the battlements. A third asserted that I had offended the king, by turning my back upon him in the closet, because be would not make me prime minister; and the writer called upon all loyal subjects to support his Sacred Majesty in resenting this affront. This was in the Duke of E.'s paper; but I had ample revenge in his miserable mismanagement of his department, for which he is deservedly censured."

"Your lordship," observed I," at least notes, and is interested with what is passing in the world, although so far retreated from it, May we not hope, then, that the time will come, when you may be willing to return to it?"

"Never," returned he, "while that world is what it is. My intention, as my wish, is to live and die here.”

"Without companions! without interest! no pursuits! no amusements! How can that be, with your lordship's mind?"

"That very mind is your answer. As to companions, to one who has taken a true measure of the world, Belford, mean and inconsiderable as it is, and Berwick, immersed in trade and herrings, afford quite as much companionship (philosophically speaking) as London, though it holds its head so high. All are rogues; but these are honester rogues than you Londoners. A man cannot here so well smile, and smile, and be a villain; he lets you detect him at once. Besides, have I not the sea?-enough to satisfy any lover of change."

"I meant not to speak of the honesty of the natives," but their companionship; and where, among them, shall we find a companion for Lord Rochfort ?”

Very fine," said he, assuming an air almost stern; “but what right, young gentleman, have you to think you can cajole me with such gewgaw compliments? Look I as if I were still one of the fools of the world, snuffing incense from the rogues of it? or as if, in fact, I was still in the House of Lords? Observe this roupe: does it like a peer's robe? Observe these brogues; do they belong to a knight of the carpet? Handle this spade, it raised those roots (and he pointed through the window at the garden): does it give you reason to think I am one of the blind silk-worms you have left? No; I may be a worm; but a worm is an honest crawler of the earth, and not easily tempted from his hole by being told he is a beauty."

I own I felt abashed; for, with new habits and ideas, he

had either learned, or invented, a new language: one which certainly did not encourage an attempt at persuasion.

Shewing, perhaps, my sense of this, he added, with a sort of ironical laugh, Come, I think I am more likely to convert you, than you me. What a triumph to philosophy, if the ambassador who came to tempt the hermit back again to court, to dainty dishes and silken sheen, should himself turn bermit,

'Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze.'

Oh! it would be divine poetical justice; like the prince robbing Falstaff Argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.' Allons," added he, still laughing most complacently at the thought, "here is a pen and ink; sit down and write to Lord Castleton, one of my treatises de contemptu mundi. Tell him the delights and comforts, but above all, the independence, of a border castle. Tell him that, like Cicero, I count the waves on the shore, and think it gives better amusement than the waves he is forced to watch in town. Or say that, like Lælius and Scipio, I make ducks and drakes with pebbles-far better than making them with guineas, as I used to do. Acquaint him. how much better you find it to dig one's own potatoes without an opposition at every stroke, than to keep awake one night for fear of being out-voted the next. Come, begin; Pope shall supply you with the two first lines, and you will then go glibly

'Awake, my Castleton, leave meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.'

Here, still laughing at his own wit, he presented me with a pen and sheet of paper, and with mock earnestness desired

me to commence.

I own I felt discomposed, if not displeased, but had too much command of myself to shew it. I, however, could not help saying, "I am glad to find that this exile has not deprived your lordship of your wit and merriment, though they are exhibited at the expense of friends who honour and love you. Lord Castleton does not so exercise his imagination, but laments your loss, and has never ceased to do so since

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your retreat; laments it, not more for his own sake, than that of the state."

"Which I am supposed unfit to direct," interrupted the marquess, loftily.

"Not by Lord Castleton," replied I, "nor by any means all whom, for the sake of the country, he feels forced to act with. But at least what he says ought to be well weighed, before your lordship dismisses ine with such severe banter." "And what says his sagacious lordship?" asked Lord Rochfort.

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Why, that to fly from the field where alone your powers can be shewn is not the way to prove their superiority, so as to make all men regret you as well as himself. If I may presume to add any thing of my own to this, I would ask leave to remind you of the maxim of statesmen and moralists, as well as lawyers, De non apparentibus, et non existentibus, eadem est ratio."

"There may be something in that," said he, quickly, and he somewhat changed. Then, as if soliloquising, and at intervals, which I did not like to interrupt, he said, in a lower tone," I believe Castleton loves me-is honourable and open -no tricks of backbiting-much respected by the king, though not perhaps first in favour-ought to be supported—yet ridiculous if

Here he made a full stop, which lasted so long that I could not help asking, "If what, my lord marquess? Surely such a word as ridiculous can never be applied to any thing Lord Rochfort could do wbich he felt to be right."

"I must do you the justice," said he, in reply, "to say I honour the temper you have shewn under taunts which I had no right to indulge, whatever my determination; nor does Castleton deserve such a reception of his frank communication. I own, too, there is a great deal in what you last observed; still it would be ridiculous in the eye of the world, and it would not be lost upon my ill-wishers, if, like a pouting boy or girl, I appeared to have fled away only to be brought back. This shall never be said-as it certainly would be if I returned, and the cabinet remained the same. As a sort of mezzo termine, however, and to shew that I wish well to Lord Castleton personally, I will give him my proxy, which, on taking leave of politics, as I intended, for ever, I declined to

do by anybody. And, in doing this, let me tell you I make a considerable advance; nor would I do it if I did not entirely approve the measures he has communicated to me.”

"O! my lord," said I, "pause not here; do not a good thing by halves. Your superiority to the duke is so acknowledged, that you have but to appear, to reap the fruits of it. It is not impossible that he may consent to take a high court office, which, though it remove him from the government, will bring him nearer to the king. This will be more agreeable to both, and thus all parties will be satisfied."

"If I thought that," said Lord Rochfort" but then, the ridicule

"And has Lord Rochfort," I exclaimed, "so little weight. in the country-is he so little known in the world, or of so low a reputation, as to fear ridicule, which, even if attempted, he would shake off as a dew-drop from a lion's mane ? for little people to be afraid of ridicule."

It is

"Upon my faith," replied the marquess, "I must repeat my felicitation to Lord Castleton upon having so good a second; and but that it would spoil your's, to come to me, I could envy him his good fortune in having such a secretary.'

I blushed at these words, not certainly altogether from modesty, for they kindled ambitious hopes, and some others, had been always so united in me, that the association, spite of all that had occurred, had not yet been severed.

At that instant the great trumpet at the gate sounded. "It is the post," said Lord Rochfort, looking at his watch.

The letters were brought in. One, signed Castleton, another on mourning paper. The marquess begged me to excuse him, and was leaving the room; but I requested leave to visit the garden, which I had not seen, and left him to his letters, alone.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE EXTRAORDINARY AND IMPORTANT PROPOSAL THE MARQUESS MADE ME, AND MY HOPE OF

HIS SCRUPLES.

OVERCOMING

This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord;
Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
SHAKSPEARE.-2 Henry IV.

I AM absolutely astonished to find myself so near the end of my memoirs, though I am barely entering into my twenty-fifth year, and have had no particular adventures. Indeed, with the exceptions of being knocked on the head by a poacher, and advertised in the Hue and Cry as a house-breaker, I feel as if I bad exhibited myself as the merest common-place person that ever attempted auto-biography.

And yet there may be some characters, traced, some feelings developed, some question of consequence to our nature discussed, which may be thought interesting by those who can understand them. To those alone I write, and not to the thousand insects who look only to amuse themselves in the gilded sunbeams of the marvellous (whether in or out of nature), and who read more to avoid the trouble of thinking than to cultivate thought.

To return to my narration; the garden at Belford Tower little deserves its name, at least according to our southern ideas. The culinary herbs absolutely necessary for a rough northern dinner of bannocks and kail were all of which it seemed ambitious. The notion that there were such things. as flowers seemed never to have been entertained; and, as it was spacious, stretching round three sides of the hill on which the castle stood, some large intervals between the beds were filled with oats, which were very flourishing.

The contrast between this and the Northamptonshire gardens, so praised by Mr. Simcoe, only proved still more the determined change of humour which his disgusts had effected in the mind of its possessor. A few stunted apple trees languished amid some yews; which last, however, were