keeping rascal, who calculated tides and seasons before he would move, successful to any extent. I do not mean that he might not have a grovelling sort of success, but he never could soar with eagle flight, unblenched and undazzled by the sun."

"There was one Icarus," said the Doctor, growing serious.

"Nay," cried Lord Cleveland, "I trust you are not going to lecture us against ambition, for fear of melting our pinions."

"And why not," asked the Doctor, "if you are for flying too high? The ambition I preach is reasonable, not ruinous. But it seems, that if a throne were va

cant-"

"I should wish to mount if I could," said Cleveland. Lady Eleanor, willing to recal the subject which was still uppermost with her, observed, "It was not ambition we were talking of so much as the tendency of success to promote a dangerous indifference towards Him who sent it, and the almost certainty that this indifference would be followed with most miserable visitations."

“This is, indeed, a serious subject," said Herbert, "and worthy this appropriate spot, where the towering castle, on the one hand, frowns upon us in all the pride of power; while on the other, this alcove presents us with a view of the gentlest beauty. Never were ambition and content so well contrasted."

The Doctor spoke truly, for the alcove was placed just where the sides of the brook opening, let in a reach of the pebbly stream, which delighted the eye by its placidity. The whole party consentaneously sat down to enjoy it.

"Tis, at least, a charming place to moralize in,' said the Doctor, as he seated himself; "and not the worse for its contrast to the splendour of yesterday."

"Did you then disapprove the splendour of yesterday?" asked Lord Cleveland.

66

By no means; provided," added Herbert cheerfully, no one's head was turned by it."

66

Lady Clanellan looked at Constance and smiled, and. Constance could not help smiling too.

"Shall I tell you a secret?" said Lady Clanellans "Lady Constance here thinks she is too great, and that a still small voice (I suppose of her guardian sylph,) warns her to beware of the giddiness you have mentioned."

"It would be good for us all," answered Herbert, "if we had such voices always attendant upon us. But what really was your question?"

"We had scarcely agreed upon it," answered Lady Eleanor, "but I would ask, for myself, what it is that creates the sometimes unaccountable feeling of distress and danger, the fearful misgiving which a good mind feels, (for I believe it is chiefly a good mind that feels it,) when our lot is cast so high that every thing seems to prosper. May it, or not, be the immediate interposition of heaven?",

"I see no reason against it," replied the Divine, "nor is the whole scheme of Providence, as the moral governor of the world, other than such imperceptible interposition. I will own to you, too, that a long course of prosperity seems the very state to call for it, and to predict reverses in the nature of punishment if you neglect it. I say, imperceptible, because you must always take care, in regard to interposition, not to fall into the visionary error of supposing that Providence manifests itself to you perceptibly. Leave that to the beautiful images of poetry.

"How then are we to know?" asked Lady Clanellan. "We pray

"By the effects," answered Herbert. in the Church for the inspiration of a holy spirit; we pray for it in the closet; the effects are felt in our conduct; and the proofs we have of an ever watchful Providence, together with the certainty of our own failings, support the notion, that if we feel these effects, it arises from the goodness of Heaven, and cannot spring from the weakness of man."

"A beautiful theory," said Lady Clanellan.

"I wish it were as demonstrable as beautiful," observed Lord Cleveland: "but really I could not have expected this would be a subject for ladies who are so entirely at the head of good company. Surely it is

but the lees and settlings of a melancholy blood.' Yet, that the blood of a Marchioness, still more of the Queen of Arcadia, should be melancholy, moves my wonder."

Constance blushed, and De Vere, feeling for her, observed with some emphasis, that the subject was too deep, as well as too important, to be ridiculed.

"Believe me," returned Cleveland, seeing displeasure in Constance's eye, "I am the last man in the world to ridicule such a subject. I wish I could side with the Doctor; but though he talks of fearing prosperity, as if it were an evil, and of reverses, as if they were meant for punishment, the whole course of the world contradicts him. For it is full of instances of success, well followed up, and never failing. except from the failure of nerves in those who throw away their good fortune by being afraid to pursue it. On the other hand, how uniform are the instances of illluck in certain poor humble devils, who (do what they will) seem born never to prosper. Wonder not, therefore, if I am a worshipper of Fortune, and think to doubt, would be to affront her. What says youth to

this?" added the Earl: "what thinks De Vere?"

"That I have not presumption enough to agree with you," answered De Vere.

"All this," observed Herbert, "depends upon a sanguine temperament, which, with submission, takes upon trust what it does not like to examine. Yet even

gamesters, who hold it a law to pursue a run of luck, always lay their account with seeing it change. But our subject, as I understand it from these ladies, lies far deeper than the view your Lordship has chosen to take of it."

"Far deeper, indeed," said Lady Eleanor, and the gestures of Constance showed she approved of the observation, though she said not a word.

"I know," observed Cleveland, "what fine theories may be, and are, spun out of this; but I have always thought them the visions of enthusiasts, in other words, of madmen."

"Is every one then," replied Herbert, with a

searching look, "mad, in your Lordship's opinion, who believes in the government of Heaven?"

Lord Cleveland did not like the question, especially as he saw he was keenly examined by the elder ladies, and that Constance, though her looks were not bent upon him, was silently most observant. De Vere, too, was about to interpose a question, but thinking it would disconcert Cleveland still more, perhaps lower him with Constance, he abstained, from motives for which Lord Cleveland, had he been in his place, would have thought him the greatest blockhead in the world.

Recovering himself a little, the gallant lord answered, "I am not so much my own enemy, in such a time and place, and with such company, as to throw away a precious hour in what would prove at best a dry controversy. Besides, though my antagonist is a philosopher of the court, he is also a divine, and what could I expect from so great a doctor, but to be tossed on the horns of some shocking dilemma. however, just remark, that though there are a thousand amusing stories of interposition by dreams and ghosts, and other fancies, no one of any monde believes in them, and as little does history confirm the perceptible interference of which we are speaking."

I will,

"Perceptible interference," replied the Divine, "is not, and indeed I have taken pains to premise, cannot be the question. For such interference would be a miracle, and miracles are over. But second causes are very different; and these feelings may all arise out of second causes. How these can be disposed so as to produce the events of the world, and even the operations of our mind, is a point so difficult to ascertain, that careless men give it up; worldly men, who see nothing but second causes, laugh at it; in courts, where one great human creature seems a first cause, few are acquainted with it; in crowds no one has leisure to feel it. But, sooner or later, it comes home. In the dead of the night; in the retirement of the closet; in one's garden, or such a place as this, (particularly when alone,) be assured the still small voice' we speak of makes itself heard."

6

Constance was peculiarly pleased, nor liked the

Earl for interrupting the Divine by asking him with a lurking sneer, if he had ever heard this voice?

"To say I have heard it speaking in language," answered the President, "or, like Lord Herbert, who, when writing against revelation by miracles, asserts the greatest of miracles in his own person,* to say I have in any manner experienced a direct interposition, would, perhaps, induce your Lordship to rank me among the gentry you mentioned just now-enthusiasts and madmen. But this I can say, (all philosopher of the court as you have called me,) that there have been moments of abstraction from the court, and every thing else, but the contemplation of the Almighty in his providence, in which I have been fearfully impressed with his mysteries, and have been any thing but confident of myself.”

"And what was the result?" asked Lord Cleveland.

"Always to do me good, for it always humbled me," replied the Doctor; "and then my fears subsided, and confidence returned."

The answer pleased Constance.

"To say the best of it," observed Lord Cleveland, "this was a mere private feeling, and proves nothing."

little or

"It proves what we are talking of, as well as it will admit of proofs," said the Doctor. "The time as I observed, is over, when visible interposition was the condescending mode of directing the world; for, unhappily for us, there is now

'No more of talk when God or angel guest
With man, as with his friend familiar, us'd

To sit indulgent.'

"That must indeed have been a happy time," said De Vere; and to that sentiment his cousin, by her looks, evidently responded.

"Instead of poetry, give me facts," said Cleveland. "What does history say to it?"

* See his most extraordinary account of music sent from Heaven, when he asked a sign to direct him in his design of publishing his book, De Veritate.

VOL. II.-2