intercourse of filial and fraternal affection. 
 Sir George, indeed, as we have said, looked so 
 austerely upon his irregularities, that Charles 
 was self-banished from his presence, (or at least 
 had been so for many months,) because they 
 never met as father and son should meet. 
 
 Perhaps, had the father been less severe, the 
 son had been less wild ; had the former put a 
 benign interpretation upon follies that had no 
 stain of dishonour, instead of rebuking them
 
 THE PREMIER. 171 
 
 as vices, the latter might have grown ashamed 
 much sooner than there was any chance of his 
 growing humble. But Sir George was a stern 
 and imperious judge of human conduct, because 
 he exacted subtle and often visionary tests of 
 its motives ; and because, in all his conclusions, 
 there was a constant, though frequently uncon- 
 scious, reference to the standard of his own 
 highly disciplined and somewhat artificial cha- 
 racter. He did not so much look at actions in 
 relation to their specific causes, as in connexion 
 with what he persuaded himself would have 
 been his course under similar circumstances ; 
 and to feel there was a difference, was the same 
 as beinor convinced that the difference consti- 
 
 o 
 
 tuted a greater or less departure from what 
 was right. 
 
 Charles, however, used to argue the matter 
 by the rules of a more natural logic, — a logic 
 that was derived from the discrepancy between 
 three-and- twenty, or thereabouts, and five-and- 
 fifty or thereabouts. He settled the point at 
 once, by allowing that, when he was as old as his 
 father, he would not be so hairbrained as his 
 father's son : and it is to be feared, he would be 
 l2
 
 172 THE PREMIER. 
 
 considered as having the best of the argument 
 by nine-tenths of the world. Sometimes, in- 
 deed, he would lay all the blame upon his great- 
 uncle, Simon Fogg of Fogg Hall, in Glamor- 
 ganshire, who died when he was in his cradle, 
 and bequeathed him a legacy, which, by the 
 time he was of age, grew into a sum that pro- 
 vided a very convenient pocket-money fund in- 
 dependently of any paternal allowance. " If I 
 had been like my brother Fred," he would say, 
 " I could not have been what I am ; and not 
 being what I am, I suppose I should have been 
 something better ; perhaps, in training for a 
 bishopric, as he is for an embassy. Ah, Fogg, 
 Fogg ! God rest your old soul ! I never saw 
 you, but you have much to answer for." 
 
 And often did he wish that he ivas " like his 
 brother Fred," — and that wish breathed itself 
 in a deep, heartfelt sigh, as he read the para- 
 graph in the Morning Post, which stated that 
 " Mr. Frederick Ardent, the eldest son of Sir 
 George, and private secretary to Mr. Cranstoun, 
 visited them in the evening." Them! His 
 father, his mother, his sister ! And where was 
 Charles, the youngest son of Sir G;eorge ? He
 
 THE PREMIER. 173 
 
 did 720^ visit them. He was revelling at a mas- 
 querade. Ay, but many a thought stole from 
 the gay scene to that home from which he was 
 excluded : and when the scene was over, when 
 the hour of mirth and riot had passed, as he 
 returned to his own home, in the first grey of 
 the morning, he passed the house where they 
 slept, and there were feelings at that moment 
 kindling in his bosom, which should have been 
 his passport to the paternal hearth. 
 
 Into reflections like these he was sinking, 
 when his servant entered the room with a letter. 
 It was from his sister, and ran thus : — 
 
 " Cavendish Square, 
 Wednesday Evening 
 
 " MY DEAR GRACELESS BROTHER, 
 
 " We arrived (as I told you we should, in 
 my hurried note last week,) yesterday, at half- 
 past two. It seems an age since we saw you. 
 — I say we, for our dear mother's heart is upon 
 my pen, as well as my own. Ah, Charles ! I 
 ought not to be under the necessity of writing 
 thus. When do you mean to seek a father, 
 whom you have not lost, thank God ! but who.
 
 174 THE PREMIER. 
 
 you know, will he sought ere he will allow him- 
 self to be found again ? We heard last night 
 (that is, Lady Ardent and myself,) from Fre- 
 derick, who dined with us, that you are in good 
 health, and — (Oh dear, oh dear ! what a thing 
 it is that I must say so !) — as great a rattle as 
 ever. Well, since I cannot add, in the good 
 old phrase, when you are as old as I am, you 
 will know better, I must content myself with 
 hoping it will take place when I am as old as 
 you. 
 
 " Pray, do you mean to call here^ or must 
 our carriage be seen at your door ? Be advised. 
 Come ! It is not likely you will accidentally 
 encounter Sir George. But if you did, might 
 not such an accident prove a blessed mischance, 
 by levelling, in a moment, the barrier which now 
 keeps you asunder, because pride will not pull 
 down one part of the said barrier, nor shame, 
 false shame, put aside the other.? I wish I 
 were as sure of all desirable things in this life, 
 as I am that you and our dear, dear father could 
 not be in sight of each other for one moment, 
 without, in the next, being in the arms of each 
 other ; allowing all reasonable time for you to
 
 THE PREMIER. 175 
 
 kneel, as a penitent sinner ought to do, and for 
 him to lift you up, a pardoned profligate, as in 
 my earnest soul I know he would do. Oh, I 
 have that to tell you, when we meet, and when 
 there is a fitting calm upon our spirits, which 
 shall draw you to him with so gracious an im- 
 pulse, that henceforth all estrangement between 
 you will be impossible. 
 
 " How is Caroline Asper ? I long to see 
 her. 
 
 " Send your answer quickly, or our impa- 
 tience will spare you the trouble of writing. 
 " Your affectionate sister, 
 
 " Louisa Ardent." 
 
 Charles despatched immediately the follow- 
 ing reply : — 
 
 " MY dear grace-abounding SISTER, 
 
 " What would life be worth, without the 
 Morning Post ? Had it pleased Heaven that I 
 should breakfast this morning at eight o'clock, 
 instead of twelve, I should have been four 
 hours, instead of only half a one, in full posses- 
 sion of all the news contained in your letter
 
 176 THE PREMIER. 
 
 before its arrival. Yes — there it is recorded, in 
 the fifth paragraph of the fourth column of the 
 third page, that Sir George and Lady Ardent, 
 with their accomplished and lovely daughter, 
 who has been severely indisposed at Dedding- 
 ton Park, but who is now convalescent, (charm- 
 ing word !) came to town yesterday, and were 
 visited in the evening by that promising young- 
 gentleman, Mr. Frederick Ardent, Private Se- 
 cretary, &c. &c. &c. And a little lower down, 
 you may learn that another promising branch 
 of the Ardents was among the distinguished 
 persons who were assembled last night at Lady 
 Albina Pierrepoint's masquerade. Inimitable 
 Morning Post ! 
 
 " Yes, I am in good health, thanks to my 
 regular habits ! And, as you say, though it 
 seems to grieve you to do so, as great a rattle as 
 ever. Let me see — were you eighteen or nine- 
 teen last birthday ? I think, eighteen. Humph ! 
 Four years then, or a little more, to do that 
 which happens to a bottle of soda water after 
 it is uncorked, in as many seconds almost ; 
 settle down into a nameless something, very 
 flat and nasty. Nous verrons.
 
 THE PREMIER. 177 
 
 " Pray, do you think No. 68, Cavendish 
 Square, is to be the only house in London 
 which I have sworn to avoid ? Why should I 
 not call there ? Why should I not follow the 
 warmest affections of my heart, into any habita- 
 tion where they have taken up their resting- 
 place ? Ah, Louisa ! (I am going to give you 
 a pendant for your ' Ah, Charles !') / ought 
 not to be under the necessity of writing thus. 
 Seek my father ! I would seek him, on bare 
 and bended knees, at the farthest verge of the 
 habitable globe, if I might know, that when I 
 found him, I should not be spurned — if I could 
 be assured, that the whole, warm current of my 
 yearning soul would not be rolled back upon 
 me in an ice-cold stream, chilled and frozen by 
 his stern nature. To yoii^ I say this for the 
 first time, perhaps. To myself, I have said it a 
 hundred and a hundred times, and every time 
 with a deeper and more bitter persuasion that 
 it can never he. 
 
 " Yes, yes, you are right. Such an acci- 
 dent as you describe, having such an issue, 
 would indeed be a blessed mischance; but I 
 renounce all hope of the issue, while I mean
 
 ITS THE PREMIER. 
 
 to run every hazard of the accident. I shall 
 come to you ; but when my father hears my 
 voice, he will bury himself in the solitude of 
 his library, and fortify his resentment by 
 brooding over all my real, and all my imagi- 
 nary, offences. Be it so ! I shall come ; and if 
 we cross each other, I will stand as a statue of 
 marble in his presence, unless I can read in the 
 first glance of his eye, that nature is at work 
 within ; and then, Louisa, he should learn to 
 know what I really am. 
 
 " Enough ! Perhaps that something you 
 have to impart, when there is a fitting calm 
 upon our spirits, may produce a miracle. I am 
 content that it should, if it ought. 
 
 " You inquire so kindly after Caroline, that 
 I cannot do less than return your kindness. 
 How is her brother ? I have not seen him since 
 last night ; or rather, three o'clock this morn- 
 ing. O dear, O dear ! what a thing it is that I 
 must say so ! 
 
 " Ever yours, my dear Louisa, 
 
 " Charles Ardent."
 
 THE PREMIER 179 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 When Charles had despatched his letter 
 to Cavendish Square, he gave audience to 
 his tailor, Mr. Peter Augustus Bobus, who 
 had been waiting three hours for that ho- 
 nour. Had he brought, by special appoint- 
 ment, a receipt in his pocket for a three years' 
 bill, he could not have been more patient. 
 But Mr. Bobus carried on business upon one, 
 or rather two, fixed principles ; to get good 
 customers, and to keep them. In the first, he 
 was sometimes foiled ; in the second, rarely, for 
 he was an excellent tailor, a civil, obliging 
 body, and, mirahile dictu! a fair-dealing 
 tradesman. Charles, on the other hand, was 
 one of his good, perhaps he would have called 
 him one of his best, customers ; meaning there-
 
 180 THE PREMIER. 
 
 by, that he gave liberal orders, and paid punc- 
 tually, at honest prices and moderate credit. 
 
 Mr. Peter Augustus Bobus, moreover, was 
 a character: that is, he had some remarkable 
 points about him. He was a philosopher, a 
 politician, a poet, a political economist, a wit. 
 His philosophy and his politics were the orna- 
 ments of a daily paper, which it would be in- 
 vidious to name, because it has been the custom, 
 from time immemorial, for every editor to pass 
 as the undoubted writer of all that appears 
 under the mysterious incorporation of the col- 
 lective WE. His poetry took a more modest 
 range : it was circulated like scandal, in con- 
 fidence. His political economy, on the con- 
 trary, had gradually expanded itself from 
 letters in the aforesaid paper, to half-crown 
 pamphlets; and from half-crown pamphlets 
 to a half-guinea octavo volume. That, at 
 least, was its price to the public ; the price 
 actually paid for three copies that were actually 
 sold. 
 
 But Bobus did not live by his writings ; or, 
 as he sometimes used to boast, " Thank God, I 
 am not like poor Bacon ! I desire to live to
 
 THE PREMIER. 181 
 
 study, but I am not driven to study to live.'" 
 Of Bobus as a wit, more will probably be known 
 by posterity than by the present generation; 
 for though he never said good things, he was 
 so constantly thinking them, that he frequently 
 got up in the middle of the night to write down 
 ajeu (Tesprit in his " Silent Joker /' (the name 
 he gave to a MS. volume containing \i\?> f acetic^, 
 and intended for publication after his death.) 
 
 " I don't know how it is," he would sometimes 
 observe, " that I never can get ready with an 
 impromptu, or repartee, at the moment ; but 
 give me time, and it comes directly. For ex- 
 ample, I met a friend two months ago in Fleet 
 Street. He said to me, ' Bobus, I have been 
 very ill since I saw^ you last. I pined about 
 like a waterman in a hard frost. I neither ate 
 nor slept ; I was a walking spectacle, a perfect 
 fright to look at.' I felt there was something 
 good to be made out of this ; yet it was not till 
 last night it struck me, I ought to have replied, 
 ' I don't think you are quite recovered !' Do 
 you see the point ? I hit it at last, didn't I ? 
 And 'tis down now in my Silent Joker.'''' 
 
 He had just published his halfguinea book,
 
 182 THE PREMIER. 
 
 and as he made it a rule to present a copy of 
 his works to each of his customers, he came 
 provided with his offering to Charles. The 
 title of it was, " The Political Problem of Po- 
 pulation ; or every Man the Master of his own 
 Family ;'' and its object, to explain how exces- 
 sive population in a country might be avoided. 
 His method was simple ; and, as he said to 
 Charles, while recommending a new silk pattern 
 for a waistcoat, " I can assure you, Sir, I have 
 proved its efficacy in my own practice : Mrs. 
 Bobus is only eight-and-thirty ; we have been 
 married twenty years ; and we have two fine 
 children ; a son, nineteen, and a daughter who 
 was eleven months old yesterday." 
 
 Charles promised to read the book attentive- 
 ly, professing that he was a decided enemy to 
 the Malthusian system, and congratulating 
 Bobus upon having entered the lists against 
 him. " But I am surprised," he added, " how 
 you find time to superintend your extensive 
 concerns and cultivate literature so success- 
 fully." 
 
 " Bless you, Sir !" exclaimed Bobus, " how 
 did Julius Caesar find time to write his Com-
 
 THE PREMIKR. 183 
 
 mentaries ? or the Great Frederick, to compose 
 no less than twenty-five large octavo volumes ? 
 or the immortal Sully to prepare his Memoirs ? 
 or the illustrious Bacon to produce, according 
 to his own enumeration, two hundred and forty- 
 one distinct treatises, philosophical, historical, 
 religious, and political ? The secret lies in a 
 nutshell. It is, never to do nothing. 1 never 
 do nothing. , And depend upon it, Caesar, and 
 the rest of us, never did nothing; or they 
 could not have done what they did." 
 
 " Yes, Bobus," replied Charles, " but Caesar 
 and the rest of you — here, stick a pin into this 
 pattern — that shall be one of my waistcoats — 
 Caesar and the rest of you, Bobus, did not 
 court the Muses, except the great Frederick, 
 indeed ; and we know what trouble Voltaire 
 had with his Majesty's dirty linen. — Now, how 
 do you manage with your inspired moments ? 
 Do they come when they list, or do you set 
 apart a particular hour for their visits ?"" 
 
 " I generally woo the tuneful Nine," said 
 Bobus, " from eight to nine, in the Bird-cage 
 Walk. It is a handy distance from where I 
 live ; and when the Horse Guards strikes the
 
 184 THE PREMIER. 
 
 four quarters, I am at home, and at my break- 
 fast, in five minutes.'' 
 
 " And that is your Parnassus, eh, Bobus ?'"* 
 
 " Yes, that is my Parnass — I see you have 
 got your finger upon a lovely brown for trow- 
 sers — I made a pair the other da}^, for Colonel 
 Froggatt, — it looks uncommonly well in the 
 piece, and would match beautifully with the 
 pattern you have chosen for a waistcoat."*' 
 
 " Stick in a pin, then," said Charles. " But 
 don't you sometimes find it awkward," he con- 
 tinued, " when they are drilling the recruits ?" 
 
 " I should, if I went among them," answered 
 Bobus ; " but I keep close down in the ditch 
 by the railing. You will think this an odd 
 fancy, perhaps ; yet Rousseau, you remember, 
 says, if he wanted to write an apostrophe to 
 Liberty, he should prefer doing it in one of 
 the dungeons of the Bastille ; and Cumberland 
 celebrates the advantages of a high brick wall 
 opposite your study window. The fact is, the 
 mind concentrates itself immediately when not 
 distracted by external objects ; and the concen- 
 tration once accomplished, it would be insensible 
 to the finest outward forms. — If I might be
 
 THE PREMIER. 185 
 
 allowed, I would direct your attention to that 
 olive green; I have just finished a great coat of 
 it for Lord Glanreidol, and a more elegant 
 outer garment I never saw ; you can inspect it, 
 if you please, before it goes home — I 'm sure 
 you 11 approve of it."" 
 
 " You are my Magnus Apollo in these mat- 
 ters, Bobus, so clothe me in verdure. I liave 
 been thinking of a title, and a motto, Bobus, 
 for your next volume of poetry.'*'' 
 
 " I never publish any thing in the poetical 
 line," replied Mr. Bobus. 
 
 '•'Then take my advice," said Charles gravely ; 
 " publish immediately ; call it The first-born of 
 the Muse, and with this line from Macbeth, in 
 the title page, ' Ditch-delivered by a drab." " 
 
 Mr. Bobus laughed, and secretly resolved to 
 put that down as his own, in the Silent Joker. 
 
 " But is it true," continued Charles, " that 
 you never publish any thing in the poetical 
 line ? I thought I recognised you the other 
 
 day, in the ," naming the paper which 
 
 received his philosophical and political lucu- 
 brations. 
 
 " Oh no,'*'' said Bobus, " that was by a young
 
 186 THE PREMIER. 
 
 friend of mine, who has a fine poetical vein. 
 He was married last Sunday, at our parish 
 church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields ; upon which 
 occasion I composed a little piece the next 
 morning, in the Bird-cage Walk. I shall be 
 proud of the honour of submitting it to your 
 judgment, if you will allow me, after you 
 have fixed upon a pattern for your other 
 waistcoat." 
 
 " By all means," replied Charles ; for this 
 was the very point to which he had been 
 labouring to bring Bobus, who was somewhat 
 bashful ' in the poetical line,' as he termed it. 
 " I shall be delighted to hear it." 
 
 Bobus drew from his pocket a folded sheet 
 of embossed vellum* letter paper ; and after 
 premising that he called it an " Epithalamium 
 to a young Poet," read the following verses : — 
 
 I. 
 
 " In the truth 
 
 Of thy youth, 
 Thou must dedicate 
 
 A few scattered lays 
 
 To these fortunate days 
 Which such pleasure create :
 
 THE PREMIER. 187 
 
 Sing the songs of the past 
 From the first to the last, 
 And like a true minstrel their value relate. 
 II. 
 For at length, 
 In the strength 
 Of thy will, 
 Valiant son ! 
 Thou hast won 
 By thy skill ; 
 The conquest is over — thy heart is united, 
 And the dear little captive eternally plighted. 
 III. 
 I have seen, 
 In the green 
 Boughs of earth, 
 Young blossoms at play 
 In the innocent day. 
 And checker the grass with mirth. 
 So, when thou hadst met with thy maiden of feeling. 
 Thy heart-strings were sweeten'd — thy transports revealing. 
 IV. 
 'Twas a sight 
 Of delight. 
 To behold her in white, 
 When she knelt at the altar with trembling : 
 Like a dove. 
 That is tutor'd above 
 For her love, 
 I thought her affection resembling.
 
 188 THE PREMIER. 
 
 V. 
 
 For her bosom did sigh — 
 And I saw in her eye 
 A hurrying enaotion of fear ; 
 Her beauty would go, 
 Like roses from snow, 
 To be gemm'd by Solicitude's tear : 
 Yet when she had said 
 Lawful rites to be wed, 
 And had risen from hassock to duty ; 
 Oh ! she blush'd at thy side 
 Like a virginal bride, 
 And her courage return'd her her beauty ! 
 VI. 
 May the golden ring 
 For ever bring 
 Bright thoughts to the giver and wearer ! 
 May your hearts, as you go 
 Through life's changes below. 
 More closely unite to be dearer! 
 VIL 
 Then whate'er might befall, 
 In freedom or thrall. 
 Peril, sickness, misfortune, or pain ; 
 Your triumph will rise 
 To the courts of the skies, 
 And eternity's happiness gain!" 
 
 " Admirable !'' exclaimed Charles, when Bo-
 
 THE PRExMlER. 189 
 
 bus had finished. " What charming simpUcity ! 
 and, at the same time, how full of fire and 
 energy ! Let me see — don't you call the mea- 
 sure you have used, dithyrambic P""* 
 
 Bobus, who knew little about any kind of 
 measures, except those he used when waiting 
 upon a customer, but did not like to be thought 
 ignorant of whatever related to the " poetical 
 line," replied ofF-hand, — " Yes — I aimed at the 
 dithyrambic ; but I had also another model in 
 my eye."" 
 
 " What may that have been ?" said Charles. 
 " The Passionate Pilgrim of the sweet bard 
 of Avon," replied Bobus. " Do you remem- 
 ber t — 
 
 " My flocks feed not, 
 My ewes breed not, 
 
 All is amiss : 
 Love's denying, 
 Faith's defying. 
 Heart's renying, 
 Causer of this : 
 All my merry jigs are quite forgot ; 
 All my lady's love is lost, God wot !" 
 
 " I have not closely followed the original, 
 because — '^
 
 190 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " You were ambitious of being original your- 
 self," interrupted Charles. 
 
 " Exactly so," rejoined Bobus, and inwardly 
 wished he had the power of saying such things 
 on the spur of the moment. 
 
 "• You must positively give me this copy 
 of your Epithalamium," added Charles ; "I 
 suppose it is not your only one ; and I ex- 
 pect to meet some literary friends at dinner 
 to-day, who will know how to appreciate its 
 beauties.'' 
 
 '' It is quite at your service, Sir," said 
 Bobus, presenting it to Charles — ^' but may I 
 beg one favour, or rather two ?'''' 
 
 " Fifty, Bobus, if they are in my power to 
 grant." 
 
 " The first is, that you will not allow too 
 many copies to be taken ; the second, that on 
 no account you will m-ention the author's name. 
 It might injure my * Political Problem of Po- 
 pulation.' " 
 
 " With regard to multiplying the copies, 
 Bobus," replied Charles, " I should almost as 
 willingly consent to the re-printing of an un- 
 purchaseable old book, if I had one ; and as
 
 THE PREMIER. 191 
 
 to the author's name, upon my word, it is an 
 even chance I shall not affect a politic mys- 
 tery upon that subject, which may help me to 
 pass for the writer myself." 
 
 Bobus was proud of heart, and humbly took 
 his leave.
 
 192 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It has been said that the most important 
 part of every woman's letter is the postscript ; 
 as the king, who is the most important part of 
 a state pageant, always comes last. Postscripts, 
 nevertheless, have a slovenly appearance, as if 
 the writer either did not know what he in- 
 tended to say when he began, or was unable 
 to express what should be said, in its proper 
 place. They are as much a sign of awkward- 
 ness or inattention, as though a man in dress- 
 ing should begin with putting on his hat and 
 gloves, and finish with his boots ; or a lady — 
 but what pen shall dare profane the mysteries 
 of the female toilet, by describing the order 
 in which they are performed ? 
 
 By this time the reader's curiosity is suffi- 
 ciently awakened, I hope, to render him im-
 
 THE PREMIER. 193 
 
 patient for the reason of this brief disquisition 
 upon postscripts. Let him then turn back to the 
 correspondence between Louisa and her brother. 
 " Have you done so ?''^ " Yes." — " You do not 
 find a postscript to either of the letters.?" " No." 
 — " Exactly. They were too well-bred to be 
 guilty of such a plebeian vulgarity ; but in the 
 epistle of Louisa, there is a little sentence at 
 the very conclusion, which you have probably 
 guessed to mean more than it appeared to do, 
 from the manner in which Charles replies to 
 it. The said sentence runs thus — ' How is 
 Caroline Asper ? I long to see her.' " 
 
 Now, Caroline Asper, besides being the dear 
 and intimate friend of Louisa, was (as Louisa 
 well knew) the dear and intimate friend of her 
 brother also. But there was likewise such a 
 person in the world as one Colonel Asper, a 
 fine handsome fellow, with a mind as noble 
 and commanding as his person, and cast in the 
 perfect mould of all the stirring qualities which 
 should animate the soldier. Nor was he the 
 soldier merely. He had a martial presence and 
 a chivalrous spirit for the camp, the field, the 
 garrison ; and he had won renown in war. But 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE PREMIER. 
 
 the moment he unclasped his sword, there was 
 the polished gentleman of refined society, the 
 fascinating companion, the sound scholar, and 
 the solid thinker. Last, not least, (and where- 
 fore not least will appear presently,) he was 
 only nine-and-twenty. 
 
 " How is Caroline Asper ? I long to see her/' 
 said Louisa in her letter. " You inquire so 
 kmdly after Caroline," replied Charles, " that 
 I cannot do less than return your kindness. 
 How is her brother ?" — Surely, this seems very 
 much like playing at cross-purposes. The sis- 
 ter inquires of her brother after the sister, and 
 the brother replies by inquiring of his sister, 
 after the brother. Depend upon it, however, 
 they understood each other. Depend upon it, 
 Charles knew the question of Louisa to be as 
 thoroughly what is called a fishing one, as 
 was that of the boy at dinner, who said with 
 a siffh, " I wish I had some salt .?"— " What do 
 you want with salt, Dick .?" replied his father. 
 " To have it ready for the mutton," quoth 
 Dick, who had been cruelly overlooked in its 
 distribution round the table. So true is the 
 philosophical exclamation of the poet —
 
 THE PREMIER, 195 
 
 " How distant oft the thing we wish for most 
 From that for which we wish !'' 
 
 After this explanation, if the reader do not 
 understand the meaning of these two passages 
 in the letters aforesaid, as well as the writers 
 themselves, I shall have no faith in the school- 
 master being abroad. 
 
 Colonel Asper and Caroline Asper were the 
 only son and only daughter of old Brigadier- 
 General Asper, a man of good family, and him- 
 self lineally descended from that branch of the 
 Aspers which settled in Lincolnshire, soon after 
 the Conquest. They had still large hereditary 
 possessions in the county, though not quite so 
 extensive as formerly, when, according to tra- 
 dition, not only the whole of Lincolnshire, but 
 ample slices from Norfolk and Nottingham- 
 shire constituted the feudal domain of the pow- 
 erful Baron d'Haspur, in the reign of Henry 
 the Second. How these multitudinous acres 
 came to slip through the fingers of the Baron"'s 
 posterity, was involved in the same obscurity of 
 the middle ages, which precluded the possibility 
 of discovering at what period the Norman ap- 
 k2
 
 196 THE PREMIER* 
 
 pellation of D'Haspur was corrupted into the 
 less imposing name of Asper. 
 
 The General, who was proud of the anti- 
 quity of his blood, and prouder still of the 
 family loyalty, invariably maintained that his 
 ancestors were stripped of Lincolnshire for their 
 fidelity to the crown, let who would wear it ; so 
 that at every fresh change of persons, away 
 went some of the county, till, fortunately, the 
 Revolution of 1688 put an end to so costly an 
 allegiance, and his great grand-father, Roger 
 Asper, was enabled to settle what then remained, 
 upon his son Ralph, with a tolerable certainty of 
 its no longer growing, like the shape of Prior's 
 Emma, " fine by degrees, and beautifully less/' 
 
 General Asper was a widower of sixty, and the 
 most irascible of all God's creatures ; a tempera- 
 ment which was periodically improved by vio- 
 lent fits of the gout. If, as Johnson remarks, 
 " the round of a passionate man's life is in con- 
 tracting debts, in his passion, which his virtue 
 obliges him to pay — spending his time in out- 
 rage and acknowledgment, injury, and repara- 
 tion," there is no question but that the General 
 must, again and again, have taken the benefit
 
 THE PREMIER. 197 
 
 of an Insolvent Act. The wealth of Croesus, 
 coined into virtue, would not have paid his 
 debts of that kind for a single year. And then, 
 the delightful air of sincerity with which he 
 would protest, that he never went into a pas-. 
 sion, always qualifying the assertion, indeed, 
 by such a condition as Ben Jonson makes 
 Shakspeare guilty of in the person of Julius 
 Caesar, who "never did wrong but with just 
 cause." So the General : — " When I do lose my 
 temper, it is because I am provoked by seeing 
 that other people can't keep theirs!"" But, 
 when he talked of other people not being able 
 to keep their temper, it must not be supposed 
 he meant what the words imply. To say no to 
 his yes, — to look a negative when he nodded 
 ay, — to be in one room, if he wanted you in 
 another, — to be out, when he expected to find 
 you at home, — or the reverse of each of these 
 offences, just as it might happen ; in short, the 
 shadow of a shade of contradiction, be it in 
 word, or act, or motion, or even silence itself, 
 was all the evidence he required, that " other 
 people could not keep their temper ;" and, of 
 course, all the provocation that was necessary
 
 198 THE PREMIER. 
 
 for him to get into passion with " such passion- 
 ate devils."" 
 
 As General Asper was the most irascible, so 
 Caroline Asper was perhaps the most gentle, 
 of all God's creatures. It was no self-discipline, 
 no habitual subjection of her own feelings to 
 those of her father, which made her such. 
 Meekness and timidity, the mild, unoffending 
 spirit of a holy sister of charity, dwelt within 
 her, as a part of herself It cost her no effort 
 to exemplify, in her whole conduct, the great 
 principle upon which Epictetus founded his 
 doctrine of human happiness — Bear and Fo?^- 
 bear. But this principle was not, in her, a 
 cold, stoical apathy, an icy numbness of the 
 heart, which usurps the praise of regulating 
 passion when it only triumphs in its absence. 
 It was simply the being contented with the mea- 
 sure of felicity, such as it was, which might pre- 
 sent itself, without one repining sigh idly wasted 
 upon the thought that there was room for more. 
 And there was added to this equanimity, this 
 perfect repose of character, a serenity of tem- 
 per, and a cheerfulness of disposition, that shed 
 a constant sunshine over her manner.
 
 THE PREMIER. 199 
 
 The effect of her serenity and cheerfulness 
 upon the rugged and impetuous temper of her 
 father, was curious, but natural. Look at the 
 ocean ! See with what fury the waves break 
 against the jutting rocks that oppose them- 
 selves to their increasing swell ! How they roar, 
 and rage, and lash themselves into foam — while 
 on the soft, gently sloping beach of sand, they 
 ripple along, flowing over its smboth surface 
 with murmuring music ! Just so did the chole- 
 ric paroxysms of the GeneraFs infirmity sub- 
 side into peace in the presence of his daughter ; 
 and Caroline, who was unconscious of the secret 
 spell she exercised over him, would sometimes 
 not only wonder how it happened that others 
 failed to do the same, but almost incline to his 
 opinion, that when he did lose his temper it 
 was entirely owing to the negligence of those 
 who first lost their own. 
 
 Deep waters are calm and noiseless as they 
 flow ; but ?/ their depths be agitated, it is with 
 fearful violence. Caroline was doomed to prove 
 this truth ; to add one more to the many thou- 
 sand instances upon record, or of daily occurrence, 
 that there are, in every human heart, slumber-
 
 200 THE PREMIER. 
 
 ing feelings and passions, which once disturbed, 
 enthrone themselves, in a moment, with despo- 
 tic power. Trials she knew were preparing for 
 her ; and she had a prophetic apprehension 
 they would be severe ones ; while, in propor- 
 tion as they were severe, she already seemed 
 to foresee that her endurance of them, to the 
 uttermost, would be the necessary consequence 
 of that temperament which warred not with 
 misfortune, but suffered patiently. 
 
 During the last three or four years, Caroline 
 had passed much of her time at Sir George 
 Ardent's, when the family were in town ; and 
 one whole summer she was a visitor at Ded- 
 dington Park, accompanied by her brother, 
 Colonel Asper. This was before Charles had 
 succeeded to the legacy of his great-uncle, 
 Simon Fogg, of Fogg Hall, in Glamorgan- 
 shire; and of course before he had the power 
 to indulge in those levities which had since 
 made him too much a stranger at home. 
 He was then about nineteen, and Caroline 
 two years younger ; the very age for loving, 
 " not wisely but too well." And they did 
 love; and vows of eternal constancy \vere in-
 
 THE PREMIER. 201 
 
 terchanged ; and Charles, as might be expect- 
 ed from his character, only prayed for one- 
 and-twenty, that they might set off for Gretna 
 Green, if there should be obstacles in the way 
 of going regularly to the parish church ; while 
 Caroline, as might be equally expected from 
 her character, was content to know she loved 
 and was beloved, almost without the wish, cer- 
 tainly without the anticipation, of finding the 
 husband of her future life in the idol of her 
 present affections. 
 
 Let no boy of almost nineteen (if the man- 
 nish coxcombry of that isthmian state be 
 not, like Coriolanus, of too proud a stomach 
 to digest the name,) expect that he knows what 
 he will do when he is one-and-twenty. Charles 
 forgot, or renounced, one folly, in the pursuit 
 of others ; and Caroline was spared the neces- 
 sity of refusing (as she indubitably would have 
 done) to elope with him. But her love was 
 the same ; or if altered, it was only such a 
 change as makes a miser's store more precious. 
 
 Nor did Charles, amid all the seductive gaie- 
 ties of his wild career, suffer one spot to tarnish 
 the purity and constancy of his devotion for her. 
 k5
 
 202 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Their opportunities of personal intercourse 
 were fewer, indeed, than they had been, and 
 limited almost exclusively to casual meetings 
 in parties, or at the opera : but many a quire 
 of rose-coloured paper had blushed, (in spite of 
 what Cicero says,) with their mutual protesta- 
 tions of undiminished attachment. And as, at 
 nineteen, Charles only waited for one-and- 
 twenty, to go to Gretna Green, so now, he 
 only postponed, till his reconciliation with his 
 father, presenting himself to the General as 
 an avowed suitor for his daughter's hand in 
 marriage. 
 
 But meanwhile a formidable and distressing 
 danger had grown up, with the nature of which 
 we cannot make the reader better acquainted 
 than in the language of Caroline herself, as 
 contained in a letter from her to Louisa 
 Ardent. — 
 
 Here it is : 
 
 " You are right, my dear Louisa ; I am 
 changed. Your reproaches, too, are just. I 
 ought not to have a grief concealed from the
 
 THE PREMIER. 203 
 
 one only friend who, till now, has been as much 
 the mistress of all my thoughts, of all my hopes 
 and fears, as I myself. I will redeem this error ; 
 and when the cause of the alteration you have 
 noticed is no longer a mystery, I shall find con- 
 solation in your sympathy, if not advantage 
 from your counsel. 
 
 " Is it possible ? Do I falter at the first step ? 
 
 " Have ^ou ever felt the difficulty, Louisa, 
 of writing what you wish — not because you are 
 unable to put your thoughts into words, but 
 because you are afraid (if I may so express it) 
 to see them in ivords ? It is a strange and fool- 
 ish fear ; like that shrinking of the mind, which 
 one sometimes experiences, to employ itself 
 with ideas that suggest images of a too happy 
 or a too mournful character. 
 
 " Surely, I may spare myself this trial. Oh, 
 yes ! I can fancy I hear you, as you read what 
 I have written,- exclaiming with that quiet tone 
 of half sympathetic, half satirical reproof which 
 I have so often witnessed, ' Silly girl ! what a 
 parade of preparation is here, to disclose, in a 
 few set phrases, a secret which has been told
 
 20% THE PREMIER. 
 
 long ago in silent confessions of the soul V And 
 then, Louisa, you would add, ' I know she — 
 loves him I ' 
 
 " Ought I not to be ashamed of this trifling ? 
 Forgive it ; it is unworthy of i/ou, while it de- 
 rogates from every motive which my heart re- 
 cognised as worthy of itself, when I resolved 
 to lay open to you its inmost recesses. In the 
 severe simplicity of truth, I will execute my in- 
 tention. 
 
 '' I have received — I have returned — the love 
 of your unhappy brother Charles. I call him 
 unhappy, because I know he must be so, (in 
 defiance of all mere outward seeming to the 
 contrary,) while he is banished from the pre- 
 sence of Sir George. Ever since that beautiful 
 summer which I passed at Deddington Park, we 
 have lived for each other. Ah, Louisa ! all the 
 mischief was done then, though I did not think 
 so at the time. Then it was, that I entered 
 into a new state of being, that I was born into 
 a new world ! How vividly I can recall, even 
 to the minutest circumstance, all the change 
 that was wrought in me ! I seemed a thing of 
 spiritual life. I trod the earth like a creature
 
 THE PREMIER. 205 
 
 of another element ; and every object by which 
 I was surrounded appeared as if it had under- 
 gone a change as miraculous as my own. There 
 was more beauty, and harmony, and loveliness 
 in creation than I had ever discovered before. 
 The excitement was too intense, too overpower- 
 ing, to last. In the calmer but more enduring 
 felicity which followed, I was able to under- 
 stand the delusion. I perceived that, in the 
 ecstasy of my own feelings, I had flung their 
 bright hues upon the world around me ; even 
 as a prism clothes all things with artificial 
 brilliancy. But they were moments of deli- 
 cious and transporting dreams ! 
 
 " You will accuse me, I fear, if not in words, 
 at least silently, of deception, that I should ne- 
 ver till now have made this confession. Ah, 
 my dear Louisa ! the heart that once loves will 
 brave the suspicion of treachery towards the 
 whole world, rather than he treacherous to the 
 one idolized being who is its only world. We 
 had sworn holy vows upon the altar of our af- 
 fection, not to acknowledge our mutually-plight- 
 ed troth till the hour when every thing should 
 be auspicious to our hopes.
 
 206 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " And has that auspicious hour arrived, 
 methinks I hear you ask ? Alas, no ! but the 
 hour of danger is approaching, and as I see it 
 advance nearer and nearer, my soul faints with- 
 in me, and my spirits droop. I have no skill 
 to hide feelings which are torturing me night 
 and day. If I had, you, my Louisa, would 
 not have told me I am changed, nor reproached 
 me with unkindness for withholding from you 
 the cause of that change. And then, too, I per- 
 haps had never written this letter. 
 
 " You know Mr. Spencer. You think highly 
 of him. You even admire his character in some 
 things, and you allow that he is unexception- 
 able in personal appearance, in fortune, and in 
 family connexions. You know, too, that I am 
 of the same opinion as yourself upon all these 
 points. But what you do not know, and what 
 I would to God I had never been doomed to 
 know, is, that after a few trifling attentions and 
 civilities, which I regarded in no other light 
 than as the customary courtesies of society, he 
 has formally proposed himself to my father as 
 my suitor, and ha3 been accepted ! 
 
 " Heavens and earth ! What a situation is
 
 THE PREMIER. 207 
 
 mine ! Irresolution has undone me ! Why did 
 I not confess that situation to my father, when 
 he informed me of Mr. Spencer's proposal.^ 
 Why did I shrink from acquainting your bro- 
 ther with that proposal ? Why have I not, ere 
 now, thrown myself upon the honour and gene- 
 rosity of Mr. Spencer, and told him I neither 
 have, nor ever can have, a heart or hand for 
 him ? 
 
 " I ask myself these questions incessantly, 
 and find, or seem to find, a reason which satis- 
 fies me I have done right in abstaining from arty 
 of the courses they point out. The violent 
 temper of my father, and his high sense of 
 honour, would equally impel him to condemn 
 7ne, and adhere to the implied conditions of his 
 acceptance of Mr. Spencer's proposal. When I 
 think of Charles, and a rivals (though but in 
 name,) I shudder at the too probable conse- 
 quences. And with regard to Mr. Spencer him- 
 self, I feel that there icould be humiliation in 
 receiving from his pity (for such / should con- 
 sider it) a release ; or from his condescension, (a 
 thought more galling still,) permission to be 
 mistress of my affections !
 
 208 THE PREMIER. 
 
 '' Besides, do I yet know him enough to be 
 certain that offended pride might not take the 
 shape of studied malice, and that, even though 
 he renounced all hope for himself, he might find 
 a vindictive delight in persecuting me ? Per- 
 haps I do him frightful injustice. But surely 
 he has partly incurred it by his conduct. 
 
 " Good God ! Has he no eyes, or are they 
 blinded by his unfortunate passion for me ? Can 
 he not read in all my words, in my every look 
 and action, since he has come near me in his new 
 character, a marked difference from what I was 
 when I looked upon him merely as an agreeable 
 acquaintance ? Is there, in language, power to 
 express an aversion half so withering to what 
 should be the feelings of an elevated mind in his 
 situation, as the humid eyes, wet with tears 
 hastily wiped away, with which I received him, 
 in my father's presence, the first time he came 
 after his proposals had been accepted ? Has he, 
 since, seen me smile, or heard from my lips any 
 thing but sighs ? And does it need words to 
 interpret the meaning of these things ? It seems 
 it does. And therefore I should have my fears 
 of him, if I could bring myself to use them.
 
 THE PREMIER. 209 
 
 " True, he is respectful, and lavishes his at- 
 tentions upon me with a refined and delicate 
 manner, to which I cannot be insensible. So 
 much the worse. So much the worse, too, that 
 he is what he is in all other respects. Were he 
 presuming, coarse, obtrusive, objectionable in 
 person, unamiable in temper, deficient in accom- 
 plishments, my wretchedness might find a refuge 
 in feelings which would arm me with a resolu- 
 tion not depending, as it now does, upon my so- 
 litary will. Alas ! he has so many virtues, so 
 many excellent qualities, that were / not as I 
 am, I could wish him no other than he is; 
 but being as I am, I devoutly deplore that 
 he is without the only quality which can 
 save me from much, much bitter misery — 
 the sagacity to see that he is trampling upon 
 a heart which he may break, but can never 
 possess. 
 
 " Thus, my dear Louisa, have I performed 
 what I undertook, and laid open to you the in- 
 most recesses of that heart. It is a house of 
 mourning now : a sad and troubled dwelling. 
 But I can bear much, and patiently. What is 
 to come of the situation in which I am placed, I
 
 210 THE PREMIER. 
 
 know not, save this, that I am your brother's — 
 or the grave's ! All beyond, I leave to Heaven. 
 *' And now, Louisa, I lay down my pen with 
 this one injunction — Your finger on your lips ! 
 I would not, for worlds, that a single syllable 
 were breathed of what I have written. At least 
 not now. There may come a time when I shall 
 wish it otherwise : but till then, be faithful, and 
 into my ears only pour your thoughts upon the 
 trials that await your unhappy friend ! Adieu ! 
 
 " C. A." 
 
 Charles was sitting with Louisa when this 
 letter arrived. She read it, without saying from 
 whom it came. Its contents affected her even 
 to tears. Earnestly, but in vain, he pressed to 
 know the cause of her emotion. She did not 
 evade, she denied his entreaties ; not concealing, 
 however, that he was himself deeply interested 
 in the subject. This was hardly fair ; but then, 
 as Louisa said when Charles complained of it, 
 " revenge is sweet," and he had been teazing 
 her the whole evening, about a matter in which 
 she herself was deeply interested.
 
 THE PREMIER. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "Do you remember," said Sir George Ar- 
 dent, one morning to Louisa, as they were 
 walking by themselves in Kensington Gardens, 
 *• a certain coaversation which took place in the 
 library at Deddington Park, when you, like 
 another Theophrastus, became a moral painter 
 of our friends ?" 
 
 " Perfectly well," replied Louisa, " and I 
 recollect, you thought my pencil somewhat free, 
 and my colouring rather too strong.*" 
 
 " I should have done so," rejoined Sir 
 George, " had I understood you by the letter. 
 But it just now occurs to me, there was one 
 very particular friend, whose character you did 
 not attempt on that occasion. I mean Colonel 
 Asper."*"
 
 212 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " What has put the Colonel into your head, 
 I wonder ?" said Louisa, in a tone of calm in- 
 difference, as she disentangled the silk fringe of 
 her parasol, which she suddenly perceived was 
 twisted into an ugly knot. 
 
 " Why, we are apt to think of any person 
 who has given us pleasure," answered Sir 
 George ; " and I hardly remember ever to have 
 passed a more agreeable evening than I did 
 yesterday in the ColonePs company." 
 
 There was an unusual brilliancy in Louisa's 
 eyes at that moment, a sparkling animation in 
 her whole countenance, from which any one 
 might have supposed she was as much pleased 
 with what her father said, as he could have 
 been with whatever Colonel Asper had said the 
 preceding evening. 
 
 " Really," continued Sir George, " 1 con- 
 sider the Colonel a very superior kind of 
 man. I mean no disrespect to a profession 
 which has, in all ages, exhibited some of the 
 noblest qualities in the human character, when 
 I add, that Colonel Asper gives me the impres- 
 sion of an individual greatly surpassing what I 
 have commonly found (and always expect to
 
 THE PREMIER. 213 
 
 find) in a young man whose habits have been 
 formed upon those of a military life." 
 
 Deeper and deeper still, glowed the face of 
 Louisa with an expression of radiant delight. 
 Her features were bathed in joy — thrilling, 
 silent, mysterious joy ; for she hardly knew 
 wherefore she was glad. 
 
 " I have sometimes thought,^' resumed Sir 
 George, after a pause, when he found he was 
 to have all the conversation to himself, " there 
 were resemblances between the character of 
 Colonel Asper, and that perfect mirror of chi- 
 valry, endowed by nature, in her prodigality, 
 with all her gifts — Sir Philip Sidney. It 
 would be gross flattery, or mere dotage, were 
 I to say the general grandeur of Sidney"'s mind 
 is to be found in Colonel Asper'*s. The space 
 that divides them is wide, very wide. Besides, 
 Sidney himself, born in this age, could not 
 have been the astonishing object of admiration 
 he was in his own, because he would have 
 wanted the moral temperature, and political 
 soil, if I may so express myself, necessary to 
 produce and ripen the rare qualities with which 
 he was endued. For the same reason, had he
 
 214 THE PREMIER. 
 
 lived in these artificial times, when it is the 
 business of every man to make his head predo- 
 minate over his heart, he would not, I fear, 
 have fixed a friend in such homage to his vir- 
 tues, that, like Sir Fulke Greville, he would 
 have been ambitious of no other epitaph upon 
 his monument, than one which recorded he was 
 ' friend to Sir Philip Sidney/ " 
 
 At any other time, Louisa would have eager- 
 ly entered into a discussion upon the merits of 
 Sir Philip Sidney, for they were often the 
 theme of her enthusiastic eulogies. But some- 
 how or other, she did not find the same charm 
 in the subject now. She cared less about Sir 
 Philip himself, than about the parallel which 
 had been begun ; or rather, she felt much as a 
 person might be supposed to feel, listening to 
 another who was describing the amount of an 
 intended gift, if the anticipated donor were 
 suddenly to illustrate the influence of the pre- 
 cious metals with reference to the real wealth 
 of nations. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
 all she had to say to her father's philosophical 
 estimate of the difference between what Sir 
 Philip Sidney was, and what he must have been
 
 THE PREMIER. 215 
 
 had he lived in the nineteenth instead of the 
 sixteenth century, consisted of these two words, 
 (most Hstlessly elongated in their utterance) — 
 '' Very true !" And she cast her eyes upon 
 the ground, as if the well, at the bottom of 
 which Truth is said to abide, were at her feet, 
 and she herself in search of her. Sir George 
 smiled and continued : 
 
 " To which part of my discourse," said he, 
 '* am I to apply your laconic approbation — to 
 the beginning, which graced Colonel Asper 
 with some of the attributes of Sidney upon a 
 reduced scale, or to the end, which stripped 
 Sidney himself of many of those attributes upon 
 the supposition of his being now alive?" 
 
 *' What a question !"' exclaimed Louisa. 
 
 This was one of those expletive answers, 
 which are so convenient to give time for 
 considering a better. 
 
 " I see nothing so very extraordinary in it," 
 replied Sir George. 
 
 " Nothing so very extraordinary!" echoed 
 Louisa, who was not yet ready. 
 
 " No," rejoined her father. 
 
 " Nor I either,*' said she, laughing ; for
 
 216 THE PREMIER. 
 
 now she saw her way out of the dilemma. " And 
 that is just the reason why it surprised me. 
 You remember what Junius says to Sir William 
 Draper, about asking questions ? I think there's 
 always something startling in having a question 
 suddenly popped at one. You naturally sus- 
 pect that more is meant than meets the ear; 
 that questions, like misfortunes, seldom come 
 alone ; that the first is only a special messenger 
 sent before to announce the rest : and so, with 
 a sort of instinctive caution, you give him a 
 doubtful reception. If I had stolen a purse, 
 and were asked, point blank, whether I had sto- 
 len it, I should answer neither yes nor no, but 
 exclaim, ' Well, I am sure ; I suppose you take 
 me for a thief !"* " 
 
 '" Borrowing a hint from your ingenious the- 
 ory of question and answer," replied Sir George, 
 " I think I may exclaim, ' Well, I am sure ; 
 I suppose you take me for a ' " 
 
 " Hush !" interrupted Louisa playfully, " I 
 know what you were going to say. But you 
 forget ; you have not been put upon your trial 
 by being asked whether you are- " 
 
 " Poor Colonel Asper !'* cried Sir George.
 
 THE PREMIER. 217 
 
 Louisa grew serious again immediately. 
 
 " He will never have such another oppor- 
 tunity of being sketched in subdued colours, 
 borrowed from the canvas of Sir Philip Sidney ; 
 unless, indeed, you are of my opinion, and take 
 the pencil, for I know you are a fervent admirer 
 of the great original." 
 
 " There might be danger,'" said Louisa in a 
 voice slightly agitated, " that my colouring 
 would not be so subdued as yours ; perhaps I 
 should produce a facsimile, instead of a slight 
 imitation." 
 
 " You are agitated, my child," replied Sir 
 George tenderly. 
 
 " I am !" answered Louisa with increased 
 emotion. 
 
 " And why r 
 
 Louisa was silent. 
 
 " It is so, then," he continued, " and I have 
 guessed rightly. Colonel Asper was the promp- 
 ter, when you discoursed so eloquently of love 
 in the conversation to which I have already 
 referred. He has awakened in thy youthful 
 bosom that dangerous passion which or makes 
 or mars your life." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " I will not deny," said Louisa more calmly, 
 " what I cannot conceal, even from myself — it 
 is as you have guessed.*" 
 
 " More than that," added Sir George. " It is 
 as I could wish, choosing between will and 
 necessity. I am a fastidious and severe reader 
 of man ; but I have seen nothing in the volume 
 which Colonel Asper has opened for my perusal, 
 that I would desire to alter or expunge." 
 
 " Oh God ! what a happy creature I am !" 
 exclaimed Louisa, with a passionate fervour of 
 expression that thrilled through her father's 
 heart. 
 
 " May that God you call to witness your 
 felicity now, so order it in his mercy, that what 
 is to come shall be for thy continued happi- 
 ness !" was the no less fervent exclamation of 
 Sir George. 
 
 " That cannot be, alas f said Louisa in a 
 dejected tone, and wiping hastily away the tears 
 that had started into her eyes, " for too cer- 
 tainly there will be a time when I shall only 
 have the recollection of t/ouv approval to bless 
 and comfort me." 
 
 " Come, come," said he, pressing his daugh-
 
 THE PREMIER. 219 
 
 ter's hand, " we have pleasanter thoughts to 
 entertain ; true though it be, that the mind is 
 ever prone to think of sad things when it is 
 least sad, as if there were then a warning voice 
 within us which whispered to the glad heart, 
 ' To-morrow, and thou shalt rejoice no more !' I 
 must let you into a secret. I told you I passed 
 a very agreeable evening yesterday in the Colo- 
 nePs company, and, I '11 answer for it, he will 
 not say less in praise of his companion. The 
 fact is, we were certain of being mutually enter- 
 taining, because we talked, for the better part 
 of two hours, upon a subject mutually attrac- 
 tive. I shall not repeat our conversation, know- 
 ing, as I do, you will have more pleasure in 
 hearinc^ it from him. But there is one thine: 
 he may be too modest to tell, which is, that I 
 am proud of your choice, my child ; and it is 
 only because you are my child, I suppose, that 
 I like the Colonel's choice still better.'" 
 
 What music there is in words that give us 
 back the echo of our own thoughts ! How 
 sweet it is to listen to them, when they express 
 the very image of our hopes, and confirm the 
 deepest desires and wishes of our heart ! But 
 L 2
 
 220 THE PREMIER. 
 
 oh ! how tenfold sweet and musical they are, 
 when they flow from tongues, which from our 
 very cradles have spoken to us the only accents 
 of praise or reproof that could cheer or depress 
 our spirits. 
 
 This was now Louisa''s enviable situation. 
 An applauding world could not have com- 
 pensated, in her mind, for one look or sentence 
 of disapprobation from her beloved father. 
 How perfect and entire, therefore, must have 
 been her happiness to find, that on so momen- 
 tous a question as the bestowal of her affec- 
 tions, she had not forfeited, had not even ba- 
 lanced, that approbation. She had, as it were, 
 seen with his eyes, judged with his judgment, 
 and acted with his will. It was the sudden 
 inrush of feelings which this discovery pro- 
 duced, that made her exclaim with such an 
 ecstasy of delight, " Oh God ! what a happy 
 creature I am !" And the same feelings, in 
 their calmer and more reflective state, denied 
 to her, at the moment, all power of expressing 
 them. 
 
 Sir George, however, soon relieved her from 
 their thraldom, by introducing the subject of
 
 THE PREMIER. 221 
 
 Caroline Asper, as they were returning home 
 in the carriage. She had always been a great 
 favourite with him ; and he had of late fre- 
 quently adverted, with much sympathy, to her 
 apparent dejection of spirits. Louisa could 
 only join in his sympathy, without explaining 
 the cause of Caroline's affliction ; but from 
 the tenor of his sentiments then, as well as on 
 former occasions, she fancied she saw reason to 
 hope that, if there should be need of a powerful 
 and zealous advocate, Caroline might, perhaps, 
 unexpectedly find one in Sir George.
 
 222 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER Xiy. 
 
 When Charles told Mr. Peter Augustus 
 Bobus, he expected to meet some literary 
 friends at dinner, who would be able to appre- 
 ciate the poetical beauties of his Epithalamium, 
 poor Bobus little dreamed of what was to 
 follow. Three weeks afterwards, as he was 
 coming out of his parish church, St. Martin- 
 in-the-Fields, he was accosted by his neighbour, 
 Mr. Green, the silversmith, in these words : 
 
 " Why, friend Bobus, I did not know you 
 wrote poetry." 
 
 " Yes, I sometimes amuse myself a little in 
 that line, but it is always under the rose,"" said 
 Bobus. 
 
 " Do you call it under the rose,"" replied !Mr. 
 Green, " when it is in print with your name ?^'' 
 
 "What do you mean .^" cried Bobus — " what
 
 THE PREMIER. 223 
 
 do you mean, Green ?" twitching his watch- 
 chain violently, and looking utterly aghast. 
 
 " Mean ?" echoed Mr. Green ; " wh}'^, there 
 you are as large as life, in The Scorpion of 
 
 this morning : an Epi something, (for 
 
 it's a d d cramp word,) to a young Poet, by 
 
 Peter Augustus Bobus, Esq." 
 
 " l^ord God !" exclaimed Bobus, " you are 
 joking r 
 
 " If there's any joke, I don't see it,'^ replied 
 Green. " Whether ^ou are the Bobus that is 
 meant, you must know best ; for of course you 
 know whether you ever wrote an Epi — thid- 
 mum, or some such thing, to a young Poet, 
 and sent it to the Scorpion." 
 
 "I send it ! You have my authority, Green, 
 to contradict it, in every quarter where it may 
 be asserted. I never sent any thing in the 
 poetical line to a paper, in my life." 
 
 " But did you write it ?" asked Mr. Green. 
 
 " I don't know that I did, till I see it," an- 
 swered Bobus. 
 
 " Well, you need not be ashamed of it, if 
 you did," said Mr. Green. " Both I and Mrs. 
 G. thought it uncommon good. Mrs. G. in
 
 224 THE PREMIER. 
 
 particular admired something about a ' sight of 
 delio-ht to see her in white ;' and a ' virginal 
 bride taking courage.' I say, Bobus, that was 
 coming it rather strong, though, wasn't it ?" 
 
 " I am satisfied !" exclaimed Bobus, like an- 
 other Cato. " It is it !" and bidding his friend 
 Green good-morning, he hurried off to the Scor- 
 pion Office, where, before he bought the paper, 
 he saw, with indescribable dismay, these words, 
 in staring capitals, on the printed placard out- 
 side the door, — " A poetical tailor — Peter Au- 
 gustus Bobus, Esq.'' Nevertheless, he entered 
 — paid his seven-pence — crammed " The Scor- 
 pion" into his pocket — ran home — and all but 
 swooned when he saw the identical Epithala- 
 mium, of which the only copy he had given to 
 man, woman, or child, was that which he pre- 
 sented to Charles. Leaving it to the reader's 
 imagination to conceive the bitterness of Bobus's 
 feelings at this astounding calamity, as well as 
 the piteous complaints he made next day to 
 Charles, we shall proceed to explain how it 
 happened. 
 
 Charles was a member of The SCORPION 
 Club; so called, because the founders of it
 
 THE PREMIER. 225 
 
 were the persons who had succeeded in estab- 
 lishing the celebrated journal of that name, in 
 which, as we have just seen, Bobus was " shown 
 up/' The president of this club was one Elias 
 Northcott, of whose birth, parentage, and edu- 
 cation, all that has ever transpired is to be found 
 in the inaugural speech he delivered on the oc- 
 casion of his elevation to the presidential chair. 
 " Gentlemen,'" said he, " I am the more proud 
 of the honour you have conferred upon me, be- 
 cause I feel that I am indebted for it entirely 
 to such personal claims as you have been 
 pleased (however partially) to recognise in me. 
 Neither aristocratic influence nor family con- 
 nections can be flung in my face. My father, 
 (Heaven bless him ! whoever he was, and where- 
 ever he is !) I never happened to see; and this 
 ignorance has saved me from innumerable 
 brawls and squabbles ; for I am always fearful 
 of getting into a quarrel, lest I should uncon- 
 sciously be guilty of parricide by getting into a 
 duel. As to my mother, having discharged 
 her duty by me, in bringing me into the world, 
 she left the world to take care of me, by going 
 out of it herself. But she bequeathed me all 
 L 5
 
 226 THE PREMIER. 
 
 mankind for my brothers and sisters ; all nature 
 for my inheritance. With this ample patrimo- 
 ny, and with such numerous relaticDs, you may 
 guess I wanted nothing but an introduction to 
 my kindred, and a good title to my estates. 
 The first, I always carry in my face ; the se- 
 cond, in my heart ; for I never see a rich man, 
 but I own him, if my pocket is empty ; nor an 
 ample domain but I possess it, in imagination." 
 
 Elias, besides being the president of the club, 
 was virtually, though not avowedly, the princi- 
 pal writer in the paper published by the Club. 
 From the peculiar piquant nature, indeed, of 
 many of the articles which appeared, it was 
 unanimously resolved, by the committee of 
 management, that a well-grown Munsterman 
 should be hired, at two guineas a-week, to sit 
 in tlie office from ten till four, Sundays except- 
 ed, and answer all applications that might be 
 made .for a private interview with the editor. 
 Such a representative was soon found, in the 
 person of Cornelius Cailaghan, who stood six 
 feet three without his shoes, and measured two 
 feet five across the shoulders. 
 
 To give due effect to these proportions, the
 
 THE PREMIER. 227 
 
 room into which visitors were shown, who had 
 any thing pugnacious in their appearance, or 
 mysterious in their manner; who came with 
 bamboos in their hands, or had their coats but- 
 toned up, as if to conceal one of those flexible 
 articles called horsewhips, was a little, snug, 
 retired closet at the back of the premises ; so 
 that when Mr. Cornelius Callaghan entered, 
 carrying, as he always took care to do, a 
 remarkably fine root of a crab-tree under his 
 arm, as if he had just come in from a walk, 
 or was just going out to take one, an impres- 
 sion was produced which invariably had the 
 effect of leading to amicable explanations. 
 " Are you the editor of The Scorpion .^" — asked 
 in a tone and with a look, which bespoke a 
 sudden oozing out of valour — (especially when 
 the querist happened to be like the " cutty 
 sark" of Burns's " winsome wench,*" in " longi- 
 tude sorely scanty,") was sure to be followed by 
 pathetic complaints, or gingerly remonstrances, 
 instead of warlike demonstrations. 
 
 Next in dignity to Elias was Mathew 
 Bounce, Esq., the vice-president. Bounce was 
 once a member of the corij^ dramatique, as it is
 
 228 THE PREMIER. 
 
 proper we should call that distinguished body 
 of persons ; but not happening to be a great 
 artist^ in any one of the histrionic branches, 
 (for he had begun with tragedy, and ended 
 with farce, thus inverting the order of his am- 
 bition,) he followed the example of those who, 
 being dunces at school, set up afterwards for 
 schoolmasters, and established himself as a 
 theatrical preceptor. 
 
 A vulgar notion prevails among some people, 
 that a man can only teach what he knows ; but 
 if this were really the case, who would be a 
 teacher, when he might do so much better for 
 himself by practising what he teaches ? The 
 true province of an instructor, on the contrary, 
 is to wait modestly on nature. If the pupil 
 have a sufficient quantity of that of which every 
 body has some, in the present age — genius, 
 leave him alone ; he will be sure to get on : but 
 if he be stinted in his allowance, then let the 
 teacher fall to work, and fill up the vacuum 
 with something. And where that is the case, 
 it would be strange, indeed, if it did not suc- 
 ceed ; for when there is nothing, we all know 
 that a little goes a great way.
 
 THE PREMIER. 229 
 
 This was the plan upon which Bounce went ; 
 and his success was prodigious. He was uni- 
 versally allowed to be the most complete master, 
 in preparing candidates for the stage, that had 
 ever appeared ; and the only drawback that his 
 bitterest enemies could allege, (for he had his 
 enemies, like all great men,) was, that his system 
 had too much preparation and too little finish. 
 Every now and then there was a formal an- 
 nouncement in the newspapers of some Garrick, 
 or Siddons, or Jordan, whom he was preparing 
 for a debut ; but the debut came not ; or if it did, 
 the discerning part of the public unfortunately 
 stayed at home that night, and all Mr. Bounce's 
 preparation was thrown away. 
 
 Once, indeed, he was as lucky as the angler 
 mentioned by Dr. Franklin, who sat, like " Pa- 
 tience on a monument,*" for thirteen hours on 
 the banks of the Delaware, and had a " glorious 
 nibble," about sunset. A performer was sud- 
 denly taken ill (as certain of them are apt to be 
 towards evening) : a pupil of Bounce's, who had 
 been several years studying confidence for first- 
 rate characters, by unostentatiously represent- 
 ing those that required no confidence at all, was
 
 230 THE PRExMIER. 
 
 deputed to read the part. " I know every word 
 of it," said the undiscovered Garrick to the ma- 
 nager. "Well, Sir, and what then ?" "Why, had 
 I not better do it without book .^" — " No, Sir; do 
 it with book." "That's very odd !"— "Not at all, 
 Sir ; I know you can read, and I know you can't 
 act : and it is my duty to give the public every 
 man's best." When Bounce heard this, he ob- 
 served, it was " one of the nearest hits that had 
 ever happened to a candidate of his preparing.'''' 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add, that the peculiar 
 province of Mathew Bounce, in The Scorpion, 
 was the " Theatricals." These he did to admi- 
 ration, from a critique at full length, to an epi- 
 grammatic paragraph of Green-Room chit-chat. 
 
 Associated with Elias and Mathew was 
 Alfred Andrew Potts, a poet, and the author of 
 three duodecimo volumes, entitled " Fugitive 
 Flowers from Fairy Land." Mr. Potts was mar- 
 ried ; and Mrs. A. A. Potts was herself a poet- 
 ess. Her name was to be found in many of the 
 principal periodical publications (for her muse 
 did not venture to go alone yet) ; and having 
 some taste in music, several of her effusions 
 were " married to immortal" notes of her own
 
 THE PREMIER. 231 
 
 composing. The most popular of these was a lit- 
 tle ballad, called " The Mother's A. B. C," be- 
 ginning, " A was an angel, and so is my Anne ;"" 
 and going through the alphabet after the manner 
 of that ancient metrical catalogue of abecedarian 
 exploits so familiar to our nursery recollections. 
 Mr. Alfred A. Potts wore his shirt-collar a la 
 Byron, and Mrs. A. A. Potts her hair a la Sappho; 
 and when Mr. Potts's eye, " in a fine frenzy roll- 
 ing,"" denoted that he was about to "glance 
 from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth," 
 Mrs. Potts took her harp, and played divine 
 airs to fill him with diviner thouo^hts. It was 
 thus he wrote some of the finest thino[s that 
 ever fell from the pen of Alfred Andrew Potts. 
 But it must not be concealed, that, in spite of 
 his great poetical genius, of which no man was 
 more thoroughly convinced than himself, Mr. 
 Potts was an arrant coxcomb — an insufferable cox- 
 comb ; a mere swollen bladder of vanity, floating 
 along the puddle of a little applauding circle, 
 who thought him, what he thought himself, the 
 Petrarch of his age. " For a confirmation of 
 this fact," as the newspapers say, the reader is 
 referred to the columns of The Scorpion, which
 
 232 THE PREMIER. 
 
 contain Mr. Potts's criticisms upon his own 
 works, (besides numerous specimens of the works 
 themselves,) and to all the other critical journals 
 of the day conducted by Mr. Potts's friends. 
 
 Next, and last, was Benjamin Dumpkopf, by 
 descent a German, but by birth an Englishman, 
 a person of easy address, of pleasing man- 
 ners, and (in a small way) of lively conversa- 
 tion. His department was omnifarious. He 
 could turn an epigram ; manufacture a string 
 of puns ; give a point to a dull joke ; disfigure 
 an old one so as to make it pass for new ; dish 
 up a tale of scandal with or without ribald 
 allusions ; and " do smart paragraphs" upon 
 any subject. He gained prodigious applause, 
 during the memorable period of the Caroline 
 fever, by two pieces he wrote, and which, as 
 they are short, shall be here introduced, to 
 give them that immortality they really de- 
 serve. The first ran thus : — 
 
 " If matches, as folks say, were made in heaven, 
 The Queen had to the Alderman been given ; 
 For clearly, nothing makes a match so good, 
 As hrimstone with infianmiatory WoodS^ 
 
 The other was entitled " An Extract from the
 
 THE PREMIER. 233 
 
 Botanical Garden, a new poem, addressed to 
 Her Majesty/' 
 
 " What sound is tliat beneath the tree ? 
 
 — 'Tis only the hum of the old Queen Bee ; 
 
 And there her buzzing legions come, 
 
 Extracting honey from the Broom. 
 
 How is it that the Broom is found 
 
 In such black, boggy, shady ground ? 
 
 I thought it flourish'd far and wide 
 
 Upon the northern mountain's side. 
 
 Yes ; but this species is not good, 
 
 And here we call it Under-ivood.'^ 
 
 It was maliciously said at the time, by those 
 who love to deprive merit of its due, that Mr. 
 Dumpkopf did not write these himself, but re- 
 ceived them secretly from a gentleman who 
 then belonged to the Government, and who was 
 celebrated for his ready wit. Mr. Dumpkopf, 
 however, put down the injurious calumny at 
 once, by making an affidavit before the Lord 
 Mayor of his sole right to the authorship. 
 
 These four distinguished individuals, Elias 
 Northcott, Mathew Bounce, Esq., Alfred An- 
 drew Potts, and Benjamin Dumpkopf, were the 
 awful WE of The Scorpion. They were also 
 the founders of The Scorpion Club, which
 
 234 THE PREMIER. 
 
 (besides themselves) consisted of six-and-thirty 
 members, who dined together once a-week, 
 when, in addition to the usual conviviality of 
 such meetings, there were generally volunteer 
 contributions of some kind or other for the en- 
 suing number of the paper. Charles had only 
 recently been enrolled among the number, at 
 the earnest solicitation of one of his wild com- 
 panions, who expatiated with such eloquence 
 upon the fine study which it presented of cha- 
 racter and life, that, without reflecting whether 
 his own character would be raised, or his life 
 bettered, by the association, he at once consent- 
 ed to join it. 
 
 Not that there were any absolute roues be- 
 longing to the club ; but most of them were 
 persons with second-hand reputations, — charac- 
 ters a little soiled, rather the worse for wear, 
 and at a depreciated price, consequently, in 
 the market. But Charles, who believed he 
 could handle pitch without being defiled, and 
 who, moreover, intended, from the first, only 
 to take a snack, not a full meal, of the motley 
 repast, felt no alarm. He had, too, a keen 
 relish of character, and an eager desire, on
 
 THE PREMIER. 235 
 
 occasions, to see life under any form in which 
 it had not yet presented itself to him; and 
 as there were at least some whom he knew to 
 stand fair in the world's opinion, among the 
 Scorpions, he considered he ran no great hazard 
 in being seen where they did not hesitate to 
 show themselves. 
 
 The Scorpions themselves, indeed, laid claim 
 to a very exalted kind of virtue, — that of con- 
 stituting a new sect of militant moralists, whose 
 business it was to castigate vice with a fearless 
 hand, to denounce corruption, whatever shape 
 it might assume, and to drag profligacy before 
 the public eye, though it might be clothed in 
 robes of purple. Charles was, for a time, the 
 dupe of these pretensions ; or rather, he was 
 their passive disciple, for he did not give him- 
 self the trouble to scrutinize their real quality. 
 But a conversation he held with Colonel Asper, 
 and the affair of Bobus's Epithalamium, which 
 followed almost immediately, had the effect of 
 completely enlightening him upon the subject.
 
 236 THE PREMIER. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " You ought to be a Scorpion,'' observed 
 Charles to the Colonel, " if for no other reason 
 than that you so often carry a sting in the tail 
 of what you say." 
 
 " That should seem to be reason, rather, for 
 remaining as I am,'* replied the Colonel. " But 
 come, — I have long wished to have a regular 
 argumentation with you upon this same subject 
 of the Scorpions, and the fine eulogy you have 
 just lavished upon the pseudo morality of such 
 publications as The Scorpion, is a fair challenge. 
 Now, in the first place, as to the cui bono ? I 
 suspect we are not much more degenerate than 
 our forefathers, and that Vice, though she may 
 have changed her name in some things, has not 
 changed her nature. I suspect, for instance, a
 
 THE PREMIER. 237 
 
 fop of Queen Elizabeth^s time was just the 
 same unmeaning thing as a modern dandy ; I 
 doubt whether adultery was committed with a 
 jot more grace and decorum than at present ; 
 while I am very much inclined to think the 
 more homely vices had in them a brutality and 
 coarseness which the refinement of these days 
 has banished from society." 
 
 " Granted,'' said Charles, settling himself in 
 his chair with the air and gravity of a Lord 
 Chancellor at the opening of a knotty case. 
 
 " Yet," continued the Colonel, " were men 
 to judge of the enormity or frequency of 
 crimes now, from the indignant zeal with which 
 they are reprobated by our pseudo moralists, we 
 must conclude that the present age is sunk in 
 abominations beyond what has ever been re- 
 corded of England ; and which can be parallel- 
 ed only in the infamous orgies of Rome in her 
 decline, as described by Juvenal, or of Italy 
 in the middle ages, governed by her priest- 
 hood, as pourtrayed in the licentious pages of 
 Boccaccio." 
 
 " Good I" ejaculated Charles, gracefully ap-
 
 238 THE PREMIER. 
 
 plying a small portion of the contents of an 
 elegant gold snuff-box to his nose. ^^ Good ! 
 —Proceed." 
 
 Colonel Asper smiled, and went on. 
 "This, then, is the question. Are we so 
 very immoral a people ? Or, have we among 
 us a class of persons who fatten upon the offals 
 of vice, as the vulture feeds upon carrion ?'''' 
 
 " That is the question," responded Charles, 
 with a new reading of Shakspeare. 
 
 " I answer, that as we excel our progenitors 
 in all the accomplishments of private life, in all 
 the pursuits of science and philosophy, in all 
 the improvements of art, and in all that distin- 
 guishes a highly civilized, from a rude and bar- 
 barous, age, — so we excel them no less in the 
 chastened current of our actions, which has 
 worked itself clear, in its progress, from much 
 of the impurity that defiled it at its outflow." 
 
 " Q. E. D. as my old tutor used to say with 
 an inimitable snuffle." 
 
 " If then this be the fact—" 
 
 " Ay, zf," interrupted Charles. 
 
 " Hear me out," said the Colonel. " If I
 
 THE PREMIER. 239 
 
 say this be the fact, to what shall we ascribe 
 the origin of our new sect of public censors ? 
 Will it be asserted that they are persons of 
 such exalted purity, with minds so exquisitely 
 attuned to moral harmony, that they cannot 
 look upon the vices and follies of the age with 
 pity or resentment merely, but are driven, by 
 the strong impulse of virtue, to arraign them 
 at the bar of public opinion ?'' 
 
 " I think not," said Charles. 
 
 " Well, then, can we urge in their behalf 
 that they are influenced by an honest regard for 
 the commonweal ? No : for they pass by un- 
 touched, or touch with a light and treacherous 
 hand, those by whose example the million are 
 most swayed. Is it that the vices they do re- 
 probate are of so flagitious a character, so de- 
 structive of private happiness, and exercise so 
 malignant an influence over the sheltered walks 
 of domestic life, that they strike at the very 
 foundations of society ? No : for they turn 
 from the bloated carcass whose whole mass is 
 infected, fix upon a diseased limb, dissect that, 
 and sacrifice the body while they cauterise a
 
 240 THE PREMIER. 
 
 local affection. Where then must we look for 
 the motives of this seemingly virtuous and 
 pious warfare.'^" 
 
 " I don't think you want any assistance,""* 
 said Charles ; " you appear to be making your 
 approaches towards a discovery with admirable 
 generalship. — Pray, go on.'" 
 
 " We have sought them,'' continued the Co- 
 lonel, who was now getting too serious with his 
 subject to be diverted from it by his friend's 
 raillery, "but we have sought them vainly, in 
 the austere purity of these militant morahsts, in 
 their patriotism, and in their reverence for the 
 sacred charities of the domestic circle. There 
 is, however, one hidden recess, one loathsome 
 dungeon, one foul corner, into which we have 
 not looked. Let us explore it. 
 
 What do we behold there ? A hideous, de- 
 formed, and unsightly monster, of cadaverous 
 aspect, with hollow eye, and hands that clutch 
 unceasingly at heaps of visionary gold. Her 
 name is Gain ! And on her right hand sits a 
 squalid form lapping gall, whose bloated skin 
 and blistered tongue show that the food she de- 
 lights in, while it poisons her frame, makes her
 
 THE PREMIER. 241 
 
 hateful to herself. He?' name is Malice. Is 
 my allegory intelligible ?" 
 
 " Perfectly,'' answered Charles. " It needs 
 no gloss or comment. But I cannot make the 
 application.'' 
 
 " Then I will do it for you," replied Colonel 
 Asper. " Look at the hireling and prostituted 
 moralists who make their market of the vices 
 they profess to condemn. They are loud, and 
 coarse, and brutal, in their reproofs, because it 
 is all rank delusion. They would do as much 
 for vice, pay them better ; pay them to their 
 utmost, give them the price of silence, and 
 public virtue might be corroded to its centre, 
 ere they would cry — ' To your tents, oh Israel !' 
 They have no interest in society, but as they 
 can extract from its rottenness the wages of 
 their sordid calling. Toss down to them their 
 sorry morsel, and they devour it without lift- 
 ing their eyes to see from what hand it comes. 
 The very manner in which they discharge their 
 self-imposed duties, betrays their aim. Coarse 
 and revolting epithets — indiscriminate attack — 
 disproportioned warmth — furious anathema — 
 wilful exaggeration — contempt of truth — and 
 
 VOL. 1. M
 
 242 THE PREMIER. 
 
 bitter inferences maliciously wrung from dis- 
 torted facts, are their prescriptive weapons." 
 
 " But if pernicious vices or corrupting follies 
 are actually combated by these hireling moralists, 
 as you term them," said Charles, " might you 
 not as justly condemn the physician who looks 
 for his fee for curing the natural body, as they 
 who gain their livelihood by curing the body 
 politic ?" 
 
 " Bah !" exclaimed the Colonel. — " What 
 are the vices, what are the follies, they single 
 out ? Do they fly at noble quarry ? Do they 
 aim at patrician vice? Do they humble the 
 proud offender ? Do they strip the mask from 
 the guilty face that shows itself in courts, and 
 palaces, and high offices, and important trusts ? 
 Do they warn us against exalted delinquents ? 
 Do they pluck out the corruption that lurks 
 beneath a star ? No, — they do none of these 
 things. But is there some individual moving 
 along the sequestered path of private life, some 
 being hitherto unknown, (and by unknown^ I 
 would designate any one not conspicuously 
 prominent in the circle of fashionable or public 
 life,) or, if known, known already as a nui-
 
 THE PREMIER. 243 
 
 sance, and therefore sufficiently notorious — 
 some one whom early, but long redeemed, 
 errors, may have contaminated, or who may 
 still be the victim of weaknesses that shade, 
 but hardly sully, his character, him they seize 
 on — him they torture — him they rack with 
 devilish ingenuity. 
 
 And when they are once upon the scent, they 
 hunt through every channel for intelligence. 
 Discarded servants — irritated dependents— baf- 
 fled sharpers — needy parasites — tradesmen dis- 
 continued for their extortions — or an exaspe- 
 rated ^'re'ew 6^, eager to wreak insidious vengeance, 
 are among their most valuable sources of in- 
 formation. When the mass, flowing thus 
 through innumerable corrupt channels, comes 
 into the hands of the writer, it still has to re- 
 ceive some little infusion of poison, some leaven 
 of malice, some touches of perfidious heighten- 
 ing, before it is fit for his purpose. 
 
 At length, all is done. The monster is ma- 
 tured, and it goes forth. What are the con- 
 sequences ? Perhaps a tale of slander is revived 
 which destroys a wife's felicity, a husband's 
 M 2
 
 244 THE PREMIER. 
 
 honour. Perhaps a tale is told, once true, 
 though no longer so, and which now, for the 
 first time, meets their eyes whose happiness 
 sickens at the reading. It may disclose the for- 
 jiotten errors of the husband and the father, 
 and wring the hearts of a blameless wife and 
 unoffending children. An unguarded expres- 
 sion, a heedless action, is magnified and per- 
 verted. Offended honour is roused. Suspi- 
 cion is awakened ; and it fixes somewhere, per- 
 haps rightly, perhaps wrongly, as to the indivi- 
 dual who has been the betrayer. The seeds of 
 contention, hatred, contempt, are sown : jea- 
 lousies are excited, quarrels embittered, and 
 animosities revived. And all for what ? That 
 society, forsooth, may be benefited by becoming 
 acquainted with the vices or follies of Mr. B. — 
 Mrs. H.— Captain X.— or Sir Richard Dr 
 
 " You have made out a strong case, Asper,*" 
 said Charles, musing. 
 
 " Truth is always strong," replied the Co- 
 lonel. " But the general effect of the picture 
 will be heightened by two or three additional 
 touches, curiously illustrative of the system 
 I have endeavoured to expose ; and with them
 
 THE PREMIER. 245 
 
 I shall finish. Money being, first and last, 
 the sole object of these despicable marauders 
 upon the pocket, their mode of proceeding 
 varies according to circumstances. The callous 
 and the needy knave, they equally pass by; 
 for the one will not, and the other cannot, pur- 
 chase their silence. It is the middle, com- 
 pound character, the man who, without firm- 
 ness enough to avoid error, has feeling enough 
 to be ashamed of it, that they fatten upon. 
 Many there are who would rather be pillaged 
 of ten, twenty, thirty, nay fifty, or a hundred 
 guineas, than have some foolish action, some 
 idle fault, dragged before the public eye. 
 Others, of timid disposition, would do as much 
 to avoid the imputation^ even, of things of which 
 they know themselves to be guiltless. They 
 shrink dismayed from the blasting touch of 
 these profligate censors, who magnify what is 
 venial, and invent what is wanting ; and .they 
 propitiate them as the African does the devil, 
 from terror of their evil natures. But their po- 
 licy is bad. There was a time when we used to 
 buy off our invaders. What was the conse- 
 quence ? They came every year, and every
 
 246 THE PREMIER. 
 
 year demanded a higher price to go away. At 
 last we fought them ; and they soon grew tired 
 of coming for their wages. While these pure 
 and exalted moralists are worshipped with gold, 
 they exact frequent devotions : but let our of- 
 ferings be of iron, and they care not how sel- 
 dom they are sacrificed to.*" 
 
 " Even leather would do," observed Charles, 
 " in the shape of a boot, or a horsewhip, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Oh, yes !" replied the Colonel, " or a vi- 
 gorous application of the finger and thumb to 
 the most prominent feature of the face." 
 
 " But after all," continued Charles, " I must 
 stand up for my friends the Scorpions. I don''t 
 think there is one of them would soil his fingers 
 with lucre, in the base way you describe, what- 
 ever other sins may be fairly laid to their charge." 
 
 " I speak of the system," said Colonel 
 Asper, " as one of notorious trafficking with 
 infamy in every shape. You may as well tell 
 me a man can be a tender-hearted assassin, as 
 that a fellow can pursue the trade of a literary 
 bully, without being of necessity a thoroughly 
 despicable and degraded animal."
 
 THE PREMIER. 247 
 
 It was only a few days after this conversa- 
 tion, which had made a deeper impression upon 
 Charles's mind than he chose to acknowledge, 
 that he saw the martyrdom inflicted upon poor 
 Bobus in The Scorpion. He felt at once an- 
 noyed and indignant. Annoyed, because he 
 knew it would vex and mortify a worthy, well- 
 meaning creature ; and indignant, because the 
 most solemn pledges of honour and confidence 
 had been violated. And he was the more in- 
 dignant, perhaps, inasmuch as a little just re- 
 proach might be cast upon himself, for having, 
 in the hilarity of those moments which the 
 bottle is apt to make incautious, surrendered 
 to Elias Northcott, the president, the copy of 
 the Epithalamium (after reading it aloud), and 
 disclosed the writer's name. 
 
 This gave the second shock to his con- 
 fidence in a Scorpion : but the final and the 
 stunning blow was to come. 
 
 Colonel Asper called upon him one morning, 
 and, after a few minutes' general conversation, 
 introduced the subject of the Scorpions again. 
 
 " I certainly did not expect," said he, " so 
 soon to have it in my power to fortify, by damn-
 
 248 THE PRExMlER. 
 
 ing evidence, the truth of what I lately as- 
 serted, with respect to the vile, mercenary mo- 
 tives of the wretches who live to amend the 
 age. But I esteem myself fortunate, on your 
 account, my dear Charles, who have been in- 
 veigled into the gang ; for I now feel confident 
 you will shrink from the pollution, as you 
 would from every thing that is infamous. You 
 know my friend, General Darlington, who had 
 the misfortune, some years ago, to be tried by a 
 Court Martial for an affair in which, though 
 his honour was unimpeached, his temper and 
 discretion were somewhat compromised. An 
 advertisement appeared in the papers last week, 
 announcing a forthcoming pamphlet, profess- 
 ing to give what it calls the secret history of 
 that transaction, and specially promising cer- 
 tain curious anecdotes relative to the General, 
 who is just now an object of persecution by a 
 powerful party, on account of the fearless ex- 
 posure he made of their intrigues in the House 
 of Commons. The moment the General saw 
 the advertisement, he went to his solicitor to 
 consult him upon the best course to be pursued. 
 With this little preface, I shall put into your
 
 THE PREMIER. 2i9 
 
 hands copies of the correspondence which has 
 passed between the solicitor and the admitted 
 author of the threatened pamphlet. 
 
 Colonel Asper gave the Correspondence to 
 Charles. It was as follows : — 
 
 " Street, July 8tl), 18—. 
 
 '' Sir, 
 " We are instructed by General Darlington 
 to inform you, that if there is any thing in the 
 publication you have announced, under the title 
 of 'A Secret History,' &c. affecting his cha- 
 racter in the slightest degree, or of a libellous 
 nature generally, with regard to the transaction 
 in question, he is determined to commence an 
 immediate prosecution, which we shall accord- 
 ingly institute. 
 
 " We remain. Sir, 
 
 " Your obedient servants, 
 
 " , , and r 
 
 " To Elias Northcott, Esq." 
 
 " Circus, July 10th, 18—. 
 
 " Gentlemen, 
 " General Darlington cannot surely be 
 so ignorant of the world, or of the way in which 
 M .5
 
 250 THE PREMIER. 
 
 things of this sort are managed, as not to know, 
 that if he be anxious certain matters, hitherto 
 unpublished, should remain so, there are means 
 by which it can be done. I shall wait three 
 days to give General Darlington time to weigh 
 this hint. Of course, I consider myself in 
 honourable hands, when I make the proposi- 
 tion to the General through you. 
 
 " I remain. Gentlemen, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 "Elias Northcott." 
 " Messrs. , , and ." 
 
 " Street, July 10th. 
 
 " Sir, 
 " Whatever you publish respecting General 
 Darlington, you will publish at your own peril. 
 " We remain, Sir, &c. 
 
 " , , and r 
 
 " Elias Northcott." 
 
 All that need be further told is, that Charles 
 ceased to be a Scorpion, and that Elias North- 
 cott, having failed to extort a round sum as 
 hush-money, the pamphlet, which was never 
 begun, nor ever intended to be written, was of 
 course never published.
 
 THE PREMIER. 251 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Among the select few who seceded from the 
 Scorpions along with Charles, when the cause 
 of his own secession became known, (which he 
 took especial care should not be, like the pre- 
 sident's pamphlet, a secret history^) was Cosmo 
 Blakeway, a man with the double singularity 
 of a strong but crooked mind, and a command- 
 ing but troublesome person. He was enor- 
 mously bulky ; not from fat, but from bone 
 and muscle. His limbs were gigantic and pon- 
 derous ; his voice, at its most dulcet pitch, the 
 perfect intonation of a speaking-trumpet in a 
 gale of wind; his titter, a growl, and his 
 laugh, when hugely pleased, tremendous. He 
 wore his hair after the fashion of the Saracen's 
 Head upon Snowhill, (I purposely retain the 
 old designation, because it must be notorious
 
 252 THE PEEMIER. 
 
 to every one who remembers what that Saracen 
 was, that his successor, in Skinner Street, is a 
 mere crop in comparison,) and suffered his 
 whiskers, mustachios, and a shaggy valance 
 round his throat, to sport in wild luxuriance 
 over three-fourths of his face. The colour of 
 his hair was grizzle ; not from age, for he was 
 in the very prime of life, (that is, about forty- 
 eight,) but from habit ; it having, as he used to 
 say, manifested a predilection for that variegat- 
 ed appearance ever since his eighteenth year. 
 His eyes, which were prominent, peered over a 
 nose equally prominent, like two beacons on 
 each side of a jutting promontory. Lastly, his 
 complexion was nearer to the speckled hues of 
 a blackberry leaf, than to those of wholesome 
 flesh and blood. 
 
 Tha;t Cosmo was never married is as little 
 surprising as that he should have acquired the 
 soubriquet^ or nickname, of Great Grimshy, 
 though Cornwall, and not Lincolnshire, was his 
 native country. 
 
 The curvature or twist of his mind arose 
 from his inveterate love of paradox and argu- 
 ment. The former led him constantly to give
 
 TPIE PREMIER. 253 
 
 new names, new definitions, and new views to 
 old things ; and the latter, to " doubt " whether 
 any thing was as every body else thought it. 
 Young mentions a lady who was so very cun- 
 ning in all she did, that she could not make tea 
 without a stratagem ; and Cosmo was so very 
 dialectical, that he could hardly snuff a candle 
 without discussing the several ways of do- 
 ing it. 
 
 His manner of speaking was pompous and 
 dogmatical, with a frequent use of the John- 
 sonian " sir," and " why, sir," as exhibited in 
 BoswelPs celebrated digest of the lexicogra- 
 pher's colloquial displays. The perfection of 
 reason with him was to find a reason of his own 
 for every thing ; and this whim being grafted, 
 as Ave have said, on a naturally strong mind, 
 some striking combinations of ideas were often 
 the result, presenting an odd mixture of vigo- 
 rous acuteness with ludicrous perversion. One 
 of his favourite definitions of reason, indeed, 
 (provided it was not assented to, for then it was 
 his no longer,) was, that " it is a faculty given 
 to man, that he may always be able to justify 
 his own conduct to himself. Some theorists,''
 
 254 THE PREMIER. 
 
 he would add, " have supposed it was bestowed 
 to regulate and direct our actions, but the uni- 
 form practice of mankind proves that its only 
 use is to vindicate them." 
 
 Cosmo Blake way was a man of independent 
 fortune ; and when the schism among the Scor- 
 pions took place, he concocted, with Charles, a 
 plan for founding a new club, to be called The 
 Muses, of which he proposed he should be 
 himself perpetual president. To this condition 
 it was impossible to object, coupled as it was 
 with another, every way unexceptionable — 
 namely, that instead of meeting at a tavern, 
 they should dine once a month at Cosmo's own 
 house, a mansion (or tenement, rather) equally 
 celebrated for its kitchen and cellars. The 
 name had been adopted in reference entirely to 
 the number of which the club was to consist, 
 and not, as the reader might otherwise have 
 supposed, out of compliment to the intended 
 members. It was necessary to fix some limit ; 
 twelve was a vulgar, hackneyed number ; nine 
 was hallowed by a thousand classical recol- 
 lections, and had besides received the special 
 recommendation of Marcus Varro, and the
 
 THE PREMIER. 255 
 
 adopted one (though not generally known to 
 be such) of Lord Chesterfield. 
 
 The assembling of " The Muses '' was pre- 
 ceded by what Charles called, a meeting of the 
 Graces — to wit, himself, Cosmo, and Reginald 
 Danby, a Chancery barrister, who was forced 
 to keep in-doors during the exhibition of the 
 Living Skeleton, in consequence of once having 
 been followed to his chambers by a crowd who 
 mistook him for that unhappy ossification. By 
 these three, the rules and regulations of the 
 new club were duly arranged, and the other 
 six favoured individuals named who should be 
 invited to constitute it. They eagerly accepted 
 the honour ; and having been selected upon 
 principles laid down by Cosmo himself, he was 
 sanguine in his anticipations of the success of 
 his scheme. These principles he explained in 
 few words, but without acknowledging that he 
 was indebted for some of them to that skilful 
 Aretine, of whom it was said, by a writer still 
 more profligate than himself, that he had the 
 
 " prevailing gentle art, 
 That could, with a resistless charm, impart 
 The loosest wishes to the chastest heart."
 
 256 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " No, Sir," said Cosmo, " our table must be 
 small — a great table is only another word for 
 great noise and disorder : and by having our 
 table small, our number cannot be large ; and 
 so every man will have his turn of speaking as 
 well as of hearing. And, Sir, we must not have 
 all great talkers, nor any too silent : thus there 
 will always be a quick reciprocation of animated 
 discourse. Neither would I recommend that 
 they should be all old or aU young men ; for 
 old men talk of nothing but what was done 
 thirty years ago, and young men, of nothing 
 but what they themselves did last week. And 
 then, Sir, every man ought to be left to him- 
 self with regard to wine as well as meat ; for 
 among men, as among horses, some want the 
 curb and some the spur.'' 
 
 "And if any gentleman presume to tell a 
 story,'' observed Mr. Danby — 
 
 " Any what ?" interrupted Cosmo. 
 
 " Any gentleman," repeated Danby. 
 
 " Sir, that is no distinctive appellation. A 
 gentleman is any body, in these times, and there- 
 fore means nobody." 
 
 " Well, I only knoAv," rejoined Mr. Danby,
 
 THE PREMIER. 257 
 
 " that I have an utter abhorrence of story-tell- 
 ing in company." 
 
 " Why, Sir," replied Cosmo, " a story may be 
 out of place, or out of time : but why should it 
 raise abhorrence? It is the common cant of 
 imbecility, or hypocrisy, to talk of abhorring 
 things, which only means a dislike of what is 
 unattainable. Your ugly men have an abhor- 
 rence of intrigues, and your virgin viragos of 
 illicit love. Dull fools abhor wit; and every 
 rogue has an instinctive abhorrence of con- 
 science. Thus illustrating the maxim of the 
 poet, that 
 
 ' We compound for vices we 're inclined to, 
 By damning those we 've no mind to.' " 
 
 The names of " The Muses," as they stood 
 recorded in the autographs of each member, in 
 the first leaf of a superbly bound vellum book, 
 which contained, besides, the rules and regula- 
 tions of the club, were as follow : Cosmo Blake- 
 way, President ; Reginald Danby, Vice-Presi- 
 dent ; Charles Ardent, Alfred Andrew Potts, 
 Alexander McSwinn, John Julius Wilson, 
 Horace Twiselden, Mansfield Granville, and
 
 258 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Simon Claridge. Of these, the first four are 
 already known to the reader, and a very brief 
 introduction must suffice for the remainder. 
 
 A hasty, but vigorous and correct outline of 
 Mr. McSwinn, was given by Louisa in her gal- 
 lery of portraits at Deddington Park. To that 
 sketch, it will be enough to add, that Mr. Mc 
 Swinn was a dispenser of fame to poets, novel- 
 ists, historians, travellers, biographers, artists, 
 musicians, actors, and, in short, the whole tribe 
 of candidates for renown in every gradation of 
 celebrity, from the writer of epics to the scrib- 
 bler of sonnets, from the historical-painter to the 
 caricaturist, and from the composer of operas 
 to the conqueror of Jews'-harps. He was the 
 most benevolent, the most bland, the most gentle 
 of critics, in addition to being the most felicitous 
 of authors. Under the touch of Midas, every 
 thing became gold ; under the pen of McSwinn, 
 every man, woman, and child became a genius. 
 The turnpike road to posterity was crowded 
 with persons whom he had despatched on their 
 journey thither, provided with certificates from 
 himself of their undoubted right to proceed to 
 their destination. And it seemed as if all whom
 
 THE PREMIER. 259 
 
 he thus despatched had lost no time in setting 
 out ; for they were seldom heard of afterwards. 
 Mr. McSwinn was a general favourite, which is 
 not surprising, considering that every body was 
 his favourite ; and that, as the " delicate mon- 
 ster'' in the Tempest would have " peopled the 
 isle with Calibans," so McSwinn did people this 
 our isle with a race of his own Shakspeares, 
 Mil tons. Dry dens, and other persons of that sort. 
 John Julius Wilson was a Government Under- 
 Secretary, as were also Horace Twiselden and 
 Mansfield Granville ; but though ranking alike 
 in the red-book, they took very different sta- 
 tions in the public eye. John Julius, for ex- 
 ample, ivas a wit ; Horace would be one ; and 
 Mansfield would not. The first had all the caus- 
 tic bitterness of a satirist ; the second, all the 
 disposition to make his sour curds and whey 
 bite like the other's aqua-fortis ; and the third, 
 all the fame he coveted, in passing for an agree- 
 able whipt-syllabub. John Julius was malig- 
 nant, and formidable when provoked to show 
 that he was ; Horace was waspish, and could 
 sometimes wound with his tiny sting ; Mansfield 
 was a harmless, overgrown blue-bottle, that
 
 260 THE PREMIER. 
 
 bounced in your ears unheeded. Lastly, Wil- 
 son had that ready talent for whatever he under- 
 took, which makes a man pass for more than he 
 is really worth, because he does many things 
 cleverly without excelling in any; Twiselden, 
 that talent which is never ready, but always to 
 be got at, for the use of such homely affairs as 
 do not spoil by waiting ; and Granville, that ap- 
 titude for business, without talent, which con- 
 sists in just doing what is to be done, in the 
 way it has been done from time immemorial. 
 
 Of Simon Claridge, it would be as difficult to 
 speak in moderation, as it always was for Si- 
 mon himself to do so. He had a mind of the 
 very first order ; and what Lord Clarendon has 
 written of the devoted, magnanimous, and mar- 
 tyred Stratford, might be justly applied to Cla- 
 ridge. " He was a man of great parts and ex- 
 traordinary endowments of nature, not una- 
 dorned with some addition of art and learning, 
 though that again was more improved and 
 illustrated by the other ; for he had a readi- 
 ness of conception and sharpness of expression, 
 which made his learning thought more than 
 in truth it was. He was, no doubt, of great
 
 THE PREMIER. 261 
 
 observation, and a piercing judgment, both in 
 things and persons."" 
 
 Claridge was a poet, in the noblest and 
 loftiest sense of the name ; for whether he tram- 
 melled his thoughts with metrical trappings, 
 or poured them freely forth in prose, they 
 were equally touched with that inspiration 
 whose presence is denoted by the forms it 
 produces, and not by the words (however 
 graceful, majestical, or appropriate), which, 
 after all, are but the clothing, the drapery of 
 those celestial creations that start forth at the 
 bidding of the true poet. In conversation, he 
 was so borne along, so hurried onwards by the 
 overwhelming flood of his ideas, that he would 
 talk down an eight-day clock. His mind was 
 like a steam-engine erected at the mouth of a 
 rich and exhaustless mine, which goes on work- 
 ing and working, and at every revolution of its 
 movements heaves up precious ores. Or it 
 might be more aptly compared to a river, whose 
 waters, in their ceaseless flow, pass through 
 every variety of landscape, — the grand, the beau- 
 tiful, the picturesque, the tame, and even the 
 barren; for he would sometimes talk at his
 
 262 THE PREMIER. 
 
 subject, floundering among commonplaces, till 
 he got warmed ivith it, or had worked himself 
 out of the shallows, and then his current for 
 miles would be broad, rapid, and crystalline. 
 
 The first meeting of "The Muses'' took 
 place. The dinner-hour had arrived, but Re- 
 ginald Danby, the vice-president, had not. 
 
 " We must keep time in our meetings,""* said 
 Cosmo, looking at his watch. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," observed Mr. Alfred 
 Andrew Potts briskly ; " the object of our 
 meeting is to pass time, and not to keep it." 
 
 " That 's a vile pun, Potts," said Horace 
 Twiselden, who prided himself somewhat on 
 his own proficiency in punning. 
 
 " I know it is," repHed Alfred A. Potts, not 
 a whit daunted ; " but it has one merit which 
 you will seldom find in modern music." 
 
 " What is that?" inquired Horace. 
 
 " It is in good time," rejoined Mr. Potts ; 
 " for all puns are punishable, I understand, by 
 our laws, after we sit down to dinner:" and 
 Potts laughed immoderately at what he had said. 
 
 " Worse and worse !" exclaimed Twiselden, 
 curhng up his nose ; and then, reversing Mr.
 
 TFIE PREMIER. 263 
 
 Potts's practice by laughing beforehand at his 
 own facetiousness, " I'll tell you," he conti- 
 nued, " a capital pun / made the other day 
 at my uncle's — ^" 
 
 At that moment the door opened, and in 
 glided the " fine apparition" of Reginald Dan- 
 by, whom Cosmo apostrophised out of Ossian, 
 by exclaiming, " Fillan is like a spirit of heaven 
 that descends from the skirt of winds ! I see 
 thee bend thy tall form from the skirts of 
 night !" 
 
 The arrival of Danby retarded that of Ho- 
 race's pun, whom John Julius Wilson consoled, 
 by whispering in his ear, " Cato, thou reason'st 
 well — 
 
 * Arbitrii non est nostri, quid quisque loquatur.' " 
 
 The dinner was faultless, the wines exqui- 
 site, the guests, more than happy. They were 
 " lapped in Elysium." Long before the cloth 
 was drawn, so many brilliant things were said, 
 such a fire of wit, and argument, and repartee, 
 was kept up, that Cosmo exulted in believing 
 he then sat by the cradle of a society which, 
 in its maturity, would be immortal. The con- 
 versation was " every thing by turns, and no-
 
 264 THE PREMIER. 
 
 thing long ;" passed, with the vivid brightness 
 (and with the rapidity., ahnost,) of lightning, 
 from the drama to politics, from politics to 
 science, from science to the opera, from the 
 opera to the best vintage of Burgundy and Cla- 
 ret, from Burgundy and Claret to the French 
 Revolution, back again to politics and the 
 drama, and thence to mineralogy, moral phi- 
 losophy, the Arctic voyages, divinity, mathe- 
 matics, and the last new novel by the author 
 of Waverley. 
 
 " I am told Sir Walter has made an im- 
 mense sum by his writings,'" observed Mans- 
 field Granville — " a sum 50 large, indeed, that 
 I should be afraid to name it." 
 
 " Ah !" said Mr. Potts, helping himself to 
 some trifle, " fashion is every thing ! There's 
 Day and Martin — I know it for a fact — those 
 two men have realized a hundred thousand 
 pounds a-piece, merely because their blacking 
 happened to take ; for it is no better than fifty 
 other sorts that are sold.'* 
 
 '^ Why, that may be true," replied the 
 President ; " but I doubt it ; for, Sir, if fifty 
 men make blacking, and only one of the fifty
 
 THE PREMIER. 265 
 
 can induce people to buy it, you may be cer- 
 tain that one is possessed of a secret not known 
 to the other forty-nine." 
 
 " Sir Walter is a great creature ! " exclaimed 
 Mr. Mc Swinn. 
 
 " So is the elephant at Exeter "Change," re- 
 joined Potts, laughing, as usual ; " but there 
 are other elephants in the world besides Chiinji/y 
 " I doubt that," said the President. 
 The roar which this startling piece of scepti- 
 cism produced prevented him from giving, as 
 he would at least have attempted to do, his 
 reasons for suspecting that Chuny was the only 
 elephant in the world. 
 
 " I suppose," observed the Vice-President, 
 " there is no doubt Sir Walter is the author of 
 the Scotch novels ?" 
 
 '' I would ask, upon that subject," answered 
 Simon Claridge, " the question which Johnson 
 triumphantly asked with regard to a disputed 
 play of Shakspeare's — if we take it from Shak- 
 speare, to whom shall it be given ? What man 
 now living could write those works, if Sir Wal- 
 ter did not?" — And then Claridge went on to 
 speak of them in such a way as one man of 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 THE PREMIER. 
 
 genius should speak of the productions of an- 
 other ; but his dissertation, masterly as it was, 
 would be out of place here. At the end of 
 about half an hour, (during which ]Mr. Alfred 
 A. Potts was observed to be admiring the pattern 
 of the dessert service, as if it were the only 
 thing which just then interested him,) he was 
 seized with a violent fit of coughing, and in- 
 stantly there was a general rush of tongues 
 round the table for several minutes, every one 
 having something to say, which he had been 
 keeping, at the imminent hazard of forgetting 
 it when it came to his turn to speak. 
 
 Among the rest. Potts was vehemently as- 
 serting, that " if the Scotch novels, as they were 
 called, were Sir Walter's, he had no doubt Sir 
 Walter was as much indebted to others for the 
 best parts of them, as he had been for some of 
 the most striking passages in his poems."' 
 
 " What do you mean, Potts ?*" said Wilson, 
 with a sarcastic smile. 
 
 " Oh, I know what I mean " replied Potts, 
 " and so would Sir Walter, if he were now pre- 
 sent, and I were to ask him whether he remem- 
 bered Newgate ?""
 
 THE PREMIER. 267 
 
 " Newgate !" exclaimed several Muses at 
 once. 
 
 " Tush, man !" cried Mc Swinn, " what's all 
 this mystery about?" 
 
 " I use no mystery,"" said Potts, looking in- 
 effably self-important. " I merely state a fact ; 
 and I repeat, that if Sir Walter Scott were 
 now sitting at this table, and I were to ask him 
 whether he remembered Newgate, my life 
 upon it, such a question would make him think 
 
 of ROKEBY." 
 
 '' I submit, Mr. President,*" said Horace 
 Twiselden, rising, " that no Muse, in these our 
 earthly banquets, be allowed to talk in clouds." 
 
 It was unanimously resolved, that Mr. Potts 
 was bound to unfold himself: and Mr. Potts, 
 " nothing lothe," (for, of all things, what he 
 loved best was talking about himself and his 
 works,) bowed to the sense of the assembly. 
 Reclining negligently in his chair, with a glass 
 of Burgundy in his hand, which ever and anon 
 he sipped, he thus delivered himself: — 
 
 " When I was a very young man — as you 
 may suppose, indeed, from what I am about to 
 mention, and a comparison of dates — some too 
 N 2
 
 268 THE PREMIER. 
 
 partial friends, who were not ignorant I had 
 ' lisped in numbers/ persuaded me to attempt 
 an octo- syllabic poem, that sort of versification 
 being then both popular and profitable. I soon 
 discovered my friends had discernment, and 
 that / had genius, which only required to be 
 displayed to be munificently rewarded." 
 
 In justice to Mr. Potts, it should be here 
 mentioned, that he pronounced this opinion of 
 his own genius with the tone of a man who 
 wished to be considered as speaking ironically ; 
 but with the look of one (for the face is rarely 
 so manageable as the voice) who evidently as 
 little desired to be taken au pied de lettre, 
 as a newly-elected Speaker, when he disquali- 
 fies himself at the bar of the House of Lords, 
 or a bishop when he nolo-episcoparies. 
 
 " I began," continued Mr. Potts, " to think 
 of a subject — something original and striking. 
 I cannot now recall by what mental process the 
 idea of NEWGATE occurred to me ; but it did 
 occur; and I actually set to work, and pro- 
 duced six cantos, with copious notes." 
 
 " A fine subject !" exclaimed the President. 
 " You may smile (every one was laughing,
 
 THE PREMIER. 269 
 
 except Potts and the President) ; but I declare 
 to God I think it a noble theme for a poet. 
 Wliat a hero may be found in Newgate ! what 
 characters ! what incidents ! what descriptions ! 
 And then, consider the depth and intensity of 
 the passions that come into play there, and that 
 hitherto Imagination has never winged her flight 
 to that abode of the horrible and sublime. 
 Depend upon it, every trial of the heart, all the 
 darker and fiercer tempests of the soul, all the 
 purer and more ennobling affections of the 
 mind, which are the materials of true poetry, 
 have started into life beneath the harrowing in- 
 fluence of scenes that take their round of fami- 
 liar occurrence in that den of human crime and 
 misery !" 
 
 " There would be a fine opportunity, in such 
 a theme," said Wilson, " for the bard to show 
 his genius, by elevating what was low, and dig- 
 nifying what was mean." 
 
 " Yes," added Claridge, " he must display 
 some of that witchcraft of his art, which Addi- 
 son ascribes to Virgil, whose husbandmen, he 
 says, toss the very dung about with a certain 
 elegance and grace."
 
 270 THE PREMIER. 
 
 A metaphysical disquisition upon the lan- 
 guage of poetry, with a critical analysis of the 
 Homeric, Virgilian, and Miltonic styles, follow- 
 ed. Mr. Potts was in a fit of abstraction, when 
 called upon to resume his personal narrative 
 by Claridge, who apologized for his share of the 
 interruption, in an excuse nearly as long as the 
 interruption itself. 
 
 "Well do I remember," Potts continued, 
 smiling as in present scorn of his youthful ego- 
 tism, " the swelling grandeur of my thoughts 
 at the moment I conceived — " 
 
 " Ah, my dear Potts !'"* exclaimed Mc Swinn? 
 " when a man conceives, Nature does indeed la- 
 bour with the mighty effort !" 
 
 Potts was disconcerted by the laugh which 
 this sally of Mc Swinn^s produced. 
 
 " My brain seemed actually on fire,"' said 
 he. 
 
 " Perhaps it was really so," interrupted Twi- 
 selden, " and burned itself out in one great 
 eruption." 
 
 " Positively," said Potts, reddening, but de- 
 termined to look amiable, " if you go on this 
 way, I must give it up."
 
 THE PREMIER. 271 
 
 " Confound you !" exclaimed Mc Swinn, 
 " we must give you up, if you go on this way. 
 Why, every word you utter is a provocative to 
 wit ; and yet, after all, we do but light our 
 feeble tapers at your blazing torch."" 
 
 Mr. Potts was not the man to serve a well- 
 timed compliment, as Caesar did the crown, 
 when offered it by Marc Antony; or, if he 
 were, it would have been in such a way as the 
 blunt Casca describes — " he put it by, but for 
 all that, to my thinking, he would fain have 
 had it." 
 
 " Well, you wrote a poem upon Newgate, 
 and you called it Newgate, I suppose," said the 
 President, who was getting weary of the small- 
 talk between Potts, Twiselden, and Mc Swinn. 
 
 '' Yes, I did," replied Potts. 
 
 " And what then ?"" rejoined the President. 
 "Did you burn it afterwards; or publish it; 
 or what did you do with it T^ 
 
 " I sent it by the northern mail to Walter 
 Scott ; for he did not then write Baronet after 
 his name."" 
 
 " And what was that for ?"" continued Cosmo, 
 with a mortifying breach of decorum, displayed
 
 272 THE PREMIER. 
 
 in that puckering of the mouth which requires the 
 prompt coercion of the hand to strangle a yawn. 
 
 '' Wh}^," said Potts, " being, as I have said, 
 very young, I guess my taste had not arrived 
 at years of discretion, in literary matters ; so I 
 thought Scott a great poet. Being, moreover, 
 afflicted with diffidence, or modesty, — (it will 
 save gentlemen the trouble of being witty, if I 
 add, at once, that I am thoroughly cured of 
 that disorder,) I wanted encouragement ; so I 
 accompanied the MS. with a letter, requesting 
 his candid sentiments upon it."' 
 
 " Which he gave you, I conclude, in the 
 spirit of modern criticism, without troubling 
 himself to read a line of your work,'' observed 
 the President. 
 
 " Egad ! I should have thought so," replied 
 Potts, " but for one little circumstance. One 
 thing is certain, however, that after waiting 
 two months, I received it back, with a coldly 
 civil note, discouraging the idea of publication." 
 
 " And of course you consoled yourself,'' said 
 Mc Swinn, " by reflecting upon the mean jea- 
 lousies which envy inspires, and published it 
 immediately."
 
 THE PREiMIER. 273 
 
 " I did not publish it/' answered Potts, em- 
 phatically, — " I never have published it : but 
 mark what followed. Walter Scott, soon after, 
 published his Rokeby. Guess my astonish- 
 ment, — I might be forgiven were I to say my 
 indignation, — when I found he had actually pil- 
 laged the best parts of my Newgate !" 
 
 "Do you mean to affirm, seriously," asked 
 Wilson, " that Scott—" 
 
 " I mean,"' interrupted Potts, with an air of 
 calm, dignified self-satisfaction, " to say that I 
 traced him in numberless instances, throughout 
 the poem ; here and there a couplet ; some- 
 times a whole stanza ; and once or twice, entire 
 pages." 
 
 •• The Parnassian freebooter !" exclaimed 
 Horace Twiselden. 
 
 Potts was silent. He drank a glass of wine, 
 and looked round at the Muses, as if he would 
 have said, " What do you think of that !'' The 
 Muses were silent, and sat looking at each 
 other with incredulous amazement. At length, 
 the President spoke. 
 
 " Potts," said he, " you are a wag ! I don't 
 know exactly ivhat game you are at, but I 
 n5
 
 274 THE PREMIER. 
 
 suspect you hugely. The fact is, gentlemen,'' 
 addressing the rest of the Muses, " we are all 
 acquainted with a species of bug peculiar to 
 this country. I cannot tell you what naturalists 
 call it; in common speech, it is denominated 
 humbug.'''' 
 
 " I protest solemnly,"" replied Potts, " I am 
 serious. I have told you no fable ; but the 
 simple truth.'' 
 
 '*■ And therefore the greater libel upon Sir 
 Walter," observed the Vice-President. 
 
 " Nay, Mr. Vice," exclaimed the President, 
 '' '\iyou can make a libel out of what Potts has 
 stated, I '11 answer for the truth of it. My 
 definition of a libel has long since been com- 
 prised in two words — umvelcome truths.'''' 
 
 Potts was piqued at the turn which the dis- 
 cussion had taken, and offered to satisfy them 
 by irresistible evidence, that his Newgate had 
 been shamefully pillaged, in the way described. 
 
 " I cannot," said he, " (unless I had my 
 MS. here witli all the stolen passages marked 
 down in the margin,) undertake to repeat every 
 line or stanza that has been pilfered. But one 
 striking example my memory enables me to
 
 THE PREMIER. 275 
 
 give. The opening lines of Rokeby have been 
 much commended ; and I, certainly, shall not 
 dispraise them, for I consider them as my own, 
 with a few trifling exceptions. Lest they should 
 not be familiar to all, and in order that you 
 may fairly judge between us, I will first repeat 
 them.*' 
 
 Mr. Potts then slowly recited the two fol- 
 lowing stanzas, while the Muses listened to him, 
 with much such a wondering impatience, as 
 must have possessed the spectators who once 
 assembled to see a conjurer walk into a quart 
 bottle, and cork it afterwards. 
 
 " The Moon is in her summer glow, 
 But hoarse and high the breezes blow ; 
 And racking o'er her face, the cloud 
 Varies the tincture of her shroud. 
 On Barnard's tower and Tees's stream 
 She changes as a guilty dream, 
 When conscience, witli remorse and fear, 
 Goads sleeping Fancy's wild career. 
 Her light seem'd now the blush of shame, 
 Show'd now fierce Anger's darker flame, 
 Shifting that shade to come and go, 
 Like Apprehension's hurried glow.
 
 276 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Then Sorrow's livery dims the air, 
 And dies in darkness like Despair. 
 Such varied hues the warder sees 
 Reflected from the woodland Tees ; 
 Then, from old Baliol's tower looks forth, 
 Sees the clouds mustering in the North, 
 Hears upon turret, roof, and wall, 
 By tits, the plashing rain-drop fall ; 
 Lists to the breeze's boding sound. 
 And wraps his shaggy mantle round. 
 
 II. 
 
 Those towers which, in the changeful gleam, 
 Throw murky shadows on the stream, — 
 Tliose towers of Barnard hold a guest. 
 The emotions of whose troubled breast, 
 In wild and strange confusion driv'n, 
 Rival the fleeting rack of heav'n. 
 Ere sleep stern Oswald's senses tied, 
 Oft had he changed his weary side. 
 Composed his limbs, and vainly sought 
 By eftbrt strong to banish thought. 
 Sleep came at length, but with a train 
 Of feelings real and fancies vain. 
 Mingling, in wild disorder cast, 
 Th' expectant future with the past. 
 Conscience, anticipating time. 
 Already rues th' unacted crime.
 
 THE PREMIER. 277 
 
 And calls her furies forth to shake 
 The sounding scourge and hissing snake. 
 While her poor victim's outward throes 
 Bear witness to his mental woes, 
 And show what lessons may be read 
 Beside a sinner's restless bed.'' 
 
 " Before I repeat the opening lines of my 
 Newgate," said Potts, "I must premise 
 one thing, in explanation of certain technical 
 phrases I have used. I had taken Scott for 
 my model ; and admiring, as I then did, (for I 
 was very young, — too young to know better,) 
 what I considered the exquisite skill with 
 which he adapted the obsolete phraseology of 
 past times, I thought it necessary, in order to 
 stamp my poem with an air of truth and reality, 
 to sprinkle my language with occasional terms 
 borrowed from the place where the scene of it 
 was laid. And now listen:" — and Mr. Potts 
 recited still more slowly than he had the stanzas 
 from Rokeby, the following ones from New- 
 gate : — 
 
 " The Moon put on her wintry face, 
 The north wind ran its fiercest race. 
 And clouds in furious rack were driven, 
 Athwart the murky brow of Heaven.
 
 278 THE PREMIER. 
 
 On Newgate's walls her quiv'ring beam 
 Flicker'd and changed like guilty dream 
 That haunts the crimson'd murd'rer's breast, 
 When on his straw he sinks to rest. 
 Now it looks pale, like haggard Fear, 
 When Bow Street Officer is near, 
 And now a warlike red it shows. 
 Such as from roused Anger flows. 
 When prigs* upon the nimming lay, 
 Rush out and find a seedy prey.f 
 Then, (though how I cannot tell) 
 To the deep blush of Shame it fell; 
 (Perhaps the Moon had changed her shroud, 
 And now peep'd through a copper cloud,) 
 Like culprit when 3. jo J turns nose,% 
 And tells at cod \\ of all he knows. 
 Or modest nymph of Drury Lane 
 Owns to her bridle cull H her flame. 
 And last, a sad and solemn light 
 Illumed the darkness of the night. 
 'Twas just like Sorrow clothed in tears, 
 Or like a millkeri s** face appears 
 
 Annotations for the benefit of the polite reader : 
 * Prig, a cant name for a thief. 
 
 t Seedy prey— kxi<^\(^— 2. man with empty pockets,— 
 one who cannot be robbed. 
 X An accomplice. § Giving evidence agains the rest. 
 II Before the magistrate. IT A highwayman. 
 
 ** A housebreaker.
 
 THE PREMIER. 279 
 
 When, spite of all his rapping friends,* 
 His neck to ruthless Jack he bends. 
 
 II. 
 
 Such varied hues chaste Luna sheds, 
 While London's sons are in their beds : 
 And all these hues are but a symbol 
 Of thoughts that agonize Tom Wimble, 
 Who lies entranced in dreadful sleep 
 Within that gloomy dungeon's keep. 
 Ah me! what horrid visions rack 
 The man who snores upon his back ! 
 Stem Wimble oft in vain had tried 
 To lie upon his dexter side, 
 Then flounced on his sinister ribs 
 Just as he dream'd oi prigging dibs.f 
 So, in life's course, we often find. 
 When right means fail to fix the mind, 
 The left are ready to ensnare 
 And lead us on to dark despair. 
 And this is but a type to show 
 What pangs from guilty conscience flow. 
 And what a lesson may be read 
 Beside a Newgate felon's bed V 
 
 * Gentlemen well known in the purlieus of the Old 
 Bailey. They commonly exhibit a straw in their shoes. 
 They all abjure perjury, but swear to any thing they are 
 paid for. 
 
 t Picking pockets.
 
 280 THE PREMIER. 
 
 When Mr. Potts finished, a very animated 
 conversation took place among the Muses, who 
 were unanimously of opinion, there had been 
 atrocious pilfering somewhere. The President 
 doubted if there was such another instance to 
 be found in the literary annals of any country 
 in Europe ; but the Vice-President, as a lawyer, 
 complained of the defective evidence upon which 
 Potts's case rested : there was no legal proof, 
 he contended, of the following facts : — 1st. 
 Whether Mr. Potts wrote the poem at all ; 2nd. 
 If he did write it, whether it was written before 
 Rokeby; 3rd. Whether it was ever sent to 
 Sir Walter Scott, and, if sent, whether it ever 
 arrived ; and, 4th. If it arrived, whether it was 
 ever read by Sir Walter. 
 
 " I do not," added Mr, Reginald Danby, in 
 conclusion, " question, for a single moment, the 
 veracity of Mr. Potts. I am quite sure the 
 matter is strictly as he has stated ; but my pro- 
 fessional habits naturally lead me to suspend 
 my belief upon every thing that is not clearly 
 and indubitably established by the best evi- 
 dence that is attainable.'' 
 
 " Convenient things, those professional ha-
 
 THE PREMIER. 281 
 
 bits," exclaimed the President. " If I, or any 
 other man, who had not got professional habits 
 for his protection, were to say to Mr. Potts — 
 ' Sir, I am quite sure you tell truth ; but before 
 I believe you, I must have something better 
 than your own word for it,' — I think Mr. Potts 
 would be puzzled to find the evidence of a com- 
 pliment in such a speech." 
 
 " For my part," said Wilson, " I pity Potts, 
 as I do any one who is the victim of perfidy. 
 At the same time, I must say he has been 
 an abettor of his own wrong. Had he boldly 
 taken the bull by the horns, published his 
 poem, and shown how Rokeby had been stolen 
 out of Newgate, the world would have done 
 him justice. Now, I am afraid, it is too late. 
 He '11 never be able to convince the world that 
 he is, in reality, the author of Rokeby." 
 
 " Never !" ejaculated Twiselden. " / might 
 as well attempt to say I wrote Paradise Lost." 
 
 *' 1 11 just tell you what I would do, were I 
 in your place, Potts," said Mc Swinn ; " (for it 
 is too curious a piece of literary history to re- 
 main unknown,) — I would pick out all the 
 strongest parallel passages, preface them with
 
 282 THE PREMIER. 
 
 a short statement — throw them into the form of 
 a letter to myself — and, by Heavens I they shall 
 appear in the next number of * The Asylum 
 for Authors,' in spite of Sir Walter being my 
 friend." 
 
 " It will certainly have the appearance of 
 being done in spite, and not in kindness," re- 
 marked Claridge. 
 
 '' Not at all," rejoined Mc Swinn. " It is a 
 public question — I have a public duty to per- 
 form — and where that is the case, I never suffer 
 private feelings to interfere." 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Potts," said Mansfield Granville, 
 "did you ever — I '11 trouble you for the Claret 
 — did you ever write any thing else, Mr. Potts, 
 except Newgate .?" 
 
 " My God !" exclaimed Potts, and sunk back 
 in his chair. 
 
 The Muses, in the utmost consternation, ga- 
 thered round him. 
 
 " You have killed him !" said Wilson, ad- 
 dressing Granville. 
 
 Mc Swinn tore open his shirt-collar a la 
 Byron, to give him air. Twiselden slapped the 
 palms of his hands violently. The President
 
 THE PREMIER. 283 
 
 held a box of Lundy Foot to his nose. Granville, 
 convulsed with agitation at the calamity he had 
 caused, threw a goblet of cold water in his 
 face ; but, unluckily, upsetting the president's 
 snuff-box, such a cloud of titillating dust arose, 
 that they all rushed to the farther end of the 
 room, seized with uncontrollable sneezing and 
 couo^hins:. 
 
 Potts was left alone. Oh, that the strings of 
 Mrs. A. A. Potts's harp could have sounded in 
 his ears at that moment. It would have shed 
 a halcyon calm over his troubled spirit ! His 
 eyes unclosed. With his cambric handkerchief, 
 he dried up the still trickling streams of 
 Granville's restorative. Granville himself ap- 
 proached. 
 
 " I forgive you !" said Potts, forcing a gentle 
 smile upon his pale features — " I forgive you ! 
 But it was a tremendous blow — and I was not 
 prepared for it. No — I own I was not. I did 
 think that my ' Fugitive Flowers from Fairy 
 Land,' in three duodecimo volumes, were as 
 well known to you as they are to myself. But 
 let that pass. I confess I do not write for the 
 multitude, like Sir Walter — ut miretur turba
 
 284 THE PREMIER. 
 
 — No: my motto is, contentus paucis lecto- 
 rihus,'''' 
 
 He then took hold of Granville's hand, and 
 pressing it affectionately, repeated, " I forgive 
 you — I forgive you !" 
 
 By this time the other Muses had returned ; 
 but Potts's condition was too alarming to think 
 of renewing their seats at the festive board. A 
 hackney-coach was sent for ; and Mr. Potts 
 was sent home to Mrs. Potts in the care of Mc 
 Swinn and Twiselden. Poor Potts ! he went to 
 bed immediately, and kept it for a fortnight.
 
 THE PREMIER. 285 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 In the short interval of three months from 
 the date of that letter which Caroline Asper 
 wrote to Louisa, her situation had become 
 more distracting than she could possibly have 
 anticipated. 
 
 A woman never loves, but as she is loved, or 
 believes herself to be loved. Men there are, 
 on the contrary, who can love with passion, 
 under every discouragement, cherishing their 
 love with the unflinching fortitude of martyrs, 
 firm in their faith, and sustained in the hope, 
 that, ultimately, their faith will prevail. 
 
 One of this kind was Mr. Spencer. He saw 
 that Caroline did not give him her heart ; but 
 as he knew not it was already bestowed, he 
 consoled himself with the belief there would 
 come a time when he should obtain it. Per-
 
 286 THE PREMIER. 
 
 haps, there was a slight feeling of pride in this 
 expectation, which contemplated with more 
 complacency the final conquest of a reluctant 
 mistress, than the easy surrender of a willing 
 one ; for he was not slow to discern that no 
 aversion mingled with the coldness of Caro- 
 line's general deportment; that her repug- 
 nance, or indifference, or whatever it might be, 
 was founded upon no dislike towards himself, 
 — upon no depreciated estimate of his character, 
 his person, or his pretensions. Had he, indeed, 
 known that he was forestalled, his conclusions 
 would have been different, and his proceedings 
 equally so : but, in ignorance of that fact, he 
 ascribed all the chilling reserve of her manner, 
 all the freezing apathy of her words and looks, 
 to the mere absence of sentiments which he 
 flattered himself he should ultimately succeed 
 in producing. 
 
 These hopes were the promptings of an ar- 
 dent and increasing love : a love, too, as ho- 
 nourable and as disinterested, as it was ardent ; 
 for whatever of difference there might be on 
 the score of birth, family connections, or fortune, 
 it was all in his favour. He was, therefore.
 
 THE PREMIER. 287 
 
 no suitor seeking to raise himself by a distin- 
 guished alliance, or to enlarge his patrimonial 
 wealth by an opulent one. 
 
 Caroline, meanwhile, underwent a triple per- 
 secution of the most distressing kind. She 
 had to listen to the half-choleric, half-parental, 
 congratulations of her father upon an event 
 which, in her heart, she knew never would, 
 never could, take place ; she had no disguise 
 from Charles, at the expense of many bitter 
 self-reproaches for a duplicity she abhorred, yet 
 saw not how to shun, a danger which disclosure 
 would have aggravated in every way ; and she 
 had to endure the addresses of a person towards 
 whom she felt that love was the only sentiment 
 he could never inspire. There was evidently 
 such a total abandonment of all meanly selfish 
 motives in Mr. Spencer's attentions, such a de- 
 licate and high-minded observance of her 
 wishes, so much of respectful gallantry in his 
 behaviour, and often of magnanimous sacrifice 
 of his own happiness to hers, that her secret 
 tears sometimes flowed as freely to think she 
 could not love him., as because he did love her. 
 
 The united consequences of these opposite
 
 288 _ THE PREMIER. 
 
 trials made sad havoc with even her placid na- 
 ture. She had said truly, in her letter to 
 Louisa, " I can bear much, and patiently.'' 
 And she had borne much, and she had borne 
 it patiently. But it is patient suffering which 
 digs at the foundations of life. If patience 
 could always master grief, (as sometimes it 
 does,) by wearing it out, it would be a sure, 
 however slow and torturing a remedy ; but it 
 is too often only another word for grieFs mas- 
 tery, a lingering, silent, devoted sacrifice of the 
 heart, in which hope, and happiness, and life 
 itself perish miserably, day by day, and hour 
 by hour, till the last pulse is quiet. It was 
 with such patience that Caroline was bearing 
 her griefs, though the visible signs of it were 
 less startling than they would have been in one 
 whose general temperament was more joyous 
 and animated. Yet there t^ere signs; and they 
 escaped not the notice of her kind friends. 
 Louisa, Sir George and Lady Ardent ; still 
 less that of Charles and Mr. Spencer. 
 
 One morning, when the latter was more than 
 usually struck with her pallid and dejected 
 looks, he ventured to glance at their cause.
 
 THE PREMIER. 289 
 
 " I wish," said he, " Miss Asper could be- 
 lieve I am worthy of any confidence she might 
 repose in me. I cannot conceal from myself 
 there is some trouble preying upon her spirits, 
 and seriously affecting her health."" 
 
 '* I am, indeed, unhappy,""* replied Caroline 
 with a quivering lip, and eyes that glistened 
 with tears she could not restrain from gather- 
 ing, though she hushed into obedience the feel- 
 ings that would have made them fall. 
 
 " It has been too long and too painfully evi- 
 dent you are so," answered Mr. Spencer, " to 
 need such a declaration." 
 
 " And I fear, too certain I must continue 
 so," said Caroline, with a meek voice and uncom- 
 plaining look. 
 
 " Surely not, if the cause of your unhappi- 
 ness lie within the reach of any one who feels 
 an interest in your welfare." 
 
 Caroline raised her eyes, and glanced at Mr. 
 Spencer, as if she would seek in his counte- 
 nance the whole meaning of his words : but she 
 saw nothing which could encourage her to make 
 the answer they seemed to invite. 
 
 " I cannot," said she, " accuse myself of 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 290 THE PREMIER. 
 
 creating unnecessary troubles; neither do I think 
 I foolishly indulge in them. We will drop the 
 conversation, however ; for there is foolishness 
 in talking about such things, unless for a better 
 purpose than can result from our discourse." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed,*' replied Mr. Spencer, " I 
 grieve to hear you speak thus. I know I can- 
 not flatter myself with the belief that there is 
 any thing approaching to reciprocal feelings 
 between us ; but if you do me only moderate 
 justice, you vi^ill not doubt either my desire to 
 see you happy, or my disposition to make you 
 so, in whatever may depend upon myself." 
 
 " I do you full justice, Sir," said Caroline, 
 " and " 
 
 *" Sir !' " exclaimed Mr. Spencer in a half 
 whisper ; and his eyes met Caroline's, as he look- 
 ed at her with an expression of mild reproach. 
 
 " Oh, do not, I pray you," she added, " tor- 
 ture me by scrutinizing my words. Read my 
 thoughts rather, and in them you will find I do 
 you full justice. I know it must be your wish 
 to see me happy, and I am sure you would 
 gladly make me so in all that depended upon 
 yourself; but, unfortunately, there is some-
 
 THE PREMIER. 291 
 
 times a price to be paid for these things beyond 
 our means."" 
 
 "It could only be such a price," replied Mr. 
 Spencer — " a price wholly and utterly beyond 
 my means, that could prevent me from laying 
 it down. But when you thus express yourself, 
 you hardly leave me the choice of any other 
 conclusion, than that I am the one from whom 
 this price must come ! Is it so ?" 
 
 Caroline was embarrassed at the sudden and 
 unexpected, though not very violent, construc- 
 tion put upon her language. She could not 
 stoop to the meanness of a direct falsehood 
 by denying Mr. Spencer's inference, while she 
 shrunk from all the possible consequences of 
 confirming it. But she had gone far enough. 
 Her silent confusion was of itself a sufficient 
 answer. 
 
 " It would be miserable affectation in me,'' 
 said Mr. Spencer, " to pretend I do not under- 
 stand you — I mean so far as this — that your 
 distress of mind springs, in some way, from 
 myself. Perhaps, too, I ought not to have a 
 doubt in what way ; yet, when I recall all the 
 circumstances which have attended my ad-
 
 292 THE PREMIER. 
 
 dresses to you, I feel there is room for hesita- 
 tion, before I can conclude that they amount to 
 persecution." 
 
 " They do not !" interrupted Caroline, with 
 a faltering voice. 
 
 " They should not," continued Mr. Spencer, 
 " because they were conceived, proposed, and 
 have been offered with honourable frankness, 
 and from disinterested motives. They should 
 not neither, because one word from you, in their 
 commencement, would have sufficed to make me 
 renounce hopes which, if I am now bidden to 
 fling from me, will leave a deeper wound than 
 then they could have done." 
 
 Caroline buried her face in her handkerchief, 
 and sobbed violently ; Mr. Spencer was greatly 
 affected. 
 
 *' Oh, that I knew how I might interpret 
 these tears !" said he. 
 
 " You cannot err," exclaimed Caroline, still 
 weeping, *' if you call them tears of anguish 
 wrung from an almost broken heart." 
 
 " Say not so, — say not so," replied Mr. Spen- 
 cer with increasing emotion; " but calm your 
 feelings, and tell me how I can restore you to
 
 THE PREMIER. 293 
 
 that happiness in which you were when first 
 I saw you. Tell me this, I conjure you, how- 
 ever fatal the confession may be to my own 
 peace."" 
 
 " How idle, — how very idle," said Caroline, 
 drying her tears, and resuming much of her 
 wonted serenity of manner, " to put into words, 
 as if for mere form"*s sake, things that have told 
 themselves already !" 
 
 " Pardon me," replied Mr. Spencer, a little 
 nettled at the rebuke conveyed in this expostu- 
 lation, "I may be forgiven when I seek to know 
 clearly, what it is now no longer doubtful, I 
 fear, concerns mj^ own happiness as much as 
 yours. And do not, I beseech you, misconstrue 
 either my motives or my feelings, if I put an 
 end to this ambiguity, and demand of you 
 frankly, whether the secret trouble that op- 
 presses you arises from the permission I have 
 received to seek the honour of your hand .^" 
 
 " Why will you force me to a declaration,**' 
 replied Caroline, after a pause, " which I cannot 
 make without pain and shame .'^" 
 
 " It is so then !'' exclaimed Mr. Spencer, in a 
 low and tremulous voice, 
 o 3
 
 294 THE PREMIER. 
 
 Caroline's tears flowed afresh. Neither spoke 
 for several minutes. She sat weeping, and he 
 was pacing up and down the room in violent 
 agitation. At length he broke silence. 
 
 " I find the eifort vain," said he, *' to rest 
 satisfied with what has passed. More must be 
 known, more must be said. I owe it to you, to 
 myself, to the General, to the world, (for my 
 intentions have been no secret to that world 
 which is constituted by the circle in which we 
 move,) to know distinctly why I am placed in 
 this situation. My respect for your character, 
 my knowledge of your understanding, equally 
 forbid me to impute your conduct to the frivo- 
 lity which is supposed to belong to your sex. 
 It must be something, therefore, personal to 
 myself, some insurmountable repugnance which 
 existed from the beginning, and which time 
 has only heightened. 
 
 " Believe me. Sir," exclaimed Caroline, alarm- 
 ed at the excitement of his manner — 
 
 " Nay," interrupted Mr. Spencer, "• let me 
 express the little I have to say, and then, Miss 
 Asper, I shall throw myself on your candour, 
 on your humanity, to clear up this mystery.
 
 THE PREMIER. 295 
 
 I cannot upbraid you for that which is com- 
 monly matter of reproach on occasions like this. 
 You never bestowed your affections; never 
 opened your heart to my advances ; not even a 
 solitary smile of responsive feeling has rewarded 
 my attentions. It is not of inconstancy, there- 
 fore, I complain ; it is not of broken vows that 
 I accuse you. But you deigned to endure me, 
 and I was contiented with your condescension, 
 believing, or rather hoping, that I should be 
 able to make it the instrument of ultimately 
 awakening more flattering sentiments. I have 
 been deceived, — I mean self-deceived, for you 
 are blameless ; or if my love can shadow out the 
 semblance of a fault, it is, that perhaps you 
 have suffered me to remain too long the infatu- 
 ated dupe of my own desires. But even here, 
 my heart finds a ready excuse for you. You 
 knew I could not be undeceived without at the 
 same time becoming the most wretched of men, 
 and you recoiled from the task of inflicting un- 
 deserved misery. Well, well — there is consola- 
 tion, in reflecting that my happiness has been 
 an object of your solicitude, under any circum- 
 stances."
 
 296 THE PREMIER. 
 
 He paused, passed his hand hastily across 
 his eyes, and walked to the further end of the 
 room, to conceal emotions he was almost indig- 
 nant at feeling. Caroline, who observed them, 
 thoroughly understood the struggle he was 
 enduring. Assuming all the tranquillity of 
 voice and manner she could command, she ad- 
 dressed him — 
 
 " I will not think so meanly of myself,'' said 
 she, " as to ask you to believe me, when I de- 
 clare you have made every impression you could 
 have wished." 
 
 " Every impression ?" eagerly interrupted 
 Mr. Spencer. 
 
 " Yes," replied Caroline, with great earnest- 
 ness, " every impression, save one.'''' 
 
 " Ah !" exclaimed Mr. Spencer, " and that 
 one is to my hopes, what the breath of life 
 would be to a beautiful corpse." 
 
 " I can, and do," continued Caroline, " ad- 
 mire — esteem — feel grateful, for your generous 
 forbearance ; but I cannot — love." 
 
 These were dangerous admissions to make, to 
 a man of Mr. Spencer's character, of which
 
 THE PREMIER. 297 
 
 pride and vanity were the predominant quali- 
 ties, though kept in check by good sense, so as 
 never to obtrude themselves either offensively, 
 or ridiculously. When Caroline told him she 
 could not love, she only repeated, in other 
 words, what he had already told her, that she 
 had not yet bestowed her affections ; but when, 
 with the sincerity which was natural to her, she 
 accompanied the declaration with the assurance 
 that he had produced every other impression he 
 could wish, — that she admired him, esteemed 
 him, felt grateful for his generous forbearance, 
 (a feeling which his knowledge of the human 
 heart taueht him to consider as of kindred with 
 softer sentiments,) she at once revived all the 
 hopes he had ever entertained, and confirmed 
 him in a resolution, with respect to which he 
 had lately begun to waver. The deceits we 
 palm upon ourselves are wonderful ! Mr. 
 Spencer found it the easiest thing imaginable 
 to convince himself that to be admired and es- 
 teemed by the woman he loved, was all he could 
 desire ; and this, simply because he had set his 
 heart upon the attainment of an object which
 
 298 THE PREMIER. 
 
 w,as not attainable upon any better terms ; as a 
 man who is predetermined to make a purchase, 
 finds a fresh motive to do so in every defect 
 that is pointed out. 
 
 Caroline hoped that her confession would 
 produce the consequence she desired ; and she 
 believed it had, when Mr. Spencer vehemently 
 declared " he was satisfied," and abruptly 
 changed the conversation. Yet, there seemed 
 to be a secret exultation in his look and manner 
 afterwards, which disquieted her; and as he 
 took his leave, his parting words sounded like 
 an omen of evil in her ears. 
 
 " I rejoice at this explanation," said he. " It 
 enables me at once to take a step which will 
 convince you, that had I been so fortunate as to 
 obtain your love, I should have known how to 
 appreciate it.'' 
 
 And here Caroline shall be her own historian 
 again. It was within a week after the inter- 
 view with Mr. Spencer, that she wrote the fol- 
 lowing letter to Louisa, from a sick bed. 
 
 " Your prediction is fulfilled. I am to be 
 the wife of Mr. Spencer ! !" Yesterday, he dined
 
 ' THE PREMIER. 299 
 
 with US. It was the first time / had seen him 
 since that dreadful conversation which I related 
 to you. I perceived no alteration in his man- 
 ner ; or if there were any, I should say it was 
 more coldly ceremonious, more elaborately re- 
 spectful, than usual. He seemed to be acting 
 a part, and knowing what I now do, I have no 
 doubt he was. When he left us, which was 
 early in the evening, my father proposed a 
 game of chess, while he regaled himself with 
 his hookah. You know, I seldom venture to 
 win, when I play with the General : but last 
 night he appeared so determined to lose, that 
 I mustered courage and made a check-mate. 
 
 " You will wonder what all this has to do 
 with the commencement of my letter. You 
 shall hear. I looked at my father, expecting 
 to see him (as he generally is when beaten at 
 chess) with a peevish brow ; but I perceived 
 tears in his eyes. Before I could inquire their 
 cause, he grasped my hand, drew me to him, 
 and kissing me tenderly, said, ' I am soon to 
 lose you, girl; but it is for your happiness, 
 I hope ; and when you are married, I shall 
 break up my quarters here and billet myself at
 
 300 THE PREMIKR. 
 
 Spencer's, I think.' — 'Married!' I exclaimed, 
 while a film came across my sight, as I tot- 
 tered back to my chair, where I sat trembling 
 and stupified. My father, who attributed my 
 emotion to the same feelings as agitated him- 
 self, strove to console me by reiterating his de- 
 termination to accept Mr. Spencer's proposal of 
 residing with its after our union ! I could only 
 listen, as he went on to state that Mr. Spencer 
 had made a formal demand of my hand, and 
 wished the ceremony to take place almost im- 
 mediately ; that ive might have the summer 
 and autumn for a tour through Switzerland 
 and Italy ! 
 
 " I made the best excuse I could for bidding 
 my father good-night ; hurried to my chamber ; 
 and watched in the morning without once stir- 
 ring from the seat on which I first threw my- 
 self. My temples seem iron-bound; my eyes 
 are hot, for want of tears ; but all perturbation 
 of mind has left me. I can think with a calm- 
 ness which would surprise me, if it were not 
 that I knoiv my thoughts. They, thank Hea- 
 ven ! I can call my own, as well as the resolu- 
 tion to follow their counsel.
 
 THE PREMIER. 301 
 
 " I am no heroine of romance, my dear 
 Louisa. But- I feel a strange certainty that I 
 never shall be the wife of this man. I seem to 
 be as well assured of this, as if he were dead, 
 or wedded to another, or I already in my own 
 coffin. Yet I have determined nothing, though 
 my brain has teemed with a thousand things I 
 fancy I could do, rather than do that which it 
 is horrible to think of,— stand at God's altar, a 
 sacrifice, and leave it — a wretch ! 
 
 " Mr. Spencer says he loves me. He shows 
 he loves himself better ; and would willingly 
 purchase his own happiness (and such happi- 
 ness too !) at the expense of mine. I confess, I 
 cannot comprehend that love which requires no 
 partner in its felicity ; which can riot in its 
 solitary joys, without one thought of the aching 
 heart that is their price. Oh ! how I seem to 
 loathe him now ! How my soul shrinks from the 
 cold, reckless being, who, in scorn of all I said, 
 in mockery of all my griefs, which he affected to 
 deplore, and in coarse, insolent contempt of an 
 avowal which should at least have made him 
 pause, if it did not at once put an end to his 
 hopes, meanly seeks to gain his purely selfish 
 ends through parental authority ! 
 VOL. I. P
 
 302 THE PREMIER. 
 
 " Is there not something intensely odious in 
 such conduct ? Good God ! How I could have 
 honoured that man to the last moment of my 
 life, had he only displayed (what surely is no 
 extraordinary virtue) the mere forbearance from 
 making me miserable ! 
 
 '' Heaven knows, I am miserable enough ! 
 For it is not only that I have to endure the 
 bitterness of my father's reproaches when he 
 shall know I cannot — no, no — that is not the 
 word, — nor ' will not** neither — but, — that I AM 
 NOT to be the wife of the man he has chosen — 
 it is not, I say, this alone which I have to en- 
 dure. A heavier woe weighs upon my heart. 
 
 *' Your brother, my dear Louisa, has caused 
 me many tears, many hours of poignant anguish. 
 He is not so kind as he ought to be, knowing, 
 as he does, how much I have suffered, how 
 much I still suffer, how much I am willing 
 to suffer, for his sake. He has heard of 
 Mr. Spencer''s visits. He has upbraided me 
 with them ; and when I conjure him either 
 to seek a reconciliation with Sir George, or 
 to let me acknowledge all to the General, 
 without it, he refuses both, and leaves me to 
 sustain, as best I may, the distressing conse-
 
 THE PREMIER. 303 
 
 quences of my ambiguous situation. I do not 
 impugn his motives for this conduct. I am sure 
 they are such as satisfy his own pure heart and 
 honourable mind. But if he could see me at 
 this moment, I do not think he would venture 
 to try how much more my heart can bear be- 
 fore it breaks. 
 
 " Every way, I am unfortunate in this crisis 
 of my fate. My brother Henry, were he in 
 London, would, I know, at all hazards, be my 
 advocate with my father. But he does not ex- 
 pect his regiment to leave Ireland till the fall 
 of the year at the soonest, and by that time, 
 perhaps, I shall have withered, with the leaves 
 of the forest ! 
 
 " Do not be angry vi\\h your poor friend, 
 if, being unhappy, she clothes the future in 
 the sombre colours of her present melancholy 
 thoughts. God bless you ! I should be still 
 more unhappy, had I not such a one as thou 
 art, my dearest Louisa, to v/hom I can tell 
 these thoughts.— Adieu !" " C. A." 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
 
 LONDON ; 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street. 
 
 /
 
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