Images de page
PDF
ePub

his life can only be useful to shew how the greatest talents and energies, may but prove the misery of the possessor. He was for ever affecting to despise titles and ribbands, as empty playthings; yet his most desperate quarrel with Harley, was for not getting the garter, like him, and, like him, not being made an earl instead of a viscount. A man with that in him which really makes ambition virtue, would despise this."

"All that is true," said Wentworth, "but then for what do you admire him?”

"For the elegance, as well as activity of his mind; for his eloquence, and perhaps I might say, for what always charms a warm imagination, that very self-deluding spirit of romance, which led him to dream at least of philosophy and happiness wherever he was."

"As he evidently did here," observed Wentworth; 66 nor can I deny the pleasure which this picture of his mind (whether under selfdelusion or not) has given me."

"A better master of human nature than he," observed De Vere, "had perhaps made him believe (and I wonder it was not among these inscriptions) that

All places, that the eye of heaven visits,

Are, to a wise man, ports and happy havens.
Think not the king did banish thee,
But thou the king.

Look what thy soul holds dear-imagine it

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st:
Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence
strowed;

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance:

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.""

"This is delightful talk," observed Wentworth," and, as talk, I wonder with you, that this unaccountable person did not leave it as a memorial of his mind. Perhaps, however, the same master you speak of, taught him to answer himself

Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking of the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?” ”

Both the gentlemen here became pensive, and the thought of all these disappointments in the life of his aspiring predecessor, got such

possession of Wentworth, that he seemed moody with his reflections. He crossed his arms, read the inscriptions once more, and remunerating Monsieur Nicholas, retired with his friend in silence to his carriage. They then resumed the road to Toulouse.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VICISSITUDES OF PARTY.

Men so noble,

However faulty, yet should find respect

For what they have been.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE contemplation of the scene they had left, produced an evident effect on the minds of both our travellers. For some miles they were silent, revolving the dazzling instance of selfdeception which the late visit had afforded; but revolving also the extraordinary fluctuations in the life of a devotee of ambition, which the fate of this highly gifted minister exhibited. The subject formed the topic of many conversations, even to the very foot of the Pyrenees. In ɔne of them, Wentworth observed, "had I been Walpole, having restored St. John to his titles and estate, I think I would not have opposed

his complete restoration, nor shut him out of the House of Lords.'

"I honour you for the sentiment," returned De Vere; "but Walpole, I suppose, had too much wisdom, as it is called, to be generous."

"And yet," observed Wentworth, " generosity, so far from militating against wisdom, even in politics, may be made one of the most powerful, as it surely is one of the most delightful means of governing a state, even through party."

"I rejoice to hear this from you,” replied De Vere; " you who have so much experience, and cannot therefore, like us visionary people, be led away by mere theory."

"I am not one of those," returned Wentworth," who think that all government consists in mystery; that statesmen, to be such, must always be calculating, always spreading nets, never candid, never magnanimous. On the contrary, I see no reason why the high qualities that elevate private life, should not equally govern public conduct; nay, I am convinced that even with a view to mere self-interest, it

He was reinstated in every thing but his seat among the peers, where it was thought he would be too danger

ous.

« PrécédentContinuer »