avoiding in the way a number of bustling busy characters, especially those who had professed friendship for him and opposition to Lord Oldcastle. Arrived

at home he ordered his doors to be closed for some hours which he passed in his closet meditating on the folly and inefficacy of power, or even of fame, to produce happiness; in which, meditation he was much assisted by some eloquent sentences of Bolingbroke and Seneca, some of whose volumes always lay on his table, amid dispatches, debates, and party pamphlets.

Let not this picture be undervalued; for so versatile, and so amiable, in reality, was Wentworth's spirit, that, believe it who will, all this had its effect. He despised the base desertion of his party as much as ever; but by degrees he found himself in a sort of proud composure, and, on that very day, as we have said, presided at the dinner where he so delighted his guests with philosophic conversation.

CHAPTER XI.

AN EX-MINISTER.

"Tis certain, Greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall. For men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer.

SHAKSPEARE.

MEANTIME the final change had gone on; Lord Oldcastle was declared the first in power in the State; and Mr. Wentworth immediately, as he said he would, went to his orange trees. Their perfume, however, we suppose, he did not find so delightful as he expected, for he very soon came back again. Yet, while there, a friend who called upon him, found his table covered with the tters and memoirs which describe with such intense interest the breaking up of the Tory

ministry of Queen Anne. The dissensions, rivalries, and heart-burnings, the implacable violence which divided former friends, and the final disappointments and ruin of all concerned in that tumultuous and interesting time, seemed to have been the peculiar objects of his study. One passage he had marked, in a letter of Erasmus Lewis, on the fall of Oxford, and the succession of Bolingbroke.

"The runners," said the letter, "are already employed to go to all the coffee-houses. They rail to the pit of hell." He had also copied with his own hand, those verses of Oxford himself, written in the moment of his dismissal, more valuable from denoting the changed views of a fallen statesman, than either for the beauty of the poetry, or, as we hope, the justness of the sentiment. The lines are, indeed, in the very taste and spirit of Sternhold and Hopkins.

Mr. Wentworth returned sooner than he intended, influenced, though he disguised it, perhaps, from himself, by the language that was held about him, and which justified the account given by Erasmus Lewis of the proceedings of a similar time.

In fact, the town had been industriously filled with reports not to his advantage, and strange to say, not contradicted by those who best knew their want of foundation.

It is the observation of one who lived some time in the atmosphere of Courts, though his account of them is not to be always taken as correct, that "when a great minister has lost his place, immediately virtue, honour, and wit, fly over to his successor with the other ensigns of office."*

In this instance, the maxim was proved; for it was

• Swift to Sterne, 26th September, 1710.

VOL. II.-8

impossible to conceive the numbers that now changed their opinion both of Lord Oldcastle and his rival. The last had a facility, they said, in addressing the House, but was deficient in his office. He was unequal to its forms, and was often penning a sonnet, when he should have been writing a dispatch. Wits had more weight with him, certainly more access to him, than politicians. Lord Oldcastle was the reverse of all this; and, we might depend upon it, things would now be differently and better administered.

Lord Oldcastle at least knew how to profit by this change of temper; and, unless he was much belied, showed a spirit worthy of Olivarez himself. For he employed many a young Gil Blas to feel the pulse of the nation, by decrying in pamphlets the characters and measures, not merely of his late coadjutor, but of the late Premier himself.

Among these useful instruments of misrepresentation, was, (with the full consent of Lord Mowbray,) our illustrious parvenu. Nor was Lord Oldcastle ungrateful; for, as proselytes are sometimes more useful, and therefore more valued than friends, (who are merely consistent,) the consequence to Lord Mowbray and his protegé was a continuance in their places. This, though bought by the eternal contempt of Mr. Wentworth and many others, was thought not too dearly paid for, while Mr. Wentworth confined his opinions to his own breast, or the expression of them. merely to private circles. But this was scarcely to be expected from one not too famous for the control of his feelings, even when not, as in this instance, provoked and lashed by baseness as well as injury, into most honourable indignation. He therefore did not fail to express his opinion of Lord Mowbray in the House, with a keenness and effect which turned the parvenu pale. And as to the parvenu himself, Wentworth, without scruple or disguise, and pronouncing every thing but his name,-while his eye flashed upon him with a sort of sacred anger,-designated him as "the smooth volunteer of dirty work, for whoever would pay the price of it."

The bitterness, and, to many, the justice of this re

proach, seemed to electrify the House; and, as the parvenu (as has been described) was a man of sentiment, it gave a whole night's misery to his high sensibilities. He recovered, however, when he recollected that, at the Treasury, it might confer upon him the air of a martyr, and consequently a claim to some additional reward.

He was, therefore, only more assiduous than ever in his character of an official go-between; and Lord Mowbray made this affront an argument with the new Minister for bestowing marks of favour on himself, and on his protegé a sinecure place which then happened to be

vacant.

"It may gild him," said the Minister, (who had a keen view of character, and who looked, as he said it, as if he meant something more than an allusion to Clayton,) "but it will be with tarnished gold.'

He

"Gild him, however," said Lord Mowbray. All this was cutting to the heart of De Vere. could not bear what he called the degradation of his uncle and of his friend; if Clayton was still his friend. "Far from accepting new appointments," said he with some indignation to the latter; "you should have laid down the old one, after the conduct you held in favour of Mr. Wentworth."

Clayton in reply, deeply lamented the miserable state of affairs; wished himself a thousand times out of politics in some calm retreat, and said he had been inhumanly, and unjustly treated by the Ex-minister, whose cause he had always advocated, till he found him really too dangerously ambitious. But, in regard to his keeping or accepting new offices, he pleaded that he really was not his own master, but a mere follower of Lord Mowbray on that point. Nor could he prevent his patron, if he thought his honour concerned, from insisting that his accession to the new arrangement should not be stigmatized, either in his own, or his friend's person, and that therefore a strong demonstration should be made in their favour.

"That," said De Vere, little moved, "would require some high notice of my lord himself."

"You are right," returned Clayton, "and you

therefore cannot be surprised if you find that he has accepted the red ribband."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed De Vere, with an angry disgust which Clayton never liked; "what is become of the spirit of the ancient Mowbrays! And of what value can honours be to the honourable, if so abused! But these rascally politics-" and he flung away from Clayton in discontent, though to the very great relief of that rising young man. In fact, De Vere from that moment felt an estrangement from him, which advanced in proportion as Clayton seemed to advance in the favour of Fortune.

CHAPTER XII.

PREJUDICE.

I did love you once!-

Indeed, my lord, you made me oft believe so.

SHAKSPEARE.

HOWEVER pure and consistent had been the conduct of De Vere throughout the late tergiversations, neither his conduct, nor his indignation, at what he ignorantly thought the disgrace of his uncle, secured him from undeserved mortification.

On the one hand, he saw in his own family, how soon a political sin (to him of the deepest die) could be salved.

Nobody bowed the less to Lord Mowbray because he had been the first to form, and then to desert, a coalition. He bore his blushing honours unblushingly on his person; nor did any one doubt, or (what is the same thing) show to him that he doubted, that they proceeded from the merited favour of his sovereign. His drawing-rooms were still thronged, and their lovely mistress thought more attractive than ever: and as for Mr. Clayton, the castigation which it would have burst De Vere's heart to have submitted to, was forgotten;