The course pursued in our studies was the following, which I particularly write down, having had great experience in that sort, and considering it may be useful, if perchance this account should fall into the hands of any who follow the honourable and noble calling of educating the rising generation. The Colloquies of Corderius, as also the Fables of AEsopus, with those also of Phaedrus his Roman continuator....

* * * * *

(Many pages are here omitted as irrelevant.)

... And my excellent wife, after much entreaty, consented thereto. Accordingly, on the very next Sunday, the great Lady Mallerden attended at my house after church, and did closely question, not only the young gentlemen on the principles of their faith, but also Alice Snowton, and did, above all, clearly and emphatically point out to them the iniquities of the great Popish delusion; and exhorted them, whatever might be their future fate or condition, to hold fast by the pure Reformed church. And so much did my eldest daughter, who was now a great tall girl of twelve years of age, win upon the heart of the great lady, that she invited her to come up for several days and reside with her at Mallerden Court, which was a great honour to my daughter, invitations not being extended to any to enter that noble mansion under the degree of nobility. Nor did her beneficence end here; for she did ask Alice Snowton, who was now a fine young woman of fifteen or thereby, to be her guest at the same time. Alice was not so stout in proportion to her years as my Waller; but there was a certain gracefulness about her when she moved, and a sweet smile when she spoke, which was very gainful on the affections, as Charles could testify; for he loved her, and made no secret thereof, better than any of his sisters, and also, I really and unfeignedly believe, better than that excellent woman his mother. And so great was the impression made on the great lady by my Waller's cleverness and excellent manner of conducting herself, that, on her return at the end of three days, a letter, in the noble lady's own land, bore testimony to her satisfaction, and a request, or rather a command, was laid on me, to send her, under charge as she expressed it, of Alice Snowton, to the Court for a longer period the following week. And such was the mutual happiness of the noble lady, and of that young girl, (my Waller, I mean,) who could now write a beautiful flowing hand, and spell with uncommon accuracy and expedition, that erelong it was an arranged thing, that three days in each week were spent by the two children at Mallerden Court; and a horse at last, on every Wednesday, was in waiting to convey them, on a double pillion, to the stately mansion.

I have not alluded to the state of public affairs, of which I was far from cognizant, saving that the writhings and strugglings which this tortured realm did make, shook also the little parsonage of Welding. We heard, at remote intervals of time, rumours of dangers and difficulties hanging over this church and nation; but were little alarmed thereat, putting faith in the bill of exclusion, and the honour of our most gracious and religious lord the king. Nor did I anticipate great harm even if the Duke of York, in the absence of lawful posterity of his brother, should get upon the throne, trusting in the truth of his royal word, and the manifold declarations of favour and amicableness to the church, which he from time to time put forth. But AEsopus hath it, when bulls fight in a marsh the frogs are crushed to death. It was on the tenth day of February, in the year of our Lord 1685, I was busy with my dear friends, the youths under my charge, in the Campus Martius, (which was a level space of ground in one of the glebe fields by the side of the river, whereon we performed our exercises of running, jumping, wrestling, and other athletic exercitations,) when we were startled by the hearing the sound of many horses galloping up the hill above the village; and looking over the hedge on to the road, we saw a cavalier going very fast on a fine black horse, which had fire in its eyes and nostrils, as the poet says, followed by a goodly train of serving-men, all well mounted, and proceeding at the same rate. We went on with our games for an hour or two, when all at once I was peremptorily sent for to go to my house without delay; and accordingly I hurried homewards, much marvelling what the summons could portend. I went into my study, and sitting in my arm-chair I saw the great Lady Mallerden; but she was so deep in thought, that for some minutes she kept me standing, and waiting her commands. At last she started to herself, and ordered me to be seated, and in her rapid glancing manner began to speak—

"I have been visited by my son, who rode post haste from London to tell me the king was dead. He has been dead four days."

I was astonished and much saddened at the news.

"Sorry—yes—but there is no time for sorrow," said the noble lady; "we must be up and doing. We are betrayed."

"Did your son, the noble Viscount Mallerden, tell you this?"

"He is one of the betrayers—know you not what manner of man he is?—Then I will tell you." And here a strange light flashed from her eyes, and her lips became compressed till all the colour disappeared—"He is a viper that stung me once—and would sting me again if I took him to my bosom, and laid it open for his poisonous tooth. I tell you the Lord Mallerden is a godless, hopeless, faithless, man—bound hand and foot to the footstool of the despotic, cruel monster—the Jesuit who has now his foot upon the English throne. He is a Papist, fiercer, bitterer, crueller, because he has no belief neither in priest nor pope—but he is ambitious, reckless, base, a courtier. He prideth himself in his shame, and says he has openly professed. It is to please the hypocritical master he serves. And he boasts that our late king—defender of the faith—was shrived on his deathbed by a Popish friar."

"I cannot believe it, my lady."

"You are a good man—a good simple man, Master Willis," she said; and although the words of her designation were above my deserts, seeing that simplicity and goodness are the great ornaments of the Christian character, still the tone in which she spoke did not pertake of the nature of a compliment, and I bowed, but made no observation in reply.

"But it needs men of other minds in these awful times which I see approaching—men of firmness, men of boldness—yea, who can shed blood and shudder not; for great things are at stake."

"I trust not, my lady—albeit the shedding of blood"——

"I know, is generally condemned; yet be there texts which make it imperative, and I think I foresee that the occasion for giving them forth is at hand. All means in their power they will try; yes, though James of York has been but four days a king, he had already made perquisition for such as may be useful to him, not in settling the crown upon his head, but in carrying off this people and kingdom, a bound sacrifice to the blind idol which he worshippeth at Rome. You know not the history of that man; no, nor of my son. Alas! that a mother's lips should utter such words about her own flesh and blood! The one of them I tell you is a bigot, a pursuer, a persecutor—the other a sensualist, a Gallio, a tool. For many years he has never beheld his mother's face; he married in his youth; he injured, deserted, yea, he killed his wife—not with his own hand or with the dagger, but by the surer weapons of hatred, neglect, unkindness. And she died. He has but one child; that child was left in charge of my honoured and loving daughter, the Lady Pevensey of Notts, and hath been brought up in a Christian manner; but now, he—this man of Belial—wishes to get this infant in his own hands; nay, he boldly has made a demand of her custody both on me and Pevensey, my daughter. We will not surrender her; he is now great and powerful. The king will back his efforts with all the weight of the crown; and we have considered, if we could confide the persecuted dove to the hands of some assured friend—some true son of our holy church—some steady, firm-hearted, strong-nerved man, who in such cause would set lord and king at defiance"——

Here she paused, and looked upon me with her eyes dilated, and her nostrils panting with some great thought which was within her; and I availed myself of the pause to say—

"Oh, my lady! if you did mean me for such charge, I confess my deficiency for such a lofty office; for I do feel in me no stirrings of an ambitious spirit. Sufficient is it for me to take care of the innocent flock committed to my care, in the performance of which charge I have the approbation of my own heart, and also, I make bold to hope it, of your ladyship, seeing that I have instructed them in the true principles both of faith and practice; and although there are shortcomings in them all, by reason the answers in the Catechism are not adapted to the capacities of the younger ones, especially of Charles, (who, notwithstanding, has abilities and apprehensions above his years,) yet are they all embued with faithful doctrine, from Alice Snowton, which is the most advanced in stature, to the honourable Master Fitzoswald, which is somewhat deficient in growth, being only three inches taller than my little Charles."

The great lady looked at me while I spoke, and made no answer for long time. At last she said with a sort of smile, which at the same time was not hilarious or jocular in its nature—

"Perhaps 'tis better as it is. There is a providence in all things, and our plans and proposals are all overruled for the best—for which may God be praised! Therefore I will press you no more on the subject of the guardianship of my grandchild. But Mallerden will move heaven and earth to get her into his power—yes, though he has neglected her so long, never caring to see her since her childhood; yet now, when he sees 'twill gain him the treasurership of the royal household to sell the greatest heiress and noblest blood in England to the Papists, he will make traffic of his own child, and marry her to some prayer-mumbler to a wooden doll. Let us save her, good sir—but I forgot. No—I will save her myself. I, that have steered her through so many quicksands, will not let her make shipwreck at last. I will guard her like the apple of my eye, and possess my soul in patience until this tyranny be overpast." And so ended the interview, during which my heart was tossed to and fro with the utmost agitation, and my whole frame so troubled that I various times lost all mastery of myself, and only saw before me a great black gulf of ruin, into which some invisible power was pushing me and all my little ones. Great, therefore, was my delight, and sweet the relief to my soul, when the great lady left me unconnected with her quarrels. For, in the crash of such contending powers, there was no chance of escape for such a weak instrument as I was; and fervent were my hopes, and deep my prayers, that the perils and evils prognosticated by the religious fears of my great protectress might be turned aside, and all good subject and sincere churchmen left each under his own vine and his own fig-tree, with nobody to make them afraid. But vain are the hopes of men. We read in no long time in all men's looks the fate we were condemned to; for it seemed as if a great cloud, filled with God's wrath, was spread out over this realm of England, and the faces of all men grew dark. We heard the name of Jeffreys whispered in corners, and trembled as if it had been a witch's spell to make our blood into water. The great lady kept herself much in solitude in the ancient Court, and saw not even her favourite companion, my daughter Waller, for many months; but did ever write affectionate letters to her, and sent presents of rich fruits, and other delectations in which the young take pleasure. There was much riding to and fro of couriers, but whither, or whence, she did never tell, and it was not my province to enquire; but at last an order came for me to send up my Waller and her friend to the mansion. And at evening they were conveyed on horseback as before; but on this occasion their escort was not Master Wilkinson the under butler, but no less a person than my lady's kinsman, the senior brother of my honourable pupil, the honourable Master Fitzoswald of Yorkshire, a stately young cavalier as could be seen, strong and tall, and his style and title was the Lord Viscount Lessingholm—being the eldest son and heir to that ancient earldom. He was an amiable and pleasant gentleman, full of courtesies and kindness, and particularly pleased with the newfangled fashion of a handsome cap which formed the headpiece of my excellent wife. He said also many handsome things about the brightness of my Waller's eyes, and assured my excellent wife that he saw so promising an outsprout of talent in my Charles, that he doubted not to see him one of the judges of the realm, if so be he applied his intellectuals to the bar. He was also extreme civil to Alice Snowton, which answered his civilities in like manner; and seldom in so short a space as half an hour has any person made so favourable an impression as he did, particularly on his brother, by reason of his bestowing on him a large Spanish doubloon, and promising him a delicate coloured maneged horse immediately on his return to Yorkshire. It is a pleasant sight to see (and reflected some credit on my ministration of the moralities in this particular instance) the disinterested love of brethren, one towards another, and I failed not to ascertain that the Lord Lessingholm had been boarded in the house of an exemplary divine, to wit, Mr Savage of Corpus Christi College, Oxford—a fact which I think it proper to mention to the honour of that eloquent member of our church—inasmuch as any man might be proud of having had the training up in the way he should go, of so excellent and praiseworthy a youth.

It was many days before my young ones came back, (I would be understood to include in this Alice Snowton, whom I looked upon with the tenderness of a father and the pride of a teacher all in one;) and when they returned to me, I thought I perceived that they were both more sorrowful than of wont. Alice (and my Waller also) looked oppressed with some secret that weight upon their hearts, and I was fearful the great lady had made them partakers of her cares in the matter of her son and her grandchild. Yet did I not think such a thing possible as that either of them should have been taken into her confidence on so high and momentous a concernment, by reason of my Waller being so young, though thoughtful and considerate, and also fuller grown than persons much more advanced in life; and Alice Snowton was of so playful and gentle a disposition, that she seemed unfitted for the depository of any secret, unless those more strictly appertaining to her youth and sex, and moreover was a stranger to this part of the country, being of a respectable family, as I have observed, in Wilts—namely, a brother of Mr Snowton, my kind patron and friend. I called them into my study, after my labours were over with the other pupils, and I said to them—

"Dear children, ill would it become me to pry into the secrets of my honoured lady, the Lady Mallerden; yet may there arise occasions wherein it is needful for one in my situation, (parent to the one of you, and in loco parentis to the other,) to make perquisition into matters of weight and importance to your well-being, even at the risk of appearing inquisitive into other peoples' affairs. Answer me, therefore, Alice, my dear child, has the Lady Mallerden instructed you in any portion of her family story?"

"She has in some degree, Sir," said Alice Snowton, "but not deeply."

"You know of her disagreement on certain weighty points with her son, the Lord Viscount, and how that he is a wicked man, seeking to break into the pasture of the Lord, and tear down the hedges and destroy the boundaries thereof; and that in this view he is minded to get his daughter into his power, to use her as an instrument towards his temporal elevation?"

"Something of all this we have heard, but not much," said Alice Snowton.

"And furthermore, I must tell you that overtures were made to me to aid and assist in the resistance to be offered to this man of sin, and I did, for deep and wholesome reasons, refuse my assent thereto, and in this refusal I meant you, my children, to be included; therefore, whatever propositions may be made to you, to hear, or know, or receive, or in any manner aid, in the concealment of the Lord Viscount's daughter—which is at present in charge of an honourable lady in the north—I charge you, refuse them; they may bring ruin on an unambitious and humble household, and in no case can do good. We must fear God ever, and honour the king while he is entrusted with the sword of power; and family arrangements we must leave to the strong hands and able head of the great Lady Mallerden herself. In this caution I know I fulfil the intentions of my honoured friend, your esteemed uncle, Mr William Snowton, which is concerned with too many noble families to desire to get into enmity with any—and therefore be grateful for all the kindness you experience from my honoured lady; but if perchance she brings her grandchild to the Court, and wishes to make you of her intimates, inform me thereof; and greatly as it would be to be regretted, I would break off the custom of your visits to the noble house, for even that honour may be too dearly purchased by the enmity of powerful and unscrupulous men—if with sceptres in their hands, so much the more to be held in awe." And I ended with AEsopus his fable of the frogs and bulls. This discourse (whereof I had prepared the heads in the course of the morning) I delivered with the full force of my elocution, and afterwards I dismissed them, leaving to my excellent wife the duty of enlarging on the same topic, and also of giving such advice to Alice, which was now a full grown young woman, and very fair to look on, in respect of the young cavaliers she might see at the great house, particularly the noble lord, the Lord Lessingholm. Such advice I considered useless in regard to my Waller, she being only about fourteen years of age, but in other respects a fair and womanly creature to see; for her waist was nearly twice as large as Alice Snowton's, and her shoulders also, and in weight she would have been greatly an overmatch; and certes, putting aside all parental fondness, which we know to be such a beautifier of one's own kindred as to make the crow a more lovely animal than the dove, (in the eyes of the parent crow,) I will confess that in my estimation, and also in that of my excellent wife, there was no comparison between the two fair maidens, either in respect of fulness of growth or redness of complexion, the advantage being, in both these respects, on the side of the junior. Some sentiment of this sort I saw at the time must have possessed the honourable breast of the Viscount Lessingholm; for although he made much profession of visiting at the parsonage for the sake of seeing his juvenile brother, still there were certain looks and tokens whereby I was clearly persuaded that the magnet was of a different kind; and whereas it would have been vain and ambitious in me to lift my eyes so high, in view of matrimonial proposals, as to nearly the topmost branch in the peerage of England, (the Earls Fitzoswald being known to have been barons of renown at the period of the Norman Conquest;) still it would ill have become me to prevent my daughter from gathering golden apples if they fell at her feet, because they had grown on such a lofty bough of the tree; and I will therefore confess, that it was with no little gratification I saw the unfoldings of a pure and virtuous disposition in the honourable young nobleman. And I will further state, that it seemed as if his presence when he came, (and that was often, nay, sometimes twice in one day,) did make holiday in the whole house; and Charles was by no means backward in his friendship—receiving the fishing-rods presented unto him by the right honourable with so winning an eagerness, and pressing Alice (his constant friend) to go with him and the noble donor with so much zeal to the brook, therein to try the virtues of the gift, that I found it impossible to refuse permission; and therefore did those three often consume valuable hours, (yet also I hope not altogether wasted)—videlicet, Alice and Charles, and the honourable Viscount—in endeavouring to catch the finny tribe, yet seldom with much success. But whatever was the result of their industry—yea, though it was but a minnow—it was brought and presented to my Waller by the honourable hands of the young man, with so loving an air, that it was easy to behold how gladly he would have consented, if she had been the companion of their sports, if by any means Charles could have been persuaded to have exchanged Alice Snowton for her. But the very mention of such an idea did throw the child into such wrathful indignation, that the right honourable was fain to bestow on him whole handfuls of sugar-plums, and promise that Alice should not be left behind. So fared the time away; and at last I began to hope that the fears of the great lady were unfounded, and that nothing would occur to trouble her repose. The manner of living had been resumed again, with the difference that, on the days the young maidens did not visit the noble mansion, the honourable viscount was, as it were, domiciled in the parsonage; and I perceived that, by this arrangement, the great lady was highly pleased; perhaps because the presence of a kinsman, a courageous gentleman, gave her some security against the rudenesses she seemed to be afraid of on the part of her own son—a grievous state of human affairs when the fifth commandment is not held in honour, and reducing us below the level of puppy-dogs and kittens, to whom that commandment, along with the rest of the decalogue, is totally unknown. Sundry times I did observe symptoms of alarm; and care did write a sad story of mental suffering on the brow of the great lady, which was a person of the magnanimity of an ancient matron, and bore up in a manner surprising to behold in one who stood, as it were, with one hand upon her coffin, while her other stretched backward through the shadow of fourscore years to touch her cradle. And ever, from time to time, couriers came to the noble mansion, while others flew in various directions on swift horses at utmost speed; and looking up into that lofty atmosphere, we saw clouds and ominous signs of coming storms, before we could hear the voice of the thunder. And once a royal messenger (called a pursuivant-at-arms) came down in person, and carried the great lady to London, and there she stayed many days, and was threatened with many things and great punishments, yea, even to be tried by the Lord Jeffreys for high treason, in resisting the king's order to deliver up her grandchild to its natural guardian—which was its father, the Viscount Mallerden, now created by royal favour Marquis of Danfield. But even this last danger she scorned; and after months of confinement near the royal court, her enemies gave up persecuting her for that season, and at last she came back to Mallerden Court. In the meanwhile, we went on in a quiet and comfortable manner in the parsonage—the Viscount Lessingholm frequently with us, (almost as if he were a pupil of the house;) and on one or two occasions we had a visit for an evening from my honoured friend, Mr William Snowton of Wilts. He was pleased to use great commendations, both of my excellent wife and me, for the mode in which we attended to the mind and manners of his niece, the culinary and other accomplishments, and the rational education wherein he saw her advanced. He never stayed later than day-dawn on the following morning, and kept himself reserved, as one used to the intimacy of the great, and not liking to make his news patent to humble people such as we; and he would on no account open his mouth on the quarrels of our great lady and her son, the new Marquis of Danfield, but kept the conversation in equable channels of everyday matters, and expounded how my glebe lands might be made to yield a greater store of provision by newer modes of cultivation—the which I considered, however, a tampering with Providence, which gives to every field its increase, and no more. But by this time my glebe was not the only land on which I could plant my foot and say, Lo, thou art mine! for I had so prospered in the five years during which I had held a ladder for my pupils to the tree of knowledge, that much golden fruit had fallen to my share, (being kicked down, as it were, by their climbing among the branches;) so that I had purchased the fee simple of the estate of my friend, Master George Sprowles, who had taken some alarm at the state of public affairs, and gone away over the seas to the plantation called, I think, Massachusets, in the great American continent.

It was in the beginning of October 1688, that another call was made on the great lady to make her appearance within a month from that time in the city of London, to give a final answer for her contumacy in refusing obedience to the King and the lord high Treasurer. I felt in hopes the object of their search (namely, the young maiden his daughter, for it was bruited they rummaged to find her out in all directions) was safe with some foreign friends which the great lady possessed in the republic of Holland, where the Prince of Orange was then the chief magistrate; but of this I had no certain assurance. For some days no preparations were made at the noble mansion for so momentous a journey; but at length there were great signs of something being in prospect. First of all, the Viscount Lessingholm rode up from Yorkshire, whither he had been gone three weeks, attended by near a score of fine dressed serving-men, and took up his abode at Mallerden Court; then came sundry others of the great lady's kinsfolk, attended also by their servants in stately liveries; and we did expect that the proud imperial-minded lady was to go up with such great escort as should impress the king with a just estimate of her power and dignity. With this expectation we kept to ourselves ready to see the noble procession when it should start on its way; but far other things were in store for me, and an instrument called a pea-spitter, wherewith Charles had provided himself for the purpose of saluting various of the serving-men as they passed, was rendered useless. It was on the first day of November that the Lord Viscount Lessingholm, (who had conveyed the young maidens, videlicet Alice Snowton and my Waller, to the Court on the previous day,) did ride post haste up to my door, making his large grey horse jump over the gate at the end of the walk, as if he had been Perseus flying on his winged steed to the rescue of Andromede, (as the same is so elegantly described in the ancient poet,) and did summon me to go that moment to the noble mansion on matter of the highest import. Much marvelling, and greatly out of breath, I followed the noble gentleman's motions as rapidly as was beseeming one of my responsible situation, in regard to the spiritual ministrations in the parish, while in sight of any of my flock; for nothing detracts more from the dignity of the apostolical character than rapid motions—such as running, or jumping, or an unordered style of apparel, without hatband or cassock. When out of the village street, I put (as the vulgar phrase expresses it) my best foot foremost, and enacted the part of a running serving-man in the track of my noble conductor; and finally I arrived, in such state as may be conceived, at the entrance-hall of the noble mansion. In the court-yard were numerous serving-men mounted in silent gravity, and ranged around the wall. Each man was wrapped up in a dark-coloured cloak; and underneath it I saw, depending from each, the clear polished extremity of a steel sword-sheath. They did bear their reins tightened, and their heels ornamented with spurs, as if ready to spring forth at a word, and great tribulation came over my soul. Howbeit I mounted the grand staircase, and, following the western corridor, I opened the door of the green-damask withdrawing-room, and found myself in the middle of a large and silent company. There were, perhaps, a dozen persons there assembled—motionless in their chairs; and at the further end of the apartment sat the great lady in whispered conversation with a tall dark gentleman of mature years, say fifty or thereabouts, and with a wave of her hand, having instructed me to be seated, she pursued her colloquies in the same under tones as before. When I had placed myself in a chair, and was in somewhat recovering my breath, which much hurrying and the surprising scene I saw had greatly impaired, a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and I turned round, and, sitting in the next chair to me, I beheld my honoured friend Mr William Snowton of Wilts.

"Good Master Willis," he said, "you little expected to see me here, I do well believe; but it was but lately I was summoned."

"And know you wherefore we are here assembled?" I enquired.

"Somewhat I know, but not all. The persons here be men of great power, some of them being those by whom I am employed in managing their worldly affairs, and shortly we shall hear what is determined on."

"On what subject do they mean to consult us? I shall be ready," said I, "to give what advice may be needed, if peradventure it suits with my sacred calling."

"I fear they will hardly consult a person of your holy profession," said Mr Snowton with a sober kind of smile. "It is of life or death we are now to take our choice."

A great fear fell upon me, as a great shadow falls upon the earth before a thunder storm. "What mean ye?" I whispered. "There is no shedding of blood."

"There will be much shedding of blood, good Master Willis; yea, the rivers in England will run red with the same, unless some higher power interferes to deliver us."

"And wherefore am I summoned to such fearful conference? I am no man of blood. I meddle not with lofty matters. I"——

But here I was interrupted by Mr Snowton in a low grave tone. "Then you have not heard that the wicked man of sin, the false Papist, the Marquis of Danfield, hath discovered his child?"

"No, I have not been informed thereof. And hath he gained possession of her?"

"No, nor shall not!" and hereupon he frowned a great frown, and let his sword-sheath strike heavily upon the floor. All the company looked sharply round; but seeing it was by hazard, they took no notice of what occurred.

"And where, then, is the maiden bestowed?" I demanded.

"In this house; you shall see her soon."

"And what have I to do with these matters? They are above my concernment!" I exclaimed, in great anguish of mind.

"You have to unite her in the holy bands of wedlock."

"Nay, that is clearly impossible! Where, I pray thee, is the license?"

"All that has been cared for by means of a true bishop of our church. There can be no scruple on canonical grounds; and if there be hesitation in obeying the Lady Mallerden's orders, (provided she finally takes up her mind to deliver the same,) I would not answer for the recusant's life, no, not for an hour."

"But wherefore in such secrecy, with such haste?" I said, in dreadful sort.

"Because we know that the father slept at Oxford last night with store of troops, and that he will be here this night with a royal warrant to enforce his right to the bestowal of his child; and he hath already promised her to the leader of the malignant Papists."

"And are we here to resist the king's soldiers and the mandate of the king?"

"Yea, to the death!" he said, and sank into gloomy thoughts and said no more.

I looked around among the assembly, and recognized no other faces that I knew, and in a short space the great lady, having finished her colloquy with her next neighbour, rose up and said—"My lords, I believe ye be all of kin to this house, and the other gentlemen be its friends—a falling house, as represented by a feeble woman of fourscore years and five. Yet in the greatness of the cause, may we securely expect a gift of strength even to so frail an instrument as I am. I have consulted with you all, and finally have taken counsel with my kind cousin and sweet friend, the Earl of Fitzoswald, now at my side, and he hath agreed to what I have proposed. It now, then, but remains to carry our project into effect; and for that purpose I have summoned hither a good man and excellent divine, Master Willis of this neighbourhood, to be efficacious in that behalf."

I started up, and said in great agitation—"Oh, my lady!"—but had not proceeded further when I was broken in upon by a voice of thunder—

"Silence, I say! What, is it for the frailness of a reed like you that such noble enterprise must perish? Make no remonstrance, sir, but do what is needed, or"——

Although the great lady did not finish her words, I felt an assurance steal like ice over my soul that my hours were numbered if I hesitated, and I bowed low, while Mr William Snowton did privily pull me down into my seat by the hinder parts of my cassock.

"You—you, Master Willis, of all men, should least oppose this godly step. For the noise thereof will sound unto the ends of the earth, and make the old Antichrist on his seven hills quake and tremble, and shake the pitiful spirit of the apostate of Whitehall. Say I not well, my lords?"

"You say well," ran round the room in a murmur of consent.

"And you—you, Master Willis," she went on, "least of all, should object to keep a lamb within the true fold—yea, a lamb which you did see with your own eyes introduced into the same. Remember you nought of godly Master Waller's in Berkshire, or of the scene you saw in a certain chamber, where the baptismal waters were poured forth, and murmured like a pleasant fountain in the dying ears of a devout Christian woman?"

I was so held back with awe that I said not a word, and she went on—

"Oh, if good Master Lees had yet been spared, we should not have asked for the ministry of trembling and unwilling hands like yours! And now, my lords—and you, kind gentlemen, my plan as arranged with good Lord Fitzoswald is this:—I give my grandchild's hand where her heart has long been bestowed; I then go with her through lanes and byways; under good escort, to the city of Exeter, where erelong we shall cast in our lot with certain friends. The bridegroom shall see nought of his bride till happier days arrive, except at this altar; and you shall go directly to your respective stations, and be ready at the first blowing of the horns before which the walls of this Jericho are to fall. In the next chamber I have made preparation for the ceremony, and in a few minutes, when I have arranged me for the journey, I will summon you."

Something of this I heard—the sense namely forced its way into my brain; but I was confused and panic-stricken. The whole sad scene enacted so many years before, at the house of good Master Waller, on my way home from Oxford, came back upon my heart, and I marvelled at the method whereby the great lady had acquired a knowledge of the secret. I was deep sunk in these cogitations when the door of the inner library was at last thrown open, and such light flashed upon us from the multitude of candles, which were illuminated in all parts of the chamber, that my eyes were for some time dazzled. When I came to myself I looked, and at a table under the eastern window, on which was spread out a golden-clasped prayer-book, opened at the form of solemnization of matrimony, I saw, along with two young men of about his own age, (all girt with swords, and booted and spurred,) the right honourable the Viscount Lessingholm, which I at once concluded was acting as bridegroom's man to one of the other youths. The company, which had been assembled in the withdrawing-room, placed themselves gravely, as if some solemn matter was in hand, at the side of the table; and I took my place by a motion from the Earl Fitzoswald, and laid my hand upon the prayer-book, as ready to begin. The door at the other end of the room, which leadeth to the outer staircase, was opened, and there came noiselessly in a tall woman, dressed in the same fantastical apparel, like the apparel of the Bohemians or gipsies, which I remembered so well on the fatal night of the christening; and, when she cast her eyes on me, I could not have thought an hour had passed since that time, and I recognised in her, with awe and wonderment, the features of the great lady, the Lady Mallerden herself. In each hand she led a young person, in her left my daughter Waller, and I will not deny that at the sight my heart leapt up with strange but not unpleasing emotion, as, remembering the habitudes of the noble Viscount Lessingholm, I thought there was a possibility of a double wedding; and in her other hand, dressed as for a journey, with close fitting riding-coat, and a round hat with sable feathers upon her head, she conducted Alice Snowton, the which looked uncommon lovely, though by no means so healthy or stout-looking as her other companion—videlicet, my Waller. They walked up to the place whereat we stood, and the Lord Viscount springing forward, did give his hand to Alice Snowton, and did not let it go for some time; but looked upon her with such soft endearing looks that she held down her head, and a red blush appeared upon her cheek, as if thereupon there had been reflected the shadow of a rose. For it was not of the deep tinge which formed the ornament of the complexion of my Waller.

"This is no time for useless dalliance," said the great lady; "let us to work. By no other means can we root out for ever the hopes of our enemies."

"Where then, madam," I said, "is the bride?—and who, I pray you, is the bridegroom?"

"The bridegroom is the Viscount Lessingholm. This maiden is the bride."

"But Alice Snowton, my lady. I did think it was your honourable grandchild who was to be united to this noble gentleman."

"And so it is—and so it is! She is Alice Snowton no longer. Our good friend, Master Snowton, the steward on my daughter Pevensey's Wiltshire manor, was good enough to adopt her as his niece; and for her better concealment we placed her in the charge of a person whose character for meekness and simplicity was too notorious to raise suspicion of his being concerned in such a plot. Even to herself, till lately, her parentage was unknown, as Master Snowton kept well the secret."

"And one other question," I said; "the child to whom I became bound as godfather?"

"'Tis the same. This is the poor Lucy Hesseltine, whose orphanship you witnessed in that lone and yet comfortable death."

The lady Lucy Hesseltine, or rather Alice Snowton, for by that name I loved her best, did throw her arms about my neck, and kissed my cheek, and said I had been a kind godfather to her, yea, had been a father to her, and my excellent wife a mother. At this my heart was much moved, and I saw tears come to the eyes of several of the bystanders, but no tear came to the eyes of the great lady herself.

"Let this be enough," she said. "Let us finish what we have yet to do."

And thereupon, all being ready and in their due places, I began; but when I came to the question—"Lucy Hesseltine, wilt thou have this man to be thy lawful husband?"—a sudden noise in the court-yard under the window made me pause; but the great lady commanded me with a frown to go on, and I concluded the question, and received in reply a sweet but audible "yes." But the noise was again repeated, and the assistants sprang to their feet, for it was the sound of the sharp shooting off of pistols.

"Stir not for your lives till the ceremony is over!" cried the great lady; and I hurried with trembling lips over the remainder of the service. A loud voice in the yard was heard amid the trampling of much horse. "In the king's name, surrender!" the voice said. "We have a warrant here, and soldiers!"

"For as much as Frederick and Lucy Hesseltine," (I said as calmly as I could, though with my heart quaking within me) "have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands—I pronounce that they be man and wife together!"

"Now then, my lords and gentlemen," cried the great lady, springing to her feet, "to the defence! We are witnesses of this marriage, and clashing swords must play the wedding peel. If need be, fear not in such quarrel to do your best; yea, to the shedding of blood! Though the blood were my son's, it were well shed in such a holy cause. Now then, Lucy, come! Guard the front entrance but an hour, and we shall be beyond pursuit."

And so saying she glided rapidly, with the nearly fainting bride, towards the hidden stairs, while Viscount Lessingholm rushed rapidly with drawn sword down the grand flight, and sprang on his grey horse. In the confusion my Waller had disappeared, and in great agonies of fear I slipped into the court-yard. Oh, what a sight met my eyes! There were several men lying dead, which had been shot or otherwise killed, and their horses were galloping hither and thither with loose reins and stirrups flapping; other men were groaning, and writhing in great pains, tearing the ground with bleeding hands, and dragging themselves, if such were possible, away from the melee. Meanwhile, horsemen drawn up on either side were doing battle with sword and pistol; and the trampling and noise of the shouting, the groans and deep execrations, all resounding at once in that atmosphere of smoke and approaching night, were fearful to listen to, and I bethought me of some way of escape. I slipped within the piazza of the servants' court, and made my way towards the gate; but here the battle raged the fiercest, the noble Viscount Lessingholm being determined to keep it closed, and the furious Marquis resolute to force it open, whereby an accession of men might come to him which were shut out on the other side—the warder of the door having only admitted the marquis himself, and about fifty of the king's dragoons. The retainers which I had seen on my entrance amounted to seventy or more; and seeing they had most of them been soldiers, yea, some which had grizzled locks, having been among the shouters at Dunbar, and on many fields besides, under the cruel eye of the ferocious Oliver himself, they did cry "Ha, ha! at the spear of the rider, and smelt the battle afar off." The Marquis of Danfield did spur his black war-horse, with his sword poised high in air towards the noble Viscount of Lessingholm, and with fierce cries the noble viscount raised also his sword, and was in act to strike the undefended head of his assailant. "Stop, Frederick!" cried a voice, which proceeded from the Earl Fitzoswald; "it is Danfield himself!" whereupon the young gentleman did ward off the blow aimed at him by the marquis, and passed on. All this I saw ere I gave up hopes of getting out by the gate; but seeing this was hopeless, I pursued my way back again, with intent to get out by one of the postern windows, and hurry homeward across the fields; and having opened a window near unto the buttery, I hung by my hands, and then shutting my eyes and commending my soul to Heaven, I let go, and dropt safely down upon the greensward. But ere I could recover myself sufficiently, I was set upon as if I had been an armed enemy, by a large number of mounted men, which were of the company of the marquis, whereby I saw that the house was surrounded, and feared the great lady and Alice (I would say the Viscountess Lessingholm) were intercepted in their retreat. Howbeit, I gave myself up prisoner, by reason of various blows with the flats of sabres, and sundry monitions to surrender or die. I was led in great fear to the front of the court, and brought before a proud, fierce-browed commander, which interrogated me "of all that was going on, and whether the Lady Lucy Mallerden was in the Court?" Whereto I answered, that I was so overcome with terror that I knew little of what I had seen, and, with regard to the noble lady, I was persuaded she was not within the walls. "If you answer me," he said, "truly, and tell me what road she has taken, I will send you away in safety, and secure you his majesty's pardon for any thing you may have done against his crown and dignity; but if you refuse, I will assuredly hang you on the court-yard gate the moment we gain possession thereof. Now, say which way went they?" I was sore put to it, for it was like betraying innocent blood to tell these savage men the course my godchild pursued in her escape; and yet to tell an untruth was repugnant to my nature, and I said to the captain, "It is a hard matter for me to point out where my friends are fleeing unto."

"Then you'll be hung as high as Haman at daybreak; so you can take your choice," said he.

"If I direct you unto the place whereunto she is gone," I said, "it will be a hard matter to find her."

"That's our business, not yours. Tell us where it is."

"For, suppose she were in hiding in a city, a large busy place like Bristol, and waited for a conveyance to a foreign land"——

"In Bristol! Oho, say no more! Ensign Morley, take ten of the best mounted of the troop and scour the northern roads towards Bristol. You will overtake them ere they are far advanced."

"I pray you, captain," I said, "to observe—I have not told you she is gone towards Bristol."

"I know you haven't," he said smiling, "I will bear witness you have kept her secret well; but here we are about to enter the Court, for the firing is finished. The rebels will be on gibbets within twenty-four hours, every one."

But there was no sign of the gate being opened. Contrariwise there did appear, in the dimness of the evening-sky, certain dark caps above the outside wall, which I did recognize as being worn by the serving-men of the great lady's friends; and while we were yet talking a flight of bullets passed close over our heads, and three or four of the troopers fell off dead men, leaving their saddles empty and their horses masterless.

"Draw close my men," cried the captain, "right wheel;" and setting his men an example, he did gallop with what speed he might from the propinquity of the wall. As for myself, I was in some sort relieved by the knowledge that the noble mansion still continued in possession of the Viscount Lessingholm; and comforting myself with the assurance that no evil could befall my daughter Waller while under his protection, I did contrive to seize by the bridle one of the dragoons' horses, (a stout black horse, which, being never claimed, did do my farming work for fifteen years,) and, climbing up into the saddle, betook me home to inform my excellent wife of all these dreadful events. All next day, and all the next—yea, for three whole days—I stayed in my quiet home, receiving information quietly by means of a note brought to me by my servants, that the mansion still held out, that Waller was quite safe, and that, provided no artillery was brought to bear against them, that they could hold out till the time came. What was the meaning of the latter phraseology, I did not know; but considering it desirable at that period to cut down certain trees on my recently purchased estate, I proceeded with Thomas Hodge the carpenter, and various other artificers of my parishioners, (all being friends and dependents of the great lady,) and with saws and other instruments did level the whole row of very large oaks and elm trees which bordered the only high-road from Oxford; and, by some strange accident, all the trees did fall exactly across the same, and made it utterly impossible to move thereupon with cart or waggon; so that it was much to be suspected that the guns, which we heard were ordered to come up from Wallingford, could by no means get over the obstruction. It is also to be observed that Master George Railsworth, the mason, who had contracted to repair the strong bridge over our stream, did take this opportunity of taking down two of the arches of the same, and could find no sufficient assistance to enable him to restore them, which made the road impassable for horse or man. On the following day, namely, the fifth day of November, we heard that all the king's soldiers were suddenly ordered from all parts up to London, and that the Marquis of Danfield had been left to his imprisonment in Mallerden Court. Whereupon I bethought me it would be safe to venture up once more, and bring my daughter Waller to the securer custody of my excellent wife. Next morning, at early dawn, I accordingly did go up, and was admitted, after a short parley, by the gate-keeper, which had a helmet on his head and a sword in his hand. Speedily I was in the arms of my daughter Waller, who looked as happy as if none of these scenes had been transacted before her eyes; and moreover did refuse, in very positive terms, to leave the Court till her dear friend Alice—I would say the Lady Lucy—returned. I reasoned with her, and reprimanded her, and showed her in what a fearful state of danger we all were, by reason of the rebellion we had been guilty of against his majesty the king. Whereupon the child did only laugh, and told me, "Here she would abide until the time came." And with this enigmatical expression I was fain to be content; for she would vouchsafe me no other. And, corroborative of all which, she said, she relied on the assurances made unto her to that effect by Sir Walter Ouseley, one of the young gentlemen which had acted as bridegroom's man to the noble Viscount Lessingholm, and was now in the Court as his lieutenant in the defence of the same. A goodly young gentleman he was, and fair to look upon, and extraordinary kind to me, soothing my fears, and encouraging me to hope for better things than those my terrors made me anticipate. I enquired of the behavings of the Marquis of Danfield, and learned to my surprise that it was expected that before this day was over, if he did receive a courier, as was thought, from the Lord Churchill, one of the king's favourite officers, he would withdraw all his objections to the marriage, and rather be an encourager and advocate of the same. In these discourses the time passed away, and about three of the clock, after we had dined in the great hall, we were looking out from the battlements and saw a dust on the western road.

"It is Churchill's letter," said the noble Viscount Lessingholm, "and he has kept his promise for once."

"There is too much dust for only one courier's heels—there be twenty in company at least," replied Sir Walter Ouseley, which had the arm of my Waller closely locked in his.

"There may be a surprise intended," cried the noble viscount. "Hoist the flag, man the walls, treble the watchers, and sound for the men into the yard."

We of the peaceful professions—videlicet, my daughter Waller and I—did descend from the bartizan, and betook ourselves to the great withdrawing room, to wait for the result of the approach. We had not waited long when the door opened, and no other than the great lady herself, and my loved and lovely godchild, the Viscountess Lessingholm, came into the apartment. The great lady was now appareled as became her rank, having discarded those Bohemian habiliments which were her disguise in times of danger. Oh! it was a great sight to behold, the meeting between the Lady Lucy and my daughter Waller; but when hurried steps sounded on the stairs, and the door opened, and the noble viscount rushed into her arms, it was impossible to keep from tears. My feeble pen can venture on no such lofty flights of description, and therefore I will not attempt it. Meanwhile, in the outer court, great shouting was heard. Sir Walter Ouseley came up to us, and announced that the Marquis of Danfield "presented his respects to his noble mother, and congratulated her on the glorious news."

"I knew how it would be," she said, "with base natures such as his and Churchill's. We accept their assistance, but despise the instrument. He will now be fierce against his benefactor, (who, though a bad king, was tender to his friends,) and bitterer against his faith than if he had never been either a courtier or a bigot. I receive his congratulations, Sir Walter Ouseley, but I decline an interview for some time to come."

"He desired me also, my lady," said Sir Walter, "to convey his blessing to the bride, and his tender love to his new son, the Viscount Lessingholm."

"Well, let them not reject it. The blessing even of such a father has its value. But we must now make preparation, for the celebration of the happy nuptials, in a style fitting the rank of the parties. The prince is pleased with what we have done"——

The young man, Sir Walter Ouseley, who had been whispering in my ear, here broke in on the great lady's speech.

"If it would please you, madam, at the same time, to permit two others to be happy, I have obtained Master Willis's consent thereto, and also the consent of this fair maiden."

The viscountess took Waller in her arms, and kissed her cheek, and the great lady smiled.

"I knew not, Sir Walter Ouseley, that you were so perfect a soldier as to sustain an attack and lay siege at the same time; but since in both you have been successful, I give you my hearty good wishes. And so, dear friends and true supporters, let us be thankful for the great deliverance wrought for this land and nation, as well as for ourselves. Our defender, the noble William, landed three days ago at Torbay, and is now in Hampton Court. The king has taken flight, never to be restored. Therefore, God save the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary, the props and ornaments of a true Protestant throne!"



BEAU BRUMMELL.{A}

All things change; ours is the age of masses and classes, the last was the age of individuals. Half a dozen remarkable men then represented the London world, in politics, poetry, bon-mots, dining out, and gaming. Pitt and Fox, the Dukes of Queensberry and Norfolk, Sheridan and General Scott, were the substitutes for mankind in the great metropolis. George Brummell was the last of the beaus. The flame of beauism was expiring; but it flamed in its socket brighter than ever, and Beau Brummell made a more conspicuous figure in the supreme bon-ton of elegant absurdity, than any or all his predecessors. The only permanent beau on earth is the American savage. The Indians, who have been lately exhibiting their back-wood deformities in our island at shilling a-head, were prodigious dressers; Greek taste might probably have dissented from their principles of costume, but there could be no doubt of the study of their decoration. Their coiffeur might not altogether supersede either the Titus or the Brutus in the eye of a Parisian, but it had evidently been twisted on system; and if their drapery in general might startle Baron Stulz, it evidently cost as dexterous cutting out, and as ambitious tailoring, as the most recherche suit that ever turned a "middling man" into a figure for Bond Street.

But the charm which is the very soul of European fashion, is scorned by the Indian. Change—the "Cynthia of the minute," the morning thought and midnight dream of the dilettanti in human drapery—has no captivation for the red man. He may like variety in his scalps or his squaws; but not a feather, not a stripe of yellow on one cheek, or of green on another, exhibits a sign of the common mutabilities of man. He struts in the plumes which his fathers wore, is attired in the same nether garments, exhibits the same head-gear, and decorates his physiognomy with the sane proportion of white-wash, red-lead, bear's-grease, and Prussian blue.

Beauism, in England, scarcely goes farther back than the days of Charles II. It may be said that Elizabeth had her beaux; but the true beau being an existence of which no man living can discover the use, and which is, in fact, wholly useless except to his tailor and the caricaturists, the chevaliers of the time of Queen Bess are not entitled to the honour of the name. Raleigh, no doubt, was a good dresser; but then he could write and fight, and was good for something. Leicester is recorded as a superb dresser; but then he dabbled in statesmanship, war, and love-making, and of course had not much time on his hands. The Sedleys, Rochesters, and their compeers, had too much actual occupation, good and bad, to be fairly ranked among those gossamery ornaments of mankind; they were idle enough in their hearts for the purpose, but their lives were not shadows, their sole object was not self. They were more nice about swords than snuff-boxes and, if they were spendthrifts, their profusion was not limited to a diamond ring or a Perigord pie. They loved, hated, read, wrote, frolicked and fought; they could frown as well as smile, and see the eccentricity of their own follies as well as enjoy them. But the true beau is a beau-ideal, an abstraction substantialized only by the scissors, a concentrated essence of frivolity, infinitely sensitive to his own indulgence, chill as the poles to the indulgence of all others; prodigal to his own appetites, never suffering a shilling to escape for the behoof of others; magnanimously mean, ridiculously wise, and contemptibly clever; selfishness is the secret, the spring, and the principle of, par excellence, the beau.

In the brief introduction prefixed to the "Life," some of those individuals who approached closest to perfection of old times are mentioned. One of those was Sir George Hewitt, on whom Etheridge, the comic writer, sketched his Sir Fopling Flutter. This beau found a place in poetry as well as in prose,

"Had it not better been than thus to roam, To stay, and tie the cravat-string at home? To strut, look big, strike pantaloon, and swear With Hewitt—D——me, There's no action here?"

Wilson followed. He was a personage who first established the fashion of living by one's wits. Returning from the army in Flanders with forty shillings in his pocket, he suddenly started into high life in the most dashing style, eclipsed every body by his equipage, stud, table, and dress. As he was not known at the gaming-table, conjecture was busy on the subject of his finances; and he was charitably supposed to have commenced his career by robbing a Dutch mail of a package of diamonds. Still he glittered, until involved in a duel with Mississippi Law; the latter financier, probably jealous of so eminent a rival, ran a rapier through his body.

The next on the list is Beau Fielding. He was intended for the bar, but intending himself for nothing, his pursuit was fashion. He set up a showy equipage, went to court, and led the life of "a man about town." He was remarkably handsome, attracted the notice of Charles II., and reigned as the monarch of beauism. He was rapidly ruined, but repaired his fortune by marrying an heiress. She died; and the beau was duped by an Englishwoman, whom he married under the idea that she was a Madame Delaune, a widow of great wealth. Finding out the deception, he cast her off, and married the Duchess of Cleveland, though in her sixty-first year. For this marriage he was prosecuted, and found guilty of bigamy. He then became reconciled to his former wife, and died, in 1712, at the age of sixty-one. He was the Orlando of the Tatler.

Beau Edgeworth lives only in the record of Steele, in the 246th number of the Tatler, as a "very handsome youth who frequented the coffeehouses about Charing-Cross, and wore a very pretty ribbon with a cross of jewels on his breast." Beau Nash completes the list of the ancient heroes, dying in 1761, at the age of eighty-eight—a man of singular success in his frivolous style; made for a master of the ceremonies, the model of all sovereigns of water-drinking places; absurd and ingenious, silly and shrewd, avaricious and extravagant. He created Bath; he taught decency to "bucks," civility to card-players, care to prodigals, and caution to Irishmen! Bath has never seen his like again. In English high life, birth is every thing or nothing. Men of the lowest extraction generally start up, and range the streets arm-in-arm with the highest. Middle life alone is prohibited to make its approach; the line of demarcation there is like the gulf of Curtius, not to be filled up, and is growing wider and wider every day. The line of George Brummell is like that of the Gothic kings—without a pedigree; like that of the Indian rajahs—is lost in the clouds of antiquity; and like that of Romulus—puzzles the sagacious with rumours of original irregularity of descent. But the most probable existing conjecture is, that his grandfather was a confectioner in Bury Street, St James's. We care not a straw about the matter, though the biographer is evidently uneasy on the subject, doubts the trade, and seems to think that he has thrown a shade of suspicion, a sort of exculpatory veil over this fatal rumour, by proving that this grandfather and his wife were both buried, as is shown by a stone, still to be seen by the curious, in St James's church-yard. We were not before aware that Christian burial was forbidden to confectioners. The biographer further adds the convincing evidence of gentility, that this grandfather was buried within a few feet of the well-known ribald, Tom Durfey. Scepticism must now hang down its head, and fly the field.

We come to a less misty and remote period. In the house of this ancestor, who (proh dedecus!) let lodgings, lived Charles Jenkinson, then holding some nondescript office under government. We still want a history of that singularly dexterous, shy, silent, and successful man; who, like Jupiter in Homer, did more by a nod than others by a harangue—made more as a scene-shifter than any actor on the stage of Westminster—continually crept on, while whole generations of highfliers dropped and died; and at length, like a worm at the bottom of a pool, started up to the surface, put on wings, and fluttered in the sunshine, Earl of Liverpool! The loss of such a biography is a positive injury to all students of the art of rising. Jenkinson was struck by the neatness of the autograph in which "Apartments to be Let" was displayed on the door; and probably, conscious that the "art of letting" was the true test of talents, made the young writer his amanuensis, and finally obtained for him a clerkship in the treasury. He was next in connexion with Lord North for the twelve years of that witty and blundering nobleman's unhappy administration, and enjoyed no less than three offices, by which he netted L.2500 a-year. He was abused a good deal by the party-ink of his time; but the salary enabled him to bear spattering to any amount, and probably only increased Lord North's sympathy for his fellow-sufferer, until that noble lord was suffocated in the public mire.

But after the crush of the minister, the man felt that his day was done; and he retired to "domestic virtue" as it is termed, took a good house in the country, enjoyed himself, and in 1794 died, leaving two sons and a daughter, and L.65,000 among them.

George Bryan Brummell, the second son, was born in June 1778. The biographer observes characteristically, that the beau avoided the topic of his genealogical tree with a sacred mystery. It appears that he avoided with equal caution all mention of the startling fact, that one of his Christian names was Bryan. It never escaped his lips; it never slipped into his signature; it was never suffered to "come between the wind and his nobility." If it had by any unhappy chance transpired, he must have fainted on the spot, have fled from society, and hid his discomfiture in

"Deserts where no men abide."

Brummell was a dandy by instinct, a good dresser by the force of original genius; a first-rate tyer of cravats on the involuntary principle. When a boy at Eton, in 1790, he acquired his first distinction not by "longs and shorts," but by the singular nicety of his stock with a gold buckle, the smart cut of his coat, and his finished study of manners. Others might see glory only through hexameters and pentameters; renown might await others only through boating or cricket; with him the colour of his coat and the cut of his waistcoat were the materials of fame. Fellows and provosts of Eton might seem to others the "magnificoes" of mankind—the colossal figures which overtopped the age by their elevation, or eclipsed it by their splendour—the "dii majorum gentium," who sat on the pinnacle of the modern Olympus; but Brummell saw nothing great but his tailor—nothing worthy of respect among the human arts but the art of cutting out a coat—and nothing fit to ensure human fame with posterity but the power to create and to bequeath a new fashion.

But the name of dandy was of later date; the age had not attained sufficient elegance for so polished a title; it was still buck or macaroni; the latter having been the legacy of the semi-barbarian age which preceded the eighteenth century. Brummell was called Buck Brummell when an urchin at Eton—a preliminary evidence of the honours which awaited him in a generation fitter to reward his skill and acknowledge his superiority. Dandy was a thing yet to come, but which, in his instance, was sure to come.

"The force of title could no further go— The 'dandy was the heirloom of the beau.'"

Yet even in boyhood the sly and subtle style, the Brummellism of his after years, began to exhibit itself. A party of the boys having quarreled with the boatmen of the Thames, had fallen on one who had rendered himself obnoxious, and were about to throw him into the river. Brummell, who never took part in those affrays, but happened to pass by at the time, said, "My good fellows, don't throw him into the river; for, as the man is in a high state of perspiration, it amounts to a certainty that he will catch cold." The boys burst into laughter, and let their enemy run for his life.

At Eton, however, he was a general favourite for his pleasantry, the gentleness of his manner, and the smartness of his repartee. He had attained tolerable scholarship, was in the fifth form in 1793, the year in which he left Eton, and wrote good Latin verses, an accomplishment which he partially retained to his last days. From Eton he went to Oriel, and there commenced that cutting system of which he so soon became the acknowledged master. He cut an old Eton acquaintance simply because he had entered at an inferior college, and discontinued visiting another because he had invited him to meet two students of a hall which he was pleased to consider obnoxious. In his studies he affected to despise college distinctions, but yet wrote for the Newdigate prize, and produced the second best poem. But his violation of college rules was systematic and contemptuous. He always ordered his horse at hall time, was the author of half the squibs, turned a tame jack-daw with a band on into the quadrangle to burlesque the master, and treated all proctors' and other penalties with contempt. Such, at least, is the character given him by Mr Lister in Granby.

But he was now to commence a new career. In 1794 he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Tenth Hussars, the gift of its colonel the Prince of Wales. Brummell's own account of this origin of his court connexions is, that when a boy at Eton he had been presented to the Prince, and that his subsequent intimacy grew out of the Prince's notice on that occasion. But a friend of his told the biographer that the Prince, hearing of the young Etonian as a second Selwyn, had asked him to his table, and given him the commission to attach him to his service. This was a remarkable distinction, and in any other hands would have been a card of fortune. He was then but sixteen; he was introduced at once into the highest society of fashion; and he was the favourite companion of a prince who required to be amused, delighted in originality, and was fond of having the handsomest and pleasantest men of the age in his regiment.

Brummell, though an elegant appendage to the corps, was too much about the person of the Prince to be a diligent officer. The result was, that he was often late on parade, and did not always know his own troop. However, he evaded the latter difficulty in general, by a contrivance peculiarly his own. One of his men had a large blue-tinged nose. Whenever Brummell arrived late, he galloped between the squadrons till he saw the blue nose. There he reined up, and felt secure. Once, however, it happened unfortunately that during his absence there was some change made in the squadrons, and the place of the blue nose was shifted. Brummel, on coming up late as usual, galloped in search of his beacon, and having found his old friend he reined up. "Mr Brummell," cried the colonel, "you are with the wrong troop." "No, no," said Brummell, confirming himself by the sight of the blue nose, and adding in a lower tone—"I know better than that; a pretty thing, indeed, if I did not know my own troop!"

His promotion was rapid; for he obtained a troop within three years, being captain in 1796. Yet within two years he threw up his commission. The ground of this singular absurdity is scarcely worth enquiring into. He was evidently too idle for any thing which required any degree of regularity. The command of a troop requires some degree of attention from the idlest. He had the prospect of competence from his father's wealth; and his absolute abhorrence of all exertion was probably his chief prompter in throwing away the remarkable advantages of his position—a position from which the exertion of a moderate degree of intellectual vigour, or even of physical activity, might have raised him to high rank in either the state or the army.

Of course, various readings of his resignation have been given; some referred it to his being obliged to wear hair-powder, which was then ceasing to be fashionable; others, more probably, to an original love for doing nothing. The reason which he himself assigned, was comic and characteristic. It was his disgust at the idea of being quartered, for however short a time, in a manufacturing town. An order arrived one evening for the hussars to move to Manchester. Next morning early he waited on the Prince, who, expressing surprise at a visit at such an hour from him, was answered—"The fact is, your royal highness, I have heard that we are ordered to Manchester. Now, you must be aware how disagreeable this would be to me; I really could not go. Think! Manchester! Besides, you would not be there. I have therefore, with your permission, determined to sell out."—"Oh, by all means, Brummell!" said the Prince; "do as you please." And thus he stripped himself of the highest opportunity in the most showy of all professions before he was twenty-one.

He now commenced what is called the bachelor life of England; he took a house in Chesterfield Street, May Fair; gave small but exquisite dinners; invited men of rank, and even the Prince, to his table; and avoiding extravagance—for he seldom played, and kept only a pair of horses—established himself as a refined voluptuary.

Yet for this condition his means, though considerable, if aided by a profession, were obviously inadequate. His fortune amounted only to L.30,000, though to this something must be added for the sale of his troop. His only resources thenceforth must be play, or an opulent marriage.

Nature and art had been favourable to him; his exterior, though not distinguished, was graceful, and his countenance, though not handsome, was intelligent. He possessed in a certain degree the general accomplishments, and exactly in the degree, which produce a flattering reception in society. He was a tolerable musician, he used his pencil with tolerable skill, and he wrote tolerable verses; more would have been worse than useless. He dressed admirably, and, as his cheval de battaile, he talked with a keenness of observation and a dexterity of language, scarcely less rare than wit, and still more exciting among the exhausted minds, and in the vapid phraseology, of fashion.

His person was well formed, and his dress was a matter of extreme study. But it is rather libellous on the memory of this man of taste to suppose, that he at all resembled in this important matter the strutting display which we have seen in later times, and which irresistibly strikes the beholder with surprise, that any man capable of seeing himself in the glass could exhibit so strong a temptation to laughter; while to the more knowing in the affairs of costume, it betrays instantly the secret that the exhibitor is simply a walking placard for a tailor struggling for employment, and supplying the performer on the occasion with a wardrobe for the purpose. Brummell's dress was finished with perfect skill, but without the slightest attempt at exaggeration. Plain Hessian boots and pantaloons, or top boots and buckskins, which were then more the fashion than they are now; a blue coat, and a buff coloured waistcoat—for he somewhat leaned to Foxite politics for form's-sake, however he despised all politics as unworthy of a man born to give the tone to fashion—was his morning dress. In the evening, he appeared in a blue coat and white waistcoat, black pantaloons closely fitting, and buttoning tight to the ankle, striped silk stockings, and opera hat. We may thus observe how much Brummell went before his age; for while he thus originated a dress which no modern refinement has yet exceeded, and which contained all that is de bon ton in modern equipment, he was living in the midst of a generation almost studiously barbarian—the Foxite imitators of the French republicans—where every man's principle was measured by the closeness of his approach to savagery; and nothing but the War interposed to prevent the sans-culottism alike of the body and the mind.

Brummell, though not possessing the patronage of a secretary of state, had the power of making men's fortunes. His principal tailors were Schweitzer and Davidson of Cork street, Weston, and Meyer of Conduit street. Those names have since disappeared, but their memory is dear to dandyism; and many a superannuated man of elegance will give "the passing tribute of a sigh" to the incomparable neatness of their "fit," and the unrivaled taste of their scissors. Schweitzer and Meyer worked for the Prince, and the latter was in some degree a royal favourite, and one of the household. He was a man of genius at his needle; an inventor, who even occasionally disputed the palm of originality with Brummell himself. The point is not yet settled to whom was due the happy conception of the trouser opening at the ankle and closed by buttons. Brummell laid his claim openly, at least to its improvement; while Meyer, admitting the elegance given to it by the tact of Brummell, persisted in asserting his right to the invention. Yet if, as was said of gunpowder and printing, the true inventor is the man who first brings the discovery into renown, the honour is here Brummell's, for he was the first who established the trouser in the Bond street world.

The Prince, at this period, cultivated dress with an ardour which threatened to dethrone Brummell himself, and his wardrobe was calculated to have cost L.100,000. But his royal highness had one obstacle to encounter which ultimately drove him from the field, and restricted all his future chances of distinction to wigs; he began to grow corpulent. A scarcely less formidable evil arose in his quarreling with Brummell. In the course of hostilities, the Prince pronounced the beau a tailor's block, fit for nothing but to hang clothes on; while the retaliation came in the shape of a caricature, in which a pair of leather breeches is exhibited lashed up between the bed-posts, and an enormously fat man, lifted up to them, is making a desperate struggle to get his limbs properly seated in their capacity: another operation of a still more difficult nature, the making the waistband meet, still threatening to defy all exertion.

Brummell's style was in fact simplicity, but simplicity of the most studied kind. Lord Byron defined it, "a certain exquisite propriety of dress." "No perfumes," the Beau used to say, "but fine linen, plenty of it, and country washing." His opinion on this subject, however, changed considerably in after time; for he used perfumes, and attributed a characteristic importance to their use. Meeting a gentleman at a ball with whom he conversed for a while, some of the party enquired the stranger's name. "Can't possibly tell," was the Beau's answer. "But he is evidently a gentleman—his perfumes are good." He objected to country gentlemen being introduced into Watier's, on the ground "that their boots always smelt of horse-dung and bad blacking."

His taste in matters of virtu was one of the sources of his profusion; but it always had a reference to himself. He evidently preferred a snuff-box which he could display in his hand, to a Raphael which he could exhibit only on his wall. His snuff-boxes were numerous and costly. But even in taking snuff he had his style: he always opened the box with one hand, the left. The Prince imitated him in this tour de grace.

A fashion always becomes more fashionable as it becomes more ridiculous. People cling to it as they pet a monkey, for its deformity. The high head-dresses of France, which must have been a burden, made the tour of Europe, and endured through a century. The high heels, which almost wholly precluded safe walking, lasted their century. The use of powder was universal until it was driven out of France by republicanism, and out of England by famine. The flour used by the British army alone for whitening their heads was calculated to amount to the annual provision for 50,000 people. Snuff had been universally in use from the middle of the seventeenth century; and the sums spent on this filthy and foolish indulgence, the time wasted on it, and the injury done to health, if they could all have been thrown into the common form of money, would have paid the national debt of England. The common people have their full share in this general absurdity. The gin drunk in England and Wales annually amounts to nearly twenty millions of pounds sterling; a sum which would pay all the poor rates three times over, and, turned to any public purpose, might cover the land with great institutions—the principal result of this enormous expenditure now being to fill the population with vice, misery, and madness.

In the matter of coats Brummell had but one rival, the Prince, whose rank of course gave him a general advantage, yet whose taste was clearly held as inferior by the royal artistes themselves. A baronet, who went to Schweitzer's to get himself equipped in the first style, asked him what cloth he recommended. "Why, sir," was the answer, "the Prince wears superfine, and Mr Brummell the Bath coating. Suppose, sir, we say Bath coating; I think Mr Brummell has a trifle the preference." Brummell's connexion with the Prince, his former rank in the hussars, and his own agreeable manners, introduced him to the intercourse of the principal nobility. In the intervals of his visits to the Prince at Brighton, he visited Belvoir, Chatsworth, Woburn, &c. But he was absolutely once in town in the month of November, as is proved by the following note from Woburn:—

MY DEAR BRUMMELL,—By some accident, which I am unable to account for, your letter of Wednesday did not reach me till Wednesday. I make it a rule never to lend my box; but you have the entree libre whenever you wish to go there, as I informed the boxkeeper last year. I hope Beauvais and you will do great execution at Up-Park. I shall probably be there shortly after you.—Ever yours sincerely,

"BEDFORD."

At Belvoir he was l'ami de la famille, and at Cheveley, another seat of the Duke of Rutland's, his rooms were as sacred as the Duke of York's, who was a frequent visitor there. On the Duke of Rutland's coming of age, in 1799, great rejoicings took place at Belvoir, and Brummell was one of the distinguished party there, among whom were the Prince of Wales, the late Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorn, and the other chief fashionable people of the day. This fete was memorable, for it was said to have cost L.60,000. Brummell was not altogether effeminate; he could both shoot and ride, but he liked neither: he was never a Melton man. He said that he could not bear to have his tops and leathers splashed by the greasy galloping farmers. The Duke of Rutland raised a corps of volunteers on the renewal of the war in 1803; and as Brummell had been a soldier the duke gave him a majority. In the course of the general inspections of the volunteer corps, an officer was sent from the Horse Guards to review the duke's regiment, the major being in command. On the day of the inspection every one was on parade except the major-commandant. Where is Major Brummell, was the indignant enquiry? He was not to be found. The inspection went on. When it was near its close, Brummell was soon coming full gallop across the country in the uniform of the Belvoir Hunt, terribly splashed. He apologized for himself by saying, that having left Belvoir quite early, he had expected to be on the parade in time, the meet being close at hand. However, his favourite hunter had landed him in a ditch, where, having been dreadfully shaken by the fall, he had been lying for an hour. But the general was inexorable, and Brummell used to give the worthy officer's speech in the following style—"Sir, this conduct is wholly inexcusable. If I remember right, sir, you once had the honour of holding a captain's commission under his royal highness the Prince of Wales, the heir-apparent himself, sir! Now, sir, I tell you; I tell you sir, that I should be wanting in a proper zeal for the honour of the service; I should be wanting, sir, if I did not this very evening report this disgraceful neglect of orders to the commander-in-chief, as well as the state in which you present yourself in front of your regiment; and this shall be done, sir. You may retire, sir."

All this was very solemn and astounding; but Brummell's presence of mind was not often astounded. He had scarcely walked his horse a few paces from the spot, when he returned, and said in a subdued tone—"Excuse me, general; but, in my anxiety to explain this most unfortunate business, I forgot to deliver a message from the Duke of Rutland. It was to request the honour of your company at dinner." The culprit and the disciplinarian grinned together; the general coughed, and cleared his throat sufficiently to express his thanks in these words—"Ah! why, really I feel and am very much obliged to his grace. Pray, Major Brummell, tell the duke I shall be most happy;" and melodiously raising his voice, (for the Beau had turned his horse once more towards Belvoir,) "Major Brummell, as to this little affair, I am sure no man can regret it more than you do. Assure his grace that I shall have great pleasure in accepting his very kind invitation;" and they parted amid a shower of smiles. But Brummell had yet but half completed his performance; for the invitation was extempore, and he must gallop to Belvoir to acquaint the duke of the guest he was to receive on that day.

Brummell always appeared at the cover side, admirably dressed in a white cravat and white tops, which latter either he, or Robinson his valet, introduced, and which eventually superseded the brown ones. The subtlety of Brummell's sneers, which made him so highly amusing to the first rank of society, made him an object of alarm if not of respect to others. "Do you see that gentleman near the door?" said a woman of rank to her daughter, who had been brought for the first time to Almack's. "Yes! Who is he?" replied the young lady. "A person, my dear, who will probably come and speak to us; and if he enters into conversation, be careful to give him a favourable impression of you, for he is the celebrated Mr Brummell." The debutante was the daughter of a duke. It has been said that Madame de Stael considered herself as having failed to attract his approval, and that she spoke of it as the greatest malheur which had occurred to her during her stay in London, the next in point of calamity being that the Prince had not called on her in person. The Beau perfectly knew his own value. In reply to a nobleman who charged him with involving his son in a gaming transaction, he said—"Really I did my best for the young man; I gave him my arm all the way from White's to Watier's." However, there can be no doubt that he was very often intolerably impudent; and, as impudence is always vulgar, he was guilty of vulgarity. Dining at a gentleman's house in Hampshire, where the champagne did not happen to suit his taste, he refused his glass when the servant came to help him a second time, with—"No, thank you, I don't drink cider!" The following anecdote is rather better known. "Where were you yesterday, Brummell?" said one of his club friends. "I think," said he, "I dined in the city." "What! you dined in the city?" said his friend. "Yes, the man wished me to bring him into notice, and I desired him to give a dinner, to which I invited Alvanley, Mills, Pierrepoint, and some others." "All went off well, of course?" said the friend. "Oh yes! perfectly, except one mal-a-apropos: the fellow who gave the dinner had actually the assurance to seat himself at the table."