God send him well!

The court's a learning place.

SHAKSPEARE.-All's Well That Ends Well.

THE disquisitions which ended the last chapter were interrupted by the loud blast of a horn at the outer gate.

"It is the post," said my host, "always an important, perhaps the most important, feature of a day in solitude. It brings you back to the world, for which, with all our philosophy (as befitting the old apothegm of homo sum), we probably have always a sort of sneaking kindness. Come, let us see what it has brought us."

At this he took the bag from his butler, and, unlocking it, "What have we here ?"

amining a seal, "a coronet! and, I

said he, ex

protest, the

Castleton arms! What can be in the wind? I hope

he has not resigned."

"I hope not," echoed I to myself.

By my faith, no;" continued Mr. Manners, smiling as he went over the lines, till at last he exclaimed, "By Jupiter, this is the most extraordinary coincidence, as to time and wishes, that ever I met with."

66

May I ask in what?" said I, on tenter-hooks with curiosity and interest."

"You certainly may," answered he, "for it shall go hard with us if you may not be much concerned in it. In a word, his last confidential élève and protégé, Mr. Wilmot, is promoted, and leaves him, and he does me the honour to consult me about a young roué of a relation of mine, whom I mentioned to him a year or two ago, but who has since, from being plunged in perpetual scrapes, some of them disgraceful, lost all chance of success, at least here. Not a small part of the coincidence is, that he tells me he has written to Fothergill on the same subject, having, as he said, long resolved to look no more to the idlers who throng the pavé, depending upon the strength of their connections to be pushed into situations for which they are not fit. Now, my good friend, between your cousin Fothergill and your cousin Manners, I think it will be hard if we do not place you on Mr. Wilmot's stool in the bureau of this eminent minister and accomplished gentleman, the Earl of Castleton.”

His countenance shewed a pleasure as he said this, which left me no doubt of the sincerity of his

intentions; and the remembrance of that benevolent and animated countenance, thus fraught with zeal and kindness to the stranger he had so warmly, yet so remarkably taken up, was always the most striking of the many mementoes I cherish of this excellent person.

Yet my heart quaked not a little at the news thus communicated. I did not know how to look. At first I thought he was playing upon me; but that his manner forbade. I then fancied I was in a dream, and I was some time before I could

answer.

"You seem not to like my post," said he.

"No; I am only astonished and lost what to think of it; and what most puzzles me is, to know how almost to understand, certainly how to thank you for this wonderful good-will."

"If that be all," returned he, "we will put off thanks to some other time. At present we must act; and so while I write to my lord, do you write to Fothergill. He by this knows you are here, and under what circumstances, and of course that I have been applied to as well as himself. He will, of course, too, join his recommendation to mine, and we must then rest upon our oars."

With this we both sat down to a writing apparatus, and concocted our letters. He inspected and approved of mine, but he would not shew me his, saying he wished to spare my blushes.

The letters were dispatched, and it is not easy to describe the state of intense interest, a compound of hope and fear, which possessed all my nerves till the answer from the earl arrived.

In two days, during which I was domesticated at the Grange, it arrived, short, pithy, and sweet. "If,” said he, “ Mr. De Clifford is half what you say, I beg the favour of his coming to town directly; for though I am quite alive to what you say of the shortness of your acquaintance with him, and might fear something from your romance, yet Fothergill's letter in answer to mine, which I received by the same post as your's, and which recommended Mr. De Clifford, without any communication with you, has set me quite at ease on that point."

Manners, on reading this to me, congratulated me, and said with emphasis," I have no fears for you; the day is our own.'

The next post brought answers from Fothergill, and what was certainly of consequence, the reply, in the shape of a trunk, to the demand I had made for my wardrobe, and I began in earnest to prepare myself for by far the most important step hitherto of my life.

And here, ere I proceed to the field of action, it may not be amiss if I give a passing picture of the great person who was to have so much concern in my future fate; nor, in doing so, will I consult any thing but truth.

John Earl of Castleton, at this time about fifty years of age, was of a very high family, and nursed from infancy in the courts both of royalty and the Muses; for he possessed the favour of both. His paternal ancestors were distinguished for abilities, and energy in employing them; his maternal, for a wide spread of noble alliances, and the acknowledged superiority of their elegance and accomplishments, which made them the themes of panegyric with wits and courtiers both at home and abroad.

Lord Castleton's father (perfectly competent to do so) had minutely inspected his education, and initiated him in the politics of the time. His mother, who, from being a celebrated beauty, and the ornament of the court, had become a pattern to her sex for all the virtues of private life, had instilled into him notions of the dignity, as well as the purity, of women, which he always afterwards preserved.

High-mindedness, and contempt of every thing mean, or appertaining to selfishness or cunning, were his own leading characteristics; to which was added by education, and his position in society, a remarkable polish, yet with often a playfulness of manners, though capable of being much ruffled, when, disgusted, as he easily was, by any departure from honour in those with whom he had intercourse, or even any marked solecism in good-breeding or self-respect in any person he encountered.