of a queen's favourite? What nights of labour doth not the laziest man in the world endure, forgoing his bottle, and his boon companions, forgoing Lais, in whose lap he would like to be yawning, that he may prepare a speech full of lies, to cajole three hundred stupid country gentlemen in the House of Commons, and get the hiccuping cheers of the October Club! What days will you spend in your jolting chariot!' (Mr. Esmond often rode to Windsor, and especially, of later days, with the secretary.) 'What hours will you pass on your gouty feet-and how humbly will you kneel down to present a dispatch-you, the proudest man in the world, that has not knelt to God since you were a boy, and in that posture whisper, flatter, adore almost, a stupid woman, that's often boozy with too much meat and drink, when Mr. Secretary goes for his audience! If my pursuit is vanity, sure yours is too.' And then the secretary would fly out in such a rich flow of eloquence, as this pen cannot pretend to recall; advocating his scheme of ambition, showing the great good he would do for his country when he was the undisputed chief of it; backing his opinion with a score of pat sentences from Greek and Roman authorities (of which kind of learning he made rather an ostentatious display), and scornfully vaunting the very arts and meannesses by which fools were to be made to follow him, opponents to be bribed or silenced, doubters converted, and enemies overawed.

6

I am Diogenes,' says Esmond, laughing, that is taken up for a ride in Alexander's chariot. I have no desire to vanquish Darius or to tame Bucephalus. I do not want what you want, a great name or a high place to have them would bring me no pleasure. But my moderation is taste, not virtue; and I know that what I do want, is as vain as that which you long after. Do not grudge me my vanity, if I allow yours; or rather, let us laugh at both indifferently, and at ourselves, and at each other.'

'If your charmer holds out,' says St. John, at this rate, she may keep you twenty years besieging her, and surrender by the time you are seventy, and she is old enough to be a grandmother. I do not say the pursuit of a particular woman is not as pleasant a pastime as any other kind of hunting,' he added; only, for my part, I find the game won't run long enough. They knock under too soon-that's the fault I find with 'em.'

'The game which you pursue is in the habit of being caught, and used to being pulled down,' says Mr. Esmond. But Dulcinea del Toboso is peerless, eh?' says the other. 'Well, honest Harry, go and attack windmills— perhaps thou art not more mad than other people,' St. John added, with a sigh.

CHAPTER III

A PAPER OUT OF THE SPECTATOR'

DOTH any young gentleman of my progeny, who may read his old grandfather's papers, chance to be presently suffering under the passion of Love? There is a humiliating cure, but one that is easy and almost specific for the malady—which is, to try an alibi. Esmond went away from his mistress and was cured a half-dozen times; he came back to her side, and instantly fell ill again of the fever. He vowed that he could leave her and think no more of her, and so he could pretty well, at least, succeed in quelling that rage and longing he had whenever he was with her; but as soon as he returned he was as bad as ever again. Truly a ludicrous and pitiable object, at least exhausting everybody's pity but his dearest mistress's, Lady Castlewood's, in whose tender breast he reposed all his dreary confessions, and who never tired of hearing him and pleading for him.

Sometimes Esmond would think there was hope. Then again he would be plagued with despair, at some impertinence or coquetry of his mistress. For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest friends-she, simple, fond, and charming-he, happy beyond measure at her good behaviour. But this would all vanish on a sudden. Either he would be too pressing, and hint his love, when she would rebuff him instantly, and give his vanity a box on the ear or he would be jealous, and with perfect good reason, of some new admirer that had sprung up, or some rich young gentleman newly arrived in the town, that this incorrigible flirt would set her nets and baits to draw in. If Esmond remonstrated, the little rebel would say'Who are you? I shall go my own way, sirrah, and that way is towards a husband, and I don't want you on the

way.

I am for your betters, colonel, for your betters: do you hear that? You might do if you had an estate and were younger; only eight years older than I, you say ! pish, you are a hundred years older. You are an old, old Graveairs, and I should make you miserable, that would be the only comfort I should have in marrying you. But you have not money enough to keep a cat decently after you have paid your man his wages, and your landlady her bill. Do you think I'm going to live in a lodging, and turn the mutton at a string whilst your honour nurses the baby? Fiddlestick, and why did you not get this nonsense knocked out of your head when you were in the wars ? You are come back more dismal and dreary than ever. You and mamma are fit for each other. You might be Darby and Joan, and play cribbage to the end of your lives."

'At least you own to your worldliness, my poor Trix,' says her mother.

Worldliness-O my pretty lady! Do you think that I am a child in the nursery, and to be frightened by Bogey? Worldliness, to be sure; and pray, madam, where is the harm of wishing to be comfortable ? When you are gone, you dearest old woman, or when I am tired of you and have run away from you, where shall I go? Shall I go and be head nurse to my Popish sister-in-law, take the children their physic, and whip 'em, and put 'em to bed when they are naughty? Shall I be Castlewood's upper servant, and perhaps marry Tom Tusher? Merci! I have been long enough Frank's humble servant. Why am I not a man ? I have ten times his brains, and had I worn thewell, don't let your ladyship be frightened-had I worn a sword and periwig instead of this mantle and commode, to which nature has condemned me-(though 'tis a pretty stuff, too—cousin Esmond! you will go to the Exchange to-morrow, and get the exact counterpart of this ribbon, sir, do you hear?)—I would have made our name talked about. So would Graveairs here have made something out of our name if he had represented it. My Lord Graveairs would have done very well. Yes, you have a very pretty way, and would have made a very decent, grave speaker; and here she began to imitate Esmond's way of carrying himself, and speaking to his face, and so ludicrously that his mistress burst out a-laughing, and even

he himself could see there was some likeness in the fantastical malicious caricature.

'Yes,' says she, 'I solemnly vow, own, and confess, that I want a good husband. Where's the harm of one? My face is my fortune. Who'll come ?-buy, buy, buy! I cannot toil, neither can I spin, but I can play twenty-three games on the cards. I can dance the last dance, I can hunt the stag, and I think I could shoot flying. I can talk as wicked as any woman of my years, and know enough stories to amuse a sulky husband for at least one thousand and one nights. I have a pretty taste for dress, diamonds, gambling, and old china. I love sugar-plums, Malines lace (that you brought me, cousin, is very pretty), the opera, and everything that is useless and costly. I have got a monkey and a little black boy-Pompey, sir, go and give a dish of chocolate to Colonel Graveairs, and a parrot and a spaniel, and I must have a husband. Cupid, you

hear?'

Iss, missis,' says Pompey, a little grinning negro Lord Peterborow gave her, with a bird of Paradise in his turbant, and a collar with his mistress's name on it.

Iss, missis!' says Beatrix, imitating the child. 'And if husband not come, Pompey must go fetch one.'

And Pompey went away grinning with his chocolate. tray, as Miss Beatrix ran up to her mother and ended her sally of mischief in her common way, with a kiss-no wonder that upon paying such a penalty her fond judge pardoned her.

When Mr. Esmond came home, his health was still shattered; and he took a lodging near to his mistress's, at Kensington, glad enough to be served by them, and to see them day after day. He was enabled to see a little company-and of the sort he liked best. Mr. Steele and Mr. Addison both did him the honour to visit him and drank many a flask of good claret at his lodging, whilst their entertainer, through his wound, was kept to diet drink and gruel. These gentlemen were Whigs, and great admirers of my Lord Duke of Marlborough; and Esmond was entirely of the other party. But their different views of politics did not prevent the gentlemen from agreeing in private, nor from allowing, on one evening when Esmond's kind old patron, Lieutenant-General Webb, with a stick

and a crutch, hobbled up to the colonel's lodging (which was prettily situate at Knightsbridge, between London and Kensington, and looking over the Gardens), that the lieutenant-general was a noble and gallant soldier-and even that he had been hardly used in the Wynendael affair. He took his revenge in talk, that must be confessed; and if Mr. Addison had had a mind to write a poem about Wynendael, he might have heard from the commander's own lips the story a hundred times over.

Mr. Esmond, forced to be quiet, betook himself to literature for a relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the prompter's copy lieth in my walnut escritoire, sealed up and docketed, The Faithful Fool, a Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's servants. 'Twas a very sentimental piece; and Mr. Steele, who had more of that kind of sentiment than Mr. Addison, admired it, whilst the other rather sneered at the performance; though he owned that, here and there, it contained some pretty strokes. He was bringing out his own play of Cato at the time, the blaze of which quite extinguished Esmond's farthing candle: and his name was never put to the piece, which was printed as by a Person of Quality. Only nine copies were sold, though Mr. Dennis, the great critic, praised it, and said 'twas a work of great merit; and Colonel Esmond had the whole impression burned one day in a rage, by Jack Lockwood, his man.

All this comedy was full of bitter satiric strokes against a certain young lady. The plot of the piece was quite a new one. A young woman was represented with a great number of suitors, selecting a pert fribble of a peer, in place of the hero (but ill-acted, I think, by Mr. Wilks, the Faithful Fool), who persisted in admiring her. In the fifth act, Teraminta was made to discover the merits of Eugenio (the F. F.), and to feel a partiality for him too late; for he announced that he had bestowed his hand and estate upon Rosaria, a country lass, endowed with every virtue. But it must be owned that the audience yawned through the play; and that it perished on the third night, with only half a dozen persons to behold its agonies. Esmond and his two mistresses came to the first night, and Miss Beatrix fell asleep; whilst her mother, who had not been to a play since King James the Second's time, thought the piece, though not brilliant, had a very pretty moral.