room was hung with black ; the gorgeous pall, wrought
with the proud heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin,
and by the lights which made, in that old chamber, a
more brilliant yet more ghastly day, sat the hired
watchers of the dead.
I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the
coffin, I poured out the last expressions of my grief. I
rose, and was retiring once more to my room, when I
encountered Gerald.
"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am
astounded by my uncle's will. I do not not come to
make you offers you would not accept them ; I do
not come to vindicate myself it is beneath me ; and
DEVEREUX. 285
we have never been as brothers, and we know not
their language ; but I do come to demand you to
retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have
vented against me, and also to assure you that, if you
have doubts of the authenticity of the will, so far from
throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will join in
the inquiries you institute, and the expenses of the
law."
I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation
while Gerald thus spoke. I saw before me the perse-
cutor of Isora the fradulent robber of my rights, and
I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the
inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest,
if not the blackest of human crimes ; there was some-
thing too in the reserved and yet insolent tone of his
voice which, reminding me as it did of our long
aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with
abhorrence. I turned away, that I might not break
my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted to do so ;
and said, in as calm an accent as I could command,
"The case will, I trust, require no king's evidence,
and, at least, I will not be beholden to the man whom
my reason condemns for any assistance in bringing
upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the law."
Gerald looked at me sternly : " Were you not my
brother," said he, in a low tone, "I would, for a charge
so dishonouring my fair name, strike you dead at niy
feet."
" It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I
rejoined, with a scornful laugh, but an eye flashing
286 DEVEREUX.
with passions a thousand times more fierce than scorn,
" that prevents your adding that last favour to those
you have already bestowed on me."
Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon
his sword ; my own rapier was instantly half drawn,
when, to save us from the great guilt of mortal contest
against each other, steps were heard, and a number of
the domestics, charged with melancholy duties at the
approaching rite, were seen slowly sweeping in black
robes along the opposite gallery. Perhaps that inter-
ruption restored both of us to our senses, for we said,
almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same
phrase, " This way of terminating strife is not for us ; "
and, as Gerald spoke, he turned slowly away, descended
the staircase, and disappeared.
The funeral took place at night : a numerous pro-
cession of the tenants and peasantry attended. My
poor uncle ! there was not a dry eye for thee but those
of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power
and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald,
already assuming the dignity and lordship which, to
speak frankly, so well became him ; my mother's face
was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her
utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart
seemed hardened : I could not betray to the gaze of a
hundred strangers the emotions which I would have
hidden from those whom I loved the most ; wrapped
in my cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes
bent to the ground, I leaned against one of the pillars
of the chapel, apart, and apparently unmoved.
DEVEREUX. 287
But when they were about to lower the body into
the vault, a momentary weakness came over me. I
made an involuntary step forward, a single but deep
groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering
my face with my mantle, I resumed my former
attitude, and all was stilL The rite was over ; in
many and broken groups the spectators passed from
the chapel : some to speculate on the future lord,
some to mourn over the late, and all to return the
next morning to their wonted business, and let the
glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for them-
selves the sun should be no more, and the forgetfulness
eternal.
The hour was so late that I relinquished my inten-
tion of leaving the house that night ; I ordered my
horse to be in readiness at daybreak, and, before I
retired to rest, I went to my mother's apartments : she
received me with more feeling than she had ever
testified before.
"Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my
forehead " believe me, I can fully enter into the
feelings which you must naturally experience on an
event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot
conceal from you how much I am surprised. Cer-
tainly Sir William never gave any of us cause to
suppose that he liked either of your brothers Gerald
less than Aubrey so much as yourself; nor, poor
man, was he in other things at all addicted to conceal
his opinions."
" It is true, my mother," said I ; " it is true. Have
288 DEVEREUX.
you not, therefore, some suspicions of the authenticity
of the will?"
"Suspicions!" cried my mother. "No! impos-
sible ! suspicions of whom ? You could not think
Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in
deception ? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir
William's handwriting, and the will was regularly
witnessed ; suspicions, Morton no, impossible ! Ke-
flect, too, how eccentric and humoursome your uncle
always Avas : suspicions ! no, impossible ! "
" Such things have been, my mother, nor are they
uncommon : men will hazard their souls ay, and what
to some is more precious still, their lives too for the
vile clay we call money. But enough of this now :
the Law that great arbiter that eater of the oyster,
and divider of its shells the Law will decide between
us, and if against me, as I suppose, and fear the
decision will be why I must be a suitor to fortune,
instead of her commander. Give me your blessing,
my dearest mother; I cannot stay longer in this
house : to-morrow I leave you."
And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her
neck and clung to it. "Ah!" thought I, "this
blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune."
1 returned to my room there I saw on the table
the case of the sword sent me by the French king. I
had left it with my uncle, on my departure to town,
and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed
by me. I took out the sword, and drew it from, the
scabbard.
DEVEREUX. 289
" Come," said I, and I kindled with a melancholy,
yet a deep, enthusiasm, as I looked along the blade,
" come, my bright friend, with thee through this
labyrinth which we call the world, will I carve my
way ! Fairest and speediest of earth's levellers, thou
makest the path from the low valley to the steep hill,
and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's
sceptre ! The laurel and the fasces, and the curule
car, and the emperor's purple what are these but thy
playthings, alternately thy scorn and thy reward ]
Founder of all empires, propagator of all creeds, thou
leddest the Gaul and the Goth, and the gods of Eome
and Greece crumbled upon their altars ! Beneath thee,
the fires of the Gheber waved pale, and on thy point
the badge of the camel-driver blazed like a sun over
the startled East ! Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable
despot, while the passions of mankind exist ! Most
solemn of hypocrites circling blood with glory as with
a halo, and consecrating homicide and massacre with a
hollow name, which the parched throat of thy votary,
in the battle and the agony, shouteth out with its last
breath ! Star of all human destinies ! I kneel before
thee, and invoke from thy bright astrology an omen
and a smile."
VOL. I.
CHAPTEE IV.
An Episode The Son of the Greatest Man who (one only ex-
cepted) ever rose to a Throne, but by no means of the Greatest
Man (save one) who ever existed.
BEFORE sunrise the next morning, I had commenced
my return to London. I had previously intrusted to
the locum tenenz of the sage Desmarais, the royal gift,
and (singular conjunction !) poor Ponto, my uncle's
dog. Here let me pause, as I shall have no other op-
portunity to mention him, to record the fate of the
canine bequest. He accompanied me some years after-
wards to France, and he died there in extreme age. I
shed tears, as I saw the last relic of my poor uncle ex-
pire, and I was not consoled even though he was buried
in the garden of the gallant Villars, and immortalised
by an epitaph from the pen of the courtly Chaulieu.
Leaving my horse to select his own pace, I sur-
rendered myself to reflection upon the strange altera-
tion that had taken place in my fortunes. There did
not, in my own mind, rest a doubt but that some vil-
lany had been practised with respect to the will. My
uncle's constant and unvarying favour towards me ; the
unequivocal expressions he himself from time to time
DEVEREUX. 29-1
had dropped indicative of his future intentions on my
behalf : the easy and natural manner in which he had
seemed to consider, as a thing of course, my heritage
and succession to his estates ; all, coupled with his
own frank and kindly character, so little disposed to
raise hopes which he meant to disappoint, might alone
have been sufficient to arouse my suspicions at a devise
so contrary to all past experience of the testator. But
when to these were linked the bold temper and the
daring intellect of my brother, joined to his personal
hatred to myself; his close intimacy with Montreuil,
whom I believed capable of the darkest designs ; the
sudden and evidently concealed appearance of the
latter on the day my uncle died ; the agitation and
paleness of the attorney ; the enormous advantages
accruing to Gerald, and to no one else, from the terms
of the devise : when these were all united into one
focus of evidence, they appeared to me to leave no
doubt of the forgery of the testament, and the crime of
Gerald. Nor was there anything in my brother's bear-
ing and manner calculated to abate niy suspicions.
His agitation was real; his surprise might have been
feigned ; his offer of assistance in investigation was an
unmeaning bravado ; his conduct to myself testified
his continued ill-will towards me an ill-will which
might possibly have instigated him in the fraud,
scarcely less than the whispers of interest and cupi-
dity.
But wliile this was the natural and indelible impres-
sion on my mind, I could not disguise from myself the
292 DEVEREUX.
extreme difficulty I should experience in resisting my
brother's claim. So far as my utter want of all legal
knowledge would allow me to decide, I could perceive
nothing in the will itself which would admit of a law-
yer's successful cavil : my reasons for suspicion, so con-
clusive to myself, would seem nugatory to a judge.
My uncle was known as a humorist ; and prove that
a man differs from others in one thing, and the world
will believe that he differs from them in a thousand.
His favour to me would be, in the popular eye, only an
eccentricity, and the unlocked for disposition of his
will only a caprice. Possession, too, gave Gerald a
proverbial vantage-ground, which my whole life might
be wasted in contesting ; while his command of an
immense wealth might, more than probably, exhaust
my spirit by delay, and my fortune by expenses. Pre-
cious prerogative of law to reverse the attribute of the
Almighty! to fill the rich with good things, but to
send the poor empty away! In corruptissimd r<'id>-
licd plurimce leges. Legislation perplexed is synony-
mous with crime unpunished. A reflection, by the
way, I should never have made, if I had never had a
lawsuit sufferers are ever reformers.
Revolving, then, these anxious and unpleasing
thoughts, interrupted, at times, by regrets of a purer
and less selfish nature for the friend I had lost, and
wandering, at others, to the brighter anticipations of
rejoining Isora, and drinking from her eyes my comfort
for the past, and my hope for the future, I continued
and concluded my day's travel
DEVEREUX. 293
The next day, on resuming my journey, and on feel-
ing the time approach that would bring me to Isora,
something like joy became the most prevalent feeling
on my inind. So true it is that misfortunes little affect
us so long as we have some ulterior object, which, by
arousing hope, steals us from affliction. Alas ! the pang of
a moment becomes intolerable when we know of nothing
beyond the moment which it soothes us to anticipate !
Happiness lives in the light of the future : attack the
present she defies you ! Darken the future, and you
destroy her !
It was a beautiful morning : through the vapours,
which rolled slowly away beneath his beams, the sun
broke gloriously forth ; and over wood and hill, and the
low plains, which, covered with golden corn, stretched
immediately before me, his smile lay in stillness, but in
joy. And ever from out the brake and the scattered
copse, which at frequent intervals beset the road, the
merry birds sent a fitful and glad music to mingle with
the sweets and freshness of the air.
I had accomplished the greater part of my journey,
and had entered into a more wooded and garden-like
description of country, when I perceived an old man,
in a kind of low chaise, vainly endeavouring to hold ii:
a little but spirited horse, which had taken alarm at
some object on the road, and was running away with
its driver. The age of the gentleman, and the light-
ness of the chaise, gave me some alarm for the safety
of the driver ; so, tying my own horse to a gate, lest
the sound of his hoofs might only increase the speed
294 DEVEKEUX.
and fear of the fugitive, I ran with a swift and noise-
less step along the other side of the hedge, and coming
out into the road, just before the pony's head, I suc-
ceeded in arresting him, at rather a critical spot and
moment. The old gentleman very soon recovered his
alarm ; and, returning me many thanks for my inter-
ference, requested me to accompany him to his house,
which he said was two or three miles distant.
Though I had no desire to be delayed in my journey
for the mere sake of seeing an old gentleman's house, I
thought my new acquaintance's safety required me, at
least, to offer to act as his charioteer till we reached his
house. To my secret vexation at that time, though I
afterwards thought the petty inconvenience was amply
repaid by a conference with a very singular and once
noted character, the offer was accepted. Surrendering
my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who pro-
mised to lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I en-
tered the little car, and, keeping a firm hand and con-
stant eye on the reins, brought the offending quadruped
into a very equable and sedate pace.
" Poor Fob," said the old gentleman, apostrophising
his horse " poor Fob, like thy betters, thou knowest
the weak hand from the strong ; and when thou art
not held in by power, thou wilt chafe against love ; so
that thou renewest in my mind the remembrance of its
favourite maxim, viz., ' The only preventative to rebel-
lion is restraint ! ' "
"Your observation, sir," said I, rather struck by
this address, " makes very little in favour of the more
DEVEREUX. 295
generous feelings by which we ought to be actuated.
It is a base mind which always requires the bit and
bridle."
" It is, sir," answered the old gentlemen ; " I allow
it ; but, though I have some love for human nature, I
have no respect for it; and while I pity its infirmities,
I cannot but confess them."
" Methinks, sir," replied I, " that you have uttered
in that short speech more sound philosophy than I
have heard for months. There is wisdom in not
thinking too loftily of human clay, and benevolence
in not judging it too harshly, and something, too, of
magnanimity in this moderation ; for we seldom con-
temn mankind till they have hurt us, and when they
have hurt us, we seldom do anything but detest them
for the injury."
" You speak shrewdly, sir, for one so young," re-
turned the old man, looking hard at me ; " and I will
be sworn you have suffered some cares ; for we never
begin to think, till we are a little afraid to hope."
I sighed as I answered, " There are some men, I
fancy, to whom constitution supplies the office of care ;
who, naturally melancholy, become easily addicted to
reflection, and reflection is a soil which soon repays us
for whatever trouble we bestow upon its culture."
" True, sir !" said my companion and there was a
pause. The old gentleman resumed : ' ' We are not far
from my home now (or rather my temporary residence,
for my proper and general home is at Cheshunt, in
Hertfordshire) ; and, as the day is scarcely half spent,
296 DEVEREUX.
I trust you will not object to partake of a hermit's
fare. Kay, nay, no excuse ; I assure you that I am
not a gossip in general, or a liberal dispenser of invita-
tions ; and I think, if you refuse me now, you will
hereafter regret it."
My curiosity was rather excited by this threat ; and,
reflecting that my horse required a short rest, I sub-
dued my impatience to return to town, and accepted
the invitation. We came presently to a house of
moderate size, and rather antique fashion. This, the
old man informed me, was his present abode. A ser-
vant, almost as old as his master, came to the door,
and, giving his arm to my host, led him, for he was
rather lame and otherwise infirm, across a small hall
into a long, low apartment. I followed.
A miniature of Oliver Cromwell, placed over the
chimney-piece, forcibly arrested my attention.
" It is the only portrait of the Protector, I ever
saw," said I, "which impresses on me the certainty of
a likeness ; that resolute, gloomy brow that stubborn
lip that heavy, yet not stolid expression, all seem to
warrant resemblance to that singular and fortunate
man, to whom folly appears to have been as great an
instrument of success as wisdom, and who rose to the
supreme power, perhaps, no less from a pitiable fana-
ticism than an admirable genius. So true is it that
great men often soar to their height, by qualities the
least obvious to the spectator, and (to stoop to a low
comparison) resemble that animal* in which a com-
* The flying squirrel.
DEVEREUX. 297
mon ligament supplies the place and possesses the pro-
perty of wings."
The old man smiled very slightly, as I made this
remark. " If this be true," said he, with an impres-
sive tone, "though we may wonder less at the talents
of the Protector, we must be more indulgent to his
character, nor condemn him for insincerity when at
heart he himself was deceived,"
" It is in that light," said I, " that I have always
viewed his conduct. And though myself, by preju-
dice, a cavalier and a Tory, I own that Cromwell
(hypocrite as he is esteemed) appears to me as much
to have exceeded his royal antagonist and victim,
in the virtue of sincerity, as he did in the grandeur
of his genius, and the profound consistency of his am-
bition."
" Sir," said my host, with a warmth that astonished
me, " you seem to have known that man, so justly do
you judge him. Yes," said he, after a pause, " yes,
perhaps no one ever so varnished to his own breast
his designs no one so covetous of glory, was ever so
duped by conscience no one ever rose to such a height,
through so few acts that seemed to himself worthy of
remorse."
At this part of our conversation, the servant, enter-
ing, announced dinner. We adjourned to another room,
and partook of a homely yet not uninviting repast
When men are pleased with each other, conversation
soon gets beyond the ordinary surfaces to talk ; and
an exchange of deeper opinions is speedily effected by
298 DEVEREUX.
what old Barnes* quaintly enough terms, "The Gen-
tleman Usher of all Knowledge Sermocination ! "
It was a pretty, though small room, where we dined ;
and I observed that in this apartment, as in the other
into which I had been first ushered, there were several
books scattered about, in that confusion and number
which show that they have become to their owner both
the choicest luxury and the least dispensable necessary.
So, during dinner time, we talked principally iipon
books, and I observed that those which my host
seemed to know the best were of the elegant and
poetical order of philosophers, who, more fascinating
than deep, preach up the blessings of a solitude which
is useless, and a content, which, deprived of passion,
excitement, and energy, would, if it could ever exist,
only be a dignified name for vegetation.
" So," said he, when, the dinner being removed, we
were left alone with that substitute for all society
wine ! " so you are going to town : in four hours more
you will be in that great focus of noise, falsehood,
hollow joy, and real sorrow. Do you know that I
have become so wedded to the country that I cannot
but consider all those who leave it for the turbulent
city, in the same light, half - wondering, half - compas-
sionating, as that in which the ancients regarded the
hardy adventurers who left the safe land and their
happy homes, voluntarily to expose themselves in a
frail vessel to the dangers of an uncertain sea. Here,
when I look out on the green fields, and the blue sky,
* In the Oerania.
DEVEEEUX. 299
the quiet herbs, tasking in the sunshine, or scattered
over the unpolluted plains, I cannot but exclaim with
Pliny, ' This is the true Mouffs/oi- ! ' this is the source
whence flow inspiration to the mind and tranquillity to
the heart ! And in my love of nature more confid-
ing and constant than ever is the love we bear to
woman I cry with the tender and sweet Tibullus
' Ego composite securus acervo
Despiciam dites despiciamque famem.' " *
" These," said I, " are the sentiments we all (perhaps
the most restless of us the most passionately) at times
experience. But there is in our hearts some secret, but
irresistible, principle, that impels us, as a rolling circle,
onward, onward, in the great orbit of our destiny; nor
do we find a respite until the wheels on which we
move are broken at the tomb."
" Yet," said my host, " the internal principle you
speak of can be arrested before the grave: at least
stilled and impeded. You will smile incredulously,
perhaps (for I see you do not know who I am), when
I tell you that I might once have been a monarch, and
that obscurity seemed to me more enviable than em-
pire; I resigned the occasion: the tide of fortune
rolled onward, and left me safe, but solitary and for-
saken upon the dry land. If you wonder at my choice,
you will wonder still more when I tell you that I have
never repented it."
* Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealth and fear
not hunger.
300 DEVEREUX.
Greatly surprised, and even startled, I heard my
host make this strange avowal. " Forgive me," said I,
" but you have powerfully excited my interest ; dare I
inquire from whose experience I am now deriving a
lesson 1 "
" Not yet," said my host, smiling " not till our con-
versation is over, and you have "bid the old anchorite
adieu, in all probability, for ever : you will then know
that you have conversed with a man, perhaps more
universally neglected and contemned than any of his
contemporaries. Yes," he continued, " yes, I resigned
power,, and I got no praise for my moderation, but
contempt for my folly; no human being would believe
that I could have relinquished that treasure through a
disregard for its possession which others would only
have relinquished through an incapacity to retain it ;
and that which, had they seen it recorded in an ancient
history, men would have regarded as the height of
philosophy, they despised when acted under their eyes,
as the extremest abasement of imbecility. Yet I com-
pare my lot with that of the great man whom I was
expected to equal in ambition, and to whose grandeur
I might have succeeded; and am convinced that in
this retreat I am more to be envied than he in the
plenitude of his power and the height of his renown ;
yet, is not happiness the aim of wisdom 1 if my choice
is happier than his, is it not wiser ? "
"Alas!" thought I, "the wisest men seldom have
the loftiest genius, and perhaps happiness is granted
DEVEREUX. 301
rather to mediocrity of mind than to mediocrity of cir-
cumstance ; " but I did not give so uncourteous a reply
to my host an audible utterance ; on the contrary : " I
do not doubt," said I, as I rose to depart, " the wisdom