"Will you believe history if I tell you?" asked the Divine. "I will not believe Livy's silly stories of voices in the air, any more than my Lord Clarendon, with his sleeping dream about the Duke of Buckingham, or his waking one of Lord Brooke, at Litchfield." "You wish to touch me home," said the Doctor, "in mentioning the last. But setting aside my partiality for my favourite Cathedral, if you ask me seriously to say what I think, I am not one of those enlightened persons, like your Lordship, who have so settled the matter as not to consider the circumstances of Lord Brooke's death as peculiarly awful.", "I have never gone by the spot where he fell," said De Vere, who had been most attentive to this part of the conversation, "without feeling it so; nor can I laugh at Clarendon for appearing to favour the notion (he does no more), that this death was an absolute and immediate judgment. "That such a mind as yours," cried Cleveland, "should think so! But I will refer you to a far better confutation than mine of so ridiculous a legend;" and he took a letter from his pocket-book, which he had just received from a man of high fashion, and some research in the olden literature of the country, though of little depth as a real philosopher, which he was even then affecting to be. He was a correspondent of Cleveland's on these subjects, on which they much agreed; but Herbert, who perfectly knew his shallowness, at the same time that he admitted his agreeable wit, observed instantly, on hearing his name, "He will make it ridiculous if he can, for he lives but to ridicule all that is serious. Barring his wit, however, which is delightful, his reasoning is in general as shallow, as his presumption is offensive." "The cleverest man of the age," replied Cleveland. "At an epigram if you will," said Herbert; "but at a truth, no conjuror. Let us first see what is Clarendon's story, and then hear the comment. Lord Brooke, perhaps a sincere and, as it should seem, a pious man, had resolved to storm the Close at Litch field, which held for Charles. A little doubtful, it would appear, of the lawfulness of his cause (he should have thought of that before he commenced rebel), he knelt down before the assault began, and prayed, if the cause he had engaged in was not just, that he might be cut off. Soon afterwards he was shot. Now what does your cleverest man of the age say to this?" "Why, he asks," replied Cleveland, "Does the ruler of the universe inflict sudden destruction, as the way to set right a conscientious man?' "'* "And is this all?" said Herbert. "If it is, and it be witty, most unfortunately for the wit, Lord Brooke had not prayed to be set right, but to be "cut off" if wrong. So far, therefore, the wit depends upon a false statement, for his real prayer was complied with. But even without this, could there be no other reason for his death, than what concerned Lord Brooke? The notoriety of the prayer, and its issue, made it of the last importance to those who witnessed the facts. To them, opinion was set right, as far as such an example could set it right; and hence the argument against interposition, on account of absurdity, falls to absolute nothing.' "Doctor," said Lady Eleanor, "I thank you for having cleared up this matter, against the scoffing of this fine gentleman, who, with all his point and high breeding, never was a favourite of mine." Lady Clanellan and De Vere joined in these thanks, and Constance looked them. "My poor friend!" exclaimed Lord Cleveland. "But he is a Whig, and I don't care for him. Nay, you have only kindled me more to hear a little history in support of your theory." "I have no theory," returned the Doctor: "I only have held that prosperity is an instrument in the hands of the Most High, to try the piety and virtue of those who may be laid most low; that according as it is borne, reverse and punishment follow, and that this is the very simple course of a government by Providence." * "Royal and Noble Authors."-Art. Brooke. "But I want examples," said Lord Cleveland. "Surely your memory must be full of them," answered Herbert. "In ancient Rome, even the very triumphs (when, if at any time, the principle might be forgotten) provided for its perpetuation. For there was this moral always to be gathered, in the midst of what outraged all morality (a triumph)-that in the very car of victory, the General was attended by a sort of remembrancer, whose business was to remind him of the uncertainties of greatness, and the possibility of reverse." "Yet the term felix may be applied to many a person in history," observed the Earl, who seemed never to think of reverse-" "Until it came," answered the President: "the term was particularly applied by Cicero to Pompey, as recommendatory of him to a great command-yet who so miserable in the end?" "What think you of Sylla ?" asked Lord Cleveland. "What do you of Marius?" answered the Doctor: "But even as to Sylla, whose good fortune was by heathenish blindness imputed as a crime to the gods, I would gladly have foregone all the heathenish happiness of his epitaph,* to have escaped the horror of his death. There is another example. "Have a care," cried Cleveland, "for we are getting into pedantry." "Well, and I am by profession a pedant," said the Doctor; 66 so the ladies will only think I am in my vocation." "Pedantry or not," said Lady Clanellan, "the ladies, I assure you, will think they have a right to illustrations of a subject that interests them, as well as the gentlemen." "Well, then, I mean Polycrates," said the Doctor. I love his history, not so much for himself as for the different philosophy that governed him and his friend Amasis. 'You are too fortunate,' said Amasis: 'inflict some great mortification upon yourself, or the gods That no man had gone beyond him in doing good to his friends and harm to his enemies. By the morbus pediculosus. will abandon you.' Polycrates threw his ring into the sea, which was swallowed by a fish. The fish is caught, and the ring restored. 'See what a favourite of Fortune I am,' says Polycrates. I renounce you for it,' writes Amasis; you will be ruined.' Polycrates became hardened with prosperity, and was dethroned and crucified." Here the Doctor paused. "With my leave," said Lady Eleanor, "no one shall ever call you pedantic but yourself. These examples are full of interest, and will make us think for a week." "Your Bibles," returned the Divine, "(for I really believe you are not ashamed of your Bibles,) would do it much better; and though, I dare say, I run a risk (looking at Lord Cleveland,) of not being thought of proper monde, yet as a poor parson may by just a possibility be forgiven for quoting the Bible, I would venture to remind you of a great man called Nebuchadnezzar." "Oh, let us have him by all means," cried Lord Cleveland. "It will do all over-confident people good," replied Herbert; "yet it is all comprised in two little verses. "The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power and the honour of my majesty? While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven: saying, O! King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, thy kingdom is departed from thee.' 999 The party were silent for some time after the Doctor had ended. For in fact his example, and his manner of reciting it, had impressed them with something like awe. "'Tis a memorable lesson," said Lady Clanellan, with great seriousness," and I am almost ashamed to have treated Lady Constance's fear with so much heedlessness. "" "There is another example still," proceeded Herbert," which though only found in the effusions of poetry, is yet so natural, so approaching to the realities of life, and so beautifully painted, that I own I have often dwelt upon it with a pleasure and awfulness conjoined, that generally overcame me. The whole party looked eager with inquiry. ""Tis of Eve," continued the Divine; 66 poor, weak, but well-intentioned, though over-weening Eve! Who can peruse that anxious portrait of her, falling into the jaws of condemnation and death, in the very moment of her proudest confidence; who, that has loved her before, for her thousand graces, yet sees her cut off in the midst of happiness, but must, as a mere moralizer, feel himself plunged in distress? But who that reads this in the inimitable song that records it, and is not moved to the quick by the pathos of the language, and the fearfulness of the example?" Here Herbert seemed rapt, and then broke out with lines which affected his hearers almost as much as they did himself. "Oh! much deceiv'd, much failing, hapless Eve, To intercept thy way, and send thee back, The subject, the language, and the manner in which this was repeated, here got the better both of the speaker and his audience. Constance, whom they peculiarly affected, from thinking of her impressions the evening before, was moved even to tears; De Vere's heart recoiled within him; and even the Earl reddened, from his better feelings having suddenly mastered him. But though even he felt much the force of sympathy, it too much resembled weakness in his mind, for him not to make an effort to check it. He did himself little good, however, with the natural and unsophisticated Constance, when repressing his feelings he observed, "Your poetry, my dear Doctor, is beautiful; but your reasoning upon all your examples goes no farther than mere conjecture." "Is it really "Conjecture!" exclaimed Herbert. |