ton-that 'one Milton, a blind man,' was made secretary to Cromwell. Whitelocke was then the first subject in the state, and lived in all the pomp of the seals, and all the splendour of Bulstrode; while the blind man waked at early morn, to listen to the lark bidding him good morrow at his cottage window. Where is the Lord Keeper now?-where the blind man? What is known of Addison as Secretary of State? and how can his Excellency compare with the man who charms us so exquisitely in his writings? When I have visited his interesting house at Bilton,* sat in his very study, and read his very books, no words can describe my emotions. I breathe his official atmosphere here, but without thinking of him at all. In short, there is this delightful superiority in literary over political fame, that the one, to say the best of it, stalks in cold grandeur upon stilts like a French tragedy actor, while the other winds itself into our warm hearts, and is hugged there with all the affection of a friend, and all the admiration of a lover."

"Hear! hear!" cried Sir George; which was echoed by De Vere, and Herbert himself.

"This is very good," said Herbert, looking at him with great keenness in his small black and we eyes; are to understand, therefore, that you would have been happier in the pursuit of letters and philosophy than of power. You would no doubt prefer, like Waller,

"All on the margin of some flowery stream,
To spread your careless limbs ;"

rather than like Shakspeare, in a storm,

"To look abroad from some high cliff, superior,
And enjoy the elemental war.'

"I know not," said Wentworth, "but among friends I may say, that though I have pursued, and as some think, obtained power, I have not been the happier for it."

All were struck with the emphasis which he laid upon the words, "as some think," and each looked

In Warwickshire.

at the other with a significance which seemed to say, more was meant than meets the ear. He perceived it, and in rather a hurried manner returned to the subject.

"With regard to myself," said he, "I repeat, among friends, that the glare we all live in, is not what I should say, was real happiness; though, like drunkards, few can quit their acquired taste. I trust, however, I could return to the shade at an hour's warning, and find a repose far from the gaze of men, more gratifying than in buffeting and being buffeted as we are, although victory be the consequence."

At these words, spite of himself, he fell again into a sort of reverie.

"Well," said Herbert, resuming, "all this is very fine, and we are bound to believe, that you at least believe yourself. Nay! I have no doubt," added he, (the smile increasing almost into a laugh,) "we shall soon see you among your orange trees at Wimbledon."

"Sooner, perhaps, than you are aware of," replied the Minister, continuing his serious mood. "But whether sooner or later," (here he rather forced cheerfulness,) "my orange trees are always too delightful not to be welcomed with gladness. If I am sent to them, I assure you, I shall snuff their blossoms with not the less pleasure, because delivered from some knaves and many fools; or even from the task of reading the beautiful effusions of office, instead of those of the mens divinior, which delight you, Doctor, in the sacred retirement of your cloister.

دو

"So you will no doubt think to-night," replied the Dean, "after you dismiss us, and pass the half of it,perhaps, in composing those very effusions of office. Forgive me, if you remind me of what the great critic of life says of his usurer:

"Hæc ubi locutus fœnerator Alifius,
Jamjam futurus rusticus,

Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam ;

Quærit Kalendis ponere."*

*The usurer Alfius, full of dreams of a country life, as soon as he had ended this rhapsody, called in all the money he had at interest, in order immediately-to put it out again.

Mr. Wentworth took his raillery in good part, and the entrance of coffee changed the conversation.

The effects of this little discussion were not unimportant on the mind of De Vere. The sentiments of Mr. Wentworth were congenial with his own, and pleased all his favourite predilections. He pictured him in retreat from power, either after being fatigued and weighed down with labour, which a love of country, as well as taste, had induced him to undergo; or towering in real contemptu mundi, above the intrigues and envy of rivals, though they might succeed. in displacing him. "It is then,” said De Vere, "notwithstanding his political fire, it is then he will shine most. It will be beautiful, if ever it happen, to see the manner in which he will make the philososher rise above the statesman, and, in a refined retreat, to observe how he will enjoy the "solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ.'

Was De Vere right in his speculation?

CHAPTER IX.

A RETIRING MINISTER.

But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world;-now he lies there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

SHAKSPEARE.

THOSE who are acquainted with the nature of ambition, may be able to answer the question with which we concluded the last chapter. To those who are not, it may appear strange, that in the very moment of uttering the sentiments, which De Vere thought so beautiful, Mr. Wentworth, in his public capacity, was plunged in excitements and difficulties of the most harassing kind. The Premier, more ill in mind than in body, and moody from disgust, could do nothing if he would, and scarcely would if he could; so much had he

himself been thwarted in all his projected arrangements. In fact, at the close of an illustrious life, in which almost every hour had been one of applause, he had the misery, as has been hinted, to see himself neglected in his decline, and his friends dropping off one by one,

"Gone to salute the rising morn."

He was not too much attended to at Court where he had never been a courtier; and not too much remembered by the country, which, though saved by his services, cared little for him now he was no longer wanted. Oh! how much better, he thought, to have died ere this had happened!

The hardness of his political opponents who lowered in embattled watch over his hoped-for removal, he could have borne; but the indifference of followers, however coldly he had treated them, now touched his heart. He ruminated too late on the instability of the world, which, if he recovered, he resolved to abandon for ever; and to this resolve, the world, now they had no farther use for him, were extremely indifferent. Nothing, therefore, was heard but the incessant roll of carriages thronging to the doors of expected successors, and people read of their different merits and pretensions in daily publications, which raged with all the violence of party.

In this situation, a man, (one of the very few who remained attached to the Premier,) of a bold sarcastic turn, who expected nothing by a change, and who was high enough in office to take the liberty, replied to the numerous inquiries that were one day made concerning the Minister, that he was infinitely better, that he meant not to resign, and would certainly attend the council in two days more. The impression made on the different inquirers, whom he thus fooled, gave ample food to his disposition to ridicule; and the Court, the Treasury, and both Houses of Parliament, were filled for some hours with the most ludicrous exemplifications of the hopes and fears of candidates, and the friends of candidates.

Of this, De Vere was a near and observing witness, and it did not raise his brother politicians in his estimation; while the contemplation of the abandonment (if nothing worse) in which this once great Minister was suffered to sink from power, sickened his heart, and at least did not increase his respect for party ambition.

While his feelings were much excited by this, he met and joined his altered friend Lord Eustace, who seemed hurried, and big with expectation of impending events. De Vere was big with them too; but he could not help thinking even more of the past, in regard to the great man about to retire from the scene, than the future, where younger energies were ready to push him from his stool.

He expressed this feeling to Eustace, expecting him to echo it; but Eustace, who had for some time been much estranged from him, avoided the subject; observing, however, frankly enough, that he was too much plunged in present interests, to think of those that were gone by. He was full of the expected crisis; of a change among the men in power; which is always, in England, enough to stifle at least one half of the considerations which lead to it, and whilst the excitement lasts, diminishes the most natural sympathies, and extinguishes even the appearance of sentiment.

To De Vere's lamentation, therefore, he rather coldly replied, " your hero has been a great man, but he has outlived himself, and forgotten his own Horace,

"Solve senescentem, mature sanus equum?"

"In truth," added Eustace, "he ought not to have quitted retreat, where his greatness would have always been sacred, and his reputation unalloyed.”

"The force of recollection, however," replied De Vere, "will burst forth, spite of all minor spots, which, like the spots in the sun, are lost in its radiance."

"True," said Eustace, "but the radiance now no longer shines, and recollections will not revive it." VOL. II.-7