the extreme compression of the lips. The great and prevalent expression of
the face is energy. The eye, the brow, the turn of the head, the erect, pene-
trating aspect, — are all strikingly bold, animated, and even daring. And
this expression makes a singular contrast to that in another likeness to the
Cdunt, which was taken at a much later period of life. The latter portrait
represents him in a foreign uniform, decorated with orders. The peculiar
sarcasm of the mouth is hidden beneath a very long and thick mustachio, of
a much darker colour than the hair (for in both portraits, as in Jervas's pic-
ture of Lord Bolingbroke, the hair is left undisguised by the odious fashion
of the day) Across one cheek there is a slight scar, as of a sabre cut. The



DEVEREUX. 135



CHAPTER IX.

A DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND A LONG LETTER; A
CHAPTER, ON THE WHOLE, MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT
SEEMS.

The scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my
reader are by no means episodical : they illustrate far more
than mere narration the career to which I was so honourably
devoted. Dissipation, — women, — wine, — Tarleton for a
friend. Lady Hasselton for a mistress. Let me now throw
aside the mask.

To people who have naturally very intense and very acute
feelings, nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as
the commonplace aifections, which are the properties and off-
spring of the world. We have seen the birds which, with
wings unclipt, children fasten to a stake. The birds seek to
fly, and are pulled back before their wings are well spread;
till, at last, they either perpetually strain at the end of their
short tether, exciting only ridicule by their anguish and their
impotent impatience; or, sullen and despondent, they re-
main on the ground, without any attempt to fly, nor creep,
even to the full limit which their fetters will allow. Thus
it is with the feelings of the keen, wild nature I speak of:
they are either striving forever to pass the little circle of
slavery to which they are condemned, and so move laughter
by an excess of action and a want of adequate power; or they
rest motionless and moody, disdaining the petty indulgence

whole character of this portrait is widely different from that in the earlier
one. Not a trace of the fire, the animation, which were so striking in the
physiognomy of the youth of twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate,
stately, yet somewhat stern expression, which seems immovably spread over
the paler hue and the more prominent features of the man of about four or
five and thirty. Yet, upon the whole, the face in the latter portrait is hand-
somer ; and, from its air of dignity and reflection, even more impressive than
that in the one I have first described. — Eu.



136 DEVEREUX.

they might enjoy, till sullenness is construed into resignation,
and despair seems the apathy of content. Time, however, cures
what it does not kill; and both bird and beast, if they pine not
to the death at first, grow tame and acquiescent at last.

What to me was the companionship of Tarleton, or the at-
tachment of Lady Hasselton? I had yielded to the one, and
I had half eagerly, half scornfully, sought the other. These,
and the avocations they brought with them, consumed my
time, and of Time murdered there is a ghost which we term
ennui. The hauntings of this spectre are the especial curse
of the higher orders ; and hence springs a certain consequence
to the passions. Persons in those ranks of society so exposed
to ennui are either rendered totally incapable of real love, or
they love far more intensely than those in a lower station;
for the affections in them are either utterly frittered away on
a thousand petty objects (poor shifts to escape the persecut-
ing spectre), or else, early disgusted with the worthlessness
of these objects, the heart turns within and languishes for
something not found in the daily routine of life. When this
is the case, and when the pining of the heart is once satisfied,
and the object of love is found, there are two mighty reasons
why the love should be most passionately cherished. The
first is, the utter indolence in which aristocratic life oozes
away, and which allows full food for that meditation which
can nurse by sure degrees the weakest desire into the strong-
est passion; and the second reason is, that the insipidity and
hollowness of all patrician pursuits and pleasures render the
excitement of love more delicious and more necessary to the
'^t(/7iavi terrarum domini,^^ than it is to those orders of soci-
ety more usefully, more constantly, and more engrossingly
engaged.

Wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless,
my heart, at last, exhausted itself in pining for what was
pure. I recurred with a tenderness which I struggled with at
first, and which in yielding to I blushed to acknowledge, to
the memory of Isora. And in the world, surrounded by all
which might be supposed to cause me to forget her, my heart
clung to her far more endearingly than it had done in the



DEVEREUX. 137

rural solitudes in which she had first allured it. The truth
was this ; at the time I first loved her, other passions — yjas-
sions almost equally powerful — shared her empire. Ambi-
tion and pleasure — vast whirlpools of thought — had just
opened themselves a channel in my mind, and thither the
tides of my desires were hurried and lost. Now those whirl-
pools had lost their power, and the channels, being dammed
up, flowed back upon my breast. Pleasure had disgusted me,
and the only ambition I had yet courted and pursued had
palled upon me still more. I say, the only ambition, for as
yet that which is of the loftier and more lasting kind had
not afforded me a temptation ; and the hope which had borne
the name and rank of ambition had been the hope rather to
glitter than to rise.

These passions, not yet experienced when I lost Isora, had
afforded me at that period a ready comfort and a sure engross-
ment. And, in satisfying the hasty jealousies of my temper,
in deeming Isora unworthy and Gerald my rival, I naturally
aroused in my pride a dexterous orator as well as a firm ally.
Pride not only strengthened my passions, it also persuaded
them by its voice; and it was not till the languid yet deep
stillness of sated wishes and palled desires fell upon me, that
the low accent of a love still surviving at my heart made
itself heard in answer.

I now began to take a different view of Isora's conduct,
I now began to doubt where I had formerly believed; and
the doubt, first allied to fear, gradually brightened into hope.
Of Gerald's rivalry, at least of his identity with Barnard,
and, consequently, of his power over Isora, there was, and
there could be, no feeling short of certainty. But of what
nature was that power? Had not Isora assured me that it
was not love? Why should I disbelieve her? Nay, did she
not love myself? had not her cheek blushed and her hand
trembled when I addressed her? "Were these signs the
counterfeits of love? Were they not rather of that heart's
dye which no skill can counterfeit? She had declared that
she could not, that she could never, be mine ; she liad declared
so with a fearful earnestness which seemed to annihilate hope;



138 DEVEREUX.

but had she not also, in the same meeting, confessed that I
was dear to her? Had not her lip given me a sweeter and
a more eloquent assurance of that confession than words? —
and could hope perish while love existed? She had left me,
— she had bid me farewell forever; but that was no proof of
a want of love, or of her unworthiness. Gerald, or Barnard,
evidently possessed an influence over father as well as child.

Their departure from might have been occasioned by

him, and she might have deplored, while she could not resist
it; or she might not even have deplored; nay, she might have
desired, she might have advised it, for my sake as well as
hers, were she thoroughly convinced that the union of our
loves was impossible.

But, then, of what nature could be this mysterious authority
which Gerald possessed over her? That which he possessed
over the sire, political schemes might account for; but these,
surely, could not have much weight for the daughter. This,
indeed, must still remain doubtful and unaccounted for. One
presumption, that Gerald was either no favoured lover or that
he was unacquainted with her retreat, might be drawn from
his continued residence at Devereux Court. If he loved Isora,
and knew her present abode, would he not have sought her?
Could he, I thought, live away from that bright face, if once
allowed to behold it? unless, indeed (terrible thought!) there
hung over it the dimness of guilty familiarity, and indifference
had been the offspring of possession. But was that delicate
and virgin face, where changes with every moment coursed
each other, harmonious to the changes of the mind, as shadows
in a valley reflect the clouds of heaven ! — was that face, so in-
genuous, so girlishly revelant of all, — even of the slightest,
the most transitory, emotion, — the face of one hardened in
deceit and inured to shame? The countenance is, it is true,
but a faithless mirror; but what man that has studied women
will not own that there is, at least while the down of first
youth is not brushed away, in the eye and cheek of zoned and
untainted Innocence, that which survives not even the fruition
of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a shadowed and im-
perfect) likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had any



DEVEREUX. 139

Avorldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting
me, would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of
the rich house of Devereux? and would she, poor and destitute,
the daughter of an alien and an exile, would she have sponta-
neously relinquished any hope of obtaining that alliance which
maidens of the loftiest houses of England had not disdained
to desire? Thus confused and incoherent, but thus yearning
fondly towards her image and its imagined purity, did my
thoughts daily and hourly array themselves ; and, in propor-
tion as I suffered common ties to drop froiu me one by one,
those thoughts clung the more tenderly to that which, though
severed from the rich argosy of former love, was still indis-
solubly attached to the anchor of its hope.

It was during this period of revived affection that I received
the following letter from my uncle : —

I thank thee for thy long letter, my dear boy ; I read it over three
times with great delight. Ods fish, Morton, you are a sad Pickle, I fear,
and seem to know all the ways of the town as well as your old uncle did
some thirty years ago I 'T is a very pretty acquaintance with human
nature that your letters display. You put me in mind of little Sid, who
was just about your height, and who had just such a pretty, shrewd way
of expressing himself in simile and point. Ah, it is easy to see that you
have profited by your old uncle's conversation, and that Farquhar and
Etherege were not studied for nothing.

But I have sad news for thee, my child, or rather it is sad for me to
tell thee my tidings. It is sad for the old birds to linger in their nest
when the young ones take wing and leave them ; but it is merry for the
young birds to get away from the dull old tree, and frisk it in the sun-
shine, — merry for them to get mates, and have young themselves.
Now, do not think, INIorton, that by speaking of mates and ynung T am
going to tell thee thy brothers are already married ; nay, there is time
enough for those things, and I am not friendly to early weddings, nor to
speak truly, a marvellous great admirer of that holy ceremony at any
age ; for the which there may be private reasons too long to relate to
thee now. INIoreover, I fear my young day was a wicked time, — a
heinous wicked time, and we were wont to laugh at the wedded state,
until, body of me, some of us found it no laughing matter.

But to return, Morton, — to return to thy brothers : they have both
left me ; and the house seems to me not the good old house it did when



140 DEVEREUX.

ye -were all about me ; and, somehow or other, I look now oftener at the
churchyard than I was wont to do. You are all gone now, — all shot
up and become men ; and when your old uncle sees you no more, and
recollects that all his own contemporaries are out of the world, he cannot
help saying, as William Temple, poor fellow, once prettily enough said,
"Methinks it seems an impertinence in me to be still alive." You went
first, Llorton ; and I missed you more than I cared to say : but you were
always a kind boy to those you loved, and you wrote the old knight
merry letters, that made him laugh, and think he was grown young
again (faith, boy, that was a jolly story of the three Squires at Button's !),
and once a week comes your packet, well filled, as if you did not think
it a task to make me happy, which your handwriting always does ; nor
a shame to my gray hairs that I take pleasure in the same things that
please thee ! So, thou seest, my child, that I have got through thy
absence pretty well, save that I have had no one to read thy letters to ;
for Gerald and thou are still jealous of each other, — a great sin in thee,
Morton, which I prithee to reform. And Aubrey, poor lad, is a little
too rigid, considering his years, and it looks not well in the dear boy to
shake his head at the follies of his uncle. And as to thy mother, Morton,
I read her one of thy letters, and she said thou wert a graceless repro-
bate to think so much of this wicked world, and to write so familiarly to
thine aged relative. Xow, I am not a young man, Morton; but the
word aged has a sharp sound with it when it comes from a lady's
mouth.

Well, after thou hadst been gone a month, Aubrey and Gerald, as I
wrote thee word long since, in the last letter I wrote thee with mv own
hand, made a tour together for a little while, and that was a hard stroke
on me. But after a week or two Gerald returned ; and I went out in
my chair to see the dear boy shoot, — 'sdeath, IMorton, he handles the
gun well. And then Aubrey returned alone : but he looked pined and
moping, and shut himself up, and as thou dost love him so, I did not
like to tell thee till now, when he is quite well, that he alarmed me much
for him ; he is too much addicted to his devotions, poor child, and seems
to forget that the hope of the next world ought to make us happy in
this. Well, Morton, at last, two months ago, Aubrey left us again, and
Gerald last week set off on a tour through the sister kingdom, as it is
called. Faith, boy, if Scotland and Ensrland are sister kingdoms, 't is a
thousand pities for Scotland that they are not co-heiresses !

I should have told thee of this news before, but I have had, as thou
knowest, the gout so villanonsly in my hand that, till t' other day, I
have not held a pen, and old Xicholls, my amanuensis, is but a poor
scribe ; and I did not love to let the dog write to tlioe on all our family



DEVEREUX. 141

affairs, especially as T have a secret to tell thee which makes me plaguy
uneasy. Thou must know, Morton, that after thy departure Gerald
asked me for thy rooms ; and though I did not like that any one else
should have what belonged to thee, yet I have always had a foolish
antipathy to say " No 1 " so thy brother had them, on condition to leave
them exactly as they were, and to yield them to thee whenever thou
shouldst return to claim them. Well, Morton, when Gerald went on liis
tour with thy youngest brother, old Nicholls — you know 't is a garru-
lous fellow — told me one night that his son Hugh — you remember
Hugh, a thin youth and a tall — lingering by the beach one evening,
saw a man, wrapped in a cloak, come out of the castle cave, unmoor one
of the boats, and push off to the little island opposite. Hugh swears by
more 'than yea and nay that the man was Father Montreuil. Now,
INIorton, this made me very uneasy, and I saw why thy brother Gerald
wanted thy rooms, which communicate so snugly with the sea. So I
told Nicholls, slyly, to have the great iron gate at the mouth of the
passage carefully locked ; and when it was locked, I had an iron plate
put over the whole lock, that the lean Jesuit might not creep even
through the keyhole. Thy brother returned, and I told him a tale of
the smugglers, Avho have really been too daring of late, and insisted on
the door being left as I had ordered ; and I told him, moreover, though
not as if I had susj)ected his communication with the priest, that I
interdicted all further converse with that limb of the Church. Thy
brother heard me with an indifferently bad grace ; but I was peremp-
tory, and the thing was agreed on.

Well, child, the day before Gerald last left us, I went to take leave of
him in his own room, — to tell thee the truth, I had forgotten his trav-
elling expenses ; when I was on the stairs of the tower I heard — by
the Lord I did — Montreuil's voice in the outer room, as plainly as ever
I heard it at prayers. Ods fish, Morton, I was an angered, and I made
so much haste tc the door that my foot slipped by the way : thy brother
heard me fall, and came out ; but I looked at him as I never looked at
thee, ]\rorton, and entered the room. Lo, the priest was not there : I
searched both chambers in vain ; so I made thy brother lift up the trap-
door, and kindle a lamp, and I searched the room below, and the passage.
The priest was invisible. Thou knowest, Morton, that there is only
one egress in the passage, and that was locked, as I have said before, so
where the devil — the devil indeed — could thy tutor have escaped?
He could not have passed me on the stairs without my seeing him ; he
could not have leaped the window without breaking his neck ; he couM
not have got out of the passage without making himself a current of air.
Ods fish, Morton, this thing might puzzle a wiser man than thine



142 DEVEREUX.

uncle. Gerald affected to be mighty indignant at my suspicions ; but,
God forgive him, I saw he was playing a part. A man does not write
plays, my child, without being keen-sighted in these little intrigues;
and, moreover, it is impossible I could have mistaken thy tutor's voice,
which, to do it justice, is musical enough, and is the most singular voice
I ever heard, — unless little Sid's be excepted.

A propos of little Sid. I remember that in the Mall, when I was
walking there alone, three weeks after my marriage, De Graramont and
Sid joined me. I was in a melancholic mood ('sdeath, Morton, marriage
tames a man as water tames mice !) — ''Aha, Sir William," cried Sedley,
" thou hast a cloud on thee ; prithee now brighten it away : see, thy
wife shines on thee from the other end of the Mall." " Ah, talk not to
a dying man of his physic ! " said Graramont (that Graramont was a
shocking rogue, Morton !) " Prithee, Sir William, what is the chief
characteristic of wedlock? is it a state of war or of peace?" "Oh,
peace to be sure 1 " cried Sedley, " and Sir William and his lady carry
with them the emblem." " How I " cried I ; for I do assure thee,
Morton, I was of a different turn of mind. " How I " said Sid, gravely,
" why, the emblem of peace is the cornucopia, which your lady and you
equitably divide : she carries the copia, and you the cor — ." Xay,
Morton, nay, I cannot finish the jest ; for, after all, it was a sorry thing
in little Sid, whom I had befriended like a brother, with heart and
purse, to wound me so cuttingly ; but 't is the way with your jesters.

Ods fish, now how I have got out of my story ! AVell, I did not go
back to my room, Morton, till I had looked to the outside of the iron
door, and seen that the plate was as firm as ever : so now you have the
whole of the matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much
lest he should already be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy
advice on the subject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have
the trap-door removed, and the aperture strongly boarded over.

But 't is time for me to give over. I have been four days on this
letter, for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not
know when I may again write to thee with my own hand ; so I resolved
I would e'en empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and
blooming ; she is, at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious
piece of tapestry which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the
women.

Heaven bless thee, my child ! Take care of thyself, and drink mod-
erately. It is hurtful, at thy age, to drink above a gallon or so at a
sitting. Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer,
thou must come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again.
At present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us



DEVEREUX. 143

is harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine
uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always warm to thee.

"William Devereux.

P. S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed
thou gottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest
red and white, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as
jealous as a wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound
to be vexed, so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy
mother.

This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simpli»
city, penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, oc-
casioned me much anxious thought. There was no doubt in
my mind but that Gerald and Montreuil were engaged in
some intrigue for the exiled family. The disguised name
which the former assumed, the state reasons which D'Alvarez
confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for conceal-
ment, and which proved, at leastj that some state plot in
which Gerald was engaged was known to the Spaniard, joined
to those expressions of Montreuil, which did all but own a
design for the restoration of the deposed line, and the power
which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whose mind, at once
bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue, and
yield to Montreuil's suggestions on its nature, — these com-
bined circumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply
interesting to the honour of our house, and the very life of one
of its members. Xothing, however, for me to do, calculated
to prevent or impede the designs of ^Montreuil and the dan-
ger of Gerald, occurred to me. Eager alike in my hatred and
my love, I said, inly, "What matters it whether one whom
the ties of blood never softened towards me, with whom, from
my childhood upwards, I have wrestled as with an enemy,
what matters it whether he win fame or death in the perilous
game he has engaged in?" And turning from this most gen-
eroiis and most brotherly view of the subject, I began only to
think whether the search or the society of Isora also influ-
enced Gerald in his absence from home. After a fruitless
and inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took



144 DEVEREUX.

a less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity,
and the anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and
ascetic devotions of Aubrey. What, for one already so ab-
stracted from the enjoyments of earth, so darkened by super-
stitious misconceptions of the true nature of God and the true
objects of His creatures, — what could be anticipated but
wasted powers and a perverted life? Alas! when will men
perceive the difference between religion and priestcraft?
When will they perceive that reason, so far from extinguish-
ing religion by a more gaudy light, sheds on it all its lustre?
It is fabled that the first legislator of the Peruvians received
from the Deity a golden tod, with which in his wanderings
he was to strike the earth, until in some destined spot the
earth entirely absorbed it, and there — and there alone — was
he to erect a temple to the Divinity. What is this fable but
the cloak of an inestimable moral? Our reason is the rod of
gold ; the vast world of truth gives the soil, which it is perpet-
ually to sound; and only where without resistance the soil
receives the rod which guided and supported us will our altar
be sacred and our worship be accepted.



CHAPTER X.

BEING A SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING A MOST IMPORTANT

EVENT.

Sir William's letter was still fresh in my mind, when,
for want of some less noble quarter wherein to bestow my
tediousness, I repaired to St. John. As I crossed the hall to
his apartment, two men, just dismissed from his presence,
passed me rapidly; one was unknown to me, but there was
no mistaking the other, — it was Montreuil. I was greatly